[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Sat, 24 Feb 2007 17:16:02 -0500, Philip Sandifer
<sandifer at english.ufl.edu> wrote:

>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.

Well I admire Scott McCloud too, and I thought his piece "I can't stop
thinking" was visionary in its day, but in the end if the system does
not support a directory of webcomics because they fail to meet the
sourcing guidelines, is that strictly a problem with Wikipedia
processes, or is it a misconception about what Wikipedia is?

Or put another way, how exactly *are* we supposed to discern the
difference between unsourced articles on webcomics created by the
article author and being spammed, and legitimate comics?  I'd be happy
to rely on expert editors if it weren't for the fact that in at least
one case one such editor argued long and loud for keep but *no*
reliable secondary sources could be found at all.

Perhaps the solution is for known authorities like McCloud to sign up
and participate.  I for one would give significant weight to his
opinion in closing a deletion debate.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG