Let's improve the Blackmoor Wikipedia article!

[Rafael]

Hi all,

The page is not only in dire need of updating, but also lacks some reference to our stuff here:

So, let's try to make it a bit better!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackmoor

{{about|the fantasy campaign setting|the goldfish type|Black Moor|other uses of the term Blackmoor/Blackmore|Blackmore (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox RPG
|title= Blackmoor
|image=[[Image:Blackmoor logo.png]]
|designer= [[Dave Arneson]]
|publisher= [[Tactical Studies Rules]] (TSR), [[Zeitgeist Games]]
|date= 1970s - present
|genre= Fantasy
|system= [[Dungeons & Dragons]], [[d20 System|d20]]
|footnotes=
}}

'''Blackmoor''' is a [[fantasy]] [[role-playing game]] [[campaign setting]] generally associated with the game ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]''. It originally evolved in the early 1970s as the personal setting of [[Dave Arneson]], the co-creator of ''Dungeons & Dragons'', first as a setting for Arneson's miniature [[wargaming|wargames]], then as an early testing ground for what would become ''D&D''. Blackmoor is the longest continuously played fantasy role-playing campaign in existence.

==Original publication==
{{seealso|Blackmoor (supplement)}}
[[Image:ArnesonBlackmoorSupplementIICover.jpg|thumb|The original ''Blackmoor'' supplement ([[TSR Inc.]], 1975)]]

The original Blackmoor product was published by [[Tactical Studies Rules]] (TSR) in 1975, as the second supplement to ''D&D'' (the first being [[Greyhawk (supplement)|Greyhawk]]). The booklet was named for the original role-playing campaign world by Dave Arneson, who also wrote this booklet.Thumbnail Analysis - Blackmoor, [[Don Lowry]], ''[[Panzerfaust Magazine|Panzerfaust and Campaign]]'' #72 (Panzerfaust Publications, 1976) It added rules, monsters, treasure, and the first published role-playing game adventure, "Temple of the Frog".[http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12622.phtml Review of Dungeons & Dragons Supplement II: Blackmoor], Scott Casper (2006), retrieved March 2008 Despite the name, however, it did not include any information on the setting itself.

==First Fantasy Campaign==
[[Image:ArnesonFirstFantasyCampaignCover.jpg|thumb|left|First Fantasy Campaign ([[Judges Guild]]), 1977]]
Written by Dave Arneson and published by [[Judges Guild]] in 1977, ''First Fantasy Campaign'' added information on the actual Blackmoor campaign setting. It included baronies, citadels, history of leaders and details on the Blackmoor dungeon. It also contained additional rules for creating lairs, character interests and vocations.[http://www.acaeum.com/jg/Item0037.html First Fantasy Campaign] at acaeum.com

==DA module series==
{{seealso|DA module series}}
{|border=0 align="right" cellpadding="10"
|-
|
{| border=1 class="wikitable"
|+ DA Expansion Modules
!Code!! Title
|-
|DA1|| Adventures in Blackmoor
|-
|DA2|| Temple of the Frog
|-
|DA3|| City of the Gods
|-
|DA4|| Duchy of Ten
|}
|}
Though Arneson left TSR in the early 1980s, Blackmoor remained a part of ''D&D'' lore and was referred to in many later supplements. In a subsequent re-release of the world of [[Greyhawk]] for the ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D)'' game, an Arctic region of mysterious black ice in the northwestern area of the map was called [[Blackmoor (Greyhawk)|Blackmoor]]. However, Arneson's Blackmoor would become integral to a different setting and rules-system, those of the ''Basic Dungeons & Dragons'' game.

For various reasons, TSR published two different versions of their flagship game line. Over the course of several supplements, the ''Basic Dungeons & Dragons'' developed its own campaign setting, referred to at first simply as the Known World and later as [[Mystara]]. When the history of Mystara was codified, it was established that Arneson's Blackmoor had existed in the world's distant past, achieved a technologically advanced civilization and then destroyed itself in a global catastrophe which shifted the planet's axis.

Though its influence was now central to at least one of TSR's published worlds, the actual setting of Blackmoor as Arneson described it had yet to be presented. This was finally remedied in the mid-1980s through the DA series of [[List of Dungeons & Dragons modules|expansion modules]], which carried a party of adventurers into Mystara's past to visit Blackmoor. The first of these, DA1 "Adventures in Blackmoor", described in general the geography and politics of Blackmoor and the means by which the characters travel there. DA2 "Temple of the Frog" expanded the scenario that had appeared in the original Blackmoor supplement. DA3 "City of the Gods" explored the starship crashed near the Kingdom of Blackmoor, from which the setting's intentional anachronisms derived. DA4 "The Duchy of Ten" dealt with a horde of invading barbarians, but was the only work not derived from Dave Arneson's original campaign notes. A fifth installment, DA5 "City of Blackmoor", was announced but was never written or published.

Though there were no further direct explorations of Blackmoor, later [[Mystara]] products continued to make reference to it. For instance, "The Wrath of the Immortals", an epic adventure which described a massive war involving both heaven and earth, climaxes with the discovery of the preserved control room from the starship which had crashed near Blackmoor millennia ago.

==d20 System==
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2009}}
After the ''Basic D&D'' game and its Mystara setting were discontinued, [[Zeitgeist Games]], where Arneson worked prior to his death, produced an updated [[d20 System]] version of Blackmoor, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting'', published by [[Goodman Games]], [http://www.goodman-games.com www.goodman-games.com], in 2004.[http://www.goodman-games.com/pastnews.html 3rd Edition Publishing Announcement] '6/27/04 - Blackmoor is off to the printer and on track for a Gen Con release! If you want to be one of the first to get your hands on this beauty, be sure to place your preorder now!' Goodman Games 'Past News' page, retrieved January 2010 Goodman and Zeitgeist also produced a Blackmoor d20 adventure module, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The Redwood Scar'' (2004) and sourcebook, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The Wizards Cabal'' (2005). In 2006 Zeigteist Games started publishing new books on their own. The 2006 release calendar includes a softcover reprint (with added content) of ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting'', a hardcover version of the ''Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor'', ''Player's Guide to Blackmoor'', and the adventure 'Temple of the Frog'' (which had a sneak preview event at [[Gen Con]] 2007).

==Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG==
There is also an ongoing [[MMRPG|Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMRPG)]] campaign, [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com], organized by Zeitgeist games, which is similar in form to the [[Living Campaigns]] organized by the [[RPGA]].[http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/ What is Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG?] Dave Arneon's Blackmoor the MMRPG homepage, retrieved January 2010 The version of the campaign for D&D 3.5 ended in February 2009 at [[Megacon]] with a version of the campaign for D&D 4th Edition expected to launch at [[Gen Con]] 2009.

A list of their released adventures can be found [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.ph...play&pid=3 here]. The episodes for the MMRPG are available for free to play at home and at [[Gaming convention]]s such as [[Gen Con]] and [[Megacon]].

[[Megacon]] is Blackmoor's home convention, where the new season is kicked off each year.

==4th Edition==
In 2008 [[Code Monkey Publishing]] announced that it had reached a deal with [[Zeitgeist Games]] to be the publisher of Blackmoor in the new Wizards of the Coast 4th Edition of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The currently announced plans for Blackmoor in 4th Edition include a reprinting of the 3.5 Blackmoor core book using 4th edition mechanics and a series of three books set after a time jump of unknown length [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.ph...cle&sid=22 4th Edition Publishing Announcement].

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.blackmoorcastle.com/ Dave Arneson's homepage]
*[http://www.zeitgeistgames.com Zeitgeist Games]
*[http://www.dablackmoor.com Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG]
*[http://www.goodman-games.com Goodman Games]
*[http://www.codemonkeypublishing.com/ Code Monkey Publishing]

{{D&D Campaign Settings}}

[[Categoryungeons & Dragons campaign settings]]
[[Category:Mystara]]

[[it:Blackmoor]]

[Big Mac]

The page is not only in dire need of updating, but also lacks some reference to our stuff here

I used to be very active on Wikipedia until the "deletionists" started attacking multiple articles on pretty much any grounds they can. I think you will find that, by Wikipedia rules, this forum would be "challenged" as a source of reliable information about Blackmoor*.

* = Challanging sources is a very good way of undermining the references in a D&D article. If a delitionist can challenge the source of a specific fact, they can get that reference pulled from the article (on the grounds of not being reliable). That then allows them to put out a call for a "reliable source" for the same fact and then try to get that fact deleted from the article. This allows them to slowly chip away at the foundation of an article that is too well established to delete in one go. But if a delitionist can challange five or six different sources, they can rip out a lot of content and eventually make the article look so pathetic that it is too small to be of much use to casual readers.

One of the attack forms, used by delitionists, is to accuse an article of not being "notable" (in other words it "is not important enough to history to be on Wikipedia"). I think you can establish that Dave Arneson's campaign setting was early enough to warrant its own article. To give an example of an article challanged as not being "notable", the one for "Trampas Whiteman" (founder of Dragonlance Nexus - the award winning Dragonlance site that was given official site status) was challanged on notability. I noticed that the challanger was a "tag and run" delitionist** found a couple bits of information to show Dragonhelm's importance to the DL product line (i.e. he is credited in all the MWP 3e products) and then pulled the tag.

** = The tag and run delitionist will tag a number of D&D articles as "needing fixing" and then do nothing themselves to look for ways to solve the problem they have highlighted. They will then return to the article after some time (they used to do this very quickly) and try to cite the lack of improvement as prooving that the article is not important. Its a kind of one-two attack manoeuvre, that appears to the greater community to be people consulting the community before applying for deletion.

I've seen lesser articles about other D&D settings dump-merged into the "main" article for it. (I wrote an article called "List of Spelljammer novels" which got merged into the "Spelljammer" article within 3 days, because it wasn't long enough to warrant being another article.) That sounds like an attack, but it isn't. It is someone pulling content into the main article to give it more substance (and improve its importance).

So getting back to this forum. You have The Great Svenny here, who can obviously provide input on Dave Arneson's personal campaign (if people ask him particular questions). But you also have people here who might talk about campaigns that are nothing to do with Dave Arneson. And (to Wikipedia) those sort of things are not relevant to Blackmoor. I have seen other forums challanged (as sources) on that basis.

I think you need to get in touch with BOZ. He has been actively improving a number of article and fixing the weaknesses that have allowed deletionists to challang them.

I think you also need to learn what can and can't be put up on Wikipedia. Because, while I would love to see more Blackmoor articles go up, I could see most of them get pulled straight down, because (like my SJ novel article) they do not have enough references to prove that they "need" to be outside of the main Blackmoor article.

If you really want to see Blackmoor get the encyclopedic content it deserves, I think the only way to do that is to set up a standalone Blackmoor encyclopedia. It is what the Forgotten Realms fans did when they got fed up being bullied on Wikipedia and Forgotten Realms Wiki is a model of what I'd love to see done for Blackmoor. :twisted:

[Big Mac]

==d20 System==
{{Unreferenced section|date=May 2009}}
After the ''Basic D&D'' game and its Mystara setting were discontinued, [[Zeitgeist Games]], where Arneson worked prior to his death, produced an updated [[d20 System]] version of Blackmoor, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting'', published by [[Goodman Games]], [http://www.goodman-games.com www.goodman-games.com], in 2004.[http://www.goodman-games.com/pastnews.html 3rd Edition Publishing Announcement] '6/27/04 - Blackmoor is off to the printer and on track for a Gen Con release! If you want to be one of the first to get your hands on this beauty, be sure to place your preorder now!' Goodman Games 'Past News' page, retrieved January 2010 Goodman and Zeitgeist also produced a Blackmoor d20 adventure module, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The Redwood Scar'' (2004) and sourcebook, ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The Wizards Cabal'' (2005). In 2006 Zeigteist Games started publishing new books on their own. The 2006 release calendar includes a softcover reprint (with added content) of ''Dave Arneson's Blackmoor Campaign Setting'', a hardcover version of the ''Dungeons of Castle Blackmoor'', ''Player's Guide to Blackmoor'', and the adventure 'Temple of the Frog'' (which had a sneak preview event at [[Gen Con]] 2007).

This section is "at risk" of deletion. It has been tagged as lacking sources of information. You need to split up the specific facts in this paragraph (for the purpose of challenging this "unreferenced" tag and then ensure that you identify a "reliable source" for every fact.

Some have already got citations, so you need to break this up - sentence by sentence - and then track down websites that have the same information on them.

I personally think that Havard's Blackmoor blog is a reliable source of information, as he writes factual articles about Blackmoor's history and provides links to other sites to back up his claims. That is the sort of thing that Wikipedia "needs". (Although it is possible that the delitionists may attempt to challenge the reliability of his site.)

==Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG==
There is also an ongoing [[MMRPG|Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game (MMRPG)]] campaign, [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com], organized by Zeitgeist games, which is similar in form to the [[Living Campaigns]] organized by the [[RPGA]].[http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/ What is Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG?] Dave Arneon's Blackmoor the MMRPG homepage, retrieved January 2010 The version of the campaign for D&D 3.5 ended in February 2009 at [[Megacon]] with a version of the campaign for D&D 4th Edition expected to launch at [[Gen Con]] 2009.

I've never liked the term MMRPG, as that is taken (by non-Blackmoor fans) to be something like World of Warcraft. In fact, if you surf over to the linked article that has nothing to do with "Living Campaigns"

A list of their released adventures can be found [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.ph...play&pid=3 here]. The episodes for the MMRPG are available for free to play at home and at [[Gaming convention]]s such as [[Gen Con]] and [[Megacon]].

I'm not so sure that this is useful to a casual reader. I think it would be more valuable to tell people that "Dave Arneson's Blackmoor: The MMRPG released X adventures that could be run at conventions or used for home play." (This should obviously be backed up with a reference - which I would suggest you put that link into.)

[[Megacon]] is Blackmoor's home convention, where the new season is kicked off each year.

Is this actually relevant? Is Megacon still going? Where is/was it held? What year did it start? Where is the Megacon website? Did anything interesting happen in the years that Megacon was run?

==4th Edition==
In 2008 [[Code Monkey Publishing]] announced that it had reached a deal with [[Zeitgeist Games]] to be the publisher of Blackmoor in the new Wizards of the Coast 4th Edition of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. The currently announced plans for Blackmoor in 4th Edition include a reprinting of the 3.5 Blackmoor core book using 4th edition mechanics and a series of three books set after a time jump of unknown length [http://mmrpg.zeitgeistgames.com/index.ph...cle&sid=22 4th Edition Publishing Announcement].

This article says nothing about this being a flash in the pan. Wikipedia is not a way to "spin" Blackmoor. Readers of Wikipedia need to know that the 4e Blackmoor line faltered. (And this needs to be done from a neutral point of view. Nothing is "good" or "bad" on Wikipedia.)

Again, Havard could help here. He has picked up some Age of the Wolf artwork and got feedback from people working on it. I think that it would be really interesting to show how the big plans for Blackmoor went wrong, from the point of view of the artists that Havard has spoken to.

[Rafael]

Thanks a lot, BM!

You have herewith gained you a new and fancier avatar! :wink:


I will get back to you laer about this; let's put it like this:

While I have no intention of building a BM wiki, I can perfectly see us write an article in a wiki-compatible format and then publish it on a number of different sites, beginning with Havard's blog, the Greyhawk wiki, etc.

As to the original wikipedia, they lack a governing body.
I am very involved with another website, the martial arts board Bullshido, which is arguably the most important ressource for their topics on the internet, and their article too got deleted recently because some nazi thought it wasn't "notable".

[Big Mac]

While I have no intention of building a BM wiki, I can perfectly see us write an article in a wiki-compatible format and then publish it on a number of different sites, beginning with Havard's blog, the Greyhawk wiki, etc.

A "Blackmoor Wiki" would be a ton of work. I don't think anyone here wants to go to the effort of building a bespoke Blackmoor encyclopedia. It would be a job that would take years to build.

But I do think this forum...as the leading Blackmoor community...is the best place to have a rallying point to pull in the "dissatisfied Wikipedians" who would be willing and able to go to a new wiki, where they can add Blackmoore articles and not fear the axe of notability. (You still need other axes, as people do dump uncitated stuff on all wikis and some of it is stuff they made up. But generally a bespoke wiki is not so much something that deletes more than it creates.)

As to the original wikipedia, they lack a governing body.
I am very involved with another website, the martial arts board Bullshido, which is arguably the most important ressource for their topics on the internet, and their article too got deleted recently because some nazi thought it wasn't "notable".

Wikipedia does have a "government". But it is a multi-headed government. There is a kind of "pyramid of power" structure, where people get "promoted" after people see them making decisions that are good for Wikipedia as a whole. BOZ is one of the good guys, who gets D&D articles cleaned up and doesn't just oppose everything the deletionists complain about. He got a promotion and can now (temporarily) get articles "undeleted" so that the content can be recovered and moved elsewhere.

What needs to happen with Bullshido, is that "experts" in the field, need to use Wikipedia's own rules to "proove" the notability of the website.

One of the principles of Wikipedia is "no original research". This basically means that if you say something is great - on Wikipedia itself - that is irrelevant. The "local" claim, gets deleted and any article it underpins is then at risk of falling apart. (From a Blackmoor point of view, The Great Svenny could sign up to Wikipedia and add a ton of great information to that article and it would all fall under the "no original research axe" and vanish.)

Now a lot of people come to understand the "no original research" thing but then fail to realise that Wikipedia wants "secondary sources" rather than "primary sources". (This might be where your Bullshido article may have fallen down - I am just guessing.)

Primary sources are "horses mouth" sources, like the original Blackmoor books. They are not something that proves "notability" because anyone can write a book, sing a song, make a film or whatever. And if I write something, you can't "trust" me to decide on its importance. Basically, I am "biased" about my own stuff, from that point of view.

Notability is generally prooved by someone else writing about something, making a documentary about it, or something like that. This is where you get a "secondary source". So basically, what Blackmoor or Bullshido or whatever needs is people writing well researched stuff about the subject.

Now, there is a ton of stuff about D&D out there, so you would think there would be no problem. But this is where the deltionists can chip away at the secondary sources. Because we all know that for every great D&D resource, there are a ton of bad ones. (I've even seen a website out there that stole a ton of content from Beyond the Moons and passed it off as their own Spelljammer stuff.) So what you need is not just a "secondary source" but a "secondary source that stands up to scrutiny".

Here is where you need to do your research (on the secondary sources) and be prepared to challange tags put up by delitionists. The "tag and run" merchants generally tag lots of articles and then come back to get the undefended ones deleted. If Bullshido got deleted, it might just have been because nobody said anything. (I don't know anything about the subject, so the delitionsist who tagged it may actually have had a valid point in that case.)

The thing to do, when an article is tagged, is to look for the discussion of the problem. Tag and run deletionists generally can not be bothered to follow the etiquette and start a discussion. They also can't generally be bothered to ping earlier editors and ask them to come back and add citations. So if you see an article with a problem, make sure you do that stuff, so that the process is "fair".

Add in a discussion, make sure you say (in a non-rude way) that the article has been tagged with no explanation. Assume good faith. Go to the discussion page of the tagger and ask them to come and talk on the talk page. If the person generally thinks there is a problem, they will come and explain it. Maybe they don't understand the rules and will go back to start discussions on other articles they have tagged. If they are a tag and run merchant, your assumption of good faith will (over time) add up with similar activity by other "reasonable editors" and show them up as not willing to take part in improvement (and undermine their standing within the community). So it is well worth assuming that there is a genuine problem with the article and asking: "how do we fix this?" Edit warring with delitionists just doesn't work.

Check the history, see who added disputed paragraphs. These (well meaning people) are often giving fuel to the delitionists. Again, assume good faith. An uncitated paragraph about Blackmoor is an attempt to improve things. They probably don't realise their content needs underpinning via a secondary source. And ironically, these are the people who have the most to add, but are most likely to leave if their work gets deleted. If you find a source, then tell them that you have found the source, but invite them to check your work. They might then go back to other articles and improve their own citations.

[Rafael]

A "Blackmoor Wiki" would be a ton of work. I don't think anyone here wants to go to the effort of building a bespoke Blackmoor encyclopedia. It would be a job that would take years to build.

The question is also that WotC has sort of modified their treatment of their copyright over the years. I certainly wouldn't want to do a lot of work to later have it shut down (or simply copied) by the IP holder.

You know what? I'll grant you a special pass so we can discuss this.

Wikipedia does have a "government". But it is a multi-headed government. There is a kind of "pyramid of power" structure, where people get "promoted" after people see them making decisions that are good for Wikipedia as a whole. BOZ is one of the good guys, who gets D&D articles cleaned up and doesn't just oppose everything the deletionists complain about. He got a promotion and can now (temporarily) get articles "undeleted" so that the content can be recovered and moved elsewhere.

What needs to happen with Bullshido, is that "experts" in the field, need to use Wikipedia's own rules to "proove" the notability of the website.

One of the principles of Wikipedia is "no original research". This basically means that if you say something is great - on Wikipedia itself - that is irrelevant. The "local" claim, gets deleted and any article it underpins is then at risk of falling apart. (From a Blackmoor point of view, The Great Svenny could sign up to Wikipedia and add a ton of great information to that article and it would all fall under the "no original research axe" and vanish.)

Now a lot of people come to understand the "no original research" thing but then fail to realise that Wikipedia wants "secondary sources" rather than "primary sources". (This might be where your Bullshido article may have fallen down - I am just guessing.)

Primary sources are "horses mouth" sources, like the original Blackmoor books. They are not something that proves "notability" because anyone can write a book, sing a song, make a film or whatever. And if I write something, you can't "trust" me to decide on its importance. Basically, I am "biased" about my own stuff, from that point of view.

Notability is generally prooved by someone else writing about something, making a documentary about it, or something like that. This is where you get a "secondary source". So basically, what Blackmoor or Bullshido or whatever needs is people writing well researched stuff about the subject.

Now, there is a ton of stuff about D&D out there, so you would think there would be no problem. But this is where the deltionists can chip away at the secondary sources. Because we all know that for every great D&D resource, there are a ton of bad ones. (I've even seen a website out there that stole a ton of content from Beyond the Moons and passed it off as their own Spelljammer stuff.) So what you need is not just a "secondary source" but a "secondary source that stands up to scrutiny".

Here is where you need to do your research (on the secondary sources) and be prepared to challange tags put up by delitionists. The "tag and run" merchants generally tag lots of articles and then come back to get the undefended ones deleted. If Bullshido got deleted, it might just have been because nobody said anything. (I don't know anything about the subject, so the delitionsist who tagged it may actually have had a valid point in that case.)

The thing to do, when an article is tagged, is to look for the discussion of the problem. Tag and run deletionists generally can not be bothered to follow the etiquette and start a discussion. They also can't generally be bothered to ping earlier editors and ask them to come back and add citations. So if you see an article with a problem, make sure you do that stuff, so that the process is "fair".

Add in a discussion, make sure you say (in a non-rude way) that the article has been tagged with no explanation. Assume good faith. Go to the discussion page of the tagger and ask them to come and talk on the talk page. If the person generally thinks there is a problem, they will come and explain it. Maybe they don't understand the rules and will go back to start discussions on other articles they have tagged. If they are a tag and run merchant, your assumption of good faith will (over time) add up with similar activity by other "reasonable editors" and show them up as not willing to take part in improvement (and undermine their standing within the community). So it is well worth assuming that there is a genuine problem with the article and asking: "how do we fix this?" Edit warring with delitionists just doesn't work.

Check the history, see who added disputed paragraphs. These (well meaning people) are often giving fuel to the delitionists. Again, assume good faith. An uncitated paragraph about Blackmoor is an attempt to improve things. They probably don't realise their content needs underpinning via a secondary source. And ironically, these are the people who have the most to add, but are most likely to leave if their work gets deleted. If you find a source, then tell them that you have found the source, but invite them to check your work. They might then go back to other articles and improve their own citations.

Very concise explanation, thanks. That's why I am more for putting together an article based on HTML or similar script and then posting it on a number of pages, instead of going to wiki.

Especially the references to the Comeback Inn, our forum here, would probably be edited out.

[Havard]

Very concise explanation, thanks. That's why I am more for putting together an article based on HTML or similar script and then posting it on a number of pages, instead of going to wiki.

Sounds like a good place to start. We could post it here, on the wiki at mystara.us, DF, the Piazza, my blog etc, if you are interested

Havard

[Big Mac]

A "Blackmoor Wiki" would be a ton of work. I don't think anyone here wants to go to the effort of building a bespoke Blackmoor encyclopedia. It would be a job that would take years to build.

The question is also that WotC has sort of modified their treatment of their copyright over the years. I certainly wouldn't want to do a lot of work to later have it shut down (or simply copied) by the IP holder.

This is why an encyclopedia (any encyclopedia) needs to be something that does not "replace the need to buy the books". For Spelljammer Wiki, I am pushing for a canon only encyclopedia, with zero gaming content. It will citate the exact page numbers of the original books, but not replicate the game rules contained within them.

I've had a few people misunderstand this and copy and paste stat-blocks onto pages. I've got to delete that stuff, but I don't want to chase off the people doing it. I need to somehow educate people into the benifit of not doing a wiki that is "everything".

(If someone else wants rules, they could always turn to unrelated subjects, like the 3e conversion elsewhere.)

My major concern at the moment is that Wikia have ignored my request to turn off the "magazine creator" that will "sell content" from my wiki.

You know what? I'll grant you a special pass so we can discuss this.

Shiney!

Very concise explanation, thanks. That's why I am more for putting together an article based on HTML or similar script and then posting it on a number of pages, instead of going to wiki.

Sounds like a good place to start. We could post it here, on the wiki at mystara.us, DF, the Piazza, my blog etc, if you are interested

I actually think the best thing "for Blackmoor" would be for you to continue doing your great blog work (especially the stuff that gives behind the scenes information). That work would then build a reliable "secondary source" that could supply citation sources for all the weak points in the Wikipedia article.

In fact, I think you could write on demand. You could, for example, do an article that lists every Blackmoor product and gives a backround about when it was published. That would be the perfect way to create a "secondary source" that can be used to support the notability of all of those books (not that I'd want each of them to get a Wikipedia article).

[Havard]

I actually think the best thing "for Blackmoor" would be for you to continue doing your great blog work (especially the stuff that gives behind the scenes information). That work would then build a reliable "secondary source" that could supply citation sources for all the weak points in the Wikipedia article.

In fact, I think you could write on demand. You could, for example, do an article that lists every Blackmoor product and gives a backround about when it was published. That would be the perfect way to create a "secondary source" that can be used to support the notability of all of those books (not that I'd want each of them to get a Wikipedia article).

Something else that I have been neglecting this last very busy month, but it will also return!

That's a great idea for a blog article actually. I will begin working on a few for this week now

Havard

[Big Mac]

I actually think the best thing "for Blackmoor" would be for you to continue doing your great blog work (especially the stuff that gives behind the scenes information). That work would then build a reliable "secondary source" that could supply citation sources for all the weak points in the Wikipedia article.

In fact, I think you could write on demand. You could, for example, do an article that lists every Blackmoor product and gives a backround about when it was published. That would be the perfect way to create a "secondary source" that can be used to support the notability of all of those books (not that I'd want each of them to get a Wikipedia article).

Something else that I have been neglecting this last very busy month, but it will also return!

I've been busy for ages now, and have noticed your inability to catch me up at The Piazza!

That's a great idea for a blog article actually. I will begin working on a few for this week now

Maybe that could be a multi-part thing.

There have been several "waves" of Blackmoor. The first was obviously Dave Arneson's private campaign (which Svenny could tell you some stuff about).

Then you have the first products, where people only really see a hint of what Dave Arneson did. The obvious question there is, how much Blackmoor is in that stuff...and how much is omitted.

Then you have the Blackmoor references in Mystara stuff...and Greyhawk stuff. The question there is how true is that atuff to Dave Arneson's original game?

Later you have the 3e stuff. The question there is: is it Blackmoor? Or is it maybe Mystara's version of Blackmoor? Or is it something new?

Then you have the MMORPG. What is that? It is based on the 3e stuff, but what direction does it take the game in? Is it more Arneson-esk or less so?

4e. Is it any different to 3e (rules aside)?

Age of the Wolf. If this had been 3e, would it have been finished in time?

I think there are a lot of interesting questions that could be asked about every edition of Blackmoor.