Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Devil (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 Snow Keep. (non-admin closure) –Davey2010^Talk 16:38, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Devil (Dungeons & Dragons)[edit]

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

All of the references given here (yes, all of them, and there are a lot) are WP:Primary sources which track the appearance of D&D devils in various monster manuals and compendia and game modules and bestiaries— they do not include analysis or discussion of the D&D devil monster in secondary literature. This is a common problem with articles on D&D creatures— unless the creature has been discussed in at least a few secondary places, the creature itself will not qualify as notable for the purposes of Wikipedia. KDS4444^Talk 15:56, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Notability here is measured by whether or not the subject has been covered in reliable independent sources, not the current state of the article. --Michig (talk) 16:37, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This stuff belongs on the D&D Wikia. Perhaps some info could be moved to List of Dungeons & Dragons deities or Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons (I don't know which it would belong to), but an article of this depth with no claim of notability is basically a character data sheet. Tpdwkouaa (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:09, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - While the current state of the article isn't the best, there are independent sources covering this topic. I've just added one before commenting here, and am in the process of finding more. The devil-type creatures in D&D were the primary focus of much of the religious panic related to the game back in the 1980s. Approaching the subject from that angle, there is plenty of analytical coverage of the concept. The detailed publication history and lists of all the variants could certainly be compressed and trimmed, but there is a core concept that is notable. —Torchiest ^talk_edits 01:56, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Here's another source that discusses the controversy and devils in quite a bit of detail: The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs "The Satanic Panic and Dungeons & Dragons: A Twenty-five Year Retrospective" ISBN 9780786498833 —Torchiest ^talk_edits 02:13, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Of all the possible D&D articles, this one will have the most cultural commentary. In addition to the independent RS'ed commentary Torchiest has found above, the entire class of Devils was taken out of AD&D second edition, presumably in response to the censorship attempts against the first edition. Jclemens (talk) 04:07, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jclemens and Torchiest. BOZ (talk) 04:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Most of this content belongs at Wikia, but it should be possible to write a policy-compliant article on this topic. Like others have said, Devils in AD&D were a pretty big deal in the press. Also, Google Books returns some promising leads, such as this in The Role-Playing Society: Essays on the Cultural Influence of RPGs. I agree that this article needs cleanup, not deletion. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep plenty of refs from 3rd party and outside publications. The articles needs editing, but an AFD is not an editing tag. Web Warlock (talk) 15:18, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - enough sourcing to pass WP:GNG. VMS Mosaic (talk) 22:37, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jclemens and Torchiest. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per above. Needs work, not deletion. Grayfell (talk) 06:13, 25 March 2016 (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.