User:MichaelQSchmidt/Substantial

Substantial coverage is not a policy or guideline mandate. While sometimes confused with "significant", the two terms do not mean the same thing and, while related, are not interchangeable.

Substantial coverage is not a rule

While nice to have, demanding substantial coverage creates a greater hurdle than that required under WP:SIGCOV and is not a policy nor guideline mandate. As long as an external source covers a topic directly and in non-trivial detail, the instructions at WP:SIGCOV are met. Coverage in external sourcing does not also need to be "substantial" in content in order to meet guideline instruction toward significant in offering non-trivia detail.

On notability

On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article. Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics. Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice". Determining notability does not necessarily depend on things such as fame, importance, or popularity—although those may enhance the chances of a topic meeting notability criteria.

A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline and is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

Significant does not also need to be substantial

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list. Per definition established through wide consensus "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material. This tells us that a source speaking about the Wikipedia topic may speak about other topics as well just so long as when the Wikipedia topic being cited is not simply a trivial mention within the source article.

On verifiability

However and while related, verifiability is different from requirements for establishing notability. A external source offering simple confirmation of a of proffered fact does not itself have to be significant coverage in order to be usable for verification. SIGCOV is a notability issue, and not a verifiability issue.