In recent years (say, the past 4-6), imo inclusionists have actually more or less won on the "notability" question. Nowadays "verifiability" tends to trump it: if you can write a well-referenced article, this is taken as ipso facto proof of its notability also. I tend to write articles almost exclusively on obscure subjects, but with solid references, and my articles as a result don't get deleted. The trouble comes more when it's difficult to cite good sources. But if it's difficult to cite good sources, the whole Wikipedia model, which is dependent on citing good sources, breaks down: even if an article were allowed, there'd be nothing suitable to put in it. There are definitely articles I thought of writing but didn't, because I couldn't find good sources on the subject.
In some cases I think the real fix is outside Wikipedia: if "the literature" (books, magazines, newspapers, journals, other encyclopedias, etc.) have not yet covered a subject, the first order of business is to fix that gap. But I don't think Wikipedia is the right place to go about fixing it. IMO Wikipedia makes most sense with somewhat limited ambition: to summarize the existing literature, with references. That's already a pretty large endeavor, especially when you include summarizing the existing literature globally and multilingually. When the existing literature itself is lacking, I think that should also be fixed, but not by Wikipedia.
Once the problem is fixed in "the literature", it's then much easier to fix it in Wikipedia. For example I sometimes look at the MIT Press new-books list, or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy new-articles list, and write at least short new Wikipedia articles on subjects that they cover which Wikipedia doesn't yet cover. For me at least, that "source-first" subject selection tends to be the most relaxing way to write on Wikipedia: instead of picking a subject you want to cover and then finding sources, find good sources and ask, "what do these cover that Wikipedia doesn't?". That way of working has a good impedance match to Wikipedia's goal of being a sources-cited summary of the existing literature.
Comments
In recent years (say, the past 4-6), imo inclusionists have actually more or less won on the "notability" question. Nowadays "verifiability" tends to trump it: if you can write a well-referenced article, this is taken as ipso facto proof of its notability also. I tend to write articles almost exclusively on obscure subjects, but with solid references, and my articles as a result don't get deleted. The trouble comes more when it's difficult to cite good sources. But if it's difficult to cite good sources, the whole Wikipedia model, which is dependent on citing good sources, breaks down: even if an article were allowed, there'd be nothing suitable to put in it. There are definitely articles I thought of writing but didn't, because I couldn't find good sources on the subject.
In some cases I think the real fix is outside Wikipedia: if "the literature" (books, magazines, newspapers, journals, other encyclopedias, etc.) have not yet covered a subject, the first order of business is to fix that gap. But I don't think Wikipedia is the right place to go about fixing it. IMO Wikipedia makes most sense with somewhat limited ambition: to summarize the existing literature, with references. That's already a pretty large endeavor, especially when you include summarizing the existing literature globally and multilingually. When the existing literature itself is lacking, I think that should also be fixed, but not by Wikipedia.
Once the problem is fixed in "the literature", it's then much easier to fix it in Wikipedia. For example I sometimes look at the MIT Press new-books list, or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy new-articles list, and write at least short new Wikipedia articles on subjects that they cover which Wikipedia doesn't yet cover. For me at least, that "source-first" subject selection tends to be the most relaxing way to write on Wikipedia: instead of picking a subject you want to cover and then finding sources, find good sources and ask, "what do these cover that Wikipedia doesn't?". That way of working has a good impedance match to Wikipedia's goal of being a sources-cited summary of the existing literature.
I wrote something more long-winded on that subject a bit ago: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability...