On 7/7/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au> wrote: There will always be exceptions on both sides of the line, no matter how complexly gerrymandered it becomes. Even if it were possible to create a picture-perfect and binding rubric of "notability", any time and energy invested such a task would be better spent elsewhere. —C.W.

The article didn't really shock me to tell the truth. If you have the nerves, take a look at [[Professional wrestling]] and some of the articles it links to. A commonsense-oriented notability guideline seems as necessary as it would be difficult to implement, because opposition to such a proposal can be expected from multiple directions. Some would oppose based on their fear of deletionist book burnings, others see the strain it would put on process. I believe such a proposal could only stand a chance as part of a far reaching reform, possibly including the abandonment of AfD in its current form. Ideas like annex.wikia.com may be one alternative way to address the issue of articles with non-encyclopedic subjects (fiction related articles in the case of annex). Nothing beyond the obvious deletion candidates would really have to be deleted. Instead, such articles could be moved to annex, awaiting relocation into a more suitable wiki. But I expect major difficulties explaining "just why" a subject like [[Professional wrestling aerial techniques]], despite all the references in the article, isn't fit for its own Wikipedia article. Same goes for many "recent events" and fiction related pages. On the other hand, such "outsourcing" efforts could work wonders against vandalism, much of which happens on subjects with recent news coverage. And it would probably increase the overall reputation of Wikipedia, too. Adrian

On 7/7/07, Kurt Maxwell Weber <kmw(a)armory.com> wrote: Hopefully, then, you realized (even if for the wrong reasons) that attempting to define "notability" is a huge mistake. —C.W.

On 7/7/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au> wrote: Clear this backlog and then we can talk about how to handle well-referenced articles that you don't think are important. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Articles_lacking_sources —C.W.

On 7/7/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au> wrote: I don't think it's appropriate for you to call it "confusion" over notability and sources. To some people, notability means having sources. This isn't due to confusion, it's due to a difference of opinion. I hope you'll respond to my last message about how this article plays an important secondary role in the encyclopedia if not a primary one. Focusing on whether or not a topic is important enough without looking at the situation holistically would result in exactly the type of bad results being suggested here.

On 7/7/07, Brian Salter-Duke <b_duke(a)bigpond.net.au> wrote: A reasonable definition of "encyclopedic" is "covering all knowledge." Therefore there exists reasonable criteria by which the article would be encyclopedic. Your claim that "by any reasonable criteria" the article is not encyclopedic is not accurate.

On 7/7/07, Rob <gamaliel8(a)gmail.com> wrote: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/knowledge#Noun Does your meaning of "knowledge" match any of these definitions? If so, when you write articles, please keep do your "knowledge" in check and give me the "information" instead. —C.W.

On 7/8/07, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org> wrote: If it's an example of the use of AMASS then it belongs in that article, not on it's own. In fact, that article would be enhanced by inclusion of this near miss. Another goodie, the picture of a "prostitute" in the Wikipedia article on prostitution might be fake. Yet, there is an argument for keeping the image even if it is a fake because, "The artist has created it as a representation of what a prostitute looks like." No debate about how this editor came to the conclusion that this image is "a representation of what a prostitute looks like," particularly since it's a blonde prostitue and the percentage of blonde prostitutes is probably rather low, once you add in prostitution from all those countries in the world which have hundreds of millions of people and few blondes. I love the argument for keeping a phonied up image (although I don't know that that's what this is) because it is an artist's conception, according to another editor, of what representative prostitutes look like. That's special Original Research. It should be removed, until the issue is settled, though. KP

On 7/7/07, Rob <gamaliel8(a)gmail.com> wrote: The concept of knowledge is not related to importance.

On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 05:22:50 -0500, "Charlotte Webb" <charlottethewebb(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm surprised, myself (I had not checked back, nobody likes a whining author). That is a borderline case, and I'd be the first to admit it. RKB is not a notable comic by comparison with, say, Dilbert, but it is unusual (maybe unique?) in that it is an openly polemical car-free advocacy comic which was published in a mainstream paper, so that is a claim to fame. I would not have cried if the community had decided the claim was too weak, although the vendetta against the author by at least one editor is somewhat aggravating. I have had articles deleted before now for failing to establish notability. I am philosophical about it; as a deletionist it would be hypocritical to be otherwise. If I really want the world to know about such things then I'll put them on my own website. Guy (JzG) -- http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG

On 7/7/07, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096(a)gmail.com> wrote: Here's another good one with "secret sources." All you tag haters, I warn you, I've added fact requested tags to the unreferenced secrets--actually should be removed, probably, on legal grounds, that we shouldn't be publically speculating about other people's secrets without references, or for some other reason that the inclusioin of unreferenced secrets mind boggling fails to allow to make sense. Cloverfield If you want to know some secrets, read this. But don't ask how Wikipedia knows these secrets, because that's really a secret. KP

On 7/7/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote: Ah, they need to in-line reference known secrets, though. Especially when telling the known secret to the wiki world. It looks like there is some better editing than my slap dash going on, though, so I won't be too concerned. Still, what fun, a secret that everyone knows, better yet, a secret film that already exists before it's been released, and, now, it even appears to be a film before it's been filmed. But again, a better editor than I am is taking care of those fun tidbits. KP

On 7/8/07, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote: Stuff only appears in A7 when we get hit by too much of the stuff to cope with it through other means. At the moment that means what is listed. If we got hit by a load of stuff about non real people from fan fiction we would look at modifying it. Until then no reason to change the current wording. -- geni

On 7/8/07, Todd Allen <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote: That isn't fan faction and would generaly be delt with via #redirect[[list of minor ABC characters]]. -- geni

--- Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote: You're the official White House echo chamber. Weren't you informed? http://www.wikiality.com/Daily_Poll#July_2.2C_2007 ~~Pro-Lick http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:Halliburton_Shill http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pro-Lick http://www.wikiality.com/User:Pro-Lick (Wikia supported site since 2006) --spam may follow-- ____________________________________________________________________________________ Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting

On 7/7/07, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote: Why can't it be heavily referenced, non-controversial, fun little piece of trivia in the article for the character? Why do we need an article just for him or for every fun little piece of trivia someone comes across?

On 7/8/07, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Including trivia like this in other articles would result in it being removed due to WP:TRIVIA. Keeping it separate means that readers wont find it unless they are searching for more obscure information or browsing out of interest. Trivia is not so easily defined; it is often said that one man's trivia is another man's treasure. Even if we accept trivia to mean trivial factoids, including them in an encyclopedia does not make the entire work trivial; rather it becomes extensive, cumbersome when it is in print, and yet still treasured on the bookshelf. Think of works like the Guinness Book of Records and Wikiquote; they are entirely trivia, yet they are invaluable when assessed as a whole. EB1911 articles also include a lot of trivia, and sometimes even the articles can be called trivial. (see [[Accius]]) Excluding trivia from an encyclopedia is what makes it trivial. -- John

On 7/8/07, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote: Absolutely. I think that those who argue anything backed by reliable sources ought to be kept have forgotten that an encyclopaedia has a specific purpose, and that Wikipedia is not the only project which can accept this information. If you look at things from a macro perspective, what project is best placed to house a particular article? In the case of Optimus Prime, I think the best place is Wikinews, because this person is known mainly for changing his name to Optimus Prime - something widely reported by news outlets, but almost certain to be nothing more than a footnote in proper secondary sources such as books. We need to be more willing to embrace the perspective that Wikimedia projects are for housing information, but that different projects are meant for different types of information. Having said that, we need to improve the transwiki process. It has not changed at all since I became an admin over three years ago, and it has always been one of the most tedious parts of closing AfDs. (I remember the time I had to transwiki a gallery of images to Commons/Wikibooks...it was horrible.) Johnleemk

Bryan Derksen wrote: My personal favorite is [[Meow Wars]]. I'm frankly amazed anyone could argue to keep it. It's an interesting little bit of Usenet trivia (and I vaguely remember it going on myself), but we don't need an article on every idiotic Usenet incident, "sourced" to nothing but Usenet archives and a few nostalgia essays.

Rob wrote: If it's important enough to be its own article, why not just make it its own article? That's a bit of an assumption of bad faith there and doesn't match my own experiences. When I create sub-articles it's usually by splitting pieces off of an existing article, I don't often write the material from scratch.

Rob wrote: Your wording implied that it was _the_ explanation for how these things happen. In my experience it isn't even a common explanation for how these things happen.

On 7/7/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: Don't forget the N-word. Let's ban all words derived from "notable". —C.W.

On 7/8/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote: 1. AfD is not a vote; 2. Admins who count votes should not be closing AfDs. 3. An objective vote count is rarely an accurate gauge of whether an article ought to be kept or deleted; admins should be taking into account other factors like AfDs when they gauge the consensus of the debate. Johnleemk

On 08/07/07, Zoney <zoney.ie(a)gmail.com> wrote: This is not entirely accurate. There are many instances where people are in broad consensus on what to do with no idea of what they've actually decided... but then, you're not gauging consensus per se, you're gauging what it's consensus for. [You know the idea. Everyone in agreement that something in this vague line ought to be done, but...] -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

We are confusing the case of a near-disaster which will remain important because t is seen as an indication of the inadequacy of the air transport safety system,--and was discussed as such, with the case of an individual doing a meaningless name change which has no significance except a a note on the popularity of the fictional character. I voted to keep the first and delete the second. I think this sort of discussion must go case by case. DGG On 7/8/07, John Lee <johnleemk(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.