Steve Bennett wrote:
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.
I would look at what we are doing as including a combination of the traditional encyclopedia and almanac. A big problem for traditional encyclopedias is keeping current. In the wake of the "Nature" study EB complained that they were judged on the basis of some material that was found in their yearbooks, which they do not regard as equally authoritative to their main volumes. By the time most basketball players or politicians are listed in a traditional encyclopedia they are already retired or dead. Almanacs help to bridge the gap. Most are published annually, contain many lists, but do not include a great deal of explanatory prose. They will repeat much of what was there in the preceding year, corrected for events that have taken place in the interim.
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