Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seven day roguelike (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result was delete. No reliable sources have been presented for verification about this topic. If every source is self-published (ie no editorial control), then the subject cannot have an article.-Wafulz 20:10, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Seven day roguelike
AfDs for this article: 
 * - (View AfD) (View log)

Still no verification (WP:V) of notability (WP:N), after the result of the last AfD, and as the discussion page shows, there is no places besides WP to assert that this is more than a web contest held by a handful of people (and despite being a web-based contest, google only has a total of 68 hits for "seven day roguelike"). Minimaki 08:13, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: this is the user's 2nd edit to Wikipedia.  Grue   16:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete. The nom is a new user, but the reasoning is correct. Nobody has ever seen fit to comment on this particular subject in reliable sources. About three months ago, I tried on the talk page to get some sort of insight on what sources might be used to establish the notability of the subject, but the upshot of the discussion was that no such sources exist. Unfortunately, that means that Wikipedia shouldn't be the first publication to comment on the subject. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As we argued in circles on the talk page, the sources do exist, they just aren't sources that are acceptable to you. The sources are RogueBasin, Roguelike the Magazine, GameSetWatch, and rec.games.roguelike.development. Capmango 05:31, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * They aren't acceptable sources in general. There are magazines largely written by the participants and USENET. Self-published sources aren't generally reliable. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * See my comment below contesting that these are "self published". And the reliability argument is a canard.  You know well that in this case, these sources are fully reliable.  They aren't saying 7DRLs cure cancer, only that they happen, and there is no question that that is true. Capmango 16:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep - The Roguelike genre of computer games definitely meets WP:N and these contests have been some of the most significant activity in the genre in the last few years. I could see this information merged into History of roguelikes is such an article existed, but until such a time I think it can stand on it's own merit, if just barely. Burzmali 13:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a bit of a fallacy; "Foo is notable, and bar related to foo, so bar is notable." The problem is, notable means "having the quality of being the subject of reliable secondary sources," and this doesn't have that quality. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 13:59, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That's not quite what I said. The correct analogy is: foo is notable to wikipedia; bar is a notable to foo; therefore bar is somewhat notable to wikipedia.  I'm not engaged to the article or anything, but it is significant as far as roguelikes are concerned (it has easily resulted in the most development work related to roguelikes in the last decade). Burzmali 00:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * So if this is notable, in what reliable sources has it been noted? Notability isn't transferable; either there are sources we can use to write a more-specific article, or there aren't. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of this article, RogueBasin, Roguelike Magazine and usenet are reliable sources. They are sources of information, and they are reliable when it comes to information about roguelike development.  They would admittedly not be reliable sources for an article about steroid use in baseball, but they are reliable for this sort of information. Capmango 16:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * They aren't reliable sources. They're self-published publications with no editorial control, typically written by pseudonymous authors. They don't have any of the things reliable sources need. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 18:48, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The sources are reliable for this information, and you know they are. You haven't made any argument that the information provided by these sources is wrong, because the information is well-known to be correct. WP:V says "sources should be appropriate to claims made," "exceptional claims require exceptional sources," and "The appropriateness of any source depends on context".  These sources are appropriate for this context.  A WP:V-based argument is inappropriate for information whose verity is not being questioned. Capmango 14:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per lack of "significant coverage by independent media" Corpx 16:39, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I think Burzmali might have a good idea. If not a keep, i.e. if this article's content does not seem notable on its own, then perhaps a merge (and redirect) into a History of roguelikes article would be a good solution.  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 17:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Then we are moving a bunch of unsourced, unsourceable claims from one place to another, instead of removing them as essentially unverifiable. There's no reliable source to claim that this is an important part of roguelike history. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 17:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * How is this unsourcable? The "wiki" over at roguebasin (see http://roguebasin.roguelikedevelopment.org/index.php?title=7DRL) hosted the last one, and all of the competitors websites confirm that they participated (ex. http://common-lisp.net/project/lifp/rouge.htm).  There is a lack of articles detailing the event, but there is plenty of proof that it took place. Burzmali
 * WP:V addresses information that is challenged or is likely to be challenged. There is no doubt that 7DRLs exist, and no one is questioning that the 7DRL challenges took place when they say they did.  There just are not any WP:V problems with the article.  The only issue is WP:N. See my comments further down for why I think this passes WP:N.  Capmango 00:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I challenge that this is influential. I challenge the implicit claim that this is an encyclopedic subject. I challenge that this isn't a soapbox for a relatively small group of people participating in a small contest to claim that their work is important or influential. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I dunno Man, I've seen soapbox articles on wikipedia, and this isn't one of them. the article makes note of a notable phenomenon.  If it were a soapbox, I would make sure the article mentioned me and/or my game explicitly, which it does not.  Anyway, you are still challenging the notability, not the verity, of 7DRLs, so WP:V is still not an issue.  The discussion should focus only on WP:N. Capmango 16:46, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm not seeing the sort of reliable sources we need to carry an article. Andrew Lenahan -  St ar bli nd  21:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep disclaimer #1: Although I did not create this article, I have edited it. Disclaimer #2: I was a participant in this years 7DRL challenge.  That said, I think WP:SENSE argues for keeping articles about things that are highly notable within a narrow community.  Reliability of sources is not an issue here; none of the statements in the article are controversial.  There is a reason notability is a guideline, not a policy -- notability and newsworthiness are not synonymous.  Some things get a lot more news coverage than others.  Baseball players get so much news coverage that we don't count a ball player as notable until he has played in a major league game, regardless of how many independent reliable sources write about him.  Conversely, there are plenty of subjects that are quite notable within a community that are not covered by the general press.  Roguebasin is, in this case, an independent and reliable source, even though it is not a peer-reviewed journal or an edited news source.  People will come to wikipedia searching for information about 7DRLs.  We should provide them the information they are seeking. Capmango 00:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I dont think we're questioning the content here, where reliable sources can come and back up assertions, but the question is about the notability of the whole article. There are plenty of shareware/freeware games out there, each with its share of fans, but I dont think they qualify as being notable unless they've received "significant coverage from independent media".  Corpx 01:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The article isn't about a game, it's about a style of creating games. The phenomenon is notable within the world of hobbyist game development.  Wikipedia has an article about cessationism, even though that gets zero current google news hits and only 2 english language hits in the archive, both from 1999.  It doesn't mean that the cessationist controversy isn't notable, it means that there are some things that the news just doesn't cover.  Likewise, things that are notable within this particular realm are noted in Roguebasin, or Roguelike the Magazine, or GameSetWatch, or rec.games.roguelike, but won't ever be covered by Fox News.  Those other forums are our independent media, and 7DRLs do have significant coverage there. Capmango 05:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * It's about a minor style of creating games, and if he phenomenon is so notable, who has ever seen fit to comment on it in reliable publications? Notable doesn't mean good or important or influential; it means the subject is the subject of commentary in the kind of reliable sources we can use to write an article. Your "common-sense" interpretation of the rules has conflated "notable" with "important to someone." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * One other note, I have to wonder if this nomination was made in good faith, given that the nom apparently created a sock puppet account specifically to nominate this (and possibly other?) articles for deletion, and says as much on the user page. Capmango 00:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Eh. So what? I think the nom probably just doesn't want the AFD on their edit history. It'd be one thing if the nom wasn't making a calm and largely undisputed argument, but if an argument is civil and accurate, who cares who made it? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:18, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, it wasn't bad faith. I stumbled across the article and tried to find something about it with google, as I'm myself somewhat interested in roguelikes (playing nethack regularly) - but apparently there is nothing which makes me believe this is any more notable than e.g. our local brass band's monthly challenge. So, repeating what has been said, roguelikes itself are of course notable, I just contest that "7DRL" is notable even within the indy roguelikes dev scene as a whole. The two sites mentioned are and  - both self-published, likely made by participants of 7DRL, failing WP:V. And both just mention it as a contest held by about 20 people 4 times since 2005, so nothing which would even remotely satisfy WP:N. Minimaki 12:13, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Every current publication (as mediocre as they are) that covers roguelikes, covered the 7DRL. Therefore, I maintain that "that which is notable to a notable topic is notable".  For example the myriad of aircraft the Japanese developed towards the end of WWII (like the Reppu and the Rita have articles not because they where particularly notable to the world in general, or to WWII, but because they show the late-war aircraft development undertaken by the Japanese. Burzmali 14:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There are many publications covering roguelikes which do not mention 7DRL, but I think you mean something else? The "that which is notable to a notable topic is notable" just isn't WP policy, for example if there's an article Matthew Smith (games programmer) that doesn't mean one about his wife would be notable, although she certainly is notable to him. And so far, we do not even have independent sources saying that 7DRL is notable to the roguelike topic in general, and most likely, it isn't, but instead just for a small group who happen to be subscribed to this newsgroup - which for WP (with its current rules) is not enough to have an article about it. Minimaki 16:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Invoking WP:BIO in a discussion that doesn't directly involve people is disingenuous. That aside, precedent shows that marrying a notable person gets you halfway to WP:N.  Look at all the articles that are basically, X is related to Y, and X did something stupid.  Burzmali 17:52, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Calling these sources "self-published" because a lot of the same people are involved with RogueBasin as are involved in 7DRLs is I think a misuse of the term. It's like saying that no one who runs marathons should be allowed to write about marathons, or no one who writes about video games should be allowed to play video games.  If the sources for the article were the web pages of the 7DRL entries, then you could argue self-publishing.  Within the roguelike development community, Roguelike the Magazine and RogueBasin and the usenet groups provide the reliable sources for what is going on; coverage in other sources doesn't happen because it is not necessary; these are the sources we go to for information. Capmango 16:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * But that's what "self-published" means. If the only people who ever wrote about marathons were the people who participated in marathons, then we wouldn't have articles on marathons. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:22, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * That is not what self-published means. My discussion of The Seven Day Quest on its own home page is indeed self-published (but that is not a source of the article).  The review of Seven Day Quest in Roguelike the Magazine is an independent source, regardless of whether the author of that article also happened to create a 7DRL game.   And there are plenty of contributors to RogueBasin and the usenet group who have never written a 7DRL and have no intention of ever doing so, but they play them, review them and comment on them. Capmango 16:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Near as I can tell, Rougelike the magazine is Mario Donick's personal site, which happens to be organized in a magazine-like fashion. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:49, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And it has two issues, one from the end of last March and one from the beginning of last April, each issue comprising a half-dozen or so brief articles written by Mario Donick. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep I have been a part of the Roguelike community for about a year now, and there is absolutely no doubt that 7DRLs are among, if not the, most important developmental force in Roguelikes over the past several years. There is very little doubt within the community that this statement is true, and you have verifiable sources from the people that hold the contests AND the participants, AND fans/onlookers- essentially everyone involved. In a nutshell, you have the single most important event over the past decade for an entire GENRE of video game, yet somehow this merits deletion. Meanwhile, there are hundreds of video games that not only have their own page FOR EACH GAME, but also somehow are worthy of articles for every major character in the game. See: Category:Deus Ex characters,Category:Castlevania characters, Category:Starter Pokémon, Category:Basic Pokémon, and Category:Halo characters for entire CATEGORIES full of pages about individual video game characters- and there are hundreds of these categories. How is this page possibly not notable if these other pages are? Until I see Bl♟ck and other members of the Wikipedia Community stand up and try to get rid of all those pages, I can't see how anyone can claim that the most important event to an entire genre of video games can fail WP:N. Even though we're not discussing WP:V, it should also be noted that most video game pages and practically all character pages are much worse in violation of WP:V than seven day roguelikes. The suicide forest 04:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You can't reduce "the roguelike community" to this one small group, I'd say there is a much larger community, outside of this subgroup, and most of them do not know about 7DRL. And I don't have to prove this, you're the one who have to point us to outside sources claiming otherwise. And we all know that there are many articles in WP which do not meet the standards, the reason for AdF discussions is to work on this problem, not using sub-standard articles as precedence to keep even more of them. --Minimaki 10:53, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I obviously can't find any WP:V material on this matter, but if you don't mind some WP:OR for the sake of debate then I'd be happy to help. Much of my experience in the roguelike community involves NetHack, so most of this will be related to NetHack communities. NetHack is generally considered far and away the most popular and well-known game of the genre. In an attempt at verifying this for this comment, "Nethack" has 1,920,000 hits on Google, "Angband" has 484,000 hits, "ancient domains of mystery" has 23,600 hits, and "Linley's dungeon crawl" has 686 hits. The NetHack forum I tend to be the most active in is the GameFAQs forum. GameFAQs is about as casual as you can possibly get with game-specific forums, yet several times the topic of 7DRLs have shown up. I'm not sure if there's anything on them there now, I couldn't find anything on a quick skim through but I didn't read through most of the topics. In addition to this, I also hang out at the alt.org forums frequently. Obviously this is a more hardcore NetHacking group then the GameFAQs board is, but 7DRLs come up on those forums all the time. The third NetHacking "forum" I go to is the USENET group, which discusses the subject from time to time as well (More often then GameFAQs, less often then Alt.org)
 * I would argue that if the subject is known about on NetHack boards, particularly GameFAQs then it is probably well known of in other circles. I do realize there are other Roguelike communities though. There are two non-roguelike communities in which I participate to some extent. The first of which is the Usenet Angband forum, on which the subject of 7DRLs is broached more than on the NetHack equivilant, probably about as much as on alt.org. The fifth and final forum is the chaosforge forums, which mostly revolve around DoomRL. On these forums, 7 day roguelikes are almost a fetish.
 * Thus, five out of five roguelike communities I at least browse at least are familiar with 7 day roguelikes. Three of these are for the most popular and influential roguelike and none of which except the two usenet groups are in any way related to any of the others. Given this, I would think that it would be safe to assume that either a majority or a very large minority of Roguelike communities in general are familiar with seven day roguelikes. The suicide forest 07:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * "Some arbitrary number of people know about it" won't help us write an article based on reliable sources, either. Notable isn't the same as popular or well-known or important. We need reliable sources to write this article, and at this point those sources don't exist. If we merge this unsourced material, we're just dumping problematic material on another article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment - New(ish) solution. Trim down and Merge the first section of the article into Roguelike, merge the second section into a new article of the history (or Timeline or whatever) of Roguelikes (see User:Burzmali/History of Roguelikes) for draft, finally, redirect page to new page on the history of roguelikes.
 * Merge - Disclaimer: I've participated in the 7DRL challenges and was added to this page at some point.  I disagree with any claims that this fails WP:V.  However, I agree that WP:N is very weak at best.  Longer running and more influential game creation challenges, such as Ludumdare were found wanting, for example.  Likewise, DKP, a much more important topic likely than either, got AFDed.  Note that "These other pages must be deleted first!" isn't a practical objection - one can presume they, like this page, were created earlier in Wikipedia's history when people had hope it might become an encyclopedic reference site.  Because WP:V isn't (or shouldn't be) in question, I feel the content should be trimmed (especially of non-NPOV stuff, like commenting on which games were "best") and merged into Roguelike. --JeffLait 20:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep if roguelikes are notable then this is notable as well. There is no other way. Could be merged in the main roguelike article, but there is enough content anyway.  Grue   06:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I do not follow. Where is the connection between roguelikes and this contest? If I make a roguelike, do I get an article on Wikipedia? --Minimaki 09:24, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * The (obvious) connection is that more than 50% of roguelikes in recent years are 7drls. It's also quite strange that the only purpose of this account seems to jump at everyone on this AfD. I think a CheckUser might be in order.  Grue   16:49, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, the link someone added to the article in the meantime mentions that the rec.games.roguelikes.misc group discusses new roguelikes, and then "many of which having gotten their start as part of the 7-Day Roguelike Project". So at least there's now a mention which seems more independent, but I still don't think that makes it any notable - that newsgroup may represent part of the current roguelikes dev scene, but neither the group nor this dev scene seem very notable. (About nominating with a new account, as was said, this isn't a vote, so it should not matter.) --Minimaki 18:12, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Part of the current roguelikes dev scene? This dev scene does not seem very notable? Did you do ANY research before nominating this article for deletion? rec.games.roguelikes IS the roguelike development scene. Practically every roguelike made in the last decade has gone through r.g.r.d. Hell, even roguelikes developed in much smaller communities or websites still are posted on r.g.r.d for advice. If you can find ANY roguelike development group that even comes CLOSE to touching r.g.r.d, I will spend my entire life savings (several thousand dollars) on thrift store hats, and post several videos on youtube of myself eating them all.
 * As for the fact that you are using a new account, that does matter as it makes it awfully hard to assume good faith if the only thing an account is used for is to nominate an article for deletion, especially when the user of that account seems to know the politics of Wikipedia very well. It seems at least reasonable to think that Minimake is either a sockpuppet or (less likely) meatpuppet of someone involved in the first vote for deletion. If this is a legitimate good faith nomination, which seems entirely possible, please reveal your main account so we can end this silliness. Trying to clean up Wikipedia is not going to look bad on your account's history, even if I feel this particular attempt is misguided. Otherwise, I would second Grue's request for a user check. The suicide forest 08:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Arguing about whether r.g.r.d is "the roguelike development scene" seems to be an unproductive tangent. It's not a reliable source (as it's pseudonymous and self-published). Do you have any sources that are not pseudonymous but do have editorial control that we can use to write this article? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:55, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Question: In the reasoning for reopening the AfD, it was claimed the article failed to provide the WP:N that was promised in the previous AfD. Not having witnessed the previous AfD and only having the logs to go by, I don't see any such promise.  Indeed, users such as Lankybugger quite clearly state the only WP:V are roguebasin/rgrd.  Despite this, the consensus was keep.  So what new information is prompting yet another round of bickering?   (One reason for my Merge request is that I see even a Keep consensus as being pointless as it will just be another 6 months before it gets AfDed once more, wasting everyone's time that could be better spent writing roguelikes (or, heaven forbid, improving Wikipedia articles rather than defending/deleting them) --JeffLait 23:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If I understand correctly, the original nomination was challenging WP:V while this one is challenging WP:N. I don't think that there was any new information, although if there was I'd certainly like to see it. I don't see a Keep consensus as pointless, as after WP:V and WP:N there's really not anything else to challenge it with. Also, if we just go around deleting or merging articles because it means we don't have to deal with bureaucracy, the entire system falls apart.
 * Of course, there doesn't always have to be a new, sensible reason to put an article up for AfD. Just look at the Gay Nigger Association of America's 17 unsuccessful AfD attempts. I don't think this article is controversial enough for that to be an issue though. The suicide forest 08:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, both WP:V and WP:N, as the initial statement says. From the beginning of WP:V "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.. When I found the article a week ago, I wasn't able to do so, despite trying (google). Only (very few for that matter) forums/newsgroups/self-published mentions are available, and there was already a box and accompanying discussion page about missing references, so I nominated it for AfD. The reference added to the article in the meantime mentioning 7DRL just means, the mere existence of 7DRL is acknowledged by an independent source now, but that doesn't really convince me that the contents of the article are now sourced. That's not saying I personally think this article is bad or 7DRL is completely insignificant to everyone - just Wikipedia currently is not the right place for it. --Minimaki 09:24, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, what about if the games produced as a result of 7DRL are both WP:V and WP:N? I think at least CastlevaniaRL could cite a few notable sources, maybe even AliensRL. --81.219.180.99 18:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * 7DRL could be mentioned in the article of such a game, but at least CaslevaniaRL did not seem to pass the criteria. --Minimaki 13:07, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * CastlevaniaRL did get some additional coverage since then, just mentioning. Anyway, I'd vote for weak keep, but don't want to sign up, nor do I feel objective enough to vote. But I strongly believe that some more WP:N/V sources will come up with the next challenge, and it would be stupid to delete the article and then recreate it again. --81.219.180.99 13:24, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll save Man in Black some typing and point out that being notable in the future is not an acceptable reason to keep. If you feel that to be the case, cache the page now and recreate when you feel it is notable.  On that note, it would be useful if Man In Black and Minimaki could provide some guideline of a threshold which they'd considerable notable?  As for WP:V, I personally reject those claims.  They are based on WP:RS which is quite broken when it comes to this sort of topic. --JeffLait 19:05, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * "I made a contest about writing roguelikes in 7 days, 20-30 people agreed to submit something, here's a link to our website, wiki and forum" I think for articles like that, verifiability over WP:RS sources has to apply - why would it be exempt? Someone said previously "because it has to do with roguelikes" - but that's not really an answer. And personally, I think the threshold should be along the lines of WP:WEB for things like this, else Wikipedia would be a place for anyone to write about anything they find interesting. --Minimaki 08:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.