Wikipedia - Megatokyo

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Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by paarfi » Sat Jun 24, 2017 11:23 am

I'm looking for some help and advice here, please.

A lot has changed with MT recently: new server for the MT site, new forum, Fred putting out comics roughly weekly with the help of his Patreon supporters. Along with that, we've updated the forum FAQ, the FAQ on the MT site, the fredarting FAQ (not quite finished yet), the character page on the MT site, the transcripts for the search ninjas. We still need to add ch10 and ch11 to the story page on the MT site, and Darkmorford is trying to resurrect the old fredart site, but we have a lot of stuff cleaned up now and should have more before too much longer.

The wikipedia page for megatokyo is in real need of help though. It's way too long, and the info there is way out of date and focuses far too much on the early years of MT.

I've considered taking this on, but:
1) I have never edited or written a wikipedia article before.
2) Wikipedia feels incredibly unfriendly to newcomers -- filled with anal-retentive nitpickers and thousands of rules that only insiders know well enough.
3) I am not Fred, but I do consider him a friend. And I am a mod here and on his Twitch channel, am involved in work on the visual novel game, and have written many of the faqs and other things that an updated wikipedia page would presumably reference. I'm afraid this may disqualify me from being able to edit the MT page per wikipedia rules.

Are there any wikipedia veterans here who can suggest a way to get this done? Are there any wikipedia veterans here who would like to take on updating the megatokyo wikipedia page? I'd be more than happy to help and assist.
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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by Invisigoth » Sat Jun 24, 2017 3:26 pm

Paarfi, I recall at one time that Cortana attempted to correct some egregiously wrong stuff on that page and it was reverted almost immediately. In the discussion that followed on wikipedia he was told that his edit was disallowed because he was biased! Yes, because he had first hand knowledge of a particular fact his input was rejected.

I only bring this up as I fear that there are some MT hating "it was funnier when Largo wrote it" types watching it. They may have moved on now but it's something to keep in mind and whoever does make any edits should be careful to not make really large edits nor make a lot in a short time

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by paarfi » Sat Jun 24, 2017 5:28 pm

Vis, I'm not surprised. The arguments about bias vs "actual expertise" are as old as wikipedia itself. I get why they take the stance they do, even if I don't really agree.

The real question here is, given that stance, how does an article like the megatokyo one get updated? It takes someone who is interested enough to put in the work, knowledgeable enough to know what to say and where to find the source material, and yet not so close to Fred that they risk the appearance of undo bias.

You and I fail that last test. All I can think is maybe some other MT fan (maybe one who frequents these forums) might want to step up and take that on. And if they did, I'd be willing to do all I can to help.

edit: grammar
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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by paarfi » Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:22 am

*Rereads conflict of interest articles and guidelines on wikipedia site*
*gives up*

Oh well, at least we're getting a bunch of other stuff cleaned up.
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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by SpaceCobraJoe » Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:48 pm

paarfi wrote:
Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:22 am
*Rereads conflict of interest articles and guidelines on wikipedia site*
*gives up*
https://en.wikipedia.com/wiki/Megatokyo is for the facts, just the verifiable facts. It's no fun.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/W ... /Megatokyo has been kept up.

http://megatokyo.wikia.com/wiki/Megatokyo_Wiki is in the need of a major overhaul of its index page.

I vote for giving more attention to the latter two, and cutting out obsolete parts of the former.

-Joe

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by Ningen » Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:47 pm

The main thing you need for Wikipedia is one or more credible third-party sites which have said relevant things about recent MT. If anyone knows and can link me to those, I can have a go at editing the article.

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by Skorpion » Mon Jun 26, 2017 4:53 pm

Ningen wrote:
Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:47 pm
The main thing you need for Wikipedia is one or more credible third-party sites which have said relevant things about recent MT. If anyone knows and can link me to those, I can have a go at editing the article.
Go make a few unrelated-seeming blogs, review it, and cite them as references.

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by paarfi » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:09 pm

Skorpion wrote:
Mon Jun 26, 2017 4:53 pm
Ningen wrote:
Sun Jun 25, 2017 7:47 pm
The main thing you need for Wikipedia is one or more credible third-party sites which have said relevant things about recent MT. If anyone knows and can link me to those, I can have a go at editing the article.
Go make a few unrelated-seeming blogs, review it, and cite them as references.
Lol. Nah, I want to do this honestly or not at all. SpaceCobraJoe probably has it right. Better to spend our time on something we can fix than worry about something we can't.
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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by iffy » Tue Jun 27, 2017 3:54 pm

Encyclopedia of sorts, if you consider it's online and if you discount all the rules and open editing by people and cliques of jerks doing things like managing subjects as if they were their own fiefdoms. Yes the edits need to be made by disinterested people to some extent, but that's not the problem here imo. The material needs to be printed, established, numerous. Publicly available and by qualified people. Blog on MT by some reviewer isn't authoritative, unless the reviewer is an authority on the subject, even if they are part of the project. You want a reference to some fact, a published interview with Fred could be good, Fred writing his own Q&A on Wikipedia, probably not. A friend relating some night's activities isn't enough, but a police blotter or newspaper story should be. The issue here seems more a shortage of more established authoritative material the bulk of which isn't sourced from anecdotes or these web pages (main site, forums, whatever) or etc.

Although as insiders that are involved, perhaps you could reach out directly to the people that actually run Wikipedia and ask them what you need to do to get a good article, a process that bypasses any haters or trolls in the way.

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by Invisigoth » Tue Jun 27, 2017 4:29 pm

I believe that some of the original problem when Scott attempted an edit was that some of the editors on the entry were anything but disinterested 3rd parties but that'd be difficult to prove

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Re: Wikipedia - Megatokyo

Post by mistersaxon » Wed Jun 28, 2017 4:31 am

BTW if you link wikipedia.com it works but you get a certificate warning and have to allow an exception (and some browsers may not connect at all). Arguably Wikipedia should get their root cert to cover the .com domain as well since they have registered it and redirect from it but it's probably easier and safer for now to ref to wikipedia.org instead.

Or ignore it entirely of course :)
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