[prof1515]

Well, as someone who has long had a low opinion of Wikipedia due to the "popularity versus fact" and "lack of scholarly review" problems that a user-edited work entails, I'm not surprised. However, the MUD community has hurt itself on two different counts in regard to this issue.

First, a lot of MUD-related articles are written with the intention of promoting games. Promotion is not the same as encyclopedic writing. Some time back, I happened to run across a MUD-related article on Wikipedia and noted that the information was not correct. I clicked the "edit" link and changed it to reflect only information that was undisputed within the MUD community. The article was edited back the next day to read as it had before my edit. I edited it again and once again the same thing happened. I tried rewording my edit to the article. No difference. I made sure to add documentation (none existed in the article) of discussions from here and two other sites which supported my edits. It was changed back again the next day and the edits deleted. I was blasted as a "vandal" by another MUD for changing the article which they claimed "is maintained" by them and only them. In the end, Wikipedia deleted the entire article since there was no documentation to support any of it (remember, the documentation I had posted was continually deleted).

The other problem is the lack of critical standards within the community. Year after year I used to go through every MUD on this page's listings and I can say that 75% of them exagerrate their player base figures. I remember seeing one game that claimed in a forum ad that it had an average pbase of 10-20. I tried it and only once did I see it get more than 10 players on. Most of the time it hovered around 3-4 and at times I was the sole person on the game. And yet, where in the community can such blatant dishonesty be addressed and criticized with effect? Reviews? We know how well those worked.

Back in 2005, I recommended a peer-based award system for MUDs on the old rpimud.com (not a popularity-based one like the weekly voting but one where every game had to choose another game as best in each category like building or staff, etc.). The idea was strongly opposed on the grounds that it was "competition". Mind you, no one opposed the weekly popularity-based voting for rankings on the home page. That would seem a far more likely competition than a peer-based award system. The problem seemed to be the fear of critical review by others. Better to just boast of being "the best" than have someone else look at you and decide that you are (or are not). There exists no real critical review and assessment in the MUD community. Occassionally dishonest claims are opposed by the community but even then to read the arguments that ensue leaves one wondering about the ethical integrity of the community as a whole. There just isn't any system of community policing of standards. I don't mean "every game has to do A, B, and C", I mean the community doesn't stand up and say "We recognize effort" and "We condemn dishonesty". (On a related note, the existing rank voting system on rpimud.com was discovered last year to have been abused and tampered with via cheating by at least four different MU*s; while one of ways they did it might have been accidental, the other was clearly deliberate and likely had significant effect on the weekly vote totals...this is why the voting on the site was discontinued and will be completely reworked on rpmud.net)

Staff-based reviews and a peer-based award system are two of the things that the new rpmud.net site is considering. For some time now the Operating Committee has been working on details of both and some of our staff have been looking over a variety of RP-centric MU*s in preparation for adding a review section. We hope that with our site we can try and institutionalize some critical standards of review and recognition within the community that are merit-based and as objective as we can make them. But admittedly, the community hasn't always stepped up to the plate in the past. We held our elections for THREE seats on the Committee and only ONE game took the time to nominate a candidate.

While Wikipedia is a less-than-reliable encyclopedic source, the MU* community also needs to make more effort toward regulating itself as a responsible, dedicated group of specialists (in this case, specializing in the creation and operation of text-based online games). I've seen groups, including those comprised entirely of hobbyists, of all sorts be it filmmakers, history buffs, performers, and writers work together to support and recognize one another on the basis of merit and to encourage and enforce standards of quality whereever possible. Maybe it's time the MU* community did the same. Then Wikipedia's response would be as unwarranted as its information is often inaccurate.

Take care,

Jason aka Falco