[Wikipedia-l] Entries for deletion.... issues from the Third World

[Andre Engels]

2007/1/8, Frederick Noronha <fred at bytesforall.org>:
>
> Hmmm... some interesting issues being raised below. Just for argument
> sake: what happens if an "un-notable" entry makes it to Wikipedia?
> Would it be a grave error? Notability, after all, is mostly related to
> context. Would Shakespeare have been as "noted" a writer, if he had to
> be born in, say, Upper Egypt?


That's a big hypothetical - if he had been born there, how much and what
would he have written? Having somehting un-notable may not be a grave error,
but having thousands of un-notable things clogs Wikipedia, makes
fact-checking harder and opens the doors wide to usage of Wikipedia for
advertisement.

I think the problem lies elsewhere. The trouble is: people or
> institutions being packaged to be what they are not. Or bloated claims
> about institutions or organisations or individuals.
>
> Rather than just delete entries for being un-notable, perhaps we need
> to find ways to ensure that what's written is both accurate and
> tallies with the reality. --FN
>

But what if what is written is that so-and-so once wrote an internet page
(that a few hundred people have looked at). Do you really want to just keep
that in if you found that he really has done so?

-- 
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels