IMHo it's very difficult to have.

Some criteria are still present (NPOV), but some others are not impartial (encyclopedic).

Ilario

----Messaggio originale---- Da: wikilegal@inbox.org Data: 01.10.06 4.06 A: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"foundation-l@wikimedia.org, bradp.wmf@gmail.com Oggetto: [Foundation-l] Six criteria for Wikipedia inclusion

On 9/30/06, Anthony wikilegal@inbox.org wrote:

On 9/30/06, Brad Patrick bradp.wmf@gmail.com wrote:

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In fact maybe we can beat them to the punch. Create a

verifiable

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neutral article about them *before* they get around to it.

True to your belief everything should be in Wikipedia,

Anthony. I disagree.

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In a perfect world "everything" should be in Wikipedia, I

suppose, but

I don't believe we live in such a perfect world. Please don't misrepresent my position.

I thought I'd expand a little bit on what my position is. I can think of six criteria off the top of my head for Wikipedia articles. They must be:

1) based on verifiable sources - anything which can not be written about using verifiable sources shouldn't be in Wikipedia - this criterion includes the concept of "no original research" - this is a big part of what I mean by "in a perfect world...", as in a perfect world we'd be able to verify anything. 2) NPOV - if an article is not written from a neutral point of view it should generally be rewritten - however, in some cases perhaps it makes more sense to simply remove the article - this criterion includes the concept of barring autobiographies. 3) encyclopedic - this is perhaps the fuzziest criterion, but it would exclude things like essays, lists of quotes, articles about words, fiction, etc. 4) legal - due to various laws, including but not limited to privacy laws and so called "intellectual property" laws, there are some things we can't legally have free articles about 5) of a decent size - articles which are too short and will likely never be expanded should generally be merged with other articles and redirected. 6) in line with human dignity - this would prohibit disclosure of certain types of private information, even in cases where it's probably legal under US law to include the information - I also think we should give the benefit of the doubt in borderline cases to people who ask that private information, especially biographies, not be included - however, I only think we should take this so far, and in the case of legally disclosable and already widely available public information I think the NPOV principle overrides any concerns about disclosing negative information.

One criterion that I explicitly do not include is how popular something is. In fact, I think the less popular something is the *more* useful it is to include information about it in Wikipedia. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l