On 4/10/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Tue, Apr 10, 2007 at 10:59:22AM -0700, Ray Saintonge wrote:
Brian Salter-Duke wrote:
"It's a logical extension of this that we write or don't write about something based upon the amount of sourcing available." No, it is not a logical extension. We are concerned about whether we write or not. We could use your criteria, or we could use another criteria (sic!). I say we write about something that is notable. We need to define that properly.
Sourcing and notability are distinct criteria, though there is considerable overlap. Sourcing lends itself more easily to definition than notability, even if there remains considerable difference about what sources may be reliable. Notability (both for articles and content in articles) remains a completely subjective basis. Any definition should be inclusionary in the form, "Xxxx is notable if it meets ONE of these criteria." This would be followed by a list. If it is not on the list it MAY be non-notable, and the person proposing to include the article or material would have the burden of establishing notability. He needs to be given the opportunity to do so.
If something is not notable, such as a very junior soccer team, we do not write an article on it, even if there are lots of sources for some reason. I'm not striving for completeness. I'm striving to be encyclopedic.
Completenes and being encyclopedic are not mutually exclusive. Why should we have a rule against junior soccer teams? Why make the prejudicial determination that team is not notable for the simple reason that it is a junior soccer team? Nobody is going to insist that you write about them. Why should you have the right to micromanage what someone else does?
It is not just me. I think it is consensus. I mentioned a soccer team because I had mentioned elsewhere (on WP:NOTE talk if I recall) a debate on [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hoyland Common Falcons]], a team in the village where my father was born and later returned to in his old age. There was at one time a precise guideline about rejecting teams below 11th(?) level, what ever that means, but this team is well below. In this case there were few or no sources, but if there had been, I think they would have been rejected. An encyclopedia does not need an article on every soccer team, every Scout Troop, etc., etc.
Of course there are exceptions, such [[Hallam F.C.]], also in my old stomping grounds just up the road from where I was brought up. That however is the second oldest F. C. in the world playing on the oldest ground.
Ec
-- Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au [[User:Bduke]] mainly on en:Wikipedia. Also on fr: Wikipedia, Meta-Wiki and Wikiversity
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Really, I think such "rules" should be guidance to subjects where sufficient sourcing is likely to exist, not hard-and-fast either way. If there's enough independent reliable source material to write a genuinely good article about a junior soccer team, why not? On the other hand, if there's not enough to write a good article about a band who had two gold records, we shouldn't have that article. Same with the pro player bit-that's a terrible mistake. Due to that, we have a lot of "Jack Crack is the thirty-first string quarterback for the Somewhere Whoevers," with no hope of expansion whatsoever. We really need to rework the way we look at articles, and blanket categorical inclusion or exclusion based upon arbitrary cutoff points ("two gold records", "national tour", "won an X award", "been prolific in a porno niche" for godsakes). If there's some sources, but not enough for a full GA/FA article on the individual subject, yet the article does seem to merit mention of some type, -find a merge target-. Just about everything has a related or parent topic. If it doesn't, and there really is that little on it, we probably shouldn't have the article. (We also need to add "Wikipedia is not Wikinews" to WP:NOT, we're cannibalizing that poor project and including a lot of stuff we shouldn't have in the meantime).
Seraphimblade