[WikiEN-l] Primary schools - notability

[Oskar Sigvardsson]

On 3/17/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, more succinctly put: will the subject still be notable after the
> destruction of humanity? No, notability is a human concept and isn't
> objective.

I actually have a kick-ass answer to that, but it would take up two
paragraphs and I should follow my own advice and go do something more
productive :)

> I think it would be ashame for us to allow law to prescribe our content.

I actually kinda agree with that, but that's not really the point. The
point (which I could have made much clearer, in hindsight) is that
non-notable people deserve their privacy. It would be wrong of us to
add stuff about people who isn't "in the public sphere".

> Tautological. An arguement for the existance of something (here
> notability) cannot necessitate that thing existing in its premise
> ("encyclopedias shouldn't have biographies of non-notable people.")

That's a whole lot of big words, and I'm a little to tired to parse
them all, but I think you're missing my point. My point is that
wikipedia is fundamentally an encyclopedia. That should be in our
minds every time we decide something. It's the Prime Directive, so to
speak. There are certain things that define what an encyclopedia is
(short articles, broad coverage, neutrality, etc.) and I firmly
believe that notability is one of them. Therefore, to leave the
notability-criterion behind would make us less of an encyclopedia and
therefore, by definition, a Bad Thing.

This might sound strange to many people, but you know what, it has
worked pretty damn well so far. If we blindly follow this principle
(be more like an encyclopedia==good, be less like an
encyclopedia==bad), and accept it a priory, the better wikipedia will
be.

> OK, I'll try to stop now. :)

Yeah, me too, but it seems pretty futile :)

--Oskar