I’m assuming that most of you have seen my previous blog post on this issue, but if you haven’t, please check it out before you read this post so you have an idea of the struggles we’ve faced thus far in attempting to get a Destructoid article to stay on Wikipedia.

Well, my friends, I promised I would notify you all of any updates here, and I have one — a big one. I got a response from the original deleter of the sixth incarnation of the Destructoid article, and he acquiesced! By that, I mean that he agreed to restore the article so we could all work on it and try to improve it! In essence,

WE WON THE BATTLE, EVERYONE!

Since none of the other four main editors of the article — wardrox, Namelessted, HarassmentPanda, and King3vbo — have set up Wikipedia user pages, the Wikipedia administrator “userfied” the Destructoid article: he restored it from oblivion and put it on to a subpage of my userpage on Wikipedia. So the full sixth iteration of the Destructoid article is currently available for all to see at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrOnXbOmBr21/Destructoid. Check it out!

Basically, he didn’t restore it to an article on Wikipedia because it’s “safe” as a subpage of my userpage — that is, if he had simply un-deleted the article, it would most likely have been deleted for the eighth time by some other uppity administrator. The way things are now, we can still edit the article as we would any other, but without the constant threat of deletion hanging over our heads. Oh, and one more thing: he restored all 195 revisions of the Destructoid article. So we don’t just have back what we were working on; we now have access to every single incarnation of a Destructoid article that was ever on Wikipedia — all the way back to the first appearance on Wikipedia of any sort of Destructoid article, which was apparently created by Destructoid editor Grim on September 29, 2006. Fear not, Grim (and all the others who put their time and effort into the article before wardrox or I ever did): your work has not been lost to the ravages of time!

This is even more than I could have hoped for, because now, we’ll be able to go back and sift through what was there and incorporate that information into a v8.0 Destructoid article. And I was looking at a few of those ancient revisions: there’s plenty of good stuff that we were missing, and it’s all going to be integral in making the newest iteration of the Destructoid article the best one it can be. On that note, I’d like to talk a little business.

All the people who deleted the various versions of the article thought that Destructoid wasn’t notable enough to warrant its own Wikipedia article. As we all know, that’s a pile of crap, but to prove it to those overzealous Wikipedia admins, we have to follow the norms and conventions of Wikipedia, which are numerous and labyrinthine in nature. Of the utmost importance, however, is having a well-referenced article. Apparently, that means citing as many outside sources as possible in the article, and keeping the citations of content on the Destructoid site itself to a minimum. Following the suggestion of an unidentified editor on the talk page of the userfied article, I have set up a few guidelines for editing the back-from-the-dead article. Check the talk page, but here’s the gist of it: feel free to make any minor revisions, but if you have some major changes or additions in mind, please put them on the talk page first, and the administrators of the article (myself, wardrox, NamelessTed, HarassmentPanda , and King3vbo currently, but if you feel you should be one, just ask) will choose to accept or reject them based on their validity. I know it seems unfair to have to go through all this rigamarole, but we’re trying to make this the best article it can be, and while we appreciate all suggestions, we want to make sure our work follows Wikipedia guidelines. I don’t think we should actually try and create the article until we have a significant one on the current page, because I really don’t want to have to go through the process of getting it un-deleted again. But again, I urge you to try and help out — we need all the assistance we can get. One more thing: please don’t try to put any images on the userfied article unless they are 100% “free” images (that is, they’re not subject to copyright — for example, they’re in the public domain). Non-free (or “fair use”) images are only allowed in articles, and this doesn’t qualify as one until we actually create it and put it out there for all to see.

In closing, I’d like to send a heartfelt thank-you to everyone at Destructoid, especially wardrox and Namelessted, who showed their solidarity on this issue. Your support is vital to the cause, and look what the cause succeeded in doing! We did it, you guys; this is an EPIC WIN, and I’m so proud to be a part of this amazing community here. Let’s get to work on this article!