Wikipedia talk:Notability

• Notice: There is an ongoing request for comments regarding the notability of spin-out articles and the relationship between the main notability guideline and the subject specific notability guidelines at: Wikipedia talk:Notability/RFC:compromise.

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Wikipedia:Relevance

• See also Wikipedia talk:Relevance (and archives)

This is not a vote

Votes are evil. However: it is probably worth gathering some thoughts under the two general threads evident above.

Proposal A: That "Wikipedia:Notability" be renamed

Supporting reasons given thus far:

• Wikipedia's definition does not match the usual real world definition
• The term has pejorative overtones for those subjects which are not appropriate for inclusion, implying a judegment of the merit of the subject
• Confusion between notable-as-in-significant and notable-as-in-encyclopaedic, leading to circular arguments in deletion debates and elsewhere

Opposing reasons given thus far:

• If the wrong name is chosen, the scope of the page will increase
• Potential for obscuring the difference between this (guideline) and formal policy

Supportive of renaming to something

1. For the reasons stated, especially Phil Sandifer's comment: the word notability is indeed widely perceived as toxic. Guy (Help!) 19:31, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Agree with rename, if scope is preserved and clarity is improved. "Notability" carries with it real world baggage which is misleading. We're not judging an article's importance or value, but whether it has met our source requirements. Randomran (talk)
3. Fully agree for the reasons outlined here. Everyme 13:30, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
4. Agree to rename. This also reflects it's opposition to WP:DP. This is what gets in and WP:DP is what gets taken out, they should match. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 13:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
5. I'd support renaming. The common understanding of "notable" - and it is the one expressed here - is "worthy of notice". That's fine, but it doesn't say "has been noticed". This guideline uses a much narrower definition than elsewhere, which leads to a degree of confusion. When told that the topic isn't notable, a common response seems to be to argue that it is, based on many of the reasons (fame, popularity, google hits) that this guideline specifically denies. But being famous does make something notable, as does being popular - just not in our terms. I think the guidline would be better summarized as "worthy of inclusion", simply because that's what the guideline determines - not if it is important, or popular, or famous, but if it has been covered in sufficient reliable sources to make it possible to write an encyclopedic article. - Bilby (talk) 14:03, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
6. Support. I think that the common English notion of notability is a subjective judgment, which seems to lead to people ignoring what WP:N actually says. --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 08:25, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Opposed to renaming, Notability is good enough

1. I disagree that renaming to any name would remove the office people are taking at us presuming to judge others for worthiness of inclusion. The only things that can solve ignorance is education and that takes active participation on the one who is ignorant. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. This proposal is meaningless. You cannot compare one thing. It only makes sense to consider proposals that actually offer an alternative. VasileGaburici (talk) 02:20, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   This is "Part A" with a tied-in "Part B". It isn't meant for you to take this part in isolation. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:12, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

3. I think there's a larger problem that a simple "feel good" renaming solution can provide; that's not to say we shouldn't aim to make inclusion/notability/whatever be a more positive turn, but such an approach needs to be married with a strong look at the content of the guideline (currently in progress at the RFC) and not just name alone. --MASEM 04:36, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
4. This proposal incurs disadvantages without solving a problem. Does this proposal stem from a desire to make the page name speak for itself? If so, designing a name with little common meaning goes against this purpose. WP:N notability speaks for itself plenty because it uses a real-world word. It would be fantastic if we could find an article name that helps the reader understand it, and at the same time avoids conflating the article name with colloquial meanings, but that hope is absurd. Besides, notability is not an easy concept to master, and we can only expect so much from an article name. —Kanodin—VENT— 07:32, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   It uses a real-world word in an almost completely made-up and unrealistic meaning. One of the biggest issues with "Notability" is it doesn't mean "Notability" in Wikipedia. You are right when you say notability is not an easy concept to master, because editors on WP have completely made-up the definition. How much clearer can you get than "Inclusion Policy"? Do you know what "Inclusion Policy would cover? I can tell just from the name. And to tell someone that "this article needs to go, it does not meet inclusion policy" is a dead giveaway. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 13:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

   That is correct. The ordinary meaning of notability does not cover the inclusion criterion. That is an ad hoc addition to WP:N. —Kanodin—VENT— 01:08, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

5. Relatively useless. We have severe problems with getting special interests to accept the contents of this policy, not the name. Does anyone really think that being told "I'm sorry, you can't be included" or "I'm sorry, your favorite local band is unincludable" is going to go down easier that "non-notable."?Kww (talk) 13:45, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   It may not be more favorable but it will be a lot more understandable. The alternative is the current "I'm sorry your band that has headlined at your bar for three years is not notable. Well, not 'Notable' the way you think of using 'Notable' but another use for notable that we made up as a means of keeping things that don't have enough..." No one is listening by the end of that. "Inclusion Policy" doesn't have a conflicting real-world deffinition that we hav to overcome first. It takes at least one step out of the argument. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 13:30, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

   We can and should always point out the difference between subjective concepts like "fame" or "importance" and the decision process we have in place to help us determine what will be included. "Notability" does a horrible job in that respect because it still implies a value judgement, or at least a normative outlook — even though most experienced users know the difference, that makes it a poor choice of word in most discussions. "Inclusion" or "Inclusion guideline" clearly and straightforwardly focuses on our decision process as such. If some ass curtly told a newbie "I'm sorry, you can't be included" or "I'm sorry, your favorite local band is unincludable", I'd warn them against biting and ask them to explain their position instead. Actually I think the title "inclusion" in itself would direct a clearer appeal to all sides to make their point instead of simply name-dropping the name of the guideline. Imho, "WP:Notability" sounds like an assuming statement, namely that "we can decide what is notable" — while "WP:Inclusion guideline" simply says "we're here, having ongoing discussions about what will be included" (mind the big difference to "what should be included"). Everyme 15:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   So, the fact taht it does not fix every single problem is a reason for not fixing one of the worse ones? Guy (Help!) 22:23, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

6. I most heartily disagree with your contention that the word notable implies a value judgement. Our use of it here on Wikipedia is in it's most literal sense, that is that someone has "taken note" of the subject. In a single word notable sums up the fact that subjects need to be non-trivially mentioned in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the subject. I don't see that any other term would serve as well. I think that any other term would, in fact, make things worse.—Elipongo (Talk contribs) 15:26, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

   And I would support this outlook, except for the fact that it's not true at all. You had to defend it before you even completed your statement. "Non-trivial". What part of the word "Notable" means non-trivial? You say "it's most literal sense, that is that someone has "taken note" of the subject." But then are forced to qualify that in the very next sentence. Not that literal a use, is it? Even it's explanation has to be qualified. If I tell you it doesn't meet the "Inclusion Guideline", I don't have to argue my way out of that. I don't have to redefine "Inclusion" or "Guideline". I just have to list the guidelines and have them met. No arguments about "it's noted in the Cedar Rapids Picyune, isn't that a note?" The guidelines are what they are, I don't have to start the conversation with a defense of the definition of "Guidelines". padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 13:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

   In looking up 'notability' in various dictionaries, it is plain that there is always going to be a subjective element to many pieces of nominated information. In the end, we are dealing with human beings, not web spiders, and people are going to agree or disagree. It really does not matter what we call it; the essential fact is that we have a mechanism in place already to have the discussions. In the end, these healthy dialogues generally resolve the issue (and educate us all in the process). I say, leave it as is.SunTzuGuy (talk) 21:06, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Proposal B: If renamed, then...

Potential titles suggested thus far:

Inclusion guideline

Notability is (explicitly) just a guideline, but some feel that adding guideline to the title will encourage wikilawyering.

1. See also Inclusion below. Guy (Help!) 19:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Both WP:Inclusion and WP:Inclusion guideline are fine by me. I think I favour the latter especially since there's no harm in naming the page in a straightforward and descriptive way: the inclusion guideline page which outlines the basics about our ongoing negotiations over what will be included and what will not. Everyme 13:46, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion

1. With both inclusion and inclusion guideline we have an opportunity to roll back some of the creep which has happened over time with notability. The value of this page is primarily in determining what merits inclusion, its major use is in deciding the marginal cases at deletion debates. This may offer the opportunity to prune back on the proliferation of rules and be much more explicit about what the guideline is for, and thus what is expected in an appropriate article subject. As a means fo reducing confusion, that would seem to me to have merit. Guy (Help!) 19:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Oppose. Having a policy and an guideline with the same name would be very confusing. This was pointed out by many others above: Seresin, Kanodin, Hut 8.5 to name a few. VasileGaburici (talk) 01:48, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   Please don't take this too personal, but I think you may be confusing things. Where does anyone say anything about a guideline and a policy? This entire discussion is merely about whether we rename the page "WP:Notability" to something different. Everyme 15:50, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

3. I support focusing the issue from being about notability to being about inclusion as that is really the measure, but as I comment above, this is not just replacing the word notability with inclusion - notability is one factor for inclusion, but the verdict is still out if we include topics in some manner if not notable, and thus there may be more than just notability that makes up inclusion. --MASEM 04:39, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Viability

1. Not a meaningful name as pointed out by several editor above. Would increase the confusion. VasileGaburici (talk) 01:49, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Minimum sources

1. The guideline is a subjective assessment of value, but an objective requirement for a minimum amount of sources: significant coverage in reliable third-party sources. This also sums up a key part of WP:V: If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. It also helps the guideline to maintain its current scope, rather than turning it into a general inclusion guideline. Randomran (talk) 20:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Weak oppose - This could be workable, but I have a similar suggestion below that may work better. Consensus on notability is less strict than the policy quoted policy on sources (from WP:RS, not WP:V) by considering "whether it readily could be." ~ Ningauble (talk) 22:05, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Your worth as a human being is not tied to having an article on Wikipedia.

1. Is that what this all about? If the complaint is that people are getting offended by the non-pejorative term, lets make it even more clear. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:44, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
2. I'm all for adding a "consolation" paragraph to WP:N or even link from WP:N to separate essay should someone endeavor to write it. VasileGaburici (talk) 02:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   Someone has. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 04:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion Threshold

1. Why not? That's exactly what N is, the threshold upon which you can have an article. Spartaz ^Humbug! 14:57, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
2. The term "threshold" is not categorically different from "notability" in that both have an entirely unuseful normative ring to it. Why not throw all of that overboard and give the page a title that highlights simply what the page really is about? Everyme 15:06, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

   I disagree. "Inclusion" alone is too normative in my opinion; adding "threshold" suggests that it is not a value judgment but rather an analytical process. However, it looks moot as this whole discussion appears to be heading nowhere.--Kubigula (talk) 16:17, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Independent coverage threshold

1. This characterizes the nature of the criterion in terms that could hardly be taken as characterization of the subject itself, and emphasizes that Wikipedia coverage is not arbitrary, but is determined by third-party coverage. Within the guideline, expunge such toxic phrases as "worthy of notice" and replace with such phrases as "within the scope of Wikipedia coverage." Replace other references to "notable" with "within scope," "well covered," "suitable," "appropriate," etc., as fits the context. Obliterate reference to "merit." ~ Ningauble (talk) 22:10, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Support as informative and consistent with what notability currently describes. Too many other proposals offer no additional clarity, and change the scope completely. Randomran (talk) 22:24, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
3. God no. Everyme 22:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Overview of inclusion guidelines

1. This seems to me to be the intent of Wikipedia:Notability when Radiant! edited it in September 2006[1]. The "GNG" seems to me to have been an attempt to summarize the various subject-specific notability guidelines (which weren't actually "notability" guidelines until this requested move] in December 2005. --Pixelface (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Adequate standard for topic inclusion

1. I know this name is long, but it's based on this sentence in WP:N — A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right. Basically, the GNG is meant to provide a standard that makes any topic suitable for inclusion. The subject-specific "notability" guidelines are meant to provide a standard that makes specific categories of topics suitable for inclusion. Neither are meant to make editor's arguments in AFDs irrelevant. The standard, GNG, is adequate, not required. --Pixelface (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Coverage

1. If "coverage" of a topic is what editors want, perhaps Wikipedia:Coverage would be the most appropriate title for this page. --Pixelface (talk) 03:39, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:TINEIAFRSTWAVNEAWIFOOR

1. (There is not enough information available from reliable sources to write a verifiable, neutral, encyclopaedia article which is free of original research.) Guest9999 (talk) 02:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I like it. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Me too. If we decide to stick to describing a treshold in the title, this is the most straightforward description and should be it. Everyme 10:42, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

right idea, ... but it does not spell an easily remembered (and preferably witty) word ... all good acronyms should do that. Think in terms of military acronyms such as REMF (rear eschelon mother fucker), SNAFU (situation normal, all fucked up) and CINCUS (Comander in Chief, United States). Can we come up with a title that sings when you make an acronym of it? Blueboar (talk) 20:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

General notability guideline

1. Lets call a spade a spade. WP:N is the general notability guideline.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

add more here

Too deletionist

Some aspects of WP:N are too deletionist. "Significant coverage" just begs for disputes. The requirement that some RSs should treat an article's subject as their main subject is too restrictive. See for example the discussion at Talk:4X/Archive 1, where I successfully opposed the sticking of a "notablility" tag on 4X - which is now an FA! In popular culture, sources don't examine things they regard as fundamental concepts in the way that academics do. Apart from such unnecessarily long debates on individual articles, WP:N's deletionist bias has lead to some dangerous proposals at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. I think it would be disastrous if WP:N was watered down as proposed there, but the mere existence of Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise shows widespread and deep dissatisfaction with WP:N. -- Philcha (talk) 11:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no requirement that a topic be the main subject of a reliable source; it just needs more than trivial mention as well. There's a lot of flexibility in that. And realize that not every proposal at the RFC is being aimed for inclusion; they are purposely conflicting to gain a consensus on where notability should be for WP. --MASEM 13:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

To be more precise, WP:N says, ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail." That was significant obstacle in defending the notability of 4X, as most game-related articles are reviews of specific games and take genres for granted.

A suitable amendment for this type of case would be e.g. "... or make it clear that the subject is an important aspect of their discussion." However that's only one case. We need a fairly comprehensive list of cases where an article's notability has been questioned but non-Wikipedians without a POV or fanboy agenda would say, "Of course it's notable!" -- Philcha (talk) 13:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you give me an example of a source that makes it clear that something is important without addressing it directly?Kww (talk) 13:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

RM Hayes's filmography on 3-D films devotes less than a page to Bwana Devil, the vast majority of it technical information of the sort that he includes for other clearly non-notable films. However, he includes a few sentences of commentary that note "It was a classic because it started the stereoscopic boom of the fifties." This is clearly not significant coverage in the book, but it is also clearly sufficient to demonstrate notability. Yes, other sources exist for the film - but for the simple decision of whether or not to delete, the brief mention in the Hayes book that clearly indicates historical importance is sufficient. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I think that would satisfy most people's requests for direct and detailed. One can never qualify as multiple, but that is rarely the problem: it's usually zero or many, and not often one.Kww (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

It may satisfy "direct and detailed," but it seems to me to fall short of "more than trivial." Especially, coming as it does, in an attempt to list and describe exhaustively all 3-D films. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"Significant coverage" is one of the more vague parts of WP:N. But it's defined as "more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." So no, an RS doesn't need to treat it as a main topic. It really just needs to verify some kind of substantive fact about the subject, rather than just a trivial mention. It's meant to exclude stuff like "Then Barack Obama shook hands with Cathy Sanderson from Utah." You'd need to be able to write an article that says more than "Cathy Sanderson is a woman from Utah". Having put together the RFC compromise, I'm actually reassured by the number of people who basically support WP:N. There are just disagreements on small but significant details. Randomran (talk) 13:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

"Significant coverage" seems a poor way to describe what you detail there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You might be right. But whoever is trying to push the idea that a source must take something as its main subject, they're using WP:N too stringently and you should call them on it. Randomran (talk) 14:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Randomran, you're familiar with the case I was talking about :-)

The problem there was that it was easy to find sources that said e.g. "... is a 4X game ..." or "... as in any 4X game ...", but very difficult to find more than asides about the 4X genre itself, e.g. "... tries to solve the common micromanagment problems of 4X by ...". Common sense says, "OK, it looks like 4X is an important game genre", but the wording of WP:N makes it almost impossible to use that as a defence. The only solution I can see at present is that if several RSs make it plain that X is an important aspect of their subject, then X should be considered notable. But I'm sure this would deal with only one type of obstacle to establishing notability for things Joe Public would consider notable without a second thought. We need more data.

Re "you should call them on it", I suggest most editors do not want to be wiki-lawyers. I'd like to see a reduction of the scope for the wrong sorts of wiki-lawyers to bother editors. -- Philcha (talk) 14:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that a certian number of useful passing references should be allowed to establish notability, say 10. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I see where you guys are coming from, but I think WP:N already accommodates that. When you add up ten different one-off facts from several reliable third-party sources, you *do* get "significant coverage". I think that's already implied in WP:N as is, and I'd support adjusting WP:N to be more clear on that point. I think the problem here is a lack of clarity. I know people hate wikilawyering. But keep in mind the basic WP:N rule is generally clear, and it's only in these borderline cases that people start wrangling over details. And in these borderline cases, we should provide people with a measuring stick so it doesn't degenerate into WP:IHATEIT, or cherry-picking statements from other policies. When people start disputing the meaning "significant coverage", people need to remember that it's a means to an end. It's not that we're looking for a scholarly journal article on a subject to prove it's "worthiness" in some elitist sense. We're really just looking for enough verifiable facts in reliable third-party sources to write a solid non-stub article, with a statement or two about why the subject is important in its field. Randomran (talk) 15:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it does. Take me, for example: you could find references to me as presenting at dozens of engineering conferences on five or six topics; listings of hotel owners in the Netherlands Antilles; property-owners that have filed zoning amendment requests in Phoenix, Arizona; graduation lists of my high-school and college; attendance at and display of vehicles at British car shows; telephone directory listings at multiple cities; lists of executives that received funding from NEA and USVP; probably a hundred reliable, but passing, references to me just by sitting down at Google for a few hours. My full name, in quotes, gets 9130 hits. With just a middle initial, you get another 1800, and without the middle, you get 416,000 to wade through and sort. Am I notable? I think not. Multiple passing references don't equal one good one. Once you have a few good ones, you can use the passing references to flesh out an article, but without the good ones, you can't have the article.Kww (talk) 16:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Are any of these you? I'd be curious to see a couple of these references you mention. It would be helpful to know if allowing 10 useful passing mentions would actually make you notable. I think they would be disallowed by the "directories and databases" footnote (#6)in NOTE, which is based on NOT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's a 15 minute search. If I included paper sources, it would get much, much larger.

• [Bonaire Reporter]
• [Business Week]
• TMC
• Free Patents
• DesignCon]
• ISOC
• Light Reading
• EE Times
• Pochi
• Another IEEE
• Edgar Online
• SEC

I probably fail WP:BIO, but we have numerous people arguing that that doesn't matter ... if I meet the GNG requirement, then it doesn't matter what an SNG says. I disagree with that, but I think my Wikipedia article would be a natural consequence of attempting to loosen notability by the combination of allowing multiple passing references to establish notability and not allowing SNGs to create exclusion rules.Kww (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't even look at your Google News link. PR Newswire, Silicon Valley People, and San Jose Business Journal are me, too.Kww (talk) 16:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I am generally inclined to agree that you shouldn't have an article. But I think the reasons for this are subtler than notability. Or, put another way, I am unconvinced that the question of whether you should have an article, whether the last episode of House should have an article, and whether a garage band should have an article are best judged on the same grounds. I am, for instance, more OK with you having an article than a garage band because of a basic bias of encyclopedias - you seem to work in more academic fields, and I think encyclopedias should generally demonstrate a bias in coverage towards academic topics where possible. (I have in the past argued that we should have articles on every scholar ever to publish a peer-reviewed article so as to provide summaries of their work. I stand by this - I think it is absolutely the case, as an encyclopedia, that academic areas are the areas we should go deepest into.) But, from the sources we have, it seems hard to formulate an overall approach. No one aspect of your article could go more than a sentence in from the sources available. And so even though, for me, the standards of notability for an engineer who has done meaningful and documented research are lower than the standards for a garage band, we can't put a good article together.

The issue there is one that's not really talked about in policy - the problem is that the available sources are hard to synthesize into a coherent whole. Whereas with Bwana Devil (to go back to the example of something that has a trivial reference in a book, but where that trivial reference should be sufficient), even if all we have is the Hayes book and the film we can at least get some historical notes, some production commentary, and a basic description of the film. That is, with two sources, we can put together something that looks like an article. (As it happens we have more, but that's beside the point - the Hayes book and the film would be sufficient for a usable article.)

But this is a subtle approach to sources and organization, and I'm not sure it distills well to policy declaration. Which may be why, in practice, article inclusion is decided not by rigid and dogmatic application of policy, but via discussions at AfD. Rigidity may not be to our advantage. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

But your answer does touch on the reason I oppose x passing references = notability argument. If there isn't a reliable, third party analysis (i.e. a direct and detailed examination) to base the article on, the whole structure of the article teeters dangerously close to original research.Kww (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes and no - I think it's a mistake to believe that article structure can come in any sort of direct way from sources. I think NOR is a very poorly phrased policy these days, and that its focus on pulling everything directly and transparently from sources is an utterly unrealistic vision of how writing happens. So I think we have to be careful about what we label as original research in this context. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(redent) You're just about notable. I may write an article about you. Some of those links you provided were just directory information, but this is pretty good. If there were ten references of that size, where each added something that the others did not, I think that should be allowed.

Lets see:

Kevin Wayne Williams ... BS in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University,designed telecom products for the Lucent /GTE joint venture(AGCS),[2] chief technical officer of Mayan (founded in 1998),[3], appointed vice president of marketing of Paxonet Communications( 09-OCT-01),[4]

You get enough of these, a nice article can be put together. This type of reference doesn't add anything, and wouldn't be counted towards the ten. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is that references like those ones do not really provide a general context for the information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

The irony of taking my own bio to AFD may prove too much for me, though.Kww (talk) 20:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I only really advocate this approach for fictional characters, where a lot of first party sources will also exist. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:33, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the issue is whether sufficient sources exist to be able to synthesize them usefully. A bunch of one-line mentions when that is the whole of the information available is very, very different from a single one-line mention (a la the Bwana Devil example I've given before) and substantial primary source material. We can write a good article out of the latter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:53, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry to interject, but someone needs to back up KWW here and make the obvious point that 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. Eusebeus (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • "A literary work containing extensive information on all branches of knowledge," quoth the OED. Also notable: Encyclopedic, meaning " Of, pertaining to, or resembling an encyclopædia; that aims at embracing all branches of learning; universal in knowledge, very full of information, comprehensive." The root is shared with "encyclic," that is, encircling or complete. Which is to say, exclusion of knowledge is the opposite of encyclopedicness. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Did you mean standards for deletion? I mean, once the deletioners push through the new set of deletion rules for the new texts, it would be fair to delete all the existing texts that fail them. Welcome to a sterile brave new world. But it won't happen simply because noone will have the guts to assign this to a robot, and there are not enough un-robots to nuke 1 or 2 million under-texts (look at WP:FARC productivity for an example). So the current double standards will prevail, and the war for/against deletion will go on. BTW, isn't encyclopedia a comprehensive written compendium? NVO (talk) 08:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • If presume that encyclopedia's are to be all encompassing, then why doesn't Encyclopedia Britannica have information on all these topics that we tend to disallow? It's pretty much that both WP and EB have selected a certain editorial level to make the respective projects manageable and usable. The nature of WP, being able to be edited by anyone, brings about significant problems of maintaining the work as to meet the rest of WP's mission; even right now, we have realistically too few editors to manage the millions of pages. Notability, or whatever it may end up being, along with other policies is a metric that at least helps to determine when user-created topics should be removed or relocated so that we can help keep the amount of maintenance to a minimum. --MASEM 13:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• • • • Because the EB is limited by numerous financial constraints - originally by the restrictions of paper, and subsequently by the fact that their business model depends on paying contributors, and so they can't afford to produce an unlimited number of articles. Our volunteer approach and our existence as a web resource first makes it feasible for us to cover everything. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
        • But we have similar limitations, maybe not financial, maybe not size (directly), but we do lack the editorial nature that a commercial published work has. That is, while there may be registered "editors" in the 100,000s, I would probably venture to say that only on the order of 1,000 to 5,000 are performing editor-type duties, making sure articles are written in a quality manner, they are factual, etc. There is no deadline, but the in-box pile of articles to be checked is far exceeding the out-box of those that have, and at somepoint that weight is going to collapse this system, if there are not quick-fail checks (CSD) and other criteria that can quickly evaluate an article's merit. The other thing to remember is that Wikipedia is not the only web site on the planet ; we don't have to cover everything. It's great if people come to WP as a resource for looking up things first, but we shouldn't be the only stop. Nor should we replicate the work that others have already done otherwheres on WP, if it is as comprehensive (if not more so) as we would want for WP. --MASEM 14:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Masem: As Phip Sandifer said below, it's Pokemon vs. Mozart. Going a bit further, the difference between WP and Britannica is not as much in the quality of articles and their sources as such, as it is the absence of a top-down, universal editorial management: Pokemon and Mozart are written in different worlds. WP is fragmented into communities that set their own different attitudes to quality, notability etc. (plus scores of "unincorporated" editors like yours truly). The organized communities enforce their version of policies through so-called consensus; the mob of strangers keeps on throwing more firewood that the fire can consume. So the bulk of substandard texts increases in number. Who can control its growth and how? I cannot imagine any "supreme will" to clean up the mess in the foreseeable future; do you? Filtering the stream of new texts is a must, but what about 1 or 2 million of existing candidates for deletion? NVO (talk) 18:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, but as has been pointed out, it's probably a mistake to think that we can transform an editor who wants to write articles on individual Pokemon into an editor who is going to check and improve articles on American history, or whatever. Yes, we need quality control on existing articles, but I see no evidence that slowing article creation leads to that quality. I would also add the caveat that the drive to not replicate ought include the condition that the comprehensive work is free content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Phil Sandifer: I would draw attention to a somewhat different perspective. It's not just about futility of converting Pokemon or Younameit fans. It's about different treatment of different subcultures of the same kind. For some reason, it happens. Which raises doubts of commercial interest involved: these cultures are, after all, business franchises. Why, in the world, did WP remove all texts on Sony digital cameras, and why it preserves the texts on Nikon products? Beats me, but this double standard treatment is against WP credibility. What do you think can stop it in the future? NVO (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The decision making process of Wikipedia is never going to attain consistency. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

• • • • • • • I don't expect to be able to convert all editors to QC-type editors, but it is the case that the increase in QC-type editors is outpaced by a "normal" editor that's more interested in making sure their favorite topic is covered. We should definitely not slow article creation due to this, but instead have better checkpoints once an article is created to quickly allow it to continue or to get rid of it (though CSD and clear notability requirements); we'll still always have articles that need further discussion to determine their merits, but brighter lines on what notability is will help reduce the number of discussions, and thus save more time for everyone involved. On external comprehensive sites, there's no requirement they have to be free; if the external site is the de facto most complete resource for a topic but is a commercially owned site, we still can point to it for followup information. It would be nice if all external content was free (as in speech) but that's not likely; so we only mandate that the content on en.wiki remain free. --MASEM 15:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
              • Well, and I'm not going to argue for universal inclusionism. The "pedia" part of "encyclopedia" also needs to be considered - coming from the same root as pedagogy, it means knowledge or teaching. So an encyclopedia is a work that encompasses all knowledge or teaching. The question of what knowledge is or is not is a genuine one, and plenty of stuff fails to meet that cut. And that's where WP:N comes in - but to say that exclusion is at the heart of us becoming more encyclopedic is silly - that's manifestly not what encyclopedic means. As for freedom, if no free resource exists in an area of knowledge, our goal is to create one - that's part of the point. Making sure that there's a free content resource for all knowledge. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
                • I don't think exclusion is the right approach either - it is too negative; I'm strongly for emphasizing inclusion over that. However, and this is a key point, inclusion is not the same as "having an article about it". We can include a lot of information and be comprehensive, but it helps in maintenance and the like by organizing that information in a way to provide the "just right" amount of articles to adequetely cover the topic per WP's mission and policies. In many of the cases of disputed articles, I would argue that the inclusion of that topic is not the issue, but the fact that it's been given its own article is what really is the core of the discussion. I've been trying to push that we can include a lot more topics in WP, as long as we are well aware that not all topics make for good encyclopedic articles if placed in an article by itself due to lack of sources, tendencies to go into OR and POV, and the like; in such cases, we push those topics to a smaller number of list/table articles so that we still achieve the ability to maintain them while still covering that topic. There, however, are always still going to be topics we don't cover (The average human being, for example), typically per WP:NOT, and we need to be aware that these topics areas do exist. That is, given the mission and policies, there is no way that we can always create a free resource for an area of knowledge that doesn't otherwise exist; we'd like to , but we need to be practical too. --MASEM 16:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
                  • You'll get no argument from me on the difference between inclusion and having its own article - I've been arguing that the two issues need to be separated for months. I'd prefer to address inclusion as the primary issue, and then sort out article division (which is primarily a technical concern due to WP:SIZE from there. I do think it's important to distinguish between knowledge and data as well - the "pedia" in encyclopedia is related to teaching and learning. That is, it does not demand that we be a compendium of all facts, but of a higher order of stuff - knowledge. The point of WP:N should be to distinguish knowledge from facts. But there are many areas where it seems to me to do a very inadequate job of that task. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

One other point, continuing to use me as an example. I know that the arsonist from Texas and the winner of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force leadership award are not me. How would anyone else come to that conclusion? I suspect that me and those two other men named "Kevin Wayne Williams" are the only ones that can make that judgement reliably.Kww (talk) 13:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Though even if two of the sources dealt with you non-trivially, it seems like this problem would likely exist. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

It's reduced significantly by a good third-party source, though. The Bonaire Reporter article is close, but it isn't really independent (a small island newspaper interviewing a major advertiser doesn't try hard to dig up dirt). If it was independent, it probably would mention major things like arson convictions. Since it isn't, even if the guy in Texas was me, you can be pretty damn sure I wouldn't have mentioned it when I was attempting to promote my hotel.Kww (talk) 14:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, and I apologize for returning to my hobby horse on this one, but part of the problem here is the distinction between independent and dependent sources. Because we're trying to judge notability entirely on independent sources, we have what should be a fairly clear cut case (you) coming in unnervingly close to the line, despite the fact that we could not actually write a decent article about you. The problem is that the overall sources for you don't give us any way in to a comprehensive view. But in cases where the secondary sources are slender but significant primary source material exists, we can often write a better article than we can on something with more secondary sources all of which treat the subject more briefly. (For example, my hypothetical of Bwana Devil based only on the brief Hayes mention and the film. Which, again, yes, more sources for Bwana Devil can be found - but it's wholly plausible that such an article would be created and taken to AfD without someone finding more sources.)

This is something I wish that our inclusion standards handled better. The existence of multiple independent sources is, I think, inadequately correlated to our ability to write a good article on the topic. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll rock my little horse one more time: I'm not a borderline case at all. I'm not examined directly and in detail by multiple third-party sources. I'm a passing mention in a myriad of third-party sources, and clearly fail WP:N.Kww (talk) 15:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't have an article about you. But I think that claim is debatable under WP:N, whereas in practice it is not at all debatable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Significance shall be demonstrated through thine coverage, and the level of thine coverage shall be significant. — CharlotteWebb 15:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Any reason that you posted a link to your rather uncivil post? Fram (talk) 15:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The original purpose of this thread is to determine what the hell "significant coverage" actually means. What I have provided here is but one of many possible explanations. I believe this phrase confuses everyone except for its original author, but I can only speak with complete certainty for myself (and frankly I'm stumped). If you have no sense of humor I accept your apology in advance. — CharlotteWebb 15:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

The compromise between two conflicting logical positions is all too often an illogical position. WP:N is the digested end result of a great number of these compromises. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

We don't seem to be getting any closer to a clarification. Would anyone object if I edited into WP:N something like:

A subject may also be notable if a reasonable number of reliable sources do not discuss it in detail but refer to it in ways that make it clear that the subject is an important aspect of what the sources are discussing in detail

and refer to the 4X debate as a precedent and give the examples I gave above ("... is a 4X game ...", "... as in any 4X game ...", "... tries to solve the common micromanagment problems of 4X by ...")? -- Philcha (talk) 09:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I would not recommend this change, at least using the 4X debate as a rationale for it. First, it is creep in the guideline, and also introduces the word "important", which notability is not. The debate itself is pretty much you vs McKay, so really doesn't reflect a common problem that needs to be solved. I know at the time of that debate the article was in much different shape than it is now, but still, it's definitely the situation that comes under the "common sense" part of N; you have a term that really had no formal definition in reliable sources but gains acceptable use in them over time, and when compared to similar articles, there's more than just the definition that can be written about. --MASEM 11:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Trivial sources are not acceptable for article inclusion, so don't make this proposed change. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented, not mention it in passing. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Gavin Collins, I note that you're interested in Role-playing games, which are fairly simple to define and hence the OED includes a definition. Even so the OED definition as quoted in John Kim's cited web page is leaky, as Kim points out. After that we only have Kim's word for it. If I were a wiki-lawyer I think I could make a strong case that most of the current citations for Role-playing game fall short of WP:RS as currently interpreted and those that meet WP:RS are not relevant to notability. Fortunately I'm not a wiki-lawyer and have no doubt that in real life RPGs are more notable than e.g. the latest obscure fossil described in a peer-reviewed journal (BTW I'm an active paleontology editor, so that last statement is not prejudice and I can back it up with a list of published but uninformative fossils).

Other subjects, such as 4X or Life, as more complex because of the range of real or apparent exceptions. As a result most discussions avoid definition and assume that readers will easily recognise an instance. That does not mean that they are not notable by any common-sense interpretation of "notable".

And that's the problem - WP:Notability is out of touch with common sense and needs to be adjusted. It works fine for academic subjects like paleontology or accountancy, which I note is another of your interests, but not for non-academic subjects. As I commented at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Too_academic_and_corporatist, part of the problem is the statement of WP:RS. However WP:Notability has its own problems with subjects that are either so well-understood that no-one writes about them in their own right or so complex or uncertainly-defined that sources avoid the general issues and only deal with instances. -- Philcha (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• Your view that WP:N is out of touch with common sense is very contraversial view, since the common theme in the notability guidelines is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence, which most editors would agree is not only common sense but is intuitive, since substantial coverage in reliable sources can be evaluated, wheras trivial coverage is too thin to stand up well to questions relating to its subject matter and intepretation of its content. This is what distinguishes WP:N from other proposed inclusion criteria, since an article that contains non-trivial reliable secondary sources is less likely to be a content fork, since content forks tend to be based on a mix of primary and trivial secondary sources. You should also take into account that trivial sources do not dovetail with Wikipedia content polices, in particular WP:NOR, which warns that "Material published by reliable sources can be put together in a way that constitutes original research". I would agree with you that articles such as Role-playing game are poorly sourced, but changing WP:N so that articles can be based purely on trivial sources will not improve matters. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

My view that WP:N is out of touch with common sense may be very controversial with editors of WP:N, but the mere existence Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise shows that that there's a problem. I find some most of the proposals at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise very worrying, and that's why I think the problems should be fixed at source, not by dangerous bolt-ons.

I'd be grateful if you could define "trivial coverage" - that seems to be a non-trivial question, as there's quite a debate going on about it in the next thread down this page.

Are you actually saying that at present Role-playing game fails to prove notability? -- Philcha (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• There is indeed a debate going on at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, but that does not necessarily validate or invalidate your or my viewpoint regarding WP:N, and I think debates of this sort actually are a good indication of how important the guideline it is, regardless of whether you love it or hate it. You should contribute to the debate (if you have not done so already) to make your views known, and so that other editors understand what your position on the various proposals are.
  I would tend to define "trivial coverage" in reliable secondary sources as meaning content that does not provide context, analysis, critisism or insight that is not reasoned or argued at length. In the absense of non-trivial content from reliable secondary sources, articles tend to be comprised of synthesis, or have insufficient content such they fail one or more parts of WP:NOT.
  As regards the article role-playing game, I would say that its sources fail WP:RS, but in my view, I presume this topic is notabile, and evidence of this could be provided if the better sources were to be added to the article. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I have contributed to Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, opposing the bolt-ons and stating that the underlying problems in WP:N and WP:RS should be fixed.

I understand your points about "trivial coverage", WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, and agree with them to some extent.

IMO one cannot apply WP:OR and WP:SYNTH absolutely literally, as any encyclopedia article selects and summarises. Re WP:SYNTH in particular, I'm happy if the result in an article is not a statement that would not shock the authors of the sources. E.g. if source A says fossil F is found in rocks R and source B says rocks R are dated to X MYA, then I'd be happy with "fossil F dates to X MYA" and would use that, as the names of rock formations will be meaningless to the vast majority of readers.

Back to the nitty-gritty. Suppose that: source S1 says game G1 has typical feature F1 of game genre X, source S2 says game G2 has typical feature F2 of game genre X, ... source S9 says game G9 has typical feature F9 of game genre X. Is game genre X notable?

BTW if role-playing game fails WP:RS, then AFAIK it fails WP:N automatically. What do you think? If you are of the same opinion and wish to save role-playing game, give me a call and I'll see if I can help find some WP:RS to show notability. -- Philcha (talk) 08:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• I am glad you have contributed to Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. I agree with you that you cannot apply WP:SYNTH absolutely literally, but I disagree the example you have given, which I would view as a classic example of WP:SYNTH. It would be much better to have a source that says what it means, i.e. "fossil F dates to X MYA", rather than infering this. As regards the article role-playing game, I would agree with you that it currently fails WP:N because none of the sources satisfy WP:RS. However, I don't expect the article to be deleted anytime soon, as I believe the quality of its sources could be improved. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Re role-playing game, just wait until you get a drive-by tagger or someone with an axe to grind - I've been involved in such a situation recently, where someone was advocating speedy deletion. My offer of help stands if you want to take it, as I have no doubt that a sane non-Wikipeidan would consider RPGs notable.

Re the fossil instance, a new type of dating tech came into use in 2000. A late 1990s source which is still a valid analysis of fossil F could only give the date in stratigraphic terms, which are meaningless to the vast majority of readers. So I'd add the MYA date when available, for the benefit of readers. -- Philcha (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

• If you come across any reliable secondary sources that would provide non-trivial content to the article role-playing game, I would be very grateful if you would add it to the article, or if in doubt, open a new section on the discussion page.--Gavin Collins (talk) 10:35, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Individual comic books

I've used than analogy before that writing an article about an individual TV episode is akin to writing an article about an individual issue of a comic book. I was surprised to find this category today, which is, indeed, a series of articles about stories from individual comic books. For people not familiar with the format, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Walt Disney Comics and Stories normally have a lead story which is one-third to one-half the issue, with other stories fleshing out the book. These are the lead stories.

I'd like to get a general sense of people's thoughts on the notability of this class of article before I nominate the whole lot at AFD.

Before people start the h8er remarks, I own the complete Carl Barks Library and have identified Uncle Scrooge as my personal hero in published interviews.—Kww (talk) 15:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Where in that pdg are you? The search function isn't working for me. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Full page interview with 1/8 page photograph on page 17. Caution, though: I was a major advertiser at the time of the interview, so that source is a tad dubious in terms of being completely independent. You can get a different view of the truck in Morris Minor if you want.Kww (talk) 01:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Nice truck. That article could be the glue that holds together all the trivial references. I probably won't write an article on you, since I mostly do articles on fiction. But, I could make an article that is AfD proof with the various sources you've mentioned. Sorry about the tech crash. I had a cousin who was worth more than a million on paper before the crash, and he was about 15 years old. He registered a bunch of common words under .com like flesh.com and scuba.com. His partner refused to sell. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I would...suggest merging, but that's on the weakness of the sources that do help provide some background on Carl Bank's writing. The sources in each article (the ones I spot checked, at least) are not your usual RS, but eventually point to more RS-type sources. A list might be better served here for the more notable ones (that can be sourced to the background info) but definitely each should not have its own article. The analysis section in each seems awfully ORish. --MASEM 16:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

They should probably be merged. You could probably establish notability for a lot of these, but that would be a really massive undertaking. There are a number of entire books on Carl Barks, but you won't be able to easily find everything using the internet, even google books. If you did want to establish notability for one, I would start with Back to the Klondike. Here are a couple of refs.[5] [6]. You'd probably have to go to the library and get this book as well. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

If I had a week's time and access to some specific sources that are difficult, but not impossible to get, I could write articles on the vast majority of these that were based primarily on sources by a tenured full professor at a major research institution.

Which is to say, no, don't merge. I have no idea when these articles will be improved, but it's possible to improve all of them, and the existing articles are genuinely useful starts for doing so. And, actually, if you own the right edition of the Carl Barks Library, you can do it - if it's the one with essays by Don Ault, those should give you sources for most of these. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

These are borderline in my opinion (with a few truly notable exceptions). The problem is where to merge them, since it would become a quite long page if it listed all of them. We also have Category:Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa. I think things like Star Wars Legacy 4 are worse, but perhaps I underestimate the notability (number of good sources) for individual Star Wars comics. Fram (talk) 14:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Don Rosa comics are, on the whole, less notable. However the Carl Barks stuff is almost all sourceable. Those comics were the best-selling comics of their day, and their day was a day when comics sold far more than they do today. That, combined with the surprising depth of academic attention, makes individual articles uniquely justified there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me restart what I think should be done. Between these articles and the sources, there is good material for an article, by itself, on "Donald Duck comics written by Carl Barks" (maybe not the best title, but go with it for now). There's a lot describing how Barks' life and background influenced the comics, and in the case of many of the Scrooge ones, went on to become the basis for DuckTales episodes. Are the individual comics notable? Not really, and when you strip out the influence and subsequent followup, all you are left with in most of those are a story and this OR-ish "analysis" section. All those can be collapsed to a list within this article I'm talking about to not lose perspective on the overall approach, but still at least describe the individual comics in a small amount of detail. I'm sure it can be argued that one or two of these comics could be their own article, but I believe a more comprehensive article (that can go to FA) can be obtained by grouping them together. --MASEM 14:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Or, even better, the Carl Barks article is good so far, not too large, and more discussion of his influences can be put there. There is also List of Disney comics by Carl Barks that exists that includes the articles in this catagory. This list, I believe, can be safely expanded to include brief plot descriptions for each entry as well as in the case of a few notable points, included in that. (a paragraph for each). That's another approach here. I just feel each individual article is not going to be as strong as a well-developed grouping. --MASEM 14:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The individual comics are notable. Not one or two - the majority of Carl Barks's full-length Uncle Scrooge stories are notable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that the comics are not non-notable, but the degree of notability isn't strong. But this is a case where I think while they may be notable, a better result can occur by grouping the topics, not to the point of just stating the comic title, but not at the same level of detail each article currently has without additional and significant sources. --MASEM 14:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, Carl Barks really is a special case in comics. There are two academic books on them - [7] and [8], plus a book of interviews with Carl Barks conducted primarily by an academic [9]. On top of that, Don Ault (who edited the Conversations book) published numerous essays in the Carl Barks Library that are scholarly, academic, and rigorous, as well as some other publications on Barks. (The list can be found on his CV: [10].) There's easily another book-length of material there. Among the four sources, most of these can establish notability and have good, detailed articles, with some of the most commented upon having a fair shot at FA. You're really under-estimating the amount of coverage here. Were it any other comics creator you'd be right, but Barks really is unusual. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I guess with the current state of the comic articles it is difficult to assess that. I think a good idea if someone were up to it would be to fully expand one of those comic articles to show what the academic sources provide. Here's my point of caution: from what I read of what you're saying and what is there for what the above sources say, much of these sources seem pointing at the general tone and approach of Barks' writing style, instead of directly dissecting an individual comic. Maybe they are, maybe they're not; I don't know so I can't judge accurately. But if the sources are more in the tone of the former topic on Barks' style which cite examples from comics at times, one may end up with a better article with my suggested organizations rather than splitting up the articles along the lines of Barks' bio and the comics individually. For example, and this is completely made up, say that your books state that the Scrooge comics are all allusions to a singular real-life individual. If you kept the current set of articles (Carl Barks, individual comics), this theme would be spread out across all 20-some articles and may not be coherent in nature or would be duplicating content across the articles. With an organization of two articles, one on Carl, one on these comics as a whole, that point is more coherent and can be demonstrated more easily. Now, if any individual comic in this scheme is more notable than just Carl's influence on the writing, it can still be broken out as a separate article, referring to the themes section in either of the existing ones and adding the additional notable information.

I am not trying to discourage the development of these comic articles, I understand this is a unique case compared to the average book you can get today. I'm not doubting their notability, but I'm thinking from more of a what will be a more comprehensive approach to giving all these articles the proper due given the overall notability. --MASEM 15:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

• I don't think it is a question of whether a subject is notable in the opinion of one or more editors; what is required is evidence of notability, not belief of notability. I agree with Kww that an article about an individual comic book is akin to writing an article about an individual issue of a TV episode; it is probably the over-arching series that is notable, rather than the individual issue or episode. I view the articles that make up Category:Donald Duck comics by Carl Barks as content forks. However, I could not say what article they are forks from: it could be the series, the genre, the author, the publisher or just a fork from Donald Duck direct, which already has a section on Carl Barks. Unless evidence can be found that the individual articles are notable, I would support deletion, as failing WP:N is a good indicator that they fail other content polices, such as WP:NOT#PLOT. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• As I said, there's a long list of sources that should be consulted. Most of these can establish notability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:48, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

As I've gone over the list, I've satisfied myself that if I was going to write articles on individual Carl Barks stories, these would be on it. They do seem to be a list of stories that were written up in the histories of Carl Barks, so they could be sourced. That's akin to how I've argued TV should be handled: I don't think that every TV episode is notable, but I don't think all TV episodes are non-notable, either. Taking care of them somehow is on my to-do list. I'll probably start with unsourced tags, and see where it goes from there. The whole Disney area is a mess, not just the Disney Channel. Most of the articles there could be sourced much, much better than they are.—Kww(talk) 16:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course. Many episodes contain only plot summary and should be rolled into list of episodes. Wikiproject Stargate did a good job of this, leaving blue links only for articles where sources would allow for at least a GA article. I think the case against comic issues is even stronger, just because comic issues don't receive as much attention from reliable sources, but the exceptions prove the rules. I just don't want to give the comics wikiproject any ideas.... Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Believe me, we're not going to get any ideas. The comics WikiProject is on the side of quality over cruft, and has routinely avoided and pushed back against succumbing to fanboyism. Know your friends from your enemies. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Rolling a group of articles without notability into a list of topics without notability is not the answer: this is creating listcruft. If the articles fail WP:NOT#PLOT, then so too will the list. --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:17, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, but deletion is not for articles that can be improved. WP:NOT#PLOT is not an unfixable problem for articles where notability can be established and where sources are readily available. Deletion and merging are inappropriate for such articles. They need improvement. But we're talking about major works that are the subject of more academic criticism than almost any other comics writer in existence. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not endorsing list cruft. But while individual episodes might not be notable, reliable sources about production and reception for seasons and such of tv episodes can, thus how a list format is useful (some series break it into seasons, with the main list for navigational purposes, so it's a moot question either way.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the best course of action before merging/deleting these is to see how one or two of theme can be improved with additional sources. I take good faith (and my own awareness of these books) that they are likely more sources out there and probably more academic than your usual comic book-referring source. However, it really would help to see these used to flesh out one or two of these. If they are clearly notable, then great, I'll AGF that the rest can be grown to meet the same (again, given this is not all of Barks' stores, just a selected cross section). However, if they can't be brought beyond what they are now, then lets talk the best course of action then. --MASEM 18:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no time limit. If the articles are likely to be improvable, we can have sub-par but still usable articles indefinitely while we wait for someone with access to the Carl Barks Library and time to work on them to improve them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

• What is need is evidence the articles can be improved, not a unquestioning belief that they can be improved. In the absence of notability, it occurs to me that reorganisation would be wholly appropriate now, bearing in mind that articles can be restored or reinstated at any time. I think the burden of evidence that these topics are notable falls on the editor who created the article in the first place. Assuming that somebody (or nobody) will add sources later is not the point; if Kww wants to regorganise these articles, he should go right ahead. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• I have given multiple sources that could be used to improve the articles. This is not some sort of blind faith that the articles can be improved - I've given a list of sources. This is evidence. The existence of two books plus at least another book's worth of material on Carl Barks's Donald Duck comics is evidence that sources exist for these. Merging stuff when you know there are sources to consult is irresponsible at best, and a flat-out violation of policy at worst. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll disagree on that last part: deleting it would be irresponsible, but redirecting until sources can be found is a judgement call. In this case, I probably wouldn't do it, but I can envision a lot of situations where the right thing to do is to have a good merged article that you can source, with the material you can't source being ready for resurrection when the sources are found. I'm going to have to get into storage to get my whole CBL back in the house. One problem there is that they aren't truly independent: the CBL is in a nasty gray zone about demonstrating notability for works by Carl Barks.—Kww(talk) 18:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

In general, I agree with you about the CBL - that's why I pointed specifically to the Ault articles in there. He's a respected scholar in the field of comics studies who has published extensively on Barks, both in and out of the CBL - he, I think, can serve as an establishment of notability even when he's published in the CBL. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Inclusion of user subpage on "essays related to notability"

If the user subpage User:Hiding/What notability is not, presumably one person's view, hasn't merited posting to the Wikipedia namespace, then should it be advertised as a reference on a Wikipedia guidelines article?—Largo Plazo (talk) 17:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Purpose of Notability

Hi. In trying to follow the various debates here and on the RFC I must admit that I'm a tad confused. Mostly because I'm not 100% certain about the purpose of the notability guideline. I thought I knew, but I'm concerned that either I was wrong, or that there are two (of three?) different perspectives, of which mine is one. So I was wondering if it was possible to clarify something here? It seems to me that there are three possibilities as to why WP:Notability exists:

a) The guideline's purpose is to make sure that all articles in Wikipedia have sufficient independent reliable sources so as to allow an article to be written to an encyclopedic standard.

b) The purpose of the guideline is to make sure that only articles that are sufficiently significant (eg "notable") to warrant an article are included.

c) A combination of a) and b) - the guideline exists to make sure that only significant articles which can be referenced from independent reliable sources are kept in Wikipedia.

I'm curious, as it seems to me that all three views can be supported by the guidelines as they stand to the exclusion of the others. Yet b) and c) involve value judgments of worthiness, (even though we don't make those judgments ourselves), and are therefore radically different to a).

Anyway, if this has been gone over countless times before just point out that I'm an idiot - I tried finding something, but nothing turned up that answered this with the clarity I was hoping for, but the way we run discussions doesn't make searching easy, I'm afraid. - Bilby (talk) 05:30, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

For me it's more about (a). But I think other people might disagree. WP:N is just an extrapolation of WP:BURDEN, that we remove information that isn't supported by reliable third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 05:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

One other reason for notability: it helps to prevent WP from being an indiscriminate collection of information; we simply cannot reasonably contain all knowledge while achieving WP's mission. --MASEM 05:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Would I be right in assuming that this placed the guideline in c)? That it is about what "should" be in Wikipedia as much as what could be written about to WP's standards? - Bilby (talk) 05:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Why not? Why would verifyable knowledge intervene against mission? What's the point of added constraints? What's the point of a mission (quote please) if it can't get along with knowledge? NVO (talk) 18:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

b) is the most accurate description of NOTE. It's hoped that a) follows from b). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I tend to disagree; Wikipedia "notability" has nothing to do with real-world importance anymore, if it ever did. The main use for WP:N is as an explanatory page for new editors, that we point to when they have created an article for which there are no reliable sources whatsoever. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Historically speaking, notability was a concept raised as justification for deleting articles back in the wild and wooly days when we were not that big on citing sources. Over time, verifiability and lack of references stepped up as deletion reasons, and notability started to evolve, and to do so controversially. We had several stuttering attempts at a general notability guideline, most of which failed. The general goal, in all cases, was to set a threshold of importance to be in Wikipedia.

Eventually we came to create subject notability guides that sorted this out in specific areas. The problem was that this led to decisions that were jarring - porn stars and academics had similarly permissive guidelines, despite the fact that this led to a glut of porn star articles, and led to lots of exclusion of pretty significant academic topics. The legacy of this can be found in some specific areas - the decision to include all high schools is an old one that remains basically unchallenged, even as topics that actually have wider support on the whole (episodes and characters, academics, professional athletes) become controversial, just because the high schools decision was made back when subject notability was the main approach.

In any case, eventually someone created this page as an attempt to create a general case, which led to a significant transition as notability became about sources instead of importance - at least on the policy issue.

But a lot of the problem is that various previous versions of the debate - including a debate on whether exclusion for unimportance is even appropriate, the subject-level notability decisions, and now whether importance or sourcing is the central issue - have remain entrenched in the dialogue. So notability has, basically, become a steadily worsening area of discussion within Wikipedia as the issues get progressively more confused and esoteric. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• I am suprised that someone with education such as Phil should disparage the concept of notability. I think that sourcing articles by Standing on the shoulders of giants is the best method of writing encyclopdic articles. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

• Where did I disparage notability? I disparaged the process by which we developed the current guideline, but it's a sausage factory. I am not an "include everything" sort. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Adding to what Phil said, and I think agreeing with him, I see it as also the original concentration on "article" left over from the printed encyclopedias we are all familiar with. (actually its not even that sharp--the Brittanica has experimented in the direction of both long and short & the major French & German encyclopedia have been in every possible variation--from short entries for everything to one article per volume.) There is a basic difference between articles as a measure of importance and articles as a matter of convenient arrangement. It is no longer, as in the print days,a a matter of trying to give direct access without needing an index--automatic cross references have solved at least that one. The "articles as importance view" is fortified by Google's use of placement in a title as a major factor in ranking (not a bad idea from their point of view, but not necessarily helpful to us.) There is another factor, equally unfortunate and equally inescapable--the tendency of people o read only the first screen. Not that most non-academics actually liked long print texts, but that they are even less willing to read long texts on the web. I see no immediate solution between these different ways of looking at it. I certainly do se a long range solution--a database, in which we would write about,say,each fictional character once, and the material could be rearranged as either separate articles, or a long combination one for the work, or perhaps a very long combination one for the series or even the author, or as short one sentence mentions in a list. There should be no great difficulty either in letting the user choose the presentation and the amount of detail. This applies to other factors too--the reader should be able to choose either as a default or a one time setting, to see full bibliographies, or a few basic references, or none at all; to see links or not to see links or to see full word by word hypertext; to see lede paragraphs and pictures only, or to see all the content; to see an editable view, or to see a fixed view, as well as such trivial things as date and number preferences. (I'd prefer for my own reader, for example, to see all number except the word 'one' transcribed into figures, as in some technical styles. xml can do all this, and it's an open format. whether a volunteer community can organise the necessary controlled rewriting remains to be seen.

The 2RS =N formulation, in particular, is an admission of incompetence at decision making. An arbitrary standard, whose usefulness depends entirely upon an increasingly complicated interpretation of RS. We can and in practice do, adjust it to meet whatever subjective notions of notability we have. Gavin's idea of sourcing relies on the giants being there on a consistent basis, and inherently makes us dependent on the limitations of conventional works and web searching, neither of which = notability, just media limitations. We should be more than the old idea, I think expressed by JW , of "a filter on the web." -- a mere enriched Internet directory, with selected excepts as well as plain links. DGG (talk) 22:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hear hear. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If we focus on notability as importance, we get into an off track discussion about what's worth covering. But when we start from such policies as "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" and "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources", we invariably end up with something like "if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article". Calling that rule "notability" might come across as too judgmental. But the idea that we actually back up our assertions with sources of a high standard is a basic credibility and quality issue. But if you want to talk about what is or isn't worth covering, that's really a discussion for WP:NOT. Randomran (talk) 22:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

You can't unfocus notability as importance. It's A) what the term basically means, B) what our usage of the term evolved out of concerns about, and C) how it's still widely used on AfD. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Why not? I happen to think it's a good guideline that's been given an inaccurate name, which las led to numerous misunderstandings at AFDs. After all, when you look at it in the context of WP:V and WP:OR, the guideline itself is a necessary conclusion -- regardless of what nickname we give it. "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article". Randomran (talk) 05:49, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

• In answer to DGG, the argument that WP:N makes us "dependent on the limitations of conventional works and web searching" is a spurious arguement. The fact is that over the ages, people have gathered knowledge from a multitude of sources, and have always relied on secondary sources for analysis, criticism and context for the purposes of interpretation. In the absence of any other source of guidance (other than POV) as to what topics should or should not be included in Wikipedia, I suggest we continue to follow this tradition. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:08, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Looks like I was wrong, then. :) I pictured it as a), and feared c), but b) seems to be far more likely than I thought, or at least to carry more weight than I expected. As an aside on this, I have an insane love/hate relationship with discourse analysis techniques, (love the rigour, hate the work involved), so I was messing about with analyzing the RfC, and in the first proposal there was a clear distinction in support votes between "has reliable sources" and "is notable", which would seem to support b). (It's one of the first and most obvious patterns to emerge). If something can be sourced and not notable, then presumably it might not fit a), even though it may fit b). Although I guess that also runs into the "sourced to an encyclopedic level" issue. My concern on this is on two levels - personally, I was worried I had it wrong (and the jury is out on that), but more generally one of my collegues is fond of arguing that you can't understand, modify or build a system unless you understand its purpose. So in discussions she'd be the one asking "why", while I was the one begging for definitions. I'm still not sure what this discussion means in this case, but it looks like there is a pattern present. - Bilby (talk) 14:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

For me, the closest answer given there is b, but the explaination's not exactly why I support it; it's a combination that WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and that we have to have something that is scalable and maintainable as information grows; it is about what is appropriate to include as well as part of WP's broad coverage allowances to make us relevant yet trustworthy. It just so happens that when topics are covered by secondary sources, we nicely meet V, OR, and NPOV, but my read of the past is that notability was not designed to be for that purpose, it just is a great and quite usable happenstance that WP:N can be used for that purpose. --MASEM 15:10, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Once again, there is a difference between non-notable and non-referenced.

There seems to be a growing body of users who are getting confused on this point, as I've had it three times in the last two months. So let me be clear:

As I understand it, A lack of references is evidence of nothing other than a lack of references. A lack of references does not imply that the topic is non-notable.

In spite of this being obvious to me, as I said, I've had three people claim the opposite in the last two months. Let's FIX THE DEFINITION to make this clear.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A lack of references can mean a lack of effort on the part of editors, or truly something truly un-reference-able. And I think the AFD process does a decent job of tackling that: no consensus defaults to keep, and you need a consensus that there's no references to delete. Among the editors who chime in, it's really not hard to find one or two reliable third-party sources -- it's a pretty low standard. And even if an article is wrongfully deleted, there's WP:DRV, and there's the ability to WP:USERFY the article until the sources can be found. I agree this is worth clarifying though. This guideline already says that "notability is distinct from fame or importance", so maybe we can expand on that. Randomran (talk) 20:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep definition as is. No RS - no topic to discuss. NVO (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right that a lack of references is not an indication that something is non-notable, but it's also difficult to assess notability without references either. (And its also important to note that having references does not immediately confer notability). Users, across policy and guidelines, are strongly encouraged to reference articles from the point of creation; they don't have to be immaculate or in the correct format, but at least some indication that there's verifiable information. --MASEM 20:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)