G'day Seraphim,
On 4/13/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Trivial mentions usually don't give much information to base an article on, but in the right circumstances, it can be an excellent aid in determining notability. Example: Even if John Doe has no article written specifically about him. If some article mentions he was the first to climb Mount Everest, his notability is established, despite the fact he may have had a one line-mention in a 2000 word article.
True...but not. If that were genuinely all there is, we could consider him notable all we like, but we shouldn't have the article. Generally, however, that's a moot point. The first guy to climb Everest has tons of material written about him, easily allowing us to have an article. The trouble we run into is "notability by category", where we're looking at the wrong thing. Instead of saying "Do we think that an X is notable?" we should be asking "Has it been noted? (As in, is there a good amount of reliable source material available?)" As with everything, what -we- think means nothing, what the -sources- think means everything. If the sources, by -not noting- the subject significantly, decide it's not notable, it's not our place to "correct" or overrule that, any more than we'd do with any sourcing issue. Of course, issues of minor note may still be appropriate to mention in related or parent articles.
That is a good point, and I would agree ... to an extent.
We're amateurs, usually in the sense of "rank amateur". Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and we're relying on the words of experts to help us write a quality reference. We don't do original research, in part because it's not our place to do so, and in part because that's not what an encyclopaedia is for, anyway. And, arguably, Wikipedians making up their own minds about notability in deletion/creation debates is little different from Wikipedians drawing their own conclusions when writing articles. So, you have a good point.
We have to be careful about systemic bias, however. It is much easier to find well-sourced information about a contestant voted off (or whatever it is they do) on the first week of /American Idol/, than it is to research the life of a Sikh religious hero. There are a number of reasons for this:
* We write for the English Wikipedia. Most of us are native English-speakers, and like most native English-speakers, we don't know any other languages. So, sources written in Punjabi or whatever are closed to us.
* I do 98% of my research on the Internet; when I refer to books at all, it's because happy chance has led to me having a book on the subject (this is rare). I assume most of us are the same. Subjects of concern to Westerners, in particular English-speaking Westerners, in particular Americans, are much easier to access online than other subjects. It may not be possible to learn as much as we'd like about Sikh history online.
* We know about /American Idol/. Even I would be able to research and write about any /Idol/-related person we need an article about. If I wanted to discuss, say, the linguistic history of Benin, I wouldn't even know where to start looking ... and neither would most Wikipedians.
We need to remember that not all subjects can be as easily-sourced as the subjects we usually write about (that's why they're not one of the subjects we usually write about, eh?). If for all questions of worthiness we turn to the American press (say), we will find out only what the American press a) know about, and b) think their audience will care about. And that's narrowing the world down a great deal further than I think an international, comprehensive encyclopaedia ought.
Cheers,