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The application of the "presumption" of notability

Latest comment: 10 years ago120 comments19 people in discussion

This is a result of a recent AFD ([1] for Chalmers Tschappat, which is presently at DRV,) but extends beyond that.

The wording of "presumed" here and in the various subject-specific notability guidelines has, as best I recalled, always meant that a fair challenge to the presumption can be made if the article cannot be expanded to otherwise meet the GNG or other policy-related issues. The present case is a football player from the 1920s who played all of 2 games at the pro level (for the time) and has since passed away. This meets the presumption given by WP:NGRIDIRON, with little question on that qualification. However, editors have looked for the existance of sources (understanding that we are talking having to search print archives and not online) and have come up empty, and the article as in its present state lacks any secondary source (* this is a possible point of contest whether some of these are really secondary sources, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's assume they are all primary). Now, obviously you can't prove the negative, that there are no sources whatsoever, but you can make the best good faith demonstration that where one should find sourcing, none exist.

In past discussions here and other places that I recall, this means that the presumption has been challenged - and thus invalidating the presumption given by NGRIDIRON - and that with the AFD, the burden shifts to those that want to keep it to show better sourcing is out there (we don't need the sources incorporated but we need them identified). However, at this AFD, people were questioning even that approach, and arguing that meeting NGRIDIRON means no contest to keep the article at all (there was even one speedy keep !vote). In my opinion, the latter thinking completely nullifies our approach to notability which has generally been non-inherited inclusion, to a position where inclusion can be inherited if the presumption given by a subject-specific notability guideline cannot be challenged at all.

Mind you, there is the issue of how well the absence of sources has been demonstrated in such cases, but this should be considered a separate argument. For example, in this specific case, an internet-only search is clearly far from an effective demonstration knowing the bulk of sources were print at the time. But we do have (AGF in its excution) a reasonably good search of local paper sources that have come up with nothing, and as this player played 90 years ago and has since passed away, the chances of new sources coming out is unlikely. To counter, if we were talking about a similar case but for a player in the 1970s, there's still a possibility that sourcing could come. The extent and approach an editor does when challenging the presumption of notability should be a consideration by !voters in such discussions to make sure that there is high confidence sources simply don't exist.

To the main point, if an editor offers "I've done all these offline searches and can't find secondary information about this topic where their active period was nearly a century ago", it should be an obvious case of where we can fairly challenge the presumption of notability, and any subject-specific notability criteria that might have allowed the article should be ignored. But this point is being challenged in the aforementioned AFD, and to be fair, our WP:N page does not really express this concept well, though elements of this point are throughout notability policy as well as at WP:BEFORE. I want to stress that this challenge must be predicated on effort by the AFD nominator to make their case that no sourcing likely exists. If someone nominated this example article saying "I found nothing in google search", that is not a sufficient case, and unless someone else fills in the gaps and does that work, I would fully expect other editors to call out that poor search and vote !keep. That is, I know some editors fear that this approach would allow mass deletion runs for articles that might meet a subject-specific notability guideline but lack significant sourcing in the article, but the importance of demonstrating the effort gone to to prove the lack of sources would limit the rate these could be effectively nominated (eg avoiding the fait accompli aspect).

As such, my question to others is if what I've described in how the presumption of notability should work represents what other editors believe and (if there is anything in practice) used in practice, and if this is the case, should we add advice on how these cases should be handled on WP:N or elsewhere?

Or the tl;dr version - does notability's "presumption" allow for challenging a topic that meets the letter of an SNG by sufficient demonstration of a lack of further GNG-type sourcing/expectation for additional sourcing to come? --MASEM (t) 01:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC) Posted invites to the talk pages of the 4 SNGs that deal with people: BIO, NSPORTS, MUSIC, and Academics. --MASEM (t) 01:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

When a rule of thumb has proven 95% accurate it's a waste of the community's time to bicker over the borderline cases in the remaining 1/20th of the pages. That's what a "presumption" of notability or non-notability lays out. Is there at least one real place where nothing of interest has ever happened? Sure. At least one secondary school that never did anything newsworthy? Probably. At least one footballer who was neither good nor bad enough to draw any particular comment in his brief career? Apparently. But it's a complete misallocation of time and energy to figure out which ones are those exceptions.
As for what to do when someone DOES decide to go against good judgment, spends a few afternoons researching the local creek, and discovers that there aren't the assumed sources, the simplest solution is to associate article sets of that sort with lists whenever possible. That way, in the rare case where we end up concluding an article is a permanent dead-end we can redirect it rather than having one missing piece in an otherwise complete set. --erachima talk 01:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, the point is that the SNG criteria should be set that the number of false positive - topics that meet the criteria but lack any sourced to really build out an encyclopedic article - should be minimal, and the process I'm describing is the exceptional case when presumption should be considered failed. SNGs have never been outright inclusion guidelines, and the ability to challenge the presumption is the differentiation point for that. --MASEM (t) 02:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Well ... when no sources are found, it's not so much that the GNG governs that as WP:V does, which is a core policy of the encyclopedia that no SNG can contravene or supercede. I don't consider applying that standard a "waste of time" -- it's my time to waste, after all, and I believe that I'll be the judge of how my time and energy is to be allocated.

    Beyond that, it's a frequent deal at AfD for Keep proponents to airily opine that sources must exist, often with some excuse attached: the subject is allegedly prominent in a non-English speaking country, the subject is from a time before Internet links, the subject pertains to a group with a distaste for having its deeds chronicled. I believe that, too, contradicts WP:V -- either sources ought to be produced (in which case an article is valid) or they are not (in which case no article can be sustained). The latter never prejudices recreation of a deleted article, if reliable sources supporting the subject's notability come to light.

    My own tl;dr -- no matter the rule of thumb, WP:V still requires that subjects be discussed in "significant detail" in reliable sources, and articles which fail of that standard should be deleted. Ravenswing 04:13, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

  • If there were literally no sources, it'd be definitionally impossible to have the article. (Or else it'd be some sort of weird real-life fanfiction, as occasionally shows up at AfD.) "No sources" here is referring not to an absence of sources asserting existence (in this specific example, we know there was a football player and he did two things) but to an absence of independent sources proving anyone ever cared about the topic. In other words, to pages that are permanent stubstubs. --erachima talk 04:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • If all we can say about a person, from third party sources, is that they existed and did something, but with no additional discussion or context, then we shouldn't have a permastub about that person. Topics in an encyclopedias should be the subject of significant discussion in secondary sources to demonstrate we're better than indiscriminate inclusion (we are not a who's who database). Now, a point here, and comes up in the above example, is whether notability per the GNG has been demonstrated once the SNG criteria has been challenged, and that's a fair debate for any such case, but it still remains that if consensus agrees that the GNG isn't met, and further sources have been found lacking, then this is where deletion should come into play. --MASEM (t) 05:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • As a PR note, Masem, there is no faster way to kill your own proposal than to drive away all the potential participants by filibustering it with aggressive, repeated, blank assertions of your already perfectly clear stance. --erachima talk 05:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • No, I don't think the point I made above was clear (in that there is additional determinations to be made), given your previous comment. I want to make sure it is clear that we're looking for, in general, more than just raw data about people when we are looking to consider the presumption of notability from an SNG. This is not a simple concept so I'm make sure it is clear that there's places for discussion and consensus-determination in the process. --MASEM (t) 06:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
If we have sources that show that a subject is significant enough for an encyclopedia entry then we should keep it, even if it remains a permastub. The SNGs are not about a presumption that the GNG can be met, they are the only part of the notability guideline that is (generally) based on common sense regarding what we should and should not include. There is nothing wrong with properly sourced stubs. We only require in-depth coverage of a subject to have an in-depth article about them here. No other encyclopedia limits content to exclude topics simply because a long and detailed article can't be written. --Michig (talk) 06:56, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The problem is this idea creates a precedent that we can have an article on a person that just contains basic data (DOB, hometown, profession, etc.) and call that good. With that thinking, I'm pretty sure we could have an article on nearly every college-educated person in North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania (at minimum) simply because these are details that you can find and source - around a billion or so persons. That's not our purposes - we're not meant to be a who's who. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Absolutely not correct as the vast majority of those would not meet significance/importance criteria for inclusion. We do have many acceptable stubs on people who are obviously notable (prime ministers, etc.) where we only have basic information about them. What criteria do you think every other encyclopedia applies? Do you think they have some bizarre criterion like the GNG and only include people when they can find lots of independent sources that discuss the subject in detail, or do you think they have criteria more akin to out SNGs, looking simply for verifiable evidence that someone is important enough to be included? Whether or not someone is considered notable simply because they played in one or two matches is a different matter - I think many of our sports guidelines go too far in terms of inclusion, but if the guidelines work for the vast majority of cases and mean that we can avoid lengthy discussions about every case then there's some value in that. --Michig (talk) 14:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
If we're talking something akin to Britannica, they likely have requirements that are far stricter than our GNG, limiting the inclusions of persons to a worldwide influence, because they are limited for space. They'll have athletes, but we're talking people like Babe Ruth or Michael Jorden, and wouldn't even be thinking of including minor league/college players. I'm not saying we have to be that strict, but the inclusion approach via notability should be resulting in an article that is more than just fundamental facts. --MASEM (t) 14:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Britannica's inclusion criteria are likely nothing like the GNG and are probably more akin to a stricter version of our SNGs - stricter largely because they are limited on space. Wikipedia can and should have a wider scope and should also include topics that more specialist encyclopedias would include, and again go beyond that because we don't have the space limitation. It is entirely reasonable to set out criteria for when a topic is 'important enough' to be included, which is what the SNGs so. If a topic is important enough but we can't find much beyond basic information about why they are important, the WP:V dictates a short article that may appropriately be merged to an article on a wider topic. Little content isn't a good argument for deleting topics that we deem important enough for inclusion. If some of the topics we have are not important enough then we should change the applicable SNG, but be pragmatic about whether doing so would have a net positive affect. --Michig (talk) 14:38, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
NSPORTS' logic that every player that has played a pro game is presumed notable is fair, as long as we have a way to challenge that presumption. I've been in debate at NSPORTS about this before, but I agree that the logic that someone that has played pro sports has likely played earlier in their career to become pro , and thus there's a likeliness of significant coverage in sources being available at different points. This works for the majority of pro players, but we also should admit it will have false positives, such as this case. An SNG having false positives is not a bad thing, as long as the number of false positives is not high. This allows the chance for articles to be created and grow that might initially struggle until a strict GNG reading. As long as the ability to challenge an SNG's presumption is in place and decide whether the topic really merits inclusion, then there is nothing really wrong with NSPORTS. --MASEM (t) 15:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The SNGs and the GNG hold equal weight. This idea that SNGs are only there to show topics that can likely meet the GNG is not reflected in WP:N, and I would suggest you drop that argument. Any guideline can always be challenged, but that doesn't mean that other editors will agree with you. Most guidelines are decided on by an extremely small number of editors compared to the number that are affected by those guidelines, which is a problem in many areas, but any guideline should be treated purely as a rule of thumb and not treated like a policy. --Michig (talk) 16:01, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, we're looking for notability, meaning we have an article that meets WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and is appropriately encyclopedic (eg does not fail NOT). Notability's aspect here is to drive editors to find sources to meet those polices, which is described by having GNG-quality sources (that is, significant coverage through secondary, independent sources). An article that is only primary sources is not appropriate for WP regardless of an SNG allowing for the presumption of notability; but we do use that presumption to give editors the ability to show that there is more than just primary sources for that article. Importantly, SNGs are not outright "inclusion guidelines" (we've debated even if they can be called that). --MASEM (t) 16:09, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The sports-specific notability guidelines to which Masem is referring have explicitly taken the approach that they do not supplant the general notability guideline, and specify criteria that, if met, result in a high probability that the general notability guideline is met. Other subject-specific notability guidelines, of course, may shape their guidance in other ways. isaacl (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
In the real world, a subject's notability is generally determined by its accomplishments or impact on the world. However, as this involves editorial judgment based on a value system, it's not something that Wikipedia's consensus based decision-making process is able to handle well. isaacl (talk) 16:22, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • (As I wrote in the DRV) the real issue, IMHO, is that sport people seem to have, in many cases, a special passport to be considered notable as WP:NSPORT has, in some of its sub-sections, the looser inclusion criteria of the whole encyclopedia. Eg how the hell a footballer who played ten minutes in the Albanian First Division or a footballer who played a season in the Italian fourth division should be presumed notable individuals is still a mystery. Compared to other categories of people some NSPORT criteria, presumably written by fans of the relevant sports, turn into a complete joke. My "commonsenserule" for most of the WP topics which apparently fail GNG is "Is there a chance a printed encyclopedia (even a very specific encyclopedia about a relevant niche field) would take a record of this subject?", in many cases of NSPORT-related people the answer is an obvious no. The whole concept of "presumption a source exist" is IMHO correct, I regularly work on subjects whose sources are offline, the real problem here is that some criteria presume certain categories of people are notable when actually most of them are non notable and notability in their cases is an exception, not the rule. Cavarrone 07:02, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
    Beats me -- you could, with just as much accuracy, ask how the hell some obscure scientist no one knows anything about should be presumed notable just because he invented something. This is the sort of argument we chide inexperienced editors for making, because they are substituting their own preconception of "notability" (e.g., "I think it's important") for Wikipedia's.

    A common gripe, raised on this talk page, is the disproportionate amount of press sports figures -- even those some of us think ought to be deemed unimportant -- receive in our culture. Yet, frankly, celebrities and sports figures are people our culture considers noteworthy, however much that might bother us. Since Wikipedia bases the concept of notability around subjects being discussed in multiple reliable sources, then it is indeed far more likely that a 4th tier footballer meets that standard than a more obscure academic. There's no other standard that's anything but completely subjective: how do you measure, exactly, how much more important Biochemist X is than Footballer Y? By what standard do you gauge how much more important to the world biochemistry is vs. football ... a presumption that, I wager, the great majority of the world's population would dispute. Ravenswing 07:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

  • No, my point is NOT that "celebrities and sports figures are people our culture considers not noteworthy", my point is that many sport people that our WP criteria consider notable have no reason to be considered notable. Your example is misleading and significant at the same time, as we don't have any criterium which considers a scientist who invented something automatically notable (he/she is asked to pass GNG), while we have a criterium which consider a ten-minutes-minor-league-footballer automatically notable. A joke! And even assuming such above criterium would exist, the "category" scientists who invented something ordinarily have reliable coverage to support the claim of notability, even if a few of them could apparently fail (probably as they invented something which is actually non-notable itself). The "category" 4th tier footballers ordinarily do NOT receive significant coverage and they remain low-profile individuals, even if a few of them is an exception. Cavarrone 07:50, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Want to dial down the hyperbole there? Foaming at the mouth about "4th tier footballers" being generally notable is all well and good, but that's a joke. Of all the nations which play soccer, the only one where the Football WikiProject considers 4th tier notable is soccer-mad England, where I would be astonished to find a 4th tier player without significant coverage. (If you can find any yourself, please feel free to nominate him for AfD, let me know, and I'll be happy to toss in a Delete vote.) That being said, the list of "fully professional leagues" NFOOTY maintains is an essay which neither shackles AfD nor overrides the GNG.

    Secondly, I've no idea from where your implication that scientists have no governing SNG, and that they must rely solely on the GNG, comes, but I recommend you look up WP:SCHOLAR, which list nine such criteria, heavily footnoted. Ravenswing 11:29, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

  • User:Ravenswing, please point me where WP:SCHOLAR has a criterium which says scientists who invented something are automatically notable as you said above, otherwise you are joking. I NEVER said that scientists have no governing SNG, on the contrary I said "WP:NSPORT has, in some of its sub-sections, the looser inclusion criteria of the whole encyclopedia", ie compared to any other SNG. Stop assuming that if someone dares question the legitimacy of NSPORT criteria should question the whole SNG concept. As I said above, I am not agaist SNGs in general, I am agaist several loose criteria which NSPORT has. And you are also patiently wrong about NFOOTY, Lega Pro Seconda Divisione footballers (the example I made above) are 4th tier footballers, they ordinarily do NOT receive significant coverage and they remain low-profile individuals. My best, Cavarrone 12:22, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I personally think we should mainly reserve the presumption for offline/historical subjects and lists of characters/episodes. (The latter mainly as a formatting measure: a show article with reception + a clean list pretty much always reads better than attempting to incorporate it season-by-season on the list pages or having a merged list.) --erachima talk 07:40, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Only Source for Article in Question: here. This is what we are arguing about. This player's "profile" from a sports statistic website is the only source that supports this subject's claim to notability.
I did not nominate this AfD, but I believed that it presented an excellent test case of a sports notability issue that has troubled me for some time, and I tried to focus the AfD discussion on the core issue presented:
Whether an American football player who played in two AFPA/NFL regular season games in 1921, a fact supported only by a sports statistics website (see pro-football-reference.com) and by no significant coverage in any other independent, reliable sources, could rely solely on the one-game presumption of notability per NGRIDIRON as an absolute, or whether in the absence of any other significant coverage regarding the subject's pro playing career such presumption of notability could be rebutted.
If not, then the word "presumption" does not have its usual and ordinary meaning in the English language, and NGRIDIRON does not extend a presumption of notability, but instead creates an absolute grant of notability regardless of what reliable sources are or are not available. This is an open issue generally, it was at the heart of the disputed AfD, and it is the core issue to be discussed here. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 09:50, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • There've been many sports-related AfDs that has been closed as Delete for failure to provide sources, no matter what the particular SNG holds. There is indeed, I believe, a majority of people over at NSPORTS (where this argument has been recently beaten into dead horse land) who firmly believe that the SNGs do not override the GNG. Waving this particular AfD as a bloody flag doesn't mean that the GNG is broken, doesn't mean that the SNGs are broken and doesn't mean that WP:V or WP:N are broken. It means that (as sometimes happens at AfD) three people shoved through a bad decision, and that the closing admin (as often happens at AfD) didn't have the balls to rule for policy over a head count.

    The problem here isn't that there's something wrong with the SNGs. The problem is that the AfD process has broken down, and so few editors participate in it now that a well-organized claque of just a handful of editors can pretty much prevent any deletion. Ravenswing 11:17, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

"There is no deadline" applies to cleaning out articles we shouldn't have, just as much as creating articles we should have. There is no real harm in keeping a perma-stub for a few more months, and then filing a second AfD, noting that there have been continued attempts to find more in the way of sourcing, and that these attempts continue to be fruitless. Indeed, it can often takes several discussions to overcome the initial "presumpton" of notability. Blueboar (talk) 12:40, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
One question I asked initially is if we need language in guideline (WP:N, most likely) that explains how presumption works, so that there is actually a shortcut people can point to at AFD so that editors/closers are aware of this established precedent. The concept is there, but you have to read between the lines to extract it presently. --MASEM (t) 14:06, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The basic criteria at WP:SPORTCRIT are
    "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. The guidelines on this page are intended to reflect the fact that sports figures are likely to meet Wikipedia's basic standards of inclusion if they have, for example, participated in a major international amateur or professional competition at the highest level (such as the Olympics)."
    The second sentence enables the presumptions for individual sports, such as WP:NGRIDIRON, which say that subjects are presumed notable, not likely to be notable. Relying on those presumptions are hundreds (thousands?) of short "articles" on sportspersons whose sole evidence of existence is a listing on one or two directory sites (random example: Gerry Sherry). Stanning (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
A key point is that to challenge that presumption, the person that aimed to seek their deletion needs to do a reasonably deep, likely offline, search of that person to be able to demonstrate that no sourcing likely exist. I could not, for example, take Sherry's article to AFD challenging the presumption without having to searching of local papers in the Louisville locale (as well as higher levels) to prove no in-depth coverage exists; if all I did as the AFD nominator was to say "I did a Google search found nothing", I should be expected that closed as a speedy keep for failing to follow BEFORE in light that they pass NGRIDIRON. There is an inordinate amount of work that would be needed to challenge those hundreds/thousands of articles, so while they may be on the cusp in terms of being potential deletion targets, I don't see anything that would even approach fait accompli-levels of AFDs for them. --MASEM (t) 15:34, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, Stanning, Gerry Sherry is another example of the NGRIDIRON presumption of notability in action. He appeared in one NFL game in 1926 at a time when the NFL was not the Big Deal of professional sports leagues which it later became. The article is supported by links to four different sports statistics/directory sites, all of which are derived from a single source: NFL.com. There is no full name, birth date, birth place, college -- nada, zip, nothing -- to even begin a semi-respectable stub article. A simple Google search reveals no significant coverage of the subject online; in fact, the only hits are those for the four sports stats sites and several Wikipedia mirror articles. It is possible that there are hard-copy sources, or on-line newspaper sources buried behind paywalls, but the question is put: by what objective standard is Gerry Sherry "notable?" Or stated another way, what about Gerry Sherry is "encyclopedic?" What makes Gerry Sherry worth remembering? Would it not be better to create an NFL Kentucky Colonels roster list, for which a better argument could be made for the team's notability per WP:NORG? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • To be clear, I'm not pointing at NFL only; Gerry Sherry is just, as I said, a random example. The same applies to most team sports. Stanning (talk) 08:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • It is laughable that Ravenswing could comment that I "didn't have the balls to rule for policy over a head count". The close has been taken to DRV on the very basis that a head count should have resulted in "no consensus". Indeed it should, so clearly I didn't do a headcount. On the very same page at DRV there are two other closes of mine being challenged that a raw headcount would have come to a different conclusion. I commonly take on closes of difficult AfDs that no one else seems willing to touch and I believe I have more balls to return an unpopular policy based close than most.
Masem's fundamental argument here is that when an article based on an SNG is challenged at AfD the measure of notability should then be the GNG. I have to ask, if that is the case, what are the SNG for? We may as well say more simply that the criterion is GNG and forget about everything else. Masem makes a great deal of the phrase "presumtion of notability" in the guidelines and seems to believe that that the meaning of that is it is presumed the article will meet GNG if researched. However, that is not what WP:N actually says. It applies the term (in the lede) to both the GNG and SNG, and to WP:NOT to boot. It links the phrase to the article rebuttable presumption. My reading of that is that it is intended that any inclusion guideline can be rebutted on the grounds that the article is not, in fact, notable despite meeting the criteria.
Whatever criteria are used to establish notability, it is still necessary to meet WP:V. This is a matter of policy and it supercedes all guidelines. However, WP:V does not say, as Ravenswing seems to think, that sources with "significant detail" are required. The phrase, or equivalent, does not appear anywhere. WP:V only requires that the material in the article is verifiable. No in-depth coverage is needed anywhere, everything can be verified from passing mentions. That would not be enough to establish notability unless it met at least one notability guideline as well, but if it does so meet one, then notability is indicated.
We could dump the SNG altogether, or, as Masem suggests, relegate them to a secondary role of merely indicating that the GNG might be met. However, I do not think that would be a good idea. Relying solely on the GNG puts us at the mercy of the vagaries of what the press choose to cover and the popularity of the latest fashion in whatever. A printed encyclopaedia would never work that way. It would instead decide, for instance, to include an article on every order of birds, or every important 20th century philosopher. Wikipedia does not, and cannot, work this way because we do not have a chief editor who can arbitrate on what is, and what is not, important to include. Nevertheless, the SNG partially fulfill this role and we should keep them where useful.
That's not to say that I think that the SNG are all wonderful. Some are horribly liberal in what they allow, particularly WP:MUSIC for instance. Some could certainly do with a major overhaul, but that is no reason to abolish them or to make them completely ineffective by subordinating them to GNG. SpinningSpark 15:37, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The WP:N argument is a red herring. WP:V demands that we base articles on content from third-party sources independent of the subject. You can't meet that demand without sources.—Kww(talk) 16:08, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
    • Who said you can? SpinningSpark 16:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
    • I will agree with you to the extent I think arguments about which notability "law" trumps the other here distracted from more fundamental quality issues with the current state of the article (without saying whether those quality issues undermine the article's very claim to existence). I'm really bothered by the article's direct citation to census records. I know from my own family research that those tend to be rife with errors, both because of incorrect self-reporting and because of transcription errors by the census taker, and then there's the problem of being confident that a record is even about the same person... postdlf (talk) 16:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • The premise the OP seems to hold is that the SNGs are never more than placeholders pending confirmation of whether GNG is satisfied. This is not an uncommon view, but it has never been enshrined by consensus, and it strikes me as coming from a wikilegislator approach to guidelines rather than describing community practice, which is far more flexible, as is appropriate for guidelines. There have been numerous AFDs closed with clear consensus that a subject should be kept purely for meeting a SNG. These have not typically expressed that there was anything tentative about the decision, such as "keep for now per SNG, provided GNG is later demonstrated." I think many editors believe the SNGs reflect judgments as far as what subjects the encyclopedia should cover. On the other hand, there have also been numerous AFDs closed with clear consensus that, while a SNG may be met in that particular instance, GNG is not and in that particular instance deletion is therefore appropriate. The former is probably more common than the latter. Regardless, given that these are guidelines, it's up to the AFD participants to determine which guidelines to apply to a particular article and whether to apply it. I have seen few AFDs bogged down in interminable arguments between whether SNGs or GNG should hold sway in a particular case, though obviously there are disagreements, but it's not particularly fruitful to frame them as legalistic ones over whether "GNG is necessary but not sufficient" or "satisfying an SNG is always sufficient but not necessary." I simply don't see the need for more guidance in this area.

    For those who still feel compelled to introduce new rules, I think it would be good to have a rule against initiating policy discussions or proposals on the basis of one XFD you don't like. postdlf (talk) 16:18, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

    • What we are looking for at the end of the day are encyclopedic articles. These are articles that go beyond primary sources to explain why a topic is worthy of inclusion in WP. This is what our presumption of notability should be checked against, though that concept is captured by the GNG's requirement of significant coverage by independent secondary sources, and certainly not through primary-only sources. Also to add a key factor here is that while I am sure there are plenty of AFDs where an article was kept against a claim that the GNG was not met is that someone actually went to the effort to show there's very likely no additional sourcing to ever meet the goal of an encyclopedic article. This is a difference in most of those cases that you're likely including above, and if someone nom's an article claiming "no GNG sourcing" but hasn't done any appropriate legwork to fix that, a "keep" result is completely reasonable. --MASEM (t) 16:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • We can often verify the encyclopedic relevance of a subject without finding sources that offer detailed coverage. The only thing that significant coverage in reliable sources gives us compared to less significant coverage in reliable sources is the ability to create a more detailed article. This is why the GNG when used alone as an argument for excluding topics is fundamentally flawed and why we need SNGs to provide some balance. --Michig (talk) 16:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
SNGs were not meant to be, in the long-term, balancers for content. WP reflects what sources covers, and if a topic is not covered in detail by sources, we shouldn't have an article on it (WP:V). SNGs do not create an exception for this. They do create an exception in the concept of having no deadlines and that many sources for older topics, as to give time and allowance to expand topics that appear likely to be the subject of sourced coverage. But they are not permanent exceptions - "presumption" was specifically chosen in the language of notability to reflect this. SNGs are not automatic inclusion guidelines. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
We know your opinion is that SNGs are only there as an indication that GNG can be met, but WP:N does not state that and it is not a position that the community has agreed with. WP:V contains not a single reference to 'significant coverage' - significant coverage is not required for verifiability, just reliable sources. --Michig (talk) 17:25, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
First there is consensus that the SNGs are there for the GNG to be met, per this RFC. More specifically, SNGs cannot override the GNG. Second, WP:V does point out that if no reliable third-party sources exist for a topic we should not have an article about it; yes, third party is not secondary sources, but that's also a concept captured by WP:NOR, as well as WP:NOT. An article demonstrated to only have primary sourcing (as the current state of the example article) is a problem per policy, and why we have the GNG. --MASEM (t) 17:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
"is" is a strange word to use to refer to a six-year old discussion. Particularly one that was apparently never even closed beyond a raw headcount, and where the very first comment regarding it in the link you provided is a longstanding editor saying "I see no consensus at all on anything." You're really clutching at straws to show that the community has somehow already committed itself with the force of law to your preferred position. You should take a break from this thread and let others comment rather than try to get the last word with everyone. postdlf (talk) 18:36, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
If you want to use "how long since there was debate on a policy/guideline to determine if we should keep it", we might as well ignore most of the main policies and guidelines which predate that discussion. The problem is an article like Chalmers Tschappat is in no way encyclopedic, per our policies. It's a great entry for some type of "Who's Who" directory, but we are not that. We have editors that have tried to expand it past that but found no sources to be able to do so. As such, our policies say to delete it, but there are editors that say "No, you can't" despite every policy pointing in that direction. We have to be realistic that we need to have the means to challenge presumption, a point that has been established repeated over the years in various locations. --MASEM (t) 18:47, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
I would be interested to here which proposal exactly in that very long and complex RfC is supposed to support the notion that "there is consensus that the SNGs are there for the GNG to be met". I'm not seeing it myself. If it did say that, it is strange that policy was not updated to reflect it rather than relying on us trawling through ancient history to find it. SpinningSpark 19:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Once again we have a claim in this debate (this time from Masem "if a topic is not covered in detail by sources, we shouldn't have an article on it") that WP:V says something that it does not. What it actually says is "[i]f no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." That is not the same thing at all. SpinningSpark 18:30, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I've participated in many AfDs on sports figures (primarily footballers), and I share the concern expressed here about many editors aherence to SNGs at AfD. There was a growing concensus that artlcies about footballers which very narrowly pass the SNG (e.g., one who played 1 or 2 matches in a "fully-pro" league) ought not be kept if sources establishing compliance with the GNG could not found after a sufficient period of time (usually a year or more). However, more recently, I've noted that many editors are claiming even the narrowest step over the bright line of the SNG is enough (e.g., one substitute's appearance). I believe that the majority of biographies on sportspeople can pass the GNG, but very many do not yet, and I worry that plenty of them can not because the SNG threshold is simply set too low (e.g., I've tried to seach online foreign-language sources for footballers in second and third tier leagues in many countries outsidee of the major ones with little success yet they are still listed as "fully-pro" because sources have been found claiming those leagues are fully-pro). Jogurney (talk) 18:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Jogurney, you have encapsulated my concern in a nutshell with your comment immediately above. I wish several of the administrators commenting above would make some attempt to address your concern in the context of the present guidelines, instead of trying to out-duel each other rhetorically. We have a practical problem that needs to be addressed, and I hope that's what Masem was trying to do by starting this discussion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • If the issue here really is that some of the sports guidelines set the bar too low (which I tend to agree with) then the talk pages of those guidelines would be the place to take this up. They are not going to get changed by editors going round in circles here on the relationship between the GNG and SNGs. --Michig (talk) 19:03, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • I was about to say something similar. I have always thought that the fully professional criterion of NFOOTY is dubious at best, but that does not mean that the whole concept of SNG is flawed as a principle. Baby, bathwater? SpinningSpark 19:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
If the issue is specifically the sports-specific guidelines, as I mentioned above (and Masem has pointed out as well), they already defer to the general notability guideline, should the search for reliable, independent, non-promotional sources fail. (In accordance with general practice, the Wikipedia:Notability (sports)/FAQ does note that Wikipedia editors have usually been very liberal in allowing for adequate time to find sources.) isaacl (talk) 19:16, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The "problem" with that AFD in my view is that the keep !votes focused solely on WP:GRIDIRON\WP:ATHLETE, totally ignoring WP:GNG as the trump. Their reasoning seemed to be that since he passed a SNG, he was notable, per the wording on those pages.   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 19:38, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
The first sentence of WP:NSPORTS, the first sentence in the third paragraph of WP:NSPORTS, and the FAQ make the relationship with the general notability guideline clear. Anyone seeking to close an AFD discussion or to close a review of a closure can be directed to these statements to understand the consensus view of those who weighed in on the sports-specific guidelines regarding how they are intended to be applied. isaacl (talk) 19:48, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Isaac. The first paragraph of WP:NSPORTS states:

"This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a sports person or sports league/organization (amateur or professional) is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. The article must provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below."

The first question of the Frequently Asked Questions for WP:NSPORTS states the following:

"Q1: How is this guideline related to the general notability guideline?
"A1: The topic-specific notability guidelines described on this page do not replace the general notability guideline. They are intended only to stop an article from being quickly deleted when there is very strong reason to believe that significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary coverage from reliable sources are available, given sufficient time to locate them. Wikipedia's standard for including an article about a given person is not based on whether or not he/she has attained certain achievements, but on whether or not the person has received appropriate coverage in reliable sources, in accordance with the general notability guideline. Also refer to Wikipedia's basic guidance on the notability of people for additional information on evaluating notability."

Has anyone actually read the guideline in its entirety, and not the little bits editors like to focus on, like WP:NGRIDIRON or WP:FOOTY? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:57, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

  • (edit conflict) I'm impressed that a discussion that started today is already tl;dr, and I'll apologize to everyone whose comments I barely skimmed through, but here is my attempt at a tl;dr. NSPORT and the other SNGs do not actually overrule GNG, and claims that they do should be rejected. If written properly, SNGs help to clarify how GNG applies to a subject area, often in terms of how GNG requires sourcing that is independent of the subject. ACADEMIC appears to set a high bar because some sourcing that superficially looks like it passes GNG is actually not independent, and should not be used per WP:PROMO. NSPORT is helpful in pointing out how sources about high school athletes, and local sources about other athletes, are often not independent. NSPORT has been not-so-helpful when editors take it to mean that setting foot on a playing field is always a presumption of notability. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:01, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, I assumed in good faith that editors read the guidelines before referring to them, and would follow the links I provided without my having to quote them here. I agree with Michig and Spinningspark that discussions to revise individual subject-specific notability guidelines should be taken up with each one in turn. With the wide variety of guidelines, I don't think trying to combine all of them into one discussion is fruitful.
That being said, Erachima's argument struck a chord with me as well. If there is a small expansion in the number of articles (~5% increase, in the case where a threshold properly identifies a subject meeting Wikipedia's standards of notability 95% of the time), perhaps the amount of time spent debating this isn't worth the net result. isaacl (talk) 20:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
(continuing my earlier comment prior to Dirtlawyer1's response) That being said, with well-chosen criteria, the presumption of notability can be very strong, and as the FAQ specifies, since Wikipedia has no deadlines, editors have been willing to be flexible on the time allowed for finding sources. For players from the distant past, editors could also examine the likelihood of contemporary coverage by comparison with similar players. isaacl (talk) 20:07, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
  • As one of the "Keep" voters at the Tschappat AfD, I think the position taken there by the "Keep" voters has been misrepresented. I actually agree that the WP:NFOOTBALL presumption can be rebutted in an appropriate case. In fact, I am in almost complete agreement with Masem's commment above, which I partially quote here:

    "A key point is that to challenge that presumption, the person that aimed to seek their deletion needs to do a reasonably deep, likely offline, search of that person to be able to demonstrate that no sourcing likely exist. I could not, for example, take Sherry's article to AFD challenging the presumption without having to searching of local papers in the Louisville locale (as well as higher levels) to prove no in-depth coverage exists; if all I did as the AFD nominator was to say "I did a Google search found nothing", I should be expected that closed as a speedy keep for failing to follow BEFORE in light that they pass NGRIDIRON. There is an inordinate amount of work that would be needed to challenge those hundreds/thousands of articles, so while they may be on the cusp in terms of being potential deletion targets, I don't see anything that would even approach fait accompli-levels of AFDs for them."

In the Tshcappat case, the difficulty was that the person played in the NFL in the 1920s when the relevant Ohio market newspapers are either off-line or hidden behind expensive pay walls. Clearly, neither the nominator nor any of the "Delete" voters had done the sort of "off-line" search of Ohio newspapers to see if in-depth coverage existed. I have spent most of my Wikipedia time over the past 7 years working on sports topics from the older, print journalism era. In the case of an NFL player, even ones from the 1920s, I can say from experience that the coverage is likely to be there, if someone takes the time (and spends the money) to find it. But a "Google" search is patently inadequate to root out that coverage. Unless an AfD nominator has done that type of research, the AfD really ought to be closed as a "Speedy Keep." On this, I'm surprised to learn that Masem and I actually agree. Cbl62 (talk) 22:08, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
@Cbl62: That's interesting. Are you saying that from your experience, you'd always expect to find in-depth, significant coverage of every member of a NFL team? I'm not well up on NFL, but in the sports that I do notice, typically there seems to be in-depth coverage of some key team members but only superficial mentions of others. Stanning (talk) 08:58, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
The scope of coverage of the NFL was certainly not the same in the 1920s and 1930s as it is today. Even so, when I have taken interest in players from that era and dug into regional newspaper coverage (often spending my own money to do so), I have found that there is likely to enough non-trivial coverage of the person to pass [[WP:GNG]. See, e.g., Hugh Lowery (not an all-NFL player, started only three NFL games in 1920 as a lineman [the position least likely to garner coverage], but still got coverage passing WP:GNG). In Tschappat's case, I would expect to find similar coverage if I were inclined to take the time and spend the money to conduct similar searches of regional newspapers from the Ohio area. The rub is that any rule making it too easy to challenge the presumption of notability for NFL players risks placing an undue burden on editors to spend much money and many hours defending an AfD that is ultimately unwarranted. In my opinion, such a process is a waste of time. Our time is far better spent on (a) expanding and improving Wikipedia's coverage, and (b) working to delete truly non-notable topics the presence of which make Wikipedia look foolish and not encyclopedic. Cbl62 (talk) 15:10, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
The claim that has been made to justify the "one pro game played" criteria is that a professional player could have not gotten to the pro leagues without having a successful college/amateur/minor leagues career, which should be documented as well. However, an issue this case reveals is that this is very much a time-dependent thing. For players since, say, the 1960s, I'd agree, because sports reporting became huge then with the advent of television and mass media, and following players at every level of skill was common. But in the 1920s, its a far different story. I'm not saying that the NSPORTS pro game criteria has to be changed but there has to be recongizition that the amount of media attention that a player playing their first game in 2014 is far different from a player playing their fire game in 1924, and that we have this presumption specifically to handle the rare cases where there simply isn't coverage for these players from older periods before the abundance of mass media. --MASEM (t) 13:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
In that AFD one of the !delete voters said they also did a newspapers.com registered user search, which should have brought up at least the identification of in-depth coverage. There certainly might be some local paper that goes into Tshcappat's career, but if that's the only place we're going to find "significant coverage", that's basically local sources which NSPORTS says shouldn't be appropriate either. Note that finding the holes and arguing the inefficiencies of the search method used by nom's/others in an AFD of this nature should be done and part of the consideration "did the nom adequetely demonstrate the lack of sources by their search results" - again, if someone only did a google search for a 1920s player, that's laughably bad, but more was done in this case. --MASEM (t) 13:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
I checked, and the newspapers for the area where Tschappat played are not on-line. If they were on-line, I would have searched them. So, no, a newspapers.com search would not find them. There was no indication whatsoever in connection with the Tschappat AfD that anyone did the sort of "reasonably deep, likely offline" search into "local papers" or of the pertinent area. That was the standard for a BEFORE search that YOU suggested needed to be done for a 1920s player. That search was not done, and therefore, under your own reasoning, the Tschappat AfD should have been closed as a "speedy keep." Can we now, finally, put the Tschappat case to bed? Cbl62 (talk) 15:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Newspapers.com is the equivalent of a newspaper archive, having digitized papers from the 1800s onward, so its not limited to online sources; it reports 142 historical papers from the Ohio area. Now whether it will have the specific local papers, I'm not 100% sure, but at the same time, if we can only pull significant coverage from local sources, that fails NSPORTS too. That to me is a deep search (I do not newspapers.com requires a subscription but I believe dirtlawyer1 said they had one for their search). Without that newspapers.com search possibility, I agree with you completely that more work would have to be done via BEFORE, but this is not the case. --MASEM (t) 15:26, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Your assertion concerning the coverage of newspapers.com is inaccurate. The database does not include the Dayton newspapers (Tshcappat played for the Dayton NFL team). Moreover, newspapers.com does not cover 142 Ohio newspapers from the relevant time period. For example, its coverage of the Akron Daily Democrat (Akron also had an NFL team) is limited to three years (1899-1902). As you said above (but perhaps now retract?), BEFORE requires a "reasonably deep, likely offline" search into "local papers" of the pertinent area. That was not done here. Cbl62 (talk) 15:42, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I do have a newspapers.com account, and yes, I did do a search before venturing an opinion. The only results for the subject were last name-only mentions regarding two college games in which he was listed on the roster. And, yes, my searches included both alleged forms of the subject's name and several variations each, including last name-only plus "football". Frankly, I'm a little frustrated with the logic that "he played in two NFL games, therefore significant coverage must exist in paywall archives." It's just as likely, if not more so, that the reason we found no coverage is that there is no coverage. Most one and two-game NFL players are ultimately notable because of the coverage of their college career, not because of the one or two pro games in which they appeared, often sparingly as a scrub. And let's be blunt: the APFA/NFL did not receive anything approaching the same level of media coverage in 1921 that it has since the 1960s. America's unchallenged national pastime and overwhelmingly most popular sport in 1921 was professional baseball, not pro football. The NFL struggled throughout the 1920s, as reflected by the high percentage of failed/defunct teams from that era. Moreover, this "offline search" posited above completely flips the WP:BURDEN in XfDs, and is quite novel. Again, it's just as likely, if not more so, that the reason we found no coverage is that there is no coverage. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:46, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Dirt -- I never suggested that you did not do a newspapers.com search. I believe you did. My point is that such an on-line search is inadequate in this case. I am in complete agreement with Masem. It was he who posited that, in a case line this, BEFORE should require "reasonably deep, likely offline" search into "local papers" of the pertinent area. That was not done. Under Masem's framework, Tshappat should have been a "speedy keep" for this reason alone. Frankly, I am dumbfounded at the amount of human capital being devoted to the Tschappat discussion. I earnestly believe that there are many, many far, far more useful things for this group of very intelligent people to be spending their time on. Can't we all return to building Wikipedia and not spending more time on Mr. Tschappat? Cbl62 (talk) 17:23, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the tl:dr version. (I have been reading this though.) This sums up the whole discussion well. Aren't there better things to being doing right now. WikiOriginal-9 (talk) 17:39, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Cbl, this was never about Tschappat; he's a nobody. If Tschappat were the only similar case, you're right: it would not be worth the effort. But Tschappat is not the only one-game nobody. This was the perfect test case for the proposition I stated above in my first comment in this thread. As for Newspapers.com, please see my comments below regarding the archival coverage available for the Dayton Triangles. Coverage for the team exists, was clearly widely covered in the Ohio newspapers of the 1920s. But for Tschappat? Nada. And that's been the point from the git-go. And having now run the Newspapers.com search for the Dayton Triangles as a team, I am convinced more than before that Tschappat got no significant coverage. Instead, he didn't even rate a mention. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:46, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Wikioriginal-9: standards matter. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:46, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
"...this "offline search" posited above completely flips the WP:BURDEN". I agree with that assessment. Per Section D, paragraph 1 of WP:BEFORE, I performed the minimum research required. It doesn't mention performing offline searches before nominating. Therefore I feel that I am being taken to task because I didn't do any offline searching, something that the current guideline doesn't seem to require.   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 15:57, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Nobody is taking you to task, ArcAngel. You nominated the article in good faith, and the article was a bare stub when you did so. The fact that you expressed second thoughts about the nomination simply goes to show that you continued to act in good faith rather than stubbornly sticking to your position. I would never suggest that an off-line search should be standard before starting an AfD. But ... when the AfD seeks to overturn a presumption established by an SNG, and when the subject is one who was prominent in the long-ago, pre-internet era, then, yes, I think Masem's framework is entirely logical and appropriate. Cbl62 (talk) 17:31, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Being stubborn is not one of my traits. I don't consider myself a deletionist, and I never considered looking at offline sources for something that far back. Based on how I interpreted some of the comments above, it just felt like others didn't agree with the nomination. But I do wish that more would have participated in the discussion as quite possibly the consensus would have been clearer one way or another. I don't like closes where there really is no "outright" consensus (as there was with this one).   ArcAngel   (talk) ) 21:49, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • BTW, I cannot prove the negative, but I can alter the experiment. I just ran a Newspapers.com search for "Dayton Triangles," and got 647 articles. When I narrowed the search to 1920 and 1921, I got 62 articles, including newspapers in (1) Cincinnati, (2) Coshocton, (3) East Liverpool, (4) Hamilton, (5) Lima, (6) Portsmouth, (7) Sandusky, and (8) Wilmington, Ohio, as well as multiple papers in Illinois, Indiana and Pennsylvania. It appears that the Dayton Triangles got plenty of coverage as a team, and that coverage is well represented in the Newspapers.com archives, but Mr. Tschappat, whose first name may or may not even really be Chalmers, got zip. Again, for somebody who played in two APFA/NFL games in 1921, that's not really that surprising. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:55, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oh, and for the record, a search of the much maligned Google News Archive returns 80 articles from a search for the "Dayton Triangles." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:05, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Side comment - One thing that bothers me about the "played professionally" criteria is that it reflects a degree of RECENTISM. While it works in today's world (where a professional football player is quite notable)... it does not really reflect the reality back in the 1920s. In those days, the big sport covered by the media was College Football. That was huge. But Pro Football was an insignificant also-ran. Prior to WWII, it comes close to being non-notable as a professional sport. Collegiate Football players of that day were very notable... Professional Football players of the day? not so much. Blueboar (talk) 22:13, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

  • That's a defensible argument, one of the few such proffered in this campaign across several different talk pages to neuter or abolish NSPORTS. It's obvious that today sports at many levels enjoy a high level of media coverage, but did sports enjoy a proportionate level of coverage a century ago? By the same token that the original WP:ATHLETE devolved to individual sports projects, on the perfectly accurate grounds that a one-size-fits-all approach just didn't work, it may be that we need to judge sports by different eras. Ravenswing 13:07, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
    • For myself, it doesn't bother me that the current NSPORTS "one pro game" presumption (distilled to different sports) exists, as long as there is this ability to challenge that presumption in a fair manner as this case tried to do. The false positive (where we've presumpted based on NSPORTS but turn out wrong) is not very high. Perhaps there's some fine tuning that could be done (like here, to separate out NFL players from APFL for NGRIDIRON), but I don't feel that's necessary, given the ability to challenge that. What does bother me is when a SNG wants to carve out a wide presumption for inclusion and then say you can never challenge that, which was the case of a few commmentors in the AFD/XFD. SNGs are not meant to be inclusion guidelines (a point established in the past) and avoid inherited notability. But most at NSPORTS seem to agree that the presumption they give with their clauses can be fairly challenged, so I don't think a massive change is necessary there. --MASEM (t) 13:21, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Ravenswing, I don't purport to speak for anyone other than myself, but for me, this was never about a neutering or abolishing the specific notability guidelines of WP:NSPORTS. I am a regular editor of Wikipedia sports articles, and I prefer clear rules for notability. For me, this case was about testing whether the presumption of notability could actually be rebutted with evidence that a particular athlete clearly lacked any significant coverage in multiple, reliable, independent sources. In the case of this two-game wonder named Tschappat, no one ever produced a source that wasn't a sports stats site for his two-game pro career. Not one. Normally, in circumstances like these, notability is supported by coverage of the athlete's college career; in this case, the subject's college career drew no significant coverage, either. I treated this as a test case of the limits of the notability presumption because the coverage was lacking, with the results you see here. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:25, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Suggested wording addition

Going by the above and noting some of the stronger concerns , I would like to see if we can add wording to WP:N that clarifies the idea of presumption and what the process should be to challenge it.

Notability is a presumption, not a guarantee
Meeting the GNG or any of the subject-specific notability guidelines is said to create a presumption of notability, allowing for a stand-alone article to be created. This allows editors the ability to expand the article beyond these minimal requirements, giving the time necessary to find and retrieve sources (particularly for print works), or for sources to come about in the future due to some accomplishment or event, with the aim to create an encyclopedic article that relies primarily on independent, third-party and secondary sourcing to avoid issues with WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV, as well as to avoid permastubs. There is no deadline for when these sources should be added; as long as the GNG or subject-specific notability guideline are met with the needed sourcing to demonstrate this, such articles should be kept on the basis that additional sources have yet to be identified and added.
However, if an editor performs a deep, appropriate search (along the lines required by actions that should be taken before nominating an article for deletion) and can find no additional sourcing to go beyond the minimum for presumption, then deletion, redirection, or merging may be an appropriate action. One must consider that it is impossible to prove the negative, that no sourcing exists at all, since it is impossible to readily search every print source. Instead, one must demonstrate that no sourcing exists in the places where sourcing would most likely be found. This usually means that a offline search of books, magazines, and newspapers will be required instead of relying on Google searches. For example, a person who is presumed notable for their work at the time of the onset of the 20th Century will likely only be documented by newspapers no longer in publication in the region that person lived in. A good-faith, detailed search of these sources must be done and described as part of the deletion/merge/redirect nomination.
Once this search has been done and demonstrated, the burden on retaining the article falls on those that want to keep it. Ideally, identification of sources missed by the nominator should be made and added to the article. Alternatively, a discussion of whether the search sufficiently covered the expected places to find sourcing can be made. Such discussion should also consider if sourcing for the topic is likely to come in the future; for example, for a person who is presumed notable due to their career work and are still active in that career, there is a good chance that sourcing may come later, and thus should not be deleted for the lack of sourcing at the present. If those wishing to retain the article cannot locate or identify other sources, or demonstrate critical faults in the nominator's search where appropriate source would be found, then the article should be deleted, merged, or redirected.
There may be other reasons to delete articles even if they meet the presumption of notability. For example, we avoid having articles on living persons that are notable for a single event which otherwise may get wide coverage, though such people are generally included in a larger topic about the event (eg, we do not have an article on Steven Slater but do have JetBlue flight attendant incident).

Note the emphasis on the importance of the source search prior to nom. This is by far the key fact here, that you can't go around looking at the present state of the article and going "not notable". --MASEM (t) 16:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

  • The "process to challenge it" is persuading the other participants in an AFD to !vote "delete" instead of "keep". That there's a "presumption" simply means that it's possible to do that. There's no need for more language on that point, nor consensus for any such formulas. postdlf (talk) 15:06, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
Langauge is necessary because we need to explain what a proper way to counter the presumption is, and that is primarily by demonstration of the lack of any sources from a deep, likely offline search prior to making the AFD. If the nom presents the AFD says "I can't find any other sources to improve this article, and I searched here, here, and here", then !votes that say "notably by this SNG criteria" without acknowledging the lack of sources are a waste of time. The SNG criteria are not absolute, this is the method, not documented anywhere, of how you can challenge individual topics that fail sourcing. A lot of AFDs are going by where people are ignoring the lack of sourcing evidence provided by the nominator and standing by the SNG criteria assuming it absolute. --MASEM (t) 15:16, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
If what you say "is the method", then you should be able to demonstrate that it is already accepted practice before any guideline is changed to implement it. If, instead, "A lot of AFDs are going by..." that demonstrate otherwise (or at least that there's no one accepted approach), then that's community practice this guideline needs to reflect. postdlf (talk) 15:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
NSPORTS has used this approach (see [2]) and in particular the top of the "Not Meeting GNG" section lists several AFDs that the topic met NSPORTS but deleted on the lack of GNG sourcing. This is the approach we have used here for how "presumped" should be read as well. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose addition. There is no pressing need for us to pre-emptively limit the criteria for inclusion to what a bunch of journalists think it is important to write about, which is what the GNG amounts to. We should leave ourselves free to craft other criteria as we see fit. The GNG are good criteria for establishing notability, but they are not the only possible criteria. WP:PROF takes a completely different stance and I am pretty sure that a huge number of articles passed under WP:MUSIC would fail the GNG test. Characterising short articles as "permastubs" is non-neutral and possibly insulting to those who took the trouble to write them. One common criterion used for removing stub templates is that the article has at least one reference. An article that meets WP:V is, by this definition, not a stub. If it also meets an SNG we should have the ability to say we want to keep it. SpinningSpark 16:44, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
    • "There is no pressing need for us to pre-emptively limit the criteria for inclusion to what a bunch of journalists think it is important to write about, which is what the GNG amounts to." WP summarizes what sources say, we do not create importance ourselves, and the community has rejected outright "inclusion guidelines" where every member of specific topics are included (eg no inherited notability). It's also been shown that the SNGs are shortcuts towards showing the GNG, but cannot override it in terms of finding more details sources and moving away from permastubs. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
      • Why do you find it necessary to say in response to me that "WP summarizes what sources say, we do not create importance ourselves"? Where did I suggest that we should not summarise what sources say? You are presenting a straw man argument that has no substance. Importance is subjective. That's why we don't have criteria for importance, we have instead criteria for notability. These are based on objective criteria, but it is being exceptionally narrow-minded to maintain that the only objective criterion that can ever be is the GNG. Once again, you are claiming prior community consensus on this. In the discussion above I requested you several times to point to such a consensus but you have repeatedly ignored those requests. SpinningSpark 17:24, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
        • You said, quote "There is no pressing need for us to pre-emptively limit the criteria for inclusion to what a bunch of journalists think it is important to write about", which taken at face value, means that we should include stuff that has not been covered in sources. The GNG is the target goal for articles, with the SNG meant to be "shortcuts" to show that a topic likely can meet this even without having the necessary sourcing at the time of writing, and understanding we have no deadline to find and include those sources. This has been long-standard discussion through WT:N's history, but best highlighted by Wikipedia talk:Notability/RFC:compromise. --MASEM (t) 19:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
          • I have repeatedly indicated that I think that WP:V always applies. The passage you quote from me does not contradict that. It does not even imply that WP:V should be bypassed. I am beginning to suspect that you are deliberately misinterpreting me in order to help advance your straw man argument. But assuming good faith on your part, there is at least a very bad case of IDHT going on. As for the past discussion, while the proposal that SNGs override GNG failed that is far from conclusive. The proposal also would have it that an article that passed GNG, but failed SNG should be rejected. Frankly, I don't think anyone would go along with that, and certainly several of the !votes were explicitly to oppose that aspect of it. I also note some !votes against thought this contradicted WP:V, apparently the same straw man argument being peddled then as now. In any event, my views on this new proposal remain unchanged. SpinningSpark 21:15, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
            • I am trying to read what you are stating but the only obvious interpretation is "we should not limit what topics we cover to what is covered by sources", which of course flies against WP:NOT, particularly WP:IINFO and why we have notability in the first place. We need to reflect what sources report on, and if sources do not go into detail on a topic, then we shouldn't be either. The proposal from the RFC that you mentions, that meeting the GNG but failing the SNG should cause an article to fail, failed as a proposal, nor is that relevant here. --MASEM (t) 21:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
              • How the fuck did you manage to interpret "I think that WP:V always applies" into "we should not limit what topics we cover to what is covered by sources". I said no such thing. I meant no such thing. I do not support any such thing. I don't believe anyone supports such a thing. Is that clear enough for you? Please try reading what I actually said instead of making up something that fits your flimsy straw man argument. SpinningSpark 00:10, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
              • You keep repeating your position that "detailed coverage" (ie GNG) is required to have an article as if that was some kind of absolute which instantly refutes objections. We all understand that is your position, you don't need to keep repeating it. But it is perfectly acceptable for some of us to have a different position. As for the RFC proposal not being "relevant here" it was you who raised the RFC as being relevant as a past consensus. I have asked you repeatedly to identify which of the many proposals on that page you believed supported your case but you have so far declined to do so. I assumed that B5 was the one you thought indicated consensus for your position asa it seemed to me the most relevant. Apparently not. If you can't actually identify a consensus I think I'm entitled to believe that actually, there wasn't one. SpinningSpark 00:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
                • Fine, we agree on WP:V which has never been a problem but WP:V is only a necessary but not sufficient requirement for an article topic, to avoid indiscrminate information (eg I am confident that nearly every North American and European college student can be shown to have verified information due to what is published at college levels, but that doesn't mean every person in that group should have an article.) That's why we have notability guidelines which tell us to look to the depth at which a topic has been talked about in sources before having a standalone article. If no one can find these type of sources after a reasonable extensive search where sources should be found and no new sources are forthcoming, then the topic is actually not notable and why seeking consensus to delete is an appropriate action. On the RFC you mentioned what B.1 said (about articles having to meet both GNG and SNG) which of course failed and that's not the one I was talking about. I'm talking of B.5 that said that SNGs can override GNGs, which failed, meaning that the GNG is still the overriding guideline (This is also a point justified by B.2 in that SNGs are there to help identify appropriate sources to help meet the GNG). The point from this is still that topic should aim towards meeting the GNG, using the SNG as a "temporary" shortcut of notability to give them the time to develop an article. Sometimes the SNG won't get the topic to the GNG and that's the cases we need to be able to fairly challenge in an AFD, which some editor refuse to accept can be done. Again, "presumed" is a very specific word chosen here to show that articles can always be fairly challenged it if is lacking encyclopedic qualities as defined by the GNG. --MASEM (t) 00:35, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
                  • I am not maintaining that WP:V is sufficient to justify an article, another straw man. It is the GNG that tells us to look at depth of coverage, not the notability guidelines generally. We are free, if we so choose, to use other notability criteria. You don't support that. I know you don't support that. I don't see the point of repeatedly telling me you don't support that. It makes no difference to my view, it just pointlessly creates yet another wall of text.
                  I am genuinely confused by your reply about the RFC. I identified B5 as the relevant proposal and replied to that. Your came back with "failed as a proposal, nor is that relevant here". You latest response now tells me that the RFC I mentioned was B1 (not correct, again read what I wrote, not what you would like me to have written) and B5 is the relevant one, along with some of B2. That seems utterly self-contradictory to me. SpinningSpark 01:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Masem, if we could summarize what you wrote... and get it down to a short paragraph... I could probably support adding. But as is, no... it's definitely overly wordy. That said... what you wrote above would make the nucleus of a an excellent WP:Essay. Perhaps you should start with that, and then see if it gains legs. Blueboar (talk) 01:32, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I think an essay for Masem is a great idea. If others like his essay, they can cite to it in AFDs, and if they don't, they can ignore it. Definitely more constructive than continuing to dump thousands of bytes on this talk page. postdlf (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the problems I see with the proposal is it shifts the issue to sterile arguments about what is truly "primary" or what is truly "independent". A person who gains prominence in a field, gains prominence in that field. Take, for example, a president of a large academic international organization, per WP:NACADEMICS. Who is going to publish a biography on that person. It is, of course, the organization that he or she is involved with, likely on the orgs website. And some will argue that that biography, although detailed and reliable, is too primary or not independent enough. This leads me to think the sports problem is a problem with that notability criteria and that is what should be changed, perhaps in the issue of depth of coverage. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

The key to understanding "presumption" is to accept that it is guidance... and not "the rules".
The presumption of notability is a half-way step between demonstrating notability and not demonstrating notability. Presumption is an indication of likelihood... a warning to hesitate before nominating for deletion (because the subject/topic fits a pattern of other, similar, subjects/topics that are discussed by independent sources, and are notable). However, the presumption of notability is not a guarantee that the required sources actually do exist. The presumption of notability does not "protect" an article from deletion... the reason for this is that there are always exceptions to every "norm". On occasion, a presumption turns out to be wrong... and independent sources don't actually exist... no matter how much we think they should exist. Blueboar (talk) 13:20, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Well, it's not the presumption that protects articles, it is editors in thier judgment choosing to determine whether the content is appropraiate by applying the presumption -- if enough agree that the presumption carries the day, it will, that's the way it is. So, yes, it's a guideline and there are no rules, remember. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:30, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, we are still talking this is a guideline, IAR where appropriate, etc. If there's fair discussion that maybe there's still other options for sourcing, etc. that the nominator or others simply couldn't access at all that would hve a fair chance of having information, this is reasonable. What is not appropriate is that if someone present a fair challenge to the presumption by laying out evidence of the lack of sources, and the only replies that other editors come back with is "keep, meetings this SNG", as if the SNGs were absolutes. Editors, and importantly admin closures, should be aware this is part of the construction of the notability guidelines and thus discount those type of keep !votes which normally in other conditions would be kept (or at least make sure they are evaluated in the proper context). --MASEM (t) 14:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
@Alanscottwalker: I think this is basically what I was saying. "Presumption" means editors can decide not to apply it in a given case. There's no flow chart for when this should or shouldn't happen. postdlf (talk) 14:48, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
I see no problem where, in the proposed situation, that discussion at the AFD is on whether sources are primary, independent, etc. That's healthy discussion, and while there are still debates about it, at least people are talking about the sources, their quality or lack thereof. What is the problem is when people refuse to discuss the sources or the nominator's demonstration of lack of sources, and instead repeat the SNG criteria without any other reasoning. (FWIW, a bio prepared by the institution a person is working for that the person only supplied basic details and someone else filters/expanded on would be more a secondary, dependent source, since it is a transformation of information). --MASEM (t) 14:12, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
FWIW... if person X has been made President of institution Y, and the only source to mention this fact is institution Y itself... I would definitely question whether X was notable... I would also question whether we are making some invalid underlying assumptions... I would raise such as: Is it really valid to assume that the position of President of Institution Y is a notable position to have? That may not be a valid assumption. I would want to look at what kind of coverage other presidents of institution Y received. I might even question the notability of institution Y itself (although that is less likely). Blueboar (talk) 14:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
No it will not be the only source, but it will always be the original source. That's the problem, you will get "it's too dependent". If that leads you to say that a biography of the president of an important international academic society should be deleted, then it's dumb (in the prosaic sense of unthinking) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
But what if it is the only source? You assume other sources exist... but what if they don't?
When they don't... That says something. And no... I don't accept that every president of every large academic society in existence is automatically notable (partly because I don't accept that every large academic society is automatically notable). I accept that most presidents of large academic societies are notable. I accept that there is a very strong likelihood that any specific president might be. But I never make blanket assertions like "all presidents of large accademic institutions are automatically notable." There are always exceptions.
Indeed, in the case where the only source is a dependent one, the lack of independent sources would raise a red flag for me... I would start to think... hmmm... Usually, there are lots and lots and lots of sources that mention the presidents of large academic institutions (and in reasonable detail)... so why is this specific one different? Am I making an unwarranted assumption here? Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
But what if? Well that's why we don't want instruction creep because every what if has a what if, which has a what if, and instructions would be endless and endless. As for the rest, Wikipedians presume these things, regardless of what you accept. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:25, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
To this point, I would rather us have SNGs that include relatively simple (and by necessity) broader criteria that might have a few more false positive hits (that it , it would allow inclusion of people that end up not being notable at the end of the day) than to have SNG criteria that are complex and narrowly defined as to avoid any false positives. That is, it is better to say "the president of any academic institution that is notable is presumed notable" than to say "the president of any academic institution that is notable with more than 10,000 students and has been established since 1950 is presumed notable". KISS principle, etc. This also gives more leeway favorably to help develop articles we might not have had before. The loose criteria should still have a low false positive rate (5% or less).
But key to that is making sure the concepts I've explained above about challenging presumptions of notability is an accepted, established, and documented process. If we cannot challenge notability that is presumed by an SNG, then the SNGs need to be laser-focused assurances with nearly no false positives to prevent them from being outright inherited notability guidelines. But I don't think we need to refocus the SNGs, just make sure that it is understand by documenting it that one can challenge an SNG claim fairly by demonstrating that there are no likely sources to expand the topic. --MASEM (t) 13:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I would support a wording change that made it clear that for articles that are "too short", and that if it can be demonstrated that they are likely impossible to be expanded then that is grounds for merging, or if no suitable merge target is available, deletion. I don't support this wording because it seeks to limit our ability to set whatever notability criteria we choose. SpinningSpark 15:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
In general, no we don't have notability guidelines that set whatever notability criteria we choose. We have a global standard for inclusion (the sourcing that the GNG provides) to prevent one area from determining their information more important than others (This is what happened with the MMA group about a year ago). There will be exceptional cases per IAR and notability being a guideline obviously, but in general, we have notability guidelines to make what is included in WP as objective as possible. --MASEM (t) 15:23, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
Masem. please stop referring to your opinions as "we" as if you are the arbiter of Wikipedia policy. We can all discuss how we think policy should be shaped on this page. What is MMA? SpinningSpark 17:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I am using "we" as this is current clear established practice that I've seen throughout discussions, and thus the current policy/guideline that everyone is expected to follow. MMA is Mixed Martial Arts, and about a year or year-and-half ago, they attempted to declare on their own that every MMA athlete and every MMA event (hunderds each year) were notable, and it took admin action to deal with much of the walled garden (including sockpuppetry) that was trying to keep those articles even after it was shown they failed all other policies. --MASEM (t) 15:43, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
It still amounts to your opinion. If that's what the guidelines say already then there's no need to change anything and if they don't and your proposing a change then it is perfectly acceptable that we have an opinion on that too. SpinningSpark 22:00, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I view the GNG not as just another subordinate notability criterion, however much primus inter pares, but as the fundamental interpretation of WP:V. Stating that the GNG is in of itself "presumptive" is just plain cracked: that would leave us without any firm threshold for notability. Does the GNG leave us with some bad articles? Yes, it does, and I've deplored some of the results. We just can't do without some fundamental, irreducible measure. Ravenswing 16:36, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
    • The GNG has always been "presumed", though. There are a lot of editors that go "look, I've got 2 sources that have a couple sentences each about this topic, it's notable". Well, for one that's not significant coverage, nor showing it notable, but for the same reasons we have the SNG, having those articles would be a sufficient allowance to start allowing an article to be developed. (This happens a lot with articles on fictional characters). (This is always why we don't numerically define what "significant coverage" as it is a gamed target). If it turns out those two sources are all that exist and really show nothing else beyond that, we'll still delete the article. --MASEM (t) 16:41, 30 August 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose addition. Creditabe try, but the principle is the wrong way around. We're talking about proposals for deletion of articles that rely on presumed notability, therefore are brief and/or have minimal references. Wording such as "A good-faith, detailed search of these [offline] sources must be done and described as part of the deletion/merge/redirect nomination" would put an absurd burden of proof on the proposer, who would apparently be expected to travel to the location of offline archives (if any) and spend much time searching through perhaps years-worth of paper or (worse) microfilm to show that no references exist – which, in the end, is impossible. Simply, if an article's presumption of notability is reasonably challenged, it's for the "Keep" voters to show why it should be kept. Stanning (talk) 19:22, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
    • No, it would not necessarily require travel to that location. Case in point is the above situation where we had a player around the turn of the 20th century from the United States. Many of the newspapers from that period have been scanned and OCR'ed into newspapers.com, so someone that has a paid subscription can search those archives. Yes, this doesn't cover all the possible papers for the region, but at some point, if there's no observed regional coverage (which was included in that search), then even if local sources were found, they would fail notability for sports professionals (which look for more than local coverage). But this does require the cost and time to search newspapers.com. There may be other cases where travel to the local location would be required, but key is that while the burden is on those wanting to keep the article to actually provide sources, our policy with regards to no deadlines puts the initial onus on the person making the nom to provide a strong argument why they don't think sources don't exist. This prevents so-called drive-by nominations that only look at the state of the article and see no sources and claim it not notable without doing any of the work described in WP:BEFORE. Also keep in mind, we only require identification of sources, not the actual inclusion of them, during AFD arguments (with assumption of good faith that the source are legit and not made up to protect the article); identifying sourced as opposed to acquiring them is very easy to do without any cost of travel involved. --MASEM (t) 19:31, 1 September 2014 (UTC)
  • This seems like a minor nit, but BEFORE isn't "required". Okay, we could change that one word to "suggested" or something, but the idea is still there. A good-faith search needn't be done, so long as you don't mind publicly demonstrating that you're a lazy nom.
    One of the fundamental problems is that individual AFDs are inconsistent. We can say that, as a general rule, if you've got an article about an athlete or an academic, and nobody can find any independent sources, or can only find passing mentions, then it will get deleted. However, in practice, anyone who frequents AFDs can say that this doesn't happen consistently. I'm aware of one bio, for example, that is probably start-class and survived AFD because the editor strung together a dozen trivial passing mentions. For example, a sentence describing the BLP's graduate work is supported by one citation to the BLP's thesis. "Alice Expert attended Wattsamatta University, where she wrote her thesis, The Sun is Really Big, on the size of the Sun in 1976" is actually supported by a footnote that contains no more information than {{cite thesis}} would. Another sentence describes current views by citing a single sentence that says "X theory has been proposed by people like Alice and Bob and Chris". I don't believe that any independent source contained even two whole sentences about the BLP. But most AFD participants don't actually read the sources; they just count the number of little blue numbers. The result is that the article was kept. (Describing the person as an academic is probably fair, but I don't know that ACADEMIC applies, as the BLP hasn't ever held any position at any accredited academic institution, AFAICT. To add another tangent, ACADEMIC would probably benefit from an addition similar to WP:FAILN about how to WP:PRESERVE information about a person who isn't entirely notable but still worth mentioning somewhere in Wikipedia.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Interviews

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

I've just written Wikipedia:Interviews, an essay to try and clarify the how interviews relate to Wikipedia's sourcing policies. I've tried to make it reflect policy and current practice as best I can, but there are bound to be things that need to be clarified further, or perhaps even flat-out errors, so I'm hoping to get others to look over it so that it can be as accurate as possible. The notability section in particular is in need of some attention, as interviews have been a grey area in deletion discussions, in my experience. If anyone here could take some time out to check it and/or improve it, I would be very grateful. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 11:58, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

An excellent essay Strad. I have left a comment on the essay talk page. Blueboar (talk) 14:48, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Susan Lindauer

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Expertise in notability is needed at Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2014_September_18 for the Susan Lindauer article. The issue is whether a five page profile in the New York Times magazine constitutes notability ... or whether she is a private person where BLP1E issues demand that she not have an article. Express your opinion one way or the other. She has developed a fringe/conspiracy following that I think is coloring people's opinion on the article. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 16:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Let's collect potential new names for this article

Latest comment: 10 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Let's build a list of potential article names. After we've collected a substantial list, we can discuss them and winnow them down.

I suggest the following Rules:

  • Hard limit each person to a maximum of two suggestions.
  • Soft limit each suggestion to four words. If you have a longer phrase that you feel really pops, feel free to add it.
  • Mark each of your suggestions with your signature.
  • Do not comment on either your or other people's suggestions. This is just a collection of potential names, not a debate.
  • No profanity, sexually explicit material, or gibberish.

Matthewhburch (talk) 14:37, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

And with a single bound, this stick beating exercise was stopped doktorb wordsdeeds 15:11, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

List of Ideas

Latest comment: 10 years ago9 comments3 people in discussion

Discussion

Please stop, you don't need a new section for this (there's already a section on renaming, and people have already collected names there). --MASEM (t) 14:41, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Please delete this statement. It is not a potential article name. Refusing to do so clearly indicates you are attempting to own the article by derailing those that disagree with you. Matthewhburch (talk) 14:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
That's absolutely not what that statement suggests, meaning you no longer are talking things in good faith and could be blocked. I'm pointing out we don't need a brand new section when there is already an RFC about naming at the top of the page, and creating a new top level section is wasting space on this page. --MASEM (t) 14:45, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
When you clearly demonstrate tendencies of article ownership, then you need to be called out for doing so. There is a limit on how far we can believe in your good faith. You've passed that point. Matthewhburch (talk) 14:48, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Arguing from years of experience about how bad the idea of changing the name is and pointing out where the real problems lie, is not ownership. That's normal debate. And there are guidelines and policies for how talk pages are to be used, creating new sections for the same topic is strongly recommended against. --MASEM (t) 15:02, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
When a particular editor dramatically bloats every thread about change without adding anything to discussion other than their own assertion that everything is as good as it possibly can be and nothing should change, it's attempted ownership. Matthewhburch (talk) 15:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Just drop the stick. Comments should have gone in the RfC. Also, you seem to be under the misapprehension that WP:Notability is an article. It is a guideline. BethNaught (talk) 15:07, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

How about the term Independence instead of Inclusion?

Latest comment: 10 years ago65 comments9 people in discussion

I would like to suggest the word Independence instead of Notability.

The suggestion above (to replace Notability with Inclusion. Matthewhburch (talk) 22:54, 23 September 2014 (UTC)), while I agree with it, does have various warts which people have pointed out. It's also a huge wall of text now, and most people have said what they want to say and have likely started to ignore it. I'm sure that some pedants will be irritated that I have created a new section here, but it's pretty clear that the above section has been beaten to death, and very few of the arguments presented against the name change above will have any validity when considering the word "independence".

The purpose of the Notability standard is to help clarify what is needed for an article to exist as an independent article within Wikipedia. Unfortunately, due to the choice of the word "Notability", a new editor being told that an article doesn't meet notability standards will frequently believe they are being told their article has null value. In some cases, this is true. In many cases, it is not. Words and how we use them are critical, especially if we use very few of them.

Why not use a word or short phrase that exactly and precisely defines the reason for the existence of the Notability standard? If an article is up to independence standards, then it can stand alone, with it's own article within Wikipedia. Different subtopics could have their own independence standards, exactly as there are multiple notability standards today.

The only clear argument against "independence" as a replacement for Notability that I can imagine is a simple inertia argument "Why change?". Why change anything? Change because we can improve it.

The Notability standards are used as an article independence test. So why not call it what it is? Matthewhburch (talk) 20:43, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Except for the fact that we already use the term "independence" when assessing reliable sources... And "independence" also has plenty of common uses that would confuse new editors, probably more so than "notability". I have a better suggestion: how about we stop putting so much effort into trying to change the language of this guideline and go edit articles? I don't think I've ever seen so much churning here before as we've had in the past month or two. postdlf (talk) 20:51, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Anything complex can confuse people, no matter how much time you spend trying to make it less confusing. If we can avoid insulting people by using emotionally laden words, then maybe we'll have an easier time explaining why their article should not be independent. Matthewhburch (talk) 22:36, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I can't even argue with you about independence having more than one meaning, because there's no argument. It's factually correct to state that independence has only one meaning. Something that is independent is not dependent. Like an article that can stand on it's own merits. There are many different ways that something can be dependent, but there is only one definition of independence. Matthewhburch (talk) 22:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

I would like to comment on the fact that independence is used within Wikipedia as a term to assess reliable resources... Isn't that what Wikipedia's mission is? To create a collection of reliable resources? If it's not, then what exactly is the purpose of Wikipedia? The fact that we use the term independence as a word to help define reliable, stand-alone articles OUTSIDE Wikipedia seems to indicate (to me anyway) that it would be a viable term for describing reliable, stand-alone articles WITHIN Wikipedia. Matthewhburch (talk) 22:50, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

That's a strong argument against use of the term "independence". Quoting WP:GNG, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." That has three separate terms: "significant coverage", "reliable sources", and "independent". If we much make a choice as to which is the most important, I would say it is "significant coverage", with the appropriate noun being "significance". In German, we could make that entire concept one word. But anything less than the entire phrase would confuse newbies. I don't see that as a significant (sorry, I really can't think of a better term) improvement on "notability" to the point that it is worth rewriting and retitling all the notability guidelines, and changing all the links to the notability guidelines from the rest of Wikipedia, including archives. Anything less than that would make it very difficult for people familiar with Wikipedia, but not with the notability guidelines, to understand previous discussions about the guidelines and whether a topic is "notable".
One could make a point for "verifiably significant" as the adjective, (note that "verifiably" is not a word, and this browser's spell-ckeck cannot find a plausible word other than "verifiability"), but I cannot think of an appropriate noun-phrase. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
The sentence you quote is quite clearly written - "...significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject..." It indicates that sources must be significant, reliable, and independent. All three. I would argue that independence is the most critical of the three. If an article is dependent, that (normally) means it cannot be separated from the subject it is written about, and was likely actually generated by someone closely related to the subject. For Example, someone trying to use their autobiography to make a case that they should have a Wikipedia article about themselves. That autobiography, without any other sources, even if it seems significant and is outwardly reliable, is probably not enough to warrant an independent Wikipedia article. The person may, in fact, warrant a Wikipedia article, but not based on their autobiography alone. Dependent sources are also frequent an issue with small businesses and organizations trying to create their own Wikipedia articles. They may well warrant an independent article, but they frequently run into issues with their articles because they try and use too much data from the company's own advertisements, shareholder reports, internal newsletters, etc., rather than from independent sources. Significant coverage can be dependent - it's very common for organizations to publish literature that provides an in depth description of what they do. Reliable sources can be dependent - quarterly reports and status reports to boards of directors are typically factually correct in every way, even if they are misleading. Very few companies or organizations will manage to gain a Wikipedia article based solely on significant or reliable data coming from dependent sources. When independent sources are consulted and can validate the dependent sources, that's when article viability starts to solidify. And that's why I suggest Independence or Article Independence to replace Notability Matthewhburch (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Verifiable is a word. Verifiability a far better word than Notability to describe article independence standards. I still believe that Independence or Article Independence are better choices, but I'd settle for Verifiability. Anything to get rid of the emotionally laden connotations that come as linguistic baggage with Notability and/or a lack thereof. Matthewhburch (talk) 08:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
I didn't say "verifiable" would be an appropriate term. "Verifiable from reliable sources" is the requirement for inclusion of a statement, and we already have WP:V as a guideline representing policy. I said "significant coverage", or perhaps "verifiably significant coverage" as encapsulating the guideline. "Significant, independent, verifiable coverage" might be a single noun-phrase indicating what is needed. But, as a single word, it would have to be "coverage" or "significance". But, IMO, none of these is enough better to justify confusing people reading any previous discussion, as they all would clearly be misinterpreted by newbies. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Anything might conceivably be misinterpreted. Can we maybe aim at using words that don't generate instant negativity from new editors? Significance is just as bad as Notability in terms of negative connotations associated with rejection. It's factually closer than Notability to what Wikipedia editors need to create an article, but telling a editor that their article isn't significant is just as bad, and perhaps worse, than telling them their article isn't notable. We need a word or phrase that describes what is desired, and doesn't have a strong negative connotation when an article is found wanting. Matthewhburch (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

"Independence" is too weak a term. There are many topics with independent coverage but do not make it notable, commonly things like routine sporting events and news stories. These generally are primary sources, reiterating facts without transformation, and as such do not meet what we consider the sourcing required for a standalone article. --MASEM (t) 16:47, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Independence would be the title of the page, describing what the article must be, not the entirety of the page. That's what Notability tries and fails to do now. Most of the article would remain the same as before, other than simple cleaning up wording and getting rid of failed attempts to clearly define exactly how Wikipedia uses the word "Notability." Matthewhburch (talk) 19:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
The issue described above was the approach to describe one word or a short phrase that would be immediately understandable of what the standalone article allowance required, not just a new title. "Notability"'s english definition is much much closer to what we actually use than "independence", and the latter would still require editors to read this page to understand. --MASEM (t) 19:33, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Article Independence is far closer to a definition of what Wikipedia is striving for than Notability is. There are a great many notable things which simply aren't well enough documented to be independent articles. I see hundreds of notable things every day. Most of them have no place in Wikipedia. Article Independence is a clean and unambiguous term with few negative connotations. Article Independence requires a degree of resource integrity and depth that Notability does not. Holding onto an existing term that has proven thousands of times to be a headache for editors is harmful to Wikipedia, especially since it's a poor description of the standard that Wikipedia is trying to set for it's articles. Matthewhburch (talk) 19:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I oppose this. Independence refers to other things, such as sources, and so would be even more confusing. Moreover, if I were to say to a newbie that their article is not independent, they would have no idea what that meant. Notability is an appropriate term, describing what we want it to describe, even if the boundaries may be a bit different to what people think. BethNaught (talk) 19:23, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a source. Are you saying it might be appropriate to apply a different standard to a Wikipedia article than to an outside article? Consider that carefully, as there is cross-referencing within Wikipedia. As for boundaries, I think it would be better for an editor to be a little bit confused about being told that their article is not independent than to be a little confused AND insulted that someone has just said their article isn't notable. Ignorance is a lot easier to deal with when it's not accompanied by anger. Matthewhburch (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Even if they're offended, people know what notable means. But independence can mean so much, and is so ambiguous in context, that it's an even worse piece of jargon in this case. BethNaught (talk) 19:40, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I beg to differ. If people knew what Wikipedia Notability meant, we clearly wouldn't be having this discussion. Additionally, Independence has one single meaning. A lack of dependence. Dependence on what? That's what the rest of the article defines. There is no ambiguity in a word with only one definition. Matthewhburch (talk) 19:52, 24 September 2014 (UTC)
But it's focusing on the wrong aspect. WP:V actually is a policy that requires use to use third-party (implicit: independent) sources, and notability as it standard require muc more than just that. --MASEM (t) 19:54, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The OP is quite clearly confused and not understanding existing policy and guidelines, let alone proposing a meaningful change to them. Wikipedia's purpose is not to create a "collection of reliable resources", but rather to summarize reliable resources that already exist. "The fact that we use the term independence as a word to help define reliable, stand-alone articles OUTSIDE Wikipedia..." No, we don't. We use it to mean independence of the control or influence of the subject being written about, i.e., editorial independence and no conflict of interest. "Stand-alone...OUTSIDE Wikipedia" doesn't mean anything, as we don't care, for example, if a source is a book, an article in a newspaper, the preface to a pamphlet, part of an edited anthology, etc. None of that formatting or presentation of a source has anything to do with whether we consider a source "independent," nor does it have any relation to whether we format something within WP as a separate page.

On the possible confusion as to what else "independence" could mean, "independence" could refer to the formatting, which is the most mundane way of saying it's maintained as a separate page, which satisfying notability neither guarantees nor necessarily precludes. It could just as easily refer to the subject, to mean "not dependent on another topic," which to the extent it isn't nonsensical is clearly not a standard at all given that we regularly maintain subtopics on separately formatted pages, such as Origins of the American Civil War, History of the United States (1865–1918), Religious views of Isaac Newton; none of these are "independent" topics (and see also WP:SPLIT). "Independence" could also refer to editor integrity, to mean (similar to how we use it in the RS context) "not written by someone affiliated with the subject," and we clearly require more than simply a lack of WP:COI to include an article in WP. This was probably a waste of time to explain, but regardless this proposal is a nonstarter and this thread should just be closed. postdlf (talk) 20:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

This argument is meaningless. "Wikipedia's purpose is not to create a "collection of reliable resources", but rather to summarize reliable resources that already exist." A summary of reliable resources that already exist is, in fact, a collection of reliable resources. Trying to state otherwise is a dangerous breach from logic. Matthewhburch (talk) 03:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
As for Independence, the word itself... The confusion and irritation behind using Notability is clearly and demonstrably indicated almost every day to everyone with any interest in this topic. There are various means by which dependence can be determined, but if no dependence can be clearly identified that is sufficient to keep an article from having it's own place, then it should be an independent article. Dependencies would be subjective to some degree. Independence would not be. Independence is a FAR cleaner description of what Wikipedia seeks in article creation than Notability ever can be, with far fewer negative connotations. Certainly people can still misunderstand it - people can misunderstand anything, but anyone with even the smallest bit of common sense must agree that it's far easier to deal with someone who is merely ignorant than it is to deal with someone who is BOTH angry and ignorant Matthewhburch (talk) 03:16, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Independence is only one factor; the standalone article criteria, at its core, is "significant coverage in multiple independent secondary sources". There is no single work for this, though "notability" in the english language ("worthy of note") is the closest word for this. And far far closer than "independence" is by itself. It's also not our fault if people do not both to read relevant policy and guideline when people quote these at them. --MASEM (t) 03:26, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
It IS our fault, if we intentionally continue to use words with immediate negative connotations which create anger and confusion, as opposed to neutral words which might create some confusion, but without the anger component. In fact, there is another phrase we can use, which I would readily support. I'll even say it's better than an "Article Independence" Why don't we use YOUR term? "Standalone Article Standard" would satisfy me. Unlike many other people, when I argue for change, it doesn't have to be change exactly how I imagine it. Would you be satisfied to use your own term? Matthewhburch (talk) 13:48, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with "notability". It's not a negative phrase. And "Standalone Article Standard" doesn't help as discussed above about using "inclusion" - instead of saying "the topic is not notable" which carries at least some indication of a problem, "the article fails our Standalone Article Standard" has no information about what the problem. Either way, the editors still need to read the page to really understand and if they don't opt to and get angry when their topic is deleted, that's not our fault. But providing a description reason that captures the bulk of what we consider appropriate for a standalone at least helps to understand in context. --MASEM (t) 14:01, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
There is certainly something wrong with notability, or people wouldn't be here trying to get us to use a better term. Notability has connotations of intrinsic value, worthiness, or fame. When you tell people their article does not meet Notability standards, you are telling anyone who has a competent understanding of English and little understanding of Wikipedia that their article has null value. If, after the number of times I, and others, have explained it, you do not see this clear and obvious fact, I'm certain that you are intentionally not seeing it. To be frank, at this point it seems very clear to me that you have no interest in improving this page, you simply want to have it stay the same. Do you really feel that you are being objective here about the potential to create something better here when you don't even agree with the potential alternate words you yourself have used? Are you subconsciously trying to own this page? Matthewhburch (talk) 14:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
"Notability has connotations of intrinsic value, worthiness, or fame." And yes, that's why it's our measure for a standalone page, we just add some semi-objective metrics (the quality of the sourcing, since sourcing is king on WP) to avoid too much subjectivity ("My garage band is the best in the world"-type logic). "Independence" does not carry that same weight. I'm all for improving what we can, but there's also something to be said that this works - if we lose editors that do not want to even read our policies and guidelines and just argue because they said so, we're not losing much. --MASEM (t) 14:44, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem, the criterion for writing articles is definitely not based on intrinsic value or fame; it's based on our ability to create an article that doesn't suck. I've always seen WP:N as an extension of WP:NPOV, making sure that there's enough content to define the topic properly and that independent people have assessed the most important parts of it to summarize, irregardless of who cares about the topic or how obscure it is. If information about garage bands could be gathered in a reliable way, we should be covering those too - in fact we do just that for high schools, geographical places, etc. that have nothing to do with worthiness, on the condition that the content comes from governments on which we can rely.
Wikipedia's mission is to compile all human knowledge, not just human knowledge that got their 15 minutes of fame. We reject content because we are not sure it counts as 'knowledge' in a reliable way, not because we deem it unworthy of our mission. Diego (talk) 15:06, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh, and "notability" is not a negative phrase, but "your topic is not notable" is. I support "stand alone page" as a self-descriptive term that would convey what we're talking about, together with the "enough independent sources that cover the topic" explanation that we must do anyway because "notability" does nothing to explain the actual policy. Diego (talk) 15:12, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
To write a good encyclopedic article, you need sources; not only ones that present fact but one that establishes the context of the topic to the rest of the world at large. This needs reliable sources that are independent of the topic (as to avoid self-promotion/self-worthiness) and show some transformation in the form of anaylsis or critique via secondary sources so that the topic is established as relevant in the larger context of human knowledge, rather than just reiterating information. All that is showing a topic "worthy of note". That's why notability is the most appropriate word to describe what we want; we need more than just independent sources that are just reiterating a topic in a primary source manner. And while "your topic is not notable" can be taken negative, so can "your topic doesn't meet our inclusion guidelines", "your topic fails independence", etc. Any way we are going to call this, the application in AFDs and other discussions from those looking for deletion will always be a negative turn of the phrase. Of all of these "your topic is not notable" (without a link to the guideline) is the most descriptive. --MASEM (t) 15:30, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
"Your topic fails our guidelines" -> we have some pre-existing rules, please look at them to see how your proposal does not match them.
"Your topic is not notable" -> nobody cares about it.
You really don't see how the second is worse for a newcomer? Diego (talk) 15:38, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
(ec) Yes, and that's an issue to discuss at AFD practice. "Your topic fails our notability guidelines" is the same information as "your topic is not notable" but also explains that we have guidelines to judge notability. We just need editors to avoid just saying "your topic is not notable" (which is actually an WP:ATA already) - if you're going to say "your topic is not notable", you should expand on why (such as the lack of sources, etc.). You're going to need to do that anyway if you use "Your topic fails our guidelines" to explain exactly what guidelines there are. That's all AFD behavior issues and little to do with notability itself. --MASEM (t) 15:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Why not simply use a different word or phrase which conveys roughly the same meaning, yet doesn't have built-in negative connotations? Why not improve Wikipedia? Matthewhburch (talk) 00:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Diego, Masem said above "I'm all for improving what we can, but there's also something to be said that this works - if we lose editors that do not want to even read our policies and guidelines and just argue because they said so, we're not losing much." It appears as if Masem is suggesting that we should intentionally keep using the word Notability instead of better words or phrases precisely because it makes people angry when they are told that their articles are not notable. If he stands behind that unfortunate statement above, I would say that this clearly indicates that he does not have the best interest of Wikipedia in mind, he's in it for the schadenfreude. Matthewhburch (talk) 15:43, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Please AGF and avoid personal attacks. I have seen enough first time editors come to WP and try to force a topic onto WP and have zero interest in trying to learn about established practices; they don't want to be editors, they want a topic covered on WP. These are the people that get upset the most when they are told their article is going to be deleted for notability reasons. If they don't spend the 5 minutes to read up on all the basic policy and guidelines that are outlined when creating a new page, and instead fight to keep the article, they are not the type of editors that are going to work productively and cooperatively as we require from all editors on WP, and losing them does less damage than allowing them to stay around. At the same time, I've seen plenty of new editors create a new topic that wasn't notable, and when told that their topic would be deleted due to this, read up on the policy and asked intelligent questions or sought more sources, or realized what the problem was, and have gone on to be productive contributors. We cannot expect everyone that attempts to edit WP is going to be this type of editor, and while I will agree that using phrasing like "Your topic is not notable" at AFD without other comment is harsh, we cannot pander to all new editors if they refuse to do a basic amount of understanding of WP's practices before contributing; those that refuse to want to learn are not really the type of editors we want. --MASEM (t) 15:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem, if you choose to continue to support causing unnecessary irritation to new editors by deliberately supporting the use of a word that you yourself admit causes irritation to editors, it's not a personal attack for me to say you are embracing schadenfreude - you're admitting it yourself. I'm just using the word. Matthewhburch (talk) 16:19, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
It is not the word, it is the phrasing used at AFD that is the issue, and its going to be the same problem irregardless if this was named "notability", "independence" , "inclusion guidelines" or "gobblygook". The phrasing "Your topic is not X" is negative, to start. We hope that editors explain that in more depth and/or link to this guideline to give the page editor guidance what to do. But editors in debates at AFD often forget this and just leave their !vote as "Your article is not X", which is of course going to cause issues. But it won't matter if X is "notability" or "independence", that's the point. It is not the word, it is the behavior of experience editors that should be adjusted. --MASEM (t) 16:27, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
While behavior of individuals is certainly part of the problem, it's most certainly not the whole problem. In fact a lot of the belligerence of some reviewers is because they are sick and friggin tired of people misunderstanding Wikipedia's bastardized definition of Notability. When a new editor gets upset at being told their article is not notable, the reviewer gets upset because they know what's going to happen next, and they can't stop it, because Wikipedia has failed to fix the problem. Words carry weight. Choose the wrong word in a tense situation and you cause a fight. Choose the wrong word when you talk to your wife, and you sleep on the couch. Choose the wrong words when you talk to your kids, and they will tune you out. People respond strongly to word use. Continue to use an emotionally charged word to describe Wikipedia article standards, and you continue to anger at least some people unnecessarily. Matthewhburch (talk) 16:45, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Our definition of notability is basically the english language version - is the topic worthy of note, or does it have the importance, fame, or popularity to be included in WP? We just have the added semi-objective test of how you make that determination instead of relying on very subjective claims. It is the most accurate word that describes the process. Mind you, within WP I'm sure people have come to resent the word for having articles deleted because of that (eg in the same way people react to the word "taxes"), but that's no reason to change the best-suited word to describe the process most precisely of all other possible English words. --MASEM (t) 17:08, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
It is clear and obvious to anyone with an understanding of English as a mode of communication that Notability is simply an inferior word choice because of the tremendous negative connotations associated with telling a new editor that their article is not notable. Even if it were clearly the most accurate possible description of article independence standards, which it is not, it would be worth changing the name simply because of the negative connotations associated with everyday results of the use of the terms. You personally, based on your own statements, appear to support the choice of the word because it allows reviewers to anger people while hiding behind a façade of legitimacy, creating a sort of culling effect on editors that you apparently feel has value. I submit that maintaining a poor choice of words simply to satisfy the sense of schadenfreude that we all have within us to some degree or other is not in the best interest of Wikipedia. I submit that your commentary here clearly indicates that you have no interest in improving this Wikipedia article, and should recuse yourself from the discussion. Matthewhburch (talk) 00:16, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
If there was a more precise word than notability, then I would be more considering of it; however "independence" is not that word for reasons well described above. You are also not assuming my arguments in any good faith and approaching a personal attack. I am not supporting purposely angering newbies, but key here is that is how editors at AFD can often be terse to present something that is otherwise not negative in its inherent meaning to something that is, but that's going to happen regardless of what word we have chosen. --MASEM (t) 00:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Splitting hairs. For the sake of argument, I will agree with you that there may not be a single word that describes the intent and purpose of this page better than "Notability" So let's use two words. Or three. Maybe even four. Do you really believe that it would be less precise to call this page "Guidelines for Standalone Articles" or something similar? Brevity has it's value, but I would be more than happy to give up a little brevity for a bit less negativity. A small group of persons with a moderate or better understanding of the English language and some interest in improving Wikipedia could come up with many different short phrases to better describe this article's function. Matthewhburch (talk) 01:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
"Article Independence" carries a FAR more weight than "Notability" does, since Notability is literally being used here as a guideline for Article Independence. That's what this article IS. A guideline for article independence. There are other words and phrases that could be used instead of "Article Independence." There are many terms I'd be happy with, including your suggestion above, which you have since backed away from. It's one thing to lose a few editors because they don't read the policies. It's another thing entirely to lose new editors because they have been insulted by the use of a poorly chosen word. Matthewhburch (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
No, again, independence does not fully capture what notability looks for, at the surface (that is, assuming the user doesn't opt to read anything). They can present a topic that has plenty of independent sources, but we would still need to consider the full implications of notability (whether those sources are significant coverage and if they are secondary), so we might be telling them , more often than with "notability" , that "your topic fails our independence guidelines" which seems contradictory if they have supplied many independent sources. In the case of "notability" there is not the same type of condatriction. --MASEM (t) 15:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia "Article Independence" is what this article defines, even when it's called "Notability. If we tell someone "your article fails our article independence guidelines," they will be confused and ask why, because an article not being independent is difficult to construe as an attack. If we tell someone "your article fails our notability guidelines," they are very likely to become angry, because you have just told the average new editor that their article lacks intrinsic value. You ADMIT this. Moreso, you appear to APPROVE of angering people in the hopes that they will leave. People can be confused by pretty much anything, because not everyone has the same education, and not every reviewer will use the same phrasing. That being said, there would be clear and obvious improvement if we can introduce different wording that is comparably understandable, but lacks emotional baggage. I think you have made it clear that you not only don't understand this, you believe the opposite of it. Matthewhburch (talk) 16:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
No, saying "your article isn't notable" is the problem statement, but "your article fails our notability guidelines" is the same effective language in terms of neutrality of the message as "your article fails our article inclusion guidelines" (the key wording being "our () guidelines" as to imply something specific to WP that they should read up on). I am not proposing we purposely irritate editors, but I have no sympathy when an editor gets upset when someone puts forth a fair statement, like "Your article fails our notability guidelines for reasons X, Y, and Z", about why the article should be deleted. Those are the editors that likely won't be useful contributors in the future if they do not change their attitude. The emotional baggage is something in the phrasing people use at AFD, but it not from what this page is named. --MASEM (t) 16:41, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
So you do understand the problem. Why do you wish to preserve it rather than improving Wikipedia? Matthewhburch (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
The problem is not the name of this page. The problem is AFD behavior, when people only mention a guideline or policy page and don't give any further reason for their !vote. Again, if this was named "independence" as you suggest, experienced editors that exhibit the problem behavior will be saying "your topic doesn't have independence" compared to "your topic isn't notable", which is back at the same problem of being a short, blunt statement that offers no understanding to the new editor what the problem is. That's why the problem is not on this page, but elsewhere. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I actually think Masem still doesn't understand the problem, if he thinks "your article fails our notability guidelines" is as neutral as "your article fails our article inclusion guidelines". Masem, the problem is not the wording, nor (merely) the behavior at deletion discussion, it's the implicit value judgement in connecting the topic with worthiness that the word "notability" carries with it. Diego (talk) 16:58, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
No, I fully understand that point, and I disagree. Any phrase that is "our (x) guidelines" means that the reader should be going to that guideline page and reading up on it. If they don't want to do that, then they are going to try to infer meaning from what (x) is, and for all purposes, "notability" is the best word to describe what we want them to show. "Inclusion" gives no information at all, "Independence" is not precise enough. --MASEM (t) 17:03, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
...and "notability" feels like an insult. Even if we agreed that it's the most precise one (which personally I don't), that doesn't make it a good idea to keep it. Diego (talk) 17:10, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
I appreciate that it might seem insulting, if people keep using the phrase "your topic is not notable"; that line of logic I see just fine. But changing from the most precise term we have "notability" to something that's less precise but more friendly for the purposes of having to deal with improperly terse AFD reasons, and where the same problem would exist with the new terminology if that terseness is not address, is not a step in the right direction. While being more friendly to some, losing that preciseness will be harmful to others. (example from above: a new editor's article might be full of independent sources but lack the other qualities we need, but we would be telling them "your article fails our independence guidelines" which seems extremely confusing if they didn't read up on that). The weight of trying to avoid biting the newbies compared to being clear on reasons is just not there, particularly when 90% of the problems likely stem from experienced editors being too terse and blunt at AFD. Fix the AFD problem first, and if there are still issues, then we can see about this. --MASEM (t) 17:22, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
Masem, based on your arguments above, it's obvious that you are intentionally missing the point. Wikipedia is supposed to be a place where articles are defined both by solid documentation and by consensus to at least some degree. That involves working as a team. "Notability" is clearly and demonstrably a failure in the collaborative Wikipedia environment. The term generates conflict from it's simple existence. This thread, and others before it clearly demonstrate this, even if you do not consider what's happening in AFD discussions every single day. Notability is not the only word choice that will work to describe this article. Notability is one of the worst word choices possible if one considers how to phrase AFD rejection. You clearly believe that there is absolutely no possible room for compromise in any way, shape, or form on the name of this article despite it's obvious failures. You have stated quite clearly, both directly and indirectly, that you believe the negative connotations that come with Wikipedia's bastardized use of notability should be used as a culling effect to drive away new editors. It has become clear that it is not possible to have a meaningful conversation with you on this topic. The level of irony present in this discussion is astounding. Your arguments parallel the behavior of an editor involved in AFD who absolutely refuses to listen to any arguments that are not in precise alignment with their own beliefs. In an AFD, that generally leads to deletion. Here, unfortunately, it only gets in the way of improving Wikipedia. Matthewhburch (talk) 01:03, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Please stop the personal attacks, and instead AFG, because in no way did I say we should intentionally cull editors; I'm pointing out the fact that we will get editors that are only here to push their pet topic to be a stand alone article and will not listen to reason, and while these will be the people that get angry, they will also be the ones that will have little future contribution to WP if they refuse to understand our policies and act cooperatively. And I will assert that the concept of notability has been many a battleground on WP, but in a good way since each little "battle" helps to refine how we approach it. But it is very much silly to assume the word, why by itself outside of WP has no negative connotations, is the core issue here. It is how people use the word to new editors, made worse when they do not provide sufficient content. The same thing would happen if this was "Independence". The word choice is not going to make as big a difference as you think. --MASEM (t) 01:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
"It is how people use the word to new editors, made worse when they do not provide sufficient content." Then let's fix it, by no longer using the clearly inferior word that creates far more problems than it is worth. One does not typically use uncouth four-letter words in polite conversation because it will drive polite people away. The same rule holds here. Inappropriate negativity that is easily avoided should be avoided, so we do not drive people away. Words have weight. Maybe we need two words, three, or even four, but it is absolutely absurd to believe that Notability is the best possible descriptor for this article. You clearly discount the value of words, as evinced by your statement "The word choice is not going to make as big a difference as you think." It's not just me that thinks this. Scan up a few threads. The fact that you have browbeaten others into giving up efforts to improve this article doesn't make you right, it just means that they have better things to do, and don't consider improving this article to be worth dealing with behavior which very closely borders on article ownership. Matthewhburch (talk) 01:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

@Matthewhburch: Thank you for trying to come up with a better word to express "the subject must have received significant coverage from multiple independent reliable sources". But it should be evident by now that "independence" is not that word. You have not achieved consensus (or any) support for your proposal. Instead we have a string of individual conversations, where people tell you they oppose the idea, and you argue with them for a while. It is apparent that this discussion is not productive and is not going to result in your proposed change being adopted. Maybe it's time to drop the idea and move on? --MelanieN (talk) 18:23, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you MelanieN, but I believe that if you look at the threads above this one, historically, you will see that there are and were many others who agree that notability is a less than optimal term to describe this article, but it seems as if this page has an 'owner' who devotes a significant amount of time to clogging up any attempt at rational discussion. At this point, I am trying to get this 'owner' to recognize their behavior in the hopes that they will stop being a junkyard dog, and start helping us improve the article. If that happens, we might be able to have a fruitful discussion leading to improvement. The fact that this thread must be persecuted much like an AFD is irritating, and I apologize for it, but it seems necessary. Matthewhburch (talk) 01:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
You've been asked to avoid personal attacks. Terms like "junkyard dog" violate the spirit of Wikipedia and make fruitful discussion impossible. Please moderate your language. And to respond to your comment: when I look at the threads above I do see many people looking for some other word than "notability" - but I don't see anyone saying that "independence" is that word. --MelanieN (talk) 04:40, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I think I have been clear that I would welcome any other appropriate term or phrase that could gain consensus here to replace Notability. I'm hoping that I've made my point, and we will be allowed to have a discussion that is not clogging with repetitive dogmatic insistence that Notability is the perfect word and should never be changed despite all the evidence to the contrary. I will be creating a new section in the next couple days that will be dedicated only to collecting potential words and phrases that might have potential to replace Notability. My reasoning for this approach is that one of the things I've noticed about mega-thread style discussions is that they rarely provide results even though they are frequently good reading and full of great ideas. I think a step-by-step approach that is carefully designed to avoid clutter would be best, especially here with the long history of discussion about the name of this article. Matthewhburch (talk) 06:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I think (or at least hope) we are all willing to discuss options. However, my take is that (so far) none of the suggestions are significantly better than the term "Notability". All have been problematic. "Notability" may not be perfect... but it seems like the best term we have been able to come up with to get across what we are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 01:52, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Concur with Blueboar and MelanieN's analysis.
Also, in my experience, when an editor suddenly proposes unusually dramatic changes to longstanding Wikipedia policies or guidelines, it is often because within the last year, community consensus cited one of those policies or guidelines as the reason for deleting one of their own articles or to excise massive portions of their edits.
Sure enough, if you skim the OP's contributions page, it turns up a lengthy discussion in June 2014 at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Draft:Propulsion methods utilizing fuel accelerated from a remote fuel source in which the draft was challenged as non-notable. Also notice in that discussion how the OP is repeatedly scolded by other editors for repeated violations of Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, particularly WP:ICANTHEARYOU. The fact this apparent Wikipedia:Conflict of interest was not immediately disclosed up front with the proposal above should be kept in mind going forward. --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:07, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Indeed, please do keep it in mind moving forward. I have never denied having issues with Wikipedia Notability due to my own experience with this page's choice of title. The article I was working on was deleted because Wikipedia Notability is not the same as English Notability. When I was reviewing the article creation guidelines, I looked into the notability page, and, unfortunately, didn't notice that Wikipedia had bastardized "Notability". On the surface, even on this page, Wikipedia Notability seems to be the same as English Notability. But it's not. So it causes problems. So editors waste time. So reviewers anger new editors. I have no problem with the deletion of that article. Now. Before the end of the AfD, if you read carefully, rather than skimming it, you will see that I requested it's deletion. The fact that you, in the statement above this, just used the term "non-notable" to describe that article is a clear supporting indication that this page is flawed. "Non-notable" is exactly the type of phrase that makes this page far less than ideal, and if you use it here, in the middle of this particular argument, you have proved my point. Thank You. Matthewhburch (talk) 22:02, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Coocaesar, I think Conflict of Interest is too strong a term. COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia to promote your own interests, including your business or financial interests, or those of your external relationships, such as with family, friends or employers. I don't see that here. What I do see, is an interesting backstory shedding light on the OP's motivation. --MelanieN (talk) 21:57, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Actually, to be fair, User:Fuhghettaboutit had the right analysis of the situation at the end of the discussion I linked to above. The real issue with the proposed draft article by User:Matthewhburch that he ultimately agreed to ask for deletion of was not so much that it was non-notable (although that appears to have been part of the problem), but that it violated Wikipedia:No original research (it was a proposed synthesis of several currently separate concepts in rocketry which violates the WP:NOR policy against first publication of new synthesis). And that policy is non-negotiable, as has been reiterated thousands of times. It's one of the things that ensures WP remains an encyclopedia---no more and no less. Not clear on what's the point of urging such a massive change in a long-established and easily-understood guideline when the real issue was with WP:NOR anyway. Anyway, changing the WP:NOR policy has zero probability of success. (Hundreds of permanently banned editors can testify to that.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:43, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Notability, again

Latest comment: 10 years ago14 comments9 people in discussion

There are problems here. I admit to saying "this topic is not notable" rather than "this topic fails the notability guidelines". But there is clearly no better term yet proposed than an form of "noted". Let's look closely at WP:GNG: ... a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

As Masam points out, this is a quasi-objective formulation of the subjective term "notability". As a single word, notability (or the artificial construct "notedness") or possibly "significance" are the only possible words. "Inclusion" is wrong, as there are other guidelines which can also make a topic inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia, or inclusion as a separate article on Wikipedia. "Independence" is just wrong. "Reliable"? No. "Significance". Maybe. "Significant coverage" (with reliable and independent as modifiers). OK, that might work. "Coverage" (converted to an adjective and then to a noun, which I'm not sure how to do) may be best.

Even if we can come up with a "better" term, there is the question of whether rewriting all the notability guidelines (not just changing a word here and there) and editing all the guidelines which point to the notability guidelines is worth the additional confusion for existing editors, and the confusion for new editors in that previous AfD discussions which point to these guidelines would not then be understandable unless all pages which point to the guidelines are edited; even then, editors familiar with the "notability" guidelines would probably be somewhat confused by the new name.

Any guideline is going to confuse new editors for a while, until/unless they read the guidelines. We need to avoid confusing established editors, and unnecessarily confusing new editors.

In other words, I cannot imagine a significantly better term, and, because of the effort involved in the confusion to existing editors, the term has to be significantly better for the change to be justified. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:25, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

I happen to like coverage, as it focus on the actual criterion used for stand alone articles in a way that notable does not. I don't agree that the GNG is a definition of notedness; the main point is not that people have noticed the topic, but that they have provided relevant content describing it. Noting a subject by giving it awards and recognition has never been enough to write an article; on the other hand, having significant coverage has been enough, even for topics with little recognition. "Notability" implies that we cover only topics of fame, but that's not our scope; we happen to cover obscure topics, and obscure is the opposite of notable.
So yes, IMO coverage is significantly better than notability, both because its more accurate and because it carries less unpleasant connotations when used for removing content. Diego (talk) 12:14, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Coverage would be far better than Notability in my opinion. At the same time, I think it might be best for us to move to a phrase rather than a word for the article title. Something as important as the standards laid out in this article deserves a description with as little ambiguity as we can manage. Clearly, for the sake of everyone's sanity, brevity is to be desired, but it's truly poor form for Wikipedia, as a receptacle of knowledge, to use a bastardized English term (Notability) to describe one of it's core concepts. The negative connotations associated with rejection under the Notability guidelines is also poor form for any institution. Notability is, arguably, one of the best single words to match the article, but this isn't the Highlander. There can be more than one. Matthewhburch (talk) 13:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
"Coverage" , like 'independence" is too imprecise. It doesn't talk about the kind of sources, so someone might consider a topic covered in many many primary sources (eg more worldwide news stories) to be appropriate, but that's not true. And this again comes down to trying not to upset people who do not want to bother to read the actual guideline to understand the issue and the problem of experience editors forgetting to expand on AFD !votes; it is not a problem with the name of this page, it is a behavioral problem. --MASEM (t) 13:57, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Just like "Notability" is imprecise. Someone might think that something notable in the English sense of the word is automatically eligible for inclusion in Wikipedia. That is not the case. You are trying to use a single word to describe a complex idea. That is not working well. It has never worked well. It can never work well. If the community wants to continue to use a single imprecise word for this article, great. Let's choose one that doesn't almost automatically cause anger when an editor is told they don't meet the standard of "X" Matthewhburch (talk) 14:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
And that is the same problem with all the other words you've suggested too; a topic could have "independence" or could have "coverage" and still not be appropriate to include. You're trying to offload the two problems of RTFM and Don't Bite the Newbies to a single term that is not the core issue here. If people are getting angry that 100% says it is a behavior problem, not a guideline one. --MASEM (t) 14:22, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Trying to find a single word (or 2/3 word phrase) to encapuslate what we want is impossible, because no English word exists that covers all the nuances of Wikipedia notability. So really we're trying to find the best of a bad bunch. For reasons others have explained, I still think notability is the best, plus there's not the effort of changing everything. I also agree with those who say it's a behaviour issue – newbies should read the guidelines and experienced editors should link to them to make it clear that "notability" means a specific thing here. BethNaught (talk) 14:23, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
"no English word exists that conveys all the nuances of Wikipedia notability." I agree with this. Notability certainly doesn't convey all the nuances of Wikipedia notability, and lack of notability is something that is easily misunderstood at an insult. So, use more than one word. How about "Encyclopedic Suitability" Matthewhburch (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
  • NOTE... I think this discussion is important enough that we need Wikipedia-wide notice and participation. Our current Notability guideline is referred to in multiple other policy/guidance pages. Any significant change to the language or focus of this page is going to have an impact on those other policy/guideline pages (and especially all the various SNGs). The editors who work on those policy/guideline pages need to be notified that this discussion is happening, so that they will have a chance to be involved and share their views.
People do not like surprises... If we try to significantly change this guideline without lots of announcements informing the broader community that a change might be in the works, any change we here on this page may agree to will simply be overturned, once the rest of the Wikipedia community discovers we made the change. We need to build a very very broad consensus. Blueboar (talk) 12:44, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I agree that any such change will need external feedback, but first we should have a workable compromise, with all of us agreeing on what are the most solid reasons for or against the change, backing up a concrete change proposal. If it's already hard to gain consensus from the few directly interested in this guideline, it would be impossible to navigate through the noise that community-wide discussions gather. Diego (talk) 13:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. Come up with something that a few people can agree to, then widen the scope and invite more comments after the initial proposals go through the wringer a couple times to get the worst issues handled. If the greater community turns up it's nose, then we look at the negative comments and see if we can reconcile them with a different idea, and try again. We will want any proposal to the population as a whole to be brief, clean, and ideally have at least one sample article rewrite people could review to see what the article would look like after the change is implemented. If all we do is suggest a new name, people will be concerned, and rightfully so, about the attendant changes. Matthewhburch (talk) 13:50, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

"Gutting" an article during deletion discussion

Latest comment: 10 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

I've created an essay on Gutting an article during deletion discussion.

You may find it interesting reading at: User:Cirt/Gutting.

Cheers,

— Cirt (talk) 18:23, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

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