Forum:Sourcing inactive RPGs

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Recently a contributor added an article about the defunct RPG Star Trek: Miranda. It no longer has a website to check for a source as according to the article it was taken off the web back in 2007. How should we go about dealing with the sourcing issue in this and any similar cases in the future? – JayLR 14:35, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of inactive RPGs for which websites no longer exist. I've added several myself, including Junction Point (PBEM) and Typhon Station. A Google search will at least verify that these sims did at one time exist, as it does with Star Trek: Miranda. Beyond that, it seems impossible to have an official "source" as currently defined on STEU. I mean, I was in those two groups, as well as the Starfleet Sim Group, but have little to no way of actually proving it.

I absolutely hate to see good games that people cared about and poured a lot of themselves, their talents, and their hearts into just vanish. I want us to be able to accept data from long-gone sims, at least in the interests of historical preservation, and who knows, an article here might even renew interest in a dead game. Perhaps in the case of defunct RPGs, we should have a "good faith" policy, and allow these articles to stand as "quasi-sourced." We know these groups existed at one time, and we'll have to accept the word of those who were there as to the details. -- TimPendragon ^{Adm • Hail}

You might be able to find some of these sites on "Wayback Machine" using www.archive.org but I think you need to know the URL first. Hope this helps a little bit at least! --usscantabrian 16:58, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

An example of this is an archived www.ussmiranda.com, which may be able to be used as a source. Hope this helps :) --usscantabrian 17:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Scott, I don't have the words to adequately express how awesome you are at this moment. Wow! :-) --TimPendragon 06:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It's all okay. I knew that site would come in handy eventually! :) --usscantabrian 01:33, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree, I think we should have some kind of good faith policy. If nothing else we should be able to preserve the information from these dead sites. --Luke80 08:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

adding/asking on this topic because my question is related....an RPG that i am in that is still slightly active does not have the website anymore (thanks to Geocities going down) BUT the yahoo group with all its posts still exists. furthermore, the posts are public. the game was and is an excellent game and i'd like to eventually add info about it to this wiki. is a game's yahoo group an acceptable "external source"? - RubyChe 02:01, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

adding to the above...for some reason the Wayback Machine site keeps erroring when i attempt to look up the RPG's former website. if it ever does come up, i could link to it but until then i need to know if the yahoo group is an acceptable "source"? also how about a character profile i have set up on my own webspace? thanks. Cheile 08:59, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

A link to a yahoo group is fine. – JayLR 11:51, January 26, 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if we should have a screencap of the source website while it's running, and upload it to STEU on the RPG's main page (it could serve as an example of what the website looks like). At least if the site goes down, there's visual proof it existed. I also think efforts should be made by people to preserve the RPG in game stuff. You can then duplicate it somewhere else if the site goes down. --Hawku 18:14, February 7, 2010 (UTC)