Wikipedia talk:Notability/Historical/Non-notability

message: "However, it is valid to use notability as a guide to the placement of information"
What exactly does this mean? It is not clear enough to be in a nutshell statement on its own and the essay does not expand on it. Ansell 04:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Originally it read: "Notability should not be used to argue for or against the inclusion of information on Wikipedia – instead, official guidelines and policy relating to NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability should be used. However, it is valid to use it as a guide to the placement of that information." Note the "that" not present in the version you removed. (See discussion above and revision as of 27th July of main page.) Someone edited it. Personally I think their edited version is less clear, but as I wrote the original version I was working under the assumption that my view on the matter was somewhat biased, so I wasn't going to change it back. If you agree with me, feel free to change it back. --cfp 11:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps that wasn't what you thought was unclear though. Basically what I/we meant was that if you have an article on stand up comedy, for example, it's valid to use notability to determine which stand up comics you mention on that page. But if your (hypothetical) neighbour Alice thinks she's a comedian and does stand up in her garage then there's nothing stopping her having her own page. --cfp 11:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would not see the issue with the neighbour as a "Notability" issue at all for Wikipedia purposes. If there are enough people who comment on her in places that could be accessed by a Wikipedian for verification purposes, then I would see her article as being viable. By confusing the issue with the non-consensus notability definition that seems to be worked with by people attempting to write these guidelines I think that they forget the official policies and that anything which fits the five "pillars" can and will be included. Ansell 23:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point is not whether her article is viable, it's whether she should be mentioned/linked on the main stand up comedy page. I.e. we use notability to determine where the information is, not whether it's there at all. Maybe I didn't understand you though. Could you explain what needs clarifying a bit? --cfp 23:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

text: However, it is valid to use notability as a criterion for determining which among several articles should include the information under consideration.
Would that formulation be acceptable to everyone?  Note that this is discussed in the essay, at WP:NNOT#Merging.  -- JimR 07:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, that's definitely clearer than my original or what we have now IMHO. --cfp 21:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nutshell statement 

message: Few months ago we had failed Proposal for defining "notability" in Wikipedia context. It was rejected because it did not get 75 percent support. Same voting procedure should be used now.--Teveten 15:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree there is still a lot of work that has to be done to this proposal if we want it to have even the tiniest chance of passing. Do not underestimate the amount of opposition this proposal will have. --cfp 23:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My point is, that i dont think this proposal will (or should) ever pass. Therefore, this conversation is futile. We should vote to get this thing closed.--Teveten 05:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK well may I suggest you go and work on a proposal you think could and should pass. Meanwhile us who believe this proposal could and should pass will continue to work on it. You are not being personally inconvenienced by this discussion taking a long time so I fail to see any non-malicious reason as to why you would want it closed already. --cfp 12:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Why are you proposing something in order to get it falsified by consensus? That has never been the wiki-way. You cannot nullify this concept by getting a vote to close, this is an ongoing process. Ansell 23:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: We should vote now

message: This discussion happens quite frequently (once or twice a year), but with different participants each time as people come and go from Wikipedia. It's worth noting that nowadays, with Wikipedia the size that it is, you're highly unlikely to gain consensus on something so controversial.
FWIW, I prefer Jimbo's definition - essentially, if it's verifiable it can go in, if not it's out. That kinda short-circuits the whole "notability" thing quite neatly. Dan100 (Talk) 08:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that is broadly what we are arguing for.--cfp 10:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exactly, this would-be policy is meant to make that short-circuit standard - instead of optional. Fresheneesz 06:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Unfortunately, as stated in the section above, there are people who want to short-circuit the short-circuit and kill this proposal even though it is based heavily on what Jimbo has said.  (Come to think of it, I'm sure that ignoring Jimbo is subverting m:Foundation issues and m:Power structure at some point.)  As far as I am concerned, this is already policy. --DavidHOzAu 23:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is it that time of year again? 

message: Should I archive any content on this page - its gotten kinda long, and lots of it isn't active discussion. Fresheneesz 18:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Taking care of that now... -GTBacchus(talk) 17:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Archive 

message: I have made a copy edit to the article.  The only thing I can see that needs to be fixed is the section titled Ways of improving non-notable articles.  Perhaps we can fork it off to Wikipedia:List of ways to improve notability in articles or Help:How to improve notability in articles?  Anyway, once we are finished polishing, we can get consensus for this as a guideline— I don't think it could be a policy because "use the policies, newbs!" is circular logic. However, a guideline saying "please use the policies" makes sense. --DavidHOzAu 02:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  So, did you just switch the "misconceptions" section to the top? I disagree with forking, becuase its integral to the proposal, and this page isn't too large to incorporate it (forks diffuse information - a tactic only neccessary to keep pages from becomming too huge). Also, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with the "use the policies, newbs!" argument. Fresheneesz 03:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I moved it to the top.  Okay, we shouldn't fork it.  I meant that a policy page that encouraged editors to use existing policy seems kind of a redundant.  However, a guideline stating "follow policy- don't substitute notability for verifiability" does make sense: it is no longer a self reference.  If it were policy, it would have to be something new instead of "this is a policy page - follow policy".  I just meant that getting consensus for  is probably more marketable. --DavidHOzAu 07:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, this could be policy, it's just that sometimes I have strange ideas about hierarchies. --DavidHOzAu 07:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *So you want to create a policy that forbids common practice? Good luck with that. >Radiant< 15:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Lets keep this a guideline proposal. One reason to not have this as policy anywhere in the near future is because, as radiant says, "notability" is a term that is commonly used. However, as a guideline, we can *encourage* people to avoid using notability, not forbid it. Fresheneesz 19:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  One thing to clean up 

message: I think this proposal needs a little more streamlining. First and foremost, it needs organization. A concise set of the actual guidlines should appear at the top, and at the top or in the first header or two only. Second should be a *summary* of the reasons for this proposal - all refering back to the essay for more information. I think by putting the essay on a separate page, we undercut its usefulness - a summary section should restore that. Third should be the misconceptions - those are for the minority of people who come here and misconstrue the page - they shouldn't be priority on the page. We should however refer to the misconceptions in the beggining, to give them better visibility.
In the misconceptions, we should add that this guideline doesn't violate NOT, and why thats so. Of course, if it does infact violate NOT, we need to deal with that. Also, the actual guidelines need to be consolidated, and if possible, made more clear. Its much easier to do this in a group, so even if your comment is just "I don't agree", I'd appreciate comment. Fresheneesz 09:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Streamlining 

message: Notability is important and should become a policy for Wikipedia because there are cases where verifiable opinions do not belong in certain parts of Wikipedia. For example, it is verifiable that there are people that believe the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is peering into the "deepest, darkest secrets of God", but even though this is a verifiable quote it is not notable with respect to the actual article on the subject of the HUDF. On the other hand, it might be reasonable to mention this verifiable opinion in another article where the opinion may be more notable. Notability enables editors to make editorial decisions about what ideas deserve mention in an article and what ideas deserve exclusion. To put it another way, we don't want the article on time to include mention of time cube just because Gene Ray's opinions are verifiable. The reason why time cube is excluded from the article on time is because of notability. --ScienceApologist 22:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would have thought that the reason it's excluded from the article on time is WP:NPOV#Undue weight, which is policy and has nothing to do with notability. Ziggurat 00:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Also we explicitly allow notability to be used as a guideline as to where in WP information should be placed. --cfp 11:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For an example of that, see writing about fiction and the fiction inclusion guideline. --DavidHOzAu 06:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why notability is important

message: Most local newspapers run a regular obituary section -- several paragraphs on every person in the area who has died. Clearly every person is important to someone, at least their immediate family and closest friends. Given the published obituary, they are equally verifiable. Most of the same people would also be noted by local newspapers at the time they were born, and married - so that would be three unrelated mentions for most people who lived in an area with a local newspaper. No doubt one or more of their immediate family and closest friends would feel strongly enough about them to write very similar paragraphs for the Wikipedia as for the local newspaper.
Notability is the only factor stopping Wikipedia being flooded by an unmaintainable stream of these obituary articles. The disambiguation page for relatively common names is already long - see Tom Jones, Michael Jackson (disambiguation) - already tens of names each. Without Notability, these pages would be tens of thousands of names each, and every name would become a disambiguation page, while the common ones would need to be nested, so Tom Jones (telephone repairman, Cincinatti, Ohio) would need to be a disambiguation page. AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That hasn't happened yet, so it seems a little doom-saying to prognosticate such a possibility. Nevertheless, I don't agree with your assessment that it's Wikipedia:Notability guidelines keeping such an event from happening. WP:NOT does treat this as a special case (NOT genealogical entries), but one could easily say that the totality of verifiable sources provided for such a person is insufficient to provide a neutral point of view (how do we know that Tom Jones wasn't an awful telephone repairman who insulted all his customers?). Also, as is often pointed out, birth and death notices are not reliable sources, because there's no process of editorial oversight and fact-checking; effectively they're classified ads with a particular purpose. Ziggurat 22:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yea, people not only need to be verifiable, but also need to assert significance. The fact that they died, or were born, or were married, or were a repairman, does not assert any significance. Even if they could, obituaries are written in a POV fasion, usually constrewing the dead as good people, as a way of honoring them. Fresheneesz 06:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I would like to add that WP:VAIN already cover this and happens to be an accepted guideline; it's good stuff.  Let's keep this article on topic, hmmm?  (Besides, even if that problem does happen, we can always make a separate project called wikituary.) --DavidHOzAu 06:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Since a lot of obituaries are primary sources, WP:NOR would also apply here.  No need to invoke notability to exclude such things.  JYolkowski // talk 15:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just remember that verifiability isn't the only thing that articles must follow. However, non-ad obituaries still are most likely written in a POV style, are limitedly verifiable (ie, only in one or two local newspapers that wikipedians would never have access to without a huge effort), and most of those people can't assert their significance (being dead isn't a new thing). Fresheneesz 19:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flood of local newspaper obituaries 

message: Hi.
I think this might be good (I've been arguing here for "rigor" etc. in regards to this whole "notability" thing), since it gives a little more "substance" or whatever you want to call it -- ie. fundamental Wikipedia policy (WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT) therefore becomes the arbiter of what can and cannot be included in Wikipedia -- and not fuzzy, VAGUE "notability" ideas. It _is_ possible to write an article about something that some people consider "non-notable" agreeing with these policies if reliable, verifiable sources exist. 70.101.147.60 08:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Radiant, he meant that its possible to write, defend, and keep those types of articles. Did you really think he was speculating at the possibility that someone can write something? Fresheneesz 18:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think his comments did not reflect our actual practice, hence my response. We frequently get articles that fail "notability ideas" and we delete them as a measure to keep up the quality of the encyclopedia. >Radiant< 18:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There really are articles that get deleted despite having reliable, verifiable sources? That seems to be a remarkable claim, given that every notability guideline has a 'clause' that a source with multiple reliable third-party (etc. etc.) sources should not be deleted. Can you give some examples? Ziggurat 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Check the AFD logs, you'll see plenty of things being deleted for non-notability. >Radiant< 21:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: That's not what the anon is saying at all. Check the comment, specifically "It _is_ possible to write an article about something that some people consider "non-notable" agreeing with these policies if reliable, verifiable sources exist." You suggest that such articles, i.e. those considered non-notable but that happen to have reliable, verifiable sources, do get deleted. I'm surprised, given that the notability guidelines all state that such articles shouldn't be deleted, (presumably because such sources demonstrate notability). See, for example, WP:BIO ("The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person."), WP:CORP ("The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself."), WP:MUSIC ("Has been featured in multiple non-trivial published works in reliable and reputable media"), and so forth. Again, I'll ask for specific examples of this kind, because I don't think they exist (and if they do, I don't think they're following the notability guidelines). Ziggurat 21:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This should explain the argument.  >Radiant< 21:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: In which case then, "notability" would equal having such sources, etc. making the idea of having it as something separate from verfiability, neutral point of view, etc. very odd. What I'm pointing out is that all that should be needed to determine what can and cannot be included are WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT, but not some separate "notability policy" that provides additional stipulations. WP:V and WP:RS seem adequate enough. 70.101.147.60 23:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I like the first part of that page a lot, thanks for pointing it out. What this is effectively saying is that notability=verifiability (I don't buy the counter-argument at the end, however, which is why I say that notability is redundant). The second part seems to imply that secondary conditions can allow an article to override verifiability requirements, which is to me an extraordinary and fundamentally flawed proposition (and one that seems to get shot down whenever it is proposed in a more general forum). But I've yet to see an example of a deletion such as you describe, and I'm serious in that request: something that is verifiable, but that has been deleted. If there are hundreds every day it must be simple just to pick one out. Ziggurat 21:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: The thing is, is what should be "allowed"? We have the policies of neutral point of view, no original research, verifiability, and "what Wikipedia is not". But the way this seems is that there is a fifth, that is distinct but is not formalized as much as those: notability. But what exactly makes something notable -- it has to be formalized like the other four if it should become one of those core content-governing policies. If it means that it should appear in a "significant" source, then it would seem best handled through WP:RS and then WP:N is just redundant. 70.101.147.60 23:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Um, taking a look at the AfD, the nom was specifically for lack of verifiability, and I don't see any mention of those sources in said AfD. (not being an admin, I can't check, but I would be surprised if the sources you mention above satisfied WP:RS). Ziggurat 22:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Three people in the debate said NN. However, you're basically asking me to do the research to disprove your assumptions - whereas you could easily do your own research in an attempt to prove them. You don't need admin rights for that. >Radiant< 22:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, what I'm essentially saying is that I have yet to see a real article which did satisfy verifiability, NPOV, and OR requirements, but which failed notability and were thus deleted (which is how I interpret your claim at the top of this discussion!). I did have a look for any online sources for an article on David Enoch, and found none sufficient for an article (the Olympiad database certainly wasn't, and I haven't been able to locate the schizophrenia commentary). From my perspective, I'm asking for evidence or proof of your original assumption. Please excuse me if I'm coming across as rude, but I just haven't seen any articles that really need notability criteria in order to be deleted, so those criteria just seem redundant (and editing-instruction bloat). It's difficult to prove a negative point unless someone can show me a good counterexample showing where they are needed. Ziggurat 23:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this happens too often.  As an administrator, I have never closed an AfD as delete when the article undisputably met our three core content policies.  JYolkowski // talk 01:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As another example, :Category:Victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks used to be a lot bigger, and all those people are verifiable from newspaper articles. The excess was deleted on grounds that Wikipedia is not a memorial. >Radiant< 14:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Please pick out one example - its not easy to find something thats *no longer* in the link you provided. I would guess that "those people" were not verified in multiple reliable sources, and probably couldn't assert significance (CSD:A7). Give us one i'm wrong about.  Fresheneesz 18:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think this might be good. 

message: The following is a non-binding, non-decision-making, purely information-gathering poll.  Its intent is to gauge community opinion regarding the use of notability as an inclusion criterion or exclusion criterion at Wikipedia.  The form of the poll is that of a list of statements, with places for people to comment in support of or opposition to each statement.
Any editor is welcome to add additional statements about which to gather comments.
Please do not modify any statement about which people have already commented, as this can produce misleading results.
===Statements for comment===
Non-notability (according to some definition) is a valid reason for deleting otherwise verifiable material from Wikipedia.
;Comments in support
#Using the notability criterion explained at User:Uncle G/On notability, yes. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *In the clause you quote from WP:WEB the idea was that distribution sources which qualified for an article would constitute as well known in that instance. Notability is actually implicit in our editorial guidance, all of which asks that an article describe the significance of its topic to the reader.  Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *This does beg the question of whether a neutral article can be written solely from a primary source? Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe I still don't understand what you mean, but in my view, we shouldn't use sources to see if they think its notable, we should use sources to verify that 1. the information we have is true, and 2. the information we have is information that more than just a few people care about. If the information we have is verified in multiple reliable sourced, to whatever extent, it should be considered notable, but of course by notable, i mean verifiable, NPOV, and non-OR. Fresheneesz 19:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Perhaps.  But take a look at the detailed notability guidelines and proposed guidelines that cover a large number of subjects.  Clearly, these go far beyond this definition of notability. · j e r s y k o talk · 13:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Information-gathering straw-poll 

message: Non-notability (according to some definition) is a valid reason for deleting otherwise verifiable material from Wikipedia.
;Comments in support
#Using the notability criterion explained at User:Uncle G/On notability, yes. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *In the clause you quote from WP:WEB the idea was that distribution sources which qualified for an article would constitute as well known in that instance. Notability is actually implicit in our editorial guidance, all of which asks that an article describe the significance of its topic to the reader.  Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *This does beg the question of whether a neutral article can be written solely from a primary source? Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Statements for comment

message: I think a lot of the disagreement in the poll is really about different peoples' ideas of what notability means.  For many editors, notability is determined by the extent of a subject's coverage in independant sources.  Many of those saying "notability is not relevant" would, I suspect, change their minds if they were using that definition.  Friday (talk) 04:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe I still don't understand what you mean, but in my view, we shouldn't use sources to see if they think its notable, we should use sources to verify that 1. the information we have is true, and 2. the information we have is information that more than just a few people care about. If the information we have is verified in multiple reliable sourced, to whatever extent, it should be considered notable, but of course by notable, i mean verifiable, NPOV, and non-OR. Fresheneesz 19:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps.  But take a look at the detailed notability guidelines and proposed guidelines that cover a large number of subjects.  Clearly, these go far beyond this definition of notability. · j e r s y k o talk · 13:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lots of miscommunication

message: I think a critical factor being missed is that the coverage needs to be non-trivial. Take the case of Simon Pulsifer: while he was interviewed in a number of sources (all of which are well past the WP:RS bar), but the coverage of him was nothing but a human-interest framing device for the main topic of the article, which was Wikipedia.
There are lots of things that appear to be noteworthy if you're doing nothing but counting the number of times they're covered in the news, but a distinction must be drawn between trivial and non-trivial coverage, meaning that there's still a role for editor discretion in defining "non-notable" for each individual case. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely.  Some of the guidelines adequately reflect this idea, some probably don't.  A football hero at my high school was mentioned in Sports Illustrated (certainly near the top of reputable sources, is its subject area), but this doesn't mean he could have had a biography article about him.  If SI had done a major article on him specifically, that'd be a different story.  Editor discretion is essential in evaluating the sources presented.  Friday (talk) 04:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  But see, you're talking about a *subject*. A subject cannot be verifiable in full, only information *about* the subject can be verifiable. If the subject is mentioned in a million newspapers just by name, but nothing more - then we could probably put up a verifiable article about him, having his name, and being in a million newspapers. Going on to say what he did, where he was from, etc - would be unverfiable, and thus material that should not be on wikipedia. Fresheneesz 19:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the point? —Centrx→talk • 19:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The point that I think Fresheneesz was trying to make was that the verifiability policy cannot determine whether the subject of articles is verifiable, only whether specific facts about the subject are verifiable. Ansell 07:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Thats where merging comes into play - not deletion. 24.254.87.52 08:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Very often there's no logical or desirable merge target. Not every single fact needs to be retained; remember, births, marriages, deaths, nearly every single building, nearly every crime, every book with an ISBN number, every telephone number and home address, the hobby of every person who is mentioned in passing in a human interest story, and many other things are trivially verifiable but of little interest since they can't be assembled into anything useful. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  If theres no desirable place to merge - that is exactly when you leave it as a stub. Keep in mind that almost everything has a broader category, I doubt theres anything that wouldn't have a suitable merging spot if it needed to be merged somewhere. Fresheneesz 23:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Or delete it, what with Wikipedia not being an indiscriminate collection of information and everything. There is a difference between knowledge and random facts (and especially factoids). Guy 00:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  We're talking about info thats verifiable by multiple reliable sources. Stuff like that simply shouldn't be deleted. And i'm not talking about phone book entries here. Fresheneesz 19:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Example, please?  In the abstract, I have to admit I don't know what you're talking about. -GTBacchus(talk) 17:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Where is it impossible to merge something? I don't think its possible to have unmergable unexpandable stub info. Fresheneesz 07:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For example, if you were hit by a car and killed and someone wrote a stub about you based on the obituary. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Give me something that wouldn't be deleted based on unverifiability - as an obituary is not considered a reliable source of information. Something real please. Fresheneesz 07:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, so the car accident is mentioned in the local paper. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Once again, a local paper isn't multiple reliable sources. However, for the sake of argument, if this particular car accident *was* cited in multiple reliable sources, then it is in my opinion that more than just someone cares about this person. It might fall under other scrutiny, including what wikipedia is not, assertion of significance (CSD A7), and guidelines on news. If it stands up to all that, it can be kept as a stub, merged into an article about people who have inexplicably been cited in multiple reliable sources, articles about car accidents, an article about this persons family, company, etc. Wikipedia is huge, and chances are theres a place to put almost anything. Fresheneesz 08:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If three papers have a tiny article (not an obituary) basically saying that "John Doe, 38 years old father of three, was killed last night when he hit a tree while driving under influence", then this is verifiable (by multiple reliable sources), NPOV, and no original research. Still, this would be a useless stub, an article not worth keeping or merging. This is exactly the kind of non notable information that, while meeting those three core policies, still should not be cluttering this encyclopedia (even though it isn't paper). Apart from the family and friends of this person, no one will ever care about this anymore. The newspapers, magazines, TV shows, ... are filled with verifiable information that still isn't important enough to be included here. WP:NOT can be used for deleting this kind of info, but since WP:NOT is not exhaustive at all, we will continue to have discussion. Adding a guideline that would state that having non notable articles is good would only make this worse. Fram 09:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "''Non-trivial'' coverage in [[WP:RS|reliable sources]]" 

message: I've made a suggestion of merging this with Wikipedia:Notability.  I think this still needs a lot of cleanup before doing so, and maybe reword this one and Wikipedia:Notability to both have a bit less than a POV.  Anyway, discussion on this is welcome here.  JYolkowski // talk 22:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Better to simply work on notability.  This is diametrically opposed and lacks any consensus.  Guy 22:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Wikipedia:Notability is actually a description of existing practice, regarding notability.  This essay is more of a manifesto about how a few people would prefer Wikipedia to be. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this is just "a few" people; there are a significant number of people with these beliefs.  JYolkowski // talk 23:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know how many there are.  I know this essay has some problems, and reads much more like a manifesto for change than a description of existing practice.  I don't know how a direct attack on an existing practice can be merged into a description of that process.  Perhaps you see it differently? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As for the first part, it does need a lot of cleanup, I certainly wouldn't want to merge it as-is.  I see the advantages of a merge to be to better define what people mean by "notability" and to reflect the fact that editors have different beliefs as to how important a factor "notability" is in inclusion.  JYolkowski // talk 23:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why not just add what's missing to Wikipedia:Notability without going through any kind of formal merge proposal?  Just make good edits to Wikipedia:Notability, and that should be fine, right?  Your mentioning the definition of "notability" leads to the first problem I have with this essay: in the beginning, you put forward two different definitions of the word, state that the first is the only applicable one, and then proceed to use the second for the rest of the essay, without letting readers know that you're doing that.  It's rather confusing.  If you're interested in definitions of notability, I suggest the one you'll find at User:Uncle G/On notability is quite useful, and enjoys broad support. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: That section's the only one I've rewritten, the rest of the essay may not go along with that. (-:  Anyway, I might do that instead and then just redirect this page there.  JYolkowski // talk 23:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I'm against a merge. WP:NOTABILITY has a clear agenda - to document existing practice and how it relates to policy. This essay is aimed at changing policy. Any mixture would be confused. Stephen B Streater 06:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with you, I just tried to say politely, that it is futile to rewrite this essay.--Teveten 07:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what should really happen, however, arguing to delete or merge this page because some people think it is "non-consensus" has never been the way change happens on wiki's. If there is a kerfuffle happening over this page then there is obviously a few people who disagree with the way the anti-thesis is going about its business. I havn't read recently anyone going against actual established policy though. Further more there is no reason why policy should simply document current practice, if that happened then anything which was currently happening would become accepted... Arguing that it is futile to rewrite an essay is possibly not the most unifying statement that one could make. Kind of shows a loss of hope. Ansell 09:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's OK to have an essay exploring possible improvements. But that is not WP:NOTABILITY, which serves a distinct purpose. Stephen B Streater 10:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Futility is not an issue, it is up to the people that work (or don't work) on this proposal to decide what is futile for them. Calling this futile and trying to prematurely squelch is suggests another adgenda - suggests that you fear this proposal might actually go somewhere. Fresheneesz 23:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fresh, I think the point is that this proposal cannot be merged with Wikipedia:Notability; at best, it could only replace it. Consider WP:IAR and WP:π; they both discuss the same issue, but merging them would be madness, as they describe diametrically opposed versions of those issues. That said, I don't forsee this garnering the amount of support WP:π, a fairly marginal essay, has. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not opposed, in principle, to combining opposites.  In fact, it's much less schizophrenic than having contradictory pages, each pretending the other doesn't exist.  That said, this page isn't ready to merge with anything, at this point. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think there is much risk that this proposal will succeed, but it is a waste of time. —Centrx→talk • 23:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am a little surprised that people actually see this page as a "risk". What is the risk in developing something new? Ansell 00:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Ansell.  Why tell people to stop trying to develop something, that it's a waste of time?  What's the harm? -GTBacchus(talk) 03:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I was just trying to offer a reality check: this proposal won't ever get accepted. Of cource people can rewrite this ad infinitum, it won't be harmful.--Teveten 06:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text:  GTBacchus, it's not "something new", it's something very old and completely at odds with long-standing consensus.  We have numerous subject-specific guidelines which exist to clarify what indicators are likely to predict that an article within that area is likely to have garnered sufficient independent coverage to allow a verifiably neutral article, and we have the very long standing WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information.  This entire proposal says the precise opposite, and any attempt to stop it saying the opposite have been strenuously resisted.  It is a magnet for editors whose articles have been deleted by consensus to pretend that said consensus was invalid and the article should exist anyway, and it's a pretty blatant attempt to do an end-run around the long-standing consensal view that there is some information which is simply too trivial to include.  That's why it would be better to work on the existing pages which clarify how notability is interpreted rather than work on a new one which looks to subvert that.  I have no problem with clarifying notability in more objective terms, so that we get back to the policy basis for it, but trying to bootstrap the idea that notability (which is a shorthand anyway) is not a valid concept in evaluating inclusion is a waste of effort, doomed to failure and a cause of division rather than unity.  Let's all head on over to Wikipedia talk:Notability and work on the page which after all describes existing practice, and see if we can't reduce it to something more meaningful, as well as clarifying the fact that it's descriptive rather than prescriptive.  Guy 10:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

text: (unindent) JzG, As you say, the guidelines are only "indicators", and as such they are not perfect. What is inherently wrong with deriving a specific general scenario about what is deserving, and is possible to write an article about using policies other than the infamous "indiscriminate collection" piece which WP:N seems to focus so much of its time on. This page is not about screwing with the WP:V or WP:OR policies, much the opposite. It aims, IMO, to put them in their proper light, and to expose the cases which fall below the WP:NOT preset criteria, but which are actually able to satisfy the generic base policies. Triviality is more of a subjective concept than one which is linked to the availability of WP:NPOV sources. Please do not think that the authors of this page are trying to subvert discussion at the other talk page. We are not trying to say, lets work as a team... and do it my way either. This is IMO a good faith opportunity to generalise what is a weakly, in terms of logical rigour, based current practice with respect to the most marginal articles contained in Wikipedia. Ansell 22:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Against merger.  Both articles are good, and should be distinct. Mathiastck 17:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  May I remove the merger notice now? Fresheneesz 03:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Got it. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: I started a *very* rough draft of a personal essay on notability here that might be of interest to some that watch this talk page. · j e r s y k o talk · 16:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal essay 

message: This is a non-binding straw poll, attempting to gauge consensus. Please bold your answer to the question (either proposal, rejected, neutral, or comment). Please add a reason to go along with your vote, place your vote after the last vote, and do not rearrange votes in any way. People can vote twice, in which case they should strike their original vote, and make a new one. Vote away: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fresheneesz (talk • contribs) 23:58, 12 October 2006  (UTC)
* proposal or above tag. -- Chris chat edits essays 17:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Please don't wiki-lawyer.  In theory, a handful of people could continue discussing this ad infinitum.  That won't change the fact that it's been rejected by the community.  Quoth the same page, "a rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected."  Incidentally, I've reworded the proposal description to eliminate the unintentional loophole that you cited.  —David Levy 19:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Which "community" rejected this? Theres a very few people who wanted to shut down this page, and they don't comprise a "community". Fresheneesz 22:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Technically, it could go either way at the moment, but I have to agree that the proposal in general does not even stand a whelk's chance in a supernova in its present state, if only because of the pathetic edit war over the status of the unfinished proposal. The ironic thing is that if Fresheneesz's original straw poll hadn't been removed we could've avoided the entire edit war in the first place. --DavidHOzAu 13:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You miss my point. Even if there was unanimous agreement on this page, then we'd still not have a policy. Every AfD vote demonstrates that at least a substantial part of the community (if not an outright majority) believes notability is a valid criterion for deletion. The fact is then that there is no consensus to denigrate notability, whatever any poll of a few dozens people might conclude. This whole discussion is irrelevant.--Doc 13:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

text: You are right though, there is no consensus based on current practice. Suggest that just call it an  and leave it at that per please do not bite the oldies? ;-) --DavidHOzAu 14:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine by me (this oldie has no teeth with which to bite)--Doc 14:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I can live with that. Fresheneesz 22:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll - tag this page as a proposal or not 

message: I and some others have surprisingly managed to open (widely) the topic of whether the Wikipedia Notability Guideline, the Deletionists' Best Friend, is a valid Wikipedia Guideline at all, on grounds of lack of consensus, lack of objectivity, conflict with Policy, and ramapant abuse in the article deletion processes.  This is probably the last chance to have any major impact on this supposed Guideline (it was just a random essay this summer, but turned into a Guideline on shaky grounds while I was on an extended wikibreak...)  I'm not asking people with concerns about WP:NN to go "vote" or make trouble, or even support my version of what's wrong with Wikipedia:Notability; just express concerns rationally.  The hot spot is W:Wikipedia talk:Notability.  — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Notability Guideline under pressure