User:Seraphimblade/sandbox2/3
This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
My essay on what notability should be and represent. This is not policy or guideline, and I do not intend to propose it as such right now, but may someday with modifications. Initially started as a response to User:Trialsanderrors/On notability, but after growing, I decided to write my own rather than spamming talk pages with long comments. I do that enough anyway.
Comprehensive articles
Regardless of any other consideration, an article subject should have enough material available to write a comprehensive[1] article at some point. Stubs should be acceptable only so long as it is a case of "has not been expanded yet", not "can never be expanded, no more material is available."
Argument for deletion
Unexpandable articles harmful
The number of unexpandable stubs or substubs we have at any time is just going to make more people think that these should be written and are acceptable. Further, they clog up categories (such as "x-stub" and "All articles lacking sources"), draining time and attention away from articles which really could be expanded into good ones. This spiraling problem leads to (and has led to!) an almost uncontrollable mess, especially as more articles on unsuitable subjects flood in daily. Our time would be better spent improving the massive numbers of current articles needing cleanup and sourcing than creating yet more of a mess with articles on obscure and unsourceable topics, just to say we "created an article".
"Destroying hard work"
Part of the "hard work" of writing an article is determining if your subject is a suitable one and has sufficient sourcing. If insufficient source material is available, you didn't do that work. In that case, it was your choice and yours alone to do something which had no future, and to fail to check if it did.
Biting the newbies
While it is wonderful that
Albums
Album stubs. Yeeeesh. If those are going to be supported as "acceptable" without qualification, we should put in the notability guidelines that "notability by association" is acceptable. (This would be a terrible idea.) Otherwise, we should require the same of album articles-the album itself should be a central subject of sufficient sources to write a comprehensive article about it. Most album articles that I've seen are "permastubs" by a band that barely scrapes by
Geographic locations
Cities and towns
Cities[2] should be presumed inherently notable unless demonstrated otherwise, and even for smaller ones a ton of sources will likely be available, but Nowhere, Montana (population: 8 if you count dogs) is probably not. (I made that up, of course, may that link never turn blue.) Regardless, however, each example should be looked at for sufficient reliable sourcing on a case-by-case basis. As with anything, if enough nontrivial source material is available for a comprehensive[1] article, the subject is notable, if not, it's not.
Highways should in no way be considered inherently notable, many have no nontrivial coverage. (Of course, some do,
Footnotes
- ^ Featured Articlequality.
- ^ Real, incorporated cities, not "towns", "villages", or other. These should be examined case-by-case, some or even all may be notable but they should not receive a blanket pass.