Wikipedia talk:Notability (fandom)

Just a tip: a guideline using the phrase "self-serving fancruft" isn't off to a good start. Kafziel ^Talk 16:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Totally agree. It sets a very anti-fandom tone, and the use of the term "fancruft" is very controversial and often considered to be insulting. Overall, the whole proposal seems like feature creep, when most of the issues mentioned can probably be handled easily with existing guidelines and common sense. --Milo H Minderbinder 16:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It's my opinion that the existing guidelines lean heavily against fandom in general and create grey areas. I'm editing Worldcon pages, trying to filter lists of program participants to lists of noteworthy program participants. There is fancruft around and self-serving articles that need deletion, but the grey areas leave room for argument. I'd rather clarify the line first. Avt tor 17:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Y'all don't waste time. :) Thanks for the feedback. I wanted to clarify why this was necessary. I've taken out the sentence, hoping someone can come up with a more neutral way of expressing this (or I might come up with something after more thought). Avt tor 16:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Self contradiction

• Small things don't add together: For a person, event, or other item to be notable, at least one aspect of the subject must itself be notable. A list of accomplishments which individually would not be considered noteworthy do not collectively make the subject worthy of note.
• Single or multiple accomplishments: While a single accomplishment may itself be notable, this does not necessarily make a subject sufficiently noteworthy to merit a distinct Wikipedia article. Subjects with only a single item of note should simply be included in relevant lists. Only if the subject has three or more points of note should they be considered noteworthy enough for a Wikipedia article; one of the purposes of the encyclopedia is to show links between people, places, events, and concepts.

So which is it? AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll offer a clarification. Thanks. Avt tor 16:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe more clear, but "three or more points of note" seems arbitrary (why not two or four?) and contradicts practice. John Mosely Turner, Denzo Ishisaki, Yukichi Chuganji seem to have one point of notability listed, being the oldest living man in the world at one point in time. Surely we don't want to go on a deletion spree of those, since they can, presumably, each be turned into something as interesting as Moses Hardy and Fred H. Hale, Sr.. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 18:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll try again. Avt tor 18:58, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

(Bah, the edit I thought I'd posted earlier isn't there...) Avt tor 19:00, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge?

I think it would be better to add parts of this page to WP:BIO (regarding people and authors) and WP:FICT (which already has a clause against most fanfic). (Radiant) 17:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

As I understand it, this isn't about fan fiction, it's about people and events related to fandom itself. Conventions, publications, awards, bloggers, that sort of thing. Either way, I think we should give it more than 1/2 hour after its creation before trying to merge it. Kafziel ^Talk 17:44, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I wish the problems I want to deal with were that clear-cut. But I'm seeing pages for people whose major accomplishments seem to be posting to other people's blogs, doing odd things at conventions, or winning very minor awards. In a sense I'm looking for something specialized, sort of like Wikipedia:WikiProject_Warhammer_40,000/Notability for science fiction, but there's no science fiction Wikiproject to link this to. I kind of don't want to clutter WP:BIO with sub-criteria specific to fandom. Avt tor 17:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Try Wikipedia:WikiProject Fan Fiction or Wikipedia:WikiProject Fictional series. Kafziel ^Talk 17:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunately the pages I'm looking at just aren't in these categories. The problem I have is specifically in the area of science fiction fandom. It does not have to be applied to commercial books, TV shows, etc. Per the comment above, this isn't about Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, etc., it's about literary fandom, (and to a lesser extent) Star Trek fandom, BG fandom, Firefly fandom, and the people therein. E.g. Londo Mollari is certainly noteworthy, but the guy who imitates Londo at cons is probably not. That's really the distinction I want to make here. Avt tor 17:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Then Radiant is right; we don't need another guideline for that. WP:BIO covers it. Kafziel ^Talk 18:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This does not give me clarity about which people, fanzines, conventions, or awards would be considered notable, unless you'd say "none of the above", and that doesn't seem right to me. Avt tor 18:50, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, first and foremost, all of those things would need to have been extensively covered in multiple publications by independent, third-party sources. That goes not just to notability guidelines but to the non-negotiable verifiability policy. If they haven't been, consensus will generally hold them to be non-notable. If the sources are not deemed reliable, consensus will, again, hold them to be non-notable. People are held to WP:BIO. Publications, conventions, and awards are subject to WP:WEB and WP:CORP. Remember that a guideline must be descriptive, not prescriptive; in other words, it must describe the way things are, not try to establish the way things should be. Kafziel ^Talk 19:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Avt, what we mean is that it's more useful to have one centralized guideline, than multiple divergent ones; otherwise, people won't know where to look. If e.g. WP:BIO doesn't have enough information about, say, fanfiction authors, it may help to have one there; you could add one, or discuss it on the talk page. For conventions, size would be a good indicator. If a con happens once and attracts fifty locals, that's probably not notable. If it returns yearly and attracts a thousand people from all over the country, that's way better. We don't do arbitrary cutoff points but you get the general idea. (Radiant) 09:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

In the absence of consensus, I'm inclined to withdraw this as a guideline and demote it; I can just write an essay within the Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction as an interpretation of the established guidelines. There are some very puffy pages that need to be trimmed, IMO, but I really want to have something clear to fall back on. Avt tor 00:24, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

It's high time we start this: Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction.--ragesoss 20:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thoughts

I'm not exactly sure what the point of this notability criteria guideline. Unlike other notability criteria guidelines, it doesn't actually offer any criteria to determine if something is notable or now. It more or less restates what is in the other notability criteria guidelines and does so using vaguer language.

Most of this proposal is already covered by WP:BIO for people, WP:CORP for conventions, and WP:WEB for websites. The only thing I can't find a notability guideline for is publications outside of books, music, the web, and fiction, though WP:CORP may be applicable.

If things needs to be cleared up, then they should be cleared up in the other notability criteria guidelines instead of creating a new notability criteria guideline that is one part redundant and one part fork. But perhaps I'm just being cynical. --TheFarix (Talk) 18:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, most of the stuff here is just restating things on the other notability guidelines. And you're right, it doesn't offer many criteria to determine is its notable, only restates the other guidelines. --Malevious Userpage •Talk Page• Contributions 19:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually the specifics were the most relevant parts of this guideline, the list of notable awards and the inclination to link people and fanzines to awards. However, in the absence of support, I am withdrawing this as a guideline, i.e. I will remove the link from the Notability box template. Avt tor 20:44, 8 January 2007 (UTC)