Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 11

message: I haven't been following the entire debate, but it seems from Steve's comment that this page used to be a descriptive guideline, but has been liberally reworded in an attempt to make it prescriptive, and as a result is said to no longer reflects consensus. Indeed, I note this page was far less controversial one or two months ago, so controversy seems to stem from recent changes. A reasonable suggestion then would be to revert to a version from one or two months ago that lacks these liberal rewordings. >Radiant< 07:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:Well, basically, I can see this going one of two ways:
:We make notability in effect prescriptive (policy rather then guideline, etc.), in order to have objective standards on article subjects like we do on what goes into them (V, NOR, NPOV, etc.).
:We "downgrade" notability into an essay or something like it, and rely on the vagaries of individual AfD debates. In this case, we probably should also eliminate any pretenses to eliminating systemic bias-in this case, "what do we write about" will be determined by "whatever we feel like that day". 
:V, NOR, and NPOV are prescriptive, and that's the only way they work-they wouldn't work if they were "Well, you can be a little non-neutral if you really argue well for it and put some original research in sometimes if you really do it well", because that way everyone would want their pet thing to be that exception, and pretty soon it would be meaningless. Just like what we write in articles is determined-prescriptively-by what can be reliably sourced, we should-prescriptively-determine what we write on at all, by what can be reliably sourced. So basically-one way or the other, where it was was meaningless. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:12, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::If the notability guideline is downgraded to an essay, then would "ILIKEIT" and "IDON'TLIKEIT"  become valid reasons for advocating keeping or deleting an article, given that it had NPOV, met WP:BLP and WP:ATT?  Would there be some other reason to cite for wanting to remove an article about something real but also really trivial? Edison 07:43, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:::Well, to some degree, I'm hopeful at seeing this text in WP:ATT:
Material from self-published or questionable sources may be used in articles about those sources, so long as:
* it is relevant to their notability;
* it is not contentious;
* it is not unduly self-serving;
* it does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject;
* there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it
* the article is primarily based on sources independent of the subject of the article.
(emphasis added by me)
:::This would seem to logically imply that primary sources may not be used for an article unless independent ones do exist and are the main basis for the article. That still wouldn't work to clear all cruft (it doesn't, for example, go into the depth of sourcing or actually state it must be a secondary source), but it's a start. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::::Hundreds of article about TV/radio masts were deleted with a pretty clear consensus. The articles never relied on self-published, questionable, or primary sources, but repeated what was in official government databases. Articles about minor city streets have been deleted even though they had equally verifiable independent sources (city data bases, directories, Google, maps). The lack of independent sources would as you say be enough to support deletion of many school and church articles where no one bothered to go to the local newspaper files to find stories about the erection of the building, expansion, controversies, awards, or curriculum. Edison 08:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:::::Actually Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Masts found that those pages should be merged, not deleted. - SimonP 08:22, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:::::I'm not sure city databases and such are secondary sources.  Secondary sources seem to emphasize analysis as well as compilation, which city databases, map data, directories etc are not.  The fact is that towns (esp in non Western countries) are a pure systemic bias issue we have consciously chosen to give an exception to.  Of course, there's a bot generating articles on minor towns from US census data, but no equivalent for any other country, so I wonder how much more systemic bias we're introducing.  ColourBurst 08:59, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::::::Systemic bias is my exact problem, and the reason I'd like to see notability made prescriptive. We should never have "notability by class", each individual subject's sourcing should be evaluated. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 09:05, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:*The point is that removing the guideline won't actually accomplish anything. Whether people like it or not, deletions for lack of notability happen quite frequently. We can ignore or deny that fact, but that has the effect of shifting AFD discussions from the article they're about ("notable because X - not notable because Y") to whether or not notability is grounds for deletion ("not notable because Y - you can't use that argument! - yes I can - no you can't"). That is clearly not helpful; the former leads to article improvement, the latter to bickering and meta-argument. On the other hand, long-standing guidelines such as WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC have provided guidance to people about where the border lies, and that is a productive solution. People must simply stop trying to use this as legislation. >Radiant< 08:20, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::*Radiant, the only way this would work is prescriptively, and without "carved" exceptions like WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC. We only write article content based on sourcing. Why should we not, with equal vehemence, say that we only choose article topics based on sourcing? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 08:38, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:'AFD for non-notability happens all the time, so we shouldn't try to stop it'? POV pushing happens all the time too - we try to stop that. I really don't see much difference. Trollderella 09:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
The whole argument stated over whether this guideline supplants the other subject-specific guidelines, which have been around far longer then this guideline. This guideline seems to be treated as a sacred cow that is equivalent to policy.
I mean, why are some editors so opposed to renaming the PNC to something that is more inline with why it was created? If this guideline is suppose to be descriptive of how notability is used in AFD discussions, then a change in the criterion's name in this guideline wouldn't matter.
If someone was also go in to return the counter augments to this guideline so that the guideline more fully descriptive of the process, would those edits stand? Probably not as those same editors who oppose the renaming of this guideline's criterion will feel the counter arguments will weaken the prescriptive use of this guideline.
Notability is subjective. There is no denying that. But relying on only one criterion to determine notability for all topics is like putting a square peg through a round whole. There is more then one reason why a subject can bee deemed notable, but multiple, non-trivial, independent sources is not always one of them. That was why we have the subject-specific guidelines in the first place.
In the end, I do think this page should be returned to the essay that it once was, describing the notability debate on AfD and serve as a central "hub" for the subject-specific guidelines. And contrary to the hysteria of a few editors, Wikipedia will not implode and give birth to squirrels if this page is no longer a guideline (to use an old a.f.sm joke), nor will the notability argument become invalid and go away in AfD either. --Farix (Talk) 14:08, 2 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:This last bit I do not feel comfortable with. What happens when there is no subject-specific notability guideline available? Just use policy (especially WP:NPOV and WP:ATT)? If there is no "defaulting" criterion, then we are inviting it to be totally subjective in those areas -- which means personal home-baked criteria like "I like it", "I don't like it", "Delete. 370 members? Really. Non-notable.", "It only garnered 15 hits on Google so it's obviously not something most people give a darn about" would be 100% valid! You can't run an encyclopedia like that. If we're going to let that type of hypersubjectivity become totally valid for wherever the rules don't cover, we might as well not have any rules at all -- we might as well throw out all the subject-specific notability guidelines, throw out our deletion policy, and give everyone admin powers to delete and undelete at their whim! That is obviously unacceptable -- so we need some sort of fallback criteria, be it the present criterion lited on the WP:N page itself, "stick to policy", or something else. Either that or write and approve waaaay more subject-specific criteria so every subject is covered, and if not that I'd suggest to ditch notability altogether and rely only on policy-based AFD arguments, with anything based on someone's subjective personal home-baked notability criterion regarded as null and void (in fact they should be null-and-void under any system -- unless of course they're something like "by notability I mean <insert real policy here>", ie. using "notability" as a bizarre synonym for some policy. I'd consider that a policy-based argument though, of course, albeit a strangely-phrased one!). Another thing I'm wondering about is where you said that multiple, non-trivial, independent sources is not always a valid notability criterion -- are you saying then that we may delete articles that are neutral and have lots of sources for failing some other notability criterion? Which of course, begs the question as to how having such articles would harm Wikipedia. If they are well-sourced (like 10 sources or more) and neutral, I don't see the harm. Could you explain this please? 74.38.32.195 20:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::Getting a mite hysterical? That is not the issue at all. I might point out that a comic which is available both in dead-tree format and on the Web, is fairly widely read, has sufficient audience support to allow the artist to buy a house, even though the comic is their sole source of income, etc. What's the issue of notability here? What makes this work notable is because it is good! Yes, that is a subjective statement for which there is no perscriptive criteria. Sometimes such things happen, it's an imperfect world deal with it. For me, Errant Story is notable because it draws sufficient audience. For you, it may not be. However, a plain IP address isn't very notable either.  Slamlander 22:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Just a thought 

message: Can college/university newspapers be used to establish notability or are they solely limited to usage as a reliable source?--Crossmr 07:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
*I have pretty much argued against using the presence of sources as a measure for notability at any rate, but never mind. To answer your question, it very much depends of the nature of the newspaper. At the University of Bergen the main student newspaper Studvest is a newspaper with a paid staff, and operates much like any other newspaper. It would in my view be as valid as a regular newspaper. The department newspaper for the science subjects, "Q.E.D" is operated by volunteer students and has a fair percentage of in-joke articles, like an extensive 2-page report on "kadonk tiles" outside the main science building, in other words, an article which maps out which of the ground tiles outside the building which are loose thereby making a "kadonk" sound when somebody walks on them (this was the front page headline once). I think that newspaper would be less reliable and not a good way of determining notability. In any case, I think you should use your head instead of the number, type or presence of sources when you consider the subject's notability, and instead consider the quality of sources when you decide if it meets WP:ATT. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
**That's generally why we prefer multiple sources -- a single source may get it wrong or write an in-joke, so we'd prefer some backup to check against. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 08:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:*I think the number of sources is only important in so far as establishing that the topic has been discussed multiple times over at least a minimal time span.  If there's only one reference, then even if that reference is valid it doesn't necessarily demonstrate anything beyond very transient media interest.  So it's important to have more than one source spread out somewhat over time to establish that the topic has resulted in some back and forth analysis and that it is more likely to have some longer lasting usefulness to the readers.  
::Now that being said, even when you have multiple sources you still need to evaluate their reliability.  Some publishers are more reliable than others.  I don't think you can come up with a hard and fast guideline for measuring reliability of a publisher, so this becomes a matter of case by case discussion by Wiki editors.  It's possible the consensus on some university newspapers would be that they're reliable, while for other papers the consensus might be they are not.  Thus deciding whether an individual source is reliable is beyond the scope of this guideline, and so the best WP:N can do is to say that editors should probably disregard references they consider unreliable when they look for multiple, independent sources for verification. Dugwiki 08:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:::I'd tend to agree that school newspapers should be used very cautiously, especially if their content is not corroborated by another source. Student editors are not (yet) professional editors or journalists, and may also be writing about topics of very limited interest for which other reliable sources may not exist. However, like anything, a case may arise in which an exception could be reasonably made, I would think that would be up to consensus on a case-by-case basis (as is the reliability of any source, really, we generally would not use an NYT article written by :Jayson Blair.) Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 12:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
I agree with Night Gyr that multiple sources are the most important criterion. One source, however reliable, is not usually enough to demonstrate notability. For instance, imagine if X, a non-notable student from East Nowhere, Idaho, were to be the subject of a single human-interest story in a daily newspaper because of his unusually vast collection of Pokémon cards. Even though the newspaper article is a reliable source, that doesn't make X notable - all it means is that the newspaper needed to fill up some space. On the other hand, if X's collection of Pokémon cards were to draw widespread media attention and be mentioned in several newspapers, then he would be notable. If some of these sources were student-run college newspapers, then he would still be notable - but if the only source was a college newspaper, then he wouldn't. Walton Vivat Regina! 12:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:To create a good article?  Yes.  To establish notability?  Of course not. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::Multiple sources are good, and the more the better. When I'm writing an article, I look for as many sources as I can find. But if I only find one, and I'm writing about a real thing that is not controversial, then one authoritative source is sufficient. Someone else can add more later, but there should be no need for multiple sourcing for everything. Dhaluza 15:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:::I think the general point to keep in mind is that we're talking about a general rule of thumb, not a hard and fast policy per se.  Having only a single source is an important red flag that the article probably isn't living up to the normal standards for inclusion.  Not only is a single source article less likely to be "notable", since it might only have ever been written about that one time, but it's also more likely to be biased toward the opinion of the author of that source since there hasn't been any back-and-forth published discussion or debate.  So while there are going to be some exceptions of articles that only have a single source but are considered ok for Wikipedia by most editors, by and large most of the articles with a single source will probably fail to be kept in afds. Dugwiki 15:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
::::It all depends on the context. If you are dealing with a social phenomenon, where there is a lot of subjectivity, then multiple sources tend to average out the biases, and that is a good thing. But if you are transcluding appropriate public domain material, dealing with a non-subjective technical topic, then the public domain source is sufficient as the single reference. Naturally if you can integrate multiple sources, that's even better. But we should not set that up as a hard and fast wall that is completely unyielding. As an example (at risk of some misguided deltionist AfDing it again) have a look at Machmeter. What's not encyclopedic about this? It had lots of inbound and outbound links, so it supports WP:BTW. And it covers the subject in detail, working from a single authoritative public domain source. Dhaluza 16:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Am I right to question this article then on notability: Amiworthit. The two sources from what I'd considered more notable media outlets really consist of trivial coverage, very brief, and really only describing the features of the site. While there are a couple of sources outside of that that offer actual detail, they're from student run papers (and I think from the same school the creator attends/attended).--Crossmr 16:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:There was an argument above that one human interest story in a college newspaper that a student has a large Pokemon card collection would not be sufficient to prove sufficient notability for him to have an article. This is a bit of a strawman argument, since the same article in the newspaper of the small town the college is located in would likewise fail to prove notability. Many of the criticisms of college newspapers as being too "local focal" and prone to boosterism and promoting the activities of friends and associates apply equally to small town newspapers. (This is not to say that Fox News, the New York Times or CBS News are infallible sources of truth either). I would treat a student run college paper as a possibly reliable source, to be examined. If it were the house organ of a diploma mill with articles ghostwritten by the college president to promote his activities, I would reject it. If it were the main paper at Harvard or Columbia, I would treat it with more respect. If it were certain small town or big city papers which have an agenda or engage in "yellow journalism,"  I would question it. Edison 23:19, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Student Newspapers 

message: Hi all. A new user is adding articles for a lot of historic Tennessee houses. They're all on the National Register of Historic Places, but does that mean they're notable? I was wondering if there's some kind of guideline about this. Thanks. --AW 20:11, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The obvious answer is yes.  The Wikipedia answer is a little more complicated - if there's enough information to establish an article, I think the articles are safe.  See the discussions above and at WP:AI, because we're trying to establish how to deal with these better. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm afraid I have to disagree with Jeff.  Some, maybe even most, are appropriate but some might not be.  Being on the National Register would certainly be strong supporting evidence and would create a presumption of notability but we still must have independent, verifsources on which to base the article.  If the only thing we have is a registry listing (which merely confirms the existence of the building) and a bunch of original research written by people who claim to have visited it, that article has to go.  Rossami (talk) 21:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, seeing as the national register is independent of the building itself, it's an independent source that establishes notability. Most towns and cities have historical societies who also write and discuss these buildings, so the existence of such info is possible. Of course, using the self-published materials about it in these cases are not bad things - most of those documents are written after the events that are being written about, using primary and secondary sources from that time. So, essentially, everything published about the places as historic houses are secondary by nature. Speaking only from personal experience here, which I have a lot of in this case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:15, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

text: If you visit it and report what the tour says, is that OR? - Peregrine Fisher 21:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Technically, that would not be original research.  But any edits made based your recollection of what was said during a personal tour would be viewed with justifiable scepticism since they would be functionally impossible for any future editor to verify without going to the site and taking the tour as well.  Published sources are always better.  Your personal observations, on the other hand, would be original research.  Rossami (talk) 21:24, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

text: If you accurately reported what the tour guide said, that would not be original research, but it would be unpublished and so unverifiable. If you published a transcript of the tour guide's statements, it would be verifiable but not in a reliable source and people would be rightly skeptical whether your transcript is accurate, whether the tour guide made an error in oral communication, and whether the tour guide is actually an expert rather than someone who read a book about it two weeks before—a book which you should very well read and cite instead. —Centrx→talk • 21:45, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historic houses 

message: I edited the list of definitions below the primary criterion to make the intent clear, and to give each equal weight. Each is now one short sentence, with qualifiers in the footnotes. If you wish to tweak the definitions, please keep them brief, and do not add unnecessary comfort words that will only dilute the impact. 
I also restored the note "This is the primary, but not the sole criterion, so the converse is not necessarily true. Alternative tests are used in some cases to establish notability", now in the summary, not the bullets. Alternative tests do exist, and they are used. This page is only a guideline, and to get it re-established as a consensus accepted guideline, it will need to cover a wide view of the subject, particularly since this is intended to be a parent to many children. Dhaluza 10:11, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've renamed it to "general notability criterion" to help reduce the confusion that it is the most important criterion and overrides all other notability criteria. Yet it still retains the essence that the criterion is the most frequently used measure of notability. --Farix (Talk) 14:28, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems reasonable to point out that this is not the One Criterion To Rule Them All. >Radiant< 14:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary (but not sole) criterion 

message: In the menu at right of page titled:  Notability and Inclusion Guidelines
Please Note the Selection:  Organisations and Companies
It should read:  Organizations and Companies —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robhuisingh (talk • contribs) 23:38, 27 March 2007 --Robhuisingh 23:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, it shouldn't.  Organisations is an accepted spelling under British English.  The Manual of Style makes both acceptable and gives us the guidelines for when one may be preferred over the other.  (The short version is if it's an article about a UK-specific topic follow British English, if about a US-specific topic follow American English, if neither follow the first writeup and for non-articles like Wikipedia pages, no one much cares.)  Rossami (talk) 23:49, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo in the menu 

message: I have a question to pose.  Recently in AfD, many questions and heated debates have come about insofar as the notability of schools - in particular, high schools.  There is a small yet vocal minority that dictates that notability is, at least as far as high schools are concerned, inherent (user:Noroton, for one, states as much on his opinions page); on the other hand, there are those who believe that these same schools are subject to the same notability criteria as per here in WP:N.  I am, for one, among the latter group - and it is this debate that has caused much dissent.  In short, who is right?  I realize that this is what WP:SCHOOL was originally for, but maybe we can really use this? --Dennisthe2 04:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  School notability 

message: I am writing this under a new subject heading as the discussion above seems to have progressed to a different topic.
I disagree with the suggestion to use some notion of "inherent notability" or "inherent non-notability".  As editors, we shouldn't make that judgment.  If others consider a topic "worthy of note" by writing about it, then we have proof that it is notable; if no one has written about a topic, then we lack such proof.  We can make argue that X or Y are notable or non-notable all we want, but the only evidence we can present to buttress our arguments is the presence or absence of reliable sources.
Unfortunately, too often this definition of notability is misused.  Specifically, I identify three classes of misuse:
#I like it. An article is unsourced and efforts to produce sources have ended in failure, yet people argue that the subject is "inherently notable".  Putting aside the bigger problem of having a possibly unverifiable (i.e., original research) article, the claim of "inherent notability" is subjective and cannot be proven.
#Unresearched. An article about a subject has no sources, so people claim that "the subject is not notable".  That's a fallacy!  The problem is not notability, but lack of verification.  Only after one has searched for sources and failed to find any can one suggest: "the subject does not seem to be notable".  We can prove that a subject is notable, but we cannot prove the converse; we can only note that no proof was found to establish notability.
#I don't like it. An article about a subject is sourced with reliable sources, yet people argue for deletion based on the notion that the subject is "inherently not notable".  This is no different from WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:NOTINTERESTING, and/or WP:IDONTKNOWIT and is subject to the same criticisms applicable to the first class of misuse.
Whether some topics are or are not inherently notable is, I think, irrelevant.  The only way we can prove that something is notable is by showing that others have deemed it worthy of being written about.  Sources themselves do not establish notability, but they prove notability.
A final note.  I think the main reason behind opposition to notability guidelines is their misuse, overuse, and overeager use in deletion discussions.  Too frequently articles that lack sufficient sourcing to prove notability are nominated for deletion when the nominator has not even conducted a simple Google search for the article's title.  Many topics can and are easily proven to meet our notability guidelines with just a little research.
Deletion should not be the first reaction to an article that does not prove the notability of its subject.  The first step should be research.  If an editor does not wish to research a topic, s(he) may contact the primary author(s) of the article and request that they prove the subject's notability.  The article can be tagged with  (although that usually doesn't help unless the article is on someone's watchlist).  The article can be listed on a relevant WikiProject's talk page (this should usually be reserved for articles that have a lot of invested effort from many editors).  I fully support the existence of the notability guideline (the details of "non-trivial", "substantial", "multiple" can be worked out), but am opposed to its inappropriate use.
-- Black Falcon 20:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excellent points all--I was nodding in agreement as I read your very thoughtful post. I think this sums up the major objections to the (mis)use of Notability on WP. And in this, we can find the root cause of the controversy with this page. I posted a while back about the fundamental misunderstanding of consensus applied here, and the recent flare-up over substantial vs. multiple is another example of it. Guidelines on WP are supposed to represent existing consensus, not the contributors' wishes for future consensus. Regardless of how you think WP articles should be managed in the future, there is existing precedent reflecting consensus about how they are handled now on a case-by-case basis. That is what this page is supposed to reflect. Some people want this page to be a hammer they can use to pound flush any nail they think is sticking up. But that is not how things are supposed to work here. Dhaluza 21:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: But that's exactly the trouble with "inherent (non)notability". If we can have a well-sourced, comprehensive article about a Little League team somewhere, we should have it. The reason we don't have many (if any) of those is because those sources don't exist. On the other hand, if we cannot have a comprehensive, well-sourced article about a professional sports player, we should not have that article. WP:NOT a sports team directory, and all these arguments I've seen for "comprehensiveness" flaunt NOT a directory. If we have enough source material to write a comprehensive article, we write. If not, we don't. It's perfectly fine if that leaves "gaps" in coverage-WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information either, and "How well can we source that?" is a fine measure to use in discriminating. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is to balance "well-sourced" with comprehensive. If we have lots of well-sourced articles in a subject area, and a few articles with weaker sourcing, deleting these is pointless. WP is a work in progress, and we can be patient and allow the weaker articles to develop with better sourcing where it probably exists, but has not been cited yet. This doesn't mean we should tolerate unsourced statements, just that we can accept a short article with sufficient sourcing for the limited content without worrying about notability in these cases. Dhaluza 08:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely! But the point is "Can we source this", not "Is it sourced yet." If it's obvious that an article's subject can be sourced, the fact that this has not yet happened is probably not an argument to delete (unless it's been quite a while). On the other hand, "I can't find any indication that enough source material exists for a comprehensive article on this subject" is a perfectly good argument to delete. Of course, if some source material exists, but not enough for a good article, that generally indicates a merge and redirect to a parent topic (sports players under their team, albums under their parent band, etc.) Fourteen useful redirects to one good article is a thousand times better than fifteen permastubs. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but to further nuance this, merging is often appropriate for weak articles, particularly where a subject area has lots of weak articles that can be merged into better ones. But where we have lots of strong articles in a subject area, merging the weak ones is not a good option. In this case they should stand on their own for consistency in the subject area, and they should not be picked off by drive-by deletionists. Dhaluza 09:33, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why we should avoid "inherent notability" 

message: I often see assertions of "inherent" notability in AfDs. What establishes inherent notability? Is there a list of things that are inherently notable? -- Mikeblas 02:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ask that one to ten people and you'll probably get eleven different answers. Mine would be that there are certainly some things (for example, US Presidents, the basic chemical elements) for which everything in the category has sufficient sourcing for a comprehensive article. This isn't really inherent notability, per se, it just so happens that everything in the category really does meet notability. In the vast majority of cases, though, there are probably some things in a category that have enough sourcing and others which do not. Except for trivially obvious cases, like the ones I listed above, I don't think it's generally a good idea to try and state "Everything in category X is appropriate for an article." If that really is the case, that's trivially obvious anyway, if it's not so clear-cut we should evaluate case by case. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there are quite a few things that are inherently notable enough for inclusion. For example, everything that has an article in every general encyclopedia would deserve an article in WP. Of course they are likely to all have sources, but that is not the point. Sources do not make something deserving of an article in WP. They merely allow it to be written. We should be defining notability without sources and not confusing notability with verifiability. --Bduke 05:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I think listing all categories that are inherently notable as a continuous process would be an excellent idea. This would ensure that many case-by-case problems are avoided. This would go a long way to avoid wasteful debates of the popularity=> notability and non-popularity => non-notability kind. Shyamal 06:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that sometimes "inherent notability" can present a problem. For instance, geographical locations tend to be viewed as inherently notable, which is fine in principle but tends to lead to a lot of permastubs. IMHO anything which is "inherently notable", but can't have a decent-sized article created on it, should be merged into a parent article or list. This needs to be enshrined in this guideline. Walton Vivat Regina! 08:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think lists would be a fine way to cover stuff that a lot of people obviously think we should (schools and geographic locations come to mind), and on which there's some sourcing, but not really enough to support an article. And of course, if someone finds a ton of sourcing on a given list entry, it can always be spun back out. If it's a rather small location that may only have a few schools, they can probably be covered alongside the parent locality, or on a list of schools in the county. It would sure beat the current forest of permastubs. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I continue to be worried by your view that you are sure that permastubs are a bad idea. I do not agree. All paper encyclopedias have them. Take a small location, a village for example. I think the reader just wants to know where it is, what its neighbours are and whether it has anything notable in it. A few sentences are fine. They do not want to get to a long list of villages and search for the one they want. Some topics need large articles. Some topics need small articles. Some small articles can be expanded to large articles. Some small articles should not be expanded. There is no "one size fits all" and we should stop using the term "permastubs" which sounds derogatory. --Bduke 08:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you'd prefer to call them? Everyone already hates the word "cruft" (which is not really derogatory either). It's a permanent stub. As to lists, no one has to search them, anchor redirects work fine! Just do a redirect to "Villages in X Location#Name of Village Subsection". Such a list would likely be more useful to readers anyway, quite often they may be looking for a number of villages, and bringing them straight to the list would be quite helpful. And for those readers who only want to find the one, they're served as well, without any need for searching at all! I'm a lot more concerned with the "small, unexpandable articles are alright" bit-by that, we should have single-sentence permastubs on garage bands if it can at least be verified they exist. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I prefer to call them articles -:) --Bduke 23:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I think the term perma-stub is an oxymoron. A stub is a short article that needs expansion. People write stubs when they only have limited time or material to create an article (for example when a wikilink in another article is red). A short article can be written about a subject if it can be covered in sufficient detail without a lot of text. In this case, the article should not be expanded. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. Printed encyclopedias have some very long and very short articles. If a related group of short articles can be combined into a larger article, this is an editorial decision made on a case-by-case basis. We don't need to create an additional systemic bias against short articles. Dhaluza 15:09, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: "Inherently notable: has too often been a code for "miserably fails [[WP:ATT] , WP:N , WP:AI but WELIKEIT." The Roads project claims that every highway (state, perhaps county) with a number on it, however short and insignificant (1/3 mile is plenty) is inherently notable. High School and Middle School fanciers have claimed that those things are inherently notable. People in the talk page of the notability guide for royalty and nobility claimed that anyone who was given a British title or was knighted was inherently notable and so was their spouse. When you mention U.S Presidents or chemical elements, I can quickly give you as many reliable sources with substantial coverage about them as you want. For some of the cruft, all that can be found is that they exist (in their own website, on a map, as a directory listing in a government database of roads or schools, in a book of peerage, in a government or hobbyists's database). The benefit  of a centralized listing is that it could be publicly displayed in a common forum and not in the gulag of a project or a special notability guide patrolled mostly by fans of the subject. It could also be proved by AfD results where or most such articles have been kept when their notability was questioned. It is meaningless to call things with multiple books and articles about them inherently notable, since they are notable as shown by being noted. Edison 13:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly. Things that are inherently notable have sources. Things that are labeled as inherently notable but are without sources are just mislabled. NeoFreak 13:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Patently false, and, I believe, a misunderstanding of the argument.  Inherent notability comes from things that, when people hear about them, they know of their importantance regardless of what information there is.  This includes roads, schools, nations, heads of state, etc.  That most "inherently notable" subjects have sources is helpful, but there are plenty that generally do not to the ridiculous standards we have here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Patently lazy? Anything that people automatically recognize must have been learned about from the existence of sources. Short of divine revelation that means that anything that is just "known" has sources demonstrating their existence. If not then they don't belong in an encyclopedia. That's what makes an encyclopedia an encyclopedia and not the urban dictionary. I'm afraid if there is a misunderstanding here it is what an encylopedia is and isn't. NeoFreak 14:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the contrary.  Whether a subject is encyclopedic has nothing to do with the sources, and some subjects are encyclopedic with or without sources.  Whether they can remain within Wikipedia without sources is a separate issue that is beyond the scope of whether a subject is notable enough for inclusion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sure that you jest as you've been around long enough to be familiar with WP:ATT, WP:V, WP:RS and WP:OR. If you believe that wikipedia policy does not demand sources then I'm afraid you have your own agenda for this project outside of the broad scope and consenus that exists. NeoFreak 14:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't jest at all.  Notability (i.e., a subject's importance for inclusion) is entirely separate in concept from those policies.  Not everything that's notable is verifiable by reliable sources, and vice versa. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:25, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose that opinion is really the heart of the matter when it comes to "Inherent notability". You seem to think that a subject that can't support sources, in violation of the fundemental policies that guide inclusion of information, is okay as long as you deem it to be important or "inherently notable". That of course is a position not supported by any of the policies we have here. NeoFreak 14:31, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see no policy that contradicts my statement.  If an article cannot be sourced reliably, it will be removed - that has nothing to do with its notability, which may clearly exist regardless of "reliable sources." --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, something can be non-notable even with soures. Something that is thought to be notable without sources is going to be removed anyway, that's why we have policy on sources. So to say that something is "inherently notable" i.e. something that is notable without sources, is not allowed on wikipedia making "inherent notability" a non-issue for inclusion. NeoFreak 14:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's where there's a number of steps that need to be taken to judge an article's worth.  Sources are merely one of them.  Inherent notability is an important concept if we assume that notability is a worthwhile concept to judge inclusion - it means that the subject simply is notable, no matter what anyone else would want to argue.  It does not invalidate the important concerns of sourcing, which is a separate issue of bigger importance. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Something that is notable and sourced does not have to lean on being "inherently notable" because its notability is proven. Something that is not proven to be notable through sources is failing the criteria for inclusion because of that lack of sources. Period. NeoFreak 15:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Right. Like everything else in wikipedia Notability is viewed through the paradigm of sources. Anyone an claim anything is notable but to say something is "inherent" in its notability to to claim that it is so outrageously notable that sources aren't needed, which flies in the face of every other policy we have. Wikipeia is, after all, a tertiary source. NeoFreak 15:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm glad to hear this sentiment. But I'm troubled, because I so often read of editors insist that something is "inherently notable" when participating in AfD, for example. Does this mean that the existing policy is confusing? That some commonly-known precedent has set this expectation of "inherently notable"? Why isn't it obvious that both notability and verifiability are both required, and that they're independent? -- Mikeblas 14:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Sure but the degree of notability of all the items you've listed can be established by sources. Every nation of the world is going to have a independant source about it, every head of state is going to have sources on them (in smaller nations often from goverment sources). Because of this they don't have to depend on being "inherent" or "general" in their notabilty. Inherent and general can be viewed as "common sense says". Being a big fan of WP:COMMON I would say that this is fine, as long as you can back that assertion up with sources. I hope this isn't confusing my position on the issue. NeoFreak 15:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so let's say I wanted to fix the red-link and all I found on the web was a bio published by the UN, and created a brief article using this source. Then let's say someone else tagged it speedy-A7 or nominated it for AfD saying the article fails WP:BIO. What would common sense say in that case? Dhaluza 15:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That your subject meets the criteria for inclusion because: A person is notable if he or she has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject per BIO. NeoFreak 16:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A simple biographical sketch would not be a secondary source. In this case, we could assume that the UN provided editorial oversight only, so it would be a reliable primary source (which is OK to use in reference to the subject). And it is only a single source. So it is not enough to meet WP:BIO. But it should be sufficient sourcing to anchor a stub, pending additional content with better sources. Dhaluza 08:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inherent notability? 

message: The term "inherently notable" is not a good description. It implies that people can be lazy with sourcing, and many people will strongly oppose it based on this. There are some categories that are considered generally notable, so the more important concept is that if almost all items in a category are obviously notable, then there is value in complete coverage (avoiding petty disputes over notability of the few odd items). For example, heads of state are generally notable. Now there are a few minor countries whose head of state may not be all that notable, but there is no sense trying to draw a line dividing out just a few of them. The smallest countries will be notable anyway, just for being small. So we may as well allow them all in, as long as there is enough WP:V/WP:ATT material about them to create at least a brief article. So if someone wanted to fix Yury Morozov the only red-link on list of state leaders, it would be pointless to start an AfD discussion on the number and nature of sources, or whether the leader of South Ossetia was notable enough for a separate article, or should be merged under the country. In this case consistency should trump notability. Dhaluza 15:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure but the degree of notability of all the items you've listed can be established by sources. Every nation of the world is going to have a independant source about it, every head of state is going to have sources on them (in smaller nations often from goverment sources). Because of this they don't have to depend on being "inherent" or "general" in their notabilty. Inherent and general can be viewed as "common sense says". Being a big fan of WP:COMMON I would say that this is fine, as long as you can back that assertion up with sources. I hope this isn't confusing my position on the issue. NeoFreak 15:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, so let's say I wanted to fix the red-link and all I found on the web was a bio published by the UN, and created a brief article using this source. Then let's say someone else tagged it speedy-A7 or nominated it for AfD saying the article fails WP:BIO. What would common sense say in that case? Dhaluza 15:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That your subject meets the criteria for inclusion because: A person is notable if he or she has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject per BIO. NeoFreak 16:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A simple biographical sketch would not be a secondary source. In this case, we could assume that the UN provided editorial oversight only, so it would be a reliable primary source (which is OK to use in reference to the subject). And it is only a single source. So it is not enough to meet WP:BIO. But it should be sufficient sourcing to anchor a stub, pending additional content with better sources. Dhaluza 08:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Generally notable" and complete coverage

message: Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (films).  This page has been rejected for some time, now several zealous editors are trying to bully it directly to accepted status without gaining true consensus.  Whether it is valid or not, it shouldn't jump from rejected to guideline status instantly.  --Kevin Murray 21:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was never rejected, that was just pure Kevin Murray fantasy.  See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Notability (films) where it was 20 'keeps' and 3 'rejects' and 3 'indeterminate/undecided'.  Hardly a rejection of the guideline -- more like a strong endorsement.  </font>  MortonDevonshire  Yo  ·  23:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  A bit of spin from Morty in consistent fashion.  The AfD was over whether to delete the page not to reject it.  The resounding consensus was to keep the page and tag it as rejected.  I felt that if the page was not deleted the controversy would never go away.  It was marked for rejection, but not deleted.  As I predicted it has been a perennial battleground ever since.  --Kevin Murray 23:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear Reader:  See Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Notability (films) and judge for yourself.  </font>  MortonDevonshire  Yo  ·  23:29, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Nice; I've been called a Pharisee, a Zealot, and a bully in the last two days. It seems like if your argument would stand on its own you would not need to call names. Tom Harrison Talk 22:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's pretty cool.  I've always wanted to be elevated to Pharisee status.  Kudos to your accomplishment. --Kevin Murray 22:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia :Notability (films)]] 

message: People seem to interpret notable for sports people as "Has played for a team that's in a national league". This means that very many tiny stubs get created, with no links to / from those articles, and no projects linked to those articles to clean them up in future.  They usually have no attribution.
The problem comes when people (like me) trawl for typos and find these articles.  I have no idea if John Doe is a notable soccer player in the Scottish League.  I do know that proffesional is a typo.  Should I be adding these articles to the bio project, or prodding them, or both, or just leaving them with improved spelling? DanBeale 00:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:As discussed on Wikipedia Talk:Notability (people) these fail WP:NOT#DIR, which is policy. Dhaluza 03:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
Sports personalities, like schools, are one of those areas in which notability is frequently disputed. Some users argue that they should be subjected to the same notability requirements as other biographies under WP:BIO - i.e. they must be the subject of multiple non-trivial coverage in independent sources - while others argue that someone who plays for a major professional league is inherently notable. Personally I tend to steer clear of AfDs on sport-related articles, as it invites so much controversy. As a rule though, I'd suggest the following general approach:
*Don't nominate a sports personality's article for speedy deletion under CSD A7, even if the article makes no other claim of notability than "X plays for team Y", where Y is a professional team. If the notability is doubtful, use a prod, or send it to AfD.
*Do add sports personality articles to the bio wikiproject, and add infoboxes where appropriate. Correcting typos is also good (per WP:GNOME).
*If the sports personality in question plays for a part-time or amateur local team, then they're probably not notable. Nonetheless, it's still advisable to use a prod or AfD rather than speedy delete.
Bear in mind that none of what I've said is a rule - it's just my advice for good practice. Some users will probably jump in and disagree. Walton Vivat Regina! 03:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
:*Generally, if it's just an "X plays for team Y", and I can find nothing else readily available, I'll prod if 
Team Y is pro and nominate for speedy otherwise. (Most admins won't speedy it if it's a pro team anyway, they'll just tell you to take it to prod or AFD, so you may as well do that in the first place and not waste their time.) I fully agree that sports players should be the same as anyone else, though, and sourcing should apply just the same. Nothing is inherently notable. WP:NOT a pro sports directory, any more then it's any other kind, and that has nothing to do with notability-it's policy. If the article couldn't be more then a directory entry (directory entries might contain name, team, history of what teams the player played for, and statistics), it shouldn't be written; if it is, it should go. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 08:47, 5 March 2007 (UTC-8)
I have written several articles on first class cricketers on wikipedia and occasionally these have been nominated for deletion, often by people from countries which do not play the game. This is despite the fact that first class cricketers have been deemed notable by Wikipedia.  Every time the AfD has been overturned or withdrawn but it wastes time to fight the same battles over and over again.  Someone not interested in cricket might think a player who played a few games in the 1920s isn't important, but that isn't the point.  If wikipedia isn't comprehensive then what is it?  Such articles, when linked to a couple of sources of reliable statistical data and put into the right category should be acceptable by definition.  Is there a list of sports and competitions which editors can refer to before they nominate an article for deletion?  If there was some way they could check that a first class cricketer was a notable person it would save some of the people on the wiki cricket project a lot of time. If an article doesn't have the right references then flag it as such, don't nominate it for deletion.Nick mallory 12:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sports Personalities 

message: Please remember to discuss changes to a guideline page like this. I happened to notice a recent unilateral edit of the meaning of a guideline here. "Improving" is, I think, fairly subjective, so better to bring it here first, when it comes to changing a part of a guideline (beyond copy edits). Thx
"Amendments to a guideline should be discussed on its talk page, not on a new page — although it's generally acceptable to edit a guideline to improve it.", Per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. --Keefer4 | Talk 02:24, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not going to bother looking up wherever you got this from, but it is and always has been standard practice on Wikipedia to make reasonable edits to policy pages without making a proposal for every little thing. If there is objection to a change, it can be reverted and discussed, but if that were required for every edit nothing would get done. —Centrx→talk • 02:30, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, 'reasonable' like 'improving' is quite subjective I think, and guideline pages differ from regular articles, as detailed above. It's just a friendly reminder. And "wherever I got that from" is a policy page entitled Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, fyi.  Thanks.--Keefer4 | Talk 02:32, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Take out the word "reasonable"; the statement is still valid. In all cases the only things that need proposals are changes that someone is absolutely sure to revert or that require a huge amount of effort, e.g. re-writing the entire policy, tagging it  etc. Even then, these sorts of structural changes are still done without discussion, with little problem. —Centrx→talk • 02:58, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting points to consider. It may also be interesting to consider that major changes in meaning may be accomplished my altering a few words. Thanks for the feedback, have a good one.--Keefer4 | Talk 03:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unilaterally editing guidelines 

message: It looks like we are back to the old edit war again over this.  I've tried to include some recommendation that single sourcing should be used carefully and rarely, but without support.  Could this be a compromise toward consensus?  I'd like to see the disputed tag come down.  --Kevin Murray 19:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's just settle on the "multiple sources" standard.  The number of times where a single source proves to be sufficient is so rare that we should manage those cases as the inevitable exceptions to the rule.  Rossami (talk) 19:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't think this should be based on AfD results, because most articles are not nominated for AfD (at least not yet). So you have to look at the big picture, and not just the exceptions to the exceptional cases. Articles where a single source are sufficient should not be nominated in the first place. Dhaluza 19:58, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: * Can't agree that it is that rare.  I've seen this several times at AfD.  Usually we have a strong source establishing notability with other minor sources flushing out the article.  --Kevin Murray 19:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I think requiring single sources to be "substantial" is a reasonable compromise, and further qualifying it as you did is probably excessive WP:CREEP. But I left it as is, and just moved it under "substantial". Why are two mediocre sources better than one really good one? And why is two the magic number (why not three or four)? When I am actually creating new content, the primary consideration on number of sources is WP:COPYVIO. When working from copyrighted sources, you generally need more than two sources to create a derivative work. But when working on a non-controversial subject like a technical item using a public domain source, I often transclude the relevant information and cite only the one source because this is sufficient to support the content in this case. Dhaluza 19:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Dhaluza and Kevin Murray.  Why are two 10-page academic journal articles qualitatively better than a 100-page book?  -- Black Falcon 20:07, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Because it's a simple standard that lets us avoid the inevitable argument over whether a 5 inch article in the New York Times is "substantial" enough to qualify as a defensible single source.  It's a standard that makes us reasonably efficient even if it's philosophically imperfect.  Rossami (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text:  Dhaluza, I agree that what I put in is more than I would ideally want, but if there is some way to get this issue behind us, I'm willing to accept the CREEP. Maybe a footnote is a better solution. --Kevin Murray 20:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

text: I'll again pimp out article inclusion - in the event that a subject-specific guideline that handles notability issues doesn't exist, we look toward sufficient verifiable source material to sustain an article.  Looking for the sources to be "substantial" is barking up the wrong tree - we want the information to be of good quality, but counting sources and pages. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's the exact problem though-you've got that backwards. We should look to sourcing first. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

text: There have been many examples given in this forum. The issue is not the number of sources that exist, but the number cited, because that is what is (erroneously) used at AfD. There are planty of topics whose articles can stand with one substantial source. Articles about places using census data are one case with a multitude of examples. Dhaluza 00:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The issue is not the number cited. Notability is about the number that exist, or perhaps that exist in at least the major world libraries. You reverted a change to the guideline that stated the distinction between an article actually evidencing notability and the topic being notable. If there are zero sources cited, a topic can still be notable, but that does not mean we change the guideline to say zero. There have been no examples where there exists only one source. —Centrx→talk • 04:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Multiple sources 

message: How about putting Centrx thoughts into a footnote:
*  There must exist more than one source about the topic, in order to fulfill the expectation of verifiability.  However, this does not mean that every article must currently contain more than one source, though progress on that article would be obtaining more sources. One strong source in an article is a good indication of notability; it indicates that more sources probably exist.
If there are multiple sources for a topic but only one source for a particular page, the page with only one source cannot stand on its own. It should be merged into the topic's article, where its sole source can be presented in context. Having only one source is an excellent indicator not that something shouldn't be in Wikipedia, bu that it should be a section instead of a page. Anything that is going to have a page to itself has to have multiple sources. Tom Harrison Talk 18:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Implementation

message: Just checking that everyone here is aware of the strawpoll currently going on as to whether WP:N should be replaced with WP:AI. It can be found at Wikipedia talk:Article inclusion#Strawpoll. All editors are invited to comment. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strawpoll at [[WT:AI]] 

message: The following text was removed from Wikipedia:Notability (people) and replaced with the  template.  Some of the language in this version had value, in my opinion.  I'd like to propose that parts of it may be useful as an expansion on the current wording of the template.  In particular, the concept of independence seemed very helpful in certain difficult discussions.  Rossami (talk) 20:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A notable topic should be the subject of multiple non-trivial published works. Such sources should be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source should be considered.  Once notability is established, other verifiable and attributable sources can be used to add content. version at 20:18, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  merge from [[Wikipedia:Notability (people)]] 

message: I removed the disputed status tag because the dispute is about the content, not about the status of the guideline.  As far as I can tell there is no significant informed dissent from the view that there is some bar to inclusion, which we call notability.  All disputes centre on how that is defined and the level at which we set it.  Every day we delete articles for not asserting or not establishing notability.  The vast majority of those deletions are completely uncontroversial.  Check :CAT:CSD any time.  Guy (Help!) 09:32, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Not really, no.  The "dispute" is restricted to a few hard-line inclusionists, as far as I can tell - most of the community has no problem with the idea that all articles should be able to draw on multiple reliable sources, whatever dispute we might have about what constitutes a reliable source for a given article. It's the basis on which most deleted articles seem to be deleted. Guy (Help!) 15:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *The PNC is restricted to a few hard-line exclusionists, as far as I can tell - most of the community is not married to the idea that only "multiple, non-trivial" attention creates notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *I thought the opposite of "inclusionist" was "deletionist". :) Walton Vivat Regina! 17:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed status tag 

message: Alright, I have an example: Beorn leggi.  It is a species of invertebrate, of which there is a single fossil specimen, described in a single paper in 1964.  As far as I can tell, it has not been the subject of any other source.  (765 google hits, but again as I can tell all are either WP & its forks, or directory-type tertiary sources).  Now, I am a born deletionist, and I think doing away with "multiple" raises lots of grunge band and other risks, but I can't bring myself to think that WP should not have this article.  Thoughts? UnitedStatesian 20:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In other cases, I'm sure articles have gotten deleted that should be kept.From the list Kevin gives, it sounds like some of those may need to stay, and others should have gone. It's really hard to offer any better evaluation without citing the specific sources. In the one specific case cited (the fossil), that looks to me like one of the few cases where one could argue an exception needs to be made to the rule. But the fact that exceptions do exist (they always do) don't invalidate the fact that the general rule should be in place. I'm sure I can find you plenty of articles that don't conform to WP:NPOV, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have NPOV, it just means we should get better at enforcing it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:15, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No; it's not correct to imply that Notability is on the level of NPOV. NPOV is a very important policy that all articles should follow, while many articles that should not be deleted do not pass "notability". NPOV should not have exceptions, while notability should and does. --NE2 02:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm moving my comment down to its own subsection, as the lack of indentation will make it disappear above Uncle G's comment (which did not directly address my question). Pharamond 18:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text: If an obituary is the only source that can be found after due diligence and investigation, then we definitely should delete the page regardless of who published the obituary.  Obituaries are not written in an encyclopedic tone nor do they cover all the elements of a person's life which would be appropriate in an encyclopedia article.  Wikipedia is not a memorial.  A high-quality obituary can be a source but we will always need more in order to write a balanced and complete encyclopedia article.  Having said all that, I seriously doubt that we will ever be unable to find a second source for a Fellow of the Royal Society.  Rossami (talk) 19:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  single/multiple source 

message: A question on the single-source issue: if only a single source is cited in a biographical article, would it make a difference if that source is:
#an obituary published in The Decatur Daily, local newspaper in Decatur, Alabama, or
#an obituary published in the Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society?
The Decatur Daily has (according to Wikipedia) an average daily circulation of 20,824. The Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society are almost certainly printed in fewer copies than The Decatur Daily but is probably more likely to remain on library shelves and still be regularly consulted by people outside its location of publication in a hundred years.
One could probably argue that the second obituary implies the existence of other sources, but that may not be obvious to everyone. For the sake of argument, let's say that, at least for the time being, the Royal Society obit is the only source actually cited in the article. Should this article on a fellow of the Royal Society still be deleted? Will it be deleted? Or will there still be a discussion where some people will say, "Hey, this guy was verifiably a Fellow of the Royal Society, which in itself demonstrates notability", and others will say "A fellow of what? Who cares? The article only cites a single source, so WP:N requires us to delete it"? Pharamond 05:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm moving my comment down to its own subsection, as the lack of indentation will make it disappear above Uncle G's comment (which did not directly address my question). Pharamond 18:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text: If an obituary is the only source that can be found after due diligence and investigation, then we definitely should delete the page regardless of who published the obituary.  Obituaries are not written in an encyclopedic tone nor do they cover all the elements of a person's life which would be appropriate in an encyclopedia article.  Wikipedia is not a memorial.  A high-quality obituary can be a source but we will always need more in order to write a balanced and complete encyclopedia article.  Having said all that, I seriously doubt that we will ever be unable to find a second source for a Fellow of the Royal Society.  Rossami (talk) 19:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Significance and quality of source

message: I just recently ran across the  warning, and am a bit confused by it given WP:N#Notability_guidelines_do_not_directly_limit_article-content. Am I missing something? --Ronz 02:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  importance-s template 

message: We have a template pnc for primary notability criterion, which is displayed under the header General notability criterion at WP:N, and then is described as the central notability criterion.  Should we fix that?  --Kevin Murray 21:21, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Yes, WP:N is overriding, because without satisfying the primary/central/whatever notability criterion, we cannot verify that the article is neutral and significant.  Exactly the same requirement exists for any subject, to elevate it above the level of a directory entry. Guy (Help!) 15:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Not only is this not true, but this point of view does not have consensus across the subject-specific guidelines.  You misunderstand how notability is judged. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I think the discussion above nicely highlights why I don't understand Wikipedia's irrational aversion to voting. Clearly no one can even agree on where the "consensus" actually lies, or even if there is a "consensus". Personally, I will never understand why we can't just approve or reject policy changes by voting on them. Sockpuppetry is unlikely to be an issue, unlike at AfD; those commenting on policy talk pages tend to be established editors, and I think we're all too mature to try vote-stacking; anyway, a sockpuppet here would be spotted a mile off. So if it were up to me, we'd have a simple, binding poll to determine what the majority of Wikipedians actually want. However, I realise this isn't going to happen. Just me complaining. :) Walton Vivat Regina! 13:59, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Walton, I think that you should be bold and try to form a poll.  I too am perplexed by the aversion to "voting" at WP.  I am not advocating that a straight number count be used to evaluate a poll, but a process similar to XfD seems practical.  The typical rambling debates are generally fruitless. --Kevin Murray 15:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Good point. I'd agree that most of the time, the criterion is applicable to all articles, hence "general"; however, in certain specific cases other criteria from the subject-specific guidelines may be applied instead. To be honest, though, I think some of the subject-specific guidelines ought to be scrapped; WP:PORNBIO, for instance, should be merged back into WP:BIO, as the current situation gives us lower inclusion standards for pornstars than for anyone else, which is plainly ridiculous. Basically, almost every article should be judged according to the "multiple non-trivial coverage" test; I can't think of very many exceptions to this, except maybe geographical locations (but then again, I think we have too many articles on those, especially roads). To be honest (sorry about the rambling comment), it doesn't matter whether we call it the "primary" or "general" criterion, as long as we make it clear that it's the main one which should be used in most cases. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Walton...I think you may have just come up entirely accidentally with our solution. What would be wrong with "main notability criterion?" I think that's less confusing, while still fully establishing it as primary and overriding. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:36, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primary, General, Central or Main 

message: I have directed discussion of changes to that template to this page.  Unsurprisingly it has already been edited once to include the preferred text of those who favour widespread single sourcing.  That (rather than the idea of multiple sources) is controversial and needs consensus before the text is changed.  I remain of te view that single-sourced articles are likely to be a very rare exception, unless we foolishly change the guideline to encourage them, in which case we will be unable to rid the encyclopaedia of vast swathes of band vanity articles and other such crap.  It is far far harer to persuade two places to cover you independently than to get one story placed in one paper. Guy (Help!) 15:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'd agree, but according to Kevin that represents "POV by a minority" .  Seems the minority at WP:AI is suddenly the minority throughout the project, despite the obvious fact that WP:AI is a POV fork of this guideline by people who want ot be able to include more articles which lack multiple non-trivial sources :-)  Guy (Help!) 16:11, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Guy, I think that you are over simplifying the opposition to your position.  Not all people who oppose your point of view are of the same POV fork etc.  I oppose WP:AI in concept and name.  I prefer notability and generally support this becoming a reasonable and strong guideline, with the hope of stemming the tide of WP:CREEP.  However, I think that rigid inflexibility will only reopen the wound and bring on a return of the early March battle. --Kevin Murray 16:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: * And you read back through all the archives, and also see User:Uncle G/On notability. The whole point is that there are multiple sources.  That's how we know it's notable, not a directory entry, neutral, verifiable and not original research. Far, far more pain accrues to encouraging single-sourced articles than would ever accrue to requiring multiple sources, especially since we can make an exception any time we want.   Guy (Help!) 16:13, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *  I have read back through all of this.  What is past is past.  This is today.  The reason why people are rebelling against this failed policy is that it is applied inflexibly by zealots at AfD.  The roots and evolution of failure are irrelevant to progress toward a superior policy in a dynamic environment.  --Kevin Murray 16:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *The minority posistion is yours, Kevin. To write an encyclopedia article, and assure its notable, one must have multiple, nontrivial sources. Plain and simple. The idea that you could back-door this in is just laughable. -Mask? 16:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Mask, this is not new.  Please don't accuse me of back-dooring something that has been present in the guideline for over a month and is just now becoming an issue again.  I may be on the wrong side of the eventual conclusion, but I am supporting the recent status quo.  To imply otherwise is deceitful. Thanks. --Kevin Murray 16:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Seems that most times the "multiple" criterion has been removed, it's been you doing the removing, Kevin.  It also seems, from this discussion, that whatever your perception might be, there is no evident consensus for weakening the requirement at this time.  Multiple is alreayd being used by wikilawyers to assert that two sources means we MUST keep, reducing this to one would be a Very Bad Idea (TM). Guy (Help!) 16:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is a blatent falsehood!  Smokey Joe, Black Falcon, Dalzula, Badly Drawn Jeff, and other people have worked on editing away from the multiple wording; this reflected the consensus of multiple straw polls.  Albeit, in the last 24 hours I've been soley trying to come up with something short of what has been in place in an effort for compromise.  If the concept of multiple becomes a demonstrable consensus then I will support it. --Kevin Murray 16:52, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Seems you have it devloping here and over at WP:ANI under "Sourcing". I look forward to your next statement of support here. -Mask? 17:29, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text:  I don't think Jeff's best friend would accuse him of being anywhere close to the consensus position on notability.  The list of editors you cite is very small.  The list of editors and admins who use - daily - a requirement for multiple sources in considering inclusion of articles is very large. Guy (Help!) 17:54, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: i think I'm closer than the PNC crowd, honestly.  The PNC crowd, after all, hasn't bothered talking to anyone other than themselves here. Keep in mind, just to use a recent example, you did think that Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon wasn't worth having around recently.  I'm very puzzled by your criteria, at least mine is clear. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

text:  If I may offer my own interpretation of the history.  Apologies if I don't have all my dates exactly right.The standing criterion was "multiple" for a rather long time.  Early this year, a change to the standard was proposed to allow single sourcing if the single source was "substantial".  Many people were unaware of the change as it was being discussed and some who did read the discussion thought that it might be a worthwhile experiment (even if they did not comment in the discussions at the time).  Now the community has had some experience with the new standard.  As a result of seeing the standard in use and seeing the inevitable wikilawyering that any change to this page creates, more people are aware of the change.  Several of those people are reporting that the change has had negative consequences.  No one is disputing that the prior discussions took place nor is anyone seriously suggesting that those discussions were in bad faith.  But consensus can change - and often does change as more people become aware of the discussion or as the consequences of the decision become clearer.  In my personal opinion, we have enough evidence now to show that the "multiple" standard was on the whole better for the project.  But this new discussion will determine the community's will on this point.  Rossami (talk) 17:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: * So you say.  But that might just be an evasion, because I note that you haven't yet cited the unambiguously significant subject which has only one source.  We await your answer with baited breath.  While we wait, we can check the recent histories of AfD and DRV to see just how often the terms multiple non-trivial sources are used - it looks like rather a lot to me.  Like I say, consensus is measured by canonical policy and what actually happens day in day out, not by a half-dozen people on a talk page.  Guy (Help!) 18:45, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Guy,  I apologize and I've corrected myself above.  You have a valid point that significant examples have not been provided.  As we are not talking about clear cut cases, which seldom see AfD, the issue is over marginal cases.  I am not going to call attention to the articles where my concerns developed so that they can become test cases for deletionists to disprove my concern.  On another point when people start talking "canonical policy" this starts sounding like we are developing a dogma and someone might be running for Pope, or worshipping false gods.  It also sounds like the admins with clearer vision are elevating themselves above we mortals.  Which comes first the chicken or the egg?  If the guideline states "multiple non-trivial" it's pretty likely that those words will be used at AfD; where is the logic in that validating your position.  Regardless, I was trying to back away gracefully a few lines above, before you started spouting the party line.  So let's agree to disagree.  If no significant opposition arises, I'll concede defeat and move forward to support the consensus.  But I would like to see some clarity of what "multiple" really means. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 19:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *"Multiple" depends on the situation. If two whole books have been written on a subject, both of which are widely accepted as authoritative and reliable, that's unquestionably multiple non-trivial sources. Two newspaper articles, maybe or maybe not, depends on how substantive and in-depth they are and what kind of an article can be supported by them. Two name-drops in a couple of papers with little or no additional information, definitely not. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:37, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * OK, that's clear as mud.  You've set up an example set so broad that we can drive a train through it sideways. --Kevin Murray 19:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Well, what I'm attempting to say (apparently not too well) is that we need to look at the depth and quality of sourcing, and what kind of article can be supported by it. If the independent sources available go into significant depth and detail, and are widely regarded as thorough and reliable, two of them might very well be enough. With "news" type sources, probably a lot more are required, as newspaper and magazine articles don't tend to go into nearly as much depth as scholarly reports or books. Also, a lot of the time news sources effectively reprint one another, caution is necessary to ensure that the real source behind "30 newspaper articles" isn't really one story that 29 others got from AP or Reuters. However, sometimes, newspaper and magazine coverage is extensive enough on its own over a period of time to support an article. Finally, there are sources which are technically independent but print very little information (just mentioning the subject's name; provide directory-style information or raw statistics; short newspaper "blurbs" or human-interest pieces, and the like.) These are never acceptable except as supplements when more substantial sourcing also exists.   Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:48, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: * I'm much too long in the tooth to give much of a damn about being told I'm full of shit - which I often am - but in this case I don't think that's a fair criticism.  I am serious here - if you go and look at the deletion debates going on right now you will see many cases where editors, long-standing editors, are asking for multiple non-trivial independent sources.  And the reason is, as described in User:Uncle G/On notability and elsewhere, that Wikipedia articles must be verifiable, verifiably neutral, not original research, and not a mere directory entry.  Unless you have several independent sources I just don't see how we, the generally non-expert editing community, can have any realistic chance of satisfying ourselves that those policies are met. Guy (Help!) 20:16, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Guy, me too and perhaps with longer teeth.  I amended my FOS comment above. Clearly this issue has been overstressed and I'd like to put it to bed for now.  It really may be much ado about very little.  The more important task in my mind is to fine-tune your excellent template idea to provide continuity among the notability permutations.  --Kevin Murray 20:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I would say that if the subject is known only because of the book, then the book is the logical place to cover the subject.  A redirect would, of course, be appropriate. Guy (Help!) 20:23, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's crazy, quite bluntly.  There's absplutely no logic in a redirect, and our lack of coverage of Barnet is detrimental to the project currently.  Please cease adding these to the individual criteria withouut discussing them there first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sorry, Jeff, but Guy's right.  If the only knowledge we have about Montejo is based on a single biography, then we have no ability to confirm or refute the assertions of the book so we have no way to know that our article is balanced, neutral, accurate, etc.  On the other hand, this example does turn up multiple sources about the book and details from the book could be appropriate to include in the article.  In doing so, the reader automatically knows how to weight the content and assertions made by the author.  Trying to write a "biography" article based on the one source, however, would force us to write all kinds of clumsy qualifiers in the biography about the lack of confirmability of the source information, qualifications of the source, etc.  In this scenario, it makes perfect sense to me that any content about Montejo would be at the book's title.  A redirect is appropriate because it is an aid to readers, pointing them to the right place to learn about the subject.  Rossami (talk) 19:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Nonsense.  "Clumsy qualifiers" may be necessary, but are not a bad thing in making sure our breadth of coverage is proper.  People looking for information on Barnet are not interested in information on the book only. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jeff, please re-read the scenario.  This isn't a question about Miguel Barnet, the author.  It's a question about Esteban Montejo, a character in one of Barnet's books.  Rossami (talk) 20:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Excuse my swapping of the names.  The point still applies - people looking for information on Montejo are not interested in information on the book only. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, Guy's quite right, and that often applies to fiction as well. Generally, unless characters have been covered by sources independent of the work or series of works they appear in, they should redirect to that work. In this case, if the only source of information on Montejo is that book, we well-serve our readers by directing them to that book and making them aware of that. We can give a brief, encyclopedic treatment of what the book says in the article, and if people want more in-depth coverage, an easy solution exists-go read the book! Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree strongly with Guy on this one - it's nosnensical.  Nothing is more infuriating to a researcher to be lead down a road that doesn't have any actual information on what you're looking for, or nothing of worth.  No one looking for information on Montejo wants to read information on the book - if the article on Montejo says that all the available information comes from the book, that's infinitely more useful and proper. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:pnc 

message: The following section shows the current status or last status before the introduction of the pnc template, for purposes of easy comparison.  There are three categories: (1) inclusion of virtually the same language as the template, (2) inclusion of the early March version of the general criterion, or (3) no attempt at including the general criterion --Kevin Murray 16:40, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One quick note - the wording at WP:MUSIC does not seem to match the discussion about the wording on the talk page.  Furthermore, your "following three" do not elevate the so-called "primary" criterion above any other criterion for notability.  That's important to note. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I should note that most of these "sub-guidelines" do not in fact derive from this page, but predate it. Hence it does not follow that a change made here must therefore be propagated to those other pages. >Radiant< 09:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  WP remains dynamic in the early stages of evolution; it is premature to claim precedence based on age. In the evolution of societies, local laws generally predated national laws, but rarely do they now command primacy.   Promoting continuity is a stride away from anarchy. --Kevin Murray 14:30, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *And neither did I suggest that. That would be the other extreme, I'm in favor of neither. >Radiant< 14:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * How are continuity and a logical hierarchy extreme? --Kevin Murray 14:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: **WP:BURO. >Radiant< 15:03, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Very funny.  You know that what I advocate is fewer rules, along with continuity among those which remain. --Kevin Murray 15:10, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analyzing the status quo at the various sub-guidelines 

message: OK, how does someone "assert" the notability of an article he just added? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JimBurnell (talk • contribs) 16:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Asserting" notability 

message: Jeff brought up that what is sufficient is important, and I agree, so here would be my definition.
Sufficient source material exists to justify an article on a subject provided that the following conditions are met.
*The sources are sufficient to write a neutral article on the subject, and to give due weight to all viewpoints.
*The sources available are independent of the article's subject, unbiased, and meet the other criteria for reliablity.
*The amount of source material available would be sufficient to eventually write an article meeting the good article and/or featured article specifications, provided that primary sources are relied on only for limited amounts of supplemental information. (Subjects with some source material available but not enough for an eventual good or featured article may be appropriate to cover under an article on a related or parent topic.)
What would you write as a definition of sufficient? Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would mostly accept this wording as a compromise, although I still think sufficient to establish notability is as far as a guideline on notability should go.  The GA/FA requirement, however, is not good, and is unrealistic, especially given the arbitrary limitations that go beyond what WP:RS/WP:V look for.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if this didn't go beyond what WP:RS/WP:V (or WP:ATT, everyone seems to have a different preferred flavor there) want, this would be pure WP:CREEP-we could just have those. It is verifiable that I exist, through perfectly reliable sources (such as government records.) Yet I think you and I both would agree it would be inappropriate for me to write an article on myself given only that (or, COI aside, for someone else to do so). It's verifiable that my Sourceforge project exists (you can go to Sourceforge and see it, you can even look at the code for yourself, you don't get much more verifiable than that!) Yet, again, I think you'd see pretty clear consensus an article on that would be inappropriate, even if not written by me. We do need something beyond RS and V, or we wind up with a directory. What we're considering here, in addition to RS and V, is NOT. Since we're not an indiscriminate collection of information, or a directory, "Can we have an article on this subject that lives up to our best standards?" seems a pretty good way of being discriminating. As to "sufficient to establish notability", that's circular-basically that's saying "A subject is notable if it's notable." Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This differs from being "creep"-y (not that anyone should care if it is if it's good) when it tries to define what's notable beyond what's verifiable.  As whether an article can be made a GA/FA with "limited amounts" of primary source material is very "creep"-y and, in fact, is contrary to existing policy and guidelines.  That's why it should be removed outright.  If only primary sources exist, no one's saying an article should be kept.  I'll even go as far to say that it's acceptable to say that if only non-independent primary sources exist, it probably shouldn't be kept (although I disagree).  But to put that sort of limitation on how an article is structured?  That's poor guideline formation, and doesn't mesh with how articles are built and what's considered acceptable sourcing.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a little confused by both sides here.  Most of the GA criteria deal with the article being well-written and properly formatted.  Those criteria can be met with practically any amount of verifiable material, no matter how small.  The only criteria that seemingly pertain to depth of coverage are 1) the article must be NPOV, fairly presenting all significant points of view, and 2) the article must be broad enough to cover all "major aspects" of the subject.  As I see it, linking source material criteria to the GA criteria is basically circular.  How much available source material do you need?  Enough to write a GA.  What do you need to cover in a GA?  "Significant points of view" and "major aspects."  How do you know what "major aspects" and "significant points of view" are?  You have available source material that says so.  Arguably, the less available source material you have, the easier it is to make the article comply with the GA criterion of stability (you quickly reach a point where there's nothing more to be said).  What am I missing here?  How does referring to the GA criteria really provide any guidance about how much source material should be available? PubliusFL 00:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't.  That's the crux of the issue. SB (and s/he'll correct me if I'm misstating this) believes that the quality of the source material should be sufficient enough to create a GA-quality article, while I think (and you agree?) that whether the information can be formed into a GA-quality article isn't relevant to this.  ---badlydrawnjeff talk 00:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I may agree with you, I'm just not quite sure what the point is yet. :)  I just don't see that talking about an "amount of source material . . . sufficient to eventually write an article meeting the good article . . . specifications" is actually saying anything, because the good article specifications don't require any particular amount of information. PubliusFL 00:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then our confusion may be mutual - it's my position that the ability to write a GA/FA level article has nothing to do with notability, anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, GA does have some criteria relevant here, especially that "it is broad in its coverage." A one- or two-paragraph stub (even if that is all that can be written, and covers all points) is not broad in its coverage (and if no more material is available, cannot be). On the other hand, some shorter articles potentially could be, and that's alright! GA was specifically designed for articles that might not have wide-ranging enough coverage for an FA, but can still be reasonably comprehensive and thorough. On the other hand, if you're looking at an article that's very short, and say to yourself "There's really nothing more that can be said here without original research, but there is some source material," that's a good indication you're looking at a great merge candidate. And once enough merging and consolidation takes place, the parent article can get to GA or FA! Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: (Also, as above, I'm trying to drop the "notability" issue, and speak to the broader topic of "When should we or should we not have an article on something?" The answer to that may have nothing to do with notability at all.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 01:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A one or two paragraph stub can be comprehensive.  I know you're against the idea of "permastubs," but this is a solid truth.  Otherwise, I think if you think it's alright, we should remove the GA thing to discourage focusing on the parts that matter least, and we're generally on the same page. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:27, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Without that, I'm unsure what this would accomplish at all. If anything, that might let in more garage bands and three-sentence stubs, which is kind of not the idea here. I think what we need is a shift from quantity of articles to quality. Most of what I'm suggesting would involve merging rather than deletion, so that should mainly satisfy even inclusionists-nothing's lost, just moved. If we can have one good, comprehensive FA rather than five stubs, with nothing lost at all, that sounds well-worth it to me! Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why you think it would open any floodgates further - as it stands now, I don't think this would benefit inclusionism as a whole - it would reduce overall what could count as a source as it redefines what is worthwhile, while allowing other sources that may not fit this criterion.  It certainly isn't going to help Johnny's Bar Band.  As for stubs, why are we trying to dictate that here?  At worst, it's an editorial situation and not one we should be governing via notability.  I still think 5 good articles on 5 subjects is better than one where a reader is having to sift through information they're uninterested in, but that's exactly why we shouldn't be discussing it in this context - what's proper for one set of articles isn't for another. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sufficiency 

message: I'm happy to see Jeff joining in by proposing new wording for the template.  Maybe we can embrace his spirit and not revert him.  Why don't we start with what he proposed, which looks to be what was at WP:N for most of March and the beginning of April.  If it's not the right choice, let's not revert, but take baby-steps toward compromise.  I think that having the continuity of the template is more important than getting the wording perfect right off the bat.  We are dynamic so there is little risk to being flexible.  --Kevin Murray 22:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You can stop with the condescending nature of your comments toward me.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:46, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jeff don't worry about condesending behavior from me.  If I'm pissing on you your leg will feel wet.  This is a genuine expression of appreciation; perhaps a new feeling for you. --Kevin Murray 23:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case, I need to change my pants.  I'm asking you firmly to stop, this is my last comment here on the matter.  Thank you. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Last comment?  Really?  That would be refreshing.  Cheers and here's to better times. --Kevin Murray 23:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

text: As a friend of both parties, I would like to suggest that everybody in this discussion (including me) limits her/himself to 2 comments per day.DGG 00:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sage advice.  I feel that contributors more adept than I at achieving compromise are now involved here.  I'm really excited about Tom Harrison's latest version of the PNC template.  I'd sure like to see as many people as we can get involved join the team. --Kevin Murray 01:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm really not sure that's a great idea. We don't necessarily get to a solution by talking less, and actually, there just might be a compromise solution forming here. (Or at least, if there's something Jeff and I have already largely agreed on, it's got to have a pretty decent chance of being accepted!) Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:51, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Constructive compromise 

message: How large does an Internet forum have to be to be notable? I am an administrator at a 160-member forum, and am under no illusion it is notable. But I thought almost 1600 members (such as Anime and Video Game DID Board) or over 16000 members (such as Transformers World 2005) was enough. However, both have been branded non-notable. Does the number of users have to surpass a million for the forum to be notable because of it? JIP | Talk 17:34, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not about the number of members, it's about the level of reliable sources that are about the forum. If a page is based entirely on self-reporting statements by the forum or its members, or other unedited or non-professional websites, it is not a proper encyclopedia article. If there are no published third party sources about the forum, then a proper encyclopedia article cannot be created about the topic. —Centrx→talk • 17:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: You'd want to check our notability guidelines on web content for information on a forum's notability, but it never has anything to do with the number of members, which is easily fudged. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: You may also want to peruse Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes which gives some specific guidance based on the results from debates on the merits of other articles. These debates are called Articles for Deletion or AfD. --Kevin Murray 18:49, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Internet forum notability 

message: Please see the example at PORN , where using the PNC template along with the lead paragraph from the special cases section at BIO seems to make the concept of special cases more palatable.  This would also make PORN very consistent with BIO and only a matter of providing somewhat greater detail on the special conditions.  If PORN has a valid purpose, it should only be to clarify some special conditions for a subset of actors. --Kevin Murray 15:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Logistics of using the template at sub-pages 

message: Everyone is notable in some way —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.104.140.114 (talk) 22:48, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Do we really need Notability Guidelines? 

message: Okay.  Enough poetry, enough shoehorning, enough ill will - we're coming closer than I think we've been since this became an issue months ago, and I'd like to try and tie this together.  We have a number of competing ideas:
#The "Status Quo": A notable topic has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works that are reliable and independent of the subject.
#*Pros: It's long-standing in many of the individual guidelines.  It sets a firm bar.  Proponents believe it accurately defines notability.  It was formulated by a number of long-term, well-respected editors.
#*Cons: Opponents believe it does not accurately define notability.  A recent straw poll showed a clear lack of consensus for the wording.  The wording does not address subjects of clear notability that only have "non-trivial" sources, or only has a single source.
#The "Compromise": A notable topic should be the subject of at least one substantial and non-trivial published source material which is both reliable and independent of the subject.
#*Pros: Stakes a midpoint between some beliefs.  Sets a firm bar.  Addresses at least part of the protests surrounding the "Status Quo."
#*Cons: Opponents still believe that it does not accurately define notability.  Bar is still too high for the type of sourcing wording requires.  Some believe the bar is not high enough. Explicitly allowing single sourcing may encourage rules-lawyering.
#Another Compromise A notable topic has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works that are reliable and independent of the subject." The depth of coverage of the subject by the sources should be considered in determining the number of sources needed.  In the absence of multiple sources, it must be possible to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view and is credible.
#*Pros: States the status quo, but explains options including the "absence of multiple sources".  Sets a flexible bar.  Addresses at least part of the protests surrounding the "Status Quo."
#*Cons: Opponents still believe that it does not accurately define notability.  Bar is still too high for some.Some believe the bar is not high enough. (added by --Kevin Murray 16:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Trying to cut through the distractions and reach a conclusion 

message: The AfD for 2005 Texas v. Ohio State football game has created broader questions about the notability of individual games. Because nearly any game could theoretically yield a well referenced article that satisfies many criteria at WP:N, this does not necessarily make each game notable. How should this issue be addressed. I am posting this here so that the discussion at AfD doesn't stray of into other topics. 
Some examples of articles which exist can be found at :Category:College football games, examples cited include 1985 Oregon State vs. Washington football game and 2005 Texas vs. Ohio State football game. 
IvoShandor 13:32, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Case by case?  This might honestly be a better job for a newer set of guidelines for these specifically, since every sporting event meets the basic standards. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:36, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of individual athletic competitions (games) 

message: The template has been submitted to most subordinate pages where it has met controversy at all but two pages.  The most contentious was at Wikipedia:Notability (music), where the page has been protected by an admin.  He is suggesting a 48 hour cooling off period for comment etc. after which he will evaluate consensus.  This seems like a good place to test the acceptance of the template concept, and I invite all of us to join in the discussion there.  --Kevin Murray 18:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Will you be posting this request anywhere else, or is this simply to get the supporting voices her eover there to overwhelm the discussion?  I'm not accusing you of anything nefarious, but this sort of selective promotion can't end well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I welcome a broad distrubution of this request.  Transparency will be the route to true consensus.  --Kevin Murray 18:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think, honestly, that the template has been met with controversy at basically all the pages tells us all we need to know.  Trying to include a canned paragraph on multiple separate guideline pages is a really bad idea: it's of the highest importance that the guidelines be written clearly and that the editors of those pages decide on the wording.  Mangojuicetalk 14:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that the controversy stems from multiple categories of opposition including two major camps: (1) those who are protective of their individual notability projects, and those who are opposed to the entire notability concept.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend, makes for strange bedfellows.  While I respect MJ’s integrity and dedication from our many past interactions, I believe that the concern expressed here over-weights the stylistic aspects of the individual sub-pages and under-weights the value of continuity.  At sub-pages it seems that MJ supports the inclusion of the PNC message but not the concept of a template. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kevin Murray (talk • contribs) 15:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It depends.  I oppose the template everywhere, it's just a bad way to write.  I also disapprove of WP:N in general, because of two problems.  First, sources should be necessary but not always sufficient for inclusion.  Second, what about the wording of the pnc?  Multiple, independent, non-trivial sources are probably necessary for some subjects (like, say, band articles) but single, semi-independent, or limited sources can be enough for lots of articles.  I've always seen WP:N as the "high bar" - if met, notability is assured.  However, I don't think that's what people are trying to say these days: instead, they want it to be the one and only test.  Also, I actually oppose the uniformity effort.  When it's correct, fine, why not simplify things.  But WP:V already says that reliable sourcing is necessary and supercedes WP:N anyway since it's a policy.  And in some cases there are compelling reasons to require more than sourceability - yes, that might result in a nonuniform policy, but it's much more important to me that the policy be correct.  Mangojuicetalk 11:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Mango, I think that the current version of the template allows for conditions where multiple sources aren't avaliable.  My gripe isn't that there aren't benefits from detailed guidelines, but I think the potential problems outweigh the benefits.  The problems that I see are (1) inconsistency (2) confusion, and (3) obscure guidelines can be hijacked by special interests in dark corners out of sight of the mainstream.  I also think that in the end most of these do very little since the teeth have been negotiated away in the compromises. --Kevin Murray 18:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Template or not?  - test case at [[Wikipedia talk:Notability (music)]]

message: The following was adapted from what has been at BIO and ORG for some time, and was based on the early March protected version of WP:N:
A topic is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered. If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability. Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. Once notability is established, primary sources may be used to add content. Ultimately, and most importantly, all content must be attributable.
Could this satisfy the concerns of the consensus builders?  If not, could we fine tune this to address the pertinent concerns? --Kevin Murray 19:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Still implies that secondary sources of substantial quality are what constitutes notability.  That's a failure - significant independent trivial coverage provides the same establishment of notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No, it does not.  Trivial coverage proves nothing because it's wikt:trivial.  I challenge you to find anything approaching consensus for the opinion that an encyclopedia article can be substantiated based on nothing but trivial sources.  Rossami (talk) 20:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've given numerous examples already, check the archives.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Insignificant" is a pretty close synonym of "trivial." "Significant trivial coverage" is a contradiction in terms, it boils down to "significant insignificant coverage." Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Lots of "trivial" coverage can add up to something "significant."  Source counting is the wrong way to go. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

text:  I think that notability can be demonstrated through minor mentions in many places that collectively demonstrate notability.  This is where the word trivial imparts a poor connotation.  Appearance on a credible list of gold medal winners of the 1936 Olympics in Britannica, on a list of Nobel Prize winners at a Harvard website, and a list of governors of Nebraska in Time magazine would indicate notability of the topic.  However, could we write an article?  I think that we could by finding other information to fill in the gaps.  This also would make me think that there is substantial published material, which we haven't yet located. --Kevin Murray 20:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability, yes. Suitability for an article, no. (This is why I hate the term "notability" as much as any inclusionist.) Yes, something the NYT name-drops 500 times is probably notable. No, we should not have an article on it. What can we say? "The NYT name-dropped (subject) 500 times", along with a 500-line ref list? So, yes, source counting is the wrong way to go. Source analysis, asking "Could we write, at some point, a GA or FA with the source material that's available?" is the way to go. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, ignore the GA and FA requirement, and we may have a winner in the interim.  Some articles simply won't go above a couple thousand words.  Some articles in World Book or Brittanica would be stubs here.  We should be aiming for comprehensiveness, and that often includes the use of primary/self-published material.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Are you saying that independence and verifiability are not critical to all articles? --Kevin Murray 23:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They're critical, yes.  But as the only things to flesh out an article?  Unrealistic, and doesn't reflect WP:V/WP:RS anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Anchor redirects don't matter - redirects aren't useful to readers except in cases of misnaming or alternative naming.  If you search for X, and it brings you to greater treatment Y, it's nothing but a pain in the ass. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that non-obvious redirects can be confusing, especially for those readers who are unfamiliar with the process.  Why not allow a sentence of explanation with a link to the main article (e.g., John Pierpont Hopkins was the chief steward on the Titanic -  see Titanic. --Kevin Murray 01:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because a) that would make the pages excessively long, and b) we should probably have an article on John Pierpont Hopkins in that case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:05, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jeff, you are a spirited guy, but I think that you might be more comfortable designing guidelines for Myspace or Youtube.  I think that your vision is not that of building an encyclopedia.  This is a place for facts, not a list of maybe it happened, or gee-whiz.  No offense meant, but I think that WP is not the instrument for your vision.  --Kevin Murray 01:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's do be civil, please. While I may disagree strongly with Jeff's opinions, he has every right to express them. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative text for template

message: It seems we're still getting nowhere with this.  A wording that was soundly rejected months ago is still being pushed into the guideline.  What are we going to do? --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Consensus is measured by what the community actually does.  And what the community does is to reject, with very few exceptions, articles that lack multiple non-trivial sources.  Sometimes there is a noisy revolt by the small but vocal band of holdouts, but policy is pretty clearly behind multiple non-trivial sources, and policy has much wider input than any guideline. Guy (Help!) 20:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Then you reject the current wording, because what the community "actually does" is measure notability not by the amount of sources, but by what actually makes them noted.  Sources come into play on verifiability grounds, not notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Refocusing

message: The chart below shows the current status of our notability infrastructure after several months of merging and pruning.  How detailed should the branches become?  There are compelling arguments for each page, but collectively it becomes difficult to manage and for our writers to follow.  I believe that all of the examples shown at the "permutation" level could be rolled up to the sub-guideline level.  At this point the physical objects column is empty, but there have been proposals for various categories in the past.
--Kevin Murray 18:22, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the sub-guidelines would be helpful, so long as they're all clearly marked as advisory rather than prescriptive. (For example, "A subject is suitable for inclusion if multiple non-trivial independent reliable sources are available to write an article on it. Please see the primary notability guideline for details. Below are some cases in which such sourcing is more likely to exist.") The current problem is that people take them as prescriptive, e.g., "Well this album stub was released by the Barely Notables, and they scrape by the two gold records, so we got to keep it!" If we can make clear that is not so, I think the sub-guidelines could serve a useful purpose. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's probably even worse than most ideas floated around right now.  Again - the "primary notability guideline" fails to address specific issues, that's where it fails and that's why it was so soundly rejected last month. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability infrastructure 

message: See Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Template:pnc for the debate.  Mangojuicetalk 18:03, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Template:pnc]] nominated for deletion 

message: I was pointed to the following section:
:These and all the notability guidelines are for allowable article topics within Wikipedia, not for allowable content within a legitimate Wikipedia article.  That is, not all material included in an article must, in itself, meet these criteria.  For issues of article content, see especially the guidelines on reliable sources and trivia.  Note also, though, that other Wikipedia guidelines refer in places to "notability", meaning notability as defined by the notability guidelines.
This section appears like needless legalism to me, and it also feels rather wrong. It implies that article content is not governed by notability, in particular that articles on any celeb could have a lengthy treatise on their unremarkable family, and that articles like "List of English Writers" need not restrict themselves to notable writers. I believe this to be false, that that in practice we do prune such articles to remove those non-notable parts. The second part of this section appears to define this page as automatically superseding others, which isn't de facto true either. Thoughts? >Radiant< 09:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  N/A to article-content (again) 

message: Moved to Wikipedia talk:Television episodes. Note that it's not a "new proposal". >Radiant< 08:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Television episodes]] 

message: Because I don't see fine-tuning so much as fundamental disagreement over what articles should (not) be included (nor am I particularly attached to any of the available options), here's yet another attempt at approaching this from a different direction:
:The most widely used method of demonstrating a topic's notability is by assessing the available sources.
Full stop. This can be broken down by asking for sources that are more reliable, comprehensive, independent, etc, without establishing baselines for how much, how reliable, how non-trivial, because, if nothing else, we can't seem to agree on what baseline to use. Nifboy 05:02, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hrm. I like the simplicity (which is the idea here, at least for me), but I'm afraid that might be too simple. That seems to be in effect asking "Well, do you like the article, or don't you?" Some type of objective standard is needed. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:10, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, if you replace those links to go to WP:GA and WP:NOR, respectively,  you have something close to what I'm trying to get at. AfD (particularly large, controversial ones) is at its best when, like PR or FAC, (sourcing) concerns are being addressed, rather than a batch of users simply making a one-time judgment and never again considering the issue. Nifboy 05:33, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, "can this article reach GA standards at some point?" is a standard I proposed earlier in the discussion. (Don't blame you if you missed it, it's a big chunk of text to say the least.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:09, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Can reach GA standards is probably a bad standard because... well, ... how can we know?  As a way to decide, that would be too subjective.  As for Nifboy's proposal, I don't like that it says that this is the "most widely used method" - I'm really not sure that's true.  Most often, sources are discussed in AfDs to help address whether the article can be sourced, which is a separate issue from the topic's notability.  Sometimes, when notability is a question, it is addressed via sourceability.  Many other times, it is addressed via other evidence that a topic is notable.  I might support saying "The most general method of demonstrating a topic's notability is by assessing the available sources."  Mangojuicetalk 14:26, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (edit conflict: Reply to Seraphim) I saw that, but "GA-worthy" is a standard I don't think has traction. I'm referring more towards the process, where, if everyone's satisfied with the sources (or whatever method is used to determine notability), the article is kept. That everyone interprets FAC, GA requirements differently is to me an indication that we can't make everyone see N the same way. Nifboy 14:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: (reply to Mango) I knew, and am blaming the English language for, that "widely used" was going to cause problems; I said it because I felt sourcing was the most common issue brought up in AfD, and the one applicable to pretty much all articles. "General" is okay, and I might go with "widely applicable" depending on my mood. Nifboy 14:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there some other way of demonstrating notability other than assessing the available sources?  The only alternative that comes to mind is personal knowledge, and I think we should prefer "here's a source" over "I've heard of it."  The subject-specific guidelines don't really contain methods other than assessing sources, they just contain specific guidelines for how to analyze the available sources to determine whether the conclusion should be "notable" or "not notable."  To sum, I think you could achieve your goal by just saying A topic's notability is demonstrated by assessing the available sources. PubliusFL 19:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am intentionally distinguishing the method as described here from pretty much everything else listed at . Nifboy 00:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I guess I don't see how it distinguishes.  Is there anything listed at  that doesn't rely on assessing the available sources?  Seems like all the sub guidelines just talk about what types of sources are particularly relevant and how to interpret them. PubliusFL 16:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I actually kind of like this.  I'm not sold if we're trying to make it have primacy over the other guidelines, but this is probably a better wording than what I've been talking up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:31, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The first draft I wrote had a second sentence: "At right are some other methods used for assessing the notability of specific classes of articles." I'm sure that people will !vote based on one, the other, or both; more power to them. Nifboy 14:47, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The most widely used method of demonstrating a topic's notability is by assessing the available sources is a true statement, but that statement alone is too vague to be useful as a guideline.  What about the sources are we trying to evaluate?  How do editors go about assessing sources to see if something is notable?  There's no actual guidance in that statement at all.  So while it might be a good starting point, you need to go further into detail on just what it is you're looking for when you assess an article's potential sources. Dugwiki 20:11, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't completely planned out how the rest of the page will look with a new criteria, but I imagine it's going to be one part liberal references to WP:RS and one part the criteria that are already there only with the implication that the more substantial, independant, etc, sources are, the more likely the topic is notable. Nifboy 00:11, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could go for that, to some degree, but we need something objective to use as a guide, be it GA or otherwise. Something like RS gives criteria for how to determine if a source is reliable, we could certainly provide some criteria to determine if it's substantial. Seraphimblade Talk to me 06:29, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I could agree that enough for a stub may be enough, and enough for a GA is definitely enough.  But I doubt we can be much more exact than that, and yet represent the broad spectrum of community opinion. Mangojuicetalk 14:37, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Again, what is "enough for a GA"?  I still don't understand how that tells us anything.  GA says the article must cover all major aspects of the subject and all significant points of view.  But you can only tell what the "major aspects" and "significant POVs" are by looking at the available source material.  In which case any amount of reliable source material is enough for a GA.  It's circular.  GA talks about how broadly an article addresses the source material that's out there, not how much source material must be out there.  That is, the purpose of the GA criteria is to compare an article against the available source material and see whether the article covers the subject well.  If the article adequately addresses whatever can be sourced about the subject, it's a GA.  I think it's a misconception of the GA criteria to try to bring them into the process of establishing notability. PubliusFL 16:30, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it wouldn't necessarily have to be the GA criteria specifically. I do think, though, that criteria similar to the GA criteria would help to say "Unless enough source material exists to one day write an article to (insert standards), it must be merged, redirected, or deleted, as appropriate." Now, of course, that wouldn't mean articles not currently meeting such standards would be deleted. But if there's good reason to believe that a thorough, comprehensive, well-written, non-stub article can never exist on a subject from the amount of source material available, we shouldn't have that article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attempt number #424 

message: This conversation about an AfD seems to point to the need to consider adding guidelines about unpublished texts. Fixer1234 01:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unpublished Texts 

message: I propose the construction of a separate subpage for judging notability of political parties. Notability in politics is clearly different from the procedure when judging notability on companies and commercial chains. A significant difference lies in that political parties (generally speaking) contest elections, a criteria that is widely different than presence in a market. --Soman 08:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political parties