I've read about and personally experienced how dogmatic the self-chosen editors of Wikipedia's webcomics entries can be.
I once tried to add an entry on Detective Fork, which they deleted in short order because they felt it was a non-notable comic and because I had added it. One of the editors uses Alexa rankings as a deciding factor and I had never even heard of Alexa before then. I actually saw their point, eventually, that my comic didn't have enough readers to warrant inclusion. There are thousands of webcomics and not all deserve a listing in the encyclopedia. This was during a spate when the editors were wiping away many entries on webcomics.
One of the editors just did something else that got under my skin, though. In the external links section on the "webcomic" entry, I added a link to Forkin' Webcomics, http://www.thecomicsreview.com/plog/index.php?blogId=20 , my column on The Comics Review in which I feature interviews with webcomic creators. From what I could see, I had a legitimate column about webcomics and the people that make them, on a legitimate site about comic books, that has columns written by professional comic creators. And within a few hours, an editor quickly deleted my link with the reason listed being that my addition was "self-promotional." Stupidly, I added the link while logged in under my DetectiveFork username. So, I guess you can't put anything in the webcomics section of Wikipedia that involves work you have done, even if the entry is fitting. I can understand this because many people will list their own comics or whatnot. But I thought I had a legitimate column to put a link to and I didn't know if anyone else would think to add it. Even if somebody else adds the link (which I certainly would appreciate), would it be quickly deleted because one of the editors felt it was self-promotional before? I'm not even sure if the editor considered the relevance of my column to the webcomic entry.
The quick point of this is that I think some of the Wikipedia webcomic entry editors operate on a level of cynicism where they'e looking for what they can delete rather than what they should include.
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
Are the Wikipedia webcomic editors a bunch of bastards?
Yes… The Wikipedia experiment is a wonderful idea that doesn't actually work.
A good example is the recent episode where a lot of American conservative politicians who had very negative Bio entries written about them edited their own bios (or people in their offices did) to be more favourable. That caused a big stink and Wikipedia shut itself down for a few hours…
If anyone is free to write things about people, can't the subjects of negative articles be allowed to change those articles to better reflect their good qualities? Really, the double standards are horrific.
I don't like American conservative politicians very much, but for Wikipedia to go against its own principles like that is rather nasty.
On the webcomic thing, Alexia rankings are irrelevant. That's just some arsehole flexing his anus muscle. It's exactly as you infer Fork: if you want an entry, just get a friend to do it.
Wikipedia isn't a promotional tool, that's fine, but it's surely better to edit entries to turn them into objective tit-bits of information rather than just straight out deleting them.
I find Wikipedia a useful tool, mostly, but as soon as you reach a grey area that's a little controversial to people, you get the nutjobs piling in! The negative views on Mother Teresa are a hilarious example. Rather than information, you get to see a debate amongst people with far too much time on their hands: People who should save their bile for an actual debate forum and not an information resource.
I think the Mother Teresa thing stems from an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, wherein they show that Mother Teresa never actually healed the sick (her intent was only to provide comfort to them as they died), and rather than spend the vast amount of money donated to her cause on medicine that could have saved their lives, she instead used it to establish nunneries around the world.
Anyway, I find it fascinating that the people of wikipedia don't mind at all 8 page reports on… well, basically any 80's cartoon character, but felt the need to delete the entry for "Checkerboard Nightmare" because it wasn't financially successful and because it had stopped updating for a week.
As far as I can tell the moderators on Wikipedia had to deal with a few too many comics that honestly aren't established enough to warrant a wikipedia entry, so now they're just jaded against webcomics in general (sort of like the slew of crappy sprite comics in the world can easily make one assume that any sprite comic sucks before even reading it). Unfortunately, legitimate information sources, such as Forkin' Webcomics, suffer from Wiki's disdain for all things webcomic.
These are apparently the standards concerning internet-based material. I remember seeing somewhere, though, that you coulc post an article about just about any webcomic as long as it had more than 100 pages.
That 100 pages thing isn't really true. When it was up for AFD, my comic had around 130 or so pages and it still got deleted.
Any site that pretends to contain information but:
1. holds no one responsible for content.
2. Allows anyone to change it at a whim.
is not an information database, it's an opinion database.
I don't understand why wikipedia is so popular since it's very model leads to erroneous statements and outright lies.
comixpedia is a much better place for comic info, or info related to them…
I don't know what its relationship to wikipedia is, weather comixpedia simply uses the exact same code structure or what, but it's a good info site for comics and it seems to work the same as Wikipedia but without the deletion nazis. ^^
In a simple answer to your question Forker, yes. Fuck yes. I hate wikipedia so much. If ever bias and cocksuckers were on the internet, its wikipedia. Its full of people that are ignorant, elitist, and psuedo intellectual faggots. Thats about the best I can sum up my experiance with the wikipedia cunts.
For me, only one source is really acredible on the internet, besides my own website.
NSFW
http://www.rotten.com/library/
[mod- I used to use that site too!]
yes i can.
I agree with this topic, it speaks less to the heart and more to the sphenctor. and as for the ppl who think wikipedia is retarded and the ppl that made it are bastereds are kind of right and should be nominated for worlds greatest doush! i nominate the homosapians that called me a jackass and dumbass. they are the biggest problem makers here. they hide there kindness with insults and threats, when inside they just want to make friends. Thank you for letting me post. yes i am smart. thank you thank you. ~gets up and leaves the room~ HA!
This post is about webcomic entries on wikipedia and the high standards that keep them out.Fair enough, I agree with you about Kain-bunny, but wiki having high standards? That's not reallly what Wikipedia is about. It's not about standards at all, either low, high, or moderate. It's a community generated information resource, and it's also policed by that same community… That means anyone can submit anything and anyone can delete anything.
The closest thing to 'standards' they have is the will of the majority.
Uh, yeah. So! How bout that wikipedia? Mean to comics? Seems so. The editors can apparently vote on if an article is "signifigant" or not, and a lot of lesser known (or even widely known but not quite Penny Arcade levele of known) webcomic articles can get shot down pretty fast. I remember whn Checkerboad Nightmare "ended" a little while ago, the editors were already chomping at the bit to get rid of the article devoted to it. Websnark covered it and it recieved enough attention that the article was not removed, I think.
But yeah, like ozone said, Comixpedia is a waaay better source for comic information.
Wikipedia as a whole though, I think works wonderfully. There is no other place on the internet that has the, well, encyclopedic coverage of the obscure things I look for. Which are mostly just the occasional anime or video game I'm interested in. The quality of articles varys wildly of course, but most are pretty well written.
Wikipedia also helped me a bunch on my 20th Century Art Movements project! And my Visual Processes teacher likes it! So, I don't know!
It's more good than bad, though, for sure.
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