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

[David Gerard]

On 28/02/07, William Pietri <william at scissor.com> wrote:

> Aside from the opposing camps, isn't there also some inherent mismatch
> between universal notability and context-specific notability?
[...]
> So wouldn't every new subject-specific guideline be inevitably seen by
> one-size-fits-all types as another lowering of the standard, a breach
> through which ten thousand non-notable items will flow?


You've got it in one. The history of Wikipedia's notability guidelines
is that some people were appalled that articles were allowed to exist
that they couldn't see a need for, so they claimed the subjects were
"not notable." When this was questioned by others, they started coming
up with arbitrary numerical cutoff points. Since these didn't follow
in any obvious way from NPOV, NOR or verifiability, they remain a
source of endless controversy.

I suggest: throw out notability and stick to verifiability. (And not a
universal WP:RS, which clearly suffers the same problem in practice.)

(If anyone here does think notability follows from NPOV, NOR and
verifiability, please do explain precisely how it does, step by step.
Else there's no reason not to throw it out.)


- d.