Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Two Towers (MUD)


 * 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   keep. Merge/redirecting is encouraged to be undertaken at editorial discretion (or after talk page discussion). Regards,   A rbitrarily 0    ( talk ) 21:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

The Two Towers (MUD)
AfDs for this article: 
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I could not find reliable secondary sources to verify this material (WP:V), and therefore nothing to fulfil the notability guidelines for inclusion (WP:N). Marasmusine (talk) 16:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions.  Marasmusine (talk) 16:17, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - If anything, reporting would have happened closer to the game's initial release date of 1994, possibly in print. I just don't see how this game would get much coverage these days. SharkD   Talk  18:24, 5 July 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Looking at the article history, there were more sources earlier. Following the style of the Lost Souls (online game) article (an even longer-running MUD), here are some more sources.


 * Tisa, Steve (1995) rec.games.mud.lp, claiming it was a LP Mud
 * Ekman, Fredrik, posted a list of Tolkien games which included it.

Possible sources

 * This Google Books search has "Welcome to The Two Towers LPMud" on page 41 in the book Creating Web pages for dummies, by Bud E. Smith, Arthur Bebak - 1997, but the snippet view does not show the context. The preceding page 40 includes a brief "tip" on what a Mud is, so one could speculate that page 41 used the Two Towers mud as an example. Anyone who has the hardcopy could confirm this (I do not).

Probable primary sources
These were removed from the article but might still be useful to support "the mud operators claim ..." statements.
 * (mudconn)
 * (oneringnet)
 * (mudmagic) - Game of the Month for October 2007, ranked third in Top 10 Themes

Other sources
And there are several mudlists posted on Usenet around 1995 and 1996 that include this mud, although many appear to have been out of date even then. I could not find any independent support for the started in 1994 claim for example. 
 * Alexa rank "Set entirely within Tolkien's world of Middle-Earth. Site contains detailed game information and a discussion forum."
 * Rudy, David, rec.games.mud.lp, Lima and TMI Mudlib questions: while discussing command parsing, mentioned it's based on TMI Mudlib
 * Rudy, David, rec.games.mud.admin, 1998 in Where are the good MUD's? mentioned Lycos published their "Best of the Net, A2Z" book (ISBN 9780789713483) and then claimed the T2T was "one of the only MUDs listed in that book"
 * -84user (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2010 (UTC) added 1998 mention of another book -84user (talk) 23:45, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  — fetch ·  comms   03:20, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. The currently extant cite to theonering.net does appear to be an independent review; the source isn't the New York Times or anything but its value is probably nonzero.  As far as the other stuff you mention, 84user, Usenet posts may yield specific sorts of information but they don't demonstrate anything for notability purposes, nor do Mudconnector and Mudmagic directory listings.  However, I have copies of Creating Web Pages for Dummies and Most Popular Web Sites: The Best of the Net from A 2 Z being shipped to me now, and will add citations from them when available.  I think that between these items, we should have enough for this article to squeak by. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 15:40, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Received Most Popular Web Sites: The Best of the Net from A 2 Z today and added cite from it. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 16:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * That's great news. Although, I have to ask: is the coverage significant, or merely enough for verification? Marasmusine (talk) 19:57, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * It's minimal; I quoted the entirety of it. I don't think it contributes much toward notability in and of itself.  It does establish that the MUD's web site was there in 1996 and doing well enough that it made it into a volume Lycos compiled based on link popularity (according to the preface), so maybe that's something. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 20:30, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * So, um, yeah, I got the 9th edition (good God) of Creating Web Pages for Dummies when I needed the 2nd edition. The 2nd edition is being shipped now.  I guess, like, if someone's looking to close as delete, it'd be nice if they would hold off a minute. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 01:26, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay, CWP4D 2E received and reference added. The material is in context of a discussion of entertainment sites in general and MUDs in particular, and uses T2T as its sole example for that, with a screenshot, briefly described "Figure 2-5 shows an interesting entertainment site from Service Tech, Inc. at the following URL: http://www.angband.com/towers/core.html" and captioned "Figure 2-5: A site for sore eyes."  About which the best thing one can probably say is, okay, somebody noticed them.  Hopefully it adds up. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 14:48, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Keep, or smerge-redirect to TMI Mudlib in the case that the consensus is this does not meet wikipedia's notability standard for a stand-alone article, but please wait until chaos5023 can check the 2nd edition of Creating Web Pages for Dummies. Note that here I added both MIRE and The Two Towers (MUD) to TMI Mudlib. -84user (talk) 18:59, 14 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment - I appreciate chaos5023 source-gathering efforts, but so far we have nothing approaching the coverage asked for at WP:N. Since we now have additional verification, I'm open to a merge/redirect. Marasmusine (talk) 15:43, 20 July 2010 (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.