Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2013

Proposed notability criteria for authors

I find the notability criteria for most creative professionals here incredibly ambiguous. I hope I'm not alone in that sentiment. Although I'd like to tackle others, for the time being here is my proposal for a rewrite of WP:AUTHOR. This is based in part on the existing WP:MUSBIO criteria:

Criteria for authors (Draft 1)

An author of a book in any genre may be notable if one of the following criteria are met:

1. The author has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent from the author's works themselves. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, online versions of print media, and television documentaries except for the following:
   • Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the author talks about himself or herself, and all advertising that mentions the author, including manufacturers' and publishers' advertising.
   • Works consisting merely of trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report book signings or similar events.
   • Articles in a school or university newspaper (or similar), in most cases.
2. The author received a major genre-based or other literary award of national or international importance. (e.g. Pulitzer Prize, Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, Agatha Award, Hugo Award, et al.)
3. The author appeared in any independent best-selling list of national or international importance. (e.g. The New York Times Best Seller list, Publishers Weekly bestselling lists, et al.)
4. The author has two or more works concurrently in print with a major publisher or one of its imprints. Self-published or vanity published works do not count according to this guideline. The presence of an ISBN or inclusion in a national library such as the Library of Congress or the National Library of Australia do not constitute prima facie evidence of independent publication.
5. The author had at least one work independently translated and published in at least one foreign language.
6. The author had at least one work featured with a major book sales club such as Book of the Month Club.
7. The author has become one of the most prominent representatives of a notable style or genre; note that the subject must still meet all ordinary Wikipedia standards, including verifiability.
8. The author had at least one work adapted for film or television production, provided said adaptation also meets notability standards (WP:MOVIE and WP:TVSERIES respectively).
9. The author has been a featured subject of a substantial broadcast segment across a national radio or TV network.

I'd also like to work in a criterion dealing with Nielsen BookScan data, but I'm having trouble finding an elegant way to do so. Thoughts? Faustus37 (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Not even so much as a comment on this? C'mon ... Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 17:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

This is such a large leap that it would be hard for anyone to tell whether it's an improvement on the existing deliberately ambiguous language. Maybe start by improving one clause at a time. It also looks like you're formalizing some inherent notability requirements that may increase the number of notable authors. I'm all for increases in article quantity and broad consensus on limited inherent notability, but I don't know that it would get the widespread support that policy needs. JJB 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Would it increase the number of notable authors? Probably, but not ridiculously so. More importantly, it would cut down considerably on the "notable/not notable" squabbling that seems to accompany every biography on creative professionals (I have ideas for clearing up notability for photographers and other visual artists too, but one chaos at a time ...). We have notability for sports professionals pretty well-defined at this point. I don't see any reason why we can't do that here as well. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 20:02, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Points 1 and 2 are already included in WP:ANYBIO and WP:GNG guidelines, so they are quite unnecessary. I strongly disagree with points 5 and 6, that are far from being a sign of real notability, and an author could have a bunch of reasons for meeting them outside of his notability (and of the notability of the book). Most important thing, with this version we would lose the current third and fourth criteria, ie authors whose works have received significant critical attention would be considered non-notable (and in my view these authors are vastly more notable than an obscure writer of a pseudoscientific essay that was published in Switzerland where it is fairly common that a book is published in several languages). Cavarrone (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem cutting 5 and 6. Not the end of the world by any means. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 22:07, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Remember that the key for new criteria should be that they will assure we can write more than a stub about the person with enough time to locate sources or for sources to come about - the above call by Cavarronne for points 5 and 6 are correct in this regard that these don't assure anything about sourcing of the author in the future. Point 4 also edges into that same area; just having two books in the progress of publishing doesn't necessarily assure anything about the author.

Point 7 is weird. The intent is obviously right, but I wonder if you are basically meeting the GNG by having any source that asserts point 7. That is, if you have a source that says an author is considered a major representative of a specific genre (and assuming it goes into more detail) you basically have shown enough for GNG notability. Otherwise, this might be a wording issue that may be gamed at, as another concern. Again, the intent works, but not sure of the wording to get there or of its need. --MASEM (t) 22:19, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

#7 is essentially a cut and paste of a point in WP:MUSBIO. I have no real strong feelings about it one way or the other. The intent of #4 is that the author has two books currently in print, as in a publisher's catalog and currently available in at least one standard book format. That said, I would be receptive to making #4 more stringent when it comes to publications such as cookbooks and romance novels. Authors associated with publishers such as Harlequin tend to be so prolific that their works behave less like books and more like periodicals in the marketplace. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 02:31, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

I'ld argue against #5"The author had at least one work independently translated and published in at least one foreign language." There are some countries where there is more than one official language (India for example), and where it's quite common for works to be released in more than one language. LK (talk) 07:19, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed revisions based on discussion thus far:

Criteria for authors (Draft 2)

An author of a book in any genre may be notable if one of the following criteria are met:

1. The author has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent from the author's works themselves. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, online versions of print media, and television documentaries except for the following:
   • Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the author talks about himself or herself, and all advertising that mentions the author, including manufacturers' and publishers' advertising.
   • Works consisting merely of trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report book signings or similar events.
   • Articles in a school or university newspaper (or similar), in most cases.
2. The author received a major genre-based or other literary award of national or international importance. (e.g. Pulitzer Prize, Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, Agatha Award, Hugo Award, et al.)
3. The author appeared in any independent best-selling list of national or international importance. (e.g. The New York Times Best Seller list, Publishers Weekly bestselling lists, et al.)
4. The author has two or more works concurrently in print with a major publisher or one of its imprints. Self-published or vanity published works do not count according to this guideline. The presence of an ISBN or inclusion in a national library such as the Library of Congress or the National Library of Australia do not constitute prima facie evidence of independent publication.
5. The author has become one of the most prominent representatives of a notable style or genre; note that the subject must still meet all ordinary Wikipedia standards, including verifiability.
6. The author had at least one work adapted for film or television production, provided said adaptation also meets notability standards (WP:MOVIE and WP:TVSERIES respectively).
7. The author has been a featured subject of a substantial broadcast segment across a national radio or TV network.

Deleted criteria:

* The author had at least one work independently translated and published in at least one foreign language.

* The author had at least one work featured with a major book sales club such as Book of the Month Club.

Good arguments are made against the translation criterion in particular. I have no issue whatsoever with cutting that loose. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 05:58, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to say I agree entirely that your criteria 3, 4 and 7 should be applied to authors, and are long overdue.  The Steve  21:18, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

• How does one judge if an, author has become one of the most prominent representatives of a notable style or genre? This seems guaranteed to cause argumentation. Abductive (reasoning) 15:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

1/5/10 Million Views as Notability for Entertainers/Personalities/*Stars

Favoring print sources seems to be a sensible policy when it comes to determining reliability for facts, since something that is printed is subject to more scrutiny than something that is said out-loud.

However, favoring print sources when it comes to the notability of people, which is essentially their impact, seems to be backward. Print coverage is not necessarily a measure of impact. The notability of porn stars, for example, exemplifies this draconianism:

"has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media."

In what world does mainstream media reflect the notability of porn stars? And the other two criteria are hilarious, since adult video awards have a ridiculously low viewership.

Here's the viewcount of major music award series, the Country Music Award: 13.6 million. That's a major music award series, by the way. I have no idea what the AVN's viewership is like, but I guarantee you it's not 13.6 million. This is supposed to verify the notability of someone, yeah? By contrast, and I hope you'll forgive me for linking this: the "top all time" of PornHub contains many videos which have 20,000,000 views, many of whom may or may not have won awards. So in theory, these are more viewed than the Country Music Awards aired on a national network, but if they don't get nominated by an Award panel somewhere they're not notable? Really? In what way does an award like this make someone notable? An award panel convened and said "yeah, well, I jacked off to this person a lot, but this other person -- hmm." That's the defining pronouncement of notability?

This also applies to YouTube personalities and bloggers. As I've said elsewhere, many YouTubers have viewcounts exceeding or matching that of TV Shows. The most viewed video on thedailyshow.com, "Sarah Palin Gender Card," has 4,603,790 views. By contrast, The Amazing Atheist (who I learned does not have a Wikipedia article), has 6,669,185 views for his Transformers 4 video. 6 million views is twice as many views than the opening episode of Season 7 of Dexter. As far as I am aware, albinwonderland, a YouTuber scraping 5 million channel views, does not currently have a channel. Yet that's 1 million more than the season finale of Scrubs and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Criterion 2 of Entertainers, "has a large fanbase", might fit this, although there is currently no equivalent for creative professionals. My point though is, without factoring viewcounts, you are ignoring the practical reality of what may or may not be notable.

A realistic criterion, I think, is 5 million views for a YouTuber, and 1 million views for a blogger. Independent coverage by award-whatevers don't necessarily reflect notability, especially if the award itself is relatively lesser-known. AlmaIV (talk) 18:56, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Notability specifically excludes popularity/viewership numbers, particularly from a site like Youtube subject to user input. A secondary source which notes that a person is popular because of X million views on YouTube would be an appropriate source to consider in the general notable guideline (but far from being sufficient), but just having X million views cannot fly. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, and notability specifically *shouldn't* exclude view numbers. You're saying that if an obscure news organization which gets maybe 1,000 views at most reports on a person for having 5,000,000 views on YouTube, that constitutes "notability"? Do you seriously not see how absurd that is and how that excludes a very practical consideration for notability? If something is notable enough to be covered by an independent source for its views, then it's notable enough for inclusion prior to said reporting. Yes, *obviously* views are subject to user input, but something like 5,000,000 YouTube views is hard to argue against. For comparison, "Hello" by Karmin, which has significant radio airplay, has 7,900,000 views.

This also doesn't address the absurdity of the AVN example: what exactly are people at the AVN awards doing that makes something notable? Did they convene a panel where they took into account the popularity of a porn star? Did they just say "yeah, I jacked off to this person a lot"? Did they take into account web stars or did they only watch stuff on DVD? What was the viewership of this award show like? For all you know, the viewership of an "award" could be something like 10,000 at most.

By excluding viewership from notability criteria but including vague wording like "large fan bases", you're being so bureaucratic as to be impractical. Award shows can be obscure and insignificant; independent coverage can be obscure and insignificant; you're just assuming that because something is independent, it's doing some kind of magic that makes something official. If 10,000,000 is notable enough to report on, it's notable enough to include into the notability criteria. Not everything notable has been reported on by some news source. Journalists are not omniscient. Replies like "this is excluded because reason" with no elaboration mask poor criteria with terseness. AlmaIV (talk) 19:58, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

A news source only getting 1000 views probably isn't reliable enough to use for notability. It's one thing if the New York Times notes a video getting millions of hits, and the same mentioned by the Smalltown Gazette. It is not that we are dismissing popularity outright. We are dismissing popularity with no context. Ok, so a video at YouTube got 10M hits - what does that mean? We, per WP:NOR, can't go into that type of assessment. Hence why popularity when mentioned in a secondary manner becomes a useful metric. --MASEM (t) 22:48, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Viewcounts don't need interpretation, are you kidding me? You have "important independent label" as a criterion for notability in music. Interpreting 5,000,000 views requires far less legwork than interpreting what is an "important independent music label." A journalist who says "this guy got 5,000,000 views, it's significant" isn't doing any more cognitive legwork than you are. There isn't some special faerie knowledge about the material.

The thought process is essentially "huh, this seems significant. It got 5,000,000 views. I'll write about it." And you still haven't answered my question about award shows. What do you think actually goes on in the process of deciding an AVN award that makes something significant that viewcount doesn't? And are you taking into account the significance of the award?

News sources don't get that much views to begin with. The San Antonio Current is the largest newspaper, internet-wise, in San Antonio (a city with 1.3 million population) and their YouTube channel only has around 130,000 views, and 131 subscribers.

Here is how you deal with context: assess what is typical of large amounts of views for that content type, and derive a baseline for notability from that profession. The Language Log blog gets 21,000 views a day, and has won an award. (Interestingly, only after it was published in book form. The content was the same.) If someone's blog gets at least that many views, daily, they're definitely notable. Calibrate accordingly.

For YouTube videos, yeah, okay, there might be some uncertainties. Maybe 1,000,000 isn't a lot. But you know what's definitely a lot? 5,000,000. Hell, the video for "Move, Shake, Drop" remix by Pitbull and Flo Rida, which is tied to a VEVO account, has 3.6 million. Pick something that is definitely notable and compare the views accordingly. This isn't hard.

"But someone with 50+ million views would certainly be covered by a magazine or independent source." No, not necessarily. The Hodge Twins / Twin Muscle Workout have something like 100+ million views collectively. They are the most popular bodybuilding channel on YouTube. Yet they are not exactly the subject of countless magazine articles about them. What factors into this is basically how much a journalist goes on YouTube and whether he/she pitches it to their editor, nothing else.

I won't even begin to get into the ridiculousness of demanding "media coverage" for porn stars. What possible reason could a media outlet have for covering a porn star other than strongly negative reasons? This leaves adult video awards to determining who gets into Wikipedia and who doesn't, and there's still the question of "what exactly do they do other than talk about how much they jacked off to a video?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlmaIV (talk • contribs) 23:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I cannot speak to the AVNs, I've no interest in that area, but I will say this: notability allows different fields to assess what sources are appropriate to discuss topics within that field, as long as they meet criteria for reliable, independent secondary sources. Given the $$$ that the porn industry makes, I would not be surprised that there is legitimate journalism that tracks the state of that industry and that are appropriate for that. But again, that's not my field.

But on the larger picture, we are here to write encyclopedic articles, not a who's who. That means, we need sources. The fact that a blogger has a 5M view video on YT is nice - but that says absolutely nothing about sourcing. Hence why other sources reporting on view counts usually are good sources for notability for they will explain more than just the viewcount fact, perhaps why it got that many viewcounts or go into the history. That makes for a useable encyclopedic article. But just noting that a video by a blogger got 5M counts does not. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Ian Stylezz

I'm making a page for the Actor Ian Stylezz and need help creating this. What should be done? He is a uprising new versitile awesome actor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.31.222.133 (talk) 17:08, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Royalty

How do we establish the notability of royalty? I would think that they would violate WP:ONEEVENT. And they are not covered under WP:POLITICIAN.--Auric talk 23:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm curious as to why they should violate ONEEVENT? They're notable for who they are and the coverage they get, not a particular event in which they're involved. Royalty (real royalty, that is, not minor non-royal people a long way down the succession who nobody has ever heard of) tend to get mentioned quite a lot in the media or in the historical record. We don't really need any further criteria than those already listed here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:45, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Their being royal is linked to one event, namely their birth and/or their parentage. I admit that secondary notability usually covers then, via public works, but it still seems rather flimsy. A good portion of the population of Britain and Europe is technically royal in one way or another. It doesn't make them more notable, but why does it make them less notable? How do we decide where to draw the line? --Auric talk 01:11, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

No, being "royal" technically means having a royal title. Not everyone (or even most people) related to a royal family is royal themselves. People with genuine royal titles will usually be notable for the usual reasons (i.e. major media or historical coverage). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you mean. --Auric talk 13:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Generally, royalty have been extensively discussed over the years in numerous official lineage biographies that cover the lives of such personages in significant detail. I would also argue that, both because of that and the general other media coverage they get from their rank, they meet notability standards. True, it is not a rank that they earned, per se, but neither did many Queens, Kings, Princesses, or Princes and I doubt that you'd argue that such people are non-notable. Silverseren^C 09:56, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

RfC on Creative professionals

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Wikipedia guidelines are meant to describe what the community is doing, and in my opinion the current notability guidelines for Creative professionals does not describe consensus at Articles for Deletion discussion. Please refer to the the preceding section for some discussion of this issue.

Question for the community

Should the notability criteria #3 for "Creative professionals" be tightened?

3. The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.

My suggestion is that #3 should be deleted, and the words "subject of an independent book or feature-length film," be incorporated into #4. LK (talk) 04:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Comments

• Agree, tighten it up: Too vague as written; too inclusionist pbp 01:53, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
• Agree, tighten it up: Agree with pbp. The current wording is too loose, too inclusionist, and doesn't reflect what's consensus at AfD. FurrySings (talk) 15:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
• Disagree, keep it as it is. - Dream Focus has it right. If you had a major role in a notable work, then you are notable yourself, exactly because a person is notable because of their accomplishments. "How can the work of a famous painter or writer be notable but not the person who created it? That makes no sense at all." - exactly. The guidelines can stay as it is. --Cyclopia^talk 15:21, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
  • We need to separate the english language meaning of notability (which, for "the author of a notable book is notable themselves", would be true) and the WP meaning of notability which implies that the person can had a stand-alone article. Not every author of a notable book is going to have enough details to make a worthy standalone article, particularly when you get into academic works and away from contemporary fiction/non-fiction. If the only thing you can say about an author - beyond having written the notable book, is all of a few sentences, then merging as part of the book's article makes better sense. --MASEM (t) 05:07, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Of course if there is no material to source the article the article can't be made, that's not the point. But we could use a single source or an appropriate primary source in this case, like we can do for other articles that fall under guidelines beyond GNG. --Cyclopia^talk 12:39, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
• Comment. I am a bit worried this will hit academics harder than others, simply because most academics are known largely for their works, and perhaps one major work. There may just not be that much coverage on the person itself, unlike say artists and novel-writers and the like, who market themselves to some extent. I think the question is whether we measure notability just by reliable third-party secondary-source coverage or by longer-term impact on the world. WP:BASIC provides for the first, and the subject-specific guidelines were, I thought, meant to provide escape hatches to allow for the second. Churn and change (talk) 06:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

But from a practical perspective, how can you create an "escape hatch" article without violating WP:V? Either a biography meets WP:BASIC, or there is not enough verifiable material to create an article in the first place. This is why I think the secondary guidelines are better used to ensure consistent coverage of topics than as a substitute for the WP:GNG. VQuakr (talk) 06:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Academics have their own guideline, WP:ACADEMIC , so you don't have to worry about them. LK (talk) 09:03, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

@VQuakr: The escape hatch is in the size of the article created; whether just a few lines is considered sufficient. There is no minimum required size for an article; it is largely decided on a case-by-case basis. @LK: WP:ACADEMIC academic links back to WP:CREATIVE for one case, and that is the path we are talking of. Churn and change (talk) 16:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as is. Voting now, since I realized this is based on a three-year-old RFC, with nobody bothering to update the guidelines to reflect the RFC all this while. Well, we then need a new RFC; I agree authors of even a single multiply reviewed book are notable (notability is defined by WP as being "worthy of notice," not being worthy of a start-class article). There is nothing wrong with stubs. And essays don't count; anybody can write one. Churn and change (talk) 22:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is The criterion requires a body of RS'es attesting to the "significant or well-known work, or collective body of work", so anyone who passed the criterion would almost certainly pass the GNG anyways, so why mess with it? Jclemens (talk) 07:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If the person is going to pass GNG, why keep this? If the person is not going to pass GNG (sometimes the case with academics whose works are covered but who are not covered much as people (WP:PROF point 9), this can be used to establish notability, but this can't be used to create much more than a stub article. I lean toward keeping because I think stubs are okay for that case. Churn and change (talk) 16:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes people in AFDs argue that the interview done with the author was about their book, it not mentioning much about them as a person, so that only proves the book is notable. Instead of having to try to reason with these sorts of people, since that normally isn't even possible, it best to be able to link to a guideline page to avoid unnecessary long drawn out arguments. Dream Focus 18:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• tighten up - textbook and manual authors in particular may easily be non-notable nowadays; we see this all the time when the subject is author of a major manual or textbook on a computer programming language or the like, but not one user in a thousand could tell you who wrote her/his the text in front of them. --Orange Mike | Talk 20:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

  I'd say the writer of a textbook would be notable in his field, if his textbook is chosen among all others to be taught in colleges. Otherwise the headlines might as well read "Wikipedia, doesn't have an article on a guy whose work is read by millions of students, and notable enough to be chosen by large universities around the world to be used as their official textbook for a subject, but does have an article on someone who gets interviewed and reviewed for writing bestselling children's novels about farting. Seriously, lets keep this place encyclopedic as well as covering popular culture. Dream Focus 20:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Keep as is. Someone who created something notable should generally be presumed notable themselves. Maybe someone who played a more minor role in the creation should not be confused with one who was the principal creator. I might support some new language about that latter point. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is. Creative professionals are known for and notable for their works just as athletes are known for their athletic performances, politicians are known for their offices, etc. So what we need to support an article about the notable aspects of the subject (that is, their works) is adequate sourcing about their works. This change moves Wikipedia too far in the direction of valuing celebrity over accomplishments. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:24, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
• Tighten it up; even better, just stick to the GNG. bobrayner (talk) 11:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is. The whole question of notabilitiy is about keeping out articles we don't want i.e. spam. In this case we have a group of possible article subjects which we really should have in order to be considered encyclopedic. These people may not have tabloid notoriety but are far more important than any Kardie sisters. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agathoclea (talk • contribs) 17:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is. I find Agathoclea's reasoning persuasive, and IMO it is always imperative to err on the side of inclusion; no convincing evidence of harm to the project from these articles has been provided. -- Visviva (talk) 00:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is Frankly, I don't see what the issue is here. Dlabtot (talk) 04:05, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Retain I do not see the proposal as being a significant improvement here. Collect (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Comment: Notability guidelines on creative professionals in general are horribly ambiguous. See proposal below. Faustus37 (talk) 21:44, 6 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as an inclusionist; Collect is right, et al. If a situation appears that "book is notable but author isn't", we have almost always created one article, under one of the two subjects, until enough material indicates a split; to me, even if the article is about the book, this is preserving the community's right to disagree about whether the author is "also" notable. Ambiguity is often intentional! JJB 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)
• Tighten up: by definition notability means that the subject was found worth mention, and this criterion fails to demonstrate that. Keeping it leads to an ackward situation when the person is only covered with a stub article saying "'''X''' is a major contributor to [[Y]]", as nothing more can be stated according to WP:V (not to mention WP:BLP in cases of living persons). Such articles are not informative enough to provide significant benefit over redirects to the creations themselves. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk•track) 20:17, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
• Keep as is. The application of this is already a little restrictive in terms of what we call a "significant" role, and what we call a "major" work. Ib both cases, these are in practice required to be something at least a little more than just borderline notable. But this is not a matter capable of precise definition. There seems to be a wide range of views expressed above, and in general I do not think we necessarily consider the author of one notable work to be notable--it depends on the importance of the work. We've been doing this sensibly, by and large, and any change would make it unreasonably exclusive as compared to other categories of people. If we accept one major league game, we should do no less for one important work in a museum--though in practice we are already a little more restrictive require one very significant work, or more than one. DGG ( talk ) 02:53, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
• Tighten up - It's a well-established principle on Wikipedia that notability is not inherited (per WP:NOTINHERITED). The current wording seems to be an attempt to get around that. We should not have fork notability criteria that contradict the WP:GNG. Less wikilawyering and more consistentcy, please. DreamGuy (talk) 19:48, 1 January 2013 (UTC)
• Tighten. I can think of many cases in which a person is listed as an author on a textbook or producer on a movie for no good reason. People need to have some mention in secondary sources. Abductive (reasoning) 17:51, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

• As someone who remains undecided, please let me make a suggestion. Please explain succinctly what the problem is, that tightening up in this specific way would address. I'm having trouble seeing what the problem is, and spelling it out may make it easier to come to consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

• The problem is this: The current guideline implies that the author of a notable book is unambiguously notable, which violates the rule 'notability is not inherited'. Also, the term 'major role' is too broad. Are all the authors of a notable report (e.g. IPCC Third Assessment Report) notable? Are all programmers and graphic artists involved in in the creation of a notable game notable? Are all musicians in a band that has made one notable album, notable enough for a standalone article? According to this guideline, 'yes', AfD consensus says 'no' (see this one for example). The current guideline could also be read to imply (an interpretation favored by Dream Focus below) that the existence of the movie A Tiger's Tale, based on the novel Love and Other Natural Disasters, makes the novel's author Allen Hannay deserving of a standalone Wikipedia article. LK (talk) 04:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• "which violates the rule 'notability is not inherited'." - WP:ATA is an excellent essay, and I refer to it often -still I wouldn't call an example in an essay a "rule". I'd say this is a case where notability can definitely be inherited. I agree perhaps we should tighten up the wording "major role". --Cyclopia^talk 12:43, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• A point could be argued that the language of the current guideline includes the qualification "significant or well-known work", as opposed to just a notable (in WP-sense) work, which is meant to distinguish to a smaller subset of books. However, that itself is a highly objectivesubjective qualifier (what might be a mere textbook to most may be one of the most seminal works for a specific field) and really makes this a poor criteria that can be abused for WP-notability purposes. --MASEM (t) 07:30, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Pointed out that I meant subjective here, not objective. --MASEM (t) 00:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

• If the main point of the discussion is that the current guideline violates the rule 'notability is not inherited' I fully disagree.

The point is understanding what 'major role' means, and probably this could/should be emended to be more clear. In AdF we usually mean the major role for authors, directors, artists and people who have doubtless the major role in the creation of a product, (and they are usually kept on these basis) not sure for a programmer or for an assistant director. And it is pretty obvious that notability is inherited for an artist whose notable works were fruits of his genius and of his talent. A couple of notes about WP:INHERITED:

• 1 it never refers, not in his wording nor in its exemples, to artists, authors or people who are notable for their creative creations.
• 2 As I see people refer to WP:INHERITED as the main rule of Wikipedia, it is useful remind everyone that WP:INHERITED is not a policy, not even a guideline, it is just part of an essay, even if that essay is reasonable, useful and widely "used" in many parts. If that essay is not enough clear in some points, it itself should be emended, as it should follow the guidelines, not creating misunderstandings. Cavarrone (talk) 08:54, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• "Notability is not inherited" is a point established in the guideline for notability; INHERITED expounds on it. And INHERITED doesn't mention creative people because the point of INHERITED is that just because a topic B is strongly related to notable topic A does not infer notability to B. And again, to stress the point, when we say "notable" on WP, we are saying "merits a stand-alone article", and not the common english meaning. --MASEM (t) 09:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• WP:INHERITED mentions people in reference to them that would be expected to be notable just for their relation with more notable people ("his brother is a notable athlete", "there are lots of famous people on this list, so it's notable") nor the wording let us to include artists and creative people in the concept. It does not mention them for a reason, because otherwise it would be against our guidelines.

In fact, when you say "Notability is not inherited" is a point established in the guideline for notability you are wrong, because the current guideline we are discussing and several other guidelines (I can list them if necessary) say that notability is inherited under certain circumstances. We would not even discussing if it were not so.

The stand-alone article question is basically just an editorial issue, and there the golden word is "discretion". When there is a target for merging (or just redirect) the author with his notable work, and when the size of the article would be reasonable, so we don't need a separate article. When we have (or we are expected to have) enough content about that author/artist, and/or there is not a specific target for merging the informations (ie we have a body of notable works), so a separate article could be done. Cavarrone (talk) 10:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The concept of inherited notability is not limited to people but any two topics that have a connection; just because that connection exists does not mean that one inherits notability from the other. None of our notability guidelines give any provision for inherited notability because we don't allow for that. What they do say is that in some specific cases, achieving a certain notable factor (winning a major notable award) will likely assure that sources will eventually come into existence or will be found for the person, and thus we can presume that person will be notable.

The standalone article issue is everything. Editors want to assume that once something's notable they can run off and create a stubby article. Once this happens, it becomes very difficult to suggest merging or the link to a larger topic (such as the notable work they wrote), because they stand on these types of statements and stretch its meaning to avoid the merge or deletion. It's one thing to create a stub which you know can grow, but we're talking stubs without consistently likeliness of growth. If notability criteria are leading to these, then they are a problem and need to be corrected. --MASEM (t) 12:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Again, you probably need to read better the current guidelines. I.e., even if amended, the fourth criterium of WP:CREATIVE says that a subject whose works received significant critical attention (something extremely close to the third criterium we are discussing) or otherwise have other signs of notability (exibitions, galleries etc.) is himself presumed to be notable. No mention of the guideline for academics, for musicians and so on. Obviously we are talking about a presumption, and this let us enough freedom and discretion to avoid to be too bureaucratic in our approach. But they also explicitly establish a link (if you don't like the world inherent choose your favorite one) between a person and his works. Cavarrone (talk) 13:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I agree that what it intends to say is fine as it is not implying every notable book but a small select subset. But if you look at what Dream Focus is saying, the language can be read to imply that an author of any notable work (which fits the "signficiant") is thus notable. That doesn't seem to be what the intent was but it is being used to do that, and ergo needs fixing. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It does not imply every notable book, but neither is the subset small. I take the wording as saying "every book which has multiple reviews." I am ignoring the "significant" and "well-known" terms, since they mean nothing (the reason why we avoid them in article space applies here as well). If you are saying that isn't the intent, the wording does need fixing, and I will argue against that fixing. WP's definition of notable is "that worthy of notice" (see WP:NOTABILITY top part), not "that which provides us enough to fill a start-class article." "Presumption" as used in the article, and as shown by the wikilink, is a legal term, implying something "proven" unless somebody disproves it. It does not mean "almost there, need a bit more support." Churn and change (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Given "significant" and "well-known", I think the intent is more than "a book with multiple reviews". Per what subject-specific notability guidelines should be doing is list criteria where we know if X happens, there will be a very high change that Y will eventually have sources to meet the GNG - just not necessarily at the time X happens, so we presume notable. A book gaining multiple reviews says little about the author - though I will acknolwedge that reviews from certain sources are usually thorough and get into depth on the author, and making the book review a suitable source for the author's page to. But this is not true of all reviews. This is why I think the language is stressing the significance and importance of the work, with someone like J.K. Rowling being a prime example - she was a nobody before, the first book came out, blew away sales records, and thus the book's success assured that Rowling would be notable. Not all books or authors have that cycle, so hence the "significant" factor in play. Again, I stress what I say below: we can always cover the non-notable author of a notable book in the article about the book, expanding if notability comes in the future. --MASEM (t) 18:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

"Given "significant" and "well-known", I think the intent is more than "a book with multiple reviews". - We're entering a very subjective territory here. Why do we have to decide arbitrarily and subjectively what is significant and well known for our readers? Multiple reviews is a simple, objective criteria. --Cyclopia^talk 18:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

"Many reviews" may be less subjective, but it is not a good line because a book achieving many reviews gives no reasonable assurance that the author will be well-covered by sources (including considering sources that may come in the future). This is why this language is a problem - either you have subjective assessment of "significant" work but that reasonably avoids inclusion of non-notable (in the WP sense) authors, or you have the lower bound that is more objective that includes too many non-notable authors and violates WP:IINFO (and in some cases, BLP). It is better to avoid the creation of stubs with no reasonable chance to grow, and discuss the author within the article about their book. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• "because a book achieving many reviews gives no reasonable assurance that the author will be well-covered by sources" - If there are no sources, you fail WP:V, so there is no problem.
• "or you have the lower bound that is more objective that includes too many non-notable authors" - This is circular reasoning. We are defining what is a notable or non-notable author, so you can't say that the lower bound "includes too many non-notable authors". If the lower bound includes them, they are automatically notable per the bound. Now, given that it is a perfectly reasonable criteria (>1 reviews for art work), WP:IINFO does not apply -unless you equate IINFO with IDONTLIKEIT.
• "It is better to avoid the creation of stubs with no reasonable chance to grow, and discuss the author within the article about their book." - Well, this is very subjective. I could agree with this in principle, but it's very much dependent on each case. So each case should be discussed separately, at merge discussions of afd's. --Cyclopia^talk 18:57, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• If this guideline is attempting to define what a notable author is, it is very much broken. WP's definition of notability that applies to all topics is the GNG, significant coverage in multiple secondary sources. The subject-specific guidelines, like this, define cases where the GNG will likely be met but can't immediately be met due to difficulty in accessing sources or that sources that will be written haven't been written yet; we allow those topics to be presumed notable to allow editors time to find said sources. However, SNG's cannot define notability for a class that weakens the GNG goal, which is now what is being implied here. This is why there is no inherited notability because this can be used to bypass the GNG. And this is why "the author of a book with multiple reviews" is a bad idea, because that gives no impression that the author will ever meet the GNG.
• Note that you cannot start an AFD with the intent to merge, you have to use the merge discussion templates, and because these are less structured than AFD, you get the stonewalling that some editors want. Also, creating stubs is not subjective; we are not a collection of indiscriminate information, here meaning that we should avoid creating stubs that have no chance to grow. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• "SNG's cannot define notability for a class that weakens the GNG goal" - Uh, yes, they can. Your understanding of SNG's is confused. If all subjects were demanded to meet GNG, we would need only the GNG. These guidelines exist exactly because something/someone can be notable without necessarily meeting the GNG strict criteria.
• "you have to use the merge discussion templates, and because these are less structured than AFD, you get the stonewalling that some editors want." - Then discuss a change of the merge template, or seek consensus. It seems to me you explicitly complain because you don't get the consensus you like at merge discussions. I'm sorry, but you should just try to accept it. --Cyclopia^talk 19:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Masem, you are seriously confused here. The notability guidelines have always said quite clearly, a subject is notable if it meets the general notability guidelines or any of the subject specific guidelines. See WP:NOTABILITY, it all quite clear there at the top. Dream Focus 19:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but this is how the GNG and the SNGs work; its a presumption of meeting the GNG, since you cannot otherwise measure "notablility". When you claim a topic is notable by a criteria listed in an SNG, we expect that at some point there will be sources to make it meet the GNG. We presume it is notable in the meantime - and ergo the allowance to have an article. That presumption can be challenged at any time if the GNG sourcing is not present though AFD. Obviously we want to give time for such articles to develop (per DEADLINE) but, for example, if we presume that an author is notable if their book is, and you have an article on a standalone author of a notable book that was out 5+ years ago and there still remain a lack of sources about the author, then the presumption was wrong, and merging the author to the book makes sense. Now, one can argue these can be done case-by-case, but we want to avoid these situations in the first place. Ergo, we want criteria to have as few false positives on the notability presumption as possible. The criteria "the author of a notable book is presumed notable" is not a good one because there are too many authors of notable books that simply don't get coverage. --MASEM (t) 20:04, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• When the notability guidelines were first created, after years of Wikipedia not having them at all, it was determined this would be a good way to do it. If you don't like it, discuss it on the relevant talk page, and see if enough people want to change it. Getting two or more random reviewers or interviewers to talk about something, isn't the only way to determine if something is notable. Dream Focus 20:13, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Well, given that consensus can change, today, we expect that articles will have sufficient sourcing to meet the GNG, thus assuring WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV are met, the net effect that we need independent secondary sources eventually. This was a step reaffirmed in a large RFC on notability about 3 years ago where the roles of the SNG to the GNG were reiterated; they are not exceptions to the GNG, but "temporary" reprives. --MASEM (t) 20:29, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• That's nonsense. If it meets any of the subject specific guidelines, then the AFD always ends in "Keep". There has never been any consensus otherwise. And why not link to this supposed large RFC? Was there honestly any consensus determined by it? Dream Focus 20:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I have seen - but I can't point immediately - articles that technically meet an SNG but have been merged or the like due to failure to find further sources. Also, Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise is the RFC in question which had wide participation and proper closure. --MASEM (t) 21:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

What RFCs say need to be captured in the actual guidelines, and the actual guidelines do not say what you do. The guidelines do say we would need independent secondary sources (eventually), but they do not say those have to meet WP:GNG eventually; if the article continues to meet just an SNG (say WP:BASIC) and not a GNG, it has to be kept per what guidelines say. We can't keep going back to the RFCs of yesteryears to settle these. Churn and change (talk) 20:48, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

" It's one thing to create a stub which you know can grow, but we're talking stubs without consistently likeliness of growth." - I'm baffled by this stub panic. If we have a small but informative stub, what's the problem? --Cyclopia^talk 12:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

See WP:PERMASTUB. Particularly as we are describing a situation where there is a place to house the brief biographical details of an author of a notable work - on the page about the work itself. It is better for both coverage of the book and its author to talk about them at the same article if this is the situation. We can still provide the redirect for a search term for the author, and should the author later become notable, we can then expand from the redirect. --MASEM (t) 13:37, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

In cases like these ( where there is a place to house the brief biographical details of an author of a notable work - on the page about the work itself) I support a merging and a more clear wordind for the criterium. I think, in this respect, this is easily and immediately fixable removing from criterium the words "a significant or well-known work" and keeping just "a collective body of work"; so that would set as general rule that separate pages for, eg., a notable book and a writer that is notable just for that book are discouraged. IMHO this little thing could arise a large consensus. Other things are fixable one by one including, if needed, a clarification of what main creator of a work means (not sure a sound engineer nor the graphic artist of a videogame). In general I suggest to proceed in small steps towards a solution (and I'm not sure the RFC is the proper "tool" for this), otherwise I can't imagine a different outcome from a no consensus. Cavarrone (talk) 14:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Any article can be merged, you discussing that on a case by case basis. You don't go around deleting perfectly valid articles though. And the permastub essay talks about stubs that can never be expanded, which is usually not the case with an author or artist who has created notable works. Also remember, essays are just opinion pieces, not binding in any possible way. Dream Focus 18:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Getting people to accept merges when you have language like this current criteria is near impossible. They cry "It's notable!!!!" and refuse to listen to arguments why the merge is better. It is better to get people to consider a "top-down" writing approach, only breaking out new articles when there's sufficient information to write them, not before that time. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

So basically you're advocating change just because people find notable stuff... notable? If they "refuse to listen", perhaps it means consensus is that merge is not better. --Cyclopia^talk 18:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

No, it is because they insist something is notable and must have a separate article, even if there are several promoting the merge. That leads to merge discussions that simply die out with no action. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

So you wish to change it so you can more easily get rid of things you personally don't like. There is nothing wrong with short articles. Dream Focus 19:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)If "they" insist and the discussions die out, it means you don't have consensus for this kind of merge you advocate. Simple as that. --Cyclopia^talk 19:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, there is a major problem with short articles, particularly when they are BLP. It becomes a maintenance nightmare. If they can't grow to good articles because of lack of sourcing, they should not remain on WP and instead integrated into larger topics. This is why we avoid permastubs. If one or two people block a merge discussion that numerous others favor by drawing out the discussion until people bale, that's not acceptable, and yet that happens. This is why we avoid short articles that can't grow in the first place. --MASEM (t) 20:08, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If it's only one or two people against many, then how come that the merge discussion is "blocked"? If consensus is otherwise, so be it, and if they're annoying, AN/I is that-a-way. If instead people accept what these people argue for, then so be it. In any case, all of this is surreal. If you have trouble with merge discussions, it's a problem for the individual merge, not of notability guidelines.

That said: I'd like a thing to be clear, that is, I probably in many case agree with merging such information. But it's not necessarily always possible. In particular, it makes sense if this author has contributed to a single notable and well-reviewed work. But they are not necessarily one-hit wonders: what if contributed to two or three of these notable works? Where do you merge? Here is when a separate article makes sense. Merges are a good thing, but they are very much context-dependent. --Cyclopia^talk 22:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Will those mentioning notability is not inherited actually take time to read what it actually says. At least read the first sentence. Notability of one or more members of some group or class of subjects may or may not apply to other possible members of that group. It may apply, and it may not apply. This essay even links to three guideline pages that show examples of when notability is inherited. Dream Focus 18:02, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• True. At any rate, WP:INHERITED as currently formulated is badly-written and could generate a little of confusion, and its wording needs to be reviewed to avoid any possible misunderstanding. As discussed above, we have too many cases and categories, of people and of products, where notability ″is″ inherited under some circumstances, and the same essay is full of "may or may not", "does not always", "that is not to say that this is always the case", "not every one...", "this does not apply to situations where...". I found that a similar wording is of a very little help for editors, especially for those who are less experienced. Cavarrone (talk) 18:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• • That language is counter to what the notability guideline says. I know what the statement's intent is, but it is not the explicit case of inherited notability. Per WP:N, notability is simply not inherited. Inferred perhaps, but not inherited. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I've read LK's reply to my question at the top of this section. After that, tl;dr. I don't agree with the concern that the author of a notable work should not "inherit" notability from that work. Of course someone who created something notable should generally be presumed notable themselves. Maybe someone who played a more minor role in the creation should not be confused with one who was the principal creator. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with Tryptofish. And I believe that is what the current wording says. If an author (specific example) creates a book that is reviewed by multiple reviewers, the author gets to be notable via the book (one may avoid the word "inherited notability" but that is not relevant). And, yes, current wording does say subject-specific notability (SNG) is sufficient in the absence of general notability (GNG). Current wording does not say anything about a need to "eventually meet" GNG. RFCs are not binding; they can say whatever they want. Policies and guidelines are. If nobody bothered to update the guideline to reflect the RFC, then the RFC, now three years old, is dead. We need a new one. And until the new one passes, the current guidelines stay. We can't possibly ask people to wade through the thicket of past RFCs to understand WP policy and guidelines. Churn and change (talk) 22:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Things were updated after that RFC; there wasn't much to change since most SNGs followed this. One example the change from WP:ATH to WP:NSPORTS to meet the RFC better. RFCs may not be binding but when they are closed after a larger discussion by an uninvolved admin, that does have weight.
  • And yes, while the language is not exact, the fact that notability is presumed demonstrates the need to bring articles that only pass the SNG up to a GNG-passing level eventually. If you have a short stubby article that's sat around for 5 years with no new sources appearing and only having one or two sources otherwise, the presumption of notability can be challenged. To avoid that challenge, you have to prove the topic really is notable. --MASEM (t) 23:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

    WP:BASIC is sufficient for notability (assuming BLP1E and WP:NOT exclusions do not apply), and that is an SNG with no path to GNG. The word "presumed" at the top of WP:NOTABILITY is wikilinked to this: "an assumption made by a court, one that is taken to be true unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise." Even GNG confers only presumptive notability. However your argument the passage of time alone is sufficient as a rebuttal to presumptive notability is just not there in the guidelines. Afds don't seem to close asking for "more sources needed if this is to be kept a few years from now"; they close as "keep," "delete," or "no consensus." If the RFC wanted to change things, it should have asked for a "reassess a few years from now" closing status. Churn and change (talk) 23:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

    • Plenty of AFDs close with "no consensus with no prejudice to renominate". That gives those that want to keep the article more time to follow on their claim that more sources exist to prove notability.

      Editors need to realize that claiming something is notable, indirectly by giving the topic its own article, they are basically making a contentious statement that can be challenged by editors if there's not enough proof of that. That's why notability is presumed and can be challenged if that claim of presumption is weak. --MASEM (t) 23:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

      • You still start from the assumption that an article that passes SNG must pass GNG eventually. This assumption is wrong. If you are proved to pass a SNG, then you have proved notability. That's how it works. --Cyclopia^talk 00:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

        • No, this is what has been consensus for a while now. Passing an SNG presumes notability, but that presumption can be challenged. Same with GNG presumed notability if you only have a few sources. We expect, ultimately, articles should should significant coverage of a topic if we are claiming that topic is notable. One "fact" that is in support of a SNG criteria is acceptable to start the assumption but only gives a 2-3 sentence article is nowhere close to sufficient for an article in the long term. Again, DEADLINE says there's no time scale, but when a reasonable amount of time for sources to appear has passed (on the order of years) and no further expansion is yet possible, the initial presumption is wrong. Notability, on Wikipedia, is not a permanent "quality"; this is why articles may undergo multiple AFDs after several "keep"s. What is important is that our SNGs should rarely generate an article where this problem occurs, if the criteria are well selected. Take, for example, a person winning the Nobel prize - certainly every winner becomes documented as a result of the award, if not beforehand, and the GNG notability will be met, but we have an SNG allowance to give time for sources to be found and generated, which they always have been. Thus this is a good criteria for an SNG. But this is not the case with the current "author of a notable book is notable" because there's no guarnentee of sources on the author themselves. We can qualify the importance of the book, as the more subjectively important the book, the more likely there will be sources on the author at some point, and hence the allowance in the SNG. --MASEM (t) 00:31, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

          • This "consensus for a while" you talk about is however in no guideline or policy. That's what our notability guideline says: A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not. A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. [emphasis mine] This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. - So, yes, there is a clause for mergers, but apart from that, you can see that there is no dependence of SNG's from GNG. Everything else you state if your own very personal (and quite debatable) interpretation. --Cyclopia^talk 00:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

            If we are talking of RFCs, please check the essay Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes#Literature: "Published authors are kept as notable if they have received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work, or ..." That is work, in singular, and matches exactly a part of what you suggest we delete. Yes, guidelines do provide for editorial discretion to override presumed notability. Nevertheless presumed notability is the starting point, and a notable book reviewed by multiple sources confers presumed notability on its author, per the wording now. There is no guarantee an article based on this claim will be kept; still there is a strong hint it will be since the onus is on those challenging the presumed notability to show the article should be deleted or merged. Saying there is insufficient material for a start-class article doesn't cut it, since I don't see a minimum article-length requirement anywhere in the guidelines. So the wording that exists is not superfluous; changing it modifies the definition of presumed notability, and hence of notability in general. And it is wording duplicated in an essay supplemental to the guidelines, and positioned right where many Afd participants would see it. Churn and change (talk) 00:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Masem, even with everyone saying otherwise to you, you refuse to hear the truth. You've argued with others before on this, and no one can get through to you on this, it just dragging out until they stop trying to reason with you. I believe I mentioned previously that even after years go by from the past AFD, you still aren't going to delete an article if it passes the subject-specific guidelines, simply because it has never passed the general notability guidelines as well. Stop deluding yourself. Dream Focus 00:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
  • There have been AFDs where the article has met an SNG but was still deleted on the basis of notability - unfortunately, I just can't easily recall them. It is a exceptional case, so we're not talking massive deletions in this nature, but the key point is that SNGs give thepresumption, not the guarantee, of notability. No article is immune from being deleted or merged at AFD even if it meets an SNG or GNG if the sourcing is considered weak and un-expandable by the participants. The need to approach, in time, GNG sourcing standards for SNGs has been discussed numerous times before (see WP:NRVE for where this is considered). There's clearly no timeframe for this, however, and it would be incredibly bitey for someone to say "Okay, 5 years have passed, where are the sources?", but it can be challenged; that fact can't be denied. Thus, what should be happening is that SNGs are designed to pick criteria where sourcing is near certain to occur, and not just because something happened. An example: at NSPORT, there is a criteria "played one pro game" that applies to the top tier of pro sports. The background argument there is that someone playing in the pro league has had to have played at a high amateur/minor/college league and had to have been good in that field, and thus playing pro means there's a strong change that background on the player can be found from their previous career; I have a few smaller problems with this but this is an example of how the SNG was designed to assure sources would be there. The criteria in question here needs to assure the same type of sourcing that will happen. If it were the case that a normal book review included discussion of its author (which I do know some do, but its not universal), then saying "the author of a book that has received multiple reviews is presumed notable" is a fair statement. But that's simply not a broad truth considering the range of possible book reviews out there. I recognize that OUTCOMES says otherwise, and I don't believe there are many authors that are sent to AFD this way, but again, we are working on presumptions here, not guarantees. As long as the editors that deal with authors books are aware that their articles are not untouchable just because the author's book is notable, then the current phrasings is likely okay knowing that case-by-case challenges can happen. --MASEM (t) 01:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

    Talking about specific Afds is not useful, since there isn't necessarily consistency. "The need to approach, in time, GNG sourcing standards for SNGs has been discussed numerous times before." Fine, but that need is reflected neither in policy nor in guidelines, so the discussions stay just those. You can't just point to a bunch of old RFCs and discussions at multiple places and say they form some kind of "shadow" policy and guideline. They don't. Editors will go by what is there in the guidelines pages. If the discussions truly had consensus, that consensus should be reflected in the wording of the guidelines pages. As you said, OUTCOMES does say otherwise. Churn and change (talk) 02:40, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

    • However, OUTCOMES is an essay itself, and its first section says "Notability always requires verifiable evidence, and all articles on all subjects are kept or deleted on the basis of their sources, not their subjective importance or relationship to something else.", among other statements that are in line with the RFC and what I've said. --MASEM (t) 03:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

      Nonetheless there is no requirement anywhere in the guidelines (or the essay) that the reviews talk of the author and not just the book, for a book to transfer notability to the author. Reviews of academic books don't focus much on the author. See, for example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert A. Brightman. I have seen other AFDs closed similarly. You could say the closures were improper (and I would disagree), but that doesn't get us anywhere, since asking people to dig through RFC archives to figure out notability is just not going to work. I think the crux of the issue is how willing we are to support articles with just a few lines in them (the likely outcome of cases where SNG is met because of a multiply reviewed book but GNG is not met). I can't find any guidelines on minimum article length. Churn and change (talk) 03:39, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• About time to tighten this up (and the "professor" guidelines while we're at it). A work can most certainly be notable while its author is not. Articles on people are meant to be full biographies, not brief blurbs, and if sources don't cover the person in that much depth, they should instead be briefly covered in the article(s) about their work(s). Richard Dawkins is not notable because he wrote The God Delusion or The Selfish Gene, he is notable because of the amount of source coverage about him specifically. Notability is neither automatic nor inherited upward or downward, it is always case by case on the basis of source coverage about the article's particular subject. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

  You need a consensus for those statements, and that requires a new RFC, specifically addressing the issue, with far wider input. We could host it here, with links from elsewhere. But the question has to be framed explicitly, instead of being framed as removal of a specific phrase. Churn and change (talk) 03:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

  They are notable because of their scientific accomplishments. These aren't popular culture people that get drooled over by the media. The Wikipedia is a serious encyclopedia, not just a catalog of popular culture. Dream Focus 19:20, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

  DreamFocus, I'll be the first to agree with you on the popular culture silliness. There is no requirement that the reliable sources that have covered the subject in depth be pop-culture sources. If science journals put together a biography of a scientist's career, the scientist can absolutely be notable on that basis, even if they're totally unknown to the general public. But Wikipedia is a reflection. It is not here to Right Great Wrongs^TM, it is here to neutrally reflect what reliable sources do and do not cover. If you think their coverage should focus on things it doesn't, and not focus on things it does, encourage them to change it, but we're not here to change or second-guess it. We're here to neutrally and dispassionately reflect it. If we have sufficient sourcing for a full article on a topic, it passes notability (though it could fail other content policies, notability is necessary but not sufficient for an article), but if it doesn't, it fails notability and is unsuitable. We cannot write articles without sources, and we should not write blurbs based upon name drops or other insubstantial sources. If the sources briefly mention or name-drop a subject in conjunction with substantial coverage of the subject that actually has substantial coverage, neutrality requires that we follow their lead, and briefly mention that subject in conjunction with the subject of major coverage. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 11:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

  This is an extension of my point above: as Seraphimblade puts it, as a tertiary source, we are a reflect of what sources have said about topics - if there are no sources that cover a topic outside of name drops , we can't write reasonably towards that subject. This is why, simply being an author of notable book doesn't extend any type of notable to the author. No, we're not looking for coverage of an academic in pop culture magazines, but we are looking for independent and secondary sources which for academics may be professional society newsletters, or broad university reports. --MASEM (t) 13:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

  You can write about their accomplishments and basic known facts about them. And many scientists don't get interviewed anywhere, they just mention their breakthroughs and that's it. I can't imagine most scientists ever being interviewed to talk about themselves. People can be notable which do not have coverage about them anywhere at all. That is why we have subject specific guidelines. If you can't understand that, then having long drawn out never ending discussions won't change it. So I'll just stop replying in this thread. Dream Focus 22:47, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

  I'm not expecting interviews as you're right that more academics don't do those. But at the same time we can't get past the basic requirement of WP:V of having third-party sources. Most of these details aren't always given in such. Further, we're not a who's who - just because they may an important person in their field by those that know that field, doesn't make them appropriate for WP inclusion if you can't provide minimum WP:V sourcing. --MASEM (t) 22:55, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

• Waste of time. The only thing that matters is non-trivial coverage in reliable independent sources. If we have that then there is no problem, if we don't then we must delete any biography as we cannot ensure WP:NPOV so we run up against WP:BLP. People constantly forget that these subject-specific notability guidelines are merely guidelines that describe the sorts of things that are likely to be markers for encyclopedic notability, the only thing that really matters is quality of sourcing. Frankly I think they should all be nuked as they create more misunderstandings than clarity. Guy (Help!) 23:52, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Clergy

Do we have any suggestions for clergy? WP:CLERGY redirects to an essay with little relevance for notability. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 21:38, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

In order to handle it elegantly I think it would be best to break it down by faith. For example, a Roman Catholic bishop stands a good shot at notability. A Mormon bishop however, probably doesn't. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 03:36, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran diocesan bishops (but not assistant bishops) should certainly all be considered notable enough for articles. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:10, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but I'd like to find a place where this is written up. With a section on rabbis, please, because their notability comes up every now and then in my little field (Polish history). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:29, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I think all European rabbis are notable! Seriously, maybe finding WikiProjects and adding the SNG to their tasklists would work. JJB 18:52, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Most rabbis would not consider themselves notable just for being a rabbi. Rabbis who are notable are generally noted for their rabbinic opinions, not for having the status of "rabbi." I also demur on bishops being intrinsically notable - most are quite unnotable, in fact. Archbishops of any sect are far more likely to be notable, and I am not even all that sure about them - many are simply church functionaries. Individuals may well be notable - but using their job title to be the requirement does not work. Collect (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

By no means a finished draft:

Criteria for clergy (Draft 1 - work in progress)

Determining notability for members of the clergy is best determined according to faith:

Catholic Church: In addition to the Pope, past and present senior Roman Catholic clergy who have been ordained with the titles of Cardinal, Primate, Metropolitan or Archbishop are presumed to be notable. A bishop who heads or has headed an established Roman Catholic diocese may be considered to be notable as well. Notability may also extend to other Roman Catholic clergy who hold important administrative titles, such as the Theologian of the Pontifical Household, or are heads of major religious orders such as Opus Dei and Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church): In addition to the President of the Church, past and present senior Mormon leaders who have been called to serve in the general authority are presumed to be notable. This includes members of the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, First and Second Quorums of the Seventy and the Presiding Bishopric.

Church of England and Episcopal Church: Anglican and Episcopal clergy are considered notable if they hold the titles of Primate, Presiding Bishop or Archbishop. A bishop who heads or has headed an established diocese may be considered notable as well.

Eastern Orthodox Church: In the various Orthodox Churches, clergy who hold the titles of Primate, Patriarch, Exarch, Metropolitan or Archbishop are considered notable. Bishops who preside over an established diocese or metropolis may be considered notable as well.

Other Christian denominations: In general, clergy from any other Christian denomination are considered to be notable if they have led an established subdivision of their church at or similar to the diocese level or higher.

Judaism: Given that Jewish clergy aren't nearly as hierarchically structured as most of their Christian counterparts, determining notability based on religious standing alone can be problematic. Recognized regional, national or international spokespeople of the various established Jewish religious movements may be considered notable, as would a rebbe of a major Hasidic dynasty or movement. Individuals recognized by a significant segment of Judaism as Poskim may also be notable. Rabbis and other Jewish scholars who have been extensively published may be notable according to WP:AUTHOR or WP:PROF.

So yeah, it's hard to pigeonhole Judaism into this. Seems to me Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism may be worse. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 20:13, 10 December 2012 (UTC) The idea of "notability according to faith" seems fraught with peril. Why not "notability if they are considered notable persons within the general religious (or secular) community they represent and have been covered in reliable sources regarding such a community"? And what is an "established diocese" in any case? Thus the Lubavitcher chief rabbi, as that movement is written about in secondary sources, is likely to be mentioned. The Bishop of Leeds is generally not notable as that is a minor position in the CoE (apologies if that person is actually notable) and is unlikely to be mentioned unless the person would meet the general notability requirements. Collect (talk) 21:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I'll agree with Collect here. In fact, the concerns of Faustus37 and Collect are only magnified when you consider the case of Protestant Christianity. The above proposal completely ignores the majority of Protestants, at least in the United States, who are in a non-hierarchical denomination where most issues are done at the level of the individual church. On the one hand, some but not most of these pastors are notable; on the other hand, few of the regional or national leaders are notable because they simply don't "matter" as much as regional or national leaders in a hierarchical denomination. The current proposal would lead either to an implicit non-recognition of local leaders due to their not being mentioned or an inappropriate over-recognition of non-notable regional leaders if they are shoehorned into "other denominations". – Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 03:54, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The spirit of this should be that local religious leaders, be they Catholic priests, LDS bishops, rabbis, pastors, ministers or whatever are all on a level playing field. That is, local church officials are not notable in and of themselves, but may be notable by other criteria (see Mitt Romney, Fred Phelps, Fred Rogers, Forrest Church and many others). If a certain denomination doesn't have an equivalent to a diocesan or archdiocesan leadership structure ... well, it doesn't have one. Pretty simple. But even in these denominations, there are major leaders outside the local level, such as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention, who I believe are inherently notable. Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 04:13, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

As I said above, I think Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran diocesan bishops should be automatically considered notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:30, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

One local congregation has gone from Episcopal Church (United States) to Anglican Episcopal Church to Anglican Church in North America. Given the ongoing schisms in the Anglican/Episcopal churches, I don't see how their various diocesan bishops can be justified as inherently notable. Please enlighten me. --Bejnar (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Clearly I'm only talking about churches which are members of the Anglican Communion, not splinter churches. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:42, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

So would you include the Anglican bishops of the Diocese of San Joaquin (ACNA), the Anglican Diocese of Pittsburgh (ACNA), the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth (ACNA) and the Diocese of Quincy (ACNA) which are within the Anglican Communion but are splinter churches? My point being that with more than 10% of US Anglican/Episcopal churches currently in the splinter mode, how can they be placed in the same kettle with RC, etc.? --Bejnar (talk) 06:01, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

According to our article on the ACNA, "the ACNA is not a member of the Anglican Communion"! So no, I wouldn't include them unless the bishop was previously a diocesan bishop within the Anglican Communion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I find that there are large numbers of bishops who are not notable in the sense that there is insufficient coverage in independent sources to write an article. For many bishops all sources are from their own church/communion. --Bejnar (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

• A line such as A bishop who heads or has headed an established diocese may be considered notable as well. is not only not useful but introduces unneeded ambiguity into a guideline. Everyone is potentially notable under the GNG, guidelines should not say that X type may be notable. Guidelines do get away with saying and as otherwise notable under the GNG. --Bejnar (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

The intent there is to establish a very good point Necrothesp made above. Several Christian denominations appoint clerics to bishop level but don't grant them primacy over a diocese or similar administrative level, making them in effect "assistant bishops." Oh No! It's Faustus37! it is what it is - speak at the tone 06:22, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

• How about this: A member of the clergy is considered notable if they are the subject of non-trivial coverage in reliable independent secondary sources. Incidentally, this test works for all classes of person and also is the principle test applied at AfD, so using this definition is likely to avoid conflict with people compiling a directory of clergy based on a mistaken understanding of a specific notability guideline which in reality only says the kind of people who are likely to be the subject of such coverage. Guy (Help!) 15:10, 27 December 2012 (UTC)
  • I absolutely agree. We do not need more sub-guidelines, we need less. If a person has been substantially and independently covered, they are notable, if not, they are not. Simple, easy, and in line with our requirements for the biographies of living persons and actual notability alike. Notability is verified by reliable, independent sources, saying they're notable, by choosing to extensively note them. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:23, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. and the legion of guidelines on notability for random subcategories of things / people / animals merely obscure this simple and obvious fact and perpetuate drama at AfD where "but he made a record" will never trump "he has never been covered by reliable independent sources", while having been covered by reliable independent sources will always win over not having created the arbitrarily chosen number of records. Guy (Help!) 16:18, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

This looks like a good start. May I suggest splitting this into a draft page at Wikipedia:Notability (clergy), so even if it is not approved, we have a draft guideline? I would hate to see this discussion die off and the above draft to disappear into talk page archives. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

• I strongly oppose any attempt to make clergy have a way around the usual notability requirements. People who think their religion needs protection or advocacy because God can't do it alone will demand that their clergyman be included. Abductive (reasoning) 16:00, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Oppose The current wording suggests that stand-alone articles should be created even if no reliable sources can be found in order to flesh an article out. I would support if the guideline is prefaced with the caveat that articles should not be created unless reliable sources can be found in order to expand the article beyond a stub. LK (talk) 05:55, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Why exactly, when stubs are perfectly acceptable articles? -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:48, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

• Comment, just to let you know there is WP:CCWMOS which is a notability essay hosted at Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:06, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Fixing WP:VICTIM once and for all

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

We have had several discussions on victims on Wikipedia and we never seem to agree on what establishes notability. The AfD on Victoria Leigh Soto is the most recent case (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Victoria Leigh Soto).

The problem here is that WP:VICTIM fails us because the policy is too vague, too general, too broad, and subject to interpretation.

First of all, WP:BLP1E does not apply to victims because they are dead, but then WP:VICTIM states that notability has to be consistent with WP:BLP1E. So which one is it? Does it apply or does it not apply? Second, WP:VICTIM states that:

[To establish notability the victim had to have,] consistent with WP:BLP1E, […] a large role within a well-documented historic event. The historic significance is indicated by persistent coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources that devote significant attention to the individual's role.

But what does "consistent" mean? What does it mean to have a "large role"? What does "persistent coverage" mean? What does "significant attention" mean? So, instead of continuing to waste our time and energy on AfDs let's focus on the damn policy and fix it once and for all.

Here's what I propose:

If the victim has received coverage in an exclusive manner by at least two different, independent, and secondary reliable sources, regardless of the length of the content of said coverage, the victim is considered notable enough to merit an article on Wikipedia.

That would be so specific that it won't be subject to interpretation and discussions like this won't happen ever again.

What do you guys think?

—Ahnoneemoos (talk) 14:00, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. A guideline being subject to interpretation is not necessarily a bad thing. Phrases like "persistent coverage" can quite legitimately be discussed by editors in relation to individual cases (may I also draw your attention to the uncertain meaning of "in an exclusive manner", BTW). The basic purpose of the guidance is to set a bar so that not every victim of a crime that has appeared in the news becomes the subject of a WP article. Your proposal may as well be to just remove the guidance, because it basically boils down to GNG. That's not to say there's no room for improvement in the current wording. Formerip (talk) 14:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. This proposed threshold gives the appearance of being lower than the one for a WP:BLP... Shearonink (talk) 14:37, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Typically, some horrible event happens and the coverage focuses either primarily about the event itself or, depending on the circumstance, a perpetrator or victim. In my opinion, most of this is an issue regarding when spinoffs are appropriate and how articles should be named. And most of this should take place on the talk pages. If I were the Wikipedian Dictator, I would strike everything in the entire sub-section after the first two sentences. The bit about those "wrongfully accused" needs to go. If we're going to try to set specific guidelines for various players, then the current wording is not sufficient in that there are plenty of other people involved or associated with criminal events that might need to be considered:

1. victims of crimes (e.g. Matthew Shepard)
2. victims of incidents that were not deemed to be crimes (i.e. John Bobbitt)
3. people who have made false accusations of being a victim (e.g. Crystal Mangum or Charles Stuart (murderer), who was a "victim" before he was a "perp")
4. people convicted of crimes (i.e. perpetrators; e.g. Al Capone, John Dillinger)
5. people acquitted of crimes (e.g. Lizzie Borden, Lorena Bobbitt)
6. people wrongly accused of crimes (e.g. Duke lacrosse case)
7. people wrongly convicted of crimes, or people who had their convictions overturned (i.e. Sam Sheppard)
8. people suspected of committing crimes
9. eyewitnesses to crimes (i.e. maybe James Tague)
10. other witnesses in criminal trials (i.e. Martin Blinder)
11. attorneys (i.e. Marcia Clark)
12. judges (i.e. Lance Ito)

-Location (talk) 15:12, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, after high profile events, news writers often produce biographies of the victim or victims. These biographies are often very detailed and insightful, works of art really. But if one reads them carefully, one notices that the writer is describing an ordinary person. (In fact, future historians may use such biographies to try to understand what life was like for an average person in our era.) But this is an encyclopedia, and it has articles on extraordinary people. Abductive (reasoning) 15:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose—I can't really add to the eloquence of User:Abductive and User:FormerIP's observations, nor the clear point made by User:Shearonink. The proposed change would clearly render notable things that are not now, and should not be, notable. Abhayakara (talk) 03:42, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose  No amount of notability overrides WP:NOTNEWS.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:09, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Victims should be covered from an article on the event of which they are a victim. Single biographies are not usually suitable spin outs of a large event article, though maybe an article on the victims collectively is. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose: Just an excuse to add more junk articles on intrinsically non-notable people, in violation of WP:NOT#NEWS. The "lurking submarine" in this proposal, that could torpedo our notability criteria in the longer run, if people ran with it, is the idea of gutting the "nontrivial" part of the general notability criterion's requirement of nontrivial coverage in multiple, independent reliables sources. The idea that a passing mention is sufficient flies in the face of the entire purpose of WP:N, which is to prevent the creation of pointless articles on people who are not actually important enough to merit inclusion in the encyclopedia. Limiting the "multiple" part of the GNG to just two or more, across the board, is (while strictly correct from a linguistic perspective) another serious problem, and undermine would policy at WP:UNDUE and WP:EXTRAORDINARY, which rightly demand, respectively, that minor, questionable sources not be relied upon for major facts, and that unusual, incredible or oft-contradicted claims of fact be unusually well-sourced. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 00:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose This: "received coverage in an exclusive manner by at least two different, independent, and secondary reliable sources, regardless of the length of the content of said coverage" is too low for me, specially when we talk about a living person. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 01:43, 30 January 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose! The guideline as it is now serves as deterrent to any intentional spamming or deliberate Conflict of Interest contributions; this proposal, "..regardless of the length of the content of said coverage.." would encourage both spamming and Conflict of Interest contributions. —JOHNMOORofMOORLAND (talk) 12:39, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

WP:PORNBIO

“ 1.Has won a well-known and significant industry award, or has been nominated for such an award several times. ”

We need to clarify this; how many times is "several"? Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 10:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

3, maybe? That's what several has always meant to me. Silverseren^C 17:44, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

More than one, according to Merriam-Webster (2a ; 2b doesn't really make sense here because it would imply that winning a lot of awards suddenly removes notability). --Cyclopia^talk 19:01, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I changed the wording to "multiple", which should be clearer, IMHO, and not distant from "several". --Cyclopia^talk 19:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Three sounds good to me too (guess I'd better remove Deauxma from my articles-I-plan-to-create list, lol). Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 08:53, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

"Has never won an industry award" and no sources to meet the GNG means very unlikely to be Wikipedia-notable. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

• Single and singular imply one. Couple means two. Few is 3-4, not more than 5. Several is 6-9, including seven most significantly. More than several is many. More than many are dozens, scores, and tons (=hundreds!). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:39, 22 January 2013 (UTC)
  • So anyway...I just went ahead and clarified how many "multiple" means in this case. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 20:49, 26 January 2013 (UTC)
    • It's good that you did that. It's better than what was there before. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:35, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Several or multiple was meant to mean more than just one as how the guidelines were interpreted. AfDs interpreted it as just more than one not "3 or more". Morbidthoughts (talk) 04:32, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

But if there is a consensus for three or more here, why not change it on the guideline itself? I haven't seen any objections to it. Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 10:33, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

• A consensus? Cyclopia pointed that several means more than one (ie multiple), I undid your revision to the guideline explaining the reason in the edit summary, Morbidthoughts objected above. My main concern is that a bio-sub-guideline should be consistent with WP:ANYBIO as well as with other similar guidelines. There is no reason for a double standard, that would lead just a general confusion. At minimum, we should first discuss a change in the wording of WP:ANYBIO. Cavarrone (talk) 10:52, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

  • • Multiple or several means > 2. That's the meaning of the word. If someone thinks it should be >3 or >6 or >n , then let's make a RFC on that, and let's write it clearly. --Cyclopia^talk 11:24, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
• Several means multiple. Just change the word to "multiple" if some people are honestly confused by that. Dream Focus 13:50, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
• If the intended meaning is more than one, the text should be changed to multiple, as several is evidently too ambiguous. Epbr123 (talk) 14:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
• I changed it to "multiple" for consistency with WP:ANYBIO and the third clause in that section ("featured multiple times in notable mainstream media"). — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 01:25, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• ANYBIO uses the word "several" not multiple. Morbidthoughts (talk) 05:28, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• D'oh! I was looking at WP:BASIC ("multiple published secondary sources") and confused that with WP:ANYBIO ("nominated ... several times"). — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:37, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Several does not mean Multiple. Several does not include two or twenty, while Multiple does. Assertions that two is several are nonsense. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:21, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
• The dictionary has a definition of "Several" [1]

a : more than one

b : more than two but fewer than many

c chiefly dialect : being a great many

• "More than one" is what it means here. Obviously the next definition "more than two but fewer than many", wouldn't work since you don't disqualify someone who has "many". "More than one" is what is understood in all the notability guidelines I'm aware of. No reason why this one would be any different. Dream Focus 07:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• Nominations not won are very weak indicators. I would expect a pattern. A pattern requires several points, definitely more than two, as in several, which is more than a few. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:13, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• "as in several, which is more than a few." - Smokey Joe, what part of the dictionary definition of "several" did you not understand? Again, if you want a pattern with n>2 , start a RFC about it, but that's not what the current wording says. --Cyclopia^talk 11:22, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• The Merriam-Webster errs on the side of overinclusiveness. If someone used it that way once or twice, they add it. In careful writing, loose definitions are not reasonable.

  If you were to report that there were several people involved, then it turns out that there were two, three or even four, I, and most people, would consider you unreliable. Calling four several is to exaggerate. Finding a single entry in a loose dictionary does not change that you will have misled most people.

  On nominations not won as isolated indicators of notability - such cases get deleted at AfD, and this guideline is known for erring on inclusiveness, and thus people are in the habit of ignoring it. Is that helpful, even if someone said several was ok, and you found a dictionary said somewhere that several can be two? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:51, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• "The Merriam-Webster errs on the side of..." - Oh, my fault. I didn't know SmokeyJoe (talk · contribs) was the new official standard of the English language. Thanks for the heads up, be sure of adding yourself here and let me know when your new unabridged dictionary comes out! --Cyclopia^talk 20:59, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• I prefer the OED, and Wiktionary is pretty impressive. The M-W is good for including unusual usages, but it doesn't indicated which are preferred. In this very case, it gives multiple inconsistent definitions, and you choose the one you prefer! Try your own experiment, tell someone there are several things in your box, then ask them to guess how many. The real question is how many industry awards nominated not won, without other claims of notability, are required to positively indicate Wikipedia-notability. The answer is not 2 or 3. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:27, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• "The answer is not 2 or 3." - Okay: then start the RFC, because so far the consensual wording says 2 or 3 are enough. --Cyclopia^talk 21:56, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

• The question you'd like advertised is: Whether "two nominations for a well-known and significant industry award" is sufficient to support a stand alone article? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:53, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

• If you were to report that there were several people involved, then it turns out that there were two, three or even four, I, and most people, would consider you unreliable SmokeyJoe, that sounds rather ridiculous to me. Perhaps we're in different nations so people use the word differently. I'm an American. And in America several can mean two or more, just as the Webster's Dictionary says. Anyway, we'll just have to find every Wikipedia guideline page there is and replace the word several with a specific number to avoid confusion. Dream Focus 19:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

• I'd say two nominations is enough. Lets put that in there to replace the word "several". Dream Focus 19:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Some people say two nominations, some say three. Which is it? Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 09:53, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

It means that a performer could be considered notable with two nominations. On the other hand, in reference to the article you want to create, Deauxma was nominated two times as "Milf Performer", a very minor award (quite less significant of Best Performer, Best New Starlet or Best Actress), and nothing else, not even scene or group awards. Nor she is even close to pass GNG or other suitable SNGs. Articles about her were created and deleted numerous times, she is currently blacklisted and salted. I don't see any chance that an administrator would want to de-salt the voice with so low and borderline notability. Cavarrone (talk) 10:15, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Hey, she was just an example. I didn't say I'd lose sleep if I couldn't create that article. (BTW, where was it decided that MILF Performer is a "very minor award"?) Erpert ^{Who is this guy? | Wanna talk about it?} 18:42, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Additional opinions requested at an AfD

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Dixon (USCG). RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 19:02, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Why no mention of actor's awards?

It appears that WP:NACTOR currently says nothing about awards and nominations, so even if an actor wins a Cannes/Berlin/BAFTA/etc. award for one role that 1 role wouldn't count for more than 3 unrewarded/unrecognised roles. Is that how "notability" should work? In ictu oculi (talk) 18:58, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't need to. That comes under "The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times", which applies to any biography. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:03, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

WP:BIO1E ("If the event is highly significant...")

WP:BIO1E contains the phrase: "If the event is highly significant, and the individual's role within it is a large one, a separate article is generally appropriate."

Given the relative frequency that this phrase has been cited in Afd and merge discussions (see examples), I am wondering if there are any thoughts on whether this part of the guideline needs any modification or clarification, particularly with the reference to "highly significant". I think Wikipedia generally gets it right (e.g. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nehemiah Wright), however, I have noticed a few contradictory outcomes in articles pertaining to current people and events (e.g. Richard Phillips (captain) vs. Victoria Leigh Soto, or Casey Anthony vs. Scott Peterson). Thoughts? Suggestions? Location (talk) 06:56, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

An addition to the "Additional criteria" section's lead

The lead of the "Additional criteria" section currently reads:

"People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards. Failure to meet these criteria is not conclusive proof that a subject should not be included; conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included. A person who fails to meet these additional criteria may still be notable under Wikipedia:Notability."

I am considering adding the following sentence to the end of the lead, but would like other editor's views first:

"Editors may find these criteria helpful when deciding whether to tag an article as requiring additional citations (using {{BLP sources}} for example), or to instead initiate a deletion discussion."

—gorgan_almighty (talk) 14:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• I'm going to go ahead and make this change, as it's uncontroversial and this Talk page doesn't seem to get much attention. —gorgan_almighty (talk) 01:50, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Politician question

Question about WP:POLITICIAN--does it apply to members of national governments when the nation itself is almost entirely unrecognized? Recently, there's been a number of articles created about members of the government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, a "country" which is recognized only by 3 other countries that are themselves mostly unrecognized (Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria). As such, are parliamentarians and other "national" government members from NKR default notable? In some cases I've found reliable sources that talk about the people, so I am at least sure of their existence, but often not enough to meet WP:GNG. Qwyrxian (talk) 09:51, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Are we talking about "members of the government" or "parliamentarians"? Those are not the same thing at all - outside the US, the "government" always means the executive, and is distinct from the legislature. I'd also suggest that the kind of sourcing we'd have for a random member of the Abkhazian parliament does not seem likely to be that different from the sourcing we'd have for a random member of, say, the parliament of Djibouti. john k (talk) 04:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:POLITICIAN refers to the two equally. The articles in question are about the alleged PM, the alleged vice-PM, and at least 1 random parliamentarian (no special status beyond that). The point behind my question is about default notability. For any politician of any "normal" state, as long as we can verify that the person is a politician, even if we know nothing about her/him, that person should have a Wikipedia article. Like, a news article that simply mentioned something like "Minister X was present at the opening of the new shopping center" would be sufficient to meet WP:POLITICIAN. However, my question is that, since NKR is not really a recognized state, do its "politicians" get the default notability of politicians in regular states? If not, then NKR (etc.) politicians would need to meet WP:GNG. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I would say that yes, WP:POLITICIAN does apply to them, since they function as a legislature, whether widely recognised or not. This is especially true of the prime minister and vice-PM, who are effectively functioning as de facto leaders of a state. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:34, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd think the prime minister and the vice prime minister would almost certainly meet GNG - perhaps most of the sources referring to them are not in English, but surely significant press coverage of them must exist. As for a random member of parliament, I'm kind of opposed to the whole idea of "automatic notability" - I'd much prefer "very broad/loose interpretation of the GNG" - but, again, I don't really see how the case is that different from an obscure random member of the Djibouti parliament. john k (talk) 14:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

More broadly, I've never understand the point of specific notability guidelines to be to confer "automatic notability" to certain individuals, independent of whether they meet the GNG. As I understood them, the point was to say "it is very likely that, if you look into it, individuals in these categories will turn out to meet GNG, and as a result, people shouldn't waste time nominating them for deletion." It seems quite likely that a random member of parliament from Djibouti might not actually meet GNG, and it looks to me as though GNG ultimately trumps POLITICIAN - just because someone meets POLITICIAN does not, in fact, mean, that they should automatically get an article - ultimately, if they don't meet GNG, one can still argue for deletion, and this is in fact what the guidelines say. john k (talk) 15:02, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that politicians from "western" countries are always going to have more coverage than politicians from other countries, especially if they have been politicians during the internet age, which is largely the point of these guidelines. It is inconceivable that a politician in a national or sub-national legislature in modern Western Europe, Australasia or North America would not meet the GNG. However, this is not the case with politicians from other places and times. If we are going to eliminate systemic bias, including bias against people who were prominent before the internet took off, then we do need guidelines like this. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:31, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Being biased towards what sources exist is not "systemic bias". If the sources exist, but not in English, that is one thing. Or if sources exist, but are not online. But I would suspect that for, say, various members of the 15th century House of Commons, we have their names and basically no other information. I'd also suspect that for members of national legislatures in some countries today, there is basically almost no published information about them besides their name and that they are in the national legislature (e.g. I doubt there is much of any information available about the biographies of members of the Supreme People's Assembly in North Korea). I don't see why we should have articles about people that it is literally impossible to turn into real articles. I see absolutely nothing in WP:SYSTEMIC to suggest that we need to have articles on subjects for which there is basically no information to avoid systemic bias. If there is enough reliable information about a person to sustain an article, there should be an article about them. If there is not, no good comes out of creating a massive number of un-expandable stubs. Again, the point of the specific notability guidelines is not to escape the GNG, but to supplement it by giving guidance to editors about what kinds of people are likely to be notable per the GNG. john k (talk) 15:59, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid I think I completely disagree with just about everything you've just said! -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:45, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

You guys are arguing over WP:N when WP:V should be a bigger concern. Abductive (reasoning) 13:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I'll just note that there is absolutely nothing in any of the notability guidelines or discussion of systemic bias to suggest that we should avoid systemic bias by creating articles on people who fail to meet the general notability guidelines. What is possibly gained by having an article on a person about whom no information is available besides that they are or were a member of a national legislature at a particular time? If all of the information that exists on a person can be contained in a list article, that is where it should go. And of course, if a person's existence is unverifiable, they should not have an article. I'll note that I say this as someone who is not in any way an exclusionist - I think the General Notability Guidelines should be interpreted very broadly, especially what constitutes "significant coverage." But if there's no information available, it just isn't systematic bias to refuse to create articles that will never give any more information than the list article that is likely to be the only link to the stub. john k (talk) 18:25, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

YouTube notability

So I'm sure this has been asked before, however I do not know where. I was interested in writing an article on my favorite Youtube channel. It has 18,000 followers and almost 10,000,000 views. That in my opinion would indicate notability with a "significant following" however I'm not sure how this compares to similar things. Not really any news coverage I can find so I figured to raise the issue here and get some comments. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 11:30, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• That's kind of a tricky situation, but I'd say that since there isn't any real coverage in reliable sources we'd have to err on the side of caution and say that the channel wouldn't pass notability guidelines. Part of the reason I say this is because we recently had a deletion for the guy who made the Metal Gear Awesome series (Egoraptor), but we ended up having to delete it even though he did have a good sized YT following. He had a few mentions in various sources, but nothing really in-depth enough to pass notability guidelines. Anywho, long story short, I don't think that his YT popularity would qualify him for an article without at least a few RS. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 08:42, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• Sometimes things like that are kept, sometimes deleted. Depends on what random group of people show up to comment in an AFD, and the personal opinions of the closing administrators. And Arin Hanson is clearly notable, based on having a notable role in so many notable creations. Searching his name in the Video Game reliable source Google search, I find that he was interviews by one of those places the video game Wikiproject agreed is a reliable source [2]. The article already had links to reliable sources covering him at [3] among others. I'm going to take this to deletion review, after talking to the administrator. Dream Focus 09:40, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't know how followers are made or counted, but isn't it possible to 'ping' up the number of views on YouTube just as it is with websites (which is why Alexa rating is not a reliable indication of popularity - unless it shows a rating of 2,634,865 or similar, in which case it definitely shows lack of interest..). Peridon (talk) 10:34, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Yup. It's highly manipulable, like Amazon ratings. I'd say we want much more solid evidence of actual notability. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:25, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

• Since it was mentioned here, how I found out about it, I'd like to point out that Arin_Hanson or "Egoraptor" is now at Deletion review. [4] That deletion seems to have been caused by some of the participates not understanding that if a reliable source interviews someone it does in fact count towards their notability. To avoid this problem I asked the founder of Wikipedia about it[5], and then edited the notability page this talk page is for, to clarify. You can't dismiss interviews as primary sources when it comes to judging them for proof of notability. Dream Focus 19:01, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Small town mayors

What is the usual standard for notability of mayors? We are getting a number of articles like Todd G Berch, Daniel T. Drew and Thomas J. Serra about mayors of Middletown, Connecticut (pop 47,000) who do not seem to have any other notability. JohnCD (talk) 14:46, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Small town mayors usually fail WP:POLITICIAN. When these show up at the Afds, I probably fall outside of the consensus in that I typically recommend redirect to the article about the city. Location (talk) 15:00, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm firmly in the inclusionist camp, but those, as written, are no-hopers. I've tagged all three for notability; if notability isn't established soon, they should be put up for deletion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

The question has generally been the size of the town, and I do not think there is any agreement on the cutoff. With respect to the GNG, there can always be found sources of some sort if there is a local newspaper. The usual problem is that in WP:LOCAL, of deciding whether the sources are a/ substantial b/independent, and c/not indiscriminate. I would be perfectly prepared to argue for most sources one way or another; it's a matter of judgment.

I saw those articles and decided not to mark them for deletion, but that does not necessarily mean I will support them if someone else nominates them . The only way to see what the community thinks is to actually nominate them and see what the consensus is. And thereis always the option of including a paragraph or a sentence about each in the article on the town, with redirects. That something is notable , does not necessarily mean we need have a full article. DGG ( talk ) 16:14, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I would prefer a list with years served within the article on the town. Lately I have been finding current mayors listed in the lead of the town article, so I remove them. The only thing worse than small-time politicians is big-time politicians. Abductive (reasoning) 16:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I like that idea, too. It is relevant to the history of a city and is consistent with the almanac-like purpose of Wikipedia. Location (talk) 17:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd go with that. I can't see why size of town should be a criterion, since if we can't find sources to make a mayor notable with our ordinary criteria, he/she isn't notable, and as a town gets bigger it's more likely he or she will meet our criteria. Dougweller (talk) 17:48, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I see no issues with having a list in the article with the dates of service. I do seem to recall that several years ago I suggested that some local politicians were not notable and the responses then were that all, or at least most, were notable. The size of a city should not be the criteria for notability. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:44, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. A list of Mayors would be an appropriate way forward. per Location (talk). Enos733 (talk) 04:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

No, the question is do they meet WP:GNG, as summarised at WP:42. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:19, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

They would if they were analyzed in multiple reliable secondary sources. The Springfield Shopper reporting on Mayor Quimby being reelected doesn't count. Abductive (reasoning) 20:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Some small town mayors may be notable if they had served in other offices like Congress or their state legislatures, etc. I have started articles about state legislators and found this to be the case. Ripon, Wisconsin is a good example; the article has a list of mayors and 2 of the mayors also served in the Wisconsin Legislature and therefore are notable. Thank you-RFD (talk) 21:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd have to say that I suspect that the mayor of a town of 47,000 is probably more likely to be notable than most state legislators. john k (talk) 05:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

clarifying that interviews with people about themselves or their creations counts towards their notability

Suggested addition:

• Interviews from reliable sources, with someone about themselves or something they created, count as valid secondary sources towards notability. The content of what the person says may be considered a primary source for information, and may be doubted as accurate since people can lie about themselves. This does not affect the fact that the interview still counts as a valid secondary source towards notable.

I thought I worded it properly. [6] This includes interviews with the person about themselves or something they created, but does not include those interviewed for what they saw or their opinions on something. My discussion with the founder of Wikipedia about this was at User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Do_interviews_with_someone_about_themselves_count_towards_notability.3F. Who is in favor of adding this as I wrote it, or does anyone have a different way to word it? Anyone not believe it belongs here in the notability guideline for people? Dream Focus 19:04, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it here for discussion. I'm not sure this addition is necessary. My interpretation is that interviews in reliable sources would already be covered by the first line of WP:BASIC. Location (talk) 19:13, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

People argue that fact regularly in AFDs, and have even deleted perfectly valid articles because they said interviews in reliable sources were primary sources, and only secondary sources could be considered towards notability(see the bit above this section for one example of that). Dream Focus 19:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe that you are referring to the article on Arin Hanson. The discussion in Wikipedia:Deletion review#Arin Hanson appears to show that the interview in question is not sufficient to establish notability. Location (talk) 04:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

• Interviews are original material and thus primary sources. Secondary sources are those which analyze or contextualize primary sources in some way. IRWolfie- (talk) 19:22, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

  (edit conflict)Not when determining the notability of an article. That's only when you are working on an article's content do you consider it a primary source since the person being interviewed could be lying about themselves. I clarified that in my addition. Please read the discussion at Jimbo Wale's talk page, as he explains it counts towards notability. Dream Focus 19:27, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

  Unfortunately Jimbo Wales isn't the be all end all and is often wrong. Notability is only gained from secondary sources it says so right in the first line of WP:BASIC. And an interview is a primary source because it is material straight from the horses mouth. Now if the interviewer wrote an article based on the interview it would be secondary. But if it was a straight Q&A style interview transcribed verbatim then it falls into being a primary source. -DJSasso (talk) 19:30, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• As IRWolfie says, interviews are the original words of the interviewee and thus are primary. Secondary sources which analyse what is being said is required for notability purposes. There is a guideline somewhere that specifically mentions that interviews are considered primary and routine coverage but I can't for the life of me think which one it was. -DJSasso (talk) 19:25, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the "routine coverage" part, but the footnotes in WP:PRIMARY refer to interviews as primary sources. Is that what you were thinking about? Location (talk) 04:46, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have moved to User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Do_interviews_with_someone_about_themselves_count_towards_notability.3F. Dream Focus 19:30, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

• Overview  An independent interviewer represents the "world at large" giving attention to the topic, and as such, interviews directly contribute to wp:notability.  The material provided to the interview by the interviewer and the publication is secondary.  The material provided by the interviewee may be primary, if the interviewee is speaking about his own life, or may be secondary, if the interviewee is recognized as an expert on the topic being reported.  Back to wp:notability, interviews show a range of attention being given to the topic and should be weighted accordingly.  Elements of interviews include selecting the topic, contacting the topic, preparation of questions, and writing supplemental material such as a bio.  I saw one interview in which a topic approached a niche magazine and succeeded in getting an interview published, which is marginal and only barely more than self published.  At the other end are interviews that show a depth of preparation, such as those that include a bio.  Editors sometimes confuse wp:notability with the ability to bring content into and write an article, but that concept was taken out of WP:N in late 2006.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
• Any interview is usually both a primary and a secondary source. Eg, when the interviewer asks "Two years ago you were awarded as best ... and the thing caused a slight controversity, as etc. etc. What do you feel to say about that?", the question contains some genuine reliable secondary informations. Furthermore, the lead of the interview, ie the intro, usually is a genuine editorial overview about the subject, the context and the backgroud of the interview. Cavarrone (talk) 14:17, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:DIPLOMAT

The present brief criterion seems too demanding. I would suggest that any head of mission should automatically qualify. We have many list articles, giving the successive holders of such offices and a large number of these have articles. Conversely, consuls, secretaries, and lesser functionaries should still have to meet the present test. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:57, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the current criterion seems rather demanding. I'm not sure about all heads of mission - including chargés d'affaires? Including for small countries whose diplomatic missions are almost entirely obscure? I'm not sure why we need special criteria for diplomats at all. Important ones ought to generally meet GNG. As always, the problem here is interpreting the GNG super-narrowly. I'll once again say - we should interpret the GNG very broadly, and avoid prescriptive specific guidelines as much as possible. john k (talk) 05:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Heads of missions probably already qualify under WP:POLITICIAN as "a person who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making" "who [has] held international [or] national…office". We include athletes who have competed in a single professional match on the theory that they're likely to have received significant coverage in reliable sources. I think it's as or more likely that every ambassador has received significant coverage in reliable sources. Newspapers report on ambassadors presenting their credentials to heads-of-state, diplomatic almanacs and magazines provide biographies of all ambassadors, and they tend to deliver speeches which get reported on. I support explicitly stating that heads of missions are presumed to be notable. Alternatively, I'd support removing the diplomat heading and explicitly including ambassadors in WP:POLITICIAN. Pburka (talk) 15:50, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

The present criterion is good. It establishes that officials should meet the same kind of level of notability as scholars, artists, scientists, and businessmen/ women etc. If "any head of mission" (i.e. Ambassador) "automatically qualifies" we will have hundreds, if not thousands, of articles about individuals who have never done anything except change posts. Moreover if ambassadors are automatically notable, then all senior civil servants will qualify, soon followed by all professors, all senior airline pilots, all directors of major companies, all surgeons etc etc. with the result that Wikipedia turns into Linkedin.

Pace Pburka: politicians and diplomats are not the same thing at all. The former are elected by the public (or on occasion grab power) in a way that normally ensures notability, through media interest etc. Diplomats on the other hand often remain anonymous.

At the moment there are many articles on diplomats that are only self-referenced by government publications. These are not 'reliable sources'. Some diplomats will of course be caught up in events which entail independent media coverage, and they can be rightly regarded as notable, but the majority of diplomats will never be notable, however many stars or orders they possess, or however many funny hats they own. --Kleinzach 16:37, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

See WP:NOTPAPER. We already have thousands of articles about athletes who have done nothing more than be paid to kick a ball. There are far fewer heads of missions than professional athletes. Your slippery slope argument is specious, so I won't address it. However government publications are reliable sources, and I'm surprised to hear anyone argue otherwise. The stub articles you refer to can easily be improved. I've quickly found sources in books and newspapers for each one I've looked at, supporting my claim that ambassadors can generally be assumed to have received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. While junior diplomats may remain anonymous, this is most certainly not the case for ambassadors, who act as proxies for their heads of state. Pburka (talk) 16:55, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources must be independent — exactly what government publications are not — and, of course, secondary. This goes to the heart of the problem. Unless the diplomat (however high or low) is caught up in an event that independent media take an interest in, his or her actions will not be covered by reliable sources, and he or she will not be notable. WP has unfortunately accumulated hundreds, if not thousands, of CV/resume-like stubs of government officials which merely list their jobs. Contrary to what Pburka is suggesting, processing these stub articles that don't meet WP:DIPLOMAT is not an easy task. There are 200-odd countries in the world and AFAIK they all appoint ambassadors. P.S. The media, rightly or wrongly, is much more interested in athletes than ambassadors. --Kleinzach 10:36, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Your claim directly contradicts WP:RS and WP:PRIMARY. Although government sources may be primary, they're still reliable. "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge." Pburka (talk) 11:42, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Which claim? Government sources can be reliable, but they are not necessarily so, e.g. North Korea. Kleinzach 23:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

"…government publications. These are not 'reliable sources'." Pburka (talk) 00:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that all permanent heads of missions (but not chargés d'affaires) should be regarded as notable. The suggestion that all professors, company directors, senior civil servants and surgeons are on a similar level as heads of diplomatic missions is over the top. Heads of government departments and chief executives of major companies certainly are, but not every professional in a vaguely senior position. The suggestion that government publications are not reliable is also untrue. They are certainly reliable as far as verifiability is concerned. And saying that people are not notable "however many stars or orders they possess" actually goes against WP:ANYBIO. People who are awarded high honours are generally deserving of such honours. Many make the mistake of assuming people are not notable because they are not in the public eye, not widely commented on by the media or social networking sites and not well-known by the "man in the street". This is ludicrous, as an examination of people considered worthy of obituaries by major newspapers or of inclusion in Who's Who will rapidly establish. And if a major newspaper considers someone worthy of an obituary then we should certainly consider them (and people on a similar level) worthy of an article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:16, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Necrothesp, while I obviously disagree with much of your opinion, let me clarify that an obituary in a major newspaper would indeed go a long way to establish notability. (That's in line with all the WP guidelines.) However at the moment we have a lot of mid-career diplomat stub articles. These articles usually have no indications of notability other than, typically, a credential presentation snapshot in Moscow with Medvedev.--Kleinzach 10:52, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

An ambassador is not a "mid-career" diplomat! A counsellor or minister is a mid-career diplomat. I'm not advocating keeping articles on them. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:28, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Mid-career, not mid-level! Kleinzach 07:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's pure hair-splitting, since that effectively means exactly the same thing. A mid-career diplomat is likely to also be at mid-level. A late-career diplomat may also be at mid-level if he hasn't been promoted. However, a mid-career diplomat is unlikely to be at senior level unless he's a real high-flyer. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I realize that the criterion of diplomat may be narrow, but I agree with john k (talk that most of the important diplomats will already pass WP:GNG in one form or another and the additional criterion ensures that if a diplomat that played a significant role in a significant international event, they would pass WP:GNG. Although Ambassador Kenneth D. Taylor received the Order of Canada after the event, Ambassador Taylor's role in the Canadian Caper should meet the criterion of WP:DIPLOMAT. I would suggest as an alternative to reevaluating the criterion, that lists of diplomats (either to or from) a particular country be the preferred action. This was suggested in the discussion of WP:Notability_(people)#Small_town_mayors as a way to preserve "the history of a city and is consistent with the almanac-like purpose of Wikipedia." Location (talk). Enos733 (talk) 04:55, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

The current criteria for WP:DIPLOMAT is pointless since it sets a higher bar than WP:GNG or WP:ANYBIO. I also think that ambassadors are quite different from small-town mayors. There are far more mayors than ambassadors, and, unlike small-town mayors, ambassadors nearly invariably attract significant coverage in national and international publications. I suggest that it would be exceptional to find an ambassador who doesn't satisfy WP:GNG, although it may be more difficult to find sources on-line and in English for ambassadors between certain countries or from certain periods. We assume that sources can be found for elected politicians who have held national office, professors who hold named chairs, or athletes who have competed professionally. We should make the same assumption of notability for ambassadors. For lower ranked diplomats we should require explicit evidence of WP:ANYBIO or WP:GNG, but for ambassadors notability can be assumed. Pburka (talk) 00:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

We don't assume notability for politicians, professors, or athletes unless references can be provided to prove notability. Leaving aside WP:DIPLOMAT, WP:GNG requires "reliable sources that are independent of the subject" (my italics). That rules out government lists and directories of the kind that are used for many of the ambassador articles of Category:Canadian diplomat stubs and similar. Kleinzach 09:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes we do. Take a look at WP:POLITICIAN ("People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards...Politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature.") or WP:ATHLETE! I have never seen a politician who was a member of a national legislature or an athlete who played at top level deleted at AfD, no matter how sparse the sources about them. You're arguing from an incorrect position here. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Examples

I'd like to give six typical examples:

• Mohammad Asghar Afridi
• Roy William Blake
• Doloonjin Idevkhten
• Susumu Shibata
• Somphone Sichaleune
• Kåre Dæhlen

Do these people automatically possess notability? If so, how and why? AFAIK none of them have been involved in any special 'events'. (Some of them get considerably fewer Google hits than I do myself, although I don't claim to deserve a Wikipedia article!) Kleinzach 09:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:GNG doesn't require that they be involved in special events. It requires that they be the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. I note that except for Roy Blake, you've chosen ambassadors between non-English speaking countries, making it more difficult for me as an English speaker to find on-line references, and Blake was never a permanent ambassador; he may have been acting high commissioner for a few months in 1962 (lots of coverage about him, though). But let's look at one of you examples anyway. Here's an article reporting on a speech Susumu Shibata delivered: [7]. Here's a report about a meeting he had with the Prime Minister of Angola, and his comments about that meeting: (in Portuguese). Here's one about a ceremony he led to donate rice to Angola: [8]. I think it's safe to assume that there are even more references in Japanese, Portuguese and in print. It appears he may have previously been ambassador to Venezuela, so there may also be references in Spanish. Pburka (talk) 11:41, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me clarify that I chose six examples of different nationalities because they're representative of the problem. (Actually the only substantial batch of English-speaking ambassador biographies that I've found, that are minimal, barely referenced, stubs, have been the Canadians.) Kleinzach 15:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem being that it's more difficult to find on-line English information about them? I don't see how that's relevant. It's reasonable to presume that sources exist in some form in some language somewhere in the public sphere, and therefore it's reasonable to presume notability. Pburka (talk) 23:47, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The real problem is that many of these people are simply not notable. We are here to build an encyclopedia on references, not presumptions. We don't assume Joe Ornithologist is notable, why should we assume José-Maria Diplomat is automatically worth of an article? --Kleinzach 00:45, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

That may be true for ornithologists, but there are many precedents for presuming notability (that why this page exists!). We DO presume that Joe Footballer, Joe Senator, and Joe Professor, Woody Woodpecker Chair of Ornithology, ARE notable. We don't require that their articles demonstrate significant coverage in reliable sources because we presume that such coverage exists, even if it's not presently in the articles. Pburka (talk) 01:22, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I would say that all of them except Blake possess inherent notability for the offices they hold or held. And that's why. Because they held senior offices. Senior officials are inherently notable. That's the standard we have applied on Wikipedia from the beginning. People are not notable just because their activities are reported on. Some people are inherently notable for the offices they hold. We're obviously not going to agree here, but if you look back at old AfDs you'll find that many biographical articles have been kept purely because the individual held a particular office or status. You might not agree with it, but it doesn't change the facts. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:54, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Expanding on Necrothesp's rationale, I'd outline the rationale for default notability, as I see it, as follows (taking the first example of Afridi):

1. Pakistan–Qatar relations, like other such articles, is without question an important encyclopedic topic, deserving of comprehensive coverage.
2. One key way of covering this topic is through the succession of figures who have held the respective ambassadorial positions, e.g. through lists and succession boxes.
3. Whatever the situation may be with Afridi, for the vast majority of such ambassadors, sufficient inquiry into Pakistani and Qatari news sources (&c.) will almost certainly yield sufficient material to pass WP:GNG.
4. Article formation and growth on Wikipedia is typically a messy and uneven process, starting with a questionable stub and gradually becoming more well-referenced and substantive.
5. Therefore, if we insist on proof of notability before allowing such articles, we will weaken a key form of coverage, reduce the likelihood of such articles being created even if they would have met the GNG, and generally discourage anyone who might have been inclined to work on making our coverage of the topic more comprehensive -- and we will achieve no particular countervailing benefit to the project by doing so.

To my mind, this is the basic argument for most forms of default notability, and it seems to me that it applies pretty well here. -- Visviva (talk) 22:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

• No There are lots of ambassadors who have completely unremarkable civil service careers (or, worse, are people who buy the positions, whether via campaign donations, or more direct means in countries less sophisticated in their corruption). Of these ambassadors, no reliable secondary sources independent of the subject will ever say much beyond "so and so was present" in an appendix. It's a waste of relatively scarce editorial resources to verify and maintain such biographies, and the sourcing can be problematic as well with respect to WP:NPOV and WP:RS, since we don't want to become a mouthpiece for government-issued press bios. Ray^Talk 18:35, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Presuming notability would not mean that we tolerate the use of unreliable sources, so you seem to be conflating unrelated issues. Nor should we dismiss all government sources out of hand, as much of it is going to be straightforward biographical data (education, previous positions held) easily separable from POV assertions, and most governments are not completely bonkers or disseminate nothing but ridiculous propaganda. We should neither treat all claims by a government equally nor claims by all governments.

    On whether ambassadors are "unremarkable" on the whole, that could also be said of most national legislators (most are backbenchers, not political celebrities) and it's simply not appropriate for us to determine coverage of officials on the basis of whether we think they deserve or earned their position. postdlf (talk) 14:41, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

    • There's no conflation here. The primary reason we grant particular classes of people notability (academics are an exception) is that there are, in general, sufficient sources on most members of that class to make writing a proper article possible. I actually do believe that national (or sub-national) legislators should not be automatically notable, particularly in countries where coverage is slight and legislators do not run for election in their own right, but are appointed from a party slate. You cannot argue that there is such coverage for ambassadors - heck, in many cases we can't even verify whether such and such a person was an ambassador from online sources, which is truly an amazing degree of obscurity. It is entirely appropriate for us to determine whether to write full-length articles on people based on whether there is enough verifiable information to write an article. That's what notability is about. Ray^Talk 15:43, 21 April 2013 (UTC)
• Comment, my question he is which diplomats would be considered notable as there are multiple ranks of diplomats? Presently, as I am involved with MILHIST, we have an essay, WP:SOLDIER, that gives guidance on individuals who should have significant coverage. Also, is WP:DIPLOMAT itself a guideline? If so, what is the discussion that lead to the wide consensus towards it?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:45, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

  WP:DIPLOMAT is a guideline. It looks like it was added by User:Nathan on 6 December 2007. It appears that there was discussion about it at the time. That doesn't mean that consensus can't change, of course. Pburka (talk) 21:20, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

From What I can see of the discussion there was a consensus that verification of notability using reliable sources, however the conversation ended with a proposal that went unanswered.

That being said, the proposal which went in the end was a sound one. It is keeping with the assumed notability in WP:POLITICIANS of elected individuals to state/national office, WP:BASEBALL/N of an individual who played in one major league game, and other such examples of presumed notability as long as it can be verified.

(Proposal) That being said I think the best solution as not to have hundreds of thousands of stub articles, is to say that the position of ambassador/"head of mission", or their historical equivalents are presumed to be automatically notable if the position can be verified by reliable source(s). The outcome would be the creation of lists of ambassadors of a position. If the individual receives significant coverage than the individual would meet WP:ANYBIO and would have a standalone article, where those who do not would be redirected to the list of their last held position. What do others think of that compromise?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:16, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Rfc?

I agree with RightCowLeftCoast's proposal (above) in general, but how would it work in practice? At the moment 'automatic notability' (of diplomats) is being invoked to revert prods, remove 'notability tags', and oppose afds, often without much attempt to develop the articles to satisfy WP:GNG. After all, if diplomats are automatically notable then there is no urgent need to improve the texts. (This in itself may indicate that 'automatic notability' is against the spirit of WP).

Editors like Pburka and Necrothesp are sincere in their opinions and will not give them up easily. IMO the best way forward — to avoid all of us wasting a lot of time on this — would be to have a full-scale Rfc to settle this. That Rfc could either reconfirm the existing guidelines (which I personally believe are sound) or change them as necessary. It could be started by one of the editors that want to change the guidelines. Kleinzach 10:19, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Just as a note, Kleinzach, an editor does not need to invoke any reason to remove a prod notice. They may be removed at will by any editor who disagrees with them. And nobody is saying that "diplomats are automatically notable". We are saying that heads of mission are inherently notable, which is rather different. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:26, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps, an RfC can work much like the the 2012 Puerto Rico referendum? It can be structured the following was:

• Has consensus changed that certain diplomats are considered automatically notable based on the position that they have held, similar to positions that fall under WP:POLITICIANS?
• If it has changed, how?
  • 1) The individual holding the position as the Ambassador/Head of Mission from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents are presumed to be notable.
  • 2) The position of Ambassador/Head of Mission from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents are presumed to be notable. Individuals holding the position are not-automatically notable, and must meet notability as defined by WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO or other applicable notability guidelines or essays.

Of course, the questions can be modified before a RfC is created.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:17, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

If by "mission" you mean "diplomatic mission", can you wikilink that in your proposal? Thanks! Location (talk) 19:05, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast's Rfc structure looks fine to me. Are any of the editors who believe that 'heads of diplomatic missions' (approved wording?) are automatically notable, willing to step up to this? Kleinzach 12:12, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

New proposed wording (including suggested wikiinks)

• Has consensus changed that certain diplomats are considered automatically notable based on the position that they have held, similar to positions that fall under WP:POLITICIANS?
• If it has changed, how?
  • 1) The individual holding the position as the Ambassador/Head of Mission/High Commissioner/etc. from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents, are presumed to be notable.
  • 2) The position of Ambassador/Head of Mission/High Commissioner/etc. from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents, are presumed to be notable. Individuals holding the position are not-automatically notable, and must meet notability as defined by WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO or other applicable notability guidelines or essays.

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:38, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not confident that a Chargé d'affaires ad interim has presumed notability. I propose qualifying "ambassador" with "permanent" in the proposal. Pburka (talk) 12:02, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Removing "etc." and listing Nuncio should eliminate Chargé d'affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission from the proposed guideline.

Therefore the new proposed RfC wording would read as follows:

Removing "# Has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media."

I removed this third criterion from "WP:PORNSTAR" because it is completely redundant with the basic criterion. Anyone meeting it would automatically meet the basic criterion, and since the additional criteria are not required, that means there is no circumstance under which this can matter - except the accidental or deliberate misinterpretation of the guideline, that is. Wnt (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

They are not redundant. Notable mainstream media is not the same thing as reliable sources independent of the subject. For example, a person can be a guest on several talk shows like Conan or Letterman which satisfies the notable mainstream media criteria and that's not the same as being the subject of a New York Times article. Morbidthoughts (talk) 02:52, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Morbidthoughts. The two are not the same. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 02:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Why wouldn't being a guest on a talk show satisfy the basic criterion also? Wnt (talk) 13:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

A talk show is not a reliable source. Morbidthoughts (talk) 05:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

No The additional criterion in this case should be required. Whether to make it so is up to us, and in fact, failure to meet it is a frequent cause of rejection of these individuals. I don't think mere appearance on talk shows in general indicates notability in any field,, except possibly for a very few shows. Nobody is saying we require the NYT--there are mainstream media that cover these figures more thoroughly than that paper. "Mainstream" in this case means not primarily devoted to covering pornography or pornographic actors. DGG ( talk ) 17:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what you're saying there, but I strongly support the notion that anything that meets the GNG is notable, regardless of subject matter. Any other policy is nothing less than censorship by degrees, and if you're saying that in fact the GNG is being ignored, then in fact that is happening, and it needs to be stopped and reversed. Wnt (talk) 18:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• Featured in notable media" conflicts with WP:NOTINHERITED. Association with notable does not make notable. In the third criterion, "notable" should be changed to "reputable and reliable". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
• The talk show example is the lowest step to illustrate the criterium. If I remember well the same Morbidthoughts has nominated for deletion one or two adult actresses that had in their pocket having been invited on several The Howard Stern Show episodes. Book cases for this criterion are Ron Jeremy and Sasha Grey, that have established mainstream film careers. Other examples: Julia Channel (appearences on films, music videos, a career as a singer and as a TV presenter), Leonie Saint (hosted several TV shows, appearences on films and music videos), Vivi Fernandez (an established career as television personality, actress and model), Judy Minx (roles of weight in several independent films and documentaries), Aino Kishi (leading roles in films and TV-dramas, a mainstream career in modeling and music, featured in a videogame), Carol Miranda (an established career as dancer, singer and model), Marina Hedman (who had a mainstream career which ran parallel to her career in adult movies). Cavarrone (talk) 18:07, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of inclusion of Kyoto Prize in criterion 2

Interested editors please participate in the discussion: Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Inclusion of Pulitzer Prize for History. Solomon7968 (talk) 12:35, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTPRIMARY subsection

It seems to me that we need a "WP:NOTPRIMARY" subsection. We have classes of individuals who meet primary notability "automatically." They are (for instance, US Senators, Parliamentarians, Governors, Generals, and the like. When they are discovered being the "first Mormon General" or the "first Governor to favor Prohibition," this information might be included in their biography, but it is secondary to their notability.

On the other hand, there is a second class of individuals who may be construed as being non-notable: store owners, small-town mayors, aldermen, city clerks, star pitcher in high school, who are then discovered to be the "first" Roman Catholic holding that position, or the first high school pitcher to join the skinheads, or is the first store owner to favor loitering. These latter attitudes are incidental to their primary role and their "first" does not make them notable, per se.

So the "first black astronaut in space" is notable, not because he is Afro-American, but because he is an astronaut. His ancestry may be mentioned in his bio but does not contribute to making him notable.

Agreed? Student7 (talk) 01:40, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

In the end, notability needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis, although we have notability guidelines to speed our processes and summarize consensus of similar categories of people. Experience shows that reliable sources like to write about "firsts" so it shouldn't be surprising that there is more readily available coverage about the first woman astronaut or the first African American astronaut than the 100th white male astronaut. That being said, I believe that all cosmonauts and astronauts are almost certainly notable. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:13, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's say we get to the 10,000th astronaut (thanks to commercializing rides!) and we no longer think riding into space, notable, per se. Is the first Buddhist space traveler from Vietnam then notable? How about the first Kyrgystan National soccer team fan in space?

My thought is that this can be described in general terms. "No, unless other factors make them notable."

Don't worry. I don't dare try to apply anything we decide to Reality Shows! While they are not really noteworthy or notable, they do have currency for a year or so and it's hard to fight. But it's just that short-term currency which makes them WP:NN.

Please note that I am talking about article notability here. Yes, within articles (about schools, perhaps), someone might mention "first black valedictorian." But that is quite different from using that as a basis (sole basis) of initiating an article on her/him.Student7 (talk) 22:47, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

If the first Buddhist space traveler from Vietnam is the subject of significant coverage in reliable sources, or if she meets one of the other more specific notability criteria, then she will be notable. Otherwise she will not be. Being first of anything does not automatically confer notability. Pburka (talk) 01:19, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

RfC: A proposal to see if consensus has changed regarding notability of certain diplomats, possibly modifying the guideline WP:DIPLOMAT

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• Has consensus changed that certain diplomats are considered automatically notable based on the position that they have held, similar to positions that fall under WP:POLITICIANS?
• If it has changed, how?
  • 1) The individual appointed to the position as the Ambassador/Head of Mission/High Commissioner/Nuncio (excluding Chargé d'affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission) from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents, are presumed to be notable.
  • 2) The position of Ambassador/Head of Mission/High Commissioner/Nuncio from one Sovereign state to another, or to an international body (such as Permanent Representative to the United Nations), or their historic equivalents, are presumed to be notable. Individuals holding the position are not-automatically notable, and must meet notability as defined by WP:GNG, WP:ANYBIO or other applicable notability guidelines or essays.

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

RfC Survey/discussion

To mostly repeat from my comments above:

• No There are lots of ambassadors who have completely unremarkable civil service careers (or, worse, are people who buy the positions, whether via campaign donations, or more direct means). Of these ambassadors, no reliable secondary sources independent of the subject will ever say much beyond "so and so was present" in an appendix; for some of them, it's hard to even verify elementary biographical details (failing WP:V). It's a waste of relatively scarce editorial resources to verify and maintain such biographies, and the sourcing can be problematic as well with respect to WP:NPOV and WP:RS. Wikipedia already has problems with people of little note or their publicists posting resumes and highly slanted, favorable articles. We don't need to compound that and other problems for little, if any benefit. I would remark that certain diplomatic postings do tend to automatically attract the level of press needed to rise to notability. I think any ambassador from one major nation-state to another is usually notable; for instance, a lot of countries tend to send their best to Washington DC. An ambassador to the United States is, in many countries, a very serious contender for foreign minister or even head of state, depending on how that country is configured. Ditto with, say, the US Ambassador to the UN. However, getting into the business of deciding that certain countries are more important than others is politically touchy and it's probably best to leave the guideline ambiguous. Ray^Talk 21:46, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

• Some statistics: The United States has, at the moment, 188 ambassadorial positions, of which 120 are currently filled by career foreign service officers [9]. The foreign service has about 15000 personnel. Most government personnel take 25-35 year careers. This means that about 1 in 5 foreign service officers will become an ambassador in the course of their careers. Even accounting for the relatively selective nature of the foreign service exam, that's pretty extraordinary. By comparison, less than 1% of career officers will ever make flag rank in the US military. Do you know of any other profession where we automatically take the top 1/5th of people to be notable, despite an absence of serious coverage in signficant sources? I think this is perilously tending towards a violation of WP:NOT - Wikipedia is not meant to be a directory. Ray^Talk 18:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

  Can you clarify where that "1 in 5" is coming from? I don't see how to derive it from the other numbers you provide. -- Visviva (talk) 01:54, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• Sure, I'm basically just dividing the workforce by the number of years in service, which gives you about 500. It's an order of magnitude estimate, not meant to be incredibly precise. For precise numbers, I suppose we can go look at one of the innumerable reports the government puts out on its workforce. Ray^Talk 04:11, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• That's a silly argument because it assumes that you only get to be an ambassador once when the likelihood is that once you reach Ambassadorial status you go from post to post as Ambassador. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:08, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• It's not that silly, it's an order of magnitude estimate. It's not that different in style from, say, the way we note the ratio of tenured professors to new PhDs when evaluating the job market for an academic field. If you prefer another measure, the list notes 45 appointments to career ambassadorships in 2012, while there are about 500 general foreign service officer openings a year. In any case, the process seems much less selective than the passage from PhD to tenure, which is a set of statistics that any new PhD is depressingly familiar with. Ray^Talk 16:50, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• Yes. In my opinion, all permanent heads of mission are notable and should have a presumption of notability in exactly the same way that members of national and sub-national legislatures do. Ambassadors are very senior officials who represent their country and its interests at the highest level. The arguments Ray makes above for not giving ambassadors a presumption of notability could apply equally, if not much more so, to said politicians that we do effectively consider inherently notable, and their numbers dwarf those of ambassadors. We also have to consider the systemic bias here - ambassadors of the UK, USA and other major English-speaking nations are likely to have far more English-language media and especially internet coverage than those of other countries. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. Permanent ambassadors are the top rank of diplomats. Their appointments, speeches, and actions will be reported in newspapers and diplomatic journals. They typically appear in Who's Who directories and often appear in dictionaries or encyclopedias of national biography. Although it may be difficult to find English sources on-line for ambassadors between certain countries, such sources are likely to exist. We should, therefore, presume that all permanent ambassadors pass WP:GNG. At the risk of being accused of WP:OTHERSTUFF, I think that an ambassador, as the official representative of his or country, ought to be considered at least as notable as a footballer on a national squad or a regional politician. WP:V still applies (as it does to all articles), but we should presume notability. Pburka (talk) 23:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
• Yes. It's the highest rank in the profession, and we normally regard such as notable in any field. We don't require congressmen to have done work "of particular importance" - -we add the article as soon as they are elected. We don't require entering a hall of fame for professional athletes--they just have to play at the top level. We don't require the Nobel prize from scientists, or the Tony or Academy award from actors. For those whose actual work we have difficulty in documenting, Necrothesp is correct that this is generally due to systematic bias. As with some other topics, such as athletes in the olympics, it is much more practical to simply include them all, than debate them individually. It does not harm the WP to have such coverage if it follows logical criteria. The want of editorial resources does not prevent us from writing an article if people want to work on it; maintenance is usually fairly automatic when the next person takes the position, and if we ever miss one, it's very easy to catch up; there are always basic sources. If these bios were exceptionally subject to unsourced negative material or vandalism, I might say otherwise, but they are almost always safe except for ones who would have articles in any case. What we need to do is, as in most other subjects, expand our coverage to earlier holders of the positions. People don't usually just buy the positions, btw, they go either to the most senior civil servants or people of noteworthy influence in politics. That last occasionally does correlate with having lots of money, but many forms of notability correlate that way. DGG ( talk ) 17:00, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
• No. The GNG - verifiability, for all intents and purposes - is the baseline standard. Failing to meet it is not something we should accept. To Pburka: if such sources exist, such sources are includable. We have access to newspapers, Who's Who, dictionaries of national biography and diplomatic journals. To DGG: the failure of the community to maintain a bright-line rule is not an invitation for more violations of it. It demonstrates a need to reinforce it. Ironholds (talk) 23:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

  WP:GNG is unrelated to WP:V - you're confusing two different policies. This change would have no effect on verifiability. The only change is that it would relax the requirement to prove significant coverage, just like we do for several other classes of biographies. Pburka (talk) 18:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC) (edited to replace "substantial" with "significant")

  Er. No. Question for you: why do we have notability policies? Ironholds (talk) 13:35, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

  Answer: We don't. We have notability guidelines. The difference? Guidelines are even less set in stone than policies! Nothing on Wikipedia is immutable, contrary to what some seem to believe. And WP:IAR is a policy! -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

  Thank you for the informative discussion of things I wasn't talking about. The correct answer is: we have notability guidelines - guidelines that ultimately boil down to "multiple, reliable sources" - because articles must be about subjects that can be verified, and sourcing being a requisite for existence is a good proxy for ensuring that, at least in theory, content is likely to be verifiable. The GNG is fundamentally related to the verifiability policy, and this change would have a tremendous effect on verifiability by essentially stating that we can have articles of any level of dubious veracity as long as the subject had a funny enough hat at some point during his career. Don't get me wrong, of course - I think that GNG should be the only guideline here. I'm not singling out diplomats. Ironholds (talk) 20:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, 1. This is precisely the type of case that these individual guidelines were made for: significant figures, most of whom are notable in their own right, but for whom it is desirable for Wikipedia to have the complete set, and undesirable to impose artificial roadblocks on those who might care to donate their time to the cause. To test my preconceptions, I took a look at a couple of currently redlinked US ambassadors (Frankie Reed and Robert A. Mandell) and also the current Malaysian ambassador to Mexico (Jamaiyah Mohamed Yusof). The US ones would be absolutely trivial to cite; the Malaysian ambassador is more difficult, but a reasonable stub could be composed based on the information available in online reliable sources in English, French and Spanish. Career diplomats who rise to ambassadorial rank often seem to become "serial ambassadors," hopping from one country to another; thus their absolute number is lower, and the information per ambassador greater, than a casual fixed-point-in-time snapshot would suggest. It seems unlikely to me that this would open the floodgates to any sort of unmaintainable mess; on the other hand, the harm imposed on the project by the cart-before-horse approach embodied by the GNG is obvious. -- Visviva (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
• No (1) Per Ray^Talk who has explained about distinguishing between notable and non-notable diplomats. (2) The notability guidelines are essential to WP. They setting a standard for inclusion, thereby guaranteeing the quality of the encyclopedia. Without notability criteria, Wikipedia would become a depository of trivia, originating from self-published sources, including those under government control. I am against the presumption of notability (without reliable sources) for any group of people, regardless of occupation — there should be no exceptions, no exemptions from the ‘rules’. Biographies of artists, doctors, politicians, scientists, sportsmen, writers — and diplomats — should only be on Wikipedia if notability can be demonstrated. Notability should not be assumed for someone who writes a symphony, builds a cathedral, bakes an original kind of cake, discovers ten new species of tropical fish or whatever— or for a typical, modern, paperclip-pushing diplomat with an evidently uneventful appointment. (3) One of the basic concepts is that 'notability' can’t be transferred or inherited. So the notability of, say, the country of Belgium, shouldn't be transferable to the Belgian Ambassador to Moldova. Kleinzach 09:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)
• No, Wikipedia should not include directories of government appointees, and certainly not if it involves starting with current appointees. This project is contained by requiring third party secondary source coverage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I have not seen any one saying that this proposed change to the guideline would sidestep verification requirements.

What those who are supporting individuals being considered presumably notable just as national and sub-national legislators are considered presumably notable.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:51, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Referring to third party secondary source coverage is not fearing a sidestep of WP:V. WP:V is a very low threshold. Writing articles just on WP:V leads to directories of data. WP:V should not be read without co-reading WP:NOR (among other things). I recommend WP:A for better clarity. If you want to push the "presumed" angle, I think the evidence would be the percentage of ambassadors who already have decent articles. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:26, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• No Heads of Mission/Ambassadors are frequently at only middle ranking civil service grades - many at G6 or G7 - i.e. not in the senior civil service, less senior than the officer who runs Heathrow Immigration and ranking less then a counselor at a larger mission. I can predict the average press coverage for a junior ambassador now, officer gets agrement, the FCO releases a press release (all primary/non independant) and this gets reprinted by the press. Then, during their posting, the officer gives interviews (primary), writes articles in the paper (isn't the subject of), gets mentioned when he goes to a black tie event (trivia/non-detailed) and then when they leave, if they never get another HoM post, they are never heard of again. Who's Who is by no way independant - participants provide their own details. SNGs are supposed to be short cuts to the type of person/thing that has enduring notability through multiple detailed secondary reliable sources. Absent clear evidence that all HoM get that kind of coverage I can't see how we can possibly accept that they should have inherent notability against the genuine tightening of expectations for BLPs across the whole project. Spartaz ^Humbug! 15:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

G6 or G7? British civil service rating?

In the United States the position is a direct appointment from the President of the United States, and a Career Ambassador are considered the equivalent of a four star general. As such, flag and general officers, and their historical equivalents, are considered presumed notable if they can be verified to exist and hold the rank through the use of reliable source(s).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 15:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

You are being very parochial if you think we should set a general SNG by the way the US runs its missions. Last I looked there were more than one or two extra countries with their own sets of missions. If you can't apply your standard to an ally as close to the states as the UK then seriously, how can you expect to run it against smaller less resourced countries? Bottom line, you cannot presume a particular notability from holding an appointment as Ambassador because the grading and general contributions don't read across. *shakes head*. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:05, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Please kindly see WP:AVOIDYOU. I am not saying that we should judge notability of ambassadors based entirely by how the United States structures its foreign service. I never said that.

I am just giving examples.

Furthermore, although I have created the RfC, I have not taken a position on the RfC question.

So please, assume good faith, and not make this about myself.

I can understand that some nations do not consider certain positions at the same level of seniority as others, but others do hold the position at a high level. How do we as an editing community sync that to our notability guidelines?

As others have said, notability is presumed of some certain catagories just by an individual playing at a major league, why is that the case? If we are to apply the same consensus to the field of diplomacy, how would that work?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast; Can you please give WP references for these examples of presumed notability? So far you have mentioned "flag officers and general officers" and "major league" players — all of these apparently American. Kleinzach 16:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to WP:ATHLETE, such as WP:NFOOTY and WP:BASE/N; for flag and general officers there is the essay WP:SOLDIER. These are not specific to the United States.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh my goodness me, you made an argument, I debunked it with a reasoned argument based on facts and you'd rather address the way I framed the issue rather then deal with the concern I raised. That's just not good enough for your argument to be given weight. Do you have any policies to back up your argument? Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:39, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Please see above. There are notability guidelines that presume notability based on verification of an individual reaching a certain status. I will ignore the arguments against myself, but I advise that arguments against myself stop.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

RCLC: there is an unsubtle distinction between protocol rank and actual power or influence. No ambassador has a budget in the dozens of billions of dollars and over 10,000 subordinates, but that's relatively standard for a combatant commander. Ambassadors seem to slide in and out of "Deputy Assistant Secretary" and "Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary" positions on the low end, and Undersecretary/Assistant Secretary positions on the high end. That's probably a better measure of how much influence they wield within the arcane ranking of the federal service. Ray^Talk 16:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I do see the argument that a Brigadier or Brigadier general will be in charge of an organization comprised of multiple battalions (three plus) capable of independent combat operations, and that ambassadors do not have nearly the number of individuals whom the have a leadership function for. At the same time, historically, had plenipotentiary power, and thus (historically) had significantly more influence/power than any brigadier/brigadier general/rear admiral/commodore. The ability to act in the name of the head of state and or head of government to create international agreements is not something we should overlook.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I actually would contest the brigadier general part (Saddam Hussein had over 3000 of them! Quick, I dare any military history buff to name 1!), but yes, I think plenipotentiary power and using it to negotiate on behalf of your country with respect to a major treaty or conference falls under WP:DIPLOMAT as it currently stands. People who simply have "plenipotentiary" in their title but are never instructed to use it to deliver anything greater than birthday greetings to the local President for Life should not get notability for that alone. Ray^Talk 21:26, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

There was actually that debate when SOLDIER was created at MILHIST, but the majority felt (IMHO) that being promoted to flag or general officer (NATO code O-6 to O-10) was seen as being similar to the bright line given to individuals who play in a major league of their given sport. Also their role would lead them to command a substantial body of troops in combat that is capable of significant, or independent, military operations.

I tried to elevate SOLDIER to a guideline, but that attempt failed; but the essay is normally pretty well respected at AfDs.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:37, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes (2). The position should be considered notable, but the individual must meet WP:GNG or the existing guideline in WP:DIPLOMAT. RightCowLeftCoast makes a good point that the historical position of ambassador was extremely important, but the position has evolved into mere spokespersons for their country. Enos733 (talk) 04:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
  • If they meet GNG what's the point of this? Spartaz ^Humbug! 13:33, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

We already have pages of lists of diplomats from a nation to another nation (e.g. List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to Albania, List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to other German States, List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to the Ottoman Empire, List of diplomats of the United Kingdom to Iran). Second, it is possible for an ambassador to be involved in a major international incident to not meet WP:GNG but should be considered notable (examples could include an ambassador is deeply engaged in important treaty negotiations (but not the subject of multiple secondary sources), accused of a minor crime [I am thinking about the Indian and Mongolian diplomats involved in Permanent Mission of India v. City of New York ] or those ambassadors involved in Diplomatic incidents) generally. Enos733 (talk) 15:17, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

While this (proposal Yes (2)) may seem plausible — obviously some positions will be more notable than their occupants — this confuses two different kinds of notability. IMO it is easier if we simply consider biographical notability for biographies. I have been through several hundred articles in Category:Diplomat stubs and its subcats and not found the kind of anomalies described by Enos733. I am sure they exist — they just aren't very significant. In any case, I wouldn't accept that the position of ambassador from Vanuatu to Andorra (assuming it exists) is necessarily notable. It clearly isn't. Kleinzach 01:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes-2 would mean that the position would be notable, and not necessarily the office holder. This would create a list of possible biography articles, which would themselves need to meet WP:GNG requirements, thus a lot of the stub articles whose subject have not yet been shown to meet GNG (or other notability guideleines and essays that maybe applicable), would be redirected to the position article/list. This maybe a compromise that allows for creation of redirects, yet doesn't delete the search terms outright.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:20, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, as has been pointed out by others, without specifically pointing towards the essay, we need to look at WP:BIAS. Certain countries diplomats will receive more coverage from web accessible reliable sources, and thus the ability to verify notability of a diplomat for say a 1st world nation maybe far more difficult than say for a very minor nation (such as Kiribati or San Marino). Yet all nations who are members, or observers, of the United Nations have Permanent Representatives/Ambassadors to the IGO and maybe highly notable within the context of that country (would that be a WP:LOCAL argument?) and whose position is no lesser than that of a larger nation (protocol wise).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

"The IGO" — which one? --Kleinzach 05:41, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry. I was referring to the United Nations, which was the IGO which I had referred to earlier in that sentence, and using as an example.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 13:59, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

• Yes (1). I think that ambassadors or other heads of diplomatic missions are important. Think about it, they are a country's official, and sole in most cases, representative to another country. Therefore, they should be considered notable. DGG makes a good point when he states that when only require pro athletes to be just that, pro athletes. We don't require them to have "participated in a significant way" as far as their sport is concerned. - Presidentman talk · contribs (Talkback) 00:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:SPORTCRIT. The criteria are actually much stricter than you think. Kleinzach 01:25, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Really? A curler is presumed to be notable if he or she has "participated in a World Curling Tour sanctioned event." That's more strict than having represented your country as a permanent and plenipotentiary ambassador? Pburka (talk) 04:13, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The archived discussions about WP:ATHLETE is fascinating. In them, there is some discussion about why there is a presumption of notability - and perhaps the best rationale was "What you need to remember is that in order to play one game in the top level league you had to have been a star in the 2nd level league and would have likely been written about from that aspect, probably quite a bit." The one game standard was a clear bright line, since many athletes, all the way to the high school level, could, by virtue of the sheer amount of coverage of sport, receive a fair amount of coverage from local papers, school papers, and even sport specific sources. The question here is not, is the subject important, but rather whether, by virtue of their position as an ambassador, there is a presumption of notability and we would expect that subject to meet WP:GNG if we worked hard enough to find sources. My take is that the position and role of the ambassador has changed over the last 50-100 years to a point where ambassadors do not exercise independent authority in conducting foreign affairs (i.e. it does not matter if John Doe or Jane Gomez is the ambassador to Canada) and that there is little independent coverage of the subject (unless they already meet WP:GNG or receive an honor for their service). Enos733 (talk) 04:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment/stats. So far this Rfc has only attracted 11 opinions — few given the importance of this issue. We have 1,813 articles in Category:Diplomat stubs and its subcats. Having looked through a few hundred of these articles, I think about half of these are minimal stubs, written from government lists (often ephemeral government websites), with little or no independent referencing.

Breaking down Category:Diplomat stubs we see: Asian (124), African (202), Canadian (123), American (348, though many of these are actually mature articles that need destubbing.), South American: (69), European (279), British (300), French (64), Norwegian (73) Russian (102). I haven't been through all the cats, but I note a concentration of these minimal, poorly-referenced texts in Category:Canadian diplomat stubs and Category:Norwegian diplomat stubs.

I have sent a number of test cases to Afd, currently Brendon Browne and Barbara Richardson, and previously Roy William Blake, Jostein Helge Bernhardsen, Olav Berstad, Miyoko Akashi, Khalnazar Agakhanov. (Users Pburka and Necrothesp were of course very active in these discussions which led to 'no consensus' or 'keep' results. No articles have so far been deleted.)

There is also the issue of the copying or close paraphrasing of government sources. These minimal stubs usually just copy the listings. An example is Marilyn P. Johnson. Kleinzach 07:04, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

"Users Pburka and Necrothesp were of course very active in these discussions which led to 'no consensus' or 'keep' results. No articles have so far been deleted." What an odd comment. Is that not how AfD works? We certainly weren't the only editors who thought these articles should be kept and we didn't make the final decision. Wikipedia is about discussion and consensus and that's what happened. The fact that all your "test cases" have failed to reach the result you wanted suggests that it's time to end the "test", does it not? Otherwise we'll end up getting into another perennial debate like that over secondary schools, where a small handful of editors continue to send articles to AfD to prove a point but never achieve their goal of deletion.

Your last point isn't an issue. If it's a copyvio we delete it. If it isn't we leave it. No greater issue than with any other possible copyvio. You can't cite possible copyvio as a reason not to have articles - that could equally apply to any other category of article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

• YES. The position was perhaps more important in the past, when it was much less easy for one foreign minister to get on the phone to another. This meant that serious negotiations between countries had to be carried out between the ambassador and the government to which he was accredited. The fact that an article so far only contains minimal information is no reason for not having it. Some articles that I have worked on were little more than a list of the appointments held, a fat stub, but that means that another editor, who locates further information has something to work on. It needs to be pointed out that in the past the heads of mission were not always called "ambassador", sometimes Envoy Extraordinary, Minister Plenipotentiary, or just Resident. These titles are now sometimes now used for more junior diplomats. The key test should be that the diplomat was head of mission. I will add that I am responsible for having filled out many of the lists of British diplomats and creating some that were missing. A high proportion of the people listed had biographies in Dictionary of National Biography, which is generally accepted as an indication of notability. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:47, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually foresaw that issue, and thus included the "or their historic equivalents," statement in the proposed rewordings.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

As a general comment — The Dictionary of National Biography would indeed be a reliable source, so I see no problems with biographies based on that. It's also worth noting that I have yet to find a pre-WW II diplomat biography that was not notable. The problem, as I have explained above, is the notability or otherwise of heads of small and medium-sized missions, often of small or medium-sized countries, that have little or no interaction with the press, especially when they are not involved in any major newsworthy events. Kleinzach 12:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

• Comment, presently it is my opinion that there is no consensus to change DIPLOMAT; and at the same time there is no consensus to keep DIPLOMAT in its present form either. Opinions appear to be pretty evenly split. So is there a middle ground compromise that we can work towards?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 14:07, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Participation has been too limited IMO. Was this Rfc announced in all the usual places? I note that it is not listed at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines or Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Politics, government, and law despite the information on the Rfc notice above. Can we re-list/re-notify so that it gets the attention it deserves? Kleinzach 14:35, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Let it run. We have 30 days; all the initial commenters have already weighed in. It's been posted at all the usual places, maybe other editors will have useful suggestions. If not, well, we'll have to weigh how to go forward then - this may be an inevitable artifact of Wikipedia's declining editor base, that we have small groups of people without dynamism to forge a way forward, but let's not borrow trouble before we have it. I would suggest that, while things remain unresolved pending the closure of the RFC, that participants refrain from bringing more AfDs of ambassadors and other "heads of mission," as that would just tire people out from the need to monitor more fora. Ray^Talk 15:20, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

It use to be listed there from what I can recall, I wonder when it was delisted. It was listed ion the 25th of April on the Politics list, and the same date on the policies list.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:06, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Bot removed it from the politics list on the 3rd of May, and did removed it on the policy list the same day, is this normal for the bot?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:14, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

No, it's certainly not supposed to do that. it's supposed to de-list us after the default 30 days. You should probably ask whoever maintains the bot what's going on. Ray^Talk 19:04, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

I left a notice at the bot owners page regarding our discussion regarding the bot.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:40, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

The Rfc is still not listed. I tried to add it manually, but it seems you are not allowed to do that. (Ordinary edits will apparently be 'overwritten'. Kleinzach 12:19, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• No.' Assuming that 150 countries each send ambassadors to 150 other countries, and each position has been held by ten people, that's 225,000 ambassadors. While that may not necessarily be meaningful, there is absolutly no inherent notability. Articles on individuals naturally must have multiple independent substantial RSs; a government listing about who holds the post does not satisfy GNG. I do believe that the current guideline is perhaps a little too strict, but notability is not automatic. If ambassadors are equivalent to whatever other position, an assumption whose accuracy I would doubt, then there ought to be several sources backing up the person's notability with further information; I expect a biography of any notable person, not a sentence or two stating the positions held. You can't just create articles claiming the subjects to be notable when it simply states that ABC was ambassador of X to Y from 1 to 2; that's worthless and does not exhibit notability. The comparison to pro athletes is irrelevant, and I find the idea of automatic notability for being paid to play a sport even more absurd than that for an ambassador, and the same goes for subnational legislators. Reywas92^Talk 04:10, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

• No. Ambassadors are paid to be visible at state functions and the like, and that lends them superficial media presence which in no way adds up to notability. The diplomatic work of intelligence and negotation, of course, is mostly done outside the media glare. But when something really important happens, that receives plenty of attention. So, a high level of general and event-specific notability should be required, not just an ambassadorial posting. Secondarily, especially (but not only...) for some small countries, ambassadorships are fibs among friends; and, trivial though that is, throwing automatic WP listing on top of a non-merit appointment only instrumentalizes WP and the Wikimedia Foundation. From philosophers to porn stars, people have to earn their WP listings through deed and merit. All ambassadors do not, though of course some do.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 15:11, 6 May 2013 (UTC)
• Strong No ambassadors should meet WP:BIO as a minimum. a lot of coverage is simply talking on behalf of their government in effect being a spokesperson, this is being passed off in AfDs as "significant coverage" which it is not. there needs to be coverage about their career or advancement they have made in foreign relations. also sometimes they hold the post for one or 3 months, and make zero public statements. as Reywas92 said, we'd be probably making at least 10,000 new articles, and most of these would be people that make no ripple in foreign affairs let alone worthy of inclusion in WP. Ambassadors of small island nations often do very little (compared to say being an ambassador to China or USA), yet are we proposing an automatic WP article? heads of large national government departments or chiefs of staff to world leaders are often more influential in government than ambassadors. yet have no automatic notability. LibStar (talk) 02:49, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
• No - No one should ever be considered "automatically notable" by virtue of their job. They should meet WP:BIO and GNG. Sure, most ambassadors will be notable... but not all. I would certainly expect that most people who are appointed as an ambassador would have the necessary RS coverage... you just need to dig deep enough to find it. However having a likelihood of notability is not the same as actually being notable. Blueboar (talk) 12:48, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

What about WP:NFOOTY & WP:MLB/N? Those notability guidelines specifically state that due to the individuals job, playing in a single major league game, that the individual is considered automatically notable. There are other notability guidelines like that, and I need not list them all here, but there is precedence that someone's job, if holding significant enough stature within their field, makes someone presumed to be notable. Of course verification is still required to show that someone held that position, or played that game, or whatever that notability guideline states, but there it is.

If the above argument is reasonable, than all single subject notability guidelines should be withdrawn.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 17:37, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

There is a hard-to-reach achievement standard built into making it into the leagues which qualify under these criteria. The issue in discussion here is that ambassadors can be named despite no merit. The same fallacy as RightCowLeftCoast brings up would be to argue that since some elite professional players are considered automatically noteworthy by virtue of playing in certain leagues, all footy/bb/whatever players should be eligible. Ambassadorship does not have a coherent threshold, far from it. Hence, making it an automatic "in" does not work.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 21:08, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yet that is the case, for all persons who play in X league all those players are considered notable. That is exactly how it works.

And who is to say that someone who becomes an ambassador has no merit? There are a handful of career diplomats who started off as beginning level foreign service officers, who diligently rose through the ranks to the point where a head of state has nominated the individual, and they individual received confirmation to the position from the nation's legislature. This process, often produces a number of reliable sources which can verify notability; and as others have argued, for those nations where such records are not as readily available in English sources it may create a systematic bias against the ambassadors from those nations.

Therefore I would say that it is fallacious to say that just because someone plays on game on a field of grass that someone has designated to be a special field of grass makes someone automatically notable.

So if someone's level of occupation can grant presumed notability, when verified, then who block it for the field of diplomacy?

As has been stated by others, and myself, the historic role of the ambassador carried significant weight in international relations, and this significance far outweighed that of a sub-national legislature (who are presumed notable).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:39, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast: "There are a handful of career diplomats . . . for those nations where such records are not as readily available in English sources it may create a systematic bias against the ambassadors from those nations.' In other words, United States diplomats are notable — by virtue of the process they go through — and this notability should be extended to the other 200 countries in the world to avoid bias. Right? This is an odd argument. As noted before, the American diplomat stubs don't contain many problem articles because US diplomats tend to be involved in events and are reported by the media. As RCLC says, they are publicly confirmed — something that is very unusual elsewhere. Most diplomats are not like American ones at all, so basing notability guidelines on them is not helpful. (The "historic role of the ambassador" is of course something else. In practice only major countries had ambassadors.) Kleinzach 23:10, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Here is the thing, as I think we can agree, due to the differences between the process by which a nation gives an individual credentials to be an ambassador to another nation, the amount of reliable sources will differ. Furthermore, based on that, this will create a systematic bias, that due to the availability of resources some nation's appointed ambassadors will be verifiable per reliable sources to meet the requirements of GNG than others.

I am not saying that any individual is automatically notable for being any diplomat, as I am more debating more on the basis of the position carrying a level of notability (as consensus in other subjects have shown exists (and thus why I point at NFOOTY and MLB/N and such guidelines) and thus set a precedence of reasoning). While I do agree that based on the systematic bias which I stated above, not all ambassadors are going to have the reliable sources readily available to us on the internet to verify notability, that does not mean that the positions themselves do not carry a certain level of weight. This is after all (as I am aware) why there is a presumption of notability for those individuals who are elected (or appointed to) national and sub-national legislative bodies.

If it is the position, and not the individual that holds the weight, then it can be argued that it is not the person who holds that position (at that time) who is notable, but the position itself that is notable. Thus why there are the three outcomes for this RfC. No, Yes (1), and Yes (2).--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 23:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the 'systematic bias' argument is that you can stand it on its head. You may think you are privileging Vanuatu, but actually the predisposition is towards the USA. Kleinzach 23:41, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

RightCowLeftCoast: The "field of grass" argument is just a continuation of the earlier fallacy. It is NOT just any field of grass. Note also that the number of divisions that establish notability varies across countries in the criteria. As it should. But, if you want a comparison: Should any league of American football played in, say, South Africa qualify? No. Any rugby league in the US? Not either. The rules are reasonably coherent at the level of sports, and even among sports. If such a coherent rule could be created for diplomats, why not? My problem with yes (2) is that it does not amount to such a rule. The presumption of notability is wrong in that case. Also, in the sports criteria, note that one expectation is that the subject must have played on a professional team against another professional team. Where the stakes are high enough, to perhaps put it another way. So, that may be a direction to go for ambassadors too. But, Ambassador of Seychelles to Monaco? Not to be presumed WP-worthy as such, thank you.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 23:47, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Yet, Ambassadors have historically been the representative of one head of state to another, so it can be said that Ambassadors are playing at a "professional level". As historically Ambassadors had/have plenipotentiary authority when it comes to international relations, one could say that the position carries far greater significant than say a professional sportsperson, and more significance than a sub-national legislator.

Thus to say a professional sportsperson is more notable than a very high ranking diplomat is incorrect on its face.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 00:05, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

The media may decide to give prominence to a story about Tiger Woods over one about Susan Rice, or vice versa. That shouldn't concern us. We are not building value judgements into the encyclopaedia. Notability should not be determined by arbitrary rules, only by coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources (per WP:GNG). --Kleinzach 03:09, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

But notability on Wikipedia is determined by arbitrary rules for athletes, politicians, actors and professors. If we were arguing for striking down all of the career-specific notability guidelines I might agree with you, but if we're going to recognize curlers as presumptively notable, then I don't see why we shouldn't extend the same privilege to ambassadors. A typical ambassador is more influential and receives more press coverage than a typical curler. Pburka (talk) 03:25, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

As I wrote (above) on 27 April: "I am against the presumption of notability (without reliable sources) for any group of people, regardless of occupation . . . " I hope that's clear now. Kleinzach 05:19, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

All of our presumptive reliability guidelines require reliable sources, per WP:V. This proposed guideline is no different. Would you support a modification to the proposed guideline which clarified that the person's position as ambassador must be supported by reliable sources? Pburka (talk) 11:45, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I too am against any presumption of notability based on status, especially ascribed status. And I think there are too many sports and entertainment personalities. But that reflects the basis for notability skewing in practice towards news media rather than historical and academic works, and that's a bigger issue than this RfC. Now, if the exercise of plenipotentiary power could be documented, that could be considered, notwithstanding that there may be objections such as Ray's (21:26, 2 May, above). But again that does not figure among the options so far.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 08:43, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

Why have we not seen RfCs to downgrade single subject notability guidelines then?

This is the second time in attempting to modify of elevate a notability guideline, where the opposing editor's main argument is GNG is enough. If that is the case where is the RfC? Where are the test AfDs, as is occurring against Diplomat articles (would that be WP:POINTY?), to see if there is consensus against those notability guidelines?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:42, 9 May 2013 (UTC)

I deem creating an RfC beyond my experience level, but that would be relevant indeed. That said, I see plenty of AfD debates about sportspeople, so presumably the material is there for your second point.Truth or consequences-2 (talk) 09:52, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

• No, I don't think so. I'll first note that nobody should have "automatic notability" if they can't meet WP:GNG. The idea of specific guidelines should not be to confer "automatic notability" - it should be to create a presumption of notability - basically a tool to highlight categories where most of the members are going to turn out to be notable. I'm not convinced that anyone has demonstrated that this is really the case for diplomats (although I'm pretty dubious of WP:POLITICIAN, too. Are we really saying that all of the thousands of people who have served in the Supreme People's Assembly are "automatically" notable, or even should have a presumption of notability?). My position has always been that the GNG should be interpreted as broadly as possible, and that specific notability guidelines should be removed as much as possible. I think that most heads of mission from important countries and/or to important countries (especially when both, and especially pre-World War II or so) probably end up being notable, but that's because they pass GNG, not because they're "inherently notable." john k (talk) 22:02, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

The failure of the GNG is to a considerable extent the failure of WPedians to use printed sources, combined the the still very erratic coverage of GNews, especially outside the US. When we have verifiable information about someone for whom additional sources will probably become available, and the person is demonstrably someone about whom a reader is likely to want to know, we should keep it. Successive holders of political office are eminently in that class--anyone interested in the region and period will want to see the information on the successive office-holders--and, possibly, be in a position to add to it. I need to emphasise that the failure of GNG isn't often a failure of information--it's a perceived failure to be significant coverage, or coverage outside the election. This is a matter of interpretation, where those who want less coverage of a topic are arguing that whatever coverage we do have, is insufficient. By such arguments and distinctions anyone less than famous can be rejected if it is thought they should not be covered. I myself have used such an argument for people whom I think do not have notable accomplishments, because I want to reach what I think the correct decision where there is possible ambiguity. In other words, if we want to cover them we can find reasons why the sources are sufficient, if we do not, we can avoid finding the sources sufficient. I tend to think the GNG is used here to reach pre-determined conclusions. (For example, if I think--as in fact I do , that we cover too many porn actors and professional wrestlers, I could plausibly argue that essentially all the sources for them are non-independent coverage because based on PR; the reason I do not so argue is I see no reason to exclude other people's interests that I do not share: I am not making an encyclopedia for my personal use only.

We would do better by assigning notability in all verifiable cases based on fixed levels related to the sort of notability involved--and if we couldn't agree on that, reach a compromise. The effect would be no worse than the present rather random results, and we'd save time in arguing notability and could use it in writing articles. DGG ( talk ) 02:32, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

• No per Blueboar: "No one should ever be considered "automatically notable" by virtue of their job. They should meet WP:BIO and GNG". -- Khazar2 (talk) 13:26, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
• Yes per DGG, Pburka and others. There is something as "automatic notability" -subjects that are indeed notable by virtue of their own position and that as such deserve coverage- and this is one case where GNG is not enough. Specific notability guidelines exist precisely for this reason, to extend the GNG, which is just the default setting for cases where other guidelines do not exist/apply. --Cyclopia^talk 16:33, 13 May 2013 (UTC)
• Comment pretty clear to me after weeks of discussion, there is no clear consensus to grant automatic notability to ambassadors. LibStar (talk) 03:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• 2 (I am confused whether this is a "yes" or a "no"). The GNG is a minimum, and specific guidelines should not be more lenient than that. Verifiability is all that is required for a list entry, but without coverage in reliable secondary sources there is nothing we can use to write a verifiable article about. Thryduulf (talk) 20:23, 15 May 2013 (UTC)
• Yes, 2, we have articles such as Governor-General of the Philippines and List of Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the United States, so I do not see why all Ambassadorial offices should not have a list, as long as it meets venerability verifiability requirements. If individual Ambassadors (or their historical predecessors) are found to be individually notable per WP:ANYBIO or some other notability guidelines, they can have a standalone article which is wikilinked to the list. This IMHO is a good compromise between deleting all ambassador articles, and retaining the information on Wikipedia, and serves as a good starting point for those interested in this field to search for individuals who may meet ANYBIO in order to create new articles.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:18, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Venerability? Bede-style? --Kleinzach 21:29, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Verifiability; oops! Thanks for catching that.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:41, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

• No, per Ironholds' excellent rebuttal. Wikipedia doesn't need more unexpandable stubs and silly AfD arguments like Wikipedia:But there must be sources! 5.12.68.204 (talk) 11:12, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

However, Wikipedia is a work in progress, and just because an article is a small size doesn't mean that it should not be on Wikipedia.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 21:56, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Surely an article must be potentially expandable? Kleinzach 23:17, 23 May 2013 (UTC)

Why? That there is little to say on a topic does not mean that little isn't precious. Take this I created yesterday. It is not really expandable unless you want to include a lot of very technical detail (or new sources appear), but so what? It may be not the best article, but it explains the topic, and I believe the encyclopedia is better by having it. Size doesn't matter. --Cyclopia^talk 15:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

We are not talking about short articles on simple subjects — these obviously have their place. We are talking about inconsequential one or two sentence entries. For example Brendon Browne, which even after a confused Afd here (when he was originally wrongly assumed to be Canadian), still only has two sentences and zero references. Kleinzach 10:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

• No Its obvious from this discussion that consensus has not changed, and with good reason. I agree with Ironholds, John K, and Blueboar's points above. Make no mistake, this is the infamous "inherent notability" fallacy rearing its ugly head once again! A diplomat truly worthy of inclusion in an encylopedia should have no problem meeting the already lax standards of WP:BIO. These standards are easy to meet for a person working in international relations. If an individual can't meet these basic standards we shouldn't have an article on him. ThemFromSpace 21:59, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Q regarding WP:POLITICIAN

The current kerfluffle over WP:DIPLOMAT makes me want to revisit the "sub-national" portion of WP:POLITICIAN. In some countries, states/provinces are large, have ample coverage, and the governing officials are relatively prominent. In other countries, first-tier subdivisions may be tiny (Liechtenstein, for example, is administratively divided into 11 communes, the largest of which has a population under 6000 - declaring the mayor and town councillors, and sheriff if they have one, of such a community notable by default is absurd). On the other end, there are extremely poorly documented highly populous areas, such as the states of India, where the thousands of members of the sub-national legislatures are usually elected on party slates. (Or for greater amusement, one can consider the 687 elected members of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea). Often, for these people we have nothing beyond a name and a party affiliation, nor are we likely to get one. Since WP:POLITICIAN is supposed to be a secondary criterion, it's justified by the idea that for almost all people in these categories, substantial coverage sufficient to pass WP:GNG is basically certain to exist. I really doubt that is the case here. Thoughts? Ray^Talk 17:30, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

POLITICIAN, SOLDIER, NFOOTY, and such secondary notability guidelines and essays that come after GNG and ANYBIO are still required to meet verifiability. The alternative is that the rather than the individual being automatically being notable, the position can be considered notable, with individuals holding the position requiring significant coverage and/or in-depth coverage to be considered individually notable. Therefore the result is you'd have a list of individuals who were elected to X seat representing Y, and if one of those individuals receive in-depth significant coverage then they would have a standalone article that has a wikilink in that list.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:34, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

It would indeed be absurd to give such people inherent notability, but the guideline says "national, state or provincial". It doesn't say "first-tier sub-divisions". This clearly doesn't cover communes in Liechtenstein or anywhere else! It doesn't even cover counties. It covers states and provinces in countries where state and provincial legislatures have real power. That is, I think, quite clear from the wording of the guideline. For the legislatures of places like India and North Korea, yes, I think the guideline should stand. No change is needed. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:12, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree. Each member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives only represents about 3,300 constituents. While this is quite an extreme in the US, there are likely some with fewer in other countries. I'm appalled by some of the contents of Category:Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. This and this sure as hell don't count as "significant coverage" toward the GNG, and I do not believe we can assume all state legislators are notable. Reywas92^Talk

I don't see any reason to assume that all members of even national legislatures are going to meet GNG. I think that a full historical list even of members of the Supreme People's Assembly would be worthwhile, but I don't see why we would need to have articles about all these obscure people of whom virtually nothing is known. john k (talk) 22:09, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

nothing is known because of our own cultural bias, and present limitations on the flow of information. the purpose of WP is to improve the state of information about the world, not limit it.

Like Reywas92, I find Category:Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives staggering. Would someone like to bundle the lot of them? Editors who work on political articles may not realise how strictly defined arts-related ones are for notability. In the case of musicians, we expect articles to be referenced by reviews in major newspapers, not local ones. Artists who are only known in their own country are often regarded as non-notable. Unfortunately it seems that some editors get hold of (primary source) government lists and then produce huge numbers of minimal articles that are a discredit to the encyclopedia. (See also the problem with minimal diplomat stubs, above).Kleinzach 00:57, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

experience shows that with sufficient work in print sources we can in fact document all of them to meet the GNG reasonably, and do not insist that local coverage is irrelevant, and an election is oneevent. Is it more important to work on the articles, or to debate them? You're going by personal preferences--myself, I think its a disgrace to the encyclopedia that we don't have historical coverage of these people back far enough, and one of the hopes of the educational program is that this might be remedied, for they're ideal topics for beginners.The only way we can work together is if we accommodate each others views on what fields of human endeavor is important. The two alternatives are that 1/ we include only those everyone' thinks important, in which case we have a very abridged encyclopedia indeed (there are probably only a few dozen athletes I know about or care to know about, and zero professional wrestlers, and no popular musicians I didn't know about in my youth a few decades ago; some people care about no scientists unless they won a Nobel) or 2/ we go by which interest block predominates here, in which case we are making an encyclopedia for ourselves, not our prospective readers.

There are some things that damage an encyclopedia: promotionalism, copyvio, unverifiable material, POV editing; there are some things that don't , such as borderline notability. Of our 4 million articles, we probably have a few hundred thousand undetected copyvios and several times that many that are essentially promotionalism, and a good ideal or unfair or inaccurate blp. At a lesser scale we have incoherent writing, irrelevant illustrations, inaccurate coverage, unreadable formatting. unclear referencing, unacknowledged plagiarism, missing sections, bias, purely national viewpoints on universal topics. In a different dimension, we have personal attacks, polite POV pushing, poor advice to newcomers; pointy argumentation, pure obstinacy in making or rejecting changes. All things worth being concerned about and worth fixing. But mere disagreements about the borderlines of notability where the borderline could be set almost anywhere? We are developing into agroup of people who spend moretime arguing what is to be written about, than doing writing. DGG ( talk ) 02:47, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I agree that borderline notability does not harm the encyclopaedia — if the articles are developed beyond one or two sentences. Stacks of minimal stubs are a different matter however. If readers search and constantly find one-sentence articles they will stop using WP. N.B. Category:Members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has 1263 articles, 652 of which are stubs. Here's a typical one: Barry Alderette, complete text: "Barry L. Alderette is a former Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for one year." Kleinzach 10:36, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Barry Alderette also includes an infobox with more details than the sentence you copied. It includes exactly the kind of details that hypothetical user might have been looking for, and it provides references where the user can verify that information. Pburka (talk) 11:40, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, verification that the guy was an insurance salesman. --Kleinzach 02:04, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

One of the most important pieces of information for a politician is the history of what he has done before (and after) holding the office. From this sort of information the reader will learn about the political, economic, and social basis of the society, but all we need do is give the facts. DGG ( talk ) 01:17, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Well said, DGG. Properly-sourced stubs about marginally notable people are not a major problem. Rubbish, copyvio, duplicated articles, inaccessible articles which need dab page entries or hatnotes, unsourced material all over the place: those are some of the problems needing our attention. If editors are keen to work on minor politicians or diplomats, and can provide sources and produce a solid little stub like Barry Alderette, then welcome them and let them get on with it. PamD 07:24, 14 May 2013 (UTC) Though I've now noticed that one of the 2 refs for Alderette gives him as being born and dying on the same day, which doesn't inspire confidence! PamD 07:27, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm delighted to say I've created hundreds of articles on historical state legislators (mostly Wisconsin, but also Tennessee, Missouri and others), starting in many cases with as little or less than what we had about Alderette. These have included a former Greenback Party Speaker of the Wisconsin House who went on to become a Montana pioneer; a large number of labor activists who became Socialist legislators; a published science fiction poet who served in New Hampshire; a one-time friend of L. Ron Hubbard who is persistently misidentified in Hubbard bios as a U.S. rather than a Washington State Senator; and the first non-white legislator in Wisconsin history, a Brothertown Indian elected before statehood who later died fighting for the Union in the Civil War. Just because nobody's bothered, doesn't mean that the information isn't out there. --Orange Mike | Talk 18:40, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm also delighted you have found such interesting material. I assume the articles mainly cite secondary sources, per WP:PSTS. Nevertheless the concern here is about (typically contemporary) biographies that only use primary sources.Kleinzach 04:21, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

The first step is to get the fundamental official data right, and the official primary sources are ideal for that. The second is to get the fundamental bio about the person, and their official bio is good enough as a starting point. The suggested next step is to get secondary sources about the campaign, which is easy with anyone with access to the local papers--many but not all are online, but most of them require using a library that has a subscription--which is very likely in libraries in the area. After that, articles grow as people work on them--most articles on local politicians will be best expanded after someone writes a local history covering the area and the period--it's easier than assembling the materials oneself. DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

"Creative professionals" and "Entertainers"

I don't find these two categories very helpful. I would fold them into one category, with significant subcategories further articulated. I was trying to glean what the notability threshold is for authors, which I'd always assumed was simply publication by a major publisher. Pretty much everything that is published by a reputable house gets several legitimate reviews. I propose we simplify the standard.Sylvain1972 (talk) 17:11, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

You can be considered one without being considered another. Dream Focus 11:09, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

If the publisher is major enough, then the publisher has done the selection, for it has become a major publisher by skill in selecting books to publish that will be good enough to get reviews and be read and where the authors will consequently be notable. But for almost all publishers, most books are failures. Very few people who try to become authors become notable. I don't know how the proportions compare with entertainers, but I think they might be comparable. But creative covers much more than authors, and for visual artists we have a particularly good criterion, that of having works in a major museum. Like eveerywhere else, we depend on the outside world to set the criteria. DGG ( talk ) 02:38, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe contemporary American literature works this way (major publisher & "legitimate" reviews) anymore, and hasn't for the last ten years or so. Lots of reasons: internet literary magazines, growing numbers of writers with MFA's, the reduction of funding at historically major publishing houses, which has led them to publish less literary fiction. And almost no poetry. We have a situation now where the more influential poets are being published by small independent presses and often less influential poets are published by large publishers. Recently, small independent literary presses like Sarabande Books, Gray Wolf, and Copper Canyon Press have published influential, award-winning books and regularly receive NEA funding. So how do we parse who is influential among living writers? I don't think that's Wikipedia's job. I'd like to see (and am willing to make the effort) more living writers have wikipedia pages. Lavenderly (talk) 12:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)Lavenderly

Creative professionals

Was the "significant contributor to, a subject of, or used as an expert source by major news agencies or publications" from December 2012 ever discussed? How is notability inherent from being a prolific contributor to news agencies? Or being an expert (so says the talk show host or news anchor)? At any rate, the actual topic of coverage is almost never the expert per se. Talking about something isn't the same as being notable.

I haven't been able to find the discussion. I can't find anywhere the basis for the addition might have come from. When someone speaks about a topic on which they have some expertise, they broadcaster or publisher has an interest in hamming up that expertise as a basis of content. I'd like to see point 2 go unless it can be better justified. If a discussion actually occurred, please point me to it. Cheers. JFHJr (㊟) 20:05, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Editprotected

Please add a hatnote for the redirect WP:CRIME

{{redirect|WP:CRIME|the Crime WikiProject|WP:WikiProject Crime}}

"WP:CRIME" redirects here. For the Crime WikiProject, see WP:WikiProject Crime.

-- 65.94.76.126 (talk) 07:37, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Done: Benign, borderline minor edit. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 14:52, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Diplomats – no comment

Given the discussion above, #RfC: A proposal to see if consensus has changed regarding notability of certain diplomats, possibly modifying the guideline WP:DIPLOMAT, I am surprised that no one has commented on the Afd for Abdulmajid Dostiev, the Ambassador of Tajikistan to the Russian Federation. --Bejnar (talk) 19:11, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Like most ambassadors, Abdulmajid Dostiev had a notable career both before and after his appointment to that plenipotentiary position. I've expanded his article based on reliable sources which were, in this case, easily found. Pburka (talk) 21:46, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposing rule amendment to Creative Professionals

Here is the current rule:

The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.

Author Hayford Peirce has written many books but does not have "multiple independent periodical articles or reviews". The author is listed in a sci-fi encyclopedia. But the community by a strong consensus is deciding to keep the Peirce article. Accordingly, I propose changing the rule, so that if an author publishes a sufficient number of books or articles, the existence of multiple books, in itself, is sufficient to justify notability. Or, an author who appears in another encyclopedia listing, is sufficient to justify waiving the "multiple independent reviews" test.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:53, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

His appearance in another encyclopedia supports a claim to notability under WP:GNG and WP:BIO. There is a relatively common misunderstanding that subjects which fail a specific notability test (e.g. WP:CREATIVE) are not notable. However, a subject need only pass one notability test to achieve notability. I don't think that there's any need to amend WP:CREATIVE since the existing guidelines are sufficient. Pburka (talk) 23:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Another encyclopedia is a tertiary source. Generally what Wikipedia wants are secondary sources, so it continues to be unclear in my mind what the rules are. Perhaps the "Creative Professionals" rule should be amended so that one tertiary source is all that is required to establish notability. The idea is to avoid misunderstandings in the future.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:15, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Tertiary sources such as compendia, encyclopedias, textbooks, obituaries, and other summarizing sources may be used to give overviews or summaries, but should not be used in place of secondary sources for detailed discussion.

— Wikipedia rule

Try approaching them as guidelines, which they are, instead of rules, which they aren't. postdlf (talk) 20:34, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Point noted. Wondering about the following: have these guidelines become more relaxed over the past few years? That is, the guidelines may suggest multiple independent reviews while in practice, in some cases, one tertiary source would suffice. If so then perhaps the guidlines should be rewritten to reflect the new state of affairs. Or maybe in this case it is just an exception.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

It is an interesting point that GNG calls for secondary sources, but, in my experience, tertiary sources are generally sufficient to establish notability and may, in fact, be superior. For example, there seems to be consensus that inclusion in a dictionary of national biography is de facto evidence of notability. While secondary sources are clearly preferable as references, I think that tertiary sources should be sufficient to demonstrate notability. Pburka (talk) 16:45, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that tertiary sources are superior to secondary sources, in a general way, but like everything, it is a judgment call. In this particular instance, it may have been the case of a publisher or the author filling in a directory form for the encyclopedia with a listing of books, and it was added by a clerk, that author X published A, B, C, D, E. There might not have been any thinking involved, no reflection, no judgment of importance or impact. I still think independent once-removed voices saying that X is noteworthy should be the general test. Still, if the community thinks, generally, that only one tertiary source is sufficient to establish notability, which is what appears to be in this case, then there should be further discussion about this, and if the community wants to amend the guidelines here, then they should be amended to reflect this general understanding.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 16:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

In my view tertiary sources are usually largely superior to secondary sources in identifying notable subjects, I could not imagine our encyclopedia deleting a subject or a topic which has an entry in an established printed encyclopedia. At any rate your point is not wrong, as sometimes these sources are not sufficient to provide enough material for a decent article, but in these cases WP:DEADLINE applies and it is reasonable to assume that more sources surely exist, even if currently offline or not easily detectable. Cavarrone 17:16, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with you in most instances of respectable tertiary sources. If a subject is mentioned in the Encyclopedia Brittanica as being noteworthy, then that makes sense to me -- I'm assuming such a project would check for notability first before including an entry. On the other hand, there are encyclopedias which do not do much checking, but are really more like directories. Remember, too, Wikipedia is a tertiary source; suppose a self-published author got an article floated in Wikipedia, then another encyclopedia came along and cited the author as notable because of being in Wikipedia -- that would be a problem for the other encyclopedia. But I don't know what to make of it in this particular case. It is likely that this particular case is highly unusual, that is all. Thank you for your viewpoint.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 17:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I guess it depends on the depth of coverage. I would not consider a simple biographical entry in a Who's Who sufficient on its own, but a substantial article in a reliable encyclopedia or an obituary in a major newspaper will usually convince me. The fact that the author of the article or obituary was able to find the information for their story demonstrates that secondary sources are available, even if we're not able to find them immediately. Pburka (talk) 22:09, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why the particular example here requires more than WP:GNG, which has been amply demonstrated by David Eppstein in that AfD. Pburka correctly describes the relationship between WP:GNG and WP:CREATIVE here. I wouldn't support an expansion of the precise wording described, either--any idiot can self-publish multiple books. (Ask me, I've self-published three books, and it's very unlikely that I"m notable.) The author in question is notable in part because she's been published by reputable publishers--but that's more effectively demonstrated, I feel, by the reliably-sourced reviews. Importantly, those external reviews give us some context to verify the information in the article, and to show its significance, and to allow us to establish appropriate weight. I'd hate to see us move farther away from cleanly sourced biographies. --j⚛e decker^talk 20:23, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, Pierce has ""multiple independent periodical articles or reviews", as document under the entries for his books at isfdb.org. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:19, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for looking in to this. It has been a learning experience, as always. If this is not an exception, then it makes sense to keep the wording as it is.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:50, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

"Invalid criteria" and Alexa

In the section of this article titled "Invalid criteria" there is a link in the second paragraph in the sentence that reads "See also: limitations of Alexa" which stretches from "limitations" through "Alexa". If you click on any of those three words you are taken to the article page on Alexa in which discussion of its limitations aren't exactly highlighted or made any kind of focus. I am very reluctant to edit a guideline page like this without running the proposal through the talk page first, which is why I am here: it seems it would make more sense to change the sentence so that only the word "Alexa" is highlighted and linked, or else have the link take the reader to a page (somewhere) that actually discusses the limitations of Alexa rather than the company and its history (as is the case at present). I am doubtful such a page exists, however. Thoughts? KDS4444^Talk 20:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Looks like that's because of this edit, which merged the section the guideline pointed to. The content critiquing Alexa rank validity is still there in the Alexa Internet article. I don't think this guideline needs to be changed just to deal with a "see also", which is hardly integral to this page; just change the link in the guideline to point to the new article section, or edit the Alexa article itself to separate back out the critique (and/or discuss it with the editor who merged it). postdlf (talk) 22:23, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Proposing rule amendment to Politicians

On basis of arguments contained in this talk pages section "Appellate judges?" immediately above and incorporated hereat, guidelines should be modified so state appellate court judges are considered notable per se. Albiet (talk) 05:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)Albiet

Hello. I wanted to ask for your help in editing the article that has been declined. Can edits to this article change its status? Thank you for your help.--Alakri 04:31, 26 August 2013 (UTC) — Alakri 04:42, 26 August 2013 (UTC)Preceding unsigned comment added by Alakri (talkAlakri 04:42, 26 August 2013 (UTC) • contribs)

Appellate judges?

Is the average judge on an intermediate state-level appellate court considered notable? All of Wisconsin's Court of Appeals judges have articles; however, an article on a former Illinois appellate judge was recently nominated for deletion. The "politicians" section of this page seems to cover judges; however, it is not particularly helpful in this case, as judges are not members of a "legislature." —Theodore! (talk) (contribs) 03:11, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Theodore raises a good question. Most of a state’s binding case law is announced by its intermediate appellate courts which hear appeals from trial or "lower" courts mandatorily, unlike a states' Supreme Courts, which generally hear appeals at their discretion. As Theodore pointed out, the intermediate appellate court is a court of errors that sits between a state’s trial courts and its Supreme Court. In most states, except to my knowledge in Nevada, the intermediate appellate court is the only court which must hear the appeal of a litigant, who is dissatisfied with a trial court’s decision. The intermediate appellate courts usually publish written opinions which are hard bound in reporters and archived for the legal community in law libraries and today on line on LEXUS. These published opinions are binding authority and must be followed by all trial or lower courts in the state. A state Supreme Court alternatively hears a petitioner’s appeal of one of these intermediate appellate court's decisions at the Supreme Court's discretion by a grant of a writ of Certiorari. It does not have to hear such an appeal and, usually, does not unless an issue of extreme legal importance is involved, and, even then, if the Supreme Court agrees with the intermediate appellate court’s decision, it may not hear the case anyway and may simply let the appellate court's decision stand as state case law in the interest of the Supreme Court’s judicial economy. No appellant has a right to a hearing before the Supreme Court. Accordingly, as earlier noted, most of a state’s binding case law is announced by its intermediate appellate courts and not its Supreme Court. As can be seen, then, these bodies are extremely important bodies in our society. Trial courts and their opinions differ in their social impact as they are res judicata as to a case but are not generally precedential, except, in some states, where district or superior courts are permitted to hear appeals from muni or justice court decisions and, even, then, the appeal's decision is only binding on those muni/justice courts in the district. Albiet (talk) 06:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC) Albiet
• Comment -- This discussion seems primarily to be limited to US state courts, and should not be applied more widely. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:06, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
• Comment IMO this is already covered by "statewide/provincewide" adjective. That is, appellate judges are state/provincial officers. Judges may be ostensibly "moved" from one appellate court to another (seldom done). Moreover, their salaries are established and paid by the state/province. The lines of the appellate district are controlled by the state/province. Student7 (talk) 21:42, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
  • The intent behind, and consensus interpretation of, the term "statewide/provincewide" is judges on the province or state's highest court, who do in fact preside over the entire state judicial system. It does not and was never meant to cover intermediate appellate judges who preside over geographically limited districts within the state. That their salaries are paid by the state could not be more irrelevant, nor could the fact that state law determines their jurisdiction. One might as well claim that the lowest magistrate or family court judge is also a "statewide" official for those reasons. Note also this thread was a duplicate, also raised at the Village pump recently. postdlf (talk) 21:53, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Models

This is a request for clarification from those who deal with notability.

I'm coming across individuals labeled as "models" simply because they posed for some photos which were later posted online (sometimes, but not always, in print). If this meets notability standards than any high school senior who has their photo taken by a professional photographer could be labeled a "model". What I'm finding is that this category is often a way for aspiring actors or entertainers who have no significant career experience to be seen as professional and notable.

This proliferation of amateur models seems to have taken off with the growth of the internet and social media in particular. Other examples: I've seen women who have lots of tattoos be listed as models because they had their photo in a tattoo/body modification website/magazine or exotic dancers/strippers be listed as "glamour models" because they've had a photo session or two.

It would be helpful to know what constitutes notability in this occupational category. Personally, I think it's fine to list "model" in someone's profile page if they have done professional (paid) modeling, but there should be higher standards if being a model is the primary criteria for notability. Models that would qualify would either be models for significantly well-known artists, runway models & print models with established careers (longer than a year, minimum). I don't think individuals who model for online sites should be considered because most of these are unpaid, with publicity and exposure intended to be a form of payment.

A specific question I've come across was Playboy Playmates: is this important enough to be considered notable and warrant an article on Wikipedia? Because that is potentially hundreds of individuals, most of whom never went on to any additional work that would be considered notable (I realize exceptions exist, I'm talking about the majority of those featured).

Your feedback and guidance would be welcome! Newjerseyliz (talk) 12:30, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Good question. We have similar problems with all forms of "easy" publication on the web - musicians, for example.

WP:RS and coverage are important. If "Sally Sue" only results in 15 hits on your search engine, clearly, she is WP:NN. Not sure what the low threshhold is, though.

Playboy centerfold could be a list, merely, and not individual articles. Not as notable as some mayors of small cities. (Mayors are not intrinsically notable). This seems a bit much. Oh, well!

The good news is: the photos themselves are copyrighted!  :) Student7 (talk) 19:08, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

• It's not quite clear to me what your question is. Are you asking if people who have modeled are notable? i.e. should they have articles on Wikipedia? If so, the criteria of WP:NMODEL should be consulted. Or are you asking if people who are notable for some other reason, but who have also worked as models, should be categorized in Category:Models (profession)? If so, I'd suggest reviewing WP:CAT, particularly the section on defining characteristics. Pburka (talk) 21:40, 3 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Student7 and Pburka. Just returning to seeing what the response to my questions. I probably shouldn't have commented on Playboy Playmates as I wouldn't be surprised if there are a half dozen editors who are devoted to chronicling every single Playmate that has appeared in the pages of Playboy. I'm not going to convince them to turn articles into lists.

I'm not sure what entries I was working on on July 30th when I posted this but I'm sure it was some individuals who's occupation in their Infobox says "Actor, model" only they haven't any notable acting experience and the modeling they've done is, like I said, modeling they paid for (like for head shots) or modeling done for free for websites in exchange for the exposure. The context for this is that I've run across hundreds of bios on Twitter that say women are "Models" when it just means they allowed some photographs to be taken of them, they aren't professional models who do it as a living.

Not to go off on a tangent but this is really larger question: What do we include under "Occupation"? If, for example, one is a marketing exec who gives presentations for his company at a few conferences and writes a blog, can he be credited as "Marketing Exec, Speaker and Author"? It's similar in that while it might be an activity that is significant to the individual, it's not how they make their livelihood. Another example is "Activist"...seriously, anyone who speaks out about a social issue could be called an "Activist". Thoughts? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 19:06, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

It seems, then, that this isn't a question about notability: it's a question about infoboxes. I don't think that this forum is the right place for that discussion. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes is probably more appropriate. Pburka (talk) 22:31, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Royalty

In the section on "Family" it says:

Being related to a notable person in itself confers no degree of notability upon that person. Articles about notable people that mention their family members in passing do not, in themselves, show that a family member is notable. See also Invalid criteria.

It seems like Wikipedia has thousands of articles on minor figures of European royalty who are clearly nonnotable because their only significance is their title, not their accomplishments. I can only guess that there is a strong Royalty lobby or WikiProject on WP because a lot of the better articles reach GA and FA status. But the third wife of some duke of somewhereShire who was cousin to the King of France in the 17th century? I don't get it but I'm afraid if I go to work with AfDs on nonnotable royalty, I'll run into a lot of resistance. Any advice from those who are also not fascinated by monarchistic dynasties and the people who live on the periphery? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:53, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Notability is not measured in accomplishments. It's measured in multiple, independent coverage in reliable sources. If there are articles about royalty that are not backed by reliable sources, and if after honest effort you can't find any, nominating an article for deletion is thoroughly appropriate.

However, if some truly lesser noble, with no accomplishments whatsover, has been covered in a whole mess of reliable non-fiction books, news articles, magazines, television documentaries, radio broadcasts and/or academic treatises, I'm afraid you're stuck. David in DC (talk) 02:35, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll find that the wives of cousins of Kings of France tend to have substantial coverage in reliable sources. For example, Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency seems to fit your criteria, but is clearly notable. john k (talk) 20:57, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

"a substantial part of a significant exhibition"

What is a "significant exhibition"? Does it mean an exhibition which receives multiple reviews at the time (and if so in what media: local, regional, national, New York Times or art website)? Or one which is judged an important event in art history like Sensation (art exhibition) and 1913 Armory Show? Or somewhere in between? If it means notable, it should say notable. If it means more than notable, it should explain what sort of significance. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:36, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Assuming this is a separate question from people (biography), perhaps you would want to repost this at WP:EVENT discussion page? If you are referring to an article, it would best go there. If you are referring to sentence usage, I would prefer "notable" = there is an article on the exhibition. Or just plain "exhibition" without any adjective describing it, if there is no article. And it may beg the question whether it should be in the material at all unless cited by WP:RS. Student7 (talk) 18:42, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

People who are only notable for being in the line of succession for abolished royal titles

There are many many, possibly hundreds, maybe thousands, of article on the English WP such as this - Prince Christian Ludwig of Prussia, a person who is only notable because he is fourth in line of succession to an abolished throne in a country that does not exist any more, or this Countess Marie of Hochberg, a person who is only notable because she is the sister of the pretender to the throne of Hanover, which has not existed since 1866, or this Monika, Princess of Hanover, only notable because she was married to the previous pretender to the throne of Hanover. My feeling is that none of the many such articles meet the notability guidelines for biographies, I wonder what others think.Smeat75 (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you. Having read those articles, I fail to see what makes their subjects notable. Surtsicna (talk) 22:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:POLITICIAN tweak

WP:POLITICIAN criterion 1 notes that "This also applies to persons who have been elected to such offices but have not yet assumed them." This isn't particularly applicable to non-elected positions, e.g. US federal judges. Could we tweak it to read "elected or appointed"? If the President appoints you to a federal judgeship, the Senate confirms you, and you die a day before being sworn in, you should qualify just as much as the guy who dies a day before being sworn into office as a US state legislator. Nyttend (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Crime victims and perpetrators WP:CRIMINAL

Where an event reflects substantially on public policy or institutions, then that should obviously make it notable. On the other hand, for crime we do not want a list of every conviction or miscarriage of justice.

However, when a miscarriage of justice can be shown to be the result of misconduct by senior levels of an enforcement or prosecution organization then it becomes very notable because it reflects on that organization.

Such claims of misconduct would obviously need to be justified, e.g. by an appeals judge. The crime would need to be reasonably serious, and reported.

I therefor propose to adding for wrongly convicted of crime

2. If a serious miscarriage of justice is the result of of misconduct by senior levels of an enforcement or prosecution organization (rather than just error or new evidence) then it becomes very notable because it reflects upon that organization. Any such claims need to be strongly backed, e.g. by the decision of an appeals Judge. Any such article must be focused on the details of the case itself. Any general discussion concerning the law enforcement agency belongs on that agency's page and must not be included in this page.

(Underline indicates additions in response to issues raised below, not emphasis, not part of the proposal.)

Tuntable (talk) 02:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose: This would make it easy to turn Wikipedia into a WP:Coatrack forum for grievances against law enforcement. In theory, "miscarriage of justice" is a crime and we already have a sufficient guideline for that. Toddst1 (talk) 12:11, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
  • I have amended the proposed wording above in response to your concern. Tuntable (talk) 00:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • It would be nice if you had struck out the deletions so we could see what the objection was. Or have struck out the old version and replaced it with the new one. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Done. Tuntable (talk) 02:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. If the miscarriage of justice is sufficiently serious, it will be the topic of significant coverage in reliable sources. WP:GNG is sufficient. Pburka (talk) 04:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• • Many crimes have significant, reliable coverage, particularly in the main stream press. Buy some deletenists interpret this section to mean that that does not matter, because it is a criminal event it has a much higher bar to satisfy. And to some extent they have a point, every serious crime does not justify an article. But if there are broader ramifications of the crime, the way it was prosecuted etc. then it does become notable. That needs to be said explicitly. Alternatively we could just say that GNG overrides this clause, which I doubt is what you would want. Tuntable (talk) 06:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• • • And to some extent they have a point, every serious crime does not justify an article. - They don't have a point, and if they do say so, they are wrong. If something, no matter if it is a serious crime or a unicorn, meets WP:GNG and it does not clash with other policies and there is no meaningful merge target, then it can have a stand-alone article. We don't need further guidelines to carve around some editors who don't understand how WP works. --cyclopia^speak! 13:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• • • • Well, I presume that WP:CRIMINAL is there for some reason, namely to elaborate on WP:GNG. It does not matter that you may be right, Wikipedia is a large community and sometimes things need to be spelt out. Tuntable (talk) 07:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I have read WP:CRIMINAL again, and it actually says no separate entry for the criminal if there is another article. OK, let's drop it here. But I have italicized the relevant part on the main article, hope nobody objects. Tuntable (talk) 07:38, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Protected

­This redirect needs an Rcat (redirect category template) removed and two Rcats added. Please modify it as follows:

• from this...

#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:Notability (people)]] {{R to other namespace}}

• to this...

#REDIRECT [[Wikipedia:Notability (people)]]

{{Redr|to project|from shortcut|protected}}

• WHEN YOU COPY & PASTE, PLEASE LEAVE THE MIDDLE LINE BLANK FOR READABILITY.

Template {{Redr}} is a shortcut for the {{This is a redirect}} template, which is itself a shortcut used to add categories to redirects. Thank you in advance! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 23:32, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Done — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 23:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Mr. Stradivarius! – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 23:45, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Congressional Gold Medal awarded to groups -- does the notability attach to individuals

I've seen a few articles in which the Congressional Gold Medal is mentioned as an award for the individual. But the official listing includes huge groups, like the American Red Cross, all 9-11 victims (The Fallen Heroes Act: Honoring the Men and Women who Perished as the result of the Terrorist Acts on the United States on September 11, 2001), Navajo Code Talkers, and the Tuskegee Airmen. While the CGM is an extraordinary award, does it confer WP notability on the individuals in these groups? I do not see guidance. – S. Rich (talk) 02:31, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Would an article for each of the people who died on 9/11 be justified? I think you've answered your own question. oFormerip (talk) 02:34, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course not. But we need guidance that makes this clear, especially for the more discreet groups like the Code Talkers & Tuskegee Airmen. – S. Rich (talk) 02:39, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I propose modify first line in WP:ANYBIO. Two alternatives:

• To read "The person, as an individual, has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times." [Added phrase in italics; italics will not be in final version.]
  • Possible modification for revised line: to read "For named persons who receive a well-known and significant award or honor, or have been nominated for one several times."
• Add footnote to end which says "Awards must be for the individual and not be based on membership in a group."
  • Possible modification to proposed footnote: "Awards or honors must be to the individuals and not be based on membership or participation in an institution, association, or other similar group."
  • Or how about: "Awards or honors cannot be based on simple membership or participation in an institution, association, or other similar group."

Of course, I'd like to see improvements to my proposal. – S. Rich (talk) 06:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not convinced any change is necessary. The official listing doesn't mention the individual employees of the American Red Cross; the medal was awarded to the group, and confers notability to the group. The rewording is problematic, because it suggests that people who share an award with someone else (e.g. James Watson, Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins) might not be notable. Pburka (talk) 15:56, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Fortunately the individuals you mention have lots of other sourcing to establish notability. But my concern is with those cases where little else establishes notability. In the Congressional Gold Medal examples, group members have received individual medals or replica: the Tuskegee Airmen is one example, and the 650 members of the 1980 Summer Olympic Team is another. (In fact, they got gold plated medals, not solid gold which is the case for most other individuals.) With your thoughts in mind, Pburka, I've posted a couple of alternatives. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 16:41, 14 December 2013 (UTC)16:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Are there actually editors arguing over this issue? A hypothetical dispute is really no basis for changing guidelines. If such a dispute were to arise, it's quite likely that it would get resolved easily without additional "guidance" from more explicit guideline language, and such a discussion would in any event be more productive than this thread because it would be based on a real disagreement. Changes made based on a purely abstract discussion that has only a straw man to represent one side (no real person would ever claim in good faith that every Red Cross employee should have an article) would likely result in language that is overbroad and poorly targeted to the issue. postdlf (talk) 17:40, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I have a new editor on a GLAM project writing up articles on individual Tuskegee Airmen, and adding the CGM as an award for the individuals. I'll notify him about this discussion. – S. Rich (talk) 00:00, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

An alternative to my original proposed tweaks has been posted just now. – S. Rich (talk) 01:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

If an otherwise borderline notable individual received a physical medal, as reported by a reliable source, that's an additional indicator of notability. But not simple membership in a group that got a medal, like the American Red Cross. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In List of Congressional Gold Medal recipients we see that one gold medal for the Tuskegee Airman was struck & is kept at the Smithsonian. Numerous individuals, it seems, received replicas. (Sourcing on this is scant.) IMO, the criteria should be limited to named individuals. I also note that the law establishing the medal for the airmen allowed for bronze duplicates to be struck and sold to the public. See: [10]. Price = $6.95. – S. Rich (talk) 02:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to those who received a medal from Congress, not a commercially produced replica. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 04:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Of course, Cullen, you are right. I was not sure if the presentations made to the individuals were done via direction of Congress. Well, a little research of the actual statute may clarify. It says "The Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate shall make appropriate arrangements for the award, on behalf of the Congress, of a single gold medal of appropriate design in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, collectively, in recognition of their unique military record, which inspired revolutionary reform in the Armed Forces." (Link to statute is on the CGM list page.) This puts me in a dilemma. I don't want to go around reverting mention of the CGM in the individual articles. But I do wish the guidance was clearer. Hence my suggestions. – S. Rich (talk) 05:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Have the Tuskegee Airmen editors claimed that any of the subjects are notable only for the CMH? I scanned through a few of the articles and didn't seen any subjects which failed WP:ANYBIO even without considering the award. All of the ones I saw had received significant coverage in reliable sources. Pburka (talk) 02:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

So far I have not seen feedback from them. I suspect this topic, e.g., notability guidelines, is rather abstruse for them as they are new. With regard to particular articles, Fitzroy Newsum is one example. The CGM is mentioned as an award. But, otherwise he's not notable IAW WP:MILBIO. Significant coverage from RS is not my worry overall. If other achievements are there, they will be accessible through secondary sources. But I do fear too much pseudo-notability (in a WP sense) will be cited through the CGM connection. (Editors should not get me wrong about the notability of the group. My uncle was a pilot during WWII and my mother's first husband was KIA as a co-pilot over Belgium. The Tuskegee Airmen are proud members of the Greatest Generation.) What I don't want is to see {{Tuskegee Airmen}} expanded to include the 500+ pilots, aircrew, and ground crew simply because the group got a Gold Medal. – S. Rich (talk) 03:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Col. Newsum's obituaries published in the Denver Post and Associated Press should be sufficient for WP:GNG. Pburka (talk) 03:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Simple answer: notability is not inherited. And if we're talking that the only apparent claim to fame is the Congressional Medal, that definitely doesn't apply to the people involved. --MASEM (t) 03:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Can we stop the revert war on this live guideline page?

What is going on? I'm aware there's an ongoing discussion threaded above (and I don't expect it to travel down here), but I'd call to everyone's attention that in the last 55 hours this live guideline page has been reverted back and forth fifteen times by editors who all know better (a flock of people for whom I have genuine respect). Can we just stop the revert war for now? I felt like contacting an uninvolved admin, but there's plenty of maturity and wisdom in this discussion for editors to hold fire on their own. There's an abundance of good-faith assertions which deserve better than this unproductive back and forth in live projectspace. I'd suggest a request for comment, since this is an issue of some significance. The issue certainly deserves a broader range of eyes. BusterD (talk) 06:44, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I've protected the page for a week to stop the edit warring. I initially hesitated to do so, since I close a lot of Afds I didn't want it to seem like I was endorsing one version of the notability policy. I don't have an opinion on the disputed content though and simply protected the current version. At this point, I think consensus should be judged by an uninvolved admin before the policy is changed again. The last thing we need is another fifteen reverts when protection expires. Mark Arsten (talk) 07:32, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Co-creator clause in WP:AUTHOR

I recently discovered (or rather had thrown in my face) the "co-creator" clause in the Author guidelines, i.e., "... or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work .. that has been the subject of .. multiple independent periodical articles or reviews." The case was here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dustin Warburton (2nd nomination). It is about a previously obscure author (a few self-published books) who has now co-written a book with Dennis Rodman. Because of Rodman's celebrity, the book got written about in mainstream media, with at best a passing mention of co-author Warburton. To me this is a case of WP:INHERIT and does not convey notability on Warburton. But the "co-creator" guideline seems to say he should now be considered notable. Is it really the intent of this guideline to confer notability on every ghostwriter? And if not, should the guideline be modified? --MelanieN (talk) 15:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Several points. The guideline indicates a presumption of notability, and the person still needs to meet WP:GNG. I don't think this guy does. I also don't consider this book "significant or well-known" as I haven't been able to find an actual review of the book. All the coverage is celebrity buzz, and none is significant coverage of the actual book. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 20:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

These are valid points for the particular case I referenced. What do you think about ghost writers/co-authors in general? Suppose the book HAD received some actual reviews - would that make all the authors notable enough for their own articles? Or should this guideline be rewritten to say that the authors themselves still have to have received coverage? Here's a thought: if the book or art work or whatever has received enough coverage to make it notable, maybe the article should be about the book - and non-notable coauthors should exist as a redirect. MelanieN (talk) 13:51, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that a ghostwriter/co-author needs to meet the GNG, MelanieN. Probably a few do, but simply being mentioned in passing in connection with significant coverage of a notable book is insufficient, in my view. A redirect to the notable book seems appropriate to me. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:17, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

We have 25 entries in Category:Ghostwriter, but most are notable for more than that. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 21:22, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Guys, it seems you are missing the important clause: "played a major role". Surely this contributes to independent notability. (Of course, there must be a solid proof of the "major role"). - Altenmann >t 21:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• How can a book be notable and not the person that wrote it? And Cullen38, you are mistaken. WP:NOTABLE says A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. and then under that says A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. It has to meet one or the other, not both, otherwise it wouldn't exist. And he has done other things. I don't think a famous person would hire a total unknown to write a book with them. Dream Focus 23:37, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
• The notability guideline is intended to indicate a presumption of notability. It's not obvious to me that ghost writers merit such a presumption. Ghost writers deliberately maintain a low profile so as not to detract from the status of the celebrity they're ghosting. If someone were to propose a stricter wording for WP:AUTHOR so as to exclude ghost writers, I'd be inclined to consider it. Pburka (talk) 23:59, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

  Note this is not a ghost writer. His name is on the cover of the book. [11] Dream Focus 00:30, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

  Agreed, but I don't know what the correct term is for this role, and I think that, apart from the credit, it's essentially equivalent to a ghost writer. Pburka (talk) 00:42, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

• There is no way of having a uniform standard here. Determning the notability of an individual author is very straightforward; determining the relative importance of the roles in ordinary co-authorship is more difficulty, determining the significance of ghost authorship is normally a research question, which can only be really answered when there is published research to be cited. There are such examples, for example the films written or directed by the Hollywood Ten and other blacklisted writers and directors in the mid20th century. It's a similar question to that of translators: in the absence of other evidence a translator is not significant authorship, but in some cases in can be--as in the various translators of the Divine Comedy and in these cases there will be actual secondary sources for it (such as reviews comparing the various translations) I cannot imagine how to make an amorphous situation like this into a fixed rule or guideline. DGG ( talk ) 03:45, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

  Guys, once again it seems you are missing the important clause: "played a major role". Surely this contributes to independent notability. And surely the claim "major role" must come from serious research, so I see nothing "amorphous" in this rule. - Altenmann >t 21:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• The question above, asking how a book can be notable but its author(s) not, presumes that notability is inherited from one thing to another. It is not, and for good reason. If we stated that notable works make their authors notable, we could then justify a "biography" on any Wikipedia editor, since Wikipedia is unquestionably a notable work. Clearly, then, it is indeed quite possible for a work to be notable but some or all of its authors not to be. That is especially likely true in the case of minor co-authors, translators, ghostwriters, and the like. While in some cases they may be notable, in most they will not, so we should not start from the presumption that they are. Ultimately, however, notability is verified by a subject having been extensively noted, and that requires sufficient source coverage to maintain a full and complete biography. If that does not exist, then regardless of any presumption of notability, the subject is not in fact notable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)