Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vecna

Vecna

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)

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)

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)

(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)

• Keep based on additions by Webwarlock. BOZ (talk) 15:22, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
  • see the talk page for an analysis of those sources and how they do not appear to actually address the WP:GNG requirements. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 12:03, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep The new additions made in the last day by Webwarlock indicate a notable presence in certain aspects of popular culture as affirmed by reliable sources. Guinness323 (talk) 15:42, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• transwiki to a fansite that would love this kind of trivia. Based on the analysis of the sources added by WebWarlock on the Talk page, none of them actually provide anything that could be considered "significant coverage" by "reliable sources" about the "subject of the article" - they are mostly just trivial observations that happen to include Vecna. Perhaps a merge to List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons would be acceptable, there is the Wired review that would provide at least one Third Party Source to that article. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:40, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete or redirect. Nothing qualifying for significant coverage of the topic has been provided, so it should be removed unless WP:N and WP:WAF can be met. TTN (talk) 15:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

• Redirect (Merge possible) to List of Dungeons & Dragons deities. The article itself fails to establish the notability of the topic, per the complete absence of "significant coverage from multiple reliable independent sources" required by WP:GNG. Sources have been added, but I share TRPoD's assessment of these being only trivial mentions and not significant coverage, in the AfD talk page.Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:01, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep per sources 2 & 7. The former was written by another person commenting on other authors' creations within the D&D genre. Major plot entity over 30 years. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
  • as of this version reference 2 is Dragon Magazine, the officially licensed publication of Wizards of the Coast for the Dungeons and Dragons Franchise. Not an independent source. reference 7 as discussed on this talk page is a blog post that may or may not be argued is acceptably reliable, but the only content is a reference that "Vecna" is an anagram of "Vance". That is not significant. And just cause a fictional being was mentioned in print 30 years ago is not one of the riders providing an exception to the requirements of WP:GNG.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Concur with TRPoD, source 2 is not independent no matter how much you wish it could be, source 7 is trivial.Folken de Fanel (talk) 23:14, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
      • When the article referenced by Source 2 was written in 2007, Dragon was -- and had been for a number of years -- independently published by Paizo, under a license agreement with WotC. Paizo was not owned by Wizards of the Coast; quite the contrary, in 2008 when WotC revoked the license to publish Dragon and introduced a new edition of D&D that superseded the current v3.5, Paizo became a competitor by publishing its own role-playing system, Pathfinder, based on the old v3.5 system. While there is no question that Dragon was tightly tied to the D&D gaming community, its editorial staff, artists and writers were not employed by WotC. Guinness323 (talk) 17:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
        • "under official license agreement" is the definition of NOT independent "An independent source is a source that has no vested interest in a written topic and therefore it is commonly expected to describe the topic from a disinterested perspective. An interest in a topic is vested where the source holds a financial or legal relationship with the topic, for example.". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 17:55, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
          • If Paizo was contractually tied to WotC, then there is no question of independence.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
          • This is nonsense - like saying that a mathematics text is not independent because it's written by a mathematician and appears in a maths journal. Most authors and publishers have a pecuniary interest in their work. It's the fact that people pay money for it that gives it value. Warden (talk) 18:58, 5 October 2013 (UTC)
            • Your comment is nonesense. WP:GNG clearly states that "independence" "excludes works produced by the article's subject or someone affiliated with it".Folken de Fanel (talk) 21:15, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

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)

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)

• 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)

• Keep The connection with Jack Vance alone is enough to make the topic notable - see Four ways Jack Vance influenced Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Readings in D&D: Jack Vance for example. Our editing policy then applies and so there is no case for deletion. Warden (talk) 18:52, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  Wrong, what makes a topic notable is the presence of significant coverage from reliable secondary independent sources, which is not the case here.Folken de Fanel (talk) 18:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  I have cited multiple good sources. If they need adding to the article then that's a matter of ordinary editing not deletion. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 19:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  All of these are just short, trivial mentions, not meeting the requirement of "significant coverage". Four ways Jack Vance influenced Dungeons & Dragons is probably unreliable.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  Both of those pieces tell about Vecna in detail and all the sources seem to agree on the facts, which do not seem to be in dispute. They pass WP:SIGCOV easily. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 19:09, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  No, one short sentence is not "in detail", and doesn't allow to build an article that wouldn't violate WP:NOTPLOT. Four ways Jack Vance influenced Dungeons & Dragons is from a blacklisted website.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:14, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  The issue of blacklisting is continued elsewhere as FdF seems sensitive on the subject. The fact remains that there are numerous good sources for the topic. My !vote stands. Warden (talk) 19:53, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

  Notability is not inherited. Simply being named after someone notable does not confer notability. Otherwise, Doctor What, Doctor Whom, Doctor Whooves, Doctor Why, Doctor Watt, Doctor Whozonfirst, The Professor, Inspector Spacetime, Tractor Who, and every other character on this page would each merit a separate article just about them for no other reason than being named after Doctor Who. Egsan Bacon (talk) 21:11, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

• Keep Added one source. As of now, sources 2, 8, 25, 27, 29 (and 16 and 18 to some degree) are independent and show a general relevance of the subject. Daranios (talk) 19:56, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

  Source 29 is a self-published fan wikia therefore unreliable, sources 16 and 18 are forum posts so self-published and unreliable. Besides, none of the sources provide any significant coverage on the subject.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:28, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

(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))

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)

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)

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)

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 it would be nice, if this time someone neutral could draw a conclusion instead of User:Folken de Fanel changing the status quo to his liking in spite of a remaining disagreement, as was done with Caramon Majere. Daranios (talk) 18:41, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

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)

• Keep I agree with Web Warlock. Hihidufgh (talk) 04:25, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

  You seem to ignore the discussion establishing the sources as not significant...Folken de Fanel (talk) 09:10, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

...which is, indeed, under discussion, not established. Daranios (talk) 09:44, 6 October 2013 (UTC)