Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/CSI (pinball)

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. (non-admin closure) Logan _Talk ^{Contributions} 07:04, 17 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CSI (pinball)

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This AfD is for about a dozen articles on various themed pinball game variations manufactured by Stern (game company) (see below for full list). None of these pinball games have received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and therefore are not notable. These articles are purely promotional fancruft, and should be deleted. The articles which are nominated for deletion are:

- SnottyWong ^squeal 19:16, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom. --みんな空の下 (トーク | I wanna chAngE!) 19:34, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep a pinball title is roughly the quivalent of a video game in terms of notability, and we generally don't delete those. The nomination of the CSI machine is especially strange, since it's a Pat Lawlor design. There are definitely reliable sources that cover pinball, including more than a few books with coverage of individual machines. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 19:38, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Can you point us to some of these reliable sources which pass WP:GNG, or add them to the article(s)? Otherwise, your !vote is just WP:ITSNOTABLE. If Pat Lawlor is notable, perhaps some of these can be merged to his article. SnottyWong ^{spill the beans} 21:43, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Sure. The Pinball Compendium 1983 to Present (ISBN 0764323008) should cover all of these up through 2005, and indeed the Elvis one is even pictured on the cover twice! For a good overview of modern pinball, Stern and Lawlor, check out TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 23:33, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Don't forget ISBN 9780321643377, which discusses RollerCoaster Tycoon in several places throughout the book, including the fact that it has no victory condition. (c.f. Unwinnable (AfD discussion)) Uncle G (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - I've never read that book, but it sounds like it might be about the video game rather than the pinball. Pinballs usually don't have victory conditions aside from jackpots and free games. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 01:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        It's in the introductory chapter of the book that it says that particular thing, where it's talking about various different kinds of games, so it's unclear at first blush. Uncle G (talk) 02:33, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Ah, I see. Interesting. Well then there's another potential source. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:04, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        I had a quick look for (other) sources on The Lord of the Rings, because that sounded interesting. I found a small number of sources that mention that, yes, a pinball machine existed. (Although one, ISBN 9781843532750, mentions a 1977 LoTR pinball machine made by Atari, rather than the one described in the article at hand.) I haven't found anything yet that documents the machine in depth. They're mainly mentions in discussions of all of the LoTR games taken together (and thus probably good sources for Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien#Games). Uncle G (talk) 03:17, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the pinball compendium or any of these other sources that you mention? There doesn't appear to be a way to access them online, and therefore I can't be sure if any of those books discuss any of these games in a significant way. In other words, does the pinball compendium just list stats of these games, like who designed them, when they were released, who designed the sounds, how many bumpers it had, how many were sold, etc. Or, does it actually discuss the impact these particular games had on the industry, other games they may have inspired or been inspired by, unique features they debuted, etc.? In other words, are they just sources of information or do they actually provide the significant coverage required to establish notability?

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 00:20, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete All: Err ... "potential sources" is not a valid ground to Keep. It's the responsibility of Keep proponents not to infer that sources might exist, but to provide multiple sources which discuss the subject in "significant detail." Mere mention of a pinball game's existence doesn't cut it, nor does a single couple-paragraph entry in an omnibus publication. Ravenswing 19:23, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep ... for now. As the author of the aforementioned stubs, I believe that I should explain the perspective from which I come in creating these pages.

First, please allow me to clarify that these are most certainly not WP:ADVERTs. I not only have no financial connection to Stern, but I have also created about 100 other pinball articles by other manufacturers, worked on the topic in general, and was an editor of Wikipedia long before I started doing any of the above. If you need further evidence I can provide it, but I would certainly appreciate it if others would assume good faith.

Next then: are they fancruft? I can't speak objectively enough to answer that. What I can say is that I chose to focus a lot of my attention on pinball articles since it is an area in which I can provide subject expertise. But that does not mean that I'm putting my interests ahead of the goals of Wikipedia. In any event, I think it better to look at the potential reasons for deletion.

Getting to those reasons, then, I agree that the question of reliable sources is a valid concern. I have been trying to get time to work out a set of criteria for what constitutes a valid pinball machine article, including what constitutes a reliable source. I know that the Internet Movie Database is not considered reliable, but the IPDB does state that their information is from multiple-source research with editorial control. And I can tell you that within the field, the IPDB is very-well respected: I've never heard anyone in the field speak ill of them, nor even point out a single error.

Now, there are other encyclopedic pinball sites, some of which I list on some of the individual machine pages, but most of them (from what I know) port their information over from IPDB. So even if we could them as a reliable source, that is still only one. (Can an argument be made for Pinball News? Siding probably with no, but only really considering the question for the first time right now.)

Moving to the print world, there is one current industry magazine, and there have been others. I've only ever much looked at the former, but from what I remember of it, there should be enough both information and professional editorial control to count it in.

So I'm not of the opinion that reliable sources is a problem. What I am more concerned about is notability. There are more than 5,000 known pinball machines. I highly doubt that they are all worthy of inclusion, but I also highly doubt that none of them are either. One thing that I have been able to do is to poke around some related WikiProjects for some guidelines that I can use, but I have yet to find anything consistent.

What I would really like to see is a consensus guideline developed so that we can reduce the possibility of having to consider future deletions. To that end, I would like to ask that these articles be kept just for now, so that we can get more voices in here who have worked in enough related areas to come up with a consensus that is consistent with editing practices in other topic areas. I do apologize, as this is something I was working towards as it was, but since this AfD sort of beat me to it, I'd like the opportunity now to step back and discuss this with editors from other areas to come up with a set of more clear guidelines for the future. Thank you, Fractalchez (talk) 18:16, 1 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that IPDB would probably pass as a reliable source for information about these different pinball games (ask at WP:RSN if you want to be sure), but it wouldn't qualify as a source which establishes the notability of the game. As far as I can tell, it just lists statistics about each pinball game. If you're aware of specific articles in the other magazines you noted which establish the notability of any or all of the games nominated here for deletion, I'd suggest adding them to the articles and/or presenting them here. SnottyWong ^comment 16:29, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I checked, and for all of the above cases, there exists at least one article on Pinball News (linked here), and at least one article from the PinGame Journal (archived but not accessible here): in some cases more than one. Now in turn, let me also point out one caveat to this notability: right now Stern is the only remaining pinball manufacturer, meaning that just about every new machine that comes out gets attention by default.

So again, trying to step outside my interest and being as objective as I can, I'm not certain that even these two links establish sufficient notability. But it does seem, just estimating on the fly (short on time, will do more research on this in a day or two) that this level of notability matches the required level to meet in other interests, especially gaming/entertainment. But I'm really guessing on memory right now: will come back to this. Fractalchez (talk) 18:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So I was worried that being really busy that I would come back here and discover the AfD passed. Glad to see that wasn't the case, as I don't think that at least these articles qualify, just yet anyway.

I'm going to reiterate my previous suggestion: keep them for now, and work to create a set of community guidelines that will give solid criteria for which articles should be kept and which deleted. Here's the thing: even if the above are kept, judging by the results of this discussion, there are a lot that would rightly be deleted, so taking this approach doesn't necessarily mean that articles which should be deleted won't eventually be. I hate suggesting a "punt" like this, but this does seem a difficult call, and I would rather see us have the time necessary toward making the right one. Thanks, Fractalchez (talk) 18:02, 11 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tending towards delete a pinball game is definitely not as notable as a video game. Even flops in video game industry have higher sells than moderately successful pinball ones, and possibly even more players. Nergaal (talk) 07:10, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that if we want to use related articles for comparison, it might be more accurate to use arcade games than home video games (arcades ... remember those?). The number of players is far higher than the number of machines sold, since games on location can be easily played by thousands of unique people. But that seems a comparison of limited use, since most arcade games eventually become home system games, whereas most pinball machines don't (it's only starting to become a trend to make video reproductions of actual pinball machines instead of unique creations, but most games still don't have any equivalent video port).

On the other hand, simple production numbers themselves don't tell the whole story, since the older a machine is, the more likely it is in such disrepair as to effectively not exist anymore. Many games from, say, the 60s had respectable production runs, but you'd be challenged to find even one you can play publicly any more: most are now in the hands of private collectors. Most games from the last 5 years, though, aren't. So I honestly don't know where that all leaves us. Fractalchez (talk) 17:58, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Courcelles 16:57, 6 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

weak/IAR keep I think we've got a good faith editor who is working hard at sourcing these. Give it a few months and then come back, I think they have a chance. And yes, I'm well aware that WP:BITE isn't an inclusion guideline, thus the IAR... Hobit (talk) 02:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Also Starblind's sources may be enough, I don't know and he seems an expert in the area. Hobit (talk) 15:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Per Hobit. Gage (talk) 02:38, 17 January 2011 (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.