[WikiEN-l] Sourcing "popular culture" items

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:23:05 -0500, Phil Sandifer
<Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:

>> In my view you are.  The contestant is not notable, their performance
>> in the reality show may have been.

>May I suggest that this debate highlights the problems with  
>ontological categories of "notable" and "non-notable?"
>
>To my mind there are three categories of articles in terms of this.
>
>1) Useful articles that provide context and verifiable, neutral  
>information of general interest on a topic.
>2) Bad articles that provide unverifiable or biased information, or  
>no context of use to anyone but fans/partisans/etc, but that somebody  
>is willing and capable of fixing.
>3) Bad articles that provide unverifiable or biased information, or  
>no context of use to anyone but fans/partisans/etc, and that  
>furthmore have nobody who is willing and capable of fixing them.
>
>We keep 1, fix 2, and delete 3. If an article on a topic that got  
>deleted by #3 comes along that is #2 or #1, we keep/fix it. If a  
>topic goes so far as to be impossible to fix, we repeatedly delete  
>it, and, sometimes, as a convenience to prevent admins from having to  
>get into a fight on these things, protect blank.
>
>No muss, no fuss, no ontological concepts of notability.

I completely agree.  I tried to change [[WP:N]] and its sub guidelines
to include the fundamental basis for gauging inclusion - can we verify
that the content is factually correct and neutrally stated from
credible sources - but was shouted down.

For me, notable is a shorthand for something that has enough critical
attention to allow coverage within policy.  As a sideline, individuals
whose public exposure is limited to a single event should normally, in
my view, be covered under that event, because otherwise we have "John
Doe ran for mayor of New York in 2006 on an independent ticket and
polled 200 votes on a platform of higher taxes for all.  He was last
heard of selling insurance in New Jersey", which is no kind of a
biography.  A cobweb, in oldspeak.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG