FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

So I wander over to mudconnector - and can't find a link to their forums. I checked the "what's new" page, and it turns out "something" has happened over the last couple of days, that prompted Icculus to shut them down and step down as webmaster for the site. He's looking for a replacement.

I don't know what that "something" was, that caused him to shut down the forums, because I hadn't been there to read them in a couple of weeks. Without starting the same whatever it was here - is there anyone who can summarize what the stir was about? The only thing I can even think of, was Icculus chose to put up a banner ad for a Christian website, and that site wasn't a mud, or mud related, and it created a pretty big debate. But as I said, that was a couple of weeks ago - and Iccy shut the forums down just yesterday referencing something that happened only in the last few days.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Near as I can tell, he just had enough and decided to wash his hands of the site.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

From watching the threads the last few weeks, it seems people got all fired up that Andy wanted to put a Jesus link on his own website. Considering it his site, and he's devoted 16+ years to mud gaming... if he wants one? Um, cool. Like/dislike/ignore who cares.

Drizzt got all ****y and said basically that Iccy hadn't devoted as much because of # of posts by him vs other users. I personally lol at that, considering his contribution the muds has been endless...

The forums are still there btw, front page you see posts. Top of each page is a pull-down for each section in the forums etc.

- Ziv/Dave/Skol etc.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Er, correction. Yeah it's disabled. Couldn't post either. Aww snap :p.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It's this exact kind of bull-snort drama that makes this particular community toxic. Good grief...

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I didn't participate, religion and politics are two subjects I generally consider pointless to argue on a mud forum. But I kept an eye on the discussion. In summary:

A "Jesus died for us all" banner appeared in rotation. Drizzt queried why it was there (the implication being that someone had slipped it in, in violation of TMC rules). Icculus responded that it was his banner, and that he felt it was an important message people should see. Some posters supported his right to host the banner, others felt TMC wasn't the appropriate place for it.

A couple of the usual trolls then started insulting non-Christians, one of them because he always plays devil's advocate against certain posters, the other because he apparently has very strong religion views. He stated his belief that the world is 5000 years old, that people used to live alongside dinosaurs, etc, and said some very unflattering things about homosexuals that I won't repeat here. He was both very offensive towards others, and very defensive of his own beliefs.

Suffice to say things went downhill from there, particularly when another troll created an account specifically to provoke a few posters he disliked (he later bragged about managing to get several of them banned - I guess he'd been waiting a long time for the chance to pay them back).

Icculus deleted the thread, then restored it. Then TMC went down, then it came back without forums. Then the forums returned, but read-only. Apparently some people were very critical of the way he handled the situation, and now he's decided to leave the community and pass control of TMC to someone else.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Sad day, Andy's done tons for the mud community for longer than most of these kids have been mudding.

- Ziv/Dave/Skol etc.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

People get waaaaaaay to uppity about what other people say on the internet.

Example:

Right:
A: "Jesus loves you all!"
B: "Thanks! Now on to another topic!"

Wrong:
A: "Jesus loves you all!"
B: "OMG! You're such an insensitive tool! What if some of us are atheist?"
C: "He can do what he wants!"
D: "Nooooo! Rulez apply to him 2! Noooooo!"
E: "i dont lik teh gayz! if u lik gayz u r 1!"

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Eh - not really. Because it was a banner ad (and still is) it shows up repetitively. For forum members who read and/or contribute regularly, this means that they see this several times per "session." So it's more like:

A. Jesus loves you all!
B. Thanks, on to next topic!
C. Okay great!
D. Jesus loves you all!
E. Uh - okay - thanks.
F. Great!
G. Jesus loves you all!
H. Yeah we heard you the first two times, I think that's enough, since this isn't even a forum or website about religion, it's a gaming website.
I. Jesus loves you all, and I don't care if you don't like it, you're stuck with it because I own the place!
J. Uh - I thought you're trying to send a message about love? How about a little love for your membership?
K. Screw the membership, Jesus loves you all!

And it spiralled downhill from there.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Is the banner ad versus regular text really a worthwhile distinction to make, or are you just splitting hairs to play devil's advocate?

My point stands.

Right:

A: "Jesus loves you all!"
B: "I'm okay ignoring that banner ad and going on with my life independent of my personal viewpoint, for or against that particular religion, and would be okay and generally unaffected regardless of the specific form that message happened to take."

Wrong:

A: "Jesus loves you all!"
B: "OMG! Finally! An issue I can make a stink about to get attention because I totally love arguing on the internet!"

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I suggest you actually , because you seem to be under the false impression that the "stink" was caused by the people who criticised the banner.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

That's an impressive thread all right.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Some years ago I installed a different CSS style for the TMC homepage, and as a result I've never seen any banner, let alone Iccy's.

It's taken some of the air out of the whole drama. I'm not sure if that's good or bad at this point.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The whole thing is just really sad.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It is sad, but what I'd like to know is how the heck did he get that banner to even show up.

I ask because we advertised there before and our banners rarely if ever showed. I look around TMC and see tons of banners that show up on other pages in TMC that are completely defunct MUDs that haven't been active for 10 years.

Houston, I think TMC has a bigger problem than Jesus Banner.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The stink was caused by both sides. Initiated by one, but then perpetuated by the sea of idiots who can't help themselves. How hard is it to see a Christian message, not be a Christian, but just keep your mouth shut about it instead of questioning it, leading to a whole huge thread of zealots and atheists bickering at each other? Or sending a private message to the site owner to make sure this wasn't something someone slipped through the cracks?

The very impetus of that entire huge offensive thread was some guy who saw a Jesus message in a place he didn't think was appropriate to see one, and decided that because he wasn't Christian, he'd start a public forum thread about it. I'm not Christian either, and I'd have just ignored it, or if I were really suspicious that it might have been slipped in contrary to the site's rules, maybe I'd have sent a quick email or private message to the site owner. Though I probably wouldn't have bothered with that.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

It went far beyond that. One of the trolls in that thread even created: (the URL is jesusconnector.com)

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

As MUD (or video game) controversies go, this one is pretty tame. Of course it is significant for us since it is a legendary site in our community.

In typical video game fashion, it was a series of completely irrational over-reactions back and forth to something that was not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Frankly, the biggest negative to the TMC forums shutting down is some of the biggest trolls there might head over here. Ugh.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Well let's take a look at what he actually wrote:

"Why is a banner for this site on the banner rotation?

It's not at all MUD related."

That's it - the entire first post. And it should be pointed out that by being non-mud related, the banner was technically in violation of TMC policy, so it's actually a pretty reasonable question to ask. Yes, he could have asked privately, but as Icculus used to have a very hands-off attitude towards TMC it wasn't at all uncommon to discuss such situations on the open forums.

The thread rapidly turned nasty, as such topics are wont to do, but the first post wasn't the impetus of the situation; even if Drizzt hadn't posted, it would only have been matter of time until someone else noticed the banner and decided to ask the same question. As unfortunate as the situation was, the outcome was inevitable: you can't put an off-topic banner on a discussion forum and expect people not to discuss it.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I think I expect too much from humanity. It just seems to normal and logical to expect people to see something like that and say, "That's weird. Oh well. Ignore. Or if I'm really concerned, privately contact a responsible party." It seems equally normal and logical to expect people to hear/read something and say, "Yeah, I don't agree with that, but it doesn't really matter or affect me, so I'll just go on with my life."

Instead, we get all this, "Rawr! Arguing on the internet is important! Rawr! And this whole situation is the other side's fault!" It just doesn't compute to me. Who sees Jesus loves you on a website and makes a big deal about it, for or against? Who sees a comment about the Jesus banner and jumps in to respond to the comment, for or against? Who goes on for over ten pages because they just can't resist expressing their viewpoint in an aggressive manner because they enjoy being antagonistic behind the anonymous nature of the internet?

It just makes me really mad. It's like when you get jury duty or go to a public library or public park, and you go to take a crap, and the bathroom is the worst place you've ever seen, because the general public is just plain disgusting, and you'd forgotten how disgusting because it had been awhile since you really needed to go in a public place.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Okay then you really DO understand the overall sentiment of what happened there. You just don't realize it.

Replace "go to a public library" with "vote for your favorite mud by linking to TheMudconnector's vote link." Then, replace "go to take a crap" with "visit the community forums." Then replace "discover it's the worst place you've ever seen" with "someone has puked all over MY religion - or lack thereof - by denigrating this hall of community with their religious agenda, which doesn't even have a vague reference to the community's point of existence - which is to say - text games."

And now get up your righteous indignation about it, and butt heads with the site owner, and get all your buddies to do the same - rile up strangers even, to start posting there, though they hadn't posted there in years - if ever - and really **** off the site admin enough to get him to shut the whole thing down.

That's what happened. Exactly the same thing *you* feel happens, when you take a crap in a public bathroom, expecting it to be sacred ground and not filled with the vileness of humanity.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Like Mold Spores released into the wind, Trolls will travel everywhere--and not just here.

I largely stayed out of this because I am of the mind that anyone has the right to speak their mind freely, and, no matter what, I know full well that people will be offended by what is said--and therefore arguments will become reguardless of those for and against the initial message.


Darren Brimhall

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

No, it was more of a reminder that the sites content was largely community-created, as opposed to say - being his blog.

Which is true, users of the site created the vast majority of the content on TMC.

As such completely disregarding what those users want is, in my opinion, wrong. My goal was to point out that although he had the right to do as he pleased that didn't necessarily equate to it being the right thing to do.

I wouldn't really say any of that happened.

The banner in fact largely took a back seat to people arguing with IovanDrake about religion in general. Icculus and the banner quickly got lost in the topic and were no longer a primary focus of the discussion.

No one really butted heads with Icculus for the most part till he deleted the thread, then reverted the site to undelete it, and then started banning people for being opinionated.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Couldn't tell you - I never look at the banners :-P

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I'm pretty sure I've seen the NW banner displayed on (at least) a few occasions.

Though, my ability to ignore ads (and other stuff) is almost Jedi-like. Maybe
this is why modern advertisers are resorting to new (extreme) tactics like
full-screen ads and other gimmicks, the attention space is getting more crowded
and many people are forced to be more selective about information in general
(not just ads).

It used to be the most obnoxious internet ad was that rapidly
convulsing/blinking gif animation that just demanded urgent attention (, I
still see those ads btw), or the one that was underhandedly forged to resemble
a Windows dialog box (with the OK button).

Nowadays, ads will supplant the whole web page and force you to click 'No
Thanks.'

I must admit, occasionally I'll notice a keyword or something that will grab my
attention, this must be why modern marketing is very geared toward targeting
peoples interests. This seems more effective than annoying (or tricking)
people. But I guess it depends on their marketing strategy, which may be to
establish brand recognition or something other than immediate sales.

Sorry, does this thread still have a (relevant) subject? I think TMC is back
up. Maybe we can start a thread on TMC discussing TMS discussing TMC. Now
there's a thread that could potentially last forever.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

TMC is up, but in a read-only manner, no one can post.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Oh, I thought they were discussing a new forum policy or something.
Maybe that's an older thread. :confused:

I haven't actually attempted to post anything there.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The thread just barely started to stray in the wrong direction, if you ask me. It's hard to talk about the TMC situation in general terms without talking about the content of the heated discussion over there. Two people here already took measures to make sure the readers here know which side of that discussion was the more offensive one, and another person started naming names.

Forgetting the whole religion issue, I think the core question is: Do we, as internet users, have a right to control the type of content we see and are exposed to? Meaning, if I were to go to a news website expecting to read today's headlines, and I saw a banner ad for a porn site (let's assume no graphic images, just maybe slightly provocative ones, with a clear indication that the ad linked to a porn site), when I wasn't looking for or expecting pornographic material, should I be offended and feel as though I've been violated somehow? Let's say I have a moral objection toward porn, but on the whole, I respect everyone else's right to make their own decisions regarding that industry, so I'm not offended by the nature of the material, specifically, more by the fact that I feel I have a right not to have that type of material slap me across the face unexpectedly. Is this something I ought to make a stink about, because my rights were violated?

I think most people would say yes, because pornography is one of those special things that is, per se, offensive. A lot of places have laws about that type of content and those types of ads.

Let's say I go to a website for hardcore roleplaying muds, and while I'm there, I see a banner ad for a hack and slash mud that doesn't tolerate roleplaying. I click on the ad and waste time reading about this mud, before I figure out that it's a non-rp mud. I went to that roleplaying mud website expecting to read information about roleplaying muds, and against my will, was presented with an ad for a different type of game. I wasn't looking for or expecting that information. I was even fooled by it. I'm not offended, specifically, by the fact that some people enjoy non-rp muds, but I didn't look for or want that information in the ad. It was shoved down my throat, and I feel tricked. Is that something I ought to make a stink about?

I think most people would say no. I think even if that ad for a non-rp mud was an ad for a grocery store, or a webcomic, or anything else I wasn't interested in, people would say it's not a big deal.

Where things went wrong in TMC is that if you're a devout atheist (by "devout," I mean one of those atheists who doesn't just not ascribe to religion, but strongly believes that religion is wrong, stupid, and is a bane in the world, so you zealously advocate against religion as strongly as religious people advocate for their religion), then religion is closer in your mind to pornography than to an ad for an unrelated type of computer game. And if anyone dares to speak anything even slightly against religion, you get equally...let's just call them passionate...types responding.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I don't recall anyone saying Icculus didn't have the right to host the banner, in fact most posters went out of their way to point out that it was his site and he could do as he wished.

So then you ask "Why is a banner for this mud on the banner rotation? It's not at all RP related". Is your question acceptable? The owner of the RP website says that he's the one who added it, because he thinks its a great mud and that everyone should play it - that's his right, it's his site, and nobody disagrees. But do other members of the site have the right to give feedback if they disagree with the owner's decision? Or should they be expected to remain silent and vote with their feet?

Which response would you rather have as a site owner? How about as a mud owner? Would you rather your players spoke up when they disagreed with a new feature you'd added? Or would you rather they all just left and found another mud?

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The website owner has exclusive control over what takes place on their site.
Website users have the power to refuse services offered, and to seek
alternatives (assuming there exists alternatives).

It's not in a websites interests to drive off it's users.

If the website owner refuses to let users voice their opinion on it's forums,
then he's deprived them of an important service.

However, there are more personal factors to consider. TMC has given users many
good years of service and has been particularly generous by allowing users to
promote their own services with free banner advertisements. The owner is
obviously very dedicated to this community. Nobody is perfect. Everybody goes
through changes in their lives and tolerance is especially important at times
like these.

The demise of TMC would be a loss for the whole MUD community. Hopefully this
will not be allowed to happen.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

So my take away from this is that only a scant few people had a significant issue with religion, or with the people who have an issue with religion. Those people went on for many pages, being offensive to each other. But the primary thing that ticked people off wasn't religion or the debate, but the website owner saying, "I don't care what you people in the community think. I'm doing what I want. You don't have the power here, I do. You don't matter and I don't care if you stay or go."

That's not, exactly, what was said, but that's likely what a lot of people heard.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I think your understanding of the situation improved a lot in the course of this discussion.

Anyone who believes that Icculus was a victim should remember that users, no matter how opinionated, don't have the power to shut down forums. Those who have the power must also accept the responsibility.

My best guess is that Icculus has been looking for years for a pretext to quit, and finally found one that would do.

The fact that the pretext had to do with a religious banner is just a distraction.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

That's an interesting insight.

One question though, wouldn't it be easier to pass this responsibility to
another, than to waste so much time and energy?

Which is exactly how things seem to have been left.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I believe that in such cases the song and dance is primarily for the sake of preserving one's own self-image. No-one likes the thought that something they were deeply passionate about and poured countless hours into for many years is just not as exciting anymore. It's typical to want to displace the guilt associated with abandoning something that used to define you in such a big way.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Or it could just be exactly what he said it is. That priorities have changed in his own life and the whole incident has made him realize how disconnected from the MUD community he feels, so now it's time to find a new owner.

A separate thread here where people are so quick to discard his own statement and search for the "real reason" just reinforces that.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The reason I opened the thread here, was because the forums there had been closed at the time. No one had any access to read them. So no one had the ability to find out what "events" Icculus was referring to, in his announcement stating that he had closed the forum. I hadn't read the forum in weeks, and had no idea that the subject of his jesus ad had escalated to such heights. I knew it existed, but I figured it was resolved. Obviously - it wasn't. But I had no way of knowing that was WHY the forum was shut down. So I came here and brought it up, hoping someone would clue me in. And a day or two later, Iccy re-opened the forum for read-only access, and I was able to read about it for myself. By that time, though, this thread had already been posted and responded to.

That's why *this* thread exists.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Don't think anyone would have a problem with this thread being here. It's big news in the MUD community and there's probably been mention of it on many MUD forums.

My post was more aimed at the apparent need to find the real reason for wanting to pass on control of the site.

Personally, I'll take "Religion recently became very important in my life and has put me at odds with this community" over "I've been secretly wanting to stop doing this for years so thanks for an excuse".

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

The two are not mutually exclusive, so it could be one, or the other, or a mix of both, or a mix of both plus more that we know nothing about and can't usefully speculate.

But if we accept Icculus' explanation at face value, we should all be worried for him: He successfully ran a site for 15 years in which he must have strongly disagreed with a good number of opinions posted there. So, to suddenly see himself as being "at odds" with a largely imaginary multitude of people with differing views (the MUD community is anything but a coincidental gathering of fervent atheists) is evidence that he is no longer capable of having, let alone facilitating, truly open debate.

If I may venture a guess, the current state of TMC will last a long time, since the site requires little to no maintenance when the forums are frozen. Beyond that, I see several possible scenarios, of which passing the torch to someone else seems the least likely at this point.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

How exactly is him doing exactly what he's stated that he intends to do the least likely scenario?

I also certainly do not believe he was consciously looking for a reason to quit - though I might agree that he was potentially unhappy with the amount of time running the site was taking up, which made quitting an easier decision to come to when presented with conflict.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

For the 4 years in which I have been active on TMC, he's been absent 98% of the time. He's had plenty of time to delegate limited powers to other moderators and devs, which would be an ideal test for a future admin, yet he did not. I find it best to base my suppositions on what people do, rather than what they say.

I agree with you. There is nothing to suggest that he was consciously looking for an excuse to quit. The operative word being "consciously". If he was aware of it, he would have already taken steps, such as for example delegating powers.

Maybe this marks the beginning of the transition process for him, and if it does, he himself has said it will be a long one. I can only hope he has the good sense to see it through, as it will be a pity to see the site festering, or worse, going down.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

So the owner sabotages may years of time and effort, damaging relationships
along the way in a final act that would seem ultimately futile, in order to
'displace guilt' associated with an identity crisis?

Geez! Wouldn't it be easier to just accept his own words, rather than attempt
to conduct a psychoanalysis based on such meager information?

Didn't Freud allegedly say something like, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar?
I'm gonna go with the cigar conclusion here. :cool:

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

He did say that. And the operative word is "sometimes." Otherwise, his own writings would have been significantly shorter :)

My analysis is, like everyone else's, pure speculation based on the perceived behavior of an internet persona. That said, in life I have found that the simplest explanation is rarely the correct one.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I stayed out of the the thread on Mudconnector, because it was very obvious almost from the beginning that it was headed in a very wrong direction. I did follow the thread, however, and in retrospect I rather wish I hadn't, since it revealed opinions and biases in some of the posters, that I had preferrred not to know about.

Like most members of the Mud community in general and TMC in particular, I'd naturally find it very sad if a prestigious Mud site like TMC would go down - it has after all been the main hub of the Mud world for over 15 years.

But instead of just speculating about what plans the owner might have with his site, the easiest way is of course to ask Icculus himself via an e-mail, and several TMC members, including myself, have done just that. And from what he says in his responses, he is planning to turn the site over to a group of interested users, and at present he is looking for the best possible crew.

It's obvious that he still cares enough for TMC to take this trouble, and I'm hopeful that TMC will remain a service to the Mud community, and that the Forums will open for posters again soon.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I am glad this thread exists.

The TMS forums are by far the best MUD community forums on the internet. I much prefer reading about and discussing anything MUD related here.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I agree that it is sad when such a significant and positive element of the MUD community is in danger of ceasing to exist.

I disagree, however, that has been the main hub of the Mud world for the last 5+ years. I think TopMudSites took over that role some time ago and has maintained it.

has by far the best forums and the best collection of active, experienced mud admins and game developers. Many if not most of the maintainers of the major MUD clients are active here either posting, reading, or both. Last but not least, it has a great group of players from a wide variety of types of MUDs.

The last few times there have been important issues threatening the MUD community, by far the best place to learn about and discuss those threats was right here. Wikipedia admins came HERE to discuss them, for example.

I salute TMC and the huge role it played in the history of MUDs, but honestly, it fell into disrepair many years ago. The forums have been an absolute abomination for a long, long time. You have to wonder about the motives of anyone willing to tolerate both the cumbersome forum software and the huge troll segment of the population there.

I don't know how Icculus tolerated that heavy troll population. Strangely, some of the same people who are utterly horrible on the TMC forums behave themselves much better here and on other sites. Its almost like even the members of the TMC forum community acknowledged decided as a group to treat TMC like 4chan and just ruin it for everyone else. Fortunately, there are great alternatives (TopMudSites) for people who want to have worthwhile discussions about MUDs.

That is the way of things. Just like TMC supplanted Doran's Mudlist, so too has TopMudSites supplanted TMC.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I want whatever you're smoking.

TMS forums have been a ghost town since the site changed ownership years ago.

TMS has always been muc less trafficked than TMC, and for the last 5 years has also been much less trafficked than MudBytes.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

I offered to either buy TMC from Andrew or donate a similar sum to a charity of his choice, and then to put real work into revitalizing TMC (goodness knows, the site design and forum software desperately needs it). Apparently I was too late though, as he told me he's already got someone(s) he's working with to pass it along to.

I hope whoever it is is willing and able to put real resources into it rather than just let it languish as it's done for quite a long time. Andrew ran a great site, but it's been a long time since he's been involved, as he himself would no doubt admit.

Also, for those of you who think he stopped caring a long time ago, I'm not really sure that's true. For instance, when we stopped advertising there, he lost most of his income from the site, and subsequently stopped accepting advertising. We offered to buy it from him but he decided to just keep running it anyway, saying he was too attached with it to part with it (and not like we were offering him half a million dollars for it or anything either).

That was 18 months ago or so, maybe 2 years, and he may have had a change of heart, but certainly at that point my impression was that however uninvolved he was, he still placed a lot of personal value on the site.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

That may be the case in the forums, but isn't the case on the sites themselves. TMC and TMS both get far more traffic than Mudbytes does according to Alexa, Google's traffic analysis, etc. Alexa is the easeist to access there, and while, like all estimations of traffic, is notoriously unreliable, TMC and TMS both have Alexa ranks in the mid 300k, while Mudbytes is down at 1.7 million.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

This site is the best place to go for forums and mud discussion. I honestly prefer TMC's listing structure/format for finding muds (I'll look here when I'm looking for a specific mud, there when I'm searching for muds in general). Mudbytes is kind of irrelevant alongside TMS and TMC. It gets an honorable mention, but if you're not keeping up with the big two sites, you're missing out on the mud community, while you can get by without some of the lesser known sites.

Re: FYI Mudconnector forums shut down
 

Yeah, talked to him via email a few days back. Great to see that it's going to continue on. My game's been listed on TMC for 15 years... 8 months, 3 weeks... And I don't think we got in right when TMC went up.

That's a _long_ contribution to our games guys. Thanks Andy.
- Dave.