Weasel words on Wikipedia

From the Wikipedia entry on Malinche Entertainment:

"Malinche Entertainment claims to be working in the tradition of early interactive fiction developer Infocom. Sherman claims to have sold 150,000 copies of his games as of May 2006.[2] He claims the business is profitable.[2]"

Now, I have no particular love for Malinche Entertainment; frankly, Howard Sherman is annoying, and there's not a lot of respect lost between him and the greater IF community.

With that said... sentence #2 is a claim. Sentence #3 is a claim. After all, we can't check those things (unless Sherman opens up his complete financial records for viewing, which seems Highly Unlikely.) But what about sentence #1? Malinche is an interactive fiction company; Infocom was an interactive fiction company. Malinche celebrates Infocom's legacy visibly (they ran a piece on the 30th anniversary). Malinche demonstrates the same weird errors that some Infocom games demonstrated. Isn't this close enough?

Then again, I suppose you have to define "the tradition of early interactive fiction developer Infocom" in order to argue that statement. Still, I wouldn't bicker.

Not that I'm going to change the article, mind you. This is a bigger can of worms than I want to play with (and also, my ability to break Wikipedia should not be underestimated. I fear wikis, just like I fear computer guts.) I just saw the "claims" "claims" "claims" continuing for three sentences and thought it was silly.

Mossdog updates! Now, with extra squamousness!

Three updates to Mossdog: Eve, Throw Me Over, and.... the Carcosa Waltz!

Click through here!

And this brings me to a question.  suburbaknght is a professional ballroom dancer, and he has expressed an interest in actually dancing the Carcosa Waltz as a show piece.  Needless to say, I would be thrilled.

The catch is, this version doesn't work in that context.  He would need an arrangement recorded on harpsichord or strings (and, y'know, live and with dynamics, instead of slightly robotic and on Finale Songwriter.)

I have noticed that I know all kinds of people who know all kinds of people.  If anybody knows anybody who has appropriate skills and might be interested, either on a volunteer or a commission basis, would you let me know?

BPAL Reviews 18

It's been a while since I put any BPAL reviews up, so here's a miscellaneous batch of six.

( Faiza: the Black Mamba, The Reaper and the Flowers, Van Van, Ultraviolet, Meskhenet: the Vulture Maiden, and Bess. )