I see the following problems. 1. At the beginning of WP decisions were made to have some categories of things notable: subway and train stations, villages in the US and Canada, individual numbered highways etc., and to have very low bars for characters in computer games, high schools, porn stars, and so on. These are so much the part of WP that they cannot be removed, and it sounds & is absurd to have very different and enormously higher standards for college professors, classical musicians, etc. Similarly there are very low bar to entries for individual books, etc, except there are less people working to fill in these categories. 2. What is personally notable to different people is very different. I would be well served by an encyclopedia eliminating quite a number of things. And similarly for each of you, except they'd be different. 2a. Thus, WP like any general encyclopedia will have areas that will not seem significant to an individual. An example mentioned is chemical compounds. When WP was started, there was no free source giving the information. Now there is PubChem, but the chemists intend the WP coverage to be both wider and deeper and more understandable, and I think they are succeeding. The same is true of individual plant and animal species. (I was initially skeptical of both, but looking at good recent examples convinced me otherwise. Details for a separate discussion, because I'm on the projects in these areas.) 3. there are attempts to set objective standards, but they tend to be inflexible, and sometimes the very opposite of common sense. For these, see the detailed subpages of WP:N. But the general guidelines of WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV, are actually subject to very wide differences of interpretation, especially NPOV. 3a. But let's start a separate discussion of each. 4. It is now the case, btw, that many people are no longer anonymous. I used an acronym at first, and I have enough edits that would need changing that I'm stuck with it, but I'm about to put my true name on the user page. (it's DGG) 5. For Ian: the initial decision was made to accept to accept all broadcasting towers as notable. Do you agree? 5a. This decision was one of the few reversed, and all but the true landmarks are being removed through AfD. 5b. Several people have said that all high school teachers should be notable, and all individual elementary schools, and all bus stops. 5c. I've seen it said that every individual person on earth should have an article about them. 5d. Noted in a reliable source is not sufficient: everyone living in the US in 1930 and before is listed in the published parts of the US Census, a very reliable source. Similarly for every book and pamphlet and magazine article ever published (& the number is similar as well). The price of every stock on the market for every weekday is listed in reliable sources. The time each train stops at each station is listed in reliable sources. Every individual automobile ever registered is listed in reliable sources. Every individual piece of property every sold is listed in reliable sources. 6. Things worth including in an article but not worth a separate article. The current practice seems to make a redirect from their names if they have names, or to include them in a list. There are also things redirected to Wiktionary or Wikisource 7. Many things which one would think included sufficiently in the web are much better handled in Wiki, because the web results are mainly totally unreliable blogs. 8. So, in short, there is a dilemma between having flexible standards set in general words that can be interpreted strictly or narrowly depending upon individual prejudice, and and having fixed standards that include or exclude arbitrarily, which may well not accord with common sense. 8a.There was a long discussion of whether to include Bush's forthcoming speech. The discussion was still going on when he gave the speech, which clearly was notable, & put an end to the discussion. --David Goodman PS: consider the shades of meaning between: notable, noteworthy, important, significant, useful

Ray Saintonge schreef: Ray, One of my favourite proverbs: "There ain't no such thing as common sense as common sense ain't common". Thanks, GerardM

Ian Tresman wrote: This makes so little sense that I wonder whether we are talking about the same thing. What I have been talking about is having editors with a common interest having the strongest influence on determining the notability of an article. This has nothing to do with inviting experts to contribute. It has to do with ignoramuses using their cookie-cutter interpretation of notability (or verifiability ) to delete articles about which they know nothing. Ec

David Goodman wrote: All good articles also need time to evolve. Stubs don't seem like much, but they are a beginning. References are a good thing; good references are even better. These too develop over time. References are more important when the facts are in dispute, but many articles can afford patience when dealing with references. Ec

David Goodman wrote: Sometimes it comes to that, but it's an unhealthy environment when you keep having to watch out for who's ciming up behind you with a knife, or you need to spend your time defending your edits. That seriously cuts down the time you have to do constructive things. Ec