ZineWiki:Deletion Policy discussion

Deletion Policy discussion

This article will serve all discussion related to the Deletion Policy. Before we can set hard and fast rules for deleting articles, I think we need to first define:

• what falls into good articles for ZineWiki
• what falls into bad articles for ZineWiki
• and how broad or narrow we want to focus ZineWiki

Replying

I’ve started a section for each question below. Please leave your opinions in the proper sections with new replies going at the bottom of each section.

Also, when you reply, it helps visually if you begin with a succession of colons, one more than the entry above yours. ZineWiki will automatically format this to indent your reply, making the discussion much easier to read. Remember to place the same number of colons before each new paragraph of your reply. For example, typing this:

I think that’s a great idea. –Bob

:I agree, we should use that. –Rob

::But you guys are forgetting the point I made earlier. –Sob

:::Oh, you’re right. Perhaps we should discuss it some more. –Bob

Formats like:

I think that’s a great idea. –Bob

I agree, we should use that. –Rob

But you guys are forgetting the point I made earlier. –Sob

Oh, you’re right. Perhaps we should discuss it some more. –Bob

Good Articles for ZineWiki

I think the most important articles on ZineWiki are, obviously, the ones about zines - followed by articles on Zinesters, then probably Events, Distros and then online zines. After those top five come all the articles not specifically about zines, but that somehow relate and/or are of interest to zinesters. This lowest level of importance is where I would put entries about corporate books about zines, books former zinesters wrote, videos made by former or current zinesters, etc.

Below even those articles, I would place the production technique articles. Those defining photocopier or saddle stitch, etc. Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Bad Articles for ZineWiki

Any article that does not relate directly to zines. For example, this could include articles about Stephen King (I doubt anyone would be creating an entry for the zine his brother, David, and he made in third grade called ‘’Dave’s Rag’’), Fall Out Boy (I don’t care how long they were on an indie label, or that the band the members were in previously fought against ‘privilege’ and stood for DIY ethics, etc.) or articles debating the necessity of wearing pants (trying to catch TIS before he registers).

To sum that up, any article that doesn’t relate, clearly, to zines is probably just taking up space. Now, yes, it’s true that our encyclopedia is not written on paper – however – unlike Wikipedia, my server has a limit. Currently, ZineWiki is at 7% of its full capacity. Which may not sound like much, but take into consideration, that’s only with 600 articles and only a third of those have images. I’d eventually like to have images at 100% for the articles, and at that rate, we would max out somewhere around 4 or 5,000 articles. (unless we can do some sort of fundraiser and Al can buy additional servers) Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I like the criteria you've started to spell out and would probably expand it something like: "All articles should be directly related to zines, zinesters or the zine community." For other types of media beyond actual zines and other types of resources, it has become evident we need to spell things out a little more. I'm just gonna throw out ideas for people to start thinking about:

Events- Should be zine-related and feature zinesters or zines.

Distros- Should distribute zines.

Retail Stores- Should sell zines or regularly host zine readings or events.

Chapbooks- Should be published by someone that has previously published a zine or the content directly relates to zines.

Magazines- Content should be directly related to zines or zinesters (examples- Punk Planet features dozens of zine reviews each issue, covers the zine community, and is mostly written by zinesters. Clamor is done by a fairly prominent zine publisher and reviews zines. Bitch began as a zine and covers zines regularly.)

Soundfiles- Should be directly related to zines (Example: Zinester Podcasts).

Online Zines- Total gray area, not only does it bring up the zine vs. e-zine debate, but there are thousands, they can disappear or stop getting updated almost as soon as they have something written about them, they also could dilute the focus of the Wiki away from print zines. I think we need to explore some criteria here.

Music- Should be directly related to zines (contain lyrics referring to zines).

Movies- Should feature significant content about zines or feature zinesters (Example: zine documentaries).

Books- Should be about zines or the content directly relates to zines. If they don't mention zines at all, they aren't appropriate.

Since books were recently the hot topic for discussion and created the need for clarifying what content isn't appropriate for ZineWiki, I'd like to follow up on this. Tom Musea recently posted a long book review as an article, when it was questioned by Alan, then later me, he argued that we should include full articles for every indie book written by someone somehow associated with the zine community, regardless of the content. I think this is too broad and will both lose the focus of this Wiki on zines and open the door for indie book publishers and authors to add hundreds of non zine-related book listings and reviews. I would suggest for non zine-related books written by previous zine publishers, that info is more appropriate for the zinester's bio, rather than full articles. See: Jim Goad and Sasha Cagen for examples of how we are currently doing this. Instead of listing a bunch of books that are not directly related to zines, create a bio for the author listing all their zine and non-zine related writing, and then create seperate articles only for their zine-related publications. I think this approach would work accross the board, not just with books. (Music Example: Prominent zinester Aaron Cometbus was in the band Pinhead Gunpowder, rather than writing a seperate article about his band, that info should be included in his bio. Movie Example: Seth Friedman was featured in the movie "Capturing the Friedmans," this info should be included in his bio, not as a seperate article.) dan10things 13:40, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

In the above you mention Chapbooks as only those published by someone who has previoulsy done a zine. That presents some problems. Chapbooks for me are single zines with no followup issues. I have a hard time distinguishing between a single issue zine and a chapbook. Could someone better define that. I know some zinesters that don't do anything but single issue zines/chapbooks. Perhaps the most important is Robert W. Howington - and everything about him is zinester for sure. Also in this category is Yul Tolbert - though he has also dabbled in a multi issues zine I think. Howington is a major zinester name. Yul is well known. I think chapbooks only, is pretty common. I understand the difference when I see it - and y'all are making reasonable guidelines here - but this one is very grey area for me. Most zinesters also do chapbooks - and that is easy to spot. But some do chapbooks almost exclusively. Perhaps adding this to chapbooks: 'or has written for, or contributed to zines' - that would include almost all the chapbook authors I know. And that brings up comix collections, and mail art. How should those two categories be considered? Musea 14:49, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

See Tom, I think when we start talking about the greater issues here, you and I will actually agree more than disagree. On Chapbooks, I don't think the word is interchangeable with zine because it can be used for pamphlets, political and religious tracts and almanacs. I agree maybe a broader criteria than I layed out would be appropriate, but we still want keep out stuff like all the religious tracts out there. Comics and mail art are definitely both types of media we should have some criteria for. Suggestions on the criteria? dan10things 15:20, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

For comics, before we run into the same discussion as we've had about the indie books, I think the best criteria might actually be production method and distribution chain. I personally distro a comic called My Brain Hurts by Liz Baillie. And although it's a comic, it's photocopied, hand folded and stapled and sold by, well, her site, tabling at events and Fall of Autumn. It's more like a zine with drawings than a comic.

For chapbooks – from what I've seen, nearly every chapbook would be welcome on ZineWiki. They are usually hand-made, usually photocopied or off-set, usually written by one person – they have all of the zine traits, just prefer a more grown-up sounding title. Where this line gets blurred is when someone's novel is self-published by a vanity press and they call it a chapbook. That would get a delete nomination in my... book.

For online zines, perhaps we can set a minimum date of existance. Say, the e-zine must have been at the same webaddress and regularly updated (once a month or more) for at least six months? Or if they did something notable within the first six months that's widely recognized, they could probably squeeze in earlier.Alan Fall of Autumn 15:30, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Broad or Narrow

All the above taken into consideration, I don’t want to limit our scope too much. We should attempt to be as inclusive as possible. But already there are too many promotional articles that need editing, too many articles that are barely a sentence more than “available at this distro and here’s my email address and and…” – that info all changes and that’s not what an encyclopedia is about. Articles should be factual and should read just as well five years from now as they do today. Alan Fall of Autumn 08:59, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I think many of these things can be outlined in the style guide in an attempt to help people creating original articles, as well as to help others editing existing articles. Things to remember: Articles should not be reviews or online ads, but more encyclopedia-like listings that can stand the test of time. Articles should avoid including prices and ordering info for a current issue or talk of an upcoming issue (a link to a website that is constantly updated by the publisher would work way better). I also think an emphasis should now be put on doing a complete article when an article is first created. We have a ton of zine titles listed and stub articles that may never get completed. One shouldn't assume that someone else will come back and do the work on an article, especially with more obscure zine titles. If you have enough knowledge about something to start an article, it would be wonderful if you could at least write two or three sentances about it. Yeah, I know I'm dreaming on that last one :) dan10things 14:13, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I think it would be ideal if anyone that enters a zine would also enter a good sized article. But at this inchoate stage it might just be best to make that a guideline. I know there are a lot of zines that I like, know a little about, and want to list but I don't know their full history. I would think that at this early stage there is room for both, entries that just get the zine listed and started, and full well-researched entries. If zinewiki does start running into endless lists of small zines - perhaps there is a way to condense that info down later. Musea 14:57, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I would love to see someone (or someones) tackle the Stub Articles category, adding what they know and perhaps removing a few stub articles to full articles. But there's no way to enforce the "more than one sentence" rule, except to automatically delete every article started that doesn't include more than one sentence. But that would not be to our benefit, as they should be added to, not removed.

I've been going through the Stub Articles category and adding cover scans of what I can. But unfortunately a lot of these are zines I'm not all that familiar with and therefor can't add anything of substance to the article. Hopefully more people with both a lot of knowledge and time on their hands will come our way. Alan Fall of Autumn 18:57, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Deleting Articles

I think before deleting an article, we should put it to vote. To nominate an article that you believe should be removed, edit the page and place {{Delete}} (to see a preview, click here) at the top of the page. We could then put it to vote on the Talk page and decide whether to keep or delete based on majority rule, with voting lasting for exactly one week. Thoughts? Alan Fall of Autumn 11:30, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Excellent idea! One thing to consider is only letting people vote that have previously contributed to the ZineWiki as an attempt to keep someone from creating 10 new profiles themselves to argue in favor of keep an article that is inappropriate. dan10things 13:57, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

Wikipedia uses a rule (that I don't know how to automatically implement, but we could check it by hand) where 'new users' are defined as someone who registered less than five days ago and has contributed less than (I belive) five edits. For our purpose, I think we should stretch that to seven days as voting will last a week, and five edits is fine with me. Let me know if anyone has any objections to this. Alan Fall of Autumn 14:07, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

I agree too - good idea. Musea 14:51, 2 October 2006 (EDT)

'Sup, gents. I haven't been around here much lately, but this thing seems to be taking shape. For my part of this debate, I'm not sympathetic for articles that're purely promotional. You know the ones... almost always written by their subjects, with the cutesy and/or glowing language that shows no comprehension of our editorial guidelines. There's been a fucking flood of them, and I don't know who would have the time or will to rewrite them all. I'd like for participants to know that they're welcome to add whatever they like, but if it's the sort thoughtless promotional bullshit that makes asses of all involved, it won't last. It never hurt anyone to look at themselves and their projects with a certain amout of detachment - some people are fundamentally incapable of it, but I expect everyone to try. Hype yourself on your own server space. Edameron 21:49, 2 October 2006 (EDT)