User:Herostratus/7 Virtues

The Seven Virtues of an article are:

1. It is a decent article, or can be made so. Reasonably well written, formatted, etc. It's not such a mess that we'd be better off deleting it and starting over.
2. And it is of reasonable length, at least a paragraph or so, if not more. It's not just a stub.
3. And the sources for creating this decent article are OK. They're sufficiently reliable to our standards for the material referenced, and are not so obscure (local small-town paper and like that) as to be unusable.
4. And it doesn't violate WP:NPOV or WP:BLP, at least in a way that is not easily fixable.
5. And is likely that some non-zero number of people will want to read it, both now and in the future.
6. And it not incontrovertibly trivia or ephemera (where Tom Hanks had dinner yesterday, what the weather was in Chicago last week, a pedestrian run over at 5th and main, etc.)
7. And it exists. It's not a question of "should we allocate resources to creating this article". Somebody already has.

If an article has all of the Seven Virtues, then the assumption is that the article should exist. This has been practice here forever, and before that since the days of Nupedia. Because our basic job here is to provide information, rather than not providing information, and in particular not destroying information that we've already made the effort to gather. Don't let anybody tell you different or cite this rule or that rule (there are a lot of rules here) to misguide you. Eyes on the prize.

A good question to ask before trying to destroy an article is "If we delete this article, this will enhance the experience of readers searching on that term because ___________." If you can't think of anything good to put in the blank, maybe go do something else.

Bit, if we are going to destroy perfectly fine articles just because we can and enjoy doing so, then we should at least leave a message to people who wanted to read the article, rather than just sending them to a "404 not found" type error message (along with a rather snide suggestion to write the friggin article themselves ("You may create the page "[NAME]"...)), or redirecting them someplace that doesn't have the information they seek, or anyway a lot less of it. Something like this:

The rest is noise. Here's some of the noise:

Noise

(N.B., if an article does not have all of the Seven Virtues, that is not proof that the article should not exist. If it is just a stub, or has insufficient references, or is biased, or what have you, but these defects are fixable, it still should maybe exist. That has to be decided on a case by case basis.)

"Assumption" does not prove that the article should exist. There may be special, rare cases where an article that meets the 7 Virtues should be destroyed anyway. However, "This is not the sort of article that interests me" or "This is the sort of article that attracts people with whom I would not wish to associate" or "This is what I call cruft" or "This article does not meet some pettifogging personal standard that I have" or "Since there are hundreds of guidelines and essays here, I can engage in dueling ALL CAPS ARGUMENTS -- my [[WP:MUSTDELETE]] versus your [[WP:MUSTNOTDELETE]] -- to try to win a "battle" against the article, notwithstanding that that this is a sterile substitute for actually learning and growing thru real discussion, and we are not supposed to be rulebound here, or a battlefield, and anyway the page I'm citing probably doesn't say what I think it says"... these are not sufficient reasons to destroy an article with the Seven Virtues.

Incontrovertible Trivia or Ephemera

OK, so one of the Seven Virtues is "not incontrovertibly trivia or ephemera". "Incontrovertible" means "indisputable; not open to question or dispute". If some number of people dispute a point (and they are not trolls, idiots, or madmen, whom we can ignore), then it is disputed. "Incontrovertible" does not mean "I don't think so" or "most people don't think so", but rather "no one thinks so". See the difference?

If its the case that eleven people have something to say about an article, and all eleven agree that then article is trivial or ephemeral, then we can say that the article is "incontrovertibly trivia or ephemera". But if its the case that seven people say it is trivia or ephemera, and four say its not, then we can't.

If Tom Hanks had dinner at Le Bernardin on October 7, 2014, it might be possible to create an article on this. Perhaps Hank's presence in New York was unexpected and implied something might be in the works, and he was in the company of a mysterious woman which set tongues wagging, and he was overheard saying amusing or newsworthy things, and so on. Thus this was reported in the gossip sections of the New York papers, and maybe this was picked up by People and so on, such that there is sufficient material in sufficient notable and reliable sources to create a short article, Tom Hanks' Dinner at Le Bernardin on October 7, 2014, which has the Seven Virtues, if you want to pretend it's not incontrovertibly trivial ephemera.

However, don't be silly. We have the sense that God gave sheep, so we're not going to have an article like that. And any number of editors will agree (unless they are trolls, or madmen, or don't understand what this project is about, all of whom can be ignored). It would be incontrovertible that the article shouldn't exist, and a nomination for deletion would probably carry unanimously, and the article creator given some education. And anyway, if it's rules you want, we have rules covering these instances -- WP:NOTNEWS in this case ("routine news reporting of... celebrities is not a sufficient basis for inclusion in the encyclopedia"). So its not a problem, and don't worry about it.

WP:NOT

Virtue #4 is "Does not violate BLP or NPOV". (Also should be added WP:MEDRES, since medical articles need to adhere a higher standard.) Virtue #4 could add "Does not violate WP:NOT" also, but it doesn't. WP:NOT is a policy, so you can add it in if you wish.

We didn't, because WP:NOT is a whole lot different from BLP and NPOV. It is very long and has a lot of moving parts, and has quite a number of points to make. Some of these are really key to what our core mission is, some less so; some are expressed clearly, some less so; some are widely accepted, some less so. And on top of that, it's often enough misunderstood or misrepresented. WP:NOT should indeed be included under virtue #4 provided it is cited accurately. We didn't put it in the main line because it too often isn't.

For instance, we have WP:INDISCRIMINATE, "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". Well anyone can say that anything is an indiscriminate collection of information -- and they do. A link to an policy page page looks impressive; people are busy, and often don't read beyond the title; so it's more likely to convince other editors than saying "Enh, I just don't like articles like this". BLP and NPOV are more established, more mission-critical, and more focused, and most people know what they mean.

WP:NOTNEWS is also prone to this. Its title notwithstanding, NOTNEWS has little to say about recency of events, and what it does say is equivocal (it says important and useful things, but other things). And so forth with some other WP:NOT material.

Anyway... WP:NOT also, provided it's cited accurately.