[Wikipedia-l] Max Weismann...does he deserve an article?

Tue May 28 23:26:58 UTC 2002

I don't know anything about Max and so I don't know whether he
deserves an article, but the underlying question is important and
interesting: should anything that somebody bothered to write up be
accepted into Wikipedia, assuming it is NPOV?

I say no. The item has to be of relevance in some way. It would be
fruitless to try to define "of relevance" on many policy pages. It is
implicitly defined by the overriding goal of writing an
*encyclopedia*. Reasonable people will usually agree, and if not, it
can be resolved the wiki way.

Lists of phone numbers, a description of my dream of last Tuesday, a
biography of my father are all irrelevant and don't belong in
Wikipedia. Imagine Encyclopedia Britannica was completely freed of
their space and money constraints: they still wouldn't include a
biography of my father.

Now, Simpson characters on the other hand are relevant: a very popular
show in the largest consumer market of the world. Simpson shows are
being analyzed in literature departments, and no doubt EB would
include an extensive treatment if they could.

Axel