Talk:A Miracle of Science

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The character list as it was in the original version of the article appeared to be a copy of the webcomic's main site [1]. Since that causes copyvio problems, I removed the section entirely. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 16:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More. Just more.

This page needs MORE. More descriptions, more detail... more of everything!

I am working on this today -- I'm creating it offline, so I may have to merge stuff if anyone else adds anything today. --David.alex.lamb 17:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC) First draft complete. There's a big time gap in favourite quotes that I hope to fill in later today. --David.alex.lamb 20:35, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "First Occurrence" link style

When identifying characters I follow with a link to the comic page of first occurrence (or first named, if that's different). This results in many numbered links. Is this OK, or should we/I redo it? For example, I could place the link around the character's name, e.g.

Caprice Quevillion (Martian), a captain and criminal psychologist with the Martian police. Mars requested that she be assigned to Prester's current case.

[edit] Discussion Regarding Notability

I apologize that this is one long paragraph. If it were broken into paragraphs, it would be hard to tell it was all from me and not from several people who forgot to sign their entires. With that said: It seems to me that the notability criteria on Wikipedia fall down with regards to webcomics. Webcomics are a new medium that's being mostly ignored by the older media (whether or not it's for good reason is something that will have to be determined later; hindsight is always 20/20), so external and verifiable sources are hard to come by for all but the largest webcomics. Webcomics, to a large degree, are an insular group of sites. A Miracle of Science is insular even for a webcomic. It doesn't have a links page to draw in reciprocal links, it doesn't have a forum to increase readership, it doesn't have a donation page, and it doesn't pimp itself out on comics links sites. And yet, A Miracle of Science has several thousand recurring readers and several thousand incoming links (other sites or pages that link into it) according to its Extreme Tracking page. Extreme Tracking only works, as I understand it, if you have JavaScript turned on, so these numbers are a definite undercount. Professionals such as Steve Jackson[2][3] and Phil Foglio[4] link to and praise the comic. Both of these professionals have long records of publishing paper books and magazines of their work, and use their websites as virtual extensions of their paper works. In the old days, links to things like Miracle of Science would have been in the editor's notes of these books, which would have given published verification, but those things have now migrated to the web. I've looked at other requests for deletion, and therefore I'm certain that someone will reply - in good faith - that unless a site has a mention in the NY Times or something similar, then it's not notable. I'm saying that requiring sources on paper or in the largest websites (like CNN.com) sets a bar that's so high we'll lose the vast majority of information on Wikipedia, and we'll be the poorer for it. Wittyname 20:10, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, so far as I can tell, links such as those you provide do help establish notability. Better are Internet reviews - Googling only yields me series from the Webcomic Book Club as possibly major enough, though. Robin Z 04:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

With 422 pages, mostly in full color, approximately 600x800 pixels, I'd call that a quite notable achievement, and the comic isn't finished yet. It still has the epilogue to finish it. That's equivalent to a large graphic novel series. With the readership this webcomic has, it's 'print run' far exceeds almost any 'dead tree' graphic novel series of equivalent page count. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.136.145.220 (talk) 08:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Another reason for keeping this is the Uniqueness of the webcomic itself, i.e.

• Mad Science as a studied and quantified mental illness with no super-powers given to the sufferer.
• A near-omnipotent group mind that's not automatically the ultimate evil.
• Nanomachines and Artificial Intelligence that are consistent with our current theories on the subject and not just a magical plot device.
• An excellent plot with great dialog. (very hard to find in webcomics!)

--Sekenre 10:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Miracle of Science has a big user base and it is growing. Most folks I tell about MoS can not stop to read until they have finished all pages that are available. MoS does not seek slashdot fame. Should it therefore be denied Wikipedia mention? I bet there are books mentioned in Wikipedia that have lower print numbers than MoS readership /haba. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.237.237.21 (talk) 21:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if this article is gone and protected tomorrow. It pains me that Wikipedia's greatest strength could have been articles like this one on topics you'll never find in Britannica or Encarta. Wikipedia could have stayed current, with articles that 'real' encyclopedia's won't touch because they're about fields not well-developed enough yet to be certifying experts to cite in the footnotes. Instead it's held down by a set of essays that are generally treated like The Immutable Word of God. Back when I cared enough about this site to have a username I talked with an admin who said that if he had it his way he'd delete all these stupid articles about worthless internet culture, but he begrudgingly tolerates the big ones like Penny Arcade and AYB because their rabid fanboys would grind the site to a halt. Once saw an article listed of AfD with the reasoning "Fails Alexa Test." 3 guesses what happened to it. And because of all that BS, how many people do you think might have become really big 'pedians who instead decided to edit Comixpedia, or whatever the specialty pedia is for what they like? This site has so much wasted potential it makes me sick.

A couple of the smaller web comics I follow have mentioned the Notability of their Wikipedia articles recently, and it's a little upsetting. I remember a time not so long ago when Wikipedia was fanatically interested in growth, and now small but interesting articles like this one feel more likely to be dropped than tagged with the encouraging 'Stub, please write more' line. I'm all for keeping Wikipedia clean, but I'd rather not see it barren - there's no strict size limit that would make it impossible to have a short article about such a clever and well written web comic. I've never seen anyone do hard science fiction in comic form so well before - online or offline - and it would be a real shame to have something so enjoyable but also so unknown lose its article just because not enough people know about it yet. - Korivak 06:02, 19 December 2006 (UTC)