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

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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. (non-admin closure) Sulfurboy (talk) 09:35, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons)[edit]

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Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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A common enemy in D&D but lacks independent notabiity and fails WP:GNG. The mentions of these creatures are, similarly to the now-deleted/redirected Gnoll and Lizardfolk, not enough to merit their own article, and mostly appear in listicles. They are described better on the D&D Wikia anyway. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 08:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 08:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science fiction and fantasy-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 08:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 08:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, because there is treatment in secondary sources, some already present in the article, some not: Dungeons & Dragons: 10 Most Powerful (And 10 Weakest) Monsters, Ranked gives both commentary and in-universe description about the kobold, comicbook.com has another such article, The Monsters Know What They're Doing gives in-universe description as well as game mechanics analysis, there's the Game Informer article about one specific D&D kobold. Kobolds appear in Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies. They also appear in primary sources by other publishers. Lastly, they have a very short treatment in David M. Ewalt's Of Dice and Men, which is significant because it states why kobolds have a special place within the game: They are often the first combat encounter for new players.
If all that taken together is still not considered enough to meet WP:GNG, a merge is still preferably to deletion, e.g. to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons, even though there's more to say then would fit nicely within the very condensed description sections mostly used there. Daranios (talk) 20:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the sources described by Daranios. — Toughpigs (talk) 20:52, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons per above comments since there are WP:RS to retain, per WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD. BOZ (talk) 21:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep We don't delete notable topics to help Wikia sell advertising. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:23, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons. The sources identified above do not contribute to notability. The Screenrant article is a trivial "Top 10" listicle, the Game Informer article does not convey notability onto the race as a whole per WP:NOTINHERITED, The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a Game Guide that never contributes to notability, and the mention in Of Dice and Men is nothing more than a passing mention. The ComicBook article probably does contribute to notability, but that is just one source. Of course, a Merge to Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons is still appropriate considering the existence of this one source. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
About the Game Informer article: All examples of arguments to avoid in WP:NOTINHERITED are downwards comparisons. So if I argued "Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) is notable, Deekin is a kobold in D&D and therefore is also notable and should have his own article", then it would apply. I do not propose Deekin should have his own article. I say Deekin is a subtopic of "Kobolds in D&D". So if he is treated in relevant sources, that's relevant for that topic. (And of course sources about Deekin alone could not provide notability for the Kobold topic. But it's not the only secondary source.)
About Screenrant: Why should a "listicle" by definition be trivial? Daranios (talk) 07:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The writers of listicles essentially scour game minutia for ideas. It is not indicative of notability at large, as most popular game minutia has been covered in at least one listicle. They are written essentially for fans only and not for a wider audience.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 07:51, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a source to back up this general assessment? Even if there would be several Top 10 lists which did not have the same entries, it's hard to image how, in this case, most of the thousands of monsters extant in D&D would be "covered in at least one listicle". Daranios (talk) 08:00, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
One simply needs to search for "Top 10 D&D monster" on Google News to come up with massive amounts of similar listicles. Yet they are devoid of meaningful content and usually just describe their ingame appearance and lore. Per WP:INDISCRIMINATE, more than just a plot summary is needed.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 14:24, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
While I see your point about many lists existing, I have several things to say about this:
First, any Top 10 list is not indiscrimate, as it limits itself to a very much smaller number out of the many existing monster, defined on some criterion. Even all the Top 10 lists found on that Google search together would be far away from covering almost all monsters in my opinion.
Second, many such lists are not "devoid of meaningful content": "ingame appearance and lore" is one part which should not be absent from a Wikipedia article about a fictional subject; the ranking itself is already an evaluation; the Screen Rant article evaluates the treatment of the kobold be DMs/gamers, which would not be found in primary sources
Most importantly, I do not propose that any such list found on the internet provides notability. But: Screen Rant may not be the New York Times, but it is a big and important specialized news website, self-proclaimed "one of the largest and most-respected entertainment news sources in the world - serving over 232 million readers in 2018 alone". The Google search also led me to a very similar evaluation of the D&D kobold at cbr.com, a very large news and community site dedicated mostly to comics. So neither is a lone blogger posting out his private opinion. Both are also sites which are not mainly devoted to D&D or role-playing games. So I do not think that "written essentially for fans only and not for a wider audience" is accurate.
To make this even more clear: If I open up a website and post my opinion about who are the 100 most influential people on this planet, that will not confer notability on those for Wikipedia. If Time magazine publishes just such a "listicle", that's an entirely different matter and will confer notability. So "many listicles exist, therefore they cannot contribute to notability on Wikipedia" cannot hold as a general statement. Daranios (talk) 18:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Very thoughtful rationales provided by Daranios. Woerich (talk) 03:02, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I have found one more source that should qualify for significant coverage, please take that into account for the decision: Hergenrader, Trent (2019). Collaborative Worldbuilding for Writers and Gamers. Bloomsbury Academic. pp. 95–98. ISBN 978-1-3500-1667-5.
  • keep Lots of significant coverage, both academic (e.g., Mitchell-Smith, I. (2009). Racial Determinism and the Interlocking Economies of Power and Violence in Dungeons and Dragons. Co-opting Culture: Culture and Power in Sociology and Cultural Studies, 207) and genre-specific sources. There's even an outstanding third-party publisher called Kobold Press. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 20:46, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per the many sources identified above. The Hergenrader source is very nice - a several page case study of Kobolds in an academic book about collaborative world-building. Some bizarre claims by those seeking deletion. The claim that "most popular game minutia has been covered in at least one listicle" is baseless, for example, and, in the past, Devonian Wombat has been unable to demonstrate that "The Monsters Know What They're Doing is a Game Guide that never contributes to notability" has any basis in Wikipedia policies or guidelines. (Maybe (s)he can this time, but I'm not holding my breath.) Josh Milburn (talk) 07:42, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks like this is quickly moving towards keeping. Maybe withdraw? Woerich (talk) 15:31, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I won't withdraw it, per WP:NOTAVOTE. A bunch of keep votes with no evidence backing them up is just that. Refbombing with numerous trivial mentions is not proof of notability - and all the "sources" noted here are very trivial.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 03:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Have you looked at the Hergenrader source? Is that "trivial"? Josh Milburn (talk) 12:48, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • I did, and it's hard to call the source a significant mention. It is essentially plucking a random description page, that happens to be the kobold, from a game book to use as an example. It describes kobolds not by their own merit as notable creatures but as a means to an end of making an example about descriptions. I think it's definitely usable were the article to be merged into a list of monsters, but too shaky to justify a separate article.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 13:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Again, it's several-page (five page span - you could maybe call it three pages of text and one page of image) discussion in book about world-building by an academic published by an academic press. There's got to be a degree of judgement about what constitutes a "significant" mention (the relevant guideline keeps it vague), but that's way over the bar as far as I'm concerned - and I think this is a clear example of shifting goalposts. (Whatever is identified, there's always some reason it's not really significant.) As for your claim that this is "plucking a random description page ... as a means to an end of making an example about descriptions" - there are a lot of things I could say, but I'll leave it at this: it's a case study in a book about world-building. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. I'm not sure what else you want it to be. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
          • I've said everything I am going to say, but you or anyone else are of course welcome to reply. If you want me to see a comment, ping me. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • From my side about this specific source: yes I see that the kobold is taken as an example. However I have not seen anything in the guideline where the intent of the author has to be a specific thing. More importantly what is in the guideline: ""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail [...] it does not need to be the main topic of the source material". And then, even though it is only an example, what does this source say about the kobold: It's "iconic", "interesting", "they can provide additional twists and turns, as well as storytelling depth, to an RPG campaign narrative". And then it takes four pages to analyze the kobold entries in a number of books, including their art and to what use that's put, and more, even so it is a book about worldbuilding, not specifically about D&D monsters, that seems to show a great appreciation by the author to me. I don't see how these four pages can be "very trivial" then. Daranios (talk) 19:47, 21 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • similarly, some often associate low word count with trivial/insignificance, i am reminded of haiku, small but often significant. Coolabahapple (talk) 16:24, 23 April 2020 (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.
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