"Jimmy Wales" wrote
But we should be very extreme in our caution that a Wikipedia entry not be used to *drive* the very notability upon which the entry is supposed to *depend*.
Couple this with the well-known debate here 'notability isn't policy'. We get a complex picture.
'Encyclopedic interest' should encompass much of what 'it is in the public interest to know'; but it need not include all that 'the public are interested in knowing'. This distinction is exactly what gets slurred in the public interest defence of 'tabloid journalism', with its slippage into prurience.
I think tabloid journalism in its pejorative sense is always going to fall foul of our living persons guidelines. If not, then the guidelines need tightening up, in the direction of coming down harder on sensationalism. We are not here to sell newspapers.
Pedians may be a rather pre-filtered collection of people; but effectively we do operate a policy on 'human interest'. At AfD an article found interesting by enough will survive, even if the topic is somewhat obscure.
We really do need a tweaked version of the 'notability' discussion, where it is laid out that:-
- we have an encyclopedia to write, and there is going to be some cut-off to what we take to be reference information; - we have a media-style duty, which is not to suppress informative things within the reach of NPOV-Verifiability, when these are matters the public should have documented for them; - we are also an ethical and voluntary organisation, supported in effect as a public service of global reach, and have at all times to be mindful of that.
Charles