On 8/19/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A useful heuristic is to take notability down to the detail level, i.e. is this fact really notable? The example in one of the many versions of WP:LIVING was a minorly notable scientist who happens to have had a messy divorce. Unless the messiness was itself notable, it's not likely to make it a better article for the reader.
Notability at the fact level is even harder to determine than notability at the subject level. Ask a republican whether Bush's alleged administrative adventures in the National Guard were "notable". Ask a Democrat the same.
I agree with your basic point, but what would you do in the case of a mathematician of whom we have 200 words on his career and publications, and 200 words on him getting sacked for molesting a student? We might easily find 30 news stories on the latter, and very few news stories on the rest of his career. Applying our basic "if it's verifiable, it's includable" guideline might distort the overall impression we give...
Steve