[Wikipedia-l] Non-notability "abuse"

[Maury Markowitz]

>If Wikipedia were a paper-based encyclopedia,
>then I think there is no doubt that there would
>be certain selection criteria. Wikipedia is not
>paper, and consequently has decided that if it is
>(a) Verifiable (b) (non-trivial) Reliable
>sources, (c) written neutrally, then it is acceptable.

I would agree, but in every case your examples failed on (c). The article on 
Pensée failed to make any sort of effort to describe the magazine _before_ 
it was radically re-imaged to become a mouthpiece for Velikovsky, and I 
consider it deletable for that reason alone. Nor did it make any reasonable 
attempt to describe the fact that the topic is utter rubish, except by 
including a quote that suggested it was a hissy fit by "mainstream" 
scientists. Pensée existed before the events described in the article, yet 
zero effort was made to describe them. This was nothing more than a 
roundabout promotion for Velikovsky-ism. DELETE!

The article on the Electric Universe so obviously fails (c) that I'm 
astonished you would even bring it up as an example!

>Likewise, I see no problem Wikipedia summarising
>every book that was ever published. It already
>summarised every episode of many obscure TV programmes.

Yes, but lots of people actually watch The Simpsons. Very few read about the 
Electric Universe.

>By point is not to specifically argue for the
>inclusion of these articles

Oh geez, yes it is. I can conclude this as easy as looking at your sig...

>Ian Tresman
>www.plasma-universe.com

I find it interesting that you don't even seem to argue that these topics 
are "real', only that they are "verifyable". This is why we don't just 
accept V. I can, for instance, verify that the homeless guy on the corner 
talks to himself, but that doesn't deserve an article on the wiki either. We 
have rules like V, OR and NPOV to act as an interlinked set of guidelines in 
order to filter out articles like these.

Again, if any of the articles in question made any serious effort to be 
balanced, they would have stayed up. But they didn't.

Maury

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