Template talk:Notability

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Template:Notability has been protected indefinitely. Use {{editprotected}} on this page to request an edit.

Contents 1 Bio-notability 2 removal of "edit" link 3 Broadcasting notability 4 (comment) 5 Huh? 6 Notability and deletion 7 Size 8 This template can be offensive to readers 9 Category? 10 This is just generally a ridiculous template and needs to be removed/replaced 11 Can we pipe it? 12 Including a <noinclude> tag 13 Merge? 14 Template uses 15 Grammar 16 Template obsolete 17 This needs editing

[edit] Bio-notability

I created a new tag, Template:bio-notability based on this one. What do you think? —Quarl ^(talk) 2006-01-17 13:22Z

Such bios can either be tagged {{nn-bio}} (plus {{nothanks-vanity}}), {{notability}} or {{importance}}, depending on how bad it is. I disagree with giving speediable articles another step.

A better idea is developing Wikipedia:Notability (software) and developing Wikipedia:Notability (music) to cover albums and songs. (Over 1500 articles use {{Album infobox}}!) --Perfecto 14:59, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

With the {{notability}} now admitting a parameter to specify the guideline at issue, I think the notion of separate templates for that sort of thing is obsolete. 66.30.205.65 03:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] removal of "edit" link

I have just removed the "edit template" link from the template. Including it seemed fairly unneccessary, since not many users are likely to want to change the template, and those that do have probably been around sufficiently long to know how to make changes. I think it may be confusing to some people who interpret it as a link to edit the page on which the tag is placed... recent edits replacing the contents of this template with EggBlog could perhaps be for this reason. Anyhow, I didn't think it's removal could hurt. _└ ^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 20:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Broadcasting notability

I wrote the broadcasting notability guidelines. However, I don't feel that they are useful to include on this template. The guideline was never accepted, which makes me feel uncomfortable about using it this way. Also, it is more complex than the other guidelines and it is only applicable to stations in the United States (I wasn't going to use it on foreign stations, in fact, it is impossible to use it on foreign stations). I guess that I'll leave it to others to decide whether to remove it. Maybe I'll come up with a modified proposal some day. -- Kjkolb 12:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] (comment)

This template implies that if the article is not notable, it should be deleted. Is that the intent?

Not the article, but the thing the article's about. Yes. Lack of notability is considered a reason for Wikipedia not to have an article on something. NickelShoe (Talk) 04:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Huh?

So, who came up with this? What about sports, geography, historical events, science? Obviously many things that are notable are not included in this list. I'm not sure its of much use. --Nelson Ricardo 23:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

The guidelines are meant to say that there are guidelines for those certain categories. Other categories do not have policy on non-notable things. I'll see if I can make that clearer. Fresheneesz 00:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notability and deletion

This template incorrectly implies that notability is suitable reason for deletion and that it is policy written on Wikipedia:Guide to deletion - which it is not, except for two special cases. I am going to correct the template to clarify this error. Fresheneesz 23:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. I'm a little concerned that the Notability essay is being passed off as some kind of policy or guideline. --Tony Sidaway 22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The June 12 language certainly did look like a problem. I note for future reference that it was in fact changed on that date, though. Stellmach 22:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Size

This is a ridiculously large template. It disfigures any article into which it is inserted. I suggest that the subtopic list could be done away with without hurting the message that there is someone who doesn't find the subject of the article "notable". --Tony Sidaway 22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose we could use the show/hide function if necessary, so that people know what the notability guidelines and proposals are. I am however, not so much a fan of throwing boxes on top of pages, but use them only as a necessary evil of sorts. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud — WP:PORN BIO?} 23:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Because of its fugliness I remove this box on sight. It's far too large to be appropriate for anything other than a talk page, so it either needs to be trimmed or revamped. –Abe Dashiell ^(t/c) 15:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Can't it just link to one central location that links to the individual guidelines? Like WP:N? NickelShoe (Talk) 15:23, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

If the one-click to notability guidelines is preferred, we should be having separate templates for web-notability, etc. NickelShoe (Talk) 15:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This template can be offensive to readers

For the casual reader who wonders if a topic is covered in Wikipedia, coming across this template will convince them that Wikipedia has lost its magic. See for instance Cause marketing. The message of this template at the top is, "If you thought you could contribute to Wikipedia, don't bother unless you read these 24 articles first. Otherwise we'll delete your work." After reading about cause marketing in the Harvard Business Review, then coming to Wikipedia for more, stumbling across the language and tone of this template made the editors of Wikipedia look uninformed to me, yet eager to destroy the creative spirit. All this "editor" had to do is Google the term "cause marketing" and include a .gov, .edu or .org filter, and immediately see that the topic had notability. Anyone who inserts this template must make a convincing case that goes beyond referencing the existence of 24 mind-bending articles. If that is not evident, the template should be considered vandalism and removed on sight. --24.34.109.80 14:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

"Vandalism??" "Removed on sight??" These things that you say are nonsense. We should expect editors to research the topic's notability before adding the template, but not expect editors to do the same before removing the template? And this business of "24 mind-bending articles" is the purest hyperbole. Each and every one of those articles boils down to one thing: articles should assert that the subject is notable for some specific reason. How mind-bending is that?

Rather than consider people who add this template without independently researching the topic's notability to be "vandals," I would prefer to assume good faith and consider them to be people attempting to be helpful by raising a valid concern. -Stellmach 14:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Category?

What is the opinion on having this template add the article to a category called something like "category:Articles marked for questionable notability" ? RJFJR 16:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I was just thinking the same thing myself. It would give the ability to ptraol the category for help in providing citations or for nominating for deletion. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This is just generally a ridiculous template and needs to be removed/replaced

People are mistaking this tag for vandalism, even after reading the discussions in the article. There's no way any list of "the topics notable enough to be on wikipedia" can be 12 elements long and contain "pornographic actors". I'm a new enough user that I don't want to be bold and clear it completely, but I can't begin to think of a reason it should look anything like it does, with a list of acceptable topics. I'm going to take out "pornographic actors" for starters, though, and someone else should change it completely.

Replying to self upon examining code: Okay, I was misunderstanding somewhat -- I see this is just a list of the topics for notability debate. But they shouldn't all be listed in the tag -- it comes off as a list of The 15/whatever Things Allowed on Wikipedia, and looks completely out-of-place talking about "hotels" and "pornographic actors" at the top of articles on specific things. It's confusing and looks like spam/vandalism.

--Xkcd 19:26, 29 August 2006 (UTC)Xkcd

Agreed wholeheartedly. That's still the only way I can read this template. It needs to go.Skybum 00:45, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

See the topic below ("Can We Pipe It") for a proposal to address this problem, by providing support to replace the list with only a link to the relevant guideline. -Stellmach 22:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can we pipe it?

I like the idea of this tag, but the other editors are right, that it does not look very nice currently, and two, that it is wordy and confusing. Can we add a pipe to this template so that we can specify which notability guide applies to the article? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 02:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea. Clearly, some people are confused by the list of topics, and usually only 0 to 1 of them is applicable to any given article anyway. It would be much handier as you suggest. -Stellmach 14:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I've taken a pass at what such a thing might look like. If no argument is provided, it (for backwards compatibility) displays the current message. But you can also give it an optional argument which will list only a single notability guideline, or let you supply your own link to a proposed guideline. Take a look at User:Stellmach/notability for the template, or User:Stellmach/test (at least for now) for examples of its use. -Stellmach 17:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• Good idea. >Radiant< 08:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for doing this. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so let it be done. -Stellmach 13:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Also updated the documentation at Wikipedia:Template messages. Of course, about 2,000 articles are using the unparameterized template, so don't expect a revolution overnight. -Stellmach 13:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and some articles might still better take the verbose version, too. For example, I suppose a webcomic might assert notability under either the fiction or web content guidelines. -Stellmach 13:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Can we add support for Wikipedia:Notability (people)? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 18:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

How about adding Products, linking to Wikipedia:Notability (companies and corporations)#Criteria for products and services? While they don't have a notability guideline of their own, products seem to be one of the more common classes of new articles that need the notability tag.--Srleffler 07:49, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Including a <noinclude> tag

The protected page, when transcluded, adds "<noinclude>" onto the target page. I believe that this is because of the <noinclude> in the comment, as it's the only one that is not "matched" with an end tag. For an example of what I'm talking about, see Template:Bio-notability.

Please replace
<!-- TEMPLATE END. The below text has been <noinclude>'d and will not appear in the template when used on pages -->
with
<!-- TEMPLATE END. The below text has been noinclude'd and will not appear in the template when used on pages -->

Dvandersluis 14:35, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Done Martinp23 16:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! –Dvandersluis 16:34, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

Is it really necessary to have both this and {{importance}}? Or can one bve redirected to the other? In any event, as they both feed into the same category (at least by default), see this discussion on splitting the two by month, in line with numerous other large-ish cleanup categories. Alai 18:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• No, it's not necessary, and a merge would be fine. (Radiant) 10:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template uses

Just pointing out that I felt personally offended by the use of this template over one of the articles I used to edit. Maybe I'm a oversensitive little fella, but I had to rationalise for some time in order to don't vandalize the article - or the template. It is just unpolite, and it tells "if you don't write a better article, we will delete your crap". This is just unecessary.

However, if there was at least something explaining why wikipedia is doing that (all this source paranoia), it would feel better. But right now, it doesen't. algumacoisaqq 15:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

We have tons of articles that don't point make their notabilty (or context) clear. Rather than sending them straight to the trash can, I think it's polite to give them warning and a chance to fix it. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• If you have suggestions to make the template more friendly to users, please tell us. >Radiant< 10:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar

The words "as per" in the template ("If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for deletion, as per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.") should be changed to just "per". "Per" means "according to"; saying "as per" here is grammatically incorrect. –Sommers ^(Talk) 17:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Thanks for catching it, and would someone fix it please??? Her Pegship (tis herself) 01:09, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Done. In the future, you can add {{Editprotected}} to your request, so admins will react quickly. --Conti|✉ 01:24, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Template obsolete

• This template should be updated to reflect the new names, mergers, and new guidelines. Or just reference WP:N and the included table of subordinate guidelines.
• It seems inappropriate to say that an article does not comply with proposed guidelines since these should not be considered until approved. --Kevin Murray 23:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This needs editing

This template contains a link to Template:IncGuide, which is now a redirect to Template:Notabilityguide, and given the large numbers of articles which contain this Notability template, this ought to be fixed. And, note the section immediately above this one, which says that apparently there are other major problems with this template as well which need correcting. --Xyzzyplugh 00:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Done and thank you for pointing that out. Mahanga^{Talk to me} 14:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)