On 2/19/07, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
Sure, a list of tall men is crufty. We have lots of cruft on Wikipedia, so that element is just par for the course. However, the statement that "Tall is defined by agreement of editors, not by any externally verifiable definition" obviously violates WP:V, which is policy, and WP:NOR. We can't have a list that lacks criteria for inclusion which are not independent of Wikipedia.
Let's step back for a second and pretend we weren't Wikipedia. Imagine we're a traditional encyclopaedia produced by a traditional, stuffy publishing house. What criteria would they use? My guess is it would be one guy picking anyone who seemed worth mentioning, on the basis that they'd left some mark on history. World record holders, politicians, actors, freaks would be on the list - but only a passing mention of basket ball players.
Now, how can we collectively come up with a list as good as that? An objective height requirement is clearly the least useful metric we could use for the reasons stated. What would be better?
Steve