On Fri, 12 Aug 2011, Charles Matthews wrote:
This fails to be a useful method when the self-published source is the personal experience of a professional in the industry. The standard Wikipedian's response to this quandry is "well, if they can't get a reliable source to quote them, it must not be that important in the first place", which ignores the realities of the modern Internet.
The standard Wikipedian's response to the standard Wikipedian's response is that we have IAR for particular exceptions to a "rule of thumb". The standard response to that is that the "community" has shown a drift over time from people who like rules-of-thumb and IAR, to people who like rules, period. The standard response to that is WP:CREEP. The standard response to the comment that nobody reads what WP:CREEP says about "Editors don't believe that nobody reads the directions" is that ... hey, there is a thing called the "human condition" and we somewhat have to live with it.
True, it's all been said before.
But when you look at what actually *happens* in situations of this sort, the people who like the rules always win unless the article simply goes under everyone's radar. There are standard responses and counter-responses, but they don't all work.
Wikipedia is based around rules to the point where if there's a dispute between a rule and IAR (even though IAR is technically a rule), the rule wins unless the person claiming the rule is just one guy. There are enough people looking for an excuse to get rid of Babylon 5, comics, webcomics, or MUDs that IAR is never going to win.