On Tue, 23 Feb 2010, David Goodman wrote:
The present rules at Wikipedia are so many and
contradictory that it is possible to construct an argument with them to
justify almost any decision--even without using IAR.
I'm trying to figure out if you're arguing with me. You're right, of
course,
the rules are completely messed up.
But I think it's fair to say that "notability rules are only a sufficient
condition and it's possible for something to not satisfy the rules and still
be notable" is a *very* unpopular position, to the point where it may as well
not be true.
It's the difference between "never say never" and "never say
"never say
never""? This is after all what IAR is there for.
Failure of the General Notability Guideline to give the right result may
indicate that a special guideline might be more helpful. If the work of
creating such special guidelines has gone about as far as people want,
and if certain classes of information (such as what is happening on the
"street" or in places where the usual media don't document them) are
excluded by consensus, and if "notability" is applied as a generic test
to topics that (for example) don't have a WikiProject interested in
arguing in other ways, then what you say may represent the simplest
broad generalisation.
That's a few ifs and buts.
Charles