[WikiEN-l] Re: Notability meta-guidelines

Wed Jan 18 18:30:33 UTC 2006

On 1/18/06, Phil Boswell <phil.boswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Steve Bennett" <stevage at gmail.com> wrote in
> message news:f1c3529e0601180739x58cee2bai8424268f8cd0eb30 at mail.gmail.com...
> [snip]
> > 1) A subject should not become *more notable* by appearing in
> > Wikipedia.  {The vanity principle}
>
> Just so long as you do not confuse "notable" with "widely known".
>
> If there are only four people in the world who can perform a particularly
> crufty surgical procedure, then I would say that all four of them would
> count as "notable".
>
> However they might not be "widely known" outside the community of surgeons
> and related practitioners.
>
> In this kind of case, it is the duty of Wikipedia to ensure that these
> people are made **more** widely-known, because they are sufficiently notable
> to deserve it.
>

In that case, how *could* Wikipedia make a subject "more notable"? 
Isn't a subject inherently notable or non-notable regardless of
whether or not it's in Wikipedia?

The only way I can see to interpret 1) is to make "notable" mean
something like "well known".

And frankly, the rule doesn't make sense to me.  Providing someone
with information on something when they request it isn't advertising. 
Advertising is when you provide someone with information other than
what they requested.

IOW, if someone does a search for "Bob's Garage Band" and they get
information on it, how is that advertising?

Anthony