On 12 April 2012 21:24, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:

With respect to audience, on Wikipedia we write for a general audience yet our medical content is still used by 50-70% of practicing physicians. Lonely planet lists hotels in different section based on price. On Wikipedia we use editorial judgement about what to include and what not to include. We have subjective policies like [[WP:DUE]]. Just because something is subjective does not mean it cannot be done. There are books like the 1000 must see places before you die. http://www.1000beforeyoudie.com/  Referencing of this content is possible.

It is one of the most pernicious myths in Wikimedia-land that we aren't riddled with subjective standards.

1. As an English Wikinews reviewer, I make decisions as to the importance and newsworthiness of what goes on the homepage every time I publish a story. Is the latest development in the Trayvon Martin case more or less important than Facebook buying Instagram? On what basis do I make such a decision? Oh yeah, "newsworthiness". That well known, objective measure! ;-)

2. On Commons, there is a category called "Suggestive use of feathers". Is there some sort of Platonic measure of how one uses feathers suggestively? Same for "Erotic pole dancing". Am I to believe that Commons editors are deciding on some purely objective basis whether pole dancing images are erotic or not? (I pick on the erotic/suggestive categories solely because of the BLP-esque issues Commons often raises and fails to adequately deal with.)

Subjective decisions happen all the time on the projects. There's a reason why we generally prefer our admins to be made of flesh and blood rather than just building hyper-intelligent AIs to run the projects.