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This archive page covers approximately the dates up until 29 October 2005.
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Articles on websites, forums, internet memes and flash animations appear regularly on VfD. It strikes me as odd that we have inclusion guidelines for bands ( WP:MUSIC) and people ( WP:BIO), among others, but not for websites. It has been established that Wikipedia is not a web directory; in other words, the vast majority of websites likely do not deserve a Wikipedia entry. On the other hand, sites such as Yahoo and eBay obviously do. So, I'd like to open discussion on what criteria would work for inclusion of websites. R adiant _>|< 12:34, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
That's because Yahoo and eBay are major corporations with large amounts of real-world assets and not merely websites. Perhaps a better example would be YTMND or Something Awful or Slashdot. — Phil Welch 03:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
How about The Best Page in the Universe? That article recieves plenty of traffic and is an article with a relatively busy discussion page. I think it should stay. A good example of an article which I think should be deleted is .hack//G.U. GameFAQs Boards. There is a line to be drawn and I think that VfD is a method which can accomplish that. - Haon 03:13, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Interestingly, the Google test and Alexa rating of a website are arguably a strong indication of the site's popularity, even if they are less informative for real-world matters. R adiant _>|< 12:34, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
If the Alexa rating is less more than 100,000 and the article does not otherwise establish the notability of the website then the article may be considered a candidate for speedy deletion.
If the Alexa rating is less than 50,000 and/or the article only claims limited notability (eg "forum with 75 registered members") then the article may be considered as a candidate for listing on VfD.
A website may be considered notable if is meets any (one? two?) of these criteria:
Obviously this is only a first draft, so feel free to criticise at length! (But do people think this is on the right lines, whether or not you agree on the numbers, etc) -- G Rutter 28 June 2005 08:41 (UTC)
For #3: If it is possible to measure active users rather than registered ones, that is preferable. Slashdot, for example, will probably soon have its 1,000,000th registered user, but only a fraction of those users are actually active. For #5: I'm not convinced that "web awards" are worth having a criterion for. Do people still pay attention to those things? If a website received some award back in 1998, does that mean it's automatically notable enough for inclusion? AиDя01D TALK EMAIL June 28, 2005 12:33 (UTC)
I went ahead and was bold, creating the website guide and moving the discussion here. Please feel free to yell at me for this, but I though we had reached, among participants, a sort of consensus on things. humble fool ® 3 July 2005 03:59 (UTC)
Radiant, what you have there is an alternate proposal which I believe that both of us argued against using on the Disassemblance VfD. The alexa test is more widely used in the webcomic context, it seems. Perhaps this could be reflected in the wording? humble fool ® Have you voted in the CSD poll yet? 8 July 2005 05:05 (UTC)
To me, one of the glaring missing criteria is a provision for historical importance. Let's cite specifically GNUPedia (or even Nupedia would work for that matter). GNUPedia is dead, and therefore would have few if any real users, low alexa rankings, etc. But it is notable and it's because it is notable in a historical sense that it might fail some or all of these criteria. There are probably many examples of failed enterprises, or some other even current enterprises that are of historical interest but may not satisfy most of the criteria. I just thought of Qal3ah, the internet forum where responsibility for the recent London bombings was claimed. Outside of that it may not have been notable (don't actually know this, but hypothetically), but because of this historical interest it is notable. I would have been bold, but I'm not sure exactly how to word this so that it's precise. Any thoughts? -- Dmcdevit 09:58, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Can we establish that any website for any company or organization should not have its own article, but instead be listed with that company or organization? The exception would be if the site has another purpose than advertising, customer service or a discussion forum. But frankly I don't see the need for a page on the website of, say, Shell. R adiant _>|< 12:22, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why Wikipedia needs an article about a website if the article does nothing more than describe the site. Take the article microsoft.com as an example of the typical website article. It simply serves no purpose I can fathom. It tells no one anyhing that they couldn't learn with less effort from Google and the website itself.
There is a description of the structure of the website, the names a few gifs and so on: all of which is subject to change without notice, and much more easily learned by just looking at the website itself. Aside from an explanation of the ".com" suffix, there is nothing else.
Certainly, "microsoft.com" is a notable site, but microsoft.com is not a noteworthy article, and I have trouble imagining how it ever could become one. What is there to say? And doesn't the same thing apply to the vast majority of websites?
By contrast, an article on the CERN site would have a lot to say about its historical importance in the early days of the web, but I wouldn't bother talking much about the structure or content of the current website. An article discussing support websites in general, or contrasting different styles of corporate site, could be very interesting, but that is not what we get as a rule.
Robert A West 03:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with
User:Robert A West also, and I think he has a good way of putting it — an article on a Web site should be able to say something about that Web site. If the editor can't think of anything to say about it, then it should be deleted, the same way we'd (I hope!) vote to delete a biographical article that mentioned only the height, weight, and hair color of its subject.
I have three "common-sense" guidelines for Web site inclusion in Wikipedia here. They are:
I think this page is tending toward more specificity... which one could call " instruction creep" if one were so inclined. :) -- Quuxplusone 04:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Has anyone considered if the website has relevance beyond its subject matter? If someone has, I haven't seen the discussion.
Yahoo and eBay are important as large-scale businesses. Some sites (like Snopes) have become prominent reference sites. Company sites are part of the company and only as important as the company itself. Slashdot is a prominent technology site with various other functions.
But, say, a net forum that concentrates on stragegy discussions for players of a specific computer game or fan discussions of a book, comic book of TV series, have importance mainly to those who are interested about that subject. They could be included as an external link in the article about that particular subject but would not necessarily deserve their own article. Similarly as the personal or professional web page of a famous person (and possibly very extensive fan site about that person) could be mentioned in the article about that person but the sites itself would not deserve their own articles.
That would not concern the popularity of the site but if the site is relevant outside its subject matter - Skysmith 09:31, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I realize there is a lot of gray area in which web-sites are includable. However so many websites are added as advertisements every day that is is difficult to wade through them in VfD. We should be able to at least establish a minimum level criteria for not being speedily deleted to reduce the editor and Admin work load. I think this would have to be a very low bar to be accepted as consensus, but I will try to propose a few rules of thumbs to see what you guys think.
-- Darkfred Talk to me 13:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think the only reason that a website should be in Wikipedia (as a page) is that it has some historical significance - that is it has had a significant effect on the internet or the general public. Even in that, the page should discuss how the site has affected the net/public, and not simply describe the site or its function. We are not Google or Yahoo. If you want to find out about a website, go to the site. If you think a site is interesting, use it. But considering how fast websites come and go, it behooves us to direct our efforts to the ones that people will be talking about and asking about five or ten years from now and answering the questions they have and will have.
Of course, as a link on another article page they should be included wherever they enhance the article. -- Outlander 20:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
WP:NOT a crystal ball. How are we to know what will be the topic of discussion years down the road? On a related note, I don't like the criteria of: Having been the subject of national or international media attention within the last 2 years. Does that mean that articles that were once acceptable should be removed later? I think national media attention should solidify inclusion. -- Norvy (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
The most recent edit, by an anon, suggests that the top 10% is good enough. The edit says this is the top 100,000 sites. Last I looked, Google indexed about 8,000,000,000 sites. Did I do my math wrong? - Splash 01:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The guideline, " wikipedia:reliable sources", prohibits the use of webforums and blogs as sources for articles. The exception is that such sites can be sources for themselves. For websites that are not covered in the media that means they only have one source, which makes NPOV and verifying very difficult. In some cases there are entire webforums or blogs that exist to criticize other websites ( e.g. Stormfront/ Mootstormfront, CARM/ AARM) but the guideline says that we should't cite them. I see four possible outcomes for articles on non-media-covered webistes: 1) They are limited to the most NPOV information, such as name, authors, and URL, and then deleted as a listing. 2) They are deleted as hopelessly POV/unverifable until a meaningful media source can be found. 3) They remain and violate the NPOV policy. 4) They remain and violate the reliable sources guideline. Is there a better outcome possible than any of these? - Willmcw 22:23, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
I wrote this up a while ago, and nobody seems to have made note of it. Could this be any more complicated than the messy and subjective proposal currently being debated on this page? To be frank, I think it could be adopted for other deletion debates as well, but maybe I'm just overwhelmed by my own genius. :) Ashibaka ( tock) 02:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
In my belief, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia's aim to be the central source of a multitude and mass of information.
The articles created or editted for websites are simply providing information about them, and in the distant future if some of these sites phase out, the articles will serve as information regarding their history.
If information on websites are banned from Wikipedia, then immediately, there goes half the information Wikipedia comprises, the Internet is such a huge part of Wikipedia and life these days it would be down right stupid to delete all website-related articles from Wikipedia. And anyway, the articles on the websites are NOT created for the sole reason of promotion, they are created to add to the Wikipedia pool of information and to share with it's users what the website is about.
Sure, if someone created an article on their website which was a simple site that talked about dogs for instance, then I wouldn't consider this to be worthy of being created on Wikipedia (although perhaps a separate section can be created for these article-types to be submitted to). But most site articles submitted to Wikipedia are about a site or something which is new, unique or interesting and as I said before, adds to the pool of knowledge that is Wikipedia.
cheers Treelovinhippie 03:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Couldn't you also include criteria for "Back links" (using link: http://www.website.com)? THat would tell you, *roughly* how many website are linking to it in Google, although Google isn't always accurate with that, so it shouldn't be too strict. With Google toolbar and the link you can also check PageRank on a scale from 1 to 10, which it has been speculated is a logarithmic scale describing PageRank. Nathan J. Yoder 15:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Is this about a wikipage for a particular webcomic or also about listing in List of Webcomics ? -- Dyss 11:46, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Are the comics on www.comics.com and www.ucomics.com nationally syndicated? Otherwise they'll have the same problems as KeenSpace comics. -- zandperl 04:42, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
No more thoughts on this? It'd be good to see some degree of finality, because there's a few I'd like to create.
How about extending the Top 20 from Keenspace to Top 40, too? It'd include another couple of comics that I think are worthy. Ambivalenthysteria 03:04, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What if a comic's Alexa rank drops below the threshold? Do we remove it? I see three possibilities: Remove it; Don't remove it; Remove it only if it doesn't have an article.
Secondly, what if a comic has no three-month traffic average? (not considering sites that have changed domains) Are they simply considered too new for listing? -- Cyrius| ✎ 03:21, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
A problem with using Alexa is that it's often regarded as spyware, and is detected by spyware removal software such as Spybot and Adaware. Tim J Tylor 22:06, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've created a {{ minor webcomic}} template for articles about webcomics that do not qualify for inclusion by the current guidelines. It's intended to be used in the same way as {{ notable}}, but explicitly mentions and links to the web comics policy. Does this seem useful? — Gwalla | Talk 20:35, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia: Wikiproject Webcomics, I wrote Planet Earth (and other tourist traps). Please let me know if this is unacceptable. - Branddobbe 05:07, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
Eric Burns, at www.websnark.com, has proposed a different baseline inclusion guideline for webcomics that I suspect is more fair and still is going to avoid vanity pages. His proposal is that every comic with an archive of 100 strips or more should be included.
Yes, this is going to lead to a lot more webcomics being included, but I'm unconvinced that's a bad thing. One of the things Wikipedia is good for is providing encyclopedic coverage of smaller scale events and things that wouldn't make it in a normal encyclopedia because of space concerns.
Or, to put it another way, nobody outside of Wikipedia is going to catalog these webcomics, and, unlike a lot of things, I think a strong accounting of webcomics is something that is very helpful (As I think Websnark puts persuasively at [3].
Even if something more restrictive than a 100 strip archive is requested, I think these guidelines are needlesly fierce. At most 20 Keenspace comics? A 200,000 minimum Alexis Rank? Eek. I know we have problems with the profligation of vanity webcomic pages, but this swings too far in the other direction. How about we just deal with webcomics on a case by case basis on VfD like we do high schools and other such things? Snowspinner 06:58, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
Given my opinion that the guidelines as listed do not meet the needs of separating out the significant from the insignificant, instead rewarding simple popularity and denying smaller but sometimes more experimental or critically acclaimed works, it behooves me to produce a counterproposal to hopefully stimulate discussion.
This counterproposal takes the assumption that Wikipedia's articles, at their core, are a resource for web consumers -- a ready and central location for information on a broad variety of subjects. It is also the assumption of this counterproposal that a broad depth of webcomics, be they noteworthy due to popularity or noteworthy due to critical acclaim and aesthetic consideration, being represented in Wikipedia is of value to both Wikipedia and the webcomics community.
The following counterproposal is designed to produce guidelines based upon three basic criteria: commitment to the artistic work in time, commitment to the artistic work in effort, and a demonstrated fanbase. These would be determined as follows:
The ultimate goal of Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion are to separate out those strips without note, commitment or worth, while highlighting those strips that possess note, commitment and worth. With the many thousands of strips available on the web, it is a losing proposition for any project of any kind to try and include them all. However, as the medium of webcomics and online sequential art grows and flourishes, it becomes increasingly important that there be repositories of factual and critical information on them, not bound to popularity but instead to significance. - Eric Burns
I think a year of consistent activity would be acceptable. Practically every halfhearted hobbyist effort makes it to 33 weeks and 100 strips. Personally, I'd prefer two years as a baseline—if something is to be included based on longevity, it should demonstrate longevity that is out of the ordinary (the ordinary being pretty weak in this case).
And I agree with Triskaideka that the most important criterion in notability is whether people have taken note. In general I prefer the earlier ranking-based guidelines to Eric Burns' how-long-they've-been-plugging-away-based guidelines. We should also make it clear, however, that these guidelines are only a fallback in case the comic has no other legitimate claims to notability (being covered in national or international news, being particularly influential, etc.) Webcomics are not an exception to the general guidelines of Wikipedia.
We shouldn't be bending over backwards to let every webcomic have an article just because they exist and we like the medium. Besides, if these inclusion guidelines are too lax, nobody on VfD will take them seriously, which would defeat the whole point. — Gwalla | Talk 04:53, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I suggest going even further. Wikipedia is not a web comics directory. Limiting the listing to 10-20 of the most popular web comics should be sufficient. DiceDiceBaby 30 June 2005 17:34 (UTC)
I just wrote a little question over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics, about the fact that I noticed that among disambiguation add-ons to the names of web comics with common names, like Avalon, or Copper, or Freefall, there was no kind of standard behavior: It's Avalon (web comic) but Copper (comic) and Freefall (webcomic). Should this matter? Heck, between this page and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics, we can't even agree on whether it's one word or two (hell, I'm almost certainly inconsistent in my usage, as well). Any ideas, or does it just not matter one way or the other? -- Ray Radlein 05:20, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this seems obvious to you, but I'm not very familiar with Alexa. Which ranking is the relevant one for our purposes? It must be "reach," I guess, because "Views" is always very very low, even for very popular sites. -- Iustinus 29 June 2005 19:15 (UTC)
I just changed it from "above 200,000" to "better than 200,000", since that is what is meant. It is often necessary to explain to people that a higher number than 200,000 is actually worse, not better. (This usually comes up in VfD discussions.) It might be good to go further in clarifying, but it's a start. - Aranel ("Sarah") 15:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Since, well, Wikiprojects can't actually set global policy, I propose this as our new inclusion guidelines:
Articles that survive VfD or are not nominated for VfD will be included.
How's it sound? Snowspinner 16:49, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
Essentially, I'm wondering what criteria might be used to determine a comic's notability, outside of its Alexa rank (which is rather strict) or the size of its archives (which doesn't fly in VfD in practice). Possible criteria might include:
Thoughts/suggestions? Nifboy 08:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I thinking of making a notability template That will simply outline the requirements that can be pasted in a discussion or used in some other manner. It will be at {{ webcomic notability}}. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:50, 2005 September 2 (UTC)
{{ webcomic notability}}
What's the point of a template? Where would this be inserted? — Gwalla | Talk 03:38, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I put it on the front page of the project. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 09:13, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I apologise for starting a new discussion on this page when there is already ongoing discussion before it, but it seems that those threads seem to have petered out. I came across List of webcomics yesterday, and to me, it looks to me like Wikipedia is being way to lax about inclusion guidelines.
There seems to be so much dreck on that list, and I feel that the inclusion guidelines are way too lax. If I were to post 100 stick man comics onto keenspace, does that make it notable, and worthy for an article? No way. In WP:MUSIC, the band/artist needs to have some kind of influence/acknowledgment outside their own musical circle. For many webcomics on wikipedia, this simply isn't the case, no one outside the the webcomic community will know about them, and only a small subset of that community will actually follow a specific comic.
Webcomics, being self published, means that very few will ever gain major attention. This does not mean we should lower inclusion boundaries to make sure we have many webcomic articles. Say a band has been around for a few years now, without a record deal, but with quite a few self published EPs and maybe an LP. They have a good local following, and play out regularly to some packed out small venue. They wouldn't warrant an article, yet a similarly popular webcomic with a readership of a few hundred apparently do?
Above, the idea was mentioned that any webcomic of over 100 deserve a wikipedia article, because no other encyclopedia would publish it due to lack of space. But just because the information could not be included anywhere else, doesn't mean that wikipedia should house it. You know what a great idea would be? A separate webcomic wiki, where even the webcomics with tiny readership could get an article. We could link it from any webcomic articles and it'd would be a great place to transwiki stuff to as well as acting as an encyclopedia of webcomics. - Hahnchen 01:13, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the guidelines look too lax to me, too. If we applied similiar ones to bands, as pointed out above, every bar band that stuck around for a little while would qualify. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure why web comics need seperate criteria from any other website. A look at recent VFDs shows that quite a few wikipedians are willing to suggest a delete, even on things that may pass the standards suggested here. Friday (talk) 16:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
My opinion is that these guidelines are not only much too lax, they are not even to the point. In my opinion checking for importance of a webcomic should not be measured by how long it has been running, but by something like the Google test, with a limit at 1000 (or 500 or whatever) links. There would however be the problem that many webcomics have names that also occur in other contexts.
I would even endorse a very restrictive policy on webcomics - something like "any webcomic included should have a specific reason for that". We don't habitually include series from self-published authors either. - Andre Engels 11:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Certainly no amount of longevity is sufficient. There are some webcomics I love, both widely-read and much less so, and I respect people who stick to writing them whether they're widely-read or not. But if there aren't people reading them, they're not notable. -- SCZenz 22:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm thinking out a bit more of a balanced proposal. What I have come up with so far are some starting points; some preambles if you will.
So the gist of my thoughts is that (1) we can use Alexa as a starting point for determining webcomic notability, but (2) there are some legitimate problems with Alexa ranking, that either need to be addressed point for point, or (3) we should replace the Alexa rank with an independent source better than Alexa.
If we can't agree on a better independent source than Alexa, we should at least address the concerns with Alexa for now.
I can see some obvious solutions of some of the noted concerns already. For instance, the mentioned bias in point 2.1 is in part negated by the fact that this guideline uses the cut-off point of 200,000 instead of the Wikipedia standard of 100,000. It's still something to be mindful about though.
For point 2.2.3, I can see us just listing a couple of the big Awards with regards to webcomics, and it might also be a good idea to flesh out Hahnchen's comment about "a webcomic should assert its notability in the article, whether its due to popularity, status of the author, or notoriety" a bit more and put it in the guideline. For example, as a final clause to the guideline "If notability cannot be established by above methods, wikipedians should try to establish notability in the article based on status of the author, notoriety, or mention by a reputable independent source or mainstream media in the article, and should take said factors into consideration for possible VfDs"(again, just an example). In fact, I strongly think this should be good idea. (and I agree with Hahnchen that toplists should be avoided here)
Did I forget anything? Other comments and/or corrections on my points? -- Codemonkey 19:34, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
There seems to be a common argument that, because Alexa is biased, it shouldn't be used for the comic criteria. This is reasonable, but many people on the AfD pages seem to believe it also follows that no proof that anyone reads the comic is required. This is silly. I don't care how it is done, but somehow there must be a verifiable assertion that a lot of people read a comic for it to be counted as notable simply because it exists. (Of course, there may also be other reasons it's notable too; I'm speaking for cases where there aren't.) -- SCZenz 19:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
So, I made a draft of improvements to the Alexa proposal, taking into account most of what I've read on this page. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Alexa will be used to determine traffic for any webcomic with its own domain name. If the webcomic has a average traffic better than 200,000, it can be considered to be an entry that could be allowed in Wikipedia. The traffic average can be for the last 3 months or any 6 consecutive months in the past. Webcomics that have since retired (and thus are not receiving new, regular traffic) may also remain in Wikipedia.
As noted by wikipedia:Alexa test, Alexa has certain biases built into it's system, and is perceived by a group of people as spyware. The usage of 200,000 as a cut-off point, instead of the Wikipedia standard of 100,000, negates a part of this bias, but it is still something Wikipedians should be mindful about.
Alexa rank does not differentiate it's alexa rank for websites that are hosted under a common domainname. The "Where do people go on ...?" section under traffic details at Alexa can be used in these cases. As a rough guideline, a page should get 50%+ of the traffic on a domain with a 100,000 or better rank, or 75%+ of the traffic on a domain with 200,000 or better rank. One notable occurrence of this is at KeenSpace, for which the entire top 25 can be included.
There are certain other criteria that will qualify a comic as notable. If a comic has garnered critical acclaim through any of the following means:
If the webcomic has proof of having an audience, through other means than Alexa:
A webcomic article should always try to establish the webcomic's notability in the article itself. If a webcomic does not manage to qualify by the above stated requirements, an article about it should be able to establish the comic's notability in another way:
Wikipedians should also keep these last criteria in mind in possible Article for Deletion votes. And, because of their broad nature, should not hesitate to apply them in a fairly strict manner. The burden of proof lies with the article in these cases, so to speak. If an article should be up for deletion, consider transwikifying it to the webcomic wiki at comixpedia.org.
These are merely guidelines. Sites that are close to, but still under these thresholds may also be included on the basis that webcomics customarily grow in size and have a higher likelihood of increasing in readership and, thus, becoming encyclopedic. In all cases, wikipedians should take into account all factors mentioned and unmentioned in assessing notability, and judge articles on a case by case basis.
I have tried to express myself as clear and to the point as possible. I hope I've succeeded in writing something that addresses most of the concerns voiced here. Again, I would greatly appreciate feedback, especialy on ideas I may have forgotten for the lists in this draft. -- Codemonkey 23:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Alexa rank of 200K? This just means that the creator of the webcomic hasn't got the tool bar installed, becaues that's all it takes to get a lower ranking than this. - brenneman (t) (c) 07:08, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I propose that we need to also have "Is on a major webcomics syndicate" including Keenspot, Blank Label Comics, and any of the Modern Tales family on the list. Snowspinner 19:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd also propose a "notable writer/artist" rule, akin to Keenspot's "Once a Keenspotter, always a Keenspotter" rule, whereby new comics by Keenspot artists are automatically accepted to Keenspot. By this rule, if a notable webcomic artist or writer starts a new project, that project is by definition notable. Notability being defined by one of their previous projects being notable. Snowspinner 18:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
(Section archived here from Village pump Hiding talk 13:29, 17 October 2005 (UTC))
I would like people to take a look at the webcomic inclusion guidelines found at WP:COMIC, as well as taking a look at Webcomics on AFD. My problem with them is that the guideline followed by some is this, "All webcomics over 100 strips should be included". Before someone grouped the afds together, most were being deleted. However, we now have a couple of totally un notable webcomics which seem to be heading towards no consensus. Some contributors on the Webcomic Wikiproject, which aims to catalogue every webcomic with over 100 posts, are claiming that as soon as 100 strips are reached, if someone writes an article for it, it should be kept.
I totally disagree with this. Since when did longevity equal notability? Since when is 100 strips even notable? Bands can last for years without achieving notability, but if we followed similar criteria for any other category, almost every bar room band which has been around for 6 months would be notable enough for an article. AzNPRiNc3SS's 500 livejournal posts would mean her article would be kept. For example, take a look at this - Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/String_Finger_Theatre and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Our Home Planet. Absolutely NO assertion of notability is made, or can be found anywhere in the articles. The keep votes purely say "comic has existed past 100 strips". How hard is it for a stickman comic to achieve notability? Its not like the artist has to invest time or money into it is it?
But please, take a look at WP:COMIC and contribute to the talk pages as well as the Webcomics on AFD. In my opinion, it's time for the inclusion criteria to be tightened up in line with some of the other guidelines. The extreme webcomic inclusionists have also ignored the 1st proposal, an Alexa rank of sub 200,000. And I too, have not nominated any webcomics even approaching this rank. But surely, if a webcomic has any sort of popularity, it can break the 1 million mark can't it? Please contribute to the guideline discussion, as well as the AFDs, we need more eyes on them. - Hahnchen 17:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, Hahnchen, is the plan to keep Webcomics on AFD continuously up to date? If so, I'll watch it and join the crusade, AfD by AfD. -- SCZenz 19:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
A great deal has been said on the strengths and weaknesses of the "Alexa test" already. I don't really have much to add to that discussion so I won't regurgitate all the arguments. I will, however, note that the standard espoused on this page is at odds with the much more long-standing standard which was recently consolidated to Wikipedia:Google test#Alexa test. This page alleges that 200,000 on the Alexa test is automatically notable for a webcomic but the main page says that a page (on any topic) in the top 100,000 is merely a maybe. I'm going to be bold and bring this project page into compliance with the main guidelines. Before anyone changes it back, let's have a specific discussion here on why webcomic should be held to a different standard in those few situations where the Alexa test is the right measure. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 17:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
This doesn't solve all the problems - there are still at least two strips I can think of where I think the strips are notable, but they're not captured by any of the syndicate rules. But at the very least, the following syndicates should be considered notable, along with all of their contents.
There are some other things that need to be sorted out - we need to decide what to do about WebcomicsNation, which is like Keenspace.
Also, there are at least two comics that aren't making it by Alexa or syndicate rules that I think are highly notable - Cat and Girl (Alexa just under 100,000) and Her! Girl vs Pig (Alexa way down near 500,000). So we've got a start with the syndicates, but even syndicates+Alexa, the guidelines have too many holes. Cat and Girl has a review on Webcomics Examiner, which is probably a good source for notability - I believe it was proposed above, and if it wasn't, then substantial coverage in it, Comixpedia, or Websnark should cound for notability. Her! was a comic that started in a magazine with 4.5 million circulation. Magazine went under, comic went to the web. Its guest strips section indicates substantial love among webcomics creators (Several notable creators have done guest strips), it's been mentioned in passing on Websnark as a strip that he reds, but no one thing decisively establishes notability according to any proposed guideline. But it would still be a VERY bad strip to delete. Snowspinner 18:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I have put a new, detailed proposal at User:SCZenz/Webcomics/Proposal. Please read it there, and then comment on it here. Please note that I agree with all the numbered points in the proposal, but not necessarily with all the particular sites listed, which I haven't yet had time to research. But I think this is a realistic idea to focus a discussion on, giving us a starting place to hammer out details from. -- SCZenz 21:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
And now an objection to my own proposal. It seems like the spinoffs of Modern Tales have lots and lots of comics, a significant majority of which are redlinks. It's not so clear that all of these should automatically be notable. (There's no list in the Modern Tales article itself.) -- SCZenz 00:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
(Resetting to the left.) But if a person who doesn't know much nominates an article, it should be a trivial matter to cite sources, and the AfD would fail. The problem here is a legitimate disagreement over whether the fact that many webcomics aren't discussed in standard sources means that a) we should use nonstandard sources or b) we shouldn't have so many webcomics. Nobody, no matter how ignorant, ever gets false things into articles studied in academia (or deletes them), because everyone agrees that peer-reviewed journals are reputable sources; things are a bit different with webcomics. I stress again, this is a legitimate disagreement of opinion. --
SCZenz
18:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
These are simply too strict. There's a lot of articles that would get quite easily kept on AfD that do not fit these criteria. Ambi 00:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I've come to the party late, I know. How about listing some of the simpler points, and focusing discussion on them? Get what we agreeon out of the way, as it were. - brenneman (t) (c) 07:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Feel free to implement these standards, but understand that there isn't a hope in hell of them being adopted by anyone else on AfD when they're this deletionist. Ambi 04:03, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This proposal presents a HUGE uphill battle for independent comics. I'm going to use my comic as an example (not because I think it should be on wikipedia, but because i know its numbers well). It has an Alexa rating of 280,000, which is rather high. It is not, however, in a syndicate. If it were on Keenspace, however, it would likely be a high-ranking comic, as several Keenspace comics that recently defected to other syndicates (such as Boxcar) have higher Alexa ratings (for example, Beaver and Steve, currently at 367,154, or similar ratings (the highly-read Coffee Achievers, for example has an Alexa of 218,690).
Now, while I'm the first to argue that Alexa is basically bunk, it DOES mean a significant amount of readers. And somewhere in NOTABILITY, READERSHIP must be established. Your new guidelines make it hard for independent websites to be considered notable, while making it easy for comics with similar readership numbers who are published by a supposedly notable collective like Keenspace (which is really just a free hosting service) to be considered notable.
There must be a better balance
-- Tedzsee 00:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Independent webcomics and Notable Authors: Webcomics and/or webcomic creators do not need to be members of established collectives or syndicates to be considered for entry provided their notability can be established using the Coverage within the webcomics community or Coverage or inclusion outside the webcomics community clauses combined with the Readership clause.
Since all were unacceptable to a large number of users on one side of this debate or the other, I have replaced the proposals on the front page with my proposal. It has been criticized by people on both sides of the debate, which I take to mean that it's a possible starting point for a consensus, where the others are not. Obviously the discussion could continue! -- SCZenz 20:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I am starting a new heading on this since the ones above seem to have drifted and since there is a new proposal. The Proposal currently under discussion includes #5 "If a webcomic is a member of a professional syndicate ... it should be included." Now that I am looking into some of the other "professional" and "notable" syndicates, I find that they appear to be neither professional nor notable. Dayfree Press, for example, has an Alexa ranking of 1,497,083. It would appear in this case that, while some of the individual comics on the syndicate are notable, the syndicate itself is not. And now that I understand a little about how it works, I see that it's not even a professional webcomics syndicate like Modern Tales and Serializer are, nor are they selling ads like Keenspot. Acccording to the Dayfree mission, "THE BUSINESS MODEL: Some webcomics groups choose to charge for subscription access to archives, while others rely primarily on advertising. While Dayfree Press makes no requirements of a business model ... Almost a year after the network’s creation, some founding members have found themselves making good money on the side as a result of their merchadising efforts." How can they be considered a "professional syndicate" when their "business model" has "no requirements of a business model"? When all they are doing is "making good money on the side" for only "some founding members"? This hardly sounds professional. I do not support including Dayfree Press as a notable syndicate. Dragonfiend 07:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I should add, the blank label "syndication" service is funded by google ads on its main website, so it's obviously not that profitable. Shouldn't a syndication service be at least self-sustaining without the need for other advertising services? Nathan J. Yoder 12:19, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I still strongly object to these guidelines on the following grounds.
My response:
Some general responses
User:Snowspinner has been arguing on this thread that webcomics covered in Comixpedia ought to be considered notable. For example, "the [Webcomics] Examiner and Comixpedia are important people who make a lot of waves on the subject." I just discovered User:Snowspinner/Webcomics in which Snowspinner writes "I am currently working on pieces for both the Webcomics Examiner and Comixpedia." This is a blatant conflict of interest which should have been revealed on this discussion page by Snowspinner. You cannot in good faith argue for the notability of webcomics covered by the "important people" of comixpedia when you're one of those people that writes for comixpedia. By having a guideline that says comics covered by Comixpedia are considered notable, and having Snowspinner writing for Comixpedia, then we're basically saying any comic Snowspinner thinks is notable is therefore notable. I cannot stress enough that this conflict of interest should have been revealed. Further, we have User:Eric Burns weighing in on this discussion; he was the creator of what everyone agrees was the much too lenient old proposal. His conflict of interest is that Eric Burns runs the Websnark fan blog, where he is also commenting on this discussion. Replacing Eric Burns' old proposal with a proposal that considers any comic covered by Websnark basically says that any comic that User:Eric Burns thinks is notable is therefore notable. User:Snowspinner and User:Eric Burns are not only Wikipedia editors, but they write for Comixpedia, the Webcomics Examiner, and Websnark. For them to be trying to set Wikipedia guidelines that give themselves the god-like ability to determine notability is wrong. User:Snowspinner and User:Eric Burns have shown that Comixpedia and Websnark are not disinterested third parties in this discussion. I am being bold and removing article 7 to remove this abuse of power and conflict of interest. I have reproduced the excised portion below:
If anyone else in this discussion has conflicts of interest (they're writing for comixpedia, have comics on Dayfree Press, or anything similar) please reveal them now. Thanks. Dragonfiend 21:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Upon further consideration, this is clearly a split discussion from
WP:WEB. I am about to be very bold...
brenneman
(t)
(c)
22:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Since I don't think further rehashing of the same points is going to get us anywhere, I will be simple here.
The following are deal-breakers for me, and I am unable to support or accept any webcomics inclusion guidelines that contain them: All syndicated comics must be included. Webcomics Examiner, Comixpedia, and Websnark must all be taken as signs of notability. Broad community consensus instead of just the people who have been arguing this point endlessly must be sought. There must be an explicit note in the guidelines that they are not an exclusive list of all reasons a webcomic might be worth including. Snowspinner 05:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm not so much concerned about the apparent conflict of interest as I am about the apparent conflict of personalities that is going on here. It's rather obvious that several people here have been debating this so long that they now hate each other. I think there is one thing that they all agree on though: on the subject of the Examiner, Websnark and Comixpedia.com... all observers seem to agree that it's fairly obvious that the webcomics community really HAS no significant, peer-reviewed, academic journal that exists.
However, even Dragonfiend, who seems rather jaded to the idea of including webcomics in Wikipedia at all, must agree about the role that the various webcomics "journals" play in establishing comics as "A-league". Unfortunately, as I mention, the amount of authors available in this field is limited, and the possibilities of conflict of interest abound.
This is a problem, then, if we are to include comics based on "significant, detailed coverage in an editorially-written section of one of the major sources devoted to webcomics." With this wording, Gossamer Commons or "Brigadier General John Stark" could be included simply because it is written about by Eric Burns in Websnark. Despite the fact that Gossamer Commons and "Brigadier General John Stark" is Burns' own comics. Definite conflict of interest.
So how about this: we put in a conflict of interest clause? There really is no better option, as I see it, considering that the webcomics community is so small there is a natural incestuous relationship among most webcomics. So the rewritten point goes something like this (excuse my poor wording... perhaps someone can write something better):
Coverage within the webcomics community. If a webcomic has significant, detailed coverage in an editorially-written section of a combination of the major sources devoted to webcomics, or has warranted continuing mention in a single source, it should be included. Due to the subjective/popular nature of all these sources, and the relatively small size of the webcomics community, it is recognized that the issue of conflict-of-interest may arise. If articles from said sources that are written about a comic under consideration are seen to be promotional in a "conflict-of-interest" manner, this category for inclusion must be disregarded as a means of viewing a comic as notable (ie. A comic must become notable under its own power, not because of a self-interested comic author/writer).
Popular webcomic sources currently include:
* Comixpedia.com (.org is the wiki) * The Webcomics Examiner * Websnark
---
Secondy, in the matter of Dragonfiend vs. Snowspinner... you BOTH have devolved into slinging insults back and forth. In my opinion, even the supposed apology from Dragonfiend above does not avoid this unseemly trend. I would caution you both to put on better behaviour.
Tedzsee
21:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
a) We put bad faith only because there is the possibility that it could happen. I do not necessary say that it will happen, but we should protect against it. Once again, in reality, I would tend to assume good faith, and nothing in the wording (at least as I read it) suggests that the sources should be viewed in a NEGATIVE light. b) I say "combination" or "continuing coverage" for the following reason: One mention in passing should not constitute coverage any more than, say, one article in the New York Times would make someone notable. Usually, a combination of sources is required, or a substantial amount of coverage in one source, for something to be considered notable. As for my final paragraph regarding the two people who have been debating considerably, I withdraw that with strikethroughs for obvious reasons. Suffice it to say that I am saddened to see what could be construed as a large amount of personal attacks by various folks on this messageboard. Tedzsee 22:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
This archive page covers approximately the dates up until 29 October 2005.
Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.
Articles on websites, forums, internet memes and flash animations appear regularly on VfD. It strikes me as odd that we have inclusion guidelines for bands ( WP:MUSIC) and people ( WP:BIO), among others, but not for websites. It has been established that Wikipedia is not a web directory; in other words, the vast majority of websites likely do not deserve a Wikipedia entry. On the other hand, sites such as Yahoo and eBay obviously do. So, I'd like to open discussion on what criteria would work for inclusion of websites. R adiant _>|< 12:34, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
That's because Yahoo and eBay are major corporations with large amounts of real-world assets and not merely websites. Perhaps a better example would be YTMND or Something Awful or Slashdot. — Phil Welch 03:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
How about The Best Page in the Universe? That article recieves plenty of traffic and is an article with a relatively busy discussion page. I think it should stay. A good example of an article which I think should be deleted is .hack//G.U. GameFAQs Boards. There is a line to be drawn and I think that VfD is a method which can accomplish that. - Haon 03:13, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Interestingly, the Google test and Alexa rating of a website are arguably a strong indication of the site's popularity, even if they are less informative for real-world matters. R adiant _>|< 12:34, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)
If the Alexa rating is less more than 100,000 and the article does not otherwise establish the notability of the website then the article may be considered a candidate for speedy deletion.
If the Alexa rating is less than 50,000 and/or the article only claims limited notability (eg "forum with 75 registered members") then the article may be considered as a candidate for listing on VfD.
A website may be considered notable if is meets any (one? two?) of these criteria:
Obviously this is only a first draft, so feel free to criticise at length! (But do people think this is on the right lines, whether or not you agree on the numbers, etc) -- G Rutter 28 June 2005 08:41 (UTC)
For #3: If it is possible to measure active users rather than registered ones, that is preferable. Slashdot, for example, will probably soon have its 1,000,000th registered user, but only a fraction of those users are actually active. For #5: I'm not convinced that "web awards" are worth having a criterion for. Do people still pay attention to those things? If a website received some award back in 1998, does that mean it's automatically notable enough for inclusion? AиDя01D TALK EMAIL June 28, 2005 12:33 (UTC)
I went ahead and was bold, creating the website guide and moving the discussion here. Please feel free to yell at me for this, but I though we had reached, among participants, a sort of consensus on things. humble fool ® 3 July 2005 03:59 (UTC)
Radiant, what you have there is an alternate proposal which I believe that both of us argued against using on the Disassemblance VfD. The alexa test is more widely used in the webcomic context, it seems. Perhaps this could be reflected in the wording? humble fool ® Have you voted in the CSD poll yet? 8 July 2005 05:05 (UTC)
To me, one of the glaring missing criteria is a provision for historical importance. Let's cite specifically GNUPedia (or even Nupedia would work for that matter). GNUPedia is dead, and therefore would have few if any real users, low alexa rankings, etc. But it is notable and it's because it is notable in a historical sense that it might fail some or all of these criteria. There are probably many examples of failed enterprises, or some other even current enterprises that are of historical interest but may not satisfy most of the criteria. I just thought of Qal3ah, the internet forum where responsibility for the recent London bombings was claimed. Outside of that it may not have been notable (don't actually know this, but hypothetically), but because of this historical interest it is notable. I would have been bold, but I'm not sure exactly how to word this so that it's precise. Any thoughts? -- Dmcdevit 09:58, July 10, 2005 (UTC)
Can we establish that any website for any company or organization should not have its own article, but instead be listed with that company or organization? The exception would be if the site has another purpose than advertising, customer service or a discussion forum. But frankly I don't see the need for a page on the website of, say, Shell. R adiant _>|< 12:22, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
I don't see why Wikipedia needs an article about a website if the article does nothing more than describe the site. Take the article microsoft.com as an example of the typical website article. It simply serves no purpose I can fathom. It tells no one anyhing that they couldn't learn with less effort from Google and the website itself.
There is a description of the structure of the website, the names a few gifs and so on: all of which is subject to change without notice, and much more easily learned by just looking at the website itself. Aside from an explanation of the ".com" suffix, there is nothing else.
Certainly, "microsoft.com" is a notable site, but microsoft.com is not a noteworthy article, and I have trouble imagining how it ever could become one. What is there to say? And doesn't the same thing apply to the vast majority of websites?
By contrast, an article on the CERN site would have a lot to say about its historical importance in the early days of the web, but I wouldn't bother talking much about the structure or content of the current website. An article discussing support websites in general, or contrasting different styles of corporate site, could be very interesting, but that is not what we get as a rule.
Robert A West 03:24, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
I agree with
User:Robert A West also, and I think he has a good way of putting it — an article on a Web site should be able to say something about that Web site. If the editor can't think of anything to say about it, then it should be deleted, the same way we'd (I hope!) vote to delete a biographical article that mentioned only the height, weight, and hair color of its subject.
I have three "common-sense" guidelines for Web site inclusion in Wikipedia here. They are:
I think this page is tending toward more specificity... which one could call " instruction creep" if one were so inclined. :) -- Quuxplusone 04:29, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
Has anyone considered if the website has relevance beyond its subject matter? If someone has, I haven't seen the discussion.
Yahoo and eBay are important as large-scale businesses. Some sites (like Snopes) have become prominent reference sites. Company sites are part of the company and only as important as the company itself. Slashdot is a prominent technology site with various other functions.
But, say, a net forum that concentrates on stragegy discussions for players of a specific computer game or fan discussions of a book, comic book of TV series, have importance mainly to those who are interested about that subject. They could be included as an external link in the article about that particular subject but would not necessarily deserve their own article. Similarly as the personal or professional web page of a famous person (and possibly very extensive fan site about that person) could be mentioned in the article about that person but the sites itself would not deserve their own articles.
That would not concern the popularity of the site but if the site is relevant outside its subject matter - Skysmith 09:31, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
I realize there is a lot of gray area in which web-sites are includable. However so many websites are added as advertisements every day that is is difficult to wade through them in VfD. We should be able to at least establish a minimum level criteria for not being speedily deleted to reduce the editor and Admin work load. I think this would have to be a very low bar to be accepted as consensus, but I will try to propose a few rules of thumbs to see what you guys think.
-- Darkfred Talk to me 13:52, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think the only reason that a website should be in Wikipedia (as a page) is that it has some historical significance - that is it has had a significant effect on the internet or the general public. Even in that, the page should discuss how the site has affected the net/public, and not simply describe the site or its function. We are not Google or Yahoo. If you want to find out about a website, go to the site. If you think a site is interesting, use it. But considering how fast websites come and go, it behooves us to direct our efforts to the ones that people will be talking about and asking about five or ten years from now and answering the questions they have and will have.
Of course, as a link on another article page they should be included wherever they enhance the article. -- Outlander 20:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)
WP:NOT a crystal ball. How are we to know what will be the topic of discussion years down the road? On a related note, I don't like the criteria of: Having been the subject of national or international media attention within the last 2 years. Does that mean that articles that were once acceptable should be removed later? I think national media attention should solidify inclusion. -- Norvy (talk) 19:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
The most recent edit, by an anon, suggests that the top 10% is good enough. The edit says this is the top 100,000 sites. Last I looked, Google indexed about 8,000,000,000 sites. Did I do my math wrong? - Splash 01:33, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
The guideline, " wikipedia:reliable sources", prohibits the use of webforums and blogs as sources for articles. The exception is that such sites can be sources for themselves. For websites that are not covered in the media that means they only have one source, which makes NPOV and verifying very difficult. In some cases there are entire webforums or blogs that exist to criticize other websites ( e.g. Stormfront/ Mootstormfront, CARM/ AARM) but the guideline says that we should't cite them. I see four possible outcomes for articles on non-media-covered webistes: 1) They are limited to the most NPOV information, such as name, authors, and URL, and then deleted as a listing. 2) They are deleted as hopelessly POV/unverifable until a meaningful media source can be found. 3) They remain and violate the NPOV policy. 4) They remain and violate the reliable sources guideline. Is there a better outcome possible than any of these? - Willmcw 22:23, September 6, 2005 (UTC)
I wrote this up a while ago, and nobody seems to have made note of it. Could this be any more complicated than the messy and subjective proposal currently being debated on this page? To be frank, I think it could be adopted for other deletion debates as well, but maybe I'm just overwhelmed by my own genius. :) Ashibaka ( tock) 02:55, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
In my belief, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia's aim to be the central source of a multitude and mass of information.
The articles created or editted for websites are simply providing information about them, and in the distant future if some of these sites phase out, the articles will serve as information regarding their history.
If information on websites are banned from Wikipedia, then immediately, there goes half the information Wikipedia comprises, the Internet is such a huge part of Wikipedia and life these days it would be down right stupid to delete all website-related articles from Wikipedia. And anyway, the articles on the websites are NOT created for the sole reason of promotion, they are created to add to the Wikipedia pool of information and to share with it's users what the website is about.
Sure, if someone created an article on their website which was a simple site that talked about dogs for instance, then I wouldn't consider this to be worthy of being created on Wikipedia (although perhaps a separate section can be created for these article-types to be submitted to). But most site articles submitted to Wikipedia are about a site or something which is new, unique or interesting and as I said before, adds to the pool of knowledge that is Wikipedia.
cheers Treelovinhippie 03:52, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Couldn't you also include criteria for "Back links" (using link: http://www.website.com)? THat would tell you, *roughly* how many website are linking to it in Google, although Google isn't always accurate with that, so it shouldn't be too strict. With Google toolbar and the link you can also check PageRank on a scale from 1 to 10, which it has been speculated is a logarithmic scale describing PageRank. Nathan J. Yoder 15:31, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Is this about a wikipage for a particular webcomic or also about listing in List of Webcomics ? -- Dyss 11:46, 20 May 2004 (UTC)
Are the comics on www.comics.com and www.ucomics.com nationally syndicated? Otherwise they'll have the same problems as KeenSpace comics. -- zandperl 04:42, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)
No more thoughts on this? It'd be good to see some degree of finality, because there's a few I'd like to create.
How about extending the Top 20 from Keenspace to Top 40, too? It'd include another couple of comics that I think are worthy. Ambivalenthysteria 03:04, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
What if a comic's Alexa rank drops below the threshold? Do we remove it? I see three possibilities: Remove it; Don't remove it; Remove it only if it doesn't have an article.
Secondly, what if a comic has no three-month traffic average? (not considering sites that have changed domains) Are they simply considered too new for listing? -- Cyrius| ✎ 03:21, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
A problem with using Alexa is that it's often regarded as spyware, and is detected by spyware removal software such as Spybot and Adaware. Tim J Tylor 22:06, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've created a {{ minor webcomic}} template for articles about webcomics that do not qualify for inclusion by the current guidelines. It's intended to be used in the same way as {{ notable}}, but explicitly mentions and links to the web comics policy. Does this seem useful? — Gwalla | Talk 20:35, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)
According to Wikipedia: Wikiproject Webcomics, I wrote Planet Earth (and other tourist traps). Please let me know if this is unacceptable. - Branddobbe 05:07, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
Eric Burns, at www.websnark.com, has proposed a different baseline inclusion guideline for webcomics that I suspect is more fair and still is going to avoid vanity pages. His proposal is that every comic with an archive of 100 strips or more should be included.
Yes, this is going to lead to a lot more webcomics being included, but I'm unconvinced that's a bad thing. One of the things Wikipedia is good for is providing encyclopedic coverage of smaller scale events and things that wouldn't make it in a normal encyclopedia because of space concerns.
Or, to put it another way, nobody outside of Wikipedia is going to catalog these webcomics, and, unlike a lot of things, I think a strong accounting of webcomics is something that is very helpful (As I think Websnark puts persuasively at [3].
Even if something more restrictive than a 100 strip archive is requested, I think these guidelines are needlesly fierce. At most 20 Keenspace comics? A 200,000 minimum Alexis Rank? Eek. I know we have problems with the profligation of vanity webcomic pages, but this swings too far in the other direction. How about we just deal with webcomics on a case by case basis on VfD like we do high schools and other such things? Snowspinner 06:58, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)
Given my opinion that the guidelines as listed do not meet the needs of separating out the significant from the insignificant, instead rewarding simple popularity and denying smaller but sometimes more experimental or critically acclaimed works, it behooves me to produce a counterproposal to hopefully stimulate discussion.
This counterproposal takes the assumption that Wikipedia's articles, at their core, are a resource for web consumers -- a ready and central location for information on a broad variety of subjects. It is also the assumption of this counterproposal that a broad depth of webcomics, be they noteworthy due to popularity or noteworthy due to critical acclaim and aesthetic consideration, being represented in Wikipedia is of value to both Wikipedia and the webcomics community.
The following counterproposal is designed to produce guidelines based upon three basic criteria: commitment to the artistic work in time, commitment to the artistic work in effort, and a demonstrated fanbase. These would be determined as follows:
The ultimate goal of Wikipedia's guidelines for inclusion are to separate out those strips without note, commitment or worth, while highlighting those strips that possess note, commitment and worth. With the many thousands of strips available on the web, it is a losing proposition for any project of any kind to try and include them all. However, as the medium of webcomics and online sequential art grows and flourishes, it becomes increasingly important that there be repositories of factual and critical information on them, not bound to popularity but instead to significance. - Eric Burns
I think a year of consistent activity would be acceptable. Practically every halfhearted hobbyist effort makes it to 33 weeks and 100 strips. Personally, I'd prefer two years as a baseline—if something is to be included based on longevity, it should demonstrate longevity that is out of the ordinary (the ordinary being pretty weak in this case).
And I agree with Triskaideka that the most important criterion in notability is whether people have taken note. In general I prefer the earlier ranking-based guidelines to Eric Burns' how-long-they've-been-plugging-away-based guidelines. We should also make it clear, however, that these guidelines are only a fallback in case the comic has no other legitimate claims to notability (being covered in national or international news, being particularly influential, etc.) Webcomics are not an exception to the general guidelines of Wikipedia.
We shouldn't be bending over backwards to let every webcomic have an article just because they exist and we like the medium. Besides, if these inclusion guidelines are too lax, nobody on VfD will take them seriously, which would defeat the whole point. — Gwalla | Talk 04:53, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I suggest going even further. Wikipedia is not a web comics directory. Limiting the listing to 10-20 of the most popular web comics should be sufficient. DiceDiceBaby 30 June 2005 17:34 (UTC)
I just wrote a little question over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics, about the fact that I noticed that among disambiguation add-ons to the names of web comics with common names, like Avalon, or Copper, or Freefall, there was no kind of standard behavior: It's Avalon (web comic) but Copper (comic) and Freefall (webcomic). Should this matter? Heck, between this page and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics, we can't even agree on whether it's one word or two (hell, I'm almost certainly inconsistent in my usage, as well). Any ideas, or does it just not matter one way or the other? -- Ray Radlein 05:20, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry if this seems obvious to you, but I'm not very familiar with Alexa. Which ranking is the relevant one for our purposes? It must be "reach," I guess, because "Views" is always very very low, even for very popular sites. -- Iustinus 29 June 2005 19:15 (UTC)
I just changed it from "above 200,000" to "better than 200,000", since that is what is meant. It is often necessary to explain to people that a higher number than 200,000 is actually worse, not better. (This usually comes up in VfD discussions.) It might be good to go further in clarifying, but it's a start. - Aranel ("Sarah") 15:31, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
Since, well, Wikiprojects can't actually set global policy, I propose this as our new inclusion guidelines:
Articles that survive VfD or are not nominated for VfD will be included.
How's it sound? Snowspinner 16:49, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
Essentially, I'm wondering what criteria might be used to determine a comic's notability, outside of its Alexa rank (which is rather strict) or the size of its archives (which doesn't fly in VfD in practice). Possible criteria might include:
Thoughts/suggestions? Nifboy 08:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
I thinking of making a notability template That will simply outline the requirements that can be pasted in a discussion or used in some other manner. It will be at {{ webcomic notability}}. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:50, 2005 September 2 (UTC)
{{ webcomic notability}}
What's the point of a template? Where would this be inserted? — Gwalla | Talk 03:38, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I put it on the front page of the project. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 09:13, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
I apologise for starting a new discussion on this page when there is already ongoing discussion before it, but it seems that those threads seem to have petered out. I came across List of webcomics yesterday, and to me, it looks to me like Wikipedia is being way to lax about inclusion guidelines.
There seems to be so much dreck on that list, and I feel that the inclusion guidelines are way too lax. If I were to post 100 stick man comics onto keenspace, does that make it notable, and worthy for an article? No way. In WP:MUSIC, the band/artist needs to have some kind of influence/acknowledgment outside their own musical circle. For many webcomics on wikipedia, this simply isn't the case, no one outside the the webcomic community will know about them, and only a small subset of that community will actually follow a specific comic.
Webcomics, being self published, means that very few will ever gain major attention. This does not mean we should lower inclusion boundaries to make sure we have many webcomic articles. Say a band has been around for a few years now, without a record deal, but with quite a few self published EPs and maybe an LP. They have a good local following, and play out regularly to some packed out small venue. They wouldn't warrant an article, yet a similarly popular webcomic with a readership of a few hundred apparently do?
Above, the idea was mentioned that any webcomic of over 100 deserve a wikipedia article, because no other encyclopedia would publish it due to lack of space. But just because the information could not be included anywhere else, doesn't mean that wikipedia should house it. You know what a great idea would be? A separate webcomic wiki, where even the webcomics with tiny readership could get an article. We could link it from any webcomic articles and it'd would be a great place to transwiki stuff to as well as acting as an encyclopedia of webcomics. - Hahnchen 01:13, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the guidelines look too lax to me, too. If we applied similiar ones to bands, as pointed out above, every bar band that stuck around for a little while would qualify. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure why web comics need seperate criteria from any other website. A look at recent VFDs shows that quite a few wikipedians are willing to suggest a delete, even on things that may pass the standards suggested here. Friday (talk) 16:32, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
My opinion is that these guidelines are not only much too lax, they are not even to the point. In my opinion checking for importance of a webcomic should not be measured by how long it has been running, but by something like the Google test, with a limit at 1000 (or 500 or whatever) links. There would however be the problem that many webcomics have names that also occur in other contexts.
I would even endorse a very restrictive policy on webcomics - something like "any webcomic included should have a specific reason for that". We don't habitually include series from self-published authors either. - Andre Engels 11:33, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Certainly no amount of longevity is sufficient. There are some webcomics I love, both widely-read and much less so, and I respect people who stick to writing them whether they're widely-read or not. But if there aren't people reading them, they're not notable. -- SCZenz 22:44, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm thinking out a bit more of a balanced proposal. What I have come up with so far are some starting points; some preambles if you will.
So the gist of my thoughts is that (1) we can use Alexa as a starting point for determining webcomic notability, but (2) there are some legitimate problems with Alexa ranking, that either need to be addressed point for point, or (3) we should replace the Alexa rank with an independent source better than Alexa.
If we can't agree on a better independent source than Alexa, we should at least address the concerns with Alexa for now.
I can see some obvious solutions of some of the noted concerns already. For instance, the mentioned bias in point 2.1 is in part negated by the fact that this guideline uses the cut-off point of 200,000 instead of the Wikipedia standard of 100,000. It's still something to be mindful about though.
For point 2.2.3, I can see us just listing a couple of the big Awards with regards to webcomics, and it might also be a good idea to flesh out Hahnchen's comment about "a webcomic should assert its notability in the article, whether its due to popularity, status of the author, or notoriety" a bit more and put it in the guideline. For example, as a final clause to the guideline "If notability cannot be established by above methods, wikipedians should try to establish notability in the article based on status of the author, notoriety, or mention by a reputable independent source or mainstream media in the article, and should take said factors into consideration for possible VfDs"(again, just an example). In fact, I strongly think this should be good idea. (and I agree with Hahnchen that toplists should be avoided here)
Did I forget anything? Other comments and/or corrections on my points? -- Codemonkey 19:34, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
There seems to be a common argument that, because Alexa is biased, it shouldn't be used for the comic criteria. This is reasonable, but many people on the AfD pages seem to believe it also follows that no proof that anyone reads the comic is required. This is silly. I don't care how it is done, but somehow there must be a verifiable assertion that a lot of people read a comic for it to be counted as notable simply because it exists. (Of course, there may also be other reasons it's notable too; I'm speaking for cases where there aren't.) -- SCZenz 19:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
So, I made a draft of improvements to the Alexa proposal, taking into account most of what I've read on this page. Feedback would be greatly appreciated.
Alexa will be used to determine traffic for any webcomic with its own domain name. If the webcomic has a average traffic better than 200,000, it can be considered to be an entry that could be allowed in Wikipedia. The traffic average can be for the last 3 months or any 6 consecutive months in the past. Webcomics that have since retired (and thus are not receiving new, regular traffic) may also remain in Wikipedia.
As noted by wikipedia:Alexa test, Alexa has certain biases built into it's system, and is perceived by a group of people as spyware. The usage of 200,000 as a cut-off point, instead of the Wikipedia standard of 100,000, negates a part of this bias, but it is still something Wikipedians should be mindful about.
Alexa rank does not differentiate it's alexa rank for websites that are hosted under a common domainname. The "Where do people go on ...?" section under traffic details at Alexa can be used in these cases. As a rough guideline, a page should get 50%+ of the traffic on a domain with a 100,000 or better rank, or 75%+ of the traffic on a domain with 200,000 or better rank. One notable occurrence of this is at KeenSpace, for which the entire top 25 can be included.
There are certain other criteria that will qualify a comic as notable. If a comic has garnered critical acclaim through any of the following means:
If the webcomic has proof of having an audience, through other means than Alexa:
A webcomic article should always try to establish the webcomic's notability in the article itself. If a webcomic does not manage to qualify by the above stated requirements, an article about it should be able to establish the comic's notability in another way:
Wikipedians should also keep these last criteria in mind in possible Article for Deletion votes. And, because of their broad nature, should not hesitate to apply them in a fairly strict manner. The burden of proof lies with the article in these cases, so to speak. If an article should be up for deletion, consider transwikifying it to the webcomic wiki at comixpedia.org.
These are merely guidelines. Sites that are close to, but still under these thresholds may also be included on the basis that webcomics customarily grow in size and have a higher likelihood of increasing in readership and, thus, becoming encyclopedic. In all cases, wikipedians should take into account all factors mentioned and unmentioned in assessing notability, and judge articles on a case by case basis.
I have tried to express myself as clear and to the point as possible. I hope I've succeeded in writing something that addresses most of the concerns voiced here. Again, I would greatly appreciate feedback, especialy on ideas I may have forgotten for the lists in this draft. -- Codemonkey 23:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Alexa rank of 200K? This just means that the creator of the webcomic hasn't got the tool bar installed, becaues that's all it takes to get a lower ranking than this. - brenneman (t) (c) 07:08, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I propose that we need to also have "Is on a major webcomics syndicate" including Keenspot, Blank Label Comics, and any of the Modern Tales family on the list. Snowspinner 19:26, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I'd also propose a "notable writer/artist" rule, akin to Keenspot's "Once a Keenspotter, always a Keenspotter" rule, whereby new comics by Keenspot artists are automatically accepted to Keenspot. By this rule, if a notable webcomic artist or writer starts a new project, that project is by definition notable. Notability being defined by one of their previous projects being notable. Snowspinner 18:39, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
(Section archived here from Village pump Hiding talk 13:29, 17 October 2005 (UTC))
I would like people to take a look at the webcomic inclusion guidelines found at WP:COMIC, as well as taking a look at Webcomics on AFD. My problem with them is that the guideline followed by some is this, "All webcomics over 100 strips should be included". Before someone grouped the afds together, most were being deleted. However, we now have a couple of totally un notable webcomics which seem to be heading towards no consensus. Some contributors on the Webcomic Wikiproject, which aims to catalogue every webcomic with over 100 posts, are claiming that as soon as 100 strips are reached, if someone writes an article for it, it should be kept.
I totally disagree with this. Since when did longevity equal notability? Since when is 100 strips even notable? Bands can last for years without achieving notability, but if we followed similar criteria for any other category, almost every bar room band which has been around for 6 months would be notable enough for an article. AzNPRiNc3SS's 500 livejournal posts would mean her article would be kept. For example, take a look at this - Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/String_Finger_Theatre and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Our Home Planet. Absolutely NO assertion of notability is made, or can be found anywhere in the articles. The keep votes purely say "comic has existed past 100 strips". How hard is it for a stickman comic to achieve notability? Its not like the artist has to invest time or money into it is it?
But please, take a look at WP:COMIC and contribute to the talk pages as well as the Webcomics on AFD. In my opinion, it's time for the inclusion criteria to be tightened up in line with some of the other guidelines. The extreme webcomic inclusionists have also ignored the 1st proposal, an Alexa rank of sub 200,000. And I too, have not nominated any webcomics even approaching this rank. But surely, if a webcomic has any sort of popularity, it can break the 1 million mark can't it? Please contribute to the guideline discussion, as well as the AFDs, we need more eyes on them. - Hahnchen 17:16, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, Hahnchen, is the plan to keep Webcomics on AFD continuously up to date? If so, I'll watch it and join the crusade, AfD by AfD. -- SCZenz 19:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
A great deal has been said on the strengths and weaknesses of the "Alexa test" already. I don't really have much to add to that discussion so I won't regurgitate all the arguments. I will, however, note that the standard espoused on this page is at odds with the much more long-standing standard which was recently consolidated to Wikipedia:Google test#Alexa test. This page alleges that 200,000 on the Alexa test is automatically notable for a webcomic but the main page says that a page (on any topic) in the top 100,000 is merely a maybe. I'm going to be bold and bring this project page into compliance with the main guidelines. Before anyone changes it back, let's have a specific discussion here on why webcomic should be held to a different standard in those few situations where the Alexa test is the right measure. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 17:27, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
This doesn't solve all the problems - there are still at least two strips I can think of where I think the strips are notable, but they're not captured by any of the syndicate rules. But at the very least, the following syndicates should be considered notable, along with all of their contents.
There are some other things that need to be sorted out - we need to decide what to do about WebcomicsNation, which is like Keenspace.
Also, there are at least two comics that aren't making it by Alexa or syndicate rules that I think are highly notable - Cat and Girl (Alexa just under 100,000) and Her! Girl vs Pig (Alexa way down near 500,000). So we've got a start with the syndicates, but even syndicates+Alexa, the guidelines have too many holes. Cat and Girl has a review on Webcomics Examiner, which is probably a good source for notability - I believe it was proposed above, and if it wasn't, then substantial coverage in it, Comixpedia, or Websnark should cound for notability. Her! was a comic that started in a magazine with 4.5 million circulation. Magazine went under, comic went to the web. Its guest strips section indicates substantial love among webcomics creators (Several notable creators have done guest strips), it's been mentioned in passing on Websnark as a strip that he reds, but no one thing decisively establishes notability according to any proposed guideline. But it would still be a VERY bad strip to delete. Snowspinner 18:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
I have put a new, detailed proposal at User:SCZenz/Webcomics/Proposal. Please read it there, and then comment on it here. Please note that I agree with all the numbered points in the proposal, but not necessarily with all the particular sites listed, which I haven't yet had time to research. But I think this is a realistic idea to focus a discussion on, giving us a starting place to hammer out details from. -- SCZenz 21:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)
And now an objection to my own proposal. It seems like the spinoffs of Modern Tales have lots and lots of comics, a significant majority of which are redlinks. It's not so clear that all of these should automatically be notable. (There's no list in the Modern Tales article itself.) -- SCZenz 00:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
(Resetting to the left.) But if a person who doesn't know much nominates an article, it should be a trivial matter to cite sources, and the AfD would fail. The problem here is a legitimate disagreement over whether the fact that many webcomics aren't discussed in standard sources means that a) we should use nonstandard sources or b) we shouldn't have so many webcomics. Nobody, no matter how ignorant, ever gets false things into articles studied in academia (or deletes them), because everyone agrees that peer-reviewed journals are reputable sources; things are a bit different with webcomics. I stress again, this is a legitimate disagreement of opinion. --
SCZenz
18:39, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
These are simply too strict. There's a lot of articles that would get quite easily kept on AfD that do not fit these criteria. Ambi 00:40, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I've come to the party late, I know. How about listing some of the simpler points, and focusing discussion on them? Get what we agreeon out of the way, as it were. - brenneman (t) (c) 07:28, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Feel free to implement these standards, but understand that there isn't a hope in hell of them being adopted by anyone else on AfD when they're this deletionist. Ambi 04:03, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
This proposal presents a HUGE uphill battle for independent comics. I'm going to use my comic as an example (not because I think it should be on wikipedia, but because i know its numbers well). It has an Alexa rating of 280,000, which is rather high. It is not, however, in a syndicate. If it were on Keenspace, however, it would likely be a high-ranking comic, as several Keenspace comics that recently defected to other syndicates (such as Boxcar) have higher Alexa ratings (for example, Beaver and Steve, currently at 367,154, or similar ratings (the highly-read Coffee Achievers, for example has an Alexa of 218,690).
Now, while I'm the first to argue that Alexa is basically bunk, it DOES mean a significant amount of readers. And somewhere in NOTABILITY, READERSHIP must be established. Your new guidelines make it hard for independent websites to be considered notable, while making it easy for comics with similar readership numbers who are published by a supposedly notable collective like Keenspace (which is really just a free hosting service) to be considered notable.
There must be a better balance
-- Tedzsee 00:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Independent webcomics and Notable Authors: Webcomics and/or webcomic creators do not need to be members of established collectives or syndicates to be considered for entry provided their notability can be established using the Coverage within the webcomics community or Coverage or inclusion outside the webcomics community clauses combined with the Readership clause.
Since all were unacceptable to a large number of users on one side of this debate or the other, I have replaced the proposals on the front page with my proposal. It has been criticized by people on both sides of the debate, which I take to mean that it's a possible starting point for a consensus, where the others are not. Obviously the discussion could continue! -- SCZenz 20:54, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
I am starting a new heading on this since the ones above seem to have drifted and since there is a new proposal. The Proposal currently under discussion includes #5 "If a webcomic is a member of a professional syndicate ... it should be included." Now that I am looking into some of the other "professional" and "notable" syndicates, I find that they appear to be neither professional nor notable. Dayfree Press, for example, has an Alexa ranking of 1,497,083. It would appear in this case that, while some of the individual comics on the syndicate are notable, the syndicate itself is not. And now that I understand a little about how it works, I see that it's not even a professional webcomics syndicate like Modern Tales and Serializer are, nor are they selling ads like Keenspot. Acccording to the Dayfree mission, "THE BUSINESS MODEL: Some webcomics groups choose to charge for subscription access to archives, while others rely primarily on advertising. While Dayfree Press makes no requirements of a business model ... Almost a year after the network’s creation, some founding members have found themselves making good money on the side as a result of their merchadising efforts." How can they be considered a "professional syndicate" when their "business model" has "no requirements of a business model"? When all they are doing is "making good money on the side" for only "some founding members"? This hardly sounds professional. I do not support including Dayfree Press as a notable syndicate. Dragonfiend 07:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
I should add, the blank label "syndication" service is funded by google ads on its main website, so it's obviously not that profitable. Shouldn't a syndication service be at least self-sustaining without the need for other advertising services? Nathan J. Yoder 12:19, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I still strongly object to these guidelines on the following grounds.
My response:
Some general responses
User:Snowspinner has been arguing on this thread that webcomics covered in Comixpedia ought to be considered notable. For example, "the [Webcomics] Examiner and Comixpedia are important people who make a lot of waves on the subject." I just discovered User:Snowspinner/Webcomics in which Snowspinner writes "I am currently working on pieces for both the Webcomics Examiner and Comixpedia." This is a blatant conflict of interest which should have been revealed on this discussion page by Snowspinner. You cannot in good faith argue for the notability of webcomics covered by the "important people" of comixpedia when you're one of those people that writes for comixpedia. By having a guideline that says comics covered by Comixpedia are considered notable, and having Snowspinner writing for Comixpedia, then we're basically saying any comic Snowspinner thinks is notable is therefore notable. I cannot stress enough that this conflict of interest should have been revealed. Further, we have User:Eric Burns weighing in on this discussion; he was the creator of what everyone agrees was the much too lenient old proposal. His conflict of interest is that Eric Burns runs the Websnark fan blog, where he is also commenting on this discussion. Replacing Eric Burns' old proposal with a proposal that considers any comic covered by Websnark basically says that any comic that User:Eric Burns thinks is notable is therefore notable. User:Snowspinner and User:Eric Burns are not only Wikipedia editors, but they write for Comixpedia, the Webcomics Examiner, and Websnark. For them to be trying to set Wikipedia guidelines that give themselves the god-like ability to determine notability is wrong. User:Snowspinner and User:Eric Burns have shown that Comixpedia and Websnark are not disinterested third parties in this discussion. I am being bold and removing article 7 to remove this abuse of power and conflict of interest. I have reproduced the excised portion below:
If anyone else in this discussion has conflicts of interest (they're writing for comixpedia, have comics on Dayfree Press, or anything similar) please reveal them now. Thanks. Dragonfiend 21:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Upon further consideration, this is clearly a split discussion from
WP:WEB. I am about to be very bold...
brenneman
(t)
(c)
22:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Since I don't think further rehashing of the same points is going to get us anywhere, I will be simple here.
The following are deal-breakers for me, and I am unable to support or accept any webcomics inclusion guidelines that contain them: All syndicated comics must be included. Webcomics Examiner, Comixpedia, and Websnark must all be taken as signs of notability. Broad community consensus instead of just the people who have been arguing this point endlessly must be sought. There must be an explicit note in the guidelines that they are not an exclusive list of all reasons a webcomic might be worth including. Snowspinner 05:29, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm not so much concerned about the apparent conflict of interest as I am about the apparent conflict of personalities that is going on here. It's rather obvious that several people here have been debating this so long that they now hate each other. I think there is one thing that they all agree on though: on the subject of the Examiner, Websnark and Comixpedia.com... all observers seem to agree that it's fairly obvious that the webcomics community really HAS no significant, peer-reviewed, academic journal that exists.
However, even Dragonfiend, who seems rather jaded to the idea of including webcomics in Wikipedia at all, must agree about the role that the various webcomics "journals" play in establishing comics as "A-league". Unfortunately, as I mention, the amount of authors available in this field is limited, and the possibilities of conflict of interest abound.
This is a problem, then, if we are to include comics based on "significant, detailed coverage in an editorially-written section of one of the major sources devoted to webcomics." With this wording, Gossamer Commons or "Brigadier General John Stark" could be included simply because it is written about by Eric Burns in Websnark. Despite the fact that Gossamer Commons and "Brigadier General John Stark" is Burns' own comics. Definite conflict of interest.
So how about this: we put in a conflict of interest clause? There really is no better option, as I see it, considering that the webcomics community is so small there is a natural incestuous relationship among most webcomics. So the rewritten point goes something like this (excuse my poor wording... perhaps someone can write something better):
Coverage within the webcomics community. If a webcomic has significant, detailed coverage in an editorially-written section of a combination of the major sources devoted to webcomics, or has warranted continuing mention in a single source, it should be included. Due to the subjective/popular nature of all these sources, and the relatively small size of the webcomics community, it is recognized that the issue of conflict-of-interest may arise. If articles from said sources that are written about a comic under consideration are seen to be promotional in a "conflict-of-interest" manner, this category for inclusion must be disregarded as a means of viewing a comic as notable (ie. A comic must become notable under its own power, not because of a self-interested comic author/writer).
Popular webcomic sources currently include:
* Comixpedia.com (.org is the wiki) * The Webcomics Examiner * Websnark
---
Secondy, in the matter of Dragonfiend vs. Snowspinner... you BOTH have devolved into slinging insults back and forth. In my opinion, even the supposed apology from Dragonfiend above does not avoid this unseemly trend. I would caution you both to put on better behaviour.
Tedzsee
21:22, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
a) We put bad faith only because there is the possibility that it could happen. I do not necessary say that it will happen, but we should protect against it. Once again, in reality, I would tend to assume good faith, and nothing in the wording (at least as I read it) suggests that the sources should be viewed in a NEGATIVE light. b) I say "combination" or "continuing coverage" for the following reason: One mention in passing should not constitute coverage any more than, say, one article in the New York Times would make someone notable. Usually, a combination of sources is required, or a substantial amount of coverage in one source, for something to be considered notable. As for my final paragraph regarding the two people who have been debating considerably, I withdraw that with strikethroughs for obvious reasons. Suffice it to say that I am saddened to see what could be construed as a large amount of personal attacks by various folks on this messageboard. Tedzsee 22:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)