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 merge‎ to List of Donkey Kong characters#King K. Rool. New sources have been brought up and I see a consensus among editors to Merge this article (I assume to the same target article as in the first AFD). To correct one participant here, a Merge is not a deletion, just the decision that content about this article subject should be consolidated on a different article page and that this page changed to a Redirect. After two AFDs over the past six weeks, I see no benefit to a Relisting so this is my discussion closure. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:16, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

King K. Rool[edit]

King K. Rool (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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The first AfD was correctly closed as merge & redirect. Per a new information application at DRV, consensus was to allow a subsequent AfD to consider this potential new information. Please see the close at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2024 February 19 for more details. This is a procedural nomination and I offer no opinion. Daniel (talk) 23:22, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Ping participants from the original AfD, as per my DRV close: @Kung Fu Man, @Zxcvbnm, @Skynxnex, @Voorts, @Pokelego999 and closer @OwenX. Also pinging DRV applicant @Toadster101. This list of editors will receive a user talk page message to this effect also. Daniel (talk) 23:26, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge 2: Electric Boogaloo The new sources haven't modified my opinion. IMO this shouldn't have gone through deletion review, I agree with SportingFlyer that it seems incomprehensible why it got relisted. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 23:33, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Merge once more. There is nothing here indicating the notability thresholds are met, and my previous argument at both the previous AfD and deletion reviews still stands. Consensus at the deletion review did not seem to indicate a relist, so this relist seems unnecessary. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 23:38, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. Although the article itself is not in a great state (partly because of excessive linking to primary source videos of gameplay), the character of King K. Rool meets notability guidelines. There is coverage of the charcter in relatively conventional news media like Newsweek and Variety and in games journalism like Polygon. Outside of journalism, Todd Harper's "Fighting/Fat: Fighting Game Characters and the Emptiness of Video Game Fatness", Journal of Electronic Gaming and Esports 1, no. 1 (2023), DOI:10.1123/jege.2022-0043 interprets the King K. Rool character as part of an analysis of aesthetics of fatness in gaming; and Chris Scullion's Jumping for Joy: The History of Platform Video Games (Pen & Sword Books, 2022) covers the character's role in the Donkey Kong Country franchise. This is sufficient to keep. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 23:55, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The first source is dev info, which while great, is not helpful for notability unless his development is a major part of his notability. The Variety source doesn't really do anything. The Polygon source is alright. Certainly not the best article, but I guess it's something? I can't speak on the other three sources you cited since they haven't been linked nor do I have quotes. Would you be willing to cite the parts you believe contribute to notability? I believe that will help clarify a lot in terms of these sources' viability in establishing K. Rool's notability. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 00:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Is development not part of the information about a fictional character? I think a good version of this article would include cited information about K. Rool's development.

  Sources not necessarily available online can also contribute to notability. Here is one excerpt from Harper's article:

  King K. Rool, gets a partial pass—an anthropomorphic crocodile is likely a little less subject to the body norms applied to fully human-appearing ones—but he still shares a similar body shape to other fat characters, including fellow Smash playable Wario: a wide, somewhat squat body. Notable in particular in K. Rool’s case is his golden breastplate, which specifically is molded to the shape of a pair of vaguely flabby pecs and a large, round belly with an outie belly button. (page 4)

  I'm afraid I don't have a personal copy of Jumping for Joy, but I was able to see on Google Books that the character is covered on pages 16–32. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment@User:Pokelego999 - The first source you asked about can be found here, and the book can be found here. Both are extremely trivial mentions of the character. The article barely mentions him specifically - that one quote above is essentially the bulk of the "coverage" on K. Rool in there. The book is simply a database of platform video games - K. Rool is simply mentioned in the very brief plot summaries for each of the DKC games he appears in. Just to give an example, the only coverage on page 32, mentioned above, is literally just the sentence "Donkey Kong's banana hoard has been stolen yet again, but this time it isn't King K. Rool and the Kremlings who are to blame". Rorshacma (talk) 00:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thank you for the link to "Fighting/Fat". The coverage is brief, but is it trivial? The analysis displayed is interpretive, and I think it's plainly more in-depth than the classic example of trivial coverage (In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice). There are Wikipedians who believe that one hundred words of coverage is sufficient to establish notability.

  As for Jumping for Joy, as I mentioned, I can keyword search the book on Google Books to see pages where the phrase "King K. Rool" appears, but I'm not able to read the pages themselves. I am left to trust your sense of it, if you are able to see more of the book. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:02, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Dev info is important, but Reception should be prioritized. There's very few occasions where I've seen dev info heavily contribute to a character's notability beyond the basics, especially in the video game scene where there's a lot of cases of very little dev info existing.

  Looking at the bits shown, these seem very trivial, since they don't really discuss the character beyond recognizing their existence. I'm afraid these don't contribute to notability. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 00:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Stop fixating on development versus reception. It does not matter. What we need is significant coverage from reliable sources, whatever it may be. Reception sections are just one of many paths to proving notability. Sergecross73 msg me 18:38, 10 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge - for reasons noted by others in previous discussions. LizardJr8 (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements and Video games. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 00:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge for the exact same reasons it was deleted before. No efforts were made to improve this article for a subject previously determined by a community consensus to not be notable enough for inclusion on Wikipedia. The said consensus still applies, and nothing has changed. With all due respect to the nominator, to call recreating a previously deleted weak article just to nominate it for deletion again "incomprehensible" would be an understatement. λ NegativeMP1 00:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Restore Merge - The initial AFD was correctly closed as a merge, and the sources presented since the relisting are, quite simply, not good. The original consensus at the recent AFD should be restored. Rorshacma (talk) 00:51, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge Per my previous reasoning, examining the new sources as presented above:

• Jumping for Joy can be viewed here simply by scrolling through the pages rather than using the search function, and we can see...it's just a straight synopsis of the games.
• While the Newsweek article offers some information on dev, it's also extremely small and offers no real commentary beyond that. While I'm not opposed to citing smaller articles, this is realistically barely anything.
• "Fighting/Fat" is an article I've cited before for Rufus (Street Fighter), but runs into a problem of considering SIGCOV in this case: the times he's discussed, it's right alongside Wario in terms of shared body types and briefly at that, and only a small bit of commentary can be gleamed beyond that. One needs to consider what can actually be cited in instances such as this. That would probably be more useful for Tekken's Bob or Guilty Gear's Goldlewis for a better comparison as to what can be constituted as commentary within such an article for reception purposes.
• The Variety article isn't even...saying...anything? It's a rather strange article to say the least and would be questionable to cite for anything. A video existing and a website pointing out offers nothing. Commentary is more a factor, and trying to argue this counts as significant coverage makes me feel the "throw anything and hope it sticks" approach was the goal, which never works.
• Polygon's article also was a bit odd in that I was hoping somewhere there was character commentary or reaction, but instead it's straight gameplay reaction. Gameplay tends to be harder to cite, as it's extremely game specific, and often doesn't give a glimpse of how a character was received as a whole. Compare it to this article from Polygon on Gengar, which not only discusses gameplay but provides the author's own reaction to the new form and the character overall.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 01:06, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge per my previous !vote and Kung Fu Man's analysis of the new sources that came out at DRV. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:11, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Thank you for notifying me of the deletion nomination. I have significantly expanded the Reception section, primarily focusing on character commentary outside of gameplay from several new sources.^{[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} Some of the sources are more "reliable" than others, but there is significant evidence to conclude that King K. Rool meets the notability requirements. How many sources are necessary? toadster101 (talk/contributions) 04:50, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Comment - The copious amount of low quality listicles and unreliable sources already present in the article throughout this and the previous AFD were not convincing before. Adding in more of the same is not really going to change much in that regard. Rorshacma (talk) 06:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I also completely agree listicles do not count for notability. SportingFlyer T·C 16:45, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I'm going to do an analysis real quick for those at this debate.

  1. "The final boss battles are all frankly bizarre but after you've beaten K. Rool around a little, dropped some lights on his head and watched him slip on a banana peel (obviously), you are then tasked with tickling the evil King's feet to defeat him." is practically all that can be considered, coverage, and it's just a recap of the method to defeat him. Nothing here strikes me as being notable, especially since this is part of a "Top 10" ranking
  2. K. Rool is mentioned about three times in this article, and none of them in a significant context beyond insinuating DKC as a whole may be taking inspiration from the Banana Wars.
  3. This is basically saying "He stole bananas and is evil." I guess it's citable? But it's incredibly weak and barely contributes anything to the article.
  4. Doesn't really have any commentary on the character beyond being a bit jokey in the fact that he frequently changes his aliases.
  5. Doesn't seem to be coverage, and per discussions about reliable sources, articles from TheGamer prior to 2020 are considered generally unreliable.
  6. This is talking about K. Rool's airship, not K. Rool.
  7. This is from The Onion, a satire news website. They don't do actual reporting beyond making satire of current events, and all of their articles are meant for comedy. It's an unreliable source per past consensus on the subject, as well.
  8. This Newsweek source has already been discussed, and is only developmental info. No commentary on the character.
  9. While a surprisingly interesting theory, this doesn't really contribute to notability. Nothing is said about K. Rool other than a hypothetical role in a hypothetical movie. This doesn't speak to anything about the character, and anything that may be said is inherently minor and tied to a hypothetical.
  10. This just says "K. Rool may be funny if he was in a movie," and that's it. It's basically the definition of a trivial mention.

  In short, none of these are good sources for proving notability, and do not contribute anything to the discussion beyond further establishing the lack of coverage on K. Rool. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:07, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It is impossible to argue against these claims when the goalposts keep moving. Nothing in the notability guideline stipulates that the articles have to be written about the character specifically. Nothing in the notability guideline stipulates that "listicles" do not count for notability—especially if said lists are from reliable sources and feature commentary. How is a description of the character's personality traits not "commentary?" How much commentary is needed for a character to be considered notable? How many sources? For example, you dismissed the Arcade Sushi article for not having commentary on the character "beyond being a bit jokey," as if K. Rool's comedic personality and "identity confusion" don't meet the threshold for commentary based on undisclosed, subjective criteria. No additional research is needed to extract the content in any of these articles, aside from perhaps the one from The Onion. I am well-aware that The Onion is a satirical news website; the only reason I cited it was due to its popularity—and thus giving exposure to a purportedly "non-notable" character—though in retrospect I shouldn't have included it as I was unaware of the past consensus. Toadster101 (talk) 03:48, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  @Toadster101 The goalposts aren't "being moved", the problem is the sources are weak, you need actual discussion in the sources, something indicating thoughts were presented on how they reacted to the character preferably as a fictional character. What you have here are a bunch of small one off comments, sometimes not even *about* the character, that don't even make full statements. This is the sort of material that characters like those in the Dead or Alive series tried to fall back on (SOOO many sources focused on a passing mention about their breasts...) or even many Pokemon back in the day. Instead of reacting with confusion why other articles are here but K. Rool is getting bashed, look at the discussions going on in the reception section of those other articles. But this "anything goes!" approach where you're citing stuff like Cracked.com...that's not it chief.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 03:59, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Basically my thoughts above. I'm perfectly okay with using listicles and articles not inherently focused on a character for Reception, and I've done so before, but the sources provided are all very trivial, maybe one sentence of actual coverage in most of these. There needs to be significant discussion of the character for an article to be justified, and really only maybe the Polygon source right now can be considered SIGCOV. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 19:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Goalposts are indeed moving, or rather, the threshold for what qualifies as a "strong" source. I keep hearing that the sources are trivial and don't go into enough depth, but again, where is this requirement stipulated in the notability guideline? What qualifies as "depth," in this case? Many reliable sources have been cited copiously throughout the article—including Den of Geek, Game Revolution, GameSpot, GamesRadar, IGN, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Nintendo Life, Paste Magazine, Polygon, and Variety. The ones that aren't "reliable," as per Wikipedia, are merely supplementary. I have included an additional citation from Game Revolution, which does, in fact, pertain to K. Rool specifically and cover the character—and the fandom surrounding him—in greater detail. While each article should be evaluated separately, it's worth mentioning that the "Reception" section—which seems to be the only section that's relevant here, as the reliable sources that discuss K. Rool's development history have been dismissed—for Donkey Kong himself is mostly "listicles" and has less commentary of the character's personality traits than K. Rool's does. Would you make the argument, then, that Donkey Kong is not notable? Or would you contend that notability can be achieved without needing an arbitrary number of thinkpieces from gaming journalism websites, which K. Rool has anyway?

  I recognize the stringency of Wikipedia's citation policies, but to say that K. Rool doesn't meet the notability requirements in light of the new evidence that has been posted is, frankly, absurd. Attempts have been made—and are ongoing—to improve the article to meet the impossibly high standards that the character is now being held to nearly six years later. As the notability guideline specifies, notability is not temporary. Toadster101 (talk) 00:06, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It isn't the sites themselves that are weak. The sites themselves are strong, but the coverage they're providing just isn't enough to be considered a "strong" source. Anyways I will state that the GameRevolution source is a decent one, but it's not enough to salvage the whole thing given the overall lack of significant articles like it.

  As for DK, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. An article being in bad shape does not have anything to do with the state of K. Rool's article. DK needs improvement, but that's a separate discussion, not something to be talked about at another character's AfD. I would argue, personally, that he likely is notable, but the DK article would need source searches and improvements before any AfD could be made.

  In any case, these standards are not "impossibly high" since many, and I mean many characters, have met these kinds of thresholds, and on far less sources than K. Rool. See Bobby, for example, who was a recent keep at AfD. He only has nine sources but safely meets thresholds since almost every article covering him actually gives deep commentary and analysis on the character. There's a weak source or two in there, but there's enough in-depth sources to guarantee notability. K. Rool, on the other hand, is primarily weak sources with a rare in-depth source in the mix. Just because there's a quantity of trivial mentions does not mean a character means GNG, they need some actual, significant discussion. Notability isn't temporary, but notability guidelines need to be met for that argument to be valid, first. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 00:35, 9 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. All of the additional sources that were added were unreliable like The Onion, meanwhile GameRant's listicle sources don't help WP:GNG. GreenishPickle! (🔔) 05:18, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Expanding on Greenish Pickle's comment, while I don't hold a negative view on Valnet sources the ones used are not really saying anything, and the others added i.e. WhatCulture, ComingSoon.net are unreliable sources. In addition, the AfD is currently being canvassed on twitter by a user I suspect is Toadster101 (no bad faith, just it's been twice now with the same timing, once here and once in the AfD review).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 10:57, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The linked post has been deleted by the original post author, but it was the same Twitter account used in the DRV for canvassing purposes. I won't speak more given I can't speak more for their reasons, but this should likely be kept in mind by the closer. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 21:12, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep overall. More than sufficient sourcing. Stifle (talk) 15:17, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  What sources would you consider to be strong? Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:55, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge per the arguments at the DRV and at the last AfD. I stand by my previous comments that this AfD is superfluous. SportingFlyer T·C 16:46, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Citations used in the article's most recent version before deletion, as well as its subsequent updates, include sufficient analysis and/or discussion of King K. Rool and his reception, outside of the context of his games of origin, to qualify the character a standalone page. While some citations link to less traditionally "mainstream" sources, compared to what might be referenced for fictional characters from other mediums, the sources are of sufficient prominence with relation to the gaming medium, while also being of sufficient quality, to meet significance requirements. Above "merge" suggestions do not meaningfully specify criteria precluding the sources in question from being of a sufficient quality to count as significant. The previous deletion discussion notes that the King K. Rool article previously had been deemed in compliance with notability standards. A partial factor in the page's nomination for deletion, that King K. Rool "is not on the same level as Bowser," appears nowhere within said notability standards. IFoundALemonTree (talk) 13:42, 6 March 2024 (UTC) — IFoundALemonTree (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

  What sources would you consider significant then? Nothing in here is really all that strong, and any sources brought up during this debate have been debunked rather quickly. The comment Zx made about Bowser also seemed to be more of a personal comment than him citing policy, and it did not seem to be his main reasoning for deletion, either.

  Also, to closer, this account was non-existent prior to today, and their only contribution has thus far been to this AfD. As a result, they are likely to be a result of canvassing per the Twitter advertising. Has one ever considered Magneton? Pokelego999 (talk) 20:55, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I have to respond here as my words are being mischaracterized. I said that K. Rool doesn't seem to have notability, which indicates he is not akin to a Bowser-like character. I am obviously not so inexperienced to assume popularity is the indicator of an article's notability. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 23:47, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge. I find the reopening of this AfD confusing, especially in light of the fact that there was brigading involved. Furthermore, the reasons to reopen the AfD were deeply unconvincing, including no evidence whatsoever that the result of the AfD was in any way, shape, or form faulty. The editors pushing for it to be reopened should have made their argument to unmerge it on the talk page, and I'm uncertain what the argument was that suggested the AfD result was not proper. As far as the argument made for "keep," it remains unconvincing, except for the Polygon source. I feel like there is a misunderstanding, too, of what sources are usable, when The Onion is being cited as a usable source. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 01:41, 7 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge. This discussion was re-opened to evaluate new sources. Echoing the fictional character regulars above, none of those sources are strong enough to justify a standalone article, not going into epiphanic depth on the character himself. It should stay merged. czar 22:27, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge - the sourcing is still rather weak. Most either come from unreliable/low grade sources, and/or say little of substance. I think it's best to be covered in the respective Donkey Kong articles. Sergecross73 msg me 18:41, 10 March 2024 (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.