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Forgotten Realms locations

Could someone take a look at these articles a figure out which ones actually need to exist: Abeir-Toril, Geographical index of Toril, List of Forgotten Realms nations, and List of regions in Faerûn? I feel bare bones, in-universe lists of locations are completely unnecessary, but I'd imagine some kind of general article on the setting of that campaign setting would establish notability. There is certainly no way all of those need to exist at once though. TTN (talk) 15:56, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:24, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Template cleanup: Part I

I'm boldly beginning some badly overdue maintenance on this topic space. Because there are so many articles involved, my first stop was to look at the navigation templates supporting them. Which are horrifying. Template:D&D topics is currently the "master" navigation template for D&D articles. Without even addressing what articles might need to be merged, reformatted, deleted, or otherwise tidied up... that template is, to be blunt, a travesty. Any time we have multiple panels of auto-minimized template navigation inside our auto-minimized navbox, that's a sign there's a problem. Also, some of the content in the master template duplicates or otherwise conflicts with the content in other, more specialized navboxes. Navboxes are supposed to make navigation easier; these are failing at it.

But that's an immense job that will require coding suites of new templates and updating dozens to hundreds of pages. It's no surprise that it hasn't been done. So, I'm doing it.

Done so far: New video game template. New franchise media template -- albeit as a work in progress. All affected articles updates.

Here's what I have planned as "phase 1" The easiest offending section in the master template to resolve is the video games section. Accordingly, I've created a new template for D&D video games, Template:Dungeons & Dragons video games. Beginning fairly shortly (probably an hour to 90 minutes after this posting), I will begin adding that template to all the individual articles on D&D video games and video game series. Once that is complete, I will also add it to the topic parent article (Dungeons & Dragons) and then (but only then) remove the Video Games section from the master template entirely. This improves template size and use, and makes future maintenance more forgiving. The only drawback here is that non-video-game articles will no longer have direct navbox connection to specific video game articles, but that's fine and mirrors the navbox schemas used in other topics with complex hierarchies. Done! Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC) Following that, I am also working on a replacement for Template:D&D media that actually comprehensively covers franchise media. As of this post, that's not ready to go live, because I need to assemble list articles for several parent categories. Once those are ready, that will replace the media template on the main topic article, and will go on any franchise media based article except those that have a more specific navigation scheme (so, for example, it will not go on the individual video game articles, but it will go on List of Dungeons & Dragons video games). Once this is done, I will remove the "Publications" section from the master template; that content will be fully covered by the combination of the franchise media template and the existing Template:D&D books (for the actual rulebooks and accessories). At some point, I intend to make a template for the novels (and other "normal" fiction) to parallel the video game template, but since there's currently no actual navigation template for those topics, there's less work involved with doing so. Less work. Right. I almost believed that.

Still to go in what I consider "Phase 1" of this process is dealing with the rest of the franchise media. The board games need a list article written to hold them; all we've got right now is a category that's painfully incomplete anyway. That's going to take me a little while, because I need to source stuff. I'm also very strongly tempted to write a parent article for the D&D periodicals and then force the individual titles into a child template (like video games). There are ... quite a few more than we have, and that lets us handle notable fanzines and second-party stuff like Pegasus that currently fall through the cracks. It's more work for me, but I'm clearly a masochist. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll be your cheerleader, LOL. BOZ (talk) 22:15, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

In Phase 2, I intend to restructure or replace Template:D&D books, which isn't any better than the master template. There are a couple different ways to approach this, and I'll be a little less bold about some of those choices. It's a little while off, regardless. But once that's done, navigation for all of the "physical real-world stuff" articles should be well in hand.

That leaves us with the remaining material in the master template. Stuff like campaign settings, in-universe concepts, notable characters and monsters. How to address all of that is not straightforward, and I'll strive not to do disruptively. But there's still quite some time to go before I get there.

If you have questions about what I'm doing, or why, please ask. If you want to actively help in the cleanup process, I'd rather other people not do the template work at the same time I'm trying to do the template work... but there's a LOT of articles that are going to need attention (especially some further sourcing). Feel free to drop me notes here or at my User Talk. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

As an additional note, I do not currently intend to remove the master template from the individual video game articles. I think we should, once all this is done, but for now they do no harm. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2019 (UTC) And actually, I'm going back and removing the master navigation template from the video game articles that have the new specific nav box per WP:BIDIRECTIONAL (and to reduce page clutter). Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:26, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Your plans all sound good to me so far. My personal feeling is to retain as many topics as reasonably possible – although trimming and merging may very well be a good idea in many cases. I am definitely in favor of a reasonable compromise (the approach of "delete, delete, DELETE it all!!!" is neither reasonable, nor a compromise, in my opinion) on how to handle content. Fictional elements have long been a challenge, not just for D&D articles but for all of Wikipedia, but I am no proponent of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and I believe there is a way to handle that sort of content without jettisoning it all completely (and it is not impossible either; see Drizzt Do'Urden and Dwarf (Dungeons & Dragons) for example). Meanwhile, focusing on more tangible elements like video games and books seems like a good idea, so we will cross the bridge of the other stuff when we come to it.  :) Some people may find merging and trimming to be controversial... but I feel that is far less controversial than deletion! Whenever possible, we need to add development and reception information to any and all articles, which will help overall. BOZ (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

When we get to the in-universe topics that have attracted outside attention, a lot of the way to approach it is going to be based on what sources offer. I do have some ideas, but that's a long, long way off right now. In the meantime, I'd really like to see the overall quality of the tangible elements articles improved. Just looking at the video game articles, we have pretty spotty sourcing and poor surveys of reviews. Unfortunately, especially with the pre-Internet-era titles, the longer we wait, the harder it's likely to be to clean these up. Ideally, if we have anyone with access to the back issues of non-TSR gaming magazines from the day -- stuff like Pyramid and Arcane, and probably some of the early computer gaming mags also -- we could mine those for better refs. The situation for the novels and comics series is probably even worse. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:26, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I've gone over Space Gamer pretty thoroughly for reviews, and I've been working on Arcane lately, and have much more on the horizon. The video game articles have some of our best (a few Featured and more Good articles), but of course some of the rest of those articles could use a lot of work. I know where some magazines are online, so that would help. BOZ (talk) 16:01, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Shadis and White Dwarf (before its format chance around 1986/7 to be purely a Games Workshop advertising vehicle, anyway) are also solid places to look. I need to see what I have access to. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

I know I have White Dwarf, and I may have Shadis too - it's a long, slow process, but a very rewarding one. :) BOZ (talk) 17:58, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Prepping for Phase II

The "easy" stuff isn't done yet, but I need to get ahead of this. I'm simultaneously trying to track down viable RS for the various comic issues (our coverage is wretched) and for the litany of board games that we have nil information on. But looming ahead is the first big challenge (ha! like the rest of this is easy): Template:D&D books. That template consists of seven nested autocollapsed panels. It's nothing like a policy-compliant navbox. So, as with the other products stuff, we're going to need to break it up. At some point, too, there needs to be a determination which navboxes the main Dungeons & Dragons article gets. It can't get all of them. So I'm tempted to say the "core" template (whatever is left of topics at the end), plus the "parent" template for each subtheme. So ... franchise media and rulebooks, but not comic books or 4E rulebooks?

Meanwhile, currently, my thought is to set up a "parent" level rulebooks template with two internal groups. First, a "by edition" section, which will point to lists of rulebooks by edition (Original / Basic* / Advanced / 2nd / 3rd [incl 3.5] / 4th / 5th). And then a "by type" section that is mostly to point at ... however we clean up List of Dungeons & Dragons modules / List of Dungeons & Dragons adventures. More thoughts on that ... um, later. Yeah. Later.

• "Basic" here being the catch-all for all three version of Basic, including BX and BECMI. Part of me really, really wishes we could just call all the pre-2nd edition "1st edition", but it's not called that, so we can't.

My thoughts are that we do include the modules / adventures in the rulebooks navbox. Sure, it'll make some of the navboxes bulky, but that's fine. They'll still be better than they are now. Listing order is going to be a challenge, but I'll burn that bridge...

Any thoughts? Anyone? I'm also really hoping that BOZ and I aren't the only folks active here. I could use a lot more hands as we start getting past template cleanup and into article development. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 20:46, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

LOL, I don't want to leave you talking to yourself with crickets chirping... ;) I know some people have this talk page watchlisted or check it periodically, but as with any other talk page people tend to reply when something catches their interest. Cleanup is often not interesting, but you never know, other people may just respond. I think we can do with multiple book templates, as long as the focus is well-defined, such as by game edition. Since 2nd edition had a ton of books, those might need to have the campaign settings separated out (into just one for all the 2E setting books, or one for FR and one for the rest, or...)? Just some thoughts. I'm expecting to be busy most/all of the weekend, but I will check in from time to time. BOZ (talk) 21:34, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I haven't tried to do a count. Any guess what the total number of 2e non-module rulebooks is? And then 2e modules? Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 21:51, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

With its 10 years of production, and more than 10 products per year, the most possible conservative estimate would be 100, but I think we can easily assume it was far more than that. I would say 150 - 200, but it could be more. BOZ (talk) 23:38, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

I went through the list of adventures and stopped counting at 100... there were probably a few dozen more on the page, so if you count in the rulebooks, and guidebooks to settings... yeah, 200+ is not so hard to imagine. BOZ (talk) 23:44, 1 November 2019 (UTC)

Squeamish Ossifrage I'm back from my break & BOZ has been sending 4E books my way that need help with sources & such. I'm fairly decent at finding digital sources for products if they exist (so mostly 4E/5E). I've never messed around with templates so not sure how to help there. Let me know if you'd like help with specific products/books (tag me here or on my talk page under 'If you are taking requests'). Sariel Xilo (talk) 21:19, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Someone has been putting some work into the earliest D&D video games this week: [1] BOZ (talk) 20:29, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

My thoughts for {{D&D books}} is that much of it's contents are better suited to be navigated by list article or category that the tremendously large navboxes. The core books, that is the main game books like the Players Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Masters Guide, belong in the main template, but a template trying to moist every single game book we have an article for is not a good use of navboxes. (As an aside, thing like novels and comics are not the intended contents of that navbox, which is about guidebooks for the game, not spinoff media, so I would not worry about how to integrate them.) In short, I'm not even sure we need a separate navbox here at all, let alone a series of them that would each contain redundant links. Meaning that a series of navboxes for each edition would all contain links to the PHB article, as there's only one such article, not one for each edition. Some of the books (especially modules) we have articles for probably don't really rise to the level of independent notability that allow for articles anyway, and can probably be merged into some list article somewhere. (Reviews in specialist publications are essentially WP:ROUTINE and don't really speak to independent notability. Then again, some are very well covered and commented on classics. That's where the ability to discern the difference between a routine review and genuine significant coverage is important.) oknazevad (talk) 01:24, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that categorization along with some navboxes for carefully designed slices of the full set is probably the best path forward. I've been sort of slacking on the cleanup and reorg, as I'm trying to gather a large stockpile of sources for a concurrent revision push. So, so much to do here. But, in any case, I disagree that reviews in specialist publications are WP:ROUTINE. Wikipedia is not just a generalist encyclopedia, and many articles in narrow fields cite largely or exclusively specialist literature. What doesn't count toward notability are: 1) unreliable source, of course; 2) indiscriminate publications (like guides to every comic book / vinyl album / postage stamp ever; although sometimes those guides include specific discussion of a subset of topics that might itself be acceptable); and 3) insignificant coverage—the equivalent here from, say, video games, would be small capsule reviews. On the other hand, if a specialist publication has editorial control and so can be considered reliable, full-page reviews of products are almost certainly satisfactory sources. Now, in this field, there's probably more a sliding scale of editorial control and reliability than in more mainstream topics, but that's why due weight is an editorial requirement here. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:13, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

The into to realize with this old magazine's, though, is that they would give a full page review to a module becaus the game as a whole was popular, and they were trying to draw in readers of a fairly niche hobby. In other words, I'm not so sure a review of any one module really speaks to an independent notability. But, Wikipedia is not paper, and has room for such things. oknazevad (talk) 18:54, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

List of deleted D&D articles?

Is there an easy way to retrieve a list of D&D articles that have been deleted? AugusteBlanqui (talk) 18:02, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The closest we have to that is this log going back to 2010, which has the results of every AFD, and it also lists PRODs unless the PROD was removed before the bot caught it. BOZ (talk) 18:32, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

crafting an RfC?

@S Marshall: has suggested that it would be useful to craft a RfC on RPGs. This could be narrowed down to Dungeons and Dragons. It seems to me there are two main issues: 1) the poor quality of articles 2) interpretation of notability guidelines which exclude official sources. An RfC cannot address the first issue (except perhaps to express cleanup as an alternative to deletion?). However, it could address the second. In particular, WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD potentially offers a way forward regarding the high quality official sources such as Dragon Magazine but also third-party publications that are reputable--I'm thinking of Kobold Press and Goodman Games. For example, Faerie dragon looks like it is headed for deletion based not on the quality of the article (which could be improved) but because of the rejection of multiple sources (some independent, some 'official') as primary. I am not sure a RfC is a worthwhile endeavor from what I've seen in the various deletion debates/closes; given my limited experience in AfD or RfC this is not something I would consider doing. However, I would be happy to help draft the RfC here and do additional research if someone else wants to shepherd it through the process. AugusteBlanqui (talk) 13:01, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure what an RfC would solve, but I would be willing to participate in whatever capacity I can. It seems that while the current deletion wave targets D&D as part of its core, it goes far beyond with a much wider reach than just one fictional universe. Comics, novels, and characters and other fictional elements from many different media are all being targeted with an equal amount of zeal and fervor. BOZ (talk) 13:13, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

• If this RfC was going ahead then I would suggest that the purpose is to establish a coherent, logical set of guidelines that organise this content such that the reader can find things. We can't have articles without secondary sources, so as part of this project we should enable articles without secondary sources to be dealt with in a less process-intensive way than discussing them at AfD one by one. There could for example be a temporary holding pen in draft space?

  I think the scope of the RfC should be "pen and paper roleplaying games", i.e. it should exclude CRPGs.

  I haven't previously been involved with this WikiProject and I'm hardly well-informed about the subject, but from a quick look at the topic area earlier today, I've formed the view that our current coverage of RPGs looks like a Wikia site. Is that fair? A large number of short, low-quality, semi-sourced articles with lots of in-universe material? I suggest that we need a way of grouping these many short articles into much fewer, much longer ones. We'll still need lots of redirects and disambiguation pages because the search terms that readers use seem to be quite specific. There seems to be a wish among the crusaders to delete all the redirects; this should be resisted.—S Marshall T/C 15:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Enworld article useful for D&D secondary sources

Enworld published a nice article that has links to half a dozen or so secondary sources on D&D: https://www.enworld.org/threads/d-d-in-the-mainstream-again.668560/ AugusteBlanqui (talk) 17:56, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Speaking of secondary sources: rpg.net probably has something on every publication (and will for that reason presumably be called trivial by the critically-minded), but it also does have reviews, sortable by system for a number of products. These, I think, should count for something. Daranios (talk) 13:13, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

I agree that they should count for something, and I also agree that the "critically-minded" editors would consider them trivial. The best part about RPGnet (and RPGgeek) is that it indexes reviews from various publications, which helps. :) BOZ (talk) 00:07, 25 November 2019 (UTC)

Ah, indeed? Could you point out where this index(es) is, I have not see it at first glance. Thanks! Daranios (talk) 16:03, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Every single page about every single product on both sites lists whether the site is aware of any published reviews. :) Not every page lists one because that particular site may not be aware of a review, but a great many pages do list reviews. BOZ (talk) 16:51, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

For example, look here under "Linked items" for reviews and related articles, and look here to click on "See Magazine Reviews" for their version of the same book. You will often note that each site lists different reviews, so always check both!  :) BOZ (talk) 16:58, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Another low-ranking but interesting secondary source about the sources of D&D: [2] or [3]

Daranios, thanks for all the work you've been putting into finding sources for D&D monsters! Undoubtedly the Eye of Sauron will soon return to deleting what is left of them, so we might as well have the best defenses put up. If you have any deleted or redirected articles that you honestly believe you've got a shot at significantly improving their notability, let me know and I will restore them for you in good faith. BOZ (talk) 15:19, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

:-) Glad to do a part. It's a slow process, though, so I plan to focus around "my" list. Daranios (talk) 20:35, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

You're doing great, keep it up! :) BOZ (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Religions in play: games, rituals, and virtual worlds has a chapter on D&D. I am working through the small part about monsters on p. 282 at the moment, but there would be much more worthwhile of pursuing, about alignment, clerics, cosmology and the like. Daranios (talk) 15:03, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Excellent find! :) BOZ (talk) 15:23, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

There is quite a new and massive book out there, The Monsters Know What They're Doing, about how to give monsters in the game interesting tactics. As it has mainly advice for the game, and only maybe a little real-world context in the beginning, I am not sure how to best use it, though. Daranios (talk) 22:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

That is an interesting source! I do see some analysis of the creatures themselves buried here and there, so I think those pieces could prove the most useful. BOZ (talk) 03:48, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Ravenloft product list

I get that the idea for a list of RPG products might be a good idea for an article about the product line, but... is this kind of a bit much? 208.47.202.254 (talk) 01:35, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks like that is a reposting of a declined AFC draft by User:DGG. 208.47.202.254 (talk) 01:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)