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Re-organizing D&D

I think that a number of the problems that has created all of the tags, such as "in-universe", "nofootnotes", and "context", has partially been caused because there are so many short D&D-related articles that really don't have enough information in them. To help rectify this, I've started working on merging D&D-related articles together so that they are more closesly related... for example, I've merged the articles of the 2 derro deities into the actual derro article. Soon I'm going to merge duergar into dwarf. I think that combining things into longer articles and then, if the articles are too long, resplitting them could help fix up this mess with tags and lack of information in each article.

Whenever I do make a merge, I'll be sure to post it in the new articles section of the project page, so everyone else can see it and revert it if wanted. I'm not going to have merge discussions for most of these, because I've found quite a few merge discussions that were started over a year ago and nothing has been done about them. I hope that this can help, and I hope that it makes sense to everyone else as a strategy. -Drilnoth (talk) 12:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

In addition, I'm proposing some articles for deletion (there seem to be a lot of module-description pages which don't have much information. If there's any contest for most of these I won't take the article to AfD, but if nobody contests the stuff it will be deleted. I'm doing this to try and build the best D&D sections possible, not just because I don't like certain articles. There is now a section on the project page listing all of the PRODed articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:26, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, many are poorly written and could do with a rewrite to address copyright issues, but several have (and all should have) independent referencing/reviewing. When they came out in the 80s, they were reviewed in other magazines independent of TSR. I added a few last summer (southern hemisphere). Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
If they can be properly modified and the copyright stuff removed, they should certainly be kept. I'd improve the pages if I owned the modules, but as it is I can't do anything really about the content. If anyone with a little more knowledge of AD&D could look at them, most of them are listed in Category:Dungeons & Dragons stubs. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 23:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Alternately, maybe all of these shorter module-related pages could be put into a single article. Once the copyright stuff has been removed, each article will mostly be just a few reviews and some intro. If they were combined, with descriptions, into a single article it could help to clean up all of these D&D pages. Thoughts? -Drilnoth (talk) 01:42, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
If it's a choice between merge and delete, I'll take the lesser of two evils (merge, that is). I do know what you mean about some of those Basic D&D module articles - they have been improved very little since they were originally added. However, there is room for improvement and I'd hate to see something that someone could fix in the future get deleted now. BOZ (talk) 03:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
(sigh) I agree many are in poor shape. I would consider, say, a merge of Pharaoh (module), Oasis of the White Palm, and Lost Tomb of Martek into a Desert of Desolation module series article of some form, as the three did form a trilogy and were subsequently released as one module. I feel merging to a list of all modules grossly limits the information able to be put in (such as the independent reviews). I see A1-4 have already been merged to Scourge of the Slave Lords. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:46, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
That could work. I'm certainly not opposed to keeping the articles, but they really need to have additional content and the removal of copyrighted information. Combining modules series might be the best way to handle it. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:13, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

{Remove indent} I've now merged most of the descriptions of elven deities into a single article here. I'll write up a short intro and information about the pantheon shortly. If anyone has any additional information to add to the deity descriptions, please do. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 19:27, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to unmerge Corellon - I think he at least merits his own article; the others, not so much. BOZ (talk) 20:56, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I'll undo Sehanine as well, if only because she is one of the major gods in 4E now. BOZ (talk) 20:59, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense. As I said, I'm just kind of going to merge things together that are related, and then they can be resplit. I think that what you did, with "Further information on Corellon HERE" (paraphrasing) is excellent. It keeps a link to the deity with all of the related deities. I really think that there were far too many stub articles for deities... putting them together by pantheon but with some (Corellon, Tiamat, Lolth, etc.) getting their own page makes sense. I'll keep that in mind while working on the other racial pantheons. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:18, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd say keep at the very least Moradin, Gruumsh, Bahamut, and the others you mentioned; the rest you can use your judgment on. See Bugbear pantheon for an idea someone else started working on. BOZ (talk) 21:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I saw the Bugbear pantheon and think that I'll combine it into Goblinoid deities, so that all of the goblin, hobgoblin, and bugbear deities can be together in one place, unless you think that the separate article is really nescessary. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm working on the Drow deities and have come across a few deities with really long descriptions, such as Kiaransalee. I think that a good guideline would be for longer descriptions to have their own pages with links from the pantheon page, and for shorter descriptions to be merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:38, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I've now finished both Drow deities and Dragon deities. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:04, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Should monstrous deities (such as Blibdoolpoolp) be put in the articles of the creatures they are related to (in this case, kuo-toa) or in a single article or two compiling all such deities? -Drilnoth (talk) 20:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Article deleted

So I just created an article for Dwarven deities, and it had the "Underconstruction" template, but found that it had been deleted by Speedy Deletion due to lack of content before I could start merging articles into it. Is it okay to re-create an article that was Speedily Deleted that way? Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 20:57, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Also, how can I stop that from happening in the future? Should I put a note like: "Editor's note: I will momentarily begin merging various Dungeons & Dragons related articles into this article. Please do not Speedily Delete this article due to lack of content before I get a chance to begin the merging. Thanks!" into it? Or would something else be better? Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 21:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Simple, don't create the article until you have content. Having a blank page with an underconstruction template doesn't really help in merging the first article. You can also work on the page in your user space and move it when ready. Pagrashtak 23:00, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I'll give that a try. I certainly had the content, I just hadn't merged it from other articles because the wording of Help:Merging and moving pages made me believe that I was supposed to merge the content in a separate edit from actually creating the article. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 23:25, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I meant content in the target article. Go ahead and merge the content in right at creation. Don't worry about recreating the article, it's not a problem. Pagrashtak 00:35, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 13:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

D&D template

I was looking for a good template to put on the Wizards of the Coast article, but unfortunately there is no general D&D template like the {{MTG navbox}}. Would anyone who knows how to design a template like that want to take a stab at it? We could use something like this list that I came up with as an idea of how to approach it, and/or incorporate some of the existing templates like {{D&D Books}}, {{D&D creatures}}, {{D&D deities}}, {{D&D Campaign Settings}}, {{D&D character class}} {{D&D 4E}}, and {{Outer Planes}}. BOZ (talk) 18:40, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

If you've got an idea for what you want to go in it (a list somewhere would probably help), I can throw the template itself together pretty easily. Just throwing things out, I'm guessing you want it to be collapsible, and titled something obvious like {{D&D navbox}}? Drop me a line when you wanna' get a draft or something going. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't think those uber-navboxen are so great. What about something like {{Games Workshop}}, which only covers the most important parts of the domain without getting too in-universe? Individual articles within said domains can use the more specific navboxen. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:32, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I've got no preference what goes into the template myself, I'm just offering to do the technical coding of it. I'm happy to make whatever there's consensus for. Cheers. lifebaka++ 19:54, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I've got no preference either. :) The GW box is succinct enough, but it is large; a collapsable one like the MtG box takes up much less space when not expanded. It doesn't have to include a million things, but a combination of most of the stuff in the templates I listed above, adding some of the articles in the list I linked to above, such as game system fundamentals, designers & artists, and some of the seminal works (not every book ever printed). BOZ (talk) 20:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
I think that it would be great to have a single navbox that compiled most, if not all, of the current ones. There are definitely some links that could be removed from some of them, but I think that one long, collapsible navbox would make navigation much easier than having so many different navboxes only on pages that they specifically relate to. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:15, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we could start with something like this:

Something like Template:D&D navigation, then? This was practically auto-generated from that list - a few search-and-replace strings was all it took. :) Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 12:08, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Removed my signature from one spot; I hadn't placed it there. Anyway, I think that that list looks pretty good to start with, maybe adding a few more things to the Races section and adding in my compilation Deity articles once those are all finished, but otherwise I'll start adding it to the articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:24, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Chris - that's a great start. Not exactly ready yet, but it's a good starting point. One problem though is that it's huge - could we make it collapsable like the MTG navbox? Some of those items can be bunched together like in the MTG navbox, so maybe we'd have 3-5 collapsable sections? BOZ (talk) 15:27, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't see that making it collapsible is the answer. If it's too big, it should be trimmed until it provides an overview, and then users can drill down from there - it's not especially likely that a user is going to want to leap straight from a page on Gary Gygax (which would have this template at the bottom) onto one about Dwarven deities or Drizzt Do'urden's swords or this guy in a video game. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I would find the ability to jump around just like that most helpful. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
You might, but consensus across the general navbox domain appears to be that navboxen should not attempt to be all-encompassing directories. We have the categories for that kind of thing. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 18:49, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
If you have a look at the way the MTG navbox is used on Wizards of the Coast for example, you can see that the multi-collapsable navbox can be set to have just one section open. So, for example, if placed on the Gygax page, you could have the designers section open for someone who wants to look at the other important creators of D&D this would be easily accessible. The same user could then open any other section of interest. BOZ (talk) 18:52, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Here's what I've come up with as a template idea... I think that it could definetely use some work, but I think that something like that would be best. Please let me know if you have any comments or suggestions on the template's talk page. Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 20:33, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Now that's what I'm talking about. I personally would like to see the Underdark article in there somewhere, but if there's no good fit I won't cry. ;) Maybe add some modules under the publications section? Maybe Against the Giants, Tomb of Horrors, Ravenloft (D&D module), Temple of Elemental Evil, Dragonlance modules (DL series), Red Hand of Doom for starters? BOZ (talk) 02:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to go and work on adding some more stuff and doing a little bit of reformatting, and I'll definitely keep those in mind. Also, thanks for linking the Monsters section. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

-Removed indent- I've just made a bunch of additional updates and modifications to the template. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:38, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

That's looking pretty good now.BOZ (talk) 15:16, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Do you have any other ideas about what kinds of things should or shouldn't be in the template? -Drilnoth (talk) 16:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Not at the moment. BOZ (talk) 16:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay then, I'm going to continue work on work on some compilation articles so that they can be added before we move the template out of the User namespace for actual use. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Sorry, I see a few different links around here, are we talking about User:Drilnoth/D&D Navbox template idea? If so, my suggestion is to clean up the articles a little further first. That template is a beast right now. I took a look at two articles at (somewhat) random: Boccob and Olidammara. Both articles are tagged as having no secondary sources and as being written from a predominately in-universe perspective. Thus, these articles do not show me why they are notable according to our guideline on notability. Maybe they are notable, maybe they aren't—I haven't looked for sources myself—but I would suggest that you look at these types of articles and determine what is truly notable and what needs to be redirected, merged, or transwikied. Drilnoth, I know you've been doing some work in this vein lately. If you keep at it, I think you'll be able to get your template down to a much more manageable size. Pagrashtak 15:37, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the advice! The reason that Boccob and Olidammara are in the template is because they are core deities, and to start with I put all of the 3.5 and 4E core gods in the list. I am still working on compiling articles, which will make the template more manageable... right now I'm combing through some monsters, which will let me get that section a little smaller, although that isn't the biggest problem. After that I'm thinking about working on some of the general deities (those which aren't demihuman or monster), such as the ones that you mentioned, and maybe some D&D books and campaign settings. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:08, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

-Removed indent-There haven't been many changes, but do you think that it should be moved into the template namespace and used? Or should we wait to have it smaller first instead of changing it as time goes on? -Drilnoth (talk) 18:32, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's way too large to be used right now. Pagrashtak 19:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
What do you think should be cut from it? I'll keep working on some compilations so that we can shorten my idea and make it a bit more manageable. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:06, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I've modified the "Worlds" section. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:42, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

A generic "Monster" category

I think that it would be nice to have a single category for all D&D monsters, rather than having categories for "standard" monsters, various campaign settings, various creature types, etc. Any thoughts? -Drilnoth (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I got the feeling that the "standard" monsters cat was introduced to cover everything in the 3.0 MM - obviously, we no longer need or want such a category. A signle monster category would be fine, although some of the child cats (extraplanar, undead, campaign setting) might be worth keeping. I'm all in favor of killing the standard category and having a bot fix all the articles that currently have it. BOZ (talk) 20:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
That would be good, if all monsters were in one category [i]and[/i] in sub-categories. Also, it would be best to have things like Gauth included even though that is a redirect into Beholder, so that all of the monsters are listed, not just the individual pages. Unfortunately, I really don't know how to use bots, so if you or someone else could set that up it would be great! -Drilnoth (talk) 21:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Anyone own Stormwrack?

The section on darfellan in Humanoid (Dungeons & Dragons) really needs some citations, so if someone who has the book could removed original research and cite official content, that would be great! -Drilnoth (talk) 20:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ah, welcome to fiction coverage on Wikipedia. ;) One of the main reasons many deletionists hate articles on fiction... If only I owned that book, I'd be glad to help. BOZ (talk) 20:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Do you think that for the sake of readability we could remove all of the individual -Citation needed- and -Who?- tags and just add a general cleanup tag to the sections that had them? -Drilnoth (talk) 21:50, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
I'd think so. ;) BOZ (talk) 22:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
Great. I'll do that in a moment. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Points of Light Campaign Setting

it doesn't have an article, nor is it mentioned at all in the 4th ed section of the Player's Handbook article. seeing as it's the new core campaign setting, i think it ought to be at least mentioned. i just had cause to refer to it in my improvements of the Warforged article. should i add a section to the Player's Handbook article, to a list of D&D campaign settings (is there one?), or make a whole new article for it? What makes a man turn neutral? (talk) 16:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that it certainly deserves a mention, although you should specify that it is a world style, not a campaign setting per se... the PoL style is used in Forgotten Realms and Eberron for 4th edition, for example, in addition to the generic campaign setting. Also, I think that any mention like that would make more sense on the Dungeon Master's Guide page. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Also, good work on updating the Warforged article. Now all we need are some independent sources and it'll be done! -Drilnoth (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

New WP:D&D Main Page Idea

Hi! I've been working on a new idea for the D&D project page that would be easier to navigate, in addition to looking better, if most of you think that it would be better than what we currently have. You can see what I've come up with so far here. I'd particularly like to point out the public watchlist... so far it has most of the major D&D articles on it, along with a few others, but I hope to make it larger over time. A link to the watchlist is at the bottom of the left panel on my idea page.

Note that I took quite a bit of the code from Wikipedia:WikiProject The Simpsons, so there are still quite a few Simpsons-related links and stuff scattered through the pages, which I hope to cleanup soon.

Also, I request that you don't change the subpage or the subpage's subpage for the time being... I'm still really in the middle of getting it all constructed and would rather not have other people changing the code. However, if there's something that you think needs changing please post it on the talk page. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:13, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a great idea! The current project page is pretty stale, despite the sprucing up I did last month. I really like the idea of a public watchlist; I'll help you increase it when you are ready. And also, I really have to applaud you on all the initiative you've been taking lately to liven things up around here. Things have been pretty dead for the last 6 months or so (is that better than fighting about templates all the time - you be the judge!) and I hope other people take notice of your efforts and really get things moving around here again. BOZ (talk) 16:26, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I'll probably need a few days to a week to get things all figured out with the new page, formatting, content, etc., etc. The watchlist can be used now to keep an eye on major articles, here if you want... other articles, along with templates, lists, etc., will be added. If you have any ideas at all for it, or if you see something wrong, please don't hesitate to tell me. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:33, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
That page doesn't seem to exist... BOZ (talk) 19:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
Oops! Sorry. Try this. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:54, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

-Remove indent-Do you think that I should try to get the page done and up as soon as possible, or should I spend more time on getting the various subpages that I have planned up first? -Drilnoth (talk) 13:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Do what you got to do to get it ready - there's no rush. :) BOZ (talk) 16:24, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Okay. Just so you know, some of the subpages that I'm creating for it I'm putting in the Wikipedia namespace rather than the User namespace because it will make the setup once I'm ready to officially launch MUCH easier... see Wikipedia:WikiProject Dungeons & Dragons/Userboxes as an example. That page will be linked from the main page once the new page is up, but right now the only real way to get to it is through my userspace. Also, certainly feel free to look around the pages that I've been working on... the main page itself contains up-to-date content right now, it's just the subpages and stuff that I'm still working on. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:20, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think that it would be best to get it set up now... any other subpages can wait. Just let me know if there's anything else that it needs and then I'll set it up. See it now!. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:51, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
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