Wikipedia talk:Notability does not degrade over time

message: Notability (wikipedia-notability), as measured from time to time, may decrease if sources initially thought to demonstrate notability are later determined to no longer do so, on the basis that they are not as independent as initially thought.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:23, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That doesn't mean notability changes, only that we were wrong about it. –Pomte 11:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: We have some notable hoaxes that ended up being thoroughly debunked and discredited. The notability isn't in the truth of the hoax, but in the reaction and effect that that hoax had. A media sensation might end up being nothing at all, but the fact that it caused a media sensation would be sufficient for notability, and that notability is what would remain over time. I agree, though, that some sources might degrade over time (or be lost or inaccessable/out of print, etc.), but the notability that they document wouldn't be. UltraExactZZ  Claims ~ Evidence  14:02, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: ? notability literally cannot reduce on it's own over time, ever.  ?

message: I recently came across this - something of a test case perhaps? Johnbod (talk) 13:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Yokohama Curry Museum]] 

message: Thank you to  for creating this essay.  Cirt (talk) 14:36, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thank you 

message: One aspect that would be nice to have covered in this is that there is a difference between a topic that is in the news "today", and a topic that has notability, typically applying to topics on events or to living persons.   The former may develop into the latter exactly as the essay describes, but there are also many newsworthy items that never become notable.  For example Black Monday (1987) was both newsworthy and later noteworthy, but what happened to the stock market last week was simply a blip (at least, presently simply a blip :-) that got newscoverage but does not merit it's own topic.  --MASEM 14:46, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: This is why Wikinews was created.  There is a difference between something being newsworthy and something being encyclopedic.  There is a difference between what should be included in a newspaper/newsmedia (such as Wikinews) and what should be included in an encyclopedia.  For an encyclopedia there has to be some sort of lasting significance to the event... something more than just "it was talked about in all the papers and blogs"   The problem comes in knowing when an event crosses the line between newsworthyness and encyclopedic notability.  Some "news" events are obviously encyclopedic as soon as they happen (a major terrorist attack, the assassination of a world leader, etc.)... others are not (yet another school shooting, the anouncement of a surprising scientific discovery).  It may take half a year or even longer to know if the event actually is encyclopedic... to know if it has any lasting significance and what that significance is (did the school shooting lead to new laws or initiatives?... is the scientific discovery accepted by the mainstream or is it considered pseudo-scientific crap?, etc.) Blueboar (talk) 01:40, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newsworthiness vs Noteworthiness 

message: In classes I teach, I sometimes talk to students about the idea of a person's "window of culture".  I'm not sure if I coined the phrase or not, but I find it very useful.
Each of us recognizes as significant things in our own culture.  Except for the extraordinary we seldom hear much about things outside of our window of culture.  Our personal windows of culture are established by two factors, the date and location of our birth.  I encouraged students to study history, to interact with foreign students, and to travel in order to expand their window of culture.
I normally digressed into this discussion after saying something like "Hey, you... almost a doctor."  This is a phrase used by Bill Cosby on a comedy album he recorded in the early 1960s, and frequently repeated back then by people trying to be humorous.  People in their late forties or older might recognize it, but younger people look at you like you're from another planet if you say it.  For the sake of context, in the story it was said by Bill as a child to a hospital orderly (do they still call them orderlies?).
I have been working on railroad history here on Wikipedia.  I have no illusions that the average high school or college student today would know the 20th Century Limited from the Texas Special.  But I want to see this history preserved and presented in digital form to the world... for the few who will care. And I know this is where they come to find information.  Who knows... small children have become fascinated by trains largely due to Thomas the Tank Engine; maybe this youngest generation will find the information useful.  The last thing I'd want to see is articles about Thomas yanked from Wikipedia.  What I would like to see is links on the Thomas pages to information about real trains. Hmmm... I think I'll go modify some pages.
Lownen (talk) 01:57, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Window of Culture 

message: Copied and pasted from VP:
I think the essay is wrong because of a couple of things:
* "...increase or remain steady as time goes by."  I think you're intending to discuss only the passage of time related to the /subject/.  But /subject/ is not an island to itself.  As time goes by, if the field becomes flooded with fifty thousand similar versions of /subject/, it probably reduces the notability of /subject/.  Let's say someone builds the first duck blind in Cambodia.  Is it notable?  Let's say, yes, for its historical import.  Is the second one notable?  Let's say, yes again, because, hey, it's the second, and thus demonstrates the viability (and maybe notability) of the first.  Is the third?  Fourth?  Fifth?  As we get toward the fifty thousandth, it's hard to argue that the 99th is still notable.  The notability of the 99th did not "...increase or remain steady as time goes by."
* I think you are probably aiming this essay at notability with regards to the existence of an article.  I don't think it applies to the existence of facts in an article about a rather current event.  Facts that are notable will get drowned out over time by facts that are more notable as we get the wider view of the event.  They have indeed become less notable as time passed by - within the scope of the article, that is.  Tempshill (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  I think it's wrong 

message: This essay is great and has implications far beyond articles with questionable notability.  Any perceived degradation in notability of an article is actually a reflection on other articles at Wikipedia.  Either current notability standards are too lax or other articles are newsworthy but not noteworthy or there is geobias or recentism at work. —  AjaxSmack  23:05, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it just me who sees the irony in all of this? We agree that recentism is bad, but then some go on to be recentist regarding what sources are allowed. It is fairly well known that as time passes from an event, the sources covering that event will reduce in quality and accuracy, and typically cover the event with respect to their time's views and opinions. Furthermore, what past events a given era considers significant is also highly culturally influenced. I think it would be true to say that there are double standards at work, that recent events are held to a much lower level of notability than older events. This is nothing unusual, of course, and is exactly what you would expect. This is compounded further by the effects of modern society and culture allowing us more rapid access to modern sources. The ideas put forth by some, that harder to access but still publicly accessible sources are not usable, is clearly absurd. The question that needs addressing is if wikipedia is a modern encyclopaedia, covering all knowledge of merit to our modern culture, or if wikipedia is in fact an attempt at a more general encyclopaedia, allowing exploration of knowledge, discovery and history without the judgement of our modern opinions and biases. LinaMishima (talk) 18:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Excelente

message: I would agree with the essay premise that if there are sources here today, then those sources will not degrade over time. But notability is a different matter and rests on the amount of interest people have shown in a topic. Interest may grow or decline over time. The Wikipedia:Recentism essay addresses that issue quite comprehensively. I feel the name of this essay is not helpful, and the link from the Recentism essay is probably inappropriate. SilkTork *What's YOUR point? 11:13, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nobility is not verifiability 

message: :Sources, once they exist, do not simply go away even if they become old, generally forgotten, superseded, or hard to find.
I disagree with this, in theory. In practice, sources don't generally vanish completely, but in theory, the can. If a source can no longer be found, and the notability of the subject cannot be confirmed, the info in question should be deleted.  There are many people who were notable in centuries past, who can no longer notable, because no record exists of them, or maybe only a bare mention of their names. If sources never disappeared, we'd still know about them. The second paragraph is not strictly correct. -Freekee (talk) 05:34, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: And there is a potential for abuse here - if someone wants to make bad faith edits, they can claim a link they inserted used to exist and supports something they inserted in an article, or equally they could make up a quote and pretend it is from an offline source that is very hard for anyone to verify whether it is true or not. Obviously such sources are fine when they otherwise fit in with other sources or expand on it in a non-controversial way, but it seems like you would have to add something similar to the phrase "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", and that extraordinary claims in an article should be relatively easily verifiable for most users (not necessarily online only, but certainly not "you will have to fly half way around the world to the Bodleian to read it in person"). --81.149.74.231 (talk) 14:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Permanence of sources