[WikiEN-l] More AfD toxicity

[Justin Cormack]

On 15 Feb 2006, at 23:27, Matt Brown wrote:

> On 2/15/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I'm a little confused about why we seem to keep trying to raise  
>> the bar on notability.
>
> I think it's among other things connected with the feeling expressed
> here by Justin:
>
> On 2/15/06, Justin Cormack <justin at specialbusservice.com> wrote:
>> Yes it is frustrating that so much work goes into trivial subjects  
>> and
>> (despite what some people seem to think) there are vast areas without
>> even stubs or redlinks.
>
> In other words, I feel that people keep trying to raise the bar on
> notability because it bugs them that people are willing to expend so
> much effort on what they consider "trivia" when there's so much work
> to be done on "worthy" subjects.
>
> To be fair, it's only one reason, another being that some feel (don't
> you love weasel terms?) that large amounts of information on "trivial"
> subjects detracts from our image.

Actually I dont have a problem with large amounts of trivia.

I do have a problem with stuff that makes a bad stub but could add
detail and context to a larger article. When I was organizing the
stuff in the field of [[Beer]] I spent a lot of time merging
articles about individual beers (normally written after a trip to
the pub) into articles about breweries. Beers come and go but
breweries are companies and have documentation. I think I left
about 40 beers that had real notability (some eponymous with
breweries eg Guinness and the Budweisers, others historical).
Maybe one day someone will write good articles about every beer
brewed by Miller, 100 words or so but I doubt it. In the mean time
a sentence under the main article is better in every way.

Steve said:
 > Is there any discussion of notability for software? How many software
 > products do we want in Wikipedia? I would have thought several
 > thousand, if not several tens of thousands could easily be justified.
 > We are, after all, an encyclopaedia. Is our aim not to produce a
 > consultable body of knowledge? I'm a little confused about why we  
seem
 > to keep trying to raise the bar on notability.

Notability for software is interesting, not sure I have seen any
guidelines (I dont contribute much as its too much like work). Does
the program embody new techniques? Did it create a new market? Did
it replace the market leader? Maybe those questions just reflect my
interests but at least they give something to write a few hundred
words on.

Its difficult. Sometimes there are articles that I might think could
only be a stub and be wrong. And having a stub might make someone else
write a real article. The stubs I have written that have been taken
up by other people have really pleased me, although not as much as
some of the obscure stuff I have written real articles on (like
[[Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association]]).

Justinc