Talk:Medievia

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Votes for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 31 March 2006. The result of the discussion was speedy keep. An archived record of this discussion can be found here.

Contents

[edit] Consideration for locking?

There's been a bit of vandalism on this article recently - first an anonymous "contributor" decided to delete the entire article, and subsequently, another anonymous user (IP matches the MUD's) replaced the article with an advertisement for the game, with no reference to any criticism. Would it be possible to nominate this article for "locking", at least until the passion for edit wars dies down? Or is there an "append-only" mode to prevent complete deletion/replacement? According to the article's history, several users have contributed to the article in its present form, so if any of you are still reading, let's discuss the issue!

[edit] Discussion over article format

Tom Blackstone: There was an earlier user who did in fact replace the article with an advertisement. My changes did not do this. Instead, I simply gave basic information about the game and then followed it up with a "criticism" section that contained all of the information earlier writers wanted included in the article. There is a difference between giving objective information about a game and "advertising".

Traumerei : Hi Tom, Thanks for moving to the discussion page - revert wars are silly. I appreciate your desire to include a blurb about the game (you must admit though, that it was largely information from the game's own website, and the article until then was mostly in a "metadata" format); also I disagree with some of your statements about the game. If you want to rework your contribution such that the original focus of the article, the discussion of the MUD's origins and license violations/counter-claims, takes primacy rather than being relegated to a section below the large blurb about the game, I'd certainly be willing to look at it. The article currently lacks clarity since there's been some back and forth (the "advertiser" was a MUD admin), and it could use some reworking, certainly.

Traumerei: I've edited the Medievia entry; the edit adds sections titled "Controversy", "Counter-claim" and "Overview" sections, and is reformatted for clarity. Right now, the Overview section links to the medievia homepage, but if you want to add information in that section (from the website (preferably not verbatim - I'm sure it's under copyright), or your own impressions as a player), please go ahead and I'll take a look. Thanks.

Tom Blackstone: Traumerei, the changes you made substantially improved the article. I especially like the fact that you divided the "Controversy" and "Counter-Claim" sections. However, it is inappropriate to have criticism of the game listed at the top of the article. A good guideline for doing this article would be something like is found on the article for Everquest. It contains a description of the game, followed by substantial criticisms in a "Criticism and Social Issues" section. However, I am not against putting a brief reference to the controversy in the introduction, so that casual readers will be alerted to the fact that there is information on that further down the page. I have added a new edit. Let me know what you think.

Traumerei: Hello - I've been away for a while, hence the silence. I like your layout, and some of your changes for clarity; I do however, disagree with the placement your rather over-large "overview", which is essentially an information dump about the game culled from the website; Everquest isn't really a valid counter-example, since it's fairly sui generis, and any controversies associated with the game are far overshadowed by the game itself. In fact, early in its career, Everquest was accused of borrowing code from a MUD codebase - they issued an invitation to the DIKU coders (among others, I believe) to inspect their code, and it was determined that no violations had occurred. The medievia entry was started to catalog the controversy rather than present trivia about the MUD (there's plenty of that on their own website), and the large overview that you added takes primacy due to its sheer length; frankly, there aren't any particularly original observations in the overview that make it interesting. I will, however, let it stand for now. I did move around the more obvious advertisement like statements ("the game is free" and so on - it may technically be free, but at the higher levels you're at an extreme disadvantage without the purchased items), and added a note about the game corporation's "for profit" status. If anyone else has any comments, please chime in.

[edit] The fallacy of the counter-claim

The "counter-claim" section is rather ridiculous as it is, though. This person can rewrite to his heart's desire, but the fact remains that it is built upon the basis of someone else's work. That is the essence of a derivative work, and Mr. Krause's claims of "I've rewritten it!" does nothing but solidify the fact that it is derivative, and not original.

  • This is not strictly true. Rewriting of partially-copyrighted code has long been considered an effective way of removing copyright-encumberance from a combined work; see the history of BSD and of IBM PC compatibles. The "contamination" theory of derived works is also being tested in the SCO lawsuits. Medievia has a respectable argument that extensive code rewrites have caused the current version to no longer be a derived work of original. The remaining questions, of course, are whether Medievia code has indeed been rewritten to remove all stock Diku/Merc code, and whether the rewrite has been a thorough rewrite and not simply (e.g.) renaming variables. Both of these questions are unanswerable for the current version of Medievia code without access to said source code. --Majromax 21:48, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Majromax said "Both of these questions are unanswerable for the current version of Medievia code without access to said source code", and the article says "A large file containing leaked Medievia version 4 source code", and then later... "Medievia's owner Michael Krause claims that these allegations are unfounded and that the entire MUD has been rewritten completely in version 4, thus making it no longer a derivative work.".
      • The article says that Michael Krause claims that the accusations are unfounded because it was rewritten for version 4. Since 4 is the one that got leaked and then compared on a web site, and 4 is the one that everyone has said is in violation of the law, and Michael's claiming that it was rewritten for 4... doesn't that make it obviously wrong? Until some other authors come forward to talk about 5, then we don't know for certain about 5 or later... but 4 we already know about! Atari2600tim 12:16, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
        • Medievia v5.0 is the same thing as Medievia v4.x, but with radical changes to the gameplay; features that exist in both v5 and v4 are fundamentally the same in the way they are coded.

[edit] A good website with a fairly comprehensive discussion of the controversy, with source code excerpts

- a comparison of Merc 1.0 and Medievia IV The site, as well as the comments by "Thranz", a programmer for the game who was removed because he felt compelled to discuss the DIKU controversy, make it clear that Medievia IV was, at its core, pretty much a DIKU mud. The bit about converting from C to C++ is laughable from a programmer's perspective.

  • The real question here is if the changes that were made were enough to remove the copyright. There is a legitimate legal question as to whether the code as a whole was changed enough. Sure the leaked code may bear some resemblence to the original, but if enough of the code was changed I don't believe that would as a matter of fact guaruntee the copyright remains in place. I firmly believe there is extreme biased on this website with the leaked code and all statements made from such a POV should be taken with a few grains of salt.

Wilderop 01:15, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An Update from Michael Smith (aka Highlander)

this was added to the page by somebody in this edit and is more appropriate for the talk page. I do not vouch for what it says or anything but I don't want to just plain delete it, and I know it doesn't go in the article :P Atari2600tim 15:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

The information contained in this Wikipedia entry is very dated, the code which we used to build Medievia from was of course Diku, but it has been well over a decade since then and by this point the code is no longer Diku in any way. An arguement could be made for stating that since it was originally based on Diku and still retains much of the style of that original program that there is still a cause for arguement. Since the original coders have never seen fit to drag this out it has always surprised me that there are so many vocal individuals willing to continue discussing this to this day. It's 2006 as of this entry and Medievia began in the early 1990's, I think it's time for people to let this issue go.

[edit] External links

Comment: Michael A. Smith has proven to be unable to accept the current issues with Medievia in various discussions. His views are his own but have been proven to be false. He simply does not acknowledge the facts and keeps on delivering his poorly crafted propaganda in order to "fix" the permanently tarnished reputation of Medievia. This thread on MudMagic demonstrates that noone should take his views seriously: http://www.mudmagic.com/boards/chat/18/842/842 Link no longer available

[edit] Redundant

Is any new information provided by this edit? Here's basically how it goes now...

  • Here is a summary of the point of view of the owner and admin of Medievia
  • The point of view of the admin of Medievia can be found at this link (link).
  • (next section)Here is a link to Medievia.

If it's just repeating then there's no point in having it there; is there something added that I'm just not seeing?Atari2600tim 04:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Traumerei: Agreed - if there's going to be redundancy in that area, perhaps there should also be a sentence in the bit about "Medievia 4" being a completely new game, mentioning that both former programmers for the game, and a copy of the source confirm that there was a fair bit of Diku code in that version.
Well, what it says is 'Medievia's public stand on this issue can be viewed on their website(link).', what drew my attention was that it's the owners' 'public' stand, and that this is noteworthy because among the programmers they have another stand which is different than they tell outsiders. As you pointed out, apparently people who programmed it say that there's Diku code in it and that the only people who are being told that there isn't Diku code are the outsiders (public). Should it just be reworded to say "This is only the public stand" or something? Atari2600tim 12:33, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Another comment by 'Michael Smith' moved to the talk page.

Again, doesn't seem to belong in the article. Ehheh 12:52, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Multiple times I have added my input on this issue in this Wiki and multiple times it has been removed by individuals who refuse to allow other viewpoints. I founded Medievia with Mike Krause in 1992, I am Michael A. Smith (Highlander). I won't bother to bore you with once again submitting my views on this matter except to say that, should you see this, know that everything you read here in this Wiki is subject to the removal, on a whim, of several unscrupulious individuals who have their own agendas here. My best advice to you is ignore all the controversy about this decade and a half old overblown Infocom wanna-be text game and if you enjoy playing it, fine, if not, fine. I long ago lost interest in the whole MU* world, it's old, it's flat, it's boring and it's dead. Move on people!

[edit] Re above

Obviously can't spell. 82.42.225.31 02:15, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

And obviously cannot let go of the issue, despite his repeated exhortations for others to do so. Many years ago, I was quite heavily involved with the movement to expose Medivia for what it was; a DIKU derivative, which it remains to this day. Reading some of the comments here, there's a lot of tunes in this song that haven't changed much in a decade. Tarc 04:29, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ha ha

Gotta love the way they run the game like it's a business. You have to 'apply' for builder positions!! It's like they're paying you for your work!

At the end of the day, this is a sub-standard game whose playerbase is going to diminish rather than grow. It will definitely be overtaken by graphical MMORPGs. 82.42.221.6 18:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

on most muds you have to apply for building positions. It ensures that when the admin/Implementor 'hires' a player and grants them building status, they won't use the commands granted to them to severly damage the game.

Medievia.com, Inc. is an incorporation, so it is a business. Medievia hires all of its immortal staff, some of which are paid employees of the company. (ANON)

Well, you're a cunt. 82.42.221.6

[edit] explain what is and is not trivial for non-programmer readers?

An anon in this edit got rid of the second half of this quote: "Krause has now updated the code to 64-bit" ... "which is, again, a minor alteration and still means that the game is still based on stock DIKU code."

I think that going into more detail regarding 64-bit stuff is worth mentioning, because a computer illiterate person might be under the impression that it is difficult to do and that it requires a significant amount of work beyond downloading a new compiler. A simple line (like it originally had) explaining that it's trivial would suffice. I'd like for there to be a consensus about it, so if someone agrees then go ahead and re-add it :P --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 12:16, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I re-added a bit about how big a change it is, but left out the language about stock DIKU code. That 64bit is easy, in and of itself, certainly does not prove that the game is still based on stock DIKU code. I think it's fairly obviously still DIKU myself, but we should let the reader decide. I also took Krause's name off the sentence since it appears that someone named 'Ozymandias' [1] did the work for him. -Ehheh 14:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Latest updates to page

Versions prior to the November 3rd edit were in drastic need of a rewrite in certain areas. Sections contained redundant and/or non-linear information. The edits made between November 3rd and 8th fixed some of these problems and new information was added for better clarity and understanding of the game. Traumerei's revert on the 8th to an earlier version seem to be an act of vandalism. His ability to edit articles should be reviewed.

Thoughtstipated 06:30, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't disagree that the article is in need of a rewrite in certain areas. However, "Thoughtstipated"'s edits did nothing to improve the artice; while I don't dispute the content of his/her edits, the quality of those edits were quite poor. In addition, statements such as: "Administrators (known as Gods), are extremely biased when it comes to matters that require their attention. There is absolutely no equivocal enforcement on game rules. This is especially true when it comes to enforcing proper-name or clean-language rules." without any attributes or supporting information do nothing to enhance the article. The content may well be true, but such broad, sweeping statements do not enhance the article and are not NPOV. In addition, "Thoughtstipated"'s revert reinstated spelling errors and the like. Removal and rewriting of the present section on "donation" items (which mentions that Medievia is a "for-profit" company, in violation of the Diku license) in favor of a poorly written section titled "Medievia's marketing strategy" with bits of game specific terminology (and rewording what is effectively the sale of items with talk of "gifts" and "user donations") did not enhance the article either. I am one of the primary contributors to this article (especially with respect to the sections on the Diku license violation) and would prefer that the article retain a professional tone and remain reasonably NPOV, rather than turning into a rant by someone who appears to be a discontented MUDder. If "Thoughtstipated" would like to rewrite his/her contributions (such as they are...his existing edits added no new information besides game specific terminology) or add genuinely new information with attribution, I welcome those contributions. Please retain some level of detachment when adding contributions--note that I have no objection to the content of the additions about biased immortals and so on (I'm personally no fan of Medievia, but my goal here is to bring to light their license violations and so on, rather than mire the article in some interminable discussion of MUD administrator behavior, disputes about which are present on any MUD), but such accusations should be phrased in a professional manner. Traumerei 02:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC) I've further edited the article, incorporating "Thoughtstipated"'s note on mud clients, as well as noting that the game isn't really "free of charge" due to the necessity of so-called "donation items" for competitive play--if you'd like to add a more detailed note on how those items affect competitive play, feel free. Traumerei 02:52, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit War Continues

Well Traumerei, if your expertise is regarding the code issue, then you work on that. We could argue all day about what constitutes improvement of an article and what doesn't. I state nothing but fact in my changes. I am not a 'discontent' MUDer. If my changes were based on opinion rather than fact, I could see where you are coming from, however they are not, and I have reverted the article once again. This time I put more time into the overall editing of the article and fixed many more spelling and grammatical errors which your fixed versions lacked. It seems to me that you want to omit certain information which would be considered controversial only if you were looking at the article from an advertising point of view. Certain facts look bad because in fact there are some ugly aspects to the game.

I suggest that rather than continue this reversion/edit war we discuss each point of conflict on our views and come to a compromise. Just because you don't think certain changes are warranted does not mean you should revert to a version which you probably wrote substantial parts for. I don't like reversion wars either. My ultimate changes are reflective on overall facts regarding the game good, bad or ugly. I am not slandering or smearing the game. If something looks particularly bad, then the game is doing it to itself, I am only bringing it to light. Thoughtstipated 19:13, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lets Discuss Changes Before Reverting Again

[edit] Regarding POV issues and reverts

Traumerei, can you briefly list the points of the article one by one which you feel are in need of omission or rewrite and why? I am willing to compromise on certain information. If you can provide this list (preferably in point-form), I will be more than happy to debate you on each particular point, however:

  • Just because certain information does not do the game itself any justice, I will maintain my position that I am stating fact regardless of how it looks from an advertising standpoint. I am neither promoting or bashing the game.
  • I feel that the emphasis of the last section concerning code theft is and has been an attempt at a long-lasting smear campaign against Medievia. I will agree it is worth mentioning to a degree, but many people have ranted on about this subject for years now, and at this point it is very trivial. I respect the fact that you, amongst others put a lot of time into writing it, which is why I did very little editing to the content of that section, I merely reorganized the cosmetics of the overall article organization.
  • To say that my modifications regarding the section on game administration and how matters are handled did not improve the article is purely your opinion. The statements are in fact true, and if you were to ask any player on it's accuracy, I am sure you will find more people agree with me than not. I do in fact have a NPOV, if someone interpets my modifications as otherwise and removes them, then neutrality has been compromised by someone elses biased POV.
  • I will overlook the Marketing Strategy content again and consider rewriting parts of it. To say it was poorly written is once again your opinion. And by removing it you compromised neutrality.

Thoughtstipated 20:04, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traumerei's response

  • Thoughtstipated, I've incorporated some of your grammatical changes, but I prefer enclosing portmanteau words in quotation marks to match current usage in various online games ("reclass", "respawn" etc.) I have no objection to adding descriptive subsection titles and such either, but while I've made an effort to attain some sort of consensus by incorporating verifiable information from your edits, you have not done likewise, so your stated desire to compromise has yet to be demonstrated.
  • The section titled "Medievia's marketing strategy" is the crux of your edit, but has nothing to do with their marketing strategy. You have deleted crucial information about the game's for-profit status and other observations pertaining to the license violations. Feel free to add information about the cost of so-called "donation" items (I'm sure that will be useful to people looking to play the game), but do not delete prior content which has been arrived at through previous consensus amongst multiple contributors (this article has a long history). Do not attempt to gloss over this point with claims that my edits are biased (my personal view is that Medievia is a long-standing license violator, and the game has done much to damage open source MUD development efforts, and both of those statements have a great deal of corroborating evidence, but I've always welcomed arguments to the contrary as well as information about the MUD; in fact this article has become something of an advertisement for the MUD due to the long "overview" section, but such is the price of consensus and compromise). However, that has nothing to do with my efforts to provide an NPOV, factual perspective and my desire to see that this article is reasonably well-written; unsourced and unsuppoprted arguments/personal opinions about administrator bias regarding in-game conflicts are not in the spirit of Wikipedia's aim to provide verifiable content--if you want to link to an external website which discusses administrator bias, or provide concrete examples (perhaps in a separate article linked to this one, since discussions of in-game politics will probably reduce the coherency of this article, which already rambles to some extent), feel free.
  • Your statement that discussing the license violation constitutes a "smear campaign" reveals your own bias--the violations have been documented in thorough detail. However, the majority of the article text does not deal with this, and despite your stated respect for the contributors, you have (as I've noted above) removed information in the section dealing with "donation" items about the game's for-profit status etc. Again, if you want to merge information about the cost of such items and the typical cost of a year's play, I welcome such additions.

Traumerei 21:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] After asking to debate this article...

After I had formally made a request to discuss these outstanding issues with Traumerei (under the POV and reverts section) Traumerei had reverted the article to his version of it without discussion. I also suggested in my editing comments that if Traumerei did not like aspects of specific sections that he should edit them appropriately if he feels the statements are wrong or need editing. His reversions to outdated and poorly organized articles are incomplete and warrant further expansion which I believe I have done by minor reorganization of information and the adding of applicable sections. I make no claims which cannot be proven. By no means are my additions to this article biased or misleading in any way. Thoughtstipated 23:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response

Thoughtstipated: Please respond to my comments above (in section "Traumerei's response"--you did not address my points). I did incorporate several of your changes initially, but you reverted to your version immediately. This happened five or more times, all without any response to my comments above. Note that the version of the article as of 16:08 contains some of your changes--I believe that more of your changes can be incorporated (such as the cost of in-game items and so on, noted above), but you have consistently refused to merge your changes, and instead have deleted the section on the game's for-profit status etc. (detailed elsewhere). Merely stating that your claims (which really are phrased like personal opinions) can be proven does not make it so--please expand upon said proof. Please let me know if you're actually interested in merging your changes, as suggested above. Traumerei 23:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC) Okay, I've looked at "Thoughtstipated"'s comment below and will make a further attempt to incorporate some of his changes. Stay tuned. Traumerei 23:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request for Comment: Medievia

This article has been subject to dispute in the past few days. I request input from interested observers and Wikipedia administrators regarding the subject 22:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Statements by editors previously involved in dispute

I have attempted to merge those portions of User "Thoughtstipated"'s contributions which can be regarded as verifiable. However, user Thoughtstipated has deleted content which was arrived at previously through consensus amongst multiple contributors (in particular, regarding the game's "for-profit" status, which is pertinent to the license violation controversy), and has introduced unverifiable and unsupported information regarding bias by MUD administrators and the like (a common complaint in any online forum/game, and one that was quite unverifiable in the form introduced, as well as detracting from the NPOV tone of the article). He has also, despite his stated willingness to discuss changes to the article, engaged in wholesale reverts without responding to my comments about unverifiable information and deletion of content. Admittedly, I have been guilty of the same on a couple of occasions when reverting his reversions to versions that included some (but not all) of his changes, but prior to that I made an effort to incorporate some of his additions (and can make further attempts to incorporate those of his changes which can be considered verifiable/supported, but they keep getting reverted!). Traumerei 22:41, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

  • A further note--User "Thoughtstipated" has continued to refuse to respond to my comments on the Talk page, and has engaged in further wholesale reversion (what's the policy on users who refuse to engage in discussion?). I have reverted once again to a version of the Medievia article incorporating some (but not all) of user Thoughtstipated's changes (and again, am willing to work with him to incorporate further, verifiable changes). I will also note that user Thoughtstipated appears to be new (no contributions prior to Nov. 3 2006) and has contributed to just two articles including this one; this coupled with his refusal to obtain consensus or engage in discussion (and his insistence on including unverifiable statements as well as deleting existing information) suggest that he's unaware of Wikipedia's guidelines regarding articles. I request administrator/third party input.

Traumerei 23:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

As I have already stated, if Traumerei feels that I have made an error in any particular section, he is well within his boundaries to modify the section appropriately. The section in question regarding the "for-profit" status may have been removed somewhat accidentally, as I agree with him on this matter and would not oppose it being there. I reworded that part of the article differently (on my original alterations) but the point still comes across that in order for one to be competitive in the game he/she must donate. If that is the only concern which Traumerei has, then he should modify the section to suit his needs. There is no reason to revert the entire article to outdated and obsolete material because one small piece could be interpeted as inaccurate. Thoughtstipated 23:33, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Traumerei's Concerns

To satisfy Traumerei's concerns, I will append the marketing strategy section to include that Medievia is a for-profit organization as this seemed to be such a centralized area of concern. I do apologize for this was such a small detail that neither of us could resolve without annoying reversion wars. I basically figured that although my wording was slightly different than his, that I achieved the same ideal. It's sort of funny how we can disagree so strongly about things yet share the same views. I just did not understand the need for such an extreme rollback for something so minor.

Thoughtstipated 00:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Response to above

Thoughtstipated, I am also concerned about the unverifiable claims of bias and so on--while they may be true, you need to add supporting information (and I don't think an overview of the game is the place to engage in such discussions). Also, I still remain of the opinion that the previous section on "donation items" was better worded, and would suggest that you add information to that section about the costs of the items and so on, rather than deleting it outright in favor of your version which is more "conversational" in tone. Traumerei 00:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] todays revert war

Here are the changes that I got from skimming the last couple diffs:

  • "gameworld" vs "game world", "Clantown" vs "Clan town", etc changes
    • One is correct english, one is what Medievia's web site uses (I'll find you some examples if anyone wants); either is fine, neither is a typo. If you use the one that Medievia uses, put quotes around it. Something like "Clantown" is self-explanatory, so it's not really necessary to explain what it is, but if you want then that's fine too... it might help people who don't have english as a first language or something and aren't going to find "clantown" in their dictionary but will find "clan" and "town".
  • "Accessing the MUD and a note on "donation" items" vs "Medievia's Marketing Strategy"
    • These are two different topics, and it doesn't make sense to combine them into the same section.
  • some other rewritten stuff in that section
    • the game actually IS for profit, and they don't use the money just make sure the game is "kept alive"
    • lack of discussion forums - this should be sourced, since lack of a discussion forum on its own doesn't show anything like that
    • admin bias - this isn't noteworthy
  • thing about donations and gifts
    • Things are actually bought, they aren't gifts that cooincidentally were given to the player at the same time as when the player gave a gift of some money... it's something that the player actually purchased with money
  • "Medievia claims otherwise" vs "The Counter-Claim"
    • Medievia claims nothing, it's a game, and does not know, say, or claim anything. The from-scratch-rewrite claims are made by people.
  • "license violation" title vs "controversy surrounding code authorship" title
    • They actually DO use Diku without following the license, and the license is the only thing that gives them permission to use it; not following the license means not being allowed to use it. I'm unaware of any controversy surrounding the authorship of Diku, or surrounding the fact that it was based on Diku. In fact, the only controversy I'm aware of is that they recompiled it to run on a 64 bit processor and have claimed that something as trivial as this would require a complete rewrite, or that going from C to C++ would take any work... I'm unaware of anything that would actually show evidence of not using Diku anymore. So it's appropriate to call it license violation or code theft.

Some of that's mentioned on the talk page already, some isn't. Please explain if there is any disagreement with the above. I'm not going to edit any of it today, but leaving input as a third party. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 00:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: today's revert war

  • Agreed about "gameworld" vs. "game world" etc. (I changed it to "game world" in my changes, which I believe user "Thoughtstipated" agrees with). I opted to leave "clantown" etc. as is, since it matches the game's usage (I believe), but have no opinion one way or the other--if you have a strong preference, feel free to change it, as long as it's consistent.
  • Agreed about the "admin bias" bits...there's no doubt a basis in fact for that claim(also, a note to Thoughtstipated--I think you want the word "unequivocal" rather than "equivocal" in the sentence "There is absolutely no equivocal enforcement on game rules. "), but it's hard to verify, and it read like a statement of opinion rather than a statement of fact.

Traumerei 00:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC) One more note--I'm not planning to edit this article further today since I have to head out, but I'll take a look at the state of the article tomorrow and see if my (and Atari2600Tim's) concerns have been addressed. Thoughtstipated, I will further note that any specifics about the so-called "donation deals" (as in the ratio of "gold" to USD) will be quickly obsolete, and will also not be meaningful to casual readers of this article. Traumerei 00:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "unequivocal" vs. "equivocal"

You are correct! the correct word to have used is in fact unequivocal, not equivocal. I would agree that is an appropriate change. This is not really a matter of opinion, as I know from my own personal experiences, playing multiple characters on different IPs that I have been treated differently by the exact same administrator for similar incidences purely based on the fact that one character (or rather IP address) was better known than the other. I know other people who could confirm this. I could even go as far to explain why if needed, however it does not fit the protocol of this article.

Thoughtstipated 02:46, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Donation deal ratios

I guess I would have to agree that it is possible this information is prone to changing overnight but is also why I made the statement to cover the realistic broadness of the reality of it all.

I guess what I am somewhat struggling to convey and put into perspective is the amount of work it takes for someone in order to raise the amount needed to do a donation deal and not compare it to anything which could be interpreted as possibly biased or uncalled for. If I could post what I really thought as opposed to facts I would say someone would have a better chance of raising money for donations by working in a Chinese sweat shop, however we both know this is unacceptable.

The one thing that I admire about the Wiki is that it allows people to update information at any given time, so if what I posted were to in fact become untrue, someone else could just as easily modify the article to reflect the present.

Thoughtstipated 02:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rewriting Medievia

I would like to rewrite and expand this article to offer a broader definition of the game by adding more sections associated with game play and explanations thereof. Medievia is an extremely large and complex game. In order to convey the extent of it's diversity and expansiveness, more information is needed for one to truly understand just how complex this game is. This rewrite would significantly add to the size of the article because of the number of points which should be made.

  • These modifications I am in the process of writing include a more in-depth perspective.
  • This information is definitely content specific, but does not contain spoiler-specific material.
  • In particular, this would include an expansion of terms already used in the article's current state.
  • More specifically, these expansions on internal definitions would include (but may not be limited to):
  • Classes
  • Trading
  • Clans/Towns
  • Dungeon Master
  • MOB Factions
  • Ships
  • Catacombs
  • Ranking System
  • Donations
  • Catastrophes
  • Weather
  • Fae

To satisfy the concerns of previous editors of this article, content pertaining to the origins of Medievia's code base and for-profit status would be included to avoid any content disputes.

Thoughtstipated 13:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I think there'd be a bit of disagreement on describing it as very complex and expansive; is there anything particularly unique worth mentioning, so that it won't be a laundry list that drowns out what the MUD is most known for? There have been concerns regarding the tone of the article for quite some time, and it's my understanding that leaving out common MUD features is part of why the current state of the article isn't near as bad as it could be. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 14:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
To make this a bit easier to follow, here's the response from below copied to here directly after my message it was responding to: To respond more directly to Atari2600tim's latest concerns... ...My intent is to focus on more noteworthy game features in a clear and better organized manner. Basically my concern is how much of those things above do you feel are noteworthy? Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and I don't think there's justification to have details about all the classes and how clans and ships work, trading, and things like that. Those are all pretty common on MUDs and as far as I am aware, Medievia likely is not especially unique in regards to all of those things listed above. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 17:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't had time to revisit this article...I still have some concerns about the changes made by Thoughtstipated previously (if you have the time, Thoughtstipated, you should consider *merging* your notes on costs of donation items etc. to the previous text whose tone, IMO was more appropriate to that of an encyclopedia). I am definitely not in favor having this article become some sort of long, in-depth summary of MUD features. If the reader wants such information, there are links to the MUD's website below the article, which will probably contain more information, as is appropriate. The article already reads partially like an advertisement for this MUD. You may want to create a new article called "medievia features" or some such (and if you do so, you should excise some of the details in this article, and merely mention them by name, linking to the features article), but I don't think adding the details you mentioned to the top level article is justified. Traumerei 15:50, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Regardless, this is a public encyclopedia and allows for information to be freely posted within it regarding virtually any given subject. Even if you could find similar information elsewhere, it is a matter of being able to find pertinent and centralized information on a subject. It is not the length of the article that matters, it is the content within and if I can centralize information on a site like this, I believe it is within the best interests of the community to do so. Adding a feature list and brief summaries of each subject within allows a full and clear view of facts and aspects surrounding game (as descriptive as it may be). I might add, it is also not advertising to do so when worded in a way which only states fact. My upcoming changes to the article will be changes of convenience so that people don't need to go to several different sites (or play the game) in order to get what I believe to be the whole picture. I don't understand why you (Traumerei) want to keep the article so short and non-descript. This is an encyclopedia and people want elaborate and useful information, the article in it's current state is very poorly written and is neither elaborate or very useful.

Thoughtstipated 16:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

  • To respond more directly to Atari2600tim's latest concerns, my proposed changes have very little to do with the past or existing 'laundry' which seem to be quite central to the current article. My intent is to focus on more noteworthy game features in a clear and better organized manner. I will however keep information regarding code authorship, rules and for-profit statements as they are worth mentioning. You will see with the rewritten version that it will decentralize the old concerns and focus on new and uncontroversial material. Overall, the article will dramatically increase in size, but as I stated in a previous response; the game is large and complex, so in order to rationally define Medievia, it will require a somewhat large (but ironically not complex) article. Thoughtstipated 20:10, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Thoughtstipated, you have not commented on my suggestion that you add this new information in an article titled "Medievia features", and linking to that from this article. That will allow you to expound on your topics to your heart's content, without detracting from the focus of this article. I will also note that thus far, you have not actually incorporated a single suggestion from either Atari2600Tim or myself (except perhaps for the spelling correction)... Traumerei 20:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

  • I made my response when I continued to insist that my new article will include game features within the article. Features are in fact part of the game itself and necessary to define the largeness and complexity of it. I've made myself quite clear about pertinent and centralized information. There is absolutely no reason to create a secondary page for game features. If this is your logic behind the current article or my intentions to rewrite it, perhaps you should consider making a separate page for Medievia Controversy, which seems to be your motive. The version of the article that you seem to favor is centralized around a one-sided, stalemated debate about code theft which is over 10 years old. That information although correct and fits within helping define Medievia does not encompass the the entirety of the game. You want to focus so much on tiny parts of the article which are trivial and on the verge of bias.
  • There are 2 reasons I have not immediately addressed concerns.
  1. Traumerei: Your concerns want to limit viable information I want to add to the article, therefore I am disregarding most of your concerns on the basis you seem to want to hide information and intensify the light put on more negative aspects rather than the whole picture.
  2. A few of Atart2600tim's concerns are being addressed as I am in the process of rewriting the article. I am working on this locally because it is quite expansive and I would rather repost the article all at once as opposed to posting pieces one at a time. Take into consideration, I do not always have the time to work on this. Changing small parts of the existing article is irrelevant since I have stated I will be rewriting the whole article.
  • I have said it before and will say it again. I understand you may not like all the aspects of what I am about to post (or have posted), however this is an open project and if you don't like certain parts of it for valid reasons, you are entitled to altar them individually (not make wholesale reverts), so they better convey all definitive aspects of the game which make it unique or better help users understand terminology used within the game.
  • Remember Traumerei: You were the one who began the wholesale revert wars. You could have easily made minor modifications rather than make a complete reversion. I will ask you once again: Once I rewrite this article, please do not revert to a previous version solely on the basis that you don't agree with certain parts. I am quite certain at least most of the upcoming changes are warranted, and contain verifiable information. If you disagree with parts, then I ask you modify each point individually, in a point-by-point case should we need discussion on them.

Thoughtstipated 03:56, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

  • To Thoughtstipated: In the ultimate analysis, two wikipedia users (myself and Atari2600Tim) who have maintained this article for quite some time have disagreed with most of your changes (see Atari2600Tim's points from 13 November, which basically disagree with *all* your changes in your last edit)...you have shown no intention of reaching a consensus with either of us about the issues we've raised. Your standard for verifiable information is clearly at variance with our standards. Both Atari2600Tim and I have commented that the article would lose focus if it were a laundry list of MUD features--I have seen nothing from you to reassure us to the contrary. This article has been "completely rewritten" in the past by users from this MUD's IP, basically making it a word for word copy of the game's description on its website. Given your stated biases (calling the code provenance discussion a "smear campaign" is laughable, especially since it has implications for the whole open source community), I'm not at all confident that this is not an attempt to something similar. Also, I will note that I made several attempts to incorporate your changes when making my edits during the "revert wars", which you completely ignored and reverted to your version. You have never responded to my suggestion that you merge your changes about the cost of so-called donation items and such to the previous paragraph on such items, which I am going to do right now. This is a consensus project, and unless you reach consensus with other users who have an interest in this article, you're not going to succeed in pushing your individual viewpoint as you seem intent on doing, especially since you seem to think the existing article has no merit at all given your stated intention of rewriting it in full, unilaterally. I'm sure you have some useful information to add, but stating that you're going to do a complete rewrite (and your own admonition should apply...if you disagree with parts of this article, rewrite those parts and be aware that we may rewrite them back, merging those changes that we feel are useful).

Traumerei 05:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I've done some rewriting of the "donation" item section, and have added some information based on the game's website about the types of items. Looking at the description of the game in the (newly retitled) "In-game environment" section, I think that it could use some re-organization by way of more bullet points. Since Thoughtstipated has seen fit to add the notability tag to this article, I commend this paragraph from User:Uncle G/On notability (referenced from Wikipedia:Notability) to his/her attention:

When writing about subjects that are close to you, don't use your own personal knowledge of the subject, and don't cite yourself, your web site, or the subject's web site. Instead, use what is written about the subject by other people, independently, as your sources. Cite those sources in your very first edit. If you don't have such sources, don't write.

Some of this may not apply to parts of a relatively obscure topic such as this, but it should certainly be kept in mind. I will also note consensus, and this paragraph:

Insisting on insertion of an insignificant factoid into an article in opposition to many other editors, has been adjudged a violation of consensus due to its putting undue weight on a topic.

Traumerei 06:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit alarmed at Once I rewrite this article, please do not revert to a previous version solely on the basis that you don't agree with certain parts. I am quite certain at least most of the upcoming changes are warranted, and contain verifiable information. If you disagree with parts, then I ask you modify each point individually, in a point-by-point case should we need discussion on them. If you're planning to do multiple unfavorable changes, it'd be pretty unreasonable to expect them all to be addressed individually by other editors when you yourself didn't bother to gain consensus on any of them individually. From when I've seen other people on other articles do a massive rewrite in one edit, it's often with bad intentions, and with the hopes that enough will slip by that everyone'll just give up after an endless debate on whatever was the first thing they pointed out. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 17:16, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A FINAL message to Traumerei

There are a number of points I'd like to make to Traumerei before I completely cut off any discussion with him regarding this article. "You" is intended to address Traumerei.

I am fed up with butting heads with you over the code theft and other irrelevant issues. I am hereby stating my reasons as to why I am choosing to end all discussion with you. If you continue to mass-revert any changes that I myself, or anyone else chooses to make, I will ask for a committee resolution to this article, I will cite the below references to your obvious bias toward criticism and if needed I will cite more.

1. I would like to point out Traumerei, that in the first section titled Consideration for locking? was posted by you, and you explicitly state in one part, "...replaced the article with an advertisement for the game, with no reference to any criticism."

  • Let me remind you that Wikipedia is not a review site where criticism is the be-all and end-all of fact. In fact criticism within an article is not good form and generally frowned upon. I do not agree that an advertisement is any more acceptable. However, I went through past versions of the article, and the way in which a previous editor had written the article does in fact seem to come from an advertising POV, but I will admit they stated many facts even if it could have been written a little better.

2. In paragraph 2, of Discussion over article format, You specifically tell someone who was at least trying to offer a better perspective, that you prefer your own views to theirs citing that the matters concerning code theft should take precedence over any kind of other relevant information to the game.

3. Tom Blackstone even makes the point that you prefer criticism to actual fact (in paragraph 4). It is actually noted several times. In relation to paragraph 4, you say right out that just because the Medievia article was originally written to promote the code theft issue warrants a reason to revert it to a state which shows your very little concern for facts and information. You continually place importance on the issue of code theft when in fact (even though I may not disagree with you); it is still a matter of little relevance when you look at the wide scope of things.

4. You go on to say, "The medievia entry was started to catalog the controversy rather than present trivia about the MUD".

  • Once again, it is my understanding that Wikipedia exists in order to (or at least attempt) educate people about subjects in a manner which enlightens people on as many true facts concerning the subject matter as possible. Centralization of criticism is not an acceptable stance, despite the original intent of an article. If you started or largely contributed an article, which at some point matter within the article becomes obsolete or does not deserve as much recognition, it is well within any editor's rights to rectify the inaccuracy.

5. So far I am not even through the first quarter of the discussion articles, and it's the same mess over and over.

6. I am going over each of the comments posted after each edit, and Traumerei, I highly suggest you lay your code theft issue to rest. I will not argue that there is some validity to your excessive persistency, and it does in fact warrant some kind of recognition, but I absolutely refuse to allow you to continuously control this article on the basis of your claims.

Thoughtstipated 10:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This is pretty uncivil, you don't have to socialize with him or anything, but do make an effort here on the talk page to gain consensus from everyone who watches this article before changing things, especially if you plan to do a major overhaul. It's unreasonable to demand everyone to fix your problems separately if you yourself do multiple things in one edit... if someone makes 10 changes and it's not easy to pick out which are good, but many are definitely bad, I'm just gonna undo the whole thing and not pick them out, and I'd expect others to do the same. As far as the civility thing goes, what works pretty well for me is to pretend that every input that someone has is independant from the others; this way I can more easily avoid ad hominem arguments and things like that. This also helps in following some of the Wikipedia policies. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 17:02, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the 'Centralization of criticism is not an acceptable stance' part... that can be solved by removing the part about admins being unfair, which was very recently added, and everyone who's written here has opposed it so far. Also, in the controversy section... since there's no value or moral positions taken, and just a list of facts, I don't understand how concerns about criticism is in any way related to the controversy section of the article (it does not appear to be criticism?), so please elaborate. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 19:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On criticism, NPOV, and mass rewrites

Thoughtstipated, I'm afraid almost all of your statements (or perhaps "rant" would be a more apposite term) are incorrect, either wholly or in part.

1. I'm not certain where you get the idea that criticism is inappropriate in an article. I suggest you read Wikipedia's definition of a neutral point of view and objectivity. One of the reasons for this MUD's notability within the MUD community (see long discussions on Usenet, for instance, as well as well documented source code excerpts) and the open source community is this issue. The discussion of the license violation is written with a view towards objectivity, and contains a counter-claim, and reams of evidence/citations. I find your statements puzzling, especially in light of your allegations of administrator bias and such, which are unsupported (and they still stand, despite both mine and Atari2600Tim's statement that they are not notable). Note that two maintainers of this article (myself and Atari2600Tim) have both commented on this issue extensively recently, and there is a large body of comment about the license violation issue on the discussion page as well as the edit history of the article from a great many other editors. That issue is well-cited and verifiable, and has been the subject of vandalism in the past from the game administrators (self-editing).

2. You mischaracterize the (civil, rational) discussion between TomBlackstone and myself. Unlike some, he was well-aware of Wikipedia's policies on consensus and compromise, and due to our joint efforts, this article was significantly improved.

3. The fact remains that we have two longstanding editors here whose views are considerably at variance with yours, and your stated intent to entirely rewrite (and presumably whitewash, since you seem to think balanced criticism is inappropriate) an article with many contributors over the past couple of years is disturbing, and is at variance with established wikipedia policy. As I've noted above, you also seem to be a user whose account was created very recently, and seemingly with the sole purpose of rewriting this article. This also raises a red flag.

4. I suggest that you read WP:CIVIL.

5. Any mass deletion of existing material would be inappropriate. Once again, I suggest reading my point above regarding consensus and compromise. If you genuinely want to re-organize the section on game info, with a view towards readability (I'm afraid your previous edits were definitively lacking in the formal tone necessary for an article), I welcome the attempt.

6. Furthermore, your suggestion (perhaps intended as a "threat"?) of requesting binding arbitration is a welcome one. If your "rewrite" includes mass deletion of existing material that has been arrived at through consensus and compromise over the years by many editors, over the objections of two longstanding editors (myself and Atari2600Tim), that will probably be the appropriate process. Traumerei 16:37, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

This is about tag cleanup. As all of the tags are more than a year old, there is no current discussion relating to them, and there is a great deal of editing done since the tags were placed, they will be removed. This is not a judgement of content. If there is cause to re-tag, then that of course may be done, with the necessary posting of a discussion as to why, and what improvements could be made. This is only an effort to clean out old tags, and permit them to be updated with current issues if warranted.Jjdon (talk) 18:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] tag for notability of article

On Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Medievia virtually all of the people in favor of this article even existing seemed to be saying that they felt it was noteworthy primarily because of the blatant violation of the applicable licenses. Is anyone feeling that there isn't enough information in the 'controversy' section of this article and that it needs to be expanded some? --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 18:00, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Tim: yes I think it could use some enhancement (perhaps alluding to topics covered in the websites referred to about the license violation) in terms of describing the issues impact on the open source MUD codebases, and the precedent it sets in removing an incentive to release source code. But I'm not knowledgable enough about that aspect of the subject to contribute. And I do think that the description of the game lacks coherency (and I also think that the article does deserve such a description as long as it satisfies notability), but if past performance is an indicator, I'm not certain that user Thoughtstipated is the person to rewrite that section (his statements point to his "complete rewrite" as being a whitewash/advertisement, and probably not one conformant to NPOV, formal tone, and verifiability); however, we should of course judge his edit on its own merits. (Also, as I'm sure everyone is aware, Wikipedia does have size and readability criteria too). If you're knowledgable about notable/unique details of the game or other aspects of the code provenance issue (especially as it stands currently, which would satisfy the notability criterion), or know of a person or source that can be regarded as an authoritative and objective, please add to the article :-) I can comment on some details, but I don't think I quite fit the "authoritative" criterion (you seem to have contributed to several topical MUD/text game related articles, so you're probably more so than I am). Thanks! Traumerei 18:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggested additions

There are many more nuances to this game and features of the game that distinguish it from other muds. I think more detail could be described to these areas. Balanced criticism: As far as the code-theft issue goes there is huge room for expansion on this part. Perhaps an official statement from the owner of the game balanced with a compilation of the accusations cited from the various websites devoted to the matter. Also, since both of these sides are obviously biased a good amount of discussion of the actual impact of either truth is in order. Also, discussion of similar instances of code being used for the base of one version of a software and when (according to experts in the open source community) that code becomes a separate unique entity (if at all)

Wilderop 01:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC).

Unfortunately Wilderop, although it would be nice to get an official statement from the admin regarding code theft, Krause (aka Vryce), has long been in a no-comment state about this issue. This controversy began over 10 years ago, and for the most part is irrelevant to the game, however is a fact which warrants some recognition; and why I included a partial mention of it within the article. I think it is more important to mention other relevant facts about the game which are not made clear in previous versions. If anyone would like to expand on it, I feel they should so do, however I feel the link which points to the unofficial Myspace Account is a significant enough resource to describe the fact that the code theft issue is more the part of a larger smear campaign.Thoughtstipated 03:00, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding the code-theft issue

There are plenty of external sources of information listed as to people's views on the severity and/or overall explanation of the code-theft issue in the Opinion Pages link, which is referenced within the document.Thoughtstipated 03:23, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

  • There is also significant proof that the mention of code theft is part of an overall smear campaign. If you feel that this area should be expanded more, by all means add to it if it suits your fancy.Thoughtstipated 03:25, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re-write comments

Kudos to the rewrite! I have visited this article before and always thought it was lacking in information and deserved a rewrite which I was to lazy to do. I like how this version covers more information about in-game elements and takes the focus off the code theft issue. I have played Medievia since Medievia III, and never cared much about where the code came from, only that it was a fun and interesting game to play.Xenosorcio 01:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

The new code theft section no longer explains the licensing issue, contains POV language it can't have ('smear campaign', etc), and repeats an unverifiable claim 'It has been rewritten to the degree which it is no longer the original code' as fact without setting it up as one of Kruse's claims as the old version did. I'm also thinking that the large number of section breaks (and some very short sections) don't do much for the flow of the article. The table of contents shouldn't be scrolling people's browsers. It would have been a better idea to put these sections into the older article one at a time, I think. Ehheh 01:57, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Thank you for your input. I know that the TOC is long, but the game is large and has many points which warrant different sections to explain it's diverse nature and define terms found within the game.Thoughtstipated (Talk / Contributions) 12:52, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for directing me to this page Lenshek, err I guess Thoughtstipated. I have researched some of the changes made to this article in the past. I think it might be a little long, however it seems to offer a good description of the game and what it's all about.

I have played Medievia for many years and actually knew nothing about the issue of code theft on behalf of the game creators. I was a little surprised to learn about it, but don't really think it's that big of a deal. When I compare the current revision of this article to the last, it seems that this version offers a much better description of the game and helps new people who are interested in the game understand terminology within the game. It is very expansive and helpful to understanding more about the game.Euk 02:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of progress

Despite all of the recent efforts, almost none of the problems discussed here on the talk page have been resolved, and some that WERE resolved got re-introduced. --67.20.36.2 02:22, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to add some tags onto it to encourage some uninvolved people to improve the article. The smear campaign is unnotable, and seems to only be there to make it seem as if that's the main purpose for people to observe the code theft. The title "Medievia was derived from Merc/DikuMUD" should have a reliable source in order for it to use "was" or any past-tense words. The phrase "Many programs which are valid C are also valid C++" should be reworded to reflect the fact that in fact almost all C is also valid C++, and that very little is not. Compiling for a 64 bit processor requires 0 changes unless you decide to utilize some of the added features, it certainly doesn't require even minor rewrites. --67.20.36.2 02:36, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The particular section lists what has been claimed in rebuttal to the code theft charge. That the claims regarding the significance of C to C++ translation and 64 bit conversion seem spurious, false or dubious to C/C++ programmers are acknowledged. That the Medievia web page makes blatantly false statements about dates, the origination of other muds, and the significance of the above I also acknowledge. I don't believe the article section is about uncovering the truth of their claims. The only fact necessary to presenting that viewpoint is that they've claimed it. Also presenting a lengthy history of public proclamations and announcements by the games principals which contradict their own official web history page is beyond the scope, I think, of what most people care about. Jlambert 07:19, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts on the recent re-write

I notice that the discussion page has recently fallen victim to what can only be described as astroturfing. I will also note that "Soleille" (who recently edited the page) is an alias that matches one of this game's administrator's handles (the MUD's administrators have almost certainly vandalized this article in the past--see the edit of 21 April 2005 (which replaced the article with a blatant advertisement), which originated from an IP within Medievia's IP allocation block for an example); however, the edit was minor, and doesn't fall under the purview of Wikipedia's self-editing policy. However, I do encourage wikipedians to monitor this article for transgressions of that policy.

Getting back to "Thoughtstipated's" rewrite:

  • The good: Information on the game is better organized and more structured than it was previously, and more information has been added (and while I think those sections have become a tad bloated, especially due to content that doesn't seem notable, it's not out of bounds). This is a welcome addition--I do suggest that this information be corroborated by other people definitively knowledgable about the game (from what I know, information pertaining to gameplay seems reasonable, with the caveats below).
  • The bad: There are now a number of POV and non-verifiable statements (both positive and negative) in the article. Some of these appear to have been included despite the stated objections of editors on the discussion page.

1. "Medievia boasts itself as being the largest and best game on the internet you can play for free." This has a strong advertising flavor (despite the "boast" qualifier)--besides, Wikipedia shouldn't be in the business of recording boasts (and this statement is also quite unverifiable, and almost certainly untrue). Also, the attempt to connect the game to MMORPGs lacks merit (especially when it's in the headline)--from a casual inspection, few or none of the articles about other MUDs make this claim (and a game with 200-300 players at most, on a single server, cannot claim to be "massive"--MUDs are precursors to MMORPGS at best).

2. There are a few POV statements such as "The DM is a sophisticated computer controlled entity which monitors each player's gameplay experience." "Sophisticated" is a value judgment, and it doesn't sound like anything more than a state machine--besides, given that Medievia is closed source, none of the internal workings of the game can be described with any reasonable accuracy. I plan to remove the "sophisticated" label, but someone who is more knowledgable about that aspect of the game should look at it.

3. "The game has been around since the early 1990s yet has never had official discussion forums relating to game strategy or development as the system administrators feel this threatens the game's integrity." As Atari2600Tim noted above, this should be sourced (when it comes to the motivation), or at least reworded.

4. The "donation" item bits need rework. The previous section on so-called "donation" items (titled more accurately as "purchase of in-game items"--the term "donation" items (as Atari2600Tim notes above) is essentially a bit of propaganda along the lines of Newspeak, and an attempt to disguise the fact that these are purchased items having nothing to do with voluntary donations) was more informative and better-worded, and was more in line with the formal tone requirement. I plan to restore the deleted content.

5. As I had anticipated, Thoughtstipated attempted to whitewash the section on the Diku codebase license violation and removed the existing, well-sourced, and extensively discussed section contributed to by multiple editors over the years. Also, to quote Atari2600Tim above, "On Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Medievia virtually all of the people in favor of this article even existing seemed to be saying that they felt it was noteworthy primarily because of the blatant violation of the applicable licenses."--this is also very evident in the history of the article, and in this discussion page. Removal of this section, despite prior multiple requests not to do so, by a new user who seems to have signed on solely to edit this article was a grave violation of Wikipedia's policies on consensus. Thank you, Jlambert for restoring it. My edit of 16 November included some more information (regarding the relevance to open source MUD codebase efforts) which I will re-merge.

6. I agree with the anonymous user's comment above regarding the subtitles of the code provenance discussion--it was initially titled "The claim" (which made perfect sense under the larger subsection heading), and I subsequently attempted to change it to "Evidence supporting a Diku MUD license violation" (or something like that), but both of those were summarily deleted/renamed by Thoughtstipated (without discussion) in favor of "Medievia was based on Diku" (which even the game administrators agree was true at its inception...the controversy surrounds the practice of making money off an open source codebase in violation of its license, which the preponderance of evidence indicates that Medievia has been doing for the past ten years). Regardless, it is not an informative section title. I also definitely agree that uninvolved users (although, given the "astroturfing" phenomenon, it will be rather challenging to verify this) should offer opinions on the article.

Traumerei 01:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removed preface paragraph

I think the rewrite notice and request not to change it from the rewritten version is uncalled for. It seems intended to discourage editors from editing the article and totally goes against WP:OWN and other related policies. Its purpose also seems negated by the templates (the templates are actually better because it puts the article into appropriate categories, so that third parties can have their attention drawn to it), so I'm going to move it here to the talk page. The list of templates doesn't really cover everything, feel free to add whatever's appropriate and mention why here on the talk page. As an aside, I don't think any effort was made to actually reach any consensus, or else the changes would have been proposed here rather than put straight into the article with a request not to undo it. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 03:00, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is what I am removing from the article:

This article has recently been rewritten and requires more comments on it's current state
to reach a viable consensus. Because of the nature of the rewrite, it is requested that
users refrain from making major edits to this article until more comments have been
received. The article's history may be found here. Please post your comments, suggestions
and criticism on the discussion page regarding this rewrite.

[edit] WP:MMOG tag

A bot just tagged Talk:Medievia with WP:MMOG; according to the guidelines on WP:MMOG, being a MUD, this article doesn't fall under the scope of that project. Per user Betacommand (the owner of the bot), removing the tag. Traumerei 02:10, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Biased presentation

The section on the controversy reflects an extremely biased presentation. Discrediting Medievia appears to be the primary intent of the article, and the author is responsible for various libelous material on the Internet involving Medievia. There have been numerous complaints, edit wars, and so on. I don't want to rewrite it myself because I don't have time, and I'm afraid someone would just revert it, but here's just a few of the problems and signs:

- There are five paragraphs presenting anti-Medievia arguments first, then one paragraph on Medievia's counterclaims.

- Among the people cited are Michael A. Smith, who has complained that his own attempts to fix the twisted versions of his statements in this article have all been reverted.

- The one paragraph on 'Medievia's counterclaims' is phrased in such a way as to make the counterclaims seem disingenuous (e.g. "it is debatable to what extent this matters").

- The introductory paragraph of the Medievia article reflects only one view, namely, the anti-Medievia view.

- I checked some of the quotations using Google's Usenet archive. They have been twisted. Google has a Usenet archive dating back to the early 1990's. If people are to be quoted from it, it needs to be CITED, and the quotations must be VERBATIM if not otherwise indicated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dn32 (talk • contribs) 18:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] The MUDs "for-profit" status

I noticed that user "Dn32" reverted the section on Medievia being a "for-profit" company without any justification. While I'd have to dig through corporation records and such to cite this (it has been noted on the game and elsewhere (see "Kurt Schwind's view" in external links), and I'm not certain where those are; however, the most that user could've justifiably done is added an citation needed tag. I've reverted that section. And, to respond to his "biased presentation" comment above:

  • All the introductory paragraph states is that "The relationship between Merc MUD codebase and Medievia's code is the subject of some controversy." I fail to see how this is not NPOV
  • Which particular quotations are you referring to, when you state they have been "twisted"? Please provide examples. If you went to the trouble of looking through the archives, surely you could've provided us with links. I know definitively that the comments by "Thranz" the former programmer, as well as the ones by former MUD administrator "Omawarisan" (there's an external link pointing to his detailed argument), have been rendered accurately, .
  • And the extent to which a "conversion to C++" matters really is debatable. C++ is close to a strict superset of the C programming language, so any C program is a valid C++ program. The game is closed source, so all we have to go on are the source excerpts distributed by conscientious former programmers, all of which clearly show that the game was a Diku derivative.
  • The comment by the person claiming to be "Michael Smith" was a mostly-irrelevant rant, saying that a "controversy over a decade and a half old overblown Infocom wanna-be text game" should be ignored. From all accounts, he hasn't been involved with the MUD since shortly after it began, and even the comment above states that at the time it was definitely Diku, which is all the article refers to.

Traumerei 22:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subjective POV/adjectives

The following bolded terms in the comments in the for profit section are subjective and suggestive. The article would read the same with them removed or reworded. Comments?

  • These purchased objects (termed "donation" items) significantly boost characters, to the extent that players who do not purchase them are at an extreme relative disadvantage, making them effectively a requirement for competitive play (especially at higher character levels). There is an active in-game market wherein players trade large amounts of game currency ("gold") to other players who purchase these items with real world currency in exchange.
  • The game's administration claims Medievia is free to play. However, without buying most of the $50US donation items, the chance of winning a fight against other players (and monsters) is drastically reduced.

[edit] NPOV dispute

There have been continual disputes about bias and POV pushing, initiated by many users, about this article. Here is a list of a subset of the problems, namely, the ones that are easy for a third party to understand without a significant amount of background knowledge.

  • In the introductory paragraph of the article, which purports to explain what the game is, two out of the three sentences actually talk about the alleged "controversy," which refers to the disputed allegations that the game contains materials Copyrighted by the Merc/Diku developers.
  • In the section [-Classes-], the article says, "Medievia contains the original four DikuMUD classes." In fact, these classes come from Dungeons and Dragons, which is a fantasy role-playing game dating back to 1974, which both Medievia and DikuMUD inherit. Medievia and many other MUDs also borrow other ideas such as the concept of a Dungeon Master from Dungeons and Dragons. However, the article references DikuMUD instead of Dungeons and Dragons to reinforce the allegation that Medievia stole from Diku.
  • "Donation items" are presented in a negative way, e.g., "These objects [...] boost characters so that players who do not purchase these items may be at disadvantages."
  • Also in the [-Purchasing game items-] section, talks about how players have to buy "donation items" to stay competitive, then digresses into HeroBattles, before admitting in paragraph 5 that the game developers give away donation items for free to players who contribute to and improve the game.
  • The section [-Claims of license violation-] has six paragraphs of quotes and allegations, many of which were taken from a smear site, [2], which is run by a company that hosts rival MUDs. The authenticity of some of these quotes has already been disputed on this talk page.
  • The section [-Medievia's counter-claim-] is a single paragraph contains a weak argument, and only a single quotation. That quotation talks about all of the changes that were made to the game from 1992 to 2005 and is not intended to be a repudiation of the criticisms in the previous section, although the article portrays it as such. It also contains statements that are not, in fact, "counter-claims", but statements that support the detractors of the game, e.g., "Medievia has now been updated to be a 64-bit application, but this type of change generally requires only minor rewrites as well."
  • Several other issues have been described in the last dozen or so sections of this talk page.
  • Of all the pages on the web about Medievia, six are cited in the references, one of which is someone's MySpace page, and three of which are sites that smear the game.

Earlier in the talk page, a number of editors have made constructive suggestions and comments. The controversy section should be completely rewritten if it is to remain; unfortunately, attempts to do that have been stifled by the author. The longest section, on purchasing game items, which appears to be intended to reinforce the point of view that the game violates the "can't charge money" Diku license by portraying the game as a profit-making machine, should also be reworked.

Dn32 02:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any concrete suggestions? I'm afraid I see little that is original in your post--you will notice that there have been lengthy discussions of the issues you mention above--the overwhelming consensus (see the AFD discussion) as well, is that the license violation issue is an important. The license violation issue has been thoroughly documented, and unless you can produce documentation to state that it is in error, I see no reason to alter it. I haven't yet had a chance to look over the more recent changes, but I will note that:

  • Token awards of a few "donation" items (the very name is Orwellian) to a few "gods" and such does little to change the fact that the vast majority are purchased.
  • Your assertion that "Arthmoor" is a "smear" site does not make it true. It contains *source code* excerpts, whose provenance has been thoroughly established. Medievia's source code is indisputably a Diku derivative, and it is, in fact, a for-profit company.
  • Even Medievia's own website (http://www.medievia.com/start.html) hasn't yet glossed over the fact that it began as a Diku mud. As such, the class system has (I believe) not changed since it was a Diku MUD, and I see no reason not to attribute its Diku origins.

Please note that the controversy section has been arrived at through lengthy discussions. If you have some new facts to contribute, please do so, but wholesale omission of facts would be incorrect. Traumerei 00:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Dn32, I will also note that I responded to your previous set of comments under the section "The MUDs "for-profit" status", which contain essentially the same points--you never responded. Traumerei 00:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've added Google Groups citations documenting statements by "Omawarisan" and "Thranz", former game administrators, per Dn32's "request" above. Traumerei 01:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the citations, but also please see the [-Sources-] section below. Do you have any intentions of addressing some of the other concerns, particularly regarding tone, organization, and emphasizing only one side of a controversy? I started making minor changes to this article a while ago, but you reverted virtually everything I've changed and responded to me with a demeaning attitude, so I'm not particularly motivated anymore. If you'd like to give me a chance to edit the page, please let me know. Dn32 02:48, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, all the verbose information on the game is far less well-sourced compared to the sections on the code controversy. The sources issue does not provide any leverage to excise those sections, as appears to be your wont. The lengthy descriptions of game minutiae also appear to fall under the purview of WP:NOT (see the section under "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information"). As for the rest of your statement, I'm afraid I don't know what to say...I've made point by point responses to your statements *twice*, and you have not responded in kind. Do you have any concrete information to add? Please edit the page by all means, but please do not remove information, or in adding information, gloss over facts (such as the removal of the fact that several "donation" items deteriorate, or the attempt to diminish the relevance of the fact that the vast majority of "donation" items are, in fact, purchased, and that they significantly boost in-game player statistics). Thank you. Traumerei 17:47, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent changes to "donation" item section

  • The recent changes to the "donation" item section removed a few facts, in addition to glossing over others. The edits removed the fact that some of the "donation" items "deteriorate", requiring repurchase after a year. Additionally, it also neglected to mention that while so-called "champion heros" receive some of the benefits of the "draconian charm" item (which is only one of many), only a small fraction of players can attain this flag at any given time. Please retain some perspective while making edits...while it's good that these in-game ways to obtain some of the (more minor) benefits of these "donation" items have been documented, all the facts should be noted.
  • I also restored one word, namely "significantly", in characterizing the effects of "donation" items on player statistics. It is unreasonable to expect that players would pay $50 for an item that did not boost statistics significantly--these items confer stats/abilities well in excess of any item obtained in game.

Traumerei 00:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Haven't been by here in awhile, looks great. Good to see there's still some around to keep those that still try to gloss over Medievia's license-breaking controvery at bay. To "Dn32"; arthmoor.com is not a "smear" site; Richard Woolcock is one of the more respected coders and contributors in the MUD genre, and he certainly qualifies as the proverbial "expert in the field". I was a part of uncovering all of this stuff back in the day as well; hell, I'm even quoted once or twice on arthmoor, so trust me when I say I know what I'm talking about. Tarc 14:39, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
For the record, I didn't say arthmoor.com was a smear site; Traumerei only claimed I did. What is true is that they host a mirror of a page called "Medthievia" (redubbed "Medievia: A Saga of Code Theft" in the copy). This page may not represent the opinions of arthmoor.com, but rather one of its clients or users. It states, albeit in different words, that the game's owner is a rich, divorced pothead. It also claims to offer for download several thousand lines of the game's source code, verbatim, under "fair use". If this claim is false, then the page is certainly intended to smear the game, and if it is true, then posting thousands of lines of source code would be a violation of Copyright (see the U.S. Supreme Court case Harper Row vs. Nation Enterprises (1985)).

Dn32 02:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

That is quite an egregious lie. The source code is not available for download from arthmoor, nor has it ever been at any point in time. What is on the site are several small snippets for comparison purposes, the usage of which is allowed per fair use guidelines. Tarc 15:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
The case you cite was an attempt to use the 'fair use' defense to publish substantial portions of the writings of a person simply because they were a "public figure". It was rejected as an invalid use of the 'fair use' defense. 'Fair use' can be used as an affirmative defense to infringment in order to quote portions of a work for commentary, criticism and review. I would tend to believe that quoting portions of a work for the purposes of exposing copyright infringement itself, plagiarism, fraud, or any other criminal activity would certainly be a valid use of the the "fair use" exemption. Jlambert 03:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
True, except that copying complete, compilable C source files consisting of hundreds of lines of code isn't quoting. The header on these files claims they are a trade secret of "INTENSE Software", which is a whole other can of worms. (Fair use is a defense against Copyright infringement, not trade secret misappropriation. But then again, if the code has been online this long and nobody got sued, it wouldn't qualify for trade secret protection anyway.) What is INTENSE Software and what did they contribute to Medievia? There doesn't seem to be any such company incorporated in Pennsylvania, where medievia.com, Inc. is incorporated, although there is one in Canada, apparently. And who is the author of this webpage that the article refers to? He identifies himself only as "KaViR" [sic], and when I tried to write to him for more info my email bounced.
I'm looking for something credible to cite about this controversy on the grounds that if someone's going to use Wikipedia to bash a game I rather like, they'd better be able to back it up. Did anyone get sued? Did INTENSE Software ever exist? Are there legal documents? Dn32 05:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
1) I'm certain that Intense Software is/was a fictional business name of Michael Krause. Registration of fictional business names is optional but not required in most states, including Pennsylvania. One doesn't have to be incorporated to use a fictional business name, anyone can.
2) It's think it's just as obvious as a claim of copyright infringement cannot be used to conceal or hide copyright infringement itself, neither non-disclosure agreements and trade secrets arrangements can be used to conceal copyright infringement or other illegal activities. The violator of the trade secret arrangement would of course be the Medievia coder who released the source code.
3) As one who has reviewed the Medievia and Merc sources myself and is quoted on the web pages, I'm of the opinion that the allegations are highly credible. Jlambert 04:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Dn32, please edify us as to where the "complete, compilable" C files are. All I see are diffs comparing the medievia code to corresponding files from the Merc (Diku-based) codebase. And even if you took those excerpts and removed the highlighting characters used by the diff tool and the relevant Merc codebase excerpts (which, as the analysis notes, are near-identical), you wouldn't have a compilable C file--those diff excerpts rely on headers which aren't present (if you are not a programmer, as seems to be the case, I can clarify in greater detail). Also, have you looked at http://www.arthmoor.com/med/faq.html ? It notes that medievia's owner, Michael Krause, had sent a signed fax containing legalese (there's an image of the fax) to the owner of another website, confirming that the code from which these excerpts are taken were in fact from "Medievia 4.1C".
Also, "Kavir" is Richard Woolcock, the author of the Godwars MUD codebase. I don't have a current contact address for him--perhaps another editor does? Regardless, his views have been documented thoroughly on that website, as well as in Usenet discussions!
Dn32, the Diku authors were effectively poor Danish university students--they didn't have the resources to sue someone all the way over in the US. They (Michael Seifert and Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt, two Diku creators) have however, on several occasions, stated that the Medievia codebase was Diku derived, and that MUDs such as Medievia, which took their code, removed the Diku credits despite objections and the terms of the license and used it to profit, in violation of the license, were (in the case of Hans Henrik) one of the reasons they stopped contributing to the open source MUD community.I view this as a tragedy.
(Warning: I'm going to digress a bit from the Wikipedia discussion into philosophy...) With numerous confirmatory statements by Medievia administrators and programmers such as Thranz, Omawarisan and others, the source code excerpts and so on, there can be very little doubt that Medievia continued to remain very much a Diku derivative well past the time the owner began profiting from it. (And not just to pay for servers and bandwidth, from what I understand...I've been given to understand that these profits have been considerable). I realize that you like this game, and it is no doubt fun to play, but please make a good faith effort to internalize the ethical issues raised by all of this--if administrators such as Omawarisan (who was, as I understand, very well-respected within the game community) felt troubled enough to step down, and volunteer programmers such as Thranz, who worked with the source code, felt the need to step down and make public statements regarding the nature of the source code, don't you feel that you as a player need to investigate and understand these ethical issues thoroughly? Do you honestly think that all of these detailed source code analyses and statements by former administrators are some sort of enormous conspiracy theory?
Traumerei 15:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


I am the author of the code comparison, which I put together after a Medievia supporter demanded proof of the claims being made against her favourite mud. At the time of making the comparison, the source code was publically available, and also examined by numerous other mud developers (some of whom I quoted).
The diff comparisons I made showed that Medievia IV and Merc had many thousands of lines of completely identical code - even including comments signed by two of the original Merc team. Most of the Medievia files I looked at contained more identical code than original, and in one case the only difference was a replaced copyright notice. I also obtained a copy of a fax which Krause had signed under penalty of perjury, in which he stated that the code I'd examined was Medievia IV. I later received emails from Krause threatening legal action if I didn't remove the code from the comparisons and black-out his address on the fax (which I did on my own copy of the website).
So in summary: Many people have examined the code, some extensively, and Krause has sworn under penalty of perjury that the code examined was Medievia IV. The findings and signed statements have been documented and made available to the public. I really don't think you could get much more in the way of compelling and verifiable evidence, but it can sometimes be difficult for a loyal player to accept such possibilities about their favourite mud.
The Diku/Merc licensing situation is by far the most noteworthy thing about Medievia, being almost the mud equivilent to Godwin's law - pretty much any heated mud discussion about code theft or licence violation will sooner or later result in comparisons involving Medievia or Krause. KaVir 00:23, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

The concern is not that the article is unsourced. The problem is that it is unsourced by the required non-trivial independent third-party sources, a main part of verifiability. DarkSaber2k 08:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I cannot verify the current game information as I don't play it. I suspect the only source is the game's website or in the game itself. Jlambert 06:27, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
For many of the claims in the article, especially a lot of the minor ones, it seems unlikely that a credible source will materialize. For example, I disagree with the statement that "[the Medievia classes] are constantly subject to tweaks over time" (to pick one of the less hotly contested ones). I've played the game for a while and basically game balance has stayed the same over that time. So what's the right thing to do here? User Traumerei warned me not to delete content and reverted some of my earlier changes. Do I annotate it to say, "some people believe that [...]" or what? That would make the statement more accurate, but not a bit more credible.

Dn32

Dn32, your statement is quite disingenuous--I requested that you refrain from deleting content that has been arrived at through consensus amongst multiple editors. That followed attempts to remove pertinent information, such as your removal of the fact that so-called donation items deteriorate, glossing over the fact that the vast majority of such items are purchased, and others. Additionally, your statements on this discussion page, such as characterizing exhaustively detailed sites containing pertinent source code excerpts and diffs (regarding the code provenance issue) as "smear sites" that let you download "several thousand lines" of the source code which, as user Tarc noted above, is effectively an "egregious lie", do not engender any great degree of confidence that your edits will be made in good faith. I should also note that if you believe that those source code excerpts are, in fact, from this game, the detailed analysis should leave you with no doubts regarding the copyright violation issue. Getting back to the game balance issue: if you have strong evidence that the classes are no longer being "tweaked" (I didn't add that statement, and I don't have much idea as to its currency, and it looks like that particular bit hasn't been discussed here previously), you could add details such as when the last major "tweak" was, and what the current state of affairs is. I've heard from people who have played the game that the "mage" class is comparatively powerful, and that the owner has, in fact, stated that it is the intent to have that class remain that way--do you disagree? It is also probably the case that a wikipedia article shouldn't delve into these sorts of game minutiae (as I noted above "The lengthy descriptions of game minutiae also appear to fall under the purview of WP:NOT (see the section under "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information"). I personally don't feel that sentence is particularly important--if it can't be clarified without adding a lot of mostly irrelevant information about in-game mechanics, which may not stay current, I'd suggest that the sentence be deleted, assuming other editors don't object. Traumerei 14:55, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this specific point (tweaking of classes), this does have significant bearing on the playability of an online game of this kind (for example, see the famous criticisms of the volatility of the value of items and characters in Everquest). It may be the case that recently there have been few major changes, but the comment that the character classes have been subject to regular change is valid. Some examples of major changes: single spell cast per round for casters to multiple casts per round (circa 1999?), fixed backstab multipliers to variable multipliers (circa 2001?), regular changes to the amount of self-healing for clerics (from no advantage - 50% same as everyone else, to full 100% heals on self, to the current 75% heals on self), single cast of heal specifically in combat for clerics (circa 2004?), cleric image nerf (circa 2002?), warrior backstab nerf (2003/2004?), changes to the strength of malediction for the different classes in the period 2000-2004. Minor changes occur continuously since there is regularly a new "power" equipment zone, some of whose items will be superior to those already in the game, causing a shift in power, often with complementary nerfs of existing equipment. Icelus2 16:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Icelus2, appreciate the clarification. If you feel this information would be helpful to readers, and that you can phrase it reasonably succinctly, please feel free to add. At some point, I suggest that editors more knowledgeable than I re-evaluate the somewhat verbose information about game mechanics, consider WP:NOT, and coalesce sections where possible. Thanks. Traumerei 18:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

There is always going to be great difficulty in sourcing an article on Medievia, since most of the communication about it takes place in a trivially forgeable format; short of the principals coming forward to state their opinions in a public place (as for Omawarisan, Thranz) it is hard to see how progress on this can be made. For example, I once personally asked the owner's wife about the source code controversy, and she told me it simply wasn't an issue - the Diku programmers didn't really care - the implication I took from it was that it was true, but since the Diku team refuse to file suit, they weren't going to worry about it. This is not verifiable, and doubtless she would deny it at this point.

Donation items can be quantified in terms of their effects, to justify the claim that the advantage is "significant". Take the basic minimum that most playable characters have ($100, 2 mystical talismans of medievia, 100 health and 7 damage roll each) and compare stats. I've worked this through here, as an example, for thieves: the player either has 2 more damage roll, and 200 more health [compared to 2 cecilia collars, 6 damage roll each - as far as I know the best free alternative], or 14 more damage roll and 100 more health for 100 less mana [based on rare, but possible, ivory plumes of maat at 50 health, 50 mana each]. Since thief stats in the game are normally between around 500 and 1200 health, and 40 and 100 damage roll, the two options can be compared percentage wise. The first gives the buyer between 17 and 40% more health, the second 14 to 35% more damage roll AND 8 to 20% more health. In practice, for a little more money ($100 the first year, $80 a year subsequently) you can add another 100 health and 100 mana (with no penalties whatsoever, no free items can be worn on the body locations heart or aura). Other donation items confer other significant advantages; in a contest between relatively evenly matched players, regenerative abilities are often decisive (the deciding factor is not just how much health you start out with, but how much health you can afford to lose over the entire span of the fight without dying, which is obviously crucially affected by how fast you're getting it back); the greatest rate of regeneration is only available for a yearly fee ($25 the first time, $20 subsequently), and the purchased item is again without penalties using a special focus location that cannot take any free item; free alternatives thus incur penalties to the rest of the player's statistics, and are also less effective. It is hard for numbers to convey alone the improbability of overcoming a player with these advantages.

There seems to be some confusion about the anger that some former players and administrators have toward the game. The easiest way to explain some of this is by reference to other profitable online games, like Everquest. Payment usually involves a contract between the buyer and seller, or giver and receiver, and in other online contexts the user or player gets some rights in exchange for their monthly fee. Since payments to Medievia are DONATIONS, and all work performed is VOLUNTARY, there are no contracts whatsoever entered into. A common strategy in years past was to delete the accounts of excitable, rich teenagers (complete with all the equipment they had donated for) and expect them to make new accounts and donate all over again. I can vouch for this having been systemic at one point, but of course, what sources could I cite even in principle? Some of them have continued to play, and will surely be deleted all over again if they step out of line and comment in the affirmative in a forum such as this; others will have long ago forgotten about Medievia. Similarly "staff" are largely unpaid, and even their work can be stripped of attribution (for example the creators of the zone "The Temple of Bloodstone" which was for many years the best, most complicated, and most prestigious zone in Medievia, are no longer attributed in the game). In short, Medievia makes a profit, but is generally unconstrained by the normal laws for corporations due the entirely charitable nature of its income, and good will of its administrators. This also probably deserves mentioning (in some less obviously bitter and POV form) in the article.

There are other sources of controversy in Medievia that might be worth mentioning. Some of the zones have used copyrighted material (The Wheel of Time; Dungeons and Dragons); some of these references have been removed [The City of Tear, Tar Valon], some have not [The Temple of Bloodstone, whose principal inhabitant is Vecna, Eldrick's Tomb(?)]. At one time there was a major effort to remove such material, but it appears to have stalled before being completed. Again, what sources are there to cite for these facts? There are only a few logs remaining of the old Tar Valon, and fewer still of Tear, and they could easily have been forged and are thus not authoritative in any useful sense. The game itself is evidence of the ongoing use of copyright material in the temple of Bloodstone, but if they changed it next week, it would be hard to provide any evidence that it was ever there.

More generally, there is a fundamental decision to be made about the amount of detail that a wikipedia entry about this game deserves. In articles on games from the 1970s (compare the Asteroids article) even strategy and game limitations are considered relevant. Here, there seems to be a feeling that even a feature list is too much; and yet even a straight feature list without analysis will come out inevitably to be pro-Medievia POV. In order for it to be balanced there would need to be discussion of limitations and failings, but this entails more detail still.

As such, the overview section still contains significant pro-Medievia bias, and is far from being a neutral point of view. Perhaps some of the feature discussion should be moved elsewhere as is common in other articles, and all MUDS availing themselves of it linked to them. Any Medievia-specific slant could be discussed here, independently. However, many of these features are far from unique to Medievia. Materiamagica's autoquest system long pre-dated Medievia's and is broadly comparable (in fact, as I recall, Medievia's AQ system sprang up after a group of players loudly moved to Materiamagica, perhaps inspiring the administration - this again is unverifiable). Similarly, the Medievia ship module bears substantial similarity to that of both Materiamagica and of Necromium. The tweak system is not unique to Medievia, and is included in many modern MUDs. The PK system is a general type - the specific types of PK are less important than the fact that it is segmented by area and not by character or server - and is common to a number of MUDs, notably Necromium [and perhaps Exile?]. Multiclassing should also probably be discussed somewhere else; it isn't even vaguely unique to Medievia, it is common to most MUDs now that are focussed on character power [Pokemon style] rather than role play.

I think the thrust of this is: perhaps generic elements should be cut, and if necessary moved to general articles on the feature and how it has been implemented in different places, if there is any interest in them [if not, then why write about them at all?]. Candidates for this include multiclassing, mapping, shipping and area based pk. There should be a basic summary of Medievia, in terms of its original codebase [Merc], age [16 years?] typical activity [100-300 players online], style [Hack'n'Slash/DnD - link to an article on this style of MUD perhaps?], before any detail is entered into. Subsequent sections on the game's history, features, limitations, strategies, administrators, business practices and licensing could be added as appropriate (I leave this decision of appropriateness for others to judge, but am probably capable of making a start on any/all of these).

Icelus2 04:33, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

"In short, Medievia makes a profit, but is generally unconstrained by the normal laws for corporations due the entirely charitable nature of its income, and good will of its administrators. This also probably deserves mentioning (in some less obviously bitter and POV form) in the article." - This hardly deserves mentioning unless you can provide some source, well any source whatsoever, that there is some sort of special immunity for this corporation (Medievia.com Inc.?) from contract or tax law. Jlambert 05:36, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I looked it up, and Medievia.com, Inc. is indeed incorporated in the State of Pennsylvania. I was actually expecting it to be a LLC, which it isn't, apparently. But there's a lot of confusion and inaccuracy about what that actually means, both in the article and in this discussion. I edited some parts of the article a while back, but Traumerei reverted them. For-profit has nothing to do with how much the company makes or whether it receives donations or whatnot. It simply means that the proprietors get paid, i.e., Michael Krause runs the game for a living, not just as a hobby. It almost certainly means that the company pays taxes just like everyone else. Dn32 06:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
I was referring more to the fact that players "give" their money away rather purchasing anything, and as such are claimed to benefit from none of the typical rights granted to consumers; ie it was a comment on (what seems to me) somewhat shady business practice, rather than specific legal exemptions. My impression of the legality of this stance isn't based on anything useful - if it's the opinion of those with more knowledge about American law in general that this is either impossible (consumers cannot lose their rights simply because they "donate" instead of "buy") or that it is uninformative (there is no ethical or legal question raised by the transfer of large amounts of money from players to Medievia without the transfer of any responsibilities to Medievia) then it does seems reasonable not to mention this. Icelus2 10:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Surely they have the same "consumer rights" as one who would purchase items in games using the similar business models, such as Achaea or Eve Online. I don't know the terms of the transactions myself nor whether any consumer has ever attempted to exercise their "rights", so I can't comment. That the principals of Medievia.com call them "donations" rather than "purchases" doesn't change the nature of the transaction. I myself would have trouble coming up with an example of a corporation with a for-profit status designation that solicits "donations". Jlambert 05:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Improving the quality of this article

The current style of this article is horrible; the first half reads like promotional literature, the second half like an angry critique. I have rewritten this fully offline, and will now upload it. I have made the following changes that are worthy of discussion (i.e. this is pre-justification in the hope of avoiding an editor's revert based on incomplete information):

  1. I have changed the introduction to be clearer, but kept the same information.
  2. I've added a brief (at present) history section, mainly explaining the version numbers.
  3. I've added a 5 paragraph summary of the game's notable features and gameplay, and have attempted to do this from a NPOV.
  4. I've added a section on Medievia's business model, discussing the major donation items and their effects.
  5. I've added a section on copyright infringements (WoT, DnD).
  6. I've tried to clarify and restate the discussion of Medievia's license infringements.
    1. While I don't personally doubt that Medievia is in violation of its obligations, it is not the place of an encyclopedia to come to conclusions, only to state facts. As such I have clearly separated the claims regarding Medievia's status as a derived work, from the violations of the license of DikuMUD, stressing that Medievia violates these terms only if it is a derived work.
    2. I have removed references to Omawarisan's opinions; these should be in the history section if present at all. Oma clearly states he has no expert knowledge of the question, but has been convinced by secondary sources available to the reader. In contrast, Thranz clearly does have expert knowledge, and I have retained his quotes.

I think the result is much better, although I recognise that it is likely that I would think so, given that I wrote it. It has not been my intention to whitewash anything. I am both a player of many years, and no particular friend of this mud's administration. Comments and improvements are welcome. Icelus2 09:31, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Icelus2, appreciate your efforts, but don't be surprised if your changes are "mercilessly re-edited" (that's a phrase from an official wikipedia policy :) I do want to state that if you've done a wholesale rewrite, please do not upload it en masse. Instead, I suggest uploading your efforts in an incremental fashion, so editors can look at what information has been changed more clearly, and that over a period of days. Also, I believe the statement that the section on the code provenance issue reads like an "angry critique" is a mischaracterization. The bit I'm going to reword is the statement along the lines of "since medievia...is a violation" (and perhaps some structural reworking, since the section was arrived at by numerous edits by different editors)--it should be rephrased as an observation rather than a factual statement; I'll change that right now. I also disagree that Omawarisan's claims are not relevant--have you read his statement? He was an administrator of the game, and if anything, his statements are more relevant than most (including the mere fact that he felt the need to step down over this issue). Also, he certainly does not explicitly state that his only knowledge of the license violation issue is from secondary sources ;"Because there is overwhelming evidence that Medievia IV is not only a derivative of Diku, but contains stock and modified Diku code" is all that is present in his statement, and I suggest refraining from drawing conclusions--my understanding is that he was a high level administrator. Kurt Schwind's page mentions another administrators who has made statements regarding this issue.
Also, I should note that the game's statements have vacillated considerably, ranging from the non-derivative work defense with claims that the entirety of the old codebase was discarded the moment "donation" items were introduced (circa 1996), with more recent embellishments regarding 64-bit and C++, to outright denial of its Merc origins.
Interestingly, I just found a post by Hans Henrik, one of the Diku creators, on Google Groups. I'll add a reference to that as well. Icelus2, please edit away, but please do not remove any critical content, especially references. Thanks.Traumerei 14:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
The relevant quote from Omawarisan (stating that his opinions are solely from secondary sources is as follows:

How many have the ability to know that it's diku/merc? Well from the med side, only those that code. Mostly 144+ gods. Any coder with a clue, I've been told, can easily see what is NOT original to Medievia (I personally have not seen enough code online, nor do I know enough about coding to know). But anyone with some brain functions can look at KaVir's comparisons and look at the Medievia supporting "rebuttals" aka advertisements and come to a conclusion.

This is taken from the following source cited in the article: Google groups archive of Omawarisan Icelus2 21:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I have uploaded my rewrite of what is likely to be the most controversial section for one half the readership (the licensing question); I have 4 further sections: a single paragraph introduction, a single paragraph history explaining version numbers, a 5 paragraph summary of the important points of the gameplay and feature set, and a section on Medievia's business model explaining its donation scheme. Since you (Traumeriei) advised I upload this in stages, I have uploaded the section I suspect you have strongest feelings about first. Should we reach consensus on this part, I will then upload the next. Icelus2 22:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Icelus, the point by point organization does read better--thanks! I've made a few changes to your first set of edits, including:
  • Clarifying that some of the code excerpts on the Arthmoor site are from 2000, as is Thranz's statement.There's some data indicating that at least some (and possibly most) of Medievia's C++ changes are simple renaming/reorganizing (which would not remove the derivative work label...recall that even when the code was purportedly C++, there were apparently several plain C headers and source files which remained identical to Merc, but I'm not certain where that sort of clarification would fit in).
  • Clarified that the fax contained Medievia's owner (Michael Krause)'s signature
  • Clarified all mentions of donation items--"donation item" is doublespeak for an item that is sold in-game.
  • Add a section regarding the consequences of the code provenance issue. I will look for further citations.This section could potentially be somewhat reworded for clarity/encyclopedic tone, and I welcome expansion.
  • I do apologize for the lack of a timely response (have been really busy), and will take a look at your second set of edits soon.Traumerei
Traumerei: I agree that a section on the effects of the controversy was needed; that section as it stands may not yet be quite finished, as there are probably more things to say here. I have made some changes however, but I have tried to avoid simply reverting parts I disagreed with:
  • The DikuMUD license does not prohibit the sale of in-game items; it prohibits making a profit in any way, as the relevant section says. Adding that claim to the beginning of the section is unhelpful and I have removed it.
  • In the section on the licensing dispute, I have changed the language so that both sides "state"; in my original edit both sides "claimed", after your recent edit only the "bad guys" "claim", the good guys "state". I personally think it reads better as "claim" on both sides, but I was trying to avoid reverting the changes.
  • In 2000, Medievia was in version 4, not "4+"; this gives a misleading impression that Medievia 5 might have been available in 2000. I also removed my original word "publicly" on the basis that all the statements cited are public and it was redundant (or should have been applied throughout).
  • There was a decimal revision number past "4"; I do not recall what it was. This was the intent of "4+". My understanding is that the game's version numbers are essentially meaningless and intended for marketing purposes (there is no release schedule), and that changes are made on a continual basis. That should be clarified somewhere. Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • This is not a necessary assumption. It is true that the major versions are the only ones that are ever discussed; the standard way of showing a minor version number is 4.x, rather than 4+. The question of what a version is if it isn't marketing is another matter altogether. Changes are not "continual": since 1996 there have been exactly 2 major version changes: 3-4, 4-5. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The further comments on the exact nature of the similarities on the code are, in my opinion, not helpful: they do not establish any more than the site that is referenced does. It cannot be claimed that the comments are original, only that they appear to be original. The debate about the linux versus minix codebase (see Tanenbaum's discussion of the controversy) shows this quite clearly. I have not removed these new additions, even though they muddy the exposition, in the hope of reaching some consensus, but I have qualified the commentary to make it clear that it is not a statement of fact.
  • The previous version of the article contained direct quotes from some of the principals in the controversy; reducing them to a series of one-liners is an action fraught with the possibility of introducing POV. I'd rather err on the side of verbosity than omit critical information, and I do not agree that the addition "muddies exposition"-- it clarifies the extent of the similarities; any programmer will understand that while stylistic similarities may be coincidental, it is improbable in the extreme that identical comments and uncommon variable names would appear in unrelated code. If we can find a citation for the statement by "Furey", one of the Merc programmers whose comments appear verbatim in the leaked code, we should add it. Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The previous article contained direct quotes from the people you perceive as being on the right side of the controversy and as such was a slanted and ineffective presentation of what is a relatively straightforward set of facts. Including the quotes from the Diku team at all is questionable since they are only commenting on code that it is not clear was ever played (4.1c is a beta port test version) and as such it is not clear that the particular code that has been leaked generated any revenue. I have tried to move this article to a situation in which it states facts not merely "a set of damaging allegations by various people about Medievia". Medievia is obviously at fault; it isn't necessary to "nobble the jury" too. There is a lack of intellectual integrity here that I find depressing. Why is there all this work at attempting to add more quotes from anti-Medievia sources, when we don't have any attribution whatsoever for the straw men placed on Medievia's side of the argument. I can find no sourcing whatsoever for the claims attributed to Medievia; the closest I can get is the 64-bit claim which is attributed to Mordegast who is noone - he is not an administrator, and he doesn't speak for Medievia Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Icelus2, please refrain from incivil comments--your accusation of "lack of intellectual integrity" is quite incivil (see WP:CIVIL). To my knowledge, no one has ever quoted the Medievia administrators--I certainly did not remove any quotes from them. As you will note from Kurt Schwind's page, people have tried to contact the Medievia administrators for an official comment, but they have not responded. Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Adding the comments on the code from the year 2000, and then not qualifying the discussion of the fax, appeared to claim the fax established the authenticity of the code from 2000; this is obviously not the case. In fact, we have no evidence whatsoever for the source of these code fragments, interesting as they are, as the only public leak that I am aware of occurred in 96; after that, the owners became much more cautious.
  • It was not my intent to imply that--my apologies. Furthermore, the fax explicitly specifies a date ("Medievia 4.1C code and libraries from 1996"), and I see no way anyone who read it could've arrived at that conclusion. Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • You assume they follow the links. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • You have stated repeatedly that we should "let the readers decide", and excised quotes based on that assumption--assuming readers read references is not unreasonable, given that assumption. Regardless, I agree with the clarification.Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have qualified the statements attributed to the Diku authors. Kavirs page cannot establish Seiferts comments, as this is an uncontrolled, biased medium. I can find no google groups or other references for these comments. In any case Kavirs site doesn't establish them as having been made.
  • I believe Seifert's statement was from a direct e-mail to Kavir. Seifert has made some statements on Usenet, but I can't find anything later than 1994 (the 1994 statement was regarding the lack of Diku credits on Medievia). I see that "Kavir" has commented on this page--perhaps he can clarify?Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The email from Michael Siefert was sent to several people including myself. I'm certain none of the email addies are no longer valid, so the full text and headers follow:
From: "Michael Seifert" <seifert@dikumud.com>
To: <Richard.Woolcock@rsuk.rohde-schwarz.com>,
        "Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt" <hhs@cbs.dtu.dk>,
        "Michael Seifert" <seifert@dikumud.com>,
        "Brian Moore" <bem@news.cmc.net>,
        "AxL" <axl@wpcr.plymouth.edu>,
        "Jon A. Lambert" <jlsysinc@ix.netcom.com>,
        "Anti Medievia" <anti_med@xoommail.com>
Subject: RE: Medievia IV's breach of Diku license
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 08:19:44 -0400

Hi Richard,

I have been shown the MidThieveia code -
version 4 I believe it was (approx. in 1997).
Only a very brief examination was required
in order for me, as an author of DikuMud,
to recognize my old code.

There is no doubt that it is Diku based.
I can not say if it was also Merc based as
I am not familiar with the Merc derivative.

In any circumstance, Diku Mud is copyrighted
with the US copyright office. The TX# can be
found on the Diku Mud website.

Actually, I believe that Gamers.com wrote about
MidTheivia in connection with the dispute we had
with EverQuest,

Good luck (I have spent many hours having futile
conversations with Mike) :-)

Best regards,



Michael Seifert
M. Sc. Computer Science
Author of Diku Mud

Secondly, KaVir's web page comparison is a published secondary source. Attempting to establish the provenance of his primary sources is an exercise in "original research". Jlambert 09:29, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

  • The repeated use of the term "license violation" implies a conclusion, where it is not the place of this article to come to any conclusion. I have restated to indicate that the opinions of those cited are their own, especially since we know that most of the Medievia staff have no insider knowledge of the truth of this. In addition, Thranz has his own motives for his claims regarding Medievia, in that he was attempting to set up a competitive, for-profit MUD, targetted at the Medievia playerbase as his initial customers, at the time he made those comments.
  • We do not "know" anything of the sort; Omawarisan in particular was close to several of the programmers, and while he was not (as far as I know) a programmer, he certainly had insider knowledge. My understanding is that legal threats have prevented other programmers from speaking out openly; consequently, they cannot be cited.Also, your statement does a disservice to "Thranz"--the earliest mention I can find of his game (looking for statements by him on Google Groups and on the web) is from 2002, and a web archive examination of his domain shows that it wasn't until 2002 that any mention of the game appears. My understanding is that "Thranz" did leave the game due to concerns regarding the Diku issue (his comments on google groups are dated c. 2000), rather than with any intention of starting his own game (something that came much later.) Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • You appear to claim a better knowledge of who could know whether Medievia was Diku based than Oma, who clearly states that very few of the Medievia admins, and in particular only coders could know such a think. Are any of the cited persons coders apart from Thranz? Secondly, I responded to an ad placed by Thranz in summer 2001 to work on his new codebase, Seyana, which had been in development for over a year at that point it was claimed. In any event, even if none of that were true, it would still be inappropriate to trust someone's word without qualification. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have been given to understand that Omawarisan corroborated his information from a friend and programmer for the game, namely "Baalzebul", who was certainly privy to inside information. Recall also that Omawarisan was a high level administrator, and one who had been around for some time. I do not have citations for these statements, nor do I anticipate any, and I don't plan to add anything to the article based on this. Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Medievia does not claim to sell anything. The concept of donating cash and receiving some in-game signification is common (a rosette, a lapel pin, a special title or tag). The fact that this signification in Medievia is both (1) linked to particular donation amounts (2) quite so powerful, could lead one TO MAKE THE ARGUMENT that these are sales. But this is not the place to make arguments. We are merely meant to uncover and present the facts and leave it to the intelligence of the reader to decide whether an item I donate $40 every year to stay competitive for is a "donation" or a "purchase". I have tried to meet the existing editors some way on this issue, but fundamentally if an organisation asks for donations then surely that terminology is normative; we can present evidence that questions quite how much of a gesture of good-will players are making, but to simply remove the term wholesale is going too far in my opinion. Or would you claim that Amnesty international "sells" certificates: "donate" for a village, get a certificate?
  • The Amnesty International analogy is disingenuous in the extreme; Amnesty International does not offer goods and services (virtual as they may be in this case) in lieu of donations; given the active in game market for "donation" items, a point which your rewrite has omitted, these items have real monetary value both in terms of human labor and actual currency (this is well established due to similar occurrences in MMOGs such as Second Life and Everquest).
  • There is no in-game market for donation items as they are permanently locked to a given character to ensure people have to buy multiple sets. At present I have 3 characters with donation items and if I want to make another I will either have to suffer huge stat penalties or pay more money. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • As I'm sure you're aware, I was referring to so-called "donation deals", which are a game sanctioned way for players to trade gold or items to other players in exchange for proxy "donations" Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Medievia also provides an in game mechanism to increase revenue by facilitating so-called "donation deals", see http://www.medievia.com/help/WITNESS.html, which contains the phrase "One way to get donation items if you are short on real life money is to barter Medievia items with a player who is willing to pay for the donation items". The whole "donation item" neologism is a tattered veneer, and one that Wikipedia should not be in the business of perpetuating.
  • This is clearly biased POV. Donation deals were introduced to combat fraud not to increase cashflow. I remember, I was there. It might be incautiously worded, but the fundamental fact is that it is a matter of opinion whether the system exists to enable a group of likeminded players to support a game or whether it puts Mike's kids through college. There is no evidence one way or the other. In any event it is irrelevant to the licensing question, as if at any time Medievia ever cleared more funds than it needed to support itself it would make a "profit" and violate the license AND there is substantial in-game evidence (e.g. the appeal dated a couple of weeks ago asking for donations to help restock the contingency fund, not to mention money for lawyers that came from somewhere) that Medievia has made such a profit. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Icelus2, your statements make it increasingly hard to assume good faith--"incautiously worded", "no evidence", "matter of opinion"?! Are you now stating that there is no evidence that Medievia has contravened the Diku license? I distinctly recall a time when "donation deals" officially contravened the rules of the game; however, upon realizing that they opened up a further avenue for revenue, the game administrators allowed them, and in response to fraud and consequent administrator overhead (including purges which, as you have noted yourself, may be a tool to induce addicted players to re-purchase items when used in a targeted fashion, unlike in this case...something I was unaware of). Also, I don't understand your last sentence, please clarify. Thanks. Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The rewrite has also deleted information about other purchased items such as the "blessing" and the "shrine"; I intend to add those back in.
  • If you add in all the different donation items you merely allow supporters of the game to argue about the parts that do not provide an unquestionable advantage. The blessing is no more than a convenience item - noone needs one to be competitive in any part of Medievia. The shrine is even less necessary. Dragon crystals are available by donation and in game (the only item you can get either way). The chimes of changing are just a convenience item similarly; they confer no advantage you couldn't get from just putting in a little bit more time - almost noone buys chimes. A pocket is just convenient, it doesn't give you any substantial advantage. A charm gives you an advantage but the argument of exactly when is complicated and unnecessarily so: for almost everyone the advantages are irrelevant; yet again it's just a convenience item. In your fervour to show what an evil corporation Medievia is, you will leave open the door to a hundred refutations. As someone with a clearly greater knowledge of the donation items than you, having owned almost all of them before I became concerned about both licensing and rights, I find it odd that you feel it necessary to add in descriptions of things you appear to know nothing about. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Please do not make assumptions regarding my knowledge of the game, or lack thereof. Items such as the pocket greatly aid playing within the "catacombs" and minimize inventory management annoyance; I know of several players who state that it is one of the most useful donation items. The shrine/blessing combination is very useful to recover from "player-kill" deaths in "grave NPK" areas and other situations. Again, please recall WP:CIVIL.Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, the extremes cited for hit point and damage roll values (my understanding is that very few players have 1400 hitpoints or 100 damage roll, and those that do almost certainly have purchased items, or aren't viable builds) minimize the significance of the effects of the purchased items; I intend to rewrite that in terms of base hitpoint values and a comparison of the effects of free/non-free builds (which I do agree is a good idea in principle) when I have a chance.Traumerei
  • Base hitpoint values are meaningless. There are at least 4 sets, they vary randomly, and in any case it would make no difference; it all depends on the ALTERNATIVES. Your fervour will be the undoing of reason in this article. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Please try and refrain from attacks (additionally, "all caps" is regarded as "shouting" online). Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • And speaking of undue weight, omitting the fact (which may require citation) that very few people receive these items in exchange for services rendered (a form of barter) rather than in exchange for currency seems to imply that the former is a common occurrence.Traumerei
  • Very few is a subjective term. I'm not sure it is "very few"; I'm not sure it matters either. The licensing terms are very clear: giving away few, very few, or quite a few donation items wouldn't change the legality of the system in any way. What is it that you are trying to accomplish? I started off with no sympathy for the pro-Medievia editors who have attempted to change the wording of the relevant sections, however I am rapidly coming to the same conclusio nthat many of them seemed to have: being neutral isn't sufficient for this article, being ANTI medievia is required. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry you feel this way (though it is unclear if the sentiment is genuine or simulated). Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • We should also make it clear that Medievia was selling items well before the Medievia.com's date of incorporation--I don't know precisely when that was (1995?), but it was certainly before "Medievia 4", i.e. 1996. Can someone with more authoritative knowledge (Kavir, Jlambert?) clarify? Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The first date I found was December 1995, in the form of a groups post of a Medievia news item. This is UNVERIFIABLE. Adding information which you know cannot be verified seems irresponsible to me. In any case it is irrelevant as Medievia continues to be in breach to this day. Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • It is relevant to show that the earliest date for which source code whose provenance has been established was from after the point Medievia began soliciting donations. I found a posting dated 1994, as well as corroboratory statements by "Sultress", a former Medievia administrator.Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • The top mud sites page makes no mention of the removal of Medievia that I can find: Medievia is still listed, but unranked. If it has been removed, the link here should be to an official statement of removal and the reasons for it (I'm sure it has been removed: Medievia has a strong history of "encouraging" players to vote and it would surely be ranked if it had not been removed). As such I have removed the citation and asked for another.

Icelus2 03:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

  • Your statement has merit; my idea was that the fact that Medievia, an active game, does not appear in that list should make the statement self-evident, but a better citation would be good. Traumerei 06:02, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I find it ironic that you hold up TopMudSites as an example of the license sensitive world, when Materia Magica has been dogged by the same accusations as Medievia and is currently their featured MUD...Icelus2 07:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I was unaware of this, and the article for that MUD makes no mention of any license related controversies --if you have evidence of this, please edit the article in question. Once again, please recall WP:CIVIL. Why do you assume that I am somehow hypocritical? I have not played that MUD, but I did play Medievia until I (as a software engineer who has reason to be concerned about this sort of thing) became aware of this isssue. Traumerei 08:05, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I have removed the section of direct quotation from Michael Seifert as I felt that the beliefs of the Diku authors are only as relevant as the code they examined: we have already established that the public 1996 leak is authentic and Diku based; having them listed separately adds undue weight simply by volume of text. I have instead merged it with the summary Hans Henrik's statements. Furthermore, Kavirs site does not establish these comments as have being made. It is not that I doubt Kavir's veracity, it is simply that a quote on a third party's site, without any supporting evidence cannot be taken as a fact. If it were Michael Seifert's page, then it would be reasonable to cite it. If it were the page of a disinterested third party, like google groups, or usenet, then it would be reasonable to cite it. As it is, I do not believe it is reasonable to cite it, at the very least because no context is porvided. As such i have removed the reference, and added a citation flag. Icelus2 04:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
The web site created by KaVir is by definition created by a disinterested third party. You have Wikipedia sourcing turned on it's head. The "interested" parties in the controversy over the source of the code would be the DikuMud authors and the principals of Medievia. KaVir's site is a secondary source and you provide no logical reason whatsoever for reexamining the primary sources KaVir uses on his site. You would have a reason if you found quotes on that site that were fictitious. The less reliable site IMNSHO is in fact the interested party's site, the Medievia site. See the history discussion section and compare that to the Medievia site. Jlambert 05:02, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


A day has passed without reverts, and without negative commentary of any kind on the first section uploaded, so I have uploaded a second section, replacing "More about Medievia" with "Business model." I hope it will be agreed that the table is a clearer exposition of the relative merits of donation items, compared to those freely available. Inevitably, I have no sources to cite for this data, anyone who has better data, or verifiable sources, should add them. The only controversial changes that I can see are: I have removed the discussion of the draconian charm, since this is a convenience item and only affects competitiveness for a small number of players, similarly I have no exhaustively catalogued the different donation items; in practice the ones listed provided the greatest enhancements to player statistics and capabilities. Icelus2 00:26, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Medievia.com, Inc.'s status as a corporation

Thanks to JLambert we now have a reference showing that Medievia is a registered corporation, however I am concerned about what this link establishes precisely. In particular:

  1. I (like many other interested parties, perhaps) am not an expert on US law, and it isn't clear to me that the link proves that Medievia is a for-profit corporation. I want to be clear that I don't doubt that it makes a profit, but in Non-profit organizations it says:

    [A NPO] may also legally and ethically trade at a profit.

    and in Not-for-profit corporation it says:

    ... the term not-for-profit corporation may include any non-profit organization ...

  2. I have seen it claimed that Medievia is an S corporation; if we could verify that, would it show that Medievia was for-profit? However, this link doesn't seem to establish that Medievia is an S corporation (and the closest reference I can find to evidence is just commentary on rgmd that this is "probably" how it has been set up).
  3. The links For-profit corporation and Non-stock corporation suggest that if Medievia is a stock corporation, it must be for-profit (do we have any evidence Medievia is?) Otherwise, if Medievia is non-stock then it could be non-profit. I suppose what I am asking is how to establish this confidently?
  4. Although some of the preceding links establish limitations on what a non-profit organisation can do, it isn't clear that they aren't defining that term as for 501(c), in which it lists a particular 28 types of corporation as being eligible for tax relief; 501(c) doesn't appear to limit the definition of a non-profit organisation or corporation to these 28 types.

As it is, I don't see how the claim that Medievia is a for-profit corporation is justified in text. In fact, as far as I can tell, the term is meaningless. Why is this claim even necessary? It seems to me that given that a non-profit can trade at a profit, and that the Diku license prohibits making any profit in any way, even a NPO would be unable to trade on the codebase. It seems to me that this "for-profit" tag weakens the presentation, rather than strengthening it.

Without further clarification being provided, I propose changing the wording to make it clear that this is an unreferenced claim, or removing the claim entirely on the basis that it is irrelevant or quite possibly meaningless.

As an aside, I don't feel that it can be argued that my edits are sympathetic to Medievia, but I do wonder whether there are NPOV issues here. What is the significance of whether it is a corporation intended to make a profit or not? I feel confident that the Diku license establishes that Medievia cannot ACTUALLY make a profit, regardless of intentions, and remain within the bounds of the license.

In any case, this addition looks like a slanted POV to me (the words for-profit are added as a pejorative, rather than in any sense trying to clarify the issues). It is not the place of an encyclopedia to PROVE a particular disputed fact. It is OBVIOUSLY the case that Medievia is operating in violation of the Diku license; it is obvious to anyone who reads the facts; by adding in extra "semi-facts" that might or might not be true, the editors merely give credibility to the idiots who regularly appear here to claim this is all a smear campaign.

Let us stick to facts. They already speak for themselves. Icelus2 17:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Non profit corporations are required to make a public filing of that status. The absence of any filing is evidence that they are not a non-profit corporation. For-profit may indeed be claimed to be redundant, as corporations are by default organized for profit unless they file for non-profit status. As a compromise I would propose removing the Mediavian POV term "donations" and replacing it with "purchases". There would be no reason to for the clarifying but redundant term "for profit" then. As such there is reason to include the redundant "for profit" as the term "donation" is deceptive. Jlambert 21:53, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

I have changed the wording so as to stress that Medievia.com, Inc. is a corporation which derives revenue from the game. This is clearly true; I have also qualified the initial occurrence of the term "donation item" to make it clear that this is likely to be a purchased item. I hope this will be found to be an acceptable compromise. Icelus2 02:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I find this discussion puzzling; Medievia's for-profit status goes to the crux of the issue, given the wording of the Diku license (which refers to "profit", and was written by non-native speakers of English with no legal background). The current rewrite reads:
"As discussed in the section on Medievia's business model, Medievia.com, Inc. receives revenue linked to the sale of in-game items (donation items). It has been claimed [5] this revenue far exceeds Medievia's costs."
Specifically, the statements by Kavir and others, while relevant, are overshadowed by Medievia.com, Inc's for-profit status. I also disagree that "for-profit" is redundant--while that may be the case for readers familiar with the legal niceties and intricacies of US business terms, it is far from obvious to the lay reader. It also ties in to the ethical aspects of the issue; while many people may condone receiving donations to pay for equipment (despite any technical license violations), profiting from code appropriation would be rather more serious, and we would be doing a disservice to readers by glossing over the fact that Medievia is not a non-profit (i.e. a for-profit). I think the "for-profit" term, redundant as it may be for those who are familiar with the legal definition of "corporation" (sans the "non-profit" prefix), should be reinstated. Traumerei 06:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with this reading. Medievia's for-profit status, or otherwise, is irrelevant since, as pointed out above, the license makes no statement about INTENTIONS and a corporation may have the stated aim of making profit or not without limiting its actual ability to do so. Secondly, to what extent is it clear WITH CITABLE EVIDENCE that Medievia turns a profit. I'm sure it does, but what reference can you cite for this? Simply believing something isn't sufficient to make it canon, as you surely know. Once again, there appears to be insufficient commitment to veracity here. As far as the license goes, it would be legal for Medievia to be a for-profit company that didn't make a profit. Icelus2 07:18, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
"Insufficient commitment to veracity" translates to an accusation of lying--please recall WP:CIVIL. I believe in good faith that Medievia is an enterprise that has profited in the past, and perhaps continues to do so. I know of no way to obtain tax returns for Medievia, but I knew of no way to cite that it was a registered corporation either--Jlambert has ingeniously done so. Perhaps something similar will come to light. Traumerei 08:40, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The table lists donation items in which the cost is listed as free. How so? What's the minimum purchase price for these items? Jlambert 04:50, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The donation items are in bold; the rest are the free alternatives, as per the caption. In the particular case of the talisman, it is free for subsequent years (once you've bought it, its yours forever). The rest, as the table shows, must be repurchased every year. Icelus2 04:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Nb the reason for doing this is the original text contained various difficult to prove claims like "significant improvement" or "extreme disadvantage". Instead, here I have merely attempted to show the difference between the best you could do (assuming infinite time and game money) without donating, and what you get for donating. Icelus2 04:56, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accusation of bias by Icelus2

It has become clear to me I don't have the time or will-power to edit this page. There is clear, blatant bias on the part of some of the editors (Traumerei), shocking hypocrisy, a lack of candour and a lack of intellectual rigour. This page will always be a disaster because the concept of NPOV does not exist here. As such I wash my hands of it; I only wish I had spent less time naively assuming the pro-Medievia editors were the only trolls. Who needs evidence when you have unattributed accusations, unsubstantiated allegations, one hand on the revert button and the other on WP:CIVIL. Some of us have better things to do than participate in collaborative Jerry Springer episode construction. Good day. Icelus2 08:53, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL is a wikipedia policy--don't you think that editing would proceed better if you didn't repeatedly use derogatory labels? Icelus2, I'm afraid your "outrage" seems entirely simulated. I certainly have not employed the "revert button" when it comes to your edits either (I haven't even edited the article since yesterday afternoon (though user Jlambert has, reinstating information which you appear to disagree with), and the only changes there that can be considered major (and really, only if your have a strongly pro-Medievia POV, which appears to be the case despite your professed denials) were the re-insertion of former administrator Omawarisan's comments (with citation, which you seemed to agree to, despite your initial deletion) and clarifying the meaning of "donation items", to which you responded with an analogy equating Medievia with Amnesty International. I've also expressed an intent to add information about some other purchased items, which you seemed to object to strongly (and in my view, unreasonably and inexplicably), as well as the game's "donation deal" mechanism to allow players to purchase items by proxy, which is, again, of great relevance, and can be well-sourced. You have not responded to my comments. Traumerei 17:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I will note that this article has been visited sporadically by various single purpose account WP:SPA editors such as yourself, and the efforts by such editors have invariably been in the direction of removing information. To be perfectly honest, I feel that your edits fit the profile of a "straw puppet" (WP:SOCK; it is also curious that user Dn32 has not yet responded). Also, you have stated that the statements by Medievia administrators regarding the game's derivative work status are "strawmen", and the article is deficient because the statements regarding the copyright issue have more citations, and this reflects the faults of existing editors. How so? The game's principals have, in fact, on a couple of occasions removed the article in its entirety and replaced it with an advertisement for the game; as you will note on one of the linked pages ("Kurt Schwind's page"), people have tried and failed to elicit specific responses from them to clarify the issue, and I have been informed that people who raise the issue have had their game characters removed or penalized. You state that you have spoken to the owner and/or his spouse, also a game administrator--perhaps you can convince them to clarify the extent of the C++ and 64-bit conversions (which currently aren't backed by citations, as you note, and cannot be verified given that the game is closed-source) on their website. I did find a link with the standard talking points on the Medievia website which mentions C++, which I will add if there are no objections by other editors.Traumerei 17:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
I've reworded the title of this discussion section that you created from "Bias, what bias" to "Accusation of Bias by Icelus2" for clarity...if you disagree, please feel free to change it back. Traumerei 17:51, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

I've assessed this as a start class article. Try adding some images and wikify the article better. --Samtheboy (t/c) 11:04, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

So, wait, you're suggesting adding images to an article about a text based game. Seriously?

[edit] History

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.mud.misc/msg/6b6c2e02fd2901d3?dmode=source&hl=en

Date  : Tue, 21 Sep 93 02:13:38 EDT
Sender: s...@netaxs.com
Name  : Medievia
Addr  : 129.32.32.98 4000 (bigboy.cis.temple.edu 4000)

Theme :
    Based in a post apocalyptic future, where technology was lost in two
cataclysmic galaxy spanning wars, the mud is a fantasy based mud, with the
intention of introducing technology into the game's theme in the future.
"The Story of Medievia" is available on the mud in the general store for
the full details on the background.

History:
    Original concepts by Michael A. Smith, based on Merc 1.0 code, with
modifications by Michael A. Krause and future modifications to be added by
another programmer. A "War Of The Gods" has caused a great deal of
problems with the mud's operation, at this time the administrator is in
the process of trying to help resolve those problems. The Programmer is
being replaced, and many of the gods are being dismissed and new ones
added to replace them.

Other:
 See the Medievia Story, Faq, and other texts on the mud itself for
more detailed information.

Medievia was placed online in Feburary of 1993, officially went up
"non-test basis" on April 1st (April Fools Day, we should have anticipate
the problems! ugh! :)).

Original Implimentors: Highlander (Michael A. Smith / s...@netaxs.com
                                   msm...@bigboy.cis.temple.edu)
                       Balor      (Anthony Rowley / rid...@netaxs.com
                                   rid...@bigboy.cis.temple.edu)
                       Vryce      (Michael A. Krause) [Code work]
                                   address withheld due to his replacement.

Current Implimentors: Highlander (see above)
                      Balor      (see above)
                      A programmer to be named shortly.

For more information, send me mail.
s...@netaxs.com / msm...@bigboy.cis.temple.edu

http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=files&s=displayfile&fid=262&d=Merc/&f=Merc/README.TXT

Merc Release 1.0
Friday 18 December 1992

Kahn    michael@web.berkeley.edu
Hatchet mitchell@ocf.berkeley.edu
Furey   mec@garnet.berkeley.edu

None of the above which was posted on Usenet at the time and found in the original Merc sources seems to be in agreement with the version of history cited on the Medievia web page. Jlambert 05:38, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Very interesting! Perhaps this information should be collated into a history section within the article, noting the discrepancies with the game's version? Traumerei 06:52, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
The same information is mentioned at the beginning of my code comparison article (after the quotes). Medievia have responded on a couple of occasions by ignoring the google article and claiming that they had an early beta release of the Merc code. However Kahn (of the Merc team) has stated that there were definitely no early releases. KaVir 11:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


The original owner of Medievia (Mike Smith) also made an announcement a little while after the mud opened, as there was some contraversy about them using the same IP address and port number as another mud - when the players of Adversary tried to log on to their favourite game, they found themselves playing Medievia instead. Obviously this was a great way to build up an initial playerbase, but it also (unsurprisingly) upset many Adversary players and was frowned upon by other mud owners. See below for the post. KaVir 11:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.mud.diku/msg/62ebd9f2dc2ab83?hl=en

Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.diku
From: msmith@bigboy (Mike Smith)
Date: 28 Apr 93 23:37:50 GMT
Local: Thurs, Apr 29 1993 1:37 am 
Subject: Medievia & the fate of Adversary

Hello, 

   Ok enough "Adversary" talk, here's the scoop... Adversary is gone, it's 
future is not known to anyone except for Abaddon himself, who may or man not 
come in here and let you know what happened. Medievia didn't "Take Adversary's 
port", nor did Adversary OWN that port or the machine it is on. Now here's the 
scoop on Medievia... 


   Medievia is a Mud running on Merc 1.0 (HEAVILY Modified, and still being 
modified) code. If there's something you don't like about Merc 1.0, chances 
are, we changed it, or are in the process of changing it. MOST (I say most 
because there may be others we haven't found yet) of the bugs have been ironed 
out of the Merc 1.0 code we are using. IF however, you think you know of another 
bug we may have missed, come on into the Mud, find Vryce or myself (Highlander) 
and tell us about it. If Vryce is on (he's the programmer) DEMONSTRATE the bug 
to him, and it will be removed PDQ! Medievia is not your average mud, we pride 
ourselves on being a mud where the implementors and Gods get along well with 
the players. We don't ignore the players (though sometimes we can't get to 
every request immediatly), but we don't play the game as if we're better than 
you just because we're (so called) "Gods" and you're "mortals". It's our job 
to make sure you have fun. If we think you're not, we aren't having fun, so we 
do our best to make things interesting. It's my personal job to create the 
world you play in, and I listen to any requests players make. (Some of them 
honestly stink, but a lot of them are good), and I use the ones that are good. 
We go over our Bug, Idea and Typo text files daily and DO correct problems 
regularly. We're not a fly-by-night mud, we don't plan to disappear tomorrow, 
with a promise to return, yet never do. If we disappear, it won't be because 
we (the implementors) chose to. 


   Yes, our mud is a "Fantasy" based "Combat-based" Mud, and yes, that may not 
be your cup of tea. But if it's not, may I ask you, why are you reading news 
postings in rec.games.mud.DIKU? Our mud's zones are often based on fantasy 
novels, so there's a sense of familiarity in our mud's zones. We have a mix 
of original ideas, and zones based on books (for instance, Robert Jordan's 
_Wheel of Time_, Raymond E. Fiest's _Magician_, Anne McCaffrey's _Dragonrider's 
of Pern_, and so forth...) Medievia has special code in it, to implement 
constant running quests, such as the "Fount of Wisdom/Dragon Crystal" quest, 
or the soon to come _Kingdom of the Wall_ quest, plus we are the only Mud 
that we know of with an acutal working river (has a current, waterfall, living 
breating eco-system, fishing, etc), real atmospheric conditions (You can be 
struck by lightning, knocked over by earthquakes etc etc). Medievia's 
resources are large, we have almost exclusive access to the Bigboy machine, 
located on the Temple campus, so we plan to make the game quite big. Currently 
we sport 15 zones and around 1100 rooms, but the world grows on a daily basis. 
We don't claim to be the best, we just claim that we're going to be! Come on 
over and take a look, we'll appreciate your input and ideas! 


msm...@bigboy.cis.temple.edu (Highlander - Medievia Implementor) 
s...@access.netaxs.com 


Medievia: bigboy.cis.temple.edu 4000 (129.32.32.98 4000) 
          ...where reality is a collective hunch!