If In Doubt, Delete!
The bad blood between Wikipedia and the webcomic community is well known. Wikipedia editors swiftly delete any webcomic articles they consider "non-notable", and to many webcartoonists and their fans their criteria for notability seem overly restrictive, or arbitrary and capricious, or both. Websnark commented on the matter back in 2005; there was an article about it on Comixpedia; Kristofer Straub kicked up a fuss about it.

This may make me a traitor in the eyes of my fellow webcartoonists, but...I was actually kind of on Wikipedia's side there. Oh, not entirely. Certainly mistakes were made, and some undeniably notable webcomics were deleted. But for most of the comics, a strong case could be made that they weren't notable enough for inclusion in a general reference work. Wikipedia has to have some standards--which admittedly may vary from special subject to special subject--, and as long as an effort is made to consistently enforce those standards, well, it's understandable that things may sometimes go a little awry, and really this was being blown way out of proportion.

Note. I say I was kind of on Wikipedia's side here. Was. Past tense.

See, that was before I realized just what the situation at Wikipedia was. It's not just webcomic articles that are, in the words of a post on The Webcomicker, being "delet[ed] left and right". Everything on Wikipedia is being deleted left and right. (With the possible exception of articles on video games and certain other subjects.) The Wikipedia has become overcome by deletionism. Even old and established articles are being hacked away; virtually anything that anyone can come up with any excuse for deleting, gets deleted. Why? I can only speculate, but my guess is that some misguided editors think it makes Wikipedia more respectable if such articles get cut out. It doesn't. It makes Wikipedia more useless. Obviously, there are some articles that should be deleted--articles about a local band no one has ever heard of; articles that exist only to advertise some obscure company; articles about a word some kid and his friends made up. But the current level of deletionism at Wikipedia goes way too far.

A few links to illustrate the extent of the problem: Here a Wikipedia editor who says he would have been considered a deletionist a few years ago finds himself a rabid inclusionist compared with the current editorial crop. This post laments the passing of some amusing lists (okay, that one's maybe not really serious). But for perhaps the most detailed analysis I've seen of the problem (and related issues), see this post, and don't neglect the comments thread. (Though one Wikipedia admin does comment there that "there are as many people upset because of our inclusionism as because of our exclusionism". Based on all I've seen, I can only conclude that this person is living in an alternate universe.)

(Actually, that's not entirely fair; perhaps he's just looking at the response to articles on certain topics--such as the aforementioned video games. Admittedly, the deletionistic attitude doesn't hold across the board. But the fact that there are (arguably) too many articles on some subjects doesn't justify the seemingly indiscriminate deletion of articles on others. In fact, that disparity may be part of the problem, in that the deletionism regarding certain topics is all the more glaring in contrast with the inclusionism on others--the deletion of so many articles about well known webcomics might seem less egregious were there for not, for example, detailed articles on every single breed of Pokémon. Which is not to say I'm in favor of deleting the Pokémon articles--I think inclusionism makes much more sense as an overall policy than deletionism does. I'm just saying that the inclusionism that exists regarding certain topics serves to further highlight the drastic deletionism that prevails elsewhere.)

I just participated in an AfD (Articles for Deletion, a discussion to determine whether or not to delete an article) for a Wikipedia article myself--for the article Zork magic, a compilation of the spells and potions found in games set in the Zork world. My position was for a Weak Keep--I thought its notability was borderline, but on balance I thought it was notable enough for inclusion. You can see the discussion here.

The article was deleted. That doesn't really bother me. As I said, I thought its notability was borderline. What bothers me is the closing admin's posted reason for deciding to delete:

"Keep commenters below appear unfamiliar with appropriate WP guidelines and policy, as their arguments fall under WP:ILIKEIT. Deletion commenters base their suggestion in sound policy-oriented reasoning."

Um, hello, what? Did this admin even read the AfD? The only reason the deletion commenters gave was brief citations of Wikipedia policy, with little or no explanation of why these policies applied. The Keep commenters tried to explain why in their view these policies did not apply; this doesn't seem like unfamiliarity with appropriate guidelines and policy to me, or as just assertion that they liked the article. (And, in fact, most of the guidelines that the deletion commenters cited didn't apply; in no reasonable sense could the article be considered a "game guide".) The admin's reason for closing makes no sense. I'm tempted to post on the admin's Talk page asking what the heck he was thinking (albeit in much more polite language), but I don't know that I could do that in a way that doesn't make it look like I'm just upset about the article's deletion. Which I'm not--as I said, I thought the article was kind of borderline, and if the closing admin had given as his reason "Insufficient evidence of notability", or something like that, I'd have no problem with its deletion. But that he makes a patently ridiculous blanket statement about the Delete commenters "bas[ing] their suggestion in sound policy-oriented reasoning" and the Keep commenters' arguments "fall[ing] under WP:ILIKEIT" strongly suggests to me that he was reading the discussion through a mindset already heavily biased toward deletion, rather than really making an effort to judge the merits of the arguments. There's a problem with the process.

Anyway, that's just one relatively insignificant example that I mention only because I was personally involved with it; like I said, the problem goes much deeper, and has been frequently noted elsewhere. (And I hasten to add that this particular AfD is not what prompted this entry; I was already becoming aware of--and disturbed by--the deletionism on Wikipedia well before that. I just thought it could be relevant to mention my own recent experience with it.) Is it a fatal flaw? No; there's still a lot of useful information on Wikipedia, of course. But thanks to the current atmosphere of rampant deletionism, there's not as much as there could--or, I venture to say, should--be.

Wikipedia is still a useful resource, but it's being prevented from being as useful as it could be. And that makes me sad.