Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MajorMUD

MajorMUD

MajorMUD (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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I'll probably be accused of OMG Literally Deleting MUD History From The Internet, but this article has been tagged as unreferenced since October 2008. Verification from a reliable published source is the minimum standard for inclusion. There are no hits from Google Books. It's possible something like Dragon Magazine covered MajorMUD in the mid 90s. The burden of evidence rests with the contributing editor, though. Marasmusine (talk) 08:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions. (G·N·B·S·RS·Talk) Marasmusine (talk) 08:15, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

• Delete - I find it very strange that MajorMUD evaded media attention as thoroughly as appears to be the case, but I've never been able to find evidence to the contrary. I actually do get two legit hits for it on Google Books today, which is more than previously, but both are passing mentions that aren't going to help with notability. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:09, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
  • MajorMUD came with MajorBBS and (so I assume) fairly decent board software, so there was no need to use Usenet which provides 80% of the primary sources for random nobodies wanting to write a book about MUDs. Had they known where to look there probably would be some excellent resources. --Scandum (talk) 12:45, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:29, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Meh, I'll bite. OMG, why don't you try to find sources to help it be referenced? Or trim the article back to enough to remove the unreferenced tag? I fail to see the benefit in deleting this article. BTW, you might be more forthcoming with this being the SECOND time you've tried to get this article deleted. —Locke Cole • t • c 08:31, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Quick replies: Tried, couldn't find. Trimming the article doesn't make it less unverified. If you are referring to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/AVATAR (MUD), note that I was not the nominator, nor did I !vote "delete". Was there some some other deletion attempt that I've forgotten about? As the initial contributor, what efforts have you made to find sources to help it be referenced? Marasmusine (talk) 10:07, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Did you check google:MajorMUD+Download before your AfD? –82.113.106.29 (talk) 23:57, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
        • That's not relevant; please take a look at WP:N. Your accusation of bad faith in the edit summary when you added this comment is also extremely inappropriate; see WP:AGF. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:49, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
          • I've added the "Mudpedia" page "MajorMUD" to external links, and asked on its talk page for help with the missing references here. –82.113.106.29 (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
    • I'll also put in here that I have a giant stack of MUD-related books from the mid-to-late 1990s that I use for sourcing MUD-related articles (check my contributions history), and though I've looked, I've never managed to turn up mention of MajorMUD in any of them. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:40, 25 April 2011 (UTC)
      • On the talk page somebody wrote: "if you want a specific source for MajorMUD, Ron Penton's "MUD Game Programming" (ISBN 1592000908)". Can you check that alleged source? –82.113.106.29 (talk) 22:52, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
        • It's a passing mention in the "About the Author", talking about how Penton was into MUDs ever since his favorite BBS installed Swords of Chaos and MajorMUD. No actual coverage of MajorMUD. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:46, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
          • Okay, thanks for checking that, and I just saw that the Mudpedia page in essence copies Wikipedia, so copying it back also won't improve the article. But it has additional references including a link to quest-ware.net (removed here by User:Marasmusine because it was added by the site owner). If you'd add these references the article is good enough to keep it. –82.113.106.29 (talk) 03:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

• Keep - I found the deletion link on a user talk page. The article already survived an AFD in 2007, it might be irrelevant for folks like me who never cared about MUDs.  But it is a valid historic topic, it has a few links to it, and it is better than yet-another-dead-sourceforge-project stubs such as Posadis, where I couldn't resist to add an {{NN}} tag after I found that the "company" web page is now a domain for sale. –82.113.106.29 (talk) 22:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
  • None of that really helps; again, see WP:N. The article's survival of the previous AfD is more about the extremely flawed nature of that AfD than about this article. Regarding Posadis, see WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. The thing is, while I personally feel like we in fact ought, in a better world, to have an article on MajorMUD, the project (meaning Wikipedia) has standards for topic inclusion and this topic needs to meet them like any other. I happen to think that those inclusion standards have extremely serious things wrong with them, but I don't have a credible alternative to propose at this time. Until I do, going to Wikipedia and telling us that the project should have articles outside its defined scope is like going to the Apache people and telling them that their project should also wash your laundry. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:55, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Well, the article clearly deserves its "missing references" tag, and there might be more issues, but "not notable" is just wrong (based on my Google search results). I'm not really interested in the topic, I was a Maximus sysop in 1996, I have no idea about Major BBS MUDs. –82.113.106.29 (talk) 03:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Finding sources is the first step to establishing notability, which I appreciate. Those wishing to help should familiarize themselves with our standards for WP:Reliable sources. Thanks, Marasmusine (talk) 07:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
        • The added link to DMOZ category "MajorMUD" covers all links you had to remove here under WP:VG/EL — I tend to accept that as relevant guideline. To get a fresh opinion about the page I added {{Recently revised}}. –82.113.106.29 (talk) 09:29, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
          • Linking to DMOZ is perfectly acceptable, and recommended at the EL guidelines. However, none of the sites listed there are remotely acceptable as sources for verification. Marasmusine (talk) 15:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
      • Google hits demonstrate nothing about notability. You're apparently not actually reading WP:N or WP:RS, so let me explain: "notable" on Wikipedia does not mean what it means in real life, especially the "I think it's significant" meaning. On Wikipedia, "notable" has actually become jargon that means "has significant coverage in independent reliable sources". Ten million Google hits do not a single reliable source make. Penton's book is fine, as are the two magazine mentions that come up on Google Books, but their failure to say anything about MajorMUD means they aren't "significant coverage". (I also found yet another passing mention, on Raph Koster's web site.) What the article needs is the kind of coverage discussed in WP:RS; if you want to rescue it, you'd do much better to find some of that instead of spinning your wheels reformatting it and adding links. —chaos5023 (talk) 10:24, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
• Keep as per WP:IAR. The article could be shortened till the most probable data is left. --Scandum (talk) 12:31, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • Have to say, I support an IAR rationale for a keep here. The sourcing difficulty seems to me more like some kind of aberration than the legitimate obscurity enjoyed by many MUD-related topics, and as far as I can tell there's no issue of promotional nature, the software having been abandoned by its publisher ages ago. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:14, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
    • Okay, I'm listening. The rule we want to ignore is "verification through reliable secondary sources" - let's put notability aside for the moment. I'm not clear on what the actual rationale for this is. Also, you did mention a few minor mentions in books. Is this enough for a mention of MajorMUD of equal measure in an article on a broader topic? Marasmusine (talk) 08:17, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
      • The problem is that MajorMUD had a BBS front end, as a result Usenet wasn't used, which in turn closed the community off from the mainstream community. As someone familiar with MUD history I know MajorMUD is notable, so a short article with some primary sources and one secondary source should do. MajorMUD was recently mentioned on Massively:
      • http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/04/26/the-game-archaeologist-plays-with-muds-your-journeys-part-1/
      • If we count that as a secondary source all that's needed is a few primary sources to make sure the article gets its facts straight. --Scandum (talk) 12:41, 28 April 2011 (UTC)