On 3/17/07, Philip Sandifer snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Which is, we should note, appalling. The idea that interesting articles that nobody seriously doubts the accuracy of and are in no way inflammatory or going to cause anyone any problems to anybody should be deleted is ridiculous.
While I do agree with you on this article, your general point I find very questionable. When did it become such a ridiculous idea that subjects of articles in an *encyclopedia* should meet some criterion of notability? That is the way encyclopedias always have been.
There are of course very pragmatic reasons for requiring notability (maintainability, privacy and original research, amongst others), but there are very convincing philosophical arguments that convinces me that it is a Good Thing. We are an encyclopedia first, everything else second. With every decision we make, that should be our number 1 consideration. If we let non-encyclopedic topics in we will be a worse encyclopedia, and therefore we shouldn't do it. How is that not all that matters?
--Oskar