Edit: slightly updated with one more “what have I learned” and a few more links. But I could add links to this for hours. 😛
So at this point, the whole kerfuffle over the MUD articles on Wikipedia has reached a fever pitch, and I am a bit exhausted by it all. Of course, not so exhausted that I can’t write 2500 more words about it.
But it has been an interesting education for me in how Wikipedia works, and I’d especially like to thank Adam Hyland for his patience explaining it all. I am a bit dismayed that both Richard & I were tagged by some in the debate as biased or “canvassed” or whatever the term is, when I think we both acted in good faith… but there are plenty of folks on the AfD discussion who have pointed this out.
Me being who I am, it of course led me to dig deeper into citations there in Wikipedia (hey look, ma, I’m a reliable source! No, wait, I’m not!). I think at this point that in theory, I’m a valid source. This may seem like an odd thing to wonder about or worry about, but hey, how can I help issues like this if not? I mean, this is right at the top of the whole MUD category:
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.
So I decided to take a look at sourcing. I picked LegendMUD and my name, because though I may not be able to edit those articles, I do know the topics! In fact, I am an expert on me, though biased. 🙂
Ahh, vanity
So I found that there’s 27 mentions of me on Wikipedia in articles, including an article on my GDC talk on Small Worlds. Astonishingly, I apparently owned the keyword “small worlds” for a few years (!) until the article was moved to make way for an episode of Torchwood (you can’t make this up, folks…!). Duncan Watts and other mathematicians must be dismayed. 😉
But wait! There’s more, because there are also mentions of me on lots of Talk pages, usually about whether I am a valid source. One of those was using me & Bartle as a way to get Paul Barnett removed from Wikipedia. (Sorry, Paul).
And of course, a challenge to whether the timeline is a valid source by one of the folks involved in the AfD. So, that led me to wonder if it is a verifiable source? Well, one of the criteria is whether I am an expert. Do I have scholarly credentials? One of the ways to do that is to check whether you’ve been cited a lot in books or in papers. In fact, we can check to see if the timeline itself is used widely in scholarly work.
Wikipedia has specific standards about sites like mine and Bartle’s that can be read here. Of course, in one of the (many) debates on whether or not the entry for “Shadowclan” should remain, the point is made that “blogs are only reliable if written by journalists or academics and Raph Koster is neither.” So there are clearly gray areas where editors don’t quite know what the line is either.
As regards the Threshold controversy specifically, the policy is pretty simple. If Bartle or I had happened to mention how Threshold was important a few weeks ago, then it would have been fine. If Bartle or I had been approached as an expert by an editor (which is presented as an option in one of zillions of policy pages I read) thatwould have been different. Hearing about it through the community grapevine — not useful.
In browsing this, what did I find that cracked me up? I’m mentioned in an encyclopedia. A print one. This one, the Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. Oh wait, the entry was written by that other guy, whatsisname… Yep, that’s right, I am mentioned in an encyclopedia entry written by Richard Bartle. 🙂
The gap between having interested but non-expert editors in subject areas and having experts who cannot edit articles that come too close to them can lead to odd things. I should definitely feel grateful and flattered to have a Wikipedia page at all. On the other hand, I do think that the Rights of Avatars are a bit of an odd omission, and yes, even game grammar, given how widely cited they are in scholarly literature and more popular books. Then again, I also seem to be ranked as less important than the guy with the second-highest high score in Donkey Kong (along with the designers of M.U.L.E., Elite, and Defender), and am not on the game designers list, so what do I know. 🙂
OK, so what happened to the LegendMUD entry?
I don’t know. Just as the useful sources for mud material have bitrotted, so has the AfD for the LegendMUD article. I did find a discussion where it was lumped in with around 30 other muds, and then not deleted. But it’s gone nonetheless.
Can a case be made for notability? Well, not by me, on Wikipedia, because I am tremendously biased. From a design-historical sense, and trying to be unbiased, LegendMUD is interesting for several reasons.
One, it was one of the first classless muds (for a long time, we thought it was THE first, because none of us back then could find another one. But I’ve been emailed about it since then). Two, the moods and speech systems used later in other games developed here (with inspiration taken from many sourcs, including a couple of MUSHes). There’s the concept of an OOC Lounge. The textual implementation of true vehicles. There’s the historical value in tracing the development of scripting in DikuMUDs (in which Legend plays a side role), and how that then subsequently influenced MMO architectures (in which it plays a much more direct one). The LegendMUD code of conduct ended up serving as a model document for several worlds, and led in itself to the declaration of the rights of avatars which doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry but damn well should given that it’s even reprinted in a book by the American Bar Association. (sorry, slipped there again 😉 )
And of course, there’s the fact that no fewer than five LegendMUD admins — if you count Damion Schubert, who was involved for a bit but not for the long haul; he did design work on the combat message system — went on to play roles in the nascent MMO industry, eventually working on titles such as Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Meridian 59, Shadowbane, blah blah, you know all this. In fact, the famous UO class action lawsuit had a strong connection to LegendMUD. Yes, we were sued by an ex-LegendMUD player that I knew very well because we had had behavior issues with him there.
Oh, and that Karyn incident, which of course has an article of its own.
Does that make it notable? By mud standards, I would say yes. I don’t think “by mud standards” is good enough for Wikipedia, but it doesn’t matter — none of that is verifiable by Wikipedia’s standards. But if you had to take the thousands of muds that have existed throughout the decades, and pick 50 to cover, it’d be in the 50. If you had to pick 25, I think it’s possible it would make the cut. I personally would not put it in the top ten — my top ten would likely include MUD1, TinyMUD, Penn, LambdaMOO, TinyTim,DikuMUD, Aber, Armageddon, HoloMUD, EmlenMUDs, BSX Muds, MUME, DartMUD, even Medievia, maybe the original Star Wars one, certainly a few key LPMuds like Nightmare… OK, ten is hard.
LegendMUD also won a bunch of awards and at the time was in print a surprising amount of times. Being in print when you were a mud in 1995 was… unusual. But many of these have rotted. In fact, they have inconveniently rotted right off of LegendMUD’s own webpage. Hurray for the Internet Archive, which shows us a fuller list.
Then there’s the now-infamous question of whether MudConnector is a valid source. Well, at least back when LegendMUD won Mud of the Month, the award was picked editorially, by staff. I know, because that’s me getting interviewed by said staff member. 🙂 (of course, the latest editorial website review was pretty recent, but I don’t know that this site is considered an important enough one to be relevant today). MudConnector itself isn’t on Wikipedia (though I actially think it played a hugely important historical role too) but there’s plenty of references to it in print and in scholarly research, including using its data as a source for analysis.
But XYZZYNews is used as a Wikipedia source a lot. Legend got an award from them. And wait, there’s CNet! Of course, actually finding that article on CNet, when their archives suck, and it was before they were even on news.com… forget it.
But wait… we can go to print, right? Hurm, print Internet directories — two of them! Back in the 90s, being a site that merited inclusion in a print directory was a big deal. There were no search engines. There was room for, well, ten muds. They got picked editorially by those authoring the directory. Those directories don’t show up in Google books, alas, but you can buy Yahoo! Wild Web Rides for 46 cents on Amazon and thus verify that Legend did in fact get reviewed and rated as one of the best muds on the Internet. Hurm, I know I have this book but cannot find it in my vast library. And Google Books doesn’t have it…
But what Google Books does find is… more mentions in print! Look at that… five book mentions right on top including a scholarly article about LegendMUD’s depiction of religion in the midst of a book on religion in popular American culture. (LegendMUD has a historical theme. We regularly had controversy over the historical depiction of, say, moneylending by Jews in the Middle Ages).
But wait, one of the books is by Bartle again. Hmm, collusion?
The rest of the book citations seem to be for something by some guy named Joseph Conrad… but we don’t need to delve deeper into that particular heart of darkness. Instead, I can just briefly note that even though the majority of scholarly references to LegendMUD are actually links to docs on the legendmud.org domain (which are all actually broken links since those docs are now here), there are several papers buried in there that do in fact reference the game itself.
What do I learn?
That Richard Bartle and I are a mutual admiration society?
That if you make it to print, or to a notable website or even a gopher site in 1995 (such as the award Legend won back then), don’t let it rot off your website (bad Legend, bad… 😉 ). In fact, scan it, screenshot it, mirror it, and store a copy of it. Document it. You can’t trust anyone else to keep your history for you.
None of this is for the sake of lobbying to get the LegendMUD article back. There is actually a process for that, and I am not following it nor should I initiate it. Rather, it is more to illustrate that the big blockquote at the top, and yes, even the folks deleting mud-related articles, do have a point, if you go by their very particular rules. It was a small and insular community. If we took, say, some experts in the mud culture that were not in my immediate circles, like say, Alan Schwartz aka Javelin, or Lydia Leong aka Amberyl, way over in MUSH land… well, yeah, I knew them. Know them. Alan still reads this blog. 😛
I did the timeline in the first place because I saw the history already fragmenting badly. Remember, by mud dino standards, I came to it late — I didn’t start mudding until late in 1992! And for Wikipedia standards, well, it’s gotten even more fragmented. The Timeline itself has suffered bitrot badly as well, with sources getting tangled up and lost as it has been added to and moved sites multiple times. I used to be able to point to a great archive of mud research at UTexas, and it’s gone now. At least Lauren Burka’s MUDDex is still around.
No, rather, the bottom line is that there ARE sources out there in this case. But I think that this case is probably unusual. I am not sure a non-expert would be able to follow the trails I did, know what things are relevant, or know what are good reasons for notability or good pieces of info that should be in an article.
I also think that there’s an odd situation regarding experts and important topics that lack easy to find documentation. Our recourse to try to improve Wikipedia is to go research, write elsewhere, get cited, get studied, and then this stuff can get found by people who don’t know where to look, what keywords to search for, and what significant elements should be included in articles. Would they find game grammar, cited in papers presented at ACM, for an article on me? I don’t honestly know. After all, I myself didn’t know about it until now.
So I have greater sympathy for Wikipedians, who face a difficult task. And I also think that despite my great sympathy, they are messing up the mud history stuff. It’ll be hard to fix, and it may take years of scholarly study.
It may be that the very policy structure of Wikipedia (which is an ever-evolving thing, of course) has certain shaping tendencies. As I said in the comment thread in the last post,
I presume that the goal here is to tightly focus the discussion of the deletion to specifically just sourcing questions. But it does mean that any area of human knowledge which experts happen not to have documented in books is kind of SOL. Merit is based on other people citing — not well, just AT ALL in broad distribution. This is quite different from a paper encyclopedia, where merit is based on expert opinion. I suspect this is why we get the side effect of pop culture filling up the encyclopedia (broadly cited a lot, even though it is ephemeral and mostly useless) but don’t get important but less broadly distributed info.
In short, I think this policy contributes towards making a pop-pedia, whether intentionally or not; the definition of notability is based heavily on pop factors, not historical notability.
I do know that in terms of my own research and work, one thing that is a clear takeaway for me is that writing Wikipedia articles where there is such a byzantine jungle of policies and yet also little way to have a high quality bar isn’t something I want to do. It’s a lot easier to just do it on my own site. Which means I will just have to push that material up the Google ranks without Wikipedia’s help if I want the historical info preserved — and someday, maybe it’ll be on Wikipedia too.
Edit: see this post for more of an outcome.
31 Responses to “Wikipedia, muds, and where the sources are”
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I just wanted to comment on this bit.
We were removed for “blatant advertising” while we were trying to update the listing after it was trolled. At the time(3 years ago I think), we decided to let it go and then put up another page. But in all honesty, we put it on the back-burner as less important than other things.
It is frustrating that Legend’s page was pulled, as the game does have a great history, but especially after reading all of the mess that Threshold has gone through, and still lost their page, I don’t even want to run the risk of having anyone associated with the game even whisper about putting the page back up 🙂
Sadly, LegendMUD isn’t one of the 236 MUDs listed in Secrets of the MUD Wizards, but at least some of the still-extant MUDs from 1995 and earlier have a Wikipedia-acceptable source they can reference, I suppose.
That’s until Secrets of the MUD Wizards itself ceases to be regarded as a valid source, of course…
Richard
What about the Journal of MUD Research (which became the Journal of Virtual Environments)? That’s still archived online and is peer-reviewed academic work on muds, although I’m not sure which particular muds were named in articles…
Wow, interesting research. Makes me want to spend all day reading sources for MUD info 🙂
That particular oversight, at least, was easy to remedy… at least until sombody reverts my edit.
I’ve found that Wikipedia is good for wasting time by learning a bunch of random crap that may or may not be true. It is a medium that is fun as a consumer of the media, but not as a contributor. It’s not like Digg or Reddit where you can be passively involved by voting now and then. Either you edit articles, or you don’t.
Achaea had a line added about a random poll that Matt took which resulted in rather so-so results, most people saying that they think Achaea could improve a lot. This was cited in the article by pointing to the Achaea forums post where the results had been posted by a player.
Minae, the producer after Matt went on to concentrate on being the general Iron Realms CEO and later Sparkplay CEO, appointed me as a sort of player-admin liaison to read the forums and respond to player concerns, as well as help the other admins understand the changes that the players want. I added this information to the wikipedia article after the poll results as something like: “Partially as a result of this poll, the producer appointed an admin to oversee player feedback and to help to implement the things the players wished to see improved” and cited a post by the producer on the same forums that introduced me as having this job.
Within a few hours, the line had been removed as unsourced and invalid. When I questioned why in a completely clumsy way because I didn’t have any idea how all of the wikipedia rules worked, I was informed that since I was involved in the game, clearly I had conflict of interest, regardless of the factuality of the information.
I’ve come to realize that Wikipedia itself is sort of a game, in a strange way. You read up on the rules, and you “grind” by making small edits on things until you get the hang of how it all works. Eventually people take notice of you and you get promoted to be able to work on bigger edits. You get special badges and abilities, and some people write scripting bots to take care of things for them. Eventually you become one of the elite admins and can mold the world in any way that you see fit.
I think they’re just jealous that MUDs have better storylines.
Also, there were several articles in online and print media about DuneMUSH circa 1990’s that I suppose might qualify?
One was in a Dutch newspaper and I can’t find it, alas.
An online one is here: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8665.asp
I did an interview for PC PowerPlay magazine in 2007, but I think it was mostly about MMORPGs and MUSHes, with no specific ones named.
Several MUDs are mentioned by name in this Standard Law Review article
http://stlr.stanford.edu/STLR/Articles/98_STLR_1/article.htm
I spoke too soon… you’re already subcategorized in Game Designers by Nationality, alongside Sid Meier, Will Wright, Roberta Williams, and other luminaries.
Now why exactly somebody thought that nationality was a good way to categorize game designers is another question entirely.
Hm. You’re not the only notable game designer missing from that game designers list… Where’s Sid Meier? Where’s Brian Reynolds? Where’s Tim Schafer? Where’s Ron Gilbert? Where’s Will Wright? Not a good list at all. -_-
Anyway, I wish you would write more blogposts like this. Gaming history is important!
Doh. There is indeed more to the list that meets the eye, and both you and the others I mentioned are there. Drat. Why is there a “front-page”-list at all, though? Are the ones on that list of so obscure nationality that they don’t get their own section? =P
Yeah, it’s a bit erratic.
I’m not certain, but I think the idea is that everybody on the list should be pigeonholed by nationality, and the ones on the front page are there because of inexperienced editors (guilty as charged) or because nobody’s gotten around to categorizing them yet.
And it seems fundamentally wrong-headed to me, because the virtual world paradigm turns the whole concept of nationality on its ear.
I name you, and you appear! 🙂
I actually almost specifically referenced JOMR/JOVE. In my digging around, I found a mention that it wasn’t a valid source in some Talk page or AfD for some mud, don’t recall where or which. Another case where either the editors did not do any research or didn’t have enough expertise to recognize a peer-reviewed academic journal, even though it was web-based.
A new lengthy post and project is coming to mind… ack, I so don’t have time for this.
You know… a valid question. If it’s just listed, is that establishing notability? A simple review? I think notability by Wikipedia’s lights would have to mean one of these…
culturally significant… like LambdaMOO
technologically significant, like LPMud
design significant, like DartMUD
broadly recognized, especially “for the day”, like Medievia
I think one reason why so many of the mud entries are questionable is because they tend not to make any of the first three cases, and rely on bad sourcing for the last.
Odd but “true” interpretation of quantum physics: the past is just as uncertain as the future. A given present state has the potential to evolve into an arbitrary (but bounded) number of future states; a given present state also has the potential to arise from an arbitrary (but bounded) number of past states.
More helpfully, I’d love to see *this* article, Raph’s top post, expanded slightly and published in a magazine. “My brush with Wikipedia”, or something less bland. You can’t tell me Wired wouldn’t print it. It’s a fascinating walk through mud history. (Of course, I say this understanding that it’s likely the last thing Raph wants to do. 😛 )
It’s wikipedia. 🙂
The problem seems to be a Wikipedia culture trying to (poorly) emulate the modes of old research and missing so much recent/contemporary knowledge that borders on the edge of its many policies. When concerned wikipedians attempt to come back through these areas of community and history in some topic-level sweep will they have much or any information they can rely on in their bit-rot archeology?
IIRC, some of those policies in question here were what led to Jimmy Wales leaving and forming Wikia. Speaking of Wikia, perhaps it might be a useful idea to eschew Wikipedia nearly entirely and instead focus on creating the richest MUD Wiki possible somewhere else (ie, Wikia or maybe even RaphKoster.com?). A poorly sourced but rich in expert knowledge MUD Wiki might not live up to Wikipedia source/notability guidelines, but might hopefully be a key resource to at least somewhat battle bit-rot.
I just love that Wikipedians look to academics as authorities while academics look to professionals as authorities while professionals look to consumers as authorities.
The circle is complete.
lol Morgan. Good point. 🙂
Most of the Wikipedias want to think they are academics and writers. But as with so many other fields, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. They read a few general concepts, but with a lack of core understanding they cannot apply them in a logical, reasonable way.
Take Pentharian’s example above. The Wikipedian’s know about a rule against conflict of interest, and first party sources, so they vomit it back at you and delete stuff. But they do not understand WHY that policy exists, or what it is intended to do. They want to eliminate information that is false for personal benefit. Applying that rule is appropriate if the fact in question is “Our game is the most popular game on the internet.” Or “Our game is the first to have persistent equipment.” Or “Our game is the first to have a system of foreign languages.” Those are factual statements that someone might be wrong about, on accident or on purpose, for their own game’s benefit.
But in Pentharian’s example, the fact was a statement of what they did and why they did it. There is truly no source more qualified to verify that fact. So it is inappropriate and absurd to apply the rule in that context.
But since (most of) these people are not academics and do not have a background in research, journalism, or professional writing, they are utterly unable to apply these concepts in a logical manner.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
http://www.thresholdrpg.com
The very first rule of Wikipedia is “Ignore All Rules”; that is, if a policy gets in the way of improving Wikipedia, ignore the policy.
Unfortunately, the only policy always ignored by Wikilawyers is WP:IAR.
One huge error in this case was closing the afd before the minimum required period elapsed and declaring a consensus where there clearly was none. Even assuming good faith on all sides (something of an stretch), the overall impression was that of a personality conflict driving an editorial decision, with conflicts of interest on BOTH sides. Whether or not it’s true, the appearance of impropriety damages credibility, and at the end of the day credibility is the only coin that matters for a reference work. The correct answer was KEEP, maybe with a side of ARBITRATE.
If you’re attempting to garner support for any position outside of an academic conference, you might want to reconsider this approach. Contrary to popular belief amongst some academics, it is possible to formulate logical thought and understand concepts without a degree.
And among others [mostly but not entirely labor economists] there is a belief that degrees are certificates that convey mostly a willingness to forego current revenue and put up with crap for some period of time. I’m not an economist but I’ve been an academic for a very long time and I’m more sympathetic to this view every semester.
JuJutsu:
There are significant differences between students and academics. A degree for a student is a receipt. A degree for an academic is an access card. Students pay to be educated. Academics are paid to either educate or conduct research.
Putting up with crap is part of every job, even volunteer work, but professional research is not a charitable enterprise and engaging in such research doesn’t make one any more noble than actors, burger flippers, or waitresses.
I am not an academic, so I was not speaking to some kind of extreme belief that only academics are capable of logic.
Formal training is not the only way to become a good writer, a good researcher, or a good journalist.
It is, however, a better way than simply clicking “CREATE AN ACCOUNT” on Wikipedia, kissing up to a few administrators, and then thinking you are the intellectual and creative equal of an actual professional or academic in the field.
-Michael
Threshold RPG
http://www.thresholdrpg.com
I have asked at Wikia for a MUD Wiki, see Request for MUD Wiki. That will only work if there is significant participation by the MUD community.
FYI, here is a copy of the Wikipedia article LegendMUD: LegendMUD. It would need considerable work to meet Wikipedia standards. Meanwhile, after considerable discussion on Wikipedia’s mailing list, the article on Threshold has been recreated, using what is thought to be reliable sources, see Threshold_(online_game). The matter remains under discussion at Deletion review.
Fred
I still read this blog, too. 🙂
I disappeared off commenting for several years, because my employer instituted a policy that said that no employees were allowed to write or even comment on public blogs, period, related to work or not. That policy has very recently been revoked, and now I’m again able to, and actually encouraged to, engage in social media.
My belief is that most MUDders, historically, have tended to be pretty insular within their given circles. The LP folks know the other LP folks and the history of their community, the Diku-ers know the other Diku-ers, ditto with the MUSHers, the MUCKers, the MOOers… And so with the exception of those who have deliberately tried to preserve their history, there’s very little in the way of citations out there.
Wikipedia, in the end, has a sharp difference between authors and editors. Most content writers just do a little chunk of writing on a topic they are knowledgeable on, whereas the overwhelming majority of edits on the site are done by the fanatic crew of core editors. (See Aaron Swartz’s study.) The problem is that the culture of editing actually discourages the attempt of authoring, as you’re discovering. Authors are generally casual users with something to contribute, but get overwhelmed by the helpful-yet-not editing community.
Fred: You were one of the extremely helpful people from the very beginning. Thank you.
I finally had time to write up an article with the full details of the incident, from beginning to end (well, end at the time of the writing). You all might find it an interesting read:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/22166.aspx
Thanks again to everyone who had helpful suggestions and tips for how to move forward. I also must thank Raph and every blogger who brought attention to the issue. It has really galvanized the MUD/MMO gaming communities, and hopefully we can be more mindful of issues like this and remember to preserve our history.
[…] the whole Threshold deal with Wikipedia and losing mud history, a new Wiki was created on Wikia in order to preserve mud […]
For late arrivals, see this post: https://www.raphkoster.com/2009/01/13/saving-mud-history/
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