User:Trialsanderrors/FEQ

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This is not an essay. It is also not a policy or guideline. It expresses the opinions and ideas of one Wikipedian and may or may not have wide support, but it's easier to just post the link below rather than make the same point over and over again. Feel free to quote this non-essay as needed, but please use my discussion page to propose major changes.

Shortcut: T&E:FEQ

This non-essay in a nutshell:

Just because small fish and big fish are both fish that doesn't mean small fish is big fish.
Just because other small fish didn't get eaten by big fish doesn't mean your small fish shouldn't get eaten too.

Shortcut: T&E

FEQ stands for false equivalents in trialsanderrors jargon

This fish is not big.

False equivalents are a form of false analogies, a logical fallacy. Simply put, a false analogy states that if two objects have the same property X they also must have the same property Y. False equivalents apply this fallacy to statements of value. If two objects have the same property X and one has value N, it follows that the other must have at least equal value N. Not so. False analogies usually deal with differences in kind ("apples and oranges") while false equivalents deal with differences in degree ("big fish and small fish").

In the context of Wikipedia and its five pillars, false equivalents are often brought up by editors claiming notability for a subject based on a shared property with another, supposedly notable subject, often in the guise of a reductio ad absurdum argument. The implication is that because the notable subject has an article devoted to it, the subject under discussion deserves an article too. This is unsupported by the policies. None of the criteria in the WP policies and guidelines on notability is based on precedent or equivalence. They are all absolute, meaning that the criteria should be applied to it no matter how others have fared under them.

Now, for those who object that WP:NN is not even policy, just a lowly guideline: Notability for most editors who frequently use it is simply a shorthand for saying: This subject has not received enough outside attention that I could write a balanced article on it without ever having heard of it before. The notability guidelines are there as a quick yardstick for subjects that are presumed to have received this outside attention. They might be overridden, but only if the contributing editor makes a fact-based claim that the article meets Wikipedia policies.

As a footnote, this non-essay does not endorse the comparisons of small fish with other small fish either. There are many reasons why other barely notable subjects have Wikipedia articles. For one, they might be too small to catch the eye of vigilant editors. For two, they might have some unrelated characteristic that put them in the public spotlight. And for three, the deletion process is far from an exact science. Such comparisons might be more judicious than outlandish comparisons, but they are still not covered by Wikipedia policy.

1 Examples
- 1.1 Hypothetical example
- 1.2 Actual examples
2 Source code

[edit] Examples

[edit] Hypothetical example

The Rolling Stones are a band ← establish property X
The Stoned Rollers are a band ← correctly apply property X
The Rolling Stones are notable and have an article in Wikipedia ← establish value N
Therefore the Stoned Rollers are notable and deserve an article in Wikipedia ← falsely apply value N