Lich (Dungeons & Dragons) – Relisted. Per WP:NACD, I've backed out the close as an uninvolved administrator in their individual capacity. This was clearly a close call, and thus better left for an admin. Hopefully the next week will see a clear consensus emerge one way or the other. -- RoySmith(talk) 17:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I relisted this, but the relist automation didn't add the AfD template back to the article. It's my understanding that there's some bot which monitors for this and will eventually come along and fix things up, so I'm just leaving it that way. -- RoySmith(talk) 18:01, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived debate of the deletion review of the page above. Please do not modify it.
The AfD was closed by a non-admin as "keep" despite numerous merge votes. Some of the keep votes were outright WP:JUSTAVOTE. Regardless of whether it was a WP:SUPERVOTE or just poorly interpreted, this discussion should not have been closed by a non-admin and certainly not like this. 🤷 ZXCVBNM (TALK) 14:17, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Its odd this was even nominated for deletion in the first place as Zxcvbnm even says in the nom it should be merged into another article. Should have just been a merge proposal from the beginning instead of AfD, which means this wasn't even in the correct venue. Consensus seemed split at first until additional sources were added, after which there was a clear trend towards keep. Either way keep was the safe option and allows for nom to propose a merge in the correct manner. I recommended this as well to nom on my talk page reply here. What's a bit bothersome is that nom has now brought it here and still ignored the typical avenue of just proposing a merge. Their comment "It's more on principle" here leads me to believe this is more about winning than actually going through any of the standard processes WP:NOTCHECKMATE. I'm going to invite BOZ to chime in as they are both an admin and very familiar with this subject. Sulfurboy (talk) 14:49, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
My issue with the closure being keep is that merges can easily be WP:BOLDly reverted by almost anyone (and many merges I attempted to make have been in the past). Merge discussions can be short-circuited much more easily since no evidence of notability needs to be provided. Simply saying "I closed it as keep but it can still be merged" does not remove the need for an accurate close of the AfD. AfD is a much more final verdict on whether an article should be merged. In this case the article was non-notable, meaning an AfD was still a correct course of action.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:36, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'm not sure what the motivation here was on the part of the nominator, but I suppose it could have been relisted instead - it was trending keep, but you never know, I suppose? Just because most of the D&D AFDs have closed as delete or merge, does not mean all will. For example, on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kobold (Dungeons & Dragons) from the same nominator we see a sense of certainty in the comment "The mentions of these creatures are, similarly to the now-deleted/redirected Gnoll and Lizardfolk, not enough to merit their own article" and yet that one was closed as an even clearer case of "Keep" than the lich AFD was. Some nominators will go to try to delete and accept a merge if that happens, rather than trying (and possibly failing) to get a merge. AFD is a way to not even bother with a merge discussion, and typically gets more eyes on it. That's just my observation. BOZ (talk) 15:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Overturn to merge, since that was the consensus. There's probably a D&D wiki somewhere that would want this content, though.—S MarshallT/C 17:42, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
It's already pretty fleshed out (pardon the pun) on FANDOM and various other D&D Wikis. There doesn't seem to be that much more useful information than is already there.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 17:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above is an archive of the deletion review of the page listed in the heading. Please do not modify it.
