On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 13:55:14 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@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)