Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 18

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Contents

Proposal for synchronization of common content

See also: #Alternatives?

I had a look at the different notability guidelines, and here is the results:

Description General Academics Books Fiction Films Music Numbers Organizations
and companies		 People Pornographic
actors		 Web content Sports Years Religious
figures
Criteria significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent Multiple criteria (And) Multiple criteria (Or) contain substantial real-world content from reliable primary and secondary sources Same as general criteria, with guidance Multiple criteria (Or) Multiple criteria (And) Same as general criteria Multiple criteria (Or) Multiple criteria (Or) Multiple criteria (Or) Multiple criteria (Or) Multiple criteria (And) Multiple criteria (Or)
Articles not satisfying the notability guideline Ask
Tag
Merge
Speedy delete
Prod
AfD		 — — Keep
Merge
Transwiki+guidance
Delete		 — — — — Improve
Ask
Tag
Merge
Speedy delete
AfD		 — — — — —
Examples Notes Section — Section — — Section Notes — — Notes — — —
Caveats — Yes - Alternative to article Yes - Derivative articles Yes - Derivative articles — — — Yes - Derivative articles — — — — — —
Other Objective evidence
Not temporary
Do not directly limit article content		 — Resources Relocating non-notable fictional material
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#PLOT		 Resources Resources Rationale advertising and promotion
Recommendations		 — Rationale — — — —

Recommendations for synchronization of common content

"Articles not satisfying the notability guideline"
These sections should be merged into the main notability guideline and removed from the specific guidelines, as the recommendations are equally valid across all article classes.
"Criteria"
It should be considered to add these criteria to the WikiProjects' own guidelines.
"Other"
Guidelines should provide rationales as to why the general guideline is considered inadequate.
"Caveats"
Most of the caveats are a recommendation not to create articles for non-notable topics, but to create them as a section or subsection of another article. It should be considered to merge this specific concept to the main guideline and remove it from the specific guidelines.

If it should happen that a guideline has no more unique content, it should be deprecated.

Regards, G.A.S 20:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the first (I'll have to think about it more), but I disagree with the last. I think these caveats about what to merge into other articles can be very specific and detailed. They should be part of the the WikiProjects' own guidelines, or still in specific guidelines. It is the detail that is most helpful. Examples are "material about sports team that play at the 13th level should be merged into articles on the league they play in" and "material about Scout Troops should be merged in articles about Scouting in the State or County". We can never put all these things into the main guideline and they are really useful. --Bduke 23:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Bduke, what do you think of my assessment about Wikipedia:Notability (numbers), specifically that WP:NUMBER is neither an elaboration nor derived from WP:N, that it is actually condensed from WP:NUM, and that the wikiproject would actually be better able to manage their subject specific guideline by having it stand on its own merits rather than keeping it as a notability sub-guideline? --SmokeyJoe 00:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, a late response. One learns something everyday. I did not know that WP:NUMBER existed. I thought that the Maths WP would sort of oversee this problem about numbers. I do agree with you. I think specific criteria looked after by a WP is better than a free standing guideline that might not be looked after by anyone. --Bduke 00:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Content should not be lost; unique content should be added to the WikiProjects' own guidelines. Common content should be merged to the main guideline to avoid redundancy. G.A.S 06:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/proposed-9-9-07#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines also have content worth merging into the main guideline. The rewrite also have a caveat section (Alternatives to in-universe sub-articles). Would it be possible to generalise the section for inclusion into this guideline? G.A.S 17:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with the notion, implicit in the wording unique content should be added to the WikiProjects' own guidelines, that specifications, caveats, limits, or other guideline-like wording should me moved from a formal guideline to a WikiProject. WikiProjects don't own a group of articles (nor, for that matter, are there even WikiProjects that align one-to-one for all of the notability guidelines); WikiProjects go inactive all the time; and virtually no one other than project members keeps track of what goes on in WikiProjects.
The table is nicely done; I think it illustrates well that there should be some (roughly) standard advice in each guideline as to what to do with articles not meeting that specific guideline. Other than that, I fail to see the necessity to do any consolidation or standardization, since it's unclear exactly what known, existing problem would be solved by such consolidation. In other words, what exactly is broken? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
No problem then — but some standardization might be useful in the individual guidelines. I still believe that we should merge "Articles not satisfying the notability guideline" and (the standard) "Caveats" into the main guideline — I believe that it makes sense to have that advice in a central location.
I still believe that it makes sense to have rationales in the sub-guidelines to help the editors understand why a separate guideline is necessary; otherwise we are going to end up with hundreds of similar notability guidelines where the general guideline would have suffice.
Regards, G.A.S 21:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

(Arbitrary reset of indent)

Firstly, can I give a big congrats to G.A.S for his brilliant summary table! Now, what most concerns me is the issue of Criteria. There has been discussion on here lately about the problem of notability sub-pages being less restrictive than WP:N (see here). As shown in the table above, the WP:N criteria is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent". This minimum requirement is essential to meet the requirements of verifiability. But all the notability sub-pages listed as having a criteria of "Multiple criteria (Or)" are less restrictive than this, and instead suggest alternative criteria that aren't based on reliable secondary sources. These criteria are therefore less restrictive than WP:N, and can't be reconciled with the policy of verifiability.

I therefore propose that these criteria sections be changed so that they require the general criteria of WP:N to be met first. The purpose of the notability sub-pages would therefore be to add special criteria more restrictive than WP:N, but not less restrictive.

—gorgan_almighty 16:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 18:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
gorgan_almighty — Thanks for the compliment, that table took quite a while. I must actually agree with you, I believe this will go a long way in getting the guidelines into sync. This could be achieved by editing the main guideline as follow:
A subject is presumed to be sufficiently notable if it meets the general notability guideline below, orand if it meets an accepted subject specific standard listed in the table to the right (if applicable).
and accordingly updating the sub-guidelines to read that the subguidelines' current criteria and WP:N's criteria must be met.
This may actually also go a way in preventing more subguidelines to be created (if they were only going to repeat WP:N). G.A.S 18:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I completely agree with the courses of action you sugest. I think we should start making steps to implement them. —gorgan_almighty 10:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, we had a long struggle over this guideline earlier this year that resulted in the compromise language that's here now. My reading of the prior conversations and the merge discussion above and on some of the other notability guidelines is that there is not a consensus for trying to make the subject specific guidelines secondary to WP:N.
I also have to disagree with Gorgan's point above - "These criteria are therefore less restrictive than WP:N, and can't be reconciled with the policy of verifiability". Verifiability is very different from WP:Notability. Information can be verified by a single source or by multiple minor references without meeting WP:N. WP:N demands much more than verfiability.--Kubigula (talk) 19:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I think the term notability is somewhat confusing in this instance. WP:N defines notability in terms of verifiability, not importance. There is very broad acceptance among editors that WP:N defines the minimum level of verifiability required to keep an article on a particular subject. That minimum level of verifiability is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent". WP:N therefore does not demand more than verifiability, it gives guidance on specific verifiability criteria. —gorgan_almighty 10:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)


I've been giving this issue more thought, and I realised that what we really need is a guideline governing the creation of notability guidelines. I have therefore created a guideline proposal at Wikipedia:Notability sub-pages, and I would be grateful for any input people can provide. Please post comments, etc, on the proposal's talk page. —gorgan_almighty 14:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I've created a little essay summarising the views that have been expressed here and elsewhere regarding criteria on notability sub-pages. It is at Wikipedia:Notability sub-pages or WP:NSUBS. Please feel free to add to it or correct any bits that aren't right. Note that it's just an essay, not a guideline or policy. —gorgan_almighty 11:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Great work, whoever made that chart. It definitely shows a lot of problems that need resolving. We can't sanely rely upon "notability" if we cannot even consistently define it here! All of these subguidlines need to be brought into synch with WP:N, and watched for "drift". This is something that has to be watched constantly. I've noticed the same problem with WP:MOS and its subguidelines, which sometimes drift out of agreement with the primary document; sometimes this results in WP:MOS itself being modified to agree with the more specific subpage, but most often, the drift in the subpage does not reflect consensus and is amended. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:03, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOT?

Hi.

I saw this:

"... subjects with such coverage may still be non-notable – they fail What Wikipedia is not, ..."

Would this mean that "What Wikipedia is not" is a notability policy? mike4ty4 04:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No, it is an inclusion policy. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 04:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I have edited the section to clarify its meaning; WP:NOT has nothing to do with notability, and the use of the term "notable" in the quoted statement essentially contradicts the primary notability criterion. Black Falcon (Talk) 23:31, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

PORNBIO - merge to BIO

The best of WP:PORNBIO has been incorporated into BIO. This has been discussed for some time, but I think that we now have the opportunity to reduce the clutter of page and still maintain our standards. Please take a look at BIO and see whether the merge would make sense. --Kevin Murray 22:16, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability criteria reform — progress

Please update the table below as and when individual notability sub-pages are reformed. (Note: Table design nicked from G.A.S).—gorgan_almighty 12:50, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Sub-page Academics Books Fiction Films Music Numbers Organizations
and companies		 People Pornographic
actors		 Web content Sports Years Religious
figures
Requires base criteria of WP:N to be met? Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes N/A Yes N/A N/A N/A
Notes Merge to BIO being considered Discussions on proposed merger with N have died Proposal to make it a stand-alone guideline: Opposed Merged to BIO Rejected guideline Rejected guideline Rejected guideline

status of page

I'm pretty sure notability is not a notability guideline but rather a general one. the wording "notability guideline" is just too recursive for my feeble little mind. -- Chris is me (user/review/talk) 05:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm sorry, but what are you talking about? —gorgan_almighty —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 13:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
    • I'm guessing the {{subcat guideline|notability guideline}} tag at the top (which lists WP:N as a notability guideline). Nifboy 14:11, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Well yes, but WP:N quite obviously is a notability guideline. It's the main guideline, and defines the common inclusion criteria that must be met no matter what. —gorgan_almighty 13:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
        • Would inclusion guideline not be more accurate? At least then it would agree with {{IncGuide}} (That would go for the sub-guidelines as well). — G.A.S 14:15, 15 October 2007 (UTC)
          • Yes I see your point. Chris had me confused because I didn't realise he was talking about all the sub-guidelines as well. As I see it, we would need to change {{subcat guideline|notability guideline| to ''{{subcat guideline|inclusion guideline| at the top of each page. We would also need to move Category:Wikipedia notability to Category:Wikipedia inclusion, and Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines to Category:Wikipedia inclusion guidelines. —gorgan_almighty 15:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:MUSIC

What is happening with the WP:MUSIC guideline now? Its pretty much the only inclusion guideline that hasn't been brought in-line with the inclusion criteria laid out in WP:N, and discussions about merging it into WP:N seem to have died. What are we going to do with it? —gorgan_almighty 11:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-english topics

I've recently seen an article about a Netherlands patient group where all the references are in Dutch. The article's author tells me that after I had flagged the article as needing confirmation of notability (ie needed a secondary source to confirm the orgnaisation as being notable), that this has now been provided - however that ref also points to a Dutch source. Assuming good faith and accepting, for the moment, that the patient group is notable in the Netherlands and so notable for the Dutch Wikipedia, I am left wondering whether an article only supported by non-english references is notable for inclusion within English Wikipedia ? I see nothing in the WP:N policy that addresses non-english related topics - can someone advise me, or point out where I should have looked ? David Ruben Talk 18:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know; language of sources are irrelevant in determining the suitability for inclusion of a topic, since WP is, after all, an international encyclopedia (the requirement being that articles are written in English, of course). Consider though, if the coverage (by reliable, independant sources) is substantial. If you really believe that the topic is unsuitable for inclusion, it would be best to take the matter to AfD, and see what happens. Regards, G.A.S 20:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC).

Better Defined Notability Criterion

It seems as though the criterion used for whether an article does or does not meet the standards as stated in WP:N is quite subjective and not objective as stated in the page. I believe a more standard means of defining if an article meets this criteria should be created. I hope this spurs a good discussion on what Wikipedia should or shouldn't contain in terms of the notability criteria. Simply because a subject is not popular does not seem to be a reliable criteria of whether or not a topic is notable or not. TETFSU 16:41, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Is not "coverage in reliable secondary sources" objective? Understandably, that depends on how you consider the objectiveness of "reliable" and "secondary sources", but still, that's a less-grey line than previously held for notability. --MASEM 16:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The criterion is not stated to be either subjective or objective, and I think it shouldn’t be, because the criterion gets used in cases where its application is neither 100% subjective nor 100% objective. What WP:N does say is that evidence should be objective. --SmokeyJoe 00:35, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

What about a notability guideline for television shows?

I don't know if this has ever been suggested before, but I'd like to hear opinions on the notability of television programmes. Some might state that all television shows are notable but I wouldn't say so, not with little 3-minute things, educational programmes and digital programmes that have not been the subject of secondary coverage. There are probably some non-notable television channels, at least in the UK on Sky Digital, as they have not been discussed in WP:RS. I'm going to nominate House Auction for deletion after this, to get more opinions. I'd like to make an article about The KNTV Show, but I don't think it's notable. I need help here.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 19:16, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

A seperate notability guideline is not needed since such shows fails the general notability guideline: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Seperate notability guidelines could as such only be more strict than this guideline, but I believe that would be unnecessary. See also WP:FICT regarding the requirement for real world information in fiction related articles. Regards, G.A.S 21:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I did make the article that I wanted to, and nominated it for deletion just to see whether people think it's worthy of inclusion.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
See WP:EPISODE and WP:TV for extensive discussion about this kind of thing. It seems that "in theory no, in practice yes" Conrad.Irwin 15:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Places?

Are there any notability guidelines for places? Where are they located? If not, do places (such as streets and neighborhoods) have notability guidelines? Minn3s0ta 15:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is an essay I found: User:Grutness/One street per 50,000 people; but the normal notability guideline should suffice—i.e. has the place been covered in enough reliable secondary sources, e.g. the media? This is important because if there is no reliable sources, the article is not verifiable. The WikiProjects may also have guidelines : G.A.S 15:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
Other links you might find of use: Wikipedia:Places of local interest; Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Notability; Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Roads and streets; and Wikipedia:Notability (highways).--Fuhghettaboutit 16:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Stick to the basics. If a place has been written about significantly in a credible, verifiable, and independent manner, then it is notable. Otherwise it is not. What could be more simple? --Kevin Murray 17:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Well even simpler is that places are inherently notable, so notability guidelines for them are unnecessary. However, other guidelines, specifically verifiability, do constrain them. Let us not mix-up our guidelines. --Bejnar 23:06, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Not just places, but populated places. The specific guidance is at WP:OUTCOMES: "Cities and villages are notable, regardless of size." The basic wisdom behind this is that it is pointless to argue whether a village of mud huts in Africa is more or less notable than a subdivision of McMansions in North America. The bottom line is that we allow recognition of any populated place as long as its existence is verifiable, without requiring an assertion of notability other than a non-zero population at some time in history. Normal rules for merging and splitting content apply, so info on the typical subdivision will probably be merged/redirected to a larger political subdivision, but the redirect should remain as long as the place exists. Dhaluza 00:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

What is Notable?

I've been researching different Massively Multi-Player On-Line Role Playing Games (MMORPG). The entries currently in this Wikipedia on the different MMORPGs have proven very helpful. Then, just recently I see that many entries "may not satisfy the Notability guidelines."

As I read the current guidelines, they won't allow contributions that include new ground-breaking developments (before agreed upon by many "experts"), controversial topics, or entries that may be of interest to a small population. Only those things that "experts" all agree on, and are of general interest, would be considered notable. This is of great concern to me. I want a place where I can go to find out about every different flavor of Linux, where I can learn about different political systems, and people like Thom Adcox-Hernandez, and where I can find out about every different MMORPG on the planet - even ones that aren't "notable". Maybe notable should be defined as "someone cares about this topic enough to take the time to make note of it in OUR wikipedia."

B.T.W: I never heard of Thom Adcox-Hernandez until I hit the Random article link. If he is more notable than Deliantra (a computer game) per the current guidelines (he's not marked as not meeting the guideline) that is flat-out wrong. I'm not saying that Thom is not notable. My point is that just as many of us care about, and take note of different computer games, as those who care about and take note of American voice actors.

Markkauffman2000 20:37, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Hi Markkauffman2000, and welcome to Wikipedia. The base policy for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability. All articles and content must be verifiable in order to ensure that false information doesn't creep in. The trouble is that the definition of "verifiable" is debatable. What one person claims as verifiable may be considered as not verifiable enough by someone else. In order to overcome this difficulty, Wikipedia requires a very high level of verifiability in order for a subject to be notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia. Wikipedia requires that the subject of the article "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". What this really means (for the sort of subjects you've mentioned) is that the subject of the article must have received substantial coverage in a respectable newspaper or well-known journal or magazine, which is independent of the creators of the game (or whatever). This is the only way of assessing notability that Wikipedia can accept. Note that press releases, or anything else published by the creators is not sufficient to assert notability, so it can't be used to justify the creation of the article. However, such sources can be used to cite (prove) information that you add to an article, providing independant sources have already been used to justify the creation of the article. —gorgan_almighty 14:07, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
    • That is a very good explanation of Notability, I would dispute the characterization of "very high level of verifiability" though. There is simply an objective standard that independent sourcing for notability is required, and that standard is not high or low, it just is. Dhaluza 23:42, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I think the whole 'notability' thing needs to be removed. This wasn't around when wikipedia started, and if deletionists/censors want notability policies, they should go to Citizendum. LucianSolaris 16:56, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

WP:RS, WP:NOR etc which Notability is based on have been around since the beginning and are core wikipedia policies. Notability is basically an extension of these which makes it easier for editors to make a decision on one specific aspect of existing policies Nil Einne 23:01, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Bishops

John Nevins - does notability extend to Bishops? Corvus cornix 22:53, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that being a bishop automatically gives one notability any more than being a colonel does. I think that a bishop or a colonel needs to actually have done something notable to be notable. This is unlike archbishops or generals who can be presumed to have done something notable, even if the Wikipedia article in question does not reflect it. --Bejnar 23:00, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, that was my feeling, as well, I just wasn't aware of any precedents. I'm going to nom this for AfD. Corvus cornix 23:09, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
Not sure if this is the right place to discuss this but I must disagree that Roman Catholic Bishops are not notable. Many Bishops control dioceses with greater land mass and greater population then some countries. Bishops are chosen by the Pope to "rule" their dioceses untill they die, resign, retire or are appointed to another Diocese. Surely they are more notable then most Secretaries of the Tresury or the Grand Duke of Luxemburg or his childen. So I feel that more thought should be given before such a broad definition is given that Bishops are not notable solely by being a Bishop.Callelinea 04:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't bother nominating a Roman Catholic Bishop. While not explicitly mentioned in WP:N it's a common outcome that they pass by virtue of office. As Callelinea pointed out, some of the newer diocese cover multiple countries, particularly in Africa. It's sort of grandfathered in as a regional political office from back when the church had temporal mastery. Now if there's not proof he's actually a Bishop, you've got a chance. I'd tag it first even in that event. Horrorshowj 05:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree and while also doing more research.. there are over 20 categories of Roman Catholic Bishops, some broken down by countries or dioceses.. So obviosly Wikipedia considers individual articles on Bishops acceptable.Callelinea 05:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Where do you draw the line? Monsignors? Parish priests? Corvus cornix 15:32, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I would draw the line at the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells, and I think many other editors would do well to do likewise.--feline1 16:15, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
What?Horrorshowj 20:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
Personally? I originally agreed with Bejnar that it should be Archbishop and above, since that's a quasi-political regional office. I've argued for deletion on the basis that Bishop isn't notable enough. It went about 15-2 and WP:SNOW keep, which is more competitive than most of their AfD seem to be. Nobody has claimed lower than Bishop as inherently notable, and I doubt anyone would take such a claim seriously. I've seen 10 or so bishops landslide an AFD solely based on office, but the next one I see lose will be the first. It probably should be added to common outcomes at some point. Horrorshowj 20:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I argued for bishops being notable, considering their responsibility for a city or another substantial territory. (note that this applies only to bishops of territorially-organsed churches, not those where bishop is merely an honorific.) Below that, certainly not. For a parish priest, even a Monsignor, the notability would have to be proven specifically--just as for local churches and neighborhood things in general. Part of the reason as I see it is just plain practicality--the greater number of groups of things we can move out of AfD, the more time we have for the serious issues. There's a limited number of things we can discuss, and a great many things that do need to be individually discussed in order to be deleted. DGG (talk) 08:32, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Absent other reasons, the biography of a bishop should be included if the number of adherents in the bishop's church/diocese exceeds 100,000. patsw 15:28, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Bishops, just like any other clergymen, are judged for notability by the general notability guideline, with additional guidance from BIO. No other special criteria are needed (neither more restrictive, nor less restrictive). This is starting to become a very frequently asked question on this Talk page. Please browse though the Talk page archives before asking questions like this. Maybe we need an FAQ section at the top of the page. —gorgan_almighty 16:04, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it is a frequently asked question because many editors think have some specific guidelines helps, rather than going back all the time to the basics. --Bduke 21:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree with gorgan_almighty: the general guidelines cover this just fine. We have some simple principles which can be applied across all articles, and the less we clutter up the guidelines with un-necessary instruction-creep, the better. Some of the specific proposals here are bizarre: if we were to limit notability to priests to the rank of bishops, that would mean that we couldn't have an article on James Horan, a parish priest who had 100% name recognition in Ireland (albeit with a currently weak article on wikipedia). And why give automatic presumptiom of notability to a bishop if the sources don't exist to write a decent article about him which passes the relatively low threshold of notability on WP:BIO? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
He would pass general. The requirement is to pass general or any of the specifics, not both. An article with enough documentation that the subject meets a specific will pass an AfD, one that can't prove it meets any will get deleted. Horrorshowj 13:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I must disagree, Popes are considered notable. Yet some early popes there are no more then 6 lines on them because other then being elected pope there is nothing notable about them. References ae often very few on early popes but they are considered notable. I THINK based on a consensus of the 3 (René Henry Gracida, John Joseph Nevins, Felipe de Jesús Estévez)AFD's just passed that every Roman Catholic Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal and Pope are Notable and from an Auxiliary Bishop below must pass threshold of notability. Callelinea 18:38, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
They may be considered inherently notable by you, perhaps, but that is subjective (it is dependant on your point of view). Wikipedia requires objective evidence in order to prevent editor bias. Only significant coverage in independent reliable secondary sources can assert notability. —gorgan_almighty 10:37, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
If you bothered to read the AfD on those 3 bishops you will see that ALL the editos agreed with me with the exception of the nominiator and 2 others. Callelinea 17:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions to notability requirements

I want to canvas opinions on adding to the section Notability requires objective evidence a paragraph a generalised version of the following fiction-specific paragraph, which was added recently to Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)#Notable_topics:

  • To a limited extent, sub-articles are sometimes born for technical reasons of length or style. Even these articles need real-world information to prove their notability, but might not include that information in the same article (due to said technical reasons).<ref> World of Final Fantasy VIII, Characters of Final Fantasy VIII, and Clone Wars (Star Wars) were evolved from lists of terms, characters, events, and concepts into articles with both real-world content and an out-of-universe perspective.</ref> In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article. Such sub-articles should clearly identify themselves as fictional elements of the parent work within the lead section, and editors should still strive to provide real-world content.

I ask this not because I think it's a good idea, but because I can see no reason why notability should be relaxed for a sub-topic of a fictional subject but not for a sub-topic of a scientific, biographical, political, military, religious or other article. I would greatly prefer that this paragraph was deleted from WP:FICTION (see my comment at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)#Tired_of_this_policy_being_abused), but if it stands, it should be applied across the board. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:20, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think this is far too specific, but in general is applicable. Editors may decide to split out content for a number of practical reasons, and should not have to worry that some wiki-sharpshooter will try to pick them off in an AfD. Examples may be content that is rapidly developing in an otherwise stable article, or content that is common to several articles to avoid repetition. In cases like these, the practical considerations should outweigh the Notability guideline. Trying to delete these articles is pointless, because the content can always be merged back into the parent articles. I like the idea of having a sub-article designation to alert editors to this situation. Perhaps an appropriate tag could be applied to the top or bottom of the article in these cases. Dhaluza 23:37, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that inherited notability (which is what this) allows the proliferation of unlimited numbers of sub-articles. I have no problem with the rapidly-developing-content scenario you mention, bit this para isn't just a take-some-time-to-sort-out-the-refs principle (which make good sense), but a permanent loophole, which encourages the proliferation of ever-more-detailed trivia. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:06, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Inherited notability would be that Paris Hilton's dog Tinkerbell is notable by association. This is distinct from inherited notability because it is reasonable editorial discretion, while creating trivia articles is not. For example, a topic that is redundantly covered in multiple notable subject articles would not be trivia, but might not have multiple secondary sources specifically about the subject, and would not meet the strictest interpretation of Notability. Dhaluza 00:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Editors at WP:FICT have been talking about rewriting the policy (pending discussions here about merging of notability guidelines and at WP:WAF about being consistent between it, WP:N, and WP:FICT), but the gist of the rewrite is that this sub-article is a absolute last resort after several other options. Or, more specifically, we are trying to tell people to not jump and write character lists and sub-articles and all that (the norm right now) from the start, but instead start at the main article and develop that fully, and should the main article become excessively long, and all other methods of dealing with the volume of information have been discussed, then and only then should the sub-article be created. To that end, I've even suggested a talk-page template similar in nature to the non-free fair use rationale template that allows other editors to understand that the existence sub-article that relies on inherited notability was discussed and considered the method of last resort, and that sub-articles like this must try to meet all other WP guidelines and editors should constantly strive to make the sub-article notable on its own. (The lack of said template is not sufficient cause to make a sub-article go to speedy deletion, on the other hand).
There is still a loophole, and as its a guideline there's nothing to stop people from doing it, but I think that the framework we are trying to address around it will hopefully make concerned editors understand the exact times that loophole should be used. Unfortunately, we still have to deal with newer editors that jump in and immediately create sub-articles by WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, and so it's a matter of education. --MASEM 13:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • I am against the addition of this paragraph, either here or at WP:FICT. The most obvious problem with it, as others have said, is that of inherited notability. I understand what Dhaluza is saying, that this isn't intended to encourage inherited notability, but I feel that that will be the outcome. I have no doubt that this paragraph (in its current form) could easily be used to justify keeping a List of uncast Star Trek characters mentioned only by name, simply because Star Trek is a notable subject. There is also a deeper problem with the concept of this paragraph: Wikipedia is a real-world encyclopedia, and all articles are required to have real-world context. Articles that would seem fine on Memory Alpha or Wookieepedia may not be suitable here. This is especially important to remember when writing articles about fictional subjects. My feeling is that any fictional topic that grows too big for its parent article, but can't assert its own notability, probably doesn't have enough real-world context for inclusion on Wikipedia. Such topics should never be allowed to grow too big for their parent articles. And if they do, then they probably need to be cut down to remove trivia.—gorgan_almighty 14:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • This guideline keeps getting brought into AFD debates. The paragraph on sub-articles is interpreted as allowing any article for technical reasons. People interpret it to mean they can ignore WP:Plot and other polices. I know this is not the intention of the authors of the guideline, but it is what is happening. If you look you can actually see debates where people keep changing there votes as the guideline has changed over the past 2 days. this is just one example of about 7 debates that this is having an effect on [1]. This guideline is very visible and the average editor has no clue what the difference between policy and guidelines are. Also I find it disturbing that guidelines are being written that imply that policies can be ignored. You should never "strive" to follow policy you should follow policy. Ridernyc 15:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

If you have a very long article where a large section is as such not notable (like a descriptiopn of minor characters), then the solution is to reduce that section, not to put it in a separate article. If, on the other hand, these minor characters do have sufficient verifiable notability, then thers is no problem in the first place. Not everything that appears in anything of note should be described on Wikipedia, only the bare minimum to make the article understandable. Fram 16:10, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

SEMI

Please SEMIiprot this page. This policy page has been slashdotted. SYSS Mouse 13:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I've dropped a request for 1-2 day prot for WP:N, WP:FICT and WP:WAF (full ideally). --MASEM 14:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I've semiprotected this page for a week. Other admins, reduce or increase at will, no need to discuss this first with me AFAIC. Fram 16:13, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Semi-notability

I've written up a (very rough and embryonic) propsal regarding "semi-notability"; any input, comments, throwing of rotten vegetables, and so forth would be very welcome. Kirill 17:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Criticism

Should this http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews:Story_preparation/Wikipedia_versus_the_WebComics:_Define_notability be linked?Herve661 01:39, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary?

Is a requirement of Notability even necessary? This measurement reflects, at best, a subjective measurement of an editor given an exceedingly difficult to define set of rules. Given that text is easily compressed, disk space is cheap, and the [extreme disagreements] regarding criteria why continue to attempt to enforce notability?

Should Notability be dropped as a guide line? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.18.6.29 (talk) 16:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability as defined by WP has a pretty objective definition: Coverage in reliable secondary sources. Arguably, "reliable" and "secondary sources" are not completely objective, but they have very little play if we just say "Articles must be notable" without further definition. --MASEM 16:38, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Can we take a vote on abolishing the notability requirement? I've seen several good articles deleted with the explanation being only that it was "not notable". It really hurts my desire to contribute to Wikipedia. Why would anybody want to contribute when anything they add could be deleted by some asshole who thinks it's not important? Or perhaps we could just limit the notability requirement to images, since enormous amounts of text can take up less storage space and bandwidth than a single tiny image. Herorev 16:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Wiki isn't a democracy...we don't "vote".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Good heavens, I hope not. I and many other editors spend enough time now marking articles about some middle-schooler's garage band, a company looking for free advertising, or kids writing about their buddy "who is sooooo gay lol" - without notability requirements, Wiki might as well rename itself to "WikiJournal" or "WikiSpam" or "WikiCrap." Requiring some coverage in a notable venue as a basis for defining notability doesn't seem so problematic to me. As for "assholes" (and please consider WP:CIVIL for that comment) deleting because they think something's not important - if you feel something's been deleted for no good reason, that's what deletion review is for. Tony Fox (arf!) 16:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Ok... STRAWMAN: "a company looking for free advertising, or kids writing about their buddy "who is sooooo gay lol"" <-- Those are already against the rules without the notability thing. The other rules cover that already without bringing up notability. Notability seems to exist to further skim the number of articles off for some reason. If ANY subject has sources, is true, and isn't obviously against some rule (sans Nobility) it should NEVER be deleted!
This dude seems to most definitely be a deletionist. I say wikipedians need to revolt against the deletionists and send them packing to Citizendum, where editors can be as 'snooty' as they please with articles. A deletionist's heaven. Maybe deletionists stick around because they all don't wanna compete with the already established deletionists at Citizendum. Well, w/e.
Just like politicians aren't smart enough to run the economy, people aren't smart enough to determine 'notability', especially on a paperless, practically infinite online resource. Wiki is already not an academic source, and i doubt it will ever be, so let's drop notability and reign in the policies of the inclusionist seperatists! LucianSolaris 17:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'm a rampant deletionist running wild across Wikipedia. Shoot me, quick.
And all but one of those articles were kept after discussion. So what is your point? That you really are a rampant deletionist? 66.14.104.198 04:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
So, "if any subject has sources, is true, and isn't obviously against some rule... it should never be deleted," you feel. Some guy trying to break into the acting business puts up his resume of appearances as an extra in some student film, with a link to IMDB - where he's submitted the same information. So it's now got a source; congratulations, we're now promoting him, under your suggestion. A company slaps up a piece on its great new product, with a link to a repost of a press release on another website. It's got a source! To fan the flames of where this discussion is sparking out of, what if someone creates a webcomic about their dog, someone elsewhere writes "ha, this is amusing" on their blog with a link to it and the creator makes a Wiki article - would you want us to keep that?
If we don't want Wikipedia to collapse into a heap of non-notable gunk, notability guidelines are important. If you want an article to be here, then make sure it's properly sourced; if you have a problem with our definition of a reliable source, then discuss changes to those guidelines as well. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:51, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Strawman argument! An encyclopedia is a database of sourceable information, not an advertising medium. I did not say wikipedia should be an advertising medium, but if someone does an article on some random city, or an exotic 15 restaurant chain, it shouldn't be deleted IF THE ARTICLE FOLLOWS ALL OTHER RULES (meaning the article is objective, not just some blatant advertisement). Now I'm going to stop debating strawman makers for me... LucianSolaris 20:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying we shouldn't edit out the obvious junk, but the notability guideline is also abused to take out complete, feature rich articles that the admin decided wasn't 'noteworthy enough'. I'm concerned with the issue of censorship or ego based power trips by one or more individuals influential to Wikipedia. LucianSolaris 20:35, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Deletion review is thataway. Got an article that was deleted that was "feature-rich" and should be replaced? That's where to go. Claiming ego-based power trips is somewhat lacking in assumption of good faith unless you can back it up. Tony Fox (arf!) 20:49, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Notability is important. But some rules would makeour jobs easier. I just had 3 articles on Roman Catholic Bishops up for AfDs because someone thought that bishop are not notable. But all modern day bishops get write ups in papers, so that should make them notable. Rules are good because it saves time in us having to spend time defending articles that get nominiated for AfD when in the end they get saved. I know that I have beeter things to do then have to go over and over again protecting articles from delitions. Its much harder to create something then to critize something.Callelinea 17:06, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Please note that lack of notability is not grounds for speedy deletion per WP:CSD; the closest criteria notability may come into play is in A7 - an article not demonstrating importance may be speedily deleted, but A7 specifically notes notability is a different factor altogether. If a page lacks notability, the page should go to WP:AFD, where discussion about deletion or other methods including trimming, merging, and transwiki'ing, can be held, and allow time for the affected page editors to help establish notability; if all other options to deal with the lack of notability of a page are tried and failed, only then should the page be deleted. There are some people calling for CSD of pages that lack obvious notability, and this is likely where a lot of the trouble begins, but when an article's notability is brought into question, there are rationale debates that should be taking place before deletion comes about. --MASEM 18:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree -- MANY people make excellent points [at this slashdot article] and feel that the Notability requirement is unnecessary. If nothing else, article deletions too easily cause useful contributors to stop contributing and the last thing Wikipedia needs is to piss off valuable contributors.--69.242.121.194 00:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

there are two questions: the first is whether we should have any standards at all on what is significant enough to be worth putting into an encyclopedia, and the second, is what the level should be. We can evade the issue by saying that if one can write an article on the basis of RSs its appropriate, but following the discussions on RSs suggests that will merely change the rhetoric slightly. instead of arguing whether its spam, we'll argue if the sources are sufficiently independent. I draw the line very wide, some people thing much too wide, but there is a separation there. To avoid incessant argument over individual cases, we should look for places to actually put the line in a defensible position based on objective evidence, even if arbitrary--that's the part that needs the specific guidelines. The basic principle is that anything which people might expect to find in a 21st century general encyclopedia of universal scope, should be here. The real problem is how the article should be written. Relatively trivial matters get very short articles. DGG (talk) 04:09, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Rebuttable presumption?

I see that someone has added a link to "rebuttable presumption" in defining "presumed" but has gotten it completely backwards. Notability is based on objective evidence, and once sufficient reliable sources are found, that makes a prima facia case for notability. It is non-notability that is the rebuttable presumption, not notability. We presume something is non-notable if a reasonable search for reliable sources turns up empty. It's not possible to prove non-notability because that would be a negative proof.

Notwithstanding this, I don't think there is any need to presume anything in this guideline. We should simply say that something is notable if we find sufficient reliable sources and leave it at that. Dhaluza 10:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I never managed to understand what the “rebuttable presumption” was about or how it got to be there. It did seem weird.
I think the “presumed” might have been added as a compromise following my complaint that wikipedia should not redefine words (ie “notable”) in common usage. My suggestion was the criterion should be stated in terms of “sufficiently notable for wikipedia”. --SmokeyJoe 12:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Proposing a few informal guideline for Notability Tagging

Ok, after having so many of my articles rather unjustly tagged with notability tag, i am proposing a few guidelines...

they're all pretty simple...

I'll call the first one the "name more than 10" rule...

Basically, if someone put up an article on, say, a Japanese philosopher, and you cannot name more than 10 Japanese philosopher by heart, then you should have no business putting notability tags on the article... The reason is pretty simple, because if you can't even name more than 10 Japanese Philosopher, then obviously you know very little, or worse, nothing about the subject... it would be like a guy who grew up in Sahrawi who is an expert on Camels trying to decide whether Martin van Buren is notable or not...

second rule: "check number of editor" no one is omniscient here, but if 5 different guys decide that they have something to add to some obscure article, then, well, that article probably isn't all that obscure...

third rule is "if the article doesn't relate to your culture", check its equivalent in other languages.... if an English article is a stub with a heading that no one's heard of, but the same article has a super long equivalent in Estonian and then well... it pretty much means that the article IS notable... a general rule of thumb.. if an article appears in two or more languages, each with different non-bot editors, then it pretty much means that it IS noteworthy....

fourth rule, if an article is deemed to be insignificant, and has an equivalent article in other languages, then make sure that when you place notability tags, the tag is placed in all language versions of the article... if editors from the other language decides that the notability tag is inappropriate, then the notability tag is probably not appropriate in English either... Most English editors, i have found, are pretty ignorant in terms of knowing other culture... but get this: not-known-in-English is not the same as not notable... The difference between Sunni and Shiites wasn't very well known in English either... you get the point...


fifth rule,

part 1. copy and paste into google... this is a pretty sure fire way of knowing whether or not something is notable...

part 2, when copying and pasting, make sure you're not just copying and pasting English texts if the article relates to subjects in other cultures...

for example Jin Yong, aka Cha, Liang yong, whose book have sold over a hundred million copies, has a mere 32 google results under his birth name, Cha liang yong, if you don't know any better, you might slap a notability tag on the article... but searching the same thing in Chinese return some 50000 results... and searching for his pen name in chinese reutrns 2.5 million results... see the difference? Philosophy.dude 02:14, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the above. Right now it seems it is too easy to delete a page, especially by people who know the rules, but not that much the subject. I vote for more stricter rules. Let me quote some of the arguments made by anonymous at /. (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/10/31/0328239.shtml) Herve661 02:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
[Notability] Honestly, what does it really matter? Information is information, and I thought the goal behind Wikipedia was to centralize as much of it as possible. So long as it's accurate, why does it matter if it's deemed "important"? Importance is hugely subjective - if I were in charge of deciding what articles are important enough to keep in WP, you'd see a whole lot less about Hollywood entertainment, for example. Yet Hollywood information stays - I can go check out Hally Barre's bio if I'm so inclined. Why shouldn't I be able to dig up information on some obscure webcomic, too?
I use Wikipedia to answer this simple question: who/what the fuck is x? If people start deleting articles just because they think x isn't important enough, how am I supposed to find out what x is, even if nobody really cares about x? As long as people don't write their own articles and there's no original research, I don't care whether the article is deserved or not. It's not like those articles take up a lot of room, or that it makes it harder to browse wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Herve661 (talk • contribs) 31 October, 2007, 22:58 (UTC)
This standard seems arbitrary and designed just to include the type of articles you want to include. It's also instruction creep. Why would anyone have to name things off the top of their head? Why 10? What if 10 don't exist? You're effectively requiring everyone to be an expert and a highly specialized one at that in the subject (against Wikipedia policies) and requiring them to have a good enough memory for that. There is just too much--most fields of expertise have a very large amount of knowledge, so requiring memorization of anything other than "lists" of things that are rather general isn't reasonable. I can easily look something up online to determine how well known it is without being an expert, what's wrong with that?
it is pretty arbitrary, that's why i say it's informal... These guidelines i'm proposing are more of a self-test for editors... naming more than 10 things in a category isn't at all hard when you're familiar with a subject... anyone who is into, say, wrestling can name more than 10 wrestlers, anyone who's into chemistry can name more than 10 chemicals, etc.. maybe we can consider adding this "either name more than 10 things by heart" OR "know that there aren't more than 10 things in the category"... Are you saying that someone who know nothing about a subject can accurately decide whether a particular entry in that subject is notable or not? Philosophy.dude 08:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
{{notability}} says The subject of this article may not satisfy the notability guideline [...] If you are familiar with the subject matter, please expand or rewrite the article to establish its notability. The best way to address this concern is to reference published, third-party sources about the subject. If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for deletion, per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion. The tag isn't saying that a topic is non-notable and must be deleted - it says the topic doesn't establish its notability and encourages others who are familiar to change that. And who is better at spotting non-established notability than a reader who is unfamiliar with a topic? – sgeureka t•c 09:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, well said. The {{notability}} tag is more a request for expert attention than a condemnment of the article. —gorgan_almighty 17:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
That's a silly false dichotomy. You're suggesting only two people exist: people who know NOTHING about the subject and experts. There are plenty of people inbetween and there are plenty of people who can easily look things up even if they know nothing. All that's necessary is a good researcher who is intelligent enough to comprehend the subject. You're cherry picking idealized examples that cover very broad categories. Name me 10 OSes based on FreeBSD. You can't, because 10 of them don't exist. For some articles the concept can't even be applied in that sense--what would you do for an article on HDTV? Name 10 specific TV models of HDTV? Name 10 of what? What expert in HDTV would be able to even be able to name 10 specific models anyway? Specialties (none of your examples are specialties) involve very specific knowledge and thus they may not know this. Would a GI surgeon specializing in stomach operations be able to necessary list 10 procedures on other areas of the GI track? Your chemistry example doesn't make sense--chemistry isn't about listing chemicals. I know many LAY people who could name 10 chemicals. -Nathan J. Yoder 07:53, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Why did you use the standard of 5 people? I could find, for example, 5 people in a local area who know about some local inside joke, does that mean it's notable? Language isn't an issue--the current criteria doesn't specify that it must be notable to native speaker's of the Wiki's language. The current criteria is ultimately based on the principle of "does society as a whole consider it notable" and that makes sense--after all, why should a minority be able to contest the majority on it? Currently, that's judged based on having a number of independent, reliable sources publish about it--which demonstrates that society cares enough about it to be notable. In the case of Japanese philosophers, if the philsopher is notable, you could easily find various independent sources (philosophy journals, philosophy books, etc) that mentioned them. -Nathan J. Yoder 03:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
i'm using 5 editors as an example... like most things related to notability it's pretty arbitrary... However, i think it is a good way to decide whether something is notable when you're uninformed in a subject... It's very unlikely that 5 different people would edit an article on a kid named Todd Baker who live down the street... so, conversely, if 5 different people all decide to add some info about a todd, then even if it is not readily apparent, todd probably did something to get him noticed... Philosophy.dude 08:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
This statement: "and I thought the goal behind Wikipedia was to centralize as much of it as possible" is incorrect. Please see the Five Pillars of Wikipedia and more specifically the first point, What Wikipedia is not, and even more specifically Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Notability is the guideline that defines what should and should not be in Wikipedia.
Further, please be aware that using Google (or other search engines) to try to establish notability is not appropriate. Notability comes from coverage in secondary sources, which Google can help you to find, but counting search results cannot qualify to say something is notable --MASEM 03:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Just to expand on that, the fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is why there is also Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks (including Wikijunior), Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, and even all the wikis hosted on Wikia. Nifboy 04:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree. A single one of a class can be notable, or all of a class like the US states, or academy award winners). Or none at all, like the winners of elections for city dogcatcher. there is no quick panacea to eliminate the need for rational thought and sensible judgment. But it's much less than "does society as a whole consider it notable"--specific occupational or linguistic segments is quite sufficient--the criteria for non-local notability do not require world-wide awareness, or very little of what is in here would stand DGG (talk) 03:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I like these guidelines.. it would probable say alot Afd, because people who know nothing about the topic keep nominiating and now nothing on the subject.. People should kknow someting about the subjest if they are going bring ligt to an article. Callelinea 04:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, again, it's an informal guideline... Desgined to be used when you're NOT SURE about whether or not something is notable... no one is going to dispute the importance of US states... The point is, ONLY people who can name more than 10 US states would have the proper knowledge necessary to decide whether A US state is notable or not...
Again, please note that WP does not require, at any point, for you to be knowledgeable in a subject to participate. You may know nothing about articles in 16th century Japanese culture but you can help copyedit. You may know nothing about the music of New Zealand but you can help suggest arranging the text to help make the article flow better. And more importantly to this, you may know nothing about the characters in Guild Wars but you can offer your support or opposition to the deletion of the article if you feel it does not convey the notability needed to establish itself for WP inclusion. Editors on WP should 1) not be writing articles to stroke their egos (and thus should understand their work may be deleted with just cause, though we always want to try to keep anything useful from that) and 2) should be writing articles to consider the general worldwide audience and encourage them to participate, and not fans or specific groups or the like. This last point is through all aspects of subjects that WP covers, from pop culture to science to art. --MASEM 13:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, please remember that a notability tag does not call for the deletion of the article. It simply calls attention to a problem with it, just like a weasel-words tag points out that the article has a weasel word problem that needs fixing, an unreferenced tag points out that there's a lack of references, and so on. A notability tag calls attention to a problem—"I can't tell why the subject of this article is important or significant, nor are sufficient reliable sources cited to assure that it indeed is by the volume of material on it." Articles are supposed to be written for the layperson, and should tell that layperson, who has never before today heard of the topic in question, the answer to their first question upon coming to that article—"Why would anyone care about this?" If an article lacks a good, clear answer to that question that's easily understood by a person who knows nothing on the subject, it has a flaw that needs immediate corrective action. (Or in short, it should ideally always be someone outside the subject who knows little or nothing about it evaluating if the article properly answers "Who cares?", since it's very hard to evaluate objectively if you already know.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:40, 1 November 2007 (UTC)


Heh, good that you mention it, i think i should go the google guideline and ask people to change that too... "information with lots of secondary sources is deem notable" "google help you find those info" doesn't adding the two together means that, most of the time, things with lots of google results IS notable...?Philosophy.dude 08:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
No. Google/search engines may help you find anywhere from 0 to millions of usable secondary sources; there is no information about a subjects notability per WP's definition. With the explosion of the blogosphere, there are a lot of searchable hits on google, but personal blogs are, for the most part, unreliable and cannot be used to source something (though if you follow the breadcrumbs, you'll likely come back to one single reliable source that can be used to establish notability). --MASEM 13:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability Policy is a Red Herring - Unecessary and Detrimental

I'm going to start by quoting a few comments from a slashdot article that I think contain some very valid ideas and then go on to create a synthesis of why I think this policy is a blight on wikipedia.

The great ongoing pop culture notability purges are an ongoing failure point for Wikipedia.

Maybe some admins and users have taken the various "Wikipedia vs. Britanica" comparisons of years past a little too much to heart, and are trying to "improve" Wikipedia by removing all of those articles which wouldn't ever appear in Britanica, but that's an extremely short-sighted thing to do. I mean, "A page for every Pokemon" may be a catchy (if inaccurate) joke about Wikipedia, but it also represents a strength, not a weakness: After all, there are lots of places one can go on the internet to find information about, say, France, or The Battle of the Nile, or Channel Island Politics; there aren't nearly as many places you can go to learn actual facts about Patrick Farley's award-winning comics, or the differences between all of the various Gundam Wing incarnations, or the full internet career arc of Star Wars Kid.

By Ray Radlein


For Encarta or EB to have an article on "Bob the Angry Flower", Microsoft or Britannica has to pay professionals real money to research and write the article for the subject. And in the past, EB would have had the added problem of the size of the encyclopedia adding to its cost and manageability for end users. By comparison, in Wikipedia we're talking about articles that have already been written and contributed for free, that - if truly non-noteworthy - add fractions of a cent to the costs of running Wikipedia as an on-going operation. Bandwidth costs for an article nobody reads are non-existent, the only real cost is storage. How much does 10 kilobytes cost?

I'm not proposing (and didn't propose - I did the opposite) that there's no reason for AFDs at all, but I do believe that as deleting legitimate articles has a real cost and DOES undermine Wikipedia more than keeping a non-notable article, the discretion should be on the side of not deleting. Fast track processes for article deletion in particular need to be reviewed so only the narrowest of criteria can apply to them. That is not the case right now.

Personally I can't see how a periodically updated openly available webcomic is not a legitimate subject for an encyclopedia article in an environment such as Wikipedia's where the contribution cost is free and the maintenance cost is more or less proportional to the webcomic's notability. Unless the comic is being used as a wedge to pass by genuinely unencyclopedic content, there's no legitimate reason to delete such articles.

by squigleslash


Trivia to you may be critical information to someone else. Obscure facts are often important to someone, even if most people could do without them. It may do little good to keep it there, but it does NO good to take it away (and I'd suggest makes it worse, as people will often check WP first knowing that it'll have an article on even the most obscure things, only to find it's gone).

by Firehed


If half of the effort that some people put into finding articles to mark for deletion, deliberating and discussing deletion, checking, verifying and then finally deleting the article - if half of the effort people put into destroying content were instead put into creating or improving content, Wikipedia would be so much better.

by Tom


The fact is that "notability" is used by and far the most as a reason to get rid of something. In reality it merely serves to muddy the waters of any debate or discussion surrounding the inclusion of an article. The word "Notable" automatically brings to mind a very subjective idea of importance, tainting any debate and unnecessarily confusing users. But this is not what the policy is: just look at the "this page in a nutshell" box for proof. What is meant by notability here is completely covered by other policies such as Verifiability. Having this particular policy encourages users to cite it as a bar for inclusion that is not met when they have other reasons for wanting to get rid of an article. This practice is completely unhelpful. Without this specific policy, editors would be forced to look at the real reasons to not include something.

Take a quick glance at the Articles for deletion page will quickly show that nearly every single one cites notability as the cause, when in fact they mean verifiability. Look at November 1st, as of this writing there were 38 entries, and all but four or five of them used notability as a primary reason for not including (or including) content. Sometimes it seems like people just like the alliteration of "non-notable" and the fact that it gives them an extra bullet point. It's used synonymously with verifiability when in fact verifiability should be what is cited, but this usage is due to the nature of the policy.

There simply is no good reason other than what is already contained in other policies to exclude content. Including something that is accurate and verifiable by reliable independent sources does not harm wikipedia at all, while deletion of said material does harm it. Ardent†alk∈ 11:18, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to start and end by saying one thing--People, stop creating new sections when you obviously can see that the same conversation is taking place above. It's really annoying to have to continue half a dozen conversations in different sections when they're all basically about the same thing.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 11:52, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Verifiability is very different from notability. As WP defines it, it is the need to say "this fact on WP is based on this reliable source". Taking the case in hand about webcomics, most of said articles that were deleted were verifiable (I don't know how well sourced, but say that the pages cited appropriate comic panels) since one must assume the web comic itself is a reliable source about the web comic. Notability on the other hand is coverage in reliable secondary sources which is partially a subset of verifiability in that it has to deal with sources, but now there's an onus to have works outside of the primary source (in this case, the web comic itself) to demonstrate why the article should be a part of WP proper. And remember, WP's definition of notability is not subjective: "coverage in reliable secondary sources" may still have personal wiggle room but sets a pretty significant standard to put all articles against.
Also do note that there is a larger push now to help people move and create side wiki's for such content that may not satisfying WP's notability standards, but certainly can still be Wiki'd about outside of WP. This points back to the fact that WP is not meant to be the full cumulation of human knowledge, but specifically a genernal encyclopedia and that it has many sister projects to help in other aspects of collecting human knowledge. --MASEM 13:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. The verifiability policy requires reliable sources, and the no original reasearch policy makes it difficult or impossible to justify an article based solely on the primary source. The whole idea of 'notability' hasn't played a role in this line of reasoning. Putting these things together under that name is silly and misleading; I might as well call this policy "Scareability". What I'm saying is not that this allows personal wiggle room, but it allows whole ideas that are not fundamentally true to spring up because the very word "notability" carries a stigma which over time replaces the actual meaning of the policy. For example look at the arbitrary criteria for any of the guidelines for specific things (bands, music etc). These criterion come out of nowhere. Suddenly if a band has charted a hit on a national music chart it is worthy of inclusion according to the guideline. I don't know about you, but "X is a band who charted song Y as a #29 hit on the Czech Republic top 30 national chart" does not strike me as inclusion quality, especially if that's all the reliable secondary source coverage it can muster. Yet suddenly if a band doesn't meet any of the criteria listed, but has reliable third-party secondary sources that document enough information about the band to make it worthy of an article, it is still considered deletable - sometimes even speedy. Ardent†alk∈ 13:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Notability guidelines for other projects must derive from this one. The music notability guidelines must not supersede general notability guidelines. (And as I read them for music notability, criteria #1 is reiterating the general notability guideline) If a band has coverage in secondary sources, that band should be included in WP, whether or not they broke any charts or not. This sounds like a case where some editor is mis-using the guidelines for (speedy) deletion, and an example case would be very helpful to further discussion. --MASEM 14:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Really. Unfortunately what you say is not what goes on in practice. And this is precisely my point: the fact that the "notability" criteria is not actually notability criteria, but rather a synthesis of other policies makes it ripe for mis-use and mis-interpretations. If you want examples wander over to the AfD and read a few nominations. To name a few:
  • Nokia 6256i as well as the other phones - it has product reviews from secondary sources
  • The entire CHERUB novel series, which clearly from popularity will have reviews from reliable secondary sources
  • Radio First Termer - which has coverages in secondary sources
  • Diminished Fifth Records - "voters" agree that there are secondary sources to back up the verifiability but still say delete
  • the list goes on
so after a <5 minute glance, this policy is clearly affecting people's thinking negatively, and is not necessary in light of other policies. Ardent†alk∈ 16:24, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
So go find those sources and participate in those AfDs. Indeed, some articles which are nominated for AfD should not in fact be deleted. That's why we discuss them. On the other hand, Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, not even verifiable information. There are fan wikis, webhosts, all types of things. Our notability policy is, in effect, asking for verification of a different sort. "Verify that this subject is significantly notable, by verifying that people independent of the subject have taken a significant amount of note. Verify that enough source material exists for us to write fairly and neutrally from multiple sources." That verification is important as well, and articles lacking significant secondary source material should be deleted. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Hi Seraphimblade, I would politely ask that you please refrain from a couple of things: first from quoting a policy/guideline that is derived from the policy that is being debated as support for a position (which leads to a kind of circular reasoning), and second from telling me to 'go participate in those discussions' which is patronizing and unhelpful when the examples brought were meant to exemplify a larger systemic problem - rather than a be-all and end-all. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information pertains to things like lists of non-related items, lists of FAQ's etc. The three words or even verifiable is derived from this policy, which we are debating.
Obviously as you say not all articles that are nominated for AfD should be deleted, but the problem is that having this policy often leads to reasons for deleting an article (or nominating an article for deletion) that aren't covered by this policy.
The notability policy isn't actually asking for what you say it is, what you have written is your interpretation. But even your interpretation relies on other policies. If we take the verifiability policy, it pretty much covers the problems that you're talking about, because an topic that doesn't have enough secondary sources describing it to write an article about it while following the NPOV policy doesn't have grounds for an article without considering this policy. All the Notability policy adds is muddied water for someone who doesn't like an article's existance for other reasons that aren't covered by policies to push the debate in their favour. Ardent†alk∈ 08:41, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
The combination of verifiability and NPOV is not enough to justify the deletion of an article that essentially states "X exists" or "X is a instance of Y". An article consisting of such a sentence — "John Doe is a guitarist." "Neutral Point of View is a new age rock band." — does not present any problem with the NPOV policy if there is no coverage of the subject beyond the fact that it exists. NPOV states that articles should represent "all significant views", but this is not an issue when there are no views to represent.
Applying only the core policies of NPOV, "no original research", and verifiability would not even exclude articles about individual Wikipedia accounts – not editors, mind you, but the accounts themselves – since certain editors and certain accounts have received trivial two-word mentions in reliable secondary sources. A stub stating only that "User:X is a Wikipedia account created in 2005 with 18756 associated edits as of 3 November 2007." is verifiable, contains no original research, and is written from a neutral point of view – mostly due to the fact that there are no "views" published in reliable sources (comments on Wikipedia talk pages and insults from vandals don't count, of course) to represent.
There are, of course, problems with the application of the notability guidelines by editors who immediately equate the lack of sources in an article to the non-notability of a topic (something which really can't be proven), but that suggests a need for education rather than revision or abandonment of the guideline itself. – Black Falcon (Talk) 16:55, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability is never inherent?

There seems to be widespread consensus, both here and in the wider Wikipedia community, that the general notability guideline (requiring significant coverage in secondary sources) must be met in all cases, in order to assert notability. I propose we take this one step further and agree that "Notability is never inherent". The latter seems to me to be the logical conclusion of the former, and no new concepts are required to take this step. I propose that the following section be added to WP:N:

"==Notability is never inherent==
Inherent notability is the concept that certain groups of topics are so important and/or well-known that their notability does not need to be proved through the use of independent reliable secondary sources. The problem with this concept is that it is subjective (it is dependant on a point of view). Wikipedia requires objective evidence in order to prevent editor bias. For this reason, no topic can ever be considered inherently notable. All articles are subject to the general notability guideline stated above, without exception."

This section will probably deprecate the "Notability requires objective evidence" section. I'm not looking for a straw poll on this issue, I'm looking for meaningful discussion on the proposal, hopefully leading to consensus. Comments please? —gorgan_almighty 10:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree with this and think that it also goes against the way Wikipedia has worked in the past. The problem with linking notability to sources is that it just moves the subjectivity further away. For example, I do not see we agree about what a "secondary source" is. Is a scientific paper a primary source or a secondary source? I have seen people argue the first and that review articles are secondary. I have seen people argue the second and say that laboratory notebooks are the primary source. Other problems arise with terms such as reliable, independent etc. However the main point is that sources allow us to write an article. They do not do a good job in determining whether we have an article. Notability is the latter. While difficult to define, notability is really about whether people expect to find information about the topic in an encyclopedia. Inherent characteristics are important here. We expect to find an article on any town or village on the planet. We expect to find information on every soccer player who has played for his country in an important match. There is a discussion somewhere recently about bishops and whether they are notable. the point was made that nobody really thinks a Pope is not notable even though in some cases very little information is available. People expect an article, however short, on every Pope. Readers may not always actually find such an article either because nobody has written it or because there are no sources to build it on, but the topics are still notable. The tendency to drive all discussion on notability to whether we can write an article is likely to weaken wikipedia and not make it easy for new editors to know what to write about (or rather look for sources on). I think we should be going in the opposite direction and having WikiProjects and other groupings of editors working out in an open and transparent way, open to criticism by others, of inherent characteristics for topics. The policies, WP:V, WP:OR, etc then take over to decide whether we actually write the article. Deciding what to include in an encyclopedia is always subjective in some ways. Traditional encyclopedia use teams of expert editors. We have to use the good sense that comes from consensus of interested editors working together in a civil way. There is no magic bullet. --Bduke 11:08, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Bduke, the views you put forward on what constitutes notability are contrary to everything that Wikipedia:Notability, and all the other notability sub-guidelines stand for. —gorgan_almighty 11:26, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
That's a little harsh, Gorgan - let's not forget that WP:N is not a fundamental policy, but rests on WP:V, WP:OR, WP:NOT, etc. I don't think Bduke wants to enforce WP:N any less stringently than you or anyone else, but (IMHO) he has a better way of approaching it. The existence of the sub-guidelines demonstrates the enormous difficulty we have had in creating an inclusion criterion which is applicable across the project. It's still difficult to apply the general terms of WP:N to some specific topics - that's what the subguidelines are for. The projects are best placed to decide how best to interpret WP:N and/or the subguidelines as applicable to their topic. That doesn't mean, of course, that those interpretations can be in violation of WP:N or any other guideline. The wording of WP:N is carefully designed to avoid false positives - it is most important for the project that nothing which should have an article fails the notability guideline. Unfortunately, your proposal, while sound in most cases, falls flat on its face when you consider very ancient topics. I'm sure you do not intend to imply that Aesop's fables do not merit inclusion, but this is exactly what this proposal states. In general, it is key to avoid making statements in WP:N which are designed to cover loopholes which are exploited by certain genres, as many of those holes are necessary for other genres. The "notability requires objective evidence" section addresses this issue, in my opinion, to a satisfactory degree without being overly proscriptive. Your proposal closes a gap which is indeed a loophole in some circumstances, but is also an essential exception in many others. Oppose. Happy‑melon 12:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Bduke, WP:NOR defines primary, secondary, and tertiary sources for you. A scientific paper written with its own sources, and not its own experiments would be secondary. If you were writing something based on an experiment you did, and were using your notes, that would be primary information. The notability guideline is already built around verifiability and original research policies. What it is also built around is the policy on What Wikipedia is not--specifically indiscriminate information. Mean, just because you can verify something with reliable sources, does not mean it should be on Wikipedia. Does every Pope needs his own article? Maybe not, I don't know because I don't know anything about the Pope. Could we have a list of Popes that serves the same purpose, given that there is limited information on Popes...yep. I say, the drive to point discussions to "let's create the article if it's interesting and we can find a source to back it up" will weaken Wikipedia. If we cannot create good articles from the ones that pass the notability guideline, how do you expect to do that with articles that would normally fail the guideline? The general public expects to come here for things that we do not always provide, because Wikipedia has a reputation for have articles and information on everything, no matter how useless and unencyclopedic. Recently, there was a review of the new X-Men comic book, and in the review it said something to the effect of the comic having lost of backstory continuity, so readers should come to Wikipedia to catch up on what happened. Well, no they shouldn't, because Wikipedia shouldn't be a substitution for watching, reading, or listening to anything. Which means, Wikipedia shouldn't have that much information for that particular section to actually accomplish substituting for the media. Just because people have come to expect something doesn't mean that is Wikipedia's goal.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 12:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I am glad to see I have got people thinking about this issue. I want just to ask about your statement on primary and secondary sources. Are you saying that a peer-reviewed scientific paper is sometimes a primary source (if it describes an experiment) and sometime secondary? Or are you saying that they are always secondary. In either case what you say runs counter to common scientific usage where papers in say the Journal of the American Chemical Society are considered primary sources and papers in review journals such as Chemical Reviews are considered secondary. I have seen confusion on this several times on WP when sources for science articles are discussed. It may of course point to WP defining terms in its policies different from how they are defined elsewhere, as we do of course for "Notability". Yes, I do think all Popes should have an article even if it only gives what we know about the dates he was Pope. Similarly all Roman emperors, English kings and so on should have articles. We should stop trying to invent the wheel on notability, which is only a guideline, and take note of what other encyclopedia, general or specialist, include. We then can concentrate on the policies in how we write the articles. I agree with you about expectations of finding content that should be elsewhere and suspect we write far to much on comics. However, I think that is quite different from the reader having a reasonable expectation that WP will have an article on a topic and point to sources where the reader can find more. --Bduke 22:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, the first publishes original research papers--which was what I said was "primary" as it's "new information by that author"--while the second publishes critical reviews of papers--which is what I said was "secondary" because it's people talking about someone else's stuff. Also, just because you pass notability doesn't mean you warrant an article. It's also about size. If you cannot support yourself, your article may be better served in a larger topic. Wikipedia is about "quality" and not "quantity".  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Well, I wish it was as simple as that. First, some people call scientific papers secondary because they have been peer reviewed. Second, some reviews in very good review journals, are not "people talking about someone else's stuff" as they often mostly summarize the work of the author's group. That is, unfortunately in my opinion, becoming more common. Third, small can be beautiful. Your view on stubs being merged into other articles is common but not universal. It is contentious as almost everything about notability is. We should be careful about trying to push one view through, as I think the proposal at the top of this section was doing. --Bduke 23:23, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
The examples. First. They are simply wrong. Second. They are non-independent secondary sources of the previous work (presumably, they comment, and don’t just reiterate). Hmmm, I can immediately think of some reviews that are reorganizations of previous reiteration, all completely non-independent though. Third. I don’t believe that notability should be a factor in merge discussions where related articles are very short. --SmokeyJoe 23:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
First, we have to live with the usages people make and peer review does make something rather more secondary than some primary sources. There is a continuum here not sharp distinctions into the three categories. Do we want to stop citing peer reviewed papers in WP? I think not. Second, it takes a real expert to decide that one article in say Chemical Reviews is independent and another is not. Yet again, we have a continuum, one article may be independent in parts and not in others. Third, I think I agree, but many do not. --Bduke 01:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
(First) Peer review doesn’t make something secondary. A paper reporting the discovery of weasels will always be a primary source for the existence of weasels. A later paper on weasel behaviour is a primary source for the behaviour, but is a secondary source for their existence because it cites the discover and comments on the triviality of the discovery. Its not that complicated, but it is perspective dependent. Again, research the actual real world usage of “secondary source”. “Secondary sources” are a normal concept in literary fields, including encyclopaedia writing, even if the concept is not used much elsewhere. RE: stop citing reviewed papers? Never. Reviewed papers tend to be more reliable and we want reliable sources. However, reliability doesn’t necessarily demonstrate what other people write about, which is what WP:N is about.
(Second) Clear non-independence is when a review article is authored by the authors of the original research, or when the review was funded by the subject. Such non-independent reviews don’t in themselves, demonstrate notability, but they can still be used as reliable sources. Yes, a continuum of independence may exist, but we only tend to exclude obvious dependence, and only from the notability test. At this level, there is no need for expertise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 02:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I have just been and taken a look at Wikipedia:No original research. Do any of you realize what a long and detailed discussion and disagreement has been going on there for at least the whole of October. Much of the discussion and disagreement is about the definition of the terms, primary sources, secondary sources and tertiary sources. It is also interesting to look at these articles themselves. Two of them are almost entirely about the usage in history, with nothing about the usage in science. One, the first, has only a brief and inadequate description of the usage in science. Perhaps we should address these first. The WP community does not have a consensus on the use of this terms. --Bduke 00:33, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I have been watching it. Some people are making some simple things into hard work. Yes, the terms are well used in history, and used in literature. I have never seen them used in science. The concepts are not really that hard. The problem is that the terms are used, but never rigorously defined. At WT:NOR, the PSTS excitement is dying down without any progress having been made. --SmokeyJoe 00:54, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
The debate is indeed dying down, but the issue is not settled. I'm not sure about this, but I wonder whether we cause problems for ourselves by defining terms on WP either differently from elsewhere or more rigorously. PSTS is one example. Notability itself is another. Certainly I keep coming across confusion among scientists. --Bduke 01:25, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes. But I am convinced that notability is like a hydra that can't be killed. The more you try the more new heads come up. The best we can do is tame the ugly beast. --SmokeyJoe 01:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
There's always something that won't be the same. The fact that USA Today has an article on The Dark Knight makes the article a secondary source. But, if they conduct an interview with Christopher Nolan, then it becomes a primary source because interviews are primary sources. So, in respect, it's based on what is said as well as who is saying it. Regardless, the original opinion was that we should say "notability is never inherent". There are clear cases when it can happen, but just because something is notable doesn't mean it needs an article devoted to it. Pope John Paul could be considered inherently notable, because of the status that he acquires being the Pope. But, if we know nothing on the man except that he became Pope in the year XXXX, then there doesn't need to be an article for that. You can redirect the name to a larger topic and mention him there. Someone looking him up will find him in the larger article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 23:32, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
All popes are already demonstrated to be notable because there is plenty of stuff written about them, collectively and individually, even the early ones that are not well verified from any primary sources. --SmokeyJoe 23:57, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't denying that Popes were inherently notable, or that there was information on them. I was merely providing an example of an instance in which an entire page would not be warranted.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I mean to argue a cross-point, that there is never (very rarely?) a case for inherent notability. For every example offered, notability is demonstrable. I am in favour of the opinion that for wikipedia, inherent notability is never sufficient, but actually putting that in writing may do more harm than good. WP:N doesn’t currently allow for inherent notability, but should it occur, it can be treated as an exception. --SmokeyJoe 00:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Strongly Oppose would you mind showing proof of this alleged widespread consensus for rendering all the specific guidelines obsolete? Not a vague claim of prolonged discussion, or look in the archives somewhere, I want you to show me something specific. You were one of the big proponents of merging everything into WP:N which was overwhelmingly rejected, but keep claiming there's a consensus for changes that have the same net effect. Of course, I'm still waiting for a response from when you tried this in WP:BIO last month and all that could be found was 3 people in an unmarked discussion. Horrorshowj 13:41, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

  • I think both of you are strongly biasing my comments. I never said anything about rendering all sub-guidelines obsolete. Where on earth did you read that? There is widespread consensus on most AfD discussions that the general notability guideline must be met in order for the subject of an article to be considered notable. If I were to provide evidence of that I'd have to provide a link to most AfD discussions that have ever ended in a delete. Consensus has been reached on here that notability sub-guidelines should not set an inclusion criteria that is less restrictive than the general notability guideline, and all notability sub-guidelines have recently been reformed such that they require this minimum level of notability to be met first. [2] [3] [4] [5] My proposal is simply the next logical step in that process. —gorgan_almighty 17:53, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Gorgan, I agree with you in theory, but not so much in practice. In practice, I agree with the above comments that it is important that the notability guideline be flexible. The general notability guideline is the best method we have been able to devise to try to measure whether something is of sufficiently interest and significance to merit encyclopedic inclusion. However, it's neither perfect nor uncontroversial. My reading of the various dicussions here and at AFD is that there is a general consensus that this should be a general guideline to be applied with flexibility and common sense. Your proposed language sounds more like policy than a guideline.--Kubigula (talk) 20:59, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
None of your provided links demonstrate a widespread consensus, in fact most of them don't even feature any discussion of the issues you're claiming have been settled. The closest to a consensus you've ever shown on this issue was 4 people agreeing with you when you changed the subject to that midway through the synchronization discussion. None of them show an open, announced discussion of this change that generated widespread support. There is not widespread consensus that general notability must be met first on Afd, in fact the opposite is true. I've yet to see an article that failed an AfD once there was enough WP:RS to prove a specific standard was met. That is not requiring significant coverage be met first.
You may not have actually said the specific standards would be obsolete, but would you mind explaining how it's not an accurate summary? If it's impossible to establish notability under the specific, without meeting general first, then exactly what purpose do the specifics have to wikipedia? Overall this seems less like a "next logical step" based on consensus than an attempt at subverting consensus.Horrorshowj 01:36, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Geography as inherent notability

Aren't all geographical entries allowed, even if they only have the primary census data? There are still many articles created by the census dump that never went beyond the primary census data. That is an example of inherent notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 22:55, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, particularly for populated places. There are other groups of fact-heavy subject areas that are not usually the topic of secondary analysis that also don't fit the typical notability guidelines like airports and aircraft. There are also groups of topics that are better served by comprehensive coverage rather than haphazard coverage such as Area codes in the United States. This is why the absolute requirement for multiple secondary sources did not achieve consensus, and the current guideline text only strongly recommends, but does not require them. Dhaluza 10:48, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Most Common Wikipedia Policies and Guidelines

I see that Wikipedia:Notability is now prominently listed throughout policy pages as one of six “Article Standard” policies and guidelines, with: Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV), Verifiability (WP:VERIFY), No original research (WP:NOR), Biographies on living persons (WP:BLP) and Deletion policy (WP:DEL). This is an interesting milestone. --SmokeyJoe 00:58, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability as part of Topic not Article

The definition of Notability implies that this is a property of the topic and not the article, but in many AfD discussions it seems to be treated as a property of the article. Could that be brought out as a bullet point in the "General notability guideline" section? An article that lacks sources should be improved or called up on WP:V. Notability only applies to the topic of the article, not the article itself. Mdmkolbe 17:49, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

As a first step, I have bolded the word "topic" in the statement of the general notability criterion and have removed the bolding from the bullet points so that they don't attract the bulk of a reader's attention. I have mixed feelings about adding a bullet point. On the one hand, many people do indeed seem to miss (or ignore) the fact that notability is a characteristic of topics. On the other, the text makes this point abundantly clear in the lead paragraph alone: "The topic of an article should be notable", "A subject is presumed to be sufficiently notable", "guidelines pertain to the suitability of article topics" (emphasis mine, except in the last quote). To be honest, I don't know how useful another restatement of the point will be. – Black Falcon (Talk) 16:36, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the clarification sounds useful, but there's a danger of hair-splitting here. The notability of topic and notability of article can't be entirely separated: an article needs to assert the notability of the topic, and to demonstrate that notability through references to reliable sources. In other words, the article should make its own case for its existence, and provide the pointers for a reader whoo knows nothing about the subject to verify the notability just as they can verify the facts. Unfortunately, the essential simplicity of the notability guidelines is being obscured by the massive instruction creep in all the sub-guidelines, and editors' work would be much much easier if there was a massive pruning of them. It would be far more useful to give more detailed general guidance on how to apply the principle of assessing references against the notability guidelines than to try to micromanage the outcome of every individual case. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:31, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
I have been working toward this goal for almost a year. There are three ongoing tasks: (1) intercept the flood of new proposals for guidelines, (2) merge superfluous guidelines, and (3) clarify and simplify those that remain. Right now WP:PROF is due for evaluation; for some time the core has been incorporated into WP:BIO, but PROF has not been redirected. --Kevin Murray 14:11, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Why Have it?

Why create a guideline or policy which functionally discourages more information on wikipedia? If someone wants to write an extended article on character x from eclectic game y then food them, that games community and the wiki. We shouldn't be deliberately preventing people from putting as much information up here as they want. 122.104.225.84 12:20, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

You're using the word "information" without any discrimination. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That means by definition it is a tertiary source which synthesizes primary and secondary sources for its information and also means it is not many other things. A topic which is not the subject of significant treatment in reliable sources can't be made into an encyclopedia article because we can't write a tertiary source entry about it. This doesn't functionally discourage more information. It requires that this encyclopedia functions as an encyclopedia, and it requires that information be accurate and rely on already published sources. Wikipedia was never intended to be a collection of "all information" (whatever that means), and not all information is knowledge.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Isn't information given in a movie or game or tv show about a character primary information, the most reliable information and thus not an issue for an encyclopaedia - some things don't need "secondary sources" or discussion. I don't need to read about what Person X thinks about Superman, that's just stupid. Some of these wiki policies are retarded. 122.104.225.84 03:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Some things are fine to use from the movie/game/tv show, but Wikipedia isn't a substitution for watching/reading/playing any of those things, and thus not the place to write up a characters fictional life story. If you want such a thing, go watch the movie/tv show, read the book, or play the game. Things that happen in the "in universe" aspect of the character is just context to the real world information. YOU may not want to read about "why" a character hates Superman, but I'm sure there was a reason given by the writer as to why he/she wanted them to hate Superman.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 03:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
What you're really saying is that you think the encyclopedic form is "retarded". That's fine. You are free to go to lots of other sites that are not encylopedias. However, in order to remain an encyclopedia we will keep enforcing policies that ensure that content conforms to what this place is.--Fuhghettaboutit 04:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia isn't really an encyclopaedia. It's not written by known recognised authors, the content is often wrong and there are numerous displays of vandalism throughout it. Many of the articles don't even cite sources, primary or otherwise. Wikipedia tries to be one, but because just anyone is able to add information to it, I can go say Prince Charles is really a goat and that Katie Holmes used to be a man right now if I wanted. I didn't say "i think the encyclopedic form is retarded", you said that. 122.104.225.84 04:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Because wikipedia is not perfect, it shouldn't try to be? Most regular editors know very well what's wrong with wikipedia, so let's roll up our sleeves and work on making wikipedia a better encyclopedia. – sgeureka t•c 12:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability & Schools

Are public school automatically considered notable, or do they have no assert it like any other topic? VivioFateFan (Talk, Sandbox) 16:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

There isn't a specific guideline on it, but the general outcome for AfD is that High Schools and above are considered sufficiently notable, elementary/primary/junior high etc aren't. Still needs to be verifiable for the ones that are generally considered, obviously. Horrorshowj 01:41, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Non-english sources

I've seen two recent AFD debates that were heavily basing WP:N on non-english sources (done and ongoing). I understand and support the use of non-english sources to add information and act as references and reliable sources, but do they also apply to justify notability? Something that has extensive coverage in all languages except english on english wikipedia, would mean that it has notability in the countries or areas where the language is spoken, but has not made the leap to international news or research. It's a fine line between english (or any language) chauvinism and the reality of a phenomenon not moving out of a limited geographic or cultural area. Coming down against non-english sources for notability obviously would mean a greater limitation of what appears on En wikipedia. Has this been covered before, or is it hair splitting to say something works for WP:RS but not WP:N? WLU 17:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

English sources are not required, as such a requirement would contribute heavily to systemic bias. If having someone who speaks the language evaluate the sources for reliability and independence would be helpful in determining notability, you can always visit WP:BABEL to find someone to ask for help. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:34, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Seraphimblade, but the sources have to be there (in any language) in the first place to establish notability. When in doubt, I usually see whether an other-lanugage wiki has an article on the subject. If even the "natives" don't consider the subject sufficiently notable (or popular, who knows) to have an article, it's not far off to expect non-notability and go for AfD. – sgeureka t•c 20:28, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow, good timing. I'm actually engaged in yet another AfD discussion where this issue has come up and came here looking to propose an addition to the policy.

Basically, I'd like to put in something comparable to the clause about notability not being temporary titled "Notability is not limited by language or culture". My interpretation of the guidelines allows for the establishment of notability regardless of language or culture--for example, the fact that something was written about extensively in the Indian press but not the Western press does not change the fact that it was written about in the press and thus fulfills the requirements of the current guidelines.

Although foreign-language sources make it harder to verify content, they are ultimately permitted under WP:V. Given the frequency with which this question is raised in AfD, I simply believe they should be explicitly allowed for the purpose of establishing notability as well. --jonny-mt(t)(c)Tell me what you think! 01:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a no brainer but what happens in practice is a good guide to what should be addressed in guidelines. Of course non-English sources can be reliable and thus confer notability, albeit, with less transparency for our generally English language speaking readership. It's not really an issue of notability per se, but rather whether the reliable sources notability requires can be foreign. As such, wouldn't such clarification be better placed in WP:RS?--Fuhghettaboutit 02:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Now that you mention it, given that WP:V is the only guideline to mention this question, it might actually be worth taking it up a notch to core policy. I think an entry on WP:NOT covering this question would make sure we're not chasing down exceptions and trying to figure out which combination of entries on WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:N is the most effective. --jonny-mt(t)(c)Tell me what you think! 04:54, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Existence/non-existence

I've always understood that the existence of an article on wikipedia is not proof of notability and therefore non-existence of an article is not proof on non-notability. Is this written in any guideline cause i can't find it. --Neon white 22:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

No. --SmokeyJoe 00:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Or yes - WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS --81.150.229.68 16:23, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, the principle is the same, another exploration of “reasoning by analogy is logically flawed”. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:01, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
It would seem to be pretty obvious such that there is no need to repeat it somewhere. Obviously, because anyone can create an article the presence of an article on Wikipedia does not thereby make its subject notable; and less necessarily, because a corpus of articles is not written in a central, organized, all-inclusive fashion, the absence of an article does not mean that someone decided it was not notable. —Centrx→talk • 02:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
There is an essay called Wikipedia:Inclusion is not an indicator of notability about this. But it is an essay. – sgeureka t•c 03:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
We don't need to put every possible true statement into something officially tagged as "policy". —Centrx→talk • 03:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
The essay might be where i read it. I asked because I've heard editors try to use the non-existence of an article as proof of non-notability for inclusion in a list. --Neon white 05:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
It should be OK to cite an essay in a deletion discussion, provided you point out it's an essay. EdJohnston 06:33, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Citing an essay amounts to "Here's a page that lays out an argument that I agree with." Nifboy 23:14, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Centrx’s reversion

I have multiple objections to Centrx’s reversion.

First, you are undoing many of the changes that were agreed upon after long months long discussions. You are reinstating, without any discussion, several items that were widely rejected in May.

Second, to quote Centrx - “As always, it would be best to make gradual and discrete changes”.

Third, “presumed” is more accurate. Ultimately, a topic is only sufficiently notable if a consensus at AfD says it is. Thus, flatly saying a topic is notable if it meets the general criterion is incorrect - we’ve all seen articles rejected at AfD that do meet the criterion. There have multiple longstanding objections to creating a “wikidefinition” of notability - a word in common usage. Describing it as a presumption avoids creating a separate definition and more accurately describes the actual guideline.

Fourth, the “rationale” section you added is simply incorrect. WP:V and WP:NOR do not require multiple sources as the language suggests. It does not serve us well to have a rationale section that is logically weak and inaccurately characterizes Wikipedia policy.--Kubigula (talk) 04:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Kubigula.
The current version is an unsteady compromise, but it is definitely better than what Centrx wants to revert to. Ideas for improvement are welcome, but please do it slowly. --SmokeyJoe 06:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Centrx is using a method similar to one used early in the year. Wait until things die down and then attempt massive changes or reversions, without discussion and then demand that changes to his (her) edits be vigorously debated etc. Ctx was bold and now has been reverted. --Kevin Murray 14:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
There is no "method"; I have simply been otherwise busy, and the changes are not "massive". —Centrx→talk • 22:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
The removal of the Rationale section was never discussed and the rationale section states nothing about "multiple" sources. The rationale section states that a proper article must be "researched, checked, and evaluated through publication in independent reliable sources." Wikipedia:Verifiability states "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." These are almost identical.
If the page should not rigidly define "notability", then "A topic is considered notable" or "generally notable" would serve that purpose, without being inaccurate with the word "presumed". The present version in fact rigidly defines a "presumption" of notability when there is not necessarily such a presumption; and the statement merely of a presumption ignores the fact that articles that do not meet that presumption fall under the section "Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines" and are often deleted.
—Centrx→talk • 22:36, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Because you were absent or inattentive, doesn't mean that we need to reopen a thorny debate, read through mounds of argument, or research through miles of talk pages to refute your assertions. Consensus was reached. The guideline is stable; you were reverted. Let's move on, please. --Kevin Murray 00:16, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
We do not need a discussion about stability or consensus. You do not need to read through any archives in order to present a coherent argument for what you presently think is correct. The guideline is false and deficient, so I am revising it; if you have specific objections to these revisions, describe the problems with them.
For one, the rationale section ought to be included because policies in general ought to contain their own justifications and this one specifically ought to have a description of the connection between notability and the prime Wikipedia content policies. This rationale section is, except for its connexion with notability, a plain, accurate description of current other Wikipedia policy. If you do not think these policies justify notability, why not, and what would be a better rationale for notability? —Centrx→talk • 03:33, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
Calling it "false and deficient" is not helpful. The essential challenge with a notability guideline is that there are a wide multiplicity of views and only a rough consensus - you just have to peruse any of the archived talk pages or a sampling of AFDs to see that. So, it's not a matter of being true or false; it's a matter of finding the best workable stable consensus.
I've got some ideas on tweaking a rationale section, but let's skip that for the moment. I think calling it a presumption is technically correct, but I have been wondering if it's unnecessarily legalistic - going back to a comment Dhaluza made on November 1. SmokeyJoe long ago suggested saying "sufficiently notable", and that idea is growing on me. I'll make that change and see how it reads.--Kubigula (talk) 04:28, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
The most likely person to read WP:N looking for information is a new contributor who has just seen their article deleted for failing WP:N. They were told “not notable”, but they protest, “it seemed notable to me, and others even!”. This new contributor has no appreciation of the history and encultured meaning of wikipedia-notability. The problem is that there are degrees of notability not implied by the word itself. The lowest logical level of notable is “capable of being noted [by someone, somewhere, sometime]”, which is too weak, maybe even useless. We set a higher threshold. Changing to “sufficiently notable” seems to me to make that pretty clear for the addition of just a single word. I like “sufficiently” better than “considered” "generally” or “presumed” which I like much better than nothing, which rigidly redefines a common word. --SmokeyJoe 08:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

WP:FICT

I feel that a recent rewording of WP:FICT now directly contradicts this guideline (among others) - I have brought up the issue here - if anyone would like to comment. [[Guest9999 12:57, 15 November 2007 (UTC)]]

Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines

I dispute this section's position in this guideline. Guidelines are based on either:

1. Wikimedia-wide policy conventions that have been established among all the Wikimedia projects.
2. Current conventions, practices, and standards, established over time by consensus among Wikipedia editors.

As different projects have their own deletion policies and inclusion standard, I doubt this is based on number 1. However, this process is hardly a common practice (at least now) and no longer refers to current conventions or practices. I propose that this section be: a. Reworded to reflect actual common practice, b. Removed entirely, c. Moved to a less binding process page, or some combination of these. Mr.Z-man 19:31, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

What would be common practice in your judgement? --Nehwyn (talk) 19:35, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
It is general advice on what to do. And I do think it reflects common practice. What part do you disagree with? 1 != 2 19:36, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, its great advice, but should advice be put together with rules? "Ask the article's creator for advice on where to look for sources." - How many people actually do that? "Put the {{notability}} tag on the article to alert other editors." - That's hardly a prerequisite before tagging for deletion and from my experience is only done a small percentage of the time. "If the article is about a specialized field, use the {{expert-subject}} tag" - That tag is rarely used with, and makes no mention of, notability. Mr.Z-man 19:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
In my experience, the {{notability}} tag is used quite often. There are Over 5000 articles currently bearing that tag (I didn't look exactly how many). I agree the {{expert-subject}} tag doesn't mention notability, and isn't used as much. Asking the article's creator is always good advice whenever you're going to do anything major to their article, and proposing it for deletion because of lack of notability certainly qualifies. In short, if you want to delete the expert-subject bit, seems reasonable. The other two points are better kept. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:50, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
The {{notability}} tag is in wide use, but how often is it used as a precursor to deletion? Mr.Z-man 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
This section does reflect common practice, with the exception of the aforementioned expert-subject point. In the interest of full disclosure, this dispute was logged after it was pointed out to Mr.Z-man that he had not followed the processes in this section before proposing articles for deletion. dhett (talk • contribs) 21:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did find it from that discussion, however, my point is that almost no one follows this as a guideline. I am slightly offended by your assumption of bad faith. Mr.Z-man 21:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Disputing this section as a response to being called on not following procedures outlined here makes assuming good faith more difficult than it otherwise might be. As one noted legal scholar once said, "If the facts are on your side, bang on the facts. If the law is on your side, bang on the law. If neither is on your side, bang on the table." Given the chain of disputes that has led here, I imagine your table is quite dented by now. - Dravecky (talk) 21:44, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Fine, forget it. Mr.Z-man 21:46, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I have only assumed good faith. I have fully disclosed the circumstances of this challenge, which you should have done yourself. dhett (talk • contribs) 21:54, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
Really? This comment suggests otherwise and I was quite offended. Mr.Z-man 22:07, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I assumed good faith, but when you came here and disputed the policy that you did not follow while the deletion review was still open, and then not telling anyone here that the discussion that led you here is still open, that's a bad faith move. And you've been called on it. Now, I apologize for my "shameless" comment; it was inappropriate, and I am doing a mea culpa for it where I posted it. I do not apologize for exposing what looked like an attempted end run around a policy you don't like by starting a dispute discussion on it. Especially since I don't believe anyone here knew about the deletion review in progress, and certainly no one at the deletion review knew you were doing this. dhett (talk • contribs) 01:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
That still assumes that I did this to hide my mistake or something like that. That could not be farther from the truth. I was not aware of the specifics of that section before the DRV. After I read it, all I noticed was that that is not very close to the actual procedure that is followed and should be chnaged to reflect actual practice. Mr.Z-man 03:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I have seen the procedures outlined on this page followed, but I have to agree that the actual phrasing does not follow the general practice. If there is no assertion of notability (in the dictionary/CSD sense, not the WP:N sense), then the article is speedy deleted. If there is a marginal assertion of notability, then the article is generally speedy deleted or goes to AfD. It's usually only when there is an assertion of notability but no references that this procedure is actually followed. Unfortunately, it would be hard to lay all that out here, as CSD and WP:N use the word "notability" in a different context.--Kubigula (talk) 22:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

  • The exigencies of combating the mounds of crap proliferating WP have caused us to bend our standards in practice, but I still think that this section gives good advice. Remember it is guideline not a rule. If Zman chooses another course in deletion it is within his prerogative. --Kevin Murray (talk) 04:15, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

General Issues

Is this the place to discuss these things? I think that the standards for notability on wikipedia are a bit too strict, perhaps in how they are worded, and perhaps in how they are enforced. As an example, take the recent debate over the page Gamma Zee. When I read the guidelines I understand how people feel this page ought to be deleted. I think about it, and I realize that other people are making valid arguments to delete the page based on the guidelines, and I simply disagree with the guidelines. What is the appropriate avenue for discussion about this? This page is just an example--I feel this topic comes up very often. Cazort (talk) 03:00, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, everyone here has some topics on which s/he thinks our notability standards are too lax, and some on which they are too stringent. As there is not actually any basic agreement, the result is an erratic and unstable compromise, and any apparent lack of enforcement is really a reflection of the general inconsistency. This is a system that sees no reason why decisions in comparable cases should be similar, and thinks that a virtue. I see no practical way to keep this an open project and effect any basic change in these matters. DGG (talk) 03:13, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
I very rarely think that the wikipedia standards on notability are too lax. In fact, I cannot think of a single example of a page that I thought should be deleted which actually survived a deletion discussion. The other way around, on the other hand, happens all over the place. This is why I decided to bring this up here. Cazort (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Are notability deletions popular among anybody outside of our especially, uh, diligent editors? What is the process for reversing or overhauling a guideline? I think there may be the support for that in this case. --MQDuck (talk) 17:17, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

If we are supposed to be compiling the sum of all human knowledge, then who is to decide what is or is not notable? If the article is not properly documented or is written in a style that is inconsistent with an encyclopedia, then by all means feel free to mark the article as inappropriate or, god forbid, make some changes yourself. But to delete an article based on the fact that it is not notable enough? That is pure madness. That is why I vote AGAINST wikipedia notability as a system used to delete information. I do, however, support wikipedia notability to remain as an article to document the history of wikipedia. --Macdaddy5539 (talk) 07:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

But WP's goal is not to be the sum of human knowledge; one of WP's five pillars is that WP is not a collection of indiscriminate information. Notability is the line that defines what is appropriate for inclusion verses what is "indiscriminate". --MASEM 13:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Notability guideline page for schools?

Was there one? Wikipedia:SCHOOLCONSENSUS was just created which appears to be aiming for that? • Lawrence Cohen 06:14, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Change recommendation for adding a date to Template:Notability?

Does this line in Template:Notability:

"It should never be used with Wikipedia:Subst."

Mean that this line in this article:

"To place a dated tag, put a {{subst:dated|notability}} tag."

Should be changed? --Hebisddave (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

"Rationale" section

I have removed the rationale section that was recently added to the article, for the following reasons:

First, the section does not actually justify the existence of WP:N. It justifies a rigorous application of WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOT, but not actual notability guidelines.

Second, its interpretation of WP:V and WP:NPOV is not uncontroversial. For instance, it's entirely possible for an article to be verified with only one reliable source. Also, "WP:NOT a directory" is not a principle that should (generally or perhaps even never) be applied across articles. – Black Falcon (Talk) 19:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed (as I did previously in Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 18#Centrx’s reversion). Centrx says there:
The rationale section states that a proper article must be "researched, checked, and evaluated through publication in independent reliable sources." Wikipedia:Verifiability states "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." These are almost identical.
They are not almost identical - and the difference is crucial. WP:V says "articles", and the rationale section says "article". The difference is that the rationale section suggests WP:V and WP:NPOV require multiple sources, which is simply not true. As Black Falcon says, it's absolutely possible to write a verifiable and neutral article based on a single good source. I am generally an advocate of WP:N, but I do not support trying to bootstrap it on a misreading of our core policies.--Kubigula (talk) 20:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The existence of multiple sources is necessary for a topic to be notable and an article verifiable and neutral, but regardless you could simply change the plural to singular in the original addition [6] instead of deleting the entire section. —Centrx→talk • 21:15, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The existence of multiple sources is necessary for notability, but not necessarily for verifiability and not always for neutrality. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:44, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The existence of multiple sources is necessary for an encyclopedia article as a whole to be verifiable, which is largely what notability is. If an individual fact has only a single source, it is only weakly verifiable and may also not be appropriate for an encyclopedia. From the standpoint of the verifiability of individual facts exclusive of neutrality or encyclopedicity, "The National Enquirer reported the sighting of a UFO" is verifiable. For a whole topic to be notable though, there need to be and will be multiple sources. —Centrx→talk • 21:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
A verifiable stub could be written from a single reliable sources. Now, that stub doesn't prove the subject's notability, but that doesn't make it any less verifiable. For instance,

The [Name of group] are an Amazonian jungle tribe with a total population of around 20. (National Geographic, December 2007).

is a stub that would meet both WP:V and WP:NPOV. The article doesn't prove that the group is notable, but that's a different issue eentirely. – Black Falcon (Talk) 22:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Aside from the fact that a one-line stub is a work-in-progress, nothing approaching an encyclopedia article, without corroboration by other sources it is distinctly probable that the National Geographic article is inaccurate, from something as simple as a typo to an outright miscount by the reporter, let alone the fact that if there is not another source in a couple of years the number, if accurate now, will be unknown. Regardless, none of this is relevant to the inclusion of the Rationale section as written, which you deleted. —Centrx→talk • 22:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
A one-line stub is a work in progress, but the notability guideline is used every day to make inclusion and deletion decisions for these types of works in progress. The Rationale section as written suggests that WP:N is completely unneeded, and that a rigorous enforcement of WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:NPOV will suffice in all cases. – Black Falcon (Talk) 23:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability would be unneeded only in the sense that no guideline or policy is needed because all guidelines and policies are implied by the fact that we are creating a free wiki encyclopedia. Notability is, perhaps inter alia, a comprehensive application of verifiability, neutrality, and encyclopedicity to each individual article as a whole. A strict interpretation of Wikipedia:Verifiability has verifiability apply only to individual facts; WP:NPOV does not address what is necessary in order for a neutral article to be made on a wiki (good sources, and some third-party interest); and WP:NOT is brief about notability because it tries to address so many issues. —Centrx→talk • 23:54, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
The concept of notability derives from the general principle that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I'm not saying that it's unrelated to issues of verifiability and neutrality at a practical level, but rather that they are distinct at the conceptual level. WP:V and WP:NPOV apply to content in articles, which is something WP:N has nothing to do with. The case with WP:NOT is different, in that WP:N could be considered an extension of it (i.e. "Wikipedia is not a repository for articles about topics that are not noteworthy"). – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:02, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Because the core content policies also derive from the general principle of an encyclopedia, Notability is related to them in certain ways that can be indicated here. If Notability is derived from the principle of encyclopedia through some separate path, that should still be included in a rationale section, and I think such a section would read similar to the current one. Try reading the current one while looking at the links only as helpful links to related topics. "A verifiable article" is a distinct concept derived from the principle of encyclopedia, but it is related to Wikipedia:Verifiability and helpful to reference it in a link. —Centrx→talk • 00:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I do not object to the existence of a rationale section or statement, but disagree with the claim that the concept of notability is derived from those of verifiability or neutrality. A claim that the concept is derived from WP:NOT (which is essentially a more practical version of WP:ENC) is more defensible, I think. While a "helpful links" section linking to WP:V and WP:NPOV would be fine, I can't think of a section that is explicitly titled "rationale" as simply a place to provide helpful links. Perhaps a brief rationale – referencing WP:ENC and WP:NOT – could be provided in one or two sentences in the introduction? – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I have restored the section. If there is a need to tweak the text, which I doubt, please do do. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
And BTW, a subject about which there is only one source, is by definition neither significant, nor notable. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:18, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
That's true, but that doesn't make it unverifiable. Questions of verifiability and notability should not be mixed. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
They already are mixed, as the general notability guideline is, practically, about sources. —Centrx→talk • 23:56, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
If we only use one source then we are not going to do a very good job at achieving NPOV, and giving all viewpoints due weight. 1 != 2 21:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
NPOV is a separate issue. When speaking only of notability, a single solid source can sufficiently demonstrate notability for our purposes. --Kevin Murray 21:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Issues of NPOV can be dealt with in WP:NPOV. – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:42, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
A single solid source can indicate notability but there will exist other sources for a notable topic. That there is only a single source in an article does not mean that there is only a single source for the topic. —Centrx→talk • 22:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
We followed this path in discussions last year. I agreed with you then, but including the concept that one may be an indicator of more was shot down by the consensus. As it stands the allowance for single sources is rarely upheld at AfD. I'm just not seeing where the issue is which precipitated re-opening the wound. --Kevin Murray 23:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Another thing - WP:N requires "siginificant coverage" in the source, while WP:V and WP:NPOV do not. As a matter of fact, one of the better arguments, IMO, in favor of WP:N is that WP:V and WP:NPOV are not good article inclusion criteria. For example, I could write a perfectly neutral and beautifully referenced article on the history of my house.--Kubigula (talk) 21:59, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
No, you could not. Please read NPOV and V to refresh your memory and understand why you could not. This is quite simple, WP:N is not a policy and it does not dictate what can be included and not included in articles. WP:N is a guideline to assist editors in comprehending how WP:V, WP:N and WP:NOR apply to content. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:31, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
  • NPOV: articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and, as much as possible, without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources)
  • V: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.
Now go write an article on your house and ty to add it to Wikipedia in a way that complies with these two content policies. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Sure - there are plenty of land records and deeds that I could use for verifiability. In fact, there was even a newspaper article about my neighborhood being built. My article would fully comply with content regulation guidelines. What it would not comply with is WP:NOT and WP:N. I do agree that WP:NOT can be used as a rationale for this guideline, but not WP:V and WP:NPOV.--Kubigula (talk) 23:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Jossi, WP:V and WP:NPOV are policies about content in articles. WP:N is a guideline about the inclusion/exclusion of articles. Wikipedia:Notability does not directly limit article content. – Black Falcon (Talk) 23:43, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
NPOV is explicitly about the entire article. An entire article has undue weight, an entire article is structured so as to be biased, etc. —Centrx→talk • 00:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
It's still about articles content moreso than article topics. An article has undue weight or is structured so as to be biased by virtue of its content. An article is notable or non-notable by virtue of its topic. – Black Falcon (Talk) 00:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)