Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics/Archive 4

message: It seems to me that a sizeable number of the current webcomics articles might well not meet the WP:WEB standards.  For example, most of them which have been reviewed by media sources have in fact been reviewed by webcomic websites, which don't seem to me to fit the following:   "reliable published works in all forms, such as newspaper and magazine articles, books, television documentaries, and published reports by consumer watchdog organizations".
In addition, during AfD debates on those articles which are proposed, it seems that what ends up keeping some of them are multiple comments like "this comic is definitely notable".  If editors interested in webcomics have some standards of notability they are not outright stating, they ought to state them outright.
Most of my personal wikipedia editing consists of attempting to get non-notable articles deleted.  Instead of my immediate nominating/proposing of dozens of webcomic articles for deletion based on a combination of wp:web and alexa ratings much over 100,000, I'd rather you all gave me some better sense of how you go about determining which ones you find to be notable.
Note: I found the following while looking around: Webcomics/Notability and inclusion guidelines.  It now redirects to wp:web.  Why did you all abandon this effort? --Xyzzyplugh 01:58, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Both Obscurity and Epicenter are relatively new articles; Epicenter was prodded and the article creator took offense. Apathy Kat is an odd one, but I really consider it more of a comic than a webcomic because of this (a print collection that has been mentioned elsewhere). It's no Girl Genius, certainly, and I don't think the usual rules for webcomics apply (Usually, a print collection for a webcomic is a major milestone and a sign of mainstream support). Nifboy 06:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, but are they notable?  Are they worthy of a wikipedia article? --Xyzzyplugh 14:25, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Obscurity and Epicenter, no. Apathy Kat, no idea. Nifboy 19:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Apathy Kat has had a few articles written about it in the trade media, so I would say it's notable.  Coyoty 04:10, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

text: * Hi Redneckgaijin. Will it change your mind if I point out that they've discussed Nowhere Girl in the Village Voice, Leisure Town on CNN, When I Am King in Wired, Fetus-X in The Detroit News, Narbonic in Publishers Weekly, Drew Weing in The New York Times, and Svetlana Chmakova in USA Today? And according to my library, Sluggy Freelance has been discussed on NPR, in The Orange County Register, The Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, etc. I've also never seen anyone question the use of The Comics Journal as a reliable, independent source. I think the idea that there are no Wikipedia:Reliable sources for articles about notable webcomics is incorrect. -- Dragonfiend 03:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * My response is: seven is less than a dozen, which is my rough guess for the number of webcomics covered in what would be considered "valid" independent media. To your list I'd add PvP (which got news coverage when Scott Kurtz offered his strip free to any newspaper that wanted it) and Penny Arcade (which gets coverage for its creators' charity work). The problem here is that the "valid" aspect of the question is a judgment call- an opinion- and thus could be abused... for example, by excluding newspapers due to their transitory nature. It's not a good benchmark. Redneckgaijin 05:10, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Have you even heard of half the examples given? I haven't. Just because the comics you read aren't included doesn't mean webcomics as a whole are underrepresented. Nifboy 07:39, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: * WP:WEB is far from perfect, but the problem with having an independent set of guidelines for webcomics is we couldn't get buy-in from the larger Wikipedia community.  What ended up happening is we'd spend a lot of time banging together a WP:COMIC and still people would vote "Delete all webcomics!!111!one!" on AfDs.  So, we hooked on to the web site guidelines.  It's not a perfect fit, since people certainly don't visit webcomic sites the same way they would a portal, news site, search engine, or internet forum, but it's better than what we had.  That doesn't mean I don't think the guidelines need some massaging, but I don't think it's in our best interests to go back to a balkanized set of rules again.  It is important to keep in mind that WP:WEB is just a guideline, which is a very different thing from a policy.  Even notability itself is a guideline.  They're both meant to help us maintain articles that abide by what's truly important, the three main content policies: WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV.  It would be nice if we could apply the policies directly, but since they cover all possible content, they're often too vague for that. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 11:18, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Yet another request for Webcomics notability standards

message: This poor webcomic has had more articles deleted than any other, I think.  For reference:
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dr McNinja
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Adventures of Dr. McNinja
*Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Adventures of Dr. McNinja 2
It's also been speedied a number of times, the most recent being today by me.  The thing is, each recreation is by a different contributor, and the articles' styles appear to be dissimilar.  It makes me think perhaps it just got off on the wrong foot by having an article for it created too early and then got stuck in the whole CSD G4 recreation of deleted material loop thing.  I held my nose and did an Alexa search and it came back with a surprising 49,447 with an upward trend.  My Google search returned 82,600 hits.  The references to it seem to be mostly from blogs, but I'm looking for more notable sources.  I took a look at it, and I'm actually pretty impressed; it has sort of a Harvey Birdman kinda vibe to it.
So, what do you think?  Right now The Adventures of Dr. McNinja exists as a , which was my doing, but I have started a discussion on its talk page. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 21:06, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I merged the histories of the articles Dr McNinja and Dr. McNinja into The Adventures of Dr. McNinja.  Only administrators can see them right now since they're deleted, but if the article comes up for undeletion or is undeleted, I figured it would be useful to have all the versions under one title. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 07:12, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]] 

message: Lately I've been running into a lot of these in articles for comics and their authors, but most aren't compatible with WP:LIVING or WP:RS.  No webcomic author counts as a public figure, so the sourcing requirements are very stringent.  Yet most criticism I've seen is completely bereft of sourcing, while the rest consists of blogs, forum posts, and personal web sites.  Those aren't allowed.   So, much to the irritation of some, I've been chopping it all out.  If I do it to an article you watch, apologies, but don't shoot the messenger.  This is policy straight from Jimmy Wales, and is in direct response to complaints to the Wikimedia Foundation.  –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 22:37, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's JT for ya. But good work. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:47, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: On the one hand that's perfectly fair; criticism, being a matter of opinion, should be handled with extreme delicacy in a fact-based document. On the other hand, since webcomic criticism is almost entirely blog-based (Comixpedia being the only exception I can think of offhand), this seems like a major culling of available secondary sources not just on criticism, but on webcomics in general. Redneckgaijin 17:46, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Technically all criticism should be referenced in some manner, but the major concern is unsourced or poorly sourced criticism directed towards individuals.  Tim Buckley's article, for example, regularly attracts attention from people pissed off at him for his forum policies or the incident with his WoW guild.  I've had to clean out accusations of pedophilia against Bleedman, and Dan Kim on a number of occasions. Shmorky's article, ugh, well, I'm not sure what to do with that, or with a few of his comics (Smut in particular).  And, of course, people still haven't forgiven Squidi.  It's a pain in the ass, but enforcing WP:LIVING is utterly non-negotiable.  Jimbo Wales made that clear enough in this statement.  –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 18:17, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism sections 

message: I've finally gotten around to making . Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 00:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  {{tl|webcomicepisode}} 

message: I've been moving deleted articles over to Comixpedia this week and I noticed Xaviar Xerexes added several new fields to their version of the Infobox:
:rss = (appears as "Update feed:" on the infobox)
:format =
:publisher =
:cost = (appears as "Price:" on the infobox)
Think we ought to do the same?  Adding those fields actually caused some headache for Comixpedia, since their template is like our old one and breaks if you leave out any fields.  I don't think ours would have the same problem though.  The fair use bots regularly chomp out the image and caption fields without causing any damage.  We'd want to auto-hide the new fields, of course, but that shouldn't be an issue, either since most of our fields do that already.  I'm no expert on templates, though.  CyberSkull, you have any idea? –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 21:13, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: RSS feed I'm not particularly fond of, because of Wikipedia's "not a repository of links" clause, which Comixpedia explicitly ignores. Format I think came up before and was deemed too vague and, often, too inconsistent. Publisher is not a bad idea, although I'm not sure if that means print or "host" or "affiliations" (e.g. Blank Label, etc) or any combination of the above; Xerxes intended it to mean "host". Price I don't feel real strong about one way or the other. As a side note, Xerxes would, in fact, like help updating his templates. I only vaguely understand WP:QIF. Nifboy 00:48, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have much opinion one way or the other, either, but it's kind of a pain in the butt having to deal with two different infobox formats.  I wish I could help more with the templates, but I'm pretty clueless about the nuts and bolts.  Perhaps they should update to a more recent version of MediaWiki, but since Wikipedia has deprecated QIF in favor of #if (i.e., they exchanged one form of gobbledigook with another kind the code geeks think is more elegant), that might not be so simple. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 01:28, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating the infobox? 

message: I've just created Portal:Internet, please contribute! Computerjoe's talk 16:24, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Internet Portal 

message: Over the past week or two I've transferred hundreds of webcomics, both current and deleted, over to Comixpedia.  While I'm sure there are dozens of webcomics we don't know about hidden in the dark recesses of Wikipedia, for the ones we do know about, they're now represented over there.  If you have any particular articles you keep track of, it'd be cool if you would occasionally update their Comixpedia counterparts.  If you do, however, there are a few things to keep in mind:
*Their infobox has more fields.  Currently, those are: "rss=", "format=", "publisher=", and "cost=".  Furthermore, their infobox is fragile, so you can't leave any fields out.  It's okay if the fields are blank, but they do have to be there.  Also, the first line of the Infobox should be: {{Infobox webcomic| .  Notice the small "w" and the pipe ( | ); both are required. Right now there are a bunch of articles with broken infoboxes, but those are slowly getting fixed.
* Their categories are different.  The list is available at Comixpedia:List of Categories.
* They have a few different templates.  Use  instead of .  Also add  to any documents from Wikipedia you transfer over.  This is for GFDL compliance.  
* Articles transferred over will have lots of redlinks in them.  You can blue them back up by prepending a "Wikipedia: to them (e.g., foo becomes Wikipedia:foo).
*They're using an old version of MediaWiki, so not everything works over there.  In addition to the fragile Infobox, the new references method doesn't work.  You can still use the old one, though. 
*They don't really have a good place for centralized discussion on-wiki at the moment.  The Comixpedia folk prefer to use their forum, but some people (myself included) are having trouble getting their forum accounts activated.  There's some kind of email hold-up, I think.
Anyway, have at it.  Personally, I'm going to take a breather.  When you start having dreams about transwiki'ing webcomics, you know it's time to take a break. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 23:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Updating Comixpedia 

message: I just locked this article down and am looking for some advice.  I looked at Gallagher's article and noticed there was a section lambasting him over some suggestive artwork he'd done in the past.  It was a blatant WP:LIVING violation, so I reverted it.  When I discovered there was an edit war going on over it, I also protected the article.  So now I'm in the hotseat as the admin who made everybody get out of the pool.  I don't read Megatokyo, and I'd rather not have to go digging through /b/ of all things to find out just what the hell is going on.  Can anyone here give me a 30 second summary?  I'd be much obliged. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 00:23, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Fred Gallagher]] 

message: Somewhat similar to the Fred Gallagher situation above, User:Xuanwu is inserting unreliable/POV/Vanity information about how he got banned from a webcomics forum into the Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki article. I've reverted it twice, but others may want to keep it on their watch lists as well. I'm also open to any suggestions on how to encourage editors to follow WP:V. -- Dragonfiend 21:16, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vanity and POV edits to [[Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki]] 

message: CyberSkull modified  so it can include WP:1.0-style assessments.  You can assign specific classes by adding |class=foo to the template, where "foo" is one of the following:
* FA (:Category:FA-Class webcomic articles)
* A (:Category:A-Class webcomic articles)
* GA (:Category:GA-Class webcomic articles)
* B (:Category:B-Class webcomic articles)
* Start (:Category:Start-Class webcomic articles)
* Stub (:Category:Stub-Class webcomic articles)
So, the template would look something like: 
FA and GA stand for feature and good articles, respectively, and have to go through the process to qualify.  The others are more or less value judgements.  The guidelines are available at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.  We've got tons of stub and start class articles, some Bs, but I doubt we've got anything that's ready for an A.  I've made some assignments, mostly stubs and articles I think are pretty strong, but there's a lot in-between.  The articles that haven't been assessed yet are in :Category:Unassessed webcomic articles.  I guess now would be about time to do the Worklist. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 00:09, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'll create some basics at Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics/Assesment. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 09:39, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay.  I'm working on assigning classes, but I welcome oversight and assistance.  (*beg* *beg*)  In fact, if you think I'm being a double dumbass in my grading, by all means tell correct me.  It's virtually impossible to piss me off. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 22:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Category:Unknown-importance webcomic articles has been created and populated! Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 08:58, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessments 

message: I've had to lock down Tim Buckley's article yet again.  It's the same old story: people bitching about the Warcraft thing and his various forum policies.  I had to protect it because the material had been reverted several times.  I'm really getting sick of this, and am thinking about turning the article into a redirect. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 21:05, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tim Buckley...again 

message: Now that we've got preliminary assessments for all our webcomic articles, perhaps it's time to retire the Expand, Good, and Kick Ass subpages.  They're mostly out of date and the WP:1.0 stuff is probably going to be easier to maintain.  We might also want to take the opportunity to revamp the project page itself.  Perhaps we could look at the other WikiProject to get some ideas? –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 18:40, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-working the project page? 

message: I noticed that in the WikiProject, the article for Newshounds has been rated as being kick ass. However, the article itself has only been given Start class. I don't understand why, the article has been referenced, includes images, storylines, books and external links. ISD 19:37, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That was just a quick assessment by me most likely. If it is higher quality list it on the assessment page with the appropriate tags. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:49, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newshounds Class rating 

message: This article is in dire need of help.  It's about the #1 MMORPG, hosted on Gamespy, talked about by Blizzard itself, and recently the author linked to our document on it.  Thus it gets a lot of attention from newbies, resulting in a deeply pathological article filled to the brim with cruft, speculation, and self-reference.  It needs to be hacked down and beaten into shape, but right now I don't have much Wiki-time to devote to it.  If you'd like to take a stab at it, be my guest.  If the fanboys howl at you for it, let me know and I'll read them the riot act. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 17:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And if anybody questions why I stripped almost a hundred "reference" links out of Penny Arcade (comic), that article is a perfect example of why. I tried reading it, and all I could focus on was numbers. Nifboy 22:24, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth]] 

message: I have just voted on a webcomic AfD. As part of the process I read through recent discussions on this project talk page. It was interesting to note that the members of the project have been through a process of attempting to formulate rules on deciding which webcomics were notable and appear to have been unable to reach a consensus - though, under strong guidance from Abe Dashiell, there seems to be a positive movement toward shifting webcomic stubs from Wiki onto Comixpedia.org. Unfortunately, the general attitude then is to leave the AfD process to clear away any mess. I would have hoped that members of the project would have taken more responsibility for their own area of interest and made positive decisions themselves as to which articles are worth keeping and which are not. Stub articles on topics of specialised interest, such as webcomics, are prime candidates for listing on AfD. Sometimes such stubs need time to attract the right editors and grow. Might it be worth considering having an article page on, say - Minor webcomics, and move stubs onto this page where they can be worked on for a longer period of time, and where they are less at risk from being deleted. Or are there too many such stubs for such a page to be workable?  SilkTork 08:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points. I suppose the system is unfolding as it should. SilkTork 12:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles for deletion 

message: Quick question: how is the rating of a webcomic determined for the purpose of including it in the infobox? I've seen the rating for 8-Bit Theater removed and reinstated over the last few days, which got me to wonder about rating, specifically if we should rely on any official information or just go by feeling (the latter not seeming very scientific to me). --R. Wolff 19:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * Yeah, I thought so. Thanks. --R. Wolff 06:44, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ratings 

message: A while back, someone added a WikiProject Webcomics infobox to Talk:Realms of Ishikaze, rating it as Start-class.  I've worked some more on the article since then, and I'd like to get it re-rated.  I'd like to get it to the point of being a B-class article or better; if it doesn't meet those criteria now, can someone tell me why so that I can make the appropriate changes?  Where do I submit this? --ComputerSherpa 22:28, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Getting an article looked at 

message: Several people, including an anonymous editor who is very likely Sean Howard himself, are warring over the content of this article.  Apparently Howard doesn't like Wikipedia and the article is frequently being edited to reflect this opinion.  Unfortunately, it's being done in an excessively self-referential way.  His detractors have also edited the article to insult him.  Unfortunately, right now I don't have time to sort through this and come up with a good solution.  Since Howard has said he doesn't like the fact he has an article, perhaps a redirect of some kind would be in order, but I doubt an AfD would succeed.  If anyone more familiar with the situation could lend a hand, I'd appreciate it. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 12:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Sean Howard (American webcomic artist)]] 

message: Could someone check the history of the deleted copy of Zap! (webcomic)? I'm not sure, but it may have been messed up prior to it's prod. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 10:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Zap!'' 

message: Could someone take a look at the article to see if it can be elevated to B-class?  It's much more cohesive than it was when Abe marked it as Start-class, but it still needs a bit of work, notably in citations.
Would it suffice to have the site's creator verify the accuracy of the information, inasfar as creating a primary source?  I've had a hard time finding solid sources for much of the text due to the fact that the site's been wiped about three times since it was founded.--RadariG 19:14, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[DrunkDuck]] 

message: About a year ago I rescued The Jar from deletion, making it a modest one-paragraph article backed up by a reference to the Internet Archive version of its archives (the original archives were taken offline). Since then a whole bunch of additional material was added, but unfortunately no further references were provided in the process. It's a bit tricky coming up with references for a webcomic whose main archives have been deleted and whose Internet Archive records are incomplete, I don't suppose there's anyone here who's familiar with it who knows of some sources that can be used? The article may be going back up for deletion again soon, the only alternative might be to trim it back down to the one-paragraph version I threw together originally. Bryan 03:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Call for references on "The Jar"