Alex Rosen wrote:
So if something doesn't have to notable to be in Wikipedia, then would an article on every single elementary school in the world be OK? How about every single person in the world?
As far as I'm concerned, articles on any person and on any school are fine *if* we can verify the information in those articles. We can probably argue about exactly what is meant by "verifiable" for a looong time (see [[Wikipedia:Verifiabilty]] for some thoughts), but I think that by most standards, it would mean that we wouldn't have articles on most of the people in the world. Requiring things to be verifiable cuts a heck of a lot of stuff out.
If so, then how will we ever get *done*?
We won't. That's part of the fun :)
Lee (Camembert)
Lee Pilich wrote:
Alex Rosen wrote:
So if something doesn't have to notable to be in Wikipedia, then would an article on every single elementary school in the world be OK? How about every single person in the world?
As far as I'm concerned, articles on any person and on any school are fine *if* we can verify the information in those articles. We can probably argue about exactly what is meant by "verifiable" for a looong time (see [[Wikipedia:Verifiabilty]] for some thoughts), but I think that by most standards, it would mean that we wouldn't have articles on most of the people in the world. Requiring things to be verifiable cuts a heck of a lot of stuff out.
I don't think it would cut nearly enough out. For example, a short article listing my place of birth, high school attended, and university attended is easily verifiable through publically available records. However, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia.
-Mark
At 17:05 22/10/2003 -0700, Mark (Delirium) wrote:
I don't think it would cut nearly enough out. For example, a short article listing my place of birth, high school attended, and university attended is easily verifiable through publically available records.
Then it could be deleted on the grounds that it would never be more than a stub (I don't know if it's formalised anywhere, but deleting things for that reason has been pretty widely done in the past).
OK, maybe there's a *bit* more to a "keepable" article than it simply being verifiable, but I guess my main point is that it's possible to make a reasonable decision about whether to delete an article without resorting to (necessarily subjective) judgements on its "importance" or "notability".
That's my feeling, anyway.
Lee (Camembert)
Lee Pilich wrote:
At 17:05 22/10/2003 -0700, Mark (Delirium) wrote:
I don't think it would cut nearly enough out. For example, a short article listing my place of birth, high school attended, and university attended is easily verifiable through publically available records.
Then it could be deleted on the grounds that it would never be more than a stub (I don't know if it's formalised anywhere, but deleting things for that reason has been pretty widely done in the past).
OK, maybe there's a *bit* more to a "keepable" article than it simply being verifiable, but I guess my main point is that it's possible to make a reasonable decision about whether to delete an article without resorting to (necessarily subjective) judgements on its "importance" or "notability".
I agree with Lee that each such case must have its own common sense approach without needing to resort to a lot of rigid rules. In addition, I also continue to believe that the benefit of any doubt should favour retention.
Ec
Lee Pilich wrote:
Delirium wrote:
I don't think it would cut nearly enough out. For example, a short article listing my place of birth, high school attended, and university attended is easily verifiable through publically available records.
Then it could be deleted on the grounds that it would never be more than a stub (I don't know if it's formalised anywhere, but deleting things for that reason has been pretty widely done in the past).
Better IMO is to redirect him to [[List of foos]], where "foo" means whatever got him on in the first place (residents of his hometown, Wikipedians trying to make a point [*], etc). A while ago, [[Gnasher]] was redirected to [[Dennis the Menace (UK)]] because it too would (in all probability) never be more than a stub. (This is the last example that I recall coming up on the list.) That is the right thing to do, not to delete [[Gnasher]]; if you delete it, then somebody will come along and create it again.
[*] Actually, if the article is created merely to make a point, then I don't mind particularly if it ends up deleted. I don't care much for articles created to make a point, even when I still have more hope for them than /most/ people do. But if it's created for an earnest reason, even a bad one, then it will come up again and so should be redirected someplace better.
-- Toby