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Incubator escapee wiki:Historical archive/Policy/Notability/Arguments
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===Arguments against deleting articles for non-notability=== ====There is a lack of objective criteria==== There are no objective criteria for notability besides the [[Wikipedia:Search engine test|Search Engine Test]] (note: many editors do not consider those tests to be objective or reliable), meaning that individual assessments of notability can display [[systemic bias]]. "Non-notable" is generally a non-[[Wikipedia:Neutral point of view|NPOV]] designation. The person who authored the article probably believes that the topic is notable enough to be included. ====Existing rules are sufficient==== The [[Wikipedia:No original research|no original research]] rule keeps out most of what is unencyclopedic. The (possibly vague) concept of "notability" is not needed as long as the [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|verifiability]] rules are strictly applied. ====Valid content is deleted==== The [http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising recent fundraising page] says, "Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." We are not doing that, indeed we are actively preventing that, if we are deleting articles solely due to their obscurity. ''"Detailed obscure topics hurt no-one because it's pretty hard to find them by accident, and [[Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not|Wikipedia isn't paper]]" (from [[Wikipedia:Importance]]).'' Further, currently obscure, or seemingly obscure, subjects may garner more popular interest at a later date. In such a case, deleted articles will constitute a loss of valuable (and perhaps, in the transitory world of the internet, irreproducible) information. {{anchor|Obscure content}} ====Obscure content isn't harmful==== [[Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not paper|Wikipedia is not paper]] and (practically) has no size limits, and so should include "everything" that fits within its other criteria. There is room for articles on any and every verifiable subject. There is no harm in including an obscure topic, because if it is truly non-notable, people simply won't search for it or link to it. It will not create a significant server load as such. ====Deletion reform is necessary==== A policy of "delete [[if and only if]] the article is not verifiable in a reliable source" would make it far easier to decide borderline cases and would turn AfD into a more constructive process, which would make Wikipedia articles more reliable by adding references where possible. The problem with writing "Delete, non-notable" is not about whether the articles should be in Wikipedia, but that it is a quick phrase that does not tell another person ''why'' the article is non-notable (or what definition the person is using in this particular context). ====Notability cannot be measured for some historical and international topics==== Because there is no simple measure of notability, many subjects that are historically notable, or notable in regions with little internet presence, are deleted based on the [[Wikipedia:Search engine test|modern test]] of "I can't find information about them online". In addition, subjects from regions that do not use the Latin alphabet may have content online in their native language, but little or no content if searched for with the Latin version of their name. Most historical persons of note, in their time, do not have information online, because Google is not the repository of all knowledge. An online search, for historical persons of note, is biased toward modern persons, therefore should not be the criteria for determination of notability. ====Specialist topics are often not notable in the sense of being well known==== Many specialist topics are not "known outside a narrow interest group" (as stated by the definition of notability at the top of this essay) but are still perfectly reasonable encyclopedia topics. For example, [[Darboux's theorem]] is not generally well known (nor does it need to be generally well known) but it is of great importance to people interested in [[differential geometry]]. Excluding it because it is non-notable would make Wikipedia less than the "sum of all human knowledge". Even asking the average editor to figure out whether it is notable within the field of [[differential geometry]] is unreasonable as those who are outside that narrow interest group have no reference from which to make that judgement.
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