Why aren’t we all updating Comixpedia?
February 25, 2009 at 11:06 am | Posted in The Webcomic Overlook, webcomics | 12 CommentsSeriously.
I know folks are getting bummed out about how webcomics are being purged from Wikipedia over notability issues. However, webcomic artists already had a pretty decent wiki with Comixpedia.
Why is no one using it?
Comixpedia is a wiki that very few people seem to be updating. Is it lack of interest? I logged in earlier this week just to put a few pages up. There were no entries on ACT-I-VATE or Penny & Aggie artist Gisele Lagace, which seemed to be grievous oversights. Other comic entries haven’t been updated since, oh, 2007. Are there so few OCD’s in the webcomic community willing to devote their precious waking hours in creating webcomic entries? Look, if Lost fans and Star Wars fans and Homestar Runner fans can have their ridiculously obsessive wikis, so can we!
At the very least, the Comixpedia is a useful tool for webcomic creators looking for an easy way to write chapter synopses. Klio of SPQR Blues has been faithfully updating her wiki entry to spool up new fans. It’s a powerful tool, folks! Use it for good.
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It’s easier to cry about spilt milk than mopping it up.
Sad but oh so true.
Comment by JM Brown — February 25, 2009 #
I looked into Comixpedia a while ago, and discovered that another comic with the same title as mine (Sunrise) had beat me to the punch. I don’t know how to create any kind of disambiguation page in this case, so I haven’t been able to add my own comic.
That being said, I should try to write and update pages for other peoples’ comics.
Comment by PlantPerson — February 26, 2009 #
I dunno, man. I update the pages for my own projects pretty assiduously, because I am a ginormous solipsist. Maybe I should branch out and start doing work on other pages too.
Comment by Jackson — February 26, 2009 #
Just to give everyone a heads up, there’s a lively discussion going on at the mirror post on Comixtalk:
http://comixtalk.com/why_aren%E2%80%99t_we_all_updating_comixpedia
Comment by El Santo — February 27, 2009 #
[...] money where my mouth is 28 02 2009 Just to show you I was serious in my earlier post about adding content to Comixpedia, I’ve gone ahead and added an entry for “The Webcomic Overlook” over [...]
Pingback by Putting my money where my mouth is « The Webcomic Overlook — February 28, 2009 #
[...] obvious things like take advantage of free press? (Well, by free I mean we can accomplish it with a little elbow grease.) It could also be time to redesign (or create) your business cards, [...]
Pingback by Strip News Business Edition — ArtPatient.com — March 3, 2009 #
[...] “El Santo” Cruz urges everyone to be a good citizen and contribute some updates to Comixpedia. He also has new reviews up of Anders Loves Maria and [...]
Pingback by Digital Strips: The Webcomics Podcast — March 4, 2009 #
Honestly? I get more hits from WIKIFUR than I do Comixpedia, with almost the exact same article on both sites.
And the stuff I get from TVtropes puts both of them to shame.
It just doesn’t make sense from any sort of perspective to waste time with Comixpedia when alternative wikis (especially TVTropes) exist that bring in far more interested eyeballs. It’s one thing to suggest alternatives, but Comixpedia ain’t it.
Comment by lastres0rt — March 4, 2009 #
Hey, lastres0rt. Thanks for the suggestions to WikiFur and TVTropes. I previously hadn’t heard of an active webcomic community in either, even though I’ve been to TVtropes a few times. I’ve got no problem suggesting them:
WikiFur
TVTropes: Webcomics
That said, I went with Comixpedia since that site has helped me a lot when I needed to do research on certain strips in the past. Comixpedia, while woefully out of date, seems to present more indepth information compared to TVTropes, at least it seems so when I went to check on the entries for 8-Bit Theater and Penny Arcade. Also, if I wanted to check up on a specific author — say, if I wanted to see what projects T Campbell was doing beyond Penny & Aggie — there doesn’t seem to be a separate article for writers. I think the Comixpedia format has the potential to be more comprehensive.
Comment by El Santo — March 4, 2009 #
It’s not that the Comixpedia can’t still be useful — TVtropes is much more interested in the stories told by said media, and niche sites like WikiFur only work for comics in that same niche — but there is very little (if any) incentive for Comixpedia to become useful to readers as merely a repository of webcomics + authors of said webcomics.
A major factor slowing down the adoption of Comixpedia, at least from the perspective of an interested webcomic creator looking to promote the crap out of her work (i.e. people like me), it comes down to a few things that need to be dealt with immediately if not sooner:
1) The hosting of images on Comixpedia as opposed to allowing hotlinked images (it’s a needless complication for users, and every other wiki seems capable of handling this, so it makes Comixpedia look “poor” as a result)
2) The inability to create new templates for pages, possibly based on series (so if I wanted to create a template for my Comic where I could have the main pages of the comic, characters, settings, story arcs, major events, etc. pages all accessible from one single template, I should be able to do that). As it currently stands, there is no (easy) way to do this, even though there SHOULD be.
3) The lack of “user bling” i.e. templates designed for use only in userpages to convey information as well as enhance the page. My wikifur userpage, for instance, lists several other sites I have accounts on, along with a few other useful details. Why there isn’t a similar accessory for the Comixpedia pages to at least identify users who are writers/artists/creators is beyond me.
And, possibly even more important than that… the only rationale I’ve heard for using Comixpedia is that “Wikipedia is being mean and won’t let me have an article there”. There HAS to be some sort of value added to Comixpedia besides just “well at least it’s not Wikipedia!”, because as I said, there are LOTS of alternative wikis to plug a webcomic on besides Comixpedia. As long as Comixpedia sees itself as ONLY a Wikipedia alternative, it’s dead in the water.
Comment by lastres0rt — March 4, 2009 #
I just went to look at Comixpedia based on this post. I noticed Darken was missing and went to add it. (I just noticed Exiern is missing, too).
One problem I immediately notice is that Comixpedia doesn’t allow anonymous edits. I’m sure there are good reasons for this (probably to do with spam), but for a wiki that’s trying to build content, the last thing it needs is barriers for potential contributors.
A wiki requires a certain critical mass to be successful. You need enough content to attract a ton of people, a percentage of those people update it and the cycle repeats. Comixpedia isn’t there yet.
Comment by Irrevenant — March 7, 2009 #
I’d say I’m pretty slack with my Comixpedia page, which I update once in a while. Might as well add more…
Comment by Stripy-Artist — August 28, 2009 #