Fleen: The Awkward Christmas Dinner Of Our Obligation To Existence » I Never Knew Non-Notability Was Contagious. Thanks, Wikipedia!

I Never Knew Non-Notability Was Contagious. Thanks, Wikipedia!

So with the Wikibattle now engaged further and further from the realms of logic. Short form:

Ugly Hill is not notable and should be deleted
Ugly Hill is published by Viper Comics
Therefore, Viper Comics is not notable, and therefore also should be deleted

How about some good news instead? Alert reader Geiseric sent us a link to the Yale Daily News, about a program at the New Haven Free Public Library that’s using webcomics to teach literacy and writing skills. Project creator John Baird previously used the technique when teaching English in Taiwan:

â€œThe breakthrough occurred when I came across [a comic] â€¦ with the text blanked out,â€? he said. â€œStudents then filled in the blank comics in English using whatever language skills they possessed.â€?

No clue what [a comic] means, but there’s been a prior example or two of webcomics being used to this end, both overseas and stateside, so I can offer a guess. More good news:

Although it has only been a few months since the program began, Baird said, he has noticed his studentsâ€™ writing skills improve significantly. He encourages students to observe cues in the pictures when writing in dialogue â€” a method he feels teaches them how to creates scenes that are situation-appropriate. If the students see an angry person in the comic, he said, they learn not to use words that connote happiness. With time, they are also encouraged to draw their own comics.

Of course, you can see where this is going:

Yale Daily News reports on a program at the New Haven Free Public Library involving webcomics
By Wikipolicy, the vast majority of webcomics are not notable and should be deleted
Therefore, Yale Daily News and the New Haven Free Public Library are not notable, and should be deleted

This chain of logic will eventually encompass everything and everyone that you know, love, or might love you someday. To spare the Wikicrowd any further anguish, I’m pre-emptively declaring both Fleen and myself to be non-notable. However, given the perversity of the situation, I rather expect to be getting emails that I’ve been duly enshrined, and proposed for deletion. You know — just another Friday afternoon.

Update: The Fleen Request Line just got a dedication request. “Owen” sends out todays Beevnicks to “Brad” and “Paul”.

Just more Wiki crap. Just more of the vendetta against webcomics from a select few Wiki-pricks. Ah, well, Wiki isn’t all that relevant, and is only getting less and less so. The academic community is beginning to ban students from using it as a research source, and won’t accept it as a useful source of information. Hopefully, that will help some of those burned by the Wiki-pricks feel a little bit better about it.

Your logic is the goods Gary.

That’s too bad about Ugly Hill, it IS notable, it’s Paul Southworth that isn’t.

I’m just not sure why he cares, I thought that not being listed in the nerdirectory would actually further his own personal causes.

Honestly, you folks are getting more than a little obsessed with this Wikipidea thing. What does it really matter?

Geeks love circling the wagons, Sohmer.

Guys, if my Wikipedia article gets deleted tomorrow, you won’t find me teetering on the edge of the nearest bridge with a rock tied to my ankle. I will survive. This isn’t about being listed in some second-rate dorkrectory maintained by the Comic Book Guy’s slightly more awkward nephew.

I don’t like being pushed around, I don’t like my readers pushed around, and I really don’t like it when respectable comic book publishers get pushed around just for associating with me. It makes me feel bad. I was going to just lie down and let this bullshit drop, but it’s getting out of hand now. It’s akin to somebody walking up to you on the street, looking you in the eye and saying, “You don’t matter. Your family doesn’t matter. You are insignificant”. Who cares, right? You don’t know that person, and their opinion doesn’t affect you. But you don’t just stand there and take it. You say something in your defense, and that’s what I’m doing.

Screw you, Wikipedia! I’m here, I’m queer; get used to it.

Also: Thanks, Owen. I imagined Casey Kasem reading the comic to me!

It was awesome.

Dinosaur Comics has done the English-student thing too, in Japan and also Korea and also some that I never got around to putting up! :(

http://qwantz.com/fanart/japan/

The same thing happened with Keenspot – somebody nominated Darken for deletion:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Darken

somebody defended it as being on Keenspot, so an editor attempted to delete Keenspot:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Keenspot&diff=prev&oldid=90507595

(even bypassing the discussion process, until that got rectified).

It seems my little SUPEROSITY is being deleted again, too. Oh well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Superosity_%282nd_nomination%29

I like this comment: “…perhaps when it has a TV show (on a national network) it might deserve notability.”

It’s hard to argue with that!

Well, Chris, if that doesn’t validate the Pokemon test, then nothing will.

Incidentally, that’s my comic in the Yale article.

QUESTIONABLE CONTENT IS FOR THE CHILDREN

ONCE THE TEXT HAS BEEN REMOVED ANYWAY

EXCELLENT. NOW WE GET TO DELETE THE ARTICLE ON YALE.

The problem with criticising Wikipedia (albeit a problem that Wikipedia, by its nature, encourages) is that it’s too easy to pin the blame for the actions of one user on the entire establishment.

That said, I suggest we lay the blame for all of this nonsense at the feet of User:Sandstein instead of meandering off into questioning the entire wiki principle itself.

Seems that Oni Press might be on the chomping block soon- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni_Press

Oni Press might get deleted!?! How the hell can you say a comics publisher is NOT a company? Fine, let this get out of control – wait till they go after the Marvel and DC articles; there would be plenty of public exposure if that happens, and then people will see just how hypocritical and biased the Wiki system has become.

I think the problem with the Oni Press article is that it sadly isn’t really very useful and doesn’t contain enough information to classify even as a Stub at present. With a bit more work, Oni Press could become a good/useful article, as it is a notable publisher of the Books That Are Comics and I suspect there is going to be tons of useful information out there.

Bunny was flagged for deletion a while back, but was saved by a moderator, maybe because it was so under the radar that no-one really wanted it gone.

I’m not sure if this all means that Wikipedia doesn’t like Comics as such or if it means that the articles that do involve Webcomics are going to have to be edited and brought up to scratch by readers.
Errant Story, for example, has a well written Wikipage.

But targeting networks and publishers for publishing specific items… that’s a really scary trend that *could* actually spread to any media, not just comics.

[…] According to Fleen’s Gary Tyrrell, the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia has been on a webcomics purge lately — and now publishers who bring webcomics to print are being marked for deletion as well. […]

[a comic] in that context means that the quote has been excerpted from a larger quote and a metasyntactic stripped of its context has been substituted with its referent. E.g., “I’ve always loved comics and tried to use them in the classroom, but the breakthrough occurred when I came across one with the text blanked out.”

Thanks again, Gary, for helping to call attention to this. The response has been 10x better than I had hoped for!

Hello, Wikipedia is supposed to be an ENCYCLOPEDIA, not some free publicity machine for whatever insignificant stupid ass online comic anyone wants to throw together. Most of the webcomics out there absolutely do not deserve Wikipedia articles. You whiny assed brats who grew up with entitlement issues need to get a grip.

[…] Okay, this tempest has settled down, but should I find it … notable … that the guidelines for notability re: web content (including our beloved webcomics) may actually be more stringent than the guidelines for notability re: porn stars? Guess now we can, as suggested, get a grip. […]

[…] The vast anti-webcomic conspiracy at Wikipedia continues! This time they’ve gone as far as to sabotage their own server in order to stop webcomics researchers from learning THE TRUTH! […]

[…] Since webcomic articles on Wikipedia seem to be in danger of deletion, consider using Comixpedia for your webcomic explaining needs. […]

[…] Damn good question, Shishio. Off the top of my head, there was the story about the New Haven Free Public Library, detailed here. Anybody else know of specific programs? Comment thread is right down thataway. […]

[…] Anyway, sticking with tradition I was left with no choice after coming across an article in Fleen that caught my interest: a guy at a Library using comics as a tool for teaching writing? How cool is that? More importantly: how come I didnâ€™t think of it, and why am I not using it RIGHT NOW? […]

[…] Events, Gary, Merch We’ve written about John Baird and his Create A Comic Project at the New Haven Free Public Library previously, so it was a pleasure to hear from Baird that he’s got new stuff on tap, and you (yes, you) can help out: On June 2 the Create a Comic Project (CCP) will have a Comic Making Tournament (CMT). The CMT will be at the New Haven Public Library in New Haven, CT, on June 2 from 11 AM – 2 PM. A brief summary of the tournament is here. […]

[…] I love it when I get to follow up on a good story. Longtime readers of Fleen may recall previous discussions of John Baird and his Create a Comic Project at the New Haven Free Public Library, and […]

[…] Baird (you remember him from the Create a Comic Project here, here, and here) wrote to us in search of artists: I’m working on putting together a simple […]

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I Never Knew Non-Notability Was Contagious. Thanks, Wikipedia!

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