[WikiEN-l] Tim Noah addresses the notion of notability in another Slate article

[Sheldon Rampton]

There are a couple of things that I think can be be done to address  
in a positive way the concerns raised in Tim Noah's articles:

(1) Develop better, more comprehensive notability standards for more  
topics.

(2) Improve the section of WP:N titled "Rationale for requiring a  
level of notability."

==1. Develop better, more comprehensive notability standards for  
different topics.==

With regard to journalists in particular, I think Wikipedia should  
have a fairly inclusive standard. Tim Noah uses Wikipedia's  
notability standard for porn stars to mock the concept of notability  
standards at all. (He seems not to realize that the reason for a porn  
star standard is precisely to *limit* the number of porn stars who  
will be included.) Even so, however, Wikipedia's porn star standard  
in practice has permitted quite a few entries. For example, it allows  
an article about [[Dolores Del Monte]], whose sole criterion for  
notabilty is that she was Playboy's 1954 Playmate of the Month (a  
distinction so minor that she herself was unaware of until 1979,  
because the photographer sold her pictures to Hefner without her  
knowledge).

If simply having your picture appear in Playboy is sufficient  
notability to merit an article, I think the standard for journalists  
should allow inclusion of anyone who writes or reports regularly for  
a notable publication. At present, however, the draft notability  
policy for journalists says that they must be either a "SENIOR staff  
writer" or the writer of a "nationally syndicated column." If a  
publication itself is notable enough to include, its employment of a  
writer (senior or not) on a regular basis constitutes sufficient  
"note" having been made of the writer for him/her to be considered  
noteworthy.

==2. Improve the section of WP:N titled "Rationale for requiring a  
level of notability." ==

In Tim Noah's second article, he characterized the thrust of his  
criticism as follows:

> [G]iven the seeming infinity of cyberspace and volunteer expertise  
> available to Wikipedia—the only plausible reason Wikipedia's  
> gatekeepers would exclude anyone or anything as insufficiently  
> notable for an encyclopedia entry would have to be the secret  
> thrill of exclusion itself

This argument is patently false, and Noah himself might have realized  
this if the notability policy clearly explained the reasons why it  
exists. Some of those reasons have been discussed just now on this  
listserv. The most important, I think, are that (a) Wikipedia strives  
to be accurate, and is difficult if not impossible to fact-check  
articles on topics that are not sufficiently notable to have been  
written about elsewhere, and (b) Wikipedia's popularity creates a  
temptation for people to use it for self-promotional purposes by  
creating articles about their small businesses, personal blogs,  
garage bands, crank scientific theories, etc. The notability policy  
provides a criterion for separating this self-promotional material  
from information that has been deemed sufficiently interesting to  
have been noted by someone other than the topic's own creator.

If these explanations for WHY the policy exists were stated more  
explicitly in the notability policy itself, it might make it harder  
for someone like Noah to imagine that the "secret thrill or  
exclusion" (or some other fantasized motive) is "the only plausible  
reason" for the policy to exist. However, the "Rationale for  
requiring a level of notability" section currently doesn't do a very  
good job of explaining why the policy exists. It contains the  
following three points:

> 1.  In order to have a verifiable article, a topic should be  
> notable enough that the information about it will have been  
> researched, checked, and evaluated through publication in  
> independent reliable sources.
>
> 2. In order to have a neutral article, a topic should be notable  
> enough that the information about it will be from unbiased and  
> unaffiliated sources; and that those interested in the article will  
> not be exclusively partisan or fanatic editors.
>
> 3. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate directory of businesses,  
> websites, persons, etc. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia

The language of points 1 and 2 ("a topic should be notable  
enough ...") sounds more like a simple re-statement of the policy  
than an explanation of its purpose. The explanation of "why" is  
embedded in these points if you read carefully, but it is easy to  
misread them as mere normative assertions rather than explanations.

Likewise, point #3 states that Wikipedia is not an indiscrimate  
directory, but it doesn't explain WHY it would be bad for Wikipedia  
to be an indiscriminate directory. Again, this point sounds more like  
a mere description of Wikipedia policy than a rationale for why it  
should be so.

I've taken a stab at rewriting this section, including changing its  
subhead from "Rationale for requiring a level of notability" to "Why  
Wikipedia has a notability policy." If you want to see my changes,  
you can find them at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php? 
title=Wikipedia:Notability&oldid=111589127

(I wasn't sure my change would meet the consensus test, so I made the  
change and then rolled it back, pending comments and approval from  
others.)

--------------------------------
|  Sheldon Rampton
|  Research director, Center for Media & Democracy (www.prwatch.org)
|  Author of books including:
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|     Toxic Sludge Is Good For You
|     Mad Cow USA
|     Trust Us, We're Experts
|     Weapons of Mass Deception
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