On 4/10/07, Brian Salter-Duke b_duke@bigpond.net.au wrote:
On Mon, Apr 09, 2007 at 04:23:36PM -0700, Seraphim Blade wrote:
Well, it was pretty overwhelmingly rejected. (Yes, yes, voting bad, etc., etc., but it still -can- be a useful metric.) Hell, I love changing the -name- (I think notability is a pretty poor and confusing thing to call our inclusion criteria), and I still couldn't bring myself to support it. Basically, the question we must ask ourselves is this:
"From the independent sources available, could a comprehensive, high-quality (GA/FA) article be written on this subject someday?"
If yes, we keep. If no, we merge or delete, depending whether there's any verifiable information at all and whether an appropriate place to merge exists. Far easier than 4000 convoluted "notability" guidelines (there's a separate one for porn stars for godsakes!), and much more in line with writing an encyclopedia. (As an aside, this also -would- eliminate those borderline bios-"15 minutes of fame (or shame)" sourcing wouldn't allow a comprehensive article, so it'd fail that anyway.
This view is just one view among Wikipedians. There are other views. My own view is that we need to ask first - Do we want an article on topic X? If we answer "Yes", then we then use your criteria to determine whether we can write it. If your criteria fails, we do not write it. But we still do not write it if your criteria would pass after we answered "No" to my question. My question is what notability is all about. I would also argue that not all articles that would fail GA/FA (particularly under the present guidelines and practices) should be deleted or merged. For example, there are lots of things that should remain a stub, but then we have debated this on WP and we do not agree.
You appear to me to keep asserting things as self-evidently true, when they are just your opinion.
Bduke
I've written an article about the youngest kid to cross the Atlantic. It's by no means comprehensive or near GA/FA status, but the fact he did cross the Atlantic and was able to find enough sources to assert this together with some personal information and some info about awards means I was able to write a reasonable stub. George Merryweather is another good example. He's a notable scientist, but I couldn't find sources about him, thus making me unable to write an article.
I believe an article should be written if someone could write about a paragraph of encyclopedic information and it wouldn't hurt to apply WP:FICT to non-fictional things too. It's okay to write stubs, it's better to merge them into context if we can - unless the subject of the article is falls under the guideline that says it's notable enough for it's own entry. It keeps information just reorganizes it. I still wonder why so many people believe game show contestant articles should be deleted when they don't even address the option to merge them.
Mgm