Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/69,105

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 merge to Infocom. Sandstein 13:36, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

69,105

69,105 (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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An article about a recurring joke in video games developed by a company. Bulk of article is retelling of appearances in games. I redirected it before, but it was restored, because the main article Infocom doesn't mention it. Better through AfD I suppose. The WP:VG/RS custom Google search engine brings up zero results. "69,105", "69105", "69 105", etc., all nothing. Looking up 'in-joke', 'recurring joke' and 'Infocom', I get some more. And while "Self-Reflexivity and Humor in Adventure Games" or "Long Lost ‘Zork’ Source Code Uploaded to GitHub, But Few People Understand It" are interesting articles, nothing discusses the occurrence of the "69,105" in-joke. Frankly, I don't think it has to be mentioned at all at Infocom. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 06:07, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The lemma is from pre-Google times. A reference in literature is mentioned, I'd assume there are more out there given that Infocom was the leader of the pack. I do have some literature on the topic of adventures but I'm not going through it for an article that's being deleted later on. Kind regards, Grueslayer 07:26, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:24, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. Izno (talk) 14:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - Zero reason this even needs to be an article. This should have been deleted ages ago. Namcokid47 ^(Contribs) 21:47, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as WP:TRIVIA. This is worth maybe a sentence in an article about Infocom at its best. A redirect would be completely dubious. Red Phoenix ^talk 23:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:TRIVIA isn't a guideline for notability and so can't be used as a guideline for deletion. (It's a style guide) It even says "This guideline does not suggest the inclusion or exclusion of any information; it only gives style recommendations." - Whisperjanes (talk) 00:58, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think you were actually looking for WP:HTRIVIA, which isn't a guideline or policy. - Whisperjanes (talk) 01:09, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is certainly a valid reason for deletion when the whole article is trivia. We don’t have articles full of trivia and trivial subjects on Wikipedia. Red Phoenix ^talk 11:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • You mean, like Category:In-jokes, or Category:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with my personal highlight, List of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy characters? Kind regards, Grueslayer 13:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Categories aren’t articles, and you picked a very poor example in the Character list which has multiple tags for in-universe and original research. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Red Phoenix ^talk 13:55, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry for being vague. I listed those categories because they are full of articles that are full of trivia and trivial subjects. Kind regards, Grueslayer 17:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge a line or two to Infocom. Otherwise, delete. BD2412 T 03:33, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, or if not, Merge with Easter egg (media) and/or Infocom. Easter eggs / phenomenon like this in early computer games can sometimes have an impact (however small) on games / game history (similar to Xyzzy). This came from one of the most well known and influential text adventures - Zork. Yes, I do agree this isn't an incredibly notable topic just by looking at it. But I was able to find at least one significant source on it: A passage analyzing it in the book Twisty Little Passages, and one small mention [1]. There are many passing mentions of it online (although these are not "significant"): [2][3][4][5][6] The fact that it has been analyzed and been reused / mentioned in many other games since Zork makes me feel it is notable enough, at least to be kept somewhere on Wikipedia.
  Grueslayer makes a good point too - there is a lot of literature out there about early computer games & text adventures, but 69,105 / Zork emerged in the late 1970s, early 1980s, so the fact that it is not easily found on a Google search isn't that surprising to me, regardless of notability. For any subjects that came before the 1990s or 1980s (especially in more niche topics or from the early history of a topic), I don't feel like a Google WP:BEFORE test is always sufficient for determining notability. - Whisperjanes (talk) 05:26, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Whisperjanes, thanks for taking the time to reply. This sounds a lot like WP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES. I agree that the Twisty Little Passages is significant, but the Geektionary is already trivial at best ("The number 69,105 is a running gag in the ZORK games, appearing in many locations. Geek humor, what are you gonna do?"). The rest are, like you said, passing mentions, sometimes not even connecting it to Infocom / Zork ("Finally, I wanted people who wouldn't just be repeating that story about (...) that Jay Wright Forrester book for 69,105th time"). This doesn't meet WP:GNG in the slightest, in my opinion. soetermans. ^{↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK} 06:56, 3 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Soetermans, Thanks for also taking the time to reply :) I didn't mean for it to sound like WP:THEREMUSTBESOURCES - I wasn't insisting that there are other sources out there, but my point is just that it is harder to find sources online on pre-WWW topics. WP:BEFORE isn't a perfect process for older topics, but we have to work with what we have. Bringing it up was my attempt at giving notice to editors that it might be harder to find sources, in a hope that others will read it and dig a little deeper than usual. But on second thought (and seeing as no one has come forward with any others sources that are significant), I think merging it (as others have suggested, with maybe a one to a few lines with sources) is about all that can be done, especially since the article seems to be made with so much original research and primary sources. - Whisperjanes (talk) 00:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete as WP:OR. It's possible a good amount of this article is wrong as it can't be verified. I'm wary of redirecting it if one editor is just going to override consensus, but I defer to the consensus if a redirect is still appropriate. Jontesta (talk) 19:09, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete due to the clearly bad sourcing. I'd probably gone with merge, but I don't see the point if it will just be reversed like it was already. Plus, merging would still require sources to back up whatever is merged. Which the topic doesn't seem to have. --Adamant1 (talk) 21:49, 9 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to the Infocom article. There's enough instances and okay-ish background to merit a mention in context,but that stuff ain't worth an article - especially not with that sourcing. BTW, danger of reversion isn't really an issue; an AfD merge outcome is just as good an argument to undo those as it is to speedy an article recreation after a delete outcome. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:45, 11 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - we are not a web host for insider jokes, nor do we publish original research. Bearian (talk) 01:03, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Lacks significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent sources. (?) Would be trivia if merged to the Infocom article. czar 04:07, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge Not sufficient independant coverage to warrant it's own separate article. -Kj cheetham (talk) 07:40, 17 July 2020 (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.