On 5/9/06, Ilmari Karonen <nospam(a)vyznev.net> wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/9/06, Ilmari Karonen
<nospam(a)vyznev.net> wrote:
Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 5/4/06, Pete Bartlett <pcb21(a)yahoo.com>
wrote:
>'''Hormonal Screamings'' is a rock band hailing from Houghton,
Michigan.
>Next year they are going to take over the world.
So that's an example of an article which you feel *doesn't* assert
notability. It still doesn't answer the question of what it means to
assert notability, and it isn't an example of an article which asserts
notability but doesn't establish it.
No, it does assert notability -- it's just that the assertion is pretty
weak. Per [[WP:VAIN]], patently absurd assertions (such as "Joe Smith
is the King of the United States") do not need to be considered. The
assertion given above, being an unsubstantiated claim about the future,
might perhaps be considered such.
But the claim that they are a rock band hailing from Houghton,
Michigan is not about the future, and is not patently absurd.
Yes, but being a rock band does not make them notable, since there are
millions of rock bands and we're not interested in covering them all.
As for being from Houghton, Michigan, there doesn't seem to be any
reason to suspect that bands from that town would, as a class, somehow
be statistically different from bands from any other town.
It's just as easy to say that "being a city isn't notable" or
"being a
high school district isn't notable" or "being a Pokemon card isn't
notable" or "being a Korean children's science-fiction film directed
by Kim Cheong-gi and starring Shim Hyung-rae isn't notable" or "being
a seiyū isn't notable".
Click on random page a few times. I don't see an indisputable claim
to notability for any of the articles I managed to hit.
For example, an article that only said "John Doe
is a chemist" would
technically be speediable.
Only if you assume that being a chemist is not a claim to notability.
Right. I don't consider being a chemist a claim to notability, since,
again, there are millions of chemists and we (Wikipedia editors) don't
generally feel they should all have Wikipedia articles merely because
they are chemists.
I don't know of a poll to determine if your speculation as to the
Wikipedia editors opinion is correct. In fact, I think a significant
portion of Wikipedia editors *does* feel that we should have a
Wikipedia article on all chemists. Not that I think inclusion in
Wikipedia should be decided by a poll in the first place.
I'd bet there are less than a million chemists in the world. Not that
it matters, I don't see any reason why being in a group which consists
of "millions" does not amount to notability.
So you don't feel that all chemists should have Wikipedia articles,
therefore being a chemist isn't notable. That's what your argument
boils down to.
Of course, the line can be fuzzy. We don't try to
have articles on all
humans, so being a human is not an assertion of notability per se. On
the other hand, we do try to have articles on all presidents of major
countries, so being a president does make one notable. But does being a
cabinet minister make one notable? How about a member of parliament?
Member of a town council? Those are judgement calls, and in such cases
other issues may ultimately outweigh notability.
There's *nothing but* judgement calls. That's essentially my point.
Similarly, it's pretty obvious that Wikipedia
should have articles on
all Nobel laureates, so being one automatically makes one notable. It's
equally obvious that Wikipedia should not have articles on all students,
-- probably not even on all grad students -- so being a student does not
make one notable. But is a Ph.D. enough to make one notable? Some feel
it is, some don't.
A typical
article with no claim to notability might be something like:
"Joe Smith (b. 1989) is a student at the Whateverville high school. He
plays football and listens to Red Hot Chili Peppers. He's a really
great guy."
I'd say that has plenty of claims to notability, but is patently absurd.
You seem to be using curious definitions of notability and absurdity.
To me there's nothing absurd about the description; such a description
is quite likely to be true (and even mostly verifiable), except maybe
for the subjective assertion in the end.
There is no such high school as Whateverville high school, so that's
patently absurd.
As for my definition of notability, unless someone else comes up with
a better one (which was one of the goals of this thread), I'd say
notability = worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Since I think every
high school student who plays football and listens to RHCP should be
included in Wikipedia, I think they're all notable.
Now maybe you have a better definition of notable. If so, I'd love to hear it.
Julie harding came up with a reasonable one, though I disagree with it
(and it would include all chemists, so it apparently isn't the one you
have).
On the other hand, the description places Joe Smith in
a number of
categories (people born in 1989, students of Whateverville high school,
football players, people who listen to RHCP, really great guys), none of
which we believe Wikipedia should be a comprehensive index of.
Speak for yourself. I see no reason not to include, for instance, all
students of Whateverville high school, if indeed that high school
existed.
So none
of them count as claims of notability. The same, also, goes for any
intersections of the categories: we don't aim to have articles on all
football players who listen to RHCP either.
Why not?
Of course, failing to assert notability does not mean
an article *must*
be deleted. But let's face it, the article I gave as an example has
nothing else going for it either. As Wikipedia generally operates on
the presumption that biographies of random people should _not_ be
included unless there is a particular reason for it, the default for
such articles, in the absence of any generally accepted reason for
keeping, is to delete.
(In other fields it's different: for example, articles on animal or
plant species are considered worth keeping by default, even if they make
no claims of notability. One might say that species are consider
notable per se, but that's perhaps not _quite_ correct either, since we
don't really aim to catalog all species known to man in Wikipedia, at
least not in the near future. It might be more accurate to say that, in
the case of species -- and most other non-biographical topics -- the
default presumption is inclusion rather than exclusion. In any case,
the distinction is hairline thin, and might not even exist outside my
own head. But that's pretty much how I see it.)
From my understanding of Wikipedia policies, the default presumption
is *always* inclusion. It used to be a sentence directly in the
policy: "When in doubt, don't delete." I haven't bothered to check
whether that sentence has been deleted or not.
Anthony