[WikiEN-l] Human dignity

[ScottL]

Ilmari Karonen wrote:
> Bryan Derksen wrote:
>> Why is this not a good thing? Our articles are NPOV and verifiable, and
>> easily corrected should errors in them be found. What would be a better
>> site to have as the #1 hit?
> 
> That's a good point.  Given that we don't, currently, provide any 
> information on Brian Peppers, I'm glad, for the sake of human dignity, 
> that Snopes does (and actually outranks us on Google).  Because if they 
> didn't, the next sites down the list are Wikitruth and YTMND.
> 
> Reference: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22brian+peppers%22
> 

[this is not so much a direct reply to this post as a general feeling 
about this thread]
   Others have pointed this out I am sure but it seems to me that many 
of these less notables, especially the meme ones, quickly become less 
so.  To the point that the most notable thing about them is that they 
have a wikipedia article, because otherwise they would have been 
forgotten.  The "Human dignity" is a value judgment and is therefore POV 
argument is, to me at least somewhat specious, since notability is also 
a value judgment (that is why not include any thing that can be verified 
even if its not notable).

   As a community we have established standards for what is 
encyclopedic.  Some have historical precedent others less so, but they 
all are ultmatly derived from value judgments.  That said I think the 
most compelling argument against this sort of article is not human 
dignity (though its a good one), its just that we really do seem to have 
let the bar of notability fall to a level that I think harms the project.

Dalf