Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is timeless

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Good, but slightly misleading

It definitely needs to be clarified that something notable now will still be notable in 20 years, and similarly that something notable 20 years ago is notable now. However, there are things which were notable, say, 500 years ago, that we can't have an article on simply because sources have been lost or destroyed. And in another 500 years, there will be things notable now which will have lost all their sources. And I don't think it's really made quite clear enough that this only applies assuming the ideal circumstances that all sources still survive. -Amarkov moo! 06:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I say "as long as sufficient reliable sources are present". --NE2 06:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be better to add a line reflecting this to the notability guidelines? I see the point of this but it's so narrow that it hardly needs a page of its own. >Radiant< 09:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Notability is typically used to prove a negative, to say that something's "non-notable" and should thus be deleted. This does the opposite, so it probably doesn't belong there. --NE2 09:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Additionally, this page applies to both separate articles and inclusion of items in lists and the like. Notability only applies to the former. --NE2 10:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- By the way, I think Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of cities that no longer have trolleybuses is where I first came across this concept. --NE2 10:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Please see Wikipedia:Notability#Notability_is_generally_permanent. I would personally say that notability also applies to list inclusion, by the way. >Radiant< 10:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - That's not what Wikipedia:Notability#Notability guidelines do not directly limit article-content, and it doesn't make sense: any fact must be covered "non-trivially" by multiple reliable sources? --NE2 11:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Well, no, that's not really what I meant. It appears that the strict definition of notability is under rather heavy debate at the moment. But we do in practice prune list articles to remove the non-notables from them. >Radiant< 10:00, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]