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More Good Articles?

Hey there. :) Currently, we have 7 Good Articles and one A-Class article (although two of those GA's, Dice and Shared universe, are only D&D by loose association). Gen Con is up for GA, and could really use some help if you are able to provide any. Dragons of Despair has also been nominated, but no one has picked it up for a review as of yet.

In case you hadn't noticed, one of my personal goals lately has been to improve some of our better articles to push them even higher up the ladder. There are currently 16 articles in the B-Class category. Of them, I'd say Forgotten Realms, Planescape, Ravenloft, Player's Handbook, Against the Giants, R. A. Salvatore, Isle of Dread, Dungeons & Dragons controversies, and Book of Exalted Deeds have the most potential to go higher. This would, of course, mean looking for sources and fixing up the articles substantially from their current state.

We also have 86 articles in the C-Class category. Any of those would require even more work to move up (although, to prove it's not impossible, Wizards of the Coast was rated as a C when I worked to get it promoted to GA). A number of computer/video game articles are in the C-class, but personally I say let the video game project people worry about those (although I'll totally go for Pool of Radiance! Gold box games, woohoo!), and I'll help out if any get nominated; same thing with the novels. Dragonlance, as I've stated before, has potential if we can get some additional sources; Kara-Tur maybe less so. Drizzt Do'Urden, Artemis Entreri, and Raistlin Majere are very popular characters, and if we can tone down the in-universe while building up the out-of-universe, those shouldn't be a problem (I haven't read the novels, so I'd need help). A BLP article like Dave Arneson or Margaret Weis might be a nice challange as well; Keith Parkinson wouldn't have the BLP limitations. The Dungeons & Dragons (TV series) might be doable. Chainmail (game) shouldn't be too hard actually, since we can double up references from the Gygax article. D20 System and Editions of Dungeons & Dragons would worthwhile. Sourcebooks like Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, Unearthed Arcana, or Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set (although I wrote that one), should be good. I built up TSR, Inc. quite a bit lately, but unfortunately I over-sourced it to primary sources, so we'd need to find some secondary sources to replace a lot of those citations with.

So, give me some feedback. Where would you like to help out with? :) BOZ (talk) 01:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

My personal goal on the GA/FA front is to improve Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons controversies, Editions of Dungeons & Dragons, Forgotten Realms, and Wizards of the Coast, in no particular order. I think that we should get the more core articles, like the controversies and editions articles, up to the best possible quality before moving on to other things, even those as important as Drizzt Do'Urden and Monster Manual. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:55, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about the Dungeons & Dragons controversies article. It seems to be highlighting a (to me) lunatic fringe issue. But a fair and balanced article on the topic might make a good read for overly concerned parents. Otherwise those seem like reasonable choices. Forgotten Realms would probably be the most straightfoward setting to bring to GA; the others might be more difficult to establish notability.—RJH (talk) 20:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I more or less agree with you on the controversies article, but I think that as long as it is written from a neutral point of view everything should be pretty much fine. I think that it is a very important article for the project because the controversies surrounding the game are an important part of its history, although some articles (like Forgotten Realms) are a bit higher on the list. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see Forgotten Realms get up on the GAN list. :) I had several redlinks on the page that I wanted to turn into articles, and I've got all but two of those done now. :) I was really just stalling for that, but I'll have those done in a matter of days, so we can nominate it at any time. Note that Gen Con is still active, but we're kind of stalling, being unsure how else to help that one. BOZ (talk) 14:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a little more work I'd like to do on that one before we nominate it, mainly adding citations to the in-universe stuff. I'll probably have that done in a few days. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

I took another look at some of our B and C articles, and I think a quick, easy way to get some GAs is to work on publications which already have a few reviews on them. It might be easier, in fact, to get some of the shorter articles to a higher level than the longer ones, because you have less to source. Probably some of the closest ones to that already are manuals Monster Manual, Unearthed Arcana, and Fiend Folio. A number of modules might work, in particular compilations Against the Giants and Scourge of the Slave Lords, and other classics such as Isle of Dread, Palace of the Silver Princess, Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and The Keep on the Borderlands; Dwellers of the Forbidden City might be a nice guilty pleasure given all the controversy that went down on the AFD. ;) I also think Drow (Dungeons & Dragons) would be worth working on after we get some others going, but that would require removing a lot of the current in-universe content - it was one of the monster articles that had the most publication history prior to my adding a larger section. BOZ (talk) 00:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good! That's what I hope to work on once I've fixed up the references in Dungeons & Dragons. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:00, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Drizzt

There's probably enough info out there for Drizzt Do'Urden as well.[1][2]. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Drizzt should definitely be high on the list, although I think that it would be harder than some of the other articles since it has so much in-universe content right now. I think that we should improve a lot of the articles that are already getting pretty good (like the books BOZ mentioned) so that they can become GAs, and then work on the in-universe articles that need a more complete rewrite. But that's just me. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:13, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with getting to Drizzt, but I need two things first: someone who has actually read the novels should be helping out, and some good reliable sources on the character's conception and development need to be worked into the article. When we've got those, I'll be happy to nominate Drizzt. :) BOZ (talk) 21:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

"someone who has actually read the novels." (raises hand). I've read every one up to and including The Lone Drow (The Hunter's Blades Trilogy, book 2). I can search for reliable sources if/when we start really working on the article. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:49, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Drizzt_Do'Urden#Creation. I added some out of universe info in a Creation and a Publication history sections. It's kind of a mess, but it's there. I think the quickest way to a GA would be to 1) really gut the Biography section and 2) prosify the literature section while adding sales data to it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 23:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Awesome, man, that's an excellent start. I have a copy of Heroes' Lorebook and Hall of Heroes, which are really about all I have to offer on Drizzt - but then again, those (especially the former) would provide excellent summaries that I could use to guage what might be the most important material, so maybe I've got all I need right there. :) BOZ (talk) 00:08, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

For examples on how a character article should look, have a look at this list of FA's. BOZ (talk) 00:12, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

(ec) There's also a paragraph of two on him in Running the Realms (I think that that came in one of the box sets), as well as in the 3rd edition campaign setting. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good - I'll see what I can do. It would be a good idea to talk about him a little from an out-of-universe perspective regarding the game, aside from the novels. :) That'll be my task! BOZ (talk) 00:28, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's move this conversation to the article's talk page. :) BOZ (talk) 04:09, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

GAN notice

Dragons of Despair's GAN is currently on hold for improvements. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:48, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Woohoo, finally! :) The review doesn't seem overly harsh at first look, so good thing there. BOZ (talk) 14:52, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Agreed; I think that we'll be able to fix the things mentioned easily enough. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:13, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Sweet. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Woohoo! Dragons of Despair is not now a Good Article. :) Forgotten Realms has been nominated now; we'll see where that goes! BOZ (talk) 00:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Umm... Dragons of Despair is a Good Article. Also, do you think that Unearthed Arcana is looking good enough for nomination? I finished a bit of work on it. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:26, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, the "t" isn't as close to the "w" on the keyboard that i can claim that as a typo. ;) And yeah, UA, is just barely good enough to give it a try at GAN. :) BOZ (talk) 00:59, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Okay; I'll try and put some more work into it (I'd mostly just cleaned up what was already there before). -Drilnoth (talk) 02:14, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

After the quick-fail of Unearthed Arcana (though can't say I'm totally surprised on that one, though it was still worth a try), I'm sorely tempted to try Dwellers of the Forbidden City next. ;) I don't know if the AFD and all of the template reversion nonsense that went on before it will disqualify that one from a GAN, or if the fact that it was over a year ago when that went down, but in my opinion that might be even more of a reason to give it a try. :) That one needs some work too, but I think it's still worth a shot. BOZ (talk) 01:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Older edit wars aren't supposed to have a bareing on a GAN; only if they're recent. I'm not totally surprised by the quick-fail, although I would have liked to have seen it put on hold for a week to allow for improvement. Any of the decent-quality modules would be good, and the three core rulebooks might be nice to try. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

In that case, I'd definitely like to nominate Dwellers next. :) Just out of a case of morbid curiosity than anything else... Agreed that it would have been nice to have more time for UA, but it seems like the reviewer was fairly familiar with the subject, and had a lot of good reasons why not to let that one linger on. We can fix the stuff they pointed out, then re-nom and stand a much better chance. BOZ (talk) 02:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I probably can't help much with Dwellers, but I'll do what I can. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll nom Dwellers when I have a free moment. I need a computer break. :) BOZ (talk) 02:13, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I'd give it some time... it still needs a fair bit of work. I probably won't have much time tomorrow, but I'll try on Monday. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:15, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If you're planning to go forward for FAC, I highly recommend taking articles through WP:PR first. I usually do that even before adding an article to the GAN. It takes a couple of weeks for a PR and I often get valuable feedback. Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:54, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Assessment

I'm still not quite I understand the assessment scheme for this project, especially as Illithid is now ranked in the top category. Any ideas why its there? (Dragon is also up there, but that makes a little more sense.) Thanks.—RJH (talk) 22:48, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I added Illithid and Beholder into the Top-importance category because I think that they are iconic creatures of the game, as much as dragons. The ratings are subjective; those two probably should have stayed in High-importance now that I think about it again. I'll go change it. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:13, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree that there are probably too many articles in the Top category that should probably be in the High category. BOZ (talk) 16:30, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I've changed Illithid and Beholder to High-importance. I think that all of the remaining articles in Category:Top-importance Dungeons & Dragons articles are appropriately placed... what of them, other than maybe Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game and Lists of Dungeons & Dragons monsters, should be in the High-importance category? That said, if there is anything that you think should be changed, by all means do so. When I was reassessing articles to Top-importance, I was basing it mainly on how important the topic is to a well-rounded but basic knowledge of D&D, but the ratings are certainly subjective. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I have the feeling that Top should be reserved for things of the utmost importance. Anything for which the game wouldn't be the game without (main article, TSR, EGG, Arneson, sources, editions), or that has been a highly prominent aspect from the beginning or at least most of the game's history (classes, races, game mechanics, rulebooks, campaign settings). I could give a pass to Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms, also Dragon the creature, the PHB, DMG, and MM and the 74 boxed set, the monster list index page, magic items, WotC, controversies, pop culture, although they would be just fine as High. The miniatures game should definitely not be Top, and I'm not even sure it should be High; same thing with D&D related products. BOZ (talk) 16:49, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I've trimmed the list a little. I think that the rest of the articles are pretty important to the game; the three "core" campaign settings, the game's creators, and basics on gameplay and what the game has influenced. I think that maybe High-importance needs a bit of a reworking; a lot of the individual races and classes could probably be Mid-importance, as well as some of the biographies. A lot of Low-importance articles should probably be in Bottom-importance, which I created primarily to make prioritization easier by having articles like Beshaba be lower on the list than, say, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance. Thoughts? -Drilnoth (talk) 17:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Much better! I agree; with a Bottom-class importance in place, there can be a lot of shifting downwards. Bottom-class stuff is things that we'll have to look at for merging in time. I also really like your addition of the Merge-class; a lot of things currently in Redirect-class will have to go there now! BOZ (talk) 17:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay! I'm going to work on going through the articles and reassessing them appropriately, in addition to working on other stuff like Wizards of the Coast. All help is appreciated, of course, and if you think I made a mistake, feel free to change it! -Drilnoth (talk) 17:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you.—RJH (talk) 20:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Template name

Should the project's banner be {{D&D}} or {{Dungeons & Dragons}}? It was moved after the category renaming, but for that I personally prefer {{D&D}}. Thoughts? -Drilnoth (talk) 16:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

{{D&D}} is a lot easier and faster to type. ;) BOZ (talk) 16:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That's basically what I was thinking. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:42, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree. You could always link the long name to the shorter template.—RJH (talk) 20:32, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

 Done per RJH. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Grawp's not dead yet! ;)

Got Grawp?

The troll sockpuppet with the two inch ruler and the inadequacy complex wasn't created accidentally.

No, nossir, not yet, JarlaxleArtemis is still among us: Special:Contributions/Darknext. BOZ (talk) 20:47, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Did you think that he was actually gone? Now of course, I wasn't around when he was truly active, but I've read enough of the archives to get the gist of what was going on. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:22, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Naw, I know damn well that he's not likely to be gone for good anytime soon. I always got the impression that he was reverting Gavin and Jack's edits to D&D article partly because he disagreed with them, and partly because he wanted to piss them off. Once Jack got blocked and Gavin went on hiatus for mediation, Grawp stopped. Fortunately, he hasn't come back to do that around here either, and I hope it stays that way because it's disruptive. He also messed with Jeske (and may still be, from some things Jeske has said) because Jeske was reverting Grawp's edit warring. It's a long drama for JarlaxeArtemis. :) BOZ (talk) 23:33, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

He's indeed been harassing me via 4chan, and he's twice email-bombed me and once impersonated me via SUL. Late last month there was an ArbComm motion to try and figure out how to get Jarlaxle's ISP, Comcast, to listen to complaints and shut him off; it was archived because it's outside the ArbComm's remit and in the WMF's. Thanks, BOZ, but you should bring thsi up at Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/IP check instead; all I can do is block the account and prot the page, the CUs can suss out and kill the sleepers and TOR proxies. -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 10:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to hear that, Jeske. The account was already blocked when I noticed it, so I didn't think there was any reason to report it; I just wanted to let everyone here know that he's still out there, in case there was any reason to be concerned. oooohhhh ominous! ;) Outside of the above sock doing what it did, I haven't noticed him editing any D&D articles in several months. If he's using any sleepers or anons to do any occasional benign editing, I am none the wiser. BOZ (talk) 00:10, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

D&D's patron troll's never been far. Jack Merridew 16:42, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

You won't find anyone around here claiming him as theirs Jack. And speaking of trolls, I'm still waiting for an apology from you for calling me a troll the other day.Shemeska (talk) 02:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

It's say this qualifies more as trolling than Shemeska's response to it. Fortunately, Casliber handled that well enough. BOZ (talk) 02:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

<null edit> Jack Merridew 05:35, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• I haven't read the archives. What is the short version please? Colonel Warden (talk) 10:18, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

About Merridew or the once-Wikimedia-banned JA/G? -Jéské Couriano ^{(v^_^v)} 10:39, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. Don't click on anything Grawp has edited or linked too. Viruses like you have never seen. You would be safer to dumpster dive behind a free clinic. Web Warlock (talk) 15:22, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, if Eleanor Cramphorn (talk · contribs) was indeed another Jarlaxle/Grawp, I did look at some diffs and such, and his/her userpage. No external links, though. Could there still be a problem there? -Drilnoth (talk) 14:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Was that another Grawp sock? It looks like it's probably a sock of someone, but not sure if this is following the usual Grawp MO. You OK, WebWarlock? BOZ (talk) 16:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The AN/I report indicated a block as being Jarlaxle; this could be assumed then by the # of edits to both the Jarlaxle and Entreri articles. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:18, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Consensus needed

I'm just bringing this up again so that it can be resolved: Should D&D redirects have categories on them? It seems that the general consensus of the Wikipedia community as a whole is "no," but I thought that more opinions wold help. Categories like this seem rather pointless with all the redirects, as many of them redirect to the categories main article, List of Forgotten Realms characters. Opinions? -Drilnoth (talk) 23:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, you know I like to have them, but that's me. :) I imagine, that in cases where a list page is in the same category, and all the redirects in that category have been merged into said list (which should be the first, or one of the first, listed in the category) then it is probably redundant to have that particular category on that particular redirect. :) Otherwise, I'd say it's a good thing. BOZ (talk) 23:39, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Navbox templates

Having seen the new {{D&D navbox}} template in use, I've come to think that there probably is a better solution, since the single navbox can't cover much ground (for example, there's nothing about video games), and because any article it's in only has one or two directly related articles in the navbox. My proposal is that we do use separate navboxes, as had been done before, but do a complete reformatting of many of them, with the following templates when its done: D&D books; Forgotten Realms; D&D video games; Eberron; Dragonlance; Greyhawk; D&D basics; D&D monsters; D&D characters (including races, classes, and iconic characters like Lord Soth); D&D creators (including designers and artists); etc. Opinions? -

I think I was advocating that previously; glad to see you've come around! ;) I'll give some thought on how the exact implementation should work. BOZ (talk) 16:30, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I can just start working on one or two so you can see some examples of just what I had in mind, if you'd like. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:38, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. BOZ (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Here's the first one: {{D&D basics}}. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Good idea; bad idea

Does this make sense to everyone, or do you think that it would inevitably have the opposite of its intended effect (that is to say, people restoring articles without effecting cleanup)? -Drilnoth (talk) 02:50, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I've long considered doing exactly that, myself, but have yet to find myself with the balls to pull it off. ;) I have about 12-20 to add. Note that I've gotten upwards of a hundred already restored for merging (whether or not the merging has been accomplished as of yet). BOZ (talk) 03:00, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Did I ever mention that you did a great job getting those articles restored for future use? I think it'll really come in handy once we've gotten the more major articles fixed up.

Also, I want to mention that if there is any problem with this, from anyone, please do not hesitate to remove the section. I created it in an earnest attempt to assist in article cleanup, not to simply keep track of all of the deleted pages that the project had so that they could be restored without being fixed/merged. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Input

Some input is needed at Template talk:D&D regarding the template's formatting and the use of Bottom-Class. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:40, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Portal

So, should we create a portal? The Dragonlance portal, which hasn't been updated in quite a long time, is still getting 500+ hits a month according to the hit counter, so people must still be finding it useful, but I think that a portal with a larger scope would be good to have. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure! No idea how to do that... BOZ (talk) 13:22, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll look into it. (added to to-do list) -Drilnoth (talk) 13:45, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

It is now underconstruction here. It'll take awhile to get things configured properly, but it's a start. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Cool!  :) If the inactive Dragonlance portal can get 500+ hits per month, imagine what an active D&D Portal would get... BOZ (talk) 15:07, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

What do you think of it thus far? -Drilnoth (talk) 01:56, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Check out my recent contributions - I've hit a couple of talk pages. :) BOZ (talk) 01:58, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Heh. I think I posted my comment request at the same time that you commented! -Drilnoth (talk) 02:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Style guidelines

I think that we should probably update our style guidelines... they need a lot of updating and expansion. I'll work on it shortly, but any help would be appreciated. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what I can do, but get it started and we'll see? BOZ (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

I'll get some updates started on it. Sometime when I'm not working on one of the numerous other large projects I'm in the middle of. :) (added to to-do list). -Drilnoth (talk) 20:39, 17 January 2009 (UTC)