Draft talk:The Wandering Inn

Tagging Users

To: User:AFanOfTheWanderingInnNumber25, User:Xland44, User:Clovermoss, User:PARAKANYAA, User:ReaderofthePack, User: ARandomName123; I am tagging you with this page because you were either part of the 2025 page's deletion or have expressed an interest in the subject. While this draft is, at best, 80% finished, I believe the series now has enough coverage to pass WP:NBOOK and I would love more eyes on the page before I finish and submit it. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 16:30, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

You have the claim of "one of the longest published works" written as a fact. I would avoid doing this because these types of claims are extremely difficult to establish without exceptionally, exceptionally excellent sourcing. I'm talking like multiple academic/scholarly sources and widespread statements among very mainstream sourcing. A primary source isn't going to cut it here and The Portalist isn't going to be strong enough on its own . Because they're difficult to establish as fact and they're often used as marketing/promotional material (not that this is what you're doing here), such claims are actually kind of controversial on Wikipedia.

I would highly recommend attributing it to someone. You could say that the author has claimed it to be one of the longest published works or even attribute it to The Portalist, but it needs to be attributed to someone. However on that note, I would make sure that The Portalist is usable as a RS. Open Road Integrated Media doubles as a marketing platform, which would potentially make their stuff unusable for establishing notability or backing up claims, because we could never guarantee that the source wasn't paid advertisement.

I will try to take a look at the rest, but this was the first thing that really stood out. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:47, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Not trying to be super harsh, just that anything that was previously AfD'd is going to be held to a higher level of scrutiny than other new articles so it's best to scrutinize as much as possible. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:49, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

You're fine. This is what I tagged you for. Lol.

I agree "longest published works" needs to be reworked. The previous iteration attributed it to the YouTube critic Daniel Green, who again won't qualify as usable to establish notability.

Part of the issue is the length keeps increasing. I have it at 15mil in the article even though the stat page has it at over 16mil, because the 2 secondary sources from the last year both say 15mil. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 15:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

thanks for the tag, hope you will be correct Xland44 (talk) 03:15, 25 June 2026 (UTC)

Sourcing runthrough

I wanted to run through the sourcing:

• Portalist: This will need to be run through RS/N, but offhand I don't know that they would be usable. The parent company doubles as a marketing/PR agency, so we can't guarantee that this isn't sponsored content. It may not be sponsored for TWI, but we can't guarantee that, particularly as this was published the same year that the series got picked up by HarperCollins. Questionable
• Taylor & Francis: This would depend on how it's covered. It's probably OK, but you may have some wanting to see the extent of the mentions. Probably usable
• Royal Road: This is 'primary so can't establish notability. Perfectly fine for backing up basic details, though.
• CloudScape Comics: Another primary source.
• HarperCollins/TWI: Primary
• Podium: Primary
• IGN interview: This is an interview, so it's going to be primary even though IGN is a major publication. It's frustrating, but it's a widely held enough opinion that you're unlikely to persuade people otherwise.
• IGN article: This is good. Usable
• The Cut: This is a brief, trivial mention. You could use it to establish that the author claims it's one of the longest ever written but it can't establish notability. Unusable for purposes of establishing notability.
• IJOES: This is another brief, passing mention and the quote is not even specifically about TWI, at least not as it's represented. The quote is more specifically referring to Royal Road and Wattpad, after which it then cites TWI and ORV as examples. I would actually have recommended using the quote that's in the same sentence. It's not that the quote you have is wrong, just that it's a bit not as it's represented. In any case, it's unusable for establishing notability.
• IGN: IGN is good, but this may be a bit too brief for some. I'd consider it usable, but this would get some pushback from others. Basically, the issue with lists of this nature is that they're often considered to be a "listicle" - an easy way to churn out articles to gain clicks and reads. A lot of people at AfD don't consider them to be strong sources for establishing notability and some don't see them as usable at all. This was a big issue at the AfD.
• Reader's Grotto: This is unusable for establishing notability. It's come up in the past at AfD and the big issue is that it's difficult to establish its editorial oversight or really anything about it. I believe that in the past they've also done sponsored content, but can't see anything about it on the website now.
• Nag.co.za: You would need to run this through RS/N. They mention advertising but it's unclear if it's sponsored content or just the side ads. I do see where it's used in some academic/scholarly sources so it's probably usable but you would absolutely want to make sure. Other than that, it does have the same issue as the IGN list source.
• Fugue: This would need to be verified and you'd also have to deal with concerns over it being a student journal. Student newspapers and journals are typically not seen as usable on Wikipedia. It could be usable, but it needs verification.
• Doctoral thesis: This also needs verification. A doctoral thesis can be used, but it would need to be an in-depth mention and not in passing.
• Reddit Stabby Award: This award isn't major/notable enough to establish notability. Getting a Stabby isn't easy, but the thing with awards is that not all awards are notable as far as Wikipedia goes. It took a while for the Goodreads Awards to be considered notable enough for a win to establish notability. In this instance, the award isn't really discussed outside of that subreddit or the people who won the award. So this is likely unusable for establishing notability.
• Matt Dinniman: An actual review from Dinniman would be good, but the issue here is that this is a short statement on X/Twitter. It's not going to be seen as in-depth enough to establish notability and to some, it's not much better than a book blurb. Unusable

Overall I don't know that the usable coverage here is heavy enough to establish notability, particularly after it went through AfD. Some of these sources, or at least some like them, were present at the AfD last year and weren't considered enough. I'd love for this series to have an article, but I don't know that this is enough right now. I would highly, highly recommend continuing on though. Once HC releases their first volume, it's extremely likely that the series will get reviews. I know that there are no guarantees, but I'd be positively shocked if it didn't get any. TBH, I'm still surprised that it doesn't have them now. They're kind of a mainstay in the genre. Even if you don't read it, if you read anything in the genre or brushing against said genre, you've heard of it. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:31, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

The doctoral thesis is just a passing reference (in a footnote even), so we can't lean on that for notability. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 14:50, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

This runthrough is great. I think I agree that there are only 5 that are potentially useable to establish notability.

Since the last AfD, we now have the (1) IGN Article and (2) the Taylor & Francis book (which is not a passing reference). Assuming we just need 2 for WP:NBOOK, I would suggest those are the strongest. Someone can check (3) the Portalist for RS/N, but I'll point out that the article was several months before the HarperCollins announcement (which at least appears less like promotion). (4) The Nag.co.za article..... I'd never seen the website before this, so I defer to others on this one. (5) The Fugue article was in the last version, and in the AfD discussion, you and User:ARandomName123 suggested it would be useable.

So User:Bearian have we convinced you otherwise? ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 15:16, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for the ping. I think it's much better. Also, the slide into unreliability of the mainstream media has been halted in the past 18 months. I'm convinced. Bearian (talk) 16:06, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm not going to contest anyone moving this live, if the others think it's enough. I'm just a tiny bit worried since creating previously AfD'd articles can sometimes be a bit tough. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:55, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Oh I agree. I did manage to get one of my deleted articles recreated. That's why I'm moving cautiously with this one. ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 18:18, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

I'm hoping that it can get moved live eventually. More LitRPG representation on Wikipedia is always a good thing. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:21, 11 June 2026 (UTC)

Fantasy Faction

So I somehow missed all the reviews of the series on the Fantasy Faction website; List, 2018 Stabby, Book 8 Review, which I will work to add. What do people think of the RS/N for this website? ErieSwiftByrd (talk) 15:56, 14 June 2026 (UTC)