Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism

Primary sources

Perhaps this has been brought up above, but I'd like a direct explanation from those who support WP:N as "policy".

In reading over Wikipedia:No original research#Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, it would seem that WP:N is actually contrary to extant policy.

As long as the rather clear rules on synthesis, etc. are followed, primary sources are quite allowable. As they are in extant encyclopedias. Which is as they should be.

So please, explain how WP:N allows for this policy, and isn't in contradiction to it? - jc37 05:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. WP:N doesn't disallow the use of primary sources. It simply insists that they are not sufficient to write an article on a topic. I would also contest your claims that primary sources are used in encyclopedias at levels anywhere close to their use (cited or not) in wikipedia. Protonk (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

So your concern is the quantity of articles? Or the quantity of use of such sources, on average, in a single article?

Also:

"An encyclopedia (or encyclopædia) is a comprehensive written compendium that contains information on either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge."

Do you disagree with that definition of an encyclopedia? - jc37 07:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree or disagree with it, but that definition is far to broad to provide any useful guidance. As for your question, I am concerned with the quality of articles and the distribution of coverage. WP:N helps ensure (in theory) that each article has several second party sources with which to build it. If we follow WP:N religiously, we lose out a bit in the distribution of coverage on certain subjects. Hence this RFC is seeking to find out if we can broaden that coverage distribution without losing the quality expectations. Protonk (talk) 15:28, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

"I don't agree or disagree with it, but that definition is far to broad to provide any useful guidance." - This is where I point you to where I quoted that from: Encyclopedia. That's Wikipedia's definition of an encyclopedia.

Other than that, your response looks fairly well-intended. Though I wonder if WP:N is even necessary for attining the goal of an encyclopedia.

It seems to me that all that's really being attempted is to get a group of editors to agree on what the dividing line is between "indiscriminate information", and "information".

And I'm not sure that WP:N is the way to go with that.

Indeed, as I said above, it would seem to contradict our mission statement, and our policies on sourcing. - jc37 23:39, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The policy you link accords with notability quite well, contrary to your assertions. It quite clearly states that "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." That seems to line with notability's GNG not only without contradiction, but in harmony. Vassyana (talk) 02:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

That's not all that is said. Other sources are quite allowable under certain circumstamces. (I've been trying to avoid pasting the section here, but I suppose I can...) - jc37 08:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

PSTS indicates that articles should principally rely on secondary sources. Verifiability tell us that topics without third party sources should not have an article. Notability is coherent with these points. Notability does not prohibit or preclude the use of primary sources. You're inferring a contradiction where one does not exist. Vassyana (talk) 09:16, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't care if that is wikipedia's definition of an encyclopedia. The reason I said what I said is that sentence is broad enough to be pressed onto service to almost any content cause. It also has nothing to do with the nuts and bolts of running an encyclopedia. Protonk (talk) 03:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't care... Nothing to do with...

Let's clear up somethinmg. The number one rule here is that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". All other rules, policies, and guidelines stem from that. Period. I'd be rather shocked if anyone in this discussion suggested otherwise.

Now you may have a different interpretation of what an encyclopedia should be. But that doesn't mean that that's the only interpretation, or even the best interpretation (or even an accurate interpretation, considering you seem to disagree with the definition itself). - jc37 08:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I am being clear. It is true that the second global policy is WP:NOT. What I am saying is that appealing to the definition of an encyclopedia is so broad as to be meaningless. I could just as easily say "wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so we can't carry sound files" "wikipedia is an encyclopedia so we can't reference primary works" "wikipedia is an encyclopedia so we should just cover what we cover now" as I could argue your point. There is no direct connection between wikipedia being an encyclopedia and the discussion you wish to have. If you think WP:N contradicts WP:OR (it doesn't), then that's fine. But mentioning the definition of an encyclopedia doesn't advance the discussion at all. Protonk (talk) 17:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the contradiction you're talking about. WP:N doesn't say that "primary sources aren't allowed". Just that a topic needs at least *some* secondary coverage to merit inclusion. No smoke, no fire, no problem. Randomran (talk) 14:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia, like all encyclopedias, has editorial standards of inclusion, drawing a distinction between "information" and "knowledge". WP:N is the practical implementation of general statements of principle such as "Wikipedia is not indiscriminate". - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 16:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Ok, you all are simply not "on the same page", and just "banging the drum" for WP:N, without (apparently) understanding what I'm asking.

WP:OR (bolding mine):

• Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:
  • only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
  • make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source.

Now that would seem to be in direct conflict with WP:N (replaced ref tags with parentheses):

• "Sources," (Including but not limited to newspapers, books and e-books, magazines, television and radio documentaries, reports by government agencies, scientific journals, etc. In the absence of multiple sources, it must be possible to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view, is credible and provides sufficient detail for a comprehensive article.) defined on Wikipedia as secondary sources, provide the most objective evidence of notability. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally preferred. (Lack of multiple sources suggests that the topic may be more suitable for inclusion in an article on a broader topic. Mere republications of a single source or news wire service do not always constitute multiple works. Several journals simultaneously publishing articles in the same geographic region about an occurrence, does not always constitute multiple works, especially when the authors are relying on the same sources, and merely restating the same information. Specifically, several journals publishing the same article within the same geographic region from a news wire service is not a multiplicity of works.)

And I love the fact that WP:N links to the section I quoted, but calls that link "secondary sources".

I see a conflict between this guideline and the policy at WP:OR.

Yes, secondary sources are required for: "analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims". But that doesn't mean that secondary sources are the only reliable sources, and definitely doesn't mean that other sources are not allowed.

So please (asking again), explain to me how the WP:N, isn't contrary to WP:OR (which it links to!), and further, how you may feel that this is correct, and thus that you feel that WP:N should be policy. - jc37 19:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Nobody is claiming that primary sources are not allowed. People are merely claiming that we cannot have analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims without secondary sources, and that articles completely lacking in analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims are not useful. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

If I can show that they are useful, would you change your opinion of notability? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No, because nearly every sort of article (e.g. plot summaries, directories, raw data) that is completely lacking in analytic etc. claims is called out in WP:NOT. When I say "not useful," I do not mean "completely devoid of worth," I mean "inappropriate for this project." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

If "Nobody is claiming that primary sources are not allowed.", then WP:N should be clear on that, rather than suggesting that secondary sources are the only sources allowed. (And honestly, look at the comments above my last one. In reading the comments, do you think that every one of the commenters agree with what you just said? I'm not asking if they do, I'm asking if it appears to you that they do. Be wary of indefinite pronouns like "nobody".) - jc37 08:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:N doesn't disallow primary sources. It just says that their use is not sufficient to build an article with. That is a pretty big difference. WP:OR and WP:V are content guidelines and so can "allow" or disallow sources. WP:N cannot and does not. And I'll state for the record that I agree with what AMIB has said. Protonk (talk) 03:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

(Note that the MiB's statements above generally don't apply to lists, since they can be purely factual in nature and still useful.) --erachima talk 07:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The composition and criteria of lists still need some sort of referenced basis, or we get idiosyncratic non-topic lists. (I think I mentioned "List of three-legged chairs in popular culture" above.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Primary sources can be used to fill in the gaps. But according to WP:V, if no reliable third-party sources can be found, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it. WP:N starts from that basic point. Randomran (talk) 04:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

• Don't forget WP:NOR also states Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. I tend to agree with AMiB's statements, we have allowed exceptions where articles can be based on primary source, Portal:Current events used to be the example, but they are becoming rarer and rarer. I don't see a conflict between WP:N and WP:OR, given that WP:OR contains the statement I quoted. If Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources, I think it therefore follows that an article needs to contain at least one secondary source, which I think is what WP:N calls for. I don't understand the point you are making, Jc. You seem to be stating that WP:N does not allow primary sources to be used on Wikipedia. That isn't the case. WP:N does not allow an article to be written using only primary source. You seem to be misreading the guidance quite severely. The guidance is not defining all sources as being secondary, but only defining the sources contained in the "notability clause" as being secondary. That's why the link is to the section but piped as secondary. Could probably be solved by better tweaking the notability clause to insert secondary. This used to be the point the word independent made, but this is what happens when you allow guideline writing by committee, you get a dog's dinner. The point the guidance seeks to make is that if you haven't got a secondary source to summarise, you haven't got the basis of an article. Hiding T 14:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

  "WP:N does not allow an article to be written using only primary source." - And that's a problem. As noted in a discussion further down the page, it's actually possible to create an article using only primary sources. And as you say, WP:N disallows even that possibility. I think that that's contradictory from our mission statement. Or to be clearer, something can be NPOV, verifiably come from a reliable primary source, and also not be trivia. (Though I suppose how one defines "trivia" is purely subjective.) These things are not mutually exclusive. And AFAIK they are not disallowed. And while AfD is rife with deletion (and inclusion), such articles themselves are consistantly, constantly created. (And since in most cases policy pages are merely codified common practice...)

  But even the above wasn't entirely the "point I was making". My read of WP:N is that primary sources aren't even considered when determining whether a page should be "kept".

  Let's take the example of "List of fictional police officers" (or some such name). So I find some source which notes that police officers are something notable. Then I use primary sources to identify those who are clearly police officers.

  Did I really need to duplicate the same sources that one finds at "police officer" (or whatever the page title is)? Or can I not simply link to that article, and have this list built entirely from primary sources?

  That's just one of many examples where "notability is not inherited" should at least be clarified. Articles which intersect with the main topic may indeed inherit their notability from the main topic. In this case, the intersection between fictional character and police officer.

  There's no WP:OR involved. So besides those who claim "cruft" and IDON'TLIKEIT, I don't see anything in policy that prevent this or other similar articles. (That example was off the top of my head. I'm sure I could come up with others if you'd like. Various occupations in fiction, for example.) - jc37 02:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

But then you're not reading the part of WP:OR that says "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources" and WP:V that says "if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Your issue is now much much bigger than WP:N. These are core policies that all work in harmony. Writing an article entirely from primary sources is a violation of at least three different policies and guidelines. Randomran (talk) 02:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Sports

Is there a quick option or place to vote for the status quo to remain in effect under WP:Athlete as there is alot of reading, around the subject reading and thought involved. Fronsdorf (talk) 13:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:Athlete represents raw madness:

Every single retired or active professional player of any sport in any country is notable.

How can sensible sport fans agree with that? This SNG is an aberration that mass-produces thousands upon thousands of articles about non-notable players. On top of that WP:Athlete created a backlog of 100,000+ athletes that are entitled to an article and that backlog will never stop growing.

Worst of all is the lack of quality and there is no commitment to raise it. Tens of thousands of low quality, rarely edited perma-stubs that nobody but die-hard fans care polluting Wikipedia for no reason other than vanity. EconomistBR 03:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

We have added other questions after the RfC has begun. We could add this, although I'm neutral on the issue. There may be a second RfC similar to this to further delve into the issues. It might be appropriate there, I don't know. This may be a good time to ask about WP:ATHLETE. Who knows if we'll be allowed another watchlist notification, and it is one of the more contentious NOTE issues. I'd like to know what Gavin, KWW, Masem, DGG, Phil Sandifer, etc. thinks about this though, since this is kind of their baby (I know no one owns this). Personally, I support ATHLETE because it is one of the most inclusive guidelines, and there are a rediculous number of sources for athletes from the modern era. On the other hand, it's contentious. Why not check its temperature. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• I agree with EconomistBR that WP:BIO#Athlete is not based on any sensible reasoning, and it is an example of where an SNG has become an editorial "walled garden" in which notability is assumed to be inherited/presumed/acknowledged without exception, even though there are many examples of articles about atheletes that have no sources at all, and this and this is where presumed notability breaks down. If you have no evidence of notability, what is there to fall back on? Simply the opinion or one editor over another. The net effect of presuming that a topic is notable in the absence of reliable secondary sources is the burden of evidence is shifted from the editor who creates an article to everybody (and nobody) else. It has also given rise to the creation of thousands of articles which fail Wikipedia content guidelines, and therefore are not encyclopedic at all. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
• If you don't know what I think of this by now, Peregrine, I must have not been explaining things correctly. It's a grotesque travesty of a guideline. SNGs should be documenting exclusions: people and things that, despite meeting the GNG, are too trivial to get an article. This guideline attempts to subvert WP:N by declaring an entire class of people inherently notable.Kww (talk) 13:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• I meant you and the others should be asked about adding another question to this RfC, not whether you agreed with ATHLETE. I know where you stand. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"most inclusive guidelines"?!! Wikipedia is buckling under the weight of 2.5 million articles, that have to be watched, expanded and updated. Quality is not going up, already we have articles that are only visited by bots. EconomistBR 16:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Is there a class of articles that pass WP:N, pass WP:NOT and other policies, but still should be excluded for some reason? Fletcher (talk) 22:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Many local bands pass WP:N while failing WP:MUSIC. It's easy for a local band to get nice writeups in local entertainment columns, which constitutes a direct and detailed examination in multiple third-party sources. If you don't allow SNGs to function as an exclusion, in they go.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Kww (talk • contribs) time, 2008-09-29

• I don't see the basis for discriminating against the local. Of course, the "local entertainment column" must meet the criteria for reliable sources. Likewise, WP:NOTDIR already forbids articles that are just catalogs of where and when a band plays. So I'm not seeing the need for exclusionary SNGs; and in particular, WP:MUSIC does not even define "local" or in any way preclude local bands from having articles, provided "[the band] has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent from the musician/ensemble itself and reliable." Fletcher (talk) 03:24, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I've successfully AfDed about a hundred vanity indie-band articles, of which about 50 would pass "local press" criteria. Trust me, as it stands right now, getting your band written up in the local newspaper's entertainment guide is NOT going to satisfy WP:N in the eyes of most editors. Why? If your band has only ever received press in Minnesota, all the editors from the rest of the world are going to vote delete, as your band is demonstrably non-notable to the rest of the world. So, honestly, deleting WP:MUSIC and reverting to WP:N is not going to help you. Most editors don't like to "discriminate against the local" - but that usually means refusing to discriminate against a notable Estonian band that's also known in Latvia and Finland: NOT refusing to discriminate against a band that's only heard of in Oneonta NY. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Lookind at your AfD history I don't find any that were deleted even though someone showed they were notable on a local level. If your AfDing articles that you know could have their notability establihsed, even on a local level, you should rethink the articles your AfDing. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:40, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I won't, because on a general level, I disagree with the idea that a band that plays clubs in e.g. the US northwest and has had some local press counts as "notable". And those, I've successfully gotten deleted. As an aside, it usually turns out that such articles are added to Wikipedia by the bands themselves - and that sort of spamming really steams me. Call me old-fashioned. (talk) 20:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I'd be curious to see some examples. - Peregrine Fisher (talk)

• Examples of bandspam, you mean? Look thru the "Uncategorized from (last month)" indie-band articles for 15 minutes and you'll find a couple. Unless the Wikipedia editor community has become way more watchful in the past year.... AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

(contribs) 20:35, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• WP:N requires significant coverage in reliable sources, so if the band has just one source in the local paper, it's going to fail WP:N not because it's local but because it lacks significant coverage. Don't forget the second sentence of WP:N points out notability is not to be confused with fame or importance. If a band has significant coverage in reliable sources, I don't see any reason to object to an article about it, just because the sources are not national or international media. That would seem to imply we, the anonymous editors of Wikipedia, are judging who is famous or popular enough to be in our encyclopedia, which I take it is not the intention of WP:N. --Fletcher (talk) 02:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• But, to a certain extent we have to. E.g. if you have a band that's "popular in Wisconsin", meaning they've gotten some WP:RS press in Wisconsin, but no national press, that's equivalent to a band having received press in Espoo, Finland but not Helsinki. The latter band would never manage to get an article in en.wikipedia; if we allow the American equivalent of a local band coverage, that means we're giving undue weight to American indie-bands. We're actually supposed to avoid that. "Why a band from Wisconsin and not a band from Espoo" might not be an acceptable AfD argument, but it's still one that most editors tend to agree with, it seems. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 19:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• If the band from Espoo, Finland has coverage in reliable sources, I don't see why people would want to deny it an article. As I've said, the problem with local bands from what I've seen is usually a total lack of independent, reliable sources, not so much the local nature of those sources. Fletcher (talk) 17:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Notability means "a celebrity who is an inspiration to others" so I don't know how a local band can pass WP:N. Also using local souces as notability conveyors is a distortion. EconomistBR 03:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Where did you get that definition? Why are local sources a distortion? If you are assuming "local" means trivial, insignificant, not notable then you are of course engaged in circular reasoning. Fletcher (talk) 04:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

The WP:ATHLETE criteria seems overinclusive to me. We could easily include a lot of academics in Wikipedia using a similar criteria "ever belonged to a professional higher education establishment", but we don't. There a lot of academics at top 10-20 universities that don't have a page on Wikipedia, and you could easily write a substantive article about any of them. The current WP:ATHLETE criteria generates lots of infobox-only pages, effectively transforming Wikipedia in a directory. This is a clear example of bad guidelines overriding policy. VG ☎ 14:11, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The inclusion of hundreds upon hundreds of virtually anonymous e.g. football players has really bothered me recently, but I was not aware of WP:ATHLETE until now. Merely being a professional should not be sufficient; it is not sufficient for anyone else, even for professions where such status almost invariably confers notability. Mass creation of this kind of articles does not really help Wikipedia: lists of sportspeople such as e.g. List of A.C. Milan players are vastly more useful to readers. We need a new WP:ATHLETE (regardless of how the GNG vs SNG debate will end), but it is not going to be easy; it might end up being more elaborate than WP:MUSIC. GregorB (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

IMO changing WP:Athlete is almost impossible, sports fan will never let it happen. They will argue that the hundreds of News articles that mention players' names convey notability to them. I favor a split to WikiSports or something. EconomistBR 16:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Arguing on their talk page is indeed unlikely to work (see my comments in the previous section about the virtual impossibility to achieve local consensus on any policy). Making a Wikipedia-wide RfC might work. VG ☎ 17:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, there would be worse things than an encyclopedia exhaustively covering academic criticism and scholarship. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

For example, burying its coverage of academic criticism and scholarship under a mountain of poorly-organized trivia. ¬_¬ - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. We certainly shouldn't have any poorly organized articles that make it difficult to find the desired and searched-for information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Or split any relevant information into hundreds of tiny stubs. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 01:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Permastubs should be merged. Did you think I'd say otherwise? Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

This isn't the place to settle specific areas of interest. However, this is an attempt to calibrate just how flexible SNGs can be. That's why issue B is important. The relationship between the GNG and SNGs has been unclear until this point, leading to contradictions, and yes, perhaps "raw madness". But that's to deal with later. Randomran (talk) 21:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should do any RFC on ATHLETE at present - I support a general RFC that asks about practical questions on notability - generally speaking, do people think we should have articles on X, Y, and Z - as a way of taking the temperature of the community on some results as well as some principles.

I will say, I am embarassed to be on the same side of the debate as WP:ATHLETE. It's a joke of a guideline. Should we have coverage of all professional athletes? Sure. But we're talking about a wave of permastubs here where all we really have is a player name, a team name, and a few stats. The overwhelming majority of athletes are non-viable for articles simply by dint of lack of any sources - primary, secondary, or otherwise on which to build an article. Permastubs should not be articles. Tables are ideal for this sort of information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

This is why I think the approach for an inclusion guideline, separating what topics we include (including those that meet the GNG as well as those that are part of what we consider "broad coverage") verses the organization of those topics, is what is needed. In the case of athletes, I agree that we should include every professional athlete, but I also agree that save for a minority of these, most have little information to support more than a stub; in such cases, the inclusion of the athletes should be grouped into logical lists (like "Rosters of the YYYY TeamName") to list the details that do exist, to briefly summarize that player. Only when the player can get more verified info should a full article be written: the name would still be in the list for navigation aids. --MASEM 23:14, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• Phil and Masems arguments carry some weight where there is lots of primary content, but what is the point of including every single athlete if there are many who have no coverage at all? I think Phil and Masem are hung up on the idea of "broad coverage", not realising that SNG's with criteria based on inherited/presumed/acknowledged notability such as WP:ATHLETE also allow inclusion of articles without content, or which fail Wikipedia content policies such as WP:NOT. I am not even sure lists of non-notable players makes any sense either - it seems to me to fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE. However, the most important point that Phil and Masem are failing to address is, that there is a higher probability that a topic without reliable secondary sources can be presumed to be content fork, rather than being notable in itself. If they believe that certain topics that are "more verified" than others are notable, then they need to put forward a set of inclusion criteria to prove that these topics (like the professional athlete Ashley Fernee) are not content forks from more notable subjects, otherwise I don't see why should have any other inclusion criteria other than GNG if Wikipedia is going to become a stub farm.--Gavin Collins (talk) 23:53, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• I think we're seeing a real and unfortunate broadening of "indiscriminate" here. I do not think an exhaustive list of players to play for a given professional sports team is indiscriminate. I am hard pressed to figure out any definition of indiscriminate that would fail. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:08, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have to agree here. The list of athletes that have played in any professional sport in any country is a well bounded list with a well-defined inclusion criteria. Indiscriminate would apply to criteria that lack objective criteria or represent an effectively unbounded list (ignoring future additions to the list). Garage bands would fit into this category. --MASEM 02:46, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
• The difference here is that the current standard is to have an article for every single player to play any professional sport, not lists of players for such-and-such professional sports teams. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 03:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Lists could be an acceptable compromise. Something needs to be done.EconomistBR 03:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• That's what I've been trying to push as a solution: inclusion guidelines should allow a good broad but not indiscriminate range of topics, but when sources are lacking for a topic as to write anything more than a permastub, then lists should be used to group such topics cleanly and quite often in support of a larger topic, in this case, athletes can be groups in per-year professional team rosters. Redirects are cheap allowing searching to still be done. --MASEM 03:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think we need a whole new policy or guideline to deal with that. WP:SIZE already says we should merge articles that have been stuck at stub status for a few months. If we need to make this more clear, we could include it at other policy/guideline pages. Randomran (talk) 04:14, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• IMO making the "stub to list" proposal a guideline is necessary, since I expect a lot of fierce opposition as soon as articles start to be deleted and redirected. EconomistBR 04:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• WP:STUB already says "Note that if a small article has little properly sourced information, or if its subject has no inherent notability, it may be deleted or be merged into another relevant article." So an article with "little properly sourced information" is a target for merging regardless of notability. If anything, I think that wording should be loosened to apply only to articles where expansion is difficult or impossible. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:36, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• The problem, which is one of the proposals in the RFC, is with lists w/o notable sources. Technically, through the WP:SIZE clause, these lists should be allowed to exist but editors don't agree with this. We need to explicitly have some guideline if such lists are allowed or not (the RFC is editing on the former) --MASEM 05:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Having a class of article in Wikipedia mainspace that is labelled as "lists w/o notable sources" or "non-notable lists" will not work, not just because providing them with an exemption from WP:N will bring lists into conflict with other Wikipeida content policies, but also because nobody will want to compile lists that attract such a derogatory label. Lists really need to demonstrate notability like all other pages in Wikipedia mainspace, otherwise we will end up with lists that fail WP:NOT#DIR. I can see a good argument for creating a seperate Wiki that lists every single professional sportsperson under the sun, together with their statistics and biography, but that approach falls outside the scope of Wikipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Tend to agree with Gavin, in that we should not have lists of every single professional sportsperson under the sun, together with their statistics and biography. However, I would support lists of professional sportspeople who have made first team appearances for notable clubs or who have won medals in notable competitions, with pertinent statistics, i.e years they won or matches they played and when, but without bio details. Notable clubs are obviously those which satisfy the GNG, as are notable competitions. I think this keeps our coverage of notable teams and notable competitions as comprehensive as it should be without breaching WP:NOT#DIR since there are obviously discriminating clauses within the scope of the lists and allowing such lists will not mean we have lists on everything and anything. Hiding T 10:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I am glad Hiding recognises that listing all sportspersons under the sun is beyond the scope of Wikipedia, but we still have to agree on inclusion criteria should be applied if there are no reliable secondary sources. On the one hand, he wants coverage, but not coverage of everything. However, if a topic does not cite reliable secondary sources, how is this topic or list of topics like professional sportmen any different from, say, a list of house numbers in a notable street? The presumption of notability does not exempt non-notable topics from WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which says "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia". --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:22, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I suggest to Gavin we'd use the same criteria to determine whether we have a list of house numbers on a street as part of the coverage we have on that notable street as we do to determine anything. Editorial consensus. How else do we decide whether we mention an instance where George W Bush has played golf in the George W Bush article. I suggest we do not attempt to take an empiricist attitude to every decision made on Wikipedia, since that would violate WP:NOT, and instead rely on the very clear policies we already retain. Notability does not limit article content and a list of players who have played for a club is part of the content of an article on that club. Any attempt to state otherwise is disingenuous. Hiding T 11:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• The criteria you are suggesting is based on the idea that notability can be inherited/presumed/acknowledged, but it can't because such a presumption can be applied to any topic under the sun at any time. If we presume that professional athletes are notable by default, why not include professional coaches, professional groundsmen, professional referees & linesmen? I can see no limit to the RFCs that could be put forward by such special interest groups, of which professional athletes are just the tip of the iceberg. I was joking when I suggested that lists of house numbers in notable streets could be presumed notable by consensus, but that is the road you are propsing we follow (forgive the mixed metaphors). --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:52, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• Firstly, I have already stated we do not and should presume that professional athletes are notable by default. Also, the criterion I suggest has nothing to do with notability, given that notability cannot apply to the content of an article. Thirdly, you seem to be ignoring the fact that our content policies actually allow us to include a list of house numbers on a given street within that street's articles, so your arguments are redundant. The tip of the iceberg is already in view. Notability does not apply to nor limit article content, so this debate is moot. Perhaps we ned to clarify the GNG on this point to better bring it into line with WP:V, since it is the article topic which needs to be of note, not the coverage of the topic. Finally, you'll tie yourself up in knots trying to satisfy both WP:NPOV and WP:N if you try and limit the scope of a list. I'd be interested to here your arbitrary rules on how we define the scope of a list such that it should not reach completion. I'm fairly confident in where the consensus lies on this matter, and it lies with having lists as part of our coverage of notable topics. Hiding T 12:26, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• I have to agree with this, no policy or guideline discourages a list that would otherwise normally be part of a notable topic from being a separate article, and in fact encourages it. I am still, however, of the opinion that there needs to be a limit. A list of street addresses on a given street, per Hiding's example, is a bit questionable because while it could be allowed, it does not seem like the type of information that would be appropriate to "general, specialized encyclopedia or almanac". On the other hand, a roster of professional players for a given team (even broken down by year) seems perfectly reasonable both within an article or as a separate list. This is what I think we can do if we switch to the concept of inclusion guidelines: defining the type of topics that are included but that would also be the appropriate types of topic lists that we want and specifically excluding the formation of other types of lists (though this doesn't prevent an individual target topic, should they meet the GNG, from having its own article). Thus, inclusion guidelines, specific to fields, would basically be defining what lists are and are not appropriate to have as article adjuncts. --MASEM 13:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

• In response to Masem, a roster of professional players for a given team (even broken down by year) may seem perfectly reasonable, but what if you start having such a list by month, week or game? The inclusion guideline WP:N apply to lists just as much as articles, as the notability of a list is the best indicator we have that it is not a content fork. I am not against limiting the content of lists, I am against them being split and split again, and GNG is the only defense against this. Such lists are probably better left to a sports Wiki, where such statistics may be of interest to diehard fans. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:23, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Your logic starts from a flawed premise. It assumes WP:N applies to an article rather than an article topic. A list is merely more coverage of a topic, therefore WP:N applies as much as it does to deciding when to insert any other verifiable fact into coverage of an article topic. It doesn't apply at all, since it is the topic which must be of note, not the article content. Hiding T 10:17, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• So to be clear then: WP:N provides inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic for a Wikipedia article. Since lists and articles both deal with topics and occupy the same Wikipedia mainspace, they are bound by the same rules, and deletion debates such as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of nations finishing at the top of the medals tables at the Summer Olympic Games tend to reflect this; lists not supported by reliable secondary sources tend to get deleted, on the grounds that they are content forks or that they fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The only way to sucessfully defend a list against merger or deletion is to demonstrate that the list is itself notable and worthy of its own article by citing a reliable secondary source that contains the list. I think this an issue where Hiding, Phil and Masem are starting from a flawed premise; in some way they believe lists are completely seperate from Wikipedia mainspace, are exempt or semi-exempt from Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but this is not the case. However, if Hiding can propose a set of inclusion criteria for list that does not conflict with existing policies and guidelines, then he should make his view known at either WP:N regarding Lists? or Lists and Notability Guidelines - A Proposal. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• You have it backwards, and the AFD shows such a case. Lists and tables (in article or not) are kept based on their measure of being indiscriminate, not based on their measure of being notable. Notability helps provide a metric to show material is discriminate, but it alone does not fully define what we consider indiscriminate. This is shown over and over by the fact that AFDs and merge argues support certain type of stand-alone list articles that have no notability on their own, while also have other stand-along lists without notability be deleted; we have an unstated measure of indiscriminate, presently loosely defined by the SNGs. The measurement of indiscriminate information is always going to be fuzzy, but the SNGs attempt and can be improved to provide better whitelines and blacklines for the type of information collections that should and should never be, respectively, included in WP.
• I am not arguing that lists and tables separate from the articles that they would normally be included in per SIZE is trying to create separate classes of articles, but if you read policy and guidelines, you will note that most of the issues that you are concerned about relate to the bounds of a "topic" and not to the bounds of an "article" (this latter is pretty much only limited to MOSes). There is a natural tendency to equate "topic" and "article" but they are two very different things, and when you recognize that, and that a topic can spread out over many articles (sometimes inappropriately per content forks, but also sometimes appropriately) you'll recognize there's a lot more room in the policies and guidelines for lists and tables collecting information that is not considered indiscriminate than you suggest there is. --MASEM 11:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Actually Gavin, you have the flawed position, as you note when you refer to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of nations finishing at the top of the medals tables at the Summer Olympic Games being deleted due to being content forks or that they fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Notability doesn't eneter into it, only editorial consensus on what constitutes a breach of WP:NOT. Since that is my position, and since it is in line with current long-standing principles and policy, there is no onus on me to propose anything. Gavin, your argument is flawed because it rejects the fundamental principle that editorial consensus informs inclusion decisions. You are the one wanting to change things, you are the one who must propose an extension of WP:N to article content. Hiding T 12:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Its is still true that that content forks fail WP:N as well as WP:NPOV, as a list of medal winning countries based on non-trivial reliable secondary sources would not be deleted, as this would be proof it was not a content fork. Editorial consensus is clearly behind WP:N, othewise it would not have become a guideline, so I don't think my arguements are in any way flawed. To go back to the original point of this discussion, I am firmly of the view that WP:N cannot be over ruled, and that SNGs such as WP:ATHLETE that conflict with WP:N need to be changed, as unlike WP:N, they lead to the creation of articles that not only fail GNG, but also fail Wikipeida content policies. I agree that lists are a grey area, but since a list is a topic in its own right, Masem's proposal to dump non-notable content into lists is based on the idea that WP:N can be circumvented in this way by changing SNGs to allow lists of non-notable topics won't work. I oppose this because Wikipedia polices and guidelines cover all subject areas, and exempting lists is just an example of "one rule for you, one rule for me". --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia doesn't work on "one rule for you, one rule for me", it works on consensus, so your concerns are unfounded. A list isn't a topic in its own right, it is part of our coverage of a topic. If the topic is notable, then whether to list the elements proposed is a content decision and bound by consensus, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:NOT but not WP:N. That's the nub of this argument, in that you don't seem happy to let consensus, WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:NOT decide article content. Hiding T 12:59, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• A point of contention is "a list is a topic in its own right". You may believe that, but the RFC suggests otherwise. I will agree some lists may be their own topic, but this is not true for all lists, particularly those that are only in a separate article due to size issues but pass every other guideline. I'm well aware that without bounds, allowing non-notable lists allows listcruft, which is why I'm pushing on inclusion guidelines that give specific criteria on topics that can be covered in lists and those that can't, such that we avoid making indiscriminate lists that would never be part of any larger topic's coverage. But this still comes back to the fact that "topics" are one thing, "articles" are another, and most of the policy and guidelines we have that detail with content talk about "topic" instead of "article". An "article" is simply a package to present information to the reader as to make it easy to understand and follow one or more topics, and applying content guidelines to how we wrap up that package is not prescribed in the existing body of policy and guidelines.--MASEM 13:38, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Gavin, I'm pretty sure your claim that lists violate WP:POVFORK is unfounded, considering that the guideline specifically states that summary style article spinouts are not POV forks, nor are they content forks in the more general sense as they cover a more specific aspect of the subject rather than being a duplicate. --erachima talk 14:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• In answer to erachima, I did not state or claim that lists are content forks per se, instead I was refering to a hyperthetical instance where a list, such as a team roster could be sliced and diced serveral times into a list of players for a particular month, week, or day, which in my view would constitute multiple content forking. In this instanceWP:N would be able to distinguish between a list that is genuine from a list that is a manufactured content fork based on the same theme, since the genuine list would cite reliable secondary sources. Ideally a notable list would have been compiled in support of non-trivial content that provides analysis, context critisim or insight in respect of the overarching topic, which would indicate that a particular list of players would be suitable for inclusion.
  In response to Masem, how we choose to present a topic, whether as an article, list or aggregated with other topics (e.g List of New Order Jedi characters), it still has to meet the inclusion criteria of WP:N if it is to be included in Wikpeidia mainspace on a seperate page. The same argument applies to spinouts and sub-articles, which would also be seperate pages in Wikipedia mainspace: you can't give them a special exemption from WP:N on the basis that their label is something other than an article in order to justify special treatment for them at SNG level. If we were to propose that lists should be allowed to become dumping ground for non-notable topics, lists, then I am sure it would not attract widespread support. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Notability applies to topics, not articles. (there's a reason why it says "a topic is presumed notable..." instead of "an article is presumed notable...". Also, given the RFC and countless AFDs, non-notable lists as augmenting notable topics does have support, but there definitely seems to be more demand for guidance as to where these are specifically allowed and disallowed. --MASEM 15:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• You are incorrect when you state that "how we choose to present a topic...has to meet the inclusion criteria of WP:N", and that is the flaw in your argument. WP:N does not apply to presentation of information on a topic, as it states: These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles. If you wish it to be otherwise, I suggest you attempt to change guidance, but that's a separate issue from what is being debated here and perhaps should be left for another time. I would suggest consensus is against you though. Hiding T 15:34, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• Just to clarify, I understand that notability applies to articles topics, and that content is not limited by notability. The point I am making is that you can't give an article another label (such as a spinout) and say that WP:N does not apply at SNG level. Although it is a grey area, I think this principle applies to lists as well: every page in Wikipedia mainspace is governed by WP:N, otherwise there would be a free pass given to content forking. I hope that clarifies. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• I presume you mean "I understand that notability applies to topics..." (given the above). But regardless, if WP:N is meant to be applied to every article in mainspace, it would be policy, not a guideline. The results of the RFC suggest that we're nowhere close to promoting WP:N as policy; it's measure as guidance for inclusion but not the only one, the SNGs provide more but there's even further unstated inclusion guidelines to be considered since there are articles that have survived AFD without meeting, directly, the GNG or SNGs. --MASEM 16:07, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
• I think you have a fair point that if WP:N was meant to apply to every page in Wikipedia mainspace, it would say exactly that. Nonetheless, I still dispute your proposal to use lists as dumping ground for articles/topics/aggregates (call them what you will) that are not notable, as this represents a change of use for lists that was never intended. The problem is that List of New Order Jedi characters is an article in all but name, and I think that what you are proposing is that SNGs could provide such aggregated topics with an exemption from WP:N. If this is not what you indend to do, then make this clear. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:40, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Per the RFC, there is no consensus whatsoever that notability applies to lists, and a strong opinion that they should be under a new guideline. Also, the use of lists to contain supplementary information for other articles (including what you describe as "aggregates") is routine practice. --erachima talk 17:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• I did not see any proposal that they should be under or exempted from any other guideline other than GNG, but none the less, I should comment on User:Erachima/Inclusion (stand-alone lists), and I will do so shortly. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:52, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• We're in a section headed sports, so I feel uncomfortable discussing List of New Order Jedi characters but I would say that if you feel strongly about it you should nominate it at afd as breaching indiscriminate information, original research, verifiability and neutral point of view. Are we giving these fictional characters undue weight? Are we we creating a term in "New Order Jedi"? Where is all this information verifiable too, and how discriminating is it? That would be my way of thinking were I minded to see it deleted today. But I am not minded to see it deleted today, because I don;t think that's productive today. I personally am looking five years down the line. Given the storm that has been created by merging these articles to lists, I think we need to solidify the consensus for merging, and merge such articles to lists, and then review the lists so created and work out which ones work and which ones don't. I'm trying to remember the article that was nominated 17 times before it was deleted. That's how it goes sometimes. So I don't disagree with you on much Gavin, apart from approach and time-scale. I'd rather we led the horse to water and then get him to drink, rather than throw a bucket in his face, if you will. The consensus right now is for lists to be that gray area. The consensus in a year or two may crystallise further and clarify the current impasse, but I'd rather we put that impasse to one side for now and get on with tackling the rather large backlog that keeps growing of articles we really shouldn't have, for one reason or another. Hiding T 12:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• I myself think it useful to delete content forks as they go against Wikipedia policies and guidelines, and I oppose any change in Wikipedia guidelines that would facilitate content forks, whether they are contained in articles, lists, spinouts, sub-articles or what every label you care to give to a page that occupies Wikipedia mainspace. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Um, have you read WP:POVFORK#Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles. It undercuts your entire argument. Hiding T 14:09, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• You will have to explain, as I don't see your point. If an article (or spinout, sub-article or list) provides evidence of notability for its subject matter, its unlikely to a content fork. WP:POVFORK does not provide an exemption for spinouts from WP:N. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Circular argument. I refer you back 8 or 9 posts in this thread. Hiding T 22:56, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Please explain. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:05, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• The argument has gone like this: We've argued about how notability applies to content rather than the topic. You've attempted to argue that a list may be a POV fork, to which I pointed out that it isn't defined as such in the guidance you provided. You've then stated that notability applies to content. So we're back to the beginning, or a small part of it. But if you step back, we're just arguing about the same thing. If you'll forgive me, it seems to me you think the universe can be measured with a ruler, and I don't. By that I mean that you think we can write a rule which will decide everything for us. I don't. That really is the fundamental difference between us, because we both want a well-written encyclopedia which is respected by one and all and which doesn't make things up or assert unfounded claims. I'd sooner recognise that, and recognise that this will always be a circular argument because of teh fundamental conflict between us, than continue this debate. But that can only happen if you are prepared to concede your option is not the only option, because that is what drives the argument. Many people disagree with you, but rather than seek out a position on which we can all agree, the argument continues. How do we crack that chestnut? What's more important: deciding against arguing; all or nothing against compromise? We can stick to positions of mutually assured destruction, waiting to see who blinks first, or we can co-operate. There's the ball. Hiding T 12:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Analyzing the RFC results

Given that the RFC is pretty much done and over with, I would like to start the analysis phase of this. Hopefully we can get one or more non-involved parties to comment further, but at the present, I will try to summarize what I think the consensus is on each of the proposals. I will list the results of !votes as (supporting/opposing/neutral), but this is just part of the measure.

A.1 - Every spinout is notable (204 total voters)

This appears to lacking support (59/129/16). Main oppose reasons are that allowing articles on topics without secondary sources is a floodgate waiting to explode with too much cruft and unverifiable info.

A.1.1 - Spinouts are treated as part of a parent article (147 total voters)

Inconclusive (72/69/5). The main opposing arguments fall in line with A.1, in that this allows too much material without demonstrated notability into WP. Some supporters are fine with this, but if the spinout is notable (eg they oppose A.1), while other supporters agree that as long as material is verifiable (but not necessarily notable) and SIZE is being used, this is a reasonable justification. Given the equal split of votes, this is not likely a good route to take for notability guidelines.

A.2 - Spinouts must show notability (141 total voters)

Generally supported (82/57/2). Supporters (along the lines of A.1) point out that notability is not inherited, and that this helps prevent expansive non-notable, bloated articles that exceed what sources provide. Opposes point to how this would conflict with summary-style approaches for longer articles.

A.3 - SNGs can define what are notable spinouts (107 total voters)

Inconclusive (51/48/8), and likely due to the issues of what SNGs are meant to do, as opposition to this includes the fact that SNGs should not override GNG in terms of notability; in addition, there is concern SNGs are put into place through localized editors thus setting bars too low. Supporters generally agree this is how we help WP stay broad in coverage when sources are likely to exist but presently do not about topics.

A.4 - Lists may be exempted from GNG (91 total voters)

Weakly supporting (51/34/6). Opposing arguments mainly point to the GNG applying to all articles in main space. Both sides express concern that without additional qualifications, crufty and indiscriminate lists will be acceptable.

B.1 - Articles must meet GNG and SNG (93 total voters)

Strong opposing (26/61/6). Supporters point out that no guideline should supersede the GNG. Opposing arguments point out the SNGs are used to help define inclusion guidelines, and that sticking hard-nose to the GNG can make WP too restrictive, despite it being only a guideline.

B.2 - SNGs can outline sources for notability (96 total voters)

Strong support (65/17/3). Opposing !votes, generally those that support B.1, point out that this can weaken the GNG. Supporters note this seems like current practice, but steps need to be done to make sure the allows sources are not to liberal.

B.3 - SNGs can define when sources likely exist (72 total voters)

Inconclusive (23/30/19). This one is hard to figure out as many were confused by the wording. Generally the opposers are concerned that saying that sources likely exists and that sources do exist is a critical step for an article to shown to be notable, and that the SNGs should help demonstrate what sources already exist as opposed to those that may exist.

B.4 - SNGs are not needed (82 total voters)

Strong opposing (14/62/6). While some opposers feel that the GNG is qualified for all articles, most supporting votes point out that the SNGs are necessary for the various different forms of notability in all the fields WP covers.

B.5 - SNGs override the GNG (72 total voters)

Strong opposing (14/53/5). SNGs should clearly outline criteria that will allow topics that eventually meet the GNG, but cannot completely do without secondary sources.

B.6 - SNGs provide presumptions of support of notability (70 total voters)

Supporting (40/21/9). Opposers are worried that allowing articles that potentially can have sources but lack any for some time will create large number of permastubs, and thus when notability is challenged, it is up to the editors who want to keep it to show it exists or else remove the article. Supporters point out there is no deadline and that the presumption of sources is often needed for certain types of topics that require more than a google search to demonstrate notability

B.7 - SNGs provide subject-area interpretation of the GNG (4 total voters)

Supporting (4/0/0) (though noting that this was put up late in the process and doesn't have anywhere close to the same number of eyes on it). This is sort-of the inverse to B.5, in that whatever the SNGs define, they must still meet the GNG.

All to point is my best unbiased view of the results. (I invite discussion if you think I mis-read them). Given that, here are the points (my opinion) I think we now can walk away with for notability:

• WP:N is here to stay; the GNG is the best measure of topic inclusion (A.1, A.2)
• SNGs are here to stay (B.1, B.4) - however we need to have a major purge of these to make sure that criteria are defined that either confirm a topic as meeting the GNG, or a reasonable presumption that it will meet the GNG at some point (B.2, B.3, B.4, B.6) - SNGs cannot create the possibility for topics that can never be sourced (B.5)
• List type articles that support a larger topic but otherwise may fail the GNG are needed for proper coverage of that larger topic to avoid excessively long articles (A.4), but these should meet conditions outlined by SNGs (A.3) to prevent indiscriminate lists or unencyclopedic information. Lists should still meet verification requirements.
• Otherwise, outside of list-type articles, spinouts that fail the GNG are not acceptable (A.2)

This feels right to me: it seems to represent what our current policy and practices are when it comes to topics at AFD. This approach requires a bit of fine tuning of WP:N's language, but significant discussion at all current and pending SNGs to make sure that each criteria is leading towards an article that can meet the GNG, and to further make sure they are globally accepted to prevent local consensus from overriding things. --MASEM 16:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that the clear majority of supports for B.2 were for the "proposal", but were also incompatible/contradictory with the "rationale" portion. Vassyana (talk) 16:16, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think your summary of issue A is lacking. A1.1 and A2 are mystifying and incompatible results - each one has more support than opposition, despite being mutually exclusive. Taken together, you get a pretty clear deadlock on the issue of general principle.

This, to my mind, supports the idea that we need to look again, this time at specific outcomes. For instance, although the "every spinout must prove notability" line has support here, it continues to not be a prevailing standard on AfD, with articles routinely surviving there. This suggests that what we have, in practical consensus, is not a consensus on principles, but a patchwork of consensus on AfDs that do not extrapolate smoothly. Trying to get a sense of the general practical parameters of the debate is the next step, because this RFC shows a deeply divided community that lacks any sense of principle-based consensus, and provides majority support for a pair of contradictory viewpoints. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

How do we generalize? I of course think 10 trivial ref = notable for fictional characters is the best way to go. That doesn't seem to be really popular, although I'm not sure people who didn't like it understood it. There's also the idea of "would it be an appropriate section in the parent article." How would that work? Create an extra AfD-like process to judge or have discussions like Talk:List of Dragon Ball characters? What other ideas are there? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:54, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

First, see below that spinout lists seem to have support, but this is not an unbridled support - there have to be standards. That's why, after fine tuning WP:N, I think the next step is to readdress all the SNGs and make sure their criteria is appropriate per the B proposals, and to outline when lists of topics that fall in those SNGs are appropriate for list articles. This provides the generalization that is needed to match the notability as a whole to what we see in AFD presently. --MASEM 17:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec, to Phil)I think the support is there for spinout lists, but a spinout that is about a single subtopic of a topic is difficult to justify both by the results from here and from AFDs that I see. I don't see these two points being conflicting, only that what a spinout is can be a broad range of possible articles; when you clarify it for lists, the results become clear. This is not to prevent further discussion of non-list spinouts, but I think that requires a more in-depth analysis, specifically defining what types of spinouts are to be considered for discussion and so forth. However, my gut based on these says that spinouts that deal with singular, non-notable topics are very difficult to justify. --MASEM 17:00, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

At this point, given the sheer divisiveness of this, and the ferocity with which merge/delete campaigns are being waged and fought back against, I think priority one is stopping the bleeding. To my mind, it is clear that no general case policy position exists here. Recognizing that is key. That doesn't stop deletion, nor does it encourage it - it's a neutral statement. But it at least strips away the weapon of policy from the fight and exposes these fights for what they are - case by case fights over individual articles in an area where no general consensus exists.

Once we've made it clear that, as it stands, there is no consensus-based policy on notability as it applies to extremely specific topics in areas where the general topic is clearly notable we can work on the problem of building one. But right now, the overwhelming message of this RFC is that no general case proposal exists. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think WP:N should be suspended unless or until there is a consensus evident to deprecate or replace it. Fletcher (talk) 17:28, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree; plus, I don't see any major complaints that are arising from AFD. (I know TTN's block is expired and he's pushed a lot to AFD, but nearly all of those have had strong deletion/merge support). If there really is a battle being waged in AFD due to the lack of guidance of WP:N on spinouts, it needs to be brought to attention. --MASEM 17:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I am not saying that WP:N should be suspended. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:50, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Slight disagreement in that A4 gets a marginally higher percentage support (on a bit lower turnout) than A2 but it is implied as being supported less in your summary. Davewild (talk) 19:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should list them by perecentage as well. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Remember, these are !votes; my dissection of the results looked at the numbers as one fact, but also how many "with caveats" or other such language. (And nor am I claiming to be right intrepretation). Stating percentages really won't help though you're welcome to calculate them on your own. --MASEM 20:34, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

We want to be careful not to get too bogged down in the numbers. Yes, where the numbers are clearly for or against a proposal, we can probably put that proposal to bed. But where the numbers are closer, we want to look at the actual comments, especially the "support, as long as we also do X..." type comments. We also want to look at comments that people made in other proposals, especially where people weighed in on an issue but didn't repeat themselves in every single proposal. We shouldn't expect someone to repeat the same argument over and over, and revisit the RFC to repeat their objections as new proposals are added. We have to be holistic in our approach, agreeing where the numbers are obvious, and using as much information as possible to resolve the more contentious numbers. Randomran (talk) 21:13, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You'd carry more weight if your comments below didn't indicate that a "holistic approach" was, in practice, "go with my favored proposal." Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You've officially divorced yourself from the facts. I'm not sure why. But you might want to look for my comment from 22:47, 4 September, and kindly apologize. Randomran (talk) 21:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

A1.1 vs A2

I don't think there really is a mystifying incompatibility here, just a middle ground that's not going to make either me or Phil jump up and down with joy. If I was going to try to synthesize the consensus, it would go something like this

Sometimes, articles get so big you have to split them. When looking at the results of the split, it isn't appropriate to apply as rigorous of a standard to the subarticle as was applied to the parent. After all, the parent article was considered notable, this content was a legitimate part of it, and we can't wind up with the result that every time an article is split, half of it gets deleted. At the same time, being a spin-out doesn't give an article amnesty from notability concerns: some standard needs to apply to prevent the It's a spinout! argument from giving every spinout a free ride.

Any argument with that as being the synthesis? I'm not saying that it's a good or a bad policy, just saying that it summarizes the support of both A1.1 and A2.—Kww(talk) 18:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but I think, in practice, that amounts to what I was suggesting above - that as it stands, there's no controlling standard, and it's a case-by-case on AFD. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:03, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I would not disagree with that (I opposed A1 and A2 but supported A1.1) but again what the standard is for the sub article, is the big question. Davewild (talk) 19:04, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the way you reconcile it is that 60 more people checked in to oppose A.1, with many of them not revisiting A.1.2. (And reading the opposition to A.1 reveals a lot of "no spinouts!" kinds of opinions, that would have some weight with issue A as a whole.) When you take a look at the actual comments, only 9 people switched their opinion from oppose to support. That does not negate the overwhelming consensus against treating spinouts as notable, and the pretty solid consensus for A.2 that spinouts should usually be notable.
If we're looking for a way to find exceptions to notability, I think A.4 might offer a better starting point. There's some weak support that could be turned into a consensus if we start to address even a few of the "against" !votes -- mostly about "where do you draw the line? wouldn't this make all lists notable?" Randomran (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think inventing opinions of people holds water. Before the RFC went onto watchlists, both A1 and A1.1 were majority oppose. One flipped. The other didn't. That suggests a meaningful schism in support, and suggests that there's not a principled consensus here. I mean, we could just as easily address the against comments on A1.1 by answering where to draw the line and how to keep all spinouts from being notable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Nowhere did I "invent opinion" or misrepresent what happened. Nothing "flipped" in any substantive way, and you don't really have the facts to support your claim that opinion flipped. A.1 got 59 supporting, and A.1.2 got 72 supporting -- that's not a whole lot of support gained. On the other hand, A.1 had 129 people opposing, many of whom didn't feel the need to say "spinouts must meet WP:N" more than once. And that's pretty consistent with support for A.2 as well. Randomran (talk) 20:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh give me a break. You have no facts to support your claim - you're pushing for A.4 as the solution - shockingly enough, your proposal - despite the fact that the RFC was a clear deadlock, and you're spinning the numbers to your hearts content to ignore the divisiveness of the issue. This RFC cannot possibly be interpreted to provide support for A2, A1.1, or A4 given that contradictory viewpoints also got majority support. I am willing to grant that A1 - a proposal that should never have been on the RFC given that nobody ever actually proposed it, and it served only as a straw man - got widespread opposition. Why that matters is beyond me. But treating 1.1 as some sort of second class proposal that is trumped by the wider opposition to the straw man above it is obscene.

As for my claim that consensus flipped, the watchlist notice went up at 2:05 on September 26th. At that point, A1 ran 10 in favor, 22 opposed, and A1.1 ran 5 in favor, 10 opposed - essentially the same ratio opposing each. After the watchlist notice posted and wider opinions were solicited, A1 remained opposed, and A1.1 switched to majority support. That shows a clearly different level of support for the two of them.

The RFC is inconclusive (Which I could have told you a month ago, but hey). There is no evidence of any interpretation of WP:N that has consensus as a general interpretation. We can figure out a way to move on - either by trying to shape one of the proposals into a consensus-gathering proposal, or by backing up and trying to get a better sense of the situation.

Right now, this very moment, 75 "fiction and the arts" articles are up on AfD. Of those, 50 are characters, episodes, and fictional objects that are up for notability grounds, and have any measure of comments beyond the nomination. As it stands, if they were to be closed right this very minute, 15 would be kept, and 34 would be deleted or merged. Note that this is a poor standard in practice - many of the articles that would be deleted or merged are one sentence stubs, cases where the character has appeared in one episode, etc - that is, stuff that nobody is actually seriously arguing should be kept. (In other words, for many of these, notability is not the only problem.)

If you can look at that and look at this RFC and tell me there is a clear consensus on the applicability of WP:N in these cases, more power to you. But what I'm seeing is a lack of prevailing standard, and an ad hoc decision making process that is working case-by-case and making decisions based on momentary consensus as opposed to a general principle. And I have seen nothing that suggests otherwise. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

A.4 is not my proposal. In fact, I opposed A.4. You've constantly accused me of bad faith since this RFC started, and frankly I'm getting a little tired of it. To say that A.1.1 has majority support is inaccurate, let alone that the difference between A.1 and A.1.2 led to a "flip" of opinion. It has barely more support than A.1: 9 more supporters. You need to address or acknowledge that fact, instead of accusing me of bad faith. Randomran (talk) 21:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You've repeatedly spoken out in favor of a form of A.4, and it's clearly been the direction you've wanted to build in. As for bad faith, you've demonstrated either bad faith or egregious incompetence at proceeding towards a consensus viewpoint. I'll confess ambivalence on which. Regardless - do you have any actual response to my points? Or are you going to ignore them, as per usual? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I advise you to try a more conciliatory tone. I also advise you to correct yourself, starting by looking for the oppose opinion I put on A.4 -- despite the fact that I acknowledge it has weak support among the broader Wikipedia community. I've been able to step outside myself, and look for consensus and compromise. Can you honestly say the same, when you're trying to argue that this whole RFC is contradictory, rather than acknowledging huge areas of agreement?
A.1.2 is the proposal with the least consensus -- neither support nor opposition. When you combine that with the overwhelming opposition to A.1, very few people actually switched their support based on the slight difference between A.1 and A.1.2. If you read the actual opposition for A.1, very few of those objections can be addressed by the small change between A.1 and A.1.2. Safe to say A.1.2 has a decent consensus against it, and this is entirely consistent with the strong opposition to A.1, and the decent support for A.2.
You're right that treating WP:N as absolute is not 100% solid in consensus. But I think you can explain what happens in many AFDs as WP:POTENTIAL, along with some kind of specific exception (rather than a blanket of exceptions). In fact, I think these exceptions ares well-reflected in A.4 -- which has a decent consensus. Starting from there would get us further than arguing that the RFC has somehow contradicted itself, all because 60 people decided not to repeat their opposition to A.1 in A.1.2. Randomran (talk) 22:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I confess, I'm not feeling terribly conciliatory. This is perhaps understandable, given that I've been putting considerable effort for months into protecting an active, irreplaceable resource that I use daily in my research, and have been alternatingly shat on for it and put on the receiving end of petty and manipulative politicking.

So instead, let me put all my cards on the table here. As I have said, Wikipedia is an irreplaceable resource. There has never been anything like it before. Content deleted from it is not, in practice, readily available elsewhere. And it is unique in its coverage of fictional subjects - both in depth and in quality. That is my stake in this - I am trying to preserve a fantastic, amazing resource that I use daily. So, honestly, let me note that I'm already in a pissy mood when it comes to this, because people like TTN wage active crusades to destroy that resource, and others make comments like the recent one from WT:N, "for many of us WP:N is not nearly rigorous enough; we look forward to the day when standards for inclusion tighten in order to allow the project to live up to the name encyclopedia." To which there is nothing whatsoever that I can say without violating WP:NPA.

And then we come to this debate - a debate where, whether through poor judgment or malice, you have repeatedly and systematically poisoned the discussion, first by egregiously misrepresenting a serious proposal, then by stonewalling efforts to fix it, and now by making flatly false claims. You are saying that very few people switched their support - this is irrelevant. The overwhelming majority of comments came after A1 and A1.2 were on the table. There were only 22 people who could possibly have switched support. That any did is significant.

Or your claim that A1.2 has consensus against it. That's bullshit. That is plain and simple bullshit. It has 51% support. A4 has 61% support. There is not some magical line in that 10% that takes it from consensus against to a good starting point. Both would fail if proposed as policy by almost the same margin. It's just that A4 is the one that is closer to your own views - regardless of whether you supported its wording, you want to build off of it, and have since this discussion started.

So no, I'm not feeling terribly reconciliatory, and my tone reflects that. Because, well, this matters. This matters on a fundamental, important, big picture level. I'm happy to argue that big picture. I've done so - at length, and occasionally in ways that I even found productive. But in the end, this is far too important an issue - in a real sense, not in a Wikipedia political bullshit sense - to let fall to absurd word games and politicking. And so when I see it being pulled in that direction, I get angry.

If you want a more reconciliatory tone, well, change starts from within. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This seems like a failure to communicate. See your talk page. Randomran (talk) 23:10, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I would like both of you take a deep breath. I added "Total Voters" to the summary, and it is clear we experienced voter fatigue: the later the question in numerical order, the lower the chance of someone voting on it. That said, I think Randomran has a point: the numerical difference in vote counts between A1 and A1.2 is strong enough that we need to take it into account when evaluation consensus.—Kww(talk) 22:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed on the !vote count, but the picture becomes closer when you look at the !voters themselves. See User:Randomran/analysis. Only 9 people actually switched from oppose to support. The other 50+ people simply chose not to repeat themselves, leaving us to give due weight to their opposition to A.1.* in general. The picture becomes even clearer when you look at the decent/weak support for A.2 and A.4. We *are* close to a consensus here, but it requires us to draw a line of best fit between all the results rather than looking at one or two datapoints in isolation. Randomran (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure - though in this case, some of that is due to early voting. When the watchlist notice went up, A1 had 32 votes, A1.1 had 15. So 17 of that drop in votes was already accounted for. That's still a drop of 40 votes, but even still, the gulf in margins between those two proposals is huge. And, notably, I am not saying A1.1 represents consensus. It obviously doesn't. And I am skeptical, as a matter of practice, that A1.1 can be improved to where it would garner consensus. But I think it's equally obvious that the view of subtopics is a fundamentally divisive issue on the level of principle. There is no consensus view on this topic. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:49, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Would it be helpful to invite an uninvolved party - highly respected administrator, bureaucrat, or Arbcom member - to help analyze the consensus? The people who regularly post here (and most of those who lurk) do have strong opinions on what should happen, and that could inadvertently lead to a misunderstanding of the consensus. I am not accusing anyone of having done so right now, but I think we might avoid a great deal of bickering if the RFC results were analyzed by a neutral party. Karanacs (talk) 22:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I've already suggested Sam, who is one of the best experts on consensus on Wikipedia. Geometry guy 22:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think he would be an excellent choice! Karanacs (talk) 22:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, thanks for suggesting that both of you -- it's a great idea. I trust Sam, but I think it might be helpful for him to have another administrator or bureaucrat to bounce ideas off of. There may be more than one reasonable interpretation, and I'd hate to entrust too much power to just one person. Two or three would be ideal. But in principle -- yes, this is a good way to wrap the RFC up... which should be soon, IMO. Randomran (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

wow ... three edit conflicts. I wouldn't want to promise to abide by any outside consultant's result, by I would be interested in getting answers from truly disinterested parties. It's true that all of us have some skin in the game.—Kww(talk) 22:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that multiple administrators or bureaucrats are needed to divine the results of this RFC. Hell, I can't imagine that anything beyond basic reading comprehension is, but if we want to ask Sam (who I know nothing about, and have no opinion on one way or the other) I suppose we can.

I stand by my observation - there is no consensus on the level of principle. There is clearly often consensus on specific AfDs - but there's also clearly general tension and anger surrounding those AfDs, and if we could find a general principle it would make life better. But right now, there is no general consensus on the issue of spin-offs. It's an extremely tight split. That's the starting point - that the Wikipedia community has no consensus on this issue in the general case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The point is simply to get an outside perspective, nothing binding or definitive, from someone with a lot of experience with consensus issues. The "power" of such a role depends purely upon the extent to which the outside view is considered to be a good analysis of consensus, nothing more. Geometry guy 23:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Like so many other aspects of Wikipedia, I think the quality of that analysis will improve if there is a second or third opinion, and the two or three come to some kind of agreement amongst themselves. (Obviously, with diminishing returns as the number gets larger.) The more we can do to arrive at a solid conclusion, the better. Randomran (talk) 23:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This proposal strikes me as puzzling, in that if the consensus cannot be clearly discerned by the participants themselves, in what way can it be a consensus? It's something of a sleight of hand to have an outsider come in to divine "consensus" while really providing his expert solution. Maybe that is still the best way, but if we need an expert to decide the fairest solution, we should just say so. Fletcher (talk) 23:38, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's not that the consensus isn't discernable. Just that some people may be too invested in the outcomes to be completely objective about the RFC. And people less invested might be more neutral, but don't have the patience to actually read the comments and look at it as more than a vote. And even if some conclusions may be obvious, some may need a finer touch. Hence the need for a couple of trained third-parties to look it over. Randomran (talk) 04:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not against outside parties looking over the RFC but, like Phil, I'm a little skeptical consensus can be divined out of this. I do agree the involved parties can't really be objective, although I think Masem has done a pretty good job above. Fletcher (talk) 05:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. We probably basically agree. I think an outside party won't differ too much from Masem's summary, minor details and shifting !votes aside. But I disagree with you that there's no consensus, because Masem has found a lot of common ground and consistency (at least on issue A, which we're focusing on for the time being). But a third party will still be helpful. As much as I personally trust Masem to be fair, I think Wikipedia at large will get more closure if we get a few smart people with a comfortable distance from the dispute. Randomran (talk) 05:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

As I stated at the start, I invite a third-party to review separately the RFC; I don't claim that my analysis is perfect or unbiased, just that we need to start dissecting it and I think my take (at least on the individual issues) is nearly accurate and unbiased as I can make it. I'd really like at least one person that has never been directly involved in the recent debates to review the results just to make sure we're clear on where we go from there. --MASEM 05:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It looks like there's support for that kind of thing. Sam was a good suggestion, and a quick survey of some of his past work is very reassuring. I'd like to get one other person, two others maximum. One person might miss a small but important observation, or overreach somewhere. Two people can check each other and fill in each others' gaps. Wikipedia functions better when multiple editors can check each other's work. Randomran (talk) 05:50, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

How to compromise

I agree with others that we need to find a middle ground, given that the hardcore inclusionists and deletionists have failed to noticeably bring the bulk of Wikipedians to one side or another. It's also clear there are unresolved philosophical differences over the inheriting or cross-referencing of notability from one article to another. Therefore, the logical compromise would be to allow partial inheriting of notability. As I see it, this could occur in two ways:

- Compromise on time: we apply WP:N as it is now, but allow editor(s) working on a spin-out article to place a “hold” on AFD/merge discussions for X amount of time, during which more sourcing can be added. AFD is only a 5-day process, and since this is a volunteer project it may take a fair amount of time for anything to get done, so I think this is different from AFD as it is now. In return, if sourcing is not added after X time the editors requesting the hold could not object to deleting it. X might be a span of days, weeks, or months, as some topics are harder to source than others. One may object WP is not on a deadline, but possibly adding a deadline to improve certain sub-standard articles would create the incentive to work on them. I think this is a middle ground between the severity of AFD, and the oft-apparent uselessness of tagging articles for sourcing and notability. The SNGs could provide criteria that help specify how much time might be warranted if certain criteria are met.

- Compromise on quantity: WP:N prefers multiple reliable sources, multiple meaning “more than one”, while the extreme of inclusionism requires zero sources. The exact compromise between zero and two sources is, of course, one. But that number is misleading because two sources are a bare minimum; an article with only two is not going to satisfy most supporters of WP:N; and there are no FAs or GAs with only two sources (hopefully!). What about “several” -- more than two but not many – as a minimum threshold for the spin-out articles? Footnote (1): I'm not including primary sources here because it is self-referential to cite the work as evidence of its own notability, although primary sources are otherwise valid to include. Footnote (2): A spin-out may still be deleted/merged for failing WP:NOT. Footnote (3): No change to WP:N's requirement for "significant", i.e. non-trivial coverage -- three different TV guides noting a character's appearance do not make him notable, for instance, but three different (reliable) authors commenting on the character would.

Another difficulty is defining spin-outs, because if we ease the requirements for spin-out articles, there is an incentive to cast dubiously notable articles as spin-outs of some broader source topic. We could require "several" mentions of the spin-out topic in the source article, or in the case of lists, several mentions of elements in the same class or scope of the list topic. This would help ensure only important aspects of the source article get spun-out. Of course, someone could add spurious mentions to the source article, but the source article is likely to be watched by a broader swath of Wikipedians who will hold it to a higher standard. In my experience the spin-out articles are often wastelands, dominated by fans of a particular genre, where regular editors rarely venture. The main articles are better patrolled, and trivial information added to justify spin-outs would tend to get pruned.

Hope at least a little of that makes sense. Fletcher (talk) 05:09, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you will get broad consensus for your first point. Setting up different rules for different classes of articles within one process is usually a bad thing. If text is spun out of a larger topic improperly (meaning it lacks its own assertions of notability or reliable sources), then it would be appropriate for an AFD. The simple fix - don't spin out the material unless it can support its own article. Karanacs (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I have a reputation as an uber-exclusionist, and I will tell you that I would be thrilled to see spinouts with two independent third-party sources that examined the subject directly and in detail. Many of the spinouts that people are fighting to preserve have none.—Kww(talk) 14:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

"two independent third-party sources that examined the subject directly and in detail" sources meets notability, so that's no compromise. "Several" required sources would be a higher standard. I like the way you're looking at this, Karanacs, though. Basically we can compromise on "two", "independant", "third-party", "directly", or "detail". - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it wasn't obvious, but that was my point. Going to "several" isn't a compromise, and I don't know of anyone seriously arguing for more than two as a minimum standard. ... an article with only two is not going to satisfy most supporters of WP:N just doesn't strike me as being a true statement.—Kww(talk) 17:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't being clear. I was kind of replying to "an article with only two is not going to satisfy most supporters of WP:N" and to you. Anyways, what are some possible compromises? I'm mostly talking in terms of fiction, not a change in the GNG.

one good source instead of two—one good independant, and one good not independant—two good (out of universe) non-independant—a certain number of trivial independant sources (my favorite)

We can see the various permutations. I'm not sure we're capable of compromise. What else could we compromise on? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:17, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I've never gone after an article that even had one good solid independent source for lack of sourcing. Those frequently hit my next layer of objection: an article is only supposed to derive information from primary sources that is necessary to make the information derived from the secondary source intelligible and clear. A single, one paragraph writeup on the front page of the New York Times about a video game certainly can be used to justify an article, but can't be used to justify a 90 paragraph article detailing every superpower belonging every minor demon faced in it, for example.—Kww(talk) 17:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Your statement on the use of primary sources does not seem to me to adhere to our policy pages. Where are you getting that view from? Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Sources which prove notability don't justify violating WP:NOT, which is what Kww's example of superpowers would be bordering on. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like that point of view is no longer contained in either WAF or FICT, so it's down to "my personal view of how to ensure that an article relies upon secondary sources and does not rely on primary sources", which doesn't hold a lot of weight in a policy discussion. Not relying on self-published or primary sources is policy-based, however.—Kww(talk) 19:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

To be clear, the sentence I'm wondering about is "an article is only supposed to derive information from primary sources that is necessary to make the information derived from the secondary source intelligible and clear. " I had assumed that had come from higher than WAF or FICT anyway. (This gets to a major bugbear of mine as well, which is that our policy on primary sources is batshit crazy and has no resemblance to anything that anybody would remotely consider an acceptable research practice.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The avoidance of primary sources save when necessary comes from WP:OR (specifically WP:PSTS within OR). The amount of information that is in an article relative to its sources is a function of WP:NPOV, specifically WP:UNDUE. I think the key point about primary sources here is WP:OR - or more specifically WP is not to be the first place of publication of an original thought. Now, it's entirely possible to create a nice large article on something based only on primary sources (say, a long-running TV show to describe the technology). The problem is that this requires a meticulous handling of the topic to avoid adding any language that does not imply something that is otherwise not stated by the primary sources, and to maintain the article in that fashion. The former requires editors with a pretty good amount of experience under the belt to be able to do properly, while the latter requires constant vigil on such articles that are popular, usually attracting the attention of anon editors that want to say "this was hinted at by so-forth in this episode" -- creating connections that really cannot be 100% supported by primary sources. Now, I know I'm speaking specifically for fictional works, but we cannot treat these separately from other topics where the same approach, using primary sources, would be inappropriate. --MASEM 20:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this view is that it makes an assumption about the transparency of interpretation that is controversial at best, and outright wrong at worst. Which is something I don't want to completely derail on - but suffice it to say, the view expressed (in particular the skepticism of implication coupled with the sense that there is also some sort of transparent, 100% supported meaning) would be met with... skepticism at best in most high-profile English departments today. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

"our policy on primary sources is batshit crazy and has no resemblance to anything that anybody would remotely consider an acceptable research practice." Is that because, ultimately, we don't do original research? It's a point I often get confused on; we don't allow someone to publish their unified field theory, so why do we let people publish their theories on fiction? Forgive me if I am misunderstanding you here Phil. Hiding T 20:39, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

More accurately, it's that we treat reading a book as being an essentially equivalent act to performing high-level theoretical physics research. And, more to the point, we treat reading comprehension as suspect some of the time, but utterly straightforward other times with little to no distinction between them. As it stands, we behave as though the sentence "Despite Gaiman's insistence that his character of Delirium in the Sandman series was not based on Amos (Rogers 51), Delirium's refusal to accept an ordered consensus reality bound by laws taps into the same subversion, making her a fan favorite as she namelessly interpellates Amos's audience, and often uncannily, her appearance" (From [1]) is somehow able to be used straightforwardly by any reader using it as a secondary source on Gaiman, Amos, or Sandman, but that we could not actually look at the images Reed subsequently cites and observe that, in them, Delirium resembles Tori Amos on our own. This is simply ridiculous. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:49, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

You can appeal to absurdity all you like, but the problem is that when we don't require sources, people come up with all sorts of personal interpretations of fictional works. A brief plot summary isn't going to be a problem; the problem arises when you try to write more than a brief plot summary without any sources. We can argue up and down and left and right about what "brief" means, but currently WP:N sets an implicit definition of "brief" in the implicit "one article's worth of plot summary unless you have more than plot summary to put in multiple articles" standard.

As for the discontinuity you highlight, I believe it is conscious and necessary. We draw a line between "nuanced interpretation of secondary sources" and "nuanced interpretation of primary sources" because we have to say "Okay, this is where OR starts" somewhere. It's the simplest, most objective, easiest-to-arbitrate standard for using fictional primary sources, because nobody has yet proposed an alternate standard that would include "Delirium resembles Tori Amos" (absent sources, of course) and exclude "The Smurfs is set in a Communist utopia." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that you want a standard that does the work of including "In some images, Delerium physically resembles Amos" while excluding Marxist readings of the Smurfs. That's a complex, subtle, and difficult distinction to make - you can't have it pre-made by a policy page. There's no way to sanely make that distinction via policy page. It has to come out of consensus of editors. It has to. There is no other mechanism on Wikipedia that can actually make that distinction.

And this is the problem I have - with NOR, with N, with the whole lot. They're lying. They're lies. They insist on a policy that simply is not operative in practice. I mean, you can say that the standard N sets is "one article's worth of plot summary unless you have more than plot summary to put in multiple articles," but you're wrong if you say that's the operative standard. Because that standard fails on AfD. If I went to AfD with Underworld (Doctor Who), it would get kept. You know it would get kept. I know it would get kept. Everybody knows it would get kept. So to say that WP:N establishes a standard against that - no it doesn't. It doesn't. It can't, because that standard has no consensus in the field.

I mean, this is what you run into. You get one view of WP:N on an RfC, another by observing our actual deletion behavior, and, at least on anecdotal evidence, you seem to get a third if you talk to readers who aren't in the policy bubble. So to say that the standard is X is misleading at best. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

<= outdent As this is an RFC about notability I think we are straying out of scope. Wikipedia's policies are not up for debate here, so we should take them as a given. Fletcher (talk) 22:16, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

When you're trusting everyone to write your encyclopedia, you need to set them certain limits. One of those limits, on this project, is that authors are not trusted to make nuanced interpretations of primary observation. It is a fundamental limitation/strength/pillar/whatever of this project.

Underworld (Doctor Who) would get a no consensus, with people suggesting sources must exist, that the article could be merged, or other solutions that are not merging. And yes, Wikipedia's content doesn't currently meet its ideals. That doesn't undermine its ideals; this is, after all, a work in progress. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 05:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Given that WP:N is an expansion of points in WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:V it is very hard not to debate them, and although everyone takes them as given, the key point of difference is what they mean in unity and how they apply to notability. These aren't side issues, they are central to the scope. Hiding T 22:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

• And I would add to that, I think that the degree to which some argue WP:N is an essential outgrowth of our policIes on primary sources makes this all the more relevant - particularly if those policies on NOR differ sharply from actual practice (which, in this case, they obviously do.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:42, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Phil, perhaps you're looking at this too much from the eyes of a researcher. The average editor, especially for fiction articles, is going to want to jump to conclusions from "that video they released last tuesday" or "based on the transcripts". I see it all the time at Halo 3, where editors want to add "and you can see the Marathon logo at the end of the game", Or on the talk page, where they immediately want to add information on a teaser when no project has been officially announced. There's a good reason that primary sources are discouraged, in that we don't want these casual users to use them to twist facts to fit theories. Additionally, the more you use primary sources, typically the more out of control and dominated by non-notable minutiae the articles become. No one is saying you can't use them, but it should be properly judged. Finally, a big consideration is WP:V-- who is to say another reader looking over the primary source will agree with the stated interpretation? Who is right in that context? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

One article that deals with this issue that I like is this one. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

In my experience this observation is very accurate. I've seen people make what seem to them like statements of the obvious, which are then contradicted by someone else, and it goes back and forth, with no one able to produce a definitive source. The OR policy can be quite frustrating, but I understand the basis for it. Fletcher (talk) 02:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you're looking at this too much as a vandal-fighter. Yes, we have to remove crap from articles. But we can't let our tools to remove crap get used to remove accurate information that people want. We can't. If we're doing that, the tools are broken. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's relevant to debate what the policies mean and how they apply to notability, but attacking the policies is a waste of time, as we are not going to change them here. We're building a house: we've poured the foundation and now it's time to put up the framing. There's still a lot of flexibility to make changes, but if you want a square house instead of the rectangle we poured, it could be a problem. Fletcher (talk) 02:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC).

My problem is, I think we're deluding ourselves if we say that NOR and N, as written, are how this house is being built. That may be what's on the blueprints, but it's not what the builders are doing, it's not what the builders are planning on doing, and it's not what the customer wants. I'm not saying current practice is right either - but we can't be so naive as to pretend that just because we write something in the Wikipedia namespace it magically happens. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Phil, our job isn't to satisfy readers. We're supposed to write an encylopedia as set out by wikipedia's guidelines and policies; "what the readers want" shouldn't guide what we do, precisely for the reason that we aren't a democracy. Just because it's accurate, just because people want it, does not mean it belongs here. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of creating some sort of tree falling in a forest debate, the point of cataloging information is so that people can and will read it. We don't do this for the sake of doing it. We do it for the readers. We do it to put information in their hands. If there is accurate information that they want, and we can provide, it's a very, very big thing not to. It's something we need to be careful about. We do this as a service to the public. Now that doesn't mean we cater to their every whim. Of course not. But you can't say they don't matter either. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I personally don't give a damn about who reads my work; some of the topics I've featured are entirely obscure books and games. I do it because I enjoy writing about a topic. Of course I'm aware that I'm possibly atypical, but my point is that divorce the human aspect from Wikipedia (I know, I know, just humor me) and you're left with a set of guidelines and rules. They would continue to operate independently of what readers expect or come to expect from the wiki. The only way Wikipedia is affected on an editorial level by what readers want (aside from the nebulous world of finances, which [so far] has no bearing on the discussion), is if those readers create accounts and try to sway consensus or form a new one. We don't operate in a vacuum, but our policies were designed expressly for such hypothetical conditions (and I would say in spite of the wider world out there). Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that if the policies were designed in spite of the world outside, that was a mistake, and not what we intended when we designed them. But my point is that there's a disconnect between what we do in practice, what our policies say, and what people come to us expecting. That's a broad problem, and one that is, in part, an indictment of our policies. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this logic is that the readership is not static, but is a reflection of what we've been tolerating. If we tolerate spreading baseless rumors about celebrities, readers will come expecting to find juicy gossip. If we tolerate blogs in userspace, readers will come expecting to read their favorite bloggers, etc. The readership simply reflects what the policy has been allowing, de facto if not de jure. Fletcher (talk)

Sure. Again, I'm not proposing dictatorship of the readers. My issue is this - if we can provide accurate information on topics that our readers want information about, then the burden is to find a very compelling reason why we shouldn't have it. Baseless rumors about celebrities fails part of that test - it's not accurate information. It's clear to me, at least, that our readers expect accuracy - that our ability to provide a useful service to them is compromised if we get facts wrong. So that's out. And there are other reasons we don't do things - BLP charts out a subset of things we don't do because we just think they're wrong. We don't do copyvio because it's illegal. But you need a very compelling reason, to my mind, not to provide accurate information in an encyclopedia. And when there's clear evidence that readers want information, if we can give it to them, we should. Now, note - we're still only in the information giving business. That means that we provide accurate information. And, more than that, one root of encyclopedia is a root shared with pedagogy - we don't just provide information, we provide knowledge. We provide learning. Which is a higher standard. This isn't just "provide everything." But if we can provide accurate knowledge of something readers want to know about, all other things being equal, we should do so. Which makes the question, in what way are all other things not equal in a given case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:33, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Fletcher. Overturning WP:OR just isn't going to happen. It's fundamental to Wikipedia and has been shaped by Jimbo Wales, oblivious to what people want. The same way that we're not going to open up WikiFight for people who love to revert war, or WikiFun for people who want to chat about their daily lives, or WikiForecast for people who want to make crystal ball predictions, or MyWikiSpace for people who want to put their resume and biography up on Wikipedia. All things people want. But all things that are limited by Wikipedia's mandate. Debating fundamental Wikipedia policy not only takes us backwards, but it's probably not going to change anything. Fletcher is right: accept the policies as they are, and apply them to WP:N. That's actually pretty consistent with how this RFC is turning out, too. Randomran (talk) 03:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I've never said overturn OR, so that's a bit of a straw man. Read what I've said - I've said that, in the area of primary sources, there's a disconnect between what policy says and what is actually tolerated. You can get all the people to make comments on policy you want - at the end of the day, Underworld (Doctor Who) is based entirely on primary sources and would survive on AfD, and you know it. And there are thousands of similar articles. In the face of that simple fact, and in the face of the divisiveness and lack of consensus that querying the policy question generated, you have to ask what the policy pages are doing. Because it's clearly not "serving as standards that control the project's behavior."

Now, that doesn't mean "overturn OR." But it does mean that individual lines in NOR and N - lines that were not written by Jimbo, I might add - might not be right. I don't know if you've done much reading into the history of our policies, but often phrases that become fundamental cornerstones of policy come up as one line of a massive, undiscussed edit with a summary like "tightening language." These edits clearly weren't meaning to fundamentally shape dogmatic policy that we would read with exceeding closeness. And they don't inherently represent a long-standing consensus - all they mean is that nobody noticed them or thought they were problematic until they'd been there for a while and people started using and abusing them, by which point they had somehow, magically and wihtout discussion, become cornerstones of policy that could not be removed.

WP:NOR is not the specific language on the page right now. It's more than that. Yes, it's a fundamental policy of Wikipedia. But the page - the thing that loads when you hit the url - is just an attempt to document that fundamental policy. And in this case, it is clearly, empirically, in the field, wrong. That is not how the policy gets used. And the same is true for WP:N - the rule in question was not written with fiction articles in mind, and in practice there is not consensus to use it to delete episode articles. I can point you to a thousand episode articles that would survive AfD despite failing WP:N as written.

That means WP:N is wrong. And that means that any bit of WP:NOR that WP:N is simply restating is also wrong. Because if the community outright refuses to use a policy, it's wrong to call it policy. That's not overturning. That's recognizing that clearly, in this instance, we phrased something wrong andi n a way that does not actually reflect our policy. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The comment on Underworld (Doctor Who) doesn't seem quite right: did you see its third reference? That looks pretty decent, and the source actually has its own bibliography. It wouldn't get deleted because it is sourced, if not extensively, and possibly more sourcing could be added. Am I missing something? Fletcher (talk) 03:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Gah. Its third source is a fansite. I have no idea why we're even using that. But in practice, at least by the standards of independence that some people have been advocating, you'd be hard pressed to source that article. You'd get fansites (not reliable sources), and you'd get books published either by the BBC or under license from the BBC (not independent). I think that's a hard article to base primarily on secondary sources, and that it's hard to get to two independent sources. And I can keep going on this front. Banshee (comics). A New Man. War of Nerves (M*A*S*H). All three of those would survive an AfD. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I disagree: those AFDs would really depend on who participates. Masem did a pretty good job of summarizing this RFC: there's generally strong opposition to spinouts, and a decent consensus to prohibit them. But there's also support for discrete exceptions, rather than blanket exceptions for all spinouts. A lot of non-notable articles survive AFDs just based on participation bias: imagine the half dozen people who are fans of the material were joined in the AFD by the wide consensus of people who support our policies: WP:OR and WP:V included. But I don't deny that some articles survive AFD challenges legitimately, without reliable third party sources. In some cases this is a testament to WP:POTENTIAL -- a plea to give an article time to find those sources. But in other cases, the article survives because there is a decent consensus for exceptions -- which is pretty consistent with this RFC as well. Randomran (talk) 03:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Selection bias is also very strong on policy and guideline pages. It's people with the opposite viewpoint, but it's not a representative sample. WP doesn't really have anything to deal with either selection bias: this RfC is as close as we could get, and it would probably have a +- of 20%. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. But my main point is that we don't just tear apart literally dozens of policy pages based on speculation. We don't make decisions on Wikipedia by speculating about what people would say. We ought to go with what the policies actually say. And if they're wrong, change them. And if the policy change has no support, revert it. And if there's a dispute, take it to RFC. That's what we're doing. That's the Wikipedia way. I see no significant quarrel with WP:OR or WP:V. Randomran (talk) 03:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(redent)True, although Wikipedia doesn't have any way to make decisions. The whole "Consensus" thing doesn't really work anymore. The conflict between AfD results and guidelines is because they're both votes really, combined with who fatigues first. If admins judged AfDs by the arguments/guidlines, there would be a lot more deletes, for instance. Anyways, maybe we can come up with some compromise, or else things will just stay the same. I think we'll just continue the status quo. One other thing, I read an intersting article on Digg the other week. Basically, if someone is wrong and is shown that they are wrong, instead of changing their opinion, they become more entrenched. I'm not saying who's right or wrong, but you can kind of see it on the guideline pages. No one changes their opinion, they just become more strident until they move on. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that's because there's always plausible deniability. That "somewhere out there", there's way more people who agree with you but aren't talking. That's what RFCs are supposed to avoid, putting the question directly to the participants. I don't think this RFC has revealed a final answer, but with all the disagreement there's still a lot of common ground. We'll see how much common ground we have when we finally close it, and then take it from there. Randomran (talk) 04:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I do feel like they're "somewhere out there". I think I forget that other people feel the same say. Do you have any ideas on what a compromise could be? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That's also a strong argument for civility: it's so much harder to express a change of opinion when dealing with rude people, because you don't want to give them the satisfaction. Fletcher (talk) 04:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

To me, a compromise starts from accepting the consensus against treating all spinouts as notable (130 opposing A.1), and the somewhat weaker consensus for applying WP:N to all articles equally (82 supporting A.2). Meaning that people are generally against a blanket exception to WP:N, but are not as adamant about applying WP:N to literally every article. That leads us towards the weak support for an exception to WP:N for lists (A.4), which might gain more support with a little more specificity. And when you combine it with some of the support for compromises on the SNGs (issue B), that might provide a way to relax standards for certain kinds of articles (particularly fiction) without opening the floodgates completely. But we need to wait for the RFC to play itself out, and then have a neutral party or two actually read through the comments in a holistic way, rather than reading it as a dozen different up-or-down polls. Randomran (talk) 04:52, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Randomran, I dropped the subject yesterday and moved on, but if you keep cherry picking the results you like from this RFC, it is not going to bode well for the ability of this RFC to serve as a mechanism for consensus. Now, I'm happy to play along with reasoned discussion. But you're misrepresenting my viewpoints and exaggerating at every turn, and I don't think you're incapable of understanding what I'm saying, so I've got to say, I'm pretty unhappy about it.

You know full well that none of the four articles I listed above would get deleted on AfD. But if you doubt it - take any one of them and take it to AfD. Take all four. They all fail WP:N as you interpret it. Take them to AfD. Put your money where your mouth is.

Otherwise, stop misrepresenting my points. In practice, the interpretation that articles on fictional subjects must establish notability strictly and according to WP:N does not hold. It is not an in-use policy on inclusion. And clearly that's not for lack of trying.

If that view couldn't garner consensus on an RFC and it can't garner consistent consensus on AfD, what is it doing in our policy page? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where I misrepresented your viewpoint, but I strongly disagree with it: there is common ground here, and it leans towards enforcing WP:N in general, with some wiggle room for specific and discrete exceptions -- especially around certain kinds of lists. Like I said, I think Masem did a pretty reasonable job of summarizing the RFC. But it's not done yet, and we should contact a neutral and relatively disinterested party to do a real summary. Randomran (talk) 05:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

"we don't just tear apart literally dozens of policy pages based on speculation. We don't make decisions on Wikipedia by speculating about what people would say." "Overturning WP:OR just isn't going to happen." Both total misrepresentations of anything I've said. (That or you're just enjoying arguing with people who don't exist.)

How do you propose to enforce WP:N on fiction articles? I've pointed to four fiction articles that do not meet WP:N. I can do more if you want. Tom Hagen. Kryptonite. Tatooine. Seven now. Go enforce WP:N on them.

You can't. You cannot do it. The community will not let you enforce the policy as you want to over those articles. And there are hundreds more like them. 255 articles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel episodes. Over 500 Star Trek episodes. You cannot get those deleted. 750 articles, right there, that you cannot go delete.

You can be in favor of "enforcing" a policy all you want, but if the policy is unenforceable in practice, it's just not accurate to call it policy. This RFC has shown that you can't marshall consensus support for that interpretation of policy (61% is, by no standard, consensus). AfD has shown that you can't apply that policy in the field.

So I ask again - given that the interpretation of WP:N failed to garner consensus on this RFC, and given that the attempt to ram articles through AfD has had mixed results at best, in what way does WP:N, as written, apply to fiction articles? Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Speculating about what your silent majority believes doesn't stand up to this actual concrete RFC, and doesn't justify ripping out key parts of WP:OR and WP:V. I've already explained the AFDs: lots of non-notable articles are deleted all the time. When some aren't, that reflects a narrow exception for a certain class of articles, or at least that some editors see future potential in those articles. And in many cases, it simply reflects that the overwhelming number of people who support WP:N haven't bothered to check in on the AFD, because it's been overwhelmed by zealous editors of that single article. I don't know what way WP:N applies to fiction articles -- nobody does. But this RFC shows that WP:N applies to most articles in general, and there's ample ground to start discussing those exceptions. Randomran (talk) 05:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

My argument depends on no silent majority. No instrument has ever shown consensus for the broad view of WP:N as it applies to these articles. The question of a silent majority is immaterial - the lack of consensus even among those speaking does the job sufficiently.

Given a clear lack of consensus for even the most elementary view: that WP:N applies to all spin-out articles - I do not see how you can build the edifice upon it you are trying to. That you resort to the rehtorical tactic of creating some hypothetical herd of "zealous editors" to explain the basic phenomenon that deletion of these articles will not be able, are not able, and have never been able to pass at AfD. And often, it is not a view of potential. It is a view of "No. We're not actually going to do that."

I mean, can you honestly tell me that you think you could get an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation deleted in an AfD that attracted more than a handful of comments? Even if we banned everyone who has ever made a substantive edit to a Star Trek article from participating, I cannot imagine you could actually get that article deleted. There's certainly no precedent for the view that it would be possible. And plenty of failed fiction AfDs that suggest that far more straightforward articles are undeletable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Cherrypicking individual articles misses the point. Some non-notable articles get deleted, some don't. Why? Some have genuine potential. Some just got lucky with the participants. And some represent a genuine exception to WP:N. That's entirely consistent with what this RFC is showing so far: WP:N applies in general, with room for exceptions, and wiggle room through SNGs. Randomran (talk) 05:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that when I can get the list up to 1000 articles in seconds I'm cherrypicking. 255 - Buffy and Angel. 616 - Star Trek. I can get you 1000 easily in Marvel and DC characters alone. Another 100, easily, out of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica characters. I'm at 2000 now. At what point am I beyond cherry picking and into a sizable area where there is clearly no controlling authority? Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is I can pick out a lot of fiction articles that *have* been deleted. Nobody here is saying they're all not-notable, but then you can't claim they're all notable either. This RFC reflects that: even though there's generally consensus for enforcing WP:N, there's also a consensus that wants some kind of exception. Reading the RFC gets us closer to what those exceptions look like. Randomran (talk) 13:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(redent)The only time I've seen NN fiction aticle growth turned back is when TTN was redirecting episode pages before the arbcom case. That was only in the category of TV ep pages. Creation is faster than deletion. Maybe, just maybe, creating is as slow as mass redirection. Comics are an interesting category. There's about 15,000 NN comic articles. I was going to say there are 5,000, because that's how many there were a year or two ago, but I just checked Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Assessment and it's grown. Anyways, inclusionists loose all day long at NOTE, and each week another 1000 NN fiction articles are created. To actually change things, we need an actual compromise that we "all" (enough of us) can get behind. I'm not seeing much interest in crafting any compromise, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

More than a compromise we all can get behind, we need a compromise that editors who do not participate in policy discussions can get behind. Which is why I'd rather focus on cleaning up crappy articles that are perma-stubs, poorly written, overly long and fannish, etc. There is a nearly unlimited amount to clean up purely on the grounds that it sucks. Cleaning up shitty articles and deleting ones that have no worthwhile content is utterly uncontroversial. The vast majority of articles to get deleted for fiction notability on AfD are, non-coincidentally, also utter shit. We can readily get consensus to go after crappy articles and leave ones that provide accurate information while remaining relatively concise alone. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

What would that look like in terms of guideline sentences? That's the rub. My idea is 10 trivial references. KWW said (I'm sure I'm putting words in his mouth that he did not say) maybe one non-trivial reference. What else do we have? I love your ideas about sections vs. sub articles, but they don't lead to actionable guideline sentences, at least not yet. I love the idea so much, I've tried to come up with a plethera of ways to describe it, and 10 trivial refs is all I've got. We need sentences that we can add to NOTE or FICT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:07, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with what Phil says here. As for Peregrine Fisher's comment about reduction versus expansion, there was a concerted effort at Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth (and probably other projects as well) to actively redirect and consolidate stubs into lists (when redirects to sections became possible). That doesn't work for all projects of fictional worlds, and it doesn't lose any information (it just presents it in a different way), but the total number of Middle-earth articles fell from a peak of around 1400 in December 2006 to a total of 825 in October 2008. And that's not finished yet. The final total could be closer to 500 or less. Some have said that's still too high, but I've been able to say "things are heading in the right direction" and "we are working on this" (well, not so much recently, but a few months ago I could say that). Ultimately, this reduction makes maintenance and overall improvement of an area easier as well. If you have a limited pool of volunteers, you do need to set realistic goals. Carcharoth (talk) 07:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Good example. Five books and five films (very roughly +-5) and the result is 500 articles. A compromise is needed. Again, ideas? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That's bit simplistic. Most of it is from the books, not the films. And it is actually more like 20 books, though again most of the articles derive from three books (LotR, The Silmarillion and The Hobbit). I can do a more detailed analysis if you like, and it about time to do another round of merging. We actually do merging though, not this redirecting-without-merging that others do. Carcharoth (talk) 08:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I want to hit on a comment Phil stated above "How do you propose to enforce WP:N on fiction articles?" I think it's important to remember current history here:

• FICT grew out of a deletion debate over minor characters (Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters). This was shortly after WP:N was created (at least, using the term "notability"), but at this point WP:N had not introduced the GNG statement of "significant coverage of secondary sources"
• Ca. early 2007 did the cementing of the GNG appear in WP:N.
• Roughly the same time shortly after that (May-ish 2007), it was clear that FICT's old form was not viable under the new approach of the GNG. This was both by the editors of FICT and due to the start of TTN's actions on characters and episodes.
• TTN get two arbcom cases, each time bringing a lot of complaints to FICT and WP:N; editors work on trying to get FICT to a point that matches with the GNG and current consensus.
• Early 2008 we try to get FICT passed, but its shot down due to 25% of the those responding thinking its too strong against fiction, 25% too weak against it.

The reason I list these events is that we have never had any point had stronger guidance towards dealing with fiction in place with respect to the GNG. We've tried to get something but editors on both sides stymied it. While not the only reason, the main purpose of this RFC was to get a measurement of what can be done to resolve the FICT issue. Once we have a WP:N that meets the results of this RFC, we can tackle fiction, but now with the backing of the RFC results to point at how things need to be done. Then, and only then will we have a FICT guideline that follows in line with the RFC-based GNG.

What that means now is that there is no strong guidance for fiction articles. What is there is pretty much determined by WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF, neither strongly providing advice. Thus, what we actually see is a combination of indirectly seeing where the line is draw on fiction articles (eg there is some support for non-notable lists to help) and the fact that without strong guidance, a small group of editors can keep articles around citing the lack of guidance (eg what you would find if you attempted to AFD a Star Trek episode without references). However, with this RFC we have a path forward, and with the conclusion with a new FICT, there is now clear and compelling reason to merge/AFD the Star Trek episodes lacking sources, and those that would defend them the same way in the past will no longer be able to do so. This still may lead to arguments and disagreements, but now we have the backing of consensus to say why things are like this. If there is still need to figure out what to change from there due to the volume of editor complaints, then we will have to figure out where to go; we may need to re-evaluate FICT again, or consider other policy changes. But right now, we can do little with fiction articles except point to the GNG when certain articles pass an unstated threshold of lacking notability, a "know it when I see it" approach. --MASEM 08:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• The problem is that there is no workable alternative to WP:N which has been proposed to govern the inclusion of articles on fiction other than GNG. All the other proposals, which amount to little more than an exemption or relaxation of GNG, don't work as they ignore the fact that compliance with WP:N also enables an article to comply with other Wikipedia polices and guidelines on content. Although WP:N does not regulate the content of articles and lists, the attempts to allow non-notable topics to have their own mainspace page usually fail other polices such as WP:NOT, WP:NPOV or WP:OR because of poor sourcing or lack of criticism, analysis and context. For the time being, I would expect WP:N to remain the paramount guideline for fiction, as it is the one Wikpedia area where GNG fits perfectly with fictional topics. Most of the complaints that WP:N is too strict as an inclusion criteria tend to ignore that, not only is it impossible to write a decent article without reliable secondary sources, but that their absence is usually an indicator that the article or list will fail WP:NOT or some other policy.
  It seems to me Masem's views are based on demands to turn Wikipedia into Wookipedia or a TV guide, and this may be where Masem may be going wrong, because I don't think there is support for this approach, not matter how he dresses it up. It seems to me we are trying to adapt the inclusion guidelines so cater for poorly sourced articles, and no amount of rule changing can make up for poor content. At the moment, at least 95% of articles on fictional characters fail WP:N, because they are content forks from more notable articles. The only way to find compromise between inclusionsts and deletionists is for us to agree that these articles on non-notable characters and episodes fall outside the scope of Wikipedia, because we will never be able to compromise on a set of inclusion criteria that will allow badly sources articles to be created without compromising Wikipedia's content policies. From a so called "deletionist" viewpoint, I think the only way forward is to have an RFC that proposes WP:N be raised in status from a guideline to Wikipedia policy, rather than have Masem to continue to table proposals that seek exemption from WP:N at SNG level. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• This is about as much as a "compromise" as Le Grand Roi's version of compromise on WP:N a few months ago - it is not one. The RFC clearly shows that the WP:N is not absolute, despite what you think. The A.4 proposal, when you read the comments, clearly show that allowing any list exemption from WP:N is not going to fly, but as long as the grouping of information in the list is not indiscriminate and clearly connected to a larger topic and information still is verifiable, then there's good cause to allow such lists. We just have to define the bounds of such lists for the various fields, including fiction. Essentially, this is what the last FICT version was, and it had 50% support; the fact that now 25% of the rest are shouting across at the other 25% and neither of those sides are going to give means we either sit and let this become a trench war, or people from both extremes must come to realize that they are not going to get their way with the other side taking the same stance, and thus compromise on the middle position. --MASEM 12:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Once again, I think Masem has it right. I don't know what specific exception to WP:N will gather consensus. But when you pool together all the comments on issue A, it reveals that spinouts are generally not notable, but there might be an exception for lists if we can reign in the potential for "list of hairstyles of Paris Hilton". We haven't had much talk about what the exceptions to WP:N look like, so it's kind of premature to figure out what the exception is for fiction. But if we agree that we make exceptions for certain kinds of lists (a modification of A.4), then that might explain why we often delete or redirect characters (see recent examples: [2][3][4][5]) but redirect some characters to lists and keep *some* of lists (see recent examples for inconsistency: [6][7][8][9][10]). Also, we haven't talked about issue 2, and how there seems to be strong but conditional support for letting SNGs come up with their own objective indicators of notability. For the case of Underworld (Doctor Who), it could be that fans of Dr. Who treat this site as an objective indicator of notability, and as a reliable way to verify plot information. (It does have a reptutaiton for fact-checking and accuracy, even if it might not have strong oversight.) Those are just hypotheticals, but it begins to show how we apply the consensus at this RFC to what actually happens in practice. Coming up with any kind of exception to WP:N (and thus WP:V and WP:OR) doesn't match up with how I !vote at AFDs, but I'm ready to step outside my preference and admit that there is a consensus for some kind of exception if we can talk about what they are. Randomran (talk) 13:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• The problem with Le Grand Roi's version of compromise that he was proposing the abolition of inclusion criteria altogether, but that would imply that articles would no longer have to comply with Wikipedia's content policies. In my view the RFC clearly shows there is no support for an exemption from WP:N for precisely the reasons I have outlined: Wikipedia should not be filled with indiscriminate "stuff", whether it is contained in articles or lists.
  In answer to Masem, the position I come from is not an extreme, it represents the current consensus: notability as an inclusion criteria works well because it dovetails so well with other Wikipedia policies and guidelines; articles and lists that don't demonstrate notability tend to be "cruft", "essays" or content forks, and in the long run will be deleted or merged. For this reason, WP:N is the minimum requirement for an article or a list, otherwise Wikipedia cannot work as an encyclopedia. The propsal to put "stuff" in lists have failed to address this problem: inclusion criteria that are lax won't work with Wikipedia content polices, which are tougher because they prohibit so much content. I made a joke with Hiding that I was suprised that he had not proposed the deletion of WP:NOT#PLOT as well as WP:N, because even if non-notable characters and episodes were allowable, the chances are that they would still be deleted for failing WP:NOT.
  The point I am making here is that your are assuming the compromise we are seeking relies solely on relaxing WP:N. If you are seeking a compromise that effectively seeks such a relaxation of the inclusion criteria for lists, then you will also have to water down Wikipedia content policies at the same time, because inclusion criteria and content policy are closely aligned. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Gavin, the major problem with your argument is that neither our policies, our guidance or the current consensus supports it. No matter how many times these simple facts are pointed out to you, you seem to ignore them. There's a whole section in WP:POVFORK which allows summary style splitting of articles. There's a whole paragraph in WP:LISTCRUFT which states that lists you would see deleted are not considered cruft. There's a whole policy which states we do what's right for the encyclopedia. There's a whole policy which states we come to a consensual decision. The onus is now on you to show that you can actually compromise. Otherwise you are in breach of WP:CONSENSUS. Like I've said to you above, it's your ball. You can carry on with the argument if you want, but pretty soon people are going to start ignoring it. Are you seeking to build a consensus or are you only interested in enforcing your own POV? Hiding T 14:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Summary style splitting of articles is indeed allowed, but the underlying assumption is that the split will meet the other policies and guidelines of Wikipedia, not be exempted from them. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:13, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• (ec)If WP:N worked well enough, we would not be here in the first place. Mind you, the way forward I see does not touch WP:N beyond clarifying the SNGs relationship.
• What the fallacy is in your argument starts from the point that WP:N is not a content limiting mechanism; outside of organization, there is no difference between a list of non-notable elements but referenced to the primary source and appropriate for discussion under that topic that is embedded in the larger topic, and the exact same listtext, with additional lead and closing sections, placed in a separate article; WP:N says nothing about that, nor do any other policies or guidelines save for WP:SIZE and WP:SS. This information is not a content fork per WP:POVFORK, since it is spun-out appropriately. If you see this differently, then we're at an irreconcilable position.
• Now, while the organization might not matter, the list content does. An indiscriminate list or other list content that fails policy will be wrong as a separate list as well as an embedded list (see, for example, this discussion including the links to past discussion on a list of events in a video game, which some see as guide-type material and thus seeking to remove). We need strong criteria on what lists are clearly acceptable in an article or as their own list, and which ones are clearly not acceptable. Because this is impossible to define WP-wide, that's where a functionality like the SNGs come into play, where for each field where things can commonly be listified, we outline the acceptable and unacceptable bounds. I don't know if the SNGs are the right place to have them in the current scheme (that's why I'd like to move to inclusion guidelines since they can serve that purpose for embedded AND standalone lists), but this is clearly something that needs to be done per the A.4 result. --MASEM 14:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

A heretical suggestion

I'd like to make actual progress. Looking at the RFC results, it seems clear that people have said Lot of times, things that aren't notable on their own get put in lists. We recognize that lists have value. Some lists are good, and some lists are bad. We don't know exactly how to define the difference between a good list and a bad list. That concept seems to have a pretty strong consensus behind it, even though there isn't strong consensus on the details. Perhaps we should focus on that narrow aspect for a while, and see if details can get hammered out.—Kww(talk) 14:32, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Well, the suggestion I've made at least twice before is to look at the coverage for the elements of the list; if that's non-trivial in total and comes from multiple, independent, reliable sources then it's usually a good list; if not, it's usually a bad list. It's only a small weakening of the GNC - perhaps only a reinterpretation - but seems to include most of the lists worth keeping. Percy Snoodle (talk) 14:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
• I've been as strong a defender of WP:N as nearly anybody, and I've nominated lots of fictional lists for deletion -- and saw most of them deleted. But it's time for us to start coming out of our trenches and recognize the common ground at this RFC, starting with lists. Some kind of modified version of A.4 would lay the foundation for a compromise. If nothing else, this can be the *first* exception to WP:N, and need not be the only exception. Randomran (talk) 14:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Lists in fictional contexts are given more leeway, but I think that leeway (at least originally) came from the understanding that we had the characters listed in order to aid understanding of plot and critical commentary elsewhere. That should be the test of whether it merits inclusion. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
    • I am not so sure that this is true: list of characters actually have less leeway. If the list is not notable, it is likely to fail WP:NOTDIRECTORY, which says Wikipedia articles are not ...lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as persons (real or fictional). You still need to prove the notability in order to demonstrate that the list is not a directory. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
      • This view does not seem to me to be one that would ever actually garner consensus on AfD, so I'm not sure how relevant it is. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
      • Sometimes that's true, sometimes that's not. For some lists, they're deleted on WP:NOT even though they're sourced. Other lists are kept even though sourcing is poor, and there is sometimes no consensus even when sources appear to be non-existent. This means that there isn't an exception to WP:N for *all* lists, but for *some* lists. Randomran (talk) 15:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
      • The key word in NOTDIR is "loosely", as reflected in WP:LISTCRUFT; a list of fictional characters that wear hats is a loose and indiscriminate collection. A list of fictional characters in a specific work is not. --MASEM 15:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
        • I think this is a key thing to suss out, but isn't really the focus of a notability discussion, and I don't think we should limit ourselves to fiction. What we have to focus on is the notability aspect of the lists, and rely on other policies to kill articles that fail based on them. List of Presidents of the United States of America that preferred Budweiser over Coors probably can't be killed on notability grounds: there are a lot of reasons not to have such a list, but the notability of Presidents, Budweiser, and Coors isn't in question. If there is a notability based argument, I'm eager to hear it, because my brain tells me there is one: I just can't figure it out.—Kww(talk) 15:51, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

From the comments so far, it seems like there are two main approaches for making a list-based exception to WP:N. One is to come up with some other objective indicator besides "significant coverage in multiple reliable third-party sources" that would show a list is worth including. The other is to simply declare that some specific kinds of lists -- episodes, characters -- are notable through SNGs, and that everything else -- list of trees in a video game, list of characters by hair color, list of first-sentences by Presidential candidates -- are not. (And it should go without saying that these lists should still satisfy other content guidelines such as WP:NOT.) Randomran (talk) 06:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Threading the needle pragmatically

Given that the underlying discussion here remains primarily about fiction articles, what if we, instead of making another attempt to create a policy-level consensus and hoping it actually gets acted upon by the community, approach it pragmatically? After all, there's something approaching support for the view that SNGs are relevant. Why don't we, based on the actual deletion practices, try to frame a SNG for fiction? Here's two very, very quick stabs at the two big parts of that:

Episodes: In general, Wikipedia permits articles on episodes of television series. Such articles may consist of a short plot summary, a cast and crew list, and available information about production or reception. Articles must conform to WP:WAF, and must not contain speculation or interpretation unless it is sourced. Articles that are overwhelmed with speculation, or that have excessively long plot summaries are often deleted.

If it is possible, it is often preferable to cover multiple episodes via a list article instead of having individual articles for each episodes.

Characters: In general, Wikipedia permits articles on major characters of fictional works. Such articles may consist of a short fictional biography, and available information about the development of that character or reception of the character. Articles must conform to WP:WAF, and must not contain speculation or interpretation unless it is sourced. Articles that are overwhelmed with speculation, or that have excessively long biographies are often deleted. Articles about fictional characters who are not deemed "major characters" are generally deleted or merged.

If it is possible, it is generally preferable to cover characters either in the main article for the work of fiction or in a list of characters articles. Creating individual character articles should only be done when the alternatives are not feasible.

These, I think, capture practice. Neither is what I would prefer - but I think both describe what actually happens on AfD, and as such come closer to a practical definition of the consensus on this matter than any principle-based statement can.

What do people think? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think you approach to episodes will work, as without reliable secondary sources, the articles and lists you describe fail WP:NOT#PLOT. If we were to allow such articles, what would there be to stop TV producers having all their products listed in this way in order to increase sales? I think this approach would result create episode spam.
  As regards characters, you can't list every character in this fashion as this fails WP:NOT#DIR anmore that you can list non-notable people. I think you are ignoring the fact that reliable secondary sources are the best defense against deletion for failing WP:NOT. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• They may fail WP:NOT#PLOT, WP:N, and any number of other things. But the above still seems to me to describe what we actually keep on AfD. One can stand upon what the rules say indefinitely, but on this point we seem to have open jury nullification. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Another observation that hits me as I look at AfDs - and this is not based on thorough study at all - but it seems to be the case that video game characters and the like are unusually likely to be deleted. Also somewhat more likely to go are characters in cartoons and children's' television.

I'm hesitant to try to craft a policy around such specific subject basis, but my gut says this is non-coincidental. Video games, by their nature, have fairly minimalist narratives. (I'm in fact unconvinced that treating them primarily as fiction is even appropriate) Children's television, similarly, is generally more lacking in narrative complexity than adult television. There seems to me, looking at how AfDs swing, a general correlation between substantialness of narrative and inclusion. I'm not sure how to spin this into a description of standard practice, however. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we might be jumping the gun. This is bigger than WP:FICT, and we need to understand all SNGs in general first. But I definitely think the RFC supports the idea that certain classes of articles have a lower standard of inclusion. I can't say I have a lot of experience with episodes. But having some experience with characters, lots of non-notable characters are deleted or merged to a list. I think that's consistent with what this RFC is saying too: a somewhat lower (how much lower?) standard for keeping a list, with subject specific guidelines having a somewhat lower (how much lower?) standard for keeping articles in general. I'd like to think that lower standard is still based on something objective and independent, but maybe those indicators are reliable in a different way than what we'd expect for facts about politics or history. I think that's reflected in the fact that video game characters and cartoon characters are more likely to be deleted, although I'm not sure what the underlying principle is. I'm convinced there *is* an underlying principle, though. Randomran (talk) 15:11, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the principle gets back to a key aspect of notability - though we may have evolved it into a strange term of art, at the end of the day, it still means "important." And I think we still get a lot of AfD votes based around views of importance instead of sourcing. Which is unsurprising - remember that WP:N evolved from the SNGs as a sort of general case. But it was still always an attempt to define importance. And on AfD, at least, you haven't lost sight of the goal there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

(EC)That's what the proposed FICT offered (maybe some slight languages differences), and as I've noted had 50% of the !votes supporting it. I think this RFC helps to point out that those 50% of !votes are in line with consensus, and if we were today to try to pass the same FICT on the foundation of the RFC results, it would likely clearly gain consensus.

What I'd rather do, however, is instead of carving out FICT and then deal with WP:N is to figure out how to make an approach to lists in the general sense, allowing FICT to fall within that scheme. I've pointed out my approach on inclusion which is separate from notability; that we should cover a broad number of topics but recognizing that 1) we still are avoiding indiscriminate inclusion and 2) when a topic is just not notable, it needs to be placed with other non-notable topics of the same ilk (aka list articles). What topic we specifically include and exclude are spelled in SNGs. This applies cleanly not only to episodes and characters, but to sports figures, politicians, geographical locations, etc. etc. This approach generally meets how I see the results of the RFC being reconciled for the best, but its also not the easiest route. The short term is to readdress the SNGs with this approach in mind to make sure that flies ok; once there we can talk the inclusion approach. --MASEM 15:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Your prosal to exempt list from WP:N might have got support at WP:FICT, but the fact remains it would not work. Lists that fail WP:N would still have to run the gauntlet of WP:NOT at AFD. For instance, lists of non-notable video game characters are particularly at risk as they fail WP:PLOT, WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:GAMEGUIDE. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
• I just am very unconvinced that the way forward is via the general case. We don't delete the general case. We delete specific cases. And I feel like trying to extrapolate from our tendencies in deletion of specific cases is healthier than trying to legislate a general case. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I think we can deduce that lead ballons don't fly, both generally and specifically, and so it is with non-notable lists; talking about them in abstract terms does not mean the practical implementation of this proposal will work any better than trying to fly a lead balloon. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:46, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I... don't know what to say to this, given that this proposal is based on looking at practical implementations on AfD. Should I just point out that lead balloons float]? I mean, this view is based on looking at AfD, looking at this RFC, and judging what we actually do. Declaring "It doesn't fit the policy" is pointless. It obviously fits the consensus - or, at least, it fits it better than what you're saying, which is transparently and obviously not what we do. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not suggesting get rid of the general case; GNG still will exist and still is an excellent measure to determine if a topic is notable - it's just that from AFD and the RFC that it is not the only measure for an article, and those we have to figure out how to define better. And I'm not against thinking about the problem in terms of FICT and fixing that first (as that's the area this all started), but isolating improvements to FICT and not thinking how an equivalent approach impacts other fields is going to end us right back to overall complaints. You're right that I think we can assuredly say that lists of episodes of notable shows and lists of major characters of notable fictional works are appropriate; now, can we devise a generalized approach to lists that that says the same thing for people, places, and other aspects? If we do it this way are we giving fictional elements special allowances that other fields don't have? (Personally, I don't think so if we limit to episodes and major characters) Maybe what I'm suggesting means that we have to normalize all the current SNGs to state similar language up until their various criteria; maybe there's something else. It is important to note that the RFC does have strong indication that our current block of SNGs are a mess, whether there are too many, or huge difference in standards, and thus that's why I think the route to resolving this, and allowing for discriminate lists, is through normalizing and improving the SNGs as a group, not individually. --MASEM 16:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I just don't know that I see some inconsistency over two and a half million articles as a bad thing. I'd worry more about complete consistency over all of our articles than the opposite. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

On the subject of the video games, I think the project has pretty resoundly rejected lists of "characters" that are simply obstacles you shoot in their weak spot until they're dead (ex). Nifboy (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we can pull out a general principle from this quick discussion of fiction (itself a very narrow issue in for this broad Wikipedia guideline). That's that there is evidence that there are exceptions to the GNG in some form, for some kinds of content. And that's consistent with this RFC on issue B:

• SNGs are here to stay (if you look at B1 and B4)
• But SNGs cannot completely override or circumvent the GNG (if you look at B5)
• Thus SNGs are able to craft specific exceptions within reasonable limits (if we can try to understand B2 and B6)

If we look at the fact that some characters are preserved in spite of sourcing problems, there's probably some kind of principled exception going on (with a bit of noise and error in AFDs, which is natural and expected). But from this RFC, we know that principled exception can't be wholesale ignorance of the GNG. Rather, it's that we use a different objective indicator to judge the notability of characters, and source them according to a different but similar standard. I think this might help us to understand how SNGs function in general, before we jump to the next step of (re)crafting our SNGs. Randomran (talk) 06:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't follow your reasoning that "SNGs are able to craft specific exceptions within reasonable limits". Surely a more logical conclusion would be that SNG's can't craft specific exceptions from GNG at all? --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Maybe "exception" is a strong word, but B1 and B4 shows that SNGs are meant to allow some kind of relaxed standard for certain kinds of content. The best evidence for how to relax that standard comes from the (conditional) consensus on B2 and/or B6. The RFC reveals that people don't want to enforce the GNG 100% consistently. Randomran (talk) 17:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
    • And AfD backs that. What do you think of the wording for episodes and characters I proposed above? Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure, but I'd lean towards something more specific. I think it would be easier to make the case that lists of characters and lists of episodes are notable. But that's not to say that characters and episodes strictly need significant coverage in reliable third party sources in order to stand on their own, outside a list. I think there *is* some standard that causes us to keep Underworld (Doctor Who), but redirect Truth be Told (Alias episode) to Alias episodes (season 1). And I think it might have something to do with the sources in the Doctor Who episode, which are not up to the standard we might expect for a political or history article, but might be reliable when it comes to television. I'm just brainstorming, hence words like "maybe", "might", etc. Randomran (talk) 18:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
        • Though if you look at Truth be Told when the redirect was made, I think it would fail the test I set up - it could, at that size, easily be merged upwards. (Whereas I suspect, in practice, it could support an article, as I'm pretty sure there are some decent Alias guidebooks published.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
          • I think we need another criteria for "keep" other than size, though. Some objective indicator, even if there's some room for interpretation. It sounds to me like you're saying that a guidebook would be sufficient to source an episode, though, and show that the episode is worthy of inclusion. Randomran (talk) 18:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
            • Sure, though I'm hesitant of some of the implications of that - mostly because I think it equates notability with the existence of a market of fans sufficiently rabid to buy a guidebook like that. And I'm really, really loathe to equate commerce with notability like that - it's one of the major hesitations I have about our sourcing policies. I mean, no Star Trek series has had the success that Law & Order has had, but the nature of the fandoms means that there are countless Star Trek reference books, and very few Law & Order ones. I'm uncomfortable with equating that fact to the notabilities of the episodes or series. Phil Sandifer (talk)
              • Question: For a series without the rabid Star Trek fanbase that would make a guidebook marketable... how would you source it? And by what measure would you judge it as notable, as opposed to a show that might not deserve stand-alone episode articles? Let's brainstorm. Maybe there's a better indicator to use, or maybe we will want to use multiple indicators. Or maybe we'll find that it's not about indicators at all. Randomran (talk) 19:19, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

(Going left for sanity) Well, and this is part of why I lean towards a size-based approach - because I think this gets into tremendously hairy territory very quickly. So let me break this into two parts. First is what I think a viable sense of the overall principle is, second is what I think provides some indicators of notability.

In terms of the general principle, looking at the RFC, and looking at AfD, I think there is some sense in which we consider sub-topics and main topics as a gestalt in looking at coverage. We do not allow unrestricted growth of subtopics, but on the other hand, we implicitly recognize that there are some kinds of forking that we do (and others that we definitely don't). This is not a well-defined point of policy, and I don't think this is the time to try to define it, but I do think that our coverage of a work of fiction is taken both as a set of individual articles and as a whole. The goal, then, is to have appropriate coverage of plot, characters, and production within that whole. Now, of course, the magic word there is "appropriate," and we have some genuine disputes on what that means, but we also all (even the most inclusionist of us - and I'm not talking about me) have a sense that restraint is key here, and that less is more. WP:WAF is, I think, a good guideline, and I think we all like it and wish it were better followed.

So what necessitates more coverage? Two things, I think. The first is popularity of the show - fundamentally, we are going to cover Law & Order more than we cover Century City, and with good reason. The second is narrative complexity. Fundamentally, The Sopranos and The Wire are going to require more than Barney and Friends. (This second point, incidentally, is why I think children's shows and video games get the short end of the stick - lack of narrative complexity.) So as popularity and narrative complexity increase, so do articles. And I think that this tendency - and note, I'm marking a tendency here, not a rule - is borne out on AfD.

That said, second issue - indicators. The existence of published literature on the series is a big one, but we have to note that notability and fan devotion are not equivalent. So what else? Reviews - both in online sources and newspaper sources - are a good indicator. (I'm surprised that Television Without Pity hasn't come up, actually - their recaps/reviews are wholly valid sources - they're a notable outlet. I'm not sure they're a reliable source for factual claims, being self-published, but their views are worth reporting, and go a long way towards justifying articles on hundreds of episodes.) But the caution here is presentism - we don't want to declare that episode articles are more OK for Everwood than for I Love Lucy just by virtue of the fact that Everwood is more recent and has Internet coverage.

Another indicator should probably be DVD release. Both because it often gives us episode commentaries - which is a major source of production information - and because it's a sign of cultural significance that is less dependent on the obsessiveness of fans. I'm certainly not going to say that any TV series that is out on DVD gets episode articles (nor that a series that is not out on DVD can't have them), but it is an indicator. Length of run is also an indicator - more in the negative sense than the positive sense (a quickly cancelled show is almost always less significant - though a few (Firefly (TV series)) are not).

I also think that a softening of "independent" will help a lot. I think that DVD commentaries, interviews with cast and crew, and comments by cast and crew should probably be treated as independent sources for episode and character articles. Not for parent series articles, but remember - a fair part of the independent rule was always to stop companies from advertising. Once we've established the notability of the series as a whole, the advertising concern dissipates, and we can probably afford to relax there. I wouldn't say that commentary by cast or crew provides notability for a TV series. But for an episode within the series? I'm more OK with that (and I suspect that AfD would be as well. That is, I think that "This is one of the episodes that got commentary on the DVD release, so it's an important episode" would swing votes on AfD).

I'm harder pressed to come up with good indicators for narrative complexity. But I'm also somewhat more skeptical that they're needed - this isn't necessarily something where a bright line distinction is possible (if there were an objective measurement of narrative complexity a lot of the wars in English departments over canonical literature would have ended ages ago), and furthermore, I think it's something where, although individuals will disagree, collective consensus can be generated fairly easily. That is, while you will get occasional outliers who insist that all of The Sopranos can be covered adequately in a paragraph or two, or who insist that actually we need 1000 words per episode of Full House to truly capture the narrative, in practice I think that a discussion among multiple people is going to instinctively hone in on a viable consensus here, and that it's a workable yardstick. So I'd be content, in phrasing guidelines, to make a note that narrative complexity will often require more substantial coverage, and avoid quantification on that point.

I think it is probably possible to, for episodes and characters, create a guideline that triangulates between significance and narrative complexity and would serve as an accurate predictor of whether an article will survive AfD. I am uncertain that such a guideline would meet principle-based consensus - that is, I think that inclusionists and exclusionists would both find the phrasing unsatisfying on an ideological level - but I think that such a guideline would accurately predict AfD results, which, I think, is the goal here - to find a way to extrapolate what we do in practice into a guideline. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for that really thorough and thoughtful response. I think this gives us a lot to work with.
  • Popularity and narrative complexity are definitely issues. I think popularity kind of takes care of itself on Wikipedia, and is especially apparent when you compare WP's coverage of popular culture to, say, African history. Narrative complexity is definitely an issue, and we might be able to apply this principle to WP:PLOT. Three paragraphs on Tony Soprano may detail some truly insightful details, but you should see some of the deleted video game character articles: talk about clothes, height, weight, friggin blood type. Even if we can't agree on what kind of plot summary is suitable, we can probably agree about what kind of plot summary is patently unsuitable. But I think we're getting off topic. I think this would be a great issue to discuss at another time and place. (In fact, I'd implore you to start such a discussion about WP:NOT#PLOT.)
  • So we know that popularity and complexity affect WP:SIZE, and size affects whether we merge or keep a stand alone article. But that can't be everything, or else would keep an extended entry on virtually any aspect of any topic with zero sources, and arguably zero importance. So let's talk about indicators of notability/inclusion.
  • It sounds to me like you think it would be fair to use sources that are less than independent (fan guides, episode commentary), or sources that might be accurate without having editorial review (television review sites that are generally trusted). I think this is highly consistent with what the RFC has shown. The RFC suggests that we don't generally think every spinout episode or character or *anything* is notable (A1/A2), although we are unsure about the principled exceptions suggested thus far (A3/A4). The RFC also suggests that there *is* an objective way to assess notability that comes from relaxing our sourcing standards (B2/B5). Kind of what you were saying, perhaps SNGs can articulate sources that assert notability that are still widely considered accurate ways to verify information, but might have lower standards of editorial review or be less than independent -- without being the primary source itself.
• I'm thinking out loud. But I think this general principle would explain WP:N in general. Once we do that, we could actually write the SNGs that are slightly friendlier to certain types of content. Randomran (talk) 01:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I like basically all of the above, except (ideologically) the independence issue. Phil, generally speaking, pins down how AfD operates on a case-by-case basis, and yes, I really would love to see WP:WAF get more usage than it currently does. Nifboy (talk) 01:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Reasonable Presumption: Grounds for Compromise?

As much as I hate it, I would say the only way to obtain compromise between inclusionists and deletionist is to expand the inlcusion criteria such that it is permissible to create an seperate page in Wikipedia mainspace (i.e. both articles and lists) in the absence of reliable secondary sources if there is a reasonable presumption that the topic or group of topics on that page is notable. It seems sensible, as this proposal more or less reflects current editorial practise.
The main benefit of this proposal is that no page on Wikipedia mainspace would be exempt from WP:N, but additional inclusion criteria would provide guidance as to what is a reasonable presumption, and how long that presumption could be expected to sustained. I oppose this proposal myself, since I believe that the burden of evidence rests with the editor who creates or restores an article, which must cite reliable secondary sources to demonstrate that its subject matter is notable. The presumption that evidence will be found in a future period effectively shifts this burden from the contributing editor to everyone else. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The reasonable presumption crtierion is already in WP:N: "Although articles should demonstrate the notability of their topics, and articles on topics that do not meet this criteria are generally deleted, it is important to not just consider whether notability is established by the article, but whether it readily could be. When discussing whether to delete or merge an article due to non-notability, the discussion should focus not only on whether notability is established in the article, but on what the probability is that notability could be established. If it is likely that independent sources could be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate unless active effort has been made to find these sources. For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort."

This hardly seems a compromise position. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:26, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Lists

One of the things that may help might be to define the purpose of lists.

• Lists are useful for navigation (some might claim that dab pages are essentially a type of "lists").

• Lists are useful "breeding grounds" for new articles. (Any time a section of a list becomes developed enough, it can be split into it's own article.)

• Lists are a useful place to merge slow-developing stubs. (It helps provide context to the overall topic that the stub may have been covering, and so making it easier to develop through sources and reciprical information.)

• Lists are useful as a place to indicate a desire for a new article. (Add a redlink and cross your fingers : )

• Lists are useful in helping to provide context to an overall topic or group of articles.

• Lists are a useful organisational tool for displaying/presenting information, and have several ways to do so.

• Lists can "self-organise" through the use of "parent lists" (not unlike "parent cats" as part of a navigational structure. (See the main page for some contents, and indices, for example.)

And these are merely a few of the more obvious uses.

The problem is that most editors don't look for the possible uses of a page, and are merely interested in whether they feel such information should be presented.

Awhile back, Lists of fictional things was deleted simply because several of those commenting in the AfD didn't realise that this was a "parent list", providing navigation to subordinate lists. (I may DRV it in the near future - it's been on my "back burner" for awhile.)

One of the main problems I personally see with lists is a question of whether there are inappropriate intersections in the inclusion criteria of the list.

For example:

"List of characters on a TV series" - too broad, but might be useful as a "parent list" pointing to lists with more specific modifiers. (Another way to look at this is to presume that all lists with those two intersections are a part of this list, but merely are split to separate lists due to WP:Summary style and WP:SIZE.) To "split", select one of the two intersections (either characters, or TV series) and substitute a more specific modifier.

"List of doctors on a TV series" - the original two intersections are still there (fictional characters, and television series), but one of them (Fictional characters) has been modified to become more specific (doctors). The more specific modifier should be an encyclopedic topic and thus would be "notable". ("List of fictional head scratchers on a TV series" comes immediately to mind.) Note that in this case, this list perhaps still too broad, and may be further split.

"List of doctors on ER" "List of doctors on General Hospital" etc. - This time the other intersection criteria (TV series) was modified. And again the new modifier(s) are encyclopedic topics.

"List of secret agents on Heroes with superpowers" - This adds two different modifiers to "Fictional characters": secret agents, and super powers. This is just a case of more specificity.

Though we should beware of splitting lists to become so specific as to only have a couple of entries. (Small, with little hope for expansion: "List of secret agents on Heroes with the power to manipulate fire with their hands".) In which case, an "upmerge" to a less specific list might be appropriate. (No different than when "upmerging" a stub to a list for potential further development.)

And the above should provide a start on helping to establish a "notability guideline" concerning lists.

We simply look for the "core" intersections, and determine of they, or the "further modifiers" each are notable. If not, then the list's inclusion criteria needs to be modified, and the list pruned. If that means that the list becomes empty, or becomes a duplicate of another list, then deletion is appropriate.

Consider "List of blondes on Heroes", for example. We have the intersection of (fictional characters) and (TV series). The TV series may be notable (Heroes), but the modifier to the fictional character (blondes), may not be.

And if consensus determines that "blondes" is inappropriate (trivial) for inclusion criteria, then merely "up"-grade the list. So the list would become "List of fictional characters on Heroes" (since "blondes" was the modifier for "fictional characters" in this case). And since that list (presumably) already exists, then the result would simply be: Merge and Delete.

Simple.

(And now we wait for me to be flamed : ) - jc37 22:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

...what? I know you said "simple" but I don't comprehend what it is you're saying. All I see are bunch of completely arbitrary ways of breaking down a list of things that may or may not need to be listed in the first place. Nifboy (talk) 23:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's only by breaking these down into their core components that we're going to be able to develop any sort of honest consensus on any one specific list. - jc37 21:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Still lost. I like exactly zero of your examples, as they seem more suited for a list on TV Tropes or some such, where you can list anything so long as it meets the criteria. Incidentally, no, I don't like List of fictional doctors (or, for that matter, most of Category:Lists of fictional characters); it's both hopelessly incomplete and so big it's threatening to collapse under its own weight. Some of your proposed "purposes" of lists feel like solutions looking for a problem: we hardly need to encourage new articles, especially in fiction.. Nifboy (talk) 00:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we should encourage more articles in every facet of Wikipedia including fiction. Even should we eventually have a billion articles, we should ravenously push for more : ) - jc37 10:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Give me a thousand more well-organized, high-quality articles over a billion articles of indeterminable quality any day. Nifboy (talk) 16:55, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I particularly like User:Erachima/Inclusion (stand-alone lists) in regards to lists. This would leave the list aspect resolved and the SNG/GNG issues can then be taken on. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 18:31, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I think this is a great starting point. I might want to make sure that the criteria of the list itself is not "trivial" (e.g.: not "list of TV characters with blond hair"), and I definitely need a little more clarification about how you might write a list article without reliable third-party sources. But let's see what other people think, particularly those on the "anti-notability" end of the spectrum. Randomran (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

So let's assume "List of doctors on ER" and "List of doctors on General Hospital" would be alright - would "List of doctors on Stargate SG-1" also automatically be okay (two major recurring doctors, a handful of minor recurring doctors whose names I don't remember, a bunch of one-off background doctors)? If so, why? If not, why? And we're back to square one. – sgeureka ^t•c 20:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an issue of carving these lists up in a reasonable way. Maybe we need a better way to phrase is, but the proposal states that a list should not have a scope that is "overly limited". Doctors on ER might be reasonable, but doctors on StarGate would be overly limited, let alone trivial. As an aside, I'd wouldn't want more than one character list per series, unless someone had some sources to show that another list is notable (or even semi-notable). Randomran (talk) 20:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

On your last point - By the system above, I would rather state that no character list per series should be created unless justified based on development (which is broader than just stating notability). So for example, the "List of doctors on Stargate SG-1" could be treated as a "split" (even if it was merely a creation), and then can be (re-)merged to "List of characters on Stargate SG-1", for further development. Essentially, any list may be potentially split or merged based upon development. - jc37 21:25, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a fair point: if two lists should be merged together, there will be a merge. If we have to remove WP:NOT information in the process, then we will. Still, it would be nice to avoid really dumb disputes by explaining what kinds of lists are inappropriate. (Or, alternatively, by having a reasonably high list-standard, but making a few discrete exceptions for things we know are appropriate.) Randomran (talk) 21:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• I think the challenge for lists is to create a set of inclusion criteria that do not lead to them failing WP:NOT and other Wikipedia policies. The example given, "List of doctors on Stargate SG-1" would probably fail WP:NOT#DIR, so I don't think jc37 has thought through the implications of his statement that a list is "justified based on development". In the absence of any alternative inclusion criteria, I beleive that compliance with WP:N is defense against failing WP:NOT, unless someone has developed an workable alternative. The proposal made by Erachima is not much better, as based on the idea that a list must be "Related to a notable topic", but this is a classic example of a truism, and as such is too broad to have any practical application because you can't disprove this statement. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

• Right now it is impossible to write down a full and exacting list of what are allowable or disallowable lists, because there's so many different types that we cannot categorize them. Pending global reassessment of these to make sure there are no problems, there are some that are accept, including lists of episodes and lists of major and minor/recurring characters. There are also ones that are unacceptable: lists of fictional topics grouped from several different works of fiction (eg, list of fictional doctors; this doesn't prevent the use of categories to do this), lists of one-off/cameo characters in a work, etc. We can define the white and blacklists for these, but there's a huge middle ground that I don't think we can qualify yet. What do we do about that? We do a watch-and-see approach: such lists, when put for deletion, should be tracked to try to qualify what the list is: once we have enough to generalize that such a list is generally not allowed or is always allowed, we can black/whitelist it, respectively. This will allow us to slowly chew away at the vague area, though there will always be one like this. But by defining explicit cases we know are acceptable and those that never are, we can provide the right type of examples of what lists are appropriate, with the flexibility that a guideline should be. --MASEM 17:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)