Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Webcomics/Archive 1

This is an archive of earlier discussions from Wikipedia talk:Wikiproject Webcomics.

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Project vs. Policy

We already have web comic inclusion guidelines at Wikipedia:Web comics. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:30, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That page is a policy proposal about webcomics. This page is a project to write articles about webcomics. They serve different roles. Factitious 08:26, Nov 6, 2004 (UTC)

Further, the web comic inclusion guidelines do not conflict with the goals of this wikiproject, and this wikiproject does not conflict with the spirit of the inclusion guidelines. Having set a broad set of guidelines for including webcomics in Wikipedia, we now must begin to shape, develop and grow the articles that fall within those guidelines. We will want to consider adjusting the project guidelines to better reflect policy, but I don't think there was any intent to supersede policy with this project.--Eric Burns 15:51, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course not, but I got the impression that there was a lack of awareness of their existence. -- Cyrius|✎ 20:55, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As the writer of two projects currently up for revision and editor of several more, I'm definitely interested in this. It's my understanding that personal interest prevents me from contributing material directly, but I'll send you as many third parties as I can.

However, I'm a bit confused about policy here. Some of the comics on Websnark's daily trawl do not yet have 100 strips to their credit. I reluctantly admit that this even includes "Ascent" and "Penny and Aggie," though the latter is closing on that number fast. So are 100 strips a requirement for a Wikipedia entry, or is it an "either-or" deal (EITHER 100 strips OR a Websnark recommendation)?

And finally, "Rip and Terri" should be spelled "Rip and Teri."

At Wikipedia:Web comics, Eric proposed an alternate criteria of a 33 week run, which is a bit more fair for the weekly strips. In any case, I think the key concept here is, again agreeing with Eric, "signifigance" and not "popularity." If a webcomic is doing somthing interesting or well such that people who are not the creator or someone immediately associated with the creator is inclined to write an article on it, that itself is a fairly good inclusion test. Snowspinner 17:30, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)

Actually, in the proposal, I suggested a strip would need both 100 strips and a 33 week run, not either/or. To be honest, even as a fan for Ascent and Penny and Aggie, neither one of them has developed to the point where I think inclusion would be warranted. I think that Ascent will develop that depth long before, well, 2 years, which is what would be required to hit 100 strips in their weekly model, so perhaps my counterproposal should be modified to reflect the needs of weekly strips. Penny and Aggie needs a little more time before I'd really think an encyclopedic entry would be warranted. (Though Lagacé, as a Lulu award winner and the creator of Cool Cat Studio, should likely have a Wikipedia mention, and T. Campbell himself certainly has shown good reason for one.) --Eric Burns 22:04, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I do think we need to give a break to weekly strips, on the one hand. On the other, though, I think in the end webcomics need to be done on a case by case basis. For example, if Bill Watterson were to suddenly decide to do a webcomic, I think that would be worthy of inclusion on strip one. (To use an extreme example). I think a comic that gets high profile notice fast, or is linked to in some prominant places (Websnark alone not being enough) are worthy of inclusion. I think a comic that's, well, just plain interesting and that has a lot that can be said about it is worthy of inclusion. The 33 week or 100 strip or Alexa ranking tests are all good starts on determining it, but they're only things that, to me, mean a comic is worthy of inclusion. I don't think we have or need rules on what's automatically to be excluded. Snowspinner 00:48, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

We need to take into account how much strip-size differs between comics. One hundred comicbook-page strips will have a lot more art and story than one hundred newspaper-slot strips. Tim J Tylor 01:16, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

There are some no-longer-updating webcomics with less than 100 strips that might still be considered notable. I'm thinking of Sylvan Migdal's Mnemesis, the completed story he did before starting Ascent. It only goes to 84 pages, but I'd say it's a pretty memorable comic and I've seen it mentioned and commented on — Tim J Tylor 16:12, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Procedure

What's the best thing to do once you've written a full article on any of the comics in the "articles needed" list? Should it go to the "expansion list" for criticism, or straight into the third boast-list, or should you just remove it from "articles needed" and add it to the List of webcomics? Tim J Tylor 12:26, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Depends on how good you think the article is. If you think you've written a full article, go ahead and put it on the done list. Snowspinner 22:42, Nov 15, 2004 (UTC)

Stubs

If you come across (or write) an article on a web comic that seems to be overly short or missing important information, and you can't expand it yourself, use the {{webcomic-stub}} stub notice.

If you're looking for articles that need expansion, go to Category:Web comics stubs: it'll list all of the articles with the webcomic-stub notice on them. — Gwalla | Talk 03:36, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How much is too much?

I'm in favor of explaining webcomics, but I wonder how much is too much.

The Irritability page was just edited by an anonymous user who added quite a bit of detail to each character writeup - this kind of obsessive detail seems a little unseemly, and not really encyclopedic anymore. I didn't want to revert it without some sort of consensus about where the line should be drawn. Is Megatokyo a good model? DenisMoskowitz 21:39, 2004 Nov 24 (UTC)

• Megatokyo is a good model, although I think it covers the forum in too much detail. I don't think Irritability has been expanded to much, but the style it's written in is certainly unencyclopedic in tone, and the format is a mess. — Gwalla | Talk 02:18, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Maybe I'll just clean it up some then. DenisMoskowitz 20:09, 2004 Nov 25 (UTC)
• Is Kevin and Kell too much? That thing is absurdly huge. ;) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 21:21, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Yeah, Kevin and Kell looks excessive. An in-depth description of the continuity isn't really warranted, especially since the comic is primarily gag-oriented and overall plot isn't particularly relevant to many installments. — Gwalla | Talk 02:07, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

What is a "strip"?

Warning: Blatantly self-interested query follows
Okay. I have a webcomic: Scrolling Blackout. It's been around for several months. Problem is, I don't quite know what would qualify as a "strip": it's not quite a conventional layout, it's more of a 'moving window' of the last six panels. This makes the layout oh-so-easy, but presents a unique problem. Right now, I only have 150 panels. And, as mentioned on the project page, any webcomic with an archive of 100 strips or more should get an article.

So, I'll ask for opinions: Do you think that a conversion ratio of 3 panels => 1 strip reasonable? Could you take a look and tell me what you think? (Yes, go look at the pretty webcomic, mwuahahaa :)

(Note also: I have no plans to add my webcomic to Wikipedia. Ever. Maybe get someone else to do it, sure, but not to add it myself. I've dealt with too many vanity articles. :) -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 21:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Most comic strips are four panels long, so a 4:1 panel to "strip" ratio seems reasonable. On the other hand, since the visible strip is six panels long in your case, a case could be made that a 6:1 ratio is more appropriate. I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. ;) — Gwalla | Talk 04:43, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What is a "web comic"?

As I posted in the Talk:Webcomic discussion... We need some clarification here. A change was just made to the webcomic entry which now implies that a comic being published via Usenet/FTP is the "first webcomic". Is webcomic to include all protocols of distribution (ie, any comic distrubted on the internet in any format/protocol) or is it going to be limited to comics published excusively on the World Wid Web as a web page? If we're going to go the "any" route, then why not include many of the furry, anime, and computer joke one-offs that we're posted to the Compuserve image groups in the mid-80's, which ended up making to ftp/usnet?--bcRIPster 07:18, 17 Jul 2005 (MST)

I agree but we need concrete dates. Perhaps a mention of the debate over the first actual webcomic itself should be mentioned in the entry? -- kainee 129.21.190.25 22:43, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Webcomics and their place in the comics world

There's a WikiProject comics that is pretty active. I think it'd be a good idea for this project to join theirs as a sub-project: the increased visibility and opportunities for closer collaboration could be useful. Note that Wikipedia:WikiProject Comic strips is a subproject, so we're not talking about a "superhero comic books only, all others need not apply" group here. — Gwalla | Talk 04:43, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Disambiguation Guidelines

I just noticed that Goats had (rightly) been deleted from the List of Web comics page, where it had been happily residing for ages, until someone noticed that Goats redirected to an article about, well, goats, and not to an article about Jon Rosenberg's comic strip. So they changed the link to Goats (webcomic) which, surprise, surprise, did not exist yet, and, boom!, it was gone.

For the time being, I moved it here, to the WikiProject Webcomics page; but I got curious about whether any of the other web comics with common names might have had the same thing happen to them, so I did a quick check. While Goats appeared to be the lone example, I noticed that there doesn't seem to be any consistency in the form the disambiguations take: We have Avalon (web comic) but Copper (comic) and Freefall (webcomic). Sometimes "web comic" is two words, sometimes one; and sometimes, simply "comic" is used.

Any ideas on how to fix this, or whether it should even be bothered with? Does consistency matter at all? --Ray Radlein 05:15, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

You have a point. In my experience, the compound word "webcomic" is used most often, although people sometimes use the term "online comic" when they want to sound less informal (or when they want to distinguish between "true webcomics" made speificially for the web and comics that were written for print but are also available online). "Web comic" is rare. And yes, we should try to be consistent in article naming, but that's generally easy to fix. — Gwalla | Talk 23:31, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I posted a shorter version of this over at Wikipedia talk:Web comics as well, and noticed, while I was composing it, that I myself tend to waver uncertainly between using "web comic" and "webcomic." I have yet to discern the algorithm at work in the deeper recesses of my mind which determines which form I will use, however. :-) (suspicion: whichever form the person I am replying to has used; although this doesn't help me figure out which form I will use when I'm not replying to anyone) --Ray Radlein 23:56, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Articles we "need"

Could somebody comb through that list and check to see if any of those don't meet the criteria for inclusion? I suspect there are several listed there that don't merit articles yet. — Gwalla | Talk 23:46, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I know that all of the ones I have added -- including the redlined ones I have rescued from the "List of..." page -- have met the WikiProject inclusion criteria, because I have checked (a couple of those "rescued" comics had very poorly organized archives, making that unbelievably painful, too). That takes care of probably about half of the list right there. :-) I suppose I should go to the history page and successively diff the current version against my various additions to see who might still need to be checked (which reminds me -- one web comic I just started reading recently is coming up fast on the 100 mark... I just wish I could remember which one). --Ray Radlein 23:56, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

Webcomics project notice

The new template {{webcomicsproj}} is a notice that an article is part of this WikiProject: {{webcomicsproj}} If you start a new article, or cleanup/expand and existing article, on a webcomic or webcartoonist, it'd be a good idea to add it to the corresponding talk page (not the article itself). — Gwalla | Talk 21:39, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC) I've added this to the front page in the Template section. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:47, 2005 August 2 (UTC)

WikiProject format

Does anyone else think we should fix up the project page to conform to the standard format for WikiProjects? — Gwalla | Talk 21:30, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Shortpacked! and the Willis continuum

Perhaps Roomies (comic) and It's Walky! should be merged into David Willis. By treating it as a single overarching series, Shortpacked would have a place in the article without itself having to meet the guidelines, since the meta-series does. It may also result in less duplicate information (like characters). Just a thought. — Gwalla | Talk 23:25, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I absolutely think that any Shortpacked! info should go in the main It's Walky! article for the time being; that's for sure.

So Roomies and It's Walky! have different articles? Interesting. I never checked. I guess coming in so long after the launch of It's Walky!, I never actually thought of them as separate series.--Ray Radlein 01:28, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

I split the two when Roomies started up again. As for the situaton with Shortpacked, I'd say to give it its own (stub) article now. It may not qualify for its own article yet, but barring a disaster on the order of DW dropping dead, it's certain to make it. --Carnildo 03:08, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A webcomic on VfD

See Disturbing Indeed and the associated VfD page, Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Disturbing_Indeed.

Courtland 05:55, 2005 Apr 6 (UTC)

Webcomic stubs need clean-up

There is some serious vain/advert/non-notable material there, some of it for years. So I request the following articles from Category:Web comics stubs to be nominated for deletion :

• Digital War
• Four panels of fun
• George Comics
• Kick in the head
• Melleck Xaos
• Mitch Clem
• Our Home Planet
• Titan Aresta
• WoT now?

There might be more to be added. - Harg 8:06, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

I was starting to add webcomic stubs to the "Articles that need lots of expansion" and saw a lot of stubs that probably needed to be deleted. Should there be a "Articles in need of deletion" category on the project page? Dragonfiend 17:22, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

That's not a bad idea. --DNicholls 04:16, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

This Comic Sucks

Is comic of any interest, or should it go up for vfd?--nixie 02:57, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

134 strips, over the course of three years, two months, with an unknown amount of filler. Alexa rank of only 750,000. Last update a month ago. --Carnildo 05:30, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

This comic has been up for three years...alot of which did have activity. But it has been steadily updating once a week with a lot of regularity for the last year. Alexa rank is in the 400,000~ range...yet its been deleted now. It had been recreated with alot of information...but the recreation got deleted on the basis of the first deletion (a basis that is almost entirely inaccurate at this present time). This is also discussed on the discussion page for the deleted entry.

Infobox

Is there an infobox template to add to the articles? CyberSkull 23:47, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)

I started making an infobox for webcomics: User:CyberSkull/Template:Infobox_webcomic. Please tell me what you think! ~ CyberSkull 08:09, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

To see it in use in an article, look at VG Cats. CyberSkull 08:35, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to post the proposed syntax:

{{Infobox webcomic| <!-- Part of [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Webcomics]] -->
| title = 
| image = 
| caption = 
| author = 
| url = 
| status = 
| began = 
| ended =
| genre = 
| ratings = 
}}

CyberSkull 09:15, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

What's with the "ratings" parameter? We don't even add ratings to movie articles, and movies at least have an official ratings authority. — Gwalla | Talk 23:35, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I tossed that in because some comics I've seen have a voluntary content rating on them. CyberSkull 01:27, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

Ratings are now an appear if defined function. ~ CyberSkull 06:39, 2005 Jun 19 (UTC)

The Image and Caption parameters are now optional Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 09:56, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

Here is a list of everything that uses this template: Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Infobox_webcomic ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 21:10, 2005 July 13 (UTC)

I'd like to move to include this in the project (at which point it will be moved to a better namespace). However, I don't know how to set up a vote. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 2005 July 6 21:30 (UTC)

I've moved it to Template:Infobox webcomic & removed the prototype notice. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 04:57, 2005 July 12 (UTC)

For an example on the main page, what web comic should be used? ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 22:18, 2005 July 13 (UTC)

I've posted an example on the main page using VG Cats. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:49, 2005 August 2 (UTC)

WWW Balloon

Because I find my obsession growing (unhealthily?), I've decided to make a nice PNG version of the WWW Speech balloon you guys use in the project template. I hope you like it (no disrespect intended towards the author of the original)! CyberSkull 09:10, 2005 Jun 18 (UTC)

Questionable inclusion

Looks like Dethboy was just put on the list by 71.240.42.199, which IP's entire actions are inserting Dethboy, and I was wondering if it's valid. It has well over 100 comics listed in its archive, but all Alexa says is "No Data" and "Not in the top 100,000". I would think that precludes the comic, but I wanted to make sure I've got this straight. For the record, it was rv'd from the list of webcomcis. --DNicholls 07:26, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

Articles we need

These could probably do with some discussion. Without oversight, it's more of an "articles some people want" than an "articles we need" list. For example, do we really need a "webcomics genres" article? That sounds more like a section in the main webcomic article to me (beyond "sprite comics", which is only sort of a genre, there really aren't any genres specific to webcomics). And it'd be kind of silly for an article to be created because it's on this list only to get sent to VfD. — Gwalla | Talk 05:31, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

Last Cereal and Untitled.gif

These two comics, recently added, meet the 100 strip criterion, but there's also the notability criterion to consider. Last Cereal doesn't get an Alexa rating, and untitled.gif is ranked 4,177,629, with no recoreded data. The short of it is: under the Alexa guidelines, they don't count. However, there are notable comics that don't, such as some KSpot comics. So, if someone can give a good reason for them being exempted the Alexa criterion, they should stay; if not, they'll need to be deleted.--DNicholls 23:46, 29 July 2005 (UTC)