Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time)

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 redirect to Only You Can Save Mankind#Ideas and themes. There is a clear consensus that this article should not exist in Wikipedia, with the real dispute being between outright deletion and redirection of the title. Redirection is better argued given the mention of the subject in the proposed target section. WP:PRESERVE also applies. BD2412 T 01:48, 2 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time)[edit]

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NN video game, fails the GNG and WP:NFT. ZERO reliable sources, namedrop or otherwise. Notability tagged for over eleven years. Prod removed with the rationale "there are better ways to handle this than deletion," by a deprodder who did not trouble to find any sources himself. Ravenswing 07:29, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. Ravenswing 07:29, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Ravenswing 07:29, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per above. I looked for better sources but couldn't find any. Prod was removed by user:Spinningspark (see the article's talk page) with the reason: I think this is unlikely ever to work as a standalone page, but the claim it is the video game with the longest minimum completion time is an interesting factoid worth preserving. I would favour merge and redirect so the title remains on Wikipedia. The obvious target is Interactive fiction but it may be WP:UNDUE there. An alternative is Only You Can Save Mankind where it is already mentioned.

:By the way, that claim needs to be treated with caution, it is unsourced and games exist, such as Elite, which have no completion time at all. It would be better to just say it has a 3000 year completion and leave it at that. Personally I don't think it is relevant to merge/redirect to any other targets. Boleyn (talk) 08:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And truth be told, I removed that assertion. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof, and there were zero sources backing that claim up, never mind rock-solid ones. Ravenswing 08:27, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well done for entirely stripping the article of anything interesting or worth keeping. I assume you did a WP:BEFORE search before those deletions, so can only assume you are not very good at it. This source verifies both the 3000 years game time and the Terry Pratchett connection. In any case, the 3000 years is a plot element and as such can be sourced to the work itself. If the game is run, it is quite plain that it will complete in 3000 years since it consists almost entirely of a countdown timer. Even the claim that it will run for somewhat longer than 3000 years (due to incorrect counting) can be seen in-game, and I would argue that is allowable per WP:CALC. It is rather unconstructive to stub an article and at the same time nominate it for AFD. It deprives others of the chance to investigate the unsourced claims. Citation needed would have been more appropriate. Now you know it can be sourced, I trust that you are going to restore some of this material. SpinningSpark 15:03, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I "stripped" the article of three sentences, all unsourced, and two of them being extraordinary claims. (And that being said, nothing prevents any interested editor from examining the article's history.) Ravenswing 15:34, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, and restore to its former glory before being stubbed. At worst, merge it somewhere per WP:ATD – deletion is not appropriate for material that is suitable for an encyclopaedia. SpinningSpark 15:06, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: Ahem. Its "former glory?" As it happens, the definition of what is suitable for Wikipedia is in substantive coverage in reliable sources, which this article lacks, never has had. You can hardly imagine that a podcast constitutes a reliable source, but in any event, the subject is mentioned only so far as "Wobbler’s game Journey to Alpha Centauri inspired a real game, Journey to Alpha Centauri (In Real Time), written by Julian Fleetwood in 1998 using the interactive fiction language Inform. It doesn’t currently seem to be available anywhere, but you probably don’t have a spare 3,000 years to finish it anyway." Certainly not substantive coverage, even if we were all confident that the podcast didn't just gank from the Wikipedia article.
Beyond that, your ongoing opposition to deleting this article -- pushing for some delay, any delay -- verges on bad faith. We are under no onus to keep an article indefinitely, and neither you nor any other editor has cared enough these last eleven years -- that notability tagging constituting "citations needed!" -- to find suitable sourcing for this one. To quote WP:N, "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article." Ravenswing 15:25, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no reason a podcast cannot be a reliable source. This one is presented by a professional journalist (former magazine editor) and a professional game writer so have some claim to expertise under WP:SPS. I did not present this source as evidence of notability, that's a straw man argument, I presented it as verification of the facts you deleted. SpinningSpark 15:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Far from a "straw-man argument," it's the only argument we're having here. AfD is a discussion of the notability of the article, not a content dispute. Ravenswing 17:36, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Only You Can Save Mankind#Ideas and themes as a WP:ATD where it's mentioned. It has no coverage needed for a separate article per WP:GNG, but it can be preserved. I added a source (and probably a bit more reliable than a Pratchet fan book club podcast) at the novel's article that also verifies 3000 years. Nothing to merge here as 1) it's all unsourced and 2) the target article I mentioned has it all. Jovanmilic97 (talk) 22:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect per Jovanmilic. Namcokid 47 ^(Contribs) 16:12, 26 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No sources so no content.
Redirect per Jovanmilic97 - the mention on the target page is sourced so I think this is fair. Subject doesn't merit its own article. Paradox society 07:57, 1 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

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.