Wiki143:Articles for deletion/Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (second)

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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. — JIP | Talk 10:36, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Nominating as recreated material previously deleted in late October (see the previous discussion. Specualtion on a planned but cancelled expansion for the Command and Conquer franchise, based on a mass-emailing by a soon-later fired Electronic Arts employee. Saberwyn - 06:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination, but I will also support a merge, either to an appropriate target or somewhere else to prevent recreation until this theoretical game moves out of crystal-ball-dom and into the light. Saberwyn - 06:20, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• STRONG KEEP we have articles like the Montauk Project and the Philadelphia Experiment that are subject to speculation because information about them is bleak. This page has two sources citing the game which prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that it was at least considered for production. The fact that information on this article also happens to be bleak is no reason to delete it. TomStar81 06:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The two articles you have cited concern widespread urban legends surrounding two suspected U.S. military projects. These urban legends appear to have been somewhat heavily documented in widespread media, and appear to be on Wikipedia for just that, they are widespread, heavily documented urban legends.

By comparison, this article is about a real-time strategy game, and the two sources appear to cite the same email sent out by a member of the Electronic Arts. It has been a year since one of the articles used as a source was created, and as far as I know, no other word of Red Alert 3 has been made.

If EA announces tomorrow that this game is a reality, and is in production, I will happily withdraw my nomination for deletion. Until official word is given on this game, I believe that the article falls under the Wikipedia is not a crystal ball section of the What Wikipedia is not official policy. Saberwyn - 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete Correct; not a crystal ball. Flyboy Will 08:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per previous votes/analysis as crystal ball-ness. Nothing confirmed to actually be happening. I think that Predator 3, which actually has a movie database listing and is definitely starting, is more valid than this one, and yet that one was being deleted. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 08:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy delete as it appears to violate Criteria for Speedy Deletion G4 (no recreation of deleted material). I am getting terribly tired of people doing that. It shows very bad faith on their part. --FreelanceWizard 10:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, and speedy if it is really substantially identical. Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 14:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I did not recreate the deleted material. The original text of the page was, "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 was announced some time ago to subscribers of the Command & Conquer newsletter. No details are known at this time.".This was the original version I submitted. It has since been trimmed down to the current version. TomStar81 22:36, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. Fair enough; not having seen the original version of the page, I'll have to take your word on it, but I still think it needs to be deleted as per Saberwyn et al. --FreelanceWizard 22:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep; obviously a game article still in progress, could use some wikifying, is all.-MegamanZero 0:25 7,December 2005 (UTC)
• EXTRA STRONG KEEP I don't know why everyone is out the get this article. All the deletionism is obviously coming from people who have never played a damn Command & Conquer game. This game is always talked about through out the C&C community and is a very popular subject. Anyone looking for Wikipedia information about this game can get it here. This article CAN be improved, it can be cleaned up and expanded. Jareand 02:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. The article says "It was once supposed to be the next game in the Command & Conquer series, but has since been cancelled and the staff assigned to the project realocated to work on other projects." If this is true, the game does not and will not exist. Furthermore, on a user talk page, you stated that the game doesn't exist and the belief in its existence was based on an unauthorized e-mail sent by a now terminated employee (reference). I don't believe it's beneficial to Wikipedia to keep articles about cancelled games whose very existence in the first place is arguably high level rumour at best. I would argue that any information about this rumoured game could be easily merged into the main Command & Conquer article. If you really feel the article must be kept, I would argue it needs considerable expansion, which I'm not convinced can occur, given that all the information about the supposed game comes from, as far as I can tell, a single e-mail and rumourmongering by fans. As to why people are "out to get this article," since it was deleted once before with strong consensus, I think people would rather not see it come back. --FreelanceWizard 04:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep The game has been announced, and there was never an announcement it was cancelled. In any case, it would make sense to keep the page regardless of it's release. RA3 has captured the attention of many gamers in the same way as Command & Conquer: Tiberian Twilight.--Slavik81 14:45, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep The game was considered for production and making a reference to this would not be Wikipedia acting as a "Crystal Ball" Mrbowtie 20:12, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Gossip happens all the time; we don't need articles on every instance of it. --Apostrophe 04:14, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep the game was officially announced by newsletter and there has been no official word of its cancellation. It isn't gossip! The Fish 20:08, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Does that mean that every piece of vapourware on the planet now merits an article? - Just zis  Guy, you know? ^[T]/_[C] (W) AfD? 13:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
  • • Comment. No! To bring back my earlier point, this is popular among the C&C community (for a quite a while, not just since the E-mail last December). This isn't just some crackpot Wikipedian making crap up. Searching for Red Alert 3 in a search engine will get you a lot of results from well known C&C fansites (most which even have their own RA3 sections) such as here. Anyone looking for Red Alert 3 information would be able to and should be able to get the straight facts here. As for my reply on Mr. Slavik's talkpage, I meant that it has been cancelled for the time being, not indefinetly. EALA has promised to continue (and finish) the C&C universe sooner or later. Jareand 17:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. I endorse Saberwyn's reasoning in full. Also, Jareand, your point about "this is popular among the C&C community", well, so what? The point of an encyclopedia isn't to cater to fans' desire for details, it's to provide non-fans with the minimum of big-picture information they need to understand what's going on when they talk to a fan. Were there verifiable, reliable information about this non-game, which there appears not to be, it would still be no more than C&C trivia meriting at most a sentence in the main C&C article, not an article of its own. The Literate Engineer 02:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The point of an encyclopdia is to provide facts on various topics that may be of interest to the public; therefore since we can provide non-fans with the minimum of big-picture information they need to understand what's going on when they talk to a fan isn't it our responsibility to do so? Furthermore, the incesent attacks on this article all fail to take into account the fact that sources are being provided for this information. Its not like were making this up as we go along, there are valid sources to back up everything stated in the article. And again I point out that some of the articles maintained on this site are based nearly entirely on rumors and speculation. On top of that The Literate Engineer must not have read the article otherwise he would have noted the external links which do serve as sources for the presented material. If and when any of you can provide a valid reason for deleting this article I will change my vote; until then do us all a favor and keep your opinions to yourself. TomStar81 05:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Sources for speculation about vaporware, so what? The most this could deserve would be a single bullet point in Command & Conquer under the "Red Alert series" section, "Games in the series" subsection. Nothing more until (unless) it becomes a real game. When they show it at E3 or a box hits store shelves, then it can have an article. The Literate Engineer 20:45, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect. Move information to the page that's about the Red Alert series, have this page redirect to there. Move it back here later when it is officially announced. Atari2600tim 11:53, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete/Merge. Too much information about the circumstances, including about the employee being fired (which really has no real value to the topic at hand). Since the game is not even been announced officially, I would recommend to merge a little bit to the Command and Conquer Series thread. Just mention that it was in the works but no offical word as of yet.Tidus4Yuna

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.