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. Mark Arsten (talk) 03:04, 12 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Lord Soth[edit]

Lord Soth (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Non-notable fictional character. All of the sources in the article do not verify notability, as they are not independent of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons. A cursory search on the internet did not give any evidence of the existence of good independent sources on this topic which cover it in depth. The importance of this topic within D&D is irrelevant to notability unless it can be demonstrated that there are independent sources which provide significant coverage. Simone (Claritas) 14:41, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Lord_Soth in 2004 was closed as Keep, under very different standards. --Simone (Claritas) 14:44, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:02, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Games-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:02, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per nom; or possibly Merge [somewhere]. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 20:43, 5 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Withdraw, for now, due to nom's questionable participation in AfD per Wikipedia:Ani#Recent_contributions_by_User:Claritas -- Green Cardamom (talk) 16:00, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - major villain and plot element over multiple media for 30 years plus. I'll take reference 2 as an review-type reference plus the Gamespy one. There should be more out there. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:48, 6 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: A character featuring heavily in a large amount of popular books and one of the most well-known characters in his fictional setting. That's normally enough to be considered notable. There are any number of characters with their own article whose only claim to fame is being featured in a series of books. ··gracefool☺ 03:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Web Warlock (talk) 15:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment to Keep voters: sources are needed. The article's sources are all currently primary. It needs secondary reliable sources to pass WP:GNG. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 15:14, 7 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Green Cardamom, why do you need to resort to lying about sources? The gamespy one is unequivocally secondary. I can understand that others may have a different interpretation of the ref #2. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:13, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually all the sources are incredibly weak and problematic. They do not demonstrate notability. GameSpy is a two paragraph summary about a game (not about Lord Soth who is mentioned in passing) and.. what else? If this topic was actually notable we would see discussions about Lord Soth not only in a gaming magazine in passing, but outside the world of gaming culture. Has it ever been discussed in academic literature for example? In the NYT or Wired magazine for example, as an independent topic of discussion, not just passing mentions as a game element? Also, see WP:GOODFAITH and WP:CIVIL ("resort to lying"). -- Green Cardamom (talk) 03:36, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Green by that logic there should be very few articles at all on D&D topics. The notability requirements are not nearly as high as you are making out. They only have to be reliable secondary sources, not academic literature or big-name journalism. ··gracefool☺ 06:37, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

True though the quality of the source matters when considering what counts as "significant coverage" and "multiple sources" of WP:GNG. Currently we have one source, GameSpot, that mentions Lord Soth briefly while reviewing a game; and another listing D&D villains in The Dragon magazine. What seems to be confusing here is that Lord Soth has been featured in many notable works. However the question is if Lord Soth is independently notable, and for that it needs significant coverage about Lord Soth. That's more difficult to achieve and these two sources alone are very weak to make that case. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 08:08, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for past precedent see Wikipedia:OUTCOMES#Literature: "Characters and locations from books are often deleted, unless a large amount of information is written on a character. See Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) (proposal)." -- Green Cardamom (talk) 17:20, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Except that he appears in multiple adventures and adventure settings and two storylines (Dragonlance and Ravenloft) in D&D. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:33, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

...which NO ONE outside of the D&D franchise has found worthy of discussing in any fashion let alone a significant manner. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge to List of Dragonlance characters. There doesn't seem to be anything showing true significance in the real world, so an article is unnecessary. TTN (talk) 15:54, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• transwiki to some fansite that would love this kind of trivia. So far the only third party sources provided even mentioning the subject are from a single appearance in one video game talking about his appearance in that video game. As far as the world, even the gaming world, cares, his contribution and to the D&D franchise (let alone the real world) is the level of a non-entity. Merging all of the primary sourced in universe content to the suggested target article which is already suffering from the same issues of only in universe primary sourcing is like shoveling the shit from one corner of the stall to another. I dont see that we loose anything with a delete. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:47, 8 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • with the ed Holte source we have a whole paragraph about the character in context of the D&D milieu! Merging now with that content will provide a solid basis for third party sourcing for List of Dragonlance characters. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 01:45, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I see four independent sources for this character: the Computer Gaming World article, the GameSpy article, Ravenloft FAQ interview, and this book. The Computer Gaming World article and the Ravenloft FAQ interview seem sufficiently in depth, and the book and GameSpy article add to the material. Cas Liber also has a point about ref 2--as a retrospective over many games and by multiple authors, this is effectively a review article. The topic looks marginally notable. The article needs editing in an out-of-universe style, but this is a surmountable problem, per WP:SURMOUNTABLE. A marginally notable topic and surmountable article problems suggest keeping the article. --Mark viking (talk) 00:35, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per Mark viking, Casliber, and gracefool. BOZ (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Redirect. Having a few references is not enough; if so, then practically every single fictional character is notable. It's only in certain sets of articles that editors put together so much original research and plot summary and then throw in a couple of mentions, arguing notability. (You guessed it, the 20th century novel is not that genre.) I see no reason not to merge this into a main article--seriously trimmed. Marginally notable? Redirect then, and reintroduce it as an article if some real sources become available on Lord Soth, like from real books or journals. Drmies (talk) 00:35, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• You can actually find that sort of pretentious literary analysis too in papers such as Narrative Voice and Variations on a Non-Player Character in TSR's" Ravenloft" Universe. Warden (talk) 09:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep A recurring major villain in a substantial fictional universe. We routinely keep such articles - see Darth Vader, Darkseid, Dukat, &c. It is our editing policy to retain such material by finding alternatives to deletion such as article improvement. Warden (talk) 09:28, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WP:OTHERCRAP and to compare status of Lord Soth to the status of Darth Vader is one of the most hilarious thing I have seen in a very long time. Thank you for making me laugh even though it did mean I had to wipe up the coffee that I had spit on the screen!-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 11:51, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:OSE explains that "these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides". The authors who created this character and use it in their work get onto best-seller lists. Their work is therefore mainstream and substantial. These villains are all melodramatic and low-brow, of course, but this is no bar to inclusion because Wikipedia is not censored. Warden (talk) 16:02, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Note According to this something posted by User:S Marshall on the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vecna page, Simone is a new sock puppet for User:Claritas. Someone that is in a voluntary restriction against participating in AfDs. The discussion here confirms the community's view on Claritas' AfD restriction. Web Warlock (talk) 11:21, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, not a sock, though "it's complicated". Drmies (talk) 17:46, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, per Colonel Warden. bd2412 T 15:17, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - Unusual history, while much is in-universe the appearance in multiple works and campaign settings over decades with a steady stream of different references and improvements suggest that Lord Soth is a notable part of a very large and old gaming community and likely had more coverage including this the rights issue that is briefly touched upon. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:01, 10 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep "one of the greatest villains in D&D history" sounds notable to me. Reliable sources talking about the character have been found also. Dream Focus 09:22, 11 October 2013 (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.