 | 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. |
 | This page in a nutshell: This is a historical document, a diary of sorts of my views on and involvement with the evolution of the "notability" concept on Wikipedia starting in 2006. I have edited it very little since then, other than some cleanup in late 2007. Every few years I add an update at the bottom. |
Notability and Deletion policy
- Note, 8 December 2007: My views on this topic have changed radically in the last 18 months; as a result, this version is a substantial overhaul of the early-mid 2006 original.
Wikipedia's capacity to catalogue everything we collectively know is effectively unlimited, so the more extreme "exclusivist"/"exclusionist" and "deletionist" views don't make much sense to me. I can't even guess how many times I've see some person or place or thing or concept mentioned in an article, wanted to know more on that topic, and found that not only was there no wikilink on the term, there wasn't any article to point one at, and then later found out that there had been one, but that it got AfD'd on highly suspect "non-notable" grounds, often with a so-called consensus of 2–5 editors. The situation is improving a little, but AfD has basically turned into an obsessive bloodsport for many (try this: observe the 10 or so most-active AfD participants over some significant span of time, such as a week. Next check this list of editors' edit contributions.)