This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Notability. 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.
Such bios can either be tagged {{nn-bio}} (plus {{nothanks-vanity}}), {{notability}} or {{importance}}, depending on how bad it is. I disagree with giving speediable articles another step.
With the {{notability}} now admitting a parameter to specify the guideline at issue, I think the notion of separate templates for that sort of thing is obsolete. 66.30.205.6503:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
Removal of "edit" link
Resolved
– Moot; template is protected anyway
I have just removed the "edit template" link from the template. Including it seemed fairly unneccessary, since not many users are likely to want to change the template, and those that do have probably been around sufficiently long to know how to make changes. I think it may be confusing to some people who interpret it as a link to edit the page on which the tag is placed... recent edits replacing the contents of this template with EggBlog could perhaps be for this reason. Anyhow, I didn't think it's removal could hurt. └ UkPaolo/talk┐20:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
Broadcasting notability
Resolved
– it became resolved in September 2006, [1]. Sorry it took six months to sort.
I wrote the broadcasting notability guidelines. However, I don't feel that they are useful to include on this template. The guideline was never accepted, which makes me feel uncomfortable about using it this way. Also, it is more complex than the other guidelines and it is only applicable to stations in the United States (I wasn't going to use it on foreign stations, in fact, it is impossible to use it on foreign stations). I guess that I'll leave it to others to decide whether to remove it. Maybe I'll come up with a modified proposal some day. -- Kjkolb12:00, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
This template implies that if the article is not notable, it should be deleted. Is that the intent?
Not the article, but the thing the article's about. Yes. Lack of notability is considered a reason for Wikipedia not to have an article on something. NickelShoe (Talk) 04:17, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
Huh?
Resolved
– Intent explained.
So, who came up with this? What about sports, geography, historical events, science? Obviously many things that are notable are not included in this list. I'm not sure its of much use. --Nelson Ricardo23:32, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
The guidelines are meant to say that there are guidelines for those certain categories. Other categories do not have policy on non-notable things. I'll see if I can make that clearer. Fresheneesz00:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
Notability and deletion
Resolved
– Language fixed, and underlying deletion policy question is a long-settled issue (see WP:CSD, WP:DP).
This template incorrectly implies that notability is suitable reason for deletion and that it is policy written on Wikipedia:Guide to deletion - which it is not, except for two special cases. I am going to correct the template to clarify this error. Fresheneesz23:55, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
Absolutely. I'm a little concerned that the Notability essay is being passed off as some kind of policy or guideline. --Tony Sidaway22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
The June 12 language certainly did look like a problem. I note for future reference that it was in fact changed on that date, though. Stellmach22:21, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Size
This is a ridiculously large template. It disfigures any article into which it is inserted. I suggest that the subtopic list could be done away with without hurting the message that there is someone who doesn't find the subject of the article "notable". --Tony Sidaway22:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
I suppose we could use the show/hide function if necessary, so that people know what the notability guidelines and proposals are. I am however, not so much a fan of throwing boxes on top of pages, but use them only as a necessary evil of sorts. -- Joe Beaudoin Jr.Think out loud — WP:PORN BIO?23:57, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Because of its fugliness I remove this box on sight. It's far too large to be appropriate for anything other than a talk page, so it either needs to be trimmed or revamped. –Abe Dashiell(t/c)15:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
If the one-click to notability guidelines is preferred, we should be having separate templates for web-notability, etc. NickelShoe (Talk) 15:24, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
It does seem a bit longwinded still. Should also be converted to {{Ambox}} format. I think much of the length problem can be fixed by removing the totally unnecessary list of extant subject-specific notability guidelines and simply linking to WP:N for cases where the template is not given a topic parameter or is given one that does not match any value in the template code. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›00:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
This template can be offensive to readers
For the casual reader who wonders if a topic is covered in Wikipedia, coming across this template will convince them that Wikipedia has lost its magic. See for instance Cause marketing. The message of this template at the top is, "If you thought you could contribute to Wikipedia, don't bother unless you read these 24 articles first. Otherwise we'll delete your work." After reading about cause marketing in the Harvard Business Review, then coming to Wikipedia for more, stumbling across the language and tone of this template made the editors of Wikipedia look uninformed to me, yet eager to destroy the creative spirit. All this "editor" had to do is Google the term "cause marketing" and include a .gov, .edu or .org filter, and immediately see that the topic had notability. Anyone who inserts this template must make a convincing case that goes beyond referencing the existence of 24 mind-bending articles. If that is not evident, the template should be considered vandalism and removed on sight. --24.34.109.8014:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
"Vandalism??" "Removed on sight??" These things that you say are nonsense. We should expect editors to research the topic's notability before adding the template, but not expect editors to do the same before removing the template? And this business of "24 mind-bending articles" is the purest hyperbole. Each and every one of those articles boils down to one thing: articles should assert that the subject is notable for some specific reason. How mind-bending is that?
Rather than consider people who add this template without independently researching the topic's notability to be "vandals," I would prefer to assume good faith and consider them to be people attempting to be helpful by raising a valid concern. -Stellmach14:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Category?
Resolved
– Template now categorizes articles, including by date of tagging.
What is the opinion on having this template add the article to a category called something like "category:Articles marked for questionable notability" ? RJFJR16:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I was just thinking the same thing myself. It would give the ability to ptraol the category for help in providing citations or for nominating for deletion. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:00, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
This is just generally a ridiculous template and needs to be removed/replaced
People are mistaking this tag for vandalism, even after reading the discussions in the article. There's no way any list of "the topics notable enough to be on wikipedia" can be 12 elements long and contain "pornographic actors". I'm a new enough user that I don't want to be bold and clear it completely, but I can't begin to think of a reason it should look anything like it does, with a list of acceptable topics. I'm going to take out "pornographic actors" for starters, though, and someone else should change it completely.
Replying to self upon examining code: Okay, I was misunderstanding somewhat -- I see this is just a list of the topics for notability debate. But they shouldn't all be listed in the tag -- it comes off as a list of The 15/whatever Things Allowed on Wikipedia, and looks completely out-of-place talking about "hotels" and "pornographic actors" at the top of articles on specific things. It's confusing and looks like spam/vandalism.
See the topic below ("Can We Pipe It") for a proposal to address this problem, by providing support to replace the list with only a link to the relevant guideline. -Stellmach22:24, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Can we pipe it?
Resolved
– Requested changes made.
I like the idea of this tag, but the other editors are right, that it does not look very nice currently, and two, that it is wordy and confusing. Can we add a pipe to this template so that we can specify which notability guide applies to the article? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 02:30, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
Excellent idea. Clearly, some people are confused by the list of topics, and usually only 0 to 1 of them is applicable to any given article anyway. It would be much handier as you suggest. -Stellmach14:43, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I've taken a pass at what such a thing might look like. If no argument is provided, it (for backwards compatibility) displays the current message. But you can also give it an optional argument which will list only a single notability guideline, or let you supply your own link to a proposed guideline. Take a look at User:Stellmach/notability for the template, or User:Stellmach/test (at least for now) for examples of its use. -Stellmach17:27, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and some articles might still better take the verbose version, too. For example, I suppose a webcomic might assert notability under either the fiction or web content guidelines. -Stellmach13:53, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
The protected page, when transcluded, adds "<noinclude>" onto the target page. I believe that this is because of the <noinclude> in the comment, as it's the only one that is not "matched" with an end tag. For an example of what I'm talking about, see Template:Bio-notability.
Please replace <!-- TEMPLATE END. The below text has been <noinclude>'d and will not appear in the template when used on pages -->
with <!-- TEMPLATE END. The below text has been noinclude'd and will not appear in the template when used on pages -->
Is it really necessary to have both this and{{importance}}? Or can one bve redirected to the other? In any event, as they both feed into the same category (at least by default), see this discussion on splitting the two by month, in line with numerous other large-ish cleanup categories. Alai18:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
– No further activity in this topic since Jan. 2007.
Just pointing out that I felt personally offended by the use of this template over one of the articles I used to edit. Maybe I'm a oversensitive little fella, but I had to rationalise for some time in order to don't vandalize the article - or the template. It is just unpolite, and it tells "if you don't write a better article, we will delete your crap". This is just unecessary.
However, if there was at least something explaining why wikipedia is doing that (all this source paranoia), it would feel better. But right now, it doesen't. algumacoisaqq15:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
We have tons of articles that don't point make their notabilty (or context) clear. Rather than sending them straight to the trash can, I think it's polite to give them warning and a chance to fix it. NickelShoe (Talk) 17:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
The words "as per" in the template ("If notability cannot be established, the article is more likely to be considered for deletion, as per Wikipedia:Guide to deletion.") should be changed to just "per". "Per" means "according to"; saying "as per" here is grammatically incorrect. –Sommers(Talk)17:52, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
This template should be updated to reflect the new names, mergers, and new guidelines. Or just reference WP:N and the included table of subordinate guidelines.
It seems inappropriate to say that an article does not comply with proposed guidelines since these should not be considered until approved. --Kevin Murray23:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
This template contains a link to Template:IncGuide, which is now a redirect to Template:Notabilityguide, and given the large numbers of articles which contain this Notability template, this ought to be fixed. And, note the section immediately above this one, which says that apparently there are other major problems with this template as well which need correcting. --Xyzzyplugh00:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
The "An editor has expressed a concern that..." needs to be removed from the template, because some editors are thinking that this template should be added even if the majority of the people think the article is notable. See this discussion for further information about one of the problems.--Sefringle04:01, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Request edit
Resolved
– Requested changes made.
Please delete the last sentence, "See also Wikipedia:Notability." It's redundant with "notability guidelines" in the first sentence, which links to the same page. YechielMan17:11, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
– Wrong venue. Requests for changes to the MediaWiki software go in WP:VPT.
{{editprotected}}
These tags need to accept Date with a capital D for the date. Capitalization is not a lost art, but it will become so if there is further neglect of it by programmers who write templates. It is just habit for me and others to use an initial capital letter, since we do a lot of writing. Sloppily written templates than don't have good input checking (one of the first rules every programmer is expected to learn) just makes more work all round when a person easily and naturally puts an initial letter. Hu03:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
NNot done The text before the = in a parameter name determines what needs to be put as a {{{parametername}}} in the template; at present, this is case-sensitive, and affects all templates; a workaround could be implemented in every single template individually, by testing for both parameters, but then you have problems like what to do if someone includes, say, {{notablility|date=some date|Date=some other date}}. Template parameters are traditionally in lowercase. If you think that they should be case-insensitive, it's probably best to request a change to the software than a change to every template. --ais523 13:59, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Well then, improve the software and that will improve it for all of them. As for the counter example, that is also easily handled. You simply use the last one. That also is elementary programming practice. Hu16:25, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
There is no way for a template to detect which order its parameters were in if they were given in the name= format. --ais523 16:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I don't think the order is the issue. 1) Debug the software that the templates (plural) call so that "date", "Date" and "DATE" will be equally usable. 2) Process the parameters in whatever order they arrive and if there is a duplication (two date parameters, for instance) simply use the last one. This is easily done by setting the date each time a date parameter is encountered and the last setting will remain in effect. Hu02:13, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
done. I think there is a better way to do the test in case article space stops being namespace 0, but I used the code you suggested. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
{{editprotected}}
The template needs a link to the talk page of the article, and it may need replacement templates with more specific messages. It is too talkative and should be replaced as soon as occuring. Said: Rursus☺★09:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
That request is not specific enough for anyone to easily edit the template and accomplish it. Please propose and find consensus for new wording and then add an editprotected request as a final step. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
Edit protected for WP:EPISODE
{{editprotected}}
Need someone to add a TV episode trigger for the template that points to WP:EPISODE. Something like this would do:
| television episodes
| episode = notability guideline for [[Wikipedia:Television episodes|Television episodes]]
I occasionally see people using this template with "subst", which leads to these articles getting stuck in CAT:NN, since they cannot be automatically dated by User:SmackBot. Could we make these instructions more clear? Such as:
This template should never be used with Wikipedia:Subst. Doing so will prevent the automatic date stamp from working, and cause problems in Wikiproject workflows.
Any opinions?
Restore more helpful linking
{{Editprotected}}
Formerly, usage such as {{Notability|music}} would produce output that included "The subject of the article may not satisfy the notability guideline for Music." Now it instead produces "The subject of the article may not satisfy the notability guideline for Music.", which is not helpful to readers/editors, and in fact is directly unhelpful because it leads one to believe that it links to Music. So, please reverse this change (which likely affects more than just the "Music"/"music" parameter value. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)›22:44, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
This template is protected, so I can't fix this myself. For some reason, Maxim has changed the template so that it now does not have a grey background. The consequence of this is that it doesn't look like a tag when placed on pages - it looks like it's part of the main text. I think the background color should be changed to something else, probably back the way it was. Lilac Soul(talk • contribs • count)09:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Apaprently the cat scheme has to be chahnged per CFD. However the new cats ar not im place, so tnes of thousands of articles have been thrown into red cats... RichFarmbrough, 20:39 23 September2007 (GMT).
Resolved
Stale
