[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[Guy Chapman aka JzG]

On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:55:14 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond"
<jeff.raymond at internationalhouseofbacon.com> wrote:

>> For what value of notable?  If "notable" means it's been the primary
>> subject of a few reliable secondary sources, which seems like a
>> reasonable definition, then that should not happen.  I've said before,
>> I'm all for a contextual definition of reliable.

>Thus the problem.  If a "notable" thing is not the SUBJECT of multiple
>reliable secondary sources, then our guidelines are improper and need to
>be adjusted.  I mapped out a few examples at WP:N a while back, and a lot
>of people poo-poohed it, but it's an interesting exercise to recap some of
>them here for people who didn't watch the page:

No, no, no, a thousand times no.  Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, a
tertiary source, a distillation of secondary sources, not a publisher
of first instance.  These are some of the first things that were
decided about the project.  If there are no reliable secondary
sources, it almost certainly does not belong in an encyclopaedia.  How
can we verify, and verify the neutrality of, a subject without
significant critical commentary about it?

>[[Ern Westmore]] - Oscar-winning makeup artist, second generation of the
>famed Westmore family, had his own television show.  My research -
>extensive for a non-wiki project I'm working on, but not *highly*
>extensive (local news reports, etc) - does not uncover him as THE SUBJECT
>of multiple secondary sources.  Many independent mentions in articles and
>books, but never as the subject, and the best source I've found about him
>so far was written by his brother, which calls into question
>"independent."  Does this mean our general idea of "notability" is
>working, or not?

It means you haven't yet found the sources.  There will be sources.
There will be, for example, the citations from the Academy Awards,
describing his work.  Go to the library, look in Halliwell and other
film guides.  Look in the trade magazines for the film industry.  Not
on the net?  Who cares.

>[[Jordanhill railway station]] - a favorite of many who question our
>standards, I'm not sure if there's "multple, reliable secondary sources"
>that have the station as the subject.

Don't bet on it, I have a whole shelf full of books about British
railway lines and their history.  I can give you reliable secondary
sources for railway subjects down to the level of individual wagons.  

--8<---------

>There's also plenty of the Rambot-style articles for small townships, etc.
> I'm really only scraping my contributions more than anything else, and
>it's worth mentioning that three of those have ended up on the main page
>and two are rated as "Good Articles," and one could be a serious FA
>candidate with some extra work that I simply won't be doing at this point.

There seems to be an informal agreement that census data counts for
places.  I don't know why, that's directory entries for my money, but
it is usually not hard to find sources.  My parents' village, for
example, had two or three books about it, plus lengthy mentions in
histories on the adjacent city, and discussions in respect of the iron
age settlements in the area.

>On the contrary.  We can have both, and we can have standards.  The issue
>is that we need to have senisble standards, and we clearly lack that. 
>Phil Sandifer is so completely on target with his commentary that last few
>days, and we'd be very smart to listen to him.

I have listened to him.  I have also listened to him in deletion
debates and reviews.  And in one case, despite his assurances, we
could not find a single source.  It would be unwise to base policy
*only* on the writings of those who habitually find it hard to source
their preferred content, though.  That may mean that their preferred
content is not the stuff of a mainstream encyclopaedia.

My view is that we should change the subject-specific notability
guidelines to be an indication of the types of sources which are
considered reliable for that type of content.  But to say something is
notable when it plainly has not been noted may be to misunderstand the
definition of notability, in terms of an encyclopaedia.

Guy (JzG)
-- 
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG