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. Mailer Diablo 08:23, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nexus War[edit]

Online game launched in May this year. No evidence of number of players, innovation, significance, external coverage, etc. No sign of meeting WP:SOFTWARE. Just zis Guy you know? 12:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It has the more normal RPG elements, like finding weapons, gaining experience and levelling up, buy skills and all the usual RPG fair, but it also contains elements of the more strategic RPGs, you have to keep your weapon stocks up, so your faction members actually have stuff to attack with, you can hold areas by building barricades, make your faction bonuses stronger by infusing squares on the map.
But unlike games like DarkThrone you don't do this by yourself, due to the games design its impossible, so if you want lots of faction bonuses, you have to organise the other players to infuse, if you want to attack someone you can't just click on their name and obliterate them, you have to find willing players in your faction and co-ordinate them, you want tons of guns and ammo, you have to keep players with crafting skills supplied or even forget that bit and make an alliance with another faction where they supply you with weapons in exchange for protection.
Its a browser based game that *encourages* interacting with the other players on a level I have yet to see in any other browser based game, having said that you can play on your own, thereýs nothing stopping you, but its a much less filling experience.
Now that all looks like a lot of gushing POV hyperbole, and of course there are things that annoy me in the game too, but the games faction system is very innovative. On --Meirleach 18:28, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The deletion in question is being proposed for failing to meet such criteria as WP:SOFTWARE, WP:WEB, and WP:NN. None of these are actual criteria for deletion, but rather suggested guidelines. If we're bandying about proposed guidelines and essays, then I'd like to throw WP:NNOT into the mix. grummerx 22:05, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My general sense of this AFD is that of "here's a topic which doesn't interest me personally, let's throw as many proposed guidelines at it as possible and see if one sticks." -grummerx 15:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)$[reply]
  • Comment: WP:WEB is not a proposed guideline. --Peephole 17:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: And it doesn't really seem to apply in the sense in which you're trying to use it. See my comments above regarding WP:UCS -grummerx 20:25, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: See also my comments on the AfD for Pardus (game) regarding the applicability of WP:WEB to games such as this. --grummerx 23:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This goes a long way to explain why Something Awful, Genmay, Penny Arcade and other (wikiworthy) forums have a significant Nexus presence. I have to think it's the article's style, and not the game's merit or notoriety, driving the removal votes. Parent says as much. Mockturtl 16:51, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


1. Does NW need to, or already, fall under WP:SOFTWARE?
2. Does NW need to, or already, fall under WP:WEB?
3. If none of the above, is it notable?
I would argue that NW does not fall under either WP:SOFTWARE (as it is not a "software application", and in a category of games that is generally overlooked completely by ANY mainstream media. Whether it falls under WP:WEB is debatable, but it doesn't really seem to apply in this case. In addition, while I have participated in a good many AfDs that allege "WP:NOT a crystal ball", at this point it doesn't need to be. The site has thousands of unique users, with hundreds on at any given time. In addition, Urban Dead has an article as well. It is slightly fallacious to argue that it is not notable at this point by people arguing for a "Keep" as as stated above, Wiki is NOT a crystal ball. But I feel the article is notable. Cleanup it may need, but that's not a reason to delete it either. Tokakeke 04:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment - The Urban Dead entry clearly cites three reliable mainstream sources. It also had a full-page article in print magazine PC Gamer last year. --Grole 04:36, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1) This game has a huge player/fan base : Please do not quote large number of players unless you can prove it. I investigated into this matter and found out that there are only around 150 "characters" online at any one time. It is hard to see how there could be even 1000 "active" unique players in the game based on this data. (note: 1 unique player can own multiple "characters" in the game)

2) This game is "better than" another game : Please refrain from citing reasons like "this game is better than World of Warcraft" or the more general "this game is good/fun". All these are POV opinions and not facts. Wikipedia do not delete software entries based on POV opinions.

3) Using other wiki articles as examples : This discussion is about this article only. If you feel that there are existing wiki articles that "deserves to be deleted more" then feel free to nominate them for deletion on their respective pages. The existance of other articles is not an excuse to keep this one.

If this game indeed have a huge player base and thought to be good (or better than mainstream commercial MMORPGs like some claimed) then it'll eventually earn coverage and become notable. From what I understand, this game was heavily inspired by Urban Dead which earned itself three citation from notable sources. Remiraz 10:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1) Re: player base: While I sincerely appreciate your effort to actually investigate the item in question, it would be nice if you'd also make an effort to understand how the mechanics of the game affect the number of concurrent users at any one time. In short, the AP mechanism means that users will typically only be online twice a day, and only for a few minutes at a time -- this happens to be directly mentioned in the article itself and should be apparent from a quick perusal of the game. The number of concurrent users you quote (150) is quite large when considered in this light.
2) Re: Comparisons to other games: Agreed. NPOV statements and comparisons to other games do not belong in this discussion. However, this same standard should also apply to NPOV claims of "non-notability", e.g. claiming that a game can't be as good as others simply due to lack of mainstream media attention. To your assertion that "Wikipedia do not delete software entries based on POV opinions" I counter that this is exactly what you are attempting to do.
3) Re: Using other wiki articles as examples: Agreed on the point of comparing this article to others that may or may not deserve deletion. However, pointing out articles which have set a precedent by surviving similar AfDs is entirely acceptable. The mention of BattleMaster above is indeed pertinent to this discussion as it has just survived an AfD proposed on the same grounds as that for Nexus War.
I'd now like to add my own items to your list if I may, for the benefit of those championing deletion:
4) If you're going to question the size of the player-base, at least make a passing effort to understand the game mechanics. If I were to claim that chess is non-notable because I watched a game and never saw more than 2 players, I'd be betraying a flawed understanding of that game, and this instance is no different.
5) Don't resort to straw man arguments. When verifiability of an article is mentioned, don't couch your argument in terms of notability.
6) Don't use Alexa as a measuring stick (ever). To quote WP:SET: "Alexa rankings are not a part of the notability guidelines for web sites for several reasons." Ignoring Alexa results is especially important when measuring a game such as Nexus War or Urban Dead. Players of these types of game tend to favor Firefox since the game community releases Firefox extensions to aid gameplay, such as NWTool and the Nexus War Homing Beacon. Alexa, on the other hand, is compatible only within Internet Explorer and would therefore never register many, if not most, of the users.
-- grummerx 22:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1) It would be nice if the people who have access to the secret player stats told us how many people were actually active in the game.
2) Whether the game is as "better" than others is irrelevant. If someone claims the game is non-notable and that it must be a bad game, it's only the non-notable aspect that this AfD concerns itself with.
3) No, this is just as bad. Battlemaster and Shartak seem to have survived simply because nobody who agreed strongly with the AfD happened to read the page, and because somebody who disagreed with it decided to close it. A couple of articles sneaking through AfD doesn't mean they should be kept forever (articles often come up for deletion multiple times), and particularly not that all similar games should automatically be kept.
4) Again, it would be nice to actually see some figures about the number of players, and the number of retained and active players.
5) That's fair enough.
6) It might be erratic, but even if players of these games mostly use Firefox, Urban Dead has an Alexa ranking of 14,711, compared to Nexus War's 200,691.
And to add my own:-
7) "I think this game might be notable one day" is an argument for deleting the article and recreating it if its subject becomes notable, rather than keeping it and waiting. (People should accept the possibility that this game may never become notable.) --Grole 03:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
1) Agreed, these figures should be published. However, my comment was in response to Remiraz's own investigation of the game, wherein he was able to see that there were "around 150" characters active just at that moment in time. I was merely pointing out the fallacy in Remiraz's use of a flawed extrapolation of this number to claim that there couldn't be very many real players in the game.
2) Again, note that I agreed.
3) I do happen to agree with your points about the other AfDs not necessarily being set in stone, but must point out that doesn't preclude us from mentioning them. AfDs don't happen in a vacuum, and similar AfDs elsewhere on Wikipedia are most definitely valid points of discussion, whether or not you happen to agree with the outcome. We don't necessarily have to follow their precedent, but you can't just pretend those AfDs don't exist.
4) Agreed, see point 1.
5) ...
6) Please, please, read WP:SET and Alexa. There is absolutely no reason to continue referring to Alexa. Continued mentions of Alexa just serve to distract from valid points of discussion.
7) Perhaps. My contention though, is that Nexus War is notable now, or at the very least can't be shown as "non-notable" by any honestly applicable guideline. Please refer to my comments on the AfD for Pardus. To summarize:
  • The only real notability guideline that has been claimed here is WP:WEB.
  • WP:WEB was designed to weed out trivial, easily created, sites such as vanity pages and web comics.
  • Nexus War and the other games in this category are not easily created, and do not easily attract a user-base of thousands.
  • Applying WP:UCS and considering the spirit of the law makes it apparent that WP:WEB wasn't intended to weed out non-trivial creations such as these.
  • There should perhaps be a notability guideline for these sorts of games, but until one exists it's better to err on the side of leniency rather than to delete legitimate information.
-- grummerx 07:20, 4 August 2006 (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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