This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Notability. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
How do I know if a topic is notable - must it be discussed by just one independent reliable source or one million. Is notability purely subjective so that whether a topic gets deleted or not is determined by the whim of a single editor, or are there some objective criteria by which these decisions are made? Galapagos42 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 06:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
The short answer is "enough". A longer answer will vary from editor to editor, and is typically a case of "I'll know it when I see it". Major publications are your best bet, and two or three good articles will typically stave off AfD. Nifboy (talk) 11:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
The standard is "multiple independent reliable sources". As Nifboy wrote, 2-3 is usually enough, if they they actually deal with the subject (i.e. do more then mention it is passing). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
well, as discussed above in considerable detail, that may be the conventional view, but not the universal one., nor in fact the one that is actually applicable at afd most of the time. the practical standard, generalizing from actual results, is sufficient sourcing discussing the subject in such a way as to lead people here to think it important enough for inclusion in wikipedia. There ar any number of times when common knowledge of those in the field substitutes for sourcing, and where sourcing alone isnt held enough unless it's the elusive "sourcing for notability" which begs the point entirely. If people here want it, its notable enough. If they don';t it isnt. the only practical way to find out is experiment. DGG (talk) 00:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Why inclusion of fictional subjects matters
Latest comment: 16 years ago49 comments9 people in discussion
It occurs to me that, in several years of fighting for a more inclusionist stance on fictional topics, I've never been thoroughly explicit about why I care.
I am a PhD student in English focusing on popular culture. I have written and taught on comics, video games, television, films, and all manner of obscurities. I am, in this area, not just an editor of Wikipedia. I am a serious user of it. I routinely use Wikipedia to look up and check basic facts about fictional subjects - what episodes a minor character appeared in, who the creator of an obscure 70s DC comics villain was, what the plot of a random episode of something is. I use Wikipedia for background information to decide if something is worth looking into in more detail.
When an area that has been thoroughly worked on has not been decimated by deletion and notability police, it is an invaluable resource that often has not been duplicated elsewhere. When articles are deleted, the information and work that went into them are gone, and I cannot get at them. In a few cases of specific TV shows there may be a Wikia that duplicates the content, but more often the information deleted is gone.
Plot summaries, cast lists, biographies of fictional people, etc - these things are not "fancruft." They are information that I use for serious scholarly research. Regularly and routinely. When they are deleted, my work becomes harder. When they are present, I can save hours of searching for minor details.
I am all for adding more in-universe material, and cutting summaries and the like to manageable lengths. I do not advocate scene by scene or chapter by chapter analyses. But on the other hand, it's tremendously useful to be able to get a general plot of a television series from the first episode up to the present. Useful. To real research.
When the information is easily verifiable (as in-universe information almost always is), the purpose of a notability guideline is to restrict Wikipedia to useful information. The "multiple independent sources" rule has, in the past, been a somewhat effective way of handling this. But we must not forget that the point of a notability guideline is to make sure that Wikipedia is limited to only useful and important subjects.
Plot summaries, episode descriptions, minor characters, etc are useful. They are important. To real, peer-reviewed research. We are not talking here about webcomics that end after three weeks, or about obscure garage bands. In most of these cases we are talking about television shows with audiences in the millions. People study these things. They are legitimate objects of academic research. And Wikipedia's coverage of them helps. It is an area where Wikipedia directly serves the public good.
I support what you want to do, but "useful" needs to be defined a little carefully. It means useful in a sense appropriate to an encyclopedia--providing the sort of information that users will reasonably expect to be in a contemporary comprehensive user-oriented free open-content internet encyclopedia--not on the one hand a repeat of all the directory information or fan fiction found in the web, but also not on the other hand containing the information that people ought to want, what any group here might think is appropriate for them. there are purposes for more and less restrictive information sources of various kinds. This project should stay doing what it does, which is accommodating a very wide range of general interests. There is no reason why anyone looking for the name of any character in a soap opera should not find it here in context, with an appropriately proportioned amount of information. The key is proportion. DGG (talk) 02:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Indeed - I would expect, for a character of a soap opera, a general biography with major life events and a quick guide to when they appeared. For most television shows I would think an article for episodes with a general plot summary would be reasonable and helpful. Doesn't need to be scene by scene or anything. I think most responsible WikiProjects - Doctor Who springs to mind as one I'm familiar with - strike a very good balance if left to their own devices. Other areas need more reform, but the solution here isn't deletion, it's good editors to pay attention to the area, same as any other subject area. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:22, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, "notability" doesn't limit what content will be in wikipedia. It just limits what content will warrant its own article. And it also has an indirect impact on the proportion of what you'll see: so you get a concise summary, but not an exhaustive in-universe biography of every character. Plot summaries belong in articles. Concise descriptions of characters belong in articles. Nobody's talking about deleting that stuff. Randomran (talk) 04:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
However when articles are removed we get rather monstrous organizational problems - individual articles for individual episodes of a television show become a very nice organizational tool in lieu of including all of that information in one article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
As has been mentioned before, notability is not a good way to organize info. Take the list compromise. Say it allows 1,000 words of text. Depending on the situation, two 500 word articles might be better for navigation and readability in our hyperlinked version of an encyclopedia, but NOTE forces us to cram them together. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
In practice, I just don't think you'd ever have so much information that you'd be forced to create multiple non-notable articles. Either the information is verified by reliable sources and would support a split into multiple notable articles, or there's just an overabundance of crufty details that really should be left outside Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not google. Randomran (talk) 05:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
We need to purge the nonsense and unconstructive non-word "cruft" from our vocabulary and I strongly recommend focusing on verifiability rather than subjective notability as inclusion criteria on a paperless encyclopedia with thousands of editors. Sicnerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!06:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, as Le Grand Roi says, the word "cruft" here is monstrously unhelpful. Summaries of individual episodes of a television series are not "cruft" for me - they are valuable research material that greatly speeds my ability to do research on television. On the other hand, I find articles on individual British nobles of the 18th century to be about as useful as you find articles on television episodes to be. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
(1) Purging words from my vocabulary is something I don't do. Not where I'm from. (2) Don't presume anything about what I find useful or not. When I'm looking for information on non-notable bands, I go to myspace and hypem. I still don't expect that to be on wikipedia. (3) As fun as it is to discuss whether the notability requirement is good or bad, if someone has a problem with the notability requirement they should propose to change it, or learn to love it the way it is. Randomran (talk) 16:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Please calm down. The point I was trying to make is that "cruft" is a subjective judgment, and the judgment I'm having so much trouble with, in that much of what is widely labeled "cruft" is, in fact, my research area, and I use Wikipedia for it. We're not talking about garage bands here - we're talking about television programs and comics with national distribution and audiences in the millions. As for the fun, I am not trying to discuss the general notability requirement. I am proposing that we be sensible about the specific issue of notability in fiction and allow ourselves comprehensive and thorough coverage of the area. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:13, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry, I am calm. Wikipedia has a lot of guidelines that define cruft. It's a useful shorthand. "It's useful" doesn't change what belongs or doesn't belong in wikipedia. Honestly, if you want to read more about non-notable topics, there's always google. That's what I use. Randomran (talk) 16:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
That's not really true - WP:CRUFT is an essay that spends a lot of time cautioning against the term. As for the notability of topics, we're talking here about an area of academic study that exists because, well, mass culture is massive. That is, millions of people watch television shows. I mean, I'm not a casual oddball looking for esoteric information here. I'm looking for basic information about the plots of successful children's books or critically acclaimed television shows so I can figure out if I want to look at them further. That is, I'm trying to use an encyclopedia for its intended purpose. This is not cruft. This is valuable information on important topics. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:40, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Sub-articles like episodes, characters, and the like are, however, often useful for serialized fiction as organizational tools for the rather large amount of plot that exists. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not the place for a large amount of plot information. See WP:PLOT. That's a fundamental policy of wikipedia supported by its founders, and it indirectly informs this guideline. I know you find it useful, but that doesn't mean it should be on wikipedia. I find lots of useful information outside of wikipedia. Randomran (talk) 18:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." - Jimmy Wales explaining the goal of Wikipedia. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!18:04, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
We don't need large amounts of plot information. But there are 109 hours of Buffy, and another 81 of Angel. It's not exactly feasible to cover that plot in the same level of detail we cover the plot of a two hour film in a single article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I refuse to take the bait on WP:EVERYTHING arguments. I definitely think that there should be a sub-guideline for fiction that allows for lists of episodes for truly notable long-running series like Buffy or Angel (I say that not knowing anything about either series, this isn't personal). WP:FICT was supposed to allow that if you look here, but there was no consensus to extent notability in this way. Don't look at me, I thought this was a fair guideline. Our debate with each other is a distinction without a difference. Randomran (talk) 00:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Randomran, PLOT is not a "fundamental policy of Wikipedia supported by its founders." It was proposed by Hiding in July 2006. Wikipedia had already been around for over 5 years. You say PLOT "indirectly informs this guideline", which is funny, considering Hiding also made this edit related to notability. But here, Hiding says PLOT "has nothing to do with notability, never has, never will." Do you know what is a fundamental policy supported by its founders? Wikipedia is not paper. On meta, Wikipedia is not paper says "There is no reason why there shouldn't be a page for every Simpsons character, and even a table listing every episode, all neatly cross-linked and introduced by a shorter central page. Every episode name in the list could link to a separate page for each of those episodes, with links to reviews and trivia." A page on every Simpsons character and a page for every Simpsons episode will mainly consist of plot summaries — because The Simpsons is a work of fiction. --Pixelface (talk) 19:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Policies don't belong to individual editors. They are arrived at via consensus. Policies are fundamental to wikipedia and ought to be adhered to. I don't think it's controversial to say that plot summaries must be summarized until they are concise. Randomran (talk) 05:46, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
(EC reply to Phil Sandifer) I don't think there's any problem independently and reliably sourcing Mr. Obama's Illinois Senate career (and if there was before he ran, there sure isn't now!), so that doesn't seem to be a particularly apt comparison to details of fictional work not covered independently. I think you seem to be characterizing any position other than "We should have a separate, in-universe article on every minor character in every work of fiction" as "We should not cover fiction." This is a false dichotomy. There are many ways in which we can cover fiction. Handling in-universe-only elements with brief list mentions is not failing to cover them. Nor is "It's useful" a valid inclusion argument. Almost everything on the list of what we don't do is useful. Dictionary definitions, howto and instruction guides, travel guides, news articles, directories of various types, open discussion forums, personal/social networking web page sites, media repositories, and publications of original thought and research are all useful. But despite the utility of all of these things, they are outside of our scope—an encyclopedia, a general overview and introduction to the topics it covers, not a comprehensive, exhaustive coverage of every detail of those topics. We should also be careful to give the proper weight to the topics we cover, mirroring the weight sources give them. If a few episodes of a TV show generated significant coverage and the rest little to none, we should mirror this example, giving the episodes we have plenty of coverage for in independent reliable sources full articles while providing brief list entries for the rest. This would make the episodes with importance to the real world stand out in immediate relief, and for someone seeking an introduction to the topic, that's exactly as it should be. The same is true of characters or any other fictional element. Important to the real world, plenty of independent source material? Full article. Important to the fictional work but not really outside of it? List entry or mention in appropriate parts of plot summary. Not even really important to the work? Little if any mention at all. A researcher needing more detail has plenty of resources available regarding the complete work, not least among them actually viewing or reading it. Wikipedia shouldn't be the endpoint of in-depth research, it should be the starting point. That's the whole purpose of an encyclopedia.
(To Le Grand Roi de Citrouilles) "Cruft" is simply shorthand for "fictional material not covered significantly by reliable secondary sources." Since that's a bit cumbersome to type out every time one refers to such material, we could, I suppose, refer to it as a spade, but what it's referred to as doesn't change what it is. SeraphimbladeTalk to me06:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
"Cruft" is a needlessly critical if not insulting term that I just couldn't see serious encyclopedists using in a collegial and constructive discussion. When I see it used in any discussion, I usually cannot take that comment seriously. Now, if I see someone who says, "Delete as after trying to do what I can to improve the article in question, I could not find sufficient reliable sources and the best I could make the article is still excessive detail that is cumbersome to get through," I can respect such a comment as that. And such a comment is one that I can actual engage in civil discussion. You can tell someone that there work needs to be concise without calling it "cruft". So, it is a matter of tact and compassion for fellow editors. Knowing that I and others (even those who are more on the deletion side of things) have expressed such concerns, seeing further use of it, just makes it that much less likely to be taken as part of a serious argument. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!06:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)There's a difference between the things on your list such as "dictionary definitions, howto and instruction guides, travel guides, news articles," and articles on fiction. The biggest difference is that people generally agree with how we treat those things in the list, and don't agree with how we treat fiction. Some of the stuff we created sister projects for (dictionary), other stuff there's no debate at all whether it should be included (media repository). We kind of are a social networking site with our userpages. Basically, those are all things we've come to agreement on. Either the info gets a sister project, everyone agrees it shouldn't be included, or we work it in in a way that pleases us. Those examples do not lend themselves to analogy with fiction. Most of what you listed comes from NOT, and we may be working our way there. First FICT, then NOTE, then possibly onto NOT. It's how we make up our rules as we go along. It's pretty fun really. The pro inclusion arguments seem to include some very good reasoning. At FICT, the main disinclusion argument was "NOTE prohibits it." Now we're at NOTE, and again I hear good arguments refuted by "NOT prohibits it." If the only real argument against inclusion is that we must follow the rules regardless of the arguments that justify them, inclusion will win. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
The line I am trying to draw here is "our coverage of fiction should be as informative to a scholar in that area as our coverage of British nobility is to a scholar in that area." That is, we ought provide the same service in all areas. It's a pretty basic threshold. Lemme give some examples of what I'm looking for.
I'm interested in designing a course on American visions of the future and technology. So I think "Oh, gee, it sure would be a good idea to put a Tom Swift book in the syllabus. I wonder which ones I should look at." What I need here is one or two paragraphs outlining the general plot of them so I can figure out which ones I want to read. And I go to Tom Swift, Jr. and there are no articles on individual books. Now that may be because nobody has written them. The point stands - summaries would be useful. A lot more useful than tracking down 33 out of print books and reading them all.
I read Greg Rucka's comic series Queen & Country, and I learn that it's heavily inspired by The Sandbaggers. I find Queen & Country interesting, and I want to follow up on this thread to see if there's something interesting to do with this line of spy fiction. I don't even have a paper in mind here - I'm just trying to learn more about something that has piqued my interest. I'd love to get a feel for what a typical episode is like. Unfortunately, the articles that were written on specific episodes were all redirected back to the main article, so that information is gone. I guess in order to even find out if this would be interesting to me I have to buy the DVD sets at $7.14 per episode.
I just finished off a paper on superheroes. I needed to do a quick check on a point about Iron Man - I couldn't remember if his origin had originally been in Vietnam or Korea, whether it had been explicitly retconned in the comics, and at what point in the comics the whole "his suit keeps him alive" thing was discarded. All pretty big points in the character's fictional life - nothing like "in what issues does he kiss Pepper Potts" or anything. These are major beats in the overall narrative. And, sure, I could read hundreds of comics to get the information I need for a one sentence throwaway. But that would take days and thousands of dollars to acquire the comics.
That's what I'm looking to be able to do with fictional subjects. It's not an undue bar to clear - all of that is easily answered with verifiable sources. All of it is very basic background information about the material - as basic as what we provide without angst for hundreds of other subject areas. All I'm asking is that my area of research be given the same thorough coverage as any other major area of research. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
If we have a bias, then it is because that bias is reflected in the availability of significant coverage from reliableverifiable sources independent of the topic. If you can provide such sources in any given situation for a fictional character, an episode, or whatever you wish, then you can create an article on it. That's the bar to clear - it isn't a matter of "usefulness", it's a matter of what is available in terms of adequate sourcing. We don't have double standards for other fields, and all articles are expected to meet WP:NOTE or have a damn good reason as to why they are ignoring it (usually in the case of character lists, episode lists, et al). This still, however, does not stop the information itself from being included in a relevant article. The only boundaries here are WP:WEIGHT, WP:SS and WP:NOT. That said, you seem to have more of a concern over whether the information itself is present more than whether the individual subjects actually have articles, and the answer is that a good majority of fiction articles are written poorly and don't follow WP:WAF (largely due to those types of articles attracting fans of the material who have little to no regard in terms of how to properly present the material, i.e. excessive in-universe information and point-of-view). That article on the British nobility probably includes more detail and is more informative simply because it's written better (and attracts people who probably a bit more dedicated to presenting the material in a better encyclopedic format). We don't need a special standard for fiction that contradicts WP:NOTE - it's simply the type of editors that are attracted to that type of material and the quality of the articles they create. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)09:02, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
We should remember that our policy for sources independent of the topic is not some immutable holy law, but a practical invention to serve a purpose. It is thus worth checking and making sure that the policy is actually useful and productive in this specific area, instead of applying it blindly. After all, that rule was made top-down - it's pretty unlikely that it will apply seamlessly to two and a half million articles. So the question is why, for fictional subjects, are independent sources useful? What does source independence get us here? Because most of the reasons we implemented it - bias, self-promotion, etc - aren't really applicable here. So it's an open and significant question. Similarly, I have trouble figuring out how WP:WEIGHT even begins applying to a plot summary. A plot summary is not generally considered a point of view about an episode of a television series.
I will whole-heartedly agree with you that fiction articles attract pathologically bad editors who make decisions that, if comparable ones were made in other areas, would get them drubbed out of the project in a week. This is a significant problem. Aggressive deletion, however, is a terrible solution, as it also drives away contributors who want to write good articles about fiction. And, indeed, few articles are improved via deletion. Were we to put the notability argument on the shelf for fictional subjects and apply some measure of common sense belief that, say, every episode of a television series should be summarized, and every significant recurring character should have their role in the show summarized then we would have a lot of crappy summaries. But we would at least have stuff to improve. Certainly I am more likely to trim an overly long summary I come across than I am to write one where none exists. I suspect I am not unique in this regard. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
The general notability guideline is not absolute, but should be followed unless there is good reason not to. It isn't something that we can blindly ignore either. It isn't about maintaining "usefulness", it's about ensuring that there's some sort of standard for topics to meet in order to have articles, and is derived from WP:V's dictum that there must exist third-party sources on a topic for it to have an article. Anyhow, WP:WEIGHT applies if the article is completely plot summary or goes too in-depth into the plot summary, which is undue weight on one part of the subject and is excluding the rest (conception/production, reception, merchandise, cultural impact, etc.). As for the deletion of fictional subjects, it's because of the poor editors that are there, and a natural consequence of it. If you have more bad editors, you end up with bad articles that are viable targets for AfD. Sure, you can offer merge solutions or cleanup beforehand, but a good portion of the time, deletion is probably warranted. Anyhow, your argument is drifting into the "keep all fictional subjects" area, which may have sympathy, but will probably never be implemented on Wikipedia. Yes, it would be nice to present a "useful" plot summary for every episode, fictional character, and whatnot in existence, but it creates a double standard that we apply towards fiction that we don't use elsewhere, which is unacceptable. As a common editor of articles relating to fiction, I have sympathy for your ideas, but trying to implement a double standard in regards to fiction is not the way to go. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)06:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but why do we want a standard for topics? I mean, there is a reason there, and we need to keep that in mind. As for WP:WEIGHT, your argument here is a ridiculous distortion of the policy. WP:NPOV has nothing to do with this, since plot summary is not a viewpoint. That is not to say there are not issues to be considered about appropriate length for various things, but it's not a NPOV issue, which is what WP:WEIGHT is.
And the last thing I want is a double standard. What I want is, in fact, a single standard - I want fiction articles to be as useful to someone gathering background information in the area as articles in other subjects are. I want the basic details like the plot covered for fictional works. When that fictional work is a comic series that has run for decades or a television series that runs for tens of hours, I expect the summary to be as detailed as it is for a novel, or for a biography of a dead English noble. I expect, in short, the same basic level of detail on all subjects. That's not "keep all fictional subjects." It's "do not arbitrarily decide that fictional subjects shall get less thorough treatment than other areas." Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:24, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
We have a standard to have an encyclopedia. Anyhow, your points concerning WP:N are a bit moot, as WP:BURDEN states specifically that, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." WP:VERIFY is policy and as such, more or less immutable. Yes, we aren't going to follow it blindly, but the scenarios in which you ignore it are basically nonexistent. And again, WP:WEIGHT applies because we're covering something with undue weight that is not demonstrated by third party interest in the same area. We're a mirror of that third party interest, which is why WP:V indicates as such. And no, you're creating a double standard. Everything else, whether it be in the sciences, history, literature, or whatever, follows the general notability guideline, and even more basic than that, VERIFY's dictum that third party sources are required. You're saying fiction doesn't have to, which is not acceptable. There are articles on the minute details of those fields because there exists third party sources on them, while this is not the case for many areas of fiction. This is beginning to drift into the same argument you had with A Man in Black on WT:FICT, but again, I point to the fact that nothing is stopping you from writing the detail you want on the relevant articles. Why do you want an episode article when the episode list summarizes the plot? Why do you need a plot summary on a specific character when it is in a list of characters? Frankly, lists are the extent to which the community has accepted deviation from VERIFY's third party sources requirement and the general notability guideline, and it's probably not going past that. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)07:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Everyone has their own standard of what an encyclopedia should be. Saying we have a standard is ignoring the fact that we make the standards. Abiding by WP:V and it's third party requirements are fine, it's NOTE that's the problem. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 08:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we certainly make the standards, but the standards we have probably aren't going to change in the near future, especially VERIFY. NOTE could possibly change, but not to the extent that Phil wants it to. I don't think there will ever be adequate community consensus to overturn VERIFY's requirement of third party sources though. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)08:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Look, if you are going to be so transparently silly as to argue that WP:WEIGHT, a redirect to WP:NPOV, applies to plot summaries, then just stop. You're not arguing anything that has even the remotest relationship with reality or sense. For the last time, the phrasing of WP:WEIGHT is, and I quote, "NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a reliable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each." A description of what happened in an episode of a television show is not a viewpoint about the show. There is no extended debate about the contents of a television show that we are stepping into and coming down on one side. That is not to say that overly long plot summaries are OK. But they're bad for stylistic and copy-editing reasons - not because they violate one of our most fundamental content principles. As for the WP:V issue, as I have said, it is for the most part sanest to treat episode articles as sub-articles of the series that we keep not because they're completely autonomous topics, but because when we're dealing with a 109 hour television series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer we can't possibly provide all the basic plot and character details that one expects for a work of fiction in one article without it being unforgivably long. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I wouldn't normally interrupt. But I think you missed the part of WP:WEIGHT that says "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints". It's a guideline that's also used at WP:NNC: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." Just offering a small correction. Randomran (talk) 15:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I am pretty confident that what is meant by that is that articles should not over-emphasize one category of fact over another - i.e. that a biography of someone ought not include every scandal we can find a source for. What we're trying to do with that line is curb a sort of implicit viewpoint weighting - a death by a million papercuts criticism, or a sort of ridiculous and trivial boosterism of every accomplishment ever. It's still about presenting a neutral view, in other words. As you'd expect from the name of the policy. There aren't any neutrality issues to plot summary, and so NPOV is the wrong policy to cite here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
It's also included at WP:NNC, so it's not just a question of overemphasizing factual criticism. It's just straight up about avoiding excessive detail on one aspect of a topic. It's just another guideline that re-enforces WP:PLOT, the rule that wikipedia articles are not plot summaries, and that wikipedia articles only use concise plot summaries. Randomran (talk) 15:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
And I don't disagree that concise plot summaries are better than elaborate ones - overly elaborate ones are often just as obfuscating as overly short ones. Yesterday I tried to figure out what the villain's master plan was in an episode of Doctor Who, and was stymied by a 22 paragraph summary of a two hour story. That's ridiculous. On the other hand, what we have for Blue Mars is a complete joke in the other direction. And, notably, the length needed to summarize depends on the length of the work. The 109 hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even in a concise summary format, are going to take a lot, lot longer than the five minute Pixar short Jack Jack Attack. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I 100% agree. As I've said above, I think our debate is a distinction without a difference. The notability requirement, along with WP:NOT, generally excludes articles about characters or weapons. But a concise plot summary is always appropriate. And for a television series that has run for 3+ seasons, a summary will clutter up a general article. Not only is a split good for organization, but 3 seasons of plot information are implicitly notable: getting your notable TV series renewed repeatedly will make the plot of your series notable in of itself. At least that's my intuition. Right now, there's no consensus around that idea. Randomran (talk) 15:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:V's "dictum" that there must be third-party sources has an interesting history. It used to say "reputable sources", but Robert A West suggested a change in April 2006[1] in this thread. That thread was started by Hiding on April 25, 2006, who was in an edit war on the UGOPlayer article — which doesn't really make sense to me because Hiding nominated that article for deletion on April 20 and that article was eventually deleted on April 28 (although I suppose if I could see the article history it may make more sense). Hiding said in that thread on WT:V "The guidance here states "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." To me, that means an article should have third party sources, and if none exist then there's no article."
Robert A West later changed[2] "If an article topic has no reputable sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." in WP:V to "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." but at the time the nutshell still said "Information on Wikipedia must be reliable. Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources." Somewhere along the line, the sentence "If an article topic has no reputable, reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on that topic." transformed into what V now says, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." and I completely disagree with that.
It's actually frightening to wonder how many times that sentence has been quoted and viable topics have been deleted from Wikipedia, all because of one stupid article that was deleted 3 days later anyway. --Pixelface (talk) 21:22, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
As for "all articles are expected to meet WP:NOTE or have a damn good reason as to why they are ignoring it", you're absolutely wrong. First of all, NOTE is not a policy. And second of all, NOTE as we now know it was created in September 2006 and it came much later than guidelines like BIO (created in August 2003) and MUSIC (created in January 2005). BIO aka Wikipedia:Notability (people) was first known as Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies and it was created August 1, 2003 by Kat and looked like this[3]. BIO wasn't a notability guideline until Jiy renamed it to a notability guideline on December 12, 2005. [4] You can compare what BIO looked like before it was renamed a notability guideline and after by looking at the oldids from this history range.[5] As for "We don't need a special standard for fiction that contradicts WP:NOTE", I think you may find this timeline informative. FICT came before NOTE. Wikipedia:Fiction was created on September 3, 2003 by MartinHarper as a redirect to Wikipedia:Check your fiction[6] (a version of which still exists at Wikipedia:Writing better articles#Check your fiction). Radiant! began writing at Wikipedia:Fiction on March 29, 2005[7] based on Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Minor characters (which Radiant! also created). Netoholic tagged Wikipedia:Fiction as a guideline on May 16, 2005[8]. You can compare what FICT looked like before it was renamed a notability guideline and after by looking at the oldids from this history range [9]
You may also be interested in what NOTE looked like when it was just a proposal (also written by Radiant!) on September 7, 2006[10], and what NOTE looked like when Radiant! added a guideline tag after 16 days on September 23, 2006[11]. Wikipedia was launched in January 2001 and there were no "notability" guidelines on Wikipedia (except Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Notability and Music Guidelines, previously known as Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Vanity Band Guidelines) until December 2005, when the editor Jiy renamed various Wikipedia pages to "notability" guidelines [12] (by the way, Jiy is no longer here (or editing under that username anymore)). NOTE is not some test that every article must pass or fail.
Before Radiant!'s NOTE proposal in September 2006[13] (which said articles were frequently deleted because editors felt the topic was not notable), NOTE was based on a user essay and then developed into a list of arguments for and against "notability", which you can see here, Wikipedia:Notability/Historical/Arguments. Before NOTE became a guideline, Hiding added this to NOTE and that mutated into the NOTE you see today.
Prior to that edit, Hiding created Wikipedia:Significance on March 29, 2006 [14] , made this edit to WT:V) on April 23, 2006 , this edit at Wikipedia talk:Significance on April 24, 2006 , this edit to WT:V on April 25, 2006 , and created Wikipedia:Independent sources on June 15, 2006 [15]. It appears to me it was Hiding's idea to equate notability with "reliable third party sources." But on December 6, 2007, Hiding created User:Hiding/What notability is not[16], which says "Notability is not objective" and "A topic's inclusion in Wikipedia is decided by a consensus of Wikipedians, nothing more and nothing less." And I agree. Notability is subjective and whether or not Wikipedia has an article on a topic is decided by editors, not by blindly quoting guidelines. --Pixelface (talk) 19:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Heading left again, I am inclined to disagree with you to some extent about characters and objects/places (the general class to which weapons belong). I think here the issue is that as narratives grow longer, their plots grow more complex in a non-linear way. This is not an absolute rule (plenty of three hour films have far less complexity than a single paragraph by Borges), but a general one. As the complexity of plot grows, a certain amount of redundancy and cross-referencing becomes important. Character articles are, in this regard, useful because they apply a useful set of filters on the mass of data that makes up a plot of an extended television series, allowing more effective coverage. The issue here, to use my usual example of Buffy, is that over 109 hours you get a plot that poses some challenges to useful summary. One obviously useful summary is to break it into 167 episode parts. But there are plot threads that run over multiple episodes. Breaking down to the episode level loses big picture information in a way that breaking down to the character level avoids. Objects are a rarer case, but a similar argument can be made about them in some instances. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, Buffy as a character is notable (if I had to guess). And a concise summary of her character growth over X seasons is probably appropriate for wikipedia. My only point is that, in general, fictional characters aren't notable unless they can prove they are. Randomran (talk) 16:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that Buffy herself is independently notable, but that seems to me beside the point - much like episode articles are useful sub-articles to deal with the issues that summarizing a multi-season television show presents, character articles are also useful sub-articles for the same purpose. The distinction, it seems to me, is better made on utility as a sub-article instead of via notability. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:USEFUL can't trump notability though. Not on wikipedia. If it's notable, then yeah, organize it in the most useful way. Otherwise, leave it out. Randomran (talk) 16:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Again, though, and this is the point I'm trying to make - it's misleading to treat the sub-articles as the level on which notability needs to be established. Or, at least, it's far from clear that this is appropriate. It may be that we have contradictory policies - one saying that large articles should be split up into sub-articles, and another demanding notability for every article. These policies come into genuine conflict on this point, and we may need to formally resolve that conflict. But to my mind it is not at all clear that the notability guideline is meant to apply to sub-articles in the way being suggested here. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:AVOIDSPLIT actually sums it up pretty well. If spinning out a sub-article will result in a non-notable article, chances are the main article is poorly referenced or has an excessive amount of information on a sub-topic. Randomran (talk) 18:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I question the truth of that in this case, though - biographies of fictional people based on the television show they came from are perfectly well referenced, and provide what seems to me an appropriate level of detail to produce an informative and usable (as opposed to useful) plot summary. The issue is one of approach - is summarizing a TV series best done episode by episode, or major thread by major thread? For shorter and simpler works, this choice doesn't matter, but for very long works it's a genuinely hard nut to crack, and there are definite advantages to a both/and approach. The issue is how to present a useful encyclopedic overview of the plot of a long, complex narrative with multiple subplots that weave in and out of each other while remaining concise. Treating the plot as a multi-faceted object is a big part of that, which is why episode and character articles working together provide a more thrifty and effective plot than attempting to jumble them all together into a linear summary. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
(ec) (Outdent) I have repeatedly addressed this general point.[17][18][19] In short, there are plenty of sources for the general fiction topic area, fiction is already treated with exceptional leeway not accorded to other topics, and these complaints about notability in relation to fiction are fundamentally flawed. It is especially disturbing (and even more fallacious) when this special pleading comes from academics and other editors who are in a better position, and better trained, to find appropriate sources than the average contributor. Vassyana (talk) 16:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Move to mark Notability as "historical" as Verifiability is sufficient for determining inclusion in a paperless encyclopedia
Latest comment: 16 years ago35 comments13 people in discussion
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.
It's not fair to say that notability lacks consensus. I've previously summarized the history of this page and of notability deletions: [20]. That should be required reading for any statements about the consensus regarding notability. Suffice it to say that local consensus for deletion due to notability has historically existed, and will surely continue to exist. This poses a problem in fully deprecating the guideline. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:56, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability as written and implemented is interpreted quite diversely in AfDs, so what I see is an incredible varied interpretation of it that makes use of the guideline problematic. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!18:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Notability as a metric of inclusion (and not solely defined by GNG), and Verification are two very different concepts. One is a measure of truth, the other is a measure of worthiness to be covered within WP. It would be very unwise to change this separation, despite the fact that there is overlap of both. We don't report on everything that is verifiable. --MASEM16:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I would be okay with a notability guideline or use of one that is reasonable, i.e. television episodes reviewed by multiple reviewers are notable, video game weapons or charactrs that have also been made into toys or that are titular are at least notable enough for a merge and redirect, etc. If we have notability guidelines that make these things clear, okay, but too strict of an adherence to it goes against being a valuable reference tool. The key is that outright deletion rather than merging and redirecting needs to be uncontroversial, i.e. only used as a last resort when there is absolutely no reasonable by common sense standards any hope of the article being improved or of having a likely redirect location, i.e. not just because some claim the articles in question fall into a subjective classification of "non-notable". If a respectable number of editors have been working on an article and a good deal of reading it each month and it is not a hoax or copyvio then that also suggests that it is notable to a segment of our community of editors and we should grant them leave to continue working on the articles, because they like me may start off focusing on certain articles they (we) like, but over time branch off to improve the articles that others also claim to be "notable." Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!18:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
You're welcome to propose this, although I strongly disagree with it on a personal level, and sincerely doubt that this proposal will develop a consensus. But it deserves an actual discussion. Perhaps you should list it with the proposals above? See: Wikipedia_talk:Notability#List_of_Proposed_changes. I think the plan is to do an RFC on all those proposals. That is, if you want this proposal to be considered with all the others. Randomran (talk) 18:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Strong Oppose This is the wrong solution to the problem. We must have a notability guideline or everything pee-wee football team or high school football star will get in by virtue of being mentioned in verifiable sources. If the current notability guidelines do not reflect actual practice, fix them but don't say "oh, we don't need notability." davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that it is simply subjectively used in AfDs as to what is and is not notable and it isn't right that an AfD can close as delete after a mere five days of a half dozen editors saying delete as not notable for articles that maybe hundreds of editors have been working on in good faith for years. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Which is to say, that's an overly strongly worded statement that seems designed to inflame rather than come to a consensus. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
It is certainly intended to reflect my frustration with how long it takes to make people understand basic concepts. There's some good faith opposition to the details of how it is worded, some good faith debate about how topic-specific notability should be implemented, controlled, and ranked relative to general notability, but very few propose scrapping it completely. Kww (talk) 20:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose. I'm in definite agreement with the principles of the notability guideline. As mentioned above, this is not the solution to the FICT-specific problem. Seraphim♥Whipp19:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Strong oppose I believe there is a consensus for notability. Consensus does not mean absence of disagreement from those who want Wikipedia to include directory listing information for everything that verifiably exists or once existed. Each mailbox in my town is verifiable from a Postal service database, but I would not want a Wikipedian article about each one, including its location, manufacturer, and hours of pickup. This would not be encyclopedic even in a paperless encyclopedia. The phone numbers of many millions of people are also verifiable, but even a paperless encyclopedia does not need an article on each person's phone number which ever appeared in a phone book. Dozens of my ancestors, just ordinary folks, have lives that are verifiable through government documents and obituaries. They do not each need articles. There is a need for the screening role of a notability requirement, beyond the need for verifiability. Edison (talk) 19:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - this won't change. This means we'll always have standards on what gets included, and, as rightly pointed out above, the bar will never be quite so low as "anything verifiable can be included". Friday(talk)19:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think necessarily anything verifiable should be included, but absolutely television episodes for which reviews exist or video game weapons or characters that have also been made into toys or that or titular are notable by common sense and that's what I am getting it. If this guideline is used against common sense or reasonability that it needs to be replaced. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment. May I suggest that this policy is clearly doomed and that piling onto it is not going to improve the quality of the discussion or actually aid consensus? This obviously will not pass, and does not require further debate. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I can't possibly take this proposal seriously either. But I think it still warrants discussion because a small but vocal minority of wikipedians need to be re-acquainted with reality. Randomran (talk) 20:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, a vocal minority of editors base their arguments on overally restrictive notions of "notability" that should not be taken seriously and that are divorced from reality. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
There's no reason not to at least consider the possibility of having some other kind of practical inclusion criteria beyond something as subjective as "notability," because obviously those who create and work on articles believe they are notable and for some to come along and declare they aren't is not really productive. We should consider all options. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Please feel free to propose one. But as it stands, you know full well you can't get consensus to deprecate this page. Trying is a drama pit. And with that, I'll let you have the last word in the hopes of actually ending this tarpit. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Ridiculous. If verifiability was the only criterion, we could have unencyclopedic permastubs on virtually everything in existence, including my dog, my desk lamp or anything else that exists in a directory or database. Suggesting those stubs belong in an encyclopedia is absurd, but this proposal would allow such things. seresin ( ¡? )21:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Obviously, an article on a pet I had is not notable, but when notability is used to limit articles that cover fictional items and characters notable to millions of people, then the standards are ridiculous. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:22, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Such are your assertions. Your opinions are not universally held; there are those who do not believe an encyclopedia should contain such extensive articles about fictional subjects. I hadn't seen the discussion had closed; I wouldn't have commented on the closed proposal had I known. seresin ( ¡? )21:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Please use logically valid arguments. The only logically valid argument I can think of (what are the other ones?) on the deletionist side is that a majority of wikipedians feel that way. Not sure if that's true because it's hard to judge the numbers of people who frequent these pages vs. the editors of fiction articles vs. all the other wikipedians. There's not much consensus in the first group, there's an inclusionist consensus in the second group, and who know about the largest group who actually should be the deciders. I have a feeling they mostly don't care/haven't thought about it and who knows what they would decide if actually forced to think about it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I did not say that such articles would be created, rather that they could be created, and they would be supported by our verifiability policy (and that one is a policy, so no WP:ONLYGUIDELINE arguments). seresin ( ¡? )21:47, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's what my concerns are with this page, i.e. that there are no real consensus agreements on what is and is not notable after a certain point. My opinion is that it is better to err on the side of allowing editors to work on what they want to and believe in good faith is notable and what we know readers come here for than to outright delete it, because a handful from these discussions also go in AfDs trying to remove that material. We need to have guidelines that reflect what thousands of editors and readers come here for. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
If the largest group should be the deciders merely because it's the largest, remember, WP:NOT#DEMOCRACY.
Latest comment: 16 years ago13 comments7 people in discussion
Let me throw out an idea. Can we consider broadcasters and publishers as third parties to fictional works? Basically, along this way of thinking, you start to arrive at guidelines that can molded after MUSIC and others, in which it is the presence of a third-party assertion of notability despite lack of sources is sufficient for coverage? --MASEM21:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that you have misread music as creating inclusion rather than exclusion. The primary application of MUSIC is to exclude articles that could be sourced. You can find a number of sources about any number of lounge acts, and could write an article about them based on those sources. They meet the general requirements for notability, but they do not meet the requirements laid down in MUSIC, so they don't get an article. I would argue pretty strongly that if you could find a case of someone meeting the requirements of MUSIC that somehow had never gotten any independent stories written about them, that article should still be deleted because they had failed to meet the general notability guideline. General notability is a minimum bar, not one that can be bypassed by specific guidelines. In general, this isn't a problem, because the specific guidelines set bars high enough that the general guideline is easily met. Kww (talk) 22:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea. Apparently there's some ambiguity as to whether or not sub guides loosen or strengthen NOTE. I was always under the impression that they loosened them. I don't follow music AfDs, anyone know how it's generally used? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:19, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I actually thought you were right, but now I'm not so sure and I'm confused. My impression was that WP:MUSIC meant that a musician could meet the GNG *or* the specific guideline about music, and merit inclusion. But this is exactly the kind of thing we should clarify, with a proposal to amend/clarify/change WP:N. Once we've figured that out, then we can work within those parameters to develop a guideline for fiction. Randomran (talk) 00:28, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
As written, WP:MUSIC is an or, not an and. It says an article "is notable if it meets any one of the following criteria" then mentions NOTE and things like having a certified gold record in any country. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I think I am going to propose specific language in the numbered list to fix that. Logically, that makes no sense. If it worked that way, then editors could form an "Oh My Goddess" project, and decide that everything that ever appeared in that anime was notable. The whole concept of notability would be ruled by small pockets of special interestes. Places and Transportation tried that, and it took forever to get it fixed. Now, that guideline specifically calls out the need for multiple sources, and excludes atlases and maps as counting towards notability. Kww (talk) 01:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
That's a slippery slope logical fallacy. Even if it wasn't, WP:MUSIC isn't a project (that's Wikipedia:WikiProject Music), it's a notability guideline. An OMG notability NOTE sub guide would have to be created and it wouldn't be controlled by a wikiproject. OMG falls under FICT, and I think you can see the kind of fight it takes to loosen that. It would have to go up the chain through NOTE, just like we're doing now. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, in practice it hasn't worked out that way. No one has put together a specific notability guideline that totally obliterates or circumvents the general notability guideline. That said, I don't think it could hurt to clarify the parameters that the specific guidelines work under. In fact, that's what I attempted to do in my proposal in the "call for proposals" above. To sum my understanding up, the specific guidelines modify the general guideline in terms of what we consider notable coverage. That's what happens with all the current specific notability guidelines, and that's how all specific notability guidelines should be handled in the future. Randomran (talk) 02:09, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Each sub guideline alters NOTE quite a bit. To say they can only tighten NOTE is pretty big misunderstanding. The failed FICT had roughly 75% in favor of loosening NOTE (or more) when it came to lists, although the groups were factionalized and here we are. MUSIC says it's OK to ignore NOTE when an artist or album has reached gold record status (among other things). Other sub guides of NOTE also loosen it similarly. They kind of fly under the radar, even if they've been around longer than NOTE. Fiction and FICT create strong feeling both ways so it's kind of the test bed. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I never said that the specific guidelines can only tighten NOTE. Many of them modify NOTE in significant ways. But MUSIC doesn't ignore or sidestep it. It treats gold record status as coverage by a reliable, independent, secondary source. In other words, the specific guidelines clarify and expand the notion of coverage. It's exactly this kind of interpretation that I put in my proposal in the discussion above. I think if we adopted my proposed clarification of NOTE, a lot of good work could be done on other guidelines. Randomran (talk) 07:18, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Historically, the GNG was an attempt to generalize the consensus formed locally by things like WP:MUSIC. The issue of priority here is muddy. And perhaps beside the point, as I've suggested above. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:41, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
NOTE is not the minimum bar, it lists sufficient (not required) evidence of notability for any topic. The specific guidelines were created *before* NOTE. BIO was created in August 2003. MUSIC was created in January 2005. FICT was a guideline in March 2005. Those were renamed to Wikipedia:Notability (*) in December 2005 by an editor that is no longer here. NOTE was a proposal in September 2006 (although it previously was a redirect to Wikipedia:Importance, and previously a user essay written by Demi which turned into a list of arguments for and against the "notability" concept). NUMBER, CORP, and WEB also pre-date NOTE. You have it backwards. This is what the NOTE proposal looked like on September 7, 2006[21], and this[22] is what NOTE looked like when Radiant! added a guideline tag after 16 days. --Pixelface (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
(Comment) The subguidelines are not intended to loosen or tighten the notability requirements. Using the music example, a gold record is not a replacement for sources nor an additional requirement. It is an indication that it is very likely that good sources exist, thus it is safe to presume enough acceptable sources exist (and so notability is met). An earnest but failed search for sources could undermine or dissolve the presumption, providing likely evidence to contrary. Notability does not demand that articles are fully sourced now, but rather that there is minimal evidence that there are enough reliable independent sources to fulfill our needs and meet our content rules. Vassyana (talk) 07:49, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Ganglands deletion?
Latest comment: 16 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Hi there. I'm just interested to know why my article Ganglands has been nominated for deletion. I am keen to fix whatever problem there is to ensure it stays up and running on wikipedia. How can I fix whatever is wrong with it?
Latest comment: 16 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
As a follow-up to the above, here is what would be useful, to me, as a researcher on popular culture. I have tried to restrict this to things Wikipedia can plausibly do - that is, this is not intended as a vision of some ideal resource. This is a list of things that can practically be achieved within Wikipedia's policies and guidelines (considered broadly) and without violating copyrights. (i.e. while full scripts or scene by scene analysis of every issue of every comic book ever would be useful, that is obviously not something Wikipedia can or should provide).
Thorough summaries of any fictional works covered. This is simple. I am not asking for scene by scene description - most films can be covered very adequately in two paragraphs. For things longer than films (TV series, etc) more paragraphs are obviously needed. (You can't summarize 7 seasons of Buffy or Star Trek in two paragraphs. Ain't gonna happen.)
Basic overviews of individual characters. Major characters should have their roles in the story mapped out. Minor characters are a matter of diminishing returns. There's a line here - I don't think it needs to be spelled out at this exact moment. Suffice it to say that Captain Kirk is on one side of it, and the random red shirt who bites it in a given episode is on the other. There's a contestable middle.
Overviews of other major elements. This is a bit catch-all, but it's worth noting. If something traces a lengthy thread across a work of fiction, it is useful to highlight that thread.
Basic production information. Major creators, actors, release dates, etc.
For minor topics that do not merit articles, useful redirects if the information someone would be looking for if they typed that in is present somewhere. An example I hit today was The Medusa Cascade - a minor plot point in a couple of Doctor Who episodes. Clearly not article material. However the individual episode articles have useful information and are generally cross-referenced in the continuity section. A redirect pointing from Medusa Cascade to any of these articles would be useful - it barely matters which one, since the thread can be traced from there. The point is that someone who is looking for information on this topic should be taken to the place where the information is offered.
Real-world information - critical reception, popular success, publicly shared production details, etc. Out-of-universe material is worth its weight in gold.
I have no particular investment in the form that any of this takes. That is to say, I don't actually care whether all the plot summaries and characters are in a single article or individual articles, and I think it differs for different types of works. For the most part, few characters in a novel or film will ever have long enough threads to not be traceable in a "characters" section of the article. On the other hand, it is routinely the case that individual characters have sufficient narrative histories to warrant splitting off in the case of television.
What is important, to me, as an active researcher, is that there be enough information on a given work of fiction that I can figure out if the work is of interest to me, and, secondarily, so that I can check basic facts about it.
Again, my goal here is to map out something attainable - something that makes our coverage of fictional topics as thorough and complete as our coverage of other major topics. I'm coming at this not as an editor trying to work out the correct fine-tuning of guidelines, but as a reader - this is something I use Wikipedia for as a part of real research. I am trying to create a goal - that Wikipedia should function like an encyclopedia for fictional topics. From there, I'm hoping we can craft a guideline that will help it do that, instead of the other way around, where we appear to be fighting first over the principles and rules, and then applying the results of those debates to articles in a way that seems to me to overlook the actual use of encyclopedias for researching of stuff. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. Also sounds like something we had until not too long ago. One thing we don't talk about much is that much of what is deemed unsourcable, isn't. I recently checked out a book from the library about comic books, and it has paragraphs and even pages on what would be considered non-notable characters. It's similar with TV episodes. When I try and improve one right after it airs, I can easily find 10 sources with google news, but a month old episode turns up nothing. This is because newspapers archive their articles after a few weeks. Every episode of prime time television shows from the recent past are notable, although you may not be able to prove it without a $3000 archive subscription. Foreign subjects like anime also have the problem of being notable without being able to prove it with a reasonable effort. I think this is part of why AfD doesn't agree with NOTE. Article subjects are frequently notable, but no one has the resources to prove it, so they just vote keep and it's put up for AfD at a later time. Because these articles are notable, but not provably notable, we need to adjust our guideline to take this into account. The flip side is we only allow articles of proven notability, which is a possibility, but I don't think a good one until we can teach our editors to source more proficiently. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
What you are asking for is what FICT was trying to present - though a bit tighter as some insisted there must be more restrictions on non-secondary-sourced lists. However, the fact that there's significant disagreement on both sides (it is either taken as too strict, or not strict enough), means we need to resolve something here at NOTE before we can define these more. --MASEM03:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Which is fine - but I think it's crucial that we approach the discussion of WP:NOTE not from abstract principles but from the perspective of readers. Our goal is to provide a useful reference. We need to build guidelines up to accomplish that goal. Which is why I felt it was important to lay out the basic needs of the area from a researcher's perspective. Because whatever is settled on really ought to accomplish those goals. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Masem, what you were trying to do at FICT was noble, but the result was actually much more deletionist than you may think. AfD + NOTE may seem more stringent and permanent, but because it involves a larger group of editors with varied opinions it is actually much more lenient than quarantining fiction articles into lists. It takes a number of editors to complete an AfD, it takes one editor who "knows what's right" to redirect hundreds of articles into lists and then edit-war them into submission. Passing FICT as written would lead to the most massive "cleanup" we've ever seen. It would be carte blanche for anyone who wants to continue TTN's little project. My guess is that some sort of new process is needed, and because people people will fight against that with all their might, something like a Disputed tag will be needed on NOTE and possibly NOT to force them to consider a compromise. Anyways, that's just my (wishful) thinking on the multi-year debate we have going here. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
No, we were well aware of that. People jump to AFD too fast; it is supposed to be the last step for dispute resolution if one believes content to be non-notable. The idea was that we needed more people to work cooperatively - starting merge discussions instead of AFDing things from the start, among other steps, and we tried to stress that. We know behavior like TTN's is unacceptable, but we also need to make sure that the ideas behind TTN's actions (which fall in line with what Phil suggests) are not outright ignored - there are topics that are better covered in lists instead of individual articles. We still need AFD for even Phil's suggestions, but we need to offload articles on fictional topics from AFD as much as possible (partially why the fictional-related noticeboard was made). Even if we do put Phil's suggestions in place verbatum, you are going to meet resistance in implementing them from those even more strongly inclusist. --MASEM11:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I like this. Phil has done a good job at outlining the basics of what we should strive to include. This is a good way to approach the situation. -- Ned Scott08:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Phil, for reminding us what Wikipedia's final goal is: a research tool for others. This is something that we forget in the effort to edit and correct various articles, we misplace the fact that many editors come here to "look stuff up". We need to keep this in mind when estabishing guidelines like WP:NOTE and submitting articles to AfD. padillaH(review me)(help me) 14:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Latest comment: 16 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
As I understand it, this talkpage is for discussing Wikipedia:Notability and the notability guidelines. Is there anywhere that editors can ask questions about the notability specific subjects or articles? I know there are tons of places to get general assistance, but was just wondering if I had missed a specific place for help on notability issues.--BelovedFreak01:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't believe there is any place dedicated to article specific notability advice. People have posted such queries here in the past, but I think the helpdesk is probably the closest thing we have.--Kubigula(talk)04:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
This is a good place to ask, although there's lots of other discussion here. What's your question? The editors here eat, breath, and live this stuff so I bet we can help you out. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies. I don't have a specific question now, but I have had in the past, both for myself and others. I have directed people here in the past, but wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing.--BelovedFreak11:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Another option is to solicit advice from a WikiProject under which the article would fall as a matter of topic area. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
A more serious proposal
Latest comment: 16 years ago22 comments10 people in discussion
Or at least, one with (I hope) a chance of passing.
I propose that we expand the statement that WP:N does not cover article content to note that sub-articles can inherit notability from their parent articles should be considered not as autonomous articles but as though they were sections in the larger article, thus allowing things like serialized fiction to have plot summaries of the level of detail expected elsewhere without cluttering the main article with summary of 100+ hours of television. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
This is a proposal I also disagree with, and that doesn't reflect WP:AVOIDSPLIT. But it should be considered on its merits and discussed. You should list this proposal at the numerated discussion above. In the near future, we will get a request for comment (!voting) on all of these proposals to update and re-calibrate notability to ensure that it reflects consensus. Randomran (talk) 20:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
AVOIDSPLIT is a MoS guideline - we can overrule it without trauma, and I don't think it needs to be binding in this case. The central issue, to my mind, is a paradox of rules. The cycle roughly goes "WP:NOT#PLOT says articles about fiction will have concise plot summaries. For very long serialized works, even concise plot summaries are long. WP:SPLIT says to split articles when they get to a certain length. The logical way to split these articles is to break the plot summary down to individual elements like episodes or characters. WP:AVOIDSPLIT and WP:NOTE say that individual articles must demonstrate notability, so these sub-articles should be deleted. But then we lack a concise plot summary, and so we're back to WP:NOT#PLOT." So even if we treat AVOIDSPLIT as the trumping policy (which I see no reason why we have to, and am skeptical that we should) we're still left with a vicious cycle that requires modification at some point in the cycle. In any case, feel free to add the proposal above. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I just think that in practice, a long article that is well referenced will be able to be split into multiple notable articles. If splitting an article leads to multiple non-notable articles, chances are the original article was filled with content that is inappropriate based on WP:V, WP:OR, or WP:NOT. But like I said, I think this is a legitimate proposal to consider, even if I disagree with it. I really do advise you to propose it at the numerated discussion above, so whoever organizes the request for comment doesn't miss your proposal. Randomran (talk) 20:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Strongly Oppose this as well. The way we balance an article between things derived from primary sources (which needs to be minimized) and that which we obtain from reliable, independent sources is by insisting that each article be on a notable topic, and that each article rely on those independent sources. If we don't insist that each and every article rely on third-party sourcing, the floodgates are open ... every nostril hair in each Pokemon can have its own article, because it "inherits notability". If the amount that the editors of an article want to say about something that doesn't have enough notability to grant it an article is too great, they either have to restrain their urges or find sources. Kww (talk) 20:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
More accurately, every nostril hair in each Pokemon could have its own article if encyclopedic coverage of Pokemon as a whole in the manner expected of coverage of a fictional work meant that the sections on those nostril hairs would be overwhelmingly long. If that was not clear in my original proposal, I apologize. My goal here is to attend to information that is expected of fictional works, and come up with a way to deal with the particular problems that extended serialization poses for article formatting. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
A follow-up, this even remains neutral on the sourcing issue - if a section is lengthy and inadequately sourced, it should be cut down. This would remain the case for episode articles, etc. All that would be changed is that we would change the standard of review for an episode article or a character article from reviewing it as a discrete and autonomous topic to reviewing it as though it were a sub-article - an expanded section of a larger article. This does not mandate any changes to sourcing, and in fact stays out of the "what sources are appropriate for a plot summary" debate. It says only that the article would be reviewed as though it were a section in a larger article. This seems a common sense shift to deal with the particular problems of extended serialization. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it's important to recognize that those nose hairs would inherit notability. It's not like this idea hasn't been proposed before, but it fails to gain much traction because it's really indiscriminate. Within a notable topic, there is really any number of facts and details that could inherit notability that really don't belong in wikipedia. In part because of WP:NOT, which limits excessive in-universe detail such as a nose hair count (except where notable). But also because of WP:OR and WP:V, which both requires that someone be able to check that the information is true. WP:OR requires that nobody should have to retrace the steps of the person who zoomed in on their television to verify the number of nose hairs of that Pokemon character. At any rate, if you want to know why this proposal will fail, there it is. (And for the benefit of this proposal, I think you ought to examine the discussion above and decide if you want your proposal to be put to the larger community with those other proposals.) Randomran (talk) 21:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd rather fine-tune it a bit, as this conversation seems to be doing. I've revised the proposal above to remove the problematic idea of inheriting notability, since it's a misleading term - the real issue and goal here is not to justify the notability of the sub-articles, but to treat them within policy as though they were sections of the main article. That doesn't bring us into an untamed no man's land. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Kww, you dictating what should be done with Pokemon articles is like me dictating what should be done with telephone switch articles. And when you say "If we don't insist that each and every article rely on third-party sourcing, the floodgates are open", somehow I'm reminded of a proverb about throwing stones in glass houses. --Pixelface (talk) 01:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, if you can think of a way to rewrite WP:N along the lines you suggest, but also takes into account WP:AVOIDSPLIT. However, the problem of article quality would still be unaddressed: how can you write an article without reliable secondary sources that does not fall foul of WP:OR or WP:IINFO? It seems to me that WP:N is the Best, Least-complex, Unbiased & Effective guidline on inclusion that Wikipedia has ever had.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:24, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm hard-pressed to figure out how to account simultaneously for AVOIDSPLIT, SPLIT, and PLOT in this area as, taken together, they provide a contradiction. The issue is that we have to alter one of the three. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
It's simple. If splitting an article will result in multiple non-notable articles, then you probably violated PLOT and probably need to cut the article down -- not expand and split. This is also tied into WP:NNC about giving too much weight to unimportant subject matter. That's the way it is right now. But it's not to say that there isn't a consensus for change. Randomran (talk) 17:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
to bring pokemon nose hairs into this is a straw man argument - Phil's argument is that we follow the core of WP:SS and treat elements of fiction as content, not articles in their own right. No scary floodgate would be opened about nosehairs, because it would be ridiculous to even mention it in the main article. However, Kadabra would surly be mentioned at some point in a gigantic-sized comprehensive article on Pokemon. And Gavin, here is an example of an article that has not a lick of the kinds of sources you want. While a sentence here or there is probably borderline instructional, it discusses a group of 8 pokemon and their roles in a notable anime, video game franchise, and trading card game. because this is all purely descriptive, it does not violate WP:OR, but then at the same time it is essentially solely "plot" material derived from primary sources. This is a perfect example of when giving comprehensive, yet non-trivial, treatment of a fictional element results in a sub-article that needs to be treated as part of the larger work. Reread the first sentence in our five pillars, please. We are to be both general and specialized. To write off the verifiable, non-trivial information in articles like the above as "cruft" or "undue weight" is to ignore our focus to be as comprehensive as we can. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria15:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
In reply to Zappernapper, I would say that the article Eevee evolutionary line is a clear example of a Content Fork, as the article makes claims about the subjects notability that are based on synthesis of primary sources, rather than reliable secondary sources. The article Eevee evolutionary line has since been redirected, which I think is the correct procedure in this instance. I mentioned the problem of content forking many times, giving the example of a subject with three forks: Terminator (character), the Terminator (character concept) and Terminator (franchise). The problem with coverage from primary sources is that there is no limit to the possible permutations and combinations of articles that can be written about any topic (fiction or non-fiction), as anyone can create a "reasonable" content fork using primary sources, but in slightly different ways. At some point in the future maybe one of Terminator forks will become the subject of coverage from a reliable secondary source, but until that happens, it is clear the articles share the same subject matter, only in slightly different ways, each one of which places undue reliance on the viewpoint of the editor who created it. Without reliable secondary sources, it is clear that it is an editor's POV that is the basis of these articles. However, once a reliable secondary source can be found to support one of these articles, or the overarching topic The Terminator, then it will be clear which articles are forks and which qualify for inclusion under WP:N. Providing exemptions to sub-articles based only primary sources will provide a licence to create POV Forks without limit.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Err, why are you people voting on this already? It's barely a half-baked proposal at this stage... Anyway, the appropiate thing to do is not to spin off articles as "subpages" as described here. That way lies rat's nests of unmaintained paged not supported by verifiable sources. I'd note also that I think the phrase above that this is "what the majority of our editors and readers actually want" conflates two groups with very different desires. What our readers want is relevant accurate information, it is mostly the editors who like adding items that are, umm, of fringe interest. - brenneman06:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Look, we've got to clear up this contradiction
Latest comment: 16 years ago41 comments9 people in discussion
Right now there is a contradictory knot among some policies/guidelines that requires some resolution. WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WAF note that a concise summary of plots is part of our coverage of fictional subjects. WP:SPLIT says that when articles get to a certain length, we should split them up. WP:AVOIDSPLIT and this page say that we shouldn't split articles off that don't have independent notability.
For long serialized works even a concise plot summary is going to get articles to the point where WP:SPLIT mandates splitting. But unless individual episodes and characters (which are the sensible way to split down a plot summary) can demonstrate independent notability, WP:AVOIDSPLIT says we can't split them. This is currently a contradiction.
I see three possible resolutions.
Abandon the idea that we will provide plot summaries of any sort.
Do not split articles on extended serialized works regardless of length.
Drop the notability requirement of AVOIDSPLIT and treat sub-articles as though they were sections of the parent article, governing them only with WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:NPOV.
We don't have to abandon plot summaries. Just abandon excessively long plot summaries. That way you can avoid problems with WP:N, avoid violating WP:PLOT, avoid WP:AVOIDSPLIT, and comply with WP:SIZE. Otherwise, part of the proposal at WP:FICT was to allow a single article devoted to plot information to be considered notable. It was rejected, though. But I think this was based on a misunderstanding, and we can build a consensus towards that. Randomran (talk) 18:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's the thing - depending on the text in question, I'd say you can do an hour of screen time in 1-3 paragraphs of summary. That'll remain concise wile also being thorough. So for a 100 hour TV show - which is a 6-season show - you're looking at 100-300 paragraphs to get a thorough but concise summary. Even at the short end - 100 - that's still long. But I don't think it excessive for the context. Which is the problem - long-running television shows require longer summaries. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
You don't need non-notable individual episode articles. Current practice is to split the list into season lists, with the parent list having no summaries and the season lists having the summaries. Any long-running television show is structured as such - see List of Lost episodes, List of The Simpsons episodes, or a multitude of other examples. And simply because the show is long-running does not mean the summaries become longer - they are as long as necessary to summarize the plot and no more. There's no need to go into excessive detail in plot summaries, as that violates WP:WEIGHT and WP:NOT#PLOT. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)19:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Even at season lists, for a 22 episode season of an hour long, we're looking at 22-66 paragraphs of summary. Add in cast lists, director, and writer and even the season articles will begin to strain. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:36, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Also, I can't help but point out that the Lost list links to full episode articles for the plot summaries, as does The Simpsons. You are perhaps thinking of something like List of Weeds episodes, but I can't help but point out that those summaries are woefully inadequate - major character deaths happen without being mentioned in the summaries, and it is impossible to follow the overall plot from them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
The episodes have articles because they're individually notable. Fine - List of YuYu Hakusho episodes and List of Bleach episodes if you want. And I must add that List of Weeds episodes is a rather bad list - your complaint seems to be more that the summaries are bad and should be expanded, which doesn't mean that non-notable articles should be created for the episodes to explain every last detail of the plot. And a twenty-two episode list? That's nothing - maybe 20-30k total in the article. Even 51 episodes in a single list is manageable. As a very prolific writer of episode lists, I know full well that episode summaries they can adequately summarize the plot in a paragraph, maybe two if necessary. Anything beyond that is undue weight. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)21:56, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
As I said, I think an hour's screen time collapses well into 1-3 paragraphs. I just checked the size of an article for a two-part Doctor Who story (essentially an hourlong) - The Edge of Destruction. The article has, I think, a very reasonable summary. I trimmed out everything but basic overview, synopsis, cast information, and out-of-universe information (none of which comes from a third party source). It came to 5k. For a 22 episode season, that means 110k - too long. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:25, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
An episode list would have nothing on an individual episode beyond a plot summary (and whatever relevant elements are necessary in the table - title, date it aired, etc.). The plot summary itself, even for an hour long episode, would never exceed 2-3k, and if it's longer, then it needs to be better summarized. You're leading me to believe that you've never worked on an episode list with your comments, and what exactly goes into constructing one of them. When well written, a reader unfamiliar with the series can gather the gist of whatever is occurring in the episode, which is all that is necessary. See List of Black Lagoon episodes - a two season, twenty-four episode series. It hits 34k with a paragraph for every episode. Now, let's suppose that the episodes were an hour instead of thirty minutes. It would still be 60-70k, and even there, I could split the list by season. Same principle applies basically to every episode list. The case in which an episode list is so long that non-notable articles on individual episodes need to be created is practically nonexistent. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)00:23, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
As I said, though, I think writer/director/cast for each individual episode is a pretty fair expectation as well. Furthermore, 12 half-hour episodes in a season is far from the level that we have to deal with - American shows routinely hit 22 hour-longs, which, by the level of detail you have there, would be 70k per season. That's getting up there - especially as I think all of the summaries there (and I say this as someone unfamiliar with the anime) would be better if increased by about 50%. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
It isn't. The production, director, and cast information goes in the main article; the director and the production information is usually included in the lead of the episode list in any case. Anyhow, I think we have a difference between what you and I think constitutes a good plot summary, especially with your belief that you think the summaries for the Black Lagoon episode list should be longer . We're not here to give a blow-by-blow description of what occurs (for instance, "Character X went through the ship killing the passengers" instead of "Character X stopped at one room and shot three guys. Character X went to the next room, yelled [insert profanity] at the people inside, and then shot them, etc."). We generalize as much as possible, and for a 22 episode season of hour-long episodes, that's 2k tops (44k) plus the lead, the rest of the table, and everything else (say 10-15k). That's not that big, and still doesn't justify why you want non-notable episode articles to cover the minute details of the plot of every episode. The only thing a reader needs is the gist of what happened in an episode - not every detail on every scene (yes, I'm aware this is slightly guilty of hyperbole, but it's essentially what you're pushing), as that goes beyond what WP:NOT#PLOT and WP:WEIGHT prescribe. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)07:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, more than detail, what would be useful in expanding those plot summaries is context for events. i.e. "Enraged by the news, Character X went through the ship killing the passengers." Or "Character X went through the ship killing the passengers, just as the Y had done to his parents' ship." Or things like that - transitional phrases, reminders of motivations, etc. Or even more proleptic phrases - "Character X wnt through the ship killing the passengers, which would later motivate Character Y, one of the passengers' sister, to hunt him down and kill him." None of this is new and excessive scene-by-scene detail - rather, it's framing information and context to guide the reader through the summary. Which is an important part of summary. As for production details, most American shows will cycle through numerous writers and directors in a season. Similarly, guest cast will vary from episode to episode. Putting all of this in the main article for each episode seems unlikely to work well. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The addition timing suggests it was in the middle when we were trying to push forward in FICT the idea that certain cases of non-notable spinouts (lists of characters/episodes/etc.) were appropriate as notability is assigned to the topic, not necessarily to articles underneath it. I'm not saying that statement may or may not be true, but it is definitely tied into what was happening with FICT. The concept that a topic, and not necessarily supporting articles for a topic, must 1) be notable and 2) not be only plot descriptions, is key to prevent lists (not all lists, but most currently accepted ones) of characters/episodes from being demanding of notability, thus the attempt to get a compromise position. --MASEM02:42, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
True enough. For people that think I'm an uncompromising hardass on the notability topic, I'll just point out that I don't take off after lists of episodes and characters. They don't pass any notability guideline, and don't deserve to be in Wikipedia any more than individual episode articles, but I recognize them as a necessary compromise that helps Wikipedia hang together. Some language needs to be added somewhere to allow them to be tolerated, because right now there isn't a good policy based argument for keeping them. Kww (talk) 02:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
That basically was what the proposed version of FICT was - it offered legitimacy to the character and episode lists that are widely acceptable per present consensus. Anything further than that (individual characters or episodes) has to prove their own notability, which is also current practice. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)02:52, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Your generosity on this point is staggering, Kww. I'm glad that you'll deign to compromise on whether to keep basic information that is of enormous use to actual scholarly research in an encyclopedia. Truly your magnanimity knows no bounds. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:54, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Fact of the matter is this: you won't ever find coverage of a "list of episodes" in two reliable secondary sources that are independent of a show, and so they'll never be notable except in the most heroic of cases. But I admit this is kind of absurd for series that even break the 10 or 20 episode mark. To summarize two seasons of a series AND explain the production, cast, reception, and so on... it just can't reasonably be done. It creates a weird paradox where the longer a series goes on, the more aggressive you have to summarize and leave detail out to meet wikipedia's size requirements AND notability requirements. WP:FICT was supposed to solve this by saying that lists of episodes are notable if a series is notable. It's a narrow exception that's very practical and very realistic. And it was rejected, either because people thought the notability requirement is already perfect, or because people disagree with notability altogether. So let's have a reality check. Notability is a part of wikipedia, hate it or love it. But clarifying and applying WP:NOTE is an ongoing process. If the only way to cement the effectiveness of WP:NOTE is to get a request for comment, then so be it. But the only way to keep consensus over WP:NOTE is to concede that it's currently incomplete and unclear, and that it's flexible. Not indiscriminately ignorable, but flexible within reasonable limits. That's what a request for comment on the above proposals will accomplish, hopefully. Randomran (talk) 06:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
We should determine in what ways NOTE is flexible and add that to the page. Then we can rewrite the sub guides to reflect their differences with NOTE withou reiterating it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Good strategy! I couldn't have said it better myself. For what it's worth, that's what I was trying to accomplish with my proposal #2 if you look up here. But we should hear out many proposals that try to explain how notability can be stretched, so that we can evaluate all of them in a request for comment. Randomran (talk) 06:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I've seen a few of these episode list articles and haven't seen one I liked yet. They are ugly and unsatisfying because the list format is not suitable for textual articles of an encyclopedic type. An article on a season might work better if the season is the natural level at which to discuss the dramatic structure and events (e.g. a slow show like Heroes). It all depends upon the level of continuity. For a show without much continuity between episodes, sticking them together is too arbitrary - like listing Pokemon in arbitrary groups of 20 rather than individually - an absurd structure. Colonel Warden (talk) 06:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, a list of episodes is pretty discriminate: if it's an episode it goes in the list. Why would you split them arbitrarily? Randomran (talk) 07:14, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
An episode is even more descriminate. The reason to split them is for readability and to take advantage of the fact that we're actually a web site with links between pages. When notability is established, it's pretty clear what format we prefer. It's only when notability isn't established that we make these weird decisions. "It's not notable, so let's make the information harder to read and navigate." "Oh, now notability has been established, we can organize the info in an optimal manner." - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:24, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The key is here is that we need something to compromise. Episode articles clearly have shown to be strong points of contention (two ArbCom cases), and it is clear that keeping episode articles only sourced to the primary work is not appropriate, yet removing all mention of episodes is also not appropriate. The list may be clumsy but:
Even if there is an episode article, you would still have a list article for navigation
Redirections from the episode name to the list can be made: the episode name is still searchable, there is context of a more notable topic provided, and, in the case of more series works, its effect on other episodes can be seen at a glance.
Nothing prevents expansion of an episode list entry to a list if notable aspects are demonstrated
We can and should still link to outside wiki for more descriptive discussion of the show.
Maintainence of plot length can be better handled, when all the episodes of a season are placed in one point (this doesn't mean they all have to be the same length, as some episodes may be more important, but there will be obvious differences between a 200 word summary and a 2000 word summary).
The only thing that is being lost, in most cases, is expanded plot summary and the opportunity to include a picture (since we don't allow non-free images in episode lists per WP:NFC). The latter is perfectly acceptable given WP's free content mission. The former is questionable value; some may see more plot being beneficial, but it also can be a maintenance problem. As I said, in most cases, this is fine, but I'm sure there are cases of non-notable (via GNG) episodes that a plot summary in a list is too restrictive because of additional information about that episode, although off the top of my head I can't think of any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.
The list form is the compromise - it is a spinout of a notable topic, which per WP:SS, WP:NOTE, and WP:PLOT and through current practices, is acceptable. Same applies to characters and other aspects of fictional works. This is why I think we need clearly to state that NOTE allows for these, as to go back to a point in FICT's history where such lists were more openly allowed. It is a compromise and the only way to get WP moving out of this rut that the inclusionist/deletioist face-off has gotten us into. --MASEM14:05, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The list form is a poor compromise. Or, more accurately, mandating lists is a poor compromise. It is essential that we not use WP:N to govern the appropriate weight of coverage inside of an article. By controlling the length of sections inasmuch as it controls whether they can be spun out into new articles as policy requires, WP:N is de facto governing article weighting in a manner that is inappropriate for the policy. I am not averse to a policy discussion about the appropriate lengths of plot summaries within an article. However that policy discussion is separate from the notability discussion. But if appropriately thorough coverage of an area of an article mandates length that requires more splits than just lists, this should be decided via policies that apply to the internals of the article, not by the GNG. Otherwise we are left with the deeply unpleasant spectre of the GNG dictating in a numeric fashion what the appropriate weight for various parts of a subject is. Even if the GNG does this well in the vast majority of cases, it is a phenomenally poor idea to mathematize that. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:35, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I should say that lists aren't the only solution to all this but at least a middle point that is practiced. However, we should encourage discussion of what sources qualify as secondary for fictional elements, cases of fictional element articles that can be considered notable by means other than the GNG (ala per MUSIC and so forth) , and the like. There will still be cases of fictional element topics that do not merit individual articles by these approaches. And again, I point to the first point: we should always encourage lists as navigational aids in the first place; there is absolutely no harm in at least creating these even if every element is notable on its own. --MASEM15:03, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. I'll further say that these sections should grow organically - that is, start with lists and expand to individual articles as the lists become unmanageably large. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:27, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Lists with good headings are pretty readable. "I'm looking up the episodes of this show now. I'm scanning for the season I want. I found the episode I want." I think we'll have to agree to disagree here, but as of yet individual episodes are vulnerable to deletion because they don't meet the general notability requirement, nor any specific notability requirement. A little compromise goes a long way. Anyway, the first step is still to explain how WP:NOTE can be stretched and to what degree. Then if people want to argue for a way to prove the notability of individual episodes, they're welcome to propose one that complies with WP:NOTE, and it will be considered by the larger community on its merits. Randomran (talk) 15:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
A little compromise does go a long way, but let's also note that the two sides here have different things at stake. At stake for me is a vital and irreplaceable reference in my field of scholarship that I use daily. I am not, I don't think, alone in actually using Wikipedia as a resource here. If those arguing against the inclusion of this information have something similar at stake, I would like to hear it. Otherwise, I respectfully suggest that compromise on one side carries a much heavier toll than on the other. Phil Sandifer (talk) 22:30, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's fair to make this personal. You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't carry any more weight than mine. Establishing a consensus will likely leave both of us disappointed. You'd rather have articles for individual episodes, and I wouldn't go further than a list of episodes for a few truly special television series. Beside me, there are people who don't want episodes at all. Beside you, there are people who don't want any notability restrictions at all. I don't know where the middle ground is. But I think somewhere in that list of proposals, there's a compromise that will be supported by most people on both sides (even if they are rejected by the extremes). So let's make the proposals, and then take this to an RFC. Randomran (talk) 23:36, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's fair to take the comments of an actual reader who uses the encyclopedia and throw them out as irrelevant. It is personal. I use Wikipedia. I am coming to this debate for that reason - not because I have any belief in the inherent rightness or wrongness of the notability guideline, but because this is a personal issue for me. As they say, all politics is local, and the personal is political. Wikipedia is not a thought experiment. It's an actual resource used by, well, people. The empirical fact of those people matters. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:50, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Alright, if you'd prefer to talk about your personal needs, so let's talk about everyone's needs. Let's talk about other academics who might use wikipedia as a research tool. No respectable academic institution would let someone cite wikipedia in a research paper. So what we're talking about is wikipedia as a tool to begin research, not to finish it. I can personally attest to unreliable self-published internet resources as being a great place to begin research, to get an overview, and see where you want to probe further. But that's what google is for. That's what battlestar wiki is for. That's what buffyworld.com is for. On the other hand, if we are talking about wikipedia as a reliable, respectable institution that can be cited in an academic research paper, then that will only become possible when wikipedia is known for high standards. Bad articles reflect poorly on the whole body of knowledge in this encyclopedia. The notability requirement is one of our key elements of quality control. You say it's personal for you, well it's personal for everybody. Your willingness to put your personal needs front and center doesn't entitle you to more voice than those won't don't. Randomran (talk) 01:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia will never be citable in academic papers, nor should it be. If that's your goal, don't write an encyclopedia. Britannica isn't generally cited academically either. Encyclopedias are for background research. As for article quality, I see no reason why the articles have to be bad. A concise but thorough plot summary, a cast list, any existing and available production information. We can do all of that. It's not hard. Yes, we have some crappy articles on television, but this does not seem to me a necessary flaw. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:23, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Once again we're back to a distinction without a difference. We both want concise plot summaries, and we both want high quality articles. Everything else is just a reasonable disagreement about how to achieve that. So let's keep playing with tangible, concrete proposals for the notability guidelines, and put them to an RFC. We don't vote at wikipedia, because it's not a democracy. We discuss. Randomran (talk) 02:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
(redent)It's too bad for the inclusion side that readers can't vote, because they like a lot of our non notable fiction articles. I've seen top 50 in readership articles deleted and it's too bad no one on the strict notability side will even consider how they use and feel about wikipedia. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:20, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
←What makes academics distrust Wikipedia is not our coverage of popular culture. What makes them distrust it is, first, our low quality articles on subjects of more conventional academic concern, and second, that we do not have conventional editorial reliability. That second point we can never do anything about, as long as we keep to the fundamental principle that all editors are equal.; those looking for quality-controlled material will always have to use other sources. The first one, of course we can. But our unconventional method of quality control by group editing really applies only to those subjects which attract a large number of knowledgeable editors, and the popular culture and fiction articles are among them. In comparison to other sources, this is one of the fields we do best. Those academics who trust us at all, turn to us for exactly this sort of subject. I don;t see how lack of notability for subjects we cover enters into our reputation very much. Indeed, a principal reason why people use this, academics included, is the extremely wide scope of our coverage: if you look something up--anything at all-- you will find information about it. People should be able to look up the most obscure character in a fiction, and find some information about it. DGG (talk) 12:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
The only point where notability (more specifically, what our inclusion guideline is) comes into the quality of WP as a reference work is that without a limit on what we include, it becomes very difficult to maintain. However, you are absolutely right on the last point. Redirects and disambiguations are cheap, so even if someone comes to look up a term that no way will ever have its own notability via secondary sources, they will still find that term discussed in the context of a larger, notable work. Obviously, how much is talked about that term is released to what sources there are, but that is more a content issue than an inclusion issue. --MASEM12:42, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Links to userspace essays
Latest comment: 16 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
If these are "good enough" to link, why are they in userspace? Where's the selction criteria that says these people's essays are important enough to link here? It's sub-optimal to place something on the guideline page that may require "less consensus." If someone wants to move these into W-space where they can be freely edited* then there may be some debate about their inclusion but as it is the premise is untenable. - brenneman03:43, 3 July 2008 (UTC) * I know they "can" be edited now despite being in user space, but in practical terms that does not happen.
The short answer is: it is the users' preference that they stay in the userspace. If you want me to copy both of them into the mainspace, and thus create forks, I am happy to do so, but that seems to be a waste of effort. These two essays are no less useful for being in the userspace (and the links have been here for a long time). If you don't like them, you don't have to click on the links. UnitedStatesian (talk) 02:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm with US on this one. Wikipedia Notability has its strengths and weaknesses, and these essays are useful in wrapping your mind around the issues. Also, the UncleG essay has a significant role in the history of the whole concept.--Kubigula(talk)03:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Latest comment: 16 years ago227 comments26 people in discussion
Proposals
Much was discussed last year. What is it that you specifically object to or what types of articles does WP:N preclude which you would prefer to include? --Kevin Murray (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
NOTE precludes articles on fictional characters that people deem notable in AfDs based on "I know it when I see it." It would be nice if a certain number of trivial references could add up to notability. That would help out characters who make many appearances, but the articles are about the comics or episodes they appear in, not about the character specifically. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 20:26, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
This is an interesting proposal that I'd be willing to hear out. Right now, the guideline says that anything without significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject are not notable. Significant is defined as more than trivial, but less than exclusive. How many less significant or "trivial" references (e.g.: just someone who mentions the character by name, maybe in a plot summary, but without any further detail or analysis) do you think would make something notable? I'm not asking for a precise number, but more asking you to try to articulate your gut feeling about something that you feel is notable, but would be rejected by the current GNG. Randomran (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I tried to sell this concept last year but failed to get it included in WP:N, but I have had reasonable success with the concept at AfD. Writing a guidline that doesn't open the door to a plethora of trash will be tough but not impossible.--Kevin Murray (talk) 20:44, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Ignoring that it's not a generic guideline, what this suggests is that "Major and minor/reoccurring characters in a notable serial work (tv show, comic, etc.)" should be considered as this type of notability. At least, as I'm reading these responses. Mind you, it would be nice to generalize that if we can avoid a separate guideline but we may not be able to. --MASEM20:51, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Trivial - Moi?Like Masems proposal for non-notable lists, I don't think criteria for inclusion based on trivial sources will be the least bit popular: there are no editors who would ever admit that their contributions are non-notable or trivial, anymore than they would admit to, say, plagiarism or clubbing baby seals. However, this proposal does provide me with a useful idea: why not have a guideline called WP:TRIVIALSOURCES which would provide guidance on what are condsidered to be trivial sources and how to avoid them? I think this would be a practical application of this idea. As regards what is trivial and what is not, this is a very subjective concept like Wikipedia:Importance, which was dropped in favour of WP:N because it was thought to be too judgemental in approach. As regards the effect of this proposal, I see no benefit. Readers notice when articles are sourced from trivial sources, and prize reliable sources not just for content but for research purposes. If articles were sourced from trivial sources, there would always be the temptation to replace trivia with reliably sourced content or merge the article with a more notable subject. One clever thing about WP:N is that it marks the end of the line in terms of quality; its not a minor stop along the way to a good article.--Gavin Collins (talk) 13:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the late clarification. Basically, the concept behind notability is useful because it gives us a relatively objective criteria by which to judge articles. One of the places it fails us is with regard to fictional characters, which frequently fail NOTE while editors deem them worthy of an article when an AfD comes up. Take a character from a long running TV show like Friends or Buffy. Although secondary sources may not write articles about the character, there are hundreds of articles about the various episodes they appear in. When combined, they provide more than enough references to write an article, even a Featured level article, but the article still fails a strict interpretation of NOTE. Allowing a bunch of small refs to add up to notability would be one way keep the criteria objective, while also creating a guideline that is more in tune with what general editors do. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:43, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
(EC)I actually see this as a great answer to the specific discussion we were having in Paladine. I can find several "tiny" references to the character but no "one big source" that you were arguing for. This would allow the article to stay displaying several trivial citations. I don't see an issue in calling a citation trivial, it's done right now (only in a much more belittling manner, as if they don't mean as much ). I see this being a nice equalizer. An example (Please put aside WP:BIO#Athletes for this), I couldn'r care less about sports, doesn't interest me. So, to me, the idea of a sports figure getting an article simply because they are a sports figure is, quite frankly, stupid (at least win an award). That does not mean that the subject is not notable to someone, just that it's not notable to me. Even if they were written up in some obscure, but important, trade magazine I can dismiss this as not notable - "if they aren't in Sports Illustrated then they can't be that notable". Allowing for the use of less than internationally renowned sources would give more stability to these and other articles. Padillah (talk) 13:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
The problem with most of the trivial sources cited in the article Paladine, and indeed with trivial sources generally is that they are questionable at best or fail other guidelines, such as WP:SPS and WP:V. The article now cites one reliable source, but that is Italian, and no translation has been provided as required by WP:V, so technically notability is still unproven. It seems to me that to draft a clause within WP:N to accomodate trivial sources without conflicting with other policies and guidelines would be a complex and verbose undertaking. By contrast, GNC are simple and easy to understand. As regards WP:BIO, I agree with you on this point about having articles about athletes such as Ashley Fernee make no sense, but I don't think anyone could disagree with such infomration being rolled up or merged into a list such as List of Adelaide Australian rules footballers.--Gavin Collins (talk) 15:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I propose that WP:GNG explains that more specific guidelines are allowed to define what kinds of sources assert notability. This reflects the current practice. Allow me to explain. NOTE is based on significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. When we think of sources, we think of journals, books, academic articles, and so on. But we also have WP:MUSIC that says notability can be asserted from sources such as having a certified gold record in one country, or charting a hit on a national music chart. These are really just an extension of "reliable independent secondary sources" for the purposes of notability. I think if WP:GNG were to clarify this point, then a WP:FICT guideline could focus on the kinds of reliable independent secondary sources that could assert notability for characters, episodes, and locations. This isn't really a change to the current guideline so much as a reflection of the existing relationship between WP:GNG and the specific notability guidelines. Randomran (talk) 20:48, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
(Having lurked for a while viewing all of the conversations...) This is how I've always viewed the subject specific notability guidelines. I don't think they exist to somehow "subvert" WP:N but to clarify them in the context of their subject. Like Randomran said, WP:MUSIC says that notability can be asserted by a having (verified/verifiable) gold record. WP:BK has, for example, a criteria about awards, etc. I don't view these criteria as a contradiction to the GNG, but rather how to interpret the words "independent", "reliable", "sources", etc in the specific subject field. WP:NUMBER, for example, clarifies what sources can (or should) be used to assert notability for a number or class of numbers (like the Smith numbers, which admittedly needs more sources, or the Bell numbers). So, contrary to what has suggested elsewhere, in my mind this isn't a case of "GNG and a subject specific guideline" vs "GNG or a subject specific guideline" as (if they are correctly written), the subject specific guidelines won't be contradicting GNG. Your mileage may vary however. (Now back to lurking...) --Craw-daddy | T | 21:25, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I think this is something I can get behind as well. It allows the subject matter experts to determine the extent of notability. Where I see an issue cropping up is when a subject crosses boundaries. For example, when a video game is made into a movie. Do the movie reviews get to be used by the VG editors as reference to allow the creation of fancruft articles? I think it's this type of crossover that is at the heart of the NOTE#FICT debate. Padillah (talk) 19:12, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the support. I definitely see issues cropping up, but that's step #2. Step #1 is clarifying how WP:N works with more specific guidelines. After that, we can figure out the specific notability guidelines. Randomran (talk) 19:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Me personally, no amendments. Only clarifications. But in abstract, as many changes and proposals as possible. Let's find out what the consensus actually is, instead of speculating about it. It's not just that people disagree about WP:N. It's also that people have different understandings of WP:N as it is now, since it's not 100% explicit about everything. If all we do is clarify WP:NOTE and establish that it has a consensus, then it will allow other subjective specific guidelines to move forward with that assumption. Right now, discussions are stalled because there are people who don't even agree with the general guideline, so how can they give an accurate assessment of the specific guideline? Randomran (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
In general, this is fine, but already can be implied through WP:V and WP:RS - we use the best sources possible for the topic area for verification; however, there's absolutely nothing wrong in the general idea of including provisions that what make good secondary sources for a topic can be defined in subguidelines/projects.
The concern I have is that when this is applied to fictional elements, even with lax standards, secondary sources simply don't exist for the bulk of these works that other editors are demanding we retain. I am presuming we are not going to weaken RS and allow forum, blogs, and wikis to satisfy secondary sources, and when you take that out for many works of fiction, the work itself may be notable but nothing else about it is, no matter how lax you go with secondary sources. One point that I remember being made during FICT's rewrite was that this appear creates a bias on "popular" works of fiction where numerous sources exist to show notability for nearly every element of the series, but less popular works have little-to-none coverage of anything beyond the work itself. We have to admit that bias exists - we can only write as well as the sources allow us - but be aware that this provision alone won't likely satisfy those that want larger coverage.
Basically, we need to make sure that we don't end up treating notability as a game: people that want to keep an article find barely non-trivial references, and others tear those down as being trivial or non-coverage. Are we trying to make notability shown by having a minimum number of non-trivial mentions in secondary sources, or are we trying to have notable topics show they are significantly covered in secondary sources (which is a more strict point that the first)? I would think the latter is the point we want, but to me, going down the path of loosening what are secondary sources seems contrary to this. Again, I'm not saying this is a bad point to include, but there are several ramifications that need to be considered as a result. --MASEM14:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that's something that would have to be resolved with discussion at WP:FICT. WP:MUSIC says that a song is probably notable if it's covered by multiple notable artists. It says that an artist is probably notable if they've been the subject of a 30+ minute broadcast. That blurs the line between primary and secondary, and really relaxes the "independence" requirement. But it offers a way to show that an "element of music" is notable that's based on objective evidence, rather than subjective opinion. You're right that no matter what we decide, there will be a lot of people who end up unsatisfied. But the problem now isn't a lack of satisfaction. The problem is a complete lack of understanding. At least 25% of the people at WP:FICT said "WP:NOTE doesn't have consensus, so I'm not gonna listen to it." Let's find out if they're right. Is WP:NOTE a good guideline? And if it is, whose interpretation is correct? If it isn't, what needs to change? Let's establish a consensus over WP:NOTE, and the other guidelines will fall into place. Randomran (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As I noted in WP:FICT (and, now, below) this is what I wasenvisioning. The GNG would tell us what we need to do (we need to establish true notability, not just flash-in-the-pan gossip). Then the specifics would be handled by the specific article (WP:FICT, WP:MUSIC...). In defference to something Masem "said", I think the GNG should establish the base-line of notability and the ability of the SNG to declare, through consensus, a criteria notable. In other words we should do what we can to eliminate "barely" notable. If something is notable, then it IS notable. There should be no degree, no possibility to be "argued out of notability". padillaH(review me)(help me) 12:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
(I was asked to re-post this here. Originally from WP:FICT)Randomran, you said something that made me think:"...it's unclear if the specific guidelines can literally make up their own contradictory version, or if they can only clarify and apply the general guideline..." The phrase "Clarify and apply" struck a chord, I think that should be the exact application of the specific guidelines. WP:NOTE says there must be multiple reliable sources to establish noteability. Then WP:MUSIC says a gold record can be considered a reliable source. One says what is generally being looked for, the other specifies what they consider notable in that particular field. padillaH(review me)(help me) 12:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the support. I think that's a good phrasing too, although we'd obviously work out a consensus on that too. I think this would give some parameters for specific guidelines to work with -- WP:FICT, WP:EPISODE, and so on. Randomran (talk) 13:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
wait.... you're missing one key word in that, "multiple, reliable, secondary sources" i think is one of the key issues here though too. will we be leaving that out? -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria18:16, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Good question and I don't know. This isn't a final draft or anything. It's just an overall approach for the proposal. The exact wording would need to be worked out on a trial basis, with some room for revision to avoid stupid exploits. Randomran (talk) 19:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Of course we're free to state opinions at wikipedia. But the only ones that matter are backed up by actual evidence or reasoning. Care to turn this into a productive discussion? Randomran (talk) 20:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
If you would like to have a productive discussion that is consistent with encyclopedic tradition and that does not overly restrict our coverage of human knowledge and benefit as reference tool, then sure. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!20:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
You haven't proposed to do anything but abolish the notability requirement, a proposal that has been emphatically opposed time after time. If that's all you have to offer, then I'm afraid this discussion won't be productive. Randomran (talk) 20:49, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
We should consider all options. And like I've said before, I will be okay with any guideline that allows for titular weapons and characters that have also been made into toys to be unambigulously kept. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!20:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough. So take a step back. Before we get back to discussing WP:FICT, it would be helpful to discuss WP:NOTE. If you look at my proposal, you'll realize that it makes your proposal for WP:FICT theoretically possible. My proposal deals with coverage: it says that subject specific guidelines can explain what kinds of coverage constitute notability. So, in theory, toys could constitute coverage that assert notability. Being in the title could be considered coverage that asserts notability. That's step #2, though. Step #1 is to say that the specific notability guidelines can define coverage. That will give us common ground for discussing WP:FICT. Randomran (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
If something like User:Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles/Weapons of Gears of War is passable, then that is what I am after. A quick glance at the article may make one think it is a mere list, but since the AfD, an article appeared in Electronic Gaming Monthly that discusses out of universe information about some of the weapons and two of the weapons have been into a lifesize replic and action figure accessory (not to mention upcoming appeareances in Gears of War 2 and coverage in at least three published strategy guides (citing strategy guides does not make us one). Such information beyond the game is referenced in the article and can be expanded on. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Like I said, that's something that has to be discussed at WP:FICT, let alone the individual AFD for the weapons of gears of war. The proposal I've offered is neither exclusive nor inclusive. It's really just a set of parameters that helps us start from a common assumption: that notability requires coverage of some kind, but specific guidelines can explain what kinds of coverage are appropriate (beyond the general requirement). I can't claim to predict how the specific guideline will go, but perhaps this common ground will prevent people from retreating to the polemic of "only the GNG" versus "ignore the GNG". Randomran (talk) 21:59, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
So long as when it gets to the lower level such articles are not deleted or are not challenged when recreated. In the case of the Gears of War weapons, we have such articles as Dan "Shoe" Hsu, "Weapons of Bodily Destruction: New ways to turn your opponents into unrecognizale piles of meat," Electronic Gaming Monthly 230 (July 2008): 65 and Evan Samoon, "Gun Show: A real military expert takes aim at videogame weaponry to reveal the good, the bad, and the just plain silly," Electronic Gaming Monthly 230 (July 2008): 48 that provide out of universe secondary source commentary on the historical precedents and practicality of weapons that appear in both the first game and the upcoming sequel with comments by the developers, a military adviser and war vet, in addition to the article writers. Not to mention that some weapons are even being made into life size replicas and toys and are also of course covered in great detail in the published strategy guides associated with the games. No reasonable person could possibly claim that multiple reliable primary and secondary sources with out of universe coverage of weapons that appear in two games, as life size replicas, and with toys are not notable and thus it has to be clear that anyone making such a claim will not be taken seriously. --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!08:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
We don't even need to reform or clarify the WP:GNG for that. Anything -- literally anything -- that has coverage by multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject has met the first threshold requirement for notability. Sometimes that includes weapons. Assuming the coverage is significant enough to build a substantial article, you'd be fine. What's really on topic here is whether there are other ways to assert notability that involve a lower threshold test. Randomran (talk) 17:07, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Don't worry so much about my standards. I'm just one person. I might advise you to reduce the amount of information about the weapon abilities and how they work, since it verges on excessive in-universe plot information and excessive game guide instruction on game mechanics. Also, I've been told that the "planet" subpages of gamespy are not considered reliable sources. Sometimes articles meet notability requirements, but after dealing with WP:NOT and WP:V they become merge candidates. See List of Halo vehicles. But again, that's just my experience. Even the most precise guidelines require some interpretation. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. Randomran (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Doesn't bother me ... if you hold to the idea that a subject specific guideline exists to clarify and elucidate the GNG, then a subject specific guideline that tried something like "All people named Smith are inherently notable" would be invalid, which is what I'm trying to say anyway. I do think that something like my proposed wording should be there just to be explicit: the GNG holds, in that multiple third-party sources are required, and the subject guidelines cannot waive that requirement, while they may provide guidance on what sources count. Kww (talk) 20:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm proposing. The wording will need some work. But I think you basically understand it. Frankly, I think your wording was pretty good! Randomran (talk) 21:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
The proposal I like the most. It works towards resolving the "sub-notability guidelines vs. NOTE" problem that has been brought up. Kudos to Randomran for his attempts at compromise throughout these discussions also. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)08:40, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to see a provision where notability can be established by whether our article can answer a notable curiosity. This would allow us to use information which meets the requirements of WP:V and WP:OR to answer logical curiosities where interest in the answer is likely to be widespread. Clearly the answer would have to be documented with references to independent verifiable sources -- but this would open the door for notable article where only primary source materials are available. --Kevin Murray (talk) 20:53, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the idea is confusing. It is hard enough to explain yet alone try to write a guideline. I often run across articles on journalists or writers at AfD, where it is argued that nobody has written a comprehensive book or article about them. But we see their names everywhere on article and in blogs, and they are cited in many places including our WP articles. I would at least like to have a WP stub that tells us who they work(ed) for, academic affiliations, and a list of publications. All these things can typically be found through verifiable primary resources. It doesn't give much, but it can be a starting point for our readers to do further research and interpret a variety of sources which we can't use. I can't use a book jacket at Amazon as a reference for WP, but I can link to it and let the reader determine the validity. I can't quote from the subject's website, but I can send the reader there to make their own assessment. --Kevin Murray (talk) 22:38, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Would another example be NASA missions? Let's be honest, the only real source for infromation about the Mars Rover is NASA. Which kind of makes it a primary source that fails WP:N, but there's no reason to doubt NASA and it does answer very valuable scientific questions so it's worth the technicallity. Padillah (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to see a separate class of notability allowing what I call "soft redirects" where there is a brief page to describe why you are being redirected and to where. These could also be modeled after a disambiguation page, where the topic is pertinent to more than one redirect. I think that these would have to be protected in an established format to keep them from becoming POV magnets etc. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:17, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Here is an example of a protected soft redirect: Napolean Solo
Interesting, it's like an alternate variation on using redirects to non-notable lists of characters, except that each character (or element) is brought to its own page with minimal details about it. Yes, they would definitely need indef protection to keep them clear of OR/POVness. --MASEM22:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
this idea though, like the non-notable lists, doesn't actually fix any problems though. If we can have a special class of non-notable articles which force stubs, then what's the difference in having the fuller three-paragraph article anyways? The notability issue isn't really fixed. At any rate, if that single sentence was all that could be said about the subject, a redirect to a list is the current practice which has the same effect. All this would do is add red tape with the sprocting and bureaucracy of an as-of-yet unformed committee. WP:CREEP -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria18:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
We need to have clear guidance if notability needs to apply to every article (including articles that come out due to WP:SS) or if it is applied to a topic which may be something covered across several articles, some limited types of supporting articles lacking their own form of notability (eg, specific, is a list of major characters w/o their own notability fine as part of coverage of a notable work of fiction?) I know, this is one of those areas that FICT got dinged at by those wanting stronger notability guidelines, but NOTE is presently not clear on this, and it needs to be more explicit. --MASEM21:33, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I think WP:AVOIDSPLIT squashes that question. That said, I'd be comfortable with a FICT guideline that says a *list* of characters is notable if the fiction itself is notable. But that could only be determined by consensus. Until then, I'm enforcing the GNG as is. Randomran (talk) 21:37, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Even AVOIDSPLIT is passive in that the final advice does not exactly answer the question "are split-off articles required to be notable"? I don't strongly care which way it is taken, but this has been a key point that was argued back and forth in that there is conflict between how this and NOTE interact, and thus should be resolved if we are talking a new proposed version of NOTE. --MASEM21:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it's pretty clear that a topic has to demonstrate its own notability to justify a split. Are you proposing that we change this? It would be a perfectly legitimate proposal. Randomran (talk) 21:50, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm only suggesting changing NOTE to be specific about this point, whether it is or isn't a requirement for split-offs (I don't have a good handle on what that consensus is, my guess is that it's generally "split-offs are required to be notable") --MASEM21:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
Articles that concern fictional characters or weapons that appear in multiple works of fiction (films, video games, television shows, and or toys) are notable, because of the millions of fictional characters and weapons only so many have actually appeared across multiple media. So, any notability guideline to actually reflect what the article creator, writers, and readers want would allow for say video game weapons that are titular weapons and that have been made into real life replicas, or characters who also have been made into toys. It is unreasonable to claim these exceptions are not notable. So, again, what I suggest we indicate as notable characters or weapons are those that share the name with a major work of fiction (like say the Soul Calibur sword), those that appear in multiple media (like the BFG from Doom in the game and film), are those that appear as special controllers (like the Resident Evil 4 chainsaw), those that appear as toys or also in comics, etc. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!22:36, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm uncomfortable with asserting notability purely through primary sources, even if those primary sources are across multiple media. That's because everything within the primary source becomes notable. Not just the plot, characters, and setting, but every person, place, or thing. Every single article of clothing would be worthy of their own article because they would have appeared in multiple primary sources across multiple media. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more than a prolific creator to prove notability. Don't get me wrong, you're welcome to propose this guideline, but I'll reject it strongly. Just my two cents. But I'll make it count. Randomran (talk) 01:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm comfortable with it as that's what the original encyclopedias did. We are a paperless encyclopedia with thousands of editors; we can afford to cover these things and notability should not be the basis of inclusion and I'll reject any proposal that prevents such articles as those I'm referring to. Best, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!02:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Chances are you'll extract more consensus by showing a willingness to accept proposals other than your own. But you're entitled to try. Who knows? Maybe you have more support than both of us know. Randomran (talk) 02:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Masem's proposal that exemption from WP:N should be given to supporting articles lacking their own form of notability, such as characters of unproven notability as part of coverage of a notable work of fiction, there is a combined problem with WP:AVOIDSPLIT and WP:POVFORK that only reliable secodary sources can resolve. For instance, The Terminator character played by Arnie has been split a few too many times into multiple articles: Terminator (franchise), Terminator (character) and Terminator (character concept). Clearly these articles more or less address the same topic matter, but only reliable secondary sources can determine which is suitable for inclusion. If we relaxed WP:N, I think we would see many more articles supported by primary sources, but which essentially cover the same notable topic. In this instance, WP:N acts as a common sense check on when it is appropriate to split an article, and it is difficult to see how the guideline could deal with the issue of redundant duplication, without having to resort to a set of complex and verbose rules. I think we should stick to WP:N, because it is the Best, Least-complex, Unbiased Equivalent (BLUE) of notability.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Could we assert that you can't split an article that's already been split? Terminator (character) is a child of Terminator (movie) so you'd have to provide valid reasioning to split the other articles from the parent Terminator (movie) aricle. This might help with the proponderance of split articles that end up with circular support. Padillah (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Padillah, that would likely just be fuzzy anyways b/c then people would argue whether their article was a child of the main topic or a sub-topic.
Gavin, actually, because your example (and your argument) is about redundancy, it has nothing to do with NOTE. We already have a great content guideline that says those Terminator articles are out of hand - WP:SS. NOTE should never be used for content issues, and i think this is where the divide between inclusionists and deletionists begins. So in essence, b/c articles like you mentioned are a result of a misapplication of WP:SS and not WP:N, a laxer approach with WP:N is not really causative of crazily split/over redundant articles. You know, i think that's where we aren't seeing eye-to-eye. We both agree there are some crappy articles out there. While you (i mean a collective you) believe that misapplying or ignoring WP:N causes articles to be written full of original research and extraneous info (read WP:IINFO), i (maybe we) believe that the misapplication really happens with WP:SS and when to split. I fully support the "look everything over to make sure you really need to split" mentlity that WP:SS puts forth. But when there is pertinent, verifiable information that could reasonably be put into the parent article save for lack of space, i feel like a strict GNC is counterproductive to becoming a truly comprehensive encyclopedia. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria19:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually WP:SS does not give any indication of which Terminator article is redundant and which is not. If you think about it, someone has to form an opinion as to which one is a notable topic worthy of an article, but that someone can only be a reliable secondary source. So in answser to Zappernapper, only the reliable secondary sources required by WP:N can determine whether a topic is a content fork or not. --Gavin Collins (talk) 21:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I think this is an important issue. Our notability guidelines essentially mandate that we evaluate notability on a per-article basis, which at times is extremely undesirable. It makes more sense to treat certain articles as extended components of their parent articles. Editors seem have become comfortable with the idea of applying different standards to lists, even when they technically (and often blatantly) don't meet our notability standards. (List of bridges is most certainly not notable; neither is List of Harry Potter characters. There are many other examples.) But looking for "list of" in an article's title is a poor test; hence we end up keeping bad lists while deleting good plot summaries and what not. Admittedly, it's hard to define what a good test would look like, but IMO it should center on whether a page has a strong child-parent relationship with another article, and whether the notability of the parent article is great enough. List of bridges is strongly associated with the parent Bridge, which is a subject of very high notability. As it is now, our notability guidelines don't acknowledge these important exceptions. — xDanielxT/C\R22:57, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we should take advantage of the linking characteristics of a web-based format to do this and keep the parent article more manageable, but establishing notability for each component stands in the way. I've seen logical splits end up in AfD, which has cused lost info. or recombining. Though one problem I see is that splitting up controversial articles, makes the small articles targets for special interest cabals. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:47, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm uncomfortable with giving a free notability pass to any article that can demonstrate a relationship with a parent article. We'd have to reign this proposal in. WP:FICT tried to do this by letting lists of characters piggyback on the notability of the fiction that they are from. But this proposal has been rejected so far. So we're back at the general notability guideline of reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject. Randomran (talk) 02:06, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
No, it's not a problem for a comprehensive reference guide to do that. The problem that I have is that I am increasingly seeing some actually dismissing reliable secondary sources even in AfDs, so we need to prevent that as much as possible. Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!02:25, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that a piggyback-esque system contains a lot of potential for abuse, but we could give careful consideration to both the strength of the association and the notability of the parent article. The standards would need to be looser, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing -- en-wp seems to have become far more bureaucratic than it ever intended, to the point where AfD is mostly just a matter of scrutinizing sources (and little else) and debating policy interpretations. Most other large wikiprojects are far more discretionary, and it seems to work effectively. — xDanielxT/C\R04:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
We can keep the rule simple and still be precise. WP:MUSIC does this by having specific rules for songs and albums, rather than having a blanket piggy-back rule for anything associated with a band/artist. Randomran (talk) 04:51, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree that this movement toward specificity is a Good Thing, and if carried out effectively, would at least mitigate these WP:N problems. What I don't like about previous work in this area, i.e. the recent developments around WP:FICT, is that they've been guided primarily by the existing (and general) notability standards, as opposed to pragmatic notions of what's most favorable -- hence the flaws, in particular the per-article assessment problem, have for the most part just been propagated. — xDanielxT/C\R09:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Not technically my proposal, but Masem and Percy Snoodle and a few others have worked on a proposal called WP:POSTPONE. Basically, it would allow an AFD discussion to be postponed until more evidence had been gathered. Even though this isn't directly related to WP:N, I think it might actually solve a lot of problems with WP:N. I hear a lot of people saying that WP:N isn't bad in of itself, but that it's often abused in AFDs and used on articles that haven't had a fair chance to be worked on. I basically support it, although I think it needs work. Just wanted to put it out there. Randomran (talk) 22:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Outstanding idea! I think that WP:N and the deletion process must be considered together. Logistics and enforcement are a concern, but the concept is great! --Kevin Murray (talk) 06:09, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I view WP:POSTPONE as a trojan horse designed to frustrate the AfD process by taking away the decision to keep or delete an article from a consensus achieved through discussion by giving the power to supsend discussions to a sub-set of editors participating in the debate who are against deletion. My view is that userfication is the appropirate mechanism by which editors can take the intiative to rewrite or re-source articles which are deletion candidates, not disruption of the AfD process. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the guideline as it stands now is too weak and watered down. It should really make clear that, firstly, no number of trivial mentions or name-drops confer notability, regardless of what or where. Secondly, it should reiterate the prohibition from verifiability against articles which have no reliable, third party sourcing. And thirdly, while we certainly need to go back to requiring significant coverage in multiple independent sources, we should clarify that this does not mean "two such sources mentioned it"—if we were going to write an article from only two such sources, those two had better be very reliable and in-depth. Finally, it should be made quite clear that it applies to every article, every time, and that "spinoff" articles must assert notability of their own subject. If they can't, and the parent article is becoming bloated with information about it, it's time to trim, not to split. Quality control is important, and as the number of articles we have grows, we must make sure that any article we have has the potential to be excellent. The way we do that is by ensuring that we have sufficient sourcing to write from. It is verifiable that a subject is notable. Have reliable sources, that aren't affiliated with the subject and don't have reason to promote it, actually taken significant note of it? The answer to that question tells us whether the subject is notable or not. SeraphimbladeTalk to me09:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I think Seraphimblade's statement make a good argument for keeping WP:N as it is or improving it so that it clear and more succinct. An article that cites reliable secondary sources that provides non-trivial real-world article content is the bare minimum should expect, why should we settle for less?--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Seraphim's argument is good for keeping things the way they are, or making them more strict. however, their views do not reflect the way wikipedia has been operating, or is currently operating. The requirement that the ref must be very in-depth would throw out thousands of articles on flora and fauna, religous figures, astronomical objects, etc. Heck, we have BOTS writing some of these articles. I'm not saying i personally approve of articles like the Bunyoro Rabbit or Shri Kirtiyash suriji, but I am saying that this guideline needs to reflect a consensus of what wikipedians actually do in their efforts to build an encyclopedia. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria19:31, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I will add that we need to consider as much consolidation of notability subguidelines as possible (a point others have stated, but lets clearly add it here). I don't think they are going to go away unless the GNG is made policy, as while there is leaway in how to interpret notability, editors will wikilawyer over this, and the subguidelines help to prevent constant battles. However, the number we have now is probably too many. I know there have been efforts to consolidate before here, but if we are reconsidering all ideas, this is another one to add. As Kevin Murray stated in FICT, each of these should be stated as simply as possible, being that notability for topics in that area is either through GNG or a specific list of subjective criteria; any other explanations should be moved to other places if possible. Ideally, we want these to look like our non-free content criteria - a checklist of questions that can be answered yes or no to determine notability. (I am not implying anything, however, that there's a relationship between notability and non-free content, just in case that is presumed.) --MASEM15:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Seraphimblade's statement, but I have a proposal for improving WP:N so that it can be more widely understood and be applied more consistently. I feel that the subject specific guidelines share a flaw about how notability may be presumed in the absense of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, which is probably best illustrated by the stub Ashley Fernee, an athlete about whom nothing has been written but is presumed notable under Wikipedia:BIO#Athletes. The question I have is "In the absence of non-trivial real-world coverage from reliable secondary sources, when can a article or a list be presumed to demonstrate notability?" The General notability guideline suggests that the article Ashley Fernee is of unproven notability. However, what WP:BIO implies, but does not state, is that somehow an athlete inherits notability from participating in a notable sporting tournament even if there is no coverage to provide independent evidence that this is the case. It seems to me that what WP:N is lacking is guidance on general aspect of inherited notability, other than notability cannot be inherited for a short time (i.e. Notability is not temporary). The most widely known discussion on this aspect of notability is WP:NOTINHERITED, which is usually cited in AfD debates. However, behind the subject specific guidelines, there is an implict assumption that it is, and I think this may be area where limits of article inclusion need to be debated and discussed. I propose therefore that we need to have a seperate guideline, such as WP:PRESUME, which goes along the following lines: "In the absence of significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, a topic is presumed to inherit notability from/because/subject to certain sources/reasons/conditions....".--Gavin Collins (talk) 11:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
There's a very subtle difference in this case that is spurred from another comment here or on FICT, but basically, it is not that these subguidelines are prescribing notability be inherience/association, but instead, they are ways to show notability by implicit acknowledgment of a third-party. A profession player is notable not because they gain notability from the team they are in, but by the fact that their athletic skill is sufficiently good as to be have been hired as a pro player by that team; the acknowledgement of the team is the third-party source that the person is notable. Nearly all the other sub-guidelines can be read in that fashion: there is some third-party, whether an awards committee, a sales tracking company, or the like, that says this topic is notable in its field (considering all others like it that are non-notable); it is just that this notability is not always written down in a secondary source. --MASEM12:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Masem, the presumption of notability in the case of Ashley Fernee is much more difficult to establish in the total absence of coverage. Notability, whether it is inherited, presumed or acknowledged is of no use if there is zero coverage on which to base an article; afterall, what is the point of an article if it has no content? I think what Wikipedia:BIO#Athletes does not explicitly state is that by being a professional athlete, you would expect there to be some coverage (e.g. a match report in a local newspaper), but in this example, there is none. In the absence of significant coverage from reliable sources that are independent of the subject, there are lots of problems associated with acknowledging notability, because there is always the risk that this may be mistaken.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:04, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right. to
A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below. Additional guidelines which may prevent a topic from being considered notable are listed in the table at the right.
This clarifies that articles have to always pass the general guidelines, and individual projects cannot write their guidelines to favor inclusion of their material. Kww (talk) 01:15, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
This isn't my understanding. I definitely think that "or" is there because it has consensus. That is, the guidelines offer two different ways to show notability, rather than creating two tests that every article has to pass. But I definitely think this proposal should be put to a wider audience to see if it has consensus. Maybe you're right and I'm wrong. Randomran (talk) 18:00, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I am inclined to agree with Randomran - I do not see specific notability guidelines as an attempt to create alternative definitions of notability. Historically, the GNG is in fact the catch-all general case to deal with the fact that not all individual areas have good guidelines. WP:MUSIC, in other words, has a longer-standing consensus than WP:N. More generally, though, I am inclined to interpret the subject guidelines as "we are pretty confident that if these conditions are satisfied, notability is also satisfied," and thus as a way to protect articles for which notability could be established from deletion campaigns. This is an important function. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I absolutely agree with Kww with regard to abstract subjects such as fiction, as GNG is the only inclusion criteria that can be applied where the only evidence of notability is reliable secondary sources. For real-world subjects, such as people or objects which can be observed, there may be other criteria that could be used to provide evidence of notability, such a painting being in a museum. As yet I have not discovered a secondary source to support or clarify these viewpoints, and the concept that notability can be inherited, presumed or acknowledged in absence of reliable secondary sources is debateable. However, I support this proposal in principal because an article that fails to meet GNG is also likely to fail one or more Wikipedia guidelines or policies. I also support it because some editors are trying to obtain exemption from WP:N for their favourite subject areas, such as television episodes. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. The general notability guideline is such a coarse approximation to reality that there will be loads of exceptions which ought to be made, either way. News stories should be subject to more stringent criteria because Wikipedia is not primarily a news service, subjects where reliable third-party sources are harder to come by due to trademark issues need somewhat more lenient standards and accept primary sources if they are reliable. If passing the general notability criterion were to become an absolute minimum standard, people would be using it to delete articles such as CargoNet (only sourced by a company website and a self-published gallery website), and that would be a horrible, horrible idea, even though I only know of one reliable third-party source beyond news items for the subject. Anyone who uses a notability criterion based solely on the sources without also looking at the merits of the subject itself are going to make serious misjudgments. Sjakkalle(Check!)12:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Quite entirely agreed. Passing the GNG should be necessary but not sufficient, in that to be included, an article should pass the GNG and any other content policies. Subguidelines should simply be guides to when appropriate sourcing is likely to be available, never an exemption allowing an article to be written in the absence of such sourcing. SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I would like to explicitly note that sub-articles are treated as sections of the main article and governed by WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V instead of by WP:N. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
This is a good proposal to make. It goes the exact opposite way that Gavin Collins proposal #10 goes: he says notability clearly isn't inherited, while you say it clearly is. I tend to agree with WP:AVOIDSPLIT. But this is a controversial point that warrants clarification. Randomran (talk) 18:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I say notability isn't an issue here - we should treat sub-articles as part of the main article. There's no inheriting of notability, which is a misleading phrase. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I endorse this. When the amount of verifiable information about a topic exceeds desirable page size, sub-dividing is the obvious course. This has nothing to do with "notability" or the inheritance thereof. Such standards cannot reasonably be applied to "Early life of [a person who was non-notable until later life]", for example. — CharlotteWebb18:56, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Support - i think most people who have talked with me know my positions. However to reiterate briefly - content is not judged by notability. Therefore, when the content becomes unwieldly enough that WP:SS/WP:SIZE take effect, the new sections are not to be treated as seperate articles, and notability does not apply to this content. This is not "inherited notability." This is content that had already established enough consensus to remain in the article to the point of splitting - and should theoretically be following all content guidlines as far as WP:NPOV, WP:OR, and WP:V are concerned. "Slippery slope" arguments are technically content related and as such really have no place in notability discussions. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria20:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I largely agree, but I worry about this being a blank check for any article. The definition of sub-article gets fairly tricky. Hobit (talk) 20:19, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Still, for the most part we are successful within articles at pruning back overly long sections. Remarkably, we generally even do so without recourse to hard and fast policy - it's a case where we seem to work successfully based on a generally consensus view of what sane and encyclopedic coverage is. I have a lot harder time thinking of bitterly divisive section-length fights than I do of bitterly divisive inclusion fights. Which makes me think that this is a mechanism we are, in some ways, better equipped to use and handle. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:42, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Support - There's really no argument against this other than opinion (which is a vaiid argument) and many reasons for it. The main ones being millions of readers and thousands of editors support this with their reading and editing. We're not at a sub guide which is overuled by NOTE, so the feelings of readers/editors is what's important. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 06:52, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - Too loose. I can see cases for this, but just generically exempting subarticles from NOTE creates a loophole you could drive a Mack truck through. If you want to explicitly state that in the aggregate, an article and all of its subarticles must rely on independent, third party sources, and that more information in the aggregate article must be derived from independent, third party sources than not, I could support this. Kww (talk) 13:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm not a priori opposed to that, but it seems like a much larger issue than just WP:N, and like something that needs to be worked through within the fundamental content policies, especially since it would have ramifications far beyond WP:FICT. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:11, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Wait, unless I'm misunderstanding you Kww, that's just another way to say "subarticles must provide their own notability" and that's going to cause trouble. No one has answered the question "How do we split articles that are too long if we can't find yet more notable sources for the split information"? I think this is a function of treating splits differently than standard articles. Is there a way we can denote that an article is not stand alone? Something that specifically denotes that this is a seperate page because the main page got too big. I also think that might be a good distinction to make, we are not making another "article" we are simply setting this stuff of on a different page because it doesn't fit on the mian page, this is still part of the single article. padillaH(review me)(help me) 14:57, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
You are misunderstanding me. Let's pretend for a moment that everything is numerically quantifiable, because it makes my point easier to illustrate. Let's say that we had an article about an anime series that had two or three reliable, independent sources, and that the material derived from those independent sources is approximately 10,000 words. That meets notability requirements for having an article, but that article still must rely on independent, third party sources. The most generous interpretation of "relying" on independent sources would say that anything up to 9999 words can now come from primary sources. I don't really care much how it's divided: if it makes sense to put all the third party stuff in the main article, and sub-articles are all primary, or if the main is all primary and the sub-articles are all third party, so long as, in the aggregate, that 10,000:9999 ratio is preserved. Kww (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
OK, let me see if I get this straight. You're saying that we have to make sure this doesn't give people a license to make whatever article they want to if they find a pseudo-parent to call "home". sub-articles must actually be spun-off from the parent article, not simply "related in some manner". If they whole thing was rejoined it must form a coherent and supportable (if not a little redundant due to article completeness) article. If that is what you are talking about than I am all for it, yeah. padillaH(review me)(help me) 17:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
As I said, I am not necessarily opposed to that proposal (the 10k:9999 ratio, or whatever), but I think that it's a more fundamental shift that is better dealt with in WP:V or WP:NOR. I worry that, if made into a universal rule, it could have bad effects on NPOV and undue weight. But I could be wrog - in any case, why don't we first accept to treat sub-articles as part of the main article, and then deal with this issue if primary/secondary weighting in a more appropriate policy page? Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:47, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
It can't be inconsistent. WP:SELFPUB (a part of WP:V) already says that articles cannot rely on self-published sources. If WP:N allows you to spin out content to sub-articles, and those sub-articles are all based directly on the work, then they get deleted per WP:V. Doesn't do any good to modify WP:N to permit them if they just get deleted by WP:V. If you want to have sub-articles, then you have to modify WP:V to treat the whole group as a cohesive mass as well. That both allows them to stay and eliminates giving a free pass to subarticles as a method for editors to subvert WP:N. Kww (talk) 01:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
First of all, a television series on a national network is not self-published. Self-published is not a synonym for primary source. So SELFPUB doesn't even apply to this. Second of all, the policy that does apply, WP:PSTS, has no provision against an article that is primarily based on primary sources. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:03, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Assuming for a moment that you are right, and your proposals passed, what do you see as preventing people from writing an article on every episode of a television series, even if many of those episodes have never been covered by an independent source? Kww (talk) 03:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't see anything as preventing it as such - what I see is this - first, our articles on a topic need to be carefully organized and delineated in a clear tree structure - in other words, it should be possible to fit an article and its sub-articles into a coherent single document that looks like an article, albeit a very, very long one. Given that, I think it's possible to control what gets said about an episode. There seems to be a general consensus that works of fiction should have plot summaries - for a 100+ hour TV show, plot summary is probably easiest handled on an episode by episode basis - if only as an organizational structure. (I'm not averse to other proposals on how to organize the plot, mind you.) We should have basic production information - what actors appeared in the show. Again, episode by episode is probably the easiest way to handle this. We shouldn't have trivia, or interpretations, or speculation. We shouldn't have "continuity" sections except inasmuch as they trace explicit narrative links back or forward to other parts of the plot - and here only as, essentially, organizational tools that help navigate a very long plot. (i.e. "X does Y. This sets up the events of Episode Z"). But this all seems to me non-controversial - it's the level of detail we treat a film with. Why wouldn't we treat a television series, assuming that its notability were established, with comparable detail? Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:31, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Because there generally isn't enough coverage from secondary sources to generate an article at the episode level. With vanishingly few exceptions, individual episodes of television shows shouldn't get articles. Defining things so that editors can declare a series notable based on a handful of sources and then create hundreds and hundreds of articles that are essentially plot summaries and an infobox is unacceptable. It's been a long hard fight to get rid of most of them, and there's no reason to let them come back. Kww (talk) 04:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
So again, why should we cover a notable television series in less detail than we cover film? If a given television show is notable - and I assume you have no doubt that most shows in general are - why wouldn't we base our depth of coverage and expectations on what should be covered on other similar fictional forms? I mean, given the inflexibility of your view, it seems like you think having summaries on an episode by episode level for television is inherently bad. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that covering a television show episode-by-episode is equivalent to covering a novel chapter-by-chapter: grossly excessive in detail, and unsuitable for an encyclopedia. Very few episodes of very few television shows warrant that kind of treatment, which is probably why people have such a hard time finding sources at that level: no one outside of Wikipedia thinks that any individual episode of the average sitcom is worth discussion either. I'm not inflexible on how thing are covered, but I am pretty rigid on the concept that Wikipedia is not a television guide. Your goal seems to be to determine a way around WP:NOT and WP:NOTE so that a detailed summary of every television episode ever produced is in Wikipedia, and that is something that should not happen. If we followed your path, then for a show like, say "Gunsmoke", which ran for 20-some years, we would wind up with 600 paragraphs of plot summary distributed among 500 articles, with maybe 10 or 20 paragraphs of analysis trying to hold the whole thing together. That kind of ratio turns the article group into a plot summary with window dressing. When you can find episodes of a show that multiple independent sources have found worthy of examination, an article summarizing those examinations is reasonable. If multiple sources did not find the individual episode worthy of examination in detail, then the episode is not worth an article. Kww (talk) 13:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
A hypothetical - assume a 100 hour television show that is clearly notable in general, but lacks secondary sources for episodes. It has a continuing serialized plot over its six seasons (i.e. it is not a sitcom) How many paragraphs should the plot summary be? Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
The total length of the plot summary should be significantly shorter than the material derived from secondary sources. If your 100-hour show received such detailed critical analysis as to allow for 2000 sentences of analysis in the article, then maybe 1000 sentences of plot summary. If your 100-hour show generated essentially no critical analysis, then there is no reason for a detailed summary at all ... it may go so low as to be "Tokyo Vice Squad Cop was a drama featuring Ken Watanabe breaking up a different prostitution ring each week." You've started with an assertion that every minute of every episode of every show is worthy of summary, and that's an assertion that I reject as false. I find your assertion that this kind of coverage is expected in an encyclopedia to be not even wrong ... it's just kind of surreal. Kww (talk) 14:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
That's a standard wildly out of line with what we use for other fictional works, such that I cannot see how it has consensus. I suggest you generate a consensus for this new view of how plot summaries should be treated at WP:WAF or another appropriate page, or perhaps WP:NOR, which is our policy on primary and secondary sources. Until this view has consensus, however, it should not be reflected in WP:N. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, it is the consensus. Plot summary on its own fails WP:NOT#PLOT, for without coverage from reliable secondary sources, plot summary is little more a random regurgitation of the primary sources. An article must have real-world content, context, analysis or critisism for it to be encyclopedic, for without them, an article on a particular episode or character is little more that a content fork from the notable over-arching topic. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Baloney! WP:NOT#PLOT says, explicitly, that Wikipedia should have a concise plot summary. Again - for a 100 hour television show that is clearly notable on its own, but that does not have secondary sources for episodes, what is an appropriate length for the plot summary? How do we meet the requirement of WP:NOT#PLOT that says that we will include plot summaries as part of our overall coverage? Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think movie summaries should go into vivid detail either. This is already covered at WPNOT#PLOT. Also, keep in mind that television is just written differently, with slower and simpler plot development. Randomran (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
There's a huge difference, for a 100 hour series, between vivid detail and "fits into a single article." As for the plot development, yes, movies often more faster than television. On the other hand, I am unable to think of any movie with an overall plot as complex as Lost, Buffy, Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, Babylon 5, The West Wing, ER, The Sopranos, Carnivale, Deadwood, or a good host of other shows. Sure, if you want to weigh them minute to minute more happens in a minute of a feature film than in a minute of a television show. But on the whole TV plots are often (not always, but often) enormously complex. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
A lot of those episodes have a lot of side plots and filler stuff about minor characters. They often manage to recap the whole season in a 5 minute clip. I see no reason why we couldn't fit a summary of even 50 hours of content in a single article. Me personally, I would like to see a list of episodes be considered automatically notable for a series with at least 2-3 seasons on a television broadcast, and for a list of episodes *by season* to be considered notable for those exceptionally long series that make it that far. Either way, this is something we'll have to determine by consensus. There are people who are far less flexible on notability. I think that's why we have to be clear on how the notability requirement can be stretched, using the other specific notability guidelines like WP:MUSIC as precedent and evidence that stretching it is completely reasonable. Randomran (talk) 15:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
OK. Here's a challenge then - give me a 32kb summary of any of the shows I listed above in your userspace. Show me this mythic condensed but adequate summary. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:38, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Here's 50 hours of The Wire condensed into ~70k. You won't find a show more complex or intricate than The Wire. And once it went to 5 seasons (~60 hours), they split this list by season. Totally reasonable, and complies with WP:PLOT which says that this is not the place for detailed plot summaries. (Which is to say nothing about transcripts!) Randomran (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
"However, Daniels' suspicions about his other detectives prove correct when a late night foray into the West side projects by Herc, Carver and Prez goes awry." - from the second episode. How does it go awry? What suspicions does this confirm - they're previously only established as concerns about the "quality" of Daniels' team. From the same episode, what is Bubbles's connection to the Barksdale organization? It's not established in the only prior mention of him at all. The next episode refers to "brutal actions," presumably from the foray. But what happened? A few episodes later, the results of a pager are "puzzling." Why? How? What are they? This is a problem throughout these summaries - they aren't summaries, they're teasers that deliberately obscure key information and avoid drawing links of causality that make it a plot. As summaries go, these are garbage. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Randomran on this: less is more in this case. I had a look at one of the episode articles from the Wire, The Dickensian Aspect, and as far as I can see it either fails WP:NOT#PLOT on account of the plot summary being devoid of encyclopedic content, or because the cast & crew information fails WP:NOT#DIR. Basically Wikipedia is not a TV guide, and I don't think an exemption should be given to sub-article to accomodate TV-guide type entries. The episode article needs to demonstrate evidence of notablity, as do the character articles such as Bodie Broadus which fails WP:OR. In my view, these articles lack reliable secodnary sources, and fail other guidelines (not just WP:N) as a result. In my view, reliable secondary sources aren't just a "niece to have" feature of an article; they are a necessity to avoid failing lots of other guidelines as well.--Gavin Collins (talk) 17:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
The summaries Randomran cites as "quality" here are crap summaries that are completely useless for any research purposes. If that's what we're going to keep we may as well just give up on covering fiction at all, because that standard of coverage is a joke. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
You think they're crap. But that's your opinion, and many people would take the opposite view. We also have to be concerned about compliance with WP:V, WP:OR, and WP:NOT#PLOT. That's why this has to be put to the larger community for consensus. Worse comes to absolute worst, there's always google. There are literally hundreds of fan pages for "The Wire" online, and people can discuss every intimate detail of the show there to their heart's content. Randomran (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes. My opinion, as a credentialed and published scholar in the field of popular culture, is that those summaries are a joke, and if that is the standard of coverage that Wikipedia aspires to for fictional articles than Wikipedia may as well delete them all, as if the list of summaries for The Wire is a model our coverage in this area is useless for even rudimentary research purposes. Let me be perfectly clear - no significant policy actually holds that we have to cut summaries to useless jokes. Several policies - WP:NOR among them - in fact pointedly avoid such objections. The compromise position being advocated here is a useless bone thrown by people who are arrogant enough to believe that a glorified version of "I don't like it" dressed up in an utterly pointless concern about sourcing that has no meaning is sufficient reason to overrule the actual concerns of readers who use encyclopedia. Your compromise of lists, if The Wire is an example, isn't worth the !paper it's printed on. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
First, a caution that you are wandering into WP:NPA area when you describe the editors you are talking about as "arrogant" about their "pointless concern". You might want to take a deep breath.
Second, I'm sorry that you don't consider the policies that guide us towards independent sources and away from being TV Guide on steroids to be significant. In fact, they are. Kww (talk) 20:44, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
(Going left) If describing encyclopedic and thorough coverage of fictional works as "TV guide on steroids" while cautioning about personal attacks was an attempt at some form of dramatic irony, I confess, it misses the mark for me. Let me pose another question to you - why do we allow use of primary sources in WP:NOR - and indeed allow it with no explicit restriction on the extent of their use? Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:29, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I see Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources (a direct quote from WP:NOR) as a fairly explicit restriction on the use of primary sources. Doesn't that statement directly imply Wikipedia articles should not rely on primary sources? And no, no irony was intended. A plot summary and an infobox about airdate and casting is not encyclopedic and thorough coverage ... it's one of those big "Featured Program" boxes in TV Guide. Encyclopedic coverage requires analysis, and analysis can't be done with a secondary source. Kww (talk) 00:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Yet if you read he next paragraph, it states "Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. For that reason, anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source." That would be the case with the plot summaries being discussed: all that is required by WP:NOR is that anyone comparing the primary source with the summary would agree fully with the retelling. Plot summaries are very unlikely to fall under NOR, simply because they shouldn't (by their very nature) engage in analysis, and if they do it is no longer a plot summary. Nevertheless, while a plot summary may not be encyclopedic in itself, it provides necessary context for a discussion of secondary sources which may well draw upon the plot. - Bilby (talk) 01:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I read that paragraph, too. I'm not arguing that the plot summary is unacceptable because it is from a primary source. I'm arguing that an article that depends on only primary sources is relying on primary sources, and not relying on secondary ones. A 300 word summary combined with 500 words of analysis is fine, and doesn't violate WP:NOR. 300/300 is pretty borderline, and 300/0 (which is what is being proposed here), is a clear violation. Kww (talk) 01:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
First of all, its not 300/0 - it's "let's count all of the articles that combine to form our coverage of a fictional text together in determining that." Second of all, nothing In WP:NOR suggests to me that the sort of word-ratios you propose are part of policy. Articles must rely on secondary sources - yes. Rely means that they have to use secondary sources. That is synonymous with WP:N, even. But I see nothing in any of these policies that suggests a matter of weighting between primary and secondary. Nothing. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:49, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Word ratios are only one measure, but you are talking such a gross imbalance that the numbers will tell the tale. I said I would support your measure so long as it was explicit that the material coming from secondary sources needed to outweight the material from primary sources. What you seem to be proposing a setup with a parent article which probably has some secondary sourcing, and then several paragraph summaries per episode, with the summaries based on primary sources. Your hypothetical hundred-episode series easily becomes 400 paragraphs of summary and 20 paragraphs of material coming from secondary sources (and that 20 is being generous). An article that is 95% based on primary sources and 5% based on secondary sources is not relying on secondary sources, it's relying on primary sources. I don't think that you can propose any method of analysis that will come to a different answer when the the numerical ratio is that unbalanced. This all reinforces my original reaction ... if you want to do this, you have to do it not only to WP:N, but to WP:V, WP:NOR, and probably others, because even if you modify WP:N to deal with the articles as a group, most of your sub-articles will be shoot-on-sight material under WP:V, because viewed as individual articles, they do not rely on secondary sources. Once you modify WP:NOR to deal with your articles as a group, you are still going to have to deal with the gross imbalance of primary to secondary sourcing. Is there a reason that you don't like IMDB? It seems to be set up to provide exactly what you are looking for. Kww (talk) 02:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
It's an inaccurate piece of shit that doesn't respond with any meaningful speed to errors but introduces them at the drop of a hat? It has no substantial interlinks within a plot, and plots tend to be added as the series airs with no backwards revision such that there's no overall editing for context? I'm still not seeing where your interpretation of ratio weighting comes from. If the article is dependent on secondary sources for substantial and relevant portions, and clearly establishes the existing viewpoints on the topic, it is relying on secondary sources. All rely means is "to be dependent." If NOR meant primarily rely, or be primarily constructed out of, it would say that. It doesn't. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:43, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that I am using rely in a straightforward way. The meaning you want to give it would be equally well served by "An article should contain at least one secondary source". If NOR meant "contain at least one", it would have said that. It doesn't. Kww (talk) 02:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say "at least one." I said "dependent on secondary sources for substantial and relevant portions, and clearly establishes the existing viewpoints on the topic." That's rather different. Rely, in the OED, is defined as "to depend on a person or thing with full trust or confidence; to rest upon with assurance," "with reference to facts or statements," "to rest upon a support." Articles should be substantially supported by secondary sources. But "rely" leaves you miles from any sort of word ratio. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:46, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Let's be clear: I'm not proposing a simple word ratio test, nor do I think that there is a consensus in place to apply one. I can envision articles where more of the information came from primary sources than secondary ones that I would still judge to rely on the secondary sources. What I can't envision is an article that is 95% plot summary, derived from primary sources, that I would say relied on secondary sources. When it gets to that level of imbalance, the article can't be said to rely on the secondary sources any more. Kww (talk) 08:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Would you accept a compromise that recognizes that Wikipedia is a continual work in progress, and counsels the expansion of secondary source material instead of the contraction of primary source material? Because I agree, there are few fictional subjects I am aware of that could not use much more secondary source coverage. But I'm very hesitant to treat it as a sort of "eat your vegetables and then you can have dessert" trade-off. That is, the way to fix an under-reliance on secondary sources is not, ideally, to cut primary source material. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
(ec) Fair enough. :) I guess my concern is simply that NOR doesn't preclude the use of primary sources, even though, as you say, it does restrict them. But that restriction is also not based on extent, but on usage. While NOR has some mention of notability ("If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it"), which makes it clear that there should be some secondary sources, the percentage point you're making, while a valid stance, isn't supported - except, as you mentoned, a 1:0 ratio. (I should add that, personally, I'm not happy with any quantitative method of evaluating content, but I'm a qualitative researcher). - Bilby (talk) 01:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
So we should give your opinion more weight because you're an expert and you should decide the standard. And then you have the audacity to engage in personal attacks by calling editors "arrogant"? Listen, we need to be able to have a civil discussion about this. If the only thing left to say is why your opinion counts and mine doesn't, then all we have left is to take this to a request for comment from the broader community of editors. Randomran (talk) 00:53, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Of course your opinion doesn't count. Nobody's opinion counts. Their arguments count for quite a bit. The problem is that yours are based on faulty premises about the value of compromise, and are based on holding an article - the episode list for the first season of The Wire - as an exemplary standard despite the fact that it is not actually useful for research. And on this point, yes - I do think my experience and use of Wikipedia is valuable and important evidence. I am a professional researcher using Wikipedia as an encyclopedia in this field. Those facts are material to a debate on what to do. This isn't a matter of credentialism in a content dispute. This is a matter of "Look, I am actually the audience and the customer here. Please listen to what I have to say about this." Given that the reaction on your part has been "This is a quality plot summary, and if you disagree that's just your opinion," I would say that my finding your approach to be arrogant is not out of line. The fact of the matter is, you are wrong. The Wire episode list is a bad summary. I can point to specific things it does that are bad, and specific things it doesn't do that a good summary needs to. It is not adequate. That's not an opinion. That's not credentialism. That's me speaking as someone who uses these summaries to do real scholarship - that summary wouldn't do it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:13, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I was using the summary as an example of length. You could fix most of the problems in the summary with a few more sentences and tweaks. It might not have the depth that you like, but that's what fansites and fanguides are for. WP:NOT#PLOT. Randomran (talk) 06:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
As I have said many times, I do not want more depth - I want more context. I want plot threads over multiple episodes to be flagged, and for episode summaries to engage in proleptic descriptions that treat the plot as more than "and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened." I don't want more detail. I want better organization, more context, and clearer explanation. That requires more words, but it doesn't require scene by scene analysis or detailed, fannish summary. Furthermore, there is an issue of social responsibility here. The fact of the mater is, much of the information we delete from Wikipedia isn't duplicated elsewhere, and we take no care to see that it is. It's disingenuous to point to the existence of fanguides when they are, simply put, not adequate substitutes for the information we delete. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Phil, I see where you are coming from: you are using Wikipedia as a research tool for writing papers and essays which synthesize primary sources in order to provide analysis, context or critisism. However, Wikipedia:Researching_with_Wikipedia#Citing_Wikipedia makes it clear that is not customary for researchers to use Wikipedia as a citable source, rather to use it as indirect route to identifying potential source material. By this I mean that I would not write an essay based on the article The Dickensian Aspect; rather I would actual watch the episode myself instead of obtaining information second hand via a plot summary written from the perspective of another editor in order to avoid the risk of plaigarising someone else's commentary. To do proper research, you really have to experience the primary sources first hand in order to form an opinion about a TV episode, and you probably have to watch more than one episode to form an opinion about a series. This is why as a research tool, List of The Wire episodes is actually more useful than the extended TV guide type articles: you get the bare essentials without the second hand plot summary. Where Wikipedia articles shine is where they quote reliable secondary sources, but again, it is always advisable to read the secondary source yourself. However, an article based on primary sources alone will lack the analyis, context and critisism need to differentiate a Wikipedia article from a random regurgitation of primary sources. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I do not "cite" Wikipedia. I use it for background research, to find out if a given text is worth looking into in more detail, etc. Please do not condescend as to try to tell me how to "properly" use Wikipedia in my PhD studies, or to tell me which articles are or are not more useful to me. It's unbecoming to treat me like I'm a high school student learning to write a paper. I know what I'm doing, and I am good at my job. I'm happy not to tell you how to generate financial reports. Please don't tell me how to conduct research into popular culture. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Wow this is an onerous discussion to wade through. neways, Kww, in a section above you seemed to be saying the opposite of what you are saying here. At the most generous a primary:secondary ratio of 9999:1 is still acceptable to you, and you don't care how that information is divided across multiple pages, whether the primary is subarticles and the secondary in the main (or vice versa). So then why would you object to episode pages - SO LONG AS on the main article page there is nontrivial analysis by secondary sources? As has been said before, information being on a different page shouldn't really have any substantive difference. -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria17:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
The coverage from secondary sources has to meet a higher standard than "nontrivial" ... it has to be substantial enough that the the entire group of articles, taken as a unified structure, can be reasonably said to rely on secondary sourcing. I said 9999:10000 (essentially 50/50), not 9999:1, BTW. I think as a rule of thumb, the amount derived from secondary sourcing should exceed the amount derived from primary, although I grant that a numeric analysis is not the best way to judge, and that other arguments about the nature and structure of the information could prevail. Kww (talk) 17:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose as an exemption from WP:N is licence to create a two tier class structure for article quality: the Wikipedia class and the Wookipedia class. I agree with Kww that this proposal is too loose. Also, it does not solve the problem of having multiple sub-articles about the same subject matter, as without reliable secondary sources, it would be impossible to identify which articles are content forks from genuine encyclopedic topics, e.g. which is a valid topic, the Terminator (character), the Terminator (character concept) or Terminator (franchise)? These articles seem to address the same subject, but I think only The Terminator is an article that for which reliable secondary sources can be found to justify inclusion in Wikipeda.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
To be clear, this policy would generally require mergism up until the original article starts to expand beyond the confines of the size limitations. I think it actually would give a very clear sense of what to do with all three articles.
In the case of character concept, the bulk of the article is a messy list of fair abuse with no substantive informative content that could provide useful background research. Shred the entire table at the bottom and you have a few paragraphs, none of which seem to me to provide information that we shouldn't have, but all of which seem to me to have information that would be present elsewhere in the article. So in that case, I think you could delete silly content and merge upwards without trouble - and that doing so actually becomes easier under my proposal because you'd have an actually coherent nested tree of sub-articles and main articles where you could actually start to look at the coverage of the topic as a coherent whole.
Similarly, I think that the character article would run into some major problems because it would have unclear parentage - it's not actually an article about a single character, after all. With no clear sense of where this would fit in in the overall frame of coverage it would be subject to the GNG.
Franchise it seems to me should exist as, essentially, a slightly expository disambiguation page. This is the one case that isn't really well-covered by this proposal, because it's a parent article of questionable notability instead of a sub-article. I'd argue that some sort of disambiguation parent page that lays out the relationship among all of the media is a vital navigational aid, but that this particular page has some serious problems in filling that role. But I think it's a separate question. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
If these articles were exempt from WP:N, editors that would not want a merger would say that Phil Sandifer is an evil deletionist/mergerist who hates useful content, and his views about the articles are just his POV. However, if one of the articles cited reliable secondary sources, you have bona fide evidence that the article would be worthy of coverage.--Gavin Collins (talk) 19:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
What you're saying here seems like a radical strengthening of WP:N, whereby it controls what is worthy of coverage in the general sense as opposed to what is a valid topic for an article. I mean, my question here becomes why WP:N should govern how long a given section of an article should be. That's a dramatic expansion of WP:N from any previous conception of it. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
I think that's the way it's always been. Changing WP:N so that articles can piggyback on the notability of other articles strikes me as more radical. But that's why we need to put this to the wider community, to see which has consensus. Randomran (talk) 20:16, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
For as long as I can remember, one of the mantras of this guideline is that it does not govern article content, just whether an article exists. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:21, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Right. And you're proposing that articles can piggyback on the notability of articles so long as they can show some kind of parent-child relationship. That's a pretty radical change. Not saying you're right or wrong, but obviously reasonable people can disagree about this, and it's exactly why gathering wider community input will be useful (when we get around to it). Randomran (talk) 20:24, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
More accurately, I'm proposing that we treat sub-articles as actually having a branching structure - which we already basically do in our condemnation of POV forks. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds interesting in principal, but in practise the difference between the Terminator articles is very subtle. Can you give me a flavor of how you would do this?--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Strong support. I have seen too many instances of people focusing on the notability of the article title without realizing that a broad topic might have large parts which are entirely valid when viewed in the full context of the main topic, yet fail the strict reading of WP:N. Sometimes these parts are so long that a separate article is desirable for readability. The result of this over-reliance on the guideline is that it is used against valid and verifiable content, to the detriment of providing information to the reader which should be Wikipedia's ultimate goal. Sjakkalle(Check!)11:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)\
Quite strong oppose, either we have the secondary sources or not. We mirror, not second-guess, independent secondary sources. If they chose not to go into minute, episode-by-episode plot detail on a given work of fiction, we shouldn't do it either. And if they did choose to go into such minute detail, the "sub-articles" will stand on their own, citing those sources. It's not our choice to make, just like anything. We don't give things more weight than such sources do, we follow their lead. No exceptions, not for fiction, not for anything. SeraphimbladeTalk to me15:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I can't speak for Seraphimblade, but PSTS mainly focuses on questions of original research (appropriate considering its location). However, it does state: "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources." That seems to echo Seraphim's essential point. Vassyana (talk) 17:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
And I firmly agree, we ought not cover works of fiction unless we can get substantial sourced coverage. But that does not seem to me to be equivalent to a prohibition on substantial segments sourced from primary sources. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
There isn't a prohibition on substantial segments sourced to primary sources. There is, on the other hand, a prohibition on entire articles sourced from primary sources, and that can be found in core policy: "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." If there aren't significant reliable secondary sources on a character, a plot device, an episode, whatever, we should cover that topic briefly in the parent article's plot summary. If that plot summary gets too long, we're probably basing too much of that parent article on the primary source, and it's time to trim. That certainly may mean we have very short plot summaries in some cases. If that's all our unaffiliated sources have chosen to do, we should mirror them, not watch or read the work ourselves and do otherwise. SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
The consequence of that line of thought is that we should devote roughly as many words to a summary of a short story as we should to a 100 hour television serial. That is ludicrous. It is not a matter of what unaffiliated sources have "chosen" to do. When you enter the realm of published secondary sources on fiction you are not heavily constrained not by careful weighing of what is appropriate, but by commercial concerns - what it is profitable to publish and sell. This is a serious problem, and it is a large part of why we are as lax as we are toward primary sources. Simply put, there is no support whatsoever in policy for the claim that we are necessarily constrained to short plot summaries regardless of the length or complexity of the work in question. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Support"sub-articles are treated as sections of the main article" is what we tried to go for on WP:FICT for a while with this version which said "In these situations, the sub-article should be viewed as an extension of the parent article, and judged as if it were still a section of that article." If I'm understanding Phil's proposal correctly, and this is the same concept as before, then it would still allow us to trim/redirect/delete excessive detail, just as we would if it were a section that was a part of a larger article. -- Ned Scott04:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - the ability to give appropriate weight to a subject is determined specifically by the availability of secondary sources to do so. There are cases in which wide consensus has formed for very specific concepts to follow what Phil is proposing (namely episode lists and character lists) that are products of summary style, but this creates an extremely subjective territory into what is actually considered a valid sub-article, and going past the community-sanctioned exceptions (whether they're in guidelines or not) is definitely not the way to go. Sephiroth BCR(Converse)08:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
While I'm not sure I would support this proposal, I'd suggest that we can't rely on secondary sources to denote weight, but instead need to fall back to editorial discression and manuals of style - simply because if we were to rely on secondary sources, articles would be full of scandals or other "popularist" issues, which gain much more coverage in secondary souces than content which we would deem to be more encyclopedic. - Bilby (talk) 08:44, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Comment (Support?) As i say in other discussion i'am primarily an it.wiki editor that use en.wiki to translate page in italian wikipedia. I think that this proposal, with the sub-article viewed as "separate" section for size and usability problem is the more consistent with m:Wiki is not paper. In this definition on meta (that is the definition of all thhe wikipedias, bypassing the local policy of different language edition) under "Organization" is stated clearly that we need a page for the general info about a (encyclopedic) topic with sections to cover subtopic for the user who want more deep coverage of the topic. When this section become too long, they must become separate page, but the page about the topic is defined as "main page" compared to these sub-topic page ("These can start out as section headings and be broken out into separate pages as the main article becomes too long."). The idea is that a topic is notable or not notable, when the topic is notable the organization of it (a long page with many section or a general page with sub-page) only depends on the amount of information for that topic, so you can see [[N-acetylglucosamine-1-phosphate transferase]] as a subtopic of the notable "enzyme" topic, Fernbahnhof Düsseldorf Flughafen as a subtopic of the notable "rail transport in Germany" topic, (9970) 1992 ST1 as a sub-sub-subtopic of the notable "Astronomy" topic, Krusty the Clown as a subtopic of the notable "The Simpson" topic, and Dharma Initiative a subtopic of the notable Lost (TV series) --Yoggysot (talk) 14:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Section break
Support It would be foolish of us to say "this material is allowed if you add it to this long page over here... but it's not allowed to free stand". I'd like to see us adopt a naming convention that shows these episode/character/issue articles are part of the main article. For example something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Episode 1234. (redirects could be offered to keep such things available from obvious names). Would any of the opposed changed to supports if this proposal was coupled with a naming requirement like the one I suggested?--Gmaxwell (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Two things. First, as suggested (invoking "subpages" in mainspace) has been disabled on en.wiki. The second point is that we should try to keep things as transparent to the end user as possible. We should not create a special naming scheme when episode names should rightfully live at their episode name page. If anything, talk page headers may help to indicate a page is a spinout from a more notable page. --MASEM00:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I suspect Greg knows that, as he's a dev. :) They've been disabled in one sense in that the nested heirarchy interface doesn't exist. On the other hand, there is no reason we can't import the basic /naming convention, and this may actually be a useful step in distinguishing these from full-blown notable articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 00:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I knew.. We don't have to have the feature formally enabled. It's only disabled because it had little use in main ns and because it made titles with slashes behave oddly. We wouldn't need to re-enable it, but if we wanted to we could work around or resolve the issues given an actual use for the feature. --Gmaxwell (talk) 04:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
The feature itself is really simple. You can do it in user space, and it's done throughout WP space and others. Just make a page name with a / in it, and it's treated like you'd expect for a heirarchial directory structure. It's just that in main space, you cannot create a page with that (IIRC, the / is treated like a actual title character, and thus not parsed).
I still think, however, that we want to make sure anything we do to id such pages as subsidary to a notable topic needs to be invisible to the reader, beyond the need to disambigate; that's general naming practice, even if the / isn't envoking the sub-directory page structure. All this should be tracked on the talk page (though, however, I can see that one could make a reasonable navbox as well, with all pages linked to be considered subsidary) --MASEM05:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Someone with a better understanding of wiki-history might be able to correct this, but I gather that there was a specific reason why this isn't enabled in mainspace, as per WP:Subpages#History of subpages. The problem has to do with hierarchies vs. poly-hierarchies. This method only enables hierarchies, which makes sense for some data, but is problematic when articles could reasonably belong under several headings. In terms of the source discussion, a character might appear under the TV series, the books, the movie or the comics. While by no means a knock-down argument for the proposal, it is worth keeping in mind that if it was enabled for the specific examples being discussed, it would also be, by default, enabled more generally. - Bilby (talk) 05:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
It's a potential problem for a few multi-media franchises, but generally speaking we have a pretty good sense of what the parent topic area for a given character is. For instance, though more people have undoubtedly seen a Batman film than read a Batman comic, we treat Batman as a comics character first, and a film character second. I cannot, off the top of my head, think of a situation that would be more marginal than Batman, suggesting that this shouldn't be a big deal. It's certainly not a problem with episodes. But for the most part, this should be easy - hierarchy the characters off the main franchise with "in other media" sections as appropriate. Phil Sandifer (talk) 05:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure it wouldn't be a big deal with Batman, although I'd suggest that there are more marginal situations, such as manga/anime and some TV series derived from novels (Blood Ties springs to mind, even though it is a minor example). However, the real issue for me is that opening this up for subpages for the areas being outlined, as a side effect, also opens this up for all articles and topics. It takes Wikipedia from a flat structure using classification to a hierarchical structure, which is a change in direction, and goes against the previous decision to move away from hierarchies. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I figured it was worth revisiting why Wikipedia doesn't support hierarchies in mainspace, in spite of the support provided in other spaces. - Bilby (talk) 06:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
(unindent) While i agree that we should have something saying these are "subarticles of a notable topic", i don't think reopening the subpage heirarchy is a good idea. We already have a general way of doing episodes and other fictional elements, no need to demolish the wheel to make a new one. Why not create more specific language for the templates like {{main}}, {{details}}, and {{further}}? These are already supprted by WP:NC(CN)#Subsidary articles. Or rather, reiterate them by saying, "all subarticles branched off in this manner should have a link at the top refferring the reader to the main page." -ΖαππερΝαππερBabelAlexandria20:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
This is mutually exclusive with both Prop. by Gavin Collins and Prop by Phil Sandifer, who take opposing views over how notability is to be inherited. One says it's never inherited, the other says any sub-article of a main article will inherit notability. Perhaps there is a middle ground.
The proposal is simple:
specific notability guidelines can define what subtopics inherit notability from a main topic. That is, notability is *sometimes* inherited.
To some extent, this might be what we already have now. WP:MUSIC suggests that an *album* may be notable if the artist who produced it is notable. But it doesn't suggest that ANYTHING about a notable artist is automatically notable, such as an article about catchphrases or haircuts or clothing. As it stands now, the specific notability guidelines can declare discriminate subtopics that inherit notability. But they can't just declare that all subtopics related to a notable main topic are also notable. Randomran (talk) 20:45, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Okay, if examples of inherited notability include television episodes (or lists of episodes), video game weapons (or lists of video game weapons), lists of events, and fictional characters (or lists of fictional characters). Sincerely, --Le Grand Roi des CitrouillesTally-ho!21:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
That's something that would have to be worked out at WP:FICT and other specific guidelines. This just offers parameters to work with: that you can't make a guideline where every subtopic is notable, but you can make a guideline where a discriminate subtopic will inherit notability. Randomran (talk) 22:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Support - Who knows what the FICT sub guide will ultimately say, but there has always been a consensus that the sub guides can modify NOTE. p.s. Someone needs to organize these so we can count supports/oposes better. -
Comment what we're dealing with here isn't a matter of inherit notability. Inherit notability is a different concept altogether. -- Ned Scott05:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't agree that notability is or can be either inherited or inherent. Either a subject has been covered or it hasn't. Really, there isn't anything else to it. SeraphimbladeTalk to me17:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
I agree. What I think is more complex is the question of what we should define "a subject" as. I'm not sure "everything with its own mainspace page" is a sensible synonym for "subject" or "topic." Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:36, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Further discussion
Notability is a matter of deciding what material is desired by the community to be in the encyclopedia--it is not an intrinsic property, and the meaning is only in some particular context--our context is whether it is appropriate for an article in this particular encyclopedia. This has nothing to do with whether 2 sources of a particular type should happen to have highlighted it. That's confusing it with V--whether we have adequate sources suitable to the purpose to write an article about. If a fictional character, for example, is important in an important work, it may well be that people think it is appropriate o have an article based on the work of fiction itself. It doesnt matter in any way whether or not it happens to have been written about in secondary sources, as long as we have some means of writing a verifiable article, and think the article is worth the writing. I accept that there is an ongoing question of what fictional characters are worth writing about in a separate article, and there are very widely different views on that. We should therefore discuss it in its own right, not tied to irrelevant criteria about plot and particular types of sources. DGG (talk) 00:15, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
So what do you propose we do with WP:N? What changes would you like to see that can reasonably gain consensus? Randomran (talk) 00:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
To be blunt, I think DGG is wrong, not so much that he people may believe in that sort of real-world interpretation, but because it is the wrong way to go. Material that is desired by the community sounds like Wikipedia:Requested articles, an entirely different animal.
WP:N is about deciding whether sources exist now to write an article now. We want wikipedia to have some degree of reliability, and as we don’t engage expert contributors, our reliability is limited to the reliability of the sources. We don’t decide if the article is worthy based on some intrinsic property of the subject, but on whether anyone else, of sufficient reliability and reputability (ie not myspace, etc) has written about it. A logical consideration of this necessarily means that not just any sources, but secondary sources are required. Someone has to have written about the subject, not just reported or regurgitated data. Going in this direction means that to write an article on any subject, you have to have sources to base your contributions. If you don’t have these sources, then what are you doing? Making it up? Synthesizing original commentary? Perhaps you think and article needs no commentary? Well, to me, that means it is directory information, and probably an original directory too, because if such a directory of data already existed, then it would be best to simply link to it. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I would also disagree with DGG's analysis, as identifying what is desired by the community and what is not desired by the community is either impossible ascertain, or is too subjective a criteria to specify in a guideline. At the moment, we have 3 articles on The Terminator character, but we have the means of writing a verifiable article for 6, 9 or 12 articles on the same subject. I don't see how content forking could be controlled, except by writing an a set of inclusion criteria that have exactly the same effect as WP:N.--Gavin Collins (talk) 10:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I, oddly enough, agree with Gavin 100%. Leaving the whole thing up to "the community" would lead to so much fancruft it would ruin any credibility WP ever had. If that were the case we could get stuck with "the tree in front of the Simpson's house" and we'd have to live with that article. Not the way I see WP going. Padillah (talk) 12:24, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I have to agree. Wikipedia is not a democracy for the exact reasons that we have guidelines and policies that limit what people would otherwise want to do. Just because "enough" people want a POV article about pundits who have compared Barack Obama to a terrorist, it doesn't mean that we have it. Just because "enough" people engage in edit wars to genuinely improve the encyclopedia, it doesn't mean we ignore the 3RR. If the guidelines need an update, they need an update. But the standard required for inclusion isn't "people want it". It's totally circular. Virtually every article that is created is wanted by an interested minority, at the very least. There are rules here, and our foundation comes from the policies set by the founders. WP:N strikes me as a logical outcome of WP:NOT, WP:OR, and WP:V. But if someone wants to suggest an tweak to WP:N that's consistent with policy, I'm willing to hear it. Randomran (talk) 15:31, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
As a food for thought question: The current discussion is basically saying that a topic without any secondary sources should not have an article (hard-nose sticking to GNG); let us assume this stays. What do we do with such topics?
I am getting a very strong read that people want to not even have these covered unless there's third party sources available for it, but in going this direction, I think we're losing the focus of what WP can be. I am not proposing that we give non-notable topics their own articles, but, it is completely reasonable that a user should be taken to an appropriate page of context when they enter a non-notable search term in the search bar to the left; it may be through a re-direct or through a disambiguation page, but the user can identify with what large, more notable topic the term is associated with. This is regardless if there's no third-party or secondary sources to describe that one specific aspect. V and N limit "article topic" issues, and while V says "should" for third party sources within the context of an article, it is important to note that between it and WP:RS give flexibility when the topic matter is not one usually covered in academic sources.
Obviously we need balance this type of coverage against OR, POV, non-verifable information that can typically result when we loosen the sourcing requirement. We don't cover non-notable aspects of non-notable topics. We don't give non-notable aspects a significant amount of weight. Non-notable topics need to be defined in terms of their relevance to the main notable topic. What non-notable topics that are covered should be objective and not subjective.
Remember, we have a good number of editors that are pushing back against pure GNG requirements for notability and want to have things that are non-notable per GNG covered to various degrees. WP's policies and guidelines are built on community consensus, and I'm worried that the direction the discussion is going in is going to disenfranchise their view. If it was only one or two people fighting this point, I'd say they'd be fringe editors, and a blip in overall consensus, but this group is large enough to not be ignorable. --MASEM13:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
But we can't ignore the people who think the WP:GNG is already a low standard. There's a good chance that the people who feel this way are beyond a majority. I'm still concerned about every minority opinion. But people who push for an abolition of WP:N may very well marginalize themselves if they lack the support they hope they have. I've tried to offer several compromises, as someone who basically likes the GNG. But I'd really appreciate more proposed compromises from critics of the GNG. Randomran (talk) 15:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I am in fact going to propose an alternative policy where notability is defined as importance in the RW, or the part of the RW where the material is pertinent, and where sourcing is considered a completely separate issue. I dont want to denigrate the need for sourcing. But we all do agree we do not want to write about everything we can possibly source. The secondary source requirement for notability is a different issue--I accept primary sources for many things, I accept informal web sources for some things. And I'm a realist about it. the rules in Wikipedia are made by the community for its own purposes, where the community means the groups of active editors--the 10,000 or or so people who work regularly at enWP, and those additional ones who will choose to join us. We can have whatever rules we want to have. At least, if we're going to keep Wikipedia as it is we can have whatever rules are compatible with the basic purposes.
I dont think people realise I am not really all that much of an inclusionist, even about fiction. I want to keep this a general encyclopedia, not a conglomeration of purely parochial interests. There is some level of detail which is not appropriate here, because in practice we do seem to be used by the wider world as a standard of the importance of things. We have the obligation to maintain this just as we do to maintain a standard of accuracy and responsibility. and, in fact, I'm not primarily interested in popular fictional media. I personally would be very happy if nobody either here or in the RW cared for television serials, and a lot of similar things. I'm just in the situation of defending them because I think they are being unreasonably attacked. what I want to expand our coverage in is the traditional academic subjects in the humanities. since many people think it not important, the practical way is to let people have a good deal of flexibility and not dictate to them, and for all of us to put up with each others hobby-horses. When I came here, I was horrified by the inappropriately childish and uncritical coverage of most fictional material--but then I saw people trying to reduce it below the level of intelligibility. The first step is to accept the material, the second is to improve it. My key example, and what really got me started, was the attempt to reduce the coverage of what is wrongly called trivia, but is really cultural influences. To many academics, this sort of material is the main point of studying fiction in the first place--to see the development and the influences. Traditionally, thats what most scholars actually write about. I also know what the first part of any serious academic study of fiction consists of: an analysis of the plot. Plot and characters and setting. and the very same people who disliked the cultural influences part, which is as real-world as you can get--authors influencing one another--also disliked the coverage of plot. And then I see that some oft he people who dont like the coverage are actually themselves interested in these fictional worlds--I interpret this as a reluctance to realise that what t hey themselves spend time on may actually be important.
The other reason why I disagree with relying primarily on fixed types of sourcing as a factor for inclusion is the inconsistency it provides: a mature well developed work of reference offers consistent coverage. this is very hard in Wikipedia , because we have no way of getting people to write on particular topics. But the first step is to provide that everything at a certain level of importance is treated similarly. To take a different unsettled question, we can include professional minor league baseball players or not, but we should have a consistent standard of level where we do so or not, rather than have it vary according to what sources seem to be available to the people who work here. (Thats the other problem in sourcing as a criterion for notability--most of those working here are unable or extremely reluctant to use proper professional sources and research methods.)
so I see it as two levels--the things we want to include if we can, and the things we can in practice write about. notability, and verifiability. One depends on importance, the other on reliable sourcing. DGG (talk) 16:03, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not asking for something totally set in stone where a robot decides what's notable or not. But as a precisionist, I'm really uncomfortable with defining notability with something as vague as "real-world importance". You're also assuming that wikipedia is a democracy, which it isn't. Policies like WP:SOURCE and WP:PRIMARY have been formed by the founders of Wikipedia. The reason WP:N is useful is because it has a very low threshold for articles to cross, and leaves the articles that do qualify to the discretion of editors. (e.g.: apply WP:NOT, apply WP:NPOV, merge it into a broader topic, etc...) It's precise, but still flexible. Randomran (talk) 17:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Masem, "coverage" is not limited by WP:N, but seperate articles are. You can still cover most non-notable subjects within a notable over arching article, so you don't have have articles that fail WP:N, at least in theory, as WP:N does not specifically regulate the content of articles. This aside, I think what Masem is proposing is that WP:N should be replaced by a new guideline such as WP:COVERAGE, which if use our imaginations for a moment, would be accepted by both inclusionists and deletionists in equal measure. However, drafting such a guideline based on Masem's idea that "relevance" is the key to this revolutionary guideline has already been tried before at WP:RELEVANCE, and similar attempts have been tried as well, such as Wikipedia:Article inclusion. The problem is that, at best, such a guideline would be the same as WP:N but dressed up in new clothes, or at worst it would be WP:N with complex exemptions for everybody's favourite line of articles, such as trading cards. What we realy need is a proposal for article inclusion that would be the Best, Least-complex, Unbiased Equivalent of WP:N, but this is were my imagaination fails me, and I suspect this is like the Holy Grail, its going to involve a long fruitless search. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:52, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think there's any support for a revolution. I think there might be support for evolution, though. We should focus on improving WP:N, rather than trying to toss it out or rewrite it. Randomran (talk) 17:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I am not trying to argue for a COVERAGE proposal; again, I'm keeping the presumption that the GNG sticks for article topics (not necessarily something I agree or disagree with, just a point). However, what I think that if we are rethinking NOTE, I am suggesting we need to consider non-notable topics that can clearly be covered in the scope of a larger, notable topics - making sure that we keep in mind that deep coverage of these is not appropriate.
Specifically I'm calling back to the part that I know Gavin had problems with in FICT: the section for allowance for lists of non-notable fiction characters and episodes as supporting material for a notable work of fiction. As I read the general attitude here, I don't see anyone against the inclusion of discussing characters and the like within the body of the article when they can only be sourced from primary sources; such inclusion usually easily brings concern if there are problems with the include: undue weight, in-universe coverage, OR/POV discussion, etc. (If editors are against this specific case, please speak up) However, at some point, we have to recognize SIZE issues come into play, even if all primary-sourced materials are kept in strong check. At some point you have to split off part of the article, and per general splitting process, you want to split off the information that has the least value to the general reader; this for most works of fictional are the specifics on the characters. Yes, this split may create some problems in that you now can't easily keep some aspects in check compared to the main work, and basically you now have a non-notable article floating around. However, if we agree that coverage of non-notable primary items within the body of the article, but that splitting off of the same information into a separate article per MOS/SIZE is not, then there is a serious disconnect that we need to resolve because either our MOS/SIZE approach is wrong (which I don't feel is the case) or the absolute adherence to the GNG when it comes to not enforcing "coverage" is not consistent.
This is the general type of concern that needs to be made here. I'm not saying that it's wrong to try to make the GNG more absolute if that's the way it goes. However, we need to make sure our approaches are consistent throughout to remove concerns of subjective treatments of various subjects. --MASEM21:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
In practice, I'm just not buying the size problem. If a topic has so much coverage in secondary sources that you can write a 100K+ article, then surely you have enough sources to split that article into multiple articles that all pass the GNG. And if an article is 100K+ based on first-party sources, primary sources, unreliable sources, or all of the above, then you shouldn't be splitting. You should be cutting and summarizing the information in there as per WP:NOT, WP:OR, and WP:V. Randomran (talk) 21:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no beef with lists, navigation aids, and templates. The problem is when they summarize and organize non-notable topics. List of famines is notable because famines are notable. Topical outline of chemistry is notable because chemistry is notable. Someone can make a list of characters from a book, game, or movie. But then the characters from that book game or movie would have to be notable. Randomran (talk) 18:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
In practice, I think it is very simple. Either it is a list of mostly blue links (with explanatory prose is good) or it is a stand-alone list which is (or should be) usually subject to a notability guideline. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. My impression is that the hostility to fiction is just intellectual snobbery - a pretentious form of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. If we have an article about an obscure insect that might only live in a single tree in the Amazon jungle then this would be considered notable (it's an endangered species!). The same applies to obscure bits of pure mathematics, minute asteroids, hamlets, etc. But, if the topic is something popular and well-known like Pokemon or Scrubs, then it is furiously attacked. This is blatant systemic bias. It should be resisted firmly because it specifically attacks material that is popular and so hurts our readership. Wikipedia is here more for its readers then its writers. And wannabe legislators and arbiters of taste are not wanted at all. Colonel Warden (talk) 07:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure the "destroy all fiction" boogieman exists somewhere out there. But speaking only for myself, I have no problem with articles about fiction or elements of fiction. But whatever we write an article on, it should meet our guidelines. Randomran (talk) 18:56, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Masem, you know that there are two problems with non-notable lists: no editor will want admit their list is non-notable anymore than, say, they would want to admit to clubbing seals, and secondly, a list of non-notable stuff will probably fail WP:INDISCRIMINATE in any case. From the perspective of writing the Best, Least-complex, Unbiased guideline, I object to providing exemptions from GNC/GNG on two grounds: such an exemption is basically a method of evading criteria which have consensus support, but also because everyone will want their own exemption for their favorite topic. The implications of this are that people will ignore any exemptions provided to non-notable lists, becuase WP:N has not been replaced by a better guideline, and see through the attempt to evade WP:N in this way. And if an exemption were ever granted for a non-notable list, the guidelines would be under a continous state of revision, as everyone woule then try to get an exemption for their favorite topic (which in a way is what is happening now). These issues aside, the only reason I can imagine why you want to change WP:N and WP:NOT is because, and correct me if I am wrong, you want to be able to write articles (dressed up as lists) about television episodes that just contain a plot summary, without the effort of citing secondary sources which follows on from your failed proposal at WP:EPISODE. Am I right in my understanding, or am I wrong on this issue? At least make it clear why you have an interest in non-notable lists, when I don't think anyone else wants them.--Gavin Collins (talk) 17:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
I could care less about actually writing such articles; I want to see the right balance so that we still cover all notable topics and non-notable topics that are part of that notable topic, just not as far as giving non-notable topics their own article. The issue I am more worried about is that while strong guidelines should be present to prevent large amounts of fandom creep or math kuzdu or what the field's equivalent is, the extreme position of what people have expressed they want to see for notability both completely neglects ~25% (based on the FICT RFC) of the editors and also puts restrictions on content which it is not supposed to do. We need to prevent creep, that's a given, but at the same time, we should be able to cover every single non-notable aspect of a notable topic (pending any issues in WP:NOT) as part of that topic, obviously with not a lot of weight, but enough to establish context. If the only place that this can be mentioned is in the main article on that topic and no other aspects can be split off as they are the key parts to understanding the topic (per SIZE, SS, and other guidelines), then the argument is turning to trim (which yes, should be done, but there's practical limits necessary to establish context) or remove, because moving these details is being stated as not an option, and thus is implicitly restricting content that is otherwise allowed by all other policies. --MASEM11:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
You say that like that's a big change. There IS an implicit restriction on the content of a topic beyond our policies. WP:UNDUE and WP:NNC suggest that covering every single non-notable aspect of a notable topic would not be appropriate. Randomran (talk) 16:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
It is a big change if we are allowing the only definition of notability to be "significant coverage in secondary sources"; UNDUE and NNC are neutral on the exact definition of notability , but once defined, it describes what should be done with non-notable aspects. However I still feel that there is room for balancing both a strict adherence to notable topics via sources, while also allowing certain allowances within the context of other policy/guidelines and WP's general mission that we can further include concise, balanced details of non-notable aspects of a notable topic to provide well-rounded coverage that all readers of that topic (those learning for it for the first time, and those that already know it and want to know more) can appreciate. I stress heavily that this is a balance that has to be achieved - it is not free passes for separate articles for every non-notable topic, nor to use a separate list as a new empty glass to fill with excess details. We still want a high quality encyclopedia that minimizes OR and POV, and is verifiable through established sources, and notability should help towards that. The question is, exactly what is the balance between the rigorousness of notability to meet those aspects, and the extent that WP is not paper or simply a traditional encyclopedia thus allowing for farther expansion in what topics it can cover? --MASEM16:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't think we'll ever have a problem with less notable aspects of a topic being covered in a main article. I understand that you're worried about WP:SIZE. But I don't think it's possible to violate WP:SIZE without having either (1) enough good sources to support a split or (2) too much inappropriate information that violates WP:UNDUE, WP:NOT, WP:OR, WP:NNC and so on... Randomran (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Without any examples, it is difficult to imagine a topic which Masem describes as covering every single non-notable aspect of a notable topic that is restricted by WP:N that does not fail other guidelines, like WP:NOT#PLOT. Can Masem give some examples of the articles he is refering to? --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
The easiest example I can think of is about 90% of the episode lists that are out there. Only a select few shows have nearly every episode as notable (per secondary sources), so obviously a list of episodes as a navigation aid to these makes sense (see, for example, the Simpsons). Other shows have non-notable episodes but when broken down by season, each season has its own demonstrated notability (such as Smallville (Season 1)). However, that's the 10% of the episode lists. The others are for shows where individual episodes are not notable, but have gone on for multiple seasons. Now, reasonably, it makes sense to provide a list and brief plot summary of each episode with the airing dates, production codes, writers, etc. -- information that is generally considered trivia and thus not sufficient to assert notability -- in context of the actual notable show itself, say List of Animaniacs episodes as an example. If we strictly limit that no non-notable content can exist outside the bounds of its notable topic article, then these TV show pages suddenly become huge (Animaniacs is already 57k, the list would easily push it above 100k, and we're still not yet talking about the various characters that are part of it). Now, it has been argued that notable information could be split off to a separate article, but there are two reasons against that. First, there's no single section of TV show articles that are typically long that their move into a separate article will help with size. Second, Summary Style suggests that information be split that is most specific and least of interest to the general reader, so in this case, the list of specific episodes is the most specific information that should be moved. Now, I'm sure there's other reasons to get rid of these episode lists all together, but they have been a long-standing "accepted" form for non-notable episode consolidation (but of course, WP:CCC); if we are arguing that strictly these cannot be allowed unless shown notable, there is definitely going to need to be a discussion to achieve global consensus on that issue, because I believe a lot of people will disagree with that. I'm in a weird position because I could care less about these types of articles or not, beyond seeing them as the best solution between inclusionists and deletionists - I'm more worried about the general dynamics of WP, and what such decisions will do to the community if taken without appropriate care to make sure they are the right ones. --MASEM17:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me you are suggesting that all television series, regardless of notablity, should be covered in same range and depth as The Simpsons on the grounds that it makes sense to provide a brief plot summary of each episode with the airing dates, production codes, writers. As you know, the Simpsons is a very exceptional television series, as each of its seasons has received extensive secondary coverage and won many awards, and even the plot summaries have been sourced from secondary sources (which is rare). The range and depth of secondary coverage has enabled Simpson's related topics to be split in a large range of articles right down to episode level, but there are still a cut off point where spliting cannot be supported, e.g Eat my shorts. However, just because one television series is notable, I am not sure that other television series inherit that notability in the sense that they deserve equivalent coverage as you seem to be proposing; every article series needs to stand on its own feet in terms of notability. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
No, that's not I said. I'm talking about the fact that it is currently established practice that for television shows which have lasted for more than a handful of episodes to split off the episode list, regardless of any secondary sourcing of that list, into another article for sake of clarity on the main article page per MOS. Not specific episodes (those have to be shown to be notable) but just the overall episode list for the show. These lists , as long as they include production and broadcasting details (writer, producer, episode #, air date) do not fail any other policy beyond a strong adherence to the GNG. --MASEM12:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Without evidence of notability, I don't see why you could provide brief plot summary of each episode with the airing dates, production codes, without failing WP:NOT#PLOT and/or WP:NOTDIR. I disagree with your interpretion of WP:MOS that this information needs to be covered at all. As Randomran stated earlier, there is an implicit restriction on the content of a topic beyond our policies. WP:UNDUE and WP:NNC suggest that covering every single non-notable aspect of a notable topic would not be appropriate. I don't see why we have to change WP:N for the purpose of making room for lots and lots of what you call non-notable content. It also seems odd to me that if articles like Animaniacs are stuffed full of primary sourced content, you would think that contributors to this article could or will add secondary sources for an article split. I don't believe that for this class or article that this is where the front between inclusionists and deltionist lies; it seems to me that these articles just need improvement, rather than changing WP:N so that improvements can be indefinetly postponed. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Except again, episode lists of a notable show that lack secondary-source notability have established consensus as the appropriate place to merge non-notable episodes and as secondary information for the main article. Even TTN offered this as a solution during the E&C ArbCom cases, and while it's likely not the best measuring stick, those cases showed that all of those commenting generally had that the GNG was not absolute (of course, in some cases, there should be no GNG).
We have to remember that consensus sets guidelines and policies; trying to insist that GNG is immutable for any article is strongly against a large proportion of editors and current editing practices, even if you think those are wrong. There are only a few fixed truths about WP: it's mission statement and the few resolutions passed by the Foundation - everything else is up for us as collective editors to decide. Even the 5 Pillars are flexible, as long as they reflect the mission. That is not to say that we need to challenge those, or WP:V, or WP:NOR, or WP:NPOV - those as policies are stable and rarely see any flak (there's issues on what reliable sources are for V, but V itself mostly holds). Thus, I think it very important that we need to consider that notability is not a concept fixed in stone. Notability standards are needed to help improve the quality of WP, but we also need to remember that we also want breadth of coverage as well, otherwise, we're failing the fact that WP is more than just a run-of-the-mill encyclopedia. There is no reason in WP's mission or overarching policies that we cannot cover non-notable topics, but we do know that unrestrained coverage of these (giving them their own articles) leads to unmaintainability; that's a hard lesson from the first five years. But with the pendulum swinging far to the side of "no non-notable topics should be covered at all", it's very obvious this extreme is not being accepted by all editors, so thus saying that the GNG is non-negotiable for any article is not going to work either. That's why its important to note that we have flexibility to completely rewrite this to be more strict or more broad, but either way it is taken, it needs to meet what the current consensus is, which is someplace in the middle of these two extremes based on discussions, RFCs, ArbCom, AFDs, and numerous other places. --MASEM14:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Masem, it's not important that you convince Gavin -- that's not likely to happen. Debating in long statements isn't solving any issues here. Let's try to get back to making specific succinct proposals and trying to gain consensus. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:42, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
In theory it is easy to change or rewrite WP:N or replace it with a new guideline such as WP:COVERAGE, but in practise I have yet to see a set of criteria that will be Better, Less complex or Unbiased Equivalent of WP:N. What is amazing about GNC/GNG is that they provide notability guidance for every subject matter under the sun in less than 260 words which can be summaried in one sentence, yet still offer flexibility and a high degree of quality control. I think that is pretty amazing, so if you can beat that, you deserve a prize. However, if you merely intend to tinker with WP:N until it is watered down, or create a class of articles or lists of articles that are exempt from WP:N to accomodate your favorite topic, I don't see how you can avoid unrestrained low-quality coverage to which most Wikipedians are opposed (even if Kevin thinks it is just me). I think WP:N makes good sense, because it enables the reader to climb on the shoulders of giants, rather peep over a wall of primary sources. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Masem / Gavin, I don't think the goal should be to convince one another. The goal should be to translate this disagreement into concrete proposals. A "total revolution" for WP:N is not going to happen. What we need is either a clarification or a small amendment (or the rejection thereof, just to show consensus). I actually think my proposal #2 is the most honest clarification of how the GNG and the SNGs interact. It would enable discussions to move forward at specific guidelines like WP:EPISODE. (Read the proposal.) The specific notability guidelines are about using less conventional "sources" to assert notability. This would enable us to come up with a criteria that makes a WP:EPISODE notable. (For example, a list of episodes is notable if there are multiple seasons on a major television network. But that's not the discussion to have here. That's just a possibility that becomes enabled by clarifying WP:NOTE.) If someone disagrees with #2, I'd welcome them to offer an alternative proposal for how to clarify or amend WP:N. Randomran (talk) 18:15, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
In answer to Randomran, we have already had an extended discussion at WT:FICT regarding how, if at all, the notability criteria could be changed to be more inclusive for elements of fiction. I have argued that there aren't any criteria other than GNC/GNG that can be used to provide evidence of notability to elements of fiction (such a fictional characters), although this view is not generally accepted. For elements of fiction, there aren't any less conventional ways of asserting notability, because WP:FICT covers the one subject area where less conventional criteria such as real-world observation cannot be applied in the same way as for, say, people who are presumed to be notable if they are observed as holding high political office or participating in athletic competition at professional level. Since elements of fiction such as fictional characters cannot be observed in the real-world, we are wholly reliant on reliable secondary sources that discuss them to provide evidence of notability. Although television episodes could be classed as elements of fiction (being a subset of a larger work), they are typically broadcast through the medium of television or film, so subject specific notability criteria identical to or similar to WP:MOVIE can be applied to them. If we assume for just a moment that my arguements are correct, then only way to make WP:FICT more inclusive would be either to provide an exemption from WP:N for non-notable list (as is the case in the current draft), or to amend WP:FICT to that notability can be established through a mix of primary or Questionable sources. However, I have argued that both these approaches are fatally flawed, because in practise, no subject specific guideline will be accepted if it conflicts with or seeks to circumvent GNC/GNG which has both widespread acceptance and is congurent with other Wikipedia policies and guidelines.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I was there for that discussion too. And I more or less share your view on notability: it ain't broke, don't fix it. But this discussion isn't about who's right or wrong, but about establishing a consensus. That means clarifying what the guideline already says. And one person's clarification might be another person's change. I think it's worthwhile to propose "clarifications" that I disagree with, even so we can see if that clarification is in fact how most people understand notability. As for my proposal, that's a clarification according to how I think WP:NOTE already works. It would basically explain how WP:MUSIC and WP:BOOK extend the WP:GNG. It would also clarify that this is the way forward for WP:FICT. What would happen at WP:FICT? No idea. Look at songs under WP:MUSIC. A song is probably notable if it's been covered/performed by multiple notable artists. A musician can be notable if they're the subject of a 30+ minute television broadcast. This blurs the line between a secondary source and a primary source, and severely relaxes the "independence" requirement. But it offers a way to assert notability that's based on some kind of objective evidence, rather than subjective opinion. I honestly don't know what would happen at WP:FICT. But clarifying WP:NOTE in this way would allow the discussion at WP:FICT to move forward. So would the acceptance or rejection of ANY proposal to change WP:NOTE. That's why we should consider as many proposals / changes / clarifications as possible, even if we ultimately reject all of them. It's about developing a consensus. Randomran (talk) 15:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I see that making a solid proposal is better than just saying I like this guideline or I totally agree with it. I agree that if it is to be modified or replaced, we need to see the proposals, rather than just disputing each others viewpoints. Apologies to Masem if it appears I am picking on him. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I've seen a number of good ideas for clarifying / changing WP:NOTE, and many of them have at least some support. How should we go about soliciting feedback on these proposals from the broader community, and eventually implementing/rejecting them? Do we have enough proposals to begin settling long-standing debates about WP:NOTE? It would be helpful to build up a new consensus around WP:NOTE so that it has the weight of the community behind it. Randomran (talk) 13:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I would consider an RFC (maybe on a centralized discussion page to avoid weighing down this page) that is set up to scope each of the above points, whenever possible, as a "do you agree or don't agree" type question, each having a support/oppose/neutral section. Responders should also be allowed to add in their own similar questions if they were not privy to this discussion, though I would say questions that are undermining to the process ("Should NOTE be abolished?") can be removed or if possible grouped to another point. The points that show significant consensus should then be drafted into a new form for NOTE that is put forth for a new !vote. Either or both of these should be tagged in the watchlist notification area if we can to get widest possible interest.
Alternatively, we can attempt to draft a new NOTE now without larger community feedback based on the ideas above, but my fear is that because those involved is a small number of editors, the move to gain global consensus will be more difficult since people may opposed on one or two points. --MASEM14:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I think going straight to a draft is a bad idea, since a lot of these proposals come from different perspectives with different goals. We might use any number of them, or none of them. You're also right that it will also make it harder to gain a consensus if even one of the proposals is controversial. An RFC on every proposal is probably a better approach. I'm not sure what you mean by a centralized discussion page, though. Do you have an example of how that might work? I think one challenge is that people might agree with something in general, but disagree on specifics. Some of the proposals may be basically good, but I wouldn't want people to reject them because they're not in a more final form. One thing I'd like to happen in the RFC process is the acceptance of a proposal in spirit, so we can begin to hammer out a specific wording at some later time. Randomran (talk) 16:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
See WP:CENT, we create a subpage here (say Wikipedia talk:Notability/Proposed Changes, make sure it is linked there (though I note there's already a bit for GNG there). RFC'ing it and watchlist notification can't hurt as well, as well as broad announcement at WP:VPP. I would preface to explain what the goal is (these are all "clarifying"? proposals to NOTE, not meant to drastically disrupt or change it but to help to provide better continuity between it and subguidelines), and explain that several options have been suggested, and to have people just !vote/comment on each one yea, nay, or neutral. It is not to be an all-or-nothing approach, just to see which parts have most concensus. --MASEM16:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea and one that makes a lot of sense. When will we know that we have enough discussion here that we can make a centralized discussion page and put these proposals to the larger wikipedia community? Randomran (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
