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Merges done

Since the merging of pages and proper redirecting allows for cross-wiki searching, I'm going to not worry about the format for now and work on the major lists of deities that were split off.

1. Abbathor is now at Dwarf deities#Abbathor - Content lost includes some small lines on priest robes, holy days, unsourced "Myths and legends", and Glitterhell's description, his titles and domains.
2. Berronar Truesilver is now at Dwarf deities#Berronar Truesilver - Content lost includes priest wear, holy days, and the comment on Races of Stone detailing a similar goddess named Mya. And the shared plane of Erackinor. (Page was AFDed and closed as merge)
3. Clanggedin Silverbeard is now at Dwarf_deities#Clanggedin_Silverbeard - Content lost includes the priest wear and holy day and the weapon sacrifice for rituals. And "Clangeddin sponsored the ascension of Gendwar Argrim to hero-deity status."
4. Dugmaren Brightmantle is now at Dwarf_deities#Dugmaren_Brightmantle - A decent amount of unsourced material on rituals and inuniverse content was not carried over for dogma and clergy and his realm.
5. Dumathoin is now at Dwarf_deities#Dumathoin - Some in-universe content was lost including clergy and dogma.
6. Laduguer merged to Dwarf_deities#Laduguer - A lot of in-universe content on the dogma and priesthood and some other backstory was lost. This page was under AFD and the page is not yet redirected, but the important points have been transferred.
7. Moradin is now at Dwarf_deities#Moradin - Not too much has been lost outside of the clergy and military orders which were unsourced and of not obvious importance.
8. Vergadain is now at Dwarf_deities#Vergadain - A good amount cut down, but it is the same as the other dwarf deities now.
9. Arvoreen is now at Halfling_deities#Arvoreen - Extraneous in-universe details cut down. Going forward all "similiar cuts" applies to cuts of unsourced content or excessive detail about the play and detailed lore of the characters instead of a decent overview and relevant publications that are useful for players to consult, without divulging all that information on Wikipedia. In depth coverage is more applicable to Wikia, but several paragraphs or concise coverage is acceptable on Wikipedia for both general readers and as a reference for more specific readers (players) without getting into detail allowing for roleplaying.
10. Brandobaris is now at Halfling_deities#Brandobaris - Similiar cuts.
11. Cyrrollalee is now at Halfling_deities#Cyrrollalee - Similiar cuts.
12. Sheela Peryroyl is now at Halfling_deities#Sheela_Peryroyl - Similiar cuts.
13. Urogalan is now at Halfling_deities#Urogalan - Similiar cuts.
14. Yondalla is now at Halfling deities#Yondalla - More extreme cuts to in-universe lore. I think I over did this one, but so much was unsourced and purely relevant for gameplay.

This list will grow as I do some. I want this to be transparent and clearly marked in case of objections. There is no need to have deletions which lose edit history or drawn out merger discussions for things like this. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:00, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

(mock incredulity) What? You meant that actually working with the source material to intelligently merge not-independently-notable content from separate articles into relevant lists wasn't insta-reverted by hordes of slavering inclusionists?! </sarcasm> In all seriousness, good work, and I wish more people would take a positive, source-material honoring approach to bringing older content up to Wikipedia standards. Jclemens (talk) 04:29, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

The old Orc deities page has now had the individual articles merged into it. This page wasn't even accessible off the main page. So Bahgtru, Gruumsh, Ilneval, Luthic, Shargaas and Yurtrus are all viewable on a decent single page. Only Gruumsh was negatively impacted by much more lore being removed, including the lengthy creation quote which probably was a CV given its entirety being used. The biggest change is dropping the massive list for a much easier list of lists at List_of_Dungeons_&_Dragons_deities#Lists_of_deities which will replace the current giant mess. I found another wayward dwarf deity not listed on the original page, which I will be moving to the other. Ulaa is indicative of much of the coverage that exists. I'll probably get a few more done before resuming tomorrow. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:43, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your hard work, Chris. Ulaa ought to be merged to List of Greyhawk deities instead, as she is a god of Greyhawk first and a god of the dwarves a distant second. See quote from prior version of the article: "Ulaa is worshipped by humans, dwarves, gnomes, and other benevolent races who dwell in hills and mountains." BOZ (talk) 15:24, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

This results in a new problem. Since Greyhawk deities are in D&D and can be in different settings, including homebrew, what to do? Several deities not only go between different versions, but campaign settings. Notably Lolth, which is in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms and straight into 4th edition. I think the Greyhawk deities page should be a large table list that states the key information and links to the larger race or type based deity listing page under the individual entry. There seems to be no reason to have a deity like Lolth at Grayhawk's list and not other settings or to duplicate them in other places. Major worshipping race should take precedence over minor worshipping races in case of a dispute, with a link and brief description. The current page should also make a note of this, preferably with a source and be concise. Perhaps listing the infobox. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:37, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Those which originated and remained closely associated with a campaign setting should remain so; most nonhuman deities are "generic" but also associated with one or more campaign settings so they should be treated as part of the race and independent of the settings but still connected. We should represent that in the best way possible. In the case of Ulaa for example, we should treat her as a Greyhawk deity who is worshipped by humans and other races, thus merged to the Greyhawk list with a link from the dwarf deities page. BOZ (talk) 04:46, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I see your point, does seem the most logical, however do we really need to list the character at that page? I disagree because my ultimate plan is to make the Greyhawk deity page into a large table that serves several functions. Right now the function is an index with many splits. Some have detailed sections, others have a mere link. This reduces the accessibility and usefulness of the page. It would be better to have a table that lists all the important information and provide links to the detailed sections on relevant pages. This would likely be best done by a table like this:

Name	Deity of/Worshipped by	Alignment	Domains	Home plane	Extra 1	Extra 2	Sourcebooks

It shouldn't cut into the page size for most browsers and would be much more accessible and eye pleasing then walls of text interspersed with pages that redirect right back to the section, like Beltar (Dungeons & Dragons) does. It is a pain to browse and its not a useful compendium that is arranged in a clear manner. The only reason I don't merge articles to the campaign setting is that many are shared and I would have to either repeat or "main" them out which diminishes the pages value. And there is a lot to be said about deities arranged by race, with campaign setting notes, for those players and readers who are merely browsing for ideas. From another standpoint, the list of Greyhawk deities would actually be a lot more productive for this same task and would be much more accessible as well. Just the format is the only real issue. Sound good, or no? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:17, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Sounds good; maybe work on that on a sandbox page when you are ready, or post a preview here? As for Ulaa, no, we don't even have to mention her at all on the dwarf deities page; she is not a member of that pantheon, and she is limited to one campaign world, so I am fine with not even mentioning her on that page at all. BOZ (talk) 12:10, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't too concerned with pantheon breakdown, worrying about pantheon is interesting though. Merging and reorganizing isn't so much of a problem after the pages are done. I have no nice way to put it yet. Perhaps a breakdown table or two for listing the deities.. should be easy to do even at the other lists. Some like the Seelie Court make since, as well as the Nine Hells, but racial ones are often shared amongst campaigns, right? Any preferred format you want to see? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:15, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The racial gods have always been presented as available for "generic" homebrew campaigns and are also used in Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms (and Planescape, and I believe Spelljammer as well), as are the archdevils and demon lords and similar types of beings. In third edition a lot of the Greyhawk gods were made part of the "generic" setting (a few being retained even for four edition) so that gets a bit complicated, but I would personally still consider them Greyhawk gods first and shared gods second. I don't have a preference for format, but I will gladly take a look at any examples you come up with. BOZ (talk) 15:12, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay, please give me some time to do that. I have three more books to read through before they go back to the library tomorrow, and I got two more due the day after that. I really need to make my research notes and compile the necessary information before continuing this. I'll probably not be able to merge any more at this time. I'll draft a set up in the sandbox when I get some time. I know you'll like it, but it won't be fully functional. I'll drop a message on TTN's page and ask for a stay of the deletions, since more than 20 pages have been combined and made all the better, but a few little barriers exist to the overall reorganization and structure of the merges. Best to make sure you are satisfied with the format before creating a new problem to solve the old. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:46, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Great! :) I'll give you all the time you need, but I can't say the same about TTN. BOZ (talk) 17:07, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

TTN saved my butt. I owe TTN plenty of courtesy and respect, he acknowledged the merges done and will likely let us work something out to conduct more merges. I'm planning on about 300 merges over the next four days, including some of the redirected and merge tagged articles from the AFDs. If I am missing any, please let me know. They are not all sensibly linked off the pages. I'll have that draft proposal for you later tonight. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 16:31, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• Here's the short version of the prototype, User:ChrisGualtieri/sandbox. I just need to fill it in as the work is carried out. All links to the large descriptions will be accessible. The alignment can be sortable, and so could the races, but this can be implemented last. I think a key for the source books would make it easier to use instead of filling it with the titles. MM, P2, DM, etc. Sound good? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Is that your plan for List of Greyhawk deities? I agree that a key for the commonly used sources would be best for the chart instead of writing that out; if any articles are missing a publication history section, let me know and I will try to get some info for you. For the ones already merged into that page, check under the redirects to see if the article had a publication history section before it was merged. How do you intend to handle the longer descriptions (at least a few sentences or a paragraph or two for each deity, I assume) – are you going to put the table on top, and keep the descriptions in alphabetical sections below them? BOZ (talk) 22:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

It is my plan for the page. Glad to see you agree about the key for the sources; and I am sure I'll need your help on filling it out. The two issues remain. First the format of the page, shall I create "Index of Greyhawk deities" to hold the table or should I attach it to the List? I'd like to replace it with the table for functionality. The reason hinges on the second issue, the creation of a large compendium of deities, but I need one last piece of info from you. Would you prefer a separate campaign setting specific list of deities dealing primarily with that settings version, or a large list comprising all the campaign settings like Grayhawk and FR that is separated as necessary for SIZE issues. This is an important decision, but I don't want to step on your toes. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

As for the deities lists for campaign settings, I do think we need the separate Dragonlance, Greyhawk, and Forgotten Realms lists, both for navigation purposes and size issues. I would need to see more of an example of what you intend to do with an index to hold a table, or attaching it to a list before I can really comment on that since I am having a hard time imagining what it would look like. BOZ (talk) 00:43, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Alright, no worries. I'm restoring and working on Fey (Dungeons & Dragons). There is so much work to do around here, I'll try and get more of one built out. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:30, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• 32 Fey creatures are now on the Fey (Dungeons & Dragons) page. These include:

1. Atomie - Recovered from Wikibooks
2. Banshrae - Recovered from Wikibooks
3. Booka - Merged
4. Brownie - Merged
5. Buckawn - Recovered from Wikibooks
6. Dryad - Merged
7. Duskling - Added
8. Faun - Merged
9. Forlarren - Merged
10. Frost Virago - Added
11. Grig - Merged
12. Hybsil - Merged
13. Jermlaine - Merged from RD
14. Killmoulis - Merged
15. Killoren - Merged
16. Korred - Merged
17. Leprechaun - Merged
18. Nereid - Merged
19. Nixie - Merged
20. Nymph - Merged
21. Ocean Strider - Added
22. Oread - Merged + New Content
23. Pixie - Merged
24. Quickling - Merged
25. Satyr - Merged
26. Shadar-kai - Merged
27. Sirine - Merged from RD
28. Spirit of the land - Merged from RD
29. Spriggan - Merged
30. Sprite - Merged
31. Sylph - Merged
32. Thorn - Merged

Some of these were at redirects already and I had to get them from their histories. Several were missing content and I had to find and add it, but my search skills are not that good for such stuff. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 13:46, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Good work! Fey (like Dragon, Giant, Undead, Elemental, Ooze, Construct, or Humanoid) is an easier creature type to deal with, since it is a lot easier to define what fits into that category. Part of the problem we have with some of the others is that there were some radical changes in how creature types worked from 3rd edition to 4th edition - particularly with stuff like Aberration, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, and I think Outsider too - that make it a lot less clear as to where something should be assigned. See Creature type (Dungeons & Dragons). As for Plants, I'm not sure how those should be arranged since the page was forced into a merge at AFD a few months ago. BOZ (talk) 15:12, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Break 1

My plan for the creature type page is to give a brief overview of the type and a list (perhaps short list) of its typical creatures, special traits or bonuses, and make the type page the main overview of the actual creatures of the type. For complex lists like humans and dragons, this will likely result in several lists, either by campaign or grouping. Since characters are still at risk here, I'm hoping to do something with that. Another issue has been found, the severe lack of templates to the D&D materials, broken redirects and other things that have been all messed up with the AFDs and restorations. I've been removing the invalid stub tags, adding the D&D template, converting the redirect templates to the standard D&D template, adding the proper tags and doing standard fixes... Your watchlist will likely become useless if you have a lot of pages on it. I apologize, but there is nothing I can do to stop it and such massive changes tend to piss some people off, but the improvement is far greater than the annoyance. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 15:33, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Wow, you have some incredible stamina! I would not be able to make it through thousands of edits within the space of a few hours, even with something like AWB. BOZ (talk) 19:49, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm going to be devoting a lot more time to fixing this because I am dropping out of A&M for a bit. To reduce the likelihood of making tagging errors, I'm going to convert the redirected D&D templates to the base "D&D topics" type and add the templates to all those articles that are missing the template afterwards. Should I tag the Dragonlance ones with D&D topics or not? I see it on there, but I wasn't sure if this is intended. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 20:01, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes - Dragonlance is definitely part of D&D, even if not every aspect of it is directly related to the game. BOZ (talk) 21:13, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay! Just 1300 pages left to convert the templates before I'll swing back around and do the rest of them. I still have about 5k left in my list on WP:USA to go through. So it shouldn't be more than another day before everything is wrapped up in this area. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 21:26, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

• Templates converted. Completing tags now. General fixes about 20% done as well. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:13, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

  Many are done, but I'll have to continue later on today. So much work is done though! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:11, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

  Amazing, thank you again. I lost track of how much you were doing after the first hour or so, but it looked good to me. :) BOZ (talk) 06:16, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• All pages are tagged with the template. The last 718 were just finished up. Hitting general fixes on all of them to fix other issues. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:25, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• According to the clean up listing, of the 3839 articles in this project 1515 or 39.5% are marked for cleanup, with 2908 issues in total.[1] I'm going to be changing that rather dramatically, I think. Work on the demons has also begun. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:01, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Another 25 articles merged. Will give a full list when the demon page is completed. It is in a messy format right now, but compressing and editing will be easy to do. Looks like I am on par for 120 pages to be merged today. 200 tops before I just get exhausted. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 14:37, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Don't exhaust yourself!  :) As for the demon lords, I will note that Nekir[2] was redirected without a merge. BOZ (talk) 16:19, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

A bunch were. I've fixed some links and other problems along the way. With the size and function of this large list, the table on a separate page with details about the structure, order and source materials. Listing the canon concerns on the list can also be possible, but there is a lot of work left to be done before the polishing begins. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

• General fixes were run and checked on all 25,000+ pages. Everything looks good in this area now; lots of templates to fix, bad syntax and other tweaks with moving up all those new D&D nav templates. I finished checking the last block of 600 just a few minutes ago. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• I've seen that Folken de Fanel is redirecting articles to Hag (Dungeons & Dragons). As much of the merging and steps need to be done in an ordered and proper fashion, I've undone them so that such pages can be reviewed and worked on properly to weigh merge targets and information. In particular, Night hag (Dungeons & Dragons). The abuse of AFD's no consensus to delete and call for discussion on merge should not go unnoticed.[3] Folken de Fanel is edit warring to circumvent discussion and carry out a defacto deletion. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 05:39, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Proper merge discussions has already happened. AfD shows consensus to merge. You're the only one edit warring to circumvent discussion.Folken de Fanel (talk) 08:30, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• Maybe you should, if you desire to continue merging, sit at Chris Gualtieri's feet for a bit and understand how and why he finds the process you've used less than ideal. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 16:12, 13 October 2013 (UTC)

• The process used was AfD and then merge discussion. There's no reason to see that as "less than ideal", ChrisG makes it clear he initially didn't take the time either to get more familiar with the situation or to actually look into what was done.Folken de Fanel (talk) 00:46, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Read carefully what he's saying: the way you're going about things impairs his ability to work using the categories. This is a known defect of categories--unlike everything else on Wikipedia, there is no easy way to see what a category contained at a specific point in time. It's an entirely reasonable request, and honoring it is orthogonal to the AfD outcomes and merge discussions, but it is clearly expected as part of good faith collaborative editing. Jclemens (talk) 03:23, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Then he says it and doesn't spend his whole time wrongly accusing me of bad faith, abuse of afd result, abuse of discussion, and not carrying content, and he reads what happened before intervening. I don't think these expectations are unrealistic.Folken de Fanel (talk) 08:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• I see the complaints from both users, but you are not helping matters by continuing this dispute here. This thread is for improving articles and should be limited to such. BOZ (talk) 12:05, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jclemens for the support, Folken's bad faith and refusal to work together is a detriment in both in time I have to work and the efficiency of said work. These pages are redirected outside of the project's category system and finding them by guessing the title is difficult. Some of these may go back over a year, but going forward my ask for a stay of such additional merges should at least be respected and a 3-4 day stay is not asking for much. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Continue accusing me of bad faith will only earn you yet another report at ANI. You've been warned.Folken de Fanel (talk) 08:44, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Update. I started the merging of the hag information to a table list. As more minor creatures I do not think they need to go into their own "list of hags", however the source book listings and their continued use throughout 30+ years of D&D history warrants a table to identify what edition they are in and what sources are available. I didn't have much time with my work day, but I did manage to get Emmantiensien, Fionnghuala, and Nathair Sgiathach merged. Only 6 of the Fey deities remain and that should be easy to do tomorrow. BOZ, if you could help on the hag table or comment on its usefulness, I'd be pleased. I hope I've found a decent way in which to combine information of this type. At this level of specifics, a large list of hags would probably be a bit overkill. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:52, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

• Rest of the Fey deities have been merged with the exception of Skerrit which is at AFD. I dropped a note announcing the merger; it should be closed with the redirect and categories kept. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:37, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Article count jumped after I found the redirecting under "merge". I rolledback these redirects and made notice at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard#Folken_de_Fanel. I'm in the process of properly merging them, but some of the target pages need a lot of work as well. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:39, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

• More merging done. Should have most of the Dukes of Hell and the Lords of Nine merged together tonight. Working on Baazabul's vassals right now. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:43, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

break 2

44 43 pages were merged to create the List of named devils (Dungeons & Dragons) page. Clocking in at 191,042 bytes, this should decrease with some work. Many of the pages that were merged were really scattered and nearly orphaned. This made finding the articles to merge rather difficult, but I may have missed some. So some pages may still be added in the future.

• Abigor
• Adonides
• Adramalech
• Agares
• Alastor the Grim
• Asmodeus
• Baalphegor
• Baalzebul
• Baftis
• Balan
• Barbas
• Barbatos
• Bathym
• Bel
• Bele
• Belial
• Bensozia
• Bifrons
• Bileth
• Buer
• Bune
• Chamo
• Dispater
• Erac's Cousin
• Fierna
• Gaziel
• Gazra
• Glasya
• Hag Countess
• Hutijin
• Lilith
• Naome
• Neabaz
• Machalas
• Martinet
• Mephistopheles
• Moloch
• Morax
• Levistus
• Phongor
• Rimmon
• Tartach
• Zagum
• Zepar

The next part of the work will continue soon. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:38, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm suspecting that there may be sources sufficient to spin out multiple of those, like, oh, Asmodeus. Cheers, Jclemens (talk) 04:20, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Asmodeus didn't get merged - nor should he be, per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Asmodeus (Dungeons & Dragons). BOZ (talk) 12:23, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, looking again, Chris did merge the text in but left the article standing... perhaps that should just be a summary with a link to the article? Also, Erac's Cousin is probably better merged into List of Greyhawk characters if anywhere. And I restored the picture for Glasya, because, you know, hawt.  ;) BOZ (talk) 15:06, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

Ack, I forgot to take him off the list! 43 merged. And yes, I need to compress it down. I was reading it through and decided it met GNG/N so I would not merge, I just need to make a good and short descriptor and let the larger main article do the rest. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 22:33, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

• More work done... so much left to go. Eberron is in a sad state and I'm not going to be able to work miracles on it, but of the 3878 articles in this project 1521 or 39.2 % are marked for cleanup, with 2917 issues in total. An improvement. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:33, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

• Some reorganizing and compressing done, still finding some devils to merge into the list and I found more gods to work on while browsing the categories. Much more tomorrow though! ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:32, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

• Don't forget Zariel[4] BOZ (talk) 05:59, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Updating template

A lot of merges and such have been completed. I think it is time to find a way to update the redirected pages and their templates. Should I do this now or after more merges are done? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:45, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Please elaborate on what is involved with updating redirected pages and their templates. BOZ (talk) 12:19, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Basically, if a page is a redirect, update the importance to NA and the class to redirect. Though I understand finding the redirects could be a problem. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I get what you mean. :) Yeah, you can do that at any time; now, if you're ready, or at some later point. If you need help finding any redirects, we can work that out. BOZ (talk) 00:16, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

A-class assessment request

Could use any and all feedback for Neverwinter Nights 2 on its talk page. Thanks! — Mr. V (t – c) 15:45, 6 November 2013 (UTC)