This is a record of old proposals for the page above this one. They did not receive consensus and have been replaced with an alternate proposal.
Alexa Proposal edit
Many webcomics are perfectly valid articles on Wikipedia: they are verifiable, active and encyclopedic. However, there are thousands of webcomics that attract a relatively small amount of traffic and cannot be considered encyclopedic. There is also a growing concern that enterprising webcomic creators will use Wikipedia as a jumping point to generate new traffic (Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising and self-promotion).
Therefore, to address these concerns about new articles (and also the list at List of webcomics), this guideline has been created to determine what webcomics should be included in Wikipedia.
Using Alexa Traffic edit
Alexa [1] will be used to determine traffic for any webcomic with its own domain name. If the webcomic has a 3-month average traffic better than 100,000, it can be considered to be an entry that could be allowed in Wikipedia.
Exceptions to this guideline would include web sites that are currently in transition (from one site to another or one domain to another) or new webcomics authored by creators of an existing webcomic that meets the above criteria. Webcomics that have since retired (and thus are not receiving new, regular traffic) may also remain in Wikipedia.
кк===KeenSpace===
KeenSpace, a site for hosting webcomics, presents a unique challenge. Because KeenSpace hosts most of their webcomics as a subdomain of keenspace.com, Alexa treats the entire domain name (and its subdomains) together, which has a generally high rating. So, for comics hosted on KeenSpace, we recommend that the comic must be in the top 20 under the header "Where do people go on keenspace.com?", which lists the top subdomains for KeenSpace. ̩̏⟨́⟩̋‖ʰɨʀ
Specialty Strips edit
Strips that do not meet other criteria of notability may be still be referred to by links in specific articles when a strip is especially concerned with the subject of the article.
Alternate Proposal edit
An alternate three-point proposal has been formed after a discussion on the talk pages revealed that some people find the above proposal far too restrictive. This alternate proposal is partially based on A Modest Webcomics Proposal.
- A webcomic must be on the web and actively producing strips for a minimum of 33 weeks before being considered for Wikipedia. During this time, any hiatus periods lasting more than 1 week will not be considered "active" and will not count to this goal. "Guest Weeks", fan art and the like would be considered hiatus periods for these purposes.
- A webcomic must have at least 100 strips in its archive before being considered for Wikipedia. These strips must all be produced by the webcartoonist or webcartoonist team (though strips where the primary creator is actually the writer, recruiting several artists to produce the strips they write, would be considered "produced by the webcartoonist" for the purposes of inclusion. Guest strips and fan art -- produced wholly by others -- would not.)
- Someone other than the webcartoonist needs to actually write and develop the article in question. It is difficult for a webcomic's primary creator to adopt the necessary distance from his or her own work to write an encyclopedic article. Also the voluntary development of the Wikipedia article by someone other than the webcartoonist demonstrates fan support of the strip, and represents notability among a discrete population.
Alternate Alternate proposal edit
Because WP:VfD has consistently dismissed the above proposal as exceedingly lax, I propose a much longer inclusion time, particularly for webcomics that have no other legitimate claims to notability. I propose that comics with either 500 comics or 3 years of consistent updates, as determined above, be considered for inclusion.
These are guidelines edit
Remember, however, that these are merely guidelines. Sites that are close to, but still under, these thresholds may also be included on the basis that webcomics customarily grow in size and have a higher likelihood of increasing in readership and, thus, becoming encyclopedic. These guidelines are primaily designed to prevent the multitude of new or unencyclopedic webcomics from using Wikipedia as free promotion. Nor is it to be used exclusively to drum out articles that exist as of the time of this article's creation that might not necessarily meet these guidelines.
Of course, this is still merely at the proposal stage. Further comments are welcome on the talk page.