MUD history going down Wiki's memory hole
MMO news outlet Massively points out a growing controversy with a number of Wikipedia entries on various classic MUDs coming up for deletion and disappearing despite majority votes to save them, and the support of MUD creators and supporters like Richard Bartle, Raph Koster, and Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings:
What makes this whole discussion so frustrating lies in how the MUD community has preserved their own history. Many of the facts and tales of the games comes through something akin to the oral tradition -- many users who have written about, blogged, or related their thoughts to others via community sites. Because of this, there is no main verifiable source to connect these MUDs with. Without a verifiable source, one of the main tenets of Wikipedia, all of these articles can come under fire. With the MUD community in decline, many of the older articles can't even be linked to or referenced -- providing only more problems with keeping these entries in the system.
MUD history dissolving into the waters of time [Massively, via Margaret]
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Pichu0102
#1 – 7:17 PM January 7, 2009
Wikipedia has been getting more and more strict about it's notability requirements, and it's rather aggravating. Notability used to not be much of an issue in the early days, and that's one of the things about Wikipedia that was nice: That it had obscure knowledge about various things, and that's going away slowly as they take themselves more seriously.
SC_Wolf
#2 – 8:02 PM January 7, 2009
And what's stopping anyone from developing their own reference wiki specific to the history and legacy of MUDs, with it's own guidelines and standards for what information is notable and what sources are appropriate?
shutz
#3 – 10:42 PM January 7, 2009
SC_WOLF:
I came here to comment, but your comment covers my main point.
Still, I think some shorter articles about most notable MUDs should be included in Wikipedia, with properly-labeled links to an external wiki on those MUDs, as per your suggestion.
schönberger
#4 – 6:39 AM January 8, 2009
I don't think Wikipedia can or should be shortened to 'Wiki' as you did in the headline. After all, a wiki is just the technical concept behind Wikipedia and lots of other sites.
Anonymous Anonymous
#5 – 8:20 PM January 9, 2009
deletion is not such a dramatic thing as those unfamiliar with wikipedia's workings sometimes think it is. The information and the layouts are not destroyed forever when officially deleted. Actually, non-public copies of the information and layouts are kept on wikipedia servers. If there is a future debate (happens all the time) which successfully reverses a past deletion decision, then the admins can get the work and the information can be put back on public display again and the layouts restored .
the only ways that wikipedia information is permanently deleted that come to mind are 1) there is a request to remove specific content from the servers for privacy or legal reasons.
or 2) wikipedia servers suffer damage (from flooding or whatever) and backups fail, so some info is lost (I think this has happened at least once in the past.