Talk:DragonRealms

message: Please ensure that any information added to this article conforms to Wikipedia policies.  Specifically those such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability.  Blogs and message board posts cannot be used as sources.  See Wikipedia:Reliable sources. --Elonka 07:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia policies

message: I am readding criticism's section for two reasons (a) other games like City of Heroes, World of Warcraft and even muds  like Medievia have them and (b) deleting an entire section because one subsection doesn't cite sources seems arbitrary and extreme. If you can point to *specific* paragraphs or sentences that need citations or doesn't conform to the NPOV, please use Wikipedia tags to flag comments/sentences/paragraphs that need revision.
--Winter Light 22:17, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-adding Criticism 

message: User Elonka has stated that the Criticism section doesn't conform to NPOV and I have therefore added a NPOV tag.  Are there individuals that agree/disagree? I concur with the idea that this section needs some cleaning up and editing. Notwithstanding this, I believe that this section conforms to NPOV because it represent views fairly without bias.  In DragonRealms, abilities are changed all of the time and players are not given the opportunity to unlearn these abilities.  Travel time is excessively long, taking upwards of 12 hours straight to travel to some places within the game world.   The basic subscription to DragonRealms only includes one character and cost customers $3 per each additional character.  While games like City of Heroes or World of Warcraft offer almost a limitless amount of characters for 14.95, DragonRealms only allows you one.  These are, I think, legitimate criticisms about DragonRealms. 
I should also note that Information suppression is against NPOV: Wikipedia:Information_suppression
--Winter Light 22:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue is not whether or not a criticism is "legitimate", but whether or not information is verifiable, and from reliable sources.  Wikipedia is not a place to post what is known as "Original Research".  See Wikipedia:No original research, and Wikipedia:Verifiability.  Further, any unverifiable negative information about living people is required to be removed immediately, per WP:BLP. --Elonka 00:08, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism and NPOV 

message: Are you kidding me, Elonka!?! It has *everything* to do with whether a particular criticism is legitimate. User Elonka, you initially removed an entire section under the cloak of "Wikipedia policies".  I then repaired the article, added a NPOV tag and invited you to (a) highlight particular paragraphs or sentences that were unacceptable and to (b) engage in a dialogue about improving the section. Rules stated in Wikipedia:Verifiability#Burden_of_evidence
"Any edit lacking a source may be removed, but some editors may object if you remove material without giving people a chance to provide references. If you want to request a source for an unsourced statement, a good idea is to move it to the talk page. Alternatively, you may tag the sentence by adding the  template, or tag the article by adding  or . Also in that case it may be helpful for your co-editors to leave a clarifying note on the talk page, for instance indicating which sources you already checked. You can also make the unsourced sentences invisible in the article by adding  after it, until reliable sources have been provided. When using this "commenting out" technique it is usually best to leave a clarifying note on the talk page.[1]"
Instead of engaging in a fruitful discussion on how to improve the section or perhaps a dialogue on making it an entirely new one, you simply removed it again, and proclaimed that it doesn't matter if a "criticism is 'legitimate,' but whether or not the information is verifiable".  
The problem is here is that these complaints are legitimate and, interestingly enough, conform to Wikipedia:Verifiability
In your response, if there is a response, please (a) indicate paragraphs/sentences that need adjustment either on the talk page or by using the fact/uncited source tags and (b) be willing to engage in a fruitful discussion on this page.  This isn't your sandbox. We all work to make Wikipedia the best it can be. --Winter Light 01:41, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For negative information, the burden of proof lies on the person who wants to insert the info, not on those who wish to have it removed.  The style of writing is clearly POV, and inappropriate.  If you persist in continuing to re-add it, you risk being blocked from Wikipedia. --Elonka 03:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reply to Elonka 

message: Here's my concern.  There are very clearly stated policies on Wikipedia about negative information.  Please review Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons.  These policies clearly state that negative information about living people, can be removed on sight.  It's one thing to criticize a game.  It's another to criticize people.  Many of the things that you have added to the article about specific people, could be perceived as libel.  According to Wikipedia policy, the only times that negative information can be added about a living person, is if that information has already appeared in some other outside verifiable source.  The definition of what a "verifiable source" is, is very clear on Wikipedia. Blogs cannot be used as sources.  Message boards cannot be used as sources.  An editorial on a MUD site cannot be used as a source.  So, any negative information that is based on sources like those, must be removed.  Immediately.  I am willing to discuss other information that you want to add, but the negative "POV" pieces have to be removed first.
I have asked someone non-involved, an IGDA volunteer, to come in and take a look at your edits, and offer an outside opinion. --Elonka 06:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Negative information

message: Looking at this from the point of view of someone who has never played DragonRealms, I found the criticism section way out of proportion to the rest of the article, and most of it seemed to be typical of MUD player drama. Not useful or interesting to an encyclopedic aricle. In pretty much every community there are those who are not happy with decisions made by the management. That goes without saying most of the time. Wikipedia is also not intended as a hint guide to playing the game, which much of the criticism section was turning into, suggesting strategies for choosing skills.
This is also not a good place for a discussion about what "skill based" means in game dev contexts. If you feel it's worthy of inclusion in wikipedia, create a new page for it.
I edited down the section down to its core points. Still, I'm concerned that there aren't any good, verifiable sources for them. The ones included earlier don't work because they're posts on message boards, as far as I could tell. Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability and provide sources for the items under criticism. If you don't, I think the specifics should be deleted entirely, and replaced with something more general. Even that is being generous with the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Subversified 06:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Criticism Edit

message: There must be something in the rules that applies here.  How is it that you can have business relations with Simutronics and yet be un-bias towards what goes into this article?  We call that a conflict of interest in the goverment. Davidf84 17:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see anything in here that would qualify as a reliable secondary source.  Just the official site and sites related to it.  —Wknight94 (talk) 01:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If the editor(s) has a direct and profitable relation to the company/product in question then they are going to be bias towards it.. more-so if they like their job, I doubt they would backstab their employer in a public enviroment.  That should be all the justifcation needed. Davidf84 03:50, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confilct of interest, Elonka 

message: Hello editors. It looks like there is a dispute here over the contents of the entry and wikipedia policy. As a longtime editor at wikipedia (over 8000 edits) and a long time DR player (I won't name my characters, but I've been playing since it was on Prodigy for  several dollars per hour and I racked up 600 dollar a month bills ;0 ) , I'd like to help clarify any concerns you may have here. Would the disputing parties, which appear to be Elonka and Winter light, please state their positions below about what the dispute consists of? ⇒ SWATJester Ready  Aim  Fire! 19:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: mediation

message: I disagree with one of the links being removed, elanthipedia.com is the main site most of us players use now days, the maps/guides help immensely and it has a good chunk of history if things that have happened in the game --Legeres (talk) 15:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm going to restore it since it's the unofficial wiki.  All the game articles i've visited have at least one link like this--Legeres (talk) 18:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That other articles are not in compliance with out guidelines is poor logic to expand non-conpliance. WP:ELNO is very clear - no links to fansites, no links to wikis. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: it doesn't say no wikies it says "Links to open wikis, except those with a substantial history of stability and a substantial number of editors." the wiki is stable(barring the minor issue with their server) and has a lot of editors so it complies, i'm not seeing the problem--Legeres (talk) 18:19, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We can ask for a third opinion about whether or not it complies or you can go to the EL talk page and ask there, but it is not gonna fly. -- The Red Pen of Doom 18:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: or i can join the debate on said talk page concerning wiki links--Legeres (talk) 20:10, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

text: For open Wikis? Wikipedia doesnt count as a reliable source, so I would say a LOT. For a Wiki that is edited only by known and recognized experts in the field - it would depend on how big the field is. You can bring your proposed source to [] and find the community consensus.-- The Red Pen of Doom 17:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Link removal

message: *Business Wire Sept 4, 1996 article stating Eric Slick as product manager 
*Business Wire August 4, 1997 article stating popularity as well as other things
*Gamespot Oct 13, 1997 article stating hours of traffic and a bit more history
--Legeres (talk) 22:00, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The business wire appears to easily meet our WP:RS requirements, the gamespot is a bit more shakey, if we assume the "about us" is factual, it would appear to be OK. -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:08, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Gamespot should be okay it's a fairly old video game site.-- Legeres (talk) 11:05, 23 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible references(including reasons) 

message: WP:NOTE requires that a topic have coverage in reliable third party sources (independent of the subject) to be considered notable.  As of yet, I don't find this to be the case with this article.  Please note that I am not saying that DragonRealms is not notable... only that there is no statement as to why it is notable in the article, and no sources to demonstrate this notability.  At the moment, the only section that is properly sourced is the section on the Hoax... which indicates that the Hoax might be notable, but not the game itself. Blueboar (talk) 16:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: We are half way there... the article now includes a statement to the effect that it is one of the oldest and most popular games... the next step is to substantiate this with references to reliable independent sources. Blueboar (talk) 23:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know if this will work or not, it says it's a review though and it's more recent. DragonRealms Revisited --Legeres (talk) 06:23, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

text: Not sure if it supports the statement... but it is certainly an independent third party reliable source that can be used to substantiate notability. A few more like this and you should be all set. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The business wire link (Aug. 4) in the section(possible references) above has something on popularity of DragonRealms.  Looks like I missed a few articles in the business wire as well, the first is about DragonRealms and the second is about online popularity of Simutronics games  and .--Legeres (talk) 23:55, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I think this would be an excellent resource to speak of Dragonrealms' popularity because it's a third-party that tracks MUD usage statistics by monitoring the connectivity to these games by the ports they use.  If you look at the page for Dragonrealms , Dragonrealms is #1 for all fantasy multi-user-dungeons and shows that Dragonrealms is #3 over-all in current multi-user dungeons usage.--Nikpack (talk) 02:29, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Clearly I should have read the history and noticed that  was previously added and removed from the wiki on March 24.  I'm wondering why this source is not a reliable source.  It is because the data it gives is continuously changing?--Nikpack (talk) 02:48, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability?