Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Troll (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. Vanamonde (Talk) 10:43, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Troll (Dungeons & Dragons)

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Fails WP:GNG. The only non-primary, real world-based source is extremely trivial. TTN (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. TTN (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. TTN (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. TTN (talk) 20:46, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

question: are there any other Dungeons and Dragons pages that are potentially in the firing line? Would it make sense to consider them as a group?
Keep if more sources are found, otherwise merge to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD. BOZ (talk) 22:11, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - though I admit this requires editors to think outside the box a bit. Before I get to that, as always, WP:BEFORE is a concern. There doesn't seem to have been any tagging, clean-up, discussion of the article, or review of the history before this was nominated. Because there was - on the day of the nomination - a concerted effort by Primergrey to fix problems with the article. Rather than seeing if that work would continue and could make the article better, it was nominated for deletion instead. Always concerning. Beyond that, those who know D&D understand how ubiquitous trolls are. They have featured in dozens of live-streamed versions of the game, are featured (in their various forms) in almost every core book associated with the game for multiple editions, and have transcended the game to become a core part of the culture surrounding the game (see its use by the creator of D&D in the name of the company he used to produce material for the game; Troll Lord Games). The extensive coverage by multiple sources in the form of live-streamed play is enough for me. But there's also this, this, and this. St★lwart¹¹¹ 01:47, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I have another reference for you. https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1227.html You see a clear reference to how Trolls in AD&D are XP fodder. But Serini Toormuck develops a friendly business relationship with them and they end up saving her life using Troll blood.Slimy asparagus (talk) 05:08, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Redirect to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons (might do a soft redirect, they are cheap). Reviewing sources above 1) blog, niche but on topic, no "about" but they list their staff [1] 3) same as 2 but openly admits they are a blog too, 4) a comic, seriously? Given that quality wise, there is little distinguishing 2 from 3, so arguably 2 is a "multi-author blog" too (the cited article's quality is hardly impressive) and all of the cited sources are very niche, if those are the best sources we can find for this, that's hardly helping. The article has a once sentence reception sourced to a Dummies... book: [2], and that's still probably the most reliable, independent treatment of this. Sorry, the best I can see here would be to rescued that sentence referenced to Dummies, copy it to Troll which can mention this race appears in the popular D&D franchise, and that's it. PS. Merge done, I copied that sentence to 'Troll' article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:33, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We're not talking about "a webcomic". We're talking about The Order of the Stick here. ;-) But I would prefer a redirect over a delete. Slimy asparagus (talk) 05:46, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As much as I like The Order of the Stick, my point is that it is not a WP:RS :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:06, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine BOLS would be considered a fairly reliable source. They seem to have proper editorial oversight and declare paid advertising fairly openly. Tribality is in blog format, yes, but its multi-author and has been nominated for a couple of ENnie Awards. We're not talking about some basement-dweller's fan-fiction. They aren't the best or only sources I could find; I barely looked. My point was that the nominator hadn't looked at all, and we should expect more. St★lwart¹¹¹ 10:48, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to vastly overestimate the amount of effort that needs to go into BEFORE. Besides that, I don't see how you pointing out three non-reliable sources means I didn't do a cursory search for sources. This stuff is no different than the dozens of trashy listlces that pop up. Those are a dime a dozen and are not inherently indicative of the existence of proper sources. TTN (talk) 11:43, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond WP:OTHERSTUFF... on the contrary, nominators regularly get a free-pass for lazy nominations. BEFORE.C.3 alone means the article's talk page should have a recent discussion that attempts to address the issues with the article, stand-alone notability, or a proposal to merge it to another article. There hasn't been a new discussion started there since 2010, so... St★lwart¹¹¹ 11:57, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Literally nobody does any of that. BEFORE is considered to be a search for sources and nothing more than that. TTN (talk) 12:23, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But literally everybody should... I tend to think WP:BEFORE is fairly clear. It has 4 explicit parts and a search for sources is one requirement under one of those four parts. That it has become common practice to ignore that policy is a sad reflection of the state of WP:AFD. But I appreciate your honesty here. St★lwart¹¹¹ 23:41, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Covered in non-D&D sources like the D20 SRG (e.g. [3]). Inclusion of a fictional element in multiple notable works (which include separate versions of D&D, as trolls have been featured in each) is a recognized reason to include a separate article: only one version of the game can be "primary" and all other usages are necessarily secondary, and of course each game is reliable for its own content. Jclemens (talk) 11:59, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The concept seems quite widespread in popular culture and iconic for D&D, seeing that e.g. at non-rpg-related book like Sorted!: The Good Psychopath’s Guide to Bossing Your Life has a sentence like "At one point our Twitter account boasted more trolls than a Dungeons & Dragons convention in Tromsø..."

There is quite a number of secondary sources, and I am suprised that this is not mentioned in the nomination. We have The Monsters Know What They're Doing, pages 249, 257-260. In addition to creative in-game use and in-universe description this has the creative origin and a bit of reception. If the BOLS article can be considered a reliable source, the case is already made and the minimum requirements of WP:GNG fulfilled. Everything else I've seen is much shorter, but can collectively give us something: Creative origin: The Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and Cinematic Monsters, p. 193; La mythologie nordique dans Donjons & Dragons Entre réception et stéréotypes, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games. Description: Faeries, Trolls; Dungeons for Science: Mapping Belief Places and Spaces. Prominence in the game: Heroic Worlds p. 92; Lexikon der Zauberwelten p. 12; Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens. Given the individually limited scope of the latter sources, I am not totally averse to a merge to, I guess, Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. But I think it's not really a problem to beat WP:WHYN when using the sources discussed so far (and expect there are more out there). So I prefer to keep a stand-alone article. Daranios (talk) 14:44, 10 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Technical point: can you link to google page view? Your links always go to the cover page, that's not as friendly. Also, can you tell is if any of these sources (outside BOLS) meet WP:SIGCOV and if so, why? The ones I checked seem to be mentions in passing (a sentence or two) more so than in-depth coverage (which I tend to define for myself - given SIGCOV is pretty vague here - as a paragraph or more, not counting plot summary). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:35, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Monsters Know... in itself is significant coverage in my book. For the others it's the usual thing: I'll have to check again, but probably none has a paragraph or more. Only collectively they provide significant coverage, i.e. allow us to write more "than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic", which is why we have the notability guideline in the first place. Oh, wait, Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies, p. 362 (+ mentions on p. 3 and 224) might just make it to paragraph if you remove phrases summarizing the in-universe description.

Google searches: Trolls, Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies, Faries; The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games; Dungeons, Dragons, and Digital Denizens; The Ashgate Encyclopedia, first hit, scroll one page down to 193 (I wonder if there's a mention of D&D in Ashgate's troll article, but didn't see a preview that has that). Daranios (talk) 11:16, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. D&D Trolls are different from other trolls and are significant. Eulenbär (talk) 10:03, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep per the sources provided by other editors, which in aggregate seem to scrape the WP:GNG threshold of coverage in my opinion. If the concern is that the article has too much fancruft material, that could be trimmed as an editorial concern, not a ground for deletion. Haleth (talk) 03:41, 12 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per sources listed above, which meet WP:GNG. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:09, 12 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. While it is not 100% non notable, it does not merit a standalone article, either. Coverage in reliable sources is spotty at best._{ZXCVBNM (TALK)} 11:21, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, enough sources to meet GNG.Jackattack1597 (talk) 21:19, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly.Eulenbär (talk) 11:08, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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.