Eric Burns has a nice discussion going on the way that Wikipedia is utterly failing when it comes to webcomics (and probably other things). Basically, the Request For Deletion process is broken, and a bunch of know-nothings are using that to delete pages on various webcomics for "not being noteworthy." He suggests moving on to Comixpedia, which at least has the goal of being an encyclopedic reference on comics so you won't have to continuously justify and rejustify the fact that the article even exists.
I wonder, though, whether there's any point to Wikipedia or Comixpedia anyway. I just created an account on Comixpedia but I don't know if I'll ever use it. Why? Because I'm not at all convinced that these online user-edited encyclopedias do anything that Google doesn't do better.
Think about it: as a user, if you're not particularly concerned with the reliability or completeness of the information, or you think you're in a good position to judge it, then the first few entries that Google returns on any topic will almost certainly be at least as authoritative and useful as the Wikipedia entry. If you are concerned, though, you need a site that actually has editors or an institutional affiliation that you can trust.
On the other hand, as an author of reference material, if you spend effort updating Wikipedia, you not only face editing by people who are likely to know less than you on the subject, but you can lose your work entirely when somebody with a grudge against the topic comes along and sets up a Vote to Delete. You might be able to fend it off, but you'll need constant vigilance to keep fending them off--because they're persistent, and because the process is broken, even if you manage to alert people who actually use your article to come defend it, their votes are likely to be thrown out (as being "self-interested") while the votes of people who have never even read the article or know anything about the subject will likely count (particularly if they've voted to delete a lot of things). On the other hand, if you had spent that effort writing your own web page, or blog entry, on the topic, that's it. Thanks to Google you have every chance that people looking for information on the topic will be able to find your page, you don't have to face hostile edits by the ignorant, and the information is there as long as you want it to be.
So what the hell is the point of Wikipedia again?
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