Protests Grow Over Wikipedia Deletions

“[O]ver 50 articles on webcomics were deemed not to meet their notability guidelines and were deleted during January and February of 2007,” according to a Wikinews article.  And that article isn’t just an isolated complaint – when Howard Tayler, the creator of Schlock Mercenary, first addressed the subject, his five paragraphs received 133 responses.

That was six days ago.  Now the topic has reappeared on Slashdot, and hundreds more comments have been made.  Those who are against the articles’ deletion are frequently calling for people to ignore Wikimedia’s fundraising attempts.

Wikimedia depends on donations to survive, so these requests could have quite an effect.  What other effects this whole episode might have remain unknown – it’s been suggested that fighting is one of the reasons behind a drop in activity on Wikipedia.

Still, this could help resolve one of the biggest ongoing debates within the Wikipedia community: what sort of articles should be included in the online encyclopedia.  A lot of people are hoping that some of the lesser-known webcomics make the cut.