2007/1/9, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Frederick Noronha wrote:
Maybe we should use some discernment, instead of the mechanical rule of 'number of links' on Google or where-ever.
The question if a topic is notable enough to deserve an entry, can only be answered with "yes" or "no", and this is pretty much "mechanical", so you cannot really escape the mechanics.
Do I understand correctly that you are saying that yes/no questions can only be answered mechanically? I strongly disagree. Of course you can escape the mechanics, doing it mechanically might make things somewhat easier, but surely Wikipedia editors are able to judge non-quantified arguments on their merits.
This kind of reasoning is not limited to the English Wikipedia or
the cities of India, but can be used in the Ukrainian Wikipedia for Hungarian composers with more than 3 symphonies or whatever. I don't know if 50,000 inhabitants or 3 symphonies are good limits for notability, but if you can make such a claim and back it up, then people should be less likely to attack you. At least they will understand that you are not totally clueless or naked.
I guess I should not go into the examples, but in this case my opinion is that 50,000 would be too high a limit, I myself would be thinking of 2,000 or 5,000. 3 symphonies sounds like a bad limit because notability of a classical composer in my opinion should not be judged by their output, but by the question how often and by whom their work is played.