Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)/Archive 8

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Government agencies and NGOs

This tends to apply to all governments, but particularly the US. Money is allocated by the legislature/Congress, then sent to various agencies to actually administer and spend. These tend to be faceless agencies but do much, if not most of the spending. Some of them are "non-profit vendors." Their leaders often do quite well for themselves!  :) They are in the local news but not national because they are often state-limited (borders of a single state). One might spend millions of dollars or more. I realize that Wikipedia tends to crumble around the edges with time, but right now, it is easier to define a near-notable politician than a more notable organization. No reason by itself to degenerate organization boundaries, I realize. But this policy seems to be instrumental, probably not on purpose, in hiding spending. We have state governments at the highest level only, then municipal governments and almost nothing in between. But it is just those "in-between" agencies that are doing most of the spending, not the supposedly "notable" ones that generate the hot air and public meetings. Somehow, this doesn't seem quite right. As a result, the bulk of the state government goes un-articled, along with the bulk of the US federal government. Student7 (talk) 19:22, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Umm...so what is your question, exactly? If those agencies exist, can be verified, but are not notable themselves, then it would be appropriate to mention them in their parent agencies. Can you give some more specific example of an agency you feel should be notable because of how much money it spends (really not a notability criteria at all - anyone can spend money), but that has no actual significant coverage to warrant inclusion? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 19:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

How about a prison without a recent riot? The manufacture and distribution of license plates? (Okay, they can be a line item in another dept. Gobs of money though). Department of Fisheries. Children and Families Commission unless there's a well-publicized screwup on foster home placement. (Then it sounds WP:COATRACK!) Housing and Community Affairs. Libraries Department. There's a boring one for you! Almost never in the "news" at the state level! Agency for Health Care Administration. Lottery Department! Why are we skipping those?  :)

Actually much money is distributed so subtly nowdays, that it is difficult for the average person to detect a state funded org from one that is entirely federally funded, and in fact, the money (trace the money) may deliberately go from federal to state to NGO. The state is supposed to keep track, put out bids where necessary, etc. An administration mess, but someone has to do it. In larger states, the NGO to distribute info on home-heating/cooling, and help impoverished people with this sort of thing can be HUGE, in aggregate. May be distributed over several NGOS. All very boring, of course, unless something goes wrong. I know, you would be willing to accept this as a line item of expenditure somewhere. But the point is, the actual method of actually spending this, is sometimes informative. It isn't always distributed in an efficient manner. People need information to be able to figure that out for themselves. Also, the people running these things pay themselves amply. May not be efficient either since their work may be mostly slam dunk.

I have come to realize that huge amounts of money are spent keeping a rural area where I visit in summers "alive", for whatever reason (political? social?). The average house was built in 1915. It is run-down. The federal government pumps money in there and the state helps. Else the people leave and come into the cities which can't sustain a sudden rush on facilities. I suspect this is true of poor areas in cities as well, though don't know where those people would go if the tap were turned off. Possibly to societal discontent? The money dumped in poor areas is huge. People would be shocked, I think. I consider myself well-informed and had no idea about this before until I tried to document it (and was nearly stopped by someone looking for notability. I had sustanance from my fellow editors, fortunately, and the article survived. But not all have been looked at that closely!

Right now, we can document line items, but tracking where the money is actually spent is an eye-opener, believe me. Try it in your area.

Think about it. What would you pay to keep my poor rural dweller from glutting your transportation resource (or whatever) in your city? $20,000/annually per rural dweller? (Not directly out of your pocket, of course!). I don't know what the figure is, but it includes gobs of overhead for administration. Again, it is a matter of visibility. Most people just don't pay any attention to it usually. That is the problem.

The material is there to document the agencies. But yes, the documentation may be "insider." We aren't doing it because they aren't "in the news." Dog bites man routine stuff. And no, I am not volunteering to do this should the floodgates open. Fall asleep typing! But there should be a financial threshold I would think. Student7 (talk) 11:27, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Um, Wikipedia isn't a WP:SOAPBOX, so please stick to discussing what actually relates to Wikipedia rather than going into a rant. None of the items you mention seem to be noteworthy nor notable at all. So people make license plates, and? What makes it notable? Wikipedia is also not here to be the guard and keeper of the line item budgets of any company, organization, etc. Plenty of watch dog groups for that. Nor is Wikipedia for the publication of original research, which also you seem to be proposing. I'm not seeing any real suggestion on changes to this guideline other than, if I am reading you correctly, to simply remove all notability guidelines so people can trash their favorite local service target? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Just money. Just power. Just quiet importance. Student7 (talk) 13:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Importance != Notability, however. Obviously your city's water services are important, but that doesn't make them notable. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 13:38, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

You've picked a good example. In most cities, and particularly large ones, water/sewage systems are not only vital, but expensive. The departments have massive budgets. In Florida, control of water resources is crucial and meting these out to neighboring towns (at a premium) is important to the city's income. They usually get only local coverage, but can be controversial there. I think most should be documented, if not part of the "government" in place articles, but probably with their own article in larger cities. Unsurprisingly, NYC has extensive articles on theirs. But most places don't. IMO they should. Student7 (talk) 13:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Vital, again, does not make them notable. This isn't the place for articles for that. NYC's is unique do to its unusual notability, however for most cities there. Also, please note Wikipedia is not here to be a witch hunt, as noted above, nor for just blasting various city services. For the most part they are noteworthy or unusual. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 14:00, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I just wanted to say that Anma is right. If an agency is so unimportant that nobody has written about it, then Wikipedia doesn't want to write about it, either. (And, unless you're willing to rely solely on the self-published and presumably self-serving publications of the agency itself for 100% of the contents, then we cannot write an article about something that nobody else has ever written about.)

As for "somebody else should write it": This is a WP:VOLUNTEER place. If it's not important enough to write it yourself, then it's not important enough for anyone else to write it for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

I guess what I find the problem to be here is lack of visibility. It's sort of like having a "forked" article. The parent article was important but sometimes articles are forked and appear isolated and (with their particular collection of references) self-referenced. This is hypothetical, but I can't believe it hasn't happened. That is, there was already lack of notability for the "Division of License Plates" under "Department of Transportation", but it wasn't noticed until the fork was made. Then it became a bit glaring for someone stumbling on it for the first time.

I think that all "children" governmental organizations "over" a certain amount of line item money should be documented. Some (not all) of the editors who have answered don't seem to understand that I understand the current guidelines well enough. I am trying to get them changed. Until they are, "3/4" or maybe more of the government goes un-articled. These restrictions are why most local government is undocumented, a high portion of the state government, except for some cabinet officials and a few others are mostly un-articled, and huge huge amounts of the federal government, mainly because they not only have agencies that distribute/spend money, but because they give to states, who do the same.

And none of these are completely unreported of course, even beyond themselves. It is simply impossible to have no paper/web trail in this day and age. Maybe some local organizations right on the border of expenditure have nearly nothing.

But many of them manage to keep off the 11 o'clock news. People want "excitement" at that hour, not facts. Student7 (talk) 22:00, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

There's not one word in this guideline that prevents you from writing about the kinds of agencies that you're describing. In fact, your proposed standard is more restrictive than the existing one. As far as this guideline is concerned, if the sources exist, even if the agency's annual budget is less than two cents, the agency is notable according to this guideline. There is no minimum budget requirement: only the sources count.

Again, all this time you're spending whinging about an imaginary restriction could have been used to solve the problem. The only reason that verifiable information about these agencies isn't already in Wikipedia is because you haven't chosen to write about them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:18, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Where does this leave the NGOs? In rural states, the people in those groups probably outnumber the people in state government! Student7 (talk) 12:52, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

And where does it say anyplace that government entities are notable? Student7 (talk) 19:38, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Government and non-governmental organizations are treated exactly the same by this guideline. The definition of an organization (as far as this guideline is concerned) is defined in the third paragraph: "Simply stated, an organization is a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose." It doesn't matter if the group-formed-for-a-purpose is public or private, for-profit or non-profit, big or small, old or new, or anything else. All that matters is that a reliable source outside the group-formed-for-a-purpose has published enough information about the group-formed-for-a-purpose to make it possible to write an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

OPUS Archives and Research Center

Is the 1st source for OPUS Archives and Research Center article enough cred to take down the notices? MythMe23 (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

For the second tag (about the need for independent sources), yes. The last page has some substantial detail about the library. This source, by itself, is probably not enough to deal with the notability concern. Since the library is in Santa Barbara County, I think that a story in the Santa Barbara News-Press would be considered local coverage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:59, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Restaurant notability

Recently I came across a discussion at AN/I that related to the notability of a restaurant - Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant. The article is exceedingly well written but based purely on restaurant reviews and a couple of trivial mentions in the New York Times Regional section. If restaurant reviews count towards notability there is certainly "significant local coverage" and much less "significant regional coverage" of the restaurant. None of this coverage goes outside the realm of the dining sections of newspapers and the review of restaurants. I wonder how that jives with the current policy and/or if the policy should be re-evaluated in terms of restaurants in general. I would personally think that this one, and a majority of the others that one can find through Category:Restaurants in the United States by state are not notable in a way that we would want here at an encyclopedia. My personal opinion is that we are also just doing PR for them by having these articles, since they are not of any value except in an advertising sense. Here are other discussions that relate to the same topic:

• Talk:Daryl_Wine_Bar_and_Restaurant#Puff_Piece
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Disruption_by_User_Njsustain
• User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Just_curious

Any thoughts on how restaurants should be considered in terms of "significant coverage" and notability?Griswaldo (talk) 14:23, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to think such an article would fail WP:CORP if the only coverage is locally based, and there is no significant coverage in actual, third-party sources (as local media coverage would, in this case, not really be third-party). The reviews, themselves, are not the issue, only that they are purely local (after all, book and film notability is, in part, determined by significant number of reviews). If it were reviewed by a national publication, won national awards, etc, then it would be notable. Most restaurants, however, do not meet this and likely should not have articles (most notable exceptions are usually the famous chef's restaurants or the top tier ones). -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 14:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

A James Beard Award nominee for best new restaurant is very likely notable. An dthe abundance of sources and reliable independent media coverage reinforce that view. Clearly the article needs to be cleaned up. Freakshownerd (talk) 15:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

All the sources are local and regional and our article on the James Beard Award claims that it is for restaurant reviews and not for restaurants. Can you expand on how nominating a restaurant review applies to the notability of the restaurant? Thanks. I think our article on the James Beard Award is not up to date, since the organization appears to award many awards in different categories. However, how does being on a list of 30 nominees for an award from 2007 establish notability? If the award itself is notable I can understand putting the winner there. Are we creating 30 new entries on restaurants every year to cover the nominees of this award? What about all similar awards? Should we have entries on every contestant on American Idol from 2007? Surely they are all much more notable than the nominees for the James Beard Award for "Best New Restaurant"?Griswaldo (talk) 15:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

While the New York Times covered the restaurant, and the paper of course is a well recognized source internationally, the restaurant in question was covered as a LOCAL interest, not national interest. It takes less time to get to this restaurant from central Manhattan (location of the NY Times headquarters) than it takes to get to many parts of NY city. The fact that the NY Times reviewed the restaurant does not in itself make the restaurant nationally recognized. The reviews of this restaurant are entirely local. (Side note to Griswaldo: As this particular discussion is outside of the incident yesterday I decided to put in my two cents.)Njsustain (talk) 15:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes the NYT's mentions are all in the "Regional" section of the paper.Griswaldo (talk) 16:04, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Here is a link to the search page for the James Beard Awards. I was unable to find a listing for either "Daryl" or "David Drake". I'm not questioning the assertion that it was nominated, but surely it it were, that would be the place to find evidence of it? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

If sources are independent and not mere press releases, we should not care at all if they are "local" or not. RS are RS, and if we have enough sources for WP:GNG, such articles shouldn't be deleted. The "non local" part of WP:CORP has never reached really consensus -see above discussion- and it is at odds with the more general GNG guideline, of which CORP is supposed to be an extension, not an alternative. --Cyclopia^talk 16:16, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia, we need to care about the local nature of sources for notability (only) because of the indiscriminate nature of some local coverage. Basically every restaurant in my area is mentioned in my local newspaper at its opening, its closing, and every couple of years in between. It does not follow from this coverage that either the taco stand that just closed, or the Asian place that is opening in that space, deserve Wikipedia articles. Local coverage is usually a reliable source for facts about a restaurant or other organization, but it is a poor indicator of the need for a stand-alone Wikipedia article.

The "real policy" is that if an article is kept at AFD, it's probably notable. Leaving aside what "should" happen, the fact is that articles that name almost two dozen separate sources (including the largest newspapers in two different states), are basically never deleted, no matter what this page says about what "should" happen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Basically every restaurant in my area is mentioned in my local newspaper at its opening, its closing, and every couple of years in between. It does not follow from this coverage that either the taco stand that just closed, or the Asian place that is opening in that space, deserve Wikipedia articles. - It follows, instead: it is multiple third-party coverage in reliable sources. That is what is required to deserve a WP article. Of course I wouldn't disagree with merging them in a single article (say, Restaurants in X) for rationalization purposes, but to avoid subjects covered in multiple RS only because they are of "local" interest seems biased to me. --Cyclopia^talk 18:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia I don't follow this argument at all. You are arguing that applying measurable criteria to determine the overall significance of something equates to bias. All "notability" policies are expressly involved with such significance. Something of only local interest is not of interest to the broad audience of an encyclopedia. It is obvious why we have this language in the policy.Griswaldo (talk) 18:18, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Should we avoid to cover specialized academic subjects because they could not be "of interest to the broad audience of an encyclopedia"? Of course not. For the same reason, we shouldn't bias our coverage by refusing to use local RS. It is not "obvious", given that this guideline (not policy!) is the only one I'm aware that specifically singles out local sources as unsuitable - WP:GNG does nothing of the sort, and it is our main guideline for notability. --Cyclopia^talk 19:20, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia, clearly "significance" is not simply measured in brute quantity. Academic subjects usually do not suffer from the same "local vs. global" issue that is concerning us here. Academic communities are usually transnational or global (yes that's a step beyond national, and two steps beyond regional), even if they are small. The subject matters of academic pursuits may be of interest to any lay reader who is digging further into a subject matter that is, once again, of universal interest. Do you care to give an example of an academic subject we cover that you would argue it is on par with? It might be better to discuss this with a concrete example in mind. I await it.Griswaldo (talk) 19:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia, I've actually got a total of three articles about the taco stand closing, between two different newspapers. That means that I have "multiple third-party coverage in reliable sources": two completely separate publications ("multiple"), nobody at the newspapers works for the taco stand ("third-party coverage"), and regular newspapers ("reliable sources"). Shall I start an article on the taco stand's closure now? Or are you prepared to add a little editorial judgment to your proposed system of mindlessly counting the sources without evaluating the nature of the sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

@Griswaldo: You are moving goalposts back and forth. First you talked about "interest to the broad audience". I replied that WP covers a lot of subjects who are not of interest to a "broad audience". You're now replying back that the subjects do not suffer from the "local vs global issue", but this is circular: the point is: why locally-covered stuff is not apt to the encyclopedia? I live in a relatively small city (~130.000 inhabitants). I suspect a lot of stuff covered by local sources has a much more broad audience (in terms of being known/impact on a given number of people) than exotic subjects like sedenions or Toki Pona. Singling out "local" as a proxy per "lacking notability" is therefore biased.

@WhatamIdoing: An article on the closure would be probably violating WP:NOT#NEWS, but if the taco stand had sustained coverage before, I would see nothing wrong in writing an article about it. I don't understand what do you mean by "mindlessly counting the sources": of course we have to judge if you have separate publications and not mere copies of an agency report, if the publications are truly independent etc., but once you have that, all our standard requisites are met and I don't see why should I add more (POV) judgement. --Cyclopia^talk 23:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not moving goal posts at all. Local affairs are not possibly of interest to a wide audience by definition. Specialized subjects could be of interest to almost anyone, and most certainly are of interest to select individuals on a global scale. It is true that at any given moment there might be as many or more people interested in a restaurant as those interested in a specialized subject but that's not the point. Raw numbers are not the point. The type of information is exactly the point. You know that, and I believe you are obfuscating on purpose and its not particularly charming. Given our past I don't see this conversation going anywhere productive. Have a good one.Griswaldo (talk) 02:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

So you think that people never move from their homes and never care of what's going on outside their own place? Local subjects can be of interest to almost anyone, if they have an interest in that place. It is that simple -if I want to know about "notable restaurants in place X", I need these articles. Just like if I want to know about "notable subjects in algebric topology". Your assumption of bad faith on my part is not only wrong (I am not obfuscating anything and I am discussing in all sincerity), and the fact we had disagreement on other subjects in the past is irrelevant here. I don't see why can't we have a productive conversation on this subject. --Cyclopia^talk 10:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

• I thought I made an additional comment conceding some of the points made, but I don't see it here. I started an article on the chef, who does appear to be quite notable, and I think the restaurant can be covered in a section there. Of course he is no longer head chef, but the restaurant certainly bears his mark and he seems to be far more notable than the place itself (and I generally think it better to cover chefs than their restaurants individually). Freakshownerd (talk) 17:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I think this is a good solution for how to retain the pertinent information on this establishment elsewhere, but what about the existence of this article now and others like it? This one was even placed in the DYK queue by the writer apparently, before someone prudently thought it was best to hold off on that while this all settles.Griswaldo (talk) 17:51, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
  • I definitely think that local coverage is not enough. There are some newspapers (quite a lot I imagine) that praise most of the restaurants (or all) that they write about - sure, not the NYT, but a lot of more local papers who can't afford to offend people. We need to recognise this and that local coverage is rarely going to be enough to prove notability. Dougweller (talk) 18:28, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
    • So if they instead gave bad reviews, it would be OK? I don't get it. --Cyclopia^talk 23:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
      • I'm sure you get it Cyclopia.Griswaldo (talk) 02:43, 27 July 2010 (UTC)
        • No I don't, and please stop assuming bad faith on me, Griswaldo, it makes it impossible to have a productive discussion. Now let Dougweller answer, thanks. --Cyclopia^talk 10:14, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

James Beard Award (inaccurate claim)

The restaurant was not a "nominee" for this award. The sources linked to in the article appear to be incorrect or misleading. The pdf voting form listing 30 establishments may have been a preliminary voting form of some kind, but the Award has one winner and FOUR other "nominees" and this restaurant was not one of them. Please see the following direct link to the listing on the award organizations website - 2008 Best New Restaurant. Neither source used for the claim was WP:RS and the promo piece from the local magazine was clearly incorrect.Griswaldo (talk) 18:41, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

It seems that there might have been some duplicate locations for discussion of the exact same issue at multiple different pages, including the article's talk page. I thank you, Griswaldo, for the additional research you have done regarding this particular issue. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

AfD

Someone nominated the article in question to AfD. See - Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant.Griswaldo (talk) 21:31, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

This has turned out almost exactly like the arguments that transpired some months ago at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Valhalla Vineyards, the subsequent deletion review, and the essay it spawned. The arguments in those discussions also apply to this one about restaurants, and underscore a need to clarify the notability guidelines. ~Amatulić (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Locality

I suggest a review of early versions of these very guidelines. The Mavalli Tiffin Rooms (AfD discussion) were held up as an example partly because they were a restaurant that the systematic bias of Wikipedia would cause most editors not to have heard of, or to consider to be local to one country on the other side of the world. The idea that we exclude things because they are "local" is very much combatted and countered by "Jimbo's No" (which it appears Jimbo might have forgotten in the overall rush of the current palaver to mis-use notability as a proxy for objection to editors' motivations for writing).

The overwhelming majority of the subjects in the encyclopaedia are "local" in one sense or another. Many mathematical topics are only discussed in works read by the world's community of mathematicians, and thus are "local" to that group of people. Many species of beetle are only discussed in works "local" to entomologists. And many asteroids are only "local" to a small community of astronomers. Being a subject that only interests a small fraction of the entire population of the world, by dint of geography, profession, language, culture, or otherwise, is not an exclusion criterion for an encyclopaedia, because it is the norm for most topics. Wikipedia isn't about majority interest. If it were, it would be smaller than most one-volume paperback encyclopaedias. The world's a big place, and what's known to and of interest to the majority of the population of the planet is a small subset of what's known. Notability is not about target population sizes, but about extent of reliably and independently obtained and permanently documented and recorded human knowledge.

Note, furthermore, that independence of published works is included there, and, conversely, has always been a part of the PNC, from its very first formal expression. It is by insisting strongly upon independence that we avoid advertising, ensure that we can write neutrally even on subjects that are close to ourselves, and avoid writing about subjects the knowledge of which has yet to escape their inventors/creators/owners/hawkers and be acknowledged by the world at large. That was in the early versions of these guidelines, and explained in some detail there, too. Uncle G (talk) 14:47, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Uncle G, "local" and "minority" are not equivalent here. A local community is a very specific form of minority population defined by geographic boundaries. No published general reference work includes information of only local interest or worth. They do, however, include information that may be of interest mostly to other types minority communities, like academic communities. I think this comparison fails on its face. I'm not saying there isn't some merit in comparing different types of minority audiences, but we need to look at the differences as well as the similarities if we are to do so. I also want to note that it isn't clear at all that restaurant reviews are independent of the restaurants. The relationship here is much different from that between a normal piece of news and the subject of that news - especially in local and regional publications. This relationship also needs to be considered on its own and restaurant reviews should not simply be conflated with any old news coverage, as many seem to be doing.Griswaldo (talk) 15:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Griswaldo:

• A local community is a very specific form of minority population defined by geographic boundaries.: Exactly, no more, no less.
• No published general reference work includes information of only local interest or worth. They do, however, include information that may be of interest mostly to other types minority communities, like academic communities. - Here things become subtle. First of all, we don't care about what other "published general reference work" do: WP is uniquely WP, our aim is not to mimick 1:1 other similar works. Second, and most important, being referenced only in local sources does not imply at all that only people living there will care about the subject. People move -and even if they don't move, they still can have interest in subjects that would otherwise be outside their reach. That is what encyclopedias are for: acting as a compendium of knowledge so that you don't have to go to the math department library to learn about sedenions; or that you don't have to actually go to New York to know about notable New York-referenced things. This is an asset of WP, something that we should be proud of, not something to lose.
• I also want to note that it isn't clear at all that restaurant reviews are independent of the restaurants. - This is very perplexing. A review should be independent almost by definition (unless it's not a case of blatant masked advertising). Why isn't it clear at all? --Cyclopia^talk 15:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you have "blatant masked advertising": If it's blatant, it's no longer masked. But to address your confusion, restaurant reviews are sometimes initiated by the restaurant owner, who provides free food, the best server, the best table, extra staff in the back that night, etc., in the hopes of getting good publicity. The same thing happens with hotels and other related businesses. It is considered unethical among newspaper journalists, but (as of about ten years ago) was reasonably normal among travel-guide writers. Trying to figure out who was really a travel writer, and who was a scam artist or a wannabe, was one of the headaches for small innkeepers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:11, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the "blatant masked" confusion -I mean, when you have an advertisement piece which is not officially presented as such, but it is obviously one to any decently skilled reader. Now, you have a good point indeed, which I wasn't aware of (I have an acquaintance who is a restaurant reviewer for a national Italian newspaper, and AFAIK he's pretty independent in giving good or bad reviews). But I feel it is more of a problem of source bias when having to keep NPOV about the restaurant, than a notability point. The review is still secondary source coverage. That the review is biased towards good because the restaurants know how to attract the reviewer's attention is another problem. --Cyclopia^talk 18:59, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

@Cyclopia ... enjoy discussing this with someone else.

@Uncle G ... if you wish to respond I'll be happy to engage you in conversation but I will no longer discuss this with Cyclopia for the sake of everyone's sanity.Griswaldo (talk) 16:09, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I am really perplexed by your attitude with me. Is refusing to talk with people whom you disagree a regular habit? I understand we crossed in two different venues in a short time, but that's sheer chance (I have this page in my watchlist since long time ago). Would you mind explain what is wrong? I would really appreciate to have a collaborative exchange with you. --Cyclopia^talk 16:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

This response from Frank at the AfD pretty much sums up my take on how you deal with my arguments as well. There is no point in continuing them.Griswaldo (talk) 18:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

If you have the feeling I misrepresent your opinion, please accept my apologies. This is definitely not what I want. It is probably a case of simple misunderstanding. --Cyclopia^talk 18:52, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

ORG isn't inventing this idea out of whole cloth, you know. NOT (WP:PROMOTION) has said, "articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable" since at least 2005. Since we care about the sources ("notability" is about how much "notice" an org gets), rather than the sales volume or some such, requiring some level of notice by reliable sources outside of the immediate location is a reasonable way to figure out whether something is a "local company". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:04, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

You are quoting out of context. The full quote of WP:PROMOTION says Article topics must be third-party verifiable, so articles about very small "garage" or local companies are typically unacceptable. - This means "they are typically unacceptable because they are typically unverifiable". Nobody talks about the tiny cycle repair shop down my street, so it fails WP:V, and even more so WP:GNG. But here we are talking of cases in which not only there is abundant WP:V coverage, but also coverage that would be OK for WP:GNG under any interpretation of it. --Cyclopia^talk 16:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

We should treat restaurants like we treat sport. Routine local coverage, like reviews in nearby newspapers (or in the regional section of a larger newspaper) shouldn't be considered as evidence for notability. These are run-of-the-mill reports, not related to any newsworthy event or long-term (or long-range) notability. Fram (talk) 07:14, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

• Agree with Fram: local reviews aren't enough, especially as these are often promotionally tinged. The type of coverage available to us is of a completely different standard with restaurants like Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, which receive serious (not just promotional) coverage that goes way beyond local media. [1] It is somehow poignant that we don't have an article on Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, but have an article on Daryl Wine Bar & Restaurant—for reasons that are related to Scientology, rather than a desire to improve our coverage of notable restaurants. --JN466 13:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
  • We do have an article on Claridge's where it is given a paragraph. (Mind you, Claridge's deserves an article, but we would better start deleting tons of hotel articles as well. I have the impression that people think luxury = notability, which gives us articles like Sofitel St. James, Millennium Hotel Mayfair, and Four Seasons London). Fram (talk) 13:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
    • Serious cleanup is needed in a large variety of categories related WP:CORP. I also think we need to strengthen the guideline with some specific points for certain types of businesses, like restaurants and hotels. No one seems to care about these entries unless there is a chance to do some marketing through them. Its a disaster.Griswaldo (talk) 13:44, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Significant Coverage is not Enough

It seems appropriate to repeat here a point I made on the Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant AfD page. It seems unnecessary to go down the fraught path of distinguishing national from local coverage and substantial reviews from puff pieces - a horrible task, especially as local reviews are often available worldwide on the interweb. I am happy to concede that just about every restaurant which opens gets "significant coverage" in "reliable sources"; forget newspapers, there are countless A-Z restaurant guides issued by reliable publishers. But the notability guidelines specifically state that significant coverage creates a presumption, not a guarantee, of notability. It is not the slam dunk many editors seem to think. A consensus against notability is legitimate, even when there is significant coverage, for example if inclusion infringes WP:Not - e.g. it's not a directory of restaurants. I think the challenge is to distinguish restaurants deserving encyclopedic coverage from other restaurants, taking it for granted that just about any restaurant will meet the significant coverage test.

Sketching some criteria, I'd suggest length of operation, citations for making original and significant contributions to the development of restaurants, presence for some time of a notable chef, substantial discussion in academic sources (restaurant histories, and so on). This is how we achieve the sane objective of including restaurants like La Pyramide and Le Pavillon while excluding any wine bar or taco shop which happens to have been reviewed a couple of times.KD Tries Again (talk) 18:35, 29 July 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I would add to that list something about size, when it comes to restaurant chains. A small local chain might not be notable, but I'd say something with 100 locations across the nation is. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 19:28, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Only if the chain has significant coverage in reliable third-party sources (not including local reviews of local branches of the chain). There are some regional restaurant chains with more than 100 locations that aren't particular notable. While many people eat there, not to many reliable sources actually talk about them all that much. -- AnmaFinotera (talk ~ contribs) 19:53, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we want to address size. One hundred locations might be trivial in the US, and a national institution in a small country. What matters is how much relative notice they're getting: AfD usually keeps things that seem to get more notice than average, even if it's a single store, and deletes things that get less notice than average, even if it seems "big". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough.Griswaldo (talk) 21:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Some language in WP:ORG points in the right direction: "When evaluating the notability of organizations, please consider whether it has had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education." Appropriately amended, that looks like a criterion for including some restaurants without thereby including all restaurants. Rough suggestion:

When evaluating the notability of a restaurant, wine bar, bar or similar amenity, please consider whether it has had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, cuisine, gastronomy, restaurant/bar history, or eating/drinking customs.

KD Tries Again (talk) 16:33, 30 July 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

That is a good start. Do we need to draft a subsection for Restaurants? I think we should.Griswaldo (talk) 16:58, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Isn't this a little WP:CREEPy? We could make such a statement for every single type of business, but do we really think that it's necessary? I'd like to think that editors can look at the general item of "history" and come up with "history of restaurants" on their own. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it's a response to a body of opinion at the above-referenced AfD that any restaurant, however poor and unremarkable, qualifies for a stand-alone article by virtue of being mentioned in a couple of newspapers or restaurant guides.KD Tries Again (talk) 20:12, 30 July 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

• Oppose. The proposed wording is fraught with personal bias pitfalls. It is as vague as it could be, and it is an open door for bias, WP:IDONTLIKEIT (or WP:ILIKEIT) and whatever else. To stay objective, we just have to stick to sources coverage, not personal judgement of "effects". If multiple RS judged to write about the venue, we should acknowledge that, not put our personal judgement or ad-hoc criteria on that. --Cyclopia^talk 20:27, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comment The present distinction according to local, regional and national sources does make some sort of sense, not just for restaurants, but also for hotels, artisan workshops, etc. Imagine a small workshop that makes pottery. They may well be covered in a local paper, which is bought by people who live in the area and may want to go and visit that workshop to buy some of their product. I would argue that such a workshop is not a fit subject for an encyclopedia entry. However, if the workshop is written about in a national paper, say because they contribute to a national exhibition, it is different. At this point, they have become notable: they are talked about not just because you might want to go there and buy some of their product, but because they are known. It is similar with Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, or a shop like Harrods: people are interested in reading about them even if it is unlikely they will ever get a chance to go there. The problem at the Daryl's Wine Bar AfD, it seems to me, is that people are gaming "local" and "regional", just because the New York Times office publishing the New Jersey section is not in New Jersey, but on the other side of the state line. The point is, no paper in Kansas or California would write about Daryl's Wine Bar (or Pete's Sweet Shop) in New Jersey, because its readers would not be interested in reading about an obscure wine bar/sweet shop in New Jersey. The same applies to our readers. However, papers in Kansas or California may write about Harrods, or about Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, because these are famous institutions that are of general interest. They might also want to read about a sweet maker whose product has genuinely become famous. Again, these are the ones we should be writing about. So to me the notability criterion is whether the coverage is intended for a local audience, or for a general audience. Coverage written for a local audience is not enough. Substantial coverage written for a general audience is what makes a business notable, as opposed to a place where you might want to go to buy or eat something next Tuesday. --JN466 23:24, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

What would you say about restaurant guides? A restaurant guide for, say, New Orleans - not a locally published guide, but one issued by a major publisher and distributed nationally - that presumably counts as national coverage? In the United States at least, such guides sweep up a wide range of restaurants, including many which are far from famous or even important. One answer might be that even two or three mentions in such guides would scarcely provide enough information to write much more than a stub.KD Tries Again (talk) 14:31, 31 July 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

It's a headache. I would say mention in a travel guide is not evidence of notability, just evidence of usefulness. --JN466 15:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a tough line to draw because many restaurant guides are published by newspapers and based on their reviews. I am not sure weekly newspaper reviews and annual guides have much of a different function: different readers, perhaps.KD Tries Again (talk) 21:06, 1 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

It might be more useful to say that orgs (not just restaurants, but all orgs) need to get an "above-average" amount of attention compared to similar organizations. That is, a restaurant that gets a lot of media attention relative to other restaurants is probably notable; a restaurant that gets less than average attention is probably not notable (even if less-than-average for a restaurant would be more than average for a type of business that is rarely discussed by sources).

One thing that it's worth remembering is that editors always have to use their judgment in this process. This is not a simple tick-the-box kind of decision: You weigh the number of sources, the diversity of sources (all from the same hometown newspaper? only one author?), the quality of the sources, the depth of the sources, the time period during which the org receives attention, and any other factors that you deem relevant, to produce a single "Yes" or "No". No single factor is ever going to be accepted as an absolute proof of notability. Consequently, the most we can really do on this page is to identify the kinds of factors that editors normally consider, and the levels that they normally deem appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

That makes sense to me, but there's a significant philosophical difference which runs across so many WP discussions I've been involved in. Many editors, if not a majority, insist that quantifying coverage in RS is all we can do; anything more involves subjective judgment, bias and IDONTLIKEIT. I don't know how this split in the community will work itself out, but personally I agree with your suggestions.KD Tries Again (talk) 03:43, 5 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

Another AfD?

Since we're still discussing the restaurant nobility issue I thought I'd point out that another AfD has been ongoing for as long as the Daryl one, and has received 1/100th of the attention. Would it be considered canvassing to link to the AfD? Given the no-consensus of the Daryl AfD it might be good to get more eyes on this one, by all parties involved in this discussion, who clearly do not all agree with one another. If it isn't canvassing I'll gladly link it here, otherwise I wont.Griswaldo (talk) 04:23, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Since the AfD just closed the above question is irrelevant. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Big Spring Cafe. I really fail to understand how an establishment like this is notable even by the existing guideline. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 15:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Multiple coverage by RS, so WP:GNG seems to pass, at a glance. However I agree that the fact that all coverage comes, apparently, from a single news source can be perplexing. --Cyclopia^talk 15:58, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

From the GNG: "Multiple sources from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability." Consequently, if the coverage all comes from a single source, then it does not, at a glance, pass the GNG. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point. --Cyclopia^talk 20:11, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't noted in the discussion that the sole regional source is classed as a PR brochure by the organization which produced it (Okay, Griswaldo tried hard, but the Alabama site actually calls it a "PR resource"). This is a good candidate for a deletion review, as I have said at the closing Admin's [page].KD Tries Again (talk) 20:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

I doubt that you'll get very far with DRV, where the consensus at the individual AFD, not the standard 'rules', is the primary concern. (They're mostly concerned about whether the closer correctly interpreted the comments, not about whether the subject is actually notable.) Sometimes it's more productive to put that energy into the next discussion. It's like anti-spam work: You can usually do more good by removing 10 spammy links than by arguing over one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. The closing Admin should be swayed by comments referencing the applicable policy, and there is no sign it happened here and no indication in his/her closing comments that policy considerations had been taken into account.KD Tries Again (talk) 04:46, 9 August 2010 (UTC)KD Tries Again

You're talking about what should happen, and I'm trying to tell you what does happen. Where DRV is concerned, IMO the theory and the practice do not always line up perfectly. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Note: Yesterday the Big Spring Cafe entry was on the main page via DYK. Just ridiculous.Griswaldo (talk) 10:31, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Village Pump

Discussion and proposal here, for info .. N-HH talk/edits 13:15, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Automatic notability

According to some, all high schools and radio stations are notable. I was bold and added it to this page. I will not fight to keep it though. If you oppose, let us know why.

Should we say that radio stations and high schools are not automatically notable? Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Corretion, radio stations are not automatically notable. See WP:BCAST Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 19:56, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

This is per several discussions with admins and precedence set with past AfDs. Just because someone wants to delete something to stop vandalism, which in my opinion is just silly (what next, deleting Barack Obama to stop vandalism there?) is no reason to break precedence and consensus. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

No, the vandalism report put the WGGH article in the spotlight where we found that it is either notable for 1 of the 3 reasons or fails notability. If it were Radio Sweden International or WBBM, then it would definitely be notable. But WGGH is non-notable on 2 counts and could be (or maybe isn't) notable on the 3rd count.

It's as if there was a vandalism report on Johnny Montgomery of Fayetteville, NC, USA. Someone then discovered that he was not notable and deleted. Nobody is talking about deleting the American president except Mr. Homer. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 20:38, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Yet! If we follow your logic, that is what could happen. But you are disregarding the precedence set, the consensus found and the notability setup. It isn't notable to you, so it is trash. Sorry, not the way it works. Find consensus the other way, or drop it. Because at this point, we are just going 'round and 'round on something, I have backing on and you do not. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I have also taken this to WP:WPRS, the WikiProject setup just for radio stations (we have one for TV stations too) and I recommend you seek input from there as well before going off on a small tangent. You might be enlightened by the users there who put time and effort into these articles, have done their research, worked with admins from the beginning, gotten the consensus and precedence and worked hard on them. Go there first. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 20:48, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no automatic notability for anything on Wikipedia. Zero independent sources means zero article, full stop. (Without an independent source, then how do you know that the high school whose website you're looking at isn't just a hoax?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Who is talking about high schools (and those are notable under other rules), we are talking about radio stations and that discussion has moved to WP:WPRS, so this should be marked resolved. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 02:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

No, there are no other rules under which anything is automatically notable. See the second sentence of WP:N: "if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article". This applies to absolutely every article, regardless of topic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Agree with WhatamIdoing, the notability guidelines of specific projects cannot override the general guidelines. A subject must pass the general rules first before project-specific rules apply. Thus a project can only set more restrictive conditions for notability that the general guideline does, never looser. Roger (talk) 09:28, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

"Automatic" is a misleading term. But there are quite a few types of things that are presumed notable, e.g. mountain ranges, cities, species of plants and animals, public companies traded on national exchanges, leaders of nations and large political subdivisions, winners of certain prizes and awards, and so on. If there are no sources, indeed there is no article, which usually means one of three things: (1) the presumption is wrong in this particular case, (2) there is a flaw in making this sort of presumption, or most likely (3) it's not true: the thing doesn't exist, is a hoax, hasn't happened yet, etc. - Wikidemon (talk) 13:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Notability: Poetry.LA's Wikipedia page

Poetry.LA was established to highlight poets by videotaping their readings and presenting them online (YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, etc). Many of the poets featured on Poetry.LA (PLA) also request that links to their PLA videos be added to their Wikipedia articles. The objective is to reach a wider audience for the poets. Articles about www.Poetry.LA have thus far been posted on other websites (see links in Poetry.LA's Wikipedia entry) and PLA has been added to various high profile websites' links and resources sections. We're hoping that Wikipedia will consider this significant second party coverage. The Poetry.LA site is still growing (currently featuring videos of over 200 established and emerging poets) and concentrates more on providing broader exposure for the poets. They are attracting media attention, but I'm sure you can understand that coverage (where and when) is unpredictable, at best. TeresaC7 (talk) 04:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Notability of small airlines

Because of the large number of articles and afds relating to small airlines and the tendency of certain users to attempt to invent criteria out of thin air in the middle of an AFD, several attempts have been made to establish a sub-guideline of CORP for airlines. None of them arrived at any consensus and so it seems CORP will continue to serve as the primary guide for these types of articles. I didn't know if there was some sort of central repository of sub-guidelines but the result of the latest attempt is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Airlines/Notability and at one of the previous discussions is at Talk:List of airlines in Alaska/discussion of what constitutes an "airline" in Alaska. If anybody asks here if there is a separate guideline for airlines, you can tell them there is not at this time and CORP and or WP:N will have to suffice. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Notability of small airlines

Because of the large number of articles and afds relating to small airlines and the tendency of certain users to attempt to invent criteria out of thin air in the middle of an AFD, several attempts have been made to establish a sub-guideline of CORP for airlines. None of them arrived at any consensus and so it seems CORP will continue to serve as the primary guide for these types of articles. I didn't know if there was some sort of central repository of sub-guidelines but the result of the latest attempt is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Airlines/Notability and at one of the previous discussions is at Talk:List of airlines in Alaska/discussion of what constitutes an "airline" in Alaska. If anybody asks here if there is a separate guideline for airlines, you can tell them there is not at this time and CORP and or WP:N will have to suffice. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:45, 4 September 2010 (UTC)

Comparison pages damaged by this rule

The damage is particularly obvious when you consider a comparison article -- that is, an article that has as it's sole purpose an objective, level representation of products, services, methods, or technologies. Consider the Comparison_of_webmail_providers article. Although there are some non-notable companies on that table, if they were to be removed it would do a gross disservice to anyone studying the subject matter. At a minimum, comparison pages should be exempt from this criteria, which quite clearly gives a commercial advantage to some companies, and simultaneously damages the encyclopedic standard that Wikipedia attempts to establish. It also has the effect of limiting consumers options. It would be less damaging to remove all comparison articles that involve commercial services, than it would be to continue implementing this notability rule. Jgombos (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Comparison pages damaged by this rule

The damage is particularly obvious when you consider a comparison article -- that is, an article that has as it's sole purpose an objective, level representation of products, services, methods, or technologies. Consider the Comparison_of_webmail_providers article. Although there are some non-notable companies on that table, if they were to be removed it would do a gross disservice to anyone studying the subject matter. At a minimum, comparison pages should be exempt from this criteria, which quite clearly gives a commercial advantage to some companies, and simultaneously damages the encyclopedic standard that Wikipedia attempts to establish. It also has the effect of limiting consumers options. It would be less damaging to remove all comparison articles that involve commercial services, than it would be to continue implementing this notability rule. Jgombos (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

This rule creates commercial bias and unfairness

When an article can only mention companies that are large and well known enough to fit the criteria herein, it makes Wikipedia commercially biased -- precisely what an encyclopedia should not be. By favoring the big dogs, it effectively gives an unfair promotion to companies who don't need it. Little known companies often invent methods or implement ideas that offer a unique perspective, which is denied useful and legitimate exposure when the company does not meet this trivial notability rule.

Does someone really intend to confine public awareness to your McDonald's and Burger King's, and censor smaller orgs like paisanosabq.com? Let's not be so narrow minded.

The criteria needs an overhaul, or the rule should be scrapped entirely. Jgombos (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The bias is not commercial it is mass cultural. If someone is well known we include it. The same goes for every type of subject. Those big companies happen to be notable. We are not promoting these large business, and in fact are not promiting any kind of business. This guideline is in place in part to ensure that Wikipedia is not being used to promote businesses and organziations but to report about them if they are notable enough. Regards.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Not promoting, or not intending to promote? Big difference. The effect is to promote, desirable or not. You're effectively limiting readers knowledge by confining it not on the merit of the content, but on trivial parameters. It's not just commercially unfair, it's damaging to use this blunt instrument to decide the merit of content.Jgombos (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

We have to have some sort of system, because we do not wish Wikipedia to be an indiscriminate collection of information. The system we have chosen is "Did somebody else pay attention to this organization?" Themost important advantages to this system are:

1. It's not based on the personal preferences of individual editors. (This would be random, indiscriminate, and frequently violate our conflicts of interest policy.)
2. It prevents us having articles written entirely from advertisements/marketing materials published by the business itself. (This would be non-neutral and unfair.)

Do you have a proposal for an improvement that retains these advantages? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with many of the answers above.

What it boils down to is that we don't give free publicity to companies who "need" it. That is, we are not a .com page. We can "publicize" companies who don't need it. Everyone knows if they like or hate McDonalds. Mentioning it in a logical text in Wikipedia does them no good whatever. Mentioning "Joe's hamburgers" favorably could be helpful to Joe. So helpful, that we might be inundated with "text placements" by pr people. Student7 (talk) 14:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not that we might; in fact we are so inundated, despite the notability rule. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

We are indeed so inundated. The other day I wondered if it wouldn't he helpful to have a noticeboard to deal with SPAM, advertising, and or other promotional activities. When you spot the subtler of these types of activities, especially on entries that have low general interest by other editors, it is hard to figure out how to get the proper attention to them. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Some existing noticeboards: WT:WPSPAM, WP:ELN, and in severe cases, WP:SBL. --- Barek (talk) - 17:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

One problem is the frequent mention of some firms, eg in Gujranwala I removed a hyped up mention in the lead of 'Gold's Gym' only to have it replaced almost immediately. Dougweller (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

@Barek. Those noticeboards are only for linkspamming though as far as I can tell, not other things like creating promotional puff pieces on non-notable companies, undue mention of companies and other commercial ventures in entries of general topic interest, etc. So in other words something more subtle than linking to someone's commercial enterprise, like promoting them in prose form. Would it be helpful to have a noticeboard where people interested in dealing with such issues can centralize discussions?Griswaldo (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard if the article hasn't been written yet.

For existing articles, if you're uncertain of notability, place the {{Notability}} tag at the top. If you're reasonably confident that the article is not notable, then WP:MERGE any appropriate information to a notable subject, WP:PROD it, or take it to WP:AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

This rule creates commercial bias and unfairness

When an article can only mention companies that are large and well known enough to fit the criteria herein, it makes Wikipedia commercially biased -- precisely what an encyclopedia should not be. By favoring the big dogs, it effectively gives an unfair promotion to companies who don't need it. Little known companies often invent methods or implement ideas that offer a unique perspective, which is denied useful and legitimate exposure when the company does not meet this trivial notability rule.

Does someone really intend to confine public awareness to your McDonald's and Burger King's, and censor smaller orgs like paisanosabq.com? Let's not be so narrow minded.

The criteria needs an overhaul, or the rule should be scrapped entirely. Jgombos (talk) 15:50, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The bias is not commercial it is mass cultural. If someone is well known we include it. The same goes for every type of subject. Those big companies happen to be notable. We are not promoting these large business, and in fact are not promiting any kind of business. This guideline is in place in part to ensure that Wikipedia is not being used to promote businesses and organziations but to report about them if they are notable enough. Regards.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Not promoting, or not intending to promote? Big difference. The effect is to promote, desirable or not. You're effectively limiting readers knowledge by confining it not on the merit of the content, but on trivial parameters. It's not just commercially unfair, it's damaging to use this blunt instrument to decide the merit of content.Jgombos (talk) 16:05, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

We have to have some sort of system, because we do not wish Wikipedia to be an indiscriminate collection of information. The system we have chosen is "Did somebody else pay attention to this organization?" Themost important advantages to this system are:

1. It's not based on the personal preferences of individual editors. (This would be random, indiscriminate, and frequently violate our conflicts of interest policy.)
2. It prevents us having articles written entirely from advertisements/marketing materials published by the business itself. (This would be non-neutral and unfair.)

Do you have a proposal for an improvement that retains these advantages? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree with many of the answers above.

What it boils down to is that we don't give free publicity to companies who "need" it. That is, we are not a .com page. We can "publicize" companies who don't need it. Everyone knows if they like or hate McDonalds. Mentioning it in a logical text in Wikipedia does them no good whatever. Mentioning "Joe's hamburgers" favorably could be helpful to Joe. So helpful, that we might be inundated with "text placements" by pr people. Student7 (talk) 14:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It's not that we might; in fact we are so inundated, despite the notability rule. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:29, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

We are indeed so inundated. The other day I wondered if it wouldn't he helpful to have a noticeboard to deal with SPAM, advertising, and or other promotional activities. When you spot the subtler of these types of activities, especially on entries that have low general interest by other editors, it is hard to figure out how to get the proper attention to them. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 16:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Some existing noticeboards: WT:WPSPAM, WP:ELN, and in severe cases, WP:SBL. --- Barek (talk) - 17:04, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

One problem is the frequent mention of some firms, eg in Gujranwala I removed a hyped up mention in the lead of 'Gold's Gym' only to have it replaced almost immediately. Dougweller (talk) 17:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

@Barek. Those noticeboards are only for linkspamming though as far as I can tell, not other things like creating promotional puff pieces on non-notable companies, undue mention of companies and other commercial ventures in entries of general topic interest, etc. So in other words something more subtle than linking to someone's commercial enterprise, like promoting them in prose form. Would it be helpful to have a noticeboard where people interested in dealing with such issues can centralize discussions?Griswaldo (talk) 18:21, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard if the article hasn't been written yet.

For existing articles, if you're uncertain of notability, place the {{Notability}} tag at the top. If you're reasonably confident that the article is not notable, then WP:MERGE any appropriate information to a notable subject, WP:PROD it, or take it to WP:AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:25, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Notable organizations often quoted, but no one does full article on them.

If published encyclopedias, text books, and even official government studies, quote an organization and its gathered statistics, shouldn't that make it notable? If major news sources write entire articles based on the findings of a study from one or two organizations, wouldn't that make it notable? You aren't going to have entire articles published about every single organization out there, most of them not interesting enough for the average newspaper reader to care about. I propose the guideline be changed. To have Wikipedia ignore notable organizations, while focusing on every pop culture thing that got coverage in the news media, is rather lame. Dream Focus 22:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

If the sources are talking about the studies (or products), rather than the organization that produced them, then that suggests that the studies (or products) are notable, rather than the organization itself.

Put another way: If the sources don't publish anything about the organization itself, or publish only tiny bits of information, then just how much of an article could you write with third-party sources? For example, if all of the sources that mention the org were like this typical health news story, could you say anything about the organizations named, beyond "they exist" and "they each seem to employ at least one person"?

It's also worth remembering that who gets quoted is largely a function of who's fastest at returning phone calls. For example, Rob Enderle has made it his business to tell journalists that FOSS is worthless and that Apple, Inc is dying. His track record is beyond abysmal (e.g., Apple's market capitalization is larger than Microsoft's)... and he still gets quoted, because he's convenient. It's the robust criticism of his errors and his status as a paid media shill for Microsoft[2] that actually makes him notable, not the mere fact that his name appears in trade mags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't need third party coverage to write an article about something. All the information you need to know about them will be on their official website. The Alliance for Safe Children is at AFD now, that where this guideline came up. Dream Focus 06:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can write "an article" from the org's own website. You cannot, however, write "a neutral article" if your only sources are either (1) trivial sources [e.g., merely mention the group's name, or quote an employee] or (2) were written and published by the organizations' own advertising/marketing departments. If we can't write a neutral article, we'd rather not have one at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

You'd rather not have one at all. You don't speak for all Wikipedia. And yes, a neutral article can be written, with just the basic non-disputed facts. Looks like that article is going to be kept. Dream Focus 18:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think you'll find that the policy at WP:NOTADVERTISING says something remarkably like my statement. Article topics must be third-party verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

(an aside). IMO, when I quote these guys (some, remember are bonafide researchers at universities), I ensure that the line reads "A researcher said that X", (footnote), or better yet, "X"(footnote). If they are notable I would use instead "Joe Smith (link) said that X."(footnote). IMO we shouldn't be using nn names in the text. It seems to much like researcher WP:SPAM for the nn. Student7 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Notable organizations often quoted, but no one does full article on them.

If published encyclopedias, text books, and even official government studies, quote an organization and its gathered statistics, shouldn't that make it notable? If major news sources write entire articles based on the findings of a study from one or two organizations, wouldn't that make it notable? You aren't going to have entire articles published about every single organization out there, most of them not interesting enough for the average newspaper reader to care about. I propose the guideline be changed. To have Wikipedia ignore notable organizations, while focusing on every pop culture thing that got coverage in the news media, is rather lame. Dream Focus 22:09, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

If the sources are talking about the studies (or products), rather than the organization that produced them, then that suggests that the studies (or products) are notable, rather than the organization itself.

Put another way: If the sources don't publish anything about the organization itself, or publish only tiny bits of information, then just how much of an article could you write with third-party sources? For example, if all of the sources that mention the org were like this typical health news story, could you say anything about the organizations named, beyond "they exist" and "they each seem to employ at least one person"?

It's also worth remembering that who gets quoted is largely a function of who's fastest at returning phone calls. For example, Rob Enderle has made it his business to tell journalists that FOSS is worthless and that Apple, Inc is dying. His track record is beyond abysmal (e.g., Apple's market capitalization is larger than Microsoft's)... and he still gets quoted, because he's convenient. It's the robust criticism of his errors and his status as a paid media shill for Microsoft[3] that actually makes him notable, not the mere fact that his name appears in trade mags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:25, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

You don't need third party coverage to write an article about something. All the information you need to know about them will be on their official website. The Alliance for Safe Children is at AFD now, that where this guideline came up. Dream Focus 06:41, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can write "an article" from the org's own website. You cannot, however, write "a neutral article" if your only sources are either (1) trivial sources [e.g., merely mention the group's name, or quote an employee] or (2) were written and published by the organizations' own advertising/marketing departments. If we can't write a neutral article, we'd rather not have one at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

You'd rather not have one at all. You don't speak for all Wikipedia. And yes, a neutral article can be written, with just the basic non-disputed facts. Looks like that article is going to be kept. Dream Focus 18:36, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I think you'll find that the policy at WP:NOTADVERTISING says something remarkably like my statement. Article topics must be third-party verifiable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:06, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

(an aside). IMO, when I quote these guys (some, remember are bonafide researchers at universities), I ensure that the line reads "A researcher said that X", (footnote), or better yet, "X"(footnote). If they are notable I would use instead "Joe Smith (link) said that X."(footnote). IMO we shouldn't be using nn names in the text. It seems to much like researcher WP:SPAM for the nn. Student7 (talk) 23:55, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Question about lists

I've already run into several cases when mentioning company on one of Deloitte lists (like "Deloitte 2010 Technology Fast 500") was used as an argument in AfDs. Question: is mere mentioning in such a list (Deloitte or Fortune 500 or whatever else) makes a valid notability argument? Note that I'm not asking "if it alone is sufficient to establish notability" - it is probably not, but should all such arguments be dismissed automatically, or they qualify as "one of valid references"? Technically, it can be argued both ways (depending on interpretation of "trivial" in the policy), but is there a consensus or near-consensus about using such mentionings for notability purposes? People in the industry tend to take such major lists like Fortune 500 and Deloitte rather seriously, which might be an argument for taking them into account, but if it is enough? I don't know. Ipsign (talk) 05:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It is a reliable and WP:Independent source for the fact that the company was on the list. Whether being on that list is merely run-of-the-mill is not something I really feel qualified to comment on, but here's my general thought:

One of the underlying goals of the notability standards' focus on independent sources is to make it possible to write an article without relying unduly on the company's own POV. This type of source does allow you to say something beyond "the company exists", so in that sense I'd be willing to accept it as an indication of notability—but not a sufficient indication if it were (inexplicably) the only independent source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Schools

There are two places Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Primary_criteria and Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Alternate_criteria_for_specific_types_of_organizations that say secondary sources are required for schools. I suggest that Schools be listed as inherently notable if supportable by at least primary sources. When I quoted the requirements for secondary sources on a talk page, where there was a reply that "currently a primary source is indeed sufficient" the author is User:DGG and I tend to take him at his word for statements of this kind. If community Consensus is that primary sources are sufficient for schools then this guideline should reflect that. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Secondary sources are required for supporting the notability of all subjects. Nothing is "inherently notable" Period. I see no reason to make an exception for schools or anything else. Roger (talk) 20:33, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

such as been the case for several years. It is over 2 1/2 years that any secondary school that had real existence was deleted at AfD . That therefore seems to be the community guideline, as expressed by its actions. The best summary of the present situation is at Wikipedia:Notability (high schools), though it remains an essay. The rationale for accepting it that persuaded people in dozens of AfDs was:

A careful investigation will almost always find a school notable at the GNG. There will always be material discussing it' construction, its athletics, its alumni, and so on. When we were still debating it, we were debating both primary as well as secondary schools. For secondary schools, the AfDs led to keeping approximately 80-85% of the high school articles, which probably would have been increased to 85-90% if the google news coverage had been as thorough as it is today. If we used print sources also, as we're supposed to but almost never do, it would probably be even higher. Several people were devoting inordinate amounts of time to finding the secondary references in the challenged cases, and everybody at AfD was spending a good deal of the AfD time in discussing them . The error rate at AfD is not zero. It's at least 10% of articles being kept or deleted which should go the other way round, by the chance fluctuations of who is around at the time and interested. It was simply not worth it to do the necessary work to rule out the very small number that were being deleted. Similarly, we at the same time were rejecting separate articles for primary schools--about 90% of the discussions ended up with a merge, redirect, or deletion. adopted the practice that primary and intermediate schools would almost always be merged into the school district. So these are not usually brought to AfD either, but handled by uncontested merges. This was essentially a compromise, and it works. We should encourage compromises that work. We should have many more such.

See the discussions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cary High School. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Banksia Park International High School,Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Middle Creek High School, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fremont High School (Indiana), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Everest Public High School and the other AfDs cited in those discussions. DGG ( talk ) 23:52, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Three thoughts:

1. Nothing is inherently notable. Everything requires (the existence of) sources.
2. Wikipedia often uses a "special" definition of the term "secondary source" for determining the notability of favored organizations. Original news stories are usually considered "secondary sources" for notability purposes.
3. It's at least extremely unusual to encounter a (1) government-run high school (2) with a sports team that competes against other schools (3) in North America that doesn't possess the necessary sources. Elsewhere, or tiny little unaccredited homeschool-high schools, or K-8 church schools that "expanded" into an independent-study-based high school to accommodate a wealthy family, the sources may not exist, and they shouldn't have articles here. (Fortunately for us, very few of them bother to write articles—after all, what are the odds that one of the three or four students in these little "schools" will actually write an article on Wikipedia?)

Some context may help: Homeschooling is technically illegal in California unless one parent is a certified teacher. However, anybody can create a "private school". All you have to do is choose a curriculum: voila, you are a private school. Schools are required to keep attendance and complete a little bit of simple paperwork each year, but that's it: They are legally "a school" and, if they so declare, "a high school". They can even issue legally valid diplomas. (A few years back, people claiming to be colleges or universities additionally had to register with the anti-diploma mill office, but I don't know what the current state of that process is.)

To give you an idea of the scale: In the state of California, there are about ten thousand government-run schools (K-12), about two thousand of what you're thinking of when someone says they went to a private school (K-12), and one thousand very small private schools (K-12, six to thirty students in the entire school). Most sources estimate that there are additionally some fifty or sixty thousand homeschool students, with a median "school" size of two. If you do the math, that's two out of three schools, as legally defined, that you personally wouldn't consider to be a "school" of any kind at all.

So if we're going to say that "all high schools are inherently notable", then you either need to build a case for proving either that the word "all" means "significantly less than half of the legally existing high schools", or you need to explain why my neighbor with one "high school student" whose classroom is their kitchen table is "inherently notable", despite no reliable source having ever taken any notice of them at all. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

response

First, there is a difference between WP:V and WP:N. WP:V is a basic principle. Every article requires the existence of sources for verification. For verification it It is widely accepted that the proper source for the basic facts about a organization can be its official web page, or a primary document. WP:N is a guideline; all guidelines intrinsically allow for exceptions, and WP:N goes to considerable lengths to say so specifically. WP:GNG , the existence of secondary sources, is just one of the possible criteria. If we accept WP:N as a basic guideline, the justification for assuming notability for particular classes is the inevitability of secondary sources. This can sometimes be a convention, for example, the earlier Olympic athletes, many of whom have no secondary sources available to us. Second, WP:N specifically says that notability permits an individual article to be written, but does not require one. There can be agreement that for certain subjects, combination articles are better. I think such is the case for asteroids.

Next, all Wikipedia rules are intended to be used with common sense, sometimes formalized by IAR. It is in general much better not to attempt to make basic rules to apply to rare exceptions. There are always many possible exceptions, many of which can not be foreseen in advance, while there is an advantage in the stability and clarity of simple rules. Furthermore, there will generally be borderline cases where it is not clear that the rule was intended to meet the specific situation. In other words, "all" does not actually have the literal meaning here or almost everywhere else, but rathe means " all that is reasonable". Human brains and most human institutions do not work by the rigorous rules of formal logic.

For the cases of the types of schools to which you are referring, I would doubt very much that anyone here would the general principle to home schools of one or two families. I cannot remember one ever brought to discussion, & I cannot recall ever seeing one in Wikipedia. For very small schools beyond that point, the very few I have seen here are sponsored by controversial organizations, and I think such have been sometimes merged. so the problem you have raised has already been dealt with.

If we thought we needed to formalize it, I'd accept the approach that there might be a size or degree of organization below which the presumption does not run. But basing everything on "in north america" is susceptible to cultural bias. It is widely accepted, that we are considerably more flexible about sources for people and organizations in areas where sources are very hard for us to work with.

Are there any articles that are current problems? DGG ( talk ) 18:57, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

The above explains the policy arguments, which are paramount. Behind this are practical problems: articles on middle schools attracts about 10 instances of vandalism for every serious edit. Elementary schools are neglected once the teacher has entered the stuff and moved on. If you have a mind to do this anyway, in contravention of policy (gasp!) please consider lumping all middle schools into one article for a school district and all elementary schools into one article for a school district. This will save you a lot of work and confine reverting vandalism to one place anyway. As the respected editors have mentioned above, these schools are rarely notable and should therefore not take up inordinate amounts of "space" and your time...or anyone else's either. Student7 (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

The reason I specified "North America"—and should have specified "in the USA and Canada"—is that editors from other parts of the world have said that there are very few independent sources about their local high schools, especially outside the school's immediate service area.

One significant cause, apparently, is that regular inter-school sports programs pretty much don't exist elsewhere. So US and Canadian high schools can point to a string of fairly routine (but often very lengthy) sports coverage in the local newspaper—and in their opponents' local newspapers, when they play an away game, which gives them a "non-local" source—and trivially meet the low standards in this guideline. Apparently it takes more work in other countries to find independent sources about the same types of schools. (Also, the schools are often smaller.)

This is a structural problem: The English Wikipedia decided on 'how much notice the world takes of the organization' as the standard, and the American and Canadian media apparently take far more notice of their local high schools (as measured in column inches) than the European or Asian media take of their local high schools. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:37, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Seems the result of the discussion is that, we are not changing the content of the guideline to give schools inherent notability, as there are schools (California examples) that are not. Though most schools if taken to AFD with only a primary source will most probably survive the AFD. Jeepday (talk) 12:59, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Notability of commercial organisations

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.

---

There is no notability guideline specifically for commercial organisations. Due to presence of spam articles, attempts at self-promotion, the efforts of over-zealous company owners or employees in creating articles, and the sheer number of commercial organisations means that it is imperative that a notability guideline is established. Also, the documentation of companies is moving away from the core function of an encyclopedia - including Wikipedia

I would like to propose something along the lines of the following notability guideline (to be inserted at WP:COMPANY):

For commercial organisations: Having a unique product or service, being listed on a stock exchange, having won an award, operating in multiple countries, or longevity of the organisation does not necessarily infer notability. However, having all of these criteria may establish sufficient notability. Monopolies or having a major market share may infer notability. The following commercial organisations are not notable: Local branches of a national or international organisation Individual franchisees Businesses operating at a local level Start-up companies

-- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:51, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Strong oppose. We already have clear and functional policies - the GNG, and more specifically, WP:CORP: "An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources". I doubt that Wikipedia would gain by adopting a new and much more complex notability policy which would:

1. Exclude a large volume of content which is already sourced and within existing notability guidelines such as WP:GNG / WP:CORP;
2. Create much more potential for bickering and wikilawyering over at AfD.

I could offer a more detailed response if there were actually some explanation of why an organisation of particular size, age, or geographical coverage is supposed to be deemed non-notable despite having in-depth coverage in multiple reliable sources. bobrayner (talk) 13:29, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Absolutely Oppose. Per bobrayner. The existing guidelines are quite adequate while this proposal introduces arbitrary criteria that don't allow for individual considerations. To simply impose an outright ban on articles about entire "classes" of companies such as "start-up" or "local branch" regardless of the level of media attention they get is extremely arbitrary. There are plenty examples of highly notable entities that would fall into those "forbidden" categories. This is a really bad idea. Roger (talk) 13:43, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Oppose Notability is defined by multiple Reliable independent references not by a list of criteria, for every example above there is an exception that would be addressed by standing policies, making the above criteria without benefit. Nice thought, but does not work in application. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:54, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Oppose I appreciate the overall effort to screen out spammy articles, but the fact is that there are too many exceptions for a criterion-driven rule to be useful. For example, Michelin Guide's three-star restaurants are all "businesses operating at a local level", but they are all notable. (No three-star restaurant has ever failed to receive substantial, in-depth media coverage from sources around the world.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

We already have existing policies that specifically address spam; if any improvement is needed, I think attention should be focussed there. The articles which would be affected by this proposal don't even correlate very well against where spam comes from. Some spammers aren't even "commercial organisations" let alone local ones; one of the articles I created about a government agency with a global presence was previously CSD'd three times as spam. bobrayner (talk) 09:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose : We already have WP:GNG and WP:COI to avoid the abovementioned problems. The only thing that is imperative is to stop to arbitrarily narrow the scope of WP. Less drama, more information please. --Cyclopia^talk 13:04, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I tend to agree that we need more enforceable criteria on when articles about commercial businesses should be kept; and where the possibility for commercial conflict of interest exists, we ought to insist, not only on sources, but on sources that establish "significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education."
  
  We also ought to insist quite forcefully on strict stylistic neutrality, and speedily delete anything that reads like PR or sales patter on sight. If it calls its products "solutions" that's enough for speedy deletion in my opinion.
  
  I also tend to think that facts about a business referenceable to reliable third party sources ought to be the minimum standard of inclusion: somebody else needs to have recognized the business as significant. It shouldn't be "ok, we got two newspaper stories, so we can fill in the rest of the article from the company website." And finally, business analysts and trade pubs don't count much for notability.
  
  Our current guideline and policy is probably good enough, but we ought to insist more firmly on the kind of significance that leads to "long term historical" notability. Too much discussion of notability forgets the "long term historical" part, and yes, the huge majority of startups and almost all back-office businesses and IT-cruft will not meet that standard. Coverage in Hoover's or, God help us, Gartner doesn't make a business a subject for the history books. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 21:59, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
  • I doubt that it would ever fly, but I dream sometimes of a standard that requires enough information to write an article that both (1) contains more than ten non-promotional sentences and (2) has more than 50% of the material provided by WP:Independent sources.
    IMO when you challenge them with a question like "If you were stuck using strictly non-routine independent sources, what exactly could you say about this business?", too many authors reply with "Um, well, let's see... It's a business, and, um, it's located in Smallville, and, um... um..." WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Can we close this per WP:SNOWBALL? Roger (talk) 09:30, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, close per WP:SNOWBALL. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 11:42, 17 February 2011 (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.

History of Chrome Specialties, Inc.

I am trying to write an article on a company I worked for in the nineties that was bought out and absorbed by an investment group of venture capitalists. The company was a major player in the aftermarket parts industry for American Motorcycles. Since the company no longer exists, and was one of the most innovative companies that I have ever worked for, I feel it is part of the History of the motorcycle in America. In the late 1980s there was a resurgence of interest in owning and riding American Motorcycles. Chrome Specialties, Inc. grew into one of the leaders in providing custom parts for these riders who wanted to customize their bikes. I would like to get feedback on whether this is acceptable subject for entry into Wikipedia. Any feedback on how to submit this concept for entry would be greatly appreciated. I welcome any comments or contributions on the subject since I was a part of this movement and built two custom American motorcycles.

R quillen (talk) 06:07, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

You are at the right place! Notability, not innovation, is the key. If you can locate sufficient WP:RELY sources (different sources) that indicate notability. It doesn't sound large which may work against it for notability. It may not have received sufficient media coverage. Media, not being Motorcycle Monthly, but probably a management publication, or somebody's dissertation! Not trying to raise the barrier too high, but it does need npov coverage and not merely "the usual" coverage given to any new product, whether good or bad. This appears to be a "niche" market which had its enthusiastic adherents, it could be difficult to document objectively.

I'm thinking that this may be too small to achieve notability, but I am only guessing. It would need sheer size (documented), or a very different approach to "aftermarket" and not just the usual add-on stuff done in the same way, only with slightly better products.

Have you checked articles on after market products? Perhaps it could be mentioned there along with other after-marketeers? Still needs notability, though. Student7 (talk) 23:10, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

I see that you've gotten started on your user page, and that you've already named three sources. As Student7 says, the most important step is always finding WP:Independent sources that talk about the subject. Naturally, you will know a fair bit about the company, but Wikipedia needs to know that someone other than employees thought it was important enough to write about. Pretty much any published news or magazine article that talks about the company 'counts' for this purpose. It doesn't have to be available online.

If you can only find a few sources, sometimes the best way to get started is to find a closely related article (maybe an article about aftermarket motorcycle parts?) and add a paragraph or a short section. If you think you've got enough sources to support a whole article, then you can click on Chrome Specialties and start writing.

You might want to connect with the folks at Wikipedia:WikiProject Motorcycling. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear from you, and they might be able to provide you with more specific advice. Good luck, WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Top 100

I'm not so sure about this change, which declares the inclusion in "Top 100" lists to be trivial coverage/not an indication of notability.

It seems to me that inclusion in, say, Fortune 500's list is an excellent indication of notability. Random "Top 100" lists probably aren't, but... I'm not sure whether we need to say this, or if we do, how best to say it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

It's been my understanding that there's a general consensus at AfD that inclusions in "top 100" or "best of" lists is not in itself an indicium of notability. The general reason is that the listing, in itself, doesn't confer notability unless it's enough to confer notability on each of the 99 other entries. Some very well known lists, such as the Fortune 500 or Michelin guides, may well count --- but on the other hand the establishments listed there would be notable absent the listing. So being listed doesn't add a lot. Might want to add that extremely well known lists, of a sort that every entry is presumptively notable, fall outside the intent. This may want a paragraph explanation rather than a bullet point. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:33, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I moved the "top 100" bit to an explanatory footnote, that also points out that some well known lists can confer notability. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:49, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Patents

It appears that we don't explicitly mention patent applications. They are essentially self-published sources, and thus completely useless for demonstrating notability. (For those who aren't up on this area of law: every single word in a patent is written by the inventor, not by some presumably independent person in the patent office. You can write anything you want in the specification, including that the moon is made of green cheese, that colloidal silver permanently cures HIV, or that aliens have taken over the government. Patent applications may be published regardless of whether any claims are ever approved. It is the inventor, not the patent office, who decides whether to publish it.)

Should we add something about them? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes... we should make it clear that obtaining a patent does not on its own establish notability. Blueboar (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Shortcut to "No inherited notability" and "No inherent notability"

I think shortcuts to these might prove very useful. There are numerous AfD discussions where people claiming a company is notable because people associated it with it are notable, or because it just is, are refuted. Something like WP:ORGIN. Perhaps the two should be grouped as one, or perhaps singly. Any thoughts? Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 20:21, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Done - WP:ORGIN. I put it to the entire section because the various subheadings there are brief enough that I didn't think they needed a batch of separate shortcuts. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:21, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that was a good idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

There are WP:NOTINHERITED and WP:NOTCONTAGIOUS as well. --Orange Mike | Talk 14:24, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Local units

The logic of requiring an organization to have coverage extending outside its target area is seriously flawed. If this is applied to international organizations, they would be required to have coverage elsewhere in the solar system. Anarchangel (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any such claim. I see sentences like "Organizations whose activities are local in scope (e.g., a school or club) can be considered be notable if there is substantial verifiable evidence of coverage by reliable independent sources outside the organization's local area" (emphasis added) but nothing like "National organizations must have sources from outside their home country", much less anything that implies international organizations must have off-planet sources. (NB that the Moon would be good enough; it's not necessary to leave the solar system.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Back to reset with Anarchangel's comment. For "notables" in place articles (a little easier to talk about), a mayor cannot be on the city's list of notables. That would include all previous mayors and is ridiculous. He would have to be notable "outside" the city. As would the councilmen, etc. As would "Miss Centerville;" as would the "500-meter local champ". All must have achieved for the city article notability outside the city. Not as easy with musicians, but won't worry about that here.

A restaurants (an organization for purposes of this discussion) should have achieved fame outside the city, i.e. should be a "4-star" restaurant, or whatever. And, as Anarchangel is suggesting, this principal holds for states/provinces/departments, or what have you.

And for national articles. So if X wins the 100 meter freestyle at the US Games, he does not appear in a list of notables for the United States. Nor does he, merely by proceeding to international games (where he wins nothing).

So for place articles, we don't have the problem of wondering whether Maxim's has a galactic reputation or not. There is only one article for "world" (okay, probably more than one, but anyway...). Hopefully, they don't have subsections for "notability" for visiting galactics to read.

The problem comes up with non-place articles. Should "Restaurants" contain a list containing "Maxim's"? I would assume only 5-star at this point. But it is up to the editors. Maybe the list is simply too long. (Haven't looked and don't really care). But yes, a near-galactic reputation is probably desirable for general articles. Otherwise they'd be "all list" wouldn't they? Student7 (talk) 19:56, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Anarchangel is complaining about the standard set for the business (NB not people, for which see WP:BIO) to have its own article, not for it to be mentioned in some other article. The standard is that a strictly local business like WhatamIdoing's Gas Station (Corner of Fourth and Main in Smallville) may not have an entire article all to itself unless we can determine that someone outside of Smallville wrote about the gas station. There is no similar restriction on non-strictly-local organizations (e.g., national or international organizations).

This guideline says nothing about whether you could include a paragraph about this little gas station in the Smallville or Gas station articles. Whether to mention this gas station in those is up to some other advice page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I was referring to WP:NGO. All the rules on the Notability (organizations and companies) page are criteria for inclusion; articles that do not meet them can be deleted from Wikipedia. So the rule most certainly is a requirement.

The crux of the problem is lumping NGOs together with schools and clubs. The requirement of national coverage quite rightly does not prevent four like-minded individuals from forming a club, but it does prohibit them creating a Wikipedia article to go along with it. NGOs, on the other hand, are not formed so casually, and their actions, while usually not considered fun, are also considered more notable. For example, Clean Water Action currently has an article, but Texas Clean Water Action would not be allowed an article under the current rule if it only had Texas sources for its significant accomplishments Google News search for "Texas Clean Water Action"-entire phrase only. Note that I chose TCWA as an example of a group that is, in my estimate, in the middle-to-low area of NGO notability; there are doubtless other orgs that are far more notable and in the same situation.

NGOs are also the only group to require both RS and national activity. This is not only a double standard, but is redundant, as there are two exceptions given immediately afterwards: Nationally famous local organizations and Factors that have attracted widespread attention Anarchangel (talk) 12:05, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'm confused. Here's what it says at NGO:

Organizations are usually notable if they meet both of the following standards: The scope of their activities is national or international in scale. Information about the organization and its activities can be verified by multiple,[1] third-party, independent, reliable sources.

We're agreed that this is the actual text, right? And we agree that there's not one single word in this that could possibly be used to claim that an NGO that is "national or international in scale" needs to produce non-local sources, right?

The rest of your claims are wrong:

• NGOs are trivial to create in some countries and undertaken IMO far too casually. The USA, for example, which has more than one million NGOs registered with the federal government. I know multiple people who have created and registered NGOs, and several people who have created more than one. Most non-government schools and clubs are NGOs in the US.
• Local for-profit businesses are required to meet the same sourcing standard as local non-profit organizations. "WhatamIdoing's Gas Station" is required to produce non-local sources to demonstrate notability, just like "Food for Smallville's Hungry" is required to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Time to remove the local interest clause?

Hi all. I'd like to draw your attention to this clause of the guideline:

"The source's audience must also be considered. Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary."

The majority of this clause was added in this diff of 11 September 2008 as a result of this discussion, where one editor supported the change and another opposed it and everyone else was too apathetic to comment.

I'd suggest that (1) there was never consensus for this to be added, (2) it doesn't line up with WP:N, which largely considers significant coverage in reliable independent sources to be the final word on notability, and (3) although it agrees with the essay WP:LOCAL it disagrees with the proposed guideline WP:LOCALINT and also with the consensus on the talk page of that proposed guideline.

I'd therefore suggest that, pending a consensus elsewhere, the clause should be removed and WP:N be allowed to speak for itself on this matter. Any comments? - DustFormsWords (talk) 11:37, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. Perhaps worth strengthening / clarifying the import of this, but the increasing availability of sources means that even the most parochial concerns could otherwise qualify as notable. ^Bongo_matic 12:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
• It's really about sources. We can't verify notability from college newspapers and community newsletters. Even small town low-circulation newspapers lack the standards to be a foundation for a trustworthy encyclopedia. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:34, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Isn't this already covered by WP:RS? Either a source is reliable or it isn't, and that's a factor of its reliability, not a factor of it being local. - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:32, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• No, it really isn't. A self-published autobiography is perfectly "reliable" for verifying facts in it, e.g., a birth date, but the fact that I can pay someone to have my autobiography published—or that I made nice with the local newspaper editor, or that I issued a press release that got re-printed with minor editing—does not indicate that the English Wikipedia should have an article about me. Just because something is both WP:Verifiable and True™ does not prove that it's notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• A self-published biography falls foul of the "independent" requirement in WP:N. There's no additional need for a local interest clause to keep it out. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:20, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• My comment is directed to your implied claim above that reliability is all that matters ("Either a source is reliable or it isn't," which is also false because a source can be reliable for claim X and unreliable for claim Y). Notability is not merely a matter of verification; it is also a matter of implementing WP:INDISCRIMINATE and appropriateness as determined by editors using their best judgment. Some kinds of perfectly WP:Reliable sources are absolutely worthless for determining notability—e.g., all non-WP:Independent sources, as you rightly point out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Feel free to read it as "either a source is reliable for its purpose or it isn't". My point is that our reliability policy is both well-detailed and separate to the notability policy. I'm not sure why we're doing backdoor reliability checking in the notability policies. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• One of the purposes of the notability standard is to prevent the creation of articles whose material cannot be verified. Consequently, notability must take the possibility of verification into account. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per User:Bongomatic. These criteria need to be tightened, not loosened. Roger (talk) 13:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support. "Local" is a very subjective term, and is too often used as an argument against including a topic when the concern would be better focused on whether it is run of the mill.--Arxiloxos (talk) 19:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose change for the first half. Note the wording  : indicate -- not determine or prove. It is a strong indication, actually, on the positive side. Significant international or national attention to a local organization is an rather good indicator of notability.
• Modify, for the second half. The wording "necessary" is much too strong, very little about notability is actually necessary. Change to: attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an strong indication of notability;" DGG ( talk ) 00:43, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Support - this is long due. "Local" is vague and means nothing. All that it counts is: is the source reliable or not? Singling out for locality makes no sense. We shouldn't care about circulation: and in fact usually we don't, since we -correctly- use regularly as sources obscure scientific journals that for sure have less readers than a "local" magazine that circulates in all of Moscow. --Cyclopia^talk 01:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think that a magazine that circulates through an entire metropolitan area would be considered "local" in this guideline. I think that is, in fact, the primary meaning of "regional" here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:23, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
    • While my argument wasn't based on "local" being vague, I'd point out that it IS vague, and there's significant confusion at AfD about it every time the issue comes up. In the context of Australia, for example, the national capital has a smaller population than several of the country's regional centres. How small does a town have to be before it triggers the "local" clause? What about large sub-national areas (like the Northern Territory) with total populations less than some country towns? Is it defined by geography, population, significance? Possibly defining "local" is another argument, but it's hardly helpful in its current state. - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
      • Yes, editors must use their best judgment. Mindless application of strict rules is not one of this guideline's goals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
        • We cannot rely on "editors' best judgement" simply because such a judgement is subjective and what is best judgement for me could be total nonsense for you. WP:CORP has been invoked to delete multiple times in AfD's such as ŧhis one, where sources were deemed "local" because they spanned a single US state. The point is that there is no good reason at all, apart from weak and vague "unencyclopedicity" claims in refusing local sources for notability, once these are 1)secondary 2)independent and 3)reliable. --Cyclopia^talk 23:53, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
          • On the contrary: Editorial judgment is always required. I could easily demonstrate the notability of Use of antibiotics in European chicken farming, using a wide variety of independent, unquestionably reliable, secondary sources -- but I'm not going to, because in my editorial judgment, that subject is best handled in other ways (e.g., as part of Poultry farming#Antibiotics). Notability decisions always require editors to use their best judgment. There's simply no way of avoiding this. These decisions must be taken by humans, not by bots. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
            • There's a difference between editors having different judgments about what falls within a tolerably clear term like "reliable", and editors just being totally confused by a vague term like "local". One sets a bar, and we can argue whether or not things clear it, while the other isn't even clear on whether it's a measurement of geography, demography, culture, or all three. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
              • Have you seen much arguing over this? While there are a few challenging edge cases (e.g., the local section of a national newspaper), most editors seem perfectly capable of figuring it out. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose change for the first half, support DGG's modification for the second. We don't need a hard and fast rule, but we do need to recognise that the proliferation of media means that many things may be able to claim coverage in reliable, but purely local, sources which are not actually of encyclopedic notability. JohnCD (talk) 14:01, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose changing the first part: it accurately describes the existing standards applied at many AFDs. The last bit (the "necessary" claim) was added in May 2010 after this long discussion. I don't have strong view about it one way or another, but further clarification, by way of "fair warning", seemed desirable to someone whose article had just been deleted on these grounds. For DGG's proposal, I'd leave out the word "strong" and go back to the original wording, although I don't see any particular problem with the existing wording beyond the absence of a weasel word like "generally necessary". People interested in this subject might also want to read some of DGG's previous comments on this subject, e.g., this one. Local media (and some highly specialized sources) tends to be indiscriminate, largely because being "complete" (e.g., reviewing every single restaurant in town, in alphabetical order, no matter what) is both possible and sells newspapers. The first duty of a newspaper is to stay in business, and that's one way that you do it in a small town. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. The issue is unclear to me, as to wording. We don't want public relation handouts to local papers to be the basis for an article. On the other hand, my very reliable paper, who indeed does print some of these handouts, also researches and reports many stories in depth of very high quality and npov. I can tell the difference. How to differentiate these in a policy? I don't know. "Local" though, doesn't quite cut it. I subscribe to a rural hometown paper which may skip certain stories and underemphasize others for monetary (political) reasons. On the other hand, it brutally reprints court testimony in excruciating detail! And sometimes local government meetings. Again, one can easily tell the difference but are stuck with the "underreported" stories. There's nothing else. Normally none of this has caused any problems for the geographic articles I work on. Sometimes for schools since it is overenthusiastic. I think we are talking "local interest" here - towns and schools. Businesses and bios are the problem. Student7 (talk) 14:51, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

• Public relations handouts are not reliable, newspapers with a reputation for reliability are. This is already covered by our policies on reliable sources; we don't need to further traverse it in the notability guidelines. While local sources are more likely to be unreliable, correlation does not imply causation. Sources should be assessed on their merits, and not prematurely cut off on the basis of being local. - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Really? Do you honestly think that a company's sales brochure is an unreliable source for, say, what the company sells? The actual policy (WP:SPS) accepts marketing materials as a reliable primary source. We even use them in Featured Articles, e.g., this one. Such sources do not indicate notability, but they are reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry for missing out the implied word "generally", but what on earth does this have to do with sources being local - DustFormsWords (talk) 00:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• I don't know: Why did you decide to declare that public relations handouts are unreliable? Presumably you thought it was relevant to the discussion at hand. I am only correcting your erroneous assertion, as they are generally quite reliable (primary) sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per Bongomatic and WhatamIdoing. DGG's suggestion has some merit, as it accurately reflects the feeling the community has when dealing with local sources. I think we can go with that for now with an eye for clarifying this further in the future. ThemFromSpace 01:41, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Intention to close as "not supported" - Hi all. While I don't feel the Oppose votes have been very well considered or grounded in consistent rationales, clearly there is not support for me to make this change at this time. Anyone object to me closing the discussion as "not supported"? - DustFormsWords (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be more substantial support for DGG's proposed modification to the last sentence--what do you think about that?--Arxiloxos (talk) 06:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see much support. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:12, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: I'd like to hear from the opposers a detailed rationale of why local sources should be not considered for notability, in case they are at the same time 1)multiple 2)secondary 3)independent and 4)reliable. I've heard claims of "encyclopedic notability" but that is a known fallacy, so I'd like to know what is behind this reasoning. --Cyclopia^talk 23:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Leaving aside what we've already told you—which is that a string of routine stories in a little local newspaper that is desperate for subscribers and your advertising dollars is not "multiple" or "independent" nor usually even "secondary"—the fundamental problem is that the "notability of a subject is judged by the world at large". Mulberry, Kansas, with a population of 577 at the last census, is not "the world at large", and neither is its weekly newspaper. If a business never receives any notice from any source further away than a single city block, then it would be silly to say that "the world at large" took notice of the business. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Well: 1)If it's not "multiple" or "independent" or not even "secondary", then you don't need the locality clause: WP:RS and WP:GNG already cover the case, regardless of locality. 2)So what about specialized literature? Scientific papers cited by, say, 5 persons each are probably much less "the world at large" than a paper read by a whole city block: yet we consider them completely good RS for notability. Why singling out "locality"? 3)If a city block is too small, what is large enough? A city? A region? A country? What? Does a large but unpopulated region count or not? Does a very small but highly dense city count or not? The point is simple: "local" means nothing. Literally, nothing by itself. It has a meaning only relative, not absolute. Something that affects a continent is "local", planet-wise, and something that affects a small shire is "global", city-wise. And the "editorial judgement" mantra has no bearing whatsoever, because again, there's no consensual definition of local that applies (at least, not yet: we can draft one if needed). My editorial judgement for example refuses locality as a filter completely, for reasons above. --Cyclopia^talk 01:56, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
    • (Oh, and what's the point of linking a 2006 version of WP:N with a wording which has been long rejected?) --Cyclopia^talk 01:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
      • For the record, the discussion which resulted in the insertion of this clause into the guideline can be found at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)/Archive 5#Tiny newspapers. I would dispute if there ever really was a consensus for this clause, and it should have got greater scrutiny before being introduced. The clause is also rather at odds with WP:ITSLOCAL (from an essay, but still a heavily cited one), and the original proposal at Wikipedia:Notability (local interests) also had a similar clause which resulted in it being revised after strong objections. CT Cooper · talk 20:12, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
• Oppose, though I don't necessarily oppose DGG's proposed rewording. Too much effort is spent counting sources; too little at looking at what the sources say. The real question is whether an organization "has had any significant or demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education", and where the possibility of commercial conflict of interest exists, that's the kind of significance we ought to insist on. Notability means "long term historical notability"; this seems to be forgotten when sources are simply counted rather than examined. The problem with local sources is not so much that they're local; but that they're often not independent, in that local sources often print communiqués from local business with minimal editing. Or they don't establish significance: as for instance a review of a newly opened pizza restaurant. Here the review may well be editorially independent, but nothing it says gives that restaurant an enduring place in history that turns it into an encyclopedia subject. On the other hand, a local diner that's a landmark, has operated for 50 years, and gets referenced in novels and films set in the town, may well be an encyclopedia subject despite the fact that no one not from the area has heard of it. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:27, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
• Strong Oppose per Smerdis of Tlön. We need more examination of the contextual differences of sources and not less.Griswaldo (talk) 22:23, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
• Support I support removing language discriminating against "local" sources. I'm not sure what a "local" source is supposed to be. The San Francisco Chronicle? Oh wait, that's owned by Hearst. So then it's okay? A global news source like the AP wire is the font of all wisdom about the middle east, but a local source actually located there would be dismissed? -- Doom (talk) 20:48, 14 April 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure that you quite understand the question. A local newspaper is a good source for information. It is a poor source for demonstrating that a small business should have an entire Wikipedia article entirely dedicated to it. The question has nothing to do with excluding sources about political issues or international affairs. It has everything to do with advertorialists saying "The Smallville Press ran a feature-length article on my new gas station, which is one of only three businesses in town (and I'm the only one buying advertisements in the paper), so surely I deserve to advertise my little gas station in Wikipedia. After all, the information is verifiable to a reliable source, so who cares if no one outside of my hometown has ever heard of it?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

I think you're talking about the intent of the rule, and I'm talking about the rule itself. If it's so obvious that the cases you have in mind aren't notable, then it could be you don't need to say anything beyond "it should be notable". If you go off trying to specify in detail what constitutes evidence of notability, you should be prepared for lots of objections to all of the exceptions of the proposed rules. -- Doom (talk) 21:37, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

The whole point of every single notability guideline, from WP:Notability on down, is to specify in detail what constitutes evidence of notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we need to "watch" local media. Caution is called for. But we need an "out."

The last phrase above "... at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary" might be a) dropped or b) amended to "...is desirable." While editors need to be cautioned, maybe a total prohibition (which is being ignored anyway) is undesirable in the policy statement. Student7 (talk) 19:36, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

If they are considered an authority on something, and quoted by news sources, shouldn't that count?

I propose adding this as a reason to consider organizations notable enough to have their own Wikipedia article. If the stats they research are quoted by news organizations, then they are notable. If a spokesperson from their organization is questioned for comment on things, and quoted as an expert opinion, then they should be considered notable. If major news organizations consider them notable enough to seek out for their expert opinions on things and quote their research, then it should be notable by Wikipedia standards. Dream Focus 03:11, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Asking someone from a company to comment on a break-in or a lawsuit doesn't make that company notable, of course. Totally different things. Just wanted to clarify that. Getting them to comment on something relating to their own organization or company, isn't proof of notability. Dream Focus 03:13, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

No, not really, not in the typical case. The resulting stories very seldom have the actual businesses involved as a subject or focus. The selection of companies may be coincidental: the one that gets quoted is the one that returned the reporter's call before the deadline. Tire rotation is important. We asked Joe Rotator, chief mechanic at Joe's Tire Emporium, and he said "You ought to have your tires rotated twice a week." This doesn't make a business historically notable. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 03:31, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Organizations then, not companies. When they quote medical data from an international organization dedicated to a certain disease or medical condition, isn't that organization notable? Dream Focus 03:35, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

It's a matter of scale and repetition. One news source quoting an organization in one single article would not make the organization notable. Multiple news sources quoting the organization, and doing so in multiple articles, would. Blueboar (talk) 14:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Every reporter has a list of go-to names they call when they want a useful quote on a topic. This is a measure of availability, willingness to talk, and likelihood to generate a solid or colorful news nugget. Organizations are the same way: you call the group that calls you back. That is a measure of journalistic utility, not notability (unless the articles are about the organization or person; in which case this clause is not needed). --Orange Mike | Talk 14:20, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm with OrangeMike. What gets your (or your org's) name in the paper is the ability to return phone calls or e-mail messages (1) before deadline and (2) with a usable soundbite.

Importantly, this standard wouldn't actually meet one of the fundamental goals behind all the notability guidelines, which is to actually be able to write an article (more than a permastub) from WP:Independent sources. Think about it: with this standard, the article you could write would be a long string of "And was quoted in March 2010 with statistics about..." and "in February 2010, employed a person named Alice Jones, who was quoted as saying"—and very little else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:41, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

• My first thought is "considered an authority" on what and by whom? Second thought, if "A" is considered an authority by notable group, on a notable topic, I can not image "A" would not meet notability as it is. From thought one, an authority on bakers in small town USA, according to the local bakers association (membership 1) is going to rightfully fail notability. JeepdaySock (AKA, Jeepday) 16:03, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Heads up: slightly bold edit.

I just made the following edit: diff to clarify that a product may be notable but the parent company not. Don't think it's contentious, but could be viewed as somewhat bold, so raising here. Martinp (talk) 04:11, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Not an objection... but I do have a question... is this realistic? Can you come up with an example of a notable product (or service) that is made by a non-notable company? Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Carmex comes immediately to mind. --Orange Mike | Talk 13:44, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

OK... that works for me. Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 14:18, 19 April 2011 (UTC)

Works for me too. I was thinking of software programs when I made the edit, e.g. 4DOS (poorly referenced but clearly notable...adding it to my to-do list). I was also going to say Wordstar but its publisher MicroPro International is a blue link, though on reading the latter I would think a merge into WordStar might be in order (but not worth the bother)... Martinp (talk) 15:19, 19 April 2011 (UTC)