Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/The Game (mind game)/1

The Game (mind game)[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review

Result: Delisted per the consensus that the article is not of GA quality, specifically in the quality of the prose and the sourcing. BlueMoonset (talk) 01:36, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The GA assessment didn't seem to examine the sources. They are basically not reliable sources. Most of them are not independent, but dependent centrally on one person, Jonty Haywood, the perpetrator of the Porthemmet Beach hoax, who was also a contributor to the page under the name, Kernow, including taking the picture of the toilet!

The following are the sources used in the article. 1. Daily Nebraskan: a student newspaper. 2. De Pers: based on an interview with Haywood. 3. Metro (1): a short snippet that refers to Haywood's website. 4. Rutland Herald: an article that refers to Haywood's website. 5. Canadian Press: quotes Haywood. 6. LA Loyolan: a student newspaper. Refers to Haywood's website. 7. xkcd: a comic. 8. Cory Antiel: Apparently a student essay. Apparently Antiel is a puppeteer. Hosted by Haywood's website. 9. Metro (2): quotes Haywood. 10. KC Star: refers to Haywood's website. 11. Petition: signed by Haywood and no one else!!! 12. Kevin Rudd email. Hosted by Haywood's website. A non-notable prank. 13. Daily Globe: refers to Haywood's website. 14. "The Game (I lost!)": a blog on a site called arseburgers.co.uk. 15. Tolstoy: no direct connection. 16. Dostoyevsky: no direct connection. 17. Wikinews: an interview with Haywood. 18. SBMC: a comic. 19. RealLife Comics: a comic. 20. Youtube. 21. Youtube. 22. Twitter. 23. Facebook. 24. TechCrunch: report of 4chan prank. Doesn't explain what "the game" is. 25. ABC News: blog, page unavailable.

The reviewer of the GA review indicated that they were "playing" the Game, and hence were not independent, as did contributors in the recent AfD. The whole article shows a lack of independence from the topic. Many of the claims made in the article are nonsensical. Considering what some article struggle through it is bizarre that this is named a good article.--Jack Upland (talk) 09:03, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was the person who nominated the article for GA and rewrote almost all of it, so I do not feel like I'm entitled to a vote on whether the article should remain a GA or not, but I would like to point out several things, especially since I was invited to comment here:
- Despite Upland's apparent assertion that many of the sources are unreliable because they mention Haywood, this is not the case. Haywood has created a site based on The Game and attempted to popularise it; this would be the equivalent of claiming a source on rock-paper-scissors is unreliable because it contains a quote from someone who wrote a book on the subject. Everyone except Upland at this recent AfD voted "Keep" because the subject passed GNG and had reliable sources (except one user who declined to provide a reason for voting Keep)—essentially, that it met WP:GACR#2 (albeit perhaps not that rigorously, because AfD has lower standards than GAN).
- The picture of the toilet is mostly decorative and Kernow has not edited the page since 2010, twice to revert vandalism, once to fix a reference title and once to remove unsourced information.
- Reference #25 has now been archived; again, it's a report of the 4chan prank and only used to source the fact that "also the game" appeared at the end of the prank.
- The idea that someone has a "lack of independence from the topic" because they "were "playing the Game" is like saying a human cannot review Homo sapiens or a professional statistician cannot review Normal distribution, and no-one who has ever played the game could review Snakes and Ladders.
- "Many of the claims made in the article are nonsensical" is an unsubstantiated assertion here, but Upland has written similar claims here, which may explain what he (I assume Jack is male) is trying to say. — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 11:29, 12 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think any of those analogies are relevant. Even if you ignore the linkage with Haywood, most of the sources are far from reliable sources. And the heavy involvement of Haywood is relevant because reliable sources are supposed to be independent and non-promotional. This also raises the issue of verifiability, because all the sources verify is that Haywood has made these claims. To take one extreme example, the article says: "More unusual strategies involve legislation: petitions in Britain trying to pass laws involving The Game have been created." Really??? No. Not really. The source is one petition by one person (Haywood) that was immediately rejected.--Jack Upland (talk) 04:10, 15 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You're mistaken if you think Haywood invented this or is hoaxing, despite his previous form. A journalist at The Next Web wrote that he first learned of The Game in the late 90s at school and the first known web mention in 2004 pre-dates Haywood's interest. Although losethegame dot com has been blacklisted from Wikipedia due to Haywood's own initial behaviour and others trying to paste it into random articles to make people lose, his FAQ is a good guide to the origins. I find the game intriguing as an example of a game that breaks the rules of game theory and so I helped him research some of the history (by email, I don't know him), e.g. Conway's Endgame in which a player agreeing to play automatically loses, as I knew this kind of original research wasn't suitable for Wikipedia. This said, I am surprised this passed a GA review even though the topic is clearly notable as the writing is patchy and the sourcing could be improved - I say this having contributed myself. People seem to hate this subject as it is frivolous and the game oftens involves tricking people, but we also cover many other frivolous topics. Fences&Windows 14:49, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for being honest about that. I believe you are telling the truth, but actually there is no way for me or any other editor to know that. You might even be Haywood, or Haywood might be continuing to edit under another name. That's one of the problems with the article. It isn't genuinely verifiable. And it's not independent. Regardless of whether Haywood originated the game or is still editing this page, he is fundamentally bound up with the game and this article. Paul Taylor who is cited as the earliest known source for the game also edited it. And what you say only confirms to me my opinion that this article (in its current form) is a hoax. When you say Haywood is not hoaxing, do you think his petition was genuine? It would be different if the game was mentioned in the context of game theory. Arguing the game is a real game is like arguing that Pastafarianism is a genuine religion. But this article has passed the AfD. This is about the GA status. As you say, it is surprising. This leads me to be concerned that some editors are promoting this as an in-joke ("in-joke" is even one of the article's categories).--Jack Upland (talk) 19:29, 14 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"You might even be Haywood". You might even be paranoid - a near-decade old account, an admin, and you think I'm a sockpuppet? Of course people play this, was The Next Web journalist lying when he claimed to have played this since the late 90s? There's no point discussing this topic with you, you have an irrational hatred of it. Fences&Windows 21:04, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, I accepted you were being honest. My point is hypothetical, and I apologise if you didn't understand that. There is no way to ascertain the truth of almost all the assertions made in the article. We need to take it on trust. As I said before, I don't think anyone actually plays the game. If they did, the best strategy would be to forget about it. Certainly they wouldn't write an article about (or comment here). The fact that people continually say they are playing the game when this is manifestly not true, just indicates the slippery grasp on truth that is a central tenet of this article. You didn't answer my question about Haywood's petition. Do you think it was genuine?--Jack Upland (talk) 21:57, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the petition sentence because it was utter garbage and it looks like something I only wrote because I thought the article was a bit on the short side (although ~16K bytes is by no means the shortest GA I've seen). And while I was there I removed the Kevin Rudd letter, which I still believe is genuine but no longer think is of particular significance.

I think your Pastafarianism comparison is reasonable, but while adherents of serious religions like Islam or Sikhism would have a right to complain if Pastafarianism was treated like a normal religion, a game (according to our article on the subject) is just "structured form of play, usually undertaken for enjoyment". And that's all The Game is—a form of entertainment with a coherent if bizarre set of rules. It doesn't need to be sold as a product, have an official organisation in charge of it or follow any other rigorous conditions to be called a game. No chess player or advocate of solitaire will be offended if we use the term "game" to describe The Game; games are accepted as being almost by definition trivial and unimportant. The idea that the fact this article exists contradicts the premise that people play The Game makes no sense to me and the article does say "Strategies focus on making others lose The Game." (As I was told so often when I was younger, the aim of a game is not to win but to have fun. I might have a game with chess on a friend and go easy on them, but that doesn't mean I'm not still playing a game of chess. I might lose The Game on purpose while describing it to someone but that doesn't mean I'm not playing it.) — Bilorv_(talk)^(c)(e) 22:51, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your edits and your thoughtful comments. I think I will let you have the last word in that argument. On reflection, I think we are straying off the topic in this discussion. The article has passed a AfD. This is supposed to be a GA review. Fences and windows above has agreed with me that the GA status is surprising. I think we need input from uninvolved editors at this point.--Jack Upland (talk) 01:14, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I went to the talk page of the article after seeing the GA icon specifically to see if there were talks of a reassessment. Just using the eye-test, the fact this is a GA seems pretty ridiculous and devalues actual good articles. How did this ever pass? Lizard (talk) 23:21, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delist: This article will take heavily rewording and overall editing to fall under into the GA criteria, specifically 1a, 2b and 3b. The reception is disjointed and the "Several celebrities know about The Game" paragraph is worded horribly. Many of the references all over the article come from unreliable sources, such as Twitter, YouTube, Wikinews, etc. (It easily passes WP:GNG, though). Anarchyte (work | talk) 11:22, 8 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]