Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Mud Connector


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus.  Sandstein  13:42, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

The Mud Connector

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Article topic lacks significant coverage from reliable, independent sources. (?) It has only passing mentions in a video game reliable sources custom Google search. A redirect to the main MUD article or a MUD community section could suffice. czar 03:58, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions.  czar  03:58, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions.  czar  03:58, 22 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Fails WP:GNG, only mentioned in passing. Not notable for its own article. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 13:06, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
 *  Keep  Strong Keep. Characterization of the existing Yahoo! Wild Web Rides cite as a passing mention is inaccurate, and the topic has so much activity in Google Books (much moreso than in the WP/VG:RS search) that it seems unlikely that that's the only significant coverage available. I'll try to get additional notability-establishing citations actually added to the article, and will update here if I'm able to follow through on that. —chaos5023 (talk) 18:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC) Edit— the article now has four notability-demonstrating citations, passing the GNG by a very comfortable margin.  No reason not to upgrade my opinion to a strong keep. —chaos5023 (talk) 01:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * There is quite literally not enough source material as given to write more than a short paragraph. That's what happens when we are left to string together passing mentions. czar  13:56, 29 February 2016 (UTC) Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 06:20, 29 February 2016 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Note: I've added three new book citations with substantive discussion of the nature of the topic (ignoring all of the passing mentions that just refer the reader to the site as an authoritative source, or the authoritative source). Please review. —chaos5023 (talk) 17:25, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If this is the bottom of the barrel, we're still better off having a paragraph on this site within some larger section (e.g., the MUD community/scene section mentioned above) rather than this sole paragraph on its own page. czar  23:54, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Okay, but you're now arguing for deletion on the basis of aesthetics, not the GNG. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:21, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Not true. My stance is that a few culled sentences that mention the website's name in passing together do not constitute significant coverage (the essence of the GNG). That the website is not the subject of in-depth coverage is the reason why I can say there's not enough for a dedicated article. czar  03:40, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's certainly the case that "a few culled sentences that mention the website's name in passing" would not meet the GNG, but it's unclear why you would mention it in this connection, as there are four known sources that discuss the subject at paragraph length or more — "directly and in detail", as the point of reference you invoked in generating the AfD articulates as a standard. The level of detail in some of these sources seems bizarre — why readers of a book would care exactly what data fields a MUD listing contains escapes me — but it's certainly detail, and bears no resemblance to the literally dozens of actual passing mentions of this site in Google Books that I haven't bothered compiling, nor to the examples of passing mentions available in consensus-established guidelines. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:49, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think anyone familiar with AfD would consider these circumstances unclear. If the sourced text is the best we can do, we've proved that everything that could need to be said about this topic would be better said within a parent section—that is the GNG and the rest is commentary. Nothing else to add here. czar  19:35, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I wish you'd justify considering these clearly addressing-the-topic-directly-and-in-detail citations to be "passing mentions" when they clearly don't match the criteria established by consensus for that categorization. You seem to be just waving your hands at them and going WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and I don't think a supercilous appeal to being "familiar with AfD" sufficiently supports that. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:57, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete at best as searches found nothing better and none of this is better convincing. SwisterTwister   talk  07:07, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Please provide justification as to why the four (4) source citations discussing the subject of the article at paragraph or greater length, with specific details about the subject, do not qualify as addressing the subject "directly and in detail", thereby easily passing the GNG. Thanks. —chaos5023 (talk) 15:51, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep. MUDs are a niche subject, but the Mud Connector is certainly notable, and it has been mentioned in many publications in the field. See also WP:NEXIST; a number of additional sources have been provided since the AfD was generated. KaVir (talk) 23:36, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
 * And? They've shown that we don't have more than a few sentences of sourced content in the most esoteric of references. The sources for this discussion do not focus in any way on this website, but describe it as a blurb in the context of the MUD community. These specific mentions do not go into any great depth on the singular importance of this website apart than that it exists and perhaps has some import in the MUD community—there's nothing barring such an inclusion in a MUD community section of another article but we're not nearly at significant coverage for compiling every mention in every extant source. czar  14:14, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * You keep saying "a few sentences" as if it were damning, but a few sentences that address the topic directly and in detail meet the GNG as written. —chaos5023 (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not just "a few sentences", either. One of the sources I found after five minutes digging is an entire article in a published magazine that explains how to find the right MUD using The Mud Connector, going into detail about using the available search critera, the importance of reading the reviews, and so on. KaVir (talk) 21:16, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
 * This is your only edit to the page and the only citations added are primary sources... The Mud Connector does not prove notability for The Mud Connector. "A few sentences" is damning—if the sources added to the article in this AfD are the best we can do on the subject, then we've proved that there is no way forward for this article's expansion, so we either agree to keep it a permastub composed of mentions, or to merge the content into a home with similar content, such as a section or page on the MUD community. Either way, no, these mentions do not together constitute significant coverage for the GNG. At the risk of repeating myself, I won't be responding unless there new sources are unearthed for discussion. czar  00:18, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Why do you consider the Mud Companion magazine to be a primary source for the Mud Connector website? KaVir (talk) 01:00, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * My error—I misread Companion as Connector—but while not primary, the Companion magazine is a hobbyist and unreliable source. It has no hallmarks of editorial quality or reputation for fact-checking. czar  15:15, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by "hobbyist", but it was a commercial magazine that was sold both online and in physical stores. In terms of editorial oversight, the magazine lists a team of editors in the credits. The link you provided explicitly states "Other reliable sources include: ... Magazines", so I'm not quite sure why you consider this one unreliable. Could you please elaborate? KaVir (talk) 21:37, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Hobbyist as in not professional. I too can distribute my zine to three local comic book stores—being a "magazine" doesn't make my content reputable. That would require either editorial or content backgrounds on the part of the editors, or some other hallmark of quality. This is all the time I have for the subject but the folks at the reliable sources noticeboard would be happy to walk through why the Companion is not a good source for proving the wide notability of a subject. czar  22:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Czar, you keep doing this thing where you segue smoothly from talking about the GNG to using some private standard of your own that I'm not sure you understand isn't the GNG. There is nothing in the GNG requiring that the GNG-satisfying references comprise enough material to write an article comparable in scope, depth and wikigroaning exploitability to Emperor Palpatine.  The standard for significant coverage is that the sources address the topic "directly and in detail", which these sources do.  When you start talking about permastubs, not only are you arguing from your personal esthetics rather than standards, your logic is just wrong; even if the GNG-satisfying sources would only provide material for a stub, once you have GNG-satisfying sources (y'know, like the ones we have in this case), you can build the actual article out of a much broader array of sources than those, because the actual text in the article only needs to satisfy WP:V, not WP:GNG. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep per the provided references satisfying the WP:GNG. I am cognizant that this may be a permastub, but I am also skeptical that there is a good merge target (else that would be my !vote); if that's a desired outcome, perhaps can provide his preferred target? --Izno (talk) 14:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 00:06, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * : I suggest MUD. (I've already merged any content worth merging there. The rest was passing mentions from guide books or original research from newsgroups. ...there really is nothing substantive written about this site other than that it exists. The sources are all overlaps.) czar  14:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
 * czar 14:56, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the content there looks okay but less sparse than it should be. I'll keep my keep above, however, since the keep wasn't contingent on the "find a place to put this". --Izno (talk) 16:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.