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