User:Yeanold Viskersenn/Inclusionism

An Argument for Inclusionism (A work in progress)
It is my belief that the concept of notability is hindering the progress of Wikipedia in numerous ways, and that as long as an article is factual and clearly sourced, it should be included in Wikipedia. I present here a list of arguments for my case, which will grow over time. This is not an argument for indiscriminate inclusion of anything at all, but rather a hypothesis on how Jimmy Wales' original goal, that Wikipedia should be "the sum of all human knowledge", can be achieved.

Problems with notability

 * At best, notability is a hazy concept, subject to change, and one that has little benefit in comparison to the amount of hours of work put into ensuring that articles fit the guidelines.


 * WP:Notability is less a set of rules than guidelines, to be combined with common sense, as to what is currently considered a worthwhile article. However, it seems many editors pore over these guidelines, treating them as gospel and finding minute reasons as to why an article is not noteworthy and should hence be deleted.


 * Notability is of no interest to the casual web-user looking for information about a topic - if they want to know about a local school, or newspaper for instance, the perceived notability of the subject in accordance to the guidelines of an internet encyclopedia isn't going to matter whatsoever to them. They simply want a source of accurate information, and will only be bemused when they find out that the useful information they once had easy access to has been deleted from Wikipedia because of the pedantry of internal bureaucracy.


 * Often the discussion page for why a "non-notable" article should be deleted is longer than the article itself, thus taking up more space on the servers rather than saving it.


 * An article that currently does not fit the notability criteria, and has been deleted, may fit the criteria at a later date as the concept of notability evolves, but by this time it is too late and valuable information has been lost. It is also unlikely that the article's original contributors will be as keen to put time into recreating it.

Inclusionism vs deletionism - the benefits

 * Not having to spend time checking whether clearly factual and sourced articles are nevertheless notable or not, will free up time for many good-faith editors and administrators to tackle the much more damaging problem of bad-faith vandalism.

Assume somebody wants to find out about, for instance, a lecturer, who happens not to fit WP:PROF - in whose interest is it that when typing in the lecturer's name, the person finds a blank page or a link to a reason why the relevant information about that lecturer has been deleted? In this instance three parties come off worse:


 * 1) The article contributors, whose time and effort researching and writing the article has been wasted, possibly discouraging them from contributing in future
 * 2) The person looking for information - who can't find what they want because perfectly valid information has been removed simply because it doesn't completely meet the notability guidelines, possibly discouraging them from using Wikipedia in favour of an alternative web encyclopedia
 * 3) Wikipedia, whose aim in the words of Jimmy Wales himself is to be the sum of all human knowledge, which will potentially lose both a good faith editor and a dis-satisfied "customer".

And what benefit is gained from the deletion of a credible but "non-notable" article? At most, a sense of self-satisfaction for the people involved in the deletion of the article.

Quotes
“''Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing.''” - Jimmy Wales