[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[Philip Sandifer]

I just had dinner with [[Scott McCloud]], and, unsurprisingly, the  
conversation turned to webcomics, and, eventually, to Wikipedia's  
treatment of them. (This was partially spurred by the Kristopher  
Straub debacle, about which I will say only that it demonstrates the  
degree to which the bias is overwhelmingly towards deletion across  
many areas of Wikipedia right now)

McCloud is somebody who knows comics. He quite literally wrote the  
book on them. In the course of the conversation it became clear that  
he was pretty well completely fed up with Wikipedia. And it should be  
noted, this comes from someone who has been on the forefront of  
digital technology debates several times. He makes clear his  
admiration for the concept of Wikipedia. He makes clear his  
admiration for how Wikipedia got started. His problem is with how it  
works now.

The problem he has? Notability. Specifically the arbitrary and  
capricious way in which AfD targets things, questions their  
notability, and uses guidelines that make no sense from the outside.

See also Timothy Noah's recent article on Slate for this - it gives a  
good view of how notability guidelines look to the outside. In this  
case, it's how they look to the subject of the article, but I assure  
you - they look similar to people who are familiar with the subject.  
In short, they appear a Kafka-esque absurdity.

This is a new problem - these are major figures who are sympathetic  
to Wikipedia but fed up with its operation. And I can tell you, the  
tone among people I talk to in that real life thing I maintain is  
pretty similar - great respect for Wikipedia as a concept, reasonable  
respect for Wikipedia as a resource, no respect for Wikipedia as  
something anyone would ever want to edit. The actual editorial  
process of Wikipedia is rightly viewed as a nightmare. Hell, I view  
it as a nightmare at this point - I've given up editing it because  
the rules seem to have been written, at this point, with the  
intention of writing a very bad encyclopedia.

Our efforts to ensure reliability have come at the cost of a great  
deal of respect - and respect from people we should have respect  
from. We are losing smart, well-educated people who are sympathetic  
to Wikipedia's basic principles. That is a disaster.

And it's a disaster that can be laid squarely at the feet of the  
grotesque axis of [[WP:RS]] and [[WP:N]] - two pages that are eating  
Wikipedia alive from the inside out. (And I don't mean this in terms  
of community. I mean that they are systematically being used to turn  
good articles into crap, and have yet to demonstrate their actual use  
in turning bad articles into good ones.)

Best,
Phil Sandifer
sandifer at english.ufl.edu

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a  
boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

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