The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. There are extremely many unsigned votes by users with very new accounts. Because of this I suspect sockpuppetry intended at casting multiple votes. AFD voters should be aware that such votes are usually discounted as done here. Among the legitimate votes, there is a clear consensus to delete. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:05, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Able and Baker

[edit]

A page for Able and Baker, the first 2 animals to survive space flight? Up for deletion? No. A webcomic of the same name, found here. Alexa gives back a rank of over 1 million for the website on which it is hosted. And a google search shows up no assertion of notability for the website. - Hahnchen 16:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Also: Wikipedia is trying to destroy your hard work! Readers put together such a badass page and now it is up for deletion! Go tell them what you think.
Now, why is it that one comic creator can do this and have no wikipedian backlash while another cannot? I'm going to propose a few thoughts:
  1. both these AfDs prove the utter uselessness of Alexa in determining a comic's popularity.
  2. both of these comics have been around for a long time and have rather huge archives. They both unquestioningly meet proposal B and their non-compliance with the regular proposal is questionable at best.
  3. I'm not going to use this page to refight another comic's AfD, but I will say this: Hahnchen, why don't you just lay off with the deletion votes? You obviously don't really know what you're talking about. Both this comic and the previous one have connections with Dayfree Press which, if you are unaware, is a rather large comic-publishing page. Both have readers who have been spamming their votes for deletion pages. But guess what? That means that they're both well-read. What's next?

EDIT: I FORGOT TO SIGN MY COMMENT: --Tedzsee 18:57, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS I'm not a huge fan of A&B, I just don't see the point in having deadlinks and confused people all over Wikipedia. - Opinionated. 16:20, 9 October 2005 (GMT+12)

  • Comment 1) Jamie did not send people here. This is not Jamie's comic so the above comment is unwarrented. 2) Why does this article belong on Comixpedia and not Wikipedia? That is what I don't understand. If a comic meets all the Proposal 2 definitions and is not compliant with Alexa, does that mean it gets the boot automatically? Case and Point: Let me show you how flawed Alexa rankings are!!!
My own comic, "8 1/2 by Eleven" publishes at http://www.lucastds.com/webcomic. According to Alexa, my site ranking is 334,578. That's actually pretty close to my comic being accepted as a noteworthy article by Wikipedia!! How deceiving is that ranking? Hmm... let's see! I'd venture to guess that Most People have not even ever heard of my comic. I've got about 500 readers a week. I'd bet anything that Able and Baker, which is WAY more respected in the webcartooning community than I am and is a member of Dayfree Press for goodness sake (which most people admit they must have heard of) has more readers than me. And yet, with a few more American Internet Explorer users reading my comic, I could warrant an entry in Wikipedia while Able and Baker can't. Able and Baker is SOMEHOW way farther down on the Alexa rankings. Who knows why? And you're wondering why this system is absurd to me? Please, someone create an encyclopedia entry about my comic!! The AfD would be hard to prove on that one, even though no one in the webcomic community has even heard of my comic. If my unknown comic could make it into Wikipedia, and Hahnchen couldn't pull a delete on it because my glorious-all-bow-to-the-worshipfullness-Alexa-rating... oh man, that would make my day. *shakes head in disgust and walks away* --Tedzsee 04:41, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commentin reply to a ma in black's comment, Since when is it up to you and the five people you ask to vote for it to be deleted to say something isin't noteable? how is it that you are warrented to say that something isint encyclopedic?

in my opinion something like the messed up landing gear on that jet bue flight isin't encyclopedic, or noteable, but it's not up to me now is it? -[chickendude]

What counts as notability in the case of Able and Baker, then? Just an Alexa rating? Does being mentioned on Comixpedia's List of 25 people in webcomics 2004 give Able and Baker notability? Who knows. Apparently Alexa is the only thing that counts for notability around here. But then again, apparently Wikipedia editors don't consider rational arguments at all, and instead make derisive comments about comics despite a huge public outpour against deletion and several repeated comments establishing the notability of these comics that Hahnchen seems to enjoy putting up for deletion so much. You all smirk and say that Comixpedia.org is where these articles "belong" despite having tonnes of people coming here to say contrary. I'll agree that the Able and Baker article needs to be fleshed out a bit more. But give these articles a chance to grow... deleting them is not the answer.--Tedzsee 07:28, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reply "A one line mention by the dayfree press creator in a list of 25 people in 2004 is not notable" <-- How is it not notable? Do you realize the source I am quoting is Comixpedia? Comixpedia is one of the most respected SOURCES of webcomic's journalism... Along with Digital Strips, Phil Kahn, the Webcomics Examiner and Websnark, it is basically the pillar of webcomics journalism. If you don't know that, and don't realize that being mentioned in an article by them is enough to make the comic notable, than I suggest you don't even bother voting in debates like this! As for Hahnchen's remark that an article about my comic wouldn't be deleted because my Alexa number is respectable, I can only laugh now! Someone please create an article about my comic. What a riot! Let's delete Able and Baker and throw up articles about purely random subjects with good Alexa ratings! Tedzsee 05:17, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Please use the preview button to make sure your comments fit into the flow of the page. The situation here is getting quite confusing! -- SCZenz 05:36, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Today, Able and Baker was linked to by Questionable Content in a completely unrelated-to-this-deletion-debate link. I still don't understand what constitutes this mysterious "notability" in the eyes of Wikipedia editors...
  1. This comic has a dedicated fan base.
  2. This comic is mentioned by a top webcomic journal.
  3. This comic has huge archives and has been updating for several years.
  4. This comic is a member of Dayfree Press, which is represented at every major webcomic convention.
  5. This comic is linked to by a site with an Alexa rating of under 20,000.
However, because this comic does not have an Alexa rating of under 200,000 itself, it is seen as non-notable. I don't understand the logic!! Tedzsee 05:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Some possible responses to think about:
  1. Doesn't it matter how big the fan base is? How can we tell that? (I'm asking the latter literally--can you suggest a good way to tell, besides Alexa?)
  2. Top webcomic journal? That's not quite a newspaper, is it? It's about webcomics, so of course it will discuss many webcomics; more even, perhaps, than Wikipedia should have.
  3. Lots of people have been doing lots of things for several years. I respect all of them, especially those who do things like writing a comic that require skills I'll never have. But still, is this notable in and of itself?
  4. Dayfree Press might be notable on its own; that doesn't necessarily mean all its members should have separate articles.
  5. Again, having a link from a notable site doesn't mean notability. It ought to depend on context, I think?
To use an analogy, let me talk about something that doesn't deserve a Wikipedia article: me. However, I can say:
  1. My name appears on the National Science Foundation website, and the Annals of Improbable Research website, both of which I'm confident have excellent webtraffic ratings.
  2. I have done physics research, day in and day out, for a number of years. All of this is documented and verifiable.
  3. I am a member of the A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS collaboration, which is funded by several dozen countries to the tune of at least $500 Million.
But still, I'm not notable at all! Should the standards for inclusion of webcomics be more lenient than those for people? Or those for music?
Perhaps the issue is that "notable for a webcomic" is a different standard than "notable for a general encyclopedia"--which is why there's a wiki site just for comics now. Please understand none of this is an attack on this comic in particular, it is part of a larger discussion on how many webcomics should be documented in the encyclopedia. (See WP:COMIC.) -- SCZenz 06:03, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
See, this is part of the problem. Being NOTABLE FOR A WEBCOMIC doesn't require that much. Webcomicking is a pretty small community. And, unfortunately for staunch Wikipedians, as their popularity picks up, I think that Wikipedia is going to face an increasing challenge regarding what sort of comics are seen as noteworthy. The main problem, however, is that Wikipedia's policy concerning webcomics is REALLY REALLY REALLY iffy. Able and Baker definitely meets both Alternate Proposals no prob. By association and notability in the webcomics community, it could be argued that the comic meets Proposal A as well, in a way. Really, the problem is with Wikipedia's policy. And I figure, until the policy gets sorted out in a firm manner, a campaign to simply oust every webcomic article deemed to be hangnails should be stopped. I'm not saying that you're attacking any particular comic, but I am saying that what is going on here really, in a way, contravenes the spirit of Wikipedia. As found on the talk page of webcomics, inclusion in NOTABLE collectives such as Dayfree Press and winners of awards and such are probably a good place to start with expanding Notability to something "based on something other than popularity or longevity". In the meantime, deleting possibly-notable comics while such bickering is going on seems to be rather sketch.
Also, it should be noted that mention in Websnark or Digital Strips or Comixpedia.com is rather like being mentioned in a top music mag in comparison. In terms of webcomic notability, it definitely a big plus. Whether this counts for anything in a "general encyclopedia" is what is in question. However, as I said, if this encyclopedia is going to include webcomics at all, then it should include webcomics that are deemed noteworthy by the webcomicking community. And I think there's no question that this one is. --Tedzsee 07:17, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One other thing... the argument about YOU being non-notable is an interesting one. See the above discussion with Hahnchen comparing MY comic to the Able and Baker article to see the futility of using an Alexa-based system to verify the importance of a webcomic. According to Hahnchen, an article on my comic would be difficult to delete because of its Alexa ranking despite my comic not being notable at all in the webcomic community. It should be noted that if enough people undertook to write an article about your scientific research and work, and could back it up and connect you to the top names in the scientific community and you were working with those top names in some sort of collective, you might very well be notable if you had an effect on the small area of study that you were researching. Certainly, if you were cited by a top scientist (the way, say Able and Baker was linked to today by QC and mentioned in a list of 25 notables last year on Comixpedia and working with a collective such as Dayfree, I'm sure the argument could be made that you were notable in your community. This is essentially the argument that I am making. If that makes sense... --Tedzsee 07:24, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps it isn't obvious, but the criteria at WP:COMIC are proposed, and the "alternate proposals" are not generally recognized as being workable by the community as a whole--see, for comparison, WP:MUSIC. The main proposal is no good either, because of problems with Alexa, but it aknowledges the important fact that a webcomic must have a verifiably exceptional readership base (if no other verifiable assertion of notability is given). Anyway, there are some regular wikipedia editors who feel that the most lenient proposals are appropriate, and they're the ones who work (and write their views) on Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics. Consensus on this issue is still being built, though, so you can't take what anyone says as authority.
I do have to say that being in the top webcomic mag is a very different thing from being in a top music mag, based on basic things like total readership--my point is precisely that only the most notable webcomics meet the general Wikipedia notability criteria.
As for criteria based on things other than popularity or longevity, I'd love to hear them! What I've thought of so far is at User:SCZenz/Webcomics; if you have more ideas please tell me on mytalk page. -- SCZenz 07:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC) (above written before "one more thing", posted after due to edit conflict)[reply]
We need to work to figure out the relationship between notability in the webcomic community, and notability in the broader wikipedia--it seems clear that we disagree at the moment. -- SCZenz 07:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.
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