Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cthulhu Mythos cults


 * 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 Cthulhu Mythos. Eddie891 Talk Work 20:44, 21 September 2021 (UTC)

Cthulhu Mythos cults

 * – ( View AfD View log )

This seems to fail WP:GNG/WP:NLIST, BEFORE is not helping, only content I see is in-universe. It seems like a fancrufty and ORish (for what is footnoted, sources mix works by various authors, mosty post HPL, and even RPG-books info, and I think some fan-page invention as well (?) spin-off of the table at Elements_of_the_Cthulhu_Mythos (a terrible article that needs merging back to the main CM article, see merge proposal there). I suggest this for now is converted to a redirect to the linked section, which hopefully will be merged back to the main CM article to prevent this WP:CONTENTFORKing of non-notable Lovecraftian fancruft. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  07:12, 26 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge or Keep This topic actually seems to be at least of some interest to secondary sources: First, while The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana is produced by a company specializing in role-playing games, as far as I can tell from the Wikipedia article, Google Books and Amazon, is not an RPG supplement and should therefore be treated as a secondary (tertiary?) source. At least those elements currently sourced to it should be WP:PRESERVEd and not simply redirected. The Occult World talks about how Lovecraft's fictional cults were influenced by and in turn gave cues to real-world occult organizations. And Aliens, Robots & Virtual Reality Idols in the Science Fiction of HP Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson in the "Influences on Lovecraft I." section talks about how Cotton Mather was an influence on Lovecraft's concept of cults. I am not sure if this were better treated as a stand-alone article or as an element in the larger Cthulhu Mythos, but I agree with Piotrus on that point that a WP:CONTENTFORK with Elements_of_the_Cthulhu_Mythos should be avoided by deciding at which place better to treat this topic and move all material there. Daranios (talk) 20:27, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, wait there is more! It seems to get a proper idea it would be neccessary to do a WP:BEFORE search on all the individual cults listed. Take the Google Scholar search for "Esoteric Order of Dagon" and especially this 14-page paper: Cults of Lovecraft: the impact of HP Lovecraft's fiction on contemporary occult practices. Daranios (talk) 20:37, 26 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, our article claims right now that The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana  is an RPG supplement. I'll need to research it more, but the last time I checked this source it was just a plot-summary type of an work. Your findings on how HPL's works inspired real world cults/occult practices are fascinating, and such a section might be of use in making this topic notable (right now the articles are pure plot summary). I am not sure if this would be best covered in a stand-alone article about cults; I still think it is reasonable to merge the plot summary back to parent articles, while adding a new section about 'occult influences'. We do discuss how HPL's work influenced other writers, it does seem that we should also discuss how his work influences some folks who took it too seriously too. But I think the readers would be better served by a section in Cthulhu Mythos rather than one in the much less visible Cthulhu Mythos cults article, particularly given that this section would be hidden near the bottom anyway, after fancrufty plot summaries. Might as well have it hidden in a more visible article. Ps. Regarding EOoD, would be nice to add some sources to Deep_One (also see Articles for deletion/Esoteric Order of Dagon; if there are good sources we could restore it - two years ago nobody found them...). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here  02:18, 27 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Right, The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana article says it is an RPG supplement. I did not find that claim supported anywhere, though. All comments I've seen say it is an encyclopedia for the Cthulhu mythos; the Origins award is a "Special Achievement Awards", whatever that means, not an RPG award; this review tells us that, while useful for the game, it does not contain game stats, and was not published in the RPG line of Chaosium, but in its line of fiction (while again comments tell us: Beware, it is not a piece of fiction but a lexicon); lastly, this preview tells us that it "is the first attempt to provide a guide to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos since Lin Carter's "The Godes" and "The Books" ... This book collects data on the books, gods, characters and places which make up the Cthulhu Mythos." I assume it contains mostly plot-summary, but also, according again to this review, which pieces of fiction the elements come from - which should be worth something in this prototypical leviathan of a shared universe. As usual, I think such a source can very well contribute to notability - as long as other sources can provide the necessary complementary information so as not to run afoul of WP:ALLPLOT. Which we have in this case. All that said, I am not against a merge at this point, even though I can imagine keeping the article for future expansion just as well. Daranios (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 05:43, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete  Not notable enough to justify a Wikipedia article and there is not significant coverage.RamotHacker (talk) 21:22, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * What about the coverage in secondary sources discussed above? Daranios (talk) 10:45, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * I second Daranios. This needs a rewrite to be considered for a keep, but I'd think redirect would be better than outright delete even if no editing is carried out. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete or redirect. There's nothing in the article worth salvaging. If the above sources can amount to anything significant, it's best to start fresh in the main article and go from there. TTN (talk) 20:05, 8 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - Looks like a keep per the sources identified above. No need for WP:TNT, just need to strip out all of the cruft and make a more focused article. However, on the editing side, I feel the parent article (Cthulhu Mythos) could support this content as a section with a brief summary of the importance of cults in the mythos and a few bullet points on the most relevant individual fictional cults. So, I would also support a Merge if that were preferred. Suriname0 (talk) 00:00, 9 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per Daranios.4meter4 (talk) 00:43, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Curbon7 (talk) 05:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge topic can be adequately covered within the Cthulhu Mythos article. MrsSnoozyTurtle 05:57, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep for the good reasons given by Daranios. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:51, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge To Cthulhu Mythos as an WP:ATD and since the parent article is already fairly short as-is.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 12:01, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge per WP:SIZERULE and preserve any worthwhile content to Cthulhu Mythos. While I disagree that a discussion about fictional cults in the Cthulhu Mythos is non-notable for inclusion on Wikipedia, and in my view this should not have gone to AfD, the readable prose for the Cthulhu Mythos article is actually quite short at less then 9kb, and this article is roughly 6.5kb. Combining both articles and trimming prose anything deemed to be superfluous is a good editorial decision in my opinion. Haleth (talk) 07:49, 21 September 2021 (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.