Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Counter-Strike maps

Counter-Strike maps

Wikipedia is not a strategy guide. This article is about Counter-Strike maps, how to make them, and how to play them. It is not suitable for Wikipedia. Counter-Strike has spawned a heap of cruft, and here it all is. The following articles are also included in this AFD nomination:

• List of Counter-Strike maps and its redirect - as above.
• Custom Counter-Strike maps - as above. Contains a number of vanity images that will need to be deleted.
• Surfing (Counter-Strike) - how-to CS game technique

Terrifyingly, there are also a heap of articles on individual maps. All these must also be deleted (closing admin, if deleted, note each has images of the maps also, which will need to be deleted as fair use will expire):

• Cs_747
• Cs_assault
• Cs_backalley
• Cs_compound
• Cs_estate
• Cs_havana
• Cs_italy
• Cs_militia
• Cs_office
• Cs_siege
• De_aztec
• De_cbble
• De_chateau
• De_dust
• De_dust2
• De_inferno
• De_nuke
• De_rats
• De_train
• De_survivor
• De_vertigo
• As_oilrig
• Fy_iceworld

Note that there was an AFD on these maps in May (thanks to User:Gwernol for informing me). Find it here - Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/De_dust. This was closed as no consensus, due to a concerted effort by the Counter-Strike article contributors to keep their nice cruft. These are how-to articles, and are NOT encyclopaedic. It does not matter if they are notable. A map of a level is game guide material. There is nothing that can be extracted from these of any encyclopaedic value. These should all be deleted too.

That is all. Proto///type 14:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Summarizing the position against the nominator The nom's only 2 issues are 1) Wikipedia is not a strategy guide and 2) cruft. He concedes that these pages do pass the policies of Wikipedia:No original research and Wikipedia:Notability. So our discussion ought only to be limited to the first 2. Also it must be noted that by grouping all the articles in one AfD, the decision is expected to keep or delete them all, not pick out specific weak articles (ie Surfing (Counter-Strike)) and delete only those. Those advocating the keep position do not necessarily approve of all articles, but since forced with the option of keeping all or deleting all, we see at least one good article in the list we want to keep, and therefore have to keep all unless the nominator decides to relist all individually.

Regarding strategy guide, we opposed to deletion respond that these simply are not strategy guides. Take Cs italy. There is nothing in that article that explains how to play the map. In the game Counter-Strike there simply is no "right" way to play a map, there is no "walkthrough" because either team can do an infinite number of things to which their opponents have to adjust. What the article has is (A) a description of the map, (B) an overhead view of the map, (C) some screenshots, (D) professional criticism against the map being balanced for both sides, (E) listing of some trivia regarding the map, including the translation of an opera song that can be heard in one section. Which of those 5 counts as a "strategy guide"? If I were to describe the Roman Coliseum, wouldn't the article have the same aspects? (description, blueprint, pictures, archictectual criticism, trivia) Since the nominator concedes that these maps are notable (as the Coliseum is notable) then there is no reason to object to the format.

Regarding cruft, we opposed to deletion respond that cruft is a highly subjective term, and that since notability was conceded these articles cannot be cruft. On the first, we can be sure that one man's featured article is another man's cruft. I could just as easily consider the Roman Coliseum cruft since I am an American with no interest in classical architecture or string theory as cruft because I don't know what 12-dimension space time means, but there are even more obvious targets on wikipedia (ie Simpsons_Roasting_on_an_Open_Fire, List_of_problems_solved_by_MacGyver, etc) that stay here. Secondly, the cruft guide that the nominator linked defines it as "selection of content is of importance only to a small population of enthusiastic fans of the subject in question." Since the nominator already conceded notability, therefore we don't have a "small population" and therefore this isn't cruft by that definition. The guide also states that "there is no firm policy on the inclusion of obscure branches of popular culture subjects. It is true that things labeled fancruft are often deleted from Wikipedia. This is primarily due to the fact that things labeled as fancruft are often poorly written, unreferenced, unwikified, and non-neutral - all things that lead to deletion." So cruft cannot even be considered as a reason for deletion... it only sometimes leads to deletion under another policy. As for "poorly written, unreferenced, unwikified, and non-neutral", this must be judged on each article individually.

Therefore, we are opposed to deletion seeing that the nominator's only two reasons do not hold up. David Bergan 16:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all as nominator. Proto///type 14:17, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Karmafist ^p 14:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - as per Wikipedia:Guide_to_deletion#Discussion - please always explain your vote. Proto///type 14:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all as extreme amounts of gamecruft. Quite inapropriate for an encyclopedia. -Randall Brackett 14:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Delete These are clearly game guides. Dionyseus 14:32, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete This stuff belongs on Wikibooks. --Tom Edwards 14:34, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  Comment - I'm not sure, but I have a feeling Wikibooks no longer accepts game guide stuff. Proto///type 14:45, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Cruftacular. Wikipedia is not a video game guide. bikeable (talk) 14:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all as gamecruft. The only one that I could possibly see having an article would be de_dust, which is far and away the most popular and well-known map for the game. --Kuzaar^-T-C- 15:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all, but one day a List of Couter-Strike maps might be able to be written that is non-crufty and NPOV. Batmanand | Talk 15:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

  A non-crufty list of counter-strike maps is an oxymoron :) Proto///type 15:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as per nom. Dlyons493 Talk 16:23, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete though CS has a disproportionate impact on the internet community, none of these maps do. MLA 16:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Wikipedia is NOT paper. Keeping will do no harm. So Keep, just like last time. I feel sympathy for your horror, and I catch the drift of what you're saying, but you're not explicitly stating how your deletion rationale links with AFD guidelines. If you can do that, I might change my opinion. Kim Bruning 16:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • The "keeping will do no harm" argument is tempting for every AfD, but keeping non-encyclopedic information is not wikipedia's mission. WP:NOT lists a number of categories of "indiscriminate information" which wikipedia does not collect, including video game guides. bikeable (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• I heavily dislike people painting AFDs with broad strokes like that. It was closed as no consensus because there was no consensus. I see just as many substantive votes to keep from valid and even long-time contributors as there are for deletion. I also strongly dislike broad statements like A map of a level is game guide material. There is nothing that can be extraced from these of any /encyclopaedic/ value.. The same can be said for say, a plot summary of Hamlet. Another argument is that this is only of interest to a small group of people, well that is true. I don't think anyone just beginning to start playing CS would come here for info on the maps, and anyone that has played the maps once doesn't need our articles. Would someone that has never heard of CS use/need/want these articles? Probably not. However, the same arguments can be made for obscure mathematical and scientific articles. Have you ever heard someone say mathcruft? Thus, this argument boils down to 'I don't like it', which is obviously subjective and pointless. You could go on with well you wouldn't find this in Britannica!, but that is an idiotic argument--why should we limit ourselves to what previous encyclopedias did? Another argument made is that they are unreferenced or original research. In some cases, this is true. However, this is not really a reason for deletion. We delete things that are unverifiable, not unverified.

That all being said, these are really crufty and personally I think they have little value, but like Kim I do not see anyone presenting a valid case for deletion so I must vote keep. Kotepho 18:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete - Individual maps really don't need their own articles in a general encyclopedia. Though I would not be opposed to a list with brief summaries/screenshots of a few of the most popular maps like dust and office. Wickethewok 18:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom. Dpbsmith (talk) 19:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• strong keep if this is an all-or-nothing deal. The de_dust series is incredibly important in the context of on-line gaming; dust and dust2 are likely the most popular on-line maps ever. (At any given moment, thousands of players are playing on one of these two maps.) Do a google search and get a million hits or 1.8 million hits. (Other official maps like cs_office are quite important and also deserve a milder keep vote as well.) For an article to be cruft, it has to appeal to only a very small audience. — brighterorange (talk) 19:53, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all per nom. Picaroon9288 20:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep all per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/De dust and Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/De_chateau. Kotepho has a valid point that the delete voters are hiding behind one word "cruft," which really amounts to "I don't play the game and would never read these articles." I don't watch the Simpsons, yet there is a synopsis of each episode on Wikipedia. I don't bother to learn string theory, but I found a lot of articles relating to the topic. If you're going to use the word cruft as your reasoning, you better define it much more rigidly than how it's being tossed about. I (and others) have put a considerable amount of work into most of these articles, making maps and finding content. The computer gaming center in my town uses these pages frequently when trying to gather info about the maps and select the right ones for their tournaments. That's notable enough to keep. There is no reason to delete pages that people visit frequently. Deletion policy is for screwball topics that no one will visit except the article's author. Moreover, we've already had 2 votes on this issue in as many months. There is no reason to keep bringing this up over and over until the vote goes your way... articles surviving a deletion vote should be immune from further attempts. And strike all votes that use "per nom" or "cruft" as their reasoning. Have to do better than that, since there is already a lot of cruft that is staying on Wikipedia. David Bergan 20:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• The nominator clearly indicated the rationale that Wikipedia is not a strategy guide, which is a specific bullet point under Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. This seems quite clear to me, and I'm not sure why you, Kotepho and others don't see it as a "valid" reason -- it's clearly laid out at WP:NOT. I changed my "cruft" vote (which was, for me, simply a shorthand for "indiscriminate") to reflect that more clearly, but I think the sentiment of most voters is clear enough. A games-specific wiki, not a general-use encyclopedia, is the right place for this material, just as we send the more crufty indiscriminately detailed Star Wars stuff over to Wookiepedia. bikeable (talk) 21:29, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• If these articles were game guides I would be voting delete, but they aren't. RuneScape armour, Ragnarok_Online#Statistics, Flyff#Flying_Quest, a lot of DotA_Allstars, etc. are all stuff that should go. An article about something in a game is not always a game guide though. They only describe the map briefly and in wide terms, but also discuss things such as the history of the maps and their creators, which seems to be sourced with links that are not too objectionable (caveat, I only looked at a few of the articles). Kotepho 22:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• I agree. We can and should write about important games and their important components, and we can (and already do, in many cases) say interesting things without being a strategy guide. — brighterorange (talk) 22:44, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all per nom--Nick Y. 21:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Keep summary article Counter-Strike maps, which seems to be a reasonable, factual, verifiable article on a very popular and notable topic. I have no vote on the subject of the individual maps; they are OR-ish in their current state, but thousands of people play on them so I believe they do have notability. TomTheHand 21:14, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Tens of thousands are playing them right now while 5 or 6 are here on Wikipedia trying to tell non-players how many do visit these pages.
    • Comment - Millions of people played Green Hill Zone, the first level of Sonic the Hedgehog. We don't have an article on that (it's a redirect). Hundreds of millions of people have played Tetris; do we have an article on each individual block? Proto///type 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per reasoning of David Bergan. I'd like to see pictures of the missing maps, too. John Bizzle 21:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete all per nom, because WP is not a gaming guide, because blanketing everyone who expresses opinions against this as a person with a vendetta is specious, because saying to keep because you like it is just as invalid as saying delete because you dislike it, because saying "all or nothing" and then citing a prior AfD is about as good an idea as citing a prior AfD and saying "we've been through this before so keep because it survived last time," (although in this case I guess "nothing" is acceptable to me), and because attempting to compare these maps to mathematicians or other articles of that nature doesn't actually work, as mathematicians and the like made documented, lasting contribution that somehow furthered society at large. While CS has obviously had its own cultural impact, I welcome anyone to show me how individual maps can claim the same. GassyGuy 21:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep There is an article about every episode of Season 5 of 24. Yet we are debating to delete pages that explain _the most played_ maps in computer FPS's. These maps are ones that ALL serious gamers know about/heard of. There is massive ammounts of culture, references, and history behind these maps. They make up the heart of CounterStrike, the most popular first person shooter out there. And you guys want to delete that, yet making a page for _every_ episode of 24 and Simpsons is okay? Just think about what you guys are talking about, this is a ridicoulous arguement, you might as well delete about a 3rd of Wikipedia if you delete these. You have to understand, de_dust is the most recognized computer map of all time. Any serious gamer who sees it can easily say "Counter-Strike". When they reach this kind of popularity, it _IS_ worth keeping. There are articles on wikipedia that are a lot worse and need a lot more attention than this. In no way should these be merged or deleted, it would violate the goal of wikipedia in many ways, because these maps truly do mark a serious spot in computer gaming. --Rake 21:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Comment - episodes of 24 have plot, story, actors who appeared, and so on. A MAP of a level has no plot, no mythology, no backstory, nothing. It's just a map. Proto///type 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep To the point about the maps above, like I said, each of these maps have their own history, because they were all developed under different circumstances, are are in no way similar (well, save the Dust series). Each one can easily spark a conversation between two gamers (Who has the best advantage, best rushing route, good camping spots, good sniping spots, etc.) No, we are not making a game guide, we are simply explaining the maps that make Counter-Strike, well, counter-strike. You can't just group all of these maps together. While they are all for counterstrike, a battle fought on Dust is extremely different and has a completely different story behind it than a battle fought on Aztec, for example. Individual maps definately DO have their own cultural impact, ask any serious gamer about dust or aztek. Everyone who here is saying that this is becoming a game guide I guess is not a CounterStrike gamer, because if they were, they would know that each of these maps adds their own bit of tactics, ideas, and culture to Counter Strike. --Rake 21:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Question Since I assume this is a response to me, given the use of the phrase "cultural impact," could you please supply me with a source that details an impact of an individual map had as opposed to the game as a whole? Barring that, I am strengthening my opinion on the basis that almost all of these keep votes are saying "cruft isn't a valid argument" and giving impassioned "I play this game and I love this map, therefore keep it" speeches without addressing any of the other points, e.g., why an individual map is at all important in its own right. I'm sorry, but the fact that it's of interest to a group of gamers means it belongs in a game encyclopaedia, not a general one. Show me why it is of importance to the general population. GassyGuy 04:13, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Strong keep per David Bergan. o/s/p 22:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Move to Wikibooks. Looks like good content in the wrong place. --Jtalledo (talk) 22:09, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete (Note: though I wouldn't necessarily disagree with a transwiki or merge, I'm not voting that way so as to reduce the chance of this being closed as no consensus.) If we were writing a Counter-Strike strategy guide, this would be vital info. Since we're writing an encyclopedia, though, this is simply unnecessary. Most (all?) video games don't need an article about each individual level, stage, map, or mission. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 22:55, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep - as per the original AFD. I made my comments clear there, but will reiterate my arguments here. Counter-Strike is the most popular online FPS ever, and is the number one team FPS game at professional esports tournaments (and has been for some time). I do not endorse the keeping of every single FPS map, but I think that official counter-strike maps are definitely notable, my comment at the previous vote noted that the current server and player counts for each specific map runs into the thousands at every single second of the day. Another comment I'd like to restate is that these maps are not static unlike say the maps in Quake 3. Counter-Strike has had a constant changing map roster as part of its iterative development cycle. Maps are retired due to balance/quality/popularity issues, if you want to follow the development history of counter-strike, then looking at the map articles definitely helps and this is what makes them encyclopedic. If you want to find out the history behind Counter-strike, then you're going to have to study the map list. And another point on its popularity, there are many more people out there who would want to read an article on a counter-strike map than say some computer game based webcomic like Concerned, or an esports team like Team 3D and yet I think those who are interested in Team 3D would find articles on the arenas in which their victories took place interesting. - Hahnchen 23:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - millions more people have played Super Mario World. Do we have an article on each level of that game? No, and nor should we. Proto///type 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment - There's some differences to maps in Super Mario World. Some which I have picked up on in my original comment. Super Mario maps are fixed, they've not changed since the first game was boxed. Counter-Strike maps haven't, they've evolved with the game, tried new things out and are part of Counter-Strike's developmental history. I think this is something to note down due to Counter-Strike's long history, if you check out the Counter-Strike article, you'll see a release timetable chronicling the game's various releases and big changes made. It however, hasn't managed to note down the changing map cycles in the game, nor how the maps themseleves have changed as this is quite hard to research. The other point I made was about professional gaming. Recently, Complexity Gaming recently won the Summer CPL competition, and that news is covered by Gotfrag here. I think whoever is looking into competitive gaming will want to find out about the maps in which these tournaments took place, in this case de inferno and de dust2. Ask a Super Mario fan what map 4-3 is and he might not be able to tell you. Ask a none-counter-strike playing FPS fan what de_dust is, and he will know it. - Hahnchen 14:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
    • We may not have articles on Mario maps but we have a bewildering array of stuff at List of Mario series characters. The characters may be seen as the most important component of the Mario games while the maps are seen as the most important component of Counter-Strike. In any case we have a large collection of articles whose only sources are video games, video game guides and fansites. Haukur 14:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Massive übercruft. If it's so popular the fans can start their own Wiki. ~ trialsanderrors 23:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete All per above. Naconkantari 23:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep It has been amply demonstrated that these articles are not mere strategy guides to playing the levels, they contain information on the maps creators, histories, why they are notable in the development of multiplayer gaming, etc. That discounts the "Wikipedia is not a video game strategy guide" argument towards deletion. The number of people playing these maps and a simple Google search proves that these are DEFINITELY notable. And "But it's cruuuuuufty" is not a valid reason to delete. There's a lot of esoteric information on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," not, "the free encyclopedia that only people who are interested in everyday, common mainstream pablum can edit"

If you don't feel that there's enough non-strategy information in the articles... find some sources and add some more information. If you have the time to nominate as an AfD and post about how this is all fancruft and ruining Wikipedia, you have time to do the research. If you don't care enough about the articles to try and improve them, I feel that you don't have the right to delete them, either. It is always easier to destroy than to create. Your choice. Tmorrisey 00:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Delete all. Even if it is a notable game, the maps are not notable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 00:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all. I'm not seeing the context that Tmorrisey sees; there's just a bunch of game-guide content. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all. (edit conflict) As someone who has spent hundreds of hours in those maps, I can tell you firsthand that they do not merit inclusion into Wikipedia. They are just cruft. Alphachimp ^talk 00:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Transwiki to Wikibooks. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 02:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Wikibooks can only take game guides that are college textbooks. Please specify, with a reliable source, exactly which of these is a college textbook for what course, where... GRBerry 03:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all and transwiki Hasn't this been to AfD before? Whispering 02:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• keep cruft is described as being of interest only to a small fanbase but as can be seen from checking the steam status page, there are 115,600 people playing CounterStrike and CounterStrike Source this very second and that figure is only a fraction of the total number of players (due to different timezones and each player only playing for a few hours) which is probably in the region of 1.2 million. so the cruft argument is null. CounterStrike is a cultural computer online phenomena and as such deserves to be noted in Wikipedia along with descriptions of the maps that it is played on. calling these map descriptions game guides is misguided and wrong. yes there will be information that may appear to be like a guide but it is just part of the description of the map not a walkthrough of "how to complete this level" as that would be impossible to do for a game like CounterStrike. a guide for CounterStrike would basically read "don't get shot, shoot all the enemy". IMHO it would be tragic for an encyclopedia with the scope of Wikipedia to delete the entries for such a ground breaking and immensely popular online phenomena as CounterStrike based on the "per nom" votes of people who have no insite into it. some of these maps are so popular that they have even been converted to be used in other online games (de_dust and aztec, among others, have both been converted to be used in Day of Defeat) and this must surely be a sign that CounterStrike maps are worthy of recognition. thankyou for your time --81.79.138.151 02:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)prone ranger
• Relist, individually, and remind the nominator that this didn't work last time and isn't going to work now, less than a month later. Nifboy 02:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Delete all WP:NOT is policy, consensus, whether current or in prior AFDs can not override policy. Recent discussion, on the mailing list if I recall correctly, has also established that game guides are not suitable content for Wikibooks unless they are actually used as college textbooks. My impression of the main articles was that they also contained unhealthy dose of violation of WP:V by vailing to cite reliable sources. If such sources exist, it might be possible to write a decent article on Counter-Strike map types, but anyone doing so needs to be careful to abide by WP:FORGET and start by forgetting everything they know from playing the game. GRBerry 03:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment - game guides not being used as textbooks, so they can't be on Wikibooks? Then why are there cookbooks on there? Surely we don't expect them to be used as college textbooks. --Jtalledo (talk) 03:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Hahnchen and David Bergan. ---Vladimir V. Korablin (talk) 06:05, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• There are some interesting issues here regarding notability and verifiability. Is it reasonable to use a computer game as a source about the computer game itself? Or is that original research? Does a computer game qualify as a published source? I'm not really sure. I often write articles about books and then I tend to devote a large section to summarizing the contents of the book. Is summarizing the content of a book original research? Hardly. Should summarizing the content of a computer game be treated differently? Hmm, well, a computer game is in some ways less accessible than a book. For one thing you need to have a certain type of computer in order to play. But on the other hand we accept any book as a source no matter how inaccessible it is. In Gosforth cross I used a relatively obscure 1913 book written in Icelandic as a source. No-one seems to have a problem with that, but it is undoubtedly less accessible to the general Wikipedia user than Counter-Strike is.
• As for notability I'm sure there are many more people interested in Counter-Strike maps than in Acta sanctorum in Selio which I wrote a few days ago. Before I wrote that article its title had exactly one English language Google hit. No-one ever wants to delete my articles on medieval literature, no matter how "crufty" they get. The Google comparison isn't entirely fair, though, because "Acta sanctorum in Selio" gets two English language Google Books hits (both of them good reliable sources) where "Counter-Strike maps" get none.
• Is there precedent for using computer games as a source? I think there is. If you look at the Bulbasaur featured article you'll come upon sentences like this: "In the next game, Pokémon Yellow, Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle are not available at the beginning, as all three have already been taken by other trainers; instead, the player starts with a Pikachu. A Bulbasaur becomes available later in the game, as a gift from an non-player character in Cerulean City..." My guess would be that this information comes simply from the game itself - which is, indeed, cited as a source in the references section.
• Taking all the above into consideration and assuming—perhaps generously—that Mark made the right call in promoting Bulbasaur, I think a decent case can be made for the notability and verifiability of Counter-Strike maps. Haukur 10:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Notability is a side-issue. Failing WP:NOT is the chief problem with these articles). I don't see anyone as having addressed this, instead there's a lot of arm-waving about how lots of people play them. Proto///type 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: I wonder if the places of Morrowind sequence of articles can be seen as precedent for keeping these articles too. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 12:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Response - not the same thing, as a location has fictional history, plot, backstory, characters, etc. A map for a FPS shoot em up does not. Proto///type 12:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

    Comment: I beg to differ. FPS maps have both fictional and real histories, nearly always have a plot and backstory (the CS maps certainly do), and surely have characters (or, more precisely, roles). They are also irrelevant to my point, which is that game "maps" having articles of their own is precedented. — Kaustuv Chaudhuri 13:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

    • I beg to rediffer. The Morrowind places are RPG locations, not FPS maps, not maps. There is a difference. Personally, I would delete them, too, but that's not the issue. They are different. The same difference exists in the movies. We don't have an article on the factory where they all shot one other in Reservoir Dogs, but we do have one on Mordor. One has backstory, mythology, plot. The other is just a location where something took place. Proto///type 13:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• Bad Faith Nom and Strong Keep The articles are not written as streategy guides but more of descriptions of locations in a very popular game series. Surfing is not so much a how-to as it is a explanation of a technique. Surfing can be compared to an article about the act of fishing; they're not how-tos but explanations. Sure they can be cruft-prone, but as can a lot of articles. ANd i highly refute the argument that RPG locations are any more or less notable than FPS Maps. IN a generic sense they're same thing; virtual spaces for a video game. Just because rpg's tend to have more backstory doesnt mean an FPS map is any less notable. CS maps are pretty notable as they are really not that many popular ones. They're just a few that everyone plays over and over gaain. And given the large user base i'd say that makes them pretty encyclopedic. --larsinio (poke)^(prod) 17:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)