Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 1

message: I took off the "guideline" tag, because I've never seen this page before, and I don't believe this particular definition has majority support. Kappa 06:07, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: This page used to redirect to Wikipedia:Importance until quite recently. Dan100 23:43, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
*Thing is, while notability isn't listed as a criterion for deletion under the deletion policy or WP:NOT, a lot of people believe that it should be and act accordingly at VfD.  Unfortunately, there's no template for "A sizeable body of like-minded individuals believe that this may as well be policy because it should be, and act accordingly, but no consensus exists because an equally sizeable body of people are opposed to this."  The guideline template and description at WP:RULES both say consensus, after all, so notability really can't be treated as a guideline.  The Literate Engineer 04:08, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official guideline? 

message: This page opens by explaining that notability doesn't mean any of the standard real-world meanings of notability. I realize that lawyers use this kind of redefinition all the time, but in this environment it is asking for trouble. If this notability-that-isn't-notability were to become policy, it would inevitably devolve to a situation where the real-world meanings of notability would be applied.  I strongly suggest dropping the word notability altogether and instead writing what is meant. --iMb~Meow 17:48, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic wording 

message: The current proposal talks about how non-notable subjects don't make for acceptable articles either because they're original research or because they're not verifiable. But we already have policies against those very things, I don't see how this policy is going do do anything other than add a new word for these things that's less specific because it doesn't distinguish them. Indeed, the current proposal already says that it's been argued that "there's no reason why wikipedia shouldn't include "everything" that fits in with our other criteria, such as verifiability and no original research," before going on to talk about how things that are original research or aren't verifiable shouldn't be in Wikipedia - these two positions do not appear to be incompatable at all. The only new thing seems to be to disallow blogs, zines and e-zines as valid sources, but Wikipedia:Verifiability gives explicit guidelines on how to use blogs as sources and I imagine zines would be treated pretty similar. That seems contradictory, and more something that should be debated on the Verifiability policy page in any event. Bryan 06:00, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Seems redundant in its current form

message: I deleted the insertion of "The term 'notability' has acquired a bad reputation on Wikipedia because it is often used as a proxy for 'I haven't heard of it' etc)." This, of course, is utterly ridiculous. The term has no such "bad reputation." Neutralitytalk 05:06, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
* I disagree.  This is exactly how the term 'not-notable' is used.  --noösfractal 03:21, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I, too, disagree - it has gained the reputation for meaning 'what I like' with many users. Trollderella 17:04, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I had an article I'm working on tagged for the following apparent reasons: A) the tagger had never heard of my target person; and B) they apparently hadn't done any research to figure that out on their own and C) I had only *just started* it !  Come on... let me collect my sources and unstub it before you get all tag-happy on me. Articles should be allowed to live at least a week before getting tagged. Wjhonson 20:56, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reversion 

message: Wikipedia:Notability proposal is a proposal to explicitly make "notability" a requirement for Wikipedia articles, and to explicitly include "lack of notability" as a reason for deleting articles. Please visit Wikipedia talk:Notability proposal and express your view on the proposal. DES (talk) 23:19, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability proposal 

message: In my spare time I had written a short essay with some thoughts on notability and what it means. I've put it here since the previous content of this page consisted of a legalese definition and some arguments for or against deletion, neither of which seemed very helpful. Thoughts welcome, and please bear in mind that an essay is not in any way a policy or guideline. If people vehemently disagree with this I'll userfy it, but it seems useful here. The old version is here. Radiant_>|< 10:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I for one have no objections to such an edit.  I thought perhaps a revert to an earlier version was most appropriate, but I really wasn't sure so I played conservative and just removed the guideline tag.  I realize this is and has been a hot topic; all the more reason for the content to make it clear that this isn't a guideline.  Friday (talk) 02:21, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

text: *Encephalon, I didn't see your comments when I posted mine.  I'm not sure I understand the first part of your comment "it uses the page not for attempting an explanation of the term notability and its use on WP".  I have a whole subsection on the definition.  As for the index to other policies, I'd be happy to remove that, but I thought this was a really approporiate place to compare notability requirements. -- Reinyday, 14:27, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Hi Reinyday. Thank you for your thoughts, and for putting as much time into this as you have. Your enthusiasm is refreshing! My objections to this version are twofold. Firstly, the links to other pages section is an unsuitable addition to the page, in my opinion. They make the page much larger than it has to be, and the multiple emboldened individual headers, usually for text that is each only one line long, make it rather difficult to read. More importantly, you are conflating efforts by groups of editors to develop inclusion guidelines, with the concept notability. They are not at all the same. Many of these specialized guidelines seem to me to stem from not understanding the three fundamental articlespace policies on Wikipedia. A lot of them make recommendations that are actually invalid, because they go against two of the three cardinal article policies, WP:V and WP:NOR. They also discuss a range of issues. However, the concept of notability, in what I would argue is its most useful interpretation, is distinct. It certainly deserves a sensible write up, but conflating it with all these special-interest group guidelines is not helpful, IMHO. Notability deserves a page where it is well explained, and the page for that is the one titled WP:N. If you would like to have an index of these interest-group guidelines somewhere, please feel free to create such a page. Secondly, I don't feel that the treatment of the word notability is NPOV. This is partly because the concept has been difficult for all of us, for a very long time; the previous version was not ideal either. Still, it was simpler, and its presentation under two straightforward headings  made it easier to read. In addition to the POV treatment, there are some factual errors. For example, vanity text is claimed to be a "criterion for deletion"—it is not. Vanity articles that don't assert notability are speedied, and those that do are often nominated on AFD, but as the guide which you yourself refer to says, "As explained below, vanity by itself is not a basis for deletion, but lack of importance is" (incidentally, an interesting thing to say; it also used to say importance as defined by WP:Importance, but someone has edited that bit to read differently). For these reasons and more, I agree with Interiot and Radiant that the earlier version of this page is the more acceptable of the two. May I suggest a compromise for the moment? I will, at your invitation to "mercilessly edit" the page, mercifully edit (out) only the list in the bottom half—as stated above I really think the list does not belong here, and I'm glad to note that you indicate you wouldn't mind having it elsewhere. Should you wish to maintain this list on another page, it should easily be retrievable from the history (your indexing work is not wasted! :)) The remaining bit will essentially be your take on the subject of notability. I urge the usual process of editing to improve it. Best wishes encephalon 21:31, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Essay 

message: "A topic has notability if is known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact."
So something is notable if people outside of a narrow interest group know about it? So it's open season on science, math, linguistics etc? Oh, unless it should be known about? According to who?! WTF?! How are we supposed to take this seriously? Keep it if it's verifiable - we should make a policy on that, so that we don't have to decide what should be important to people. Oh - we already have that policy? Oh well, perhaps we don't need to do anything except delete this non-notable policy proposal. Trollderella 21:52, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: First paragraph demonstrates the stupidity of this

message: "The no original research rule keeps out most of what is unencyclopedic. Notability is not needed as long as the verifiability rules are strictly applied."
This is incorrect. Verifiability and NOR does not mean either that the material is encyclopaedic, or that it is represented in a non-selective (POV) manner. (This is being discussed and a draft solution proposed elsewhere). It is verifiable from a datestamped video recording I took, that I had yoghurt for breakfast, but not notable.  
This was one definition of "notable" that I've been playing with:
:"A view is generally considered notable if it is potentially information of value or interest in some way to a significant number of people, or to some perspective, or its omission would leave a significant gap in historical human knowledge of a subject. Even minority, controversial and discredited views are often notable. Often it is valuable to see how people thought, or competing views of the time. By contrast many fringe views are not notable by this definition, because they are not sufficiently significant or had little or minor impact in their field as a whole. Notability is a subjective decision formed by consensus of editors when they try to characterize in a balanced manner, human knowledge and history of a field."
FT2 10:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Incorrect assertation

message: *Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies
*Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines
*Wikipedia:Fiction
*Wikipedia:Notability and Music Guidelines
*Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not infinite
*Wikipedia:Websites
*Wikipedia:Broadcasting notability
All of these guidelines (some proposed) appear to fall under the umbrella that addresses notability or inclusion or importance, yet they are named in wildly different ways. I propose these be renamed under a central naming scheme. The Wikipedia:Manual of Style seems to be a good model, with something like Wikipedia:Notability (music), Wikipedia:Notability (numbers), etc. as one possibility. (Note, I'm not actually requesting that Wikipedia:Notability be renamed, it seems fine, but am using this as the place to centralize discussion).—jiy (talk) 01:48, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Discuss this request
Sounds good to me. So this would give us (obviously just my ideas based on Jiy's above, comment if you have a better idea)--
* Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies → Wikipedia:Notability (biographies)
* Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines → Wikipedia:Notability (corporations)
* Wikipedia:Fiction → Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)
* Wikipedia:Notability and Music Guidelines → Wikipedia:Notability (music)
* Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not infinite → Wikipedia:Notability (numbers)
* Wikipedia:Websites → Wikipedia:Notability (websites)
* Wikipedia:Broadcasting notability → Wikipedia:Notability (broadcasting)
This should also make it easier to expand in the future. If you get enough consensus, I'd be bold and make the changes yourself. =) —Locke Cole 02:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I dont see those listed on the "See also" section (as "subject-specific notability criteria"), nor are the pages listed above added to :category:Wikipedia notability criteria yet. Fix? FT2 21:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested moves

message: :Discuss this request
Sounds good to me. So this would give us (obviously just my ideas based on Jiy's above, comment if you have a better idea)--
* Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies → Wikipedia:Notability (biographies)
* Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information/Notability and inclusion guidelines → Wikipedia:Notability (corporations)
* Wikipedia:Fiction → Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)
* Wikipedia:Notability and Music Guidelines → Wikipedia:Notability (music)
* Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not infinite → Wikipedia:Notability (numbers)
* Wikipedia:Websites → Wikipedia:Notability (websites)
* Wikipedia:Broadcasting notability → Wikipedia:Notability (broadcasting)
This should also make it easier to expand in the future. If you get enough consensus, I'd be bold and make the changes yourself. =) —Locke Cole 02:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I dont see those listed on the "See also" section (as "subject-specific notability criteria"), nor are the pages listed above added to :category:Wikipedia notability criteria yet. Fix? FT2 21:56, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: This can only ever be vague. It does not useful that WP:NOT doesn't do. All it can provide is a another page for people to quote at others - who won't be impressed if they are disinclined to agreed. Just abandon it. Bhoeble 12:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Just a bad idea

message: It's strange that there are so few subjects that have suggested 'neccessary criteria'.  Topics like movies, designers, artists, and other pop culture media should have guidelines.  I would write a page that would include criteria for movies if I really cared, but I don't.  I think anything slightly notable should be given an article, and deletions of my articles has led me to suggest more available guidelines to follow.  Either have enough guidelines to cover every topic, or abandon any guidelines all together as Bheoble suggest above.  Daviddec 08:59, 24 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No Wikipedia:Notability (movies) does strike me as very surprising.  Movies are added frequently enough, and put on AfD enough that it would help to have a policy to point to - the absence of one makes things difficult. Esquizombi 18:56, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: More subjects need to have 'notability' guidelines

message: Just to add another voice to the opposition of inclusion guidelines.  It's a step in the wrong direction, in that pretty soon they would becomne de facto standards and not long after actual policy and before you know it, the raison d'etre of wikipedia, at least as I saw it, to disseminate information as freely as possible to as many people as possible, would be lost, sold out to elitist opinions of which subject matter was worthy enough of inclusion.  Let's try and strive for the common ground, eh, and let afd, no matter how flawed, work on a case by case basis, where discussion, passion, thought and common sense can allow us to develop an encyclopedia that is constantly being improved.  Wikipedia isn't going to be finished.  Ever.  Let's remember that and remember that information can be lost forever.  Noting the library at Alexandria, let's try and keep as much information as possible, and present it in the best way possible, and let's allow others to improve the quality and presentation of that information. Hiding  talk 17:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I see it now, Notability guidelines aren't replacing AfD.  While there are a few people speedying articles based on notaiblity, usually things like WP:MUSIC and such are being used within the AfD process itself, at the discretion of people taking part in the discussion.  Also, I really don't think Wikipedia's role is to store everything anybody anywhere said.  If that's what you're interested in, you may want to donate to archive.org or work at Google instead.  As others have stated, we're not entering data off of people's tax returns here , we're not entering articles for numbers like 99999999999999999999999999999999999 here .  There has to be some limit, even if it's an extremely low limit.  We could expand :Category:Breakfast cereals to include every single product trademark.  We could expand :Category:Star Trek episode lists so that every TV episode ever aired has a separate article of its own.  We could expand :Category:California state highways to include every single road everywhere.  While these things aren't altogether bad, it's still an infinitely deep abyss.  --Interiot 21:14, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You aren't really arguing with my points, you're arguing across them.  I already state that inclusion should be determined case by case, with which you seem to agree, and I oppose this proposal because it is instruction creep and is a slippery slope upon which to slope.  There are already editors who believe that simply by invoking any of these guidelines it means an article must be deleted, regardless of how well sourced and written such an article is.  As to any abyss, Wikipedia ain't ever going to be finished, thus making it a bottomless abyss.  I'm not going to dictate to what we should and shouldn't include, and I'm merely asking other people to do the same. Hiding  talk 23:07, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I semi-oppose this idea.  I recently voted on a few "non-notable" pages as keep.  in My opinion, I don't think these pages compromise the site's integrety. -- Eddie 11:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose this idea

message: Why does something have to be notable to be included on Wikipedia?
I understand all of the existing requirements (those set into stone), and even though I'm simultaneously having a little debate over the "No original research" policy, I understand the need for and the reasons behind such a policy.
However, I truly believe that no facts, no matter how trivial, should be considered unsuitable for inclusion. Facts are still facts. No fact is more important than another simply because it is of greater interest to more people. Everything little fact that is verifiable and might be of interest even to a single person other than the author who visits this website should be allowed recognition on Wikipedia.
I don't understand why something should be weeded out of Wikipedia simply because not many people would like to know about it. I, for one, am a "collector of trivialities", and I love knowing everything from the number of gates in each airport to the road names of all A routes in London. I trust that I'm not the only one such person, and I'm sure that all of us would love to have a one-stop destination on the web where we can satisfy our hunger for trivial facts.
Shouldn't factualness, verifiability, and neutrality be sufficient parameters for inclusion on Wikipedia? Why should we throw in an extremely subjective and easily offendable test of what is notable and what is not? I'm sure there are people who'd like to know about every television documentary ever aired, every penguin living in a zoo, etc.
Here are some examples of deletions for insignificance, and my reactions:
Generalised Comment: "DELETE. 'Any Street' is the most minor of roads on the planet! If such a street is allowed to have an article to itself, then every single road on the planet could be in Wikipedia! My response: Why not? Why can't every single road, street, and lane on this planet be mentioned here? As long as you can prove the existence of your street by citing a map or screenshotting an accepted online one, go ahead and mention it on Wikipedia! This is not to say that every road should have an individual article: it would be nice to merge minor articles into larger articles, but no entry should be completely removed from Wikipedia because it is "not notable." Wikipedia is a vast, unlimited resource, constrained by neither space nor time nor number of contributors. And if you call it a bottomless abyss, I call it a wonderful treasury of information.
Generalised Comment: "DELETE. Not remotely encyclopedic." My response: The people on Wikipedia against whom I take most offence are the encyclopaedia-thumpers. First, I do not agree that something with an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica should be considered more essential to Wikipedia than an entry on something that's not included in the Britannica. There might not be an article on Penguin Bloggs in the Britannica but that's because the Britannica is limited to 32 volumes! Don't forget: there is no limit to the quantity of information Wikipedia can take. Of course, everything posted on Wikipedia still has to be factual, verifiable, NPOV, etc., but Wikipedia can certainly expand beyond the scope, range, and comfort zone of typical encyclopaedias.
My vision for Wikipedia: The ultimate encyclopaedia, the ultimate website, the ultimate data bank, a one-stop destination for almost all serious, verifiable information that anyone might ever possibly want to know at any point of his or her life. --Lapin rossignol 10:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vehement opposition to this proposed policy 

message: Arguments for deletion based on non-notability are frequently used on AfD. IMHO this is a dangerous game being played by zealous deletion advocates, who would like to tell you that unless a referenced site has Alexa stats, the topic is non-notable and should be deleted. If we base our judgements on Alexa stats, then the dead sea scrolls would have been non-notable during the period they were entombed. Yet they are notable today. How can we say that any topic whatsoever isn't worthy for inclusion in an encyclopedia, which is supposed to be a comprehensive repository of human knowledge? The risk of allowing only popular knowledge into wikipedia is staggering. Non-notability must not be made a criterion for deletion. -- Marvin147 18:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Disagree.  Telephone numbers of fast food restaurants in Manila is non-notable knowledge.  We do not need 365 new articles a year about the weather in London.  Such trivia is a clog in the pipes of information. Durova 09:34, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: I also disagree that all knowledge is notable. However, a good point is that the Alexa rank should not be used to assess the importance of a piece of knowlege. In fact, the Alexa rank is not used any more in WP:WEB. I would also remove any mention to it and to Google in this page. - Liberatore(T) 12:06, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

text: Alexa is, at most, an indicator, but plenty of things are non-notable. For example, we do not want to bog down an article about a well-known play with the cast-list for every high school production. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:11, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

text: All verifiable knowledge, sure.  I tend to think we should argue verifiability, not notability... and I've made an effort to think and talk that way for some time now.  Notability is subjective and lends itself to various biases... asking "Has this been documented by good sources?" is much less subjective, but has a similar effect of weeding out vanity, hoaxes and original research that pose various problems to an encyclopedia. As has been notied, WP:WEB now reflects this. --W.marsh 18:07, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  All [[knowledge]] is notable 

message: Hi all. In response to some recent AFD/DRV debates about whether certain "scientific/pseudoscientific theories" should be included in Wikipedia, I've tried to put together a set of proposals which might help to figure this out logically and with consensus. Your input is desired. Right now it is at WP:FRINGE, for lack of a better name. --Fastfission 17:21, 20 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notability sub-field proposal

message: I've changed one word near the beginning of the article.  "Notoriety," originally in quotations, is now prominence.
:A topic has notability if is known outside of a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact. It is an extension of the notion of prominence for biographical articles.
The earlier version implied that notoriety is synonymous with fame, which it is not.  Serial killer Ted Bundy is notorious.  Pope Benedict XVI is famous.  The earlier version also implied that Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies had defined a specific meaning for notorious.  The other article had not.  Not all notable people are famous, so I substituted prominence. Durova 18:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "notoriety" 

message: I'm not sure which is the best WP talk page to address this.  I'm not putting it on the fiction page, since it doesn't address solely fiction, but non-fiction too, and not on the notability people page, since it also addresses books.  I have in mind what I think should be a policy, though it's not stated here by me in a very concise policy form:
: (1) If an author has only authored one book, and is known only because of that book, then there should only be an article for the book, with the information about the author forming a section or sections of that article.  (2) If an author has written more than one book, then there should only be an article for the author and books should form subsections of that article.  (3) When the length of the subsection for the author or book becomes too long to be a subsection, then it should be expanded to a second article for that author or book.  (4) Articles could skip this growth process and automatically have separate pages for author and books if they were made with the intention of expanding them both to long article form (32kb or more) more or less immediately.  (5) If the intention is made but is not carried out within a reasonable amount of time, they should be merged.
I do have an example in mind: Muhammad: The Messenger of God (book) and Betty Kelen.  In this case, the author has authored several books, and both articles are barely WP:STUBs; they should be merged.  If there's already a policy along these lines that I'm overlooking, I'd be grateful to have it pointed out for me, thanks. Esquizombi 06:44, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of authors/books 

message: I think that a good way to estimate notability is to calculate within Wikipedia itself. We need to define an activity percentile of a page, as Sourceforge does for instance. This number will take into account the number of times a page has been visited, the number of edits, the laps between those edits or visits, etc. it will be a good way to achieve Notability criteria by WP means. The rationale of this is that WP reflects the interest of its comunity, if a subject is important or intersting for enough people, then it's worth being included here, if it doesn't then it must be deleted.--Khalid hassani 18:32, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Users would artificially inflate activity in order to keep vanity articles present. — ciphergoth 20:03, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Activity percentile and notability 

message: I disagree with "this is a guideline; consensus is achieved through editing".  This would mean that any page could be deemed to be a guideline, because nobody edited out that which they disagree with.  Lots of *opinions* are left in non-guideline pages (like this) in "Wikipedia"-name space.  The fact they exist, doesn't mean there's consenus support for them.   --Rob 21:56, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You just mean the odd editor in the past (like recently) has *tried* in the past to bypass consensus, and pretended this is a guideline or policy, through unilteral edits/tagging, only to be opposed, and reversed.  This is an essay.  That's it.  That's all.  Go get a consensus, and then call this a guideline.  --Rob 02:11, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is not a guideline, or about to be a guideline 

message: I created Wikipedia:Significance as a proposal which isn't garnering much support.  It's been suggested to me that I repropose it as a notability proposal.  Therefore I am moving it to be a subpage of this page, Wikipedia:Notability/Proposal, and ask all interested parties to help evolve the proposal to a stage where it has achieved community consensus. Hiding  talk 07:36, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New proposal 

message: I'm requesting assistance of editors experienced with the concepts and standards of notability to participate with comments on Martial arts notability. --Marcus 09:13, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting assistance 

message: Please help build policy at: Wikipedia:Notability (memes).  Thank you, --Urthogie 15:29, 13 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  new notability policy proposed 

message: A number of movies, both documentaries and works of fiction, appear on AFD with notability mentioned as a reason for deletion (or keeping).  I find it hard to decide what to recommend in such AFDs in the absence of a guideline or policy on movies.  Some seem to think if a movie is listed on IMDb it is enough, while others seem to think something more than that is required.  Does anyone have any thoughts on notability criteria for movies? Шизомби 01:30, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: IMDb is not enough by itself. Its arguably easier get a movie listed there than it is to get a general article here. A lack of a IMDb entry should be considered a major strike against a movie. Its presence should not be considered a reason to keep a movie. That said, here are some suggested criteria(basically what I use for judging movies on AfD).: 1) has at least two (actors, actresses, directors, writers, producers) that satisfy WP:BIO or 2) Has been reviewed or discussed by at least two newspapers/ review services. Thoughts? JoshuaZ 01:48, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For reference, IMDb's eligibility rules can be found here: although they must have some behind-the-scenes rules as well.  Your criteria sound fairly reasonable, although what about a case where the people are all newcomers?  For example, I don't think the people involved with The Blair Witch Project either prior to at its release would have met WP:BIO, but the movie certainly met criteria 2.  Regarding "review services," should that include/not include printed fanzines, movie review websites, etc.?  Would one judge the notability of a porno by these same criteria? Шизомби 02:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Note that there is the word "or" between criterion 1 and criterion 2. (In fact, Blair Witch was one of the movies that caused me to put the word there). By review services I was actually thinking of something like Knight Ridder. A movie review website that met WP:WEB would presumably be acceptable. As for porn, (ooh, I'm going to regret saying this) it may need its own criteria, although if we find it reasonable to apply WP:BIO to porn stars, then there shouldn't be an issue with using criteria 1 (and similarly, if it is reviewed on a major enough porn website that the website meets WP:WEB that would be fine also).  JoshuaZ 02:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text:  By the way, the webpage for their eligibility rules requires an account. Could you post for us here what it say? JoshuaZ 03:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh, sorry.  Not sure if there'd be an copyright issue reproducing their rules here?  Here's another link that doesn't require a signin: http://www.imdb.com/Guides/movies Шизомби 03:25, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks  that makes it sound stricter than what empirically seems to end up there. JoshuaZ 03:28, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I remember reading the guidelines a while ago (last year, somewhen), and I think (but am not sure) they were much less strict then they are now.  I recall that basic litmus test for non-theatrical releases, was merely you needed a physical product available for public sale, which explains a lot of imdb content.  I think criteria that is close to imdb's current wording (but specifically for full length films) would probably be the way to go for us, as it would produce results similiar to what's already happening in AFD.  --Rob 06:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's IMDb's rules in 2000, they seem to be about the same. Шизомби 06:24, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, I was wrong.  In that case, I can't explain why they let in so much of what they have, when it clearly breaks these rules.  --Rob 07:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Have you come across movies on IMDb that were hoaxes, or that you think just don't meet those criteria?  They do remove entries sometimes.  Anyway, as an example of one movie on AFD that's gotten several delete recommendations: Death Tunnel (movie).  I haven't seen it; in all likelihood not a great movie.  None of the people involved with it ring any bells, but it has gotten reviews from a number of longstanding movie review sites: .  If I thought of WP as an encyclopedia in the sense of a general encyclopedia like Britannica, then certainly it would not belong.  But since WP isn't paper it can incorporate being a film encyclopedia or even a horror encyclopedia, and I suppose a horror encyclopedia (like the Overlook Horror Encyclopedia) would have DT if it were up-to-date.  But I suppose there are limits to coverage of subgenres, in that WP is not e.g. a Star Trek encyclopedia. Шизомби 06:19, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

text: IMDB certainly helps verifiability; WP:V, but it is not always the best guide for the elusive notabilty characteristic.  I agree with Joshua's comments - independent reviews and possibly notable actors are important. Kuru talk 03:13, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I'd overlooked the "or."  Other types of movies to consider are short films and online films. Шизомби 03:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Twilight Serenade might be an interesting case for consideration here. Arniep 11:45, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Only so far as any set of criteria we construct should not allow that film to be kept. JoshuaZ 03:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed on that point.  In fact, I wonder how it met IMDb's criteria, since there seems to be a lack of general interest and availability for it.  I think they add pages on the basis of notices in Variety so it could be that. Шизомби 17:06, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

text: A couple more Travoltas on afd: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Annie Travolta, who only has extremely minor roles mainly in movies starring her brother John Travolta and a similar story with brother Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Travolta. Arniep 02:03, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notability (movies)?

message: I would like to express a couple of thoughts about this guideline. Obscure topics do not attract editors, yes this is true, and there may be more people who know about obscure topics but they do not contribute to wikipedia. But other editors simply ignore this and vote delete for articles which they do not seem notable. Very bad, and for an article whose size is maybe 10 kB, yet they have User pages adorned with userboxes? About Obscure topics clutter categories. Ok people wakeup, categories are already cluttered! Death2 12:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hate it too. Wikipedia is not some popularity contest. "Obscure topics do not attract editors". We are not trying to attract users. We are building a limitless, non-paper encyclopedia. More arguments to come. -- Chris Ccool2ax contrib. 05:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Notes

message: I recently came across a bunch of articles under Category:Ayyavazhi which I think is an obscure religious sect in South India. Let me preface my comments by declaring that I am an agnostic and do not have any particular animosity towards any religion or its followers. My concerns are purely to do with the reliability WP as a source of information and its possible misuse. 
The articles under the cat Category:Ayyavazhi have been created by one user or by a cluster of IP addresses possibly associated with the author (, ) The same user has also created numerous stubs on other language versions of WP, including Afrikaans and Latin. These numerous pages and stubs in WP have spawned into the various syndicated online encyclopaedia sites such as reference.com, answers.com, Help.com, etc. The same user has also created entries in Simple Wikipedia (), Theo Wiki (),  Wiki Quote (),  Wiki Books (), Wiki News (), Wikitionary (),  and the list goes on. A quick google search excluding the English WP gives us a lot of hits, almost all connected with WP. It is very hard to find a source that is not in some way associated with this original user. 
There are no valid references or citations on a lot of these pages. IMHO no WP:NN, WP:NOR and WP:V tests were done during the early stages of these pages. They still fail in this regard. WP:Notability states that to be notable "A topic has notability if it is known outside a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact. "  IMO and in the opinion of many users who live in the area in Tamil Nadu, the faith Ayyavazhi does not seem to have many followers,   certainly not > 1 mil claimed by the user. ( ). Even the user agrees that this is not well known outside a select group ().
The above example shows that if someone is determined enough, they can create numerous articles on WP on an otherwise obscure topic, and by the nature of the lack of any systematic review in WP, and by the spread of WP material on the Net, can over a period of time create a self-sustaining notability and authenticity. 
My question to the community is this: how do we prevent such apparent misuse so that we can enhance the reputation of WP as a dependable source?
- Parthi 04:52, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, but... how is that bad? Obscure topics do not make an encyclopedia less accurate. Sure, they're not cited, but the user is (probably) working on it. If not, Wikipedia should imporve the article rather than have its users bitch about how it doesn't follow some essay and delete it.-- Chris Ccool2ax contrib. 05:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You seem to have missed my point. I am currently editing these pages to try and make them less POV and less original research. I have also started a discussion with the original author regarding these pages. My question to the WP community was more philosophical. With relatively little effort this user has managed IMO to make a very obscure topic which is totally unreferenced available on a vast number of sites. It is not as if these pages were created yesterday or last week. They have been there for over six months. Not many have noticed them. As there is no systematic review of the content that goes into WP, anyone can create anything and by the nature of the distribution of WP content, can make their pages look notable. - Parthi 05:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

text: So you're verifying, citing, and NPOVing the pages? That's good. I'm just saying that I think verifiability is enough to weed out "non-notable" articles. Sorry. -- Chris Ccool2ax contrib. 13:11, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The power of WP 

message: I have been thinking about this a while. I can't decide whether an article about a hospital is per se notable. Example is Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital although there are many many more out there. Should these be included? Should these be deleted? I'm new here and I really don't know, and can't seem to find any precedent. Sometimes, what looks like (to me) non-notable stuff has an article, sometimes I see them being prod-ed. Is this the right place to discuss this? If so, what are your opinions? If not, where should I move this to? :) Thanks! JByrd 20:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am a proponent of keeping verifiable but non-notable articles. However, unless Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital is famous for something, then its definately not notable. Theres plenty of precedent for deleting non-notables, and also for keeping them. If you're new here, I would wait a while before you start proposing article deletions. Fresheneesz 02:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Institutions are notable? 

message: I started an essay to shorthand the perennial response at AfD that "inclusion of some articles isn't an indicator of notability of related articles". It is at WP:INCL and I welcome edits and comments.--Chaser T 06:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Related essay on inclusion and notability 

message: Me and another user started a guideline proposal at WP:NNOT to encourage the use of official policy and established guidelines rather than the neccessarily subjective concept of notability. Anyones comments, edits, or constructive critiscism is welcome. Fresheneesz 08:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm trying to do the same thing on Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) this version contains the guidelines.  BTW if anyone would like to comment either in favor or opposed please go to the notability page and help get the discussion going jbolden1517Talk 11:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Criticism: It's not your essay that's flawed. It's the whole concept that we have to limit the amount of information in an encyclopedia to what a user already knows that is flawed. -- Chris Ccool2ax  contrib. 12:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note: that applies to Wikipedia:Notability too. --DavidHOzAu 04:14, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  non-notability guidline 

message: I think there would be room in the essay for the argument that having a deletion policy against non-notable subjects is an important tool to protect against spam. Wikipedia is a fantastic tool for Google bombing and there is a benefit for companies to create stubs about themselves and about their products (even if those stubs are pretty close to NPOV). Pascal.Tesson 22:19, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability and protecting Wikipedia from spam 

message: I have added a special-case argument on historical persons of note.  This would be for example, a person who appears in Who Was Who but for which there is no existing current online biography.  The criteria of the Search Engine test should not be used for historial persons as many thousands if not millions of them, cannot be found in a Search Engine and paper biographies must be checked. Wjhonson 23:27, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical persons of note 

message: Regarding the following:
:Don't delete historical persons based on modern tests
:Persons who were of note in their time and place are marked based on the modern test of "I can't find information about them online". Most historical persons of note, in their time, do not have information online, because Google is not the repository of all knowledge. An online search, for historial persons of note, is biased toward modern persons, therefore should not be the criteria for determination of notability.
An editor seems to have added this info after an article they started was nominated on AfD for Notablility and other issues. So the motivation to change this page in response to the AfD seems suspicious, but I was curious if other editors agreed with this recent change or not. --Andrew c 21:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point Andrew is that hundreds if not tens of thousands of persons who appear in standard biographical reference works have no entry on wikipedia.  I and other biographers on wikipedia work to uncover those obscure people who were famous at one time, but now have nothing useful online, and sometimes nothing whatsoever.  To mark articles with AfD simply because you cannot find them in google is biased.  The vast majority of historical newspapers have never been OCR'd and yet they contain mountains of data on people now forgotten.  Surely you cannot disagree with this. Wjhonson 23:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well if they are "now forgotten", are they really notable then? I don't particularly want to argue this here and now, I was just curious what other editors thought regarding this. If a discussion starts, then I'll weigh inb more. Cheers!--Andrew c 23:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say yes.  The general, and sometimes sole, reason why they may not be found say in the Encyclopaedia of American Biography, but can be in say Who Was Who is determined by space concerns.  Not everyone is SO notable to make it into a 500 page book.  But if the book could be 5,000 pages or 50,000 pages, then they might make it in.  With 1.2 Million pages in wikipedia now, it seems fairly clear that we can resurrect many people of the past who did something interesting and write about them. Wjhonson 00:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All this conflict has done nothing but encourage me to start a new project to battle the foes of *slightly* notable people Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikipedians_for_local_history.  If you want to discuss notability issues about people or history, come join me here. Wjhonson 06:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New additions 

message: If this is not a policy, but an essay, how should I deal with articles such as Anuragam, which conflicts with this principle:
:A topic has notability if it is known outside a narrow interest group or constituency, or should be because of its particular importance or impact. 
Advice appreciated. --Singkong2005 tc 08:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How do you "deal with" them? Simple. Keep them. They aren't harming anyone, and technically, the article can't only be deleted because you haven't heard of it. -- Chris Ccool2ax  contrib. 04:29, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm with Chris.  Just let it be.  It's notable to the person who created it. — Reinyday, 06:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I deal with articles which are not notable? 

message: This is an issue for us because of the very large number of small clubs  putting articles on Wikipedia. This is presently being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Football#When is a club notable?. I invite anyone who is interested to join in the discussion. Our intention is to bring the conclusion of this review back to this talk page with a request that it be included in the guidelines on the project page. BlueValour 23:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of English football clubs 

message: I request Towns,Cities and Villages notability  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DINOMAN (talk • contribs) 3 August 2006.
:I think pretty much all towns, cities and villages are considered notable, so long as their existence can be verified. If a village has been deleted for 'existing, but being too small', I've not heard of it. --Sam Blanning(talk) 00:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request 

message: I have no idea how to approach something like this, but I believe we need some criteria for the notability of publications; Wikipedia has become home to vanity articles for lots of zines and student publications, many of which show no real suggestion of notability. Which college newspapers, poem anthologies, yearbooks, or humor magazines should have articles? Which zines? Which community papers? Should circulation/readership be a factor?
I have no experience working on the subject of notability for Wikipedia, but I am very interested in working on this with someone else.
: Chris Griswold | talk | contribs  02:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Publications/Periodicals 

message: I have listed the article named Notability for deletion (this wikipedia namespace page/essay is not listed for deletion, please be very clear about that). The discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Notability, I am posting here because like I say in the AfD I want to get a clear consensus about what to do with the article namespace entry. Thanks. --W.marsh 16:41, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD of note 

message: Are schools - primary, kindergarten, etc. - inherently notable? Rama's arrow 22:15, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Schools

message: I placed this originally on the WP:verifiablity article, it was removed and later a wikipedian suggested I may have better luck placing it in here. I added the following statement in response to my concern that the black project template may be improperly used to keep obscure or little known articles here. My comment reads as follows:
Articles dealing with urban myths, black projects, open secrets and otherwise obscure topics are not exempt from verifiablity requirements. In general, articles of this nature should not exist here unless they are well known, culturally signifigant, or can meet the criteria for notability (examples of which include the Jersey Devil, the Aurora aircraft, and the Israeli nuclear weapons program). Articles that deal with topics of this nature general have few, if any, reliable sources, leaving them open to claims of original research or speculation, niether of which are permitted on wikipedia.
Thoughts on adding this here, or should I take it elsewhere? TomStar81 (Talk) 09:21, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inclusion(?)

message: Some editors keep trying to add the following:
:, but bear in mind that the only requirement for material to be included in Wikipedia is that it is verifiable.
Of course, this is totally misleading and incorrectly interprets the first line of WP:V. For instance, WP:NOT lists dozens of cases where verifiable content is not suitable. This includes for instance notes on small local companies and the policy page explicitly refers to WP:CORP. The speedy deletion policy also discriminates between "remarkable" and "unremarkable" people/groups. The AfD precedents, although they are not policy, are overwhelming and de facto constitute standards. Adding the above line is an attempt to make a point that is in clear opposition to the working consensus and as such should be deleted. The last attempt of reinsertion was augmented with an even more confusing 
: and it does not break WP:NOT.
Please, do not re-insert before consulting extensively. Pascal.Tesson 16:02, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on verifiability