David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 6:53 PM, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote:
On Mon, 22 Feb 2010, Charles Matthews wrote:
You are paraphrasing from
[[Wikipedia:Notability]]. However, as is
common enough in this (endless, unresolved) discussions, you are not
doing so accurately enough. Firstly, [[Wikipedia:Notability]] is only a
guideline, not an official policy for anything.
In practice, guidelines end up having the same effect as policies: anyone
who can quote them in a dispute that is anywhere near close always wins.
Policies don't appreciably differ from guidelines in this respect.
Secondly, you are
paraphrasing from the detailed explanation of the first section, but
missing the essential (really) point. Which is that "If a topic has
received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent
of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a
stand-alone article" is a sufficient condition, not a necessary one.
In the very example I'm bringing up, the notability guidelines *were*
interpreted as a necessary condition. Since the article failed to satisfy
them, it was deleted for lack of notability.
And I'd wager that notability is pretty much always used this way.
If you look at enough AfDs, you can find every possible interpretation and
misinterpretation. A great many articles have been kept with less than full
formal sourcing by the GNG guideline, and a great many have been deleted
even though they had it. Such deletion is usually done under the provisions
of WP:NOT, which rules out a great many types of articles. Although WP:NOT
is policy, there are very few agreed guideline for interpreting any part of
it, so the actual decision sometimes seem to come out only a little better
than random. Other decisions are made on the technicalities of what should
count as a reliable source for the purpose--and again, there is not very
great consistency. The present rules at Wikipedia are so many and
contradictory that it is possible to construct an argument with them to
justify almost any decision--even without using IAR.
Many of the inconsistencies exist only in the eye of the species known
as the Lesser Horned Wikilawyer - they illustrate the proved that "the
Devil can cite Scripture". The phenomenon under discussion belongs
really to the Illogical Positivist: the "notability guidelines" are a
vast case analysis, and the General Notability Guideline is the default
case, meant to catch the situations where no other guideline applies. As
we have been saying, it is phrased as a sufficient condition: if it is
not also a necessary condition, what happens? Well, the case analysis
might not be complete: we might (gasp) have to use our own brains.
Must it be complete? Only if you believe there is a hypostatised concept
"notability" that really must be applicable in all cases. I think what
is being said above is that there are many of those Illogical
Positivists around, and they argue somewhat in the way I'm saying. Now
that wouldn't surprise me at all, as a statement. People often enough do
use any argument from quasi-policy in what is a rhetorical rather than a
logical way.
Charles