On Tue, 28 Nov 2006, Jeff Raymond wrote:
This is when we start looking incredibly dumb as an
organization when we
delete articles about subjects that obviously exist, are obviously well
know, and are actually verifiable, but because we can't bring ourselves to
trust a source that isn't available in dead tree form somewhere, we won't
have the article. Doesn't make a lot of sense.
This sounds like a classic example of stretching the wrong rule because the
right rule doesn't exist. It happens a lot in the real legal system, and
usually causes more problems than it solves because once you've stretched a
rule to cover the case, that becomes a precedent to interpret the rule in
that manner forever. (See: Commerce Clause.)
WP:RS is already broken, especially when it comes to not allowing web and
other self-published sources for non-academic subjects. If you want to delete
the GNAA article, I suggest either using Ignore All Rules to delete it, or
coming up with a new rule. I suggest a rule something like "A Wikipedia
article may be deleted if merely creating and publicizing a neutral article
advances the goal of the article's subject." (Of course a full version of
the rule would have to be worded more carefully so you don't delete articles
about Wikipedia itself.)