I’m just saying…

T’s got a good discussion going on over at his place. It’s a subject worthy of discussion. Wikipedia’s corruption of sorts, the value of fighting for webcomics “rights” in Wikipedia, and methods of getting the Comixpedia.org wiki out there. It breaks down like this:

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and their moderators have been deleting webcomics they don’t claim to be notable, basing their judgment of notoriety on pretty much nothing. They’re making decisions on these deletions based on large discussions, debating over what’s noteworthy and what isn’t. This ruffles the feathers of all us in the webcomics camp because if they’re going to trim the webcomics they have in their database, they could be going about it a hell of a lot more intelligently. Also, see Will G’s “Webcomics Under Attack!” post.

The Comixpedia wiki has both its positives and negatives. On the plus, it’s got a lot of comprehensive data collected about a multitude of webcomics, and climbing. It’s run by intelligent moderators who know plenty about webcomics to give it justice, and it’s freely accessible and alterable, just like a good wiki. However, the negative, and this is a big negative…

How are people, who aren’t webcomics savvy, going to fucking find this thing?

As much as I may hate to admit it, this is why we need the big Wikipedia. We need them to have data on a good deal of us, so newcomers have another solid way of discovering webcomics, and the audience will grow, and the opportunities for turning webcomics into a solid business becomes greater, and micropayments will finally work, and yadda yadda yadda.

Don’t let my sarcasm throw you off too much. I’m aware of how important it is to keep new people coming into webcomics, and all media for that matter. I’m aware of how much we need Wikipedia, despite it being run by enough people who lose sight of the main purpose of Wikipedia (as we understand it): The most comprehensive free information available. So… by deleting stuff that isn’t “notable,” they’re cutting down on the amount of comprehensive free information that could be available. Which, I’ve heard, was aiming to add up to “The most.”

T mentions my “two terse words.” I left these words in the comments discussion going on over at Websnark. They sum up how I feel about the Wikipedia debate deep down inside, and were my basic attempt of tossing $0.02 into the deep well full of discussion that is a single Websnark post. Seriously, the real reason I don’t get involved in discussions over there is because I don’t have the time to keep up. So, if you don’t feel like scouring over the (as of this typing) 154 comments, I can put ‘em right here:

“Fuck ‘em.”

That’s my basic sentiment on Wikipedia. As far as I’m concerned, they’re not any source of material I’d use for doing research on webcomics. Which isn’t to say I do all that much research on webcomics per se. But in times of need, there’s the Comixpedia Wiki.

Which seriously needs a name all its own. We can’t keep calling it the Comixpedia Wiki, or Comixpedia.org while the Comixpedia ‘Zine is still called Comixpedia.

But anyway, fuck ‘em. Personally, I’m done with them. I’m by no means any sort of webcomics revolutionary, in that I don’t make it my personal mission to spread the gospel of webcomics to the world at large. I abstain, because I know that there are plenty of other people who are much more capable of that than I am. And they’re doing it, wherever they are. So I do my part by not getting in their way.

(Wait… am I actually spreading awareness of the need to spread awareness?)

The fuck ‘em really comes down to me not being too moved personally about the issue. I’m not going to lie and pretend like I’m passionate about the issue, I’m not going to fake like this is the hot issue of my week and that I require immediate satisfaction. I don’t feel all that personally offended.

However, I know what the issue is. We need Wikipedia, whether we like it or not, alongside the Comixpedia Wiki. We need both. In the same way we need both a world map and a road map. One covers the generalities, and one gets down to the specifics.

To me, Wikipedia is like communism. It’s a utopian concept where everyone is equal, everyone has access to everything, and everything is in harmony. But in order ton ensure such a completely equal society, someone has to watch over it and make sure everything’s working properly. And the minute you have that person, the equality is gone, and the system fails. It’s a concept that looks fantastic on paper, but has a lot of trouble actually functioning.

So to sum up: Wikipedia… Good. Some of the people running Wikipedia… bad. Comixpedia.org… Good. Scale of awareness of Wikipedia in comparison to Comixpedia.org… bad.

What do we do?

Beats the hell out of me.

But it sure is an enthralling topic of discussion.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2005 at 9:21 pm and is filed under Webcomics, The Bigger Picture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.