On Fri, 10 Nov 2006 17:23:05 -0500, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@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.
- 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)