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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 keep.  Sandstein  11:22, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Vecna

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Vecna (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Non-notable fictional character. All of the sources in the article do not verify notability, as they are not independent of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons. A cursory search on the internet did not give any evidence of the existence of good independent sources on this topic which cover it in depth. The importance of this topic within D&D is irrelevant to notability unless it can be demonstrated that there are independent sources which provide significant coverage. Simone 08:32, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy Keep there are no reported issues with this article so taking to AFD is bad faith. There are sources, ignoring those to push a point of view or agenda is also bad faith. Web Warlock (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Plus the old AFD on this was Keep. So no, this is a keep as well. Web Warlock (talk) 12:13, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c)Please link to the AfD. And note that consensus can change. Particularly if the old AfD was based on claims of "coverage in third party sources existing" somewhere that have not actually been produced to verify the claims. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:23, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When Dragon was published by TSR, there was no question that Dragon was an mouthpiece of TSR with the sole purpose of promoting TSR products. However, once WotC was tken over by Hasbro, it was no longer interested in publishing a magazine. Rather than let the magazine die, some D&D enthusiasts led by Erik Mona formed Paizo and "rented" the license to publish Dragon from WotC; Paizo then kept the profits (if any) that it made from publishing the magazine. Paizo did not receive any funds from WotC in compensation, other than fees WotC paid for advertising. While Dragon continued to be the voice of D&D, Paizo never was a publishing arm of WotC, and its editorial voice was that of the D&D enthusiast, not the game manufacturer. Editorially, Paizo publicly disagreed with the direction WotC was taking D&D -- both inside and outside the pages of Dragon. WotC eventually withdrew the license to publish rather than let its competitor continue to use it as a bully pulpit. To insist that Paizo was not an independent voice because it paid WotC for the license to publish is to ignore the often testy relationship between the two companies. Guinness323 (talk) 21:39, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You fail to see the point of "independence" as related to the WP concept of Notability, ie "attention from the world at large". Companies or products directly tied to the creator do not represent the "world at large", and cannot establish that the topic is worth mentioning on WP. Paizo, as the licenced published of an official WotC product, does not represent the world at large, only the small microcosm of the D&D copyright holders and their subcontractors. Your mention of divergence bewteen Paizo and WotC is irrelevant in that respect, besides it does not correspond to what reliable sources state about the non-renewed licence, which was because WotC wanted to switch to online. Whatever the tone they were using, they paid to benefit from WotC's official seal and were paid thanks to it, and as such were not an independently notable publication (ie they didn't acquire their name, readership and reputation on their own, without help from the D&D/WotC brand). They represented the D&D brand and didn't mention its product by choice, but because the creators licensed them to do so, no matter the tone they ended up using. And when WotC no longer wanted the publication to exist, it stopped. There is just no way that could be called independence.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Topics in the field of higher mathematics such as direct sum do not receive attention from the "world at large", only from mathematical texts written by experts who have a vested interest in the topic. The same goes for countless other narrow, specialist topics which Wikipedia routinely covers on its front page and elsewhere - obscure fungi, plants, places, people, &c. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and that means that it covers pretty much everything, not just topics of general interest. Compared to other topics, D&D and its elements, is quite accessible and familiar to millions of people who have played it or heard of it. The specialist journals which cover D&D are those such as Dragon; White Dwarf; Dungeoneer, &c. The fact that they specialise in the topic is a reason to be using them; not a reason to discount them. The article now has numerous good sources of this kind so should obviously be kept. Warden (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Authors in the field of mathematics will sign contracts with the publishers. All professional publishing is governed by legal arrangements and it is such professionalism that we prefer in our sources. These attempts to deny the sources for D&D topics are absurd - a double-standard which is not applied to other types of topic. Warden (talk) 21:16, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You propose a non-consensual interpretation of "independence" as related to notability. Numerous recent AfD disprove your views since sources such as Dragon and the D&D official books themselves have been discounted. There is nothing more to be said.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is an argument to avoid in deletion discussion.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:38, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just now you were saying that we should look at the precedents created by other cases. In choosing such precedents, we should obviously choose similar cases. As WP:OSE says, "these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides". Warden (talk) 18:47, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have cited example of consistent consensuses reached on the application and meaning of policy, which is of course fundamental for the good working of WP. You have randomly referred to articles that have never been tested against policy and thus cannot be taken as having created "precedents".WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS specifically explains that it's not because an article merely exists that it means it doesn't violate our policies.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:02, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The sources say e.g. that Vecna is "everybody’s favorite evil wizard..." and that Vecna's Hand made it into 4th Editions DMG as a classic D&D artifact. That does not sound trivial to me. Daranios (talk) 08:45, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
this is still a "passing mention" that doesn't exceed one sentence. The aim of significant coverage is to provide enough out of universe info to outweigh plot summary, per WP:GNG. Is that the case ? No. One or two sentences here and there do not make an article notable.
In my opinion, the fact that it is one sentence in itself does not make a reference a "passing mention", if this sentence says something relevant, like: This topic is important for D&D. Ratio between real-world and in-universe imformation may be improved for Vecna, but that is no reason for deletion. Daranios (talk) 09:44, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
what is your basis for the assumption that "Ratio between real-world and in-universe imformation may be improved "? the character has been around for 40 odd years and yet the only thing people find worthy of commenting on is " His name is an anagram" .-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:40, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Acutally, I was thinking that the plot summary part might be somewhat shortened by people who feel that it is too large for Wikipedia. But you wanted to know what's there apart from that, right? The sources say it is an important topic within D&D as the character as well as his artifacts; publication history; origin of name; use in other media both connected and unconnected to D&D. So why throw that out? By the way, one independent source was just published in 2013, so I would not exclude further developments. Daranios (talk) 12:20, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When those sources from the future actually come into publication then we can use them to spin out a stand alone article for any content that may become too large to properly include in a parent article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:51, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
(That's why I mentioned it by the way, as you asked for the basis of my assumption.... My opinion stands on the sources as they are now. Daranios (talk) 13:39, 6 October 2013 (UTC))[reply]
Two things: Wikipedia:GNG#cite_note-1 disagrees with you about what is significant coverage, and if the amount of plot summary was trimmed down to give priority to out-of-universe information as per WP:NOTPLOT, then we would just have a stub that could be easily merged anywhere. If you agree the topic was artificially made to take up a whole stand-alone article because of excessive plot summary, and if you agree this could be be trimmed, may I suggest you, for the sake of compromise, to rally to the idea of a merge that would allow us to retain as much in/out of universe info as possible, in a win-win situation ?Folken de Fanel (talk) 12:35, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Almost the same discussion already took place about Caramon Majere. The example Wikipedia:GNG#cite_note-1 says much less than the sources here, so I think it does not apply. And the publication history alone is longer than your usual stub. I think a merge would not be a good solution. An article with a somewhat shortened plot summary (and room for later improvement) would be a good solution. Daranios (talk) 12:55, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
And Caramon Majere didn't end the way you wanted. I disagree on the publication history, it appears long only because it was badly formatted to be so. Remove the subsections for each edition, remove line breaks after each sentence, create proper paragraphs and you're left with content taking up much less space. Besides, the history is only sourced to primary sources, which cannot be used as the basis for a stand-alone article. You have to find enough secondary source to outweigh any primary content, and that's not the case. If you trim the plot summary, I maintain the article is easily mergeable. Note Vecna#Publishing_History reformatted. Not so impressive, suddently.Folken de Fanel (talk) 15:48, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, do you really think the publication section of Vecna is now better? It's somewhat shorter, sure, but the splitting by edition made sense to me. Anyway, the publication section alone is still larger than 7 kB, while WP:AS suggests merging for articles roughly < 1kB. Sure, the section is based on primary sources. But it is real-world relevant content, and we have secondary sources for other parts of the article. Using solely secondary sources is not required. As with Caramon, neither of us seems to be able to convince the other of his position while interpreting WP:GNG. I am not sure how AfDs are closed, but I think it would be best if someone neutral could draw a conclusion about the article and the arguments presented before anything against the article is done. Daranios (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Each paragraph is still focused on a separate edition. I think you're misusing WP:AS, which certainly doesn't say that anything above 1kb can't be merged, we've had a lot of recent example at AfD of 10kb+ ending up merged. That was also the case for Caramon Majere, despite its size. WP:NOTPAPER is clear that size concerns can't trump inclusion policies/guidelines, and the most minute details can certainly be purged from the publication history. You're right that using solely secondary sources is not required, however it is required that they make up the majority of the article. The only secondarily-sourced content in the article is: "The name Vecna was an anagram of Jack Vance, the fantasy author whose "fire-and-forget" magic system is used in Dungeons & Dragons. [...] According to Shannon Appelcline, the adventure "touched upon the oldest locales and the most ancient myths of the D&D game" by playing the Eye and Hand of Vecna against the cambion demigod Iuz." There is certainly room for merge.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:19, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I have tried to make clearer that there are quite some more passages based on secondary sources by my recent edits. I agree that size is just one indicator. Still, I am counting approximately 6+ kB of the article based on secondary sources now (counting sourced uses "in other media") - a minority of the whole article, but not to be just dismissed. Is there really a rule/guideline that says that secondary sources have to make up the majority of an article (assuming that there are several non-trivial ones there)? Daranios (talk) 19:23, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note that content in "other media" is using sources primary to the other medium and not secondary to the medium (that would be publications reporting on the mention of Vecna in multiple media). So I'd say bellow 5kb. Still, do you realize the glaring discrepancy between that and the 22/23kb of plot summary ? WP:PSTS doesn't give a ratio but says articles must be based on 2ndary scs (which, per common sense, means they must outweigh any other kind of scs). No ratio in WP:NOTPLOT but it states "discussing the reception and significance [...] in addition to a concise summary", which, again per common sense, means plot summary must at least not outweigh (and probably should be shorter than) significance. WP:WAF#Plot_summaries states "length of a plot summary should be carefully balanced with the length of the other sections", which means that in any case, plot summary cannot outweigh other sections. If plot summary for Vecna is to be reduced so that it doesn't violate these rules, the whole article would be 10/12kb, if we follow WP:AS that's mergeable. A merge will allow to keep a reasonable amount of plot, but if you insist on retaining it as a stand-alone, it will have to be trimmed down to ~10kb at some point and be merged anyway.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:11, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • General answer: 1) No matter the letter, in my opinion the spirit of WP:GNG is fulfilled. So let's keep the article. 2) In what way would Wikipedia benefit from either a merge or even a deletion of the article?
  • Specific answer: I feel we may have a long discussion about the usability and nature of the "In other media" section. To save time, I would like to postpone this discussion until the question about the article really hinges on that paragraph. Without it, secondary sources cover only 4+ kB of content. If you want to argument with WP:AS, it would give no reason to merge, even if only this content was present, as this guideline qualifies a normal article roughly between 1 kB and 50 kB. With 1500+ characters, it would also automatically not be classfied as a stub. But of course there is much more content. Also, not 22/23 kB are plot summary: The "Publication history" is based on primary sources, but is real-world content. So is "In other media" (where primary/secondary nature of sources could be discussed.)
  • A suggestion: Both sides have brought quite a large number of arguments. I expect, we can lead this discussion for some time more. But what about drawing a line now, to save time, and ask for a neutral administrator to evaluate if the majority (Keep, purely by count) is overturned by the better arguments of the minority, or not, or to tell us what should be done if the best course is inbetween? Daranios (talk) 18:48, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1) I disagree that you would accurately represent the "spirit" of GNG, and I actually am not very fond of this way of taking the "spirit" of a rule to make it say whatever you want... If I say (for example) "user X behaves like an asshole", and not "user X is an asshole", it could be argued I'm faithful to the spirit of WP:NPA (or not). Strip away a rule from its words and you can make it say just anything. That's why I don't think you can hide behind the excuse of the "spirit over the words", if your opinion is not explicitely supported by GNG, then it's not, period. 2) Merging would allow us to better include the few scattered sentences of external coverage in WP itself while not dooming the article the "stub label-of-shame", and it would respect WP policies. As I said before, you're misusing WP:AS, which certainly doesn't say that anything above 1kb can't be merged. Don't forget that WP:WHYN explicitly states that "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list." Plot summary is definition of a topic. Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
...aaand as we've probably said many times before there is a difference between the independent secondary sources used to define notability and the sources one may use to flesh out content (which may at times be primary). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:34, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
yessssss, when you have one paragraph worth of content sourced to third parties, you can "flesh out" another paragraph based on primary sources. After that you are no longer "fleshing out" the content of the independent sources you are basing your article on the primary sources which is expressly identified as inappropriate WP:WHYN. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 00:16, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber, please read WP:PSTS more carefully, though primary sources can contribute to the overall content, their use must be limited, and the article must be based on/fleshed out by 2ndary sources only.Folken de Fanel (talk) 17:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see, bad choice of words on my part. If you would have looked at the link I provided with my formulation "spirit of WP:GNG", you would have seen that I was indeed referring directly to WP:GNG - not hiding behind anything! - specifically to the section that describes the root of WP:GNG. In my opinion, there is no problem at any of the points mentioned with Vecna: 1) We can write a whole article. The existence of the article with sources demonstrates that. 2) No non-sensical content present. 3) No original research (except possibly for the very small snippets where it is indicated). 4) No problem with balance (three independent and one dependent secondary source say the topic is relevant within D&D, so that can be seen as established).
As for use of merge for Wikipedia: I do not see your point. Merging would just bloat up another article without great improvement, while this article vanishes for those who are interested in such things.
As for WP:AS: Whatever it can do for my position, it demonstrates that size cannot be used as an argument for merge or deletion. In the same vain, the guidelines, which I have been asked to stick to, say that the content based on independent secondary sources alone, even excluding the disputed "In other media" section, would not get the "stub label-of-shame"! But again, there is of course much more to the article than only that content. Daranios (talk) 20:52, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
1) There's no possibility of writing a whole article with just a handful of non-plot content. See WP:WHYN "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page." Remember, we both agree that after cutting needless plot summary, the article would only amount to a stub. 4) Per WP:GNG, what matters is not (only) the number of sources, but the quality and quantity of their content. If your 3 independent sources only have passing mentions and only allow to write one sentence from each, then no the article is not notable.
As for the use of merge, funny that you consider this article good enough for stand-alone, but somehow such greeeat content wouldn't be so great anymore when merged elsewhere ? Makes no sense at all. Content stays the same whether merged or stand-alone, otherwise you're just arguing for the sake of it. "Bloating" is a non-issue, per WP:PAPER, size cannot trump inclusion guidelines, and a huge amount of plot summary can be trimmed here and in merge targets anyway. And if you argue that the content itself would "vanish", then you fail to understand what "merging" means. Again, there is no choice to be made here, it's either, deletion, redirection, or a merge, but there's no keeping the article in the long term, that's just not a policy-supported option.
WP:AS is not concerned with merging an article anyway, but with splitting. WP:STUB is not concerned with notability but with size only. WP:WHYN is what demonstrates that size, as related to notability, must be used as an argument for merge.Folken de Fanel (talk) 13:41, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ahm, would you be so kind to read my last entry again? You have misrepresented my statements in several points: 1) I do not at all agree that the article would be a stub, even if only the parts based on secondary sources were present (and neither I nor Wikipedia's guidelines find plot summary "needless"). On the contrary: It would be too big for all example criteria mentioned in WP:Stub! It would have more than 250 words, more than 10 sentences, more than 1500 characters. 2) I do not argue, that content vanishes in merging per se. I have said that the article would vanish. And that would, in my opinion, a loss for Wikipedia. 3) If we would keep the content without (in my opinion) undue reduction, there would be no improvement in dumping it into another page in a merge. This would not make the target page greater than having Vecna and a possible target page seperately. (Ok, maybe that last one was not formulated completely clear by me.)
That said, I agree we have to consider WP:GNG. I am now counting approximately 14 sentences of material based on secondary sources (again, even excluding "In other media"). That is more than "a few". It's more than a definition. It's more than "half a paragraph". So no problem there. In case you think differently, should we not now call in someone neutral to evaluate the article, this whole discussion, and the question if the significance of secondary sources is fulfilled? Daranios (talk) 19:24, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
...which is, indeed, under discussion, not established. Daranios (talk) 09:44, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep/Merge - Subject should be discussed in detail with the campaign settings he is based around, I even remember seeing the Billy and Mandy reference with the Eye of Vecna and a few mentions of the Hand of Vecna in other places. Actually the artifacts of Vecna are more of the reason to keep the Vecna page than any other. Roguelikes like Angband and Slash'EM feature Vecna and ones like Baldur's Gate II, Planescape have easter eggs or minor nods as well. While some like Michael Bridges reviews D&D matters, he does appear to be important within the community if not for the Oerth Journal, a decent publication in the process of 80s and 90s counterculture. He is a Greyhawk artist and does various things besides reviewing Greyhawk material.[1] He runs the Greyhawk blog and analyzed the material of Vecna in 4E from the Dragon publication.[2] More offline sources likely to be found, but merging the several pages into one to serve a higher purpose is probably the best. Does not need to be deleted. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:45, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Found another review and commentary on Vecna.[3] Though while not a member of Wizards, Ken Hart is a contributor, so aside from the platform, this may be type of secondary source for commentary even if it was picked up by Dragon - Making the jump from unreliable fan commentary and discussion in the process.[4] ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:52, 10 October 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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