Unpopular opinion: the only rule for having a Wikipedia page about a topic should be : "Would someone in the world ever look for information about this topic on Wikipedia?"
The reason why some zealots try to remove "non-notable enough" pages is because they think it is a badge of honor to be on Wikipedia.
The reason why it is a badge of honor is because some zealots spend their time removing pages considered "non-notable enough".
@williampietri why is desire for a page not enough?
Wikipedia used to be about finding knowledge in a community. I used to be able to start a topic, find someone else to expand, add more sources myself later.
Now I have to prove that the topic is worthy, that myself is worthy to write about it and I have to create a perfect article on my own just to escape deletion.
While seeing that other pages somehow are allowed to be not perfect.
@thierna What part of "We at least need enough verifiable, reliably sourced information to make a page that's trustworthy and worth reading." do you disagree with and why?
@wonka @williampietri
let me ask you,
what counts as enough?
is it one book, one published scientific article, one newspaper mention? does it need to be all of the above?
I have started some articles with a couple of those, provided links for articles or books from authors
and then I was told that this is not enough.
oddly this is mostly the case for female authors or scientists.
I have seen many male people on wikipedia who did not have more sources than what I provided.
@thierna I don't know what should be "enough". I do know though that just "desire for a page" without any verifiable source about the subject cannot be "enough", because that would violate the sensible and necessary rule of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ANo_original_research.
@thierna Demanding a higher standard for articles about women than for articles about men is obviously gender-based discrimination and must be rejected.
@wonka @thierna Yeah, I'm certainly not defending Wikipedia as perfect. As structured, it creates a lot of bad experiences for well-meaning editors. It's especially bad at the margins, because different volunteers will legitimately view marginal cases differently.
My main point is that proposals for change will never make a difference unless they understand both the drivers of inclusion and the drivers of deletion.
ploum
Pozorvlak
William Pietri
Thierna
Wilfried Klaebe