Policy Talk:Notability

Peder Smythe

Note that this discussion originated on the Peder Smythe article and has been moved here.

Is this article really notable? I cannot see it being expanded beyond its current size, so, in lieu of the fact that Category:People is growing quickly, do we want to keep this (and other, similar articles)? --Scaletail 15:35, 30 November 2007 (CST)

Weak Keep: I envision BTW to be the end-all, be-all of everything that was every printed in CBT, and in this respect, I had been planning to 'lead the way' by creating at leats a stub entry for every name I found in at least one title. However, I am a lot less niave now (but no less wishful). Compared to many of the people in the People category, he is definitely non-notable. However does it hurt the wiki to have him on? For someone (possibly a CBT writer) who may some day search for a person who fits certain parameters (in this case: intelligence, Magistracy, 3067), the search would lead him here and maybe they'd expand the character accordingly.

To be honest, I won't fight to keep him, but I don't see a reason to delete him. Notability within the scope of this wiki is different than that for Wikipedia. I'd not allow vanity articles about fans, but for everyone who's ever been associated with official products (fictional and real), I'd think this wiki would provide some value.

In the last few days, I've really taken some lessons from Star Trek's Memory Alpha and Memory Beta wikis on how to handle in-character and real-world (i.e. background) information and I appreicate how they compile information on the smallest of characters. Since 'our' universe is arguably richer than Trek's, I'd like to see us reap the benefits of a similar system (that is, information at the pam of one's hand, whether you own OOP books or not). Too preachy? --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 12:47, 6 December 2007 (CST)

I'm not fighting to delete (note that I did not even put up a deletion tag), but I think we need to discuss and come to a consensus on exactly what we want BTW to be. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with creating a page for every character that gets a mention in a sourcebook, because then we would have thousands of one-line stubs like this with various officers from the Field Manual series. I understand your point that notability here is not what it is on WP (hell, I'm trying to decide if I'm going to contest deletion on "ComStar" over there), but I don't think that anything and everything BT is notable, so I believe we need to hammer out some guidelines on notability.
Perhaps Peder should stay, but if someone were (hypothetically) to create an article on one of the infantry regiment commanders from the 6th Syrtis Fusiliers that gets no mention elsewhere, do we keep it? If this person were then to do the same for every infantry regiment commander in Field Manual: Federated Suns, do we keep them all? Where does it stop? --Scaletail 14:27, 6 December 2007 (CST)

Your POV is just as valid, I have to say. You are absolutely right: we need to create a notability policy, after hashing out what we want. I'm a bit short of time right now, but might I suggest you create a (mostly) blank Policy:Notability page and then transfer this conversation to its talk page? We can advertise on the news section that the discussion is taking place, because, frankly, I think it is /the/ defining issue for this wiki and as many editors as we can get need to take part in the discussion. --Revanche ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:35, 6 December 2007 (CST)