Wikipedia:Notability (fandom)

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The following guideline is a clarification of Wikipedia:Notability (people) and Wikipedia:Notability, relating to articles about science fiction, media, anime, and comics fandom.

The guideline is written in the context that many Wikipedia editors are involved in fandom and may succumb to the temptation to magnify the importance of activities or people in their circle of awareness. It is important to remember that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. The guideline is influenced by guidelines on royalty, academics, candidates for election, and porn stars, subsets of the guideline about people.

Single or multiple accomplishments

For a person, event, or other item to be notable, at least one aspect of the subject must itself be notable. A list of accomplishments which individually would not be considered noteworthy do not collectively make the subject worthy of note. For subjects with only a single accomplishment of note, it will often be sufficient to simply leave the subject in a list (for example a list of award winners). In many cases, a subject would only warrant a separate article if they had multiple accomplishments; one of the functions of Wikipedia is to show links between subjects and concepts.

Awards

Awards are an important criterion used to determine the notability of works or individuals. For an award winner to be considered notable, the award itself must be notable. Major awards would be of national or international scope, and be widely (and verifiably) acknowledged as important to readers or viewers of the genre or medium.

Awards may be chosen by a vote of qualified members of an organization, by selected juries, or by other methods. Important factors in considering the notability of an award are the impartiality of the selection, the quality of the works selected, the publicity associated with an award, and the frequency by which the award is cited by recipients, academics, reviewers, publishers, and others.

Major awards

The following awards are considered notable. This should not be considered a complete or comprehensive list. However, editors are advised to explain notability of the award in the talk page or in references, before adding to this list. (Thus, if you created the Wikipedia page for a particular award, you may be the wrong person to add the award to this list.)

Minor awards

While many awards are awarded at a convention, an award which is not widely known outside the convention membership would not be considered noteworthy. Also, awards which are considered secondary at the convention where they are awarded would, generally, not be considered noteworthy for the purpose of this criterion. (One might apply a "have people heard of it?" test to minor awards.)

Fan versus Pro awards

There is no inherent bias towards or against "professional" awards versus "fan" awards, but a conservative approach should be applied in the context of the general guideline on notability. Specifically, narrow commercial awards would not be notable. Fan awards may be notable if they are of national or international scope and if they meet other tests of notability (e.g. the search engine test).

Nominations

As a general rule, being nominated for an award does not make a work automatically noteworthy. (The Academy Award may be an exception to this rule.)

Conventions

Many conventions are notable, provided they meet some simple criteria: held once a year and organized by a specific identifiable community. Commercial events, especially those held on an ad hoc basis, are often not notable. Events held more than once a year may just be a form of club gathering, and as such are not notable.

Major conventions

A major convention would attract membership from a national, international, or at least regional (across many states) audience, i.e. where at least half the membership were not local. Generally, major conventions have been held for a number of years (at least five). Generally, a regional convention would only be considered a major convention if it had 1000 or more members each year; however, it need not meet that level every single year. Westercon, NASFiC, Dragon*Con, and DeepSouthCon would be considered major regional conventions.

Some special-interest conventions, e.g. World Fantasy Convention, World Horror Convention, etc. might be considered major conventions, if they were both the most important gathering of a particular special interest, and if the activities or results of a particular convention have impact outside the time and membership of that convention.

Convention bids

Convention bids are activities within conventions, and as such are not specifically noteworthy. However, because their activities touch a broad segment of fandom and act as agents of change within the fan community, being chair of a Worldcon bid may be considered notable. (See section on "Single or multiple accomplishments" below.) Tightly contested races may be notable, but the Wikipedia:Candidates and elections guideline should be observed.

Publications and Web Sites

Fanzines and Convention Publications

Fanzines and convention publications are generally notable if they have won a major award (as defined above). They should meet the Wikipedia:Notability (books) guideline. Broadly speaking, most fanzines and convention publications would be considered "self-published" for the purpose of the guideline; they also generally fail other tests (sales figures, ISBN numbers

Web sites

Web sites should meet the Wikipedia:Notability (web) guideline.

Fanzine and web contributors

The editor of a notable fanzine, or the webmaster of a notable web site, may be notable if their contribution to the final result is noticeable, distinctive, and contributes significantly to the notability of the publication. Other contributors generally are not, though factors such as awards or search engine tests may in rare cases make such contributors notable.

Fans

Again, because of the preponderance of fans among the community of Wikipedia editors, a conservative approach should be applied here. This section specifically is an expansion of the Wikipedia:Notability (people) guideline.

An individual fan may be notable if they have won a major award, or if they have chaired a major convention.

Being a department head, program participant, guest of honor, toastmaster, or having some other role at a convention is not noteworthy as such.

Mention in other articles

While some events, nominations, fanzines, or other fannish activities may not warrant their own Wikipedia articles, it is certainly appropriate to include such details in the biography of a person who is, by some criterion, notable.