[WikiEN-l] the verifiability of articles we already HAVE

[Erik Moeller]

On 4/26/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:11:55 -0400, you wrote:
>
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MapleStory
> >--a long article about an MMORGP with no explicit references for any
> >particular facts in it, but a slew of external links to official
> >websites and fansites
>
> Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong project.  That article is well over
> *three times* the size of the one on Robert Hooke, and then there's a
> listcruft of monsters as well.

That shouldn't come as a surprise. MMORPGs are known for their
addiction potential. Players spend hundreds of hours in these games.
They form emotional attachments with the game and the players. Writing
about the game allows them to re-experience some of the positive
emotions they associate with it. The same goes for movies, fictional
realms, and so forth.

The real problem is not that we have an extremely detailed article
about MapleStory. In fact, that is a good thing. Who will describe the
cultural artifacts of the early 21st century in detail, if not us?
Academia can never catch up with the pace of development of these
games. Incidentally, I was recently trying to learn more about the
MMORPG phenomenon, and guess what my best source of information was?
Wikipedia, of course.

The problem I have seen, aside from the fact that many of these
articles about games and movies are written by teenagers and read
accordingly, is that they often focus entirely on the content of a
game, movie, etc. The parts which are emotional are described in
detail. However, little attention is given to aspects such as history,
production, commercial success, critical reception. That is true for
the MapleStory article as well. It is full of screenshots and details
about gameplay. However, there is virtually no history or additional
information to put the game into context.

Getting back on topic, perhaps one thing that would help is a "School
of Wikipedia" where new contributors can find mentors for different
aspects of editing, with rewards on completion of different courses
(the final exercise being to get an article to featured status). Has
such a thing already been tried? It seems one of the things that has
really worked well is the "barn star" reward model. Perhaps we could
also learn a lesson or two from MMORPGs, as long as it happens within
a very limited context such as such a School of Wikipedia.

Erik