Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wand of Orcus


 * 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. Consensus is that the material should be kept. Discussions for mergers can be done on a relevant talk page. Patar knight - chat/contributions 03:07, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Wand of Orcus

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This is almost an entirely in-universe article about a topic that fails to establish notability. TTN (talk) 13:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. TTN (talk) 13:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. TTN (talk) 13:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep or merge to Magic item (Dungeons & Dragons). BOZ (talk) 15:42, 5 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Keep one of the clearly notable elements unique to D&D, it is mentioned in the 'For Dummies' book, and is even cited as an example in a U.S. Patent from a non-TSR/Wizards gaming entity . Still working on more under alternative names. Note that these sources are in addition to the hundreds of times this item is mentioned in TSR/Wizards game material itself. Jclemens (talk) 18:18, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Both are utterly trivial singular name-drops without any further context. How would you even expect to work those into an article? It's not just criteria of "the topic is mentioned in reliable sources" that has to be fulfilled. It's "the topic has significant coverage in reliable sources." TTN (talk) 18:48, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, for a purely fictional element of a game, any mention is evidence of significant real-world impact. The significant coverage is in insufficiently-independent RS'es, such as other derivative primary sources (e.g., Novels). Jclemens (talk) 22:10, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * And what exactly supports that view? You have no reasonable means of using either of those sources in the article without them being irrelevant fluff to bolster sources. The sentence "The Wand of Orcus is mentioned in Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition For Dummies." is trivial, same with the other. There is no context to their usage in the sources, so it has no place in the article. You'd have a case for using the first one in Orcus' article because it at least has the context of citing it as an extremely memorable character and the "most monstrous evil." It's still a pretty bad source if that's the only thing the article can have going for it, but it's something. TTN (talk) 22:39, 6 September 2016 (UTC)
 * There are a ton of primary and self-published sources out there that are useful for improving the article, but not for establishing notability of the topic in the first place. I can bring up a ton of them if you want, but I don't see how that will help a policy-driven discussion. Jclemens (talk) 01:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Further sources including the wand being a separately described component of some miniatures (some are separate, non-TSR/WotC products) of the fictional demon lord, . Jclemens (talk) 01:33, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. Notability exceeds merging to any one article. bd2412  T 19:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per all the above. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 22:26, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science fiction-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 14:01, 7 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Merge to Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons). I respectfully disagree with Jclemens's assessment that "for a purely fictional element of a game, any mention is evidence of significant real-world impact". The mentions listed above do not meet the definition of non-trivial which is part of the general notability guideline, and I am unsure why we should hold fictional items to a lower standard. These mentions are good evidence that the Wand warrants a mention on Wikipedia, and we have Orcus (Dungeons & Dragons), List of major artifacts in Dungeons & Dragons, and the likes of The Throne of Bloodstone for that. I do not understand BD2412's claims, and neither of the other users who supported keeping the article provided an argument. Josh Milburn (talk) 20:06, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I mean that in the greater fictional universe of Dungeons & Dragons, the Wand of Orcus is occasionally used by characters other than Orcus, and discussion of it therefore includes material that is arguably beyond the scope of the Orcus article. Also, the material on the item is substantial enough that it would make the Orcus article bloated to merge it all in. bd2412  T 20:22, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I do not disagree with you, but what you say doesn't say much in favour of keeping the article. Merging this content to the article on Orcus (or a list) does not preclude mention of the Wand elsewhere, and if there's too much here for the article on Orcus, perhaps some of it should be trimmed. In any case, none of what you say deals with the main issue here, which is the apparent lack of significant coverage in third-party sources. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:23, 10 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Everything in the article is sourced and relevant to the topic. Trimming, therefore, would mean removing accurate, sourced information from the encyclopedia purely for the expedience of saving space in the target article. Dividing up the article between multiple other articles would mean that readers interested in this topic specifically (over 500 in the last month) would need to hop across multiple pages and search for mentions on them in order to get the complete picture. What would you "trim" from this article to make it fit neatly into the existing Orcus article? bd2412  T 04:23, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * That works under the assumption that all of the content is necessary to understand the topic. With articles on fiction, there needs to be a certain amount of weight put towards the plot summaries in the articles, else you end up with one hundred paragraphs on plot alone. It needs to be properly balanced with the real world information in the article to provide proper context without going overboard. As there is no real world information in this article, you can easily remove most of the content in this article while keeping the core concepts understandable. TTN (talk) 11:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I broadly agree. I could write pages and pages about fictional characters in universes I care about all sourced to primary material; the fact that there's too much to comfortably merge elsewhere would not be a good argument against merging the article elsewhere if the topic did not an article of its own. Josh Milburn (talk) 12:43, 11 September 2016 (UTC)
 * The above deletion debate is preserved as an archive of the discussion. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the talk page of either this nomination or the nominated user). No further edits should be made to this page.