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Notability is not inherited

WP:NOTINHERITED is often cited in AFDs,[1] and seems to have good consensus support. I propose that we add a condensed form to this article.

Notability of one or more members of some group or class of subjects may or may not apply to other possible members of that group. Notability of a parent entity or topic (of a parent-child "tree") does not always imply the notability of the subordinate topics. Similarly, parent notability should be established independently; notability is not inherited "up", from notable subordinate to parent, either. This is not to say that subordinate topics cannot be mentioned in the encyclopedia whatsoever. Subordinate topics which meet the relevant notability guidelines are themselves notable, and some notabilty guidelines, for example books and music, do allow for inherited notability in exceptional circumstances.

Thoughts? Percy Snoodle (talk) 15:55, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Inheritability in WP:MUSIC is hardly in "exceptional circumstances", and the "cannot be mentioned in the encyclopedia" sentence needs further clarification/development.Skomorokh 18:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Percy, while I agree with the general idea, I'd prefer to formulate it more in plain English. Perhaps something like this:

Notability does not directly limit article content. Some topics, however, are so large in scope and coverage that the article is split into several articles on sub-topics. In this case, the notability guideline applies to every sub-topic separately; coverage in independent sources is required for every sub-topic. Notability is, in this sense, not "inherited" from a main topic.

That avoids references to trees and classes, it seems more clear to me. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:58, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

OK - I don't think we need to repeat WP:NNC, and we should include the not-inherited-up bit; how about:

Some topics, however, are so large in scope and coverage that they are split into several articles on sub-topics. In this case, the notability guideline applies to every sub-topic separately; coverage in independent sources is required for every sub-topic. Notability is, in this sense, not "inherited" from a main topic. Similarly, if a notable topic is a sub-topic of a wider parent topic, that does not imply that the parent topic is notable. Notability is not inherited "upwards" or "downwards".

Better? Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:43, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
For me it seems fine. --B. Wolterding (talk) 10:26, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Cool. Skomorokh? Anyone else? Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
It's a horrible idea and I don't support it. --Pixelface (talk) 20:36, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

As an aside, what would people say to using WP:NNI and WP:N#INHERIT as shortcuts? Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I know Percy is trying to help WP, but I do have to note that at the same time he is proposing this, he is also arguing that we should not allow for non-notable spinouts on WP:FICT (an aspect strengthed by this issue), a point that, while I agree on principle is true, but that in the current editing environment, would be very detrimental to spell out currently and within a guideline. [break]
Detrimental in what sense? If the consensus is that notability is not inherited, then the guidelines should follow that. WP:NOTINHERITED is already quoted in hundreds of deletion debates, so including it here just makes that consensus agreement clear. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I have to disagree with this also on the fact that this goes against both WP:SS and the statement "notability does not limit article content". Spinout articles should meet all other guidelines and policies for WP articles (sourced, maybe from primary only, NOR, NPOV, etc.) but the fact that the text is contained either in the main body or a separate article, as long as that text is written as if it were included in the main article, makes little difference per these two guidelines, and having to demonstrate notability in the spinout can be seen as redundant. (Mind you, having a spinout demonstrate notability on its own certainly cannot hurt, it just cannot be a requirement). This does mean that spinouts have to be written to a specific level of detail (not very much, that is) as to retain this notation of being part of the main article. I also don't believe that there is any inherited notability that exists here nor inherent notability that the spinout must have; remember that notability is a inclusion guideline, but its not the only one. --MASEM 13:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Spinout articles have spinout topics; nowhere but in a disputed section of WP:FICT does it say that spinout articles are the "contents" of their parent articles. WP:NNC doesn't excuse spinouts from notability. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this is appropriate as a general rule, because it's not either true or false in all circumstances, nor is there community consensus that it is a rule one way or the other. Furthermore, with subtopics or members of indisputably notable subjects, the question is not whether the particular element of the notable parent topic is itself notable. It's a question of what level of detail is appropriate for covering that parent topic, and how substantial that element is as a stand-alone topic. A matter for merger discussions rather than deletion. Postdlf (talk) 15:27, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

This should be self-evident. If an article doesn't have independent notabilty, it should be deleted, regardless of anything else. NOTINHERITED is merely an example of spurious Keep arguments in AfDs in 99.9% of cases. Black Kite 18:37, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's related to an indisputably notable parent topic, but not substantial enough to merit an independent article, wouldn't the proper solution in many cases be to merge and redirect? Editorial decisions really have to be made case-by-case; it's really futile (and harmful) to try and ossify them into abstract, binding rules. Postdlf (talk) 20:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The proposed addition does not forbid to merge articles. It just says that the non-notable articles should not exist. There may be several options to remove them if necessary. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
Wow, this is dead wrong. "Coverage in independent sources is required for every sub-topic." People will immediately start applying that to article sections, since they are "subtopics" even more than subarticles are. This is just dead wrong.--Father Goose (talk) 05:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
They can be pointed to WP:NNC if they do. Do you think we should repeat WP:NNC in the paragraph? Perhaps we should add "This applies only to articles; Sections of articles do not have to demonstrate notability." Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
No, because it's the very concept that's wrong; if there is verifiable information on a notable topic, then it shouldn't matter if that information is in the "main" article or a subarticle. If any modifications to WP:N are needed, it should be to reflect that, not to intensify the misalignment of WP:N and WP:SS (which is already causing great problems for the encyclopedia).--Father Goose (talk) 21:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
The topic of the subarticle is the subtopic, not the topic of the parent article. If there isn't enough coverage of the subtopic, then it's inappropriate to create an independent article on it - and in fact the section which is being spun out is almost certainly too long, so WP:SS is the wrong solution to the problem of size; the section should be shortened rather than spun out. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This creates an arbitrary constraint on the level of detail Wikipedia can provide. By the terms you propose, information drawn from primary sources cannot be placed in spinout articles, and if it cannot be fit in a single article, it must be deleted. But this is arbitrary. It is totally disconnected from the following question: "How do we make Wikipedia the best it can possibly be?" [break]
On the contrary. We make Wikipedia the best it can be by choosing the information we include with care. WP:PLOT places a constraint on the level of detail Wikipedia can provide, and WP:N should reflect that policy. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
If you cannot come up with rules that are readily seen as helping us toward that exact goal, you should find something other to do than try to write policy. Policy on Wikipedia is always undesirable (and rejected) if not carefully evaluated as to what its benefit to the encyclopedia is.--Father Goose (talk) 09:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The relevant policy - WP:IINFO - is already in place. I am proposing that the notability guidelines should reflect that policy, as consensus has interpreted it. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:14, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
"If an article doesn't have independent notability, it should be deleted, regardless of anything else." That is totally ridiculous. Wikipedia is not the Notability Project that anyone can edit. And notability is not "independent" anyway — it's a subjective opinion that varies from person to person. If you really believe that statement, you've got a lot of asteroid and gene articles you have to delete. WP:N is not a policy and never will be (and by the way, articles themselves do not have to be notable). Or are you saying that since WP:N does not have independent notability, it should be deleted? --Pixelface (talk) 20:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The original statement above: "WP:NOTINHERITED is often cited in AFDs" is misleading at best. Yes, it is cited often, but it is not often a successful or persuasive argument. Furthermore it is officially suggested as an argument that should be avoided in AfD debates[2] due to the futility of its use. Individuals reading this discussion should also read the twin sister of this discussion started at the Village Pump here[3]. Low Sea 07:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Low Sea (talk • contribs)
    • On the contrary, it is often a successful argument in AFDs. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
      • For it to become policy, it has to be more than "often successful in AfDs"; there has to be consensus for it as policy. There are lots of bogus outcomes to be found in AfDs (both for and against deletion) which would not make a good basis for policy. AfD does not follow the standards of consensus that are supposed to be applied everywhere on Wikipedia, and should definitely not be regarded as any kind of incubator for policy.--Father Goose (talk) 08:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
        • Since notability is mostly only considered in AFDs, surely that's where we should be looking to see what consensus on notability is? Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
          • No. We should be evaluating rules according to whether they are a good idea, not according to pseudo-legal motions some people attempt to use during AfDs.--Father Goose (talk) 10:23, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
            • OK - so is WP:IINFO a good idea in your opinion? Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
              • I think WP:IINFO (and WP:NOT in general) is a great policy. It gives clear exclusionary rules without using arbitrary concepts like notability. I would support expanding this as much as possible (via consensus of course) if it would help eliminate the whole WP:N guideline. Low Sea (talk) 16:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
              • IINFO is good, up to a point. I think it's self-evident that "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information" -- it's basically a platitude. It causes problems because that broad statement, lacking context (and the present expression of IINFO does lack all context) can used to try to justify deleting anything from Wikipedia. Any time someone has an attitude of "this is crap", they cry WP:IINFO when what they're really thinking is WP:IDONTLIKEIT.
                Now, I do support each of the specific five items listed at WP:IINFO. However, it's pretty arbitrary to have characterized those five items as "indiscriminate information". IINFO is really more of a "Miscellaneous" section with an ambitious heading. If one takes the open-ended stance that "All indiscriminate information should be removed from Wikipedia", then such a statement has no place in policy. If one can't articulate the underlying principle of what types of information are "indiscriminate" and why they're bad, then it's a rule disconnected from the concept of "How do we make Wikipedia the best it can possibly be?" As I've said before, such rules are detriment to Wikipedia.
                As you said above, "We make Wikipedia the best it can be by choosing the information we include with care"; for exactly the same reason, we must choose the information we exclude with care. I see what you're presently proposing -- making WP:N even more arbitrarily restrictive, when it already has substantial flaws in this regard -- as lacking that crucial, incisive, carefulness.--Father Goose (talk) 01:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
                • I think I see your POV, but I disagree. It's not at all "self-evident" that WP isn't indiscriminate, even if we limit ourselves to just the five cases IINFO supplies. Not all content that fails WP:IINFO has been read and understood, let alone removed. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • "Inherited notability" is a very bad idea. It leads to the worst sort of cruft imaginable, especially in fiction. It is neither necessary or desirable to cover every tiny detail of a fictional work, and then declare the whole mess immune to notability due to "inherited notability" or WP:SS is detrimental to the encyclopedia. Applying "inherited notability" in fictional articles breeds scene by scene plot summaries, original research, and inappropriately long descriptions of the tiniest detail of certain works (in other words, cruft). I see nothing wrong with demanding secondary sources on every article on Wikipedia. --Phirazo 00:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Your comment is full of cruftcruft. Is it so far-fetched to say that since Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a notable book, the character Harry Potter is notable? That Hermione Granger is notable? That Ron Weasley is notable? How is WP:SS "detrimental" to Wikipedia (which is not paper by the way). --Pixelface (talk) 20:34, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm not arguing "all or nothing" here. Harry Potter as a character is notable because independent sources have taken note of him. If the only source on a character is the original work itself, then there should not be an article on that character. When does inherited notability end? I'm sure there is someone who wants to write an articles on the various shopkeepers in Diagon Alley, should we let them? Being a character in a notable book does not make a character notable, independent sources do. Harry Potter (character), the article, has its flaws (for example, it is gives too much weight to the storyline), but it does have independent sources that establish that character's notability. --Phirazo 01:10, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

An RFC on a related topic has been started by Masem. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Notability (fiction)/RFC1. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed addition

I propose the following addition (in italics):

If a topic has received significant and sustained coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable.

Here's my reasoning: We live in a world where memes propagate and spread at the speed of light. A tree falls in an Oregon forest and environmentalists in Atlanta are aware of the fact. It is no longer enough to simply say that "significant" coverage defines notability, since news sources are all so interconnected.

Notability, though, is marked by not only the depth of the coverage (which is indicated in our guideline by the word "significant"), and not only by the width of the coverage (indicated by "multiple"), but also by the length of the coverage.

In other words, "flash in the pan" is not notable, no matter how many news sources reword a statement and print it.

Thoughts? -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 18:24, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Why? You have simply offered an interpretation of media coverage, not an argument as to why longevity of coverage is important to notability. As it stands, I disagree with your proposal as being needlessly exclusionary. Skomorokh 18:28, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry? My reason for longevity being important to notability is stated above - but let me try to restate. One of the definitions for "wikt:Notable" is "memorable":
Worthy of notice; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished.
Things that are remarked upon once, even by a crowd of people, are not memorable unless they remark upon it again after some time has passed. So mere coverage in the newspaper(s) at one point in time does not necessitate notability. Coverage over a period of time, or re-covering an event, indicates something is "memorable", and therefore notable. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 18:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I also disagree, on the basis of the principle that notability is not temporary. In my opinion, WP:NOT#NEWS and the second paragraph of this section of the guideline adequately address the notability (or lack thereof) of "flash in the pan" news stories. Black Falcon (Talk) 18:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with SatyrTN. While notability is not temporary, at the same time temporary attention does not imply notability (for an encyclopedia). The newspapers are full of stories that will be forgotten next week, and not suited for collecting knowledge relevant in the long term. --B. Wolterding (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Oppose addition. "sustained" is not necessary. If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject is plenty enough to be presumed to be notable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:20, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
No. Because that then presumes notability for anything that appears in multiple news reports. See WP:NOT#NEWS. Black Kite 18:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
No, because "news reports" are not secondry sources. (Someone has tried to dispute this, but they have not provided logic or evidence. Note that "report" is not the same as "story".)
No, because WP:N doesn't trump WP:NOT#NEWS.
No, see WP:N itself for clarification. "Wikipedia is not a news source: it takes more than just a short burst of news reports about a single event or topic to constitute evidence of sufficient notability. The Wikimedia project Wikinews covers topics of present news coverage." --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Also opposed. "Sustained" is not only unnecessary, it's undefinable. Anyone could argue that coverage for any period of time is either sustained, or not. It also implies that things could become non-notable after some period of time. "Significant", although also somewhat vague, is more on target, because it speaks to whether we have enough material to write about the subject. That is what really matters. People mistakenly think notability is a judgement about the subject itself, but it it really a judgement about what has been published about the subject. Dhaluza (talk) 10:01, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I guess that's what I'm trying to point out is missing. We say "significant" and everyone takes that to mean "number". But since news organizations are so intertwined, and since information is so readily available on the internet, and since paper is no-longer a limiting factor, it's quite easy for a story to get published (often re-written somewhat) in a dozen different publications before lunch. And then be forgotten about by dinner. But it still meets our notability guidelines because of the number of sources. So however we word it, there's something missing in our definition and/or the most common interpretation of our definition. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 14:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Discussion about notability of politicians at WT:BIO

There's a discussion about changing the wording of WP:BIO#Politicians over here (the intent is not to change the guidelines, but to reword them for greater clarity). More participation would be appreciated. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Three articles about legal judgments have recently been submitted for Good Article reviews. Two of them provide no in-text citations, while one has minimal citations. Two of them were quick-failed, but they were put back on the list when the nominator claimed that a single reference at the end was sufficient, as many legal cases don't have third-party sources. This leads me to wonder about the notability of cases. At [[WP:PW], we have been told that, if the only information available on a wrestler is from the wrestling promotions themselves, there is insufficient notability to warrant an article (the subject must have been covered by independent reliable sources). Can someone explain the difference? I'm not trying to push for deletion of these legal articles, but I would appreciate clarification on why some subjects need third-party coverage while others may not. Thanks, GaryColemanFan (talk) 14:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

The source of the asinine phrase "third-party" is the WP:Verifiability policy, so I suggest you discuss it on the talk page for that policy. I call the phrase asinine because many decisions of presidents and supreme courts are inherently notable because they were made by such important authorities, but since these authorities are not third parties, Wikipedia isn't supposed to have an article on them unless they are covered by a newspaper or the like. Thus Wikipedia officially considers the Rutland Herald a better source than the United States Supreme Court. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Because of their prominence, we can make the assumption that Supreme Court cases are notable. However, considering that legal professionals practicing for decades fiercely debate the nuance, meaning and import of Supreme Court cases (in combination with the context of common law in the United States), independent sources really are necessary to avoid original research and adhere to NPOV. Vassyana (talk) 21:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm under the impression most if not all Supreme Court cases do receive secondary-source coverage.--Father Goose (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
GCF, you have hit on one of my pet peeves: WP articles on U.S. legal cases tend to be woefully unsourced. I agree with the implication of FG's comment, that, at leasst at the Supreme Court level these cases are almost certainly notable, but that said, I am tired of reading case summaries that some editor has contributed off the top of his or her head with no sources. GCF, your instinct is correct - an unsourced article can't be a good article. No other substantive contribution here, just venting. I may go on an {{tl:unsourced}} tagging bender. Or maybe I should just go find some sources for these articles; help appreciated. UnitedStatesian (talk) 04:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
the basic statement of what the case is about is i think pretty uncontroversial observation from the case report. the implications, however, need to be sourced. All cases in appellate courts are covered by secondary reporters, which offer their own summary. These are not however usually easily available unless one has access to a good legal library or database.DGG (talk) 17:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability Guideline PROPOSALS are being used like real guidelines!

Hi.

I've seen the use of Notability guideline proposals as though they were accepted guidelines, with articles tagged as suspicious for not meeting sets of these proposed criteria. I disagree with this. Proposals are just that, proposals, and I do not think they shold be granted the weight and authority of real guidelines unless and until they become that. That's why they're called proposals, after all! mike4ty4 (talk) 00:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Point them to WP:NOTPOLICY.--Father Goose (talk) 05:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Which is a stupid stupid stupid essay. All project namespace pages are descriptive of common practice, or are supposed to be anyway. If your arguments are well summarized by any such page, simply link to it. (this is why I keep repeating that the policy/guideline/essay distinction is so useless in the first place, "proposals" doubly so). If others also agree with that page, they shall link to it as well, and you get a fluid kind of consensus thing going. --Kim Bruning (talk) 11:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC) In short: "Notability Guideline PROPOSALS are being used like real guidelines!" O RLY? OMG. Well GOOD for them! ;-)"
You rewrote the essay (to the point where it's nearly the same as WP:BASH). If you think it's still stupid, you need to rewrite it further. So what if we do develop this Solaranite bomb? We'd be even a stronger nation than now.--Father Goose (talk) 00:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, if they're using it to avoid repeating an argument that might be fine, but using it like it has the authority of a real live guideline is what I object to. I.e., saying, "Oh, this user should be warned for violating <insert name of proposal or horror of horrors, essay here>" or "Delete this article as it violates <some essay or proposal>". The even bigger problem is this makes it sound like that I can just throw up a page and it has some sort of authority right there. Have you, for example, heard of someone blocked, banned (even permanently!), or warned for a WP:REICHSTAG violation? (if so, and the administrators did it, then I think that means it should be bumped up to guideline/policy status.) mike4ty4 (talk) 02:24, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
So what do you say? Can a WP:REICHSTAG violation exist? What is the penalty for it? Suppose I were to deliberately breach the spirit (not the letter, due to the physical danger of such a stunt!) of the WP:REICHSTAG Essay a few times for some fun. What kind of consequences might I expect? Would I get a permanent lifelong irrevocable ban for... WP:REICHSTAG Essay violation?!?!?!! If so, then I don't like this, as essays should not have force. They are essays for crying out loud! mike4ty4 (talk) 20:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
"Violations" and "penalties" don't exist, for essays or otherwise. Falling isn't a "penalty" for "violating" the law of gravity. Those terms imply a legalistic approach that we try to avoid. Policies, guidelines and essays contain good ideas that might or might not be applicable in a given context. Deciding whether or not it is applicable involves exercising judgment, not citing policies as if they're cards to play in some kind of trumps game. If we approach issues that way, we won't get caught up on whether something is a "proposal" or an "essay" or a "guideline"; we'll be too busy asking whether to apply it in context. That's the goal. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:18, 12 April 2008 (UTC)
So then what's the point of the whole policy/guideline/essay/proposal thing? And what about my WP:REICHSTAG example? Also, the only reason I use "violate" here is because I've seen other people use it. If that's the wrong phrasing, then what is? mike4ty4 (talk) 06:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
(My apology up front for the lengthy answer... I haven't the time today to write a short one.)

While we need to use our judgment making decisions, it does help to know what decisions have been made before, in similar contexts. The aim of our policy and guideline pages is to document best practices. Many of the pages are written with a more "rule-like" tone, which is unfortunate, as it reinforces the legalistic view. When a lot of people take a legalistic view, Wikipedia starts to turn into moot court or nomic, which we try to avoid.

Essays/proposals, guidelines and policies all aim to describe best practices, and their "status" is meant to be an indication of how broadly applicable the principle is, which they describe. Essays contain ideas that someone thinks are applicable in some context. Guidelines have been applied in many contexts, with approval from many Wikipedians. Policies are generally applicable across the whole encyclopedia, or the whole wiki, and many of them play the role of defining Wikipedia itself, as a context. Thus, it's quite difficult to find exceptions to policies on Wikipedia.

In the example you cite, if you were being disruptive, by climbing whatever metaphorical Reichstag, then you might find yourself blocked in order to prevent the continuing disruption. Blocks are preventative rather than punitive, but it's easy for people to see it in terms of a "penalty" being exacted for a "violation".

There's no reason to block anyone except to prevent continuing damage or disruption. There's no such thing as a "permanent lifelong irrevocable ban," even if some people think there is. That makes no sense, because it's unenforceable, short of hunting the person down and killing them, which is... strongly deprecated.

As for how to talk about "violations" without calling them that, I guess I'd suggest not talking about them, but talking instead about specific edits to the encyclopedia, or specific disruptive actions. Is there a context in which it's important to identify a "violation", or something like it? I know that a lot of people talk that way, but I think the best way we can react is to recast the discussion in different terms, and get out of our lawyerly frames of mind.

If someone says you "violated" a proposal, ask them what makes the proposal a good idea in the particular context, and get outside opinions about whether the idea contained in the proposal is a good one to apply there. If it is, frequently enough, then eventually someone will realize that the proposal is a guideline, and relabel it appropriately. If we decide against applying it frequently enough, then eventually someone will realize it's rejected, and relabel it appropriately. If we just look after our edits, and continue to exercise judgment, the tags on these pages will take care of themselves.

People who insist on talking about guidelines/essays/proposals as laws can be gently pointed to some page like WP:PPP or WP:WIARM - not to be told they "violated" those pages, but to learn from what they say. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

"Presumed"

I'm confused about why the guideline uses this word. Although there's a definition provided, it doesn't really jive with any use of "presume" that I'm familiar with. The notion that "presumed" means "objective, not subjective" strikes me as an odd way to use the word. It would seem better to just make some reference to objectivity rather than presumption. The current wording strikes me as very similar to the legal notion of being presumed innocent. It suggests that, like a defendant in a criminal action, something "presumed to be notable" could still be shown to be non-notable. Is that the case? Croctotheface (talk) 08:51, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I take it to mean that if a topic meets the guidelines, it is notable enough to be in WP. If it does not meet the guidelines, that does not necessarily mean it isn't notable, it just means the editors must reach a consensus that it is notable due to evidence not covered by the guidelines. In other words, meeting the guidelines is sufficient but not necessary. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 13:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
"Presumed" means just that ... "presumed". If there is substantive coverage in multiple reliable sources, then we presume the topic is notable. However, meeting the guideline is not "sufficient", it just means in the absence of other factors we presume notability. The notability subguidelines provide no exception to the main notability standard, but rather provide guidance on when we may assume enough sources exist to presume notability. Limited topics (that are mostly limited to places, such as cities and towns, and "obviously" notable individuals, such as national government leaders) are assumed to have sufficient sources available and thus are presumed to be notable. Even when a reasonable presumption of notability is established, What Wikipedia is not and other community standards may mean the article is not suitable for inclusion. Vassyana (talk) 22:01, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
If you're correct, then the guideline should be clear that meeting the guideline is not sufficient. In practice, I think most editors believe that meeting the guideline is indeed sufficient. Currently, the guideline defines presumed as meaning that "objective evidence meets the criterion, without regard for the subjective personal judgments of editors. Substantive coverage in reliable sources suggests that the subject is notable." If you are indeed correct, there should be language that says that presumed means that editors could reach the consensus that despite substantive coverage in reliable sources, a topic does not deserve an article.
In reality, I think that the word "presumed" in this guideline means different things to different people, and this needs to be clarified. The two replies so far interpret the word to mean two completely opposite things. Croctotheface (talk) 22:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Part of the challenge is that there is somewhat of a polarization among Wikipedia editors on the issue of encyclopedic notablity, such that the guideline needs to be flexible in order to reflect a rough and somewhat uneasy consensus. In my view, the guideline serves best as a good benchmark, with subject specific precedents and some carved out exceptions (notably news items and WP:BLP1E bios) as areas where this guideline can be deviated from. So, I suppose I largely agree with Vassyana's analysis.--Kubigula (talk) 04:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the meaning of this is one of he cases where consensus is changing. a year ago, I would sometimes argue that finding two sufficiently reliable sources was definitive notability, and the argument was often accepted. Now it is being challenged more and more--and I myself no longer think it a good interpretation & I use it neither to keep nor to delete. Too many things turned out to be notable that way that would not be suitable for the WP in any reasonable interpretation, and too many significant articles were being eliminated because of technical defects in sourcing. I see it's role is as a very rough rule of thumb, for getting some idea of how to handle a totally unfamiliar topic. When we understand the topic enough to know what constitutes notability within it, then we should go accordingly. I hope that view is now the consensus. DGG (talk) 01:50, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree completely with the comments from Kubigula and DGG, just to be clear. Vassyana (talk) 06:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to be bold and take a stab at clarifying the language, then. I expect that I'll be reverted, but it's essential for an important guideline like this one to use precise language. I think that many editors, if not most of them, ignore the use of "presumed" altogether. Croctotheface (talk) 23:26, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation and notability

I am involved in a dispute regarding what makes a disambiguation term notable. Could I get a couple of uninvolved opinions on the subject? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 01:11, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If this is for a disambiguation page, it might not be necessary to consider notability. A topic shouldn't appear on a disambiguation page unless the title of the disambguation page could reasonably serve as a title for the article on the topic. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Could you offer a few examples of what you mean, Gerry? - Arcayne (cast a spell) 03:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
An example: there is a disambiguation page for Hybrid. There is also a type of bicycle known as a hybrid bicycle, because it has some characteristics of a road bike, and some of a mountain bike. However, they are not usually called just "hybrid", they are called hybrid bicycle. Since the logical name for an article about them does not match the title of the "Hybrid" disambiguation page, that article is not listed on the disambiguation page. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:22, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that, in general, only existing articles should be listed on disambig pages. (And of course, the topics of those articles need to be notable, regardless of the disambig page.) This includes any alternative titles for the article, which would usually be redirects. However, I'm opposed to listing (non-notable) topics which either are only covered in a section of an article, or do not have an article at all. --B. Wolterding (talk) 20:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

What Notability rules govern this situation?

Would not the very act of creating the organization make him notable ?

Comments/Questions ? -- Low Sea (talk) 01:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

In general, this is true for really notable organisations only--but the Jaycees would seem to be notable enough. However, if he has the prestige from doing that, he probably did other important things as well, before or after--and, as always, it will depend upon the availability of good sources. The article on the group has almost nothing about the early history, and if you have the knowledge to expand it there, I would work first on that. It will place him in context. DGG (talk) 01:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately the history of this organization is found in
  1. self-published resources (Jaycee magazines, newsletters and websites mostly)
  2. newspaper articles unavailable to most of the general public (due to age)
  3. a book by Booton Herndon called "Young Men Can Change The World". Herndon is a respected author of historical subjects and biographies. The current edition of the book is self-published (by the Jaycees) however prior editions were published by McGraw-Hill. As this book is the only WP:RS source available, using it extensively would likely result in copyvio since it covers so much of the history of the organization. Yet using more primary sources would result in swift nomination as an AfD.
I can tell you from my own reading that Giessenbier was a fairly unremarkable man who, frustrated by the "system" of his day, simply felt that a change was needed. He created an organization to facilitate that change and it flourished, but he himself made almost no remarkable contribution beyond the creation of Jaycees. Here[4] is a nice synopsis of his life.
He was, as they say, a "one-shot wonder". There are many one-shot wonders, including most of our beloved heroes. I vaguely remember a quote to the effect that "Heroes are ordinary people who do extraordinary things." By that definition most heroes are both notable and not. How does WP address unexpected heroes and other one-shot wonders who deserve to be remembered for only that one historical act or event? What is to happen when a young researcher comes to WP looking for the name Henry Giessenbier and finds he was "not notable"? While I was once a Jaycee I was not impressed by Giessenbier's life, yet his presence on this planet had enormous impact on millions (and no, that is not an over-estimate) of human beings in the past century. If the WP:NN policy disallows this man a short encyclopedic article then it is flawed to the core. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
If there's nothing much more to say about him than "He created the Jaycees," we can't write a biography. Encyclopedia articles are not memorials, it is not about who "deserves" to be remembered. Adolf Hitler was notable, but certainly not because he did good things, and indeed the exact opposite. However, it would be appropriate to have a short section on him in the Jaycees article itself. Since that would only be part of an article, primary source material would be acceptable. That really makes more sense editorially and organizationally anyway—if his notability is only in conjunction with the Jaycees, why not mention him only in conjunction with them? Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I try to envision future researchers trying to understand as much about the man as they can (ie: "What kind of man was it that started the Jaycees?") and thus coming to WP for that information. I guess a section under History would probably suffice in his case. Would it be acceptable to create a redirect page linking to Jaycees#History or such? -- Low Sea (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Presumed

A recent change to the policy page resulted in the wording that" Presumed means that absent compelling evidence to the contrary, topics that meet this guideline are notable. If a consensus emerges that it has been demonstrated that despite meeting the guideline, a subject is not significant or important enough to merit a Wikipedia article, it should not be considered notable." I would like to replace the word "compelling ecidence" with "consensus" to match the rest of the sentence. "compelling evidence"is much too strong a phrase, & anyway one cant provide evidence of non-notability. DGG (talk) 18:50, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

That change is fine with me. I don't think my draft is perfect by any means. (For the record, I think you can provide evidence of non-notability, though it would likely take the form of showing a lack of evidence of notability. I don't think there's a big difference there.) Croctotheface (talk) 19:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I STRONGLY OPPOSE the entire bold change made by Croctotheface. While I am certainly no fan of the extensive wikilawyer-like verbage of this policy (before the bold change) I think this change has serious flaws including (as DGG mentions) it requires the impossible proof of non-existence. Even asking that a consensus of editors to "determine" non-existence has the same impossible flaw. Additionally this revision could potentially reduce the whole WP:N policy to one where notability is not defined before-hand, but rather it is determined after-the-fact on a case-by-case basis. This would be chaos. I applaud Croctotheface for being bold and for trying to fix the problems with this policy but regretably I am tempted to revert this change unless good supportive arguments are presented. Let us continue to discuss to some meaningful conclusion. -- Low Sea (talk) 19:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Evidence of non-notability is different from proof of non-notability. One cannot prove the negative, however one can provide evidence for it, as non-notability is eminently falsifiable. (While notability is not falsifiable) Failed attempts to falsify non-notability are evidence of non-notability - just not proof. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:13, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
While I appreciate the sentiment of the change, I think it's simply not needed. It's redundant to assert that consensus determines decisions. Furthermore, it give the impression that a high standard of proof is needed to counter notability, when a number of exclusion standards are easy to identify and call out, but very difficult to prove using evidence. Vassyana (talk) 00:53, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to again stress that I am by no means married to the definition I wrote. I DO have to call out in the strongest possible terms for a clear definition of "presumed." However we are using that word, we must define it. The previous definition basically said nothing at all, and certainly didn't resemble any definition of "presumed" that I could find. If the definition I wrote is wrong, then I'm wholly in favor of replacing it with a correct one. I started this process because I had no idea what "presumed" meant when I read this page, then I asked about it, at which point I received two answers that defined "presumed" in basically opposite ways. I made my change in large part to stimulate discussion: those who disagree with what I wrote, please, by all means, suggest an alternative. A guideline as important as this needs precise language. Croctotheface (talk) 07:43, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
How's this?[5] Vassyana (talk) 08:21, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
My question with your version centers on the use of a few terms. First, I'm unclear about whether "presumed notable" and "is notable" are different or the same. Your version shifts from talking about notability to suitability for inclusion. I'm not sure if this is because you see notable and suitable as synonyms or because of the "can't show lack of notability" argument. If we believe that it's possible to provide evidence of notability but impossible to provide evidence of non-notability, then is there a point to using the term "presumed" at all? If "presumed notable" just means "is notable," then we should just say as much. Croctotheface (talk) 08:54, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
That's something of a mess you point out. :-P If I understand it correctly, the presumed language is largely because of WP:NOT and similar "exclusion standards". (It also relates to "obviously" notable subjects, such as cities and towns, for which we presume that plentiful source exist.) I wouldn't disagree with a notability guideline that says something may be notable and still not suitable for inclusion. However, I believe such a change would meet serious resistance. The problem, as pointed out in other discussions above, is that the notability guideline holds a tenuous balance between some fairly removed extremes of opinion. Vassyana (talk) 09:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC) (P.S. Good grammar edit!)
I have trouble seeing why figuring out the difference between "presumed" and "is" should create such problems, but I don't doubt that you're right about all that. My biggest issue is that when the guideline uses words, everyone should be able to understand what they mean. We shouldn't use a term in a meaningless way to mask difficult disagreements over what the guideline should say. I also feel like the material that you put in the footnote (or was it always there) might belong in the body of the text in some form. Croctotheface (talk) 14:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

After rereading it, I have to say that I think the current version is only marginally better than what was at the page before I came by. It does not manage to define the term presume or give editors any insight into why we talk about a topic that is "presumed to be notable" rather than a topic that "is notable". If we don't mean something like what I said in my initial edit, where we talk about "presumed" because it is possible to somehow "overcome" (for lack of a better term) that presumption and show that despite the presumption of notability, the topic is not notable, then I don't understand why we would use a word when it has essentially no meaning. Right now, the definition for "presumed" probably better defines the term "notable" in that it explains that "notable" does not automatically equal "deserves an article". Croctotheface (talk) 08:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

  • I strongly oppose the change by Croctotheface to the use of consensus, instead of presumed. I have seen consensus used all to often as an argument when two or more editors are pushing a POV by saying "the consensus is that this topic is notable" without having to justify their positions. However, the word presumed assumes there is some reasonable assumption or logic for the opinion, and if challenged, an editor who presumes a topic to be notable should be able to provide an explaination to support their position, as Vassyana has done in relation to towns and cities. Please restore this guideline back to the postion where the word presumed is used rather than consensus. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:00, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
The current definition of "presumed" doesn't make any reference to consensus. I'm not at all sure what you're saying here. My biggest question right now is whether we are using "presumed notable" in a way that's different from "is notable". My impression from what Gavin has said here is that he doesn't see a difference between those two ideas, but I don't want to put words in his mouth. Is there a reason for us to keep using "presumed" here at all? Croctotheface (talk) 12:57, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I made another bold change, this time removing the references to "presumption" in favor of just saying outright that a topic that meets those criteria is considered notable. The word "presume" means something to the effect of "accepted as true absent persuasive evidence to the contrary." When I made my first bold change to introduce that definition, several editors resisted on the grounds that it is impossible to present any kind of evidence that a topic is not notable. While I disagree with that, if we are operating from that definition, there is no reason to use the word "presumed" at all. Croctotheface (talk) 23:37, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

You totally changed the meaning of the document. You went from "It is required for X to be notable for Y to exist" to "If Y exists then X is notable". --Haemo (talk) 00:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I made my change because I don't see what the difference is between "presumed to be notable" and "is notable." Could you explain that to me? Croctotheface (talk) 01:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, let's try this. I am Henry Morton Stanley, and I am wandering around in Africa. I come across a bearded white man, and remark "Dr Livingstone, I presume". My statement is that "the man is presumed to be Dr Livingstone". Now, is that the same as saying "the man is Dr Livingstone". No, of course not. I am saying "I believe him to be Dr Livingstone absent evidence to the contrary". I am not saying "that man is Dr Livingstone". --Haemo (talk) 01:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Right, I know what presumed means. In fact, the first bold change I made in an attempt to clarify the language here introduced a definition that's very much like what you said. I made a reference to "compelling evidence to the contrary", but as you can see in the discussion above, other editors asserted that such a statement would be akin to asking editors to prove a negative. Do you at least agree that the current version does not distinguish between "presumed notability" and flat out notability? Or do you think that the current version actually communicates a logical definition for "presumed"? Croctotheface (talk) 01:48, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Janice Lee Allen

Before I create an article which quite possibly would go through AfD or speedied... I wanted you guys to take a looksie and tell me if this person is notable or not. I've recently become interested in this lady who lives in the valley. Kind of a Goliath fight, in terms of politics... but anyway. I made an article on the congressopedia and just wanted to see if it's up to snuff for here. Take a looksie. Thanks folks. Queerbubbles | Leave me Some Love 13:05, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a nice reference should withstand a speed delete okay but who knows about an Afd. SunCreator (talk) 22:27, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
It's not sufficiently neutral in its current form either. In all likelihood, it will get deleted.--Father Goose (talk) 02:24, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:WEB

Can anyone please explain what is the criteria for WP:WEB. I read WP:WEB several times, and found the following:

The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.

This guideline says "non-trivial coverage" and then WP:WEB explains what "trivial" means:

Trivial coverage, such as (1) newspaper articles that simply report the Internet address, (2) newspaper articles that simply report the times at which such content is updated or made available, (3) a brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site or (4) content descriptions in Internet directories or online stores.

Some questions can arise from the above quoted statements.

  1. "multiple non-trivial published works" -- what is meant by "multiple"? One, two, three, four, five or more?
  2. Trivial implies "brief summary of the nature of the content or the publication of Internet addresses and site". What is this "brief"? When it would be considered that an article published in third party reliable source is more than brief? The issue is moved from WP:AN/I. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Multiple is simply that: >1. Two is indeed multiple, but like most bare minimums is unlikely to sufficient in practice and no arbitrary number should be defined. Similarly, what defines brief, or too short, cannot possibly be accounted for in the rules. These kinds of fine details are intended to be determined by local consensus. No policy or guideline is going to be able to provide a comprehensive and detailed view accurate across millions of articles and topics. Vassyana (talk) 00:45, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Way back when WP:WEB was being drafted there was this huge argument over where to draw the line; in some ways there still is that argument. The only way to end the deadlock was with vague, use-your-best-judgment wording. If you try to wiki-lawyer it you'll fail, and AfD will then turn into a straw poll of "Are there enough sources, Y/N?". Nifboy (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I'd personally think a "non-trivial" source is one where, if that was the only source you were using, you'd still be able to create an encyclopedic article on the topic. If all the source is doing is giving you a name, and perhaps 1 or 2 other minor facts such that there's no way you could use that source for anything, the source is trivial. At the very least, the information provided in the external source should be enough that you're able to tell the article subject apart from a hole in the ground. That's my opinion, anyway. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Deciding notability of redlinks...

I am about to create an article on a 19th century British doctor called Martin Barry (see User:Magnus Manske/Dictionary of National Biography/01). "discovered presence of spermatozoa in ovum", Fellow of the Royal Society and winner of its Royal Medal. But then I checked what links here, and found another Martin Barry at 11th Genie Awards in 1990, the director of an animated short called Juke-Bar, apparently, and winner of the award in that category. I twiddled my thumbs for a bit, deciding whether creating a disambiguation page was necessary (well, actually, I found 100 Google hits for "Martin Barry" + "sperm"; and 554 for "Martin Barry" and "juke-bar"). The distance of over 100 years between them complicates things. In the end, I decided to create the article on the pioneering fertilisation physiology doctor as the main Martin Barry, and change the redlinks for the director Martin Barry to Martin Barry (director). Anyone here have any advice on the best way to handle this sort of thing in future? Carcharoth (talk) 20:51, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Quite difficult - I don't think it's in the policy anywhere, but I think that redlinks on people's names should better be avoided, because their names may be highly ambiguous. I once found, in a list of death row inmates, a link which lead to the biography of some politician. Nobody intended any harm here, it's just that a large farm of redlinks was created, where one of them happened to turn blue at some time, and nobody noticed. --B. Wolterding (talk) 21:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. (Still creating the Martin Barry article.) I think I will still link as the director, because if I delink, all that will happen is that someone will relink later, and not check whether the article matches the person. I agree that redlinks turning blue is a problem, and whenever I create an article on a person, I check "what links here" to: (a) correct incorrect links; and (b) grab new information for the article (reliably sourced of course). Carcharoth (talk) 21:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

When in doubt, disambiguate. Unless you are prepared to vigilantly monitor incoming links to Martin Berry, the simplest course of action would be to create your article at Martin Berry (sperm chap) or suchlike. Skomorokh 22:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll monitor vigilantly, including for spelling mistakes... :-) Carcharoth (talk) 22:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
(after ec) I would disagree with pre-emptively disambiguating. We get a lot of requests at WP:RM to move pages from (something like) Martin Barry (doctor) to Martin Barry when there's no article or reasonable dab page (3 live links or more) at the target. Those requests tend to get carried out as uncontroversial. Incoming links should be monitored from the other end, where they're made from. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Should be is one thing, will be is another. On more than one occasion I have ended up at a redlink-turned-blue for an article unrelated to the topic intended; I'm sure this has happened even without my realizing. On second thoughts, another option in this situation is to create the new article at the ambiguous title, and just slap a {{Distinguish}} at the top indicating the article is not about the director. Skomorokh 23:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the approach Carcharoth took here is entirely sensible.--Father Goose (talk) 00:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Needed expansion

Right now the policy mentions in passing the difference between a subject being notable and the article citing sources establishing notability. However this is an important difference - all too often articles are deleted where it is obvious even to someone unfamiliar with the topic that independent third party coverage is likely to exist, but because they do not have them cited the article is deleted. This puts a very high bar for basic article creation - one that prevents incremental change and fails to show new contributors what could be improved. Fundamentally, a poor start of an article that is stub-tagged and notes the lack of sources is a bigger call for an editor to improve it than a redirect or a redlink. We need to make it clear that if it seems likely that a topic could pass this guideline, deletion or redirectionism is discouraged. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:00, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly endorse this idea. There are many tags available that should be used before trying to delete an article. And a caveat is that editors should use good faith in attaching these tags, not just attach them as a means to an end of proving the need for deletion. -- Low Sea (talk) 18:13, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I support this too: while we want people to be bold in editing to deal with non-notable topics, we need to give other edits time to show that notability exist; the momentary lack of notability is not sufficient grounds for an immediate trip to AFD. This is basically a lot of what happened behind the two "Characters and Episodes" arbcom cases in that too much pressure was applied to remove the articles without giving editors time or the benefit of good faith that notability could be shown. However, it should be cautioned that the onus is still on those that want to keep the article to show notability (just as it would be with verifiability) and that "good faith progress" towards notability is not the same as letting the article continue to exist without notability. --MASEM 18:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm no fan of the subguidelines (I tend to think they're sprawl), but in this instance they seem to serve a useful purpose. Borrowing broadly from them, if a person or book has won a notable award, it's almost certain that independent reliable sources exist about them. It may be useful to skim through all the subguidelines and collect the most common notability indicators (such as the aforementioned noteworthy award). It shouldn't be difficult to make a small paragraph noting that some things indicate that sources are available and time should be given to find sources in those instances. It would draw on existing guidelines and reflect common good practice fairly well. Just a thought. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 23:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Before an article is created, a box shows up that says "As you create the article, provide references to reliable published sources. Without references, the article may be deleted." If every editor acknowledged this little message at the point of article creation, he would save himself and other unaware others a lot of trouble later on. So the problem is not with notability, or editors being all to eager to remove unsourced material without a claim of notability, but with editors carelessly ignoring advice, guidelines and policies right from the start. WP:BURDEN takes care of the rest. – sgeureka t•c 07:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
It should be possible to edit Wikipedia on instinct alone. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:01, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
In which case there would be no need for policies and guidelines. But their existance is proof that your idea is simply not working. – sgeureka t•c 15:06, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Our policies and guidelines ought mirror what an intuitive understanding of how to write an encyclopedia would be - that is, none of them should be surprising. The documentation exists for a number of reasons, but none of them are to establish counter-intuitive rules and processes. Indeed, that's why WP:IAR was always one of the policies - because the policies are more about enforcement than about teaching. Put another way, the US Legal Code is not about teaching you how to live your life, but about setting up a system under which people can be prevented from doing undesirable things. A person with a reasonably strong moral compass does not need to meticulously consult state and federal law before they go outside. Similarly, our policies should never need to be consulted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
MOS:DAB for one establishes several counter-intuitive rules and processes. Intuitive understanding: link every important word. MOS:DAB#Individual entries: Do not wikilink any other words in the line [except one navigable (blue) link]. Intuitive understanding: pipe every link. MOS:DAB#Piping: Do not pipe the name of the links to the articles being listed. (And all of this is for a good reason, which may not be immediately apparent to the non-dabbers). Ergo: Our policies and guidelines ought to mirror what long-time editors have found to improve the encyclopedia, not what intuitive newbie understanding misleads one to believe. Intuitiveness generally works fine, right, but it should never be used as an excuse to prevent cleanup (according to policies and guidelines, which may at times result in deletion of a sentence, a paragraph, or a whole article) or because someone doesn't acknowledge his burden of proof. – sgeureka t•c 16:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
MOS guidelines are a particularly odd case - I believe the arbcom a while ago explicitly established them as such. The short form is that nothing in a MoS guideline should be so important that violating it poses a serious problem. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Which arbcom case (honest question)? And while I agree that (accidently) violating MOS guidelines is not the end of the world, actively campaining against the application of MOS guidelines (or any other guidelines for that matter) because it is not congruent with a personal intuition is also not the solution. But I/we are drifting off topic. – sgeureka t•c 12:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea - an awful lot of editors don't know that there's a difference between having notability and having coverage. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that given that this message does show up, and the way WP treats its general disclaimers means that if the user creates that article they have acknowledged (for whatever purposes that means on WP, since it's not a legal binding) that notability should be shown. I would suggest that the few cases where lack of notability is a CSD that these cases should be specifically mentioned since they could create the article, walk away for an hour, and come back to find the article gone, which seems awfully biting. All other cases, we need the "tag and wait" approach instead of an immediate trip to PROD or AFD. --MASEM 15:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
The CSD criteria is, I think, a separate issue, in part because it was written when notability wasn't so explicitly devoted to sources. What it was meant to target is articles like "X is a band from Cleveland," not "X is a Grammy winning band from Cleveland" (but without an independent source for that claim). If it's being applied against articles that fail WP:N in its current form, it very much needs to be changed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:16, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
You're right, it's still written per CSD A7 that it's a lower standard than notability, in that the article need not show it from the bat but should at least indicate the likelihood. Still, it would be useful to state in the article creation box that new articles should state (but not have to source) why the topic is likely notable, to avoid the difference between your two examples above. --MASEM 15:24, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea - an awful lot of editors don't know that there's a difference between having notability and having coverage. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

draft #1

OK. How's this for proposed wording:

"Although articles should demonstrate their notability, and articles on topics that do not meet this criteria are generally deleted, it is important to not just consider whether notability is established by the article, but whether it readily could be. If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. All too often articles are the subject of bitter deletion debates where anybody on either side of the debate could have fixed the article with far less effort than was spent fighting about it. Deletion should be considered a last resort."

Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:21, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Support. Maybe some minor editing is needed (i.e. independent, reliable, secondary sources), but it is quite good. G.A.S 15:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I think that what we mean by "independent" is well-established elsewhere in the guideline. What if we just changed it to "acceptable" sources? Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I support the paragraph either way:) G.A.S 18:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
As long as we're talking about a deletion proposal based on the lack of notability, I'd support the general statement with some tweaking. However, I'd also like to highlight that it can be equally frustrating for an AfD nominator to see his well-prepared nomination fail because others blanket-point to google hits or literature on amazon they haven't read, as claim of the existance of reliable sources with significant amounts of encyclopedic material when this is simply not true (negative proof problem). This is where WP:BURDEN comes into play again. – sgeureka t•c 16:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
I would like to note that this may in fact help such editors in the sense that they can mention in said AfD's that (search engine name) hits provide no sources that can be used to provide proof of notability, as the hits seem to provide only little or trivial coverage. G.A.S 18:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
weak support - I would be happier with something like "Deletion should be considered a last resort for articles with reasonable potential. Articles (or text within articles) that present immediate problems which will never be resolved over any amount of time (vandalism, spam, copyvio, etc) should of course be subject to immediate deletion."
Obviously I like that essay but words to something of this effect are needed to avoid issues with articles that have obviously valid reasons for deletion. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
How about "Deletion should be considered a last resort, to be used for articles that cannot reasonably be fixed." Shorter, but I think it captures what you're going for. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:29, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Better. hmmm -- try "... reasonably be developed to WP standards." ?? I reserve the right to boldly add back the longer version if "reasonably" becomes disputed terminology in future RfAs. -- Low Sea (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That is an improvement. Though I have to disagree with you about the possibility of dispute - policies with ambiguity are no curse. With two and a half million articles in place, ambiguity is the only way to get them to apply with some consistency. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:09, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Considering your originally stated goal of "We need to make it clear that if it seems likely that a topic could pass this guideline, deletion or redirectionism is discouraged." I am puzzled why you would not strive to try and eliminate disputes. I acknoweledge that sometimes it will happen, yet it is always worth trying for. -- Low Sea (talk) 21:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. Let's meet back here if it's an actual problem. :) Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:23, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Such issues falls outside the scope of this guideline, don't you agree? G.A.S 18:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Respectfully no I do not agree. This policy is trying to establish a threshold for what is acceptable to immediately tag for deletion versus what should be tagged for improvement and allowed to be developed free of unreasonable deadlines (see "View 2"[6] and WP:INSPECTOR for clarification on what that means). -- Low Sea (talk) 19:19, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
We are discussing here three different things--the standard an article should meet, the lower standard at which is is just good enough to keep after a discussion in the hope of further improvement, and the much lower standard blow which it should be deleted immediately as hopelessly inadequate. Articles should be about things of importance and adequately discuss athe subject in such a way as to demonstrate the importance from reliable sources. But an article should not be deleted if it makes it probable that the subject is important enough for Wikipedia and that sources are available to show it. since we're now talking about "probable" this is a matter of judgment, and needs discussion at AfD. But we should only discard them outright if it is clear to everyone of good faith that there is no likely chance or claim of importance at all. I don't want to use judgement as an administrator on this, I just want to delete the indisputably hopeless. There's enough of them--at least 1/3 to 1/2 of the submitted articles. If its not as bad as all that, it needs a chance to develop. DGG (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
So is your position in support of the new draft, in opposition, or something else?--Father Goose (talk) 04:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I rather like it, especially that it clearly establishes that a genuine try-and-fail on finding sources does still indicate deletion. I'd much rather have that than the subguidelines any day, that seem to result in garbage stubs on every third-stringer athlete and third-rate album, and I'm also sick of people nominating for AfD when sources were a click on Google away. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:17, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
That wording sounds really good. Support.--Father Goose (talk) 04:04, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not certain what the proposed language adds that isn't already contained in the WP:N#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines section. Many editors ignore the suggestions contained in that section, but I don't know that you will address that issue by adding more words to the same effect.--Kubigula (talk) 04:26, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The significant switch is away from the requirement for sources to be found and towards a requirement of "don't delete or merge stuff for which sources presumably can be found." Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
The existing language says to go ahead and look for sources or encourage others to look for sources prior to pursuing merge or deletion - a SOFIXIT approach for articles that have potential. To me, this is the ideal, though I acknowledge that it's not always easy to do given the flood of junk we sometimes see.--Kubigula (talk) 16:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
What this adds is an explicit note that material for which sources clearly or likely could be found simply should not be deleted - i.e. it does not merely mandate due diligence. It moves the burden of proof for deletion (which should always be a fairly high burden of proof) from "no sources are provided" to "no sources are likely to be provided ever." Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:41, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Deletion means *poof and gone* (at least for the average editor), while merging preserves encyclopedic content for everyone and is just a means of information representation. These two should not be mixed. – sgeureka t•c 12:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Oppose as written, but could be swayed by a small rewrite. I've clearly missed your point; I thought you wanted to demonstrate the difference between coverage and notability, which would seem to be a totally different issue to the one you're addressing. So, to address that issue, my position is that whether or not sources are likely to exist should be judged on a case by case basis. Although the above paragraph is correct for subjects of middling importance, and the majority of the paragraph makes it clear that it is dealing with such subjects, the final summary basically prevents AFDs for the non-notable stuff that narrowly misses speedy deletion, because no-one will be in a position to look for sources of coverage that are unlikely to exist. There's also an issue that this is inconsistent with other guidelines: Notability requires objective evidence, which must be verifiable, and if that evidence is challenged then the burden of proof is on the person who asserts the notability. Reading it again, I could possibly agree if the last two sentences were removed; the second-to-last is just an attack on deletionists that adds nothing to the guideline, and the last sentence is too general. How about "Deletion should be deferred until a reasonable amount of time has passed to allow editors to find the necessary sources"? My feeling is that a month is a good amount of time, but perhaps we should leave "reasonable" as a case-by-case thing. It might also be appropriate to mention tagging the article for rescue during that period. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
You raise the points that I summarized as "tweaking is still needed". I like your bolded sentence as a good middle ground for most wikiphilosophies. – sgeureka t•c 12:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
How would you feel about my replacing the existing two sentences with it? It looks like the attack and overly-general conclusion have gone in. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Which two sentences are you proposing replacing? Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
"All too often articles are the subject of bitter deletion debates where anybody on either side of the debate could have fixed the article with far less effort than was spent fighting about it. Deletion should be considered a last resort used for articles that cannot be developed to Wikipedia's standards." - the first one is just having a go at editors; it doesn't help. The second sentence isn't correct for the intentions of the section as I understand it: Deletion isn't a last resort for "articles that cannot be developed to Wikipedia's standards" - that's why we have CSD. It should be a last resort for articles whose notability is unclear. Percy Snoodle (talk) 09:47, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
I think this fundamentally changes the issue. If a topic is clearly notable and the only problem is that the article does not cite the sources that anybody can recognize exist then deleting the article is silly, because the article is clearly at least somewhat useful. Imagine an article on a former Prime Minister of a third world country. Clearly an article we want to have, but also one that could easily be unsourced. Nobody doubts the existence of the sources. Nobody should delete or merge that article. Not even after a month. There is no useful definition of notability that a head of state does not meet. If the notability policy suggests deletion in this case, it is in error. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:06, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
And lest anyone think I'm pulling a hypothetical out that doesn't exist, Elias Phisoana Ramaema. There are no circumstances under which that article should be deleted. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
If it's that clear, then no-one will AFD it. This is for the middle ground - where some people say the sources exist, and others doubt that. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:10, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
This has not proven to be the case historically. Many things that are just as transparently easy to source as this are AfDed, merged, and otherwise removed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:38, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I do agree with Phil... however, I do need to point out the potential straw man in that, if a Prime Minister of a third world country is "clearly" notable without sourcing, what about a Secratary of the same? What about a leader of a providence of that country? A mayor of a city? The Minister's wife? One of the above's pet dog? This is where the sub-N guidelines come in (in this case, WP:BIO gives us the first three on the list for being notable without having to show it, the others not), and thus it is important not to forget these exist for certain cases as well. What we should be watching out for are cases where an article at present lacks notability but there is strong consensus that rushing out to show it isn't necessary, and such a case is not covered under the sub-N guidelines, we need to figure a way to document that within an existing or new sub-N.
However, any other case that clearly has an iffy-ness (at least one editor requesting to see sourcing of notability and the case falls outside any sub-N guideline), then that's where we likely need to make sure there's time and good faith effort to provide it. --MASEM 14:15, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I'm not saying they're all that straightforward. Nor am I suggesting that the issue with Ramaema is that he is obviously important - I think the entire matter can be settled within the current definition of notability. There is simply no way to plausibly argue that a former Prime Minister of a country does not have significant independent coverage. When it is clear that sources do exist their exclusion from the article should not be taken as grounds for deletion. And thus the slippery slope seems easily parried because the grounds that the discussion needs to take place on are clear - one needs to show the probability of sources existing. (And I think, in this case, that most of the examples you give can easily be sorted out through discussion) Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I like that phrase: "...needs to show the probability of sources existing." How about working that into the paragraph somehow along with all the other suggestions above, then putting the whole revised text after the break I am going to create below. -- Low Sea (talk) 17:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

draft #2

  • "Although articles should demonstrate their notability, and articles on topics that do not meet this criteria are generally deleted, it is important to not just consider whether notability is established by the article, but whether it readily could be. When discussing whether to delete or merge an article due to non-notability, it is important that the discussion focus not only on whether notability is established in the article, but on what the probability is that notability could be established. If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. All too often articles are the subject of bitter deletion debates where anybody on either side of the debate could have fixed the article with far less effort than was spent fighting about it. Deletion should be considered a last resort used for articles that cannot be developed to Wikipedia's standards."

Adds the sentence proposed by Low Sea, as well as a clarification in the last sentence. Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

SUPPORT. I will definitely support this as written above but I would still be happy to see some reference to the WP:POTENTIAL essay as it helps make the intent behind the policy clearer. Something like "Deletion should be considered a last resort used for articles that cannot be potentially developed to Wikipedia's standards." I know, I seem to be singing the same note over and over... but at least I am singing! (grin) -- Low Sea (talk) 18:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)


I generally like to avoid linking to essays from policies and guidelines. I think the essay is great, but I think doing so opens a bad door. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I generally like this proposal. However, I do have one reservation. It should note that even if an article's topic may be notable, that the article may still be subject to deletion or stubbing under WP:NOT and other policies. As Phil mentions in the example below, there can be a notable topic where it's actually better for the article occupying the space to be deleted. Vassyana (talk) 00:59, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I happen to be the original author of this essay which has been discussed quite a bit here (WP:POTENTIAL) to my surprise, and I am glad some users think it is great and inspiring. I originally wrote the essay because I noticed the amount of articles that have deleted on Wikipedia when it was more efficient and beneficial to the encyclopaedia just to keep the page and improve it. I am aware of WP:PROVEIT, though with the way Wikipedia works currently people do/will not stick to it when adding content 100% of the time - and this essay gives suggestions on what to do when this occurs. I never wrote the essay with the intention of it coming part of policy/guidelines, and there are certainley some exceptions to it (such as below perhaps). I can see why users would want to avoid linking essays directly from text of policies/guidelines - if it is thought the essay should be linked, it could always be added to the "See also" section like other essays have. However, I do think this proposal is overall a good idea. Camaron | Chris (talk) 19:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

while we wait for draft #2 above

While we wait for Phil to provide the latest draft in the section above I would like to ask everyone to go to position paper. This is a perfect example of the kind of article that should never be subject to deletion - only clean up - it is more than obvious to anyone even vaguely involved in politics that this topic is both notable and verifiable. Now that you have seen the current version look through the history and you will see it was PRODed as NOT NOTABLE in July then merged into another article but the core topic was never rescued and now it is worse off than when it started. This is NOT how Wikipedia should work! -- Low Sea (talk) 17:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a bit of a weird example, since the major problem with the original article was that it was on an esoteric subset of the topic. Merging and redirecting was probably the big mistake here - a redlink would have been preferable, since a redlink makes it abundantly clear that there is a hole in our coverage. Redirects from titles that could conceivably be articles unto themselves can be problematic for exactly this reason - it obscures the fact that we have a hole in our coverage, and, because the mechanics of redirects are a bit counter-intuitive, makes it harder for newbies to fix them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, position papers are much broader than the article began with. If the policy we are discussing was in place the PROD for NN would most likely not have occured and the article probably not have been "frightened" into merging (presumably to avoid deletion). The very fact that someone actually used NN as an issue on this topic supports the need for this policy. -- Low Sea (talk) 18:02, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Kudos - after digesting Phil's change and how it actually reads within the context of the guideline - I like it. Good job.--Kubigula (talk) 03:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

"If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. All too often articles are the subject of bitter deletion debates where anybody on either side of the debate could have fixed the article with far less effort than was spent fighting about it." - I strongly agree, yet strongly disagree simultaneously. I wish, in all AfDs, that if an editor finds proof of notability, he adds it to the article immediately instead of just posting a link in the AfD and expecting someone else to do the work. An AfD can be solved very quickly if this were always done. On the other hand - I think the above is suggesting that nobody should send an article to AfD, and no admin should close an AfD with delete, unless he thinks there will never be any proof of notability found. I'm sorry, but I strongly feel that proof of notability, reliable sources, and all the other pillars should be in every article from the beginning, and the burden lies on an article supporter to improve an article. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 18:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, WP:Notability is not one of the 5 Pillars, nor even a Policy, it is only a Guideline ("a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception.") and due to the highly difficult ability for wikipedians to find common understanding it is very unlikely to even get to policy status.
In short, this is not a sacred cow ... just a big bull in this pottery store we call Wikipedia. -- Low Sea (talk) 02:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's interesting that WP definitely has some unwritten "inclusion" policy; it stems mostly from WP:NOT, and WP:NOTE is only one aspect of it (and by implication, not the only one, since this is only a guideline). The question I pose (theoretically) is if notability is not the only inclusion criteria, what other inclusion criteria do we have? (EG, a question we're in heated argument at WP:FICT is the presence of a limited subset of non-notable spinout articles, which can completely fail WP:NOTE, something that we allow to be included? I'm not asking for an answer to that question here, just noting that this is a direction I don't know if there's been any thought towards.) If the answer is no to this, then why is not WP:NOTE a policy and/or our only inclusion guideline? My guess is that that anwer is not no, and that there is more but no written policy for that. Again, not saying anything is wrong with NOTE as it fits what we're looking for from V/NOR/NPOV and the first pillar nicely, but... --MASEM 03:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Part of this is the deeply ugly history of the page - notability as we use it here is a mind-bendingly counter-intuitive concept that has no real relationship to the way in which the word is used in the real world. As a result this page draws an ungodly amount of heat, much of it deserved, from editors in areas that have been targeted for large-scale deletion by some of the more zealous enforcers of this guideline. And no wonder - notability as defined here has, on its good days, a tenuous relationship with what the word actually means. On its bad days it simply fails to reflect normal usage of the term in any useful way at all. This failure of the page, which is fairly deeply ingrained, keeps it fairly permanently stuck on the guideline level for, frankly, good reason. A new name - Wikipedia:Inclusion, perhaps - would go a long way toward fixing this. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't necessary change what we have here to be the inclusion guidelines, but I would change it to be part of it, calling it something reflecting "inclusion by coverage". But are there more "inclusion by X" rules that are there but not written, or ones that we just haven't really thought of? We allow, for example, disambig pages, and while it seems trivial to say disambig are included, it helps to show the full range of pages in mainspace that are not just articles but help support the encyclopedia. --MASEM 04:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear, how long do we have to see people trot out that irrelevance? WP:N is only a guideline, but WP:DEL is a policy. It is a policy that articles that don't meet the notability guidelines should be deleted. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
That we delete articles on topics that are not notable is clear. Our definition of that, however, is not policy, and nothing in WP:DEL seems to me to establish it as such. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
See WP:DEL#REASON - "Subject fails to meet the relevant notability guideline (WP:N, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:CORP and so forth)". The key is "meets the relevant notability guideline" - yes, they're guidelines; but it's policy to delete things that don't meet them. Percy Snoodle (talk) 13:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I am very hard-pressed to read this passing mention as a bootstrapping of the guideline to policy. It seems to me more appropriate to read that list descriptively - here are many of the reasons things get brought to deletion. I am certainly far from persuaded that the mention is intended to firm up this page or any of the other notability guidelines. The concept of meeting a guideline is fuzzier than meeting a policy. A policy can say that something should meet a guideline, but that does not equate to saying the guideline should be applied zealously. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:58, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's not a case of "firming up a guideline" - as Masem explains below, WP:DEL has a notability-related criterion; the guidelines spell that our in greater detail, and with more flexibility for changing in line with consensus. But the idea that we should delete articles on non-notable topics comes from WP:DEL at policy level. It's not that the policy "firms up" the guideline, but that the guidelines "flesh out" the policy. Zealotry or otherwise is a separate matter. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I think we're talking past each other here. We seem to both agree that, on the policy level, the relevant issue is that non-notable topics don't have articles. The definition of non-notable is left to the guideline level. Yes? Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:35, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes. I'm just fed up of people saying that non-notable topics are allowed to have articles because WP:N is "just a guideline". It's irrelevant and annoying. Percy Snoodle (talk) 08:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yea, the DEL vs NOTE relation is similar to how WP:V requires reliable sources, but what those are are spelled out in guideline WP:RS. Mind you, if we go the route of talking inclusion guidelines (which notability by coverage falls under) DEL would need to be reflected towards "articles not meeting WP's inclusionary guidelines". --MASEM 13:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

De Facto Policies and Erroneous Logic

Oh My God! Please tell me you did not just say the following: 

Oh dear, how long do we have to see people trot out that irrelevance? 
WP:N is only a guideline, but WP:DEL is a policy. 
It is a policy that articles that don't meet the notability guidelines should be deleted.

Boiling this down to its essence the key sentence in the above statement reads as: 

 It is a policy that articles must comply with guidelines.

That concept automatically makes the guidelines into de facto policies! That makes absolutely no sense and if that is the erroneous logic that has infected Wikipedia it explains a great deal. Let's look at this carefully... Wikipedia:Policies and Guidelines says in the introduction "policies are considered a standard that all users should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature." A quick reading of this would render: 

 It is a standard that articles must comply with advisories.

I am not willing to accept that as a meaningful sentence so let's go a bit more in depth. The policy template says a policy is "a widely accepted standard that all users should follow" and the guideline template says a guideline is "a generally accepted standard that editors should follow...". Taking those statements and the quote above we end up with the following: 

 It is a widely accepted standard that articles must comply with generally accepted standards.

Going back to the Policies & Guidelines page we find that the first and most prefered source of Policies is "Documenting actual practices and seeking consensus that the documentation truly reflects practices." It follows then that if the logic of this concept is valid I should be able to successfully create a one sentence policy proposal saying: 

 Articles must comply with advisory guidelines.

I seriously doubt such a proposed policy would get any support. -- Low Sea (talk) 11:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless, here it is. WP:DEL is a policy which for notability purposes effectively says "some articles should be deleted, including those on non-notable topics. What non-notable means is complicated, but see WP:N and the other guidelines for advice". It doesn't mean that the notability guidelines are de facto policies; rather, that they give advice and offer more detail on the intentions and interpretation of one sentence of WP:DEL. They are subject to interpretation as are all guidelines, and can be overridden by consensus. But WP:DEL is a policy. It is policy that articles which fail to meet the notability guidelines should be deleted. So whether or not the notability guidelines are policies is an irrelevance - they don't say articles should be deleted; WP:DEL does. Perhaps WP:DEL should say "articles on non-notable topics; see WP:N and the other notability guidelines for more guidance on how to identify notable and non-notable topics" but the result is the same: Non-notable articles are deleted by policy. Percy Snoodle (talk) 12:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:N and the notability subguidelines are pseudo policy. The reference to notability guidelines in WP:DEL shows this, but this reference is not the underlying reason. In practice, the truth is the fact is that articles are often deleted for failing to meet a notability guideline, or kept for meeting one. Of course, consensus or common sense can be more important than the letter of a policy, but that is a matter of definition of wikipedia policy. WP:N and notability subguidelines are decisively enforced or tested at WP:AfD, and in this way they can be more forcefully enforced (typically on newcomers!) than many core policies. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I think, however, that the larger problem is that because WP:N specifically (not the subguidelines) only gives one method of demonstrating notability (that through coverage of secondary sources) is that "the lack of secondary sources" has become a reason for deletion, and the pseudo-policy that everyone's come to expect. While this is a great, mostly objective metric that can be applied to any article, that predominance that that requirement, and not the requirement to meet the current WP:N guideline, is what is causing a lot of problems. Only a few of the sub-guidelines give a variation on this, but generally the reasoning for the special case is that there will likely be secondary sources for that criteria (eg, an album by a notable band is likely to be notable via WP:MUSIC, on the reasoning that sources will probably at least review the article) I don't know if it's because "notability" has become equivalent to "having secondary sources" in editors' minds, or the current push of cleanup efforts (both harmonious and not-so-harmonious ones), or what, but we have this being a stigma over this guideline.
Again, I think we really need to consider creating a "inclusion" guideline that points to WP:N and its subguides and any other type of mainspace article that are appropriate for inclusion. This needs to work in hand with WP:NOT, for obvious reasons. What ideally this will do is that when people see an article that is non-notable per the current definition (lacking secondary sources) they may need to stop and consider that there are other reasons for the article to be included in WP. This hopefully will reduce the treatment of WP:N as a pseudo-policy and give editors a bit more flexibility to work with a iffy topic in terms of its notability to get it to an encyclopedic treatment that is still worthwhile of inclusion. --MASEM 13:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I’m not sure that we really do need it, and I’m not sure that you can do it, but I would be interested in seeing more flesh on your idea. My feeling is that you’ll be unable to change the use of notability as a reason for deletion. I also think that what you’re saying is that you’d like to have a policy along the lines of WP:EP. Maybe your battleground should be WP:DEL, where more onus might be put on AfD nominators to provide evidence of failure of reasonable attempts to find suitable sources. On the other hand, why shouldn’t articles without suitable sources be deleted? Should articles be allowed to be remain published at wikipedia if they are written off the top of someones head, or if they are based entirely on non-independent sources, or if the work is entirely original research, or a combination of these three failings? If an article is not based on suitable sources, isn’t it dishonest to add sources and pretend that the content is now sourced? Isn’t that dishonest referencing? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a very subtle but I think necessary approach to help remove the stigma of the misconception of "notability" described above. We'll never be able to depreciate notability as a reason for deletion, nor do I think we should, but we should be aiming the thought process from "the article is not notable, thus should be deleted" or "the article is not worthy of inclusion because it is not notable and fails all other inclusion guidelines, and thus should be deleted". Right now, those two phrases mean the same thing beccause "all other inclusion guidelines" is an empty set, or an unwritten empty set, but still I think we need to make sure this is the through process even if there are no other inclusion guidelines. This will help separate "notability" being treated to mean the same as "inclusion", a point that I've seen confuse many new editors.
The other part, with regards to bold, timelines, and the editing process, I think it just needs to be clearer that we should never be tagging (in good faith) an article for AFD if there has been no notification to the editors of it that the article fails notability (or other inclusion guidelines), barring specific cases (BLP). If there's obvious failings, they need to be corrected, but we need to tell people before AFD is started. How much time to wait is likely a function of how bad the article is and how much work would be needed to fix it, and to the degree of how bad it would be to leave the article in that state (eg an article about a currently operating company that is written unfavorably to them would likely need to be fixed faster than other situations) but the time is anywhere from 2 weeks to a month. Failure to fix, or to dishonestly fix it, and then we can talk about taking it to AFD. Notability failures, if the only thing, should be given more time (a month) since it will take time to find appropriate reliable sources for the work. Tagging like this also helps readers to understand the article is not in a perfect state and thus to take information with the right grain of salt. --MASEM 14:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Sounds good. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Picking over the remains of WP:N/CA

Insufficient discussion at Wikipedia:Notability (criminal acts) has led to the proposed guideline being marked as rejected. Some of the work done here was designed to describe how certain notability guidelines and other policy elements interact with each other in regard to the victims of crime, and the crimes themselves, particularly how the articles are focussed. I wanted to point this out in case anyone thought there were elements that could be salavaged and proposed for inclusion in other parts of the notability guidelines. Alternatively, if people have missed this proposal, and want to reopen discussion, feel free to change the tag back to an active proposal. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 15:28, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

This policy has been relisted as active. Please take a look and make comments on the relevant subpages. Best wishes Fritzpoll (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Consensus Question

Would it make sense to impose a waiting period (like 7 days) on articles with questionable notability? Such articles could be flagged asking for edits before determining articles as spurious. (I'll note that articles that are not notable will have few, if any links, to them and will likely not generate much traffic, and so be somewhat self correcting. I would submit that an article that generates a lot of traffic is notable by virtue of the community interest), but wouldn't deletion for notability be something that should be determined by consensus review rather than unilaterally by an admin? HatlessAtless (talk) 18:31, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Who should decide what is notable?

Editors or readers? Have you made any pools what readers expect from Wikipedia? Pseudohuman (talk) 18:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Neither. Reliable sources decide what is notable, because we can only include material that we can cite to reliable sources, per our verifiability policy. Thus, if a topic hasn't been covered in some source, we're unable to write an article about it, without falling foul of our no original research policy. -GTBacchus(talk) 18:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Reliable sources is part of verifiability (or at least i consider it so), another story. Some verifiable articles are deleted, because they are considered nonnotable. Who should decide what verifiable article is notable? Pseudohuman (talk) 20:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The consensus of the community (which is both readers and editors) decided on the standards on this page. They are, of course, constantly evolving. However, they serve as the guide to what we mean on wikipedia when we say notable.Pastordavid (talk) 20:26, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Verifiability and notability aren't really separable. Verifiability is the standard of inclusion for content; notability is the standard of inclusion for an article. If there is a topic about which there's not enough verifiable information to write an encyclopedic article, then that topic is not notable enough to have an article about it. The verifiable information may be included in some article about a topic that is notable enough to sustain an article.

There are various notability criteria for different topics (WP:MUSIC, WP:BIO, WP:WEB, but they mostly boil down to: "Is there non-trivial coverage of this topic in multiple sources that are independent of the subject itself." The reason for that criterion is that, without it, there's not enough verifiable information with which to put together a reasonable encyclopedia article, keeping WP:NOT in mind. My address and phone number are verifiable, and I find them notable and might want Wikipedia to include them, but Wikipedia is not a phone book. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought, that consensus of editors decide about notability. Is voice of readers really heard? I ask who should decide. Wikipedia is not for editors, right? And about "Is there non-trivial coverage of this topic in multiple sources that are independent of the subject itself.": there are still primary sources, right? Primary is also reliable source (in case of fiction it is basic and often only source). And - for example in case of music - maybe readers want to read about obscure bands? Of course there is little reliable information about them, but type of music, language, list of records - all can be taken from primary source. Pseudohuman (talk) 21:41, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Primary sources cannot be used to establish notability, because I am a primary source for myself. Maybe people want to read about obscure bands — but Wikipedia is not the place for that. There are a wide variety of other places out there to read about bands, obscure or otherwise. --Haemo (talk) 22:04, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you are primary source for yourself, it doesn't make you notable, because who want to know your height, weight and hair colour (not much more is verifiable)? Besides that you are very hard to reach source, unlike music of obscure bands, which can be easily downloaded these times (like most of primary sources cited in Wikipedia). And i don't want to discuss what should and what souldn't be considered notable, but who should decide. Pseudohuman (talk) 23:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Whose to say that? I say I'm notable. You say an obscure band is notable. We both have equal sources. Who is right? This question is why we have the notability guidelines that exist — reliable sources. They decide what is notable or not. --Haemo (talk) 23:27, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Remember, that i said, that verifiability is mandatory and some prime sources are easily verifiable (unlike your person). "Whose to say that?" That is very good question :), the one j've just asked in the title of this section. I don't want to discuss here why there are guidelines, and what should they contain. I ask whose to say what should they contain? I may discuss about notability, but i'm consider myself not wise enough to make difficult and delicate decisionsin in this matter. I know, that in real world loudest, slyest orators, skilled in intrigue rule us all. I hope Wikipedia is something different and people here see, that when small number of people (active and involved editors) decide in vague and delicate matters there is danger of errors, if those people are not virtuous enough. I'm just asking what kind of system of decisions would bring the best to Wikipedia - project which affects billions of people. Pseudohuman (talk) 10:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I think the policy you're really addressing here is Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. The scope of Wikipedia is determined by what we've decided it means to be an encyclopedia. It may be that readers would like for the scope of Wikipedia to broaden, to include what we've previously chosen to exclude. If we're willing to just copy primary source material across, then we might be wandering into the realm of "directory" or "content mirror" rather than "encyclopedia". I might ask... why should Wikipedia host all the information you're looking for? Is it possible that some of that would be more appropriately hosted somewhere else? -GTBacchus(talk) 22:15, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't deny, that encyclopedic form should be preserved (so i don't speak about blogs, manuals, and other topics covered by Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not), that is why i discuss here. Articles about fiction, computer games are already mostly "content mirrors" (there is individual article about every single the simpsons episode! - all primary sourced), yet it dones't bother people too much. Encyclopedia is compendium which contains information. Do adding some "directory information" cripple it in some way, or makes less usable? Primary source material isn't appropriate everywhere, and only some things can be reliably covered by it. Why do you worry about only prime source material in wikipedia? There have always been, and there will always be some. Why seek another sources, when there is uber-wikipedia? I suspect, there may be technical issues (like not enough people to care about quality of articles) when more less notable content is allowed, but technical issues discussion shouldn't be mixed with ideological. Ok, so somebody decided what Wikipedia is now. Who should dedide about what is notable in the future? Do editors really represent wisdom in what makes wikipedia best tool for readers? Pseudohuman (talk) 23:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC) Oh, and one more thing - i want to discuss here about who should decide, not what is better. Sorry for digressions. Pseudohuman (talk) 10:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • What you are really asking about is the relationship between notability and worthiness. I think your ultimate question is "Who among us is worthy of determining what articles are worthy of including in an online non-paper encyclopedia encompassing the whole of human knowledge?" Right? -- Low Sea (talk) 12:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it is my question. Interesting and difficult, but after some thinking i don't consider it ultimate. More important (by important i mean usefull) question is: which methods are worthy for creating guidelines. Even if deciders are not the worthiest possible, when they are using right methods, quality of their guidelines, and then quality of articles is much higher. By quality of articles i mean usefulness for the readers. I think, that when deciding about how notable material Wikipedia should contain there should be involved straw pools for editors and readers and serious research work. Of course making wisest and most virtuous wikipedist dictator is the best idea. If only this technical issues of measurement werent so unsolvable... Pseudohuman (talk) 19:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia does not believe in dictatorship or even democracy but rather consensus. It is a messy and time consuming process but usually works well IF the process is not abused by cabals and other's who think WP is a game. One thing missing from the WP variety of the consensus building process is the role of "facilitator", a neutral party who's role is to keep the process moving forward in an organized and fair manner. Instead WP uses rules like WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF to function as preventative guidelines and rules like WP:ARB as punitive response deterents which attempt to fix problems after they have already occured. Probably the single greatest flaw in WP's consensus process is that the consensus group is made up of a tiny number of "interested users" (far less than 100 in most cases) to decide matters affecting tens of thousands of editors. There is no serious concept of quorum in these processes even when it comes to discussing the elevation of guidelines to policies which are supposed to be "widely supported". -- Low Sea (talk) 23:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
All three systems of ruling - democracy, dictatorship, and consensus have pros and cons. So Wikipedia believes in consensus. I fear, that this means, that Wikipedia belives in compromise. I prefer for Wikipedia to believe in truth. You say that less than 100 is tiny? I think, that this number is still huge - it is really difficult to discuss in such a large body. Perhaps the problem is with zealous, but not wise or virtuous enough personalities of members of informal deciding bodies. In real world i observe how even the biggest authorities forget, that they are not experts in everything and should really calmly think about everyone, who is concerned by the issue. And the bigger authority, the bigger backifire of his mistakes. Errors of Aristotle hurt (in some areas) development of civilization for many centuries. Perhaps change of form of Wikipedia governament can help, but even if, such changes are close to impossible, so this deliberation is close to pure theory. Perhaps methods, which are currently used when people are deciding about important issues can be improved. I believe that making pools for readers and editors would help to focus deciders view on requirements of people, and serious research work done by roughly neutral experts may help with separating objective facts from subjective opinions. Pseudohuman (talk) 18:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Some things are not questions of Truth, are not capable of even in principle having an exact definition or answer. One of them is "importance" -- even were we to have a single scale, there is no obvious cutoff. We say "worthy of being in an encyclopedia" but it depends on what sort of an encyclopedia. In paper, it was possible to be arbitrary--you had a budget, and put in as much as you could pay for. The only real limit for us is that we can't put in what nobody is willing to write--but even that isn't quite true, considering the amount of content contributed by bots, and the increasing amount we could download from public domain sources. That's why it must be a compromise--there is no other way of deciding something of this nature. We cannot expect to settle this question, and all we can hope to do is find a way to keep in good humor with each other while we negotiate. DGG (talk) 03:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I have problems with understanding your text DGG. Probably because my bad english. I'll try to answer anyway: But of course - important is very subjective term, in fact it is just big, messy bag of different terms. So perhaps it is error to use it at all, when formulating basic dogmas of what Wikipedia should be. An Encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge - there are no unclear words in basic definition of encyclopedia - it is good base for seeking the truth. If we agree, that "Wikipedia should be internet encyclopedia as usable as it can be" (lets ignore ambiguity here for the sake of simplicity), then - through deduction and research - we may look for how Wikipedia should be build. Then - perhaps - some particular definition of importance will come into existence naturally. Of course we can narrow this deduction, research, and "look for" to some narrow matters (e. g. to "what notability guideline would improve usability of Wikipedia the most?"). I think it is an error to negotiate over vague wikipedian matters, when there there are no objectively examined facts on the table, and the stake is huge (i AGF of course). Pseudohuman (talk) 20:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I hope, that lack of serious response is caused by my weak debate skills and poor english (and perhaps silliness of my thoughts), although i fear, that key wikipedians are too satisfied with current shape of the project to even consider changes in the oldest customs. They say, that lack of competition do that to stuff. Pseudohuman (talk) 10:17, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability policy is stupid

I hate how I see actual singers/artists who are deleted from Wikipedia because they aren't "well known" enough. Yet when you hit random page, you often get a page about some town that nobody even knows about. To me, those towns aren't "notable". I honestly think the "notability" policy has no place on Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.75.59.121 (talk) 21:59, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

There are other mediawiki sites out there without policies such as this.--VectorPotential Talk 22:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, as far as I'm concerned everything anyone could put on wikipedia is as notable as just about anything else. That is to say, almost all of wikipedia isn't notable, so why should we be picky? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.86.166.94 (talk) 14:55, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Notability reinforces other core Wikipedia policies like Verifiability, Neutral point of view, No original research, and What Wikipedia is not. Because there are literally thousands of published periodicals out there, and hundreds of thousands of professional journalists striving to find interesting stories, a truly notable singer or artist with real talent will easily earn media coverage from several publications (and yes, I have worked as a journalist). Wikipedia is not a blog or a soapbox, which implies that it is not a place to highlight the meager accomplishments of hacks and losers. It is an encyclopedia of significant information. Wikipedia's very importance stems from its core policies which keep out the garbage.
As for the small towns which "nobody even knows about," they are notable because they are documented. They are monitored in excruciating detail by numerous government agencies (in the U.S., the Census and the USPS). --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:44, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Newspapers and notability

I would like to propose that newspapers be regarded as automatically notable, in the same way that cities are. For most newspapers, reliable sources exist, but may be hidden behind a paywall or not available in electronic form at all. (In the United States, for example, there is a lot of coverage of newspapers in publications such as Editor & Publisher and Advertising Age.) I mention this because of two AfDs I encountered today, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aajkaal and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rome News-Tribune. The article on the newspaper in Rome, Georgia (the U.S. state) might have been deleted if another editor hadn't had access to a book on the history of newspapers in Georgia, The last linotype: the story of Georgia and its newspapers since World War II. What I want to do is to make sure articles on notable newspapers are kept, because without automatic notability, articles on notable newspapers are going to get deleted. --Eastmain (talk) 22:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Disagree this should be automatic least we make every small town, school, and group newsletter/newspaper gain importance. We can't discriminate for sources that may exist but be behind a paywall.. however, the existence that there is a potential source of notability from behind the paywall should help prevent the article on the newspaper from being deleted. --MASEM 06:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Quotations

I realize that not every piece of an article is subject to the WP:Notability rule, but what about quotations? For example, what if an editor made an article on a web blog or perhaps even got his information published in an article on a website? Is it then worthy of quote? Would it be unneccisary to state his expertise on the subject? This is assuming that the editor does not advertise that he is the original author of those quotes. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 00:32, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE and WP:RELIABLE should cover this, if I understand your question correctly. Generally, blogs and random websites don't seem to count as reliable sources, and posting a quote from one of these sources would potentially be giving undue weight to the person being quoted... I think. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 00:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Multilingual notability

If a topic is notable in one language, is it automatically notable in all languages? For example, would the Phonological history of English low back vowels be notable in, say, Kiswahili? Or would sq:Shpëtim Kastrati be notable in English, just because he is in Shqip? (I'm making an assumption about his notability, here, since I don't speak the Albanian language.) If anyone can offer insight into this question, I'd appreciate it. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 03:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes (which isn't to say that it would notable at all languages' Wikipedias, since each may have different notability standards). But if there are sufficient sources in any language to write an article, I think it belongs in English Wikipedia, if anybody's willing to write it. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:34, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
To say that notability is language-dependent is to introduce systemic bias as explicit policy. This is not acceptable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, AfD discussions do sometimes introduce systemic bias, especially when the only articles on the person are in another language. An editor, for example, can say "if the only articles on this person are in Albanian, it's sufficient to have an article in the Albanian Wikipedia."
Personally, I'd like to see mopre inclusivity; then again, when it comes to culturally-specific articles (say, on Estonian pop-stars or Turkmen TV presenters), I think there should be a line drawn between "notable in Turkmenistan" and "notable in the world" - if there are no articles on a person outside his home country, then perhaps that should indicate that no foreign-language article on him is necessary. But the minute an Albanian is getting press in (say) Macedonia or Italy, then perhaps his notability is worldwide.
However, that still leaves a practical problem - if the sources aren't in English, how can you determine if the article fails WP:V and WP:RS? It's easy if you have editors fluent in the other language(s); but sometimes we just can't find them. And even if we try to be inclusive, Wikipedia still needs to be able to quickly determine whether a Dagestani band's article is spam, or truly on a notable subject.
Perhaps we shouldn't be as deeply concerned with systemic bias when it comes as a result of language barriers. I'm more worried about systemic bias resulting from the dominance of a middle-class high-tech consumerist capitalist American mind-set. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 14:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
AllGlory, much of what you say echoes my own thinking, although I haven't formulated a firm opinion yet. For some topics, it seems that before an individual can care about the topic, they must first have a functional grasp of the language most relevant to the topic.
On the other hand, I want to point out a difference between your (very relevant) point about de facto systemic bias and what Phil Sandifer said about policy-created systemic bias. The bias is there. If we deny that, we're only lying to ourselves. However, the bias is not part of official policy, and ideally we might find a workaround to the de facto bias someday.
In the meantime, though, your point about verifying sources in non-English languages seems to be an important concern. It's hard to reach an informed consensus when the information isn't easily accessible to the community. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 14:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
one way to deal with this is to request translation of key passages.DGG (talk) 15:55, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but I want to echo AllGlory's comment that this is sometimes easier said than done. Although... it seems like unavoidable systemic bias works both ways, here... if a particular source in a particular language is hard to translate because of a scarcity of translators, then probably no one is trying to use that source because they can't understand it either. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 17:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
That difficulty is the same one as we face with offline sources. In either case, we need to trust the qualified editors (those that speak the language/those with access to the offline source) that their edits reflect the sources. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 16:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Assuming good faith on the part of the few who can translate. I understand. I am grateful to everyone who helped me comprehend this aspect of WP:N. I had seen a few non-English pop culture topics come up, lately, and now I think I understand why we keep them despite little recognition in the English-speaking world. I'll watch this page for a while longer if anyone adds anything. Again, thanks! Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 17:03, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Qualifying when notability does not apply

To the section Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content, I recently added a sentence [7] to attempt to prevent a selective reading of the guideline:

Depending on the particular content, these policies and guidelines may demand that content should meet specific notability criteria, such as the availability of multiple supporting independent reliable sources.

My concern is that a selective reading of this section may otherwise lead new editors to conclude that there is no threshhold at all for notability of, e.g., sections of articles, paragraphs, etc. The purpose of the section, it seems to me, is not to give editors carte blanche, but to indicate that there are other policies which apply to content within articles. Among these policies is that of WP:RS which, among other things, does require that multiple independent reliable sources should be given for certain types of content. I ask that this statement be restored to the article, since I feel that it adds important qualification to this section. silly rabbit (talk) 14:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

It's quite simple really; notability applies to the topic of an article, not its content. WP:V and, thus, WP:RS make requirements for actual content, but they do not give any requirement for multiple, nor independent, sources (although they are almost always preferred). SamBC(talk) 14:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The "Nutshell" description of WP:RS is that multiple independent reliable sources should be used. Again, I don't see how my addition contradicts anything in the current guideline, or in Wikipedia policy. It does, however, make clear that the existence of this section of the WP:N guideline is not a license to insert material which is not "notable", rather that there are other content guidelines and policies which must be adhered to, even in assessing the notability of the content. Certainly, inherently unnotable content should also be avoided within articles. But given that there are a variety of types of content, there is a lot more latitude in deciding what is and is not suitable. silly rabbit (talk) 15:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Let's go hypothetical. Say we have a notable film called "Bob the Dog"; there would be an article on the film. There's lots of coverage of the film, but only a little, possibly indirect, coverage of the character of the dog, or even possibly the dog who played the dog. However, that little coverage gives verifiability to content that is relevant. It is then perfectly acceptable to put information on the character or the "real" dog in the article on "Bob the Dog". SamBC(talk) 15:36, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, the nutshell of WP:RS says "This page in a nutshell: Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" (emphasis added); not each fact, and "multiple" is only implied by pluralisation. It is also perfectly permissible to use first-party sources (and primary sources) for any given piece of information, just not (generally) for a whole article. SamBC(talk) 15:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I think reading WP:RS by emphasizing the word articles is unduly narrow. Certainly no one is claiming that every individual sentence must be attributed to multiple independent sources. But what about whole paragraphs? entire sections? As a case in point, I recently removed a section from the article cross compiler, citing WP:RS and WP:V concerns in the edit summary. On the user's (DavidBParker (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)) talk page, I cited notability as another applicable criterion. He, however, cited this section of the notability guideline as though it vindicated his addition of this material which was only attributed to the primary commercial site www.flamingthunder.com. I'd like to at least try to firm up this guideline against this kind of silly wikilawyering abuse. silly rabbit (talk) 17:34, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, notability wasn't a reason to remove it, as notability doesn't limit the content of articles, only their existence; perhaps you're thinking of WP:UNDUE, or at least the spirit of it? SamBC(talk) 17:46, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
WP:UNDUE is a corollary of the neutral point of view, and I wasn't thinking of this as a reason for the removal of the article. Assertions of notability are often used (perhaps misused) as reasons for removing content from articles that fails to pass a certain basic threshhold of ... um ... notability [in the plain-English sense]. The edit summary "rv: not notable" is used quite often, although I doubt I myself have used it in a very long time, nor do I think I have ever used it as the sole or primary reason for removing content. Nevertheless, I typically don't have any quarrel with editors who do use this as a litmus-test for inclusion, since I believe that there are de facto standards of notability of content within an article, regardless of what the recommendation of this guideline is. That said, there is a school of thought that feels that content guidelines should be descriptive rather than prescriptive. These guidelines are meant to reflect the overall standards endorsed by the community, and a large part of the community seems to implicitly feel that notability is an important editorial criterion for limiting content. silly rabbit (talk) 18:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
To continue the example cited above, in this case, the only source for the content given was the website www.flamingthunder.com. Not a reliable source, and certainly not enough to establish that the cross compiler Flaming Thunder stands in significant relation (i.e., notability) compared to the other compilers listed on the page (e.g., gcc, Microsoft C, etc.) silly rabbit (talk) 19:06, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The guidelines do describe the standards, just not in the places you think they should. In that case, as you describe it, there were no reliable sources to verify that the product was not given undue weight; don't forget that WP:UNDUE says that it applies to things other than viewpoints, even though it is in the NPOV policy. The only way policies and guidelines could conform with the way users refer to them would be to be a complete mess of inconsistency. SamBC(talk) 19:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm having a problem with the Location of Atlantis article -- someone has discovered that a guru or mystic once mentioned that he thought Atlantis was off the coast of the Netherlands. Now the guru is notable, and I have no reason to think that he hasn't written about it in any of his many books, but no one else seems to have discussed his comments on Atlantis. So, it is likely that the fact he mentions a location for Atlantis can be verified, but I don't think that the article should have every possible location anyone has casually mentioned that can be verified, but only those that have at least some external discussion (external to the author), in other words, some notability. I don't see how notability can be irrelevant to an article's content. (and I've gotten caught up elsewhere in a debate over notability where someone is trying to reinsert the content of an article deleted due to lack of notability into another article, thus getting around the deletion).--Doug Weller (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I think SamBC is basically right, that the "notability" you and I mean is rooted in the WP:UNDUE policy guideline. However, it makes me uneasy since UNDUE is nominally a part of the WP:NPOV policy. Perhaps WP:N should at least mention WP:UNDUE in the section under discussion as a "notability" criterion for content within articles which lies outside the notability guideline itself. silly rabbit (talk) 14:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Yes but that sort of thing is covered by the neutral point of view policy specifically where is says "Articles that compare views should not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views, and will generally not include tiny-minority views at all". The notability guideline is about the suitability of topics for being included in wikipedia not prescribing the actual content in the article but perhaps just adding onto the end of the sentence "and maintaining a neutral point of view" ie. "The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standards of the notability guidelines; instead, article content is governed by other policies and guidelines, such as the policy requiring Verifiability and the guidelines covering the use of reliable sources, trivia sections and maintaining a neutral point of view." Davewild (talk) 14:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Some would argue that briefly mentioning something like the Atlantis reference would not be giving it "undue weight." This seems ambiguous to me. I've seen similar discussions where a general topic has, somewhere in the article, a brief mention that "Terry Pratchett has parodied X in his novel Y." Terry Pratchett = very notable. Topic X = very notable. Novel Y = very notable. Yet mention of Terry Pratchett's novel Y on article about topic X = very out of place. "Undue weight" is ambiguous (the editor wasn't arguing that Pratchett's opinion is an extremely important one) but "non-notable content" is very easy to understand, I think. Sorry for the abundance of = signs. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 14:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Aha, I just saw the "tiny minority" quote above. Still, how about simply rephrasing the statement in question:
"Depending on the particular content, these policies and guidelines may demand that content should meet specific notability criteria, such as the availability of multiple supporting independent reliable sources."
could read:
Depending on the particular content, these policies and guidelines (along with the undue weight guidelines) may demand that content should meet specific criteria. Care should be taken to read these policies and guidelines before adding information of questionable notability to any article.
...or something like that. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 15:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, here it is, plain and simple: Notability, in the sense used on wikipedia, is only of relevence to subjects of articles. It is not acceptable to bring fringe ideas, products, etc into articles as sections, because of WP:UNDUE, among other things. There are also the rules against promotional material as well. Just because notability doesn't say it's not allowed, doesn't mean it is allowed. It not being notable isn't a reason to remove it, except if you're using "notable" in a general, every day sense, in which case you shouldn't point at WP:N. This isn't about what is or isn't allowed, it's about knowing which policies and guidelines say what. SamBC(talk) 15:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you are demonstrably wrong. Notability in the sense used by WP:N is only of relevance to the subjects of articles. However, there is another obviously legitimate use of the English word notability among editors of Wikipedia, which may not be directly supported by the policy of that name. That was the point of my prescriptive versus descriptive remark above. It may be the case that WP:UNDUE is enough to pick up the slack, but I still feel that the following issues are significant: (1) the English word "notability" does refer to certain de facto standards that editors use in determining the suitability of content, and that such invocations of the word "notability" in content-disputes are at least as common as in deletion discussions. (2) These standards are often supported by policy (in one place or another), perhaps WP:UNDUE or a a corollary to WP:RS. But (3), in light of (1) and (2), a logical place to describe the content guideline as it is used by a significant portion of editors is on the WP:N page, if only for the purpose of linking to the relevant policy. silly rabbit (talk) 15:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
SamBC: I think I understand the distinction you make. Do you think WP:N should point readers more firmly in the direction of those other policies and guidelines (especially WP:UNDUE)? After all, many prospective editors are likely to be ignorant of the distinction between Wikipedia notability and everyday notability, and they might expect WP:N to discuss all policies and guidelines relevant to what may or may not be important enough to be included in an article. I did. (silly rabbit: is this the point you're making, or am I off on a tangent?) Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 15:57, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
That might be a good idea; there are perennial discussions about the naming of these guidelines, but this one usually sticks, and changing its meaning isn't likely to fly either; however, linking to and otherwise mentioning other policies and guidelines relevant to the more general concept of notability may help. SamBC(talk) 18:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree. There have been a few suggestions in this thread about how to mention the concept; the one I suggested unfortunately refers to "information of questionable notability," which seems to use "notability" out of the context of existing policy/guidelines. Can we re-word an existing suggestion to better serve our needs, or should we start fresh? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 18:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Try to think of other words that mean (effectively) the same thing, but aren't used in policy/guidelines. How about "importance", or maybe "relevance" (although ISTR an attempt at a guideline on that). SamBC(talk) 08:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
How about:
Depending on the particular content, these policies and guidelines (along with the undue weight guideline) may require that content meet specific criteria. Care should be taken to read these policies and guidelines before adding information of questionable importance or relevance to any article.
Any objections? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 00:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, it looks good to me, and completely addresses my original concern. Thanks. silly rabbit (talk) 01:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
It should more be along the lines of "in some cases, other policies and guidelines", as it's only other policies that require it. This shouldn't be a way of making it correct to tell people that their section is inappropriate per WP:N. SamBC(talk) 14:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
In the context of the existing article, is this necessary? Here's how it looks in context:
Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles (with the exception of lists of people). The particular topics and facts within an article are not each required to meet the standards of the notability guidelines; instead, article content is governed by other policies and guidelines, such as the policy requiring verifiability and the guidelines covering the use of reliable sources and of trivia sections. Depending on the particular content, these policies and guidelines (along with the undue weight guideline) may require that content meet specific criteria. Care should be taken to read these policies and guidelines before adding information of questionable importance or relevance to any article.
(I only italicized the addition for ease of identification.) I think it's clear that "these policies" are not talking about WP:N. I don't mind making the change you suggest; I just want to be sure that it's an improvement. I also de-capitalized "verifiability" in the existing text... is that a mistake? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 19:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Oops, yes, you're right, it's fine. SamBC(talk) 20:10, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Added revision to main article. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 22:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
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