User talk:Jersyko/On notability

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents 1 But what does "WP:NOT a directory" mean? 2 When verifiability is not certain 3 Genius! 4 A needed contribution 5 You don't seem to object to the concept, but to the word

[edit] But what does "WP:NOT a directory" mean?

Your essay seems to be able to be boiled down to "Notability is redundant with Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory". But without notability, what makes something "merely a directory entry" is not explained. "Who's Who", for example is clearly a directory, yet the equivalent of a Who's Who entry would often be a fine WP:stub article. Why? Because the entries in Who's Who are notable: prominent, important, etc. WP:NOT says as much: "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety." But it says so in a few sentences - Notability expands that into paragraphs, even subpages, with specific criteria. It's not redundant any more than an article is redundant with its summary paragraph, or that paragraph is with its summary sentence. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Uncle G's three examples are already deleteable per WP:NOT (whether or not detailed notability guidelines provide further guidance), thus I think his examples do not make a convincing case for notability standards. But redundancy is only one of my points about notability. My second point is that notability is invoked in lieu of content policy at Afd when content policy should be used instead. Perhaps more practically, people often vote at Afd saying "delete, non-notable" when an article is unverifiable. Policy should be cited as grounds for deletion wherever possible (this is a normative statement, of course, and open to argument). I have a third point, one that is not developed here (and I may not develop it), perhaps the subpages with specific criteria go too far. Thanks for the feedback. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"Perhaps more practically, people often vote at Afd saying "delete, non-notable" when an article is unverifiable." But that's not a problem with the notability policy itself, it's a problem with the way people apply it (which goes down to a WP:ILIKEIT argument). I'm not arguing against your opinion of whether or not the Notability guideline is needed, but I am arguing against saying a policy is invalid because people misuse it. People misuse WP:V all the time, citing blogs and fansites in articles that should be about verified facts, but that doesn't mean WP:V is broken, it means people can't read. Or the more annoying one in my eyes: WP:CRUFT, which isn't even a guideline, yet people spout "delete, fancruft" all the time. (which is also an ILIKEIT argument). ColourBurst 07:30, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think I have said that notability guidelines and proposed guidelines are invalid because they are misused. My conclusion in this respect is that "notability is overused" as a ground for deletion. More importantly, in my opinion, is the normative statement that policy should be used to delete in lieu of notability wherever possible. This does not necessarily go to the validity of using notability to delete, but rather the primacy of content policy over notability in many cases. You're correct to point out that, in many ways, this essay is similar to WP:ILIKEIT (which I had read before, thanks for the link). · j e r s y k o talk · 13:38, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] When verifiability is not certain

In cases where we have the multiple independent highly reliable sources, there is no need to refer to notability. What about when we cannot at the moment find these sources, but the minimal rather reliable sources that we can find do indicate that subject is notable? The problem with using verifiability without notability is that the majority of articles on Wikipedia have no reliable sources and reliable sources for them are not easily found. But for most of them we can be certain that if the article is not a complete hoax (which we can check using independent unreliable sources, or we have a single rather reliable source), then it is notable and should be kept around as a work in progress awaiting improvement by those interested persons who have the sources. Unverified articles are almost never deleted, because those articles are a work in progress. In the absence of the ideal multiple, independent reliable sources, we decide whether an article should be kept based on notability. —Centrx→talk • 23:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

But articles that are unverified or unverifiable in reliable sources are deleted, recent political candidate articles providing nice examples (see this, for example). While some should be deleted for being nearly entirely unverifiable in reliable sources, "notability" is used as a (sometimes rather lazy) substitute for attempting to ascertain whether it is generally verifiable in reliable source. The same result is achieved in many (though not all) cases. · j e r s y k o talk · 23:17, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of the arguments for deleting that example were based on the subject being not notable. That you were unable to find sources does not mean that there are not sources; it is the problem of proving the absence of something and we are left with an evaluation that is no more reliable than notability. What if you didn't find sources on a subject that clearly warrants an encyclopedia article? If an article does have a couple of mediocre sources, how are you going to gauge whether there exist several independent reliable sources that are going to be found by someone? —Centrx→talk • 00:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

If I am unable to find sources for something that "clearly warrants an encyclopedia article", I would probably reevaluate whether said subject clearly warrants an encyclopedia article. If no sources on a subject can be found, yet an article on this subject exists, clearly, WP:V and WP:NOR are violated, right? Even if the subject of the article is "notable" according to some definition, we have to follow our policies. Proving the absence of sources is a problem, yes. But if none are provided and none can be found after a search of reasonable length and depth, our policies are probably best served by deletion, wouldn't you say? I don't think it has to go so far as proving their absence. · j e r s y k o talk · 00:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

You have found unreliable sources, such as references on competent, but personal, webpages or an official homepage, but you haven't found any highly reliable sources on a mere Google search. Nevertheless, the subject is notable such that there are reliable sources to be found in newspaper archives or major libraries. If no one at a particular AfD wants to go the library, do you then delete it because there are no reliable sources? How are you going to compel "a search of reasonable length and depth"? —Centrx→talk • 04:04, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I think that this question, perhaps, is beyond the scope of my essay, which concludes that "Notability should not be used as a ground for deletion when adequate, independent grounds exist that are based on Wikipedia policy." and "Notability is overused as a ground for deletion." In your hypothetical, notability is being used as a ground for inclusion, not exclusion. I admit that I have not thought about this particular circumstance extensively, but here's my basic answer. You claim that the subject is "notable" and that sources could likely be found at a library. My gut reaction to this statement is that perhaps we should reconsider whether we should be labeling a subject "notable" in the first place. We're presupposing that things can, in fact, be inherently "notable" and "non-notable" aside from the existence of sources. Even per Uncle G's primary criterion, it seems we would need to be able to prove that it has been the subject of multiple independent published works. If I know that it has been written about but do not have the sources, I would probably stick an {{expand}}, {{expert}}, or {{unreferenced}} tag on it and vote to keep. If I believe it might have been written about but do not have the sources, verifiability could compel that the article be deleted. Obviously, if someone comes up with sources, it should be recreated. My personal opinion on the second article, however, is that such articles are likely not damaging Wikipedia (especially if it's not about a living person), and the eventualist in me would probably want to just tag them and leave them alone in hope that an expert will expand them eventualy. · j e r s y k o talk · 13:41, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is true. We have 1.5 million articles on Wikipedia at current; The tracker says around 2-3% of the articles have at least one unsourced statement. Of course, this is only counting the ones that users have marked. I don't know how many untagged articles have unsourced statements, however (Dead-end pages have a lot, and the majority of new articles tend not to have them.). ColourBurst 23:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Using Random article, maybe 30% of articles have no sources whatsoever; maybe as many as 75% have no more than "sources" or external links to the official homepage, or fan sites, etc. that really only verify that the subject at least exists. Probably more than 90% of articles do not strictly have Wikipedia:Reliable sources cited. That's quite a few to get sources for; in the meantime, we are going to keep deleting non-notable articles and not deleting notable articles that don't have sources. —Centrx→talk • 00:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Genius!

This is one of the best essays/arguments against notability on Wikipedia. -- Chris chat edits essays 12:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A needed contribution

As anyone who's read the latest issue of the Signpost knows, notability-based deletionism is attempting to remove important articles from Wikipedia -- (major party candidates in important U.S. elections, for instance). So it's encouraging to see people take a long hard look at the way "notability" is used and abused, especially at AFD. --Zantastik talk 20:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] You don't seem to object to the concept, but to the word

What I like about Uncle G's essay is it's clear statement that Wikipedia should have articles on topics with "multiple, independant, non-trivial sources", and not have articles that lack this. The name? I don't care about the name. If you'd prefer, we can make up an acronym: MINTS. Then instead of saying "delete, nn", we can say, "delete, nMINTS". Would you object to this? As I read your essay, you wouldn't. Am I right? JesseW, the juggling janitor 23:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this misses my main point: "Notability should not be used as a ground for deletion when adequate, independent grounds exist that are based on Wikipedia policy." The point is not the use of the word "notability" (though I think it is overused), but rather the primacy of policy, especially because notability is overused. · j e r s y k o talk · 00:27, 14 October 2006 (UTC)