ALM
Hmm... MediaWiki is used, right? Looks like a copy of Wikipedia, layout and function wise
I'd suggest you to contribute to Wikipedia instead - logically thinking, to support an existing project is better than to create another one with exactly the same features. But... unfortunately, Wikipedia is very unfriendly now. I've spend two days convincing WP admins that Simpsons Realities is not a second-hand shitty homepage, and they still deleted the article, without even making a public discussion, breaking their own rules. That has pissed me off a lot... why making a project based on the idea of public contributions, where only admins and people close to them can contribute freely? So I just wish you good luck with this another wiki project, seems that the globalization idea has failed this time and smaller but more specialized projects still have the right to exist.

On the other hand, I'd suggest you to keep the main idea of Wikipedia untouched. This project should be for sharing information, not for cheap advertisement. For example, a visitor of TGCW would be interested to read about MT2, but it would be much more interesting to read about your forum itself, not about how great and popular it is. Tell about your forum's history and main ideas, tell about the most interesting topics and discussions, but don't tell about the software, SSI, daily attendance or admins. Just a thought.

Dag, first off, this isnt my site. It's a friend of mine's site.

Second, brakusaetsya is very correct, only the Simpsons Archive and No Homers Club have managed to sustain their articles on Wikipedia, because they are both acknowledged by show. The Groening Community Wiki is a wiki for everyone and is unique to this community. It's much easier to get a Simpsons/Futurama related article posted here, than Wikipedia.

The Groening Community Wiki doesnt cover just sites, it covers their owners, and events in the community as well, such as the 2004 Hack of All Toons where several sites lost data.

Plus, this site covers the history of MT2 which MT2 itself doesnt have on there anymore. But to keep it short is that the forum had a war and we won.

(I understand this is rather off topic, my appologies.)
[start rant]

Simpsons Realities is THE place for Simpsons fan art. It holds the greatest peices of art dedicated by fans. And theres no stupid advertising, no lame money or population growth scheme. But nein... we're a bunch of cartoon junkies to them. And to be honest, I dont see a reason for fighting it. They wont change their minds, because their 'smarter' and we're 'less significant'. Its like telling the council skateboarding isnt steriotype for a group of idiots. They never listen, I've tried.

Dont get frustrated about it Serge, its pointless. Its like the police force, once they've delt with that many idiots and losers, it rubs off on them. And they become idiots and losers, with power (on their own space). So my advice is, not to struggle, dont become one of them. We'll do it our way.

[/end rant]

Casper
I'm not frustrated at all; I gave it a try, and another try just today. Both ended with the same results, but at least I can tell myself that I did all I could in that situation. As you can see, there is another similar project there now, it's both the possible workaround for people like us and a signal for WP that they are probably doing something wrong, making others to repeat the same idea with different rules of play. Maybe right now TGCW looks a bit "childish", but I believe WP was starting off from exactly the same point.

Serge, I don't think Wiki will let the article stay.   They are really picky when it comes to websites. 

  NHC is on there because it's the biggest Simpsons site, it's Groening's favorite, it's been mentioned on the DVD commentaries, they've had a homage in the form of an animated sign from one frame in an episdoe, etc. etc.  Wiki wasn't too cool about having NHC up, and there are still problems from time to time.

Don't get frustrated, that's just the way Wiki is.   Considering how anal some of the admins there are, I am glad Stehpen Colbert tells people to write crazy things in certain articles at times.

Well, personally, I also think that only very important websites should get their own Wikipedia article. But, by any chance, is there an article/paragraph about Simpsons fanart and fanfiction somewhere? Then I think a link to SR and GFWC might be appropriate.

Andreas
So, you thing SR shouldn't have one? It's not a VIP kind of site, not in any case... it's unique, original, interesting, more or less popular, but not "very important".

Nope. There are no such articles in Wikipedia (or, at least, I failed to find one), and I suspect if such articles existed once, they eventually got deleted because of their unofficiality. When we talk about Simpsons and Futurama, any kind of fanart is unofficial, and it's hard to get any official recognition of it.

On the other hand, the first WP admin I had to deal with, was more tolerant than the second one; before deleting the article, he gave me a chance to justify it, and I tried to. When I explained him that that's not possible to gather any official recognition, he asked me at least to obtain some unofficial one, and then was the sad moment I realized that there are no decent mentionings about SR on other more or less big websites, even unofficial. I asked for some delay and PMed three webmasters of big websites asking to help me with that (all I wanted was a mention about SR on a noticeable place on their projects), but unfortunately, none of them did anything. After several days another admin has found the article and wiped everything. I still think it's possible to keep it there - if we'll manage to have SR-dedicated pages on other sites. But after talking to that another admin, I don't have enough power to continue this story right now. Maybe after some time I'll perform another attempt.

aoife
Thanks

brakusaetsya
RuWiki is another thing. Sometimes I'm glad it hasn't turned into her evil english sister yet, and still allows articles with the importance less than federal.

Well, I'd certainly appreciate a Wikipedia article about SR (or any other "honorable project"), but after all, everything deals with "unofficial products" (no Simpsons webpage, maybe with the exception of SNPP and NoHomers, are endorsed and/or authorized by Fox), so we're in a somewhat grey area anyway. The thing is, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and so it should rely on "offical" facts and sources. Not it's obviously very debatable what makes something an "official source", but I'd say a mentioning would have more recognition if it would come from an "independent" point of view.

As I said, this could be done by creating/adding a paragraph to the main Simpsons article about the fandom and the mentioning of fanart in general, although I haven't read the article yet, so I can't say if it would fit in. By any chance, is there a specific Simpsons Wiki around (apart from the Groening Community Wiki)? There's a German Wiki at http://simpsonspedia.net, which has gained quite some content over the last years. I guess mentioning the fandom there is usually a better place than on a more general platform like Wikipedia.

This seems like something that could get accepted.  I have no idea how picky they are about links, but it's got to be much less than when it comes to boards/websites.

D.B.
janglewolf
I don't know what to reply, really. Wikipedia is not an official encyclopedia, it doesn't have a certain theme; it's made by people and for people. After all, it already has so many articles about things that can hardly be called "important to everyone". And it's an online project, it can't go "too big" or something. I see no reason to divide things into "remarkable" and "unremarkable" there. To say simply, I can't understand how an article about a fanart website can harm the whole WP. I don't like the idea of mentioning SR amongst things in another article, SR is an entity, not an event, so logically thinking, it should have its own article.

Andreas
I wonder why German project has taken the english domain for its needs
Anyway, there is a Wiki project dedicated to the Simpsons - simpsons.wikia.com. It's not even nearly as known and convenient as WP, though.

D.B.
I didn't say WP is not an encyclopedia, I said WP is not an official encyclopedia. The difference is: when you buy an encyclopedia about, say, birds, you know that a person who officially learned ornytology has wrote it - say, an ornytology professor. When you open a WP article about birds, you know that it could be (and in the most cases, was) written by any person. Or even copied from somewhere else. That's what I mean: when you read a WP article about the movie, you know it was written my movie fan(s), not creators, when you read about the Simpsons, you know it was written by Simpsons fans, not show producers. Etc. WP in an unofficial encyclopedia, it's made by people and for people. At least that's how it should be.


Ah yeah. Sure. Great find. WP claims itself an encyclopedia, so this article should stay and be quoted FOREVAH. SR claims itself a website, so the article should be deleted. Good logic!
I won't even check it.

I agree about the possibility of abusing the project by different people with their sites, but tell me honestly, was an article about SR the example of such abuse? If it was, it's my fault, I acted like one of those kiddies who want to advertise their stupid homepages at any cost; and if it wasn't, it shouldn't be deleted. And once again, I remember the Russian Wikipedia. Yes, it's not that old as her English sister, and there are not so many articles yet. But people have the chance to post there - they post good articles, they post bad, they post about big things, they post about small, they post big articles, they create stabs. But at least Ru-WP admins have something to deal with. And En-WP... just delete everything made "by not them". Great politics. If this continues, we'll have more good articles than you do, and pretty soon.


That's great, but sometimes that's not enough. You know it rocks, I know it rocks, but how many more people know that? I'm probably touching a sensible string here, but all people lose interest to the projects after some time. They keep saying "Yeah, it rocks", but they abandon them because... because they have something else on their minds. In this case, website maintainers (or just people who interested in the project, like me) have to search for new people instead.

D.B.
My biggest mistake is that I keep comparing En WP with Ru one, forgetting that every place has its own rules, written or unwritten. Oh well, if my arguments annoy you, let's shut this down. But if there was any heat in my response, I must say it was directed towards WP only, not you personally, even if you was trying to justify it. No bad feelings intended.