Webcomics WikiWatch
Posted February 5th, 2007 by Howard Tayler
Somebody over at Wikipedia (and by “somebody” I mean “several short-sighted, empire-building editors”) doesn’t like Webcomics.
Terrence Marks recently pointed out that roughly 50 webcomics articles have been deleted in the last month. The article for Brad Guigar’s “Evil Inc.” got the purge, too (he provided the tasty eyeball WikiWatch image in his blog today.) It’s only a matter of time before “Schlock Mercenary” get’s the purge.
“Why” you ask? Ask the editors. They’ll come back with “not notable” or some such. That’s been their only excuse, even after purging entries for hugely influential webcomics, notable apparently to everybody EXCEPT the Wikipedia Censorship Politburo.
I love Wikipedia, but whatever passes for an editorial board over there obviously has it in for webcomics. You can learn more about the 1972 cartoon show “Josie and the Pussycats” at Wikipedia than you can at IMDB, but the webcomics you and thousands of others are currently reading are “not notable.”
Apparently to be “notable” something can’t have an exclusively online presence (unless, of course, it’s Wikipedia, which has a somewhat masturbatory entry in the Wikipedia,) and can’t be a webcomic at all — Evil Inc. is also running in newspapers. See, Wikipedia is “not an internet directory,” so it is only able to authoritively link to stuff that you can read in books or watch on TV.
If you think that this is improper behavior for the editors of a self-styled “open” encyclopedia, let ‘em know. After all, with the attitude they’re displaying it’s only a matter of time before solid, factual, useful information you need is declared “not notable” and is deleted.
Explore posts in the same categories: Industry News, Internet
February 5th, 2007 at 8:48 am
I understand fully. I’ve been at war with them for some time about the validity and importance of semi-pro sports leagues. Apparently, if you arent in the top pro leagues, you have no importance, no matter how long you’ve been in existence or how many people you draw.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I first came across this in my unhappily unsuccessful defense of Ralph Hayes’ pages. They started by killing the Anthropomorphic webcomic awards and then using that as an excuse to kill those whose notability depended on those awards. The deletion page was filled with plain spoken prejudice against the art form and its community. WP:WEB is being misused, badly. I’m not a furry in general but I don’t like bigotry of any stripe. The discussion is available here to get a feel for what’s really going on.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Yeah, well. I’ve followed the wikipedia thing a little bit, and the editors have gotten so high and mighty that disputing a delete too loudly is likely to get you branded a sock puppet and banned as such.
I’ve pretty much given up on it. I still look up stuff on it, but I don’t think it’s going to stay a valuable resource for long now.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:45 am
I know quite a few people who have fought wars with Wikipedia over the last couple of years, some of them notable (the people) and some of them in the press (the wars). At the end of the day there is very little satisfaction to be had, so little the effort doesn’t really seem to be worth pay off.
My advice, which is free and worth every penny, is to shake your head in a sad way at how people’s egos can screw just about anything up, and walk away. They are trolls feeding them just gives them what they want.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:58 am
Wikipedia’s web notability policy seems pretty clear, and not all comics are going to make the grade. The purpose is to make sure that Wikipedia isn’t used as a publicity vehicle in its own right, and that it’s not flooded with pages that have no notability at all.
That said, Howard, one way you can keep the Schlock Mercenary page from sufgfering the same fate is to make sure that the page contains references to it in the mainstream media. The article on you in the newspaper a while back would be perfect for that purpose.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:59 am
re: semi-pro sports — that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. It would be very interesting to find out what other non-notable niches (N^3 rolls right off the tongue, no?) are suffering editorial persecution.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:59 am
It’s simply not worth the hassle; Wikipedia is choking itself into irrelevance on its own pedantry. Sit back, crack open a cold one, and enjoy the show.
Wikipedia’s basic notion of “all of us are smarter and better than any one of us” is flawed on its face, as anyone who has sat on a committee knows too well. Add that to “editors” unable to grasp the concept of offline references, puling for citations for every dependent clause, and the generally remedial-English level of composition it displays and you have a frightening example of perfect socialism in action where mediocrity is not only desired, it is inevitable.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:13 am
This seems terribly like the disagreement between Wikipedia and The Inquirer.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:49 am
And yet my article on “Fergenschmeir” has yet to be deleted. Not notable yet .. not important enough to be deleted.
So hey .. webcomics are important enough to delete.
February 5th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Unfortunately, wiki is proof of the accuracy of Lord Acton’s famous dictum about power corrupting. The editors have set themselves up as the final authority on everything. If they make a decision. it’s unappeallable and irrevocable. I’ve personally discovered this the hard way.
“So let it be spoken, so let it be done.” And there ain’t nothing you can do about it.
February 5th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Uhm…to those who talk about the power of Wikipedia editors, I’ll point out that all it takes to be an editor of Wikipedia is to start editing articles. Anyone can do it. (Indeed, it can be argued that this is precisely the problem.)
February 5th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
I think the having-been-published-in-book-form makes it less likely to be purged.
February 5th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
You’re exactly right Jay. In the end it all comes down to who is willing to invest more of their allotted lifespan fussing about matters that are only of consequence to experts or obsessives.
I could give a fistful of examples but I’ve mostly given up. Be it naval history, film production, painted rocks arranged on hillsides, or even inorganic chemistry, there’s always someone willing to argue just because they can; inevitably, an all-volunteer project ends up in the hands of those who scream the longest.
I’m still in the habit of checking WP first for quick information but any decent school’s online databases have thousands of times more utility and there’s nothing like spending nights in the stacks and repeatedly annoying the heck out of the intra-library loan folks for months on end to really learn something about a subject.
February 5th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
If Wikipedia is doomed and useless, how come it matters whether one’s favourite webcomics have articles there?
Notability is one of the least understood criteria for having a Wikipedia article on something. It’s formulated in subtly different ways for classes of topics like people, corporations, bands etc., but what it generally requires is independent non-trivial coverage of the subject by multiple reliable sources. For the sake of maybe convincing somebody that this is not entirely arbitrary, I’d like to explain it in detail.
All the attributes are important. ‘Independent’ means just that; the sources being cited should have no connection to the subject. ‘Non-trivial’ means that the coverage goes beyond mentioning name, URL and update frequency (figuratively speaking) and provide a view of its own. ‘Multiple’ is more than one and ‘reliable’ is complicated. Everybody can have a website, blog or wiki(-page). For that matter, everybody can publish a book or buy ad space in a newspaper. In these and similar cases, the source is not reliable—it can contain pretty much anything. Reliable sources are books published not by a ‘vanity press’, newspapers and journals with editorial oversight (de facto, not de jure) and, of course, peer reviewed literature.
Most webcomics have precisely no coverage in such sources. Most webcomics are also not useful subjects for encyclopaedia articles. These two sets are almost identical. This doesn’t mean those webcomics are bad or unknown. However, suppose an average webcomic disappears off the WWW; there is a number of scenarios where this can happen. With what are we then left on that to write an article in an encyclopaedia? Nothing, except opinions of fans—and, speaking as a fan of many webcomics (including, of course, Schlock Mercenary), opinions of fans are absolutely useless from an objective, academical point of view.
So, basically, to be in Wikipedia, all a webcomic has to fulfil is to get written about in the New York Times or the Galveston County Daily News (whatever Galveston County is; ); or in a journal about art, or a peer-reviewed paper or just a PhD thesis, or a book on webcomics (published by somebody not affiliated with the webcomic’s author). There is no formal requirement that the sources should be on dead trees; online sources are perfectly fine, as long as they are as reliable as the printed ones. (Most online soures aren’t reliable at all.) Oh, and the Wikipedia editors who write the article should actually cite this kind of mention in the article, no later than when somebody asks. Or it gets deleted—the burden of proof happens to be on those who assert notability, not those who dispute it.
This actually works most of the time. Sometimes, it fails. Every time an article is deleted, somebody has spent a lot of work on that article. That’s life on Wikipedia; there is no ill will towards editors—on the contrary, (almost) everybody is a priori welcome to participate—, but it’s not Myspace or Comixpedia.org, and to ignore the distinction is not helpful.
I hope this is at least an explanation, maybe even a justification, of the reason some webcomic articles get deleted. The important things when writing an article are to stick to facts that are verifiable (Verifiability is not the same thing as truth!), to assume good faith towards others even if their position seems wrong and to keep cool. New editors sometimes don’t figure that out in time. It would be better if the complaints about Wikipedia included the possibility that when something goes (allegedly) wrong, the problem is not entirely with one side.
In closing, I’d like to apologise about the length of this post. You can flame back, vandalise or talk to me at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Xyzzy_n.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
First time poster here, so forgive me if I don’t have the etiquette down right.
Anyway, to my point. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t all the material on Wikipedia covered under the GNU Free Document License? Couldn’t it as such be forked?
The question then is, do we care enough for the information to go to the work to save it?
February 5th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
I suppose the best thing to do if this continues is to make a wiki just for webcomics and webcomic related stuff. There are already wikis devoted to Star Wars, Star Trek, BattleStar Galactica, Firefly, Transformers, and even one devoted to being the anti-Wikipedia. The software is open source, so all you’d need is a place to host it, and then let people regurgitate their collective webcomic knowledge onto it’s pages.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
xyzzy_n:
1) Too. Damn. Long. If you have to apologize for a long post, DON’T MAKE THE POST THAT LONG. It’s a violation of common courtesy and common sense.
2) Many of the deleted articles were for comics that have been referenced in print journals — including Evil Inc. The criteria is not being upheld by the editors, which means it’s rule of personality, not rule of law.
3) I have no desire to enter into a discussion with you or any other editor over at WP. I’ve seen how editors treat article defenders, and it disgusts me. You might be less self-righteous and self-absorbed than most, but the tome you’ve left here lends little credence to that assertion.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Howard, sorry, I won’t do it again. (Keeping this short, see?)
February 5th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Much better, thanks. :-)
February 5th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Couple things
1. Comixpedia.org is a fork of wikipedia for webcomics. I wish it weren’t needed but it’s a good thing we started it over a year ago.
2. The thing that has crystalized for me is that deletion is not handled the same way as creation and accretion. The process of contributing knowledge into wikipedia is brilliant – it is the result of many hands continually refining the entries. You can argue around the edges about different ways it could be implemented but it works.
This deletion process is completely different – it’s a process subject to a few voices. Literally 3-5 editors (sometimes fewer) delete entries in a mostly arbitrary order (I’ll allow for the sake of argument that the non-notability policy isn’t arbitrary although in fact it is in non-trivial ways) in a fairly rapid time period. Think about the quality of contributing to wikipedia if only the loudest few got to contribute anything (less loud folks couldn’t contribute) and that entries were fixed after a short period of time. Frankly it would suck… and that’s why the deletion process is flawed – it’s not like the rest of the wikipedia project.
As to the notability policy. I do think it’s fairly arbitrary as a concept (the entire notion of “notability” in a project built on its rejection of perceived external authority is also somewhat ludicrous) and it seems arbitrary as applied. There is little consistency of “notability” stds from subject to subject.
February 5th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
Ok Xyzzy, if as you say it requires coverage in an independent fashion, then wouldn’t you consider publication of the comic in a number of newspapers, each with a real editorial board, reliable?
Would you consider publication by a publishing company (blank label comics) to be reliable? If not, why?
February 5th, 2007 at 8:52 pm
Howard, smile when you talk about Wikipedia editors: I count myself as one.
When and where was the article on you published in the paper? I can’t recall.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
There was one in the San Antonio something-or-other in conjunction with my attendance at Chimaeracon ‘06 — I’ve got the clipping around here somewhere. There was also a full-page thing in the local paper (Provo Daily Herald) which I’ve also filed a clipping from.
Neither of those are available online — I’ve searched, and these papers didn’t maintain archives of those articles, not in a queryable format, at any rate.
That said, the local paper has half a dozen mentions of me in conjunction with local events — I think most of these are press releases from local conventions.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
Well, if you’ll pass aloing the reference info from the two articles you’ve got, I’ll add them to the Schlock Mercenary page for a pre-emptive strike. (The Provo Daily Herald article is the one I remembered.)
February 5th, 2007 at 9:27 pm
Notice when they discussed if it should be deleted because it was a pointless vanity page, they almost instantly decided to keep it. Silly, eh? It didn’t even take them 1 minute to debate it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wikipedia
February 5th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Pffft. HOW HARD WOULD IT BE, really, to register a coupla domains and make ‘em all legit-looking, and post nice articles there that secure your Wikipedia slot?
Okay, that’s silly. A better question is “Who would use Wikipedia to learn about Schlock?”
I can’t think of anybody, really. I mean, people hear about Schlock from friends, presumably, or from links from other sites — either source will send them TO THE COMIC, right? Isn’t the comic the best place to learn about it? You have the “First Time Here?” link right up at the top.
Am I missing something?
February 5th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Nobody in their right mind would attempt to advertise their work via Wikipedia — the people reading it are not shopping, and in large measure already know what they’re looking for.
The webcomic entries in Wikipedia are valuable because there are people who want to learn about a particular webcomic (or webcomic personality — say, Howard Tayler for instance) but only have time for the Cliff Notes.
Encyclopedias are neither authoritative nor exhaustive in any given article. They always cite other sources, and they always synopsize. You want the quick-and-dirty on me, Schlock, and the comic’s plot-points? Wikipedia really is the best stop for that.
The challenge the Wikipedians themselves are not living up to lies in the breadth of coverage and connectedness they can offer. No other encyclopedia can be as big, or as immediately searchable. But if they prune out “niche” content (be it webcomics or bush-league sports) then they fail to be anything more than a hyperlinked, periodically vandalized Britannica.
There is nothing to be gained by restricting the scope of Wikipedia. Individual articles should be edited for conciseness, but there should be BILLIONS of those articles.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Webcomics aren’t the only group getting the short shrift it seems. I’ve noticed a few published writers get deleted for not being notable enough, despite the fact that you can find their work at Barnes and Noble. All of them are horror writers, which is what made me raise an eyebrow (I write SF, but I hang out with all kinds of crazy folk). Brian Keene, who’s article is now stable, was one such author. And when some resubmitted a page with the proper links, it was flagged for deletion within 24 hours.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
Good luck is all I can say to you Howard. I was told that the semi-pro football league I work with didnt exist. No matter that I sent them repeated articles in several journals. No matter that I sent them links to many different websites discussing them. No matter that I sent them the stats of the last playoff games.
I was told they werent active during this football season, so they were nonexistent and needed to be deleted.
After about the fiftieth time explaning to them that semi-pro teams play during the summer and early fall, they deleted all teh entries for the league and teams. Afterwards, all but one apologized for deleting all the entries…. and her exact words were ” I’m still confused, they werent playing during the football season so they’re not real, right? ”
At this point, I gave up.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Dark Lord Skippy AND MikeBrendan: Herein you provide us with the acid test of xyzzy_n’s statement, wherein he said “…the burden of proof happens to be on those who assert notability, not those who dispute it.”
The acid, it burns. The goggles, they do nothing. Again and again I hear of people asserting notability and providing solid proof, only to be met by ignorant or vindictive editorial board members who delete the article anyway.
As to THAT statement, I’ve linked sufficient proof of it in the annals of Wikipedia’s “deletion” pages that I stand by it as factual, rather than merely opinionated. I never presume malice when ignorance will explain something, but Wikipedia’s editorial board is documentably rife with both.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
“If Wikipedia is doomed and useless, how come it matters whether one’s favourite webcomics have articles there?”
Because it had the potential to be so much more than just another online genital-waving festival.
Have fun. I’m out.
February 5th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Ah, wisdom.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Just a note for those of you ranting about webcomic deletion: Superosity has been undeleted, and it looks like the deletion of Evil, Inc. is going to be overturned.
February 5th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Yep, looks like the Evil_Inc wiki is back! :D
February 5th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
It’s still a valid concern. If Wikipedia is going to try to be the fount of all knowledge online, shouldn’t the editors be held to higher standards than they are? Such as actually bothering to research something instead of marking it for deletion? For example, I just started perusing the “proposed for deletion” topics, and the Nightstar IRC topic has had the template added.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightstar_%28IRC%29
With no explanation as to why. Sure, it’s a stub that no one has expanded yet, but that still doesn’t make much sense. You’d think they would at least look into adding more material and reading up on it first.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:29 am
bdunbar writes: “And yet my article on ‘Fergenschmeir’ has yet to be deleted.”
Apparently some of the Wikipedia editors are also Schlock Mercenary blog post readers. Shame on you. The Fergenschmeir post is gone now.
Here’s the message I received after I defended it by pointing out that there are references to it elsewhere on the web: “Bart, the article on ‘Fergenschmwhatever’ has been deleted because, all in all, it’s just a metasyntactic variable. We don’t have articles on every tiny little joke that exists. I regret that this disappoints you, and hope that you will reconsider your decision to avoid participating in Wikipedia. DS 04:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)”
Reasonably polite, and totally non-responsive to my objections and those of others. I actually enjoyed the Fergenschmeir article, and found it informative. Oh well—can’t say I’m surprised.
February 6th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Hooray. The new criteria for article deletion and retrieval on Wikipedia seems to be editors’ response to the discussion on Blógünder Schlock! It’s almost as though there’s no honest objective criteria for these deletions and retrievals, so it’s whatever seems cool at the time.
Wikipedia editors: I challenge you to construct and run a double-blind test of the replicability of article deletions due to “notability”. If you’re honest with yourselves, you’ll give it a try.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:26 am
The sad thing about this discussion is that is seems to have happened several times. A browsing of the websnark archves will show the same discussion; approximately a year ago. I think that someone needs to come up with a way for wikipedia to overcome this problem, and more importantly, a way the solution can be sold to the entrenched wikipedia editors and administrators (so that the solution improves wikipedia in general, and and not just the webcomic entries).
February 6th, 2007 at 3:48 am
Wikipedia is run by a very cliquey group of editors in each section and they all put out calls to help each other on votes and debates. It’s like an online version of high school.
I like the idea behind wikipedia, but some of the rules are just plain stupid. They don’t want to be an online directory, that’s fine, but what harm does it really do to have more information? If the information isn’t biased, or plainly just an advertisement, who cares if it’s trivial, it’s information and knowledge that someone, somewhere may find useful.
What is trivial and what isn’t is really incredibly subjective anyway. Translation memory software probably doesn’t interest more than 1% of the people online, but for me it is intrinsically tied to my livelihood, trivial to you, important to me.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:24 am
A lot of the issues people have with Wikipedia come down to one central conflict: The standard for inclusion isn’t “Is it interesting?” or “Is it useful?”, but rather “Can we prove that it is what we say it is?” Hence the focus on print sources, or fairly reliable web sources like Slashdot.
People add a tremendous amount of trivial content to Wikipedia on a regular basis; just look at the new article creation log some time. I guarantee that at any given time, half of the things on that log will be kids writing “Hello, world!” pages, garage bands angling for a gig, shareware programs being promoted by people living in their mother’s basement, etc. Thus, there have to be standards for notability/verifiability for the project to maintain any internal structure and credibility as a resource. Otherwise, Wikipedia will drown in crap.
It’s unfortunate when things that should be kept are deleted, but nothing is irreversible, and the entries for both Evil, Inc. and Superosity will be there again when you go to look for them next week (and probably better than ever as a result of the attention they’ve received). When things that are verifiable and notable disappear, they don’t stay gone for long.
As some people have said upthread, the best way to protect the Schlock Mercenary article from this kind of attention would be to track down media mentions of you and your work, which could then be properly cited in the article. It’s OK if they aren’t online, as long as they’re explicated in sufficient detail that a motivated individual could find them with a real-world search.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:33 am
“Wikipedia – the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”
Regardless of the content being discussed, what I believe most people find disturbing is the disconnect between the purported egalitarian nature of Wikipedia and the actual culture evolving in it’s editorial board. If “anyone can edit” Wikipedia then it suggests all who do are equal in their power to do so – the sad truth is that some people are obviously “more equal than others” (Animal Farm – George Orwell).
The following is a repeat of my post from the discussion thread at Brad J. Guigar’s website which appears under my other name “flatland pastor”.
Elitism, fascism and erroneous information all in one convenient site.
Who says Wikipedia is useless? It’s worse than useless.
“There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we have met the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.” – Walt Kelly.
February 6th, 2007 at 7:24 am
Vlad: I’m gonna have to call BS on this comment — “It’s OK if they aren’t online, as long as they’re explicated in sufficient detail that a motivated individual could find them with a real-world search.”
See, that’s just not the case. The necessary references for Superosity and Evil Inc. were provided to editors, but the editors are not motivated individuals. At least, they’re not motivated to keep stuff.
The fact that both articles have been restored only tells me that somebody twisted somebody else’s arm and told ‘em to back down. Sure, there are good people over there at WP, but there are also vindictive webcomic-haters in the group. The problem hasn’t been solved. The problem has been EXPOSED.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Let me say that I count myself as a Wikipedia Editor and I see a serious problem (in contrast to others opening with such a statement). While I’ve obviously not had the time that Howard Tayler has apparently spent, I seem to succeed more often than not when trying to save an article from deletion when there’s not a clique with an admin that has it in for something, in which case anything I say is frequently ignored. It’s not just that WP:WEB is inconsistently applied, it’s that WP:WEB seems designed to eliminate nearly all possible web content.
I am not a WP admin and I lack the time to singlehandedly try to save Wikipedia. I am therefore of no practical value in trying to save it beyond pouring water on a couple of scrolls as the Library burns down.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:22 am
Repeat after me: Wikipedia does not have an editorial board.
The editors that keep getting slammed here are nothing more than average people who happen to comment on deletion discussions. Want to be part of this nonexistent “editorial board”? Hop over to Wikipedia: Articles for deletion, pick a day or a subject, and dive in. You’ll be taken more seriously if you have created an account for yourself, but that’s simple and fast.
It’s not recommended that one discuss or edit articles that one has an interest in (see the conflict of interest policy), but that’s no barrier from, say, Howard editing the Evil, Inc. article to include references. Anyone but Howard here could (and should) edit the Schlock Mercenary article to include as many real-world references as possible.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I would further say that, even if articles that met the notability criteria were not being deleted in the face of evidence provided of their notability, the notability policy as it stands is misguided and harmful to Wikipedia’s credibility.
There are lots of pop-culture articles on Wikipedia, many of which are quite obscure, but the evidence of their “notability” comes from “blessed” sources. There are online sources for notability of many web-comics, but they don’t count because they’re on-line. Brief perusal of these will show that they aren’t just advertising shills, but that doesn’t matter because Wikipedia has decided that online sources are not trustworthy.
How they expect us to trust them with that policy is left as an exercise to the alert reader.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:46 am
I’m going to have to jump in here. The articles for Superosity, Evil Inc. and Girly (the subject of the Websnark link) have all been restored. According to deletion logs, deletion review archives and other thingamabobs, Superosity was speedily deleted by an administrator who saw that it didn’t establish notability and shortly afterwards restored by another who knew that it was one of Keenspot’s central ones. The facts about Evil Inc.’s newspaper appearances and book collections – which had not been in the article or the deletion vote – were brought into deletion review, where the decision was overturned in light of this new evidence. Girly returned by the same channels, a good while ago with rather more noise.
The Superosity thing was a drive-by screw-up and the closer of the Evil Inc. deletion vote could have lengthened the voting period to invite additional discussion (though he had no real reason to), but I can find no necessary yet ignored provided references, nor any sign of arms being twisted over these matters.
February 6th, 2007 at 8:55 am
Kizor: Thanks for the clarifications.
I have yet to see any admission of fault on the part of any Wikipedia editor. All I see is excuses, and blame being shifted to other editors (rarely) or the authors of articles.
I get the same thing from 10-year-old kids who’ve been caught in a lie. “It’s not my fault, I was just doing blah blah blah” is not the same as “I’m sorry — we failed to adhere to our policy, and are taking the following corrective actions to prevent this from occuring in the future.”
Until editors start actually taking responsibility for their rash behavior (”drive-by screw-up” sounds like somebody owes the article’s author a personal apology) they’ll continue to play petty tyrant.
February 6th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
The entry for Evil Inc has been un-un-deleted (it’s gone again)!
February 6th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Reasonably polite, and totally non-responsive to my objections and those of others. I actually enjoyed the Fergenschmeir article, and found it informative. Oh well—can’t say I’m surprised.
I had no idea anyone but me had ever read the thing. It was thrown up on whim.
I have NO idea what ‘metasyntactic variable’ even means. I’m just a dumb former Marine – large words confuse me.
It’s back – in truncated form – google only had cahced the first entry. Anyone is welcome to edit, add, flame, etc to the article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fergenschmeir
February 6th, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Xyzzy_n.
Someone has targeted webcomics. First one I saw was The Whiteboard. Now, the article DID read like an ad, so tagging it for a rewrite would be reasonable. But it was tagged for deletion as “non-notable.” Now, not only does it have tens of thousands of readers, it’s been referenced in paintball mags with circulations in the millions.
“Oh, that’s just niche, and his books are self-published, and his only presence is online.”
Right. Now, which of those three criteria does Wikipedia itself meet? …
…
…
And Evil, Inc is also PAPER PUBLISHED in newspapers. No, it’s not with King Features Syndicate, but what these days that’s funny is?
I’m waiting for people to start deleting editors as “non-notable.” Degree in anything relevant? Published? Quoted? Who the heck are you to edit an encyclopedia?
In fact, that’s a good idea for slapping down hubris.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
As Tycho said on Penny Arcade…
“…the collaborative nature of the apparatus means that the right data tends to emerge, ultimately, even if there is turmoil temporarily as dichotomous viewpoints violently intersect. To which I reply: that does not inspire confidence. In fact, it makes the whole effort even more ridiculous. What you’ve proposed is a kind of quantum encyclopedia, where genuine data both exists and doesn’t exist depending on the precise moment I rely upon your discordant [mob] for my information.”
February 6th, 2007 at 11:35 pm
Vlad Says:
or fairly reliable web sources like Slashdot.
:: splutters ::
The system is more broken than I had ever imagined.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:34 am
MadMike, if the editors of an article can’t be bothered to make and substantiate claims of notability, why should anyone else? As for Wikipedia, it happens to pass the notability test by being reported about in several (actually, many) independent reliable sources.
If you don’t like it, don’t use it. Seriously. Buy the Britannica. I’m sure its coverage of webcomics is much more stable.
February 7th, 2007 at 4:43 am
xyzzy: Because the target for “notability” is moving, applied at a whim, used inconsistently, and as far as webcomics are concerned, fundamentally flawed.
Yes, flawed. One of the primary requirements to make a webomic “notable” has been an offline reference- typically described as a full article in a newspaper or magazine, rather than just a mere press release.
This ignores the very *concept* of a WEBcomic, and goes further in that it specifically disallows references in blogs and other purely-online media.
By 2002, Scott Kurtz’ “PvP” had been online over four years, daily, with well over a thousand strips, and had readership in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands.
But at that point, he’d had no external review, no newspaper articles, no magazine sales, no Image Comics deals. As far as Wiki today is concerned, Scott’s strip was “non notable” because there were no non-internet references at the time.
And that is utterly ludicrous.
I know for a fact that the only reason my article barely held against a deletion vote- that was placed within 24 hours of the article being posted- was that I’d had strips published in some magazines. But even then, the editor Dragonfiend didn’t want to accept those- even with photos of the magazines and strips provided- because the magazines themselves had no Wiki articles.
Meaning a Wiki article- a purely online reference, posted by anyone, edited by everyone- would have carried more weight than some *other* online reference.
And even then, in the Vote for deletion for “Starslip Crisis” last summer, the webcomic blog “Websnark” was said, by an admin, to be a valid cite for nobility- quite the opposite of what we’ve been told more recently- and yet a “keep” vote by the author of that blog, Eric Burns, was nullified and ignored because he- Burns- had what that admin deemed was an insufficient number of Wiki edits under his belt.
It’s that illogic, inconsistency, and rule-on-a-whim that have us angry.
If you’re going to have rules, have the rules fit the need, and then stick to the damned things.
Doc.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:36 am
“The fact that both articles have been restored only tells me that somebody twisted somebody else’s arm and told ‘em to back down”
That’s just not how it works.
Take a look at the deletion review page, Howard. For any given day, the closures to around 10 deletion debates are being appealed. Sometimes the closure is upheld and the article stays deleted, but in a case like Evil Inc. where the article was deleted in spite of sources and claims of notability, the deletion is reversed.
The articles are back because people realized that they were deleted and shouldn’t have been deleted, not because of pressure from some shadowy figure.
“The system is more broken than I had ever imagined.”
By the standard of “I read it on some guy’s livejournal”, it could be a lot worse. You wouldn’t believe the things some people consider to be reliable sources.
“And even then, in the Vote for deletion for “Starslip Crisis” last summer, the webcomic blog “Websnark” was said, by an admin, to be a valid cite for nobility- quite the opposite of what we’ve been told more recently- and yet a “keep” vote by the author of that blog, Eric Burns, was nullified and ignored because he- Burns- had what that admin deemed was an insufficient number of Wiki edits under his belt.”
I really don’t see the inconsistency there. People who don’t do anything with the site on a regular basis are generally discouraged from parachuting in for deletion discussions just because A Famous Person told them to do it, so why should it be any different for the Famous Person himself? They aren’t familiar with the policies and guidelines for the articles, so they can’t add much to the discussion. This makes a lot more sense when you remember that deletion matters are formally “discussions” and not votes, and that closures can (and do) go against the side with the majority of the !votes when they aren’t offering any evidence and the other side is.
Personally, I think Dragonfiend is a pretty dim bulb, but Dragonfiend is just one editor. If you can’t get people to listen to you, instead of to some crank, then your argument might not be as strong as you think it is.
“As far as Wiki today is concerned, Scott’s strip was “non notable” because there were no non-internet references at the time. And that is utterly ludicrous.”
Which is worse, an absent article or an unreliable one? If there weren’t any external sources available for PVP at that time then there probably shouldn’t have been an article yet, since there wouldn’t have been any way for a person unfamiliar with the subject to look at the article and determine whether the information in it was accurate or inaccurate. When there are references, you can go and check those references and see whether Cole is a human or a talking ferret, or whether Kurtz won his first Eisner in 2005 or 2004. It’s not like not having a Wikipedia article until the media sources catch up with the notability is some kind of personal attack against Kurtz and his work; if anything, Kurtz should’ve been happy that Wikipedia wouldn’t just let people spread rumors about him and his site.
February 7th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Two points of concern about notability that keep coming up as I read the defenses.
1. I worry that people are viewing topics as being notable by virtue of being written up in print media, as opposed to the write-up being evidence of notability.
2. Accepting print media articles as evidence of notability begs the question of how the authors, editors, and publishers of the print media article concluded the topic was notable enough for them to write up.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
“As for Wikipedia, it happens to pass the notability test by being reported about in several (actually, many) independent reliable sources.”
I’m aware of no professional, peer-reviewed journal that would EVER accept a Wikipedia entry as a reliable reference.
It’s a useful overview prior to doing REAL research, and isn’t even a reliable secondary source, as demonstrated by thread.
So it’s “notable.” So what? Go survey 10 people at random downtown, see if they’ve heard of it or know what it is.
If it’s going to be an online reference, catering to the web community, it needs to meet the web’s criteria, not try to force them into paper criteria.
February 7th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Members of the print media generally determine the notability of prospective subjects through a combination of individual subject expertise and first-hand research. Unfortunately, neither of those techniques are particularly appropriate for the Wikipedia model, which is designed to operate as more of a hive mind than anything else (the one area where Daniel Brandt is right).
Most of the people who contribute to Wikipedia (myself included) probably aren’t qualified to conduct investigative journalism or scientific research, and there’s really no upside in having us try. It’s much more efficient for the project as a whole to direct people’s energy toward collecting good synopsis-type coverage of things that have already been explored and vetted by professionals.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
“I’m aware of no professional, peer-reviewed journal that would EVER accept a Wikipedia entry as a reliable reference. It’s a useful overview prior to doing REAL research, and isn’t even a reliable secondary source, as demonstrated by thread.”
That’s all true, but so what?
No law on the books is going to successfully eliminate crime. Does that mean that countries should just give up on the idea of having laws? Of course not. Wikipedia is never going to be 100% reliable, but that’s not a realistic goal for even the most venerable print source. Wikipedia simply needs to focus on maximizing its reliability, whatever that level ultimately turns out to be, and policies on notability and verifiability are perfectly sensible means to pursue that end.
“If it’s going to be an online reference, catering to the web community, it needs to meet the web’s criteria, not try to force them into paper criteria.”
Apparently, they disagree with you. Given that they have been quite successful so far with their approach, I’m going to have to give the nod to them on that one, until such time as evidence warrants a reappraisal of the situation.
As you evidently feel that their approach is flawed, there is literally nothing stopping you from starting your own “write whatever the hell you want” wiki and recruiting contributors to build it. Best of luck!
February 7th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
“Given that they have been quite successful so far with their approach,”
Based on what? Dollars earned? Awards? Credits? Credibility?
To be fair, it’s about as accurate as any “mainstream” media, which is far shy of professional sources. On non-contentious facts there seems to be an educated layman on many fields who can lay down the basics for reference.
The web is not paper. There are pluses and minuses to that. Most operations that try to force the web community into paper guidelines fail miserably. If Wikipedia were to charge, they’d run into the same issue.
There are, for example, a variety of subjects covered more accurately in Arthur’s Hall of Viking Manliness http://www.arthurshall.com. Which makes sense–Arthur’s Hall has tighter moderation than an open source collection. There’s only ONE ruling opinion.
October 25th, 2007 at 6:18 pm
I think the following article sums up my views on this notability thing nicely:
http://www.wikitruth.info/index.php?title=Notability
I like the humor thrown in but others may not; might be distracting from the main points.
The rest of the site is pretty good (personally I’d start with Flawed Policies) although I don’t completely agree with everything they say.