Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Ratman (Dungeons & Dragons)

Ratman (Dungeons & Dragons) is up for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ratman (Dungeons & Dragons). Just a head's up. Cool Blue^{talk to me} 01:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Good, it should be. I warned people from day one about creating pages for every little monster, and this is a clear example of something that lacks notability.Piuro 05:25, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Stop and read this

This wikiproject was created with the intention of making a clearer, more authentic series of articles about the D&D roleplaying game, instead it has turned into nothing more than a template used to defend articles that should never exist in the first place, that violate WP:Notability to a degree I have never even seen before outside of vanity articles. We need to stop making pet articles, the debate further up the page about modules shouldn't even be an issue, as almost all the modules ever created are not notable enough to warrant an encyclopedic entry. Even those that are, such as "The Temple of Elemental Evil" should probably not have their own articles, and should probably redirect to another article, such as Notable D&D Adventures. This same principle should apply to all monsters, even the mighty dragon does not deserve its own specific D&D article, let alone Dire Rats.

Please, consolidate pet articles into a more comprensive (and more concise) overview article, and focus on the big articles, such as Eberron, the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and the main Dungeons & Dragons articles. Please reel this in, this has got to stop. Wikipedia is not a place to put all the fanboy information you can find, it is not a comprehensive resource for roleplayers. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, please remember this when you even think of pushing that "create this page" button. Piuro 05:47, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

While I tend to agree on almost all the creatures we have, and most of the classes as well, I think the modules are one of the things which there are verifiable, second-party sources for; see eg the White Dwarf review cited in Dragons of Despair. Sure, most of the articles need these citations adding, but Wikipedia requires things to be verifiable, not necessarily verified. --Pak21 11:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with White Dwarf is that it's hard to determine if it is "Independant of the Subject." Though it is not advertising, it certanly inst an outside source. If a module crated controversy and ended up in a publication outside of the gaming industry, or something to that effect, id say it warrants notice, but as it stands, a "review" does not seem to be enough to cover WP:Notability. On that note, I'm going to start consolidating articles into a "Predominant monsters" article and putting AFDs on most of the various monster articles. Anyone interested in helping make a new monsters page, lets go to wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Monsters, I'll make a note of this on the project page, and we can decide on what to actually name the article when it comes time to put it up.Piuro 02:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Piuro has a point. Many of the D&D articles are fancruft, just as bad as the Pokemon stuff. I mean, White Kingdom is cool and rather well-written, but not notable in the least and rather fails WP:V (none of the sources are independent, third-party ones). I think we should consider transwikiying (if possible) a majority of this stuff to a D&D-oriented wiki, and just stick to the core, notable stuff. -- Kesh 03:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd certainly agree there are far too many D&D articles here, but I don't want to throw away the baby with the bathwater. That said, White Kingdom was clearly non-notable, so I've redirected it to Abyss (Dungeons & Dragons). Cheers --Pak21 07:58, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is this: [1]. Of course, it seems to be mostly original research & fan creations [2]. There's also a Forgotten Realms wiki, and many of the FR articles on Wikipedia have a template linking to the corresponding FR wiki article.--Robbstrd 07:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why White Dwarf isn't independent. It has (as far as I know) always been published by Games Workshop, who have always been an entirely independent of TSR (and WotC). Sure, for Warhammer 40,000, it's not independent, but what's the problem for D&D articles? Secondly, don't AfD the monsters - just redirect them to the list. --Pak21 07:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Should have done more searching. There's also this: [3]. There's are also wikis for Planescape[4] & Eberron[5].--Robbstrd 07:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

My claim about white dwarf is that it is not independent of the industry, and though many other articles use that kind of resource as cites, we should be very careful if that is the best independent source we can come up with.Piuro 08:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's not independent of the industry. Who else is going to review it and be a reliable source? It's certainly not "self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies [or] press releases", which examples are the non-independent sources listed by WP:N.

No, it isn't independent of the industry, just as sources for music related articles are usually from musical publications, sources for articles about crime are from books about crime and newspapers, and articles about science are sourced from science books, science magazines and science journals. What's your point? I am not going to go and delete an article on an element because no one outside of the scientific community has ever written about it... (On another note, I have expanded a few monster articles, I have no objection to people doing what they think is best with them. I have no strong opinions on the matter, but I am happy to help with whatever we decide it best.) J Milburn 10:54, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It just seems to me that a single review in White Dwarf does not count as enough outside sources to warrant an article. Anyone else want to weigh in on this?Piuro 18:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

No, a single source doesn't count as multiple, independent, reliable, published, significant sources. Counts as one though. J Milburn 16:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Monsters & Statement of Intent

The start of monster article migration can be found here Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dungeons_&_Dragons/Monsters. Please, we're trying to keep fancruft to a minimum, so join the discussion on that page to try and define the criteria.

We want articles, not lists, from this point on we should work on making the various lists about D&D into full fledged articles with things to contribute to the wiki, this, I believe, should be the goal of Wikiproject Dungeons & Dragons. We don't want hundreds of articles clogging up the wiki with useless information, we want to be a shining pinnacle of reigning in our fanboyish natures for the good of the entire wiki. Please, lets make our contributions to Wikipedia actually matter.Piuro 08:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've started some AfD, in this case for the Dire Animal article. Can we get some people who can go around AfDing some of these articles? Theres tons of them on the most worthless stuff. Be sure to look out for articles which are copyright violations, as many of the planar articles and the main planar article are (they all step beyond the realm of the OGL and contain specific information about published content, something WotC tends to frown on), and they also fail WP:Notability as far as I can tell. If you published one of the monster articles, please Speedy Deletion it, as it will make this process of cleaning up hundreds of articles. Piuro 19:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we need to bother with the AfD- just turn them into redirects to the parent article. J Milburn 19:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

That could work quite nicely, but right now the parent article lacks any real content. That said, that's a very good idea. Also, for anyone suggesting what we are going to do about monsters, please do not suggest lists, the monsters are not notable enough, and any suggestion is going to fall under WP:Listcruft. Please, lists are not a viable alternative, we are not writing an encyclopedia for roleplayers, and a list of monsters is not a useful resource. Piuro 19:38, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's discuss what we are going to do about it on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Dungeons_&_Dragons/Monsters, so as not to clutter this page. I have made my suggestion over there, I welcome input, and I think we would all like to see some more possible alternatives. J Milburn 19:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

We need a policy on lists

This is based off reading Wikipedia:List_guideline, Wikipedia:Lists_in_Wikipedia, and [[Wikipedia:Listcruft

Dungeons and Dragons lends itself very well to lists. The nature of the rules are more mechanics the storytelling, and in order to keep everything memorized we generally need the material published in such a way that we can easily locate it, and because of this, even WotC has published their own lists. The problem becomes when we flood Wikipedia with lists that only our fellow roleplayers can find relevance and reason in, not the average Joe who reads Wikipedia. Therefore, in order to keep our listspamming down to an absolute minimum, I propose the following guideline for Wikiproject D&D;

We shall not make lists unless every item within the list is a freestanding article (or a major subsection of a freestanding article) that has been around for at least predetermined amount of time (to avoid people creating new articles simply for the justification of creating a list). Lists shall have relevance even to those who are not familiar with D&D (A list of D&D book articles would be okay, a list of monsters that a 1-5th level character can defeat would not be). Lists should span multiple articles, not just be a summary or a suppliment to something contained in an individual article (For example, if an article discusses "Feats", there should not be a side article with "Lists of Feats"). Finally, any and all lists created under wikiproject Dungeons & Dragons should be posted in a "lists" section of the project mainpage, so it can be reviewed by other members of the project.

Please keep in mind this would be a guideline, not a policy. I would really love to see peoples input here, but I want everyone to keep one section of the above articles I mentioned (for the tl;dr crowd);

"The usefulness of lists in Wikipedia is very clear as it often provides the starting point for readers to research a particular subject. For example, when researching Typesetting, the List of type designers and List of typefaces are excellent resources from which to begin exploring the subject." Piuro 20:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

This proposal fails for all sorts of reasons, but the most glaring is that it assumes some sort of ownership over articles which this WikiProject does not, and cannot, have. What's going to happen if a D&D related list is created which doesn't meet this guideline? It's going to have to go through the normal AfD channels, were deletion will be based on Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, not anything this WikiProject says. Also, it should be noted that Wikipedia:Lists in Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Listcruft are both just essays, which do necessarily have any real form of consensus behind them. Cheers --Pak21 20:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Pak21, and think that lists can be useful even when not every entry has it's own article, for reasons I have listed on the monsters discussion page. We are in no position to dictate a guideline such as this anyway. J Milburn 22:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying a mandatory enforceable guideline, I'm saying we need something that frequenters of this wikiproject can look at. This would be entirely self-imposed by an individual editor, and if someone decided to do something against it, we would have no special grounds. I also noticed I said policy in the title, then specifically said not a policy later. Damn. Either way, you should consider this as a rule to impose on yourself, not have imposed on you; if yuo want to ignore it, fine, but there are a good number of regular contributers who could benefit from something like this. Piuro 23:50, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game

I don't know if we technically cover this, but there is a potentially nasty situation developing with an IP address canvassing against Pak21's suggestion that some of the many fair use images be removed. I stepped in and removed some, but others may want to take a look before all hell breaks loose. J Milburn 16:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Redrawn monster images?

thumb|right I recently came across the image on the right. I wondered where we stand on such images? Surely, as that is how the artist pictures the monster to look, this would violate our no original research policy? Just looking for a little input here. Would this be a feasible way to have free images of all monsters? J Milburn 18:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Drawing a picture of a fantasy creature is in my mind not OR. If you needed a free picture of a human, any picture would do, as long as its clear that it has a human in it... It could be a anime style drawing, it could be a a painting, hell it could even be a stick figure... Besides, this wan was not drawn for D&D, it was drawn as a generic illustration for the Nethack article...--Alexia Death 18:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just look at WP:NOR#Original images where it says, Pictures have enjoyed a broad exception from this policy, in that Wikipedia editors are encouraged to take photographs or draw pictures or diagrams and upload them, releasing them under the GFDL or another free license, to illustrate articles. That seems pretty clear and self-explanatory to me.

I think a lot of the creature articles suffer from an obvious lack of a picture of the creature, where it would clearly be useful and appropriate. I see the point that WotC publishes essentially articles much like ours, so using their images in our articles would be reducing the value of their copyright, but that just means that we should use our own images. (And avoid any key details needed to use the creature in an adventure.) We should have a campaign of creating editor drawn artwork released to public domain to provide a much-needed illustration to each creature article. It's impossible to clearly underestand what a creature looks like without a picture. -- Lilwik 20:28, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm- the way I look at it, editors have no right to decide what the characters look like, only the D&D designers. Therefore, we can't draw a picture and say 'this is what it looks like', as that is our own interpretation. Obviously, Wikipedia is not a place to put our own interpretations of things- we should show/say only that which can be sourced. J Milburn 20:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting point. It's true that editors have no right to decide what a creature looks like. It's not true that only D&D designers have that right; we are here to report the truth as it appears in the majority of reliable sources, and that can easily include other sources than D&D designers. The only reason we are not allowed to decide what a creature looks like is that we are not allowed to be a source ourselves.

However, none of that applies in practice. If someone drew a picture of a clown and the used it as a picture of an Illithid, then you'd be right because we're not allowed to decide that an Illithid looks like a clown. In real life, this picture is free artwork that shows what an Illithid actually looks like according to most reliable sources, D&D designers included. -- Lilwik 20:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I would make a distinction between creatures or characters which were created by D&D and those which TSR or WotC took from existing mythologies. They certainly can't claim copyright to what a manticore, a harpy, or even an orc looks like. However, I would be a little more wary of using free images of beholders, or especially named characters such as Drizzt or Orcus. --GentlemanGhost (talk) 02:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

D&D alignment userboxses

Ive made some time ago a set of Alignment userboxes. Since I ended up here for an other reason, if figured you might want to know:) --Alexia Death 19:30, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice. You might want to add the sources to those images, even if it is just 'Own work' at the top of each image page, or they could face deletion. J Milburn 19:32, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought the licensing, that says I, creator release hem to public domain, is enough? What sources could I list? I did them particularly FOR these userboxes...--Alexia Death 19:34, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't count as a source, in practice. As I say, just add a note that says 'own work' and you should be fine. J Milburn 19:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I dont understand... Does not "I, creator" say the same?--Alexia Death 19:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In a word, no. Too often, people just don't read the boxes that they are ticking. I deleted a big batch of images the other day that used that box which were all copyvios. J Milburn 19:53, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit nutty, sorry... but ive added "This is my OWN WORK. Ive been told that the Public domain box is not enough..." to the images. Thanks for the tip.--Alexia Death 20:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks and sorry- 'tis better to be safe than sorry. J Milburn 20:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Classes and Prestige classes.

Hi everyone. I just recently joined this group and I hope I can contribute well to make DnD articles the best they can be.

I had a question though on the Classes and the Prestige Classes. I have in my possession almost all of the DnD books up to date and if I am allowed I can create all the missing Prestige and Classes in the lists that are on wikipedia. For example I was thinking of making a Invisible Blade article For the DnD book: Complete Warrior. But I wanted to be sure if I wasn't going to be breaking any rules or anything. I appreciate any feedback. Bognus Hecken 13:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Hi and welcome! My personal opinion is that the vast majority of D&D class articles (ie everything not in the PHB) are not notable and should probably be merged into a much smaller set of articles, so I wouldn't recommend that you spend your time doing this. However, other people may disagree with me. Cheers --Pak21 13:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to the project, and I agree with Pak21. Our time, at the moment, will probably be best spent working out what is to be done with the articles we do have, rather than writing others. J Milburn 13:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay perfect. Just making sure cause I was itching to writing up the Invisible Blade since it was one of my personal favorite classes but from the looks of the articles that already exist they do need some work on. heh. Thank you :) Bognus Hecken 13:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

(from an outsider) To continue this thread... yeah, there's definitely something to say about Fighters, Bards, and other core classes in D&D, but most of the other class articles should definitely be merged to something akin to the List of prestige classes article (though possibly with slightly more detail). I disagree with Piuro's statement above that lists should have an article as the target for each item linked; I doubt that these classes can support articles, but a list as a whole has some merit. Maybe a title like (List of?) Alternate Dungeons & Dragons character classes? SnowFire 06:23, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good to me. Personally, I'd just go with "List of Dungeons & Dragons classes" and include all classes there. Any classes which are notable enough to have their own article can be wikilinked out, and everything else can just get what it gets in that page. It should be noted that there is nothing in WP:LIST which requires every entry in a list to have its own article. Cheers --Pak21 10:54, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good plan Pak but if we do something like that add all forms of classes that could not support itself on it's own page we might be adding quite a bit of classes on only one page which would look say the least silly. Unless you are implying we categorize classes based on the books they appeared.Bognus Hecken 13:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it'd look that silly. There are plenty of longish list articles on Wikipedia; you'd be surprised, as they can work out pretty well. Also, lots of these articles are frankly asking to be transwikied/redirected with as little as one-two sentences saved. Look at Favored Soul or Dragonfire Adept; I highly doubt that there's anything to say aside from repeating the book in which they appear.

Anyway, I took a shot at rewriting the Character class (Dungeons & Dragons) article, though it still needs more work. The new list article can have lots of those classes merged into it, I think. When the merging is done, the {{Dungeons & Dragons character class}} sidebar template can probably be deleted and just {{D&D character class}} used instead. SnowFire 05:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I like the List of... idea, as anyone who has seen my proposal for dealing with monster articles will know. J Milburn 22:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Familiar/Companions

I noticed in the to do lists there is a request to create a Familiar article. My question is should this really be created or merged with the Wizard/Sorcerer class. Or if it does deserve it's own page should we as well add the Companions that the Druids and rangers get? Also if a page for Familiars are needed should there be a detail of all the animals that can be a familiar to the wizard/sorcerer? Bognus Hecken 13:58, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, probably not needed. It was me who added it to the to do list. To be quite frank, we need very little of what we have. J Milburn 19:22, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Request feedback on guidelines

I would like to have the feedback of active wikiproject members on the following. Wikipedia has a number of guidelines on articles about fiction, predominantly WP:FICT and WP:WAF. These guidelines have been rewritten some time ago, but this appears to have been done without substantial input from editors who write about fiction.

Guidelines on Wikipedia are supposed to be a description of common practice. At present, however, these guidelines call for the removal of most material that does not include real-world information, which could be read as to include most articles about fictional characters, locations and concepts, such as those about D&D.

This does not reflect actual practice, because Wikipedia has thousands of such articles. Now there's no need for alarm, because to my knowledge, nobody is actually deleting any of this. However, it would be prudent to reword and update the aforementioned guidelines to accurately reflect how, and on which aspects, articles on fiction are written.

Please feel free to update the guidelines as needed, or direct your feedback to their respective talk pages. >Radiant< 10:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Mass AfD

(Comment: Going over the editor's history, it seems they started this deletion kick by removing info from articles related to the Will-o'-the-wisp and Succubus, and branched out from there.)

I just finished going over his history as well, and he does appear confused over the massive amount of keeps that have been flooding these. Turlo Lomon 06:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

His talk page has a thread on it in regards to an AfD he disagreed with. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 17:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How am I supposed to react to his comments? He made it clear on his talk page he is persuing this. He has stated that he is planning to go after the rest of the articles after this latest set gets deleted. He has already performed very questionable acts on multiple articles. I want to scream. Turlo Lomon 06:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Bring him up to WP:AN/I. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 06:46, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The fact is that a lot of those articles have no place in Wikipedia in the first place. The only outcome consistent with Wikipedia policy is a mass deletion, but it is doubtful we're going to see it. --Agamemnon2 12:23, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Now, here's what I'm wondering. Just how many existing D&D articles actually *pass* Eryan's standards of notability in the first place? I'm sure it's very few (10% or less). How many have you seen discussed (not just mentions, or quick pop-culture references) in third-party sources? I can't think of a single thing presented that way, perhaps outside of an article on the Dungeons & Dragons game itself. If the standard becomes to delete such articles, there soon may not be much of a WikiProject left for D&D. Do any other WikiProjects have standards differing from the norm to determine what is an is not notable within that field of knowledge? If so, what can we do to set up a system to prevent the wheat being thrown out with the chaff? What third-party sources, if any, actually discuss various aspects of D&D? If there are none, then I'm sure that D&D Wikipedia articles are about to be whittled away into near-nothingness over a technicality. BOZ 13:43, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

There are very few articles that would remain, yes. Maybe gelatinous cube and beholder, and that's about it. --Agamemnon2 16:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Mark you, the situation is lamentable since I myself have started some articles that fall among those ultimately in danger in deletion, such as Maug, Eshowdow, Jergal and Ubtao. But if they insist on enforcing the reliable-third-party-sources rule, then all of those articles should justly be deleted immediately. --Agamemnon2 16:35, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Agamemenon2 is right. If we really apply Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, most of the D&D articles here are going to get deleted. It might be best to see if someone is willing to start a new wiki on Wikia and move the articles over there. -- Kesh 17:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The Forgotten Realms Wikiproject seems to have done just that, moving content to Wikia. I myself have been working to preserve Greyhawk content on a wiki located at Canonfire!. In short, I'm sick & tired of defending content I, & others, have worked so hard on from foaming-at-the-mouth deletionists.--Robbstrd 23:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Foaming at the mouth doesn't enter into it. The rules are the rules. Maybe you should have actually read them before uploading your articles? --Agamemnon2 10:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Damn right, Rob, I agree 100%. In fact, long ago I gave up on writing D&D articles and moved to comic books - the detractors there have far less ammunition to work with! That said, if we have a dedicated D&D (or RPG, or whatever) wiki to work with, we won't have to worry about that kind of mindless determination to deletion. I'd be glad to create or re-create any articles at such a place and just leave Wikipedia to the hata's. ;) BOZ 20:14, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, that may be for the best. It looks like this guy is determined to take everything down, and despite fierce opposition he may have the stronger argument. It would suck to lose all the info and hard work people put into making the good, bad, and ugly articles. ;) BOZ 18:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I cannot, with full conscience, lament a lot of these articles. Golem (Dungeons & Dragons) is a good example of what's wrong, it's nothing more than a list of golem types by name, of questionable usefulness to a D&D aficionado and a pile of incomprehensible jargon to everyone else. --Agamemnon2 18:32, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Agamenon2, I agree with you. Looking over the current crop of proposed deletions, I have to ask myself: Is any of the information in these articles of any use (or even any interest) to non-D&D players? Furthermore, is it even possible for the topic of a run-of-the-mill D&D monster to incorporate any non-deletable information?

As I understand it, in order to not be deleted, we need to have articles about things that are notable and verifiable; and the bulk of the article should relate to the subject's place in the real world. Is this possible with a D&D monster? I think so, but not with all of them. The Illithid article contains one or two links to non-TSR/Wizards articles about Illithids, so that's notability. It's fairly well referenced and much of the prose is written from an out-of-game-world point of view. I think it could be cleaned up a lot to get rid of large sections of in-game stuff, but the article as a whole looks pretty non-deletable to me.

I think we should review the Monster article structure to help us create non-deletable articles. I suggest that we require articles to include a reference to a non-TSR/WotC article from the introductory section to establish notability upfront. We should de-emphasise in-game fictional material by containing all fictional info (Description, Ecology, Society, Related Creatures, etc) within one limited, well-referenced section. We should replace non-essential fiction sections (e.g. "Monster X in Campaign Y") with non-fictional ones ("Monster X in other media", "Creative Origins"). We also need some new ideas for non-fictional sections. This way we can concentrate our efforts into the creation of high quality articles that won't be deleted, rather than more and more stubby articles with no references which will be added to the above list and rightly removed. This is just my 2c so please comment. BreathingMeat 21:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree, if possible we need to make sure any D&D articles have notability established. Don't know how much time this failed AFD will buy us. BOZ 22:54, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Ideally, there should be a D&D-related Wiki very much in the same vein as there is Memory Alpha and Wookieepedia. That way, we could both have our cake and eat it too. --Agamemnon2 16:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

What about the D&D Wiki at Wikia?[6]? IF there was one place that everyone could agree on then we could begin a Transwiki migration. Web Warlock (talk) 17:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I can only heartily agree (although I might be even happier with different notability rules on wikipedia). Daranios (talk) 20:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

My big complaint about a lot of those Wikia sites is they are incredibly simple. Here, we have all these rules that say that something is notable, and in the fervor to keep the article around, people add in a ton of stuff and make fairly comprehensive articles. By contrast, I find a lot of Wikia wikis to be full of poorly written, incomplete, unreferenced garbage. Compare our Eberron to their Eberron[7] for instance. You may think to yourself "Gee, having all these rules about notability really sucks ass! I hate having to back up my claims about this topic!" but it gives us vastly better articles as a result. If you want to move some of our articles over to that Wikia site, go ahead, but keep at it here. These standards you may chafe at are actually helpful, and the proof of it is right over there on Wikia. Don't just take your ball and go home. Our articles here are wonderful, and it'd be a shame if the people who write them go away and write on a place with no standards, where any article on anything about D&D is allowed, no matter how pointless and shitty. Howa0082 (talk) 20:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Generalization of content

many articles still sem to discuss particulars of 3.5 edition. with 4th edtion aroudn the corner i think it would finally be a good time to remove edition specific things and take a more general approach to describing D&D. this will help when 4th edition does come out and help removie the bias towards newest edition rather than describing what D&D has been over the years. with the changes proposed or implied to much of the mechanics of 4th eidtion many articles will be obsoloete that speak in a way to say that 3.5 is the only way something is done. has any thought been given to this predicament and in case of even future edition how to generalize articles yet still have them provide informatino on the subject? shadzar|Talk|contribs 19:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Difficult to do right now given that we don't know all the specifics that will change in version 4. All we have to go on is a few announcements from WotC, really, and since Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, it's probably best to leave most things as they are in this regard until there is a lot more clarity on what will actually change in V4. Fairsing 00:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

We can still generalize with respect to the past editions (the original, AD&D, AD&D2E, and 3E). However, 4E is off-limits until it is released. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 02:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

How is it off limits? "Wikipedia is not a collection of unverifiable speculation" The keyword is unverifiable. The announcement has been made. Articles are being written on it. The information could be put together to make a page. Turlo Lomon 03:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is about discussing edition-related things, and as 4th edition isn't released yet, anything we add to articles unrelated to the edition history (i.e. Beholder or Forgotten Realms is speculation. This is not about announcing its announcement; this is about mechanic specifics. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 06:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

You are correct. I misunderstood. I do feel we need to keep edition specific information list as such. Turlo Lomon 06:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I will agree that D&D wikipedia articles should not be Edition-specific. However, rather than removing all such material, I think it should be spelled out which information applies to which edition. That, I think, would be more encyclopedic than it currently is, or how it would be with such info excised. BOZ 02:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

but even having masses of the content from the games editions kind of goes against WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook. we clearly have things that tell the current differences in editions, but continuing to give specifics on everything is like reproducing all the game on wikipedia and removing the need for the books. shadzar|Talk|contribs 06:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Congrats!

Dungeons & Dragons is finally a Featured article! :) BOZ 01:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll drink to that! Allegrorondo 20:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Dungeons & Dragons (album)

Hi, I am working on what I hope will eventually be a featured article, in the form of Dungeons & Dragons (album). ~~I have recently submitted it to peer review, and my request can be seen at Wikipedia:Peer review/Dungeons & Dragons (album). Any comments that anyone may have would be very much appreciated.~~ J Milburn 20:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

At the advice of another editor, I have decided to skip the peer review and send it straight to FAC, and its nomination can be seen at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Dungeons & Dragons (album). Again, any comments are very much appreciated. J Milburn 20:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

This is now a featured article. J Milburn 18:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

SkiersBot

All members please keep an eye on the talkpages of any D&D stubs you can find. User:SkiersBot has been mistagging them as Comics WikiProject stubs. I have informed the bot operator and AN/I; I am asking that you revert any Comics WikiProject templates you find on D&D-related talkpages. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 05:28, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

The bot has been fixed. -Jéské ^{(v^_^v Kacheek!)} 23:09, 9 October 2007 (UTC)