Wikipedia talk:Article inclusion

message: The idea of this page is to supercede Wikipedia:Notability and use this page as an overview for governing inclusion standards. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

message: I see an apparent self-contradiction in this proposal-on the one hand, it's stating depth and number of sources, but on the other it's stating that the subject-specific guidelines are what to look at. I think we should clear that up before any potential strawpoll-if something has very little source material (perhaps other than basic verification that it exists), but passes a subject-specific guideline, what are we advocating doing with it? Personally, in that case, I'd generally go for merge-there's almost always a suitable parent to merge to in that case, and better to have one good article and some useful redirects then a forest of permastubs. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd strongly agree that a specific guideline on merging would be advisable. This is particularly true for things like geographic locations, schools and bus routes, which are viewed as "inherently notable" but tend to produce permastubs. Rather than having an article saying "East Nowhere is a village of 37 inhabitants in Somewhere Province, 25 km from West Nowhere", better to merge it to a "List of towns and villages in Somewhere Province". This should be enshrined in the guideline. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

text: That's an interesting point, Seraphim.  I made a slight change to the final criteria which mentions subject-specific guidelines by making it explicitly say that WP:INCLUSION should be considered the norm unless there is an "agreed upon subject-specific guideline that contradicts it".  That would mean that, essentially WP:INCLUSION would "trump essays" on a subject, but if a subject specific guideline exists with its implied fairly good consensus then in cases where the two disagree you should use the subject specific guideline instead.  That leaves WP:INCLUSION as the general rule of thumb to follow, but also leaves the door open for exceptions in specific subject areas that most of us would agree on. Dugwiki 22:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That solves the contradiction, but I'm not entirely sure it solves the permastub issue-in a lot of cases, marginally-sourced articles probably should be merged, whether or not they pass a subject-specific guideline. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree Seraphim that most articles which fail WP:INCLUSION should be merged or deleted.  Borderline cases, though, still need to be handled case by case in afd (just like borderline WP:N cases are currently handled in afd). Dugwiki 17:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Self-contradictory?

message: Pursuant to the discussion earlier on inherent notability, has anyone seen Category:London bus routes? There's hundreds of these articles, none of which have any claim to notability under WP:N or, indeed, WP:AI, yet they keep surviving AfDs. I'd put them all up for deletion today, except I'm sure someone would start citing precedents, and claiming "bus routes are inherently notable" without providing any policy evidence for this. To be honest, I think we need to add information to this guideline strictly defining and limiting the idea of "inherent notability", and making it absolutely clear that Bus Route 304 from Somewhere Street to Elsewhere Drive does not automatically merit inclusion in Wikipedia. Walton Vivat Regina! 16:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Inherent notability" (or appropriateness for inclusion, or suitability for an article, or whatever it ends up getting called) is a garbage concept anyway. As I stated in the same discussion at WT:N, there are some things, such as US Presidents, basic chemical elements, or countries, in which every member of the category happens to be appropriate for an article. But that's not because of some "inherent" characteristic, it's because there really is enough sourcing on each and every item in that category to merit an article. In almost all cases, some members of a given category containing anything at all will be appropriate for articles, others will merit a short mention in a parent article, and yet others will not merit any mention at all. Article subjects should be evaluated on a case by case basis, not category by category. In the very few cases where everything in a category really does merit inclusion (like the ones mentioned above), it will be so patently obvious that no one need say it anyway. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

text: People interested in a project will be working to a different calibration to other editors.  Thus, some random pokemon / bus route / episode of the muppets becomes includable because . . .   (PS: I noticed the bus routes thing because of an ANI post about bus photos and image permissions.) DanBeale 19:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People interested in a project will be working to a different calibration to other editors...yes, I think you've put your finger on the precise problem there. That's why we need clear and (to an extent) inflexible inclusion guidelines. Everything is important to someone, somewhere, and that "someone" is quite likely to think that their favourite Muppets episode/local bus route merits an article on Wikipedia, and will not be persuaded otherwise unless there are clear, precise rules to cite. Walton Vivat Regina! 18:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Bus routes

message: *Strong oppose - notability is very important, it's crucial. I have seen long & pretty well-written articles (with sources!) on completely non-notable topics. Like all the TV or game cruft articles/lists. Or somebody's family tree. According to this it would be kept when they should be deleted. Another hand: small articles that are clearly on notable subject, but just there is not enough info on the topic. Like Daumantas of Lithuania: clearly notable, but he is mentioned in the sources only once, therefore it will be a permanent stub. What, it should be deleted? Renata 14:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just to reply to the above comment, I'm not clear on what examples of articles you're referring to of articles that would be kept under WP:INCLUSION that aren't kept under WP:N.  Both articles have the same basic criteria of multiple independent sources over time.  The TV and game articles and family tree articles would still require multiple independently (key word) published sources about them.  Can you give some actual examples of article that would be deleted under WP:N but kept under WP:INCLUSION?  The blanket statement given above sounds like it might be based on an unfounded assumption. Dugwiki 17:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh, almost forgot.  On the face of it the example of Daumantas of Lithuania appears to pass both WP:N and WP:INCLUSION because there are multiple references in the article about the person.  And I think most editors would probably say it's longer than just a minimal stub.  So I'm not clear on why you think it passes WP:N but fails WP:INCLUSION. Dugwiki 17:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: One more thing.  Keep in mind that just because a subject is "famous" or "notable" doesn't necessarily mean you need a seperate article about them if you don't have a lot of information.  Using royal families as an example, you could possibly argue that being a member of royalty is "notable", even if the information you have on the person is limited.  But instead of having individual articles about every single member of every royal family, you can condense the information by creating a composite article and list articles that include multiple minor members of royal families.  So if "Duke Joe Schmo" is notable "by family only", just include his brief information within a broader article or list about the Royal Schmo family. That would both satisfy WP:N and WP:INCLUSION by keeping the information you want available on Wikipedia but just not having it as its own article. Dugwiki 17:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A bit refractoring: strong oppose for WP:AI superceeding WP:Notability, strong support for WP:AI complementing WP:Notability. I am perfectly fine with AI being just another test for inclusion. But I am certainly not fine if that's the only test. Renata 23:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: What is the specific enforcement language you feel is missing from the proposal? Off-hand I'm not sure what "teeth" WP:N has that this is missing.  Both are guidelines advocating the same basic criteria and thus, if this was adopted as a replacement, would presumably have just as much "enforcability" as WP:N.  Dugwiki 17:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Based on those comments, would you then support the guideline if it a) left out exceptions for perma-stubs and simply said perma-stubs should be merged, and b) removed the reference to subject specific guidelines? Dugwiki 17:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Absolutely. I like "article inclusion" much better than the title "notability", since notability can confuse people ("What do you mean the internet fad a million blogs posted about isn't notable???"), and the rest of it's pretty good. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, Sera, I'll keep that in mind.  If other editors agree with those changes I'll tweak them in. Dugwiki 17:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed: the one thing that is, without a shadow of a doubt, better here than at WP:N is the page name. Moreschi  Request a recording? 17:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, as I just replied to Seraphim I'll probably tweak those changes in place assuming other editors agree.  I'll wait, though, to give more time for feedback. Dugwiki 17:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: To clarify something, WP:INCLUSION is not advocating articles which have a good possibility of being improved.  It is, though, appropriate to delete articles which appear to have little chance of improvement to have sufficient references.  In other words, the first step on an insufficiently article is normally to tag the article as "unreferenced" or "onesource", for example, and then give the article some time to improve. If no improvement occurs, though, then the presumption becomes that the article is probably not going to improve and should be merged or deleted.  That would not preclude the article reappearing at a later date in an improved form on the off-chance someone managed to find sources.  But at some point you need to draw a line and say "this article has been flagged for necessary improvements for inclusion for a long time and doesn't appear to be changing. Either change it or remove it." Dugwiki 15:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Oppose

message: *Neutral per my comments in earlier sections. Walton Vivat Regina! 19:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutral

message: *Per my comments above, proposals are not decided upon by voting on them. Not even if they have a "not binding" disclaimer. >Radiant< 14:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think it's as big a deal here (especially since the poll isn't being numbered, I'd encourage keeping it that way). There's nothing wrong with using an "opinion poll" to get a quick measure of how opinion currently stands, so long as it's not treated as a binding vote. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I knew someone was going to say that :) this, however, is my opinion, and opinions were asked for. I've seen slightly too many instances of people retroactively making a poll binding ("yes, it wasn't binding, but for unrelated reasons we're going to do what the majority wants"). That probably isn't the intent here but there's no harm in cuation. >Radiant< 14:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

text: *I just noticed this page, and personally if there were no poll I would not have expressed my first impression for what it's worth, but instead left you guys to improve it for later discussion. –Pomte 01:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Other comments

message: Early reads may indicate that we have a ways to go before we can make this into anything.  While I really wish we didn't rush into a straw poll when we did, it did highlight a number of issues that we need to address if this is to become anything:
#People think this will replace all notability.  At least half seem to think that this is somehow a change in how we do things, and it's not.  The concept that this page does anything other than replace the fundamentally flawed and possibly consensus-lacking WP:N is not really true, and i don't know how that mistake was made, but that needs to be clearer.
#People think that this would act as a main governing document.  Another educational issue similar to above.  Would we like it to?  Sure.  Is there any consensus for that now?  No, there isn't, and we obviously need to move more toward making sure that's clear.  Not sure how to do that as of yet.
That covers nearly all of the major substantive issues regarding the opposes.  Some feel WP:N is more useful - then again, this strawpoll wasn't exactly advertised to all comers, but was advertised there, so there was some advertising bias involved.  I still don't know how to address Seraphimblade's idea about permastubs, although what we consider a "stub" is relatively common in the World Book Encyclopedia, and I'll provide a name or two when I get access to them again on Monday.  But I'm actually rather heartened by what we're seeing so far - we have some good support, a number of people who have had strong, positive input not take part, and still have a way to go.  So let's not give up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, don't get me wrong either, I'm all for the name change. As to World Book, I do imagine they have very short articles on various subjects. What they don't have is anchored redirects. :) We do, so merging would make a good solution-we still have a redirect taking the user straight to the information, while also pointing them to it in an article that's reasonably detailed and well-sourced. It would also tend to solve the undue weight, OR essay/editorial, and cruft problems, people are a lot more careful not to overdo it (and to trim back if someone else does) if "Oh just split it out" isn't an option. Right now, we have a lot of writing, and that's great. But anyone writing needs to realize that one important function of an editor is to cut, along with making suggestions for expansion, improvement, and clarity. Since here we're all editors, we need to treat those who make cuts with the same courtesy as we would those who suggest improvements or possible avenues for expansion. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A cow pie put on a nice plate is still a cow pie.  I'm still not convinced redirects on many stubs are a good idea, especially if the subject is worthy of inclusion - people are looking for the information they can get there, not some larger treatment on things that aren't relevant.  I get very frustrated when I see that when acting as a reader and not an editor.  But yeah. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conclusions from the straw poll 

message: I think the first thing we need to figure out is how we can fix this to make sure people don't believe that the idea of notability is being superceded.  Much of the opposition comes from the idea that "notability is important," a fact that this proposal shares!  So what's in the wording of this that gives that impression?  Is it that it's attempting to supercede a guideline that's a pointer to the more specific ones?  I'm not sure - I'll make some light edits to start, but I think we need to figure this out. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Create a section to dispel the illusion that notability has a meaning above what article inclusion states. Split the indented part of point 4 to a new point 5 to emphasize that the notability guidelines are a subset of this. –Pomte 15:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: How do we go about re-education?

message: In rereading the page I noticed the nutshell didn't quite reflect the five current criteria of the article. It mentioned articles should be "verifiable" and "substantive", but left out the other criteria of being unbiased and that reader consensus within a general subject area might differ as to whether a specific topic is worth including.  I altered the wording a bit to try and include those ideas in the nutshell.  Feel free to adjust it.
P.S.  As I mentioned previously, I'm going to try and take a crack at making an alternate draft of WP:N that changes the title and downplays the word "notability" over concepts of article quality and substance while keeping in place the primary criteria (multiple independent published references).  I was getting the impression that most of the people who oppose this article like the writing style of WP:N better. Dugwiki 20:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it could be worded better, but it makes sense.  A new draft of WP:N isn't going to help much, however, if the same problems persist. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I took a crack at a very rough draft of rewriting WP:N to become WP:INCLUSION instead.  I'll post a link in a sec.... Dugwiki 21:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nutshell adjustment 

message: Ok, I took a very rough draft stab at converting WP:N to remove the word "notability" and replace it with the idea of "worthy of inclusion as a seperate article".  Basically the text is very close to the current version of WP:N, with some changes I'll summarize below.  The draft itself can be viewed at User:Dugwiki/Draft revision from Notability to Article Inclusion.  Please feel free to give feedback and comments and make necessary syntantical and grammatical changes, etc.
For the most part, the document is pretty much WP:N with the words "notability" replaced by "article inclusion" or something similar.  However, there are some other minor changes in order to remain consistent.
- Instead of referring to the potential substance of the sources on a topic, I referred to the potential substance of an article on that topic and noted that trivial sources are unlikely to produce an accetably substantive article.  This change doesn't affect the actual primary criteria, but is consistent with the idea of looking at the potential resulting article directly.
- Added some language clarifying that single source articles might be possible if the source in question is particularly informative and directly discusses the topic, but that in general single source articles should be avoided and are less likely to be worthy of inclusion.
- Modified the language of the Merging section to say that topics which produce trivial articles are suitable for merger, as opposed to saying that topics with trivial sources are suitable for merger.  Again, as above, the main question is whether or not the potential resulting article is worth inclusion, and in theory if a large number of small sources can produce an article worthy of inclusion then it probably wouldn't be merged.  
I also made fairly minor changes here and there to clarify something or try and make the language work a little better.  Bottom line, though, the flow of the document and the primary inclusion criteria haven't changed from WP:N.  
So please feel free to have a look and let me know what you think.  Hopefully something like this will satisfy the people who like WP:N's format while also satisfying the desire to replace "notability" with "worth inclusion". Thanks! Dugwiki 21:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay.  It actually doesn't look as bad as I anticipated, which is good.  However, the same minor flaws apply - a "primary" criterion, the assumption that we're not working off of a subjective terminology, and the same misguided criterion.  --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, like I said, it's basically the old guideline so if you don't like something minor in WP:N you probably will have the same problem with this.  Which specific parts do you want to change and how?  Dugwiki 22:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Very rough draft of conversion from "Notability" to "Article Inclusion" 

message: ...about a sort of peer review which would try to gain consensus on whether an already existing article is should be included, without actually trying to delete it.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 12:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps I'm somewhat idealistic or naive, but what you describe is precisely what AfD's really should be about, an attempt to reach consensus on whether an article should be included or not. Is the idea that the name "AfD" is inappropriate, and there should be a less offensive name so that people don't think they are just voting yes/no? If so, then that's an excellent idea and I would strongly support something like "Article Inclusion Review" instead of the current "Article for Deletion". This assumes you guys will manage to first make this proposal go through. --Merzul 19:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And if the review decides it shouldn't be included?  It goes to AfD, right?  It it shouldn't be deleted, it stays?  Sounds just like AfD with extra discussion. - Peregrine Fisher 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree w/ Fisher.  This idea has been proposed and foundered, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability/Articles for Notability Review and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Notability/Articles for Notability Review. Pan Dan 15:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Note that there was a recent proposal here, to rename Articles for Deletion as Articles for Discussion. The proposal was rejected, but it sounds similar to what Merzul was saying above. Walton Vivat Regina! 16:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I had this idea... 

message: Can we include the results of the consensus from centralized discussion on TV episodes? This seems like the perfect place for it. See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes for more information. ⇒ SWATJester On Belay! 04:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OHHH.  You want to go to  to add it there.  I'm sorry, I misunderstood. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  television episodes 

message: It's like attribution as a summary of WP:V and WP:NOR. Still, it takes an alternative look at notability quite well.-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 12:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The funny thing is, I just re-read this after presumably not looking at it for a while, and well, it's not bad.  I personally consider this a guideline that editors should follow, certainly.  Friday (talk) 18:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's instruction creep as it's redundant. Having an excessive number of policies and guidelines is confusing and unhelpful.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 20:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This is totally redundant to "notability"