Wikipedia talk:Notability (science)

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  1. Sept 2006 – Nov 2006 (from WP:SCI)
  2. Oct 2006 – Dec 2006 (from WP:SCIENCE)
  3. Dec 2006 – Jan 20007 (merged)
    Notability (science)/Test cases
  4. Jan 2007 – Mar 2007

Contents


[edit] Is Wikipedia:Notability (science) a consensus guideline?

Please state your position, yes or no, explain your position and defend it. This is not a vote. SmokeyJoe 10:47, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes I consider it one, and I'm not sure what objection people have - if there's a problem that needs fixing, let's fix it. I already refer to it, guideline or not, since it's very useful. --Minderbinder 12:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes Not only is it a consensus guideline, it is absolutely vital for Wikipedia to have such a guideline. --ScienceApologist 12:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes I certainly support this guideline, what it is trying to do, and how it is trying to achieve it. --EMS | Talk 15:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes We're ready to go into the stage where changes should be discussed here before being implemented in the policy page. ~ trialsanderrors 17:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Absolutely We've numerous AfDs and arbcom cases which have documented that this is the community's intent. --EngineerScotty 17:44, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't see where the proposed criteria add meaningful advice to writters or evaluators, and the preamble/text is way too long to be practical. Please cite some examples of AfD where this proposal would have ensured an outcome other than what would have been achieved under the current guidelines. For each of the criteria now listed I belive that proper application of WP:N and WP:ATT would acheive the same results. --Kevin Murray 17:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
    • There is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electric universe (concept), where this standard helped to refine the arguments that finally got the topic removed. The aupporters trying to use this guideline to buoy their cause ended up only showing all the more that the article did not belong in Wikipedia.
      You are correct that in the end articles that are removed will be so removed (or not) due to policy concerns. The need for this guideline comes from its ability to focus the debate on the issues that are important in the relevant cases. In other words, it helps to achieve the "proper application" that you are claiming makes this guideline irrelevant. --EMS | Talk 18:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
      • EMS, could your purpose be acheived with an essay? Among the problems with permutations from guidelines and policies is the evolution into redundant and conficting guidance to the point that writers and evaluators become confused and the branches work at cross purposes. My frequent analogy is the US Tax Code, which has bread several large industries for interpretation and application. Writing complex rule sets requires great skill and caution. --Kevin Murray 18:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
      • On review of the Electric universe (concept) AfD, it appears to be resoundingly rejected with the tools we already have, most convincingly original research and few reliable sources. This outcome is consistent with other scientific and academic issues which I have seen defeated at AfD. An excellent nomination doesn't hurt either! --Kevin Murray 18:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Right now I am wondering what your agenda is here, as this type of opposition usually comes from someone who has lost an AfD in part due to this and the guidelines and is seeking to water down the standards. One of the factors that helped with the electric universe AfD was the the nominator was also working on this guideline and used its insights in writing the nom. Beyond that, there is the basic issue of moving beyond "peer review" as a standard for inclusion, a test passed by numerous non-notable articles that I have seen. Also, I at least have gone to some pains to couch this as a setting standard for inclusions instead of exclusion. That way, an argument that "X calls for inclusion" renders this guideline moot as a refutation, and so avoids the types of conflicts that in our laws make being a lawyer such a profitable profession. --EMS | Talk 19:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
          • My agenda is not as you assert, but your question is a fair one, which I will answer. My agenda is clarity in the grand scheme of notability guidelines, without a specific prejudice to this proposal. Please visit the discussion page for WP:N to see that there are many people expressing concerns over the whole process. I support the concept of "encyclopedic suitability", which we call notablility at WP, for lack of a better name. I also consider myself a moderate inclusionist. I am a frequent participant in Afd. You are correct in one respect, that I origninally became involved in AfD and notability, because I saw too many abuses by uninformed editors who were deleting meanigful articles, though not specifically in the field of science. My interest is in history and sailing. --Kevin Murray 19:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
            • Might I recommend that your "no" comment seems to be motivated more by a general dislike for WP:N rather than a specific distaste for this particular guideline. In particular, the motivation behind this guideline was in part due to a charge made during the Pseudoscience arbitrartion case that such a guideline should exist to fend off charges related to whether an idea was notable in a scientific sense. One can argue whether WP:N should exist or not, but that's not for us to decide here. It is absolutely not true that this guideline is redudant: there is no other place where it is indicated what makes a scientific idea notable for inclusion in the encyclopedia. WP:NOR doesn't help because "originality" is a vague concept related to heavily to WP:V and WP:COI to be useful when people just make random articles about ostensibly scientific subjects they read about online, for example. WP:A doesn't help because there are scientific ideas which are not notable (the general consensus of the community is that they do not belong in the encyclopedia) which nevertheless are attributable to reliable sources. WP:NPOV doesn't work because the exclusion criteria at WP:NPOV#Undue weight is unable to distinguish between majority and minority except by consensus. That's why this guideline is needed and why it is used. Look at all the pages that link here and tell me that it isn't referred to. --ScienceApologist 13:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • No, it's not. I think the burden of some evidence that this guideline is widely supported and necessary needs to be shown from the supporters. Right now it's an initiative, a proposal with stable wording. However, even in the "test cases" that I looked at, it seems that this guideline isn't being referred to, and evaluation of the articles in question isn't done with these guidelines in mind, rather, articles are mainly evaluated from a point of view of adequate sourcing and original research issues, in other words, policies we already have. (I do think the editors here have reached a reasonably stable consensus, though. But that doesn't, to me, make a "consensus guideline," which implies support from the community overall.)Mangojuicetalk 18:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The evidence is in the What links here tool you can access from the toolbox. I think that you may have a hidden agenda here: you tend to be a bit too quick to agree to a supression bias against non-experts in the fields of science. Is this a misplaced concern? --ScienceApologist 13:09, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
      • First of all there are over 150 things that link to Wikipedia:Notability (science), so it's not unreasonable to expect evidence to be actually gathered by someone trying to make a case. But more, I went to a few of those "what links here" and apparently the only reason they were linked was that trialsanderrors mentioned that the debate was a test case: not people actually referring to the guideline and trying to use it. Look at the Electric Universe AfD, for instance, which is the best example I've seen of a borderline-notable scientific theory (where this guideline might help). WP:SCIENCE was not used as an argument in the debate, even by you, and the arguments that led to it being deleted were not even much along the lines of what is presented here in the guideline, but were according to core Wikipedia policies like WP:ATT, WP:OR and so on. Some of the argument is covered here in the introduction, but the "criteria" part played no role and seems to be central to this as a notability guideline. So, this is what I mean when I say that no evidence has been presented. What do YOU mean when you say this is a consensus guideline? Mangojuicetalk 13:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
        • The criteria part played a huge role. The only criteria that EU could have come close to satisfying was recognition in popular culture/outside media and we showed that it was not notable along those lines. The guidelines at the time were being formulated and weren't as clear as they are now, but thanks to discussions such as that AfD we have a clearer demarcation. I think you need to read through the AfD we reference again and look carefully at how the criteria line-up with the criteria outlined in this guideline. --ScienceApologist 14:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
          • Could you show me precisely where? I don't mean to be dense, but I really don't see it. I see your point #5 in the nomination, but that sounds like the core WP:N argument, and not related to the criteria here. And anyway, saying the the EU debate influenced WP:SCIENCE kind of precludes that the EU debate can be thought of as evidence that this is a consensus guideline. Can you show me ANY AfD debate that explicitly references the criteria? Mangojuicetalk 14:17, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
            • Number 5 in the nomination. While it doesn't explicitly reference this page, it does so implicitly (and if I recall correctly at the time the standards were still being developed as to which criteria were going to be grouped with which). --ScienceApologist 14:20, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
              • Again, #5 was really along the lines of basic WP:N. Again, show me any debates that explicitly reference the criteria. There's a difference between this proposal being wise or balanced or sensible and it having broad community support. Mangojuicetalk 14:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
                • Basic WP:N"? That's a bit of WikiLawyering I haven't come across before. The fact is that #5 has direct parallels to our criteria here. You can thrust your head in the sand over this all you want, but that's the plain truth of the matter. And now you reposition your attack to claim that there isn't "broad community support", but let me remind you that arbcomm members entreatied the community to develop these standards in the first place and that by virtue of this being a Wiki it will end up as balanced and sensible as possible. I'm beginning to think you are being a stick-in-the-mud for reasons you aren't coming clean about. Help me out, explain to me why you always seem to be fighting against scientific accuracy at Wikipedia so I can assume good faith towards your contributions. --ScienceApologist 17:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I suggest you go read WP:AGF and actually take it to heart. In our current discussion, you seem to have trouble differentiating between (1) my personal support or opposition of the proposal and (2) my arguing that the proposal isn't a "consensus guideline", that is, that it doesn't have broad support. This wouldn't be a very hard difference to understand if you had been assuming good faith of me in the first place. For the record, I support some of what the proposal says but not all of it, but that wasn't the basis for my objections: calling the proposal a "consensus guideline" is wrong, because this is still a very new proposal, barely even stable enough to judge. WP:PROF remained a proposal for a very long time, and finally became a guideline when it became apparent that the guideline had influenced the way decisions were being made, and that the community, de facto, embraced the guideline. Creation of policies and guidelines is slow and for good reason, especially when actionable changes are being proposed (like the criteria here). Mangojuicetalk 19:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I appreciate your candor regarding your opinions of the content of this guideline because that is precisely what concerns me. However, I do feel that you are being a bit oblique in your commentary. "Policy creation is slow," is often the cry of those who want to slow things down, and people tend to drag their feet for a reason. To me and many of the other editors who commented above, this guideline is de facto in place and isn't a proposal because we as editors abide by it. As you know, Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not written to affect change in the encyclopedia, but rather are meant to describe what actively goes on in editing. A good number of those who say that this is a consensus guideline edit a lot of science-related articles and so should be the ones to tell whether or not this guideline applies. I don't see that you are actively doing this as such. I do see you stepping into disputes regarding science-related articles often, and there are many times I see these actions as being in something of a contravention of the guidelines outlined here. I am being very up-front about my distrust of your motivations, but in so doing I'm also trying to assume good-faith as much as I can. Part of assuming good-faith is being transparent about one's perceptions and I'm offering you the opportunity to explain yourself as transparently as possible so we can move on. I don't like being lectured about WP:AGF when I was the one who brought it up, it looks to me like you are asking me to turn a blind eye towards our long history here at the encyclopedia and I am honestly telling you I'm having a hard time doing it because of the nature of this particular dispute we're having. --ScienceApologist 13:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
          • You are making false implications about me, and I want it to stop. Comment on my comments. You say this is an attempt to document how Wikipedia works? I respectfully disagree -- this talk page and its archives are full of debates about what the criteria should be, with very little discussion or analysis of how things are actually decided now. (Some, but not much.) From perusing the test cases, it seems to me that people are nearly exclusively deciding on these cases on the basis of WP:OR, WP:ATT, and WP:NPOV, (and to a degree, WP:N), without much need for arguments specific to issue that the topics under discussion are scientific ones. Since that isn't the content of this proposal, I cannot agree that this is documenting current Wikipedia practice, but if you want to try to change my mind, please show me specific examples so we can discuss them. In any case, you should advertise this debate on WP:VPR; the general Wikipedia community should have a chance to comment. Mangojuicetalk 14:52, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
            • Whether they are false or not, they are simply my questions regarding your, frankly, obstinate resistance to this particular document. I am trying to be as forthright as possible here, and your increasingly haughty responses only confuse me further since you still haven't addressed directly my concerns regarding the history we have surrounding issues such as this. I disagree that the discussions are centering around how things "should" be. Rather I see discussions centering around generalizing from the experience that editors have. You also seem to be under the opinion that just because people reference older and more established policies and guidelines they aren't also considering this guideline. This I find to be particularly problematic because it ignores the words of people that aren't appended with a WP-acronym. Just because somebody doesn't cite this directly doesn't mean that you can't see the criteria being applied (as per our earlier discussion on EU deletion). I would hope that you would look more closely at the deletion discussions surrounding this and see if you can't spot the criteria in action. I am not going to advertise the debate anywhere, but you are free to do so. --ScienceApologist 16:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
              • I've advertised the debate at WP:VPR. In terms of the status: you see one thing, I see another thing. I'm not going to change my opinion by simply being told "please look more closely," although you could convince me if you actually showed me some evidence. I do see a lot of attempts at guiding the community: take a look at #"Conference topic" is a backdoor, for instance, or #One final thought: people are discussing how to make a good rule, not what the rule is, organically. Mangojuicetalk 20:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
                • I do think that you are seriously misinterpreting the conversations we've had here. When editors here discussed what makes a good rule, they've clearly done so in light of their editing experience. We aren't just shadowboxing. --ScienceApologist 21:22, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I should note that, given present disputes over WP:N, it is not a very strong argument to claim that we should use WP:N instead of this. >Radiant< 10:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I would expand on that thought to say that while WP:N is being revamped, it makes little sense to approve further subordinate pages. --Kevin Murray 17:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • That's taking a rather biased and authoritarian position on subcommunities of Wikipedia. I, for one, don't care if WP:N is trashed: what's relevant to science articles is this set of guidelines. Just because WP:N is being discussed doesn't mean that we can't come to consensus elsewhere. --ScienceApologist 17:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm with SA here: WP:N is being criticized partly because of its extreme generality. No reason to think the entire idea of notability for all topics must pause just because of that. Mangojuicetalk 17:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
        • The problem lies less with any individual sub-guideline, but more with a plethora of permutations leading to confusion. As sub categories go this may be among the better candidates, but there shoould be efforts at coordination among the various efforts. Collectively, many well intentioned efforts can create bedlam. --Kevin Murray 18:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
          • I don't see any bedlam here. I see this as being a well crafted guideline that is dealing with issues which are out-of-scope for the more general guideline due to its broad nature. This guideline deals with the issues of science and science-related topics, and how to implement the notability guidelines within that context.
            I have looked at the WP:N discussion and I get the feeling that you are doing your best to create uncertainty and confusion there. And now you are trying to do the same here. I for one have no need for it, and support this guideline as a reflection of the legitimate sense of the science editors here as to what is valid. --EMS | Talk 18:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, this appears to be a consensus guideline. The opposition to this guideline proposal may be part of a campaign in which User:Kevin Murray in the past month has placed "rejected" , "disputed" , or "historical" , or "essay" labels on about a dozen notability proposals or guidelines or has nominated them for deletion on the grounds that there was no consensus or that they constituted "instruction creep" or were redundant. A proposal is not necessarily impossible to reach consensus upon just because a few editors oppose it. See the [[1], [2] , [3] , [4] , [5] , [6] , [7] , [8] , [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , and [14]. Edison 18:46, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I see your point. This editor really, really has a grudge against the concept of notability, and I would love to know why. If you want to do a WP:RfC against him, I am will be happy to second it. This is ridiculous. --EMS | Talk 19:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
      • No EMS, this editor, has a "grudge" against needless and redundant rule making for the sake of rule making. I strongly support the concept of encyclopedic suitability which we call "notability" at WP. This is not "ridiculous" but based on observations from life experience, that too many conficting rules create confusion rather than clarity. Complex rule-sets require incredible cross coordination among the permutations, which is not happening here at WP, as guidelines are multiplying like rabbits without consideration of the big picture. If you propose an RfC, please do so in the best interest of WP, not "against" me; this is not personal and reviewing the discussions will reveal that my actions are well supported. --Kevin Murray 14:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
        • There are plenty of Wikipedians who agree with you about hating rules. However, might I suggest that you are going about it the wrong way. We are here writing this guideline because we need to summarize what has been done in regards to this issue. Your own personal distaste for the way in which editors have gone about doing this is probably best argued elsewhere: it certainly has nothing to do with whether consensus exists for this particular guideline. --ScienceApologist 14:29, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I do not see any need to coordinate this guideline with any other guidelines beside WP:N itself. Although I am doing my own "original research", I have seem enough -uh- "stuff" offered by others such that I see a need to draw a firm and reasonable as to what is and is not acceptable here. Until it has some reasonable amount of recognition in the scientific community, I see an article on my ideas as being an abuse of Wikipedia. Yet I am unusual in that most other editors of Wikipedia with alternate ideas are here to promote those ideas, and they hate guidelines like this one with a purple passion because they help to keep their OR out.
        BTW - I do see where you have had some success with you anti-Notability campaign. Personally I think that you are doing Wikipedia a real disservice with it, and what you are stifling is not a bunch useless rule-making but instead needed elaborations on the meaning of Notability in various domains. As has been noted in the WP:N discussion, there is a level of subjectiveness in determining notability. The need for these subsidary guidelines is to limit that subjectiveness, and thereby make this concept more usable. Instead you are trying to pull the rug out from under Notability, something that will make the removal of questionable material much more difficult than it should be. --EMS | Talk 16:08, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • the real test is whether the guidelines here will be accepted in practice. Both the above positions are to some degree correct: the guideline should reflect what its eds. believe to be the common feeling of the community, but it shouldalso point in the direction of where the consensus appears to be moving, and to be making recommendations from those most involved in edited these articles to guide thos less familiar. I think it will prove to be accepted because it is relatively straightforward, not complex -- at least by comparison -- and, in my view it does reflect the general voice. But we shall see.
The real dispute , I think, is over the notability of fringe science and whether that can be considered science in any sense at all. This is a matter in which I think there is in fact no real consensus, but at best a temporary majority, and i expect this question to continue to be the theme of AfDs. I don't think this guideline lays it to rest DGG 23:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
This guideline cannot and should not judge whether something is "real science". In fact, all that a determination that something is "not science" can do here is to remove a topic from being judged by this criteria with no resolution on its notability or lack thereof. IMO, we have a set of criteria here such that anything that is meant to be judged as part of science can be ruled on here, be it mainstream or fringe. What I think that you will find is that the least palatable topics are those which also have had the least impact and are also therefore the least notable. --EMS | Talk 01:53, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • What this discussion needs is actual arguments over the content of the page, rather than arguments of process. Bureaucratic reasonings that process wasn't followed in officially validating this page are vacuous, since such a process doesn't exist, and guidelines aren't officially validated to begin with. >Radiant< 09:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some suggestions on organizing this project page

  • The introduction is too long. Limit it to "what" and "why". Get the commentary (i.e. "impetus") and discussion of process into its own section. Specifically address what makes science different from other areas covered by the general guidelines.
  • Criteria should define at least these categories as guidance to editors:
    • topics which on their face should be include (i.e. the notable)
    • topics which are going to require some judgments to be made by editors if they are new articles or added to existing articles. (i.e. the maybe notable)
    • topics which, at least according to the authors of the guideline, are improbably included. (i.e. nonnotable)
  • The statement "Decisions about including or excluding material must always reflect the opinions of outside authorities, not those of Wikipedia editors." is bizarre because the opinion of Wikipedia editors is what, by definition, compose the Wikipedia. "Must always" is a rather strange term to be found in a mere guideline at any rate. patsw 13:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
If you wish to draft an alternate version, the feel free to do so elsewhere and present it to us as a possible replacement. We are certainly amenable to productive changes. However, IMO the current project page works and should be considered a functioning guideline. --EMS | Talk 15:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree the reflect outside authorities wording is odd (although not any odder than "notability is not subjective" which expresses the same sentiment). The rest doesn't strike me as an improvement. ~ trialsanderrors 17:49, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
One point that isn't being made (in the intro) and probably should be is the point that scientific theories cannot be properly presented without understanding their level of acceptance. There's a big difference between a mainstream theory and a fringe theory, and even in an article about a fringe theory, it's important to describe it as one. However, for some fringe theories, insufficient sources exist to back up the claim that they are fringe theories. Thus we are left with only one real choice: disallow the article, as we cannot properly cover it while adhering to WP:ATT and WP:NPOV. This is different from, say, an article about a band, where it may be that no source reports on their popularity or number of fans accurately, but sources do report on other things: the information we can't cover can just be left out. In articles on science, we really can't leave that out. Mangojuicetalk 13:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
The "level of acceptance" argument makes no sense to me. "Theory" in science has a very precise meaning which applies to models and descriptions which are as completely accepted as possible in an endeavor based primarily on the dubious activity of inductive reasoning. While there is a big difference between mainstream and fringe proposals, the proposals themselves are only considered "theories" when they pass the tests of the scientific method. What makes a proposal fringe is, ostensibly, its inability to pass these tests. This doesn't mean that scientists don't make mistakes in pejoratively labeling the fringe out of the mainstream, only to say that the level of acceptance is something of a binary operator: either it's in or it's out. When an idea does not generate enough interest in the scientific community to create commentary from members of the community, it must either be uncontroversial (as is the case with textbook knowledge) or it must be outside the scientific community. This is quite easy to verify. No amount of posturing and insisting on the part of a fringe idea's proponents that the idea is actually "scientific" is good enough when demarcating for our purposes. We might still have articles on the idea if there is "extra-scientific" interest in it, but we do not need to shy away from being honest about its "extra-scientific" nature. One of the problems that many pro-fringe editors have is that they believe that because proving the negative is in principle a defiance of WP:ATT that reasonable editors can't make editorial judgments with regards to the status of a particular idea. This is simply not the case at all: we are editing an encyclopedia not compiling a list of sources. After all, that's why we have editors in the first place: we are charged with summarizing the available data in the most conformist way possible. When all the data is outside the scientific community and the idea purports to have scientific importance, it is perfectly fine to delineate the contradiction. However, this discussion is probably better suited for WP:FRINGE. --ScienceApologist 14:09, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it is a little more complicated than that.
  • It is not necessary to give an indication of the acceptance of a theory, in order to describe it.
  • And I don't think the word "theory" has such a precise meaning as scientists would like. For example, Wikipedia calls the Big Bang a "theory", whereas the Encyclopedia Britannic calls it a "Model". And I am sure there are more sources supporting both.
  • This is why the new WP:A is so important. I can attribute both the Big Bang Theory, and the Big Bang Model, but I can find no source which agues it must be one or the other.
  • I can also find no attribution labelling many minority subjects as "fringe", nor claiming a certain level of acceptance. --Iantresman 17:47, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Making this an approved guideline

I notice that Kevin Murray has downgraded this guideline back to the "proposed" status. I would revert that myself, except that I am not at all clear by what action/authority it became considered a functioning guideline. Certainly the above poll has produced only five people who support this as a guideline. Even without the two nay-sayers I fail to see how the five of us constitute a group that can speak for the Wikipedia community as a whole, or at least the science editors.

I for one do call for the issue of approving this as a functioning guideline be presented to the community as a whole. the Village Pump policy forum, WikiProject Science, WikiProject Physics, WikiProject Chemistry, WikiProject Biology are all places where this guideline can be advertised and input and approval sought. I see little danger in this and much promise, but mostly I would like to be able to show Kevin a formal approval so that is downgrading of this guideline cannot occur again. --EMS | Talk 02:17, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I already posted a note on the Village pump proposal forum. But yes, that this might become official needs to be widely announced. Mangojuicetalk 03:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
We don't do "formal" and "official" with respect to guidelines. What matters is if this is (1) a good idea and (2) used as such in practice. AFD is a consensus-building process, so if this page matches what happens on AFD then it matches consensus. Judged by this talk page and AFD, the answer to all three is 'yes', so this page is a de facto guideline and Kevin is the lone dissenter here. Of course, putting a notice on the village pump never hurts.
Looking at it from a different (and somewhat more formal) angle, in the opinion of the ArbCom, an admin can close and evaluate a discussion such as this, and draw and implement the conclusion. If we use that approach, then I have done so. However, I must point out that (to the best of my knowledge) nobody except for the ArbCom agrees that this is a valid approach, so that may not be the best of ideas.
However the first point does hold. Consensus is not unanimity, and a consensus opposed by a vocal minority is nevertheless a consensus. >Radiant< 09:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the concept of seeking broader support. If I see broader support for the need and a more stable proposal I would remove my objection. I think that the steps proposed above make good sense. There should be no need to rush the process. --Kevin Murray 13:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Kevin is not the only dissenter, I also am. Let me enumerate some general criticisms, this time relating to the substance of the proposal. 1. There is not a big need for this. Most science articles up for deletion are up for other concerns than notability, primarily, concerns that the article is original research, POV, or inadequately sourced. Although there are many debates on the test pages subpage, in very few was the critical issue the notability of the subject: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electric universe (concept), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Socionomics, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Growing Earth Theory (and the old debates, not listed there, about Time Cube). 2. The list of criteria, a core part of this proposal, were not used as the basis of successful arguments in any of the key examples I listed. Rather, the test seems to be the general one of being covered in multiple independent sources, inside or outside of the scientific community. Note that the criteria give an opportunity to supporters of OR articles (real OR, not neutral attempts at describing published research) to argue for inclusion inappropriately: see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sorce theory as an example of this. The criteria have changed since then, but the same kind of argument could be made today. I wouldn't want to jeopardize any of those debates by having a guideline here with such minimal applicability. 3. The list of criteria is instruction creep and isn't useful. For articles that should be deleted, not meeting the criteria doesn't make a strong argument. For articles that should be kept, they're okay, but arguments to delete things that meet these criteria are weak delete arguments in the first place, usually along the lines of "this article is in bad shape", see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ubiquitous computing for example. The criteria seem aimed at solving a non-existant problem of the over-deletion of notable science topics. Mangojuicetalk 14:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
I will say that if the criteria are largely scrapped, my opinion would probably change. But that's a pretty different proposal from this one. Mangojuicetalk 14:54, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The fundamental flaw of Notability (science), is that it tries to determine only whether an article is scientifically notable. It does not consider whether an article may be notable in any other area.
  • If Wikipedia was a Scientific encyclopedia, there would be a case to answer. It isn't. Wikipedia has not adopted a "scientific point of view"[15]
  • The arrogance is in assuming that scientific notability is the only criteria worth considering in determining whether an article stays or goes. --Iantresman 15:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] One researcher POV fails NPOV

  • The third paragraph includes an incorrect statement:
"the point of view of one researcher or research term and, unless it generates a significant outside response by the scientific community or the population at large, fails NPOV"
  • This is a complete misunderstanding of NPOV. If we attribute a statement to a single researcher, and it conforms to WP:A and is not misrepresented, then it conforms to NPOV. The argument is whether a statement by a single researchers is notable, which is completely different. --Iantresman 19:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
    • It's also POV because there is no counter that can be offered since the topic is obscure. Double-whammy. --ScienceApologist 21:31, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • POV is neither the opposite of, nor a failing of NPOV. Indeed, POV is not a whammy.
  • If another attributable view is available, we describe it. If it isn't, we don't pretend there might be one. There is no double whammy.
  • Describing the POV of one person does not automatically fail NPOV, and any decent editor can describe any POV in way that fulfils NPOV.
  • Quashing a POV on the grounds that there MIGHT be a hypothetical counter-POV, fails NPOV, fails WP:A, and fails WP:V. --Iantresman 00:08, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
If the "POV" is controversial but hasn't been commented on, then it will be an unique source and it will be impossible to provide a sourced, balanced view of the POV. --ScienceApologist 12:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The only requirement to provide a balanced view, is if one exists. If it doesn't, then to pretend that a view "needs balancing", is presumably based on the view of an unattributable, anonymous, expert-less editor. This fails numerous Wikipedia policies.
  • When Douglas Clowe of the University of Arizona claimed in a single paper that he had "proof" of Dark Matter, this went straight into the Dark Matter article, which at the time, had no peer reviewed comment from other scientists.
  • I have no doubt that if a Prof. John Doe claims in a single paper that he has proof against Dark Matter, a dozen reasons will be given why this is not acceptable for Wikipedia, including failing NPOV.
  • Yet both POVs are EQUALLY valid, as long as they are not misrepresented, and can easily be described in a manner that conforms to NPOV. --Iantresman 13:15, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
What you fail to realize is that there is an informal community discussion as well as a formal publication discussion. Those who are in a particular community are aware of the informal discussion and are able to tell when a topic is ignored/scoffed or when it is accepted. This cannot be reported at Wikipedia for verifiability reasons, but it still raises NPOV concerns when certain editors try to force obscure research into the forefront of an article. You are mistaking a standard of verifiability (which is the standard for how to write an article) with editorial judgement: they need not be one-in-the-same. In other words, one need not "verify" that there is NPOV issues because, as editors, our editorial opinions do not need to be (nor can they be) verified. The only thing that needs to be verifiable is the text of the article. We are allowed to have judgements that are external to this. As such, it is perfectly reasonable to say that there are NPOV problems with someone citing a single, isolated, though published research paper. In terms of your dark matter red herring, you have totally misconstrued the situation, and I'm fairly confident that nearly any third party not firmly ensconced in pathological skepticism toward mainstream astrophysics would find your evaluation predictably myopic. Clowe's triumphalist attitude is only justified from the standpoint of standing on the shoulders of giants. It's not like he was publishing his "proof" of dark matter in a vacuum -- it was a particular point that was addressed to a particular (MOND-type) objection. However, when your hypothetical John Doe bucks the established research by publishing proof against dark matter, he is publishing in a vacuum. Prof. John Doe's work is marginal and therefore marginalized by Wikipedia. Clowe's work is mainstream and therefore reported by Wikipedia. --ScienceApologist 14:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
SA is quite right about verifiability vs. editorial judgement. However, I have to say I worry when editorial judgement of this type comes into dispute. Wikipedia needs sources for two reasons: one is to have attributions in the articles, but another reason is that it levels the playing field in editorial discussions. Inherently, experts on Wikipedia are not set above ordinary editors, but they may be more familiar with the subject in question. But experts have to prove themselves, just like anyone else. Fundamentally, Wikipedia is a community of equal editors. So, this is a good argument for WP:SCIENCE: in order to avoid having to rely on editorial judgement too heavily, we look for a higher standard of quality in sources for scientific topics, and where that doesn't exist, we should avoid covering the subject. Mangojuicetalk 15:11, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Let's not mix up NPOV and editorial judgment. As I said earlier, the statement in the introduction is incorrect concerning NPOV. I also said it may concern notability, so I'm not dismissing the point. But let's be accurate as editors.
  • The idea that a community has informal discussions which a particular editor may be aware, is worthless. It is not verifiable, nor attributable.
  • I know THREE different communities, all of whom have informal discussions, and promise peer reviewed papers that I could mention too. Also worthless.
  • An encyclopedia does not run on material gleaned from Chinese whispers via anonymous, unaccountable editors.
  • I had previously brought this up at the Neutrality Project, see "NPOV misunderstanding". They agree. A singular POV can be described in an NPOV manner. --Iantresman 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

NPOV is inherently based in editorial judgement. The only way that someone determines whether there is a problem with NPOV is by making an editorial judgement. That's why the {{POV}} tag comes with the wording it does. Disputes arise between editors over NPOV: if there was a singular editor there would never be NPOV issues from the standpoint of writing an article. While I agree with Mangojuice that editors are judged external to their status as "experts" (see ongoing conflicts over WP:EXPERT for example), the community doesn't deny the existence of experts either. No one is saying that the encyclopedia should be "run" on expert judgement or the whispers of whatever anonymous and unaccountable ethnic group, but people are saying that editors may come to the table with these concerns. That's the essence of the NPOV guideline: all the points-of-view are placed on the table and the marginalization happens per the outside community and references to the outside world. No one is saying that a singular POV cannot be described, but people are saying that singular POVs present unique difficulties when writing an encyclopedia that is supposed to be NPOV. --ScienceApologist 17:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Indeed, all the POVs are placed on the table. And if there is just one POV (because there is one WP:V/WP:RS/WP:A), then we can still write that POV so that it conforms to NPOV, regardless of whether you or I or anyone else agrees with the POV, and regardless of whether it is mainstream of pseudoscience.
  • In which case, the statement in the third paragraph that I described above, is incorrect. A view from a single researcher may fail a criteria, but there is no reason for it to fail NPOV; and if it does, any decent editor can re-write it so that it conforms to NPOV. --Iantresman 19:19, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
If there is only one notable POV, then sure, we write about it. In which case the statement in the third paragraph is correct. A view from a single research written about on Wikipedia does have editorial issues related to NPOV for the reasons delineated because the alternatives may exist but cannot be included without falling into original research. --ScienceApologist 19:23, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The statement is incorrect because a single POV does not fail NPOV unless it is written badly, in which case any competent editor can correct it. Sure, the statement may be allowed because it is notable. But it won't fail because of NPOV.
  • A single POV that has been published elsewhere does not not fail "Original research", because WP:NOR "refers to unpublished facts". (my emphasis) --Iantresman 19:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

You are missing the point. Perhaps I should post here the statement that you dispute:

Research published in a reputable publication passes these thresholds but reflects the point of view of one researcher or research term and, unless it generates a significant outside response by the scientific community or the population at large, focusing on such research in a Wikipedia article does not adequately conform to Wikipedia's policy on neutrality, in particular the section on undue weight.

You'll note that the point being made is that simply quoting published work is not good enough. Why isn't it good enough? Because unless the work in question has generated discussion it has not been vetted outside of Wikipedia to make it possible to write an article on the subject that adheres to the spirit and letter of NPOV. --ScienceApologist 20:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The POV of a single researcher in a single first-rate peer-reviewed publication, has normally been assessed by 2 or usually 3 independent scientists with a tendency to be ciritical. The assumption made by colleagues it that such results are correct unless proven otherwise. Are we supposed to be more critical of physics that he physicists who review for PRL? Then, if discussed by independent sources, as most scientific papers are, it is considered worth citing and commenting one. Reputable journals expect items listed as references to be relevant to the new work also. I'm a librarian. i think many articles in most library journals are basically trivial if not junk altogether.. But they are considered valuable by my colleagues in general, and its their trms that matter. I will judge by reporting theirs', not imposing my own.DGG 09:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The statement which I quoted above, is as follows:
"the point of view of one researcher or research term and, unless it generates a significant outside response by the scientific community or the population at large, fails NPOV"
A single POV may fail, or being accepted by some other criteria. But a single POV does not fail NPOV (unless an editor writes poorly).
  • To suggest that a statement based on a single POV, changes it's NPOV standing, depending on some other potential discussion whose view is yet to be determined, is illogical. --Iantresman 20:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

If your point is that someone can attribute a single point of view in a fashion that is NPOV, that is absolutely correct. However, not every attributable point can be written about in a neutral fashion. An example of a quote that may be non-neutral though properly attributed and sourced is given at WP:FRINGE#Sourcing and attribution. --ScienceApologist 00:01, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Since describing a single POV can be achieved in an NPOV fashion, then the description in the third paragraph is incorrect which says that a single POV without response fails NPOV.
  • Judging/assessing a single POV is another matter altogether. But just because there may be no attributable assessments, does not make the description of a single POV automatically fail NPOV. --Iantresman 00:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Did you even read the sourcing and attribution section of the fringe guideline? --ScienceApologist 00:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I am concentrating on this one sentence regarding NPOV. It is incorrect. --Iantresman 09:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
It isn't. This has been explained to you. You have ignored the explanation. Now I will ignore you. --ScienceApologist 15:08, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • And you wonder why other editors don't get on with you. Your lack of civility is disappointing. --Iantresman 17:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I now see that you've made changes to the sentence in question. It is unfortunately that while I had the courtesy to discuss the matter with yourself and other editors, you didn't. --Iantresman 17:55, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree with the demand that not only must something be said in a respected peer reviewed journal, but that we must wait for other independent researchers to chime in, in OTHER respected peer reviewed journals, and agree with the first researcher that the claim is valid. The first post would constitute a reliable source satisfying WP:ATT and would be usable in a Wikipedia article. Similarly a book from a respected publisher would constitute a reliable source, without waiting for some other authority to write another book that says "I agree with the first book." The demand places the bar way too high. It may be years before someone completely independent of the first researcher publishes the demanded blessing of the first researcher's claim. Edison 20:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notability for non-science, fringe and pseudoscience

Are there criteria for such topics ? Would be particularly useful since any objection to these topics is considered as POV. Shyamal 10:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say, you're looking at it. (When you look at the project page, that is.) There's also WP:FRINGE which isn't a notability criterion page. Mangojuicetalk 19:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Schmidt Sting Pain Index

Can some of you knowledgable and discerning scientist Wikipedians take a look at this please? This article has currently been getting some coverage in popular "gee whiz funny link of the day... how goofy!" type blogs ( I hate it when this happens and the article in question is dubious... I think it gives a bad impression of wikipedia), but it seems to be mainly based on the idea that this one insect scientist guy wrote some goofy comments for an insect sting pain index one day. Ok, I agree that insect scientists are allowed to have senses of humour (WITHIN LIMITS, for the sake of us all), but I am concerned that 1) this scale is not really widespread and may be just one scale promoted by one guy without much acceptance in the insect expert community. 2) the pdf article linked which this wikipedia entry seems to be based on does not seem to say that Schmidt actually wrote those goofy comments. Its a bit ambiguous, but its seems to say that "the media" (without specifying what media) came up with the goofy comments to append to Schmidt's original dry scale(I think this may be another case where people exaggerate or misinterpret what an article is saying). I dont have any access to science journal databases, and am certainly no science or insect expert. But these concerns and quick scans of google books and google scholar led me to bring this issue to wiser heads. Thanks very much for checking this out. 88.109.1.60 16:34, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I would think you need to get an insect experts to comment; even specialists disagree among each other.
  • It reminds me a bit of the Scoville scale which measures the hotness of chillis --Iantresman 18:17, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I've often wondered whether or not this belongs here (not enough to send to AfD though). The index exists, and the silly language is taken directly from the source; it isn't some Wikipedia editor having a good time. The index also has been mentioned in popular science pubs; though it doesn't appear to be taken seriously by scientists. A scientifically-based pain index would be interesting (though I decline any offers to participate in such research); both this and the related Starr index appear to be little more than the opinions of the bug guys in question. The article certainly dances on the edge of notability. --EngineerScotty 05:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I would say its notability is questionable and, if the article is to be included in Wikipedia, would have to derive from exposure in the media. --ScienceApologist 13:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That sounds like very much like the Ig-Nobel stuff that usually gets some traction in the press. Quick search gives a mention in the Straight Dope. I don't have any problems with it. Again, our job isn't to evaluate the scientific merit, but the total response to scientific ideas. ~ trialsanderrors 18:57, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So...

It's been a few weeks. I don't see much of a recent dispute here, so I was wondering if the disagreement has been resolved? >Radiant< 13:44, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

  • I don't think that lack of discussion demonstrates lack of dissention, just waning energy levels and good weather. --Kevin Murray 17:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Quite possibly. That's why I'm asking if it has been resolved :) I take it from your comment that you believe it hasn't been yet? Anything in particular you think is still needed? >Radiant< 08:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
      • No one has even responded to my points about the misguided nature of the specific criteria. Without that, I really don't think we can assume things are "resolved." Mangojuicetalk 18:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I think that 1 & 2 are just redundant restatment of what is already clear at WP:N; anything which would pass those tests would pass under the general criterion -- why confuse the issuse? 4,5,6, & 7 discuss either the history of science or present fasle science. Legitimate history (science or otherwise) has never been in dispute at WP and is not pertinent to this guideline. False science either in fiction or in periodicals is either pertinent to the fiction guidline or should not be recognized in a legitimate encylopedia. --Kevin Murray 18:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
          • Forget WP:N, it has no basis here. If it's "redundant", good - this is what governs science articles, not WP:N. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Ok, once again, in case anyone can actually respond on my point: the list of criteria here seems to be a misguided attempt to define reasons for notability that no one brings up in debates. If the issue was the over-deletion of science articles, having these criteria would make sense. But it seems to me that the main thrust of this proposal is in the opposite direction. These are just fodder for disagreement (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sorce theory for instance) and distract from the main point about the POV and OR issues involved in using only sources from a single author. Mangojuicetalk 03:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
              • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Electric universe (concept) seems to establish the need for a reliable set of criteria so that long-winded nominations and discussions (such as those engaged in with User:Iantresman) can be avoided. This was part of the reason the arbcomm asked for these criteria in the first place at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Pseudoscience. ScienceApologist 04:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
                • Good: a direct response. Two brief points: (1) Arbcom never asked for criteria, but they did encourage developing a guideline, which is different. (2) The EU deletion debate looks very different to me - there, the argument was done from first principles and it worked very nicely, and it skirted around the edge of these criteria (no one ever talked about whether the EU concept was "textbook science" or had institutional support)... and as for extended discussions with Iantresman... I don't think the criteria will make one bit of difference, and that's not a very good reason anyway. Long-winded debate... I don't think we should seek to avoid it as a general principle, debate is a good thing. Criteria would simplify the job but scientific topics aren't exactly overwhelming the AfD lists. Anyway, as I said before, criteria would do better at simplifying the job if they were negative criteria instead of positive ones. Mangojuicetalk 04:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] General notability guideline template

Since the general notability guideline is central to most sub-pages, someone came up with the idea of creating a centralized template which will be consistent among the permutations from WP:N. Please see whether we can make this work here. The text is meant to be fairly generic, but it may make sense to add text following the template for fine tuning, or help us to make the template more applicable if it is not reflecting the consensus for notability. I certainly didn't get everything that I wanted, but I'm very happy to see the compromises that make this a fairly representive of the attitude of the project. --Kevin Murray 01:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merging Wikipedia:Notability (numbers)

What are the thoughts on merging Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) into this guideline proposal? --Kevin Murray 19:15, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I've added a brief section which is the meat from the numbers guideline. This seems appropriately and neatly combined here. --Kevin Murray 16:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

  • It's a bad idea, as explained on the talk page of WP:NUM. >Radiant< 08:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope creep

I may be beating a dead horse here, but all the references to NPOV, proponents and advocacy make it seem like this is about pseudoscience/fringe science, and the discussion above seems to confirm it. As it tries to apply to specialised but uncontroversial science, not much of it bears any resemblance to reality. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 02:29, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposal concerns (LV)

Note that I came here from a couple of AfDs which were trying to present this as policy criteria for an article's deleltion. As I read down the line, I encountered several problems with the proposed guideline. I apologize if any and all of the below have been covered in the Talk Archives, which I am not going to read now.

Problems that I have at present with the proposal:

  • Introduction:
  • "A topic that is acceptable under this guideline is an appropriate part of Wikipedia."
Pretty sweeping blanket statement, to me. No other Notability criteria I'm aware of suggests that "if it passes this, it's in." Indeed, it seems to violate the principle of a Guideline to me, which always limits itself to allow potential exceptions. Further, each section usually defines which criteria are primary and which are secondary.
  • Notability of topics related to science:
  • "Decisions about including or excluding material must always reflect the opinions of outside authorities, not those of Wikipedia editors."
I know this has been mentioned above, but I want to echo this concern: Decisions about including or excluding material must always reflect the consensus of the Wikipedia editors. Anything else beyond that is helpful clarification, or it becomes fodder for people to WP:IAR.
I'd feel much more comfortable with something like, "Deicions about including or excluding material on a scientific basis ought to be supported by the opinions and stated facts of outside authorities, as per Wikpedia:Reliable Sources." Start throwing 'musts' around in anything but policy (perhaps only unbreakable/unmodifiable policy) and you'll get a lot of irate editors, scientific or not.
  • "Although publication creates verifiability and reputable journals are reliable sources, publication by itself is not a sufficient (and sometimes not necessary) standard for encyclopedic notability. Unpublished research fails no original research and often lacks verifiability, so it is unacceptable by policy. Research published in a reputable publication passes these thresholds but reflects the point of view of one researcher or research term and, unless it generates a significant outside response by the scientific community or the population at large, focusing on such research in a Wikipedia article does not adequately conform to Wikipedia's policy on neutrality, in particular the section on undue weight. This guideline clarifies how the Wikipedia community has applied NPOV to articles on scientific topics. It does however not apply to the inclusion of scientific research as authorative sources within articles. The criterion for such sources is not that they are notable, but that they are reliable."
Wha? Could this be any more complex? I actually had to diagram this paragraph out to understand it. My hypothesis is most editors will not. Can't you simply say it is normally necessary to follow the general notability guidelines with respect to neutral, multiple, independent, verifiabile, reliable sources? And if you do that, what is the point of this whole section - I'm seriously not understanding how this adds anything to present guidelines.
  • Criteria / General
  • "1. Widely cited. Papers covering the topic have been widely1 commented on in academic writing within the topic's field.
2. Outside notability. The topic is notable due to significant coverage in reliable sources outside of academic publications."
So we want articles only commented upon widely by multiple academic sources, which also are commented on outside academic sources? Seems pretty wide, to me.
Aside from that, I know I read somewhere that Wikipedia is not just a general encyclopedia, but can cover articles appropriate to special subject encyclopedias as well. Thus 2. might well fail, as most specialist encyclopedias I am aware of have many articles which would only be known inside the discipline the encyclopedia represents.
  • "Notable topics which are primarily non-scientific... [etc.]"
Boy, I'm going to love the AfDs which try to define whether a topic is "science" or not trying to use this. Not to mention the arguments you'll get whether or not cosmology (for example) has a scientific basis or not. Not to mention you're setting up a criteria which is so subjective it will rarely-if-ever be able to objectively define where this guideline would be relevant or not.
Also, you will get editors asking whether the guideline itself applies or not - something I don't think I've ever seen with any of the other specialty N's about the guideline itself. I don't need to know if Burpa-Cola has been covered in the Cola News and CNN, or if Billy Bob Arthbutnott has both parlimentary opinions as well as the Sun documenting his career to know that Corp or People:Politicians applies.
  • Scientific terms
Again, how does this get beyond neologisms in a way that Avoid Neologisms doesn't, aside from adding the words "scientific literature"?
  • Numbers and Sources
  • "1. Have professional mathematicians published papers on this topic?
2. Is the sequence listed in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences? (In the case of sequences of rational numbers, does the OEIS have the sequences of numerators and denominators of the relevant fractions?)
3. Do MathWorld and PlanetMath have articles on this topic?"
This may be taken from WProj numbers, I don't know. But are you stipulating that 2 and 3 are reliable sources? (The Sources section has exactly this same problem. You're controlling what is considered a Reliable Source without allowing the Wikipedia community at large to define that. I have a problem with that - if I were arguing Notability(Religion), I would not want it to say that the Bible is an authorized source and any other 'holy' texts by default would have to prove themselves.)
  • Sources
  • "Scientific discovery is often disconnected from public discourse, so standard methods of sourcing and verifying are not always applicable. A scientific topic which yields low hit counts in the Google test..."
That's nice. The Google test is widely regarded as discredited anyway. Yes, I know it's still used, but it's questionability is known.
Also, verifying and sourcing is verfying and sourcing. I believe what's being aimed at here is scientific notability may have a smaller and different base (with different types of sourcing) for inclusion than other forms of notability. So why not say that? Except that above you're demanding 'popular' coverage as well as academic.
  • "Web (and library) searches should therefore be evaluated based on the quality rather than the quantity of the finds."
Thus, you allow extreme subjectivity creep, unless you are going to make further instruction creep in what constitutes scientific quality. (My Jung is better than your Freud. My Hawking beats your Einstein. My t test is better than your bean counting.) Common sense might be able to dictate that, but science is full of periods of flying in the face of qualitative common sense and succeeding - because it's right.
  • "The following is a list of sources with qualifications of their usefulness."
Again, you're preaching what is and isn't acceptable as a source, without allowing the community consensus to decide this over time.
  • "Google, Yahoo.... [etc]"
Uh, again, how is this any different from Google test?

Finally, may I invite you to consider that most notability guidelines are much less complex and much more tolerant of letting individual cases be decided as individual cases? And I hope that the question about "Have we reached consensus?" is asking if you as the editors have reached consensus about what you want to present to the community as a whole, as opposed to "Are we ready to make this policy ourselves?"

It may seem like I'm pissing all over your proposal. I hope it doesn't, because I'd like to see a Notability(Science) guideline. But I want it to be one that's usable and used - I wouldn't do either with this, and I'd argue as need be when someone tries to use this as a vote justification (which will happen, whether you want it to or not.) Sorry for the length of the diatribe. LaughingVulcan 01:36, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is this needed?

What does this page do that isn't already done by WP:N, WP:RS, WP:V, Wikipedia:Fringe theories, and so on? — Omegatron 04:21, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Not much. --Kevin Murray 04:54, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
This page is arguably the better title at least for Wikipedia:Fringe theories. I'd suggest merging the two. >Radiant< 11:45, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe a merge to Wikipedia:Fringe science? Or does "Fringe theories" apply to other types of "theories" as well? — Omegatron 23:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Not to my knowledge. I don't mind either name. >Radiant< 09:20, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
I prefer some mention of "fringe" or "pseudo". As I say above, I don't believe this has much to do with current practice with respect to obscure or specialised but uncontroversial science. --Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri 15:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rejected

It seems that this has died and is properly rejected. --Kevin Murray 10:23, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Good, scientific notability determines only whether a subject is well-known scientifically, not whether it is notable for an encyclopedia. --216.155.0.100 19:48, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The rejected tag is appropriate and should stand until there is adequate discussion here to demonstrate active interest in the proposal. As suggested by the policy, a proposal which has failed to gain support is better off rewritten and reintroduced as a new proposal. --Kevin Murray 13:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Support or rejection for this proposal

It looks like a number of the contributors here are no longer active at WP: Lantreman ws banned, BDJ and Science Appologist have quit, Minder Binder, Abu-Fool Danyal ibn Amir al-Makhiri, and Laughing Vulcan have not contributed substantially since June and at all since mid-July. Trials and Errors and Radiant are advocating reinstating this as a proposal, but I don't think that there are enough editors who see this as a need. It seems that WP:N should suffice. --Kevin Murray 14:47, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm not advocating anything, I'm merely pointing out that this page is not an essay. >Radiant< 14:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree. It seems that essay is becoming a euphemism for rejected proposal. --Kevin Murray 14:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Yep. Here's another one. It's becoming increasingly common that people want to obfuscate the fact that the community doesn't like their ideas. >Radiant< 15:40, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • What I see now is something that is so watered down and nebulous that it cannot act as a genuine policy. If people want to revive this effort, then we need to return to a version like this one and work from there. IMO, what happenned to this effort is that a number of people whose pet articles were running afoul of this proposed policy chose to get involved with the blatant intent to sabotage it and remove its impact on their work, and unfortunately succeeded in doing so.
    IMO, there is a genuine need for a policy like this to clarify what "notability" and "verifiability" mean in the context of a science article, and how WP:UNDUE should be applied. It may be that this is an issue that is best handled by the admins with the advice and consent of the community so that we can avoid the pitfalls of the past. --EMS | Talk 15:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I see, if not frequent, so at least recurrent use of this guideline/proposed guideline/essay, very much in keeping with the rather low number of science-related AfD discussions. Absence of discussion on the talk page certainly doesn't establish rejection. I agree with EMS that the two-item version is watered down beyond recognition of the original version, and I don't see any consensus for it. ~ trialsanderrors 16:07, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines: "A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there is active discussion or not. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. It is considered bad form to hide this fact, e.g. by removing the tag. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction." --Kevin Murray 16:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that a lot of work has gone into turning this into something that everyone can reject. I have now reverted the article back to a more robust form, and hope that the process of making it a serious part of Wikpedia's policies and guidelines can now recomemnce. --EMS | Talk 18:27, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted to earlier version

I have reverted the article to the form of lat March, with some twaking of the lead and the first section. The revised first section now has a simple first paragraph that states the need to this policy as succinctly as I can. The next two paragraphs have had their order exchanged so that the farily dry "relevance" paragraph comes last. The previous last paragraph has been removed as an unreadable mess. (I believe I drafted that paragraph originally, but it really never worked as intended, and only got worse over time.)

The {{rejected}} tag has been kept as a matter of form, with the {{proposed}} tag just commented out but still present. I for one would be happy to see this version go back to "proposed" status, but I want to see if others are on-board for doing that. Let's just say that after having taken a rest, I am ready and willing to work towards acceptance of a functional version of this as a policy or guideline if others are. --EMS | Talk 18:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't see a lot of point reviving this. The criteria have always been an attempt to change practice rather than an attempt to document practice, and to most people, the criteria and the proposal are one and the same. The criteria really haven't caught on, and from my experience, people rely on other policies for scientific topics, like WP:OR and WP:V, and where notability is needed, the general WP:N seems to be sufficient and its use is accepted. Mangojuicetalk 23:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Having looked more closely at the edit history, I find that your attempt to streamline this two two items has met fairly stiff resistance. Then again, that is little wonder since your proposed consolidation ends up being little more than a restatement of pre-existing policy. The goal of this proposal is to set up guidelines that go beyond the current policies and which are adapted to the issues which are unique to science. Wikiepdia has very much outgrown "No original research" and the requirement to use peer reviewed journals. What do you do with a source that is "peer reviewed" but where the peers are fellow followers of a fringe theory? What do you do about the use of Nature magazine, which is highly respected but does not use peer review to help select its articles? What do you make of a theory published in a respected scientific journals but on which noone has cared to comment except the author? What do you do with the cold fusion controversy created by Pons and Fleishman back in 1987 which obviously is notable within science but which was never respected by it? There will not be many of these to contend with, but when they do appear this guideline will be invaluable.
Please excuse my comment here, but the article content of Nature is peer reviewed. Like some other journals, it has on rare occasions published things based on consensus of the key editors, without formal peer review. The news content is not, of course, just editorially prepared -- by the most careful people around. It was they who caught the similarity of the stem cell photos after the peer reviewers missed it. DGG (talk) 22:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You like to cite Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sorce theory as a place where this guideline did not work. For that I solidly disagree. That article's creator had to play all kinds of games with these criteria to make a case for keeping the article. In the end, his attempts to make the article look acceptable only helped to do it in. In context this is a farly powerful tool. In addition, it is not going to do in fringe science articles. For example, I helped by have an aritcle on a book by Halton Arp kept because it was noted within the field of astronomy and also gained some measure of attention from the public at large. That press coverage (both scientific and popular) could establish notability as described here was helpful in that discussion. --EMS | Talk 01:03, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
You might note that my reduction to two criteria stood for over two months without comment. You may also note that coverage by press and by scientific sources were the criteria I left in place, since those are the only part of the criteria that are useful. What I object to are the other criteria, like "textbook science" or "popular belief" that are redundant and provide loopholes for argumentative POV pushers. Can you hypothesize an example where a topic is "textbook science" or has a "prominent advocate" or has "institutional support" where the topic would be acceptable for Wikipedia without significant coverage in independent, reliable sources, academic or otherwise? Mangojuicetalk 01:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I am not sure whether I agree with you or not. I certainly think that there are science articles that are best referenced by standard textbooks, particularly for articles that are at the level of high school or early university science. For example, we probably do not want to source a peer reviewed journal on density and we do not. Are textbooks reliable sources? If so we do not need to mention "textbook science", but if they are not, we probable do. --Bduke 03:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason why a textbook would not be normally regarded as a reliable source. Mangojuicetalk 03:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I see no need to leave such things as "texstbook science" implicit. I think that you have a point on items three and four, but to go any further is to leave this as saying little more that WP:N does. --EMS | Talk 03:29, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
As for the other criteria: you agree on 3 and 4. 6 is totally pointless, because none of the criteria would expire once met. 7 obviously must require sourcing to back it up or it's totally vacuous and anyone could claim it about anything. And anything discussed in a legitimate textbook is already covered in a reliable source, and I highly doubt that we'd ever find a case where one textbook mentions a topic but absolutely no other sources do. Yeah, I agree, if we pare it any further, the criteria say nothing more than WP:N does.. so maybe we should lose the criteria altogether, or just spend more time explaining the issues that arise in assessing the quality of sources, especially academic ones. Mangojuicetalk 04:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) I think that you have just made an excellent suggestions in calling for an explanation of how to assess the reliability and relevance of sources. Given some of the issues I have had recently with the anti-relativists over at talk:Herbert Dingle, this makes a lot of sense. (In those discussions, at least one person would take anything that he could find from a "peer reviewed journal" as evidence of a conflict over relativity and the twin paradox. Said contributions come from almost unknown overseas journals and in another case a blatantly anti-relativity publisher.) I would still keep the remaining criteria as a way of saying that those things are the primary hallmarks of scientific notability, while noting that other options for notability are not prohibited. --EMS | Talk 15:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe that's better, but I still think we should remove the criteria. The problem is, people always seem to conflate a notability guideline and its criteria, while all other text is ignored. By not having criteria, we would force people to read the discussion about the reliability of scientific sources. (Actually, come to think about it, "Notability (science)" may not be the best name. What about "Reliable sources (scientific)"?) Mangojuicetalk 15:57, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
The criteria don't exist for the benefit of those that would abuse them but instead for the benefit of those that are looking for good guidance on what is acceptable. The creator of an article will invariably try to defend it against an AfD. IMO, if the article's creator can make a case that their article is acceptable under this criteria and everyone agrees, then these criteria have done a service in helping people to make that decision. Similarly, if people listen to the creator's case and conclude that it does not hold water, then the criteria will also have helped by focussing the debate on the relevant issues and helping to bring about the deletion. So as I see it these criteria overall are helpful. Besides, it really is in the absense of clear guidelines that you get the nastiest debates. --EMS | Talk 19:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I dunno. It sounds to me like you want to simply rewrite this proposal without making it really different from what it was before. I would rather see us either change direction significantly or just give up. But who knows, maybe it'll catch on this time. Mangojuicetalk 00:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

(a) Notability, (b) reliability of a source, and (b) reliable of the facts in that source, are all quite different, and tell us how to describe information, not whether to include it. If Arp publishes some information in an obscure overseas publications, and Stephen Hawkins in in Nature, Arp's supporters will find his article more notable, and no less reliable. And if Hawkins is described in a textbook, then it tells us that his ideas have a wider readership, and neither are as popular as today's astrology column. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.244.165.174 (talk) 17:34, August 21, 2007 (UTC)

See WP:UNDUE. Halton Arp's supporters today are an extremely limited minority, while Stephen Hawking and much of his research are well respected both scientifically and popularly. Wikipedia is not an indicriminate collector of information, and under WP:N, a lack of notability is a proper reason for removing an article from Wikipedia. --EMS | Talk 17:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Undue weight tells us that minority views can receive attention on pages specifically devoted to them because Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia (subject to WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR). The WP:NOTABLE guideline is an inclusion criterion, not exclusion. Jimbo says that the criterion for inclusion is verifiability.[16]. Why else do we have a 1000 articles on a 1000 pieces of space rock, few of which are notable, let alone any more notable than each other? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 77.181.151.201 (talk) 19:29, August 21, 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, it times we quoted that more exactly--it's 1100, and working on the other 99%. DGG (talk) 22:18, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
    • "Why else do we have a 1000 articles on 1000 pieces of space rock?" ← Space rocks have no ego, so they rarely write articles about themselves. Wikipedia is an attention-driven encyclopedia, and that might be its biggest advantage over its rivals. But as soon as it becomes an attention-seeker-driven encyclopedia, we have a problem. ~ trialsanderrors 03:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
No articles have egos, and neither do they "seek" attention. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.229.247.229 (talk) 09:49, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Abandon this as an unnecessary complication

Whether a peer review journal, a textbook, a popular book, a university hosted website or a notable persons personal site is sufficiently reliable, reputable, or secondary is probably best treated on a case by case basis, and in any case this is not a problem specific to science.

Are there any controversial articles that are better treated by Notability (science) than by WP:NOR, WPV, and WP:N? I think not. I think there are too many guidelines, especially where they overlap. True science should only need to satisfy WP:NOR and WP:V. Where the subject is not true science, or is borderline, a further test should be simply whether others have written about it. WP:N provides this test. A lot of work has been invested in this project page, but that is not sufficient reason to adopt it. It is rule creep, and it does damage by obfuscating more important policies and guidelines.

There seems to be tendency here for some to want a guideline to provide a science-quality test. This is not an encyclopaedia’s role. The ascribing of “Finge science”, “pseudo science” or “lunacy” to any theory is a job for third party sources, not for wikipedia rules.

EMS suggests that some nasty debates exist because of the weakness of this guideline. Some elaboration would be nice. Discussion above suggests to me that the relativity article needs work, not that wikipedia needs more rules.

This project page should be abandoned. Science is well covered by WP:OR and WP:V, and where notability is needed, the general WP:N seems to be sufficient and its use is accepted. --SmokeyJoe 02:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

There's a simple drawback to your proposal, and that's if we abandon this complication the complications arise, over and over again, at deletion discussions. And if you think NOR/V/N do the job of bringing clarity to science-related deletion discussions you can't possibly have partaken in many of them. ~ trialsanderrors 03:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Is there an easy way to watch for science-related deletion discussions? --SmokeyJoe 05:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science, but there does not seem to be as many editors watching AfD and adding to this page as with other deletion sorting pages. --Bduke 05:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
There is also Category:AfD debates (Science and technology). ~ trialsanderrors 05:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
OK. I looked at them. It seems to me that there aren’t very many, and none of them are really science issues. Science is merely involved. It’s always about sourcing, specifically whether the sources are sufficiently independent, sufficiently secondary, sufficiently reputable (not a blog or similar), or covers the subject in sufficient depth. These are all straight WP:N issues, deriving directly from a combination of WP:NOR and WP:V. There is plenty of evidence of spirited debate in places about the science of the content involved, and this sometimes is uncivil, but such spirited debate seems to me to be irrelevant to the debates, and always a symptom of editors who are too far into OR editing and are not looking at the subject objectively. This is why Notability (science) may do more harm than good. It suggests that there is something special about science. The criteria for inclusion in wikipedia do not depend upon the science. Its about the existence of sources, and what those sources say. --SmokeyJoe 08:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with T&E that NOR/V/N do not bring clarity to these debates. But it is probably too much to hope for that future debates on issues like these, which are complex and which involve passionate people, are ever going to be truly clear with the right set of rules. The best we can hope for is to provide certain perspectives and information that will be important in many of these debates, in a well-written way. Mangojuicetalk 03:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Science related deletion debates are often driven by strong proponents and opponents, both camps usally with prior knowledge of the topic. What we need for a fair decision is the judgement of previously uninvolved editors, who have to make sense of the contrarian arguments by the warring parties. That's what the guideline is for, to create some ground rules for "normal" editors get up to speed on the various dimensions of scientific notability and the various ways to gauge them, so that they don't created ad hoc during the discussion. ~ trialsanderrors 04:26, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree. If we really want to help outside editors get up to speed, we should take a pretty hands-off approach, where we present the difficulties concisely and clearly, and let people make their own judgements - for complex situations, we really can't do better than that anyway... and with a short, clear presentation, people are more likely to actually read the text and understand it. Mangojuicetalk 04:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.

WP:V and WP:RS determine whether an article goes into Wikipedia. WP:NOTABLE is superfluous, perhaps determining the extent of the subject's notability. And WP:SCI is even more superfluous, determining the extent of a subject's scientific notability. We don't need WP:NOTABLE, let alone WP:SCI. If there is an argument for WP:SCI, then we need WP:ASTEROID (asteroid notability), WP:GALAXY (galaxy notability), WP:CHEMICAL, etc etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.229.247.229 (talk) 09:55, August 22, 2007 (UTC)

  • This is really not the place for the perennial fallacy that "we don't need notability". Please take that complaint some place else. >Radiant< 08:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't tell other editors what to do, it's rude. Discussion is encouraged. The editor did not say we did not need notability, but that WP:V with WP:RS is an adequate indicator of notability; and WP:NOTABLE means we don't need WP:SCI. 1000 articles on a 1000 pieces of rock seems to demonstrate that. Jimbo says that the criterion for inclusion is verifiability,[17] WP:NOTABLE tells us how notable something is, a quality of a subject we may want to mention.
  • Want me to count the number of fallacies you've made in that short statement? Or to point out that Jimbo's four-year-old statement is exceedingly irrelevant? >Radiant< 11:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
How old must a statement be, before it becomes "irrlevent" and then "exceeding irrelevent"? is there a different sliding scale for statement from people other than Jimbo Wales? Are all four-year-old statements "exceeding irrelevent"... such as Jimbo's declaring that NPOV is "absolute and non-negotiable.[18], or do you consider some of Jimbo's statements more notable than others? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.75.164.176 (talk) 13:43, August 23, 2007 (UTC)
I cannot access either of these statements, which automatically makes to suspiscious of these claims. However, this is the first time in my 2+ years here at Wikipedia that I have heard anyone claim that Jimbo does not approve of notability as a criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia. Certainly verifiability comes first, but (for example) you can easily verify that Edward Schaefer (myself) exists, yet any attempt to create an article on myself will be promptly removed due to lack of notability, and without any disapproval from Jimbo. At the least, it seems to me that Jimbo's attitude of 2003 on this issue (when he may have been looking to grow Wikipedia) is not necessarily applicable to 2007 with Wikipedia now having almost 2,000,000 articles in English!
As for the snide remarks about possible WP:ASTEROID, WP:GALAXY and WP:CHEMICAL notability pages: I suspect that those are coming in time, if they are not already needed. --EMS | Talk 14:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
WP:V by itself is insufficient, and requires suitable reliable sources per WP:RS. Jimbo wrote that "'verifiability' has long been accepted as a decision rule."[19] And in a discussion titled "Notability/Historical/Fame and importance", Jimbo wrote: "- 'fame' and 'importance' are not the right words to use, they are merely rough approximations to what we're really interested in, which is verifiability and NPOV [..] Consider an obscure scientific concept, 'Qubit Field Theory' [..] What is it that makes this encyclopedic? It is that it is information which is verifiable and which can be easily presented in an NPOV fashion."[20]
We're getting off topic. First off, Jimbo's comment isn't really on point, because he was discussing general inclusion criteria, not specifically those for scientific topics. Second, in any case, the criteria here are pretty much what Jimbo was proposing anyway: ability to write verifiable and NPOV articles. I have long opposed the term notability, but notability has in many cases come to mean the same thing as verifiability from reliable sources, and Jimbo surely was not opposing that as an inclusion criteria. Mangojuicetalk 17:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. WP:V + WP:RS = Notability. And I believe that consequently, notability per se, is superfluous. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.149.28.102 (talk) 17:20, August 23, 2007 (UTC)
  • Soapboxing, propaganda based on a misinterpretation of Jimbo's words, and again irrelevant. Can we get back to the topic at hand, please? >Radiant< 08:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page, such as the current discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.