[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[William Pietri]

Thanks for taking the time to write that; it was very interesting. One 
question, in hopes that I can better understand your perspective, and 
feel free to point me at the archives if you've covered this before.

Philip Sandifer wrote:
> The problem he has? Notability. Specifically the arbitrary and  
> capricious way in which AfD targets things, questions their  
> notability, and uses guidelines that make no sense from the outside.
>   


Suppose we create a scale that runs from -10 to 10. At 10 are things we 
obviously have to have in the encyclopedia, like [[Oxygen]] or 
[[France]]. At -10 we have things like [[The 237th raindrop that just 
hit the puddle outside my bathroom window]]. Let's further suppose that 
0 is the current point where something is just as likely to be kept as not.

If I understand rightly, you're saying that around zero, we're 
unpredictable. We might keep a -2 one time and delete a 2 other times, 
yes? And that although on a long time-scale that may work out adequately 
for our readers, for those who peek inside the process see that area of 
the scale as messy and chaotic, and judge us by that?

If so, how far up and down the scale do your concerns go?

> See also Timothy Noah's recent article on Slate for this - it gives a  
> good view of how notability guidelines look to the outside. In this  
> case, it's how they look to the subject of the article, but I assure  
> you - they look similar to people who are familiar with the subject.  
> In short, they appear a Kafka-esque absurdity.

For those wondering, the article is here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2160222/


Thanks,

William

-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri