Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 62

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Clarify "Reliable Source" in this Context

Forgive me if this has already been hashed out before, or if this is better suited for an RfC.

I have already seen several disagreements arise regarding whether or not a subject is notable that hinge upon the reliability of sources. For some, it seems that the same standards that apply to sources of article content also apply to sources used to establish notability. However, WP:RSCONTEXT makes it clear that the reliability of a source depends upon what statement from an article it is being used to establish. Therefore, an article written by a political pundit is a reliable source of that pundit's political views, but that same article may not be a reliable source of information about public policy, for example.

For the purposes of establishing notability, however, it seems to me that nearly any source could be considered reliable. No matter how biased a source is, or how poor its editorial practices are, the simple fact that it is giving coverage to a subject is some indication of that subject's notability. Some of the most widely consumed sources are also arguably the least trustworthy. Therefore, it seems to me that a more important factor in evaluating a source for the purpose of establishing notability would be the source's own notability, which may be completely detached from its reliability.

For example, President Trump may not be the most reliable source of information. However, millions of people follow his Twitter account, and one series of Tweets by him can instantly catapult the most obscure subject to instant, world-wide recognition. Other sources may be required to supply the actual content of an an article, but its notabity would be assured.

Since this is a talk page and not an RfC, I'll just conclude by suggesting that text be added to the bullet about reliability to clarify this point one way or another. Snoopydaniels (talk) 20:20, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Reliability is only one facet of evaluating sources for notability. We also need to look at how much substance/coverage there is from the source, the independence of the source to the topic at hand, and whether the source is secondary to the topic at hand. So a source talking about themselves or something they are very closely related with, while they may be reliable for their statements, fails the independence check for notability. --Masem (t) 20:33, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I picked a poor example. I'm talking about situations where the source is independent and gives significant coverage to the subject. That same source may be reliable for little else, but would it not at least be reliable for the purpose of establishing notability? An extremely biased news outlet could write a entire hit piece on someone, making it both independent and providing significant coverage. That hit piece would not be a reliable source of information about the subject, but (it seems to me) that hit piece would nevertheless indicate that the subject is notable. Snoopydaniels (talk) 21:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

If it is not reliable for much else, that usually means the source is only reliable for its opinion. Which is reasonable, but then that begs the questions of how many other sources hold that opinion or talk about it, or how much of an expert in that field that the writer is to make the opinion appropriate to include without any other sources. Generally, that's just not going to be the case, so a source lacking reliability is not going to help demonstrate notability for a topic. --Masem (t) 13:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure I understand what you're saying. Take a specific example, like Alberto Rivera (activist) As you'll see, the references consist almost entirely of highly opinionated sources. If opinionated sources can't be used to at least establish notability, then it seems like this article should be deleted because it only includes one source that is not either Catholic or Anti-Catholic. That course of actiom doesn't make much sense to me, though. Opinionated or no, these sources thought that the subject was notable enough to publish literature about him. (That article is not what elicited this question, it's just an example. As far as I know, there is no effort to have that article deleted.) Snoopydaniels (talk) 15:55, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I think that for notability purposes "independent" should be interpreted as with respect to the decision to give them coverage. And so, for that particulare "independent" criteria, biased sources could still meet it. If you talk about independence with respect to bias/ credibility on what they say, that's a whole different can of worms where Wikipedia is about 10 years out of date. What used to be "reliable sources" are now often unreliable due to bias, and often actors as much as they are coverers of actors. But that's more of a wp:ver and wpnpov issue. North8000 (talk) 17:57, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

So could we add text to the effect of "A source need not be impartial in order to satisfy the reliability requirement for establishing notability. It is sufficient that the decision of the author or publisher to cover the subject is independent of the subject. Thus, if a political organization publishes information about an adversarial politician, for example, this can be considered a reliable indicator of that politician's notability, even though this political organization could not be considered reliable source for other kinds of information." Would this be something to take to the Village pump? Snoopydaniels (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

No source is impartial, and this has never been a requirement for reliability in any context. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:28, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

The current guideline, "Identifying reliable sources", states that "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject." See: WP:Identifying_reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources. DonFB (talk) 05:06, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

@Someguy1221: @DonFB: I understand and agree completely. I just get the impression from some editors that they don't appreciate this nuance, so I think it may be helpful to provide clarification of how to apply WP:RS in this specific situation.

As a note this seems to be in relation to this discussion, though its being carefully avoided.--Kevmin § 02:56, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Partially. There are reliable sources in that DRV, so this issue not immediately relevant. But the earlier DRV from February in particular includes a lot of comments that demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of several points of Wikipedia's guidelines, including the meaning of "reliable" and "independent." I have avoided directly referencing the Bechly dispute, because I don't want to preempt the normal dispute resolution process and turn this into a discussion about a specific case. It's just something that generally needs clarification, based on the disagreements it leads to. Snoopydaniels (talk) 17:03, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Typically, when assessing sources for notability, I look for editorial and intellectual independence between sources — different writers, separate editorial control not just independence from the subject. I will generally consider author or 'walled garden'/'in universe' group as a single source. (This is the same principle as treating a news-wire story picked up and lightly edited by many newspapers as a single source.) Also, a good rule of thumb is if the source can only contribute "attributed opinion" then it should not be given much weight towards notability. If I had to quantify it I would want two-thirds of an article to come from material which does not have to be attributed as opinion. Otherwise I would be concerned about being able to present an NPOV article.

Nothing like this is documented in Wikipedia's PaGs and I do not think it would be easy to spell out. I also do not think it is really necessary. We already have WP:V, NPOV and BLP which constrain what we include and how we include it. If the bulk of sources must be attributed as opinion then it is not possible to write a policy compliant article. While 'eventualism' says it is not necessary to do everything now, it is not possible to say 'lets keep this article because eventually it will be compliant with policy'. Jbh ^Talk 17:57, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

I think Snoopy raises a good point. There is a big difference between notability and reliability. Notability should not be contingent on whether we think the source is reputable. In the extreme, many people here might not think the Bible is a reputable source, but we still give pages to people mentioned in it. There's been some cases recently where certain media sources have been taken off the wikipedia reliable sources list, for example the Daily Mail in the Uk. After this happened, some people were saying that every single source from the DM should be removed. I don't personally agree with that, as even if you don't think it's a good outlet for coverage, it still is a measure of notability for the things it covers.Egaoblai (talk) 01:45, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_220#Daily_Mail_RfC Here is the Feb 2017 RFC, in which the closing admin says that because they are not accepting the DM as a reliable source, "the Daily Mail should not be used for determining notability," To me this is confusing, because the Daily Mail is a national newspaper and surely if it publishes something that makes the subject somewhat notable, regardless of it's source?Egaoblai (talk) 01:50, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Can a subject specific guideline invalidate the General Notability Guideline?

Wikipedia:Notability clearly states: A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. If a group change a SSG to say the GNG doesn't count, and passing it doesn't count towards notability of an article, does that give them the right to just ignore what Wikipedia:Notability says? Dream Focus 23:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

A subject-specific notability guideline can apply more stringent conditions that sources or other facets related to the GNG must meet in the field, as long as the basic premise of the GNG remains upheld. Tighter source requirements is a common aspect related to many topics, like MEDRS for example. --Masem (t) 23:35, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) passed a new bit last month that says that while having a media source reviewing a company makes it notable, if a credible tech magazine decides instead of just writing about them to interview someone from the company to talk about it, then that doesn't count towards notability like it does for everything else. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Holvi is where the argument is at. Dream Focus 23:42, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Because WP is seen as a means of promotion by too many companies, those behind the NCORP guidelines had to be explicitly clear that certain type of sources - which may be fine for any other topic - is not sufficient for the notability related to companies. That's completely reasonable. --Masem (t) 23:51, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

So do you want to change WP:NOTABILITY to say that? If it was a lesser media source they could bribe to interview them, they could also secretly pay them to publish an article about them, so it makes no sense to ignore one and not the other. Dream Focus 23:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of interest and promotional aspects are not an issue for nearly any other topic area. --Masem (t) 00:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes it is. A company makes a film or television show or whatever, they own a media outlet, they'll make them review it and favorably. Dream Focus 00:03, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Which then immediately fails the independance test for the GNG. --Masem (t) 00:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Then no excuse for CORP to say it can ignore the GNG then. Dream Focus 00:08, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes it can; the type of publishing directed related to companies and organizations is far different from, say, that related to a TV. NCORP is completely in the right to be more exacting of sourcing that tries to limit sourcing that is principally promotional that plagues topics in that field. --Masem (t) 00:21, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Can anyone just ignore WP:NOTABILITY just because they believe a different guideline is superior? If you disagree with the rules, then form consensus to change them, don't ignore them. Dream Focus 00:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

NCORP is not ignoring notability, it is simply saying "when you evaluate sources related to the GNG for a company or organization, make sure to watch out for these issues that result from companies simply trying to promote themselves rather than from independent, third-party reliable sources". It is 100% consistent with the GNG, and nothing needs to be changed. --Masem (t) 00:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

In the AFD I mentioned an administrator has stated that the GNG doesn't matter, NCORP says something different concerning interviews, so they don't count towards notability. That is the issue here. Someone ignoring the GNG. Dream Focus 00:34, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I see no one saying the GNG doesn't matter, only that reading the GNG only without considering the sourcing aspects of NCORP is not sufficient. (Which does bring to mind that we should put some language at the GNG to advise editor to see details of specific sourcing requirements in certain fields that affect how to evaluate the GNG, ala MEDRS, SCIRS, and NCORP.) --Masem (t) 00:38, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

TonyBallioni says: "Interviews explicitly do not count towards notability anymore." "You may not like the new standards, but this is the community consensus on what sourcing means for corporations. The GNG is not the relevant guideline". Which is why I came here to clarify things. Dream Focus 00:42, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that is the guideline. Additionally, I would argue quite strongly that interviews never counted towards the GNG (they are by definition primary, which doesn't count in this guideline either), but ignoring that debate, as Masem has already pointed out, subject notability guidelines are free to be more stringent and supersede the GNG in terms of sourcing or inclusion requirements. NCORP was designed specifically with this intent and for this purpose. We might as well delete it if your view is held to be correct. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:CORP gives stricter language that appears to be tighter than the GNG, although it is consistent with a strict reading of the GNG, in particular "significant coverage" and "independent". WP:PROF allows for coverage of academics that do not meet the GNG, largely due to sources not being independent. The other SNGs work as indicators for meeting the GNG, and of course, the GNG works as an indicator of passing AfD. WP:MEDRES is a very important resource for evaluating reliability for medical related sources, it doesn't invalidate the GNG, but helps in assessing what sources can be used, for the GNG, and for the content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:48, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

PROF is also a de facto exclusionary guideline. We will 9/10 ignore the GNG if it is met but someone fails PROF, regardless of what the language of the actual guidelines says. The GNG is a rebuttable presumption of inclusion, and failure of PROF is generally held to rebut it for academics in most AfDs. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean. If someone meets the GNG, but their part time academic career fails WP:PROF, ignore WP:PROF.

If someone who doesn't meet the GNG meets WP:PROF, their article stays.  If someone meeting the GNG (arguably), but is a corporation, they are suddenly required to meet WP:CORP regardless of WP:GNG.  For certain high level academics, WP:PROF provides an alternative inclusionary route.  For trading companies, WP:CORP is an exclusionary SNG that overrides the GNG.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:39, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

IMO the interaction is a bit fuzzy / nuanced as much of Wikipedia is. It would be too big of a process to tidy it up logically on this question in the foreseeable future. IMO WP:GNG should carry more influence than SNG's in that fuzzy world because it's more central and based on broader input and broader consensus. The GNG "meet either" statement is huge in that balance, any messing with that would be a gigantic shift. But that rule aside, SNG's and this new clarification will inevitably also have influence.North8000 (talk) 00:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

We typically read that to mean if it fails the GNG but passes the SNG, we keep it. We very rarely use it to mean the reverse if the SNG is intended to provide a stricter standard for inclusion than the GNG. That would be thwarting the will of the community in establishing those standards, and go against the basic concept of being a self-governing community that can make our own rules through consensus. This is just a guideline, we are free to make other guidelines that supersede it, and we do. NCORP has always been held to be the lens through which the GNG should be read for organizations. Now we've just made it actually have teeth. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:25, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Nonsense. Anything that passes the GNG has always been kept in deletion discussions. Of course it all depends on whatever random people show up to participate and the personal bias of the closing administrator, but usually GNG is enough. When the guidelines were first added, it was determined that not every notable thing would pass the GNG, so subject specific ones were created, and it has always said you had to pass one or the other, it never saying both or that one cancels out the other. If you believe otherwise then form a consensus to change the wording on WP:NOTABILITY. Dream Focus 03:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

No. PROF and NFOOTY (as well as most of the sports guidelines) are read this way in most AfDs. Each SNG gets to define it's own relationship to the GNG. As has already been pointed out multiple times (including by me in the AfD), all NCORP does is define what the horribly ambiguous GNG means when it comes to corporations. A better way of phrasing it might be: It is impossible to fail NCORP and meet the GNG at the same time, as NCORP defines what the GNG means for organizations. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

It is patently incorrect to say that most sports guidelines are ready in such a manner. To the contrary, NSPORTS has clearly and consistently been held to be an inclusionary standards. An athlete can pass either NSPORTS or GNG. Cbl62 (talk) 05:53, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

It probably depends on the specific sports guideline: I'm not overly involved in that area, so I couldn't give you an exact breakdown of it sport by sport. I've argued successfully against the GNG using NFOOTY, and seen others do it as well. The thing is that most of the time they are held up as indicators that the GNG will be met, but they can also be used as indicators that the coverage being met is simply routine (i.e. minor league or semi-professional players in Western countries are probably going to meet the GNG on face value, but will not meet the relevant sports guideline.) TonyBallioni (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually no, your assertion is wholly inaccurate. WP:NSPORT (which includes FOOTY and the rest) explicitly states that it is not an exclusionary standard: "Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (e.g. the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines). . . . Subjects that do not meet the sport-specific criteria outlined in this guideline may still be notable if they meet the General Notability Guideline or another subject specific notability guideline." Cbl62 (talk) 14:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That might be what it says, but a member of a small local club that doesn't meet the sports criteria but has a lot of local press is unlikely to be included. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:50, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

It is not only what it says; it is also how it has been interpreted in countless AfD discussions. In your hypothetical, the analysis would be controlled by GNG, not the SNG, and would depend per GNG on whether there is "significant" coverage in multiple, independent, and reliable sources. Cbl62 (talk) 14:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: there's nothing in WP:NCORP that "invalidates" the GNG. It just helps to determine which sources help meet the independent, significant coverage aspect of GNG, when it comes to corporations and organisations. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:49, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• We have a notability guideline. The GNG is part of that guideline -- a general rubric to help application of the guideline in a practical way. SNGs simplify application to particular kinds of subjects, offering guidance regarding what's likely to be notable and/or how to apply the criteria in the notability guideline to a particular domain. There is an issue when an SNG is incompatible with the guidelines at WP:N, and when that SNG says it confers notability rather than indicates likelihood of notability. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:20, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Agreed to some extent (we do have guidelines that are otherwise, like PROF). The point here though is, NCORP doesn't contradict the GNG. It simply says what it means, and follows it quite closely. The point I was making in the above AfD is that simply pointing to the GNG isn't useful, since it doesn't define itself that well. NCORP does a better job of fleshing it out, so something that fails NCORP is all but sure to fail the GNG, making a reference to the GNG not particularly pertinent when someone is citing NCORP in their analysis. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:36, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • It is true we have WP:PROF -- criteria promoted to a guideline and then, sometime later, rewritten based on the agreement of a handful of editors to proclaim itself "independent" of the GNG. This would fall under the "There is an issue when..." statement I made (i.e. such issues exist) :) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:53, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • Will also note that it was after this change to WP:PROF that we had what I think is the largest discussion we've had about this subject at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, through which, as I understand it, there was a rough consensus that SNGs do not override the GNG, and that SNGs are more about specifying what kinds of sources count (similar to the new NCORP) and applying the GNG to particular domains. Not sure what happened from there, though. Regardless, this is all ancient history for Wikipedia. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 05:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • And we had a community-wide RfC in August that came to a different conclusion. I'm with DGG in that I generally believe in objective standards, and personally consider the GNG to not be useful at much to the point where I believe we have to have SNGs like NCORP to define what it means. TonyBallioni (talk) 11:04, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

A lot of this comes down to recognizing that the GNG alone is only a presumption of notability, and in this way equivalent to all the other SNGs; these are stepping stones towards building out an article where we never have to question or presume its notable because it so many appropriate sources to not question it. You might be able to pass the GNG with a couple reasonable sources, but if you can never expand the article past a stub due to the lack of any other possible sources, then it doesn't met overall goal of notability and that could be deleted. In this manner, all the SNGs are right in line: PROF assumes a slightly looser requirement for presumption, NCORP has a stronger requirement for presumption (as to weed out self-serving articles for corps), etc. --Masem (t) 05:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• The role of a SNG is whatever we decide it is. We can decide whether it will be a substitute, an option, an extension, or a restriction.We can decide if a SNG must be met as well as the GNG,or whether it is an alternative, of whether it is the only guideline applicable. For the clearest example, the WP:PROF guideline is an alternative, the only guideline that applies to notability as n researcher or member of an acaemic faculty. The same person may be notable in other respects, but if they are notable as an academic, it can only be by WP:PROF. Ithink we jave come to agree that the same applies to WP:CREATIVE and WP:MUSICIAN. WP:ATHLETE is undetermined.--it is a n alternative, but it has never been consistently settled whether it is a restriction of the GNG in that field.

In the current situation, for WP;CORP, it is not an alternative guideline--it is a specification of just what is meant by the GNG in that area. This is very similar to what we have been doing all along--interpreting the requirements for a source being independent , substantial, and reliable more or less stringently in different fields. The new guideline says, in effect, that we will interpret it strictly in this field. In some other fields we tend to interpret in fairly loosely, especially government organizations. We ourselves make the rules, we ourselves make the interpretation. We can make whatever interpretations have consensus, whether formal as in a formal adopted guideline, or informal, as in practice at AFD.

We can even say that a notability guideline will not apply to inclusions of an article. That can be a restriction , as in the long-standing statement at WP:GNG that passing GNG does not necessarily mean that there must be a n article. but can be a section of an article if there is insufficient information to justify an article.It can be an extension, like the practice for secondary school recognized bu the last RfC, that there isno consensus to change the practice of accepting article on all verifiable secondary schools, and treating them as if they were notable.

"The rules we adopt are affected by circumstances. I could make an argument why we should adopt strict, of less strict rules for NCOPR. At present, I think we should adopt strict ones, in order to deal with a much more important problem than notability: promotionalism . Accepting advertising or disguised advertising is a danger to the basic principles of any encyclopedia: WP:V and WP:NPOV. We need to remove the temptation to violate them by removing the possibility of articles where they are most likely to violated, which is articles of relative unimportant commercial organizations. Rules should have a purpose, just as this one does. DGG ( talk ) 09:33, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

So mass delete any articles you decide are unimportant because you don't trust the current system of vetting reliable sources? What about articles for entertainment media? I think you have far more of a threat of promotionalism there than anywhere else. How do you decide which businesses or whatnot are a "relative unimportant commercial organization"? Holvi for instance was starting with 4 million dollars and "one guess is that Holvi was acquired for around or maybe less than $100 million." [1] Dream Focus 12:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

I think the driving force for the existence of SNG's is to re-calibrate GNG in fields where it is needed. The real fix is to create the missing two sentence definition of what they are striving for (vs. the current circular definition) improve GNG to accomplish it and auto-calibrate to the specialty areas, and then eliminate the SNG's. Since that ain't going to happen, the fuzzy interaction between GNG and SNG's needs to remain fuzzy, and it sort-of works. North8000 (talk) 11:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

@North8000 and Masem: since both of you have mentioned something similar to this (Masem more explicitly), I think we should go ahead and clarify it in the guideline. Adding a quick bit of text like Some subject areas have more clearly defined sourcing guidelines, and when those exist, they should be used to determine if the notability requirements are met. This is the current practice, and should help clarify things. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• TonyBallioni has stated at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Holvi "There is an explicit presumption agains their use as they are trade publications, and NCORP assumes that they are not independent of the subject". Wired magazine and other reliable sources don't count because they are allegedly "trade publications", covering technology so if they cover an internet business it doesn't count towards notability. Why are general newspapers considered independent but not technology publications? Dream Focus 12:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • NCORP creates an explicit presumption against the use of trade publications, yes, because they simply repeat PR and interviews in most cases (as oddly enough, the source you are arguing for including confirms). General newspapers aren't in the business of brining in more money to the subjects they cover and giving them free advertising within the industry. That is the entire point of the trade press. Also, for the record, my issue with Wired is that it is an interview, not the trade press issue, which is distinct, as I wouldn't necessarily classify them as that. Wired in some cases can be reliable for notability, but a simple interview in it can't be under NCORP. TonyBallioni (talk) 13:31, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
    • So, what about reliable sources for video games? Some of them only cover games, so do they not count towards notability? What about a section of a newspaper dedicated to one trade only? Movie review section, book review section, technology review section? Is a newspaper considered superior because it has different trades covered together, along with a gossip section? Companies are always seeking coverage for their products even more so than themselves. Dream Focus 13:57, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
      • I do think that in the specific case for Holvi, some of the works claimed to be trade publications are not really trade publications. Certainly not Wired - it's a general publication but related to the tech sector. Same with ZDNet. (ComputerWeekly, on the other hand is one such trade magazine). That's why newspapers are fine, as well as things like sports magazines, entertainment magazines, etc. Those latter ones cover a specific topic, but written for a general population readership. This is not to say that Holvi's sources still have problems. The Wired "interview" looks more like a standard questionaire they ask their chosen "Startup of the week" to fill out, there's no curation of those questions as I would expect with a proper interview. --Masem (t) 14:12, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
        • Yes, we are agreement: my issue with Wired was not that it was a trade pub (it isn't), but that it was a reprint of an interview with an executive, which NCORP lists as being excluded as primary. Dream Focus conflated that criticism with my criticism of some of the other sourcing as trade press (Computer Weekly definitely, VentureBeat and The Next Web also certainly are either in that category, or in the TechCrunch category.) TonyBallioni (talk) 14:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
          • How is it a reprint? And why would an interview be less of a sign of notability than an article about them? Reliable source saw them notable enough to give them coverage, that all that matters. Dream Focus 14:44, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
            • Sorry, shouldn't have used reprint there: I was addressing both trade press and Wired in the same comment and mistyped, my mistake. Interviews are primary sources. Full stop. The should not count even under the most liberal reading of the GNG, but NCORP in particular explicitly names them as excluded (as I have pointed out to you I believe three times now). Interviews with company personnel cannot be used to establish notability for corporations as they fail the secondary sourcing requirement and the independence requirement. See Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Secondary_sources and WP:ORGIND. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:55, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
              • It doesn't matter what it says there. GNG still considers them fine for establishing notability, just not always trusted for referencing information in an article. And arguing nonstop doesn't change what WP:NOTABILITY says, as I have already clearly pointed out. GNG or SSG to confirm article notability, one does not cancel out the other. Dream Focus 15:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

You have it in reverse: primary sourcing is fine for verifiability but not for notability: "Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability.. That is directly from WP:GNG. Also, you are correct that arguing cannot change the relationship between NCORP and the GNG: you are in the minority here in thinking that NCORP doesn't matter. Just because you keep saying something, doesn't make it true. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:16, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Notability is not policy; it's a guideline. That's means WP:GNG; WP:NCORP and all the other creepy pages which keep repeating much the same idea. Because they are loosey-goosey guidelines rather than firm policies, they are open to interpretation. And even firm policies can be ignored; that's policy too. So arguing and agonising about this is really just advocacy and opinion per WP:ILIKEIT/WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Per WP:NOTLAW, it's the outcomes of the individual cases which matter. The wikilawyering is mostly a waste of time. Andrew D. (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• Guidelines are guidelines. They document best practices, they can be changed, they are open to interpretation. Policies are of course stricter, but even they can be changed. What I'm hearing from some folks here is that an SNG cannot be changed unless GNG is also changed. I don't see that at all. Why does one guideline require two RfCs but others don't? Who made up this rule? We do need to remember policies here as well, particularly WP:NOT (which includes WP:SOAP). Anything contrary to WP:NOT is not notable. So if the article includes promotion, advertising, PR material, or marketing it can't be notable unless when that material is removed it would be notable. Sure WP:CORP interprets GNG for determining which sources count, but it also has to interpret WP:NOT. My feeling is that most of the supporters of the change in WP:CORP simply wanted to eliminate interpretations of GNG that contradict WP:NOT. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 13:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• NCORP was amended on the premise that there was a crisis afoot (i.e., that Wikipedia was being overrun by promotional content about companies and their products) and that current practice under GNG was insufficient to address it. It was developed, marketed and adopted as an exception to the general rule. Any effort now to use NCORP as a broad precedent to undermine the more general application of WP:GNG in areas beyond the purportedly "infected" area should be rejected. Cbl62 (talk) 15:18, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, agreed 100%. NCORP explicitly only refers to the subjects covered, and if there are any other SNGs, those are relevant. It also excludes educational institutions, religions, and sports teams. On the flip side, we shouldn't have to redebate the RfC on every AfD because some people don't think that NCORP should have been adapted. As you said, the community knew what it was discussing when it was being discussed: attempts to undermine that consensus are equally as bad. TonyBallioni (talk) 15:23, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
• In my view (and I admit this is only with hindsight) it would have been very much better to have created WP:NCORP as a policy (sic) page linked to from WP:NOTDIRECTORY. The rationale would be that WP is not a business/organisation directory except for some "exceptional" businesses and organisations and we would then be saying what was (or was not) exceptional. Perhaps this could still be done. (An analogy lies for dictionary definitions in how WP:DICDEF is referred to from WP:NOT#DICT.) This would make NCORP a policy and it would no longer be competing directly with WP:GNG. I don't even think the wording of NCORP would need changing that much, it would be placed on a firmer footing, and arguments about competing notability guidelines would be reduced. Thincat (talk) 17:05, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • That would have not worked as NCORP is starting from directly quoting the GNG, and then setting the specific sourcing requirements for corporations. This would make the GNG seen as policy if NCORP was policy. That said, COI and using WP as an SEO/promotional platform are policy, so NCORP is specifically addressing where notability and promotion overlap in this topic area. --Masem (t) 17:26, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

    I thought about that but NCORP would no longer draw any authority from GNG it would merely have some similar criteria. Roughly speaking, the word "notability" would disappear to be replaced by "suitability for inclusion as a business". The emphasis would be less on sourcing and more on status. However, I agree that COI is a hekpful priority. Is there a written policy against SEO and promotion or do we just go against them? Thincat (talk) 17:40, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:NOTSPAM, we can delete for promotion even if something is notable. NCORP is meant to help deal with the less obvious cases of promotion and cases of native advertising by giving clear sourcing standards, because there are actually people who sell for pretty cheap source creation on freelancer websites with the intent of getting companies to pass Wikipedia's GNG. This establishes a standard by which to evaluate sources, and as noted above, was advertised to the community as such.

The idea that there is some great tension here is more because we don't have a line noting that some subject areas have developed clearer guidelines is not correct in my view. The community consensus is pretty clear, even through this conversation: NCORP is intended to explain what the GNG means in a specific field, and in doing so, it raises the standard by setting out clear guidelines compared to loose ones. I don't see any tension, but as I noted above, all that is really required is a line noting what Masem noted in one of his first replies: guidelines like MEDRS and NCORP exist and must be taken into account when assessing notability. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Saying that explicitly would flat out say that any SNG can exclude any article the passes wp:GNG. A big upset to the fuzzy balance that we have now that usually works. North8000 (talk) 17:59, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That was the purpose of the RfC, yes: to define the general notability guideline as it relates to companies and organizations. We don't simply ignore that consensus because the person who is likely the most inclusionist editor on the entire project decides they want to WikiLawyer out of following that guideline. All it does is further define the GNG in relation to a subject matter, which any SNG is free to do. Also worth noting is that this is nothing new: NCORP has always defined what the GNG's sourcing requirements mean. All the recent update did was make it so that the requirements were more well spelled out and adapted what is the mainstream consensus at most corporate AfDs in a guideline form: which is what guidelines are supposed to be. Practice is policy and the fact that we are having to have yet another discussion on this after the community has expressed that it wanted stronger sourcing standards for corporations is ridiculous (not your questions, but the thread in general.)TonyBallioni (talk) 18:11, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

The community did not discuss you being able to ignore the GNG. Start a discussion for that and see if you can find consensus. Far more people would notice and care to show up to comment on that then the ones who noticed and showed up for the CORP discussion. Dream Focus 18:23, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That conversation was clearly understood as a further defining of the GNG if you actually read it, and as everyone else here except you appears to understand. The community weighed in on it, Your WP:IDHT attitude is becoming disruptive. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:30, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

IMHO, if the intent was so broad as you seem to say (to override wp:notability,) then such a discussion would have needed to have been at WP:notability , not at one of the many SNG's. I don't think that it was that. North8000 (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

See? Others agree with me. TonyBallioni, you seem to be the one with a WP:IDHT attitude. You can't change the meaning of one page by editing a different one. Dream Focus 18:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) NCORP already defined the GNG for corps. That was not a change. Even if it was, this was advertised on this talk page, on CENT, and at VPR and ran for at least 30 days. Winged Blades of Godric was the closer, so he can comment as to whether or not the discussion was understood as explaining how the GNG applied to corps. . TonyBallioni (talk) 18:51, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Regarding notability and the relationship to wp:not, sometimes the best plan is to write down what we know from common sense. If I were king, the meta-defintion of wp:notability would be something like "degree of real-world-notability sufficient for inclusion in an encyclopedia that is going to have less than 15 million articles." And the task of the notability guidelines would be to implement coverage-based criteria to fulfill this. That definition acknowledges that in addition to the outright exclusion by wp:not, that "degree of enclyclopedic-ness" gets weighed in the notability equation. That obscure species of frog with little secondary source coverage should get in; my son's school hockey team with tons of independent secondary source coverage should not. North8000 (talk) 18:01, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

• Comment Nothing about the change to NORG "invalidates" GNG. GNG clearly states that only sources "independent of the subject" count toward it, and primary sources like interviews are not independent of the subject. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:52, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Primary/secondary/tertiary are different measures than independent/dependent. --Masem (t) 22:56, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

Not in this case. An interview essentially amounts to a source written by the interviewee, who is almost by definition someone involved in the organization under discussion. The only input from the "independent" interviewer is the choice of questions to ask. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

The source typing questions, primary/secondary, and independent/non-independent, are independent questions. Interviews can be primary, or mixed primary/secondary, depending on the content and how used. An interview is never an independent source with respect to the interviewee. For interviews, just ignore the primary/secondary aspect, they need to be ignore for notability assessment due to failing independence. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:43, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

• The purpose of SNGs should be to tell us when a given subject is very, very likely to have sufficient material available about it to meet the GNG, even when those references aren't readily available. That doesn't mean interviews (they're not independent), it means reliable, independent, in depth source material from a variety of sources. When we lack that, we have nothing with which to write the article, so we shouldn't have it. GNG should always be a "floor". Subjects not passing it should not have separate articles. That doesn't mean they should be excluded altogether—it may be perfectly appropriate to write about the topic in a parent article, include it in a list, whatever you. But to have a standalone article about something, we need to have enough high-quality reference material to write a full article from. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 01:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• The initial question is broken, but the broken-answer to the broken-question is approximately "yes". Our policies and guidelines need to be viewed as a cohesive whole. It is perfectly appropriate for WP:NCORP to clarify that certain kinds of sources have little or no value when evaluating the Notability of a company. It is perfectly appropriate for WP:NPROF endorse additional grounds for Notability. It is perfectly appropriate for WP:MEDRS to clarify the reliability or usability of medical sources.
  We should apply all available guideline-reasoning where it is relevant to do so, and exclude any guideline-reasoning where it is invalid. If someone is an academic and a politician, we can ignore NPROF and independently establish Notability for being a politician. However I find it hard to picture a case where a corp could fail NCORP and while passing GNG for reasons unrelated to NCORP (except maybe NCRIME). So yes, NCORP is part of GNG and it should always inform evaluation of Notability when it is clearly relevant. Alsee (talk) 03:19, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• This is (and will be) yet another 'fruitless debate.Same faces, same arguments, same dead-lock....As to my opinion, practice is policy and the numerous AFDs that happen daily in different spheres, with a quite-predictable outcome, point to whether the SNG/GNG is upheld by the community, over the locus of the issue.For my personal view, I prefer SNGs (than GNG) but feel that many SNGs (barring NPROF, NCOPRP, NSPORTS) ought to be fundamentally re-written.~ Winged Blades^Godric 06:02, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Massive oppose to all deletionist SNG (1) A subject-specific notability guideline cannot apply more stringent conditions that sources or other facets related to the GNG must meet in the field. In view of the wording of N, such conditions would consititute an invalid local consensus. (2) Deletionism is harming this project. You can see this from WP:SIZE. Last year, despite the fact that probably more than 95% of notable topics are missing (mainly because of massive geographic and anglophone bias, recentism and bias against anything faintly intelligent) (I have done some back of an envelope calculations and, for example, estimate the number of notable people in the history of the world to be, IIRC as I haven't got the numbers in front of me now, in excess of 46 million (approximately 1 in two and a half thousand out of a total population of 108 billion), of whom, more than 43 million are dead, mostly long dead) we created on average 605 articles per day (it has gone back up to 667, but that is still worse than at any time before beginning of 2017). That was the worst level of article creation since the beginning of 2004. If that number keeps going down (and it might go back down again) and hits or gets close enough to zero, the project will collapse, because that would mean that all or most of the constructive useful editors have left because they have been bullied out by those deletionists who do nothing but smash up good content and make a nuisance out of themselves. The last thing we need now is more deletionism. So I say, keep the introduction to WP:N the way it is, and ignore any deletionist garbage SNGs. If anything GNG is already too restrictive (the idea that we need 'secondary' sources is pure fantasy that has nothing to do with real scholarship and is being peddled by people who do not know what they are talking about; likewise the very strange idea that there is something special about having more than one source). James500 (talk) 09:42, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• When you are editing the sort of topics that are only studied and taught at an advanced level at universities and such like, the main thing you notice is that the vast majority of topics in that field of scholarship that should have articles are redlinked or not even mentioned in the encyclopedia. There seem to be editors who do not realise this because they lack the education and are too complacent or too philistine to teach themselves. The rate of article creation should not have slowed down and deletionism is the culprit. James500 (talk) 10:07, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• The hostility to 'trade' publications that has been expressed is disturbing, because some deletionists seem to think that it includes publications of a scholarly character and publications that have nothing to do with commerce. In the minds of some deletionists, any publication about something like particle physics read by, for example, a professor working at a university must be 'trade' because the professor has a job. Despite the fact that he isn't engaged in trade of any kind. 'Trade' has become a boo word that is levelled against any publication that isn't 'infotainment'. Because some deletionists seem to want Wikipedia to be a children's encyclopedia based on poor sources. James500 (talk) 10:34, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
• Most disturbing of all is the way notability harms our readers by preventing them from having access to accurate information that it might be useful for them to know (or forces them to go through paywalls, including by wasting their time by forcing them to spend hours (or longer) looking for a topic with Google when they could have it in seconds with a Wikipedia article (loss of man time is a cost). Notability creates increased poverty. And poverty causes premature death, disease and many other forms of misery. The economic effect of all these deletions of accurate verifiable content, and discouraging people from creating it in the first place, is presumably like burning down an entire city. Or possibly, worse. James500 (talk) 11:01, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
  • "It's useful" is not a valid argued towards keeping or deleting articles per WP:ATA, and we are particularly not here to provide readers information that otherwise requires them to bypass paywells; we'll incorporate that information where appropriate. --Masem (t) 17:11, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
    • That isn't what I was suggesting. I do not, for example, want to merge this project with Wikisource just because Wikisource's contents happen to be useful. What I was suggesting is that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. Firstly, there is a massive hostility on the part of some editors towards merging content that is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Secondly, there is a massive determination on the part of some editors to raise and raise and raise the 'notability bar' to the point where it excludes topics that are suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Certain notability guidelines are not presently suitable for determining what is and is not suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. And when they are suitable, they are often ignored. A lot of the suitable encyclopedic content that is getting deleted happens to be stuff that you would expect to be useful to our readers and that prima facie must hurt our readers. And that is "A Bad Thing". James500 (talk) 05:38, 1 April 2018 (UTC) There is also a serious problem with content that ought to be transwikied to our sister projects not being transwikied at all. James500 (talk) 05:48, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
      • With >5M articles, arguing that our notability guidelines are excluding content that would be in an encyclopedia is pretty much a non-starting argument, we're far broader than something like EB. The only reason that NCORP has had to be more specific on sources is that because we are an open encyclopedia, people with commercial interested has found ways to insert promotional material about their companies under "weaker" notability/sourcing guidelines, so we're being more restrictive to make sure that companies/etc. are being covered properly by independent sources. It may have more false positives, but at the same time, show me any other encyclopedia that covers companies with as much variety as we do. And as to merging, commercial/promotional content is very difficult to merge, even if there's valid merge topic (say, if we had a notable person and were looking to merge their startup company). And again, "useful to our readers" is a non-argument for notability , per WP:ATA. --Masem (t) 05:54, 1 April 2018 (UTC)
        • Comparisons with Britannica are irrelevant. Britannica has commercial limitations that we don't. They pay their editors and they have to compete for sales and subscriptions. It is also far from the largest commercial source in terms of entries. Oxford Reference Online, XRefPlus and GaleNet have a much larger number of entries and do have millions of entries. If you were to take all the (reasonable quality) encyclopedias and similar works (broadly construed, including certain types of periodical articles and book chapters that look near enough to encyclopedia articles eg obituaries in the NYT and the Times) and edit them together in a way that removes all duplication of entries and information, it is quite obvious that they would have a much larger number of articles than us, judging by the number of topics included in other (good) encyclopedias that we don't have. (In fact, we are still missing many topics that have large whole books about them). I would not be remotely surprised if such a hypothetical work had significantly in excess of 100 million entries. That is closer to the correct standard of comparison. Another user once estimated that there were 400 million encyclopedic topics, though I am not familiar with the details of the calculation he performed. 5 million articles is not impressive. This encyclopedia is still bristling with huge numbers of redlinks to topics that obviously ought to be included but aren't. Even more are not mentioned at all. Wikipedia is a fairly good American TV guide (and even that has missing entries), but is seriously lacking in other areas. The notability guidelines contribute to this. And ATA is an essay. Certain parts of ATA are nonsense. Article II of the Wikimedia Foundation byelaws says that "useful information" is to be kept "in perpetuity" (potentially on one of our sister projects, but let's not complicate matters). The WMF own this website and what they say 'trumps' anything the community says. James500 (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
          • Article II says "useful information from its [WMF] projects, not from everywhere in the world. It's saying that as long as the content we develop meets Article II, they will host it for free. It says nothing of being a repository of any useful content. So no, we are not overriding the WMF here. --Masem (t) 13:29, 2 April 2018 (UTC)
        • Probably one of the top two variables where WP:GNG needs to calibrated is where the process is "worked" by someone/ some organization who would commercially benefit from inclusion. And so I think that shifting the fuzzy notability process a little by putting those new things in place in a SNG is a good thing. But overstating the results as characterizing the decision as flatly one to override GNG, or flatly saying that an SNG can override GNG IMO is going too far. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 1 April 2018 (UTC)

@James500: Could you stop making these BATTLEGROUND-esque comments? As of right now, the word "deletionist" appears on this page nine times, and all of them are just you attacking some unspecified editors you really, really don't seem to like (or making apparently-bogus assumptions about their motives) rather than addressing the content questions. Remarks like gigantic pile of wholly unmeritorious incredibly extreme mega-deletionist garbage, [w]e ... need a way of dealing with deletionist trolls at AfD, [s]uch deletionist trolls need to be silenced, Massive oppose to all deletionist SNG, all or most of the constructive useful editors have left because they have been bullied out by those deletionists who do nothing but smash up good content and make a nuisance out of themselves, ignore any deletionist garbage SNGs, some deletionists seem to think [X], [i]n the minds of some deletionists and some deletionists seem to want Wikipedia to be a children's encyclopedia based on poor sources are clearly inappropriate, and are entirely unnecessary. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:41, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

I would not have made any further comments on this page if an editor had not replied to my !vote. Three of those comments were actually about the guidelines. I cannot 'attack' WP:ORG or any other guideline because it is not a person. The rest of the comments were intended to refer to a type of behaviour or point of view that leads to content problems, not a group of people. I absolutely did not have any particular editor or editors in mind. I could apply the comments I made above to my own behaviour because in the past I made too many CSD nominations too freely. I don't hate anyone. But I will refrain from making comments about types of behaviour or points of view in order to make you happy. I apologise unreservedly if my comments appeared to anyone to refer to editors, as that was certainly not my intention. Clearly, I should have worded them far more carefully. I would very much like to completely disengage from this discussion, and not comment here again. James500 (talk) 16:09, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

Umm... your initial comment on this thread was the last of the four I quoted, and none of the attacks I accused you of were against a guideline but against the "deletionists" you keep talking smack about. Also, please include appropriate edit summaries; I almost skipped over the above without reading it because I assumed based on your misleading edit summary I apologise[2] that it was an unreserved apology rather than "I'm sorry if you misinterpreted me". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:28, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

James500 has valid concerns about a "deletionist" movement that is indeed a real and present threat to Wikipedia's future. Some of his comments went too far, and for that he has apologized. No need to pile on. Cbl62 (talk) 23:19, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

• I've been watching the Holvi AfD. Thinking of editors with whom one disagrees as "deletionists" or "inclusionists" generates more heat than light. GNG is indeed a guideline, and what's more, it's not legislation. SNGs do not "invalidate" GNG, but they interpret the spirit (as opposed to the letter) of GNG for their specific subject. If there is a consensus that a particular standard needs to be considered for articles in a certain topic, then that's consensus. If someone doesn't like that, then change the consensus. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:29, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to add: Identify other guidelines on GNG sourcing requirements

Per above, I would like to suggest adding, to the very end of the GNG section of WP:N, something like: Editors should review sourcing guideline requirements that cover specific topic fields to determine what sources will qualify for the GNG in those areas. Such examples include WP:NCORP for sourcing related to companies and organizations, WP:MEDRS for sourcing related to medical topics, and WP:SCIRS for sourcing related to scientific topics. Individual Wikiprojects may also provide curated lists of sources that are appropriate to consider in evaluating the GNG for a given topic.. This aligns with the consensus above that NCORP is not overriding GNG but only providing better sourcing requirements, and helps editors to recognize GNG doesn't exist in a vacuum; it is very topic-dependent. --Masem (t) 17:15, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

This is written in a misleading way that assumes that subject guidelines can only act by modifying GNG to describe which sources qualify. That is not how most subject guidelines look. E.g. "has been on the field in at least one top-level professional sports game" is not about source qualification. As such, this is a major major change to how subject notability works, not the small clarification you are pretending it to be. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:32, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I am not trying to dilute any SNG, only that some other places (not necessarily SNGs) may have more refined sourcing aspects to consider the GNG. There's still the whole concept that follows later that SNGs are alternative methods to presume notability by a figure of merit, rather than by in-depth sourcing. --Masem (t) 17:47, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

(EC)I support the idea in Masem's text and believe that it is already consensus. I might quibble with the placement - I'd prefer something shorter like this in the top section just below the 1. and 2.

But I think the proposal is backwards in one sense. Some folks appear to be saying here that SNGs can only loosen the requirements of GNG, that anything that might be interpreted as strengthening GNG is null and void. I just don't see that at all in GNG or in the normal way we interpret guidelines. I believe that anybody who wants to put forward a "SNGs can only loosen" proposal should do that in an RfC - but it would be bound to fail. WP:NCORP is already a guideline which had a very large majority of support in its RfC. We don't need a 2nd RfC to make it a guideline. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 18:06, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Smallbones. I suppose there could be a revision to say, explicitly, that SNGs can be either more or less restrictive than GNG. Or, if someone really wants to tilt at windmills, they can propose an explicit statement that SNGs can only loosen. But it's probably best to let the existing consensus be, without having a new RfC to make a change in wording. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

I support Tryptofish's quasi-suggestion if there is to be a change, because I think it accurately describes how SNGs are applied in practice: they each define their own relationship to the overall notability guideline, with some having stricter sourcing standards for a subject, and some having merit-based standards that rely less on sourcing. Perhaps something like Subject guidelines can either provide additional criteria upon which a presumption of notability can be based or can provide a further definition of the sourcing requirements expected to meet the the general guideline for a subject area... It could either end there or include Masem's suggested wording about the sourcing based guidelines. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:15, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

To be super-clean so that there is no confusion, (and this is brainstorming thinking, not intended as a suggestion), we should move any source quality details out of the SNGs into their own equally valid guidelines (as with the recently added NCORP). These would be read as sourcing guidelines, not subject-specific notability guidelines. This manner we maintain the notion that we presume notability if the GNG is met or an SNG is met, but in all cases, the appropriate subject-specific sourcing guidelines should be consulted to understand what sources are considered appropriate evidence for meeting either the GNG or an SNG in a specific field. Now , I know this doesn't make sense to separate the new addition to NCORP from the other more standard SNG-merit based conditions NCORP already....

That potentially leads to the idea that maybe there is a third bullet point to add to the lead. In addition to 1) GNG or SNG, and 2) doesn't fail other policies, maybe 3) is then "Demonstrates notability of point 1 through sources deemed appropriate for the topic's field". If a field doesn't have this type of subject-specific sourcing guidance, then this defaults to a standard reading of WP:RS. This has zero impact on any existing SNG (that I can think) and only clears up more that SNGs should not be afraid to set stronger sourcing policies if they believe the GNG is too loose for this. (Importantly, this still leaves in place NPROF's merit based criteria which I general consider to weaken the GNG but necessary for academics). --Masem (t) 23:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

• (1) Strongly oppose any attempt to include any additional restrictions on sourcing taken from SNGs. Each of the SNGs that propose to reject reliable sources that would normally be acceptable, such as ORG, is a mere local consensus that contain restrictions that are generally wrong and often completely absurd. The "limited circulation" clause in AUD is a good example: circulation has absolutely nothing to do with reliability. A (quality) scholarly periodical that mainly circulates to university libraries and professors is a much better source than a low quality redtop tabloid with a circulation of millions. The indiscriminate local newspaper clause is no better. And there is a lot of complete rubbish in NASTRO. The present wording of N gives us at least a discretion to choose between GNG and SNG. We need to retain that discretion, particularly as these SNG can be modified and could get even worse in the future. (2) I was under the impression the subject reliable sources guidelines already apply. I doubt that mentioning them is technically necessary. (3) Since GNG is already too strong we should not be strengthening it further. James500 (talk) 02:12, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
  • So you are saying that no SNG has any validity or status even as a guideline? They can't be used for anything, or maybe just to loosen the requirements of GNG? Please do state this clearly. That would clearly be a micro-minority viewpoint and currently has no validity or status in this guideline. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:30, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
    • No, Smallbones, I am saying that those SNG which try to prohibit the use of sources that would normally satisfy GNG are generally full of bizarre nonsense that lacks site consensus (as opposed to local consensus). There are nearly 140,000 active registered users on this project. The number of editors who !voted for those SNG is a tiny fraction of that, and are not a representative sample either. NASTRO had the support of a handful of people in its original form (and much less for its present form). It was supported by less than 0.01% of active users. That is a micro minority. It is certainly much less than the number of editors who comment here. Certainly there is far more support for GNG without additional restrictions on this talk page as per the rubric of the introduction to N than there is for the SNG restrictions on those SNG talk pages. Those SNG are low traffic pages which reflect the views of vocal minorities who do not speak for site consensus. Now I could ignore all of this if it was reasonable to exclude the sources that those SNG tell us to exclude (consensus is far from a perfect way to run an encyclopedia). But what those SNG say about excluding sources is generally not reasonable. It is generally nonsense. Those SNG contain a multiplicity of utterly bizarre ideas that bear no relation to the factors that really matter when deciding which sources do or do not support notability. There might be a small number of restrictions on sourcing worth having, but they are drowned out by the overwhelming background noise of nonsense. So what I recommend is this . . . wait for it . . . if we want to introduce any restrictions on what sources may be used into GNG from an SNG, we should fully discuss those restrictions here on this talk page first one at a time so we can find out if they really have community consensus. What we should not do is rubber stamp all the restrictions on sourcing in every SNG en bloc, because we would be grandfathering a lot of rubbish into GNG. To put it another way, any restriction on GNG should be included in the text of WP:N itself and not in the form of a link to an SNG. James500 (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• The reason that my "quasi-suggestion" was quasi rather than an actual proposal is that I suspect that any discussion about changing the guideline language will be more of a battle than it is worth. In theory, I do think that it would be better to say explicitly that a page subject that appears to pass GNG can actually be non-notable if it fails the applicable SNG, but in practice I think the community is not yet ready to have a sober discussion of such a change. If the language stays as it is, at some time in the near future the community will be ready to enact such a formal change, but not now. After all, I'm pretty sure that the recent rewrite of NCORP would not have gotten the consensus that it got, if it had been proposed a few years ago. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:50, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I think it would be a bad idea. We already have the interaction that we need. The proposal would make even the most off-the wall idea from the smallest group at an SNG explicitly become a part of GNG. North8000 (talk) 17:27, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose per North8000's comments above. Cbl62 (talk) 21:51, 4 April 2018 (UTC)
• The idea of having people check sourcing requires that might be defined by an SNG does in no way make an SNG explicitly part of the GNG. And of course, if an SNG is creating far too loose sourcing guidance, then we take that SNG to task via a larger RFC. (eg the MMA situation a few years back). --Masem (t) 05:59, 5 April 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose as it does not lesson confusion in my view, also project source advice often leaves out general reliable sources and only lists sources specific to their field; for example there was an AFD on a well known spanish video game youtuber that had the rationale that there was insufficient coverage in WP:VGRS but the article was kept when it was found that he had sig cov in a number of Spanish national newspapers, thanks Atlantic306 (talk) 13:46, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I see that editors are opposed to this, but I am concerned that, on the bases that the new NCORP guidance is considered having passed consensus, some editors may come to read the GNG in isolation and thus be upset when their article (created in good faith) on a company is nominated at AFD because of NCORP. There is nothing that would push an editor to read any other page if they are only worried about meeting the GNG. --Masem (t) 14:29, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

(1) Participants at AfD have the option to WP:IAR what ORG says. (2) Do we want ORG to have the oxygen of publicity? James500 (talk) 22:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. If a subject passes GNG, then this overrides all SNG. Having a subject that passes GNG but is prevented from being notable because of a SNG makes zero logical sense if this wiki is supposed to be a comprehensive guide to what is notable, as it would literally be deleting notable articles. Egaoblai (talk) 02:03, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Syndicated stories

I just opened a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_and_using_independent_sources#Syndicated_stories and have made a bold edit to WP:INDY to explicitly address syndicated stories in discussions of notability and weight. Please have a look. If we get consensus there it might make sense to mention it here briefly, but one thing at a time :) Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

LISTN

I don't know where to post this to get relevant, neutral eyes on it. So am posting here. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg. Jytdog (talk) 08:16, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Does notability in another language's Wikipedia automatically mean a subject is notable enough for an article in the English wikipedia?

My gut tells me probably not, but I thought I should ask here for some opinions from the community. I ask specifically because I ran across Beto Kusyairy (actor) and it had a notability template at the top. After some research, I could not find in-depth coverage of the subject, but I did notice that he has an article at Beto_Kusyairy, which I assume is in the Malaysian wikipedia. Amsgearing (talk) 16:11, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

You are right, no it does not. This doesn't mean checking the other language Wikis can't hurt as you might find the sources necessary for notability there. But notability is not a guideline shared by other language wikis, so mere existence of an article doesn't mean it is notable here. --Masem (t) 16:13, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. Different languages have different standards for notability. So even if the existence of an article could be assumed to imply that it meets that language's standards (not always true), it wouldn't necessarily imply that it meets our standards. It can be helpful, though, to see whether the other language's version is better-sourced than ours, and whether those sources could be used to meet our standards of notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:15, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

No. O If you think we have a lot of crap articles imagine what some languages have with less Admins and less patrollers. Legacypac (talk) 16:23, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

• No. Overtime, even if the text of the guideline doesn't change, our practice does. As we've gotten more articles and have become a more developed project, we have become stricter in interpreting what N means (one of the reasons I think it is a poorly written guideline, FWIW). Even if another project had identical text as it's notability guideline, we would independently judge it to see if it fell within our practice for what notability means. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:37, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
• Yes. There is no justification for the English language Wikipedia having more restrictive notability guidelines than other editions because they are not separate projects. There is only one Wikipedia encyclopedia, and there is no reason why its notability criteria should depend on the language in which it is written. To have more restrictive notability criteria in English would be an invalid local consensus and would amount to an assertion of WP:OWNership. It would also discriminate against English speaking readers. We are not free to impose restrictions on what topics may be considered notable that do not exist globally throughout editions of the encyclopedia in different languages. I should qualify this by observing that just because a topic has an article on an edition of Wikipedia in another language, that does not prove that it actually satisfies the notability requirements of the edition in that other language ("other stuff exists"). James500 (talk) 14:09, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Each language wiki has very different standards for policy and guideline, outside of the core WMF goal of providing free content educational content from open contributions. The Five Pillars for example is only a en.wiki thing, doesn't apply automatically to all other languages (but some do borrow the idea), and certainly a guideline like notability is even less consistent across projects. Some language wikis don't even have notability guidelines or their equivalent though they tend not to be at a size where lack of them are a problem. --Masem (t) 14:20, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • James, this is not an appropriate question upon which to push your agenda. This is not a debate as to whether all Wikipedias should have one set of rules and one set of standards (bullying that I rather doubt the other Wikipedias would appreciate). It was a question as to whether there were such differences. There are, and it's disingenuous of you to suggest otherwise, or to infer we remotely had the sway to advocate otherwise. Ravenswing 19:03, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• No (edit conflict) While all of the Wikipedias are part of the overall movement they are separate projects with different inclusion criteria, different administration and different policies and guidelines. In fact the only thing they share is the general mission of creating a crowd-sourced encyclopedia. How they go about that mission and the information each chooses to document is a local decision of each individual project.
  The idea put forward above that consensus on an individual project is somehow invalid as local consensus holds no water because the very concept of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is local to English Wikipedia. Jbh ^Talk 14:32, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• No Wikipedia in any language is not an RS, thus it fails for that reason alone.Slatersteven (talk) 14:36, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• Wow, this is an interesting egg that got cracked open! I would say first that notability knows no language. If notability standards have been meet in one langaugage then we have translation software (and heck even PEOPLE) who can read and translate that source material. So ideally, notable in one langauge is notable in any language. However, I'm "not" "exactly" "convinced" that notability standards are applied basically the same across all the projects of different languages--that's a conjecture, but I find that notability standards are not applied basically the same across the pages I frequent. I'm not even completely convinced that I apply notability standards basically the same myself. Which then tells me that notability standards are open for interpretation, application, and even mis-application. Sometimes we make mistakes individually, sometimes we make mistakes by consensus. So now I come full circle--It's true that different people apply notability standards and guidelines in different ways. But it's also true that facts are facts and notability is not a matter of opinion. Therefore, I say Yes and once again offer the phrase Notablity knows no langauge. I think I'll make that an essay...--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • You are conflating two unrelated things. (1) Do sources in non-English languages count for notability? I think almost all of us would say yes. (2) Does the mere existence of an article in Wikipedia (in English or any other language) serve as evidence that the article's topic is notable? This is what everyone here has been saying no to, especially for other-language Wikipedias where our experience has been that the notability guideline we use here is not strictly enforced. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I see your point and I did not mean to imply that inclusion equals notability... I support Wikipedia:Inclusion is not an indicator of notability. If that's what this is all about, I'd agree with no.--Paul McDonald (talk) 20:14, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• no - Each project governs itself. WP:OTHERSHITEXISTS. The question is boring, not interesting. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• No. Other-language Wikipedias, although they might operate basically on the en.Wiki model, are totally independent. They set their own standards for notability and appropriateness which are often less strict and less controlled than the criteria and/or guidelines for inclusion on the English Wikipedia . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:10, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• No. Pile-on No based on precedent. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:48, 8 May 2018 (UTC).
• In general No. Standards and their enforcement are different. A straightforward example: in Lithuanian Wikipedia there is an article for, like, every town-level politician and college professor. Compare the lists in: "Kazlauskas" and "lt:Kazlauskas". At the same time, it appears subjects which are not prone to abuse, i.e., subjects other than bios, businesses, and products, are probably universally notable (if sourced). Staszek Lem (talk) 22:33, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
• No- other language wikipedias do not necessarily have our standards for notability and verifiability. Reyk _YO! 18:30, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
• No. Each project sets its own standards, and inclusion on one project does not indicate acceptability for inclusion on any other. Also, it is always possible that an article fails the notability criterion even on the other language Wikipedia, but simply has not been noticed or evaluated against those standards. Regardless, each article on the English Wikipedia is subject to evaluation of notability based upon the English Wikipedia's rules. The same is true in reverse. Other language Wikipedias are not bound by our decisions on what to include and not to include, and may set their own rules for that completely independently of what we choose to do. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 12:11, 12 May 2018 (UTC)
• Abstain. Each have different standards, however, if it is already included in Simple English Wikipedia (which has the same notability guideline but constrained language requirement as English Wikipedia), it should be included in English Wikipedia as well, with more detail included. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 06:10, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

Notability of local elections in the UK

Having just nominated a recent creation, Redditch Borough Council election, 2018‎ for deletion at AfD, my searches revealed a whole swathe of similar articles , very few (any?) of which have independednt and reliable sourcing as events. All are sourced to published election results but none seem to be able to satisfy the basic criteria of WP:GNG. It is quite possible that I am missing something here such as the assumed notability or populated places, high-schools and Professors (heads of faculties), but if I am not, should we be having a clear out of all these articles.? If we don't should we instead be creating the very many thousands of articles ( 1 election every year for every city, every county, each county borough, every borough, all towns etc etc.) that are currently missing ? I have pinned my colours to the mast by nominating one at AfD but a more considered and generalised approach would seem preferable. This may have been discussed and agreed previously; in which case a pointer to that discussion would be helpful. This may also not be the best forum for this query, in which case a pointer to a better forum would be good.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   13:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I am an editor of many years standing who is deeply involved in the creation, and maintaining, of UK local election articles. It has been many, many years since we had an AfD discussion about them. In some dusty cobwebbed corner of Wikipedia will be the discussion which agreed, at the time, that these are notable on the grounds of being democratic elections to important local authorities conducted by registered political parties, with media coverage across all newspapers, digital platforms and radio. It was conceded that some councils are smaller than others, and that this could be used as a valid stick with which to beat the wider project. I accept fully that there are many red links, and this might be because creating election boxes is an arduous task. I hope that we can agree to retain the articles, particularly because I know they are a valid and valuable resource. doktorb _words^deeds 13:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I have no concerns about red-links, it is the general notability of the articles themselves that I have issues with and it is to that that my question relates. I.e how does any one of these articles stack up against WP:GNG. As simple as that  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   13:18, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

My case for the defense, then. "Significant coverage" is self evident. News coverage and analysis is national and local, with commentary and results pages published/uploaded. Wikipedia actually does *more* by drilling down from the national picture to specific local results, which are covered by the local press (Lancashire Evening Post where I live) and digital platforms. "Reliable" is self evident: the sources are the local councils and local press associated with the area, and the results must be confirmed by Returning Officers. It's a watertight legal process, so Wikipedia is simply providing reliable coverage of instantly verifiable election results. To avoid accusations of using too many first-hand sources, the second-hand source would be BBC News, for one example, or an psephology website. I fully understand that, to a global audience, Redditch Borough Council might not seem that important, but "other stuff exists" works both ways. Thousands of small elections happen on the same day, a kind of "super Thursday" for Britain, and as such surely satisfies the notability guidelines on democratic and electoral articles on that basis. I hope we can work together to safeguard these articles as notable. doktorb _words^deeds 13:29, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

If we use a completed election as a result Redditch Borough Council election, 2014, then these fail not only notability but policies like WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:NOT#STATS as well. We want these articles to discuss the how and the why, and not just the result, of these elections. For national elections, this is universally possible even for smaller countries. State/providence or sub-national elections generally can get the same coverage, but after that, that's far too fine a division to assure that there will be detailed, comprehensive coverage in independent sources (those that are not published principally for readers in that area, like local newspapers or election board results). It is usually because those officials at the local level have little power on the larger world, and thus these don't receive sufficient GNG sourcing from independent and secondary works.--Masem (t) 13:46, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

You make good points. I'll be honest, I am thinking of just how many years I have been editing Wikipedia, particularly ensuring that these articles are up to date and accurate, and how much work would have been ultimately wasted. Maybe my life has been an utter waste of time. doktorb _words^deeds 14:34, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

If a consensus is reached that those articles aren't for Wikipedia, we must find a way to preserve yours and other work, perhaps by moving/copying the pages to a different wiki. No conservation plan - no deletion! --FLYING CHRYSALIS ^💬 19:31, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

• The elections are notable per doktorbuk. Even if they were not, which is denied, nominating them for deletion would violate ATD, PRESERVE and R, because there is an obvious merger target (the local authority or a list of its elections). NOT has no application to this. We could do without nominations like this one. James500 (talk) 00:33, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• I think my main question would be "what does this article give us that the council website doesn't"? Wikipedia isn't the only website in the world; why create the same thing twice? Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:16, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• I've just gone through a number of the Redditch ones. They all have only primary sources and all appear to violate the WP:NOTSTATS Excessive listings of unexplained statistics clause. I do not believe the council elections to be independently notable. SportingFlyer talk 13:34, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

If there is a national event when very many local elections are held and the outcome is sufficiently notable that national newspapers and media channels cover it (cf comment by doktorbuk above), as for example an unexpected large swing to one party, then that may well be notable. In such a case the results of all the individual councils would be summarised and a much bigger picture portrayed. This still wouldn't make any one individual council's election result notable IMHO.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   14:48, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

I firmly believe that these lists should be kept. Firstly, as someone who maintains an academic interest in local politics off-wiki, I can't stress enough how useful these lists are as a research guide and source of information; indeed, I believe it is a shame that there are still many gaps in coverage. I should stress that I am not a statistician, and these articles are more (or should be more) than a collection of numbers. Secondly, to respond to Ritchie333's point, even if council's do maintain election info on their websites, (a) it is seldom available pre-internet, and (b) it may not remain available forever. Should someone need to find out who was elected to Kesteven County Council in 1964, they might have a harder time without that article. Thirdly, as a Wikipedia editor, these articles are useful to guide content creation. Fourthly and regarding notability, I'd say from experience that most LA elections attract significant journalistic coverage with commentary at local or regional level – usually multiple page spreads for county and district councils. That this coverage has not been included in articles often reflects the fact that accessing the relevant offline sources is time consuming and inconvenient for anyone but a local or a very committed editor. Fifthly (and I understand that this is an ideological standpoint), it seems to be a good thing to be providing an accurate, reliable and freely available source of information about democratic events - this is something which is something which fits into Wikipedia's general aim of making the sum of knowledge available for free, a highly democratic principle. As a concluding note, I think that even if the secondary coverage is slim, the arguments for keeping these articles far outweigh the arguments that say otherwise. They are encyclopedic and useful to specialists and laypeople, on and off-wiki; notability guidelines (where a lack of notability is even in question) are exactly that: guidelines. Let's not get rid of a net good. Cheers, --Noswall59 (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2018 (UTC).

Keep in mind we are an encyclopedia, and there are many things we are not (hence why WP:NOT exists). Nearly all the points you are arguing hit boxes on WP:NOT that we try to avoid. The core argument here is related to the fact that we are a global encyclopedia; when a topic has interest of only to a very small geographic area (as these local elections tend to be), it is generally not appropriate to include, even if it is possible to readily source it from local papers. Technically, we'd have no end to topics (not just elections) if this was allowed, but that's why we recognize we're not a collection of indiscriminate info. Local elections typically fall into that category; otherwise this encourages a huge number of potential articles (well over 100,000) that would simply be tables of results. A history of elected officials for a town/city/region, that's reasonable information, but the elections themselves tend to be of little value in the long term. --Masem (t) 17:14, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

Masem: I suppose, if the information is maintained, then merging election articles into parent articles for local authorities which list elected officials/councillors could be preferable to having individual articles about each election. I can envisage that being just as useful but more compact and potentially cutting down on the number of articles substantially. Something like the current articles we have on Parliamentary constituencies would be a good idea. I do want to reply to a couple of your points though. You argue that as a global encyclopedia, we don't have a place for articles of local interest or local notability; while this is a commonly held view, I do think it relies on one particular understanding of the word 'global' (that is 'global' focus='national' focus); 'global' could also mean providing coverage at every level, including the local, but for every country. I am also not aware that there is any general policy guideline which expresses a preference for including national or international-level subjects over local subjects (local politicians themselves are explicitly excluded in WP:POL, but then recent debates on this talk page highlighted this to be problematic, because local sources appear perfectly reasonable under GNG as long as they are not WP:ROUTINE; still, we tend not to keep these articles but the issue is less clear-cut than it seems and deletion requires the assumption, apparently absent in any policy, that local-only sources are unacceptable for establishing notability). My second issue is that you suggest my points contradict WP:NOT, but, having read through that page, I am struggling to see why; nothing under the WP:IINFO section seems to exclude this sort of information, and it would be easy enough in most cases to contextualise results. In fact, WP:LISTN states that "Lists that fulfill recognized informational, navigation, or development purposes often are kept regardless of any demonstrated notability." In that case, the informational utility of these lists seems to outweigh any claims about notability. Cheers, —Noswall59 (talk) 16:29, 11 April 2018 (UTC).

Useful data like this might fit better on Wikimedia Commons in the Data namespace. It can then be accessed by code Modules on Wikipedia to produce tables, referenced on Wikidata, and downloaded (it's held in straightforward JSON format). Then Wikipedia editors are free to cover notable results, data summaries, graphs showing long-term trends, etc., without being dragged down by maintaining and defending useful but non-encyclopaedic pages. --FLYING CHRYSALIS ^💬 14:14, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure if it is commons but it does feel like data that another sister project can hold. I don't know which one however. --Masem (t) 14:19, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

I had initially thought (and posted below) that Wikidata would be the place - but it's more of a collection of connected facts and can't yet do the sorts of summary calculations you need for election boxes. I think if we agree that such data is useful and should find a home in some Wikimedia project, it's a case of deciding which is one is for now the most appropriate. I've argued for Commons based on its ability to be queried, where notable, by nice tables on Wikipedia. I have a particular data schema in mind which I'll have a go at testing. --FLYING CHRYSALIS ^💬 15:04, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

It is undoubtedly true that elections in certain councils can be seen as very important in terms of how a party is performing. For example in Scotland in the 2012 and 2017 elections the Glasgow results were seen as highly significant in 2012 because Labour held on to a majority despite a high profile SNP campaign to gain the council, in 2017 because the SNP became the largest party for the first time (reflecting recent trends in Scottish politics) and also as the Conservatives made gains in areas which would not be seen as natural territory for them (the same was also true of some other West of Scotland councils. Similarly the London Borough results in 1968 were seen as highly significant in showing a decline in support for the Wilson Government - take Lambath where the Conservative gained all bar 3 seats in what was thought to be safe Labour territory. Equally in the 1990s the loss of several traditionally Conservative councils was seen as signalling what was to happen in the 1997 general election. However as to whether articles for each election are needed I am not sure. Personally I find them very useful, but that is not an argument for retention and I accept there is a question of whether or not they meet notability as things stand.Dunarc (talk) 18:42, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

• The problem is the vast majority of the articles that exist rely exclusively on single, primary sources. I think a local council election could be notable, but it seems to be the exception rather than the rule. SportingFlyer talk 02:27, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

I recently declined an AfC submission just like the ones discussed here. It did not strike me as notable. Legacypac (talk) 03:07, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

It's inconceivable to me that an event, involving tens of thousands of people actively making a considered democratic choice, would not meet notability guidelines. True, the particular upcoming Redditch election article might be a bit premature, but by the time the AfD has been concluded we'll probably be in election week anyway, in which case independent coverage wil be available. If the nominator wanted to make a point, it would be more constructive to nominate an article about a previous election, rather than an imminent one.

As for rejecting election articles at AfC, that seems to be most unconstructive and time-wasting. You should only be rejecting articles at AfC that stand no chance of surviving in main article space, surely. Sionk (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

• To clarify my earlier comments: (1) These elections generally receive coverage that satisfies GNG. The nature of the topic is such that it is reasonable to presume that sufficient coverage will exist somewhere. (2) Whether that coverage is presently cited in the article has nothing to do with notability. It is absolutely not good enough to look at the sources cited in articles, because editors rarely attempt to cite all or even most of the relevant sources available. The purpose of citations is to establish verifiability, not notability. To check notability, use Google etc. (3) Mass participation of large numbers of people is an indicator of notability. (4) Why is the United Kingdom being selectively targeted? (5) No one cares about AfC, as that process does not require any level of consensus (unlike AfD). (6) There might be a need to control articles about future elections that have not happened yet. (We probably don't want articles on elections scheduled for the year 2118). I'm guessing NOTCRYSTAL already does this. (6) Local sources or interest is not a valid argument. It is not in GNG. It is manifest nonsense. [Furthermore, a large national syndicate (which is what those things have been for a long time) is not 'local' just because it happens to publish its papers under a different name in different parts of the country. Especially when (at least sometimes) they are also on the internet for the whole world to see and have a print circulation that approaches those of the ostensibly 'national' newspapers]. James500 (talk) 03:10, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

It seems like there are a few separate-ish issues involved here that may be useful to separate.

1. Is it too soon for this article, about an election which has not yet taken place (i.e. too soon)?
   • Seems like a fairly typical sort of issue not particular to elections, and is less about notability than, say WP:NOTNEWS.
2. The WP:NOT question. How much and what kind of coverage is necessary for the community to determine that an article which, by nature, contains a lot of statistics, is not problematic per WP:NOT?
   • IMO this should come down to the kind of sourcing that's available, so long as the results are sufficiently explained/presented such that the reader has no trouble finding the meaning. If sourcing exists that could add context/analysis/explanation of the results, then as long as the results aren't actually indiscriminate/meaningless, then there's no deadline. If the extant sources are limited to statistics, press releases, and other subpar sources, then it should probably be deleted, but probably more for WP:N reasons (arguably).
3. The related WP:N question. What kind of sourcing is necessary to keep such an article? If there are a few local sources providing in-depth coverage but all of the regional/national/international coverage is superficial (e.g. just the statistics), do we call it notable?
   • There are good arguments on both sides, I think, but I tend to think that the answer will be yes most of the time. If the sourcing is limited to statistics, press releases, etc., whether or not they're local/regional/national/international, there is insufficient in-depth coverage in reliable sources to pass our notability guidelines. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 20:07, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I know here in the states, for any town which has its own press (even if this is like a weekly newspaper rather than a daily), the "importance" of election results in that source will come up, eg the sourcing that we'd want to see to put in context, but the results are of such local interest that in a global encyclopedia, it doesn't make sense to include. We need to draw a line somewhere, and we basically have that in the States that the main presidential election and the state gubanatorial elections generally will get articles, while we will have summary articles by state for the US Congress Representatives and Senators, and for their state congress representatives. The mayoralship of the largest cities may also get articles if the election is unique. Anything more specific, then the election may be of some significant interest due to other factors (eg special elections). But any more detail, we don't have such coverage. This should be a similar model to use for other countries with democratic elections; the national election and then the next governing distinction. --Masem (t) 22:51, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

This is not local interest. "Politics" is an area of academic study that is taught and researched at universities, where you can now get a degree in politics. Academics and students of politics will be interested. As will politics enthusiasts (and nerds), all over the country, and probably throughout the world. These elections receive coverage in serious works about politics in GBooks, as well as the national press. And anything on the internet is international. I have nothing to do with Redditch, yet I am interested. Not everyone is an anti-intellectual only interested in which party will give him more money in the immediate future. That is an incredibly narrow view of the world. Even if it was local interest, so what? That argument has zero merit. James500 (talk) 01:46, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Some local elections will become significant in hindsight. But most local elections (at the town level) do not get significant coverage at a national level. If anything, they simply document the results, which is not coverage, just stats. That's why we don't cover local elections, to avoid indiscriminate coverage. --Masem (t) 02:03, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

• A statistic is a real valued function of observations that constitute a random sample (DeGroot and Schervish, Probability and Statistics, Third International Edition, Addison Wesley, 2002, p 371). The names of candidates at an election and the number of people who voted for them are not statistics. James500 (talk) 01:46, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Stats are more than just polling. Athletes gain a whole bunch of stats from how they play. Films gain stats for how many people watched a film over its run, etc. Any compilation of numbers like these or election results, presented in the raw, are not encyclopedic content on their own. --Masem (t) 13:55, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Masem, with that in mind, could you cast your eye over the articles I have created, and tried to tend like a rockery garden, for Lancashire County Council elections? I realised quite early on that having a long page about each and every election would be overkill, so I used a "summary" model instead. I assumed that this could be more likely to be acceptable precisely because it wasn't just a list of every vote in every division in every borough in the county, it summarised the results instead, which I think ensures that Wiki does not act in this instance as a copy of first source material. doktorb _words^deeds 15:23, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment As per doctorbuk, it was established long ago that these were notable (via AfDs like this or this), hence why we have several thousand articles on such local elections (see e.g. the contents of Category:English local elections, 2016). Number 57 06:22, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• All night coverage of the results on BBC One and ITV. – How is that not notable enough? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Those are primary sources, reports documenting an event. Notability is based on secondary sources. --Masem (t) 13:37, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Masem: This discussion began as an extension to the AfD for Redditch Borough Council election, 2018, so using Redditch Borough Council election, 2016 (the previous election) there was coverage in both the Redditch & Alcester Advertiser and the Birmingham Mail. I'm also confused by your comments above including This should be a similar model to use for other countries with democratic elections; the national election and then the next governing distinction. The next governing distinction in the UK is local elections. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:08, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Those articles are just reporting results, they are not coverage (describing the election races in depth and the impact of the results). And while I'm certain one can find local sources pre-election that discuss the candidates, there is the question of material that is only covered in depth at a local level. (Local sources can augment a topic that has had secondary coverage at a broader level, but alone, local sources don't help). --Masem (t) 14:21, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Masem: Coverage: Redditch & Alcester Advertiser and Birmingham Mail, but apparently not coverage-y enough and there is the question of material that is only covered in depth at a local level. but the all night coverage special run at a national level are primary sources. So the primary sources are not quite right and the secondary sources are not quite right either. No referencing on Wikipedia meets such a bar, or is expected to. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 18:42, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
        • From a notability standpoint, we want more than just covering the results or how those results come in. That's secondary sourcing discussing the candidates or positions at play to some depth, and in some cases, the aftermath of election results. Now, I'm sure that local papers will have this type of secondary sourcing, but rarely do those issues filter up to the wider regional level save for rare cases. It comes down again to the fact that as a global encyclopedia, we cannot be as refined as to local level coverage of topics like elections, otherwise we become indiscriminate. --Masem (t) 19:10, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
          • Surely the primary source is the council's publishing of the results and the secondary sources are the all night coverage of the election by the main broadcasters. I don't know if you are British or not, but if not I think you should watch 5-10 minutes of the BBC's coverage so you can see that it is by no means indiscriminate to include the UK local elections on Wikipedia. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 23:42, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• Comment They should be kept, just because many use council websites as sources doesn't mean the article topic isn't noteworthy in itself. As for your latest suggestion, I strongly reject your heavy handed draft proposal for these pages as a prime example of why instruction creep is bad and should be avoided. ToastButterToast (talk) 13:35, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
• Probably a connected issue is the fact that in these local election articles, very few of the people in the running seem to be notable. It's why national and top state/providence/etc. elections are generally well covered and kept as the winners and often many of those running are notable already, whereas at local levels, you are dealing with people that haven't really had an extensive political history. I'm sure you can find local coverage of these types of people, but again, as a global encyclopedia, we do tend to cut off topics that only have local in-depth coverage. --Masem (t) 14:00, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
  • These elections are the English equivalent of state/provincial elections though – county, district and unitary authorities are the second tier of government below the national parliament. Number 57 14:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
    • It could even be argued that councils are the top tier and constituencies are the second tier. For example, the county of Greater Manchester has 27 Westminster constituencies but only 10 local councils (1) Manchester City Council (2) Stockport MBC (3) Tameside MBC (4) Oldham MBC (5) Rochdale MBC (6) Bury MBC (7) Bolton Council (8) Wigan MBC (9) Salford City Council (10) Trafford Council. If you take the first council, Manchester City Council, it includes 32 wards. Lucy Powell is the MP for Manchester Central which only has 9 wards. If you view three maps side by side you get a better sense of it - Map A: Manchester Central constituency within Manchester Council, Map B: Manchester Council within Greater Manchester, Map C: Manchester Central within Greater Manchester. It is important not to confuse the notability of councillor versus MP with council versus Parliamentary constituency. Each ward has 3 councillors, so Lucy Powell is the sole MP for Manchester Central but there are 27 ward councillors (3 for each of the 9 wards, Map A). --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 16:16, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Constituencies are like wards - you can't compare a constituency to a council any more than you can compare a ward to the UK Parliament! --FLYING CHRYSALIS ^💬 19:21, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
        • Constituencies are like wards - no they're not. Manchester Central contains 9 wards Ancoats and Beswick · Ardwick · Clayton and Openshaw · Deansgate · Hulme · Miles Platting and Newton Heath · Moss Side · Moston · City Centre. Masem was making the point about "second tier" in UK politics. What would you say the second tier is in UK politics after Westminster if not councils? Also, why can't we do comparisons, will the comparison police get us? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 07:27, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
          • At what point did I dispute that councils are (in England anyway) the second tier of government? --FLYING CHRYSALIS ^💬 14:45, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
            • I compared constituencies (first tier) with councils (second tier) to which you replied with shock (exclamation mark). Constituencies are like wards - you can't compare a constituency to a council any more than you can compare a ward to the UK Parliament! If your shock is not due to thinking that councils are the second tier of government then what are you shocked about, and what is your beef with the constituencies / councils comparison? --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 01:11, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Discussion of draft proposal regarding notability of elections

Proposal - trying to take on board the views both here and at the AfD, I have drafted a proposal of what might become guidelines or policy. It is here and for the sake of continuity it would be better if comments were made here to maintain involvement of the whole community.  Velella  Velella Talk   12:47, 18 April 2018 (UTC) I think that is about 100 times too long and massively over-egging it. I would suggest something much simpler based on current practice and accepted conventions. The below is a starting point, although I may have missed some types which we deem notable. All national elections and referendums are deemed notable All national elections to supra national bodies are deemed notable (e.g. European Parliament election, 2019 (Spain)) All by-elections/special elections to national parliaments are deemed notable Individual state, regional and local elections and referendums are deemed notable if the national media covers them and details the results. The notability of other elections is assessed on a case-by-case basis using WP:GNG Personally I'm much more concerned about the prevalence of articles like United States presidential election in Alabama, 1904 and United States House of Representatives elections in Illinois, 2010 (of which there are thousands) than local elections, which at least are self-contained articles. Number 57 13:43, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Comment The proposal appears to recommend the creation of new articles for individual elections to Parliamentary constituencies where there is some controversy, but to delete articles for individual elections where there is none. Current practice——whereby Parliamentary elections in the UK only tend to have individual articles if they are by-elections, and local elections have individual articles——seems entirely adequate to me. I would support presumption in favour of the notability of UK borough, district and unitary council elections given that by their nature they accrue significant coverage, through primarily (but often not exclusively) local coverage. These councils are the second tier of government if you consider devolved bodies in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to be part of the top tier. Ralbegen (talk) 17:30, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Comment: I don't particularly care about the wider implications of elections - I just want to preserve and make data accessible for whatever uses others might find for it. For anyone who feels the same way... Proposal: We create a new wiki for UK council, assembly and parliament data with the mw:Extension:Variables to allow decent table calculation functionality. Base the data at Wikidata. Copy all the existing local council election pages over (with edit history), and leave Wikipedia to the artsy-fartsies! --FLYING CHRYSALIS talk 18:18, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Comment When I suggested a proposal be formed I meant a proposal specific to UK local elections. Finding a consensus on the question "should UK local elections be included in Wikipedia? Yes / no." The nearest we have at the moment is discussions like this one. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 19:00, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Discussion has been deleted off West Lindsey unfortch. --FLYING CHRYSALIS 💬 19:21, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Nevertheless, in closing the administrator states: prior AfDs on similar articles push the balance towards keep and that was back in 2008, so the precedent was set by the AfDs prior to 2008. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 23:53, 18 April 2018 (UTC) My proposal addressed editors' concerns about data loss should the majority opinion turn to deletion. I would amend it to say, having looked into it, Wikimedia Commons Data namespace (rather than Wikidata) would be a better focus for efforts to document election results, which Wikipedia can access via Modules to produce notable content. --FLYING CHRYSALIS 💬 14:14, 19 April 2018 (UTC) I realise my initial comment and proposal got swept up in the discussion around User:Velella's proposal, which wasn't my intention. I've struck it through rather than move it since it's no longer exactly what I'm proposing anyway. --FLYING CHRYSALIS 💬 15:18, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Comment I don't really see how the 75% of the draft guideline below "Primary criteria" takes us forward. It basically describes WP:GNG, which no-one would dispute (or need explaining more than once). A more useful subject-specific guideline would be one that described what sort of elections we can presume meet WP:GNG. For example, a county council election in 2017 will have multiple RS coverage available online and it will be easy to show it meets WP:GNG. An election for the same council in 1997, or 1927, will undoubtedly have had similar attention but the sources will be difficult to get hold of. So surely we would presume these similar elections were also notable enough for Wikipedia. The proposed draft guideline simply panders in a big way to recentism!! While on the subject of county councils,any guideline needs to address the subject of elections to sub-national bodies (local authority elections can involve hundreds of thousands of voters). Sionk (talk) 21:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC) Despite "authoring" it, I would agree. I am sure that it patently obvious that it is the notability guidelines for organizations, substantially cut-down and where "election" is substituted for "organization or product". The reason for doing this patent plagiarization was to avoid debates about the minutiae of the wording, since the wording itself had previously been agreed by consensus. I would be delighted if we could just apply WP:GNG to elections, but the debate above clearly show that many editors believe that special provisions apply here whereby notability can be assumed because it is a democratic process, or because other similar articles exists, or because it is a valuable data resource or because much work has gone into creation of articles none of which arguments have any bearing on WP:GNG. Can we simply agree that WP:GNG does indeed apply to all elections and the logical tests for GNG as set out in the suggested guidance should apply here. If we can agree that then we can forget about the guidance. However the b debate at the AfD that I started doesn't give me great confidence that editors are prepared to accept notability as the criteria that needs to be satisfied.  Velella  Velella Talk   15:04, 19 April 2018 (UTC) Comment I don't (and neither, I imagine do the other editors) believe that special provisions apply here whereby notability can be assumed because it is a democratic process, or because other similar articles exists, or because it is a valuable data resource or because much work has gone into creation of articles. We believe the articles should stay because UK local elections are notable - they have all night coverage across all the major networks. No special provision is being sought. All I've read from those wanting to delete boils down to WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 01:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment The result of the original AfD Redditch Borough Council election, 2018 which sparked this discussion was keep. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 10:06, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

That is exactly why we are having this discussion. We have an AfD closed as Keep in a case where the article has only a single source and that is not in any independent, although undoubtedly reliable. The RSs promised by contributors to the AfD debate have been found wanting. So we have admins closing AfDs on the basis of a vote! count without reference to policy and satisfaction of WP:GNG. In truth this one AfD is not in any sense significant in the debate. What we need is demonstrable evidence that such elections are notable. This has simply not been provided despite several weeks of debate. Those that want to retain such articles argue that much work and effort has gone into their creation, that they are an invaluable data set for researches and that they are in some unsubstantiated sense, important. Others point to the lack of notability as provided by multiple independent and reliable sources, the standard test of notability on Wikipedia. The only conclusion that I can reach is that only those local elections that meet the standard test of notability should be retained and all the remainder should be deleted, but with time provided for those readers with a strong interest in the subject to harvest the data or host the articles elsewhere.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   19:52, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Edit proposal to solve confusion.

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.

---

Regarding the recent edits and reversions between myself, Masem and Blueboar:

In order to avoid the confusion I mentioned in my edit summary reversion, I propose the wording be changed from:

• "For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort."

To:

• "For article topics of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort." [changes in bold]

Is that a fair compromise? Huggums537 (talk) 05:40, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Prefer removal completely, per above, but if it stays, it should be topics or subjects. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:10, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

Subjects is a fairly good suggestion since it slightly more accurately denotes the main subject of an article without implying too much that it could be talking about different subjects within articles in the problematic way that topics does. I like it. Topics is no good because it could imply different topics within the articles and this doesn't work interchangeably with notability since N only applies to the main subjects of articles NOT different content topics within articles per WP:NNC. Thanks for your input TonyBallioni. I'm on the fence about if it should be retained or deleted, but I know for sure it should be anything other than topics if it stays. Huggums537 (talk) 18:57, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• oppose - the surrounding context clearly speaks how to handle topics, not articles, see the immediately previous sentence. Therefore the sentence must actually say "For topics of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort." or must be deleted altogether. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:27, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Staszek Lem, See that whole section: WP:FAILN The entire section is titled: "Articles not satisfying the notability guidelines" [emphasis added] The whole surrounding context is actually speaking how to handle articles, whether to keep them or delete them. The entire section deals with what to do about articles NOT "topics". Please reconsider your position in light of this since I failed to provide it in my original proposal. I would also like to make sure TonyBallioni, Masem, and Blueboar see this comment as well. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 03:45, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • You are not reading what I wrote. Let me repeat: see the immediately previous sentence. It speaks about deletion of topics, and the next sentence with my replacement perfect sense per WP:PRESERVE: to preserve information is of utmost importance, while preserving articles is merely about suitable form of preserving this information. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Yes, I read what you wrote perfectly well and you will take particular notice that the immediately previous sentence speaks equally to "related notable articles" as it does to "topics". Furthermore, when you insist on isolating only a single sentence to make your contextual comparison with it, that is called "taking it out of context" with the main idea of the section and is generally considered to be a very weak way of making a point compared to the much stronger point I made above which puts the sentence into context with the section as a whole as opposed to "taking it out of context" and comparing it to only one single other sentence. Huggums537 (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Also, it just makes absolutely no sense at all that we would ever be discussing the deletion of a "topic" as a last resort. What we DO talk about and put up for deletion discussions as a last resort is articles. "Topics" don't go up for deletion, articles do. That's why they call it: "Articles for Deletion". Huggums537 (talk) 04:07, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Nope. See above. Also "deletion of articles as last resort" is a heavy bias towards inclusionism I cannot agree with (no I am not a deletionist; my interpretation of WP:GNG is very liberal , as you may see e.g. here). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:36, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
      • We have no TfD's. There is no such thing as a "Topic for Deletion". Also, your contextual comparison makes no sense when the two sentences are talking about two completely different things. The immediately previous sentence is talking about how non-notable items SHOULD BE deleted, while the sentence up for discussion is talking about questionable items being kept. You are comparing apples to oranges and then asking me, "What's the difference to ya? Hey, It's all fruit anyway!" Then, when I tell you all what the difference really is to me, nobody will listen. Huggums537 (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• The topic/subject of an article is what we deem notable or not-notable (or of unclear notability), not the article itself. Blueboar (talk) 10:52, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I understand this and almost everyone who participates at AfD's already understands that notability is a determining factor for the subject/"topic" of an article. So, we have no need of over-complicating things by using the inadequate, confusing and non-specific term "topic" in this manner over here. Besides, the sentence itself is describing what to do with articles where the determination has already been made that notability is unclear. If the determination has already been made that notability is unclear for that "topic"/subject/article then there is no longer any good reason for us to continue to use the word "topic" to describe whether the article should be deleted or not because it just causes over-complicated confusion. Especially since "topic" is such a broad term that has too many meanings that have nothing to do with determining notability. For example; "topic" could mean the subjects that people discuss on talk pages, or "topic" could refer to a non-notable (but fully sourced) person, place, thing and/or subject of discussion within a featured article. Obviously, notability doesn't apply to "topics" on talk pages, and the subject of a featured article has already been determined to be notable. So, notability doesn't apply to the mere mention of a non-notable person, place or thing there either per WP:NNC. I can think of lots of reasons why articles of high notability easily contain a certain amount of non-notable (yet verifiable) people, places, things and/or subjects. We need to use different verbiage that is more specific to the determination of notability and less generalised in order to avoid this confusion. Huggums537 (talk) 13:09, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • The problem is that there is not always a one to one of "one article covers one topic". An article may consist of multiple topics. Notability is there to determine when a topic can have a standalone article of its own. --Masem (t) 13:32, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
      • I believe you should seriously rethink your position since it doesn't make any sense at all when you consider the fact that ALL articles consist of "multiple topics" and I can assure you that it is NOT the function of notability to determine whether the multitude of "multiple topics" for each and every article warrants an article of it's own. Totally absurd. Huggums537 (talk) 14:05, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Most articles have one core topic that is the center of discussion; that is the topic that is being considered when an AFD is started. But there are cases where there isn't such a central topic, and that's why we have LISTN, to state that notability in those cases is far less straightforward to evaluate. But where one is applying the GNG or SNG, it is for the principle purpose of determine if a topic should get a standalone article which that topic would be the central focus of. AFDs raised on notability are not evaluating the article, but the topic. --Masem (t) 14:17, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
          • Not so fast. All articles have a core "topic" subject to notability standards including lists. WP:LISTN clearly states this here: "Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group" and "The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been." So, I still have yet to find anyone who will address even a single one of my concerns. Huggums537 (talk) 15:58, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Please clarify this hair splitting

After re-reading the section carefully, I see it basically consists of two parts:

• First paragraph is its summary, i.e., section lede.
• The rest is detailed instructions how to do what is said in the section lede.

In this framework the sentence in question is completely redundant, unless there is a really important distinction between

• "Topics that do not meet this criterion"

and

• "topics of unclear notability"

IMO "unclear" actually means "does not meet"; I do not see the need in shades of gray here: the subsequent instructions are equally applicable both to nonnotable topics and to topics of unclear notability. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:54, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

• I think this comment is actually more suitable for the above section where the ongoing discussion about the deletion of this sentence is taking place. However, to reiterate my reply to your comment, there definitely is a distinction (the way the guideline is currently worded) between "Topics that do not meet this criterion" and "topics of unclear notability". As I pointed out earlier, it is an apples to oranges comparison. Regardless, this particular discussion is not really relevant to this section. As far as clarifying hair splitting goes - I'm not sure how I can clarify my points any further, or if you are even asking for clarity on that. Huggums537 (talk) 20:42, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • there definitely is a distinction --Please point me to the place where this difference is explained. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:07, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I don't know why I have to jump through all these hoops when this has just been talked about in the other discussion referenced below, but then again I have no idea why Blueboar decided to make an edit to a sentence that was already being discussed on the talk page anyway.
    • Also, I understand that Blueboar is a respected editor here and the reason everyone is intentionally being obstinate with me is out of an obligatory loyalty to a known peer. That is perfectly fine with me. I think you should support your peers, but to the death and to the exclusion of all other reason and logic? Disastrous. Be realistic. Supporting the edits of your peers is one thing, going this far to the extreme is something else entirely.
    • It really is beginning to look like a small group of long-time advanced editors are seeking to take WP:OWNership of this guideline to serve their agenda at AfD just as James500 mentioned here.
    • TonyBallioni even admitted to pushing the AfD agenda here and with the very proposal here.
    • The reason this troubles me is because this guideline is supposed to benefit the entire Wikipedia community, NOT just the folks at AfD and an administrator is supposed to represent the interests of everyone on Wikipedia including the folks over at MoS or even SPI, and NOT just at AfD. When an admin starts trying to "get the guideline to match what we do over at AfD" it really starts to look like the concern is more for a personal agenda than it is for the community at large.
    • People have the nerve to attack James500 for "pushing his agenda" when all he wants to do is be an inclusionist and give people access to more information. Big deal. Nobody wants to let him slide on that since it's just a personal preference, but rather ostracize him for it. However, when it comes to an admin who actually should be held responsible since we're talking about duty to the community and more than just personal preference, everyone just looks the other way and they suddenly have no nerve to say anything. Show us your stones and start thinking for yourselves people. The current backwards thinking needs to re-align with what actually makes sense. It seems to me that the only ones with any stones are either being ostracised, or going around ignoring all the rules with impunity.
    • At any rate, the answer to your question is related at WP:NPOSSIBLE. Huggums537 (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
      • You did not answer my question. RTFM-kind answers are not. I don't know why I have to jump through all these hoops -- it was an extremely simple question aimed at better understanding your position in the discussion. Anyway, the question is moot now. P.S. Nobody questions that your are meaning well for Wikipedia; please reciprocate. I understand you are frustrated; I've been in this position many times myself. Take care. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

• Sadly, I'm not getting any feedback from the opposition other than stupid statements of facts that everyone already knows. The chief one among them being, "Notability is about topics". So what? Big deal. Not in the least bit helpful. It's not an argument, or even a good reason for anything. It's just a stupid statement of a fact. Here are some more useless ones: "Agriculture is about growing food", "Sex is about making babies" and "Articles are about subjects of notability". The one thing they all have in common is they are all useless as arguments or reasons for keeping or changing the existing sentence, yet the proponents of changing the existing wording insist that simply repeating a fact over and over again somehow magically transforms it from a statement into some kind of logical reasoning. And, all this to fly in the face of someone who actually is providing a form of cohesive reasoning that nobody will even care to respond to. Amazing. I'm very quickly beginning to remember why I took a break from wasting my time on Wikipedia... Huggums537 (talk) 21:14, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
  • We have to consider the distinction between articles and topics, they should not be equated as this tries to do. Articles should be seen for containers for one or more topics. If the only topic or dominate topic in a container fails notability, we try to move that topic to another container (article) but otherwise remove that container. But there could be plenty of problems with the container itself, such as violations related to BLP, copyright, etc; the topic is good, but we need a better container. That's why AFD is more than just notability concerns. This also stresses that we're not against inclusion of non-notable topics, just that they should be included where other notable related topics are already presented, if possible. But conflating "article" and "topic" does not help express this approach. --Masem (t) 13:33, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Masem, thanks very much for this great analogy. I think I can work very well with this to finally explain what I've been trying to say all along. The failure and limitation of the word "topic" as a blanket term to cover both main subjects and topics within articles causes confusion by the inadequate model of distinction used when we distinguish between articles and topics only. This model of distinction is insufficient and is what actually causes the confusion. Why? Because when all we do is separate articles from "topics", then we are forced to throw the main topic (the subject of the article) in with all the topics within the article and mix them all together. There is your confusion. How are we to set the main topic apart from all the topics within the article when they are all mixed in together in the same container? I'll tell you how, and TonyBallioni gave me an excellent idea about this. We ditch the current model and go even farther with it. Instead of only making the distinction between articles/topics, we take the main topic out of the mixture of topics in the container, next we slap a label on it called, "main subject" and then we attach it to the outside of the container and voila! We now have a distinction model that doesn't only separate articles/topics, but it goes one step more and distinguishes articles/topics/main subjects and no more confusing one-term-fits-all "topics" funny business. Huggums537 (talk) 18:39, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Please note: my edit (changing the word “articles” to “topics”) was unrelated to the question of what to do when notability is unclear. My apologies if it caused confusion. Blueboar (talk) 11:19, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing that out Blueboar. That might possibly be more relevant than what is realized. Huggums537 (talk) 16:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Text should be removed completely Articles are deleted for a number of reasons apart from topic notability, so saying that deletion should be "a last resort" based purely on notability (even on the notability guideline page) is out of line with standard practice. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:39, 18 May 2018 (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.

Benefit of the doubt

I propose an anendment for unclear notability to include explicit "benefit of the doubt" clause. "For articles of unclear notability, that article should enjoy the benefit of the doubt and be included unless it can be proved it is not notable enough." Wikipedia should have its inclusion criteria just slightly lower than a paper encyclopedia and we should resort to WP:IAR as rarely as possible. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 06:08, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

The GNG and the SNGs already are benefit of the doubt. If you can show a couple secondary sources, we'll allow a standalone and presume it is notable, but that can be challenged if no further development can be made to the article. --Masem (t) 13:35, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• It is impossible to prove a negative. This edit would have the effect of making deletion on grounds of notability impossible if we actually followed it. TonyBallioni (talk) 18:51, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
• Nice idea, but that would turn an already grey area into a quagmire. One man's notable is another man's trivia. Indeed, and I may expand on this, one man's notable is another man's boring. I have been a Wikipedia editor for many years standing and I can tell you, notability arguments will run and run without resolution until we all drop dead from keyboard exhaustion. doktorb _words^deeds 22:44, 15 May 2018 (UTC)

They do include these kinds of articles in paper encyclopedias. They should be included in Wikipedia too. Erkinalp9035 (talk)

• I support the following wording: "Where the topic of an article is of unclear notability, that article should enjoy the benefit of the doubt and be included unless it can be proved that the topic is not notable." This is already our existing practice. We already have a strong presumption against deletion of topics, and this proposal would merely make more explicit what we already do. I am not satisfied that it is impossible to prove a negative. There seems to be a body of literature on the subject written by philosophers etc that does not agree with that proposition. James500 (talk) 00:03, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • This guideline is already out of date, where the existing practice at AfD is the opposite of what it currently describes (if there is doubt, we tend to delete these days). I'm aware that we're never going to get consensus to update the wording to match practice, but at the very least we can stop it from becoming even more out of step with AfD. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:06, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Benefit of the doubt should not be given. There must be positive evidence of notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:09, 16 May 2018 (UTC).

Propose removing contested sentence all together

I propose we remove the contested sentence all together as it is out of step per above with what current practice is at AfD anyway. This would not change the guideline to reflect Xxanthippe's observation that we require positive evidence of notability (which is the current practice), but it would remove an inaccurate part of the guideline that hasn't been true for years (and won't be true even if there is consensus on this talk page otherwise). Policies and guidelines reflect practice, and removing For articles of unclear notability, that article should enjoy the benefit of the doubt and be included unless it can be proved it is not notable enoughFor articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort. will bring N more into line with what we currently do. Pinging @James500, Xxanthippe, Doktorbuk, Masem, and Erkinalp9035:. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:18, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment The standing language has been For topics of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort.; the language you quote is what was being suggested above and what I think most here agree is not appropriate. The standing language I think is fully appropriate in that we want to try to save any topic that suggests a hint of notability but doesn't immediately meet the GNG/SNG though does not rule out AFD. --Masem (t) 00:25, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Ah, sorry copied from the wrong side of the diff. I disagree that the current language is appropriate and think it is out of date with the standing practice at AfD which is to require proof of notability through meeting the GNG or an SNG. Like I said, regardless of what this guideline says, that sentence will continue to never be followed per IAR, and I think updating the guideline to simply remove it without replacing it with something more deletionist or more inclusionist is best. TonyBallioni (talk) 00:33, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I read the current long-standing language that if you don't think the GNG/SNG is met, try to save the topic by some other means before going to AFD. I agree that line should not be an argument for an AFD discussion, though again, if !voters there can find ways to save the topic by merging/redirection or the like, that's great. --Masem (t) 00:39, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Okay, I can buy that argument, but I think it is covered better through NPOSSIBLE than the wording above. What about updating it to If you are unsure of the notability of the topic, you should [[WP:BEFORE|search diligently]] for sourcing before nominating it for deletion. Makes the point that we seem to agree on clearer than the current wording in my view, which I think could be confusing to people who don't speak WikiTalk (which is my general problem with this entire guideline, but that's a fight I'll never win.) TonyBallioni (talk) 00:46, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. The wording presently in the guideline is better than nothing and is much closer to our existing practice than what Tony claims above, which is wholly inaccurate. James500 (talk) 00:41, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• support removing if an AfD ends up no consensus, we keep it. That is handled via WP:DELETION policy already. Jytdog (talk) 00:57, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. I've been involved with AfD for a very long time as nominator, voter, and closer (I'm not saying that I'm the most prolific editor in this area, but long time empical experience is not without merit). I'm inclined to support TonyBallioni's proposal but many articles that land at AfD with unclear notability are articles that we don't want or do not desperately need. In recent years I have more often been considering whether or not the encyclopedia would suffer from not having some articles. This may or may not reflect Wikipedia philosophy but based on today's size and scope of the encyclopedia and what we have been seeing in the New pages Feed for the last couple of years (in my time I've seen the corpus grow from 1mio to 5.5mio articles), I believe that we have reached the stage where quality overrides quantity and that we do not have to rescue every single article just because it might be notable. To summarise, as Tony says: Policies and guidelines reflect practice (...) For articles of unclear notability, deletion should be a last resort, and I would emphasise 'practice'. For any articles that have serious potential notablity which cannot immediately be proven, we can always resort to the 'soft delete' at AfD which is a policy at WP:ATD-R but of which not all nominators, voters, and closers may be aware.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:12, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment This is tangled enough that I'm not sure whether to say "support" or "oppose", but it should be treated like the regular burden of evidence. Once notability actually is challenged, via something like a nomination for deletion, the burden is on the editors favoring retention to actually demonstrate that the subject is notable via providing sufficient reference material, not just handwaving that it must be out there somewhere (including "It passes an SNG", that's a reason to think there's good odds it's notable, it doesn't make it notable.) That should have been done from the very first edit anyway, just like unreferenced material should have been referenced to start with. There should be a corollary to WP:BEFORE: BEFORE you start an article, locate sufficient reference material that supports an article on that topic, and cite it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:43, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support On rereading (after my comment above), I think that what the sentence says is stated already (NPOSSIBLE), and thus not needed, and if it is leading to problems at AFD by being misapplied, it should be removed. --Masem (t) 14:31, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support, based on the rationale that Xxanthippe states with perfect clarity: "Benefit of the doubt should not be given. There must be positive evidence of notability." (Emphasis added.) DonFB (talk) 23:26, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support; "unclear notability" means insufficient notability, and, as it goes in Wikipedia for all on-the-fence situations, let the community decide (via AfD). Staszek Lem (talk) 23:34, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. I don't want to change the practice that no-consensus AfDs default to keep, but I don't think this sentence accurately describes that practice. And removing it, as proposed, would help prevent people from trying to apply it in cases where we have no actual sources, but only a vague hope that sources might exist somewhere — we should not keep articles in such cases. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:41, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support if there are not sources available to make notability clear there are not sources available to write a policy compliant article. Jbh ^Talk 00:29, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose complete removal based on it's kinship to WP:NPOSSIBLE, but Support the nominators suggestion to update the guideline to something more suitable and appropriate. Huggums537 (talk) 05:01, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose complete removal, since editors who are less familiar with the machinations of deletion practice need to have some sort of hint as to what they are in for, but support changing the sentence to reflect dominant practice better. — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:13, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
• I've gone ahead and removed the line. There is some opposition here, but reading through the comments, there seems to be a rough consensus that this doesn't reflect current practice or could be confusing, and that it doesn't apply once an AfD has been started. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:10, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Comment:It's common practice to wait at least a week for all comments to come in. So, I'm reinstating the line until a reasonable amount of time has passed and we can get more eyes on this because I think it's very important to note that I also oppose the proposal to delete this information simply because the fundamental idea of an admin wanting to "get the guideline to match what we do over at AfD" strikes me as not being a benefit to the Wikipedia community as a whole, but rather the pushing of a personal agenda just for the benefit of only the folks at AfD. This seems wholly inappropriate for proposal set forth by an administrator. See more here.Huggums537 (talk) 04:25, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Not really when it involves removing one minor sentence in a long guideline that currently has roughly 3:1 support. Not everything needs an RfC. I’ve made much more significant policy changes to actual policies based on “this is 5 years outdated, revert if you disagree.” Also, re: your last sentence: AfD defines what we delete, not this page. Guidelines and policies match practice and if they don’t, they are ignored. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
    • It's very telling that you only suddenly decided to remove the line (and presumably have the discussion closed before the light of more eyes could fall upon this) only 2 minutes after I exposed the fact I smelled something fishy about your proposal here. Can you say cover up? Talk about covering your tracks. That's really staying on top of things. My admiration of the skill for such an achievement is only exceeded by my appall of the guile required to accomplish it. It also seems Legacypac proves me right about longtime editors backing each other up regardless of what seems make sense, be reasonable, or even be right/wrong. Huggums537 (talk) 05:26, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
      • You pinged me and it reminded me that I had meant to remove this today since a rough consensus existed even last night. I don’t have this page on my watchlist currently, so I’d forgotten. I haven’t read your comment yet, as I’m not following the discussion below, so it had no impact on what I did other than a ping. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:55, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
        • Wow. That's an incredible explanation! What an amazing "coincidence" that it just so happens to exonerate you from all the alleged "covering up" I insisted was going on. It even "forces" me to assume good faith (if you can convince me it's not just more cover up). Brilliant!
        • The problem is that you can't force me to AGF per IAR, because I don't believe a word of it for one second.
        • Your claims in this explanation prove that you are either negligent/incompetent in your performance as an administrator, or you simply manipulated to further cover your tracks.
        • If it really is true that you indeed got pinged to the talk page, but chose to take the ping as nothing more than a simple reminder and then went straight to the removal before even going to the talk page to check to see if there were any more comments related to the removal, then you have admitted to negligence in the performance of your duties as an administrator.
        • There is no evidence anywhere that you are incompetent in any way whatsoever. All the evidence suggests that you are fully competent and more than capable. Therefore, I can only assume you simply further covered your tracks.
        • It doesn't make any sense that a fully capable admin such as yourself didn't go to the talk page first and check to see if there were any more comments related to the removal and it doesn't make sense that you didn't check my comment while you were already there anyway. I don't buy that for one second.
        • However, I think it's best to leave you alone now. You've dug yourself deep enough with one bad decision after another. I had hoped that I would prick your conscience and you would simply admit that you made a mistake, learn from it, and grow to be a better admin., but you chose instead to remain in denial.
        • You were right in saying that it is only one small sentence, and some might say I'm making a mountain out of a molehill. However, if I don't have the nerve to stand up and say something to you now while the issue is small and you are still fairly early on in your administrative duties, then who will be there to prod you on and motivate you to better adminship before the issue becomes a bigger more important one?
        • While I respect your skill to defend yourself and save face, I would have respected you more for owning up to your responsibility. We will call it beating a dead horse and quash it here simply because I know there is really no turning back for you now at this point and I want to spare you any further indignities of having to come up with any more "explanations" for your behaviour. It's embarrassing to watch. Let's just say that even though I shouldn't, and don't have to AGF, that I will do so anyway in favor of knowing that I don't have to prove anything to anybody so long as YOU know what I'm talking about and where I'm coming from and that's all that is really important. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 08:59, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
          • This talk page tends to be filled with discussion that doesn’t go much of anywhere usually. Anytime I make a proposal here I take it off my watchlist and come back manually to check if I want to respond. Otherwise it gets too frustrating. I did check this discussion: there were more comments and they made the consensus stronger. I didn’t read your discussion below because I’m not really interested in splitting hairs between topics and subjects, especially when we have consensus to remove the contested line anyway. TonyBallioni (talk) 10:51, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
            • That's fine. You get the last word on that. You certainly did everything in your power to earn it. Besides, I had already agreed to leave you alone and assume good faith before you made this comment anyway. So, I'm glad you got that off your chest and we can consider the air to be clear about that. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 15:26, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support removal, which I've done myself. This sentence is misleading and can easily be misused. Applied literally it would shut down AfD, as MfD has become largely non-functional for its intended purpose because of a similar issue. Legacypac (talk) 04:42, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
  • Legacypac, the fact that you just recently joined contributed to this conversation is proof positive that the discussion is not over yet and there is still yet more opportunity for others to join in. As such, it is inappropriate to make the relevant change until the discussion has been concluded. I have submitted an RfC at the Villiage Pump to get more eyes on this and I'm re-inserting the debatable content until we reach a conclusion to this discussion. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 10:28, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

You reverted me which is not cool and your unhinged rant just above earns you zero respect from me. I've been following the discussion for days so don't presume. Now you are WP;FORUMSHOPPING Legacypac (talk) 11:30, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Legacypac, I think my revert was completely fair and justified. I acted in accordance with what we are encouraged to do during discussions in keeping the WP:STATUSQUO. I wasn't even bold about my edit since I was considerate enough to leave a very explanatory statement on the talk page as well as in my edit summary. Also, I was civil, non-combative, and not argumentative at all. I feel like I did everything as right as I know how.

So, I'm not exactly sure where your hostility came from about being reverted only once. It's just that I've never seen an editor "lose their cool" over being reverted only one time before so it's kind of hard to comprehend. I'm sorry if I offended you over the one reversion.

Also, if you can't respect me for having the nerve to be upfront and honest with the man when nobody else is, then I guess there's not much else I can say about that.

FYI, WP:FORUMSHOPping is when someone tries to get two or more different local consensus groups going at two or more different forums on the exactly same topic so they can get different results to choose from. I never even once tried to get anybody interested in ANY other local consensus group except this one right here. I simply requested to get more eyes on THIS forum and I have absolutely every right to do that per WP:APPNOTE.

I also think it is important that User:Reyk and TonyBallioni see this comment because I think they both severely misinterpreted what I was doing as well.

I think I made it more than abundantly clear that my intentions were to get more eyes on THIS FORUM when I announced on THIS PAGE that, "I have submitted an RfC at the Villiage Pump to get more eyes on this". Furthermore, I even made it clear on the RfC that I was, "Requesting more eyes at the ongoing discussion" with a link to THIS FORUM. That should be more than enough to clear all this nonsense about forum shopping. So, please stop now. Thanks. Huggums537 (talk) 20:46, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd encourage you to read the note that I left on your talk page before commenting further using WikiLegalese. When several experienced editors are telling you that you have it wrong, it is likely that you do. TonyBallioni (talk) 20:58, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support removal. The current wording has allowed obviously hopeless articles to languish indefinitely. Reyk _YO! 10:55, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support removal. Wikipedia is past the embryonic stage where every word was precious and when the April 2008 "last resort" advice was appropriate. Now many dubious pages languish with no sourced claim of notability while people spend time debating whether the topic might one day be shown to be notable. That is not sustainable. Johnuniq (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose Benefit of the doubt is an incredibly important feature of the encyclopedia, as it helps to prevent what can often be ill-informed deletions by people at AFD who have no subject matter experience of the topic at hand. For all the people who want to "raise standards" and to have this project "be more like a real book", I can assure you that at no point would a paper encyclopedia be allowing people with no subject matter experience of Trees (for example) be taking executive decisions on which trees were notable or not. Of course we can't ask for expert opinion each time and doing so would not be something I agree with, which is why benefit of the doubt for articles that verifiable and where notability is unclear is so important to maintaining the encyclopedia, not to mention providing a filter against the systemic bias of participants at AFD. It's up to the AFD nominators to demonstrate that a subject is not notable in their nominations.Egaoblai (talk) 12:35, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Egaoblai: Have ... have you ever commented on an AFD of an article about a tree? Presumably you mean individual trees and not genuses, as no one would AFD the latter outside of either April Fools' Day or a legitimate concern that a supposed genus doesn't exist. But locally famous individual trees of "doubtful" notability don't tend to be the subject of learned treatises by "people with [substantial] subject matter experience", so ... ? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:07, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Can you give an actual example of an individual tree that a) might be considered notable, but b) would not pass GNG (ie, no reliable sources discuss it)? Blueboar (talk) 13:08, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

No, I can't; that's what strikes me as so weird about the example. I can definitely think of some trees that would probably be considered notable but a plurality of random passers-by on an AFD might not be able to find sources because none of them are in English, and so they might assume they don't pass GNG. The Miracle Lone Pine springs to mind.[3][4] But that kind of thing is really specific, and not worth devoting a sentence to on this page. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 13:19, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

• Support removing the sentence altogether as it does not reflect current practices. Renata (talk) 01:35, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support removing, per my comment in the section below. Sorry for not noticing the proper place for comment. Plus everything everyone else said. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:42, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support removing this completely: Regardless of Huggums537's clear anger that the "stupid" opponents aren't falling over themselves to support his sentiment, and regardless of its inclusionist tub-thumping, it is in of itself a vague notion. What constitutes "unclear" notability? That we don't know one way or another? That there's enough of a claque at AfD against deletion? It's not that we don't understand his argument, it's that we don't agree with it. Ravenswing 19:15, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
  • I'm not angry with anyone, though some are trying awfully hard... At any rate, you are confusing this post with the one below. Also, you HAVE misunderstood AND confused my arguments. My "sentiments" for THIS proposal had NOTHING to do with "inclusionist tub-thumping". My arguments HERE were based on the fact that the sentence had a relationship to other policy/guideline and to get more eyes on this because I THOUGHT a local consensus agenda was forming. Clearly, I was wrong, but apparently, so are YOU. In addition, I would also like to clear up the confusion about your misunderstanding of the fact that I made comments in the post below about "the stupid statements" of the opposition and it had NOTHING to do with THIS post. I have no idea how you muxed that into being that I was angry at "stupid opponents" in THIS post, but since you misunderstood everything else, I can understand how it happened. Huggums537 (talk) 23:47, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm curious: do you genuinely think that a blanket "They're misunderstanding me/everything!" is actually convincing anyone, or is it just to make yourself feel better? If the latter, carry on. If the former, you're wasting your time. People don't magically become "wrong" if you just say so repeatedly and stridently enough. Ravenswing 03:26, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Well, far be it from me to leave the curious in suspense. Since I can't convince you that you were in any way wrong about anything, then I guess it just makes me feel better. Satisfied? Huggums537 (talk) 06:18, 20 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support I guess. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:44, 19 May 2018 (UTC).

Notability of this TV show

I don't think that TV show isn't notable enough to warrant an article of its own. See the speedy delete. 210.246.18.155 (talk) 19:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Notability isn't a reason to speedy delete an article, so I removed the speedy deletion tag again. The way to get a non-notable article deleted is to use WP:PROD, and if someone objects to the proposed deletion, to then take the page to WP:AFD, where the community can discuss the matter for a week, and a consensus can be determined on whether it's notable or not. Iffy★Chat -- 19:27, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to swap "Alma mater" for "Education" in Template:Infobox person

Discussion here: Template talk:Infobox person#Use of "Alma mater". --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:19, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to change "articles and lists" to just "articles" in the lead section

Lists are a type of article, so I think we should simplify the wording of the lead section by replacing "articles and lists" with just "articles". Thoughts? Enterprisey (talk!) 20:10, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

I think it's important to be clear in the lead that this applies to lists and not just to articles that are not lists. I don't think lists are articles; not everything in article namespace counts as an article (for instance, disambiguation pages do not and have their own rules for when they should exist). Also, following the principle that the lead section of something should summarize its content, the references to lists in the lead can be interpreted as brief summaries of the later WP:LISTN section. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose. Although technically list is considered an article, list is often interpreted as something distinct, with the rationale being that "article" is also a subset of the more general use of the term "article". Btw, I think you need to correct the wording of the title of this talk page section. Thinker78 (talk) 21:40, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Oops, you're right. Thanks for the catch. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:57, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose in general I think experienced WPians know that lists are "articles", but that's going to confuse the heck of newer editors, which this page is written for. We need the separate "articles and lists" so that LISTN makes sense. --Masem (t) 21:48, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Oppose I'll note that we have a featured article everyday on the Main Page, and also occasionally have a featured list on the same page. - Donald Albury 22:51, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose as above. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2018 (UTC).

Oppose as David Eppstein. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 14:49, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Not everyone understands a list to be just another article. Msnicki (talk) 12:05, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - We do need to make it clear that the policy applies to list articles... I suppose we could clarify by saying: “... articles (whether the information is written in prose or presented as a list, chart or table) ...”. however, the current wording is shorter and makes the point just as well. Blueboar (talk) 11:01, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Existence of sources as a notability test

I have boldly added this caveat. It was reverted with a suggestion to discuss here. So I would like to hear some community opinions on the change.

I think the sentence "Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability." as it stands is in fact false; it is only a good test for notability where the subject's culture/country/context is generally well-covered in secondary sources. If they are, and this subject is not covered in those secondary sources, the subject is perhaps not notable. But when the whole country/culture/context is generally not well-covered in secondary sources, then the lack of secondary sources about this subject is not a good test for this subject's notability. I think my change reflects this logic.

Thoughts? Ijon (talk) 14:02, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

What whole/country/culture/context are you talking about? Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:14, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm arguing the principle, not talking about a particular case. But if you want examples, a couple may be the Yoruba people of Nigeria, or the Dalits in India. Ijon (talk) 19:14, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose If there are no sources there can be no policy compliant article. It is for this reason Wikipedia, with the exception of a couple SNG, defines notability as being covered in secondary sources. It does not matter why there are no adequate sources. Jbh ^Talk 14:30, 13 May 2018 (UTC) Last edited:Since this has turned into a !vote. If sources can not be identified and some basic idea of what they say be known no article can be written – what can one say that is compliant with WP policy if one does not have a source? Articles can not properly be written based upon data pulled straight out of one's … head. No amount of hand-waving can make something from nothing. 16:52, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• I think the question confuses “Notability” with “Importance”, and they are not the same. An obscure topic might well be important, but not notable. Many pop culture topics are notable, but not that important. Blueboar (talk) 15:19, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• When a country or other context does not have a literature of reliable sources that covers its important topics, it's sad, but it means those topics are not notable by our standards. However, it's important to note that the literature does not have to be in English and it does not have to be online. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:23, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
• Agree with the revert. It doesn't matter why references are or not available, only whether they are. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:30, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
  • In addition, I would note that we already have articles on the Yoruba people and the Dalit, and both seem quite adequately referenced. So I'm not sure what this proposal is even meant to change. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:36, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

These were examples of contexts where notable people won't necessarily have secondary sources about them. Ijon (talk) 20:08, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

You have it backwards... if no sources discuss someone/something, then we don’t consider them “notable”. Having sources discuss the subject is what tells us that the subject is notable. Blueboar (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

Your proposed contexts make little sense: for example, I'm currently reading a 1000 page history of Africa - and that does not even scratch the surface of Africa sources (its bibliography is more than 40 pages), so if we should have an article on someone, someone has definitely written about them. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:24, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

• Any requirement for secondary sources should be deleted from the guideline as it serves no useful purpose. (1) The historian's theory of primary, secondary and tertiary sources has no application to any subject other than history. (2) Even as regards history, the general consensus of opinion among real historians is that primary sources are generally more useful. Anyone who relies on secondary sources is in real danger of writing fiction instead of history. (3) Most of our editors don't even know what a secondary source is, let alone how to use them, so the guideline actually results in practice in the indiscriminate exclusion of sources at random by the incompetent, or is simply ignored. This guideline itself displays a complete lack of understanding of what secondary sources are and what they are for. James500 (talk) 23:35, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
  • See Wikipedia:No original research, a policy which this guideline cannot overrule. Analysis of primary sourcing is original research in the overwhelming majority of cases, which is why inclusion requires secondary sourcing in most cases. I'll also point out the uselessness of this talk page for achieving any meaningful consensus on anything when you derail every thread with your out of the mainstream ideas about inclusion. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:42, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
    • But IAR can overrule any policy. Erkinalp9035 (talk) 07:51, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Erkinalp9035 IAR means that practice and consensus overrule any written policy. It does not mean Ignore universal practice that 90%+ of the community agrees with, and that people should be free to do what the community as a whole would agree is in the best interest of the encyclopedia, even if a rule says something different. Making an article not be an encyclopedia article (i.e. not a tertiary source) is not in the best interest of the encyclopedia and contradicts WP:5P1: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:15, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
    • Notability only creates a presumption that a topic should have an article, so removing requirements from GNG will never conflict with any policy, because it is expressly subject to all policies. In any event, NOR does not expressly say that primary sources cannot be used to establish notability. It does expressly say that tertiary sources can be used, something that GNG fails to reflect. It is always possible to use primary sources without OR. Merely copying what they say, for example, is not OR. Conversely, if a Wikipedian 'analyses' a secondary source, that certainly is OR. 'Analysis' of any source is OR in every case. NOR does not tell us that we can't use primary sources, it merely reminds us to be particularly careful not to express our own personal opinions about them. In any event, where there is a mixture of primary and secondary sources about a topic, there is no reason why the primary sources should not count towards significant coverage as well as the secondary sources. Even the NOR argument could not be relevant, as in that case you do have enough secondary sources to make it irrelevant. James500 (talk) 01:11, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
      • Secondary sources are necessary to meet NOT, specifically WP:IINFO. We want to make sure that we have topics that have received some type of secondary (transformative) coverage that establishes the relative importance of that topic in the larger scope of a global encyclopedia without having to rely on editors' personal opinions about the importance of a topic, and this is a bar that is higher than just mere presence of sources. Having secondary sources goes on to support NOR and NPOV where those apply, but the secondary source aspect is mostly there to prevent any random topic that happens to meet WP:V from being included. --Masem (t) 14:38, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
  • The argument that this should be removed because Wikipedians are incompetent collapses upon itself, as it presents the notion that the Wikipedian arguing for the proposition is incompetent. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:55, 16 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support this change. This is just a rule of thumb, not a policy. An article without any sources cannot be written on en.wp. But often the availability of sources - which is unfortunately often confused with the existence of sources on en.wp - is used as a benchmark in judging whether or not an article should exist, and it is clear that it is a benchmark that does not work in every case. Gamaliel (talk) 18:11, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Sensible change. I think Ijon's getting at the notion that where secondary sources exist in abundance it is often a good sign, a general indicator of notability. But that's either tautological or incomplete.  Secondary sources are, either absolutely necessary, or they're only a partial indicator, as in situations where such sources are rare, difficult to identify, hard to translate, or complex to verify. Many, many parts of humanity are documented in sources that have great validity within the communities where they are located, but get absolutely looked over by Wikipedia editors because they don't feel, look, read, or seem like 'typical' secondary sources--or because they're never found and seen at all. This caveat to the policy, IMO, cautions against knee-jerk reactions by editors working in subject areas where they're likely to bring an unintentional implicit bias to researching and evaluating sources. The impact of adding this caveat will be a small step towards better representation of underrepresented subjects on Wikipedia. Ocaasi ^{t | c} 18:20, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support We've needed this for a long time. I ran into this while working at the Library of Congress on Middle Eastern subjects and in my own general interests regarding Indigenous American, African, and Eastern European topics. One step at a time. Thanks Ijon. Missvain (talk) 18:53, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support this change to the language. This will help move us forward into notable free knowledge for all the world’s citizens. Right now the concept of notability is governed by Western standards, depending on the availability of sources also based on Western standards. Documentation of culture and history look much different than those in Western cultures, but we are measuring them with the same standard. This is problematic for 2 reasons. First, we omit quality sources and overlook quality information about important, notable items simply because it does not follow our perception of quality. We also have the assumption that only quality information is written down and published. Do we want to do half of a job? I don’t think anybody here does. In order to be able to say we are effective, we have to be inclusive and challenge the bias we have learned. Second, we have to understand a lot of the articles written by people in western cultures have been written using an archaeological lens. This means that the meaning was assigned to the item and written up through the lens of someone outside of a culture. This often means that the true significance is missing, when that culture and their knowledge were not consulted in the creation. Again I think this can only help us in making a more complete, accurate and inclusive encyclopedia. Best, Jackiekoerner (talk) 01:12, 19 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. If there are no sources there can be no article. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:27, 19 May 2018 (UTC).
• Support this change - this is an important step forward towards truly including the sum of all human knowledge. Kellyjeanne9 (talk) 14:34, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose change in notability wording. I definitely agree that the availability of good sources varies by culture and subject (as noted at Wikipedia:Systemic bias#Availability of sources may cause bias), and that we should consider this when writing. I think it would be appropriate to change WP:RS to acknowledge this, as implied in my remarks at Talk:Samuel Kinsey#Source bias, which has some bearing on the same passage of WP:N. However, I'm skeptical of incorporating that directly into WP:Notability because I think this is the nature of an encyclopedia as a tertiary source: we don't do research, we summarize existing scholarship. If the scholarship isn't available, we don't have anything to talk about, and the work to be done is not for encyclopedia editors but writers and researchers. Daask (talk) 20:14, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. The word "Notability" was an unfortunate term, something like "Inclusion Criteria" would have reduced some of the controversy and misunderstandings. Our core encyclopedia Inclusion Criteria is that a topic must have significant coverage in multiple reliable, independent, secondary sources. This is not about "importance", it is a practically necessity in order for us to be able to deal with a topic. A commercial encyclopedia employer may hire credentialed/qualified staff and authorize them to include a topic based on their personal opinion, and authorize them to write that article based on their own original research and synthesis of primary or non-RS sources. On Wikipedia any random idiot can make an account, and claims of expertise count for squat. We are systematically incapable of properly dealing with arbitrary topics where appropriate sourcing doesn't exist. We can't deal directly with topics, we have to work at a distance merely summarizing the work of others. The way to get these topics into Wikipedia is to have Reliable-Source professionals publish on the topic, then we can summarize what they've published.

The current discussion is approximately 7 people in favor and 10 against. If this had an {{RFC}} template I expect we would see a LOT more opposes. For years the Wikimedia Foundation has been floating the idea of improving coverage of under-represented cultures by allowing oral histories and other primary/unconventional sourcing. It always goes down like the Hindenburg under assault by a battalion of flamethrower-wielding editors. Alsee (talk) 17:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Support: This addition adds nuance, taking into account bias in the range of sources available. John Cummings (talk) 10:37, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose, on the basis of a lack of measurable argument for the amendment (if the proposer is suggesting Nigeria and India don't have a plethora of secondary coverage, it's difficult to believe). It sounds like the amendment will be used to restrict coverage of non 'Western' subjects. Sionk (talk) 11:58, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• oppose Our mission is to provide readers with articles summarizing accepted knowledge, working in a community of pseudonymous editors who have no authority based on their personal knowledge. Every part of that is essential to make WP what it is. We find "accepted knowledge" where experts in the given field put it -- in secondary sources. It is fine to fill around the edges with primary sources, but secondary sources drive content here. If people want to build big swaths of content from primary sources, Wikiversity is the place for them. Not Wikipedia. Jytdog (talk) 13:40, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• oppose Whilst I can see some merit in the overall argument, I am having difficulty figuring out what this has to do with the amount of coverage a nation gets in RS. I would like to see some concrete examples of what seems a rather vague and ill defined concept.Slatersteven (talk) 14:18, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't think that really adds more clarity but rather more confusion.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:34, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. If the „secondary sources“ (literature) are not there, and you really believe that the topic deserves more coverage, then you should become an expert, explore and publish - instead of first writing a Wikipedia article. Otherwise - if secondary sources are missing, who would decide that they are missing because of reason X or reason y? Ziko (talk) 22:51, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
  • The existence of secondary sources is not necessarily determined by the importance of a topic according to any objective standard. It is often determined by whether it would be profitable for a commercial publisher to publish secondary sources. Refusing to look at primary sources only makes this particular bias worse. Telling editors to become experts will not solve this problem, because being an expert does not generate the funds necessary to publish a secondary source. James500 (talk) 23:57, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Need further convincing I am in general in favour of expanding the coverage of topics from under-represented areas and I'm in favour of any initiatives that explore how we can cover topics from an oral history tradition, however I'm a little unconvinced about the arguments that are being made in this thread. If we are going to expand criterias of notability, I would like to be given concrete examples of criterias outside of secondary sources that could be used to establish notability. These guidelines are offered as a benchmark for anyone editing Wikipedia and that's why the argument for secondary sources is a useful tool for establishing for newcomers whether a new article should be created. If we're removing that guideline, adding to it a vague caveat would only lead to more confusion, so I think we need to be clear about what alternatives can be used outside of the coverage in secondary sources. Delphine Dallison (talk) 12:16, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support in principle but +1 to Delphine Dallison's comment - there needs more explicit guidance on what this would mean practically Notability is a strait jacket on Wikipedia, certainly. It prevents a great many articles being created by dint of its reliance on the availability of secondary sources... when not every context will possess such a wealth or abundance of such sources for any number of reasons. Does this mean the subject of an article without such sources is not notable? No, it would be only by our narrow definitions. However, in being more inclusive/more representative we need to provide careful guidance as to what is/isn't acceptable. The caveat is welcomed but it's only the beginning in thinking about how we can better represent all the notable subjects there are in the world. If it means that we can argue for notability on a case-by-case basis under Ignore All Rules (IAR) and compelling cases can and should be accepted then great. Would like to think this would always the case but the caveat makes this much more explicitly the case. But if we're arguing for something more wholescale then we'd need to give concrete examples of what is/isnt acceptable.Stinglehammer (talk) 13:24, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose as overly ambiguous. Nor are the support claims convincing because they would tend to attempt to set up Wikipedia Users as experts on "under-represented cultures", which could only lead to a much, much worse outcome for said cultures. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:10, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Alanscottwalker, there are alternative mechanisms to Wikipedia users being the decision makers on who are under documented, e.g a reliable source stating something is under documented. Can you suggest a version of the text that would be less ambiguous? John Cummings (talk) 17:18, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
    • No. If 'all' you have is qualified sources that say 'X culture is under-documented', that is the extent of what you can write. There is in the case you bring-up, no qualified anything telling us what is true and not true, what is false and not false, what anecdote to accept and what to reject. Nor, perhaps, most importantly what it means and does not mean. We do not and should not want to spread lies, rumors, hoaxes, and misinformation about a culture. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:37, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

• Question: What are the costs or drawbacks of not adopting this change? Here is the change again for reference (proposed addition in bold):

Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability, if the subject's culture/country is generally well-covered in secondary literature.

John Cummings (talk) 06:51, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

Allow me an inline comment, John: Who is going to decide which countries or even cultures belong into that category? Or should that be case by case? And, for example, if an unknown band performs some songs in a minority language, will that make it notable without secondary sources? Ziko (talk) 06:40, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose I oppose the existence of the GNG and sourcing as a concept at all for notability. It is biased towards angolophones and spammers to the point where literally anyone commenting on this page right now likely meets it so we have to jump through hoops to explain why it’s plain wording clearly doesn’t dictate that Norma my neighbor with the annoying dog doesn’t have an article even though she has received in-depth coverage in reliable secondary sources, because having that article would make us the laughing stock of the world even if it *does* 100% meet the GNG.
  That being said, while I am firmly in the camp of Wikipedia consigning the GNG to historical status and moving towards clear, objective, subject-based inclusion criteria I cannot support this change at this time. The existence of sourcing is an absolute requirement of WP:V, and all this change will so is enable spammers to get their spam in here more easily. I think sourcing is a crappy metric for inclusion (and have argued as such forcefully on articles where the subject has clear merit but sourcing in English is hard to find) but this is not the way to go about it. TonyBallioni (talk) 11:48, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Notability has nothing to do with spam. A neutrally worded article on a non-notable topic is not an advert. Inclusionists, even very extreme ones, are not "spammers". Conversely, a non-neutral article on a notable topic can be fixed by editing (WP:ATD) or by deletion for content reasons (CSD G11). This proposal would have no effect on spam whatsoever. James500 (talk) 23:36, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
    • I agree that inclusionists are not in general spammers, but spammers tend to be inclusionists (at least where their own spam articles are concerned). Weakening the notability standards would make it easier for them to prevail in arguments that their spam should be kept. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:49, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
      • I don't think it would do the spammers any good. There is no amount of POV that cannot be completely rewritten (think WP:TNT) and, if necessary, page protected to stop them putting it back. James500 (talk) 00:02, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Notable within a community?

If someone is notable within their community (for example medicine or archeology) and they are written about in trade journals etc, but they are not well known to the public at large, are they notable on Wikipedia? What is the minimum size of such a community? Thanks for responding. Dig _deeper ^talk 14:28, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I do not think there is more then "third party/in depth/RS. As long as it meets those only a couple of sources are really needed. Of course the main key is RS, if it is not an RS (such as a Fringe journal or vanity press publication) then it does not matter how well known he is in that community (Mr Bert Terrible BY Mrs Bert Terrible published in the Much Rutting in the Marsh Gazette, and the Lower Hampton Times is not going to pass muster). So we need context, what are you talking about?Slatersteven (talk) 14:39, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

We do want to make sure that the trade journals/etc. that the person is mentioned are the best of their class. In very narrow fields, this can become difficult to assess as it is hard to judge the fact-checking aspect required for RSes. We can easily figure out RSes that broadly cover the arts for example, but likely can't do that for something like underwater basketweaving, hypothetically. --Masem (t) 14:55, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

Maybe Fringe was the wrong word. But in essence this was the point I was making.Slatersteven (talk) 14:57, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

What is the minimum size of such a community? -- Wikipedia does not have rules about community sizes. Take underwater basketweaving as an example. As you know, this is a signature trade of the nearly extinct people of Tzhequatl, with only 10 natives left. They are well-known among ethnologists who frequent this tribe to lay their hands on their exquisite baskets and write a paper or two for Tzhequatlans' trade journal Baskets Under and Beyond. What we have here: (a) the community itself is notable; their expertise in basketweaving is recognized by independent party (ignoring the fact that the ethnologists in question are probably knee deep in baskets of bribes and all over the responsive basketweaving girls) (b) their trade journal is recognized by experts as a reputable source on forgotten lore of basketweaving. (c) Therefore if Baskets Under and Beyond writes that Qatzit Xigup is the top master underwater basketweaver in the world, then I would say he is notable for Wikipedia, if we close our eyes on the fact that the journal is owned by Qatzit. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:30, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

There is a question of how small a pond can be and have frogs prominent enough for Wikipedia. Consider Desert Heat (hip hop). (And yeah, it's a band, which is a large mess.) - Donald Albury 19:10, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

And my answer is the same: size does not matter. There are small ponds which grow real big frogs. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:28, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I think Wikipedia:Notability (academics) would be a good place to consult which might answer your question regarding such a person's notability. DonFB (talk) 05:21, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• I have two comments here: 1) the pond really has to be a pond, and not just a puddle. 2) someone outside the pond has to have noticed the frog. Both are resolved by the existence of independent sources. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
  • IMO the poster meant the case when the frog is noticed only within the pond. Therefore the question boils down to: to what extent we can trust the News from the Pond , i.e., whether the News from the Pond are independent, reliable source. In the case of the more literal (geographical) meaning of "the pons", I vaguely remember we have something to that end, saying that local newspapers do not count much towards notability. (Yes/No?) See also failed Wikipedia:Notability (local interests). Staszek Lem (talk) 19:28, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Hovewer IMO the poster speaks about "the community" in the broader sense: the group of people with common interests (business area, research area, political movement, religion, etc.) For this case my point stays: how much we can trust this community of people to write truthfully about their community? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:40, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

By the way, we know that notability is not inherited. IMO within the context of this discussion it makes sense to ponder on the opposite concept WP:NNISINHERITED: non-notability is inherited. If a pond is nonnotable, then a frog notable within the pond is still nonnotable, unless somehow noticed outside the pond. Case study: underwater basketweaving by people of Tzhequatl: for want of ethnologists Qatzit Xigup died without a wikipedia article. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:40, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Found a relevant essay: Wikipedia:Subjective importance Enterprisey (talk!) 04:25, 5 August 2018 (UTC)

• • That's an excellent essay, and this part of it expresses my view on this subject: "While this may seem so unfair, this does not mean a person who has achieved a high ... credential in his or her field is unimportant, insignificant, or is being dishonored. It is just that getting a Wikipedia article–meeting WP:N–is based on information that has been published in reliable sources, and some fields tend to be better covered by reliable sources than others." Ravenswing 15:40, 5 August 2018 (UTC)
  • That is a truly terrible essay. Some of those tests of importance are entirely objective and would help to alleviate some of the severe systematic biases created by our seriously under inclusive GNG. James500 (talk) 01:46, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
    • Which ones do you claim are "objective?" What about a business being a hundred years old (say) makes it notable, as opposed to 75 years old or 150 years old? Ravenswing 04:11, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Proposal to modify the general notability guideline

I believe it would be good to modify the guideline. There are times when people, events or places get a lot of trivial mentions in many reliable sources, but don't get addressed directly and in detail. I believe that having a significant amount of trivial mentions also constitutes notability and I think should be included in Wikipedia. You could be hearing about John Doe, for example, being continually mentioned in the newspaper, but no one explains in detail who John Doe is, and probably you would head to Wikipedia to try to find out, only to find that John Doe is not included. A threshold for trivial mentions should be established to be considered notable, so not only topics that are addressed directly and in detail in reliable sources be considered notable. Thinker78 (talk) 19:08, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

That's why we have "significant coverage". This is more than just namedrops in sources. --Masem (t) 19:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Also, if a person is only named-dropped but frequently mentioned in papers, we can use redirects to point to where more information to the larger topic beyond that person can be found. For example, most CEOs are not notable themselves but the companies are, so we can redirect CEO names to the companies. --Masem (t) 19:25, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

• The GNG is already so vague as to be pointless. We ignore it in virtually every AfD while pretending to pay homage to it with convoluted logic as to how something does or doesn’t meet it, but when taken at face value, there is virtually nothing that doesn’t meet it, so we have to go through mental gymnastics to explain why the local dog who bit the mailman doesn’t get an article.
  This proposal has the advantage of making AfD easier to participate in with the disadvantage of making Wikipedia the laughing stock of the world. I’m all for getting rid of the GNG, and have never hidden that fact, but this is a step in the opposite direction: any modifications need to be in line with creating objective merit-based criteria in addition to meeting the core principles of WP:V and WP:NOT.
  All that being said, the GNG is a religion and has no chance of being modified in either direction anytime in the near future, so the best we can do now is figure out how to live with it. TonyBallioni (talk) 19:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Opposed - the proposal confuses Fame and Notability. Being mentioned trivially in many sources may make someone famous... but not necessarily notable. Blueboar (talk) 20:03, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Maybe then there should be a general fame guideline that would make people, events, places sufficiently famous qualified to be included as stand-alone articles? Thinker78 (talk) 20:27, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

We already do; it's called the GNG, bolstered by numerous SNGs. Our contention, following the GNG, is that the measure of "sufficiently famous" is that a subject receives "significant coverage" in multiple reliable sources, and that a subject that fails to gather that much coverage in our media-soaked world is not "sufficiently" famous at all. Ravenswing 02:55, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• If I understand the proposed rule correctly, I'd call it the Rula Lenska rule. If you're not familiar with Rula she became famous in the US for being portrayed as being famous on an old Alberto VO5 commercial. She actually *did* become notable a bit later, so that might be taken as supporting the OP's reasoning. Another person in this category might be Pia Zadora. But for every person who has their 15 minutes of fame and then actually becomes famous, there are 100,000 wannabe Rulas who shouldn't have articles here. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 20:17, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: I'm in broad agreement with TonyBallioni's comments (while disagreeing on removing GNG altogether). There's a very common thread seen at AfD: that if a subject hasn't received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, we need to come up with some excuse, any excuse, to retain an article anyway. I've always considered this nonsense. WP:V is and has always been quite plain: "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." The answer here is not that we should make it easier for obscure subjects to have articles; it is that Wikipedia has a minimum standard of notability, and that if obscure subjects do not meet it, then Wikipedia should not have articles on them. Ravenswing 21:13, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, if John Doe is mentioned 100 times in many different newspapers and books, I think that meets WP:V. As a reader I would like information about that John Doe that I see mentioned everywhere but no one really explains who John Doe is. Thinker78 (talk) 01:27, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. As for bad rationales at AfD, well, AfD is not a vote but a discussion and is required to be policy-based. Closers at AfD can and should disregard arguments that discount or repudiate policy. But no, multiple trivial mentions do not constitute notability, because the core purpose of notability is to ensure we can write a full article. Fifty name drops do not provide us sufficient material to write an article with. A few in-depth sources might. The whole point is to avoid making permastubs, and articles based upon trivial, passing mentions would by definition be permastubs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:24, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
  • As a reader I wouldn't mind a "permastub" if I can at least read a sentence of who that John Doe so often mentioned is. The point is to provide more information to the wanting reader. If you find one reliable source focusing in detail about John Doe, who is mentioned 100 times elsewhere, currently it wouldn't meet gng but with the rule change, an article explaining who John Doe is could be created using that sole in-depth reliable source. Thinker78 (talk) 01:34, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: Notability is an extension of the verifiability policy. It's basically the ability to have an article be verifiable, and although GNG has deviated from that, with all this arguing on what constitutes "significant coverage", the principle still remains the same: only reliable sources that can be cited and actually used about a topic count for notability. Trivial mentions are seldom useful for verifying content. Esquivalience (talk) 00:41, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
  • But the key here is to garner as much information as possible from the trivial mentions in reliable sources and possibly an in-depth focus by a single reliable source to create the stand-alone article. But currently just one single in-depth reliable source of information about the topic wouldn't be enough to create the article, even though the topic may be mentioned a thousand times elsewhere. Thinker78 (talk) 01:38, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
    • However, what makes a source trivial is that no useful information can be gathered from it. For example, the GNG page shows an example of a trivial mention: "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice". If one tried to create an article about Three Blind Mice, it would go something like so: "Three Blind Mice is a jazz band which Bill Clinton was in during his high school years.", which says nothing about the band itself or its history. Trivial mentions are less about being short as they are about being about facts that shouldn't belong in an article, such that the editor has to do original research and make assumptions to write even a one paragraph stub. If there are thousands of truly trivial mentions about a topic, then the article would just be an assortment of random facts. Esquivalience (talk) 02:26, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
      • But if you make such a stub, that information might prove interesting to many people who saw the band mentioned elsewhere and didn't know about that. Then they would have an aha! moment when they read the stub and would be pleasantly satisfied with that sentence of an article that Wikipedia offered them. Because, after all, many readers who look info in Wikipedia are just after a sentence to illuminate them what something is about. I am one of those readers. Many times when I see a term I'm unfamiliar with I conduct a quick search in Wikipedia and am very satisfied if I can get the info I'm looking for in one sentence. Thinker78 (talk) 05:12, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose. Reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia-notability. Wikipedia-notability means that others have already written about it. Something that can collected many mentions, but has never been written about, there’s nothing that can be written without WP:NOR. Then mentions may get a mention from within another topic.

Above are experienced wikipedians who also reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of WP:N. Notability does not derive from verifiability (many verifiable things are not notable), no, WP:N is a special case of application of WP:PSTS. If you don’t like WP:N, you can impose it entirely from WP:PSTS. WP:N is a simpler explanation for deciding whether an entire topic is suitable, and which feeds directly into deletion policy. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:37, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Something that have been mentioned many times sometimes has been written about but not enough to pass the current gng. So my proposal is a threshold for a topic that has been mentioned so many times and let it pass the new rule by the threshold of trivial mentions so if the topic has been written about once in a reliable source but mentioned a thousand times in different newspapers, an article can be written about it. Thinker78 (talk) 19:52, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• Thinker78, it's not that we don't understand what you're proposing. It's that, so far, no one agrees with what you're proposing. There's no need to rebut every single Oppose proponent. Ravenswing 20:07, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• RavenswingUmmm... It looks like you don't understand how WP:CONSENSUS works. They are stating their reasons they oppose and I am trying to engage in a discussion with them so I consider necessary to rebut their points if I don't agree with them and I see something they may have missed. I'm not blind and I see that a consensus is forming against the proposal, but what do you propose, that I just should have read their points and stay quiet? Thinker78 (talk) 21:45, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• As a gentle push, I would suggest you review Wikipedia:Tendentious editing which has some "don't" you should follow for how to engage in talk page discussion. --Masem (t) 21:51, 5 July 2018 (UTC)
• ... in particular, WP:REHASH. Ravenswing 22:00, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Excuse me guys, but tbh you sound like you want to just quash debate, why bring to my attention that explanatory supplement? As I asked before, what what is your proposal, that I should have just read the opposition points and don't say anything? Thinker78 (talk) 23:18, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

• We bring it to your attention so that you might read it. We've already stated our recommendation, and repeating the same point over and over is the behavior that concerns us. Ravenswing 18:16, 7 July 2018 (UTC)

Thinker78, do you have an example of the sort of thing you are thinking of? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:04, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

You got me in a curve. I have seen the issue when I'm editing or in afd discussions but on the top of my head I fail to remember a specific case. I think this doesn't talk very good about my proposal, but it was just in the back of my head pinging to bring it forward so I just brought it forward. But I will work on bringing the information you requested, even if it takes me some time, although I may submit it after this discussion dies down if I don't find it before. I will take your request as a lesson to have a specific example in my mind before I make a proposal. Thinker78 (talk) 23:29, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

It sounds to me like you have an interest in indicators of notability. Easily measured things that usually correlate with a Keep decision at AfD. For example, 40 publications with 40 citations is a good indicator that WP:PROF#1 will be met, which is a very good indicator that the article will be kept at AfD. Note that these indicators are quick and dirty and mostly reliable, but they are just indicators, not the underlying theory, let alone what people will decide at AfD. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:19, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose This will only confuse WP:GNG and make it more difficult to figure out when articles are notable and when they're not notable, and create pages for articles we really shouldn't have in the encyclopedia. SportingFlyer talk 06:05, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Would increase the amount of trivia in Wikipedia. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:25, 7 July 2018 (UTC).
• Oppose It would be chaotic without it. The other side of this is when it is quoted inappropriately. I am currently involved in a discussion which argues that this article Six leading scientists give perspectives on UK science after Brexit in The Guardian confers nothing onto scientist X in the way of notability (for being asked to take part as what The Guardian describes as a "leading scientist") and cannot be treated as "independent of the subject" because X's contribution to the article was X's own work. --The Vintage Feminist (talk) 15:20, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose: For more or less the reasons already stated, it would just mean that as long as you can get enough one line mentions you get an article, consisting of one line.Slatersteven (talk) 15:35, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose GNG needs a few fixes but this isn't one of them. North8000 (talk) 17:26, 17 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, or it would open up the definition of notability to be based on Google hits, or some other trival (and 'recentist') thing that has not been interrogated. Sionk (talk) 12:01, 22 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support in principle We already use citation counts (primarily in the form of h-indexes) for WP:PROF. There is no reason why we should not use essentially the same technique for other topics. James500 (talk) 13:07, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

"Notable enough to represent a decade" ???

On the page Women in punk rock, User Netherzone is gradually whittling down all the acts included in the 2010s section on the grounds that they are "not notable enough to represent a decade" I find this nonsensical - either bands/singers (and any subjects) are notable or else they aren't. All the bands on the initial list reasonably passed WP:GNG and WP:BAND, mostly for point 1 re multiple reliable sources. (although as I've pointed out in edit summaries, giving a proper overview of the female acts on today's scene would involve listing several other acts which do not have articles due to the sources not being out there even though, out in the real world, these other acts have acheived comparable successs to the notable acts.) There are no guidelines as far as I can see for what is and isn't notable enough to represent a period of time. Therefore it seems to me that Netherzone's criteria for giving out sections in the Women in punk rock article are entirely idiosyncratic.
P.S. If there is a better place for this issue to be raised, please direct me to it. 81.158.134.39 (talk) 23:23, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

It's nonsensical because "notability" only has to do with the possibility of creating a standalone article, not with article content. This is a WP:DUE issue. Of sources that discuss women in punk in the 2010s, which bands are mentioned the most? Those should be mentioned in the section. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 13:14, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

81.158.134.39 - You seem to be over-reacting - why not simply have a conversation on the article talk page about it from the get-go rather than responding in such an aggressive, accusatory manner? I am not here to argue, but rather to improve the article, enyclopedia, and the coverage of women's history. In fact, I created the article, and made over 200 edits. I would like to see it evolve to a good article, with high-quality citations. Having said, that, I certainly don't feel a sense of ownership, as I've actively asked other editors to contribute on the talk page in the past. Nor am I "whittling down all the acts included in the 2010s section." Why on earth would I want to deconstruct the 2010s rather than improve it? I'm not a deletionist, as you can see on my user page. How about if we work together on this as fellow editors in a civilized manner? Netherzone (talk) 22:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

Example addition

Everyone fine with this addition by Editor General of Wiki? Any tweaks need to be made to it? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:44, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I know it's coming from the revamped NCORP, but I think it's generally fine (though might be moved a bit later, not 100% sure on that). --Masem (t) 17:47, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes. It is a positive addition and will, in my opinion, be a considerable aid for doing source analysis at AfD. Jbh ^Talk 18:14, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

I reverted it before looking at this debate. I am opposed to the inclusion in this very important guideline at this point. More debate needed after a 24 hour sleep cycle. The example is in the wrong place in the article, and may be more suitable for another one, like WP:NCORP.Xxanthippe (talk) 22:36, 20 August 2018 (UTC).

I think the idea is sound, explaining how the various points of the GNG should be used in evaluating the source, but perhaps there is a more generic example that includes more facets of sourcing (like textbooks, journal articles, etc.) that is better for this page. I think it is important to understand that GNG requires editors to look at each quality we expect from a source that is said to contribute towards notability. --Masem (t) 14:09, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose NCORP is broken beyond repair, and we should not be adding its nonsense to other guidelines. A claim, for example, that self-published sources are ipso facto unreliable is fallacious. It depends on the credentials of the author and whether the source is regarded as reliable by unequivocally reliable sources etc. If Albert Einstein was to self publish a book on the theory of relativity, and that book was then cited as reliable by every other physics textbook in the world, I think you could be fairly confident of its reliability. The example is full of similar errors. James500 (talk) 13:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I fail to see the similarity, Einstein is an expert (and this is covered by the SPS exceptions), none of the people mentioned in the example appear to be, they are just another bloger.Slatersteven (talk) 13:49, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

The example is written in such a way as to create the impression that there are no exceptions. James500 (talk) 13:57, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

No it is not, It says that "self-published sources are generally not reliable", There is no way that can be read as "no exception".Slatersteven (talk) 14:05, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

The blogger is not described as a non-expert. There is no reason why a tech enthusiast should not be a professor of technology. The appearance of the word "generally" is even worse. It is likely to be read as "always". James500 (talk) 14:11, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a question about notability vs. verification sourcing: in rare circumstances self-published sources can be used for verification, but they don’t count towards notability because they haven’t been through independent review. Editorial control long being recognized as a key factor for notability TonyBallioni (talk) 14:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

There has never been any such rule. James500 (talk) 14:21, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

But (As the suggestion makes clear) there is no reason to assume they are. There is nothing about the suggestion that says "and if it turns out they are noted experts in the filed it would still not be RS. There is nothing about this that prevents notable (and noted) experts being used as sources. At worst it means we cannot assume any given SPS is by an expert, and that we should not be doing anyway. And as Tony about notability.Slatersteven (talk) 14:18, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I have lost count of the number of times that I have seen other editors insist that the word "generally" means always. James500 (talk) 14:24, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

And I have lost count of the number of times I have said it does not. I do not have to take into account people who insist all over the place, I have only have to take into account if they are right, they are not.Slatersteven (talk) 14:28, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support inclusion of something like this to bring WP:N more in line with the infinitely better WP:NCORP, which has some of the best explanations of how we actually evaluate sourcing on the entire project. TonyBallioni (talk) 14:16, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
  • NCORP is the worst guideline on the project. It comes very close to saying that all sources are unreliable, non-independent and trivial etc, therefore every single article on the project should be deleted. It essentially consists of a long list of absurd reasons to delete articles. It is the last thing we should use as a model. James500 (talk) 14:33, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

It does, where? I can think of any number of companies that pass. All it means is that Bert Terrible professional worrying ltd (HQ Catford) is not notable just because their website and two random blogers say they exists.Slatersteven (talk) 14:38, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

No, it documents how we actually assess sourcing at AfD and have been doing for a few years. TonyBallioni (talk) 17:44, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

It does no such thing. I have seen a very large number of AfDs, and in the vast majority, that did not happen. James500 (talk) 18:10, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

It comes very close to saying that <snip> therefore every single article on the project should be deleted That's bull. In fact the proper statement would be "therefore every single article about companies should be deleted". And I wholeheartedly agree with the modified version of your statement, including its conclusion. We have risen the criteria of NCORP to an extraordinary level for a reason: businesses go extraordinary lengths to promote themselves in all possible media. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:19, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. It seeks to apply to all organisations, including non commercial ones. Then it seeks to apply to anything that might be labelled a product or service, which does come dangerously close to everything in the world, since anything can be sold. And it has nothing to do with promotion. It seeks to apply to organisations that ceased to exist long ago and therefore could not now be engaged in any form of promotion whatsoever. It seeks to discount plainly independent sources for absurd reasons that have nothing to do with promotion. The feeling is that it is really WP:CRUFTCRUFT that is more likely to result in the deletion of articles created by fans, or editors with a scholarly interest in a topic, than articles created by advertisers. James500 (talk) 08:35, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

I see. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:13, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support inclusion of this. It is a good starting point, with no irrepairable drawbacks. You can nitpick on every word simply because you cannot squeeze the whole policy into the example, which is supposed to draw major lines. If anything, it may be supplied with :
  • cautionary notes about grey areas
  • an example how this judgement may be contested. -- IMO it will be just as important addition as the example itself, to show the way how to carry out a proper argument against someone's, not just how to present yours. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:19, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose inclusion for the time being. It is too terse, narrowly constructed and limited in extent to be suitable for one of Wikipedia's most important guidelines. If expanded and made more coherent, it might go as a sub-page or appendix. Xxanthippe (talk) 02:49, 22 August 2018 (UTC).
• Oppose. I tend to agree with Xxanthippe here. This is too specific to heading off a certain type of notability-by-press-release, and perhaps because of that takes a non-neutral approach to the sources that may be appropriate for American businesses and American businessmen but does not provide useful guidance for choosing sources in the many other topics that GNG covers. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
• Examples are good, but they belong on a subpage. This page should be treated as the first introduction to Wikipedia-notability that a newcomer sees. Don’t make it too heavy. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
• The details need a little work (e.g., WP:N doesn't really care whether self-published sources are "generally reliable", because self-published sources are "absolutely never indications of notability", because they're not evidence of attention from the world at large. But overall, I think it's a good start that could be usefully refined and put on to some page (this or another). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Is there a contradiction in other policies and essays?

This policy says that it "does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." It also says that "These guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list (emphasis in original)."

1. This policy says that "articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who attended the school — only those with verifiable notability."

2. This essay refers to the policy above by saying: "Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria."

Do these two statements contradict this policy, particularly the line from the "This page in a nutshell" section quoted above? ElKevbo (talk) 13:37, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

No, no contradiction. This guideline is not describing the contents of those alumni lists nor the content of the alumni articles themselves. LISTBIO/ALUMNI are setting the content of the alumni list by saying that the individual alumni should be notable, but that's not content as determined by WP:N. --Masem (t) 14:23, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Or, in other words, those are two different uses/meanings of notable/notability. North8000 (talk) 14:46, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

No, not really. It's the same consideration of notability. Just that WP:N does not set any standards for content itself for the alumni lists. It is other WP editors that decided to use the notability of an individual person as the minimum criteria for the list, but that wasn't set by WP:N. --Masem (t) 14:51, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Is this correctly written as "This policy does not apply to article content but we're going to apply this policy to article content anyway?" ElKevbo (talk) 16:05, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

No. It should be more read: WP:N does not directly or explicitly define appropriate content for articles. However, editors may choose to use notability as criteria to narrow down content on articles such as lists of alumni". --Masem (t) 16:13, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I am genuinely and utterly perplexed that you don't see those two statements as being completely contradictory. I am hopeful that perhaps other editors can help me understand this! ElKevbo (talk) 16:30, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

It's probably not clear how I'm saying it. It should be read that WP:N does not make any requirements on the content of articles (outside of sourcing to show notability), but this does not mean editors cannot use WP:N to refine inclusion criteria for lists. WP:N simply doesn't place demands on content by itself, but editors can opt to consider that as a factor. --Masem (t) 18:23, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank for that clarification! If that is how other editors also understand this policy - and that appears to be the case - then can we please edit this policy to make that clear? The section on this specific topic currently says:

The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of some lists, which restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. For additional information about list articles, see Notability of lists and List selection criteria.

It probably needs to say something like:

The criteria applied to the creation or retention of an article are not the same as those applied to the content inside it. In general, the notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists; some lists, such as lists of people who attended a particular school , restrict inclusion to notable people or items. Content coverage within a given article or list (i.e. whether something is noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the article or list) is usually governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies. For additional information about list articles, see Notability of lists and List selection criteria.

We probably also need to modify a sentence in the "In a nutshell" summary from:

The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

to:

The notability guideline usually does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

Does that make sense? (I italicized my proposed edits.) ElKevbo (talk) 21:03, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I think that there's a structural problem there. A part of a policy / core guideline is to define it's applicability, I.E. where it is mandatory. This is clearly limited to the existence of an article. Your proposal (though unintended) structurally says that it is sometimes applicable (= mandatory) regarding inclusion of material within articles.North8000 (talk) 21:18, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

The phrase of concern presently is "The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of some lists, which restrict inclusion to notable items or people)." It might be better to be read "The notability guidelines do not define any requirements or limitations in regards to contents of articles or lists, but consensus of editors may opt to use notability as inclusion criterion on some types of articles, such as lists of notable items or people.". There's more than just alumni lists to worry about here too. --Masem (t) 21:21, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

@North8000: I think that may be the case, at least for some editors. I completely understand and agree with the intent of the biography policy and the school content essay: we need some reasonable limits and criteria for including people in in-line lists. It's understandable that editors would reach for notability as it's a commonly used idea and metric throughout this project. But this policy, a core policy with widespread acceptance and application, explicitly says that it can't be used to limit content.

Do those arguments all make sense to other editors? If not, where do they fall apart? ElKevbo (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

In Wikipedia editing, you jumped down the rabbit hole into a weird alternative universe. Not defending it, but in that weird universe there is no conflict. wp:notability is a sourcing based guideline that (only) establishes one of the criteria criteria for an article to exist. "Notability" in the discussion about list inclusion is really a completely different unrelated term......it is talking about the real world meaning of notability, it is not referring to wp:notability. North8000 (talk) 17:16, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@North8000: Sorry but that doesn't match my experience or observations. More to the point, it doesn't seem to match the responses that I received when I asked about this topic at Wikipedia:Notability (people) e.g., "I interpret it as meaning 'has an article or is obviously qualified for one,'" "meaning either a blue link (existing article) or a red link (for a subject who is notable but for whom an article does not yet exist)", and "[for red links] 1) the person is likely notable but doesn't have an article, and 2) meets the list's inclusion criteria"). I think that, in policies and essays, editors usually do mean notability when they are writing in or referring to Wikipedia policies or practices.

I agree with your point that editors often use "notability" in a more common context; it happens a lot and it's very natural and understandable! I just don't think that occurs often in policy and similar documents and discussions. More importantly, it should be allowed to occur in policy and similar documents and discussions as it is confusing and imprecise. ElKevbo (talk) 17:09, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Lots of words have a different / 2nd meaning in Wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 18:17, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

User:ElKevbo is correct. SNGs such as LISTBIO should not be declaring what kind of content is acceptable to include in an article. That "rule" belongs in WP:LISTPEOPLE (where something very similar already exists). It either should be removed entirely from LISTBIO (as being irrelevant to the question of whether the school article exists) or re-worded to be relevant ("Sometimes editors use this notability guideline to figure out which people to add to a list, e.g., a list of alumni from a school.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I've added something to that extent to the lede, as I agree that's the intent. WP:N doesn't demand its use to limit lists, but editors can make that decision if they want. --Masem (t) 04:21, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

"editors may decide, by consensus, to use notability criteria..." seems too weak to me. "editors may decide, by consensus, to..." can precede just about anything. It's important that notability is a very typical inclusion criterion ("common," in fact). I've updated the text to that effect. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

That's fine with me. Personally, without it, I don't see the contradiction, but its being read there so it probably makes sense to clear it up somehow. --Masem (t) 05:05, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment on Wikipedia:Interviews

There is a request for comment on the Wikipedia:Interviews essay:

1. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be designated as an explanatory supplement?
2. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the verifiability policy?
3. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the no original research policy?
4. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the identifying reliable sources guideline?
5. Should Wikipedia:Interviews be linked from the notability guideline?

If you are interested, please participate at Wikipedia talk:Interviews#RfC: Explanatory supplement and links from policies and guidelines. Thanks. — Newslinger talk 18:48, 19 October 2018 (UTC)

This request for comment has been withdrawn. Thank you for your feedback. — Newslinger talk 07:27, 20 October 2018 (UTC)

Lists of notable Alumni different for different languages, combine?

Taipei American School has pages on both the English and Chinese wikipedias. The lists of Notable Alumni with pages are different as some of the alumni only have pages on the English Language Wikipedia and some only have pages on the Chinese wikipedia. Is it appropriate to combine the lists and include (for example) people with only Chinese pages on the English article with template:ill ? (I know the answer in the other direction might be different since the Chinese wikipedia might have different rules.Naraht (talk) 12:55, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

If the articles on Chinese WP have sufficient sources to verify notability, it is absolutely fine to use the inter-language link to add the alumni to a list. SusunW (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

They will generally be removed, though. Especially for BLPs, the sources that show notability will need to be on the English Wikipedia, even if that means copying Chinese language sources from the Chinese Wikipedia. Importantly, the notability threshold is also enwiki's notability criteria (I'm not sure the extent to which they differ, but it seems a salient point). You will also receive pressure to write the article first if there are sources but no article on enwiki, and local consensus at a large number of articles require having an article (on enwiki). In other words, it's in gray area and will vary. Ultimately, WP:BEBOLD. :) — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 00:45, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

And in at least two cases, the person in the Notable Alumni on the Chinese page has both a Chinese and English Wikipedia pages, but only the Chinese page has a reference showing attendance.Naraht (talk) 00:54, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

My tendency would be to answer no to this one. Alumni lists can be indiscriminate enough already, so we usually require (or should require) them to be bluelinked only. That is, to keep these lists under control, we need more than just a suggestion that the person might be notable, but a demonstration through the existence of an English Wikipedia article that they actually are notable. Other Wikipedias have different notability standards so we can't use existence there for the same purpose. For lists with a constrained number of members and for which we list all members (not just the ones with articles), it's appropriate to use ill links so that new articles on the missing members automatically get linked, but that's a different kind of list than the one discussed here. My suggestion would be that, if you think it's important to list more alumni, you do it the hard way, by writing English Wikipedia articles for the ones listed on the Chinese Wikipedia and supportable by appropriate sources, rather than trying to shortcut the process using ill links. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

So if the articles included lists of the 9 Principals of TAS and only 7 of the Principals had English language articles, using the ill links for the other two would be fine, but the Same would not apply for the 9 TAS alumni who have been in the Taiwanese Legislature, since the first list is constrained and the second is not. (Not that anything in this example is actually true. :) )Naraht (talk) 01:14, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Something like that, yes. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:32, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

• Leaning no: if the alumni are otherwise notable, the best place to use the {{illm}} template would be in other articles, where they would add something useful. Not on a somewhat random list. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:57, 19 October 2018 (UTC)
• It would be helpful to know what the criteria and standards for inclusion are on the Chinese WP. Are they similar, laxer or stricter than WP.en? Blueboar (talk) 00:21, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

RfC of possible interest

An RfC of interest to users that frequent this page: Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#RfC:_Amendment_for_BIO_to_address_systemic_bias_in_the_base_of_sources. Is linked above at the end of a very large section, thought it would be worthwhile noting this in a new section. — Insertcleverphrasehere ^{(or here)} 11:28, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Notability of subjects prohibited from publication.

If I understand correctly, according to the current guideline, if certain subject have been banned from publication, then that would mean such subject would not have reliable secondary sources and thus the notability of such subject would not be able to be demonstrated for the purpose of wikipedia article inclusion, and thus wikipedia cannot have any articles about such subjects until such ban against such subject is being lifted? C933103 (talk) 05:16, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Is there even one subject that is globally banned from publication, in all the different countries of the world? We are not required to use local sources (and indeed, nonlocal sources are more likely to be seen as evidence of notability). —David Eppstein (talk) 06:28, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

But what if the event in itself was only notable in regional area if it were not banned, for example within area with Middle East, South East Asia, or even within specific country, and then attracted no foreign interest after such situation occur? As another more concrete example, Xinjiang reeducation camps is a thing that have existed for several years already, however it wasn't reported until less than a year ago and only received more widespread coverage in recent months because of numerous factors, and it was only at the time that articles of it was created on wikipedia. What if those factors that caused international attention on the camps wasn't there? C933103 (talk) 22:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• I would think that if a subject is banned, someone would have written about that ban (explaining what the subject did to deserve the ban). Blueboar (talk) 10:48, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

That would provide notability and verifiability to the subject itself, but how about everything that are covered within the subject? For instance, a hypothetical event of 2034 Jenniferburg riot could be banned from being reported on local news, and then foreign news can report such riot exists, but what about details of the riot, history, and all involved parties? C933103 (talk) 22:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• If a shubject was effectively banned from publication, how would we know? Roxy, in the middle. wooF 15:11, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

In people's mind and memory and private exchanges? Those would not be reliable/notable sources, however. C933103 (talk) 22:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

• I suppose that there could be some top secret project all mention of which has been successfully censored, comparable to the suppression of news about the Manhattan Project during WW II, but I kind of doubt that level of censorship is possible, anymore. In any case, such secrets tend to come out after a few years. - Donald Albury 19:06, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
• If such subjects have been successfully banned from publication, yes, that would by definition render them unverifiable. However, something like the Pentagon Papers or the Snowden leaks were not in fact kept secret, and are verified by reliable sources, so we can write about those. Hypothetically, if US law actually made something illegal to publish we'd probably be subject to that, but the First Amendment generally prohibits such blanket publication bans. If another country banned publication, but reliable references outside that country still verify the information in question, we can use that as normal. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:26, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Using your example of Snowden leaks, what if Snowden didn't leak the project? Or if he leaked the project, however he didn't leak it to news media and the event was also very swiftly banned from further media investigation, instead simply posted them onto random personal webpage that would not match verifiability and notability in itself, and then with all the other investigation that dig up matching evidence also done by people however they're all not reported by media? C933103 (talk) 22:12, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

So this is 100% a hypothetical? Sorry but I really am not sure that this can be discussed in any meaningful way. But the hole point of notability is that it is notable, not that it exists. Why it is not notable is not is not the issue.Slatersteven (talk) 22:22, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

I am specifically thinking of one or two subject but I don't want to name them because of the risk of being seen as personally affiliated with it. C933103 (talk) 20:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Even if a work is so censored that all known copies of it have been destroyed, as long as the work still was discussed in reliable secondary sources, it would pass the notability bar even if we can longer view the original work. Heck, this is basically how most stories on news events work - the event happens, and there may be no evidence that the event ever occurred, but we can resort to news coverage to prove the event happened. --Masem (t) 21:49, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Notability for a cryptocurrency

There are over 2000 cryptocurrencies on the market. Some are notable such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash. Some may not notable now but made significant contribution and play an important role in cryptocurrencies history like Peercoin and Namecoin. However, may cryptocurrencies are just simply folk or copy from a notable cryptocurrency without any enhancement or changes.

So it is important to discuss a notability guideline for cryptocurrencies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joeccho (talk • contribs) 10:44, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Only to the degree of asking is it notable. The rules for notability should still apply.Slatersteven (talk) 10:56, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

There's no need for a cryptocurrency SNG, WP:GNG is fine and from what I've seen there's a lot of POV-pushing in this area of Wikipedia. SportingFlyer talk 10:58, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

• No need for a new guideline. WP:GNG can be applied. Blueboar (talk) 10:59, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

With a very healthy dose of WP:G11 Legacypac (talk) 12:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

The SNG itself might not meet the WP:10 year test - akin to writing a Tulip SNG during Tulip mania. Icewhiz (talk) 13:15, 27 November 2018 (UTC)