![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
At the xkcd article there have for a while been a couple people who want to add a sentence about a robot they and their buddies built based on an xkcd comic; the only mention of it is in a personal blog, so as you can expect it has been reverted several times. Recently, someone tried to re-add the information with this rationale, which is basically "WP:N only applies to what can be an article topic, not to what information can be included in an article". Granted, it has been a long time since I read WP:N from start to finish, but I think the obvious de facto consensus is that notability applies to everything (it just applies differently to information than topics—topics need to be notable to the real world, whereas information in an article needs to be notable to that topic).
Anyway, my response to this editor was basically a link to WP:IINFO and WP:TRIVIA. Is there a more appropriate response to this argument (ie, is there some part of WP:N that I'm missing)? rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 14:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Policy and Guidelines/Suggestion Box#Wikipedia: Inclusion policy Rd232 talk 03:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Short story? about whether a new guideline is needed to address the notability of a short story. Please feel free to comment. NJGW ( talk) 23:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
What exactly is coverage, as referred to in the article? If a topic is one in a list of 50 on many third-party websites, can this be considered coverage? For example, if a competition is listed here and on many other sites, can it be considered notable? Thanks, - down load | sign! 02:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
(ADDED: Unless I am misinterpreting it,) S Marshall has reworded this guideline in a way which takes from an option to a requirement, that when there is some referenced information in an article which gets deleted, the information and reference "should be" merged into a related article. Suppose that an article cites a particular pothole in New York City emerges from AFD judged to be failing of notability, even though there was a magazine article about the pothole, how much people driving down the sidestreet where it is located hate it, and how long it has been there. The revised language implies that the pothole should now be mentioned in the article on New York City, even though it is merely one of 99 gazillion present, past and future potholes. Or the reference might talk about one cabdriver, or one tree, or one robbery. It would give vastly undue weight to make an article into an accretion of everything which is related to the subject and which has one reference. This revised guideline will certainly get used as a legalistic club to brandish at those who seek to delete indiscriminate collections of information, trivia, and directory-type information.
I propose reverting the text back to what it was before the revision by S Marshall. Not every referenced fact about a subject needs to be included in an article about it. Much of the information which would get added would be so much clutter, like adding the referenced fact that a particular soldier fought in a particular war, even though someone created a (singly) referenced article about how that soldier fought in that war. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome, S Marshall stated:
Where a guideline is in conflict with a policy, the policy shall prevail. WP:N is a guideline, and WP:PRESERVE is policy.
Fortunately, we can normally reconcile WP:N with WP:PRESERVE by turning the non-notable article into a redirect into an article that is notable, merging the reliably-sourced material and cutting the rest, which is what we need to do here."— S Marshall
To the contrary, there is much verifiable and referenced information which is so trivial that it would lower the quality of an article by sticking it in. Some provision or qualifier is needed to avoid pasting every referenced factoid or bit of trivia into some related article. Edison ( talk) 18:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Re "there is much verifiable and referenced information which is so trivial that it would lower the quality of an article by sticking it in", is
Edison proposing to revise
WP:NOTABILITY? That might be worth considering, as
WP:N has some rather silly consequences. --
Philcha (
talk) 19:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this would, if left unchanged, lead to a sudden rash of articles about potholes in New York City. I think Wikipedia editors are, by and large, more intelligent than that and they won't follow a guideline over a cliff.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 19:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I specifically said that a BLP or a copyvio would be reasons to delete reliably-sourced content. I did not specifically say, but I did mean, that that would extend to other core policies as well. I've been entirely clear that I think notability concerns in themselves are usually not grounds to remove verifiable, reliably-sourced content from Wikipedia. A violation of WP:NOT is an entirely different matter, and (I think) not particularly relevant to this discussion.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 21:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Where are you getting this strange idea from?— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
There is currently no workedout policy on this, it's spread across a number of places (including WP:NOT). Perhaps we should try drafting a Wikipedia:Inclusion policy. Notability would be a daughter page of this, specifically for whether topics should have articles; and the policy would also cover this sort of thing being discussed here. Rd232 talk 03:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
The 1995 Historical-Economic documentary The Money Masters now has such a large reference throughout the world that it borders on the laughable to pretend it does not need a wiki page, it is linked to and postet thousands of times on youtube and googlevideo each of which have had several tens of thousands of hits if not hundreds of thousands. It has recentley been available full length on both google video and youtube. It is actually and even probably (more probable than not) among the most widely referenced film in alternative economics debates ever at this point in history. Its bordering on lunacy to pretend anymore that its not intellectually dishonest to try to silence and pretend that this movie does not exist.
Just a quick google of the money masters now gets it over 115 000 hits/references, as opposed to a few years ago. By this logic alone, at _least_ ten to fifity thousand people were neded just to _create_ these pages ( and please dont try to dishonestly imply that these are somehow bot-created pages or otherwise automatically generated. Googles own system of verifying linkages lends such an attempt at explaining it away no honesty.
If the current deletion is continued I suggest on the basis of the same rationale that we delete all wiki pages that concern musicians that have less than 50.000 sold cd's. That would be the same rationale. Or lets just delete all information that we conservatives ( insert your favorite political/personal view -ism or party) find useless, such as not well known actors, musicians, politicians, any book that has sold less then 50 k , any dvd that has sold less than 50 k. is it intellectually honest or honest at all to make decisions "democratically" never to let anyone know of information we don't approve of even if that information truly has gained both noteability and have become a widespread phenomena? Nunamiut ( talk) 07:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I see that you have again chosen to delete the article without conducting an honest debate. So you are in fact pretending that a film no matter how much it grows in popularity over the years should not be included on wikipedia? Nunamiut ( talk) 11:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
There are some groups of subjects that all fit into a single category. Very often, most of them will clearly meet WP:N guidelines, but this may be difficult or impossible to establish for a few more obscure ones. At the same time, it is not practical to combine them into a single article.
Under this proposal, if the clear majority of the subjects do meet WP:N guidelines and have standalone articles, then standalone articles can be created for the small remainder of the subjects, provided that:
There would be no minimum length to the page, provided that it meets all other Wikipedia guidelines in article creation, particularly going beyond a dictionary entry. Very short articles with potential for expansion should be marked as stubs
Some examples are:
This policy would not apply to:
Under this proposal, "majority" does not necessarily mean more than 50%, and "minority" does not necessarily mean less than 50%. It is all based on common sense. The purpose is to allow for more inclusion when it is likely something should be included. Sebwite ( talk) 23:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
This question seems to have arisen spontaneously in 3 unrelated discussions in the last few days:
Of course we'd need to find a solution that is fairly objective. Elen of the Roads's suggestion "is *consistently* mentioned in sources that do not set out to list all the characters in the work" ( Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#multitude_of_minor_direct_references, 13:22, 29 May 2009) looks like a good start - with minor changes, it would apply equally well to objects in star catalogues, and to the torrent of articles about minor geographical features (villages, roads, bridges, sewer covers, etc.) mentioned in government publications whose only function is to collect taxes and keep officials in work. -- Philcha ( talk) 09:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The number of articles categorized as Category:Bilateral_relations (ex: Solomon Islands – Venezuela relations) is getting out of hand. I tried parsing the list in Excel, and estimate there are currently 5,000+ articles solely about the relationship between two specific countries. Theoretically, let us consider the 192 UN Member States (although there are actually ~245 countries in the world). The number of unordered combinations is "192 choose 2", or 18,336 articles on binational relationships (in theory).
In my opinion, these articles do not have de-facto notability, and should be aggressively deleted unless they have the following:
What do you think of these articles? Habanero-tan ( talk) 13:48, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Note: I've located the main discussion, I'll move my comments there. Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Bilateral_international_relations Habanero-tan ( talk) 04:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I've asked and asked about his in various fora, mostly in relation to a specific set of articles, but I put this question for discussion here: How does WP:N and it's sub-guidelines square with the concept of inherent notability? - that is, the idea that something is notable because it is (like people often claim is true of settlements/towns). Help me out here. Fritzpoll ( talk) 14:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the concept of inherent notability needs to be codified one way or the other with regard to populated places. There currently appears to be no consensus between the two camps, with one side claiming "all verifiable settlements are notable and deserve a stand-alone article", and the other side saying that settlements should not be an exception to the general notability guidelines. Because it is much easier to create than to delete an article (one needs only a single person, the other needs consensus), the status quo is such that the vast majority of settlement articles (no matter how insignificant) are kept at AFD as stand-alone articles. A compromise proposal at Wikipedia:Notability (populated places) failed to gather any significant discussion. -- Polaron | Talk 15:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Related to the concept of inherent notablity of places, there is a new AFD for a U.S. place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theba, Arizona. -- Polaron | Talk 23:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I have submitted this new entry and am unclear why is does not meet the notability criteria. Timothy Prager has a fifteen year body of work in British and American television and film as well as writing two musicals for the stage - His work has been seen in aggregate by literally hundreds of millions of people. Please advise. Gabjatp ( talk) 19:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Suppose I publish a book. Since the book qualifies as a published source, and is evidence of its own existence, does it automatically become noteworthy?
Would it need to have received reviews, or other evidence of having been noticed? Would it matter if the book were published by a vanity press, a small-scale arts press, a religious organization, a university press, a print-on-demand publisher, or as an e-book? (If so, then please explain your reasoning.)
Does it matter what language the book is in? Dawud ( talk) 11:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I think something needs to be addressed soon. Soldier's dying in an armed conflict now will draw quite a bit of news now with globalization of media, such as SSG_Darrell_Griffin,_Jr.. Under current guidelines, they meet WP:NOTE, however, a similar soldier dying in WWII would hardly elicit an article. I noted this during new page patrol, and now it is in AfD. I think we need to draw attention to this now. Paranormal Skeptic ( talk) 03:21, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not clear on what the topic is here. Can someone provide us with at least one secondary source on a soldier who died in combat who they think is not notable? Shouldn't the mere existence of an obituary (as opposed to a death notice), for any dead person, not necessarily a soldier, be sufficient reason for inclusion of a separate article? RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 13:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Are online product reviews in and of themselves indicators of notability? Mbinebri talk ← 18:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be wise to include the reasons notability matters? Surlywombat ( talk) 05:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
It matters because not every teeny tiny little fact that exists can possibly be documented within one central repository. It's just not possible. Not only that, but every opinion about every fact expands the data exponentially. An encyclopedia is meant to contain information about subject deemed to be of interest to the society to which it is directed. In this case, Wikipedia strives to recognize the significance of any particular subject by its appearance in society and reflect that. Notability addresses this significance and requires evidence to support it. Therefore, one cannot sufficiently support the claim that this encyclopedia is held at the mere whim of the administrators, because if the significance in society can be proven, there is no acceptable means to summarily delete such subjects. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 18:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments has not changed my opinion. -- Nevit ( talk) 19:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Just commented here to be known that not all wikipedians agree with the content of this so called official policy. -- Nevit ( talk) 20:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Nevertheless, notability leads to endless coverage of science fiction TV show episodes, anime, manga, flash-in-the-pan pop and rock bands, and the people who've waterskiied on more Canadian lakes than anyone else, while scholarly articles on professors and leaders in academic fields are deleted.
It will not become policy.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 19:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Notability matters because it is being used here as a term of art for "merits inclusion in the Wikipedia". Once we have agreed that anything and everything does not make it into the Wikipedia, we have to come up with criteria. That's why there are general notability guidelines and category-specific guidelines. If 'notability' was self-evident to all, this discussion page would not have 34 volumes of archives. patsw ( talk) 02:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Notability is de-facto policy by virtue of being directly referenced at WP:DEL#Reason. As a deletion reason, it is actually more readily enforceable than most actual policies. The page itself remains {{ guideline}} because it requires significant flexibility in interpretation, flexibility that is normally used with guidelines, and not with policy. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
In the first bullet point under the first section ("General notability guideline"), the project page says: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." Exclusive is the opposite of inclusive; not trivial. For coverage to be exclusive means that the information in the article appears in only one source and nowhere else. To be less than exclusive means that the information appears nowhere; that it was made up out of thin air. In this context, exclusive is almost synonymous with trivial.
I think that whoever added this point meant to say exhaustive: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exhaustive." This means that the coverage does not have to appear in all pertinent sources to be considered for inclusion in Wikipedia.
I have not made this single-word change yet, since this is a "generally accepted standard". But, if no one objects, I will edit the project page next week (anytime after June 22nd). If anyone who is more experienced (or more confident) than I am would like to make the modification before then, be my guest. RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 11:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Since we seem to have consensus, I replaced the original sentence with "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material". RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 03:32, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Feedback is requested at Talk:List of characters on Scrubs#Main character merges to decide how to handle the main characters of Scrubs. Thanks. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 11:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
A discussion potentially involving notability issues has been instigated at Talk:Bengali script. Please weigh in if you care. — AjaxSmack 01:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Why does the nutshell use the word "secondary" when the actual GNG text does not? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
It happened 23 May 2007
[2], involving most immediately myself and User:Dhaluza. It was a time of intense and strongly opinionated editing of the page, with the memory of a long period hosting the {{
disputed}} tag fresh. I contended that, as per WP:PSTS, WP:N should explicitly call for secondary sources, that primary sources could never, on their own, demostrate the
notability that we expect. Dhaluza contended that not all subjects require secondary sources, that there are other ways to deonstrate notability. I felt that that compromise, where secondary sources are normal that base standard, is suitable for the nutshell, but that in the detail, it can be acknowledged that objective evidence of notability can be otherwise provided. It doesn't look aesthetically appealing, but no one has dared change it, substantially, since, although it has been questioned.
What would you do? Remove the reference to secondary sources from the nutshell, severely diminishing the normal requirement for secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, creating an overly strict rule that there must *always* be secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, with caveates, making the GNG even more cumbersome. The way I read it now, the GNG can only be properly read with reference to the several dot points. It's a compomise, and it's ugly. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
![]() | A first draft of a change to the guideline WP:Notability (people) is being discussed at village pump. |
-- JBC3 ( talk) 18:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Currently, the guideline states that "The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. They do not give guidance on the content of articles, except for lists of people."
I'm at a loss to understand why this guidance is limited to lists of people. It seems like a sensible rule for all lists. Why would we want long lists of un-notable items? (e.g. List of defunct American Football teams in the Netherlands, List of symphony orchestras in the United States... there are many, many more...}.
Currently, there is effectively no guidance or criteria as to what items merit inclusion on lists.
I propose that list items for all lists should meet our notability guidelines. This seems to be implied anyway, since in theory, items on lists are required to adhere to our WP:Verifiability policy, and if an item can be verified by reliable independent sources, it is notable.
Comments? Dlabtot ( talk) 16:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This "guideline" has been categorized as a "content policy," and I reversed that categorization as it is an apparent elevation of this "guideline" to the status of a policy. That was blocked I believe.-- Drboisclair ( talk) 14:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The one benefit notability does have going for it is that it's such a powerful way of detecting and eliminating marketing spam. But every time I see some overenthusiastic teenager use to kill off an article on a scholarly topic, it absolutely sets my teeth on edge.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 08:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:IKNOWIT is part of WP:ATA, which is an essay I routinely disregard and occasionally sneer at. It's basically a list of arguments that someone else thinks shouldn't count.
I agree that according to the notability guideline, what's needed is verifiable evidence. This discussion is about why, and indeed whether, that should be true.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 11:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
1) A nationally accredited scholarly institution at or above high school level is automatically notable;
2) A full professor at an accredited university is automatically notable;
3) An assistant professor is not necessarily notable, but should be merged to "List of assistant professors at the University of X" rather than deleted;
4) Anything that's the subject of a scholarly paper published by an accredited university or full professor is automatically notable provided it's been cited at least once;
5) Any journal that publishes scholarly papers and would be a reliable source in its own right is automatically notable;
Well, I could go on and on.
My point is that notability is an inherently destructive concept. Its only purpose is to say "you may not create an article on this, that, or the other". And that means it needs to be implemented intelligently, which would not be a problem if editors did use it intelligently, but my perception from very long participation at AfD is that it is not so used. And therefore it needs to be tempered and sharpened so that it trims away the chaff without cutting the flesh.
Another issue is that any challenge to notability produces a string of sentences in the emphatic declarative followed by the slippery slope logical fallacy, which I'm hoping can be avoided in this case!— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 15:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Masem's case I find interesting, but I'd query the underlying assumptions. These seem to me to be that if it can never be complete, it isn't worth starting, and material that can never be featured content should be discouraged.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 16:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
A good example would be in palaeontology. Tooth taxa, such as Wakinosaurus. We have one tooth for that creature, and statistically, we'll never have anything else except the tooth. (I would give other examples of tooth taxa, but I'm unwilling to highlight scholarly topics that fail WP:N on this talk page for fear some idiot would delete it.)
Another example is Zeno of Elea. Fantastically scholarly topic, but none of his writings survive and we have no biographical details to speak of; what's scholarly about that article is the lack of sources. Which is, itself, of academic importance.
I have over a hundred biographies of European politicians, judges and scientists on my list of things to translate, all of which are redlinks at the moment. What happens every time I translate one is, someone from the relevant Wikiproject pops over, assesses it as a "stub" or "start-class", and then it languishes on my watchlist, untouched and undeveloped. By the time we get round to developing those articles, all the people involved will be dead.
What I'm saying is, we need a balanced mix of content. It's all very well building the stuff that'll eventually be a featured article, but actually, I see it as more important to add an article on Catherine Brechignac than it is to spend the same amount of time adding alt text to the images or changing en-dashes to em-dashes in the hope of passing a FAC.
So I don't agree with you that the goal is to get more things featured. I'd settle for getting most things covered. And notability, as currently enforced, is an obstacle (though not as much of an obstacle as CSD, which I think is desperately in need of reining in).— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 18:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
On tooth taxa, Wikiproject Dinosaurs maintains a List of dinosaurs (a featured list) but it's too long to have anything much apart from the genus name and a link to the individual article. (I maintain lists of dinosaurs broken down by continent, so Wakinosaurus also appears on the List of Asian dinosaurs; such shorter lists can include sortable wikitables and timelines). But the consensus on Wikiproject Dinosaurs seems to be, one genus, one article.
Zeno really does merit his own article, I think, though if I had my way Zeno's paradoxes would be merged into it.
WP:IKNOWIT is certainly a straw man, and can safely be disregarded. Repeating that allegation won't make it truer.
Look, my basic point here is that WP:N should probably be applied a bit more intelligently than it presently is. It does have a purpose: it's a mincing machine that chews up marketing spam and those endless articles about individual episodes of Babylon 5, and I'm glad it does that. I just think AfD's becoming so totally focused on it that sometimes there's the exclusion of good sense.
I suppose thanks to this discussion, I'm coming round to the view that the problem isn't with the guideline. It's with following it too blindly.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
My problem with WP:N is when it's used to delete material that's sourced and of a scholarly nature.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Is there any place where guidelines on the notability of locations are written? Specifically hamlets. Powers T 17:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right place to mention this, but should it be noted that WP:N is a necessary condition for inclusion, but not sufficient? Very often I see debates going on in various places, such as AfDs, where people basically come to the conclusion "it satisfies WP:N, therefore it deserves its own article," which is what the lead of this page seems to imply: "Within Wikipedia, notability refers to whether or not a topic merits its own article." Even many administrators seem to come to this conclusion with respect to the varied applications of their abilities. When one develops a broader standard of understanding Wikipolicies, however, it becomes obvious that there are multiple necessary conditions required for the inclusion of an article (for example, the most obvious other one being WP:Encyclopedia, WP:NOTNEWS, etc.). I see many discussions seem to get hooked up on WP:N as the overarching factor; there are numerous topics I can think of off the top of my head which would adequately suffice the 5 "General notability guidelines," but would not be appropriate due to other conditions not being met. And there are many articles which do in fact exist, and stay existing solely because of WP:N, regardless of their contravention of other policies. This seems to be why things such as WP:Bombardment occur, because so many in the community see WP:N as some sort of trump card, when it's most definitely not. I believe it needs to be stressed that this, while being a fundamental part of the inclusion process, is just a part. I've been thinking about this for a while; anyone have any comments?
These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles. Furthermore, topics that may pass notability guidelines may not be suitable for inclusion by other content policies. For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons.
(left align tabs for ease of reading)
Thank you, Masem, for your clarification of WP:N versus more specific criteria (eg., WP:NWEB). I now understand what you mean for the most part, but I still believe there are some exceptions, as per Web specifically. There are numerous webpages that can satisfy WP:N, but I still believe ought not have their own articles, as per WP:NWEB they don't have notable "achievements, impact or historical significance." While satisfying WP:N, they may only do so to an extent which allows "trivial coverage" including only existing to "describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers," which contravenes WP:NWEB and are thus (at least per WP:NWEB's implications) unsuitable. I think that in some situations these secondary guidelines ought to be made more apparent as they have developed on their own more appropriately for their specific subject area(s). But, on reading what you have said, I understand for the most part (ATHLETE was a good example) how you have clarified their usages as corollaries — but I still think there are important exceptions which can't be neglected.
I do agree, tentatively, to your re-framing of the paragraph above to qualify / specify that there are important exceptions.
Secondly, I'm really not sure what Patsw is trying to say. I understand what "notability" is. I am familiar with "technical jargon," but not with the usage of "term of art." As per the link provided, "terms of art or words of art have meanings that are strictly defined by law." The post then goes on to explain that "it is merely an informal [usage]." This is exactly the contradiction I am trying to get clarified in the wording of the policy; this policy is meant to be "strictly defined," implementable policy. It's one of the most important Wikipolicies out there. It's "informal" and "shorthand" usages coupled with the wording of the guideline itself are leading to it being used a "trump card" (I don't know how else to put this). WP:N is meant to be a guideline, sharp and concise, working in tandem with other policies, not some "artistic," fluid concept to be vaguely referenced while somehow implying all the other
content policy requirements are "passed" when ever WP:N is invoked. The wording of the policy implies (or rather blatantly states) that a subject will "merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below." This contradicts other policies, and makes it sound that WP:N is even more fundamental than
WP:ENCYCLOPEDIA, which it is obviously not. The policy's relation to all of the other guidelines needs to be made crystal clear, in this article, and perhaps in an overarching article. There is an old, failed one which I dug up which includes good elucidation of some of the concepts I have been trying to explain (though it needs a lot of work and has faults of its own, see
Wikipedia:Article inclusion)
Actually that's not true. Something can fail WP:N and still pass every other policy and guideline. 陣 内 Jinnai 20:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it true that "Notability does not apply to citations" Talk:Illuminati? In this case, the claim in the article is that there are multiple modern groups that call themselves the Illuminati on some variation thereon. The webpages for the "groups" held to satisfy the sourcing requirement for that claim seem to be just that, webpages. Unless there's some evidence that there are real groups behind those webpages and that they are notable in some way, they wouldn't seem to warrant mention. Шизомби ( talk) 18:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Some proposals of the strategic planning concern notability specifically those two.
More proposals concerning notability will probably come but currently that just those two -- KrebMarkt 07:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
There still seems to be misunderstaning of what notability is in terms of inclusion of topics in Wikipedia. I therefore propose the following rewrite:
![]() | This page in a nutshell: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, then it is presumed that sufficient coverage exists for inclusion as a standalone article which meets Wikipedia's content policies. |
Notability refers to whether or not a topic should be the subject of its own standalone article. In Wikipedia, article topics are required to be "noted" by reliable, third-party sources.
The term "notability" itself is not a reflection of a topic's importance, merit or worthiness; rather the term is used in the sense that a topic been the subject of published commentary from reliable sources independent of the topic itself. These sources provide verifiable evidence that the topic is the subject of sufficient coverage to create a standalone article that can meet the requirements of Wikipedia's content and style policies.
Notability is not necessarily dependent on measures of subjective importance such as the inherent significance, fame or popularity of a topic — although those may contribute. A topic may be fascinating and topical while still not being notable enough to ensure sufficient verifiable source material exists. The burden of evidence therefore lies with the editor who creates an article to cite sources that demonstrate that the article topic is sufficiently notable to meet Wikipedia's content and style policies.
I propose making these changes to the lead/preamble section, but only if other editors agree that this captures the meaning of the term "notability" as it is used in Wikipedia. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 11:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
←Generally agree a reasonable direction, but think the reference to the CSP is confusing rather than illuminating. Bongo matic 15:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Precisely what misunderstandings would this new wording clear up? And why drop the references to the SNGs? I think that any proposal should be clear on who would oppose it; those who are "misunderstanding" notability do not, after all, think that they misunderstand it—which interpretations are you seeking to render impossible? RJC Talk Contribs 16:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I like the current version. This re-write seems clumsy and confusing. Dlabtot ( talk) 17:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
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.
What problem does this solve? Are there people adding articles which they claim are not required to conform to the seven content policies ( WP:BLP, WP:NAME, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:NOT, WP:FUC, WP:V) because they pass WP:N? Where's the evidence of that going on? patsw ( talk) 16:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
But there are still tons of people here who don't know that. So maybe obscure towns may still be notable, but are thousands of individual plant species? User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao has created about 1800 articles with AWB, all species of the genus Bulbophyllum. Hell, there isn't a damn thing on those pages other than " Bulbophyllum abbreviatum is a species of orchid in the genus Bulbophyllum." List of Bulbophyllum species is more freaking useful than that because it has a person and a year! and of course there's User:Dr. Blofeld, who is so damn lazy he can't even put the name of the topic in the article but instead uses {{ PAGENAME}} on his stubs. Today he's doing List of rivers of Bolivia. Sure, make all the articles on French communes, etc. you want: people actually live there, but every river and lake ( List of lakes in Nova Scotia) in the world?? Many of these will NEVER be expanded, and the main list works just fine. Where do they get this junk that existence equals notability? IF people are looking for this, the main list is actually more useful than a single sentence! Every single one of these violates the general notability guideline. None of these topics have significant coverage, just a listing in an atlas or species database. Creating more articles like these does nothing but dilute the quality of Wikipedia. I check WP:Good articles often, and it dismays me to see that only 1 of 276 articles is good or featured, and this number is getting worse because of these mass useless stub creations. It's quality, not quantity, people! My policy is to never create a new article until there's actually enough info to warrant one. They claim that having the article already created makes it easier for others to add to it, but I've seen many stubs last for years without another edit. More information simply doesn't exist! Sure, maybe articles on towns can be expanded, but every single river, lake, and species is simply not notable and should not have an article. Reywas92 Talk 22:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
That's not meant as an endorsement of de.wiki's way of doing things, which would not work for us at all. But it's a practical obstacle to translating material from de.wiki that needs to be recognised.
I think DGG's point of view—which I share—is that the onus is not particularly on the translator to source the article. It's on everyone. If you find an uncited article, then you should go and source it.
And that's the whole message. Rather than whining about content creators failing to comply with some particular guideline, go and help them reach compliance. Rather than trying to place the burden of evidence solely on them, accept some of that burden on yourself. Wikipedia is about a process of collaborative evolution towards perfection and those who are most concerned about sources have a constructive part to play.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 10:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 30 | ← | Archive 32 | Archive 33 | Archive 34 | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | → | Archive 40 |
At the xkcd article there have for a while been a couple people who want to add a sentence about a robot they and their buddies built based on an xkcd comic; the only mention of it is in a personal blog, so as you can expect it has been reverted several times. Recently, someone tried to re-add the information with this rationale, which is basically "WP:N only applies to what can be an article topic, not to what information can be included in an article". Granted, it has been a long time since I read WP:N from start to finish, but I think the obvious de facto consensus is that notability applies to everything (it just applies differently to information than topics—topics need to be notable to the real world, whereas information in an article needs to be notable to that topic).
Anyway, my response to this editor was basically a link to WP:IINFO and WP:TRIVIA. Is there a more appropriate response to this argument (ie, is there some part of WP:N that I'm missing)? rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 14:04, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Policy and Guidelines/Suggestion Box#Wikipedia: Inclusion policy Rd232 talk 03:00, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Short story? about whether a new guideline is needed to address the notability of a short story. Please feel free to comment. NJGW ( talk) 23:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
What exactly is coverage, as referred to in the article? If a topic is one in a list of 50 on many third-party websites, can this be considered coverage? For example, if a competition is listed here and on many other sites, can it be considered notable? Thanks, - down load | sign! 02:07, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
(ADDED: Unless I am misinterpreting it,) S Marshall has reworded this guideline in a way which takes from an option to a requirement, that when there is some referenced information in an article which gets deleted, the information and reference "should be" merged into a related article. Suppose that an article cites a particular pothole in New York City emerges from AFD judged to be failing of notability, even though there was a magazine article about the pothole, how much people driving down the sidestreet where it is located hate it, and how long it has been there. The revised language implies that the pothole should now be mentioned in the article on New York City, even though it is merely one of 99 gazillion present, past and future potholes. Or the reference might talk about one cabdriver, or one tree, or one robbery. It would give vastly undue weight to make an article into an accretion of everything which is related to the subject and which has one reference. This revised guideline will certainly get used as a legalistic club to brandish at those who seek to delete indiscriminate collections of information, trivia, and directory-type information.
I propose reverting the text back to what it was before the revision by S Marshall. Not every referenced fact about a subject needs to be included in an article about it. Much of the information which would get added would be so much clutter, like adding the referenced fact that a particular soldier fought in a particular war, even though someone created a (singly) referenced article about how that soldier fought in that war. In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Post Orgasmic Illness Syndrome, S Marshall stated:
Where a guideline is in conflict with a policy, the policy shall prevail. WP:N is a guideline, and WP:PRESERVE is policy.
Fortunately, we can normally reconcile WP:N with WP:PRESERVE by turning the non-notable article into a redirect into an article that is notable, merging the reliably-sourced material and cutting the rest, which is what we need to do here."— S Marshall
To the contrary, there is much verifiable and referenced information which is so trivial that it would lower the quality of an article by sticking it in. Some provision or qualifier is needed to avoid pasting every referenced factoid or bit of trivia into some related article. Edison ( talk) 18:49, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Re "there is much verifiable and referenced information which is so trivial that it would lower the quality of an article by sticking it in", is
Edison proposing to revise
WP:NOTABILITY? That might be worth considering, as
WP:N has some rather silly consequences. --
Philcha (
talk) 19:25, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I don't think this would, if left unchanged, lead to a sudden rash of articles about potholes in New York City. I think Wikipedia editors are, by and large, more intelligent than that and they won't follow a guideline over a cliff.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 19:26, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I specifically said that a BLP or a copyvio would be reasons to delete reliably-sourced content. I did not specifically say, but I did mean, that that would extend to other core policies as well. I've been entirely clear that I think notability concerns in themselves are usually not grounds to remove verifiable, reliably-sourced content from Wikipedia. A violation of WP:NOT is an entirely different matter, and (I think) not particularly relevant to this discussion.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 21:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Where are you getting this strange idea from?— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
There is currently no workedout policy on this, it's spread across a number of places (including WP:NOT). Perhaps we should try drafting a Wikipedia:Inclusion policy. Notability would be a daughter page of this, specifically for whether topics should have articles; and the policy would also cover this sort of thing being discussed here. Rd232 talk 03:57, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
The 1995 Historical-Economic documentary The Money Masters now has such a large reference throughout the world that it borders on the laughable to pretend it does not need a wiki page, it is linked to and postet thousands of times on youtube and googlevideo each of which have had several tens of thousands of hits if not hundreds of thousands. It has recentley been available full length on both google video and youtube. It is actually and even probably (more probable than not) among the most widely referenced film in alternative economics debates ever at this point in history. Its bordering on lunacy to pretend anymore that its not intellectually dishonest to try to silence and pretend that this movie does not exist.
Just a quick google of the money masters now gets it over 115 000 hits/references, as opposed to a few years ago. By this logic alone, at _least_ ten to fifity thousand people were neded just to _create_ these pages ( and please dont try to dishonestly imply that these are somehow bot-created pages or otherwise automatically generated. Googles own system of verifying linkages lends such an attempt at explaining it away no honesty.
If the current deletion is continued I suggest on the basis of the same rationale that we delete all wiki pages that concern musicians that have less than 50.000 sold cd's. That would be the same rationale. Or lets just delete all information that we conservatives ( insert your favorite political/personal view -ism or party) find useless, such as not well known actors, musicians, politicians, any book that has sold less then 50 k , any dvd that has sold less than 50 k. is it intellectually honest or honest at all to make decisions "democratically" never to let anyone know of information we don't approve of even if that information truly has gained both noteability and have become a widespread phenomena? Nunamiut ( talk) 07:23, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
I see that you have again chosen to delete the article without conducting an honest debate. So you are in fact pretending that a film no matter how much it grows in popularity over the years should not be included on wikipedia? Nunamiut ( talk) 11:51, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
There are some groups of subjects that all fit into a single category. Very often, most of them will clearly meet WP:N guidelines, but this may be difficult or impossible to establish for a few more obscure ones. At the same time, it is not practical to combine them into a single article.
Under this proposal, if the clear majority of the subjects do meet WP:N guidelines and have standalone articles, then standalone articles can be created for the small remainder of the subjects, provided that:
There would be no minimum length to the page, provided that it meets all other Wikipedia guidelines in article creation, particularly going beyond a dictionary entry. Very short articles with potential for expansion should be marked as stubs
Some examples are:
This policy would not apply to:
Under this proposal, "majority" does not necessarily mean more than 50%, and "minority" does not necessarily mean less than 50%. It is all based on common sense. The purpose is to allow for more inclusion when it is likely something should be included. Sebwite ( talk) 23:55, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
This question seems to have arisen spontaneously in 3 unrelated discussions in the last few days:
Of course we'd need to find a solution that is fairly objective. Elen of the Roads's suggestion "is *consistently* mentioned in sources that do not set out to list all the characters in the work" ( Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(fiction)#multitude_of_minor_direct_references, 13:22, 29 May 2009) looks like a good start - with minor changes, it would apply equally well to objects in star catalogues, and to the torrent of articles about minor geographical features (villages, roads, bridges, sewer covers, etc.) mentioned in government publications whose only function is to collect taxes and keep officials in work. -- Philcha ( talk) 09:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
The number of articles categorized as Category:Bilateral_relations (ex: Solomon Islands – Venezuela relations) is getting out of hand. I tried parsing the list in Excel, and estimate there are currently 5,000+ articles solely about the relationship between two specific countries. Theoretically, let us consider the 192 UN Member States (although there are actually ~245 countries in the world). The number of unordered combinations is "192 choose 2", or 18,336 articles on binational relationships (in theory).
In my opinion, these articles do not have de-facto notability, and should be aggressively deleted unless they have the following:
What do you think of these articles? Habanero-tan ( talk) 13:48, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Note: I've located the main discussion, I'll move my comments there. Wikipedia:Centralized_discussion/Bilateral_international_relations Habanero-tan ( talk) 04:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
I've asked and asked about his in various fora, mostly in relation to a specific set of articles, but I put this question for discussion here: How does WP:N and it's sub-guidelines square with the concept of inherent notability? - that is, the idea that something is notable because it is (like people often claim is true of settlements/towns). Help me out here. Fritzpoll ( talk) 14:25, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
I agree that the concept of inherent notability needs to be codified one way or the other with regard to populated places. There currently appears to be no consensus between the two camps, with one side claiming "all verifiable settlements are notable and deserve a stand-alone article", and the other side saying that settlements should not be an exception to the general notability guidelines. Because it is much easier to create than to delete an article (one needs only a single person, the other needs consensus), the status quo is such that the vast majority of settlement articles (no matter how insignificant) are kept at AFD as stand-alone articles. A compromise proposal at Wikipedia:Notability (populated places) failed to gather any significant discussion. -- Polaron | Talk 15:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
Related to the concept of inherent notablity of places, there is a new AFD for a U.S. place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Theba, Arizona. -- Polaron | Talk 23:02, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
I have submitted this new entry and am unclear why is does not meet the notability criteria. Timothy Prager has a fifteen year body of work in British and American television and film as well as writing two musicals for the stage - His work has been seen in aggregate by literally hundreds of millions of people. Please advise. Gabjatp ( talk) 19:33, 31 May 2009 (UTC)
Suppose I publish a book. Since the book qualifies as a published source, and is evidence of its own existence, does it automatically become noteworthy?
Would it need to have received reviews, or other evidence of having been noticed? Would it matter if the book were published by a vanity press, a small-scale arts press, a religious organization, a university press, a print-on-demand publisher, or as an e-book? (If so, then please explain your reasoning.)
Does it matter what language the book is in? Dawud ( talk) 11:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
I think something needs to be addressed soon. Soldier's dying in an armed conflict now will draw quite a bit of news now with globalization of media, such as SSG_Darrell_Griffin,_Jr.. Under current guidelines, they meet WP:NOTE, however, a similar soldier dying in WWII would hardly elicit an article. I noted this during new page patrol, and now it is in AfD. I think we need to draw attention to this now. Paranormal Skeptic ( talk) 03:21, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm not clear on what the topic is here. Can someone provide us with at least one secondary source on a soldier who died in combat who they think is not notable? Shouldn't the mere existence of an obituary (as opposed to a death notice), for any dead person, not necessarily a soldier, be sufficient reason for inclusion of a separate article? RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 13:33, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Are online product reviews in and of themselves indicators of notability? Mbinebri talk ← 18:33, 13 June 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be wise to include the reasons notability matters? Surlywombat ( talk) 05:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
It matters because not every teeny tiny little fact that exists can possibly be documented within one central repository. It's just not possible. Not only that, but every opinion about every fact expands the data exponentially. An encyclopedia is meant to contain information about subject deemed to be of interest to the society to which it is directed. In this case, Wikipedia strives to recognize the significance of any particular subject by its appearance in society and reflect that. Notability addresses this significance and requires evidence to support it. Therefore, one cannot sufficiently support the claim that this encyclopedia is held at the mere whim of the administrators, because if the significance in society can be proven, there is no acceptable means to summarily delete such subjects. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 18:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments has not changed my opinion. -- Nevit ( talk) 19:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Just commented here to be known that not all wikipedians agree with the content of this so called official policy. -- Nevit ( talk) 20:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Nevertheless, notability leads to endless coverage of science fiction TV show episodes, anime, manga, flash-in-the-pan pop and rock bands, and the people who've waterskiied on more Canadian lakes than anyone else, while scholarly articles on professors and leaders in academic fields are deleted.
It will not become policy.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 19:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Notability matters because it is being used here as a term of art for "merits inclusion in the Wikipedia". Once we have agreed that anything and everything does not make it into the Wikipedia, we have to come up with criteria. That's why there are general notability guidelines and category-specific guidelines. If 'notability' was self-evident to all, this discussion page would not have 34 volumes of archives. patsw ( talk) 02:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Notability is de-facto policy by virtue of being directly referenced at WP:DEL#Reason. As a deletion reason, it is actually more readily enforceable than most actual policies. The page itself remains {{ guideline}} because it requires significant flexibility in interpretation, flexibility that is normally used with guidelines, and not with policy. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
In the first bullet point under the first section ("General notability guideline"), the project page says: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." Exclusive is the opposite of inclusive; not trivial. For coverage to be exclusive means that the information in the article appears in only one source and nowhere else. To be less than exclusive means that the information appears nowhere; that it was made up out of thin air. In this context, exclusive is almost synonymous with trivial.
I think that whoever added this point meant to say exhaustive: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exhaustive." This means that the coverage does not have to appear in all pertinent sources to be considered for inclusion in Wikipedia.
I have not made this single-word change yet, since this is a "generally accepted standard". But, if no one objects, I will edit the project page next week (anytime after June 22nd). If anyone who is more experienced (or more confident) than I am would like to make the modification before then, be my guest. RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 11:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Since we seem to have consensus, I replaced the original sentence with "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material". RoyGoldsmith ( talk) 03:32, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
Feedback is requested at Talk:List of characters on Scrubs#Main character merges to decide how to handle the main characters of Scrubs. Thanks. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 11:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
A discussion potentially involving notability issues has been instigated at Talk:Bengali script. Please weigh in if you care. — AjaxSmack 01:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
Why does the nutshell use the word "secondary" when the actual GNG text does not? — Carl ( CBM · talk) 15:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
It happened 23 May 2007
[2], involving most immediately myself and User:Dhaluza. It was a time of intense and strongly opinionated editing of the page, with the memory of a long period hosting the {{
disputed}} tag fresh. I contended that, as per WP:PSTS, WP:N should explicitly call for secondary sources, that primary sources could never, on their own, demostrate the
notability that we expect. Dhaluza contended that not all subjects require secondary sources, that there are other ways to deonstrate notability. I felt that that compromise, where secondary sources are normal that base standard, is suitable for the nutshell, but that in the detail, it can be acknowledged that objective evidence of notability can be otherwise provided. It doesn't look aesthetically appealing, but no one has dared change it, substantially, since, although it has been questioned.
What would you do? Remove the reference to secondary sources from the nutshell, severely diminishing the normal requirement for secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, creating an overly strict rule that there must *always* be secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, with caveates, making the GNG even more cumbersome. The way I read it now, the GNG can only be properly read with reference to the several dot points. It's a compomise, and it's ugly. -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 06:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
![]() | A first draft of a change to the guideline WP:Notability (people) is being discussed at village pump. |
-- JBC3 ( talk) 18:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
Currently, the guideline states that "The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. They do not give guidance on the content of articles, except for lists of people."
I'm at a loss to understand why this guidance is limited to lists of people. It seems like a sensible rule for all lists. Why would we want long lists of un-notable items? (e.g. List of defunct American Football teams in the Netherlands, List of symphony orchestras in the United States... there are many, many more...}.
Currently, there is effectively no guidance or criteria as to what items merit inclusion on lists.
I propose that list items for all lists should meet our notability guidelines. This seems to be implied anyway, since in theory, items on lists are required to adhere to our WP:Verifiability policy, and if an item can be verified by reliable independent sources, it is notable.
Comments? Dlabtot ( talk) 16:59, 28 July 2009 (UTC)
This "guideline" has been categorized as a "content policy," and I reversed that categorization as it is an apparent elevation of this "guideline" to the status of a policy. That was blocked I believe.-- Drboisclair ( talk) 14:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The one benefit notability does have going for it is that it's such a powerful way of detecting and eliminating marketing spam. But every time I see some overenthusiastic teenager use to kill off an article on a scholarly topic, it absolutely sets my teeth on edge.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 08:57, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
WP:IKNOWIT is part of WP:ATA, which is an essay I routinely disregard and occasionally sneer at. It's basically a list of arguments that someone else thinks shouldn't count.
I agree that according to the notability guideline, what's needed is verifiable evidence. This discussion is about why, and indeed whether, that should be true.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 11:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
1) A nationally accredited scholarly institution at or above high school level is automatically notable;
2) A full professor at an accredited university is automatically notable;
3) An assistant professor is not necessarily notable, but should be merged to "List of assistant professors at the University of X" rather than deleted;
4) Anything that's the subject of a scholarly paper published by an accredited university or full professor is automatically notable provided it's been cited at least once;
5) Any journal that publishes scholarly papers and would be a reliable source in its own right is automatically notable;
Well, I could go on and on.
My point is that notability is an inherently destructive concept. Its only purpose is to say "you may not create an article on this, that, or the other". And that means it needs to be implemented intelligently, which would not be a problem if editors did use it intelligently, but my perception from very long participation at AfD is that it is not so used. And therefore it needs to be tempered and sharpened so that it trims away the chaff without cutting the flesh.
Another issue is that any challenge to notability produces a string of sentences in the emphatic declarative followed by the slippery slope logical fallacy, which I'm hoping can be avoided in this case!— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 15:26, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Masem's case I find interesting, but I'd query the underlying assumptions. These seem to me to be that if it can never be complete, it isn't worth starting, and material that can never be featured content should be discouraged.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 16:41, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
A good example would be in palaeontology. Tooth taxa, such as Wakinosaurus. We have one tooth for that creature, and statistically, we'll never have anything else except the tooth. (I would give other examples of tooth taxa, but I'm unwilling to highlight scholarly topics that fail WP:N on this talk page for fear some idiot would delete it.)
Another example is Zeno of Elea. Fantastically scholarly topic, but none of his writings survive and we have no biographical details to speak of; what's scholarly about that article is the lack of sources. Which is, itself, of academic importance.
I have over a hundred biographies of European politicians, judges and scientists on my list of things to translate, all of which are redlinks at the moment. What happens every time I translate one is, someone from the relevant Wikiproject pops over, assesses it as a "stub" or "start-class", and then it languishes on my watchlist, untouched and undeveloped. By the time we get round to developing those articles, all the people involved will be dead.
What I'm saying is, we need a balanced mix of content. It's all very well building the stuff that'll eventually be a featured article, but actually, I see it as more important to add an article on Catherine Brechignac than it is to spend the same amount of time adding alt text to the images or changing en-dashes to em-dashes in the hope of passing a FAC.
So I don't agree with you that the goal is to get more things featured. I'd settle for getting most things covered. And notability, as currently enforced, is an obstacle (though not as much of an obstacle as CSD, which I think is desperately in need of reining in).— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 18:48, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
On tooth taxa, Wikiproject Dinosaurs maintains a List of dinosaurs (a featured list) but it's too long to have anything much apart from the genus name and a link to the individual article. (I maintain lists of dinosaurs broken down by continent, so Wakinosaurus also appears on the List of Asian dinosaurs; such shorter lists can include sortable wikitables and timelines). But the consensus on Wikiproject Dinosaurs seems to be, one genus, one article.
Zeno really does merit his own article, I think, though if I had my way Zeno's paradoxes would be merged into it.
WP:IKNOWIT is certainly a straw man, and can safely be disregarded. Repeating that allegation won't make it truer.
Look, my basic point here is that WP:N should probably be applied a bit more intelligently than it presently is. It does have a purpose: it's a mincing machine that chews up marketing spam and those endless articles about individual episodes of Babylon 5, and I'm glad it does that. I just think AfD's becoming so totally focused on it that sometimes there's the exclusion of good sense.
I suppose thanks to this discussion, I'm coming round to the view that the problem isn't with the guideline. It's with following it too blindly.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:11, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
My problem with WP:N is when it's used to delete material that's sourced and of a scholarly nature.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 22:15, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Is there any place where guidelines on the notability of locations are written? Specifically hamlets. Powers T 17:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the right place to mention this, but should it be noted that WP:N is a necessary condition for inclusion, but not sufficient? Very often I see debates going on in various places, such as AfDs, where people basically come to the conclusion "it satisfies WP:N, therefore it deserves its own article," which is what the lead of this page seems to imply: "Within Wikipedia, notability refers to whether or not a topic merits its own article." Even many administrators seem to come to this conclusion with respect to the varied applications of their abilities. When one develops a broader standard of understanding Wikipolicies, however, it becomes obvious that there are multiple necessary conditions required for the inclusion of an article (for example, the most obvious other one being WP:Encyclopedia, WP:NOTNEWS, etc.). I see many discussions seem to get hooked up on WP:N as the overarching factor; there are numerous topics I can think of off the top of my head which would adequately suffice the 5 "General notability guidelines," but would not be appropriate due to other conditions not being met. And there are many articles which do in fact exist, and stay existing solely because of WP:N, regardless of their contravention of other policies. This seems to be why things such as WP:Bombardment occur, because so many in the community see WP:N as some sort of trump card, when it's most definitely not. I believe it needs to be stressed that this, while being a fundamental part of the inclusion process, is just a part. I've been thinking about this for a while; anyone have any comments?
These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles. Furthermore, topics that may pass notability guidelines may not be suitable for inclusion by other content policies. For Wikipedia's policies regarding content, see Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons.
(left align tabs for ease of reading)
Thank you, Masem, for your clarification of WP:N versus more specific criteria (eg., WP:NWEB). I now understand what you mean for the most part, but I still believe there are some exceptions, as per Web specifically. There are numerous webpages that can satisfy WP:N, but I still believe ought not have their own articles, as per WP:NWEB they don't have notable "achievements, impact or historical significance." While satisfying WP:N, they may only do so to an extent which allows "trivial coverage" including only existing to "describe the nature, appearance or services a website offers," which contravenes WP:NWEB and are thus (at least per WP:NWEB's implications) unsuitable. I think that in some situations these secondary guidelines ought to be made more apparent as they have developed on their own more appropriately for their specific subject area(s). But, on reading what you have said, I understand for the most part (ATHLETE was a good example) how you have clarified their usages as corollaries — but I still think there are important exceptions which can't be neglected.
I do agree, tentatively, to your re-framing of the paragraph above to qualify / specify that there are important exceptions.
Secondly, I'm really not sure what Patsw is trying to say. I understand what "notability" is. I am familiar with "technical jargon," but not with the usage of "term of art." As per the link provided, "terms of art or words of art have meanings that are strictly defined by law." The post then goes on to explain that "it is merely an informal [usage]." This is exactly the contradiction I am trying to get clarified in the wording of the policy; this policy is meant to be "strictly defined," implementable policy. It's one of the most important Wikipolicies out there. It's "informal" and "shorthand" usages coupled with the wording of the guideline itself are leading to it being used a "trump card" (I don't know how else to put this). WP:N is meant to be a guideline, sharp and concise, working in tandem with other policies, not some "artistic," fluid concept to be vaguely referenced while somehow implying all the other
content policy requirements are "passed" when ever WP:N is invoked. The wording of the policy implies (or rather blatantly states) that a subject will "merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below." This contradicts other policies, and makes it sound that WP:N is even more fundamental than
WP:ENCYCLOPEDIA, which it is obviously not. The policy's relation to all of the other guidelines needs to be made crystal clear, in this article, and perhaps in an overarching article. There is an old, failed one which I dug up which includes good elucidation of some of the concepts I have been trying to explain (though it needs a lot of work and has faults of its own, see
Wikipedia:Article inclusion)
Actually that's not true. Something can fail WP:N and still pass every other policy and guideline. 陣 内 Jinnai 20:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
Is it true that "Notability does not apply to citations" Talk:Illuminati? In this case, the claim in the article is that there are multiple modern groups that call themselves the Illuminati on some variation thereon. The webpages for the "groups" held to satisfy the sourcing requirement for that claim seem to be just that, webpages. Unless there's some evidence that there are real groups behind those webpages and that they are notable in some way, they wouldn't seem to warrant mention. Шизомби ( talk) 18:50, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
Some proposals of the strategic planning concern notability specifically those two.
More proposals concerning notability will probably come but currently that just those two -- KrebMarkt 07:08, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
There still seems to be misunderstaning of what notability is in terms of inclusion of topics in Wikipedia. I therefore propose the following rewrite:
![]() | This page in a nutshell: If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, then it is presumed that sufficient coverage exists for inclusion as a standalone article which meets Wikipedia's content policies. |
Notability refers to whether or not a topic should be the subject of its own standalone article. In Wikipedia, article topics are required to be "noted" by reliable, third-party sources.
The term "notability" itself is not a reflection of a topic's importance, merit or worthiness; rather the term is used in the sense that a topic been the subject of published commentary from reliable sources independent of the topic itself. These sources provide verifiable evidence that the topic is the subject of sufficient coverage to create a standalone article that can meet the requirements of Wikipedia's content and style policies.
Notability is not necessarily dependent on measures of subjective importance such as the inherent significance, fame or popularity of a topic — although those may contribute. A topic may be fascinating and topical while still not being notable enough to ensure sufficient verifiable source material exists. The burden of evidence therefore lies with the editor who creates an article to cite sources that demonstrate that the article topic is sufficiently notable to meet Wikipedia's content and style policies.
I propose making these changes to the lead/preamble section, but only if other editors agree that this captures the meaning of the term "notability" as it is used in Wikipedia. -- Gavin Collins ( talk| contribs) 11:22, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
←Generally agree a reasonable direction, but think the reference to the CSP is confusing rather than illuminating. Bongo matic 15:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Precisely what misunderstandings would this new wording clear up? And why drop the references to the SNGs? I think that any proposal should be clear on who would oppose it; those who are "misunderstanding" notability do not, after all, think that they misunderstand it—which interpretations are you seeking to render impossible? RJC Talk Contribs 16:04, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
I like the current version. This re-write seems clumsy and confusing. Dlabtot ( talk) 17:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
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.
What problem does this solve? Are there people adding articles which they claim are not required to conform to the seven content policies ( WP:BLP, WP:NAME, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:NOT, WP:FUC, WP:V) because they pass WP:N? Where's the evidence of that going on? patsw ( talk) 16:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
But there are still tons of people here who don't know that. So maybe obscure towns may still be notable, but are thousands of individual plant species? User:Ser Amantio di Nicolao has created about 1800 articles with AWB, all species of the genus Bulbophyllum. Hell, there isn't a damn thing on those pages other than " Bulbophyllum abbreviatum is a species of orchid in the genus Bulbophyllum." List of Bulbophyllum species is more freaking useful than that because it has a person and a year! and of course there's User:Dr. Blofeld, who is so damn lazy he can't even put the name of the topic in the article but instead uses {{ PAGENAME}} on his stubs. Today he's doing List of rivers of Bolivia. Sure, make all the articles on French communes, etc. you want: people actually live there, but every river and lake ( List of lakes in Nova Scotia) in the world?? Many of these will NEVER be expanded, and the main list works just fine. Where do they get this junk that existence equals notability? IF people are looking for this, the main list is actually more useful than a single sentence! Every single one of these violates the general notability guideline. None of these topics have significant coverage, just a listing in an atlas or species database. Creating more articles like these does nothing but dilute the quality of Wikipedia. I check WP:Good articles often, and it dismays me to see that only 1 of 276 articles is good or featured, and this number is getting worse because of these mass useless stub creations. It's quality, not quantity, people! My policy is to never create a new article until there's actually enough info to warrant one. They claim that having the article already created makes it easier for others to add to it, but I've seen many stubs last for years without another edit. More information simply doesn't exist! Sure, maybe articles on towns can be expanded, but every single river, lake, and species is simply not notable and should not have an article. Reywas92 Talk 22:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
That's not meant as an endorsement of de.wiki's way of doing things, which would not work for us at all. But it's a practical obstacle to translating material from de.wiki that needs to be recognised.
I think DGG's point of view—which I share—is that the onus is not particularly on the translator to source the article. It's on everyone. If you find an uncited article, then you should go and source it.
And that's the whole message. Rather than whining about content creators failing to comply with some particular guideline, go and help them reach compliance. Rather than trying to place the burden of evidence solely on them, accept some of that burden on yourself. Wikipedia is about a process of collaborative evolution towards perfection and those who are most concerned about sources have a constructive part to play.— S Marshall Talk/ Cont 10:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)