Blógünder Schlock

This has been a big week for Webcomics news:

1) Melonpool is back! Blank Label Cartoonist Steve Troop was one of the very first webcartoonists, and Melonpool is one of the longest-running properties online. He’s been burning the candle at both ends professionally puppetteering for the last several months, but he’s back on his inkin’ game now.

2) Comicspace and Webcomicsnation announced a merger. I had some conversations with Joey Manley about this during the summer and again a few weeks ago, but had to keep my mouth shut. Interestingly, I STILL have to keep my mouth shut. Their stuff is really that cool.

3) Zudacomics.com, DC’s big foray into the world of online comics (and buying intellectual properties for peanuts and page-views) launched on the 30th. Their launch was HUGE, with over 23,000 pages viewed in just one day. (Ummm… yeah. To put that in perspective, you people view over a quarter-million pages at schlockmercenary.com each day. DC may get more traffic from this blog post than from their launch.)

4) Blank Label Cartoonists Brad Guigar, David Kellett, and Kristofer Straub, along with BLC Unofficial Advisor Scott Kurtz bid a fond farewell to Blank Label. They’re doing their own things, some of which will be done jointly under the Halfpixel banner. This fission leaves Blank Label Comics with Melonpool, Real Life, Ugly Hill, Wapsi Square, Shortpacked, and of course Schlock Mercenary.

5) That Wikinews article about webcomics and notability (the one I blogged) got slashdotted. As did I, I suppose. Traffic here blipped up by about 8%. Webcomics have come a long way since the days when Slashdot could actually hurt our hosting. More importantly, however, the discussion under that article has lots of very meaningful, articulate posts, and only a few all-caps trolls.

Of all of this stuff, I’m sure the folks at DC would like to think their news is the most worthy. Personally, I think the WCN/CS merger (Item #2) is the biggest news. If comics were geopolitics, that merger is like if England and France teamed up to colonize the Americas in 1530. Zuda is like if Columbus arrived in America in 1906 and tried to announce that he was discovering it. And then unloaded a sack of beads and asked if Manhattan was still for sale.

The promised Wikinews article is right here. Oddly, the accompanying picture appears to be advertising my merchandise, which either undermines or strengthens certain arguments, depending on who is arguing what. I would much rather they used Brad’s eyeball over on the left.

You can find several conflicting opinions in the record-settingly-long list of comments to my last post on the subject, should you choose to peruse them. I shall not attempt to sum these up, but shall instead offer some final thoughts on the matter.

1) Wikipedia appears on my referrer list as having provided 401 out of 293,781 referrals for the month of September. In October (the month during which I stirred the pot again) it provided 395 referrals (as of this writing). Webalizer rounds this down to “0.00%” of my monthly traffic. Obviously my Wikipedia article is a HUGE part of my advertising campaign. (Where’s the sarcasm tag, now?)

2) This Wikinews article is well-written, and comprehensive within the limits of concision. Unfortunately it falls short in one key area — it treats webcomics as an isolated example. The excesses of elitist, deletionist editors and admins span far more topics than just webcomics. If you’ve got examples of other kinds of articles being treated in this way, you need to let the Wikinews reporters know about it, so everybody can see the big picture.

3) I’ve heard horror stories from enough bright, articulate people that I will probably never bother to contribute to Wikipedia. Jay Maynard is a lot smarter than I am. If Wikipedia doesn’t want his contributions, they sure as shootin’ can’t have mine.

4) Several people have suggested that those of us with complaints should offer solutions, rather than just whining. I AM offering a solution. It goes like this: Don’t send Wikimedia Foundation your money until they change the system. Wikipedia should be writer-friendly, encouraging improvement to articles, constructively criticizing them where appropriate, and erring on the side of inclusion. “Speedy Delete” is none of these things, and cannot be allowed as a tool to fix weak articles.

I can’t make those system changes myself, nor can I suggest them within the system because the system as it stands will delete my suggestions.

Wikipedia has developed an immunological disease. It attacks the changes required to help it grow and thrive using the same methods by which it attacks the spam that might bury it in irrelevance. The end result is that it will wither unless surgically altered from the OUTSIDE.

The Wikimedia Foundation has that ability, but none of the rest of us do.

If you want to make comments, make them over at Wikinews. It’s not that I don’t want to have the last word here (oops… I just had the last word, and it feels GREAT), it’s that I think your comments will be more effective closer to the broken systems. Also, I’m tired of fishing your colorful metaphors out of my spam trap. I just chlorinated this thing.

I got an email message from a “Wikinewsie” named Brian a few days ago in which he asked me if I would help with the current Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser. I declined, and stated that my non-contribution was the only tool left for protesting the manner in which a few Wikipedia editors and administrators treated dozens of articles about webcomics and the webcomic community.

As it turns out, this particular pot was ready for stirring. Brian abandoned his “help raise money” cause, and is now out to raise awareness of this particular problem. He is calling upon other Wikinews.org journalists to investigate, and he has asked me to round up webcartoonists who might be able to contribute to the discussion.

I’m unwilling to stop at webcartoonists. I believe that “notability purges” are being executed throughout Wikipedia by empire-building, wannabe tin-pot dictators masquerading as humble editors. They are the enemy. They are articulate, erudite, convinced of their moral and intellectual superiority, and need to have their proverbial pictures plastered on the walls of the proverbial post-office.

If you know of a case in which notability guidelines and/or heavy-handed editorial tactics were used to speedily delete useful articles, please help out by providing that information. You can post it in comments below, or you can (I think?) directly edit this Wikinews page.

The Wikimedia Foundation is holding a fund-raiser. That means this would be a perfect time to contact them and tell them why they can’t have your money.