Category talk:Wikipedia essays about notability

RfC on new guideline essay

Would Wikipedia benefit from a new essay, called "Notability cannot be purchased", explaining to our readers that using their own resources to influence other people to publish reviews of their work, to give them non-notable awards, or to buy themselves membership in non-exclusive groups is not their gateway into Wikipedia? KDS4444 ^(talk) 06:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)

• Comment:--A few years ago I wrote an essay called Wikipedia:Notability cannot be purchased. In it I go over patterns I have seen whereby an individual uses his financial resources to influence others to say things about him, and then use this as evidence of his own notability (I actually saw this play out once, with a guy claiming to be notable for having written a book that was reviewed and the review had been published. It turned out that the publisher had been paid by the author to review the book (although it claimed to always review fairly and impartially, nearly all of its reviews were glowing— genuine objective was lip service) and the publisher was a generally well-respected organization with a division that did its "paid review" work. I had to explain to the man that COI issues aside, he could not buy his notability by paying someone else, even a well-respected someone else, to say nice things about him— that this was not how notability works (though I believe in the deletion decided it was decided to retain the article anyway— hopefully it has been deleted by now). In other instances, I have also seen people pay money, usually hundreds of $$$, to "famous" awards mills with no jury and no prize ceremony to review their movies and the mills have 300+ categories and eventually "everybody gets a prize!" ("and thank you for paying me $400 to award you the "Best new film from Ontario on the subject matter of street paving and streetlight operation in 2016! You are truly a winner!!!"). Sometimes these awards mills themselves are able to get Wikipedia articles written on them, though when examined, the "mill" nature usually becomes clear and some of these mills, such as the Aurora Awards are subsequently deleted (the current article Aurora Awards is an entirely different award). I would like to help people understand that an awards mill will not get you into Wikipedia, and I saw no other guideline that really laid this out (the essay WP:NAWARD appears to have died in committee. I would like to see if this essay could be upgraded to a guideline. Please offer your input. Thanks! KDS4444 ^(talk) 05:56, 2 November 2017 (UTC)
• Response -- But of course notability can be purchased, KDS4444; it's a whole industry. Let's say I'm in the septic cleaning business. I get a little interview coaching from my PR consultant. I let the press know that once every couple of years on a slow news day, they can get an interview with some really corny lines. Is that not buying the press? That's what press releases are: prewritten articles for the lazy editor. At a more rarefied level, that's what the executive profiles in Bloomberg or Forbes are all about.
  My suggestion is that the essay discuss the critical thinking required to distinguish a sleuthing article from a puff piece. A good start is a second interviewee whose views differ from the gushing statements of the subject of the piece. Rhadow (talk) 15:23, 7 November 2017 (UTC)

If the press decides to interview you, is that not coverage? I don't think we have a "slow news day" exemption— if you are covered in the press, and if you do not own the newspaper (i.e., the source is independent), then how the press decides to interview you is not something anyone can control or limit (and is not something Wikipedia is in the business of being expected to decide). The lines may be corny— that's not the point. My point is that independence is one of the criteria for coverage, and that purchasing the semblance of independence is not independence. Yes? KDS4444 ^(talk) 00:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Hello KDS4444 -- Just because you got your name in the paper doesn't mean you got coverage ... not independent, not reliable. See Advertorial. Rhadow (talk) 00:23, 18 November 2017 (UTC)