[WikiEN-l] One Where We Blew It

Wed Sep 7 16:45:30 UTC 2005

On Tue, 6 Sep 2005, David wrote:

> Fastfission wrote:
>
> >Well, recognizing that Wikipedia itself is becoming a cultural object,
> >wouldn't it make sense at the very least to say "When it is more notable
> >than its inclusion in Wikipedia would be"? ;-)
> >
> >Put more simply, if I were in EB, it would be pretty amazing and the most
> >notable thing about me ("Otherwise unnotable man included in Encyclopedia
> >Brittanica," the headlines would proclaim). However if I was more notable
> >than my inclusion into EB would be, then it wouldn't be any big deal if they
> >had an article on me -- it might even be expected, if they specialized in
> >breadth.
> >
> >Of course, the problem with this is that it is self-reinforcing policy! That
> >is, if the standard for inclusion to Wikipedia went down, then the
> >likelihood of having a Wikipedia article about something would go up, which
> >would in turn affect a standard for inclusion based on the likelihood of an
> >article being in Wikipedia... and so on.
> >
> So that's the ultimate standard?  As soon as nobody is surprised that we
> have an article on a subject, we need the article?
>
> I love it! :)
>
I guess this is an application of a rule that Jimbo mentions in his
emails from time to time: the Principle of Least Astonishment. That is,
if you consider Wikipedia's coverage of a given topic definitive,
authorative, &/or exhaustive, it would reasonably astonish the reader
if there was not an article about a specific subject.

After all, I haven't seen anyone argue on VfD that a village of 100
people in Africa or Asia is not notable: that's difficult to claim
when there are so many existing articles about communities of that
size -- or smaller -- in the U.S.

Geoff