Talk:James Dallas Egbert III

Undeclared homosexual

How can the writer claim that Egbert was an undeclared homosexual with no citation? If he were undeclared, how would the author know? I propose this gets deleted.

• He was undeclared at the time, but this information was subsequently revealed in Dear's 1984 book on Egbert (Dungeon Master). I added the citation to the article for this. Fairsing 15:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Older comments

I agree with about everything in this article, but dont find it to be neutral. I dont have time to change it right now, and i dont know to add the disputed article header.

• If there is no dispute, it is a dumb idea to add a disputed article header. You have not stated why you do not like it, and thus no one has defended the article. Therefore, there is no dispute. --Bky1701 12:01, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Merger with James Dallas Egbert III article

It strikes me that these articles essentially cover the same ground. I don't see any reason why there would be an article about JDE III except for the steam tunnel incident. Put another way, the person himself doesn't seem to be particularly noteworthy; it is the indicent and the cultural reaction to / books written about the incident that are noteworthy from an encyclopedic perspective. Therefore, I am suggesting we eliminate the redundancy, merge the JDE III content into the Steam tunnel incident article, and keep JDE III as a redirect to Steam tunnel incident. Any thoughts on this proposal? Fairsing 20:07, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Although JDE's IQ is noteworthy, he never really managed to achieve anything. I support the merge. Seahen 21:30, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Steam tunnels

Is there some implication that a) thre are no steam tunnels at Michigan State University, or 2) that students (and possible others) did not obtain keys to same and enter them to wander around and use the tunnels illegally to enter buildings surreptitiously? Edison 21:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

There indeed are steam tunnels at MSU. However, there was little or no use of the steam tunnels by the MSU gaming community at the time. Furthermore, Dallas wasn't even really a part of the MSU gaming community. He showed up at a couple of the Tolkein Fellowship meetings, but he was really an outsider, not really a part of that crowd. I'm pretty sure he was never on the "Hobbit List" (the contact list for the Tolkein Fellowship and related social circle). The main myth was that Dallas' disappearance had something to do with D&D, and it just didn't. There were just some prominent Christian nut jobs at the time who were trying to blame "evil", "satanic" D&D for Dallas' disappearance, which was just nonsense. If anything, I think if Dallas had gotten more involved with the D&D playing crowd, it might have saved his life. I was one of his acquantances, but he didn't really have any friends. If he had had the social contact of a group of friends, like perhaps a group of friends that he played D&D with, I think he might still be alive today. In retrospect, I personally regret not having befriended him more. Red Act (talk) 06:37, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Do The Simpson's make (inferred) references to this when Martin Prince and the other nerds hide out in (what look like) steam tunnels in the school? I think Lisa discovers a secret group down there is one episode. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.14.186.34 (talk) 03:31, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Who's surprised?

I'd go nuts if people were callin' me 'Egbert' all the time.

FWIW, those of us who knew him (at least his fellow students at MSU) called him Dallas. I never heard of anyone teasing him about his last name. I was an acquantance of his. I wouldn't say I was his friend; he didn't really have much in the way of friends. His emotional problems were in large part due to the social isolation that can come with being a genius. He didn't even fit in with the other smart geeks at MSU. His problems had nothing to do with his last name. Red Act (talk) 04:08, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Title of Page

Even though it was previously merged, this article is basically an article about Egbert; why is it called 'The Steam Tunnel Incident'? I propose a renaming. Vaguely 07:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. The article focuses almost exclusively on Egbert. Though the merge was a good idea, I can't imagine why "Steam tunnel incident" was the final chosen title. Bladestorm 20:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion, or really, minor exchange of opinions, seemed rather misinformed. I vote that we change this title to being Egbert's name, as I have heard of Egbert before but never heard it referred, ever, as the 'steam tunnel incident,' have 'steam tunnel incident redirect here. If I get a few more opinions on the matter, I'll move ahead with that. Vaguely 05:36, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like to keep the title as-is. The page refers to 3 novels not related to Egbert that use the plot device. That said, I would also enjoy having more references to support its "urban legend" status. --Alvestrand 05:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

If the books are inspired by what was an actual incidence, then the page should be reworked as a biography of Egbert, with a section detailing how the events inspired other works, how urban legends grew from it, and the impact of the circumstances on the mainstream view of role-playing. What happened to Egbert was not a "myth"; he did disappear, the media did seize upon it as a chance to uphold tabletop games and related role-playing as Satanic, and anything that is based off of these events were inspired by what happened. If the story is not true, though by all indications it is, then I still say that it should be listed under his name. If the title was to refer to the "three novels" you're talking about, why is 80% of the page dedicated to Egbert while the supposed focus of the article is relegated to one line? Vaguely 07:35, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Re-Write?

While the issue of renaming is discussed, can we also talk about re-writing this entire article? The fact that the article states that the 'steam tunnel incident' refers to a series of urban legends, then never mentions any such legends and instead goes on to present a true and verified incident, this page is in dire need of a re-write. I will go ahead and do some searching for information on this subject, but if anyone is off-the-bat familiar with the subject, please, help us clean this up. Vaguely 05:40, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• I added the citation templet and a few tags after particularly questionable statements. Without citations the article seems very bias. Cobratom 21:41, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree that this article needs major work done to improve it. I think most of the bullets in the In fiction section need to be removed unless a source is given that says that they were inspired by Egbert and the steam tunnel incident. Just because the author of the article thinks they are similar doesn't mean they were inspired by the event. They should be verified. HotshotCleaner (talk) 22:08, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Clarification

The article describes the intent of his second suicide with, "this time with cyanide". The cyanide ion cannot be obtained by itself. It is either found in a solution or bonded to other ions to form cyanides. This is why the text should read, "this time with a cyanide".

Reporting

Michael Stuart's article in the State News did not break the story of Egbert's disappearance because it was on the local evening news the day before. However, Mr. Stuart was present during much of the videotaping - he lived one floor below Egbert. Snerdon (talk) 03:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

This isn't really written like an encyclopedia article

Seems like this article needs a pretty significant rewrite. First thing you read in this article is that he disappeared. This reads a little more like a poorly-done report or newspaper article on his disappearance than an encyclopedia article on an individual. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EJS2014 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT? Anything you can do to help out the article is greatly appreciated. 2601:D:9400:448:F837:1EEA:4CF6:12A4 (talk) 11:09, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

External Links

The last of the 3 external links to this article does not produce the desired results. Neither Google, Bing nor Yahoo can locate a server at: “http://www.geeksix.com” or “http://www.geek6.com” nor the article, The Truth Behind the Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III. In addition, all of the information written online about this link reveals a circuitous path from one '-pedia' to the next. The Wikipedia article is copied nearly word for word among them, most likely gleaned from the story written by Shaun Hately which is found at the first external link.

What is done with broken or unusable links? Should this instance be brought to the attention of a senior editor? As it is painfully clear, I am a newbie to "The Wiki-dom" and could not find direction among the help files. Thank you for any guidance you can provide.

--DexGypMom (talk) 17:45, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

I found an archived copy of that link, so I fixed it. 129.33.19.254 (talk) 17:46, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on James Dallas Egbert III. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141212161017/http://kushjar.com/the-disappearance-of-james-dallas-egbert-iii/ to http://kushjar.com/the-disappearance-of-james-dallas-egbert-iii/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Y An editor has reviewed this edit and fixed any errors that were found.

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:18, 14 December 2017 (UTC)

WP:Notability?

Egbert himself was an ordinary college student. The disappearance of Egbert and subsequent press coverage is WP:NOTEWORTHY. But he himself is not in the WP:NOTABLE realm. The article should be titled. – S. Rich (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, it used to be titled as "Steam tunnel incident" until it was moved in 2009. 207.229.139.154 (talk) 07:37, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Two books were written about him and a movie was made for TV. I don't see how this couldn't be considered notable.

However, I am willing to support re-titling if that is considered appropriate. Nonto4567 (talk) 13:21, 23 November 2022 (UTC)