Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mimic (Dungeons & Dragons)


 * 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. — Jake   Wartenberg  20:22, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Mimic (Dungeons & Dragons)
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

No sources to establish notability outside fictional world. —  Dæ dαlus Contribs  21:34, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it isn't notable. However, per WP:BEFORE, alternatives to deletion should be exhausted before a title is brought to AfD.  In this case, a logical alternative is a redirect to List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters.  Also, the title is a plausible search term (imagining a user who has seen the naming patterns for articles on such fictional creatures and extrapolated upon it), and plausible search terms should not be redlinks.  Therefore I believe the correct outcome for this AfD would be redirect.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  21:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep, or possible redirect. Mimics are one of D&D's iconic monsters, and they have been copied by many video games and other sources since then. Of course, I can't find any reliable sources that back up that that was what they were based on (although it is pretty obvious), so that comment really doesn't hold weight in a deletion discussion. I would like to comment that the Pathfinder book Dungeon Denizens Revisited contains six pages about mimics... the same mimics from the Dungeons & Dragons universe, explaining their role in the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. This is primarily an in-universe description, but it was published by a third-party Paizo Publishing. The mimic in that book is used under the Open Game License (a free license in a similar way to cc-by-sa-3.0, so the primary source [Wizards of the Coast] didn't have any input on the product). However, Paizo used to be a part of Wizards of the Coast before splitting off to work on their own. I'm not sure if all of that helps to establish notability or not, but I thought that six pages from an arguably third-party source, even if they are in-universe, might help. Regardless, if the article is not to be kept, then a redirect seems much more appropriate than deletion, as S. Marshall said. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, Drilnoth, there aren't the references for an article on Mimics. Nor do I think there's a place for Chest- and box-like monsters in fantasy and video games, I'm afraid.  Pathfinder is definitely a primary source.  I think a straight "keep" is not a likely outcome.  Sorry.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  23:24, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * You might be surprised; I've seen "Keeps" on less notable subjects than this one. Although "no consensus" is likely enough in the case of a split. BOZ (talk) 03:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Pathfinder is not a primary source. It is in-universe, but it was published without oversight from a primary source (read: Wizards of the Coast), under a free license to use content. Similarly, just because text is licensed cc-by-sa-3.0 doesn't make it a primary source in an article about the license. Paizo became a fully independent published in 2007; products from before then may be primary, as they were overseen by WotC, but after that they've been doing everything on their own. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep or redirect with history intact per Drilnoth, appears to be iconic monster in the D and D universe. Ikip (talk) 23:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep the article or at least the history for later merging. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - absolutely, for certain. Iconic D&D monster, as others have said, so much so that thay have been copied ad infinitum by other RPGs and computer games. I put a bunch of work into this one recently (used to look like this); I don't have any secondary sources to reference, but I did the best I could with the available primary sources. That said, if the pundulum swings towards this one not having an article, it would be better to redirect to List of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition monsters than delete. BOZ (talk) 03:38, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Query Have you guys ever wondered why there are no independent sources for these monsters? Abductive  (reasoning) 03:54, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Answer to your query Because there doesn't need to be. If it involved a drunken famous person puking on a baby, it'd have hordes of coverage, because that is the sort of messed up crap the mainstream human population buys magazines and newspapers to read about.  This is a nerd topic, and you can only read about it in its proper nerd media.  That's just how these things are done.   D r e a m Focus  05:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep A very nice article. It has references in a magazine, and thus meets the notability guidelines.  The fact that the same company owns that magazine is not relevant, it something people pay to subscribe to.  Just like articles in the major newspapers aren't invalid because the parent company owns what they are talking about.  And why would any fictional topic of any type have notability outside its own fictional world?  Someone earlier said something about real world importance.  Is every actor notable for anything outside the fictional worlds of the movies they are in?   D r e a m Focus  05:25, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment. I used to be a huge D&D player. My best friend in high school test-played proto-D&D with Gary Gygax in Lake Geneva back in 1976 when he was like 10 years old. But saying, "we nerds used to run the Wikipedia, you know" in the edit summary betrays the spirit of both D&D and Wikipedia; nerds are not supposed to be in the mainstream, and once Wikipedia became mainstream, the nerds should have bowed out, or joined the mainstream. I am comfortable knowing that Mimics and Drow and Beholders will live on in my soul, and don't care if some bytes of unsourced information are deleted from Wikipedia. Abductive  (reasoning) 05:36, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * merge or keep, it doesn't matter which, but retain the content somewhere. Personally, I'd rather merge because it offers the hope of a compromise, which is the only way we'll settle this. A new non-argument just above: "I will remember it, so we don't need it in the encyclopedia"    The whole idea of writing, let alone encyclopedias, is to preserve information beyond individual memory.  DGG ( talk ) 07:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment, that wasn't an argument, it was a comment. My argument follows. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, topic is not notable, since it has not a single independent, reliable source that even so much as mentions it. Retaining content in the history is an invalid reason for retaining articles. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Remember, "non-notable" is never a valid reason for deletion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 19:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Is having absolutely no independent, third party sources a valid reason for deletion? Abductive  (reasoning) 20:03, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * No. It's a reason why the article is not notable.  There's more than one way of dealing with a lack of notability; sourced content (even if the source is not independent) can be merged or redirected, particularly if the search term is plausible.  Our policy on this is WP:PRESERVE.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  11:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." [] Blackbirdz (talk) 14:20, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia should not have an article on it. What Wikipedia should have is a redirect, which is what I've been saying all along.  But "redirect" is not the same as "delete".— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  16:44, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep or redirect with history intact per Drilnoth. Mimics are so iconic they have spread to other fantasy media.--Robbstrd (talk) 19:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * weak keep Per the presence of arguably independent content from Paizo. JoshuaZ (talk) 20:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep per JoshuaZ Hekerui (talk) 20:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Care to enlighten us on what Paizo is? Abductive  (reasoning) 20:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The very short version is, Paizo is a former splinter group of Wizards of the Coast (the copyright holders for the Dungeons and Dragons name) which is now a separate commercial publisher who use Dungeons and Dragons content under an agreement called the Open Game Licence. Without getting into the details too much, they're a genuinely separate entity but also a primary source; their material emphatically does not consist of scholarly studies or critical reviews of the subject of the kind Wikipedia prefers.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  21:48, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the content isn't of a type that Wikipedia prefers, but that doesn't make the source primary. The Open Game License is free in many similar ways to the text of Wikipedia. It isn't an "agreement" per se, but an irrevocable, royalty-free license under which Wizards of the Coast has no control over the content published under it. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:52, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that's entirely true and yet somewhat misleading. Paizo's material on mimics is an in-universe description combined with a set of game statistics, and the difference between their listing and that of TSR/Wizards of the Coast would be virtually unintelligible to a non-enthusiast.  It's equivalent to a comic book character shared between two comic book publishers, and I think it's truer to say Paizo is a second primary source in Wikipedian terms. I do agree that the outcome of this AfD should be some variant of "keep", ideally from my point of view a "redirect", but I'm anxious to ensure this assessment is made on the basis of a clear and accurate picture of the sources, which is why I'm challenging you on this. The Open Game Licence (or License, if you're American) would enable us to reproduce the in-game statistics, if Wikipedian policies allowed such a thing, but I think its resemblance to the text of Wikipedia doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.  It is in essence a commercial agreement, explicitly (per Ryan Dancey) designed to drive sales, even though no money changes hands. I also want to say that "Paizo" as discussed here means effectively the same thing as "Pathfinder" mentioned earlier in the debate.  We aren't talking about an additional, separate source when bringing up Paizo.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That is a fair assessment. My argument is that Pathfinder is a secondary source but as being in-universe it may not itself be enough to fully establish notability, unlike reviews and other more clearly reliable sources. So can we agree that it is technically a third-party source, but does not directly help to establish notability because it is in-universe? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 00:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yup, that's true and we can agree.— S Marshall  Talk / Cont  09:24, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * (ec) Paizo Publishing; see my "keep" comment at the top of the page for details. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, topic is just not notable, the sources are not independent, and so cannot establish that the subject passes our standards on notability. Blackbirdz (talk) 04:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:JNN is not a valid reason for deletion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:JNN is not a valid reason for deletion. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 18:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * "A Nobody" is incorrect; he has linked to an opinion essay which does not say what he claims it says. It suggests that one should not simply say "just not notable" without further clarification; I have given further clarification of the type the essay specifically suggests. Further, it is just an opinion essay, not a law. Even if it said what "A Nobody" seems to wish it said, it is not something which is going to "invalidate" another users comment. Given these two things, "A Nobody"'s comment seems unnecessarily rude. Blackbirdz (talk) 13:18, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * However, your having poor reading comprehension would be a perfectly valid reason for your non-sequitur link to an opinion essay that recommends using comments like mine. Blackbirdz (talk) 23:57, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I strongly urge you to focus on subjects for which you have actual knowledge and can make informed opinions. Thanks!  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 03:50, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think what you meant to say was "I'm sorry I said your comment was invalid. I have no authority to make such judgements and I can see how that comes across as condescending and unintelligent. I was wrong to link to an essay that does not say what I claimed it said, and I regret this error. I'll try to read people's essays more carefully in the future and not be so dismissive of other people's comments.  I hope you can please forgive my stupidity. Thanks! Sincerely, etc." Blackbirdz (talk) 04:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Your post above is a literal, word for word copy and paste of "The sources are not independent, and so cannot establish that the subject passes our standards on notability" found at WP:JNN. While that text is a suggestion, the authors of that page most likely do not intend their suggestion to simply be copied and paste, but rather a recommendation with the hopes that we can discuss specific sources apropos to the discussion at hand. Please be considerate to your fellow editors and provide topic specific arguments.  And no, I will not be bullied by incivility and personal attacks.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 04:14, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * So, what you're saying is that you linked to an essay that says my comment is valid while saying my comment was not valid. OK, that was dumb. Blackbirdz (talk) 04:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Simply copying and pasting text is not really all that helpful. Please consider the specific subject under discussion and what new can be added to the individual discussions at hand.  What specific sources have you checked for and where?  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 04:28, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I was hoping we could discuss this topic civillly. I have no interest in needlessly escalating anything with anyone.  I strongly encourage you to refrain from calling opponents "stupid dick" or making baseless "trolling" accusations.  You and I have commented in a grand total of three AfDs  In all three, you commented in them, including in one for an article I created, some time after my initial comment in those discussions.  Please discuss content and arguments, not editors and not read into good faith efforts to engage in discussions.  Good night.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 04:43, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your, at long last, "final reply" Blackbirdz (talk) 04:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per WP:N and the fact that Paizo is definately a WP:RS now that they are independant from WotC. --Lithorien (talk) 12:37, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * As discussed above, Paizo cannot be used to establish notability. It is still a primary source.—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  21:05, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think consensus was that it is a secondary source, but does not help establish notability because it is in-universe. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Well... that was what you and I agreed, yes. In an AfD with this number of participants, I think we need more than two editors who share the same view before we can call it a consensus!— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  22:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes; sorry, I meant "consensus" as in "agreement", which isn't the correct use of the therm. :/ –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 22:43, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This Paizo source, does it post-date the alleged independence day back in 2007? I still think that since it is commercially tied to the topic, it isn't a good source. What does it say? Does it analyze the Mimic? Abductive  (reasoning) 03:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it'll certainly be post-2007. Yes, the source is commercially tied to the topic.  As I said earlier, it consists of an in-universe description and a set of game statistics and tables, not a scholarly or critical analysis. Casliber (below) introduces an important point.  There will be "analysis" of the creature published—certainly in The Dragon magazine (but the said magazine was for most of its history a house publication of TSR, the former copyright holders of the Dungeons and Dragons name), and likely in White Dwarf (from the days when White Dwarf was independent, though it is not now).  However, this is analysis along the lines of how much of a challenge it presents in game, versus what in-game rewards are received for defeating it, and will likely be from an entirely in-universe perspective. In other words, it can be shown that mimics are covered in multiple publications, some quasi-independent and some fully commercially independent of the original publisher.  What cannot be shown is any treatment of them that is not from an in-universe perspective.— S Marshall   Talk / Cont  07:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: I have reverted an attempt to edit my post in this discussion and have warned the user on his talk page. Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 04:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep has been around for 30+ years. If I had the time, I am sure that some (i.e. at least two) magazine(s) with commentary on D&D would have mentioned it significantly but I don't, so I can't for the time being. Remember, the net is only the tip of the iceberg. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:13, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Notability has been established. Narthring (talk  • contribs) 05:22, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you kidding me? Notability has not been established, or would you like to cite some sources for that?—  Dæ dαlus Contribs  05:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep/merge, well-known and clearly notable. Stifle (talk) 14:25, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep in some capacity. While I have played Dungeons & Dragons (both physical games and video games), own a physical game somewhere if it has not been lost in the suffle, seen the movies, etc., for these discussions I tend to find Drilnoth and BOZ as the "experts" and am usual persuaded when they argue one way or the other.  For my own source searching, I find it somewhat difficult.  Please consider, for example, such results as this.  But I assume good faith in my fellow editors' claims that they can improve this article and so wish to allow them further chance to do so.  That Casliber is convinced at least two magazines cover the topic is persuasive enough for me.  Sincerely, --A NobodyMy talk 16:24, 27 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I found one magazine that did comment on the mimic, and added it to the article. I also trust Casliber's judgment insofaras where one exists, another is likely to follow. BOZ (talk) 16:48, 27 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep per Lithorien, BOZ, Calsiber. If there any print histories of roleplaying, they likely mention this as well.  A few games that use mimic-like creatures, just to show how widespread the cliche is: NetHack, Dragon Warrior I-IV, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, Fate, Tales of Symphonia, Golden Sun, and Kingdom of Loathing (list lifted from this page).Cerebellum (talk) 19:38, 29 August 2009 (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.