[armchairhacker]

Honestly even if he isn’t famous why can’t Wikipedia keep his entry? Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways?

There’s not a storage issue. Wikipedia can literally have billions of articles and still be easy to maintain.

There’s not really a quality issue. Wikipedia is known for not being 100% reliable. But moreover, they have tons of ways to denote “this article needs citations” and “this isn’t a reliable source”. If Wikipedia is concerned about quality, they can have “verified” and “contributed” articles, just like how distros have “stable” and “user-contributed / experimental”.

Spammers and useless content? This is an issue. But this guy is clearly not spam, the proof being any of his official works. I do agree that Wikipedia authors should remove “spammy” entries and entries on complete nobodies and random things, but you shouldn’t need to be in an Oxford journal to not be considered a “nobody”.

Even things which are famous in small towns and 1000-member groups should be on Wikipedia IMO, because most of the stuff is already on there is about as relevant to me or anyone else (which is to say, pretty irrelevant). If you want relevant content, that’s what the search tools and indexing are for.

Wikipedia is supposed to be “the grand encyclopedia” where you can find info on basically anything. There are already tons of Wikipedia articles on obscure people, places, and things. Way more obscure than this composer even if he isn’t truly well-known. Why does “relevance” even matter?

[derefr]

> Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways?

Think of it like code in an active open-source project. Someone needs to maintain the article: update it when house style changes, evaluate any new contributions to it as being valid or not, etc. Like code experiencing code-rot, a Wikipedia article rots if editors don't give it active attention.

This has exactly the implications you'd expect: it means that articles about things that don't change, are easier to keep around than are articles about things that might change; which are in turn easier to keep around than are articles about things that definitely will change.

Living people — where the article is basically living biography for them — are in that last category.

The "notability" requirement can be translated into editor-ese as a combination of 1. "how many people could we find who could contribute to this page", and 2. "how much demand is there for Wikipedia — rather than some other website — to do the work of keeping this."

Re: the first point about contribution, this is why Wikipedia doesn't let people be their own primary source — it's because, when that primary-source person eventually stops maintaining the page, who will then be able to take over the maintenance? If that's "nobody", then to prevent that, the page shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

Re: the second point about demand — the Pokemon Pikachu has its own Wikipedia page, because people expect Wikipedia specifically to have an article about Pikachu. Other Pokemon do not — because there's already Bulbapedia around to satisfy the demand for an encyclopedia with articles about Pokemon, and the pages from it are easily found in any search engine. If a different set of editors are willing to take on the maintenance burden for those articles in their own domain — and are doing a decent job of it — then why should Wikipedia's editors duplicate that effort?

[DuskStar]

> Re: the second point about demand — the Pokemon Pikachu has its own Wikipedia page, because people expect Wikipedia specifically to have an article about Pikachu. Other Pokemon do not — because there's already Bulbapedia around to satisfy the demand for an encyclopedia with articles about Pokemon, and the pages from it are easily found in any search engine. If a different set of editors are willing to take on the maintenance burden for those articles in their own domain — and are doing a decent job of it — then why should Wikipedia's editors duplicate that effort?

You've got the chronology here backwards IIRC - Bulbapedia exists because Wikipedia got rid of "non-notable" Pokemon.

[sanqui]

Bulbapedia was launched in February 2005[1], while Wikipedia reached the consensus that "not all Pokémon are notable" in mid-2007[2].

[1] https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Main_Page

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pok%C3%A9mon_test

[calvinmorrison]

Which brings us to, should wikipedia have more domain specific wikis? Why does everyone end up on fandom or some other random wiki site when wikipedia is already ad free, hosted worldwide and ain't going anywhere.

Wikipedia doesn't _have_ to be just a encyclopedic overview of topics, it should have dive ins as deep as you want if there are people willing to write it.

[derefr]

A wiki "is" its maintainers. Separate editors — separate wiki. Wikipedia stops where the interest of Wikipedia's editors in maintaining pages stops; which is usually where the interest of another, distinct group of editors in maintaining those pages starts.

That other set of editors could all just be Wikipedia editors, but then they'd have to play by Wikipedia's rules. They'd rather play by their own set of rules, and more importantly, have the ability to define their own rules. Autonomy. Sovereignty.

Now, in theory, there could be some "hierarchy of wikis" all maintained within one system, where different namespaces are maintained by different groups of editors (similar to e.g. Reddit with subreddit moderators) — but, because the goal would remain the creation of a single cohesively-presented encyclopedia, this would result in terrible inter-group conflicts about things that don't fall crisply into the magisterial domain of one group of editors or the other — e.g. rules for when a wiki page in one namespace, should link a topic of a wiki page in another namespace, and how that citation should be done.

(Imagine if editors in namespace A believed that a page in namespace B really should exist, and so kept linking to it, despite the editors of namespace B disagreeing; and the system hosting all of these constantly bubbling up the non-existent page to the attention of the editors in namespace B because it received new external links.)

The solution to this is decentralization. No hierarchy, no shared system, just reusable open-source software and federation through hypertext linkage entirely controlled by the origin. Which is exactly what you get when each wiki is its own website.

[kps]

> Why does everyone end up on fandom

Fandom dot com is a commercial venture started by Jimmy Wales. Inferences are left as an exercise for the reader.

[SllX]

When it was Wikia, it was alright. It has evolved into something atrocious that I actively avoid.

[Suzuran]

Remember that Wikia/Fandom are co-owned by Jimbo Wales. Forcing things off Wikipedia and onto Fandom drives his revenue.

[yifanl]

Write or maintain? Because anyone is willing to write almost anything, see: Twitter.

[lozenge]

Maybe the people who wanted to write about Pokemon were tired of being debated about what pages, or paragraphs, of their output were "notable"?

[logicalmonster]

It feels like you described what the plausible deniability is; or the ostensible excuse that could be used.

But does that actually describe reality?

Given how corrupt and petty Wikipedia's editors have become, the more complete and realistic reason might be that having a complex set of rules that allows some humans to pick and choose who makes it on Wikipedia gives people who would otherwise have little of it, some real world power.

And if you think humans aren't above basing their life activity over a petty bit of power, well, I've got some Reddit moderators to show you.

[derefr]

I mean, I wasn't trying to define notability; the question asked was "why does Wikipedia have notability requirements" — i.e. what stops them from just getting rid of the concept altogether, and keeping everything — and the answer to that is to look at the marginal OpEx of keeping a page around.

[CamperBob2]

Think of it like code in an active open-source project. Someone needs to maintain the article

No, they don't, no more than Google Maps needs to "maintain" older versions of their imagery for access through Google Maps Timeline.

Curation should be directed towards informing the user and allowing them to make their own judgements regarding the content, not towards excluding content based on someone's completely-arbitrary opinion of "notability."

No matter how much hand-waving Wikipedia does on the subject, that's ultimately what notability comes down to: someone else's opinion.

[joecot]

> Re: the first point about contribution, this is why Wikipedia doesn't let people be their own primary source — it's because, when that primary-source person eventually stops maintaining the page, who will then be able to take over the maintenance?

It's also because people use having personal Wikipedia pages as a credentials boost, and they write puff pieces about themselves or their friends. If a person is notable, there will be multiple editors on their article, and the hope of the project is that multiple collaborators will reduce bias. If someone is not notable enough that people besides themselves and their friends would contribute to their page, there is room for substantially biased puff pieces. Most people take Wikipedia articles at face value, and don't delve into any of the sources cited, so that is a huge problem.

Wikipedia articles will always struggle with bias issues, but for the reasons you mention, there is no point in spending volunteer time verifying articles and removing bias when they're for people who aren't notable. That's why they just get removed.

[elefantastisch]

But a village of 7 people in the middle of nowhere in Russia... that's notable enough to maintain:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norinskaya

Or a random Kazakh football coach:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Finonchenko

Or a library in Scotland that's planning to close:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedburgh_Library

Wikipedia has been capricious for years about what can stay and what must go.

[winternett]

The nature in which Wikipedia seeks to make access limited to many and to dictate the relevance of subjects it covers kind of diminishes it's credibility in my opinion. e.g. "Pokeymon" has not done anything as an individual being, it's a fictional being, but somehow it had an individual entry even though many other beings with publications and published work do not qualify somehow because of a constantly changing measure of "notoriety".

By this I'm saying sure, you can have a dictionary with select words in it without problems... But when you label it as an OFFICIAL INFORMATION RESOURCE, it becomes subject to a higher level of scrutiny and objectivity that can't just hand pick what words are in it, there has to be a solid democratic aspect involved to managing the resource.

Democracy seems to be failing in many ways right now on public resources.

[tshaddox]

Regardless of all the accusations of incompetent, unfair, or inconsistent enforcement of their own policies (which are serious and deserve inspection and criticsm), I don't think Wikipedia's stated policies around notability are unreasonable. The policy that most directly addresses your comments is "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_no.... They explicitly reject arguments of the form "we should be able to have any page we want as long as storage costs aren't a problem."

[cannabis_sam]

>Honestly even if he isn’t famous why can’t Wikipedia keep his entry?

The answer is Deletionists, people who are unable to contribute with actual knowledge and information, so they have decided that their contribution is destruction of knowledge and information.

The Wikipedia bureaucracy, as it exists, is unfortunately not equipped to handle these types of book burners…

[glasshug]

Readers interested in these arguments can find more at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Inclusionism and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deletionism.

[winternett]

I can't get on there myself with over 20 years of making and publishing music and being on radio etc... And for that same reason can't get verified on Twitter and many other sites I promote my music work on.

First of all, Wikipedia has banned all T-Mobile IPs from being able to even log in to my account... 10 years ago when I tried to post my biography there, they rejected it for lack of notability... Twitter also requires an entry to be published on Wikipedia for artists, now I could probably wait forever until someone still never writes one about me, or I could choose to pay a renowned publication to run a fluff piece on me like many other musicians do.

I am so tired of the manufactured gatekeeping nonsense that is required of me just to make music and be heard, no wonder why so many quit the business... ugh.

[zasdffaa]

From your profile "A web design, promotions, branding, and PR group based in Washington DC http://www.winternett.com"

I don't want crap on wikipedia, thanks.

[winternett]

>I don't want crap on wikipedia, thanks.

Wow, that's not the company I was referring to...

The company I was referring to is RUFFANDTUFFRECORDINGS.COM

[nonameiguess]

It's kind of amusing to think of this from the perspective that the requirement for a person to be eligible for a page on Wikifeet is they need to have a bio on IMDB, and that is really easy to get. A whole lot of people I know from primary school are there for appearances in student films. I could be on there since I was on a television game show in 1992, but no one has bothered to create an entry for it.

If you're not already there, perhaps you can try to get yourself an entry in allmusic.com, which presumably would warrant a Wikipedia entry. You're gonna need to get someone else to write the article for you, though. You're not supposed to create a Wikipedia page for yourself no matter who you are, which is stated here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Your_first_article#Things....

[WalterBright]

I just created my own site - https://walterbright.com/ - where I decide what goes on it and what doesn't.

[bityard]

Wikipedia isn't (or isn't intended to be) a platform for promotion.

[winternett]

That's not what I wrote. I said a Wikipedia entry is required for Twitter verification... Where we do promotion (On Twitter).

[Victerius]

I'm surprised more ambitious people don't have "having an entry on Wikipedia" as a life goal.

[winternett]

It's def. not any sort of life goal. More like getting a driver's license, so that you can drive. Once you pass the test, the driver's test is no longer a concern (unless you change countries perhaps).

[bazoom42]

So Twitter requires you to have a Wikipedia page? It seems the problem is with Twitters policies, not with Wikipedias.

[leijurv]

I think it has to do with verifiability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V Essentially everything written has to be verifiable, and if a person doesn't have enough reliable sources talking about them, it isn't really possible to write a verifiable article. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:GNG and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:RS

[macspoofing]

>Why does Wikipedia even have “notable” requirements anyways?

To prevent me having a Wikipedia page.

[techdragon]

Pretty sure you have one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_spoofing ;-)

[anfilt]

lol, not the person you responded to but very funny.

On serious note notable is relative in my opinion. There is also just the value for history wise. So being able to lookup a brief synopsis of someone who may only be notable in a small area or less well known niche still seems useful for an encyclopedia.

[tomcam]

Damn you’re good

[bazoom42]

Anybody can already create their own web page or wiki following their own policies.

The reason people want their content on Wikipedia is because a Wikipedia page signal a certain notability compared to a random web page. So the inclusionists want to eat the cake and keep it too.