proposed guideline
Content on Wikipedia must be informative, as well as being verifiable, neutral, and so forth. This is because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and the purpose of an encyclopedia is to inform.
Note that information is not the same as data. If you want data, get a random number generator. Information, for the purposes of Wikipedia, is data that is:
- Actionable
- Interesting
- Non-obvious
Knowledge and actionable beliefs
Knowledge is often defined as a justifiable, actionable belief. Justified beliefs is easy: as Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia peer reviewed by six billion people, the mere fact that something is written here renders it true. (On rare occasions, reality and Wikipedia differ. In these cases, reality is inaccurate, or possibly out of date).
Actionable is the more important one, though ideally we might want to use a slightly stronger test - whether some piece of knowledge is actioned. Try to imagine some circumstance in which some piece of data has been used to do something, or at the least, might be used to do something. For example:
- Einstein's theory of relativity is actionable, as it is used in a wide range of scientific endeavours.
- The theory that bread always lands butter side down is actionable, as it has been empirically tested by countless school children, as well as various purer treatments by mathematicians and physicists.
- Alicia's theory that the raindrops falling on her head increase when she's singing in the rain is not actionable, as nobody takes her seriously, and even if they did, it wouldn't be good for much.
- The birthday of the Queen of England is actionable, as on certain anniversaries of it, all of the UK goes on holiday.
- The birthday of Lev Borisovich Kamenev is actionable, as something that has been written about in his biography, and in discussions of his age relative to contempories.
- The birthday of Alicia's cat is not actionable, as the cat's been dead for two years, and even Alicia would struggle to remember it if she hadn't written it down.
Interesting
By "interesting", we don't mean "interesting to everyone", or "interesting to you". Rather, we seek data that is potentially interesting to, at least, some small but significant proportion of the world's population. For example:
- The date of the Battle of Hastings is interesting to people interested in 11th century history
- The time that King Harold was killed in said battle is interesting to slightly obsessed historians of the Norman invasion
- The general diet of King Harold, as opposed to his contempories, is interesting to historians of 11th century nutrition.
- The time that King Harold had breakfast 183 days prior to said battle is interesting to no-one. Even if King Harold kept a meticulous diary which has been preserved till the present day.
Because Wikipedia is so incredibly generous, we don't even mind if the primary people interested in some fact are now all dead. For example, the 38 people with a special interest in knowing that the Hale-Bopp comet was just a comic.
Non-obvious
Obvious information is not interesting, nor is it actionable. Stating the obvious is often good because what is obvious to one person may not be obvious to someone else. However, sometimes things really are too obvious for words, and we'd rather live without them. For example:
- Worcester, England is located on the Severn river - not obvious.
- Worcester, England contains houses, flats, streets, and shops - obvious.
- Margeret Thatcher survived on four hours of sleep a day - not obvious.
- Margeret Thatcher regularly breathed in and out, sometimes hundreds of times a day - obvious.
- George W. Bush is the president of the USA - not obvious.
- George W. Bush is an illiterate moron - obvious.