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the Great Wiki Debate

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halley:
Hey I was just wondering what the stance was here on the so called Webcomics vs Wikipedia thing going on.
If you don't know about it, check this out, it explains it pretty well, and gives some good examples for what's going on. http://www.halfpixel.com/2007/02/15/delete-wikipedia/

But anyway, the main idea is that webcomics are getting their articles deleted from Wikipedia because they aren't "notable" enough, and there's a huge problem with determining what "notable" really means. naturally webcomics like Penny Arcade and Questionable Content would stay, but it's slightly smaller stuff that could be up for deletion some webcomics with up to a couple thousand readers a day.

Personally I don't mind webcomics getting deleted, I love the webcomics world and love lesser known webcomics, but I think Wikipedia should be a resource for stuff that's important, for the the staples of the webcomic diet, the essentials if you will. Actually having the graph show up on Alexa, like so http://alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=www.questionablecontent.net seems like a good start for weeding people out, I know it's actually not that accurate... but if you don't even show up, you're not big.

I actually had an article for my webcomic up on Wikipedia a long time ago, it was just put up by a random fan unbeknown to be, I was trilled! I really was! but a week or so later it was taken down, but I didn't kick, it was the thought that counted, and really my webcomic is hardly that Important.

Saying that though, I think that Wikipedia should get rid of every goddamn home town's football team before anything else. though in actually the last two weeks the condition seems to have improved drastically, it use to be that if I clicked "random page" it was an 8/10 chance that it would be some crappy local sports team in Wyoming or whatever. But again, it looks like this is getting fixed finally, but webcomics were being actively sought out for deletion long before they got rid of "North Dakota high school football"
oh wait... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Dakota_high_school_football

KharBevNor:
It's ridiculous, for several reasons:

1: Wikipedias articles on 'things that matter' are often shit. Spiderwoman, Starscream and the Yellow Power Ranger have far more comprehensive articles than any number of important historical figures, great literary works, etc. I've always found it ludicrous that Wikipedia should tout one of it's main strength as being its unlimited size, compared to a print encylopedia, and then not using it. The forbidden things are bizarre as well: Wikipedia has articles on train stations, but not schools. Why?
2: The notability criteria are stupid. They require citations from print media, which literally ensures that all but the largest webcomics will get excluded. They are basically discriminated against on a cultural basis.

AnotherQCaddict:
Ahh wikipedia... where the pedant on culture makes a cultural article more relevant than the more important historical figures, wars, and basically much of the finer aspects of human history.

grrraham:
There are only brief summaries, if that, of most works of genuine literature because, for every thousand wikipedia editors who watched power rangers as a kid, only twelve have read Lost in the Funhouse, and only one of those twelve  cares enough to write about it. And that one still has to finish articles on Death and Taxes and The Razor's Edge first.
I can't fault it's writers for being more interested in their own hobbies than in the things which interest me.

Jab:
I'm not sure why they're keen on deleting everything. Technically, this website could document just about everything, so why be picky? It's not like Wikipedia has some kind of honor or legitimacy to maintain; I'm pretty sure Stephen Colbert took care of that one.

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