"Worldbuilding is the process of constructing an imaginary world, sometimes associated with a whole fictional universe. ... Developing an imaginary setting with coherent qualities such as a history, geography, and ecology is a key task for many science fiction or fantasy writers"
If this is worldbuilding, then B2 doesn't have it. There is no coherent history, geography or ecology in that module - I mean, there are dozens of powerful warriors (many superior to their human opponents) living a hour or two's walk away from a modestly defended keep. And with no obvious food supply for either side. And no coherent history either.
It's a framing for play, not something that answers the description you've quoted.
"Worldbuilding often involves the creation of maps, a backstory, and people for the world." which lists people and for RPGs would include monsters.
Building a fence often involves the hammering of nails into wood. It doesn't follow that every time someone hammers a nail into some wood they're building a fence. Not all creating of maps is worldbuilding in the sense you yourself quoted.
"From a game-design perspective, the goal of worldbuilding is to create the context for a story. Consistency is an important element, since the world provides a foundation for the action of a story." which completely refute his argument that any part of building the world that deals with plot is not worldbuilding.
Again, worldbuiding may have the goal of creating context. It doesn't follow that all context is worldubilding. And nor does it follow that all RPGing even has some context. There is no context to B1 other than "Let's earn some XP by exploring a dungeon." The context for S1 (Tomb of Horrors) is similar.
The context in B2 is marginally thicker, but only marginally. Likewise S2 (White Plume Mountain), which is - by the way - another single-building adventure.
Going back to Tomb of Horrors, contrast S1 with the Return to . . . version, which (I understand by reputation - I've never read it)
does engage in a whole lot of worldbuilding, establishing all this backstory to try and make the dungeon actually make sense in the context of a consistent, coherent world. This seems to me to be exactly the sort of distinction [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] is drawing, between adventure design and worldbuilding.
You believe he's stating personal preference and applying these reasons to... himself only as opposed to making a general statement about why he believes world building is bad in general? If so that seems like an interesting way of interpreting his statement, and certainly not how I read it.
I don't blame you for your preferences, and I'm sure they've formed as a result of your actual experiences, but I don't think they are universal enough to consider worldbuilding as bad. I just don't think it's all that different from any other tool the DM can use....they can be used effectively, or they can be abused.
Let's take it, for the sake of argument, that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s comments are grounded primarily in personal preference grounded in personal experience.
Are [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s grounded in anything more robust or objective? I doubt it.
In other words, the claims
worldbuilding is not bad is not grounded more firmly than the claim that
worldbuilding is bad. So what's the objection to Hussar that doesn't apply to hawkeyefan? That he's hurting feelings?
EDIT:
Another reason in favour of up-front world-building, or at least an aspect of current game design that will tend to force some world-building by default, just occurred to me: the increasing importance of and emphasis on character backgrounds.
<snip>
one of the first questions to arise in any sort of character history or background is going to be "where am I from?"; and the second is likely to be a variant on "how did I get to <where the campaign starts>?"; and answering these questions - likely for a variety of races and classes within your starting party - is by default going to force a surprising amount of world-building.
<snip>
So, unless a DM wants to end up with something of a hodge-podge game world it would probably make sense to know ahead of time - at least in vague terms - what lives where and in relative proximity to what else.
Here we have Lanefan saying that
a reason in favour of worldbuilding is to avoid
something of a hodge-podge game world.
Are all the posters who are outraged by [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] expressing a strong opinion about the problems with worldbuilding now going to attack [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] for putting forward this reason (which clearly is nothing more than a preference grounded in his experience) as objective in some fashion? Or is it only those who dislike worldbuilding who get held to that standard?