On Feb 24, 2007, at 8:52 PM, William Pietri wrote:
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?
It's tough to say, mostly because I have trouble conceiving of notability as a linear thing. But I'd say -2/2 is a good bet, and we can peak out around -4/4. I'll also note, that gap has been expanding, and if you go all the way out to where notability tagging is happening you get solidly out to the -4/4, -5/5 range. ([[Timothy Noah]] and [[Oni Press]] being two recent egregious examples of bad notability tagging.) Obviously notability tagging is a less destructive practice than deletion, but it does still fall into the larger problem of making our criteria look byzantine and impenetrable - in fact, possibly even moreso, as a notability tag stays visible for longer than five days.
-Phil