Talk:The Wotch

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on May 22, 2006. The result of the discussion was keep.

Removed the following:

[Its style is] similar to El Goonish Shive although less detailed.

The reason is the following exchange on the El Goonish Shive Message Board, in pages 2 and 3 of the thread " 'What if?' EGS Crossovers".

As a result of these comments, some Wotchers assumed that EGS creator Dan Shive was antagonistic toward The Wotch, but he has denied this.

I have edited the final entry for reasons of length, hopefully without omitting any vital information.

Mitchell TF:

EGS, and The Wotch! (www.thewotch.com)

Why? Two comics that have LOTS of Transformations...and a similiar style.

Lee M [yes, it was I]:

Seconded, thirded and fourthed.

I feel it's highly remiss of Dan not to have given The Wotch the recognition it deserves, especially since they've given EGS tons of publicity.

Darkshive (i.e. Dan Shive himself):

The Wotch, though I'm sure never intentionally, has been a source of some frustration for me. The references to EGS and similar art styles between it and EGS resulted in many people assuming the two were actually connected somehow, and I received several e-mails to that effect. It was not something I asked for, and the inclusion of Uryuoms (which, if memory serves, I only found out via e-mail after their inclusion) wasn't something I was pleased with.

If I've recieved any additional "publicity" from the Wotch since those uryuoms, I haven't seen it. I can't read it without that feeling of frustration. I find it difficult to describe... I guess it feels like a forced association with something. I never asked for there to be any association between EGS and the Wotch; it just happened due to the art style and EGS references in the Wotch.

Anne Onymous:

First of all, I assure you that any frustration has never, ever been intentional on our part, and we're very sorry for causing any trouble or annoyance. The first reference was intended to be a tribute to a great inspiration in motivating me to try out my hand at a webcomic. I was a novice and did not know the stir it would cause afterward. The Grace sketch was posted with permission, but the Uryuoms were not, and, again, I apologize for that. It was during a time when I was too busy to do the comic, and I did not know about their appearance until after the fact, and should have stepped in anyway. Again, I apologize.

Quick note about the art style: That's just a coincidence. I drew this way before I knew about EGS, and it was the fact that Dan drew relatively similar that made me interested in EGS in the first place....

To readers of EGS and The Wotch: The last thing I want is a "war" or something breaking out between bunnies and Wotchers, so I request that you do not suggest crossovers anymore. I'd rather these simply be two webcomics that people can enjoy individually and separately.

Thanks for your time, and I promise I'll make my presence scarce on these boards so as to avoid further confusion.

Keep up the good work, Dan.

--Anne

For reference purposes, the authors of both have taken steps to end the feud that wasn't there in the first place. Some hardcore forum members may grumble but I gather that the comics have pretty cordial relations. Which still doesn't mean that there'll be a crossover. --Kizor 19:36, 9 August 2005 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] Buffy?

humour and drama is reminiscent of Jeff Smith's Bone and Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer Can someone clarify this Whedon influence, it isn't clear to me? RJFJR 02:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Seems to me it isn't quite acurate as the humor isn't as much in the style of Buffy as it is about referencing things like Buffy, though I do personally see the Bone comparision. Its funny for how reference centric the early strips were how it isnt brought up anywhere.--68.231.168.20 16:27, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The comparisons to other fictional works is a critical review, and thus opinion rather than fact. I don't think they belong here. Redneckgaijin 04:20, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] cleanup

The latest version of this comment is The authors appear as characters in the comic along with many of their friends, but for their credit this is not done for its own sake. Is there a better way to word this? RJFJR 02:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

If I knew of one I would've used it. I'm open to suggestions. "These inserts are not done for their own sakes"? --Kizor 09:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

It seems that someone has suggested that Cheer! be merged with The Wotch. I personally think that that's not a good idea. Cheer! might take place in teh same area, but it's a different comic. They're definitely connecte, but I think Cheer! deserves its own section. Hydragon 01:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

No, we shouldn't merge. Cheer! is its own comic. Friendly Hostility and Boy Meets Boy are on separate servers, and are separate articles, and all the Keenspot and DrunkDuck comics are separate articles despite being on the same respective servers. So, Cheer! should be separate. - CorbinSimpson 06:22, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Not that I want them merged, but... Cheer! and The Wotch share more than a server -- they share a setting and characters. It might be a good idea to have an article about this setting. SamB 12:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reword introduction?

It feels to me like the 2nd through 5th paragraphs, which talk about the story, are a tiny bit too open with storyline and border heavily on spoilers. Do you guys think it would be possible to move them down or pare them off a bit? - CorbinSimpson 06:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Weezer or Wonder Woman??

So the current article says the logo on Wolfie's shirt is a Weezer Logo, but it always reminded me of Wonder Woman. Especially with how it seems to be two W's.


[edit] Authors and Characters?

I don't have a reference handy, but the characters "Anne Onymous" and "Robin Ericson" are NOT meant to be representations of the creators. The creators prefer to conceal their identities and use the character names as pseudonyms- nothing more. RedneckGaijin 18 May 2006

  • That's absolutely correct, references can be found here: [3]. Are you just saying this as general information, or is the article incorrect? I couldn't see any mention of this either way in a brief look through the article. --Tim 17:16, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
    • Re-read the first paragraph of the entry. RedneckGaijin 19 May 2006
      • I removed that sentence from the first paragraph. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 18:07, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Author's articles redirected here

Following the consensus of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Wotch, I have redirected the articles for Anne Onymous and Robin Ericson here. –Abe Dashiell (t/c) 21:57, 28 May 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Post-CfD Editing

I've used White Lightning's in-house wiki as a sandbox to correct grammatical errors and cull trivia and spoilers. The current draft is here. I'm reluctant to make the direct edit unilaterally after the CfD, so I'd appreciate comments. Redneckgaijin 20:02, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The Wotch: Cheer!

Well, it's finally come to this. Should The Wotch: Cheer! be merged into the spinoff section?
Discuss!!! Vikedal 02:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

If it comes down to a choice between that and outright deletion (which it almost certainly will), I'd say yes. DGemmell 01:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from The Wotch: Cheer!

Please merge any relevant content from The Wotch: Cheer! per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Wotch: Cheer!. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-26 08:38Z

[edit] Merge from The Wotch: My Sister, Myself

Please merge any relevant content from The Wotch: My Sister, Myself per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Wotch: My Sister, Myself. (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. —Quarl (talk) 2007-02-26 08:38Z

[edit] This Article (as it is) should have been deleted.

This article is very bad. The first thing any Wotcher should should do is find any references to The Wotch that show it too be notable. for example, mentions in any magazines, any awards it has won. If you find good ones, then the page will survive any future AfDs After that, this article needs to practically be re-written.Joeldipops 07:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't suppose you could be more specific than 'bad'? Icechicken 07:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, I'm not an experienced wikipedia type person, I'm just an EGS bunny that learnt a lesson from the AfD we had there, so I can't explain exactly what I mean. Look at the El Goonish Shive AfD discussion for perhaps a better explaination. I beleive the megatokyo article is the model for webcomic articles. Joeldipops 08:13 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Characters, Items, anomalies, etc.

I think these should either be given their own article or taken out of the current one/ shortened to only relevant things. A lot of this isn't relevant to someone who hasn't read the comic, and the article just seems long. --Osho-Jabbe 06:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:AnneOnymous.PNG

Image:AnneOnymous.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 20:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Cheer!Sections.JPG

Image:Cheer!Sections.JPG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 04:59, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

-- Rationale template entered and filled in by the copyright holder, allowing this image to be used in "The Wotch" Wikipedia article. Tselsebar 00:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. --Kizor 14:37, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of sections "Cheer!", "Shades of Grey", "My Sister, Myself", and "CYOA"

I removed these three sections a few days ago, but I see they've been restored. Here's my reasoning for why they shouldn't be in the article; if anyone disagrees, please reply.

  • "Cheer!" is the one which I'm least sure about. I'm not sure whether it's official or not, or how closely it's connected to the comic. However, unless there's a very close relationship between the main comic and this one, I don't see why it should get a "free ride" on this article - if I wrote a Garfield fan comic, for example, it probably wouldn't get mentioned in an article on Garfield.
  • "Shades of Grey" was a one-off joke. Unless it's a much more influential joke than this would seem to suggest, I see no reason why it's worth mentioning.
  • "My Sister, Myself" might be worth mentioning if there were something solid to point at. However, the links seem to mostly be dead, and it's got no projected release date; there doesn't seem to be much of substance about it.
  • "CYOA" definitely shouldn't be mentioned. It's not an official activity - it's a thread (or maybe a subforum?) on the webcomic's forum.

Zetawoof(ζ) 00:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Given the lack of response, I've removed all but "Cheer!" again. Zetawoof(ζ) 07:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Cheer! and MSMS are both official spin-offs of the comic. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 23:42, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
There are no live sources for "My Sister, Myself". As you seem to know something about it, can you update the reference? Zetawoof(ζ) 23:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts from a Wotch site admin

I think it's worth me commenting here, since I'm one of the more influential people at the Wotch site (having helped build a lot of it, contributed a number of filler comics, and written most of the PHP code that runs the site).

First off, Cheer! is its own separate comic, drawn by someone else: It has its own site, its own (decent-sized) fanbase, and its own fan art, and it even has some fans that dislike the Wotch comics. It bears about the same relationship to the Wotch that Batman does to Superman: They exist in the same universe, and there's occasional character overlap, but that's really about it. If anything, I would consider it very reasonable to separate Cheer! back into its own article.

Shades of Grey was indeed a one-off joke, and had relatively little influence in the Wotch community overall. Ani and Jason had their fun, and now they're done. I doubt a lot of people in the Wotch community even remember what Shades of Grey was.

The Wotch CYOA is a game on the site containing entirely user-contributed content and is currently barely notable enough to list on the site itself, much less in this article.

The Wotch: My Sister, Myself, for the Nintendo DS, has had almost no development for a year now: We had a good demo running on the GBA and then had to switch platforms, and that killed work on it. However, we've recently (just over the past week or so) had an infusion of professional game-development personnel on our staff, so work is restarting, and we will be rebuilding the web site for it soon. I would not consider it notable yet, but as we now hope to actually have it in stores by mid-2009 (sooner, if Becky gets her way), it will likely become notable soon. Please don't forget it existed ;-)

I'd like to offer my own personal thoughts on the Wotch article here at Wikipedia: I've thought for a while now that this article is simply too long and too disorganized. It's nice to be thorough, but I think a page this gargantuan reflects badly on what I consider to be a good webcomic. In addition, we have had our own Wotchipedia to cover specialized topics of a Wotchy nature for nearly ten months, so there is no point in duplicating all those efforts in a general encyclopedia. So I would encourage this article to be significantly shortened (like, say, half or more), so long as the relevant information contained herein is first copied by somebody into the Wotchipedia. (I'd do it myself, but I'm too busy helping run the site...) Wotchipedia itself may be considered notable enough to mention in this article, as it's the official source for a lot of this same information, and provides a convenient place to dump Wotchy stuff that Wikipedians don't want to keep here.

Now, as for those of you who've argued repeatedly that the site isn't notable, I have something to say to you: The 2,000 members of our forum and the 20,000 unique IPs we get every day are probably going to disagree with you. Anne's been interviewed a number of times now in online magazines and blogs; our T-shirts sell out the moment we get them in; we've already had two Wotch fan-conventions now (Washington, DC and Madison, WI); and we'll have our own booth at Comicon next year. The Wotch is one of the few webcomics out there to reliably receive over a thousand dollars in voluntary donations every month (we average around $1,100 per month), and we provide hosting services on our private, colocated server hardware for a number of other comics as well as a number of other comics' forums. The Wotch has spun off one webcomic (Cheer!), collaborated with three more (EGS, Zebragirl, Accidental Centaurs), and indirectly spun off several more by providing their authors with a forum in which to test their writing.

So, well, maybe that's not enough for you, but there are a lot of far less-influential web sites listed prominently in Wikipedia these days.

These are my opinions and mine alone, not sanctioned by Anne or Robin, but I suspect they'd agree with them.

Phantom-inker (talk) 07:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

  • OK, good to hear some support for the trimming I did recently. As you're involved with the Wotch community, any chance you can try to recruit a few people to move some of the more obscure character/object/etc sections to Wotchpedia, and to expand the (currently rather anemic) plot section? Right now, it's hard to get a sense of what the comic's about from the article. Zetawoof(ζ) 09:43, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
    • In October, I copied some of the information here to the Wotchipedia. Perhaps I'll copy some more over the next few days. Would you say it's a good idea to completely remove the Spells, Objects, and Anomalies section as well as the Characters section (apart from the main three)? –Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 00:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
      • If it's already been moved somewhere else, go right ahead. Zetawoof(ζ) 02:29, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
        • It's about half done, currently. I moved all the information in the "Other Important Characters" and "Other Characters" sections to the Wotchipedia. —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 23:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
        • And now there's just the spells/objects/anomalies section to move. —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 03:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
        • And now even that's been done. If you feel this was too radical, feel free to put some of the information back into the article. —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 15:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Connections with Other Webcomics

The recent edit by Satori Son removed the reference to Triquetra Cats but retained the reference to Moperville. There is no canonical connection between El Goonish Shive and the Wotch despite the mention of Moperville early in the comic. Frankly, I think the connection with Triquetra Cats is more notable than the reference to Moperville. I don't dispute any other changes from that edit, since they were all just cameos (for a list of cameos, one can just go to this site which keeps track of such things), but I believe the Triquetra Cats connection deserves a mention, especially if the Moperville reference is going to be retained. —Celtic Minstrel (talk • contribs) 00:44, 14 February 2008 (UTC)