Robert Merkel wrote in part:
2) I think it's important to be able to weed
entries that
clearly aren't of much importance even when the page isn't
full, so the Year In Review articles remain useful even as
they are constructed. However, I'd like guidelines to back
up any edits so there's reasons I can point to that say,
"No, the release of GigaBlaster XIV for the Nintendo 64 isn't
important enough to warrant a mention here. That's why I've
moved it to the [[Video Games released in 1997]] page according
to the criteria for inclusion on the Year In Review" page.
As far as what I was thinking of for [[Books_published_in_1962]],
a valid excuse for exclusion even from *that* page is
"This is not a reasonable subject for an encyclopaedia article.".
If you would vote for a page to be deleted on those grounds,
then you could remove it from [[1962]], citing the same reasons.
And we could make it policy that nothing be added to
[[Books_published_in_1962]] until *after* an article has been written;
in fact, this page would begin something like:
"This is a list of all [[book]]s published in [[1962]]
"that have articles about them on Wikipedia.
"
"* [[Silent Spring]], by [[Rachel Carson]]
"* [[Stranger in a Strange Land]], by [[Robert Heinlein]]
etc.
(Hopefully we would *have* an article on Silent Spring by this point,
given that we seem to agree that it deserves to be listed on [[1962]] itself.)
I also suspect that, if old hands get into arguments with rabid fans,
that rather than "You need to write an article on this book before listing
it.",
the discussion will be more effective it goes like this:
* "This is not a reasonable subject for an encyclopaedia article."
* "It is too!!1 Robert Heinlein is the l33test writer ever, d00d."
* "OK, then prove it: write an interesting, substantive article
on this particular book, and ''then'' list it."
After all, if they meet a challenge put like *that*,
then it will all be worth it.
-- Toby Bartels
toby(a)math.ucr.edu