10/26-10/27: Wikiboos
Favorite of the day: TEMPTATION... Neatly encapsulates the concept of Breakfast of the Gods, essentially League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for breakfast cereals. It's attempting a verrry delicate mix of grimness and goofiness, and it may not be for everyone, but it's sure for me.
Also, the conclusion of Joss Whedon's Sugarshock. A somewhat amateurish but honest gay love story (begins here). And a surprisingly touching metafictional third panel from Sinfest.
It's October, so it must be time to start planning the next Penny Arcade Expo. I'm still interested in getting more details about Ctrl+Alt+Del's con. C'mon, only four or five months to go, that's practically TOMORROW!
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at this article, which implies that inspiring a webcomic T-shirt is somehow more impressive than proving the Big Bang Theory and having Stephen Hawking call your research the most important work of the 20th or any century. Also, the article doesn't mention which webcomic ran the T-shirt, because they're all equally impressive. Talk about blowing webcomics' importance out of proportion.
Actually, let's talk about that some more.
Lively back-and-forth today between me and William G with regard to Wikipedia, fundraising and politics. William's position, as I understand it, is that webcomics' partisans inflate webcomics' importance beyond all reason (in part because it feeds their own sense of importance). I think William would also say that wherever fandom exists, this problem follows: fans of obscure horror movies and architectural trivia likewise demand more representation, turning Wikipedia into a smorgasbord of useful knowledge, useless trivia, outright lies and self-promotion-- in other words, turning it into the rest of the Internet.
On the other hand, we've got Xaviar Xerexes, who's probably been as close to the Wikipedia controversies as anyone, compiling a record of the more egregious webcomics-related Wikipedia edits, and of editors' bad habits.
I've wrestled with this issue for years and still haven't resolved it to my satisfaction. The Wikipedia deletion reviews often read like minutes from an OCD Asperger's council, but... of course most editors are compulsive. Who else would even attempt to do what they do?
What's new here is the notion that bad public relations with webcartoonists and their fans-- presumably mirrored in Wikipedia's relations with other interest groups-- might noticeably affect Wikipedia's bottom line. I've never heard that idea floated before, and it seems to be coming as a surprise to the Wikipedians, too. I'm not sure if the results will be a good thing for Wikipedia in the long run, but at least we can effect a change in policy.
William notes that Tayler's refused aid to a charity, comparing Wikipedia to Child's Play. But Wikipedia suffers from that comparison. Child's Play has a modest goal and, by all accounts I've read, achieves it spectacularly. Wikipedia's goal is quite ambitious, but the accounts of its achievements are a lot more mixed.
A few years ago, I did some writing for a couple of nonprofits. Demand for funding outstrips supply, so my job was to prove to large donors that these charities were deserving.
Proving that the goals were noble took about three sentences. Help the elderly? Enforce honesty in politics? Inform the world? You go, girl!
Proving the money was being spent wisely? That was 15-35 more pages. That is the challenge facing Wikipedia now. Its honeymoon with the press is long past. Today, it faces a long-entrenched culture of giving, which decides which organizations are "notable" and which aren't. And if it wants to get a "listing," it better learn to play by that culture's rules.
Also, the conclusion of Joss Whedon's Sugarshock. A somewhat amateurish but honest gay love story (begins here). And a surprisingly touching metafictional third panel from Sinfest.
It's October, so it must be time to start planning the next Penny Arcade Expo. I'm still interested in getting more details about Ctrl+Alt+Del's con. C'mon, only four or five months to go, that's practically TOMORROW!
I nearly fell out of my chair laughing at this article, which implies that inspiring a webcomic T-shirt is somehow more impressive than proving the Big Bang Theory and having Stephen Hawking call your research the most important work of the 20th or any century. Also, the article doesn't mention which webcomic ran the T-shirt, because they're all equally impressive. Talk about blowing webcomics' importance out of proportion.
Actually, let's talk about that some more.
Lively back-and-forth today between me and William G with regard to Wikipedia, fundraising and politics. William's position, as I understand it, is that webcomics' partisans inflate webcomics' importance beyond all reason (in part because it feeds their own sense of importance). I think William would also say that wherever fandom exists, this problem follows: fans of obscure horror movies and architectural trivia likewise demand more representation, turning Wikipedia into a smorgasbord of useful knowledge, useless trivia, outright lies and self-promotion-- in other words, turning it into the rest of the Internet.
On the other hand, we've got Xaviar Xerexes, who's probably been as close to the Wikipedia controversies as anyone, compiling a record of the more egregious webcomics-related Wikipedia edits, and of editors' bad habits.
I've wrestled with this issue for years and still haven't resolved it to my satisfaction. The Wikipedia deletion reviews often read like minutes from an OCD Asperger's council, but... of course most editors are compulsive. Who else would even attempt to do what they do?
What's new here is the notion that bad public relations with webcartoonists and their fans-- presumably mirrored in Wikipedia's relations with other interest groups-- might noticeably affect Wikipedia's bottom line. I've never heard that idea floated before, and it seems to be coming as a surprise to the Wikipedians, too. I'm not sure if the results will be a good thing for Wikipedia in the long run, but at least we can effect a change in policy.
William notes that Tayler's refused aid to a charity, comparing Wikipedia to Child's Play. But Wikipedia suffers from that comparison. Child's Play has a modest goal and, by all accounts I've read, achieves it spectacularly. Wikipedia's goal is quite ambitious, but the accounts of its achievements are a lot more mixed.
A few years ago, I did some writing for a couple of nonprofits. Demand for funding outstrips supply, so my job was to prove to large donors that these charities were deserving.
Proving that the goals were noble took about three sentences. Help the elderly? Enforce honesty in politics? Inform the world? You go, girl!
Proving the money was being spent wisely? That was 15-35 more pages. That is the challenge facing Wikipedia now. Its honeymoon with the press is long past. Today, it faces a long-entrenched culture of giving, which decides which organizations are "notable" and which aren't. And if it wants to get a "listing," it better learn to play by that culture's rules.
Posted at
11:55 PM
6 Comments:
That's a far more kind interpretation of my position on fandom that I'd be willing to provide.
To clarify the charity comparisons: The point wasn't to compare the charities goals and acheivements.
The point was that if Tayler had taken the same attitude towards Child's Play, he'd be torn apart by the very same webcomic "partisans" who have likely cheered him for telling Wikipedia to go get stuffed. You can bet the farm on it.
Anyway, these complaints of mine are useless. Those that don't agree that there's a militant fundamentalist sickness that defines fandom never will. And those that do see it will never speak up for whatever self-interested reasons they have.
Meh. Meh to the lot of it.
I hope you realize that Dougal's web comics line was rather tongue-in-cheek. Even if the web-comic is XKCD.
Those that don't agree that there's a militant fundamentalist sickness that defines fandom never will. And those that do see it will never speak up for whatever self-interested reasons they have.
"Defines fandom" is over-generalizing. Casual fans are part of fandom, but lack any militant aspect. They're just there for the fun. I agree that there are fans and creators who take things too far, though.
What you seem to have missed in your arguments is that there's also a "militant fundamentalist sickness" in Wikipedia, too. By only focusing on the irrationality on the webcomic side, you've missed the point that Tayler's refusal to support Wiki was caused by the fanatical actions of the pro-deletion Wiki editors (who are not all Wiki editors, but a specific subset that can accurately be defined as "militant"). See my post in the 10/25 comment for more on what has happened on the Wiki side.
You should try to be more consistent by taking aim at both parties involved. And if you are saying that both sides are condemnable, please try to state that a little better. Right now it looks like you only take issue with Tayler and are thus taking sides.
I am taking sides. The webcomics side of World War Wiki is wrong. I thought I was clear on that.
But let me throw you a bone: There's a lot of print comics articles that need culling too. Maggot was never a notable X-Men character. And I don't think half of the info on Firefly or Farscape (for example)needs to be there either.
If someone wants to start "The Geektionary", I don't think anyone will argue.
Actually, no, Miles, I wouldn't say it was clear at all that Dougal was tongue-in-cheek. It seemed like he was saying that it's one thing for a scientist to be praised by the scientific community, but when you're a scientist who's praised by popular culture, then you really know you've arrived. And there's a grain of truth in that, but the degrees of praise are so out of proportion here that the example just falls apart.
Separating irony from error isn't easy. Neither is separating real belief from hyperbole, as in the case of William G. We've discussed and debated before to what exact degree G believes in that "fundamentalist sickness." And G and I have enough offline contact that I think it's best for us to continue any conversation there rather than here.
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