MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:
The writer of the article makes a good point. While most of the rules for deletion can be followed by any numbskull. To determine if someone or something is notable, the people making the decision need to have at least some expetrise in the field or be able to show they did some pretty thourough research.
When I read the article I thought that the author was trying to repudiate the entire concept of "notability". And indeed I strongly agree with the author. In fact, even Wikipedia policy agrees with me: Notability is not and has never been a policy or rule; it's a _guideline_ - unfortunately, one that is misapplied or misinterpreted too regularly.
The relevant _policies_ we have are Verifiability, Reliable Sources, and NPOV. Neither of the two states that obscure people shouldn't have an article. Quite to the contrary, the first two seem to imply that people/things/concepts should have an article if there is enough verifiable information about them in reliable sources, _no matter_ how "unnotable" they are.
Thus, instead of stating that someone should have expertise to judge if something is "notable", I would rather state that nobody should judge anything as "notable" or "non-notable" at all. It doesn't tell you anything about whether an article should be deleted.
Timwi