1==2, Or Is It ?

This thread might belong in the Articles Forum, since the inciting case is the AFD for Don Murphy's TIYL (This Is Your Life), but I'm really more interested in the general issue of Wikipedia Notability guidelines, especially the question as to whether there's any standard there at all.

A rule is not a rule unless it applies equally and fairly to every comparable case.

So let us consider the following rule:

The Old (1==2) Criterion Of Notability (The Old 1=2 CON):


Here is the context:


Jonny

That's a crazy argument - "we don't need to source it because we say so". Am I reading that right?

Utter nonsense.

Yeah, it struck me as a new low in narcissistic self-jerk reason, but I have to say it gave me a clue —

Critique of Narcissistic Self-Jerk Reason ???

Hmmm … it sorta has a ring to it … anybody out there need a thesis title ???

Jonny

Anywaaay, the reason I put needle to thread this time out — and I never would have been bored enough to do this if a power outage hadn't kicked me off the computer for a couple of hours on a rainy day — was to follow up on the (1=2) CON by going over to our DVD shelves and pulling out a random stack of DVD's from the most chaotic corner of the bookcase.

Then I wrote down all the names of producers that were listed on the back — BORING !!!

But here's how far I got before the power came back on —

One thing I noticed right off is that many people are listed as producers, co-producers, or executive producers on films that they acted, directed, or wrote. When a name like that lights up the marquee of my mental theater, I think it's fair to say that it will be for the acting role first, for the directing role second, and with the motley crue of various species of producers a distant third. At any rate, by way of taking this potential confound into account, I added a code to the names to indicate the other jobs they had on the same films.

A = Acted
D = Directed
W = Wrote

√ = has Wikipedia article or stub
… = has no Wikipedia article or stub
? = article, but may be different person

Dynamic List — so give me a while to sort them out …

Producers

1. √ Anderson, Wes +D+W
2. √ Bailey, Sean
3. … Barden, Kerry
4. … Bergman, Ram
5. √ Bruckheimer, Jerry
6. … Bryce, Ian
7. … Canton, Mark
8. √ Coen, Ethan +W
9. … Doran, Lindsay
10. … Feitshans, Buzz
11. … Goldman, Bernie
12. … Griffith, Ted
13. √ Kennedy, Kathleen
14. √ Lord, Peter
15. … McCutchen, Bill
16. √ Mendel, Barry
17. … Nunnari, Gianni
18. √ Park, Nick
19. √ Rapke, Jack
20. √ Rudin, Scott
21. √ Scott, Ridley +D
22. … Silver, Jeffrey
23. √ Simpson, Don
24. √ Spielberg, Steven +D
25. √ Sproxton, David
26. … Starkey, Steve
27. ? Wilson, Colin
28. √ Ziskin, Laura
29. … LAST, FIRST
30. … LAST, FIRST
31. … LAST, FIRST
32. … LAST, FIRST
33. … LAST, FIRST
34. … LAST, FIRST
35. … LAST, FIRST

Associate Producers

1. … Izaac, Raymond
2. … LAST, FIRST
3. … LAST, FIRST
4. … LAST, FIRST
5. … LAST, FIRST

Co-Producers

1. √ Foster, Jodie +A
2. … LAST, FIRST
3. … LAST, FIRST
4. … LAST, FIRST
5. … LAST, FIRST

Line Producers

1. … Cameron, John
2. … LAST, FIRST
3. … LAST, FIRST
4. … LAST, FIRST
5. … LAST, FIRST

Executive Producers

1. √ Arad, Avi
2. √ Bevan, Tim
3. … Drake, Joe
4. √ Fellner, Eric
5. √ Guber, Peter
6. … Kahane, Nathan
7. … Kopeloff, Eric
8. … Kramer, Cecil
9. √ Lee, Stan +W
10. √ Milius, John
11. √ Peters, Jon
12. ? Rose, Michael
13. … Simmons, Rudd
14. √ Wilson, Owen +A+W
15. √ Zemeckis, Robert
16. … LAST, FIRST
17. … LAST, FIRST
18. … LAST, FIRST
19. … LAST, FIRST
20. … LAST, FIRST

Jonny

It strikes me that paper encyclopedias never had this problem, I guess because they werent open to being edited by the general public and thus susceptible to vandalism/libel (take your pic). I also wonder if a paper encyclopedia would consider Murphy notable, I suspect not as only a minority of people have heard of him, so if wikipedia opens itself to the general public and then lowers what a reasonable person might consider encyclopedic standards of notability then wikipedia is creating a problematic situation (though these privacy issues go far beyond wikipedia, its also about the internet as a whole)

Excuse me, but - what?

How many people have heard of some Nobel Prizewinners or 1950s French prime ministers? Are they not notable? Notable is not synonymous with famous.

Initial results from my very casual pilot study indicate that producers on major motion pictures have about a 50% chance of getting any kind of recognition whatever from Wikipedia. It's actually a little lower than that, as there are several flicks that have 5 or 6 associate, co-, line, or executive producers that I got too yawny to write down, so I will have to go back and pick up their names some time later this weekend.

Jonny