[Tezcatlipoca]

As a member of this community (if you assume "lurking" for many years a member) this sort of thing does generally concern me.

I've found that outside the web the number of people that have knowledge on, or know about MUDs in general, specifically or just their present or past existance is fairly small (I only get about a 50% confirmation success rate from people I think would know of their existance). Knowledge of MUDs and what they can offer as an entertainment platform is definately undervalued in our respective societies. I attribute this mostly to the fact that it is hobbiest and that the commercial ventures are limited compared to the non-commercial ventures (this is important because in most industries and hobbies it is the commercial ventures that actually drive advertisement and thus recognition outside of the hobby's community). So I'm always looking for ways and interested in attempting to expose Mudding in general, both altruistically and because I know how low the chances of success (i.e. getting *any* players) will be eventually if I create and get to a playing point any game of my own.

However, I have to agree to some degree (although not the method, if this really is the method) with Wikipedia's decision. This is a common pattern in history, and about the only one that doesn't have the pattern's bais; those that have the power (or the victors for the more common phrase) write history. Wikipedia isn't any more a group of people that exist "for the common" good than anything else, but is probably more so than even this site. They do however hold a fairly substantial chunk of power in the "internet culture's" source of information, and thus can and will manipulate information to their own ends. This isn't "bad" or "evil", it's just how the world works. We aren't dealing with some emotionless automatons, we're dealing with a group of humans. And groups are almost always worse in this respect than individuals (although I also willingly field the idea that any automaton will still have at least a diluted sense of the goals an aims of it's creator). So in general Wikipedia is acting, as an abstract creature, the way it is supposed to even if we don't like it because we never seem to see it support our personal goals, ambitions or wishes.

More specifically though, I agree with their decision on the basis that I do not think that any specific MUD, commercial or otherwise should have it's own article on Wikipedia. An article or articles on MUDs in general or listing of historicaly significant MUDs (and that's dangerous enough as it is, and filled with its own problems) is enough. Once you get into the business of listing individual MUDs, you're simply turning it into an advertisement platform which isn't supposed to be its function. These events may not have actually conspired the deletion of any website or individual MUDs' page, but instead just brought it to the attention and spurred on it's eventual deletion. For a site like TMS, or a specific MUD, I don't think an article needs to exist; if someone wants to know about these sites they can actually *visit* them and find out. So having a note or link pointing to them in the "super" articles should be sufficient. If you want more specific information about individual MUDs, but you don't want to try and wade through a website that is there for promotion of the game (like most game websites), a *separate* source of information should be made available and policed accordingly by those who control it. We have this with the MU* Wiki, and its rules and goals will no doubt be "bad" for some individuals as well, which means those people should start something more specific to their own goals. Wikipedia, like an encyclopedia should be a starting point for information, and a place where you *leave* to follow up and verify the information presented (and I'm aware that this rarely happens for most visitors, but that shouldn't be a valid reason for any dilution of the information with more information that will make it no longer a good condensed "first look").

As for TMS and TMC. I love these sites. I visit TMS every day and try to visit TMC as often as I have time for (TMC used to be my go-to, but TMS took over that role when I discovered it shortly after its opening). They serve as my primary source for finding a game that I think I might like to play. But they have a critical flaw, mentioned by an earlier post but not as explored as I might have hoped. They serve one purpose, and are in the unfortunate (from this perspective) position of maintaining the majority traffic for those looking to educate or learn about MUDs. The purpose they serve is that they are primarilly a free advertising platform for MUDs and players to connect to other MUDs and players. Like a lot of early websites they are little proto-social-networking sites that haven't taken on the definition and efficiency (and thus would lose a lot of other values if they did, so I'm not suggesting they do) of newer, generalized, highly successful social-networking sites. They don't do much of anything else very well (something quickly apparent if you ever look at the "articles" section of this site), so if you're looking for information on MUDs in general, MUD concepts, how to play MUDs, looking for MUD resources/content/downloads, looking to find a MUD based on non-biased information (they try to but this is very difficult to achieve) resources for MUD development and creation (something any hobby definately needs), they are very much *not* set up for this purpose at all. I've seen sites attempt to fill these voids, but I don't know as they too well simply because of the lack of traffic (and are frequently set up yet another advertising scheme for a specific MUD, and thus become very agenda based--as I recall this was one of the major concerns when Lasher took over TMS, and so far he's done an admiral job of putting any and all fears of that to death); TMS and TMC hold the traffic market.

---Continued in next post because I'm a tard and write too much when I only intended a single paragraph. Good luck to me getting anyone to actually read all this crap--