Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 53

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WP:LISTN: Notability of a list

Latest comment: 11 years ago25 comments12 people in discussion

How many reliable sources independent of a subject are required to establish notability of a list? Are 10 reliable sources enough? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:33, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

We don't use numbers as it would be gamed badly. You need to demonstrate significant coverage in secondary sources, and how many sources it takes to do that is a case-by-case system. Even in rare cases 1 source may be sufficient. --MASEM (t) 22:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Strictly speaking? Zero. If a list has multiple notable elements "X", then "list of X" is notable. Jclemens (talk) 00:31, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

The subtle different between Lists and a single topic is in the type of coverage. Lists, because they are enumerations of a number of entries about a topic, generally require coverage of those entries as a group. This is not a difficult hurdle in most lists situations because indeed whatever criteria binds the entries together, has been discussed independently in reliable sources. Where we are challenged as a community is those lists/enumerations where some arbitary criteria (arbitrary cross-categorization if you will) is not supported by any reliable sources ever having covered that arbitrary criteria. Although the scenario Jclemens alludes to, generally passes the notability hurdle as well. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It should also be noted that lists have been kept by the community on numerous occasions for reasons other than strict adherence to WP:GNG. Lists have many purposes at Wikipedia, including navigation and organization. It can often be enough for a list to be reasonable and useful and carefully constructed (i.e. doesn't violate WP:IINFO for it to be kept. --Jayron32 02:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yea, LISTN was specifically written because we could not come up with a single approach that would cover all lists that are included on WP; the only clear situations where lists would be kept is if the grouping topic was notable - this is not meant to be the only way to identify list notability but the reasoning in any other scenario is not as strong an argument to generalize. --MASEM (t) 02:08, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Right, the community has generally accepted a great many lists that do not meet this requirement, and in fact the last discussion at AfD that hinged on this particular criterion I recall was several years ago. But that is not clear from the page, and the text should be changed to reflect this. I have boldly made two additions in accord with the realities of what happens at AfD. Italics represent my additions.

The opening sentence reads "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group ...."
The opening sentence of the second paragraph now reads "There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists... or what other criteria may justify the notability of stand-alone lists,

I think this is the meaning of the discussion above. I have some definite views about what the other criteria are, but I did not insert them, nor would I add them in this fashion without suggesting it here first and discussing it. That should be a separate question. I've limited myself to indicating more clearly that possibilities are open. DGG ( talk ) 05:14, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

It really shouldn't be an issue, because in most cases, there should be a source for most items supporting inclusion in the list. There are always some edge cases we can argue about that wouldn't require a source ("dachsund" in "List of small dogs", for example), but if there aren't independent, third-party sources for most elements of the list supporting inclusion in the list, it's a WP:V violation, as the article couldn't be considered to be based on independent, third-party sources. Once an article fails WP:V, WP:N isn't even a consideration.—Kww(talk) 16:29, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I have a problem with saying "If a list has multiple notable elements "X", then "list of X" is notable"... To give an illustration: suppose I were to compile a "List of Monarchs who wore eyeglasses". Each individual element (a Monarch) is probably notable on its own... but the actual topic of the list (eyeglasses wearing monarchs) would probably not a be considered a notable topic for a list. For it to survive at AfD, I would first need to establish that the entire topic (eyeglass wearing by monarchs) is a notable topic. Then, once I have demonstrated notability of the topic, I would move on to inclusion... finding sources that demonstrate that each listed monarch actually did wear eyeglasses. Blueboar (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I think there is something that is beyond notability here, maybe reflected in list guidance, about appropriate list topics. I could easily have a list of notable people who's second letter in their last name is "Z", but that's a terrible list topic and far from a natural grouping. If you are doing "List of X which are also Y", and "X which are also Y" is notable, great. But if otherwise you can make a list of notable elements that are "X which are also Y", then the classification of "X which are also Y" should be some type of either sourcable distinction (List of basketball players who have scored 100 points in a single game, the topic is not notable but the fact that scoring 100+ points is considered important by sources), or a "natural" (common sense) means of classifying X (nearly all of our "List of people from (geographic location Y)" lists are like this. That said, WP:N is not the place for this advice, that's about choosing the appropriate list classification. --MASEM (t) 17:40, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:LISTPURP. As a rejoinder against anyone trying to over-legislate the issue of list inclusion, I'd also ask them to actually look at the archives of list AFDs, or the currently pending ones. We do not have a community crisis of !voters trying to keep ridiculously trivial straw men lists like "List of Monarchs who wore eyeglasses", so there is not a problem that needs solving there. We have had, however, plenty of AFD !voters think LISTN was a universal and absolute standard and try to get quite standard navigational lists deleted on that basis alone. So if anything the problem has been too much wikilaw in this area, not too little. I think LISTPURP does the job quite fine. As Masem said, not all list problems are notability problems, so trying to stretch notability alone to keep out bad lists mischaracterizes the problems with the bad lists and mistargets good lists. postdlf (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

As we don't link to LISTPURP yet, I have added the following (boldly) to do so : "Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability." --MASEM (t) 18:34, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

If it was up to me, we'd create an entirely new mainspace category for broad navigational lists (perhaps a *gasp* directory space?) and retain the list designation for noteworthy subjects. So we would have a directory of people from New York We would have to change the CLN web a bit but this should settle questions of notability and purpose.

Back on topic, two broad sources are usually enough to ensure notability of a list (sometimes even one great source). A hundred sources verifying the individual list members don't do anything to the notability of the group of people. Notability of the list itself is not inherited from the notability of its members. Them From Space 19:43, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

The actual point is that for many lists, there is no such thing as the "notability of the list." It simply isn't a meaningful way of analyzing many kinds of lists any more than it is to ask about the notability of a category or an article subsection.

Anyway, your idea ab out a separate namespace for lists is enticing, but ultimately unworkable, because many lists are split-offs from articles (such as lists of people by place of origin, lists of people by alumni, lists of TV episode articles, discographies, etc.) that would be included in those articles if not for space concerns. Others are informational articles in their own right due to their annotations or the way in which their organization is itself informative (such as lists of places by population or area).

Those are all also good examples of lists for which direct notability analysis is not useful, though they are all related to notable topics. We would not tolerate a list of notable alumni from a nonnotable school, or a list of nonnotable alumni from a notable school, but our only concern for a standalone list of notable alumni from a notable school is whether there are enough verifiable entries to justify the split from the school's article. It makes no sense (or is at least irrelevant) to ask whether the list of alumni is itself notable. postdlf (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I might be okay with a lot of navigational lists. After all, we do keep a lot of them, regardless of trying to write a real article about it or sourcing it to a bunch of third party sources. But we don't keep all of them. Some of them really are original research, in the sense that someone noticed some kind of weird common trait between all the entries, and created a list to push that observation. I think this takes more discussion than "yes they're allowed" or "no they're not". (And I share the opinion of some people who think we ought to create a concept distinct from lists, say an "index", so we don't conflate the two.) I'd be worried about making an exception to notability so wide that it becomes a back door for original research and POV pushing. Personally, if we're going to allow people to create indexes, the next best thing to a bunch of sources would be a complete lack of originality. Traits like nationality are unoriginal, obvious ways to organize things. List of brown things would probably be a little too creative for an encyclopedia, and too dependent on editorial opinion. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:08, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

You still have WP:NOT to keep undesired lists out; I don't think the proposed change would open a backdoor. Having lists that point readers to the parts of Wikipedia that cover related items is a good thing. ("Index" may not be the best word for it; we already have set indexes for articles with the same or similar names). Diego (talk) 22:58, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

A useful class of lists in spirit with WP:LISTPURP#Navigation are those navigational lists that point to all instances of a notable topic that are covered somewhere in Wikipedia, even if each item appears as part of a larger article and is not notable on its own. Many of the Lists of fictional things follow this approach. The lists are not indiscriminate, since items that aren't described somewhere in Wikipedia with verifiable sources are excluded, preventing the list to grow too much. Maybe we could add this criterion to the Common selection criteria, to indicate that this list purpose is commonly accepted and not an exception as Masem discussed above? Diego (talk) 14:08, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree that "Lists of fictional X" is always representative of a navigational list. I've seen several that aren't navigaton, where most of the entries don't have a topic themselves and if linked, linked to the work or list of characters for that work. Some are navigation, but it is not universal, and this also implies cases of "List of fictional X that are Y" where the "X that are Y" aren't a natural organization for a topic. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

As long as the entry is linked to the work and the work discusses the entry with reliable sources, the list has served its purpose, allowing readers to find out what part of Wikipedia describes part of the topic. If "X that are Y" is not a "natural" topic (meaning that is defined by reliable sources), I agree the purpose for that particular list is not valid. Diego (talk) 15:27, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

So? Is there still opposition to the line "Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability" that was removed on 25th December? Diego (talk) 23:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea why that was removed, but it should definitely be put back in since there's so many different functions a list can serve that make notability judgement of it difficult. --MASEM (t) 00:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment on LISTPURP sentence/link

Just so we aren't editing warring over this inclusion, I want to comment to Shooterwalker's comment on this diff, in calling the link to LISTPURP a loophole. Unfortunately, it is a loophole, one that we could not simply close when we evaluated LISTN way back. No, we didn't add LISTPURP then and only recently, but I think it was implicitly implied with LISTN's formation (and of course, subsequently explicitly agreed to) as why there was no way to make one nice catchall statement on list notability, simply because there's many purposes for lists on WP. Even without mention of LISTPURP, the advice of LISTN is a loophole itself, since it can only give direct advice on a subset of lists out there. --MASEM (t) 18:00, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I think Shooterwalker is trying to prescribe a new rule rather than merely describe what current consensus is, and the talk of "loopholes" sounds like an attempt to wiki-legislate from on high. These aren't statutes. Anyway, there have been many AFDs of lists that rely entirely on LISTPURP as a basis for keeping, and we've been discussing for many, many months the fact that LISTN needs to acknowledge that more clearly than it did to avoid anyone else being confused by thinking it's a universal standard for all lists. I think the reply to Shooterwalker above by Diego re: WP:NOT is key—there are many other inclusion principles at play that keep out ridiculous lists that have nothing to do with notability, and so it's not even necessary to try and stretch LISTN beyond how consensus interprets it and beyond even where its analysis is meaningful and coherent. Nor has Shooterwalker pointed to any actual examples that might show that there's actually a problem to be solved by the imposition of more rules. postdlf (talk) 18:17, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't accuse me of trying to "legislate" or "prescribe". You're the ones trying to change the guideline. I am comfortable with the truth that we keep a lot of navigational lists, and I'm comfortable with a small exception. My problem is when someone tries to take a narrow exception and write it into practice in the most vague and broad way possible. *Specific* navigational lists are kept. The idea that any list with a navigational purpose is exempt from notability -- really, any list period, because everything on Wikipedia helps you navigate somewhere -- is where I see the legislative overreach. "Informational purpose" is even worse, since that describes virtually every list. Is it your intention to make all lists exempt from the GNG? Because that's what you've described in those words. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:33, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

"[T]here have been many AFDs of lists that rely entirely on LISTPURP as a basis for keeping, and we've been discussing for many, many months the fact that LISTN needs to acknowledge that more clearly than it did to avoid anyone else being confused by thinking it's a universal standard for all lists. I think the reply to Shooterwalker above by Diego re: WP:NOT is key—there are many other inclusion principles at play that keep out ridiculous lists that have nothing to do with notability..." postdlf (talk) 21:23, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion for a new section "Subject-specific notability guidelines"

Latest comment: 11 years ago30 comments9 people in discussion

Just in dealing with a few issues around ORG and some AFD comments elsewhere, I'm thinking that we may want to add one section, immediately following the first on the GNG, on "Subject-specific notability guidelines". Primarily, this is to stress the point that notability can also be presumed by meeting an SNG (as listed in the table) (read: this is the "GNG or SNG" approach that currently has consensus). But we also should stress and spell out the few SNGs where there are tighter restrictions than just the GNG - specifically as noted at ORG (requiring more than just local coverage) and NSPORT (again, more than just local/routine coverage). There might be other cases too, and these should be spelled out; this is meant to stress that if the topic area may have a SNG but that is not one more restrictive than the GNG, then a topic in that area is presumed notable if it meets the GNG but may fail the SNG (as I've seen a lot of AFDs where some article delete based on failure to meet the SNG despite clear GNG coverage). I know the point is already stressed in the intro but this would expand on it and point out that in some areas the GNG is not sufficient. --MASEM (t) 21:47, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Kudos (or a purple heart) to you for trying to clarify this. BTW, such a clarification would mean that stricter SNG's are moot. North8000 (talk) 21:57, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Alternatively we can acknowledge the reality. GNG is founded on the presumption that the amount of wp:notability-type-coverage is proportional to the topic's suitability. That's the best gauge that there is but it isn't perfect. Some fields which are proportionately more in-depth-coverage-heavy (e.g. sports, where "coverage" is more of an additional form of entertainment rather than being coverage, or academics where everybody is writing about everybody) and others are proportionately lighter on in-depth coverage such as with musical groups which are very notable but coverage is typically narrower/shallower and fields that are proportionately lighter on accessible coverage (e.g. towns in India.) So some non-notable high school football player might have more accessible in-depth coverage than a city of 10,000 in India. We go though all of these contortions on how to reconcile SNG's with GNG ("just need to meet one or the other" "but sometimes you have to meet both" or "SNG's are just to help predict whether it can meet GNG"). Also massive exceptions (bot-generated articles on every town and geographic unit) to tap dance around this. So some non-notable high school football player in the US might have more accessible in-depth coverage than a city of 10,000 in India. Maybe we should just acknowledge that it is the legitimate place of SNG's to raise or lower the bar of GNG just a teeny bit, and that that is all that they can do, and re-write the SNG's around that concept. North8000 (talk) 23:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

If notability is "the ability to write a coherent, neutral article about a topic from reliable sources", the indian football player from your example wouldn't be non-notable. I agree that's good to lower the bar for difficult-to-source topics, but I've never seen the need to restrict coverage for having "too much professionally written and reliable information". If someone wants to write such article and has the good sources in place, kudos to them. Diego (talk) 00:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying (which I fixed) I was comparing a non-notable US high school football player to a city of 10,000 in India, not talking about a player from that town. North8000 (talk) 15:58, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Understand that with this addition, I specifically want to point out the ones that are stricter (there's only a couple). And I don't want to make it like the SNG's are ways around the GNG. I have a whole philosophy about the presumed notability from SNGs needing to eventually get to the GNG, but I definitely do not want to touch on that, but instead note that practice is that, save for the stricter SNGs, one can show presumed notability from the GNG or an appropriate SNG. --MASEM (t) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It already says clearly they are notable if they meet the GNG or any of the secondary guidelines, they not having to ever meet both, that just ridiculous. We could add in a sentence saying clearly "no article has to meet both, and failure to meet one does not counter the presumption of notability by the other. Dream Focus 00:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
- I know it says this, but I have been pointed to AFDs by others where there are editors assume that the SNGs override the GNG; that is, they argue that a topic that clearly meets the GNG is not notable because it fails the appropriate SNG. (happens often around athletes who may get notable coverage before they are in pro-level sports, for example). I want to make sure that it is clear that, outside of a few specific SNGs, that presumption from the GNG or any SNGs have equal weight. --MASEM (t) 01:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Purple Heart, it seems to me. As all of us already know, this is one of the "third rails" of Wiki-policy. I think it all depends on the exact wording of anything to be added. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

And to clarify, here is an example AFD I was pointed to (in relation to MMA stuff) where a few editors !voted delete because the competitor didn't meet the MMA section of NSPORTS, but did meet the GNG (with non-local non-routine sources, natch) prior to the AFD. This is not an isolated argument that I've seen in the past, though its not very frequent. --MASEM (t) 01:15, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

The whole relationship between GNG and SNG's is inherently unclear / inconsistent. Even in this thread you have been forced to somewhat conflict with yourself. I.E. saying that we should acknowledge that some SNG's do raise the GNG bar, but then pointing to an example and saying that folks were making a mistake when they did just that. So we must acknowledge that any real "clarification" is actually going to be creation of a new "rule". Which is fine if we do it carefully. North8000 (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Most SNGs do not raise the bar - they work on equal ground as a means of presumed notability as with the GNG; there are only a few exceptions where an SNG requires more than just GNG passage (like in the case of local coverage of ametuer/school athletes.) When you take those exceptions away, we have "GNG or SNG". The example I gave is not one of the exceptions of a stricter SNG, and thus the !votes that said "GNG but not SNG notable" were wrong, despite what we have already listed on this page. That's the case example that we need to provide clarity to with the suggested addition. Again, to stress: most SNGs do not impose a stronger requirement upon the GNG to presume a topic notable, they instead provide an alternate path to presumed notability. There is no new rule here, this is all what happens now, but we do need to be clear for the cases like in that AFD where it is envoked wrongly. --MASEM (t) 19:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, that is all consistent if you mean that that particular case (MMA) is not one of those exceptions where we let the SNG raise the bar. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

What bothers me is the "perception gap" between GNG and the SNGs... GNG is perceived as saying: "Sources, sources, sources... no source = not notable. PERIOD. End of discussion" while most of the various SNGs are perceived as saying "If it falls into class X, it's notable... sources don't matter". I know that this is not what either GNG or the SNGs actually do say... but I do think this is how they are understood. To my mind, the SNGs should be seen as clarifications of GNG (as applied to a specific topic area)... and not as alternatives to GNG. In other words we should be able to conform to both at the same time. I would recommend a centralized discussion to work on ways close this "perception gap". Blueboar (talk) 20:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

But that's definitely not how they are used or designed or considered per the last RFC for WP:N. They are alternatives, and it definitely should not be the case where both should be met at the same time. This creates a really bad bias where for topics that don't fall into any SNG, they only have to meet the GNG, while topics that do fall into an SNG suddenly have to met both. That would create an uproar.

The way I keep notability in mind is that it is a presumption - based on evidence (sourcing) provided - that a decent encyclopedic article can eventually be written about a topic, with an encyclopedic article one that clearly meets WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and other policies and guidelines and provides more than just basic primary facts about a topic and instead gives context and more understanding to the topic. Having sources as required by the GNG gets you close already, hence why the GNG is a good notability guideline. A topic meeting an SNG will likely not have that type of sourcing to start, but it will have other sourcing that indicates some fact or criteria being met that is a strong indicator that other sources have or will talk about that topic. Thus the SNG is a presumption that gives time (how much time? however much is needed under DEADLINE, which is a heck of a lot) for editors to locate sources - some which may be obscure print versions - or for sources to be generated, to expand the article out. We'd not delete an article that meets an SNG for failing the GNG until we are at a point where the community has determined that if sources were going to be found or created, they would have already, and the original presumption of notability would be determine invalid. This is why SNGs need to be crafted on the basis of potential sourcing. As long as that is met, "GNG or SNG" is the correct description of how to determine presumed notability.

But that points to why when people say "It meets the GNG but fails the SNG, delete". We want articles to trend towards GNG-like sourcing, so meeting the GNG is sufficient itself. SNGs are not meant to exclude topics except in a few limited cases, specifically NSPORTS and local/routine coverage as one example. This is to fight systematic bias, that some sports in some regions get extremely detailed coverage that does not extend to other sports or even the same sport in other regions. Thus setting strong requirements for sourcing is fine there. But again, rarely is it a problem where one of these exceptions are misused at AFD. It is the case of where "meets GNG, fails SNG" that WP:N presently doesn't sufficiently address and comes up more than enough at AFD to provide caution on. --MASEM (t) 00:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The relationship between GNG's and SNG's is a logical quagmire if you try to really define it. What makes it more or less work right now is the fuzziness (logically, a neural net process on a massive scale) that makes a whole lot of things pretty much work in Wikipedia. Any ideas to tidy it up that I can think of require simplification on a massive scale. My kudos, a purple heart and best wishes to the folks like Masem and Blueboar working to more realistically tweak and define it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:00, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Two thoughts occur to me, growing out of the most recent comments above. One is that I really agree with what North just said, about how the fuzziness actually ends up helping things work. What I conclude from that is that it can actually be problematic to try to make things less fuzzy, so we need to be careful about that, if we make any changes.

The second is that any change might as well acknowledge that some SNGs are intended to set a higher bar than what GNG appears to set. It's true that we are in the realm of "presumption", and that, therefore, we should not – generally! – say something that passes GNG should be deleted because it fails an SNG. But GNG can be difficult to interpret, on the face of it, when dealing with a subject for which the sourcing is subject to special considerations. Just how "significant" is that coverage? How "reliable"? How "independent of the subject"? That's where, in an ideal world, the SNGs are supposed to help. When an SNG appears to set the bar higher than GNG, what is happening – ideally, if not in practice – is that the SNG is saying "even though this kind of sourcing appears to pass GNG, as GNG is written, editors who have carefully thought about this subject area have figured out that the spirit (as opposed to the letter) of GNG can only be met by meeting the following criteria." --Tryptofish (talk) 01:06, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

I think, definitely, some SNGs set a higher bar, and others set a lower bar. A lower bar is appropriate for the natural world, non-fringe science, and distant history. A higher bar is appropriate for profit-making and advocating organisations, and recent events in the popular media. The important underlying consideration is the likelihood of surreptitious promotion at play and non-genuinely independent sources. While this is covered by the GNG, it is not covered in a useful way such that a random editor can easily make a judgment. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:05, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

What you've done, SmokeyJoe, is spoken the unspoken reality of notability at Wikipedia. None of this is written in the guidelines as you've so eloquently put it, but in reality it has always worked that way. In ways that no body actually dares speak, but which many understand, notability acts as a gatekeeper against spam: it's main use is, (and really has always been) to keep Wikipedia from being used as a vehicle to promote some new business. It's why people don't really get up in arms (as a whole community) against tiny dozen-resident villages in North Dakota or high schools or short unnavigable rivers: articles that will never functionally meet WP:GNG, but which pose no threat to be vehicles of promotion, are often either overlooked in practice (i.e. no one bothers) or are specifically excluded from the GNG by other guidelines. That is, the unwritten rule of notability is this: if you want to write an article about some poorly maintained county road in upstate New York, no one's really going to stop you because, though you may be a bit weird in your interests, there's no danger of your article being a vehicle to promote some business or person. If you want to write an article about some bar band from Upstate New York, it'll get slapped with a db-tag faster than you can read it for a second time. I'm not saying it should be any different, but it is a bit of an unwritten, secret rule here. Now, there is a vocal minority of the community that does try to enforce GNG against non-commercial subjects, but ultimately the community as a whole doesn't back this up in widespread practices, which is pretty much what you've stated. --Jayron32 03:36, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Getting a bit off track here, though its good discussion. I want to come back to the example AFD that I put, where the nom and a few !votes, said "passes GNG but fails the SNG" with the specific note that the criteria pointed is not a case where the SNG is meant to be more restrictive than the GNG. I know most of our SNGs have text at their top that say sorta the reverse of what WP:N starts with - "A topic is presumed notable if it meets the criteria below. It is also notable if it meets the GNG." Yet, this advice keeps getting missed in such AFDs. I want to make it clear (on WP:N) that while there are some SNGs that require more than the GNG, those exceptions are few (and can be outlines) and in all other cases, a topic only has to show meeting the GNG or (not both) the appropriate SNG to have presumed notability - either is sufficient for the allowance for a stand-alone page. --MASEM (t) 16:31, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The real key is whether there is sufficient source material to write an article that is able to meet all of Wikipedia's content policies. That's all notability is about. When people get it wrong is because they've got some emotional investment beyond the growth of the encyclopedia: either they really want to promote some entity, or they really want to "win the battle" or something else. However, there is no functional reason why Wikipedia should not contain information about a subject where reliable source material exists to allow Wikipedia's own coverage of the subject to be trustworthy and accurate enough. --Jayron32 17:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

But again, in this case, the article had sourcing, but the nom and some !voters were saying "well, the SNG doesn't allow us to include it" (again, with the case that the SNG was not designed to be more restrictive). --MASEM (t) 18:02, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Can you link to the specific example? This is too hypothetical. "Has sourcing" is not per se sufficient for inclusion. sometimes it is easier to point to the SNG than to explain the inadequacies of some sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The example I'm pointing to is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antonio_McKee (and which I note that someone started a second AFD hours later after closure, at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antonio McKee (2nd nomination). --MASEM (t) 00:14, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Yes, a typical WP:ATHLETE. Athletes frequently accrue an abundance of coverage in popular and sport-specific media. Often, the references are passing mentions, or entirely non-secondary source material, while some are discussion pieces directly covering the athlete. Often, surrepticious promotion is at play ("friendly" journalists/editors, intentional promotion of the subject area of the journal). There people have resourceful managers. It can take a careful examination of every source to decide whether the GNG is met.

I see that Wikipedia:Notability_(sports)#Mixed_martial_arts is objective but very brief. Sticking to its letter would be easier for all involved, but if someone wants to push for an examination per the GNG, I suppose that is reasonable. It will take some work. When this work is done, consideration should be given to updating or reinforcing the SNG. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

You didn't mention what is IMHO the most common reason for the higher coverage-to-actual-notability-ratio for athletes/sports. Its because much of the the "coverage" it itself more a form of entertainment with immense amounts of sold time-slots and column-inches to fill rather that being coverage in the normal sense. North8000 (talk) 02:32, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's really a good idea that we make decisions on high as to what reasons that something receives reliable coverage are valid, and which are not. Either source material exists or it doesn't. We don't need to make any judgements about how we wish society didn't find something worth generating source texts for us to use. Doing so is elitist. We just need to focus on the quantity and quality of material available for use for sources for Wikipedia text, not why that material exists in the first place. --Jayron32 02:36, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

...other than if the material exists because its publication was funded, even indirectly, by the subject. Yes. Being published due to being popular is not a negative. Mere entertainment publications do tend to not be secondary sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:10, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Wp-notability-suitable-coverage is itself a metric for suitability for an article. Comments like mine are talking about calibrating for imperfections in that metric, not passing judgement on society. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:24, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea. I'm uncertain about the likelihood of success. This is one of those subjects that it's okay for us all to know and to process AFDs on, but it bothers some people to spell it out for everyone.

One other general clarification that would be appropriate is for each SNG to have a section that directly says that a complete inability to verify basic information (e.g., that the subject is the president of the United States) in an independent source is a death sentence, no matter how supposedly famous and inherently notable the subject is. Wikipedia:Notability (web) has some good language that others might consider (probably toning down somewhat, since WEB is trying to very slightly raise the bar to stem a tide of self-promotion). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Do sections of long encyclopedia articles contribute to establishing notability?

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Yeah, this is, maybe, a strange question. But, FYI, I have been going through a few specialist reference sources regarding religion, generally specifically faith traditions, in the process of trying to create lists of articles which the given reference works might be useful for, and, also, which articles would seem to be very relevant and/or necessary for the comprehensive coverage of a given topic. In the process, I have found some "encyclopedic" sources which have really very long single articles relating to a rather broad topic, with specific sections within that article for "subtopics". For instance, I am currently going through an "Encyclopedia of Buddhism" which has articles of several pages in lengths on the subject of Buddhist art in various countries and regions, generally with multiple sections, which often are, basically, short one or two paragraph articles on given artists or local artistic traditions. Sometimes, those sections can be quite long, including over a single page in their own right. For a similar list I created recently for the Bible based on one Bible dictionary, I found any number of articles which have lengthy marked subsections regarding theological matters regarding certain topics, history of the development of ideas, etc., etc. Granted that I am comparatively not the best informed person on a lot of these topics, like Buddhism, but I'm not sure how many others we have around here who know it better. So, in the event that there seems to be some form of consistency regarding the relative scope of individual articles or subarticles of longer articles regarding specific topics regarding a religion, would it be acceptable to perhaps use those sources as indicators of notability for a lot of these generally apparently fairly significant topics which have, to date, gotten not a lot of attention around here? John Carter (talk) 02:33, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

If the source text is a) reliable and b) indepth, I don't see why not? Presumably, anything notable is notable in more than one text, though, so have you tried to look for additional information? The thing is, much information about non-western subjects has copious reliable texts in non-English sources (which is fine) but you'd need to know those languages to use those sources. Just some thoughts. --Jayron32 02:38, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's alright to use other encyclopedias as indicators of notability, in partial contrast to using them (as tertiary sources) to source specific facts. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:53, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Is plot summary "significant content"?

Latest comment: 11 years ago78 comments14 people in discussion

This is about fiction (let's take the example of an article about a fictional character). If we have a reliable secondary source, but in which we can only find plot summary and no analysis/commentary, would the summary be considered "significant coverage" or not ?Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little unclear about what you are asking, but none of the ways I can think of to interpret what you are asking would count as significant coverage. DreamGuy (talk) 20:34, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

A plot summary without any analysis or other transformation is a primary source - and ergo not appropriate for notability. --MASEM (t) 21:43, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I disagree - the mere fact of summarizing is a transformation that implies analysis and interpretation, if done by someone else than the original author. Parts of the whole work are weighted by the writer of the summary, which requires judgement as to what is the essence of the story; and different writers can arrive to quite distinct summaries that focus on separate aspects of the story. If the writer is not "close to the event" nor "directly involved" with the work, the summary is a secondary interpretation of it. As long as there are multiple and in-depth sources of that kind, that's enough to establish notability - independent parties are noting the work and writing reasoned presentations about it. Diego (talk) 00:54, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Those are some good points Diego, thanks. BOZ (talk) 03:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

That's absolutely wrong, however, for how we categorize secondary sources. Remember, we are in the act of summarizing as well, but we would never consider our summaries as secondary sourcing - its tertiary. The distinction you are talking about is on the first-party, third-party axis or in considering dependent vs independent sources. --MASEM (t) 03:48, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, I'm explicitly talking of the primary-secondary-tertiary axis, which requires that a primary source is directly involved, and a secondary includes an author's own thinking. I'm also not talking of our summaries, but of summaries by reliable sources; my position is that creating a reliable summary requires a good deal of author's thought and provides emphasis on the significant parts of the story. (A third-party, primary source is the witness of an accident, not someone who analyzes an artistic work and writes about it).

So enlighten me - if a reliable third party transforming a whole work into a few selected paragraphs is not "transformative" enough for notability, when does such coverage begin to be a significant transformation? Diego (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm not the only to think this way - the WP:ALLPRIMARY essay linked from WP:N explicitly recognizes that "a peer-reviewed journal article [...] summarizing previously published work to place the new work in context [...] is secondary material". Diego (talk) 11:40, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This completely invalidates your reasoning: "a transformation that implies analysis and interpretation". Per WP:GNG,"Significant coverage means that [...] no original research is needed to extract the content". Unless a writer says so, there is no analysis or commentary whatsoever in a summary; as long as the author doesn't infer or speculate on any plot point, he's merely paraphrasing a primary source and not commenting on it or transforming it. The same goes for "judging the essence of the story", unless the writer clearly says so, we have no business implying that he would have "weighed an interpreted". That would be OR. The involvement of a 3rd party in a summary is trivial at best; the cuts made into the plot absolutely do not change anything to the events/conclusion of a fictional work, there's not enough difference from the primary source to deem it "significant", and there's absolutely no trace of a 2ndary writer's "own thinking", unless we use OR, or unless we're dealing with something else that a summary. WP:ALLPRIMARY is also completely irrelevant here, since it refers to placing "the new work in context", so this refers to summary + analysis, not summary alone.Folken de Fanel (talk) 13:34, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

You're mixing up the concept of original research with editorial judgement. OR applies to what goes written into the article and readers will find about - it cannot apply to the thoughts themselves that editors indulge when deciding what to write about. Yes, what reliable sources write about is relevant to what is finally written - but what counts as "significant" is ultimately decided by editors, not by other sources, because otherwise you'd enter in an infinite loop. As of today, WP:GNG doesn't require any particular kind of content from sources (such as critical commentary and analysis), only in-depth coverage that allows Wikipedians to write about the topic by copying and summarizing what's available elsewhere. Diego (talk) 16:38, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

GNG's "secondary sources" specifically asserts what type of content we expect as part of the significant coverage - ones that are more than just rote reiteration of facts, and that contain analysis and criticial review. --MASEM (t) 16:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Excuse me, what exactly do you refer to with GNG's "secondary sources"? Diego (talk) 18:29, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

""Sources",[2] for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability." --MASEM (t) 18:32, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

if a reliable third party transforming a whole work into a few selected paragraphs is not "transformative" enough for notability, when does such coverage begin to be a significant transformation? - As soon as you add something that is not otherwise plainly obvious from the original published work, whether it is a personal opinion, a statement of interpretation, comparison between multiple works, or so on - something that if written by a WPian in the course of writing, would be called out as original research. A case in point would be the recaps at the website Television Without Pity, which while recapping a show may include snark and commentary. Of course, how much of such commentary exists relative to the recapping aspect will after how significant this is: one commentary line in 20 pages of non-interpretative recapping is likely not going to be considered significant. Just to be clear and where I'm coming from: I've been trying to push for notability of fiction for several years, and despite that, it is always been argued that recaps without additional transformation are not sufficient sources for notability. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Notable enough for them to talk about the person, and the achievements in their life, be they real or fictional, would indicate notability. Why would a fictional person be treated differently than a real one? Is it just one sentence for a book saying its about this character doing this or that, or is there a lot of detail to it? How much is written about the person/character? Dream Focus 12:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Because real life and fiction are not the same, and "Wikipedia treats fiction in an encyclopedic manner, discussing the reception and significance of notable works in addition to a concise summary", meaning that plot summaries are not the end-all of articles and thus are not significant. I'll also add that even for real persons, WP:ANYBIO seems to say that a mere bio is not notable without the person being notable for something else than for merely having a life that can be summed up.Folken de Fanel (talk) 14:01, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Folken de Fanel, checking your contribution history, I see you arguing with people on the Dragonlance characters. Is that what you are talking about here? Consensus was that Goldmoon and Raistlin Majere were notable enough to have their own articles. [1] The amount of coverage they have, the details of it, how many notable works they were major characters in, etc. is all relevant. Dream Focus 13:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

First,"how many notable works they were major characters in" isn't relevant because notability is not inherited. Yes, I've recently debated about Dragonlance characters (and the two you mention didn't actually prompt me to come here, it was rather Caramon Majere), and during these discussion, the question arose of whether plot summaries (as opposed to secondary/real world information) sourced to non-primary sources were "significant" enough in themselves to make an article notable. But this goes beyond just a few select articles, fiction doesn't have its own notability guideline, we have to refer to the GNG and I think it is too vague as to what "significant coverage" is when dealing with fiction. If plot summaries are acknowledged as significant coverage, then we could have cases of notable article that would violate a policy, WP:NOTPLOT, and that is problematic. I think we have to clarify a few things here.Folken de Fanel (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Are you aware that NOTINHERITED is an essay? What matters per GNG to write an article for an item in the fictional work is that there's enough content to write about the item alone, while satisfying all the content guidelines such as WP:NPOV and NOTPLOT. I believe a short article that includes the plot highlights and real-world facts with equal weight from reliable sources is perfectly compatible with all the content guidelines, and I haven't seen any policy that contradicts that. Diego (talk) 18:27, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:NRVE is not an essay.Folken de Fanel (talk) 19:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

To which I agree, but that isn't related to inherited notability nor contradicts what I said above. We're talking of sources that have received extended, verifiable attention in the form of plot summaries coming from "peer reviewed publications, credible and authoritative books, reputable media sources, and other reliable sources generally". Diego (talk) 19:41, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

yes, that's related to inherited notability, since no topic is notable merely because it exists, merely being a character from a notable work is not enough, ~which is why Dream Focus was wrong. And my take on plot summaries is that if the author didn't find the subject worthy enough to write original thoughts and analysis rather than merely rehashing the plot, then there's no significant coverage.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

If all your source provides is a recanting of the plot then you still haven't got enough information about a character to build a valid article. We have several character articles that fall afoul of WP:NOT#PLOT because of these kind of problems: if all the article can provide is a plot summary that has been filtered by only discussing the events which involved a particular character, it's still just a plot summary and has no place here. A valid character article should resemble Superman or Bugs Bunny, with substantial information about the appearance of the character in diverse media and its influence in other media. It certainly should not resemble Caramon Majere, which would appear to be a plot recitation dressed up as if it were analysis.—Kww(talk) 16:43, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Once again, we seem to be faced with the distinction between a subject being "note-worthy" and it being "WP:NOTABLE". The first concept is broad in scope, and relates to the issue of whether we should mention the subject somewhere in Wikipedia (Not necessarily in an article dedicated to that subject). The second concept is narrower in scope, and relates purely to the issue of whether we should have an article dedicated to the subject. The major characters of a popular work of fiction (or, as is the case of Dragonlance, a popular fictional series) would certainly be note-worthy; and they definitely should be mentioned somewhere in Wikipedia (the most logical place would be in the main Dragonlance article). The question is whether a given character is WP:NOTABLE enough for its own article. That brings us to sources and "significant coverage"... and the more specific question of whether secondary source plot summaries constitute "significant coverage". To me the answer lies in asking another question: What is the secondary source plot summary focused on. A secondary source plot summary that explicitly focuses on the specific character (ie outlines his/her adventures across multiple Dragonlance books) would constitute significant coverage of the subject (the character). A secondary source plot summary that focused on the broad story arc of the series... and was not explicitly focused on the specific character, would not be.

So... In my opinion, we can not answer the question as asked. "Are plot summaries "significant coverage?"... Some are, but others are not. We need to look at the specific plot summary in question to determine if it constitutes significant coverage. That is a consensus determination... not a matter of policy. Blueboar (talk) 16:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. I feel, however, that this is a matter of policy. If a character article only has what you call significant summary (ie focused on the character across multiple primary sources) and it is impossible to find any commentary or real-world perspective...the article would technically meet WP:N, but still fail WP:NOTPLOT. What do we do then ? I know that logically, policies should trumpt guidelines, but is there any point in having a guideline specifically contradicting a policy instead of resolving the matter by clearly drawing a line as to what is "significant" for fiction ? Folken de Fanel (talk) 17:12, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The world isn't black-and-white. If you showed me a character that had several plot-focused summations from great sources and enough little bits and pieces from other sources to build a real article, I'd be more inclined to look favorably on that article than if all you could show me was the bit and pieces. The plot-based stuff won't suffice to build an article, but it can contribute to notability. As to "contradicting", there's no contradiction: if the article doesn't pass WP:NOT, then WP:N doesn't apply. "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not."—Kww(talk) 17:25, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar analysis is spot-on. The points about a character that reliable sources want to write about are those being noted, and what we should include in an article about those characters. NOTPLOT should not be a problem, as it includes the way to handle such an article: expand it to provide real-world facts about the character; there will always be the easy ones - works where they appear, genre of the work, year of publication - those are the context that NOTPLOT talks about. Critical commentary is a welcome, but it should not be an impediment for having the article - no other encyclopedia writes about characters only with critical reception. "Just the facts" is a perfectly valid approach for writing an encyclopedia (see Britannica's article about Gollum for instance) - it was what encyclopedias were about before WP:NOT was written. Given that WP is also not paper, articles should be written about the facts of all characters that are being noted by third parties. Diego (talk) 17:31, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

We do not consider elements like "works where they appear, genre of the work, year of publication" as sufficient to meet WP:NOT#PLOT, as again, that is primary data and not secondary. Articles on fictional characters must include information related to their development, their reception, their legacy, or other analytic or critical details that are beyond fundamental facts, in order to be considered notable. --MASEM (t) 17:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not? WP:NOT is unrelated to notability, so it's not affected by the requirement of secondary sources. What we're finally discussing is what constitutes a valid article about a fictional character. Per Notability, a character that is noted by a lot of independent sources can be kept. Per NOTPLOT, if the article contains an equal proportion of summary and real-world facts (which includes the list of works, year and genre) it can be kept. So far I haven't seen anything in any guideline or policy that would prohibit a "just the facts" article about a fictional character, so opposing them is a matter of personal preference, not policy; it's not any different than the myriad of facts-only articles about soundtracks, movies or books that Wikipedia contains even without Reception sections, provided there are enough sources for them. Diego (talk) 17:55, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

WP:V requires that articles be based on independent sources (it certainly permits the use of primary sourcing, but the requirement to be based on independent sources has been there for years). Any article which only included information from primary sources would be prohibited by WP:V.—Kww(talk) 18:07, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Yup, I agree, but we're talking exclusively about articles where there's a lot of secondary independent sources, all of them providing in-depth summaries of the plot of books or fictional elements, likely from different angles and approaches - WP:V is a given in the above discussion. Diego (talk) 18:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Those are not secondary sources, that's the problem. I strongly recommend reviewing Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Fictional elements/archive to show what does not cut it for character articles - just re-iterating plot summaries even from 3rd party sources will not cut it. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

If journal articles summarizing previously published work are secondary sources, why summaries of fictional works are not secondary sources? There may be a reason, but I certainly don't see it encoded in policy. Diego (talk) 18:42, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

You need to use the line from ALLPRIMARY in its entirety: "A peer-reviewed journal article may begin by summarizing previously published work to place the new work in context (which is secondary material) before proceeding into a description of a novel idea (which is primary material)." (stress mine). For articles on fictional characters, we are definitely not talking about using recaps as to put "a new work in context" and thus would be primary here. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, then if I understand your reasoning, the conclusion for the original question is that summaries about fictional works created to put the work in some context would be valid for establishing notability. That wouldn't include blurbs that exclusively provide a summary, but it would include summaries created to talk about a topic other than the fictional work. Diego (talk) 19:01, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, the summaries can talk more about the fictional work in a manner than just rote non-interpretive summary of the work. I could argue that if I had a source that said "fictional works A and B are similar" and proceed to do a rote summary of both works within it, that would at least a start of a secondary source since it's making the claim of A and B being similar. --MASEM (t) 19:11, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

As long as the source provides original commentary (ie "new content") there is no problem since the summary is balanced with commentary. I'm refering to instances where sources can only be used for summary. Or in case where we have like 99% plot sum (even from secondary sources) and 1% commentary such as Caramon Majere, which shouldn't be a stand-alone article since there's only one source for commentary and everything else only providing plot sum.Folken de Fanel (talk) 20:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

The cure for an article like Caramon Majere is rarely a full deletion for lack of notability. The character being created for a campaign, appearing in early video games and being part of the storylines in several works do all merit being included somewhere in Wikipedia. Now that WP:PAGEDECIDE has been included in the guideline, the decision to have an article doesn't need to be decided on a consensus about notability or NOTPLOT - editorial judgement can be used to decide how to best present the available, well sourced bits. Trimming a plot-only article down to a stub or even blanking it are valid actions, but WP:PRESERVE is also policy and sourced facts should not be lost in the process. Diego (talk) 21:35, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This is where the merge would be best done instead, particular if the character can only be discussed by its appearance in fiction and no or little secondary source coverage exists. By necessity, some of the plot-related elements will have to be trimmed by this, but there's no problem with keeping redirects around to make it a search term. --MASEM (t) 21:39, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

This was already commented when writing WP:PAGEDECIDE - the problem is that often there's not a valid merge target, because the most obvious place (the original work that included the character or item) is too large or too general to include in that article; but the item has been independently noted so it should be described somewhere. Or when the item appeared in various novels, merging it to the article for one book in the series wouldn't make sense either. In such cases, keeping a small article covering the various references that addressed it is the best possible structure. WP:SPLIT advises how to handle those cases. Diego (talk) 21:49, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

That's why articles like "List of characters in X" for serial works are readily accepted as means of summarizing the characters on their own. This would be perfectly appropriate for these Dragonlance characters for example. --MASEM (t) 21:53, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, there is a List of Dragonlance characters, and I'm fine with having the sourced content from Camaron Majere preserved and merged there (see how it was done), actually there's already a multi-character merge discussion, but a user has objected the merge of this particular character by arguing that sourced plot summary would make it meet the GNG. That's what prompted me to open this thread.Folken de Fanel (talk) 22:40, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Is that support for keeping around plot details under lists of fictional characters for notable works? Because those are also regularly nominated for deletion under NOTPLOT. If merging the plot of characters into a list under Wikipedia:CSC#2 or #3 is suggested as the preferred solution, count me in. Diego (talk) 07:01, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Plot summary is fine as significant coverage. An example, Encyclopaedia Britannica on Macbeth (character): "Macbeth, a general in King Duncan’s army who is spurred on by the prophecy of the Weird Sisters ... The ultimate hopelessness of his position becomes clear to him at last, and he spells this out in two poignant speeches in Act V ...". Or Medusa: "Medusa, in Greek mythology, the most famous of the monster figures known as Gorgons. She was usually represented as a winged female creature having a head of hair consisting of snakes ... The severed head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, was given to Athena, who placed it in her shield ..." . Such summaries are fine. Literary criticism and reviews are mainly opinion and so not so significant. We're here to report facts, not opinions. Warden (talk) 22:18, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- Wrong. A plot summary is acceptable as part of the coverage of a character but cannot be the only aspect of a notable character. The reason that Britannica has articles on characters like Macbeth or Medusa is that because literary experts have analyszed these characters as part of the body of human literature; but before they can talk about that, they have to identify that character in the primary works, hence the appropriateness of plot summary as part of a stand-alone article. But plot summary alone doesn't give any indication of notability. --MASEM (t) 22:23, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- And actually, notability as a whole is about opinions - opinions on what is important from experts in the various fields, as we define as being independent reliable sources. It is one thing if Robert Ebert determines that a film is worthwhile to talk about , compared to a random blogger talking about the same film. --MASEM (t) 22:26, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- "Literary criticism and reviews are mainly opinion and so not so significant. We're here to report facts, not opinions"...and how do we reconcile that with WP:NOTPLOT ?Folken de Fanel (talk) 22:40, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
- "We're here to report facts, not opinions"...and we're here to report facts about opinions, such as the fact that this film received positive reviews, or that book was criticized on the following grounds. We have no rule that says reliable sources cannot be subjective. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
If it's truly just plot summary, then it's a primary source. Secondary sources (as we use this term on the English Wikipedia; in the real world, each academic field has a slightly different definition) require some sort of thoughtful transformation, not just a paraphrase or condensation. See WP:USEPRIMARY for more about the concepts as used here, and see WP:Secondary does not mean independent for more about why it's not enough for the summary writer to not be "directly involved" in the original. It sounds to me like what you have is a reliable, independent, primary source, which is valuable for all purposes except notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
Plot summaries are never primary sources, per what Diego said above. Summary != primary, it's hard to put it any simpler than that. Jclemens (talk) 03:10, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- Yes they are, if they are simply rote summation of a work without any interpretation. --MASEM (t) 03:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
  - No, they're not. You can't summarize a work without independent critical thought. Every abridgement of any primary source necessarily decides what the central points are, and how to present them. These may seem quite outlandish, but they demonstrate how non-neutral a summary can be. Jclemens (talk) 04:51, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
    - By that logic, plot summaries written by Wikipedians from their own impressions of the work itself are independent critical thought. Reyk _YO! 05:05, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
      - I think you need to reread WP:NOR. There are most assuredly summaries which are independent critical thought but not be original research. The difference elaborated on in NOR is that we are guided by other plot summaries in our own plot summaries: c.f. WP:DUE. Jclemens (talk) 05:13, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        I have reread it and confirmed that my interpretation is right. When you do independent critical thought, you're doing original research. You seem to want to have it both ways- that plot summaries are transformative critiques when someone else does it and you want to argue notability, but somehow magically not OR when Wikipedians do it. It's one or the other. Reyk _YO! 05:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        And yet... Wikipedia has such editor-derived plot summaries throughout the project. Which means that either the description of WP:NOR is at odds with the community's practice, or that you've fallen victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle. Really, think through the reasoning: since Wikipedia doesn't allow original research, and we have a lot of plot summaries, they must not be original research, and since plot summaries in otherwise reliable sources wouldn't be original research either, they wouldn't support the notability of the works summarized because they wouldn't be creative. Cut the convoluted reasoning, and the answer is much simpler: Plot summaries in reliable sources contribute to the GNG, because they ARE analyses. Jclemens (talk) 08:38, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        Absolutely wrong. If we agree that plot summaries as written by WPians are to be devoid of original research (as with any part of WPian summation of sources for writing articles) there is no way that can be a secondary source, as a secondary source requires some type of original thought per our nature of transformative secondary works. A similar plot summary in a reliable source is not magically a secondary source because it exists off en.wiki. --MASEM (t) 14:39, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        You're entitled to your opinion, but it is clearly at odds with Wikipedia practice. Even were a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to emerge on this page that RS'ed plot summaries somehow didn't count towards notability, the vast body of Wikipedia practice demonstrates that 1) Wikipedians can and do write plot summaries of all sorts of works, from current TV episodes to Homeric literature, and 2) Plot summaries outside of Wikipedia are considered sufficient reliable sources to the extent they meet other criteria (independence, etc.). Thus, you're left with three options 1) The Wikipedia community is wrong, 2) The Wikipedia community is wrong, or 3) those advocating for the either-or dichotomy are falling victim to the fallacy of the excluded middle. Jclemens (talk) 19:20, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        No, your second point is wrong. Plot summaries from external sources may be reliable, and may be independent, but they are not necessarily secondary, which is the key factor for notability; there has to be other secondary material - whether from the source with the summary, or from other sources. Otherwise, even if you gather all the reliable plot summaries written about a top and use those to base an article, you fail WP:N, not to mention WP:NOT#PLOT. This is been the way since I've tried crafting FICT and its clear the community rejects plot summaries as evidence of notability. --MASEM (t) 19:37, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        You're positing the existence of reliable, independent, primary sources. While WP:PSTS admits such a possibility, it's hard to imagine how an outside, independent reviewer of any fictional work can count as "people who are directly involved" nor how such a plot summary could "offer an insider's view of [...] a work of art [...]". The key is "directly involved" and "insider", and I have yet to see one of those with respect to a fictional work which wouldn't also run afoul of our expectations of independence. Jclemens (talk) 19:50, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        Plenty of sources are third-party primary sources - nearly every newspaper article is such, for example. The means to make it secondary is not just having one-person removed from the work, but to apply critical thought and analysis as to transfer the original primary + other sources into something novel. That's how we apply the definition of secondary to WP. --MASEM (t) 20:02, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
        I'll give you this: your peculiar and unsupported definition of what constitutes a secondary source is at least consistent, even if at odds with Wikipedia usage. Jclemens (talk) 06:17, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
        I'm sorry, but this is standard practice. Per PSTS: A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. I can't see how a rote plot summary would fit into that. Again, this is not true of all plot summaries, some will have analysis and be secondary, but it is not the case that a plot summary is always a secondary source. --MASEM (t) 06:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)
        And yet, you still claim that "nearly every newspaper article is [a third-party primary source]". Sorry, but the primary sources are the documents, quotes, and interviews that make up the sources used in the newspaper article. Sure, opinion pieces and raw eyewitness accounts are primary sources, but the assertion I quote above is ridiculous on its face. Any editing of a primary source renders the result a secondary source, period, and that includes the vast majority of newspaper articles. Jclemens (talk) 05:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
        Wrong, again; see WP:PRIMARYNEWS. As has been pointed out, you're using the "one person removed" concept of primary vs secondary, but that's not how we use them on WP; we look at transformation and original thought that is needed for a secondary. A neutral plot summary remains a primary source. --MASEM (t) 06:22, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
        
        There are differences in the real world. The "fine arts" academics usually agree with Jclemens. However, we don't use their definition here at the English Wikipedia. We mostly follow the historians' concept of primary sources (except for hard science, when we follow the hard-science definition). Under our definitions, simple summaries are classified as primary. The Professor of Poetry at your local school would likely disagree with us, but that's our definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
        No, they're not. Summaries themselves implicitly comment on the work summarized, by virtue of what they include, and what they leave out. Repeating the untenable assertion that there exists such a thing as a purely neutral and non-transformative summary doesn't make it true. Jclemens (talk) 05:36, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
        By this logic, we can never include a plot summary in WP because you claim there's no way to summarize in a purely neutral and non-transformative manner. Yes they can be, and we do it all the time in writing our plot summaries for WP - as well as summarizing any other article (fiction or not). There is a skill to keeping such summaries neutral and non-transformative but its done all the time. So yes, plot summaries can be primary sources, and certainly are not always secondary. --MASEM (t) 06:27, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
        
        Jclemens does not seem to appreciate the different usages of primary source and secondary source between (three particularly distinct examples) journalists, scientists and historians. Jclemens (like many other Wikipedians) appears to prefer the journalist’s usage. However, an encyclopedia is best regarded with historical perspective, and where there is a difference, our policies and guidelines (particularly WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:N) are written in historiographical terms.
        Editing of a primary source does tend to make it into a secondary source. But it depends on the editing and “secondary source” depends on how it is used. “Editing” is ambiguous. It is “transformation of information” from primary source facts to something involving the “creative input of the author”, that creates a secondary source.
        “Summarising” is a particularly shallow transform. If you take a written history of a country, and summarise by extracting a list of all dated events, you have not created a secondary source for sure. If you summarise by extracting events of long-lasting significance, you probably have. If you summarise by re-interpreting based on a current view of the original author’s biases, then you definitely have. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:43, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

A plot summary, as a non-creative derivative of the work itself, may be significant, but must be considered a primary source in terms of historiography, which are the terms most applicable to an encyclopedia.
The more the summary can be considered “creative”, the less we call it a “summary”. Summarisation is a technical skill, and is even amenable to automation. The best summary, for a given level of detail, has the least influence of its author. “Summarisation to make a point” is not mere summarisation.
In a reliable secondary source, the plot summary (that is, the parts devoid of commentary) does not count towards “significant depths of coverage”. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
The most workaday plot summary is still an interpretive work and a secondary source. A common attitude seems to be that the plot of a fictional work is somehow an objective thing hanging in the void somewhere and a "rote recounting" simply reproduces that objective thing, verbatim. This is nonsense. The mere determining what the plot of a fictional work is is an act of interpretation, casting some elements as significant and others not, establishing a point of view on what happened (think this isn't subjective? look into studies of comparative eyewitness testimony), and so on. A plot summary is no more a primary source because of some idea of its "roteness" than a photograph of a tobacco pipe is a tobacco pipe because of the mechanical quality of its reproduction. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:18, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- Wrong. Consider every standard WP edit that includes information from a source (fiction or note). That is the act of summary. For that summary to be appropriate in WP, it may not make new conclusions or the like that is not immediately apparent in the source - read: all of this summary is primary information. In the same manner, one can write a plot summary that, while deciding the important aspects to include in the summary, still remains neutral and non-interpretive. That's most plot summaries that are out there, and thus we treat as primary. --MASEM (t) 04:25, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
  - Wikipedia summarization attempts to be neutral, and it's possible that this is both achievable and more or less achieved in many cases. The idea that it's non-interpretive is laughable. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
- A plot summary is no more a secondary source than a photograph of a tobacco pipe is commentary on a tobacco pipe. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:27, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
  - Is it somehow possible to take a photograph of a tobacco pipe without perforce commenting that you consider that tobacco pipe a fit subject for photography? —chaos5023 (talk) 04:44, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
    - The fact that someone bothers to summarise and publish is a step towards wikipedia-notability. If the summariser-publisher is highly reputable, it is a bigger step. If many publish competing and contrasting summaries, then it is surely very interesting. However, until someone clearly, explicitly, says something qualitative about the subject, you don’t have citable material to base an article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:58, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
    - The fact that TV Guide decided that some television show should be "consider[ed]...a fit subject for" providing a simple, analysis-free plot summary says a lot about what they believed would earn profits, and not much else. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:14, 24 January 2013 (UTC)
We need to be clear here - no one is saying no plot summary can be a secondary source, but there are plot summaries and there are plot summaries. The ones that we write (or should be writing towards) on WP, or those found in Cliff's Notes, will be primary as while there is some editorial consideration of what points are the most important, no novel ideas are being introduced by that summary. On the other hand, television episodes recapped at Television Without Pity, or movie recaps by critics, will often contain new thoughts and thus the entire piece would likely be secondary, and thus indicating notability.
A factor to consider is that if a work has numerous primary plot summaries from reliable sources, there is bound to be coverage beyond that in the secondary manner somewhere if the work gets that much repetition. In other words, it is rare that we have a work that has no secondary sources but lots of primary plot summaries. --MASEM (t) 05:17, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

What does notability attach to?

Latest comment: 11 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

As brought out in the ongoing Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:WikiProject Songs Cover-versions and multiple-renditions, Wikipedia has four million articles, but not one of them is a standalone article on a cover song. Apparently, the basis for removing all standalone cover song articles from Wikipedia over the last twelve years is that "A song article ... is about the song and NOT a specific performance - it is the song that is notable, even though specific performance(s) may make it notable." In other words, when reliable sources write about Elvis Presley cover song Hound Dog, the notability attaches to Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's efforts to write and compose the song and does not attach to the Elvis Presley Hound Dog cover song. And, as such, all information about all Hound Dog cover song versions belong in the Hound Dog (song) article and cannot be in a standalone cover song article itself. As posted at WikiProject Songs, "the [WikiProject] guideline is to ensure that everything about "the song" is kept together and not separated over several articles."[2] On first blush, it would seem that notability attaches to the topic written about by the reliable sources in the context provided by the reliable source. Yet, all standalone cover song articles have been removed from Wikipedia and Wikipedia writers for some reason have not come forward to post standalone articles on even the most popular cover songs. I can't explain it, yet there is strong consensus proof by the fact that Wikipedia has no standalone cover song article. In view of this, then maybe there is consensus that, when it comes to songs and unlike film remakes or other works of art, any notability provided by the subordinate cover song attaches to the parent original song work such that everything about "the song" is to be kept together and not separated over several articles. I appreciate any comments you have on this. Thanks. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 10:36, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

While it is certainly possible (and in fact, probably the case) that covers can be notable in of themselves, this is a case where the community believes that a more comprehensive article is made by keeping cover versions of songs together with the original, which is certainly an allowed approach - as we recently discussed, while notability is a necessary requirement for a standalone article, it is not required to make a standalone article just because something is notable. I think that because cover songs automatically (by nature of being a cover) share some production/creation information specifically on lyrics and musical approaches with their original works, there'd be a lot of duplication between them if they were separated. (Contrast this to parodies, ala Weird Al, where the music may be the same, but the lyrics and other factors are their own metric) There's always the allowance for exceptions, of course. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

And just double checking that MFD - there is nothing in policy that is forcing notable cover songs into the article about the original song - that is only a wikiproject guideline. I agree that barely notable covers (eg recent case in point would be Jonathan Coulton's Baby Got Back) should be in the original article song for best coverage, but ones like the Black Magic Woman that are highlighted in that MFD have reasonable allowances to be their own, irregardless of what the Wikiproject says. --MASEM (t) 15:19, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

A lot of this is simply editorial judgement and consensus. Granted, individual covers of songs can be notable in their own right... but it does make sense to talk about them in the article about the song itself. Let me draw a (weak) comparison to another topic area... Bio articles... as an example, look at our article on Grover Cleveland... we cover his entire life in one single article. However, we could (if we wanted to) divide that article up into several shorter sub-articles (one covering his early life, another covering his terms as US President, a third covering his time as US Supreme Court Justice, etc.) So why don't we? Well, to a large extent its because it simply makes more sense to cover someone's life in one large article, rather than in a series of short articles. We only split if there is too much material to cover in one article. Nothing says we can't split it up, it's just that we made the (perhaps unconscious) decision that the topic is better covered in one place.

OK, the analogy is not perfect... but it does illustrate the kind of editorial judgements we make every day. To relate back to songs... a specific cover of a song might well notable enough for its own article... but does it really make sense to have one when the the topic can be included in the more general article about all renditions of the song? Notability is a necessary prerequisite to have stand alone article on a topic ... but it does not guarantee or require us to have one. Sometimes it simply makes more sense to cover a notable topic in some other (related) article. Blueboar (talk) 16:03, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Summary style allows fuller treatment of any major subtopic in a separate article of its own and Grover Cleveland has several Summary style subsections leading to standalone articles. Preventing Elvis Presley's cover song Hound Dog from receiving fuller treatment in a separate article prevents writers from adding context specific to Elvis Presley's cover song Hound Dog that would not fit in the Hound Dog (song) article because it does not relate to the general Hound Dog (song). When reliable sources write about an aspect of Grover Cleveland's life, they write about the Grover Cleveland topic. When reliable sources write about Elvis Presley's cover song Hound Dog, the do not write about the more general topic in the context of all renditions of the song. When editors use reliable sources written about Elvis Presley's cover song Hound Dog to post information in the parent song, they are very limited to what they can take from that reliable source and add to the parent song because to do otherwise would change alter the context of the information from the reliable source. In reply to Masem's duplication comment, Wikipedia:Summary style provides guidance on how to prevent a lot of duplication between the parent song article and subordinate cover song article if they were separated. The information specific to the cover song (its infobox, etc) would go with the cover song and a summary of the cover song could be left in the parent song article. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that "cover songs automatically (by nature of being a cover) share some production/creation information specifically on lyrics and musical approaches with their original works" only to the extent reliable sources write about it in that context. Also, notability is not inherited "up", from notable subordinate to parent. Parent notability has to be established independently. If the original work was commercially unsuccessful and did not appear on the music charts and otherwise would not meet WP:N, can the cover song be used to provide Wikipedia notability to the original work in a situation where the original work has not received significant coverage in reliable sources and only received passing mentions in reliable sources when discussing the cover song. WP:N says no. The elimination of all standalone cover song articles says yes. Part of this issues is from where does Wikipedia notability originate. When you look at WP:FA Criteria's "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" and WP:N, a topic obtains its Wikipedia notability from being written about by the reliable source in the context of that reliable source writing. By limiting Wikipedia coverage of a cover song to the parent song article, editors are forced to leave out reliable source information specific to the cover song or change the context of the information from what the reliable source wrote about the cover song to a context of the parent song. Masem, have you tried to contribute cover song information to a parent song article. If you try, I think you will see that the song main topic will restrain what you post about the cover song. Your FA judgment will tell you that, yes, this information is needed for the cover song, but it should not be in the song main topic article because it does not really fit there. A simple answer would seem to be to write a cover song standalone article and bring it to FA status. However, that FA standalone cover song article would run smack into the strong efforts by a group of editors working to keep Wikipedia free of standalone cover song articles. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:12, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

IMHO there isn't and shouldn't be a blanket prohibition, but 99.9% of the time these should not exist as a separate article. The "in depth coverage by secondary sources" requirement is a good guide here and has a good reason.North8000 (talk) 13:31, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Comment. Uzma Gamal's whole argument is based on a misconception, Anything, having attained notability, must have a separate article. This is patently untrue, but more general WP policies like WP:SIZE would apply etc. Cheers --Richhoncho (talk) 09:10, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

Notability of ideas?

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I was just looking at an AfD for Criticism of family, and it occurred to me to ask if there's ever been a proposal to include guideline specifying criteria for the inclusion of more abstract concepts like this. I've seen a few articles like this, but other than appealing to the original synthesis principle, there's not much to go on when determining whether a concept is legitimate and notable. TheBlueCanoe 17:32, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

While the direct question has never been proposed, the concept is one that has been discussed but more on other pages than here, and usually more on the factor of whether such pages are inheriently biased due to the negative-sounding "criticism" word. Clearly the idea of "family" is notable, and there is certainly critical discussion about the concept of family in light of modern concepts (same sex marriages, etc.) Notability really only comes into play in that assuring that there are secondary sources that together form the appropriate basis for the topic, even if the topic as a specific single idea is not wholly discussed in one source. The other core content policies (NOR and NPOV) are more the guiding point for the validity of these articles. --MASEM (t) 17:52, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Aside from the debated question of "Criticism of..." pages, the more general question of notability of ideas may depend on the kind of idea. Thus, on the face of it, if something (in this case "family") is clearly notable, and it is, then the general idea of certain lines of thought about it may well be notable too. On the other hand, one particular line of thought (perhaps "Tryptofish's criticisms of family") might fail WP:GNG, so a page that treats the whole topic as just being that one particular line might fail, for example, WP:UNDUE. I can't really think of a kind of idea where WP:GNG would not be suitable to determine whether the idea is notable or not. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

MediaWiki should ask unconfirmed users if their new pages are notable or not

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

The question that Lachlan Foley asked, above, inspired me with an idea.

After a new Wikipedia user creates a page, they click "Save page".

If the user is not yet autoconfirmed, then after they click "Save page", MediaWiki should take them to a confirmation page. MediaWiki should ask them, "Has this topic received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject?"

If the user doesn't answer, then the new page should be automatically moved to Articles for creation.

What do you think of my idea? Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 21:19, 3 April 2013 (UTC). Edited for clarity 22:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC).

Editors are already cautioned when creating a new page (via an edit box at the top of the page) that notability should be there, but it doesn't make sense to force this on editors. Plus I'm not sure of the work needed behind the scenes to make this work. --MASEM (t) 21:40, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Too many new users ignore the edit-box cautions; they create articles which are unsourced, or have unreliable sources, or have non-independent sources. This way, these new users' articles could go through Articles-for-creation review instead of going straight to mainspace. Plus, this measure need only apply to unconfirmed users. The feature wouldn't be too hard to code into MediaWiki. —Unforgettableid (talk) 22:49, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability proof

Latest comment: 11 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion

At the moment you have to prove that an article isn't notable before it can be removed. Why is this not the other way round? Lachlan Foley (talk) 20:38, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

It's just how we do it. I could dress that up in a lot of fancy language about the community's cultural values, but the fancy answer would have the same meaning in the end. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

It's easier to water the entire lawn and pick out the weeds rather than to water each blade of grass. Location (talk) 03:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Without evidence to the contrary, we WP:AGF of our editors. Unscintillating (talk) 05:08, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Given the above quote "At the moment you have to prove that an article isn't notable before it can be removed. Why is this not the other way round?", I take exception to the overall operation of this site. How this applies is really based on the editor that is deciding. For example, the Unison RTOS page was deleted twice and called not notable regardless of dozens of externally published links and independent publications just because some editor decided that it was not notable. I really wonder who was paying him to do this. It was put back only to be deleted again with no facts to support the claims. Is their any policing of the editors to get rid of the corrupt and uneducated in a subject area? Given that this person left many scores of articles that are significantly less notable, the individual clearly doesn't have the skill and knowledge to work in this area. What is being done to rid this site of these editors? This site really needs a means to limit the scope of editors to areas that they know about. Peterkimrowe (talk) 11:57, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Transcluding "Wikipedia:Notability (summary)" onto "Wikipedia:Notability"

Latest comment: 11 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

Here is what "Wikipedia:Notability (summary)" sort of looks like when transcluded

Articles require significant coverage

in reliable sources

that are independent of the subject.

Significant coverage

To count as "significant coverage", a cited reference must be about the subject – there must be at least one lengthy paragraph, and preferably more, directly covering it. Passing mentions don't count, directory listings don't count, any old thing that happens to have the name of the subject in it doesn't count. And several of these good references are required, not just one, to show that the subject of the article meets the Wikipedia requirement of being notable.

Reliable sources

A "reliable source" is something that is generally trusted to tell the truth. A major newspaper, a factual, widely-published book, high-quality mainstream publications with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy: these are all what Wikipedia calls "reliable". Not reliable: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, fansites, (most) blogs, Twitter. There must be reliable sources for the content of the article to meet the Wikipedia requirement of being verifiable.

Independent

Nothing written by the subject, paid for by the subject, or affiliated with the subject can be considered "independent". Anything on the subject's website, and any press release issued by the subject, are examples of sources that are not independent. Such sources cannot be used to support the case that there should be a Wikipedia article about the subject, because they fail the Wikipedia requirement of being independent.

Hi all. Wikipedia:Notability (summary) is really useful for explaining to new editors why we consider certain topics non-notable You can see what the . I propose that we transclude that page into a new "Summary" section near the top of Wikipedia:Notability. We should also add a notice saying that the summary is unofficial and not actually part of the guideline. Do you support or oppose this idea? If you oppose it, why do you oppose it? Please write Support or Oppose, and sign your name, below. If you wish, you may also add your comments. Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 19:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose, very strongly! I'm getting a headache just looking at it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

- Comment. Is the headache from the bright colors? If we toned the colors down, then what would you vote? —Unforgettableid (talk) 00:54, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
  - I guess I should, indeed, explain my comment in more detail. Some of it is the colors, some of it is the font size, and some of it is the way it shouts an overly simplistic summary as though editors cannot comprehend what we have on the page already. A lot of this comes down to WP:COMPETENCE. Similarly to what Masem said in the discussion thread just above, although it's true that a certain number of new editors jump into page creation without first reading and understanding everything they should have, I strongly prefer that we treat one another as reasonably intelligent people, and recognize that all new editors go through a learning curve. One of my own first edits was speedy deleted, and I learned from it, and I'm still here. If someone has their first article deleted because they didn't yet know about notability, it's not unreasonable to expect them to learn from it too, and they don't need a neon light summary for them to do that. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. It's complete crap, like the rest of the OP's misguided proposals and changes to user warning templates and other windmill tilting. Yworo (talk) 23:48, 4 April 2013 (UTC)
Oppose. If something is "unofficial and not actually part of the guideline", we should not transclude it into the guideline. I suppose it might be considered an essay... and as such might be linked to in the "See Also" section (but I am not at all sure about that). Blueboar (talk) 15:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Resolved. Fine. I now see that the arguments con outweigh the arguments pro. Thank you for your feedback. Cheers, —Unforgettableid (talk) 04:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The WP:42 summary might be a good addition to the Article Wizard, replacing the link to the WP:YFA wall of text. It is not adequate for the policy page; once a newbie is sent to read policy, it is too late - the attempt to create an article will already have been finished without the editor having received a clear explanation of the notability rules. Diego (talk) 17:38, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thank you for the idea. —Unforgettableid (talk) 04:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Concert venues and art galleries

Latest comment: 11 years ago66 comments9 people in discussion

Is there any notability guideline or precedent set for the notability of concert halls and art galleries? In other words, is there any precedent for organizations that show/house notable performances/art made by notable artists. WP:GNG and WP:ORG would apply, I would assume, but I'm finding that I sometimes a concert hall or art gallery will receive coverage because of an artist or exhibit being shown there. The coverage is below what I would call significant as most of the coverage has to do with the artist or exhibit rather than the hall/gallery itself.

In my opinion, it seems that these venues are notable in some way but WP:N doesn't specifically cover such cases, from what I can find. I don't particularly like to make IAR arguments in AfD so I'm looking for something a little more significant. I can show many other cases where art galleries and concert halls have articles and don't clearly establish notability but also don't want to use a WP:OTHERSTUFF argument. OlYeller21^Talktome 23:13, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Stating that notability comes to a place of performance because of notable artists performing there is very much a problem with inherited notability, and I don't see that argument flying. I would expect that a place of performance would have to show notability by the normal routes of secondary coverage, and certainly not just because a famous artist performed there. Of course, some theaters become notable for other reasons. Looking around at articles on various performance places that I know of, most can show a reason why it was built (and if appropriate, demolished), and the types of performances it served and attendances, which a list of famous acts is often included but certainly not sufficient for notability on its own. --MASEM (t) 23:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Ya, I'm sort of stuck in the middle. A venue certainly isn't notable if one notable person performs there. I would also think that a place that has notable people performing there on a regular basis, would be notable. I would normally think that while having notable people perform somewhere on a regular basis wouldn't imply notability on its own, those performances would bring the type of attention and coverage that would satisfy WP:GNG.

The case in question is an art gallery that doubles as a residency program (CentralTrak). From what I can find, people who have done a residency there have later become notable (which doesn't imply notability at all) while at the same time, notable artists have had notable exhibits there. I've found coverage that could arguably be called significant coverage of CentralTrak and its current exhibit but they're all from local sources which means that the subject would fail WP:ORG.

I really don't know what to think at this point but I'm leaning towards the subject not being notable unless there's some precedent that I've never heard of regarding venues. OlYeller21^Talktome 23:41, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I'm seeing Dallas newspaper hits that would be "about" the place, but you're right that local issues would probably come into play. Any way you can work that into the UT Dallas article with a sentence or two + an anchor w/ redirection? Or another way, is it necessarily that residency or the UT Dallas school itself that these people become notable? There's likely a way to include the facility somewhere in WP, I just don't think you can sustain a full article for it at this time. --MASEM (t) 00:05, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Many sources are establishing the notability of CentralTrak. This is not even close. CentralTrak is a venue for art-related activities. This lengthy article is speaking about CentralTrak, for instance. A venue hosting many arts events would be notable. Such a venue need not be high-profile. We have many articles on Graffiti artists who do not even have gallery representation. Many visual artists do not start out with instant recognition. What we should be looking for is coverage in non-vanity reliable sources. The same applies to galleries of visual art such as CentralTrak: The UT Dallas Artist Residency. Numerous reliable sources independent of that venue write about it. If we are going to cover the visual arts as of course we should we should get used to sourcing that is oftentimes found in less than the most prominent sources. We don't want sources that seemingly only come from the artist or the arts venue. But several seemingly independent sources taking note of a venue or an artist is certainly the beginning of that which is necessary for us at Wikipedia to take note of that entity. Bus stop (talk) 00:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

But all those sources are local (including the culture map link above, which is basically an interview with one of the people that run it, thus making it a primary soruce), which makes notability in a global encyclopedia difficult to show. I'm also having a problem where we're only talking about a place for eight people to live and saying that must be notable. Again, just because someone now famous happened to exhibit there cannot confer notability; that violates "not inherited". I certainly don't think we want to not have the term be searchable and a section at UT Dallas (or a subpage on the art school from that) would make sense baring the ability to find sources. And I also don't accept that sourcing may be hard. This place has only existed since 2008, so online sourcing should be a breeze. No, I think the right way to is to put this into the UT Dallas Arts school including about the original experimental residence program and the CetnralTrak, which all can be a redirect/anchor, but not enough for a standalone. --MASEM (t) 00:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That does make a degree of sense. But how long before a paragraph here runs out of space? An interview with the director is a primary source? I don't think it is. "CultureMap", of Dallas, would be a secondary source. It is through their initiative that they have chosen to interview a person who is knowledgeable of CentralTrak. "Not inherited" is by-and-large not applicable here. The artist and art's space are to a great degree inextricably related. An art gallery plays an often important role; one basically needs a floor or a wall on which to present a sculpture or painting. Bus stop (talk) 00:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

No, the interview is a primary source. Specifically, it is an independent primary source. WP:Independent sources are the ones who, through their own initiative, decide to interview or otherwise publish about a subject. WP:Secondary does not mean independent, and you are allowed to WP:USEPRIMARY sources—just not to demonstrate notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:04, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'd put it under the Arts school section on University of Texas at Dallas academic programs, which has plenty of space.

Interviews about a facility by a person in charge of that facility is primary, regardless of what source publishes that information.

The painting or the artist is the one that is notable, not the wall on which it is hung. Inherited absolutely does apply to imply the wall is notable due to having been the spot the painting was hung. --MASEM (t) 00:40, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The wall is irrelevant. The gallery exercises discretion. The notability of the artist to an extent reflects back on the gallery. The gallery and the artist or artwork are not unrelated. Bus stop (talk) 00:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Which is exactly what "not inherited" is all about. Just being connected to an artist in some way is not a reason for notability and a stand alone page. --MASEM (t) 00:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Incorrect. The success of an artist indeed reflects upon a gallery. The notability of both artist and venue are established to some extent in the sources already provided at the CentralTrak article. Bus stop (talk) 00:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That's absolutely wrong, since artists can become famous without even having a public display of their works. Further, as has been ID's on the article's talk page, the sources either are local (failing significant coverage) or not secondary, so notability is not demonstrated. --MASEM (t) 00:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

This is an art review of a show at Centraltrak. It is supportive of the notability of Centraltrak. The gallery exercised their taste and discretion in choosing to show the work of two artists—Cassandra Emswiler and Sally Glass. A reliable source has taken note of the discretion exercised. This certainly goes a way in establishing the notability of Centraltrak. Bus stop (talk) 01:14, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Local source however (I double checked to make sure it's a Dallas-area magazine). And even then, the amount of coverage about the gallery is very minimal in that, so "significant coverage" is not met. --MASEM (t) 01:21, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't really say that I disagree with either of you, exactly. Whether or not the articles represent "significant coverage" could go either way, in my opinion, but they all do seem to be from local sources which runs foul with WP:ORG. At the same time, the organization did lead to the notability of several artists but I don't know that the subject can inherit its notability from that fact.

Unless we can find some national level coverage, I'm inclined to suggest that the material be merged into a corresponding subject like University of Texas at Dallas academic programs or University of Texas at Dallas. OlYeller21^Talktome 01:27, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

The only reason I can see merging the CentralTrak article into the University article is due to the prominence of the University of Texas at Dallas. If the gallery were independent of the University I would be convinced it has attained its own notability, but its importance may be little more than that of an appendage of the larger organization. Were this a gallery on its own it would surely be notable as a gallery and as an arts venue. Bus stop (talk) 01:34, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Based on the information provided regarding the current activity of CentralTrak by both local and regional reviews and reporting, it is clear that the residency operates as an affiliated but completely independent arts venue from the University of Texas at Dallas. Its programming and exhibitions reflect its own desires and contributions to the arts community. It seems to function locally for those that are exposed to it locally and regionally, but also nationally and internationally by hosting artists from the rest of the US and the world. What else would contribute to this residency's notability? Imintoleather (talk) 01:51, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Given that the building only houses eight people at a time, we need regional or better coverage (eg resources not affliated with the Dallas area) to get past the "independent sourcing" aspect. Not that these sources aren't usable in sourcing the article, they just don't help notability. --MASEM (t) 01:57, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Glasstire is a regional online art publication that covers not only the Dallas/Fort Worth region, but all of Texas. Need there be more non-local sources than one? There are articles for many residencies around the country without extensive non-local sourcing. Can you please explain the difference? Imintoleather (talk) 02:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Masem—as concerns WP:INHERIT, consider for instance the articles in Category:Art galleries in Manhattan. You will find a lot of emphasis on artists associated with those galleries. I think this would be especially true of newer/younger galleries. Bus stop (talk) 02:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

This is an OTHERSTUFF argument, so it's not appropriate to say what other articles exist to try to justify this one. Spot checking show that some of the smaller galleries suffer the same problem , assuming that famous artists being displayed there are sufficient for notability, but really fail it. So there's a larger problem here. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability requires significant coverage by independent secondary sources". One regional source is not "significant coverage". Mind you, I think we're on the very cusp here in the sense that there was something national or better, you'd have enough to justify a standalone, but we're still talking about a building designed to house eight people that is an extension of a university. I appreciate famous artists have gone through it, but that doesn't make it inherently notable. The focus, if anything, should be on the intent of the residency program and its success, as seen by outside the UT Dallas area. --MASEM (t) 13:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Can you explain, please, why other art residencies have individual Wikipedia articles without regional or better coverage? Imintoleather (talk) 14:52, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

There are 4million+ articles on WP. We cannot patrol them all for notability issues constantly. As such WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS needs to be considered here, that articles can slip through cracks of things like notability (we don't require consensus to create new articles). Now, on the other hand, if you can show art galleries that only base their notability on famous artists that have exhibited there that have gone through processes like AFD, or GA/FA, then there's some prior consensus to consider there. But best I know, I've not seen such a case. --MASEM (t) 15:00, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a middle ground here... It all comes back to sources. If there are reliable independent sources that discuss the venue, highlighting (beyond a passing reference) its association with a notable artist... then the venue itself can be said to be notable due to its association with the artist (let's call this "Documented Inheritance"). However, in the absence of such reliable independent sources. then the venue does not INHERIT notability from the artist (let's call this Undocumented Inheritance").

In short: Documented Inheritance can establish notability... Undocumented Inheritance can not. Blueboar (talk) 15:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Documented Inheritance can be established and I'm even finding more independent sources that link notable international artists to the gallery/residency itself. So then based on this criteria, this would be sufficient evidence for notability? Imintoleather (talk) 16:26, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, in the specific case under discussion, I think there is some question as to whether "Documented Inheritance" actually has (or has not) been established... more discussion on that is needed. But should a clear consensus emerge that it has been established, then my opinion would be "yes". Blueboar (talk) 17:35, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't terribly much matter whether the artists are notable or not, because notability tends to be established, at least to a degree, for both artist and gallery at the same time. This is different from the situation that applies when a graffiti artists choses to paint a wall in an outdoor space for which he has not been granted permission. (Unless, of course, a reliable source reports upon that graffiti. This does happen. But the review of regularly scheduled art shows in more formal settings is more common.) Galleries choose artists. Many artist applicants ask galleries for permission to participate in the use of the gallery's display area. Our primary concern is that independent reliable sources have taken note of the art show which took place for a period of time in a gallery display area. In this instance we have many reliable sources attesting to the use of that gallery for art shows. The artists could be complete failures in their careers subsequent to leaving this gallery. This would not affect to a great degree the notability that was established for the gallery by the artists' art show at that gallery. Bus stop (talk) 18:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Galleries choose artists, and grocery stores choose which products to carry. Many food manufacturers ask grocery stores for permission to participate in the use of the store's display area. The ultimate goal is the same: Art galleries and grocery stores both exist to sell stuff. The fact that somebody is selling stuff does not make the stuff, the stuff's maker, or the stuff's seller qualify for an article on Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to follow your reasoning, which I happen to believe is valid, that the gallery retains its notability from the very activity of continuously putting on exhibitions and hosting educational initiatives in the community. And because there is international access for all artists to participate, doesn't it follow that it is relevant to the global art community? 64.244.146.98 (talk) 19:49, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability is a bit of wikijargon that means "qualifies for an article on the English Wikipedia". It is absolutely impossible to qualify for an article if you can't find enough independent published sources that talk about the thing. You can be "important", or have "real-world notability", without this, but you cannot have wiki-notability without being able to produce these kinds of sources about the subject.

See WP:WHYN for an explanation of why this rule is important to us (and to our subjects, who would otherwise have their articles filled with garbage by people who are ignorant or confused). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. In this case, there is not a shortage of independent sources about the subject in question. The argument is whether the sources need to be non-local or non-regional, even though access and potential exposure is international. 64.244.146.98 (talk) 20:38, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

That requirement is primarily to reduce the problem we have with uneven coverage. In sufficiently small towns, every single building, business, etc., has been written about, and almost all of them repeatedly and in detail. In a large city (e.g., Dallas), a new barber shop or a new employee at the gas station isn't going to get much coverage, but in small towns, they do.

ORG does not prohibit regional sources. In fact, it says "at least one regional, national, or international source is necessary." WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:57, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Understood. However, seeing as this article is facing imminent deletion, what is the most direct course of action that could prevent this? Does it need to be converted to a different kind of article? Is there a "venue" category? Is this even an option? Imintoleather (talk) 14:38, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

As I've suggested, it's a residency program/gallery associated with the COllege of Arts from UT Dallas. It makes sense to include mention of it - along with a redirect and anchor so the term is still searchable, on the UT Dallas college program page (where all the found sources are of no question to use for WP:V). If more independent and secondary sources come out in the future, it can be expanded on to a stand alone article. --MASEM (t) 14:55, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Forgive my novice, but does this mean the article would then be a stub of the UTDallas article? Is it possible to simply transfer the already created article as it is (with embedded sources, etc.)? Imintoleather (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Those objecting to a free-standing article for this art gallery are expecting much too much. This is a contemporary art gallery. Notability should be established by establishing that CentralTrak is an ongoing, functioning, and active concern. Are there lecture series? Are there scheduled art shows? Do we have a director for this art gallery? Does she have any plans for future directions this art gallery should be taking? (A source tells us for instance that she "would like to see greater participation by visiting artists in the programming of the residency gallery, and hope to bring in artists from vibrant countries that we have not tapped so far, such as Brazil, Cuba, China, and India."[3]) Do sources offer descriptions and interpretations of art shows that arts reporters have seen? Do gallery artists make statements about their art for reporters covering this art gallery? Sources are addressing these concerns, and this goes a long way toward establishing notability for CentralTrak. Bus stop (talk) 19:03, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

No, we're not. Notability is not inherited, period, for no topic whatsoever. Most of the information about Centraltrak is local and reflects positively on the College of Arts at UT Dallas (which is clearly notable), and thus is appropriate there, but there's very little that shows why we need a standalone page for a small gallery and residence house. Information about art shows and artist have zero connection to showing the importance of the gallery. --MASEM (t) 19:08, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

This gallery functionally has nothing to do with the College, in the sense that the gallery showcases experimental art. In order to properly present to the reader the nature of CentralTrak, we should be providing it with its own article. I think you are misapplying the principle of WP:INHERIT. We are not merely talking about importance reflecting from one to the other between people (or things) who bear a relationship displaying some degree of proximity. Rather we are talking about an integral relationship understood to exist primarily between artwork and display space. The particulars of the gallery reflect upon the artwork. The gallery tends to lend an air of authenticity to an artwork, although it is also possible for the particulars of a gallery to detract from the reception of an artwork by the viewer. But the point that I am trying to make is that this relationship between gallery space and artwork is not what WP:INHERIT is about. Bus stop (talk) 19:24, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but there is no implicit connection between a piece of art and where it is shown. There might be a connection in some cases, but they would need documentation to source it. If CentralTrak is such a significant venue, we would have regional or better articles about its importance. As it is, it is simply a gallery/residence hall for a residence program, which has admittedly hosted artists that have become famous. But that doesn't give any weight to a stand-alone article on CentralTrak. It is a part of the UT Dallas school (based on what they say on their page) and thus part of their academic program. --MASEM (t) 20:14, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I am concerned that the article says "CentralTrak is now a program connected to and supported by the University of Texas at Dallas Arts and Humanities department."[4] I do consider that a valid argument against a free-standing article on the CentralTrak art gallery. Bus stop (talk) 21:09, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, you're arguing for inherited notability due to its connection to a notable school. That doesn't fly; in fact that makes the argument stronger to talk about the CentralTrak program in the school page and not its separate page. --MASEM (t) 21:31, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

What would convince you that CentralTrak: The UT Dallas Artist Residency deserved its own article rather than a mere mention at the University of Texas at Dallas article? At present that mention is one sentence long: "UTD's artist residency CentralTrak is located East of downtown Dallas one block away from Fair Park."[5] Bus stop (talk) 23:00, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Significant coverage in independent (non-local) secondary sources. All that's there is primarily Dallas-based sources, so we don't have independence, particularly the few sources that do give it significant coverage, talking about the exhibit hall/residency program directly rather than the artists or exhibits themselves. There's certainly space to expand the CentralTrak information on the list of UT Dallas academic program page (not the UT Dallas one). --MASEM (t) 00:08, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

You say "…rather than the artists or exhibits themselves." Why? I think you will respond that the gallery does not WP:INHERIT notability from the "artists or exhibits". That would not be an example of WP:INHERIT. Art exhibits are a gallery's raison d'etre. Reliably sourced exhibits that are held in art galleries tend to establish notability for such galleries. Bus stop (talk) 00:35, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

That simply doesn't fly for Wikipedia. There is no evidence, beyond your personal word, that a gallery gains notability by what is exhibited in there. There's thousand of small night clubs and theaters and stages around the word that famous artists and performers perform in - but these don't get any recognize this way outside of being the spot of the event. The same holds true for museums and the like. Notability from these must from from recognizition outside of the community for the importance and significance of the venue, not what simply happens in it. --MASEM (t) 00:59, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

As concerns a gallery of fine art we use the art as a proxy for the worth of the gallery. Art is unique. In most cases each work of art is a unique reflection of the gallery's tastes. I am not a booster for art, by the way. It feels funny saying these things. But you seem to be willfully ignoring the nature of a venue that has as its mission the displaying of one-of-a-kind objects. We are concerned with reliable sources reporting on art shows because a gallery's identity is to a large extent tied to unique objects. In your assessment there is an improper "inheritance" of notability when reliable sources comment on art shows at art galleries. But a correct understanding of the relationship between galleries and the art they display is that the art gives the gallery the opportunity to uniquely identify itself. I don't believe any other venue is comparable, whether we are talking about a restaurant or a small music venue. CentralTrak seems to be a contemporary art gallery. The following constitutes a reliable source for CentralTrak: "The most surprising aspect of Ari Richter's skin art -- aside from its unorthodox canvas, of course -- is its unexpected beauty. Richter guided me last Thursday through the white drywall maze of CentralTrak to his summer studio, where he was putting the finishing touches on what will open on Saturday evening as 'The Skin I Live In', an exhibition composed of pigmented human skin on glass, 'tails' meticulously constructed from an amalgamation of collected hair and delicate curving sculptures built from the artist's own crescentic finger- and toenails."[6] Or this: "A series of sheet rock tables fill Centraltrak’s main gallery space, each cluttered with objects, mostly diminutive, ranging from the toss-away to the surprising: golden rings and crumpled metals, fabrics treated with resin, photos, shards of clay and stone, a couple of video projections, a small amp playing a voiced email dialogue, even an M&M, perched precariously – delicately – even sumptuously – on a tiny block."[7] Or this: "It's performance, it's sex, it's creative destruction. And it's at CentralTrak every Saturday for the next five weeks."[8] Or this: "Up next is the March 9 'Failing Flat' group show, curated by former CentralTrak artist-in-residence Nathan Greene, which explores painting that moves beyond a 2-D surface, followed by the Fontenot-curated 'That Mortal Coil' on May 11, which showcases art that rejects the notion of the ideal human body."[9] Notability is established for an art gallery, at least an experimental art gallery, by reliable sources taking note of the activities that take place in that gallery. Bus stop (talk) 02:13, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

None of those quotes are providing significant coverage about the gallery; they are about the exhibits. Those are effectively name-drops - if the exhibits were installed anywhere else, the descriptions would be the same except with the name. Notability is absolutely not based on name-drops. --MASEM (t) 02:46, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I voted in the AfD, and followed the link from there to this discussion, which I've read with interest. I have to agree that Bus stop's arguments are not at all convincing. In short, to answer his question above what it would take to make the gallery notable enough for inclusion, it would take multiple independent non-local reliable sources that substantially discuss the venue itself, and not about artists, exhibitions or events hosted there with tangential mentions of the venue. I'm not seeing that in the sources provided, and my own search turned up nothing promising.

Bus stop wrote, Notability is established for an art gallery, at least an experimental art gallery, by reliable sources taking note of the activities that take place in that gallery. That is patently incorrect. That would indeed be inherited notability, which our notability guidelines prohibit.

I also agree that the gallery may deserve a brief mention in the UTD article. A sentence at most, though, in proportion to its significance for the university, as determined by the relative amount of coverage in reliable independent sources. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 09:07, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

We don't have inherited notability when we have sourced coverage of art exhibitions. Our notability requirements call for "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Arguably the most important area of information concerning an art gallery is the art it serves. Notability, for an art gallery, can include reliable sourcing relating to other aspects of an art gallery beside the art it shows, but these other areas of information should not be understood to be more important than information on the type of art displayed. Artist's names, notable exhibitions, types of styles focussed upon—these areas of information tend to be the mainstay of most of our articles on art galleries. Bus stop (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

And that is exactly what inherited notability means, and expalins why we don't (or shouldn't at least) have scads of articles on galleries of only local significance. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:12, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. Art galleries are there to display art, so that's routine coverage that exhibits come and go to such places. We need to know why the place is more significant than any other random exhibit hall, and that would be demonstrated by sourced coverage of the exhibit hall directly, itself. If that is the fact - noted by sources - that the exhibit hall is important because it has drawn important artists and the like to it, then that's good coverage, but that's not supported by just saying that here's a bunch of artists and exhibits that have been then. Secondary sources have to make the connection for why that list should be considered impressive. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Masem has it right... this is what I was getting at with my distinction between "Documented inheritance" and "Undocumented inheritance" (mentioned above)... if there are independent sources that say "XYZ gallery has become well known for its exhibits, especially exhibits by noteworthy artists such as A, B and C"... then the association is documented, and the gallery can be considered Notable enough for a stand alone article. But, we need those sources to make the connection between the artists and the gallery for us. We (Wikipedia's editors) can not make the connection ourselves and draw the conclusion that the connection means the Gallery is notable enough. Blueboar (talk) 15:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

An art gallery should be deemed notable if reliable sources display significant interest in its existence. An art gallery generally doesn't WP:INHERIT notability from art or artists associated with it. Any coverage in reliable sources of exhibitions at art galleries should be seen as coverage of the art gallery. Whether coverage of exhibitions is significant is an area of judgement. Reasonable people can disagree about this. But the coverage of exhibitions in most cases counts as coverage of the art gallery. I've posted a note about this discussion at "Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts".[10] Bus stop (talk) 17:28, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

"But the coverage of exhibitions in most cases counts as coverage of the art gallery." No - we've told you several times. The exhibition may be covered by sources, but the exhibit hall is usually just a place that this happens and is a name drop. Significant coverage requires more than just saying "This art was shown at Y." --MASEM (t) 22:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

As many others have said, an art gallery's raison d'etre is to curate, display and promote art. If its activities are widely reported in reliable, independent sources then the gallery would be notable enough for Wikipedia. Of course, WP:CORPDEPTH stipulates that there must be coverage in national/regional general news sources too, which implies that coverage in specialist art magazines would have less weight. Coverage only in specialist art sources would not be sufficient. Art galleries are usually commercial businesses and therefore need to meet WP:CORPDEPTH. On the other hand, I can't see any justification, as some people have suggested, to dismiss all coverage about art as 'routine'! Sionk (talk) 20:21, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

The openings and programming of CentralTrak featuring internationally exhibited artists are covered extensively by independent regional sources. More of this information can be viewed in the article. Imintoleather (talk) 23:02, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I think some of us are getting tripped up by terminology, so here's an example:

Exhibit: The Vatican Splendors, a particular collection of about 200 pieces of art
Venue: Three of them, in this case; the last was the Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale
Artwork: In this case, paintings and sculptures and other stuff like that.
Artists: In this case, Giotto and Gian Lorenzo Bernini and people like that.

So above, we have people variously asserting:

that having artwork displayed at MOAFL makes The Vatican Splendors qualify for a Wikipedia article; and
that having artwork displayed at MOAFL makes MOAFL qualify for a Wikipedia article;
that having artwork displayed at MOAFL makes the individual pieces of artwork qualify for a Wikipedia article.
that having artwork displayed at MOAFL makes Giotto and Gian Lorenzo Bernini qualify for a Wikipedia article;

None of these are true. What makes these things qualify for an article (or not) is whether the reliable sources write about that thing. So imagine a source that writes pages of details about The Vatican Splendors. It gives one sentence about MOAFL ("It will be at MOAFL for three months.") and one sentence about the artist Giotto ("Giotto was a famous old painter back in the day.") Based on that source, the exhibit might be notable, but MOAFL and Giotto are not notable. MOAFL doesn't get declared to be notable merely because something notable happened on its premises. Giotto doesn't get declared notable merely because something he painted was part of a notable exhibition. You need sources that actually write about your subject, not about things that were related to your subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

We are talking about a gallery of contemporary art. What we should be endeavoring to arrive at are guidelines for notability for galleries of contemporary art. Wikipedia does not have, to my knowledge, guidelines for notability for galleries of contemporary art. Many of you are offering suggestions concerning notability here but most of you are not being sufficiently mindful of the entity under discussion. As a starting point we might think about some (not all) of the galleries in Category:Art galleries in Manhattan. We should arrive at guidelines concerning notability that can realistically be applied to relatively small enterprises showing contemporary art. There may or may not be justification for a freestanding article on CentralTrak. Our discussion in this thread is too wide. We have to be applying principles appropriate to an entity that is relatively small but which displays contemporary art. Bus stop (talk) 00:53, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

That's too narrow a scope for a notability guideline and we already have one that coverages it - WP:ORG (since, by its nature, it is a legal entity). You're asking for notability of places that in equivalent fields (eg musicians and their performances) we wouldn't call notable either just because famous person X played at them. Also, you're pulling at WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS - just because we have other articles on art galleries doesn't mean they've been vetted for notability concerns. --MASEM (t) 01:33, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

We should not be trying to have different standards for art galleries based on how old the artwork is, or what style it is. We should not be trying to have different standards for enterprises based on how large or small they are. All articles have to meet approximately the same standards.

Our standards exist not to facilitate (or to hinder) articles on small contemporary-art galleries, but to identify subjects that we could realistically write neutral, unbiased, non-trivial articles about. That task requires non-trivial coverage in multiple, independent, secondary sources. If it happens that the world in general takes so little notice of small contemporary-art galleries that multiple, independent, substantial sources don't exist, then the English Wikipedia will not write articles about them, either. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

A critical review by a substantial source establishes notability for a gallery. We don't consider art galleries to have "inherited" notability from the art exhibitions that they mount. WP:INHERIT refers to suspect relationships. But there is generally little suspect about the relationship between art galleries and the art exhibitions they mount. Bus stop (talk) 12:51, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You are trying to establish an implicit relation between art or artists, and a venue to display their work; that's the fundamental issue of inherited notability.

Here's a hypothetical situation: Imagine we have the same exhibit of art, but presented at two different venues. Now, only judging by what I know exists in such cases, it is almost never the case that a critical review of the exhibit, the art, or the artists that contributed would be affected by the change in venue; the venue is a backdrop, named as necessary to identify the place in such critical reviews, but never addressed in any detail. This shows that there is no implicit connection between the art or artists shown at a venue and the venue itself that meets notability purposes. --MASEM (t) 14:01, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Masem is correct here... This is not to say that a gallery can not be notable. To illustrate when an art venue would be considered WP:Notable: Imagine that I open a new art gallery, and somehow manage to exhibit a collection Rembrandt masterpieces... And imagine several non-local newspapers cover the exhibition with headlines like "New Gallery Exhibits Old Masters" and "Big Art Comes to Little Gallery". OK... we have two scenarios, each based on what the focus of the newspaper coverage is: 1) IF the newspaper coverage is focused on the gallery (how it started, who runs it, how it obtained the exhibit, etc.) that coverage would go towards establishing that the gallery was WP:Notable. However... 2) IF the coverage is focused on the exhibited paintings and on the artist (How wonderful Rembrandt and his works are, how lucky our small city is to see these beautiful works, etc), then the coverage does not establish that the gallery is notable. The exhibit is the root cause of the coverage in both scenarios... but it is the focus of the coverage on the gallery (as an entity) in the first scenario that establishes that the gallery is notable. The focus in the second scenario only establishes that the artist and art works are notable. Blueboar (talk) 14:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

A critical review by a substantial source helps establish notability for whatever the review is about, which might not be the gallery. Not only do you need multiple sources, but you need a source that is significantly about your proposed subject.

This is really not any different than proposing that we write an article on some gas station on the grounds that it is mentioned briefly in dozens of sources about a crime that happened there. An art review only helps establish notability for the place to the extent that the review directly talks about the place rather than about artwork, events, people, history, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:10, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Notability and social media sites

Latest comment: 11 years ago26 comments8 people in discussion

I would like to start a discussion about notability on social media sites. Is this the correct forum? —Anne Delong (talk) 03:40, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Depends what you mean. Explain away! Sionk (talk) 12:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Lately there has been a change in culture around the world which means that more and more well known people are being written about or talked about on video instead of in newspapers and books. I am not talking about Wikipedia's need for notability - I agree with it. I do think that some new types of on line sources need to be considered as valid. I am going to use Youtube as an example, because not being into social media myself (except Wikipedia talk pages!), it's the only one I know much about.

Of course most content on Youtube can't be considered reliable. But there are a couple of cases in which I feel that it should be taken into account. One is the statistics about users that are collected by Youtube (and other social media sites). These are totally impartial reports, and though they are not created by journalist, they are created by professional people (computer programmers and the managers who decide what information will be collected). They are also detailed and can tell how many people watched each video each day, and even how long they watched before loosing interest. Last month I read a page at the Afc which was about a video game reviewer from Sweden who called himself Pewdie Pie. Millions of videogamers had subscribed to his video channel, and his videos had been viewed over a billion times! None of this counted as notability. I feel that it should count for something. (The article is still in Afc.)

Secondly, there are cases when I feel the actual content in sites such as Youtube should be considered reliable sources. Wikipedia considers reviews to be reliable if they are written by professional journalists. Now usually this means that they are being paid to write, although not always. It also means that an editor has chosen their content to be published and checked the facts. There are many video producers who are being paid by Youtube to make videos. Youtube then sells add and makes money. Youtube chooses these editors in a completely impartial way: if large numbers of people watch the videos, that's the main criteria. There are people who make enough money to live on by writing book, music, film and theatre reviews. They do it full time, so it's their job. If the reviews aren't good, people will stop subscribing, just as would happen with a movie magazine.

I feel that if a movie or book or video game, etc., is reviewed by one of these people (number of subscribers and number of posted reviews could be a criteria), it should count toward notability of that movie, etc. Because there is very little editorial oversight (some, though, they don't pay people who break copyright) and no fact checking, the reviews might not be considered reliable to verify facts, but that shouldn't negate the fact that a review by a professional reviewer took place.

Now I've only discussed Youtube because I don't have accounts at any other social media sites and would be speaking from ignorance, but I feel confident that those sites also collect statistics that could be considered impartial reporters of notability. There's a deletion discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Amanda_Blain for an article about a woman with over a million Facebook subscribers.

Well, that's it. Any comments? —Anne Delong (talk) 20:38, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Basically, no. Your prime mistake is conflating popularity with notability. Our policies require SUBSTANTIAL coverage OF THE SUBJECT ITSELF by multiple reliable independent sources (which could well be in Video hosted on YouTube, just not in the manner you describe). YouTube stats are useless for our purposes, and have nothing to do with notability. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:52, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that the Youtube statistics replace the usual sources, only that they be counted as one. As for substantial, there is more information in the Youtube statistics kept about a popular channel than would often be found one written review. If the subject of an article is a person who creates and posts videos, and tens of thousands from around the world come to watch and mostly continue watching until the end, subscribed to the channel so as not to miss future videos, and hundreds of comments are made, how is this different from a newspaper article about the ABC Theatre Company that states, "Last night at the XYZ theatre a large crowd gathered to see the opening of the new play by ABC Theatre Company. The audience showed their appreciation with a great round of applause. There was a lineup of people waiting afterwards to meet the cast and to buy advance tickets to the company's next play. The ABC Company produced its first play in 2008, and each play the company produces is more popular than the last. The ABC plays are particularly popular with young people from the local Ukrainian community." —Anne Delong (talk) 21:28, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Again, no. "Notable" here on WP does not mean "popular" or "newsworthy". Notability depends on significant long-lasting impact on the world at large that is well documented by recognized experts in the relevent field in serious reliable independent sources. Popularity and newsworthiness are more often than not fleeting and vanish without a trace. In other words, popularity is one-dimensional (breadth), newsworthiness is two-dimensional (breadth and depth) and notability is three-dimensional (breadth, depth and length). See WP:NOTE and the specific guidelines listed in [[11]]. You also have to review what we consider reliable sources here on WP. See WP:RS. Also, review WP:NOT. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 22:38, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I am familiar with these policies and I apply them. I am not disagreeing about the meaning of the policies. I am advocating for change in the policies. You can disagree, and I may fail in my attempt, but I am not wrong, because I am simply expressing an opinion about a possible change. Also, I know the difference between popularity and notability; the point I was making was that journalists who are considered reliable often report about a subject's popularity in their reviews and other news reports. Anne Delong (talk) 01:02, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Exactly what change would you like to make, then? Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 23:07, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Technical 13 (talk) gives his support for this section's subject at 23:27, 12 April 2013 (UTC). Our own Notablity article's definition of the term is: "Notability is the property of being worthy of notice, having fame, or being considered to be of a high degree of interest, significance, or distinction. It also refers to the capacity to be such." I would consider millions of people visiting a particular page on the web to be a "high degree of interest". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Technical 13 (talk • contribs)

The problem is that something that is popular but unnoticed by the larger media, it's impossible to verify, which is a core policy. Sure, you can point to YouTube hit counts, but we have to consider the 4chan-type effects - if for some reason they wanted to make a video popular to merit inclusion on WP, they could just spam hit counts there.

I will say that given how many sources that we consider reliable that do light-hearted stories on popular culture, it is not a hard barrier to show GNG-type coverage for people and videos and the like that do get really popular on YT and other places. Yes, we may have things that are popular and probably should be included but fail due to lack of sourced coverage or that takes time to come about, but the number there is far outweighed by the topic we don't include simply because they're popular for a day or so. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

I would like to see the acknowledgement that under some circumstances reliable sources of information related to notability could be found on social media sites (I suggested automatically collected statistics as one, and professional reviewers and journalists who happen to have chosen a social media site as a way to their work and this earn a living as another, but that's just the first two examples I happened to think of). I'd like to see a group of people who are really familiar with these things (which I am not) develop guidelines to help others like me pick out the small percentage of reliable material from the large sea of gossip and fluff. Even if the pickings are slim I feel that this would be more fair than just labelling all content on social media sites unreliable because its mode of expression. And I would like to find out if I'm the only Wikipedian who feels this way (if so, I'll shut up and get back to declining companies trying to promote their products at the Afc). —Anne Delong (talk) 00:03, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

We never disallow any social media content, we just have to be aware that these modes of communication aren't as established and can be less substantiated than traditional print or web publishing. If an established expert in a field posts a opinion piece on his personal blog, that piece is likely fair game to include as an opinion on a given topic. For notability? Ehhhhh, it depends, but certainly likely not. --MASEM (t) 01:08, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying it should be used as a sole determiner, but I've seen a lot of "edge" cases that have "some" other sources and I think that having 6-digit or higher hit counts should be allowed to sway those decisions. Technical 13 (talk) 00:42, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It can, if someone with demonstrable expertise makes note of the count in a reliable independent source. Using the YouTube count directly, though, would be original research. It's not significant unless some reliable independent source says it's significant. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that reading data from preprepared tables and graphs is original research. If the results of a political poll were reported in a newspaper in the form of a bar graph, would it be original research to cite the graph in an article in Wikipedia? Presumably pollsters decided what questions to ask, and computer software tabulated and printed the results. I would think that all of the research was done before the table or graph was prepared. —Anne Delong (talk) 04:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, there is nothing even approaching editorial review at work here, and I can guarantee you that neither YouTube nor Google would stand behind those statistics. They are a primary source as far as we are concerned, and a very unreliable one at that. The number of views does not equal the number of viewers, nevermind the number of viewers who considered the video worth watching. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The issue (and really, this is a common confusion) is that the concept of notability is really a proxy for "is there enough source material to support a stand-alone article" That's it. No more, no less. If some subject, anything, has enough source material (that is, existing writing outside of Wikipedia, which is itself trustworthy and reliable) to support an article of reasonable length and depth, then it is notable. If that source material doesn't exist, then there's nothing to use to write a Wikipedia article. It doesn't matter how many facebook friends someone has, or how many views their YouTube video gets, if I'm trying to write a biographical article about that person, I need raw materials in the form of other biographies about them. If those biographies don't exist, then I have nothing to write about, except some trivial note about how popular some video they made is. --Jayron32 04:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
If the jargon weren't so entrenched, I'd be happy to have this page moved to something more obviously descriptive, like WP:Determining whether a subject qualifies for an article. Then people wouldn't come around and say "But he's notable in the real world, so surely he's wiki-notable, too!" The two concepts are almost unrelated. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that's a great idea. We waste a lot of time trying to explain the concept of notability to the uninitiated. It doesn't mean what people intuitive think it means, and it takes some time to wrap your head around it, probably because the word itself is getting in the way. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Getting back to the topic of social media, can a way be found to efficiently detect notable sources on social media sites? For example, if a recognized expert in a field, deemed so by a source in mainstream media or published book, or by having for a substantial lenght of time been employed as a journalist by said media, has a Youtube channel or Facebook account and posts movie or software reviews, can these reviews be used to attest to notability of a film or program? If so, would it be practical to start a whitelist of such reviewers so that each Wikipedia reviewer wouldn't have to research the notability of the reviewer as well as the notability of the subject? —Anne Delong (talk) 12:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

YouTube isn't a source. It's a hosting site. Some established and reliable news providers have their own channels on YouTube, like CNN Internation, for example. These videos can be used as reliable sources, as they have a reputation for fact checking and editorial oversight, and a film review published by them might be acceptable.

Self-published videos, like self-published books, are a huge step down, regardless of who they are published by, because they lack editorial oversight and independent fact checking. They fall under WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF. Generally, if there is any material worth using them for, a better, more reliable source exists. So it's usually a moot question. A big problem is that these videos can be removed without leaving a record, so that verifiability is a problem.

As for Facebook, Twitter and the like, I highly doubt that you will find much acceptance for that. The matter has been discussed many times on WP:RSN, and generally encounters strong resistance, even from editors far more lenient than me. According to policy, they are governed by WP:ABOUTSELF, so theoretically can be used for information on the account owner themselves.

HOWEVER, there is often a problem verifying that the page in question is truly operated by the actual person we are writing about. Plus, there is the problem that they can be changed at a moments notice without leaving a record. Again, there are practically always much better, more reliable sources available. In those few exceptions, one has to wonder if information that can only be sourced to Facebook or Twitter is all that important enough to add to the article, since nobody but the account owner seems to think so.

You can type in "Facebook" or "Twitter" into the WP:RSN archives search box to see how previous cases have been dealt with in the past. Frankly, I don't think you're going to have much success loosening the rules with regards to these sources. They're right at the bottom of the barrel as it is, if not under it. Of course, that's only my opinion and you're free to do as you wish.

Another thing you should be aware of is that our sourcing policies and guidelines set out the MINIMUM requirements for sources. It's not a free pass, and a source that meets the requirements of the policy can be still rejected by editor consensus, and often is. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

There's some merit to this proposal, since there's a kind of content on the net that is obviously popular and reasonably possible to verify. This content could be properly documented if researched with care, but that it's outside the scope of Wikipedia practices and policy that forbid original research. The current Notability and OR guidelines evolved from a need to keep away the thousands of trivia articles that were nevertheless backed by millions of participants throughout social media, since the same social networks can be used to spread nonsense.

Some places like Know Your Meme show that there's a way to produce somewhat reliable coverage of these internet phenomena, it's just not the Wikipedia way. The Encyclopedia has evolved to exclude anything that is not supported by traditional publishing processes, since those are the only ones known to produce quality descriptions (in some cases), or which have well-known biases that we know how to handle. Maybe in the future there will be a reliable way to use content taken directly from social networks to support articles, and it's certainly a good thing to keep talking about it, but I don't think we're there yet. Diego (talk) 14:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

What if we were able to parse the social sites APIs and pull data directly instead of the editor putting the data in. For example, the YouTube developers guide mentions that many pieces of statistical data are available, not just page views, but unique IP visitors for example. Wouldn't this alleviate some of the concerns of artificially amplified results by bots? Then, like the {{tracked}} template and it's associated gadget, we could do something similar for the sites that support this amount of API detail. Again, I want to emphasize that this would still only be considered one source of information and would not in of itself render a page topic notable. Technical 13 (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

That would involve original research and synthesis based on a primary source. The most that you will get is the number of people who clicked on the video. You will not get any information about how many people actually watched it, nor how many thought it was good. So you would be left with a number that really doesn't mean anything. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

You didn't check out the link I provided. Views, Popularity, Unique users, Unique users (7 days), Unique users (30 days), Subscriptions, Comments, Rating 1, Rating 2, Rating 3, Rating 4, Rating 5... It has many statistics... Not just how many people clicked on the video. It's worth considering is all... "Traditional" printed books are being printed less and less and it's time to start considering "other" sources for information. Technical 13 (talk) 16:13, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but none of that is at all useful, because you have to perform original research to get information of any encyclopedic value from those data, as you would be the one assigning meaning and significance to them. We are a very, very long way from having to consider using sources as poor as this, and resorting to original research to write our articles. There's plenty of information out there in much better sources, and there will be for the forseeable future. The sky isn't falling.

Also, you're committing the logical error of False dichotomy. The choice isn't between "Traditional" printed books and vastly inferior web statistics. There is a whole range of sources in various media besides them. Please read up on our sourcing policies and guidelines. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:30, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Is a train notable?

Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion

I'm reviewing a DYK nomination: Template:Did_you_know_nominations/Mozart_(train). The sources are questionable, except for a train timetable. Looking at the sources, would you say the train is notable or no? I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 02:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not impossible for an individual train route to be notable. City of New Orleans (train) has had songs written about it, and is a notable route all on its own. No statement on the particular train you're asking about. When in doubt, look for indepth, reliable sources. That will never steer you wrong. --Jayron32 04:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Looking at the sources for this entry, does anyone think this train is notable? I'm trying to get a second opinion here. I'm Tony Ahn (talk) 04:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I tend to be an inclusionist almost everywhere, all the time, but this is stretching it, Sort of the definition of mundane. Even . . . ........ boring. Still, someone could come here looking for it, and there it is. Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 04:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm more of a deletionist, so I wouldn't have any qualms about deleting this at all. By the way, someone already wrote an essay on this topic WP:Notability (Railway lines and stations). Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 04:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

With nothing more than a train website that gives any information about it, it doesn't have the reliable coverage to be notable in any way. Sionk (talk) 16:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:Determining whether a subject qualifies for an article

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Split off from the conversation above. I think this is important enough to merit a stand-alone page or inclusion in WP:N. People ask this question so often that it really should be addressed on a simple straight forward help page that we can refer people to. What do you think? 64.40.54.180 (talk) 08:56, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Notability#Whether to create standalone pages, this was discussed at length recently. This section already assumes that the topic is notable, but that's what the WP:GNG is for. Maybe a help page summarizing the core content policies and guidelines in the style of WP:5P or WP:Trifecta is a good idea. Diego (talk) 09:11, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

While WP:N's core function is to determine whether to have a standalone article or not, it is not used as simply as that. There are several other factors, such as inclusion within lists, merging/spliting, etc., that the concept can't be reduced to such a simple facet. --MASEM (t) 14:08, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Local Politicians having their friends create glowing Wikipedia pages for them

Latest comment: 11 years ago7 comments5 people in discussion

I want to talk about the case of a local politician. She represents about 4,000 people in a London borough and has self-published a couple of books that might have sold ~~a thousand~~ a few hundred copies between them. The page is some sort of glowing tribute and gives the misleading impression that the person is very much more "notable" than they really are. I saw this when many other pages are being deleted on notability grounds when often it is very contentious - here is an obvious case! Rabina Khan. PS - I have added one line of detail about her minor involvement in a recent expenses scandal just to try to balance the whole article up (and I expect one of her acolytes to delete it... but seriously - is Rabina Khan notable? It is just wrong... Aetheling1125 22:29, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You might want to ask this question at WP:Notability/Noticeboard or via WP:AFD, but the short answer is that it's very difficult to get articles with 21 citations deleted. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:02, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The scandal information you have added to the article, which although is written by a journalist, is also from their personal blog, which is WP:SPS, and therefore fails WP:RS.

Regarding your assumption of sock puppetry or conflict of interest, I have never met Rabina Khan and I have attempted to write the article from a WP:NPOV with the sources available. I fail to understand how the article “gives the misleading impression” that the subject is “more notable” than they really are. If you think the article fails WP:GNG then AfD it, as you previously did on the Rania Khan article. Tanbircdq (talk) 23:31, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Articles about local politicians often spring up when there's an election on the horizon ;) But in this case Khan has been reported on a far wider basis than solely as a local councillor. True the article has a lot of primary sources and could do with a clean-up, but I don't think its a candidate for deletion. Sionk (talk) 00:53, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

SPS sources do not immediately fail RS - but they certainly fail as sources for notability evaluation. --MASEM (t) 05:07, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

There are fifty-one councillors at Tower Hamlets. These two are the only two who have had these articles made for them. I find it extremely hard to believe that entirely one-sided articles heaping praises on local politicians are written from a Neutral Point of View. There are over 21,000 local councillors nationwide, every one of them would be as notable as these two - perhaps more so - and could find snippets from local newspapers to support their own articles. What about former councillors? There are hundreds of thousands of them! This is surely not what Wikipedia is for (or could handle)? Aetheling1125 06:34, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

With minimal changes, the same thing could be said about the article Barack Obama. A consequence of the WP:BLP policy is that negative comment or critical commentary is required to meet a higher quality threshold to be included. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, but maybe a bias we have. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:BLPSPS states; “Never use self-published sources – including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets – as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject (see below). "Self-published blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some news organizations host online columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Posts left by readers are never acceptable as sources.”

The source fails WP:V and should be removed. In addition, if the claim made by the journalist was notable or had due weight he would have published it on the Daily Express or East London Advertiser and not just on his own personal blog. Tanbircdq (talk) 16:10, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The story had "due weight" and was "notable" and was published in the "East London Advertiser" the day before. I have therefore changed that source to a less detailed one in that newspaper. Given that the East London Advertiser published the same story (retrieved from the same FoI information) and one day earlier means that the closer detail published in the blog by the Daily Express journalist (Ted Jeory) WAS reliable and just provided more detail? Aetheling1125 05:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The source you have added is; Lutfur Rahman Eleven are expelled from the Labour Party. I presume this was an error so I have replaced it with the intended one; Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman slammed for £7,675 cab bill.

This new source is indeed independent, verifiable and reliable and therefore acceptable. However the following is not mentioned within the source; “...many of which were short distances...Whilst other councillors criticised over the same issue made statements apologising to the public, Ms. Khan did not.” So I have removed this unless this can also be adequately sourced.

Also bearing in mind your previous allegation that the article was not NPOV, how is the use of the words enormous and strongly in the following NPOV?; “her actions were strongly criticised” and “came to an enormous £958.” Tanbircdq (talk) 18:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"Sources are not required ... to be in English."

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Just to be clear, does this statement mean that it's permissible to create an article in the English Wikipedia that contains no English-language sources whatsoever?

Along those lines, would there be any problem to create an article (with exclusively non-English language sources), about a living person, where, if one did a Google search for the subject of the article, and restricted the results to English-language pages only, there were no results whatsoever (no pages found)? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 19:19, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes: it is permissible to create an article in the English Wikipedia that not only currently cites no English-language sources whatsoever, but also on a subject about which we are reasonably certain that no English-language source in the entire world has ever published a single sentence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:26, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

That said, notability still has to be demonstrated, and BLP followed. There are limits to WP:AGF, especially when it comes to BLP and potentially a language that only a few editors here speak. Our acceptance of non-english sources is somewhat conditional in that sense. Gigs (talk) 16:32, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

WP:Notifications

Latest comment: 11 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Any objections to adding a link to WP:Notifications in the header? I keep coming here by accident via WP:NOTE. Nyttend (talk) 01:22, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

Propose Transportation Notability Subsection

Latest comment: 11 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion

I propose the creation of a new Transportation subsection for the Wiki Notability Guidelines and Criteria. And to start off this discussion I will more specifically suggest the following...

General Guidelines

Presumption of notability in no way mitigates the requirement for correct and verifiable secondary sources. Inadequately sourced articles should be treated as suspect and tagged for improvement. If no sources are cited at all and none can be found, the article should be considered for deletion as per WP:DEL.

Trains

Named or numbered rail lines of more than trivial size are presumed notable.
Railroad Corporations and Rail Mass Transit Organizations have a limited presumption of notability. They may however be challenged if they were/are of very small size or limited lifespan.
Named passenger trains, i.e. the 20th Century Limited, are presumed notable.
Individual rail cars, named or not, are not presumed notable unless they meet the requirements of WP:GNG or other specific notability guidelines.

Ships and Shipping

Named ocean liners, cruise ships and cargo liners carrying more than a trivial number of passengers, which shall be defined as 100 or more for any ship constructed post 1900, are presumed notable.
Commercial cargo ships, tankers, river boats, ferries, yachts, tugs, trawlers and other non oceanic passenger vessels are not notable unless they meet notability criteria set forth elsewhere.

An exception exists for commercial vessels that served during wartime either in the merchant marine or were appropriated by naval/military forces for service. Such vessels are presumed notable.
An exception exists for any commercial vessel wrecked with significant loss of life or sunk during wartime by hostile forces. Such vessels are presumed notable.

Trans-oceanic shipping companies have a limited presumption of notability. They may however be challenged if they were/are of very small size or limited lifespan.

Air Travel

Regional, national and international airlines are presumed notable unless of trivial size and or of very limited lifespan.
Small, local or tourist oriented companies are not notable.
Aircraft designs, i.e. Boeing 707, are presumed notable.
Individual planes, named or not, are not considered notable unless they meet specific notability requirements elsewhere.
Commercial airports are considered notable.
Private airports are not considered notable unless they meet notability criteria elsewhere.

Automobile Related Transport

Automobile manufacturers have a limited presumption of notability. They may however be challenged if they were/are of very small size or limited lifespan.
Automobile designs or models, i.e. Ford Model T are presumed notable.
Individual manufacturing years of a given make and model are not generally considered sufficiently notable for a stand alone article and should be incorporated into make and model articles. Exceptions may exist if notability can be established using criteria set forth elsewhere.
Individual cars, named or not, do not have a presumption of notability. This does not preclude the possibility of notability being established via criteria elsewhere.
Regional or national named or numbered highways unless of trivial size are presumed notable.
Local roads and highways are not notable unless meeting criteria elsewhere.
Pre-automobile and historical forms of surface transportation have a limited presumption of notability.

This is just something I have thrown together off the top of my head. It is possible it may duplicate other pages in some respects but to the best of my knowledge we don't have any broad notability guidelines relating to transportation. And I think that is a gap that needs filling. There is nothing sacred in here and I am not nailing my flag to any mastheads. So feel free to criticize or propose changes. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:42, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Discuss

This would not be a new section in WP:N, but instead you are looking to make a subject-specific notability guideline (an "SNG"), which would, if it existed, be at something like WP:Notability (transportation). But that's just more about where this advice would go. That said, how you are presenting what is notable would not fly. We don't based notability on topics simply being in a class (eg "automobile designs or models"). Notability is about being documented in independent secondary sources we can build an article about it. If there is some criteria that a topic relating to transportation that would likely lead to the presumption that sources can be found about it, then it makes reason that we presume that topic notable. To compare, in WP:BIO, we presume a person is notable if they have one a highly prestigious prize like the Nobel Award. That's because in the past, everyone who has won such awards will have their contributions well documented - if not before the award was given certainly after the award was given. We would need similar criteria here for transportation topics. I'm certain that there may be some that could be defined for transportation topics, but that needs to be written in a different way than how the above are presented.
The next step would then to be to have a global RFC to draw attention to these and get the guideline approved as an SNG, because this affects the whole project. --MASEM (t) 22:16, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with your assertion about establishment of notability. You cite WP:BIO but a glance at WP:MILNG suggests that some topics might be given a presumption of notability provided sufficient sources can be found. -Ad Orientem (talk) 23:19, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

First, MILNG is an essay (a Wikiproject-level notability guide, ergo not vetted by the community at large) but they still have the points. First, to iterate, the guides for notability is that either the GNG has been met (presumed notable by significant coverage in secondary sources) or by an appropriate SNG (a criteria where presumption of existing sources has been established). So if there's significant coverage, we nearly always have stand-alone topics. The SNGs are for cases where it may take time to locate such sources and we shouldn't be rushing to delete these. That said, I point you to WP:MILPEOPLE which is the type of criteria you need to establish - these are all cases of merit whereby if the person meets any of these, there's a good presumption of sources that will be found. This is similar to those in WP:BIO and other SNGs. --MASEM (t) 23:29, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I would oppose this proposal; granting a presumption of notability to large classes of subjects only makes one big difference - it enables mass production of minimally-sourced microstubs. Right now, if somebody wants to write an article about (say) a hovercraft, then they have to gather and use various independent sources to show that it passes the GNG, and those sources allow the development of substantial sourced content. However, the day after we rule that any hovercraft passing some technical criterion is notable, some editor will go through a directory and copy & paste a thousand microstubs, one for each row in the directory; subst:pagename is a hovercraft in Peru. {{PeruHovercraftStub}} [[Category:Hovercraft in Peru]]; regardless of the fact that all 1000 of them fail the GNG. It certainly bypasses the irksome requirements that editors understand what they're writing about and that editors should build something informative for the benefit of readers. The community only stands to lose by enabling such folly. bobrayner (talk) 01:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Oppose. The suggested guidelines are vague and will likely cause more arguments than they will solve. (The proposer even admits that he hasn't given them careful thought.) What is a "rail line of more than trivial size"? Ten miles might seem trivial in the USA but it would be half-way across the country if there were railways in Andorra. What is "of small size or limited lifespan"? If every automobile model is presumed notable, what is a "model"? Does it include something some guy builds in his garage? What if he builds a second one and sells it? If you want to say that the manufacturer has to be notable already, that falls foul of WP:PRODUCT and WP:NOTINHERITED: manufacturers of notable products are not necessarily notable and individual products of notable companies are not necessarily notable. Why are modern methods of transport presumed notable but obsolete methods not?
Fundamentally, though, I just don't see a need for these guidelines and the proposer doesn't give any reason for having them. There is a whole industry producing books and magazines on transport topics so the standards of WP:GNG are pretty easy to meet for a transport article. The wide availability of sources of cast-iron reliability means that WP:GNG can already be interpreted in a fairly consistent way across transport topics, without the need for specific guidelines. Transport-related companies are already covered by WP:CORP/WP:ORG; notability of automobile models, aircraft designs and so on is covered by WP:PRODUCT. I'm fairly active at AfD (I'd estimate I read about 10% of all proposals there) and I don't recall seeing many transport-related articles being nominated for deletion, which suggests that there are few arguments about what constitutes notability for transport topics. That, in turn, suggests no real need for specific guidelines and little precedent on which to base such guidelines and say that they're representative of community consensus. (Ironically, the only transport articles I can recall coming up for deletion recently are articles on British bus routes, a form of transport that the proposer hasn't considered.) Dricherby (talk) 10:43, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Fading notability

Latest comment: 11 years ago57 comments12 people in discussion

I was looking at our article on the University of Florida Taser incident recently... and it caused me to ponder on how notability can change and even fade over time... Five years ago (when that the article was written), a lot of people believed that the event was highly significant... but today? Now that we can view the event with some historical perspective, I am not so sure.
I am not trying to say that the event is non-notable or that the article should be deleted... but it certainly has turned out to be less notable than we expected it to be at the time. And I am sure that there are other examples of changing/fading notability (and feel free to raise them... I don't mean to make this about just that one article). So, how should we deal with such changing/fading notability. Should we say something about it in the guideline? Blueboar (talk) 17:57, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

We already say - contrary to this - that once something is notable, it cannot lose that notability. We just need enduring notability at the time of the event, more than just routine or a burst of coverage, to establish notability to start. That's why NEVENT is rather important and that editors should not rush off to create articles on breaking news stories until its established that there's potentally improvement. One can always challenge an event or a BLP only notable for one event on the grounds that no enduring coverage was established at the onset of the event, though I doubt you can claim that for the example above. It would be wrong for us to delete articles like this just because years later, nothing else has come from it; that would lead to the slope of deleting any topic that is in humanity's far past as having no modern coverage. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, although I think its a good idea to hold on to the idea that notability is not temporary, I do think that sometimes an unexpected event can cloud our collective judgement and that reconsideration later on might be helpful. You asked for examples so here is one that turns out to be a surprisingly poor example. Rob Knox was an aspiring young actor who was murdered in 2008. The scene at WP:AFD/Rob Knox is now courtesy blanked. Quite a few people !voting "keep" agreed that in the longer term he might not be considered notable. Surprisingly the article is still getting over 200 page views a day (thus making it a poor example of fading notability). In the case of your example the mere fact it was recently given a second AFD nomination suggests to me it has maintained notability (it also gets even more page views). Of course our "multiple reliable sources" proxy for notability means that, unless our standards change, proxy-notability can't fade. In the longer term none of this matters. Historians will find deleted articles and oversighted revisions will say more about 21st century society than the things we now believe are notable. Thincat (talk) 18:47, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Consider this... If we were looking at an event that occurred in the 1700s, and trying to determine whether it was notable or not - we would certainly be concerned if the only sources we could find were newspapers of the time ("Delete - no secondary sources") ... we would want at least some coverage of the event by historians. Yet for current events we are quite happy to rely on media coverage to demonstrate notability. In other words, we have different standards for sourcing between "current events" and "historical events". The problem is that all "current events" eventually become "historical events". And when THAT happens, the standards for sourcing has to change. Blueboar (talk) 20:14, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure we would be so keen to delete this hypothetical article that was well-sourced in 18th-century newspapers. Dricherby (talk) 20:22, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that we would. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It's a problem created by the fact we pretty much let anyone create articles and once created, takes work to delete. NOTNEWS and NEVENT are there to try to advise editors from creating articles on spur-of-the-moment news reports but we can't enforce those with any type of strictness. Which is why we can say that while these articles may appear notable in the days and weeks of the event, we can reassess if the coverage was really of "enduring notability" that we expect or a flash in the pan that may have been longer than the standard 24-48 hr cycle. We do have a systematic bias because of modern reporting today which creates a lot more sourcing but really much of this is just primary; editors simply see that they can make articles like this without being aware of the longer issues. Its just that the example above is a bad example of where notability may have waned - the event had some influence after the fact even if that hasn't been talked about for 5 years, and thus better than the average news cycle. --MASEM (t) 20:30, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

I think that the thing to do is to emphasize that just because an event appeared to be notable originally doesn't mean that it actually is notable. In particular, many such events (and many deaths, and many barely notable BLPs) need to be merged into lists, rather than being kept as stand-alone articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

It is very easy to overestimate the significance of current affairs. Current affairs articles have to hurdle issues of NOTNEWS, and use of secondary sources. However, we tend to readily accept current affairs articles, if there are many sources. We tend to accept multiple reportings in the media as evidence of notability. What we should look for is commentary on the topic, not repetition of the reports. Commentary on the topic means something is written and published about the topic with the implicit assumption that the reader of the commentary already knows about the reports.
The Taser incident article is a weak encyclopedia article because it doesn't seem to reference any sources that comment on the incident historically or in a wider context. That the sources seem to be entirely from 2007, is a bad sign. That each source references a fact, not commentary, is a deeper bad sign.
An initial lack of commentary on the reports does not "fade".
Despite the article technically failing WP:N, I don't advocate its deletion, or smerging. I expect that there are indeed secondary sources covering this event, but just not google-accessible sources. I think it very likely that there is academic social commentary on this published in academic social journals that are not free to access. Wikipedia has a quality-bias to scientific/technical subjects, and languishes in subjects such as Sociological theory.
I also don't advocate deletion of these articles for other reasons of reader engagement, editor attraction and editor retention. There is no doubt that the article is information of interest to our readers, and that we have many editors who like to create, edit and watch these articles. It is not obvious to many that Current-affairs-of-the-day summaries are not traditionally encyclopedic content, but it is not important enough to create conflict and tension in trying to suppress it. As long as the article is not promotion or advocacy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:15, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
- The problem is, we shouldn't be accepting current affairs articles until they pass NEVENT or clear NOTNEWS. We in fact have Wikinews as a sister project where this type of coverage is perfectly suited. Editors just don't do that, and instead want to be the first-to-create or get the ITN nomination. That's the problem, the Foundation has created a separate space for news where notability isn't a question, and no one wants to use it. We need to discourage current event articles until they've proven notable. --MASEM (t) 02:20, 6 June 2013 (UTC)
  - Well, it would be good if people didn't rush to create such articles here but instead created more encyclopedic content or went to Wikinews. I am less clear that we need to busy ourselves deleting it. I see people here in a reflective mood being quite tolerant of the Taser article and it was kept at its latest AFD.[12] It would also be good if people didn't rush to nominate news articles at AFD. If they waited a couple of weeks it would be so much easier. Thincat (talk) 07:42, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is thinking in terms of rushing off and deleting any articles. The taser incident article is being used as an example of a more fundamental problem, and the goal here is to share opinions on how to resolve that more fundamental problem. Blueboar (talk) 21:51, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

WEll, the other aspect here is that we always use the word "presumed" because notability cannot be quantified. We may presume notability early on but as time goes by, we're aware that our presumption was bad, and thus an AFD is appropriate. This applies to all topics across the board, not just events. --MASEM (t) 23:53, 6 June 2013 (UTC)

In AfD2, Cullen328 (at 02:58, 12 March 2013) points out sources that demonstrate notability. So, the presumption was correct, and a little work remains to be done. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:25, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, SmokeyJoe. Yes, this particular article came up at AfD less than three months ago, and I then discovered that this incident has been discussed in reliable sources many times over the years, and is credited with influencing policy discussions regarding taser usage. On the broader question, I don't think that there is any such thing as "fading notability" although I agree that is is difficult to judge notability in the immediate wake of an event that gets a burst of media coverage. This incident has "meme" aspects and I am in general skeptical of the notability of memes. But this one goes way beyond that, in my opinion, and is notable for an article on this encyclopedia. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:35, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Without the viral/meme popularity of "Don't tase me, bro!", the event would be on much shakier ground. Compare to UCLA Taser incident, which had direct real-world impact in the form of a new UCLA PD Taser policy and a lawsuit settlement. Its video also went viral, but it was overshadowed eleven months later by the Florida incident. Flatscan (talk) 04:37, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Influencing one policy of one small police force abount one piece of equipment isn't a great claim to significance... Law enforcement in the United States says that there are nearly 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the USA. If we had articles about every event that had influenced any of their policies, we'd be swamped. Lawsuit settlements are even more common. Dricherby (talk) 08:25, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You're absolutely right – I am not sure if the UCLA article would survive an AfD now. Flatscan (talk) 04:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Another thing often with these news events stories is that while the event may seem notable and have some influence, at the end of the day (days, weeks, years later) its recognized it is merely a interesting story that may be part of a larger topic but really it's worthy for a standalone page. Example that comes to mind is the recent violence at the Mother's Day parade in New Orleans, which basically turned out to be press-escalated stories an example of street violence that can happen at such second line parades. We had an article on the event but it was appropriately deleted Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2013 Mother's Day Parade shooting. It makes much more sense to have that story described at Wikinews, and then in second line parades to make mention of that event (including the link to Wikinews) to show how violence can occur at these. This may not be true for all events (they're isolated and have little impact on policy) but where they can, if notability after some time seems week, editors should consider merging. But this is basically related to the fact that editors are not aware how NOTNEWS, NEVENT work and that editors often mistake routine reporting as secondary to claim events are notable. This really needs to be fixed whether through better education (pushing on Wikinews where there's no question that sourced events can be included regardless of scope) or better vigilance of news events articles so that we aren't worried about questioning their notability years later.- --MASEM (t) 13:15, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

The issue isn't just with events, new products and websites often get a few reviews when they first get started and then fade into oblivion. The initial coverage may be enough per our guidelines to ensure "enduring notability". This initial bump of coverage, while enough to satisfy the notability guidelines, may not be enough to guarantee enduring notability. NOTNEWS talks about this, but that policy is worded very narrowly and doesn't affect coverage such as product and website reviews. Them From Space 17:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

One possible way to address this is by adding some text that would discourage news-type article creation. Do you think that something like this would help:

Notability is not temporary. Editors should have a reasonable expectation that the events, people, places, and things will be the subject of ongoing interest by reliable sources. If an incident, company, product, or is not likely to be written about ten years from now, then avoid creating an article about it.

I'm not at all happy with the wording, but perhaps you'll get the idea. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

That's the exact opposite of what WP:NOTTEMPORARY says: "Notability is not temporary; once a topic has been the subject of 'significant coverage' in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage." In any case, my own feeling is that we end up with articles about non-notable things not because their creators didn't understand the guidelines but because they didn't even know they existed. Dricherby (talk) 23:13, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, "ongoing" is definitely the wrong word; we've got "enduring" to describe the typical sourcing timeline for most topics where they will cover a longer period than a typical news cycle but need not be continuing to the present day. --MASEM (t) 23:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

This whole thread is about "Fading presumption of notability", not "Fading notability". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you, that's the point I'm trying to make, succinctly. It's about our presumption going south, not what actually has been out in sources (which can't change). --MASEM (t) 06:04, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
  In practical terms, what's the difference between "fading presumption of notability" and "fading notability"? Let me give you an example: Alice kills Bob, and there is intensive, national media coverage for a month. There is some media coverage for a year (maybe as part of "Top ten stories of the year" retrospectives). There is a short burst of news articles during the trial, most of it either local or very brief.
  That's all pretty typical for a high-profile murder, right? So let's say that at the three-month mark, someone sends the article on the [[Killing of Bob]] to AFD. AFD closes overwhelmingly as "keep".
  - Does this AFD outcome mean that the murder is notable, or only that it is presumed notable? Does anything ever truly qualify for a separate article on the English Wikipedia ("notability"), or might we all wake up next week and decide that the article about Queen Elizabeth II should be merged into some more obviously notable page, because she's not truly notable, and the page has only been kept separate on the presumption that she qualified for a BLP article here?
  Now let's go on: After the trial, editors search diligently, but they are unable to find even one single word published about the murder. A second AFD appears ten years later and closes as "merge to [[List of murders in Ruritania]]", a list that typically gives two sentences about each murder.
  - Was the first outcome wrong? Was the murder actually not notable?
  - Were the participating editors merely mistaken about their decision that the article qualified for a separate, stand-alone article on the English Wikipedia? Is it possible that the subject did qualify for a separate, stand-alone article during those ten years, but now it no longer does qualify for that separate, stand-alone article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
  - The core point to all this is that we can't measure notability. It's a non-quantity about a topic. There are topics that are more notable than others, but we have no idea what this scale actually is. But is a quantity that is fixed irregardless of how much time has passed. We as editors can only estimate what that notability is via presumption, and our presumptions can change over time. That's the thing to keep in mind. --MASEM (t) 05:35, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
    - - I would measure Wikipedia-notability by the number of separate words written and reputably published about the subject by different authors who are independent of the subject. Note that "about" means commentary, analysis, etc on the subject and does not included repetition of facts.
        WAID's introduction didn't clearly indicate whether the news stories were secondary source material. Were they commentary and analysis, or were they factual updates? This difference is everything to notability vs NOTNEWS.
        There are biographies on QEII, positive and negative commentary, etc. QEII is proven notable because reputable publications ave created content about her.
        It is tempting to say that AfD1 was wrong. We could soften that by saying that the participants presumed in error. I hadn't before appreciated any importance to the "presumed" thing, but now I do. We have to allow for presumption of notability if we are going to let any editors on to build content in real time. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:52, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
        Not to say this is wrong, only that the number of words written is a poor measure. There are topic areas where only a few words are needed - plus the general importance of the topic - that would give the same measure of notability for a topic in a field where many more words are required to meet the same thing. (This, in part, is why there's no minimum number of sources specified for GNG). Certainly the more words written in this manner, the more likely the topic really is notable, and thus our presumption of notability will likely be correct. That also means that we have some leeway for considering other facets beyond just the sourcing (Though this is of highest importance). That's why I've always found it best to stress the presumption of notability, and not notability itself, as the latter is simply always going to be immeasurable. --MASEM (t) 06:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
        Yes, "number of words" might be a bit crude, you probably have to remove redundant words/ideas, and probably try to count information. Also, I should have said "after a very long time". I think you can measure notability, but not in the short term, which leads to the same conclusion as Masem's. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:52, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The "presumption of notability" is fine for saying that Xs are usually notable (or that most Xs are notable)... but it does not tell you whether a specific X is notable. For that we have to have something more than just presumption. Blueboar (talk) 14:05, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to join this discussion at such a late point, but the idea of “measuring notability” caught my attention. Although the discussion is interesting, its premise is flawed and focusing the discussion on “current events” amplifies the flaw. Careful reading of the guideline leads one to the conclusion that Wikipedia’s concept of notability is binary, and a one-way binary at that. Once a topic is deemed notable (by our standards) it remains so. In other words, once a topic has received significant coverage in independent reliable sources, it is notable. It cannot become non-notable by any lack of continuing coverage. Once a tree is cut down, it can’t be restored to its former self. Such is notability. Of course where there is a great deal of subjectivity is the evaluation of “significant coverage in independent reliable sources”. This subjectivity leads inevitably to situations where a topic presumed to be notable is deemed not to be notable and is thus deleted or merged. When that happens, the reality is that the topic (whatever it may have been) was never notable. Notability is binary, and one-way. It cannot fade, dwindle or disappear and thus is not measurable except in a binary way. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Notability arguably is binary - either it is or isn't, with possibly levels of being "more" notable than others. However, we can't easily tell if it is or isn't unless we have the full body of available sources that will ever be written available to us. The best we can do is to do the best sampling we can of sources and make a presumption about notability. This is akin to any sort of census or the like that uses a fraction of a population to come to conclusions about the whole - the larger the sample size, the higher the confidence on the results. Similarly, the more sources you can present, the stronger our confidence in the notability is. That said, what may appear to be appropriate sources near the time of the event or related to the topic may over time be realized as not good samples. This is most often the case of current events - editors rush to add in sources about the event from newspapers believing these are demonstrating notability, but over time those are shown only to be primary sources and not indication of notability. Ergo, the presumption about notability was wrong. Again, the quality "notability" is immutable, but impossible to known its value, and instead we are using presumption of notability which can be mutable over time. That's why our guidelines on notability always use the word "presumed". (This is justified by the fact that once an article passes AFD by a keep, it can be challenged again at a later time). --MASEM (t) 15:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that we can't determine notability without reading the future and seeing all the sources that will ever be written. For example, nearly a hundred years after the event, books are still being written about the First World War. There are already enough sources to demonstrate lasting impact of the war; we know that it is notable now and, as long as Wikipedia's notability criteria don't change, it is notable for all time. Dricherby (talk) 16:06, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure, some topics will have a very strong presumption of notability with only a few sources written - eg events like the Boston Marathon bombing was clear within a few hours of the story breaking that we could easily presume it notable (And the presumption has only strengthened as we go along). But the same pattern can be seen with other events that typically at the end of the day aren't really that notable, such as the more recent 2013 Mothers Day shooting - which turned out to be more street violence despite getting international coverage for a few hours after the event. --MASEM (t) 16:12, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Fading secondary sources

I think these are all interesting responses, but some of them are a bit muddled because they sometimes say "notability" when they mean something like "importance" and sometimes when they mean "qualifies for an article on the English Wikipedia."

So here's what really happens in the example:

In 2005, editors decided that the subject qualified for an article on the English Wikipedia.
In 2015, editors decided that the same subject did not qualify for an article on the English Wikipedia.

Unless you are willing to declare that the editorial community is not capable of deciding which subjects are accepted here, then "notability", in the meaning of "qualifies for an article on the English Wikipedia", was actually temporary.

Furthermore, if no sources continue to be produced, then notability must be temporary on the historical scale, because an article that we would accept as a secondary source today is a primary source from the perspective of the next century.

Why does this fact mean that notability is (or at least, can be) temporary? Because we require more than multiple independent sources: we require multiple, independent, secondary sources, and nothing that was published in a century-old newspaper is a secondary source (any longer). Even if our standards never change, the sources themselves change classification as time passes. That inescapable reclassification of the sources means that notability indeed is temporary. On a very long-term scale, the very fact that we require secondary sources means that we require ongoing coverage.

This, by the way, is already evident in actual community practice: events that seem plausible at the time are routinely deleted or merged away if there has been little or no coverage after several years have passed. The only thing that hasn't been done is to make NTEMP clearly articulate the community's real policy on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Your comment about how a newspaper shifts from being secondary to being primary is a valid one... but that opens a side issue: at what point does a newspaper make this transition? A century after it is published? Fifty years? A decade? A year? Blueboar (talk) 18:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't know. Almost certainly when a century has passed, and probably often when a decade or two has. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Judging by AFDs that I have participated on events, it's usually not the argument that "this event is notable, it must stay" but the argument that the burst of coverage is considered as significant secondary sourcing, which, more often than not, is not really true (partially because some editors take that the difference between primary and secondary is the "one step removed" approach, where we actually require transformation of information.) As such, event articles are kept typically by overwhelming numbers and not policy. But this is usually if you challenge the event within the first few weeks. A year later, that's different. The notability of the event has not changed, only the means that we come to access that. That's why to me the thing to keep in mind is that notability itself is immutable but our perception of it (and thus the article-worthiness factor) is. --MASEM (t) 19:44, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

OK but newspapers are not the only source. There have been hundreds of books written about the First World War and Queen Elizabeth II. These secondary sources will never become primary sources about WWI or QEII. Given how many modern books have been written about, say, the wars of the ancient Greeks and British monarchs who died hundreds of years ago, it seems likely that these topics will still be studied and written about in hundreds of years' time: that is, in addition to the non-temporary notability already demonstrated by coverage to date, there is also a presumption of ongoing coverage (which is more than is required). Dricherby (talk) 21:09, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, even books change their status over time. All ancient encyclopedias and dictionaries, even though encyclopedias and dictionaries are the archetypal example of tertiary sources, are now considered primary sources. It may take centuries, but it will happen.

However, I agree that these subjects are likely to have new secondary sources written about them in the future, and so the fact that some older sources turn primary is not important in those cases. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Masem, absent a clear contradiction with a policy such as WP:V, WP:OR, or WP:NPOV, "overwhelming numbers" are policy, free to interpret narrowly or to even disregard entirely any and all notability guidelines if they have a reasonable argument that it makes the encyclopedia better in a particular instance. To ignore that is to pretend we have more incontrovertible rules than we really do. postdlf (talk) 21:17, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It is very hard to meet V, NOR, or NPOV without meeting, at minimum, the GNG. It can happen, and I agree if consensus says to keep even in absence of sources, sure, but for most topics, meeting the necessary requirements for the presumption of notability will allow standalone topics to meet V, NOR, and NPOV. --MASEM (t) 21:22, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Any notability guideline that isn't satisfied by newspaper sourcing alone goes far beyond those core policies. postdlf (talk) 21:28, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

In most cases, newspaper articles - reporting on facts and not providing analysis or the like - are not secondary sources. (this is not saying newspapers are never secondary sources, just that more often than not, they are primary). But this also depends on what the newspaper article is about and what the topic is - the same article, primary for one topic, can be secondary for another. But we cannot say "just because there are newspaper sources, this is notable." That conflicts with both NOTNEWS and the GNG. --MASEM (t) 21:34, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

That it would conflict with NOTNEWS is not clear but instead very debatable, and it would not conflict with V. So we return to my above comment about consensus trumping notability guidelines instead of the tail wagging the dog... postdlf (talk) 21:41, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay, first, I'm not contesting that consensus, via IAR, overrides the GNG where appropriate - if the consensus feels a topic is presumably notable despite any sourcing evidence to support that, it'll be kept, I've no question on that. Also, you're right, I meant NEVENT and not NOTNEWS (thougt NOTNEWS is basically the equivalent of NOTPLOT when it comes to primary sources). But, getting back to this point, we also recognize consensus can change, and that presumption can change down the road too. I know for example that there's cases at OUTCOMES (like schools) that are always kept regardless of lack-of-sourcing arguments, though I've seen recent discussion that suggests there may be reason to change that presumption. Basically, again, presumption of notability by whatever means we get there is not fixed indefinitely. --MASEM (t) 21:49, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It's almost impossible to meet any notability guideline for most science and mathematics articles using only newspaper sources. Dricherby (talk) 21:54, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Fading Notability - getting us back on track

We have gotten off track... the issue is whether notability can fade. Or perhaps a better way to put it is... can a topic that we once thought very notable can be reassessed and deemed no longer notable. I think the answer to that is "yes"... but what are the grounds for saying so? Blueboar (talk) 19:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

In our current language, we're basically saying that one can always challenge the presumption of notability we assess to allow for a standalone article. When and how that presumption can be challenged, however, is hard to specify. The only case where I'd even think of putting a time frame of when that can take place is for articles written on events, looking at the events some weeks, months, or even years out to determine if the initial presumption of notability that led to the article creation was really right.

Given that this challenge is effectively starting a new AFD, then all the aspects of WP:BEFORE come into play. It doesn't make sense to challenge the presumption of notability of a topic a week after an AFD just completed that was a clear keep - that's far too little time. A year later, perhaps, but I'd never want to put hard rules on it for fear of editors that really really want to get rid of a topic hitting up AFD on a regular basis.

As to the grounds - it's a matter of opinion. If you aren't sure, you can avoid AFD and approach the talk page about it. Or suggest a merge if there's potentially a better location. But I doubt we can write hard rules that say "when this happens, the article needs to be reassessed for presumed notability." --MASEM (t) 19:51, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Imho the default case is that notability doesn't fade. The argument that when something turns into a historical event it might eventually need different sourcing, that is secondary sources, is problematic as long as we don't even agree, what we consider secondary sources in that context (recent discussions of that subject indicate we don't (as a community). Moreover that the switch to an "historic event" might be decades in he future. Having said that the notability as an other aspect of an article is of course subject to a potential reassment.--Kmhkmh (talk) 01:14, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

I think we are using the wrong word-- “fade” -- when trying to describe what is being considered here. Fame or notoriety can “fade” or for that matter “grow”, thus at any given time there are gradations of fame or notoriety for any topic. WP Notability (a construct the WP community contrived and defined) is clearly binary. A topic is either notable or it is not. It cannot fade, nor can it grow. However, as Masem points out, events (which move from “current” to “historical” over time) present us with a challenge, because overtime, the nature of the coverage of the individual event evolves. Historians, journalists, scientists, etc. begin to study and weave individual events into broader themes. The question we are pondering is “how does WP deal with that evolution of coverage from a single event to a broader theme?” Sometime it’s useful to take a “time machine” approach to explaining this.

On January 10, 1864, Montana Vigilantes hanged a number of the members of the Henry Plummer gang in Virginia City, Montana. The event received significant coverage in the Montana Post (the Virginia City paper at the time) and over the coming weeks in many Montana newspapers and eventually papers throughout the U.S. If WP was functioning then, as it does today, I am confident there would have been an article created something like January 1864 hanging of Henry Plummer, because at the time, this was a big deal in the Montana gold fields. Over the next couple of years, the editor of the Montana Post (Thomas Dimsdale) began a serial describing all the “vigilante” activity that had occurred in the gold fields (~15-35 died at the hands of vigilantes in 1863-64). In 1865, Dimsdale turned that serial coverage into Vigilantes of Montana: Or popular Justice in the Rocky Mountains which became the 1st secondary coverage of the Plummer hanging and a seminal work on western vigilantism. Over the next half century, many other authors wrote about the Montana vigilante period which actually extended into the 1880s and the open range cattle ranches.

So if we fast forward to today, WP still covers the Plummer Hanging, but in different ways. The event itself is still notable by our WP notability standard, but our inclusion of the event has evolved, with the evolution of coverage of the event by authors, journalists, etc. Today the event is handled as part of the Montana Vigilantes article, the Henry Plummer article and a great number of other articles on places and individuals that participated in or were the scene of Montana vigilante activity. The topic January 1864 hanging of Henry Plummer never lost its notability, it just got woven into more comprehensive coverage of the broader topic of vigilantism and the people and places impacted by it. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:29, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

You are basically describing what NEVENT is all about. I disagree that we would have had an article specifically on the hanging, because for all purposes the coverage you described was a "brief burst of news", given how "fast" news stories carried in those days. That's not to say we wouldn't have included the event but the proper action is what we would have had now - where the event is covered as part of the larger, notable topic Montana Vigilantes. Of course, I'm sure some editors would have created the hanging article but that would have been of dubious notability because all that there was primary sourcing. I argue this is exactly the same situation as the 2013 Mother's Day shootings (deleted, but you can see the AFD here [13]). The event was covered internationally, but within a day it was clear that the event was "routine" for what actually happened, and hence why it was deleted. However, the event is still a major facet of second line parade since it highlighted the violence those can come from. It's the exact same pattern you mention, just on the time scale that today's media works.

Basically, much of this comes to people forgetting that we have Wikinews and instead wanting to be the first-to-create an article on a breaking news event and/or the ITN credit. We should not be creating articles where the initial rush of sourcing is going to be primary unless it's blatantly obvious (eg the Boston marathon bombings once it was affirmed it was intentional). When that is done, we have to consider how our preception of the event changes down the road, and whether the presumption of a stand-alone notable article is correct. --MASEM (t) 14:03, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

This is where this type of discussion gets difficult. You noted: You are basically describing what NEVENT is all about. I disagree that we would have had an article specifically on the hanging, because for all purposes the coverage you described was a "brief burst of news", given how "fast" news stories carried in those days. I said the Plummer hanging was a big deal at the time. Based on what I know about the history of the settlement of West from 1805 to 1900 (most specifically the Northern plains states), the lack of law and order in the 1850s-60s during the gold rush days was a “national” issue significantly influenced by the distraction of the Civil War. Although the Union wanted Western gold on its side, it was essentially powerless to provide any type of organized justice to the region and many of the Vigilantes were powerful men with significant political connections to the Union. The Plummer Hanging was seen at the time as a “National” event.

If I were to religiously apply NEVENT to the Plummer Hanging, I think it meets all the criteria. You are not to be faulted to think that coverage was a “brief burst of news” as most news coverage always seems. But what that news was doing and continued to do as it weaved itself into the broader topic of Montana Vigilantism was expressing a “National” sigh of relief that law and order was indeed making its way into the regions of the West. It’s a moot point today, but indicative of the complexity of NEVENT when applied to any given event. Is there a much larger context that must be considered when deciding whether the event is notable or not. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:14, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

If it meets all the criteria of NEVENT, why don't we have an article on it? It is because it doesn't; it represents the idea that this thread shows, that there are topics that many have a burst of coverage and appear significant at the time, but as time progresses, it is really part of a larger picture that they are better described, and thus that presumption of notability was mistaken. The hanging might have been a national interest story, but in the larger scheme of things, it is as you said, a point about the improvement of law enforcement in the undeveloped part of the country. Similarly, the Mother's Day shooting was initially considered in the first 24hr as a national tragedy but as it was revealed it was common street violence, the press quickly backed off. Another recent case is this Xiamen bus fire - a guy committed suicide and took out many of the passangers too. A terrible loss, but nothing in terms of any encyclopedic long term value. That's why we have to understand, particularly for events and people or things related to those events, that perception of notability will fade quickly if the story doesn't otherwise develop beyond news reporting. If editors aren't going to use Wikinews and instead create articles here about any little event, we must consider that presumption in the future and look at how the event really fits into the larger picture of human knowledge. Some can stand on their own, some can be integrated into broader topics, and some are simply news items. Until we get more people to use Wikinews for these types of articles and only later moving them into WP when the event is clearly past NEVENT's bar, we need to consider that our presumption of the notability of these events will change in time. --MASEM (t) 15:35, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

We don't have a separate article on it because even though the event meets all the minimum requirements, no editor believed that it was best handled as a separate, stand-alone event. At the time, we would have. Now, with the benefits of distance, we wouldn't. And that suggests that our presumption of notability, and our willingness to declare the same thing to be worthy of an article, actually does change (or would, if Wikipedia were more than a dozen years old).

Masem, in addition to events, I think you should also consider whether we might change our minds about products and organizations. A business that is maybe just on the right side of qualifying for an article is likely to be judged to be just on the wrong side a few years after it closes its doors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

I can see in rare cases of a business that gets "notability" from a big claim they make as they start up, only to complete go bankrupt before a product was made a few years down the road (see: the burst bubble from early 2000s), but this is sorta of within the same field as "a brief burst of news" and not enduring coverage, so definitely follows from everything we have already (we would not be carving out anything new). --MASEM (t) 18:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Citations don't have to be in articles?

Latest comment: 11 years ago30 comments10 people in discussion

The Notability requires verifiable evidence section of the policy page states:

"The absence of citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that the subject is not notable."

and

"Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article. Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate citation."

What? That's absurd.

Verifiability and reliability cannot refer to sources that are somewhere "out there" that or that are "available". It needs to refer to sources that are cited in the article. How can reader "verify" a source if he/she doesn't know what the source is? How did these passages wind up on a major policy page? Who wrote this? Can we please reconsider this? This is both wrong in theory, and in practice, it leads to editors creating numerous stubs little or no secondary sources that establish notability, and often no material in the article that even indicates or establishes what the topic is known for. WP:V should require that most material in articles be accompanied by citations (excepting stuff like "the sky is blue", or the plot or credits of a narrative work, for which the work acts as its own primary source). Can we please change that section? Nightscream (talk) 06:26, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Eventually, citations do need to be in articles to be a good article, but when it comes to AFD processes, as long as the sources that help to assert notability have been identified (concretely that is, citing page and chapter-level of detail), then we shouldn't be challenging the notability of the article. The lack of such sources - both here and WP:V - is a cleanup issue. And not so much for WP:N, but if you put in a contestable claim, WP:V does require you give it an inline cite or else it could be deleted. I will note this is a practice established at WP:V, WP:N following to be as far as possible, so the complaint about that should be taken at WP:V. --MASEM (t) 06:34, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It's an uncomfortable issue, and one that I wish would change. The problem is that there is a fear that not making that allowance would cause people to start mass-nominating older articles, and people seem to be unwilling to set a hard cutoff date where that fluffiness no longer applies. I think we have to, and that we should mandate that articles created after some specific date will be evaluated only using the sources actually specifically called out in the article at the close of the AFD. Our current practice allows a problem to continue to grow when we should be doing everything we can to reduce the amount of unsourced and improperly cited material.—Kww(talk) 06:36, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

I agree we can do something about it - even something as simple as adding non-inline references formatted as citations and at the top of a References section is better than burying them on a talk page (or even a past AFD page, which is technically allowable), and takes nearly no effort. But we'd definitely need a grandfathering clause and would need consensus to proceed. --MASEM (t) 06:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

To survive deletion as "non-notable" citations do not have to (yet) be in the article. However, we want citations in the article. Please add the citations to the article. If citations can't be added, then maybe the article should be deleted. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:52, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

- @SmokeyJoe If citations can't be added, then maybe the article should be deleted. You point out one of the long-term dilemmas facing WP. Whose responsibility is it to add citations? Any given article, assuming that there is some evidence that sources exist and there's sufficient data on the source to craft a citation, who is responsible for adding the citation. I think editor that suggests deletion in the face of known sources just isn't doing their job. It is is a bit of elitism. "My job is nominating articles for deletion, your job is adding sources. If you don't do your job, then I get to do mine." I firmly believe that once reliable sources are made known, deletion should be off the table, as it is every editor's job to add them to the article. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:48, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
  - - - Completely agree. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:24, 17 June 2013 (UTC)
  - WP:BURDEN, but with an ounce of good faith. Say I see an article without sources, and my first inclination is to delete. But in following BEFORE, I will see, perhaps, a section on the talk page with suggested refs for notability to be added but just not added. It would be completely stupid of me to take that to AFD, and better would be to simply migrate those refs in as general references. Yes, the people that primarily edit the page should be doing that, but this is a case where it takes all of a few minutes to complete this and benefits the whole work. On the other hand, same situation but there are no references on the talk page (or at least, called out in an obvious manner), and even scouring past AFD discussions on the article gives nothing. Then I'm in the right to AFD it. But it could be then, at that AFD, that an editor goes "we've identified these references before, they're listed at <some obscure place>". That's not the AFD'ing editor's fault, that's the BURDEN aspect, and if the editor wants to avoid it, they simply need to add them. We're not asking for even properly fomatted references, but just enough that any other editor can evoke the principle of WP:V and locate those sources as long as they are listed. If you are an editor of a page and stubbornly refuse to add sources that you claim to have or can't easily point to, you will eventually lose that article at AFD, hence why ultimately it is the burden of those wishing to retain the article to add the references to it. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:BEFORE requires you to do much more than looking at the talk page to see if anyone's suggested sources that haven't made it into the article! "The minimum search expected is a Google Books search and a Google News archive search; Google Scholar is suggested for academic subjects." Please do not AfD articles where you haven't done a basic search for sources: it wastes everybody's time. Dricherby (talk) 09:45, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Could we please stop using the excuse that "requiring sources in the article would mean deleting thousands of older articles". The fact is, there are no longer thousands of older articles lacking cited sources... and the few that remain are flawed and need to be brought up to current standards. If sources exist to support the notability of these topics, then those sources do need to be added to the article. No, I am not calling for a mass deletion campaign... but an article by article review of articles with long standing sourcing issues is in order. There comes a point when we have to admit that a flawed article is not going to be fixed unless some sort of action is taken.

This gets me back to a suggestion I have made previously... I think we need two separate categories of Deletion review... Type A deletion would be used when Notability is questioned... Type B deletion would be used in situations where there are issues other than Notability that might cause us to delete the article (examples would include, but not limited to: a hopelessly POV article, an article based primarily on OR, or an article with long standing sourcing issues). Type A deletions would be permanent (unless some new sources on the topic are written to indicate notability)... Type B deletions would not be permanent... the article would be deleted "without prejudice" and a new article (without the problems) could be started on the topic at any time. Or to put it another way... Type A would result in "No article should exist on the topic" while Type B would be "An article should exist on this topic... but not this article." Blueboar (talk) 16:15, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It would be nice if "AFD" was "Articles for Discussion" and include things like merges and redirects and your Type B. That said, another approach would be to simply have article that have been tagged with the notability tag for X years and noone has bothered to either find sources or even add identified sources (But otherwise not listed in obvious places), BURDEN has failed and such should be admin-deleted after some review. X is large - like I'm thinking at least 3 maybe 5, but basically the point is, if you are an editor on such a page and know it has been called out for notability concerns and you simply don't bother to add the references, shame on you. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

That's assuming those other editors continue to be active editors, watching their watchlist to see what cleanup templates have been added years down the road. BURDEN as written was supposed to be about resolving what happened when two people had a substantive disagreement about whether material was verifiable (i.e., someone has reason to think it isn't verifiable), not simply because someone is dissatisfied with the development level of the content. Which is why it says "material challenged", not simply "material currently unsourced". I've seen a lot of editors leap over that and claim unconvincingly that "to challenge" means just "try to and remove it for any reason." That interpretation improperly treats BURDEN as giving the original editor effective WP:OWNership of the content in a negative way, meaning that if those editors don't improve it, it will be deleted. postdlf (talk) 16:33, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, your comment that there are no longer thousands of articles lacking sources is way, way wrong. Here's a category with roughly a quarter of a million such articles. If you'd like to fix them, you are welcome to start there. I was part of a very large effort to add, generally, a single source to unsourced BLPs, it took a number of editors nearly two years to address that, and that was about 80,000 articles, about a third of the total unsourced backlog. All of this could be fixed with an enormous amount of hard work, or it can be fixed with a deletion spree, but there really isn't an easy solution to it. I do think we should move policy in this direction, but ... well, I'll leave those comments to other parts of this thread. --j⚛e decker ^talk 23:41, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not a question of "elitism", as Mike Cline said above, it's a question of responsibility. If Editor X is the one who created the article, or Editor Y is the one who favors keeping the article, the responsibility should be on them to explain how or why the topic is notable. How is that unreasonable? If you're willing to create a new article, how hard is it to simply explain the Lead how the topic is notable, and provide a few secondary sources that support the explanation? How can others do this if they don't know the article creator's reason for why the topic is notable? Why can't community accept the simple, logical, egalitarian idea of each editor being responsible for citing the material they want to add to an article, or citing sources when creating one? Why can't you people understand that asking others to do this just doesn't work, particularly in instances in which the topic's notability is not clear?

As Kww points, not doing this empowers careless editors to create a legion of crap articles that they take no responsibility for, and which others are made to figure out after the fact. Don't you realize that holding each article creator or advocate accountable for the material they favor including and the articles they create would eliminate this problem, and a lot of discussions (though not all) like this one?

Masem says, "when it comes to AFD processes, as long as the sources that help to assert notability have been identified (concretely that is, citing page and chapter-level of detail), then we shouldn't be challenging the notability of the article." The problem with this idea is that when someone creates an article without sources, and then just abandons it, perhaps leaving Wikipedia (keep in mind that a lot of editors come to Wikipedia and then leave after making a few edits, and in general, the editor count on the sites began dropping about four years ago), the person who later comes across the article has no way of knowing the reason why the creator thought the topic was notable. Obligating the creators and advocates of articles to add citations instead of just "identifying" them would be both much easier and much more fair than obligating a johnny-come-lately to do it, and would eliminate the problem that prompts discussions like this.

Kww and Blueboar, THANK YOU. It's nice to see that there are some who get it. Nightscream (talk) 16:47, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The case I described is not the case that you are describing. If the editor created the article and never attempted to identify sources, that's bad, and there is a right to challenge its notability, presuming that BEFORE does not lead to obvious hits. On the other hand, often there are articles that go to AFD and editors locate a number of sources and list them in the AFD. The AFD is closed as Keep, but no one does the next obvious step to add them to the article. This would be wrong to take to AFD again, as per WP:V/WP:N, sources have been positively identified, but simply not added. --MASEM (t) 17:01, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that all too often the identification of sources in the AFD goes only so far as "ooh ooh ooh lots of Google hits" and no one has done the necessary task of identifying any data from the article that is actually supported by any one of those sources.—Kww(talk) 17:20, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh agreed. There is yet a further distinguishing aspect that I point to, that is the exact citations (page + chapter-level of details) need to be there, not just handwaving at 1000's of GHits. I've seen AFDs close where a clear set of 4-6 exact references have been listed, but no one bothers to move them in; I still wouldn't delete the article in that case, but on the handwave of "1000s of hits", and no single source identified, yet, I would. --MASEM (t) 17:25, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that, at the moment, AfD is really a form of Notability/Noticeboard... AFD discussions are focused on the question of notability and notability alone. The question is... are there reasons other than notability which would rise to the level of deleting an article? I think there are (as outlined in my "Type B" idea above). Personally, I would set the bar for Type B deletion fairly high (ie I would make it fairly difficult to delete problematic articles on notable topics... giving editors lots of chances to fix the problem before we get to the point of deletion), but I do think a bar should be set. Blueboar (talk) 17:32, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

"On the other hand, often there are articles that go to AFD and editors locate a number of sources and list them in the AFD. The AFD is closed as Keep, but no one does the next obvious step to add them to the article."

It's more than that: The problem is also that iyou need a reason why the topic is notable. Merely pointing to sources does not do that, especially when the claim is unclear. Over on the current AfD discussion for the Sue Snell article, someone stated that that article's topic is not trivial, and provided this link to illustrate this. Again echoing what Kww said just above (I was composing this before you posted, Kww, but when I was ready to Save, you had posted your message!) that web page does not explain why the topic is notable, as it's just a list of books, which does not indicate very clearly how prominently that character is discussed in any of those books. What matters is not just being in secondary sources, but being covered prominently, in a way that explains the character's real world impact or literary significance, and for that, you have to not only cite the sources in the article, but explain what is it in those sources that makes the topic unique for inclusion. The aforementioned person who posted that link doesn't provide this. As I mentioned on that page, the Patil sisters from the Harry Potter books appear in five books and six movies, but that, in and of itself, does not make them notable. Nightscream (talk) 17:36, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Part of this is assuming good faith, than when sources at AFD have been identified that the editors are truly correct in stating they provide the significant coverage in secondary sources to show notability. Also, the barrier of "why something is notability" is actually not as hard as you're implying. The fact that the Patil sisters are minor characters cross five books/movies is why they are possibly notable. Now the question becomes if there are sources that really support that. --MASEM (t) 18:18, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Then we get to the question... can something be considered notable even if there are no independent sources that discuss it? I know we say "no" in our guideline, but the reality is that we sometimes ignore what the guideline says. There are a few topics that we accept as being obviously notable even without any sources. When taken to AfD, everyone just says... "Don't be daft... of course it's notable - Keep" (and we do). Blueboar (talk) 19:16, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

There's the issue of what is at WP:OUTCOMES like high schools and small but recognized populated places where the article can absolutely have no secondary sourcing but will be kept. That's a much larger issue, though. --MASEM (t) 19:29, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there a way to identify, perhaps with a category or a tag, articles for which good sources which can be found in Afd discussions? If so, I'm sure that there would be editors who would be willing to go through these, perhaps starting with the oldest ones. These editors could transfer the sources, if not as citations, at least as bulleted lists for later improvement, from the Afd discussions to the articles, and then remove the tags. This might lead to gradual upgrading of these inadequately sourced articles. Something similar has been going on in the Afc with articles which have been declined as blank. A group of editors including Joe Decker has been going through them, deleting the ones that really are blank, and restoring and rescuing any that had substantial content but appeared blank because of technical mixups. —Anne Delong (talk) 23:00, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

This discussion was kicked off by what seems to be a misunderstanding of the concept of notability at what is actually a fundamental level. Notability is a property of topics, not articles. As such, whether or not a topic is notable cannot possibly depend on what is written in the article about that topic. Barack Obama would not cease to be notable if somebody deleted all the sources from the article about him because notability is about the existence of sources. Neither of the policy quotes at the head of this thread is absurd: they both follow from notability being a property of topics, not articles. Now, an article that doesn't cite sources is a bad article. Very bad. Policy is very clear that we shouldn't have those: you should cite anything that has been, or might be challenged. The question then is, what to do with articles that don't comply with that policy? Who should fix the mess and how? Here, I think the best guide is to remember the real purpose of this whole site: to create a great encyclopaedia. Everything we do here, as editors who care enough about the encyclopaedia to be discussing it, should be aimed at improving it. If the best way to improve the encyclopaedia is to add sources to the unsourced article, we should do that, and consider teaching the article's creator about sourcing so their next article or next edit doesn't suffer from the same problem. If the best way to improve the encyclopaedia is to delete the article, we should do that, instead. If the topic seems reasonable, but the article is bad then, in an ideal world, we should fix the article. In the real world, we don't necessarily have time to do that but stubbing is a perfectly valid option, and is faster than starting an AfD. We shouldn't paint ourselves into roles of "creator", "editor" and "deleter" and start arguing about whose responsibility it is to deal with things if somebody in one of those roles doesn't do what they should have done. We're all here to improve the encyclopaedia. Dricherby (talk) 10:23, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

- Even stubs are expected to have sources to demonstrate what their notability is. If you create an article believing its topic is notable and can't add a single source to it, shame on you but outside some fringe cases we're not going to delete it right away (the only CSD tied to notability are those for potential vanity articles), but if you can't point out a bare minimum of one source to help that, and it's not obvious from a BEFORE-level google search, it will likely be deleted. That's why BURDEN exists and points primarily to the creator and original editor as the person who should be adding sources from the start. --MASEM (t) 13:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, stubs and all articles are supposed to have sources demonstrating their notability and yes, the creator should be supplying sources and so should anyone who added anything much; we're dealing with the case where they didn't. Also, if you come across a bad article (e.g., not NPOV, or OR) on a notable topic, it's still quicker to stubbify it, with sources to demonstrate notability, than to start an AfD, which requires you to check those sources, anyway. Dricherby (talk) 13:57, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Masem: "Part of this is assuming good faith, than when sources at AFD have been identified that the editors are truly correct in stating they provide the significant coverage in secondary sources to show notability." I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you're trying to say here. I'm not trying to be the Grammar Police, but could you clarify? Are you saying that if an editor in an AfD discussion points to a Google search result list showing the topic in a list of books, that we should assume that that makes the topic notable? Again, see my previous message. Merely being mentioned in books or movies doesn't make a topic notable. And if I'm misunderstood what you said, please clarify.

Yes, Dricherby, notability is indeed an aspect of topics. I never said nor implied otherwise. But notability of a topic should be demonstrated by the person or persons who insist that a topic is notable, and to that end, they should explain in the article why the topic is notable, and provide secondary sources supporting that. Removing all citations from the Barack Obama article would be a vandalism issue, not a notability issue, so that isn't a very good hypothetical analogy.

Yes, we can agree that certain topics are obviously notable, such as U.S. Presidents, even if say, no one has created an article on them yet, or if thus far, there are only stubs on those topics without sources. The problem, however, is that not all articles have some demonstrably obvious notability. I do not know that Chris Hargensen or Sue Snell from Carrie are notable in a way that is independent of that novel or its adaptations. That's why I nominated them: There is no indication in those articles of why they are notable in a way that is independent of Carrie, and in a way that cannot be covered in simply the articles on the novel and films adapted from it. Some topics might be notable, but how we gauge notability is dependent the explanation of it in the article, and sources to support it. If these two things are not present in an article, then the topic should not be "assumed" to be notable. In this sense, I agree with Masem's most recent statement just above. Nightscream (talk) 20:14, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, simply it's this - an AFD where notability is questioned should identify potential sources by including basic citation information of the exact sources that are offered for notability, either on the article, the article's talk page or the AFD page. Pointing to a google link and saying "look, sources!" is not sufficient. We need exactly what is being considered as sourcing for the purposes of saying "okay, you've proven notability" and thus meet the "sources have been identified" for WP:V/WP:N's purpose. --MASEM (t) 23:17, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Nightscream, notability should be demonstrated by the article's creator. Policy is clear that all articles should cite sources. However, the point of the policy sections that you quoted at the start of the thread is that the creator's failure to quote sources that actually exist doesn't mean that the subject isn't notable. If we find an article with no sources, the best thing to do is to add sources if they're available; deletion should be a last resort, only if there aren't enough sources. Our first guess at notability of a topic we're unfamiliar with is always going to be based on what the article says but, if the article is under-sourced, it's impossible to accurately gauge notability without going out and looking for sources. WP:BEFORE is quite clear that an article shouldn't be nominated for deletion based solely on somebody's first guess about whether the subject is notable.
When you ask whether a character is "notable in a way that is independent from" the novel/movie/etc. they appear in, you again seem to be misunderstanding the concept of notability. Notability requires "substantial coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Here, "independent" means that the source's author or publisher does not have a vested interest in the subject. It does not mean that a character in a novel is only notable if they have some sort of "life outside the novel". So, for example, the novel Catch-22 is notable because many people who are not Joseph Heller or his publisher or the president of the Joseph Heller fan club, etc. have written about it. The fact that the phrase "Catch-22" has entered the language and people talk about that concept without making direct reference to the novel (i.e., independently of the novel, in one sense of the word) certainly helps but is absolutely not required. Asking whether Chris Hargensen is notable independent of the novel Carrie is missing the point – except in rare cases, such as Mrs Malaprop, what else could a character in a novel be notable for, except for being a character in that novel? Dricherby (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe that topics are not notable because the sources have not been added to the article. From what you're saying, it seems that we're mostly in agreement. My point is that those who create articles/add material or favor their inclusion should demonstrate notability by adding the sources. If those editors want others at AfDs to "consider" sources not yet in the article, then those who favor the inclusion of material should be the ones who add them.

When you ask whether a character is "notable in a way that is independent from" the novel/movie/etc. they appear in, you again seem to be misunderstanding the concept of notability. Notability requires "substantial coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject"

I indeed understand that, and that goes directly to my point about independence of the primary source material. You don't just need reliable sources that cover it, you need reliable secondary sources that cover it. What are the secondary sources for Sue Snell, Chris Hargensen, etc.?

what else could a character in a novel be notable for, except for being a character in that novel?

For the real-world impact that the character has had. For example, in the article on Norma Bates (Psycho), it is mentioned that in 2009, BookFinder.com included her in its list of the Top 10 Worst Mothers in the history of literature. Nightscream (talk) 17:56, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Political Notability

Latest comment: 11 years ago26 comments8 people in discussion

Okay, I've been having a discussion with another contributor, and I see both sides of the discussion and want to get some third party input. It is clear that notability is established through meeting the primary criteria, listed in the first part of the article, If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. No problem. In Politicians, it says, Politicians and judges who have held international, national or sub-national (statewide/provincewide) office, and members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature. Followed by Footnote 12 which says This is a secondary criterion. People who satisfy this criterion will almost always satisfy the primary criterion. Biographers and historians will usually have already written about the past and present holders of major political offices. However, this criterion ensures that our coverage of major political offices, incorporating all of the present and past holders of that office, will be complete regardless. (I disagree that just because someone is an elected official there must be significant coverage, most people can't name their state legislator representative.)

So the point is, does this mean that they are only notable if they meet the primary criteria first? Or does it mean all 7,382 current US state legislators are automatically deemed notable, regardless of the availability of significant sources, because they were elected? On a conservative basis, that would indicate that some 100,000 articles on US state legislators need to be found in Wikipedia (60 years, 4 year term average). Add in those in every other country on the planet and it is a site all its own. I believe in most cases they should simply be added to a list for the specific state and session. Even that seems overly bulky.The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 16:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

In practical terms, if a politician satisfies the WP:POLITICIAN guideline, that article will be kept at WP:AFD even if satisfying the WP:GNG guideline is not demonstrated. I have no idea what "overly bulky" means in terms of an online encyclopedia or why it might be something we should care about. postdlf (talk) 17:01, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I would call that brings up again, why we use "presumed", in that it is reasonable to expect that every state-level representative, past and present - is notable, but that that notability can be challenged later. I do disagree with the idea that we have to have articles to fill in gaps (it's only thing if we're missing like 3 out of 7000 articles, it would be another if we were missing 300...), but am fine with presuming notability to start as long as we understand that may be challenged later. --MASEM (t) 17:08, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Not that I see a point to ever challenging the notability of anyone who satisfies WP:POLITICIAN...but regardless, notability being a guideline, an article may be kept by consensus consistent with policy regardless of whether it technically satisfies guideline criteria, so long as you can verify per WP:V that an individual did in fact hold that office. postdlf (talk) 17:12, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I am the other contributor referred to here. What triggered the discussion is that Aggie declined a submission at Articles For Creation of an article about a state legislator, on the grounds that the subject was not notable, and I objected citing WP:POLITICIAN. I am glad they have brought the issue here for community input. --MelanieN (talk) 17:21, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't see how there's really anything to discuss. By longstanding, prevailing consensus, Adam Zemke should have an article. I've never dealt with AFC, but obviously anyone else should be able to "override" Aggie on this, because no one person gets to decide that something doesn't go in the encyclopedia. postdlf (talk) 17:27, 25 June 2013 (UTC) (I also don't get why someone is reviewing an AFC submission by an editor with only 100 fewer edits than them, but that's a discussion for another page)

Ouch! That's the way the system works, any registered user can review Articles for Creation. Technically, they can review their own submission if the wanted to. This noob is sufficiently chastised and will go away. The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I would have to agree that the presumed notability on POLITICIAN is reasonable to start an article, with the understanding if no sources ever come about, it could eventually face AFD, but we start with good faith that more can come out. --MASEM (t) 17:29, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

And the flag is an attempt to find someone that can add those contributions to the article. I don't like the presumption, it should be done right the first time. That's the purpose of the review process, to get an article in decent enough shape so that it doesn't get challenged later on. Flagging something as not proving notability doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't have an article, it just means the writer(s) haven't been proven there should be one. But what I hear is that the bottom line is being elected to a state position means they get an article, regardless of whether they have ever done anything notable. It appears that someone needs to re-write the Politician Notability section to make it clear that the over riding requirement of notability does not apply, as long as there is reference to being elected, it passes the test. So who does that? The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 17:57, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm not reading as a problem here. If this article was created at the same state is it is but outside the AFC process, it would face the same lack of challenge in terms of an early AFD until time has been given for the article to grow. The point of the subject specific notability guides is to provide evidence of presumed notability where sourcing will likely be found, and that's exactly the process being done here. --MASEM (t) 18:16, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Going right back to the start, I want to take issue with the statement that "most people can't name their state legislator representative." This has nothing to do with notability. Notability is based on the existence of sources, not the (non-)ignorance of the populace at large. Please also bear in mind that, when you say "most people", you mean "most Americans", i.e., "most of about 4.5% of people", which in the grand scheme of things, means "almost nobody". This is another reason why we don't base notability on what "most people" have heard of. Dricherby (talk) 09:12, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
- Most people also couldn't name the last winners of the Nobel Prize in physics. postdlf (talk) 17:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I just moved Adam Zemke to article space. Never heard of him myself, but he does fulfil Wikipedia's established guidelines for notability for people of his category and that's all that matters. The AFC project is full of self-appointed doorkeepers who apply far higher standards to AFC submissions (generally posted by the most modest of newbies, one may assume) than would be applied to articles posted directly in main space. Anyone looking around will find plenty of notable topics there, declined by someone for "appearing non-notable". As it is, many of these are likely sooner or later to be speedy deleted, as they tend to be abandoned by their frustrated and bitten newbie authors. --Hegvald (talk) 18:43, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Almost everyone is 'self-appointed' on Wikipedia. If you have criticisms of the AfC process, a better place to raise it would be with the project itself. Sionk (talk) 20:44, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

No, discussing anything at the AFC project pages is unlikely to accomplish anything. And I don't really think I have any issue with the process, whatever it is, but with a subset of the participants. People who normally don't participate there just need to be aware of the problem. It can be worthwhile to occasionally sift through the declined submissions. --Hegvald (talk) 23:25, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

The reviewers at Afc have specific instructions, which can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions. The instructions specifically say that (1) article subjects must be notable - it seems that politicians get a pass on that one, and once that's determined, (2) article information must be verifiable, and the instructions say, "If what is written in the submission meets the notability guidelines, but the submission lacks references to evidence this, then the underlying issue is inadequate verification and the submission should be declined for that reason." and then "Articles require significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Significant coverage: References about the subject – at least one lengthy paragraph, preferably more. Not passing mentions, not directory listings, not just any old thing that happens to have the name in it. Several of them." I don't feel that it's fair to put down reviewers who are just doing their best to follow their instructions. The instructions are partly based on the Wikipedia:Notability (summary) article, which states that it represents consensus among the editorial community. If there is a group of editors that feel that the instructions are inappropriate, a proposal to have them changed may be in order. I'm sure that the reviewers would adjust their practices if the instructions changed. We are all just doing our best over there. —Anne Delong (talk) 01:47, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, the AFC instructions would allow an article that just meets the basic "state representative" requirement that BIO has even if the GNG is not met, as long as there's a source to affirm the person is a state representative. This is the same test in project space. There doesn't seem to be any difference here. --MASEM (t) 01:55, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

That's what I've heard. If you have any reference that a person was elected to a state legislature position, they meet the notability requirement. An existing article doesn't even have to meet the guidelines in Wikipedia:WikiProject Articles for creation/Reviewing instructions if it is a politician. As a results of this thread, I've created about 200 stubs for individuals that have been elected. Over half don't have any other connection on Wikipedia, a quarter appear only in the list of legislators that already exists and the other quarter are individuals that justifiably have made their mark in history. In many cases there will be little or no sources to determine anything more about R. G. Allen, but he has an entry! The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 22:08, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and I should note that I've had to have this same conversation on politician notability on other threads and defend several of the stubs against deletion actions. The guidelines are not as clear as people seem to think they are. The words of the guidelines WP:Politicians are not the actions of the community.The Ukulele Guy - Aggie80 (talk) 22:11, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Note that USer:Aggie80 is currently creating hundreds of stubs on historical California legislators in an attempt to make some kind of point about WP:POLITICIAN. These comments on the user's talk page make the motivation clear: [14] [15] Dricherby (talk) 22:31, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeeeeah, that's a possible problem (mass creation is generally frowned on unless it's a consensus-based task). Bringing this up at ANI since Aggie80's motivation is apparent. --MASEM (t) 22:36, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

On second review, the situation does seem under control in that these are appropriate stubs and other editors are helping to fix them. It's probably not the most sensible action but one that ANI won't act one. --MASEM (t) 22:46, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the problem at AfC arises if the article is rejected on NOTABILITY grounds, which is what happened here and shouldn't have. The appropriate review at AfC (and I have seen others do this)would be something like "the subject is notable, but the article needs more work. Please add (whatever is missing - categories, wikilinks, more references, a proper lead sentence, or whatever)." I would hope that AfC has a way to respond by saying "not accepted at this time, but likely will be accepted after x, y, z improvements." Similar to what is done with DYK nominations.

As for the current situation, I am glad to see that it was not taken to ANI. It's true that Aggie was trying to make a WP:POINT, but he was not disrupting Wikipedia to do so; on the contrary he was adding stubs for articles that we ought to have here. And he has gone back to those stubs multiple times to make improvements suggested on his talk page. --MelanieN (talk) 23:04, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm concerned if AFC is enforcing harder notability rules than if the article was created directly in namespace to start. Aggie80's current stubs meet POLITICIAN, and per how these SNGs are to work, we'll give them time to develop (and part of the reason I stopped an ANI compliant was that people were improving those stubs "nearly" immediately). I agree that if no SNG applies to a topic and the AFC article needs to meet the GNG, more work to get it there should be done, but on the cases that clearly meet SNGs like POLITICIAN, it should almost be a pass through check once the criteria is verifeid. --MASEM (t) 23:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Masem decided not to create the ANI thread. However, WP:DISRUPT describes this exact behaviour as "highly disruptive to the project". The disruption is in the time taken by good-faith editors to fix these stubs, which Aggie80 created precisely because he believes they shouldn't exist. While I agree that, ultimately, the articles should exist, it is hard to see the value creating an article about a politician if you don't even know which house of the legislature he served in. WP:CREATE specifically cautions against creating single-sentence articles. Dricherby (talk) 23:34, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

If the politician's article had a number of sentences, then it would have a number of facts, and under BLP they would need reliable sources, not for notability, but for verification of the facts. So the only kind of articles about politicians that could get by with just a reference to a list of elected officials would be a single sentence article with no personal information. But if WP:CREATE says not to create these, then I am confused about under what circumstances reviewers should accept articles about politicians without the usual several reliable independent sources. Can someone give me an example? I am not trying to be difficult; I do a lot of reviewing, and I just want to get this right. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:04, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

F-100 VS MIG 19

Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

72.70.192.245 (talk) 21:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)Just wanted to inform you of a error on page #80 of the July 2013 issue regarding the MiG-19 and your reference to the F-100 in the article as well. According to the overview the MiG-19 was the Soviets first operational supersonic jet that first flew in 1954. It was powered by two turbojet engines with afterburners. This may be true but it was not the first operational supersonic jet in the world as so stated in the opening paragraph.

The F-100 was the "First" in the world and here are just a few of the several achievements the F-100 recorded during its 45 years of service in the USAF fighter inventory.

5/25/53 - First operational aircraft to exceed Mach 1 in level flight - YF-100A flown by George Welch. Note that all F-100s were powered by "one" Pratt & Whitney J-57 turbojet engine with afterburner. The MiG had two engines equipped with burners.

10/26/53 - New speed record72.70.192.245 (talk) 21:04, 2 July 2013 (UTC)ted 755.19 mph in F-100A by Lt. Col. Frank Everest. July issue states MiG 19s first flight of Jan. 5, 1954

12/54 - Collier Trophy awarded to NAA by Pres. Eisenhower for development of first supersonic fighter.

8/55 - New speed record 822.5 mph flown by Col. Horace Hanes in F-100C.

3/58 - First fighter to be able to deliver nuclear weapons at supersonic speed, TAC Comd. Gen. OP Weyland in F-100C.

4/61 - F-100s were USAFs first combat jets in Vietnam.

4/65 - F-100D 55-2894 flown by Capt. Dan Kilgus of 416th TFS Da Nang was the "First" USAF aircraft to engage in aerial jet combat during the Vietnam War while escorting F-105s to target. This engagement resulted in officially credited "probable kill" of a MiG17.

1972 - F-100s flew more sorties in Vietnam War than all other combat fighter aircraft " combined" - 360,283 - 242 F-100s lost (198 in combat, 54 non-combat).

Clearly by official USAF records the F-100 was "FIRST" operational fighter to rotate wheels up and achieve supersonic speeds. I kindly ask for a correction to include so stated facts above in the August 2013 issue.

Thank you for your consideration.

Mike Dean F-100 Crew Chief Super Sabre Society Friends of the Super Sabre HUN Maintainers Association

I'm sorry but I can't work out what problem you're trying to report. Page 80 of the July 2013 issue of what? Wikipedia doesn't have issues and it doesn't have numbered pages. Dricherby (talk) 22:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features)

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I notice that Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) is not in the category of notability guidelines, and instead is listed as an essay. Does this mean that there is less consensus about this than there is about other pages such as Wikipedia:Notability (events) or Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)? —Anne Delong (talk) 04:20, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, consensus was never completely achieved. I have managed to convince most editors that creating articles from entries in error-ridden government databases is unwise. Personally I think that a populated place needs a name, a location accurate down to the arcsecond, and a population figure from reliable sources in order to have an article. Abductive (reasoning) 04:25, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Berendo Street and Avenue

Latest comment: 11 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Dear editors: This article Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Berendo Street and Avenue is in the Afc for review. Is it appropriate to have an article about what appears to be an ordinary street, with churches and a school, stop signs, etc.? Under what circumstances should there be an article about a street? For example, if there are articles in a local paper discussing whether stop signs should be at a certain intersection, does this make the street notable? —Anne Delong (talk) 09:01, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Doesn't WP:LOCAL already cover this? "Evidence of attention by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability." Dricherby (talk) 10:42, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Planned construction projects (buildings, etc)

Latest comment: 11 years ago11 comments5 people in discussion

So I have been poking around in some of the building project articles lately, nominating a number of them for deletion. I've noticed a few things:

A significant number of them are created based, in whole or part, on forum postings, specifically from the "skyscrapercity.com" online forum. (And actually I have used the search term "skyscrapercity.com/showforum.php" to target the smaller articles that link to it, as an indicator of the sorts of articles that should probably be AfD'd)
primary sources such as permit filings are sometimes used as evidence of notability as well. (cf. 29 South LaSalle or the recent additions to The Pride (skyscraper))

When I first started this line of inquiry, I was CSD'ing some of the articles under A7. I was later informed that A7 does not apply to buildings. Well, I could also take the position that these are not buildings yet, in that they are not semi-permanent features of the landscape. During construction, they are simply organizations of people and equipment around a particular goal. But that's something of an aside.

I discussed the CSD issue over at the CSD talk page a bit, and I can see that perspective.

So I am coming here, I guess in an RfC-like manner, to get more clarity on the specific issues of notability of plannned buildings and large construction projects, and the standards for reliable sourcing for same. My contention is that the standards for notability of buildings, which in practice appear to be slightly lower than for other types of articles, should not be applied to construction projects, which are not yet permanent(-ish) features of the landscape. There may be specific industry sources that are better or worse, I don't really know, but that is why I am posting here, to try and sort this out.

I have a good number of other examples that I've accumulated over the last few months that I think can illustrate some of the issues with construction project articles, but I'll save that for future discussion. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 22:23, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, in all honestly I would think that if they are in the process of actually being built, then they are (uncompleted) buildings. If they are planned projects, still awaiting planning consent and/or finance, then they're not buildings, only aspirations. Sionk (talk) 22:58, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

That is my thinking. They may still be notable, but in a different way than an already completed building might be. For example, that building project in Spain that recently got a lot of press because it was built without an elevator would be notable. Or there may be a really significant economic impact of a building that has started construction. But things in the planning stages do not strike me as notable in and of themselves, despite how tall the proposed building might be. That seems to be one of the unstated metrics of notability in many cases, how big something is planned to be. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 23:45, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

I am someone who does contribute to the kind of article that falls within this scope. I too find references to unreliable sources such as skyscrapercity problematic and I try to remove them where I see them, or at least challenge other editors to find a more reliable source. While many skyscrapercity posts are photos, speculations, or personal evidence from walking past the construction site, some are quotes from reliable sources such as regional newspapers and magazines. A particular problem is that many otherwise notable projects seem to be poorly covered in reliable sources - often there are reliable sources, but they are significantly harder to find for places like China or India due to the publisher's poor online presence. Where the forum posts can be useful is pointing editors at those original sources. Unfortunately, it is easy for less experienced editors to simply refer to the forum post itself, especially if they are simply not familiar with the policy.

However, I don't think the solution is to immediately try for speedy deletion or slap a prod on the article. The presence of an entry at CTBUH or Emporis, even if it is not referenced in the article, is usually sufficient to convince me of the existance of the project and its status. So for example: both CTBUH and Emporis list 'The Pride', and those links should be used to reference the pertinent details; and both also list '29 South LaSalle'. Using skyscrapercity as a reference is just lazy, sloppy editing. Surely we should help develop articles, evaluate and add references from reliable sources, and improve the encyclopedia and not simply delete something we are too lazy to correct.

As for building and construction projects not being notable by definition, there are numerous cases where that is clearly not true: see The Illinois and Volkshalle for just two examples of notable projects which were never built.

Astronaut (talk) 18:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by something you said: "many otherwise notable projects seem to be poorly covered in reliable sources"

My reading of the WP:GNG is that RS are a prerequisite to establish notability. (That some foreign-language sources might be difficult to access is a fair criticism, but that's not what we're talking about here, exactly.)

I'm also in no way saying that uncompleted construction projects are by definition non-notable. But you seem to me to be saying that a project can be notable even without RS coverage of it ("otherwise notable") which I would take issue with. If the WP community was to allow that (in theory, it certainly allows it in practice) it would seem to me to turn the project into a random collection of information.

I would also think also that the appearance of a project in CTBUH or Emporis would not, by themselves, make a project notable, just as the appearance of a house in a letter carrier database would not make the house notable. My position is that these are primary sources, and though good ones, should be used judiciously (e.g. to fill out details that do not appear in secondary RS) and not as evidence of notability in and of themselves. But I also acknowledge that there may be elements of this I'm missing, which is why I'm posting here in the first place. -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 19:35, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

What I meant by "otherwise notable" is that I am pretty sure there are reliable sources to be found. We just have to look harder for them and editors should be given the chance to do that. For many editors, particularly inexperienced editors, it is easy to find information on skyscrapercity. Information in reliable sources is often harder to find, particularly in the case of Asian and African projects - it doesn't mean reliable sources don't exist. Just because an inexperienced editor has been lazy and used skyscrapercity, shouldn't be an automatic reason for CSD or AfD without looking for more reliable sources first.

As for CTBUH and Emporis, why do you claim they are primary sources? True, they don't offer too much by way of discussion, but both are considered authorities on the subject which check their facts before adding information to their databases. How is this different to what a news organisation does? However, like you, I am unsure whether a listing with CTBUH and/or Emporis alone is suffucient to show notability.

If you would like, I would be happy to discuss any proposal you may have for a guideline to building notability - such a guideline is probably long overdue. Astronaut (talk) 20:39, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

If you suspect there is a reliable source to be found, then find it. I don't understand how someone's suspicion that something is notable means that we should maintain a page, even in the absence of RS. This seems to go against the very pillars of this project.

On the articles I have CSDd and AfD'd, I used the presence of a skyscrapercity link as an indicator, nothing more. I made sure to do at least a basic search of google and google news before nominating.

My feeling is that CTBUH and Emporis are primary sources because they are industry databases. They have specific criteria for listing a building project that are independent of our criteria for notability here, and do not often line up with newsgathering organizations' standards for notability, which is a reasonably close analogue. These databases may be useful for compiling lists in order to do comparisons between otherwise notable structures, but not everything in those databases will be notable. I think a comparison here can be made to EDGAR or financial-site listings for a company -- these in and of themselves do not confer notability, but they are commonly ised to provide supporting information, and my impression is that they are considered primary sources (otherwise every publicly traded company would have a page). we can have that discussion too (though perhaps it would be better had on WT:RS). -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 23:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I often take issue with poorly sourced articles about skyscraper projects in cities with hundreds of other skyscrapers. In these instances, a planned building project that hasn't taken off (or even a completed building) is even less notable than another taking place in a small city with very few tall buildings. 101 West Ohio, Indianapolis, for example, was zapped, as was Bank House, Birmingham. Each article would need to be judged on its merits. I've come across a number of planned (but aborted) buildings that have been zapped at AfD, for example Urbana Tower, Miami and Urbana Kolkata. I doubt a blanket PROD'ing of articles sourced only to skyscrapercity would have success, because there are so many and there are also so many editors whose hobby seems to be creating these sort of articles! Sionk (talk) 20:30, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

It is noteworthy that reliance on the reliability of Emporis and CTBUH led to the height of The Pride (skyscraper) being changed a little while ago to 239m from the correct figure of 233m previously cited. Would this count as "lazy, sloppy editing"? A SkyscraperCity article may contain a lot of references to articles and planning applications, as well as photographs of buildings under construction, and as a reference it is also self-updating. For anyone interested in a building, it is a useful resource, and for this reason I would argue that it would be a mistake to expunge these references. Perhaps those editors with the time available to search for SkyscraperCity references could undertake to trawl them for any reliable sources they contain, where there are none currently referenced separately. Paravane (talk) 22:42, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

These databases may be reliable in the sense that their facts may be more or less correct, but please see WP:NOTRS, specifically:

"Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. While they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. While specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided.

filling in of factual data like heights, i would say sure, use the databases where appropriate, and they might even be better sources than some others. but establishing notability is a different matter. (see my other comment too, above). -- [ UseTheCommandLine ~/talk ]# ▄ 23:12, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I think it would be appropriate to stick with the GNG. If a proposed building project has sufficient coverage by independent sources then it's a good candidate for an article. As an aside, we have a lot of lists of tallest buildings (per region, per country &c) which seem to be mostly unsourced, some of which are very lengthy and unmaintainable... I don't think that having dozens of such lists, complete with factual errors and idiosyncratic layout, really benefits readers. bobrayner (talk) 02:51, 13 August 2013 (UTC)