On 2/18/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman(a)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.