Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - In defense of all MUDs. Our genre's noteworthiness is being questioned.

Threshold · 01-09-2009, 10:45 PM

It was removed for notability. It passed WP:V (verifiability) with flying colors. Incidentally, WP:V used to be the controlling standard. But WP:N (notability) is now being used as a scythe to remove entries because there are so many editors bucking for adminhood, and the easiest way to score "contributions" is to delete articles in the name of "improving the project."

WP:V is a very legitimate concern. WP:N is subjective as heck and doesn't jibe with what Wikiepdia does best: cover obscure topics. WP:NOTPAPER (Wikipedia is not paper) is actually clear on that as well. There is tremendous benefit to covering and documenting obscure topics. But the current dominating force is on a deletion crusade for their own personal benefit, not the benefit of Wikipedia.

The one thing I have learned above all else about Wikipedia is this: never underestimate what Wikipedians acting in bad faith are capable of.

Threshold was deleted, when it had all of this in its favor:

We are lucky that we even saved that much information. I imagine there are a lot of very notable MUDs that SHOULD have entries on Wikipedia that haven't saved that much about their own history. That's part of the problem. The even larger problem is the fact that right now we are unable to use TMC, TMS, etc. as stand alone sources of information to keeping a MUD entry on Wikipedia. Since those are 2 of the main sources of historical information on MUDs, that is a big problem.

On the plus side, the whole incident has helped us gather even more articles and references that we had lost track of. That will help in the future not only for a Wikipedia entry, but for our game and our company in general. Hopefully this has encouraged other MUD admins to start digging through their own files to gather up historical references about their games. But best of all, it seems to have galvanized us all a little bit. Maybe we can takes some steps as a community to preserve more of our history.

Toward that end, I hope any MUD admin who has a problem like this will let us know about it. If they are worried about canvassing, just send me an email. Most of us don't live on Wikipedia like they do. We aren't checking the AFD alert pages and crap like that. I know I'll be quick to help with research and such if anyone needs it.

01-09-2009, 10:45 PM	#146
Threshold Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Home MUD: Threshold RPG Posts: 1,260	Re: In defense of all MUDs. Our genre's noteworthiness is being questioned. It was removed for notability. It passed WP:V (verifiability) with flying colors. Incidentally, WP:V used to be the controlling standard. But WP:N (notability) is now being used as a scythe to remove entries because there are so many editors bucking for adminhood, and the easiest way to score "contributions" is to delete articles in the name of "improving the project." WP:V is a very legitimate concern. WP:N is subjective as heck and doesn't jibe with what Wikiepdia does best: cover obscure topics. WP:NOTPAPER (Wikipedia is not paper) is actually clear on that as well. There is tremendous benefit to covering and documenting obscure topics. But the current dominating force is on a deletion crusade for their own personal benefit, not the benefit of Wikipedia. The one thing I have learned above all else about Wikipedia is this: never underestimate what Wikipedians acting in bad faith are capable of. Threshold was deleted, when it had all of this in its favor: We are lucky that we even saved that much information. I imagine there are a lot of very notable MUDs that SHOULD have entries on Wikipedia that haven't saved that much about their own history. That's part of the problem. The even larger problem is the fact that right now we are unable to use TMC, TMS, etc. as stand alone sources of information to keeping a MUD entry on Wikipedia. Since those are 2 of the main sources of historical information on MUDs, that is a big problem. On the plus side, the whole incident has helped us gather even more articles and references that we had lost track of. That will help in the future not only for a Wikipedia entry, but for our game and our company in general. Hopefully this has encouraged other MUD admins to start digging through their own files to gather up historical references about their games. But best of all, it seems to have galvanized us all a little bit. Maybe we can takes some steps as a community to preserve more of our history. Toward that end, I hope any MUD admin who has a problem like this will let us know about it. If they are worried about canvassing, just send me an email. Most of us don't live on Wikipedia like they do. We aren't checking the AFD alert pages and crap like that. I know I'll be quick to help with research and such if anyone needs it.