[Newworlds]

Hi folks,

I am personally proud of those people who are spending their time and effort in making MUD's (all of them) more well known and gaining notoreity.

Proph1515 has done a fantastic job of this with his RPMUD network. I don't always agree with him but I respect his groups efforts. Stop railing on him and thank him for his work. He is not trying to make all MUD's cater to his network. He is trying to build a community within the MUD community. There is way to much in fighting here and that needs to stop if we want to collectively gain more players

FredBauder is another one who started MUDWiki. Nice.

Someone did WikiMU*.

All of these people are working to bolster are community. Good work and carry on. Many of us back you up!

(Disclaimer: NW is not part of any of the above groups or communities, we just support the actions to build such things.)

[ShadowsDawn]

Originally Posted by Aeran Edit: Also who/what is the "RPMUD Committee"?

The RPMud Committee is a group of people who are in charge of managing the RPMud network, making decisions on how we will manage our website and make policies of how to handle the various tasks we are setting out to do.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Hi folks, I am personally proud of those people who are spending their time and effort in making MUD's (all of them) more well known and gaining notoreity. Proph1515 has done a fantastic job of this with his RPMUD network. I don't always agree with him but I respect his groups efforts. Stop railing on him and thank him for his work. He is not trying to make all MUD's cater to his network. He is trying to build a community within the MUD community. There is way to much in fighting here and that needs to stop if we want to collectively gain more players

Thank you for the kind words of support but the RPMUD Network is not me alone. There are five of us (and a recently elected sixth member) who have ALL been working hard now for week after week, month after month. Every Monday night for the last 4-5 months has consisted of 4-5 hour long meetings refining and re-defining the site's purpose and trying to find the best way to accomplish the most good, then the coders in our group have worked through the week on the various aspects while the others have begun some of the other non-code aspects of the site design. If anything, my role has been more in terms of organization and management of the group itself than the actual nose-to-grindstone coding of the site (codetard that I am). But the Operating Committee as a whole has determined our course. ShadowsDawn and I are the two members who participate here on TMS but there are also three others who don't participate on the TMS forums. Together, we've got a variety of perspectives on the various types of RP-Enforced MU*s and every decision we've made has been the result of our combined determination, weighing everything as fully as we can before proceeding (in fact, we've discussed everything to such minute detail that with only a few exceptions the final results of our discussions have ended in 5-0 decisions).

I do thank you though and I'm sure the others do as well. Hopefully our efforts will yield a result which can fill a void in the community, at least so far as enforced RP MU*s are concerned.

Take care,

Jason

[Lasher]

(Not directed at NewWorlds, just responding to his quote)

Originally Posted by Newworlds All of these people are working to bolster are community. Good work and carry on. Many of us back you up!

It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war, but in the interests of community building and bringing more people into MUDs, RPMuds could do with taking a serious look at how they treat people who obviously don't want to roleplay.

We often get a lot of people on Aardwolf asking about roleplay. We tell them that some clans do some roleplaying and there is a channel/forum for it, but roleplay is not an integral part of the MUD. We also tell them that there are many fine MUDs out there that do focus on roleplay and direct them here, TMC, etc. There is no implication of what is right or better, just differences in style.

It has been a while since I did this, but I used to hang out on RPMuds from time to time. Newbies who appeared new to MUDs and were probably looking for a more hack and slash environment were often derided and looked down on. Either that or they were told to learn to roleplay and they'd like it eventually. No idea what happened to those folks, but if they were new to MUDs they might not be aware of the huge range in styles of MUD, decided it wasn't what they wanted, and gone back to WoW or whatever. The same applies to "Hardcore PK" vs non-PK.

If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

[Kleothera]

Permit me to reiterate for the record once again-

a. No one is railing at Prof1515. No one is questioning the value and contribution of the group he is associated with to the MUD community. Disagreeing with a single post on a webforum (perhaps based on ambiguous syntax), does not constitute a question over personal worth, commitment or contribution. This, however, works both ways.

b. What I am saying is in the context of what Lasher has also just said, it would help to have THOSE games to be also professional and maturely run. I belong to the extreme end of the RP end of my MUD, there are new players we get to whom we have to explain the difference between IC and OOC. I have seen some of these same people (without any previous background of tabletop RPGs etc) move on (in a recent case of my clan) to join the local branch of the Historical Anachronism Society after 6 months of DE. New people need to try out RP before they begin to like it. This happens in non RPI MUDs. Some people eventually end up in RPI games. Some still don't want to play RPI games- preferring other forms of MUD gaming (anything from social MUDs to more engrossing hack and slash). Others stick to the same mix of OOC sociability, hack and slash and RP (but usually with a heavier tilt towards RP as they get used to the mechanics of the game). Its a matter of choice for the individual in the end.

However, as I said the last time, my intention is NOT to launch into a huge digression on the H&S-RP Encouraged- RP Enforced- RPI muds continuum (which is really outside the purview of this discussion). We were discussing valid and reliable sources of information on MUDs (of all stripes, including RPI) and ways to make the community more professional before it got side tracked (largely because of me I guess). Sorry for taking everyone off topic for almost half a screen.

In this context Lasher's point about pooling players and sending them along to the places they might like- be they sending budding RPers who have outgrown their context onwards to heavier RP MUDs or people who login into heavy RP Games and find themselves unhappy, to games with a less intensive RP, has a lot of value.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by Lasher It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war....

JIHAD!

(Laughs as he realizes the CIA probably just flagged this site and discussion)

[Parhelion]

Originally Posted by Lasher (Not directed at NewWorlds, just responding to his quote) It's hard to do this without starting some kind of holy war, but in the interests of community building and bringing more people into MUDs, RPMuds could do with taking a serious look at how they treat people who obviously don't want to roleplay. We often get a lot of people on Aardwolf asking about roleplay. We tell them that some clans do some roleplaying and there is a channel/forum for it, but roleplay is not an integral part of the MUD. We also tell them that there are many fine MUDs out there that do focus on roleplay and direct them here, TMC, etc. There is no implication of what is right or better, just differences in style. It has been a while since I did this, but I used to hang out on RPMuds from time to time. Newbies who appeared new to MUDs and were probably looking for a more hack and slash environment were often derided and looked down on. Either that or they were told to learn to roleplay and they'd like it eventually. No idea what happened to those folks, but if they were new to MUDs they might not be aware of the huge range in styles of MUD, decided it wasn't what they wanted, and gone back to WoW or whatever. The same applies to "Hardcore PK" vs non-PK. If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

I am jumping in on this thread a bit late, so please forgive me if I've missed something (which I probably have). It's also filled with a lot of my opinions and observations, so don't twist my words as me stating fact. They are merely observed trends.


I agree, to some level, that what your suggesting is a better alternative to simply rebating new players about roleplay; however, there are some problems with it that make it a little unfeasible to expect out of every (or even most) MUDs.

First off, more MUDs would need to cooperate, and that's just not going to happen. In my own personal experience, we've fought for so long against each other that we just don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves and our own interests. We are not willing to cooperate with other games of any genre, generally speaking. Administrators or PR staff would have to become more familiar with games outside of their own private little circle, to provide the best alternatives to new players, and we'd also have to actually start caring about what those players actually want.

The ignorant alternative to providing direct, personal insight is to direct a new player towards a directory website; however, there really aren't any out there that provide quality information and are easy to search. ((I am aware that there are plans out there for an objective, quality site, but the content will still be restricted to certain genres and its not yet up and running.)) TMS and the Mud Connector are not sufficient or appropriate, because these sites are mostly overrun by bigot fanaticals and hobbiests who just want to fight with someone or bend the truths about their own favorite games in the hopes of catching one more player. The search engines at these sites are both fairly weak, and the entries are out-of-date, easily falsified, or are misleading. In the long run, any newbie to MUDs who comes looking for a game is going to get tired very quickly of trying to find a game to play because of these weak interfaces. Some may even be put off by the community's overall 'aggressive' feel.

(( I am not trying to say that none of us puts forth the effort to be friendly -- I've seen a lot of helpful people here, but the bottom line is that it often gets lost in the immature trash that bubbles up on these forums. ))

Lastly, there is an issue with presentation; it's sometimes friendlier to suggest to a player that they should learn to RP -- if done correctly, its easier not to send the wrong message this way. By out-right suggesting other games, it tells a new player that we don't want them on our game (of course, we probably don't, especially if they are adamant about spoiling the environment), that we are elitist, and that other MUDs have smiliar environments. I'm not saying that everyone is going to treat their new misfit players this way, but because most games are staffed by volunteers and (let's face it) amateurs, very few games have any PR individuals who possess good tact or know how to handle a funky situation.

[scandum]

I've never really noticed a substantial difference between 'role playing allowed' and 'role playing encouraged' in TMC listings, they all seem hack and slash muds. I'd go as far as to say Godwars II makes a better roleplaying environment than 95% of the roleplaying encouraged muds out there.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Lasher If we get a new player on our MUDs who is clearly not going to be a good fit for the style, instead of ridiculing them let's direct them to a place they can find a mud they do like. Nobody loses, it keeps them in the niche and as tastes change over time, they may just find your own MUD a better fit in the future.

Very well put. I try to do the same. The beauty of our MUD community is the variety. Different people have different ideas of what is fun. Some have several ideas and play several styles of MUDs.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Parhelion First off, more MUDs would need to cooperate, and that's just not going to happen. In my own personal experience, we've fought for so long against each other that we just don't give a damn about anyone but ourselves and our own interests. We are not willing to cooperate with other games of any genre, generally speaking. Administrators or PR staff would have to become more familiar with games outside of their own private little circle, to provide the best alternatives to new players, and we'd also have to actually start caring about what those players actually want.

That's too bad that you have this attitude. I can tell you that NW's staff make an effort to get to know different MUDs and we constantly will recommend and support other formats and games. Usually the one's we have played and enjoy and hopefully have something unique to offer.

On that same token, those that are negative and isolationists, we are happy to not recommend and/or warn against.

[Lurker94]

Don't forget the mud community also includes people who simply play muds and aren't coders, creators or admins.

Speaking as one such person, I can attest that I watch out for newcomers to whichever mud I happen to be currently playing and if they express discontent with that mud's style of play, and I know of another mud that would be a better fit, I send them there.

I've quietly done this over the years and I suspect I'm not the only one who does this. There is no one mud that is right for everyone and the more people who acknowledge this the better.

So whether you are a player, owner, admin or whatever. Do the right thing and help newcomers get placed in the right sort of mud for their tastes. It's really not too difficult to educate yourself to the different styles of muds out there and teach people how to find them.

[KaVir]

In case anyone is interested, the Wikipedia people are at it again. This time they're targeting Arctic MUD.

[Kylotan]

This says to me that someone needs to step up and make some sort of mud information site that isn't centred around forums and traffic-generation.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Kylotan This says to me that someone needs to step up and make some sort of mud information site that isn't centred around forums and traffic-generation.

There's Mudpedia which has pretty good organization, making it usable as a primitive mud listing as well.

Arctic MUD - Mudpedia

[Milawe]

Thanks for the heads up.

[Kylotan]

Originally Posted by scandum There's Mudpedia which has pretty good organization, making it usable as a primitive mud listing as well. Arctic MUD - Mudpedia

As I understand it that won't help keep things on Wikipedia, because you have to reference a source which can't just be edited by a user as 'self-publishing'.

We need something with actual editorial oversight which covers the area a bit more critically.

To be honest I don't really see anything on the Arctic MUD Mudpedia page that tells me it's important enough to have a page of its own on Wikipedia, more like a mention on the Diku page under 'Notable examples' or something.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Kylotan To be honest I don't really see anything on the Arctic MUD Mudpedia page that tells me it's important enough to have a page of its own on Wikipedia, more like a mention on the Diku page under 'Notable examples' or something.

Frankly it is hard to define what is important on Wikipedia. I mean come on, the place is a haphazard rumor mill of very important things and things that have little or no importance so who is to say? Them? Exactly.

[scandum]

Originally Posted by Kylotan As I understand it that won't help keep things on Wikipedia, because you have to reference a source which can't just be edited by a user as 'self-publishing'.

I see where you're going, but why waste time keeping 20 to 40 MUDs on Wikipedia that don't meet the notability requirements because they don't have reliable secondary sources if you can create articles based on primary sources on Mudpedia?

[Kylotan]

Originally Posted by Newworlds Frankly it is hard to define what is important on Wikipedia. I mean come on, the place is a haphazard rumor mill of very important things and things that have little or no importance so who is to say? Them? Exactly.

It's not all that hard to define what's important if you look at the rules they have in place. The danger is that people look at a lot of the smaller articles and assume they set some sort of precedent, but they don't. So eventually they and articles like them will get deleted. The vast majority of pages on Wikipedia have plenty of discussion over their content but no real question over whether they're notable or not, because most have decent sources and more than a mere handful who care about them.

Originally Posted by scandum I see where you're going, but why waste time keeping 20 to 40 MUDs on Wikipedia that don't meet the notability requirements because they don't have reliable secondary sources if you can create articles based on primary sources on Mudpedia?

I'm not saying Mudpedia is a bad thing, far from it. Just that it doesn't help with the Wikipedia issue. With regards to this thread's title, "our genre's worthiness" is not going to be increased outside the mud community just because we put together a wiki about it. That would be another example of us looking forever inward, really.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Kylotan It's not all that hard to define what's important if you look at the rules they have in place. The danger is that people look at a lot of the smaller articles and assume they set some sort of precedent, but they don't. So eventually they and articles like them will get deleted. The vast majority of pages on Wikipedia have plenty of discussion over their content but no real question over whether they're notable or not, because most have decent sources and more than a mere handful who care about them.

Oh come now, this is directly from Wikipedia's own disclaimer: Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.

In other words, our entire site is suspect so use at your own demise.

[Kylotan]

I don't see how that changes anything. The fact that they give no guarantee doesn't mean the content is intrinsically worse, just like the fact that a manufacturer giving a guarantee doesn't mean the product is intrinsically better (merely that they'll offer to fix it). Comparisons of Wikipedia with peer-reviewed encyclopaedia show there is very little difference in quality.

The rules for what should be on Wikipedia are reasonably clear. The problem is that people use other pages as a point of comparison, and that's not good enough. (Just like you can't get off breaking the law by saying, "well I saw that guy do it and he wasn't arrested".) The solution is simply to provide an external source of information about muds that does have some sort of review process, and which includes all these references that imply notability.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Kylotan I don't see how that changes anything.

It changes everything. It would be like a car manufacturer having a disclaimer: Nothing in this vehicle is guarateed to work. If it fails, we are sorry, but cannot be held liable. Afterall, this car is made by people that have no verifiable qualitifications or skills or knowledge of the vehicle they made.

[Kylotan]

It changes your perception of the car. It does not change the car.

this car is made by people that have no verifiable qualitifications or skills or knowledge of the vehicle they made.

Misleading analogy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Newworlds]

Originally Posted by Kylotan Misleading analogy. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Not really, I did say, and I quote: no verifiable qualitifications...

The point is the same, the car has none neither does Wiki and both suck equally in terms of quantifiable quality.

Still we grow off topic. I read back to the beginning of this thread and the truth is spelled out more clearly in earlier posts by Lasher, Proph1515, and Threshold. I suggest going back and reading these posts as the argument is becoming circular.

[Kylotan]

I read it all the first time around. I have sympathy for people who feel their hard work is being wiped off the face of the internet but the only practical solution is to establish a decent reference for all this stuff. Posting barely-cited stuff on Wikipedia is just going to get deleted sooner or later.

[Samson]

The problem with Wikipedia is that they don't seem to consider anything other than "mainstream" media (network news, major print sources, etc) as a reliable source. So unless you're lucky enough to have some talking head on a network news program the people at Wikipedia actually watch, you aren't notable.

Which means that pretty much everything that was spawned on the internet, covered by the internet, and is reviewed and critiqued by the internet, means nothing to them. Even if a print source does manage to cover it.

Which is ironic, since nobody serious respects anything Wikipedia is doing academically. Schools even flat out warn you not to use it as a source.

Arctic MUD had coverage on a major internet gaming site back in the day. Even according to their own policy, if you establish notability then, it doesn't die off on you 15 years down the road. The guys pushing for AfD on Arctic are probably from the same crowd who tried to have Threshold purged.

This whole BS about notability is a farce anyway, troll random links and you'll find stupid stuff like old 70s TV shows nobody had ever heard of back then with tiny little stub articles that nobody tried to delete. Probably because an admin created them. I guarantee you most of the people targeting MUDs don't know jack about them.

As far as reliable sources, TMC and TMS are as good as that's going to get. It doesn't matter if they're just traffic aggregators, they are the two recognized sources in the field.

Nope. You'll find the sole reason any of these kids do this stuff is to score points and climb the ladder at Wikipedia. How else would they have time enough to throw policy at you left and right from the obscure corners of their website?

Their entire notion of consensus not meaning a majority opinion is also about as ludicrous as it comes. There can't be a consensus on anything without a majority opinion to guide it. What they mean is a majority opinion from only their chosen cabal.

[Newworlds]

Samson,

I can tell you never cut your hair for Delilah. Good show mate!

For factual reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson

[Kylotan]

Originally Posted by Samson Which is ironic, since nobody serious respects anything Wikipedia is doing academically. Schools even flat out warn you not to use it as a source.

But that's the whole point - Wikipedia don't want to be treated as a primary source, because they know they can't fulfill that role. Instead, they want you to go there, learn things on a general level, and find relevant sources attached to the article. That's why good citations and references need to be provided - not links to someone else's wiki, and not just a few Usenet posts.

People can bash Wikipedia all they like, but the fact is, if people didn't consider it important, this thread wouldn't even exist. It's one of the top 10 busiest sites on the web and the primary site that people go to to learn anything.

This whole BS about notability is a farce anyway, troll random links and you'll find stupid stuff like old 70s TV shows nobody had ever heard of back then with tiny little stub articles that nobody tried to delete.

Why drag this fallacy out yet again? They (which could be you or me) fix things as and when they find them. By definition that means some will get fixed before others. If you had a rule that stated you couldn't possibly fix one page if there existed another page equally bad or worse, then you'd never get anything done. You can't use other bad pages as an excuse to keep your own bad page.

As far as reliable sources, TMC and TMS are as good as that's going to get. It doesn't matter if they're just traffic aggregators, they are the two recognized sources in the field.

Then our field is pretty poor, to be honest. If we're so 'noteworthy' then we should have more than a couple of banner-clicking forum sites to show for it.

[KaVir]

Originally Posted by Kylotan Then our field is pretty poor, to be honest. If we're so 'noteworthy' then we should have more than a couple of banner-clicking forum sites to show for it.

Muds predate the WWW, and magazines are more interested in screenshots of fancy graphics, so we don't have the same sort of sources as other games - and those we do have (usenet, mailing lists and forums) are not usually allowed. There are a few books that mention muds, but even those aren't always enough for Wikipedia (the Arctic MUD entry had three published sources, for example, yet it has just been deleted).

When you get people stripping out paragraphs of text from Wikipedia with comments like "Why are we still talking about MUDs in the 2000's?", it can certainly give a negative impression about the attitute towards our hobby.

[scandum]

I hate to say it, but the article didn't meet the notability criteria, the book sources were non notable one liners, and their Diku patch was probably a one line patch as well.