You know, I've long been sympathetic to the plight of webcomics on Wikipedia; I think they get short shrift and are ill-treated by the deletionistas. So when I saw the most recent installment of PartiallyClips, I was most amused. Now, normally, I don't read the comments on the webcomics I read; I really don't get involved in the fanboying around webcomic authors. This time, I did. And, boy, did I regret it.
If all webcomic authors are as rudely opinionated as Rob Balder, it's small wonder that they have bad blood with the Wikipedians. The way in which he treated Kat (especially toward the end of the "discussion") was just outrageous. I have to admit, Christopher Wright took the attack on his personal notability a lot better than did Balder.
So, while it is definitely important for Wikipedians to remember that the people they're writing about are people and have feelings and deserve respect, I'd like to remind people who find themselves written about on Wikipedia -- or, for that matter, find that Wikipedia would prefer not to write about them -- that Wikipedians are also people and have feelings and deserve respect.
Friday, February 23, 2007
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I love how everyone assumes it's articles about my own stuff I'm upset about. Articles about my projects (PartiallyClips and Erfworld) have already proven their notability by the asinine and ever-creeping standards of Wikipedia. My stuff is safe from even the hardcore deletionists.
ReplyDeleteBut certain deletionist Wikipedians are attacking my field. Some of them are manipulating the notability standards into absurdity, then using those bogus standards to destroy any webcomics article they can. Nearly all webcomics articles have undergone a spurious deletion challenge. Many creators and fans (including my fans) fought back and successfully restored the article. But articles on over a hundred important comics and institutions have failed to react fast enough or fight hard enough to ward off these unwarranted, organized attacks.
So they bit the dust. Webcomics suffered. Wikipedia suffered. For what? Who won? Who benefitted from the destruction of that information?
Those editors who stroll through the Great Library of Alexandria "improving" things by selectively burning away entire shelves don't deserve courtesy. Deletionism is barbarism, wrapped in intellectual pretense.
Wikipedia is run by Vogons. Maybe there's nothing I can do to change that, but I'm not Arthur Dent. You forfeit politeness when you bulldoze a guy's house (or whole planet) and pat yourself on the back for it. If all I can do is scream obscenities until I am shoved out the airlock, then that's what I'm going to do.
What I don't get is why wouldn't you expect a verbal punch in the nose from someone whose work you dismissed as meaningless?