T Campbell's Blog

You know T, as far as I understand it, Google and Yahoo rank their pages by how many other pages link to them and what sort of traffic is generated by those links. So really, if we had enough people linking comixpedia.org, it may just show up first when the curious plug "webcomics" in to a search engine.

It may be the best alternative.

And I'd label the insular nature of webcomics communities as "secterian" rather than "secular".
 

He makes a valid point. How many sites would need to link to Comixpedia to achieve this is now the question.
 

You're giving me a bit too much credit. I haven't been all that active on Wikipedia for a while.
 

William G is correct-- le mot juste is "sectarian." Fixed.

He *may* be correct about Comixpedia.org coming up earlier for "webcomics" in the search results, given enough time. Currently a Gsearch for "webcomics"-- just "webcomics"-- puts the Wikipedia entry at 9, and Comixpedia.org at 14, while Yahoo has W at 2, and Comixpedia.org at #74.

Let me repeat: Comixpedia.org is hella better than nothing, and it soothes the sting of Wikipedia's new attitude considerably. It has the potential to be even more, if a number of things go right.

The problem has a lot of angles to it, though. I'm really gonna have to research and think this one over.
 

The dream of Wikipedia, as I saw it, is organizing and presenting the whole of human knowledge. To delete anything besides demonstrable falsehood seems incompatible with this goal.

I'm glad Comixpedia.org's wiki is there and I think it's going to be really useful, especially long-term. But in my mind wikipedia's treatment of webcomics is a symptom of a larger problem with the wikipedia project.

And I've thought about it and I think I've realized what the problem is. Okay, there's two sort of interrelated problems. Mainly, the idea of wikipedia is classic utopian thinking. Like all utopias, it's a lot more "perfect" on paper and less so as someone actually goes about implementing it. As Wikipedia grows and makes choices (even if those choices reflect a bunch of people fighting it out) it's reality is going to disconnect from that utopian vision even more.

What's the answer? Competition is the answer really. In fact I'm surprised in hindsight that no one's forked the wikipedia project in a serious way. Open Source projects fork all the time and that more often than not a good thing. People differ on large decisions, they split up and each gives their own approach their best shot. Sometimes one group clearly wins, sometimes multiple groups succeed in their own ways.

Really all of those wikipedians who want to see a more inclusive collection of information (and for my money, also a greater respect for real life expertise on a subject) they should fork the wikipedia. Now. Just copy and paste the whole damn thing somewhere else; announce somewhere that they're forking off b/c of a major disagreement on how to run the project and what their new mission philosophy is. And then work on their own site going forward. And really if there was a critical mass and a clear articulation of an approach that is better than wikipedia I think that would be an awesome thing.

Just two cents off the top of my head.
 

Heh. My "two terse words." I like that.

Really, it comes down to me not caring. I just don't care strongly enough. If I want to learn about a webcomic, I'll read up on that webcomic. It's as simple as that.

And I know, the overarching super-goal of having webcomics wiki'd is to spread awareness for the medium and get more people reading. Which is awesome. It's a goal worth fighting for. Not one I particularly feel like fighting for myself, but I'll do my part by not getting in anyone's way ;)

So at the moment, I'm not really moved. I know I should be. And I know the power that Wikipedia holds. Hell, it's in my links toolbar on my FireFox browser. I like knowing that if I need to know what something is, I can zip over to Wikipedia and read up. That's damned convinient.

I personally support the Comixpedia Wiki for webcomics info. I also support Xerexes' idea of Wikipedia forking off and starting a new one, based on the principles of getting all info, and not just the notable info.

Damn. I think I might just be moved to discuss this on my own site. Curse you, T! I was prepared to piss my night away doing nothing.

Then again, I'm about to go blog. So that's like the same thing, really.
 

The thing that really ended up bothering me was the review process in action. Some say it works, and it probably works well for well-known items, but how long would one imagine a vote to delete President Taft's entry would last? It'd be shot down instantly.

The problem doesn't lie in what everyone knows should be in the encyclopedia. It's this fringe stuff. There are a couple specific things I took issue with, at Wikipedia's Webcomics Project.

(1) Webcomic notability is partly dependent on Alexa ranking, which to me is like ranking based on how many of its readers downloaded the XXXToolbar. Alexa is a really shaky standard, and at the height the bar is currently placed, few webcomics would even show up in the index. That decision to me just screamed "lack of understanding or forethought."

(2) As someone mentioned in the deletion vote thread, all of us were "welcome to discuss," although we might not have had our votes counted due to a low edit count. Of course, it is hard to feel welcome when your text is crossed the way out and annotated "User only has seven edits."

Also at Websnark, the admin who did the final tally was trying to explain the impetus behind that move, to avoid "sheep voting." And it makes sense to a degree, but it's not like a person can head over to Fark and say "hey, my webcomic's in jeopardy! Follow this link and vote 'Keep!'"

By and large, I'd imagine if you did get throngs of people voting keep (and providing evidence) in a short period, it's because they gave a damn about the article in question. And if the public caring is not criterion enough for an entry, what is? The whim of the person who put the entry up for delete in the first place? Whether or not you're a vested contributor to Wikipedia, as measured by edit count? Is edit count a barometer for arbitrary expertise on any subject?

In other words, at Wikipedia, the "public" means "the public that seriously contributes to Wikipedia." Anyone using Wikipedia who has contributed less than fifty articles is a non-person. You can't trust their motives, so discount their votes.

(3) Wikipedia itself can be contributed to by anyone. There, the focus is on the individual -- if you've got something that's missing, contribute! That can be abused, of course, but it's critical to Wikipedia's mission statement.

The removal of entries is where the problem starts. When adding an item of interest, only one interested party need be present. When moving to delete an item, ALL POSSIBLE INTERESTED PARTIES ACROSS THE INTERNET need to be active on Wikipedia to defend it.

Had I not idly run across Checkerboard Nightmare's entry and made a stink about it, the vote to delete it may have looked like this:

- Delete. Non-notable, self-promotion.
- Delete. Agreed with OP.
- Delete. Yeah, not particularly notable. It looks like a guy desperate to be famous and it didn't even work. The strip ended it.

Verdict: 3 to delete! Unanimous!

Ultimately what you end up with -- at least in fringe areas like webcomics -- is the shape of the encyclopedia being dictated by the least qualified. It doesn't matter if Eric Burns comes in and says "don't use 'lack of Websnark coverage' as proof of non-notability -- the strip is notable," it doesn't matter: his edit count is too low. But the guy who thinks Alexa is some kind of hard scientific number and has 1,500 edits to his name -- regardless of his knowledge of the topic -- gets his vote counted.

And finally, if the only material at Wikipedia that remains is the stuff no one would fuss over, like names of Presidents and capitols and Roman history, Wikipedia becomes undistinguishable from any other privately-written encyclopedia. The "Public-maintained! Free!" aspect is meaningless, since whenever the public tries to add something that interests them, it is already in danger of being called irrelevant.

I know I paint a more dire picture than probably exists, but you see where I think the failings are.