Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 2

message: Excellent idea. —Centrx→talk • 21:12, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting off with a bare, accurate guideline or policy 

message: That essay we've had here is very nice and all, but the term 'notability' is used frequently enough that it would be useful to have a concise guideline indicating the current practice, telling us how Wikipedia presently works with, and deals with, notability. After all, guidelines in Wikipedia are descriptive, not prescriptive. 
I am aware that some people do not like the current practice. If people wish to change the status quo, they should by all means go ahead and create a proposal for it (in fact, several such exist already). But this page should serve to indicate our current practice, and should change if and when our current practice changes.
Please reflect a moment on this idea and help discuss a proper wording for the phenomenon. Thank you for your time. >Radiant< 21:14, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Ansell and EngineerScotty. Notability is much more personal than verifiability or NPOV. Fresheneesz 04:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Descriptiveness 

message: In order to have this as a workable policy there should be a RIGOROUS definition of EXACTLY and PRECISELY what makes something "notable", for the purposes of Wikipedia. Don't you think? 70.101.147.60 22:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's impossible, and pretending otherwise is unnecessary. Notability is workable as long as people use common sense, and realise that material needs to be verifiable and significant enough that it will be worth maintaining the article. We cannot focus on the quality of our articles, which is what we are doing now, if we are afraid to quickly and efficiently remove those that aren't worth our time. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:46, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: And actually it's precisely this fuzzy definition of notability that most Wikipedians have in mind: a subject which is rich enough and has been researched sufficiently by outside sources that we can realistically hope to build a reasonnably long article (or at least non-stub) with significant content which goes beyond what a dictionnary or a database would provide. Unfortunately, a lot of people continue to add stubs for people/bands/characters/websites and whatnot which cannot fulfill that hope. And that's why we have guidelines. They're not set in stone but for any subject failing these guidelines one needs to convince the community that the article can result in an encyclopedic article. Pascal.Tesson 23:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Oh, so you sre saying then that the "notability" is therefore decided by consensus instead of a set of spelled-out rules? But what is "significant enough" anyway? Singificant enough to be verifiable? Or more? 70.101.147.60 02:58, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

text: This is the point I raised above.  Guidelines have to be actionable. I'll watch this discussion; it looks interesting. --DavidHOzAu 06:53, 19 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think so too. It can't be *purely* subjective, as then why bother even having a "policy" at all?! 70.101.147.60 23:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

text: I am among those who think that the obsession with objectivity is a nuisance. We can and should try to avoid unnecessary subjectivity but refusing to judge the relative value of subjects and articles is a slippery slope. We cannot constantly adopt a relativist stance and repeat "who am I to say what's notable or important?" like it was a mantra.  I know that there are quite a few people who wished we only chose content based on the five pillars but the existing notability guidelines and their frequent use show that most editors believe in threshold criteria for inclusion. As for the concern of systemic bias, my experience (and my stance on many occasions) is that AfD about topics from other cultures tend to be treated with far more care and the "no consensus means keep" avoids a lot of incorrect deletions. Pascal.Tesson 16:25, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This can be summed up as: you can't legislate Clue.  And thank God we don't try, that way lies madness. Guy 22:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

text: So are you saying then that it should be decided via consensus instead of a strict "1 2 3 check this check that" ruleset, via a set of "unwritten rules" or "innate senses" of what is "notable" and isn't? I guess I sort of like the idea of basing what can be included only on the basic policies: WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, and what Wikipedia is WP:NOT. If one wants to add in a "notability" criterion then I really really do suggest that it be given at least some sort of definition just a LITTLE more rigorous then "if it's notable", because everyone has differing ideas. I might consider an article about one person's theory positied in the latest scientific journal "notable" but someone else might not (and I would not have known since there was no definition, not even a loose one, of what "notability" means), and thus the article might get disqualified and deleted even if it was verifiable (because the journal article would be the source for the WP article), neutral point of view, not "original" research (it was in a journal and peer-reviewed), etc. 70.101.147.60 08:33, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rigorous definition? 

message: Radiant, I find it very obvious that notability is not an uncontroversial issue. This runs to the very heart of the deletionism/inclusionism conflict, and the activity on the counter-proposal, Wikipedia:Non-notability, should attest to the fact that this is far from settled yet. Whether notability is a relevent factor when deciding when to keep or delete an article is something that comes up time and time again in AfD discussions. As such, I am going to change the boilerplate from Guideline back to Proposal. arj 20:54, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So do you mean that there does not exist some lower bound for an article to be significant enough for Wikipedia? The "counter-proposal" is nothing of the sort; it is a novel new proposal that is similar to many failed proposals in the past, and its activity is confined to two users who are very interested in it. There are valuable things in it, but as a "counter-proposal" opposite this page, it is nowhere near equal to this guideline in history, common use, etc. Usually what comes up in AfDs is the peculiar argument by the vanity poster that "Notability is only an essay!" and that their article is special enough to be included. —Centrx→talk • 21:21, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There really are 100 AfDs deleting a non-notable article and 1000 comments citing notability for every one comment that protests notability guidelines. —Centrx→talk • 21:25, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The existence of notability is fact. The threshold of notability is subjective and up to debate. That is why this guideline calls for discussion to forming consensus on such thresholds by subject matter. That, by the way, is already an established process since several such discussions have already been succesful. >Radiant< 21:35, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The existence of notability as a separate issue from verifiability is not actually fact as you state. Also, claiming a 100 AfD + 1000 comments for to 1 against ratio is pure speculation at best. Unless anyone has actual numbers, using random numbers is not very convincing. Ansell 02:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The existence of notability is fact. - which is not reflected by the existence of an article about notability. Tobias Conradi (Talk) 07:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may have missed Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. —Centrx→talk • 23:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Uh, who changed it to guideline again? How can you gather the consensus of 5? We know that things are deleted because of notability, that doesn't make it a guideline. -- Chris chat edits essays 12:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

text: It's not backward, its the process.  We don't make guidelines whenever one editor feels like it.  This page is not a guideline simply because some one or two editors want to edit war over it.  Go through the proper process. Wjhonson 16:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Already done. —Centrx→talk • 19:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Guideline?

message: ...should it be deleted? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 04:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't seen your article on Admin deletion abuses, but this guideline is designed to tighten up procedures surrounding deletion on the grounds of notability. Stephen B Streater 06:33, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This notability essay/proposal has disruptive effects 

message: I'm starting to see an increasing number of articles pop up about people's favorite food dishes / menu items (see: :Category:Chicken, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chicken Bog).  Has anyone yet attempted any kind of Wikipedia:Notability (food) guideline, or where would I look for such a thing? --Elonka 18:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There isn't a separate guideline, but the general history of such things seems to be that some food is notable, and some isn't, basically based on "have people written non-trivial works specifically about the food". In other words, articles or books that are more than just recipes. Take a look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Old Fashioned for a specific debate, and watch how the arguments moved from "delete" to "keep" when specific notability info was found. AnonEMouse (squeak) 19:02, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Food

message: Following on from the section above, I don't think that this page accurately describes the situation on Wikipedia regarding notability right now. The amount of argument that takes place, and has been taking place for (literally) years now, demonstrates that notability is a contentious issue. Stating that "it is generally agreed that topics in most areas must exceed a certain threshhold of notability in order to have an article in Wikipedia" is flat-out wrong, as any consideration of the talk pages of the notability pages would illustrate. The original wording (now moved to Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments) describes the current situation much better than this page, which seems to whitewash over the significant contention that this term produces:
:There is no official policy on notability. However, there are a number of consensus guidelines regarding notability within a limited subject field, such as for musicians, for characters from fiction, and for websites – and some others are under development. See the template to the right. An article's failure to meet these suggested requirements is frequently used as an argument to delete said article on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.
:Although notability is not formal policy (and indeed the whole concept of notability is contentious), it is the opinion of some editors that this is what is meant by Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (which is a formal policy). Many editors also believe that it is a fair test of whether a subject has achieved sufficient external notice to ensure that it can be covered from a neutral point of view based on verifiable information from reliable sources, without straying into original research.
If this page is a description of current practice (i.e. a guideline), it needs to highlight that a significant portion of Wikipedians disagree on how notability should be applied (it is, after all, the truth). Ziggurat 00:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: People disagree on how it should be applied, but few think that there does not exist some lower bound on notability. If you look at AfDs, etc., it is clear that some notability is a requirement for topics to be included on Wikipedia. What change do you propose? —Centrx→talk • 00:29, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the original wording I've mentioned above, or some derivation of it - it describes what the situation is concisely and fairly. The fact that some people use the term does not mean that it is a general standard, and to be honest this is obviously a controversial issue for many. That a page which purports to describe current practice does not mention the controversial nature of notability is a strong disservice to accurate reporting. Ziggurat 00:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, I'm happy to talk about what form the description should take (always room for improvement), I just don't want the current page to be inaccurate. Ziggurat 08:24, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree to that. From the original wording you give, the first paragraph is already there. Some paraphrase of the second paragraph would be useful, I suppose. >Radiant< 08:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accurate description? 

message: There are a significant number of established Wikipedians who disagree with the supposed "consensus" that this guideline purportedly describes.  The promotion of this article to a guideline has received at least some resistance on this talk page and other "notability guideline" talk pages.  Users posting here and elsewhere are correct that the existence of this page as a guideline goes to the heart of the deletionist/inclusionist debate.  If it truly is consensus, I will disagree with it, but I will respect it.  However, I've yet to see solid evidence that it is, in fact, consensus.  Perhaps I've missed something?  I suspect that this request will be met with something along the lines of "take a look at Afd yourself".  Well, it seems to me that notability is not commonly invoked in Afd discussion as a sole criterion for deletion.  When it is, "keep" votes pointing out that notability is not a deletion criterion (or even "delete" votes pointing out that actual policy, such as NOR, applies), are sometimes forthcoming.  So basically, I'd like to see evidence of the consensus.  Thanks. · j e r s y k o talk · 13:50, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Whether or not this "plainly describes current practice" needs to be decided by more than two people. There really needs to be more people involved with this if this can be a guideline. Sheer number might not neccessarily be relevant, but number of people is part of what consensus is. Why not get more people to support this proposal before labeling it a guideline? Why be presumptuous in thinking that you know what current practice is? Fresheneesz 02:07, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It already has been decided by more than two people.  There are established content-specific notability guidelines, a policy (WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information), interpretations of other policy (notability equates to the existence of sufficient reliable sources to allow a verifiably neutral article), long-standing comunity consensus (per approximately 2/3 of successful AfD nominations).  Just how much evidence do you need that the community consensus is solidly behind having some kind of notability bar to inclusion, and always has been?  Guy 13:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  First of all, theres no clear consensus to keep as guideline *this* specific page, with its *specific* information. Notability in general is a different issue. There are many people who use the word notability, however *this* page is not what most people are refering to. They're refering to a word used in english - and while this page is related, it is not what they're talking about.  Fresheneesz 20:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The word used in English is an even higher bar than this guideline sets. This is not about some notions about consensus procedures you might have; why do you think it does not accurately describe current practice? —Centrx→talk • 22:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consensus 

message: Has there been any discussion about notability guidelines for television programs?  For example, a mini-series on a minor cable channel, or if a stand-up comedian has a major special showcasing his work, what are the guidelines for whether or not that mini-series or special should have their own articles?  Thanks. --Elonka 21:34, 30 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Television

message: How about we decide what to do with a consensus poll!
:Are you joking? —Centrx→talk • 19:42, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh come on, you can be more constructive than that. Pascal.Tesson 20:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Consensus is not established by polling. >Radiant< 20:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is it then established by your sort of process abuse? I don't think so. Wjhonson 20:40, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Revert warring is not going to solve anything.  Shall we please leave the article alone for now? · j e r s y k o talk · 20:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: *It would help if you familiarized yourself with the earlier discussion on this page before you yell 'abuse'. It appears you are confused as to how Wikipedia guidelines are defined, created and maintained. Please read WP:PPP and WP:POL for details. >Radiant< 20:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Radiant, I might not have your experience around here but I can tell you're bullying people. This is a straw poll, meant to give everyone around here a rough idea of what people think. Whether you feel that you're on the right side of this revert war is irrelevant. There's a conflict and we should deal with it. Basically, you are proposing that this conflict be resolved by having everyone agree with you. Well don't be surprised if this isn't too well received. For the record, you should go back to WP:PPP and WP:POL yourself and explain to me where you find any rule that says that straw polls can't help. There's also this little quote "A guideline is made by listening to objections and resolving them." This means a guideline needs time. This one is what a month old? A straw poll can be useful in clarifying the support this has among people currently involved in this discussion. Why is that such a scary thing? Pascal.Tesson 21:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: A straw poll is not going to be constructive with regard to this page. It is not going to lead to its improvement, and it is not going to cause it to be rejected or accepted. More likely, it may bring people who have been canvassed to vote in it. At the moment, it is in the ridiculous state of people voting on whether there is a consensus or not—almost like a vote on whether there was a valid vote or not; no one seems to be providing any reasons of what is wrong with the page. —Centrx→talk • 21:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Changing the tags on this page is not going to prevent articles on non-notable subjects from being deleted. —Centrx→talk • 21:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Agreed - this tag-switching has got to stop. I'm not able to contribute to this issue today (real life concerns take precendence!), but it seems clear that this page should be a guideline describing current practice, including the very controversial nature of current practice (and the use or not of notability / importance / significance seems to be perhaps the most controversial issue in Wikipedia) and the fact that many people disregard arguments of notability. WP:NNOT, while a different matter, is still in the state of a proposal, and I think User:Cfp's compromise notice was an excellent (and non-confrontational) one. Ziggurat 00:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Compromise? 

message: There is a survey going on at Wikipedia talk:Non-notability#Information-gathering straw-poll that people editing this page may be interested in.  Cheers. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll you may be interested in... 

message: Ok. Let me try one last time to make sure people cool down. This page has becoming a screaming match and that's not helping anyone. Before you read on, let me make a full disclosure if that has not been clear yet: I roughly support Radiant's aims and conclusions but not his means. Now that we've got that cleared out, I propose the following simple steps to bring everyone to their senses:
#For now, the page is considered as a proposal. Even if one thinks that it should eventually become a guideline, it's reasonnable to assume that there is too much debate on this page even on the wording of the current practice. Guidelines should be a bit mor stable than that.
#We halt this straw-poll that, in any case, has definitely had no positive effect.
#Atren, Centrx, Jersyko, Radiant, Wjohnson (in alphabetical order) and anyone else who's been spending much time on this talk page (I guess that would include myself) all chill and take 48 hours off from it. 
#We try to broaden the discussion by making proper announcements at the Village Pump.
#We calmly try to return to this discussion by first figuring out what we can agree on and move from there.
Cheers all. Pascal.Tesson 14:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There has been no debate on wording or contents of the page itself for weeks. The objections are based on some vague notions of "following process to evaluate consensus". —Centrx→talk • 14:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now, it does so happen that the people who are screaming here about process have all lined up over at Wikipedia talk:Non-notability in support of that essay opposing Notability, which is evidently their ulterior motive in the process complaints, but they should be addressing the issue directly rather than putting up these red herrings. —Centrx→talk • 15:25, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no "ulterior motive", please don't imply that I do. I disagree with notability as a guideline, as do many others, and I am participating in a debate the issue. Leave it at that. ATren 15:34, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The ulterior motive is opposing Notability, contrasted with the stated reason for opposing the tag, that process was not followed. —Centrx→talk • 20:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There's no conflict between the stated complaint and the supposed "ulterior motive". The "process" complaint was directly related to our objections to the notability proposal - in that the "guideline" tag was applied before consensus had been reached. There's no "motive", ulterior or otherwise, just disagreement with the contents of the proposed guideline and the fact that the guideline tag has been applied without clear consensus. ATren 23:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Ulterior motive" does not imply that it is sinister. The point is that stated objections to Notability have been few, and most of the objectors have not discussed them, while the process complaints are repeated and presented as the primary objection to the tagging. —Centrx→talk • 23:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I just arrived here, so I was not part of the initial debate, but a quick look back on this talk page verifies that the issue was still being actively debated, despite the lack of activity in the article itself. The process complaints were tangential, when it seemed that several editors were applying the "guideline" tag while the debate was not yet settled. ATren 14:19, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

text: By the way, Centrx, I like your "painstakingly created, non-tendentious message" and I hope that we can keep that version until consensus is reached. ATren 14:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  One last attempt at cooling things down 

message: Hi.
Since it seems that this "notability" thing seems to play a significant role in determining whether or not stuff should be included (although I might be wrong), should it be made official policy? Although I do think a little more rigor would be needed for that. Although there are a lot of guidelines it seems about notability for various topics, etc., shouldn't we also have a more general "overall" definition to supplement and complement that? 74.38.32.128 23:39, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability can't be policy, because there is no objective way to enforce it. -- Chris chat edits essays 00:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: How is it less objective than NPOV? —Centrx→talk • 01:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Centrx, I think you are being unnecessarily confrontational. You could also have said "I do not believe it's less objective than the NPOV policy". Same message, no agression. As for your point, I don't agree completely. Notability is trickier to define than verifiability or NPOV. Of course, the latter two are also hard to define objectively and so I don't think it's impossible to have a fairly objective policy on notability. The only way to do that, I think, is to not try to give too strict a definition of notability. I can imagine a policy saying something about a general concept and refers to the various guidelines for more precise discussions. However, I think the current absence of policy is part of the compromise status quo. Time will help to form a more widely acceptable practice which might in a few years' time result in a policy (if anyone feels it's still needed.) Pascal.Tesson 11:54, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Asking a question is not confrontational, and I do not know whether it is more or less objective than NPOV; it is simply a question and if I were not asking a question I would state an assertion. Assuming good faith is not simply to grease the wheels of communication, it is also because it can be easy to mistake the motivation behind a person's statements in text. —Centrx→talk • 16:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree that notabilility is tricker than NPOV or verifiability. Verifiability is generally pretty straightforward - there's a source or there's not a source. Sometimes there may be a debate on the reliability of the source, but that debate is at least bounded by a more rigid, objective policy. NPOV is tricker than verifiability, much more subjective, but with NPOV there is usually a compromise position that can gain consensus. In other words, the subjective views can balance themselves to a position more or less acceptable to both sides. Not so with notability - this is both subjective and has generally has no compromise position, so there's always a "loser" in a notability debate. For this reason, I believe notability should be more rigidly defined - so that biases do not come into play when deciding something as all-or-nothing like deletion. That's why I feel that a strict definition of notability, e.g. based on verifiability and reliable sources, would be preferable. ATren 15:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Note the paradox though. If you define notability on verifiability and reliable sources, then you have both the "no compromise" problem from verifiability and the subjectivity problem from reliable sources. So you're back at square one: a definition of notability that is both subjective and has no compromise position. Pascal.Tesson 15:35, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But I think reliable sources is significantly less subjective than notability in general. At least RS has some objective criteria of its own (i.e. peer reviewed journals, reputable news sources, no blogs). Yes, it's all subjective to a degree, but notability is more subjective than other guidelines, and is used to decide something with no middle ground (deletion) - this combination making notability particularly contentious. ATren 15:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

text: NPOV is not about picking the middle position between two opposing groups, one or both of which may be wildly wrong. Ideally it would be about an objective, universally neutral position, though it is in practice more the received position among experts. Still, this is not necessarily simple to determine; it is what is "neutral" and I know it when I see it but its application varies in particular cases. —Centrx→talk • 16:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Would an article made from as close to that "universally neutral position" as possible be acceptable on Wikipedia, even if that doesn't quite conform to the recieved position among "experts"? 74.38.32.128 05:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Any response?! 70.101.144.160 20:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It would depend on the particular case and the reliability of the different sources. Note that even if a position is not the dominant one among experts, there will still be many experts providing good arguments for that position. It's hard to make a general statement about this. —Centrx→talk • 21:19, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes indeed, it does seem that notability is tough to define. I've juggled with some definitions myself and none seem to really cut it. But I don't think that that means a rigorous, formal, more objective, definition is impossible. It just needs work. 74.38.32.128 05:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you considered the definition given at User:Uncle G/On notability? -GTBacchus(talk) 05:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Read it just now. It looks pretty good, in fact. This is sort of what I had in mind for my "more rigorous" definition idea and what I thought notability would imply based on the various comments, discussions, etc. here. 74.38.32.128 06:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Official policy? 

message: First, I'd like to thank everyone for following my suggestion to calm down and take a short break from this discussion. In the hope that we can find some common ground for agreement, I'd like to explain my thoughts on the current page, its purpose and its value.
#Notability is widely used within Wikipedia's current deletion process. This is an undisputable fact. Whether or not it should be used and to what extent is an entirely different question and one which is the subject of a number of proposals and essays like Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments, Wikipedia:Non-notability, User:Uncle G/On notability.
#Notability guidelines do exist. Many of them are reasonnably stable and are accepted and considered as helpful by a large majority of editors. Again, I believe that none of these statements can seriously be argued.
#The current article's should not be aimed at strengthening the deletionists' position. I don't believe that it is but it's a natural concern to take into account. The article should not (and currently isn't) an attempt to close the book on the notability debate. That debate might survive as long as Wikipedia does.
#The current article's aim should be to document how and why notability is used within the various deletion processes. More importantly, there exists a need for such a page. As the anon comment/question in the previous section just showed, inexperienced users have a hard time grasping what all these "NN" indicate and it's certainly well worth it to have a clear page on the subject. 
#In order to form a consensus on this page, we all have to argue in good faith and assume that others also will. Inclusionists should avoid a stance of "hey, I'm opposed to notability as a reason for deletion, so I don't want a guideline documenting its use in AfD because people will yield it as policy". Deletionists should avoid the "I think notability is a crucial concept for making Wikipedia better so I want to make sure this guideline explains this."
:Pascal.Tesson 11:54, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This sounds very sensible. Notability is a tool used to help choose articles for Wikipedia which can be made reliable and non-trivial. Additional guidelines in some areas are aimed at ensuring consistency across an area. Stephen B Streater 19:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think any of the proposed rewordings actually qualify as "stepping all over itself". I'll say that much once again: I happen to agree that notability is a concept that naturally follows from other policies but I am also aware that this is far from being an uncontroversial opinion. Pascal.Tesson 22:57, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Restarting a calm discussion 

message: Every day many articles are started about individual churches and every day there are AFD discussions. I do not want to see all churches included, and I do not want to see all chrch articles deleted. I would appreciate some criteria for the sake of consistency and to reduce repetitious arguing.. The first criterion people cite is size. Megachurches with thousands of members are probably noteworthy but the biggest churches are not necessarily the most encyclopedic, any more than the largest colleges are. I am looking for criteria which would allow other churches to be included, just as smaller colleges have articles Princeton University. A church might be historic  Old North Church  or have a place in the civil rights struggle, or be the site where gospel music was first sung, or be the place where a President of the U.S. taught Sunday School. But how does one specify how historically important it must be? It could be architecturally or artistically important (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, or with murals by Chagall). What are the criteria for such cultural importance? It might be religiously important (Here the doctrine of blah blah was first enunciated by Rev xxx in 1815, so it the birthplace of the xyz denomination). It could be a small church but still a noteworthy and notable one. How can this last categroy be delineated? Newspaper and magazine articles? Awards or recognition from the denomination or from nondenominational bodies? Distinguishing the building from the denomination, how large or important does a religious denomination have to be to merit an article?Edison 07:43, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd say that anything out of the ordinary would be interesting. Most churches don't have anything out of the ordinary about them. The key is for it to be reported independently by a reliable source. This means that we don't have to push our own point of view about notability - the independent sources have decided that it is notable. Stephen B Streater 08:19, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think any Church with a congregation of a certain size or higher, is notable.  Any church that has X number of viewers, subscribers, etc.. is notable.  Any church that has spent X dollars on political actions, notable.  Any church who's Minister is notable, is notable.  I would use similar criteria for any company, but with different numbers.  Mathiastck 17:16, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is arbitrary, and there's no reasonable way to decide what X should be. —Centrx→talk • 17:47, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Meaningful news coverage as always is the threshold, to determine whether or not we could actually write a useful article. A piece about the history of the church, it's role in the community and so on is a good start. Stuff announcing services or a wedding or whatever isn't. It's actually relatively rare that anything beyond an official church history is written by a member, and a few passing mentions are made in the paper about a new minister, a program the church offers, etc. Nothing that really makes an encyclopedia article. When there are actually real news articles being written about the church, that's a strong sign it's "notable" enough for an article. --W.marsh 20:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this position. What I look for before putting Churches (or pretty much anything else) up for AfD is two sources that look like they pass WP:RS and are either apparently independent of one another or are about different things. For instance, a newspaper article about the Church history and the inclusion of the Church in a book about Church architecture would be fine if you ask me. Erechtheus 00:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Unless there are clear references affirming notability, I'd say to merge churches to their local community article, per WP:LOCAL. --Elonka 02:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Churches, mosques, synagogues, etc

message: I see articles appearing on every numbered state hiway in the U.S. I can see the notability of historic hiways (Route 66) or interstates, but there seems to be little more than a stub to be had about numbered state or even county roads:  Are they all considered inherently notable, or should they stand out in some way to have an article? Is there such a thing as a non-notable state hiway? Edison 07:56, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd be inclined to include only those roads which have been written about outside the minimal list-of-roads type places. For example, in England, the A5 was a Roman road, so has 2,000 years of history. But my road was made a hundred years ago as part of the expansion of London, and has very little unusual about it. There's no point in a stub which can't be expanded. Stephen B Streater 08:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

text: Consensus on AFD is that any numbered state highway is notable. Personally however, I'd like to see published information about more than just terminus information and route length before we include an article. I was trying to flesh out a state route article recently and that was literally all the information I could find. --W.marsh 20:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

text: And we have Wikipedia:WikiProject Highways, WP:CASH, WP:WASH, WP:USRD, WP:KYSH, WP:ILSH, WP:NYSH, WP:FLSH, etc. because? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:51, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For some reason certain editors are really interested in roads, bridges, etc. —Centrx→talk • 01:53, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah... SPUI was too but unfortunately he left. --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

text: To improve the alphabet soup quality of Wikipedia? --W.marsh 01:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Now we need the chicken. ;) --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs)  01:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hiways