[WikiEN-l] Frustrated

[Guettarda]

On 2/18/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
<snip>

Tall is defined by agreement of editors, not by any externally
> verifiable definition.  After five or six deletion debates, no
> consensus third-party definition of tall has been produced.  Average
> height is increasing over time so the list naturally favours
> contemporary figures.  Average height varies by country, so this list
> favours Western (and especially Dutch) figures.  Average height varies
> by ethnicity, so this list works against Vietnamese and Japanese, to
> name but two.  We don't have a place in here for Edward I
> ("Longshanks"), whose height is an integral part of his notability,
> because he's below the arbitrary criterion.  The height has changed
> from 6'3" to 6'7" and up and down, based primarily on the size of the
> resulting list, not any objective definition of tall.  We have to take
> special measures (i.e. additional arbitrary criteria) to stop it
> simply being a list of basketball players, which it more or less
> became.

<snip>

Sure, a list of tall men is crufty.  We have lots of cruft on Wikipedia, so
that element is just par for the course.  However, the statement that "Tall
is defined by agreement of editors, not by any externally verifiable
definition" obviously violates WP:V, which is policy, and WP:NOR.  We can't
have a list that lacks criteria for inclusion which are not independent of
Wikipedia.

Now the question is how to fix it with the minimum amount of pain.