Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 13

message: See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matrixism (3rd nomination).  Here, we have an article, Matrixism, which has been mentioned in multiple sources, but in a way some believe to be trivial.  Never mind that the "religion" is noteworthy enough to be mentioned along with others like it on NPR and Australian broadcasting, because Matrixism isn't the subject or receives "significant" coverage in those, we shouldn't bother with it, even though the article itself has numerous citations and isn't stub-sized?  This is a great example as to why the idea of "multiple," "non-trivial" and "significant" need to be tossed by the wayside - it encourages situations like this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright? Looks to me like the sources are trivial and the article should be deleted. We don't need mentions, we need sources. Good, in-depth, detailed sources. These are name drops or blurbs. It's working exactly as it should. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is exactly why it's not working as it should.  Notability is established by the sources - that's what we're looking for, right?  Notability? - and we're allowing lawyering about the sources get in the way of the honesty about the subject.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not "lawyering" to actually examine the sources in question, and say "Hey, they barely said anything about this." That's exactly why non-triviality is and should be required. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's exactly why non-triviality is a non-starter.  To examine the sources bring us to the concept that it's noted in mainstream media on three continents.  That's notabiltiy, right there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't particularly matter. Something can get name-dropped everywhere, but if we don't have sufficient sources for a good, comprehensive article, we shouldn't have the article. Of course, it's not inconceivable that this will receive more detailed attention, and that in the future an article will be workable. If so, we write it then. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As you can see from the article, we already have what you're looking for.  Anything less is misunderstanding actual notability.  I know you disagree with this, and your denial in the face of the evidence is somewhat frustrating to me, but this is exactly what we should be looking for for notability - we have enough information to establish the subject's importance, and we have enough overall sources to make an article.  Why require anything more? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm looking for enough sources to make an article. Right now, that's not there. There are enough sources for a blurb. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then I'm not convinced you're looking at the sources critically.  Sorry. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I believe a critical look is exactly what's being done here, and not just by me. (Certainly, it's not just me who's argued the sourcing is insufficient!) But, we shall see how it turns out. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: What is entirely missing is evidence that anyone actually believes in this purported religion. Anyone can put up a Geocities page and claim numbers. We don't even have a name of a single purported adherent of this thing. FCYTravis 16:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that a necessary figure to have?  I don't see what that would have to do with notability, frankly. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly. It's necessary to establish that this "religion" exists anywhere outside the Geocities site for us to write about it as if it actually exists. Can you provide me with evidence that there is anyone who actually adheres to the purported tenets of Matrixism? FCYTravis 16:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting.  No, I can't answer that question, but I can tell you that there's plenty of information about the notability of this "religion."  International coverage, etc.  That's all I'm concerned with, and all we should be concerned with. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I should throw up an anonymous Geocities site tonight and purport to be the Real Fundamentalist Matrixism (tm) with 10,000 adherents, so that Wikipedia has to report on the "massive fundamentalist split in the Matrix." You see how silly this is now? FCYTravis 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why we're focused on the Geocities site, quite frankly.  Remove that and you still have pretty clear mentions in international media demonstrating its importance to us. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because the Geocities site is the only thing which establishes any of the purported tenets of the religion, or anything else beyond "Wow look, people said there's a religion based on the Matrix." It's the only non-trivial information about what the "religion" is allegedly about. Remove it, and anything sourced to it, from the article, and treat the subject as what it is - a marginally noted spoof religion, not a real "new religious movement," and perhaps the article is salvageable. FCYTravis 16:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

text: But you'd never do that with any other article, and your final statement is false.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The final statement is false? Does this mean you have a more verifiable and reliable source? If so, what is it? mike4ty4 19:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The media has a tendency to repeat things without confirmation if they have been published before. They call it common knowledge but what it does (especially when things are name dropped) is allow inaccurate and largely anecdotal evidence to be published. Just a thought. IvoShandor 17:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A great example of the failure of "significant"/"multiple, non-trivial" and its various permutations

message: Airplane hijackings, Essjay controversies, Virginia Tech massacres, earthquakes... what criteria is used to decide that Wikipedia should include articles on these topics rather than deferring the coverage to Wikinews? Sancho 15:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I'm concerned, news events which have been the coverage of multiple non-trivial coverage in mainstream reliable sources do merit inclusion. However, unless there's a lot of detail available about them as events (e.g. the Virginia Tech massacre), then the event itself shouldn't have an article, but rather should be covered in the biographical articles on the main participants. What I object to is the common deletion argument that, because someone is only notable for being a participant in one news event, that they therefore don't merit a biographical article. It doesn't matter whether their notability is transient; if there are enough independent sources, they should get an article. Walton Need some help? 16:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The term "news event" is a meaningless buzz-word.  An event or entity it is notable or not on its own merits.  Having news coverage may memorialize the subject and lead toward demonstrating notability as may other evidence.  --Kevin Murray 01:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think, actually, that the guideline addresses this-"Notability is generally permanent." If a news event is a "human-interest" or flash-in-the-pan type thing, if a person gets "15 minutes of fame" and is quickly again forgotten, etc., it's not encyclopedic. People will very likely still be studying the :Virginia Tech Massacre many years from today. On the other hand, anything in my local paper here this morning will have been long forgotten by then. Wikinews is a sister project, and we would well-serve both them and ourselves by not stepping too hard on their toes, and by directing those who want to write about news-style events to them. Some events in the news may also be encyclopedic, but we're not the newspaper. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

text: By news event I meant events covered in mainstream media newscasts and newspapers. I didn't know it was just a buzzword... sorry. Sancho 16:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

text: That's an equivalent of the XX-year rule, in more general terms. The problem there has been setting the value of XX. There's   no way of doing it that doesn't get articles on the wrong side of where they ought to be. DGG 03:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  News events, in my opinion, demonstrate one of the main weaknesses in the way the guideline is currently written.  Many news events will be the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable sources and thus presumptively notable per the general guideline.  Seraphimblade properly points to the "Notability is generally permanent" section, but this doesn't jibe very well with the general guideline or the "Notability is not subjective" section.  Ultimately, I don't see a way to completely avoid the inherently subjective nature of notability.  No bright line test for "Wikipedia notability" based on sources will work perfectly, because of things like news stories and cruft.  I think we need to accept that there will always be some element of subjectivity in this guideline and find the most encyclopedic way to build that element into the guideline.  I took a crack at it and I am eagerly awaiting DGG's effort.--Kubigula (talk) 03:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The "Notability is generally permanent" section appears to say exactly the opposite of what Seraphimblade and Kubigula think it says. By SB & K's standard (and I'm not saying they're wrong), I gather that a subject of fleeting interest would not be notable even if it satisfied WP:N's sourcing requirements. But the "generally permananent" section says: If a topic has multiple independent reliable published sources, this is not changed by the frequency of coverage decreasing. Thus, if a topic once satisfied the general notability guidelines, it continues to satisfy it over time. Pan Dan 13:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The way I like to think of this is that once an article is ok'd for Wikipedia it shouldn't be deleted simply because people stop talking about it.  Otherwise you end up potentially losing historical information that might end up being relevant at a later date that is not easy to recover.  Basically if you say that topics should be removed from the encyclopedia if they haven't been recently discussed then you defeat the purpose of having a historical archive. I would rather err on the side of keeping an article on a borderline possibly "flash in the pan" topic than delete articles that appear to be borderline notable at the current time. Dugwiki 16:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is required of a news event in order for it to be considered notable enough for inclusion in Wikipeda rather than Wikinews? 

message: "Significant means more than trivial but less than important" is entering the territory of hair-splitting and attempting to legalistically define every single word. That's not helpful. >Radiant< 15:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Given the way discussions have gone, it's very helpful.  If we're going to have notability guidelines, hairsplitting is an unfortunate byproduct. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Radiant. That sentence tells us nothing until we specifically define what we mean by "trivial" and "important". In any case, I'm hoping that we can avoid the issue with Kubigula's new proposed wording. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oops - my assumption was that's what Radiant was reading - I agree with you, the proposed wording fixes that issue. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bureaucratese alert 

message: There is a guideline at Help:Creating policy‎ which has been tagged as a guideline since May 2005.  There are a few editors trying to eliminate this attempt to regulate how policies and guidelines are created.  The point of contention is substantially that (1) this is top down management inconsistent with WP traditions, and (2) that this does not truly reflect how policies and guidelines have been created (anarchy?).  The guideline itself doesn't appear to be unreasonable but could use some fine tuning.  Those who know me recognize that I advocate consistency; some people accuse me of being legalistic and bureaucratic.  Oh well.  I think that without some structure this guideline infrastructure is going to balloon to the ridiculous WP:CREEP.  Please come join the fun.  --Kevin Murray 20:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Help:Creating policy‎]] 

message: You have got to be joking. No way is this followed through in practice.  Try writing an article on something that was notable 20, 100, 400 years ago that is now largely forgotten and see how long it takes to be deleted as non-notable. --88.109.23.38 22:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Any examples? —Centrx→talk • 22:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually things that were really notable all those years ago are written down in history books, you know. mike4ty4 20:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'd say that notability is actually generally permanent. It's just the problem of recentism that means we have more information about current events. It's much, much harder to find sources on relatively minor historical happenings than it is for similarly minor events that take place today: there are Internet news websites everywhere reporting small things which no one would have written about centuries ago, or if they did the writing would be extremely unlikely to have survived and been documented. It's just an inevitable systematic bias with the Wikipedia project.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability is generally permanent 

message: A few things:
# Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed seems to have pretty broad support from both camps still going back and forth.  If there's no complaints about it in the next few days, I think we can move it in and move on.
# We need to continue discussion on the subjectivity of notability.
# Are we still discussing a possible rename?
Whee. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that we should act on this proposal now (accepting it, I hope) and should keep discussion here. However, I have reverted your removal of the introduction (or "waffle", as you termed it). I think the introduction effectively summarises the debate of the past 3+ months and exposes the nature of "notability". Hopefully, those 200 words will prevent the debate from being repeated. Also, the introduction informs readers about why notability is important rather than merely stating what it is. Feel free to revert my reintroduction of the waffle if you disagree ..... hmm, now I'm hungry. :) Black Falcon (Talk) 03:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:   it depends what kind of an encyclopedia we want to make, and I do not think there is any consensus on that. I see no possible way to prevent the debate from being endlessly reopened, and perhaps it should be, for our standards will change: I think the only solution is to say  "Length of article is proportional to relative importance, as long as there's any usable evidence.  At the low end, a link or reference or list entry. At the high end, a group of articles" and bury the concept of N being a sharp dividing line. DGG 04:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I quite understand that Black Falcon likes waffle, but as a habit, it isn’t good for you.  Suggestion #2 is that it be served for dessert, not breakfast.  The guideline should be written for the first time reader.  It should not waste time getting to the important point.  To satisfy your affection for the history of how we got here, and to reduce the likelihood of reflux, wouldn’t the waffle serve equally as well at the end of the article?  --SmokeyJoe 05:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No waffles for breakfast? What tyranny is this!? :-) Regarding your question, yes and no. We may not need that specific introduction, but we need some kind of introduction to tell readers why they should care about notability. Before presenting a definition of "notability", we need to state the purpose of having a notability guideline in the first place. An introduction also has the added benefit of providing a summary of the guideline for anyone who won't read the guideline in its entirety. By the way, I'm not interested in preserving the history of how we got here per se, but rather think that an explicit statement of the issues would make the ride less bumpy when we travel down this path again (and it's likely that we will). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 06:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My main problem with that proposal is that, quite simply, it's virtually impossible to write an FA on someone who has only been covered in RS in passing. Building articles out of trivial mentions never works - especially with BLPs - and these people are not genuinely notable. Moreschi  Talk 20:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's virtually impossible to write an FA on many things, regardless of their coverage.  Trivial mentions can work for a comprehensive article on a noteworthy subject, but it depends on what the topic is, what the subject is, and what the sources have to say.  Best to leave that possibility open than to shut it down completely. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Entirely disagree to the proposal. Notability is not and should not be considered subjective, and we certainly shouldn't start allowing trivial sourcing to count for it. We certainly should not start to make articles on subjects with only primary, non-independent, and/or trivial sources. In-depth independent reliable coverage must be required, and in almost all cases, by multiple sources. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think you've ever answered this, maybe because I didn't notice or because you weren't asked, but why do you believe notability isn't subjective?  We're never going to agree on the final part, and all I can say is that the evidence suggests people disagree, but as for the former, I don't understand that point of view. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

text: On the waffles (heh) issue, I may be biased, but I think it's important to have a lead that incorporates some of the conversation here and conveys the reality that notability is a very nuanced concept.--Kubigula (talk) 06:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed language and outstanding issues 

message: Are all small villages (or hamlets), rivers (or bodies of water), forests, islands (or islets) and hills notable? Wikipedia:Places of local interest was a failed proposal, but is making stubs on tiny villages acceptable? (I've made several referenced stubs on tiny villages). Is it good, even, fleshing out Wikipedia with missing encyclopedic articles and extending its breadth? Do geography articles just have to adhere to the same notability criteria as other articles? (article must be the primary subject of multiple non-trivial reliable published sources for notability)--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lost, Scotland highlights the surrounding debate.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As for examples of geography articles I've created that I'd like the notability of to be assessed, we have Dinnet and Potarch (two real tiny hamlets in Scotland, both of which I've visited), the River Quoich and Oigh-Sgeir (the latter of which I haven't visited as it is an extremely inaccessible tiny rocky islet).-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there is a good practical reason for this: where would we possibly draw the line? Most such places will have some sort of source, from a local newspaper or guide book. This is one type of article where it makes sense to simply include them all, and skip the debates. The one you mention is an example: there was one undoubted RS, BBC, and another acceptable one, a fairly well known guidebook series. I do not think the same is true of named places that are not inhabited--I think that could be another matter, and I see that AfDs on some conclude as not notable. However, for your islet and your river there are sources, so I think they would be notable in any case. DGG 04:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In answer to your question-in theory, no, they're not all notable, I don't imagine you could find sources for quite a few of these "census-designated places" and the like. In reality, you'll never nail one at AfD, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that we're not a directory, of "places" or anything else. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I just created Tarfside, with bare-bones multiple reliable non-trivial sources. The article is about a tiny, tiny village, but it seems to pass the notability test. What do you think?-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 05:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, that one looks alright, I can see a good potential for expansion from the source material there. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just created Pabay. The thing is that just by looking at maps, as I was just doing, and Googling the names of small places on them for sources, there are countless potentially valid encyclopedic and sourceable articles that do not exist yet. You, however, said that Wikipedia was not a directory. I honestly think that geographic notability is one of the least clear parts of the notability guideline as it stands.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 05:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, well I think I've found an example of a place that would be non-notable in Wikipedia. "Temple of Fiddes" is a census-designated place which I have passed many times, yet it does not actually appear to exist per se - the first Google hit takes you to a messageboard about the fact that there is a huge road sign for it and it doesn't appear to be anything more than one house.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 05:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Update. Longay, Garlogie and Blackburn, Aberdeenshire have all been created. About to create Monymusk.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 15:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Seraphimblade, what did you mean by "you'll never nail one at AfD"? Did you mean to use POV language to describe deletion? I think the larger point is that the community has wisely decided that deletion discussions for populated places are pointless. Any decision on what constitutes a "notable" place is arbitrary and subjective. For example, see two of my favorite cases: Willets Point, Queens and Nothing, Arizona. The first has only one resident, the second I think may be abandoned now, but I could not find RS for that. Dhaluza 15:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It also varies between countries of the world, as well. For example, there are clear differences between what constitutes a 'place' in the United States and what constitutes one in the United Kingdom. Many other countries, especially in the third world, will have many less reliable sources on their smaller settlements.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 15:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of geographical articles 

message: Continuing a conversation from Wikipedia talk:Notability/Proposed...
I don't think anyone can really argue that "notability" (the word in the dictionary sense) is not subjective.  I suppose we could try (and have tried) to define "WP:Notability" as non-subjective, but I think the very lengthy debate here goes to show that this won't work.  If WP:Notability were truly objective, then we wouldn't really need AfD - or AfD would simply be reduced to, "Please provide evidence of coverage in reliable sources" - and we wouldn't need the subject specific guidelines.  We can discuss and hopefully agree on the best and most objective ways to try to measure notability/importance/interest, but I think it's counterproductive to insist that there is some simple objective test for notability.  With all the smart people floating around here, I think we would have found the single magic formula if it existed.--Kubigula (talk) 06:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The word in the dictionary sense, yes, is subjective (which is why I dislike it, and advocate renaming it.) But in terms of actual subjectivity, I don't see it. I can say "First-degree murder is the deliberate killing of another person, with premeditation before the act." That's an objective definition. Now, sometimes there may be difficulty in determining whether a specific killing meets those criteria, i.e., whether the killing was deliberate and with premeditation, or whether the accused was in fact the killer. But that doesn't make the definition subjective, it simply indicates that even with objective criteria there will always be an edge case. I see the primary guideline the same way. Yes, it will have its edge cases, but especially if we can do a better job of defining triviality, there won't be many. I think we have found the magic formula here, I think, more than anything, it just needs to be more widely applied, renamed to something where the dictionary meaning doesn't clash so much with our definition, and made clear that it's really just a logical extension of verifiability, what we're not, and, of course, the fact that this is an encyclopedia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with both of you here. "Notability" is subjective, whereas "has been the subject of multiple-non trivial published reliable sources" is objective, even if it creates the occasional borderline/unclear case, making for a potentially heated AfD debate.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 16:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Murder is fairly objective - one human intentionally kills another.  First degree murder, as in the "worst" kind of murder, is a much more subjective concept.  Different states and different countries have reached different conclusions about what constitutes the worst kind of murder - e.g. what degree of premeditation is required, whether some kind of brutality or heinousness should be an element, what age or mental capacity is required to form the requisite intent etc.  So, you can draft a definition of "first degree murder" with obective elements, but you should recognize that where you draw the line is a subjective choice - say a 13 year old is capable of premeditated murder but a 12 year old is not.  No matter what we call this guideline, there will always be tension in having objective tests for a subjective concept.  I think the best solution is probably to avoid using labels and focus on having the best set of objective tests that we can.  I will try to take another crack at the proposal to reflect some of the issues raised here.--Kubigula (talk) 19:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subjectivity 

message: Over on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norilana Books it's currently being argued by editors that the article does not pass notability requirements. This is despite two accepted experts in the field of science fiction publishing clearly stating that the publisher is notable.
Clearly such common sense indications of notability should not be overridden by arbitrary 'notability requirements'. --Barberio 16:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See WP:IAR. This is a contentious area, though.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 18:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, Wikipedia:Consensus is a policy, whereas the notability documents are only guidelines. Consensus contrary to the notability guidelines may develop in individual cases. This is good. Sancho 18:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I argued to keep it, but only due to the fact that it appears sources are available. If "experts" genuinely do find something noteworthy, they'll write reliable sources, which we can then use for an article. Otherwise, that's just a roundabout form of WP:ILIKEIT. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Notability Guideline seems to trump Common Sense. 

message: After reading this page and /proposed, I'm at a loss for what the disputed tag is for.  It should be easy for someone to come from the article to the talk page and know what's going on, and I'm at a major loss.
Could someone explain what parts are being disputed and what the dispute is about?  Miss Mondegreen  talk  16:25, May 12 2007
:Mainly, it's over the requirement for multiple sources, over what constitutes a trivial source, and over what happens if something passes a subject-specific guideline but fails this one. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd nuance that further by saying that whether this guideline ever had wide consensus is a primary issue. Vocal protagonists for making multiple secondary sources an absolute requirement is a secondary issue that has been the subject of extended discussion in the archives, and repeated revisions in the edit history, even leading to blocks over edit warring. The relationship between the primacy of this overall notability guideline and the subject specific ones is a tertiary concern. But more generally, there is an overriding issue over how this guideline (and the subject specific ones) is used (or abused) at AfD, and the resulting embarrassment this guideline brings to the WP community, especially in press accounts of how the WP definition of Notability conflicts with the views of the outside community (e.g. when journalists write about how their WP bio articles were flagged as non notable). I wish I could attend Wikimania, because it would be interesting to hear what the larger community thinks first hand. Perhaps we will get some second hand accounts? Dhaluza 10:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  what's disputed? 

message: Since the Wikipedia:Article inclusion rewrite seems to have died, can we rename this guideline "Article inclusion"?  That seemed to be the one thing that we had close to consensus about, that the term "notability" was part of the problem.--ragesoss 20:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As much as I hate how it died out, it may not be a bad move, but not until we fix the problems with the wording here first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not convinced we'll ever fix all the problems with the wording. This is the English Wikipedia, not lojban. As such I'd rather move sooner, recommence unending rut later. Nifboy 23:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the rut has been going for nearly 3 months now, an eternity in Wikitime.  I'm not sure what it's going to take at this point. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A page move? (Hope springs eternal) Nifboy 23:42, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ell, I was hoping my bold edit from a couple weeks ago would do it, but that didn't nail it.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming 

message: I've only participated in a few AFD discussions concerning notability, but I have noticed a definite bias toward Internet sources.  There are a number of topics that are notable but don't have a large number of easily accessed web sites devoted to them: newspaper articles aren't always available online, academic journals require special searches, etc.  I have seen at least one Wikipedian using Google hits as an indicator of notability.  While I understand that topics that are easier to research on the Internet are going to be better sourced and receive more attention, it still seems problematic.  Web presence is a sufficient but not necessary condition of notability; there are undoubtedly a number of subjects that fulfill all the prerequisites for notability but don't happen to be readily available on cursory web searches.  Indeed, it seems like it would be important to include these article topics because information isn't immediately available about them on Google or Yahoo.  Has this bias been discussed?  Is there anything that can be done about it? Jordansc 01:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is certainly still required for editors to provide reliable sources for the article's content even if the sources are not internet sources. If it seems that no sources are forthcoming/available, then AfD discussions should use this as a basis for an argument for deletion. However, there is no requirement to have a certain number of sources that are available online, so no AfD discussion should have an argument like, "None of the provided sources are available online". The Google test is a good positive test for potential notability, but not a negative test. If an topic turns up few Google hits, then it's probably just harder to find the sources that are required to keep the article, but they are still needed. I think the only bias that is caused by the difficulty of finding sources for topics that don't have numerous online sources is due to our lazyness :-) If a topic is difficult to source, people will be less likely to create an article on it (at least I would be). If there are many articles that are being left out because of this, perhaps there should be a Wikiproject dedicated to the creation/maintenance of good articles that lack online sources.Sancho 01:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Interesting perception, because my experience has been toward the opposite direction - if it's not printed on a dead tree in some form, it's less likely to be taken seriously.  Yes, the New York Times is online now, but when it comes to Old Media and New Media, the New Media tends to get screwed. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My interpretation is that serious scholarship prefers physically published sources.  Accordingly, if the only sources are internet sources, then the scholarship is more likely to be weak, and the reliablility and independance of the sources is (appropriately) more likely to be challenged.  This is why articles with printed sources are less likely to be seen at AfD.  --SmokeyJoe 02:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Granted, if someone cites print sources the article is less likely to be in AfD, but that does not always happen.  Most people (myself included) don't take the time to go out and find sources outside of Internet venues.  I've noticed several AFD discussions in which an absence of online sources is considered an indicator of an absence of offline sources.  Obviously we shouldn't just give articles the benefit of the doubt - someone needs to actually produce citations print or web-based - but I could see this skewing Wikipedia. Internet phenomena, for example, are easier to source online while some notable academic subjects might not be.  All your base are belong to us has a lengthy entry but, say, Chela Sandoval does not.  The ease with which Internet-centered topics are sourced and the relative difficulty of doing more traditional research means that Wikipedia tends to leans toward popular, recent, national or international and Internet-based phenomena while leaning away from specialist, older, local or regional and print-based subjects.  I could also see this contributing to systemic bias because of Internet access issues. Jordansc 03:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Absence of internet sources is not an indicator of absence of notability. Absence of internet sources for recent pop culture items (movies, books, films, comics, tvseries, and everyone involved with them) is on the other hand a good indicator of absence of notability (always keeping in mind the language barriers: a Thai movie may have no sources on its English title, but lots on its original title). However, the contrary is not true: a large number of internet sources (or at least Google hits) is not as such an indicator of notability. These hits may contain reliable independent sources, but may also consist of fluff posts, forum and blog entries, ads, or completely unrelated hits. A suggested deletion because of "absence of sources" often means that the article gives no sources, and a Google search gives no sources either. For most articles at AfD, this is sufficient (as most are about recent pop culture anyway), but for foreign, older or more esoteric subjects, this may well be insufficient. That's why we have the five day window, so people may produce other sources: and that's why we have undeletion or recreation if people produce these sources only later. A deletion is not the end of the world, it is just an indicator that as far as the Wikipedia editors can currently judge, there are no (or not sufficient) reliable sources for a subject to warrant its inclusion at the moment. No more, no less. Fram 09:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The five day window only applies to AfD. Lots of articles are proded and deleted without going through the full process. The five-day window is way too short for producing offline sources anyway. First there is the lead time in even noticing that something is up for AfD, then you need time to assess and research the topic. I think the proper way to address lack of sourcing is to tag the article, and wait at least 30 days. This gives sufficient notice to unsuspecting readers that the content may not be reliable, and gives editors time to see the problem and address it. Dhaluza 10:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ProD is a different problem, and easier for the contesting editor: if you contest a prod, just by sayng that there are sources available, the ProD is undone and the article is either kept or should go to AfD, where a new five-day period starts. As for the time needed to find sources and the time that should be given to articles / editors to expand: that is a perennial problem, with no easy solution. Some people think the current process is too long as it is, others think it should be a lot slower, consensus seems to be that it is quite right as it is. My experience (which may be biased and is certainly incomplete) is that most articles which get a "sources" tag either get improved very quickly (two days or so), or not at all. Similarly with AfD; the articles which don't get sources during the AfD, very rarely get sources soon thereafter (in a DRV or a recreation). And we have the problem already that way too many of our articles currently are unsourced: keeping more unsourced articles (or at least keeping them longer before considering deletion) will not help in making this a better encyclopedia in most cases. Fram 11:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To see one side of this in action—an editor believing that lack of internet sources and thus access of users to the sources was a fatal problem—take a look at this afd debate and the talk page of the article debated.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope I was quite clear in my above responses that to AfD (or even to tag) such an article (with almost more references than text) is of course absolutely wrong (at least to AfD it beacsue it is unsourced: an article may have lots of references and still be deletable, but that's not what we are discussing here). I notice that it obviously resulted in a straight keep as well, so no problem here: individual editors may incorrectly intrepret our policies and guidelines and bring articles to AfD without a good reason, but the process as such worked quite well. To stop such AfD's from happening is quite impossible, I think. Fram 13:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh I agree with you. As you can see from that debate, I corrected the user on this very basis, that his argument was not reflected in policy and didn't make sense. I was simply showing an example of what Jordansc may be seeing that formed the basis for the start of this thread.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

text: No, prod is a serious problem when it is misused (or abused). The article is gone in a flash if nobody notices. And there is no AfD archive to see why. While creating content (yes, there are editors who actually contribute to the encyclopedia, not just policy and guideline talk pages), I make lots of red wikilinks in the blind. I can't tell you how many times, when following these links, I found an article that I could have used was deleted, sometimes recently, while a search turned up no AfD discussion. I assume these were proded into oblivion. Some may say this is no big deal, just create a new article with references. But when you are creating properly wiki-linked content, you often generate links faster than you can fill them out, and it's nice to have a stub to hang your hat on. And when you do create a stub, some sharp shooter is waiting to "nail it" even before you can catch your breath. And frankly, I am put off from creating a new article when the old one has been deleted--that's just asking for agita I don't need. So this is all very disconcerting to editors who actually contribute material. Frankly, we have too many editors who are self-appointed gate keepers who may in good faith think they are doing good work, but are really hurting the project in the long run. Dhaluza 00:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As I described it in an AfD for a newly-created article, it's Wikipedia:New pages patrol, not Wikipedia:Pages created a few days ago patrol or even Wikipedia:All we are saying is give pages a chance patrol. Nifboy 02:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Excessive deletion is a WP:BITE problem, and that does hurt the project. I've seen too many cases of this. Someone makes a contribution, maybe good, maybe not so good, but rather than improve it, someone decides it should be deleted. Guess who gets discouraged and gives up? Dhaluza 02:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I agree that deletion via this guideline often pushes away new users.  I think Soft deletion would be a good move for many PRODs and other notability deletions.--ragesoss 02:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Dhaluza and others, could you give some examples of these articles that were deleted and that you could have used? It is a bit hard to agree or disagree with assertions that ProD is a big problem when you don't have concrete examples to judge. Anyway, any editor can do ProD patrol to remove ProD's you feel are incorrect (but please do give at least a short argument on the talk page or the edit sumarry if you do so), and usually the admins closin ProD's judge them again and do not delete those they feel are disputable or simply to good to delete. Errors will be made, but I haven't noticed this being such a big problem, only an occasional one. Fram 08:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I don't exactly keep a log of these things, this is just a perception I have developed over time as a result of experience. The only recent example I can recall is after creating Accident investigation I found Ultralight accident investigation in a search, but the article has recently vanished without a trace. Possibly it was total crap, but possibly it had content that could have been merged into a parent article. I have no way of knowing. Dhaluza 09:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bias toward Internet sources 

message: Radiant, is the disputedtag in there because of the issue that may be resolved, or something else at this point?  If it's not something else, can we remove it? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's advised to wait anyway, because people actively editing the page may know of suitable sources that your check did not find. There is no inherent reason to rush towards deleting an article, this is not speedy deletions. --Barberio 15:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure there is.  By nominating articles that I'm confident won't produce adequate sources even if I give them extra time I reduce the amount of editorial time back and forth spent monitoring and responding to changes in an article that will likely be ultimately deleted.  So while I'm willing to wait if I think there's a reasonable chance for an article to pass notability muster, I'm not going to waste that time on articles that don't. Dugwiki 15:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Except you're not really eliminating that editorial time, you're just moving it to AfD. --Barberio 15:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I'm eliminating the time spent back and forth before it actually eventually gets to AFD.  I'm skipping the back and forth portion and going straight to the AFD portion.  Since most such articles end up getting deleted it is more efficient to skip the wait prior to an AFD nomination in these cases. Dugwiki 15:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: The language at /Proposed was moved in last night. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  But above discussions have pointed out that there are still problems with it, and editing has continued on Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed. Specificaly the replacement language on handling articles that do not demonstrate notability was incomplete last night, and did not fully replace the disputed text. --Barberio 15:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hm.  Maybe those discussions can continue here, so we're not dealing with dueling versions if it's one small section? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Looking over this, at some point where people were reverting if the policy was still disputed or not, we moved the disputed section tag to the section we've settled instead of the section we're still working on. --Barberio 16:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Hmm. Wanted to put a historical tag on Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed since it's now defunct, but for some reason it's had a protection request. --Barberio 16:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I just requested that the subpage be unprotected so it could have its historical tag. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prescriptive deletion? 

message: I have read the March straw poll and the long-running discussions on this page.  I believe there is a general consensus to have a notability guideline.  However, there is obviously a wide range of opinion on what that guideline should be, with fairly entrenched positions on both extremes.  The draft at Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed seems to contain the essential elements that most of us agree on, though some would prefer to see it weakened or strengthened.  It may not be the final solution, but I think it's a step in the right direction.  So, I am going to be bold and edit in the proposal; may Jimbo have mercy on my soul.--Kubigula (talk) 02:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that this is a worthwhile step forward.--ragesoss 02:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: You have my full support.  And good job on it, by the way. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I support this for the most part, but the lead paragraphs are overly complex and verbose and the standard seems a bit week without some viable replacement for the non-trivial concept -- I suggest that we maintain the word "significant" from the prior version.  --Kevin Murray 03:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Kubigula has my support.  The wording “A topic is presumed to be notable if” satisfies my earlier objections related to “sufficiently”.  RE: subjectivity.  I fail to understand why this question was ever important.  It seems irrelevant.  The guideline says what it says, subjectively or not.  In trying understand, I came to suspect that those holding opposing views were working with different definitions.  I strongly support the removal of the subjectivity section.  --SmokeyJoe 04:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks good to me. Fram 08:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Looks like a major step forward. Let's hope this is a breakthrough.Dhaluza 09:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Second time mentioning this, but "Third-party sources" does not mean the same thing as "Independent secondary sources". "Third-party" means, not me or you but someone else, and primary sources may be used as third-party sources. If WP:V intends to require "Independent secondary sources" it would say so, and it directly contradicts your reading by saying "Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves...". So there is no contradiction with WP:V in allowing articles sourced from primary sources alone if consensus agrees. --Barberio 11:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taking the plunge 

message: Centrx seems to object wholesale.  I haven't seen him chime in at all during the proceedings, except in February, so I'm not sure where the objection lies, but I'll start the talk page discussion since he hasn't. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: And we have our first wide-scale dissent

message: In the new incarnation, renaming is even more pressing of an issue.  There is very little context, especially near the beginning, for why "notability" matters (i.e., no mention of the fact that notability means include-ability).  For the sake of jargon reduction, I think this guideline should be titled "Article inclusion", and further rewritten accordingly (without substantive change to the gist).  Above, Kevin Murray expressed concerns about a two word title; I think clarity and plain language are more important considerations.  However, if a one-word title is necessary, "Encyclopedicity" would be an improvement over "Notability".--ragesoss 16:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that a two word title is a problem, really.  It doesn't hurt "Reliable sources," and "Criteria for speedy deletion" is never a problem.  The article inclusion proposal is, unfortunately, dead in the water at the moment, so I think that's the best name for it at this point. I support a rename. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I wouldn't have a big objection to two words and less objection than to a made-up word like Encyclopedicity.  "Article inclusion" or "Encyclopedic suitability" could be good alternatives, though unwieldy.  --Kevin Murray 17:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Article Inclusion gets my vote. Altho it'll mean editing/renaming various templates as well. --Barberio 17:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which templates would be affected?  Generally curious. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure that "article inclusion" in an appropriate title, since other policies and guidelines deal with that subject as well, both directly and indirectly. However, I also feel the "need" to rename this policy is grossly overstated, particular on the basis of "jargon". The current name is quite sufficient and in-line with the standard primary definition of the word. This is even noted at the beginning of the page ("worthy of notice"). I'm also unsure of how 'include-ability" isn't mentioned, given that the first and last sentence of the lede underscore that it is the measuring stick for the inclusion of a given topic. Just my two cents. Vassyana 18:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think that V makes some good points.  Regardless, I think that it is time to shit or get off the pot with the renaming issue.  Let's do it or move on.  It seems that while the hive is swarming we might as well take all the stings at the same time.  --Kevin Murray 00:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Unless you think that renaming is important to achieve consensus, I would suggest that this motion be tabled. There are enough issues in play already, and there is no sense injecting another. Let's focus on resolving the issues on the table, and then we can see if another name is more appropriate. If we can't agree on the content, how can we (or should we even try to) agree on the name? And if this does not get resolved, the guideline may as well be rejected under its original name. Dhaluza 00:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  D we were responding at the same time and conflicted both electronically and in tactics.  I don't expect that any resolution is going to be easy, so that's why I see the lesser evil taking on all the issues at once while the tribe is together.  This just seems to drag on and on without resolution.  I don't advocate making the change, but will support a reasonable and well supported proposal to get it behind us now. --Kevin Murray 00:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  While it might seem best to scramble all the eggs at once, I don't think we should. As a compromise, I have incorporated both of these concepts in the lede. So all points should now be covered. If we get a consensus on this, we can have a later discussion on which one to lead with. For now, let's stick with the historical precedent, and failing this, we can see if another approach works better. Dhaluza 00:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  At this point I'm more interested in achieving what is possible rather than what is perfect and to move toward continuity across the notability infrastructure.  I'm willing to follow a team that can produce results.  --Kevin Murray 01:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Me too, at this point.  I don't see a compelling reason for the change, particularly as one of the points of the new/proposed guideline was to move the concept of WP:Notability a bit closer to the dictionary notion of notability.--Kubigula (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Renaming, again 

message: I think significant should be changed to substantive. Significant is a synonym for "important" (which I think most here agree we want to stay away from) while substantive says, I think, what was intended by significant, i.e., "more than trivial but less than exclusive," but does not imply importance. We are much better off using the most apt word for what we intend, than trying to redefine a word that has other meanings.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Significant does not mean the same thing as important. If you are looking up synonyms in the thesaurus, the "synonyms" there are not actually words with the same meaning, they are words with vaguely similar meanings that may be preferred for some purpose but they all have well-defined, distinct meanings. "Substantive" may be appropriate for other reasons, but "significant" absolutely does not have the same meaning as "important" or in most senses even a similar meaning. —Centrx→talk • 14:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not say it was a direct synonym with no other shade of meaning but it does have that connotation, which substantive does not. It certainly is used in the sense of importance in many contexts. I am a wordsmith. I did not look up either word prior to writing the above post, but now that I have, I note that "important; of consequence" is the first definition for significant in the dictionary. If we're done discussing how thesauri work, do you have an opinion on the merits of the change?--Fuhghettaboutit 15:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that "substantive" is a more precise word for what we are going for.  I also think you could merge the existing subpoints for significant and coverage into a single subpoint definition for substantive.--Kubigula (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree as well.  Substantive is much cleaner in this context.--ragesoss 18:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Agree as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree with substantive. Sancho 18:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Let's see how it reads:--Kevin Murray 18:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I assume in the above posting the second iteration of significant was also meant to be replaced, so I have done so.--Fuhghettaboutit 18:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I think you're right that significant is a more common word and thus understood by more people, but substantive is not exactly obscure. However, I can't agree that the definition of each word is equally subjective, for the same reason that you are presumably assigning fairly stable objective meanings to the preceding string of weird symbols and spaces that makes up this very sentence.--Fuhghettaboutit 21:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To be frank, if someone doesn't understand the meaning of substantive, they probably shouldn't be editing an encyclopedia. Dhaluza 00:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You are so right, but until we restrict access we should be pragmatic.  Gewd skellin is sew impotant, but knot oll's us yankees gots it.  --Kevin Murray 01:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Significant"-->"substantive" 

message: I hadn't checked this page since the dispute was raging.  It seemed, at that time, that most of the points of concern to me were being adequately argued by others, so I decided to just wait and see what the results were.  I have to say, I'm quite impressed.  It may not be perfect (few things are), but it is definitely a major improvement.  I'm quite pleased.  My thanks to all concerned.  Xtifr tälk 05:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kudos! 

message: We seem to have a lot of bloat slipping into this guideline, where authors are adding little bits of advice and "clarification" in all the various sections of the page, which are building to redundancy and conflicts.  There is no need for the lead section to be stand-alone.  We have the nutshell already which is a brief page summary.  There is no reason to try to restate the guideline (poorly) when we describe steps to cure the problems.  We don't have to justify our guideline in every section.  I think that a streamlined easy to read set of instructions is all that we need.  Unfortunately writers like to write -- frequently too much.  --Kevin Murray 12:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: However, bloat is not corrected by going back to language that was promoting 'strict criteria' instead of 'common sense guidelines'. I've reverted. If you can come up with a more streamlined version that does not claim the guidelines are 'criteria', we can see if that's okay. --Barberio 12:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  That is just one minor change not worthy of reverting a lot of work.  Please deal with that topic separately.  --Kevin Murray 13:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's not 'one change', it's removing some significant text that had fundamental impact on how the guideline is implemented, and moving back in the direction of 'strict criteria'. --Barberio 13:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I support your most recent edits.  I agree that my changes had an unintended consequence which you have corrected.  Thanks! --Kevin Murray 13:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: I appreciate your efforts to make this a streamlined and easy to read set of instructions, and I knew you would make a comment like this about my suggestion :).  However, I see a danger in strictly taking your approach.  If we only address the how and say nothing about the why, it really leaves the guideline open to revision and attack again in three months, six months etc - see also similar comments made by Centrx and Black Falcon.  We may not be active editors in six months, and you know the young guns won't read through the hundreds of talk page comments to figure out all the reasoning behind having the guideline.  As I considered the various uses of the concept of notability throughout WP, the central unifying theme is that we want all articles to have a verifiable and objectively measurable indicator of notability.  This is the theme that runs through CSD, AfD, here and the subject specific guidelines.  If there is a consensus not to include "why" reasoning in the lead, then I believe we at least need to add it as a supporting paragraph.--Kubigula (talk) 14:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: * Agreed!  However, can we do something more effective than more text?  Could we use a "Purpose" tag?  I don't want to go tag crazy at the top of the page, but would trade the nutshell for a purpose tag.  Another solution you mentioned is a supporting paragraph; what if we did that and linked it from a brief mention in the lead?  --Kevin Murray 15:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

text: * PS: I wasn't singling-out your suggestion; there is a lot of bloat past and present, and some editors are trying to reintroduce old-bloat from prior versions. --Kevin Murray 15:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No offense taken.  You're a streamliner and I'm an explainer; they are both important dynamics and hopefully we balance each other out to craft a better guideline.  I think a purpose tag is too much clutter, I advocate a two tag maximum.  Let's compromise on a supporting paragraph and I'll try to keep it brief.--Kubigula (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Seems like a good team.  Cheers! --Kevin Murray 07:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

text: One option might be to add a FAQ for the-reasoning-behind-the-guideline.  Then we could have streamlining and explaining.  Of course, that raises the danger of the guideline and the FAQ getting out of sync, but I can't claim to have all the answers. :) --Xtifr tälk 05:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  BLOAT