D&D Geeks Unite: Expand the Wikipedia

[wingsandsword]

In all probability, clogging wikipedia with articles that will voted for deletion for being irrelevant to a general audience. Wikipedia ia already generous with hobbyists as it is.

If you want an RPG reference wiki, host your own, folks.

Wikipedia isn't "generous" with hobbyists, it is trying to be an encyclopedia with the sum of human knowledge, and D&D is a popular hobby with a base of lore. Last time I checked, there was no Wikipedia policy against documenting a published, widely shared fictitious world or popular hobby, and a short article on Beholders or Elminster is fitting with the influence they have had on the world.

D&D is certainly encyclopedic, after being around 30+ years even obscure references make it into the popular culture and world at large. Look at the myriad references in TV series and movies, look at its influence on the fantasy genre as a whole, look at its influence on video games. As I like to point out, Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia with an editorial limit of pages, adding some text doesn't force something else out. Things should be removed from Wikipedia if they are unencyclopedic: an article about somebodys homebrew campaign setting or their home campaign should go as a vanity page, but D&D in general has a place.

In my experience on Wikipedia, one thing it has is a few elitists who think that anything fictitious has no place there. I've seen some downright rude, hostile things said about fine articles, including superfluous VfD's which never go anywhere, just because they were fictitious. However, I have also seen seen well researched, insightful, helpful articles on wikipedia on fictional topics.

Personally, I'm doing my part by updating the Star Wars articles, a few Trek articles, and some stuff about TV shows (like filling out the mostly incomplete list of M*A*S*H episodes I ran across).

 

[Arthedain]

Thought about this the other day...

For the last year - year and a half, Kuje has been collecting the words of Ed Greenwood from a thread over at Candlekeep and adding Ed's answers to a set of Word documents. But what if we could have those answers in a Wikipedia? Massive credit to Kuje, but Word documents aren't among the best searchable resources out there. I guess Wizards would have to give permission to someone, or perhaps host it themselves, but I would be really cool... At least for us Realmsfans .

 

[Simplicity]

An RPG reference wiki, why didn't someone think of that?

This would work, if it gained the support of the RPG world in general, but the true Wikipedia ALREADY has way more support (i.e. information on it) than wiki.rpg.net has. So, there's no reason not to just put the info into the big one that everyone knows about.

Seriously. The Outer Planes... Yep. There already. Jubilex? There. Icingdeath has it's own entry, for crying out loud. An entry that has been ACCEPTED, I might add. If the sum of human knowledge *has* to contain information about Drizzt, then it can contain information about the more interesting aspects of D&D lore.

 

[Orius]

Wikipedia is probably the greatest reference source known to humankind.

It is also filled with an astonishing number of articles written by and for geeks. I suppose it's not surprising as us geeks are often the aristocracy of the Net since we don't have anything better to do. There is already a large amount of information on D&D there already — enough to cover the basics about the game. I don't see a pressing need to add to it.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

"Today's featured article" at Wikipedia

"Link is the name of the fictional protagonist from Nintendo's Legend of Zelda video game series."