Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Department of Fun/Word Association

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

The result of the discussion was keep all. JohnCD (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Department of Fun/Word Association

List of Articles being nominated

A collection of time sinks that have nothing to do with building an encyclopedia. (No, they don't.) These went through multiple XfDs a long time before we started cracking down on games; they've only survived until now by being hoarded under a WikiProject. It's 2013, and Wikipedia's target demographic is perfectly capable of firing up the Android Market and installing as many word games as they like on their personal devices if they want something to do other than write articles. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep. Sigh. How many times do we have to go through this? For the reasons I have expressed countless times before, the benefits of keeping community pages like this include:
- Aiding interaction between editors - I've seen editors on opposite sides of a heated content dispute interact positively with each others on wikipedia games.
- Allowing editors to relax, reducing stres and leading to less burnout, fewer personal attacks and fewer toys thrown out of prams
- Bringing articles to the attention of editors who would not otherwise have known about them, leading to improvements (for example I added hatnotes linking between The King of Rock 'N' Roll, King of Rock and Roll (song) and Honorific nicknames in popular music (where King of Rock and Roll redirects). I did this solely because of a word association game. Many other times I've fixed typos, added references, improved wording, added pictures, fixed vandalism, etc, indeed much of my article-space contribution is driven directly or indirectly by WA games.).
- Some articles are created directly as a result of games, Ceremonial weapon being an example of one I started (not the best, but the only one I can ever remember off the top of my head). Chariots of Fire (disambiguation) also owes its existence to having fun on Wikipedia.

Fair enough if you don't like them, but other people do. Despite unevidenced assertions to the contrary (please do provide any evidence you have), they do help the encyclopaedia direct and indirectly in many places and don't harm it in the slightest at other times. Thryduulf (talk) 14:11, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I decided to take a look at my contributions. The following is a list of most (the list excludes pages where I can't remember if the edit was due to WA or not) of the article space pages I have edited directly or indirectly as a result of the word association games in 2013. Earlier edits, those not in article space and those by other users are excluded:

list of 40 article space pages created/improved due to word association games

AEA June Bug,

Bideford, Westward Ho! and Appledore Railway,

Boston railway station,

Brighton & Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway,

CITES,

Caspian horse,

Ceremonial weapon,

Clevedon, North Somerset,

Climate of Great Britain,

Confession of judgment,

Demographics of Western Sahara

Empire of Man,

Georgia State Route 213,

Great American Interchange,

Gun politics in the United States,

Marco Polo (satellite),

Marcopolo,

Mswati III,

Narva, Estonia,

North Road railway station (disambiguation),

North Road railway station,

Science Park (MBTA station),

Science Park station,

Science park,

Science Park Station (MTR),

Shortstop (baseball),

Thor (satellite),

Treadwell,

Twin Rivers Diversion Scheme,

Twin Rivers,

UK Statute Law Database,

University Station,

Victorian Canine Association,

Washington Treaty,

Westward Ho! railway station

Not all of the edits are significant, but each one represents and improvement to the encyclopaedia that I would not have made if I were not playing the word association games. Thryduulf (talk) 14:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The same arguments come out every time a game page (or indeed most other social pages) is MfDed. And the same response applies: the Internet is full-to-bursting with free video games for people to play, which have far more usable interfaces than ours (which is designed pretty much exclusively around the creation of a certain type of document) and which do not require our resources (human and technical) to administer. Without constant supervision, the resources consumed by wikigames (again, both human and technical) expand continuously. And by being hosted here, games are far more directly distracting to editors than they would be off-site. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And that response gets trotted out and rebutted every time: off-site games do not promote interaction between Wikipedians and do not lead to improvements to Wikipedia. Do you have any actual evidence that these games are distracting (I've spent far more time on this page today than the WA games typically take me)? What about evidence that the resources consumed are significant or that they outweigh the benefits brought by the games? I really would like to see something other than arguments that have been rejected many times previously. Thryduulf (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: As the nominator as failed to notify any of the contributors to the games, on their behalf I have notified the regular and recent players (except for ip users) about this discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 14:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I tagged each and every one of the pages, which is more than enough notice for anyone actually using them. Notifying all the users directly is, ummm, somewhat questionable (acronym excluded), because as active users they're obviously going to have one opinion in particular. Case in point, see the next keep comment. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - There is a reason that deletion nominations are notified to significant contributors as well as on the page itself - not every significant contributor will see it on their watchlists during the nomination. In the case of these word association games there are people who play it regularly like myself, and others who only look in occasionally. If you can think of any other group or page to notify without canvassing then please do so - as I will if I think of any. Thryduulf (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - XfDs are supposed to be discussions among the wider community. It is simply not possible to rationalise an outcome whereby informing all of the people currently playing said games does not result in a seriously skewed outcome, as readily demonstrated by the responses from those thus informed already. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep it should be keeped — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qwh (talk • contribs) 14:36, 19 March 2013
Keep If you're going to argue that the word Association games don't belong due to being time sinks that don't help build an encyclopedia, then be prepared to stand up and nominate WP:ANI,WP:AN,WP:VP,WP:RfArb, and WP:AE for similar reasons (Drama Sinks, Introspective navel gazing, time sinks, etc.). What we have here is a editor who doesn't like these ways of building the community. Let's go line by line through WP:DEL-REASON and see if any of the reasoning is valid...

Content that meets at least one of the criteria for speedy deletion Nope. As the nominator mentions, this has lasted for several years and hasn't yet been deleted nor does it seem to meet any of the CSD criterion

Copyright violations and other material violating Wikipedia's non-free content criteria Nope. Word association only makes linkages to other wikipedia articles, and not creating new content.

Vandalism, including inflammatory redirects, pages that exist only to disparage their subject, patent nonsense, or gibberish Nope. Most of the games have a specific set of rules and suggestions about how to associate the words together.

Advertising or other spam without relevant content (but not an article about an advertising-related subject) Nope. If anything this is building more content in that it is more strongly linking articles together so that others can find associations.

Content forks (unless a merger or redirect is appropriate) Nope. Nothing like these elsewhere

Articles that cannot possibly be attributed to reliable sources, including neologisms, original theories and conclusions, and articles that are themselves hoaxes (but not articles describing notable hoaxes), Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed, Articles whose subjects fail to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth), Articles that breach Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons Nope. Not an article and therefore not applicable here

Redundant or otherwise useless templates Nope. Not a template

Categories representing overcategorization Nope. Not a category either

Files that are unused, obsolete, or violate the Non-free policy Nope, not a file either

Any other use of the article, template, project, or user namespace that is contrary to the established separate policy for that namespace. Nope, not applicable

Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia As mentioned above this is in the Wikipedia space and moreover an effective "WikiProject" this is goverened by the individual projects and should only require a blunt force machette when the growths are so dense that you can't even tell individual leaves any more.

I will agree that some of the less popular (or more rules esoteric) games could probably stand to be cooled down, full protected, and marked as historical (as the forks did have a purpose that the creator wanted to imply). I would suggest that the nominator considers long and hard if they'd like to retract this nomination and present individual ones for the lesser played associations (or more rules intensive ones) so as to run a test case rather than having this bulk nomination with a WP:IDONTLIKEIT rationalle that is destined for failure. Hasteur (talk) 14:51, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to lawyer over the definition of what is suitable for MfD, then you should also note that there is no codified demand that deletion discussions be subject to an up-down vote on the precise wording at time of nomination. Cleaning up some (ideally most) of the sprawl here would go a long way to resolving the problems explained above, on the understanding that there is no general games amnesty under the "Department of Fun" banner. As for the drama boards, I agree that they are time sinks where much of the time court intrigue is the real focus, but they at least have some ostensible purpose in furthering the project. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:01, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to be a stick in the mud and give a half hearted reasoning for deletion, then you should also note that MfD's conventions extend from AfD. Very specifically WP:BUNDLE indicates that you really should have done a single nomination of one of the Word Associations (In reality you should have gone for the biggest apple) so that precedent would be on your side. This post has been brought to you by Parody and Sarcasam Hasteur (talk) 19:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Deletion of all of these is my preferred outcome; I would rather be honest about that than try to kill them by a thousand cuts. If a compromise which reduces the burden is found then so be it. I'm acutely aware of how lawyered AfD is these days; fortunately that isn't the case quite yet for other namespaces. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:40, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)Addendum I would note that it is typically the members of a Wikiproject that define the scope of what the project will encompass and use. I specifically point at WikiProject Article Rescue Squadron, WikiProject United States, and WikiProject Highways as precedent. While in some cases the community at large has had to step in and give specific guidelines as to where the boundaries are in acceptable behavior due to disruption, I see no disruption to the nominator and question if this nomination is a point being made somewhere. Hasteur (talk) 15:05, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is not a pointy nomination: it's made on a general principle that I have both enforced and seen enforced on the project many times in my eight (!) years on the project. I appreciate your linking to those three specific WikiProjects, all of which have been subject to limitations on scope imposed upon them after community discussion. There's no "right" way to do that: however, at least in the case of ARS, most of said discussion took place on a series of MfDs / TfDs. In this specific case, I am quite specifically advocating for the deletion of pages in the first instance; if said deletions result in community consensus to move the WikiProject in the right direction (as happened with the projects above) then this is an additional happy outcome, but the former is not a stalking horse for the latter. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:21, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please see previous nominations for deletion: 5th Nomination, Deletion review 25 October 2010, 4th nomination, 3rd nomination, 2nd nomination, 1st or 3rd nomination and Mistaken nomination. Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 15:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Separately keep - the purpose of an encyclopaedia is to gain new knowledge. This links to multiple different articles and whilst it is good as stress relief, I actually do keep on learning about new things from the links people place between the others that associate with them. This is not a random game. It is a fun piece of education and history. Simply south...... catching SNOWballs for just 6 years 15:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I linked those in the nom. The last discussion was a procedural overturn on the grounds that these had been adopted by a WikiProject, rather than living in a sandbox. It specifically notes a lack of prejudice on renomination. The previous discussion to that took place in 2007, a very different Wikipedia landscape and one which took place before the general consensus against hidden pages and other games. It's certainly worth re-evaluating six years down the line. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:23, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - Actually the most recent relevant nomination was Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Department of Fun (4th nomination) in February-March 2010. The DRV overturned the deletion not because it had been taken over by a WikiProject, but because it was deleted out of process (no notification or discussion). Thryduulf (talk) 16:34, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - I moved the comment because I thought it only applied to the nomination discussions. Difficultly north (talk) - Simply south alt. 12:13, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep. The Word Association game was one of the earliest ways I learned how to edit, contribute, and so on. I moved on to article editing and vandal-fighting, but I still come back to Word Association on occasion. True, I could easily download a Word Association app on my phone or go to another webpage. True, the game is not in and of itself encyclopedic. However, I have found some interesting articles this way, and it's a good way for new editors to be gently introduced to editing and linking. Therefore I'd like to see it kept. That said, I can see people might disagree and I'm not going to be terribly upset if it is deleted. I think reasonable people could argue either way. --Tckma (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Snow keep and WP:SALT - Word Association is not just a game and of some sort unrelated to wikipedia, is actually a community engagement where people do interact and get to know random articles and sometimes random rules, several articles have been improved or created in the process. It is not only about entertainment, but also about improvement. Eduemoni ^↑talk↓ 16:57, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't think you understand what WP:SALT actually means. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 00:34, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't think you understand WP:IRONY, look at my dummy edit summary. Eduemoni ^↑talk↓ 03:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and salt per Thryduulf and Eduemoni. Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty | Averted crashes} 23:13, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep Citing the arguments that Wikipedia's built on community involvement and that this is a community hub. Also, for the arguments that this is unrelated to encyclopedia, you chose THIS page to demolish. Please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.99.170.185 (talk • contribs) 02:22, 20 March 2013
Delete WP:NOT a social club -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 05:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- The only thing in WP:NOT that comes close to that is "Wikipedia is not a social networking service", which talks about using userpages as blogs and chatsites - the word association games are nothing like that at all. On the other hand, Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia- "Wikipedia is not just an encyclopedia, but is also a project to build an encyclopedia. There's no problem with doing things on Wikipedia that aren't immediately about the articles, as long as they are in the interests of the project, which is building an encyclopedia." it has been explained above how these games benefit the encyclopaedia both directly (it results in new and improved articles) and indirectly (it promotes good interaction between users and helps keep them productive). Thryduulf (talk) 10:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  - But it is not something to be done on Wikipedia's site itself. If it is to be done, it should be done at a wikimedia: page. This activity is a game that may ancillarily improve the articles, but mostly is for fun. It is not a COTW/COTM or improvement drive, so doesn't directly focus on improving content. Thus this is a social activity which is not primarily aimed at improving the encyclopedic content, so should not be hosted on Wikipedia. -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 23:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Can we speedy close this as per WP:SNOW, even though I'm involved the reason why this article is being nominated and the third-party and uninvolved users are not reasons at all, they are perhaps concerns and misconceptions. Eduemoni ^↑talk↓ 17:17, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- I think a snow close would be premature at this point. There haven't been that many commenters (despite the length of some comments) and one has expressed a good faith vote to delete (even though I believe I have refuted it, they haven't had sufficient time to respond should they choose). I do speak from a very involved perspective though! Thryduulf (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Concur with the request not to snow this. We want to give those who object to this corner of Wikipedia the full opportunity to mount a case for the deletion as it's been a few years since the last time the consensus was challenged. If the articles should survive the challenge, it then gives a reasonable length of time where re-challenges are procedurally dismissed as "Trying again too soon". Hasteur (talk) 21:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is no harm in having this. Nobody is confusing it with an article. If it keeps the troops happy, it is important. Morale is everything in an army of volunteers. As Jack Nicholson wrote many times: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." -- The Shining 7&6=thirteen (☎) 18:45, 20 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Snow Keep While we're at it why don't we salt this exact page so it never happens again? It's not harming the wiki, so why delete it when that would harm? James1011R (talk, contribs) 00:55, 21 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep - I've often fixed other pages I found here that I didn't know existed. It doesn't hurt anything, and I have also found new ways to do links on this page.Squad51 (talk) 01:35, 21 March 2013 (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 page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.