Wikipedia talk:Notability

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2005–Sep 2006 (related to page now moved to Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments) Sep–Oct 2006 Oct–Nov 2006 18–25 Nov 2006 Nov 2006–Dec 2006 Dec 2006 Dec 2006–Jan 2007 Jan 2007–Feb 2007 Feb 2007 March 2007

N/A to article-content (continued)

(Continued from 'Does "notability" apply to the content of articles? -- Proposed add to guidelines: "N/A to article-contents"',above.)

Fifth draft

This is what was added to the guidelines 21:22, 20 February 2007 by Lonewolf BC, but then deleted from them 03:32, 21 February 2007 by Centrx. It's of two parts: The upper bit went at the end of the introduction of the guidelines, and the lower part was a last section of the guidelines.

Note that these are guidelines for allowable article topics within Wikipedia, not for allowable content within Wikipedia articles.

....

== Notability is not needed by particular article-content ==

These and all the notability guidelines are for allowable article topics within Wikipedia, not for allowable content within a legitimate Wikipedia article. Although issues of article-content are sometimes discussed, on talk-pages, in terms of the content's "notability", that is not exactly "notability" in the sense of these guidelines, which do not directly apply to such matters: "Notability", in the sense of these guidelines, is not needed in order for particular information to be included in a Wikipedia article. For such article-content issues, see the guidelines on verifiability, reliable sources, and trivia. (Note also, though, that within Wikipedia's guidelines, generally, the term "notability" means what it means in the notability guidelines.)

Discussion of 5th draft

Centrx's reason for deleting it (copied from "Problems with recent changes", above):
Also, as explained above, notability is relevant to whether article content is included. The notability of the information and the reason for the notability of the subject is explicitly referenced in WP:BLP and WP:RS, and otherwise is the major factor in whether information is included in an article and how it is organized. —Centrx→talk • 19:38, 20 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Centrx, I believe that the aspect of notability of your concern was taken into account by the chosen wording. If you think otherwise, you must be more specific. Please either explain what you mean well enough that I can better accommodate it, or write a draft yourself that does so. Naturally, I have already consulted BLP and RS. I really do not see what problem you see. -- Lonewolf BC 01:00, 21 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Okay, I think I might see your problem, now. You are construing the fifth draft as saying that notability, in the common sense of the word, is not a consideration for article-content, or at least you are worried that it might be construed that way. That is not the intent. The intent is to make clear that "notability", in the special sense of compliance with the notability guidelines, is not needed by each piece of article-content. (Indeed, this whole business arises from equivocation upon "notability" -- its common and special senses.) I'm still not positive I have rightly understood you, though. -- Lonewolf BC 18:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC-8)

One thing to consider is that if garage bands are not notable, would an article on Garage bands in the Detroit metro area be notable if it was just a compendium of non-notable article content? I would think no, but that is just MHO. And of course, if there were multiple feature stories on the bands as a group, that could make it jump the shark. Dhaluza 04:33, 22 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Notability, in the special sense of the word, is relevant to whether article content is included. Article content must be relevant to why the topic is notable in the first place, especially for any biography of a living person and any weakly reliable source. Articles do not simply contain any and all verifiable information about a topic. —Centrx→talk • 07:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Your response leaves me puzzled, and thinking we have not been understanding one another at all well.
Who said anything about "...any and all..."? Certainly I did not, and that's not at all what I'm driving at. Nor do I think that any of the draft versions have implied such a thing.
I think we must have different ideas of what "the special sense of the word" is. I used it to mean the requirement for multiple, non-trivial, independent sources. If you mean that same thing by it, then you would seem to be saying that all article content must have multiple, non-trivial, independent sources. This goes right back to my initial question (now archived, unfortunately), and would answer it contrariwise to the way a number of other people did. I somewhat doubt that that is really what you mean, but if it is not, then just what do you mean? Likely it would help if you told me what is your understanding of the "special sense" of "notability". I'm thinking (and hoping) that it is something like what I mean by the "ordinary sense of notability" -- "worthy of note" -- which of course is relevant to what goes into an article, although not in an all-or-none way.
This brings me to your middle sentence: I believe that you are misinterpreting the other guidelines that mention "relevant to notability". For example, JRR Tolkein is notable for his fiction, not really for his career as an academic, and certainly not because his father-side ancestors were craftsmen with roots in Saxony, yet these are covered in the article on him, which was lately a front-pager. Scarcely anyone is notable because of where they were born, and in most cases the exact place makes no difference to their notability, yet birthplaces are ordinarily given in biographies. Rather, there are particular classes of potential content that need to be "relevant to notability" (controversial matter about living persons, particularly). -- Lonewolf BC 23:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Sixth draft

Notability guidelines do not specifically pertain to the content within an article. For content issues, see verifiability, reliable sources, and trivia.

Seventh draft

Notability guidelines pertain to article topics, but do not specifically limit content within articles.

• This one seems to be the clearest and most supported by the notability criterion: "a topic is notable if ..." -- Black Falcon 11:23, 22 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Eighth draft

Notability guidelines pertain to article topics but do not specifically limit content within articles. For issues of article content, see especially the guidelines on verifiability, reliable sources and trivia.
I think that is still not immune to the pig-headed, but it would be better than nothing. -- Lonewolf BC 23:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC-8)

Ninth draft

(to add at end of introduction)

Notability guidelines pertain to article topics but do not directly limit content within articles.

(to add as a last section)

== Notability guidelines do not directly limit article-content ==

These and all the notability guidelines are for allowable article topics within Wikipedia, not for allowable content within a legitimate Wikipedia article. That is, not all material included in an article must, in itself, meet these criteria. For issues of article content, see especially the guidelines on verifiability, reliable sources and trivia. Note also, though, that other guidelines refer in places to "notability", meaning notability as defined by these guidelines.

-- Lonewolf BC 09:56, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Induction vs. Deduction / Subjective (Dis)Like

A number of the comments on this page seem to be of the type: "Well, I want articles on topic X to be kept/deleted, so let's adjust the notability guidelines accordingly" or "Well, articles on topic X obviously do/don't deserve to be in an encyclopedia, so let's try to find a way that excludes them". This is really nothing more than adjusting guidelines based on WP:ILIKEIT and WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I think it is counterproductive to try to change or keep the general notability criterion in order to allow/exclude certain topics.

Shouldn't the issue at hand simply be: is there enough information available on this subject to write (at least) a stub-class article? That there is plenty of information on Pokemon cards (an example from this talk page) or other subjects that some editors consider "crufty" is no reason to try to find ways to devalue those sources (that's a subjective preconception that Pokemon is inherently unencyclopedic). Conversely, that there are no independent, non-trivial sources on a Carthaginian general to allow us to write at least a stub-class article on him/her is no reason to try to find ways to get this individual included by changing guidelines (an example similar to one in discussion above). Exceptions can be made under WP:IAR, but the whole premise of a guideline should not be to make a positive or negative exception for articles on a certain subject. I urge all of us involved in this discussion to keep this in mind. Thank you, Black Falcon 11:13, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Actually there's more to articles than just whether or noth there is enough published verifiable information for a stub. For example, I could theoretically write a stub or greater size article summarizing everything discussed for a given issue of the New York Times. I could list all the headlines, give a short synopsis of every story, sum up all the editorial opinion articles and letters to the editor for the day, and provide a run down of any other notable bits from that day's paper. Clearly such an article would be verifiable and, so long as I kept everything objective, not original research. I imagine such articles could be reasonable in length, too. I also don't see anything that it would violate in WP:NOT either.

But despite meeting all those policies and passing the "stub" test, I'm fairly sure we have good consensus that Wikipedia isn't supposed to have an article for every daily edition of the New York Times or any other paper. So the question isn't just whether there "is enough published information for an article", it's also "is there more than just a few days interest in this specific subject?" Dugwiki 12:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I do not mean to suggest that sufficiency of information to write a stub should be the only criterion, but rather that it should be the minimal criterion, from which we may then move on. I am fairly confident the NYT example you bring up is a case for WP:NOT#IINFO point 6: Wikipedia is not an "annotated text". In any case, my comment was intended as a criticism of comments of the type, "well, this guideline allows for articles on topic X, which are inherently unencyclopedic, so the guideline must be changed". Such judgments about the inherent (un)encyclopedicity of topics are inherently subjective, except in cases of pre-existing definition. By "cases of pre-existing definition" I mean cases which are directly relevant to the Enligsh-language definition of "encyclopedia". For instance, the definition of an encyclopedia precludes it from being a dictionary (I realise that the former developed from the latter, but this development took place long ago and the distinction has existed for over a century). This distinction is expressed as WP:WINAD, but WP:WINAD did not create this distinction; it existed long before Wikipedia even came into existence. -- Black Falcon 13:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think we're almost in agreement. I would say that there isn't a "single minimal" criterion for articles to be kept, but rather there are a handful of two or three loosely related criterion. One of these criterion is, as you said, that there should be enough verifiable information to produce more than a couple of sentences for the article. A second minimal criterion, though, would be that even if an article is verifiable that the information should be of less than completely fleeting interest to Wikipedia readers. That second requirement is defined in part under WP:NOT, and WP:N also is intended to help futher refine the definition.

Now obviously people are going to have different opinions on exactly where lines should be drawn in borderline cases. But I think almost all the editors agree that most (not all) articles which have at most one verifiable reference should probably not be included in Wikipedia as a practical matter for various reasons, even if they otherwise meet the policies. It's not simply a matter of "taste" or "bias against cruft", etc, but more of some actual limits on editorial maintainence, fact checking and helping readers by filtering out information that the vast bulk of the readers will probably never access. That trimming helps keep the encyclopedia more efficient for both readers and editors alike. And the guideline WP:N comes into play by trying to help make those trimming decisions as consistent as possible. Sure, editors don't HAVE to follow a guideline, but by and large its in editor's best interests to try and follow guidelines unless a good case can be made for an exception. That way article authors hopefully don't have a "moving target" they need to meet to avoid a possible editorial consensus against keeping their article.

For my part, my opinion is that WP:N should hopefully represent a bare minimum level of sourcing that almost all editors can agree to. That allows us to use WP:N to filter out the "worst case" offenders efficiently and focus our possible deletion discussions on the borderline cases. It also represents an increased challenge for borderline articles to be deleted, because if they meet WP:N there is an implication that by default the article should probably be kept unless there is some important reason not to do so.

My appologies for the somewhat rambling reply. Hopefully I was able to explain the points I was trying to get across. Dugwiki 14:30, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I would generally disagree to the "stub" test, we shouldn't have permastubs (articles which could never be expanded beyond a stub). We should be able to write a comprehensive article using only secondary sources about a subject, with primary sources relegated to a limited role. In terms of localities, above, census data and the like is not a source which allows a comprehensive article. Books and such on the location would be. Nothing is notable "because it's a...". It is either notable because significant amounts of secondary sourcing have been written about it, or non-notable because that has not occurred. That is not a bias. It is a prevention of bias. It places the determination of what's notable or not squarely out of the hands of editors, where it does not belong, and into the hands of those who write our source material, where it does belong. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)

User:Seraphimblade, I think you make some excellent points. :) Travb (talk) 08:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think Seraphimblade's argument that "census data and the like is not a source which allows a comprehensive article" is demonstrably false. For example, see: Centre County, Pennsylvania. This is just one sample of thousands of similar articles created using only U.S.census data. It is far more comprehensive than many notable WP articles. Also, based on his argument that the guideline should reflect the consensus of what the community actually does, this means that the standard of notability that requires multiple secondary sources does not have consensus. I think the multiple secondary sources standard is applicable to a wide range of subjects, but as I have been trying to point out repeatedly, it is not universally applicable to all. Dhaluza 11:45, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

WP:ATT (derived from WP:V and WP:NOR) is an official policy, the work of widespread consensus, and specifically states that primary sources should be relegated to a limited role, and should never be the sole basis for an article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 11:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Yes, but that is a relatively recent addition. When these articles developed, they were consistent with policy. And I think that the recent crusade to change these policies is misguided, as the example I presented is clearly encyclopedic, and it's loss would not improve WP. Continuing this would should not require following WP:IAR. Dhaluza 12:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I disagree with your declaration that WP:ATT specifically states that primary sources should be relegated to a limited role, and should never be the sole basis for an article. It specifically states both that Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible and that (m)aterial from self-published or questionable sources may be used in articles about those sources, so long as the article is not based primarily on such sources. Let's let the policies speak for themselves, rather than use our inferences of what they mean, it keeps everyone on the same page. Steve block Talk 12:14, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Agree with Steve block. While it may be possible to make such a restrictive interpretation of WP:ATT, that interpretation is not explicit in the policy and such an interpretation is most definitely not policy. older ≠ wiser 13:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Ah, but it states that more specifically. "Material from self-published or questionable sources may be used in articles about those sources, so long as: ... the article is not based primarily on such sources. (emphasis mine)." So yes, it very specifically states that primary sources should be relegated to a limited, supplementary role, and not used as the primary basis of any article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think the point is that you appear to be conflating "primary sources" with "self-published or questionable sources". They're two quite different things. While self-published or questionable sources may also be a primary source, that does not in any way deprecate quality primary sources. older ≠ wiser 14:21, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Yes, I saw that. But here's how that works. If only very obvious information from primary sources is put in with no interpretation, we've got a directory entry or indiscriminate collection of information, which fails WP:NOT. On the other hand, if interpretation is performed which is not from a secondary source, it must have been performed by an editor here. That editor's interpretation is a questionable, unreliable source. So either way, articles cannot be based solely or mainly upon primary sources. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Well, in a sense that leap in reasoning you made there goes to the heart of the perpetual confusion on WP about what exactly is a "primary source" as well as other contentious issues. As a reality check, would articles about music albums that contain only track listings and production note and perhaps some sales figures would fail your test? I think that is probably a clearer example of the use of primary sources than place articles based on Census or Survey data. older ≠ wiser 14:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Yes, if that's all that's available, the album should be merged and redirected to its parent band, not covered in its own article. (We can even redirect straight to the album section, "anchored" redirects now work.) That's a very clear example of primary-source only articles. (Of course, if secondary source materials are later found, and the album can be expanded, it may then merit spinning back out.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

To a degree, I agree with this. But I wouldn't want to see it promoted as some sort of general rule (that stubs should always be merged) or even as s simplistic algorithm to determine which stubs get merged and which don't. Such merging requires a fair degree of skill to do it well. Besides, there are problems with anchored redirects that place limits on their usefulness. Subsequent editors may not consider the merged material to be sufficiently relevant to the parent article and delete it or whittle it away to a point of making the redirect useless. Or the section heading may be altered, making the redirect not go to the right section, leaving a reader wondering why a link took them to an apparently random article. older ≠ wiser 15:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

As one of the authors of that complicated policy, I'd like to pipe in here. I certainly am not claiming priority in interpreting what we were aiming at, but it was a very long, complex, adversarial conversation that led to the wording. Let me say, that *if* an article is based entirely on primary sources, then it probably does not pass the bar that states that it must be "the subject of multiple, non-trivial, third-party...". In other words, the issue should not come up *here* at all, since it cannot pass the lower bar. My second point is, that if I were to read an article which was evenly divided between paraphrasing secondary sources and quoting primary ones, that is 50-50, I'd have no problem with it. In fact I'd think it's quite good. And yes, I advocate, in all cases, quoting primary sources, not paraphrasing them. That way leads to madness. Wjhonson 13:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

So are you saying the example listed above (Centre County, Pennsylvania) "cannot pass the lower bar"? Dhaluza 13:43, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I don't think the sole criteria would be the amount of text attributed to primary sources, but rather their importance to the article. In some cases, an article 50-50 split between primary and secondary might be very clearly based on the secondary sources, in others it may mainly use the primary ones. As to Centre County, I'm sure plenty of secondary source material is available on any US county, scholars and analysts study at a county level all the time. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

In this particular case, I quickly reviewed the article and note several statements of fact that could not come from Census reports. Simply because the Census bureau doesn't collect some of the facts that this article sports. So apparently there are other sources. The sources for the article are not named. Perhaps a tag could be added to try to tease them out. Wjhonson 13:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

FWIW, I don't think Census Data really qualifies as a "primary source", at least not in the form released by the Census. The actual survey questionaires and the raw tabulation, yes that is unquestionably "primary" material. But the data released for public consumption by the Bureau has been processed, even some corrections made, and I would hope some level of verification that the released data is accurate (at least to the standards used by the Bureau). It is not a primary source in the same sense as a collection of a correspondence or unpublished notes or a transcript of a dialog. older ≠ wiser 14:32, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

FWIW, better think again. From WP:ATT/FAQ: "Examples of primary sources include...census results..." Dhaluza 14:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Hmm, while I respect the hard work people have put into WP:ATT/FAQ, but it doesn't necessarily get everything right. It is not policy and isn't even an actual guideline yet. My point, if there was one, is that there are different types of primary sources and it does not help to treat all primary sources the same way. I mean, yes, census numbers are pretty much just data, and are primary in that sense. Drawing conclusions from the data is interpretive/analytical work. But re-presenting the numbers without additional interpretation is not a problem. I guess your objection would be that if the article contains nothing other than census data, there's no encyclopedic value. I disagree, and I think repeated !votes in the past to delete the Rambot-generated articles have failed, usually be a wide margin. I think a consesnus has developed within the community that such articles about populated places are valid encyclopedic topics and justifiable as placeholders for eventual expansion. older ≠ wiser 15:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Let's start a categorization

I've started this page to help us out in the case that we decide to rebuild this guideline. I think the steps on that page would allow us to write something useful and informative. The plan that I've outlined there obviously isn't in stone... feel free to tweak it. I've started this ahead of the outcome of the above because it will take some time to do thoroughly and with consensus at each stage. The first part doesn't take any time for people to contribute to: it's just a categorization of a bunch of topics onto each side of the notable/non-notable dividing line. Please add to this list. We might not end up using it if the decision from above is not to rebuild but it will be good to have in the case that we do. Sancho (talk) 10:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I don't understand what you are trying to do. We could just look at precedents from AfD, rather than building an arbitrary list. There is a page that covers this already: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes. Dhaluza 10:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• Okay, we could populate it with common outcomes, that would make sense. I was trying to make a specific list of topics from a bunch of people so that we could see if other policies explain the division already. Hopefully people will put borderline cases that they feel aren't explained by the other policies. Then we would know exactly where the other policies are deficient and have clear direction for what this guideline needs to add that the other guidelines/policies don't cover.Sancho (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

The answer is easy anyway, without picking out a whole bunch of arbitrary examples.

• Notable for an encyclopedia: Anything on which we can write a good-quality article (not just a stub, stubs are acceptable, but not if that's all that can ever be done), from the use only of reliable secondary source material, with primary sources relegated to a limited, supplementary role.

• Not notable for an encyclopedia: Anything else.

Really, it is that simple. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 10:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• If that is the simple answer, why has it not been agreed to by consensus on this page? Sancho (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Why are stubs not acceptable? Won't they eventually get merged or expanded? Isn't that the point? And how do you know a priori that a subject will only support a stub? Do you already have a more comprehensive definitive reference? Dhaluza 10:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I'm thinking that he probably means "if it cannot be expanded beyond being a stub". In other words, if all we can write that satisifes Wikipedia policy -- especially the two core policies of WP:NPOV and WP:ATT -- is just a stub, it doesn't belong, as a stub that cannot be expanded is pretty much worthless. 74.38.32.195 12:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

When you write stub here, you clearly don't mean the same as Wikipedia:Stub. On some subjects you could write a thousand words, and it still would be a stub. On others, a hundred words might be the limit of the possible, so that a stub version there might be two sentences. The state of being a stub is only tenuously related to article size. People keep taking stub tags off articles because they're big, and adding them because they are small, but that's entirely wrong. The only way you can tell if an article is a stub is by trying to expand it. Easy? It was a stub. Hard or impossible? It wasn't a stub. Angus McLellan (Talk) 10:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Then replace all instances of "stub" in my post above with "article which is very short or does not cover the subject comprehensively," the exact definition of "stub" was not the point I was trying to make. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 10:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Well, the point I am trying to make is that this is supposed to be a collaborative effort. Making an article comprehensive is a shared task, and we should not put an unnecessary burden on the original contributer. Dhaluza 10:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Please do not respond to a straw man argument, but to what I actually wrote. I specifically stated that stubs should be considered acceptable. What should not be considered acceptable are permastubs, subjects on which, using secondary sources, we could never write a comprehensive article. Not for lack of collaboration, not because no one's done it yet, but because the sources simply do not exist. There's a difference between saying that an article is now very short or uncomprehensive, and to say that the article will always be very short or uncomprehensive because we just can't do better. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 11:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Seraphimblade, could you give an example of what you mean by "permastub"? I think Wikipedia should have articles that will always remain short (say, 15 sentences) as long as their content is comprehensive. This seems to be the same as what you're saying, but could you please clarify with an example? Thanks, Black Falcon 11:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Well, hit "random article" ten times and you'll see plenty. I hit one the first time, have a look at Pierre Planus. The only thing I can turn up is mirrors of our own article, and some very basic, directory-style information on the guy. WP:NOT a team-roster directory, any more then it's any other kind. That article could not realistically be expanded beyond where it is now. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 11:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

L'Équipe has sixteen articles that mention him. Sudouest has 31 with his name in them. This turns up the interesting fact that Planus's brother Marc is also a footballer, and has played against him. That's the sort of stuff that fills up the Saturday sports pages, and sure enough, Sudouest had an article last year entitled "Planus versus Planus". His signing with Angers must have made the pages of Ouest-France. He may not be David Beckham, but Angers are a fairly significant team within the area that Ouest-France sells, and a new signing in the off-season will have generated press. It's a stub, and like any other stub, it can be expanded. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Having one's name in an article does not imply non-trivial coverage, nor do random bits of trivia imply that an article is not a permastub. I'll see if I can find another example with sources I can read though. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 11:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Here's several more hits of random article, let's see what pops up. SERVO Magazine, permastub, directory entry, I can find no secondary sources that mention the magazine. Next hit is Miss BC World, which is quite evidently notable and not a permastub. Grote Nederlandse Larousse Encyclopedie, it's a stub now, but I seem to find a lot of material in Dutch on that, so that's probably not a permastub. Estimated Family Contribution should be merged to FAFSA if the information can be sourced (which I'm sure it can), I'll probably do that myself shortly. It is a permastub as a standalone article though. Alabama (song), it's a state song and I'm sure secondary sources are out there regarding its history, adoption as the state song, etc. Certainly would not be a permastub. Val Fuentes, only things I can find on him are name-drops, should be merged to his parent band. Standalone, it's a permastub. Albarella, I can't find a thing for secondary sources on that, appears to be a permastub (and borderline G11). Oliver Dohnányi, currently is a terrible mess, but there is enough secondary material for an article. Not a permastub. Dexter Smith, permastub, all I can find is some directory/statistics information and a couple of very short quotations from him in sports media. Royalton Hotel, all I can find for it at first blush are ads, but there might be something on it. That one's unclear, but certainly may be a permastub. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 12:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• I am still a little unclear on what this attempts to do, but if it seems to be what I think it is, I oppose it: we should not build a guideline based on what topics we think are or are not notable. That is a purely subjective exercise that will only result in an outporing of expressions of individual likes and dislikes per WP:ILIKEIT or WP:IDONTLIKEIT. I do believe (as I'm sure all of us do) that some topics are inherently notable or non-notable (such as heads of government and the scratching habits of my next-door neighbour's cat, respectively). However, I would not want these to be expressed in the form of a guideline or policy (in fact, I oppose notability being a policy at all). A suggestion to work our way down (e.g., continents are notable; countries are notable; provinces are notable; etc.) until we reach a lack of consensus would have been better, but I'm even ambivalent about and semi-opposed to that. -- Black Falcon 11:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)
  • The purpose of this is to check if other policies already explain the division that we want to create. Sancho (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• • I agree with this approach. We have consensus and precedent that towns and villages are notable, but things in the town like buildings, shops, local streets, etc. are not. Heads of state are notable, but the mayor of a small town generally is not. In the military, the lowest ranking soldier can be notable for valor in battle, but most officers get promoted through the ranks while leading an undistinguished and non-notable career, so there is no particular rank that confers notability. Why can't we boil these non-controversial principles down to their essence, and create a reasonable guideline that really can archive a true, broad, and stable consensus? Dhaluza 11:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)
    • This is also an direction that would be worth following. Sancho (talk) 11:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

And how do you know what is a "perma-stub"?

Without a WP:CRYSTAL ball? Dhaluza 11:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Well, it would be easier with a flowchart, but for a very simple test:

1. Is the article currently very short or has very little information? (Yes) go to 2. (No) go to 4.
2. Does the article cite any secondary sources? (Yes) Go to 3. (No) go to 5.
3. Could those sources be used to expand and flesh out the article beyond a stub? (Yes) The article is not a permastub. (No) Go to 5.
4. Is most of the information in the article based off primary sources or no source whatsoever? (Yes) Ignore all primary-sourced or unsourced information and go to 5. (No) The article is not a permastub.
5. Can more secondary source material be found with a reasonable search (Google, Google Print, other subject-specific searches?) (Yes) Examine those sources and return to 3. (No) The article is a permastub.

Very easy, and no crystalballery involved. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 11:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• OK, so if I read this right, would this be an example of a permastub: College Township, Pennsylvania -- Dhaluza 13:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• I'm able to find quite a few secondary sources on it, so no, that's not a permastub just because those aren't currently cited in it. Permastub means "not enough source material exists", not "not enough source material is currently cited". Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• OK, that was probably a bad example. I took a random article walk as you suggested, and came across this one: Malé Ozorovce. Is this a better example? Dhaluza 13:26, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• The answer there is, probably not, I find a good deal of material, but since I can't read most of it I can't comment definitively. I posted some examples down below that I found on a random walk, hopefully those will be somewhat clear. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 13:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• I don't doubt that you can find lots of examples of articles we should not have on a random walk. But if you want to make a guideline (and especially if you want to promote it to policy) it has to be universally applicable. I think your method fails at step 5, because you are relying on the "Google Test", and although this is widely applicable, it is far from universally applicable. It obviously does not work with subjects not covered on the web, and with subjects in foreign languages, especially with a non-latin alphabet. So although you may believe in good faith that something is not notable, there could be plenty of source material in a specialized library somewhere not accessible from your keyboard. Dhaluza 13:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• Really? Non-latin subjects often have the subject written in that language, thus faciliating google searches even if one can't read that language. However, finding reliable sources is a different matter entirely. Plucking a random example, the first seven or so pages of the google search for Aiko District, Kanagawa gives nothing but maps, hotels, weather and places to live - stuff that would actually be relevant to people wanting to go there and stay. jawiki has quite a bit of (unsourced) history in it, so I'd imagine the info is somewhere in some history book. I do think this is of concern though - it just doesn't seem comprehensive, but I can't find an example where this would be the case (if someone wants to try, I'd suggest starting from Oceania and working your way up.) ColourBurst 14:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• Well, generally with foreign subjects, if someone known and trusted to the community claims to have read a foreign-language source and can explain why it's reliable and comprehensive, I'd tend to defer to that person's judgment. However, with Fuentes, he could easily be covered under his parent band, until/unless someone found enough secondary material to justify a separate article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Was this a bad idea? I thought the best way to learn a classifier of topics into the categories notable and non-notable would be to first find a collection of training examples, then to extract the features from those training examples that are most discriminating as regards their class membership (notable or non-notable), then to build a classifier that performs best on our training examples as well as a set of test cases that weren't considered during our building of the classifier. Is there a better way to build this guideline? If there is a better way, or if you just don't like this idea of learning an accurate classifier, then I can request that this categorization page that I started be deleted. Let me know... Sancho (talk) 13:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Don't worry, there are no stupid questions. I didn't mean to suggest that your approach was a "bad idea", just that I didn't understand it. And it started a somewhat tangential, but nevertheless active discussion. Dhaluza 15:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I don't think examples are generally a bad idea. I posted this above, but maybe it's more appropriate here.

Here's several more hits of random article, let's see what pops up. SERVO Magazine, permastub, directory entry, I can find no secondary sources that mention the magazine. Next hit is Miss BC World, which is quite evidently notable and not a permastub. Grote Nederlandse Larousse Encyclopedie, it's a stub now, but I seem to find a lot of material in Dutch on that, so that's probably not a permastub. Estimated Family Contribution should be merged to FAFSA if the information can be sourced (which I'm sure it can), I'll probably do that myself shortly. It is a permastub as a standalone article though. Alabama (song), it's a state song and I'm sure secondary sources are out there regarding its history, adoption as the state song, etc. Certainly would not be a permastub. Val Fuentes, only things I can find on him are name-drops, should be merged to his parent band. Standalone, it's a permastub. Albarella, I can't find a thing for secondary sources on that, appears to be a permastub (and borderline G11). Oliver Dohnányi, currently is a terrible mess, but there is enough secondary material for an article. Not a permastub. Dexter Smith, permastub, all I can find is some directory/statistics information and a couple of very short quotations from him in sports media. Royalton Hotel, all I can find for it at first blush are ads, but there might be something on it. That one's unclear, but certainly may be a permastub. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 12:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• • Supposing I wanted to dispute your examples, I could say:

1. Servo--I see no reason why there might not be articles referring to the magazine in reliable moderated robotics blogs. I accept these as a source. But i found two university official sites using it as a source, one for class assignments. 2. Dutch Larousse. I find refs to articles in it, but the others are just listings in library or book dealers catalogs. 3. EFCA is how to do it, and I doubt its encyclopedic nature or the authority of the interpretation 4. Alabama, OK I cannot find a way to dispute that one. 5.Val Fuetes, I see a few reviews in what might be reputable online sources. 6.Albarella. should be in at least 2 printed or online tourist guides. Just a lazy article that didnt bother to look. 7. Dohnany, yes. , but people have tried to delete similar as unsourced because they dont recognize the name & assume the links are spam. 8. Dexter Smith, again, I would need to check specialized publications. Many athletes below our usual current level will have articles somewhere 9. Royalton, there will certainly be travel guides. and given a history in 1898, printed newspaper sources. So it is possible to find agreement on some of the most notable. But not necessarily on any of the others. Its the others that are the problem. I'm not saying my arguments are necessarily right, just that arguments can be made, I can't decide on borderline cases at an article/minute. DGG 14:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

(I presume you agree on Miss BC World). The thing with the borderline ones there is, though, they could probably all be easily dealt with, if people would just leave it alone when someone does. SERVO probably would require deletion if nothing were available on it (blogs aren't reliable, even if moderated, they have to be editorially-controlled and fact-checked. Similarly, a name-drop of the magazine on "You may want to look at this" doesn't make any source material for an article). Dutch Larousse I honestly can't comment intelligently on, since most of the source material I found I can't read. If you can, I'd defer to your judgment on that. EFCA, yes, but certainly anything which is verifiable could be merged, anything else could be left out, and the article title made into a useful redirect to FAFSA. For Val Fuentes, I wouldn't say reviews alone are enough to write an article unless they're very in-depth, he'd still probably be better covered under his parent band. If someone can find tons of material later in the future, it always can get spun back off. Albarella, I did look. Tourist guides are probably biased sources, and shouldn't be considered reliable, everything else I could find was basically advertising. Probably handled better as a one- or two-liner mention in the parent geographic region (and, again, spun back out if better material can be found later), and in the meantime redirecting to the region. For Dohnányi, trust me, "I've never heard of it, delete" drives me just as crazy as "You hear about that everywhere, keep". For Smith, maybe he does, but he could be covered in the meantime under his team, and that article could redirect to the team. Once again, if a ton of sources come around in the future, it can always be spun back out. Royalton, same thing, probably could get a one-liner under its parent locality, redirect, and be spun out later if it turns out you're right.

I'm probably as much or more a mergist as a deletionist, I've got no problem with a merge and useful redirect when possible. What we need, though, is some way to make a merge "stick", and not just have people reverse it (which I've had happen more then once), or say "The parent article is too large" (if a parent article with very little secondary sourcing is very large, it needs cutting, not to have the unsourced information spread around to get even bigger). It's great that we grow so much, I just wish people would give less grief to those who cut. That's as necessary a part of editing as the writing itself is, but everyone seems to take it as some type of personal insult. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

And a thankless job it is. I have no problem with removing unsourced material that is questionable or controversial. And if there is nothing left, then the article should be deleted. But there is nothing inherently unencyclopedic about using primary source material. Yes, it's a great fancruft filter, but it is not applicable to everything. Dhaluza 15:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

This were mentioned as possible arguments, not as the views I would actually take. The comment about Dohnányi was merely mentioned as the sort of absurd argument that unfortunately is actually seen. But the question of RS for travel guides illustrates my point that the failure to have good N guidelines will turn the discussion to RS, sorry, ATT, and will not help much in resolving disputes--we will just learn to use different words. What we really have at issue is not wording or dividing up the policies, but basic differences about what the encyclopedia should contain. DGG 16:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Stubs

I am puzzled by all the discussion about stubs and permastubs. If you look at paper encyclopedias, you will find very long articles and very short, even two sentence articles. If there is little to say about something, but the topic is separate from other topics and the name is something a reader might search for, then we should have a small article. There is no need to merge it to something else. We can take off the stub tag, particularly if it is going into WP 1.0 or some more stable version. --Bduke 14:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Or we can merge it into a parent article, and redirect to that section (anchored redirects to sections are now possible, thank the developers!) That way, we've got the subject explained in context, we've added more information to an article which is about a notable subject, and the reader searching for something there still finds something. In a paper encyclopedia, "see related entry under X" type "redirects" are clumsy and awkward for the reader, as the reader may need to go pull out a whole different volume, find the other subject, find where under that subject the desired coverage is, etc. For us, redirects are effortless for the reader. If we design them properly the reader gets taken right to the heading in the other article. We do more of a service for our readers that way, since that makes the context readily available. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Yes, but that is mixing apples and oranges. Whether to merge or split content is an editorial decision that is based on the content and how it fits with other content. It has little to do with notability, which is the filter for what content to include. We should not merge the article about your car into the article on the make/model, we should delete it. Dhaluza 15:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Very true. But what should be in a separate article of its own should be based on notability. If the information is inappropriate period, as with the car, it should simply be deleted. If it's appropriate and sourced, but just insufficient for its own article, it should be merged. If a stub has significant, clear expansion potential, it should be left alone. That's somewhat related to notability, and maybe should have a place in the MOS as well. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I still think you are mixing separate issues. If it's appropriate, then where it goes is an editorial decision. It can stay as a short article if there is no logical place to merge it. If there is some place it can be merged, that does not mean it should be merged just because it's short. It should be merged there only if it makes sense. Encyclopedias can have short articles, there is nothing inherently wrong with that. It's better than sticking a round peg in a square hole. Dhaluza 15:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I'm not seeing that, I guess...those things in separate articles should be separately notable. Those things which are not notable on their own but are relevant to a parent article should be merged to the parent article. Those things which are just totally inappropriate or non-notable should be deleted. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Yes, I agree, it just has nothing to do with being short. Dhaluza 16:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I agree with Dhaluza. There is no need to merge something that is self-contained and notable. Anyway, how do you determine what the parent article is? --Bduke 16:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Here's an example: Zax (tool). It's a short article, but what else needs to be said? Where would you merge it, to Slate? That makes no sense. Dhaluza 16:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

That one looks like a dicdef, probably a good candidate to transwiki to Wiktionary. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 16:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

You're not serious, are you? Just in case you were, here is the dicdef Wikt:Zax. Dhaluza 16:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think he's totally serious. I think I'll slap a prod on it right now; that's not an encyclopedia article, it's a definition. Brianyoumans 17:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I was indeed serious. It certainly looks to me like little more then a definition, what appears to you to be more? (I would encourage Brian to remove the prod, though, obviously Dhaluza does not agree.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 17:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

One is 12 words, and the other is over 100. Can you see why so many people think this nonsense is elitist? Dhaluza 17:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I guess I'm not understanding what's "elitist", no. Everyone is allowed to participate in deletion discussions, policy discussions, everything else you can imagine. The only time we tend to get unilateral action from "on high" is on things that could place the product in legal jeopardy. That seems to me about as anti-elitist as you get. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 17:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

(To respond to Bduke) Sometimes it's pretty easy to determine (for example, a non-notable album by a notable band would be merged to the band article, a non-notable book by a notable author merged to the author bio, a non-notable fictional character from a notable work of fiction merged to the fictional work's article, a non-notable corporate officer from a notable corporation merged to the corporation's article, etc.) Of course, if there is no parent article and the subject has no notability of its own, that's a good indication that deletion may be in order. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 16:42, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

and if there is no parent article and the subject has notability that is a good reason to keep a brief article when only a small amount of material can be written about it. --Bduke 18:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Well...that depends how you reason notability. If you go with subjective guidelines, such as WP:MUSIC, WP:BIO, and the like, yes, that situation could arise. I define notability as the ability to write a comprehensive article, though I suppose sometimes an article could be comprehensive but extremely short, I would imagine that to be a rare case. (Also, unlike many who are more toward the deletionist side, I adore lists for certain purposes. The above "Zax" would probably fit very well on a "List of construction tools" or the like.) Lists would provide an acceptable solution to many short articles, so long as the concept is not overdone to the point of (removes beans from nose, this better never turn blue) the good old List of non-notable people. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 18:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I encourage editors to read the section on dealing with non-notable subjects in these guidelines again. Deletion is not the only way to deal with non-notable subjects. Nominating zax (tool) for deletion in order to make a point was poor form. The problem with that article was that no-one had yet written an article with a broader scope into which it could be merged. It is only as of today that we even have an article about the trade of slater. The zax is discussed in published works in discussions of slater's tools as a whole. The guidelines say very clearly to rename, refactor, or merge articles where the subject is discussed in published works as part of a broader scope, and to create any necessary broader-scope articles if they don't already exist. Stop treating deletion as if it were the only tool in the toolbox! You are Wikipedia editors. You can write articles, too, as well as deletion nominations. Please follow the guidelines. Uncle G 04:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

• My nomination may have been a bit hasty; on reflection, the solution which you implemented was in fact the most sensible one. I guess I have been a bit discouraged by attempts to work through a merge, by, for instance, the hate messages I received about merging many of the Notre Dame dorm articles into a list (which I need to redo someday soon). Taking something to AFD gives a merge decision a stamp of finality and officialness which can sometimes short-circuit ugly tedious edit wars (especially ones that involve long complicated merges). And, I really hadn't seen something like Zax (tool) taken to AFD before and was curious to see how it would go; if there had been firm support for deletion/merge, I would have worked on merging more tool articles. After the AFD, I don't think I will, despite your own post-afd decision to merge. --Brianyoumans 05:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
  • You shouldn't AfD things just because you're "curious to see how it would go". That's even more WP:DISRUPTive than {{prod}}ing it to make a WP:POINT. Dhaluza 05:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
    • Well, without a comprehensive policy on what is suitable for Wikipedia and what is not - which I think we can all agree will never be formed short of dictates from above - I'm not sure how one is supposed to determine the sense of the community about a certain type of article except by sending it to AFD (or looking at the results of past AFDs, which is frankly not an easy thing to do, I've tried - ever try looking through the archives for a particular obscure type of article? Tedious and difficult.) If the community wants to keep a particular class of article, I don't try to delete them - I don't try to get rid of run-of-the-mill high school articles any more, for instance, although I personally don't feel they have a place on Wikipedia. On the other hand, after several AFDs of elementary schools in British Columbia passed, I am now slowly prodding the other 130-odd articles (at least, the ones where I can't find any possible notability). --Brianyoumans 06:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
      • Well for starters, you knew I used it as an example, another editor de-proded it, and another, though sympathetic, thought you were being too bold. Did you try discussing it further outside of AfD to draw out other opinions first? Dhaluza 06:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
        • I wasn't sure whether the opinions of people here represented the opinions of editors at AFD; as it turns out, they did. I thought the process was pretty quick and efficient, really - only 4-5 people posted to the AFD discussion before I withdrew the nomination. Is that much different from asking 4-5 people their opinion on their talk pages (and getting whatever sample error from choosing people who I selected?) And I would point out that, although there were better ways to do it, the somewhat anomalous end result - the merge to Slater - seems to be a solution that no one here is complaining about, and I feel is an improvement. Let's let the subject rest, or take it to my talk page if people wish to continue to chastise me for my wicked deeds. Brianyoumans 06:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
• Excellent job, Uncle G. You actually went to the trouble of looking it up, rather than just saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT and trying to get rid of it. I'd say this misguided adventure in elitism was more than poor form--just look at the AfD discussion. Maybe this helps explain why so many people object to this Notability guideline and how it is misused. True, this case was based on a misapplication of WP:DICDEF, but it is illustrative of the larger problem. Dhaluza 05:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Sports Personalities

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)

As discussed on Wikipedia Talk:Notability (people) these fail WP:NOT#DIR, which is policy. Dhaluza 03:37, 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:

• Don't nominate a sports personality's article for speedy deletion under CSD A7, even if the article makes no other claim of notability than "X plays for team Y", where Y is a professional team. If the notability is doubtful, use a prod, or send it to AfD.
• Do add sports personality articles to the bio wikiproject, and add infoboxes where appropriate. Correcting typos is also good (per WP:GNOME).
• If the sports personality in question plays for a part-time or amateur local team, then they're probably not notable. Nonetheless, it's still advisable to use a prod or AfD rather than speedy delete.

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)

• Generally, if it's just an "X plays for team Y", and I can find nothing else readily available, I'll prod if

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)

Wikipedia:Availability

I created this as a separate page, although it's mainly a renaming, in an attempt to clear a lot of things up about notability, and to hopefully replace it with a leaner, (not really) meaner policy. Ideally, we'd throw out all of the stuff that we use to explain to newcomers that "no we don't really mean the same thing by notability as the rest of the world" and make it explicitly clear that what we're talking about is a standard of availability of sources. I realize some may disagree with my characterization (those who view notability as a bar of historical significance or other higher standard than basic sourcing), but this is mainly meant to remove the subjectivity. If people really want significance as a standard, it shouldn't be conflated with sourcing. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Will our readers be interested?

As I noted in the straw poll above, I have serious issues with letting the availability of sources dictate our notability requirement (short version: the primary notability criterion confuses the concepts of notability and verifiability, and it leads to a lot of systematic bias since media coverage around the world is uneven). I have written down what I think is a better standard for notability, although I freely admit that it is highly subjective, and will be debated on a case by case basis if it were the only criterion. Here goes:

A subject is notable if we can reasonably expect a sizable number of people to be interested in finding an article about it in an encyclopedia.

I think this will include all towns and villages, as well as most islands, lakes, rivers and streams of reasonable size. People expect articles on settlements and major geographical features in encyclopedias. It will not include most car crashes because even though media might cover them, almost all people would turn to a newspaper and not an encyclopedia if they were interested in reading about such events.

As the only notability criteria, this definition sucks of course. I can see that right now, but if you want to point it out as well, then by all means do so. If this were the only criterion, we would never have any agreement on whether or not a sizable number of readers are interested in reading about an individual elementary school (it doesn't seem we are getting one now either but never mind that). I hold this standard only as a first iteration to defining notability in the context of Wikipedia. I am very much in favor of more specific guidelines for narrower categories such as WP:MUSIC. (Note how that guideline, instead of focussing on independent media coverage, focuses on things the musician has released and sold and performed, instead of what that is the type of thing which might make a person interested in seeing an encyclopedia article.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

"Will people be interested in it" would be terrible. We don't have a means to survey and check any of these, so all we have is people's personal opinions. Why do we need a stricter criterion anyway? WP:NOT#PAPER, after all. We have room for all of those things, and the car crashes too. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I suggested "encyclopedic suitability" for a name-I think there should be some concept that stories are suitable for an encyclopedia, not just a newspaper. (We've currently got that going at WP:NOTNEWS, but I think it could be integrated into notability, or its replacement, with just a paragraph or two.) Also, WP:NOT specifically states some things are inappropriate, whether or not they're sourced-dicdefs, directory entries, howto manuals, and so on. We certainly could always add WP:NOT the newspaper there, and it would work. This project might not be paper, but that doesn't mean there should be no scope limitation, it just means that we should cover anything that falls within that scope. It doesn't mean we can't say "Well, that really falls outside our scope." Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 08:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Why do things have to fall outside our scope? Dicdefs, howtos, etc. are a matter of content -- not enough content, or the wrong kind of content for an encyclopedia article. But if a topic has sufficient content available for an encylopedic article, rather than original research or pure plot summary, for example, WP:NOT#PAPER says that we don't have to limit the topics we cover. Every tiny town in the united states, for example. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Generally, unless there's some secondary coverage, pure coverage from statistics/census data/etc., maybe with GPS coordinates, is a directory entry. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 09:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Census data is secondary (since we're looking at it as description of the town, rather than writing about the census), it's just unanalytical. But you're right about many of our bare town articles being more directoryish. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 10:19, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

"Primary" doesn't only mean "non-independent", though that's one way a source can be primary and that's a common error. A source is not necessarily secondary because it's independent. Raw statistics without interpretation are by definition a primary source (and also generally an independent one). Of course, if the Census Bureau then publishes a report interpreting those statistics (or a sociologist does so in a peer-reviewed study, or the NYT comments, or...) then those would be secondary sources. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 10:24, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Another problem with this concept is its circularity. Wikipedia, by its very existence, has already redefined what people look for in an encyclopedia. (I admit that I look here for TV episode guides, for instance.) We have a high enough profile that people will come here looking for whatever we provide; if we got rid of WP:WINAD, people would use Wikipedia as a dictionary.

If the idea is to restrict Wikipedia to things people would be interested in finding in a traditional encyclopedia, then it really just boils down to "articles must be encyclopedic", using readers' interest as a measure of what is encyclopedic. Since, as Night Gyr points out, we can't really measure readers' interest, I don't find that helpful. —Celithemis 18:07, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

In many ways a valid point. I realize that the definition involves a lot of hand-waving. But we can for instance assume that if there is a musician with numerous released albums which sell reasonably well, there will be readers interested in reading about that person. Therefore, a musician which releases albums which sell well passes the WP:MUSIC guideline. Due to the sales, the musician will probably also receive the "non trivial references" in published sources. However, I think that it is not the sources we might gather which make the musician notable. It is the released albums which sold well which make their creator notable. (Sources do make the article verifiable however, which is also very important, but a different story.) I feel that the basic goal the community aimed for when constructing category-specific notability guidelines was distinguishing the subjects which readers do care about reading from subjects which the readers don't care about reading and where such articles would only make Wikipedia look like a random website where anyone could post their private resumes. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

You nailed it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 09:06, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Disagree with Jeff. I'm sure people are interested in reading a lot of things that aren't suitable for placement here. I know a lot of people who would be interested in reading the Seattle bus schedule, a directory of websites that sell music, the full text of Les Miserables, song lyrics, dictionary definitions, and a thousand other things. What we're doing is building a reference work. That means, above all, we must have references. We are also building a tertiary work, with a strict prohibition on original research, which also indicates that the vast majority of our sources should be secondary. This guideline assures we stay within scope. Yes, WP:NOT paper, but how quickly those who throw that overlook on the very same page that WP:NOT indiscriminate either. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 09:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I do disagree with you - references are absolutely necessary for accuracy, but have nothing to do with the things you mentioned. This guideline has nothing to do with staying in scope - if it did, it would have realistic expectations for "notability" instead of arbitrary hurdles. The subject-specific guidelines handle notability much better because of this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 09:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I guess I'm unclear on how this guideline is arbitrary (it requires that an article have sources, we're required to work from sources, I guess I see that as easily keeping us within scope), while the other guidelines (two gold records? Why not platinum? Why not one? Why not five? A "large fan base or cult following"? Who decides large?). Personally, I liked your "sufficient" idea, so long as we can agree on a definition of what's sufficient. "Non-trivial" is the only thing I see having any degree of arbitrariness or interpretation to it left in this guideline. I agree with you that a lot of people misinterpret notability (ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT, ITSPOPULAR/ITSOBSCURE, and many other similar ones), but that's the fault of the person, not the guideline. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 09:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Because sources don't indicate notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 09:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Then, what does? And more importantly, how would we write about a sourceless topic without using original research? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 09:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

It depends on the subject. And I'm not saying we should keep sourceless articles around, I'm saying that we shouldn't be removing them because of notability concerns, but rather verifiability issues. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

So rename the page to Wikipedia:Applying policy to AfD. Done. Nifboy 12:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

What about Wikipedia:Encyclopedic suitability? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 12:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

No, because it again implies something that isn't true. I'd be fine with a rename to that if we rewrote the whole page - one section pointing to WP:ATT, the other to the subject-specific guidelines, but as currently written, it has nothing to do with policy. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

The one thing we seem to agree on...

We need a page for, if nothing else, discussing AfD. There are a number of pages that discuss what gets deleted, and then there are the pages that describe what we want in an article. Lastly, there's a lot of sand in between where we draw lines.

What we don't agree on is whether the criteria, as written, does a good job of tying all these pages together. Nifboy 20:50, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)

However, letting someone crow "DELETE! Non-notable!" with no further explanation or policy-based argument and considering that a valid !vote is silly and unprofessional, in fact it is totally counter to the goal of a real encyclopedia. Making rules is easy, getting people to follow rules is not. We could have the most precise and exacting notability rule ever, but if everyone is allowed to say "It's not notable because I say so" and be accepted, then it does absolutely nothing but look nice. 74.38.32.195 12:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

please put up yiddish interwiki link

like this: [[yi:װיקיפּעדיע:מערקווערדיג]] thanks--yidi 06:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Done. —dgies^t_c 22:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Rewrite this page completely.

Per above, there's a few things we now know:

1. There's really no consensus for this as written or proposed to be written.
2. We can't really come to an agreement on this using the current template.

So I'm proposing a radical change to this entire page. The page is to exist at Wikipedia:Article inclusion (this text actually exists there now, and this should become a redirect) It should be in three sections. The first, the intro/lead section:

"Wikipedia has a series of tests that Wikipedians use to judge whether an article's subject is worthy of inclusion. These tests, based on various policies and guidelines reached by consensus, form Wikipedia's standards on encyclopedic inclusion."

The second section:

"All articles on Wikipedia must abide by our policy on attribution - articles should be well-sourced and verifiable, preferably with independent third party reliable secondary sources.

"All articles on Wikipedia should generally meet a standard for notability for the subject matter it falls into. For example, a musical act's notability is judged by our guidelines for music subjects, while web-content is governed by our internet guidelines. In the absence of a subject-specific guideline, sufficient third party information on which to base an article is generally enough to establish notability."

"Biographical articles on living people are held to a much stricter standard, due to legal and ethical concerns. While there are many nuances to articles concerning living people, the guiding principle, especially for controversial figures, is "Do no harm."

"Most importantly, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and subjects must have encyclopedic value. As Wikipedia is not a web host, a directory, or a dictionary, it is possible that some contributions may belong in other Wikimedia projects, such as Wiktionary or a Wikia site."

The third section:

"Articles that do not meet Wikipedia's standards for inclusion are handled in a variety of different ways.

• "If the information is useful in a different article, or a number of smaller articles may be useful as a larger treatment on a subject, merging may be the most appropriate option."
• "Articles concerning unencyclopedic topics or subjects may be handled via deletion. Proposed deletion is a form of deletion for uncontroversial subjects, articles for deletion is a forum for discussion of an article's encyclopedic worth, and many articles qualify for speedy deletion if they do not assert basic notability, lack context, or are believed to be spam."

And that's IT. Finis. Done. Add some links to the bottom, don't tag the page, and we've reached a workable compromise - the subject-specific guidelines continue to act as the arbiters of notability, we have a page that reflects our policies for inclusion, and there shouldn't be any problems. So why not? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

The problem is, this is an unworkable compromise. Others would see the compromise (including me) as far simpler.

First and only section:

An article's subject is appropriate for Wikipedia if sufficient secondary source coverage is available to write a comprehensive, non-stub article on it. All articles written on subjects which do not fit this guideline should be merged into a parent topic or deleted as appropriate. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 14:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

"My way or the highway?" So how is it unworkable? Nifboy 14:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think it's important to note that sources should be both independent of the subject (to avoid autobiographical bias) and have multiple sources that weren't written essentially simultaneously (to weed out things like sports articles about day-to-day games and local minor crime stories that were written about in multiple local papers). I think it also should indicate that it's possible to have an exception to the guideline, but such exceptions should have a strong rationale for why they are kept despite not meeting the guideline.

That's where the individual guidelines come in. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I like Seraphimblade's version because it's pretty concise and easier to understand, but I'd want to modify it slightly to address the issues I mentioned above. I could probably get behind something like this -

"An article's subject is appropriate for Wikipedia if sufficient independently written secondary source coverage is available to write a comprehensive, non-stub article on it. Such sources should be independent of the subject to avoid autobiographical bias, and should not all be written in the same one or two day period (to avoid things like local sporting events and crime stories that might have multiple independent articles about them at the time of the event). Articles written on subjects which do not meet this minimal sourcing guideline should be merged into a parent topic or deleted as appropriate unless a strong reason for an exception is presented."

That's just a possible suggestion, but it would get to about the minimal bar I'd prefer to see. If Jeff's much longer version could be modified to address the multiple independent non-simultaneous sourcing issues I mentioned, then I could probably support it too (although I think it's a big long). I'm also ok with the current guideline as is, since it meets my minimal general sourcing recommendations for keeping articles. Dugwiki 15:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I'd go for that as well. My main concern is eliminating the concept that subjective "secondary" guidelines can provide an exception to the sourcing requirement. We should work from secondary sources, no matter any other considerations. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Again - for establishing notability, sources are not the be-all end-all. I cannot stress this enough, and I cannot be clearer on it. Articles that are notable but still lack secondary sources will still be deleted for failing the core policies, so your concerns are unarranted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

The idea is not to have an overreaching notability guideline - a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work. I don't mind similar wording in the intro (I'm going to try and incorporate it now), but the idea is not to have a one-size-fits-all, but note that article inclusion is based on a number of factors. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I have gone and added some of what you wrote above. The last sentence duplicated information in the final section, and your nod to recentism is, IMO, unnecessary, as it's covered adequately elsewhere, but I think it ties together the section nicely. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Jeff's version seems like a good start, but note that WP:RS is now a redirect to WP:ATT. I prefer Jeff's version to SeraphimBlade's because I've seen the future, and it sucks as far as relying on WP:N goes. The webification of government means that any guideline which rests solely on the availability of independent reporting runs in to the OFSTED problem: every school and kindergarten in the UK is notable because OFSTED writes statutory reports on them. Regulatory agencies abound, and although most do not make their reports available on the web—not yet—they will. If a health inspectorate did, every kebab shop and curry house in Hackney might suddenly be notable. As written, every UK care home, and every temp nursing agency, and many more health service entities, would be notable. The statutory reports are on the web, and they are comprehensive. So let's not pin all our hopes on a sufficiency of independent sources. Mentioning NOT, and ENC, and ATT, and BLP, and so on, is a much broader approach, and less open to abuse. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

OFSTED reports are primary, as would be health inspection reports, so those wouldn't much matter. What we should be looking for is that someone who is not affiliated with the subject, and is not required to write about the subject, did so, in depth. Web or not shouldn't matter though, we should certainly be able to use offline sources as well as online to establish that. The only requirement is they should be secondary. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

OFSTED reports aren't really primary for the purposes of sourcing - they're secondary for the subjects they're writing about. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

As for WP:RS, I forgot about that. But it's apparently going to some FAQ, so that can be fixed when the time comes. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

OFSTED reports would be primary per WP:ATT (and the normal academic definition of a primary source). They're a government report on a government entity. An example of a secondary source would be a sociologist using an OFSTED report as part of a study of a school, or a newspaper mentioning the results in context with an article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 15:53, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Reading the section at WP:ATT, I disagree, but that's really neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

(Major edit conflict - I'll add it and then return) I have concerns that the phrase "sources should be independent of the subject" keeps being said without realising that this removes a great deal of material from articles and articles themselves that are perfectly encyclopedic. It over-complicates things and is far from what we actually do. I agree about autobiographical details. These should be avoided. I agree that some non-independent sources are biased or advertising. However in many cases they are just more accurate and more detailed than independent sources. One example I know about is that some readers want to know about a Scout organisation in a particular country. I do not come from the US, so let me talk about the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). Readers want quite a bit of detail and we provide it. Secondary sources, are by and large incomplete and inaccurate. This is not surprising. Why should a newspaper or magazine article go to a lot of detail? Books will only cover parts of what is needed such as biographies of key people. To get accurate material we go to BSA sources. These are perfectly OK. The crucial point is that independent sources should be required if anyone challenges anything in an article. Until they do, almost any kind of source is adequate to avoid OR. Verification is needed if a statement is challenged. I suggest the same should be done about suitability criteria. Let the Projects define it. Put their pages that do so in a category and let them stand until someone comes along and challenges one of them as leading to inclusion of material that is unsuitable for an encyclopedia. In fact the challenge would be best as a specific AfD proposal that challenged a Project's criteria. A successful AfD would lead the Project to modify their criteria.

A few other points:

• what does "is not required to write about the subject" really mean? A newspaper editor says to a reporter "Go and write about X". Sources are sources. Use them until the information is challenged.
• what is wrong with some primary sources if they give information that should be in the article. Again, use until challenged.
• The notions of primary and secondary sources are blurred. In science articles we use original research papers as well as review papers. Even review papers often include new work by the author or work that is cited as "personal communication".
• Angus McLellan is essentially correct. If we rely on sources, we will have articles that are really not encyclopedic. We need to decide on encyclopedic and then find sources to write an article. A good start is a whole series of things, like "teams in major leagues (defining that term specifically)", "country and state associations of international movements, but not individual groups/chapters/whatever in one town or village" and so on. All need debating by people who know the subject.
• badlydrawnjeff's ideas are closer to what I think is needed than anything I have seen so far. --Bduke 16:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Several things were added while I was writing the above leading to an edit conflict. I agree with badlydrawnjeff in the new discussion. --Bduke 16:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

This still does not address the subjectivity issue. Nothing I've seen, other than a single, uniform notability guideline, based on secondary sourcing and secondary sourcing only, addresses the subjectivity issue. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 16:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Notability is inherently subjective, so this isn't an issue. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Regarding your concerns about independent sources, I should clarify that better and will do so following my reply here - I need to make it clear that the secondary is necessary only to establish notability. Regardless, pointing to WP:ATT is the important step there, so feel free to reword it. Regarding 'is not required', I don't know where that's coming from. Hopefully, I can get your continued support. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

(edit conflict again - in response to Seraphimblade) A single uniform guideline does not do it either. First, we decide what we are going to write articles about. Second, but more importantly, it is likely to be too brief to cover everything and we still have to decide whether the sources are reliable, or non-trivial. I remain convinced that consensus is the only way. We are writing an encyclopedia. We include stuff that is encyclopedic, with sources. Someone comes along and says "This kind of stuff is not encyclopedic". We discuss it and come to a consensus. We also already have a great deal of stuff that does exactly that - "a school play ground soccer team is not encyclopedic" and so on and on. We codify and build on what we have. Material based on "secondary sourcing and secondary sourcing only" can still be not encyclopedic. It may simply be too local or too trivial. --Bduke 17:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

But we should still write down an agreed definition or set of definitions for what "encyclopedic" actually means, instead of letting it be totally subjective, ranging from "I like it" to "6000 hits is kinda nice", "it's known in my hometown", "10 books were written", etc. even if it's not a single brief guideline, but a whole bunch of subject-specific guidelines. Relying entirely on unwritten rules is not a good idea. If we decide that X is non-notable and should be deleted simply because it makes our tummies queasy when we read it... Discuss and come to a consensus, but have consensually-agreed rules that provide rational, logical bounds for what can and cannot be a notability criterion. We cannot just have a free-for-all that changes with the wind and the phase of the moon. 74.38.32.195 20:45, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Above I have suggested that WikiProjects have a set of criteria and they stay until challenged at AfD. There could be other "subject" pages that are not covered by WikiProjects, although they are getting fewer by the day as more Projects are created. Anything not covered by a Project can be handled by AfD. Let people who know about a topic propose criteria. There are too many AfDs with inappropriate comments because the editor making them does not understand the topic. --Bduke 20:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

But "I like/don't like it" should never, ever be a good criterion. Also, N criteria should best be proposed on the N-related pages, not on AFD discussions. Also, are you saying that you (or whomever) may dismiss criteria simply because you think the proposer does not know enough, without any other argument or challenge to the proposed criterion itself? 74.38.32.195 22:09, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

That is essentially what I said. There would be N-related pages with criteria. However some articles may slip through the cracks and AfD could handle them. I understand AfD or Vfd predates WP:V and dealt with deletions perfectly well. No, I am not saying what you suggest about dismissing criteria. I am suggesting that good criteria will come from people who understand the area and the range of articles that exist and could exist. I think this is true whether we are talking about webcomics or quantum theory. I am not asking for "experts" to determine this. I am talking about the people who participate in a project because they are enthusiastic about the area. For example I am an expert, of a kind, on physical chemistry, having taught it for 40 years, but I am an enthusiast on wine but not an expert. I know about the articles on wine that do exist and might exist and I have some ideas about how detailed criteria could be written to allow some wine topics and disallow others. The criteria would need to gain consensus by the Wine Project, which has members who also have this enthusiasm and together have a broad international view of wine. Others would need to respect this by doing some serious work before rejecting the criteria, and not just say "It is'nt like the criteria for comics" or even "It is'nt like the criteria for food". We already have a lot of detailed criteria of the kind I am talking about scattered around, and it is often respected on AfD. We need to formalise that process and expand it, building consensus in the Projects and where necessary more widely. --Bduke 22:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Let me share with you a bit of history, specifically WP:WEB, which started off as the "webcomic inclusion criteria", and is probably the noisiest sub-N guideline in existence. Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics was started when someone in the webcomics community suggested that all webcomics with 100 or more comics should have a Wikipedia article.

We (in the loosest sense) haven't gotten along since. Nifboy 23:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

But how would one handle the AFD discussions when no N guidelines are in place for the topic yet? The thing is we cannot allow "I like it/I hate it" to be used. It's too subjective and free-for-all-y. Also, if a good criterion comes from a non-expert, it will still be considered, right? Expert contributions should be valued, yes, but less-than-expert people can still make a good contrib here and there. You also said that there are criteria scattered around -- should these perhaps be collected, formalized, and put together into a comprehensive "notability rulebook" of some sort covering all sorts of topics, with WP:N serving as a primer and "table of contents" to it? I'd also suggest it should provide pointers and procedure perhaps for dealing with topics where no subject-specific guideline set exists. 74.38.32.195 21:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

In particular the people interested in Webcomics have not agreed ever since. The debates on this articles at AfD show a consistently great disagreement about both the basic principles and their applications. If even in this one pioneer area there is no consensus, how can we expect to build a policy from individual subjects? The arguments about schools is another example--the basic ideas of what ought to be in included have never been resolved, and the same repetitive views are repeated time after time. There is a particular scientific subject--not chemistry--where many of the qualified specialists have very high standards for inclusion--much more so than those in other sciences--one even expressed the view that almost all university professors in the field are not notable--including himself. Shall we therefore base our selection accordingly, with sharp variation by subject? How narrow shall we go? The Wodehouse specialists may want standards of their own, and so may the Buffyverse fans. The people interested in different sports seem to have different standards. DGG 23:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

(Not sure where in the thread to put this, so I'll put it here at the bottom) There seems to be a some disagreement over whether OFSTED is secondary or primary, but that discussion is sidetracking the problem presented: that there will be a systematic bias in how many sources we have available between different countries and regions. OK, instead of OFSTED, let's look the Bergen Byleksikon (Bergen City Encyclopedia, definitely not a primary source) which gives a comprehensive coverage of all the geographical features in Bergen, Norway (which is my home town). This book has entries on

1. Every school in the city, including elementary schools. (Entries for high schools are longer.)
2. Every street, road, driveway, and alley in the city, with an description of where the road runs, and at least a short history describing when the road was named, and why it was named as it was.

Would this mean that every street, road, driveway and alley in Bergen is notable? I know there are some who regularly call for the inclusion of such articles, but in general AFD precedent has been to delete minor roads. Saying that all these roads became much more notable in 1994 when that book was published (thereby creating a secondary source was made which gave non-trivial independent coverage) simply does not make sense. Saying that the roads in Bergen are notable while the roads in Hamar are not notable because there is no Hamar Byleksikon simply makes no sense. Nothing changed about the roads themselves when Bergen Byleksikon was published. Whether or not those roads or streets are notable today, if they were not notable in 1987 they are not notable in 2007 either. The roads play an equally significant or insignificant role in Bergen as they do in Hamar. The difference between them, whether or not a source is published, does not do a good job of discriminating the notable from non-notable stuff in this situation. Sjakkalle (Check!) 23:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Notability criterion should involve sourcing?

Hi.

I noticed this on WP:ATT: The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true.. On the old WP:V page, it said "The threshold for inclusion is verifiability, not truth.". So, it's official policy:

"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true."

So, according to this, I think then that a source-based notability criterion for topics where there are no subject-specific criteria, like the one we have now, would make sense given Wikipedia's Official Policies. 74.38.32.195 22:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I suggest that this is talking about including the material. Of course it has to be sourced to be verified. Notability is somewhat different. It is the prior decision. Should we even consider adding this by trying to verify it through sources? The problem to me is that material can be "attributable to a reliable published source" but we still do not want to have it in the encyclopedia. This is why there is so much discussion about notability. We all agree that we are adding verifiable stuff, not necessarily true stuff. We agree stuff should be sourced. We do not seem to agree about what fits into an encyclopedia, although we agree about a lot that does not fit and about a lot that clearly does fit. We are undecided about criteria for a relatively small amount of stuff in the middle; the stuff that often turns up on AfD. --Bduke 23:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Part of the problem with this Notability guideline is that it conflates what should be included with sourcing. We already have the WP:ATT policy that deals with sources, so covering the same ground here is redundant at best. And a guideline should not modify policy, so there is no sense defining Notability in terms of sourcing. Despite the repeated drum beating over multiple secondary sources, they are valuable, but not essential. UncleG merged zax into slater using one tertiary source, not multiple secondary sources, in the example we just saw, so let's drop that red-herring. Dhaluza 00:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Again, notability is different from verifiability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

To reply to Dhaluza, you can write articles that meet all the tenants of WP:ATT but which are routinely considered inappropriate for inclusion. For instance, you can write an article about a local sports match that has multiple articles from the sports pages of the related cities, but we don't have articles about such games. WP:N is intended to present a minimal standard for the quantity and quality of references which otherwise meet WP:ATT and thus provide a minimal rule-of-thumb guideline that articles should meet. It is not redundant with WP:ATT, since WP:ATT deals with the reliability of various types of sources while WP:N is more of an extension of WP:NOT in that it handles articles which are verifiably accurate but which should nonetheless probably not be included in Wikipedia. Dugwiki 08:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Can't find info online proves what?

There's an AfD going on for Fazal Mohammed right now, and it illustrates one of the problems with this guideline. Basically, wikipedian sit at their computers and use google to decide the fate of articles, which leads to bias. There are a few mentions of Fazal on the web, but not enough to satisfy notability. He's from Trinidad, and he died in the 40's; of course he isn't going to have a large presence on the web. This page talks about how notability is generally permanent, then basically makes it impossible to save articles about subjects that are pre internet and not from the devoloped world. Can't we do better than this? - Peregrine Fisher 00:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

The problem you point out is real, but this article is not a good example, because it does not include even one source. If the person is worthy of inclusion, there must be something to verify their existence and claim to notability. Dhaluza 00:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Basically, Dhaluza said it. The "fate of articles" doesn't rely solely on Google; if you can provide appropriate secondary sources, such as magazine articles, reviews and so on, to demonstrate the notability of this person, then the article will be kept. Google is only used as a fall-back option for those articles with no sources, to test whether there may be sources out there that haven't been added to the article yet; an article will never be deleted solely on the basis of a low ghit-count when there are sources in the article to demonstrate notability. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 01:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Ditto the other responses. Verifiability is an important characteristic, in my view more important than notability, for any Wikipedia article. Even if a subject is notable, lack of verifiability can still doom an article. (This does lead to a systematic bias as well, but for something as important as verifiability, that is a price we must pay.) However, I think there is a fairly good chance that one might find some paper sources for the article if someone has access to a local library. Even if the article is eventually deleted for lack of verifiability, but someone then finds sources to verify the article, then the situation has changed, and that will be a definite thing people will care about on a DRV nomination. Sjakkalle (Check!) 02:50, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Fundamental misunderstanding of consensus

If we try to dig down to the root of the problem with this guideline, past the disputes over tags, and wording, I think you find a fundamental misunderstanding of how a consensus based organization works, and how that applies to a wiki. People who can quote chapter and verse about how you can't write a WP article without sourcing, seem to completely miss the corollary that you can't write WP policy and guidelines without consensus. Just as in journalism where "you can't write the, story you want to, you have to write the story you have the sources for" in a consensus based organization, you can't write the policy you want to, you can only write the policy you have consensus for.

Since policy has to reflect consensus, you can't beat people over the head with it, and maintain consensus. So it's futile to think you can get your ideas written into a WP policy or guideline, then quote that at AfD claiming it represents consensus, and get away with it for very long. That's just not going to fly. And I think that's what has happened here. Enough people saw enough nonsense at AfD, traced it back to the source, and said that's enough!

So I think it's time for people here to get off their soapboxes, and start listening to the different points of view, and look for common ground. If this guideline is going to survive at all, it's time to stop pushing pet theories, and see if there is anything we can agree on. Dhaluza 01:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

I think the point is more that this shouldn't survive. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)

Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors)

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)

1) We do, because of the lack of mainstream attention given to porn stars notable in their profession. 2) Consistency with WP:BIO is irrelevant. 3) WP:N is under a lot of flux right now, and a number of us are working to replace it entirely with WP:AI, so please consider that as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:50, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

If there are no good sources on which to base an article, then there can be no good article on Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 00:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say, though, that I think the general criteria of WP:INCLUSION should apply. That is, there still should preferably be more than one independent reliable source published over time on which to rely for information about a particular person. Jeff above is probably correct that it is more difficult to find good sources about these people, but that just means we should think twice before writing an article about them which, because it is either unsourced or single sourced, has a high risk of unreliable or biased information. Dugwiki 15:44, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree with Jeff, and would advocate the abolition of WP:PORNBIO. WP:BIO is adequate for this purpose. We shouldn't have articles on every porn star who is notable in their profession, any more than we should have articles on every garden-gnome painter who is notable "in their profession". Notability is a general standard that should apply equally to all biographical articles. A porn star only merits an article if she (or he) is notable outside the porn industry. Why should this industry be treated differently from any other? Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 10:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't figure out if I agree with you or not; but, as far as treating porn actors differently from others, we should not do it. PORNBIO is a bad idea, because it is non-NPOV (pornography is not always so easily defined; in some countries, what qualifies as pornography is freely sold by Amazon.com in others).

Now, by "notable outside the porn industry", are you also suggesting that baseball players must be notable outside of baseball, or astronauts must be notable outside of astronautics? I can't make any sense of that comment. Generally, notability comes from within one's profession/acumen. Neier 11:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Jeff, let me get this straight. You are saying that because porn actors are harder to establish Notability for in the conventional BIO sense you think that they should have seperate looser rules to facilitate inclusion? NeoFreak 02:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. I'm saying that notability for pornography folks is done differently than for your typical mainstream person - higher use of pseudonyms, typical lack of mainstream attention, etc. PORNBIO probably raises the inclusion bar for porn stars and their ilk - in terms of "reliable sources" for the subject matter, nearly anyone who starred in a movie would meet this criterion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't mainstream attention what notability is really all about in the end? Since the pornography industry is so self contained and cyclicly self-promotional you can establish notability for almost anyone within the porn industry with the current criteria. If they've done alot of work their "well known" or "prolific" and is they haven;t done alot of work then they're notable or prolific "within a specific genre niche" (criteria 4). In the end though working alot isn't a sign of notability. I'm just not sure that we should be holding pornographic actors to a different standard for biographical notability. Pornographic media is not mainstream and unless a pornographic actor has been covered in the mainstream I don't know why we would want to try and give them their own special inter-industry notability criteria. NeoFreak 03:02, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

No, mainstream attention has nothing to do with notability. Mainstream attention is a factor, but hardly the only factor. If something's notable within a given subject, we should be weighing it on those merits, not what the mainstream decides is popular or important. I've covered this in detail elsehwere on this page. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability is not subjective and the only way to establish Notability is through reliable sources which are not contextual or genre specific. NeoFreak 03:24, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, none of that is true. Notability is inherently subjective, and is established by any number of things depending on what's going on. I honestly don't want to get into a circular argument on this when it's been repeated ad nauseum (and that's not a knock on you, it's just not a discussion I'm on board with anymore), but the perception that notability is somehow an objective measure is not sensible. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:26, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't want to derail this totally but I think you might just have an issue with Notability being a guidline period. Am I wrong? I mean any policy or offical guidline that is subjective isn't a policy or guildline at all, its a toothless recommendation. NeoFreak 03:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

With WP:N itself? Undoubtedly, this should have never been promoted in this position. Individual subjects? No problem at all, they handle it better. My hope is that the project matures enough where we don't need notability anymore, but that day is far off. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:42, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

That really doesn't leave alot of room for discussion on what is or is not accetable in the Notability guidlines then. :) NeoFreak 03:48, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it leaves plenty of room in the individual subject guidelines. *shrug* --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:54, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

NeoFreak, when you say notability is not subjective, are you saying that the Notability guidelines can be applied mechanically? The "notability is not subjective" clause is the one thing that bothered me in the new version, but I thought the text supporting it was rather innocuous. I was afraid someone might draw the wrong conclusion, however. If you don't think notability is subjective, have a look at AfD where deletionists routinely dismiss otherwise reliable sources as "fluff" or "trivial" to support deletion. Dhaluza 10:34, 3 April 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)

Evaluating Consensus

It seems that the consensus here is that WP:PORN is not necessary. Do we have the support and energy to merge any viable standards from there into WP:BIO? --Kevin Murray 00:22, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Inherent notability?

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)

Ask that one to ten people and you'll probably get eleven different answers. Mine would be that there are certainly some things (for example, US Presidents, the basic chemical elements) for which everything in the category has sufficient sourcing for a comprehensive article. This isn't really inherent notability, per se, it just so happens that everything in the category really does meet notability. In the vast majority of cases, though, there are probably some things in a category that have enough sourcing and others which do not. Except for trivially obvious cases, like the ones I listed above, I don't think it's generally a good idea to try and state "Everything in category X is appropriate for an article." If that really is the case, that's trivially obvious anyway, if it's not so clear-cut we should evaluate case by case. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think there are quite a few things that are inherently notable enough for inclusion. For example, everything that has an article in every general encyclopedia would deserve an article in WP. Of course they are likely to all have sources, but that is not the point. Sources do not make something deserving of an article in WP. They merely allow it to be written. We should be defining notability without sources and not confusing notability with verifiability. --Bduke 05:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think listing all categories that are inherently notable as a continuous process would be an excellent idea. This would ensure that many case-by-case problems are avoided. This would go a long way to avoid wasteful debates of the popularity=> notability and non-popularity => non-notability kind. Shyamal 06:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think that sometimes "inherent notability" can present a problem. For instance, geographical locations tend to be viewed as inherently notable, which is fine in principle but tends to lead to a lot of permastubs. IMHO anything which is "inherently notable", but can't have a decent-sized article created on it, should be merged into a parent article or list. This needs to be enshrined in this guideline. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 08:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think lists would be a fine way to cover stuff that a lot of people obviously think we should (schools and geographic locations come to mind), and on which there's some sourcing, but not really enough to support an article. And of course, if someone finds a ton of sourcing on a given list entry, it can always be spun back out. If it's a rather small location that may only have a few schools, they can probably be covered alongside the parent locality, or on a list of schools in the county. It would sure beat the current forest of permastubs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I continue to be worried by your view that you are sure that permastubs are a bad idea. I do not agree. All paper encyclopedias have them. Take a small location, a village for example. I think the reader just wants to know where it is, what its neighbours are and whether it has anything notable in it. A few sentences are fine. They do not want to get to a long list of villages and search for the one they want. Some topics need large articles. Some topics need small articles. Some small articles can be expanded to large articles. Some small articles should not be expanded. There is no "one size fits all" and we should stop using the term "permastubs" which sounds derogatory. --Bduke 08:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you'd prefer to call them? Everyone already hates the word "cruft" (which is not really derogatory either). It's a permanent stub. As to lists, no one has to search them, anchor redirects work fine! Just do a redirect to "Villages in X Location#Name of Village Subsection". Such a list would likely be more useful to readers anyway, quite often they may be looking for a number of villages, and bringing them straight to the list would be quite helpful. And for those readers who only want to find the one, they're served as well, without any need for searching at all! I'm a lot more concerned with the "small, unexpandable articles are alright" bit-by that, we should have single-sentence permastubs on garage bands if it can at least be verified they exist. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to call them articles -:) --Bduke 23:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the term perma-stub is an oxymoron. A stub is a short article that needs expansion. People write stubs when they only have limited time or material to create an article (for example when a wikilink in another article is red). A short article can be written about a subject if it can be covered in sufficient detail without a lot of text. In this case, the article should not be expanded. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Printed encyclopedias have some very long and very short articles. If a related group of short articles can be combined into a larger article, this is an editorial decision made on a case-by-case basis. We don't need to create an additional systemic bias against short articles. Dhaluza 15:09, 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)

"Inherently notable: has too often been a code for "miserably fails [[WP:ATT] , WP:N , WP:AI but WELIKEIT." The Roads project claims that every highway (state, perhaps county) with a number on it, however short and insignificant (1/3 mile is plenty) is inherently notable. High School and Middle School fanciers have claimed that those things are inherently notable. People in the talk page of the notability guide for royalty and nobility claimed that anyone who was given a British title or was knighted was inherently notable and so was their spouse. When you mention U.S Presidents or chemical elements, I can quickly give you as many reliable sources with substantial coverage about them as you want. For some of the cruft, all that can be found is that they exist (in their own website, on a map, as a directory listing in a government database of roads or schools, in a book of peerage, in a government or hobbyists's database). The benefit of a centralized listing is that it could be publicly displayed in a common forum and not in the gulag of a project or a special notability guide patrolled mostly by fans of the subject. It could also be proved by AfD results where or most such articles have been kept when their notability was questioned. It is meaningless to call things with multiple books and articles about them inherently notable, since they are notable as shown by being noted. Edison 13:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Things that are inherently notable have sources. Things that are labeled as inherently notable but are without sources are just mislabled. NeoFreak 13:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Patently false, and, I believe, a misunderstanding of the argument. Inherent notability comes from things that, when people hear about them, they know of their importantance regardless of what information there is. This includes roads, schools, nations, heads of state, etc. That most "inherently notable" subjects have sources is helpful, but there are plenty that generally do not to the ridiculous standards we have here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Patently lazy? Anything that people automatically recognize must have been learned about from the existence of sources. Short of divine revelation that means that anything that is just "known" has sources demonstrating their existence. If not then they don't belong in an encyclopedia. That's what makes an encyclopedia an encyclopedia and not the urban dictionary. I'm afraid if there is a misunderstanding here it is what an encylopedia is and isn't. NeoFreak 14:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary. Whether a subject is encyclopedic has nothing to do with the sources, and some subjects are encyclopedic with or without sources. Whether they can remain within Wikipedia without sources is a separate issue that is beyond the scope of whether a subject is notable enough for inclusion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that you jest as you've been around long enough to be familiar with WP:ATT, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:OR. If you believe that wikipedia policy does not demand sources then I'm afraid you have your own agenda for this project outside of the broad scope and consenus that exists. NeoFreak 14:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't jest at all. Notability (i.e., a subject's importance for inclusion) is entirely separate in concept from those policies. Not everything that's notable is verifiable by reliable sources, and vice versa. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that opinion is really the heart of the matter when it comes to "Inherent notability". You seem to think that a subject that can't support sources, in violation of the fundemental policies that guide inclusion of information, is okay as long as you deem it to be important or "inherently notable". That of course is a position not supported by any of the policies we have here. NeoFreak 14:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I see no policy that contradicts my statement. If an article cannot be sourced reliably, it will be removed - that has nothing to do with its notability, which may clearly exist regardless of "reliable sources." --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, something can be non-notable even with soures. Something that is thought to be notable without sources is going to be removed anyway, that's why we have policy on sources. So to say that something is "inherently notable" i.e. something that is notable without sources, is not allowed on wikipedia making "inherent notability" a non-issue for inclusion. NeoFreak 14:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's where there's a number of steps that need to be taken to judge an article's worth. Sources are merely one of them. Inherent notability is an important concept if we assume that notability is a worthwhile concept to judge inclusion - it means that the subject simply is notable, no matter what anyone else would want to argue. It does not invalidate the important concerns of sourcing, which is a separate issue of bigger importance. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Something that is notable and sourced does not have to lean on being "inherently notable" because its notability is proven. Something that is not proven to be notable through sources is failing the criteria for inclusion because of that lack of sources. Period. NeoFreak 15:07, 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)

Right. Like everything else in wikipedia Notability is viewed through the paradigm of sources. Anyone an claim anything is notable but to say something is "inherent" in its notability to to claim that it is so outrageously notable that sources aren't needed, which flies in the face of every other policy we have. Wikipeia is, after all, a tertiary source. NeoFreak 15:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad to hear this sentiment. But I'm troubled, because I so often read of editors insist that something is "inherently notable" when participating in AfD, for example. Does this mean that the existing policy is confusing? That some commonly-known precedent has set this expectation of "inherently notable"? Why isn't it obvious that both notability and verifiability are both required, and that they're independent? -- Mikeblas 14:18, 2 April 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)

"Generally notable" and complete coverage

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)

Sure but the degree of notability of all the items you've listed can be established by sources. Every nation of the world is going to have a independant source about it, every head of state is going to have sources on them (in smaller nations often from goverment sources). Because of this they don't have to depend on being "inherent" or "general" in their notabilty. Inherent and general can be viewed as "common sense says". Being a big fan of WP:COMMON I would say that this is fine, as long as you can back that assertion up with sources. I hope this isn't confusing my position on the issue. NeoFreak 15:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, so let's say I wanted to fix the red-link and all I found on the web was a bio published by the UN, and created a brief article using this source. Then let's say someone else tagged it speedy-A7 or nominated it for AfD saying the article fails WP:BIO. What would common sense say in that case? Dhaluza 15:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That your subject meets the criteria for inclusion because: 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 per BIO. NeoFreak 16:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

A simple biographical sketch would not be a secondary source. In this case, we could assume that the UN provided editorial oversight only, so it would be a reliable primary source (which is OK to use in reference to the subject). And it is only a single source. So it is not enough to meet WP:BIO. But it should be sufficient sourcing to anchor a stub, pending additional content with better sources. Dhaluza 08:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer Command notability?

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)

Interesting question. I'd think this is something else that's probably better served by a list style article, why not merge them into, for example, List of Linux shell commands or List of Windows shell commands? Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Or like this man page Ls ! Shyamal 09:18, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia is not a how-to, the vast majority of that ls article seems like it's useless. The only part that interests me is the "history" section, which is completely unreferenced even though it is only two sentences long. The problem with the lists articles is that there is too much subsetting. As OSes grow and mature, they leave behind commands and add new ones. Should "DIR" be in the MS-DOS list, or the Windows Vista list, or the CP/M list?

It's hard for me not to conclude that computer commands are all inherently non-notable and should be purged. While WP:N and WP:NOT seem to support it, I don't see much support for the notion of removing these articles -- that is, few previous AfDs. On the other hand, I don't see anyone working towards completing articles for the vast list of missing commands. -- Mikeblas 14:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

You probably won't get support for such a purge, which means that if WP:N supports it, then WP:N does not reflect consensus. As far as WP:NOT, how-to articles are generally written in the second person. The Ls article is properly written in a neutral fashion, simply stating the functionality. The history section should be referenced, but no doubt the references exist if someone would do the research. Frankly I don't see a big problem here--this is a specialty subject that WP can cover. You don't have to like everything here. Dhaluza 20:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

My questions don't have anything to do with what I like or don't like, Dhaluza, and I'm not sure why you've implicated that as my agenda. While the ls article might be some of what we'd like to see in an article, I'm wondering why that class of articles is considered to meet the inclusion guidelines. A how-to article doesn't need to be written in second person, as the ls article demonstrates, and I don't see any reason for that kind of content to be developed. -- Mikeblas 14:23, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The debate about WP:N clearly shows that it does not have consensus. These commands are just one example of things that I imagine consensus would support retaining (I say imagine because I have only just realised they exist and I do not recall seeing any of them at AfD). I have plenty of books to look these things up in. However, I think our readership contains people who expect to find this sort of information in a web encyclopedia, so they are here and they should remain. They should be covered by a specialist guideline and WP:N, or whatever, should respect that. --Bduke 22:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have plenty of books that cover these commands in detail, then they would be notable under this guideline. —Centrx→talk • 22:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course. There are many many books on unix. The question above is whether they are "pretty silly", "superficial" or "a how-to". These may be seen as countering the argument from sources for inclusion. I disagree with that point. However, I agree that the argument that these articles are not referenced could easily be remedied from the host of computer books on unix and other operating systems as well as from standards documents. --Bduke 23:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Mikeblas, WP:AGF tells us not to speculate about hidden agendas, and I do not make any such assumptions. I simply point out (rhetorically) that if your assertion about WP:N is correct, then WP:N is defective. I disagree with your statement on how-to articles--they are written in 2nd person, and if rephrased into a neutral tone, cease to be how-to. I agree with the general prohibition on how-to articles, but do not agree with your suggestion that an article matter-of-factly describing functionality is equivalent to a how-to, and should be discarded. Dhaluza 02:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Multiple sources

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)

Let's just settle on the "multiple sources" standard. The number of times where a single source proves to be sufficient is so rare that we should manage those cases as the inevitable exceptions to the rule. Rossami (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this should be based on AfD results, because most articles are not nominated for AfD (at least not yet). So you have to look at the big picture, and not just the exceptions to the exceptional cases. Articles where a single source are sufficient should not be nominated in the first place. Dhaluza 19:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Can't agree that it is that rare. I've seen this several times at AfD. Usually we have a strong source establishing notability with other minor sources flushing out the article. --Kevin Murray 19:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think requiring single sources to be "substantial" is a reasonable compromise, and further qualifying it as you did is probably excessive WP:CREEP. But I left it as is, and just moved it under "substantial". Why are two mediocre sources better than one really good one? And why is two the magic number (why not three or four)? When I am actually creating new content, the primary consideration on number of sources is WP:COPYVIO. When working from copyrighted sources, you generally need more than two sources to create a derivative work. But when working on a non-controversial subject like a technical item using a public domain source, I often transclude the relevant information and cite only the one source because this is sufficient to support the content in this case. Dhaluza 19:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dhaluza and Kevin Murray. Why are two 10-page academic journal articles qualitatively better than a 100-page book? -- Black Falcon 20:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Because it's a simple standard that lets us avoid the inevitable argument over whether a 5 inch article in the New York Times is "substantial" enough to qualify as a defensible single source. It's a standard that makes us reasonably efficient even if it's philosophically imperfect. Rossami (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Dhaluza, I agree that what I put in is more than I would ideally want, but if there is some way to get this issue behind us, I'm willing to accept the CREEP. Maybe a footnote is a better solution. --Kevin Murray 20:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll again pimp out article inclusion - in the event that a subject-specific guideline that handles notability issues doesn't exist, we look toward sufficient verifiable source material to sustain an article. Looking for the sources to be "substantial" is barking up the wrong tree - we want the information to be of good quality, but counting sources and pages. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's the exact problem though-you've got that backwards. We should look to sourcing first. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:19, 28 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)

There have been many examples given in this forum. The issue is not the number of sources that exist, but the number cited, because that is what is (erroneously) used at AfD. There are planty of topics whose articles can stand with one substantial source. Articles about places using census data are one case with a multitude of examples. Dhaluza 00:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The issue is not the number cited. Notability is about the number that exist, or perhaps that exist in at least the major world libraries. You reverted a change to the guideline that stated the distinction between an article actually evidencing notability and the topic being notable. If there are zero sources cited, a topic can still be notable, but that does not mean we change the guideline to say zero. There have been no examples where there exists only one source. —Centrx→talk • 04:07, 5 April 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)

• We are talking specifically about sources to establish notability (inclusion). This does not mean that there are not other sources providing or confirming background information. We require that the sources to establish notability be substantial, but we do not require that all information included in the text of an article comes from substantial sources -- only credible and for the most part independent sources. --Kevin Murray 16:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • So there must be more than the one source? Tom Harrison ^Talk 16:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Tom, I think that you are right in that concise statement; however, I don't think that we should be rigid in requiring "multiple non-trivial." I am however skeptical of one single source providing all of the information. The hair-split at AfD seems to be over building substance from a multitude of minor informational sources. I believe that notability can be demonstrated in three ways: (1) several substantial sources, (2) one very strong source, or (3) many lesser but credible sources; however it is arguable that the latter crosses into primary research, such that regardless of demonstrating notability we have no basis for including the primary research in the text. --Kevin Murray 17:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • There must exist more than one source about the topic. This does not mean that every article must currently contain more than one source, though obviously progress on that article would be obtaining the more sources. One strong source in an article is a good indication of notability; it does indicate that there are more sources to be found. —Centrx→talk • 17:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I absolutely agree with your last sentence. I agree with your first sentence as long as it isn't qualified by the term "non-trivial." The middle sentence creates an article limbo, where evaluators would be put in the position of judging progress. --Kevin Murray 17:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
        • So you disagree that adding more sources to an article would be progress on the article? Every individual sentence of every comment does not need to find its way into the guideline. —Centrx→talk • 19:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
          • No I don't disagree, but I was concerned about setting up another subjective evaluation process, i.e., measuring progress to validate deletion. Concern is not opposition, and I'm anxious to find a middle ground where we can stabilize this guideline. --Kevin Murray 19:52, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I agree with your first sentence as long as it isn't qualified by the term "non-trivial." — And that's one of the places where your error lies. A topic where there are multiple sources but none that are more than directory entries or incidental mentions can only ever result in an article that is either a directory entry or an original synthesis.

          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)

Implementation

How about putting Centrx thoughts into a footnote:

• Template:Fnb There must exist more than one source about the topic, in order to fulfill the expectation of verifiability. However, this does not mean that every article must currently contain more than one source, though progress on that article would be obtaining more sources. One strong source in an article is a good indication of notability; it indicates that more sources probably exist.

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)

• I see much validity to that statement, but I don't see it as an absolute solution in all cases. I would say that "if practical single source articles should be merged as sections of related articles where the topic has a broader scope." Or something like that. --Kevin Murray 18:54, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
• And that is saying what the text already said without before this recent attempt to modify the PNC began: An article that fails to satisfy the PNC should be merged into an article on a wider scope. No watering down of the multiplicity requirement is needed. There is no problem here that requires that the PNC be watered down, as has been repeatedly pointed out on this talk page to both of the two editors that are trying to do so, over a period of several months, now. Uncle G 19:37, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • You say watered down, I say clarified. This has been continually rehashed without resolution. Your attempts to revert have been blocked for months now; why don't you work with us on a compromise and let's stabilize this guideline. Whether or not it was stable in the past is not relevant to the present. Clinging to past errors in the name of stability is futile. It seems that we've had a change of watch; many of us have joined the discussion because we saw the failure of prior policies and mean to redress them. --Kevin Murray 20:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • On the contrary, that it was stable in the past, before you started trying to change it, is quite revelant. We aren't clinging to past errors. We (and more than one editor has reverted you) are resisting your attempts to change a widely-employed, working, and useful formula of some years' standing, codified in several places, to something that is erroneous. Uncle G 22:06, 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)

• It's not a "failed policy". The claim that notability has failed, or that multiple non-trivial published works from sources independent of the subject has failed, is made by those that object to notability in toto. It is, however, false. The criterion as formulated here, for a fair while before you started to alter it, was in use long before this page ever even mentioned it. It's been around for years in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, as the footnote that you keep removing actually points out, and has been in widespread use. It is not I who is in isolation. Uncle G 22:06, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
  • G, the problem is that rather than working with the changes, you keep reverting back a lot of efforts to compromise toward your purpose; therefore, when we try to get back to the middle subtle issues such as footnotes get lost. I restored the footnote and hopefully have satisfied your concern about agreement among the bullet points. You seem to refer to me as the agent of change here, where I think that there is broad based support for the concept of a single-source establishing notability -- which differs from a single source for the content. You can work with me now and hopefully together we can keep this in the middle, or in a few hours all of our work will be reverted to the other extreme as my compromises have been before. --Kevin Murray 22:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I have to say that the longer this conversation goes on, the more sympathetic I am becoming to Uncle G's position. "Multiple sources" was the standard for a very long time and I don't know of any problems that were created by it. Do we in fact have an example of a clearly notable topic for which there is only one source? Because we have many examples of people already trying to bend the rules to define a "substantial single source" downward. "Multiple sources" are easy to measure - you just count them. "Single substantial sources" gets us into bickering over the definition of substantial. And I have to admit that even with all the footnotes and all the discussion here, I still don't know how to recognize a "substantial" source as different from any other non-trivial source. Rossami (talk) 04:12, 6 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)

• Yes. If there were ever an unambiguously notable subject that was the subject of only one non-trivial independent source, we could undoubtedly decide to keep it, because there never has been a requirement to slavishly follow rules. That said, no such example has ever been cited. Several people have, however, commented about the potential problems that are created by implying that single sourcing is acceptable. I am sticking with "multiple" right up to the moment someone can give me a really compelling argument to support the idea that any meaningful number of articles on unambiguously significant subjects would be lost as a result. Guy (Help!) 18:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Consensus?

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)

Actually very well done, but for this:

Alternative tests are used in some cases to establish notability

I think this sets up the idea that the subject-specific guidelines "trump" this one-that if something meets one of those, but insufficient sources are available, we should have an article on it. That does need to be clarified. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

There are a number of alternative tests that have consensus support for various special cases. For example, it is hard to find references on reference works, so the "university library test" is used in this case (if two or more university libraries list the work as a recommended reference). Therefore, in special cases, the subject specific guidelines may have alternatives, but these pages are only guidelines, no there is no trumping. You still need to make cogent arguments either way at AfD. Dhaluza 10:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The trouble there is, that violates a core policy (whether you prefer to call that particular policy WP:V or WP:ATT or WP:NOT a library card catalog). Even consensus cannot do that. "Difficult to find references" does not, not, not mean "You are excused from doing so", it means "If you want to write about this, you got your work cut out for you."Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 10:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If an article can't be supported by sufficient sources, WP:ATT would require its exclusion, so this shouldn't be a problem. Sancho (talk) 14:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Strawpoll at WT:AI

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)

Wikipedia :Notability (films)

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)

It was never rejected, that was just pure Kevin Murray fantasy. See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Notability (films) where it was 20 'keeps' and 3 'rejects' and 3 'indeterminate/undecided'. Hardly a rejection of the guideline -- more like a strong endorsement.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 23:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

A bit of spin from Morty in consistent fashion. The AfD was over whether to delete the page not to reject it. The resounding consensus was to keep the page and tag it as rejected. I felt that if the page was not deleted the controversy would never go away. It was marked for rejection, but not deleted. As I predicted it has been a perennial battleground ever since. --Kevin Murray 23:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Dear Reader: See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Notability (films) and judge for yourself.  MortonDevonshire  Yo  · 23:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice; I've been called a Pharisee, a Zealot, and a bully in the last two days. It seems like if your argument would stand on its own you would not need to call names. Tom Harrison ^Talk 22:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty cool. I've always wanted to be elevated to Pharisee status. Kudos to your accomplishment. --Kevin Murray 22:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Unilaterally editing guidelines

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)

I'm not going to bother looking up wherever you got this from, but it is and always has been standard practice on Wikipedia to make reasonable edits to policy pages without making a proposal for every little thing. If there is objection to a change, it can be reverted and discussed, but if that were required for every edit nothing would get done. —Centrx→talk • 02:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, 'reasonable' like 'improving' is quite subjective I think, and guideline pages differ from regular articles, as detailed above. It's just a friendly reminder. And "wherever I got that from" is a policy page entitled Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, fyi. Thanks.--Keefer4 | Talk 02:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Take out the word "reasonable"; the statement is still valid. In all cases the only things that need proposals are changes that someone is absolutely sure to revert or that require a huge amount of effort, e.g. re-writing the entire policy, tagging it {{historical}} etc. Even then, these sorts of structural changes are still done without discussion, with little problem. —Centrx→talk • 02:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting points to consider. It may also be interesting to consider that major changes in meaning may be accomplished my altering a few words. Thanks for the feedback, have a good one.--Keefer4 | Talk 03:14, 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)

• First, I disagree with your interpretation of "multiple". Multiple means more than one - could be 2, could be 2000. Several means more than one but not many. Multiple is the cleanest way to say "more than just one". Second, this change about whether just one source is sufficient has been extensively discussed on this page. And we have not yet reached consensus. Changing it back to the older version (which was "multiple") is hardly a unilateral change. In fact, I would argue that Uncle G's edit is in compliance with our editing practices that the policy stays at the oldest wording until there is clear consensus to make the change - that the change to allow single sourcing was made without yet achieving clear consensus. Rossami (talk) 15:09, 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)

Disputed status tag

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)

• That seems about the gist of it, yes. >Radiant< 09:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• So, in other words, the tag should have been a section tag for the PNC, and not a full-on tag for the guideline. I disagree with your position on this, but if this is what you're claiming, you may have missed a step. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:57, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Not really, no. The "dispute" is restricted to a few hard-line inclusionists, as far as I can tell - most of the community has no problem with the idea that all articles should be able to draw on multiple reliable sources, whatever dispute we might have about what constitutes a reliable source for a given article. It's the basis on which most deleted articles seem to be deleted. Guy (Help!) 15:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• The PNC is restricted to a few hard-line exclusionists, as far as I can tell - most of the community is not married to the idea that only "multiple, non-trivial" attention creates notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I thought the opposite of "inclusionist" was "deletionist". :) Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 17:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Primary notability criterion

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)

• Added an argument, so {{pnc|''foo''}} produces Template:Pnc. Guy (Help!) 10:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Can you stop forcing this? It's only cited because it was shoehorned, and it's still extremely controversial. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:44, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• I strongly support what Guy has done in creating a template for consistency. Brilliant! However, the premise that there is no dissention is false and ignores the huge battle which was recently semi-resolved by compromise. The most recently stable form specifically included single sourcing and this seems widely supported. Yesterday's versions were an attempt to further compromise with the long standing position of Uncle G and Centrx, and I thought that we were making progress toward a neutral version. --Kevin Murray 14:53, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Looking back to late February, the single source validity has been acknowledged in this guideline except in periodic reversions mostly by Uncle G and Centrx, which were generally reverted very quickly by multiple editors. This concept is also recognized in the development of WP:AI, which is likely to either replace WP:N or be merged. To dispute this trend is simply denial. Please consider the compromise version as of this morning. Can we micro-tune rather than wholesale revert the hard work of several people yesterday. --Kevin Murray 15:10, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Based on recent reactions WP:AI is not exactly likely to replace WP:N. Other than that I have no particular opinion either way on this issue. >Radiant< 15:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I was unclear in what I said. It looks possible that the name "Article Inclusion" could replace the name "Notability." It does look like the group working on that project is avoiding the absolute "multiple." I think that the work on that project has taken eyes from this one. With that winding up and the new push for returning "multiple: to the central criterion, there is going to be mayhem here again. --Kevin Murray 15:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
      • I do think we should say "multiple", or define specifically that single sources are very rarely acceptable. As it says, guidelines can be treated with the occasional exception, but it should be clear that an article with only a single secondary source should be accepted only in exceptional circumstances, not under normal ones. Also, it needs to be made clearer that subject-specific guidelines don't somehow "override" this one, or make an article acceptable in the absence of multiple non-trivial secondary sources, but are only guides as to when such sources are likely to exist. As to changing the title to article inclusion, I think that would be a great idea. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• At one level the name does not matter too much: the notability guideline is an inclusion guideline, and whether we call it inclusion or notability is not really that important. The current WP:AI, however, seems to be little more than a POV fork, designed to quietly remove the "not a directory" parts of the notability guideline. Yes, Jeff, we know you don't like the fact that we routinely exclude directory entries, but I'm afraid the place to fix that is WP:NOT, not by pretending that there is no consensus behind notability. Far better to work this guideline into a wider inclusion guideline rather than set up a competing guideline and then remove this, which has been around for quite a while. As to the idea that a notabile subject might have a single source: I dispute it. We already have the Wikilawyers claiming that two is multiple, that is clearly against the spirit of the guideline and the long-standing consensus, going back to WP:NOT, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR, that we cannot verify the objectivity of an article unless there are sufficient sources to go on. Single sourcing? Convince me. Show me an unambiguously notable subject for which only one source exists. Guy (Help!) 15:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not supporting single source articles. I am supporting the concept that an article's notability can be established by a single source, but that the article should provide information from other sources. There is a fine line difference between establishing notability and writing an article. --Kevin Murray 15:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite concerned now that Guy is implying that two is not multiple; again a reason for clarification and correction of the "multiple" wording. --Kevin Murray 15:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not Jeff. I just happen to like "article inclusion" (the title, not the guideline itself) better. If we could move this guideline to that name, I think we'd be doing pretty well. I think notability can be confusing to a lot of people ("Half a million blogs commented on this internet fad, whaddya mean it's not notable???!!!"). As to single-sourcing, yes, you're right, that would be a very rare occurrence where such a thing would be acceptable (if ever), which is exactly why I advocated removing it. If someone thinks they've found an exception, they can argue to break the rule, just like anyone always can, but any such argument should be examined with a healthy dose of skepticism.
• (EC reply to Kevin Murray) Generally, two is not enough, unless both are extremely detailed and unquestionably reliable. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Recent objections are more of an educational one than a substantive one, reading the objections. Considering the rushed nature of the strawpoll, I wouldn't put much weight into it as of yet - the proposal's barely a month old and has enjoyed significant input and support. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Template:pnc

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 share your concern over gargaege bands and vanity spam. However, I think that there are better ways to combat this. Please read my comment in the last section, which more clarifies my position. --Kevin Murray 15:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Single sourcing? How did that idea get any momentum, multiple sources are the way to go. ^High_InBC^{(Need help? Ask me)} 15:56, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree, but according to Kevin that represents "POV by a minority" [1]. Seems the minority at WP:AI is suddenly the minority throughout the project, despite the obvious fact that WP:AI is a POV fork of this guideline by people who want ot be able to include more articles which lack multiple non-trivial sources :-) Guy (Help!) 16:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Guy, I think that you are over simplifying the opposition to your position. Not all people who oppose your point of view are of the same POV fork etc. I oppose WP:AI in concept and name. I prefer notability and generally support this becoming a reasonable and strong guideline, with the hope of stemming the tide of WP:CREEP. However, I think that rigid inflexibility will only reopen the wound and bring on a return of the early March battle. --Kevin Murray 16:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I think that the template is a great idea, but you are trying to do to much too soon. Please read back through the February and March discussion and history to see the objections to the inclusion of "multiple" in the PNC. Yes, there has been more opposition than support in the last 24 hours, but prior to that the consensus has been to ommit the word "multiple." --Kevin Murray 15:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• And you read back through all the archives, and also see User:Uncle G/On notability. The whole point is that there are multiple sources. That's how we know it's notable, not a directory entry, neutral, verifiable and not original research. Far, far more pain accrues to encouraging single-sourced articles than would ever accrue to requiring multiple sources, especially since we can make an exception any time we want. Guy (Help!) 16:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I have read back through all of this. What is past is past. This is today. The reason why people are rebelling against this failed policy is that it is applied inflexibly by zealots at AfD. The roots and evolution of failure are irrelevant to progress toward a superior policy in a dynamic environment. --Kevin Murray 16:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• The minority posistion is yours, Kevin. To write an encyclopedia article, and assure its notable, one must have multiple, nontrivial sources. Plain and simple. The idea that you could back-door this in is just laughable. -M^ask? 16:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Mask, this is not new. Please don't accuse me of back-dooring something that has been present in the guideline for over a month and is just now becoming an issue again. I may be on the wrong side of the eventual conclusion, but I am supporting the recent status quo. To imply otherwise is deceitful. Thanks. --Kevin Murray 16:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems that most times the "multiple" criterion has been removed, it's been you doing the removing, Kevin. It also seems, from this discussion, that whatever your perception might be, there is no evident consensus for weakening the requirement at this time. Multiple is alreayd being used by wikilawyers to assert that two sources means we MUST keep, reducing this to one would be a Very Bad Idea (TM). Guy (Help!) 16:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

That is a blatent falsehood! Smokey Joe, Black Falcon, Dalzula, Badly Drawn Jeff, and other people have worked on editing away from the multiple wording; this reflected the consensus of multiple straw polls. Albeit, in the last 24 hours I've been soley trying to come up with something short of what has been in place in an effort for compromise. If the concept of multiple becomes a demonstrable consensus then I will support it. --Kevin Murray 16:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Seems you have it devloping here and over at WP:ANI under "Sourcing". I look forward to your next statement of support here. -M^ask? 17:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Jeff's best friend would accuse him of being anywhere close to the consensus position on notability. The list of editors you cite is very small. The list of editors and admins who use - daily - a requirement for multiple sources in considering inclusion of articles is very large. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

i think I'm closer than the PNC crowd, honestly. The PNC crowd, after all, hasn't bothered talking to anyone other than themselves here. Keep in mind, just to use a recent example, you did think that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon wasn't worth having around recently. I'm very puzzled by your criteria, at least mine is clear. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If I may offer my own interpretation of the history. Apologies if I don't have all my dates exactly right.
The standing criterion was "multiple" for a rather long time. Early this year, a change to the standard was proposed to allow single sourcing if the single source was "substantial". Many people were unaware of the change as it was being discussed and some who did read the discussion thought that it might be a worthwhile experiment (even if they did not comment in the discussions at the time).
Now the community has had some experience with the new standard. As a result of seeing the standard in use and seeing the inevitable wikilawyering that any change to this page creates, more people are aware of the change. Several of those people are reporting that the change has had negative consequences.
No one is disputing that the prior discussions took place nor is anyone seriously suggesting that those discussions were in bad faith. But consensus can change - and often does change as more people become aware of the discussion or as the consequences of the decision become clearer. In my personal opinion, we have enough evidence now to show that the "multiple" standard was on the whole better for the project. But this new discussion will determine the community's will on this point. Rossami (talk) 17:51, 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)

• That's rhetoric, the practicality is that by long-standing consensus we require multiple non-trivial sources for an article in order to satisfy ourselves in respect of core policy: WP:NOR, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT a directory. You have yet to give a single credible example of an unambiguously significant subject that has only one source. Right now rules-lawyers are insisting that their band vanity article must be kept because there are two sources, and two is "multiple". You can make some progress in this argument by citing that elusive thing, the obviously significant subject which nonetheless has only one source. Until I've seen that there is a problem of good articles being lost due to only having one source, I'm not going to watch the guideline change to something that will encourage the pushers of invisible bands and other crap. I venture to suggest that the only reason only a few people challenged the single sourcing during the period it was in-and-out was because we didn't know about it; if anyone had noted at the admin noticeboard that such a change was being made you'd have seen a bit more input (although probably not to your liking). People have been actively quoting the multiple non-trivial requirement over most of that time, and it's been accepted both by other editors and by admins closing deletion debates and reviews. Consensus is not measured by the half-dozen people who turn up to a talk page, it's measured by canonical policy and what goes on day by day in the project. Guy (Help!) 18:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Guy, you and I are both completely substantially in some parts full of shit! On the non-trivial issues --Kevin Murray 18:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• So you say. But that might just be an evasion, because I note that you haven't yet cited the unambiguously significant subject which has only one source. We await your answer with baited breath. While we wait, we can check the recent histories of AfD and DRV to see just how often the terms multiple non-trivial sources are used - it looks like rather a lot to me. Like I say, consensus is measured by canonical policy and what actually happens day in day out, not by a half-dozen people on a talk page. Guy (Help!) 18:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Guy, I apologize and I've corrected myself above. You have a valid point that significant examples have not been provided. As we are not talking about clear cut cases, which seldom see AfD, the issue is over marginal cases. I am not going to call attention to the articles where my concerns developed so that they can become test cases for deletionists to disprove my concern. On another point when people start talking "canonical policy" this starts sounding like we are developing a dogma and someone might be running for Pope, or worshipping false gods. It also sounds like the admins with clearer vision are elevating themselves above we mortals. Which comes first the chicken or the egg? If the guideline states "multiple non-trivial" it's pretty likely that those words will be used at AfD; where is the logic in that validating your position. Regardless, I was trying to back away gracefully a few lines above, before you started spouting the party line. So let's agree to disagree. If no significant opposition arises, I'll concede defeat and move forward to support the consensus. But I would like to see some clarity of what "multiple" really means. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 19:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• "Multiple" depends on the situation. If two whole books have been written on a subject, both of which are widely accepted as authoritative and reliable, that's unquestionably multiple non-trivial sources. Two newspaper articles, maybe or maybe not, depends on how substantive and in-depth they are and what kind of an article can be supported by them. Two name-drops in a couple of papers with little or no additional information, definitely not. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• OK, that's clear as mud. You've set up an example set so broad that we can drive a train through it sideways. --Kevin Murray 19:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well, what I'm attempting to say (apparently not too well) is that we need to look at the depth and quality of sourcing, and what kind of article can be supported by it. If the independent sources available go into significant depth and detail, and are widely regarded as thorough and reliable, two of them might very well be enough. With "news" type sources, probably a lot more are required, as newspaper and magazine articles don't tend to go into nearly as much depth as scholarly reports or books. Also, a lot of the time news sources effectively reprint one another, caution is necessary to ensure that the real source behind "30 newspaper articles" isn't really one story that 29 others got from AP or Reuters. However, sometimes, newspaper and magazine coverage is extensive enough on its own over a period of time to support an article. Finally, there are sources which are technically independent but print very little information (just mentioning the subject's name; provide directory-style information or raw statistics; short newspaper "blurbs" or human-interest pieces, and the like.) These are never acceptable except as supplements when more substantial sourcing also exists. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• I'm much too long in the tooth to give much of a damn about being told I'm full of shit - which I often am - but in this case I don't think that's a fair criticism. I am serious here - if you go and look at the deletion debates going on right now you will see many cases where editors, long-standing editors, are asking for multiple non-trivial independent sources. And the reason is, as described in User:Uncle G/On notability and elsewhere, that Wikipedia articles must be verifiable, verifiably neutral, not original research, and not a mere directory entry. Unless you have several independent sources I just don't see how we, the generally non-expert editing community, can have any realistic chance of satisfying ourselves that those policies are met. Guy (Help!) 20:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Guy, me too and perhaps with longer teeth. I amended my FOS comment above. Clearly this issue has been overstressed and I'd like to put it to bed for now. It really may be much ado about very little. The more important task in my mind is to fine-tune your excellent template idea to provide continuity among the notability permutations. --Kevin Murray 20:26, 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)

I would say that if the subject is known only because of the book, then the book is the logical place to cover the subject. A redirect would, of course, be appropriate. Guy (Help!) 20:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

That's crazy, quite bluntly. There's absplutely no logic in a redirect, and our lack of coverage of Barnet is detrimental to the project currently. Please cease adding these to the individual criteria withouut discussing them there first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Jeff, but Guy's right. If the only knowledge we have about Montejo is based on a single biography, then we have no ability to confirm or refute the assertions of the book so we have no way to know that our article is balanced, neutral, accurate, etc. On the other hand, this example does turn up multiple sources about the book and details from the book could be appropriate to include in the article. In doing so, the reader automatically knows how to weight the content and assertions made by the author. Trying to write a "biography" article based on the one source, however, would force us to write all kinds of clumsy qualifiers in the biography about the lack of confirmability of the source information, qualifications of the source, etc. In this scenario, it makes perfect sense to me that any content about Montejo would be at the book's title.
A redirect is appropriate because it is an aid to readers, pointing them to the right place to learn about the subject. Rossami (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Addition - Crap Exist

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)

My first question is whether this type of argument has been successful at AfD? Or is this just an annoyance? --Kevin Murray 19:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

No it has def. not been successful.danielfolsom ©

Generally, WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS gets shot down at AfD. "This other article needs to get deleted EVEN MORE!" is an argument to also list that article on AfD, not to keep the one in question. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:40, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Notability is an attribute of topics, not articles, and is unrelated to arguments in AFD. I also oppose banning such arguments through policy for two reasons:

1. Although we should discourage "bad" arguments, the inherent subjectivity of judging the goodness or badness of arguments precludes a policy ban against them.
2. Such arguments are typicially discounted by closing admins, so it's not really a big issue. We should avoid instruction creep. -- Black Falcon 19:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually it is related to the arguments in an AFD - think about it. I could create one on this really cool teacher I have - but unless the teacher was notable, the article would be deleted. See: {{db-a7}} (importance = notability). And while this owuld concern arguments - it also concerns articles. Don't think that you can create X just because you saw Y.danielfolsom © 01:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

merge from Wikipedia:Notability (people)

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,Template:Fn 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):

A notable topic should be the subject of multiple non-trivial published works. Such sources should be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source should be considered. Once notability is established, other verifiable and attributable sources can be used to add content.{{pnc}} version at 20:18, 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)

• Not sure, but the version substed above is good. Especially the bit about the sources being independent from each other. Guy (Help!) 20:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

single/multiple source

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)

• General in the Egyptian Army 19th to 20th century – we saw minor mention in several sources which indicated notability, including a street in Cairo named for him, but only had one substantial source.
• General in the US Army/Airforce - One substantial article in a book about WWII generals, but many references to postings for groups and facilities upon which he had influence.
• Family of incestuous in-breeders which thrived in Nova Scotia for decades before being discovered by social services. Only one substantial source which was written by well respected writers, but trivially mentioned without much detail in many g-hits etc.
• Yacht designer of America Cup winners – much mention of his designs throughout boating literature and the web, but only one solid independent biography online. Snipits here and there corroborating the biography.
• Yacht manufacturing company – substantial discussion of the history of the company in a respected book on the history of sailboat manufacturing. Many minor references in articles which support the facts in the book.
• African folk singer – substantial information and biography at a reputable online source. Definitely g-hits etc to support recognition. Lots of minor information to support the single strong source.
• Playboy playmate of the month – is she notable automatically? Certainly not universal acceptance of this. But given that she is, the PB article is likely the only substantial source establishing notability.

In other cases, I'm sure articles have gotten deleted that should be kept.From the list Kevin gives, it sounds like some of those may need to stay, and others should have gone. It's really hard to offer any better evaluation without citing the specific sources. In the one specific case cited (the fossil), that looks to me like one of the few cases where one could argue an exception needs to be made to the rule. But the fact that exceptions do exist (they always do) don't invalidate the fact that the general rule should be in place. I'm sure I can find you plenty of articles that don't conform to WP:NPOV, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have NPOV, it just means we should get better at enforcing it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

No; it's not correct to imply that Notability is on the level of NPOV. NPOV is a very important policy that all articles should follow, while many articles that should not be deleted do not pass "notability". NPOV should not have exceptions, while notability should and does. --NE2 02:37, 7 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)

Significance and quality of source

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:

1. an obituary published in The Decatur Daily, local newspaper in Decatur, Alabama, or
2. an obituary published in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society?

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'm moving my comment down to its own subsection, as the lack of indentation will make it disappear above Uncle G's comment (which did not directly address my question). Pharamond 18:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If an obituary is the only source that can be found after due diligence and investigation, then we definitely should delete the page regardless of who published the obituary. Obituaries are not written in an encyclopedic tone nor do they cover all the elements of a person's life which would be appropriate in an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia is not a memorial. A high-quality obituary can be a source but we will always need more in order to write a balanced and complete encyclopedia article.
Having said all that, I seriously doubt that we will ever be unable to find a second source for a Fellow of the Royal Society. Rossami (talk) 19:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Primary, General, or Central

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)

• It should read general. "Primary" is misleading language, central as well (although less so). --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:28, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
• Either central or primary works, but "general" will cause the same confusion about whether subject-specific guidelines "override" the PNC. "Primary" is the least ambiguous and confusing, and makes clear that subject-specific guidelines aside, all subjects must pass it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • No, WP:N is not overriding. This is a fallacy as explained in the past. "Primary" is an improper wording and that's an improper interpretation. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:01, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
• I couldn't care less as long as we have continuity. It seemed that the least objection above was to central, but I goofed and changed it to general. Sorry Seraphim. Seraphim changed it to primary, to which I don't object, but I would suggest central aas a compromise with Jeff.

--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)

• Yes, but that's unrealistic and untrue. This has been proven time and time again in discussion that's being soundly ignored. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:04, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Jeff the battle has been going on for months. WP:N is better for the efforts; it is time to find a middle ground and let things settle. It is time to bring the various aspects of the notability infrastructure together for continuity. If you are right you will be supported in the end. --Kevin Murray 03:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
    • yes, it has, and nothing has been resolved. How the hell can you talk compromise while forcing your version across the project without discussing it? --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
  • (EC)Actually, Jeff, the discussion above is pretty widely in support, and articles with insufficient sourcing are deleted all the time despite technically meeting a secondary guideline. We can't write without sources, no matter how much we'd like to or think X subject should be covered here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 03:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
    • There's no support for what's in {{pnc}}. That's what caused the problems to begin with, remember? --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
    • Your assumption that having sufficient sources is equivalent to meeting the "primary" notability criterion is false. --NE2 04:27, 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)

• By your warring and forcing of will? I'm not sabotaging anything =- if you want to make a big change to a guideline, you seek consensus first, period. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the discussion above nicely highlights why I don't understand Wikipedia's irrational aversion to voting. Clearly no one can even agree on where the "consensus" actually lies, or even if there is a "consensus". Personally, I will never understand why we can't just approve or reject policy changes by voting on them. Sockpuppetry is unlikely to be an issue, unlike at AfD; those commenting on policy talk pages tend to be established editors, and I think we're all too mature to try vote-stacking; anyway, a sockpuppet here would be spotted a mile off. So if it were up to me, we'd have a simple, binding poll to determine what the majority of Wikipedians actually want. However, I realise this isn't going to happen. Just me complaining. :) Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 13:59, 8 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 ©