[WikiEN-l] The Economist on "notability"

[Kurt Maxwell Weber]

On Monday 10 March 2008 12:02, Ian Woollard wrote:
> On 10/03/2008, White Cat <wikipedia.kawaii.neko at gmail.com> wrote:
> > There are over trillions of stars in the are of space we can see via
> > naked eye or instruments. The analogy generally used to describe is that
> > there are more stars in the universe than sand in the beaches of this
> > entire planet. Clearly a star is a notable object in space worthy of an
> > article.
>
> No. I sure hope you're joking or being sarcastic.
>
> >  And it is
> >  feasible to write entire articles on each and every one of them if
> > something as dull as Proxima Centauri
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri) is any indication.
>
> No, since there isn't enough people on Earth to do that by a factor of
> billions. And even if we automated it, who the heck would ever read
> any more than the absolute vanishing tiny fraction of it?

Who cares?  The important thing is that it's there if someone wants it.

Just because it's unfeasible doesn't mean that it's an unworthy goal, or that 
we shouldn't try to approach it as closely as possible.
-- 
Kurt Weber
<kmw at armory.com>