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Another thought on Wikipedia
Jul. 5th, 2007 10:19 amOne of the principles which was raised in an ongoing Wikipedia deletion discussion was that "If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.", which is part of the verifiability requirements. One of the problems with this is that it conflicts with notability in the domain of popular culture matters which are not completely central.
It's reasonable to assume that any matter more than, say, twenty years old which does not have "reliable" third-party information will not be notable. It's equally reasonable to assume that notable people will have a reasonable number of sources about them. (Although even that's an interesting question. Consider an author of well-selling but not bestselling novels. Most of the material available in third-party sources is likely to be promotional material -- or to fall into the "original research" category (e.g. vital statistics records), and hence be excluded. You'll end up with a stub-level article, even though a good deal more may be "known" but passed as less reliable information.) But some topics are unlikely to have much written about them if they are both notable and recent. A novel published within the last ten years may be notable, but unless it was controversial in some way, it's unlikely to have much written about it by third parties.
The rule also means that it rules out the possibility of Wikipedia ever being a source to which people turn for material on which there are no other sources: because if there are no other sources, there will be no Wikipedia article.
The attractiveness of an encyclopaedia, for most people, most of the time, is not that it can act as a starting-place for a general search of reference material on a specific topic, although this is the typical use made of one by, say, students writing papers. It's that they can go to the encyclopaedia looking for information on something they are interested in and get enough relevant information not to have to go elsewhere. The attractiveness of Wikipedia, aside from being free and searchable, is that it is broader in coverage than, say, the Britannica or the Encarta, because of the breadth of interests which the contributors have. If a traditional encyclopaedia wants an article on something for which no other extensive source exists, it's likely to have an article written involving some research, which ensures that it stands some chance of fulfiilling those ends; but if the same situation exists for Wkipedia, the user is out of luck.
It's reasonable to assume that any matter more than, say, twenty years old which does not have "reliable" third-party information will not be notable. It's equally reasonable to assume that notable people will have a reasonable number of sources about them. (Although even that's an interesting question. Consider an author of well-selling but not bestselling novels. Most of the material available in third-party sources is likely to be promotional material -- or to fall into the "original research" category (e.g. vital statistics records), and hence be excluded. You'll end up with a stub-level article, even though a good deal more may be "known" but passed as less reliable information.) But some topics are unlikely to have much written about them if they are both notable and recent. A novel published within the last ten years may be notable, but unless it was controversial in some way, it's unlikely to have much written about it by third parties.
The rule also means that it rules out the possibility of Wikipedia ever being a source to which people turn for material on which there are no other sources: because if there are no other sources, there will be no Wikipedia article.
The attractiveness of an encyclopaedia, for most people, most of the time, is not that it can act as a starting-place for a general search of reference material on a specific topic, although this is the typical use made of one by, say, students writing papers. It's that they can go to the encyclopaedia looking for information on something they are interested in and get enough relevant information not to have to go elsewhere. The attractiveness of Wikipedia, aside from being free and searchable, is that it is broader in coverage than, say, the Britannica or the Encarta, because of the breadth of interests which the contributors have. If a traditional encyclopaedia wants an article on something for which no other extensive source exists, it's likely to have an article written involving some research, which ensures that it stands some chance of fulfiilling those ends; but if the same situation exists for Wkipedia, the user is out of luck.
