Don't Read Bad Webcomic Wiki

Edit: I no longer agree with this post but will keep up the post up regardless.

Note: Due to the swearing in the quotes, the cuss words will be highlighted black. This make it so you can't see them unless you highlight them yourself.

Seriously don't. For the unaware, Bad Webcomic Wiki is a website that collect reviews of web comics. As the title suggests, the reviews are negative. That may not sound too bad. After all, Channel Awesome is largely composed of critics that specialize in negative reviews. However, Bad Webcomic Wiki is a horrible website. I'm here to explain why.

Smugness

The entire website has a smugness to it without any sense of self-awareness. For example, the home page claims "[bad] webcomic creators are psychologically blind to their flaws, their egos are fed by the constant stream of ass-kissing supplied by their semi-literate fans who don't know any better". Another prime is example involves the description of "Not Crazy Reactions" page: "Here we keep the words of artists who responded almost like real adults. I am amazed we have enough of those now for them to have their own section" ("Reactions"). One of the other pages is "Angry Reactions" thus they are implying anyone angry at them are, in their own words, "failures bitching and crying about receiving well-earned criticism" ("Reactions"). 

Compare to the Nostalgia Critic, who the website is clearly trying to emulate. The Nostalgia Critic is a smug jerk that states his opinion is superior to others. However, the series has a sense of self-depreciation shown when the Critic is portrayed as idiot such as when he fails his allies are being mind-controlled in his Matrix Revolution review. The self-depreciation is what keeps him likable. However, Bad Webcomics Wiki lacks this.

The Personal Attacks

This is what convinced me to write this post. The reviews have a section to explain who the author is. On a good review, this would provide insight to the creative force behind the product being reviewed.  It might even explain some of the creative decisions. For example, a creator might have turned their comic darker because a death in the family. However on Bad Webcomic Wiki, the contributors use it to attack the authors. 

A prime example is from the "VG Cats" review. They accuse Scott Ramsooair of being a “misogynist”, “fanboy (yet he hates the company he idolizes)”, “sodomist”, “total asshole”, “delusional prick”, “fucktard”, “creep” and “[pretty] much fucked up...” among other thing. Their "proof" of this is behavior in his comic that isn't supposed to be emulated such as accidentally killing Santa. 

However, the worse example was from their Grim Tales From Down Below review. They accuse the author, Vinson "Bleedman" Ngo, of being a pedophile. They provide no prove aside from a single post that is not a reliable source (the post is literally just calling him a pedophile with no proof). Being accused of pedophile can ruin a person's life. Yet, they did it without any proof. Add to that, they have the gall to criticize Tim Buckley (in their "Ctrl + Alt + Del" post) for being accused for being pedophile. Let me repeat: they criticize him for being accused of being a pedophile not for actual being one. 

Lack of Editing

This might seem like an odd criticism. After all, the reviews can be edited by contributors. My problem is that they don't edit enough. Keep in mind the following examples are only the notable ones.

In their review of Dave Hopkin's Jack, they accuse him of plagiarism. However, they don't expand on this at all except for a picture that implies Jack's design is ripping off Frank from Donnie Darko, which it isn't. This would be simple to remove since there are only two references to it. 

The website is supposed to have warning for reviews of questionable content. However, they called "Chugworth Academy" porn and didn't place a porn warning on the review.  

In their review of Cathrine Alvheim's Jack, they accuse the comic of being a "rip-off by someone who has EVEN LESS TALENT" ("Jack (the other one)") of the previously mentioned Jack comic. However, Dave's comic is about a rabbit that becomes an amnesic grim reaper working for Hell while Cathrine's comic is about the adventures of an undead man trying to get revenge on the people that killed him. They could have done basic research, realize this was wrong and removed the single reference, but this has yet to occur. 

The "Lightbringer" review is out of date. The review states Lewis Lovhaug (who became a comic book reviewer) refuses to review web comics. However, he changed his stance on his and reviewed the first act of Homestuck. 

The "Billy the Heretic" review has six paragraphs under the "Story" section. However, only one of them actually explains what the story is. The section should have been rewritten. 

Jokes at the Cost of Quality

The reviewers often insert comedy into the reviews. However, these jokes often hurt the quality of the reviews. For example, the "Jack (the other one)" review neglects to give any background info for the sake for a "joke" where the reviewer, oddguy (the name isn't capitialized), accuses the comic of being a rip off. In the "House of LSD" review, they keep on making jokes about the author in the biography section to the point we don't learn anything about her until the third paragraph.