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Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#1: Jan 11th 2010 at 7:49:46 AM

Courtesy link: MUD

The article itself is fine. What bugs me a bit is that we have the acronym as the main article, and there wasn't even a redirect from Multi-User Dungeon until I added one a few minutes ago.

It's traditional on the wiki to have the main article be the expanded name, even for well known acronyms. Worth a fix, or am I being too pedantic?

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
FastEddie Since: Apr, 2004
#2: Jan 11th 2010 at 8:04:24 AM

Switched 'em.

Goal: Clear, Concise and Witty
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#3: Jan 11th 2010 at 8:29:44 AM

Point of contention: MUD (and MUSH, MUCK, MOO, etc) are called by their acronyms first, almost always. It's like BFG, SCUBA or LASER. I can speak from the position of having been a 5 year MUCK veteran. Not the end of the world if the redirect stays switched though.

edited 11th Jan '10 8:33:24 AM by Elle

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#4: Jan 11th 2010 at 8:41:33 AM

I recognize that, but we can handle that by allowing acronym redirects for the most common usages. It's rare that you'd see MUD, MUSH, or MUCK used without referring to the type of game in question.

We can even keep the others the way they are; I'd be hard pressed to find anyone who knows what MUSH, MUCK, or MOO stands for these days, while MUD as short for Multi-User Dungeon is much better known.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#5: Jan 11th 2010 at 9:35:38 AM

Well, MUD is all most lay-people need to know nowdays, because the modern MMORPG sprung very much from the MUD mold. I see we do have stub articles for MUSH and MUCK but they are ultimately forks of MUD - if I wanted to bother, I could make a case for merging them back into the MUD article.

Yamikuronue So Yeah Since: Aug, 2009
#6: Jan 11th 2010 at 11:20:38 AM

MUD has also been expanded Multi-User Domain in an attempt to disassociate educational MU Ds from gaming MU Ds.

BTW, I'm a chick.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#7: Jan 11th 2010 at 11:24:42 AM

It's also been called Multi-User Dimension and several other things, but for the sake of argument let's keep it down to the generally accepted definition. We can include alternate terms in the article... doing that now in fact.

Also, Elle, I think your idea of collapsing MUSH and MUCK into the MUD article is valid. As they stand they don't really seem to justify their own articles.

edited 11th Jan '10 11:25:17 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Nornagest Since: Jan, 2001
#8: Jan 11th 2010 at 12:39:43 PM

Multi User Domain is the generally accepted expansion among the parts of the MUD community I'm familiar with. That said, I think the acronym is the better title for the article; the presence of different more or less accepted expansions for it seems to be good evidence that it takes precedence in most contexts.

edited 11th Jan '10 12:41:00 PM by Nornagest

I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#9: Jan 11th 2010 at 2:06:48 PM

Norn, I'm aware of the Multi-User Domain expansion, but I'd argue that it is not the original nor the one the majority of people who know the term at all are familiar with — although I admit I'm just going with my experience rather than any actual research. It's been decades since I've MUDded seriously. To my understanding, Multi-User Domain (and Dimension, et. al.) are Backronyms and deserve secondary billing.

My particular concern is simply that, as a general rule, this wiki favors expanded acronyms whenever they are available, and not having Multi-User Dungeon as at the very least a redirect creates a major gap. Also to be honest, I did not expect Fast Eddie to swap the articles quite that quickly, without any discussion.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Yamikuronue So Yeah Since: Aug, 2009
#10: Jan 11th 2010 at 2:51:53 PM

I'd have the article at MUD, and have Multi-User Dungeon, Multi User Domain, and the like as redirects, and explain the acronym confusion in the article text.

BTW, I'm a chick.
MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from A Place (Old Master)
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#11: Jan 11th 2010 at 2:52:38 PM

this wiki favors expanded acronyms whenever they are available
Counter-example: BFG was suggested for a rename for exactly that reason, and there wasn't enough consensus to change it.

chaos Since: Oct, 2010
#12: Oct 29th 2010 at 2:19:33 PM

I agree that the article should be MUD and Multi User Dungeon should be a redirect. I was part of a knock-down drag-out fight about this same issue on TOW, and the main points from that are: 1) nobody says "Multi User Dungeon", everybody says MUD, 2) the Dimension and Domain expansions have at least some validity, so Dungeon can't really be said to be the expansion.

And I later discovered Richard Bartle documenting his opinion that Multi User Dungeon is just another backronym.

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Twilightdusk Since: Jan, 2001
#14: Oct 29th 2010 at 2:54:40 PM

[up] I believe it's proper form to bring up the old thread if you have the exact same issue, it's the reason people are directed to use the search function before bringing up something.

That said, I'm fairly neutral on this, I've always seen it as MUD with the expanded version being only in explanations, but it is an acronym.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#15: Oct 29th 2010 at 3:02:40 PM

It's a Backronym not an Acronym and what people assign to the letters varies greatly. MUD is the common consistent version of what people know them as. What it stands for depends on what people feel like making up today because originally what it stood for was MUD.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Madrugada Since: Jan, 2001
#16: Oct 29th 2010 at 3:18:26 PM

Anecdotes is not the plural of datum, I know, but I only found out what MUD was supposed to stand for long after I had heard of them.

shimaspawn from Here and Now Since: May, 2010 Relationship Status: In your bunk
#17: Oct 29th 2010 at 3:28:24 PM

Variations on what MUD means by letter:

  • M
    • Multi
    • Multiple
    • Many
    • Magical
    • Made
  • U
    • User
    • Up
    • Unit
  • D
    • Domain
    • Dungeon
    • Dialogue
    • Drama
    • Discourse
    • Dominion
    • Dragon

These aren't all of them, but they're a decent sampling for our purposes. They're combined in various combination and the end result is that there are over a hundred equally valid backronyms for MUD.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
rodneyAnonymous Sophisticated as Hell from empty space Since: Aug, 2010
#18: Oct 29th 2010 at 8:32:39 PM

There are backronyms for MUD like Many-User Domain, but it was originally an acronym for Multi-User Dungeon. It can mean different things now, but if the policy is to expand acronyms (even common ones), it should stay expanded to that.

edited 29th Oct '10 9:28:47 PM by rodneyAnonymous

Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
MetaFour AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN from A Place (Old Master)
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
#19: Oct 29th 2010 at 9:02:21 PM

Quite a necro here. I thought the issue was settled.
Well, at least Chaos is disagreeing with lack of any action. That puts him(?) well above all those posters who bump months-old threads just to say "The page is fine, don't do anything to it!"

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#20: Oct 29th 2010 at 10:30:18 PM

I guess so - I had forgotten about this old discussion but got reminded when I happened across the MUD article recently. Honestly, as long as MUD remains a usable redirect, I don't see why we can't have the main article expanded.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Elle Since: Jan, 2001
#21: Nov 2nd 2010 at 8:13:34 AM

If there's any doubt over the use of the acronym, you can always refer to the guy who helped write MUD 1.

ExpiryBot Since: Dec, 1969
#22: Jan 12th 2011 at 11:04:09 AM

This thread expired after 60 days of inactivity.

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