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 delete. Cirt (talk) 12:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Guardian Units of Nations[edit]

Guardian Units of Nations (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article still doesn't establish notability independent of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, despite the fact that people claimed it was going to be worked on. Without coverage in reliable third party sources, this is just made up of unnecessary plot summary and original research. TTN (talk) 20:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With some work, this can become a decent article, we just need some good editors who are available, and can dig up reliable, and relevant info. I say give it some time, and if it doesn't im prove, merge into the other article. With notice. _Skeletal SLJCOAAATR ^Soulsor 20:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the two months since the last AfD, only a sentence and a inter-wiki link have added to it. That is plenty of time to at least assert the notability that was claimed to exist in the last AfD. TTN (talk) 20:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletions. TTN (talk) 20:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• The last AfD was two months ago, enough time for editors who are available to dig up reliable and relevant info. But that didn't happen, so that argument is void. Outside that, there are no sources to indicate notability. Therefore, the article should be merged, probably to Sonic the Hedgehog (series), unless a better target is found. seresin ( ¡? )  20:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: per Wikipedia:Five pillars. Article needs a bit of work but it can become a good one with time. I can get you a reception section with third party refs easy. I'll use a fan forum to see what fans think of the organization. You can't get more official than getting it straight from the horses mouth.Fairfieldfencer FFF 20:46, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: if that's the best you can do, then we unfortunately have to delete, because the article will still fail WP:N and WP:V. Fan forums fail our WP:VERIFIABILITY policy on self-published sources. Randomran (talk) 23:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - no independent reliable sources. Fan forums are not reliable sources. Otto4711 (talk) 21:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reply: They are if it's the reception from the fans themselves it's sourcing. There is also some new information in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, which was made by BioWare who were involved in the development and wrote the story. Making the game a third-party reference since it wasn't done directly by SEGA.Fairfieldfencer FFF 21:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Forums are not reliable sources for anything, and a video game is a primary source. Try again. seresin ( ¡? )  21:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even if the game is written by someone entirely different it still counts as a primary source? I thought it was only a primary if it came from SEGA.Fairfieldfencer FFF 21:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Forum postings are not primary sources, but rather they fall under self-published sources; nonetheless, they are generally not accepted as verifiable. MuZemike (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge but also favour delete. I for once agree whole-heartedly with TTN's actions. His merge was reasonable given the notability, plot repetion game guide problems, but reverted by certain other editor with who has made cleanup awkward on more than one occassion, who in this instance has utterly failed to assume good faith, instead threatening to tell an admin he knows. Six months has been more than enough time to try to dig up sources and prove notability, and the best that can be presented is "a fan forum to see what fans think of the organisation", which by its very nature automatically fails WP:V, WP:SPS and WP:RS. Forums are rarely reliable sources for anything, and certainly are not in this case. Development and reception information should come from reliable, secondary sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and based on the amount of work actually given to the article after the previous AfD, I'm inclined to believe such sources do not exist.-- Sabre (talk) 22:01, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply:I don't understand the forum thing. If a person wants to know what fans think of a certain character you ask them instead of somebody who only played the game with no real interest in anything but his paycheck.Fairfieldfencer FFF 22:07, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Allowing fan response by directly sourcing self-published forums opens too many doors for gaming the system and can become original research. A third-party source that accesses the fan reaction is what is needed to make the fan reaction appropriate for WP. --MASEM 22:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is no editorial oversight on a forum, no established credibility to any of the members, no way of being assured information is accurate, compared to say, magazines and journal articles. It may also be misrepresentative: I've often seen it said that forums only ever account for a small vocal minority of fans. From this perspective, the fans of a game aren't relevant unless something like a magazine or journal article comments on them. Its sort of (crudely) like asking Steven Hawking and Joe the toilet cleaner from Glasgow about their views on life, the universe and everything: Hawking has credibility and would be considered reliable, plus he has coverage in other sources with credibility. Joe, however, is not considerer reliable, and certainly is not considered an expert in the field. -- Sabre (talk) 22:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Despite adequate time given, the article still lacks verification by reliable sources. That aside, the key point is that no reliable sources gave this subject substantial coverage, thus the subject fails general notability. Jappalang (talk) 22:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete Nobody is expecting this to become a featured article over night. But this has had months and months to find a significant amount of coverage in reliable third-party sources. It's not a lot to ask, and yet none can be found. It's reasonable to conclude that the article inherently fails WP:N (and WP:V too) due to a lack of reliable third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep or at the very least Merge. This article is more than able to hold it's own. I honestly think notability can be asserted if you just find the poor bastard who cares enough to look for it. It seems prevalent enough within the series. I don't approve at all of using fan forums to establish merit, however.--Koji† 00:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot of us did care enough to look for it, and concluded it's just not happening. Randomran (talk) 00:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep and Discuss the merge We have a way of dealing with contested merges--its dispute resolution, not AfD. Whatever I think of the merits of the merge, this is not the place to say it. If a merge is proposed and does not gain consensus, wither accept a loss gracefully--it's inevitable to be overruled some of the time--or take it to the various steps of DR. The remedy is not to delete the article--that's what neither side wanted. If the question is between a merge and separate full articles, and there's no consensus to reduce it from a full article, there should certainly be none to delete it. I can see this extended--if there's a dispute over article contents, just delete it. Actually, at times various pov pushers such as people involved in disputes over ethnical-related articles, not being able to get their own way, have then tried to delete the article, generally with very little success. . Subjects of bios try that also, and have even sometimes succeeded. This is exactly analogous; if one cannot get the material down to the size one wants, delete it. This way, a person in any subject field might get any articles they want merged: threaten to try to delete them and people may lack courage or self-confidence, and feel that even a destructive merge might be preferable. A combination of POINT and OWN and ASK THE OHER PARENT-- in this case, OWNing not an article, but an entire range of topics. "do it my way, or I'll break up the game" DGG (talk) 03:07, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment:I'd just like to point out while the article's original AFD was months ago, no one actually tried to mkae it better.Fairfieldfencer FFF 08:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per WP:NOEFFORT. Too soon for another nomination. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:54, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It's not like we haven't tried to fix this article's fundamental problem. There are lots of people who cared enough to look for reliable third-party sources, and concluded that there are none. Randomran (talk) 18:33, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge/redirect/delete/userfy. Enough time has been given to provide proof that this article is worth staying around, but this chance was not taken, likely because it's impossible. If I knew that one of my favorite articles was savable, why would I devote huge amounts of time to complain about not having had enough time and point to unreliable sources, instead of devoting this time to find and present reliable sources to prove the nom wrong? – sgeureka ^t•c 10:20, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment:GUN a favourite? These guys are the standard badass army that shoot first and ask questions later. No one is likely to be a fan of GUN. Therefore, no one would devote their time to it. I will make it a top priority for the Sonic Task Force to find additional references on this article. I might even start making newsletters to send out to the members.Fairfieldfencer FFF 16:09, 1 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Sonic clutter/cruft at best. No sources show it's notable. Wikipedia simply isn't the guide to everything that Sonic fans "think" is notable. Put on a Sonic wiki (if it's not there already). RobJ1981 (talk) 02:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Users interested in making this article WAF-compliant can have it userfied. Until then, I don't see a need for an article that's about one-half redundant plot summary, one-third blatant violations of WP:VGSCOPE (the "GUN Army" and "Bases" sections) and the remainder exceedingly minor details. Nifboy (talk) 03:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Especially after Fairfieldfencer's comments on the matter here, which effectively resulted in him shooting himself in the foot I'll point out. The article hasn't been improved in some time, and if coverage were to exist it would have been added by now. This article is actually very difficult to read, very much unsourced, and no sources for citations in reliable material seem to be coming up in any searches.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 06:39, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply: I haven't shot myself in the foot. I'm pointing out that no one cares enough about this article to work on it. Keep the article and I'll have the Sonic Task Force at WikiProject:Sega fix up the article and search for sources.Fairfieldfencer FFF 07:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete: Aside from the fact that yet another Sonic article has not been worked on for a long time after being identified as significantly poor, notability has not been established; I cannot see this ever establishing notability or having enough independent, reliable sources for verifiability. SynergyBlades (talk) 01:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep:Seems pretty notable but needs references.Nintendofootball (talk) 17:25, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • People have known this needs appropriate references for months. They haven't found any. It's reasonable to conclude it's not notable. Randomran (talk) 18:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply: I don't think anybody has actually worked on the article. There hasn't been many edits on it at all. If you work on an article you add information the moment you find it and no edits like that have been made. I say no one has bothered to help the article. If you decide to keep I'll have an entire task force seek out refs.Fairfieldfencer FFF 08:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - I'm using WP:Writing about fiction guidelines. As far as I can tell, the only out-of-universe context the article has to offer is which games the group has appeared in. This can be included in the plot synopsis of those games. GUN itself hasn't been the subject of significant, reliable coverage. Marasmusine (talk) 18:32, 4 November 2008 (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.