[game_preservation] Should Wikipedia Be Responsible for Gaming's History?

[Devin Monnens]

Why hasn't anyone simply written a book on MUDs to compile all this
historical data?

Wikipedia's problem is it has become the defacto source for most people. If
you want to learn something, you look it up on Wikipedia. This becomes a
problem when the information on Wikipedia is not accurate or not detailed
enough. The statement of 'reliable third-party sources' seems relevant on
two levels, one because it means the source should be reliable and again
that it is third-party and therefore less likely to have an agenda (of
course, can't you reference iWoz for the Steve Wozniak article, or any
autobiography, for that matter? Then why not a MUD page?).

I've had these comments before as well that some of the articles on there
are really a stretch. Why, for instance, do we really need a Wikipedia page
for Highnoon? This is an example of the kinds of games that were created in
BASIC in high schools around the country, but it's not like it went very far
outside the school district or has been demonstrated to influence any other
games. I'm certainly glad the information is available (hence why I don't
say 'Delete it now!'), but at the same time, is Wikipedia really the place
for it? I mean, it only seems to be up there because it was made prior to
1972, when there were dozens (if not hundreds) of other unique games around
the same time or earlier, some of incredible importance (the Carnegie Tech
Management Game, for instance, which I just pulled sheaves of primary
sources on out of the library and appears to be the first instance of a
computer game used in education, as well as an example of a very large and
complex game - dating 1958 and was apparently played in some version or
other up until 1994, but I'm still trying to clarify that. It's not that
this is unknown in the literature, it's just it doesn't seem to be a part of
the literature on Serious Games or game history, and I feel it should be).

As for game history, there had BETTER be a lot more this year as the 25th
anniversary of many Nintendo games is happening, and next year is the 50th
anniversary of Spacewar! There'd BETTER be something awesome for that! :)

On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 6:09 AM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>wrote:


> I think we all remember the MUD-purge from wikipedia; a Wired article has

> come up about this.

>

> http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2011/01/wikipedia-gaming-history/

>

> So old news but obviously good for discussion on this; and something to

> point to as a citation for it happening (ho ho ho!). Of course there are

> arguments both ways about what should/shouldn't be included; I'm just glad

> Mobygames et al. are there to cover a wider margin of games (even though

> what is deleted tends to be overzealous). In any case I need to get back to

> posting up news links about game history stuff; although I've not seen a

> great deal around to be honest.

>

> Andrew

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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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