Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Space Empire Elite


 * 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. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:16, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Space Empire Elite

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Proposed for deletion in October 2012 for notability concerns and lack of independent sources. It still lacks such sources. Of the five currently cited sources, two are the game's own documentation, two are passing mentions in stories about its creator, and one does not mention the game at all, but describes BBS games in general. Cnilep (talk) 02:04, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game-related deletion discussions.  Cnilep (talk) 02:15, 22 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete. Nothing but primary sources and passing mentions. DoctorKubla (talk) 08:20, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * KEEP I disagree about primary sources and passing mentions. it was listed as inspiration from other games that were CLONES of SEE. I would however, like to see more references to give this article more credibility --Bbsjoey (talk) 01:34, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Being an inspiration for notable games does not make it notable in and of itself. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 20:01, 2 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a significant game: it is one of the early works of Jon Radoff, and influenced the creators of Solar Realms Elite and Barren Realms Elite, respectively. The dearth of sources reflects only the lack of scholarship into this area of gaming at this moment. It does not change the fact that this is a significant game worthy of its own article. Kirkman (talk) 21:29, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, notability is determined by the depth of coverage in reliable sources. Whether or not the game is important or significant doesn't come into it; reliable sources have to be available. DoctorKubla (talk) 21:50, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Several reliable sources cited on that article right now. Five citations is better than thousands of other similar articles on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kirkman (talk • contribs) 23:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
 * If you click the word "notability" that DoctorKubla linked to you can read the general notability guideline. It's short and relatively straightforward.
 * If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list.
 * Space Empire Elite does have six articles in the references section, but two are not independent, three make only passing mentions of the game, and one does not mention the game at all. This does not seem to constitute significant coverage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cnilep (talk • contribs) 01:24, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The game didn't have documentation and it was written by independent third parties, there are also other independent sources that have been discounted because they have experience playing the game. This is a lot of dirty politics to discredit sources and citations because of a personal bias to get the article deleted. I call foul, and hope that others notice these dirty tricks. Orion Blastar (talk) 05:21, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I find all this notability stuff ridiculous. The "reliable sources" that Wikipedia wants (books, magazine articles, etc) are going to be built from the very sources Wikipedia will not allow: first-person interviews, usenet postings, game documentation, and the like. It's totally circular and smells more or less like a witch-hunt. Someone wants to remove articles in order to score political WP editing points. But in the end, a disservice will have been done. This article is factual, sourced, and relevant. Space Empire Elite is a foundational BBS door game that influenced numerous other games. It is an early work of a notable game author, Jon Radoff. It deserves a place on Wikipedia. Kirkman (talk) 04:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The real issue here is not notability, it is that it existed before the Internet Era, so it must be deleted. Most of the independent sources on it are from BBS Systems and Boardwatch Magazine which went out of business when the Internet took over BBSes. But books and magazines are not reliable enough for Wikipedia anymore. Burn all the Pre-Internet stuff, because 1990's kids never heard of it before. I feel bad that I have donated money to Wikipedia to see the sorry state it now exists as a censorship machine to delete all of the Pre-Internet articles simply because they don't have enough Independent Internet references. Well what Pre-Internet tech does these days? Most of the web sites on Pre-Internet tech have gone down. I state that there is a big personal bias here, and bias should not be a part of the Wikipedia process. But then even Conservapedia is more credible than Wikipedia these days Use with caution: The perils of Wikipedia Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits Fake 'expert' scandal forces Wikipedia to review editor policy Too many scandals to name Apparently the article writer did not pay Wikipedia staff to highlight their article nor bribe an editor with fake degrees to forge citations using pen names to boost the notability and credibility of the article. Orion Blastar (talk) 04:13, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete not notable. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉  22:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
 * It was notable in the BBS Era, and it has influenced modern social network games. It is still in use with Telnet BBSes. Maybe you should delete the article on Tradewars as well, even if it too is still being played on Telenet BBSes and they made it into a modern Win32 Telenet Server game. I guess the DOS based Castle Wolfenstein 3D too is non-notable as is Infocom's Zork series? If you haven't heard about it, despite several sources cited, I guess it is non-notable? Orion Blastar (talk) 04:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep An important part of BBS history before the Internet age. What next, delete the article on the Commodore 64 and Apple //? Too old for Wikipedia? Before Facebook and social networking games, we had games like this and the BBS was the original social network. This game is still being played on BBSes that use Telenet now, and if they use Linux they run DOSEMU to run DOS based Games/Doors under the Linux BBS. The BBS has not died, just evolved into Telnet based services. The BBS Documentary didn't cover this, but I think it should have. BBS Games were an important part of BBSes and BBS Users loved to play them. If this article is deleted, I will lose respect for Wikipedia. The same thing was done to my edits of the Amiga article, even if I used books for citation. Orion Blastar (talk) 03:57, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Redirect to Jon Radoff. The topic is not notable: none of the sources support notability. --Odie5533 (talk) 10:03, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Delete Doesn't meet GNG unless offline RS are unearthed. I've previously suggested merging articles like this (those that individually may not be notable enough for their own articles) into a more comprehensive overview of BBS door games. czar   &middot;   &middot;  08:27, 26 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep We start our research with Wikipedia and will be upset if articles like this are deleted. Gaming is an important part of both our culture and GNP now.  Deleting this would be like deleting early movie titles just because they're not being screened any more. Some may regard this as a trivial amusement, but it's a critical part of the history of one of our now major industries.  If you are troubled by the lack of sources and citations, mark it as "needs improvement" and we will try to get to it - in a year or three. but please do not delete the attempts to chronicle the history of the gaming community. I can understand the argument for moving it to a comprehensive article on BBS Door Games and have no problem with that iff all the games are listed with at least this much information per game, but that's only a short step to "this article is too long and should be split . . ."  I'm sure you know how that goes.  People look for games by name, and most won't even recognize the words "BBS Door Games." Judith Haemmerle, Executive director, Digital Game Museum, Sunnyvale, CA.  10:55, 27 November, 2012  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mopalia (talk • contribs) 18:56, 27 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep As a freelance writer doing research for (pro) articles on e-communications in the 70s-90s, I'd say that the info in the above comments, the article & its links indicate that it has the same notability as the many pre-Internet-era offline games in WP that were popular and influenced future creations in their genre. At the moment, the only way to know whether it's truly notable would be to have a reasonable amount of knowledge/expertise on the topic of BBSes or pre-Internet e-games -- with no disrespect intended, do the individuals recommending deletion have that information?  I have enough to know that I want more info so I can include it in my work, and plan to contribute the results of my research, I can say that much...  If the real problem is that the article lacks references & needs other work, then according to Wikipedia's docs, that's why we have the tags to alert research-oriented types like me passing by.  (As a side note: if it's applicable, I'm likely going to use parts or all this comment on a couple of other contested articles to save myself time.) Xyzzy☥Avatar (talk) 03:34, 29 November 2012 (UTC)
 * The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. Although it may have been a popular game, we do not have sufficient verifiable evidence to establish its notability. --Odie5533 (talk) 07:19, 29 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  MBisanz  talk 03:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep It is mentioned in a number of books as a notable game in the history of game development (just checked Google books) Deathlibrarian (talk) 11:12, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment: Google Books does indeed show nine books mentioning the game, but seven of them are Wikipedia scrapes and the other two are the books by Mark Wolf currently cited on the page. Cnilep (talk) 11:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment Aside from some of the snippy remarks made, this game was not notable even back in the BBS era. I'm old enough to remember. Tradewars, Wolfenstein, and Zork are all names that became legendary, and we still hear about them even today. You can still find "Remember when?" articles that mention those games. Those articles fail to mention this game. That is why it isn't notable. This game doesn't make that cut. It was a just another door game, lost in thousands. Some people played it, but it never stood out. My apologies to the nostalgists, myself included, but it lacks the "wow factor" the others mentioned have. I will agree with a merge into a list of old BBS games, but this article has no stand-alone value and adds nothing to Wikipedia. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉  03:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment So something's significance depends on whether people still talk about it? I'm sorry, that doesn't wash. This game *was* notable in the BBS era. It was one of the most popular games played on Atari ST BBSes. This game is an early creation of Jon Radoff. It was one of the early BBS door games to implement inter-BBS play, making it a precursor of massively-multiplayer games. And Space Empire Elite directly inspired the creation of Solar Realms Elite and Barren Realms Elite, both of which people still remember (and play) today, not to mention all the other SRGames and others like Space Dynasty. Kirkman (talk) 23:52, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Kirkman is correct that WP:Notability is not temporary. The question of whether Space Empire Elite is notable does not relate to the game's current fame. On the other hand, WP:Subjective importance does not constitute notability by Wikipedia standards, either. The WP:General notability guidelines require published sources. If such publications can be found and cited, notability might be established. I tried and failed to find independent publications (beyond the two books by Wolf currently cited), but others might have more luck. Cnilep (talk) 05:39, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Agreed. It wasn't notable even back then. If it had been, it would be remembered with the other games that were notable from that time. Being an inspiration for other notable games does not make it notable. Notability simply isn't tranferred like that. This article fails all five points in WP:GNG, WP:NRVE, and WP:NNC. The ability to stand with it's own article simply isn't there. --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 19:57, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. — Frankie (talk) 20:36, 3 December 2012 (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.