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Mayors of small towns

See Minden, Louisiana. There are several articles about mayors of Minden who have no other notability. Is being the mayor of a small town sufficient notability to have an article? Little Red Riding Hoodtalk 02:23, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Probably. See WP:POLITICIAN.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 04:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Significant coverage / sources

In order for it to be true that Wikipedia is not a directory, the notability guideline needs to exclude the possibility that a single reference—even if it addresses a subject directly and in detail—not be sufficient if that source is any directory or exhaustive list. Many reliable sources, such as business directories, geographical sources, and many other categories of reference material, go out of their way to be specific and detailed, and literally comprehensive. Permitting citation of such a work as the sole or even main demonstration of notabily completely flies in the face of WP:NOTDIR. Clarification could be added to the definition or footnote of either "significant coverage" or "sources". Any thoughts? Bongomatic 14:36, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Guidelines already cover this. Here are just five examples.
  • General notability guidelines, definition of "Significant coverage", footnote 1 says "Examples: The 360-page book by Sobel and the 528-page book by Black on IBM are plainly non-trivial. The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton (Martin Walker (January 6, 1992). "Tough love child of Kennedy", The Guardian. ) is plainly trivial."
  • Wikipedia:Notability (people), "Basic Criteria", footnote 6 says "Non-triviality is a measure of the depth of content of a published work, and how far removed that content is from a simple directory entry or a mention in passing that does not discuss the subject in detail. A credible 200-page independent biography of a person that covers that person's life in detail is non-trivial, whereas a birth certificate or a 1-line listing on an election ballot form is not. Database sources such as Notable Names Database, Internet Movie Database and Internet Adult Film Database are not considered credible since they are, like wikis, mass-edited with little oversight. Additionally, these databases have low, wide-sweeping generic standards of inclusion.".
  • Wikipedia:Notability (music), "Criteria for musicians and ensembles", criteria one, under the "exceptions" you find "Works comprising merely trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report performance dates, release information or track listings, or the publications of contact and booking details in directories"
  • Wikipedia:Notability (books), "This page in a nutshell", footnote 1 says "The "subject" of a work means non-trivial treatment and excludes mere mention of the book, its author or of its publication, price listings and other nonsubstantive detail treatment."
  • Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), "Primary criteria", under the "except" section it says "Works carrying merely trivial coverage; such as (for examples) newspaper articles that simply report meeting times or extended shopping hours, or the publications of telephone numbers, addresses, and directions in business directories."
Are you saying this needs to be made more clear? Or are you saying that subject specific guidlines need to be more specific towards Wikipedia is not a directory policy, "For example, an article on a radio station generally should not list upcoming events, current promotions, phone numbers, current schedules, et cetera..."? Soundvisions1 (talk) 17:11, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm saying both. Here's an example from a recent AfD. The article references the subject's inclusion in Jane's Simulation and Training Systems. In the nomination, the nominating editor (me) wrote "Jane's is meant to be a comprehensive compendium, which doesn't limit its lists to notable entries, so [the subject's inclusion there] doesn't demonstrate notability".
Another (I believe quite experienced) editor replied, "I don't know where the nominator gets the idea that Jane's doesn't count as a reliable source for notability purposes - the existence of such a source is what counts, not the motives of its publisher".
Neither footnote 1 to the GNG nor the overly narrow definition of "trivial" coverage in business directories captures this, and (contrary to the point suggested by the commentator to the AfD just mentioned), I think the motives of the publisher are highly relevant towards establishing whether coverage in a source is evidence of notability. Specifically, if there is no editorial judgment required for inclusion in a source, that source does not demonstrate that any knowledgeable person in any field believes the subject to be notable.
In the product description for Jane's Simulation and Training Systems, it specifically states "this comprehensive reference provides details of the individual component systems, image generation, visual display including head-mounted (VR) displays, motion systems, controls, sound, trackers and touch-sensitive devices." However, the coverage in this sort of publication is extremely detailed (not like phone numbers, schedules, etc.). So even coverage with a high level of detail doesn't always provide a clue as to the subject's notability.
These guidelines (or their margins, anyway) seem to work by example rather than by principle, and it seems to me that "editorial discretion" or "editorial judgment" is a principle that actually helps in many cases where there is no enumerated example exactly on point.
(Note: I hope it's clear that I'm not suggesting that such sources are not useful for verifying facts about subjects of WP articles.)
Thoughts? Bongomatic 00:56, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
It depends on what it's an exhaustive list of. If it's a list of things that are essentially always notable, and the source provides significant information enough to write at least the stub of an article, the notability is demonstrated. Obviously more sources should be searched for, but that one specific source should be sufficient. A list of, for example, people who served in a some country's national parliament, but about a person for whom we have no other information source at present, is fully sufficient to show notability. In the example given above, Jane's various editions are in practice limited to those things for which there is some significant presence in the field being covered, and have been considered the best RS for many of them for a century now. I'd accept anything in a Jane's as notable. DGG (talk) 22:57, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
I would really like some other people's views on this. DGG's logic is:
  1. Jane's (for example) covers only things for which there is a significant presence in a field.
  2. Things that have a significant presence in any field whatsoever are notable for the purposes of WP.
Both of these propositions are flawed. The first proposition is contradicted by the language of Jane's own product descriptions. Take this example from the product description for Jane's Ammunition Handbook:
Jane's Ammunition Handbook is the authoritative reference guide for military and police ammunition in service, in stock and under development, from pistol rounds to artillery. This comprehensive resource provides informed analysis of product developments and commercial history, as well as technical descriptions, specifications and illustrations for ease of recognition. With Jane's Ammunition Handbook, your procurement and research needs are also supported through the original manufacturers' details and expert reference tables to confidently confirm small arms identification.
Key contents include:
  • Small arms
  • Projected grenades
  • Riot Control
  • Cannon
  • Tank and Anti-Tank
  • Naval and Coast Defence
  • Mortars
  • Field Artillery and Rockets
  • Fuses
  • Cartridge Identification Tables
Note that this is only the "key" content—there's more! Clearly Jane's intends to provide reference information (presumably detailed) for even non-significant ammunition in order to be a "comprehensive" guide for various purposes (such as forensic work, where every known bullet needs to be cataloged).
But even for a type of ammunition for which there is a "significant presence in the field" is non-notable. If there are 100 different types and brands of .45 ammunition in widespread use in police departments around the world (there are 42 pages of handgun ammunition described in detail, with numerous entries for a page, so this doesn't seem unlikely), or twenty different types and brands of 81mm mortar shells (the book has 25 pages, so this seems like a significant underestimate) in use in militaries around the world, then each of them merits its own article under this logic. Common sense (at least mine) dictates that this is not a desirable outcome.
The example from the above AfD is no less troubling. Jane's has 118 products (by my count). Many of these are traditional directories works (i.e., lists of detailed entries), although many are not (there are lots of handbooks). The ones I've inspected are quite lengthy. Each product summary I've reviewed, states that the product seeks to be "comprehensive"--intentionally lacking in editorial selection. It is inconceivable to me that every entity or product detailed in Jane's Aircraft Component Manufacturers, Jane's Airports and Handling Agents - Far East, Asia and Australasia, or Jane's Armour and Artillery Upgrades (just to name some of the "A"s) should have a WP entry, or that a WP entry about such an entity or product should withstand CSD, Prod, or AfD solely (or even largely) on the basis of its inclusion therein. Bongomatic 00:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

← Ok, now I am confused at what the question is. Are you asking if a catalog that contains a "list" of entires can be used to verify that the "item" exists? Or are you asking if a catalog that contains a "list" of entires can be used to establish notability in order for that entry to have an article on Wikipedia? Soundvisions1 (talk) 01:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I am suggesting that the guideline be explicit that notability cannot be established through inclusion in a list that explicitly states its intention to be "comprehensive" or "exhaustive"--regardless of how detailed the list entry is, or however well-established the publisher of the list. Those lists can of course be used for verification of information (and indeed are ideal for that purpose). but (I suggest) without editorial discretion (which is disclaimed in the case of a compendium that adverts to be comprehensive or exhaustive), notability cannot be inferred. Is that any more clear? Bongomatic 06:48, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Got it. This is more of a discussion for Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources in that case. And I see nothing specific about catalogs being a reliable source or at Wikipedia:Reliable source examples so it something should be addressed. I would suggest making a new topic at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources with a clearly defined suggestion of wording. Perhaps a footnote to the "Usage by other sources" section it could be added that would follow one of the above mentioned footnotes. Thanks got pointing this out. Soundvisions1 (talk) 14:20, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the comment. WP:Reliable sources adverts to being primarily about verifiability and no original research. Of course it is also referenced from WP:N. However, I don't dispute the utility of such sources for verification or non-originality of research--only for demonstrating notability. And the by conventional meaning of the words, these are "reliable sources". So I'd say that really, this is a notability issue. I'm not suggesting this language be adopted, but what I mean is that notability criterion should mean, "If a topic has received significant, editorially selective coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article," with a footnote on "editorially selective" referencing the concepts above. Bongomatic 15:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

← Using a source to verify somehting in not the same as using a source to establish notability. Going back up to what we both have said about using a catalog to verify somehting exists - that does not seem the be the core issue. What needs to be established is if a subject appears in a catalog can that listing be used to establish notability. Before any discussion gets to that point it should be established if the source is ok, and that is what would send it to WP:Reliable sources, which is a guideline. All guidelines will lead back to Wikipedia Policies, but it is the guidlines the go more into detail based on subject. As long as any guideline on a catalog being allowed or disallowed as a source falls into line with policy is would be fine. Notability of a subject may parallel that subject being notable as a source but does not automatically mean the subject is, or can be used as, a source to establish notability. Soundvisions1 (talk) 15:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting a source-by-source review, but rather a principle that even acknowledged "reliable sources" that exhaustive in nature not be cited for notability. I'm not sure how discussions on the reliablity of certain sources advances these disussions. The examples I mentioned are all uncontroversial as "reliable sources" (Jane's, as DGG alluded to, is the gold-standard reference for the topics it coverers. While I don't suggest all directories are "reliable sources"), it seems to make more sense to discuss the principle at issue in the context of acknowledged "exhaustive" reliable sources rather than getting side-tracked on which "exhaustive" sources are deemed to be reliable. Bongomatic 00:09, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
I like to think of this as "Navin Johnson Notability." The phone book can be argued to be a reliable secondary source, but just because your name is in it that doesn't make you notable. I believe that "substantial coverage" should explicitly exclude entries in directories. Either that or you could think of a directory as a primary source and the question is moot. SDY (talk) 00:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

I think you are miscategorizing Jane's from the very beginning. The Jane's Guides cannot reasonably be classified as directories. They contain far too much detail. They should each be considered as a specialized encyclopedia on their respective topics. And, to quote from What Wikipedia is, "incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers" summarizes what the notability guideline should try to include. Would we allow an article to cite an entry from Britannica to be used to establish notability? If so, then Jane's should be considered equally valid. Jim Miller See me | Touch me 01:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a terrific example of reasoning from the conclusion. The unsubstantiated premise of the argument is that Jane's publications are "specialized encyclopedias", and from that the conclusion is drawn that all of their entries are encyclopedic. Not a very helpful syllogism in the discussion. My claim (based not on rhetoric, but on specific examples that are enumerated above) is that (at least many of) Jane’s publications are directory-like. To generate an informed discourse on this topic, it may be helpful for commentators to review sample pages from ABC Aerospace Directory or Ammunition Handbook (registration, but no payment required) prior to commenting on the nature of entries in such publications. While I have made this point repeatedly before, many of Jane's products specifically claim to be "comprehensive", explicitly disclaiming editorial discretion in the selection of entries. Bongomatic 02:05, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Here's a great example. By the time you read this, I hope that Raj Hamsa Ultralights will be a redlink. However, the company has an entry in Jane's. Bongomatic 05:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Reference library category

In order to help facilitate easier location of potential sources of offline information to help verify the notability of article subjects and contents, I have created Category:WikiProject reference libraries and placed into it all of the reference library pages of which I am aware. Please add more project reference libraries to this category if you know of more. Additionally, feel free to create new reference library pages for any particular project as well. They can be very useful. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 20:05, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

need some context on the RFC (1: inherited notability, and 2: specific notability guidelines)

A quick update on the recent RFC. This dispute has been long and heated, so the reality is that we needed a detached and objective third-party party to analyze the results of the RFC. The great news is that the analysis is already underway, after some delay. (Wikipedia is based on volunteer work, so we're at the mercy of our volunteers' schedules. I have the highest thanks for them taking on this difficult task.) Their analysis will be complete in due time.

One analyst has made a request for some historical context of this RFC. It's not only to help him understand the underlying philosophies that led to this RFC... but it's also to document the history for other Wikipedians. If other Wikipedians want to participate in closing this dispute, or if we should actually close the dispute successfully, other Wikipedians will need to understand how the dispute started and progressed.

So with that, I'm requesting that other Wikipedians help put together a *short* history of the events that led to the RFC in September. Here's my attempt...

Notability has a long history. But I think things came to a head roughly in April or May, when notability guidelines were being criticized on two fronts: at the general level and at the specific level.

  1. Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 23: ongoing discussions about notability: why do we need it, where is it failing, and so on.
  2. [1]: ongoing disputes over fictional articles leads to an RFC on WP:FICT. The proposal ended in no consensus, with people on both sides taking a hard line for or against notability.
  3. [2]: the discussions boiled over and merged, resulting in extreme polarization. ("Delete WP:N" versus "HELL NO".)
  4. [3]: people tried to inject a little bit of reason into the discussion, and try to identify underlying goals and interests.
  5. [4]: people began to propose compromises that would relax WP:N, without destroying WP:N. Incidentally, a lot of these proposals focused on two issues: SNGs and "inherited" notability.
  6. Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise: after some discussion and further work, a few proposals are put out to the broader community to find common ground on those two issues.

I think that sums up the history of the debate pretty well. But I'm interested if anyone has anything to add. (And please, pretty please, I'd like to do this without re-living the frustration and anguish of the lengthy debate, and the RFC itself.) Randomran (talk) 07:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Most of it is centered around FICT. Around May 2007 WP:N was updated to basically state that notability was presumed with reliable secondary sources, while at the time FICT was basically a more detailed rewrite of the Minor Characters deletion discussion. After that fiction-related articles started to see various pushes to remove topics that failed the new GNG, a lot lead by efforts from TTN. FICT realized that the GNG and the then-current version of FICT were not compatible, and efforts were made to try to improve it (mid-summer 2007 though Feb 2008). During that time there was the first Ep & Char ArbCom case involving TTN that pushed a lot of attention onto FICT, which I believe also lead to the episode discussion. The proposed version of FICT with its RFC occurred around the same time as the second Ep & Char arbcom case. The proposed FICT failed, but it became clear that it was because it was an issue of really what WP:N meant and thus the bulk of the discussion worked there to ask the basic questions that affect all SNGs enough though the bulk of the issue was with FICT. --MASEM 13:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Guidance

Before I go to the effort of creating the article, can I ask whether people think Dr Kaveh Moussavi is a notable person? He is the coordinator of the University of Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies's Public Interest Law Programme. What makes him interesting is his involvement in a number of legal disputes, chronicalled here regarding corruption and big business in Mexico and Iran. He is also involved in various Iranian human rights initiatives such as this here. What do people think? AndrewRT(Talk) 22:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

It's borderline. It would be notable, but it would probably be a stub. The mention in the Guardian is good, but you need more like it. Randomran (talk) 23:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Notability a hostage to quantification not qualification

I've been noticing a small but from my perspective disturbing trend of Baltic (and I'm sure it happens elsewhere) articles being nominated for deletion because companies are not big enough, there aren't "enough" Google matches in English, etc. This frankly kills any initiative to develop any such articles and indirectly perpetuates us going back to the same old never ending conflicts over the presentation of the Soviet legacy in Eastern Europe. It would be nice to work on something less significant, but not if everything is going to be subject to Baltic = obscure = delete. (Or fill in your other geography that is a bit off the beaten path.) I know all about the WP:ALPHABETSOUP, so in this one little corner can we please leave WP:JARGON out of the conversation? Thanks in advance. -PētersV (talk) 03:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Put another way, the role of an encyclopedia is to fill in the obscure corners, not to replicate—i.e., perpetuate—the emptiness of culturally biased obscurity. -PētersV (talk) 03:24, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Notability is only affected by language in how much we take reliable sources in other languages - which should be "no effect", presuming that steps have been made to help translate foreign sources. Yes, it's en.wiki, and if the only sources are in a different language and no attempt to show translation is made, it's hard to verify, but foreign sources alongside English ones should be ok, both for validity and for notability. --MASEM 04:12, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
If people are ignoring foreign sources when looking at notability, that's the fault of editors, not policy. Admittedly, this is a difficult thing to do. But there's no systemic bias in notability. There's a volunteer bias, with the kind of wikipedians we have now. That's something we solve by getting more Wikipedians from all cultures / language groups / etc. ... If people are being rough on you for non-English material, I hope you can bring it to the attention of deletion reviewers, or what not. Or bring it here. Sometimes it's important to have a guideline that states the obvious. Randomran (talk) 06:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Hello, Gavin. We have the...
  • Generally "weak keep" discussion on MicroTik, apparently we only care about juggernaut multinationals.
  • There was the speedy deletion of Harald Siiak by Amused Response although four editors protested.
  • There was the speedy deletion of Category: Estonian choirs. This would be a great area to get author involvement to create a whole category of articles. Singing choirs and dancing ensembles are the cultural heart and soul in all three Baltic states. The only way we can foster teamwork to create articles in the Baltic space is to put out the skeletons and encourage editors to fill them in. Everyone has access to slightly different sources.
  • There was also a speedy deletion recently regarding an Estonian choir, but it escapes me at the moment.
Unfortunately to not create a double standard one must, at least, indulge that more obscure articles need to be allowed an opportunity to grow in the open. These are not speedy deletes on article discussing the typeface used in imprinting hockey pucks.-PētersV (talk) 02:40, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
You are not alone. Deletionists seem to think that Singaporean = non-notable. As a result, Singapore-related articles are often inappropriately AFDed or even speedied. The deletion processes are systemically biased. --J.L.W.S. The Special One (talk) 10:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
I sympathise with the frustration expressed here. The problem is that over 90% of articles listed at WP:AfD really are rubbish, so few people apart from ideological deletionists (grrRRR!) and the editors of the threatened articles pay any attention. However if you have 2-4 WP:RS supporting notability, defend these articles vigorously. Some tactics:
  • Make them an offer they can't be seen to refuse. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Precambrian rabbit for an example.
  • If you have a few WP:RS supporting notability, list them in the AfD discussion and immediately suggest that the AfD nonimation is WP:SNOW, see e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Sustainable Energy Days.
  • Ask the would-be deleters how long they think it would take them to improve the article to a state of unquestioned notability, and quote "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion" from Wikipedia:Delete#Alternatives_to_deletion - see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/World Sustainable Energy Days.
  • If the problem is that several WP:RS assume the article's topic is well known and do not "address the subject directly in detail" (a favourite legalism of deletionists), point out that that topic is so notable that the sources thought it unnecessary to explain in detail. Be prepared to wear them down on this. See for example Talk:4X/Archive 1.
  • Post requests for help on the Talk pages of all Wikiprojects that are relevant - e.g. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers in the case of Harald Siiak.
  • Deny the hyenas easy prey. Develop preliminary versions of articles as sub-pages of your user page, and only put them up when they are less helpess targets - a good taarget level would be 500 words with 2-3 refs to show notability. It doesn't take much to scare deletionists away. I've written at least 3 stubs with 1 ref each, and had no problems.
  • Then look for other articles that should link to them and link them in. That enables you to quote the "what links here" report in the AfD discussion.
  • See the hints given at speedy deletion of Harald Siiak. --Philcha (talk) 13:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for your constructive suggestions and sharing your experiences. :-) —PētersV (talk) 01:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I really love what Philcha and Randomran are saying here. Here's an ongoing deletion review [5] that was caused by a 2nd AfD that should have never taken place if merely the deletionist in question would have allowed improvement of the article. The original article in question was "speedy deleted" for lack of credible sources to establish notability after being listed here on Wikipedia for over two years and having endured an AfD before. When the sources were added during the 2nd AfD, the admin would delete them and eventually block them, including a link on the Univesity of Texas, San Antonio's list of notable alumni [6] here on Wikipedia (Wikipedia approved pages should be a credible source, especially from the University of Texas school system) where the notability of the person (article in question) was clearly established by the university. Not to mention the Wikipedia notability guidelines specifically states notability is not temporary [7]. Furthermore, the article in question is about a photographer and author of three photography books, Wikipedia states that "The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, which has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." qualifies them for notability. Gomez's books are cited in at least three other books and in independent periodical articles. Not to mention, the first book has 48 reviews on Amazon.com alone. When the article survived the first AfD, only one book was authored at the time. The time used to battle the 2nd AfD would be better spent to improve the article instead of wasting everyones time in these AfD's and future deletion reviews. The "notability" standard in Wikipedia is faulty perhaps because sociological factors that cause one editor to perceive one meaning and another editor to perceive another meaning. Perhaps a clear, bullet-style checklist in the format that Philcha did above could be a solution to help reduce misinterpretations. --72.191.15.133 (talk) 20:25, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

(od) 8 minutes from creation to non-notability here. "Sociological" factors (mostly Anglo-culture still reigns supreme, better stated as I haven't heard of it so no one else cares either, QED) would be the issue, precisely. Notability has been defined in such a way to allow for deletion of spurious articles, whether on made-up-topics or someone's completely non-notable aunt Sarah. Unfortunately, this quantification-based means for determining "notability" in that regard works ONLY for Anglo-cultural items, not for anything else, where it's simply a bludgeon indiscriminately applied by people who think they are contributing by deleting. -PētersV (talk) 01:03, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

The Graysons

The Graysons, a failed tv show proposal, has been nominated for deletion. More editor opinion is greatly appreciated.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 14:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

What's interesting here is that the article, by any standard, passes WP:N between [8] and [9], as well as [10]. If this article is deleted despite that, it seems to me to speak to a fundamental problem with the basic definition of notability here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:01, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Does notability have to be in the real-world?

I'm wondering about the article Bruenor Battlehammer. One user (User:Gavin.collins argues that the article's notability is not established because quote "What is required [to establish notability] is real-world content that provides context, analysis or criticism cited from reliable secondary source as evidence of notability. "

The sources in the article provide references for in-universe material, but they are still reliable secondary sources. Is there anything in the notability guidelines saying that reliable secondary sources also have to provide real-world content to establish notability? Thanks! -Drilnoth (talk) 22:39, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If they provide references for in-universe material, they are still primary, though third-party sources, since they are still talking about the work itself. That's why notability is based on secondary sources - what is the out-of-universe information about the topic at hand? --MASEM 22:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
The specific instance regards citations for the following lines: "During their efforts to regain this lost dwarven stronghold, Bruenor slays the shadow dragon Shimmergloom." and "Bruenor is the adoptive father of Catti-brie and Wulfgar, King of Mithral Hall, friend to Drizzt" They are both referenced with reliable secondary sources (they aren't primary), even though they both describe in-universe text.
The article, at this time, contains very little out-of-universe information, but that's a problem that needs to be dealt with by an {{in-universe}} tag and cleanup, rather than a {{notability}} tag and cleanup, right? Shouldn't the reliable secondary sources establish notability, even if they're in-universe? -Drilnoth (talk) 23:06, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
If that's what the source is saying, they are still primary. The primary/secondary consideration is how the topic is dealt with, and if the reference still talks about the topic in-universe, it is primary. It is a third-person source, however. --MASEM 00:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
MASEM, I think you should clarify your reasoning on primary and secondary sources. Taking an "in universe" perspective does not automatically make a source primary. For example much academic literary criticsm is "in universe" (e.g. whether Hamlet had an Oedipus complex, or whether Macbeth made his own decisions or was under his wife's thumb).
With computer games, I'd regard the manuals, written by technical writers and based on info gained from the developers and from playing beta versions, as secondary sources. It's more difficult with non-computer games that offer similar gameplay, since for non-computer games it's probably true to say that the manual is the game. For non-computer games I'd only be confident that sources independent of the game's publisher are secondary sources, and material from the publisher would have to be looked at case-by-case.
Back to Drilnoth's question about notability, on a common-sense basis I'd say that "in universe" information does not establish notability. The issue is whether there's good evidence that people independent of the developers consider the game worthy of notice. Types of evidence include: awards by independent organisations; favourable reviews, preferably reviews that comment on distinctive aspects of the game (game reviews have ot be treated with caution, as many are too bland or even flattering); sales figures, if you can get them ("X was the 4th fastest selling game of genre Y in 2008"); comments by other developers that game X influenced them; etc. --Philcha (talk) 14:44, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Repeating what happens in a work of a fiction without any additional commentary generates a primary source (describing everything in-universe), even if it does mean pulling several unrelated events together but without speuclation. Without knowing the work, the example sentence that you gave: "During their efforts to regain this lost dwarven stronghold, Bruenor slays the shadow dragon Shimmergloom." reads like a primary source even if third-party. Manuals for games (board or computer or otherwise) describe the in-universe aspects of the fiction part of the game, and thus are primary sources. Secondary sources are though categorized as "one step removed" - some type of analysis or critique on the work. That can be only in-universe, pretty much describing the example "Hamlet having an Oedipus complex" since that's not directly inferred by the original work. Now, it probably can be possible to write an article using third-party, secondary sources that only analysis the work in-universe, but the resulting article would look pretty much like an essay about the character. That said, if you can find enough third-party, secondary sources of that type, there's a good likelihood that you can get a similar source that connects the topic to an out-of-universe or real world aspect - otherwise why would people go to the effort to produce the third-party secondary in-universe sources anyway? --MASEM 14:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I happen to personally think this is a WP:PLOT issue, where we require information about impact and reception, since we're not just an exposition of all kinds of in-universe detail. But a lot of people lump this in with notability, because that's what reliable secondary sources are supposed to provide: a criticism/analysis of the primary source. (It's the same reason why a re-print of a press-release in another source isn't enough for notability.) Either way, yeah you're gonna need some real-world context for the article to be suitable for Wikipedia. Randomran (talk) 00:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that the article needs more real-world context; I'm not questioning that. I'm just wondering how the guidelines work. The article being discussed fails WP:PLOT at this time but, if the article had more unreferenced real-world information, would references in the in-universe text establish notability? -Drilnoth (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd say no. It might be helpful to read this discussion. Notability isn't just a question of the right sources -- the source are supposed to serve a purpose. One purpose of those sources is to establish why the topic is significant. So it's not just about finding a bare mention at a specific kind of source. It's about finding a source that can say "this is one of the best/worst examples of that" or "this can be compared to the ongoing debate on the free market" -- something that goes into its impact. It's not like there's a high threshold, proving that this is a matter of life and death to prove it's important. But right now, what you have doesn't explain *why* it's important. That's what out-of-universe information is supposed to give you. Randomran (talk) 00:34, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay, that clears up the issue. Thank you. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Coverage in paper encyclopedias

In view of this AFD, I wonder if we should add the following line to this guideline:

Anything which is the subject of an article in a general purpose paper encyclopedia is notable.

Wikipedia's goal is to be a comprehensive encyclopedia, and deleting subjects which are covered in the very works Wikipedia aspires to surpass in terms of comprehensiveness is antithetical to that goal. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:29, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion. I wouldn't confine it to paper, as many top-end encyclopedias have CD / DVD and Web versions. OTOH we'd need some wording to restrict this to top-end encyclopedias, and to exclude Wiki-clones. --Philcha (talk) 10:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Let's make sure this means any reputable printed encyclopedia in any language. (The argument over Soviet propaganda encyclopedias being a separate topic.) -PētersV (talk) 01:18, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
This needs to be really worded carefully. I know what the OP means about "general purpose" encyclopedia, but people will find a way to twist this to state that (imaginary) "The Sci-Fi Show Encyclopedia" is "general" since it doesn't cover any specific show. I would almost argue that there's a highly explicit white list, which would include Britanica, Encarta, and other top encyclopedias in other languages, but getting on this white list requires discussion. If not on the list, it's not considered "general encyclopedia" for purposes of this.
Now, to work this in better, I would state that coverage in a "general encyclopedia" ( a tertiary source) is pretty guarenteed to have secondary coverage by the general encyclopedia. So while for purposes of notability discussion "covered by a general paper encyclopedia" is good enough to keep, editors should be strongly encouraged to seek out the cited secondary sources, in addition to others. In other words, we are still meeting the GNG, but being the only case where the existence of a reliable tertiary source is a presumption of the existence of secondary sources that immediately does not meet the GNG. --MASEM 01:33, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
For general encyclopedias, I would want to limit and examine the encylopedias carefully first, and generally qualify the types of articles we will accept. We certainly do not want to say that anything even mentioned in passing in such an encyclopedia is notable. But for the major encyclopedias, we would probably want to accept full articles, and in some cases subsidiary articles. I think this would go for selective national biographical dictionaries also. When we get to the level of specialised encyclopedias, we'd have to examine them carefully to see if the entries genenrally meet our standards--many of them are indeed just directories. and will be reliable sources, but not by themseleves show notability in the sense of the General Notablity Gtuideline.
Good point about specialist encyclopedias - I have a science fiction encyclopedia edited by a couple of well-known SF authors / editors.
A whitelist is a reasonable idea if it's implemented well. Any guideline that requires or implies use of a whitelist should link to the whitelist and also to a page for whitelist nominations, e.g. Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard.
"We certainly do not want to say that anything even mentioned in passing in such an encyclopedia is notable" is more complicated. Sometimes encyclopedia editors, like other sources, assume that some standard concept or whatever is well-known to their expected readership - a mistake WP editors also sometimes make. In such cases it may still be possible to assemble something useful from snippets about X in articles X, Y, and Z from the same encyclopedia, e.g. "X was the script-writer for SF movie A, B and C". --Philcha (talk) 08:47, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Non-notable entries on a disambiguation page

I am not sure if this is a good place to bring this issue or not. The Pushkin (disambiguation) lists two Pushkins who dont have Wikipedia articles (yet). They aparently have both recieved the Hero of the Soviet Union award which would seem to indicate that they might be notable - however they are not mentioned in the Hero of the Soviet Union article either. Should their names be removed from the disambiguation page as rather pointless entries since we have no information about them to lead a reader to? -- The Red Pen of Doom 05:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Probably better at WP:D, but given this advice: "Each bulleted entry should, in almost every case, have exactly one navigable (blue) link; including more than one link can confuse the reader.", if you can't make the usable bluelink, it probably should not be included. So, presuming the Hero of the Soviet Union article is notable, then it is reasonable that at worst, disamb or redirects of each recipient is pointed to it, unless the recipient is notable, then it can have an article. --MASEM 05:37, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
If there's a chance that it will become a blue link, even as a redirect to an article that briefly discusses the person, include it. That way incoming links intending that person can be fixed. --NE2 06:43, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm no deletionist, but I think we may have to delete these. DAB pages are not directly subject to WP:V, WP:RS or WP:N. Leaving items on DAB pages that do not point to articles that meet the normal criteria is a loophole for POV-pushers. --Philcha (talk) 09:22, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
In what way? I can't see how this could be POV pushing. --MASEM 05:17, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
The standard should be the same as for most list articles: if they are not already articles, the links must clearly and evidently qualify for WP articles & give enough information to show it--and, if you've done that much checking, it might be just a easy to start a stub article. DGG (talk) 07:10, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with this. Disambigs should follow the same reasoning we use redirection for topics that don't have their own individual articles but are covered as part of a larger topic. At some point, if you create a list of non-notable elements for support of a notable topic, and then create redirects to each element to help with search, you are eventually bound to come into a naming conflict and end up at a disamb. page, thus adding that name to that page is certainly reasonable. I'd be careful with hatnotes if there is no disambig page for a common term, though the same idea applies. --MASEM 14:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
You're right about links to well-sourced sections of articles. I was thinking of POV-pushers adding DAB links to e.g. titles previously deleted at AfD and adding POV-pushing comments, e.g. "Snot-nose Q. Slimeball - the greatest rock drummer of all time". --Philcha (talk) 17:01, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Isn't this a case where we'd be guided by WP:BIO anyway? We don't include every single person in a list. By the same token, NNC says we don't really cover exhaustive detail. I don't know enough about the Pushkins to really make a fair opinion, and you don't necessarily need a blue link to be included in a list of some kind. So really, this is one of those many areas where we defer to a consensus. Randomran (talk) 08:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Aw hell, is this link not blue enough ? Get off your butt, go find a Russian and get this translated properly [11]. — CharlotteWebb 15:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Troubled

I recently attempted to look up information on Fabio da Silva, a football/soccer player with Manchester United. I wanted to know what position he played. We had no article on him, and after looking, I saw that the article was deleted as he was non-notable. Since he obviously passed WP:N (I have found multiple sources easily), I recreated the article, and had it re-speedied. After some poking about, the issue was that, because he has not yet made an appearance for Manchester United (despite being signed, collecting a paycheck, having a squad number, and being listed on Man U's website as a player in their first squad) he fails WP:ATHLETE, which has been grounds to shoot down attempts to recreate the article. I brought it to DRV, and had the DRV speedy closed as, in the closer's words, "offensive."

There are a number of issues here that I find troubling.

  1. WP:ATHLETE is being used to trump WP:N.
  2. Mechanical reasoning is being used to trump consideration of product - this is demonstrably a notable topic about which we can provide accurate information, but because of a culture of treating notability requirements as checklists to be addressed automatically, we have no good mechanism for thinking through on anything other than a mechanical level.
  3. The overall system fails in a way where I am unable to have a sustained discussion of the issue anywhere - the article was re-speedied with a "take it to DRV" message, and then the DRV was speedy closed. I am an experienced enough admin to know how to push the issue further, but had I actually been a regular reader, this would have been extremely problematic.

This is, to be honest, one of the most distressing things I've come across in my years as Wikipedia - a clearly notable article is being persistently deleted because of mechanical thinking that does not take product into account, and none of the mechanisms to fix such errors are being allowed to work. For a reader or inexperienced user, this is the sort of thing that would drive them away from the project, and with good reason. Me, it just pisses off.

We need to think about the root causes of this - root causes that, I think, begin in the drive to create notability requirements that "cannot be gamed," which is borne of a mindset that treats contributors who advocate inclusion of content as the enemy.

What can we do to reform these guidelines so that disasters like this don't happen? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:51, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

This is probably related to the WP:N AFD and the relationship between GNG and SNGs. We're still waiting for the third-party comments on it, but my take from the comments is that SNGs should not weaken the GNG but can play higher restrictions on it. Case in point is that most people could probably meet the GNG with effort, but we aim to make sure to avoid indiscriminate info by requiring a larger degree of why people are important.
Now, in this specific case, it sounds strictly like a problem with ATHLETE, in that either they are being too robotic to the process, or, to their credit, they know from past experience that the case of da Silva (a signed player that has yet to play a game) may lead to too many non-notable articles or the like. Either way, the argument is not one that can be addressed by WP:N - it's how those that maintain the ATHLETE-related articles do it. (that is, WP:N as a deletion relation was never the case, it was only ATHLETE). --MASEM 15:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Masem, a third party already commented on the N RFC, and that third party is an admin now. If some people think an athlete is not notable if the athelete has not yet played in a professional league, that's their opinion. The problem is when people look at notability guidelines in a pass/fail way. WP:ATHLETE says "People who have competed at the fully professional level of a sport" is evidence of notability for a person. When people look at that and say, "Well this person has not yet competed at the fully professional level so they must be non-notable", they are misunderstanding what the guideline is saying. Winning a gold medal at the Olympics is evidence of notability. If a person hasn't won a gold medal at the Olympics, that doesn't mean they're non-notable. They could be notable for any number of things. --Pixelface (talk) 15:48, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Addendum, I note that ATHLETE (part of BIO) leads off with "Should a person fail to meet these additional criteria, they may still be notable under Wikipedia:Notability." Clearly in this case, I read that ATHLETE should not be taken as strictly as it was. Again, I think the guidelines are right, but we have people thinking in the wrong way about this. --MASEM 15:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Yeah. I mean, the guidelines provide good guidance. But I think there is a mentality of trying to render deletion debates automatic where possible - it's something that's clearly come up in debating the fiction notability guideline. The desire is for something that will prevent arguments at AfD. That seems to me to be a deeply problematic approach, as we see here, where the desire to not discuss something is preventing the correction of a rather serious error. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:11, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
I've commented on the DRV closing admin page, but one strong suggestion is to provide the sources you say are there are notable. I've checked the deleted da Silva page and there's only one source, so you've not shown the GNG passing, which is why ATHLETE is being assumed. If you can fill it up with at least a couple more references, you'll have a better argument as why it's the GNG that is met even if ATHLETE is not. --MASEM 15:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

So apparently Lenny Bias fails WP:ATHLETE. Guidelines like this are silly to begin with but this sounds like a problem with football (soccer) editors interpreting them as mutually exclusive more than anything. I spotted one of them on RFA a while ago and tried to ask about this but it was closed in an equally "automatic" fashion before I could get a response. — CharlotteWebb 15:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Notability guideline: "Significant coverage"

I wrote here,

...notability and the qty of printed matter are related, but ... the implication goes "degree of notability high => qty of printed matter high", which does not imply "qty of printed matter high => degree of notability high".

Justifying notability on the number of articles alone may be a bit shaky, e.g. when a large number of journalists are gathered at a conference (say) and are all writing about the same thing. 118.90.94.7 (talk) 14:06, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't say notability is a question of degree. It's really just a minimum standard. If you have "significant" coverage that's more than "trivial", then you have a legit shot at an article. Anything beyond that is gravy. It's a pretty easy standard to meet. Randomran (talk) 16:39, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, then that notability is some thing that is/isn't rather than more/less should be made clear. 118.90.94.7 (talk) 22:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Not a news source

When was this sentence "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." added? (Alternatively, is there a way to search diffs?) Copysan (talk) 18:49, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the stuff about news in this guideline was added June 6, 2007 by Kubigula with the edit summary "Incorporating news coverage issues per talk page", apparently a reference to this thread (now in the talk page archives). Here Kubigula says the edit incorporated some text from WP:NOT#NEWS (which was added to WP:NOT on May 28, 2007 by Jimbo Wales — although WP:NOT has mentioned news since August 9, 2002). The text about news in WP:N did change over time after it was added. --Pixelface (talk) 23:24, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

NNC again

Since the previous thread on this was archived, I'm bringing it up again. The current NNC section needs to be changed. I would prefer it look like this:

Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content Notability guidelines give guidance on whether the community is likely to agree that 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 [1]). Information within an article is not required to meet any notability guideline (with the exception of lists of people); instead, article content is governed by other policies and guidelines, such as the policies that information must be verifiable and presented in a neutral fashion, and the guideline advising the citation of reliable sources.

And I've just changed it to that. I don't think any text about "undue weight" belongs in WP:N. WP:N is about article topics and potential article topics, not information within an article. Wikipedia has several policies having to do with information within an article (WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:BLP), but WP:N is not one of them. Information in an article does not have to be "notable" to remain in an article. --Pixelface (talk) 10:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I feel uncomfortable with the proposal in the first instance, as I am not sure what benefit it has from the perspective of writing an encyclopedic article about a particular topic, as the staying focused is an important editorial consideration.
    In reality, I think WP:N does partially restrict the content of articles, in the sense that if a topic is notable, then going "off-topic" by including content that is only remotely related to the subject matter is not in the spirit of the guideline. For instance, an article like Jedi was used as a coatrack for lots of topics that are only remotely related, such as Dark Nest, but these have since been removed.
    I don't think we should go back to allowing articles to becoming dumping grounds for "off-topic" content, and somehow I think this change needs to be reverted or ammended. However, if Pixelface can give examples of articles where he thinks this change may be of benefit, I am open to conisideration.--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I do think that there are two general consensuses here which are not actually mutually exclusive. Firstly, it is extremely clear that the notability (used from henceforth to also include the sub-guidelines) guidelines apply only as standards for inclusion or exclusion of article length and depth content. On the other hand, though, you are right - there is also I feel a consensus that content within an article should be, in some measure, notable. This works hand-in-hand with WP:WEIGHT, as the more notable a viewpoint, the more coverage it should receive.
    • The problem with WP:N has always been that it applies only for articles, and clearly for content within articles a different measure of notability is needed. I personally advocate 'notability requirements by length' - how notable something should (collectively, if part of a larger subject) be for a brief mention, for a more detailed mention, for a stub level article, for a section within an article, or for an article. Each of these categories seems to me to be already established to be a rough guideline which people seem to use to make editing decisions. However, this would require major rewriting work of the Notability guidelines, and by definition would also require cross-over with MoS standards for articles (as effectively this would also work towards a concept of "minimum content" - that an article about a subject of certain notability would then hence be expected to have). LinaMishima (talk) 14:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to go ahead and revert this change. I don't think there's a consensus for it, but you're welcome to make the argument until we do. NNC talks about the appropriate weight of factual information, which really doesn't belong in WP:NPOV. You also removed the very common sense principle that Wikipedia is for encyclopedic summaries, not exhaustive details. I think there may be support for rephrasing and clarifying the section, but not for rewriting it the way you have. Randomran (talk) 18:04, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
Yeah well I've just removed the stuff about undue weight, because it does not belong in a guideline about the notability of article topics. It doesn't belong in WP:NPOV? That's where all the stuff about "undue weight" came from. You know this. I've reverted the NNC section to the version from March 15 before Dorftrottel edited it. I suggest you ask Marskell if he meant information in an article needs to be notable when he changed NPOV to say "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints." The phrase "encyclopedic summaries" is useless, since so many people have so many different ideas about how long "encyclopedic summaries" should be.
I don't think the ArbCom is in the policy-making or guideline-making business. If those 5 arbitrators who supported the principle "An encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details" four years ago (Fred Bauder, Jdforrester, The Epopt, Jwrosenzweig, Raul654) are still around, I think it would be better if we asked them what they meant, and if what they said had anything to do with notability. This guideline didn't even exist four years ago. I suggest you ask them yourself, since you're the one who wants this guideline to quote that four year old ArbCom principle. When they said an article is not a "complete exposition of all possible details", did they mean that information in an article needs to be notable? I don't think so. But go ahead and ask them. --Pixelface (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I'm really not sure what hiding them or scrubbing them is supposed to accomplish. The rules are good, represent consensus, and a common sense way of handling excessive detail. Randomran (talk) 17:54, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Leaving text in another policy is not "hiding" it it any sense of the word. And I seriously question whether there was consensus for Marksell to change NPOV like that in the first place. If you want to remove "excessive detail" from an article, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you. But don't say information has to be "notable" to be in an article. --Pixelface (talk) 10:57, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Again, I respectfully disagree with your opinion, and you have the right to hold it. But you're repeating yourself, and I'm not sure what else to say without repeating myself either. Perhaps you might accomplish more by suggesting a compromise. Randomran (talk) 08:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Okay. How about I want to revert the NNC section to the version that existed before an indefinitely blocked user added the link to WP:UNDUE, because "undue weight" has nothing to do with notability? If information has to be "notable" to be in an article, what's to stop someone from removing anything they personally deem "non-notable" from 4X? Why should this guideline recommend such a thing? --Pixelface (talk) 12:48, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  • One obvious reason is that if a topic is notable, then adding content that is "off-topic" or only remotely related to the subject matter of the article is not in the spirit of the guideline. You have not answered this point which I made earlier in this discussion, but it still needs to be addressed. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Gavin, I'm 99% certain that the spirit of this guideline is that it recommends that a thing be "notable" before an editor creates an article about that thing. Because various inclusion guidelines were created before this guideline. Because "non-notable" was often used as a reason to delete in deletion debates. "Off-topic" content != "non-notable" content. Did you still want examples of why I think reverting NNC to the version that existed March 15 before an indefinitely blocked user changed NNC is a good idea? For one, all the stuff about undue weight was added by an indefinitely blocked user. If you want to talk about articles, take for example the article Hampton Wick Royal Cricket Club. Since notability is an opinion, do you want editors removing sentences from that article because of a personal opinion that the information is not notable, and then citing NNC to back them up? And the NNC redirect doesn't even make sense now. It stands for Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content. --Pixelface (talk) 15:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Suggesting the exact same thing you've been pushing for is not a compromise. Again, I've stated why there is a consensus for treating things with appropriate levels of detail, and why it's important that we do. We want to keep an article on topic and promote readability, just to name a few things. Your argument amounts to "well, I can't prove that it's a good idea to remove it, and I can't even prove there's a consensus to remove it. But it doesn't belong here." I'm open to hearing where else it belongs. But this principle against excess or disproportionate detail has very little to do with neutrality or points of view. This guideline has been at WP:N in some shape or form for the good part of a year probably because most people think it basically fits here. Randomran (talk) 17:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
  • If I say information in an article does not have to be "notable" to remain in an article (which this guideline said for much longer than 8 months) and you say information in an article does have to be notable, there's nothing really to compromise on. To say that articles shouldn't have excess detail is not the same as saying information in an article has to be notable. The notability guidelines don't restrict what information can be in an article. The notability guidelines are about people, and bands, and websites, etc. "Undue weight" has nothing to do with "notability." Leave the stuff about "undue weight" where it came from, WP:UNDUE, in WP:NPOV. If other people think the stuff about "undue weight" fits here, I'd like to hear what they have to say. --Pixelface (talk) 15:24, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Again, you're repeating yourself. I've already responded to those comments. We're making no progress, because you're not making any effort to reach a consensus. Randomran (talk) 21:29, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
  • There was no consensus to add the link to WP:UNDUE to the NNC section of this guideline in this first place. That's exactly why the NNC section should be reverted back to the way it was before an indefinitely blocked user added the link. --Pixelface (talk) 13:50, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  • In answer to Pixelface, I have never seen an instance of editors removing sentences from that article because of a personal opinion that the information is not notable. However, many articles do go way off topic, and I have seen editors justify this by citing WP:NNC, and I think the inclusion of a reference to WP:UNDUE makes it clear that topics need to be focused on their subject matter. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:45, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  • So editors citing the "undue weight" version of NNC means that the undue weight version of NNC should stay in this guideline? The NNC section has never been about "off topic" anything. It's there to point out that notability guidelines pertain to people, things, bands, things you would write an article about — notability guidelines don't restrict what information an article can contain (except when it comes to lists of people). WP:UNDUE isn't about focus on subject matter anyway. --Pixelface (talk) 06:14, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I think your version suggests that articles can go off topic, and I don't think there is any consensus supporting this view. You state that "particular topics within an article are not each required to meet the standards of the notability guidelines", but I think this suggests that non-notable topics can be added articles on notable topics, in the same way that topic Dark Nest was added to the article Jedi, but has since been removed. If you can explain with an example to illustrate the intended benefit of your proposal, this would help my understanding, but so far I only see the downside as illustrated by the Dark Nest example. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:21, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
  • If there's consensus at Talk:Jedi that the Dark Nest stuff doesn't belong there, fine. You don't need to change WP:N in order to remove that stuff. That's what the article talk page is for. Changing guidelines because of one article is often a very bad idea — because it has ramifications for over 2.6 million articles. If you're concerned about content that's off-topic, you can suggest people read WP:OFFTOPIC which redirects to WP:TOPIC in WP:BETTER. WP:BETTER has always said "Stay on topic" since it was created November 20, 2004. But the first version also said "So relax, this article contains no rules. Remember: If rules and guidance make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business." Good advice. --Pixelface (talk) 00:36, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't see this discussion going anywhere. I think we're repeating a lot of the same arguments, with no hope of being persuaded to Pixelface's position. That said, maybe there's a way forward, because I am truly open to a compromise. But it would involve respecting the overall principle that there's such a thing as too much detail and too much weight (which is interpreted through consensus, but still no less of a basic principle of writing an encyclopedia). Randomran (talk) 05:31, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Because of the way that the general notability guideline is worded, I'm not sure what's at stake here. Under both versions of NNC, everything in the article must satisfy WP:V and WP:RS, but a fact's verifiability via reliable sources seems to ensure that it "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of subject" (GNG). Everything else seems like a subject for discussion at WP:UNDUE. RJC TalkContribs 14:35, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Remove the Disputed Tag

Is this page really disputed by more than just a few editors? I move that the dispute tag be removed. Eusebeus (talk) 22:57, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

  • I don't think notability as an inclusion criteria is disuputed per se. There is ongoing discussion about wording of this guideline, but that is routine. The tag should be removed. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:50, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I looked for a suitable tag and this seemed to be it. The template page for Disputedtag says, "Use this template to dispute whether a page (or a section on a page) has properly been accorded policy or guideline status. " and we have a dispute about a section - see above. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:27, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • My understanding is that it should not be used where a section is vaguely controversial. I can see we have an onging discussion, but I think we are all in agreement about the basic subject of this section: that notability does not limit article content. It seems to me that this discussion is about interpretation, rather than substance. In my view, the disputed tag may not warranted, because no one wants to get rid of this guideline in total or delete section altogether. In short, I don't think this discussion is an instance where we need to "cry wolf".--Gavin Collins (talk) 10:46, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Regardless of whatever the template page says, the tag itself implies that the guideline as a whole is being disputed, and is highly misleading. People are going to read the tag itself before the template page. In any case, per Gavin, we all agree on the spirit of the section, and finding the wording (or lack thereof) that everyone is happy with is basically all that's left. Support removing the tag. — sephiroth bcr (converse) 11:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • "This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion." Personally I think the tag clearly states that while it may not be in full dispute that it is under discussion and seems to be valid. shadzar-talk 12:14, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Virtually all Wikipedia policies and guidelines are constantly under discussion - see any of their talk pages. No tag is needed for that. The question is whether there is any disagreement about the guideline (extending beyond just a small number of editors) that makes the status of the guideline questionable, so that we should caution editors not to assume it meets consensus. But I don't see such controversy here. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

If Colonel Warden thinks it's okay, and it's just the NNC section that's disputed, I think the {{disputed}} tag at the top should be replaced with a {{disputed-section|talk=Article contents}} tag under the "Notability of article content" heading. Frankly, I think the status of this page as a guideline is questionable, but that's a-whole-nother discussion. We could even leave the disputed tag and start a new thread about it. --Pixelface (talk) 15:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

How Many

My question is this: How many people/lives does a particular person/subject/event have to affect in order to be considered notable? Please note that I DID search for an answer to this before I posted, but perhaps I just didn't word my question/search properly to find the link to this particular answer. Thank you for your time, my best to all.

Ched Davis (talk) 10:09, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

The answer is at WP:BIGNUMBER. --B. Wolterding (talk) 11:35, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, so how about those spinout articles

I can't be arsed to read through what probably amounts to at least 100MB of archived text between here, WT:FICT and other places, so yeah, what was the ruling on lists and articles about plot elements besides characters again? I've always found it pretty asinine that only characters are allowed to be put into their own list when there are many, many fictional works where the setting and other specific elements are covered in a greater detail than the human cast. The last time I came around here I saw a neat proposal by someone about a "four-pronged test" to determine a fictional element's worthiness to have an article, how'd that turn out? - Norse Am Legend (talk) 03:09, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The four-pronged test is now a three pronged test and is the current version of WP:FICT being discussed/hashed out on its talk page. However, its been stated that FICT will not deal with lists at all, and that will be handled in a separate essay or guideline.-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I see. Maybe I should've clicked the project page and not just the discussion page. But, really? They actually left out lists, citing that because they're lists they should be treated differently from other elements of fiction? Well that was a wonderful outcome after two years of continuous arguing. I can't wait for the RfC.- Norse Am Legend (talk) 03:27, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, we left out lists because there was no consensus on lists that anybody could find yet. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
More specifically, the RFC on WP:N, which is undergoing a neutral analysis, suggest there's allowances for lists, but until that analysis is complete it makes no sense to try to suggest how to deal with lists. FICT currently avoids the issue of lists to at least establish a stable version of FICT. --MASEM 03:41, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Does the fact that Reliable Sources may be of interest to one "select community" mean they cannot establish notability?

In a recent AfD, an editor has asked the question as to whether or not a source can show notability if it is one that is of particular interest to one culture. I myself feel that in interpreting WP:RS we are not allowed to discount notability from a source simply because of who has an interest in it. Specific examples from the article in question are Iran Dokht, Iranian Hotline, Payvand's Iran News, The Telegraph, Persian Heritage, Iran Heritage Foundation, The Hartley Foundation, The Iranian, The Persian Mirror, Spirituality & Practice, Mazalien, and ParsTimes, Arab Film, which to my understanding (with the possible exception of Arab.com) show continued notability for filmmaker Aryana Farshad by "significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject". Does WP:NOTABILITY allow an editor to ignore notability established by such sources simply because they are of interest to a specific "select community"? Thanks. Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 20:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't matter if it's of interest to a select community, or to some larger community. It's the same notability. An example, people have tried to add that local newspaper cover doesn't count for notability, and that has been rejectec. On the other hand, at AfD we decided things on a case by case basis, so you never know. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
If it's a reliable third-party, it doesn't matter what community it is, or where it is. Randomran (talk) 21:49, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with you both 100%... but is there a part of guideline that says exactly this? Should there be? What does one say to an editor who interprets guideline differently? Schmidt, MICHAEL Q. 23:03, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
I know the guideline is protected now, but if someone wanted to boldly add something that clarifies this point I would support it. Clarity never hurt. Randomran (talk) 20:24, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree, the issue does come up mildly often. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:04, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Summary style?

Maybe some mention here should be made of Summary style? The intro in the lead makes on think that notability is the *only* requirement for a page's existance. SharkD (talk) 14:38, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Article contents

Original Pixelface's edits[12]

The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. Notability, in the sense used to determine article inclusion, does not directly affect article content.

But the term "notability" is still used in the sense of "importance" to describe the level of detail that is appropriate for an encyclopedic summary. Treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Attend to anything that may construe undue weight, including depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. Keep in mind that an encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details.[2] For example, the notability guideline for people states that lists of people are not meant to be exhaustive.[3]

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 [4]). 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.

We have a dispute about this section as some seek to extend the concept of notability to article contents. Pixelface has reverted to an earlier version and I support his position that there is no consensus for such an extension. The concept of notability already causes much misery and disruption at the article level. Extending it ever more finely is not sensible and contrary to WP:CREEP. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:34, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

There is only a dispute from Pixelface, who is already under discussion at AN/I and who also attempted to have WP:WAF demoted as a guideline, and you, who apparently feels the need to act as his advocate and repeat his ill-advised and completely unsupported attempt to revert to month's old version of this guideline. There is already an existing discussion above at NNC again, that is recent (and by some views, still on-going), so I see no reason for you to even start a new discussion. Continue the discussion above, which shows no consensus at all for Pixelface's continued reverting to his preferred version. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 11:19, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Pixelface's action is obviously not unsupported because I support it. It is news to me that there has been this creepy extension of notability and I contend that it should be rolled back as it lacks consensus. Let us address the issue - does this section improve upon what was there before or is it a good example of the endless creep of these guidelines so that they now number in the hundreds and so lack coherence and simplicity. Colonel Warden (talk) 11:36, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • The section being considered is not creating a new guideline page, only referring to the existing WP:NPOV, specifically WP:UNDUE, so I don't believe CREEP/BURO need to play into this. And I don't think the basic premise, that once a topic is notable notability does not directly limit article content (supporting additional material that may not meet WP's notability guidelines can be added to the coverage of a notable topic), is an issue either. The debate is over the aspect of the balance between the parts of a topic's coverage that are notable, and those that aren't. I think that by calling out UNDUE specifically here confuses the issue, and I think it is probably better in the long term to say something along the lines of "Notability does not restrict article content, but article content still must abide by other WP policies and guidelines." This implies UNDUE (part of POV) still is a concern but does not call it out, and thus removes the confusion. Notability, thus, is only helping to decide on article boundaries, and not anything internal to the article itself. The case where this is likely the most problem, fiction, has WP:NOT#PLOT that addresses the specific case of (typicallly) non-notable plot aspects balanced to notable real-world aspects; if any other field needs that, that can be written in wikiproject guidelines. --14:37, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • We might be able to trace back the changes in the section to copying the part of WP:UNDUE that deals with facts, rather than points of view. But then, there's no disagreement about the substance that we cover everything in a way that appropriate to its significance -- without getting overly weighty for insignificant stuff. There's only a concern that it found its way here. My main concern is that we shouldn't bury it back at WP:UNDUE, because WP:UNDUE is tied to WP:NPOV. This is about facts, not points of view. Randomran (talk) 22:24, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • It takes more than a couple of editors to change a guideline. I don't think you're going to find much support for a change if your position is that WP:N causes misery. I've always said that I'd be open to a compromise, because there's always room for improvement and clarity. But the principle is basically sound and describes current practice: we try to improve encyclopedic summaries by avoiding exhaustive and trivial details, and engage in a lot of collaborative efforts to identify when an article has gone off topic. Randomran (talk) 14:10, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
  • (fixed indents) I'm just commenting here because of the notice on the project page saying that "This page's designation as a policy or guideline is disputed or under discussion." I'm not sure if that is the correct template or not based on the discussion here, but if it is correct I'd like to say that I oppose this being made into policy. If that's not why the template was there, it should probably be changed. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:27, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
This already is a guideline. The disputed is supposed to be because Pixelface and CW think it shouldn't be a guideline anymore, though it has been for a long time. 22:13, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
This is the discussion to which the disputed template refers. AFAIC, the contested content is new and, now that I learn of it, I support Pixelface and others who wish to roll it back. Colonel Warden (talk) 22:54, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
It's not accurate to call this part of the guideline "new". Pixelface wants to "roll back" to a version of this section from almost a year ago. That's after months of consensus in spirit, with minor changes to improve it. You're entitled to your opinion, but let's be accurate. Randomran (talk) 22:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Could you provide a link to the talk page thread where Dorftrottel suggested adding a link to WP:UNDUE and people supported it? Or would you like me to look through the talk page archives? --Pixelface (talk) 23:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind, I've looked and commented below. --Pixelface (talk) 08:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I too oppose creeping notability into article content. We already have a very clear and functioning mechanism for keeping articles on topic — UNDUE, which is policy, not guideline. WP:N is our inclusion criteria for topics as articles, and to extend its domain to article content completely oversteps that. "Notability" refers fundamentally to the degree to which content about a topic can be verified in reliable sources; relevance is completely unrelated to this. The proposed entry is thus confusing and much better handled elsewhere. Skomorokh 20:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

We have enough problems with this guideline as it was. all that is needed is a statement that this deals only with the criteria for having separate Wikipedia articles, not with what they contain. Pixelface was right, at least this time. After that we can discuss issues about the guideline in general, and its standing , and possible replacement. My own feeling is we should start over against with a different word. for now, we must roll the change back, just as he correctly did. DGG (talk) 03:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I concur in full. Skomorokh 03:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • If a topic is notable, then going "off-topic" by including content that is only remotely related to the subject matter is not in the spirit of the guideline, and think this is addressed by the current version. For instance, I don't agree with thr practice whereby an article like Jedi was used as an excuse to add off-topic items, such as Dark Nest which was not sufficiently notable to have its own article. Dark Nest has since been removed, and I think the Jedi article has been improved as a result. If someone could provide an example of "creeping notability" having an adverse effect, this would help this discussion, because up to now, opponents of the currect version have only made abstract arguements. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:49, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Stopping WP:COATRACKING can already be done with little ambiguity using WP:UNDUE. Why is using "notability" a terrible idea? Because it could be used by uninformed or pov-pushing editors to excise content they do not like because the content itself does not comprise a notable topic. This is not a problem for an article like Jedi, where the subject of the article surpasses notability requirements with ease, but it is a very real problem for articles which, although they have a lot of verified content, only modestly meet notability guidelines. Take the CrimethInc. article as an example; this is a GA that is thoroughly referenced to reliable sources, does not go off-topic or contain much content that ought to be removed. However, the topic itself is only barely notable, as significant coverage has been scant. Now let's say you are an editor with strong affinities for the group, and you want to remove the critical comments in the Reception amongst anarchists section. Easy: the topic of the section - CrimethInc.'s reputation according to other anarchists - is not notable; it clearly fails WP:N and we could not have a separate article on Anarchist reception of CrimethInc.. So you remove the section and I argue that it ought to stay: I say "It's relevant, it belongs!", you say "this section fails criterion x of our Notability guideline". Who do you thing would prevail? Now let's say N did not extend to article content, and the only governing convention was WP:UNDUE. You say "this section gives undue weight to the reception of the group and ought to be removed". How is this claim addressed? Not by judging the overall notability of Anarchist reception of CrimethInc., but by assessing the relative weight sources give that topic when covering the topic CrimethInc. By that metric, the section would certainly stay, as sources referring to the group often mention its reputation (enough to justify one sixth of an article) without ever going into the significant coverage that "notability" would require. Skomorokh 18:02, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
  • For the record, I don't disagree with your basic summary of the rules. It wouldn't be appropriate to excise content based purely on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. We excise content based on the relative weight that sources give to certain topics. What I disagree with is having that covered within WP:NPOV, which is misleading. Just as you're worried about editors who will abuse the rule to excise content that is truly significant (according to research), I'm worried about editors who would deflect legitimate concerns about exhaustive or inappropriate detail by saying "this isn't a point of view issue". I think there's common ground here: I'm definitely willing to rephrase it to prevent abuse if you're willing to drop the idea of relocating it to a policy where it really doesn't fit. Randomran (talk) 18:14, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Sure, I can see your point; similar abuse is possible using NPOV. I would be happy for a separate guideline addressing relevance. I also agree with your claim that "We excise content based on the relative weight that sources give to certain topics", which is why I think Notability is a bad guideline to stick this under. Notability is a threshold for topics (there are strictly speaking no degrees of notability, only deserving of a standalone article or not) whereas what we are talking about here is relative weighting for topics. If notability was about relative weighting of importance, wikigroaning would be a sufficient reasoning for removing vast amounts of good content on less important topics. Skomorokh 18:22, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of that. But that's actually a really good idea, seeing as most people basically agree with the substance. I'd be okay with it if we basically kept the current consensus for wording. It's just the location that's contentious. How would you propose to move forward? Randomran (talk) 18:29, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
LOL! Randomran (talk) 22:08, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
Slowly ;) Skomorokh 20:30, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
The discussion is starting to perplex and worry me. I'm hearing from several people who don't disagree with the idea that articles should stay on topic, and appear to concede that articles should not go into exhaustive detail or overstate details that aren't significant. Instead, I'm hearing that we should roll back 9 months of consensus because WP:N is annoying in general, and that a few editors should be allowed demolish a rule they basically agree with. I'm not getting it. If you want to build consensus for this change, you're going to have to be clearer about your underlying goal. Randomran (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
How does that mean that information in an article needs to be "notable"? You talk about 9 months of "consensus", but how long did this guideline say 'Notalibity guidelines do not limit article content'? I can look it up if you'd like. --Pixelface (talk) 23:56, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't mean anything except articles should stay on topic, not go into exhaustive detail, or overstate details that are insignificant. There's consensus for *that* rule, not just here, but in practice. And if there wasn't before, then consensus changed. Randomran (talk) 00:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Randomran, you can refer people to WP:OFFTOPIC if you'd like. When you say "consensus changed", I assume you're referring to this thread in /Archive 22 where: You said "Notability guidelines DO affect article content"

  • Davidwr said "I think content should be treated in proportion to its importance, which is distinct from its notability"
  • Aylad said "I'm fine with it" regarding this edit you made on May 30.

It looks like one person disagreed with you and one person agreed. Where's the thread where Dorftrottel proposed linking to WP:UNDUE? There isn't one. You cited your addition to NNC on June 23[13][14] and again on June 30[15] and again on July 1[16].

This thread from August is also about the "undue weight" stuff in the NNC section.

  • SmokeyJoe said "WP:N should stay out of the business of article content" and "WP:UNDUE is clearly stated policy elsewhere, and there is no purpose in paraphrasing it here."
  • You said "It's not bloat"
  • Black Falcon said "only the first paragraph of the section is needed. It is not the purpose or the role of the notability guideline to explain how article content actually is limited (to do so kind of undermines the whole point of the section); it's more than sufficient to simply link to the relevant policies and guidelines."
  • You said "I think it's the second paragraph that is the most important"
  • Black Falcon said "I agree that "what content is worthy of inclusion in [an] article" is an important question, but it's not a question that falls within the scope of the notability guidelines."
  • You said "Notability is about what's significant enough to be included: both articles and content"
  • Black Falcon said "I would argue that including guidance about article content only muddles the point that notability is not about article content."
  • Shereth said "I agree with Black Falcon - N is about the topic of the article and not the content of the article."
  • You said "So if not here, then where?"
  • Black Falcon said "In the case of due weight, I'd say at WP:UNDUE."
  • You said "I'm not comfortable deleting it here and burying it there."
  • Black Falcon said "I think it is more confusing to claim that "notability guidelines ... do not specifically regulate the content of articles", and immediately thereafter begin to describe regulations on the content of articles."
  • You said "When I would sometimes point people to WP:UNDUE, they would respond "but this content has no point of view", even though they had given undue weight to factual content. WP:N is a perfect place for it..."
  • Black Falcon said "It is confusing when we indicate that this guideline does not regulate content within articles, yet include within the guideline regulations (copied from WP:UNDUE) about content within articles."
  • You said "It doesn't make sense to bury this indirect limit on factual content in a policy concerning neutrality and bias."
  • Kevin Murray said "BF is right. We should not further confuse the issues at this page."
  • You said "the guidance on content is spread out among many pages, and the issue of giving due weight to content based on its significance to a subject is buried."
  • Kevin Murray talked about reducing "the CREEP that has occured."
  • You said "I still think it would be easier to just include the two sentences about "due weight based on significance" at WP:N."
  • SmokeyJoe referred to WP:TOPIC.

On September 17, you said "I think it's time to stop using the vague statement "notability guidelines do not directly limit article content", and phrase it in the affirmative. According to our policy, "an article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject."

  • Kanodin said "Yes, it is time to overhaul. I will make a suggestion in a new section."

In /Archive 28, I see this long thread from September, between you and Kanodin. Also in /Archive 28, in this thread...

  • Erachima replied about X in popular culture articles and said "this has nothing to do with the notability guideline, as it's an article content issue and covered under the policy against giving subjects undue weight within articles."
  • Peter Ballard said "You're right that this guideline (WP:Notability) is about articles, not sections of articles. But WP:UNDUE is not about the notability or otherwise of sections of articles either. WP:UNDUE (being a section inside WP:NPOV) only discusses the need to not give undue weight to minority POVs."

And finally there's this thread in /Archive 29 from early November, between you and Phil Sandifer, where I objected to your edits to NNC and objected after you changed the section heading for NNC on November 8.

Which brings us to the thread above, NNC again, and now this thread. So no, I don't think consensus changed.

I would like it if we could change the NNC section back to the version from 01:06, March 15, 2008, before Dorftrottel added the link to WP:UNDUE which you later included text from, and then unprotect this guideline. Thank you. --Pixelface (talk) 08:02, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Pixelface. No more creeping. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:16, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

A way forward?

I appreciate Pixelface's history lesson. I think WP:CONSENSUS sums it up pretty well: "Editors typically reach a consensus as a natural and inherent product of wiki-editing; generally someone makes a change or addition to a page, and then everyone who reads the page has an opportunity to leave the page as it is or change it." Someone added something almost a year ago. People generally liked it in spirit, but a few people refined it in word. And over time, we arrived at where we're at now. I'm sure it will need to be refined further. I'm not opposed to that. But I *am* against a huge scrub-out. There's no consensus for that.

I also think we're so caught up with the question "should notability affect article content?" that we're ignoring the common sense rule that everyone basically agrees with: articles should stay on topic, articles shouldn't go into exhaustive detail, articles need to give facts their appropriate weight. An outsider walked into this discussion, and it only took him two replies to figure out the root issue and propose a compromise. It's actually a pretty good idea, if people would actually show a willingness to find some common ground. If people basically agree with the spirit of a rule, but disagree with the location, then wouldn't there be a consensus to just put it somewhere else? Randomran (talk) 08:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Going to the version Pixel linked, which reads:
    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 [11]). 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.
  • I propose only that the last part be changed to read:
    ...such as the policies on Verifiability, No Original Research, and Neutral Point-of-View, and the guidelines covering the use of reliable sources and of trivia sections.
  • In this manner, we don't directly call out to UNDUE/WEIGHT, but by citing NPOV which UNDUE/WEIGHT is part of, we implicitly suggest this factor. Unless it is clear that this is being used to game the system, we should avoid making what ought to be a common sense connection between these. --MASEM 15:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Again, one of my biggest worries is that we end up burying a common sense rule. And, unfortunately for Wikipedia, a lot of people lack common sense. I *have* been in discussions with people who have ignored this -- insisting blindly that it's inappropriate to so much as summarize verifiable content, ignoring people who call something WP:UNDUE weight because "this has nothing to do with WP:NPOV". There's just a little bit of value to writing down common sense in a credible location. Randomran (talk) 18:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Leaving something in WP:NPOV is not "burying" it. That page is one of Wikipedia's three core policies. In 2008, WP:NPOV was viewed at least 2.5 times more than WP:NOTE every month, usually 3 times more per month. In 2008, NPOV was viewed an average of 40,000 times per month. If someone says "undue weight" of facts has nothing to do with neutral point of view, it may indicate there is currently no consensus that "Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements" which Taxman added to NPOV on May 14, 2006, referring to this thread, or currently no consensus for "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints", which Marskell added to NPOV on May 14, 2006. There's no reason to take either of those statements as a given. --Pixelface (talk) 23:49, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Randomran, an indefinitely blocked user added something in mid-March. I cannot say that people generally liked it in spirit — looking through the archives that doesn't seem to be the case at all. I could contact everyone who's edited the NNC section since mid-March if you like.
The question here is: Does information in an article have to be "notable" in order to remain in the article? The answer is no. Does WP:UNDUE have anything to do with the notability guidelines? No. Do the notability guidelines restrict article content? Only BIO does, when it comes to lists of people. Should this guideline refer to the principle "An encyclopedia article is a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject, not a complete exposition of all possible details" agreed to by then-arbitrators Fred Bauder, Jdforrester, The Epopt, Jwrosenzweig, and Raul654 during August/September 2004 in Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rex071404? No.
I suppose most people would agree that articles should stay on topic. There is such a thing as too much detail, but that's really a matter for editors to discuss on article talk pages. Skomorokh brought up a relevance guideline, and you're free to propose one yourself — several have been tried in the past — at Wikipedia:Relevance, Wikipedia:Relevance emerges, and Wikipedia:Relevance of content. --Pixelface (talk) 15:51, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Again, you're focusing on the location instead of the actual rule -- let alone the spirit of the rule. If we focus on whether or not we should go back in time to early 2008, we're only going to bang our heads together. Sincerely... Would you try collaboration for a change? We might actually get somewhere. We both agree there is such a thing as too much detail, and that articles should stay on topic. I'm willing to accept that we can find a better location for it, if you accept that the rule has merit. But if you're going to insist on basically scrapping the section on the basis that WP:NPOV says basically the same thing, we're going to get nowhere. I'm even willing to try mediation or something to get us focused on a collaborative outcome, instead of my way versus your way. Because I really have faith that collaboration will led us to something more accurate and helpful than what we have now, let alone in early 2008. As a side note, I bumped into this discussion at WP:NOT -- where people were sympathetic to a rule against exhaustive detail, but felt that WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE was the wrong location for it. They actually suggested putting it here. I'm not saying that because I'm insisting that it should be here (although I still think it makes more sense here than WP:NPOV). But because we're talking about a common sense idea that most people agree with, but hasn't really found a clear home. Randomran (talk) 18:09, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I have to weigh in on this because I think applying the article inclusion criteria to every single piece of information in an article is a mistake. If a subject is notable, specific facts about the subject may merit inclusion in the article, yet not themselves meet the notability guidelines. The purpose of the notability guidelines is to decide which subjects deserve separate articles. There are a variety of rules and guidelines that state what should be included in an article, and how much weight it should receive. If a person, for example, is notable, yet something they have done in the article is not, such as listing the school they attended, etc., by extending these guidelines to content that information would have to be removed. Biography articles would lose all background information, which I believe would be a huge disservice to Wikipedia. Theseeker4 (talk) 17:49, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone is suggesting anything that stringent, and WP:N doesn't currently say that. Once you get into actual content, the standard is generally WP:Verifiability (and other content policies), rather than notability. That said, there is a consensus to summarize sections that go into exhaustive detail. Randomran (talk) 18:17, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Okay Randomran. I can try collaborating. But first off, I don't consider anything in any guideline a "rule." Guidelines give recommendations. For now I will put aside every comment on this page, and the archives, that says the stuff about UNDUE does not belong in this guideline. But when you talk about too much detail and staying on topic, you're talking about the information in an article. I don't think this guideline has to do with the information in an article. It has to do with creating a new article for something and clicking Save page.
Let's start over. Please say what you want the NNC section to say. Then I'll say what I want the NNC section to say. Then other people can look at the two texts and point out similarities. --Pixelface (talk) 23:21, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I think that's the point I'm getting at. I don't actually care so much what NNC does or doesn't say. But I *do* care that what's currently there gets said *somewhere*. We could put into WP:UNDUE, since what we have now is related to WP:UNDUE (and partially came from that). But the reason I think that's "burying" it is because WP:UNDUE is part of an overall policy on WP:NPOV. It's an odd and misleading place for it, and it's caused a few disputes in the past with people saying "but this isn't a point of view issue" -- when I'm trying to make a point about overdetailed factual information. The other place I could think of putting it is WP:NOT -- a simple "Wikipedia is not a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." But I get the feeling you won't like that. I hope you'll brainstorm with me, though, and offer another guideline or policy that isn't WP:NPOV. Randomran (talk) 00:07, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
My first preference is this from November 24, my second preference is this from March 15, my third preference is Masem's suggestion, and my fourth preference is removal of the entire NNC section. I think the current text is unacceptable. If you don't actually care what NNC does or doesn't say, then perhaps we should remove the NNC section altogether. It's pretty much redundant to this paragraph already in the lead: "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles. Relevant content policies include: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons." Although then we'd need to tweak the WP:NNC and WP:N#CONTENT redirects. And that doesn't mention that BIO does limit lists of people.
If you want the stuff currently in NNC somewhere in a policy or guideline, there are over 300 places to pick from. And you're right, I wouldn't support adding that to WP:NOT, since I don't think we should make something policy just because a few arbitrators agreed to a principle on a case page four years ago. And also since this is the talk page for discussing how to improve Wikipedia:Notability. A discussion about adding something to WP:NOT should take place at WT:NOT. I suggest you pick a policy or guideline from that list, and then propose your changes on its talk page, WT:V perhaps? You could also create a new policy or guideline proposal if you want. --Pixelface (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to be conciliatory here. My first preference is that we keep the current wording here as is. Equally fine by me is if we improve the wording, but keep the same overall spirit: that we don't over-cover aspects of a topic in a way that's disproportionate to what reliable secondary sources have covered, and that articles don't go into exhaustive detail. But I'm willing to make a concession that it goes somewhere else, if you make a concession and help me find a place more suitable than here. Because so far, it's better here than in the policy about WP:NPOV -- and that's why the discussion is taking place here. I'm asking you, in the spirit of collaboration, to brainstorm some other options for where to put this, if you think it's so inappropriate to have it here. (Are you suggesting that it might be appropriate to put this at WP:V? It's not ideal, but it would be less odd than WP:NPOV.) Randomran (talk) 21:43, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
I already suggested you propose your changes at WT:V, since you're talking about sources and detail. Who else wants to keep the current NNC wording here as is? The notability guidelines are not about text in an article, they are about separate articles — but even moreso, they are about the trend of topics being deleted when people claim they are "non-notable." I will repeat from the intro: "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles." Topics like a person, a place, a thing, a website, a book, a film, a videogame, a videogame genre, etc. But sometimes articles are created by splitting out a section of a long existing article, like when you split off Gameplay of Final Fantasy from Common elements of Final Fantasy [17][18]. People call this a "spinout." Spinouts of long articles are encouraged by Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Article size. You changed "Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content" to "Notability of article content." Information does not have to be "notable" to remain in an article. If you don't want to propose your changes at WT:V, you could create a new proposal if you want — Wikipedia:Exhaustive detail perhaps — and try to get it marked a guideline or policy. But the current NNC section and a new proposal would seem to go contrary to your creation of Gameplay of Final Fantasy, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. --Pixelface (talk) 23:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I think we're making progress. (Side note: Gameplay of Final Fantasy would have plenty of reliable third-party sources. They're just not in the article yet. See WP:IMPERFECT.) I'm willing to accept splitting parts of WP:NNC out into WP:Exhaustive detail as a new guideline. There would be no need to propose it, as it already reflects the most recent consensus. If we did that, then I could live with reverting WP:N back to something earlier. That's not my first preference. But it's far better than what a number of people have spoken out against: silently allowing articles to veer off topic, into unencyclopedic levels of detail. If we go that way, we should probably give a barnstar to Skomorokh for helping find a middle ground we can both live with. Randomran (talk) 23:44, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
You can't just immediately tag something a guideline. And the intro of N already says it all: "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles. Relevant content policies include: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons." Skomorokh didn't help find a middle ground, he said "Notability is a bad guideline to stick this under" along with many of other people, and said "I would be happy for a separate guideline addressing relevance." And I told you that three relevance guidelines have already been tried and failed. The old NNC meant that the section Gameplay of Final Fantasy in the article Common elements of Final Fantasy did not have to be notable. But you changed the NNC section away from that to "Notability of article content." Now people will look at the current NNC and say Gameplay of Final Fantasy shouldn't haven't been spunoff because the section was giving "undue weight" to a topic. Your first preference to keep the current wording is contrary to your creation of Gameplay of Final Fantasy. I don't understand. Who else thinks the NNC section should stay as it is? I see you. I plan on removing the NNC section, since the intro of N already says that the notability guidelines don't limit the content of articles. --Pixelface (talk) 07:16, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Why not? Otherwise we're back at square one: you're pushing for a change that has no consensus, with no concessions to find a new consensus. Yeah, you have a few people on your side. But there are a few people who share my viewpoint -- and even more if we go back before the most recent changes in early November. And you find even more support when you factor in people who want to spin out some kind of content guideline based on weight, you can add Skomorokh and Phil Sandifer and Masem. Although there's no consensus to remove it outright, I'd say there's a consensus to spin it off (or something like it) into its own guideline. You're welcome to propose something else that has consensus, but if ou can't, then we stick with the current consensus. That's how WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD works. I'm trying to reach out here, but you're not gonna find a new consensus if you keep retreating to the same position and refuse to make any concessions. (And, as a side note if you're making a good faith effort to understand my viewpoint, Gameplay of Final Fantasy has reliable third-party sources. Maybe not in the article currently, but the article is in an WP:IMPERFECT state.) Randomran (talk) 07:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
In order to mark a proposal a guideline, there has to be consensus on the talk page of the proposal that the the proposal should become a guideline. Square one is the NNC before Dorftrottel got his hands on it. That's what I want. Many, many people have told you that the stuff about undue weight does not belong in this guideline. I'm not pushing for a change that has no consensus. The second paragraph in the intro of this guideline already says what I want the NNC section to say. In my "history lesson" as you called it, I showed that there is no current consensus for the current wording of NNC. Why are you asking me to make concessions? You're not asking Davidwr, SmokeyJoe, Black Falcon, Shereth, Kevin Murray, Erachima, Peter Ballard, Peregrine Fisher, Colonel Warden, Theseeker4, Skomorokh, or travb. As far as I know, nobody has come forward saying they supported you changing the heading "Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content" to "Notability of article content." If you want to spinout a proposal, go ahead. I know about the editing policy. But I also know that when you spinout an article like Gameplay of Final Fantasy, there will be people who think if "the parent article is becoming bloated with information about it, it's time to trim, not to split."[19] You know that too, since you wrote up the RFC on N and supported that proposal and added the AVOIDSPLIT shortcut to the "Avoiding unnecessary spinouts" section which Percy Snoodle added to Wikipedia:Summary style — a section I said in July should be removed because I objected to it and Percy Snoodle had made no posts on the talk page of that guideline. WP:CONSENSUS does not work by claiming over and over that the current NNC section has consensus. If you want the wording of NNC to stay the same, apply the current wording of NNC to the article Gameplay of Final Fantasy. What do you come up with? --Pixelface (talk) 09:00, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
There's already a consensus for what's written here or something similar. Not just the few people who have discussed it with you, but the numerous people who changed, tweaked, and modified the section in accordance with WP:BRD. Just that there are a few voices who have said "that doesn't belong here". When you look at the position with the broadest consensus, it *would* be to split it out into another policy/guideline, or a new one altogether. I'm trying to make concessions under the assumption that others who share my viewpoint would make the same concessions, but you keep on sticking to your position. Are you hear to build a consensus, or are you here to argue for your position? Randomran (talk) 18:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Original Pixelface's edits[20]

The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. Notability, in the sense used to determine article inclusion, does not directly affect article content.

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 [5]).

Both edits are poorly written, both desperately need examples to illustrate complex bureaucratic ideas. That said, Pixelfaces first edits are clearer and easier to understand. travb (talk) 15:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for improving clarity. But it's the substance of the current consensus that I prefer. I've always been open to something that states the same thing more clearly, even adding additional statements that reduce misinterpretation and abuse. But we'd need to collaborate on a new version to form a new consensus. If you read just passed the break above, you'll see that User:Skomorokh had a good idea that could lead to a decent compromise. I've been willing to make concessions (and maybe it's presumptuous for me to offer that since I certainly don't WP:OWN the current guideline), but we're not going to reach a new consensus if the other side is unwilling to find some middle ground. Randomran (talk) 17:26, 24 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the uninvited guest to this discussion is WP:NOTINHERITED. I think we are all agreed that notability does not does not directly affect article content, but that does not mean that related topics inherit notability from an over arching topic to justify a seperate stand alone article, or to be included as a sub-topic within an article on the over-arching notable topic. What Pixelface seems to be proposing is that you use an article on a notable topic as a dump for lots of non-notable sub-topics. This goes against the consensus that notability of a parent entity or topic (of a parent-child "tree") does not always imply the notability of the subordinate entities.
    I am not sure what I have said makes sense, or can be understood. However, it is clear that as the content of an article which is the subject of notable topic grows in size, then it needs to be seperated into seperate articles (each demonstrating the notability of its subject matter) or trimmed so that it remains focused and undue weight is not given to subsidiary topics. What is clear is that Pixelface is trying to get around these commons sense boundries, but for what ends is not clear as he is yet to give an example of how an article would be improved by his proposal. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:14, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Term of art vs. common usage

One thing I have noticed in deletion debates is that there is a particular school of thought based on literal reading of this guideline that tends to find itself frequently shot down. This school of thought is one that ignores the more common usage of "notable" to mean important, significant, etc. This happens on both inclusionist and deletionist sides - the "two sources so it automatically passes" argument, and the "lack of sources, delete automatically" argument.

Historically, this guideline evolved from our attempts to define importance and significance. The multiple sources test got settled on as a good one for determining that, but we should not forget that it was originally an attempt to check importance. The steady evolution of "notability" to mean "a subject with multiple sources" has changed the word to a confusing term of art. But, more problematically, it has led to a schism in deletion debates, as one faction uses the word exclusively as a term of art, and the other engages in a more holistic evaluation, checking not only compliance with the guideline, but also the more general question of "is this an important subject." In practice, the holistic evaltuation is a major part of how deletion decisions are actually made, and the guideline's ignoring of it is a glaring omission.

I would like to propose writing a descriptivist section that notes the history of the guideline, and the practical fact that evaluations of importance do play a role in deletion decisions, and that arguments to this effect should be engaged, not dismissed or ignored. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that it needs to go into the guideline, because there needs to be some normative force that can be used to force "fails bright line test, nothing else matters" arguments to actually think in a manner that is more compatible with larger consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this is better as an essay than as a section in WP:N. If what you are describing is consensus, then there is little need to add it for the sake of normative force. If it is contentious, adding it for the sake of "clarifying" seems a bit disingenuous. What you want is already covered under WP:IAR. I would say that not treating "Notability" as a term of art is to denigrate its place as a guideline. RJC TalkContribs 19:21, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I would argue that the guideline was not supposed to replace "importance" with our curious usage of it, but rather that it provided a test for notability. The issue of normative force, to me, is this - the lack of any acknowledgement of this role of conventional notability in deletion debates leads to the mistaken belief that such arguments can be ignored. Given the frequency with which they come up, from a consensus-based decision making model, they can't be. Too much of the community uses them to say that they are irrelevant to deletion debates. And so this guideline is inaccurately describing process if it doesn't make some mention of this aspect of notability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, this is just from my own digging, but I think it's very likely that the guidelines for inclusion (BIO, BAND) were made in the first place so people would stop creating articles about themselves, their friends, and their bands/local bands. Then came FICT, then WEB, then NUMBER, then CORP. Then they were renamed "notability" guidelines by Jiy in December 2005 after this proposed rename. One thing that was changed then was Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies became Wikipedia:Notability (people).[21]
The term "non-notable" was, and continues to be, a common reason for deletion in deletion debates. And it usually meant "Well I've never heard of it." The reason the phrase "non-notable" is so successful is that is has so many synonyms: Not worthy of notice. Not famous. Not well-known. Not noted. Not noteworthy. Not significant. Not important. Not remarkable. Not renowned. Not great. Not illustrious. Not prestigous. Not prominent. Not distinguished. Not esteemed. Not memorable. Yet most are opinions. So WP:N was rewritten in September 2006, referring to the inclusion guidelines that had already been written, which appear in Template:Notabilityguide.
Since then, many editors have insisted that there is such a thing as "wiki-notability" or that something is "wp-notable" or that notability on Wikipedia is defined as "significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independed of the subject", which I think is incorrect. That is considered evidence of notability. If people are using the word "non-notable" to mean "does not meet the inclusion criteria", I think that's a problem. I added "If an article currently does not cite reliable secondary sources, that does not necessarily mean that its topic is not notable" to this guideline to hopefully help people understand. This thread from March is related to that. This thread from June is related to definitions, evidence, and FICT. But I think this whole page needs to be rewritten, really. And actually writing and improving an article for notability may be a good idea, although it's been deleted multiple times — including an AFD in August 2006. --Pixelface (talk) 19:28, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
This entire RfC proceeds on the assumption that notability is a term of art. So, despite the history of the guideline, its seems a pretty strong consensus has grow around using it as a set of inclusion criteria. There are a few voices that spoke out against treating the GNG and SNGs as sets of criteria, but they were solidly in the minority. The notability guideline as it stands is good, and needs only minor tweeking, not a complete re-write. RJC TalkContribs 20:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. And I don't think a complete rewrite is in order at all. But on the other hand, we delude ourselves if we pretend that adherence to the multiple sources rule is the only way in which notability is considered on Wikipedia, we make this guideline inaccurate and rightly disputable - because as it stands, notability as a functional concept on Wikipedia goes beyond this guideline. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:04, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Closing the RFC has proven controversial in of itself, seeing as there's an assumption of bad faith on anyone too involved in it. ("You're just trying to favor your interpretation of WP:N".) That's why I've gotten the commitment from one or two people (one is getting cold feet) to close it with some neutrality. But I'll stick my neck out and say the obvious: people agree we need some kind of inclusion criteria for quality control -- not just for a level of importance, but so that articles will have some likelihood of being able to meet our other policies (such as WP:NOT and WP:OR and even WP:NPOV). Despite its harshest "just remove it entirely" critics, people basically like WP:N and would rather improve and refine it. That said, there's overwhelming support for the SNGs too, in order to moderate and sculpt the "reliable third party sources" requirement around specific areas of interest. Those SNGs wouldn't be total exemptions from WP:N, but some relaxed standard that would still measure importance, and still lead to a likelihood that the article will meet our other content guidelines and policies. (There's also a sense that there should be a SNG for lists -- again, not a total exemption, but a relaxed standard.) Randomran (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Aervanath already closed the RFC. Why is that not good enough? Aervanath is now an admin. I think people do agree there is a need for inclusion criteria, but N provides an overview of them and shows evidence that is condidered evidence of notability for any topic. I don't think there's a dispute that significant coverage in reliable secondary sources is considered evidence of notability. But I don't know if people basically like N. The talk page archives are huge. Category:Wikipedians against notability has over 150 people in it. We don't need a page to ensure that articles have a likelihood of meeting NOT, NPOV, V, and NOR. --Pixelface (talk) 22:55, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh, I don't mean that the discussion isn't over. Of course it is. But there is a consensus *against* a lot of ideas, and even a consensus *for* how to move forward when you read through the comments. That's why an analysis is underway. Randomran (talk) 00:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
RJC, the RFC written by Randromran did not proceed on the assumption that notability is a term of art. --Pixelface (talk) 23:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
I did not mean authorial intent, but the tenor of the comments. RJC TalkContribs 23:22, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, while I had a major role in creating the RFC, my role would be more organizer than author. There were a number of proposals, and we noticed that most of them focused on two issues: how far can the SNGs go, and how does inherent / inherited notability work. To that degree, yeah, I guess there was an underlying assumption that we were talking about a Wikipedia guideline, and not trying to explain a common word. Randomran (talk) 00:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I still think that a very long term goal is not so much to deprecate notability (in the WP sense) but to instead install "inclusion" guidelines - we want to include as many verifiable, non-indiscriminate topics as possible (eg we are still not going to list every living human regardless how broad inclusion we consider). The only limiting factor at a point is how we artificially place walls between such topics, knowing that without boundaries (a page per topic), some topics will grow in areas that fail to meet the mission (discriminate or free content) or the core policies of V/OR/POV; the additional reason for adding such walls is to make sure that WP can also be maintained. WP-Notability, as I see it being used right now, is defining those walls for use : topics that can be talked about through secondary sources - and thus can be expanded while meeting WP's core goals - get their own rooms, but when you don't have this, topics share a common space with possibly a larger topic's room. Mind you, horrible metaphor, but it also does show that WP-Notability has no direct correlation with any real meaning of the word "notability" in most dictionaries. Unfortunately, the term "notability" has become engrained that to change it from that will take a good amount of time and educational effort across the board. Is this a worthy goal? I would say yes - anything to help make it clear what we actually try to mean by what's written at WP:N for newer editors. --MASEM 00:02, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • And to be clear, I largely agree that the availability of good sources is crucial to the creation of a good article. (My disagreement comes largely in the area of fiction, where I think we have an abysmal policies for the use of sources, based largely on a systemic bias against the humanities.) The issue is that, by having this guideline be entirely about that, we remove a discussion of notability as it was first used, and as it is still used on Wikipedia - as a synonym for importance and significance. An acknowledgement of that aspect of it in the guideline - not a new policy on importance, just a description of existing practice - seems to me needed. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:39, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Secondary sources are very important to provide any expanded coverage of a singular topic for exactly that reason - thus, if a topic has secondary sources, a detailed article can be written. But, a topic may be limited to primary or limited coverage in sources (but otherwise still meets WP:V, the most critical content policy) but would still be a completely valid search term in a "general encyclopedia", "specialized encyclopedia" , and "almanacs", and anything that falls as a possible topic for coverage in those areas should be a searchable term through redirects and disambig pages. There may not be the same volume of text on that topic as there would be for a similar topic that does have significant coverage, but there will at least be something, and that's more useful for the reader than nothing at all, particularly if that topic is coverage with other similar topics or in part of a larger topic as to lead to more information.
  • We still need to meet (most importantly) WP:V and WP:NOT, among others - we are never going to include every person that is living now (indiscriminate though verifiable) or every garage band (lack of verification though possible discriminate). There will still be need in an inclusion approach to define, as Phil points out, what are "important and significant" topics to be included with relatively objective lines to be drawn. But what is "important and significant" is a superset of what is "notable", and thus only those that meet the ability to have expanded coverage due to their secondary sources can be written out further. This keeps to the goal of being the sum of human knowledge without sacrificing the goals of being verifiable; there are some parts of human knowledge that simply "exist" without any secondary coverage of them, taken as fact or the like. --MASEM 15:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Ever since the "inclusion" guidelines were renamed in December 2005, people seem to think that "inclusion guideline" and "notability guideline" are one and the same. They aren't. A notability guideline is an inclusion guideline, but an inclusion guideline is not necessarily a notability guideline.
Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies (currently known as BIO) was created August 1, 2003 by Kat.[22] It was an inclusion guideline. The first instance of a "notability" guideline was when TUF-KAT renamed Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Vanity Band Guidelines (currently known as MUSIC) to Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Notability and Music Guidelines on January 30, 2005.[23] Template:IncGuide was created November 29, 2005 by Radiant![24] to list the inclusion guidelines at the time, and the first revision linked to BIO, CORP, FICT, MUSIC, and WEB (which weren't "notability" guidelines at the time). Then Jiy renamed them to Wikipedia:Notability (*) in December 2005 after proposing to give them a common naming scheme. Template:IncGuide was renamed Template:Notabilityguide on April 7, 2006 by John Reid.[25]
I do not think there is such a thing as "WP-notability." If that means "notable enough to be on Wikipedia" it doesn't mean much, because people can create articles on anything and everything. If it means "notable enough to stay on Wikipedia", that's decided at AFD, and to some extent by admins applying a speedy deletion criteria about "unremarkable" people. This guideline, Wikipedia:Notability does have a direct relation to the dictionary definition of notability. It currently says "The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice."" When Radiant! rewrote this page in September 2006, it said "it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must have a certain notability in order to have an article in Wikipedia" and "Several guidelines have been created, or are under discussion, to indicate what is and is not notable" and "Articles on non-notable subjects are frequently nominated for Proposed Deletion and Articles for Deletion, and are frequently deleted via those processes."
That description of common practice then mutated into the monstrosity currently before us. --Pixelface (talk) 23:55, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
"WP-notability" has mutated to "significant coverage in secondary sources" which you will not find in a dictionary. This is not to disparage the use of secondary sources to define topics that should get expanded coverage, but this same definition of WP-notability should not be used to prevent the coverage of any "notable" (per "worthy of notice") topic in part of the larger coverage of a work. And there is a good point that notability (WP-N) is an inclusion guideline, but too many editors have taken notability to be the inclusion guideline. This is why we want an inclusion guideline that helps prevent indiscriminate topics, and "some" type of guideline to describe how to organize such topics into their own articles or into coverage of larger articles. WP:N is trying to do both, but it really really should be split. --MASEM 01:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
"Significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject" is just considered by Wikipedia editors to be evidence of notability for any topic. And why wouldn't it be? It's such a vague and lofty generalization. And yet when someone gets a lot of recent news coverage, there are disputes. That it's considered evidence of notability for any topic does not mean that it's the only evidence of notability for every topic. The nutshell says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article" — not "If and only if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." There are all kinds of things that are evidence of notability. --Pixelface (talk) 23:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Proposed wording

In addition to its meaning the existence of multiple reliable independent sources, the word "notability" is often used on Wikipedia to refer to the idea of importance or significance. This usage predates the threshold set up by this guideline, and indeed, this guideline was originally an attempt to create a consensus test for importance and significance, although it has moved away from that goal over time.

Despite this, many Wikipedians still consider the ideas of importance and significance in and of themselves in debates on article inclusion. Although no overall policy on importance and significance exists, as a practical matter of forming consensus, enough Wikipedians value the concept that it must be considered in discussions.

Thoughts? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

  • I disagree. The idea that an article topic has to be important was dropped very early in the disucusions about inclusion criteria. The reason was that "importance" is a very subjective term - what is important to one editor may be unimportant to another. So the idea of notability - the citation of reliable secondary sources as a basis for article inclusion - replaced importance. This debate concluded a long time ago: see Wikipedia_talk:Importance#Jimbo.27s_comment. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:07, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
The debate may have ended, but the actual practice hasn't. And I don't see much chance of reforming the practice. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Can you cite examples? I have probably participated over 100 AfD discussions, but never seen an article deleted for failing because the topic was "unimportant". Perhaps you are mixing up "unimportance" with failing WP:NOT? --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • On the side of people voting to delete over WP:N, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fábio Pereira da Silva (2nd nomination) is the most recent place I've run into it. The debate was closed keep, but it was a contentious close, and I'd be lying if I said I was confident it was the right close, even if it is the right result. On the side of articles being kept for importance despite the failure to satisfy WP:N, this is the more common result, as you know. In each case, the view of importance is widely held enough that anything that can be claimed to be a consensus is going to have to engage it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Not clear to me why Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fábio Pereira da Silva (2nd nomination) suggests any need for change in WP:N. I think your argument in the AfD was correct, and the AfD was correctly closed as a no consensus Keep. Your point must be that other participants in that discussion thought that failure to take the field in a fully-professional team ruled out having an article on the man. It is well-known (at least to some) that wide coverage in reliable sources will trump WP:ATHLETE in cases where the taking-the-field test is not met. This is not a judgment on the person's intrinsic importance, it is an observation of the wide extent of their press coverage. EdJohnston (talk) 16:50, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I think that just inflames the debate. Notability really has become a term of art -- it's about the guideline, not the dictionary definition of "worthy of note". Bringing importance back into it will only hurt more feelings: "your article is not important"; "you're not worthy". If anything, we need to clarify that this isn't a subjective judgment of "worthiness" but an effort to predict an article's "ability". Notability: the ability to note something in an encyclopedic way, in conformity with other guidelines like WP:OR, WP:V, and WP:NOT. (It also doesn't handle the side issue that opened up this larger debate: to what extent do articles need to stay on topic and avoid going into exhaustive detail? And where do we put that guideline, if not here?) Randomran (talk) 17:29, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we have made notability into a term of art, but on the other hand, it is clearly not exclusively a term of art. Flipping through the AFDs for December 14th (old enough that many have discussions), I see an equal share of discussions using notability as a term of art as not, and a great many that seem to split the difference. I think the attempt to remove a judgment of worthiness is noble, but can you seriously say that worthiness is not still a factor in inclusion debates? Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd have to concede that "importance" is part of it. But I feel like too many people treat it like that more more than it should be, because it does lead to a lot of subjective keep AND delete votes. I tend to see WP:N as a minimum threshold of importance, not a huge achievement. I think we *should* cover virtually anything that's been covered by another reliable and critical/analytical source. So I have a very relaxed idea of "important", for Wikipedia's sake. Either way, I think promoting the idea that articles have to "feel" important would be a step in the wrong direction. Randomran (talk) 18:08, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Hm. OK. I mean, I don't disagree with you on principle. My concern is this - it is an issue in practice. And while I agree it's problematic, it's also a real part of the decision making process, and it's not going away. And I feel like part of having a decision making process that is about consensus instead of rules-lawyering is the fact that significant minority viewpoints matter in decision making. And the importance viewpoint is a significant minority viewpoint. You often don't have a consensus unless you've addressed their concerns somewhat. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:45, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
But which practice are we documenting -- how the word "notability" is used, or how the guideline is applied? In practice, we generally delete/merge/redirect articles without reliable third-party sources. We also delete stuff so obviously "unimportant" that these sources probably don't exist, although I hope that people make a good faith effort to browse google scholar or *something* before they do it. There is some stuff that's "important" enough that people think sources will eventually exist... and many of these will end up with no consensus, and get renominated if someone doesn't WP:PROVEIT after a while. And perhaps the most telling about our current practice: an article that people feel is "unimportant" will usually be kept if it has appropriate sources -- despite feelings about its unimportance. I think WP:N basically documents this practice. To the extent that it doesn't (e.g.: there are a number of articles that don't strictly meet the guideline, but probably won't ever be deleted), we need to craft specific notability guidelines. I really don't want to confound the semantics of the word with the overall application of the rule. Hence why there was talk of even renaming the guideline. Randomran (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Randomran, you just contradicted yourself. You said "Notability really has become a term of art -- it's about the guideline, not the dictionary definition of "worthy of note"." Yet the guideline says "The topic of an article should be notable, or "worthy of notice."" WP:N says if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable. That does not mean that notability is now defined as "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." If people are using the word "notable" and assigning the word that definition, they misunderstand this guideline. That is considered evidence of notability. --Pixelface (talk) 00:55, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I'm against the idea of notability being all about "worthy of note". It's far too subjective and loaded. I think it overstates the subjective measure of importance, and understates the how the guideline helps contribute to the framework of other policies such as WP:OR and WP:NOT. I maintain that a lot of it is demonstrating the ability to write a Wikipedia-appropriate article. Randomran (talk) 06:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
You may not be able to write a Wikipedia-appropriate article if there are not enough sources to gather information from, but that has more to do with lack of verifiability than lack of notability. If someone thinks a topic is notable, but there isn't a lot of information about it, they could still create a stub about it. If other people think it's not notable, the creator of the article can provide evidence of notability to try and persuade them.
The word "notable" has meant "worthy of note" since at least the 14th century.[26] Notability is subjective, it's a perception. Before WP:N was written, editors were giving their subjective opinions of notability or lack thereof in deletion debates — and they still do. It's an opinion. But the word "notable" also has different meanings (worthy of notice; important; famous; prominent; well-known; significant; significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded; noted) — and apparently some people on Wikipedia think it means "notable enough to be on Wikipedia", or "meets the GNG", or "likely to meet V, NOR, NPOV, and NOT." That's why the word is so problematic.
There may be plenty of sources about a person, which could be used to write an article on Wikipedia, yet some people may still consider the person not notable. There may be plenty of sources about a thing, which could be used to write an article on Wikipedia, yet some people may say that Wikipedia should still not have an article about that thing.
This guideline says if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is usually worthy of notice. That coverage is widely considered evidence of notability by Wikipedia editors. But that is not the only evidence of notability. If someone wins eight gold medals in the Olympics, they will be considered notable. But that does not mean that other people have to win eight gold medals in the Olympics in order to be considered notable. Significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject is evidence of notability. Winning eight gold medals in the Olympics is evidence of notability. Being the richest man on Earth is evidence of notability. And so on.
Citing coverage is just one way to persuade other editors that some person, place, or thing is notable. I suppose the argument goes "Well these sources have noted it, so they clearly think it's notable." --Pixelface (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
I get it. You think notability is entirely a subjective matter of importance. I disagree. Yeah, there's a measure of importance involved in this guideline, but it's supposed to be a minimal threshold of "not unimportant -- somebody somewhere has written something about it." WP:N is also just the logical conclusion from our basic policies. By any other name, it would still call for reliable third-party sources. WP:V says we remove information without reliable third-party sources. It's also tied to WP:NPOV (and WP:UNDUE). Why can't you just write something from a whole ton of primary and self-published sources? Because there's no accountability. The article ventures off into vanity. Sure, you've verified it... but only with what the source said about itself. We wouldn't write an article about George Bush or Bill Clinton using only their speeches and official press releases. WP:N guarantees that it's possible to write an article in an objective way. And the requirement of reliable third-party sources also helps us get WP:NOT#PLOT information into articles on fictional topics, such as reception and development. The truth is if you took WP:N away, we'd probably delete the same articles, just for a much more complicated set of reasons. But for the sake of convenience, let's just say that reliable third-party sources are a damn near necessity, and we have the SNGs to explain how we might be able to write policy-compliant articles without the same quality of research. Randomran (talk) 22:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
The only "minimum threshold" that this guideline gives is that topics should be "notable." The GNG is not the "minimum threshold." N is not the logical conclusion from V, OR, NPOV, and NOT. It's the result of people saying "non-notable" in deletion debates prior to September 2006. Information in an article has to be verifiable. It doesn't always have to be verifiable in "reliable third-party sources." There's no reason to even go to a third-party source when a primary source will suffice. You're right, we wouldn't write an article about George Bush or Bill Clinton using only their speeches and press releases. They're living people. But that has nothing to do with this guideline. George Bush is notable. Bill Clinton is notable. Do you know why they're notable? They're not notable for significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. They're notable because they are Presidents of the United States. There is nothing objective about notability. There is nothing objective about the GNG. WP:V and WP:NOR and WP:NPOV are the policies that ensure articles are written in a neutral way, based on references, without any unsourced information.
If WP:N was taken away, people would still nominate articles for deletion for being non-notable — because of some SNG or because of their personal opinion. "Reliable third-party sources" are not a "damn near necessity." But that has nothing to do with this guideline. The SNGs give evidence of notability for certain classes of topics. People who have held national political office? Generally notable. People who have competed at the fully professional level of a sport? Generally notable. An actor who has had significant roles in multiple notable films? Generally notable. A website that has won a well-known and independent award from a publication? Generally notable. A professor who has been an editor-in-chief of a major well-established journal in their subject area? Generally notable. A book that has won a major literary award? Generally notable. A film that has received a major award for excellence in some aspect of filmmaking? Generally notable. A musician who has had a record certified gold or higher in at least one country? Generally notable.
How about you create an article for notability and cite some of those reliable third-party sources you're talking about? --Pixelface (talk) 06:09, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
WP:NOT#DICTIONARY. Randomran (talk) 08:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
What about it? It says "Articles that contain nothing more than a definition should be expanded with additional encyclopedic content, if possible." I suggested you create an article for notability in the hope that you might actually learn something about the concept while you do research for the article. Or is notability a non-notable topic? --Pixelface (talk) 02:56, 23 December 2008 (UTC)
Third party sources are a necessity for WP articles, per WP:V. Also, nearly every example of the SNG that you state presume notability because in 99+% of the cases listed there are or will eventually be secondary or third-party sources about those specific topcis, so it makes perfect sense to allow articles on them even if sourcing is presently minimal, as long as the criteria they are asserted with is shown to be true. --MASEM 13:10, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
A necessity? No. A good idea most of the time? Yes. I've already talked about this on this talkpage — in July. Go to this thread in the archives and search for "21:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)" — or here is the diff of my comment if you want.
In January, Hiding (who marked WAF a guideline, who proposed PLOT based on WAF, who provided the first summary of the SNGs at WP:N, who created WP:FICT/N, who created Wikipedia:Plot summaries) said at the E&C2 workshop, "The person who suggested that addition to WP:V is the biggest twat on Wikipedia. ;)" and later said "Referring to yourself as the "biggest twat on Wikipedia" is actually self deprecating humour where I live. That's why I put the smiley in, to show I was joking." It was Robert A West that actually suggested the new wording and Robert A West who changed the wording at WP:V, but Hiding did start the thread at WT:V — because of an edit dispute at the article UGOPlayer, which Hiding had nominated for deletion five days earlier. It's just another poor policy change that came about because of Hiding, done without considering the ramifications for Wikipedia's 2.6 million+ articles.
Information on Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. It doesn't always need to be verifiable in third-party sources. The evidence of notability stated in SNGs is based on status, not the likelihood of coverage. Yes, if an athlete wins a gold medal, they'll probably receive third-party coverage, but they receive coverage because of their status, their achievement. The first man in space is notable for being the first man in space. That's a notable human achievement. The coverage comes because of their status, after people deem someone or something "worthy of notice", deserving their attention. Coverage is evidence of notability. It is not the only evidence of notability. Coverage is used to persuade editors unfamiliar with a topic, that the topic is notable. --Pixelface (talk) 01:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Gavin, the word "notable" is just as subjective as "important"; indeed, one synonym for "notable" is "important." No dictionary that I know of defines notability as having to do with reliable secondary sources. Although one synonym for "notable" is "noted." Since the word "notable" has so many synonyms, it may be that most arguments about notability can be traced back to people using different meanings of the word. We all may speak English here, but that doesn't mean we're speaking the same language. --Pixelface (talk) 00:41, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I could not agree with you more because the underlying the concept of notability means a whole lot more than a topic being the subject of reliable secondary sources. When we say a topic is notable, we also assume there is "sufficient" and "suitable" content for an encyclopedic article, i.e. the article will meet Wikipedia content policies. So when we say a topic is notable, we assume lots of other things too, such as the relaible secondary sources it contains will not be misleading, trivial nor give undue bias to a particular viewpoint over another. We make lots of judgements when we refer to a topic as notable. But that is natural - readers want notable topics, because they make for the best articles in many ways other than just sourcing, they want good content too. --Gavin Collins (talk) 01:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
  2. ^ See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Rex071404
  3. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
  4. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
  5. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
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