Wikipedia talk:Notability/Historical/Notability changes

message: I proposed this because some editors, noting that the word "notability" does not explicitly appear in the deletion policy, feel that any argument against the inclusion of an article that cites the concept or uses the word notability, is therefore invalid. Some of these editors explicitly believe that any verifiable topic can and should have an article in Wikipedia. I disagree.
I believe that this proposal is really only formalizing existing practice that amounts to an informal consensus. I hope that the formal discussion proves that i am correct on this point. DES (talk) 22:51, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You read my mind with the above statement. I don't really see how formalizing this would impact anything, although I doubt it would hurt. -Haon 03:34, 16 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Why this proposal?

message: We did already have a poll on this issue, and while it was sometime ago, I don't really see what has changed since then. - SimonP 23:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for thst pointer, and those discussion are worth reveiwing. But I think that in the last year and a half the project has grown significantly, which will have exposed more reasons why notability is important. I also suspect that the previous discussion was somewhat influenced by the term "fame". Also, of course, new people (such as myself) have joined the project, and their views may not be reflected in this old discussion. DES (talk) 23:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with DES. Alot has changed in the last year and a half. Notability is regularly used as a reason to VFD and should be formalized.Gateman1997 23:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance]]

message: How is this proposal different from the existing proposal at Wikipedia:Importance? Shouldn't we have this discussion all in one place?
Anyway, I think one major stumbling block is going to be different people's opinions about what things are "inherently notable" and what aren't. I know there are many people who think schools are inherently notable. I don't agree with them, but I happen to think that languages are inherently notable. There are probably people who disagree with me, and indeed I have seen  on language articles. So what happens? Do we take a poll on every subject like this to see if we have consensus that certain things are inherently notable and other things aren't? And what happens in the extremely likely event that we don't get even broad consensus on the question? And aren't polls evil, anyway? --Angr/ 00:08, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem that people won't agree on what notability is is not relevant to the fact that it would be a policy.  If we examine NPOV, we see that there are scads of arguments passionate discussions around if a statement is POV or not.  What happens is we start with the assumptions that something should be notable and work from there.  Case by case if need by, or by making guidelines (like WP:MUSIC) when required. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:10, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That is exactly what I had in mind. I want to settel the arguement over whether notability matters or not, (it does, IMO) and go on to debating what makes particular articels or kinds of subjects notable. DES (talk) 01:15, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Nor does Wikipedia:Importance. So they cover the same ground :/ ··gracefool |☺ 08:22, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Importance]] 

message: I started this some time ago to try to gauge the status quo: Wikipedia:Non-notability and deletion poll. Suggest people check it out. ~~ N (t/c) 00:12, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: We should also be aware of User:Neutrality/Survey, which also was to ask this issue, but never advanced to the voting stage. - SimonP 00:36, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Existing poll 

message: Rather than attempt to define what should be included ("only notable things"), would it work just as well to expand WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information in more precise ways?  To do this, it might be useful if someone classified the articles in AFD with non-notability votes into 7-10 sub-categories of non-notable things.  Patterns may emerge that could lead to useful extensions of WP:NOT.  For example (making this up, not based on any analysis)
# Biographies of people briefly mentioned in news reports.  Similar to Wikipedia not being a place for first hand new reports about breaking topics, just because someone's name is associated with a briefly news worthy event does not mean an article about this person should be included in an encyclopedia.  
The point being that it is perhaps easier to define non-notability than notability. -- Rick Block (talk) 14:19, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Such a discussion would probably be quite useful, but I feel that there is little point in debating what is or isn't notable until we have a general agreement that some definition of notabilty will matter. discussions about what is notable or non-notable in a particualr area, or evidence of what actually happens on AfD don't matter much to those who say "Notablity is irrelevant" and "if it isn't listed explicitly in the Deletion policy, you shouldn't cite it on AfD anyway". So I think doing the sort of thing you describe ought to be the second step. DES (talk) 14:44, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But if notability is not defined before the vote, might it cause an otherwise acceptable proposal to not gain consensus? Vegaswikian 02:26, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

text: In contrast to DES, I would be happier to see notability criteria being applied to specific classes of things (e.g. biographies), and not try to impose a blanket criteria that everything appearing in an encyclopedia need be inherently notable.  Dragons flight 18:06, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. This subject needs to be better addressed and that section expanded. There needs to be a strict consensus on what is and what is not notable. It needs to be as straight forward as it could possibly be. This is notable and that is not notable. That way it will be far less subjective. This subject has been brought up many times yet nothing has happened. I'm not a patient man. I'm just flat sick of people creating articles on John Doe just because he's good at chess or weak storms that did nothing. -- Hurricane Eric - my dropsonde - archive 08:07, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Augment [[WP:NOT]] instead 

message: It looks like people are having this conversation in many different places.  See Wikipedia:Deletion reform/Brainstorming#Remove notable requirement. -- Reinyday, 14:39, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I had commetned ther, and perhaps i should have linked to that page. But that is an integral part of an attempt to totally reqork the deltion process, which opens up several different cans of worms, and I wanted to stick to only this can for the moment. DES (talk) 14:46, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Pre-existing discussion

message: Uh, we should keep discussion here, eh? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 02:31, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  discussion moved from project page 

message: :The fact is that by CSD A7 notability is already a requirement here - just for some articles. I don't really have an opinion either way (in the broad scheme of things, I give opinions in AfD based on notability of course due to current status) but I wish people would make up their minds whether they wan't to keep everything that's remotely verifiable, or get rid of stuff that's not notable. However, since both Jimbo and the community seem to agree that people require notability to be included it only makes sense to have a formal requirement for notability for all articles. After all, at least according to jimbo while this is a wiki the wiki serves as a means only to make the encyclopedia. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 17:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: While I'm at it I'll mention that this proposal as an actual proposal is pretty decent. Also, really, what we're talking about here is not notability per se - what we're talking about is importance - we need to restrict wikipedia to "important" topics. Even the most obscure topics can be important, but they need to state (thus a speedy if not for people) why they are important and provide some evidence to back it up. However, we don't call it "importance" because that's much harsher than notability (imagine something like "Delete not important" on AfD) and notability is more specific anyway. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 18:08, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with this statement. The Land 18:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Idea

message: IMO there is indeed a need of expressing "officially" a notability requirement. But I can't think of a way to define it nice and crisp. It will be subjective on a case by case. My concern for near future is that WP can become very "noisy": lots of signal but poor articles. That is why I agree on the statement "non-notable articles are bad". I feel WP need a way to slow down over-enthusiastic users. It's a bit overwhelming to realize that one can, apparently, write about any-thing, now and here. IMO it is misunderstood into creating non notable articles. Such a user can generate a surprisingly important amount of stress and rubbish. It's not good for WP neither for the community. I like the proposal.
Maybe there should be a few suggestions added with "notability" definition on the project page? Don't get me wrong, I have no solution either for defining the comming "significant" word. Not a simple problem:
* To be passionate about a subject is not a sufficient reason for creating an article.
* To have a true verifiable fact is not an acceptable single reason for writing an article.
* To know something about a subject do not constitute in itself a reason why to write a new article.
* Wanting to create a new article is nice, but not acceptable on it's own for a new article to be created.
* An article must contain at least one line of "significant" information. Even a sub-sub-stub must have some "significance".
::To whom? How can you tell whether it does? Who get's to decide whether something is significant to me? Trollderella
Bad examples:
* [Grand-Prés is a huge shopping center next to my city named BlaBla.] True and verifiable. Non notable. Of interest only to very limited number of people. Geographically limited scope. No "interesting"  bit.
::If it is of interest to very limited number of people, that means that it is significant to some people, and so we should keep it. It seems perverse to delete something simply because only a few people want it. Trollderella
* [My house has a door.] True and verifiable. But no significance.
::Not really verifiable except by original research. There's no third party documentation of it, and anyway, nothing can be written about your door (well maybe, if it's a really unusual door) that isn't true of the general class of doors. This is a strawman. Trollderella
* [My primary school named BlaBla has 200 pupils and offers 4 disciplines.] True, verifiable,  but offers now valuable informations. Any primary school on the planet would be similar. The fact that math teacher is named "Higgins" do not add anything worthy.
::Erm, many people disagree, and think that this is worth recording. Trollderella
Good examples:
* [e=mc2] Very Obscure. Too short an article. Very limited number of people able to understand. Bad writing. But universally valid, crucial step in sciences, verifiable, true. Shortly: very high significance.
::Only really of interest to a very small number of people. It should be deleted... ;) Trollderella
* [The supermarket next to my house is huge. It was the first time the concrete type AB45 was used in a building. It gave the proof that AB45 is 20 times stronger than any other one.] Let's say it is true and verifiable. Limited geographical scope. But high significance for "concrete" business. Could be a line in "concrete" article. But NOT an article about my nearby Supermarket.
::If the sumpermarket has some feature which breaks it out from the general class of supermarkets, like unique archetecture, then why not keep it? Trollderella 00:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Maybe some wordings around notability concept ? 

message: The encyclopedia is a comprehensive compilation of knowledge for learning and understanding. This seems good enough; and it explains what aspect of "notability" and "importance" we should consider. --Vsion 09:01, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encyclopedic implies knowledge 

message: I think we're mainly arguing semantics here. An article is usually considered "non-notable" if its subject falls foul of such consensual guidelines as WP:MUSIC, WP:BIO or WP:VAIN, or if it is not verifiable. It is important to note that "verifiable" has a different meaning on Wikipedia than in the outside world, and that most people are unaware of that (specifically, something is only WikiVerifiable if it can be verified from a reputable source). It is partially because of this dichotomy that people use the term 'notable' rather than 'Verifiable by the definition in Wikipedia policy'.
We do delete some articles that are called non-notable. Whether that is because they are non-notable or because of some other guideline such as WP:WEB is irrelevant, as long as it is done through consensual discussion. Calling an AFD nomination invalid because of the way it is worded is nothing but rules lawyering, and WP:NOT a bureaucracy. Referring to a poll that was held over a year ago does not say anything about the current situation, as issues are frequently changed or established without resorting to polls, and WP:NOT a democracy.
Before I was even aware of this proposal I was writing an essay on the topic, which I have now put at Wikipedia:Notability. Just an essay, no policy or guideline or anything. FYI and thoughts welcome. Radiant_>|< 10:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arguing semantics 

message: The voting process should not be included in the proposal in this half-baked state.  They require a separate consensus; for example, who gets to decide that 75% is the magic threshold support number and has the community granted consensus to this person to make this critical decision?  Wikipedia is about consensus, and that includes consensus about what terms we make new policy under.  Unfocused 14:51, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of the Voting Process should not be on the project page 

message: More about the 75%: it is far too low.  If we're looking for 80% for adminship, and adminship is supposed to be "no big deal", then how can we possibly accept changing something that IS a big deal, official policy with less support than a promotion to administrator, which is "no big deal"?  The answer is that we should not accept such a weak vision of consensus for such a major policy change.  Unfocused 14:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Cute.  For how many other potential policies that you voted on have you brought this up? So what now, we raise it to 80%, get 80% votes, you complain, then what? We have to raise it to 85%?  Then we get that and then we have to raise it to 90%?  How many policies were actually enacted with a requirement >80% support?  IF what you're saying is true, we better go back and revisit all other policies as well, because they immediatly become invalidated if they don't meet the same criteria you're setting for this one.  Nathan J. Yoder 17:24, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Enough already with the strawman (if you accept this, you have to have every human on the planet!). Noone is saying that. Not every human on the planet is verifiable in any meaningful way except for original research. Anyone about whom there is third party verifiable sources is worth writing about here. Most people don't meet that verifiability criteria. Trollderella 01:20, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It is not simply that this is policy creep (although it certainly us), it is that this proposal (like ther "informative", "intereting" and other proposals are all the same thing. A minority or plurality of editors who feel that some sort of requirement beyond verifiability needs to be overlaid on the question of whether or not articles are legitimate, wish to shoehorn in a new policy to help justify deleting articles whose noteworthiness is controversial. --Nicodemus75 00:16, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I couldn't agree more. Notable is a proxy for 'interesting to me'. Trollderella 00:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope you are the minority.  I have seen many articles that I have no interest in but could see why they are notable.  Interest and notability should be two different issues.  Likewise I can see why some articles I might want to see would be rejected by others as not being notable.  Vegaswikian 22:44, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

text: They're not objective, you've simply codified the POV of the people who put the guidelines together, and decided whose opinion counts. Trollderella 21:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Major policy change MUST have greater consensus than Adminship 

message: While I agree notability is an important notion in defining what is included, in practice it seems far too subjective, easily degenerating into a popularity contest.  I would therefor oppose the present proposal and suggest a different approach: assigning notability ratings to articles.  I would propose a simple numerical scale, something like the following:
#subject widely accepted as being of high and timeless importance
#subject highly important to a wide region or major current event
#important to individuals interested in a generally acknowledged subject area 
#information relevant to a specialized subject area or specific geographical entity
#supporting information in a narrow, specialized area or locality
#questionable content, but apparently factual and verifiable
#candidate for deletion if not improved and justified within 3 months
Article creators could self-select levels 3 and below. Some voting process would be required to assign levels 1, 2, 6 or 7. There would be specific criteria developed of assigning levels in areas that seem to cause the most problems, e.g. individuals, musical groups, written works, schools, etc. 
Existing articles would default to level 3, perhaps, with some specific rules for major article types that are easily catagorized, e.g. member of the UN, and their current leaders, Nobel prize winners, etc. Articles in the list of essential encyclopedia articles would all be assigned a notability 1 rating.
Such notability ratings could be used in several ways:
*a user preference option could set a minimal level a reader would see. 
*over-populated categories might only display articles above a certain level, ideally user adjustable.
*rules could be established requiring disambiguation information for article titles at level level 4 and below if they are likely to be overloaded (e.g. Central Square (Cambridge, Massachusetts) vs. Central Square).
*higher notability articles would use names without disambiguation. 
Wikipedia is an experiment  in inclusiveness that many people expect to fail, but it hasn't.  I think it is important to protect that inclusiveness and deal with notability on a basis other that a go or stay decision. --agr 16:08, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, this is bad, because other people get to choose what I want to read about. If you don't want to read about US high schools, you don't need a filter, just don't look them up. It's unnecessary to have technology to tell me what I'm interested in. Trollderella 18:57, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The proposals I mention would not allow someone to prevent you from seeing the less prominent articles.  You would choose your own preference level by setting a flag somewhere.  It's very much up in the air, but the idea is that everyone gets to decide for themselves what level to include in their view of Wikipedia's data set. Unfocused 20:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Right, but implicit in this is that someone else decides what is in each level. If I'm an African linguist what is notable (and high level) to me is different to if I'm a student of American pop culture, etc etc. Sure, it's better than deleting stuff, but simply organizing it in an NPOV way instead of placing some people's value judgements on it would be better still. Trollderella 20:34, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

text: I agree, except that notability is different for each person, it's not something that exists in the absolute - to me some things are notable, to you other things are, to a Chinese student of caligraphy, other things entirely. Trollderella 00:01, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How well known something is isn't different for each person, it's an absolute.  It doesn't matter what I think of something,  if it's known by X% of the people, then it's known by X%  of the people. Nathan J. Yoder 00:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, but that seems an odd criteria for inclusion in an encyclopedia. We'd have to delete most of nuclear physics, linguistics, geography and astronomy, just for a start. The fact that something is little known is completely irrelevant. Trollderella 00:09, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, because those are all well known to people in those specialties.  I'm pretty sure that astronomers know about astronomy, but I could be wrong.  Nathan J. Yoder 00:30, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: So this issue is not about how many people know about it? You want to be able to choose when it's about how many people, and when it's about who those people are, and I suppose that you want to choose which people matter when it comes to which 'people in those specialties'? Let me guess, western science is high on your list? Local politics is low? It's just not a good way to determine what information goes in - it brings out subtle biases, and excludes valuable information that is important to relatively small groups that are not popular with wikipedia editors. Trollderella 00:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: False dichotomy.  It is and always has been about how many people know about it, it's just a matter of how many in which group.  Obviously if you're talking about a scholarly interest, then it's the scholars in that field.  I wouldn't expect the general population to know about the various types of heart surgery, so obviously I'd delegate that to cardiologists, for example.  The speciality doesn't even have to be credible, it just has to be well known.  Anything well known among "alternative medicine" pracitioners gets included simply because "alternative medicine" is the speciality that's relevent, regardless of what merit it has.    And there are no biases, since it's applied across the board.  All local politics which remain exclusively known to locals get excluded regardless of their political affiliation, otherwise anyone can just add a Wikipedia entry for every single mundane local political issue for their podunk town.    Nathan J. Yoder 00:59, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: So you want to argue exceptionalism for some things like local politics that you are derisive of? So an astronomer tells us about Southern Local Supervoid (a region of space noted only for being large and empty), which, if there are a hundred people in the world who are really interested would be amazing, that's something you're for, but a real politician in a real town of thousands that you are not interested in (a 'podunk town'?) is not ok? I can't see any reason other than personal preference to elevate astronomy over local politics in terms of how important they are. Trollderella 01:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That void appears to be known by practically no astronomers, so it would be non-notable.  I'm not even sure why anyone bothered creating article for it, it has no useful information in it other than to say that it's a large void.  Anyway, I hardly think every-single-issue-in-every-town-in-the-world is equivalent to areas of scholarly research which are well known to hundred of thousands or millions of scholars.  Any local political issue of significant enough importance would become known outside of the town anyway.  "Local mayor changes dog poop cleaning ordinances" just doesn't cut it, sorry.  This is an ENCYCLOPEDIA, not a platform for people docuement every political thing that ever happened.  Nathan J. Yoder 01:36, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, that's your opinion, I happen to be very interested in local politics, and it's quite possible that someone will want to know about local mayors at some point. The fact that you are more interested in astronomy than local politics is fine, but please don't try to force that opinion on others. I think you have a pretty narrow vision of what an encyclopedia is, probably shaped by the fact that traditional encyclopedia are made of paper. Trollderella 01:47, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability levels proposal 

message: The argument non-notable is only used in AfD about articles that refer to the PRESENT--to a living person, a website, a recent event, etc.  That's for good reason--anything that would help a researcher should clearly be included here, and clearly any person or thing from the past that is verifiable would also belong to that category.  The trouble with the present is that verifiability is too easy; as arguments above have mentioned, you can verify a lamp-post or the inane web-scribblings of a child.  WP:NOT probably should have a separate category describing current events, things, and people that are outside of the purview of an encyclopedia.  But by no means should notability be applied to everything.  Verifiability is a sufficient test for anything from the past.  For the present, here's my test: would it be meaningful, and would its context be verifiable and clear, to someone outside of the region, time, or population group it belongs to?  If so, it's encyclopedic.  Chick Bowen 02:36, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Weren't the famous Alexandria Libraries burned down and tons of historical records with them?  Tons of records were lost that will never be recovered and we will never know what important stuff was in them, those things will NEVER be verified regardless of how important they are.  The problem is, that many things which are now considered mildly important, but not super important may be lost.  Nathan J. Yoder 05:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability is not what's under discussion here 

message: Personally, I'm shocked that this wasn't codified into policy a long time ago. Basically this would act as a formalization of longstanding practice on Wikipedia. We already delete dozens of articles every day largely on the basis of their subjects being non-notable. People often have different ideas of what is notable and what isn't, and these things get hashed out on AfD on a case-by-case basis; but the amount of discussion thus created only serves to prove the point that nearly everyone on Wikipedia agrees that notability is an important inclusion factor. For most people this changes nothing, but it's become clear recently that some people won't adhere to long-enduring procedure unless it has that big gold THIS IS OFFICIAL POLICY template box at the top. Andrew Levine 02:37, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability isn't policy because it failed to win consensus in the original poll, not because it just hasn't happened to be codified. I also don't think standard behaviour on AfD should be confused with the view of the community in general. AfD is a very small and quite skewed segment of the Wikipedia population. - SimonP 02:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the first sentence of the project page says that this proposal is "to explicitly include 'lack of notability' as a reason for deleting articles." So this is all just about procedure on AfD; it has nothing to do with the general community. And as for falling short of consensus almost two years ago, Wikipedia has evolved since then. I am glad the matter is being brought up again. Andrew Levine 04:20, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally I'm shocked that anyone thinks this is a good idea - 'Not notable' means 'I don't like it'. It muddies the waters, causes friction because there's no agreed definition, and doesn't help at all. It failed before because people realise this. Trollderella 16:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Verifiability and maintaining NPOV constantly cause friction due to disagreement as to veracity of sources or whether something is worded neutrall or not, yet we don't abandon those core concepts. Andrew Levine 07:10, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  A no-brainer 

message: I have thought hard about this. I think there is a fundamental confusion, because notability has two similar uses, that are not quite the same, and they are important to distinguish. The first is, whether within a subject or article, viewpoint X is notable. The second is whether within human knowledge item X is notable. The first of these dictates the degree of coverage X should get in an article on subject Y, the second dictates whether X gets an article to itself. These are not quite the same question:
# Notability within an article or subject is relative. The standard of relativity is the context it is in, and not totally subjective. Thus, quantum theory is not notable within the field of religion, and religion is not notable in chess. What this means is, when we say "X is/is not notable", this is not an absolute. It's saying "within this contextual frame, X is/is not a significant shaping issue or informing view". Within other contexts and frames it may be.
# The other aspect of notability is, by an absolute standard, is a subject worthy of an article. Would the documentation of connected fields be notably less complete if subject X was missing, and how much needs to be said on X to remedy that.
# How different notable views are balanced in an article should reflect and represent the shape of the debate in the subject covered by that article.
Examples of how these play out:
:* Quantum theory is not notable within chess theory. So the chess article does not mention fringe theories about quantum chess strategy or similar. (rule #1)
:* Flat earth is notable both as a historic theory and as a theory still held by a few people, in the subject of Planet Earth. So it gets a mention there. (rule #1)
:* www.IAmJohnDoe.com is not notable, because connected fields such as website lists, human knowledge, online culture etc would not be seriously lacking or omitted if it were absent. But if John Doe were (say) a famous activist, then an article on activism might be incomplete without a note to that effect, so it would belong there. (rule #2)
:* Although flat earth is notable in the article on Earth, the shape of the debate is that round earth is considered overall the theory supported by most people, including almost all scientists, for reason [CITE LIST OF REASONS], wheeras flat earth is supported by small groups and individuals and is widely considered discredited. Thus, both over-representing flat earth or omitting it, would misrepresent the shape of the debate on Earth. (Rule #3)
It's clear to me that notability is inherently subjective. People have to reach a consensus what views and information in each field are important and what are less important knowledges, and different people will differ on this. There is no absolute measure to judge by, since all we have as source material is a list of "different X"s of different credibilities who said "different Y"'s, and any of these could be right or wrong. There will usually be some consensus, or a way to confirm if a given view is considered notable or not, but even so, this is relying upon editors judging which views are needed to represent the field and characterize the shape of the debate truthfully, and which are not. But that is the only "judging" and "subjectivity" involved, and the only subjectivity that should be involved. 
Wikipedia does not judge the truth or falsehood value of views. But wikipedia editors inherently must judge (and cannot avoid judging) the value to a field of neutrally representing each different view of the many views held, and how each fits into the shape of the debate. I don't see that you can escape that.
So I would describe notability this way:
::Rather than judge views as right or wrong, Wikipedia judges the value of representing a view. This is the concept that some views are more notable (or noteworthy) than others. It is a fundamental principle in understanding how wikipedia judges and balances viewpoints.
::A "notable" view is one that is "worthy of notice". It is of interest or value, or believed or referenced by many people. It is not necessarily right or wrong, and may not always be popular. But it is noteworthy that the view exists in that form. So notability is an observation on the debate, not a moral judgement.
::* More notable views are often characterized as being more widespread, plausible, accepted by science, advocated by credible sources, interesting (for historical reasons or otherwise), valued or referenced. They tend to add knowledge that may be expected to be of value to humanity, even if only in a small field.
::* Less notable views tend by contrast to be interesting only to few people, less widely accepted by credible sources, of little or no interest historically, not valued by or held by many people, not widely referenced, or scientifically implausible or fantastical (as opposed to discredited)
::Unpopularity and lack of credibility are not important criteria except insofar as they help us establish whether a view is notable and should be given space. Beyond that, we document the views of Nazis, Scientists, NAMBLA, Water diviners, and suicide bombers and why they believe they are right, as readily as why others believe they are wrong. A view may be "wrong" (according to many people) but very notable, in which case it will still be described if needed.
I've also played with this definition:
:"A view is generally considered notable if it is potentially information of value or interest in some way to a significant number of people, or to some perspective, or its omission would leave a significant gap in historical human knowledge of a subject. Even minority, controversial and discredited views are often notable. Often it is valuable to see how people thought, or competing views of the time. By contrast many fringe views are not notable by this definition, because they are not sufficiently significant or had little or minor impact in their field as a whole. Notability is a subjective decision formed by consensus of editors when they try to characterize in a balanced manner, human knowledge and history of a field."
My $0.02 on notability. FT2 19:49, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: My $0.02

message: Why does something have to be notable to be included on Wikipedia?
I understand all of the existing requirements (those set into stone), and even though I'm simultaneously having a little debate over the "No original research" policy, I understand the need for and the reasons behind such a policy.
However, I truly believe that no facts, no matter how trivial, should be considered unsuitable for inclusion. Facts are still facts. No fact is more important than another simply because it is of greater interest to more people. Everything little fact that is verifiable and might be of interest even to a single person other than the author who visits this website should be allowed recognition on Wikipedia.
I don't understand why something should be weeded out of Wikipedia simply because not many people would like to know about it. I, for one, am a "collector of trivialities", and I love knowing everything from the number of gates in each airport to the road names of all A routes in London. I trust that I'm not the only one such person, and I'm sure that all of us would love to have a one-stop destination on the web where we can satisfy our hunger for trivial facts.
Shouldn't factualness, verifiability, and neutrality be sufficient parameters for inclusion on Wikipedia? Why should we throw in an extremely subjective and easily offendable test of what is notable and what is not? I'm sure there are people who'd like to know about every television documentary ever aired, every penguin living in a zoo, etc.
Here are some examples of deletions for insignificance, and my reactions:
Generalised Comment: "DELETE. 'Any Street' is the most minor of roads on the planet! If such a street is allowed to have an article to itself, then every single road on the planet could be in Wikipedia! My response: Why not? Why can't every single road, street, and lane on this planet be mentioned here? As long as you can prove the existence of your street by citing a map or screenshotting an accepted online one, go ahead and mention it on Wikipedia! This is not to say that every road should have an individual article: it would be nice to merge minor articles into larger articles, but no entry should be completely removed from Wikipedia because it is "not notable." Wikipedia is a vast, unlimited resource, constrained by neither space nor time nor number of contributors. And if you call it a bottomless abyss, I call it a wonderful treasury of information.
Generalised Comment: "DELETE. Not remotely encyclopedic." My response: The people on Wikipedia against whom I take most offence are the encyclopaedia-thumpers. First, I do not agree that something with an article in the Encyclopaedia Britannica should be considered more essential to Wikipedia than an entry on something that's not included in the Britannica. There might not be an article on Penguin Bloggs in the Britannica but that's because the Britannica is limited to 32 volumes! Don't forget: there is no limit to the quantity of information Wikipedia can take. Of course, everything posted on Wikipedia still has to be factual, verifiable, NPOV, etc., but Wikipedia can certainly expand beyond the scope, range, and comfort zone of typical encyclopaedias.
My vision for Wikipedia: The ultimate encyclopaedia, the ultimate website, the ultimate data bank, a one-stop destination for almost all serious, verifiable information that anyone might ever possibly want to know at any point of his or her life.
--Lapin rossignol 10:04, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why on earth should notability be a criterion? 

message: I disagree with this proposal. Every has a different point of view as to whether something in "notable" or not. Some subjects might be notable to some people while many other people might not know what the subject is talking about. -- Eddie 03:49, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I disagree 

message: This page is coming up as a speedy-deletion candidate at WP:CSD, but I don't see why, and I can't find any speedy-delete tags on this page, nor indication that the page is in any category... anybody know what's up with that and how to fix it? Herostratus 04:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure where you are seeing this.  NB: WP:CSD is just the criteria for SD policy page. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 13:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's at CAT:CSD#Pages_in_category.  - Philippe | Talk 04:46, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see it there. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 05:57, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears to be gone now. :-)  - Philippe | Talk 07:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This page is coming up at CSD