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 keep. BJ^Talk 22:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jones in the Fast Lane (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Several reasons for deletion:

Notability

Article gives no indication why this particular game may be notable. Video games are not automatically notable. No reliable sources are given in the article, and internet searches using Google failed to find any. Discussion with one of the major contributors to the article implies he is not aware of any (see Talk:Jones in the Fast Lane). Notability is not established and appears unlikely to be established. (the recently added reference claims to be published by "Stamford University", and indeed the link is deeply nested in a University address; it appears rather that this is a self-published document in a user area of the Stamford website; it is listed on this page, titled "Student essays": [1].

Content

Current content, with the exception of that citing the Stamford reference, appears to be limited to a game guide; this is excluded as encyclopedic content by the policy WP:NOT, specifically WP:GAMEGUIDE. (content not covered by this guideline now exists --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)) Rogerb67 (talk) 22:51, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Game-related deletion discussions. —Rogerb67 (talk) 22:57, 13 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep, wikipedia seems to have no problem listing all other sorts of old games that are too old to have any online third party references aside from gaming sites. This is a game that was released almost two decades ago by Sierra, and a google search of jones in the fast lane, http://www.google.com.au/search?q="jones+in+the+fast+lane" , as a phrase, reveals over 15,000 results. Timeshift (talk) 03:29, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We're talking about this article, not about others. Stay on point. MuZemike 18:48, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions. MrKIA11 (talk) 18:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This is a commercial game released by a major company. It well post-dates large-scale video game journalism but predates wide-scale Internet use, so it's very likely that this article is sourceable and a Google search is definitely not representative.
  Article content is an editing issue and does not require the use of special tools such as deletion. --Kizor 20:58, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • To the first point, notability is not inherited (WP:ITSA); to the second, if that is the case, go ahead and find and cite some; otherwise this is really just personal opinion. To the third, I agree that after some additions there is now a separate stub article to consider.--Rogerb67 (talk) 11:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and cleanup – the game guide material could go, but otherwise there is sufficient notability established in that deletion is not necessary. MuZemike 22:15, 14 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems to be an assertion of notability without any reasoning as to why. --Rogerb67 (talk) 11:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This game was very popular in its heyday which happened before the Internet age, but it was well covered in the offline game magazines of that time. Using the Internet age standards to judge this game is very unfair in my opinion. Of course I do not know Wikipedia's criteria for deleting articles and I do not wish to bother to know. My question is just, is Wikipedia so hard up on hard disk space that this article needs to be deleted? Kiwi8 (talk) 10:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • If it was well-covered in such magazines, citing a few shouldn't be hard. (I wasn't judging it by the internet age; I was noting I had made an effort to find references before nominating.) --Rogerb67 (talk) 11:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are nuts for asking me to find for you game magazines that I had 18 years ago, which I had since thrown them away. You are just being bureaucratic here. Kiwi8 (talk) 04:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • And you are asking the Wikipedia community to trust your assertion of your memory of 18-year-old events, without evidence, which is clearly contrary to WP:Verifiability (see quotes above) and WP:notability#Notability requires objective evidence.--Rogerb67 (talk) 14:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • See, u are already being bureaucratic for using the Internet age standards to judge the notability of the game. And as to the comments u made on my talk page about being civil and in good faith, I am already restraining myself, otherwise vulgarities would have been uttered at your cold bureaucracy. Anyway, any gameplay information about the article can be easily gained from a playthrough of the game which I still occasionally play. Kiwi8 (talk) 01:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I am concerned about some of the arguments put forward, which appear to imply that it is the nominator's responsibility to demonstrate non-notability. Apart from the obvious difficulties in demonstrating conclusively that references do not exist, the policy page WP:Verifiability clearly states "The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material" (emphasis from original). If the references that demonstrate notability are harder to find because they were published before widespread use of the Internet, that's fine, but it's still the responsibility of those editors who wish to retain the article to demonstrate that such references do exist, with more than just vague assertions. Having said that, I accept that the subject may be notable – perhaps even well-known in North America for example – and that it was just a poor article when nominated. Improvements have been made already, and that in itself is a positive outcome. In my opinion, an additional reference to "significant coverage in a reliable source" (I don't think a student essay can reasonably be counted as such) would be sufficient to fully establish notability. --Rogerb67 (talk) 11:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An article isn't removed just because it requires improvements or lacks certain topics and concentrates on others. I don't know why you have an axe to grind, but it seems you're being outnumbered here. Timeshift (talk) 13:54, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That is not the meaning of my comments above; when I nominated the article, it had no assertion of notability and no reliable sources, making it an apparent candidate for deletion after my own searches turned up empty. That is what I meant when I called it a "poor article". Poor articles of encyclopaedic subjects should indeed be kept if they are demonstrated to be notable (possibly with BLP exceptions that don't apply here); articles of any standard that are of non-notable or non-encyclopaedic subjects should not. Nominating such an article for AfD, and arguing your case once there, is not an "axe to grind", and deletion debates are decided by strength of argument, not numbers. --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: article is in an WP:IMPERFECT state, and that's not a reason for deletion. We'd only delete it if we found that no amount of improvement would allow it to meet guidelines. This is a game published by Sierra, a very important publisher in the game industry. There's no doubt in my mind that this article could even reach featured article status with a lot of work. Randomran (talk) 15:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Per my response to User:Kizor above, I'm no longer asserting deletion because of WP:GAMEGUIDE; content that is clearly not covered by this policy now exists (I've struck this out for clarity). When nominated, this article had no reliable references; it appears to have one now, but it's not clear if it amounts to "significant coverage", and multiple such references are almost always required needed to establish notability. The game may be published by Sierra, but as I noted above, notability is not inherited. If you believe this is featured article material, let us in on a couple of the references that would support that article, and establish notability. --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Now lets all be honest about this. trying to get scholarly-grade citations for a 1991 computer game is absurd. don't set the bar improbably high just to prune wikipedia of content. as far games go, this is relatively notable, as a google search, various posters here and some links show. 85.64.221.163 (talk) 21:07, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not looking for that; a couple of in-depth articles in reliable magazines or a sizeable chapter of a book with a major publisher for example would be fine. If the game doesn't have that kind of coverage, "Wikipedia should not have an article on it." (WP:V). In my opinion, a single article containing unknown coverage, a student essay, an almost empty game FAQ and a link to a flash version of the game do not amount to significant coverage in reliable sources. I will be just as happy, if not more so, if after this nomination the article has encyclopedic content and sufficient references to fully establish notability, as if it is deleted. --Rogerb67 (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - My personal opinion is the game was a pioneer for the "electronic boardgame" style, one of the first to introduce the concept of an electronic cash economy and a trailblazer in graphics and intuitive gameplay. Alas, the current references don't yet conclusively verify these points. That's not surprising given the age of the game, and I suspect a thorough examination of video-game texts or research papers would uncover more and better sources. Entire chapters or in-depth articles aren't needed - just a few references noting Jones' contribution to what came after. I don't have a library of video-game texts and wouldn't know where to look, but hopefully someone better versed in the subject area will come forward during the AfD. In the absence of this I'd say weak delete - the sources (even my Stanford one) don't quite meet the notability threshold. One of those regrettable cases where the subject is notable in real life but we may be unable to include it because sources can't readily be found. Euryalus (talk) 23:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Comment - the various minor sources uncovered during this AfD have gone some way to establishing notability, so I've amended my comment above. More credible third party sources would still be worth finding, the article only barely makes it as is, and is at risk of further AfD's if nothing is added. An AfD is sometimes the only thing that gets people to research a topic - let's hope that enthusiasm continues. Euryalus (talk) 22:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep A release by Sierra should be sufficient to establish notability.--Sloane (talk) 02:03, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notability is still not inherited (WP:ITSA). This is a plausible argument for a merge to Sierra Games. --Rogerb67 (talk) 14:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would you please stop this quest to delete this article? you seem to be the only one interested in deleting it, you have gathered no support for the delete request, would you please leave it be or focus on improving this article? and euralyus, not all articles need to answer to this rigorous standard put by it. WP:V generally refers to more contentious subjects. if single episodes of TV shows each have an article, so could this. 132.66.127.228 (talk) 16:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC) — 132.66.127.228 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
    • Incorrect. verifiability applies to every article – from Barack Obama down to Lego Rock Raiders. Right above the edit summary box and that button that says "Save page" states that encyclopedic content must be verifiable. MuZemike 20:21, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • Indeed. Also, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not an argument for retention. In any case, current consensus appears to be to merge TV episode articles that do not clearly demonstrate independent notability; see Wikipedia:Television episodes for example. --Rogerb67 (talk) 20:40, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would you please stop this quest to delete this article? - hear hear!! Timeshift (talk) 19:25, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note – there is also another print source providing some coverage of the game [2] in COMPUTE! magazine. MuZemike 20:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Great, have added to the article. Evidence of other reviews would be also be good - I note the mention of two others below but without the actual text I can't tell if they are one-line product mentions or something more substantial. I've checked the first 500 google links - anyone want to do the next 500? ;) Euryalus (talk) 02:55, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep in addition to the small (but at least citable) Compute! article, it's listed on Amiga Magazine Rack, there's two reviews there but unfortunately they haven't been scanned so there's no text available to cite. The site itself specializes in Amiga, so the fact there's two reviews for a DOS game within the multi-platform magazines listed there means it's likely that PC specific mags will have reviewed it. Regardless, it is notable because it has been reviewed in multiple magazines from the time, it's just that none of them are currently scanned in ATM. Someoneanother 01:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep As with others above, I believe that this video game is highly likely to have sources that meet WP:N. That they would be print articles is not a reason to delete. Yes, this is a guess. But a darn safe one given the publisher. Hobit (talk) 13:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep All you Nazi editors are turning Wikipedia into a Crap-o-pedia. I loved Wikipedia a lot more before you all started changing it to fit your ideas of what should and shouldn't be included. Don't you realize you are just like the censors in China who decide what should and shouldn't be knowledge? This article is a important piece of gaming history, so leave it be. If you don't like its inclusion in Wikipedia, then go read some other Wikipedia article. This article doesn't require any third party sources. Just because a journalist writes a news article about a game doesn't make the source any more authoritative than an article by a kid who's played it for hundred's of hours. Wikipedia should include human KNOWLEDGE, and KNOWLEDGE should not be monopolized by those who have access to a printing press, people with high falooting credentials, or bloated reputations. Knowledge is stored in BRAINS, not INK. I do hold a PhD, and anyone with a similar degree should know how limited their knowledge really is. I could easily lend my credentials to third party article about this game, but why would I when I can just edit the Wikipedia article, although I don't anymore because of you Nazi censor editors. If a printing press is your source of knowledge, then your knowledge is very limited indeed. - RL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.95.159.226 (talk) 14:31, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• — 72.95.159.226 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• • Comment - firstly, calling people Nazis is offensive enough to invalidate whatever else you might have to say. Secondly, you might want to actually look at the article before insulting people - you'll find that the only person currently adding references to the page to help build the notability case is one of the people you've just attacked. Thirdly, Wikipedia articles require verifiable sources, and personal opinions (even from people with PhD's like yourself) are regrettably not enough to support them. Euryalus (talk) 22:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep & Tag refimprove - the ad hominems notwithstanding, I trust more reliable sources can still be recovered which would definitely move this from "barely passes the GNG" to solidly referenced. Considering potential, and both the age and the producer (despite the fact that notability isn't inherited) should warrant this one the benefit of the doubt, also per WP:PRESERVE. MLauba (talk) 16:16, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. I think just about enough evidence has already been presented above to show notability, and there are more potential sources found by Google Books, and Google Scholar searches. I also found this brief review in the Los Angeles Times and this article that cites it as a stage in the development of this genre. I don't read Hebrew, but this article would seem to give it a few paragraphs, and last (and least) the game's title seems to have inspired a couple of cricket journalists [3][4]. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:36, 17 March 2009 (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.