[WikiEN-l] Re: Proposal on VFD: enforcement of nomination policy

Sun Mar 6 14:13:13 UTC 2005

Charles Matthews wrote:
> Pete/Pcb21 wrote
> 
> 
>>[*] E.g. esoteric topics about individual characters in sub-plots of
>>Lord of the Rings are kept, whereas as articles about million dollar
>>turnover manufacturing busineses are deleted, reflecting the (painting
>>with a broad brush) slant towards the "nerdy student/lefty" make-up of
>>the Wikipedia population.
> 
> 
> Wikipedia will reflect its editors' interests, no question.  I don't really
> accept that analysis, though.  A million-dollar turnover manufacturing
> business is still family-sized, actually.  What is more, a million dollars
> in one bank account looks much like a million dollars in another.  It is the
> price of a very ordinary house in London, for example.
> 
> Charles

Sorry yes I guess $1m was sufficiently low to muddy the waters 
unnecessarily. But I think I am making a valid point.

Trying another example:
Pop stars and CEOs of large companies are both fine topics for an 
encyclopedia with a wide scope such as ours.

Yes, fine, pop stars will always have greater coverage on WP because it 
is a reflection of its editors' interests. I can certainly live with 
that. However our policies and procedures must work so that when someone 
odd does come along and write about a CEO their article isn't strangled 
to death at VfD by people writing "not important , not notable" when 
they mean "not important, not notable _to me_".

If notability were to be defined somehow without reference to POVs, then 
it would be more acceptable.

FWIW, a lot of the stuff that is ultimately deleted as "non-notable" 
actually fails "no original research" or "no nonsense", anyway.

Pete