Wikipedia:Notability (organizations)

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The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption. References or links to this page should not describe it as "policy". A proposal's status is not determined simply by counting votes.

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Notability and inclusion guidelines

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The following proposal outlines the criteria of notability of organizations. The scope of this proposal covers political organizations (political parties and interest groups), professional organizations (labor unions and professional associations), service organizations, social organizations, academic clubs and honor societies.

This proposal was inspired by a discussion and subsequent consensus at Wikipedia:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities. The original discussion was regarding the notability of individual chapters of fraternities and sororities and their inclusion in stand-alone articles in Wikipedia. When a consensus was reached it was realized that the WikiProject guidelines could be applied to other organizations.

It is felt that a set of guidelines regarding the notability of organizations can help reduce vanity and NPOV violations in articles that fall under the scope of the proposal.

[edit] Criteria for organizations

1. Organizations are usually notable if the scope of activities are national or international in scale and information can be verified by a third party source.
   • Individual chapters of national and international organizations are usually not notable enough to warrant a separate article unless sufficient notability is established through reliable and verifiable sources. However, chapter information is welcome for inclusion into wikipedia in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included.
2. Organizations whose activities are local in scope are usually not notable unless verifiable information from reliable third party sources can be found.

[edit] Assertion of notability

Notability can be asserted for organizations through:

1. Inclusion in third party published materials.
2. A significant amount of media coverage that is not trivial in nature and that deals specifically with the organization as the primary subject:
   • For example, in 2004 and 2005, UC Berkeley enforced a moratorium on alcohol for fraternities and sororities. The moratorium became a much covered topic in the media outlets in the San Francisco Bay Area. While this asserts notability for the moratorium and the Greek system at Berkeley and possibly justifies an article either on the moratorium or the Greek system in general, it does not assert notability for an individual chapter of a fraternity or sorority on campus.

The following cannot be used to assert notability:

1. Internal documents cannot be used as an assertion of notability. However, they can be used as source material for an article.
   • Internal documents can include, reports, newsletters, press releases, magazines and websites published by the organization itself.
2. Student-run newspapers.