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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sturmgrenadier (2nd nomination)

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Sturmgrenadier

gaming clubs inherently non-notable. Zzzzz 19:22, 20 December 2005 (UTC) furthermore, it is established that the article is a vanity page, written by club members. this non-professional school club has also apparently never won anything, and is organizing a campaign to "save" their page. Zzzzz 18:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Not a school club. Not made up of schoolchildren. Written about in USA Today. Worldwide organization that is 5 years old, notable within it's gaming communities (Planetside, World War II Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Eve Online among others), contains hundreds of members. The folks I have directed to the page are not members of Sturmgrenadier and were not asked to come "save" the page, but to review and comment, even if they thought deletion the most prudent course. Your mischaracterizations, unsigned comments, and apparent vitriol are beginning to frustrate me. --Habap 20:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Oops. Forgot. My apologies for not posting that I am a member right away. I was unaware of the policy and figured all I needed to do was reference the original VfD. --Habap 21:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep with significant cleanup per FCYTravis. I think a lot of the article as it exists now consists weasel words and uncited, unencyclopedic material. (ESkog)(Talk) 23:13, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Sturmgrenadier. Cant we have a policy that says you can only have one deletion vote on an article!? Jcuk 23:41, 20 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep this was VFD'ed once. We can remove the part FCYTravis and see if anyone else objects to that, since that was put up there because of a dispute. ChronoSphere 00:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment a self-vote by a member of the club. wikiguideline policy: "If you are the primary author or otherwise have a vested interest in the article, say so openly". Zzzzz 18:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • See the note about the ad hominem attack listed above.
      • Comment Member or not, I've been on Wikipedia for a while even if I don't have a massive list of edits - I do actively edit other articles, and I'm not quite sure what you mean by a "self-vote" since everyone votes for their own opinions anyway. In any case, my vote counts as much as the next guy. ChronoSphere 18:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep if there's anything left after cleaning out all the drama and unencyclopedic nonsense. You can call me Al 13:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Notability is not a deletion criterion, and even if it were, nothing could ever be "inherently" non-notable. --Ryan Delaney talk 15:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't be silly, notability has been a deletion criterion for ages. Judge articles on their merit please. Speaking of which, the size and age of this clan sound notable to me, so keep. Radiant_>|< 17:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This is not some small, fly-by-night kiddie clan, but a LARGE, long-lasting and widespread organization. Which makes it a notable part of online gaming history and thus worthy of retaining.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) 17:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment so why has nobody ever heard of it? did this club ever win anything significant, like Ninjas in Pyjamas? if not, its non-notable, as there are thousands of other gaming clubs that have won more than this one. and 800 people is large? messageboards need 10000 members to be considered at least notable.
      • Comment Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean no one has. (Don't forget the USA Today article.) Sturmgrenadier participates generally in games that are MMORPGs or otherwise persistent worlds. There are no tournaments to win. It is also not a message board, as it fields organized units in the games in which it plays. The public portion of the forums is not a significant part of the unit and it makes no claims to being a "gaming community", a gaming news site or a professional "clan". --Habap 17:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • so it hasnt won anything. its not professional. its a bunch of schoolboys playing videogames. despite the article calling it a "an online gaming syndicate" and "gaming clan", its not, in fact, a community or clan. all good reasons why its not notable.
  • Comment an organised campaign to keep the page is being organised by User:Habap. he has so far contacted the following users (presumably all club members) on their talk pages so maybe any votes from these names should be noted:

User talk:Average Earthman User talk:DragonflySixtyseven User talk:Ryan Delaney User talk:Yuckfoo User talk:Mel Etitis User:AllyUnion/AFD List User talk:Radiant! User talk:Simoncursitor User talk:SpuriousQ User talk:Dan Granahan User talk:R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) User talk:Andersoft User talk:FlooK User talk:Kappa User talk:Splash User:Destinova1 User talk:Plutonick User:ELiToX

  • i understand its sad when your precious club is deemed irrelevant by the outside world but please note its nothing personal & there is no objection to hosting your club's website on the user space instead.
    • You are correct, I did contact them. Destinova is the only one who is part of Sturmgrenadier. He, Chronosphere and I are from Sturmgrenadier. The rest are folks who have written gaming articles, voted on VfDs or otherwise shown an interest in this kind of article. I don't think any of them (except Mel, who was the admin handling first VfD) have ever edited this article and I am certain some of them had never read it before this. While I did ask all of them to comment, I did admonish them to think about what was best for Wikipedia. I assume shining a light on this article will either improve it, or send it the way of the dodo (sp?). You are more than welcome to contact others and shine a bigger light on this article.
      • P.S. I think this represents a second set of ad hominem attacks on people commenting on the AfD. --Habap 17:47, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think its perfectly acceptable to contact others who've one has made acquaintance with while working in this Wiki to take a look at a VfD and render their own opinion. The names Habap stated are the only ones I see on that list being SG, the rest being unassociated editors of Wikipedia. ChronoSphere 18:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • For the record, I have no affiliation with User:Habap, and am not certain why he left me a message about this particular AfD - perhaps because I (like many others on that list) am an administrator. I am explicitly not going to vote on this AfD, not just because of the possibility of appearance of collusion, but also because I simply don't have time today to give the article-and-deletion-debate the attention they deserve. DS 18:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Don't be absurd, I'm not a member and haven't even heard of this club. Assume good faith on other people's votes. Most of those people you mention are longstanding Wikipedians frequently active on AFD. Radiant_>|< 22:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Note that Zzzz has taken me up on the suggestion to invite more users to comment, though his note his note implied I was hiding my membership in the group (evidenced in this discussion long before he sent the note, in the extensive discussions on the articles Talk page, in the prior VfD and on my own user page) --Habap 21:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
USA Today article, though since it was written in 2003, they charge to access it and it would probably violate their rights if I posted a digital image or the exact text. --Habap 22:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed re rights. How about the section of the article that mentions Sturmgrenadier? Is it a mention or a paragraph or something more? It may sound trivial, but it can help establish notability. | Klaw ¡digame! 22:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I just read the article (someone sent it to me). It mentions Sturmgrenadier in passing. Not nearly as impressive as I thought.
Four years ago, Taylor and two friends started Sturmgrenadier (www.sghq.com), a group that plays cooperatively within online worlds. Now up to 800 members, the group has gotten together for mini-conventions in Las Vegas and Orlando. Some, Taylor included, are helping test Star Wars Galaxies. "We treat online games as our everyday hobby. You get entertainment, a sense of accomplishment and pride."
I still think it's a notable group, but wouldn't bank on that mention in the article so much.... --Habap 22:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Self-described? Huh? Zzzz says it's a vanity page, not us. --Habap 22:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your failure to recognize inanity makes this article no less meaningless. Soltak | Talk 00:45, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete not notable.— Dunc|☺ 22:44, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Firstly, I will note that I don't think it's a good idea to do AfD campaigning from either side of the argument; it really does affect your ability to think in an unbiased fashion. This is a borderline case; it is relatively large and well-established, and it claims to be verifiable. However, I'm not convinced either that clans are suitable topics in an encyclopedia. enochlau (talk) 22:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Obviously a feel-good page for enthusiasts. They already have a Web site; if they want to promote, they can do it there. J M Rice 22:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Have they done anything but game? Have they engaged in any charities like Child's Play? Have they won any tournaments- or anything at all? --Maru (talk) Contribs 23:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. i'm part of a national lottery syndicate with thousands of members. its been going since the 1990s and we've never won a major (100GBP+) prize. do we get a wikipedia entry? Niz 23:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Someone's been overdosing on the Christmas crackers; we're into Holiday Folly season. To be serious, though, for a minute: there are several reasons why this article does not belong in Wikipedia. Some are on stylistic grounds. Some are on promotional grounds. Some are on significance grounds. I'll try to go through all of them without breaking into my usual sine. First of all, the claim that they had this big article in USA to-day seemed dubious to me, so I checked it out. A case of googlum ad nauseum, the only references of its having been mentioned are in the same claim, repeated so many times with slight variants: 'do you want to be a part of a group that was recognised in USA To-day?'
By reading above, I found that the 'article' was a mere stub, if you will. It's given as an example. That does not reflect on the site's quality. Nor on the site's cultural impact. It just means that they used Sturmgrenadier as an example of a gaming syndicate. Like they might use Mr. Boer as an example of a farmer, or The Blue Café on Elwright Street as an example of a business. It does not classify Sturmgrenadier as remarkable. A proper article might.
Secondly, this Wikipedia article is highly one-sided and self-promotional. There is no counter-view. It is written with bright rose-coloured glasses, as you would expect. It is not encyclopædic to rhapsody about people coming to-gether on the internet. Promoting games syndicates should not be encylopædia activity. Wikipedia should be here to inform about the general consciousness, and about contributions to thought; a bunch of gamers on a site is not exactly general consciousness, nor is it a contribution to thought. Information on 'clans' on Wikipedia has been wiped out before. Although Wikipedia does not operate on a binding precedent basis, there is clear foreagreement that Wikipedia is not a promotions hall for sites such as these. The only reason that this has survived, compared to the other articles, is the slyer way in which this was written, and the fact that a whole support group, enlisted by one of the key writers of this article, props it up. I have to say that such campaigns debase the whole system of Wikipedia as a consensual zone. Anyhow, to return: there is not much original invention at all. It's all about playing games that they never even made in the first place. It provides no new knowledge; riding on the coat-tails of someone else's work is no original contribution to the world as we know it. I have nothing against people meeting up, and talking about games. That's cool by me. But you're having a vitsln if you think it merits a page. iinag 23:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm part of SG but also an active wikipedia member. This has been attacked and VFD'd before and the vote closed. I agree there should be some sort of rule against fascetious, repeated, petty VFD's. Destinova1 00:08, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: With all due respect, out of the few edits to Wikipedia that you have made, there's only one-- an anti-monarchist merge request about the Queen-- that has not been about Sturmgrenadier. To say that your vote is that objective is pushing it, since you would hardly vote against something that you helped to create. Also, although I'd say that this cliquery to get past the system and save your self-promotion is rather petty, I can't see why a bunch of Wikipedians from a wide strand of backgrounds coming here to oppose nn self-promotion is 'fascetious [sic]'. If anything, it is business. iinag 00:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. As per nom. Swamp Ig 00:13, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete First, let me respond to Destinova1 and others: the prior VFD (the mere fact that it was a VFD and not AFD lets you know it was at least a few months ago) was closed as a "no consensus", which means it didn't have a conclusion, let alone a forever binding one. And even if the consensus had been to keep, that would not be an eternal "get out of jail free" card against future deletion nominations any more than a deletion closure would forbid people from ever recreating the article (in a form that was not substantially identical). As such, the prior VFD's outcome doesn't mean diddly squat - or at least, you shouldn't let it. Anyway, as for the article/topic itself, props to iinag for the eloquence. Also, let me point out that in addition to a meaningless reference-in-passing in a USA Today article, it has currently "no ranking" at Alexa for sghq.com, and in the prior VFD, both Alexa rankings cited were lower than the ranking at which Alexa itself tells you the rankings are based on so few hits that actually trying to compare rankings is just guesswork. Finally, 800 may be large for an online gaming "clan", but 800 is hardly a large number as far as the total online gaming population... especially if it's spread among "several countries all over the globe". The Literate Engineer 00:18, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The USA Today entry didn't support the case for notability, unfortunately. I'm not thrilled with the possibility of a bad faith AfD, but in the absence of evidence I have to assume good faith. Leaving that and the campaigning aside, I see a run of the mill gaming site/group that doesn't have anything to distinguish itself from other such groups. It's not a reflection on the site or the people in it, but I think a site has to at or near the top of its genre to merit a Wikipedia article. | Klaw ¡digame! 00:19, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete non notable --Jaranda wat's sup 00:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The fact that I need even to vote is utterly disappointing. Whether it's a club you belong to or not, this sort of vanity garbage doesn't belong on Wikipedia. I certainly wouldn't be voting to keep my Grandma's bridge club, and I'm certainly not voting to keep this. Soltak | Talk 00:43, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • weak Delete The article in my view needs more information to show readers why this particular gaming clan is notable. The article says "These events were reported in an article in USA Today on June 23, 2003." It would really help if the External Links section linked to that actual article, or if that sentence had a link TO the USA Today article, just linking to USA Today's article here doesn't establish notability. (assuming the article doesn't just mention the clan without saying much else... heck, I've been on local TV morning news shows several times and that doesn't make me, or the club I was promoting, especially notable, I don't think) Further the tempers seem to be running a bit high here on both sides... calling people schoolboys won't win votes, nor will lashing out at others presenting reasoning against (or for) retention... IMHO, remaining civil will convince some people on the fence (rightly or wrongly) to come down on one side or another, I suspect. ++Lar 01:02, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Not notable Thesquire 02:00, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete No claim to notability. Regards, Ben Aveling 02:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Clubs generally aren't notable. One article in USA Today, especially without an external link, doesn't make this club any exception, and neither does all of the incivility that has been going on in this AfD. --Idont Havaname 03:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frag. This doesn't meet WP:WEB with ~800 members, and even very large clans are generally non-notable, unless they are particularly newsworthy or influential outside of the rarefied air of the games in which they exist. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:57, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete This article is non-notable and unencyclopedic. There is nothing remarkable to separate this gaming clan from any other, USAToday mention notwithstanding. Zunaid 07:29, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Delete. Gaming clans need to be several orders of magnitude greater to qualify. JFW | T@lk 08:25, 22 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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