Wikipedia talk:Notability (web)/Archive 8

message: Discussion moved to one area, see "WP:V" area below. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: New edit

message: I have added the disputed tag because of tendentious editing by some and because of a lack of demonstrated consensus for the changes by others.  Consensus for anything to happen at WP:N does not introduce consensus here, and it's arguable whether there's really a consensus at WP:N to begin with.  Hopefully people will actually be willing to discuss. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed tag 

message: Why were these removed?  I don't see any reason given or discussion on the talk pages.  That's a pretty big change to the guideline.  --Milo H Minderbinder 13:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, their removal should be discussed first.  Replacing now.  --Daedalus 16:38, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of paragraphs about awards and distribution 

message: This article discusses wikipedia entries for websites, but it doesn't mention criteria for sources/external links within wikipedia entries. For example, a popular fan site for The Sopranos shouldn't deserve its own article, but should it be linked to *in* the article for The Sopranos? If so, what if there's a fan site that's half as popular... where do you draw the line? etc etcJimmycracker 06:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: What about adding a critera based on the time a site has been in existence and active. By active, I mean updated regularly and kept current. Most sites that don't do their job (gain readership) eventually fold, so I tend to think that sites that have withstood the test of time may be notable for that reason alone. 
I'm not talking about advertising, or sites that serve only as support or publicity engines for real-world companies or products, but more for sites that contain original, web-only (or primarily web-based) content. So wal-mart's web store wouldn't fall under this guideline. 
Otherwise, we end up with only the sites that caught some reporter's attention, and that just doesn't seem to make sense.
TomXP411 19:34, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that is it's a fairly arbitrary piece of criteria, akin to "this number is big." Something better would be if it has broken ground in its genre (ie the first webcomic or something similar). There are plenty of Geocities sites that are awful and obscure and have existed for 10+ years, but they shouldn't get articles based on age. --Wafulz 00:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Time-based criteria 

message: Does this - User:Djbrianuk/DontStayIn -  meet the WP:WEB guidelines? exolon 22:46, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure if trendcatching or anthems.com count as reliable sources? The Guardian is, of course, but DontStayIn isn't the subject of the article provided. Marasmusine 09:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this meet the criteria? 

message: Is the disputed tag still necessary? It's been about a week since any discussion has gone on. I guess I'm asking what (if anything) is being disputed at this moment. --Wafulz 00:46, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As long as this version sticks around, yes.  Unless proponents can demonstrate consensus for this version, otherwise we can probably remove it when we go back to the long-standing version that existed in December. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The tag isn't hurtin' anything for now. - brenneman 07:35, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, we have had a week since any substantive discussion, and proponents of this don't seem to be knocking down the doors to push their preferred change.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:58, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you sum up what their proposed changes were? I got lost and confused in the massive blob of text above. --Wafulz 22:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Essentially treating the first line item about multiple non-trivial as more important for notability than the rest.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just so there's no confusion, that's the version that exists now, you want to revert to an older version, correct?  Is it safe to say that you propose editing so the first item isn't singled out as being primary?  --Milo H Minderbinder 23:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Pretty much, mostly because it isn't primary.  Or, if it's supposed to be, there's no consensus here for such a change. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:41, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Badlydrawnjeff is also disputing this basic idea at WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:N, etc., so any evaluation of consensus or level of on going discussion ought to take in all pages this is discussed on. -- Dragonfiend 02:59, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text: In all fairness, the bit about sources is the fabled PNC.  The rest stem from it, and to suggest there is a need for a specific consensus on this change is akin to saying that until there has been an actual discussion on talk somewhere involving a broad consensus of editors, no article on any plant species may point out that "grass is green".  If the first line is somehow not more important than the rest, well that's WP:V and WP:NOR out the window.  Chris cheese whine 00:54, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No it isn't.  At least not regarding "notability," which is still a separate concept.  --badlydrawnjeff 
talk 02:18, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed tag

message: These rules are, frankly, a farce when applied to Webcomics. Can't we do something to not make us laughingstocks? Adam Cuerden talk 11:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Webcomics 

message: :
:Deletion discussions: Nominations 1 2 3 4 Review 1 Final nomination: 5A&B in guideline creation discussions: 1 2 2a 3Arbitration resulting from previous deletion discussions: 1Syndication discussion: 1 2 3 4 5 6
I wouldn't call that failed, I'd call it a failure to recognize the basic priniciple that sources are necessary and secondary criteria are no substitute for actual verifiable information. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Able and Baker 

message: Article (talk)
AfD DRV
:Straub sockpuppets: blog ANI CU
Well - we didn't "fail" as such (and I suppose technically it's ongoing, as it's highly likely it will be nominated again seriously based on the discussion in the DRV), but, there was one key failure I noticed. Not one of Straub's socks were flagged as s within the AFD. People are all too ready to jump on anyone who votes keep, but apparently deletes are immune to scrutiny. --Random832(tc) 02:46, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Starslip Crisis 

message: diff I hope you were referring to the tag in the abstract, rather than intending to insult the person who added it - but, anyway, why did you remove ? The dispute is quite clearly ongoing. --Random832(tc) 14:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  So I'm "wildly out of touch"? 

message: Receiving a Webby Award is an acceptable criterion for inclusion.... why? Of all the possible criteria we could use for notability, we use this? An award which is awarded to a small subset of websites which pay a large fee to even be eligible for the award? I'd rather us have a "100 Wikipedians like it" criterion than have this. --- RockMFR 04:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, so comics awards are not sources of notability, but paying for an award is? Adam Cuerden talk 04:45, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was introduced to the text way way waaaay back when we decided "100 comics" wasn't being taken seriously as a criteria. I certainly have no opposition to removing it. Nifboy 05:05, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not opposed to removing it -- if a website or podcast winning an award isn't noted by muliple non-trivial reputable sources, than the award isn't much of an indicator of notability. Not sure what "pay a large fee to even be eligible for the award" has to do with it -- as I recall, quite a few major awards have entrance fees. -- Dragonfiend 05:10, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So now instead of winning an extremely well known award being enough, we've removed that because of the (admittedly ridiculous) fee, and instead say that any of the 214 listed in :Category:Awards or Zog knows how many in its 23 subcategories makes web content notable by association.  This guideline is supposed to be descriptive, not prescriptive.  Can anyone point to an AFD in which one of these mostly subtrivial awards many any difference whatsoever?  Even one? —Cryptic 14:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *Hm, you do raise an interesting point. That criterion for "award winning" has been there for awhile but as a whole does not appear to get used much. >Radiant< 14:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Webby Awards 

message: Current:
...web-specific content[3] are deemed notable, if they meet any one of the following criteria.
Suggested:
...web-specific content[3] are deemed notable, if they meet any one of the following criteria, or others, of similar merit, which should be explained at the top of the talk page. 
Reasoning:
While this could be dangerous, it does seem that in a few cases there may be sites notable for reasons that don't easily fit into the categories suggested below. For example, Mystery House (obviously not a website, but a thing that comes to mind) was the first graphical computer game, and is notable for that, but is otherwise non-notable. Clearly, we should have an article on it, but it'd be hard to write guidelines that would include it. As such, we oughtn't be too dogmatic about our guidelines. Adam Cuerden talk 05:16, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually, the lead section of the article itself is used for establishing notability (for example, "Neglected Mario Characters is... arguably the originator of the "sprite comic" style,[1]"). See: WP:LEAD. Nifboy 05:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And if I were trying to improve the Mystery House article I'd cite sources in that lead paragraph like Computer Gaming World: "... when Roberta Williams released Mystery House in 1981, she created a new evolutionary branch of computer gaming. Prior to this, many of the early mainframe computer games of the 1960s and 1970s were strictly text driven. Mystery House was the first computer game to pair black-and-white images with these adventures." -- Dragonfiend 05:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggested tweak: 

message: : Some dictionaries define "multiple" as meaning "two or more."  Others define it differently
::*Wiktionary says that multiple means "Having more than one element, part, component or function" 
::* Meriam Webster defines "multiple" as "consisting of, including, or involving more than one"
::* Cambridge Dictionary online defines it as "very many of the same type, or of different types"
:::--Fagles 02:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How do dictionaries define the word "multiple"?

message: : * Yes, the wording must be changed.  The discussion above makes clear that editors have widely different interpretations of the word "multiple," some of which differ wildly from the dictionary definition.  If editors are using different definitions of a key word in the relevant guideline, that will pose an unneccessary barrier to efforts to reach cconsensus as to whether the guideline is met.  Therefore, I think that "multiple" should be replaced something less ambiguous - or, if you want ambiguity, with words that are transparently ambiguous, such as "sufficient."  As Hiding observed, "Multiple sources can't mean two today and three tomorrow."  In sum if you don't want the guideline to say "two or more," don't use the word "multiple," because that's how some dictionaries define it.  --Fagles 02:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Should the wording of the guideline be changed from "multiple" to something else?

message: :*Regarding "multiple vs. two or more," I don't see enough of a difference between the two to care either way. However, this language is in multiple (yes, two or more) other notability guidelines, so any change made ought to be made to all. I'm also wondering if there's a better way to centralize these discussions that effect multiple guidelines, as they seem to be out of step with each other. Any ideas? Merge them all together? -- Dragonfiend, copied here by by --Fagles 02:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't really have an opinion on this question.  --Fagles 02:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  Consensus must be reached at the various places for it to best fit the individual subjects. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:38, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: If the wording of the guideline is changed, should that change be harmonized with other guidelines that use "multiple"?

message: Notability has nothing to do with verifiability. WP:V (and the new WP:ATT) doesn't speak to inclusion (in a whole-article sense) at all, except in the sense that something that cannot be verified should not be included (i.e. if enough to write an article, or even a stub, can be verified with only a single independent source, or with appropriate use of primary sources for non-controversial claims, it passes WP:V). --Random832(tc) 21:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Can I just say something? (notability vs. verifiability) 

message: As edit-warring is still taking place over this issue, please discuss it here so that hopefully consensus can finally be established. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Centrality of [[WT:N]]

message: While I think there needs to be some clear indication that reliable websites which are watched over by editors do indeed fall under published works, and therefore can be used as proof of notability, I think the phrase could use a better choice of words. As it is, it seems to imply that such websites are NOT published works, when in fact, the entire reason they should be included is because they are. Anyone have some better suggestions on how we can word this? - Zaron 07:49, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I felt the need to specify because I had yet to hear anyone use the word "publish" in conjunction with, exclusively, fact-checked/edited websites. I've always heard it used in the "self-publishing" sense. Nifboy 08:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmm. But some of this is going to be of a literary nature: how do you check the accuracy of, say, a comic review site? Remember, part of this is just going to be to check notability, not so much facts, which for literary endeavours can at least in part be done with one source: The literary endeavour itself. (at least as far as a B-class article, anyway) Adam Cuerden talk 09:50, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: However, we shouldn't ever write an article solely based on primary sources, that's an invitation to original research. Basically, the vast majority of webcomics are not notable. In a couple years, that may well be different, but right now, there's just not enough reliable sourcing out there. We shouldn't be the first source to report on something, if anything, we should be the last. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 09:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia:Notability (books) Yep. Winning a major literary award is enough. I suppose the question comes down to whether Webcomics awards count as major enough, because we ought to be consistant. Adam Cuerden talk 17:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: "from a no primary source perspective, all the articles on individual Pokémon fail" What makes you say this? I quick search at my libray shows over 500 newspapaper and magazine articles that discuss Charmander. Why would you expect there to be no secondary sources for these characters? WP:IDONTLIKEIT? You do know that Pokémon is a huge worldwide craze of toys, books, movies, games, etc., right? --Dragonfiend 21:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

text: I think the whole Pokemon argument is probably best dropped, as there are overstatements on both sides. Not ALL individual Pokemon articles fail to abide by the "no secondary sources" standard, but on the other hand few Pokemon are covered as thoroughly as Charmander, being one of the most common Pokemon in the game. However, I think Adam does make a good point when he says there are very many articles which get much of their information from their primary source. Whether this is a statement that primary sources should be considered valid or that the other articles are poor, is of course debatable. - Zaron 22:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: One more thing, I think I should clarify that I don't in any way mean to say that primary sources should be used for establishing notability. - Zaron 22:38, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Aye, my point was simply that a lot of articles are, by connection with a large trend, or for other reasons, are going to be based on primary sources, and I don't think that that alone should be a reason for deletion, if there's reasons to think it notable. For a less controversial instance, Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution is clearly a notable article - it's one of the most quoted essays on evolution, written by the person who set off the modern synthesis. However, beyond the very brief background section on "the phrase", I would be very surprised to learn anything else wasn't from the original source, and far more surprised to learn that it could be. Adam Cuerden talk 02:55, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Websites of similar reliability to published works"

message: Semi-random brain dump:
* Regardless of the outcome of the WACCA awards deletion discussion, lots of articles exist that are only satisfying one criterion, 
* Regardless of the satisfaction of any criterion, lots of web articles have only primary sources that allow them to be expanded beyond a micro-stub.
The ongoing debate shows that there are things that are (currently) not a good fit to the existing Wikipedia groupthink with regards to sourcing, notability, and verification.  The reliable sources page (which is where most of the above debate should be taking place) has been demonstrated as virtually bulletproof. So...
* What purpuse so other (more permissive) web-content wikis serve as compared to Wikipedia, 
* What is is that any particular web content article gets out of a wikipedia entry, and
* Surely we should be trying to build on the the strengths of the various sites?
Soft redirects have been mentioned before as one example, but I'd like to see some broader discussion here.  Why exactly is it that we keep having these (extremely passionate) discussions?
brenneman 07:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  groupthink 

message: I think this is the root of the problem, this statement.  To me it's utterly false, incorrect to it's core.  Directions to my house don't belong here, but they have value.  It's quite possible for things to be "valuable" but still not go here.  What would be wrong with severe "pure" stubs (probably grouped in some way into larger articles) with soft redirects to comixpedia? - brenneman 05:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "What we do by deleting, or even nominating for deletion, is we label the information in the article as having '''no value.'''" 

message: This has come up on the village pump, etc, before, and this talk page has mentioned. I get the sense that anyone in the community who cares one way or the other knows where to find the discussion. The one audience that I think we're missing are the people who cite the page and are generally satisfied with the contents, or who get it cited to them and feel resigned to it since, hey, it's a guideline. That's why I wanted the disputed tag up - to indicate "This guideline is under substantial debate, and may change in the near future, see talk page" - maybe we need a new tag for that. Something to "pull" in casual readers to get more community participation. --Random832(tc) 22:00, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Mainly to encourge participation, and help hold off any bad-publicity major deletions. Adam Cuerden talk 08:19, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "bad publicity" is wildly over-stated.  A couple of guys on a couple of blogs in the webcomics zone have kicked a stink, but that's hardly new.  Really, all kidding aside, this is a fairly stable guideline. - brenneman 23:27, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed tag? 

message: I'm sure this will get me labled the spawn of bob, accused of bad faith, having hitler's love child, or worse, but it's an obvious question: Should winning (or being multiple nominated for) an award that barely squeaks by our baseline requirements for having an article be enough to include another article?  "The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization."
If we limit ourselves to what comes from a reliable source and 'fail to rely almost entirely on the primary source, that means articles of this type would be stubs of the nature of "Foo is written by bar and won award foobar in 2007."  To me this seems a sub-optimal solution.
I've proposed at leat one other solution above, soft redirects to comixpedia.  Another option would be grouping things by the "syndicate" that published them.  I'd like to hear more porductive suggestions.
brenneman 07:10, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. Many articles are, in fact, based, or based in part, on the primary source. For instance, every single "Synopsis" section of a book, play, movie, or opera can almost be guaranteed to be primary source. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. As well, I'd actually be inclined to say winners of awards could well be more notable than the awards themselves, as few people pay much attention to awards, but they're a useful indication of strong interest in a subject awarded one, hence notability. Having a short article setting out the basic plotline and characters of notable comics is quite sufficient to encyclopedic coverage. Indeed, most encyclopedias have quite a number of short articles on less important, but still notable things. Why should Wikipedia be different, and why should we judge every article by its potential to reach FA, when B class or GA may be sufficient information? Adam Cuerden talk 07:14, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:NOT: "Wikipedia articles on works of fiction should contain real-world context and sourced analysis, offering detail on a work's achievements, impact or historical significance, not solely a summary of that work's plot. A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger topic." So, no, short articles setting out the basic plotline and characters is not what we are after. As far as soft-redirects go, I'm open to the idea, as long as there is some standard for them -- since Comixpedia.org has no content policies that I can tell, I don't think it woudl be a good idea to soft redirect readers from  Wikipedia to hoaxes and attack pages over on Comixpedia. As fars as the question of whether a website winning an award that at best barely meets our notability standards automatically confers notability to every website it gives a nomination or award to -- no. -- Dragonfiend 20:02, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That seems contentious and opposed to actual practice. I think I'll put up a query on that talk page. Adam Cuerden talk 20:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Having talked on the relevant talk page, it's become fairly clear that this is simply a statement that articles need to have context. This is somewhat harder for web-based content, however, if we allow notable blogs and independent (though web-based) reviews from the many internet "news and reviews" sites made by groups with editors, (without requiring particular notability, merely reliability from them), context should be quite possible. Adam Cuerden talk 21:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Awards portion of the guideline 

message: There appears to be the opinion held by some that the webzine Comixpedia is a reliable source. Per WP:ATT, "Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. ... In general, the most reliable sources are books and journals published by universities; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals that are published by known publishing houses. What these have in common is process and approval between document creation and publication. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." Others hold the opinion that the webzine Comixpedia is a questionable source. Per WP:ATT, "A questionable source is one with no editorial oversight or fact-checking process, or with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as fringe or extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. Questionable sources may only be used in articles about themselves." So, let's look at a couple of months worth of Comixpedia articles and see what we find. Let's start by looking at their "magazine articles" from the most recent complete month, January 2007, as well as six months ago, June 2006. --Dragonfiend 22:09, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Looking at Comixpedia "magazine articles" 

message: You missed an important line out of your quotation of WP:ATT above, namely How reliable a source is depends on context; what is reliable in one topic may not be in another. I find it an odd omission, it's the only line omitted and is relevant to the debate.  Dragonfiend, you are trying to declare Comixpedia an unreliable source period.  That's not how we work on Wikipedia, nothing is ever an unreliable source period.  I'm not interested in having such a debate, since it starts from a flawed premise.  Comixpedia will at times be a reliable source.  Examples would be Campbell's column on the history of webcomics, the review of Get Your War On by David Rees by Whitney which has been cited by another source and so on and so forth. Yes, we can go through that list and work out which are reliable and which aren't, and when they would be reliable and when they wouldn't, but it is a futile and circular argument.  How reliable a source is depends on context; what is reliable in one topic may not be in another. I'm sorry, but I can't see any value to this. It's quite clear you aren't prepared to concede ground, I won't spend another three days arguing over where and how articles from your selection above may and may not be reliable sources.  You've made your position clear.  You will not ever accept Comixpedia as a source.  How on earth are we supposed to debate the point from that starting position?  Hiding Talk  14:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How reliable a source is depends on context; what is reliable in one topic may not be in another

message: "Common sense", literally: the perception held by most people. If the deletion of an article sparks an uproar, that means it's notable. People are writing notes about it! </facetious> :P
Why do we have notability criteria in the first place? The purpose of notability rules is to stop Wikipedia being cluttered up with pages that nobody wants to read. Notability rules are not there to stop articles from breaking notability rules.
Next time you have to explain to the 847th Wiki-n00b what WP:N is and why the site he visits every day doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, remember that clueless though they are, they are still an audience. They're only "webcomic warriors" because they're webcomic readers, and the fact that they are annoying you proves that they're out there; so there should be no need for an external validation.
THAT should be the definition of notability: "does any significant number of people want to read this?" If the current guidelines cause a page to be denied to a significant potential audience, those guidelines are therefore faulty and should be changed or relaxed.
Admins seem to get caught up in the structure of the place and forget: Wikipedia exists to assist people, not vice versa.59.167.80.170 13:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia.  It isn't a website about everything popular.  There are tons of websites that have a foeew hundred members that easily could bring them here and start an "uproar", same with all those schoolyard games people make up; but, that does not make them encyclopedic. --Simonkoldyk 16:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but when a guideline is failing to recognize the encyclopedic and notable items that are out there, there's a problem. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

text: "But Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia." Not really. It's not a traditional encyclopedia, and it loses its great advantage if it tries to imitate one. Traditional encyclopedias were forced to maintain high standards of notability because of serious limits on available space, production costs and human effort. Wikipedia faces no such challenges - indeed, deleting a page can take up more of both server space and human effort if it generates this level of arguments and attempts to recreate the article. Also, in the cases of the main webcomics that are causing such controversy, we're not talking about "a few hundred members" but an audience of many thousands. (I go to work, I meet webcomic fans. I go shopping, I see webcomic t-shirts. I go to university, I meet more webcomic fans. I row a boat, and the boat rowing past me has people singing a webcomic theme song. I go on an internet forum for a TV show, people make webcomic references. I surf the blog networks, every second person has a webcomic icon. They're everywhere.) The notability rules say "wait until other people write about it first", but why should Wikipedia wait for others to start the ball rolling in a case so obviously noteworthy as this? I'd say the web notability guidelines are being enforced as law in many cases that should be textbook examples for WP:IAR - see Wikipedia:Use_common_sense. 59.167.80.170 03:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The persistent controversy shows that the notability criteria violate common sense 

message: As per the discussion on the Notability discussion page, the notability guideline suffers from a lack of consensus. Until that is cleared up, this page should be marked as disputed. -Xiroth 06:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputed

message: I have a user asking me about section 3 of WP:WEB (content distribution). Does this eBook on tradeBit satisfy that notability clause? Thanks for your time. --Brad Beattie (talk) 04:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the feedback, Fiend. Much appreciated. --Brad Beattie (talk) 05:39, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability inquiry 

message: As discussed above (# "Reliable Sources?"), there is a problem to prove the reliability for a MMOG game. Currently, the administrators check the reliability of a game by Google hits like in case of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BattleMaster (second nomination). 
In fact it is VERY UNFAIR, because a game that is for FREE has naturally less hits than a game that you must buy - all the Amazons, eBays, Online shops etc. pomp the Google hits up (like for Anarchy Online). It is obvious that the games you must buy will have more reviews in the "independent sources" than the games you get for free. In this situation, a freeware game will always lose any Google hit check by administrators and all the freeware game articles are doomed just because nobody paid for the advertisement for them.
The rules of checking the "Reliability" of the game MUST be changed, otherwise you will turn Wikipedia to the online shop catalogue!  Merewyn 18:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is a Wikipeida bias against Free qua Gratis --- especially if the product uses a licence that is militantly gratis. There is also a Wikipedia bias against that which is outside of mainstream culture.  Combine those two biases, and webcomics, "free" games, and the like will eventually be removed from Wikipedia on the grounds that they fail WP:N. My solution would be for every AfD submitted by an individual, 1000 [one thousand] articles need to cleaned up by that individual, with full citations added. If you don't have the knowledge to clean up 1,000 articles then you don't have the knowledge to determine whether or not an article really fails WP:N, and should be a candidate for deletion.67.136.147.116 08:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, please. WP:N is very simple - we need reliable, independent sources that focus on the subject. To suggest that this is a difficult judgement is ridiculous. We wouldn't have to delete so many articles if people read the bolded text saying "Wikipedia is not an advertising service" and "Articles that do not cite reliable published sources are likely to be deleted". --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Commercial games are made by paid teams of professionals. Therefore they are generally (not always) of higher quality, they are longer, have better support, etc. Therefore they are of more interest to a magazine's readers. Therefore the magazine will print reviews about them in order to attract readers. Gaming magazines still review plenty of freeware games that they judge to be of sufficient interest, and the most notable receive in-depth coverage on a par with that given to commercial games. Dwarf Fortress had a two-page spread in PC Gamer a few months ago, the more forgettable commercial games only get a single column. If BattleMaster has not received such reviews, it's not because there is a conspiracy, it's because it isn't notable. --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:55, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliable Sources for a game? Or advertisement catalogue instead of encyclopedia

message: Does Wikipedia itself conform with its own policy on attribution to reliable sources. Especially, when we keep in mind that primary sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability ?
 Actually, when you try to find any independent source writing of Wikipedia, the Google returns only the Main Page in all the languages of the world. Additionally, the content of articles happens to be questionned, false or even a hoax. So, how do you proove the WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:N for the Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia? Merewyn 10:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what you mean. Our article on ourselves cites numerous reliable secondary sources from print and web media. Finding such sources is easier with a service like Factiva or LexisNexis than Google. --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:00, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Hmmm... but when you try to cite Wikipedia as a source in your scientific article you will be laughed out loud and your article rejected from any serious journal. Hence, Wikipedia as a source of knowledge, is it a reliable source actually? Even when looking at Wikipedia own criteria, does Wikipedia conform with those own criteria honestly? Or we should agree with the oponents that Wikipedia is only a CATALOGUE of reliable sources (listing reliable secondary sources is a main criterium for article existance, otherwise it will be deleted) rather than a reliable source by its own..... Merewyn 19:12, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No encyclopedia is a proper source for "serious" work.  They only give you an overview, and point you to other, better sources.  Friday (talk) 19:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Does it meet its own criteria?  Yes.  It has been the subject of multiple non-trivial works from reliable sources.  A good example is Nature's comparison of Wikipedia to Britannica.  Nature is reliable, the comparison was non-trivial, and Britannica even published a rebuttal.  Plenty more in the article itself.  Chris cheese whine 19:22, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does WIKIPEDIA conform with its own criteria? 

message: Since the general notability guideline is central to most sub-pages, someone came up with the idea of creating a centralized template which will be consistent among the permutations from WP:N.  Please see whether we can make this work here.  The text is meant to be fairly generic, but it may make sense to add text following the template for fine tuning, or help us to make the template more applicable if it is not reflecting the consensus for notability.  I certainly didn't get everything that I wanted, but I'm very happy to see the compromises that make this a fairly representive of the attitude of the project.  --Kevin Murray 01:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The centralized template looks good.  --Dragonfiend 17:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The version including  is, on the face of it, inferior to the prior version.  It loses the (crucial) idea that the sources must be about the web content itself, which is a perennial problem when dealing with Internet-related articles.  Footnote 5 (concerning a redirect from yahoo.com to Yahoo! and a stand-alone article for Drugstore.com) appears unacceptably late.  Worst of all, the word ordering implies that it is not the PNC, but the two alternate criteria - having won an award or been distributed by an alternate medium - that are the benchmarks that must be met. —Cryptic 19:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

text: the quote from PNC is patently false - it has nothing to do with "one editor," and instead has to do with protecting consensus.  WP:WEB is poor enough without a poorly thought out template clogging things further.  Keep this as is. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General notability guideline (pnc) template 

message: Was the nubmering in the criteria section changed deliberately?  The way it was done previously (1, 2, 3, with bullet points) made more sense to me than this 1, 2, 1, 2 thing that's going on right now.Chunky Rice 21:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The current text has two lists (1) shows examples of acceptable sources, and (2) discusses what should be demonstrated by the sources. --Kevin Murray 21:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That can't be right, because the first list is about sources that are used for the primary noatability critereon and is not related to the criteria in the second list.  It just seems to me like it's written in a confusing manner.  For organization purposes, I think that all of the criteria should be at the same outline level.Chunky Rice 18:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is the addition of the PNC.  It shouldn't have been added without discussion first, and no consensus exists for the addition.  How it slipped back in without my noticing, I'm not sure, so I'm going back to the status quo until such consensus is demonstrated. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:21, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

text: I see we're still forcing the issue.  Perhaps the proponents can point the consensus here for the tag for us? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:23, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Now that the tag has been deleted, I'm going to move back to where the article sat before the tag was added.  Please talk here first before attempting a reorganization. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:27, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Numbering 

message: Page has now been fully protected due to edit warring, per request on WP:RPP. - Alison☺ 15:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protected 

message: We have an editor who is ignoring the Wikipedia:Three-revert rule (see , , and ) as well as Wikipedia:Consensus. To the right is a handy flowchart of the Wikipedia consensus process. As I hope everyone can see, there is no need to build a new consensus before making an edit; the process for building a new consensus is started by making an edit. So, the half-dozen reverts for "Please seek consensus before making such changes" and "pnc has no consensus here" and "the problem isn't the template, it's the lack of consensus here" are out of process. In order to justify removing a template a single time (let alone over a a half-dozen times) one would indeed need to have a problem with the contents of the template, not just a misunderstanding of the consensus-building process or belief that Wikipedia is a burecracy where a subcommitte must discuss every edit on the talk page for a week or a month before a change can be made. So, I have re-added the template and cleaned-up the section based on the addition of the template (removing redundant links to WP:RS, etc). This does not, as far as I can tell, in any way change the status quo of the actual concepts of this guidline. --Dragonfiend 15:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * I don't really have a problem with the way it is right now.  At least it's coherent.  It was a mess when I first inquired about the nubmering, though.  And I still think that all 3 criteria should be numbered, 1-3.  It doesn't make sense to me to separate them out like they are right now.Chunky Rice 16:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Thanks Chunky, I'm glad you find the clean-up job I did to be more coherent. --Dragonfiend 16:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *For the record, while I don't have a problem with your version, as I said, I was comparing it to Kevin Murray's version, not badlydrawnjeff's, when I said it was more coherent.  I don't really have an opinion on whether or not the pnc tag should be included here.  I haven't really read strong arguments either way.  I just want this page to be clear.Chunky Rice 17:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * I like Dragonfield's version better than mine.  Chunky, you might want to join the broader discussion at the talk pages for WP:N and template:pnc.  A fresh perspective would be very welcome.  I don't want to be rigid, but I think that some steps toward continuity are merited and inevitable. --Kevin Murray 17:38, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] 

message: ATT is no longer policy.
As such the see also section should read as follows:
* Wikipedia:Verifiability
* Wikipedia:Neutral point of view
* Wikipedia:No original research
See change made for ATT: feb 28, 2007
Thanks Miss Mondegreen | Talk   10:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: the protection on this page has expired. CMummert · talk 21:00, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  att no longer policy