Journeys of Jack Tripper

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In what is certain to ignite a fire in his Wikipedia-hating soul, Costa's blog is being used as justification for the existence of an article on... Wikipedia.

The issue? The great Lonelygirl15 debate. As in active discussion on CT's original post here, the nature of Lonelygirl15 is in considerable question.

It's my opinion that she's a hoax. Why?

1. The Aleister Crowley stuff is just too weird. Lighting candles in front of a framed photo of a man who was, in essence, a Satanist? I'm pretty sure there aren't summer camps for Satanic kids.
2. The editing, video quality, etc are too high quality for a couple high school kids.
3. If her parents really are that strict, they wouldn't allow her to be alone with a boy with the door closed. Did ANYONE's parents allow them to be alone with a member of the opposite sex with the door closed?
4. Her Lonelygirl15.com URL was registered VIA PROXY before she ever posted her first video on YouTube.

There's other reasons, but they aren't important. What *is* important is that there's no Wikipedia entry about Bree, Danielbeast, or anything lonelygirl15-related. The Wikipedia talk page gives reasons why editors argue there shouldn't be a page on the debate:

1. Lack of verification
2. Lack of citations
3. Lonelygirl15 is not notable

In response to the argument wondering why Ellen Feiss has an entry but Lonelygirl15 cannot, editor Brian replied:

Ellen Fleiss has many newspaper articles, magazine articles and even tv spots that reported on her. LG15 doesn't have any coverage. It doesn't matter if LG15 has 3 billion views at YouTube. All that matters is news, magazine, book, or other reputable source coverage. What is so hard to understand about that?

That response was written today at 1:30pm. Of course, there have been plenty of mainstream media references to Lonelygirl15:

New York Newsday, Cover Story, 17 August, by Megan Chan "Channeling into a new generation"
Denver Post, 1 August, "Click These"
Inside Bay Area, 23 July, by Candace Murphy "Today's kids have their own outlets for creativity"
The Times of London, 19 August, by Jonathan Richards "Worldwide acclaim for lonely girl"
AgoraVox, 21 August, by Matthew Ingram "What Is YouTube Good For?"

However, not all of those were easily accessible, and some weren't published yet when a Wikipedia user argued for a significant media presence by giving Population Statistic as an example. Editor Brian's response?

OK, for the Populationstatistic.com, it doesn't count as it's a blog.

Doesn't count? DOESN'T COUNT? If it was my blog, MAYBE he'd have a point, but it's my contention that all blogs count, and a blog like CT's more than counts. In fact, it's blogs that render the mainstream media pointless when it comes to the major internet debates of the day.

Tens of millions of people have watched the Lonelygirl15 videos. Yet there's no space to record the developments, the controversies, and the speculation for posterity? Because people like Brian decide that's not Wikipedia's for?

Maybe we should take a look at Brian's Wikipedia profile.

Brian is a Director on YouTube.com

So wait! The guy most opposed to the presence of Lonelygirl15 on Wikipedia is himself a video blogger! She is a competitor of his so of course he's going to want to diminish her importance... he probably feels inadequate that some teenaged girl is getting more attention than he is.

Anyway, the point of this was that CT is influencing decisionmaking on the very media he criticizes so heavily, and without even knowing it, and that's a fantastic coincidence. It's also a testament to his broad and enviable readership, or at least his ability to draw Google hits.