Wikipedia talk:Notability

Archives
2005–Sep 2006 (related to page now moved to Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments) Sep–Oct 2006 Oct–Nov 2006 18–25 Nov 2006 Nov 2006–Dec 2006 Dec 2006 Dec 2006–Jan 2007 Jan 2007–Feb 2007 Feb 2007 March 2007 Archive 11 Archive 12 Archive 13 Archive 14 Archive 15 Archive 16 Archive 17

Notability Vaguness

"In particular, a short burst of present news coverage about a topic does not necessarily constitute objective evidence of long-term notability." The article never really defines what long-term or short-term are. And then provides this comment. So should we delete all articles on products with short lifespans. For instance, a video game or a movie is usually only notable for few months. Musicians, particularly, one-hit-wonders also have the problem. It seems like notability defined by news coverage makes almost every article non-notable in any real sense of long-term. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.192.1.156 (talk) 02:53, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

My answer would be that a burst of new coverage nearly always means the mere reporting of facts without commentary, analysis or the consideration of alterntive perspectives. In other words, news bursts are primary sources. If nobody, anywhere, ever "says something about" the subject, then the subject is not presumed to be sufficiently notable for wikipedia. --SmokeyJoe 07:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Loosen up a bit?

As an end-user, Wikipedia is my first line to answer the question, "Who, what is _____".

Isn't this search evidence of notability? If I am curious about the topic, surely others are or will be.

I was driven to write this suggestion after encountering several topics that were deliberately removed or marked for deletion. Somebody has information to share about a topic, someone else like me wants to find out about it, but somebody else judges it not notable.

When it comes to skyscrapers or defunct companies, things that someone will want to learn about, things that someone cares enough to start an topic for, does it really hurt to have an article about it in Wikipedia? It's the user-centered mentality.

Shouldn't the standard for exclusion be MUCH higher than the standard for inclusion? When in doubt, why not err on the side of keeping the article?

Finally, how about considering demand for the information as a measure of notability? How about looking at a topic's Wikipedia search history stats, or even public keyword stats? (For example Digimarc is flagged for deletion, but Overture says that 400 people on the planet searched for it in one month.)

(I hope this is the right place for this. Please cut this noob some slack in any case.) 71.141.112.200 06:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

A concern is that your idea is the thin end of the wedge in accepting all sorts of rubbish/opinion/trivia. See Wikipedia:No Original Research. --SmokeyJoe 06:56, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Well stated. I concur. --Coolcaesar 18:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I propose that the notability subguidelines be deprecated to essays (and merged appropriately) and the salient points (of which there are few) be incorporated into this main guideline. A sensible merging would not result in more than a few statements being added to this guideline. Notable awards and field (or industry) recognition would generally cover the relevant points made in the subguidelines. We don't need ten subguidelines to cover two basic points. Nearly a dozen guidelines to explain one guideline is just ridiculous! That's practically a perfect example of instruction creep. There's not even a need for ten essays explaining how to judge and practically apply notability. Thoughts? Vassyana 00:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not agree. You seem to be on a campaign against these guidelines. Please do not rush to implement your suggestion. I suspect that you will not get consensus for it, but it may take time to emerge. I think many editors support the subject guidelines. I will comment in more detail later, but I'm busy right now. --Bduke 01:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well I obviously think that 10 guidelines to describe 1 is more than a bit excessive. As for a "campaign", I don't see it. I raised my concerns and made my proposal. Though I suppose cross-posting on 11 pages might be campaigning, when there's the village pump plus ten subpages, it's a bit difficult to do otherwise. I'm in no rush to implement the suggestion and I'm seeking discussion to reach a consensus. That's why I posted on each notability subpage and on the village pump. Please show a little good faith. Vassyana 01:32, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems like a good idea. We can have specific sections that deal with specific aspects and consolidate all common wording in one place. Nothing will be lost and will be much easier to maintain. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we should look at them one at a time. My feeling is that at least some of them are useful in helping to pin down what is meant by notable in different categories, but I'd have to review them to be more definite about which ones. Dicklyon 01:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Not saying I support or reject this proposal, but looking positively, at least we wouldn't have a problem with sub-guidelines contradicting the main one.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 01:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that you have to look at where the guidelines emerged from historically. The project originally had problems concretely delineating what was and wasn't considered notable. The main guideline needs to cover all possible notable subjects, and so it's very amorphous and non-specific, which is understandable. I believe that the Music notability was one of the first successful ones to emerge, because it gave several clear parallel criteria which most people agreed were collectively satisfactory to admit what consensus deemed notable while keeping out cruft and spam. Other groups followed suit, understandably. Different fields need different concrete criteria; the general notability criteria provide an overall framework from which to adhere to in the specific guidelines. Girolamo Savonarola 01:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd propose a middle approach - call it the "small bang" in contrast to Vassyana's "big bang" proposal. First, do no harm - to make sure the ten don't increase, take an active role in opposing further creep: there are several active notabilitity proposals that are competely redundant to the general notability criterion. Second, pick off the most egregious of the ten (WP:PORNBIO, anyone?); Kevin Murray did a good job of coordinating the merger of a bunch of separate notability guidelines into WP:CORP/WP:ORG. Third, focus on the most egregious differences to the general criterion (both WP:BOOKS and WP:MUSIC have a big dose of inherited notability: if the group is notable, all their albums, all their songs, all their labels are also notable). I think this incremental approach is superior to the merge-all method. UnitedStatesian 01:50, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That's more likely to be generally acceptable. My own thought would be a slightly bigger bang - the general guideline plus one additional page to capture notability precedent - perhaps Wikipedia:Notability Precedent? The precedent page could contain a few of the salient points from the subguidelines as well as the stronger precedents from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes. The precedent page wouldn't be absolutely binding - consensus can change after all - but it would allow for some consistency and respect for precedent.--Kubigula (talk) 01:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be generally in line with what I would like to see and would be quite agreeable to me. Vassyana 02:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Vassyana because the style and use in practice of the notability guidelines is too much like rules to feed articles to AfD than guidelines to help improve the product. Where special guidance is helpful, it is better done elsewhere than under the notability umbrella. For example, Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) are both trying to accomplish the same thing, but the first implies enforcement by deletion at AfD as a threat, while the second merely recommends a better style.

Where appropriate sources for specific subjects requires elaboration, this would be far better done as an extensions of Wikipedia:Reliable Sources than as a proliferation of interpretation of the meaning of notability. The notability test is better stated as a question of existence of sources, usually secondary sources. Different categories may require different sorts of sources, but it is still a question of existence of suitable sources.

Historically, as Girolamo notes, there is a mess of interpretation of the nebulous word “notability”. Due to the history, “notability” is entrenched in wikipedia culture. The best we can do from here is keep notability simple, and where there are issues, focus on the root of the issue, which is the issue of appropriate sourcing. --SmokeyJoe 02:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I had not particularly thought of it in those terms, but this is a very good observation. Vassyana 02:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

This is an ill thought out proposal. Vassyana, in your zeal for simplicity, you are overlooking that not everyone in existence is as capable at deducing specific applications from general rules as you presumably are. Specific guidelines for specific cases are needed so that we can make our policies clear to everyone, rather than turning them into esoteric messes that only the Wikipedian elite understand the true meanings of. (Also, regarding the above-mentioned specific case of WP:FICT, it's my personal view that notability and style are so interweaved in that area that we should have one guideline which discusses both.) --tjstrf talk 02:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The snarky attitude is unnecessary and unhelpful. That said, there is very little of substance in the way of criteria in the subguidelines, and it can be generally covered by two points (as mentioned above). Additionally, I've openly supported the existence of a subguideline or essay on how to specifically and practically judge notability. If you think my assessment is incorrect or that the proposal is otherwise flawed, provide constructive criticism. Please take more care in your future comments. Vassyana 03:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of that non-substance is because the individual guidelines for some reason feel it's necessary to restate half of WP:N, and it could be dealt with by simple trimming and telling people to read the main guideline in their intros instead. (They should be reading it anyway). --tjstrf talk 04:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you feel that my assessment of what substance, or distinct criteria, they posses is correct or incorrect? What do those subguidelines contain that cannot be merged into the main guideline and a single dependent guideline/essay? Vassyana 04:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I really don't. Most of the criteria on the specific guidelines are not just restatements of WP:N, or at least not intuitively obvious ones. Plus, there are cases where the notability guideline has to deal with other issues as well. Like the corporations guideline, which has to also discuss issues with advertising and COI, or WP:FICT, where the argument doesn't boil down to "there's nothing attributable to say so you can't write about it" like in most other subjects.

How would a giant 100+ bullet list of every unique bullet point from all the notability guidelines make our policies less confusing anyway? --tjstrf talk 05:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The corporation guidelines says absolutely nothing about conflict of interest. The advertising section is about flaws that essentially boil down to poor, or no, sourcing. There are tons of such flaws and they're not related to notability except in the requirement for reliable third-party sources. The fiction guideline makes no such claims or assertions. It quite clearly, and repeatedly, emphasizes the need for reliable third-party references to establish notability, in line with general notability. Please take a good look over the subguidelines as you've an acute misunderstanding of what they state. Vassyana 07:28, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Regarding WP:CORP, you may be correct, as I probably haven't read the page since the Arch Coal deletion debate last year. Regarding WP:FICT, you misunderstood my point, which was that the reasoning is inherently different: in all other cases notability is an extension of the attributability principles (an article which fails the primary notability criterion will by definition lack any substantial attributable content). In the case of fiction, it has to do with Wikipedia preferring to keep its focus on the real word. --tjstrf talk 07:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding. That was utterly my fault in assuming, instead of asking for clarification. The FICT example just seems to add only the third criteria that would need to be added to the main guideline. At this point, I count notable awards and industry/field recognition as indications of notability, and a restriction that says fictional subjects must have a real-world impact reported by third-party sources. What else is unique to the subguidelines, in your view? Vassyana 08:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a merge is a good idea. There are important differences between how each of these subjects should be treated, and that will not be expressed correctly in a merged page. - Peregrine Fisher 04:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples? Which of the subguidelines contains guidance that cannot be incorporated into notability and a single dependent guidance page? Vassyana 04:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Peregrine, what do you think of the idea that the differences are better approached from the perspective of appropriate sourcing? --SmokeyJoe 04:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I cannot support a proposal of this type without seeing much more detail of how it is to be implemented, e.g. a draft merged guideline. There is a big range between having a guideline that is pretty much what we have now in WP:N, versus one with long subsections for each merged topic, and I don't have a sense for which end of this range you're aiming for. Is the aim to centralize the places one needs to look for guidelines, that is, to reduce the number of different guidelines one needs to view, or is to to eliminate the distinctions that have arisen in how to apply the notability standards for different subjects? I am neutral on the former as I see it as mindless rearrangement, but opposed to the latter: these distinctions are important and useful. —David Eppstein 04:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

David, on the question of distinctions in how to apply the notability standards for different subjects: Can you give some examples of such distinctions that are important and useful? --SmokeyJoe 05:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so let's look specifically at say WP:NUMBER. It includes specific guidelines for whether to include an article on a particular number, such as 27 — obviously we can't include them all, and there have been many AfDs and other disputes about whether some specific number is too big and boring to include. The guidelines in WP:NUMBER say, among other things, that to be the subject of an article, a number should have three interesting and unrelated mathematical properties, a rule that has greatly helped to focus and make consistent the AfDs on these topics. But this rule of thumb is not codified anywhere in WP:N, and doesn't make sense to apply to many other topics even within mathematics. What do you propose to do with rules of this type? —David Eppstein 06:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I propose to scrap such rules as incompatible with WP:NOR. Basically, such rules encourage original research at the expense of reliable sources. Wikipedia is not a mathematics journal, and it does not enlist verifiably credentialed reviewers. Wikipedia is only as good as its sources, and anything not based on published sources doesn’t belong. If you cannot find a source that discusses a certain number, then you should not be creating your own material to write about it. Finding a suitable source shouldn’t be too tricky because the primary/secondary source distinction doesn’t really apply to them. --SmokeyJoe 06:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That's completely twisted logic. There is no original research being done in saying "Wikipedia will only accept articles on numbers with at least 3 verifiable unusual properties". It's an editorial rule. --tjstrf talk 07:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

But you forgot to say "verifiable" the first time; so he nailed you! Dicklyon 07:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Or me, actually. But since this is WP:N not WP:V... —David Eppstein 07:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

So unless we can find multiple reliable sources that are about that specific number, it gets deleted? Fine. I strongly oppose your proposal. It raises elegance of rules as a priority higher than any pragmatics of having a useful encyclopedia with a good selection of articles. That seems backwards to me. Thanks for the clarification. —David Eppstein 07:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The rules about numbers were just a concession to calm those hysterics who say, "Oh my god, they did an article on 42, the article on 156874642314543 is next!" Anton Mravcek 23:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC) P.S. I agree with Dave on the importance of a good selection of articles over the elegance of rules. Give people a chance to act with commonsense and they'll do it. Anton Mravcek 23:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, silly articles like that are created quite frequently. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1000000000000 (number) 2nd nomin, which has been deleted by two different AFDs. And 124000 (number) has just been created; it needs to be merged elsewhere. There is good reason for the number notability guideline. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

you need to be caerful if your gonna call a number wit religiuos significance silly, specially if your talking bout Islam. any number tahts stated with precision in a sacred text is theirfor notable. here's a much better esample of a silly number aritcle: 987651838543200011. anytime something taht black an white gets created, a deletionist is on the case, nomnating for deletion just seconds after creation, so teh rest of us can worry about actual gray zone cases, like 124000. Numerao 16:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Basically I oppose for the same reasons. The rules should serve us, not the other way around. Also, I'm getting the feeling this isn't a merge proposal, but basically an AfD for all the sub specific Note guidelines. What parts are we going to keep from them, exactly? - Peregrine Fisher 07:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Section break

I support the idea of merging the notability guidelines together for consistency and ease of use. --Dragonfiend 05:10, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You could incorporate stuff from the subs into the main, but I doubt that's going to happen. We'll end up with a page that just says "Significant coverage." For instance, with corporations I think we need more leeway than that. The vast majority of reliable sources are effectively out of our reach. Most newspaper articles go behind a subsription wall after a few weeks (internet archive does not help), not to mention all the years of newspapers and magazines that have never been converted into electronic form (and would be subscription only anyway). Until we have some way of judging the absolute, true existance (or not) of reliable sources, we need leeway. If you could include some generalized version of "However, chapter information is welcome for inclusion into wikipedia in list articles as long as only verifiable information is included." from Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies), that would be cool. I don't think that's where this merge proposal is going though, and if it is, it's probably dead in the water. - Peregrine Fisher 05:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

“reliable sources are effectively out of our reach” What a shocking statement to read! If so, then what did the editor base his contribution on? Are editors making stuff up, and then sticking a dodgy reference at the bottom. Editors need to be encouraged to start their contributions with the reference information (which WP:N supposedly makes them do). Editors deserve to be trusted to not be lying about the existence of the references they claim to be using, and if they lie, they’ll be caught eventually. Luckily, we have edit histories. Yes, old newspapers become harder to access, but not impossible. Some of us have subscriptions, and major libraries keep major newspapers and magazines. --SmokeyJoe 05:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Foreign languages. --tjstrf talk 05:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant "significant coverage" is out reach. I don't think you'll find anyone that has problems with WP:V, other than the parts of WP:N that have been added to it. I didn't say impossible, I said they were effectively out of reach. I could learn a new language, pay for newspaper articles at $3 a pop, or scour my cities public libraries, but I'm not going to just because someone AfD'd an article that shouldn't be deleted. - Peregrine Fisher 06:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Research requires a minimum investment of time and/or money. It's not at all out of reach. Get you to a library. Regardless, the core policies, such as Wikipedia:Verifiability, are predicated on references to reliable third-party publications. Remember, if you want to add a claim, the burden is on you to provide a reliable source. Vassyana 06:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Also remember that there are tons of legacy pages from back when sourcing really wasn't expected, so tons of people wrote stuff from accurate personal knowledge without a clue that 4 years down the road they'd be in violation of policy. (And no they shouldn't be deleted on that basis.) --tjstrf talk 06:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The sourcing requirement is one of the oldest policies on Wikipedia, and the vast majority of Wikipedia articles came well after that policy, so this is a false argument. Vassyana 06:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"One of the oldest policies"? Which one are you referring to? Wikipedia:Cite your sources, perhaps? That one's from 2002, which makes it predate WP:V by a whole year (and Wikipedia itself was founded a year before either).

Even then, WP:CS didn't actually require you to add sources until some time in mid-2004. Before that, it just said that if you did use sources, it would be good of you to list them. So not only was there no sourcing requirement for literally years of Wikipedia's existence, but even after it was policy it wasn't really expected except in cases where the information was controversial. In conclusion, there are huge amounts of valuable legacy content that "fails WP:V" simply because WP:V didn't exist yet, or wasn't enforced in any meaningful manner. (WP:N's modern formulation is a creation of 2006, incidentally.) --tjstrf talk 07:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

We're encouraged to tag and fix those articles. Regardless, my assertion holds true. Even going from mid-2004, literally 85% of Wikipedia articles were created since then. (July 7, 2004 was the 300 000 article mark in the English Wikipedia. We just reached 2 000 000.) Regardless, I don't really see what this has to do with the discussion at hand. Vassyana 07:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It has to do with SmokeyJoe's claim that any unreferenced article is made up. --tjstrf talk 07:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, understood. Sorry for not groking the intent of your statement. However, WP:V and WP:NOR both clearly state the only way to prove something isn't made up is to cite a reliable source, so I can understand where he's coming from. It's quite in line with central policy. Vassyana 08:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) No one is against V or OR. It's easy to satisfy those while running afoul of Note. Citing a work of fiction itself, using a corporate web site for information about the corporation, citing an official web site for non controversial information, saying obvious things about humbers, etc. These are all ways to put information into an article while following policy, while not doing nothing toward notability. - Peregrine Fisher 08:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, WP:V explicitly requires a reliance on "reliable, third-party published sources", which is exactly the core principle that notability is based upon. Vassyana 08:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I've always been curious how that bit of N got into V. - Peregrine Fisher 09:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As have I. I don't remember it being there before my recent month's break, and I've seen it used for some really wikilawyerish debate arguments as well. I should see if I can remove it. --tjstrf talk 09:21, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're both a bit mixed up. It was in WP:V well before the existence of this page.[1] Vassyana 09:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you don't know what we're talking about. We mean the completely non sequiter line that says "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."; a statement that is on the wrong page and a vast overgeneralization besides. --tjstrf talk 09:31, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you didn't bother to check the link. Under the "burden of evidence" subsection, it states: "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." Vassyana 09:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:V from October 2006: "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." It's hardly recent. --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 09:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

You're misrepresenting the issue by implying that the language is that recent. The old version I linked was from June 2006, over three months before the version you choose. Going back a full six months to April 2006, the sources section opens with a requirement for "credible, third party sources". It does however contain a less specific version of the "notability" requirement: "If an article topic has no reputable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic."[2] Checking a month later in May 2006, the policy read with the more specific version: "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic."[3] Vassyana 10:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

No, what I was doing was backing you up by pointing out that that particular principle was not a recent feature of WP:V. Hence my comment: "It's hardly recent." --Mark H Wilkinson ^{(t, c)} 10:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

((goes to get his eyes checked)) And I'm talking about other people not paying attention. Yeesh. Please accept my apologies for the hasty and ill-thought response, I was dividing my attention between too many tasks (lesson learned). Vassyana 11:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent/edit conflict) Note is that newer than 22 June 2006? The requirement of "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic" is pretty trivially met. X is a character in Y. X is a corporation, X is a pornstar, etc. A bit trickier for numbers, maybe. There's probably some reliable lists of numbers out there, I guess. Anyways, that sentence didn't cut it, so Note was made. Note didn't cut it, so the subs were made. I'm sure this discussion comes up every few weeks. La de da. - Peregrine Fisher 09:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. If anything, we need more subject-specific guidelines for notability - a single, blanket policy cannot possibly hope to cover all aspects of knowledge that the project covers. Such a proposal might have been viable in previous years before the importance of WP:N rose to its current position, but as it is today, it cannot be so easily dumbed down. MalikCarr 07:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide some examples? Which of the subguidelines contains guidance that cannot be incorporated into notability and a single dependent guidance page? Vassyana 08:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - Whether these are guidelines or essays to support a main "guideline" seems a bit of a small point. Basically the "sub" parts explain for each subject area how to achieve the laudable aims of notable subjects being covered and non-notable subjects not being covered. So as these subject area so vastly different one to another I can see no value in merging the pages, none whatsoever. I can see a need for overall supervision to ensure some consistency of interpretation. but that is not the same thing as treating all subjects as the same. One size does not fix all. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 10:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not a !vote.... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you give an example? As far as I can see from reading the different pages, there is very little difference between one and the other. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 11:59, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Conditional support: I support the guideline as long as all the sub-guidelines are "demoted" to essay status. This will allow essays to provide better guidance; if there is doubt editors need only go back to WP:N. I believe that having one guideline is better than having multiple guidelines that in essence try to say the same thing. Imagine if we start to get sub-guidelines for chemistry, physics, astronomy (planets, stars,...), books, countries, Art and culture, Geography and places, Health and fitness, History and events, Philosophy and thinking, Religion and belief systems.... Regards, G.A.S 12:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I oppose the merge proposal. Sub-guidelines like WP:NUMBER are a good thing and, if anything, we need more of them. They show that editors have reached consensus on how WP:N should be applied in specific fields. They are much more specific than WP:N, which makes them more useful. Merging everything back into WP:N would create a bloated and unuseable gudieline; demoting the sub-guidelines to essays would significantly reduce their usefulness. Gandalf61 14:47, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose. (ec) WP:NUMBER, have specifical guidelines which are (1) too long for the main Notability article, and (2) not applicable to anything else. It's possible that they should be replaced by a simpler variant of the general guidelines, but that should be discussed there, not here. Wikipedia:Notability (years) should have more specific guidelines than the present proposal, which also applies only to years, with possible variations for smaller (individual months and days) or larger (decades, centuries, millennia, eras) time intervals. Those specific notability guidelines, essays, proposals, (is there anything I've missed) which only restate the generally notability guidelines with a few clarifications could be merged here. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:58, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NUMBER is a good example of a guideline that is redundant and easily merged in to this one. WP:NUMBER's "Have professional mathematicians published papers on this topic, or chapters in a book?" is basically a restating of WP:NOTE's "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Its few clarifications could be added as footnotes or subsections here. --Dragonfiend 16:49, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely wrong. There are separate, specific, guidelines, on integers, lists of integers, and non-integers. The one on integers is not a restatement of WP:NOTE. And the "clarifications", if kept intact, are longer than WP:NOTE. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 20:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As a notability guideline, WP:NUMBER is erroneous and wayward. It is way too complicated; it contains too many questions requiring original research on the part of the wikipedian, it sometimes underemphasises the importance of sources, and other times overstates the sourcing requirement, seemingly suggesting that entire books may be appropriate. In the end, and perhaps this may surprise some of its supporters, it is way too restrictive. To have an article, a number should only need to have some interesting information contained in an independent reliable source. (A publication on a number by the discoverer of a number would not be independent). Any number in actual use, such as counting numbers, could have its own article, provided there is something to say about it beyond a dictionary definition. Of course, involved editors will decide to merge groups of numbers. WP:NUMBER could be considered a fine guideline for numbers, but it should not claim to be derived from WP:N. --SmokeyJoe 01:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I really think we should listen to what the people concerned think about this. In this case I refer to the WikiProject Mathematics folks. WP would be a lot more healthy if we listened more to the Projects. While we are discussing subject guidelines, we should also note that the WikiProjects have their guidelines, either formally or informally, about what WP:N involves in their area. Overwhelmingly I find these to be sensible and valuable. In many cases they really help in cutting through a very complex subject. For example, I am a chemist, although I take little part in articles on specific chemicals. The Project however can guide people to understand how to interpret sources and decide whether a given chemical is worth having an article, or whether it is more sensible to have an article on a group of related chemicals. A non-chemist would just be confused about this. AfD would not handle it well, but does not need to handle it as the project sorts it out in a reasonable way. --Bduke 02:35, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I think this is consistent with my proposal for WP:NUMBER to stand as a guideline on its own merits, independent of the encultured wikipedia concept of notability. See Wikipedia talk:Notability (numbers), [4]. --SmokeyJoe 04:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Changing the page title won't change that it's a guideline about what articles we accept(or don't accept) on the basis of their importance, so it will still be a notability guideline, just under another name for no purpose. --tjstrf talk 04:06, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:NUMBER, to my reading, is a reasonable guideline on numbers, but I consider it to be constrained by trying to frame itself in terms of notability. In the end, it doesn’t do this very well, and on some points it conflicts with WP:N. Your reference to “basis of importance” suggests that you do not accept the spirit of WP:N, in which the presumption of notability is based on secondary sources, or other objective evidence. --SmokeyJoe 06:55, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, my use of "basis of importance" rather than "basis of notability" is indicative that I dislike monotonous posts that use the same term repeatedly, and prefer to make my writing more interesting by introducing synonyms. (WP:N is about quantifying what is important enough for inclusion through the use of verifiable sources.) --tjstrf talk 07:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

• I support Vassyana's proposal. Returning to a unified notability guideline will counter instruction creep and ensure that interest groups cannot "hijack" the sub-guideline of their focus. There will always be enough eyes on WP:N, and the same basic rules of notability should apply to all articles. For borderline cases maybe we could instead establish some kind of notability help desk, in the vein of WP:AFC? — [ ˈaldǝˌbɛːɐ ] 18:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. How can creating a manned, bureacratic project be a good replacement for a cohesive set of clear guidelines?? The solution to poorly written sub-guidelines is to rewrite them, not to simply clear away all of the useful guidelines, some of which have grown up over years of consensus. A rewrite is currently underway at WP:FICT, other guidelines have concluded rewrites at various times in the past. If you have a problem with a specific guideline, propose a rewrite of it. If you think that a specific guideline is unnecessary, then propose its removal. However these guidelines exist for a reason, none of them are the result of some editor thinking "I'm bored. I know I'll make a new guideline" - policy just isn't made that way. The reason these documents exist is because they're important explanations of WP:N in specific circumstances. None of them are (hopefully) trying to redefine WP:N, and any that are certianly shouldn't be allowed to. Instead each provide a contextual explanation which interprets specific tenets in relation to their subject. If these guidelines are removed, their content will merely be duplicated on a hundred RFCs and a thousand AfDs. Why force people to spell out the whole argument every single time when at the moment they can simply type WP:BK or WP:ORG?? Unnecessary simplification simply necessitates duplication. Happy-melon 19:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

section break 2

I agree with Happymelon above: many of these guidelines offer helpful and useful means for determining notability in specific situations. They have been distilled and discussed over years by many editors, and represent the consensus of Wikipedia editors at large. One guideline will lead to the myriad interpretations of individual editors as they try and apply them to specific case. Not all editors are as skilled as those here in distilling and applying guidelines...most people do need things spelt out more clearly. Moreover, there will always be grey areas...hammer those out once, in a sub-guideline, not everytime a grey article is found. It is imperative that the sub-guidelined conform to the main notability guidelines, of course, and should be regularly assessed. As to some (many?) being unnecessary...then discuss each sub-guideline on a case-by-case basis. Perhaps some would benefit from improvement, merging, deleting, but let's not have a blanket 'all are evil and must be destroyed' mentality (or, conversely, 'all are precious and wonderful pieces of work, let's protect them all'). Make a list below, arrange in topics and themes, and discuss them one by one. And make a policy that anyone wanting to create a new notability guideline must discuss it centrally first. (ie here). Gwinva 23:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree also. A general guideline is certainly flexible--but it is much too flexible since in practice any such guideline can be applied to either keep or reject about any individual article--just a slight exaggeration, as based on discussions at Afd. The only hope for consistency is a little more specification. In the past, efforts at guideline revision have foundered because of their feared effect on particular types of articles--the way around it is to discuss the different types of articles specifically. Otherwise it all depends on the rhetorical skill of whoever happens to be at AfD; I think I have some ability at that art, but it would be better that it not all depend on what I can persuade people about in individual cases, but on what the community decides as rules. I would much rather have it go consistently and fairly than try to get it all my way. And the more we can remove from AfD the better able we will be to decide on the true problems. There are usually over 150 articles a day there, and that is too much to consider with any degree of attention, especially if one has any sort of an outside life. I'd like to see it down to 50. DGG (talk) 02:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I still have yet to see any argument that this merge proposal would lead to better (or even not worse) decisions regarding article deletion or editing. I think the people putting forth this proposal should try to address what problem in the current editorial process they think they are fixing, and what effect this proposal would have on the encyclopedic content of Wikipedia. Clearly this would simplify the rules under which we edit, and we can argue whether that's a good thing in the abstract or in this particular case, but the rules aren't the important part of Wikipedia compared to the articles. So what would this do to the articles? —David Eppstein 04:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I won't speak for anyone else, but my concern is that we seem to be heading to excessive compartmentalization of article inclusion standards. One of the legitimate (in my opinion) criticisms of Wikipedia is the imbalance of coverage on pop culture versus traditional encyclopedic topics. Creeping notability guidelines threaten to exacerbate that issue, with lower article inclusion standards in increasingly specialized areas. That being said, I'm prepared to consider (though not yet concede) that this proposal may be an overreaction. I see some good ideas above about reorganizing and tightening the guidelines we have. However, that would take a large amount of energy and commitment that I have yet to see emerge and don't apparently have myself.--Kubigula (talk) 04:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Howso? Anything historical is pretty much considered notable by default. The only things that really get hit hard by the rules are modern people, organizations, and indie bands.

On the more general issue, obviously we end up covering more and more specialized fields as time passes, and obviously they end up outnumbering the other ones. That's only natural; there are far more minorly important subjects to write about than there are majorly important ones. --tjstrf talk 04:51, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

When you bring up the over-representation of "pop-culture", Kubigula, you are raising a very good arguement for the establishment and retention of strong sub-guidelines. General notability guidelines do little to halt the rash of articles created by editors about their favourite TV shows (detailing every episode or minor character), gaming, comics etc etc. Discussions at WT:FICT and WP:EPISODE (for example) have attempted to put guidelines in place to halt the production of such articles and develop a way of assessing their worthiness of inclusion. Centralised discussions there are much more constructive than scattered AfD discussions regarding the exact implementation of WP:N. Let's strengthen theses sub-guidelines, not deprecate them. Gwinva 05:49, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with much of what you say - I would be in favor of strong, consistent and focused specialized guidelines, but that doesn't seem to be where we are heading. Personally, I believe there is a benefit to having subject specific notability guidance. However, the current structure is starting to sprawl and lose consistency - is there really a good reason why a porn actor should have a different article inclusion standard than a mainstream actor? I saw this proposal as a way to reign in the sprawl and centralize the issues.--Kubigula (talk) 15:21, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I also agree. Fact of the matter is that most editors do need things spelled out for them; they need specifics, not a vague generalization of what is notable. Also, as for the question why a porn actor should have different standards than a mainstream actor... I note that, at least in my view, there are now many more non-notable actors (bit players and the like) on Wikipedia then there are minor porn actors or performers. I wouldn't be adverse to making the porn actor notability guidelines into something that works for those in the performing arts. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud} 01:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Based on what I have read in the discussion so far, I strongly oppose the merge proposal. There are some notability subguidelines which need more, not less, specifics, that need substantial further discussion and where the notability standards are likely to substantially change in not too distant future. This applies, for example, to WP:PROF. At the moment, the guidelines regarding notability of scholars/scientists are fairly unclear. According to a reasonable reading of the current WP:PROF guidelines, anyone who has a tenured faculty appointment, published 30-50 papers in the refereed journals and gave 30-40 conference talks, qualifies as notable. This applies to most mid-career academics at U.S. universities, which count in the thousands. At the moment, this issue is not that crucial, since relatively few academics use wikipedia for professional purposes and regard having/not having a wikipedia entry about them as a substantial indicator of their professional standing. But that will probably change fairly soon and there are signs that it is happening already. It is clear to me that for academics futher refinement and toughening of notability standards will be necessary soon. So, as a specific example, merging WP:PROF now would be rather counter-productive. Regards, Nsk92 07:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Good points Nsk. I can see a strong case for specific guidelines where articles involve living people. --SmokeyJoe 08:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I also oppose this idea. We just went through this in the spring. Mangojuice^talk 13:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose - I find having the separate articles to be really useful to help pinpoint different types of notability. I mainly work on one type of article, but when I needed information on a Biography topic, I was able to clearly tell what was acceptable and what was not. I also think that because the articles are separate, with separate talk pages, it encourages more discussion. Denaar 02:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It is clear that Vassyana’s merge proposal is not going to happen. This is not to say that mergers on a case by case basis won’t happen, or that some notability guidelines need work to make them compatible with WP:N (or vice versa). I do not agree with deprecating guidelines to essays. If it guides, then it is entitled to be a guideline. An alternative to Vassyana’s proposal, with a similar objective, is the recognition of WP:N as policy, however, I think WP:N is not universally applicable throughout mainspace and so is incompatible with policy status. --SmokeyJoe 06:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

As this would seem to be evident, I propose that this discussion be archived. Happy-melon 08:21, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I would support archiving the discussion. Further back and forth is not going to be productive at this point. Vassyana 16:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

With the concurrence of Vassyana, the original poster, I have archived the discussion above. The section below should be used only to discuss the act of closing the discussion. If significant opposition to this closure is shown, the discussion can be reopened. Happy-melon 18:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

We don't "archive" recent discussion, and this isn't an AfD or anything of the sort. -- Ned Scott 03:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that merging all of the subguidelines into N is not practical for two reasons: (1) it would be a jumble and (2) most of what is in the sub pages is not necessary or very helpful. There is a simple elegance to the concept at N of letting third party writers demonstrate notability by writing about a subject. I said the concept is simple, but the measurement is definitely problematic. On the other hand, I just don't see much clarity or objectivity in the sub pages. If you really boil them down to the essence they are: (a) paraphrased restatements of N; (b) arbitrary examples, and (c) prescriptive edicts from the majority of participants at the page on any particular day. --Kevin Murray 19:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

SUPPORT and wholeheartedly, at that. I agree with the new rules. They are much more streamlined, concise and easy to follow than the previous ones. Looking over the archives, there is overwhelming support for changing the rules, despite the objections of some editors.

The problem, specific to Music Notability, that requires a solution is that efforts to exclude certain U.S./U.K. bands and include certain obscure/foreign-language bands, we've come up with this ridiculous list of rules that, seriously, is difficult to read through without snickering. The new list should be simple and succinct. Lawofone 13:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I have conducted a quick survey of Support/Oppose votes above. By "quick" I mean I looked only for bold text or the first sentence of unindented paragraphs. My conclusion: four votes in favour, 11 in opposition. I assume that you are simply mistaken in your "look over the archives", and are not attempting to twist the results. In fact the majority of comments on this page, including the final ones of Vassyana the original suggestor, are in opposition to an unilateral merge. It is not disputed that several of the notability subguidelines are inconsistent with WP:N and hence need to be rewritten. Attempts to this end are already underway at Fiction. However this is not a reason to deprecate such guidelines, only to adjust them to be compatible with WP:N. Happy-melon 15:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this discussion concluded? I understand Vassyana's concerns, but, as with others, feel some detail may be lost in a major merge at this time. The consensus appears to be to look again at each nobility criteria with a view to case by case merges, and rewrites. If that is the understanding, the current merge tags need to be looked at for either removal or pointing at new targets. I have now redirected the pornographic actors and academics merge tags to point to people where a localized discussion can take place. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 23:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Alternatives?

See also: § Proposal for synchronization of common content

From the above discussion it is obvious that it will not be possible to merge all of the guidelines to WP:N.

However, the fact that there is already ten guidelines is ridiculous.

This creates the possibility that double standards may (come to) exist between different areas in Wikipedia (For instance if one guideline has stricter or weaker guidelines).

Most of these subguidelines also have a very narrow scope.

Would there not be value in merging the subguidelines into the most appropriate Wikiproject or MOS category?

For instance:

• Fiction into WP:WAF;

The common content, e.g. the sections on what to do with non notable articles should be merged to WP:N and linked from the subguidelines (Although the subguidelines may still mention this in short; no guideline should give more coverage about common content than WP:N).

Comment?

Regards, G.A.S 11:47, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I am all for putting these guidelines more firmly in the WikiProjects as this gets people who know what they are talking about to decide matters. I do not think there are too many. There are too few. However they need the support of the Projects which bring people together and lead to someone who does not know the area to be be told that they do not. I think there are already Projects that are doing a fine job on getting rid of non-encyclopedic stuff. They should be encouraged. Relying just on WP:N leads to people who have no knowledge of the area just confusing matters. --Bduke 12:14, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I think this would be a problem. The editors who participate in a given WikiProject tend to have a perspective that is focused on its subject. While bringing greater knowledge, this also often leads to the assumption of greater notability for particular article subjects than the guideline or WP:NOT would justify. Already the WikiProjects are used to "rally" eidtors to AfD discussions (and not to the delete side, I assure you). We need the broader perspective that the current structure provides. UnitedStatesian 13:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you will find that the situation is not as bad as you suggest. Often the Project wants to debate the issue itself, from its own knowledge and finds the discussion at AfD ignorant or inadequate, so they effectively vote to bring it back for them to consider. For example, I closed the discussion at AfD on Spinner's End and a whole list of other articles as keep. Since then most have been merged elsewhere in a very sensible way and some merges are still under discussion. I might say I nothing about Harry Potter but that looks sensible to me. In Projects I am involved in, merges are done in large numbers that effectively delete articles as the amount merged into a broader article is often very small indeed. We do not need everything to go to AfD or even prod or speedy. --Bduke 23:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, but would it not make more sense to embed the concept of notability in the Wikiprojects? Having it separate will always lead to an "us vs them" attitude; as the rallies to AfDs shows.

Regarding having more subguidelines: What is the use of having a general guideline if it is never applicable due to the existence of a sub-guideline? Should it not be called Notability (Other) in such a case?

G.A.S 20:57, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Does notability degrade?

Please see here. I'm just curious about what is the official word and view on this. Fame certainly could be seen to degrade. For example, J. Frank Dalton was famous for claiming to be Jesse James. He died in 1951, and it's certain these days that his "fame" is somewhat non-existent. His notability, however, hasn't degraded I would think. Fame = constant recent news and coverage (Google News non-Archive link). Britney Spears has both fame and notability currently. Assuming she lives to the ripe old year of 2051, will her notability degrade over time?

Or, once "notable", is Britney's article a permanent placement, assuming that Wikipedia is around through 2051 and beyond? If she dropped completely off the map now, in 2007, would she be any less notable in 2100? Less famous, certainly--P.T. Barnum isn't famous in the sense of Britney today, but he will be eternally notable. Someone trying to AfD either of them would fail, I would hope. Just looking for some clarification on this. Thank you! • Lawrence Cohen 16:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Today's news is tomorrow's history. This is a question which has been discussed without a perfect solution. It seems the consensus is that there should be some standard which divides notability from newsworthy, but there is no fine-line defined. --Kevin Murray 16:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Would it make sense or help to simply apply the notability standards to events, as well as people? As in... someone could have a possible article at Their Name, assuming they are covered by multiple non-trivial sources. For what are they covered, though, becomes the question. If the specific events and facets of their lives are covered by multiple non-trivial sources, would that be sufficient? Perhaps such as: John Phinneas Smith was a truck driver. Not notable for that, but if 4-5 news sources all covered his truck driving, well, he's a notable (and at least for a time) famous truck driver. If he allegedly happened to rear end a small Volvo while driving, causing it to explode, but it was only covered in a lone news source (or repeated from the one--such as a Reuters story being copied all over the world), the Volvo Destruction would not be notable. However, if multiple sources covered the event/action/thing as well as the person, then the person would be notable. Would that be a good bar to set? It would certainly seem to separate the famous from the notable. • Lawrence Cohen 16:46, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Notability, in this context, is not the same thing as "fame". mike4ty4 20:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Rename the notability guideline

Why don't we just throw away the overloaded term "notability"? The primary notability criterion does not quantify notability, but instead determines how well the subject would stand up to the core Wikipedia policies — this is argued by almost every essay on the notability guideline. And it is not the same as the meaning of the word "notability" — even the primary criterion admits this: "A topic is presumed to be notable if [...]".

In my opinion, part of the reason why the notability guideline is so often misunderstood by newbies is its name. I can't count the number of times I've had to explain that the purpose of the guideline is to guarantee that included subjects could pass Wikipedia's verifiability and neutrality. And yet they still come back a couple of times saying something in the lines of "but the subject is clearly notable, why are Wikipedians saying that it's not?"

The underlying reason, as I see it, is that people take offense from Wikipedia editors doubting the "notability" of their subject, and maybe even get denial. So instead of constructively following the guideline, they ignore it and attempt to prove that the subject is notable in terms that they quantify notability — which is of course often irrelevant to verifiability/neutrality/etc. This also ties in with WP:BITE -- we should not insult potential new editors by claiming that their beloved subjects are so "un-notable" that they should be deleted from Wikipedia.

The obvious contender for the current name would be "inclusion guideline", but there could very well be more appropriate ones -- please do not form your opinion based on this alone. -- intgr [talk] 00:34, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

An excellent point worth looking into. Ideas for better names escape me now, but I'll definitely keep it in mind. This kind of reminds me of the rename for Wikipedia:Fair use. -- Ned Scott 03:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• There was an extensive discussion about renaming WP:N a few months back. An outgrowth was a project to rewrite the guideline along with the name change, but the effort failed along with the name change. See Wikipedia:Article inclusion. --Kevin Murray 05:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. Skimming through the discussion page, it seems that most of the oppose voters were objecting to the content of the proposed guideline, but considered the name change to be a positive thing. Any ideas why this was never discussed further or implemented? Did the participants just lose interest? -- intgr [talk] 18:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Ideas for why it was destined to falter?

It was a fork of WP:N. Forks are unproductive.

The term “notability” is so deeply entrenched that its use will continue regardless, and the renaming of WP:N would lead to the term reverting back to being poorly defined. --SmokeyJoe 04:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is the definition that the english language gives it. The point of a rename would be to show that we're not actually defining normal notability, but notability in the context of Wikipedia. -- Ned Scott 05:43, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Editors can implement a limited version of this already if they choose - I generally link guidelines in my PROD and AFD nominations as: Wikipedia's inclusion criteria for web content, etc. JavaTenor 16:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

However it was an interesting idea, and might be useful to pull it from the vice of rejection, rewrite it but maintaining it's original spirit, and thrust it into the fires of dispute to make a consensus form. It is a good idea. mike4ty4 20:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Notability on Wikipedia has nothing to do with the real-world definition of notability, so it would be nice if another term could be found. It may be deeply entrenched but people would probably stop using it eventually. Realistically I doubt consensus could ever be found for such a change though.P4k 07:09, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

But that does not mean it is bad to try. I'll give it a try some time. mike4ty4 20:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Article inclusion criteria or simply Wikipedia:Article inclusion. I like the extra word "criteria" though, it sort of nails down what the guideline is trying to do. The title tells you immediately what the content of the guideline is going to be about. It is also very clear, especially to newbies, why articles have been nominated for AfD (for failing to meet the "article inclusion criteria". What could be clearer than that?). Zunaid©® 11:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

With a sense of cynicism, I think it is a bad idea that will only fork the concept. You might talk about “article inclusion” and others will continue with notability. I think we have done well-enough to have tamed the concept of “notability”, which is entrenched in the culture, deletion policy and CSD. As for AfD, I, in agreement with User:Uncle G/On notability, believe that “not notable”, or even “fails WP:N” should not be used as reasons for deletion. Reasons should be more specific. Eg. “No secondary sources from reputable sources exist”; “No secondary sources are independent of the subject”; “All sources are primary; no evidence of notability, from secondary sources or otherwise, the article is entirely original research”. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 12:38, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

In the same way as "fails WP:N" is a poor deletion reason, so too will be "fails WP:AIC". One always has to state reasons why an article fails the criteria. This will not change the status quo. It is simply a rename which brings the title in line with what the guideline actually is. The content of the guideline has nothing to do with notability (in terms of the dictionary definition), it is de facto a set of article inclusion (and exclusion) criteria. Renaming it simply makes that more obvious, and if it corrects the mistaken perception of what this guideline is and makes it easier for newbies, we should make the change. Zunaid©® 14:24, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for synchronization of common content

See also: § Alternatives?

I had a look at the different notability guidelines, and here is the results:

Description	General	Academics	Books	Fiction	Films	Music	Numbers	Organizations and companies	People	Pornographic actors	Web content	Sports	Years	Religious figures
Criteria	significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent	Multiple criteria (And)	Multiple criteria (Or)	contain substantial real-world content from reliable primary and secondary sources	Same as general criteria, with guidance	Multiple criteria (Or)	Multiple criteria (And)	Same as general criteria	Multiple criteria (Or)	Multiple criteria (Or)	Multiple criteria (Or)	Multiple criteria (Or)	Multiple criteria (And)	Multiple criteria (Or)
Articles not satisfying the notability guideline	Ask Tag Merge Speedy delete Prod AfD	—	—	Keep Merge Transwiki+guidance Delete	—	—	—	—	Improve Ask Tag Merge Speedy delete AfD	—	—	—	—	—
Examples	Notes	Section	—	Section	—	—	Section	Notes	—	—	Notes	—	—	—
Caveats	—	Yes - Alternative to article	Yes - Derivative articles	Yes - Derivative articles	—	—	—	Yes - Derivative articles	—	—	—	—	—	—
Other	Objective evidence Not temporary Do not directly limit article content	—	Resources	Relocating non-notable fictional material Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#PLOT	Resources	Resources	Rationale	advertising and promotion Recommendations	—	Rationale	—	—	—	—

Recommendations for synchronization of common content

"Articles not satisfying the notability guideline"

These sections should be merged into the main notability guideline and removed from the specific guidelines, as the recommendations are equally valid across all article classes.

"Criteria"

It should be considered to add these criteria to the WikiProjects' own guidelines.

"Other"

Guidelines should provide rationales as to why the general guideline is considered inadequate.

"Caveats"

Most of the caveats are a recommendation not to create articles for non-notable topics, but to create them as a section or subsection of another article. It should be considered to merge this specific concept to the main guideline and remove it from the specific guidelines.

If it should happen that a guideline has no more unique content, it should be deprecated.

Regards, G.A.S 20:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about the first (I'll have to think about it more), but I disagree with the last. I think these caveats about what to merge into other articles can be very specific and detailed. They should be part of the the WikiProjects' own guidelines, or still in specific guidelines. It is the detail that is most helpful. Examples are "material about sports team that play at the 13th level should be merged into articles on the league they play in" and "material about Scout Troops should be merged in articles about Scouting in the State or County". We can never put all these things into the main guideline and they are really useful. --Bduke 23:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Bduke, what do you think of my assessment about Wikipedia:Notability (numbers), specifically that WP:NUMBER is neither an elaboration nor derived from WP:N, that it is actually condensed from WP:NUM, and that the wikiproject would actually be better able to manage their subject specific guideline by having it stand on its own merits rather than keeping it as a notability sub-guideline? --SmokeyJoe 00:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, a late response. One learns something everyday. I did not know that WP:NUMBER existed. I thought that the Maths WP would sort of oversee this problem about numbers. I do agree with you. I think specific criteria looked after by a WP is better than a free standing guideline that might not be looked after by anyone. --Bduke 00:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Content should not be lost; unique content should be added to the WikiProjects' own guidelines. Common content should be merged to the main guideline to avoid redundancy. G.A.S 06:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)/proposed-9-9-07#Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines also have content worth merging into the main guideline. The rewrite also have a caveat section (Alternatives to in-universe sub-articles). Would it be possible to generalise the section for inclusion into this guideline? G.A.S 17:57, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with the notion, implicit in the wording unique content should be added to the WikiProjects' own guidelines, that specifications, caveats, limits, or other guideline-like wording should me moved from a formal guideline to a WikiProject. WikiProjects don't own a group of articles (nor, for that matter, are there even WikiProjects that align one-to-one for all of the notability guidelines); WikiProjects go inactive all the time; and virtually no one other than project members keeps track of what goes on in WikiProjects.

The table is nicely done; I think it illustrates well that there should be some (roughly) standard advice in each guideline as to what to do with articles not meeting that specific guideline. Other than that, I fail to see the necessity to do any consolidation or standardization, since it's unclear exactly what known, existing problem would be solved by such consolidation. In other words, what exactly is broken? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 18:28, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

No problem then — but some standardization might be useful in the individual guidelines. I still believe that we should merge "Articles not satisfying the notability guideline" and (the standard) "Caveats" into the main guideline — I believe that it makes sense to have that advice in a central location.

I still believe that it makes sense to have rationales in the sub-guidelines to help the editors understand why a separate guideline is necessary; otherwise we are going to end up with hundreds of similar notability guidelines where the general guideline would have suffice.

Regards, G.A.S 21:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

(Arbitrary reset of indent)

Firstly, can I give a big congrats to G.A.S for his brilliant summary table! Now, what most concerns me is the issue of Criteria. There has been discussion on here lately about the problem of notability sub-pages being less restrictive than WP:N (see here). As shown in the table above, the WP:N criteria is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent". This minimum requirement is essential to meet the requirements of verifiability. But all the notability sub-pages listed as having a criteria of "Multiple criteria (Or)" are less restrictive than this, and instead suggest alternative criteria that aren't based on reliable secondary sources. These criteria are therefore less restrictive than WP:N, and can't be reconciled with the policy of verifiability.

I therefore propose that these criteria sections be changed so that they require the general criteria of WP:N to be met first. The purpose of the notability sub-pages would therefore be to add special criteria more restrictive than WP:N, but not less restrictive.

—gorgan_almighty 16:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 18:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

gorgan_almighty — Thanks for the compliment, that table took quite a while. I must actually agree with you, I believe this will go a long way in getting the guidelines into sync. This could be achieved by editing the main guideline as follow:

A subject is presumed to be sufficiently notable if it meets the general notability guideline below, orand if it meets an accepted subject specific standard listed in the table to the right (if applicable).

and accordingly updating the sub-guidelines to read that the subguidelines' current criteria and WP:N's criteria must be met.

This may actually also go a way in preventing more subguidelines to be created (if they were only going to repeat WP:N). G.A.S 18:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

• I completely agree with the courses of action you sugest. I think we should start making steps to implement them. —gorgan_almighty 10:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, we had a long struggle over this guideline earlier this year that resulted in the compromise language that's here now. My reading of the prior conversations and the merge discussion above and on some of the other notability guidelines is that there is not a consensus for trying to make the subject specific guidelines secondary to WP:N.

I also have to disagree with Gorgan's point above - "These criteria are therefore less restrictive than WP:N, and can't be reconciled with the policy of verifiability". Verifiability is very different from WP:Notability. Information can be verified by a single source or by multiple minor references without meeting WP:N. WP:N demands much more than verfiability.--Kubigula (talk) 19:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the term notability is somewhat confusing in this instance. WP:N defines notability in terms of verifiability, not importance. There is very broad acceptance among editors that WP:N defines the minimum level of verifiability required to keep an article on a particular subject. That minimum level of verifiability is "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent". WP:N therefore does not demand more than verifiability, it gives guidance on specific verifiability criteria. —gorgan_almighty 10:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I've been giving this issue more thought, and I realised that what we really need is a guideline governing the creation of notability guidelines. I have therefore created a guideline proposal at Wikipedia:Notability sub-pages, and I would be grateful for any input people can provide. Please post comments, etc, on the proposal's talk page. —gorgan_almighty 14:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Page hits

Forgive me if this notion has discussed before. But here is something that I was wondering: often, when articles are proposed for deletion, the protagonist will declare that their subject is "not notable". I wondered if wikipedia has any facility not recording hits/views of articles. Such a system might give some sort of vaguely usuable benchmark of how many people were looking up a particular topic... in which case this may add weight to its claim of 'notability'? Thoughts...?--feline1 15:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki contains the feature to count page hits, although it seems to be disabled on Wikipedia for obvious performance reasons -- and the fact that such a thing isn't really that useful. However, page hits aren't necessarily an indicator of anything, as these can easily be skewed by a few people who can easily force-reload the page, and thus such a system would easily be abused. Also, an "addict" to the page can score as much as, say, five to ten times the hits a "passerby" would. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud} 18:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

What about counting searches for a particular phrase on the wikipedia "Search" box?--feline1 16:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, Mediawiki doesn't have the capability of search counting. Plus... popular ≠ notable. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud} 18:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, if lots of people have been looking something up in wikipedia, cos they want to find out about it: surely even pedantic wikilawyer would have conceed that virtually a definition of notability? Or am I wrong?--feline1 18:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

People will do a search based on what interests them at the time, so in that respect such results would be biased. Doing a search "cos they want to find about it" doesn't necessary mean that the subject of their search is worthy of notice. In fact, sadly, with your idea, we run into the exact same problems as the "Google test", which will always be inherently biased towards current events, regardless of whether or not they will be notable in the future. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud} 21:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki does have something somewhat like that, used by m:WikiCharts. But I don't think it would help much, similarly to the Wikipedia:Google_test#Notability. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a separate tool that's not part of the basic MediaWiki software. Actually, I wasn't aware of it until you mentioned it. :-) Of course, it runs into the problem of the "Google test" and shouldn't be used for notability, although there are other uses for these results beyond that. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr. ^{Think out loud} 21:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

When to use the Notability tag and when the Refimprove tag

When an article has:

• a list of publications (listed as further reading) that establish the subject's notablity
• but no references inside the article
• ... like most STUB and START articles

Should an editor in that case use Refimprove tag and not a Notability tag? I am arguing about this around the Management cybernetics article. I strongly oppose to the use of a Notability tag, because the subject itselve is proven notable. For outsiders, the readers, that seems like a wrong signal? So what to do? - Mdd 00:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Presumption

A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

The highlighted expression isn't explained (although all the others are), and probably should be. It has led to misinterpretation in some cases.

Proposed explanation + footnote:

"Presumed" means a rebuttable presumption. Suitable coverage in reliable sources suggests that the subject is notable, however many subjects with such coverage may still be non-notable - they fail WP:NOT, or the coverage does not actually speak to notability when examined.[1] [1] For example, adverts, announcements, minor news stories, and coverage with low levels of discrimination, are all examples of matters that may not be notable for the purposes of article creation, despite the existence of reliable sources. For examples of other circumstances also agreed by consensus to override this presumption, see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.

Would something like this be okay to add? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 11:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

That sounds entirely appropriate to me. It would certainly go a long way towards getting rid of 'Read it on Google News/in my school newspaper/on my local radio station' 0:) ~ Riana ⁂ 11:54, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I like that very much. I would suggest changing "suitable" to "significant" in the proposed language. Suitable implies the opposite of what the sentence resolves to, whereas significant would refer to and echo the standard already in place for the page (as in the past, I think "substantive" would be a more appropriate word, but that conversation appears dead).--Fuhghettaboutit 12:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

That looks very good to me. We have had far too many articles recently at AfD where the fact that they're sourced is taken to mean that they're automatically notable. ELIMINATORJR 13:23, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Much better than the old version. ((1 == 2) ? (('Stop') : ('Go')) 13:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The shortcut must be expanded. Other than that, it looks good. Happy‑melon 13:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I am for it as well. I think it strikes exactly the right tone as to what a presumption means. However, I also agree with Fughettaboutit that "significant" (or "substantive") should be used instead of "suitable". Good suggestion!--Kubigula (talk) 21:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

---

Definition added. Minor variations for clarity:

1. I have BOLDed the key words, for ease of reading the list.
2. I have edited to "substantive" as two editors have suggested (in preference to "significant" here)
3. Split 2nd sentence into two, starting a new sentence at "However".
4. Add full policy name (per discussion).
5. Final sentence changed from

"Satisfying this presumption of notability indicates a particular topic is worthy of notice, and may be included in the encyclopedia as a stand-alone article"

to

"A topic for which this criterion is deemed to have been met by consensus, is usually worthy of notice, and satisfies one of the criteria for a stand-alone article in the encyclopedia."

(Intention is clarity again, mostly again regarding "presumption", and highlighting that WP:N is only one of several criteria for an article to be included.)

Afterthought:

If a source discriminates poorly or not at all, it will be unable to reliably evidence that topics it covers are not "indiscriminate information" (as required by WP:NOT).

Add this to WP:NOT? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 23:53, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it is better not to add it to WP:NOT — I believe "As explained in the policy introduction, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." already says the same. There is no need to over complicate WP:NOT. G.A.S 11:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Definition required?

Hi.

I saw this:

" "Presumed" means a rebuttable presumption. Substantive coverage in reliable sources suggests that the subject is notable. However, many subjects with such coverage may still be non-notable – they fail What Wikipedia is not, or the coverage does not actually speak to notability when examined."

But how is coverage that "speaks to notability" defined, anyway? I do not see a definition. This only serves to make the notability thing a subjective free-for-all where someone can claim based on their own opinion, "yeah that speaks to notability", "nah it doesn't", and then you get "I like it" and "I hate it" type arguments which pretty much defeat the whole point of notability/inclusion criteria anyway. This needs more objectivity and more definitions. What does that statement highlighted above even mean? Does it mean the source has to say "blah blah blah is a notable blah blah blah" right there like that? Does it mean that not only is the source detailed, but very detailed? What does it mean? See, you need to have that otherwise the "guideline" is useless -- anyone could claim XXXXX is notable or not notable because they think the sources say that. mike4ty4 20:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

My opinion: Coverage that speaks to notability is any independent secondary coverage. Independent secondary coverage shows that someone else has already considered the subject sufficiently notable to write about it. There are then more questions that can be debated. For example:

• Is the secondary coverage sufficiently substantitive/substantial/significant/deep/non-trivial?
• Is the source really secondary (Is there commentary/analysis, and it is not a mere report of facts)?
• Is the source really independent?

These three questions lead to a much healthier debate, focused on the sources and not on opinion about the meaning of notability. --SmokeyJoe 22:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

These points are helpful, but I have problems with the use of the term "secondary". People use the term as if it is quite clear, yet it is not. Is a an article in a peer review scientific journal secondary or primary? I have seen two views: (1) Yes, it is secondary and the laboratory notebook is primary, and (2) it is primary and a review article commenting on it is the secondary source. I also have problems with the notion that the notability guideline is objective. I think the three points by SmokeyJoe show that answering them is complex and therefore in part subjective. --Bduke 22:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I’m glad you consider my points helpful, and I agree that they are not a simple solution. I think they are an appropriate and useful deconstruction of the nebulous question “is it notable”.

There is indeed occassional confusion regarding “secondary”. That word by itself has a hopelessly large number of uses. The two words “secondary source” must be used inseparably. In the humanities, especially history, the term “secondary source” is well-defined, well-accepted and well-used. Consider the results of a google search on “secondary source”. The mainspace entry secondary source and the section in Wikipedia:No Original Research are also in good agreement.

The term "secondary source" is not usually used in the sciences. In the sciences, the word “secondary” is frequently used, but not in combination with “source”.

I accept the point that there may exist ways to demonstrate notability without reference to independent secondary sources, and I am happy with the current text that explicitly opens this door.

I also am uncomfortable with assertions of objectivity. I think it is not true, and even if it were true, it is not helpful. I don’t know that it actually hurts, but it doesn’t help. I believe the WP:N would be better to make no assertion regarding objectivity or subjectivity. --SmokeyJoe 12:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that makes a lot of sense, but in any event, I am going to have to leave the discussion with you. I fly to London from Melbourne tomorrow and I will have little time to get involved with these discussions for the next three weeks. --Bduke 13:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

notability in a fictional content

as noted in WP:PAPER, wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and should not be as restricted in content as a paper encyclopedia would be. to that end, i think the notability criterion for fictional content should be different then the notability criterion for current events. for example, Captain Picard is not going to be mentioned too often on cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, or whatever, yet because he is notable within the context of Star Trek, he should have an article.

i'm aware that this contradicts WP:NOTINHERITED, but i do not agree with WP:NOTINHERITED. of course, there should obviously be a limit to this, as well. captain picard's notability is inherited. anything that would inherit from something else that's inherited should not have a wikipedia article and thus captain picards heart doesn't qualify even though he, himself, does.

thoughts? comments? if people agree, could maybe WP:N be amended to make this clearer? 209.209.214.5 23:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Please do not confuse "Not paper" with "Free range to write about whatever you want". "Not paper" means it isn't restricted by space, like a paper encyclopedia is, not that it isn't restricted by content. Please see WP:INDISCRIMINATE.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 00:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

maybe you should go back and reread what i wrote. what i proposed does allow discrimination. i even gave an example of an article that wouldn't be allowed, but hey - if you want to engage in red herrings by introducing unrelated minutia into the fray, don't let me stop you 209.209.214.5 02:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Your example of Captain Picard is moot. You are assuming that CNN and BBC are the only reliable sources that establish notability, they are not. Picard is not notable simply for being a captain of the Enterprise. Though the article may not show it, I'd be willing to bet that there is significant coverage outside the main source for that character.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 02:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

oh - that's right - i forgot New York Times, Washington Post, ABC and NBC. let me quote from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Fan translation. "If you can find a BBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, NBC or any other important coverage, then it may be worth a note. If not a single reliable site find the information newsworthy, nor we." 209.209.214.5 04:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Again, there are more reliable sources than simply the ones you listed. Just because some editor listed those sources as ones people should look for, does not mean those are the only ones. I believe the beginning of that quote was him/her discussing how RPGamer wasn't considered reliable. So, as said, if there are reliable secondary sources covering the topic, then you're all set. I'm sure Picard has plenty of reliable secondary sources out there--I see at least 3 secondary sources already on his page.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 04:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Rather than complain that there aren't any sources like The New York Times, etc. for the Captain Picard article, you could just go to your local library and find that on page 22C of the October 5, 1987 New York Times it reads "The new captain is Jean-Luc Picard, and he is played by the fine British actor Patrick Stewart, formerly of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Among the captain's more endearing quirks: he doesn't feel comfortable with children. This is significant because the new Enterprise travels with a small city of families ..." etc. --Dragonfiend 05:03, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Not to quibble too much, but to me, that's a very weak secondary source: sure, it's written after Encounter at Farpoint, but that really doesn't establish Picard's notability in the real-world; it helps to support a brief characterization of Picard in a larger Characters on Star Trek: the Next Generation article or within the ST:TNG article, but not Picard alone Stating that Patrick Stewart is the actor is not sufficient. That's not to say there aren't notable sources for Picard, nor that the NY Times article couldn't be used in such, but notability should be a stronger support. In my opinion, of course... --Masem 05:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the point was that with what appears to be very little effort, Dragonfiend was able to find a reference by simply looking for at his local library. Thus, who knows what else is out there, with a little bit of work. -- Ned Scott 06:00, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

i think you overstate the ease with which such a task can be accomplished. try a google search for picard. all i see are fan sites 209.209.214.5 13:09, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

a better search. Try Google news search for references from the popular press, and Google scholar for references from scholarly publications, as well as or instead of the usual Google web search. And sometimes a more specific search string helps. —David Eppstein 15:10, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

thanks for the tip! what about for stuff like DNA Resequencer, though? it seems like the press is more prone to discussing characters and the actors who play them then they are to discuss fictional items. i did a google news search for dna resequencer and didn't get any results, yet i whole heartedly think that it deleting it would be wrong because, as explained in the article, it is, within the context of the stargate universe, notable. 209.209.214.5 15:59, 27 September 2007 (UTC)