"Notability (science)" mentions in its introduction, "failure of a topic to meet this [scientific] guideline's criteria does not automatically exclude it, as it may attain notability through WP:N itself or another of its subsidiary guidelines.".
I haven't been following the entire debate, but it seems from Steve's comment that this page used to be a descriptive guideline, but has been liberally reworded in an attempt to make it prescriptive, and as a result is said to no longer reflects consensus. Indeed, I note this page was far less controversial one or two months ago, so controversy seems to stem from recent changes. A reasonable suggestion then would be to revert to a version from one or two months ago that lacks these liberal rewordings. >Radiant< 07:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Material from self-published or questionable sources may be used in articles about those sources, so long as: it is relevant to their notability; it is not contentious; it is not unduly self-serving; it does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject; there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it the article is primarily based on sources independent of the subject of the article. (emphasis added by me)
Material from self-published or questionable sources may be used in articles about those sources, so long as:
(emphasis added by me)
The whole argument stated over whether this guideline supplants the other subject-specific guidelines, which have been around far longer then this guideline. This guideline seems to be treated as a sacred cow that is equivalent to policy.
I mean, why are some editors so opposed to renaming the PNC to something that is more inline with why it was created? If this guideline is suppose to be descriptive of how notability is used in AFD discussions, then a change in the criterion's name in this guideline wouldn't matter.
If someone was also go in to return the counter augments to this guideline so that the guideline more fully descriptive of the process, would those edits stand? Probably not as those same editors who oppose the renaming of this guideline's criterion will feel the counter arguments will weaken the prescriptive use of this guideline.
Notability is subjective. There is no denying that. But relying on only one criterion to determine notability for all topics is like putting a square peg through a round whole. There is more then one reason why a subject can bee deemed notable, but multiple, non-trivial, independent sources is not always one of them. That was why we have the subject-specific guidelines in the first place.
In the end, I do think this page should be returned to the essay that it once was, describing the notability debate on AfD and serve as a central "hub" for the subject-specific guidelines. And contrary to the hysteria of a few editors, Wikipedia will not implode and give birth to squirrels if this page is no longer a guideline (to use an old a.f.sm joke), nor will the notability argument become invalid and go away in AfD either. --Farix (Talk) 14:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Can college/university newspapers be used to establish notability or are they solely limited to usage as a reliable source?--Crossmr 07:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
I agree with Night Gyr that multiple sources are the most important criterion. One source, however reliable, is not usually enough to demonstrate notability. For instance, imagine if X, a non-notable student from East Nowhere, Idaho, were to be the subject of a single human-interest story in a daily newspaper because of his unusually vast collection of Pokémon cards. Even though the newspaper article is a reliable source, that doesn't make X notable - all it means is that the newspaper needed to fill up some space. On the other hand, if X's collection of Pokémon cards were to draw widespread media attention and be mentioned in several newspapers, then he would be notable. If some of these sources were student-run college newspapers, then he would still be notable - but if the only source was a college newspaper, then he wouldn't. Walton Vivat Regina! 12:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Am I right to question this article then on notability: Amiworthit. The two sources from what I'd considered more notable media outlets really consist of trivial coverage, very brief, and really only describing the features of the site. While there are a couple of sources outside of that that offer actual detail, they're from student run papers (and I think from the same school the creator attends/attended).--Crossmr 16:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
I have tagged this section as disputed. I do not believe that it is widely known that this section was added nor that this section would receive clear support if/when it became more widely known.
My core concern is that in the current editorial environment, it creates a loophole within our policies and systems. A number of our "notability" decisions are based on the short-term coverage that a topic receives. That coverage may not be continued or followed up. The coverage may, in hindsight, have been the subject's 15 minutes of fame. The wording of this clause creates the strong impression that once a consensus has been reached that a topic was notable, however transitory or borderline that decision was, consensus can not change.
The primary reason to measure notability is as a proxy for our ability to find enough independent sources and a critical mass of informed and interested editors to ensure that our article on the subject will be neutral, verifiable and permanently monitored for vandalism. If after the passage of time, there are no longer the sources necessary for an online, all volunteer encyclopedia to find and use and/or if there are no longer any interested editors, then we will be far better off without the article.
Wikipedia can not be a permanent archive of all possible knowledge. It is not structured for the kind of historical preservation and research that would be necessary. We write about what we can and leave historical archiving to projects which have the necessary tools and capabilities.
I strongly recommend that we remove this section from the guideline. Rossami (talk) 00:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Support inclusion of this section. If an article satisfies a consensus of editors that the subject isn't a mere news article rewrite, but has merit as an article in an encyclopedia, then that decision is good enough for me. What's of interest in 2007 to editors in 2007 may not be of interest to readers in 2017, but that doesn't empower editors in 2017 to presume that this lack of reader interest in 2017 is assurance there will be no reader interest in 2027 or beyond.
The Wikipedia is an almost real time filter of what news or facts have the character of permanence. After a while, it becomes of interest to researchers to know what editors thought people were interested in at the time. A interesting exercise for people who consider this to be a serious endeavor is to go to a library that has some annual encyclopedia supplements. [1] and see how they incorporated current events from 20 years ago into their paper-based encyclopedias. patsw 12:45, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
As such, I think that the important thing to address is not the idea that notability is permanent, which is uncontroversial in this regard, but when an event actually reaches the bar of notability in the first place. This is where the "multiple" and "independent" requirements are important.
Another important thing to address is the way in which current events are presented in an encyclopaedia. Clearly, articles should be encyclopaedia articles, not news articles, and that should be reflected in their scopes and their titles. For example: Glasgow Ice Cream Wars is an encyclopaedia article title and scope, whereas "Convictions of Glasgow Ice Cream wars two quashed by court of appeal" is clearly a news article title and scope. Uncle G 16:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to thank everyone in this thread for giving serious consideration to the question. I remain concerned that, as currently worded, this clause will do more harm than good for the encyclopedia. If I may, I'd like to address some of the concerns above.
This last point really gets to my core concern - as a community, we have shown a rather poor track record at sorting out truly encyclopedic content from the subjects which are currently getting their 15 minutes of fame. If something is encyclopedic, yes, it stays encyclopedic. I have never disagreed with that general principle. That's not how the clause is being interpreted, though. This clause is already being misused as an argument to keep topics which were never encyclopedic and whose 15 minutes of fame are clearly up. The clause reinforces the rampant confusion that already exists between Wikipedia and Wikinews.
Good article's won't get deleted if we remove this clause. (It was only added in December. We were not over-deleting before that.) Bad articles, however, are starting to get harder to clean up because of this clause. Rossami (talk) 21:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Who is God to say what is and is not "notable material" If you're creating an article that is widely-popular to your local area, or even your county, perish or burough, your input is deemed "unnotable" by the forces that be here, thus rendering your otherwise very informative article nonsense in the eys of the community. I believe this is almost as bad as China's great Firewall of sensorship...but then again, you have the power to have others agree with you, making this just an ALMOST losing battle.
I just can't help but think the ones with power are misusing it by sticking so tandem to cold and thoughtless guidelines. --Omnislash89 12:24, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that notability is generally permanent, but at the same time we should be able to look back at a news story which made a big splash for a short while a couple of years ago, such as a cute animal stuck in a tree, or a scout who wandered away from camp and inspired a huge search, and decide that we were mistaken in the first place about its notability. The notability didn't go away, it just wasn't really there in the first place. This is one point of the proposed/tagged as rejected guideline WP:NOTNEWS. As a reality check, do you want to see articles about watercooler stories of 100 years ago, which were sensationalistic at the time but of no real consequence? There are countless such buried on the newspaper and magazine files of that era which have the same WP:ATT quality and quantity of stories having substantial coverage.Edison 23:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi all. A new user is adding articles for a lot of historic Tennessee houses. They're all on the National Register of Historic Places, but does that mean they're notable? I was wondering if there's some kind of guideline about this. Thanks. --AW 20:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
A lot of editors' arguments on this talk page seem to centre around the idea that words such as "multiple" and "non-trivial coverage" are in some degree subjective. I would therefore advocate the following specific definitions:
I hope that will clear up one of the main issues of this guideline. I've never seen WP:N as anything other than a fair, objective test. Walton Vivat Regina! 10:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the definition offered here is unnecessarily complex and constrained. Non-trivial just means that the source talks about the subject directly (but not necessarily exclusively). The real issue is that WP:no original research or synthesis should be needed to use the reference. Whether it treats a subject singularly or as part of a set of related subjects is not relevant--we can discard irrelevant information to extract what is needed. What we can't do is put 2 and 2 together to make 5. I put a simple version of this definition on the page. Dhaluza 23:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem is, this definition of notability is only indirectly related to whether a subject is notable. Notability is not, after all, whether or not a piece of information is properly sourced, it is whether a subject is sufficiently important in the grand scheme of things. The level of importance required in this project is, of course, up for debate, but the majority of important things will be referenced in published sources, that's certainly true. Some important things will not, however - and on the flipside, some things which are non-notable in the long term have many published sources regarding them. Therefore, any guideline which specifies two or more sources should not be called a 'notability guideline', but instead something more fitting; in fact I would suggest that it should be proposed for insertion into the WP:ATT policy. This point of clarification is sorely needed, in my opinion, as too many people misunderstand the Notability guideline, and it is being used as justification for deletion in a ludicrous number of deletions where people simply say 'Not notable' with little or no need to back it up. -Xiroth 07:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I edited the list of definitions below the primary criterion to make the intent clear, and to give each equal weight. Each is now one short sentence, with qualifiers in the footnotes. If you wish to tweak the definitions, please keep them brief, and do not add unnecessary comfort words that will only dilute the impact.
I also restored the note "This is the primary, but not the sole criterion, so the converse is not necessarily true. Alternative tests are used in some cases to establish notability", now in the summary, not the bullets. Alternative tests do exist, and they are used. This page is only a guideline, and to get it re-established as a consensus accepted guideline, it will need to cover a wide view of the subject, particularly since this is intended to be a parent to many children. Dhaluza 10:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
In the menu at right of page titled: Notability and Inclusion Guidelines Please Note the Selection: Organisations and Companies It should read: Organizations and Companies —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robhuisingh (talk • contribs) 23:38, 27 March 2007 --Robhuisingh 23:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)(UTC).
Thank you Rossami.--Robhuisingh 00:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I have a question to pose. Recently in AfD, many questions and heated debates have come about insofar as the notability of schools - in particular, high schools. There is a small yet vocal minority that dictates that notability is, at least as far as high schools are concerned, inherent (user:Noroton, for one, states as much on his opinions page); on the other hand, there are those who believe that these same schools are subject to the same notability criteria as per here in WP:N. I am, for one, among the latter group - and it is this debate that has caused much dissent. In short, who is right? I realize that this is what WP:SCHOOL was originally for, but maybe we can really use this? --Dennisthe2 04:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
I am writing this under a new subject heading as the discussion above seems to have progressed to a different topic.
I disagree with the suggestion to use some notion of "inherent notability" or "inherent non-notability". As editors, we shouldn't make that judgment. If others consider a topic "worthy of note" by writing about it, then we have proof that it is notable; if no one has written about a topic, then we lack such proof. We can make argue that X or Y are notable or non-notable all we want, but the only evidence we can present to buttress our arguments is the presence or absence of reliable sources.
Unfortunately, too often this definition of notability is misused. Specifically, I identify three classes of misuse:
Whether some topics are or are not inherently notable is, I think, irrelevant. The only way we can prove that something is notable is by showing that others have deemed it worthy of being written about. Sources themselves do not establish notability, but they prove notability.
A final note. I think the main reason behind opposition to notability guidelines is their misuse, overuse, and overeager use in deletion discussions. Too frequently articles that lack sufficient sourcing to prove notability are nominated for deletion when the nominator has not even conducted a simple Google search for the article's title. Many topics can and are easily proven to meet our notability guidelines with just a little research.
Deletion should not be the first reaction to an article that does not prove the notability of its subject. The first step should be research. If an editor does not wish to research a topic, s(he) may contact the primary author(s) of the article and request that they prove the subject's notability. The article can be tagged with {{notability}} (although that usually doesn't help unless the article is on someone's watchlist). The article can be listed on a relevant WikiProject's talk page (this should usually be reserved for articles that have a lot of invested effort from many editors). I fully support the existence of the notability guideline (the details of "non-trivial", "substantial", "multiple" can be worked out), but am opposed to its inappropriate use.
-- Black Falcon 20:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Black Falcon makes some useful points. However, I do think it is useful to have criteria of things that are not notable. For example, at Afd right now there is Hoyland Common Falcons. Arguments used for deletion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hoyland Common Falcons are similar to "way too far down the football hierarchy to qualify for WP" and "English football clubs are notable if they have competed in the top ten professional levels of the English football system". I'm not sure that the latter is still around in guidelines, but it was at one time and it is sensible. We do not want articles on every soccer team in England, let alone the rest of the world. Below 10th level is normally not notable and they should not have articles unless a special argument can be used. This inherent non-notability has nothing to do with sources, although of course sources would be needed to argue a special case. --Bduke 23:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I often see assertions of "inherent" notability in AfDs. What establishes inherent notability? Is there a list of things that are inherently notable? -- Mikeblas 02:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Things that are actually "Inherently notable" speak for themselves with mulitiple (or substantial) reliable sources. The term "inherently notable", as used in AfD debates, is the opposite of the term "cruft", really just an abstract justification for things that don't meet notability requirments but that people personally find notable. There is no reason why something should need an alternate means, or reasoning, of proving notability. NeoFreak 12:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
(indent reset) The point remains, that if we're writing a guideline to point people to that says "This is what we will accept", that guideline should mention adequate sourcing. It's begging for confusion if we say "Well, yes, this is notable, but wait, don't write an article on it because you can't source it." Notability in the context of Wikipedia has always meant "appropriate for an article." I believe that may not have been the best choice of words, and in terms of titling I far prefer "article inclusion" myself, but we've never meant "notability" in the terms of "how widely is it known." If we're going by that, the newest Youtube phenomenon is more "notable" then germanium. I also agree that "notability" is often (mis)used as an ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT, but that's more the problem of the title and misinterpretation. Notability, in our usage (and words do have different meanings in their context), means "How well can we source that?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with badlydrawnjeff here. Notability and sources are different. If something is notable, it needs sources to write the article. In this sense sources are key. However, if it is not notable, it should not have an article, even if there are sources. It is in this respect that keeping notability and verifiability separate is important. The trouble is we can not agree how to do it and we can not agree that it has to be done. --Bduke 23:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed we do not agree that it has to be done. I say it is a bad idea.
Notability and sources are very different. Notability is a poorly defined misused term associated with attempting to broadly define (read limit) others contributions according to you own precenceptions of what wikipedia should ultimately look like. Sources, on the other hand, are easily recognised, central to a core policy, and the most important when it comes to reliability.
Notability, whether inherent or not, should be neither a criterion for inclusion nor a criterion for exclusion. Notability, where it means with suitable sources, is a poor reiteration of WP:V, and should be abandoned. Notability, where it is defined distinct from suitable sources, is a confused idea, violates the principles of wikipedia, attempts to limit future contributions with insufficient consideration, and should be abandoned.
Rules of exclusion should be limited to WP:NOT, where they are required to be specific. Rules of inclusion should be limited to WP:5P. SmokeyJoe 02:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
The term "inherently notable" is not a good description. It implies that people can be lazy with sourcing, and many people will strongly oppose it based on this. There are some categories that are considered generally notable, so the more important concept is that if almost all items in a category are obviously notable, then there is value in complete coverage (avoiding petty disputes over notability of the few odd items). For example, heads of state are generally notable. Now there are a few minor countries whose head of state may not be all that notable, but there is no sense trying to draw a line dividing out just a few of them. The smallest countries will be notable anyway, just for being small. So we may as well allow them all in, as long as there is enough WP:V/WP:ATT material about them to create at least a brief article. So if someone wanted to fix Yury Morozov the only red-link on list of state leaders, it would be pointless to start an AfD discussion on the number and nature of sources, or whether the leader of South Ossetia was notable enough for a separate article, or should be merged under the country. In this case consistency should trump notability. Dhaluza 15:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
What are the guidelines for establishing that a computer operating system command is notable? I see articles here on various commands in different articles, and they seem pretty silly to me; their coverage is superficial and almost never includes third-party references. -- Mikeblas 02:29, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I have posed a neutral notice to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Notability calling attention to the newly stable version of this guideline. Although a neutral wording is appropriate in that forum, let me state my support for the new version here. Although I previously expressed a sense that this guideline was destined to become a failed initiative, I kept it on my watchlist, and was favorably impressed with the progress made. So much so, that I decided to rejoin the effort. I think the new version is a more reasonable compromise, and more closely approximates the views of the larger community. Dhaluza 01:30, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Alternative tests are used in some cases to establish notability
Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (films). This page has been rejected for some time, now several zealous editors are trying to bully it directly to accepted status without gaining true consensus. Whether it is valid or not, it shouldn't jump from rejected to guideline status instantly. --Kevin Murray 21:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
People seem to interpret notable for sports people as "Has played for a team that's in a national league". This means that very many tiny stubs get created, with no links to / from those articles, and no projects linked to those articles to clean them up in future. They usually have no attribution. The problem comes when people (like me) trawl for typos and find these articles. I have no idea if John Doe is a notable soccer player in the Scottish League. I do know that proffesional is a typo. Should I be adding these articles to the bio project, or prodding them, or both, or just leaving them with improved spelling? DanBeale 00:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Sports personalities, like schools, are one of those areas in which notability is frequently disputed. Some users argue that they should be subjected to the same notability requirements as other biographies under WP:BIO - i.e. they must be the subject of multiple non-trivial coverage in independent sources - while others argue that someone who plays for a major professional league is inherently notable. Personally I tend to steer clear of AfDs on sport-related articles, as it invites so much controversy. As a rule though, I'd suggest the following general approach:
Bear in mind that none of what I've said is a rule - it's just my advice for good practice. Some users will probably jump in and disagree. Walton Vivat Regina! 03:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Team Y is pro and nominate for speedy otherwise. (Most admins won't speedy it if it's a pro team anyway, they'll just tell you to take it to prod or AFD, so you may as well do that in the first place and not waste their time.) I fully agree that sports players should be the same as anyone else, though, and sourcing should apply just the same. Nothing is inherently notable. WP:NOT a pro sports directory, any more then it's any other kind, and that has nothing to do with notability-it's policy. If the article couldn't be more then a directory entry (directory entries might contain name, team, history of what teams the player played for, and statistics), it shouldn't be written; if it is, it should go. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 08:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
I have written several articles on first class cricketers on wikipedia and occasionally these have been nominated for deletion, often by people from countries which do not play the game. This is despite the fact that first class cricketers have been deemed notable by Wikipedia. Every time the AfD has been overturned or withdrawn but it wastes time to fight the same battles over and over again. Someone not interested in cricket might think a player who played a few games in the 1920s isn't important, but that isn't the point. If wikipedia isn't comprehensive then what is it? Such articles, when linked to a couple of sources of reliable statistical data and put into the right category should be acceptable by definition. Is there a list of sports and competitions which editors can refer to before they nominate an article for deletion? If there was some way they could check that a first class cricketer was a notable person it would save some of the people on the wiki cricket project a lot of time. If an article doesn't have the right references then flag it as such, don't nominate it for deletion.Nick mallory 12:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Please remember to discuss changes to a guideline page like this. I happened to notice a recent unilateral edit of the meaning of a guideline here. "Improving" is, I think, fairly subjective, so better to bring it here first, when it comes to changing a part of a guideline (beyond copy edits). Thx "Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page — although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it.", Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. --Keefer4 | Talk 02:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Note: the change from "at least one" to "multiple", which I changed back to the way it had been, but has been changed back to "multiple", which is NOT reasonable. "At least two" perhaps would work, but I don't agree as in the footnotes that "several" = "multiple". Multiple infers multiplicity, not small numbers; "several" works, but even it tends to make 3+, more like 7+, and of course "few" is just as hard. "At least two/three" seems best, but "multiple" is NOT reasonable, given that the text it replaced was "at least one" (and those weren't my words, I only restored them after User:Uncle G did a POV-based change as he's citing this page during the AFD re English language names for Chinese people. Changing guidelines while citing them - that's not very honest or principled, is it?Skookum1 03:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
This is a storm in a teacup, folks. Please read Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/English language names for Chinese people for what has actually brought Keefer4 and Skookum1 here. It's nothing whatsoever to do with these guidelines. Uncle G 15:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
It looks like we are back to the old edit war again over this. I've tried to include some recommendation that single sourcing should be used carefully and rarely, but without support. Could this be a compromise toward consensus? I'd like to see the disputed tag come down. --Kevin Murray 19:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone yet found an example of a topic that is notable in the colloquial sense but which has exactly one reliable source? —Centrx→talk • 18:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
"In this case extreme care should be given to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view and is credible." - With only one source, how would we do that? Tom Harrison Talk 16:43, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Your other error lies in the second "way" mentioned above. Notability cannot be demonstrated by 1 source, because that only indicates that one person has considered the subject notable enough to create and publish a work of xyr own about it. One source is not enough. It isn't enough for journalists (who usually require at least three sources, it should be noted) and it isn't enough for encyclopaedists.
And, as pointed out many times on this talk page, there has yet to be an example presented of where this bogus idea of 1 published work being enough is even needed. All examples presented by editors claiming that there is a need to water down the multiplicity requirement have turned out upon investigation to actually have been the subjects of multiple published works. Uncle G 19:51, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
How about putting Centrx thoughts into a footnote:
If there are multiple sources for a topic but only one source for a particular page, the page with only one source cannot stand on its own. It should be merged into the topic's article, where its sole source can be presented in context. Having only one source is an excellent indicator not that something shouldn't be in Wikipedia, bu that it should be a section instead of a page. Anything that is going to have a page to itself has to have multiple sources. Tom Harrison Talk 18:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
Uncle G, some of us are working toward a compromise but you just keep rolling back the changes to the same old failed policy. Your last edit wiped out both Tom and my efforts toward compromise. There are many opinions here and I think that some of us are trying to meet in the middle, but you are increasingly isolating yourself in the inflexible opposition. --Kevin Murray 21:10, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
The underlying idea of multiple independent sources being necessary to support an article seems important and is pretty well established. It may be possible to adjust the wording to encourage merging over deletion, or to distinguish between pages and sections of pages, or between topics and material, but I think 'multiple independent sources' is going to have to appear. Tom Harrison Talk 15:30, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Just checking that everyone here is aware of the strawpoll currently going on as to whether WP:N should be replaced with WP:AI. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Article inclusion#Strawpoll. All editors are invited to comment. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
Just to follow up a second on the comments generated by the strawpoll over at WT:AI, there was a lot of constructive feedback. It looks like most of the editors that replied are recommending that we keep most of the text of WP:N in place, but change the name of the article to "article inclusion" and alter the wording to help avoid the confused notions of notability being "general fame" or "avoidance of trivia", etc. (Yes, I realize that WP:N talks about the differences, but the name change can help prevent people from misreading or misunderstanding the intentions of the policy.) There are also possibly some bits that can be taken from WP:INCLUSION and placed in WP:N.
I'll be taking a closer look next week at the comments and wording of the two documents, and will take a crack at constructing a second draft of WP:INCLUSION that will be closer to WP:N in format and post a link here on this talk page. That way people can examine the proposed revisions and comment on them here. (I think that process will work better than me posting about possible changes direcly on the talk page or making changes on the actual WP:N article page that someone might want to revert.) Either way, the bottom line is that both documents appear to have essentially the same primary criteria for inclusion - multiple independently published sources about the subject of the article. And they both present similar rationale for why that is recommended. Thus the changes are a matter of adjusting the guideline name and wording to try and reduce the incidence of misinterpretation of the principles of WP:N on afd and elsewhere. Dugwiki 23:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
The primary notability criterion is something which is now I think cited in ost of the guideliens, and is also often mentioned in debate. I have made a template, {{pnc}}, which will ensure that the wording used is consistent everywere, and when we change our minds on the wording, it is correctly reflected everywhere important. Guy (Help!) 09:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I've never had to edit a guideline before - and I'm not really sure if there is a set standard for introducing and arguing for proposed changes, so I appologize in advance if ther is and I have not run parallel to that standard. I believe that another non-confirming note of notability would be if other articles exist that are just as bad (i.e. the classic -"You think this doesn't have sources! Well take a look at THIS!").While I can occasinally understand why some editors bring other articles up - frankly, they shouldn't - because if or if not an article passes the notability standard is completely independent of if or if not another article does - as one of the standards for notability is having multiple reliable sources talk about the article subject in question, and saying that another article exist on Wikipedia that is simmilar would be citing wikipeia as a source - which is not allowed. Is there any support/objections to the addition? If not (assuming no comments come in within, say 24-32 hours how bout?) I'd like to go ahead and add it to the page (don't worry - I'll phrase a lot better than I did here) as the frequency of which arguments like this are brought up is very high - and it'd be nice to cite something besides an essay in why that argument doesn't work.danielfolsom © 19:27, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
The following text was removed from Wikipedia:Notability (people) and replaced with the {{pnc}} template. Some of the language in this version had value, in my opinion. I'd like to propose that parts of it may be useful as an expansion on the current wording of the template. In particular, the concept of independence seemed very helpful in certain difficult discussions. Rossami (talk) 20:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
A person is notable if he or she has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent,6 and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable. Note 6: Sources that are pure derivatives of an original source can be used as references, but do not contribute toward establishing the notability of a subject. "Intellectual independence" requires not only that the content of sources be non-identical, but also that the entirety of content in a published work not be derived from (or based in) another work (partial derivations are acceptable). For example, a speech by a politician about a particular person contributes toward establishing the notability of that person, but multiple reproductions of the transcript of that speech by different news outlets do not. A biography written about a person contributes toward establishing his or her notability, but a summary of that biography lacking an original intellectual contribution does not.
I'm with you on that. Check the latest version of the template which took the best parts of the WP:CORP preamble. I think I may have achieved your purpose with this --Kevin Murray 20:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC):
I'm a bit concerned with the "primary sources" in the text from BIO, which to me seems to advocate primary research. --Kevin Murray 20:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I removed the disputed status tag because the dispute is about the content, not about the status of the guideline. As far as I can tell there is no significant informed dissent from the view that there is some bar to inclusion, which we call notability. All disputes centre on how that is defined and the level at which we set it. Every day we delete articles for not asserting or not establishing notability. The vast majority of those deletions are completely uncontroversial. Check CAT:CSD any time. Guy (Help!) 09:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Alright, I have an example: Beorn leggi. It is a species of invertebrate, of which there is a single fossil specimen, described in a single paper in 1964. As far as I can tell, it has not been the subject of any other source. (765 google hits, but again as I can tell all are either WP & its forks, or directory-type tertiary sources). Now, I am a born deletionist, and I think doing away with "multiple" raises lots of grunge band and other risks, but I can't bring myself to think that WP should not have this article. Thoughts? UnitedStatesian 20:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Here is a list of topics which I remember from either AfD or article cleanup. In each case the article remained on WP.--Kevin Murray 20:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Beorn leggi is a good example of an article that doesn't satisfy the PNC, since it is not the subject of multiple non-trivial published works, and that therefore should be merged, as per the section of these guidelines that describes how to deal with non-notable subjects (which all of the above editors seem to have forgotten, since they have all concentrated solely upon deletion), into an article with a broader scope that does satisfy the PNC. Looking at sources, especially the ones that imply that this one fossil specimen probably isn't actually a distinct family of tardigrades in the first place, makes it clear where it should be merged. Pages 96–97 of ISBN 0521821495, for example, give 1 sentence to Beorn leggi in a discussion of tartigrade fossils that is at the end of a section entitled "Tardigrada: The Water Bears". The sources deal with Beorn leggi as just one part of an overall discussion of tardigrade fossils, and therefore so too should Wikipedia.
The fact that limiting the scope of an article to solely Beorn leggi, and thus to the one source, excludes the sources that imply that there isn't in fact such a distinct family at all and excludes discussion of this one single fossil specimen in the context of the other fossil specimens that have been discovered, is a prime example of why one published work is not enough. Uncle G 12:05, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
A question on the single-source issue: if only a single source is cited in a biographical article, would it make a difference if that source is:
The Decatur Daily has (according to Wikipedia) an average daily circulation of 20,824. The Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society are almost certainly printed in fewer copies than The Decatur Daily but is probably more likely to remain on library shelves and still be regularly consulted by people outside its location of publication in a hundred years.
One could probably argue that the second obituary implies the existence of other sources, but that may not be obvious to everyone. For the sake of argument, let's say that, at least for the time being, the Royal Society obit is the only source actually cited in the article. Should this article on a fellow of the Royal Society still be deleted? Will it be deleted? Or will there still be a discussion where some people will say, "Hey, this guy was verifiably a Fellow of the Royal Society, which in itself demonstrates notability", and others will say "A fellow of what? Who cares? The article only cites a single source, so WP:N requires us to delete it"? Pharamond 05:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I just recently ran across the {{importance-s}} warning, and am a bit confused by it given WP:N#Notability_guidelines_do_not_directly_limit_article-content. Am I missing something? --Ronz 02:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
We have a template pnc for primary notability criterion, which is displayed under the header General notability criterion at WP:N, and then is described as the central notability criterion. Should we fix that? --Kevin Murray 21:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
--Kevin Murray 01:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Primary does in fact imply that anything that does not meet it is non-notable, which is not true if "all topics should meet a minimum threshold of notability for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia". --NE2 02:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
If all topics are required to meet the same level of notability, then life at WP gets much simpler. --Kevin Murray 03:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Jeff, has been actively sabotaging efforts to post the pnc template at all of the pertinent pages. I've reverted him probably to the point that I'll be getting some time off to read rather than write here at WP. But I think that good progress was made at WP today. --Kevin Murray 03:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I would say genral - primary implies that there are a bunch of other ones - and this is the most important, but general implies - most of the time this is the case - which is best suited for the page.danielfolsom ©
I have directed discussion of changes to that template to this page. Unsurprisingly it has already been edited once to include the preferred text of those who favour widespread single sourcing. That (rather than the idea of multiple sources) is controversial and needs consensus before the text is changed. I remain of te view that single-sourced articles are likely to be a very rare exception, unless we foolishly change the guideline to encourage them, in which case we will be unable to rid the encyclopaedia of vast swathes of band vanity articles and other such crap. It is far far harer to persuade two places to cover you independently than to get one story placed in one paper. Guy (Help!) 15:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm seeing the recent change in attitude as Rossami has clarified it; however, I think that a few of us have turned a blind eye to the consensus of MArch 2007. But, what appeared to be just a couple of people yesterday advocating "multiple" is a more demonstrable consensus today. However, there can be no dispute that a month ago there was a great deal of dissatisfaction being expressed about these guidelines. Regardless of the "multiple" position, I think that these are better crtiteria today than they were two months ago -- much clearer.
My concern over multiple is based on experience as a writer and participant at AfD, where I think that notability can be established by one strong source accompanied by several lesser ones -- but I do see the risks from the lawyering element. After reading through the history and listening to the various positions, I would prefer to redress my concerns elsewhere. However, I think that there should be a precise minimum stated such that we don't see arguments that two is not multiple etc.
We are involved in the most important project on the internet today. Protecting it from spam and other garbage is critical. However, the beauty of this project is the variety of topics and the collaboration of such a diversified group. Over censorship can spoil the product as much as a lack of quality control. --Kevin Murray 18:14, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Let's consider an almost-real example. I am imagining a writer writing a biography of an individual who is not particularly notable himself, but because he is a representative member of a highly notable group. One example I could find is in our article on Miguel Barnet, who wrote about Esteban Montejo, not because Montejo is particularly interesting himself, but because Barnet wanted to write a biography of a slave; he would, no doubt, have written a similarly interesting biography of another former slave, he just happened to find this one. This is clearly a very important, single, source about Esteban Montejo, but note that his name is a red link. It's only an almost-real example, since I can't guarantee no one else has ever written about Montejo, but I certainly haven't found many, so let's pretend this is the only one. I found lots of peopel writing about the book, but nothing about Montejo without the book. If this really is the only non-trivial source, should we have an article about EM? Or only about the author and the book? --AnonEMouse (squeak) 20:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
The following section shows the current status or last status before the introduction of the pnc template, for purposes of easy comparison. There are three categories: (1) inclusion of virtually the same language as the template, (2) inclusion of the early March version of the general criterion, or (3) no attempt at including the general criterion --Kevin Murray 16:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
NOTE: BIO and ORG substantially contained the same generation of the general criterion, with text which I proposed in both places to be consistent with the early March protected version of WP:N as written by Smokey Joe – the goal was continuity.
WP:BIO A person is notable if he or she has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
WP:ORG A company, corporation, organization, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
NOTE: The following three sub-guidelines virtually restate the general criterion, and working in the template would not be a change in policy, but rather just reorganization of the paragraph structure.
WP:WEB Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with our policy on attribution to reliable sources, and that primary sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability, web-specific content is deemed notable based on the following criteria. 1. The content itself has been the subject of multiple and non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself.
WP:BK The book has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are independent of the book itself, with at least some of these works serving a general audience. This includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, other books, television documentaries and reviews. Some of these works should contain sufficient critical commentary to allow the article to grow past a simple plot summary.
WP:MUSIC A musician or ensemble (note that this includes a band, singer, rapper, orchestra, hip hop crew, DJ, musical theatre group, etc.) is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria: • It has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent from the musician/ensemble itself and reliable.
NOTE: The following three sub-guidelines do not restate the general criterion in any form:
WP:PORN Does not have a similar statement.
WP:FICT & WP:NUMBER These seem to be a different nature of guideline where inclusion of the template may not apply. Neither now includes a similar statement
OK, how does someone "assert" the notability of an article he just added? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JimBurnell (talk • contribs) 16:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC).
OK, two competing versions:
and
Now, I have a problem with the latter. "Two or more" is an open invitation to rules lawyers. It means they will claim a subject must be kept if there are two sources, regardless of triviality. Actually the later more nuanced text The depth of coverage of the subject by the source should be considered in determining the number of sources needed sums up perfectly how the judgeent should be made. Why use "two or more" when we then go on to say that the number is actually determined by their quality and depth? It makes no sense to me. A book with ten reviews, jolly good. A book with one review and an extensive critique in the Times Literary Supplement, also good. A book with two reviews? Not so good. Probably not actually notable if neither is more than a short paragraph. But a short one-para review may be argued not to be trivial. And perhaps it isn't, if the reviewer is a nationally renowned book critic, or the review is in the Booker shortlist press release. So: adding numbers encourages rules-lawyering and sicourages what we actually want (including Jeff, I think) whihc is a proper critical appraisal of the depth and breadth of coverage. Guy (Help!) 20:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Jeff brought up that what is sufficient is important, and I agree, so here would be my definition.
Sufficient source material exists to justify an article on a subject provided that the following conditions are met.
What would you write as a definition of sufficient? Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm happy to see Jeff joining in by proposing new wording for the template. Maybe we can embrace his spirit and not revert him. Why don't we start with what he proposed, which looks to be what was at WP:N for most of March and the beginning of April. If it's not the right choice, let's not revert, but take baby-steps toward compromise. I think that having the continuity of the template is more important than getting the wording perfect right off the bat. We are dynamic so there is little risk to being flexible. --Kevin Murray 22:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
People might want to take a look at Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors). This seems to be way out of line with other notability criteria. Question 1 is whether we need a separate standard which makes it easier for porn actors to qualify for articles than for other actors, and question 2 is whether the standards here are consistent with WP:N and WP:BIO. --Kevin Murray 14:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors) has in the past been a "get-out clause" for those article subjects that simply don't satisfy our Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies. Its long-term use in AFD has almost always been against the argument that the person doesn't satisfy our criteria for biographies, and in support of allowing biographical articles to exist that are sourced to the wholly fabricated biographies (usually made up by sub-editors and the like, and usually to suit their target market) that appear next to the picture sets in the magazines and on the web sites: "No, we cannot provide a reliable source where this person has actually been documented. Yes, this list of pseudonyms that this person goes under is the product of our own original research, from comparing two photosets and deducing that it is the same person. Yes, the reason that this person uses pseudonyms in the first place is because xe wants not to have information about xem known to the public. No, there's no way to have an article that will be anything more than a fair use picture, cropped from one of the copyrighted photosets (since we don't even know what country to look in in order to find this person so that a free picture can be taken), alongside a bare filmography. But xe's appeared in 99 films!" (The, now absent, number of films criterion was debated whenever it was actually applied, demonstrating once again that criteria that are based upon numerical thresholds, from numbers of employees of a company to numbers of films for an actor, are simply bad criteria.)
The bogus argument, articulated by Badlydrawnjeff above, that there's no "mainstream attention" to people who are "notable in the pornography industry", also comes up. But it wholly flounders when a simple question is asked: If these people are "notable in their industry", how come there isn't any reliable information about their life and works, created by that very industry, which clearly knows how to publish stuff, other than a pseudonym on the blurb that comes with a DVD? Of course, in reality, people who are notable in the pornography industry are documented by the world at large just as people who are notable in any other industry are, and satisfy our ordinary WP:BIO criteria. Ever more granular subject-specific guidelines, like this, are entirely the wrong way to head. As this shows, they most certainly do not "handle it better". They just result in a morass of contradiction and loopholes. Uncle G 22:52, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
Not long ago there came to be, a thing I'd never though I'd see. It shook me to the very core, and brought my muses to the fore. I'll tell you now as best I can, of how this history began. I only hope that what I tell, you shall not find to be unwell.
Some days ago, I know not why, I wished to see if this would fly. But in a blink I was struck down, and left to ponder with a frown. I passed the days with not a peep, and did not take another leap. A couple places I did raid, but otherwise I just got laid.
But then a new day did arise, and with it came a great surprise. As if to mark a turning tide, a fact arose I could not hide. What shall I do to extricate, my poor soul from this sorry state? How could it ever be that I, would agree with some random Guy?
It took not long for me to see, that this was just anomaly. Eventually the fear did leave, and new thoughts did exist to sieve. Could it be that this event, would release all tensions pent? In that hope I turn to you, and offer this for you to view.
So I now bid you farewell, and wish the world to go to hell.
-- Black Falcon 04:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
A topic that Has but one external source Is not notable.
How's that? :P >Radiant< 08:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
No, no, 5-7-5, not 4-7-5! :P
If you find only One source for the subject you Wish to write on, don't.
There, how's that? Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
To express oneself In seventeen syllables Is very diffic-
If only one source Can be found for your subject No article here.
At least one good source Must exist on your subject Before you may write.
How about -
Independently Multiple sources discuss Notable topics
Dugwiki 15:53, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Jeff, I can offer a revised version that mitigates the inclusion of "non-trivial" and "multiple" (I provide two different wordings, but they convey essentially the same idea):
This version still preserves the "multiple non-trivial" requirement, but creates an exception for those cases where a topic has been the subject of (and not just received non-trivial coverage in) a substantial published work. On the one hand, I feel that these proposed wordings do not loosen the definition of notability (as long as we interpret "substantial" stringently) and still exclude garage bands, community activists, and store directors. On the other hand, they create a provision for reasonable exceptions to be made in certain cases. Is this a more acceptable alternative (to you and everyone else)? -- Black Falcon 18:15, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of sufficiency in principle, but have two problems with the version proposed by Seraphim.
To summarise my arguments above, I am not convinced that idea of "sufficiency" can be practically implemented. Please correct me if I have misunderstood the proposed idea. -- Black Falcon 19:04, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
While I remain in support of Tom's version from last night, I would also support the Falcon's alternative. I see the specific mention of a single source as soliciting objections, but certainly not from me. I think this is well written, concise, and considers the broadest consensus. I don't object to what SB and BDJ are working on, but it seems a bit like reinventing the wheel. --Kevin Murray 19:26, 12 April 2007 (UTC)--Kevin Murray 18:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
How large does an Internet forum have to be to be notable? I am an administrator at a 160-member forum, and am under no illusion it is notable. But I thought almost 1600 members (such as Anime and Video Game DID Board) or over 16000 members (such as Transformers World 2005) was enough. However, both have been branded non-notable. Does the number of users have to surpass a million for the forum to be notable because of it? JIP | Talk 17:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shahid Hussain Bokhari (2) seems to be another example of a single source subject which may have notability. --Kevin Murray 21:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Please see the example at PORN [4], where using the PNC template along with the lead paragraph from the special cases section at BIO seems to make the concept of special cases more palatable. This would also make PORN very consistent with BIO and only a matter of providing somewhat greater detail on the special conditions. If PORN has a valid purpose, it should only be to clarify some special conditions for a subset of actors. --Kevin Murray 15:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Everyone is notable in some way —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.104.140.114 (talk) 22:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC).
Okay. Enough poetry, enough shoehorning, enough ill will - we're coming closer than I think we've been since this became an issue months ago, and I'd like to try and tie this together. We have a number of competing ideas:
Now, I know that there have been various permeations of this wording, with little caveats and whatnot at different times, but I believe I've gotten to the core of the three major beliefs being held here. I also think I've covered the pros and cons properly, but feel free to add more to whichever side or correct me if I've misrepresented an argument - this is not my intent.
Let's not have a straw poll on this. Let's have a firm discussion on the merits of these wordings, and see where it takes us. Most of us here have the good of the project in mind, so let's see if we can't end this becoming-ancient-in-wiki-time struggle, shall we? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:09, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
The AfD for 2005 Texas v. Ohio State football game has created broader questions about the notability of individual games. Because nearly any game could theoretically yield a well referenced article that satisfies many criteria at WP:N, this does not necessarily make each game notable. How should this issue be addressed. I am posting this here so that the discussion at AfD doesn't stray of into other topics.
Some examples of articles which exist can be found at Category:College football games, examples cited include 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game and 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game. IvoShandor 13:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Almost the entire discussion in March revolved around the wording, and while we have yet to reach a consensus on what the wording for the primary/general/force-fed/shared criterion should be, the "multiple" or "two or more" wording was one that was highly controversial and lacks consensus. Yet there it sits, and there it continues to be shoehorned into other guidelines with minimal - or no - discussion. So what is the wording we should be using in the interim until we figure out what's going on with the name of this, whether WP:AI replaces it, whether this sticks around, etc? This is a discussion that should have been going on before the formation of {{pnc}}, but better late than never, I suppose. So let's hash this out. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
(indent reset) Jeff, if you were correct that this were nonsensical, you'd be right. But you're not. We have a decent (primary/general/central/main/pick your favorite) definition now. We no longer need the subject-specific guidelines. They still might be useful in an advisory role, to state when a subject is likely to meet these criteria, but as we've found time and time again, not everything that meets the subject-specific criteria really can have anything more than a stub or directory entry. WP:N is based on longstanding policies such as WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT. Wikipedia is not a directory or random collection of facts, we don't accept information just because it's verifiably true. (That is necessary but not sufficient.) An excellent measure, then, of "Should we take note of this?" is to ask "Well, who else has done so? Have enough writers of sources taken note of this to allow us to have a well-sourced, in-depth article?" If so, we follow their lead and write using their sources. If not, we follow their lead too, and give a brief mention in a parent article or none at all. Easy, no CREEP, and applies across the board! Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The template has been submitted to most subordinate pages where it has met controversy at all but two pages. The most contentious was at Wikipedia:Notability (music), where the page has been protected by an admin. He is suggesting a 48 hour cooling off period for comment etc. after which he will evaluate consensus. This seems like a good place to test the acceptance of the template concept, and I invite all of us to join in the discussion there. --Kevin Murray 18:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
The following was adapted from what has been at BIO and ORG for some time, and was based on the early March protected version of WP:N:
A topic is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent,6 and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
Could this satisfy the concerns of the consensus builders? If not, could we fine tune this to address the pertinent concerns? --Kevin Murray 19:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
(indent reset) Once again, Britannica and World Book don't have anchor redirects. We do. Yes, they might be better to have stubs, but we would be better to merge and redirect. (In our case, a "redirect" doesn't mean that the person has to walk across the room or library to get a different volume, it means that they get sent to a larger article that places the material in context, while still taking them directly to what they want.) That's good for the reader. And if a subject really doesn't fit into a larger topic we can cover comprehensively, and can't be covered comprehensively as a standalone, that's a good indication that we shouldn't be covering it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
It seems we're still getting nowhere with this. A wording that was soundly rejected months ago is still being pushed into the guideline. What are we going to do? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
The chart below shows the current status of our notability infrastructure after several months of merging and pruning. How detailed should the branches become? There are compelling arguments for each page, but collectively it becomes difficult to manage and for our writers to follow. I believe that all of the examples shown at the "permutation" level could be rolled up to the sub-guideline level. At this point the physical objects column is empty, but there have been proposals for various categories in the past. --Kevin Murray 18:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
(indent reset) Well, I suppose we could just state a length, but I think that would just encourage unnecessary verbosity. The article classification system also takes into account the quality of an article, and basically, what I'm trying to say here, is "We want quality articles of a decent length, not just a few random bits thrown together." We're not an indiscriminate collection of information, and quality standards are exactly how you discriminate. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:54, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps this chart reflects what is agreeable from the above? Books, fiction, films and the music itself would be governed by Creative Works and Science would specifically include math (numbers). Musicians would be renamed from music, and PORN and PROF will remain independent from BIO. Is this workable? --Kevin Murray 19:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry that I don't have more time right now to be involved with the discussion, because this is a major shift in the notability guidelines may have consequences that are not being considered. I can't help but be skeptical about what is going on here. It came to my attention as the result of an edit war on WP:MUSIC intiated and largely sustained by an editor with no prior involvement there. ("...months of merging and prunning"?) It is also difficult to judge a structure when many of its components have yet to be proposed. E.g. how can one judge whether moving album notability from WP:MUSIC to a "Creative Works" guideline yet to be drafted would be a good thing or not. Currently, album notability is based on a single criterion that has everything to do with notability of musicians. Subjecting individual albums strictly to the pnc at this point would be disruptive and there are good reasons not to change it.
I still don't see the need to strong-arm specific wording of the primary criterion into other guidelines with {{pnc}}. None-the-less, here are two suggestion that would make pnc more acceptable to me:
I appoligize in advance for being slow to respond to discussions of the above. -MrFizyx 01:48, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Template:pnc for the debate. Mangojuicetalk 18:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
I am seeing the following general positions being stated here and at the talk pages for the sub-guidelines.
It seems that an acceptable scheme should be adopted by consensus before we try to fine tune the language much more. --Kevin Murray 19:56, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
I was pointed to the following section:
This section appears like needless legalism to me, and it also feels rather wrong. It implies that article content is not governed by notability, in particular that articles on any celeb could have a lengthy treatise on their unremarkable family, and that articles like "List of English Writers" need not restrict themselves to notable writers. I believe this to be false, that that in practice we do prune such articles to remove those non-notable parts. The second part of this section appears to define this page as automatically superseding others, which isn't de facto true either. Thoughts? >Radiant< 09:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
How about a shorter more direct version? "Notability guidelines determine whether a topic is sufficiently notable enough to be included as a separate article in Wikipedia. These guidelines do not specifically regulate the content of the articles which is governed by: reliable sources and trivia." --Kevin Murray 20:06, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Moved to Wikipedia talk:Television episodes. Note that it's not a "new proposal". >Radiant< 08:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Because I don't see fine-tuning so much as fundamental disagreement over what articles should (not) be included (nor am I particularly attached to any of the available options), here's yet another attempt at approaching this from a different direction:
Full stop. This can be broken down by asking for sources that are more reliable, comprehensive, independent, etc, without establishing baselines for how much, how reliable, how non-trivial, because, if nothing else, we can't seem to agree on what baseline to use. Nifboy 05:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
"Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow attributable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline.
Does it really? Frankly, I don't understand a word of this, and especially not how this can be a definition of "reliable". --91.148.159.4 17:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
This conversation about an AfD seems to point to the need to consider adding guidelines about unpublished texts. Fixer1234 01:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I think a lot of confusion is going on here because it's not even clear what kind of rule people want to be working towards. Without going into detail, could people just chime up and say which type of rule they'd like to see here? I don't mean for this to be a poll to settle the future of this guideline, but I think this may uncover some disagreements that aren't being made clear to one another. Please choose: Sufficient - a rule of the form "If topic X has these properties then it is notable," Necessary - a rule of the form "If topic X doesn't have these properties then it is not notable," or Both - a rule of the form "If topic X has properties Y then it is notable, and if topic X doesn't have properties Y then it is not notable." Mangojuicetalk 14:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
I am agreeing with the very first comment on this talk page:-
I think we are trying to do too much. Notability is about whether we write an article. It is not about whether it can be improved or all the other things that core policies speak to. We should stick to that. The confusion is that some people want to do essentially what I am suggesting and others such as you want to deal with sources and all the other things about writing and improving articles. We are never going to agree. --Bduke 07:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I propose the construction of a separate subpage for judging notability of political parties. Notability in politics is clearly different from the procedure when judging notability on companies and commercial chains. A significant difference lies in that political parties (generally speaking) contest elections, a criteria that is widely different than presence in a market. --Soman 08:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jocelyne Couture-Nowak. The problem is that there are multiple sources about this person specifically. It's obvious that these sources have written about her to put a human face on a tragedy by choosing a victim to write about, rather than because she's famous or important on her own, but the notability policy says that fame and importance are irrelevant. According to the policy, this murder victim is notable merely because of the multiple sources, regardless of why they are written.
I won't be surprised if the article does end up being deleted anyway. There have been a lot of comments saying she isn't notable. But by the definition in WP:N, she is, and if it's deleted, it will be deleted by ignoring the policy rather than by following it.
I think that WP:N should be fixed to not count such people as notable, so we don't need to ignore the policy to get rid of problematic articles like this. Ken Arromdee 13:55, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
How is it that WP:N is considered a guideline? It is not a guideline, because it does not offer guidance. It has not been shown to have consensus, recently, or ever. However, it is obviously important, not actually wrong, and so it should not be marked as rejected. The main problem derives from its status.
WP:N should be tagged as an essay. As an essay, it can serve its purpose at least as well as it has ever done. As an essay, without attempting to claim official status, it is less likely to confuse. A problem with the hint of official status is that WP:N gets referred to in place of core policies. Pages should be deleted due to sourcing problems, not due “non-notability” per se. SmokeyJoe 13:24, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The disputed tag was removed without concensus. The guideline tag was added repeatedly without consensus. Past discussions have failed to demonstrate concensus, and indeed demonstrated non-consensus. The main contributors here are trying to extend policy under the guideline tag. I say it is instruction creep that is obscuring core policy, confusing to anybody not already well versed in its nuances, and a key culprit in the "there are too many rules" argument. There are plenty of comments showing that the wider community are not nearly so impressed with WP:N, or are confused. The absence of contributions by those who consider notability to be ill-advised cause should not be interpreted as meaning that they have chainged their minds. Where is the argument justifying the guideline tag? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SmokeyJoe (talk • contribs) 00:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC).
When Minderbinder reverted my essay tagging, he referred to it as a "demotion". I think it shouldn’t be looked at it this way. A guideline and an essay are quite distinct things (I am using real-world usage here, which is the usage a newcomer would assume).
A guideline should be straightforward and easy to follow. Unlike a good guideline, a good essay may contain logic, reasoning, arguments and recommendations. An essay, unlike a guideline, tries to be persuasive.
WP:N is not straightforward and easy to follow. It is tortured. The clumsy word sequence “multiple non-trivial published works” should be enough to demonstrate this. What it says, and what its authors think it says are two different things. Possibly, the reason it is tortured is that it is an essay trying to be a guideline. It argues that non-standard definition of notable is an important criterion that should be followed, but in trying to be a guideline, it tries to do this assuming that its central argument is an established fact.
As an essay, I believe WP:N will have the freedom to evolve into a coherent, readable, widely supported opinion that is more likely to be understood that the existing version.
SmokeyJoe 08:15, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Seraphimblade, by reverting the disputedpolicy tag, do you mean that you are insisting that there is not even a dispute? SmokeyJoe 07:19, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
Hi Radiant,
The dispute is that on one side, I argue that WP:N is not a guideline, but an essay, and on the other certain editors insist that it is a guideline.
If it doesn’t really look like a dispute, it is because no one is answering my challenges.
You state: “what matters is whether it is a <foo>” I agree, it matters. WP:N is an essay. It is opinionated (not based on fact or policy). It asserts the opinion “All topics should meet a minimum threshold of notability”. This opinion is not followed. I suspect that you are well aware that many existing pages fail WP:N’s test, even pages that survive AfD.
Would you like to dispute that WP:N functions as a guideline?
I am familiar with WP:POL, I accept it for now, although regarding the section “The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc”: it is not very good, I think it is unclear, a refinement is warrented, and I disagree with some of your contributions. Leaving that for another day, and working with today’s text:
“A guideline is any page that is … and (2) authorized by consensus”
I hadn’t read WP:PPP before. It might help me if you could tell me its relevance to this discussion.
SmokeyJoe 00:46, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
My arguments seem to have no traction at all. Am I off the mark, on my own, or is groupthink at work? If WP:N is consensual, let's demonstrate it with a poll (below). SmokeyJoe 12:49, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Taking my cue from Jeepday (talk · contribs)'s great suggestion at the Template:pnc deletion discussion, I'd like to spur a discussion on a WP:N {{Nutshell}}. A well-developed nutshell could provide a solid middle ground for both sides of the {{pnc}} debate. My first suggestion for nutshell text:
Since Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, nor a vehicle for advertisment, articles should clearly demonstrate the importance or significance of the subject using verifiable claims from reliable, external sources.
Thoughts? — Scientizzle 16:36, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
As at least a couple of people like the Nutshell idea, here is a proposed version. Notice that I have borrowed from the text suggestions of both Scien and Kevin Murray Please feel free to make changes. Jeepday 02:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I'd move the third point to the top, since, arguably, demonstrating the importance or significance of the topic using proper sources is the most important message to get across to newbies. — Scientizzle 04:19, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
“using proper sources is the most important message to get across to newbies” is exactly where I am coming from. Point them to WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:RS. Don’t talk about WP:N when deleting newbie pages. Remember that AfD is an intense learning experience for the newbie seeing his first article torn down. What’s my problem with WP:N? In attempting to encapsulate key policies, it confuses. I am not saying that WP:N is wrong in theory, just that in practice it does more harm than good. SmokeyJoe 05:41, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
I have to ask - what is this trying to accomplish? We couldn't agree on a PNC, so we abandon that and try a template that has the no-agreement PNC in it. The PNC template may be headed for deletion, and didn't catch on in most places, so we abandon that and try for a nutshell that has the same problems? What are we trying to do here? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:20, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
This nutshell has been discussed and appears ready to post to the main article. The concerns of most editors have been addressed but User:Badlydrawnjeff remains in opposition, his opposition is not to the nutshell's representation of the current policy, but to the current policy it's self. NutShells reflect current policy they don't set it, so I have posted the template to the article. Jeepday 13:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
I propose that we consider the following modified version of the nutshell. I had a problem using the word "important", and "external" seemed to introduce a word not used in the guideline.
--Kevin Murray 14:56, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
