[prof1515]

There are articles that have mentioned and talked about MUDs. They would constitute legitimate sources to validate some information on MUDs. As for individual MUDs, I would have to agree with Wikipedia that there aren't many if any with relevance worthy of encyclopedic note. The biggest ones tend to be some of the most lackluster creations and least noteworthy in regard to innovation and concept while the most cutting-edge and innovative ones are small and unnoticed by the community itself to say nothing of the larger world.

But that's not wikipedia or any encyclopedia's fault. That's the nature of an outdated system with marginal appeal which has done little or nothing within its own community to bring attention to itself or create any semblance of respectability as a medium. When I attempted to trace the exact origin of the term RPI I found that no one in the community had ever bothered to document anything regarding its development and very little about the development of the first RPIs. Those that knew have largely passed out of the community and disappeared without imparting their knowledge upon others. People in the community will write endless pages of drivel about what they RP'd last Friday but nothing about the nature of RP and MUDs themselves. Finding individuals within the community with an interest in the field of MU*s (beyond code) is like finding Jeopardy! contestants on the short bus.

One of these days I'll resume my article on the history of RPIs but the reason I've yet to finish it is because of the lack of source material that I as a historian can legitimately confirm for citation purposes. It'd be a horrible article, professionally, and more of a deduction than a historical analysis. But historical writing aside, there's nothing within the community to document or reference from either. Wikipedia questioned the legitimacy of sites like TMS and TMC as source material and rightly so. This site's been around for how long? In all that time, nothing here has been produced of any merit to legitimately document anything beside the names of some games (and because the site doesn't actually do the research but allows the games and players to do the postings, what is posted is unconfirmed and thus unreliable as a source).

Because he brought it up and for no other reason, I looked at the Wikipedia article on Threshold. As far as legitimate encyclopedic information, the article really doesn't contain any beyond the first sentence. Everything afterwards is not written in the form of an encyclopedic article. The entire "Gameplay" section is totally inappropriate, "Business Model" information is irrelevant to the article as are the documented sources in the context in which they're used. Asking the question of what significance warrants the inclusion of this subject, there's nothing that distinguishes it from millions of potential articles on mundane things ranging from the gas station on the local Main Street to the fourteenth John Smith in the local telephone directory. That's not meant as an insult to Threshold or any other MU*. It's simply a matter of encyclopedic relevance.

As for the legitimacy of TMS, like I said, there's nothing on this site of value as a documentable source. Player reviews are worthless since they don't constitute scholarly works and aren't really informed critiques as much as they are fanboys fawning and flamers bitching. A search engine does nothing for the purpose of encyclopedic information beyond what little is in the MU* profiles but even then the information is not researched or verified. The rankings are meaningless since they constitute no legitimate critical assessment nor do they represent anything beyond just how many drones clicked a button. The forums themselves are practically devoid of any referenceable material and even then the only time I found them suitable for reference was to point out the existance of disagreement within the community regarding the term RPI (but not a definition of the term itself, just evidence that there was disagreeement).

Like I said, maybe it's a wake-up call to the community that if they want their field taken seriously they should consider investing within the community and within the subject itself. That is, if it isn't already too late.

Take care,

Jason