Opinion of Wikipedia for Coms and Overall? Other Databases?

[BDiogenes]

^"...if [it's] not an old edition." "It's" is understood.

[dr chimp]

then it that is was you were trying to say then its equally wrong. The fact that a racist would use the word meant that some groups in the 1960s civil rights movement would find the word offensive eg Malcolm X and others.

[Jolly Mon]

Aaron King, I used it in talk by a Klansman in 1968 to be authentic. Do you want to argue the point? Even "negro" now could legitimately be taken as offensive but not in 1968 so Merriam-Webster is reflecting today if not an old edition.

I would say trying to use a klansman in a satire was where the train went off the rails.

[dan bailey]

No one died & left me an expert, but I did grow up in the South & was here (well, Arkansas, not Alabama, but still certainly the South) in 1968. My take on "nigra" is that by that day & age it was the "polite" way of saying n***r, for all intents & purposes. I can't imagine that it wasn't considered offensive in 1968, depending on the speaker -- certainly if the speaker was a Klansmen.

I well remember a black friend taking umbrage in probably 4th grade or so* at some word a classmate used on the playground in 1968 & telling said classmate in no uncertain terms that he should use the term "Negro." Rest assured, he would not have expressed any fondness for "nigra" ... though, yes, I would also say that its origins lie in a dialectical pronunciation of "Negro." I've heard people in their 80s & 90s use it in that fashion, most recently a friend's grandmother who died at age 103 about 4 years ago.



*Even though the school systems in my part of the state didn't desegregate until the start of the 1970-1971 school year, as of at least 3rd grade -- the start of the '67-'68 -- a handful of black students were scattered throughout the various grades. In retrospect, I'm really intrigued by that.

[icctrombone]

I made a correction on wikipedia once ( a bronze age book). They didn't require me to create an account but said that it had my ip address. It was kinda weird that it was so easy. I guess the site is run on the honor system.

[The Darknight Detective]

Wikipedia can't be trusted in the area of older (Golden/Silver Age) comics history. There's someone there who zealously guards all the misinformation in their articles and hates to let people correct it, just because the misinformation has been repeated so many times that there are more "references" for it.

Very true, Rob. It has been very frustrating myself trying to correct or add information to a page, only to have it rejected by someone ignorant of the subject.

[Jezebel Bond]

Wikipedia is ok as a reference but if I'm looking for information on a comic, I either google several sources, or ask here on cbr.

At the moment, I'm trying to determine how many copies of the promo RRPs for Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #1 were printed for Diamond...some are claiming less than 100 each, but I haven't seen anything definite yet. I'm asking because somehow, I own several copies of one of them....

[Rob Allen]

What you relay above is exactly what I feared. Can you give us an example of the uncorrected information? I believe we as a group should approach Wikipedia and oblige them to correct all the mistakes of which you're aware. After all, if we're not keepers of the flame, who is?

I can't cite an example off the top of my head, but Darknight Detective has already posted in this thread about difficulty correcting information in Wikipedia. There have been several discussions on the GCD lists and the "Comics Publishing, Distribution, etc" list (https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...rum/comics-pub) about correcting Wikipedia. On the latter list, someone recently posted about the difficult time he had getting a corrected article about Golden Age publisher Holyoke accepted by Wikipedia. He did get it done, with some help by other people who posted his information online so he could cite them as "sources" for Wikipedia.

If I'm right, GCD is the one now owned by a lady.

No, GCD is an independent 501c3 non-profit organization with an elected board of directors. Not sure what site you're thinking of. The GCD is www.comics.org .

And thank you for the kind words.

[Phil Maurice]

No one will believe me, but I swear the following is true and on topic:

I know that Overstreet is not the most beloved name on this board, but if you look at older editions (up to the 30th or so) you'll see it lists both Avengers #3 AND Strange Tales #107 as being the first Sub-Mariner cross-over outside the FF. Well this simply cannot be, as the books came out six months apart. Being a lover of Namor (though not in the Dormian sense), I set out to put things aright. This was roughly 7 or 8 years ago.

I flipped to the back of the guide and selected at random one Overstreet adviser whose e-mail was listed. I explained that ST #107 was in fact the first Sub-Mariner cross-over outside the FF, and Avengers #3 was the 2nd. I expected at best a dismissive, discourteous, insulting reply. I couldn't have been more wrong. The gentleman responded promptly with genuine thanks for spotting the error and assured me it would be addressed in the next edition.

And it was. The current entry for Avengers #3 in the Overstreet Guide reads (in part): "2nd Sub-Mariner x-over outside the F.F. (see Strange Tales #107 for 1st). . ."

You're welcome.

I'm kidding of course, but I just wanted to demonstrate the contrast between making a correction to wikipedia versus the same to a seeming monolith like the Overstreet Guide.

[Aaron King]

I know that Overstreet is not the most beloved name on this board...

I didn't realize that Overstreet had a negative reputation. I've always liked it as a reference source for appearances or to find out title changes and so on. I've never used it for pricing (mostly because I so rarely buy or sell single issues for anything approaching real value), but I love paging through it, and I've always had an easy time of finding something in it when I needed a specific fact.

[Dave2739]

I didn't realize that Overstreet had a negative reputation. I've always liked it as a reference source for appearances or to find out title changes and so on. I've never used it for pricing (mostly because I so rarely buy or sell single issues for anything approaching real value), but I love paging through it, and I've always had an easy time of finding something in it when I needed a specific fact.

Same here. I just picked up the new one (with the nice Adam Hughes Catwoman cover) this past week. My 25th consecutive Overstreet guide. I mentioned to the guy at the funny book store that I must be one of the last people still buying it. He disagreed and I'm glad to see some of you guys still buying it as well.

[Phil Maurice]

I didn't realize that Overstreet had a negative reputation.

To be clear, I meant precisely what I said: "not the most beloved name on this board." The same phrase could be applied to Rob Liefeld, Chuck Rozanski, or even Stan Lee, as previous threads have shown. There is some debate (spirited and worthwhile) as to the overall merit associated with the name. It was NOT intended to broadly represent or impugn the opinions of any single poster, group of posters, or the board as a whole.

Let's not summon the de-railing.

[Pil]

Wikipedia is okay as a resource site for inspiration and initial research, but it can't be trusted so I use other sites for confirmation. I have a list of the resource sites I use here: http://weirdspace.dk/Links/ResourceSites.htm