Talk:Zombietime

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  1. January 2007 - May 2007

Contents

[edit] Archived

The discussion page has been archived. McJeff 03:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Youtube linked

I not going to remove/edit war that for now but would like some feedback. It seems that youtube is not a reliable source and does this really add to the article? Thanks! --Tom 23:18, 17 July 2007 (UTC) ps The best I could find is:Linking to "YouTube, Google Video, and similar sites There is no blanket ban on linking to these sites as long as the links abide by the guidelines on this page (which would be infrequent). See also Wikipedia:Copyrights for the prohibition on linking to pages that violate intellectual property rights."--Tom 23:25, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

There was a HUGE fight over this a while ago. Because the zombietime YouTube site can be presumed to have material which has the permission of the copyright holder (zombie), the link to the YouTube site is ok from a copyright perspective. (Linking to sites which host media with dodgy copyright status is considered bad; if one knows the media is in violation of copyright, the link should be deleted.) If zombie had mostly home movies of his kids, or amateur film projects, or other stuff not related to his main website, it would not be appropriate. But the videos posted at that YouTube account are basically an extension of the zombietime webpage, and thus the link is appropriate. User:Argyriou (talk) 23:42, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Linking to youtube is a poor practice imho. How can we verify the material or author? It is very un-encyclopediatic and un necessary. Anyways, --Tom 13:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
The YouTube user zombietimedotcom is zombie, that is painfully obvious and it is not only acceptable to link to zombie's YouTube site, it is a helpful addition to the article. -- Nev.

[edit] References

The reference used to state that zombie is based in San Fransisco was discredited by zombie his/herself in his/her article about the Ambulance hoax.

Quote: "I have never said where I live, either. Yes, I take photographs in San Francisco frequently, but that does not mean I necessarily live there. Again, (The Age is) jumping to conclusions." AND "Virtually every 'fact' or claim in Chandler's story is either inaccurate, irrelevant, or just plain wrong." [1]

Do you think Wikipedia has any credibility when people present extreme bias and proven lies as fact? Someone here seems intent on using the article in The Age as a reference, however due to the fact that the article is nothing but an argumentum ad hominem, ripe with flaws, I have removed all references to that article. -Nev.

"I don't like it" is not a valid argument for deleting relevant, sourced content. Since it goes to the issue of zombie's credibility (or lack thereof), it's obviously relevant to the article. -- ChrisO 07:53, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
WP:RS and WP:BLP is really the issue I think. The source is claiming that the subject resides in SF. The subject disclaims this which raises WP:BLP and WP:RS. Your right that the 2nd paragraph is irrelevant, but removing this material base on the 1st para seems proper.Dman727 10:18, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Just saw your follow up revert. Agree that portion is probably fine. Dman727 10:22, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ChrisO removing reliable sources

User:ChrisO has removed a paragraph about mainstream news sources using zombie's work:

“ Fox News has used zombie's photos and analysis during news broadcasts, including one Brit Hume report about extremism at an anti-Israel rally.[23] and another about the Qana Red Cross Ambulance Incident.[24] zombie's video recording of Hatem Bazian's speech about an "intifada in America"[25] prompted Bazian to appear on Fox's Bill O'Reilly Show to defend himself.[26] ”

ChrisO's reasoning is that the sources are not reliable. Two of the sources he removed in May on the spurious grounds of linking to copyright violations, even though both clips are fair use, and the copyright holder has not requested the clips be removed. Argyriou (talk) 21:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

An unauthorised YouTube video of a copyrighted TV broadcast is practically the definition of a copyright violation, and it's specifically prohibited in WP:EL: "Linking to a page that illegally distributes someone else's work sheds a bad light on Wikipedia and its editors. This is particularly relevant when linking to sites such as YouTube, where due care should be taken to avoid linking to material that violates its creator's copyright." (emphasis as in original). The fact that the copyright holder hasn't complained is irrelevant. I'm going to remove the links again and I strongly advise against restoring them - persistently linking to copyright violations is grounds for blocking. -- ChrisO 22:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
The broadcast on zombie's youtube page is primarily showing the copyright work of the uploader, and as such, the claim of fair use is strong. The video on the HotAir site is licensed - http://hotair.com/termsofuse - and serves to verify that zombie's work was indeed used at FoxNews. Your removal of the rest of the paragraph, discussing zombie's role in persuading Bazian to interview on O'Reilly, is nonsensical, as there are two reliable sources for that. I've reverted and included in html comments the rationale for the video links. If you revert the entire paragraph, I will treat it as vandalism. Argyriou (talk) 22:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Frontpagemag.com is not a blog, and thus is allowable as a source. The additional source to Berkeley Daily Planet was included to verify that Frontpagemag.com wasn't making it all up, as some left-wing fantasists might believe. If the Daily Planet reference is not necessary for corroboration, the Frontpagemag reference is necessary to demonstrate that certain media event was driven by zombie's posted video. Argyriou (talk) 23:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Rather than go round in circles on the status of frontpagemag.com, I've raised the question of its reliability at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources#Is FrontPageMag.com a reliable source?. Let's adjourn this part of the discussion to that page. -- ChrisO 00:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This article needs to be consolidated into fewer sections.

There is no reason to have three seperate sections for "Reports", "The identity of zombie" and "Motivation", especially since there isn't any information given in those sections other than statements from the website. As it is now, it reads like a fan site or a vanity page on myspace and relies far too heavily on the statements of the owner of zombietime. We should keep in mind that the only reason zombietime should even have a wikipedia article is because some of the website's controversies have gotten notice in the mainstream. This is not an article about a character named "zombie" invented by the owner of the website.

So I propose consolidating and eliminating the first three sections in the following ways:

The Reports section is rendundant to the first sentence in the lead, the information from both can be merged together. Speculation as to whether zombietime is a blog or not is meaningless to the article and relies on original research to make its point, so it should be trimmed.

"Identity of Zombie" section can also be merged into the lead. Other than the fact that the website owner is anonymous, there isn't much more to say on that.

Motivation. This section is just ridiculous. What is the point of it? This is where the article really starts to sound like a fan site. What does the "motivation" of the website's owner have to do with anything? This is the key point. This article is about zombietime, the website, and should briefly describe why that website is noteworthy.

Comments? --Loonymonkey 00:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


Good points from a good editor. In fact, I was inspired to do a comprehensive rewrite, mainly trying to cut down on superflous detail. See this version. I got rid of some irrelevant detail that was left over from old edit wars kerfuffles. However, my revision is only a start, and I invite other editors to finish it (and fix the mistakes I'm sure to have made!).
I did add one thing, a cite of an informative interview zombie did in 2006:
<ref name=2006Interview>{{cite web |url=http://mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com/2006/08/stop-zombie-time.html |title=Interview with "zombie" |author="Blond Sagacity", a pseudonymous [[blog|blogger]] |date=[[2006-08-07]] |accessdate=2007-03-11}}</ref>
Given that zombie has said on zombietime.com that this interview is genuine, I think it counts as a WP:RS, albeit a primary source.
Would anyone object to removing the {{moresources}} tag now? Cheers, CWC 15:50, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


Great job. Your recent edits really seem to solve most of the problems I was talking about. Two things I would say:
1) We should put the phrase "public indecency" (or a better term if you have one) back in the lead and the description of the website. It really is a major part of the website as he features a huge gallery of Folsom Street Fair images (which has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with shocking public nudity). And even in political galleries, he never passes up a chance to photograph a topless or naked person. (also, a significant number of the photos tend to simply be of the "haha, look at this ugly freak" variety, but I can't really think of any encyclopedic way to mention that, so I'm not going to worry about it).
2) The second sentence in the lead is kind of clumsy because it is comparing two different things. The fact that he is anonymous has nothing to do with the fact that he claims not to be conservative. I would favor shortening the sentence to simply say that he is anonymous (no need to enumerate all the aspects of identity that have never been revealed) and drop the "not conservative" part which is highly debatable. If we were to go down that path we would have to find some way to balance it out with other statements (the linked articles do refer to him as conservative), which leads to the question "is it really even necessary?" The readers can probably make up their mind whether he's conservative or not and whether it even matters. A similar (and much larger) debate ranged on the Bill O'Reilly article as to whether he should be referred to in the lead as "conservative" (as others call him) or "independent" (as he calls himself). In the end the answer was neither...let the readers decide.
All in all, I would say you really tightened this article up. I have no objection to removing the moresources tag as the problems that warranted it no longer exist (I'm the one that put it there in the first place). --Loonymonkey 18:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
More good points. You've convinced me, so I made both suggested changes. I also removed the moresources tag.
But I'm confident my edits can easily be improved. Cheers, CWC 03:17, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I suggest we merge the "Website" section into the lede.

There is some redundancy there, but it's also unnecessary. This entire article is supposed to be about the website after all, so why would there be a separate section about the website? Also, the quote from the website owner is pretty pointless in a description of the website itself. I think it's just a holdover from when this article read much more like a fan page and should be removed. Any objections or suggestions are welcome. Thanks!--Loonymonkey (talk) 16:30, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's been no objections so I'm going to merge the two sections. The recently added "Origins" sections has some useful information, but also needs to be pared down a little, possibly merged into the lede. That's a seperate task though. Right now I'm just going to merge "The website" into the lede and eliminate the redundancies. --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I've mostly undone it, because an article lead should summarize the contents of the article, rather than introduce unique material that is never actually mentioned in the article. Instead, I've made the lead an actual summary of the article contents. Jayjg (talk) 03:27, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point. The "Website" section is just another summary of the article and contains a few sentences which are completely redundant. At the very least, we need to lose the first sentence which is just a rewrite of the first sentence in the lede.--Loonymonkey (talk) 15:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you're missing my point. The lead should be a summary of the article contents; it should not contain statements which are unsubstantiated by the article itself. Thus it is not redundant to state that zombie is pseudonymous in both the lead and the article; rather, it required to state it in both places, for proper article style. Something can be in the body but not mentioned in the lead, but not the reverse. Regarding your other concern, which sentences in the "website" section do you feel are "redundant", and why? Jayjg (talk) 03:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I see what you're saying. The first sentence of the Website section is just a rewrite of the summarizing sentence in the lede, though. We don't need to summarize it again. We should get to the specifics. Which gets to my main point that since this entire article is about the website to begin with, why is there a seperate section about the website? What makes that section unique? This goes in tandem with my comments below on the recently-added "Origins" section which really drags this article back into the realm of fandom. Perhaps the first part of that section could be combined with Website in a single section (everything after the first quote in the Origins section is completely pointless). --Loonymonkey (talk) 19:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I've asked before, which sentences in the "website" section do you feel are "redundant" - that is, the information in them is given elsewhere? Please be specific, because I'm not seeing it. Jayjg (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, as I've already stated, the first sentence of the Website section is just a rewrite of the summarizing sentence in the lede. We don't need another summary, we should get the specifics. Do you have any response to my comments? --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
As I've already explained, the material in the lead should summarize material in the body of the article, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with material that does that - on the contrary. My response to your comments is that I need specific examples of material in the "website" section that is merely a repetition of material found elsewhere- and please don't mention material in the lede in that context, we already know that material in the lead will summarize material found elsewhere in the article. Jayjg (talk) 03:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Location, Location, Location

location has been revealed, "I live in the San Francisco Bay Area", NSFW, though. [2] Ronabop (talk) 09:04, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New "Origins" section needs to be trimmed.

This is a ridiculously lengthy section considering that it isn't giving any noteworthy information whatsoever. Worse, it's moving this article back to where it was a year ago when it simply read like a fan site. If it's really necessary to have a section about the "origins" or "motivation" of the website owner (and nobody has made an argument that it is) then it shouldn't be more than a couple of sentences. Having these two self-serving quotes plus a breathless narrative about the first time he went to a rally and uploaded images is just absurd and unencyclopedic. This is Wikipedia, not Facebook.

For starters, I suggest we lose everything after the first quote and then try to figure out a way to merge that first part into another section, perhaps coupled with the suggestions above about the "Website" section. --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:08, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Err, it's six sentences plus a couple of brief quotes. It's not "ridiculously long" nor "breathless", but rather gives some interesting material regarding the genesis of the website. Understanding the website owners professed motivations is key to understanding the content there - and the quotes are valuable because people reading them might consider them positive or negative, depending on their own internal biases. I'm puzzled by this mania for deleting relevant, interesting, and properly sourced material, it's not as if we're running out of space here. Jayjg (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
"We're not running out of space" is certainly no argument for inclusion. Other than the fact that you like it, you're going to have to demonstrate some argument for the noteworthiness of this self-serving narrative. Remember, the only reason this article even exists is because zombietime has been involved in several noteworthy controversies which can be reliably sourced. Absent those, this entire thing would be tagged for speedy deletion. --Loonymonkey (talk) 18:21, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm, you've just described the vast majority of content on Wikipedia. Absent a few noteworthy and reliably sourced controversies, almost ANY person or event can be deemed non-notable. That's just a bit silly. (Note that I am by no means an inclusionist, FWIW.) Horologium (talk) 19:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Horologium has hit the nail on the head here. In fact, your approach would contradict WP:NPOV - you seem to be saying that an article can only discuss controversies, because that's the only thing that's notable. In fact, an article should be balanced, discussing the fundamentals of the topic as well as related controversies. And if you look at just about any article on a website, you will find a section devoted to its origins and a basic description of what you will find on the website. This is not "self-serving narrative", but is merely explaining to the article how the website got started and what it actually consists of. Jayjg (talk) 03:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
And how many of those "Origins" section on other articles about websites are written entirely by the subject? Does the article on Google simply reprint a press-release from the Google corporation verbatim? Because that is what is being done here. It is a "self-serving narrative" because, like over half of this article, it consists entirely of what the subject says about himself. It is not written about him, it is written by him and that's an important difference. We are simply reprinting what he wants people to read about him. That is the very definition of self-serving, and such things are not allowed (again, this is Wikipedia, not Facebook). If there were some other source for the information, we could use that, but there isn't which gets back to the whole notability thing. Your accusations of NPOV aside, no, I don't think that notability is defined by controversy and have never claimed any such thing. My point is that several controversies made zombietime notable, but notability isn't an end in itself that, once achieved, opens the door for anything to be added, however superfluous or unverifiable it is. Sorry, but reliability and verifiability still apply. --Loonymonkey (talk) 16:29, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
In this case the "Origins" section was the result of an interview with the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, not something published on the website itself. As for other websites, many of the pages simply describe what is on the page, as well as their own self-description of their origins and purpose. See, for example, the first two sections of the Independent Media Center article, about a (frankly) more popular website. The material there is taken almost entirely from the website itself (or old versions), or consists of original research. Jayjg (talk) 03:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that taking material from an interview with the subject is, in this case, virtually indistinguishable from taking the material directly from the subject. The interview on the Dole Institute website was, in itself, exceptionally "breathless," so to try to distinguish that source from some sort fawning fan source is meaningless.

Here's another quote from zombie's interview on the Dole site:

"...we are in fact no longer fighting a war in Iraq. The Iraq War lasted only a few weeks,
 during which time the US forces overran the country, defeated the Iraqi Army, and seized
 control of the government. War over."

Shall we accept that statement on face value as well? The Dole site is not a viable reference source.Ponyupbub (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How-zombie-got-started para

I've moved the following paragraph here for discussion, because I'm not sure it adds useful, encyclopedic information.

zombie subsequently uploaded the images to his/her computer, and, unaware of the existence of blogs, taught him/herself some rudimentary HTML codes, and created a web-page for the pictures on the free "user page" provided by zombie's Internet service provider. zombie did little with the site for the next year, but on the evening of February 10, 2004 zombie was walking through the campus of University of California, Berkeley, and by chance passed by group of people demonstrating for and against an appearance by Daniel Pipes, who, at the time, zombie had never heard of. zombie decided to stay and photograph the events, then uploaded the photographs to a second page. The pictures gained significant attention, and from that point zombie tried to document as many political events as possible.<ref>"Zombietime, Blogs, and the Anti-War Movement", Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics, Winter, 2006. Retrieved January 1, 2008.</ref>

Please feel free to revert me and/or convince me that this paragraph is useful to our readers. Cheers, CWC 06:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm restoring it, as there's already a lengthy discussion as to its appropriateness above. Please join the discussion there, rather than starting it afresh. Jayjg (talk) 03:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
Plus, as user:Jayjg pointed out in this edit summary, I took out an important ref. Woops! Thanks for fixing my mistake, Jayjg. CWC 14:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree completely. I made the exact same argument in the thread above, and the justification presented was "it's not as if we're running out of space here" (which, of course, is no justification for inclusion whatsoever). It really seems to drag this article back towards the miserable shape it was in six months ago (you made a large number of excellent edits back in October, and this reverses much of that). Not wanting to get into an edit war (especially when there are only 2 other editors involved), I just dropped it.
Situations like this are an ongoing problem on these smaller articles in the outer fringes of the politics realm. The more obscure the subject is, the more likely that the regular editors are either big fans of or rabidly against the subject. --Loonymonkey (talk) 15:52, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Fortunately, I'm neither a "big fan" nor "rabidly against". However, I do know that it is interesting and useful to the reader to know the genesis of a website, which is why just about every article on a website does so. Jayjg (talk) 03:29, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:AntiWarRallyFeb162003.jpg

The FUR for this image on this page doesn't really work. Because it's an almost direct reproduction of an image which zombietime would have no copyright of it would be difficult to justify fair use since it doesn't represent the site. I think we either need a screenshot of the front page or a low resolution collage of images from zombietime which represent a broader array of the images. That way it can be justified as fair use for this article rather than a reproduction of someone else's copyrighted work which isn't what this article is about. gren グレン 05:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This image was intensively discussed from all angles both during its recent deletion discussion, and also during months of ongoing debates at Talk:New antisemitism. If the issue were as straightforward as you present it, something would have been done long ago... AnonMoos (talk) 05:50, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I only briefly browsed those debates so I might have missed the relevant points. But, I am not arguing that it is not fair use for New anti-Semitism or Anti-globalization and antisemitism because it represents those subjects. My point is its use solely in this image where it does not best represent zombietime because it is 1) not a work by zombietime (being an exact copy of a 2D object) and being only one of a small number of the subjects addressed by the website. I think it is relatively straightforward--that it meets fair use in two of the three articles. To relate it ti policy it fails "Significance. Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding." It does not here, but lowering the resolution and making a small collage that show a broader scope of zombietime subjects or a screenshot of the webpage would add significance. But as of now it's like linking to a random "Featured Videos" video from YouTube on the YouTube page. We need to better represent the site, not just one tiny portion of it. I actually figured this would be rather uncontroversial.
And I should state generally that my argument is not from copyright. I think to better represent this subject we should have a website infobox and screenshot like most websites and then a collage of images including a lower resolution version of the one shown and an image from the Muhammad archive (since, I think that's when it got a great deal of its exposure). I think that way we have it signigicantly address the article rather than being a shot in the buck of a website with thousands of pictures. gren グレン 06:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't contributed to this article for a long time, mainly because I'm not paying attention when a spat of new editing breaks out and it's over by the time I notice. But here's my imput. The poster itself does not belong to Zombietime, but the actual picture does. Of all the pictures that zombie has taken, it's the most widespread and has received the most exposure, being on newscasts and featured in a book written by Michelle Malkin, who's a fairly prominent TV personality. It embodies what zombietime.com is all about, which is pictures of the radical sentiments expressed in these bay area rallies.
As for the debates on the anti-semitism page, I read them all the way through. From my admittedly pro-zombie-biased point of view, it read mainly like people who didn't like the image for some reason saying "Lalalala zombie isn't credible so the image is no good".
I kinda like the idea of a collage of pictures, but at the same time, wouldn't it be plagiarism to take a bunch of zombie's work and move it around and doctor it like that? And I'm not fan enough of zombie to suggest that the article needs more than one image in it... McJeff (talk) 05:36, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] zombies gender

http://www.zombietime.com/solidarity_with_israel/

there is a video on this page (2nd video from the bottom)where some protests recognize and refer to zombie as "she". I see no reason why they would call zombie a female if she wasn't one. Heatsketch (talk) 20:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

zombie has never stated his/her gender. McJeff (talk) 22:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)