Category talk:Candidates for deletion

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Frequently misidentified weapons

This should definitely be a category on this Wiki. PlatonicSolid (talk) 04:14, August 9, 2020 (UTC)

I disagree, but would be interested to hear why you think so. My view is that being misidentified isn't a defining feature of any weapon (let alone a defining feature of a weapon in the context of RPGs), and even if we said it was the mere fact of misidentification is not interesting or useful unless you have further context (e.g. what it is misidentified with and how or why). On that basis, a list would make a lot more sense than a category (which is what TV Tropes have done, although their page that you linked to is explicitly restricted to firearms). -- Supermorff (talk) 07:18, August 9, 2020 (UTC)

A link is not going to be as closely associated as the listed weapons. I think it definitely is a defining feature of many weapons, as exemplified by the flail and bastard sword entries. Weapons imprecisely defined in D&D, but also games as well, are a common source of confusion/annoyance and lead to misconceptions which color discussions of how weapons should work. The discussions themselves are memetic. I think it's worthy as a category because I think it's useful to have a base concept, "There are some weapons that are frequently misidentified, and you should maybe read up on that before talking glibly about what you thought you knew, but you don't." PlatonicSolid (talk) 18:14, August 9, 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I do like the idea that discussions around weapon misidentification are memetic. (Since my last post, I have found out that A Song of Ice and Fire uses the wrong definitions of longsword and bastard sword from D&D, which supports your point somewhat.)

Maybe my unease with the category is the name of it? It sounds like a cultural/player issue rather than one that is built into a caused by actual RPG rules. I think I have two problems, which are both largely semantic but still worth solving if we can. First, use of the term "frequently" feels imprecise, which I'm ok with in the text of a page but I don't like as a category name. Second, I think the root cause of the issue isn't that people "misidentify" these weapons, but that they were "misnamed" in a set of rules, which led to the later misidentification. What do you think about these? Is there a different category title that addresses these concerns?

Also, I'm in two minds about whether some of these weapons even need pages of their own, regardless of whether this is a valid category. The discussion on bastard swords could easily be put on the sword page, which would let us more closely connect the misidentification issues of bastard swords with the related misidentification of longswords. -- Supermorff (talk) 18:44, August 9, 2020 (UTC)

I don't want the swords page to get overly long, but expanding the bastard sword page and making it a general longsword page, with redirects, is not a terrible idea. PlatonicSolid (talk) 20:04, August 9, 2020 (UTC)

Bastard swords being a type of longsword suggests that longsword would be a more appropriate title for that expanded page, with "bastard sword" as a redirect. Also, on the name of the category, I've slept on it and realised that I'm wrong about the "misidentified"/"misnamed" point. If the page is called bastard sword, we can't categorise it as misnamed unless the page actually refers to the larger sword that isn't really a bastard sword. How about Category:Commonly confused weapons? "Confused" can come at the issue from both directions. -- Supermorff (talk) 06:15, August 10, 2020 (UTC)

I prefer misidentified because it covers something being misidentified about the weapon, and not just one weapon being confused for another. For instance, the idea that a bastard sword is better than a longsword is mistaken, but you can't just swap them. I think I would be fine with the page being longsword, to be expanded later, with Bastard Sword Confusion as a section with the current content moved there, with the category. What I want to leave room for is material like the D&D edition stuff for bastard sword, information which is relevant to RPGs but not a general context. If that information has a home anywhere, it's here. PlatonicSolid (talk) 08:55, August 10, 2020 (UTC)