The webcomics blog about webcomics

Okay, Forget The Rumble, How’s This?

Looks like Evil, Inc. has been un-un-un-deleted, and may exist at Wikipedia again. But Ugly Hill is apparently “on the bubble”, as the sports types say. I may be a bit biased on this one, but what the HELL people? Printed material, association with a publisher, an honest-to-god sex scandal, what more do you want?

As fun as gettin’ into crap-fights on the internet can be, it’s ultimately self-defeating. So here’s the solution: let’s just all agree that Wikipedia isn’t interested in our little slice o’ culture; that’s fine, and they’re probably still smarting about the chickens thing. Then we get them to keep one page up that says, Look, we don’t like webcomics, so if you’re interested, go to Comixpedia’s fork and we’ll call it even.

Redirect every article on webcomics to that portal page, and just like some horribly, deranged Lucy episode, we draw a line down the middle of the Internet They can have their half, and we may then spend our days not being annoyed at people who apparently think that — despite the number of people who create and read webcomics daily — we just don’t measure up to the standards of notable and worthy culture.

On the other hand, it makes for great material…

Thank you, Fleen, for helping to solidify my existence and the existence of the things that I do!

I think it’s a really bad idea to use the “if Wikipedia cares about notability, why do they have X” argument. If you take a survey of the general populace, asking which is more notable, who do you think will win?

He-Man/She-Ra Xmas Special, or Ugly Hill?

Josie & the Pussycats, or Evil, Inc?

I know what we’d like the answer to be, but I wouldn’t bet on webcomics winning either of those battles.

If you take a survey of the general populace, asking which is more noteable, who do you think will win:

Simon Crowell, or Jonas Salk?

Paris and Nicky Hilton, or Watson and Crick?

Information and the relevance of said information are not tied to popular knowledge — if they were an encyclopedia would be irrelevant to begin with, since encyclopedias are supposed to be resources we use to learn things we didn’t already know anything about.

Granted, webcomics are not on the level of the inventor of the Polio vaccine or the guys who discovered DNA’s double helix… but neither is the He-Man/She-Ra Xmas Special. Or even Josie and the Pussycats.

I still don’t get why at Wikipedia, where each page takes up like 2kb of space, they care so much about things like this.

People that don’t know aren’t going to see it. People who like webcomics will see it.

What the hell difference does it make?!

Do a Google search for “webcomics site:wikipedia.org” and you’ll currently come up with 2,490 entries.

This may be down from peak periods, but I do not see how a four-figure search result signifies disinterest.

In fact, I haven’t read one post anywhere that argues that all webcomics are non-notable. The Wikipedians, by and large, are just trying to find some objective standard which everyone can agree is a clear indicator of notability. This is IMPOSSIBLE, but it is what they are trying to do.

Personally, I’m holding out for a mention of “webcomics”– no particular webcomic, just “webcomics”– in Brittanica.

The proper pluralization is “wikipedos.”

As a result of the bickering over Ugly Hill’s legitimacy, the original user who recommended it be deleted has now also suggested that the entry for Viper Comics be removed as well. He claims that they are an “apparently unremarkable publisher” that publishes “only webcomics”.

I see this ending with President Bush’s entry being deleted because “I voted for Nader”. Good grief!

Humans are an unremarkable species! Do you know how many others there are?

Jeph – I believe the proper pluralization is “wikipediots”

ATTENTION: You’re all officially invited to join my “Screw Wikipedia” campaign.

If I’m going down, I’m going down swinging.

In this argument, people keep citing the rules of Wikipedia, but I don’t think they realize that what I’m saying is the rules should be changed. The problem here is that Wikipedia is trying to have their cake and eat it, too; they want to be user-maintained, but they also want to be a reliable source of information. Those two states cannot be reconciled.

In a case like this, accuracy, not notability, should be the issue. And the only one who can confirm or deny accuracy is me. If Wikipedia is truly a user-maintained community, and its users not only created the article, but also overwhelmingly vote to keep it, that should be the end of it. As long as the entry is accurate, it should stay put.

You can’t have it both ways, Wikipedia!

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