[WikiEN-l] Re: Notability meta-guidelines

[Geoff Burling]

On Fri, 20 Jan 2006, Anthony DiPierro wrote:

> On 1/18/06, Steve Bennett <stevage at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Actually now that I think about it, maybe a subject *does* get false
> > notability from being on Wikipedia. If I searched for Bob's garage band
> > and found nothing but a crufty geocities website, that would be one
> > thing. If I found a fully-fledged Wikipedia article, I would think
> > something completely different about them. I would think they were more
> > notable than they really were.
> >
> What if the Wikipedia article said that they weren't notable?
>
I interpret those words as "there's no justifiable reason for this
article, please delete it". It's a confession by the author that this
subject does not deserve an article. That's how I've done it in the past,
& will continue to do so in the future. (In other words, I have seen it
done, & can't fathom the reasoning that goes into making that statement,
other than the author is either stupid or a troll.)

And I write that knowing, had I seen the exact same article without
those words, I would make a good faith effort to determine whether the
subject is notable.

> What exactly does notable mean, anyway?
>
That there is a reasonable expectation that someone actually might want
to read about the subject. That is why an article about a subspecies of
arthropods, or a mathematical topic, or a village in Outter Mongolia gets
the benefit of the doubt, but biographies, filks & fanfiction (amongst
other subjects) get rough justice. And I don't see any solution *except*
insisting that the original submitter explain why the subject might be
of interest to anyone.

For example, take the case of Ward Weaver (who does not yet have an article
in Wikipedia). If an article about him were to simply state that he was
the killer of two young girls, I'd be surprised if it *didn't* end up on
AfD. However, if the article explained some of the facts of this case --
that the disappearances & murders of the 2 girls was a local sensation,
the bizarre twists & turns in the case (which included his announcement
to the press that he was "the primary suspect", that local television
stations preempted all programming one Sunday to monitor the recovery of
the bodies of the girls, & that this case had chilling similarities to
the murder case that put Weaver's father on Death Row in California),
only a fanatical POV-pusher would nominate or argue for this article's
deletion.

(The reason I haven't written this article is that it requires more
research than I have time for to get the facts correct & verified. I
don't expect anyone who didn't personally witness the events around this
case to believe it actually happened, & isn't some hoax based on a bad
ripoff of a Law & Order episode.)

But I doubt that these arguments will matter to the partisans on
either side of the issue.

Geoff