User:Trialsanderrors/On notability

This is not an essay. It is also not a policy or guideline, although it tries to be one one day. Right now it expresses the opinions and ideas of one Wikipedian and may or may not have wide support, but hopefully with more input it will soon conquer the world. Feel free to edit this non-essay as needed, but mention major changes on the discussion page.

This non-essay in a nutshell: Subjects of articles in Wikipedia need to assert and establish notability by use of encyclopedic sources.

The policies on content and style define the standards encyclopedic content must meet in order to be included in Wikipedia. Notability, which is a corollary of these standards, governs the structuring of Wikipedia into stand-alone articles, lists of topics, and mentions in ancillary articles.

The basic currency of articles in Wikipedia is reliable sources that establish verifiability. If a source is considered verifiable and reputable, it can be included in Wikipedia in the proper context. But not all sources carry sufficient weight to serve as the basis for a stand-alone article. The Wikipedia community has defined notability as the criterion which establishes when a topic has reached enough substance to support an article.

Definition

A topic¹ is notable if it has been a central subject² of a sufficient number³ of reputable⁴ and independent⁵ encyclopedic⁶ sources.

The topic of the article is expressed in the name of the article, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions
The topic is a central subject if it is discussed at length in the source. Passing mentions and directory entries are not considered central, although they can be used to improve articles. Being the primary subject adds to the notability, but isn't in all cases necessary.
Sufficiency is given if the subject can be discussed neutrally and comprehensively. "Neutrally" means reflecting the balance of published reliable sources, and a bias created by a dearth of sources can lead to non-notability. "Sufficient" is not a number, but an evaluation of the source material compared against the subject's peer group.
A reputable source comes from an entity that has a longstanding reputation as reliable, meaning it has a certain level of editorial integrity in order to allow for a verifiable evaluation of the topic's notability. Reputability is particularly important in biographies of living persons.
The "independence" qualification excludes all self-publicity, advertising by the subject, self-published material, autobiographies, press releases, and other such works affiliated with the subject, its creators, or affiliates with a vested interest. Sources that are independent of the subject but all draw from a single original source add to the reputability of that source, but do not add to the ability to cover the subject neutrally. So sources need also be independent of each other.
Sources are encyclopedic if they are published and secondary. Sources need to be published in order to avoid being considered original research and also to allow other editors to verify that the sources support the claims. Proper primary sources are acceptable to add context, but the claim to notability of an article should stand on secondary sources only.

Claims to notability

An article that does not assert the importance or significance of its subject can be merged or deleted, in some instances speedily. For some topics, such as cities or highways, the claim is inherent in the subject. In others, such as high-ranking political leaders, astronauts or Nobel Laureates, it is assumed to be ex officio. All other articles must provide an explicit, case-specific claim to notability, preferably in the lead. This claim to notability must be tangible and independently verifiable. "Band XYZ is famous" is not a tangible claim, "Band XYZ released two albums reviewed by Rolling Stone" is and can be compared against the supporting sources.

Notability standards vary by subject, and editors have created or proposed a number of specialized notability guidelines that discuss the topic in context. Most list a set of examples of claims that historically have led the subject to be considered notable in deletion debates. Those lists are not exclusive, other claims can be made in the article and be endorsed by the community, so the editors are cautioned not to interpret failure to meet one of the example criteria as an automatic reason to delete. All claims should be evaluated against the corroborating evidence.

There are two types of claims to notability: active and passive. An active claim is something extraordinary enough that it would surely attract notice ("crossing the Sahara on one's hands"). A passive claim is made when the activity in most instances does not draw sufficient attention ("wrote a book") but because of special characteristics of the subject critical or audience response is asserted. The specialized notability guidelines list many examples of active claims as "criteria".

Establishing notability

Notability and verifiability are related but distinct concepts. A topic can be notable but not verifiable, or verifiable but not notable. This distinction is driven by the fact that at any time Wikipedians can only access a small fraction of the universe of published knowledge, so it is always possible that the evidence for notability is temporarily out of reach. Wikipedia articles should be written based on established claims to notability, but articles which provide no claim to notability or an unverified claim to notability are treated differently.

Articles that have valid but unverified claims to notability are often removed from article space, but can be resurrected if sufficient verification of notability is provided (under the definition of "sufficient" above, and verification of existence is not verification of notability). On the other hand, articles that are verifiable but are not considered notable enough may be merged into other articles or, if notability is spurious, deleted. In this case a stronger claim to notability has to be made and verified.

While notability is an important criterion to gauge the encyclopedic validity of a subject, it is not core policy, and should be applied with common sense and the recognition that exceptions are possible. An article based on primary sources can stand in for an ultimate article based on secondary sources as long as it follows the core policies and they improve the encyclopedia. This goes especially for cases where it is reasonable to assume that secondary sources exist but are hard to access. Articles that are written with a conflict of interest, lack neutrality or are poorly written and unlikely to improve in general do not improve the quality of Wikipedia.

Notability over time and distance

Notability is not ephemeral, but ephemeral attention is rarely considered notable. So a claim to notability should contain a claim to lasting (although not necessarily everlasting) impact. Once established, notability does not cease if the subject slips from the public consciousness, and Wikipedia tries to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of events recent and past, so "I don't remember this" should not be used as an argument against notability.

Coverage by Wikipedia is governed by the accessible sources, so the problems with retrieving sources on historical events, from foreign locations and in foreign languages will automatically create a bias in favor of current and Anglo-centric events. This bias should not be exacerbated by undue expectations on notability for those topics. For any subject, an assessment of the notability should be made "as if it were here and now". Similarly verification of the notability should take into account the difficulty of retrieving information.

Common standards and individual judgment

Wikipedia covers a vast array of topics, so guidelines for inclusion have to be broadly defined. This leaves considerable room for editors' interpretation. A judgment should nevertheless never be made based on personal sentiment, experience or impression of the subject, but on a fair evaluation of the claims against the provided sources. Discussions should focus on the evidence, and editors who offer few or vacuous arguments often receive less consideration in deletion debates.

Notes

^Note 1 : Notability issues can often be addressed by simply changing the name of the article and therefore the scope of the coverage.
^Note 2 :
^Note 3 : The underlying expectation is that to be noted it needs to stand out against its peers (e.g., a best-selling book) or belong to a peer class where all members can be expected to have received sufficient notice (e.g. astronauts). Peer groups and classes should be broadly defined.
^Note 4 :
^Note 5 :
^Note 6 : Primary sources can be reliable and unbiased, so qualified primary sources are admissible for descriptive statements, but notability cannot be established based solely on primary sources since they are inadmissible for interpretative claims, which must come from secondary sources. It would also lead Wikipedia to become an indiscriminate collection of information or a directory.