[WikiEN-l] The Economist on "notability"

[White Cat]

I recommend people to take a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#.E2.80.9CThe_battle_for_Wikipedia.27s_soul.E2.80.9D

I really feel wikipedia should not be censored against coverage on topics we
(we here refers to your own self and is most likely not hared by everyone
else) don't care about.

I see people redirectifying (in reality purging) content from a variety of
topics they feel should either not be covered or because it lacks "adequate"
coverage (I don't understand the logic - if something doesn't have enough
coverage, doesn't it have less coverage when it is turned into a redirect?).

This is happening on a variety of topics, most notably on articles on
pop-culture, no doubt. Such conduct at pop culture related articles is being
reviewed by arbcom as of this post.

Such conduct isn't restricted to pop culture related articles. Same thing is
also happening on real world topics like that one page I noticed about a
township in Canada. I also noticed a similar dispute on Highway related
articles and the relevant arbitration case. This is unacceptable. Wikipedias
goal is to cover all human knowledge, not human knowledge we (we here refers
to your own self and is most likely not hared by everyone else) care about.

If you ask me the new kind of vandalism on wikipedia is redirectification.
You remove all content and no one will block you for it. Even such a
suggestion seems to be a taboo.

Notability guideline was intended against trash. Trash being defined by
stuff no one but a very elite group of people (family and friends only)
knows about such as bio articles on people that have not conducted anything
significant. That was the intention behind it. Currently however self
righteous people are enforcing guidelines based on their interpretations of
them. These people typically have not written a single article.

Guidelines are out there to guide us to write better articles. They are not
binding but following them is generally the logical course of action. If you
are using a guideline for any reason but writing an article you are
violating the spirit behind guidelines even if you are following it to the
word.

   - White Cat

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 11:16 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

> http://www.economist.com/printedition/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10789354
>
> Yes, (the Wikipedia jargon meaning of) notability is suitable material
> for a business- and economics-oriented news magazine.[*]
>
>
> - d.
>
>
> [*] it can call itself a "newspaper" all it likes
>
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