Category talk:MU* games

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Notability

Seems this category is starting to find some non-notable articles that are basically ads for someones MUD and provide little encylopedic value. I seem to recall having this problem before in the previous category...

I think perhaps we should go through the list and do a bit of cleanup. I'm not overly familiar with MUSH'ing, so I honestly have no idea about which of those are notable, but I'm going to go ahead and notability mark a few of the others.

If anyone wants to assist, please do. This is an encylopedia, not a MUD listing. :)

--Phorteetoo 04:13, 5 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been doing some pruning here and there; trying to get rid of most of the vanity/advertising, guides/faqs and instruction manuals that are dotted around in the MUD catagory. Although like you I've not much idea what is notable or not.Marasmusine 14:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some ideas of what makes a MUD notable have been discussed in the Talk:MUD page. Essentially to be notable a MUD must have been operating for a fair number of years, have, or have had a sizable player base, and have had notable impact on the MUD community (for better or for worse). --Thoric 14:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable. Much more reasonable than those who admit they don't know what is notable doing the tagging and nominating. That excludes me as well, as I have no idea either. :-) Carcharoth 15:44, 2 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've started pruning as well. I am very involved with the MUSHing community and honestly? I wouldn't even put my own game on here. MUSHes by and large are not notable. Any of them. Rubydanger (talk) 03:22, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MU* as a subcategory of MUDs

MUSHes and MUCKs, which are in this category, would not consider themselves MUDs even though they are descended from these games, just as MMOs wouldn't consider themselves MUDs. It is wrong to categorize these under the term MUD. - MrOllie (talk) 19:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A MUD is a multi-user textual virtual world. How would a MUSH or a MUCK not qualify?

If you're adamant one solution would be to create a separate category for these games - apparently the difference is too great for mud and mu* games to co-exist in the same category. --Scandum (talk) 19:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

MUSHes and MUCKs have become a distinct hobby with a culture that only rarely intersects with the hobby that still calls itself 'MUD'. If you were to connect to a MUSH and ask the people connected if they played MUDs, a large majority would say no. I don't particularly feel like the category needs to be broken up (it's not all that large) but if you do I won't step in, so long as stuff like Elendor doesn't end up under a MUD category. - MrOllie (talk) 19:28, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds more like some kind of rivalry, like the advertisment slogan that a Chiquita isn't a banana. Then again, ask on a SMAUG mud if they're playing a MERC mud and the answer will be no as well. But you present a dilemna, if muds and 'mushes' are so different, why are they in the same 'mu* games' category? Keep in mind that the 'Multi-User Dungeon' is just an umbrella category to tie the directories together, but the way you make it seem is that there should be a 'mu* games' and 'mud games' directory, but what directory would the 'mu* category' fall under in that case? 'Multi-User Dungeons' seems a better fit than 'Online Games'. --Scandum (talk) 19:39, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's cultural clash thing I'm mentioning. The people on the MUD side of the fence would say MUD is the general term and MU* games would be the subcat, the people on the MUSH side would say that MU* is the umbrella term and MUD should be the subcat. Setting that issue aside, a generic umbrella term might be 'Online text-based role-playing game', especially since we already have an article for it. (Not that it's a terribly good one) - MrOllie (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're defying Wikipedia guidelines with this suggestion, the term MUD has become the De facto standard where as MU* and OTRPG have not. Want to bring some outside opinion into this? --Scandum (talk) 19:51, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which guideline? I'm not sure I'm familiar with what you're talking about. - MrOllie (talk) 19:53, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NAME would apply here. --Scandum (talk) 19:57, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Be more specific. - MrOllie (talk) 20:01, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NAME#Use_the_most_easily_recognized_name MUD is the most easily recognized name, not MU*. MUSH players might not like that, even despise it, but that's not relevant here. --Scandum (talk) 20:03, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well WP:COMMONNAME says that 'the given name must be neutrally worded and must not carry POV implications.' and WP:CATEGORY says that 'If the nature of something is in dispute (e.g., if an event is considered a war crime), you may want to avoid labelling it or mark the categorization as disputed.', so if MUSH players were to dislike or despise such a thing it would be relevant here. - MrOllie (talk) 20:08, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It just points out that NPOV is an issue for those players - not factually which clearly shows that a MUSH is in fact a MUD with MUSH being just a pun on the word MUD in TinyMUD as the article states. Anyways, many links in the MU* games category are MUDs, so I think you don't have much of an argument - clearly the category befits those. --Scandum (talk) 20:14, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move those to a more specific category if you like - as I said earlier, so long as stuff like Elendor or PernMUSH doesn't end up inaccurately categorized it's no skin off my back. - MrOllie (talk) 20:17, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I'll create a MUD Games and MUD Servers category then and make the divide official. --Scandum (talk) 20:22, 12 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Er, hi. MUDs and MUSHes are, if you use the terminology properly or even just know the genres, different things, and their server is different from their content often. MUDs tend to focus on the mechanical aspects of combat, rather like WoW, while MUSHes tend toward the roleplaying end and the immersive aspects of a game. (Like the difference between, say, D&D and Dogs in the Vineyard.) The term MOO, while terminalogically referring to a subset of both MUSHes and MUDs, is more usually applied to text-based simulated environments for a purpose other than gaming. Both MUDs and MUSHes are, therefore, usually online text-based role-playing games (and, indeed, MMORPGs) by most definitions, but MOOs are not, and their servers are usually (but not necessarily) distinct from the games they run. --Earin (t) 20:35, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]