Wiki No More...

A friend from London who has added the odd update to the once-sprawling TLASILA Wikipedia entry just sent an email alerting me that the page has been deleted. And not once, but twice in the last seven days!

The last time I gazed at it was March 8, when Patrick Spurlock and I performed at the Four Winds Cafe on the campus of the New School in Sarasota. (Nerds that we are, we arrived 90 minutes before any of the other performers, and while scarfing down avocado wraps we kicked back with the Internet.) I was referencing a print feature from our 2006 tour of Canada for inclusion in the press kit for our forthcoming European trip, and found a link also referencing that article in the Wiki entry. It had grown to nine or ten paragraphs, and had been fairly meticulously documented, although at least a dozen of the references came from online zines, and a handful linked to posts on this blog and content found on our official site. The other references came from newspapers, print mags, and alternative newsweeklies, the sorts of "third-party" sources usually deemed worthy of inclusion.

Alas, a contributor deemed that we were "A7":

A7 (group): Group/band/club/company/etc; doesn't indicate importance/significance.

So there!

Our pal offered to repost the page, but I decided it would be best if we bowed out of the Wiki universe. It's more interesting to know that a valiant, albeit slightly obsessed, culture warrior is patrolling that vast expanse, ready at the drop of a cursor to stamp out all knowledge of our ultimate insignificance!

Look out Europe! We're coming, and we're nothing!

Worst,

TS

Comments

M*P*Lockwood said…
At least the entry on Free Glam still exists:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_glam

However, "The quality of this article or section may be compromised by 'peacock terms'."

???
ommyth said…
Thanks for writing - it's always good to hear from you.

The "peacock" designation seems to be applied to Wiki entries over-burdened with unsubstantiated hype, or slathered with kudos of the auto-generated variety, and unsupported by accepted references.

In the case of the TLASILA entry, at least the last version I saw (attached to an email dated 3/16), everything had been boiled away save for a paragraph containing quotes from a newspaper (NY Times), a print mag (The Wire, of all things), and a French academic journal (Multitudes)!

**Transparency Alert** - I supplied an electronic copy of the Multitudes article, "Genre Is Obsolete," written by Ray Brassier and focusing on the work of both Rudolf Eb.er and TLASILA, to our contact in London.

The previous version was long, strenuously documented, and a little too breathless for my liking.

Both entries were apparently axed in a purge of the insignificant by a particularly aggrieved contributor, despite the group's history, the writers' uses of documentation, etc.

I'm pleased by that internal decision, and think it best that we keep our distance from such hormonal hierarchies, and continue to remain excluded from the Wikifray...

Best,

Tom

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