The Irish Comics Wiki - proposal

Patrick Brown

Many of you will already be aware of the Irish Comics Wiki, at

https://irishcomics.pbwiki.com/

We currently have over 200 articles, but I'm doing the vast bulk of the editing. Unfortunately the pbwiki software isn't all that user friendly and doesn't have a lot of the functionality that Wikipedia and other well known wikis have, and id difficult to register for and monitor for changes.

With that in mind, I'd like to propose a new Irish Comics Wiki at Wikia. Wikia uses the same software as Wikipedia, which I at least find much more congenial to work with. If I'm going to doing the work, I'd prefer to be doing it on Wikia, and as Wikia's software is more user-friendly and familiar to wiki-users it might lead to more people editing it, so it's a win both ways.

Perhaps we could also expand the remit to take in animation and book illustration, as there seems to be something of a crossover there.

Any thoughts? Objections?

bombidol

Why dont we just move it to Wikipedia?

Patrick Brown

Because articles on small press and webcomics artists would likely be deleted as not notable on Wikipedia.

A separate Irish Comics Wiki could be a kind of feeder to Wikipedia though. After researching and writing an article on Rowel Friers for the ICW, I noticed Wikipedia didn't have one and copied it over. That would be easier if we moved to Wikia, because it uses the same software and the same mark-up as Wikipedia.

bombidol

cool

Fysh

The problem with Wikipedia is that they're terrified of ever being anything other than an aggregation of existing information. Their entirely random and often fascistic and cliquey interpretation of notability means that you'd probably have loads of stuff deleted as irrelevant.

As for moving it elsewhere, seems fair enough. Make sure to notify everyone who's signed up and so forth, and once the new one's up and running you could drop an email to the likes of the comic cast and ask them to mention it in the next podcast. Anything that makes it easier to sign up, post and/or edit information is a good thing since it would hopefully encourage greater participation.

Patrick Brown

Perhaps jumping the gun a bit, but nobody's objected so far, so I've gone ahead and set up the new wiki at Wikia, with a few sample articles. Have a look and see what you think.

http://irishcomics.wikia.com

I think with its superior article categorisation system it makes for a better encyclopedia, and its talk pages and so on could make it a better community. I've added an "upcoming events" section to the front page, with Free Comics Day, the Dublin Comic Con, and so on, so perhaps the next time anyone has a book launch they could add it in.

erok

Hi Patrick et al,

Really good idea moving the wiki to wikia. Looks much better than the pbwiki site. Wish I'd known about it to begin with!

How long should we leave the old wiki before we shut it down?

el_bandita

No objections...

Patrick Brown

Okay - everything's now moved over. The new wiki is live! The home page is here, and here's a list of articles that need creating.