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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Penis game (3rd nomination)

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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 redirect to Chicken (game). Black Kite (talk) 10:34, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Penis game

edit
AfDs for this article:
Penis game (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I don't think these actually prove notability; the game is mentioned in passing in these sources. Against the current (talk) 03:35, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000(talk) 03:39, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - Yeah, some of us don't like it and others like it because some don't like it. Whatever. I find numerous passing mentions that proves this exists. However, even with the "Bogies" version from across the pond, I am unable to find substantial coverage in independent reliable sources. The last AfD was a "Delete", then it was recreated by a brand new editor who quickly disappeared. It probably should have been speedied based on that a while ago. (In any event this is a pretty strong indication that deletion makes sense here.) Vagina.- SummerPhD (talk) 04:15, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • HOLY CRAP Warden's voted "just not notable" on something before? That should be a CSD on its own! Anyhow, redirect to Chicken (game). Ansh666 04:31, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and redirect as suggested by Ansh666 above. It is just a variant of a dare game in which any embarrassing word or action (in the context) can be chosen by participants. The number of different words or actions, and variations in the rules for deciding a winner, that must have been chosen through history and across the globe must be enormous. Some of those might have been sufficiently common to pass some sort of notability test in that it would have been readily recognised within the sub-culture that participated and referred to elsewhere, but it would make no sense to have an article for each when the one covers it. --AJHingston (talk) 10:20, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:MADEUP. Lugnuts Dick Laurent is dead 17:36, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong, quick, salty delete! This topic is both juvenile and vulgar. Moreover, it's not newsworthy, having existed for longer than Wikipedia. Finally, it doesn't require any equipment, so there's nothing to sell. No reputable scholar, advertiser, or journalist would touch it with a ten-foot pole. Having it here is just an embarrassment. I can't see a suitable place to merge it to: Chicken (game) says that "chicken" has exactly two players, whereas the "penis!" game can be, in my experience, played by a group of friends—immature friends with little sense of decorum. Because it's a friendly competition, it is not exactly like brinksmanship, although there are phallic parallels ("The Cuban Missile Crisis presents an example in which opposing leaders, namely John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, continually issued warnings, with increasing force, about impending nuclear exchanges [...]").
An unsigned comment in the original vote for deletion sums up the problems with this topic:

Naturally, the playing of the game results in tensions between players and other customers. I think this case is revealing in that it demonstrates that the 'offence word' serves mainly to test whether a player is more loyal to in-group or to out-group norms of behaviour. The winner is the one who is most 'in-group', obeying the rules of the game slavishly, and who is least sensitive to 'out-group' pressures. If played in an environment populated entirely by in-group members, the game is not fun, as it provides no such test.

I found a few disgusting mentions to this, but all were in college or even high school publications. These writers are untrained, unpaid, don't check facts and are simply sophomoric and uncouth:
Please, if we must have articles about popular culture, let's follow all the rules and stick to clean, merchandise-related topics like hacky sack, the hula hoop, and Tamagotchis. —rybec 19:34, 30 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per substantial coverage in reliable independent sources (as noted in original AfD back in 2008 and again above). Well established game. Merging to Chicken (game) also reasonable. Deletion would be inappropriate and unconstructive. Not sure why people are so bothered by the subject. Does it have to do with Penis envy? Candleabracadabra (talk) 04:35, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Yes, there are lots of sources that mention it. If there is substantial coverage in reliable sources, though, I simply don't see it. If you are aware of such coverage, please link to it here. - SummerPhD (talk) 14:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Numerous sources are identified in the discussion above, additional sources are cited in the article and in the original AfD when it was kept. Has it become less notable for some reason? It seems that it continues, in fact, to be noted by various sources (those where one would expect a party game to be noted). If you are looking for an extensive coverage in Foreign Affairs I think you will be disappointed. :) Candleabracadabra (talk) 14:56, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The "slight keep" was 5 years ago. A year after that, it was deleted. Consensus can (and apparently did) change. Note the even earlier VfD was a "keep" based on whether or not anyone had heard of it: our guidelines has also changed.
As for the sources above, the half a sentence in the Washington Post, the same bare bones description is supplemented in the BBC piece only by the fact that Dick and Dom played it as kids, "Temple News" tells us only that @crosswalkkarma and Samantha Krotzer (insert crotch joke here) have played it, Sarah Kwak (insert cock joke here tells us its a juvenile obsession at her school, etc. Basically, for a notable topic it shouldn't be this hard to find something much longer than that. I've shown you mine, show me yours.
As for the quality of sources, I'm not a fan of Foreign Affairs. However, academic sources on circle jerks, tag and the dozens raise the question: Where's the beef? - SummerPhD (talk) 15:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would be okay with merging and redirecting to chicken (game) as suggested above. The coverage, while not extensive, is recurring. So it's game that is noted regularly but perhaps not with the extensive coverage that would warrant a stand-alone article. As long as it's included and noted appropriately within the encyclopedia (with the search term directed to the coverage) I think that's a reasonable outcome. Simply deleting and sweeping it under the rug because we don't like penis games seems peurile. As this is a pageless encyclopedia we are not running out of inches to extend. Candleabracadabra (talk) 16:00, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment To expand on my reasoning above for redirection to chicken (game), that is the name under which the general concept of the dare game has been written about as an aspect of game theory and the individual variants can best be explained. That is not saying that individual examples of such games could not be said to scrape over the notability bar, just that they are not individually distinctive enough for their own articles. Culture and fashion dictate what words a group will choose for this game - my experience is that words for parts of the female anatomy are likely, and it would seem ridiculous to have a redirect from Cunt game (etc) to Penis game even though they would be otherwise identical. And in what essential way is this game different from flashing parts of the anatomy? For boys that might be the buttocks rather than the penis, for girls the penis is one thing that they would not display. Then what about offensive noises, etc? What an encyclopedia can do is draw such behaviours together and analyse them. Dare games have certain things in common, the most important of which is a degree of peril - actual physical danger, punishment, social sanction or embarrassment. Whilst there is an overlap in the case of this variant with a simple desire to annoy adults, using a 'naughty' word to shock and annoy generally begins very young, does not require other children to be present, and can easily be distinguished from the game element described here.
What is true is that the Chicken (game) article does need to be expanded accordingly to refer to dare games in general. At present the article refers only to one version of Chicken made famous by Hollywood, and involving two drivers. Surely much more widely played is the version sometimes called Last Across, which involves running across a road or railway track in front of a moving vehicle, and there is the one in which participants withdraw their head from the open window of a moving train as another approaches in the other direction. These games are essentially opportunistic and the precise terms are set by the group, so the article needs to generalise from the range of typical examples. It would also be improved if it approached such games from the perspective of the social psychologist. When I learnt about the theory of international relations 40 years ago the mutually destructive risks of the two player confrontation were at the uppermost of peoples' minds but the topic is much wider than that. I am not really qualified for this, but I wonder if anyone feels able to shape a paragraph or two into Chicken (game) and to which this would be a satisfactory redirect (this is not a vote for merge because I do not think that the detail in the present article is needed). --AJHingston (talk) 18:42, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The long and seedy history of this thing has unfortunately been restored by Anthony Appleyard.

  • version discussed in second AfD [1]
  • version written by a vandal [2]

The "bogies" nonsense was one of the reasons Dick and Don's television show was (quite rightly) cancelled [3].

—rybec 20:21, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What does that have to do with this discussion? Ansh666 20:41, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • [4]
  • [5] (page giving a temporary error right now)
It was "deemed inappropriate" partly over fears it was encouraging children to misbehave by teaching them the "bogies!" game, which is a variation of this article's subject. —rybec 21:02, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see what this has to do with this discussion. This is about whether or not this article should be deleted, not about whether the "penis game" (or "bogey game") is moral or not. Ansh666 21:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
more coverage about "bogies!" and the television show (pre-cancellation) but it's not independent:
You seem to be advancing a "keep" position here by providing a ton of wonderful sources... Ansh666 21:25, 31 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

User:Rybec - just stop. You're providing external links for a delete argument? There's nothing that it's adding to this discussion, so don't clutter it up. That will just waste time for the closer. Ansh666 06:17, 2 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete - Argue that WP is not for things made up in one day or that this game is non-notable under GNG, either way. Carrite (talk) 17:57, 3 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I did not expect to say keep, but I read all the sources. It seems to so well known as to be able to be used by serious journalists not just reporting on college life but as an analogy with national-level politics (ny mag) and therefore quite reasonably will be something that people look for in an encyclopedia. The stupider aspects of contemporary culture are part of contemporary culture as much as the highest levels--we don't discriminate on any such basis. DGG ( talk ) 20:38, 6 August 2013 (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.
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