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Archive 1

Notability in Research Field

Increasingly notable researchers are not academics. In my field there are perhaps 2 notable people out of 10 who are academics. That is the norm for Internet, Biotech and may other current research fields.

The number of publications is not a very good way to rank such people against academics, what is important is the quality rather than the number of publications. In most cases the person is not as notable for their academic publications as their non-academic. For example Tim Berners-Lee does not produce many peer reviewed journal articles for an MIT prof with a named chair, but he does produce a large number of important articles and give important speeches.

Nobody would have much of a problem with Tim Berners-Lee as being notable, but his work was supported by a large number of other people who are very prominent in the field but not household names. If you are not an academic you don't play the publication game, it is simply a vanity press at this point, the only people who read most of the journals are people trying publish in them.


I propose a criteria for notabilty of non-academic researchers:

  • Main author or editor of a widely referenced work (e.g. HTTP specification) or

Listed as a significant contributor to a several widely referenced works

  • Senior research scientist at industry leading company (i.e. IBM fellow, Cisco Fellow)
  • Frequently quoted in the trade press
  • Elected fellow of relevant professional body
  • A researcher who is sufficiently notable in a non-academic (i.e., lay) field such as mass-media presence (such as certain 'nature shows' on TV).

The person should ideally meet more than one criteria.

Total audience of 5,000 or more

Notability in pornography

"Well known entertainment figures, such as TV/movie producers, directors, writers, and actors who have starring roles, or a series of minor roles, in commercially distributed work watched by a total audience of 5,000 or more".

To me it seems like this criterion would mean nearly every porn actor is automatically notable, since porn movies rarely have small audiences, and porn actors rarely act in few movies. This isn't merely an academic debate; see for example, Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Faites l'Amour avec Clara Morgane (vote on a movie, not an actor) and Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Monique deMoan. That doesn't seem right. Any opinions? JRM · Talk 01:14, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

  • AFAIK a lot of porn actors/actresses aren't named, they are just "blonde" or whatever. If they are credited and their names are used in promotions, they should be included just like any TV or film actors with a reasonable audience. Kappa 01:31, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
I think those criteria are highly dubious. Who arrived at a figure of 5,000? That's setting the bar very low. Erwin Walsh

Well, first, the 5000 people is almost a joke. My University has about 16,000 students: are we suggesting that someone is notable if 1/3 of the students at one Uni have heard of them? For pornography in particular, I would imagine that wouldn't be at all hard to achieve — for internet viral things, it's almost trivially easy. Setting any hard number is always rather pointless, and relying on it as a blanket criterion even more so. Porn stars should be judged for notability the same way (I think) bands should be: have they made an impact on their genre, the industry, or the wider media somehow? If not, then they're no more of interest than the average hard-up (excuse the pun) student who takes off his/her clothes to supplement their student loan. -Splash 18:44, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm not sure who thought of that, but Wikipedia is not generally in the habit of setting strict numerical limits. Also, 5000 people is extremely low, and is easily reached by for instance anyone recently interviewed in our local student newspaper (which, I might add, selects random students to interview and most of them are terminally boring to read about). Radiant_>|< 08:01, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

Note: I went in to a lot more specifics with this here: #Criteria_for_Pornography Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 09:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Recommendation by Erwin Walsh

Amend the section from "People Still Alive" that reads

Well known entertainment figures, such as TV/movie producers, directors, writers, and actors who have starring roles, or a series of minor roles, in commercially distributed work watched by a total audience of 5,000 or more

to:

Actors or television personalities who are notable based on a single or series of appearances in well known films or television productions. Notoriety can be determined by:
  • Features in popular culture publications such as Vogue, GQ, Elle, FHM or national newspapers
  • A large fan base, fan listing or "cult" following
  • An independent biography
  • Name recognition
  • Commercial endorsements

Comments?

  • I like the idea of getting rid of the "hard-guideline" of 5,000. That was in the first draft and has been challenged several times. In some genres, it's too high. In many others, it's way too low. On the other hand, I really liked the old wording of "starring roles or a series of minor roles". I am uncomfortable that the proposal's "single ... appearance" will be reduced to the lowest possible interpretation and will be stretched inappropriately. The more I think about this clause, I think that it could be tweaked to "Notable actors who have appeared in well-known films or television productions. Notability can be determined by ..." I think that might reduce the potential for misunderstanding without changing the core meaning. Rossami (talk) 22:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I would like to argue to raise the standard from "Features" to "Multiple features". Anyone can get an article on a slow news day. Getting multiple independent features seems like a better indicator. Rossami (talk) 22:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • On a more technical note, I do not understand the distinction between an "actor" and a "television personality". Aren't they also actors in the broad sense? On the other hand, this draft appears to have explicitly excluded producers, directors and writers. Was that intentional? Rossami (talk) 22:02, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
    • These suggestions sound reasonable. I suppose that "actor" and "TV personality" aren't the same - Oprah Winfrey is the latter but not the former, and many Broadway stars are the former but not the latter. If you look at the credits of a TV show, you'll see up to hundreds of people who helped doing makeup, gaffing, camera work etc; most of those aren't particularly encyclopedic. I suppose the writers are (e.g. Gene Roddenbery, Josh Whedon; they would qualify as published authors). I'm not sure about directors and managers and the like (apart from the fact that most people don't seem to care about them, I don't think we usually have articles on the owners of a company, they tend to be mentioned in the article on the company itself). Anything below that in the hierarchy is probably not notable. Radiant_>|< 08:56, August 18, 2005 (UTC)
  • My only concern is that the changed guidelines would be very unfavorable to artictes from third world countries. --Gurubrahma 07:40, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

If we're agreed...

Since people seem to be in agreement it's too low can a vote be arranged either to remove figures period or to raise it, at least, IMHO, 50-fold? "Well known...audience of 5 000" is an oxymoron. There are editors on this site who deserve inclusion on that basis. I have a hunch this was added to lower the bar for local bands and zines as people get so into those. Marskell 10:05, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

OK, given no reply I decided to follow the last editor's advice and be bold. In the place of an audience of "5 000", international, national or state/province wide exposure is expanded to be the criteria for entertainment cat's in general. Yes, it can be debated at the margins but state/province wide means at min a couple hundred thousand and I think this a fair threshold. Marskell 23:09, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
Every person who has contributed to discussion believes that the figure is too low and/or that figures in general are not appropriate. There is a clear consensus for change on this page; however to avoid simply reverting I'll go to RfC. Marskell 13:23, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
[Check the poll] Marskell 14:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Not much movement at the station here. I'm going to make a notice at the pump. - brenneman(t)(c) 23:54, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think the 5000 is long standing and should be kept. Also, remember it's *verifiable* 5000, not just a claim, which excludes most anyway. As well, the direction in AFD is definately not to raise the number. Perhaps, if we want separate categories for some things, like "online" or "virtual" sales, then naturally much higher numbers are needed (though in such cases, verifiability is most dubious). But, in the physical world, 5000 verifiable, with the report published in a reliable source is just fine. Given the out-of-date comments above, I hope I'm not talking to myself. --Rob 00:31, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

I favor the policy change. Notability is highly subjective and any attempt to put a number on it is bound to come across counterexamples. We only have voting in the first place because notability is such a contentious criterion. I say, give a vague definition based on dictdefs and precedent and leave interpretation to the voters. Deco 01:29, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
I went ahead and removed "* Recording musicians who have sold more than 5,000 albums, CDs, or similar recordings (see WikiProject Music's Notability and Music Guidelines)" becuase it actually conflicted with the guideline it linked, and WP:MUSIC has very, very wide acceptance. (Well, accept for that weird Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Conglomerate, but still.) - brenneman(t)(c) 07:49, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
And it got reverted since I hadn't talked about it here first. Soooo.... any objections to my removing this material in a couple of days? - brenneman(t)(c) 08:33, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Any figure like this is worthless unless it takes into account the nature of the product, its longevity and its value to its users. A reference grammar of Tocharian is unlikely to sell five hundred, let alone five thousand, copies, but it is also much less likely to be quickly consumed and tossed on the bathroom floor than your average paperback Ludlum thriller. I'm all for including popular culture topics usually disregarded by paper encyclopedias, but a value system that looks at sales as the only measurement of notability is truly perverted.

If a figure is going to be used, it should only be as an alternative to other criteria such as critical and academic recognition. To some extent these things can also be quantified and measured (as I have already pointed out elsewhere), but not in purely economic terms. up+land 08:45, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Reigniting this, I think the 5k figure is bunk. For example: "or in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more". Lots of people have written editorials or letters to the editor in major Metropolitan publications - it doesn't mean they're automatically notable. Look at New York Daily News for example - of the major columnists they've had, only a handful warrant mention in the article itself, never mind an article of their own. This "criteria" gives an automatic pass to anyone who's gotten something published in something like the Times, or even a small local newspaper, which would easily pass the 5000 mark. --Mmx1 15:04, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
That is why the notabilty "standard" is bunk. There is no possible way for us to be able to quantify someones notability. It is all subjective and relative to the person and where you are looking. A mayor of a smaller town will be very notable in that town but most likely not notable nation wide. We can strictly apply other policies and guidelines and have well formed articles. DanielZimmerman 17:59, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
It would seem reasonable to require that a person be a regular paid contributor rather than an occasional contributor (unless they have a story that becomes notable somehow: an award, mainstream coverage, etc.) or a regular contributor of letters. Шизомби 18:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Well that is just it, someone who is a regular contributor of letters (to you) may be notable enough, but to others it might not be. How many contributions makes a person a regular contributor? Even then, regular paid contributors in a local paper may not be considered notable as compared to contributors to the Wall Street Journal. So we are back to the argument that notability is subjective. Now, if we where to say that a person is a notable newspaper columnist because they have a weekly column in a newspaper that has a readership of over "X" or has a syndicated column then we might be able to set a standard for newspaper columnists in a vacuum. However, that person is also covered by having contributions that are verifiable as well. So why did we need the notabiliy guideline to begin with? DanielZimmerman 21:19, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
I guess the grammar of my post was ambiguous. I meant that a regular paid contributor would be and that a regular contributor of letters would not be. With exceptions, of course, e.g. Wanda Tinasky. Шизомби 21:40, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Google Hits

How many would qualify as many (ballpark figure)? --Daniel C. Boyer 18:50, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know, but this measure is a hopelessly biased in favour of current fame in the developed countries that use the roman alphabet so I wouldn't use it at all. CalJW 15:52, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
And there are a number of other factors, such as people whose achievements, positions, fame or notoreity came more recently as opposed to further in the past, those who have more print sources about them as opposed to the computer &c., &c. --Daniel C. Boyer 14:24, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Google hits are a terrible criteria because Google doesn't search databases of old newspapers that have been cataloged by (for example) ancestry.com. This is a pay service, including many thousands of old newspapers. Someone could have been very famous for a period of time a century ago, having had a significant impact on history, science, culture, philosophy, other. Yet if their name hasn't got a lot of Google hits today, it doesn't matter what pre-Internet newspapers had to say, their biography will be deleted from Wikipedia. One biography that i created has suffered this fate, with "not enough Google hits" given as justification.
The strength of Wikipedia should be its ability to harness the "historicity of the masses," thereby becoming a people's encyclopedia (as opposed to a corporate one) inclusive of those significant people ignored by elite historiography. Using Google (and strict interpretation of "importance") prevents that. --Richard Myers
See Wikipedia:Google Test. Deco 01:30, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Distinct hits. Otherwise a sort of link-farming approach can cause un-notable people who said one thing that has been copied by a hundred sites of similar interest and not necessarily good judgement verbatim, with no evaluation or different angle on it to be regarded as notable. Midgley 23:14, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Sportspeople

The current section ("Athletes who are widely known, widely acclaimed, or highly successful in their sport ") does not reflect practice, which is basically that almost any full time sportsperson who has competed in elite competition is likely to be kept. Certainly attempts to delete the most junior members of English Premier League football clubs' squads fail, and we have many articles about lower division players as well. I don't think any Olympic competitor or tour golfer would (or should) get deleted either. I suggest the following:

Sportspeople who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in an individual professional sport, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States. Articles about first team squad members who have not made a first team appearance may also be appropriate, but only if the individual is at a club of sufficient stature that most members of its squad already have articles.

I don't believe this will make any difference to the results to votes, it will simply mean that people in favour of deletion won't find themselves quoting this guideline in vain. CalJW 16:12, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I've amended the final sentence of the proposed text to make it more flexible, so I'll leave this open for comments for a while longer. CalJW 02:01, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Over at WikiProject Cricket, we've hammered out something pretty close to your suggestion, which is that anyone who has played first-class or List A cricket - basically, senior first-team cricket - is eligible for a biography. Naturally we don't expect all the thousands of people who've appeared at that level for the last 200 years to be written up, but those who've played at that level are easily verifiable. There's no real British equivalent to US college sport - thousands of people watching a university game? Er, no; even hundreds is rare - but as I understand it, it can have a very high profile in the US, so I'd have no problem with that. But going back to cricket, as someone who writes quite a lot of cricket bios, I agree that squad members who've never played a first-team game should probably not be included unless they're notable in other ways. Loganberry (Talk) 23:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

No objections in 10 days and Rory McArdle, whose deletion nomination prompted me to do this, received 70% support, and he is at the bottom end of the range described. So I'm adding this to the guideline now.

This is a ridiculously low level to set a bar for automatic noteworthiness. Why do we automatically have to keep an article on Harry J Robertson who played one game for the fledgling National Football League of American football 84 years ago, for a team that nobody has heard of and is barely notable enough to warrant its own article, the Rochester Jeffersons.
But when it comes to people who have real jobs (professors, scientists, lawyers, gardeners, whatever), we set the bar so high that quite notable people get thrown out routinely. Gene Nygaard 10:14, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia References

If there are (say) five mentions of someone ondifferent Wikipedia articles, does that mean that it would be a good idea to set up a page saying who they are? I don't see this as a criterion anywhere.

Mhkay 20:22, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

There is no such hard standard and it is by design. It is entirely too easy for someone to "spam" Wikipedia articles with irrelevant or only trivially relevant references to a person and then try to claim that the spammed links constitute a justification for their vanity article. We have had vandals attempt to do that to us many times before. On the other hand, experienced editors do use the "what links here" feature when evaluating whether an article is appropriate or not. If there are a significant number of inbound links from a variety of well-edited articles and if those links have been in their respective articles for a long time (at least months but generally longer), it adds credibility to the claim that the article is requested. We have chosen to leave this process up to the experience and judgment of the community. For the most part, it works well. Unfortunately, any hard-and-fast rule would be too easy for the vandals to game. Rossami (talk) 20:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


Proposals for change in categories for inclusion

I propose to alter the criteria for which deceased people are eligible to have their biography included.

Firstly it appears obvious at first sight that many people who qualify today under the rules for people who are still alive, would no longer qualify 10 years after their death. Therefore I propose that someone is eligible for inclusion if they met the criteria for inclusion while being alive.
One reason for doing this is the fact that a lot of deceased people who should clearly be included don't come anywhere near to meeting the current criteria for inclusion (i.e. Lizzie Borden, Betty Christian) however the article is clearly relevent and encyclopedia.

I further propose to alter the criteria for which someone 'regardless of being dead/alive/pre-birth is eligible to have their biographies included to include "A person who was or is well enough known to be of interest at some chronoligcal point". This is for obvious reasons so that Wikipedians can those their judgement, any dispute could be left open to a vote. As Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia this is feasible and for articles which are boderline as to whether or not they should be included it seems prudent to have it included as possible interest for someone.

I further propose to have the "100 year rule", that has been put forward, amended to read "Would/does a biography of this person pose a general interest to people either now or significanlty in the future". As Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia this is feasible and for articles which are boderline as to whether or not they should be included it seems prudent to have it included as possible interest for someone. This proposal would make the 100 rule more plausible.

Please give your views and VOTE --- Following Rossami's request vote request is until, if and when it appears neccesarry --- (Edited: Chazz88 15:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC))

When considering these proposal I would like everyone to pay particular attention to the Wikipedia is not paper policy and remember that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia.

--Chazz88 22:26, 16 October 2005 (UTC)


Two thoughts.
  1. voting is evil! We seek to make changes like this through discussion and consensus, not by jumping straight to voting. I would ask you to retract your call to vote on your proposal.
  2. I am uncomfortable with this expansion. Wikipedia has an absolute rule that our information must be verifiable by the average reader/editor. Topics that are only marginally includable today may become completely unverifiable in the future. Future editors must have the right and ability to reevaluate articles and to make revised inclusion decisions as appropriate. If, 10 years after the death of Paschal English, there are no independent references to his life or activities, then the future editors will have no choice but to remove it. I think the current wording provides guidelines that move us closer to that standard of perpetual verifiability. I'm not sure that your proposed changes would maintain that protection.
Rossami (talk) 14:00, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Following Rossami's request the call for a vote is removed until, if and when it appears neccesarry, to reinstate it --Chazz88 15:10, 17 October 2005 (UTC) (Edited:Chazz88 18:49, 27 December 2005 (UTC) - edits in italics)

-- Will reply to Rossami's when I have time. Sorry busy ATM --Chazz88 15:15, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

Reply to Rossami's main pooint:
  1. We cannot allow articles to be deleted merely because some of the sources used for verifiability have been removed. The one way of solving this issue is for future editors to look through discussions of previous edits: if no-one found the sources to be innacurate many years ago it is unlikely that they were innaccurate. Also the reasoning from the sources that are quoted could be in the discussion page so that if they are ever removed from the web future editors can know that they were most likely checked previously.
In conclusion it seems unreasonable to deprive future generations of an invaluable source of knowledge and information merely because the sources used to verify the information is no longer available. If information is verified as being accurate now then it will almost certainly be accurate in 50 years time regardless of whether or not the sources where the data came from is still availble.

--Chazz88 18:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC) (Edited:Chazz88 18:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC))

If no-one can come up with further problems in the next 24 hours I will move my rules into the guidelines. --Chazz88 18:52, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I oppose the change because a)I'm not clear on what change you want, as you seem to discuss a couple different things, and b) I don't see what problem you wish fixed. A web link might die, but if it was a proper published source, and enough info is retained of the source, it can generally be refound. If not trace of a source remains, that's a good sign it was a bad source to begin with. I think, in the future, a lot of band articles based on fan blogs will be substantially trimmed/deleted when those fan blogs disappear, and that's fine with me. The NY Times on the other hand might take a story off-line, but their stories will always be available to the public (in some form, in some price, from somebody). --Rob 19:27, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Two suggestions

  • In a few cases, heavily recruited high school athletes would merit inclusion. Certainly LeBron James would have fit before he left school.
  • I think that all members of Congress and state legislators, as well as major-party candidates for those positions, should count as automatically worthy of inclusion. -- Mwalcoff 05:32, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
    • First, many serious and well-intentioned Wikipedians would disagree with the assertion that LeBron James would have fit before he left school. However, even the people who agree are more likely, in my opinion, to consider his article a very rare exception. We should trust that the community can correctly decide on the exceptions. Trying to expand the the list to cover every possible contingency will just drive us to rule-lawyering.
  • Members of Congress, etc. are already includable under the clause that reads "Political figures holding international, national or statewide/provincewide office". The consensus for candidates who fail to gain the office is much less clear. In general, the consensus has been that a candidate may be includable for other reasons but mere candidacy by itself is not necessarily sufficient. There are too many cases where one party has a lock on the seat and the other party throws a complete unknown into the race just to fill the ticket. A credible candidate for major office will almost always already be includable under one of the other criterion. Rossami (talk) 17:59, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

WikiMe

      • There is a project (WikiMe.org) which is actually based on the MediaWiki software and has the goal of collecting (auto)biographies of normal individuals. Might we be able to point people who want to add their own or questionable biographies to that site? --Feelphree 22:38, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
        • I think that's a terrific idea. What copyright are your contributions licensed under? Is it compatible with GFDL? Rossami (talk) 03:29, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
        • I've been pointing people to WikiTree for quite a while, now. Uncle G 11:53, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
          • Either way. It looks to me like WikiTree is more for the genealogy folks and WikiMe is more pop culture. WikiTree may be more relevant for those who actually post with some genealogic purpose in mind while WikiMe may be best for those who do vanity bios. If we were to do a standard template for this maybe we could include something to that effect. I also like the format of WikiMe a little better since it feels more like a regular Wikipedia article, but that's just my $.02. --Feelphree 22:48, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Political figures

There are a number of reasons that political figures who are running for international, national or statewide/provincewide offices on major tickets or with substantial following or interest should be in the criteria for inclusion.

  1. These people are frequently searched for - people want to know about the other candidate for office.
  2. It provides a ready starting point for an article about the office holder in place when and if they win.
  3. While we have no obligation to fairness, wikipedia should not be structurally biased in favor of incumbents.

As such, I hope to change the criteria for inclusion to the following, barring any disagreement:

Political figures holding, or notable candidates for international, national or statewide/provincewide office.

Thank you for your condiseration. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

To make sure that I am understanding your proposal correctly, you are proposing the addition of the words "or notable candidates for" to the existing criterion. If that is the case, I would oppose it as an unnecessary addition. My reasoning is as follows. If the candidate is "notable", they will in every situation I can imagine already meet one of the other inclusion criteria on the page. On the other hand, our history shows that others will attempt to abuse that wording and again argue that merely being a candidate is sufficient because "notability" has never been successfully defined. The criterion will be cheapened to "any candidate". I infer from the wording of your proposal that you would disagree with that cheapening of the position and that you agree that there are non-notable candidates even for major races. I happen to agree with that position. Many times, a major party will throw an utterly non-notable person into a race knowing that they will lose but not wanting the other party to gain the theoretical "mandate" of running unopposed. Those sure-losers are no more automatically deserving of an encyclopedia article than is my doctor - a fine person and a professional but not appropriate for an encyclopedia. I would, however, be willing to reconsider my opinion if you can give some examples of "notable candidates" at that level who did or do not already meet one of the other criteria. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 22:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
David_Ashe is the reason I bring this up. Hipocrite - «Talk» 23:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The fact that you would say that someone is "merely" a candidate shows a bias. If we distinguish between candidates in a race then we are being biased towards certain candidates and against others. I would argue that if someone currently holds an office is notable enough to have a page on wikipedia then all people who run for that office should be notable enough to have a page on Wikipedia. Otherwise we bias ourselves in distringuishing between candidates. Other criteria can be used to maintaing the quality of the article to keep the information verifiable and making sure that there are no NPOV violations while ensuring that Wiki doesn't bias itself in its guildelines. DanielZimmerman 00:53, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

If you've come here from AfD...

No, I did not change WP:BIO to change the votes for politicians on WP:AfD. I suggested the change to BIO 11 days ago, and, as it met no objection, I posted it today. Afterward, I went to AfD, unaware that the change to BIO may have an impact on an AfD vote. -- Mwalcoff 04:30, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I absolutely believe your good faith. I also hereby object to the proposal on the following grounds:
  • In the UK, there are over 600 arliamentary consituencies
  • Each constituency is contested, on average, every three years or so
  • Each consistency has, at each election, between two and five "credible" candidates (i.e. candidates from credible parties, who, in the interestss of balance, must be covered, even though a given party may stand little chance in a given constituency)
  • A high proportion of defeated candidates do not stand again (even more true in US elections), whereas a high proportion of successful candidates will stay in office for several terms
  • Overall it is not unreasonable to estimate that the proposed criterion would yield around ten to twenty times the number of candidate articles, a substantial number of which will (a) not be maintained past the election or (b) finish with "x is now selling insurance in Slough" (to paraphrase an AfD coment).
  • Many of these articles will be substantially unverifiable, especially after the election date
  • Many of them (as at present) will largely be vanity or at least distinctly subjective and out of proportion to the person's real importance (e.g. Paul Hackett). Again, much of the detail will be substantially unverifiable and, in encyclopaedic terms, trivial.
  • I recall at least a couple of these end up as what look suspiciously like partisan slugging matches (looking for links now)
  • The issue of what to do with failed candidates post-election is not addressed: do we delete them and have them re-inserted next time they stand? Look at Paul Babbitt as an example.
Instead, I propose that coverage is on the basis of an article per electoral competition (e.g. "Berdmondsey South, 1997 General Election" or "California district X, 2005" (excuse ignorance of US terminology). This allows a potted bio of each candidate, plus coverage of the issues in a neutral way.
Until this is settled, and given that the debate (as you acknowledge) had very little input, may I suggest a revert to the previous consensus until there has been time for a more thorough discussion of these issues? A moratorium on closure of AfDs on politicans meeting only these criteria would also be appropriate if such a discussion were to take place. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 14:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for trusting my motives. Should we create a centralized discussion, where we can explain the background of the disagreement and the main talking points on both sides? -- Mwalcoff 22:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that would be best - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 15:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Artists

I would like to begin a discussion on criteria for the inclusion of artists. I believe once an artist has built a vita showing a consistent ability for winning jury decisions for provincial or regional competitions, that artist is noteworthy enough for Wikipedia inclusion. Provincial and regional competitions are juried by artists of stature within an artistic community, and earning inclusion in a regional show usually means ones work will be seen by a large audience of two distinct groups. First, at least one thousand people will tour the exhibition during its run. Second, at least 4000 people will know of the artist's name by inclusion in articles written by provincial and regional journalists. Wmjuntunen 04:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Artists are professionals and the good ones are very good at their jobs. The best artists are definitely encyclopedic. The average artists are, well, average. They are not inherently more encyclopedic than any other profession. We would not accept biographies of business people of similar stature to the standard proposed.
As an example, your proposed standard would include my mother who, while a wonderful person and a reasonably good photographer, is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. Well over 1000 people toured her exhibits but now (five or so years later), I'd be surprised if 100 remembered her name. And I seriously doubt that you can extrapolate to the extra 4000 based on "articles written". Mere exposure to a news article does not automatically convey notability. Too often, they are human interest stories (which are appropriate for newspapers like WikiNews but not for encyclopedias). A standard for artists makes sense but I think the bar should start quite a bit higher than that. Rossami (talk) 05:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd say that the really good artists are known and discussed outside the limited locus of artistic criticism. A show at the Tate or National Gallery is of course notable, as is shortlisting for the Turner Prize, but in the end if the reasonably well-informed man on the Clapham omnibus has heard of them they deserve inclusion, and if not, then they need to establish some real claim to fame (of which prizes in highly-regarded competitions would undoubtedly form a part). - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 11:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Requested move

I am requesting that notability guidelines use a central naming scheme similiar to WP:MoS. Please discuss at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Requested moves.—jiy (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Criteria for Pornography

There has been a lot of discussion of late in AFDs with regards to the notability of individual porn stars, internet porn sites and other pornography-related articles. I would like to submit that we need a new criteria to cover this. I ask for discussion to reach a consensus for what that criteria should be.

Main arguments for deletion:

  • Pornography is not encyclopaedic.
  • Porn utilises spam techniques to make themselves seem more popular than they are.
  • Alexa check (on web sites) may be misleading due to spam.
  • Most references that can be used can be considered to be commerical advertising.
  • It is rare for porn stars to release their true details.

Main arguments for inclusion:

  • Wikipedia is not G rated.
  • The fact that they are so well known, through spam or not, makes them notable.
  • Alexa check actually works against porn sites because they usually have 10-15 mirrors, hence alexa check should be modified to reflect the combined rank of all sites.
  • References can be unreliable, but they can nonetheless help to gradually paint a picture of truth.
  • Many people who are voting are relying on their own personal experience and bias, having not ever seen porn or at least not admitting to seeing it, hence not making an informed vote.

As you can see below, a large number of porn sites/porn stars/etc are being nominated for deletion, with many returning no consensus votes, and a divide in opinion as to whether they are notable or not. It seems clear from these discussions that pornography needs its own criteria.

Some examples:

I suggest a seperate category for criteria for inclusion/deletion for this area. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 07:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree, admittedly from the standpoint of one who thinks Wikipedia has far too much porncruft. I have some major problems with this subject, one of which is that many "erotic actresses" are included on tha bsis of having made multiple films, but the combined total budget of all those films put together would not be enough to fund the nose-candy on a typical Hollywood production, let alone the film itself. Another problem is that the "stars" of these films are not really part of the draw. The audience does not go out looking for a film starring X, but an XXXX rated film, with little or no caring who is in it. I know some porn stars have achieved wider notability (e.g. Lolo Ferrari), and those obviously deserve a place. Others have developed a minor cult following, and I guess those have a place too. And some pornographic films (e.g. Deep Throat) have achieved a wider notability, but most of them are of no interest or lasting significance. Once the last tape has worn out the film and the perople in it will be forgotten. I don't see the British Fim Institute launching an appeal to save endangered low-budget porn films from being lost to humanity. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 09:37, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks. I think that we should open a separate page for discussion of this. First, I want an agreement that we need a separate way to categorise pornography. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 09:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
      • The existence of wikiporn makes a good case for transwiki for any who are not known outside the context of the porn industry. I would say that references in the mainstream media, or appearances in mainstream films, justify inclusion in Wikipedia. The others are essentially unverifiable from disinterested sources. Fans might record details, but they are not disinterested. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 13:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
        • That's a good point. I only found out about WikiPorn a couple of days ago. I don't know. In a lot of ways, I would rather see Wikipedia be G rated. Just simply because kids use this, and I mean like 8 year olds and stuff. We don't want them seeing porn. But, given that its not G rated, I think that we need to include this stuff. And the thing is that some of the words, well, I mean people would need to know what they mean. Half of the sexual stuff I had no idea what it was. I am still not sure what rimming means. Oh wait, I will probably know about I click that link. lol. So in a technical sense it is encyclopaedic. Just AO encyclopaedic. Transwikify might be a good option to keep Wikipedia G rated. Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
          • What copyright license is that project using? Is it compatible with GFDL? If so, then tranfer between projects might be possible (though it won't technically be a transwiki since it does not appear to be a WikiMedia project). Rossami (talk) 18:16, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
            • I'm not saying WP should be G rated (although it would be good if there were a mirror which were), my main problem is that much of the information on pornography subjects (i.e. porn actors) is not verifiable from reputable secondary sources. It survives AfD because people think that reference on a blog or fansite amounts to verifiability, but as far as I can tell that is not the case - it must be a known, trusted, preferably peer-reviewed (or at least open to public critique) authority. Even IMDB is not really an authority - although it is usually accurate, it is edited by People Like Us. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 11:50, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
              • I assume that you mean reference from a porn site that is dedicated to reviewing other porn sites and has a reputation for verifiability within the pornography industry, which you personally believe indicates that it is being paid by the porn sites themselves to make good reviews - even though their reviews vary enormously depending on the site that they are reviewing. I mean I guess that you have a point that the porn industry isn't exactly known to be reliable. But within the porn site community, such things are generally considered to be reliable. And if you disregard that, then you can't include any porn. I mean, you're right that pornography industry tends to lie/exaggerate a lot more than the regular film industry. So I don't know what you are supposed to do. Madonna, as you no doubt realised, had her acting debut in a porn movie. Does that make her fake? AFAIK Lucy Liu did too (although she claims it wasn't really her - just someone who looked like her). So what do we do? We aren't allowed to give their real names due to privacy restrictions. So do we just say that they don't exist? Zordrac (talk) Wishy Washy Darwikinian Eventualist 13:21, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
              • I'm not entirely sure what you mean (or what I mean for that matter!). I have no clear view in my head of what might constitue a reputable secondary source for porngraphy, since it sounds a lot like an oxymoron. Lolo Ferrari is verifiable from reputable external sources, despite having little or no significant presence outside pornography her story was carried by several of the major news media. Madonna is another good example: details be verified without difficulty from independent trustworthy secondary sources. Same applies for some others. Sites created by and for fans do not seem especially reliable, for example they may well talk up certain dimensions or engage in hyperbole. What I am looking for is disinterested sources. As to the name issue, I am still of the view that if a person's name can't be independently verified from a reputable source then everything else about that person must be suspect. There will be exceptions, such as some unidentified suicide bombers, people who have deliberately erased their past and so on, in whihc case the verifiable impossibility of verifying who they are (gaaah!) becomes an important fact in documenting them. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 14:31, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Wikiporn is essentially one big copyvio, with no respect to licensing at all. It was cofounded by a Wikipedian that decided to dig up as much personal information as he could on these women, including trying to post unverified real names, current addresses, phone numbers, names and address of family members, and a lot of other details that were judged to be inappropriate for Wikipedia. See for starters: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive44#Jordon_Capri. I am strongly opposed to any plan that would reward wikiporn in any way. Dragons flight 16:59, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I disagree with the statement that stars are not a draw for porn. There are definitely people who do rent/buy movies on the basis of the people in it. They may be prominently featured on the cover, or their name may appear in the title. And while the BFI may not be interested in porn, there is the Kinsey Institute [1] and the Museum of Sex. As for wikiporn, it seems to have died. Esquizombi 23:22, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

What information is notable?

I'm not sure if this is the best place to discuss this, or if it's been discussed before, so feel free to just send me off to another discussion. I was wondering what sort of information is relevant to include about individuals, where the people themselves meet notability guidelines. My concern is prompted by some of the information on Nina Hossain and Carol Goldsmith. Should we be including details such as their family life, hobbies, etc? Some of this might well be verifiable from external links, but is it encyclopedic? --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 11:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree - although (apart from a somewhat unencyclopaedic tone in the last para) I think that most of what is in the cited articles is defensible. I'd go by something like Who's Who, which gives some genealogical data and a (very brief) list of hobbies. Arguably, if we need to add trivia to pad out a stub, the person is not actually that notable after all :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 11:55, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Trivial information about an otherwise useful subject should be verifiable. If not, strike it. Also, use your common sense; nobody cares about a person's exact height in millimeters, for a ridiculous example. Radiant_>|< 13:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Comments on notability criteria as applied to article deletion

I have added an article on myself (unaware of "notablity" and "vanity" criteria) which has now been listed for deletion.

I updated the article to remove POV and political content. I also removed the personal website link and added several links to external verifiable information sources and articles. I have also added the content to my user page in anticipation of its deletion.

As a new contributor, I think there is a problem with clarity about the processes regarding article creation and deletion. I checked the Help:Starting a new_page information prior to creating the page. There is no information there about criteria for page creation that is being applied in this discussion; namely that a page can only be created for a person deemed as notable, and that a person should not create their own page for vanity reasons. A Wikipedia search on "notable" and "vanity" yields no meaningful information on what these criteria are and how they are applied. Both appear to be very subjective and open to interpretation, and therefore considerably open to debate and dissent. I think this process needs to be made much clearer.

I did some searching and found the Vanity Page Guidelines. Some quotes relevant to this process is:

"vanity by itself is not a basis for deletion, but lack of importance is (whether or not defined by the proposed Wikipedia:Importance)" .
"An article should not be dismissed as "vanity" simply because the subject is not famous. There is currently no consensus about what degree of recognition is required to justify a unique article being created in Wikipedia (although consensus exists regarding particular kinds of article, for instance see WP:MUSIC). Lack of fame is not the same as vanity. Furthermore, an article is not "vanity" simply because it was written by its subject."
"The word vain derives from the Latin word vanus meaning: empty."

I don't think that an article containing only information from verifiable sources should be regarded as "vain".

The page deletion process is a bit off putting - a rude shock even. How about preventing the problem (or at least reducing occurrences) by making the guidelines and criterial for article creation clearer up front? Peter Campbell 12:53, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

  • The general rule of thumb is, don't write about yourself. If you're famous, somebody else will write about you. Apparently people consider your article to be lacking in importance. The vanity page is a bit outdated; there is growing consensus about degrees of recognition required. Non-elected politicians are generally considered not notable. Also, the Latin meaning you mention is a bit of background trivia, and is entirely irrelevant. Radiant_>|< 13:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I echo Radiant's point. I would also state that it is my usual practice these days to simply userfy pages created by users about themselves, since that is usually what they meant to do in the first place and it's less of a slap in the face than simple deletion. WP:VAIN does not mean the same as the plain-english vain, much less the Latin meaning, just as WP:V does not mean the same as the plain-english verifiable. These things are elephant traps for new contributors. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 14:07, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I am quite willing to accept that most unsuccessful political candidates (such as myself) are not notable. However, I think the criteria for NOT starting an autobiographical page (ie. vanity, notability & etiquette) should therefore be specified in a page like Help:Starting_a_new_page to reduce the occurrence of people doing it. Prevention is much better than cure. Peter Campbell 11:28, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Another suggestion: The other place to mention guidelines could be when presented with the template for creating a new page - e.g. when you get the dialogue presented as per Joe not Bloggs:

Notability for dead persons

I recently had an attempt to start an article on William "Duke" Procter that was speedily deleted due to non-notability. The main point about Mr. Procter is that he was one of the last (there are three left) Surviving veterans of World War I and the last in western Canada; he was removed from the list of survivors after his death. To me, although the general criteria stated for persons who have been "dead for some time" is that they have made a significant contribution to their field, it does not seem to be as clear as that. Mr. Procter's passing was noted significantly in the Canadian media and, of course, by Veterans Affairs Canada and appears on Deaths in 2005. I think that, in some senses, it represents the end of an era. --Big_Iron 12:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I thing the point of confusion is that we have not yet done a very good job of distinguishing between "newsworthy" and "encyclopedic". Newsworthy topics get covered in newspapers, TV and other mass media that generally focus on transient events. Encyclopedia articles on the other hand tend to be written with a much longer view in mind. Even non-paper encyclopedias must ask whether anyone in 10 or 100 years will care about or be able to verify a particular datum. The relevant analogy in this case might be the question "Does anyone care about or has anyone even tried to identify the third-to-last surviving veteran of the Hundred Years War?" If you don't care about the last surviving veterans of a war several centuries ago, why would you expect anyone years from now to care about similar trivia from our time?
I'll admit, though, that I may be biased in this case. As a veteran, I believe strongly that veterans earn their notability for their service - for the things they did as soldiers - not for simply living a long but nondescript life afterward. Rossami (talk) 01:40, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Of course, one could use the same "will they be remembered in 100 years" arguement for 99% of WP:MUSIC qualified people. The mere fact we allow living people, and recently dead people at all, ensures a high percentage of people will *eventually* be of limited interest. We needn't be guarenteed that somebody will be remembered in centuries. It's absurd to even worry about such things. Also, we have 800,000 articles because we realize most will be of interest to a small fraction of the whole. That's ok. Also, you gave a wonderful example case. Suppose somebody today found a previously lost comprehensive biography of the third-to-last survivor of the of the Hundred Years War (written around the time of their death). Suppose it was extensive, detailed, fully authenticated, and the facts in it were verifiable (using other historical documents of the time). I suggest such a work would be considered of substantial value in the historical community. The subject of the biography might not become a household name, but I'm sure if it was donated to a museum, it wouldn't be garbaged (or in Wikipedian terminology: "speedy deleted for failure to assert notability). --Rob 02:51, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that if someone had recorded the last person to die in the Hundred Year War it would be notable. It is only because of the advent of newspapers, memoirs, and encyclopedias that ephemeral information is recorded, no one recorded that kind of information back then. The most interesting stories of the Hundred Year War, not involving Kings and Generals, were preserved only because they were court cases: Joan of Arc and Martin Guerre. The worst case scenario in Wikipedia would be that no one would read the information. In a paper encyclopedia you have space limitations, so you don't have room for local information. Does something have to be Encyclopedia Britannica notibility? or just Encyclopedia of New Jersey notibility? Or can it be from a book on the history of your home town, and only be of interest to people from your home town? Notability has a scale, and Wikipedia has no space constraints, so why not be comprehensive? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 15:47, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

I've removed the term opinion maker from the article. This, together with opinion former, is a hateful term that implies only certain "superior" people can form, or have, opinions. As we know, everyone has an opinion about something or other. The so-called opinion makers/formers are usually just loud mouths. If, on a particular subject, someone's opinion is worth more than mine, then that person is an "expert in the field". Arcturus 20:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the whole concept of notability, as it exists here, is based on the premise that some people rise over others. Like it or not, Bill O'Reilly (commentator) is notable, and it's not because he's an "expert", it's because he has well known opinions, and those opinions have substantial influence over others; making him an opinion maker worthy of inclusion. Wikipedia is not fair, nor does it try to be. --Rob 20:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Like most people in the world I've never heard of Bill O'Reilly. If he's notable, for whatever reason, then clearly he should feature in Wikipedia. At issue here is the term apparently used to describe him. He is no more an opinion maker than I am, or the next man, for that matter. He might be influential, an expert in his field, he might have any number of talents that put him above the man in the street, but his ability to make or form opinions is no greater than Mr Average. To describe someone as an opinion maker implies that others don't make opinions. Arcturus 22:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
You misunderstand the meaning of "opinion maker" as used here. Of course we can all make opinions for ourselves. However, an opinion maker, is somebody who can effect ("make") opinions in *other* people who follow them. Ordinary people do not have a signficant effect on the opinions of others beyond their immediate family and friends. That's a huge distinction. Like it or not, if O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh say something, it has an effect on the opinions of others. You could do an opinion poll the day after they say something, and *some* people would express opinions they didn't hold previously. People will listen to Rush on the radio, and promptly write their congressman about something they never heard of before Rush told them about it. That makes Rush notable. Rush is not notable for any expertise he has. Unless you've got verifiable evidence of effecting the opinion of large numbers of people (or at least that large numbers of people know of, and care about your *published* opinions), you are *not* as much of an opinion maker as O'Reilly or Rush (neither am I). --Rob 08:01, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like you mean these people are Opinion leaders; another diabolical term, but one which at least is not made up. It seems to me that O'Reilly and Limbaugh are actually commentators. If they commentate on a whole manner of things in which they are not expert, and people take them seriously, even to the extent of changing their own views, in the UK they would probably be referred to using that well-known term describing male bovine excrement. Arcturus 18:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, I think people know fully well what's meant by "opinion maker". It could read "influential opinion maker" or "opinion leader" or "well known commentator" or a bunch of other things which might not be literally identical, but all are equally useable. If you can cite an example where "opinion maker" has led to a bio article being included who shouldn't, please give an example, to make things clear. Otherwise, there seems to be no problem, and we can assume people know what's meant by *this* use of the term "opinion maker". --Rob 19:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Alternative tests

What's the point of this section? These are all examples of proposals that failed to gain community supprt, aren't they? Thus why are they still on the main page? Can I use more questions in a row? - brenneman(t)(c) 12:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I'm going to delete the "Alternative tests" unless someone screams. - brenneman(t)(c) 23:48, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well I'm screaming that I want them kept. :D --- Responses to Chazz's talk page. Signed by Chazz @ 23:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Ok... now can you tell me why? - brenneman(t)(c) 13:34, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
The "100-year test" in this section in particular seems a little flaky. It's hard enough to anticipate whether wikipedia itself will be anything more than a footnote in history in 100 years, let alone any random, presumed notable contemporary individual. A more reasonable ask would be, "would anyone be expected to give a damn about this person in five years' time, after their 15 minutes of (alleged) fame have passed?" to weed out the transitory and the faddish. That probably wouldn't work either, though...--cjllw | TALK 04:52, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Please strike the entire section, since (afaict) nobody uses those tests, except for the "professor test" and a link to the google test with caveat. Many famous musicians will be nobodys within five years; that doesn't mean we shouldn't have articles on them. Radiant_>|< 12:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Academics

Hey look! Here's a place for some discussion to start, spun off of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel R. Anderson. - brenneman(t)(c) 00:11, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Or, alternatively, go to Wikipedia talk:Criteria for inclusion of biographies/Academics linked to at the top of this page. This seems rather redundant. J•A•K 00:44, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
Spoilsport. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Merger notices

Radiant! just posted a recommendation to merge all or part of three different documents into this page. I don't have strong opinions about the latter two but I think that WP:AUTO probably ought to remain a separate page. The topics are linked but the intended audience is slightly different. I think there is value to being able to point a new user directly to the page on autobiographies. However, it might be appropriate to consider this the "main" page with a synopsis of and a link to the drill-down page on autobiographies. Rossami (talk) 20:48, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

The different issues to consider are basically these:

  • Which people are notable enough to consider including in wikipedia (this page)
  • Special guidelines for biographies of living people (to avoid lawsuits) (WP:LIVING?)
  • Guidelines if you're considering writing an article about yourself
  • What to do if people have written crap about themselves or their friends.

Now in terms of the proposed mergers. Vanity guidelines and Deletion of vanity articles could very well be merged. Only problem, the first is a guideline, the second is policy. But they would make one good article: What is a vanity article, and when do we delete it?

WP:LIVING has basically nothing to do with this article. It doesn't even touch on notability - it simply says people's privacy should be respected. I suggest we leave it alone. It's not even official yet.

WP:AUTO could be merged, but I don't see a strong argument for it. Again, they discuss different topics, although AUTO does hint at notability a few times. If they became merged, you would effectively have a whole section in this article simply about why you shouldn't write an autobiography here. I suspect 6 months later, someone would propose splitting it again.

Now, as for whether the two vanity pages discussed earlier should be merged here...I suspect they probably could be. Then everything on vanity would be in one place. This page would then discuss whether a person is notable or not. Then it would discuss the problem with pages about people who are not notable. Then it would say under what conditions you can speedy delete such pages. That works for me. So in conclusion:

  • Autobiography: Probably leave it. But maybe move any vanity/notability bits here.
  • Deletion of vanity articles: Merge it.
  • Biographies of living persons: Leave it, it's not even related.
  • Vanity guidelines: Merge it.

Please feel free to write all over my half-arsed analysis. :) Stevage 00:54, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

  • That sounds good, thanks Stevage. It's not really a problem to merge in from WP:DVAIN; the result would be a guideline for the time being, but that's okay. I would prefer not to have redundant sections in separate pages, they tend to diverge and eventually contradict. I believe the main point of WP:AUTO is that "you are not notable" (for any n00b editor value of "you") but I see the point that someone might rewrite it if split out. Hm, three out of five ain't bad :) Radiant_>|< 23:05, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Officials In Major Sports Leagues

I know that players are notable, but what about officials? Yes? No? Maybe? I say Yes, I believe it's just as big a feat to umpire a World Series Game or referee a Super Bowl as it would be to play in one. Karmafist 04:50, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

My first reaction is no. They are not nearly as well known and, if they get any independent coverage at all, it's a scant fraction of the coverage of the player. I suppose there might be some exceptions but I would consider most officials to be professionals - business people who may be very good at their jobs but aren't otherwise particularly noteworthy. The difference, I think, between the players (like other entertainers) gain their notability from having a fan following. As a functional matter, we've tacitly decided that players above a certain level are presumed to have a following. We do not make that presumption for non-entertainment professions like doctors, engineers or businesspeople. I would argue that the vast majority of officials are closer to the latter than they are to the players. Rossami (talk) 06:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I think officials can be. But for most officials, what can really be said beyond "they've been an official in this league for X years"? Not a lot of ink is ever given to officials unless they screw up a call in a big game. The only officials there's actually anything to write an article on are guys like Don Denkinger or Phil Luckett, who've genuinly been in the sportswatching public's eye a time or two, more than a lot of obscure players who get articles at least. --W.marsh 06:00, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
As with most things, I think it depends on the level of interest and the amount of independent, verifiable information available. There are many baseball umpires, for example, but few as well-known as John Hirschbeck. And I'd like to have an article on legendary boxing ref Mills Lane, even if he didn't have a TV show. -- Mwalcoff 00:46, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't like where this is heading. Why on earth wouldn't a referee at the World Cup/Super Bowl etc be worthy of an article? Could you not imagine a situation where someone would want to research them? I can't speak for American football but cricket umpires (wow, see Category:Cricket umpires) can certainly be notable. "Followings" are irrelevant to the question of whether someone is objectively interesting enough to warrant an article. Stevage 20:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is saying that officials can never be notable, merely that they are not automatically notable. To answer that requires consideration of two problems.
  1. I can well imagine a scenario where I personally would want to look up information on a particular family-practice doctor. Yet by long precedent, we've said that an encyclopedia article on an average doctor is not appropriate. What makes the profession of referee inherently different?
  2. Remembering that an encyclopedia is by definition a tertiary source, where do you recommend that we turn for sufficient independent unbiased coverage to write a decent article?
Until both those questions can be answered satisfactorily, I don't think that we can make a general statement that all officials are appropriate for inclusion. Rossami (talk) 22:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Junior hockey

Should we have a line about players in Canadian Hockey League junior hockey? Chris Purves of the Windsor Spitfires is on AfD. The nominator picked up on the fact that Purves' article says he is semi-professional, which is true. But while only semipro, the CHL has a similar relationship to ice hockey as Division I-A college football has to the NFL. For example, Sidney Crosby, this year's hot NHL rookie, played for the CHL's Rimouski Océanic last year.

It so happens that Mr. Purves has only 1 goal this year, so perhaps he isn't going to be NHL material.

Mwalcoff 00:54, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • Probably not. There's far too many of those leagues, it's too easy to get into them, and it's self-dating information (since their slight notability probably fades entirely the instant they leave the team). Radiant_>|< 01:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm just talking about players in the three "major" junior leagues that make up the CHL -- the Western, Ontario and Quebec leagues. -- Mwalcoff 01:25, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not trying to argue, as I really don't care one way or the other. However, I think that the (merited, IMO) inclusion of Division I-A college football players may set a precedent for junior hockey. (We also include players in the fourth-level English soccer league, even though some CHL teams have higher attendance.) The question, to me, is whether the CHL is more similar to big-time college football or basketball or to high-school sports. Personally, I think we ought to decide on a case-by-case basis, as I think on most subjects. But because most people out there don't know what junior hockey is, we might want to consider adding a line one way or the other onto BIO. -- Mwalcoff 04:51, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, yes, we should judge that on a case-by-case basis, and we already do. That, however, may include speedying under A7 on a case-by-case basis. Expanding BIO (or WP:DVAIN) to match with current practice is a good idea. Also, if a lot of stubs appear on junior league players, it may be worthwhile to simply Wikipedia:Merge the lot. Radiant_>|< 12:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Underlying policy?

I disagree with this change for two reasons. The first part ("this is not policy and is contentious") and last sentence only serve to needlessly weaken the guideline, which is consensual and widely in use. And the second part ("people think notability is a good test of WP:V/NPOV/RS/NOR") is missing the point of notability, which is that not everything which can be neutrally verified to exist should be covered in an encyclopedia. Radiant_>|< 11:56, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

For ease of discussion, this is the text in question:

Although this guideline is not a formal policy (and indeed the whole concept of notability is contentious), it is the opinion of many Wikipedians that these criteria are fair test of whether a person has sufficient external notice to ensure that they can be covered from a neutral point of view based on verifiable information from reliable sources, without straying into original research (all of which are formal policies). Failure to meet these criteria does not mean that a subject must not be included, meeting one or more does not mean that a subject must be included.

I added this because of the number of times on AfD someone or other has said that "notability is not policy" - what I am trying to do is clarify why people think notability is important. The concept of notability is contentious within the community, as you know. I think we should be indicating the policy underpinning this guideline. Oh, by the way - which POV am I supposed to be pushing? Just so I know :-) - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 12:30, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

  • It seemed like a reasonable first draft to me. Radiant's concerns that this might be perceived as weakening the guideline are fair. But it also seems reasonable to try to explain more clearly to new users that the whole "notability argument" derives from or is a proxy for our ability to comply with the established policies on WP:V/NPOV/RS/NOR. Rossami (talk) 15:58, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • The crux is that notability is not based upon WP:V/NPOV/RS/NOR, but rather on our policy WP:NOT. A subject can be verifiable from reliable sources without original research or POV bias, yet still be considered unencyclopedic. For instance, Wikipedia is neither a memorial nor a genealogy database, and as such articles on any editor's ancestors or passed-away family members does not by default belong here. Radiant_>|< 16:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • OK, first of all my intention is to strengthen the guideline by indicating that, although it is not policy, it is used as a litmus test for whether the content is likely to violate policy. The last para says that meeting the guidelines does not mean it must be included. It's legitimate to expand it to remind people what WP:ISNOT but I still think it adds weight to note that the reaosn we believe that only notable people should be here is, in many cases, because only notable people can be covered neutrally within policy. So whether or not the exact wording remains, I still think we should reference these policies in some form - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 16:42, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • "we believe that only notable people should be here is, in many cases, because only notable people can be covered neutrally within policy" is simply not true. If someone e.g. died in 9/11, then his name will have been in enough newspapers to get verifiable facts on him that aren't original research. Yet such people are not notable, as AFD will confirm - in fact, an entire Wiki was created to host these memorials since they are not encyclopedic. Side point, NPOV is never a reason to delete an article to begin with, other than forks. Radiant_>|< 16:47, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Ahhh... I think I finally see the point of disagreement. I believe that WP:NOT is itself an elaboration of WP:V/NPOV/RS/NOR et al. Of course, it says some other important things too. Can the concepts be merged into a good educational paragraph for new users? Rossami (talk) 18:57, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I think so (for the record, WP:NOT is the first of our founding principles, from WP:5P; the first principle also includes WP:WINAD, WP:VAIN and WP:NOR. It seems rather obvious that WP:VAIN and WP:BIO are two sides of the same coin). Radiant_>|< 20:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
      • and can this educational paragraph include suggestions of alternative sites where nn postings are encouraged? In several areas Wikipedians have agreed that this is a good approach ([2], [3], [4]), but it has yet to work its way into any concerted effort to redirect potential nn bios. Such an introductory paragraph would be a great place to try to prevent nn postings and could potentially seriously decrease the amount of time spent policing bios.--Wotwu 21:08, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
        • In principle yes, but Wikipedia is not the place to advertise a new and otherwise not notable site. Judged by google and the fact that their main page immediately produces an error, WikiMe is such a site. And since their statistics page shows a total of 250 content pages, so is WikiTree. We generally point people to Everything2, for instance. Radiant_>|< 21:17, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
          • That's fine with me, as long as it serves the purpose. However, that is the first I am hearing of that general practice so it might need to be more popularized as well. Additionally, I think a distinction has to be made between advertising and a symbiotic relationship - just because you list a site on a page doesn't mean it's a negative for WP. I merely mention these two sites because they are the ones I have heard of (I have a profile on WikiMe but no affiliation with WikiTree. Btw, re: WikiMe it's just a log in request not an error.) and they are based on Mediawiki software. I think a case could made for a short list of options and their inclusion on that list not only for that reason but also for the purpose of not being an advertiser for Everything2. Just my mostly unbiased opinion of course. --Wotwu 23:22, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
            • I would say we're being symbiotic with Everything2 because they, too, are rather big and well-known, and their inclusion guidelines are rather different from ours, thus making them a useful complement. They don't really need us to advertise. For a small start-up site such as Wikime, that's exactly the other way around. There's hundreds of startup wikis on the web. Radiant_>|< 08:50, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Appearance in a television documentary

Has there been discussion about whether or not being named in a documentary (such as something on National Geographic), is qualification for notability? There is currently a heated discussion at Talk:Aladin (magician)#RfC about whether such a thing can be verification of notability, especially when included with other print sources. Is there consensus on this? Elonka 08:06, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

  • This has been extensively discussed before in the context of mention in any news outlet (though not, to my knowledge, specifically about National Geographic). The consensus has always been that mere mention in a news article, TV show, magazine or other mass media is not sufficient all by itself to establish notability for an encyclopedia article (though it could be sufficient for WikiNews). However, it may be supporting evidence if it can be correlated with other arguments for inclusion. And while a single mention is not generally considered sufficient, a person or topic with lots of independent coverages might meet the threshold. (The definition of "lots" has been deliberately left vague.) Rossami (talk) 14:14, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Merger

NO: I don't agree with all the mergers. I think vanity page should remain seperate. The others I am indiferent. --CyclePat 19:34, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

The point of WP:BIO

I'm wondering what, exactly, the point of this guideline page is.

The page itself says it is not an exclusive list of what types of people can have articles on Wikipedia. Specifically, it says:

Biographies on the following people may be included in Wikipedia. This list is not all-inclusive. There are numerous biographies on Wikipedia on people who do not fall under any of these categories, but there is no intention to delete them all.

This indicates to me that when people list an article on WP:AFD because it "fails WP:BIO," they are misunderstanding the point of this page.

The logical assumption, then, is that if WP:BIO isn't an exclusionary list, it must be an inclusionary list. But User:Uncle G made the following comment on Wikipedia talk: Centralized discussion/Legislative candidates:

We also need to clarify that the point of WP:BIO is not to automatically include classes of people. "All X are notable" is simply a formula that doesn't work, whatever the "X", be it "real places", "businesses", "web sites", "candidates for office", or one of the many others. It results in the creation of a directory of "X", not an encyclopaedia.

So then I have to ask: If WP:BIO is not a list of people who should automatically be included, and it is not a list in which those not on it should automatically be excluded, what exactly is the point of the page?

I think the root problem here is that we have a guideline on who is "notable" but no official policy on what notability is or what role it plays in determining what articles go on Wikipedia. We have an "essay" on notability, but that's it. -- Mwalcoff 02:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Game authorship

Over at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Doug Bell, I got into a discussion with User:Doug Bell, who is subject of the article. I'm not sure what the outcome of the AfD will be, but basically Bell's possible claims to notability include:

  1. He wrote one programming book;
  2. He had a large role (lead developer/manager/etc) in developing several popular video games.

The first thing is well discussed in this guideline. The latter is something I'm not quite sure how to weigh. Bell commented:

Comment. The book has little to do with my notoriety—base your vote on the games where I was the principle developer. Doug Bell talk•contrib 23:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I continued this thread a bit:

The difference, to my mind (and probably in the mind of the writers of WP:BIO), is that when you read a book you are prominently and conscpicuously presented with the author's name. Book in hand, it's logical to wonder "who is this author?" When you play a video game, you generally do not see the names of creators; I guess some have some "credits key-combo" to reveal some screen of this information, and maybe it's in small print in the manual. A million-selling video game deserves its own article, but its creators are semi-anonymous (though I suppose there are special industry forums where game developers are discussed, given awards, etc). Likewise, my "Black-and-Decker 8" Flat-Head Screwdriver" probably sold 50 million units, and somebody designed it (there's probably a lot that goes into choosing and testing materials and processes, quite likely patents involved). But this person who developed my screwdriver doesn't get an article on that basis (though s/he may well get industry-specific awards, reputation, etc). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Well, I don't want to be drawn into responding on this page as I don't think my participation here is appropriate and in my opinion I've already been drawn into crossing a line I'd rather not have, so I intend to make this my last addition to this page unless there is some exceedingly good reason to do otherwise. I will only mention that the computer game industry is much more like the movie industry than the tool industry, and similar to the movie industry some people are interested in who makes the movies and some people just watch the movies. (For that matter, some people care who wrote the book and some people just read the books.) Lulu, if you want to discuss any of these issues with me further, please use my talk page. – Doug Bell talk•contrib 01:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
The analogies among industries Doug Bell makes might be roughly correct (or might not be). I'm not part of either industry, nor part of e.g. the hand tool industry. I do sometimes marvel at how clever some little bit of industrial design is (or at how stupidly it was done), and sort of wonder who was behind it). But there seems to be a prominent notability distinction among where authorship is prominently assigned and where it is not. For example, someone copy-edited, and someone else bound/printed Doug's book. The book would not exist without those steps either; yet those people are not judged notable by WP:BIO. I can't really say what "some people are interested in", but try to follow the guidelines in WP:BIO in determining notability. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not particularly concerned about the outcome of this specific AfD vote. But I would like to get my head around the idea of "authorship" in industries where authorship is not prominently advertised in the product itself. Thoughts. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 03:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting question. Books are rather clear because they have one (or two) obvious authors. Same goes for most songs. Films and video games, however, are generally created by large teams of people nubmering in the hundreds. This does not generally make all of those people notable. Usually, we have articles about the directors and main actors of films. For games, I'd say we get articles about the designer, lead dev, or chief programmer, but not for graphic artist #17 or beta tester #43. Radiant_>|< 12:15, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
So what about industrial designers. Is the guy who did the materials design for my screwdriver notable (it probably is a guy, and probably is just one or a couple materials engineers)? Assuming this model is high selling and notable as an example of good design? Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
A principle. Someone who developed the principle in a game is quite likely to be notable - it is something nobody had done before and makes a lasting contribution. The principal developer of a game would be notable according to how notable the game was, perhaps. Midgley 12:30, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Clarification of what the page is for (or not for)

As no one responded to my question above, I thought I should go ahead and propose a change to the wording of the page.

Current wording

Biographies on the following people may be included in Wikipedia. This list is not all-inclusive. There are numerous biographies on Wikipedia on people who do not fall under any of these categories, but there is no intention to delete them all.

Proposed wording

The following types of people are likely to merit their own Wikipedia articles, as there is likely to be a good deal of verifiable information available about them and a good deal of public interest in them.

This is not intended to be an exclusionary list. Just because someone doesn't fall into one of these categories doesn't mean an article on the person should be deleted. An article should never be deleted because it "fails WP:BIO" (this page).

Mwalcoff 01:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I would say: "never be deleted exclusively' because it fails WP:BIO". Failing is a bit of evidence in the direction of delection, especially for people in occupations or activities that are discussed here in some general way. For example, a bio claiming notability of a writer who sold less than 5000 books leans in the direction of delete (but is not enough to be automatic... for example, academic books with limited circulation can still be important). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 02:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
The point I'm trying to make is that there is no such thing as "failing WP:BIO," since this is not an exclusionary list. Instead, this page lists the kind of people likely to merit inclusion. Types of people not on the list might not be good for inclusion, since there might not be independent, verifiable information about them or widespread public interest in them. -- Mwalcoff 02:23, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for members of the military?

I stumbled upon Ronald J. Bath, and see no reason why this biography should remain. the Wikipedia:Google test shows a couple of hundred references, with nothing distinctive. The article itself fails to include anything that suggests his "work is recognized as exceptional and likely to become a part of the enduring historical record of that field." Nothing links to Gen. Bath. My tentative conclusion is that I should nominate his bio for deletion. Before doing so, I'd like to consult any guidelines editors have produced in the past about what constitutes notability within the military. Does anyone know of any such attempts? 66.167.139.205 08:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC).

It's never been formally discussed here. Precedent from various AFD discussions that I remember tended to establish a few directional guidelines. For example,
  • Merely being a member of the military (even during time of war) is not sufficient. This argument generally held sway during discussions of "List of casualties of xxx" discussions.
  • Merely being the commander (or CSM, 1SG, etc.) of a unit is not sufficient for an independent article (though it may be appropriate to mention the current commander in an article about a notable unit). This argument has successfully prevailed pretty much without regard to the size or mission of the unit.
  • Decisions have been split on whether rank is a useful guide. Some argued that any COL and above could be presumed to have done something notable. Others argued that even many generals may be non-notable. In general, I would say that reaching a particular rank is supporting evidence but not sufficient all by itself to support an article. Purely rank-based arguments for inclusion have mostly been met with skepticism.
  • Combat awards are evaluated based on the underlying actions and the relative scarcity of those awards. It's safe to say that any recipient of the US Medal of Honor is appropriate for inclusion. A recipient of a Bronze Star, on the other hand, generally is not. Peacetime awards have almost never been viewed as credible standards for inclusion all by themselves.
  • And, of course, being a member of the military does not mean that the other criteria stop applying. Your example of the "work is recognized as exceptional..." criterion is a good example. Likewise, getting lots of independent and continuing coverage in books, articles, etc. could be appropriate for inclusion on the basis of that coverage.
Those are the criteria that I remember being discussed. Does anyone remember other precedents? Rossami (talk) 16:25, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

An area I was surprised received widespread keep-support was for people who were amongst the last survivors of certain wars. This happened for WWI vets for Canada and the US. William "Duke" Procter (AfD discussion) is one example, which went from a "speedy delete" to 12 Keeps in the AFD, with only the nominator voting to delete. I can't recall the name of the other case(s), but know there was at least one in the US. Nobody questions that these fellows were perfectly ordinary in their time, but are now considered notable because of widespread media attention --Rob 07:31, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The unintentionally notable

There are a large number of people who are notable for nothing they did themselves, but are notable nonetheless Elizabeth Smart (Utah) was kidnapped, and plastered all over the news all across the United States. The List of murdered people brings up a lot of people who have wikiarticles about them, many of whom did nothing to contribute to their field (like Jesse Dirkhising), but are still notable because of what happened to them. What did the McCaughey_septuplets do to contribute to their field? I think the policy of Notability should be updated to reflect this.

There is one phrase that somewhat discusses this: A topic has notability if it is known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact Can this be expounded upon in the actual text of the article, or do we want to exclude people like this? McKay 17:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC) (originally unsigned, signing is about 1/2 hour old—Preceding unsigned comment added by Mckaysalisbury (talk • contribs) )

Ultimately I think it's easier to explain it by saying we have articles on the people you cited because there was substantial (often mainstream) media coverage of them (for whatever reason). You might say this media coverage is what makes them notable, I personally say it makes them verifiable (good sources and all). --W.marsh 16:46, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and I agree with that sentiment, but alas, the current pseudo-policy is that the criteria for inclusion is whether they have made a substantial contribution to their field. I think that that policy needs updating. McKay 17:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Stage Actors

There has been some spirited debate at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yassmin Alers concerning the notability of Stage Actors. As one contributor points out, most notable stage actors probably appear in a movie or TV show now and then. Nonetheless, some stick to the stage, but naturally stage work could earn someone notability. To get things started, I have a proposal to offer. I think we should set the bar pretty low for stage actors: after all, they are public figures, so any reasonably well-established stage actor should be notable. (Unlike, say, plumbers: a plumber would have to be exceptionally notable to qualify for an encyclopedia entry.) Here are a few criteria that might qualify someone:

  1. Having had several leading roles in productions of notable professional theater groups,
  2. Having had a leading role in a notable production of a significant show,
  3. Having played a minor role in the original production of a very significant show,
  4. Having been mentioned in independent press beyond a mere review of a show, or
  5. Having received a notable award or honor for stage acting.

Comments/concerns? Mangojuice 13:45, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I would basically agree with this. Though, I don't see why reviews (as long as they're independent) wouldn't count as much as other press; provided they specifically address the bio-subject by name (e.g. a review of a play with substantial praise of the actor, by a well known critic). --Rob 14:15, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Basically, because mostly every play receives a review which would name at least the lead actors. Unless we think that one leading role in a professional production is enough for notability, I think the press coverage criteria should reflect something more unusual. Though, perhaps, a review that focuses on a particular actor may count as beyond a "mere" review. Mangojuice 15:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
If you want to be restrictive, you can restrict what publishers/reviewers you would count; as major publications won't write a review on just any play by anybody. Also, take a look through Category:Stage actors. You'll find very few citations of critical reviews. The typical AFD'd stage actor bio, even less so. I'm suggesting if there's been substantial coverage of a person (in or out of reviews) in independent, reliable, respect media, then that counts; if its properly cited in the article. Making this allowance would "green light" a very small percentage of stage articles in practice (even though in theory it could be permissive). I think WP:CORP is probably a reasonable model for this (in separating out trivial from non-trivial). --Rob 16:49, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
I think this is a good idea, also. I have my doubts about your point 3, though. In what way does a minor role in a premiere convey notability when a minor role in an established production does not? AndyJones 16:05, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
(Rob: I agree.) Andy: Originating an important role is a claim to fame for some actors. As always, if that's absolutely the only thing they were known for, it might be more appropriate to have that information on the page about the show. But to clarify: when I say "minor" here, I still mean an actual part, not an understudy or non-speaking chorus member. Mangojuice 20:31, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

WP:CORP-like wording

WP:CORP, WP:WEB, and WP:MUSIC all have wording that considers entities that have been written about by multiple indpendent sources. I propose we do something like that for people. This avoid listing off every type of person (e.g. stage actors), business people, etc... I suggest this wording (but, obviously welcome alternate suggestions):

The person has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person (e.g. not by personal friends, family, or employer). The sources must of course be reliable (exlcudes things like school newspapers, personal blogs, etc...). Multiple interchangeable stories for a single news event, would only count as one story, unless there was ongoing coverage of the person.

The main idea is we go based on what others have found worth writing about, and have good sources to make an article. The vast majority of vanity bios have no independent sources, so they shouldn't be included by this. I think this can work well, as long as we have good standards of sources. Thoughts? --Rob 13:29, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

What does "subject of" mean here? Would mere mention in a source dealing with a larger topic qualify? Otherwise, you run the risk of decimating our (already thin) coverage of medieval people. —Kirill Lokshin 17:26, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I think a mention in a source dealing with a larger topic would qualify *if* their was signficant mention of the individual. The fact that other people are discussed by a source, shouldn't be held against them. Also, as mentioned below, this is an extra-criteria. So, nobody who's qualified now, would be deleted because of this. --Rob 21:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
This criterion would have no effect on coverage of medieval people since it is a proposal for the section on people still alive. Biographies of long-deceased people have separate criteria (and are generally far less controversial). Rossami (talk) 22:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't like this. The "multiple, nontrivial sources" works for corporations and businesses because it makes it easy to get rid of advertising easily. To apply this to WP:BIO would mean that otherwise notable people would be overlooked because, for instance, only one so-called "verifiable source" discusses it, and it would leave an opening for deletion wars if people create an article about a notable person, it gets deleted because of a single source, and then, as the media picks up on the story, it begins to meet the requirements (I'm thinking of the Entwhistle case in particular on this one). WP:BIO is more than strict enough. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 20:20, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
This would be an extra criteria. Anybody who qualifies under an existing rule would still qualify. It might avoid listing off *new* professions individually for inclusion. But anybody qualified now, would still be qualified. --Rob 21:14, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but even if that ended up being true, good luck convincing those who don't pay attention to the discussion. Regardless, I'm not so much worried about existing articles as much as future ones. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 21:36, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I've probably explained this badly. My propsoal was to take the text in italics above, and add it to list of criteria. WP:BIO clearly says that somebody has to pass *one* (and only one) of the criteria to qualify. So, I'm not sure why you'ld be worried about anybody's inclusion. --Rob 21:50, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
Oh, okay, that makes more sense. How isn't this covered by "Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events," though? --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 22:19, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
I think it depends on who you ask. For some, this wouldn't cover more people. But many use the word "renown" and "notoriety" in a very restrictive since (e.g. for people known around the world). This would favor those who are written about indepenently, but only in their field (e.g. specialized occupation), or in their region. --Rob 13:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Physicians (alive)

What level of notability makes a physician a suitable subject of an article? Midgley 23:50, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Misleading

This page is currently misleading - for clarity, we should re-add this:

Although this guideline is not a formal policy (and indeed the whole concept of notability is contentious), it is the opinion of many Wikipedians that these criteria are fair test of whether a person has sufficient external notice to ensure that they can be covered from a neutral point of view based on verifiable information from reliable sources, without straying into original research (all of which are formal policies). Failure to meet these criteria does not mean that a subject must not be included, meeting one or more does not mean that a subject must be included.

For great justice. 20:10, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what about the current page you consider to be misleading. But your proposed paragraph looks reasonable to me. Rossami (talk) 21:40, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
People have represented this page to me as being a wikipedia policy - I think it should be pointed out at the beginning that it is not. For great justice. 00:15, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Authors notability is too low.

"Published authors, editors, and photographers who have written ... in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more"

That makes me 40 times more notable than needed for an article. (100,000 circ. with Brampton Bulletin, 100,000 circ. with Brampton Guardian) That's insane. There's thousands of people who'd qualify under that rule. Yet other professions require you to be a star among stars. Can we raise this minimum? -- Zanimum 00:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

We shouldn't be deleting articles, created under long-standing guidelines. The rule should simply be left alone. -Rob 00:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Rob, the 5,000 number has been a useful and appropriate guideline. --Elonka 00:56, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I still personally think 5000 is too high, not too low. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 01:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Also agree its much too low. Especially when we compare it to our criteria for academics, where a 5000 circulation doesn't matter much at all. JoshuaZ 15:29, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
See #Total audience of 5,000 or more above where this was previously discussed. I still think that 5000 is too low in some genres and too high in others. I would prefer to get rid of that hard guideline altogether. Elonka says that this has been a useful guideline. That has not been my personal experience. More often, I've seen it used as a bludgeon during discussions. A more deliberately vague guideline about authorship would encourage us to consider the nuances and specifics of the case rather than trying to reduce the question to simplistic rules. Rossami (talk) 21:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
I still wonder what would hurt us if we simply placed authors under a rule of "Authors published by presses that aren't vanity presses" and columnists/reporters under some sort of indicator as to the nobility of the publication that they write for. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 21:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

What happens if Wikipedia ever is printed? Does everybody automatically get an article? Even say we got a print edition of Signpost or Quarto, a lot of people could become "notable" in a snap. -- Zanimum 22:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting question, but I doubt that it'd qualify. We're here as editors, not as authors. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 22:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Atheletes in in track and field sports - PB=WR-5% calculation

I thought the following note was worth sharing: When I look at athletes in racing sports, or long jump, discus, shot put etc, I compare their PB - "personal best" performance to the current world record. Generally speaking, if the athlete's PB is more than 5% worse than the current world record, I am reluctant to include them on the grounds of sufficient athletic merit - generally speaking the "A-level" qualifying limit set by world sport bodies such as FINA and IAAF is around 5% slower/lower than the WR. For example in the 100m freestyle Pieter van den Hoogenband had a world record of 47.84s and the A-qualifier for the Olympics is about 50s, around 5% slower than the world record, which is the A-qualifying limit set by IOC in conjunction of FINA. ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! 12:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC).

Clarification: Of course, this applies to current athletes - in the case of historical athletes, in the absence of winning medals in notable events and making international finals, one would have to compare them to the world record in their era- otherwise all historical athletes would end up being deleted. This applies also to sports where speed or distance can be measured - racing sports like swimming, cycling, skiing, speedskating, etc. Regards,ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! 02:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

We should't care much about such a statistic. For various reasons, those who compete at the Olympics (the best, and the worst) are of substantial interest to the public (at least in their home country), and easily notable topics. If somebody goes to represent their country at such a level, they'll be followed with interest nationally. Whether they *deserve* that status is irrelevant. If we used this approach to other areas of life, we might have to exclude a famous singer, who has a poor technical singing ability. A lot of the worst Olympic athletes make for the best articles. This is because, when a country does badly on a sport, it tends to send fewer athletes, who individually get more coverage then better athletes competing from successful countries sending large delegations every time. If somebody's the first person to represent a country in an event, they likely get huge coverage. Also, somebody who barely missed setting the world record, but through bad luck, never got to compete anywhere signficant, might not even merit an article. It's very often the case, that somebody can be very good in their field, one of the very best, but still be non-notable. The current guidelines for athletes seem to be good the way they are. -Rob 03:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, that is a measure of inclusion on grounds of sporting merit - I didn't mean for it to dictate their notability full stop - as of course they can be notable for their lack of skill/celebrity/cult status - I am not proposing that the swimmer Eric Moussambani or the singer William Hung should be deleted - they are strongly kept in my book - but I am talking about keeping on grounds of sporting merit. If they are notable for reasons other than high levels of skill, then they should be kept on that basis. If there is no other notability, apart from sporting acheivement, then I would propose a deletion. Regards, ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! 03:35, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
A basic disagreement I have with your approach, is that it demands international success. That's far more then is required, in sports or elsewhere. Generally, I think notability needs to be at a *national* level. If you're a top athlete in your country, then that counts, regardless of the fact you and your country suck compared to other countries. It may seem unfair, but if you have two athletes, equally talented, the one who competes for a successful country is less notable, and the one who competes for a less successful country is more notable. Coverage of Olympics, tends to be extremely nationalistic. Those who cover the games, write about how *their* athletes do. Even if their athletes do badly, that's who journalists and commentators find worthy of note. Since we have to base what write, on what others write, we have little choice, but to accept what others find notable, regardless of whether its fair. -Rob 16:21, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Relatives of famous people

There seems to be some confusion over whether merely being related to a notable person makes someone more notable than if they weren't, and if that added notability factor does exist, whether that should be an accepted criteria on WP:BIO. Current afds and cfds relevant to this issue are Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_16#Frederick_A._Kerry-Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_16#Tarita_Teriipia, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Annie Travolta, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Salvatore Travolta, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Travolta, Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_April_16#Category:Famous_people.27s_relatives_who_committed_suicide. Arniep 15:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion A relative should be notable if they are close to inheriting a hereditary peerage or throne. Otherwise, being a relative is not sufficiently notable unless they have recieved widespread press coverage which mainly focuses on the relative (this would include each of the Bush daughters and exclude all the Travolta-cruft). JoshuaZ 15:41, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Wouldn't it be correct to say though that the Bush daughters only have press coverage due to who their father is and that they haven't really done anything inherently notable themselves? Unless they do anything of note themselves (i.e. be successful in a certain field) I think they could be easily covered in a small paragraph in George W. Bush. Arniep 17:47, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Anything can be covered in a small paragraph, that doesn't mean they should be. I'd say if a person is notable due to relation, they're notable due to relation. Media coverage guidelines would apply all the same, which would certainly eliminate some "travoltacruft." --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEME?) 19:28, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Where are the media coverage guidelines located? It seems a bit strange to me that we intend to have articles on any relatives of famous people who may have been photographed by the press due to their being related to a famous person but have not done anything really notable themselves. Arniep 23:37, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

The problem is it's all too broad; WikiProjects and finer-grained criteria...

I've lately been seeing more and more vanity pages which seem to survive or at least throw significant wikilawyering challenges to their deletion noms because oftentimes the criteria here is vague enough to allow for certain people who are not truly notable to assert themselves as such.

The problem, as I see it, is that you can't really have a notability criterion for people anymore than you can have one for things, ideas, etc. It's simply too broad to make definitive judgments across the spectrum. And what seems to be arising which I like and find more useful are things like WP:CORP and WP:MUSIC, which are designed specifically to deal with a particular subset of article subjects and are thus more "fine-grained" assessments.

As the WP:MUSIC criteria were written, IIRC, by the WikiProject for that category of articles (I don't know if WP:CORP was), I'd like to advocate that as a possible initiative that could be used towards the creation of more category-specific notability criteria. There are many WikiProjects which cover categories which are neither too broad nor too specific which could likely contribute in this manner. I cite the broad/specific axis because while a topic too broad will generate the same problems I'm citing with the (people) requirements, one too specific would be more likely to be overly inclusive (think fancruft).

There will of course always be subjects which do not clearly fit into these more specific assessments, which means we should not scrap what we already have. However, I don't see how bringing some of the categories of topics into a more finely-grained notability policy tailored for that type of article can possibly hurt if implemented well.

Does this seem a useful idea - encouraging some (but not all) of the WikiProjects to start developing their own notability criteria for their subjects and then bringing the proposals here for community-wide critique and adoption? Girolamo Savonarola 02:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Internal logic problem on the Notability (people) page

Almost ALL professors have published articles and/or books which have a circulation or print run of greater than 5,000. Yet it has been proposed that all authors with such qualifications are notable, yet not all professors are notable. This creates an internal logic problem with the guideline. I think the truth is that most professors are notable. Just because you have not heard of them, they may be very important in their fields and may have written articles read by many thousands and taught to many thousands of students. I am NOT suggesting that a magic number (ie 10,000 or 50,000) would solve this issue. Truth is, many professors are "famous" compared to the average lawyer, garbage man, or even local politician. Dlazzaro 10:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

(Moved your comment to the bottom of the page.) Please see Wikipedia:Notability (academics) and its dicussion page for a discussion of this partiular issue. up+land 10:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
See the related discussions #Total audience of 5,000 or more and #Authors notability is too low. above. This problem is more wide-ranging than just academics. I agree that a magic number will not solve the issue and continue to believe that we should remove the number altogether. Rossami (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Major local political figures

The guidelines state Major local political figures who receive significant press coverage. I nominated a few articles where I did not think this was meet and the individuals did not appear to do anything notable. Some speedy deletion nominations were pulled with a comment that local politicans are normally OK. Is this true? If so, then the guideline needs to be changed. If the policy is still in place, then I'll probably take the nominations to AfD. Vegaswikian 06:19, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there's a problem. Holding a typical local public office (say alderman, trustee, etc...), is easily a claim of notability, which means a speedy tag is inappropriate, and such a tag should be removed by anybody who sees it. So, if that's what happened, the person removing the tag was justified. But, you would also be justified in nominating the article on AFD, and citing WP:BIO in you arguement. But, I may have misunderstood you, as you seem to be using the term "nominate" to refer to speedies, instead of limiting its usage to AFDs (which is what I think of when I hear the word "nominate" around here). --Rob 06:44, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. You have it right. I'll consider the articles for AfD. Vegaswikian 19:06, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Eighth division football (soccer ) clubs - are they notable???

I know that football is very popular and the skill involved is very high but is Southern League Division One East notable, when it is the eighth strata of football league in the United Kingdom. Even more so, are eighth-grade clubs notable? Because there are a lot of these articles lying around. I think this is very much pushing it.ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! - review me 07:20, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, I feel that we should make an exception about their notability status for football clubs (as well as for other notable sports teams). The reason? These clubs ALL belong to the English football league system, which is one of the most comprehensive systems in the world. On top of it, most of these clubs were established in the 19th century or the early 20th century. These clubs may not be fully-fledged professional teams yet, but they are certainly NOT Sunday football clubs! Moreover, the aim of Wikipedia (at least for the football section) is to have information about as many non-league clubs as possible. Isn't Wikipedia about containing comprehensive information? I believe that these clubs represent the soul of football in the world today. Also, the intention is to have articles of ALL the football clubs (up to level 21 of the English league system) listed on Wikipedia. This would then make the project comprehensive. If we only have articles for certain clubs up to a certain level, there would be a feeling of incompleteness in the football category of Wikipedia. On a personal note, it was me who started having articles about these clubs for various reasons. And I intent to create more of them in the FAR future as well (once I have the necessary information). --Siva1979Talk to me 16:01, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
Isn't Wikipedia about containing comprehensive information? No, not really. Comprehensive relevant information about subjects deemed notable is a more precise definition. Which is why we have notability guidelines. I don't want to answer the specifics of the question at hand, as it is well outside my sphere of expertise or interest, but as a neutral party, I think it should be stated - not all information qualifies for inclusion here, even if it is comprehensive. Girolamo Savonarola 20:41, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Alive/dead distinction

Why the distinction between people alive and dead? If someone meets the criteria for inclusion for people alive, then dies, should they be excluded because they didn't make a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record of their field? I think that that's sily. I think that we should remove the distinction between live and dead people, and add the "dead" bullet to the list of "alive" bullets. McKay 22:54, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Sports People

I think that we should remove the sentence that reagards sports people , or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States as there are thousands of those players outhere and I say more than a million people ever played college sports in the United States. Many of those people never went anywhere, same with minor league baseball players. I think it should be rewitten to only include people who played in the highest level of professianal sports, and just not only one career game nither. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 23:46, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to restore the phrase pending further discussion here. I agree that most college athletes don't merit an article, but many do. Certainly people like Reggie Bush and Vince Young deserved articles while they were playing last year. The problem is that the rules for this project are unclear. If every type of person listed on the page is OK for an article, college athletes should not be listed. On the other hand, if the page is meant to list the only types of people who can have an article, the words should be restored. -- Mwalcoff 01:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Well, first off, anyone who's playing a sport professionally shouldn't have an issue having an article here. The problem is that I think you're looking at "mainly ametuer" incorrectly, as I read that as sports without a viable professional league: track, etc. Most college baseball/football/basketball players wouldn't apply to that, as it isn't the highest reasonable level available. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 01:55, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I think the wording was fine. I think, it was intended to handle the rather uniquely(?) American situation, where certain top level college sports, are actually covered regularly in mainstream national media (not just in the sports section, or sport channel), and are broadcast well beyond local TV. That's very different, than many places, where college sports are attended almost exclusively by family and friends. Even in basketball and football (despite existence of professional leagues), the members of the top college teams, likely warrant inclusion, due to so many people following them. I'm in Canada, and here, a professional football player seems to get less coverage then a college player in the US. I don't think we should focus excessively on "professional vs. amateur". If that was what was really important, we'ld exclude most Olympic amateur wrestlers, and include most local pro-wrestlers. I'm not sure of a great rule. One approach of judging a contemporary sports leagues (and therefore its members/athletes) as notable, would be to ask whether the season final game(s) are broadcast nationally, with significant viewership. Basically, we should want people known outside their local community, regardless of whether they're making any money at it. --Rob 04:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I have to start with the statement that I don't even agree that all professional athletes automatically deserve an article in Wikipedia. Many do but most are undistinguished athletes - not qualitatively different from an average engineer or doctor. Competent enough in their chosen profession to have been selected in a competitive field but not particularly noteworthy in the grand scheme. Notable college athletes are even rarer. Certainly there are some exceptions such as the ones mentioned by Mwalcoff, but those are exceptional individuals - people for whom exceptions are appropriate.
Rob's approach bears some thought. At first glance, I am uncomfortable with it. He makes a leap that because the team is notable and is widely watched, that we should be able to assume that the individual team members are notable and well-known. That is not my personal experience. Many college games get high attendance/broadcast ratings because of alumni loyalty - people watching to root for the team, not the individuals. Certainly, some alumni will be emotionally vested enough to learn the current players names but I don't know that we have enough evidence to conclude that team membership is sufficient. Rossami (talk) 04:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency

There is an inconsistency within the project page. On the one hand, it says, "Just because someone doesn't fall into one of these categories doesn't mean an article on the person should automatically be deleted." On the other hand, the last section reads, "If there is a claim, but you feel it doesn't meet the requirements here, you may wish to explain your position to the user, before nominating it for deletion, in case they may be able to improve it (or they may need to add verification for the claim)." That sentence seems to indicate that an article that does not meet the WP:BIO "test" should be deleted.

We need to make clear which of the following, if either, is true:

  1. The only kind of biographical article permitted is a type listed on WP:BIO. Any biographical article that does not meet the standards of WP:BIO should be deleted as non-notable.
  2. No article that falls under WP:BIO should be deleted on grounds of notability, but an article subject need not meet fall under one of the WP:BIO categories to be notable.

If number 1 is true, we should delete the first sentence I mentioned. If number 2 is true, any talk of a WP:BIO "test" is out of place.

If neither is true, we need to better spell out what, exactly, WP:BIO is for. -- Mwalcoff 01:29, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I think the wording should probably be that WP:BIO is just a "strong default" position. People should see what BIO says, and those who wish to deviate from it (in either direction), must give a good reason why the article is special. Also, we should always say policies, like WP:V, supercede this guideline. --Rob 04:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
I would appreciate if someone, somewhere would make that clear. Thanks -- Mwalcoff 01:48, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Local TV News Anchors

How do folks here feel about an article on a local TV New Anchor? We have one who was active in the Fort Wayne, Indiana market who has moved on to Toronto as an anchor. I'm thinking the move to the latter, major market makes her a good subject. Is there a consensus here if this is a good notability test? --CTSWyneken 00:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I would disagree. We would not accept a biography on an individual of similar stature and experience in another profession. Our traditional bias in favor of entertainment personalities is a tendency which I believe should be resisted. Rossami (talk) 02:12, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The difference is that people aren't interested in "individuals of a similar stature" in, say, accounting, nor is there independently verifiable information available on run-of-the-mill CPAs. I agree that it's silly that people care so much about Brian Williams wanna-bes whose job it is to look pretty and read from a TelePrompTer. But I also think it's silly that people care about the personal life of Natalie Portman. -- Mwalcoff 02:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Do you have a suggestion as to a standard for news folk? What might clue us as to who is notiable enough. Peter Jennings, certainly. Harry Caray, probably. Major UPI commentators who edited several papers, taught in journalism schools, founded institutes, covered major stories, probably. For me, anchoring in a major market may work for a short article. But I'm content not to write one for this lady, if others disagree.
Anyway, I ramble. In short, what might we put in for a journalist test? --CTSWyneken 13:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I would simply require the availability of substantial independent coverage of the person, from multiple reliable sources. In this case "indepdent" obviously means not by the media organization they worked for. What counts is we can write a complete veifiable neutral article. If their local only, they may still be a good subject. I also prefer not having yet more career-specific criteria. We need a broad general approach, that works for most careers. --Rob 22:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Why not non-trivial news coverage of local/regional (I hesitate to say "substantial"), and blanket inclusion for national? At least as a starting point. --badlydrawnjeff (WP:MEMES?) 22:18, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I think market size or city size needs to enter this in some manner. Also, are we just talking about broadcast or are we including cable anchors? Vegaswikian 22:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
The person I'm thinking of is a "hard" news anchor. Murders, accidents, features (few fluff). She's now in Toronto. I'm with you on the size of the city, though. I don't think a Fort Wayne anchor is sufficient. Moving to Toronto, though... I don't think cable access stations would rate. If there's a cable only station of affiliate status and quality, though... I don't know of any, though. I guess I ramble again! --CTSWyneken 00:43, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
If we could come to some consesnus here and put it in the guidelines here, perhaps more would make it through AfD and fewer would be written that don't meet the criteria. (wishful thinking on the last, I know... --CTSWyneken 01:13, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't, because even if you find that all of the people on this page have the same POV, enshrining that POV as editorial policy would wreak havoc on the concept of a neutral encyclopedia. Notablity is 'What I Like', and that can never be a good guideline for what to put in an encyclopedia. For great justice. 14:58, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Subjectivity of notability.

What is a "notable person". An author can sell 5,000 books and is considered "notable" (even though that is a MINOR percentage of the worlds population. However, a person who gets 5,000 votes in an election is not considered to be notable. Notability, ultimately, comes down to a persons POV. If information added to a wikipedia article should come from a NPOV then information removed from a wikipedia article should be removed using a NPOV. Even if a consensus is reached, it is still just the opinion of a majority that a person is not "notable enough" to qualify for wikipedia.

I would suggest that we seriously consider removing notability as a criteria and rely on other Wikipedia suggestions and rules in revising, editing, and removing articles from Wikipedia. DanielZimmerman 06:34, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you fully on this DanielZimmerman. Notability is a very, very, subjective critirea to use. --Siva1979Talk to me 08:43, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I hope that we can get a discussion of this. Do you think that we could place a POV tag on this criteria because the subjectivity of notability establishes a criteria merely based on someones POV? DanielZimmerman 16:42, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
Yep - it's POV rulecruft, and needs to go. Verifiabilty (once we read it) sets a high standard for inclusion, since only reputable sources can be used as verification. It also removes the 'What I Like' criteria problem that plagues notablity. For great justice. 19:19, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
No. You can argue to put a {{disputedpolicy}} tag on it but {{NPOV}} is for badly written articles. The POV tag has no applicability because this is not in the article-space. But before you are bold and tag the page, you should make a much stronger case here on the talk page. Many people do consider this an accepted and useful standard for Wikipedia. Rossami (talk) 21:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I will add disputed policy (while noting that, while this is disputed, it is not policy). It is POV because it affects the article-space. A guideline that affects content in a way that advances a particular editorial POV is POV. Just has what information goes into an article is subject to NPOV, so is the decision on which articles to include. One should not exclude articles for arbitrary reasons that stem from what one thinks is interesting or important. Verifiability and Reliable Sources will deal with all of the extreme cases that don't make sense in an encyclopedia. For great justice. 22:08, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the notability guidelines are problematic. We have all these guidelines for determining who and what is notable in different fields but don't define what "notability" in itself is. I would prefer to say simply that articles must be of interest to many people and verifiable with quality, independent information. -- Mwalcoff 22:51, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I'd definately agree with you that they are problematic, and that they must be verifiable with good quality independent information. Of interest to many people? I don't know about that - I would think that anything that was verifiable with good independent information is pretty much going to be of interest to a good many people. The problem comes when you start removing things simply because they are only of interest to a few people - let's start with computational mathematics! For great justice. 23:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
To add on to that, something that is "interesting" to someone might not determine whether or not that person would need to find the information somewhere. A person might not find politics interesting but may be required to do research on that particular subject. And if an article is deemed to be too small, there is always WP:STUB DanielZimmerman 00:09, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Questioning the removal of the disputed policy tag.

Seems to me that the removal of a dispute should be something that is not done alone. There are more than "one or two" people who dispute the need for notability in all forms. Just because something has been around for a long time is not a justification to continue keeping it around. Notability is treated with a sense of elitism that should not be used when forming a resource such as this. Notability is highly subjective and purely a matter of POV. If articles are supposed to follow the NPOV policy then shouldnt the decisions about what articles belong here also be done with a NPOV? Is every Congressman notable? In their distict.. yes. Nationwide? Depends. Is the Sherrif of my parish (county) police department notable within this area? Very. Is he notable to someone in Maine? Probably not. Someone in England? Absolutely not. But yet he still has a wikipedia article because there is verifiable information out there that can be presented with a NPOV that gives a reader an informative article. What we seek out of wikipedia can be accomplished without notability "standards", especially because there are no standards to use to determine notability. DanielZimmerman 19:01, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

  • I support the removal of the tag. This tempest-in-a-teapot is, in my opinion, based on a misunderstanding of what Wikipedia means by NPOV. Daniel poses some example questions about relative notability. The only answer that we can give is "notable from the point of view of an international open-source encyclopedia". Notability within your parish or district is irrelevant.
    Not everyone needs to be interested in every article or biography but we've learned the hard way that if we try to cover topics of too-small interest, we can not find the reliable sources necessary to functionally verify the article nor can we to attract the necessary critical mass of informed reader/editors who will keep the article up to date, fact-based and vandalism free. That's not a statement of fuzzy political or philosophical point of view but an objective assessment of our ability to maintain the prospective article based on historical experience. These guidelines have been developed by generalizing from prior cases where we could and could not successfully maintain the article. Rossami (talk) 20:27, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
  • "Notable from the point of view of an international open source encyclopedia" to me is flawed in two ways. A) It is, by definition, POV. B) I don't know how many people who supports notability actually accepts the idea that someone should be notable from an international standpoint. If you cant find reliable, verifiable sources on a specific article then it should not be an article. That is already covered in WP:V, no need for a notability guideline to protect that concern. You also are concerned with keeping an article up to date, fact based, and vadalism free. Well, under wikipedia guidelines you are supposed to consider that everyone comes here with good intentions. Notability guidelines wont protect against the creation of articles that are not up to date, not fact based, and not vandalism. Those articles will only be caught by people that come across them. There are already policies about posting verifiable information and not posting vandalism. So again, you dont need the notability standard to deal with it. And if someone is creating an article we just have to hope that they keep it up to date. So far, all I have seen is that notability is a guideline that is redundant, subjective, and POV. I believe that there are enough people who agree with these points which makes this dispute a valid one. DanielZimmerman 03:24, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
I agree - it is ridiculous to claim that notability has any role in a 'neutral' encyclopedia. It must go. For great justice. 09:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
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