From: "Anthony DiPierro"
I still have no idea what it means to "assert notability" or what "an article with no claim to notability" is.
Neither do our vandals. I'd go as far as saying that the majority of CSD-A7 deletions that are immediately recreated go from "Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne" to "Joe Bloggs is a notable bicyclist in Melbourne".
This is a Good Thing, as claiming notability is not the same as asserting it, and Mr Bloggs and his bike can be deleted again. I'm always surprised that the vandals haven't worked out that they should *assert* notability. But they don't and I think the reason is: they can't.
A good encyclopedia article, especially one about a person or group, sums up the entire article in the first sentence. You learn everying that is notable and important about the subject in a couple of dozen words (less in the better written articles). Anything, anything at all, that is notable can be summed up in the opening sentence. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia anyone can edit. Jimbo Wales is an internet entrepreneur who founded Wikipedia. ABC is a national television and radio network in the United States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up. So you get CSD-A7 articles that wander all over the shop - sometimes for thousands of carefully crafted words - but don't assert the notability of the subject because they can't.
Of course, there is a large grey area on either side. It is, after all, perfectly possible to write an article about Albert Einstein without once summing him up and asserting notability for him. Difficult, but not impossible. Albert Einstein was a Swiss patent clerk who later became a professor. Articles like that by right shouldn't be deleted since the person in question was and is notable. But it's not up to another editor to discover why someone or something is notable and insert it. It's *certainly* not up to our customers - millions and millions of readers - to try to guess why the person is included if they don't know already. If that article stayed up, it becomes the equivilant of the old empty articles that I seem to remember as a feature of Wikipedia 5 or 6 years ago. And it's less likely to grow into a full article than a redlink would, as it acts as a barrier to growth.
On the other side, it is possible to assert notability where no exists, but when people do that they tend to assert improbable or just downright bollocks notability. Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne who owns all the money in the world and your sister. Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne who has ridden around the world 18 times since he first learned to ride a bike when he was 3 months old. If true, these things would be a sign of notability. But they then fall foul of CSD-G1 - patent nonsense - and bite the dust on that score.
I think it's a small thing to ask of an article and its creator - assert some reason why this subject should be in our encyclopedia. If they don't, CSD-A7. If they do but don't do it very well, AfD. If they do but it's a lie, CSD-G1.
But it's very difficult to *define* what is and isn't an assertion of notability. Notability is largely a /quality/, a property something has or doesn't have. Producing an exact definition of what an assertion of it looks like is probably beyond the English language. Like modern art, you can't produce a definition of it, but know it when you see it!
I think we can trust our admins to rule on it, if nothing else because admin actions are undoable. And if something or someone *is* notable after all, an article will spring up in its place later and hopefully better.
For AfD decisions its harder to know if we can trust the consensus, but that's because the cut-and-dried non-notables have been deleted by admins already. Its the grey-area ones that go to AfD and are subject to people's prejudices, deletion/inclusion leanings and the author's potential for disrupting of the process.
If AfD worked, it would be the ideal place to discuss all of these things. Ho hum.
=REDVERS=
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On 5/4/06, Redvers @ the Wikipedia wikiredvers@yahoo.ie wrote:
From: "Anthony DiPierro"
I still have no idea what it means to "assert notability" or what "an article with no claim to notability" is.
Neither do our vandals. I'd go as far as saying that the majority of CSD-A7 deletions that are immediately recreated go from "Joe Bloggs is a bicyclist from Melbourne" to "Joe Bloggs is a notable bicyclist in Melbourne".
Well, that certainly does seem like it would assert notability.
This is a Good Thing, as claiming notability is not the same as asserting it, and Mr Bloggs and his bike can be deleted again. I'm always surprised that the vandals haven't worked out that they should *assert* notability. But they don't and I think the reason is: they can't.
OK. So "claiming notability" = not sufficient. "establishing notability" = more than enough. "asserting notability" = just right, but impossible.
How much kool-aid do I have to drink before that starts making sense?
A good encyclopedia article, especially one about a person or group, sums up the entire article in the first sentence. You learn everying that is notable and important about the subject in a couple of dozen words (less in the better written articles). Anything, anything at all, that is notable can be summed up in the opening sentence.
Surely the speedy deletion criterion doesn't require that notability be summed up in the first sentence. Or is that what "asserting notability" means?
Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia anyone can edit.
So if I make a free encyclopedia anyone can edit, that's notable? Considering that I once did make a free encyclopedia that anyone could edit, and the article about it was deleted (and later replaced with an article about some boy-band that stole my name), I don't think so.
Jimbo Wales is an internet entrepreneur who founded Wikipedia. ABC is a national television and radio network in the United States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up.
"Brian Peppers is a registered sex offender whose unusual appearance caused his mug shot to be passed around the Internet." "Crab Smasher is an unsigned indie band from Rock City, Australia." "Hawkin's School of Performing Arts is a dance school located in Folsom, California." "Brian Chase is an operations manager at Rush Delivery who started a controversy over Wikipedia when he posted a hoax for its article on [[John Seigenthaler Sr.]]"
These are all easily summed up, so they are all notable?
[snip]
But it's very difficult to *define* what is and isn't an assertion of notability. Notability is largely a /quality/, a property something has or doesn't have. Producing an exact definition of what an assertion of it looks like is probably beyond the English language. Like modern art, you can't produce a definition of it, but know it when you see it!
I certainly don't know modern art when I see it. In fact, I think there is a lot of disagreement over what modern art is.
I'm starting to think that "notability" is even more this way. It means something radically different to different people, to the point where the ability to delete due to non-assertion of notability is equivalent to the ability to delete for any reason whatsoever.
I think we can trust our admins to rule on it, if nothing else because admin actions are undoable. And if something or someone *is* notable after all, an article will spring up in its place later and hopefully better.
Possibly even over and over again until admins put up a blank page and protect it.
For AfD decisions its harder to know if we can trust the consensus, but that's because the cut-and-dried non-notables have been deleted by admins already. Its the grey-area ones that go to AfD and are subject to people's prejudices, deletion/inclusion leanings and the author's potential for disrupting of the process.
If AfD worked, it would be the ideal place to discuss all of these things. Ho hum.
=REDVERS=
On 05/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Surely the speedy deletion criterion doesn't require that notability be summed up in the first sentence. Or is that what "asserting notability" means?
I can't speak for the CsD, but summing up notability in the first sense is good practice stylistically. Of course, notability is a vague concept. Mentioning that someone was a king makes them notable without any further information. I wonder how we deal with notability for mathematical formulas though...do we accept "Smith's rule" if it was invented for one published paper and never referred to since?
States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up.
...
These are all easily summed up, so they are all notable?
You know that's not a logical restatement.
I'm starting to think that "notability" is even more this way. It means something radically different to different people, to the point where the ability to delete due to non-assertion of notability is equivalent to the ability to delete for any reason whatsoever.
Notability is very poorly defined at the moment. And there are certainly biases present in our interpretation of it - for example, I doubt a journalist for a major paper in a minor city in an little-known country would stand much of a chance. If the country was the US, the article would stand a better chance of surviving.
But all of this is to say - fix the problem of lack of notability definition, don't just complain about it. :)
Steve
On 5/5/06, Steve Bennett stevage@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/05/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Surely the speedy deletion criterion doesn't require that notability be summed up in the first sentence. Or is that what "asserting notability" means?
I can't speak for the CsD, but summing up notability in the first sense is good practice stylistically.
Well, my question was in terms of the CsD, and we don't require articles to be perfect in order to avoid speedy deletion.
Of course, notability is a vague concept. Mentioning that someone was a king makes them notable without any further information.
Unless you're King George Francis Cruickshank (or is he Emperor?). (And yes, that's a joke, sort of.)
Anyway, yeah, vague concept. In other words, it means anything the admins want it to mean. That's what I've gotten from all the other contributors to this discussion also.
I wonder how we deal with notability for mathematical formulas though...do we accept "Smith's rule" if it was invented for one published paper and never referred to since?
States. If it's not notable, you can't sum it up.
...
These are all easily summed up, so they are all notable?
You know that's not a logical restatement.
Sure it is, it's the contrapositive.
http://regentsprep.org/regents/math/relcond/Lcontrap.htm
I'm starting to think that "notability" is even more this way. It means something radically different to different people, to the point where the ability to delete due to non-assertion of notability is equivalent to the ability to delete for any reason whatsoever.
Notability is very poorly defined at the moment. And there are certainly biases present in our interpretation of it - for example, I doubt a journalist for a major paper in a minor city in an little-known country would stand much of a chance. If the country was the US, the article would stand a better chance of surviving.
But all of this is to say - fix the problem of lack of notability definition, don't just complain about it. :)
Steve
I have no ability to fix the problem of lack of notability definition. My definition is similar to that of Steve Block. Notability is, as far as I'm concerned, equivalent to verifiability (which is a much more tightly defined concept). But, short of talking about it (complaining, as you call it), there's nothing I can do to have others adopt this same definition. All I can do is point out the problems and hope someone more persuasive realizes the ludicrousness of the current situation.
Anthony
On 5/5/06, Anthony DiPierro wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:
Sure it is, it's the contrapositive.
Right you are.
I have no ability to fix the problem of lack of notability definition. My definition is similar to that of Steve Block. Notability is, as far as I'm concerned, equivalent to verifiability (which is a much more tightly defined concept). But, short of talking about it (complaining, as you call it), there's nothing I can do to have others adopt this same definition. All I can do is point out the problems and hope someone more persuasive realizes the ludicrousness of the current situation.
We can at least document the status quo, if this is not already the case.
Steve