Talk:Materia Magica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Materia Magica article.
Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~). Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Ask questions, get answers. This is not a forum for general discussion about the article's subject.	Be polite Assume good faith No personal attacks Be welcoming	Article policies No original research Neutral point of view Verifiability

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Massively multiplayer online games, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of massively multiplayer online games. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start	This article has been rated as start-Class on the the assessment scale.

This article was nominated for deletion on 23 May 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

The article has no reliable sources to reference. I also noticed there's the potential for confusion with the pen and paper Materia Magica RPG. If it's a derivative of that original RPG, please note it along with a reference.

Thanks,

Torinir _{( Ding my phone My support calls E-Support Options )} 22:10, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Just about all the information is from various pages of the main website for the game, is that a reliable enough source? And Materia Magica RPG was published in 2003, this game existed in 1995. It is NOT a derivative of the pen and paper book. 164.106.7.58 16:12, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure how anyone can claim the article is written like an "advertisement". It is just stating information about the game. It doesn't claim that the game is the best, the most amazing, and care has been taken to keep marketing-sounding statements like that out of anything that has been added to it. I do not see how this could be considered "Blatant advertising" at all. --Raddams 18:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Also I need to mention that if there is a question of notability, Materia Magica has been in existence since 1995, over twelve years - that fact alone plus the number of players that regularly are online make it one of the more popular MUDs online (The majority of MUDs have less than 100 players online at any given time). Most MUDs do not have PR firms like the Iron Realms games and therefore are not written up in journals, but that does not mean they are not popular. Materia Magica has dozens of fan sites as well. --Raddams 20:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

Materia Magica is a very notable, and influential member of the MUD community. Its probably the 3rd most well known MUD in existance today. To question whether or not it is notable in the MUD community would be similar to questioning the notability of guild wars to the mmorpg community. Various aspects of it have been cloned and rehashed in other muds, a notable example being vassago's quest code. --68.54.243.65 01:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, a great number of reviews of the game, can be found on the leading MUD review sites, [www.topmudsites.com] and [www.mudmagic.com]. The aforementioned quest code, can also be found on mudmagic. --68.54.243.65 02:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The guidelines in question here are WP:WEB, WP:N and WP:V. You need reliable, independant sources that asert notability. The most specific guideline here is WP:WEB. I haven't seen any prove yet that Materia Magica satisfies the guidelines:

1. The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself. It might have been, but I haven't seen any sources. If you do find any, please add them. MUD listings aren't good sources, as their aim is to have as many muds listed as possible, and that doesn't mean notability per se.
2. The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization. Not that I know off.
3. The content is distributed via a medium which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster. No, not either.

Unless one of these guidelines would be satisfied, WP:WEB suggests that the article subject is not notable enough for inclusion. If it is in fact the third most notable MUD in excistance today, you should probably be able to dig up some references that will satisfy these criteria. Martijn Hoekstra 10:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Materia magica was the game of the month in 2004 on mudmagic, and some time in 2003 i think it was, made #1 on topmudsites voting. As for it being the 3rd most notable MUD around today, its average online playerbase of 200-250 is only exceeded by Achea, Dreams of Divine Lands, and Aardwolf. Additionally, if you log onto almost any MUD, and mention the words materia magica, people recognize it. If you are questioning the notability of Materia Magica, you really must not know much about MUD's in general, and thus i would not consider you qualified to question its notability. --68.54.243.65 12:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I indented your comment. The problem with notability, is that it has to be externaly recognised by independent, reliable sources. The only sources I could find for Materia Magica are primery sources, and MUD listings. The MUD of the month in 2004 is some sign of notabitlity, but you have to realise that after that award, there might have been as many as 43 other Mud of the months. So they are either all notable by this definition, or that this is not a valid critirium for determining notability. I'm not sure if there has been a different MUD of the month every month since 2004, but there seem to be an awefull lot of MUDs who can claim this award. The number of people logged in is an argument in the form of WP:BIGNUMBER. As a last comment, my expertese in the field of MUDS should not be an issue in estebishing notability. The notability of articles is not about how notible you think the article is versus how notable I think the article is, it's about reliabe sources that provide information about the subject, which in this case seem to be lacking. Martijn Hoekstra 17:08, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Would newsgroups and history discussing the game - independent of the game itself - as well as "Vassago's Quest Code" (which was source code released from the game to the gaming community) for the past ten years be considered 'notable' under the guidelines? The quest code is used in a lot of games, you just have to search the Internet for it. The game was also featured several times over the years as a "Cool Website" from [CoolWebPages.org]. Also, there is an independent review about Materia Magica from July 2003 published in The Time Waster's Guide: [1]. I believe the whole concept of notability as it applies to MUDs has been challenged as part of that project you're working on because it's so hard to prove, considering these are creations of the Internet. It's simple to do a Google search and find thousands of pages referencing this game, and to do a Google Groups search and find references to it that date back years and years. Many of those are independent of the game and should be considered when establishing notability. Raddams 22:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I think that this listing [2] on Google Directory shows a certain notability, and it has the second most links after Gemstone IV. 66.67.106.254 22:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I did some more formating copyediting for the replies for readability. I was looking for the guidelines on Usenet posts as notability and verifiability links, and I am pretty sure there is a guideline somewhere, but I couldn't find it. It seems logical to me that it should be treated on the same level as forums. That timewaster's Guide link is indeed a bit more than a listing, it establish some notability, in my oppinion at least enough not to remove this article per PROD. I tried to find that coolWebPages.org link, but it seems to be a linkspammer. Maybe you mistyped something? For "Vassago's Quest Code, I found 9 google hits, and 5 google group hits. From what I understand of most comments here, the problem is mainly that you don't agree with the notability guidelines for web content. However, I'm sure you must agree that there should be some guidelines as to what should and what shouldn't be part of Wikipedia. To me, a guideline on wikipedia is just that: a guideline, something that can be changed if the users of wikipedia do think it should be changed. I have no objection if the community thinks that WP:WEB should be changed, even to accomodate MUDS. So what sets MUD's apart from other internet content, in that it should have different notability guidelines? The problem with arguments like 'this is one of the most notable MUD's in excistance' is that it doesn't actualy say anything about the absolute notability of the subject. It just says something about the notability of the MUD compared to the notability of other MUDs. At the end of the day, Mudding is a very small niche of the internet. Obviously, that is not the end of the story. MUD games as a whole are quite notable for historic reasons: (one of) the first networked multiplayer games. Individual MUDS should be treated as every other internet content. They are a small niche in massive multiplayer online gaming, which is a part of computer games, etc. If you stop looking it from that point of view that this is a game you like and want to keep in Wikipedia, and look at it from the viewpoint of 'is this a subject notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia'. If you look at the guidelines set for content in general, and internet content in specific to guide your judgement, do you still come to the same conclusion, that this is an article whose notability can be objectively be established? Or do you come to the conclusion that although you may like the article, are interested in its subject, and wish the best for it, that Wikipedia still shouldn't have this article? Martijn Hoekstra 16:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops, small mistake here. I was removing the PROD as there is far to much discussion to delete per prod. There is no prod. This is not a discussion about a prod. My mistake. The longwinding post over this is therefore a bit redundant.

The guideline for using usenet, forums, blogs and other social sites is here: WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided (point 11). There is no editorial oversight for these types of things, so make poor secondary sources. Google directory (or indeed MUD directories) aren't much use either. I'm in my local phone directory - that doesn't make me notable. 'MUD of the Month' type awards might be okay, if they are decided by the staff of a reknowned web site and not just by reader votes. Marašmusïne_Talk 16:55, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just had a look at the Time Wasters Guide review; I've not come across that website before, but it looks okay (depending on who JamPaladin is?) Marašmusïne_Talk 17:01, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

How are answers.com and reference.com as sources? http://www.answers.com/topic/materia-magica and http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Materia_Magica 70.243.216.102 23:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

They are both duplicates of Wikipedia (as evidenced by the copyright smallprint), so no. Marašmusïne_Talk 08:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Here is one of several references to Vassago's quest code, which was previously mentioned as being made for and released by Moongate Online, Materia Magica's previous title.

An independent review of Materia Magica has been added to Mud Connector. --Raddams 06:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Red mm logo.jpg

Image:Red mm logo.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 09:29, 21 January 2008 (UTC)