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Old Man Murray Entry Deleted From Wikipedia
shoptroll writes "In what can be best described as an unfortunate interpretation of the 'notability standards' at Wikipedia, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that the entry for Old Man Murray, once a mainstay of PC Gaming reviews and commentary, has been deleted. A sad day for gaming journalism everywhere." This is notable both because Old Man Murray was completely and totally awesome, but also because it was notable and influential on countless writers.
Never hearing about something is not a pro-deletion point. If it was, well, what would encyclopedia be for, anyway?
Wikipedia needs a better moderation system.
Articles that are not verified or not notable can go into a second tier where they have to be searched for by specifically requesting second tier access.
As it stands now, I've seen articles deleted because their sources have started falling off the net. This makes Wikipedia one of the absolute worst encyclopedias for anything outside of standard historic events.
One of the neat things about Wikipedia early on was that you could find entries on obscure people or places or things. That was one of the charming things about it. No matter how peripheral an item or event, there was someone, somewhere who could write an article about it.
do we really need a Slashdot front page story every time Wikipedia does something suboptimal?
Yes, without public pressure ego-tripping editors could do "suboptimal" AKA wrong things with impunity. Transparency is supposed to be Wikipedia's strength, and good decisions should have nothing to fear from public knowledge.
Generally Considered Lame and not really effective at building consensus
Which is a euphemism for "all the deletionists get butthurt when they can't hide from the public backlash".
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
nonsense. wikipedia, has for example, summaries for each and every episode of popular anime *as a separate article*, yet uses "notable" argument against content of actual cultural significance. That is hypocrisy and a double standard.
If Wikipedia had to be consistent, then nothing would ever get done. There are millions of articles, so you'd need to make a million edits all at once if every editorial policy (e.g. establishing notability) had to be applied to all articles consistently. So, when someone with an interest in gaming reviews makes a call on whether Old Man Murray has sufficient notability, there is no expectation that he should therefore have to go looking for animé articles to delete.
Somewhere, a professional historian is weeping.
May the Maths Be with you!
But on the other hand, apparently dedicating a whole page to some Manga character or obscure comic book sidekick is, of course, relevant and worth the space, right?
Random example include
- Guts from Berserk, who obviously deserves a page of his own. (Along with a couple of other characters that get their own pages.)
- Brainy Smurf
- Penelope Pitstop, Muttley, and generally the whole cast of Wacky Races. Because, you know, it's not enough to know that there was a plot-less and story-less slapstick cartoon series that took the piss out of car racing, you need a whole page about each unidimensional character embodying a stereotype .
- Dino from the Flintstones, along with every single other character, because the fucking dog of a cartoon show not centered around said dog is notable enough to have its own page on Wikipedia
- Pants Ant. Really? Who the fuck is Pants Ant? Oh, right, it appeared in exactly 4 comic books nobody ever heard about, between 1998 and 2001, and didn't influence anything. Right, silly me, that must pass the notability standards.
- Minsc from Baldur's Gate. A character only appearing in a secondary role in a computer game, and memorable only by being batshit crazy and talking to his "miniature giant space hamster" and asking him for advice. And he's not even the only one. There are pages upon pages about every single fucking character ever used in a D&D Forgotten Realms setting. (And Greyhawk, and Ravenloft, and so on...)
- Bayonetta, the character of one action game, obviously deserving her own page separate from that of the game itself. And for that matter Tifa from FF7, and Aeris of "why the fuck can't I use a Phoenix Down NOW?" fame, i.e., a character which didn't even make it past the first CD in FF7, etc. And such fighting game characters as Sophitia from Soul Calibur, or Kitana and Mileena from Mortal Kombat, who, you know, didn't actually have more of a role than generic combatant and drool fodder for geeks even in the movie. And generally every single female character that some editor whacked off to. Because, you know, a character that even the game makers couldn't be arsed to give more than the mandatory half-arsed description or a personality, is something that I need a whole page in an encyclopaedia for.
Etc. etc. etc.
I'm sorry, but if _those_ make the cut as notable enough to have their own page, then so does OMM. Note that I'm not even saying to delete those too. But the circle-jerk gang at Wiki needs to choose one or the other, really.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I have to be honest; at first when I read this reply, I was pretty convinced you were just another Wikipedia deletion whiner, bitching about how your all-time favoritest web site EVAR was deleted by some obviously incompetent and unfit-for-duty Wikipedia editor. I was just about ready to dismiss this entire thing as "bitch, bitch, bitch, nerd rage is hilarious".
Then I actually read over the AfD for Old Man Murray, and it turns out you're absolutely right. This Schumin character IS a little bitch, isn't he*? I'm seeing citation after citation in that discussion, each following Wikipedia's standards for notability (in terms of video games and video game sites), and he's confidently and smugly ignoring each one just to push his agenda. Wow. There's reasons I stopped trying to edit Wikipedia a while back.
*: Yes, you may cite this post as need be in future discussions, Wikipedia or not, as to the degree to which Ben Schumin is a little bitch.
It wasn't doomed from the beginning. It was doomed by it's cultural choices. Generally, there are more decent people in the world than douchebags. But the douchebags tend to be louder. Still, it takes a special set of circumstances to let the douchebags dominate. Usually this involves a critical mass of douchebags at high levels poisoning the culture of institution. The douchebags think everyone is out to get them, because everyone IS out to get them, because they are douchebags. And so the douchebags take great pains to alienate every non-douchebag they see, by engaging in petty slap fights, which douchebags enjoy but normal people despise. In the end, the institution in question devolves into a bunch of whiny self important douchebags running about screeching at each other and just pinching and slapping anyone they can get their doughy, clammy little hands on. These are people to whom a petty argument represents the most rewarding social interaction they are likely to have that day.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton