Wikipedia talk:Notability/Historical/Notability changes

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[edit] Why this proposal?

I proposed this because some editors, noting that the word "notability" does not explicitly appear in the deletion policy, feel that any argument against the inclusion of an article that cites the concept or uses the word notability, is therefore invalid. Some of these editors explicitly believe that any verifiable topic can and should have an article in Wikipedia. I disagree.

I believe that this proposal is really only formalizing existing practice that amounts to an informal consensus. I hope that the formal discussion proves that i am correct on this point. DES (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

You read my mind with the above statement. I don't really see how formalizing this would impact anything, although I doubt it would hurt. -Haon 03:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Deletion policy currently does not define many of the reasons why articles should be deleted. Instead it points to WP:NOT, and says that anything "not suitable for Wikipedia" according to WP:NOT should be listed on WP:AFD. WP:NOT in turn, does not explicitly use the word notability at all. But it does refer to the concept where it says: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia." and "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered by their friends and relatives." and "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety." and "Individual scheduled or expected future events, should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." These phrases seem to me to implicitly accept a requirement of notability for inclusion. This proposal merely makes that requirement explicit. DES (talk) 22:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic implies notable

It is my view that one of the requirements of an encyclopedic article is that it be about a subject that is in some way notable. Some people have argued that a truly trivial subject will not be verifiable anyway, and so there is no need for a notability criterion. I disagree. There are many minor events and objects which can easily be documented, but which i think are clearly improper subjects for articles. Consider an unsuccessful candidate for local elected office in a small to medium sized town. There will no doubt have been newspaper coverage, so the existence and actions of the person are completely verifiable. But is such a person notable? Or consider an intense regional thunderstorm that did little or no lasting damage. Again there will be verifiable newspaper coverage. But do we really want separate articles about any and every such story that anyone can document? If not, why not? I submit that we don't want them because they are not notable. Or consider a particular automobile accident. Many such events receive more or less brief media coverage, and so are clearly verifiable. Police reports are public documents, and so could also be cited as a source for such an article. But is such an article relevant to an encyclopedia? I submit that it is not. Such examples could be multiplied almost endlessly. DES (talk) 23:03, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

You say that to be "encyclopedic" something has to be "notable". While I would agree that there exist a nearly endless array of non-notable things that are also not encyclopedic, I would invite you consider whether there may be some non-notable things that are in fact encyclopedic. One definition of an encyclopedia is "A comprehensive reference work containing articles on a wide range of subjects or on numerous aspects of a particular field, usually arranged alphabetically." (American Heritage Dictionary). The goal of being comprehensive presents a problem for notability criteria. Many encyclopedias, in the interest of being comprehensive reference works, will include topics that are not otherwise notable just for the sake of completeness. For example, if I were writing a comprehensive medical encyclopedia, I might include information on every nerve, tendon, ligament, and muscle, and yet most of these have very little significance. Or consider Rambot stubs? Many, many small towns exist of no particular significance and yet we tolerate them for the sake of completeness. Or characters in Harry Potter? Or from Final Fantasy games? Much information is included in our encyclopedia that is not really important, significant or noteworthy. Some of this is compiled into lists or stitched into larger documents, but doing so doesn't make it any more notable than adding Bush's breakfast order to his article would make that fact notable.
Because we do desire to be comprehensive across a wide variety of subjects, there is an inherent tension that a comprehensive work will at times include material that is otherwise non-notable. As such, I am opposed to any proposal that makes non-notability, by itself, a sufficient cause for deletion. It can work in some categories, like biographies, because we know we will never be a comprehensive work covering all people that ever lived. Though we might some day be a comprehensive guide to many other things. In other words, while I am happy to delete non-notable people, bands and neologisms. I would be opposed to deleting any species of tree, town, or college, regardless of how trivial and insignificant some members of these classes might be. Oh, and before you respond that being a member of class X makes something inherently notable, I would ask you to consider whether you regard the phrase "notable town" as being necessarily redundant? It is my contention that all members of some classes can be inherently encyclopedic, i.e. suitable to a comprehensive reference work, even though membership in the class does not make the object inherently notable. Dragons flight 02:11, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I see your point, and notability under this proposal would essentially become a term of art. Personaly i would favor deleting/merging things like articles on minor characters in Harry Potter, adn i wish that WP:FICT was cited on AFD as often as WP:MUSIC is. I wuld argue that for our purposes individual organs and species are ntoable, but indiviadual trees (the tree on the corner of X street and Y street) generally are not, nor are examples of the class of organs (Jon Doe's liver). I don't really like the ram-bot articels, but there seems to be consensus in favor of them, so be it. I also am opposed to the "every school is notable" arguement. Obviously when someone urges that soemthign be delted as "non-notable " it is really a shorthand for "lacks the kind of notability need for an encyclopedic article". At least that is how I see it. DES (talk) 02:24, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we really do need something like this; my only qualm is that some topics may be so inherently intriguing to a large number of people as to provide a separate grounds for inclusion. An example would be List of songs containing covert reference to real musicians: I think almost no one would want to lose that, but it might be hard to make a case for notability. If we are going to actually propose this, and I think we should, we should first think long and hard about how we make an appropriate loophole for these. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
How about something riffing off of Dragons flight's point -- that subjects should be inherently notable to be inherently encyclopedic, unless by their exclusion a reference work would reasonably be considered incomplete -- and then give some examples, such as towns, or muscles, or some of the items Dragons flight mentioned. The examples would establish precedent for the types of "exclusions" that might not be inherently notable per se but whose absence would diminish a reference work like an encyclopedia. · Katefan0(scribble) 15:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
The point of a class of items being encylopedic and the individual items still needing to be encylopedic should be a given. Maybe one position could be that if the class is covered in an encylopedia, then we need to include it. An item in that class still needs to meet a standard infered by being listed in the encylopedia (notability?). For everything else we need to apply a measure like notability. Vegaswikian 02:21, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we must consider the concept of all items of a class being notable. If the class is of reasonable size, then allowing notability as a property of that class could be reasonable. On the other hand, granting blanket notability to a class of items that would number 500,000 would seem to be in conflict with the notion of notabality. Vegaswikian 02:21, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
can't tell if this debate is still open, but i'd say this should be left as is. it cals for too much subjectivity with too little gain. if an article is verifiable, not based on original reseach, NPOV, has its maintainerbase, let it live. delete it and you just piss people off by implying their work and interests are insignificant. there are better issues to deal with. -71.112.11.220 02:35, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
So we can delete all of those school stubs that no one is maintaining? Vegaswikian 05:11, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree entirely with 71.112.11.220. Notability is inherantly POV. I wrote the article on Stiff Little Fingers, and would argue that Brian Falloon their first drummer who left after the recording of the first album is notable. However I can see how somebody who was not a fan would never have heard of him and would kill his entry as soon as look at it. But his membership of the band is verifiable, I didn't make it up so its not original research, and the fact he was a member can't be argued to be POV. Jcuk 20:50, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that notability is as POV as you say. The fact that I have not heard of Brian Falloon does not mean he is not notable or deserving of an article in this wiki. It simply means that I have not heard of him. Vegaswikian 21:42, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I really like this idea but definitions are all important in this regard. Some of the definitions that readers would apply concern the numbers of users who may be interested in the subject, the greater numbers the better. However, consider this, any work of inspiration, art, or a literature that is "notable" or "worthy of notice" may be attractive to no one, for example, the philosophical teachings of Socrates, the treatises of Galileo, or Vincent van Gogh's paintings when he was alive. Another way to approach this topic would be to change "notable" to "influence" which has offered a good standard to use in the systems sciences related to genuine dialogue. We touch on this in my page on [A Technique of Democracy] which was invented by the wise philosopher of democracy Mary Parker Follett who is known as ||The Prophet of Management|| from the book of that title published as a Harvard Business School Press Classic User: Vigdor 9:01, 26 December 2005 {UTC}

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance

We did already have a poll on this issue, and while it was sometime ago, I don't really see what has changed since then. - SimonP 23:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for thst pointer, and those discussion are worth reveiwing. But I think that in the last year and a half the project has grown significantly, which will have exposed more reasons why notability is important. I also suspect that the previous discussion was somewhat influenced by the term "fame". Also, of course, new people (such as myself) have joined the project, and their views may not be reflected in this old discussion. DES (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with DES. Alot has changed in the last year and a half. Notability is regularly used as a reason to VFD and should be formalized.Gateman1997 23:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course, the question of "what is notable" looms over the head of this discussion like a Sword of Damocles. And while I agree that vanity and trivia are potentially problematic for Wikipedia (if for no other reason than the number of trivial subjects in the world dwarfs the number of "interesting" ones), there are several aspects of the notability proposal that I find troubling.

  • A bias against regional concerns. A common example--United States Senators are listed (typically) on Wikipedia; state legislators are not. While folks like Karen Minnis (a legislative leader here in Oregon and a controversial one at that) may be of little interest to folks outside this state, rest assured her impact is felt far and wide within the state's borders. an article on her would be far removed from a hypothetical article on a school board member in Smalltown, USA--but were someone to write one, I wouldn't be surprised were it to get AfD'd (on the grounds that she doesn't have coverage at a national level). Likewise, WP:MUSIC (which I assume would continue to be in force, defining "notability" for musical acts) is highly biased against prominent musical acts of regional scope.
  • The attempt to use "importance" (as determined by some set of elites/experts/authorities) as a proxy for "notability" (as determined by popular opinion). Either should be grounds for article inclusion; much discussion on Wikipedia treats the two as synonyms (and there is a proposal to merge the pages). Both can be observed and documented.
  • A lack of a clear standard to demonstrate notability, in most cases. When such a standard exists, as in WP:MUSIC, I think it should always be open to expansion as cases warrant. At a minimum, the authors of an article should always have the opportunity to argue for notability even if published standards for such are not met--the standards should exist to list criteria that are sufficient to demonstrate notability; not criteria which are necessary.

--EngineerScotty 00:01, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Executive summary of rambling stuff below: I think notability is part of being "encyclopedic," but I don't think everyone thinks so, and I don't think trying to codify notability will help. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:40, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a true and unbridgeable divide between some of us, who believe that part of the value an encyclopedia provides is selectivity and a sense of proportion. and that an encyclopedia is supposed to be a learning resource (-pedia) and hence is supposed to integrate, interpret and synthesize; and those who really believe that Wikipedia should be something quite different from an encyclopedia, and that it should, in fact, be an "indiscriminate collection of information." It will be obvious which side I lean toward, and people who do not agree with me will probably say I'm not adequately representing their position. No matter.

This divide has existed for the time I've partipating on Wikipedia, a couple of years. It has waxed and waned in intensity. I can't tell whether it's getting worse or not. I think it is, a bit, because there are now so many articles that if your motivation is the desire to create a new article, i.e. to find a topic that has not been covered yet, you have to reach farther and farther out for narrow and narrower topics. And I think we are getting more people who come to Wikipedia for the purpose of promoting their interests. But maybe not. But as I say, I can't really tell.

The point is that there are some things which are worth codifying as policy, because they do reflect a true consensus, and do help integrate newcomers into the community, and do influence e.g. AfD discussions.

The problem is that one can codify a true consensus, but one cannot create or influence consensus by trying to wedge policy statements into articles. If they don't truly reflect consensus, you may be able to get the statement in, but people will de facto ignore it.

For as long as I've been here, people have been trying to set up criteria and policies regarding notability. So far, nobody's gotten anywhere. WP:NOT has always been useful policy. WP:WIWO has never been anything but a place for people to air their opinions and have them disregarded. Proposals to codify "notability" and/or "importance" have gotten nowhere.

For as long as I've been here, some people have been saying "Notability is not a criterion for deletion," and other people have been citing it as a criterion, and other people have been voting on that basis.

General statements about "notability" don't carry much weight in AfD. Everyone's heard it all already.

On the other hand, specific statements about specific articles consistently do carry weight, regardless of "the principle of the thing." Presenting convincing evidence for or against the notability of an [insert topic here] does sway votes and influence outcomes.

I don't think this is going to get anywhere until someone manages to come up with surprising and brilliant new formulation of how to decide what's included and what isn't.

I'm not sure it matters. It may be possible for everyone to more or less work together while continuing to yell at each other. I hope so, because I don't think the two camps are going to be united. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Importance

How is this proposal different from the existing proposal at Wikipedia:Importance? Shouldn't we have this discussion all in one place?

Anyway, I think one major stumbling block is going to be different people's opinions about what things are "inherently notable" and what aren't. I know there are many people who think schools are inherently notable. I don't agree with them, but I happen to think that languages are inherently notable. There are probably people who disagree with me, and indeed I have seen {{importance}} on language articles. So what happens? Do we take a poll on every subject like this to see if we have consensus that certain things are inherently notable and other things aren't? And what happens in the extremely likely event that we don't get even broad consensus on the question? And aren't polls evil, anyway? --Angr/tɔk tə mi 00:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem that people won't agree on what notability is is not relevant to the fact that it would be a policy. If we examine NPOV, we see that there are scads of arguments passionate discussions around if a statement is POV or not. What happens is we start with the assumptions that something should be notable and work from there. Case by case if need by, or by making guidelines (like WP:MUSIC) when required. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
That is exactly what I had in mind. I want to settel the arguement over whether notability matters or not, (it does, IMO) and go on to debating what makes particular articels or kinds of subjects notable. DES (talk) 01:15, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

This proposal is different from Wikipedia:Importance in that thsi proposal doesn't attempt to lay down any criteria for notability in different fields, leavign that for field by field or article by articel discussion -- it merely tries to establish the priciple that some level of notability is required. DES (talk) 02:26, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Nor does Wikipedia:Importance. So they cover the same ground :/ ··gracefool |☺ 08:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Existing poll

I started this some time ago to try to gauge the status quo: Wikipedia:Non-notability and deletion poll. Suggest people check it out. ~~ N (t/c) 00:12, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

We should also be aware of User:Neutrality/Survey, which also was to ask this issue, but never advanced to the voting stage. - SimonP 00:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Augment WP:NOT instead

Rather than attempt to define what should be included ("only notable things"), would it work just as well to expand WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information in more precise ways? To do this, it might be useful if someone classified the articles in AFD with non-notability votes into 7-10 sub-categories of non-notable things. Patterns may emerge that could lead to useful extensions of WP:NOT. For example (making this up, not based on any analysis)

  1. Biographies of people briefly mentioned in news reports. Similar to Wikipedia not being a place for first hand new reports about breaking topics, just because someone's name is associated with a briefly news worthy event does not mean an article about this person should be included in an encyclopedia.

The point being that it is perhaps easier to define non-notability than notability. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Such a discussion would probably be quite useful, but I feel that there is little point in debating what is or isn't notable until we have a general agreement that some definition of notabilty will matter. discussions about what is notable or non-notable in a particualr area, or evidence of what actually happens on AfD don't matter much to those who say "Notablity is irrelevant" and "if it isn't listed explicitly in the Deletion policy, you shouldn't cite it on AfD anyway". So I think doing the sort of thing you describe ought to be the second step. DES (talk) 14:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
But if notability is not defined before the vote, might it cause an otherwise acceptable proposal to not gain consensus? Vegaswikian 02:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
In contrast to DES, I would be happier to see notability criteria being applied to specific classes of things (e.g. biographies), and not try to impose a blanket criteria that everything appearing in an encyclopedia need be inherently notable. Dragons flight 18:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. This subject needs to be better addressed and that section expanded. There needs to be a strict consensus on what is and what is not notable. It needs to be as straight forward as it could possibly be. This is notable and that is not notable. That way it will be far less subjective. This subject has been brought up many times yet nothing has happened. I'm not a patient man. I'm just flat sick of people creating articles on John Doe just because he's good at chess or weak storms that did nothing. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 08:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Pre-existing discussion

It looks like people are having this conversation in many different places. See Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Brainstorming#Remove notable requirement. -- Reinyday, 14:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes I had commetned ther, and perhaps i should have linked to that page. But that is an integral part of an attempt to totally reqork the deltion process, which opens up several different cans of worms, and I wanted to stick to only this can for the moment. DES (talk) 14:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

Could we have a definition for the word notable? Different people seem to have very different views of exactly what the term means. Is it even possible to have a meaningful definition, one that doesn't rely on near synonyms such as importance, fame, significance, or interest? - SimonP 15:24, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm certianly not prepared to offer an operational definition of "notable", that is one that could be used to more or less mechanically determine how notable something is. I would say that notability, in the wikipedia context, is a combination of fame/noteriety, importance/significance, and relative uniqueness. Soemthing that significant numbers of people have taken note of is surely notable. Something that is important withing its own field is generally notable, depending on how important within the field, and how narrow that field is. Soemthing that is unique or unusual, in some significant way different from others of its kind, is notable. None of that helps too much. But I think most people have a rough idea of a dimension of notability so that some subjects are more notable, and some are less so. I even suspect that many (albiet far from all) people here would rank most topics in roughtly the smae order on a notability scale. Where there is signifiicant disagreement is on where to draw the line -- on just how notable is notable enough for wikipedia; and on whether the degree of notability matters at all. I am hoping to get agreement that it does matter, that a measure along the notability dimension is one appropriate factor to consider in whether an article belongs here. With that settled we can IMO go on to discuss where the line should be set, either case by case, or (I would prefer) category by category (these are standards for biographies, these for bands, these for fictional characters, these for game elements, these for roads and streets, etc, etc.) DES (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I see it more as a two tiered system. There are those things of global interest that are universally acknowledged to be notable, but once you get down to items of interest only to a limited community, notably varies greatly to how close one is to that community. For instance we have nearly as many articles on wikis as we do blogs. Blogs are routinely deleted via AfD, wikis hardly ever are. Another example is that Wikipedia demographics mean that we have a lot of Star Trek fans, so we have articles on each Star_Trek:_Enterprise_episode without question, while episodes of Frasier, which got a vastly larger number of viewers, barely survive VfD. Having a notability standard reinforces all of our systemic biases, because perceptions of notability are so closely linked to one's own interests. - SimonP 17:53, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, the size of the class may matter. If the class contains a large number of items, say 500,000 then granting every item in the class notability seems to be self defeating. Vegaswikian 02:29, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
"There are those things of global interest that are universally acknowledged to be notable" - I think that nothing in and of itself is probably inheritly notable (someone raised cities/towns, but then a town of one of two people would likely get merged/deleted). "but once you get down to items of interest only to a limited community, notably varies greatly to how close one is to that community" - well, the wiki vs. blog thing is a good one, but it really represents the bias against blogs and towards wikis, and would probably happen despite pretty much any guideline etc.. As for the episode of frasier... well... again that's obviously a bias thing - I really wouldn't think it would be that bad if it got merged etc. for the time, but its not really very good either. Fact is, I believe if the community wants to produce a quality encyclopedia they should judge the subject of each and every article on its own merits rather then a broad brush of a subject. The point about notibility highlighting systemic biases is a good one, but the problem is that happens already without a notability proposal - so having a good one here could actually help this part. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 10:14, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, this is my working definition of notability:
An article is concidered of encyclopedic notability when it is Reasonably Relevant for one or more Random and Unrelated individual(s).
Relevant means that it brings a benefit to the reader. It is to be interpreted broadly. It may save somebody's life, or maybe it only satisfices curiosity. It must however be...
Reasonably Relevant. If an article is only valuable because it is beautifully writen, or funny, or was writen by Michael Jordan, or any other aspect not related to it's informative value, it has no place in an encyclopedia. (Well, maybe in bad jokes and other random nonsense)
Random and Unrelated. The article should be relevant for someone unrelated to the article itself. In order to be regarded as notable, the article has to be reasonably relevant for at least one person NOT in the following groups:
  • The original author(s) of the article.
  • The agents involved in the article's subject. (If the subject is for instance a movie, the agents would be the actors, directors, writers etc.)
  • The friends and relatives of the author(s) or the agent(s). In other words, their group.
  • The groups inmediatly surrounding the author(s) and agent(s) group. In other words, their neighbor groups.
So if an article is reasonably relevant for someone besides the author(s), the involved agent(s) and their respective neighborhoods, it is deemed notable.
Does it work? --Requiem18th 11:12, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Levels of notability

This discussion seems to assume that something either is notable or is not, but in reality there are many levels of notability. The least notable articles would be of interest to only 1 person, while the most notable might be of interest to the entire human population. Where should we draw the line at inclusion in Wikipedia ? Should it be of interest to 10 or 100 or 1000 people to be sufficiently notable for inclusion ? StuRat 12:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree that notability is a thing a subject can have more of, or less of. A suibjecrt can be notable to more or viewer people, as you mention. It can also be highly notable or slightly notable to each of thsoe people. Since we cant at all accurately estimate how many people a given subject is notable to anyway, i think that providing numbers (for example "Must be notable to at least a thousand people") would be false precision.
I think there are cases where such an argument could be made based on numbers. If there is some video game character which some people want removed, but there are 10,000 registered players of that game, they presumably all would have an interest in said article, and a justification could be made for it's inclusion. Admittedly, there are also other cases where no such numerical value can be found. StuRat
What I do think is that an arguemnt "this subject is not notable enough for a wikipedia article" is legitimate. Whether it is true in a given cas can be discussed, but the line of argument should not IMO be ruled out a priori. DES (talk) 14:48, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
We should apply a cost/benefit analysis here. I think most would agree that an article of interest only to the person who wrote it is of little benefit to the community, but we must also demonstrate that such articles represent a high cost to Wiki to justify their removal. I don't think we have made that case yet. The next section attempts to find such a justification. StuRat 15:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons why "unnotable" articles are bad

I think we need to explicitly list why such articles are a problem. I'm not saying I agree, but here are some possible reasons I can think of:

  • System load: The disk space for storage and memory/CPU time needed to include such pages in searches, for example. This is ultimately a financial concern, as more disk space and memory/CPU time are available, if Wiki has the money to buy them. The problem this presents is likely to decrease over time, as I predict that, in the long run, the cost of computer resources will decrease faster than articles will be added. Still, we must deal with the immediate problem. It would be good to have a study on this, to see what portion of system resources are taken up by articles which are questionable for their notability. If it's 50%, that would call for action, if it's 1%, why bother ?
  • Reader distraction: Finding such articles when searching for "notable" articles with similar names would be an example. For instance, there are many people named "George Bush" in the world, and if we include them all in Wikipedia, that would make it difficult to find the two US Presidents by that name amongst the "clutter". Note however, that just listing them in order of notability would fix this problem. It isn't actually necessary to remove the less notable people with that name, just to move them farther down the list on the disambiguation page. Similarly, searches should list results in order of notability, perhaps based on number of hits to each article.
  • Editor distraction: If editors must devote some of their time to patrolling such pages for vandalism, that would presumably leave less time for such duties on more notable pages. However, I suspect that few editors would bother with pages of low notability, so this may not be much of an issue.
  • Admin distraction: Admins and others might occasionally be called in to deal with disputes on less notable pages, which would distract them form their duties on more notable pages.

StuRat 12:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I personally don't think hardware issues are a concern. All articles take about the same amount of space relative to their notability. George W. Bush is hugely notable, but because he is so notable and draws so much attention we not only have a huge article, but have some 10,000 copies of the article saved in the page history. Bas Balkissoon is not very notable, but we only have a fairly short article and only a dozen or so saved copies. The same goes for bandwidth, non notable items get very little traffic and thus are a minimal burden to servers.
We also have to remember that the funding largely comes from readers and editors. For non-notable articles to be a burden to the foundation it would have to be demonstrated that the average reader or editor of the George W. Bush article is more likely to donate then the average reader of the Bas Balkissoon article. The same goes for number of editors. Allowing people to write about what they are interested in is far more likely to encourage someone to be a valuable editor than is repeatedly listing their work on AfD. From my experience a lot of our most valuable admins get their large edit counts by working in more obscure areas. I have never seen any evidence that the people who work in less notable fields are less likely to become the sort of editor that fends off vandalism project wide.
I do think reader distraction is important. For instance, I would find Category:1967 albums far more useful if it only had the dozen or so truly seminal albums from that year. However, simply deleting all the minor albums would be a horrible idea. In my view this issue would be best resolved by new software features. I would love it if categories had the same abilities as the IMDb filmographies, where one can, at a click of a button, sort the items by popularity or by rating. - SimonP 14:05, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I generally agree with your statement, but would add a comment to this line:
"For non-notable articles to be a burden to the foundation it would have to be demonstrated that the average reader or editor of the George W. Bush article is more likely to donate (than) the average reader of the Bas Balkissoon article."
You must not forget that many more people read the George W. Bush article, and are likely to contribute either financially or otherwise as a result, even if the individual contributions of each reader are comparable. StuRat 15:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
System load -- I don't think this is an argument. An article that isn't notable enough to be served up often, it's using almost no resources.
Reader distraction -- I've yet to be unable to find a notable subject due to the existance of a non-notable subject. Your argument seems to be a "what if?" What if we had bios on every George Bush? Well, we don't -- so let's cross that bridge when we get there.
Editor distraction -- People that vandalize non-notable pages are really wasting their time -- because nobody will ever see their vandalism. If a tree falls in the forest with nobody around, does it make a sound? If a page on wikipedia is vadalized and nobody ever sees it, is it really vandalism?  ;-) I see your point, but I don't think this is a big enough worry to create yet another wikipedia policy.
Admin distraction -- See Editor distraction.
For these reasons, I'm opposed to the idea of this new policy. --Quasipalm 16:06, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think any of the arguments are very strong myself, but think they are at least worthy of a discussion, hence they are "arguments". As for the reader distraction argument, it's not that people will be unable to find what they want, just that it will make it less convenient for them, which in turn will make them less happy with Wiki and less likely to contribute as a result. As for the idea that we should wait until problems occur instead of trying to prevent them, I disagree. If I wrote one article on a subject that was immediately removed because it wasn't notable, I would understand, but if I wrote 100 such articles over the course of a year, and then Wiki decided to implement a new policy after it became a problem, and removed them all, I would be outraged, having invested all that time. StuRat 16:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think Reader, Editor, and Admin distractions are all very real. Having a flood of articles on minor topics makes it very difficult to ensure the overall quality of our work. The more readers who stumble upon a article written on an extremely non-notable subject, the more readers who will not take Wikipedia seriously as a source. Johntex\talk 02:13, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
Not really - this is the whole crux of the reason why 'notablity' is such a bad criteria. To the people who edit and create these articles, they are notable. It's just that they are not notable to you. The same people who create them will maintain them. It just won't be the same people who created GWB. Trollderella 00:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
No, it is not about what is notable to me. It is about what is reasonably expected to be notable to a reasonable number of people. If an editor had a 50th wedding anniversary and wanted to write an article about it, the fact that it is notable to that editor doesn't make it worth including here. This is true even if it were verifiable in some way - such as if a blurb appeared in the society column or something. Not all verifyable facts are encyclopedic. Also, it is not a good solution to say "let those who create the areticle maintain the articles". That leads to one-sided articles. Johntex\talk 22:54, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merging non-notable articles with others

The deletion policy already covers non-notable articles under "problems that do not require deletion", recommending that they be merged into larger articles. Merging unnotable articles into larger ones would resolve all of these problems; we don't need to delete them. JYolkowski // talk 21:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't like that idea. If it's not important to enough people to have it's own article, then appending it to another article that is important is just likely to annoy readers of that article who don't care about it at all. Leaving such items as their own articles means nobody has to read the article who isn't interested. For example, if I am reading about eggplants, and I find a section there about somebody's pet, named Eggplant, I would be annoyed. If it was under an article named Eggplant (pet dog), then I would never be bothered by it. This would also be a good candidate for deletion, IMO, but as long as it's not in the main article it wouldn't affect me much. StuRat 21:24, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think this is a good example. If Bas Balkissoon gets a dog named Eggplant you are correct that adding that information to the eggplant article would be silly, but the problem there is with merging it into a wholly unrelated article. It would be perfectly reasonable to merge the information into the Bas Balkissoon article. - SimonP 22:23, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
So are you saying unnotable articles should be merged with each other, as opposed to with notable articles ? I don't object to that, but don't really see what it helps, either. StuRat 22:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
This is a red herring I think. People clearly vote discretely merge or delete in a myriad of circumstances. Clearly many people, in many instances, think certain information simply has no place anywhere in the encyclopedia, hence they vote delete. Following the "if you don't like it, merge elsewhere" logic to its final conclusion, why not disallow delete votes period? · Katefan0(scribble) 21:21, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
You know what, that might not be an entirely bad idea. Turning VfD into a place where people attempt to constructively reach consensus on where certain material should end up, instead of the battlefield it is now, might be really productive. Having said that, I think we should still allow delete votes on articles that have no redeemable (verifiable and NPOV) content at all. JYolkowski // talk 15:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Agree with Kate, and also point out that WP:DP says articles "not appropriate for Wikipedia (see WP:NOT)" can be deleted. WP:NOT mentions "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". Clearly, if someone thinks an article is non-notable, they also think it's not appropriate for Wikipedia. ~~ N (t/c) 22:51, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
This is a common misunderstanding. "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" is not some policy that was introduced after a community discussion. It is merely a section header, written by myself, that was intended to be a title for the assorted rules that follow. - SimonP 23:00, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
If it's a common misunderstanding, perhaps a clarification on the main page would be in order. StuRat 23:16, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
OK, but the page still contains these statements:
  • "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety."
  • "Individual scheduled or expected future events, should only be included if the event is notable and almost certain to take place." (emphasis mine)
So a non-notable biography is explicitly something Wikipedia is not, and so is not appropriate for Wikipedia, and so can be deleted. ~~ N (t/c) 23:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premises. A non-notable biography may be something that Wikipedia is not (I disagree but am not going to argue that point), but it doesn't follow that it should be deleted. It would be more constructive to merge it with another article. JYolkowski // talk 15:48, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

If you can get verifiable information about someone, it's probably okay to write about him on Wikipedia. If you think the chap's story is a little trivial, merge his article into another. If you can't think of a merge target, ask around. There are people about whom the amount of information available is trivial: Fred Blogs, bank manager at HSBC in Lincoln. Well it's verifiable and arguably encyclopedic, but not particularly useful. But you can leave it there until Fred Bloggs, government minister comes along, then you relegate the original Fred Bloggs to Fred Bloggs, Bank Manager.

Why is this a big deal? Brief, uninteresting articles about uninteresting people occupy about 1kb each and aren't edited much. If we have space problems then we can prune such new articles semi-automatically by producing, every morning, a list of new articles that haven't been edited much after six months. Editors can look at the list and salvage those articles that they want to, the rest can be zapped after being listed for a month.

Wouldn't that be a lot better than this frantic, ant-like, patrolling of the borders of wikidom? I'm pretty sure that it would be far more effective. --Tony SidawayTalk 00:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't conclude an article is useless if it hasn't been edited recently, it may just have been well written to begin with and be about a topic which has no need of updates. Now, if nobody has viewed the page in a long time, that either means it is of little value or it can't be found, perhaps the name of the article should be changed. StuRat 00:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] discussion moved from project page

Uh, we should keep discussion here, eh? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 02:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

  • A policy of "delete if and only if the article is not verifiable in a reliable source" would make it far easier to decide borderline cases and would turn AfD into a constructive process which would make articles Wikipedia more reliable by adding references where possible, and due to the high standards required of a reliable source, the vast majority of articles which proponents of a notability criterion would like to be deleted would in fact be deleted. On the other hand, making notability an official requirement would be a retrograde step away from this policy and would ensure that AfD continues to degenerate. (this "con" added by Lupin|talk|popups)
    • Perhaps Wikipedia:Reliable sources should have an additional requirement that "dictionary/directory" sources (like DMV databases, dictionaries, almanacs, telephone directories, the Minot, North Dakota department of Public Works' database of city manholes and locations) may be used to establish facts about a topic; but a topic may not consist entirely of such sources? This might be an effective way of keeping pages of garage bands and other Wikipedia:vanity out, without appealing to a nebulous notability criteria that might exclude some topics that are verifiable, but some might not consider sufficiently important/excellent to merit inclusion? (My bias is to have a low threshold of notability--to keep out vanity and such, but to include topics which may be only of regional interest). --EngineerScotty 18:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Of course, if this were policy, anything reported on by a reputable newspaper would be a proper subject for an artilcle. Auto accidents, rain storms, minor losing political candidates, meetings of local clubs, all are reported on by newspapers, and we must consider newspapers reliable sources in general. DES (talk) 18:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Not every newspaper article need be treated the same. For instance, the weather section (as well as listings of sports scores, stock prices, and etc.) should be treated similarily to the telephone book--it can establish facts but not notability. To deal with the truly minor stuff; perhaps an additional rule can be proposed when questions arise--multiple sources, separated by time and/or distance. Even if a particularly grisly auto wreck gets front page coverage in a major metro newspaper on a slow news day, the time/distance rule might apply: was the wreck (and its aftermath) covered on multiple days? Did it receive attention elsewhere? Or was it a Tuesday-morning headline, forgotten on Wednesday? Likewise with the losing political candidate. Did the newspaper simply publish election results and candidate profiles? Or did the race receive significant and in-depth coverage, with the loser having an affect on public policy (despite losing)? In short, what do the sources say about the subject? I would be happy with a notability rule if: 1) it is made clear that notability may be documented--for any proposed article, regardless of subject; such documentation should be sufficient to reject an AfD on notability grounds; 2) the criteria for acceptable documentation of notability are made clear (which I have attempted to do in this thread), and 3) outside of such things as vanity articles and mere trivia, there are no categorical bars to articles on notability. Here, I'm referring to standards like "subjects in category X must meet standard Y to be considered notable". However, I'm OK with "if a subject in category X meets standard Y, then X is considered notable; otherwise notability must be demonstrated in some other fashion". I hope the difference between the two positions is clear. Often times, standards such as WP:MUSIC seem to be interpreted in the former fashion rather than the latter. --EngineerScotty 19:30, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
          • I really hope we don't consider local papers to be reliable sources. I've been written about in my local paper and those articles have contained several blatant errors and a lot of minor inaccuracies. The same is true for almost any story where I have been close to the subject. The front page of the New York Times is dependable, and a story covered by multiple papers or by multiple reporters at the same paper is likely to be accurate, but one off stories about car crashes or profiles of local notables are far from reliable. - SimonP 19:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
            • What size coverage do you mean by a "local" paper? Anything smaller than the NYT? Is the leading daily in a medium-to-large sized city "reliable"--i.e. the Seattle Times or the Minneapolis Star-Tribune? What about a smaller city's paper--the Eugene Register-Guard, for instance? I agree that small-town newspapers can often have low-quality journalism... but what size and scale do you consider acceptable? --EngineerScotty 20:49, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
              • To me verifiable means peer reviewed or reported by multiple sources. No newspaper, to my knowledge, does any sort of systematic fact checking. For a high profile story in the NYT or Washington Post you can be quite certain it will have been double checked, but most of what they publish, and pretty much everything published by other papers, isn't. - SimonP 22:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
      • Let's consider a specific, if rather personal example on the losing political candidate. Earlier this myear I was a candidate for local elective office (township council). There were multiple stories in each of three different papers, one of them a "reginal" paper by any reasonable standard (the Trenton Times). The local legal of Woman voters publsihed candidate questionaires on the web, and i think they are still up. Video of public debates was on the web. Would these facts justify a wikipedia articel about me? DES (talk) 02:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
      • The amount of fact checking doen by newpapers veries widely. But we frewuently cite suh publication as an adaqete source for specific fcts in articles. If newspapers are reliable enough for that purpose, why aren't they for measuring inclusion? DES (talk) 02:51, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
        • If you look at Results of the Canadian federal election, 2004 you will see several hundred articles on failed candidates, and several thousand more red links awaiting articles. For the next election our goal is to have an article on every candidate, and work is already well underway. These articles have existed for more than a year, and the wiki has yet to implode. That said I do think those articles are pushing things. The John Ford page, for example, could certainly not be seen as a useful biography of that person. To me verifiability also means accuracy in the long term. It is doubtful whether any newspaper will note this fellow's later career, and in 2105 the article will likely still state that "he runs an energy audit business and serves on the board of directors for the Ottawa Bicycle Club." In the long run it is unlikely that we can maintain this articles accuracy, because he will rapidly become unverifiable. - SimonP 03:50, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Likewise, we can add a similar rule stating that a work of fiction may be used as a source when documenting elements (characters, locales) within the work of fiction, or a fictional universe, but works of fiction may not be the only source. (A similar rule would apply to published works whose primary purpose is to document fictional universes and describe fictional works, such as the Star Trek Encyclopedia, Cliff Notes, etc.). This would keep out most fancruft, but still allow fictional elements (like an article on the characters of Hamlet or Darth Vader) which have broad appeal beyond fans of the work in question. --EngineerScotty 18:35, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Long tail vs collaboration

The long tail article specifically gives Wikipedia as an example of an internet phenemona that aggregates peripheral markets to add value. If our notability criteria is too stringent, we lose the effectiveness of the long tail. It was the "long tail" concept (that I learned about through Wikipedia), that convinced me to be more "inclusionist". So long as the facts are verifiable, notability should not be a criteria for inclusion in Wikipedia. If it's verifiable, it is notable to someone.

That said, the downside of that logic is that Wikipedia isn't a traditional encyclopedia: it's strength is it's collaborative nature. If the topic is so esoteric that there's no-one to collaborate with, then what's the point? Even if verifiable, there's no point in putting it in this forum where a random vandal can harm it.

Thus I'd like to suggest the AFD process shouldn't be a simply majority rules. If there is a group of people who wish to collaborate on that article/topic, no matter how small the group and no matter how obscure the topic, notability of the topic shouldn't be an issue of and in itself. The fact that a group wants to collaborate on that topic means it is notable (assuming it's verifiable, etc.)

How any society, and Wikipedia is a society, treats its minorities is a measure of that society's civility. Notability is in many ways simply the tyranny of the majority. Samw 03:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Assuming you mean a "group" of at least 2 people, you really are saying the same thing, just that your threshhold for "notability" is 2, instead of, say 100 people who have an interest in the topic. StuRat 03:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I would also modify one of your assertions:
"If it's verifiable, it is notable to someone."
I would say it was notable at the time the records were created. However, there may very well be records of how many bags of grain were stored in a warehouse 600 years ago, but that would hardly make this fact notable today, unless the bags contained plague rats or somehow were significant. StuRat 03:42, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Then again any good economic historian would kill for six hundred year old warehouse records. - SimonP 03:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
LOL, probably so, but that doesn't mean we need to include them here. StuRat 13:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
The question is how long the tail needs to be. Just look at the front page - so many articles that are more plentiful and detailed than the competition. However the tail doesn't need to carry everything in the world. The Land 18:56, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
It won't, because not everything is verifiable. Trollderella 00:06, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] General Idea

The fact is that by CSD A7 notability is already a requirement here - just for some articles. I don't really have an opinion either way (in the broad scheme of things, I give opinions in AfD based on notability of course due to current status) but I wish people would make up their minds whether they wan't to keep everything that's remotely verifiable, or get rid of stuff that's not notable. However, since both Jimbo and the community seem to agree that people require notability to be included it only makes sense to have a formal requirement for notability for all articles. After all, at least according to jimbo while this is a wiki the wiki serves as a means only to make the encyclopedia. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 17:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
While I'm at it I'll mention that this proposal as an actual proposal is pretty decent. Also, really, what we're talking about here is not notability per se - what we're talking about is importance - we need to restrict wikipedia to "important" topics. Even the most obscure topics can be important, but they need to state (thus a speedy if not for people) why they are important and provide some evidence to back it up. However, we don't call it "importance" because that's much harsher than notability (imagine something like "Delete not important" on AfD) and notability is more specific anyway. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 18:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with this statement. The Land 18:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Maybe some wordings around notability concept ?

IMO there is indeed a need of expressing "officially" a notability requirement. But I can't think of a way to define it nice and crisp. It will be subjective on a case by case. My concern for near future is that WP can become very "noisy": lots of signal but poor articles. That is why I agree on the statement "non-notable articles are bad". I feel WP need a way to slow down over-enthusiastic users. It's a bit overwhelming to realize that one can, apparently, write about any-thing, now and here. IMO it is misunderstood into creating non notable articles. Such a user can generate a surprisingly important amount of stress and rubbish. It's not good for WP neither for the community. I like the proposal.

Maybe there should be a few suggestions added with "notability" definition on the project page? Don't get me wrong, I have no solution either for defining the comming "significant" word. Not a simple problem:

  • To be passionate about a subject is not a sufficient reason for creating an article.
  • To have a true verifiable fact is not an acceptable single reason for writing an article.
  • To know something about a subject do not constitute in itself a reason why to write a new article.
  • Wanting to create a new article is nice, but not acceptable on it's own for a new article to be created.
  • An article must contain at least one line of "significant" information. Even a sub-sub-stub must have some "significance".
To whom? How can you tell whether it does? Who get's to decide whether something is significant to me? Trollderella

Bad examples:

  • [Grand-Prés is a huge shopping center next to my city named BlaBla.] True and verifiable. Non notable. Of interest only to very limited number of people. Geographically limited scope. No "interesting" bit.
If it is of interest to very limited number of people, that means that it is significant to some people, and so we should keep it. It seems perverse to delete something simply because only a few people want it. Trollderella
  • [My house has a door.] True and verifiable. But no significance.
Not really verifiable except by original research. There's no third party documentation of it, and anyway, nothing can be written about your door (well maybe, if it's a really unusual door) that isn't true of the general class of doors. This is a strawman. Trollderella
  • [My primary school named BlaBla has 200 pupils and offers 4 disciplines.] True, verifiable, but offers now valuable informations. Any primary school on the planet would be similar. The fact that math teacher is named "Higgins" do not add anything worthy.
Erm, many people disagree, and think that this is worth recording. Trollderella

Good examples:

  • [e=mc2] Very Obscure. Too short an article. Very limited number of people able to understand. Bad writing. But universally valid, crucial step in sciences, verifiable, true. Shortly: very high significance.
Only really of interest to a very small number of people. It should be deleted... ;) Trollderella
  • [The supermarket next to my house is huge. It was the first time the concrete type AB45 was used in a building. It gave the proof that AB45 is 20 times stronger than any other one.] Let's say it is true and verifiable. Limited geographical scope. But high significance for "concrete" business. Could be a line in "concrete" article. But NOT an article about my nearby Supermarket.
If the sumpermarket has some feature which breaks it out from the general class of supermarkets, like unique archetecture, then why not keep it? Trollderella 00:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Gtabary 21:00, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Encyclopedic implies knowledge

The encyclopedia is a comprehensive compilation of knowledge for learning and understanding. This seems good enough; and it explains what aspect of "notability" and "importance" we should consider. --Vsion 09:01, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Arguing semantics

I think we're mainly arguing semantics here. An article is usually considered "non-notable" if its subject falls foul of such consensual guidelines as WP:MUSIC, WP:BIO or WP:VAIN, or if it is not verifiable. It is important to note that "verifiable" has a different meaning on Wikipedia than in the outside world, and that most people are unaware of that (specifically, something is only WikiVerifiable if it can be verified from a reputable source). It is partially because of this dichotomy that people use the term 'notable' rather than 'Verifiable by the definition in Wikipedia policy'.

We do delete some articles that are called non-notable. Whether that is because they are non-notable or because of some other guideline such as WP:WEB is irrelevant, as long as it is done through consensual discussion. Calling an AFD nomination invalid because of the way it is worded is nothing but rules lawyering, and WP:NOT a bureaucracy. Referring to a poll that was held over a year ago does not say anything about the current situation, as issues are frequently changed or established without resorting to polls, and WP:NOT a democracy.

Before I was even aware of this proposal I was writing an essay on the topic, which I have now put at Wikipedia:Notability. Just an essay, no policy or guideline or anything. FYI and thoughts welcome. Radiant_>|< 10:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Implications at AfD

It should come as a surprise to no one that I feverently oppose this proposal, even though it is well-written and well-conceived. I oppose this proposal on a number of grounds:

1. This will only serve to make the AfD process even more cumbersome and acrimonious, in special reference to the AfD debates over schools. A proposal of this nature, will simply be a tool for "those who routinely nominate and vote to delete school articles" to try to shoehorn deletions where there is otherwise no concensus to delete. The concept that somehow making it policy that something has to be "notable" (with all of the subjective baggage that carries) in order to merit an article, is only going to deepen the divide over certain types of AfD nominations (particularly school articles). I oppose any policy that is either a tool to overturn existing standards, practices or concenses on WP. I also oppose any proposal that will so clearly build up further acrimony and number of articles in the AfD pipeline.

2. As alluded to in my point 1 above, "notability" is far, far, far too subjective to allow it be written into policy in this way. The exisiting policies on vanity articles and notablity of persons make sense, because there is a general concensus about how we determine the notablity of persons (even this has been violently debated in some quarters, however). But with other things, such as schools and train stations and other buildings/institutions of this nature, achieving a working concensus is much, much more difficult. This is in large measure because people disagree on what subjective standard for notability ought to be used. I think that leaving verifiability as the standard for things other than people is a workable, established and reasonable approach which the notabilists do not like because permits the existence of articles about things which they do not personally, subjectively consider notable (ie. my elementary school).

3. Any proposal of this sort, which does not address the problem of subjectivity of "notability" or "importance" or whatever is a doomed policy, in practice, if not in discussion. Witness the argument about "inherent notability" in the ongoing schools debate. Will such a policy help or hinder determining whether or not schools are inherently notable? Obviously it will be a hindrance as editors continue to scream "it's not notable" and "yes it's inherently notable" at each other at AfD. Now they would have another policy to fight with.

In summary, I think the omnibus approach to treat all articles with a notability litmus-test is a mistake. Concensus must be reached on classes or groups of articles in the same way that concensus was eventually reached on biographies and on people. --Nicodemus75 21:38, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

If we must have a notability criteria, it should be done as a class as Nicodemus75 suggests. A blanket "notability" criteria is far too subjective. Devil's in the details, general policies don't always help. Samw 23:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
I wonder if I can address the concerns of Nicodemus75.

1. This seems to be purely on the grounds that it might permit more school articles to be deleted. In fact (assuming no class of articles in inherently notable), this would actually allow articles that deserved a place in Wikipedia to be kept, by providing flexibility in the arguments. I don't think it can possibly cause any more acrimony than already exists, in fact, it should reduce it. It will be like moving from the deadlock of trench warfare (which we have now in inherent notability vs nothing is inherently notable), to mechanised warfare without static defenses.

2. Subjectivity is thus desireable, not problematic. It gives us the flexibility to include, say, a bus stop where JFK was shot and killed, while excluding all other bus stops. Or we can include a band, with no sales, comprising ex-Presidents of the USA, while excluding other non-notable bands.

3. Do a "Find and replace" on any daily AfD page, and see how many times that notability criteria are used.As such, notability is already the unwritten standard by which just about every AfD article is evaluated. Might as well put it in writing.--inksT 00:59, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

    • Your responses are exactly why I oppose this proposal. 1)Unlike you and others who "routinely nominate and vote to delete school articles", I do not wish to move to a situation of "mechanised warfare without static defenses". This is in fact an admission on your part that AfD will become more bloody. Some sort of mechanised warfare is obviously more bloody than the trench positions that currently exist. Having a "policy" in the arsenal is only going to increase the screaming by attempt to use and interpret the new policy in a new way, that will support respective positions. Your statement that: "this would actually allow articles that deserved a place in Wikipedia to be kept" is already a clear example that you will try to use any such policy as a justification for deleting school articles that a current plurality of voting editors believe to be inherently notable. 2) I am not talking about subjectivity on an article-by-article basis, but on an editor-by-editor basis. Your "flexibility" is merely a code-word for deletionism - it means that if some pre-requisite of "notability" can be laid upon the AfD process, that you and others can now try to browbeat neutral or moderate AfD voters into an article-by-article consideration, instead of leaving them the freedom to determine for themselves if they view an entire class of articles (ie. schools or battleships) as being notable in their own right. 3)False analogy (once again). Persons and biographies have a concensus driven standard of notability, other things to do not. Your point is totally, utterly false when it comes to schools. You (and others) label nearly every school which is nominated for AfD as "non-notable" - that is your opinion - it is not an "unwritten standard". The fact of the matter is, that 85%-90% of all schools nominated for AfD are not deleted, even though you and others label them as non-notable. The opposite of your assertion is actually true.--Nicodemus75 02:52, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Inks, it's true that the word "notable" is used heavily in AFD. But not with an agreed meaning. Many use it to mean what *should* be notable. Others use it to mean what has been found to be notable. The recently speedily-kept Jack Tripper could be re-AFD'd on the grounds it's "completely trivial" according to many. Many unnoticed horrible tragedies in the world are worthy of notice. Now, if you define notability based on what is "significant" and "important" and the opposite of "trivial", such tragedies are "notable". However, we (properly) don't make articles for such tragedies because they haven't been noticed by others. Wikipedia should have good articles, with every article being of value to some. But, there is no need for every article to be "important" to everybody. A good article can be "completely trivial" to some, and hugely helpful to others. Notability is a means to the end of determining what's a good article, however, it is not an end unto itself. To much time is wasted in AFD now, and we shouldn't give an excuse to create more AFDs on articles, that have been widely accepted. Rather than vague new proposals like this, we need more specific criteria like WP:MUSIC, which has been highly useful, and avoids the random voting patterns we see in some areas. The only good part of the proposal, is that since schools are by nature "significant, important, or notable" this proposal would more easily justify keeping all real ones, while deleting "completely trivial" stuff like pokemon. But, I wouldn't support a proposal just for one category of articles. --rob 06:14, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

The status quo whereby the definition of "notability" is amorphous is a reason for, not against, creation of policy that defines its meaning and use in Wikipedia. An argument to include articles that are important to some of the people, some of the time could justify including hoaxes and vandalism for the entertainment value they provide to the vandals, for example. Similarly, we can be specific to the point of absurdity - having criteria for secondary schools with between 1000 and 2000 students, primary schools established for less than 22.5 years, bus stops in third world countries that are democracies...the examples are absurd, but hopefully illustrative.--inksT 10:07, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I really like your example of WP:MUSIC. I don't care for most music articles but am glad there are specific criteria in this specific category. A general "notability" critieria doesn't achieve anything. For those that are advocating that, I challenge you to come up with specific criteria on specific categories. I am sure we can come to agreement as to what is notable for schools, for example. If we can't come to agreement on what constitutes a notable school, why do we think we can come to an agreement on a general notability criteria? Samw 21:32, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
Consensus can be achived. The fact that there is a problem in one area or subsector does not mean that prevents consensus from being formed in other areas. One could argue that any topic that by its notability definition includes over 500,000 building does not belong in wikipedia. It belongs in a new wiki for that vast array of data. Vegaswikian 21:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

But why?? There is no need to delete anything simply because you don't think it's worth noting and someone else does. If someone else does, and it is verifiable, then let it stand. And please, please, no strawman about your dog. When you really think about it, it isn't verifiable. Southern Local Supervoid though, is almost certainly not notable to most people. Are you going to want to delete it? Trollderella 23:58, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Considering how many articles we get along the lines of "Biffy McBeefer, the captain of the football team in our school" and whatnot, I don't think it's a straw man at all. In many, if not most cases it's easy enough to verify that that guy Biffy does go to said school and is indeed the captain of the team, but unless the guy is somehow notable, I don't see why there should be an article about him just because we can verify his existence -- by that logic, the only reason we don't have over six billion articles -- most of them stubs -- on just the humans alive at this very moment is that we can't actually verify that they all exist. (Well, that and the fact that there's no way we could actually write them all up, but that's kind of beside the point since we're pretty much arguing the principle of the thing rather than the logistics of it.)
Again, with the strawman. (If you want to delete an article, surely you want to eat babies as well?). There is going to be virtually no secondary source documentation on your high school captain. You won't, in practice, be able to write a sourced and referenced article that is not OR. Even if you could write a stub, it would get merged into the article on the team. Even if it wasn't, if it was really sourced and referenced, it's not doing any harm. Trollderella 23:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I do think that when we talk about notability, it shouldn't be from a personal perspective -- I mean, do I really give a damn about Southern Local Supervoid? Does it have an impact on my life? Nope. But then, the tide doesn't have an appreciable impact on my life either. Yet I realize that these are notable things that warrant encyclopedia articles. On the other hand, I don't think that my blog deserves an article of its own, because I realize that it's not notable to the world at large -- it doesn't even have the potential to be of interest to them. It's not a part of the world they live in in the sense that, unlike a far-off region of space, it is not a significant part of the scope of human knowledge. There is no scientific curiosity about my blog. It doesn't influence people who make decisions or works of art that affect our lives. It doesn't have an impact on a significant portion of (even the local) population. I am capable of differentiating between what is notable to me and what is notable to the rest of us -- and again, not on a personal level but in the grand scale of things.
I can see absolutely no theoretical differnce between a completely irrelevant empty part of space and a blob. If we can write a sourced, referenced article about your blog that says more than simply that it is a blog, without doing original research, I don't mind it. Trollderella 23:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, undoubtedly there's going to be debate about whether item X is notable or not even if we accept that notability is explicitly a criterion for inclusion (and I do believe that the very fact that WP:NOT states that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information clearly and strongly implies that notability is already assumed to be a requirement for inclusion), but at least then it would be blatantly clear that a certain degree of notability is required. That's one argument less, right there, because it seems to me that now people argue about whether or not notability is a requirement and then they argue about whether the subject at hand is notable. And yes, undoubtedly people are still going to argue that some obscure-yet-very-influential mathematical formula or concept that only interests five hundred people in the entire world isn't notable, but so what?
Well that's the problem. A thing is notable to certain people not in the abstract. Trollderella 23:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm not terribly interested in actually defining notability, either (especially as it's outside the scope of this proposal), because frankly, I don't think it's that relevant. I think that we must either accept that a certain degree of notability or significance is a requirement for inclusion or resign ourselves to the fact that anything is an acceptable topic for an article as long as it is verifiable, which means that if I post a picture of myself eating a sausage, while holding up some form of valid ID, it immediately becomes a valid topic for an article about Captain Disdain's consumption of sausages simply because it's verifiable. (After that we can start an argument on the talk page about whether or not I actually ate the sausage because we only have a photo, not video, and I might very well have just held it in my mouth or spat the chewed-up sausage bits out once the picture was taken, and whether the article should be moved to Captain Disdain with a piece of sausage in his mouth because that much can be verified from the picture...) And I do not think that's a straw man, because we're talking about the principle of what an encyclopedia should contain and what the criteria for inclusion should be, not whether or not someone would actually create such an article.
Enought already with the strawman arguments. Your sausage, as you know, is original research. Plus, if you want to keep notability, you must want to eat babies, too. Trollderella 23:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
No, it's original research if I write about it. If it's a crappy and essentially article with nothing in it but that picture, it's a completely verifiable stub (verifiable as in "yes, this is indeed Captain Disdain eating sausage") that someone can potentially expand. Of course, you could still argue that it's still original research because my consumption of sausages has never been peer reviewed and thus the very article should be removed. You could drag it through the already overloaded AfD process to get it removed, but even then you wouldn't really be doing that because it's original research, you'd be doing it because it's ridiculous and non-notable crap that has no business being in an encyclopedia, even if it is absolutely verifiable. (Well, I hope you would, anyway.) Why not come right out and say it instead of coming up with convoluted reasons for its removal that don't address the actual problem -- the article's utter lack of relevance? -- Captain Disdain 23:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
My God. I'm baffled that you want to continue down this dead-end. So. You have a picture of yourself eating a sausage. What article are you going to add it to? If you want to add it to an article on you, then we would look at whether there is enough verifiable, referenced material on you to make an article, if so, whether the picture you uploaded adds anything to the article. I suppose it could be added to sausage eating competition, if there was an article, but basically, your example is stupid. If someone insisted on adding this, it would, indeed go to AFD, just as it does now. It would be deleted because it is unverifiable. Trollderella 00:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Which article? The article about me eating a sausage, of course. It would be very easy to verify that it is indeed me eating a sausage. It would be a completely useless, idiotic and non-notable article, but it would be verifiable. I mean, if I were to write about it, it might be harder to verify, but if I were to just create an article, slap the picture into it and write "Captain Disdain ate a sausage", and mark it as a stub, that'd be it. I'm not saying it's not stupid, because it is stupid. That's the whole point, because despite its mind-boggling stupidity and lack of encyclopedic content, it would be verifiable. And please don't think of that as a straw man, because it's something that could happen, and as far as I can tell, the only real reason to delete it would be the profound lack of notability. It's not original research (certainly not in a clear-cut way, anyway) because it wouldn't make any assertions other than the fact that I ate a sausage, and the picture would prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is verifiable, but it is not notable. There are many other, far less ridiculous subjects -- for example, the apartments I mentioned later on -- that are also just as verifiable and just as non-notable. I think it's okay to call them on that lack of notability. -- Captain Disdain 00:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Of ourse, I realize that some people really don't have a problem with Wikipedia being cluttered with articles about verifiable, yet utterly unsignificant topics. Obviously, I don't agree with that point of view. -- Captain Disdain 11:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
You talk about 'cluttered' as if it's an actual physical space, with things in the way. You'll never see the article about the obscure star unless you look it up. Of course, if you delete it, when someone does look it up, it won't be there. Trollderella 23:28, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I talk about "cluttered" as if it was easily seen a ridiculous mess of crap that no one can take seriously simply because those involved in creating it don't have the self-control to keep their encyclopedia encyclopedic. There's no point in working on something like this if a concentrated effort isn't made to ensure that the end result is a quality product that is dependable, useful and relevant. (I realize that by its very design, the process is far from infallible, but that doesn't mean that it needs to be useless.) As for stars, claiming that asserting notability as one of the requirements for inclusion in Wikipedia would mean that stars would get deleted... well, that is a straw man. -- Captain Disdain 23:55, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I am not promoting a "ridiculous mess of crap", as you know. Once again, I am advocating rigerous verification and sourcing of information to produce articles with both breadth and depth. You know this, and all you can do is come up with strawman upon strawman about you eating sausages. You know that having depth of coverage is not inconsistent with quality. Actually, stars have been listed on AFD, the argument being that they were 'not notable'. Not a strawman after all. Trollderella 00:07, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to point out why rigorous verification and sourcing of all information is not enough, because you can rigorously verify and source a great many things that just are not notable. I admit that my example was somewhat far-fetched (and, in retrospect, poorly chosen because it just distracts us from the actual argument, and for that I apologize). And yes, I fully realize that stars have been listed on AfD with that argument, but you can list anything on AfD with any argument. I mean, you can nominate a star and call it original research, and it'd be speedily kept, just like any stars that get nominated as non-notable are. -- Captain Disdain 00:20, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to sound rude. Let's try to find an example of the kind of article that you think can be properly verified and sourced, that is not original research, and yet you would not want on notability grounds. I'm just not convinced we're all that far from each other in practice. Trollderella 00:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Honestly, neither am I. I realize that this is getting to be a kind of heated argument, and I'm kind of uncomfortable with that; like I said before, I'm sorry if I'm annoying you, because I'm honestly not trying to. I think this is a prime example of text-based communication going a little awry, and I apologize for contributing to that with a needlessly provacative example.
Me too - it's easy to get locked into fruitless ranting. Thanks! Trollderella 17:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
So. What about my earlier point about buildings and apartments? Because I think they are verifiable (buildings can be found in maps and street plans, and apartments can be found in blueprints, and so forth -- point is, they're real world fixtures and as such inherently verifiable) and easily listed without erring into original research. Do you think they should, as a rule, be included in Wikipedia? Very few buildings actually stand out as notable, let alone individual apartments. (If you do think that there's no reason why every verifiable building shouldn't be included in Wikipedia, that's okay and I can even see the point in that, if only because the concept of "repository of all human knowledge" is very appealing to me in itself -- I just don't think it's at all a feasible or realistic goal, and it's better to impose limitations than to do it badly.) I think that's a fairly good example of a verifiable and extremely NPOV-friendly topic that nonetheless is very much lacking on the notability front. Or, say, bridges -- the Golden Gate Bridge is obviously quite notable, but the vast, vast majority of bridges out there are very clearly not. Or, say, local playgrounds? -- Captain Disdain 01:14, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Re buildings and appartments, my feeling would be that simply collating information from maps or street plans is pretty much reproducing source material. A list of buildings and appartments that exist would be the kind of thing that belongs on wikisource, for the same reason that, while every line of Hamlet is verifiable, we don't reproduce each line. I would say that buildings that have commentry that can be sourced about them, critical articles on archetecture, newspaper articles that list the buildings, anything secondary that gives verifiable information about the building, beyond simply that it exists. My feeling is that the length of the article is pretty much going to be determined by the amount that other people have written about the building in question. The Golden Gate Bridge has a wealth of sources who write about it, the only way to get the railway bridge at the end of my road in would be to comment that it exists, and pretty much the only article it could go into would be List of bridges. I'm not sure whether I would oppose the article that contained that railroad bridge, since I don't think that listing it does any harm, but I wouldn't write it.
So the short answer is 'no', I think that, while every building might be verifiable, it isn't possible to write a factual verifiable article on every building. There just isn't enough information to get beyond saying that This building exists. If all you're going to say in the article is that the building exists, then it's really just reproduction of source material, in which case, if it belongs anywhere at all, it's on WikiSource. Does that make any sense? Trollderella 17:44, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. It's pretty much exactly how I feel about it. And that's also pretty much what people generally mean when they talk about notability as a criterion for inclusion. (I realize that some people mean something else, such as "I don't like it" or "I am an uneducated idiot and I've never heard of it" or "I don't agree with its politics so I will downplay its importance" or whatever, but that's really an unconnected issue.)
Another example of where notability really comes into play would be listing every position at every company out there. It's absolutely verifiable that, say, Microsoft has 49871 (Disclaimer: this number not in any way connected to reality) team leaders and all of these positions can be listed and explained, one by one, and this information can be sourced, and it's certainly not original research, but it's not encyclopedic information because it's not notable in the least -- it's true, but it's not relevant.
And actually, while Wikipedia is not paper, I think that can be cluttered because much of this information is of a type that doesn't warrant an article of its own but would end up being merged and tacked on to other articles, bloating them ridiculously. I'm only guessing here, but I'm betting that you (like most other experienced Wikipedia editors out there) have been in a situation where someone adds a bunch of stuff into an article, and it's all pretty much technically valid, but you still end up taking it out or at least very, very much condensing that information because it either hurts the overall article or just isn't in any way relevant. An example of how this could happen would be, say, someone adding the name of every single contributor who ever did anything for a major newspaper. That's valid, as far as the other criteria go, but it's just completely unnecessary. It's not notable. And that's why we remove those edits, even if they're otherwise valid. That's a value judgement right there; it's generally accepted we are not in the process of cataloguing everything out there, and that's not only because it'd be a Herculean task far beyond our means. We discriminate a whole lot, and all other guidelines aside, I think much of it is based on whether something is important or not. So clearly, notability -- or relevance, or significance, or whatever we want to call it -- is an important part of it. (I think it's very fortunate that for a good part, it's already taken care of as a byproduct of our other guidelines; if something cannot be verified and sourced at all, chances are that it's not notable, for example. But I don't think it works in all cases, and it certainly doesn't work the other way aroud.)
So. I absolutely don't want to put words in your mouth, but would I be correct if I posited that you're not in fact so much opposed to notability as a criterion for inclusion in general (because, really, otherwise there's nothing to keep us from listing every single person whose existence we can verify here), but rather you're very worried about the results of such a policy in practice? Because I think that's a very valid concern; I do think that you're correct in that in many cases, we have editors who are either unwilling or unable to put the thing in perspective and decide that just because they've never heard of Fomalhaut and it doesn't interest or affect them in any way, it must be non-notable. That's a real and considerable problem. But if that's the case, then I think that's the problem we must address, either by educating our editors or by working up sufficient guidelines for notability to ensure that the system works. I want to stress that I believe that notability is already implied to be a part of the criteria and I know that it's certainly already that in practice, as far as the actual overall AfD and editing process goes. (Not without the occasional heated argument, of course, but, hey, that's Wikiepdia. =)) So if it's not a valid criterion, then the policy should be revised to indicate that notability is not a requirement... and I think most of us agree that such a statement would be pretty bad for Wikipedia's overall usability and credibility, because suddenly, even the sausage thing, brain-numbingly stupid though it is, would be valid as long as it could be verified to be true. -- Captain Disdain 09:12, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with most of what you're saying. I think that, were you to apply your criteria of notability, and I mine of verifiability, 99% of the time we'd come to the same conclusion about any given article. I completely understand what you mean about articles getting cluttered with random facts, and don't want that either, but I think that's another whole can of worms, actually writing an article (rather than judging whether, in theory, an article should exist) is more difficult and requires more judgement. My worry is around people who use the idea of notability to try to delete things that could well be, or are clearly, notable to some people, like stars, schools, real places, fictional places, and local politicians. I would want to include all of these, and would want to err on including things that could be verified and catalogued in a meaningful way rather than on the side of deleting them. For me the problem is that notability comes with more baggage of subjectivity.
I don't know where you stand on the school issue, for example, but a lot of the backlash against notability as a term comes from its use there. There is such sharp disagreement about whether schools are, or could ever be, notable.
So yes, I have problems more in practice than in theory. I'm excited that we've got beyond shouting at each other, and feel like there may be some way through this! Where do we go from here? Trollderella 01:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, as far as this particular proposal under discussion goes, I don't think we actually go anywhere except eventually to the voting. But I do think that that is a crucial first step, because any meaningful discussion about what qualifies as notable (ie. the actual drawing up of guidelines for determining notability) can only take place once it has been established in plain terms that notability is, indeed, a criterion for inclusion (as opposed to just implying it, as we now do). And I want to stress that that's not going to have a practical effect on the AfD process as such, because those who argue against, say, schools from the notability standpoint are still going to end up arguing against them just the same, and those who want to keep schools are going to argue that they are notable. I think that the real challenge will definitely be defining and refining what we mean by "notability". I mean, the proposed policy wording is "although there is debate about just what makes a subject notable, there is a consensus that a subject must be in some way significant, important, or notable to someone for it to be a proper subject of an encyclopedic article" -- so it doesn't really change anything in itself, because all you need to do is say "it's notable to me" or "it's notable to the guy who wrote the article", and technically, that's all it takes. Obviously, that's not going to do the trick, but it does establish the need to define notability for real -- and that definition needs to be one that makes it clear that lack of notability is not the same as "I never heard of it" or "it's not popular" or whatever.
That's not going to be easy, but I think that's the only way we're ever going to have some degree of consensus. The good thing about that is that eventually we'll be able to keep schools and stars and minor actors and whatnot by default, without a huge argument every time, simply because they fall into the notability criteria -- but we can't really define that criteria until notability is made an explicit part of the poliy. Or, rather, we can't officially define it; there's nothing to stop us from starting work on that so we have something ready. But any truly meaningful work on that is going to be done after people realize that now it really needs to be done, otherwise people are just going to keep on playing this tug o' war that never goes anywhere and consumes a lot of time and patience and generally leaves people tired and irritable and disillusioned...
This is a can of worms, I know. But I think that in the long run, it's a lot better to work towards a clear policy than to maintain a state of vagueness, which is what we have now. And I think a lot of people actually prefer that, in some ways, because then they can just make their statements without actually doing the heavy lifting that needs to be done before we have anything that works. (I may sound too optimistic here anyway; I realize that however this turns out, it's going to be an uphill battle for everyone involved... but one worth tackling, I'd say, considering that we're talking about such a core element of Wikipedia.)
(Oh, and as far as schools go, I'm kind of undecided -- to be honest, I've tried to avoid those arguments simply because I don't feel very strongly about it one way or another, and there's this "if I stick my hand in that, it's gonna get bitten off" element there. I don't know if every school out there should have its own article, but I certainly think that considering how important a role education plays in our society, they can certainly be at least mentioned, by merging smaller schools from a certain area into a bigger article, for example. I do think that schools are inherently more notable than, say, McDonald'ses. But this is not something I've really invested a lot of thought in, so it isn't a very considered position.) -- Captain Disdain 05:59, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. I think that's the most reasoned and convincing justification for notability I've heard. How about this though... Since notability is not part of our current policy, and verifiability is, why not have a go at coming at the problem from the other direction? Instead of attempting to define notability in a way that is going to be viciously contentious, what about codifying what it means to be verifiable in a way that explicitly excludes hungry wikipedian's sausage antics and other undesirables? Would you be prepared to work on a draft? It wouldn't preclude you deciding to give up and pursue notability as a solution...? Trollderella 16:35, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, a couple of reasons why I don't think that's going to work very well. First of all, personally, I've thought about this quite a bit, and I can't think of a good way of doing it with verifiability. That doesn't mean there isn't one, and I'm very willing to discuss it, but I'm kinda skeptical there -- I simply can't think of a way to define verifiability that excludes... well, it might exclude the sausage antics unless someone went to a lot of trouble, but as far as individual apartments or McDonald'ses or those positions at Microsoft go, I think they're inherently verifiable, as well as inherently non-notable. I don't think you can fix that with changing the verifiability guidelines -- at least not without calling notability verifiability. Secondly, and more importantly, I think it's unwise to form a policy for the purpose of pursuing another policy -- if the issue is notability, and I think we've established that it is, I think it should be stated explicitly that so it can be addressed on its own terms. Otherwise we're just being dishonest about what we're trying to do, and that can only cause problems in the long run. But yes, I'm absolutely willing to discuss the matter; if you have suggestions or ideas, I'm all ears -- I don't pretend to have read answers for everything, here... -- Captain Disdain 04:43, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Verifiability would clearly exclude the sausage example, unless you managed to get into a newspaper with your antics, or someone else wrote a book about it, Microsoft's org chart as far as I'm concerned is source material or original research, unless a third party writes abouts it, in which case it's fair game (I'm not aware of any non-Microsoft material on this, you might get some of it from books like MicroSurfs, or whatever it's called).
On your second point, I don't think that we have agreed that the issue is notability, I am still deeply sceptical of the idea, I think it's foolish and reckless. I think the issue that we agree on is that we don't want trivia and vanity articles. I don't want each editor to be able to define trivia in whatever way they want to, or, more worryingly, groups of editors to be able to mobilize groups to delete material en masse because they think it is trivia. Verifiability is a way to prevent the worst kind of trivia, and the worst kind of abuse of that power. I do feel like a more rigerous definition of what constitutes a verifiable article would go a long way to allaying people's fears. Trollderella 16:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, the guideline Wikipedia:Reliable sources is already a good way of the way there, and has the same status as notability. As the page says, A policy of "delete if and only if the article is not verifiable in a reliable source" would make it far easier to decide borderline cases and would turn AfD into a constructive process which would make articles Wikipedia more reliable by adding references where possible, and due to the high standards required of a reliable source, the vast majority of articles which proponents of a notability criterion would like to be deleted would in fact be deleted. On the other hand, making notability an official requirement would be a retrograde step away from this policy and would ensure that AfD continues to degenerate. Trollderella 16:09, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, as far as the sausage goes, all I would really have to do is wait for one of those TV live shows that are shot in front of a window that overlooks on a street and eat that sausage there in the background, in good view of the camera. They do one every day over here. It would not be particularly hard for anyone to verify that it's me, either, especially as I'm a journalist by trade and my name and face can be found in various magazines. Not that I'm particularly recognizable as such, but as far as verifiability goes, it's a cinch.
Well, other than the fact that it would be original research, you're right. Of course, it would be original research, so it's not a problem. Trollderella 16:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
No, I don't think so. Again, it's original research if someone goes and actually writes the article, but if someone merely creates the article and leaves it empty as a stub, why wouldn't it stay that way? The topic is not inherently original research; all you would need to prove is that the person in question is indeed the person in question (no problem) and that he ate a sausage (again, no problem), and that would do the trick -- unless you decreed that the topic was non-notable, of course. Sure, if you were to actually say anything beyond that, that'd be problematic, but that sad and ridiculous little stub? It'd be no less legitimate than a mention of something that happens on Late Night With Conan O'Brien; if it's a mention of an event on a TV program, surely that isn't original research by any stretch of imagination. Which is precisely why a criteria composed of verifiability and original research alone doesn't do the trick, because again, you can come up with plenty of stuff that's true and reduced to such simplistic terms that it's not original research because it's simply a mention of an established fact, but it isn't notable. And, again, the same goes for less idiotic examples, such as specific apartments and buildings and so forth. -- Captain Disdain 17:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
OK, where I am coming from here is the Wikipedia:No original research policy (an actual policy). It states Original research refers to original research by editors of Wikipedia... The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication; and goes on to exclude Primary sources... such as archeological artifacts; photographs (but see below); historical documents such as a diary, census, transcript of a public hearing, trial, or interview; tabulated results of surveys or questionnaires, records of laboratory assays or observations; records of field observations.. I interpret this to mean that, until an article on your sausage eating antics appears in a reputable publication (yes, we can argue about what a reputable publication is!) simply finding a picture of it, and documenting it yourself, is original research. Do you see this one differently? Trollderella 18:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm familiar with the document (and I think it's a very good document, too). But if we assume that I take the trouble to walk in front of the TV camera at the the aforementioned window and eat the sausage, I think that'd easily fit the "reputable publication" criterion without any argument. The point of "reputable publication" is, after all, to ensure that the Weekly World News or fanzines don't qualify, but a live TV broadcast is, well, pretty dependable by its very nature, especially when it comes to simply reporting what's been seen on camera. In this instance, this article would not create a primary source; rather, it would reference it (ie. "make descriptive claims the accuracy of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable adult without specialist knowledge"). It's true that I couldn't very well write the article myself, but frankly, considering that this is the Internet, the home of the Hampsterdance and more slash fiction than you can shake a stick at, I think we can assume that it's not that hard to find someone who'll devote the time to something dumb, particularly if he thinks it's a laugh...
And, again, this is an extremely stupid and contrived example, but, uh, since I was stupid enough to bring it up, I guess we're a little stuck with it. Once again, though, everything here also applies to apartments and fire hydrants and specific positions within Microsoft's organizational structure; surely building blueprints or Microsoft's own paperwork and other similar official documents qualify as reputable publications? It's certainly true that there's not a lot you can say about them (or about my consumption of sausages) without erring on the side of original research (ie. "making analytic, synthetic, interpretive, or evaluative claims"), but that doesn't mean you couldn't write up a kazillion verifiable and non-notable stubs that conform to NPOV. -- Captain Disdain 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Really, that's another case in point, since I certainly don't think I'm eligible for inclusion in Wikipedia, even if I've been published in various magazines and contributed to various books, because I'm simply not much, if at all, more notable than any other random writer out there. It would be ridiculously easy to verify my credits and add my name to every article on Wikipedia that deals with the publications and/or endeavors in question, but the reason this doesn't happen (and why my name would get removed, if someone were to add it) is because I'm not relevant to those articles, and that's most definitely not an issue of verifiability or original research or, indeed, anything other than the fact that I am, in the grand scale of things, just some guy.
Whether or not to add your name to every article that you've ever had anything to do with is another question altogether, and up to the people editing the article in question. I suspect that they would agree that it is not relevent to this discussion, since we're talking about topics that should or should not have their own article, not whether somewhat related facts should be tacked onto other articles. Trollderella 16:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, you may have noticed that I've actually fairly consistently tried to talk about why notability in general should be an explicit requirement, not just in regards to AfD (though it certainly has implications for the AfD process). -- Captain Disdain 17:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I would fight shy of trying to define what should go into an article. The process of negotiating what an article contains is difficult on many levels, and is ultimately the result of what the people in the room agree is reality. It is important that we allow that negotiation to evolve over time without too many constraints. Trollderella 18:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I very much agree. I guess the problem is that we disagree on what exactly is "too many constraints"... -- Captain Disdain 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I find it kind of intellectually dishonest to enforce the policy in practice (and the whole AfD thing is kinda beside the point; as long as we remove completely verifiable stuff that clearly isn't original research from articles simply because it's irrelevant or insignificant or stupid or whatever, we are clearly working from the notability standpoint) and yet refuse to admit to what we're doing. I mean, if notability is not a part of the criteria, okay, fine -- then let's make that an explicit policy; either it is a consideration or it isn't... -- Captain Disdain 08:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
No, the two things are completely different. One is a collaborative editing process that tries to write the best article possible at that time from what the people in the room think is a neutral point of view, the other is an attempt by the people in the room to define what the acceptable range of subjects for articles should be. It is not part of the criteria for deletion. Guidelines for how to write an article are not the same thing. Trollderella 16:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
I really don't understand. Do you mean that it's okay to remove an addition from an existing article on grounds of non-notability, but it's not okay to remove an entire article for the same reason? (And what's wrong with defining what the acceptable range of subjects for articles should be? I mean, we already do that all the time.) -- Captain Disdain 17:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
As I said, I see the process of writing an article as neogotiating over what the people in the room think reality is. We can write an article on George Bush only by negotiating the contents. Is the fact that some people claim he was a drug adict non-notable, marginally notable or very notable? It's impossible to say, because it's a matter of opinion, what we can agree on is that it is possible to verify that some people claim it. This is an arcane process, and will go on indefinately as new people enter the room and we renogotiate reality based on their opinion.
The difference between that and defining the acceptable range of subjects is that, in the first case, we are writing the best article that we can on the subject. We may split information out into smaller sub-articles on the man's drug preferences if necessary. In the second case, supposing that we decided that politicans are not notable, we would be making the decision for our editors on what they could and could not read and write about. Does that distinction really not make any sense? I'm not sure how better to articulate it. Trollderella 18:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
That distinction makes sense, yeah. I'm not sure if it really answered the question, though -- I mean, do you agree that things are removed from articles on grounds of non-notability, and that's okay? And if that's okay, why shouldn't that be an official policy, if only for the sake of clarity? -- Captain Disdain 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)


To go back to the original research policy - I think this sums it up - "In most cases, Wikipedia articles include material on the basis of verifiability, not truth. That is, we report what other reliable secondary sources have published, whether or not we regard the material as accurate." That is to say we do not need to decide whether William Shatner is more notable than William Shakespeare, let our readers make that determination based on the verified facts we give them. Trollderella 18:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
So, basically, anything that can be verified is acceptable? But -- and I ask this in good faith here, not to pick nits -- doesn't that mean that I could write an article about the desk Conan O'Brien uses on Late Night With Conan O'Brien (surely the existence of that is about as verifiable as anything can be) or, say, any tree that's ever been seen in a live TV broadcast on BBC News? And if not, why not? Writing in-depth articles on those subjects would be difficult, if not impossible, absolutely, but the very fact that their existence is inherently verifiable would make them eligible for inclusion, as far as I can tell. I really don't think this is a desirable thing and further posit that many such additions are constantly removed from Wikipedia, whether by trimming articles of deleting them entirely, and that's solely because they are absolutely non-notable. (Well, I guess you could argue that O'Brien's desk is notable, what with it having been a fixture on a notable TV show for ages, but those trees? Or me and that accursed sausage? I think not...)
Furthermore, we don't need to say whether or not thing X is more notable than thing Y; we merely need to determine whether they're notable enough. And while I have no doubt that formulating workable and satisfying guidelines for that is going to take a lot of work, I do think that coming up with guidelines that include things like stars is a piece of cake because, well, they're freakin' stars -- the actual arguments are going to be about something else entirely. I really don't see that as a bad thing, either, because that's where we can head off a lot of time-consuming argument in the future, because then we no longer need to fight about stars and schools. (And if something doesn't make it into the guidelines, well, if that's the consensus...) Surely that's better than the constant state of indecision and argument that currently exists and continues to annoy people? Right now there is no policy and no guidelines to follow on much of this stuff, so people make things up on the spot, and regardless of whether an argument for or against the inclusion of something makes sense, there's no document people can use to back up their arguments... so it's basically an ongoing screaming match, and that just strikes me as terribly taxing and counterproductive. (And it's not like this kind of completely pointless stuff doesn't get added to Wikipedia all the time, it just gets dumped right away... on grounds of non-notability. Again, it's already a policy in all but name; just a very badly defined policy. That's a sorry state of affairs in my opinion.) -- Captain Disdain 07:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
I can't really think of a real world example of the kind of article you're thinking of. Here's my challenge - find a real article that you don't want because you doing think it is notable, but you think it is verifiable - maybe that will help us focus on what exactly (if anything) we disagree about in practice. Trollderella 22:53, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
In the extreme cases, I'd say notability and verifiability do seem to share the same field. I can't possibly imagine the amount of vandalism we would have without verifiable entries. John Smith from Portland, Maine might want to say he's an avid fisherman, but someone can come along and say he's really into ice skating instead. How can this info be verified if there's no other information out there about this sort of thing? How will we know which edits are the true edits: fisherman or ice skater? One day, John Smith will come back to Wikipedia and find his page all askew and what good will it be doing then? But at the same time, I think people can easily argue that something is verifiable (e.g. that Conan O'Brien's desk exists and is wooden...), but it's not that notable (practically nobody cares). If we decided to keep every piece of non-notable information on Wikipedia, we'd probably have millions of articles at this point, which would not be a help on the servers, and it wouldn't do anybody any good to have articles on "John Smith (Portland ice skater)" justified simply by his birth certificate. JHMM13 (T | C) 03:33, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adds nothing but vagueness

This proposal adds nothing but a repetition of vague deletionist criteria. We have more detailed criteria already, and this proposal adds nothing to them. It won't actually work as intended since no one who isn't preinclined to agree with a deletion will accept that it covers an article under consideration. All it will do is create another source of acrimony. CalJW 21:30, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. The word means nothing but 'What I like'. Verifiablity is concrete, objective, and already policy. Plus, it works. No one has yet explained to me what is wrong with it, except by the strawman of 'well, if you want that, then you have to have the chipped paint on the fire hydrant outside my friend's house'. Notability doesn't help us, because there's no definition of what is worth noting, or who thinks so - it is inherrently POV. Let's stick with verifiable. It works. Trollderella 23:56, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
Jimbo says that verifiability isn't enough in some cases. [1] --Interiot 18:39, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
That's nice. His comments are not the same as policy though. Trollderella 23:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think you understand what strawman actually means. You can verify something unencyclopedic. I could, for example, provide verifiable information on random, non-notable people, bands or random landmarks like that. I could even provide official government records, a book and a tv show on myself, does that make me encyclopedic? Also, I think it's pretty much widely accept, for example, that we CAN verify that little bands exist, but that being little means they shouldn't be included, and that is, by definition a notability criterion. There are already several working definitions of notability (such as the music one), so you can't claim there aren't any. Just because you can't come up with a valid counter-argument for unencyclopedic things being verifiable doesn't mean you can blindly dismiss them.

Oh and incidentally, both NPOV and verifiability policies include notability criteria. NPOV explicitly states that extremely small minority views on Wikipedia need not be represented at all and that bigger minority views get just minor represntation. That's notability. And even verfiability says "just because some information is verifiable, doesn't mean that Wikipedia is the right place to publish it." So unless you're suggesting verifiability is automatic grounds for inclusion, then you need notability. Nathan J. Yoder 17:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

You're thinking about popularity, not notability. Some views are extremely unpopular, like the flat earthers. We still have articles on it, because it's verifiable. Trollderella 23:40, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Flat earth views were popular once upon a time, so they're kept for historical interest. A viewpoint which is currently not and never has been anything other than a tiny minority view would be non-notable and would get no coverage. You still have yet to specify some criteria other than verifiability. Why shouldn't I make an article about myself and every tiny band in existence? I can verify information myself and all the little bands from reputable sources. You still haven't presented a single counter-argument for this, you just keep crying 'strawman' over and over, and ignore the fact that it's verifiable. Nathan J. Yoder 23:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, let's explore these articles about you and 'every tiny band in existence'. What are you going to write about yourself? Is there anything independently verifiable that is not original research? What sources are you going to cite? If you can, indeed, write a verifiable sourced article, then by all means do it. The same for the bands - if there are independent sources that documet them, then do it. I suspect that there are not. Trollderella 03:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC) BTW, I hope I have misunderstood you when you say that the reason that we keep flat earthers is that they were once popular. I believe that notability is being used as a proxy for popularity, but if people who support it admit this, then we're in real trouble! ;)
I have a chapter on me in this book and I appear on a 5-10 minute segment on June 2nd 2003 (initially--there were reruns) on Amazing Medical Stories on TLC. Awesome, I'm verified, but hey--can you write my article for me, I don't want to commit the grand faux pas of making my own article? There are plenty of small garage bands who have their own websites now, who can have gigs at various local places that also have websites which would list those gigs for verification purposes.
Well, it looks like a great book, and, if someone wrote an article on you I can't say whether I would vote to delete it or not, but from what you've presented, it would be a sub-stub at best. I don't see the harm in it. The garage bands own websites don't count as far as I'm concerned, it's a kind of original research, and potentially too biased. You are correct that I draw a line, as would most people, about what sources are really verifiable. Trollderella 04:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
As for your comment about random people, you can use obituaries, local newspaper articles (many random nobodies are featured in those), government records (almost everyone has those) or even company websites (of where they're employed) to verify random people of no significance. Theoretically, someone could go through the Washington Post, and just insert an article for every single person mentioned in any Washington Post articles, under your criteria. For example, this microsoft blog site can be used to create articles on every single microsoft employee with a blog and since it's from the official microsoft website, we can be sure they are real microsoft employees. That's just one example, with even more effort someone could find even more mundane, lower-level employees, like a complete directory listing of everyone, including secretaries and receptionists of various companies.
My question would be could you really write an article that would be anything other than a list of source material? If not, then that doesn't count, since WP is not a repository for source material like govt records of birth and marriage. Is this a purely academic interest for you, or do you see anyone doing any of these things you are terrified of? Trollderella 04:59, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Oh and notability mainly has to do with how well known something is, it doesn't have to actually be popular to be well known. Fred Phelps' views are unpopular, but he is still well known. Nathan J. Yoder 04:23, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

On the strawman argument, I think I do know what it means. Everytime someone suggests that more reasons to delete things are not required, someone will come out with 'well, if you think that, then you must also think that we should have an article on the cheese under my toe'. They construct a strawman which is easy to defeat, and does not, in fact, represent the argument being made. Trollderella 23:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm honestly not sure how to bridge the gap between those who really do advocate that Wikipedia should include anything that's true, verifiable, and not a copyright violation, and those who do not. There really seem to be two factions with differing visions of what Wikipedia should be. I find this disheartening. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:26, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • The discussion has been going on for 2+ years. Statistically, there's a good chance it won't be over for a while longer.
I, too, find it disheartening. Trollderella 23:46, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of the Voting Process should not be on the project page

The voting process should not be included in the proposal in this half-baked state. They require a separate consensus; for example, who gets to decide that 75% is the magic threshold support number and has the community granted consensus to this person to make this critical decision? Wikipedia is about consensus, and that includes consensus about what terms we make new policy under. Unfocused 14:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Major policy change MUST have greater consensus than Adminship

More about the 75%: it is far too low. If we're looking for 80% for adminship, and adminship is supposed to be "no big deal", then how can we possibly accept changing something that IS a big deal, official policy with less support than a promotion to administrator, which is "no big deal"? The answer is that we should not accept such a weak vision of consensus for such a major policy change. Unfocused 14:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Cute. For how many other potential policies that you voted on have you brought this up? So what now, we raise it to 80%, get 80% votes, you complain, then what? We have to raise it to 85%? Then we get that and then we have to raise it to 90%? How many policies were actually enacted with a requirement >80% support? IF what you're saying is true, we better go back and revisit all other policies as well, because they immediatly become invalidated if they don't meet the same criteria you're setting for this one. Nathan J. Yoder 17:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no need to be snide.

I brought this same concern up on the expansion of Categories for Speedy Deletion, however, I brought it up after the voting had already begun, so the response I got was "good point, but it's too late because we've already started." Here, the vote hasn't been started, so I'm seeking a discussion of my concern. You can put your strawman down, I haven't said a word about going back and changing existing policy, primarily because all major policy changes I've seen shows consensus greater than 80%, direct support or decree from Jimbo, or both.

Now go take a look at the items that were passed in the discussion to expand CSD. Support levels for actual changes to policy were between 74% and 96%, and in the case of the two where support was 74% and 78%, the oppose votes included statements expressing redundancy with already existing policies, and conditional statements of support based on some other proposals failing. Obvious expressions of consent were included in many of the oppose votes, so making the call at a little lower level was not a big deal, and in the end, I'm pretty sure >80% consented and Wikipedia is about consensus, not vote counting.

Although I'm unable to research them all, it appears to me that all major changes to official policy have had 80% support or greater. I am not counting the recent minor change to the naming policy. Two fifths of the passed expanding CSD line items were the only notable exception I'm aware of, and even those, if you examined the conditionals included in the comments, found significant consensus but not support in the oppose votes. Creation of the ArbCom had a vote of 80% support, but again, even then, there were conditionals in the oppose that indicated much greater consent among the oppose voters than strict percentages would indicate.

It's very clear to me that if there is a good proposal made, it will get 80% or better support. Anything that gathers less will draw unfavorable comparisons to "Requests for Adminships" so I'm firmly opposed to setting an arbitrary threshold of anything less. After all, Adminship is supposed to be "no big deal", this proposal is a major policy change so it certainly is a big deal. More of a big deal = more consent required. Unfocused 20:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Surely you mean to say that you first need a near unanimous decision to set a threshold of X% for all policy changes. As in, not only do you need a threshold to define concensus, you also need to get concensus for having the threshold at that level. Good luck getting 80% to agree to an 80% threshold. :)--inksT 20:37, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • We have an example of a "no big deal" policy that has a certain threshold for its polls, subject to bureaucrat interpretation. Since RFA already has community consensus for that threshold, it is the logical starting point from which all other poll thresholds should proceed. Unfocused 21:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Two things that must be balanced are (1) the ability for policy to keep progressing for the better (2) changing policy by so thin a margin that a small change in voter sampling or current opinion allows the policy to yo-yo back again. When you are comparing two options, it is useful to consider the null hypothesis. In this case, I mean "Are we better off with the old policy than the new policy?". If the poll indicates 80% for the new policy and 20% for the old. That means only 20% of people want to keep the old proposal. That is clearly not consensus for the old policy I think the bar to change policy needs to be in the range of 70-80%, certainly no higher. Johntex\talk 20:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Policy should only "progress" where we have consensus for it to progress. It's very clear that excessive policies are bad for the wiki and in fact, strongly discouraged. When there is need for additional policy, there will be clear consensus for additional policy and not prior. That has been proven repeatedly since Wikipedia's founding. Unfocused 21:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not asking for an additioanl policy, I'm trying to help us make the existing policy better. We shouldn't need a near-unanimous vote to improve a policy we already have. Johntex\talk 22:34, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Notability as a reason for deletion is a new policy that's been brought up and rejected several times for at least two years now. I don't think this is simply a modification of existing policy, it's an attempt to codify a controversial existing practice to invalidate the some of the arguments of those who don't agree with this policy's advocates. If this is to be done, I ask that it have consensus equal or better than those generally expected to make a user an administrator. Unfocused 23:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
          • We already have policy about what should be included and what should not be included. For example, please see WP:NOT - especially Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Johntex\talk 00:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
            • Your quote says nothiing about "notability". A way to avoid "an indiscriminate collection of information", which, by the way, is what the results of a Google search is, is by editing to combine and classify data in order to sythesize something greater. The quote you cite simply doesn't support "notability" as a reason for deletion. Articles created by editors are clearly more than "an indiscriminate collection" of information. Even our weakest form of article, the list, provides some discrimination for inclusion, for example, you couldn't get into List of California Governors without being the Governor of California first. Unfocused 00:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
              • That's not what that point means, you're completely misinterpreting that policy. It's saying that you can't just add any random verifiable content you come across to Wikipedia, it is not saying that because information in an article is organized and about a single subject that it becomes acceptable. Following your logic, we can add an article for every verifiable person on the planet now, because after all, we have a factor that discriminates by species (against non-humans). If you look in the examples, it specifically lists things like memorials for random people, because random people, while verifiable in newspapers via obituaries, aren't notable (note that it uses the phrasing "claim to fame"). It also says biography articles must have "some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety." It is completely disingenuous to suggest that because it doesn't explicitly used the word "notability", that it's not implied. Fame and notoriety are obvious ways of suggesting notability of a person. Nathan J. Yoder 01:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Enough already with the strawman (if you accept this, you have to have every human on the planet!). Noone is saying that. Not every human on the planet is verifiable in any meaningful way except for original research. Anyone about whom there is third party verifiable sources is worth writing about here. Most people don't meet that verifiability criteria. Trollderella 01:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
          • Don't forget that NPOV policy states that extreme minority (read:non-notable) views don't get represented at all. Nathan J. Yoder 00:19, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
            • You neglected the part from the very same sentence of that policy that states "except perhaps in some ancillary article", clearly showing that even extreme minority views don't necessarily get represented in a given article, but they DO belong in Wikipedia if there's an article written about them. Unfocused 00:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
              • Yes, it says *perhaps*, not *most definitely*. We can include extreme minority views in an ancillary article if they've attracted a lot of publicity or if there's some history, but otherwise not. As outlined by the other Jimbo quote, there must be some other criteria other than verifiability. With no signficant history behind it (as in it was ONCE popular), no publicity, what else is there for an extreme minority view? It just becomes some random people with yet another set of crazy beliefs.Nathan J. Yoder 01:01, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
                • Which is why I stated if there's an article written about them. If there's sufficient interest to find verifiable third party sources, and there's an editor willing to put the effort into actually writing a referenced, cited article, then there's no reason why such should not exist here. Demonstrated interest and demonstrated verifiability combined are far more important (and objective) than some other editor's point of view that a subject is "non-notable", especially when that other editor probably has no interest or expertise whatsoever in the topic they're passing judgement on. Unfocused 03:22, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
                • That's pretty awesome, because I get to write an article on myself now. In addition, I can also start inserting articles for every name mentioned in a mainstream newspaper article. I'll also find every official employee listing of organizations online, and create articles for every single employee. Now, I don't actually intend on doing this, but you get my point. You can't say "there isn't ENOUGH information to keep the articles" because "enough information" would be a subjective, POV value judgement. The fact is,I can produce verifiable information that those numerous people exist, that they work for a certain company and provide some very minimal biographical information. Your insistence on notability being a 'point of view' despite specific criteria being outlined for it is a bit perplexing to say the least. Nathan J. Yoder 04:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
                  • No harm would be done, as long as you keep them NPOV, of that I am certain. And in a hundred years, historians are likely to find your articles fascinating if you've actually written articles and not just copied random facts. Even if you did just copy facts, they wouldn't be of any harm. What's perplexing to me is why you continue to insist on forcing your view of notability on the Wiki, and why you seem to think it's so critical to change policy to further justify that end. What's wrong with deciding as we go, as we have been? Unfocused 05:33, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
                    • I'm not inserting my POV anywhere and what exactly would we be deciding as we go? If you're suggesting we decide notability as we go based on completely unwritten principles, wouldn't that be even worse? You seem to think that because there is some degree of subjectivity in this policy that it involves POV pushing (in an NPOV violation sense). The reality is that ALL policies involve some degree of subjectivity, even verifiability and NPOV. Verfiability because what constitutes a "reliable source" is somewhat subjective and NPOV because gauging how represented/proportioned each view is is somewhat subjective. HOWEVER, there are several different policies in the works outlining objective criteria for notability to follow for different kinds of articles. If some guy is well known, then an article about him should be included regardless of what I think of him, so my personal POV of him doesn't come into play. You seem to be advocating a literal pure verifiability approach, in which case all I have to do is write some random ramblings in a blog or draw some cheesy doodles in a web comic, then I can write an article about it in wikipedia because those things are web-based in nature, requiring only web-based verification. Nathan J. Yoder 07:43, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
                      • Deletion by POV takes place every day, and sometimes, yes, they are NPOV violations. See WP:AFD. Virtually everyone, myself included, accepts that this will happen. That doesn't mean it's OK to make deletion by POV judgement an explicit part of policy. With verifiability, we're already making POV judgements regarding sources, so you're still filtering, but there, POV is not explicit as claiming something is "not notable". However, even with literal pure verifiability as the standard, it would hardly be harmful because as editors who make value judgements with every edit, the Wikipedia public would ensure that your self-referential article on your web doodles would be relegated to a minor article in an obscure zone of Wikipedia, and would only ever be found by one in a million (almost literally!) "Random article" searches or by users deliberately going to the last page of their search results and looking at the last entry. Review the postings on the developers' mailing list and you'll see that the quantity of data isn't much of a concern to them for storage, bandwidth, or performance reasons. There's no need to "tighten the belt" here; this is not the cause of a resource famine. Unfocused 15:50, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • It's not a strawman argument to suggest that you hold consistent standards. If you think that this policy be held to the 80% standard, then all other policies must be held to it too (including those already enacted), lest it be a double standard. Nathan J. Yoder 20:52, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Your idea of what is and what is not a straw man is inconsistent with the very definition of straw man. Please learn your terms of rhetoric and debate before attempting to refute others' use of them in public. I never proposed we revisit old policy; you did so in order to set up your attack on the idea of revisiting old policy, which is the classic definition of straw man. Unfocused 21:35, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
      • The irony of this statement is that you are engaging in a strawman argument against me. False accusations of strawmen arguments are, in fact, strawmen arguments in themselves. I never suggested that you stated that we should revisit old policy, which negates the possibility of this being a strawman argument. Quite the contrary, I am suggesting that you are doing the opposite and that by doing so, you are holding a double standard. By explicitly suggesting that you are inconsistent/holding a double standard, I am implicitly stating that you are NOT suggesting that we actually revisit old policies, so it couldn't actually be a strawman. That said, why should we hold a double standard? Why NOT revisit the old policies/guidelines under this new criteria? Nathan J. Yoder 21:45, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
        • You're welcome to revisit old policies; I'd be willing to bet virtually all of them receive 80-100% support but don't feel the burning need to create as stir in the community to make a point. Unfocused 23:02, 27 October 2005 (UTC) (In other words, I don't see any inconsistency in my view, and I don't feel the need to disrupt Wikipedia to prove it.) Unfocused 23:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes. There is no need for more policy creep, especially on this issue, where the policy we have works just fine. Trollderella 00:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not simply that this is policy creep (although it certainly us), it is that this proposal (like ther "informative", "intereting" and other proposals are all the same thing. A minority or plurality of editors who feel that some sort of requirement beyond verifiability needs to be overlaid on the question of whether or not articles are legitimate, wish to shoehorn in a new policy to help justify deleting articles whose noteworthiness is controversial. --Nicodemus75 00:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. Notable is a proxy for 'interesting to me'. Trollderella 00:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I hope you are the minority. I have seen many articles that I have no interest in but could see why they are notable. Interest and notability should be two different issues. Likewise I can see why some articles I might want to see would be rejected by others as not being notable. Vegaswikian 22:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree, something like this needs to be set to a higher standard, we may be doing this in practice now, but attempts to make it an official policy haven't had much success. This standard is a controversial one and we need to make sure that we have a strong consensus before we set it in stone. RFA has been used as an example, it uses 75% as a starting point and that's not supposed to be a big deal. I think we would all agree that this is a big deal, we should hold it to a higher standard. If this passes at 80% it would effectively end the debate, a weaker consensus just doesn't do us much good. Rx StrangeLove 06:37, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Wow, amazing. You just spent five pages arguing the exact required voting percentages :) Might I just point out that we do not generally vote on modifications to policy (WP:NOT a democracy), and certainly not on guidelines? (and in those few cases that we do, the accepted standard would actually be 70%, but that isn't the point) The proper thing to do would be to state at the relevant policy pages something along the lines of,
    • Notability is frequently used in deletion debates
    • While the term is inherently subjective, some of the more frequently used definitions are
      1. A synonym for verifiability, in particular since verifiability actually means "verifiability from a credible secondary source"
      2. A certain minimum amount of google hits
      3. A certain amount of personal interest
      4. A certain amount of media presence, or indeed any amount thereof
      5. Having qualities to distinguish it from other similar items or people
      6. Adherence to certain consensual guidelines such as WP:MUSIC, WP:FICT or WP:BIO
    • The sixth of these is the most objective and workable definition, and is generally backed by consensus. Radiant_>|< 22:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
They're not objective, you've simply codified the POV of the people who put the guidelines together, and decided whose opinion counts. Trollderella 21:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notability levels proposal

While I agree notability is an important notion in defining what is included, in practice it seems far too subjective, easily degenerating into a popularity contest. I would therefor oppose the present proposal and suggest a different approach: assigning notability ratings to articles. I would propose a simple numerical scale, something like the following:

  1. subject widely accepted as being of high and timeless importance
  2. subject highly important to a wide region or major current event
  3. important to individuals interested in a generally acknowledged subject area
  4. information relevant to a specialized subject area or specific geographical entity
  5. supporting information in a narrow, specialized area or locality
  6. questionable content, but apparently factual and verifiable
  7. candidate for deletion if not improved and justified within 3 months

Article creators could self-select levels 3 and below. Some voting process would be required to assign levels 1, 2, 6 or 7. There would be specific criteria developed of assigning levels in areas that seem to cause the most problems, e.g. individuals, musical groups, written works, schools, etc.

Existing articles would default to level 3, perhaps, with some specific rules for major article types that are easily catagorized, e.g. member of the UN, and their current leaders, Nobel prize winners, etc. Articles in the list of essential encyclopedia articles would all be assigned a notability 1 rating.

Such notability ratings could be used in several ways:

  • a user preference option could set a minimal level a reader would see.
  • over-populated categories might only display articles above a certain level, ideally user adjustable.
  • rules could be established requiring disambiguation information for article titles at level level 4 and below if they are likely to be overloaded (e.g. Central Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts) vs. Central Square).
  • higher notability articles would use names without disambiguation.

Wikipedia is an experiment in inclusiveness that many people expect to fail, but it hasn't. I think it is important to protect that inclusiveness and deal with notability on a basis other that a go or stay decision. --agr 16:08, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

  • Comment I like that you are thinking out of the box. I need to think on this more before I could say that I would support it - but I definitely think this idea merits consideration. Johntex\talk 16:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • FYI, I also think that something substantially similar to this will probably solve the problem, and there is an implementation already in the works. There is an "article rating feature" in the MediaWiki software that exists, but has not yet been turned on. I'm pretty sure that the primary reasons it hasn't been turned on are that it puts a lot of extra load on the servers, and the user interfaces aren't fully complete in all skins. However, once we are collecting data, one of the proposals that seems to get a lot of support is to make low rated articles not visible by default. (There hasn't been a poll, so that's only my impression based on traffic on the mailing lists.) Unfocused 17:41, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • It's not entirely bad, but I'm concerned that this is instruction creep. The reader should be able to gauge the impact or importance of a topic by reading the article. To me, this would be most useful as a means of determining what should or should not be included, and we don't need anywhere near 7 levels to accomplish that. Friday (talk) 18:09, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
No, this is bad, because other people get to choose what I want to read about. If you don't want to read about US high schools, you don't need a filter, just don't look them up. It's unnecessary to have technology to tell me what I'm interested in. Trollderella 18:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
The proposals I mention would not allow someone to prevent you from seeing the less prominent articles. You would choose your own preference level by setting a flag somewhere. It's very much up in the air, but the idea is that everyone gets to decide for themselves what level to include in their view of Wikipedia's data set. Unfocused 20:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
Right, but implicit in this is that someone else decides what is in each level. If I'm an African linguist what is notable (and high level) to me is different to if I'm a student of American pop culture, etc etc. Sure, it's better than deleting stuff, but simply organizing it in an NPOV way instead of placing some people's value judgements on it would be better still. Trollderella 20:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry, but this is getting too bureaucratic. There are perennial proposals for various forms of content-labelling (albeit generally regarding suitability for a certain age, rather than familiarity to the average public) and they are always considered unfeasible. Radiant_>|< 22:42, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this is overly complicated and needless rating system that makes it a popularity contest. Notability is not a measure of how important people think something is, it's a measure of how well known it is (or has been historically). Your system would allow people to rate things down they don't like, when really people, if they did rate anything, should only rate based on how well they know it. It's a binary measure, either it is notable or it isn't, no need for this stuff. Nathan J. Yoder 23:06, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree, except that notability is different for each person, it's not something that exists in the absolute - to me some things are notable, to you other things are, to a Chinese student of caligraphy, other things entirely. Trollderella 00:01, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
How well known something is isn't different for each person, it's an absolute. It doesn't matter what I think of something, if it's known by X% of the people, then it's known by X% of the people. Nathan J. Yoder 00:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, yes, but that seems an odd criteria for inclusion in an encyclopedia. We'd have to delete most of nuclear physics, linguistics, geography and astronomy, just for a start. The fact that something is little known is completely irrelevant. Trollderella 00:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
No, because those are all well known to people in those specialties. I'm pretty sure that astronomers know about astronomy, but I could be wrong. Nathan J. Yoder 00:30, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
So this issue is not about how many people know about it? You want to be able to choose when it's about how many people, and when it's about who those people are, and I suppose that you want to choose which people matter when it comes to which 'people in those specialties'? Let me guess, western science is high on your list? Local politics is low? It's just not a good way to determine what information goes in - it brings out subtle biases, and excludes valuable information that is important to relatively small groups that are not popular with wikipedia editors. Trollderella 00:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
False dichotomy. It is and always has been about how many people know about it, it's just a matter of how many in which group. Obviously if you're talking about a scholarly interest, then it's the scholars in that field. I wouldn't expect the general population to know about the various types of heart surgery, so obviously I'd delegate that to cardiologists, for example. The speciality doesn't even have to be credible, it just has to be well known. Anything well known among "alternative medicine" pracitioners gets included simply because "alternative medicine" is the speciality that's relevent, regardless of what merit it has. And there are no biases, since it's applied across the board. All local politics which remain exclusively known to locals get excluded regardless of their political affiliation, otherwise anyone can just add a Wikipedia entry for every single mundane local political issue for their podunk town. Nathan J. Yoder 00:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
So you want to argue exceptionalism for some things like local politics that you are derisive of? So an astronomer tells us about Southern Local Supervoid (a region of space noted only for being large and empty), which, if there are a hundred people in the world who are really interested would be amazing, that's something you're for, but a real politician in a real town of thousands that you are not interested in (a 'podunk town'?) is not ok? I can't see any reason other than personal preference to elevate astronomy over local politics in terms of how important they are. Trollderella 01:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
That void appears to be known by practically no astronomers, so it would be non-notable. I'm not even sure why anyone bothered creating article for it, it has no useful information in it other than to say that it's a large void. Anyway, I hardly think every-single-issue-in-every-town-in-the-world is equivalent to areas of scholarly research which are well known to hundred of thousands or millions of scholars. Any local political issue of significant enough importance would become known outside of the town anyway. "Local mayor changes dog poop cleaning ordinances" just doesn't cut it, sorry. This is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, not a platform for people docuement every political thing that ever happened. Nathan J. Yoder 01:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, that's your opinion, I happen to be very interested in local politics, and it's quite possible that someone will want to know about local mayors at some point. The fact that you are more interested in astronomy than local politics is fine, but please don't try to force that opinion on others. I think you have a pretty narrow vision of what an encyclopedia is, probably shaped by the fact that traditional encyclopedia are made of paper. Trollderella 01:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Njyoder's notability criteria

My conception of notability is based three criterion: 1. How well known something is currently or was historically to the relevent group who would be interested in that type of subject matter.

If something is important or of interest in some way, eventually it will become well known.

Not necessaryily! Most of science will never become well known outside a small group of interested people, most Japanese TV tie-in toys will never become well known outside a small group of interested people, and most local politicians will never become well known outside a small group of interested people. All should have articles. Trollderella 21:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Now, people confuse this for popularity, which it is not. It just happens that popularity is a good indicator of how well known something is, but something can be well known without being popular. There are other means of gauging how well known something is as well, such as using google searches. The thing doesn't have to be popular, good nor even important per se, just well known. Fred Phelps, for example, is neither popular nor of any practical importance, but he's still well known. Gauging how well known someone is is not necessarily easy, which is why you end up using indirect measures of how well known they are in some cases.

The second part of this statement is meant to apply this statement to areas where specialties and (not-necessarily-special) "interest groups" apply. Many things are not well known to the general population, but are still notable because they are well known to those within the relevent speciality or sub-speciality where appropriate. So an anthropological thing may be virtually uknown to the general population, but if it's well known to the anthropology community, it gets an article.

Determining the relevent group is tricky, since anyone can argue the relevent group is some really tiny group of nobodies. Generally speaking, it's meant only to apply to technical specialties, (widely accepted) scholarly/academic research areas and to "interest groups." By interest groups, I mean group of people who find that type of thing subjectively appealing, such as the group of people who like a certain genre of music or enjoy reading web comics. Limiting the group further when clearly the group of interested people is much larger is not appropriate.

Determining the relevant group is just a piece of POV. Scientists are important, so what they think about is important, people who live in town X are not, so their elected officials are not. Trollderella 21:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

2. Very direct association with something well known.

This would mean someone who is not particularly well known themselves, but was instrumental in the creation of/was the driving force of something that is well known (or the reverse). Founders of fortune 100 companies would be a good example of this, as there are many who are not particuarly well known. A work which was not particularly well known, but was created by someone who was well known and is known for the that type of work would qualify. So a well known artist who releases a new album would have it documented automatically.

3. Things which are universally and intrinsically notable.

Things which are the same regardless of what culture you're in fall into this category. It mainly applies to basic realities of natural sciences and medicine. The organs of the human body are a basic physical reality and are intrinsically notable. Diseases/disorders are intrinsically notable even if they're rare. I'm actually not sure this one is necessary though, since any of these things will undoubtedly be well documented and researched, being noticed by a significant number of relevent sub-specialists in the field. Can anyone think of an example of something that is intrinsically notable, but wouldn't be well documented in a reputable journal and the like?

Again, just a piece of POV. Stick with what's verifiable, and you won't have to decide who's opinion about what is notable counts. Trollderella 21:27, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Ironically, TD, if we did that, we would have to decide who's opinion about what is a valid source counts. You're going to have to use common sense at some point, and that will be somewhat POV. It boils down to this: we can never have an inclusion policy that is entirely NPOV. As long as it follows the consensual POV it's not a problem. Radiant_>|< 19:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, there may be some element judgement in deciding what is verfiable, but it is not in the same order of magnitude as trying to decide what is worth making a note of. Whether it is possible to verify something is going to be a whole lot easier for two reasonable people to agree on than whether it is worth noting. For some real world examples, look at some recent school AFD nominations and tell me the two concepts are equally problematic! Trollderella 19:51, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Schools are an emotional subject to many people, so are hardly representative. To give a better example, the consensually accepted notability standard for settlements (cities/villages/etc) is "all of them are notable". It is not, and has never been, a debate between notability and verifiability. Everybody agrees to verifiability; it's just that many people believe an additional criterion is needed - but the two should not be seen as opposites. An example in the other direction is numbers. 57489573498543 (number) would be easy to write in a factual, neutral and verifiable way. But we don't want it for an article. So we have two agreed-upon extremes. And there's a line in the middle. And people disagree over where it lies. And that issue does not depend on what words we use to describe it. Radiant_>|< 22:46, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Schools are an emotional subject because they demonstrate the problems with the concept of notablity. Settlements are not controversial because nobody is arguing that only 'notable' settlements should be included. Numbers are an interesting one, I think, because they are a sort of source in themselves. The kind of article that I think that you and I don't want is just endless lists of properties of numbers. I think that I don't want that because it is simply a description (usually from original research) of the number. I don't think that I would oppose an article that quotes a mathematician or article on numbers on 57489573498543 (number). Trollderella 23:04, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, that would make it a notable number. For the record, you cannot quote WP:NOR on an article about an arbitrary number; any mathematician will tell you that listing properties of any real number does requires neither originality nor research. Of course this is where mergism comes in handy; we have several lists of numbers that contain one or two lines on individual numbers. It saves us from repeating ourselves.
  • For a similar case, let's look at MacDonalds. There are tens of thousands of franchises all over the world, all of which are mostly identical because that's what the management wants. Rhetorical question: is it better to include an article on each individual one, or is it better to have one central article that lists their common properties, and possibly a few [[List of MacDonalds in <country>]], and possibly an individual article for those few Macs with uncommon properties (e.g. where a shooting occured). Once more, mergism at work.
  • And for the third part, it's back to arguing semantics. I say that all settlements are notable, you say that settlements should be included regardless of notability, but the difference between those two is extremely moot. Schools do not in any way demonstrate "the problems with the concept of notability", because there are other areas in which consensual agreement exists on notability. Schools are not a representative example because very few other topics in Wikipedia produces such heated debate. Radiant_>|< 11:43, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think that we are in danger of being in violent agreement here... Re the math, I really don't know much about math, so I don't want to get too far into that, but my gut feeling would be that if we can quote published work, we could write the article - I'm quite prepared to give ground on the basis that I don't understand math though! I agree, mergism saves us - I'm not advocating stubs!
  • McDonalds. For God's sake, let's not have an article on each one... Why not though? I think verifiability saves us from this - there are no documented differences between them that would not need original research. I could live without the list unless someone really wanted it. I agree, mergism saves us from this.
  • Now, schools and settlements. Here's where I disagree with you. You say all settlements are notable, but back in the mists of time there was a big fight about just that. Endless electronic trees were felled over whether RamMan should create an article about every podunk town. The battle is won, and nobody now argues about this, but let's not forget that fight. Schools are just the current battleground that the deletionist faction retreated from settlements. They are points on a continuum for some people, who think of some settlements as being more notable than others, some schools as more notable than some settlements etc. That is what I see as the problem with notability. There really are people who think like that, and think that it's ok to impose that on other people. Trollderella 17:28, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
I think this again misses a bigger issue. That is accepting that some topics don't belong in this wiki and are better placed in another wiki. Schools being one example, sports and gaming being other posssible topics for an atlas of some type. Vegaswikian 17:47, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand why you think that is the case. You can divide it up arbitrarily and say 'science should go in another wiki', or 'biography', but it's just your ideas about what is important. We have the luxury of giving both depth and breadth on almost all topics - we should not throw that away! Trollderella 17:53, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

One of Wikipedia's strengths is it's breadth. We need critical mass. Arbitrarily moving out sports and gaming to another wiki weakens Wikipedia. Like User:Trollderella says, why not move out biographies and geographic entries if we're concerned with clutter. I think we should keep as many verifiable articles as possible.
  • Interestingly, I get quite a number of google hits for our local McDonalds, leading me to believe it is verifiable from e.g. tourist sites. If some of them contained a picture, I could write that it has a children's slide, which most McD's do not. On the contrary, if a school article was based on the information from that school's website, it would not be verifiable, since that's not a secondary source. It is quite possible to point out two schools (especially primary schools) and note that there are no documented differences between them that would not need original research. This obviously doesn't apply to all school articles, but the point is that even if the school itself may be verifiable, all information we have on it isn't necessarily so.
  • So it seems to me that verifiability doesn't quite cut it either; whichever way you turn it, it's a continuum scale. Radiant_>|< 18:32, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, if the McDonald's has more verifiable information than the school, then it get's a longer article. If there is nothing on the school website that cannot be verified (for example by looking at govt data) then there's nothing we can say about it except merge it into an article about the education district. I don't see the point you're making. Verifiability is still the only objective crtieria we have. Trollderella 18:56, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
  • My point is that the principles you cite, while nice in theory, do not match what actually happens on the wiki. This indicates that the majority of users here do not actually share your views. Radiant_>|< 11:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't really understand the point you're making beyond 'you're right, but what you're suggesting isn't in place yet'. Trollderella 19:25, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

So comments? Questions? Nathan J. Yoder 10:52, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

My heuristic for notabiliuty wrt AfD: Is the article "reasonably" about something somebody would come across in the wild, and then put down what they were doing to go to the computer and look up on wikipedia? It is my impression that most non-notable articles the get voted off for deletion are quite clearly intended to be the first introduction to a topic that is stumbled upon on wikipedia through some "brownian motion" link following, not to provide information that was sought out. Pete.Hurd 21:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "notability" considered harmful

How did the English language survive these many centuries without the word "notability"?

What's wrong with using one or all of the following (in the form of a noun)?

importance significance fame influenence distinction celebrity

notoriety (note the root of this word is "notorious", i.e. fame for being bad)

I was pointed to this article as the place to go to for a discussion of what is notability in the abstract and I didn't see one.

I have not been able to determine from reading the above sections whether the discussion is over an objective, neutral determination of importance, or whether it is a defense of the subjective criteria of inclusion (i.e. I think it belongs because I think it belongs)

It appears to me that with this neologism the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance started 22 January 2004, Wikipedia talk:Importance started 29 August 2004, and Template talk:Importance started 27 April 2005 are just further fragmented. patsw 16:51, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

  • For more information, please see WP:N and Wikipedia:Notability/Essay. Or see a few paragraphs up where I've listed the various definitions used on the Wiki. You can use any of the six near-synonyms you propose, or the word 'encyclopedic', the effect will be the same (note that the word 'notable' derives from Latin and is not really a neologism). The point is, Wikipedia cannot and should not contain everything. There is a perennial debate over where the line should be drawn. Some people call that line 'notability' and argue over what constitutes it. Others call it 'verifiability' and argue over what constitutes a qualified source. On a number of topics, consensus has been reached - see Category:Wikipedia notability criteria. Radiant_>|< 18:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it's a terrible term, an not even useful! Trollderella 21:24, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

What's all this about?

"Notability" is not a neologism, or Wikipedian in-group slang.

it's a perfectly good ordinary English word. The first dictionary I checked has it as an entry (not just a mention as a word regularly derived from "notable."). It says it means: "The state or quality of being eminent or worthy of notice."

Encarta thinks it means "significance: the importance of somebody or something, or the quality that makes somebody or something worth paying attention to."

Here it is in the 1913 Webster's. "Quality of being notable." It's not even a recently introduced word.

So, call it "significance" or "importance" if you prefer, but it transpires that there ain't nothin' wrong with "notability" neither. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:10, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Apart from when we mistake it for an objective criteria, rather than someone's opinion. It can only ever mean "what one person, or a particular group thinks is worthy of notice". Trollderella 23:33, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
I thought that this section was about patsw's objection to the use of the word "notability" itself, which he or she seems to think is some kind of jargon or neologism. Dpbsmith (talk) 00:45, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, what's wrong with that? I mean, "what a particular group thinks is worthy of notice" -- how is that different from "what a particular group thinks is a neutral point of view", or "what a particular group thinks is the proper format for a Wikipedia article" or what "what a particular group thinks is a good policy"? You're essentially describing consensus here. It's not like we can objectively and definitively state that an article on Subject X is is neutral -- there are always people and groups of people who will engage in furious edit wars to make sure that what they consider to be a neutral point of view is in the spotlight. It's not a huge problem with something like "water", but as soon as it gets to a topic like "abortion" or "homosexuality" or "Iraq War" or "homeopathy", we'll always have that process of arm wrestling going on. It's pretty much an integral part of Wikipedia. Yet we maintain that we can reach a sufficiently valid consensus on what is a neutral point of view. Why do you think that it is wrong to do the same thing with notability? (And perhaps more importantly, why do you think it's wrong to come flat out and say that it's a part of the criteria when it's already clearly being used as a part of the criteria? After all, a look at nearly any debate on AfD will show that it's in constant and just about undisputed use.) -- Captain Disdain 01:30, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Here's what's wrong with it: What a particular group thinks is neutral is a negotiation between all of the groups who show up. If you write an article on a tv show that I later find, and think is not neutral, then I can edit it, and we can reach concensus. Someone else turns up in a years time, we may have to renegotiate the concensus. The difference with notability is that you are saying that because you, or some group right now, can gain a pleurality on vfd, that subject should be removed altogether, thereby removing the right of other editors now and in the future to read and edit that article.
It's a fact that most people are not interested in most subjects. It's going to be pretty easy to russtle up a bunch of people who can get a pleurality to agree that a subject is 'not notable' according to them. That's the insidious thing about it. Minority subjects are not going to be notable to most people, but they are very notable to some people. Those for whom the subject is notable are not going to be able to win AFDs to keep these subjects.
For the record, people use all kinds of wierd criteria on AFD. Notability is not part of deletion policy, which, to me at least, matters. Trollderella 16:18, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that essentially, you're saying that you don't trust people to listen to reason and that they are always going to assert notability on a personal basis, ie. whether or not it is notable to them. I don't think I agree with that, though I'm more than willing to admit that some people are bound to do and say stupid stuff and influence the decision-making process in Wikipedia, and that can be a problem. And furthermore, I understand the point you're making about loss of data and I agree with that it's a valid concern. But I don't quite understand what you're getting at here, if your argument is that people can't be trusted... that if an article is not deleted, then at least there's potential for it to become a useful article? I don't know. That's like saying that Wikipedia has the potential to become an excellent encyclopedia, but as long as there are ridiculous articles about absolutely non-notable and trivial subjects around, that's never going to happen.
The issue is not that I don't trust people, but that they don't know, I don't know, and you don't know what is notable to other people, either now or in the future. We cannot (not can't be trusted to, cannot) make those decisions because we don't know what they are going to use it for. Trollderella 22:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I think it's worth noting that an excellent encyclopedia is excellent not only because it's a serious, comprehensive and well-organized collection of solid and dependable information, but also because it's commonly known to be a serious, comprehensive and well-organized collection of solid and dependable information, meaning that you can cite it as a source in your research and have the results accepted by your peers. I think a part of becoming that is accepting the fact that not everything is notable. If that's not a part of the criteria, then there's absolutely nothing to keep the Captain Disdain's consumption of sausages article I mention in the example couple of sections above from being included in Wikipedia. (It's not even original research any more than taking a picture of a particular flower, creating a new article about that flower, posting the picture in there and then marking it as a stub is original reserach; as long as it can be verified that the subject exists, it'd certainly be acceptable -- sure, I can't really say anything about it without it instantly becoming OR because those comments wouldn't be peer reviewed, but if the argument is that it can't be deleted because then its potential to become a great article is removed, I don't have to. And again, I do not think that's a straw man, because that's exactly what those bored high school kids who share those problematic IP addresses would proceed to do if they thought Wikipedia would let 'em.) -- Captain Disdain 21:45, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
As usual, we've gone for the strawman. This is not (again) about articles that are not verifiable. Stop it. It's confusing and irrelevant to keep claiming that that is what we're talking about. An article about you eating sausages is not verifiable. An article about an actual species is. You know the difference. Trollderella 22:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
How is it not verifiable? If there's a picture of me, complete with valid ID, eating that sausage, it seems pretty verifiable that it is indeed me eating a sausage. Unless you want to argue that it could be a fake ID or that the sausage might not be a real sausage, but then the picture of the flower might also be faked. It's absolutely verifiable; it's just very, very stupid. It would be a straw man if nobody actually did it, but this is the internet, where people do idiotic stuff exactly like that every day and don't think twice about it. And I think that is what we're talking about, because we're arguing about what the criteria for including something in Wikipedia is. I won't pretend that the sausage thing isn't an extreme example, of course, but it illustrates that just because we know something is true and can prove it to be so in a neutral fashion, that doesn't mean it should be included in an encyclopedia. Or, if you want another (and less loaded) example, we might as well take every single building or, better yet, every single apartment in every single building in every city out there. Their existence is verifiable and articles can easily be written to conform to NPOV and without a hint of original research, but they're not in the least notable. -- Captain Disdain 23:15, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
It's ORINGINAL RESEARCH. You want to EAT BABIES. Stop creating strawman arguments. I'm not suggesting that we go around creating original research articles about unverifiable things. You know that. Trollderella 23:50, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
I'm sorry, how is listing apartments original research? Surely you can easily confirm their existence from peer reviewed sources, like building plans and whatnot? -- Captain Disdain 00:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
I should probably add that I'm honestly not trying to be a shithead here, and if I really, really annoy you, I apologize. I'm trying to understand your position, because right now I don't. -- Captain Disdain 00:06, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with discussing the concept of notability. There's nothing wrong with suggesting that other words might be preferable to use when discussing whether or not articles should be deleted. There's something wrong with saying that "notability" is a bad choice because it isn't a real word, which is what PatSW seems to be saying, because in fact it is a real word and a perfectly good one. This section didn't start out as a general discussion of notability, it started out as a criticism of the word. I read "How did the English language survive these many centuries without the word notability" as suggesting that "notability" is a recent addition to the language, or that it is Wikipedian jargon and not a real word. It is a real word, and there's no reason not to use it if it expressed the concept we are trying to express.
Some Wikipedians who think Wikipedia should indiscriminately accept anything as long as it is true, verifiable, and not a copyright violation. I don't think it would make any difference to them if the word "significant" or "important" were used instead of "notable," but I'll make a point of trying it and see whether it does.
I agree that curt, dismissive comments such as "d, nn" and, in general, votes without reasons, are unhelpful and provocative. If the word "notable" has become symbolic of a confrontational attitude, fine, let's try something else. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:31, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
Ah, I'm sorry -- I should probably have been a little more specific; I was asking Trollderella that, not you, Dpbsmith. I agree with you. -- Captain Disdain 03:09, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
My reply is above. On the comment about 'indiscriminate', I really don't think it is that big an issue. Add to the things you mentioned the ban on original research, and you no longer have 'indiscriminate collections of information', you have sourced, verifiable articles that have depth and bredth. Trollderella 16:26, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notability is not what's under discussion here

The argument non-notable is only used in AfD about articles that refer to the PRESENT--to a living person, a website, a recent event, etc. That's for good reason--anything that would help a researcher should clearly be included here, and clearly any person or thing from the past that is verifiable would also belong to that category. The trouble with the present is that verifiability is too easy; as arguments above have mentioned, you can verify a lamp-post or the inane web-scribblings of a child. WP:NOT probably should have a separate category describing current events, things, and people that are outside of the purview of an encyclopedia. But by no means should notability be applied to everything. Verifiability is a sufficient test for anything from the past. For the present, here's my test: would it be meaningful, and would its context be verifiable and clear, to someone outside of the region, time, or population group it belongs to? If so, it's encyclopedic. Chick Bowen 02:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Weren't the famous Alexandria Libraries burned down and tons of historical records with them? Tons of records were lost that will never be recovered and we will never know what important stuff was in them, those things will NEVER be verified regardless of how important they are. The problem is, that many things which are now considered mildly important, but not super important may be lost. Nathan J. Yoder 05:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

That certainly looks a lot more reasonable, that way, we're not applying our judgement of what's important onto other cultures / times. Trollderella 15:56, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia: more than an encyclopedia? Perhaps not after all.

Let us not stray too far into the notion of notability as "notable for the majority of editors" or "googlable" or "published" (or "publishable" for that matter).

  • I recall reading in the Wikipedia namespace that among the aspirations of Wikipedia and its striving for comprehensiveness, data of an almanaic nature was considered to be in scope and that "articles alone" are not enough to achieve the promise of Wikipedia. Much of the activity at places such as AFD seems to assume, though, that anything in the main namespace must conform to a criterion of "articleness" that seems narrower than that implied by existing guidelines and policies. Further, though I've not read all of the excellent detailed discussion that sits above this entry, my impression from what I have read is that here again there is an assumption that "notability" and "articleness" are in some way linked. In this day and age of modern farming in the West, the Farmers' Almanac (or its cousins in any guise) has likely fallen from an essential daily reference that assisted in putting bread on the table to a source of aphorism and humor that sits beside the toilet paper and plunger. That is likely not the case in many parts of the world where hand-to-mouth physical labor in the field still accounts for the survival of billions.
  • In thinking on this matter I've considered what Wikipedia should aspire to be. The question now foremost in my mind is whether it was acceptable that our article on Wangari Maathai should only have been created (first version) on the event of her being recognized by the Nobel Committee in 2004, or if we should have recognized her contributions earlier, in fact providing a source of information for the Nobel Committee to have drawn upon, considering (if we take her article at face value) her more than 20 year involvement in Kenyan community life? Did her notability only emerge after the Nobel Committee recognized her? There are many (a vocal many, unlikely to be "most") here who would say a resounding "yes, of course" to this I think, and that is among the behaviors that will shape Wikipedia in the years to come. P.S. The more I think on this, the more I conclude that any stub relating the activities of the "Kenyan Tree Lady" would have likely been wiped away at AFD in hours if not days at any time before 8 Oct 2004. That is not a pleasant thought but I think it is an accurate one, particular if the stub had been written in broken English by a Kenyan native who believed that this person should have some mention here.

Regards, Courtland 05:39, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

You're probably right about such an article's prospects of survival. I agree that that is problematic. (On the other hand, I also think that much of it might stem from simply verifiability reasons and whatnot; as we've noted with Trollderella above, the two often go hand in hand.) But I don't know if an explicit notability policy is going to make any difference there, because hard-to-verify stubs written in broken English about people who don't show up on Google, from a field our editors aren't likely to easily recognize are always going to have a hard time, and I do think that a well-written notability guidelines will actually help such articles to survive. It's not just about deleting non-notable stuff; I do think that door swings both ways.
As for almanaic material, I have absolutely no objection to that as long as it's relevant. Looking at our own article on almanacs, I see that among almanaic topics are mentioned "Astronomical data and various statistics are also found in almanacs, such as the times of the rising and setting of the sun and moon, eclipses, hours of full tide, stated festivals of churches, terms of courts, lists of all types [and] timelines". This all seems acceptable to be. I think that great care must be taken to present the information in a meaningful manner and form, but that's beside the point, since we're discussing whether they're eligible for inclusion -- I think they are, and any actual criteria of notability must reflect that. -- Captain Disdain 06:10, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] A no-brainer

Personally, I'm shocked that this wasn't codified into policy a long time ago. Basically this would act as a formalization of longstanding practice on Wikipedia. We already delete dozens of articles every day largely on the basis of their subjects being non-notable. People often have different ideas of what is notable and what isn't, and these things get hashed out on AfD on a case-by-case basis; but the amount of discussion thus created only serves to prove the point that nearly everyone on Wikipedia agrees that notability is an important inclusion factor. For most people this changes nothing, but it's become clear recently that some people won't adhere to long-enduring procedure unless it has that big gold THIS IS OFFICIAL POLICY template box at the top. Andrew Levine 02:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Notability isn't policy because it failed to win consensus in the original poll, not because it just hasn't happened to be codified. I also don't think standard behaviour on AfD should be confused with the view of the community in general. AfD is a very small and quite skewed segment of the Wikipedia population. - SimonP 02:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, the first sentence of the project page says that this proposal is "to explicitly include 'lack of notability' as a reason for deleting articles." So this is all just about procedure on AfD; it has nothing to do with the general community. And as for falling short of consensus almost two years ago, Wikipedia has evolved since then. I am glad the matter is being brought up again. Andrew Levine 04:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Personally I'm shocked that anyone thinks this is a good idea - 'Not notable' means 'I don't like it'. It muddies the waters, causes friction because there's no agreed definition, and doesn't help at all. It failed before because people realise this. Trollderella 16:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
Verifiability and maintaining NPOV constantly cause friction due to disagreement as to veracity of sources or whether something is worded neutrall or not, yet we don't abandon those core concepts. Andrew Levine 07:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This really is a no-brainer. Articles are regularly nominated on AFD for being non-notable, and are regularly deleted for that precise reason. Therefore, anyone who claims that articles cannot be deleted for lack of notability is wrong. Policy and guidelines are descriptive, so adding this should be reasonable. And not adding it won't make much of a difference either. Radiant_>|< 01:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • AFD discussions are on a case-by-case basis. This wrangling is to come up with a general policy which is much much harder. We may be able to agree upon a notability criteria for a specific category, but a general notability criteria is next to impossible to come by. Samw 01:11, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It's far from a no-brainer. It's like saying 'people shouldn't do bad things'. Who can disagree? Why don't we pass a law like that? Well, because it doesn't help us. No one agrees what bad things are. Trollderella 01:18, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • The point is that our guidelines (and policy) are descriptive. That means that they describe what happens (as opposed to being prescriptive, as in describing what we would like to happen). Since deletion on grounds of non-notability does happen, it can obviously be in the guidelines. Radiant_>|< 01:39, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The basic flaw with this proposal, the thing that keeps it from being acceptable, much less a 'no brainer', is the fact that on AFD and in this proposal both, 'notability' is based purely on opinion, and varies from person to person. It is entirely dependentant on the viewer's Bias and point of view... the inclusion of which in wikipedia is clearly against other, active, policies. It is, to put it simply, fuzzy. There are deleted and protected articles out there that have dozens of requests to put up an article on the talk page, pages that were solely deleted as 'not notable'. This shouldn't even be possible as notability isn't (yet) a vaild criteria for deletion. Frankly, it should *never* be a valid criteria for deletion unless you can establish a hard, fixed rule that can be generally agreed upon by the community. Leave bias, point of view, interpretation, and all the other fuzziness out of it. It should be flexible yes, but not so flexible that it's based entirely on the whims of the AFD crowd, as it is now. I'll agree there are topics which don't belong on here, but allowing people to decide what they arbitrarily is just wrong. If this included a clause that required the article to meet certian criteria(such as falling below a minimum number of views in a particular timeframe, for example) before being able to be deleted as 'not notable', it'd be fine. The problem is, as defined by the people pushing for notability requirements, notability isn't based on any facts, but purely on opinion... and that's just wrong for an encyclopedia. Leave your POV and your Bias at the door. -Graptor
    • Notability may be fuzzy, but it's not so fuzzy that views don't manage to coalesce on it much of the time. And your proposed alternative example of page-views-per-time-frame definitely doesn't cut it-- there are many thoroughly encyclopedic topics that would fail that metric. -- Mwanner | Talk 13:29, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Agreed, and support the proposal. AfD sees a river of trivial information, not all of which are biographies or music. Discussions do move toward consensus. These can be codified in guidelines and rules as needed. Quite frankly, not everyone has the time to sleuth whether a specific article constitutes a hoax but most such articles are also non-notable. They may be superficially verifiable. These are often breaching experiments that embolden vandals if unchecked. Just yesterday I uncovered three such individuals, two of whom were newly registered. The third had been vandalizing articles for three months, growing steadily more destructive, and had received only one Test1 warning. I spent an hour undoing dozens of destructive edits that had gone unnoticed and uncorrected. Give us the tools to separate the wheat from the chaff and we'll stop more of these people before they develop into hardened trolls. Durova 04:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] My $0.02

I have thought hard about this. I think there is a fundamental confusion, because notability has two similar uses, that are not quite the same, and they are important to distinguish. The first is, whether within a subject or article, viewpoint X is notable. The second is whether within human knowledge item X is notable. The first of these dictates the degree of coverage X should get in an article on subject Y, the second dictates whether X gets an article to itself. These are not quite the same question:

  1. Notability within an article or subject is relative. The standard of relativity is the context it is in, and not totally subjective. Thus, quantum theory is not notable within the field of religion, and religion is not notable in chess. What this means is, when we say "X is/is not notable", this is not an absolute. It's saying "within this contextual frame, X is/is not a significant shaping issue or informing view". Within other contexts and frames it may be.
  2. The other aspect of notability is, by an absolute standard, is a subject worthy of an article. Would the documentation of connected fields be notably less complete if subject X was missing, and how much needs to be said on X to remedy that.
  3. How different notable views are balanced in an article should reflect and represent the shape of the debate in the subject covered by that article.

Examples of how these play out:

  • Quantum theory is not notable within chess theory. So the chess article does not mention fringe theories about quantum chess strategy or similar. (rule #1)
  • Flat earth is notable both as a historic theory and as a theory still held by a few people, in the subject of Planet Earth. So it gets a mention there. (rule #1)
  • www.IAmJohnDoe.com is not notable, because connected fields such as website lists, human knowledge, online culture etc would not be seriously lacking or omitted if it were absent. But if John Doe were (say) a famous activist, then an article on activism might be incomplete without a note to that effect, so it would belong there. (rule #2)
  • Although flat earth is notable in the article on Earth, the shape of the debate is that round earth is considered overall the theory supported by most people, including almost all scientists, for reason [CITE LIST OF REASONS], wheeras flat earth is supported by small groups and individuals and is widely considered discredited. Thus, both over-representing flat earth or omitting it, would misrepresent the shape of the debate on Earth. (Rule #3)

It's clear to me that notability is inherently subjective. People have to reach a consensus what views and information in each field are important and what are less important knowledges, and different people will differ on this. There is no absolute measure to judge by, since all we have as source material is a list of "different X"s of different credibilities who said "different Y"'s, and any of these could be right or wrong. There will usually be some consensus, or a way to confirm if a given view is considered notable or not, but even so, this is relying upon editors judging which views are needed to represent the field and characterize the shape of the debate truthfully, and which are not. But that is the only "judging" and "subjectivity" involved, and the only subjectivity that should be involved.

Wikipedia does not judge the truth or falsehood value of views. But wikipedia editors inherently must judge (and cannot avoid judging) the value to a field of neutrally representing each different view of the many views held, and how each fits into the shape of the debate. I don't see that you can escape that.


So I would describe notability this way:

Rather than judge views as right or wrong, Wikipedia judges the value of representing a view. This is the concept that some views are more notable (or noteworthy) than others. It is a fundamental principle in understanding how wikipedia judges and balances viewpoints.
A "notable" view is one that is "worthy of notice". It is of interest or value, or believed or referenced by many people. It is not necessarily right or wrong, and may not always be popular. But it is noteworthy that the view exists in that form. So notability is an observation on the debate, not a moral judgement.
  • More notable views are often characterized as being more widespread, plausible, accepted by science, advocated by credible sources, interesting (for historical reasons or otherwise), valued or referenced. They tend to add knowledge that may be expected to be of value to humanity, even if only in a small field.
  • Less notable views tend by contrast to be interesting only to few people, less widely accepted by credible sources, of little or no interest historically, not valued by or held by many people, not widely referenced, or scientifically implausible or fantastical (as opposed to discredited)
Unpopularity and lack of credibility are not important criteria except insofar as they help us establish whether a view is notable and should be given space. Beyond that, we document the views of Nazis, Scientists, NAMBLA, Water diviners, and suicide bombers and why they believe they are right, as readily as why others believe they are wrong. A view may be "wrong" (according to many people) but very notable, in which case it will still be described if needed.


I've also played with this definition:

"A view is generally considered notable if it is potentially information of value or interest in some way to a significant number of people, or to some perspective, or its omission would leave a significant gap in historical human knowledge of a subject. Even minority, controversial and discredited views are often notable. Often it is valuable to see how people thought, or competing views of the time. By contrast many fringe views are not notable by this definition, because they are not sufficiently significant or had little or minor impact in their field as a whole. Notability is a subjective decision formed by consensus of editors when they try to characterize in a balanced manner, human knowledge and history of a field."

My $0.02 on notability. FT2 19:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Why on earth should notability be a criterion?

Why does something have to be notable to be included on Wikipedia?

I understand all of the existing requirements (those set into stone), and even though I'm simultaneously having a little debate over the "No original research" policy, I understand the need for and the reasons behind such a policy.

However, I truly believe that no facts, no matter how trivial, should be considered unsuitable for inclusion. Facts are still facts. No fact is more important than another simply because it is of greater interest to more people. Everything little fact that is verifiable and might be of interest even to a single person other than the author who visits this website should be allowed recognition on Wikipedia.

I don't understand why something should be weeded out of Wikipedia simply because not many people would like to know about it. I, for one, am a "collector of trivialities", and I love knowing everything from the number of gates in each airport to the road names of all A routes in London. I trust that I'm not the only one such person, and I'm sure that all of us would love to have a one-stop destination on the web where we can satisfy our hunger for trivial facts.

Shouldn't factualness, verifiability, and neutrality be sufficient parameters for inclusion on Wikipedia? Why should we throw in an extremely subjective and easily offendable test of what is notable and what is not? I'm sure there are people who'd like to know about every television documentary ever aired, every penguin living in a zoo, etc.

Here are some examples of deletions for insignificance, and my reactions:

Generalised Comment: "DELETE. 'Any Street' is the most minor of roads on the planet! If such a street is allowed to have an article to itself, then every single road on the planet could be in Wikipedia! My response: Why not? Why can't every single road, street, and lane on this planet be mentioned here? As long as you can prove the existence of your street by citing a map or screenshotting an accepted online one, go ahead and mention it on Wikipedia! This is not to say that every road should have an individual article: it would be nice to merge minor articles into larger articles, but no entry should be completely removed from Wikipedia because it is "not notable." Wikipedia is a vast, unlimited resource, constrained by neither space nor time nor number of contributors. And if you call it a bottomless abyss, I call it a wonderful treasury of information.

Generalised Comment: "DELETE. Not remotely encyclopedic." My response: The people on Wikipedia against whom I take most offence are the encyclopaedia-thumpers. First, I do not agree that something with an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica should be considered more essential to Wikipedia than an entry on something that's not included in the Britannica. There might not be an article on Penguin Bloggs in the Britannica but that's because the Britannica is limited to 32 volumes! Don't forget: there is no limit to the quantity of information Wikipedia can take. Of course, everything posted on Wikipedia still has to be factual, verifiable, NPOV, etc., but Wikipedia can certainly expand beyond the scope, range, and comfort zone of typical encyclopaedias.

My vision for Wikipedia: The ultimate encyclopaedia, the ultimate website, the ultimate data bank, a one-stop destination for almost all serious, verifiable information that anyone might ever possibly want to know at any point of his or her life. --Lapin rossignol 10:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I disagree

I disagree with this proposal. Every has a different point of view as to whether something in "notable" or not. Some subjects might be notable to some people while many other people might not know what the subject is talking about. -- Eddie 03:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This page is coming up at CSD

This page is coming up as a speedy-deletion candidate at WP:CSD, but I don't see why, and I can't find any speedy-delete tags on this page, nor indication that the page is in any category... anybody know what's up with that and how to fix it? Herostratus 04:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you are seeing this. NB: WP:CSD is just the criteria for SD policy page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 13:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
It's at CAT:CSD#Pages_in_category. - Philippe | Talk 04:46, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't see it there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
It appears to be gone now. :-) - Philippe | Talk 07:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)