Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 3

message: What do you think would be reasonable notability criteria for Catholic bishops?  There are about 5000 recognized bishops listed here, and not all of them have articles on WP.  I am wondering specifically in regard to "independent" Catholic bishops such as Merrill Adamson or Terence Fulham.  I have found maybe 50 such articles on WP, and aside from name and location, most of these articles look the same to me.  (Some few have decent newpaper coverage, and those are obviously notable.)  Gimmetrow 23:51, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Generally (practice, not policy, I think), for the original Roman Catholic Church, there have been articles on the dioceses, with listings and brief biographies of the bishops. For the most part, only Cardinals or prominent Archbishops have independent articles. I really don't see that bishops in these small breakaway churches merit articles, but I suspect members of those churches have made a point of documenting them. Most people are barely aware that these traditionalist sects themselves exist, much less the bishops in them. Fan1967 13:17, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: That's really not a whole lot of bishops, and they're largely the local face of the Church.  I don't know of anything hard and fast, but I don't really see the problem with drawing the line at the bishop level. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:20, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure how to rate some of them. I know that there are some of these offshoots that consist of a bishop and maybe several dozen members. In other words, you're talking about a "bishop" who ministers to fewer people than your typical pastor or rabbi, who normally don't rate articles. Fan1967 13:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, we're talking Roman Catholic bishops, right?  Bishops that head up various dioceces?  I don'tt see the issue with that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:00, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The original question was about "independent" Catholic (i.e. breakaway) bishops. That's where you run into problems, because some of them are very, very small groups. I have no problem with articles about heads of dioceses in major denominations, although, if the article is basically just a stub, as a lot are, it's just as well covered in the diocese article itself. I think there's an article for pretty much every Roman Catholic diocese. Fan1967 15:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why are people so opposed to stubs?  Anyway, if they're independent, they probably get a decent amount of press because of it, so I can't outright advocate eliminating them. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Some get some local coverage.  Most do not.  Gimmetrow 16:28, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: From what I can tell, many bishops who actually head a diocese (as opposed to auxiliary bishops) have articles here, even if they are not cardinals or archbishops.  Almost no auxiliary bishops do, unless they are notable authors or have received significant news coverage in their own right.  I think that's a reasonable practice.  These other bishops are "independent" ones that, as Fan1967 says, often have followings smaller than a typical parish or synagogue.  Gimmetrow 14:23, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Again, it's the backyard churches I'm asking about.  Look at the two links provided.  Do they seem notable?  What criteria should apply?  Note that because they are not associated with a diocese, there sometimes isn't another article to merge the stub into.  Although all the relevent information on Terence Fulham is already in the Orthodox Roman Catholic Movement article.  Gimmetrow 16:26, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Adamson one could use some expansion, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with the Fulham one.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:55, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A longer version of this article was already deleted once.  If I was wrong about that, I would just like to know.  The subjects of these articles just seem equivalent to any pastor or rabbi, which typically do not have articles.  Gimmetrow 19:10, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: At least in the Catholic faith, a pastor and a bishop aren't typically on the same level.  I won't begin to get into what makes a Rabbi notable, as I don't know, but I don't believe they're analogous. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:13, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True.  But typically a bishop oversees a diocese and the average Catholic diocese is more than 100,000 catholics.  A pastor oversees a much smaller number, a few hundred to a few thousand.  Fulham's congregation is listed as 140 to 160 in 2002.  On that measure, he is equivalent to a pastor.  It is true that in Roman Catholic theology, a bishop is different than a priest regardless of how many people he may be responsible for.  But does simply "being a bishop" make the subject intrinsically notable? Gimmetrow 19:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see what you're saying.  Think of it this way:  Monaco is a country with a population of around 35k people.  Albert II, Prince of Monaco is running that country, but touches less people than the mayor of some cities in the United States who would not get articles unless they did something newsworthy.  We wouldn't hesitiate, however, to put the leader of a country in.  Even if a congregation is less than 200 people, he's still filling the position of someone who's in charge of a diocese. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Very good point.  The difference is that, by international law/custom, the Prince of Monaco is treated equivalent to other heads of state (precedence issues aside).  (He also gets a fair amount of news coverage.)  Likewise, there are small dioceses in the RCC, and the bishops of those are still heads of dioceses. I don't know what the smallest diocese is, but it wouldn't surprise me if some parishes are larger. But "independent" bishops do not have a diocese, and they are not filling the position of someone in charge of a diocese.  They are filling the position of someone in charge of a parish, they just happen to also be a bishop. Gimmetrow 19:47, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So how widespread can this "problem" really be?  You assert 5000 bishops in the American hierarchy, is it going to hurt us if even 5% of all bishops are these independent mavericks and still have articles?  I can't really see a decent line on the amount of parishoners served or the size of the congregation, and those who are mavericks often meet other areas of WP:BIO anyway due to the relatively lopsided amount of press they get.  I'mjust not sure if we're really solving anything or simply creating a problem to try to work out a solution in this case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:07, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those 5000 are the actual, real bishops in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church. You can verify them, as you can the bishops in other decent-sized established denominations. No one knows how may other people there may be who call themselves bishops but are not part of any hierarchy except one they invented themselves. That's where the problems occur. Some of these people are as unverifiable as the religions they claim to be bishops of. Fan1967 02:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to think we're working under the assumption that they can at least be verified enough to be a stub. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:47, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think you were wrong, although it's not what I would have done.  I'm less opposed to stubs than other folks, though.  The 100 year/Google tests aren't really applicable here due to the unique nature, however, and they aren't widely accepted anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:56, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is, these people aren't that unique.  When I first started looking into this topic I thought there were maybe a few dozen such people worldwide.  Then I realized there were hundreds of these independent bishops (quite possibly thousands), and they didn't seem so unique anymore. Gimmetrow 14:09, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I can offer my own opinion, I think that like members of the military, title alone is generally a poor indicator of appropriateness for the encyclopedia.  Other factors can and should matter much more in deciding whether it is possible to write a neutral, verifiable article that will ever be expanded beyond the sub-stub level.  Rossami (talk) 17:21, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, title alone is not a good indicator.  A number of cardinals do not even have articles yet, and I see an article was deleted recently on an abbot who had even run his entire order (nearly 100 monasteries) for a while.   That is a lot more notable than most (not all) of these independent bishops.  Gimmetrow 20:46, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Religious figures - bishops

message: Major local political figures who receive significant press coverage is poorly worded. What is a "major" local political figure? Does the coverage have to be ongoing, related to office? It allows entries for everybody from Gavin Newsom to Gareth Ward. ~ trialsanderrors 02:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Local politicians

message: I'd like to redo the intro to better clarify what the page is for (or, at least, what I think it's for):
Notability is a subjective term for a subject that is famous or important. It is a concept used to help determine whether, for a given subject, an article can be created that will meet the standards of Wikipedia. Notability is not, in and of itself, a standard. Instead, it is a tool that can be used to see whether an article can meet standards such as verifiability, accuracy and neutrality.
Because Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, subjects must be of interest to many people and not just to a small clique. However, being "interesting" and being "notable" are not the same thing. Wikipedia editors generally use the term "notable" to refer to someone who has, or is likely to have, a substantial impact in a given field.
In the case of a stub article or one that lacks a solid body of independent, verifiable information, editors may ask whether the subject is "notable" to help determine if enough verifiable information will be found to make a good, complete article.
If an article on a topic of widespread interest already has a substantial amount of verifiable information from quality sources, it does not matter whether it is "notable" or not. Similarly, if a subject is not notable, but enough quality information on the subject is likely to be found, notability need not matter.
For example, Albert Einstein's son Eduard could be considered "non-notable" because he spent almost his entire adult life in a mental hospital and did not make a significant impact on society. But because of the great deal of public interest in anything related to his father, it is likely that a great deal of verifiable information from quality sources is available on Eduard. Therefore, an article on Eduard Einstein is appropriate for Wikipedia despite Eduard's lack of notability.
Mwalcoff 23:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with this. While this particular page may not be Wikipedia policy, notability or importance or encyclopedic relevance is the standard. It also could be misleading to see it is a tool for seeing whether an article "can meet standards", the wording "has sufficient external notice to ensure that they can be covered" is better. The rest of this is an even more drastic change. I will review it again more carefully later. —Centrx→talk • 07:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  New intro 

message: Is it? This seems like its based off the essay, which isn't even a guideline. Whats the status of this page when compared to other guidelines like WP:BB or Wikipedia:Autobiography? Fresheneesz 00:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This page predates WP:NN by almost two years.  It used to be called Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies.  The page pre-dates our decision to tag such pages as "policy" or "guideline".  When it was categorized in late 2004, it was tagged as "semi-policy" - a class which mostly evolved into "guideline".  While widely accepted and, in the opinion of many users, an essential control for the project, it is remains controversial.  In that regard, I would say it is much like WP:AUTO.  Rossami (talk) 03:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this an official guideline? 

message: I suggest that good evidence of notability is inclusion in a standard reference work. It seems obvious that we would accept anyone in any edition of say Encyclopaedia Britannica. In Britain, I would suggest that the following are among those books that can be accepted as reliable for this purpose:
* Dictionary of National Biography
* Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (a revision of the above but with several more names)
* Who's Who (UK)
* Chambers Biographical Dictionary
* Debrett's People of Today
Not all "Who's Who" type publications are equally reliable; some will put in anyone prepared to buy a copy of the book.
Runcorn 20:07, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Who's Who is too broad and should not be included. Rjensen 20:12, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed and some editions (I don't know about the UK one but the French version certainly) have questionnable independance. Pascal.Tesson 21:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: And I am happy to believe that some are reliable. But if you accept UK who's who then of course people will claim that not accepting the french one is systemic bias or something like that. Pascal.Tesson 22:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Droppin Who's Who type works is good.  In at least the United States, many papers (including the Boston Globe, my local example which is normally a major paper) will run any obituary that the family is willing to pay for.  I'd suggest that we require obituaries in multiple major newspapers that are either 1) not identical or 2) attributed to a wire-service or the paper's staff.  Of course, obituaries are also evidence that can establish notability under some other test.  GRBerry 22:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Things are clearly very different in the US from Britain. None of the papers I list would run a paid obituary. Obits here are often written by distinguished people in the same profession as the deceased, e.g. a judge by another judge. I'm happy to accept GRBerry's advice on American obits. --Runcorn 22:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  In reference works 

message: The guideline says we may include:
:Sportspeople/athletes who have played in a fully professional league, or a competition of equivalent standing in a non-league sport such as swimming, or at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States. Articles about first team squad members who have not made a first team appearance may also be appropriate, but only if the individual is at a club of sufficient stature that most members of its squad are worthy of articles. 
This addition opens the door for hundreds of thousands of articles to be made on college athletes in all sports.  It doesn't even specify they have to be NCAA sports, or even first-team members. It also doesn't go in to detail of what can be considered the "highest level".  Does this mean only 1-A teams?  1-AA is the "highest level" for schools of a certain size.  Written as-is, this guideline could justify an article on a 4th string 1-AA college football punter that never makes an appearance in a game and then goes on to be a mechanic. There are 36 NCAA sports alone, and apparently this guideline says that writing an article on every person (even walk ons) who ever was on a team (didn't even ever have to play) on every team in the history of college sports in the US is OK for inclusion on Wikipedia. Anyone care to guess how many articles that would be?  According to NCAA.org there are 360,000 CURRENT student athletes alone.  That means we would be looking well into the millions if Wikipedia allowed articles on any college athlete.  This part desperately needs to be re-written or we are going to start seeing these types of articles popping up more and more, being backed up by this guideline.  My personal MINIMUM standards are 1-A players who have earned first team All-American honors in their sport or won an award for being the best in the nation at their position (those 2 usually go hand in hand, but not always), or have done something otherwise notable. Simply put, playing a college sport alone does not make one notable.  I bring this up because I am a part of Wikipedia:WikiProject College football and some people over there seem to think making an article on every current player of a college football team is acceptable as long as the article is well written, and that if they end up not making it to the NFL (the vast majority don't), THEN we can delete the page (in a few years).  I don't think we should be making articles on people based on the probability of future notability, and I think this needs to be seriously looked at and dealt with before people start making pages on each member of a college's volleyball team, or worse. I also saw the discussion above about Minor League Baseball and that is just about in the same situation.  There is no way Wikipedia should have every single person who ever played in the minor leagues. which this guideline supports. VegaDark 07:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This has been in for a while now, and hasn't caused much problem.  I think highest means, well, highest (e.g. not second tier).  Each country/sport has it's own terms, and we shouldn't specify them.  Also, this is just a guideline, which is subordinate to WP:V.  If there's no independent coverage, policy already requires deletion.  If we have to change this guideline, we should be moving in the direction of being more generic (e.g. focussing on independent substantial coverage) and not specific (e.g. 1-A vs 1-AA,  "All-American honors", etc...).   --Rob 08:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: And why is it a bad thing to include them?  --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We have rules like WP:BIO. If we allowed bios of anyone indiscriminately, then of course these people would be as entitled to their articles as anyone. But if we reject bios of middle-ranking civil servants or junior professors, why should we allow these people to have bios?--Runcorn 14:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Because middle ranking civil servants or junior professors aren't as well known as these folks.  If a middle ranking civil servant gets covered in a variety of news publications and in multiple books every year, would you still oppose their inclusion? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any college athlete who gets covered in a variety of news publications and in multiple books every year for say six or seven years has a good claim to notability.--Runcorn 15:58, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Why not add the usual disclaimer that they must have received multiple non-trivial mentions in reliable sources?  That should cover the top college ball players without letting the pitcher from Mudhole Flats High through. It is, after all, what we are looking for: a rough guide to who is going to atract sufficient attention form reliable secondary sources to allow a verifiably neutral portrayal. Just zis Guy you know? 16:29, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that there shouldn't be an article on every college athlete.  The standard should include some additional proof of non-local notability, such as winning a national award or having major press coverage from other locations (not just local area papers). --Elonka 16:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Would it be reasonable to add a requirement for an award and write up in a national publication only for anyone who is not in a professional league?  School players can receive mention in several local and state papers, even if they are not notable outside of the local school so the award and national media requirement would serve as a filter to eliminate the less encylopedic ones.  Also we need to keep in mind that the guideslines don't eliminate articles.  There will always be exceptions.  Vegaswikian 18:16, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're going to require national papers, then you're now imposing unreasonable requirements, which exceed what we have for non-sportspeople.  If somebody who meets the current guidelines has susbstantial coverage from multiple local/state reliable media sources, then they should be covered by us.  What counts is there's adequate feeder material to make a good article, not whether one of the sources is national (which is a dubious term, because it can be harder getting in a major local physical newspaper than a "national/international" web-only source).  --Rob 19:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

text: We're not supposed to be crystal ball gazers. The question is whether they're notable now, not whether they may or may not be in five years' time.--Runcorn 22:03, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's exactly my point - I would submit that the vast majority of all college athletes are not notable unless they make to to the pro's. VegaDark 00:42, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability is more than just a matter of popularity, it is also a matter of importance and avoiding a vanity appearance.  Many third tier sports people are more widely known than most first tier academics during their career - but in the long run (decades later), the academics are more likely to still be known and important.  A test I ought to think about would be "if they retire without playing in another game, how long would they still be notable?"  Completely unworkable as an operating test, but worth thinking about.  A requirement that their be press coverage that is primarily about them (ie, an article on them, not an article on a game that mentions that they got a homerun/goal) would go a long way toward eliminating the vanity risk, although not completely.  I think "primarily about" is better wording than "non-trivial mentions" - I've seen too many things that I thought were trivial mentions be reasons for keeping something, even though it could only validate one or two facts in a multi-screen article.  GRBerry 01:00, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This discussion shows why we need to remember that notability is a tool to help determine whether an article will meet inclusion criteria and is not a criterion in and of itself. From my perspective, Britney Spears is of little use to the Earth's populace and therefore is "non-notable," but there still should be an article on her. We may disagree about whether someone like Jay Cutler or Adam Morrison is worth the hype, but the fact is, a lot has been written about those guys, so there's no reason to delete their articles. Plenty of college athletes failed to pan out as pros -- Archie Griffin, Andre Ware, David Klingler, etc. Yet their college exploits have established them as significant sports figures. No reason to delete them, either. (I see Klingler is a redlink. The guy set lots of records at U. Houston and should have a page.) -- Mwalcoff 04:22, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: All those examples you give doesn't refute any of my points.  I fully agree that some college players deserve articles, just the vast majority do not. VegaDark 19:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I just wanted to say that I agree 100% with the case made by VegaDark, and I think the guidelines should be seriously considered into redrafting for the WP:BIO guidelines. I hope to use some of this argument for revising my althletes proposal. For the most part, people think too much about the "sum of human knowledge" fallacy that WP tries to make (well, some members) and we should focus on QUALITY of the articles and not HOW MANY we can make. I will explain more in the near future on the athletes proposal talk page. --Burgwerworldz 02:03, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: MAJOR disagreement with inclusiveness of sportspeople

message: Trying to create this rule and then delete every article in wikipedia goes against the very nature of the encyclopedia's open-ness.  Some people will think Homer Simpson is noteworthy, some won't.  This entire rule should be scrapped unless there is a major issue with respect to bandwidth and disk space on un-notable people, which I don't see! Sandwich Eater 18:13, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is nuch to be said for Sandwich Eater's argument. However, we do have WP:BIO, and it is necessary to agree on how to implement it. --Runcorn 19:49, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Having criteria for inclusion is in the very nature of being an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a forum for unregulated free speech. —Centrx→talk • 01:38, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This is all very non-wikipedia

message: Firstly, I think we'll need a separate page for athletes. Anyway, here are my recommendations for what we should say about athletes in the "big four" US sports:
<begin here>
As with other subjects, users should only create articles on athletes if they or other users are likely to find enough verifiable, independent information on the athlete in question to develop a full-length article.
The following types of athletes are likely to meet this criterion:
*Anyone who has played or coached in the NFL, NBA or NHL or Major League Baseball
*Any current or former starter or coach on a widely followed college football or basketball team
*Anyone who has received significant media attention as a "prospect" or "phenom." Examples of subjects who would fit in this category might include:
**Baseball player Brandon Wood, who as of July 2006 was on the AA Arkansas Travelers but is considered a top prospect and is likely to reach the major leagues soon.
**Football player Dan Bazuin, who plays for mid-major Central Michigan but was Mid-American Conference defensive MVP in 2005 and is considered one of the NCAA's top defensive linemen.
**Before he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James, who although still in high school was regularly on ESPN and in national publications.
**A Canadian Hockey League (junior hockey) star.
*Any athlete who has become famous for any other reason, such as Jason McElwain, the autistic high school student who scored 20 points in 4 minutes of an interscholastic basketball game.
<end here>
We'd also have to draw up guidelines for women's sports, as well as sports like track and field and soccer. I'd leave it up to others more versed in those areas to come up with ideas.
Mwalcoff 23:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Notability (athletes) and the discussion here. -- Alias Flood 01:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. I've moved it there. -- Mwalcoff 01:25, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Athletes 

message: I linked the policy pages so navigation is easier.  I may not have gotten them all. Wjhonson 06:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Links 

message: Notability is obviously quite controversial with regard to "the free encyclopedia."  In order to make everyone happy, why not install a secondary search box on the home page or 'advanced options' which gives the user the ability to search those articles which are considered 'notable' by concensus.  All the rest of the articles which meet the other criteria, but aren't considered notable, can be accessed by checking/unchecking a box on the advanced options panel... or by entering their search request in the box marked "search all articles, including non-notables."
:An interesting idea, but I see two problems. Firstly, that would be a fair amount of work for the developers. Secondly, it may lead to endless debates about notability; and don't forget, it would take years to go through over a million articles and discuss them.--Runcorn 21:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This would create second- or third-class of articles that no one maintains and few read. —Centrx→talk • 07:22, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are already plenty of such articles.--Runcorn 12:01, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Solving debate by adding another search box on wiki? 

message: Please see discussion on this at WP:BLP's talk page. JesseW, the juggling janitor 20:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: No first biographies 

message: Reading the discussion above, I gather the phrase at the highest level in mainly amateur sports, including college sports in the United States is universally interpreted as at the highest level in mainly amateur sports or at the highest level in any college sport in the United States.  Perhaps I'm the only one, but I at least initially read including college sports in the United States to pertain only to mainly amateur sports like sport rowing or freestyle wrestling (the college level in the US being the "highest level" in these sports), which would exclude the tremendous number of college basketball, football, baseball, etc. players since these sports are not "mainly amateur".  I can see that I'm probably misreading this clause, but reading it the way it is apparently intended flabbergasts me.  Do we really want articles on tens of thousands of college students because of a fleeting association (4 years at most) with a sports team?  What becomes of these articles after the student graduates and enters their almost certain to be non-notable life?  Do we update Johnny Testosterone's article to say what his "post collegiate career" life became (After playing four years for the Mighty Mites, Johnny graduated with a degree in business and as of 2006 runs a pet shop in his home town of Obscureville)?  Or do we perhaps need a mechanism to schedule an AfD discussion for some date in the future?  I think there's a huge difference between encyclopedic notability (which I'd expect to be essentially permanent) and the kind of notability achieved by participation in collegiate athletics.  -- Rick Block (talk) 15:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: i'm against any reinterpretation.  Highest level of college sports would mean, to me, the highest level of college sports - Division I, highly noted schools.  Many role players on, say, Michigan State's football team or Duke's basketball team are of a higher notability than a bench player on the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, for instance, but we wouldn't try to eliminate either.  Given that the chances of many of these players ever getting articles anyway is minimal, I see no point in trying to fix what isn't broken. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Highest level in mainly amateur, including college sports 

message: Is there a difference between text books and Exam-oriented-books (Like the Self Assessment and Board Review) as far as notability is concerned and is there any criteria that says that only authors of text books are notable and authors of Exam-Oriented-Books are non-notable.Doctor Bruno 03:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd have said not; if someone has published several Exam-Oriented-Books that have sold well, surely he or she is notable.--Runcorn 19:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Exam Books

message: Suppose a reliable source says explicitly that someone is notable, or something equivalent like important, prominent or "major figure"?  Is that on its own sufficient to prove notability?--Runcorn 17:57, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What if a source says someone's notable?