On 5/11/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/05/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
To be clear on that: I agree with David to some
degree, the
subject-specific stuff is totally subjective and has to go. But N
itself is a -brilliant- idea. We really should have enough independent
source material to someday write a GA or FA on a subject in order to
justify a full article on it. (Note I mean that amount of source
material should -exist-, even if the article is -currently- a
one-source stub.) Otherwise, delete it, merge it, redirect it, do
-something- with it, but get rid of the forest of stubs that won't
ever get past that because they -can't- ever get past that. One decent
article and nine useful redirects are far better than ten permastubs.
I dunno. I don't care about short little articles because I can find a
topic if it's in its own article instead of merged into a 60k list.
I'm thinking of usefulness to the reader here. Third-party
verifiability rather than "notability" is good because if there's no
third party material the reader wouldn't have a reason to look it up,
and it doesn't cut off the Long Tail the way arbitrary notability bars
do.
I've yet to have it understandably explained to me why arbitrary
notability bars are good for the reader typing a term into the search
box, and why nothing is better than something (verifiable).
- d.
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Shall I go write an article on myself?
I can do that, with a bit of verifiable information. I can even write
it so it passes every other core policy (NOT, NPOV, etc. etc.) But
what I'm not is notable. And so I don't write that article, because,
quite simply, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Nor do articles on
garage bands or high-schoolers or anything else, unless, for some
reason, they've been unusually -noted-.
The reason it's good for the reader, is quite simply, we shouldn't
present the reader with crap. We should give the reader who hits the
"random article" button a decent chance of finding a decent article.
Should we allow ourselves a very broad scope? Yes, of course we
should. But not an unlimited one. We should set a bar somewhere, and
to say "There must be a good deal of third-party source material
available on a subject in order to have an article on it" is a good
one.
As to paper encyclopedias, and having things in one main article
rather than ten stubs, yes, paper encyclopedias do that. They don't
have section-anchor redirects, though. We do. We're in fact doing the
reader a greater service by taking them right to the information they
want, but in the context of a larger picture.
--
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.