Wikipedia Article Discussion

[pclips]

That was a brilliant post, Scientivore. Insecurity drives the creation/continuation of the notability policy (and much of the other stuff listed under What Wikipedia is Not, and motivates the deletionists to hack and slash real articles about subjects of real-world significance.

[SteveMB]

Since (for whatever reason) it's not re-examining its assumptions, the only alternative is to eliminate its conscious awareness of the evidence that contradicts those assumptions.

So, has their AE-35 unit failed yet...?

[Gri]

Be that as it may, there is no reason to lose control of ones emotions and act as if someone just defiled the mother of god. I my humble opinion

[Lord Zentei]

Be that as it may, there is no reason to lose control of ones emotions and act as if someone just defiled the mother of god. I my humble opinion

Exaggerate, much?

"Lose control of one's emotions" and "defile the mother of god", wow.

[pclips]

Be that as it may, there is no reason to lose control of ones emotions and act as if someone just defiled the mother of god. I my humble opinion

We fight for what we believe in. I believe webcomics are important, and that my work has value. I base those beliefs on objective criteria, though the amount I care about the matter is totally subjective and self-interested.

Every day, I see things happening which I disagree with...in politics, culture, the media, etc. I choose to fight only the battles that matter, the ones where fighting can potentially affect the outcome.

Wikipedia is failing because the system creates Aaron Brennemans, who destroy its value from the inside. I care about that. I'm disgusted. I'm sorry for Wikipedia's lost potential. But I can't fight that.

I can't even fight what the Aaron Brennemans are doing to webcomics, which is not just a crime and a shame, but hurts my own field.

But this one battle, where my own stuff is involved... That I can (and should, and did) fight, by putting out the call for help here.

If I weren't right about Erfworld being notable, there wouldn't have been so many people who were willing to spend their time and energy to respond to the attack, and they wouldn't have been able to make the case for notability by Wikipedia's ridonkulous standards.

Wikipedia matters, whether it ought to or not. It comes up in the first few results of most Google searches. I don't have the option to make believe I don't care about Wikipedia. I had to fight.

If I got too much of a mad on while doing it...well, call me David Banner without the radiation. Not having the luxury of hulking out, I just "tool out" from time to time.

Remind me to put in the FAQ I am writing that Jamie is the nice one. Hating me and loving him is probably the way to go.

[Jayabalard]

Wrong. If any webcomic is notable, Erfworld is notable.

untrue. Some webcomics are certainly more or less notable than others, especially the ones that have an effect on the world outside of comics.

[WhiteNoise]

as a wise man who taught me half of what i know about doing my current job told me

'Think Globally. Act Locally'
Example The President of the USA is a very powerful position and the person in that job has immense power in the world

as a brit i have no control over who that person is, but i should consider that and act to control who britains go to man the president deals with is.

thus by choosing a good leader locally, i can have a small effect globally, complaining about the president of the USA said carrots suck or whatever gets me nowhere, i dont have that power,

Same with Pclips, not being Jimbo W he has no power over Wikipedia as an entity and the overarching flaws and cracks that are being worked at by the vandals, BUT he does have the power to fight his corner, his turf Webcomics and just maybe with Pclips and those here fighting in webcomics and the pickled gerkin apprecaitors fighting their battle the war can be won, what matters is each little fight against injustice has to be fought when it happens

[Lord Zentei]

untrue. Some webcomics are certainly more or less notable than others, especially the ones that have an effect on the world outside of comics.

And how, exactly, does this imply that Erfworld is not notable?

[Jayabalard]

And how, exactly, does this imply that Erfworld is not notable?

I made no claim about Erfworld's notability or lack thereof, only that that line of reasoning is false. The fact that some web comics are notable (ex: penny arcade which has the PA exp and Child's play charity, which are documented in mutliple sources) does not in any way mean that erfworld is or is not notable.

notability isn't popularity

IMO: in the resubmitted article, few of the references are external to gitp, I'm not sure any of them qualify as significant, and as of now, they include no print sources. I honestly expect it to be nominated for deletion (not necessarily that it will be deleted again).

[Tokiko Mima]

Be that as it may, there is no reason to lose control of ones emotions and act as if someone just defiled the mother of god. I my humble opinion

Studies* have shown that not losing control of your emotions is 98% easier when your livelihood and credibility are not in danger because of a delete happy monkey with a God-complex.

*that I just made up.

untrue. Some webcomics are certainly more or less notable than others, especially the ones that have an effect on the world outside of comics.

I think the original statement was made with Wikipedia's notability standards in mind. Whether a webcomic has an effect on the outside world or not does not make it notable per WP:N. This is one of the problems with WP:N.

Remind me to put in the FAQ I am writing that Jamie is the nice one. Hating me and loving him is probably the way to go.

Wow. When the Angry Zen Master is the nice one, you know you're in trouble.

[lared]

Setting aside the question of whether or not Erfworld should have a wikipedia article, I'm going to assert that wikipedia does, in fact, need notability guidelines. It has a valid purpose in preventing self-promotion. I could write an entry about myself that is as well-sourced as the average wiki article (and certainly better-sourced than the one on Erfworld), but that doesn't mean I should qualify for one.

I am a proponent for expanding the notion of notability to include what's commonly regarded as "cruft." But there does need to be a line, somewhere.

[Jayabalard]

I think the original statement was made with Wikipedia's notability standards in mind. Whether a webcomic has an effect on the outside world or not does not make it notable per WP:N. This is one of the problems with WP:N.

Those outside effects mean that it is much more likely to have in print references from significant sources, which does in fact make it notable per WP:N

[Tokiko Mima]

Those outside effects mean that it is much more likely to have in print references from significant sources, which does in fact make it notable per WP:N

Yes, but the effects themselves do not indicate notability. Erfworld is all over the notability standards, having been published and reviewed in several independent publications despite it's short run. There aren't many webcomics that have WP:N's standards covered as well as Erfworld does.

So when someone says that "if any webcomic is notable (per WP:N) Erfworld is," can you see how that doesn't make Erfworld more cosmically significant than other webcomics, it means that if Erfworld fails WP:N then almost all other webcomics will have to fail as well by default?

[Jayabalard]

I'm pretty sure that's why there's been such a big purge, since so many webcomics are not notable by WP:N.

If erfworld has indeed been "been published and reviewed in several independent publications", them they should be referenced in the wikipedia article... but of the 11 references, 4 are links to various points in gitp, 3 look like actual reviews but are blogs, and the rest appear to be fairly worthless as references (announcement of the site in 2 places, an anagram link, etc). None appear to be any sort of significant, permanent publication.

So I don't see the erfworld wiki article being all that good at covering WP:N, and certainly not better than most other webcomics.

[Tokiko Mima]

I'm pretty sure that's why there's been such a big purge, since so many webcomics are not notable by WP:N.

And that's why people are insisting this is an insane crusade/jihad. Why aren't webcomics considered 'notable' in a real world sense? What makes them less worthy of mention or discussion than for example, blogs, or editorials, or any other self published media that is not facing this kind of rampant censorship?

The WP:N is flawed, and it's being used by either unscrupulous or unthinking Wikipedians to do harm to the core of what Wikipedia represents itself as: a collection of human knowledge.

If erfworld has indeed been "been published and reviewed in several independent publications", them they should be referenced in the wikipedia article... but of the 11 references, 4 are links to various points in gitp, 3 look like actual reviews but are blogs, and the rest appear to be fairly worthless as references (announcement of the site in 2 places, an anagram link, etc). None appear to be any sort of significant, permanent publication.

So I don't see the erfworld wiki article being all that good at covering WP:N, and certainly not better than most other webcomics.

Whether or not those sources are cited in the article, they count for notability per WP:N. What's actually in the article doesn't make the subject itself notable. Otherwise any subject with a poorly sourced article or a stub would be in violation of notability. That's most of Wikipedia!

I wouldn't trust the article at the moment anyway.. it seems to be in a state of flux: vanishing and reverting to old versions. Right now I can't even see it, but the discussion page works. I'm not even sure this is over yet.

[pclips]

notability isn't popularity

This definition is precisely where Wikipedia fails. It does not just fail webcomics; it fails itself, its own stated principles. This statement is the cancer Jason Scott talks about.

A 17th Century poet is notable but not popular. Fine. Okay. Belongs in Wikipedia. Not saying otherwise.

But the logic following that example is the sickness I am talking about.

See, the 17th Century poet has now had as much as 400 years to gather printed references. To compare the notability of one 17th Century poet to another is a fairly easy exercise. Just research the available literature.

But is the same test applicable to differentiating a notable blog from a non-notable one? Or a website? Or a subscription music service? Or any other endeavor which depends on technology younger than 15 years old?

Absolutely not; such sources don't exist. Where new media is concerned, old media is hostile, blind, and lags behind.

Yet there are notable webcomics, and non-notable ones. I am not arguing for the total repeal of notability standards. I am saying two things:

1. The notability policy is bad. A bias toward print references is a laughably poor notability measure for any new-media phenomenon.

2. The existing bad policy is further being intentionally abused and misinterpreted in support of an editorial bias against new media. It is wielded by vigilantes like Aaron Brenneman, who are essentially picking up a microscope and swinging it like a club.

They must change the policies. Popularity may not equal notability, but wild popularity is at least evidence of notability. It must be considered in context.

The greatest 17th Century poet would not have been notable in a 17th Century Wikipedia, under equivalent policies. They'd have excluded or heavily discounted the medium he was actually published in (periodicals) and accepted only reference texts. He'd have been ridiculed as not being anything close to as significant as the greatest 16th Century poet. Look, the literature proves it! Wait a hundred years to be considered notable.

Except that he was more notable on a given day back then, when his poems were the talk of London society, than the guy who'd been dead for a century. There were simply more seekers of information interested in finding out about the new guy than the dead guy.

If the point of any reference is to compile information which is useful to those who would seek it, then the amount of interest in the subject matter among those using the reference must be a consideration.

And I'm not even going to start on the absurdity of trying to compare the notability of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski to that of It's Walky! by using the same standards. The policy is just poisonously stupid, and needs to be changed.

IMO: in the resubmitted article, few of the references are external to gitp, I'm not sure any of them qualify as significant, and as of now, they include no print sources. I honestly expect it to be nominated for deletion (not necessarily that it will be deleted again).

So do I. That's why I didn't retire this thread. This fight is likely to go on for some time.

[Karellen]

I don't think notability is a quality inherent in the work. It's something that comes from its reception and especially influence. 17th century poets are important because they were influental, and when they were not, they'll have been forgotten anyway. I find it a mite odd to declare a comic is notable after 25 pages. There are works that are "important" before they even get off the ground - the seventh Harry Potter, for instance. A new work will have to establish its notability in good time, though.

You said something about how the model of having a webcomic start next to another, more famous one might be a breakthrough for the media, but none of that has actually happened yet. Erfworld might well become important in time, but at this point, it's not. At this point the Wikipedia article doesn't have almost any information that would be of interest to a person who doesn't know about Erfworld, and very little that wasn't available from the forums and the cast page. What purpose does it serve?

How important is Wikipedia anyway? How many people are likely to find Erfworld through Wikipedia? And even if some did, is it entirely correct to view Wikipedia as a place of advertisement? I think being on Wikipedia is regarded more a sign of prestige than anything, and a vastly overrated one at that, particularily among webcomic artists.

[Jayabalard]

Whether or not those sources are cited in the article, they count for notability per WP:N. What's actually in the article doesn't make the subject itself notable. Otherwise any subject with a poorly sourced article or a stub would be in violation of notability. That's most of Wikipedia!

Actually, that's the reason it was eligible for speedy deletion: there was no assertion of notability. Including those references would cover that, so future delete attempts would happen through the regular deletion process rather than the speedy deletion process.

as for the notability of erfworld... /agree Karellen.

[Skydiving_Ninja]

If Looking For Group has a wikipedia article I don't see why Erfworld shouldn't.

[Tokiko Mima]

Actually, that's the reason it was eligible for speedy deletion: there was no assertion of notability. Including those references would cover that, so future delete attempts would happen through the regular deletion process rather than the speedy deletion process.

as for the notability of erfworld... /agree Karellen.

Actually:

Sweet. Just two things: If I made it appear that an article has to meet the web criteria to avoid speedy deletion, that was not my intention. Something only has to make a reasoble claim to signifigance to elude instant death. Secondly, a copy-paste move isn't a good idea, it violates the GFDL for the article. When it was done, I'd have happily moved it back for you... We self righteous agenda-driven ****head goose****ers aim to please!

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Aaron_Brenneman

You don't even need "actual" notability to avoid a speedy delete. Just a reasonable claim of such.

[Jayabalard]

I don't see a difference with Brenneman's statement and mine: "Actually, that's the reason it was eligible for speedy deletion: there was no assertion of notability." .... so I'm not sure what the actually is supposed to be refuting.

Sometime today (in the last 3 hours or so) a reference to the mention in dragon magazine was added to the articile... up until that point, nothing in in the article made a reasonable claim of notability (IMO).

[Gri]

We fight for what we believe in. I believe webcomics are important, and that my work has value. I base those beliefs on objective criteria, though the amount I care about the matter is totally subjective and self-interested.

Every day, I see things happening which I disagree with...in politics, culture, the media, etc. I choose to fight only the battles that matter, the ones where fighting can potentially affect the outcome.

Wikipedia is failing because the system creates Aaron Brennemans, who destroy its value from the inside. I care about that. I'm disgusted. I'm sorry for Wikipedia's lost potential. But I can't fight that.

I can't even fight what the Aaron Brennemans are doing to webcomics, which is not just a crime and a shame, but hurts my own field.

But this one battle, where my own stuff is involved... That I can (and should, and did) fight, by putting out the call for help here.

If I weren't right about Erfworld being notable, there wouldn't have been so many people who were willing to spend their time and energy to respond to the attack, and they wouldn't have been able to make the case for notability by Wikipedia's ridonkulous standards.

Wikipedia matters, whether it ought to or not. It comes up in the first few results of most Google searches. I don't have the option to make believe I don't care about Wikipedia. I had to fight.

If I got too much of a mad on while doing it...well, call me David Banner without the radiation. Not having the luxury of hulking out, I just "tool out" from time to time.

Remind me to put in the FAQ I am writing that Jamie is the nice one. Hating me and loving him is probably the way to go.

That all nice and maybe true. But my point was that there was a more mature and calm way of fighting for what you belive in.

[Tokiko Mima]

Sometime today (in the last 3 hours or so) a reference to the mention in dragon magazine was added to the articile... up until that point, nothing in in the article made a reasonable claim of notability (IMO).

WP:N Notability is not Subjective

WP:N is not supposed to be your opinion, though. Or Aaron's opinion, or mine. The fact that it was hosted on Giant in the Playground was more than enough of a claim of significance. There was also mention in a Time magazine blog you seem to have missed. Just because it's a blog doesn't mean you get to automatically discount it.

[Sage in the Playground]

We fight for what we believe in. I believe webcomics are important, and that my work has value. I base those beliefs on objective criteria, though the amount I care about the matter is totally subjective and self-interested.

Every day, I see things happening which I disagree with...in politics, culture, the media, etc. I choose to fight only the battles that matter, the ones where fighting can potentially affect the outcome.

Wikipedia is failing because the system creates Aaron Brennemans, who destroy its value from the inside. I care about that. I'm disgusted. I'm sorry for Wikipedia's lost potential. But I can't fight that.

I can't even fight what the Aaron Brennemans are doing to webcomics, which is not just a crime and a shame, but hurts my own field.

But this one battle, where my own stuff is involved... That I can (and should, and did) fight, by putting out the call for help here.

If I weren't right about Erfworld being notable, there wouldn't have been so many people who were willing to spend their time and energy to respond to the attack, and they wouldn't have been able to make the case for notability by Wikipedia's ridonkulous standards.

Wikipedia matters, whether it ought to or not. It comes up in the first few results of most Google searches. I don't have the option to make believe I don't care about Wikipedia. I had to fight.

If I got too much of a mad on while doing it...well, call me David Banner without the radiation. Not having the luxury of hulking out, I just "tool out" from time to time.

Remind me to put in the FAQ I am writing that Jamie is the nice one. Hating me and loving him is probably the way to go.

If it helps, I like you.

[TinSoldier]

Setting aside the question of whether or not Erfworld should have a wikipedia article, I'm going to assert that wikipedia does, in fact, need notability guidelines. It has a valid purpose in preventing self-promotion. I could write an entry about myself that is as well-sourced as the average wiki article (and certainly better-sourced than the one on Erfworld), but that doesn't mean I should qualify for one.

I am a proponent for expanding the notion of notability to include what's commonly regarded as "cruft." But there does need to be a line, somewhere.

I don't think that very many people disagree with this. Of course Wikipedia needs to have guidelines to prevent noise and cruft.

I think the main point is that Erfworld, new as it is, is still notable for a webcomic for many of the reasons already cited in this thread.

For Wikipedia to have any credibility as a source, though, they have to have lower notability guidelines than say, Britannica, as well as their ability to add new content much more quickly than older and more established institutions.

I guess my point is while Wikipedia doesn't have to keep up with all of the fast changes made in new media, new media by itself is pretty notable and they have an opportunity and an obligation to try and keep up with the rapid changes that older encyclopedias cannot.

[Wallyz]

Be that as it may, there is no reason to lose control of ones emotions and act as if someone just defiled the mother of god. I my humble opinion

God has no mother, Papist heretic!

[Sage in the Playground]

No real world religion, please. Your joke was funny, and I don't want o see you get modded for it.

[Shhalahr Windrider]

Wemics as a case in point, im sure the great giant is only waiting to put them in an OotSas the race that is
1)Never used as a PC

Actually, I DM a campaign that features a wemic PC...

2)Rarely encountered as an enemy
3)Almost totaly absent in the fiction of DnD worlds and in general,

These have thus far been true in my experience, however.

Though I have seen a fair amount of wemic art on niche "furry-type" sites. Too bad those versions don't rate a mention in the article.

I believe that the "Wikipedia jihad against webcomics" is best understood as a neurotic attempt by Wikipedia's institutional metamind to resolve the cognitive dissonance caused by its notability criterion. Since (for whatever reason) it's not re-examining its assumptions, the only alternative is to eliminate its conscious awareness of the evidence that contradicts those assumptions. In practice, that means deleting entries about economically viable web presences of niche interest, since the existence of those businesses shines a spotlight on the gaping chasm beneath their notability criterion, where traditional encyclopedias have solid foundation.

So, are you a psychologist, or do you just play one on TV?

Seriously, man. That's some insightful stuff.

[ikanreed]

I think the original statement was made with Wikipedia's notability standards in mind. Whether a webcomic has an effect on the outside world or not does not make it notable per WP:N. This is one of the problems with WP:N.

No, that's not a problem with WP:N at all. That's one of the best things about WP:N that misunderstand. Notability was introduced so that articles that would never have sources to verify what they say.

If The Giant and pclips both died(let's hope that didn't happen) and a domain squatter aquired giantitp.com, what evidence could you point to that there ever was a Erfworld. (the answer in this case is an article in dragon magazine and a few online comic reviews.

That's the idea protected by WP:N. That there's always something that you can point to, that's trustworthy, that states there really was such a thing as X.

It's an extension of WP:V, and one that has been abused. The problem isn't "deletion monkeys" but rather people who simply don't get WP:N.

From what I've seen, pclips doesn't get this either.

tagline for this post for people too bored with my banter to read it:
"People cite policy they don't understand"

[Logos7]

I Fail to see how If 'O RLY' passes the critieria, how erfworld doesn't

The First Thing it says is that it's a popular interent phenomeonon, and if all the orly's where to be gone tomarrow what would really be left besides a few bad memories, that one joke (in an entire game )and perhaps a few print outs from the virus original?

I think that if they agreed that Notability is Subjective the problem would go away, Communally subjective sure , lets get second oppions as apposed to people divining the one provable objective truth, thank god its for wiki and not a religion is all i can say

Logos