Wikipedia talk:Notability (web)
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[edit] Did I boil WP:WEB down too far with this?
[1] or is that a reasonable test? Thanks! - Richfife 15:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- As a test, that sounds way too subjective to me and I don't think it's backed up by the current WP:WEB. After all, a niche site may well get attention from niche publications, which would satisfy WP:N as well as WP:WEB. Whether or not it is well known or being on Wikipedia would raise its profile is irrelevant.Chunky Rice 16:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
- Looking at the whole discussion, though, what you're talking about is better covered by Wikipedia's external link policy (WP:EL), than WP:WEB.Chunky Rice 16:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
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- Thanks! - Richfife 16:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Trivial references
Aren't criteria 1 and 3 largely redundant? That could be worded better. DreamGuy 20:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] What about software? What about programs?
Several WP editors lately have been speedy deleting articles on software and programs based on CSD:A7 criteria, non-notability. I believe this is a misreading or corruption of the guidelines for notability, resulting in the loss of valuable articles and valuable data. Once speedy deleted, the original articles are not even available for reconstruction or review. Some of these articles required extensive work to enter into WP in the first place.
And most of the time the editors doing this speedy deletion are completely ignorant of the subject area and use bogus criteria for citing the need for speedy deletion. In a recent case (Tranche (software)), this very guideline here was cited -- the program in question is used by biology researchers internationally for trading data, and the program is freely distributed over the web. The editor who decided on his own that the topic was non-notable and therefore subject to speedy deletion later stated:
- In this case, it didn't seem that notability had been asserted when I CSD'd it and also it seemed to me to be web content. (The guideline says that any content which is distributed solely on the internet is considered ... as web content.)
The comment above linked to WP:WEB, which is this guideline article.
What about software? What about programs? Your guideline says nothing about these, especially with regard to software or programs that are distributed via the web or operate on the web. What you do say is:
- Web content includes, but is not limited to, webcomics, podcasts, blogs, Internet forums, online magazines and other media, web portals and web hosts. Any content which is distributed solely on the internet is considered, for the purposes of this guideline, as web content.
This says nothing about programs or software that are distributed and/or run on the web.
Do software packages and programs fall under these web notability guidelines? And if so, what should be the guideline with regard to speedy delete vis-a-vis CSD:A7? I favor never ever tagging any software package or program with speedy delete, always tagging with AfD. One of the major reasons for this is that the editors here are often too ignorant of the field... being a user of the web or of software products does not make you an expert of the entire field... and the field is changing and evolving at an increasing pace.
The irony of all of this of course is that Wikipedia itself is software/program that is distributed by and run on the web. - 69.235.255.45 11:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
The editors have completely ruined wikipedia. Their goal is not to be helpful but instead simply tag everything with speedy delete, especially when it comes to items they are completely ignorant of. The main objective is to get articles deleted instead of getting notable items properly sourced and formated. I am completely and underly disgusted with these over zealous egomaniacs. They have shunned any dissenting opinions only accepting ideas that come from people who have homogenized them self to the group. The entire editorial group on wikipedia has a serious case of group think and its driving would be contributors away. But who cares about adding new things to wiki and making it better when we can all go out and give each other barn stars. I have actually seen the editors cheering each other on about how many articles they managed to get deleted per day. Disgusting. Zynkin 22:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Because their rule is that, anything unknown and ambiguous, must be deleted. One Editor deleted my article on Matlan Marjan, the scorer of 2 goals against England, because he does not know what football is, and that England is a international team.
I finally managed to get it listed, but it is like teaching a child about basic knowledge.
If their command of language is good, it is a different story altogether. While arguing that my blog cannot be used as reference, he allowed the deletion of many other legitimate references and text based on these references.
By right, editors should be limited to the fields that they are good at. They must be verified on their expertise on particular areas. For example, non Malaysian editors should not be allowed to delete any Malaysian topics, especially speedy deletion. Non biologist editors should not be allowed to delete any biology article. Othmanskn (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Podcast Awards
Are the Podcast Awards so notable that being nominated for one meets the requirements for an article about a podcast to be kept as notable? Corvus cornix 20:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
- While it's rather subjective, I'd say yes based on substantial spillover notability. --xDanielxTalk 08:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
- No, the Podcast Awards article itself has no reputable third-party references. -- Dragonfiend 15:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Wha???
It says my page 75bg is under speedy deletion. I don't think it should be deleted. It's an important topic. I don't care that it's a web page, it doesn't JUST talk about what the site has to offer. It talks about its achievements and history, all of which is totally important. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joeblowss1 (talk • contribs) 03:24, August 20, 2007 (UTC).
[edit] A question about Foldoc
Mrzaius has tagged this article as lacking notability. Since I think it's notable, I read this guideline to be sure I get my evidence straight. And now I have a question.
When I run a Google Scholar search on "foldoc", I get 937 hits. That's a large number of hits on this fairly restrictive search engine, in my experience. But when I look for an article about foldoc, I come up mostly empty. Ok, I haven't checked all 937 references yet. I don't suppose I will because it would take too long. But I have looked at quite a few of them.
Many of the g-hits use foldoc as reference material. That is, they refer the reader to this free internet dictionary for an authoritative definition of a possibly unfamiliar term. This is not the same thing as making foldoc the subject of a scholarly article. But to me, this sort of usage is even more significant than an academic study of foldoc itself. If authors of scientific articles published in refereed journals use a web site as a reference, isn't that sufficient evidence that the web resource is notable?
So that's my question. I think this guideline is too restrictive. Foldoc is clearly notable, in my opinion, but I'm not sure how it can qualify under this guideline as it stands. Comments? Suggestions? Thanks! DavidCBryant 18:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
- No, being used as a source is not more significant than being the topic of an article. FOLDOC is the topic of about a third of March 6, 1995 "THE ON-RAMP" column by Larry R. Moffitt in The Washington Times on Pg. C15. It covers the basics ""The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC)" by Denis Howe ... is 'a searchable dictionary of acronyms, jargon, programming language, tools, architecture, operating systems . . . in fact anything to do with computing.' Started 10 years ago, it now contains 8,237 definitions, cross-referenced, and is frequently updated as users supply new words." Prasanna Raman of Computimes in Malaysia also wrote on January 13, 2003 on Pg. 26: "The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing ... is a searchable dictionary of acronyms, jargons, programming languages, tools, operating systems, networking, theories, conventions, standards, mathematics, electronics, institutions, companies - in fact, anything to do with computing. The dictionary, under the copyright of its editor, Dennis Howe, has been growing since 1985 and now has over 13,000 definitions totalling nearly five megabytes of text." Adding those references about the topic ought to help. --Dragonfiend 22:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Non-web forums?
Do/should these criteria apply to online sites in general, in particular, Usenet newsgroups? I ask because of the many Usenet newsgroups which have articles (see List of newsgroups and Category:Newsgroups), without having obvious notability. alt.atheism is currently up for deletion, but there appears to be no consensus yet for newsgroups in general? Mdwh 22:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
- This guideline is pretty much common sense: Notability equals information on the importance of the subject from referenced sources. Yes, you can apply it to Usenet newsgroups or other Internet forums. --Dragonfiend 23:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
- What Dragonfriend said. Alternatively, you can look at the guideline for organisations, which says pretty much the same thing. >Radiant< 09:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Proposal
I have proposed that the notability subguidelines be deprecated with the salient points being merged into the main notability guideline and the remaining subguidelines merged & deprecated to essay status. Please join the centralized discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Merge proposal. Vassyana 01:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Download availability
Does the amount/volume/notability of the sites that people can download a software application from play any role in their notability? I've been looking at various lists of software and have been trying to determine what is a correct threshold on which to nominate individual applications. • Lawrence Cohen 16:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- No, being available on a number of download sites isn't a "notable" achievement. Instead look for "multiple non-trivial published works" about the software. --Dragonfiend 17:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
- OK, thanks. • Lawrence Cohen 18:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] respected & independent medium?
Criterion 3 would seem to suggest a consensus that podcasts distributed through an independent vendor like iTunes are notable. Am I reading this correctly? I've encountered on CSD an article that defends its notability only with the following, "It is distributed via direct download from the website, or from Apple's iTunes Store. There is no download charge from either source." Would such be sufficient assertion of notability to survive speedy? --Moonriddengirl 12:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- iTunes looks like trivial distribution; that is, it looks like anyone can have their podcast distribitued on iTunes. See the iTunes guide to making a podcast. Their rejection criteria (Strong prevalence of sexual content, Apparent misuse of copyrighted material, child pornography, etc.) sounds about as stringent as YouTube or geocities. So, no, having a podcast on iTunes does not look like a notable achievement. --Dragonfiend 17:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
- Sounds to me like triviality of independant web hosting needs to be explicitly defined as any "free" or "open" offer to host something for anyone. That said, it's all well and good having clear exclusion guidelines, but what exactly defines a publisher/distributor as nontrivial? I've seen a lot of people dismiss sources that clearly aren't analogous with either of the trivial examples, and the article get deleted. Any thoughts on clarifying this? --54x 20:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
- Criterion 3 doesn't seem to make sense. The website must be distributed independently through a respected medium? Lots of notable websites are privately-owned individual sites. Most websites which are distributed through an independent medium are not notable. Most notable websites are self-published. That's the beauty of websites. This needs to be seriously rethought. Impin | {talk - contribs} 09:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
- It's not aimed at websites so much as other items distributed through the web. Consider two blogs, X and Y, otherwise similar in content. Blog X is self-published. Blog Y has an address at wired.com and is featured on the Wired website. Blog Y meets criterion 3: being featured by Wired suggests that the blog has a sufficient level of notability. —C.Fred (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. The only blog I read regularly, The Big Picture, is published by its author through Typepad. Another major one that I read, The Economists' View, is published on Blogger. Many of the major blogs publish independently; if you're truly famous you don't need to be with a group. This criteria should be taken off, and we should judge notability based on reliable sources and traffic ranking alone. Should I open a RFC? I honestly want to get rid of this confusing requirement. Impin | {talk - contribs} 17:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
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- Criteria 3 is not a "requirement." Quote: "web-specific content is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria." Empahsis is in original. --Dragonfiend (talk) 16:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Must article pass each criteria?
Must all three criteria pass, or any two, or just any one? It reads as if all three must pass but that seems counter to (my) common sense. Is there a missing "or" after each one? Also could someone review my proposed answers in bold on the Talk page for Bobbins (webcomic) to see whether I have understood the general sense of the guideline? -Wikianon 11:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
- The other notability criteria pages (general, books, academics) all specify that one of the primary conditions must be met. I don't see why this would be any different, or for any of the criteria, in fact. • Lawrence Cohen 14:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
- Notability isn't supposed to be hard to meet. It's meeting WP:V and WP:NOR while maintaining a good article that's the real test, I believe. That said, those two criteria don't condemn an article to deletion like Notability does- you can easily merge & redirect while you wait for more verifiable sources to justify an indepentant article, then restore via the edit history when appropriate. --54x 08:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Inheritance and notability by association
If multiple notable writers/artists have contributed non-trivial content to a website that is first published at the website or unpublished elsewhere, should the website be considered notable? Skomorokh incite 20:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
- If another source has noted that the site has published a number of notable works, then yes. Being a place where notable authors go to first publish their work is definitely a good foundation for establishing historical notability. You just need a secondary source that states it (i.e. some newspaper or trade magazine reports how a number of hot authors are using site x). Buspar 22:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
- That's unfortunate, I was hoping the notability of contributors alone would suffice. Surely The Huffington Post would be notable even without third party coverage? скоморохъ 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Not a Web Directory
Wikipedia used to be extremely useful for a lot of things. Perhaps it should be acknowledged in the article here that while "Wikipedia is not a Web Directory" it can include comprehensive lists of useful links if volunteers choose to adequately label and organize the information despite the propensity of some people to show up and claim anything not already listed in an article at Wikipedia is not yet "notable" enough for a list at Wikipedia. Pretending things are not notable because Wikipedia has not previously logged their existence is a quick path to stagnation as people who would write about new things leave for greener pastures. Lazyquasar (talk) 20:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I was actually shocked to read this criteria. It means that almost all articles had broken this rule in providing the "external links".
When I first discovered Wikipedia, I was not impressed with the articles. It was the links which are provided, especially the external links, that are not even referred to in the article.
In fact the first thing that I do is to observe the external links. Thea articles are mostly useless to me because they are repetitions of what I already know, said in different and confusing ways.
The external references are different because they are the experts in the subject. The important external references are research organisations, universities and organisations such as NASA, manufacturers, clubs and forums.
There is no need for them to win awards. I don't recall any of my favourite site of having any award at all. One was a startup company specialising in experimental diesel engines. It is not even manufactured yet but useful because I need to be ahead of things.
Alas these are actually breaking this "not web directory" rule. The only way to include in the external link is for the site to win awards. Almost all the external links that I come across in wikipedia have not won awards, and even those that had won them, it was for last year. They may not even win any award this year. Every year, the award keep on changing.
No blog at all. When industry heavy weights all have blogs and newspapers keep on quoting from blogs, wikipedia risks becoming a dinosaur. Although there is mention of blogs which are allowed that are quoted by newspapers, there is no blog mentioned in the articles that I scan through. The most important is Iraq. Recently Myanmar. No blog at all in these external links despite so many quotes from newspapers. In fact reliable news about these places can only be found from blogs.
If wikipedia wants to be relevant as a centre of information, this policy must be clearly defined and explained. Otherwise it will just become a rigid highly censored source of information that cannot be relied on.
Othmanskn (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- This relates to the dispute at Sabah, where Othmanskn (talk · contribs) has used her personal blog which was reverted on the basis of WP:RS and WP:SPS. I made comments in regard to that, as an uninvolved editor from third opinion, here. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 02:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Google News and Criteria 3
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Does being syndicated through Google News (or similar aggregators) satisfy criteria #3? -- pb30<talk> 17:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
- I think it should as Google News, unlike Google itself is quite selective; it chooses only ~4,500 out of the millions of blogs and websites online as sources, and its choice is by human editorial input rather than algorithm. This makes the selection of a given source by Google News far from trivial, thus fulfilling criterion 3. скоморохъ 12:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Do the 'Podcast Awards' Satisfy C2?
There's a section on this up above, but no firm consensus seems to have been reached. I've been wondering if winning a People's Choice Podcast Award would allow a podcast to pass wp:web under C2. Any other thoughts on this? If no, what other awards do satisfy C2 for podcasts? -- Vary | Talk 01:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "In a nutshell" section
For consistency with other articles describing Wikipedia guidelines, there could be an "in a nutshell" section at the top of the page. Here is a sampler:
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This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia articles should avoid making references to web sites that could be interpreted as advertising. Web pages used as citations in Wikipedia articles should be reliable sources. For a web site to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should be sufficiently notable and long lasting. |
Other suggestions for the wording would be welcome. --♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 09:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
- "long lasting" will likely be misinterpreted as "website has existed for years, therefore it's notable." We should use the "historical significance" language from WP:NOT#INTERNET for clarity. Also, this guideline is about articles about websites, not websites being used as sources. So:
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This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia should avoid articles about web sites that could be interpreted as advertising. Wikipedia articles about web pages should use citations from reliable sources. For a web site to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should be sufficiently notable and of historical significance. |
--Dragonfiend (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, here is an almost identical version:
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This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia should avoid articles about web sites that could be interpreted as advertising. For web based material to have its own article in Wikipedia, it should be sufficiently notable and of historical significance. Wikipedia articles about web pages should use citations from reliable sources. |
--♦IanMacM♦ (talk to me) 15:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Wikipedias
Does this guideline include smaller Wikipedias (but larger than 1000 articles)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.34.37.64 (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Please Help!
I'm very new to the editing world of wikipedia. I'm trying to figure out how to reference a website. I believe it is reliable because it was written by a university professor. Can someone please tell me how to reference a website properly. Do I use APA or MLA format? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice9 (talk • contribs) 03:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Award nominations and notability?
So winning a notable award is considered a way to classify notability. So is being nominated over multiple years. Does being nominated in multiple categories on the same year count? For instance, the webcomic PX! was nominated for two Will Eisner Awards this year. Is that enough? Blade (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- Consensus has been "won a well-known and independent award." So, nominated doesn't really work, nor is every award that is "notable" for wikipedia "well-known and independent." In this case, I'd suspect PX would have some sources that we could use to write an article, so I'd suggest we look for those. --Dragonfiend (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
