[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia broken

Fri Apr 7 22:47:05 UTC 2006

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The problem is that most 'notability standards' are completely
arbitrary. For example, why is a band that has released two albums on a
major label notable, while a band that has released one album on a major
label is not? (WP:MUSIC) To be honest, I don't see why we need any other
standard than 'can we write a sufficient amount of verifiable, NPOV
information about this topic?'

Cynical

Steve Bennett wrote:
> On 4/7/06, Matt Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Good luck on getting consensus on that.  Attempts to define notability
>> have been rather unsuccessful.  Projects to define notability in
>> particular subject areas, rather than globally, have had more success,
>> but are still controversial and are explicitly guidelines rather than
>> policy - because of the simple fact that any mechanical process like
>> that will have false positives / negatives.
> 
> If we can't agree on even basic principles of notability, something is
> wrong. We must be able to explain why we don't want 50 articles on the
> same pokemon character. Even in broad, general, non-mechanical terms,
> there must be *some* binding common principle.
> 
>> Thus an informal rule of notability: if not enough people are
>> interested in writing about it, it's probably not notable enough, at
>> least yet.
> 
> Maybe...when talking about ancient history topics, most people would
> agree that "the more the better", even if each only gets two edits per
> year.
> 
>>> - We do have physical standards
>> Clarify?
> 
> I meant physical limits. :)
> 
>>> - Articles on trivial topics damage the credibility of the
>>> encyclopaedia as a whole
>> Controversial - and attempts to codify that have been roundly rejected.
> 
> Ah, any examples?
> 
>> I believe one of Wikipedia's /strengths/ is its breadth of topics;
>> people come to us partly because we have obscure articles.
> 
> On ancient Babylonian vase patterns, sure.  On pro-pedophilia blogs
> no. On different nomenclature systems for describing 3 or 4 toed tree
> frogs, sure. On the initiation rituals of a fraternity in an
> unremarkable university in Wisconsin, no.
> 
>>> Then we need to explain how we determine notability, and how we decide
>>> what's in and what's out:
>>> - For recent creations of mankind, newspaper articles are virtually a
>>> requirement
>> Strongly disagreed.  Many topics are outside the scope of newspapers.
>>
>> If you extend that to the technical and specialist press, you have a
>> stronger case, but still, I am very uneasy about that as an absolute
>> requirement.
> 
> I'm just trying to make a starting point. What's the nearest statement
> you could make to mine that you would agree with?
> 
>>> - For societies, clubs etc, longevity and true notability compared to
>>> peers are required
>> Agreed here - and some might be worthy of mention as a list item only.
> 
> Agree. I don't like the culture of "that's not worthy of an article,
> nuke from space". A better "vote" would be "how much space do we
> dedicate to this topic? two words? ok!"
> 
>>> - Our natural bias against popular culture
>> Please say 'my' rather than 'our' here.  A casual study of Wikipedia
>> would probably show a bias /towards/ popular culture.
> 
> Oh it's not "mine". People will "nn" a pop culture article more easily
> than a science, geograhy or literature topic, no?
> 
> 
>> SOME Wikipedia editors have a bias against popular culture.  These
>> people may even be quite influential.  However saying that there is a
>> CONSENSUS bias against popular culture is incorrect.
> 
> I need more convincing.
> 
>>> It seems like it might not be a bad idea to establish some precedents
>>> or borderline cases. "If your website is not at least as notable as
>>> foofoo.com, which has been repeatedly rejected, don't even bother".
>> Useful, but I feel it just moves the goalposts; there's no way to
>> objectively reduce notability to a number for numeric comparisons
>> against other subjects.
> 
> Tell me, you want to write about a topic, but fear it may not be
> notable. Short of asking someone, how do you find out?
> 
> Steve
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