I think this would be a great idea, to have articles on "non-notable" subjects.
The underlying motivation for "notable" is a potential bug in Wikipedia, not a problem with "notability" per se. The notability requirement is epiphenomenal, a kind of code smell for the Wikipedia guidelines.
The underlying issue is whether the Wikipedia attribution and citation guidelines are strong enough to indicate when an article contains content that is possibly fallacious. Non-notable topics are more likely to have fewer references, and hence the information about a non-notable subject are more subject to manipulation.
It would be an interesting acid test for Wikipedia (perhaps a sub-Wikipedia, like http://everything-en.wikipedia.org/) to open the floodgates on "non-notable" entries. Articles would start out by default with a banner that says "No editor has reviewed whether this article contains credible sources." Another editor could swoop in, read the citations, and remove the banner, or change it to: "The sources cited in this article are easily manipulated, and lack independent review."
Iterating over http://everything-en.wikipedia.org editor guidelines, Wikipedia could evolve a strong set of guidelines for remaining authoritative over the long-tail of information.
I wish this would happen, but I don't know if/how it would.
The underlying motivation for "notable" is a potential bug in Wikipedia, not a problem with "notability" per se. The notability requirement is epiphenomenal, a kind of code smell for the Wikipedia guidelines.
The underlying issue is whether the Wikipedia attribution and citation guidelines are strong enough to indicate when an article contains content that is possibly fallacious. Non-notable topics are more likely to have fewer references, and hence the information about a non-notable subject are more subject to manipulation.
It would be an interesting acid test for Wikipedia (perhaps a sub-Wikipedia, like http://everything-en.wikipedia.org/) to open the floodgates on "non-notable" entries. Articles would start out by default with a banner that says "No editor has reviewed whether this article contains credible sources." Another editor could swoop in, read the citations, and remove the banner, or change it to: "The sources cited in this article are easily manipulated, and lack independent review."
Iterating over http://everything-en.wikipedia.org editor guidelines, Wikipedia could evolve a strong set of guidelines for remaining authoritative over the long-tail of information.
I wish this would happen, but I don't know if/how it would.