4 ms·

It's not a "proxy metric", it's the only possible metric for inclusion in an encyclopedia as I understand encyclopedias. I saw the example of a mildly popular b

It's not a "proxy metric", it's the only possible metric for inclusion in an encyclopedia as I understand encyclopedias. I saw the example of a mildly popular band somewhere else on the thread, so I'll run with that. What can an encyclopedia say about a band that has a website and a Spotify page, but isn't big enough to attract attention from the press or music critics? We can certainly say that they are a band, anyone can see that. We can say they have 10,000 plays on Spotify, and list their current members. Maybe we can dig up a newspaper article saying that they performed someplace. But beyond that, what is there? They've probably got a biography on their website, but it's in no way verifiable, and the only person required to believe it is the guy putting it on the Wikipedia page. Everyone after that will read it on Wikipedia and assume it's 95% likely to be true. And so on. We're left with barebones facts that are of no help to anyone looking for reliable information about the band. All of this applies equally well to little-known authors, random Indian corporations, and your cat. If all we have to go on is a couple of primary sources and maybe a passing mention in the press, what is there to say without giving undeserved credence to the primary sources? When notability is assessed, don't think "is this topic something that will be googled by someone looking for more information?" Think about the role of Wikipedia and what we can offer by providing an overview and references to secondary sources. The notability guidelines are about ensuring that there is a baseline of quality facts that we can provide to readers. But really, I'm just rewriting the ideas of the consensus based notability guideline, which is much better written and specific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

jessriedel 10y ago
> We're left with barebones facts that are of no help to anyone looking for reliable information about the band. The fact that the band exists and has a newspaper article about it is helpful. Otherwise it's article will be very short. So what? > All of this applies equally well to little-known authors, random Indian corporations, and your cat. Yes to the first two. (My cat has zero verifiable information about it.) They will have very tiny stub articles. So what? > If all we have to go on is a couple of primary sources and maybe a passing mention in the press, what is there to say without giving undeserved credence to the primary sources? So don't say anything else. I really, really don't understand what's motivating your position. I'm trying! > But really, I'm just rewriting the ideas of the consensus based notability guideline, which is much better written and specific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability That page is almost exclusively about defining notability (which, because of the intrinsic vagueness, necessarily takes a long time and is mostly unsuccessful). The only part that's directly about the reasons for the requirement is this subsection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Why_we_have_these_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Why_we_ha... And the only argument it brings up that I didn't address is this: "We require multiple sources so that we can write a reasonably balanced article that complies with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, rather than representing only one author's point of view." This, again, is something that can easily be addressed by just requiring verifiability to include coverage by multiple sources. (Even in highly notable articles, there are a large number of facts that are only verified through a single source; this isn't a reason to delete the fact.)
- tptacek 10y ago
  The problem Wikipedia sees for these very short articles that state nothing other than the fact that they were mentioned in passing in a newspaper article is that there is no potential for them to ever be good articles. The band is defunct, no additional reliable sources will ever be created for it, all available sources have been exhausted to produce an article of almost no value. You're right that the article has some marginal value. I think many deletionists would even agree. The problem is risk/reward. Every WP article is a commitment to defend a topic against entropy and malice. Every article is part of the attack surface exposed to vandals and spammers. So in the view of most of Wikipedia, articles that are fated to forever remain "stubs" have negative net value. Reasonable people can obviously disagree about this, but I find the deletionist argument against zombie stub articles to be very compelling.
  - Tomte 10y ago
    > Every WP article is a commitment to defend a topic against entropy and malice. But at this point you've basically given up any attempt of civil community processes and you're doing things not because they are right, but because not doing them might give the enemy a speculative advantage.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      I don't understand. My paraphrase of Wikipedia's position on (what I'm calling) zombie stub articles is that the risk/reward for them doesn't pan out. They have marginal positive value but pose significant risk of overhead and error. But that's very much not the case with other stub articles, or even other zombie articles (where sources have no doubt been permanently exhausted, but the sources we have today make room for a solid 100 word article).
      - Tomte 10y ago
        I my have read too much into the word "defend", but before my inner eye I saw all-out war against "them". All over some moderately important issue, at best.
saint_fiasco 10y ago
>But beyond that, what is there? The hypertext. The names of the band members can be links that lead to the articles on individual members. There can be a section describing the music style, with quotations of review sites or just the band homepage and the part that says they are a neo-core-techno-metal or whatever can have links to articles that explain what those things are.

jessriedel 10y ago

> We're left with barebones facts that are of no help to anyone looking for reliable information about the band. The fact that the band exists and has a newspaper article about it is helpful. Otherwise it's article will be very short. So what? > All of this applies equally well to little-known authors, random Indian corporations, and your cat. Yes to the first two. (My cat has zero verifiable information about it.) They will have very tiny stub articles. So what? > If all we have to go on is a couple of primary sources and maybe a passing mention in the press, what is there to say without giving undeserved credence to the primary sources? So don't say anything else. I really, really don't understand what's motivating your position. I'm trying! > But really, I'm just rewriting the ideas of the consensus based notability guideline, which is much better written and specific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability That page is almost exclusively about defining notability (which, because of the intrinsic vagueness, necessarily takes a long time and is mostly unsuccessful). The only part that's directly about the reasons for the requirement is this subsection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Why_we_have_these_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Why_we_ha... And the only argument it brings up that I didn't address is this: "We require multiple sources so that we can write a reasonably balanced article that complies with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, rather than representing only one author's point of view." This, again, is something that can easily be addressed by just requiring verifiability to include coverage by multiple sources. (Even in highly notable articles, there are a large number of facts that are only verified through a single source; this isn't a reason to delete the fact.)

tptacek 10y ago
The problem Wikipedia sees for these very short articles that state nothing other than the fact that they were mentioned in passing in a newspaper article is that there is no potential for them to ever be good articles. The band is defunct, no additional reliable sources will ever be created for it, all available sources have been exhausted to produce an article of almost no value. You're right that the article has some marginal value. I think many deletionists would even agree. The problem is risk/reward. Every WP article is a commitment to defend a topic against entropy and malice. Every article is part of the attack surface exposed to vandals and spammers. So in the view of most of Wikipedia, articles that are fated to forever remain "stubs" have negative net value. Reasonable people can obviously disagree about this, but I find the deletionist argument against zombie stub articles to be very compelling.
- Tomte 10y ago
  > Every WP article is a commitment to defend a topic against entropy and malice. But at this point you've basically given up any attempt of civil community processes and you're doing things not because they are right, but because not doing them might give the enemy a speculative advantage.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    I don't understand. My paraphrase of Wikipedia's position on (what I'm calling) zombie stub articles is that the risk/reward for them doesn't pan out. They have marginal positive value but pose significant risk of overhead and error. But that's very much not the case with other stub articles, or even other zombie articles (where sources have no doubt been permanently exhausted, but the sources we have today make room for a solid 100 word article).
    - Tomte 10y ago
      I my have read too much into the word "defend", but before my inner eye I saw all-out war against "them". All over some moderately important issue, at best.

saint_fiasco 10y ago

>But beyond that, what is there? The hypertext. The names of the band members can be links that lead to the articles on individual members. There can be a section describing the music style, with quotations of review sites or just the band homepage and the part that says they are a neo-core-techno-metal or whatever can have links to articles that explain what those things are.