3 ms·

Wikipedia could have a rule that if a piece of media is notable enough to have an article on wikipedia, then everyone in the credits for that piece of media is

Wikipedia could have a rule that if a piece of media is notable enough to have an article on wikipedia, then everyone in the credits for that piece of media is notable enough to have an article on wikipedia. 99% of those people aren't famous, but why not?

tptacek 10y ago
Can you reword this? I don't understand the suggestion you're making. I think you might be making a category error. Notability on Wikipedia isn't a reward earned by acquisition of fame; it's a level of status at which sourcing about a subject is likely to be reliable. The problem Wikipedia has isn't that no-names might get articles. It's that articles will be written about subjects for whom reliable sourcing is impossible, because no reliable source has ever deigned to write about them. This gets us to a fundamental principle of what an encyclopedia actually is --- and to a project rule that is as old as "NPOV". An encyclopedia --- at least Wikipedia's conception --- is a tertiary source. It's a roadmap that summarizes and points to other, more in-depth sources. By definition, if you don't have reliable sources to back the subject of an article up, it can't be hosted in an encyclopedia. The project's answer to this challenge would be, first create the reliable secondary sources you'd need to support an encyclopedia article, and then create the article itself.
- wolf550e 10y ago
  Thank you for this explanation. You're right. For people who are only mentioned in credits for TV shows and not in newspaper articles, Wikipedia is not the place to list in which other TV shows someone was credited.
pwdisswordfish 10y ago
So, every runner and key grip that has worked in production of a popular TV series is notable now? Someone please formulate a 'notability' version of Schneier's law.

3 ms·

Wikipedia could have a rule that if a piece of media is notable enough to have an article on wikipedia, then everyone in the credits for that piece of media is

by wolf550e 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago
Can you reword this? I don't understand the suggestion you're making. I think you might be making a category error. Notability on Wikipedia isn't a reward earned by acquisition of fame; it's a level of status at which sourcing about a subject is likely to be reliable. The problem Wikipedia has isn't that no-names might get articles. It's that articles will be written about subjects for whom reliable sourcing is impossible, because no reliable source has ever deigned to write about them. This gets us to a fundamental principle of what an encyclopedia actually is --- and to a project rule that is as old as "NPOV". An encyclopedia --- at least Wikipedia's conception --- is a tertiary source. It's a roadmap that summarizes and points to other, more in-depth sources. By definition, if you don't have reliable sources to back the subject of an article up, it can't be hosted in an encyclopedia. The project's answer to this challenge would be, first create the reliable secondary sources you'd need to support an encyclopedia article, and then create the article itself.
- wolf550e 10y ago
  Thank you for this explanation. You're right. For people who are only mentioned in credits for TV shows and not in newspaper articles, Wikipedia is not the place to list in which other TV shows someone was credited.
pwdisswordfish 10y ago
So, every runner and key grip that has worked in production of a popular TV series is notable now? Someone please formulate a 'notability' version of Schneier's law.