Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David of Doncaster


 * 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 Merry Men. Consensus seems to be that this fictional character doesn't merit having their own stand alone article. Liz Read! Talk! 07:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

David of Doncaster

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

Fails WP:GNG; lacks significant coverage in reliable sources. A search on Google scholar finds no such coverage. BilledMammal (talk) 07:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Mythology and England. BilledMammal (talk) 07:02, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep; with a second choice of move to List of Robin Hood characters or the like if there's a desire for minor characters to appear in list form rather than separate articles (but with no loss of content, i.e. keep the current content but refactor it as a single section). This is certainly an obscure character in the Robin Hood legend, just a name that shows up in Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow and its variants (e.g. Robin Hood and the Sheriffe) but an "OG" one that dates back to the old ballads, hence the name being re-used for characters in later versions.  But that's not necessarily a problem, in the same way that most folklore figures have most of the things people "know" about them accreted on in later tellings.  (As a side note, my mention of this article as a random side "find an obscure folklore character" in a different AFD apparently caused this nomination...  if the nominator had waited a bit, tagged the article first and pinged me on the talk page or the like, I'd have been happy to attempt to track down more sources.  I'm busy/traveling for awhile though so that's not going to happen right away, unfortunately.)  SnowFire (talk) 06:29, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * What policy based reason is there to keep the article? Is there an SNG, and if there is not an SNG then what are the sources that demonstrate compliance with GNG? BilledMammal (talk) 06:43, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge to Merry Men as, to my knowledge, the closest thing we have a List of Robin Hood characters. I did not see sufficient secondary source to justify a stand-alone article, but for such a long-standing if minor character, having an WP:Alternative to deletion is surely a good thing. Daranios (talk) 15:01, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
 * The topic wouldn’t need to meet GNG after a merge, but it would still need to comply with WP:V and WP:OR - and at the moment it wouldn’t, because the only sources currently identified are fiction. BilledMammal (talk) 02:13, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * For a literary character, the primary source verifies his role in the plot, so I don't see a problem with WP:V. David of Doncaster also appears in this secondary source, but I can only see a snippet preview, so I cannot see how much. Daranios (talk) 23:06, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
 * For ancient folklore the most the source can do is verify his role in one version of the plot. This is part of the reason there is a WP:OR issue; we need a reliable source to explain his role across multiple versions. BilledMammal (talk) 17:06, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as I have seen, what we have here is exactly the roles the character plays in each tale, so I still see neither a WP:SYNTH nor a WP:OR issue if this is merged. In addition, I have seen the character mentioned in an analytical (i.e. secondary) section of this source, which points out the primary importance of the appearance in Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow. Daranios (talk) 11:58, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge to Merry Men - per Daranios. I was unable to find sufficient sourcing to meet WP:GNG, but we have a good merge target. Suriname0 (talk) 16:25, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Like Little John and Friar Tuck, he is probably one of the best known of the Merry men. Bearian (talk) 20:27, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - I suspect the issue here is the character is less well-known as apart from a relatively small role in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, he has not been used in many of the more modern TV and film versions of the Robin Hood story. Thus I would think it comes down to his importance in the older stories and legends - I think if the article is to be kept more evidence of this would need to be included. Dunarc (talk) 23:58, 6 December 2022 (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.