[WikiEN-l] Notability in Wikipedia

[doc]

Thomas Dalton wrote:
> 2009/4/27  <WJhonson at aol.com>:
>> In a message dated 4/27/2009 3:40:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
>> doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com writes:
>>
>> If we  can agree something is the sensible thing to do, then we do it.
>> That's  what IAR is all about, and why "multiple third-party sources" may
>> be a  good rule of thumb, but, like most rules, must never become Holy
>> Writ.  (See WP:IAR).>>
>>
>>
>> -------------------------
>>
>> So we let creep in such chestnuts as "King Arthur is the ancestor of the
>> present Queen Elizabeth" because this is repeated on 12 websites of "local
>> genealogy" societies.
> 
> That's completely unrelated. Using a source to establish notability is
> very different to using that source to establish facts. That King
> Arthur is mentioned on 12 local genealogy society websites might well
> be enough for him to be notable, but some other source would need to
> be used for actually writing the article. There is no reason to take
> reliability of sources into account when determining notability, just
> that the sources exist. This is the point Ken was trying to make near
> the beginning of this thread.
> 

No. That's worse. The reliability of the site is precisely the point. 
Lot's of popular culture stuff will be discussed over multiple sites, 
but may have little verifiable substance (see e.g. internet rumours of 
Richard Gere and his hamster). Where if my exampled 18th Cent village 
church does have an internet presence it may be limitted -  but if it 
has concrete reliability that should be enough.

Let me give an example:
Barry Mill (for which we have no article) is a working watermill
It is on the National Trust's website (but that's not a third party 
source, because they own it)
http://www.nts.org.uk/Property/10/

Now, it does actually appear on other websites,
http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/scotgaz/features/featurefirst111.html

However, even if it did not, I'd say that the National Trust's website 
alone is a sufficiently reliable source to verify existence and content. 
And the information given on the NTS site is sufficient to convince any 
reasonable party that this property is notable enough to merit 
inclusion, regardless of whatever other web presence it might have.

Now, there are fairly likely also to be mentions of this in written 
sources - but it is equally the case that no-one may locate them during 
a 5-7 day afd.