Wikipedia talk:What's in, what's out/Archive 1

message: I've added some dummy entries (and will add more) to try to make the concepts a little clearer. Not all of them are serious... Andrewa 01:57, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Examples

message: Have a look at what we might call Stan's rule, recently quoted by Tim in the discussion of a secondary school article. 
One problem is that I pass this test myself just on account of my church where I have several prominent roles (>600 people) and the primary school at which I'm crossing supervisor (>400 people). All of these people would know my name and face and why I matter to them... and I haven't even started on my family, Internet groups (including this one), professional life or musical and sporting outlets.
Not only would schools qualify, every one of the teachers at my two high schools would be a significant person to more than 1000 people. This needs a bit more thought. 
As I said in the VfD debate quoted above, I think the problem is that no single test will work for all articles. Andrewa 03:44, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Other rules

message: There's no provision in the format of the entries for saying what to do with an entry that is to be deleted, for example transwiki to Wiktionary, Wikibooks or 9/11 Memorial. 
I've removed one such comment from an entry, and linked here instead. In time a better mechanism will be needed, but I don't want to clutter the page with details that are only of relevance to VfD. 
Obviously, the procedure could be expanded a lot, and should be moved to a better place in time. Andrewa 20:47, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Procedures

message: User:Andrewa's suggestion is to "In" authors that have sold a million copies combined. I think that making the decision based on copies sold is heavily biased towards authors writing in the English language. Not only do more people read English than say Norwegian or Greek, more books are translated from English to smaller languages than the other way around.
:Obvious follow-up question #1: How many authors are there that have sold over 1,000,000 copies? Obvious follow-up question #2: What, exactly, counts here? For example, if a newspaper reporter has written 100 articles for a newspaper with a circulation of 10,000, does that count? How about someone who has written ten poems, each of which has appeared in an anthology with a circulation of 100,000? How about an "author" who used a ghostwriter and hasn't put a word on paper him/herself? In a nutshell, I'm saying that "copies sold" isn't a reasonable measure for inclusion. Gary D Robson 04:43, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My suggestion would be to just put all million-selling authors in, not necessarily to have all others out. That's why both possibilities were covered in the page. It was just supposed to save some time in coming to decisions, rather than influence them, and for this reason it needed to be accepted that it would be little or no any help at all in some cases. Anyone could also add a more specific line for non-English authors with a lower threshold if that was going to be helpful. But, I see this page has fallen from favour anyway. Andrewa 00:46, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: People/Authors

message: Originally at the village pump
Added note: the following question is asked with the presumption that information exists to write a long stub or full length article on the topic.
When is a topic not worth covering at Wikipedia? For example:
-When does a location become too small to write an article on it?
-What policy exists on which websites can have an article?
-When is an event too minor to deserve an article or a mention on a timeline?
-When is a business to small to not be the topic of an article?
-When is a person not important enough to deserve an article?
-When is something so boring or so uninteresting that it really doesn't deserve any coverage at Wikipedia?
I can't quite work out what is acceptable to publish, and when something becomes so uninteresting that it stops becoming a contribution and starts becoming spam. User:Icurite
:If it hasn't made the local newspapers or TV and isn't representative or well known in its field for some reason, the chance that it doesn't merit an article rises. If ten people know about it, it's unlikely to merit an article. If you're not personally involved with it in some way but still find it interesting enough to write about, the chance that it is of enough interest to merit an aricle rises. If a million people know about it, it's more likely to merit an article. The exact limits vary with the individual contributor and are the source of near-constant debate. Write about what interests you, so long as it isn't you, your family or your employer. If there's something on the news, do we have good covearage of the related topics yet? If not, maybe you'd like to imoprove them? If it interests you enough to spend the time, it's passed the first hurdle: someone is interested. Jamesday 11:43, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: My own view is that subjects that are currently known to only a small number of people but that have potential significance in wider fields are worth articles. An example of what I mean can be found at Mary Devenport O'Neill who only got one Google hit (clearly failing the Google test) before I created the article, but who is of great interest to students of W.B. Yeats, the occult in literature, writing by women, the development of Irish poetic modernism, etc. Bmills 15:01, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You might have a look at whats In whats Out for one attempt to address this. The idea was to distill what actually happens in WP:VFD. It hasn't really taken off, and needs some cleaning up to put it back into alphabetical order and correct a few indenting and bolding problems (or change the instructions to conform to what is actually happening). Andrewa 16:00, 12 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's worth covering? 

message: Just a note: there's an automatic exception to "out" for any notable examples.  If something's well-known, or famous, or the first of its kind, or something like that, it gets consideration for that.  There's no reason to put separate votes for "famous whatevers" unless you include a rough criterion you would use for what is notable for that type of article.  Isomorphic 19:19, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Famous?

message: I do not understand the reasoning for this. Why has the arbitary number of 1111 been chosen? Why not just allow articles on every town or village. Deus Ex 21:11, 4 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Towns having fewer than 1111 inhabitants: Out - Why?

message: It's not consensus, discussion, guidlines nor policy. Just seems to a be a soapbox. Dan100 13:17, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
:Could be nice to have a soapbox? PaulHammond 14:14, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  What's the point of this page? 

message: * Things I like: In.  --A D Monroe III 17:23, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Personal bias