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Proposal for new guidelines for Webcomics

As we know, there has been a lot of controversy over webcomics on Wikipedia, specifically deletion of said articles. Dozens of webcomics have been deleted in the past few months, and even some popular ones have been AfDed (such as Checkerboard Nightmare and even Megatokyo). Additionally, it is known that it is difficult to verify articles for webcomics. Hence, I introduce the WP:WEBCOMIC standard. Basically, it works as follows.

1) ANY webcomic that has been around for six months and has enough activity, such as:

  1. 120 comics in six months for a daily. 
  2. 20 comics in six months for a weekly, or sporadic update.
  3. 4 comics in six months for a monthly, would be eligible.

This includes Comic Genesis and Drunk Duck comics, as examples.

2) To verify the content (such as info about archives), one would go to the site and look through the site's content. If the article refers to a forum, it should have at least 20 posts in a three month period (as webcomic forums are notoriously empty) edit: that are not all by the author. The number of forum goers is to verify if the forum is popular enough to qualify as a decent source.

3) For inactivity of the comic (not the article) (after a three month period), the article would be moved to the Inactive Webcomics list, where after six more months, it would become an AfD or PROD.

4) Completed webcomics would go in the Complete Webcomics list.

5) Articles that need cleanup would be Marked for Cleanup, as now.

6) You can write your own article, as long as it isn't excessively promotional. This means that it's okay to talk about your characters and your comic's history, but it isn't okay to say it's the best webcomic ever or "Go visit my forums". You are allowed to say what's improved over the beginning of the comic, if you'd like.

And that's all! A very simple standard for webcomics, that would put an end to the fighting that runs rampant in AfD pages with webcomics! Exact numbers can change depending on community discussion, but there's the basic standard, as I post it. --Videowizard2006 06:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Could you define inactivity? Do you mean that if an article hasn't been edited in 6 months or the comic hasn't been updated in 6 months? There are many notable comics that are concluded or on hiatus that could be considered inactive. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 07:20, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I feel the need to point out the Megatokyo AfD was proposed by an editor who was all, like, "Well if you're going to delete Checkerboard Nightmare, why not delete all webcomics, starting with Megatokyo!" and was speedily kept. But as regards the proposal, my only question is, "what does the number of forum members verify?" Nifboy 07:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The number of forum members (and posts) defines its popularity. If it only has, say, 10 posts and two members, it's not a good source. Also, inactivity is if the comic hasn't been updated, not the article. However, the writer of the article should be notified of any decision. --Videowizard2006 08:15, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

• I will not support any proposal that seeks to remove articles because their parent comics have concluded or gone on hiatus. Theoretically, we have articles on webcomics that have made some kind of impact during their history. Now, notability is a tough issue when it comes to webcomics, and no guideline will make everyone happy, but absolutely notability should not rely on a comic being current. Personally, I'm fairly happy with the current WP:WEB. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 15:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Except: 4) Completed webcomics would go in the Complete Webcomics list. Comics that have concluded will not be at risk of removal, and I'm kind of on the fence about ones on hiatus. Sometimes, the comic goes on hiatus, and it's one of the pioneers (first sprite comic, first RPG comic, first 3D comic, etc). Those would be safe. I actually wouldn't expect to have to remove any articles for webcomics on hiatus unless Wikipedia is running low on space. Until then, the articles are safe. --Videowizard2006 23:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:WEB

I'd urge anyone thinking of making a "webcomic specific" guideline to mosey over to wp:web and have a chat there. This has been hashed out to the point of being taken to arbitration. All of the points raised above have been discussed and many times.

• Inclusion based on "has X number of comics over Y months" has been rejected - this is a sub-set of the "it exists thus is encyclopedic" argument. Almost no one will buy into this.
• Verifying the contents ourselves - this would amount to original research. Wikipedia is a tertiary and secondary source, so unless someone else looks through the archive and prints their findings, we can't include it.
• Number of forum posts are not only original research, they are impossible to verify as valid. It's well known that Wikipedia entries produce a large percentage of hits for listed webcomics, so if I want my wedcomic in all I have to do is send a sock army to the forum?
• Inactivity in most cases does not relate to encyclopedic nature. Either something is a valid entry and will continue to be so for considerably longer than six months or it shouldn't have been inlcuded in the first place.

A simpler way to end the "fighting" on webcomic AfDs would be for people to stop making entries on completely non-notable webcomics. Put them on comixpedia, and leave Wikipedia for things that have been mentioned in multiple reliable sources per the guideline.
brenneman^{T}{L} 23:37, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that my conviction that several people with no sense of what Wikipedia policies and guidelines actually mean have now successfully rammed through their misinterpretations and are now trying to use them as a hammer to discourage contributors.

Wait, no, I'm horribly dismayed, and frankly appalled to see you doing this even after an arbitration case on the subject. Or did you take that as some sort of blanket endorsement of your behavior?

As for people who are not Aaron, please feel free to contribute high-quality articles on any subject you feel is important and that Wikipedia's coverage is lacking in. And if Aaron or anyone else decides to give you shit about it, stop by my talk page and I'll see what I can do to help you out. Phil Sandifer 23:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't Aaron warned in that case to seek consensus before dicking around with policy like this? --Tony Sidaway 23:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Stupidity removed. brenneman^{T}{L} 01:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Apologies to everyone who is being nice, they are of course correct. - brenneman^{T}{L} 02:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi! As a non-party but interested observer of the Webcomics arbcom case, I feel perfectly free to say this: Snowspinner, the fact that you equate "discussing things calmly on a talk page" with "giving people shit" is exactly why, in my opinion, the Arbcom utterly rejected most of the stupid remedies you proposed. Now, if perhaps those of you who were actually cautioned by the Arbcom to remain civil could realize that that caution did not just apply to the other guys, the rest of us will be able to get on with building an encyclopedia. Thanks! Nandesuka 12:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I've put some of my thoughts on the matter here. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 13:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Stop it. All of you.

It seems none of you are being civil at this point. Except you, videowizard, who was neither involved in this last time nor explicitly told by ArbCom to be nice. Nifboy 02:00, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I was wondering when hostilities would resurface. No surprises here. Nifboy 00:03, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I was hoping that they wouldn't. And stopped looking at the policy pages in question for a few months in order to facillitate that. Apparently what happened was that, absent any actual opposition, exactly what I was afraid of happened. Phil Sandifer 00:08, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Hi all. We are seeing an increase in the number of webcomics showing up on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion and it is hard to determine which ones we should keep and which ones we should delete. Is there some general consensus in the Webcomics Wikiproject community as to what makes a webcomic notable? Frequency of update, readership, quality, search engine ranking, etc.? Thanks. Monkeyman^(talk) 00:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

In a word, no. For the most part, we're leaving that up to the AfD masses. If you see anything that should definitely be kept get deleted, though, please let me know - I've not been following webcomics AfDs because, frankly, they depress the hell out of me. Phil Sandifer 00:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If you see anything that should definitely be kept get deleted. This is the problem though. You're relying on shlubs like me (who know very little about webcomics) to determine if a particular webcomic is notable. Some criteria would be very helpful to AfDers and would cut down on frustrations the webcomic community has with AfDers.

What are the most recognized and popular webcomics out there? What do they all have in commmon? Are they all updated at least weekly? Have they all been around for at least a year? Do they have a search engine ranking of at least X? There must be something all of these have in common. We can use this as a baseline for what is encyclopedic. Monkeyman^(talk) 14:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

This has been done to death on the WP:WEB talk page. We've examined Alexa rank, editors, selection boards, academic journals, vanity presses, and google page rank. I've compiled long lists of comics and we've gone down them ticking offwhat fits what criterion, looking at what was deleted in afd, what was afd-ed twice in and kept after being recreated three times, what was nominated three times and kept every time, and probably one hundred other things that I can't recall. The current standards at wp:web actually include everything that had consensus as an important webcomic. If a webcomic has not won an award, been reviewed in wired or salon, or had a print run, we're usually left with one person saying "it's notable because I say it is!" - brenneman^{T}{L} 23:05, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

You know, these discussions would go better if you limited yourself to saying true things. Phil Sandifer 23:18, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• Please do point out any specific errors I may have made so that I may correct them poste-haste.
  brenneman^{T}{L} 23:41, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Best strike out the comment above in full, then. Phil Sandifer 00:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is that any different from simply saying "You're entirely wrong"? The latter is at least far less vague, even if it doesn't provide any better an explanation. Nifboy 00:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not really very different, no. Phil Sandifer 00:37, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't even know who consists of the "webcomics wikiproject community" anymore. Nifboy 01:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

As I've said, I didn't realize that it was notable for something to be the first of something (first sprite comic, first 3D comic, etc) when I wrote my article. With the November 2000 date, it's the earliest comic based on an RPG Maker creation, the next closest is an obscure comic in 2001 that no longer is published (still making Dragon Kingdoms the longest running). And there are RPG Maker based comics today, one of which is Spritescape Fantasy. Is it impossible, that maybe at least someone started out on an RPG Maker based comic, from reading mine? Because I find it hard to believe that being first out there isn't notable. And I agree with Snowspinner about all these AfD's being depressing (there's SIXTEEN comics, not counting mine that have articles on the list!) --Videowizard2006 01:26, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd just as soon get rid of Neglected Mario Characters (the first sprite comic), but that's just me being biased. In your particular instance I'd say that, since comics based on RPG Maker aren't anywhere near as notorious as sprite comics in general, you have a much weaker case. Nifboy 01:50, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

As I'd expect, since there are few RPG Maker based comics. However, there are also few 3D based comics, too. And that does have an example (no matter how much people try to edit it out), so why not this? --Videowizard2006 02:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

The current spate of webcomics on AfD is getting very tiresome. The snarkiness of some of the voters needs to stop, and blitzes like these are extremely offputting to newcomers. I appreciate the sentiments of those who feel they are just cleaning house, but especially when they come in torrents like this, it does more harm than good. They really need to start going to WP:PROD first, too. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 02:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Note I've taken of my idiot hat off.I agree about multiple nominations, and have left a note on the nominator's talk page saying so. My nomination was just an unhappy coincidence, not part of some pogrom. The only way that I can that PROD would help is that it would slide "under the radar" as it were, which hardly seems the point. Clearly if people are going to say "keep everything that has 100 strips" they'd removed any prod tag that they saw? - brenneman^{T}{L} 02:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

• My experience is that prod is working as intended. I've made a few nominations myself, and for the most part the tags stay when they should. This is even after I notify the articles' original authors . Admittedly, PROD won't always work -- it wouldn't have been a good idea for Stubble, for example -- but for some of the others it's a good first step. It's a more relaxed, less confrontational process, and I don't think it's any more under the radar than AfD itself is. For the record, we try to keep track of deletion nominations here on the WikiProject, and those include prods, too. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 02:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
• Addendum: Also for the record, we don't list the deletions here just so we can all pile on and vote keep. Dragonfiend is a project member, yet usually votes delete, after all. Even though I classify myself as an inclusionist, I usually don't vote at all unless I strongly feel an AfD was made in error. I've even voted delete a few times. The deletion section is just another way for us to keep track of the comings and goings of webcomic-related articles, like the templates, categories and list do. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 03:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • While we're putting stuff on record: I hadn't ascribed that motive at all. The fact that things are listed when they get the *prod* would have made that clear to anyone who was failing to assume good faith. ^_^
    brenneman^{T}{L} 04:11, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I echo Nifboy's sentiment. Nandesuka 12:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

"Articles we need" on the main page

This section seems to me to be ignoring the massive number of deleted articles listed lower down. How many of these would pass the website inclusion guidelines?
brenneman^{T}{L} 00:38, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

There are five Keenspot strips on the list: Andiewear, Everything Jake, Help Desk, Hound's Home, and Lost & Found. The rest would need to be justified individually. Nifboy 02:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I changed the section header to "Articles we don't have" -- that's at least factual, while "need" was debatable. I think a short note on why we might need each article might make this section more useful (such as Nifboy started to provide for a few above). Although if we're going to go to the trouble to explain why individual webcomics ought to have encyclopedia articles then we might just as well create stub articles on them. Or redirects to the Keenspot article or something. Not that I think every comic on Keenspot ought to have an article -- there have been some pretty unexceptional comics on Keenspot over the years. -- Dragonfiend 02:40, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

We've never hashed out the question of Keenspot with regard to inclusion criterion, either. While I'd shy away from making any further "notes" on wp:web, I do think that this deserves more examination. - brenneman^{T}{L} 03:41, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

For me, Keenspot is generally "good enough" for inclusion. The general concensus seemed to be that it was a huge step towards notability even if it wasn't guaranteed. The absolute worst Keenspot strip is Look what I Brought Home, one of Keenspot's earliest members, and I'm still on the fence on that. Nifboy 04:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• It's stretching a long ways back in my memory here, but have we tried laying the existing guidelines next to the keenspot list? I thought (as I intimated above) that we'd found in most cases there did exist some outside chatter about the comic? Having a non-trivial print run seemed to be common, if I recall correctly... brenneman^{T}{L} 04:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Not Keenspot specifically, no. The sample list had a few Keenspot strips that also passed because of other criteria. I know at one point or another I (incorrectly) cited Elf Only Inn as the absolute low point for Keenspot strips, and inferred that if that was going to stay then the vast majority of Keenspot also stays. Nifboy 05:38, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

• The Needed, Expand, Good, and Kick Ass sections could all use some updating and house cleaning. It'd be useful if the the latter three reflected the contents of the list of webcomics, focusing in this case on article quality rather than notability. "Expand" should probably become "Improve", since it includes the poorly written and crufty as well as the stubs. As far as the "Needed" section, I dunno. If people want to request articles for comics that are likely to be challenged, we're not going to be able to stop them, but a reminder to look over WP:WEB may be in order. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 06:18, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
  • It might be worthwhile to set up a worklist. It'd certainly help with the WP:1.0 efforts and/or set up a WebComics WikiReader. Nifboy 06:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:Webcomics of Ukraine

Should we categorize by country? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 03:24, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Comixpedia does it, but I don't think it's very effective. Also note Megatokyo. Nifboy 04:33, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

• Categorizing by country probably isn't worth the effort. In many cases it's hard to verify, and often it isn't even relevant. Categorizing by a comic's original language may be useful, though. If we go that route, though, lets not create a category for English-language strips; since this is en, that should be assumed unless otherwise mentioned. Actually, I have a question about categories in general. We've got a number of subcategories now (e.g., Category:Sprite webcomics, Category:Horror webcomics, etc.). Should webcomics be in both the main Category:Webcomics and also the sub, or just in the sub? –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 10:59, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
  • What I did on Comixpedia was have the infobox template automagically add the webcomics category. Adding it manually to each page would be a pain. Nifboy 15:38, 16 March 2006 (UTC)
    • The {{Infobox Webcomic}} template used to auto-include the webcomics category, but that functionality was removed in November. I think it's because of the kind of brain dead way template-included categories work. When you remove a template that silently adds a category, you have to edit the article again before the category actually goes away. We've been manually adding cats ever since. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:02, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to nominate Category:Webcomics by country and Category:Webcomics of Ukraine for deletion in favor of sorting by language. Should we go with Category:Webcomics by language or Category:Non-English webcomics? Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 00:42, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Tim Buckley (artist) protected; requesting comments

I wanted to get some feedback from the WikiProject over an edit war at Tim Buckley (artist). It stems over a Criticism section that was added to the article a month or so ago. Take a look at the talk page and you'll see that the discussion has gotten fairly heated. In response, I temporarily axed the criticism section, protected the article, then asked the participants to hammer together something that actually complied with WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:NPA. I'd like more eyes on this one, but before taking it to higher levels, I wanted to shop here first. If you look in the article's history, you'll be able to see the criticism section in its various incarnation. Thanks. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 01:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

• Update: After review, I decided that criticism section didn't come anywhere close to meeting WP:V, WP:NOR, or WP:NPOV. Having failed to meet any of the three content policies, I deleted it with a warning not to recreate it without adequate sourcing. The article is now unprotected. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 15:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

List of concluded webcomics

Do we really need this? I never remember to update it when I add Category:Concluded webcomics to an article, and the list itself contains no more information than the category does. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 22:10, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Delete per nom. Nifboy 22:31, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Hah! –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 22:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• I'll give this a couple more days to get a response, and then I'll prod the article. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 18:10, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, yeah I think it would be good to keep. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 13:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so how is it different from the category? I noticed there's one redlink in it, but if it's to be used as a list for comics we don't have articles for, the question of verifiability and maintainability is bound to come up. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 13:52, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Concerning the recent spate of deletion nominations

Sorry for clogging the page with AfDs and PRODs. I know it's out of character for me to be nominating so many, but last week I went digging for lost sheep, and boy did I find a lot of them. Some were so far away from meeting the big three content guidelines that even I couldn't justify keeping them. I've been nominating just a few a day, to avoid causing a backlash, but it looks like they've snowballed anyway. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 23:44, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, I've been working on a document that addresses the most common webcomic AfD complaints. If anyone wants to modify it, be my guest. It's currently at User:Adashiel/Why delete. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 18:11, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

New look for Template:Infobox Webcomic

User:Someguy0830 made some format changes to the Infobox, so you might want to take a look at it. I kinda wish he'd mentioned it here first, but personally, I like it. It's more compact and handles ginormous URLs better. There is one gotcha, though. Because of the way the url field renders now, unless it has a single bare URL (e.g., http://foo.com/), it doesn't look right. For example, if you were to put two sites in the url field or if you added a comment about the site's availability, it looks a little messed up. Just try it and you'll see what I mean. I don't know enough about templates to fix it, so I've been moving URL comments to the article text and for sites with two URLs, I just move them out of the infobox and put them in an external links section. That may be best practice anyway. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 13:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted it and made some improvements. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 13:13, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

External links in list of webcomics

There's a proposal on Talk:list of webcomics#External Links to remove the external links for each webcomic entry. They were actually removed yesterday, but I reverted it back to the old format as I didn't feel there was sufficient consensus to make the change. Your input would be much appreciated. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 11:45, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Evil, Inc.

Evil, Inc. really should not be a disambig page, and Evil, Inc. (Hardy Boys) should be moved back to it's original location. I personally don't like disambig pages with 2 links in them (everyone has to use an extra click), and much prefer something like:

This article is about the Hardy Boys novel, for the webcomic see Evil, Inc. (webcomic)

Although the webcomic being a redlink, I wouldn't even like to see it there. Still, the dab page is pretty useless. I've not taken this to WP:RM as I can't stand some of the pencil pushing bureaucracy and process there. So if others agree, can some admin just move the pages back? - Hahnchen 08:06, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

As the admin who regularily takes care of WP:RM, I'm slightly offended by the accusation of pencil-pushing... —Nightstallion (?) ^{Seen this already?} 14:45, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Keen Toons and KeenCAST

Do any of you guys here think that it would be a good idea to merge these two articles into the Keenspot article? I mean, the Keenspot article isn't particulary long, and the 2 other articles are pretty short. And they're all closely inter-related anyway, I just think it'd be easier to navigate, having KeenCAST redirect to Keenspot wouldn't exactly throw off the reader. I'm not going to make the changes in case I'm accused of deleting them on the sly, but if you like it, roll with it. - Hahnchen 02:30, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• I don't have much objection, so long as the cast and toon content doesn't overshadow the rest. After all, Keen's just a bit player in animation and podcasting. As a side note, I've been meaning to give the Keenspot article a touch-up for awhile now, but, of course, laziness has always won out. I'd like it to be at least as useful as the Comic Genesis article, though. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 19:56, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

OS-tan?

Anyone have thoughts on adding OS-tan to our portfolio? I don't think it belongs on the list or should have an infobox, but I've considered adding our banner. Though it clearly involves sequential art, it's one of those rare phenomena that likely would have remained unknown to English speakers had it never received a Wikipedia article. That makes me a little hesitant to cover it without buy-in. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 12:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Heads up at Count Your Sheep

There's a fellow with a very odd theory concerning the characters of Count Your Sheep. I'm extremely sleep-deprived, which is allowing me to assume good faith and call it original research rather than vandalism, but it's not really something we can keep in the article. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 06:39, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

• I talked with the contributor who added the theory and I think the situation has been resolved. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 20:39, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Eve (Applegeeks) --> Applegeeks ?

I recently made an attempt to redirect Eve (Applegeeks) into the main Applegeeks article. It was quickly reverted, however, so I am bringing the matter up for discussion on Applegeeks here. I'd like your input. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 12:33, 19 May 2006 (UTC)