Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jenna K. Moran


 * 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 keep. The clear consensus was to keep. (non-admin closure)  Onel 5969  TT me 14:20, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Jenna K. Moran

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

I went looking for sources to flesh this out a bit, and I found almost nothing. No news hits, and nothing substantial or reliable on a normal search (just Reddit/Twitter posts, promotional material, and the like). Nobilis seems to have some reasonable coverage, but I don't see much in the way to indicate that Moran as an author meets our notability criteria. Primefac (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Authors and Games. Primefac (talk) 14:04, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Women-related deletion discussions. Skynxnex (talk) 14:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. Newimpartial (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * She apparently also wrote under the name R. Sean Borgstrom. Not sure that's going to help, but I'm struggling to believe that the author of Nobilis isn't notable. I'll search more later but I'm not finding much under her name. Hobit (talk) 14:20, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Being a trans person 20 years ago was hard. Newimpartial (talk) 14:24, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Believe me, I'm as surprised as you are, but there doesn't seem to be anything under those names or Rebecca Sean Borgstrom. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep - clear pass of WP:NAUTHOR 3. and 4. Moran is the sole author of Nobilis which won the Diana Jones Award - a kind of "lifetime achievement award" in the field - and many of her publications meet WP:NBOOK notability requirements. No, this article is not great, but WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. Newimpartial (talk) 14:24, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * If I could have cleaned it up, I would have, but that's what led me to this nomination. Primefac (talk) 14:26, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep agree with the AUTHOR as discussed above. Oaktree b (talk) 15:31, 13 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep I've added additional references and details. Moran gets several mentions in the newer edition of Designers and Dragons, which is really the largest and only history of the industry in existence. She's unquestionably notable unless the entire tabletop roleplaying game hobby outside of Dungeons and Dragons isn't. --Rand Brittain (talk) 17:42, 17 October 2022 (UTC)


 * Keep - I'm surprised more information isn't readily popping up on google - she has an extensive listing on RPGnet's contributor index under R. Sean Borgstrom, and her DriveThruRPG page shows her more recent work. The latter is a commercial site, yes, but in the world of indie RPG publishing, it's very difficult to track a person's reputation and career through channels more definitive than the place where they sell their wares.
 * I have to concur with the others here: Jenna Moran's work is foundational and highly regarded in RPG design circles, especially but not limited to Nobilis. I'm new to wikipedia editing so I'm not sure how best to help show relevance (seeing this article marked for deletion was so shocking that I had to register to investigate what was happening), but I can see how the peculiarly insular world of game design, which operates mostly on ephemeral media like forum posts, Google Groups, and Discord, would be difficult to document to Wikipedia's standards. I would be happy to reach out through the RPG design grapevine to dig up documentation that fits the criteria if need be? LambentBeam (talk) 07:13, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Documentation would be helpful. Reviews in reliable sources would be great.  The award is a big deal.  As others have noted, that may be enough to meet WP:NAUTHOR criteria 3 or 4.  But anything published in a reliable source (Dragon etc.) would be nice. Right now we just really have a short-ish mention in one book and the award. Hobit (talk) 20:20, 16 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Rand Brittain beat me to it comprehensively, but just to second them, they've cited the most definitive sources available.
 * Extensive references to Jenna Moran's work and its influence on the history of game design can be found in Shannon Applecline's Designers & Dragons Vol 3 - The 90s, and briefly in and Vol 4 - The '00s. Designers & Dragons is the definitive scholarly work on the history of roleplaying games as an industry and a body of creators, it's hard to imagine a higher source for fulfilling WP:NAUTHOR criterion 3. Volume 4 also goes into a some detail on the EOS Press scandal that resulted in Moran's work essentially disappearing off the face of the Earth for years (although there's significantly more to the story than what it describes, alas), which I see Rand has cited in the main article now.
 * Here's the link to the 2003 Diana Jones Award given to Nobilis and Jenna Moran writing under Borgstrom. As newimpartial points out, this is the industry equivalent of a lifetime achievement award, the sort of thing most designers will never even approach. That seems to fulfill WP:NAUTHOR criteria 1 and 4 ("regarded as important by peers or successors;" "won significant critical attention"), and the coverage in the DJA 2003 page and the writeup for Nobilis in Designers & Dragons Vol 3 goes some ways toward establishing criteria 2 and 3. LambentBeam (talk) 18:11, 17 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I agree we have Designers & Dragons (which is a great resource btw, we'd have lost dozens, maybe 100s of articles without it) and the DJA award. I'm not seeing much press on Moran getting the award nor much that really discusses her work other than Designers & Dragons.  This likely passes WP:NAUTHOR as noted, but WP:N is a lot more debatable and finding sources which would seal the case for WP:N (which would really be one more significant piece that describes her work or her as a person and meets the requirements of WP:RS) would make this open-and-shut. Hobit (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * I've edited the article to add interviews with Moran, her RPGgeek reference page, and the fifth thousand-post thread on RPG.net discussing the release of the third edition of Nobilis (the previous four threads were locked after they grew too long for the board's software at the time). It looks like other people have added other interviews, a reference in Pyramid, and other articles. I think this really ought to be enough. I could try and find some references to Moran's work on Exalted for White Wolf (which is notable in and of itself since her contribution established several major parts of the game's factions and backstory), but at this point her article has more outside sources than the article for Exalted does, which has dozens of cites, nearly all of which are to Exalted itself. Rand Brittain (talk) 05:16, 20 October 2022 (UTC)


 * weak keep I think she meets WP:NAUTHOR with the award (though it is for the system, not the person, and the award is sometimes given to a person...). I think we have enough to write on with the non-independent sources and the Designers & Dragons stuff.  But it's closer than ideal.  Hobit (talk) 16:56, 18 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep per above, and recent work done on the article. BOZ (talk) 01:26, 20 October 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.