Wikipedia talk:No amount of editing can overcome a lack of notability

Ways to overcome WP:Notability

• The topic was notable but Wikipedians were not fully aware of the fact. This amounts to the same thing as a good-faith but erroneous {{notability}} tag. This can happen when notability could be established using print-, behind-paywall, or poorly-indexed content, but no editors are aware of the content during the "is this notable" discussion. This happens.
• Wikipedia's standards of notability relax. Don't count on using this one.
• The topic grows in notability over time. This is the most common way.

Wikipedia's standards of notability, like almost all of its standards, change slightly from day to day, month to month, and year to year as different editors with different ideas participate in the discussions or make different judgment calls when deciding to tag, de-tag, or not. However, over time this movement while not zero, isn't much, and very few articles of marginal notability would "fail" an AFD one year but "pass/no consensus" in a different year based only on a small change to Wikipedia's standards of notability. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 18:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Following up on this, I came here just now to suggest that it would be fair to acknowledge in the essay that there is one thing that an author can do: present sources corroborating notability that the other editor(s), presumably having sought such sources before declaring a finding of non-notability, didn't find. Content changes can't help, but sources can. —Largo Plazo (talk) 00:54, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"do we even want an article about that topic?"

I think this is an important essay but I am bothered by the focusing mantra that the essential question is whether we "want" an article on the topic. As stated: "it always boils down to this question: do we even want an article about that topic?" I don't think "want" captures well what the real question is. I would change this line to:

"it always boils down to this question: does the topic itself merit inclusion?

Any thoughts or alternate formulations?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:57, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

It's been a few days with no response, so I've gone ahead, but I've kept it more close to the original, instead of "do we even want...", it's now "should we even have..." I think the suggestion I made above is closer to the actual issue, but the original and now the change are more colloquial and accessible.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:13, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

Retroactively, I agree. —Largo Plazo (talk) 00:50, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Coming back to this idea in 2020: isn't it more of a question of possibility rather than setting an expectation about the topic? Doesn't the body of sources set up the article, in the way that the original "desiring/wanting" or "meriting" implies some relation from external factors affecting the quality of the article and the decision to make the article or not. It suggests there is some sort of evidential relationship. In contrast "Should we" seems more of a purely values based judgement. I would turn it into "Can we even make a good article about this topic?" Techhead7890 (talk) 15:38, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Is this even okay?

Is it really okay to tell editors that they are asking the wrong questions? Or is this a part of Wikipedia culture which implies that no editor should ever ask a question? Because that's exactly the vibe I've gotten ever since I've been here! — Preceding unsigned comment added by MurderByDeadcopy (talk • contribs)

Can you give any context? It's hard for anyone to know what sort of circumstances you're talking about. Editors ask questions all the time and generally receive answers. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• It's in the first paragraph. --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 17:15, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• Oh, I see. OK, it's the wrong question for reasons explained by the entire remainder of the essay. A topic's notability is determined entirely by conditions outside of an article written about it. Therefore, if a topic isn't notable, it will be non-notable regardless of how the article is written. Perhaps "wrong" is the wrong word. A better term would be "irrelevant" or "off-point". —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Conflict of interest

There's the classic two-facedness on Wikipedia of hide and revert whenever they want to deny the truth about the fact that writing about Wikipedia on a site hosted by Wikipedia is a huge CONFLICT OF INTEREST! Or do as we say, not as we do!!! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 17:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an entity that wrote an article about itself. It is a notable thing in the world, about which an article was written by people with, presumably, no conflict of interest over Wikipedia in the same manner in which every other article on Wikipedia is written, and under the same guidelines. There is no occasion for the question of bias to arise, no special treatment involved in the presence of that article here or of any of the content in it. If Jimmy Wales had written the article, that would have been another story.

Further, you had explicitly written that it was a violation of WP:COI, but WP:COI doesn't say a single thing about this situation. —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:20, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't even know what you mean by "hide and revert" or about denying any truth. What are you talking about? —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

• That's what you did to my revisions since you don't want it to be obvious that hosting an article about Wikipedia on Wikipedia is a WP:COI! But, don't worry I'm used to such behavior now, just like I'm used to being followed. Have a nice day! --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 02:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• You inserted an aside to make a WP:POINT (i.e. COI has nothing to do with notability). Your edit was appropriately undone. If you want to talk about COI regarding Wikipedia-related topics, open a thread at one of the venues that exist for that purpose (e.g. WP:COIN or WT:COI). If someone is following you, take it to ANI. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:29, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

• I did not add COI to the essay. It's already there. If, as you say, this article is about notability and not COI, then the COI should be completely deleted. However, I don't believe that's what's going on here. Or something would be done to fix such an obvious pas faux!
  

As for ANI, all they seem to do is victimize the victim through use of the boomerrang rule. I haven't been on Wikipedia that long, however, I have watched repeatedly in that short time old editors give new editors that advise only to see the new editor get harassed more! I haven't figured out why that advise is even given unless that's the goal? Odd, that you decided not to add that one with the rest of your multiple abbreviations? --MurderByDeletionism^"bang!" 01:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe this is true.

Adding notable sources can make the article more notable. SoyokoAnis 17:02, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

If sources exist that suffice to establish notability, then the topic is notable whether or not those sources are cited in the article. Therefore, if a topic has already been judged not to be notable, it means that insufficient sources were found to establish notability. If there are any sources at all, the failure to cite them isn't the problem. It's that they don't suffice regardless of whether they're cited.

To summarize: finding sources may help establish a topic's notability. Citing them is irrelevant, beyond bringing their existence to the attention of others to assist in a finding of notability. Largoplazo (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2021 (UTC)