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Moonlight meanderer

Wikipedia vs. Webcomic Wiki

lastcall
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OK, so over the weekend I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if Last Call had a Wikipedia entry? I mean, they have a list of webcomics article, so I'll add Last Call to the list…

I swear, I sat there for five hours trying to figure out their crazy coding (it's worse than HTML), and I finally got an article up and running, with pictures & captions, references and everything. I was so proud of myself.

Then a minute later, the article was deleted.

I was so miffed. Why is it that other webcomics can have a Wiki article, but I can't? Their reason for deletion was that any article dealing with a form of media (website, band, webcomic, etc.) had to have a clear reason why it should be in an encyclopedia. Well I checked the majority of the webcomics on that list and none of them had to state a reason.

Then my husband said that a lot of different Wiki sites have been sprouting up the last few months, (Furry Wiki, LOST Wiki, etc.) and whaddya know, they just created a Webcomic Wiki page. Unfortunately it is SO new, you can't post pictures on it and their coding is a little different than regular Wiki. Which sucks, but now I know why they deleted my article so fast. They want everyone like me to go to Webcomic Wiki.

….Anyone else experience this kind of thing?

Ozoneocean
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Oh this is an OLLLLLDDDD, old thing :)

Man, I never tried to make a wikipedia entry for Pinky TA, I know it's not a vanity site… but the trouble is that I can't even be bothered adding to real articles their either anymore because the people who mostly hang around there are dicks and it's more funny to just leave all the inaccurate, badly written stuff untouched ^___^

———————–

BUT, for places that ARE for comic wikis, comic vanity entries etc;

There's the site you've mentioned… But Comixepedia has been around for YEARS, and Comic Genesis has had one up for a few years now too :)

Comixepedia allows pics ^^

PIT_FACE
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ahh, and it leads right to Pinky TA articles…how bout that? ;)

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That's a good idea!

I remember one of my old Sonic the Hedgehog forums (I didn't own it, but I went on it a lot) had a Wiki.
I actually made an article…I think anyway. I'm not sure.
I should probably go check…

But I'll see if Comixpedia let's me add my comic there! :D

Ozoneocean
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ahh, and it leads right to Pinky TA articles…how bout that? ;)
Lead by example ;)

DAJB
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Yeah, Google around a bit and you'll find the web is chock-full of stories about webcomics being deleted from Wikipedia. Basically, the prevailing view among webcomic creators is that one or two of the moderators at Wikipedia are biased against the medium and, since there is no official body to take them to task and actually sanction them for exercising their prejudices, they can get away with it.

When pressed, Wikipedia argue that most webcomics do not meet their criteria for inclusion. This sounds plausible at first pass but, again, the web is full of stories of new criteria being added ("notability" is the last one I remember!) even though they are not applied to anything except webcomics! I seem to remember one webcomic claimed "notability" because it had won webcomic awards and been referenced by the Comixpedia online magazine (now ComixTalk). Those wily mods promptly deleted the entries for the awards themselves, the webcomic in question and Comixpedia!

Face it, Wikipedia (or at least some of its mods) don't want us there and, whether it's right or not, you can't win a battle against the gatekeepers. As Ozone said, your best bet is to set up your Wiki at Comixpedia. Sadly, it does use the same awful code that other wikis do but I've always found Xerexes (who runs it) very helpful.

Ozoneocean
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Oh yeah, Xerexes is a good bloke. :)

The wiki thing with webcomics is annoying to the web comicers who've run into it, but it's not really that much of a big thing. The real trouble is that there are a LOT of dicks who hang around wiki…
It'd be as if we suddenly made everyone in the forums here a mod, right?
Now instead of the few dicks here (me and the rest of the normal admins and mods), you'd have HEAPS of them interfering with your posts and being a pain in the arse.

THAT's the real trouble with wiki- sure, ANYone can edit and contribute, but only fussy, finicky, busybody wankers actually like to hang around those places all the time and get in other people's business. The benefit of the situation here is that because there's only a few of us, we grow out of that sort of thing, and even if we didn't there's not enough of us to cause a problem. But at wiki they never do and there are always more and more wankers to replace the ones that grow bored and give up. lol!

It's quite a flawed system really in a lot of ways unfortunately. When I have a look at wiki entries I always check the comments section as well- if you thought the web omic situation was bad that's NOTHING compared to some of the crap that's gone on there! Nothing. But it does make entertaining reading anyway. I encourage everyone to always check out the comments sections and follow the idiot debates. :)

Skullbie
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If you really looked at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_webcomics you'd see that
a)It's getting smaller over time and
b) No free hosted comics/really unknown comics

Also the webcomic being actually published seems to help it be taken seriously.

lastcall
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If you really looked at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_webcomics you'd see that
a)It's getting smaller over time and
b) No free hosted comics/really unknown comics

Also the webcomic being actually published seems to help it be taken seriously.

Yeah I noticed that there is only one entry for 2009, and it's a Star Wars webcomic.

Thanks for mentioning Comixpedia ozone; although that site seems SUPER slow….

dueeast
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It's funny because probably 80+% of those comics are on Comic Genesis (so they should have included Due East, which had been there since 2003, but oh well! lol! ). Seems lazily put together to me… *shrugs*

lefarce
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Wikipedia
Serious

Joke of the month.

BffSatan
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Yeah, wikipedia has certain rules about notability, it needs references from another site then it's own and a webcomics hosted souly on a webcomics hosting site could never have it's own article.
They did this to Buttersafe by Raynato Castro and Alex Culang. Even though that webcomics is totally notable.

Phillby
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The only time I've ever seen a Wikipedia webcomic article reinstated was after Kris Straub got the Starslip page deleted to prove how easy it was. He did it with a couple of puppet accounts and the magic words 'Not Notable'.

Loud_G
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I too attempted to make a wiki article for my comic about a year ago. Luckily I saved the info in a text file after I submitted the article. About an hour later it was marked for deletion. 5 minutes after that someone stuck up for it. Then it was gone forever. :D

I did sneak it in one of the lists of webcomics though, so even if there is no article, it is in there somewhere. :)

lastcall
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Yeah luckily I saved the coding template to a Word file if just such an occasion arose. Glad I did so.

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