Talk:Maelstrom (live role playing game)

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[edit] Starting up

Just setting up this page for the moment - will add assertaions of notability and proper content in the next few days.

Anyone else coming in from rule7.co.uk or other Maelstrom players, feel free to help me expand it, or come talk to me on my talk page and we'll try to make this into a really good article! --RedHillian 00:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi RedHillian. Just adding some section heads in as a guide ASH1977LAW 13:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)


One of the references is wrong. The largest PD event so far (Harvest Time) was 933 players total, not 933 bookings and definitely not 933 players prebooked. The average number of event tickets sold in 2007 was 859 per event. I would update the reference myself, but I can't work this crazy wiki thing. I think it just doesn't like me. Keep up the good work. 82.69.30.223 (talk) 20:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)Matt Pennington82.69.30.223 (talk) 20:48, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

I've updated this. Are player numbers mentioned anywhere on the PD website? Would be best to have a web page reference. --Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:43, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Player numbers are not currently mentioned on the website. It would be an "interesting" thing to do. Without trying to criticize anyone it has been my experience that it is common place for many LRP organizations to be fairly "ambitious" with the the figures they claim attend their events. We have a policy of being scrupulously honest on such things (hence my correction of the reference quote (and my point that it was players not bookings since a handful are complementary)). If we "promoted" our attendance figures by placing them on the website I suspect that a few of our competitors might decry the figures as "inaccurate" or much more likely take it as an aggressive move to draw attention to their own booking figures and react even more negatively. Such are the politics of competition. Consequently it's something we have always chosen not to do, even though we always quote precise and accurate attendance figures when asked for them. P.S. - thanks for updating the reference Ryan! 82.69.77.67 (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)Matt Pennington82.69.77.67 (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Understood, but Wikipedia requires citations for any assertions of numbers, dates, etc. (as all statistics are potentially contentious). If someone wrote an article about Maelstrom and quoted statistics sourced from you that'd be another reasonable citation. But just "Matt says" directly in the article doesn't meet the standards of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy.--Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This might be of some interest to you? http://www.webcitation.org/5T6seAbkp It's a link to an article archived from the website of one of the factions at CP, but it gives about the right numbers. Davidtmoore (talk) 16:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Do you have a link to the website that's archived from? It looks a bit like a wiki, which probably wouldn't be considered a reliable source.--Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I kinda figured you were going to say that.... There is a beautiful irony here. If Profound Decisions provides the data directly to Wikipedia, that isn't sufficient. But if someone puts up a web page claiming to have had the figures directly from Profound Decisions that is a citable resource! I do see the logic, but it does create a perverse situation in which only hearsay evidence is admitable on Wikipedia. I'm sure such things are argued by Wikipedians all the time. I'm afraid I have no answers for you, sorry. 82.69.77.67 (talk) 12:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)(Matt P)82.69.77.67 (talk) 12:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't have to be hearsay, you can publish data about your organisation (e.g. on a "history of our organisation" web page) and that can be used in an article about your organisation. It's an unusual situation when an organisation is unwilling to publish information about itself. And off-topic, while I understand your position on not publishing stats I don't agree with it, it seems overly sensitive to me.
On the topic of citable sources, reliable news organisations are much preferred over random web pages, so there's a bias towards good fact checking. But on a given Wikipedia page there's an exception that allows low-fact-checked information if it's from the subject of the article. The reader can judge for themselves if an organisation is a good source of info about itself. --Ryan Paddy (talk) 18:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I read that link. I'm not convinced the claims about attendance could ever meet the standard of verifiability stated there. Attendance figures are always contentious and always self-promotional, that's whay LRP organisations tend to big up the numbers of people who go. You might be right about the sensitivity of such data Ryan, but I have to say I'm not about to try it and see... Avoiding annoying competitors is more important to me than supporting wikipedia!! I would suggest at the very least that the article be changed to something like "Profound Decisions CLAIM that Maelstrom is now the second biggest fest event in the country" or something like that. Or perhaps PD claim that X hundred people attend. Something of that sort. I certainly wouldn't quote the Pagga study as evidence, since it was blatantly systematically biased in favour of Maelstrom. 87.243.196.43 (talk) 16:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)Matt P87.243.196.43 (talk) 16:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the Pagga survey shouldn't be quoted. In terms of "Profound Decisions claim ..." is there anyone online that you've made statements about the number of participants and your identity is reasonably undeniable? Even a forum post saying "for those curious about attendance figures, here they are..."? --Ryan Paddy (talk) 21:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Nathan Hook wrote an article for this year's Knutepunkt book, and it uses the 900 player figure so I've cited that. That article has a lot of useful data on UK larp. I have it in hardcopy, it'll be available online as PDF later this year at http://solmukohta.org/pmwiki.php/Book/Book I think. Ryan Paddy (talk) 22:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FOIP

It might be worth noting somewhere that non-publicly given information should be tagged as a spoiler. However, if someone wants to add information to the encyclopedia, they would have a very good case for arguing that they shouldn't not be able to just because a certain game system would prefer that people found out in play.

With this in mind, I've removed the notice from the "FOIP" section of the article. Barnas 12:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hell

It's a matter of IC perspective if the New World is hell or not. Reference to it being hell should be removed from the Settings section —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.248.247.154 (talk) 10:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The 'hell' opinon is part of the backstory, and should be avaliable. Whether it's 'hell' or not is now IC opinon. Darktachyon 15:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eidolons

It's my understanding that the Eidolons are not newly returned to the world and that they have been a continuous presence, and that it was only the Fallen that returned following the breaching of the Maelstrom. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.248.247.154 (talk) 10:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location in infobox

I don't think that listing "Preston England" under location in the infobox is very useful. My intention for location was that it would be where events are played (or in the cases of societies, where members are located). That's what people want to know about a larp's location, not where the parent organisation has its headquarters. Maelstrom, for example, runs events in locations all around England. Can we set the location to England? --Ryan Paddy 02:35, 14 November 2007 (UTC)