Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bonfire (Dark Souls)


 * 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 merge to Soulslike. WP:SNOW merge (non-admin closure) Dronebogus (talk) 07:34, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Bonfire (Dark Souls)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Background: This article previously existed in 2018, but it was agreed that it was not a notable subject, and merged into the main Dark Souls article (then titled Souls (series)). Recently, Zxcvbnm recreated the article, after which point a discussion began on WT:VG as to whether or not the subject was notable, and criticizing its recreation as being in breach of the previous consensus. Those arguing against the article's existence have characterized it as WP:GAMECRUFT, while those in favor have said that the subject has since become notable, and that a re-evaluation of the article's viability is needed. I do not lean particularly one way or another, but am taking this discussion to the appropriate venue so that its notability or lack thereof may also be assessed by those outside of WP:VG and hopefully the issue may be settled. silvia  (BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4)  (inquire within)  23:31, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy,  and Video games. silvia  (BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4)  (inquire within)  23:32, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Courtesy ping to all involved in the WT:VG discussion: silvia  (BlankpopsiclesilviaASHs4)  (inquire within)  23:37, 27 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Restore Merge per the unanimous and long standing consensus here and WP:MERGEREASON #4. Sergecross73   msg me  23:44, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Delete. Much of the reception is cobbled together from mostly trivial mentions and references. There are a couple of okay sources, but nothing that actually helps it stand apart. One source talks about the connection between Shovel Knight and Dark Souls' bonfires, and while the text acknowledges that YCG didn't confirm it, the actual article text seems to suggest that they explicitly denied it, rather perhaps having similar themes. Saying that Shovel Knight borrowed from Dark Souls is a big stretch, especially considering how big a gap there is in the article between discussing games borrowing the imagery. The fact that the paragraph opens with "Meanwhile," suggests that she's not claiming that imagery was not borrowed, just that it was evocative of Dark Souls. Furthermore, the article is kind of dire with respect to sourcing outside of the Reception section. Very light on Development, and nothing in Characteristics. As far as deletion versus redirect or merge goes, I don't think that people will generally be searching for "Bonfire (Dark Souls)," so it'd be a pointless redirect.
 * All that said, did we really need to be so procedural about it? All we had was the creator of the article and someone who made an invalid argument about consensus! - Whadup, it&#39;s ya girl, Dusa (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete Pretty much per MsDusa. This is a gamecruft-y popculture-y thing, an ultimately minor aspect of a game series with a few popculture easter eggs (Nearly a third of the source is just easter eggs without indepth commentary). -- ferret (talk) 00:02, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep (As creator) Frankly this just feels like people dunking on the article before bothering to check sourcing just because it "seems" crufty. As someone who very commonly starts AfDs about actual cruft, this isn't. There is a full article from Kotaku UK about bonfires and how they related to gameplay, a full Vice tribute to bonfires, a GamesRadar+ piece about how bonfires are a good game design element, and an article from VG247 about how bonfires evolved in games that is largely Dark Souls centric. There are a couple of paragraphs on bonfires in Ethics and Medievalism about their cultural basis. This is provable indepth commentary, not what I'd call "cobbled" and "trivial" coverage, and that's before you even get into the dozens of articles specifically about bonfires popping up in other games. I urge the closing admin to disregard assumptions that it is "non-notable" with no refutation of the provided sources. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 00:36, 28 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge to Soulslike (since this is also a feature of Elden Ring, etc). While there is more coverage of this as a gameplay mechanic than one typically would find for a game or series-specific element, I am not seeing the coverage given to be sufficiently fleshed out to be standalone from the genre (soulslike), and infact, a more comprehensive approach of soulslike games is arrived at by discussing the importance of the bonfire concept to them as opposed to typical checkpoint/save systems. It is important while there may be GNG coverage here, we are not required to create an article on every topic that is notable, and instead strive for comprehensive articles that might combine two or three closely related subjects. This seems like the perfect approach handle with bonfires within soulslike games, rather than splitting off. --M asem (t) 01:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Weak keep per Zxcvbnm's sources. And being specific to a single series has never meant that notable subjects can't have their own article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DecafPotato (talk • contribs) 18:35, 27 February 2023 (UTC)
 * This entire comment feels like a response to an argument no one was making... Sergecross73   msg me  03:03, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, the first half isn't, but the second part I could've sworn was addressing something in specific....or maybe I was just tired. DecafPotato (talk) 07:04, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge mostly per Masem. I think there's actually enough here to pass WP:GNG and keep the article. The GamesRadar+, Vice, and Koktaku sources in particular are quite extensive and explicitly about the article's topic. Having said that, I think the content is indeed better served bulking up the Soulslike article. The latter half of sources in the article don't really provide anything useful or meaningful for an encyclopedia article and could be dropped. —Torchiest talkedits 03:04, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel I should respond to the idea that it shouldn't be standalone, since it seems numerous people are taking this tack. The sources examine the bonfire as used in Dark Souls, DSII and DSIII, in other words, as a thematic element in the Souls universe as well as a game mechanic. Saying it belongs in Soulslike is ignoring its unique elements compared to other bonfire-clone save points. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 07:19, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think it is 100% possible, in Soulslike, to discuss the thematic nature of the bonfire itself as part of the Dark Souls setting, before moving on to discuss that the other soulslike beyond DS use a similar "reset world checkpoint" that keep the difficulty and challenge of DS (including in Demons' Souls). It is so tightly connected with what the soulslike page covers that while a standalone could be possible, you are making both articles less comprehensive that way rather than the merged one that explains one of the unique features of soulslike compared to other action-adventure games.
 * Soulslike has a lot of room to expand with some of the stuff identified about bonfires, we're not aspect to strip away what's well sourced (though the gameplay facets need to be better sourced or trimmed down). M asem (t) 13:43, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Agree with this. Merging it does not preclude discussing any of the thematic elements. And the idea is that while it could theoretically be a standalone article, there wouldn't necessarily be much beyond what would fit well in the Soulslike article, so it doesn't serve a very useful purpose. And all of this doesn't rule out potentially splitting it off at some later date if the amount of coverage increases over time. —Torchiest talk<sub style="margin-left:-3ex;">edits 15:22, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Also agreed - the bonfire article isn't really that long. It's under 12k in size, and that's including the formatting. Most of the content could be retained in a merge. It isn't a "selective merge" type situation. The only stuff that needs to be trimmed is largely the stuff describing how Dark Souls functions, which is already present in the series article. Sergecross73   msg me  16:08, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * See WP:TOOLITTLE, a common fallacy when stating an article should be removed. The article still has significant potential for expansion, especially with the couple of new sources found below that are also specifically about DS bonfires. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 10:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * That's not what I was saying in that comment. My point was that the content will still largely be retained, it will just be placed at a different location. Sometimes, these massive, sprawling articles need a selective merge where it's condensed into a brief paragraph at the merge target. This is not one of those times. It was meant as a consolation that little, if any, actual content would be lost in the merge. Sergecross73   msg me  05:42, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to Soulslike. The bonfire is one of the defining features of the microgenre. It makes zero sense to spin it out separately. Axem Titanium (talk) 03:57, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge with Soulslike per above. — Sago tree spirit  (talk) 04:30, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The sources make me want to !vote keep, but I can also very much imagine this article being beautifully merged into soulslike, and I hope that will work out well. With the bonfire as one of "the defining features of the microgenre," the article can go in-depth about how this checkpoint/warping system affects games in the genre, without it constituting undue weight. If such a merge doesn't work out, however, I do think this article stands alright on its own, and I do want to praise how nicely it is written. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 09:44, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge The sources provided demonstrate the mechanic is a notable element of the Souls games; they do not demonstrate independent notability to the point you can write a decent article (what's there is a hodge-podge of tidbits gussied up into something that's trying to appear more notable than it is.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs  talk 15:31, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge as suggested above. Soulslike is the perfect context to cover this. People really need to get over the notion that having a separate article is some kind of badge of merit. Material should be covered where it makes the most sense for the reader, not where it can rack up the most single page views. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 16:05, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge per others. My stance on this hasn't changed since the original consensus. No reason this should be split from the series article once you trim the cruft from the article. ~ <b style="color: #660000;">Dissident93</b> (<b style="color: #D18719;">talk</b>) 18:18, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to Dark Souls as I don't find a save point in a a specific game to be worthy enough of being its own article. I don't think it should be merged to Soulslike as most of the information in the article is specific to Dark Souls. RteeeeKed 💬📖 23:28, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge: I have scoured the internet to try and find more sources for this. I've pulled a number of incredibly interesting scholarly sources, including one in particular that has basically a whole chapter analyzing the literature historicity of bonfires as compared to the elements in the game but... I'm just not getting anything else outside of the sources that are already there generally. (,, -- passing mention). I think that the above suggestion to Soulslike is best.  Nomader  ( talk ) 03:11, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * These sources do make me more comfortable with having a separate article on the bonfire. They also make me wonder if there's opportunities for an article like "Bonfires in fiction" or such. Either way, these are good finds! ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 09:13, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * But again, in the framework of the idea that "bonfires are what make DS/soulslike unique", these sources strongly support discussing bonfires in light of DS/soulslike and those other gameplay features (like the always-online factor). Even moreso, one has to ask how much concept of bonfires can be discussed without setting it up in the DS framework? Because right now, there's very little else (as a unique feature of DS/soulslike) that doesn't also require the connection to DS/soulslike to be explained, meaning having two articles would be excessively duplicated. M asem (t) 13:32, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge to soulslike or Dark Souls was my initial reaction to seeing this, and articulated by Masem. &mdash; Rhododendrites  <sup style="font-size:80%;">talk \\ 21:58, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge per Masem. Arguably, there are many details of many games that have been covered by multiple reliable sources. But that coverage usually isn't separate from the game itself. (Or the series, the genre, or the developer known for deploying it.) It's often a good idea to cover these types of details in the context of another article. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:45, 1 March 2023 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> 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.