Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Massively multiplayer online games/MU*

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Contents 1 MUDs and Notability -- It Ain't Gonna Work 2 Taskforce 3 External sources 4 Notability 5 Onwards 5.1 Where do we go from here 6 MfD

[edit] MUDs and Notability -- It Ain't Gonna Work

Alright, I've been pondering this for several days, and I gotta tell you, I've got next to nothing. I've been in the Mudding community for over eight years at this point, and I've been a Mud administrator/coder/builder for over four years. I'd like to think I know the community pretty well. Here's the dilemma: wikipedia guidelines require that articles on subjects maintain a certain level of notability. That is there are sources not directly related to the subject of the article. In the case of Muds this means we need to find some sort of third party source (be it a review, a listing, etc...) for each and every MUD listed on wikipedia that wasn't written by players or staff of the MUD in question.

Well, that's bloody near impossible. I don't mean to be a downer, but there are currently over 1800 MUDs listed on MudConnector (largely considered to be the best and most well established MUD listing site in the community). I'd be willing to wager we could find acceptable third party sources for at best 1% or 2% of those. IE 18 to 36 Muds. That's pathetic. Granted a lot of the MUDs we'd not be able to find sources for are dead and gone, or only barely alive, but many of them are living, breathing communities. They are excellent and innovative MUDs. They really deserve to be listed here in Wikipedia.

So near as I can see it we've got two choices: either reconcile ourselves with the fact that wikipedia is just gonna have a gaping hole in its coverage of MUDs, or try to find some way to convince the greater wikipedia community to make an exception to the notability guidelines for MUDs. That's all I've got. Alternately I could try and gather together a neutral body of MUD gamers to start systematically testing and reviewing MUDs and posting the reviews on a site I host. Then using said site as the third party source. But I'm gonna go out on a limb and bet that that wouldn't really fly. Maybe I'm just being dense, does anyone else have any better ideas?
--Truealcon 04:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't. We strictly should only be reporting information that has already been reported by reliable sources. We don't make articles on MU*s based on the game quality, popularity or importance, nor are we a directory of games.

If only 1 or 2% of MUD*s have coverage in reliable newspapers, magazines, books, websites etc, then that's all we should be covering.

Your idea of starting a review site would require two things: 1) You show that the reviewers have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" with some level of editorial oversight, and 2) You completely distance yourself from this wikiproject and any related articles for the sake of neutrality. Marašmusïne_Talk 06:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, the review site was me being sarcastic ;) Alright, fair enough. Reconcile with a total lack of coverage for the Mudding community it is.--Truealcon 16:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm useless at detecting sarcasm! Marasmusine_Talk 16:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem is that text-based hack'n'slash/rping has been massively overshadowed by MMORPGs such as WoW and CoX, so most of the mainstream media is going to be focused on those, and prior to that, well, who cared about MU*ing, aside from the geeks on the internet who actually did it? The culture of online RP (including avenues such as IRC) should have some kind of mention in Wikipedia. As it stands, not even the WoW or CoX articles mention the RPing aspects of their respective communities.

And as it stands, you can't find out about that stuff without becoming part of the culture, which puts you too close as I understand WP's standards, so it's a Catch-22. No 'reliable secondary sources' are interested in MU*ing unless it's as an investigation into something a particular MU* is relevant to (Tapestries MUCK and FurryMUCK come to mind), or for their commercial aspects, or because they're the flagship game for a particular codebase. The purely free 'come and play if you are interested' sites that may be genuinely noteworthy just don't garner the particular type of attention that WP demands they get to satisfy its guidelines. -Degraine 02:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Taskforce

So I made a taskforce. I had never done that before, so altough it is a (nice) try, it might be wrong.

While we're at it, it might be worth making a list of external sites commonly cited by these articles (such as Mudconnector) and note if each one is reliable or not (per WP:SOURCE). Marasmusine 19:17, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The 'Borderline' section are those that I don't think should be included in a mass nomination; either because they have some claim to notability, or I feel that there may be another reference out there that may tip the scales. Marasmusine 07:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] External sources

Some list like this could be used on the project page:

• http://www.mudconnector.com/ - A mud directory; entries are user submitted (so not independent), rankings by user-vote (so not reliable); therefore should not be used to assert notability. Mud of the Month reviews are possibly staff-written?
• http://www.topmudsites.com/ – A mud directory; entries on their own are not enough to assert notability, but site also has staff-written reviews. Reviews appear to be not only not staff-written, but are sometimes written by admins of the games themselves.

etc. Marasmusine 06:53, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

You're going to run into much the same problems with these MUD sites as with every other MUD site. All the listing's entries are MUD staff written or staff approved. The reviews are more often than not written by dedicated players or staff of the MUDs they are about. Mudconnector, Kyndig/MudMagic, TopMudSites and many more... they all work about this way. The whole MUD community is very self contained in this way, and it's gonna be hard as all hell to establish notability guidelines that don't just cut out 99% of MUDs. I'm trying to come up with some ways to do it, but if it has to be third party, then MUD listing sites aren't the way to go.

Where are you finding the staff written reviews for TopMudSites? The reviews I can find are all player written... --Truealcon 17:01, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah, eh, I'm not sure now. In fact this review shows the site cannot be used as a reliable source. The reviewer, Patch, is the "Head Immortal" at the game he's reviewing. Guess we can strike that site off the list. Marašmusïne_Talk 17:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

To whoever is listing GemStone IV as non-notable and actually nominated it for deletion, please be aware that this is the longest-running commercial MUD in the world, and that it's been written up in multiple books and newspapers. For details, see the bottom of the page at Simutronics. --Elonka 22:34, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I assumed it must be a massive typo, or vandalism--it seemed so absurd. There's no MUD out there more notable than GS. I suppose someone needs to go out and dig up some sources.... Marieblasdell 22:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

First thing to do is to note these concerns on the AfD page. An AfD is not a deleted article yet. It may have been lack of sourcefinding from my side. There are more MUDs who claim the first commerical mud, but from my quick search, I didn't find any older ones (Avalon, the Legend Lives is indeed one year older younger *cough*). Martijn Hoekstra 22:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Martijn, I wasn't expecting these to be taken to AfD so quickly! Can we de-list them, as the 'non-notable' shortlist needs double checking, and perhaps organized into smaller chunks. Marasmusine 08:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Granted I'm biased as I've worked on it, but IMO DragonRealms also has considerable notability, per the references at the bottom of the Simutronics article. Such as being the subject of a writeup in Inc. magazine.[1] --Elonka 16:00, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, agreed. Article certainly requires a cleanup though (large chunks of it are unreferenced, Criticisms for example) Marasmusine 16:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement that the article needs some serious cleanup. Anything that isn't referenced, or is only referenced to a message forum, should be pulled out. --Elonka 23:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Onwards

Now that the AfD fiasco is over, I'll tag the articles in the non-notable list with unreferenced/notability tags, then we can go through them one by one and make an attempt at cleaning them up. And take them to individual AfD's if necessary. Marasmusine 07:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I am indeed sorry for providing such a hassle, and waste of time, for you and other wikipedians. I'll guess I'll just start improving the articles. Some sources could be found for many. Notability will still stay an issue, but I'm not really sure how to solve that. Martijn Hoekstra 10:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where do we go from here

Is this task force still active? I don't see any recent activity. Jclemens (talk) 16:20, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Sort of. We need good sources for MUD related references. Perhaps old gaming magazines. If anyone has access to the back catalogue of Flagship magazine, that would be the jackpot. In the meantime, tidy up/remove unreferenced/unnotable material. Marasmusine (talk) 17:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MfD

This page and its parent (WP:WP MMO), as well as MMO's subpages, are nommed for Miscellany for deletion. See WP:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Massively multiplayer online games. If this project is truly active, you may want to take the road of becoming a TF of VG rather than MMO. --Izno (talk) 14:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)