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In the evaluation of notability of article topics for Wikipedia, one consideration is the significance of coverage from sources. One factor that we consider is if the significant coverage is coming from routine sources; a topic that only has significant coverage from routine sources, even if these all otherwise satisfy reliable sources policy, is generally considered an inappropriate topic, and will often be deleted or merged to a larger topic. This practice is done to avoid indiscriminate information for topics.
What is meant by "routine sources" is of debate, as the term can mean many different things depending on editor and context. In broad terms, a routine source is one that is expected to happen on a frequent basis and following some pattern of reporting. A more precise definition is impossible to make give current practice. As such, this essay attempts to outline what has been accepted by the community as routine sources and topics that typically result from that, and what are not routine sources. The essay aims to outline these established cases as to provide guidance for other areas that have yet to be explicitly defined.
It should be noted that this concept only applies to evaluation for notability. If a topic is notable by other means and sources, the use of reliable, routine sources to help cite parts of the article is accepted practice. The article should simply not be sourced only to routine sources.
Casebook: Routine vs. Non-Routine
editThe following are lists of examples where long-term consensus has generally agreed delineate routine coverage and topics compared to those that are not routine. It is not exhaustive, nor definitive, as there will always been exceptions.
- In sports
- Routine: Individual non-championship games in a league's season, which are covered by game summaries and box scores in a very patterned, repeatable manner.
- Not Routine: Playoff and championship games - though they occur routinely once a year, they are not frequent events and generally gain different patterns of reporting than regular games.
- In news and events
- Routine: Weather reports, stock market reports,
- In culture
- Not Routine: Reviews of movies, television episodes, albums, books, and video games. Those these regularly occur after such works are published, they are not routine aspects of the individual works, and tend to have no distinguishing patterns.