[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Schools on en: (was DoImisunderstandWikipedia

Thu May 19 17:11:15 UTC 2005

JAY JG wrote:

> James, is it only in my mind that [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not]] 
> states "Wikipedia is not a general knowledge base, that is, it is not 
> an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something 
> is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an 
> encyclopedia."?  Did I just imagine that it says "Subjects of 
> encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly 
> remembered by their friends and relatives." and "Biography articles 
> should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or 
> achievement"?  What are these and similar statements, if not 
> notability policies?

This section of _What Wikipedia is not_ IMO doesn't imply anything 
specifically about "notability". This is the complete list of examples 
it gives:

> While there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of 
> several classes of entries, current consensus is that Wikipedia 
> articles are not:
>
>    1. *Lists of Frequently Asked Questions
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAQ>*. Wikipedia articles should
>       not list FAQs. Instead, format the information provided as
>       neutral prose within the appropriate article(s). You may want to
>       consider contributing FAQ lists to Wikibooks
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks>.
>    2. *Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics* such as
>       quotations, aphorisms or persons. If you want to enter lists of
>       quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiquote>. Of course, there is
>       nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous
>       /because/ they are associated with or significantly contributed
>       to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and
>       tabular information for quick reference.
>    3. *Travel guides*. An article on Paris
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris> should mention landmarks
>       such as the Eiffel Tower
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower> and the Louvre
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre>, but not the telephone
>       number or street address of your favorite hotel or the price of
>       a /café au lait/ on the Champs-Elysées
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champs-Elys%E9es>. Such details
>       are, however, very welcome at Wikitravel
>       <http://wikitravel.org/> (/http://wikitravel.org//), but note
>       that due to license incompatibility you cannot copy content
>       wholesale unless you are the copyright holder.
>    4. *Memorials*. It's always sad when people die, but Wikipedia is
>       not the place to honor them. Subjects of encyclopedia articles
>       must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by
>       their friends and relatives.
>    5. *News reports*. Wikipedia should not offer first-hand news
>       reports on breaking stories (however, our sister project
>       Wikinews <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikinews> does exactly
>       that). Wikipedia does have many /encyclopedia articles/ on
>       topics of historical significance that are currently in the
>       news, and can be significantly more up-to-date than most
>       reference sources since we can incorporate new developments and
>       facts as they are made known. See current events
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_events> for examples.
>    6. *Genealogical entries*, or *phonebook entries*. Biography
>       articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety
>       or achievement. One measure of achievement is whether someone
>       has been featured in several external sources (on or off-line).
>       Minor characters may be mentioned within other articles (e.g.
>       Ronald Gay in Persecution of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the
>       transgendered
>       <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_gays%2C_lesbians%2C_bisexuals%2C_and_the_transgendered>).
>       See m:Wikipeople <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipeople> for
>       a proposed genealogical/biographical dictionary project.
>    7. *Directories <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory>, directory
>       entries*, or a *resource for conducting business*. For example,
>       an article on a radio station generally shouldn't list upcoming
>       events, current promotions, phone numbers, etc (although mention
>       of major events or promotions may be acceptable). Furthermore,
>       the Talk pages associated with an article are for talking about
>       the article, not for conducting the business of the topic of the
>       article.
>
This guideline seems more like a restriction against database dumps and 
articles containing non-encyclopedic content such as phone numbers to 
me. It's about what _types_ of information should be in Wikipedia, not 
whether the information needs to be "notable". (the memorial and 
genealogical entries points do mention notability, but the threshold is 
so low that I suspect it's not applicable to many of the cases where 
people have argued that articles they think are non-notable should be 
deleted. Every single prof at my university would pass, for example. And 
they're specific to people in any case, so it's no help with the 
disputes over schools).

Perhaps it's time we actually started a page on notability policy so 
that something more definitive could be worked out rather than relying 
on these subjective attempts to figure out what other policies imply? 
That would still leave lots of openeings for subjectivity when 
determining whether any particular article is notable, but at least 
there wouldn't be so much argument over "non-notable articles must be 
purged, inclusionist scum!"/"Anything verifiable deserves an 
encyclopedia article, deletionist scum!"