Wikipedia Blogger Pages Being Targeted for Deletion

Posted on December 7, 2006

A war against blogs is being waged at Wikipedia. Bloggers are being targeted for deletion as you can see on this Wikipedia page. Here is an excerpt from the page where a Wikipedia user named Timecop claims there are "hundreds of utterly worthless blog-related pages" on Wikipedia.

So, there are hundreds of utterly worthless blog-related pages on Wikipedia. Some are genuinely notable, but others are just self-promoting vanity / spam.
Here's some quick guidelines for a non-notable blog:

Is it an article about a blog?
Is the article title the blog title?
Is the blog's first hit on google when searching for the said blog title?
Can most of the "about" info be gathered from clicking "about" link on the blog?
Is the rest of the shit inane garbage blatantly promoting the said blog?
If so, the blog is a perfect candidate for getting deleted from Wikipedia. Make sure to check alexa and google, and search for "exact" blog name. Skip through a few 'next' pages on google, to get total number of 'unique' hits, the rest being uselessly duplicated content. Then nominate it for deletion

Wikipedia's blogger pages can be found here. Blogger Tony Pierce's Wikipedia entry is one of the first blogger pages up for deletion. Tony Pierce is the editor of LAist and he also has a personal blog called Busblog. Blogging.la's David Markland explains how Tony Pierce is an accomplished blogger and asks whether blogging itself is being targeted.

Pierce defends himself by listing his accomplishments, including appearances on G4TV, mentions in the New York Times and Washington Post, having a word he coined ("blook") a nominee for Oxford's word of the year, and is the number three result when you Google the name "Tony". This doesn't mention the hundreds of additional bloggers who credit Pierce with inspiring them to write, or influencing their style. Rank wise, of the millions of blogs online, Technorati has listed his Busblog in the top 500, and Blogebrity ranked Pierce an "A List" blogger when it launched almost two years ago.
It would seem that within the field of blogging, Tony Pierce is doubtlessly notable - so is the notability of the field of blogs a legitimate issue, or coud this be a coordinated attack on blogs by Wikipedia users who don't like the medium and some of its players?

Tony Pierce also won a Bloggie Award in 2005 for his post "How to Blog". The "War on Blogs" posting by Timecop and the fact that the Wikipedia page of a notable, award-winning blogger like Tony Pierce has been targeted for removal indicates that blogs and bloggers in general are being targeted for removal from Wikipedia. That's a sad thing especially considering blogs are at least partly responsible for the success of Wikipedia. Pierce's page survived an initial round for deletion but it is now up for deletion for a second time. Tony Pierce has blogged his own thoughts on the Wikipedia issue here.