Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Classes in World of Warcraft (2nd nomination)

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, defaulting to keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 02:35, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Classes in World of Warcraft

Glorified game guide page, sourced from a game guide, manuals, and a fan wiki. There is no real world relevance here. At best, merge the little table at the bottom into the main WoW article. Wikipedia is not a game guide or indiscriminate collection of information. Wafulz 23:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep But attack with scissors. I think lists like this, in moderation and well pruned are good and encyclopedic. They're not their own article, they're List Of articles, which is, IMO the ideal existance. On a side note, the community needs to determine what in fiction deserves their own articles, as a sub article. And that should not be AfD. i ^said 00:56, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe this article can be salvaged. At best, the list's real world content would be limited to "These are the classes, and these are the races that can use them". This is summed up in the table.-Wafulz 01:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to World of Warcraft. 132.205.44.5 02:17, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per not game guide. List of units from <game> serves no purpose other than as a game guide Corpx 04:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep "While Wikipedia has descriptions of people, places, and things, Wikipedia articles should not include instructions, advice (legal, medical, or otherwise) or suggestions, or contain "how-to"s. This includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes." This article doesn't include instructions, advice or suggestions - just factual information - so there there are no rules against it. Wikipedia may not be an indiscriminate collection of information, but this doesn't come under any of the categories mentioned in that rule either, so that is not justification for deletion. One rule that may be relevant is the common sense one. There are many people who feel this is worthy of article status - just look at the edit history and the previous AfD - so why should we get rid of it? As I have shown it is not against any specific policy, the only argument is to whether the information is important or not and there are many who think it is. Of course the article may still require some clean up, but there are several people working to improve the quality of the article and progress is being made. Raoul 10:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

this includes tutorials, walk-throughs, instruction manuals, game guides, and recipes. How is this anything but a game guide? It's a list of classes, with no possible real-world value, and it serves only to detail the classes and their abilities. Similar articles have been deleted before.-Wafulz 13:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a game guide because a game guide contains instructions, advice, suggestions or "how-to"s, as stated in the quote I gave. WP:NOT clearly says that it is these things which are forbidden, not information about games. As the articles are deleted I can't see how similar they actually are, but it could be that the wrong choice was made at the time anyway. Raoul 14:46, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Game guide, video game manual, tomato, tomahto- the video game wikiproject guideline says to avoid these articles since their utility to non-gamers is extremely limited. The articles that were deleted were basically the exact same as this (you can check the various mirrors/Google caches). There's also the issue of sourcing: if your sources consist of video game guides, the creator, and fan sites/strategy links, then you're essentially creating a derivative game guide/manual. Any way you go about it, this article is just a game guide or an extended manual, and outside of WoW, it has no real-world relevance.-Wafulz 14:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Surely no article has any relevance outside of its subject? I actually first read this article (or the separate articles that existed back then anyway) about a week before I bought the game and it played a role in deciding whether to get it or not. I could, of course, have looked somewhere else, but the idea that the article is only of interest to people who own the game (which, incidentally, the rule of thumb given in the link you provided) isn't actually true. The link given says "While saying that a character can jump, punch, and pound the ground is OK, explaining how to execute them using the controller is not". This article is the equivalent of saying that you can jump, punch, etc., not the equivalent of saying which buttons to press. The link also says "Basic strategy concepts are often essential to the understanding of a game, but avoid in-depth explanations". This article doesn't even go as far as that; it sticks clear of all mention of any strategy concepts (unless it was recently edited and the edit is not yet reverted). I admit the guidelines are a bit fuzzy on what can be included or not, so an argument could be made that this is not notable, but I don't think this article violates any specific policies, so as there are plenty of people who want it kept I don't see why it should be deleted. If it obviously violated a policy then that would be different, but I don't think it does. If you can point out any sections which violate specific policies then I will be glad to edit them to resolve the issue. And again I don't think articles previously having been deleted is a valid argument. Many things have been done before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they should be done again. Raoul 15:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment In my opinion, the biggest problem with the article are the sources. I doubt WowWiki is a reliable source. I could see how worldofwarcraft.com could be a reliable source, but the pages at worldofcraft.com say "Game Guide"[1]. They also say "Game Info" though and I don't think this is really a strategy guide. It could be said that the videogame itself is the primary source, although articles really should have secondary sources. I'm not quite sure it qualfifies as a how-to guide though. It's hard for me to tell the difference between this article and List of Hobbits or Characters in The Sword of Truth. They're all lists of fantasy characters, although The Sword of Truth and Lord of the Rings are book series and World of Warcraft is a videogame (which also has fantasy books written about it). Characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy appear to have real world relevance and the number of subscribers to World of Warcraft seem to indicate these characters have real world relevance. This article seems similar to Character class (Dungeons & Dragons). There are other gaming wikis mentioned in WP:CVG/GL that the information can be moved to. Right now, it looks to me like this article is descriptive, and is not a walkthrough or instruction manual telling people how to beat a videogame. --Pixelface 23:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your overall opinion and that WoWWiki is an unreliable source which should not be used as a source. However I don't see the problem in referencing the game guide section of the World of Warcraft website. The official website is deemed a reliable source for the main WoW article and this specific section of the website should be just as reliable as the other sections referenced. Referencing a game guide doesn't make this article one. Raoul 15:57, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, Wikipedia is not a game guide. JIP | Talk 10:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per my comment above. This article looks too long for the World of Warcraft article and this article looks merely descriptive, not like a walkthrough. I do suggest that the WoWWiki sources be replaced with other ones though. --Pixelface 18:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete this is a game guide article, it is cruft, merely describing game details. There is not attempt to convey encyclopedic information. WP:NOT#GUIDE. Pete.Hurd 22:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep But shorten it a lot (again) to remove all that is not a basic description of each class's lore and gameplay. I was planning to do it but since an AfD started, I'm not sure pruning the article would be appropriate. The problem of this article is that many editors think it must be extensive. For the "Real world relevance", I don't think this is a concern here (after all, there is a lot of acceptable articles on virtual worlds lore that were kept. I know that WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, but I hope you see my point). I agree though that wowwiki might be a problem as a source since it is a wiki (I was wondering lately if linking to permalinks would help), but sourcing applies to material that is likely to be challenged (see WP:V), not ingame mechanics IMHO. -- lucasbfr ^talk 08:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep there we go again... World of Warcraft is unquestionably a notable game, so there's no need to have only basic coverage of the classes. m:Wiki is not paper, and we try to include as much as possible relevant information about notable subjects, there's no reason not to do that when the subject happens to be fictional. Melsaran (talk) 13:44, 7 September 2007 (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.