Talk:The Game (mind game)/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Grace Period and Cascade Loss

I understand the article is in DRV right now, but that doesn't mean we can't try to improve it in the interim. Previous versions detailed two areas of the game not covered in the rules.

Firstly, the Grace Period, which is necessary to play the game. Basically it's an amount of time (10-30 minutes seems to be the most popular variations on this) in which you cannot again lose the game. The reason I say this is necessary is because otherwise, if one were to abide by the rules of the game, constant announcement of loss would be necessary.

Secondly, there's the idea of Cascade Loss. This section covered two variations on The Game. The first variation which involves Cascade Loss occurs when one person announces their loss, thereby causing anyone aware of The Game to thereby lose as well (and thus announce it, or agree that they lost as well). The second variation involves the Grace Period. When one person loses, not only is their Grace Period initiated, Grace Period is initiated for all players of the game nearby. Depending on which you play, this also can lead to strategies (either wanting others to lose when you would not be around (so you don't get caught up in Cascade Loss) or wanting people to lose when you're around (so you are granted a Grace Period))Darquis 21:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

And if you can find sources that meet WP:RS for any of that, you are welcome to include it. JoshuaZ 21:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going by the translation provided previously in this talk page. I have no idea as to the accuracy of said translation, but it does describe what I've suggested here.
"The player who loses the game by thinking about it, is obliged to state out loud that he lost. One version says that all other players in the vicinity lose as well, other versions give other players a short amount of time - ten minutes ot half an hour, the rules are vague - to forget about the game again . Whichever version is palyed, for the losers not all is lost: the moment that the Game is out of their head again, they are playing it once more."
Would that be good enough in this case? Darquis 22:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I would think so. JoshuaZ 22:31, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to hold off on that until I hear one way or the other whether the translation is accurate. Darquis 07:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was the first time you completely forgot it and it re-entered your head. It could be 10 minutes, or it could be 10 years. If you apply a set time to it I find just looking at the time causes you to loose the game.teckjunkie

Again WP:RS please people. JoshuaZ 21:57, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding verifiability

The top concern of the many editors unsatisfied with this article is its verifiability. Being essentially a prime target for revert wars, and since this article has gotten so much attention, I assert the following:

  • Facts in Wikipedia articles are verifiable.
  • Verifiable facts come from reliable sources.
  • The Game has one reliable source, the De Morgen article.
  • thus, facts going into this article need to come from the De Morgen article.

So, any fact stated or directly implied from the De Morgen article is fair game for inclusion; any fact which is not is not acceptable. Anyone who wishes to challenge this is perfectly open to but please make sure you have read WP:V and WP:RS in full before doing so. This will change only when an additional source is found, at which I suggest to the lucky editor, in the simple spirit of pre-emptively stopping revert wars, to disregard WP:BOLD and post the source on this talk rather than under ==References==, pending the decision it is reliable. ~ PseudoSudo 23:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Very much agreed. JoshuaZ 23:44, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

How are we supposed to verify a Dutch newspaper article which requires you to register to read? User:Zoe|(talk) 04:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both require registration to be read, does that ruin there verifiability? Newspapers are inherently verifiable. JoshuaZ 04:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The fact that it's a Dutch newspaper article also does not affect its ability to be verified: "foreign-language sources are acceptable in terms of verifiability" (WP:RS). ~ PseudoSudo 04:25, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Luckily, someone has taken a screenshot or photo of that article. You can see that here Darquis 06:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

"any fact stated or directly implied from the De Morgen article is fair game for inclusion; any fact which is not is not acceptable" - In that case the reference to the United Kingdom should be changed to England, as this is what the article states. This may cause some complaints from the numerous Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish players of The Game. If this article is to rely entirely on the De Morgan article for its information, I think we need to make sure the translation is 100% accurate. Maybe it is already (although, for example, I did change the original translation from 'Psychology 101' to 'Psychology for beginners', as it says in the article 'Psychologie voor beginners') . Also, any possible ambiguities in the translation should be documented. For example, most Belgians probably refer to the UK as England, hence a literal translation may not be best. Kernow 11:31, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Anything that's happening in England is happening in the UK; simple inferences and rephrasings are not forbidden by WP:NOR. I do agree that we should obtain the best translation we can, documenting where possible the compromises that are inevitable in translation. -GTBacchus(talk) 11:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
We don't have to use the same words as the article. We just have to have the same information. The difference between "Psychology for beginners" and "Psychology 101" is stylistic, the content is the same. —Seqsea (talk) 17:21, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The difference between England and the UK, however, is not stylistic. My point is that what counts as "simple inferences and rephrasings" or "the same information" is a matter of opinion. Especially as these are, in turn, based on a translation. Kernow 18:30, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
If a bird sings in New Jersey, the bird is in the United States.
If a child is born in Auckland, the child is in New Zealand.
If a probe lands in the Fra Mauro crater, the probe is on the Moon.
If somebody writes something stupid on a chalkboard in England, both the writing and the chalkboard are in the United Kingdom.
This is not rocket science. Good grief. --phh (t/c) 20:39, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
So you think, based on the source, it would be suitable to include "The Game is played in the Milky Way". Kernow 22:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Yup, that accords to WP:V, and thats all that matters, right? Jdcooper 23:40, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
The thing that makes me mad about all this is we know that all these things are happening and we know The Game is huge and a large number of people play it, we know what countries it is played in, but we can't add any of it because of a "technicality". Just one of the weaknesses of Wikipedia, I guess. --Liface 00:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
"As counter-intuitive as it may seem, the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth" (WP:V). Unfortunately not a technicality, but primary policy. ~ PseudoSudo 01:27, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Then its a primary weakness of Wikipedia. Jdcooper 09:19, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
No, it is a primary strength of Wikipedia, otherwise are minimal credibility would go out the door. This way, if soemone sees something here they at least can follow through and see what source it came from. Furthermore, if truth rather than verifiability were the standard, then the talk pages of every controversial topic would be treated even more like Usenet than they are now, and the articles would be having revert wars even more often. JoshuaZ 12:29, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Sure, but how about when the truth is undisputed? If you guys want another straw man to tear apart, may i direct you to Campus 14? That is another topic that definitely exists, is virtually unsourced, and unsourceable, but has been built through consensus and is a good standard article. Go get em! Jdcooper 15:11, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
I don't see how this is unsourceable. "Following complaints from the local hospital about the number of students requiring medical attention, in 2001 the university officially banned students from taking part in the event." If there's a ban, there should be some record of the ban. I see here what appears to be a reference to an article in the Mail on Sunday of February 3, 2002. That shouldn't be too hard to check up on. Nottingham has its own newspaper and several radio and television stations; I can't imagine that none of the local media have ever covered this. Surely college students haven't completely lost the ability to go to the library and perform research (and they even get free Lexis-Nexis!). If there's anything left afterwards that's truly unverifiable, it's probably collegecruft that shouldn't be in the article anyway (not a huge stretch of the imagination, by the looks of the thing).
A downside of Wikipedia's growth and popularity is that they encourage the creation of little fiefdoms where low-traffic articles get "adopted" by small groups of people who fill them with things made up in school one day, and then when their efforts get noticed by someone outside the clique they become outraged at the suggestion that "their" article should have to meet the same standards as the one on, say, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Well, sorry. That's the way it works. --phh (t/c) 17:28, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (which contain verified information). It is not whatever a large collection of the truth is. Certainly there can be an overlap, and there frequently is, but that doesn't mean that truth precludes verification. Darquis 17:13, 24 April 2006 (UTC)Darquis
Not rocket science, no (not very nice either =P). But the point being made here, I think, is less that the statement you're making is true, but more that it's not accurate, based on the information presented in the current source. If the translation states UK rather than England, that's one thing. But it's misleading to say the UK when the only verification we have says England. If the article says UK, a reader could come across it and incorrectly assume that other parts of the UK are engaged in The Game when we currently have no proof to support such claims. Darquis 17:17, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ is of course right that some kind of verification is necessary to control what is put on Wikipedia. However, as we have seen from recent discussions, what counts as suitable verification is debatable. The point I tried to raise earlier is that even if we agree this source to be suitable, it is not such a simple matter as making "simple inferences and rephrasings" for the article, because what this entails is entirely a matter of opinion. As I said before, first we need a 100% accurate translation, as well as any possible ambiguities in this translation highlighted. Kernow 14:47, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Description sentence

Recent proposals of the initial sentence:

  • The Game is a social phenomenon, an anti-memory game, the objective of which is to forget its existence.
  • The Game is a meme that could be described as an "anti-memory game": its objective is to forget its existence.
  • The Game is an abstract mental game: its objective is to forget its existence.

A couple of pre-deletion versions for contrast:

~ PseudoSudo 22:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't like any of them, maybe a merge between #1 and #2? --Liface 23:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The Game is a game, the objective of which is to forget its existence. —Seqsea (talk) 02:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
  • The Game is an abstract mental game, the objective of which is to forget its existence.
  • There is no point in calling The Game a meme, the majority of stuff on Wikipedia is a meme. A meme is simply any idea or concept. I think what this refers to is a common misconception of the word meme, basically meaning a fad. The Game has some interesting memetic properties, but these should be described elsewhere in the article if anywhere. Whoever wants the meme version up should read the meme article first. Kernow 11:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


I think "social phenomenon" is much more appropriate. It's a shame that the only verifiable source we have completely fails to mention that the so-called game enjoys popularity not because of any actual challenge it presents to its players but because of its amusingly absurd nature. --AceMyth 13:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Our source simply says it is a game. It doesn't mention it's a meme, a mental game, an abstract game, or a social phenomenon. Therefore we should use "The game is a game." (I actually disagree with that. But it's the source, not me.) If only the article cited it's sources, we'd be in a much better position. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree that it doesn't mention meme or social phenomenon (and thus am in favor of keeping those out of the article as it stands (hell, what isn't a meme these days)) but I think that mental game (or memory game) is a conclusion that any reasonable adult with no expert knowledge could come to. Darquis 18:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
A meme refers to learned information stored within any human brain. Hence, everything on Wikipedia is, in some sense, a meme. For example, a cat isn't a meme, it's an animal, but our concept of a cat is a meme. Kernow 21:46, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Exactly! I'm not sure how relevant that tag is, or that saying something is a meme anymore. Darquis 23:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
"The Game is a memory game". The memory aspect is obviously inferred from the article, and is slightly more descriptive that just "is a game". Jdcooper 14:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Attempts to trace the origin of the game

Phew -- glad I've finally found what this is all about. It's been bugging me for ages. Anyway, there seems to be some people interested in trying to find the origins of the game. I would like to add this section to the page if that is OK with people. Though it seems everything about The Game on wikipedia has descended into some rather comical quibbling.

Section I propose to add -- I'm aware these are not verifiable sources but people seem to be interested in where this game sprung up and how long it has been played:

"Attempts to find the origin of the game

An early internet description claims the origin of the game is at the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2002 on the local usenet groups [1]. A weblog entry here claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001 [2]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [3]."

Interesting note: the deleted article "Lost (game)" said the following:
"Invented at a theatre camp called French Woods circa 1999..."
The game "Lost" is basically the same, except it focuses on the word "lost" rather than "the game". Ashibaka tock 01:49, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting -- seems like this thing has been going around for a while. What is the earliest internet post you can find which definitely refers to the game in any form? --Richard Clegg 01:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
How about this thread? (I think I just won the Game!) Ashibaka tock 02:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Pretty good. If that date is genuine it pushes the origin back to 2002. I can certainly find a usenet posting listing the rules then we can certainly say verifiably that the idea of the game has been around that long. --Richard Clegg 02:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
"I'm aware these are not verifiable sources". That sums it up. I didn't even look at the sources, because by your own admission, we can't use them. See WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOR if you have any questions. —Seqsea (talk) 02:09, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Oh -- but we can most certainly use them to say that the game as a concept is at least that old. --Richard Clegg 02:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

OK --- how about including this in "origins".

"The origin of the game is uncertain. It can be certainly said to have existed since December 2003 as this usenet post laying out the rules shows. [4]. Earlier claimed sources can be found on the internet. An article on www.everything2.com claiming to be from October 2003 lays out the rules [5]. A weblog entry purporting to be written in August 2002 claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001. [6]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [7]. The earliest claimed entry on this is currently 1993, but of course this is completely unverifiable."

Since the usenet entry lists the rules and dates on usenet entries can be checked it is a reliable primary source establishing the idea of the game has been existence since at least December 2003. Of course this has no bearing on the silly deletion debate. I'm just interested in how the meme has spread and where it comes from. We can say with certainty that the meme has been in existence since December 2003. --Richard Clegg 03:17, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

  • From WP:RS --

    Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources.

    Unless there's something reliable and verifiable to back it up, discussion of the origin of "The Game" falls under the category of original research, and doesn't belong in this article in any case. WarpstarRider 03:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Heh -- you're a very silly man. Anyway, I'm not interested in the deletion battle. I'm just interested in tracing the meme. Only an idiot would argue that the meme didn't exist from December 2003 at this point. Sorry if I wasn't using the word "primary source" in the wikipedia sense. I'm interested for its own sake rather than the daft deletion versus not deletion stuff. I just find how this meme has spread fascinating, I'm not particularly interested in the lawyer speak. --Richard Clegg 03:45, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
Incidentally, where does it say that tracing where something originates is Original REsearch?--Richard Clegg 03:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
From WP:OR: "Original research is a term used on Wikipedia to refer to material added to articles by Wikipedia editors that has not been published already by a reputable source." Forum posts and Usenet are not reliable. This isn't about the previous AFDs and DRVs, this is about your proposal. While it's great that you're interested in doing extra research (and if you find a reliable source for the information, that's awesome), but we can't put your information into the article right now. —Seqsea (talk) 03:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC) (emphasis added, PseudoSudo 10:03, 27 April 2006 (UTC))
What I wrote has nothing to do with the deletion debate. Anything added to the article has to be backed up by verifiable information. The filling up of the article with original research like this is how the whole mess started in the first place. WarpstarRider 03:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
But everthing I wrote above was 100% verifiable since what I wrote was that those websites and that usenet posts exist and that the usenet post allows us to establish a date from which the meme definitely existed. You can't get more verifiable than that -- particularly the usenet post since it gives an explicit date at which time the meme was definitely in existnence. Ah... but I'm not really interested in these lawyer type games, I just want to know how old this idea is and where it started. I expect you will claim that it doesn't meet a wikipedia definition of verifiable. --Richard Clegg 04:04, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

As someone who has very little patience for this beyond-idiotic "game," I must confess I don't see much of a problem with using an ordinarily unreliable source under certain circumstances to establish the existence of something at a specific point in time. If I was writing about Linux, for example, I believe I should be able to use this Usenet post from Linus Torvalds as a citation to definitively establish that the Linux project had been created by October 5, 1991. If you think about it, the actual content of the post only contributes one word to the citation—"Linux"—as prima facie proof that the word existed when the post was written. The real meat of the citation is the date on the post, which we presumably trust Google to report truthfully. In other words, when provenance is all we care about, the true source isn't some random dude writing a message on tha Intarwebses—it's whoever's in charge of setting the clock on the server he posts to.

So if "Marnevel" wrote a post dated December 7, 2002 in which The Game is clearly described, the real question is not whether Marnevel is trustworthy (and whoever he/she/it is, he/she/it seems to have done something to get him/her/itself banned from the forum at some point), it's whether the forum software is accurately reporting the date on the post. For something like this I suggest that the proper course of action is to assume good faith until given a reason to do otherwise. But it should also be recognized that even if this is considered a valid source for the purposes of establishing provenance, it gives us, at most, one sentence: "The Game has existed since at least December, 2003," or words to that effect. --phh (t/c) 05:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Mainly agree with PHenry here although note that assumption does not come from WP:AGF which applies to users but really as treating basic usenet archiving as reliable sources for the time they were posted as simply common sense. (I'm not even sure how one would go about faking a time-stamp on one) JoshuaZ 05:27, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

I just got an e-mail from the guy who wrote the original post I linked to above; he says he invented it in 1996 but is not interested in getting publicity, in order "to allow the mystique to continue". This is of course original research, but I thought it might be interesting to know anyway. Ashibaka tock 04:34, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting, but forgive me if I am skeptical of his claim. JoshuaZ 04:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I'd be too if he were just some random dude who posted about it this or last year, but his post is earlier than any other I can find, and he claimed to be the creator in the post. Ashibaka tock 04:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Interesting. Thanks. Anybody object to me moving this text to the main page under "Origins"?
Sorry but can I just clarify which post is being refered to? Kernow 21:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Sorry I've found it now. Kernow 21:51, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

"The origin of the game is uncertain. It can be certainly said to have existed since December 2003 as this usenet post laying out the rules shows. [8]. Earlier claimed sources can be found on the internet. An article on www.everything2.com claiming to be from October 2003 lays out the rules [9]. A weblog entry purporting to be written in August 2002 claims to have been aware of the game since early 2001. [10]. A website has been set up to trace the origins of the game by asking who each person learned it from [11]. The earliest claimed entry on this is currently 1993, but of course this is completely unverifiable."

I know editing anything on this page is somewhat fraught but everything in that paragraph is provably true. Verifiable in the wikipedia sense or not this is a paragraph where each claim has a backup up -- we shouldn't subject this article to stronger standards than the rest of wikipedia. --Richard Clegg 10:37, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove the last two sentences. If it's completely unverifiable then it doesn't belong in the article. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 12:07, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the last one sentence -- the link to the orgin tracing site is surely worth having as it expresses the meme nature and the network spreading nature of The Game which is the main reason I'm interested in it as a phenomenon. The sentence only mentions that the website attempting to find its origins exists. This is surely indisputable. If you disagree, however, then please feel free to take that sentence back out as well. --Richard Clegg 13:39, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
I have removed it. Not becuase I dispute the fact the site exists, but because the site itself hasn't drawn any verifiable conclusions and thus is non-notable/fancruft. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
When you say the site hasn't reached any verifiable conclusions, you mean the information on it hasn't been published in a reliable source? It doesn't follow that this makes the site non-notable or fancruft. Kernow 21:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
No, I mean it's conclusions aren't verifiable. (And thus wouldn't be published by a RS, but that is a side-effect not the actual reason.) That doesn't make the site non-noatble (although it is) but it does make the information non-notable. Including non-notable information in an article becuase it may be intresting to fans of the subject of that article is loosly called fan-cruft. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 15:02, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
I completely agree that the site and the information are non-notable, and that it shouldn't be included in the article. However I don't see the logic in these claims:
"the site itself hasn't drawn any verifiable conclusions and thus is non-notable/fancruft"
"it's conclusions aren't verifiable" which makes "the information non-notable"
Although notabilty and verifiability often overlap, the fact that something is unverifiable does not make it non-notable, and visa versa. Just like the fact that something is verifiable does not make it notable, and visa versa. Kernow 20:26, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I changed the main page to include both the first internet mention and the first usenet mention. It's possible that someone could fake a date on a website. It would be impossible or at least very very difficult to fake the date on a usenet post since usenet has international distribution and is archived in many separate places. Hence I believe both dates should stay in the article. --Richard Clegg 12:53, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

This livejournal entry dates the game back at least as far as August 2003. While it's true that times on Livejournal entries can be changed, comment modification of any sort isn't allowed. (I guess someone in power over at livejournal could have changed it, but that sounds like a pretty longshot for a forgery.) 75.6.239.253

There are oxbridge.tat posts from April 2001 describing the Game; it's certainly not presented as 'new' there. Ewx 15:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

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