Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/Policy/Notability/Arguments

	This page is within the scope of WikiProject Wikipedia essays, a collaborative effort to organize and monitor the impact of Wikipedia essays. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion. For a listing of essays see the essay directory.Wikipedia essaysWikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia essaysTemplate:WikiProject Wikipedia essaysWikiProject Wikipedia essays pages
Low	This page has been rated as Low-impact on the project's impact scale.
	The above rating was automatically assessed using data on pageviews, watchers, and incoming links.

Older discussion can be found at Wikipedia talk:Notability.

Notability should be weakened

I think Notability should be official policy, but the standard for notability should be a lot lower then it seems to be now. I believe the burden of proof should be on the article to prove that the subject is notable, but on the deleter to prove it's not. I've seen too many good articles quickly deleted because the deleter assumed something was not notable just because they hadn't heard of it.

The current standards are hard on newbies, who by nature throw up an article, but don't in that article presented a strong argument for notability. Mathiastck 17:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy deletion on the criterion of notability isn't acceptable for me. That why I will leave Wikipedia. See Talk:Dirtrucks. Ericd 13:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See also WP:CSD, criterion A7. (Radiant) 09:39, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

- I've seen, I leave. Ericd 22:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability should not be a criteria for deletion

I don't really understand the motivation for strict notability criteria. Could someone point me to a more basic argument in favor of restricting the number of articles (at all)?

I don't see how (verified and well written) articles about the obscure and the uninteresting harms Wikipedia in any way: it doesn't make things harder to find, it doesn't cost money (to write), it doesn't waste anyone's time (who didn't want to waste it anyway) and, if one hasn't heard of a subject, then one will never know the article is there.

It seems to me that "breadth of subject matter" is potentially Wikipedia's greatest strength. It can cover more subjects than any encyclopedia in history by several orders of magnitude. That's a good thing. Isn't it?

I believe very strongly in verification and sources, and I would like to see people be more aggressive with {{fact}} tags. I can see that you should delete an article if you doubt that it's true. But why delete something because it's uninteresting? CharlesGillingham 04:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you, Charles. See also Wikipedia:Non-notability/Essay -- BenBildstein 04:24, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Non-notability is being abused

It is too easy for someone to delete an article for personal or factional reasons, and for them to claim it is 'non-notable' - also a person who knows about and is involved in one small subject area can charge around deleting articles outside their field of expertise. Freedom to delete is the opposite of freedom of speech. Andy Ford 17:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently arguing for a change in this area. See Wikipedia_talk:Deletion_policy#Deleting_non-notable_content. -- BenBildstein 01:07, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]