Joseph lapp

Welcome!

Hello Joseph lapp, welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Our intro page contains a lot of helpful material for new users - please check it out! If you need help, visit Wikipedia:Questions or place {{helpme}} on this page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability

Hi! Are you familiar with Wikipedia's notability criteria? I noticed in a recent AfD that you said that word of mouth is a reliable indicator of notability; at Wikipedia, I'm afraid that simply isn't true, and we require that information must be verifiable in reliable sources. I hope that those links help you to make the kind of argument that would help this article be kept. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:18, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate your welcome (although I've had this account for some time), but that was precisely the point I was trying to make with that statement. It's always been my belief (and one Wikipedia used to make about itself) that it was something of a "people's" encyclopedia. By relying soley on mainstream media to defend an article's value what kind of an alternative does Wikipedia offer? Joseph_Lapp 21:28, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

But do you really think an encyclopedia that didn't require verification would be any good? "Word of mouth" where I come from is that all unions are corrupt, and exist only to make incompetent and lazy workers rich while their bosses go bankrupt. Ask anybody in my family, and they'll tell you the same. Wikipedia wouldn't be better if that were added to the encyclopedia, though- the verification requirement is what prevents people from doing it. The problem with opening up the encyclopedia to unverified facts is that you'd have to let people who are wrong add their wrong stuff, too. That's all the notability criteria are; a requirement that all articles have to be about subjects that we can actually verify information about. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 21:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Ottawa Panhandlers Union

Did you know that you don't exist? The Panhandlers Union article has been deleted by Wikipedia administorator Blnguyen with the comment, "The result was Delete. socks ignored." Apparently you and the others who argued for keeping the article either don't exist or can be safely ignored. Welcome to Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SmashTheState (talk • contribs) 02:08, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

That indicates that all those users who had made no edits to anything other than that article and afd were ignored. It doesn't refer to those 'keep' voters who are real Wikipedia editors. -FisherQueen (talk · contribs) 11:32, 29 October 2007 (UTC)