WJhonson@aol.com wrote:

In a message dated 4/27/2009 12:06:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time, doc.wikipedia@ntlworld.com writes:

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You are missing the point. I should not have to. If we have reasonably trustworthy information on something that commonsense tells us has some level of enduring significance, then finding a book should be unnecessary.>

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How can you have "reasonably trustworthy information" without a citation? Maybe what you mean is, "I have a citation, it's just not on Google Books". If that's what you mean, than of course you can use it. You have to show that the subject is notable, that is still up to the contributor.

Commonsense is notoriously slippery.

Human life is slippery and subjective - and encyclopedia that wants to record and reflect it needs to take that on board.

The initial scenario was an article, created from sources connected with the subject - sources that common sense tells us are fairly reliable - yet lacking "multiple third party sources" (or at least ones produced by an afd).

To be precise, the case study I had in mind was (and I can't find the afd - it was some years ago) an old village church. The sources were 1) a write-up on the church's website giving its history and some architectural details. 2) A similar page on the local village website.

Now, the chances of those sources lying are fairly low. Yet, because no one could produce "multiple third party sources" we got people wanting to delete. There are quite likely to be written sources of local history - but they may not appear on the internet, in any case we have neutral, verifiable information of a building which will have some level of sustainable significance.

Common sense says this is verifiable, neutral and accurate - indeed more so than the average borderline BLP with 25 hits on googlenews.

David Goodman wrote:

The question isn't whether the material is verifiable. The question is whether we want to include articles on all village churches, some of them, or none of them. The current answer is we include all of them that are on official historical monument lists--which makes sense-- and also those that happen to have 2 findable references with substantial coverage from third party independent published reliable sources--which is not necessarily based on anything fundamental, but does offer a rough screen. The screen will use its usefulness when Google Books Search gets all of published local history on record.

I mention that information from churches and schools and similar institutions about their earlier history is not always reliable: they tend to claim a long connection with prior institutions that may or may not be correct, and a connection with notable bodies or organizations that may or may not have been real.

Fair points.

However, my problem with our "multiple third party sources" algorithm goes further. It distorts content very badly. Not only does it prejudice the pre-1995 subjects, as has often been said. It tends mean that the thresholds for the inclusion of "human interest," and "are passing newsworthy" subjects are a good deal lower than on places, buildings, and more "solid" subjects. Because news media feature more on living persons than they do on other subjects. Sure, an 18th century church might get a feature in some local paper on a significant anniversary (if it has had an anniversary since 1995!) - but that local paper is far more likely to write about Joe, who did something kinky with a kid, or who founded his own business. And the story on Joe is far more likely to be picked up by other media - giving you your multiple sources. And even if Joe's business went bust just after 1997, in 50 year's time, he'll still have "multiple third party sources" whilst St. Anne's Church (est 1791) may still be waiting for its anniversary write-up.

And when you stop and think about it, which articles are the one's that give us the maintenance headache? If we allow St. Anne's, we are far more likely to have content that will remain NPOV and verifiable, whilst Joe's article will be subject to his disgruntled attacking him. And, as much as "potential for harm" is disliked as a criterion, we know where the problems lie.

We'd do much better, if we didn't apply the same metric of "multiple third party sources" to all subjects. If we really were serious about maintainability, posterity, and systemic bias, we'd demand much much higher standards for the post-1995, popular culture and the BLP, and we'd drop to bare verifiability for other subjects.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not suggesting we relax verifiability. But asking "is it reasonable to rely on this source for this information?" should be the metric. A church website, if it is obviously aimed at PR and full of blurb, should have claims of membership and influence taken with a pinch of salt. However, a page on a small church which narrates that it was built in 1791, built of sandstone, and has a clock tower of gothic style dating from 1806 built by village subscription to celebrate Trafalgar, and that six generations of the family of the Lord of Boggle, is hardly likely to be lying. And if the same information can be verified for the website of the county historical society, then common sense says we have enough.

Can there be some common sense between inclusionism and deletionism?