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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 no consensus. The core policies WP:V and WP:NOR do not appear to be huge concerns in this case since whether or not a game features time travel is usually quite clear from the game itself, if nothing else, and many games have game guides published which makes the point absolutely clear. The question is therefore one of whether the content is trivial, or notable enough, and that is something which needs to be deferred to the community, and in this case there is no consensus that the premise for the list is insufficient. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of games containing time travel

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List of games containing time travel (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

I don't know if a list fits AfD, but, it's here. This list is completely unsourced and has no citations. It has POV problems. It fails WP:N and WP:V. Delete Undeath (talk) 16:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Reasonable list that is useful in searching for such games. As an encyclopedia is encyclopedia and an encyclopedia's content is useless without ways to find the information. No sources needed, if there is allready an article about the game. CindyTalk 01:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per nominator. The list is not clearly defined and relies on original research. Kariteh (talk) 16:50, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • ...oh well. I suppose you had a reason for refusing my request on the article's talk page to contact me first so that we could look into whether the article can be improved before attempting to delete it as unimprovable. --Kizor 17:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The list doesn't need much in the way of sources because it is a list of blue-links to articles which explain that the game in question contains time travel. This is normal for such lists. The supposed POV problems are not specified and I'm not seeing it since it is crystal clear that a game such as Chrononauts contains time travel. WP:N is irrelevant since this is a list whose primary purpose is to assist navigation to and between articles about notable topics. WP:V is likeiwise irrelevant because editors can verify the entries by going to the detailed articles which is where the sources are best placed. So, the complaints of the nomination are all empty and so there is no good reason to delete. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No problems with WP:N or WP:V; it's that this seems rather trivial for a list of this sort. Simply the topic is the problem, as it's really not well defined, and containing time travel is totally irrelevant to the importance of the game (it's not like, say, a list of movies centered around time travel). Nyttend (talk) 19:35, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neither does our category of fiction about the sitting president of the United States, or any of the several lists of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction. They don't need to any more than this does. The concept of time travel has been everywhere in both fiction and popular consciousness since at least 1895, when H.G. Wells published The Time Machine. I can state without fear of error that everyone in this discussion was aware of it while growing up, and I know none of the editors here. Yet the idea of time travel has marginal scientific basis: it exists only in its depictions in fiction. This is very definitely something that we should list, and games are both a major subgroup of fiction and just one step more specific than an (impossibly unwieldy) list of time travel in all fiction.

    Your comparison is a bit hard to grasp: that list seems to be closer to List of movies containing time machines with digital time displays or List of movies containing blue or candy-striped time machines than this one. Or do you mean that time travel itself is too obscure? To take a single time travel plot device: Travelling to kill Hitler before his reign is not only an ubiquitous ethics question, but there's been fiction made where Hitler is killed and history is healed, Hitler is killed and his body double is instated, Hitler is killed and a competent Nazi rises to power, Hitler is killed and the Soviet Union takes over Europe, H.i.k. and aliens invade a peaceful world, H.i.k. along with a number of historical tyrants and the person who did this is then arrested as the century's worst murderer, H.i.k. in a causal loop so that it can be done over and over again, H.i.k. repeatedly with no effect because history does not work that way, Hitler is attacked by multiple groups at once, Hitler is defended by time-travelling Nazis, travellers arrive to change history so that Germany loses the war, a time protection agent has a crisis of conscience over retaining Auschwitz, et cetera et cetera. Now we're getting this ("Take it easy on the kid, everybody kills Hitler on their first trip.") and this.

    Further, if the list did need to explain its use, that would only be a good reason for deletion if there was no reasonable chance of adding one - and there's been no attempt to do or to check that. We cannot delete articles over cleanup matters, or we'd nuke significant portions of the encyclopedia with each major change in standards. Any ideas you might have for such an explanation would be appreciated. --Kizor 22:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe I made myself not so clear: I'm not stating that time travel on itself isn't a topic widely used in fiction (and notable). I'm merely saying that I don't know why a list that categorizes games after it would be notable. Keeping this list would probably make place for a lot of other similar lists whose use is IMHO questionable. (see also T-rex further down.) --PaterMcFly (talk) 16:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough, I'll clarify as well: Because video games are one of today's primary mediums for that fiction. They don't have the prestige for that, but certainly the popularity: see the link to an external news article below. If - as I believe - a list of time travel in all fiction would be hopelessly cluttered, then this is not an overspecialized subject but as general as it can possibly be.

    As for the matter of precedent, few things below ArbCom's level give it weight, certainly AfD hasn't. (In fairness I've seen the argument put forward on rare occasions, but it didn't do much.) We can consider the other lists that you fear on their own merits as and if they come. You wish to delete this (in part) because it might cause trouble, but I think the usual counterargument is that we still have the George W. Bush and penis articles, despite everything that they attract. ;) --Kizor 09:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, how come? As described above time travel is huge. Video games may seem insignificant due to their young age and lowbrow reputation, but there's more cash in them than in box office movies. Time travel in video games tends to be roughly as subtle an element as nuclear war (that is, unless it's just in the backstory it's hard to keep it from taking center stage.) None of that seems trivial and especially not "pure."
    If you have any ideas on how to satisfy your concern by improving this article (tightening its scope and adding more meat on its bones come to mind), then your opinion would be appreciated, either in this discussion, on the article's talk page if it's kept, and in any userfied reworking attempt if it's not. I'll drop a note about this on your user page unless I get distracted by something shiny. --Kizor 08:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete the article, Keep it as a category. As an article the topic fails notability but it is a useful way to categorize games. The sub-category "Time travel games" could be created in the "Games" category, for example. Rejectwater (talk) 01:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - a list of trivia. time travel in games is not a notable concept of its own --T-rex 16:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Wikipedia:Lists (discriminate, encyclopedic, notable, unoriginal, and verifiable) and What Wikipedia is. The subject is covered in such reliable sources as "The Best Time-Travel Games," Stuff Magazine (3/9/2003). Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho! 01:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, lists and categories serve different purposes and the existence of the time-travel game categories does not make this list redundant; lists can have brief summaries (as this one does), and can red-link items which do not have articles yet (again, as this one does). --Stormie (talk) 06:13, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If it's able to be varified, please provide the citations and sources. As of now, all the information presented is trivial. Also, with two categories containing the same information, we really don't need the list. This list cites nothing nor does it contain sources. While lists normally provide help, this cannot due to the simple lack of sources. Undeath (talk) 21:16, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (and thanks to the two above keepers, regardless of how this turns out, I had given up). I'm with Micow and Colonel Warden here: this is a way of organizing notable topics, and has no verifiability problems (beyond giving a 1983 video game as the first time-travelling one and that's just one line). It's a long-standing convention, accepted in the three principles, that noncontroversial descriptions about a work may be sourced to the primary source of the work itself. It's vitally necessary as well: Have you ever tried writing an article about Romeo and Juliet without consulting the play at all, and restricting yourself to third parties' descriptions about the play? Me neither, and I'd rather not start. We could always shore up the article by adding quotes from the games, their manuals and where applicable their references, but that's not a necessity. Mentioned POV problems don't seem evident without further specification and anyway are an editing matter, not a deletion matter, unless they're fundamentally insurmountable a la Reasons why jews did WTC or something.

    The list is a surprisingly valuable navigation tool about a major concept. The two categories do not contain the same information and do not make the list redundant for the reasons described by Stormie, not to mention because it's the only way for readers to check if a particular method of time travel, an implementation of time travel in gameplay, or a space-time model has been done or is widespread without reading several dozen articles. It is also the kind of thing that's Wikipedia's particular strength: no similar list is readily, if at all, available elsewhere online. This is not to plead usefulness, but it is valuable and should not be handled too lightly.

    Finally, this was made by a new user who did not do it prim and proper and could not be expected to be able to. There has been no effort to improve it or discussion about how to do so (I was busy with other matters, alas). The nominator has done neither and has not acknowledged the request for leaving a message before AfDing that I did leave sitting on the article's talk page. This seems like a shaky basis for deeming the article irredeemable. If it is not, I'd like to invite all concerned and interested editors who haven't spoken to suggest improvements on the article's talk page after this AfD is over. --Kizor 11:03, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • For the record, this has some good arguments about categories and lists being synergistic instead of competitive. It took some time to find because the admin whom I saw using it linked to WP:CLT by mistake. :) Also, those of you who are more experienced with hunting down references for games: Where would we go to get the sources for a proper lede and description for this thing? Could there be some general statements in the material about, say, The Journeyman Project or Timeshift? Answer on this page, the article's talk or my talk, depending. --Kizor 15:44, 7 July 2008 (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.
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