[Threshold]

I would not normally bring a personal issue here, but I think there is the possibility it may have a long term effect on many other muds.

Threshold RPG's wikipedia entry has recently undergone a lot of vandalism from a bad intentioned, disgruntled ex-player. Unfortunately, this person (who goes by the name Mendaliv on Wikipedia) is a hard core Wikipedia user, so he is well versed in their archaic, acronym heavy rules and has a lot of "friends" (cronies?) to help him with his campaign.

After getting an admin friend to ban pretty much every person that had been productively working on the entry, he recommended it for deletion. That's a pretty sleazy tactic, since now almost none of the people that would be likely to respond in favor of KEEPing it are even allowed to comment. If the only issue here was the deletion of Threshold's entry, I wouldn't be posting here. We have had customers of ours put various entries up related to our worlds and later found out they were deleted. That's how Wikipedia works and we don't concern ourselves with it.

What disturbs me more than our entry being deleted is the all out general attack being made on MUDs in general. If you read the discussion of the deletion request for Threshold, you will find countless statements that various MUD sites are not noteworthy, not good enough to be a source of information, and just not important enough. Yes, MUDs as a hobby are nowhere near as major as they were 10 years ago, but MUDs are a major part of internet and online gaming history. The discussion is here:

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Threshold (online game) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the discussion, numerous Wikipedia members seem to completely discard MUDs as having any historical relevance, and old MUD related sites (TMC, TMS, etc.) are repeatedly deemed meaningless and of no journalistic or informative value. When I read this, I was shocked. Some of these sites were made when the WWW was brand new. Sure, they never did (and still don't) have the polish of giant sites like Massively, Gamespot, 1up, or IGN, but there was a time when these sites (and MUDs in general) were extremely vital, major hubs of information for online gaming and for the internet in general.

Regardless of how popular MUDs are now, there is no doubt they are an important part of internet and gaming history. It is absurd to simply discard them as irrelevant and not noteworthy.

I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about it, but this strikes me as part of a larger, more serious problem for our hobby. I think it is in all of our best interests to fight against the erosion of our historical significance.

Thanks for reading, and once again I am sorry for bringing such a Threshold-specific issue to these forums. I feel this is a threat to the historical significance of MUDs in general, and that affects all of us.

[Milawe]

This may just be an indication of a serious flaw in Wikipedia's design and what will lead to its eventual decline. Citations seem to only be accepted if they are on the internet rather than in printed papers, and some hobbies just aren't big enough not to fall under the axe of some of the Wikipedia people with an agenda.

My biggest concern about this issue is simply that apparently mud sites have no legitimacy, and random people get to determine if something is "popular" enough. I simply have no idea how that is going to play out due to the fact that popularity of all sorts of hobbies waxes and wanes, and who is going to keep the mudding hobby alive enough for Wikipedia?

[Lasher]

Aardwolf was removed in July 2007 as being "not notable", similar arguments given to those I see in your AFD page. In the overall scheme of the internet I suppose it really isn't notable, but in that case 90% of the stuff on Wikipedia needs to go.

Apparently it had been tagged for review for some time but we were not aware. On the same day we were made aware and contacted the appropriate Wikipedia editor, it just happened to be deleted. I'm not big on conspiracy theories, but the timing was all too convenient. Maybe it was an administrative decision along the lines of "I don't want to deal with new information / having to actually verify this so delete it today" or maybe there was more to it. There were plenty of additional third party reviews of Aardwolf on non-traditional MUD sites, but the day we provided the links for them was the day it was suddenly "too late". I even offered to provide some documentation in which Aardwolf was used for a social science experiment in a joint venture with Cornell and DARPA. This was also dismissed as it would be "original research".

From your own AFD, the idea behind reviews written by players count for less is somewhat ridiculous. You can't play a mud for a day (or even a week) "only to review it" and really get a feel for its culture and community.

It seems TMS was also removed from the main Wikipedia page on "MUDS". Re-added it but no time or inclination to spend chasing Wikipedia edits. It is what it is, best advice I can give you is that it's not worth it, move on, unless you want to keep defending your entry over and over and over.

[Threshold]

Your story sounds pretty similar to what happened to us. We have the added factor of the person involved spending a month or so getting everyone banned first so they wouldn't even be able to contribute to the AFD discussion.

Honestly, if this was just about Threshold's entry I would even bring it up here or let it concern me. We have had a lot of other things related to our games and our company deleted in the past, and we didn't care at all. That's just the way Wikipedia runs (a small cabal of people basically decide amongst themselves what is "important"), and usually I just ignore it.

From a business standpoint, Wikipedia is irrelevant. I just double checked, and not a single new character creation listed wikipedia as where it heard about one of our games.

But as soon as the discussion of deletion began, there was an all out attack on the significance and relevance of MUDs in general. That is what really got my hackles up. The games I make are important to me, but even more important is the history I have been a part of. If my company had to close its doors some day, I would at least know that I was part of something significant, and that thing (MUDs) would be remembered. But this crusade these folks are on is to eliminate all MUD related stuff as "irrelevent" or "not notable." That's just an outrage in my view. MUDs are very relevant and are a very notable part of internet history.

[Milawe]

I'm going to agree with Lasher here, and really, I think this shows the general decline of Wikipedia. At this rate, when something goes out of style or something bigger comes along, things will keep getting deleted off of Wikipedia unless the entry has a "buddy" that is an editor in there somewhere.

Ultimately, it makes it less of a good source of information and will likely make way for something new. Then Wikipedia can edit itself out of its own entries for "notability" reasons. I had my say and stuck up for mudding in general. I saved a copy for posterity.

[Aeran]

Originally Posted by Threshold Regardless of how popular MUDs are now, there is no doubt they are an important part of internet and gaming history. It is absurd to simply discard them as irrelevant and not noteworthy.

Looking quickly at it it seems part of the problem with TMC and TMS as reference is suspicion of "self publication". The listings are usually uploaded by the game's staff members so it is pretty clear it is published by the people running the game.

Thanks for reading, and once again I am sorry for bringing such a Threshold-specific issue to these forums. I feel this is a threat to the historical significance of MUDs in general, and that affects all of us.

The problem is probably that the MUD community is not very interesting to most people. When was the last time some big game magazine had an article about MUDs?

You could add ThresholdRPG to WikiMU* though if you haven't.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by Aeran The problem is probably that the MUD community is not very interesting to most people. When was the last time some big game magazine had an article about MUDs?

I think you are right. The sad thing is, places like Wikipedia aren't supposed to care that MUDs have faded in recent times. The historical significance should be enough. But the truth is, Wikipedia is dominated by a small number of people who treat it like their own personal MMO. This request for deletion is like PvP for them.

Originally Posted by Aeran You could add ThresholdRPG to WikiMU* though if you haven't.

Thanks. We are there.

[Lasher]

One comment I noticed on your AFD was that there was no way to verify history on sites such as this and TMC. This might help:

http://www.topmudsites.com/alltime-rankings.html

I never published this because there isn't a good way to resolve time difference, so the "total votes" without the context of "total time on the site" might not be too meaningful. For example, Aardwolf wasn't listed here until 2003, the other 3 IRE games came after Achaea, etc. It also has a "survorship bias" - muds that have since been removed but would have been in the list based on numbers alone aren't there. It's interesting to browse if nothing else.

Adam opened this site in 2000, so this will at least demonstrate you've been on TMS and consistently ranked for most of that time.

On the other hand, from browsing those AFDs it seems that once an AFD is proposed, any later rejection of it is taken as a personal affront to the value of that editor's existence on the planet and to be avoided at all costs.

Kind of like telling your neighborhood association yard monitor that they are mistaken and the height of your grass is just fine. You might be right, but it's quicker, easier and less likely to result in repeated banging of your head on the nearest wall to just mow the yard than it is to play in their world.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by Lasher One comment I noticed on your AFD was that there was no way to verify history on sites such as this and TMC. This might help: http://www.topmudsites.com/alltime-rankings.html

If you could add that to the AfD, that would be very interesting.

Unfortunately, I cannot add anything, as I was banned in the initial rush of their pre-censorship.

Right now, the administrator BLACK KITE is banning people who vote KEEP and labeling them as "sock puppets" of me. It is a real mockery of their process, when the whole point of an AfD is supposedly to "discuss" whether the article should be retained or not. But if you ban everyone who votes KEEP, what kind of discussion is that?

[Milawe]

Just got blocked for sockpuppetry. Discussion with the admins haven't been very helpful. If I'm not getting outright ignored, I'm being belittled.

I think they've never heard of multiple people being behind one firewall.

I think I'm done with Wikipedia. The articles are far too subjective, and if you don't spend your life there, you can get banned for anything they can dig up.

[Milawe]

I guess I'm pretty down about the incredible immaturity on Wikipedia, and I'm completely disillusioned about what Wikipedia really is. Thus, I assuaged my unhappiness with looking up people in similar situations.

Funny Colbert

On a more serious note:

Not so Funny DoJ

[Lasher]

I added a comment and the reply to it seems to be typical. I had naively at one point thought Wikipedia to be a global encyclopedia, a source of information, sometimes perhaps even a source of information for topics little covered elsewhere.

Now it seems that unless something has mainstream coverage or an academic paper published on it, it is not worth including. To me this just makes Wikipedia a catalog of mainstream references and by that definition can never contain anything groundbreaking or new.

If a computer game magazine that really knows next to nothing about MUDs can be considered a trusted source of information about MUDs but TMC, the #1 MUD site for well over 10 years, cannot, that ends any value Wikipedia has as an authority on MUDs. Unfortunately for the average internet user who wants to learn about MUDs, Google gives Wikipedia authority on pretty much everything and that is the first link they will get.

At the end of the day, Google is the only reason wikipedia matters, period. If they didn't rank Wikipedia so highly for everything we wouldn't be having this discussion, because nobody would care.

The decision on your own listing has clearly already been made. Time to move on.

[Milawe]

Agreed. The people collapsing things have already posted to the "Notes to the Closing Admin" rather than the Reviewing Admin.

On a brighter note, it looks like Google is trying to attempt its own competition for Wikipedia and About.com atKnol: a unit of knowledge. I wonder if it'll work out.

[Lasher]

That took longer than expected, the TMS link on the main Wikipedia MUDs listing was removed again.

I guess this means TMS isn't relevant to MUDs either

[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

[Eclaboussure]

Originally Posted by Lasher ... Unfortunately for the average internet user who wants to learn about MUDs, Google gives Wikipedia authority on pretty much everything and that is the first link they will get. At the end of the day, Google is the only reason wikipedia matters, period. If they didn't rank Wikipedia so highly for everything we wouldn't be having this discussion, because nobody would care. ...

One option is to include your own result for google searches and then promote them so they are the first link people see as opposed to wikipedia, this goes for anything really

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by Lasher That took longer than expected, the TMS link on the main Wikipedia MUDs listing was removed again. I guess this means TMS isn't relevant to MUDs either

My god. This crusade of theirs gets worse at every moment. It turns out it is exactly as I feared. There is a group of people that have some kind of weird vendetta against the historical significance of MUDs in general.

At this point, I have no idea what we can possibly do about it.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by prof1515 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.

There's exactly as much critical review and assessment in the MUD community as people are inclined to give. The implied thread running through your post is that you think there should be a single source of reviews that the MUD community (which I don't believe exists as a representative of MUD players anyway) turns to. But why? Is there a single source of reviews for books? For music? For movies? For non-MUD games? No.

The difference with text MUDs is that we're such a niche hobby that there's little to be gained for people in professionally reviewing us.

--matt

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Lasher In the overall scheme of the internet I suppose it really isn't notable, but in that case 90% of the stuff on Wikipedia needs to go.

Quoted for truth.

It always cracks me up that the entry for Superman has an entry about the same length as the entry for Plato.

Unfortunately, I suspect little can be done unless you can create enough of a stink that it gets the attention of someone at Wikipedia, and that's not going to be easy.

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by the_logos Quoted for truth. It always cracks me up that the entry for Superman has an entry about the same length as the entry for Plato.

Yeah, there are a zillion articles about various fictional entities and worlds. Obscure comic book characters have pages even if they haven't had a comic released in 10-20 years and maybe 12 people still read about them. And that's ok since Marvel or DC are huge.

But to claim the entire MUDding hobby is irrelevant and not notable? That is what ticks me off more than anything.

[Aeran]

Originally Posted by prof1515 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.

The problem is that MUDs are simply not interesting to many people anymore. What value is it to have an article in an encyclopedia about some MUD X? Very little to most people outside the MUD community.

To have an article about the MUD field itself is probably more interesting to a wider audience though, and such article should reach notability because it is mentioned in many independent sources.

Edit: It is pretty weird in a way. If you look at the entry for MXP it probably isn't seen as notable, because the only reference come from the subject itself. To get it notable someone would have to write a book/article referencing it, which means that author would read about MXP on the official website anyway.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by the_logos There's exactly as much critical review and assessment in the MUD community as people are inclined to give.

Which appears to be absolutely none. With that level of critical review, it can justifably be said that there is no relevance to MU*s, since apparently even those in the field don't give a care about it enough to try.

The implied thread running through your post is that you think there should be a single source of reviews that the MUD community (which I don't believe exists as a representative of MUD players anyway) turns to. But why? Is there a single source of reviews for books? For music? For movies? For non-MUD games? No.

No such implied thread in my post exists. I don't believe nor did I ever state or suggest that there should be a single source of reviews. However, it would help if there were at least one source of objective, critical and comparative reviews in the community. At present there is not one. Zero, nada, nil, zilch.

[prof1515]

Originally Posted by Aeran The problem is that MUDs are simply not interesting to many people anymore. What value is it to have an article in an encyclopedia about some MUD X? Very little to most people outside the MUD community. To have an article about the MUD field itself is probably more interesting to a wider audience though, and such article should reach notability because it is mentioned in many independent sources. Edit: It is pretty weird in a way. If you look at the entry for MXP it probably isn't seen as notable, because the only reference come from the subject itself. To get it notable someone would have to write a book/article referencing it, which means that author would read about MXP on the official website anyway.

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

[Sandra]

A few years ago, they deleted LegendMUD's wiki page as well. It was nowhere near an advertisement nor was it based on any information from TMS or TMC, but those were the reasons given. I gave up arguing about it, even after pointing out several references to LegendMUD on other wiki pages such as Raph Koster's, and The Story About a Tree.

[Neurolysis]

Hello,

As you may have noticed, we at Wikipedia have recently noticed your bid to not have this deleted (we traced it to this thread), and as always when something like this has occurred have taken measures to ensure that accounts that we assume to be coming from here are likely to be discounted in the final judgment on the fate of the article itself. You can still save the article to your userspace and work on it there, and then re-enter it into the mainspace (article space) when you feel it is ready.

If you feel comfortable discussing this on-Wiki with me then my username is the same as here, Neurolysis. Note that I understand your concern at the deletion of the article, but putting all of the blame on some sort of cabal or 'minions' of sorts is a little nonsensical and is a false conspiracy. Perhaps what you are saying about the nominator is correct, I am not one to judge, but usually when something comes up like this it turns out it is completely different to how it looks on the surface.

Anyway, I am here to answer any questions you may wish to ask about the discussion that you may be uncomfortable asking on Wiki. We do not want to alienate prospective editors, and nor do we want to delete good articles.

As a note, your genre's noteworthiness is not being questioned. We already have an article on it, and that is not up for deletion - and neither does it seem that it should be.

As it generally goes, canvassing like this only makes the article more likely to be deleted, as a lot of the keep votes have to be discounted, and false positives may therefore occur due to the suspicious behavior.

There are a lot of people leaning on the keep side of things - there is no conspiracy. I'd say the debate is somewhat balanced, if perhaps tipping a little on the delete side of things, but maybe not enough for deletion - anyway, I certainly won't be the one closing it. The matter of fact is that creating a new account just to vote will not work, and will have the adverse affect than you intend.

Any questions you want to ask about the deletion process, what people mean by their arguments or what you could do to improve the article can either be asked here or at my talk page, or you can find me with the same handle at #wikipedia-en and ##neurolysis on irc.freenode.net.

Thanks,

- Chris

[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--

[Tezcatlipoca]

So what is the community to do? First forget about Wikipedia as mentioned. It isn't and should not be used as an advertising platform or primary resource location for MUDs, specific MUDs, or the mudding community. Furthermore, you don't want it to be since it isn't under our control.

But what else? One of the earlier posts was flirting with it. It would take a social revolution which is hard, and usually next to impossible. But we have to change our state of action. Players and development/administration resources are so rare compared to the number of MUDs that advertising is paramount to the community, and that I think is very damaging (but unlikely to change). This advertising (I've tried it myself) is actually pretty useless as it has very poor results because of the conditions that created it in the first place. Ideally this would change, but it will not and shouldn't anyway (that would significantly decrease the traffic to these two sites). We basically need to--as a community--create a resource where all of those above items and more can be found quickly, easily, properly, unbiasedly (quite possibly a contradiction). This website needs to have a very good design who's purpose becomes immediately clear. While TMS and TMC have some of these elements that it would need, it is not their primary focus. The layout of the site makes it very clear what *is* their primary focus, and so those elements are not well developed at all in both a content sense or a site layout sense. I thought that the MU*Wiki might help in this regard, but Wikis just are *not* designed for that purpose, so it serves a role only as a catalog of information that is easy to use if you're looking for something specific; it doesn't have the website design and layout that it would need for this venture.

TMS I don't think should spearhead this effort, mostly because it doesn't need to. It does just fine doing what it does I think. The best chance might be actually having TMC upgrade it's purpose and existance (along with a much needed website reconstruction), as it has a good traffic flow, but is the "lesser" of the two sites attempting to do close to the same thing. Let TMS focus on forums, player and mud advertising, reviews and rankings. TMC can retain these features, but should not focus on them. Let the MU* Wiki focus on a general encyclopedic listing of MUDs and MUD terms, concepts and other information someone coming across a name or term would want quick basic information on. TMC can link back and forth between these items and information if the owners cooperated. I say that TMC should do so, simply because we know how a non-established venture would fair in this market as it currently is.

Finally, mentioned again and again and again on these forums is the attempt to advertise *outside* of the community. Adverts inside don't do much good. Generating traffic and attention outside is what we need. The commercial ventures will naturally spearhead this activity simply because they are the ones with the resources to do so, and the business plans that necessitate it. They obviously shouldn't be pressured or given special requests to do charity work for the rest of the community. We'll get enough kickback off of their efforts naturally that we should be happy with what they have done and continue to do naturally. It's the "non-commercial" (and I know this isn't true in it's strictest sense) community that should attempt to do more leg-work in this regard, including this site, TMC, MU* Wiki, individual MUDs and any commercial MUDs that feel it is in their best interest to do so that can budget for it. This doesn't necessarily mean spending money, although sometimes that is necessary. But hitting up local universities with a butt-load of fliers can go a long way. Learning how to work it into fun side-projects of class plans for those of you that are TAs or teachers of appropriately aged canidates (late-highschool and primarilly upper education). Involving friends and family; using it as a learning tool for our children, or a social opportunity alternative to going out and drinking again. Holding community gaming events, equviliant to LAN parties where you do a few games, lead up to it and introduce a specific MUD with a non-character developing event (like an instant setup PK environment, or other competition). I'm not saying these are necessarilly good ideas, but just that there are ways that can be explored for free.

I don't really have a good conclusion at this point so that's that, and sorry for partially redirecting the thread; I mean no disrespect to the original posters.

-Tezcatlipoca

[Lasher]

Originally Posted by Neurolysis Hello, As you may have noticed, we at Wikipedia have recently noticed your bid to not have this deleted (we traced it to this thread), and as always when something like this has occurred have taken measures to ensure that accounts that we assume to be coming from here are likely to be discounted in the final judgment on the fate of the article itself. You can still save the article to your userspace and work on it there, and then re-enter it into the mainspace (article space) when you feel it is ready. As it generally goes, canvassing like this only makes the article more likely to be deleted, as a lot of the keep votes have to be discounted, and false positives may therefore occur due to the suspicious behavior. - Chris

I understand Wikipedia's position on this, but there is a fine line between "canvassing" and notifying MUD players on a MUD forum that they may be interested in the article, particularly with the Wikipedia trend of removing a number of MUDs over the past couple of years.

It seems somewhat of a no-win situation - "not enough MUD hobbyists are active here to verify 'authority' for MUD sites, but if you point out the issue on a forum where they will be, you are canvassing."

I am admittedly biased in this, so remove Topmudsites from the equation. My main concern is not the listing of any individual mud (my own long since removed from Wikipedia) but the notion that TMC (and similar) are not considered authorities on MUDs. They are authorities on MUDs.

Some MUD players may have discovered the genre by the occasional mainstream reference, but no active MUD player is going to Computer Game Weekly or Gamespot for information about MUDS, they are going to the Mud Connector, MudBytes, previously MudMagic and all the other niche MUD sites. The very fact that these are the sites MUD players go to are the same reason MUD owners have focused on their visibility on those sites rather than a mainstream press that doesn't care.

So now we're in the situation where, for example, Mudconnector which has been around for well over 15 years is not considered authoritative for MUD information and history but a game magazine that heard about MUDs last week and writes an overview on them this week, is. It also does not bode well for most other MUDs that will have to rely on their "references" on MUD sites as their own listings come up for review over time. Bottom line seems to be that "notability" comes down to chance and whether or not a mainstream publication noticed you while sites that have focused exclusively on MUDs for over a decade are discarded.

You have to at least understand why those involved with MUDs (and we're a passionate group) would be frustrated by this?

Either way, thanks for dropping by and giving us a look at this from the other side. It's appreciated.

[blair]

Originally Posted by Threshold My god. This crusade of theirs gets worse at every moment. It turns out it is exactly as I feared. There is a group of people that have some kind of weird vendetta against the historical significance of MUDs in general. At this point, I have no idea what we can possibly do about it.

Here's a phrase that probably would have helped you; "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".

What does it mean? Don't go accusing people of "breaking the rules" and being "vandals" just because they don't agree with you. Especially after several people make it clear that you are the one breaking the rules. If you had been polite and asked for help instead of being abusive, your article might not be in trouble now.

Plus, running home to your favorite forums and beating the war drum is a particularly lame response. If you'd taken the effort to read Wikipedia's policies as you require others to read Threshold's, you would not be in this situation.

[Lasher]

Originally Posted by blair What does it mean? Don't go accusing people of "breaking the rules" and being "vandals" just because they don't agree with you. Especially after several people make it clear that you are the one breaking the rules. If you had been polite and asked for help instead of being abusive, your article might not be in trouble now.

And here was me starting to believe that whether or not the article stayed was about the content and notability.