[WikiEN-l] Notability meta-guidelines

Wed Jan 18 16:20:45 UTC 2006

I write my share of articles here on things I happen to be interested in.
A number of times the topics I've chosen to write about have zero English
language Google hits and no coverage on the Web in any language.

Yet an article of mine has never ever been submitted to AfD. No-one has
even made the mere suggestion that an article I've written should be
deleted. I think there might be three reasons for this:

1. People trust that an experienced editor is submitting articles on
reasonably worthy topics.
2. I cite my sources.
3. I write about old stuff.

I think the third reason may actually be the most important one. People
are worried about non-notable companies using Wikipedia to advertise their
stuff. No-one is worried about abuse of Wikipedia to promote obscure 11th
century runic inscriptions.

So, I think the idea runs like this: "If it happened 1000 years ago and
someone still cares enough about it to write an article then it's probably
notable enough to keep."

Thus I am spared AfD battles even though my hobbies can be just as obscure
and specialized as anyone else's. I feel for people interested in stuff
like webcomics which happens to be popular today and is thus subject to
much more scrutiny.

Regards,
Haukur