Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wulfgar (Forgotten Realms) (3rd nomination)


 * 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 per withdrawal by nominator. (non-admin closure) Vaticidalprophet (talk) 08:51, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

Wulfgar (Forgotten Realms)
AfDs for this article:


 * – ( View AfD View log )

The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing General notability guideline and the more detailed Notability (fiction) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. No prejudice towards redirecting this to List of Forgotten Realms characters (although it seems to have been in turn redirected to Forgotten Realms. The 2016 discussion ended as keep but it significantly rested on argument that the character was mentioned in a number of sources - sadly a review of those suggests that those are pure mentions in passing, like the fact that he appears in the D&D Drizzit's board game (which I incidentally own). None of the sources cited in the last AfD or added to article contain anything that approaches significant discussion of this character. Ps. On a side note, however, I want to point out that Articles for deletion/List of Forgotten Realms characters was closed as merge but no merge was performed - maybe User:BOZ would like to add this to their to-do list? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 13:58, 11 January 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  13:58, 11 January 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  13:58, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment: I have not yet looked into whether there are adequate sources out in the wild which demonstrates that the character meets GNG, so I have not formed a view to either vote Keep, Merge/Redirect or Delete. I see a few problematic issues with the rationale behind the nomination however. I should point out however that Notability (fiction) is not a requirement or guideline as represented by the nominator. In fact, the first paragraph of the essay opens with "There is no special guideline for the notability of fictional elements (such as characters and episodes) on Wikipedia", so the only consideration here is whether the subject topic meets GNG in order to determine if the presumption that it warrants a standalone article stands. Another issue I have with the nomination is that the nominator started a AfD without specifically making a case for the article to be deleted due to an alleged lack of notability, but to in fact canvass opinions on whether the outcome of the last AfD should be overturned based on his subjective opinion of the quality or availability of sourcing. The nominator mentioned in passing about the problematic state of current sourcing and concluded that it fails the GNG, but did not provide a detailed source by source analysis for other editors to provide a compelling reason that all alleged mentions are trivial and why the overall coverage fails GNG, particularly when the consensus of the last AfD voted otherwise. I note that recent comments by other experienced editors here and here made it clear that it is inappropriate to start a AfD if the nominator's position isn't to advocate for an outright deletion of the article. Is there a compelling reason, other then a potential WP:IDONTLIKEIT, as to why a merge proposal is not started on the relevant talk pages instead if the nominator blatantly conceded that it could be redirected to another appropriate merge target? PS: Also, why was BOZ publicly called out and asked to salvage material from the redirected page, as if it is their obligation to do so? Haleth (talk) 16:14, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * @ Haleth --> I haven't yet developed my own opinion, but a few crucial points of order. The nominator clearly mentions GNG first, and Notability (fiction) second. Are you suggesting that the existence of the Notability (fiction) supplementary page should be ignored and not discussed at all? Also...you speak about the practices of experienced editors. Well, the nominator seems to me to be very experienced and skilled. It appears to be more experienced than you or either of the two other editors you mention, at least going by simple edit count. Why do you assume that his practices are not the "best practices"? I'm sorry, but it appears to me like there is some IDONTLIKEIT here.... - GizzyCatBella  🍁  05:57, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Notability (fiction) is an essay which reflects the original author's subjective opinion or WP:LOCALCONSENSUS at best, that does not reflect community consensus, and has as much weight as WP:IDONTLIKEIT which is also an essay. It's fine for editors to use them as shorthand to summarize their arguments or opinions, but definitely not a "requirement" as asserted by the nominator; again, the GNG threshold is the only consideration in an AfD discussion like this according to procedure, as there is no relevant SNG for fictional characters or works. One of the editors I highlighted is an administrator on Wikipedia who frequently comments on topics regarding fictional works, and I did not actually use the term "best practices". The fact remains that there was a clear majority consensus to keep the article, and the nominator has yet to provide a source by source analysis of both the sources available on the article as well as the sources which were brought up in the second AfD but for some reason were never added to the article, to refute the consensus. All he did was provide a brief subjective opinion of the status of the sourcing and availability of sources, and why he believes the previous consensus was reached. Haleth (talk) 10:03, 12 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Redirect or delete - As with the other characters in this series, my first thought is that it should be obvious that they're notable, but nobody has ever produced sufficient sources for any character outside of Drizzt. Coverage is always limited to trivial mentions, and it seems they just have not obtained the necessary level of cultural impact necessary to sustain an article. What exists in the article is insufficient, and neither AfD has produced anything worthwhile at this point. TTN (talk) 19:08, 11 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep per notes on sources from other editors, and comments below from nominator withdrawing the deletion, or failing that at worst merge to Forgotten Realms per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD. I recently added some commentary from this review from Io9 for the first book he appeared in, and I don't remember if they comment further on him but the same reviewer also looked at the next book in the trilogy: BOZ (talk) 22:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep Because contrary to the nomination there is significant treatment in secondary sources: Looting the Dungeon talks about Wulfgar at length, giving some plot-summary, but mostly characterizing him, and examining the novel vs. the RPG character and comparing it to other novel and RPG characters; Fantasy-Rollenspiele als Medienverbundangebote talks about Wulfgar for a page, giving both plot-summary and analyzing his character arc; together these two fulfill the minimum requirement of WP:GNG. In addition, there are a number of shorter secondary sources that give us both plot-summary and some piece of analyis or real-world relation: The Io9 articles already mentioned by BOZ; "Book Review: Night of the Hunter" (character development), Naming Your Little Geek (name origin), The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games (short, but rates Wulfgar as one of Salvatore's two most famous characters); The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction (short, but tells us that Wulfgar as a main character was overshadowed by (and recast for) a side character). Lastly, the character has appeared in other media as evidenced by secondary sources listed in the previous deletion discussion, as mentioned by Piotrus, which is another piece of real-world-related information. Daranios (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Only the first two sources have any particular worth, as the rest are trivial mentions. In terms of the two sources worth looking at, they seem fine, but there's no way that they alone can be considered enough to establish notability. The number of sources required is obviously up to interpretation, but you need strong sources for two to be sufficient. They're more than a trivial mention, but they're not overly focused on the character either. You could easily summarize them on a character list or main series article. TTN (talk) 17:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * About the sources not being "overly focused on the character", I agree (when seeing them in their entirety), but the topic "does not need to be the main topic of the source material", so I don't see that as a problem.
 * If it's unclear if the first two sources would be enough, let's look at the one thing WP:N does say about numbers: We need more than one. So two in general can fulfill that. To see if two are sufficient in this case, let's look what WP:N wants to achieve: "so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic" and not "only a few sentences". Could we do this based on those two sources? Yes. Will the article be better off if we also include infomation from the other sources? Yes. So I don't think they are trivial with regard to WP:GNG or at all. That's why I still think WP:N is satisfied here. Daranios (talk) 18:23, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The issue is less on the aspect of the individual source significant coverage being met but more on the "multiple sources" definition being met, "Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic." While simply an essay linked to from GNG, Multiple sources covers the quandary that it's intentionally vague. The issue is the depth of these two sources is not particularly deep. They're more than a trivial mention, but they're also not an in-depth focus on the character to the point where we can say these alone are enough to form the core of the article. You say we can write an article, but all I see in terms of potential improvement is 90% plot and a small analysis section being made. While we certainly have perma-stub articles with notability established, there is no particular reason to set aside quality issues when a parent topic exists in which this information can be housed in accordance with the weight the topic deserves. If these are the only two sources, then this should be at best on a character list or in the series article. TTN (talk) 18:38, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Before I go any deeper into that: Where would you put the information we both expect is in the secondary sources (though to quite different degrees), if it was not kept in a separate article? Daranios (talk) 19:23, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Either a character list on an overarching Drizzt series article (surprised there isn't one) or a character list more focused on just the Drizzt characters. That could actually have some potential depending on how much content can be found for rest of the Companions and the temporary time-skip party. If it's possible to have a general development and reception section, I'd certainly have much more faith in that producing something worthwhile, unlike the complete Forgotten Realms list, which was way too bloated. TTN (talk) 19:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Allright, I have added some more from one of the secondary sources. So there is a reception section + a bit in the beginning of non-plot information. (BTW, I am having trouble finding concise phrasings in English. I am not doing that to artifically bloat content. If someone finds a more elegant phrasing without removing content, I will be happy about it.) We can expect to get at least a few more sentences from Looting the Dungeon and the other mentioned secondary sources. I still think that that is enough for the article to stand on its own. That said, I think such a list article as you suggest would be a good idea, especially given that there's quite a bit of information in the sources found here on Bruenor. That kind of information would not fit well into Forgotten Realms, where the redirect is pointing at the moment, but would fit well into such a list). I also would not feel strongly against including Wulfgar in such a list. I just think that if we take the non-plot information that exits on Wulfgar + an equal amount of plot summary, we would get a large section on him in such a list, and that would be a worse way of presentation. Alas, a list of Drizzt characters does not exist yet. And I would feel strongly against turning what we have here into a redirect in the hopes that someone will one day create such a list. (And, as Haleth has nicely pointed out, such a creation is not the responsibility of anyone specifically.) That would be a disservice to anyone who comes to Wikipedia looking for that kind of information. First requiring to create another article and then accepting a merge is not how an AfD works, I know, but I hope you can understand my stance on that. Daranios (talk) 08:42, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Always happy to review good finds. This PhD thesis states "In a similar manner, Conan, Boromir, Caramon and Wulfgar can be used as text-specific examples of the RPG’s Warrior Class which is a..." .. then pages 181-182 have a bit more such as "Caramon and Wulfgar, on the other hand, exemplify the strong, honest, hot-headed young warrior hero type common to adventure stories and similar to Howard’s creation Conan". But basically, this boils down to 'Wulfgar has been compared to Conan'. The other source linked is German and Google Books does not provide a translation AFAIK so I can't comment on it. Despite what some may think, I am happy to rescue articles, but so far I see one borderline sources (the PhD thesis), one foreign language source that I can't analyze and nobody did so here, and a bunch of low-reliability mentions in passing (from the last AfD, none of the particularly useful). Please ping me if the analysis of the German source is presented, so I can think about this more, but so far we are at the 'good start, not changing my mind' point. On a side note, I think editors interested in this should try to expand the Forgotten Realms list (I tried but failed to find any source which lists notable/important FR characters, but if this can be done, then characters like Wlfgar can get a short paragraph each, with a 1-2 sentences plot summary - because, let's face it, anything more is undue fancruft - and a few more sentences summarizing reliable scholarly analysis or reception, like that Conan comparison cited here). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:46, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I have added here what I wanted to add from Fantasy-Rollenspiele als Medienverbundangebote, so you can have an impression what's in the source. There's a bit more, e.g. about Aegisfang, but I can't see the whole of it at the preview. Daranios (talk) 08:42, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Thank you, it looks good. Could you comment on whether you checked if the publisher ("Hamburg: Diplomica") is reliable (not a self-publishing outlet)? I tried but couldn't find much about it (maybe someone here who speaks German could help)? Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 07:44, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Took me all of 10 seconds to find the wiki article for the publisher on German wikipedia under their former name,  Diplomica Verlag, and I don't speak or read German. Haleth (talk) 20:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * , Thanks. Seems like they specialize in publishing academic theses. Which are reliable, so I guess that addresses my concern, Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:36, 17 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Keep or merge per User:BOZ. Ford MF (talk) 21:53, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Whithdraw. At least two reliable and reasonably in-depth (I am AGFing on the German source) sources have been found, which seems to satisfy GNG. Thank you Daranios for saving this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 03:37, 17 January 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.