Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTalk
Submitted by Xaviar Xerexes on November 12, 2007 - 13:16
Sorry to post about Wikipedia again. I made the mistake of checking on the deletion thread there this morning (I blame Dirk Deppey for linking to it in Journalista! this morning and reminding me of it) and I see another mischaracterization of ComixTalk by the Wikipedia user Dragonfiend.
This time he/she (really I don't know the slighest thing about the person who owns the "dragonfiend" account) references a thread that is a number of years old (CORRECTION - It only felt like this was a subject from years ago since wikidrama has been going on for far too long - it is actually a thread from March of this year.) and says that "contributors" call him/her names. What galls me is that this Dragonfiend knows from reading that thread that what she's quoting are comments posted by visitors to ComixTalk and that ComixTalk is not responsible for those comments. (UPDATE: For the record some of the commenters in the thread in question have written article(s) for ComixTalk in the past. Like many publications we solicit and publish articles from many writers. Those writers, however, do not "work" for ComixTalk and it doesn't mean the editors have editorial control over the comments that they post to our site. Again, it's inaccurate from someone to imply that comments on this site represent the views of ComixTalk itself.)
Visitors posting comments to ComixTalk are no more "contributors" to our site than any random person editing Wikipedia is an administrator of the site. Unless Wikipedia is prepared to be responsible for content added to its site at every moment (and I might add the "history" of such entries since Dragonfiend is pointing to a years-old post) than it is fairly hypocritical and self-serving for an active Wikipedian like Dragonfiend to mischaracterize the ownership of comments on another site.
And unfortunately this is the second time he/she has made such a mistaken statement in a public forum. The very article she has linked to (not the comments to it that she's complaining of) is a discussion of a tremendously unfair and misleading statement that Dragonfiend made in an interview with T Campbell for the news website Broken Frontier. Dragonfiend pointed to an obvious troll/vandal entry on comixpedia.org and, frankly, by characterizing it as a typical or normal good faith entry, used it to cast aspersion on the entire website. Frankly for a person of her/his experience with Wikipedia and therefore obvious knowledge of how an open wiki works, I was tremendously disappointed by what seemed like an effort to intentionally mislead the readers of Broken Frontier as to the character and quality of the entire comixpedia.org project. While I might disagree with Dragonfiend on many issues regarding the "notability" of aspects of comics, I don't see why he/she needs to insert carefully-worded seemingly-personal attacks into the debate and I would urge her/him to be more careful in how he/she writes such statements in the future.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Anonymous - 11/14/2007 - 12:27
At Wikipedia personal attacks are removed, we have strong guidance on that. Perhaps a similar guideline needs to be adopted here. At best it's just rude and childish, and at worst it is libellous. Something to consider.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/14/2007 - 19:39
Mr/s Anonymous -- libel has a very specific meaning under United States law... please read up on it before throwing it around carelessly.
Something to consider.
(And if this was posted by the person behind the Dragonfiend account at Wikipedia you really ought to apologize for or explain some of the statements in your interview with T Campbell published on Broken Frontier before you expect me to discuss anything with you. That was a reprehensible distortion of the Comixpedia.org project and a very public attack that you would certainly cry foul over if leveled against Wikipedia.)
____
Xaviar Xerexes
Oh yeah... this place is called ComixTalk now.
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Tephlon - 11/14/2007 - 13:58
At wikipedia you also have a rule signing your comments...
(I suspect this is Dragonfiend making a statement. )
So far, all that has been done is point out the name Dragonfiend crops up a lot in AfD debates, and usually on the negative side.
Calling that person out on the frontpage may not be liked, but I feel it wasn't rude, nor childish and a far cry from libel
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Tephlon - 11/13/2007 - 08:30
One little thing that would help Comixtalk would be to fix the homepage. For _days_ now I have been getting:
Access denied
You are not authorized to access this page.
for the homepage. (comixtalk.com)
I can still see the sidebars and all, but there is no main content on the homepage
(FF 2.0.9 and IE 6 on Windows XP)
Dragonfiend's involvement in yet another deletion debate... Let's just say I wasn't surprised to see the name pop up.
My biggest problem with him/her is that s/he deletes articles on webcomics for non-notability, and when s/he gets shot down because another article asserts "notability" s/he will go after the articles that help the first article's case, and then try again on the first article. Which smells just a little bit too much like someone who wants to get his/her way, no matter what. It also looks like a vendetta.
And when someone participates in a lot AfD's related to one topic (and nearly all of them Deletion votes), they become _the_ person associated with "Deliting webcomics".
Please Nag Me when the home page says "Access Denied"
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/13/2007 - 09:41
I apologize for the main page issues - it's a caching error and once again it's a tough call on how much of my time I spend patching the current site versus preparing the new site (we are working on a new version to run on the forthcoming Drupal 6.0). It should be fixed right now and I'll try to keep a closer eye on fixing it when it pops up.
As to Dragonfiend - that's a pretty fair assessment of what I see of his/her activities as well. I don't have the slightest idea what the person behind the account is but the account does seem to spend a lot of time on webcomic AfDs.
____
Xaviar Xerexes
Oh yeah... this place is called ComixTalk now.
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.
Re: Please Nag Me when the home page says "Access Denied"
by Tephlon - 11/13/2007 - 13:01
Working for me too now.
The upgrade is planned for when?
Re: Please Nag Me when the home page says "Access Denied"
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/13/2007 - 13:29
Likely to be January 2008.
____
Xaviar Xerexes
Oh yeah... this place is called ComixTalk now.
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.
Re: Please Nag Me when the home page says "Access Denied"
by Tim Tylor - 11/13/2007 - 11:43
It's working fine for me right now.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Anonymous - 11/13/2007 - 06:06
Xerxes, does your site, the magazine site at least, make the claim that it was the first such site?
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/13/2007 - 09:36
Yes I do and will in good faith until someone presents me with evidence to the contrary.
I'll admit it's impossible to prove a negative but prior to launching this site in Feb. 2003, I researched comics journalism over the 2nd half of 2002 and we did not see any publications covering webcomics in a regular manner. For that matter we didn't see much coverage of webcomics at all, let alone any other site/publication with anything close to a "primary focus" on the topic.
____
Xaviar Xerexes
Oh yeah... this place is called ComixTalk now.
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Xuanwu - 11/13/2007 - 02:30
Advice: go to Wikipedia and discuss this there. She's repeatedly said she doesn't care about "off-Wiki drama." So bringing the discussion to her talk page (not the AfD thread; it would be off topic) where she may actually reply is probably best.
Re: Dragonfiend: Please Stop Falsely Mischaracterizing ComixTal
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/13/2007 - 09:47
My problem with the Wiki discussion format is they seem to be the equivalent of an all-night bull session in a college dorm and I'm too old to stay up all night anymore. I'm also loathe to show up over there and get sucked into the actual debate over the ComixTalk entry.
I also feel like the person behind that account has gone after ComixTalk twice now in a way that seemed from our perspective to be intended to harm our reputation. Hardly the sort of person I want to "discuss" things with until he/she offers some apology or explanation for their two gaffes.
____
Xaviar Xerexes
Oh yeah... this place is called ComixTalk now.
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.
NitPicking On Wikipedia Again
by Xaviar Xerexes - 11/12/2007 - 21:52
The thread is actually pretty balanced and I would suspect that the entry will stick unless there's a big shift towards deletion. Reading these deletion threads is frustrating though because some of the discussion is so argumentatively weak.
Here's a little back and forth where one person says what about x and then Dragonfiend says x is incorrect and I deleted it. I guess I could go over there and write something in response but the fact that one editor can just assert something without any evidence to support it is pretty weak for a site that is supposed to work on citation...
Here's that little bit from the deletion thread over there (and if anyone actually knows the name of a publication online or off that primarily or exclusively wrote critically about webcomics before February 2003, please let me know. I am not aware of such an animal and I did quite a bit of research on the subject before launching Comixpedia/Talk that year):
13:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I run this place! Tip the piano player on the way out.