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Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions
ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Howard Tayler, the webcomic artist of Schlock Mercenary fame, is calling on people not to donate money during the latest Wikimedia Foundation fund-raiser. This is to protest the 'notability purges' taking place throughout Wikipedia, where articles are being removed en-masse by what many see as overzealous admins. The webcomic community in particular has long felt slighted by the application of Wikipedia's contentious Notability policy. Wikinews reporters have recently begun investigating this issue, but are the admins listening?"
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/blog/index.php/2007/10/30/wikiwatch-how-did-that-picture-get-there/
"Comments are closed".
I rest my case.
from wikipedia and the internet in general
Don't bother wasting your energy arguing with that guy (Ta_bu_shi_da_yu). I don't see how his posts are informative or insightful but he was modded up nonetheless. The moderator skipped posts like yours that points out critical observations. If he's not a karma whore, he apparently knows how to game the system to gain status. When it comes to debate about the privileged few and the masses like you and me, how can he be sympathetic about the masses?
I once had a signature.
True. 99% of articles are probably unimportant to a particular reader, but this doesn't make the unimportant in a global context. Trivia, by it's very definition, is unimportant information regardless of who reads it. Which brings me to my next point...
I don't see how this is shifting goalposts... my point remains relevant. The definition of trivia is unimportant information (look up any good dictionary). If the information is classed as "trivia" then it's not really what is needed or wanted in Wikipedia. After all, Wikipedia is trying to build a serious base of important information. Cluttering the article with useless and irrelevant information is not the purpose of an Encyclopedia, and never has been. Just remember: Wikipedia is aiming to be an encyclopedia and not a source of unimportant facts. You can get that from other sites. Don't add it to Wikipedia.
Well, that's for the community to decide. May seem like a copout, but that's the way Wikipedia works. Some don't like that, can't do much about that. But it's worked well for us so far.
Don't know why the example is cryptic. I stated that we remove material for many reasons, of which one reason is if it violates the Original Research policy.
"It is trivial" is one of the reasons because, as said above, "trivia" = "unimportant information". Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that contains relevant and important information.
I really feel that there are crossed lines of communication here. I haven't said what is trivial. I've merely said that trivia is not good for Wikipedia because providing unimportant info is not part of our goals. The policy is fine, it's the interpretation of what is and isn't trivial that is open to interpretation. That's where consensus editing comes into things.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
- They're all shitty obscure webcomics that I've never heard of before.
- They're all non-notable, because they're shitty obscure webcomics.
So, to the wikipedia admins: keep up the good work!were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
Wrong. Many, many articles get their trivia sections merged into the main article. Are you saying that you have been watching every article that was fixed?
Face it, you were caught out. Next time, check your facts before spouting off. I've been editing literally thousands of articles, and know many in the community who have been working at fixing articles with trivia sections.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Oh, I see - an article on a local band that played every bar between Maryland and Massachusetts for the better part of 15 years and whose members went on to other cultural exploits, but NEVER PUT OUT A RECORD, is not notable
Correct. Regional bar bands are of exceptionally little interest to anyone except the members. Wikipedia isn't the place for vanity pages.
I guess data for contemporary anthropology doesn't qualify as "notable" for those asshats.
Bar bands that no one cares about don't qualify as contemporary anthropology any more than does my family tree, and Wikipedia isn't the place for *that*, either.
Some people seem to have the idea that Wikipedia is a dumping ground for personal web pages. It's not. It's a reference for many millions of people, and search pollution is a problem. So, I'm sorry, but no one cares about your band. Get your own hosting and your own site to promote your now-defunct bar band.
Blah blah blah... fucking whiners. "I am relevant! I want to be in Wikipedia like everybody else!"
...Well, in some cases, it may be. But not necessarily... And it may not be clear what's worth documenting until a fair amount of time has passed. You know, get some perspective.
I mean, why is it so important to have a webcomic documented in Wikipedia anyway? What information is there about the comic that is so important, so worth communicating, that one doesn't get by... going to the webcomic site and reading the archive? Well, people get excited about these comics and want to talk about them... this is a perfect reason for someone to start a fansite...
The thing is, webcomics are a dime a dozen. Everybody has one. People wipe their ass and write captions on the toilet paper, and slap it online somewhere, it happens all the time. Is it really worth creating an encyclopedic record of all these flash-in-the-pan half-efforts?
So why delete them? Because what you choose to write about is just as important as the quality of the writing. Wikipedia is not "everything2".
Bow-ties are cool.
I haven't looked at those particular articles, but I know from long and weary experience that there is a massive bias towards keeping crap on Wikipedia. To start with, most Wikipedians are sad girlfiendless geeks obsessed with the trivia of their specialist area (usually Star Trek), which leads to a cult of "inclusionism" lest their favourite nonsense be trimmed down. Secondly, it is policy to consider every "keep" vote to be worth about five "delete" votes. With this sort of in-built tendency not to delete stuff, it makes sense to guess that anything that does manage to get deleted on Wikipedia probably deserved deletion.