Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruenor Battlehammer


 * 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 No Consensus to delete. Davewild (talk) 21:55, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Bruenor Battlehammer

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Non-notable fictional character. Insufficient third-party references exist to write a substantial, verifiable, and maintainable WikiPedia article. prod removed without comment, so listing at AfD.Mikeblas (talk) 15:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * delete D&D cruft. Article is entirely in-universe, sole source from www.wizards.com is not independent of the subject (D&D publisher's website). No claim of notability, and no encyclopedic treatment from the persective of this unverse. Pete.Hurd (talk) 16:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep or at least Redirect to Companions of the Hall; notable Forgotten Realms character that has been a main character in a number of novels. BOZ (talk) 19:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:FICT. RMHED (talk) 19:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep &mdash; Bruenor is a major character who has appeared in multiple notable fiction works by a notable author. &mdash; RJH (talk) 20:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Still fails WP:FICT though, unless you care to add the appropriate sources that show otherwise. RMHED (talk) 21:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Aye, I'd be happy to change my !vote to keep if you can provide a secondary reliable sources demonstrating extensive coverage in non-"in-universe" contexts. Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * I have added several independent sources. The remainder, I think, should be referenced directly out of the novels. &mdash; RJH (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep - Per my arguments at Articles_for_deletion/Rod_of_Seven_Parts, Articles for deletion/Artemis Entreri, Articles_for_deletion/Mielikki_%28Forgotten_Realms%29 and a host of other places. Current consensus on Wikipedia, upheld in countless AfDs, is that major characters (esp. the main characters) of tremendously notable works, which is exactly what we have here, are presumed notable per the "common sense" clause in the WP:N and WP:FICT guidelines - multiple, independent, secondary sources are simply one way of drawing that conclusion.  All this harping on WP:N entirely ignores the need for actual consideration of the scope of the works under discussion.  Two or three nominators with a decided agenda consistently nominate the very articles that would best exemplify the need for looking at the big picture instead of wiki-lawyering, and then hold that the ones !voting "keep" and "merge" are ignoring policy.  I believe it's exactly the other way around, and the community at large seems to be in tune with that concept.  ◄   Zahakiel   ►  22:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. Sounds like this boils down to "other stuff exists". There are many articles that don't meet WP:FICT which have been deleted by the same user consensus you cite here. Wikipedia is not a game guide, by the way. The consensus isn't upheld in AfDs, either; articles are kept when there is no consensus that they be kept, which is part of the reason that so much of this cruft exists. -- Mikeblas (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply - What this boils down to is that you might benefit greatly from understanding the difference between WP:WAX and WP:CONSENSUS. There IS a difference; one of which is that the latter is an actual policy on this site.  In terms of the content of these two elements of our discussion (as I said in my previous chat with you about these matters) it's one thing to say, "Keep simply because article X exists," and quite another to say, "Keep, because the reasons article X was kept are also applicable here."  If you think that the pages I referenced were all - or mostly - retained through "no consensus" rather than "keep," then this points out the need for two things: a) Take an actual look at the pages I cite; you'll see a fair bit of straight keeps, and those that fall to "no consensus" do so only because of the tiny cadre of editors who always, invariably vote "delete" on this kind of material. b) If you aren't aware of the consensus for some bizzare reason, this might explain why you're so doggedly plowing through your AFD Queue with little reflection on your success rate on these specific types of articles.  And yes, I am aware that sometimes the articles so nominated are deleted, but that's partly because, and I've read them, no one involved pointed out the error of obscuring the spirit of the WP:N guideline rather than it's (often) poorly-understood letter.  One man's encyclopedic content is another man's "cruft"; that's exactly why the latter word is considered such bad form.  While I'm on the subject, since someone made something of as snide comment to me in a previous AfD: I don't read these books, and I don't play these games (and I don't think "game guide" has anything to do with this topic anyway, since he's a main character in a novel simply based upon a game).  I have no vested interested in making Wikipedia a "fansite," or a collection of trivial material.  On the other hand, I'm aware of what the community has decided about these matters, and I can tell (unless the articles are lying, and my memory is foggy) that the topics you continually nominate sometimes very often notable.  I'm not saying you have never nominated non-notable elements of fictional universes, but I tend to not vote on those AfDs, because, well... it's obvious that the community will take care of them anyway, and things are rarely helped by a pile-on (also, I don't want to actually encourage wanton AfDing even with the occasional "hit").  ◄   Zahakiel   ►  13:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Question. Huh? What previous chat? -- Mikeblas (talk) 14:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply - My apologies; it was in a previous AfD for which we both supplied comments, but that particular statement (the diff. between WAX and CONSENSUS) wasn't actually said in reply to you. ◄   Zahakiel   ►  15:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment. Zahakiel, will you have my man-babies? BOZ (talk) 00:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC) (not a real marraige proposal, or pick-up line for that matter). ;)
 * Keep. Extremely notable. Anyways, Notability (fiction) is an illegitimate guideline that most people do not even agree with.--Innerroads (talk) 01:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC) — Innerroads (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. Note: Innerroads is a blocked sockpuppet, see SSP
 * Keep - Per above -- ZeWrestler  Talk 00:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep RJH has added sources. Edward321 02:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per Edward321. Rray 01:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Game-related deletions.   --Gavin Collins 13:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as this stub fails WP:NOT. There are no reliable secondary sources to demonstrate the notability of this stock character. Call him Thorhammer, Battlehammer or Wolfhammer, fictional characters like this have no real world notability other than he gets +15 attack points. --Gavin Collins 13:39, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - That assessment is incorrect on at least three points; a) It is not a stub, for, from WP:STUB a stub is "an article containing only a few sentences of text... [...] Sizable articles are usually not considered stubs, even if they lack wikification or copy editing." b) A main character of a large number of hugely notable books cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered merely a stock character; it's obvious a heaping helping of WP:IDONTLIKEIT is coloring your vision here from the somewhat contemptuous tone you have employed. c) The notability guideline requires common sense in order to properly determine whether or not a character is presumed notable; it does not require the depth of sources you are culling from WP:FICT, particularly since a guideline can never trump a policy.  If it seems I am repeating myself here, at least I'm not copying-and-pasting (yet).  ◄   Zahakiel   ►  17:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Fair Comments but misguided. There is little real world content in this article, nor any real-world context, analysis or critism. A brief plot summary may sometimes be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic, but here the plot summary has become the topic. Only reliable secondary sources can establish notability under WP Guidelines. Stip away the in universe perspective, and there is insufficient content for a stub. --Gavin Collins 15:47, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Reply - I understand you believe that, and this has been the fuel for this run of AfDs. I think it's a mostly valid viewoint, but at its heart it's incorrect, and this is why we disagree so often in these discussions.  The statement that "Only reliable secondary sources can establish notability under WP Guidelines" is not only untrue, but insufficient in this (and almost every other) case of the discussions we've been involved with so far.  In the first place, it is untrue because the guideline (WP:N for our purposes) uses independent, third-party sources as one means by which to presume notability.  The claim is often made that the works in which these characters appear are insufficient because they are not "independent;" I don't buy that, because we find multiple authors contributing to a number of resources with no particular interest in furthering the salability of the specific objects/characters in question.  We aren't talking about a product or a website, and at best the "independent" argument is a gray area.  Further still, I consider it a rather silly argument in the case of WP:FICT, because fact-checking (the impetus behind the need for independence of source) is hardly an issue as the characters are defined within that written work itself.  The more likely the claims are to be controversial, the more strictly the independent, third-party guideline needs to be applied (note the "occasional exception" and "common sense" clauses; it indicates that there are times when it need not be so rigidly applied as you're insisting - and the very articles for which you tend to recommend deletion are the ones for which these clauses were included).  Making blanket statements about fictional characters is recognized in Wikipedia as being insufficient to delete (or even, often, merge) articles by more than the mere denizens of fandom, myself included.


 * Secondly, it is insufficient not only historically (the low success rate of these AfDs that I've alluded to before) but policy-wise. I respect the guidelines as much as any other editor, but I realize that the reason these are not policies is because they are insufficient on their own to guide the criteria for deletion and inclusion.  What we have here is your belief that this information is "marginal," and because it's not important to you, guidelines should be applied as policies, and policies (if they did exist, which they don't) should be used as a club to beat Wikipedia into the shape you believe it should take.  That's basically WP:IDONTLIKEIT, as I've said before.  It looks like it conforms to the policies and guidelines, but that's more by coincidence than by design.  Probably, some of these AfDs put up are going to succeed, but that seems at this point like it will be a luck of the draw based upon others who share your views, rather than the mounting consensus (a policy) that strengthens with every article of this type that is kept.  As I said in more than one previous AfD, there comes a point when Notability may be safely presumed (without "harm" to Wikipedia) by common sense based upon widespread reader base, and various other elements that exist here.  As far as the deletion nominations, we can keep doing this as long as you like, I suppose... but it is getting a little old.  ◄   Zahakiel   ►  16:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete - Has not established notability, which it must to be kept. Judgesurreal777 18:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)


 * 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.