Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 19

message: (1) Wikipedia currently has articles on every single Pokemon character, as well as every comic book that ever existed. Are these notable? Why? 
("Pokemon" as a whole has received much coverage, but that would not warrant this much detail. Similarly, Superman would merit an article, but not some obscure character like Dollar Bill.)
(2) Would "Bhutanese literature" be considered noteworthy? Surely yes, but why? Who has noticed it? And what about a scholar who is famous in the field of Bhutanese literature, but unknown to the general public? Would he be notable? Should his article discuss his biography as a human being, or as a scholar of Bhutanese literature?
I use these examples as representatives of the larger question, not because I have any particular opinion about Pokemon or Bhutanese literature. --Dawud
:There used to be an article for every Pokemon but that has since changed; all but the most notable (Pikachu for example) are now briefly described in a series of lists.  This issue has lead to the so called pokemon-test that is basically asserting that WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS because individual pokemon had articles, and thus promoted the change.
:As for your second question, remember that "notability" is defined not by its importance, fame, or knowledge by the general public. Is is now "significant coverage by reliable secondary sources".  Even if the field is covered by books that would be in dusty university libraries, it still has coverage in secondary sources.  A person working in the field, probably not as much unless their fame in the field can be qualified by secondary sources - if the fellow is the primary author of many books about the Bhutansese language, that's becomes a primary source, and as such, doesn't demonstrate notability.  But if there was say a monthly independent journal that followed that field and cited the fellow several times as the lead scholar in the area, then you have your secondary source.  Such an article should then primarily focus on his scholarly work and follow all other requirements of biographies of living persons. --MASEM 14:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two examples 

message: Juan Cole is a famous commentator on the Middle East. Before he became famous, he was a leading figure in the (tiny) field of Baha'i Studies, in which his research continues to be extremely influential. (I would say that he is one of the five or six most important recent writers. Certainly no one in the field could avoid his work.) The current article on Cole includes both aspects in considerable detail. For example, some of his articles (and one book) on the Baha'i religion are summarized.
Now, it so happens that Cole was a member of this religion until the mid-1990's, after which he quit the organized form of it. Most of these articles were published then, and are intensely critical of the religion's administration. (Members, by contrast, are not allowed to publish without the permission of these authorities.) One Baha'i Wikipedian is attempting to delete descriptions of these--despite their importance to Baha'i Studies, and to Cole--by saying that they are not notable. (It may or may not be relevant that various Baha'is, including this guy, have been systematically erasing material embarrassing to them from Wikipedia.) 
So, what say ye? And what can be done about a dedicated group with an intense interest in making ideologically-motivated edits to obscure topics? Assumptions of "good faith" hardly seem applicable...  --Dawud  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.167.167.60 (talk) 05:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: A more logical place for you to air this concern is the Wikipedia:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard. To present your issue there, you will need to create an account. (At present, WP:COIN is semi-protected so that anonymous editors cannot make comments there). EdJohnston (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem 

message: I think we were starting to have meaningful discussion on the Wikipedia talk:Notability (poker players) discussion when it was closed.  I have no problem with it being closed, because I can accept the notion that specific guidelines for poker players do not need to be created.  (Previous discussion at WikiProject Poker nixed the idea---we only were looking for something to close the loophole on the number of vanity articles we see being created.)
That being said, we do have a hole with with the guidelines per WP:BIO#Additional_criteria/Athletes.  The criteria allows anybody who played at a professional level or the highest level of amateur sports to be considered notable.  Personally, I believe this is too broad as I don't see the person who "played" in one professional game in 1960, sat the bench the whole time, and never played again to be notable.  A tennis/golf amateur who qualifies for the U.S. Open is notable even if they are the first player too be knocked out.  With Poker the problem becomes even more problematic because the only qualification to "be profession" or "to compete at the highest level" is that the person has the money to compete.  Our goal when starting the Poker Criteria was to close the door on this when related to poker players, but based upon the discussion on the page, it looks like others were concerned about the larger context.  Thus, my question becomes, is there a way to tighten this guideline?  Can we close the door on non-notable "professional" or non-notable competitors who simply compete at the highest level?Balloonman (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd like to revisit the need for any special criteria at either BIO or ORG, not to mention the further permutations.  If WP:N is well understood and evenly applied it should cover all bases.  The grey areas really come in determining what are credible sources for estabishing notability.  Rather than trying to predefine classes of people or organizations which are automatically in or out, let's fine tune the critieria for credible sources. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above.  The Poker project had discussed creating notability guidelines before, but decided against it because WP:N was sufficeintly well defined that any guidelines we created would be redundant with N.  The problem that we have, is when the criteria was applied to categories.  Once that was done, people start looking for the closest analog to the article in question.  I believe that these notabiltiy sub-guidelines allows for more articles to exist than would otherwise exist.Balloonman (talk) 22:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It seems that there are two distinct sets of fans for the subject specific guidelines: people who think that WP:N is too lax and those who think it is too restrictive.   I think there is a third group which is either unfamiliar with WP:N or doesn't understand the concept.  --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:10, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Then there is the fourth group who don't understand what BIO says.  It does not say in the specific guidelines that certain people ARE notable, just that they are generally notable, but any articles about generally notable people can still be afd'ed.  Being part of a group that is generally notable does not mean you are notable. 2005 (talk) 00:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I am sure that I understand what BIO says, and means to say.  However, I believe that notions of "generally notable" are unhelpful and confusing with regard to the creation and improvement of wikipedia articles.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:25, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly it is a valid opinion that it isn't a good guideine, or that it is contradictory, or it could be improved.  However, as o now those supplementary passages allow exactly zero more articles tobe created, and prevent exactly zero.  Basically they only say that creating an article on a person in a generally notable group is not a vanity exercise, even if it may not survive an afd.  There have been a lot of mistatments saying these these specifc group guidelines open the doors or "allow" articles, and they plainly do not.  The guideline also does not contradict itself.  A generally notable group does not mean every member of the group is notable.  People should not ignore the word "generally". 2005 (talk) 00:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  There is an old saying that a camel is a horse designed by committee.  BIO is an odd set of compromises, but it is the lesser among evils. --Kevin Murray (talk) 00:30, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Going back to the original issue of the poker player notability, I see nothing wrong with most of these being taken to appropriate wikiprojects to be used as project guidelines as long as those requirements for notability do not supersede this page's definition (that was my suggestion for the poker ones).  I think there's a few on this list that cannot necessary, however, be cleanly packed into nice little Wikiproject pages - politicians, athletes, creative professions, to name a few, though certainly a small number of wikiprojects span those categories.  I see nothing wrong with havig this page to "refer to appropriate Wikiprojects for further consideration on notability for persons" if these specific callouts are moved as examples to those wikiprojects.  --MASEM 14:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Personally, and this is the premise that the Poker Project began with, I believe that it is incumbent upon the different projects to define what they believe to be notability.  I know that winning the World Poker Open is nowhere near as prestigious as winning the European Poker Tour---but does a non-poker player know that?  Likewise, I have no idea concerning notability in Cricket or European Football.  I rely upon people who are familiar enough with the subject to give us their guidance.  Thus, IMHO, EVERY project should have a notability section.  That being said, the notability sections within the projects would carry the weight of an essay.  It would be their interpretation on how to apply the guidelines. (NOTE: that was our intention initially.)Balloonman (talk) 17:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hole in Bio 

message: What guideline do people generally use when assessing the notability of an article on a particular surname?  Are they treated like places (i.e. generally considered notable, even in the absence of readily available secondary sources? JavaTenor (talk) 07:50, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Certainly not.  The general notability guideline of reliable secondary sources applies. —gorgan_almighty (talk) 09:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

text: *See Wikipedia:Deletion policy/names and surnames for an old debate, but that's all there currently is on guide. Note that surnames are no longer considered part of Disambiguation (see MOS:DAB), and that new surname pages are created to take the weight off disambiguation pages, independent of whether a surname is notable or not. – sgeureka t•c 12:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Surnames 

message: Wikipedia is not a not a directory nor an indiscriminate collection of information. Notability is an inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic.  The topic of an article should be "worthy of notice".  This concept is distinct from "fame", "importance", or "popularity".  Notability guidelines require verifiable evidence that topics are of sufficiently broad interest to justify inclusion. Substantial coverage in reliable sources also helps ensure that the content of the article will be verifiable and neutral, and that a high quality encyclopedic article can be written.
These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles. Relevant content policies include: Neutral point of view, Verifiability, No original research, What Wikipedia is not, and Biographies of living persons.
:To Kevin.  We wouldn't actually add a section, this would replace and only slightly expand the existing objective evidence section.  Also, it is different from the Lead.  The Lead focuses on what the notability guideline is, with only a little bit about why we need it.  We could expand the lead to say more about why, but I think it's better and more clear in a separate section.
:: It seems that we could eliminate the objective evidence section and incorporate the better aspects of the rationalle into the lead.  I think that with the best of intentions WP is a constant victim of bloating. --Kevin Murray 21:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ha - this is half of what I started with.  I anticipated your comment and tried to keep it as succinct as possible :)--Kubigula (talk) 21:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

text: To Jossi - good tweaks!--Kubigula (talk) 21:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

text: True - I hadn't looked at that page for a while.  We could link to Encyclopedia or just skip the wikilink.  In any event, my preference would be to keep the lead as is and add the rationale section as tweaked by Jossi.  Otherwise the lead becomes too dense with information and exceeds the purpose of the lead, which is to introduce and provide context.  Expanding the lead per Kevin is my second choice, though it would be a net improvement of the guideline, IMO.  Anyone else?--Kubigula (talk) 02:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that the link to Encyclopedia should be skipped.  --Kevin Murray 15:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  Does linking to not a directory and  indiscriminate collection of information help? --Kevin Murray 15:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with DGG. "Not a directory" applies to the content of articles; it doesn't really apply well across articles (imagine "Wikipedia is not a directory of prime ministers"). I think we're better off mentioning "is an encyclopedia" and dropping any mention to WP:NOT#DIR and WP:NOT#IINFO. – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I think the links are helpful.  I think WP:N (a guideline) needs to have some reference to some policies (otherwise we are much more likely to get the "WP:N is just a guideline, so we can ignore it" argument). I also disagree with the statement that WP:NOT#DIR applies only within articles: that logic is how we got all the articles that duplicated the four Pokemon directories, and how, despite WP:NOT#DIR we are well down the road to getting articles to duplicate every entry in the Baseball Encyclopedia. UnitedStatesian 20:56, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not really interested in individual Pokemon or a biography of every professional baseball player, but it is dangerous to apply the philosophy of "not a directory" to sets of articles. The viability of each article should be judged invididually, and we should never delete an article on a notable topic just because someone feels that we shouldn't be a directory of articles of a certain type (I've seen this type of argument applied to articles about non-US and non-European subjects). – Black Falcon (Talk) 21:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My concern is the opposite: an article gets written on a non-notable topic where its only source is a directory or directories.  Without referring to WP:NOT#DIR, there is no way to delete the article because of its lack of notability. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it could be deleted per WP:N, which requires "significant coverage", something that a simple directory listing does not provide. – Black Falcon (Talk) 18:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So WP:N stems from WP:NOT in that way. —Centrx→talk • 05:31, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:NOT#DIR applies to directories in articles and to articles that constitute a directory, but it is only tangentially related to coverage in sources. So, I think that WP:N stems from the general idea behind WP:NOT (i.e. Wikipedia is not the place for articles about topics that are not worthy of note), but not from any particular section of the policy. – Black Falcon (Talk) 05:46, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed merger as a new lead (rough draft)

message: There are approximately 300,000 species of plant and an estimated over 1,000,000 species of animal.  It seems that some people want to have an article on every one of them.  There are multiple bots whose job is to create these articles from other websites.  All of these bot-generated articles are very short stubs at first, and very few make it anywhere beyond that.  Take for example genus Aloeides.  Of its eleven species articles, not a single one has any edits but its bot creation way back in July.  I have seen countless others of these useless stubs while random paging and new article patrolling.  I call them useless because they are; not a single word of unique information is in any one of them.  
Another example from a main culprit, User:Polbot, is Keizaburō Saeki, one of many so-called renowned Japanese photographers, all generated from a single website list of 328 of them.  I find it hard to believe that a one-sentence article is useful.  A single list should be made with all of them.   
My proposition is simple: An article about something should be created only if it has enough unique material to warrant its own page.  If not, then a list is perfectly acceptable. If a stub could easily be merged into a parent article, then it should.  In fact, this theory of individual notability could also be attributed to people, places and other topics.  
Following the plants/animals example, all species should be included in the genus article until sufficient unique information is found.  People and places can have fine lists until more things pertinent to that person/place is found.
Obviously, perhaps the best, most common, and strongest rebuttal is eventualism, that every one of these articles could, as legitimate topics, eventually be a featured article or whatnot.  I fully agree with this.  A species of butterfly is vital to the ecosystem and a Japanese photographer is important and notable in his own right.  But until a topic has eventually been taken one step further and a second sentence has been written, I insist that the individual articles remain merged as one.  While these topics may be notable, they rarely have good sources and are much too short for use. 
As a model, the German Wikipedia, even if it were about the President, would not allow such a short article.  I will admit, however, that we are not the German Wikipedia, and that some of their merging, such as for fictional characters, is a bit too intense.  
The first step toward merging these unneeded articles is stopping the bots which automatically write them.  Proponents of these bots claim that these immediate stubs are starting points for other users to add to them.  However, I see absolutely no reason that, as the articles contain only a few lines anyway, a list is not a perfectly acceptable starting point.  Besides, as I said before, this point is nullified as the butterfly species pages above haven't been touched since July, and I could find many even older than that if I tried.  Eventually?  Maybe.  Having no unique, useful content for the last six months? Definitely not.  And no, I did not scour the site for the very shortest pages; there are many more rediculously short articles.
I do hope that you can see the unnecessarities of many redundant stubs.  I'm sure that many will oppose this, but hope I have made my points clear and that many will agree that redundant one-liners are not wanted here.  Thank you,  Reywas92Talk 00:21, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Too many redundant stubs 

message: It looks like the proposal for a new guideline at Wikipedia:Notability (media) has not gained much support from the community and has fizzled out.  My feeling is that the exigencies of several AfD debates drove the proposal, but that in the end no suitable guideline could be produced.  I think that the community should evaluate the progress and decide whether this is now a failed project and should be marked as rejected.  Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Notability (media)]] fizzled out 

message: I've asked a couple of individual editors, but thought I'd ask this here as well.  I wanted to get clarity on how or if WP:N applies to article contents when the content is alumni of a school, when that school is the subject of the article.  How do we gauge whether or not an alumnus of a school is notable enough to be listed.  {there are a couple of discussions, for example: here and here.  
Basically, I'm looking for clarity on how a school's alumni listing would work in conjunction with WP:N's statement that "These notability guidelines only pertain to the encyclopedic suitability of topics for articles but do not directly limit the content of articles."
Would it depend on the school?  For instance, in a situation where MIT might have a lot more potential notable personages than, say, Podunk U.  There may have been a hundred scientists from MIT working on a project, but just one scientist from Podunk..would that one scientist have a certain notability that the hundred MIT scientists don't have just based on the rarity of such success from Podunk. 
A school might even have its own list of notable alumni, a list that may not agree with Wikipedia’s guidelines or policies on every individual the school or alumni association lists.  
Or does notability apply equally across the board, no matter the status of the background and average success rate, or the school and school’s alumni association's lists?  Dreadstar † 03:39, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that listing the people specifically as notable alumni makes a claim to their being notable. The propensity of these articles to spam makes it reasonable to be somewhat restrictive here--to those with WP articles or those clearly capable of having one--e.g. a member of congress or a major league baseball player for whom the article has not yet been written. If we need a specific guideline for the purpose we should establish it.  DGG (talk) 17:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:N and a school's alumni 

message: Could someone please explain and add to the guideline article the purpose of the Notability guideline? Thanks. Xammer (talk) 12:13, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The concept here is (IMHO) a cotradiction of another policy.  "Notability" is clearly a point of view! --Jason Palpatine (talk) 10:01, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Purpose 

message: Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines which is the policy page governing policies and guidelines is becoming unstable due to the constant tinkering by several editors.  I think that if there are to be changes, there should be a broader discussion and consensus demonstrated. --Kevin Murray (talk) 15:42, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines]] is being changed without consensus 

message: Check out Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Table of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles character appearances.  This is not inteded to be a canvass of this group for input on the deletion, but an example for our own discussion.  What we have here is a table of which characters appear in which incarnations of TMNT ( i.e. the comic book, the cartoon show, etc. ) I'm asserting it should remain because it was obviously a split for size reasons, and because of that notability should not be in question.  I also assert that the table is really a graphic of sorts, and we don't delete photographs from articles just because they reside in separate files. Squidfryerchef (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I tend to agree with you.  The table is a graphical summary of a list, and both the table and the list sit on the same claims of notability.  I disagree with the characterisation of a “split”, in that the information in the table remains in the list.  It is an alternative presentation of the same material.  Splits that are contentious with respect to WP:N are where material is removed from a large article as unnecessary to the large article.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:24, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  AFD example based on notability and size splits 

message: Forgive me for not scouring the entire archive, but I'm trying and failing to find policy, guideline, or discussion of the questions of notability in regards to splits as defined in WP:SIZE.  The article only discusses at what point in the size of an article should a page be split, no discussion or caveat of the notability requirements for the split material.  So the act of splitting an article for size reasons, removes the protection of WP:NNC, perhaps unjustly so (I have no idea).  Perhaps this concern is better addressed where it was raised earlier, here. -Verdatum (talk) 07:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's about time someone brought this issue up.  I've seen many AFD's where a section of the article was split off, which nobody would have questioned, now up for deletion on the grounds that "notability is not inherited". Squidfryerchef (talk) 15:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I agree that this is not well covered.  I've seen several situations where topics are broken off from long articles and then become victims of AfD.  Maybe we need a safe harbor that if the topic is not deemed notable for a separate article, then we relax the long-article standard for reinclusion back to the parent article. --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:04, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather have the separate article but with "parent article is too long" as an acceptable defense in AFDs. Squidfryerchef (talk) 17:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  This was my first thought, but then I have a concern that by giving a safe-harbor based on a subjective determination of (a) whether an article is too long, and (b) what branches off, we allow for consecrating a lot of non-notable articles e.g., fiction characters, comics, cults.  I would rather guarantee a place within the parent than guarantee a transfer of notability.  Since we do not require content to be of itself notable, protecting a non-notable topic is dangerous. --Kevin Murray (talk) 17:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Why is it dangerous?  The only difference would be we'd allow the information to exist as a stand-alone page rather than forcing it all under one exceedingly long article? All the rules that do apply to content - particularly WP:IINFO- would still apply. Torc2 (talk) 19:20, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, I wouldn't make it an automatic "safe harbor", just a defense in deletion reviews.  I'm also concerned about conferring transitive notability onto umpteen "In Popular Culture" article.  But I want to avoid AFD's like WP:Articles_for_deletion/Rudy_Giuliani_during_the_September_11%2C_2001_attacks which IMO is easily notable. Squidfryerchef (talk) 21:23, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't see a problem with the example surviving the AfD. --Kevin Murray (talk) 21:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Notability guidelines give guidance on whether a topic is notable enough to be included in Wikipedia as a separate article, but do not specifically regulate the content of articles
The combination of WP:SIZE and WP:N means that content is regulated by this guideline. AndrewRT(Talk) 18:44, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: I modified the template  to automatically provide such a standard hatnote. Comments/changes/usage welcome.  UnitedStatesian (talk) 20:05, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

text: However, what if the parent article is properly sourced and is long?  The logical content split can be a section that is not yet properly sourced as to establish notability.  Trim then merge conflicts with the point that if the content is merged back, it no longer needs to be trimmed, because of WP:NNC (though usually probably should), thus recreating the problems of WP:SIZE.  Trimming back unsourced but otherwise quality sections of large articles runs quite contrary to the intent of NOT PAPER.  I agree with the "safe harbor" argument above.  While declaring "parent article is too long" as a reasonable counter-argument to AFDs for WP:N seems like a reasonable solution at first, the potential for content rot (for lack of a better term) because needlessly strong. If not bound by Mediawiki issues and WP design principles, I think I'd like to see unquestionable subarticles (only relevant within the relm of the parent article, like list of characters of popularFictionFoo) as subdirectory articles, such as "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopularFictionFoo/List_of_characters", otherwise, I'm still quite undecided on what I think is the best way to go. -Verdatum (talk) 21:58, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability and size splits 

message: I know I can't be alone in feeling that this heading means the exact opposite of the section content. To me, the idiomatic meaning of Notability is not temporary is that notability is permanent. What the section seems to be saying is that temporary appearances in media are not notability, which isn't the same thing at all. When I say "notability is not temporary", this is not what I mean, and when I read someone else saying it, I expect they mean what I understand. It almost sounds like it comes out of a non-native speaker of English, in fact. Reactions? --Dhartung | Talk 01:39, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, to me the heading means that if a topic ever met the notability criteria, it is permanently notable. The actual text under the heading, on the other hand, makes several different points, and the only one that more or less agrees with the heading is "if long-term coverage has been sufficiently demonstrated, there is no need to show continual coverage or interest." --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I fault the content, not the headline.  The purpose of the headline is clear: just because something falls out of fashion doesn't mean it has lost its notability.  At least that's the way I see it, as an argument against the idea that a changing consensus can make a once-notable topic non-notable.  I think the first line is just a knee-jerk reaction to somebody Wikilawyering the headline to defend any and every topic ever mentioned on any media.  Maybe it should just be moved to later in the paragraph, or qualified. Torc2 (talk) 03:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The first line (“A short burst of present news coverage about a topic does not necessarily constitute objective evidence of long-term notability.”) was added by User:Kubigula(?), supported by an apparent consensus, in response to the not uncommon occurrence seen at AfD of an article written based on news reports, where there may be citations to many reputable newspapers, but on examination it would be found that each report was a mere re-wording of an earlier news report.  Reuters carried an unusual story, and national and local newspapers reproduced it.  None of the news articles carried any form of commentary, and were thus all primary.  They were all also co-dependent, being derivatives of some same original report.  The articles were also in violation of WP:NOT#NEWS.  The contributors creating these articles may have been adding the multiple references in an attempt to satisfy WP:N requirement for multiple references if the coverage in each is not significant/substantial/non-trivial (whatever WP:N said at the time).  The addition of the above line seemed highly appropriate at the time, and seemed to my sporadic perusals of AfD to result in a decrease of occurrences of articles sourced to a short burst of news reports.  I believe the line should stay, somewhere, and agree that it doesn’t logically follow the title.  --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe I did start that section to capture two existing concepts regarding the non-temporary nature of notability.  I agree that the result was a bit confusing, so I took a stab at more clearly separating the two concepts.  Feel free to tweak further.--Kubigula (talk) 14:42, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Notability is not temporary" 

message: I still don't get the difference between importance (as mentioned in CSD A7) and notability. Common definitions I see for "notable" are:
*noteworthy: worthy of notice
*celebrated: widely known and esteemed
Common definitions for important:
*of great significance or value 
Sarsaparilla (talk) 22:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: *It should be noted on that, if you look at WP:CSD#A7, it states that it applies to "an article about a real person, organization (band, club, company, etc.), or web content that does not indicate why its subject is important or significant. This is distinct from questions of notability, verifiability and reliability of sources." It is a really difficult distinction to understand, though.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability as defined in WP is "coverage in secondary sources"; importance is a relative term that says why the topic is important, but may not necessarily be notable (per definition). For purposes of speedy deletion, if you create an article that does not state why something is important (and thus likely not notable), it will be deleted; however, if you create an article where you indicate its importance but you have not yet had a chance to show notability, it should not be speedily deleted, though you should try to provided notability in the short term. --MASEM 04:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

text: *True. And the reverse is possible, because a topic that's notable (secondary coverage exists but is not shown) may not say why that subject is important. For example, if the article on The Beatles said "The Beatles were a four-piece band from Liverpool" it'd actually meet CSD A7 in that state, despite being a notable subject, because it didn't assert any level of significance. For all we know from that description, the band could have been formed one night by four guys in a garage who never took it any further. --h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 05:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Importance vs. notability 

message: I created five geographical articles yesterday. Among them, Loch Kinord and Loch Lee. I think that a case could be made that these articles fail the notability guideline in that they probably do not have the potential to become more than stubs, and because Wikipedia is not a directory. I really don't have much faith in the articles that I create sometimes, because I assume that someone else would have written about them already. This leads to me nominating my own articles for deletion to check community consensus sometimes, to see if the topic is truly notable.
Back to the point. Scotland has hundreds, maybe thousands of lochs, many of which are small, due to the landscape formed during glaciation in the last ice age, and I honestly can not say that I believe every single one of them is notable. But where do we draw the line? Is it acceptable to use Gazetteer for Scotland as a source for geographical locations (that I know about, can't really write much about geography elsewhere in the world - and I prefer to stick to the northern half of Scotland in general) if I can't find a decent number of third-party sources?--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 04:36, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe there is a sort of agreement in the community that most geographic articles, in particular human settlements, are inherently notable and are exempt from needing to have citations from reliable secondary sources. I am not quite sure how that extends to other geographic bodies but in my experience, anything that has a name usually gets its own article. --Polaron | Talk 13:12, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: a name, but also a definite geographical location shown on reliable sources. Vague areas or indistinct features or neighborhoods require more evidence that their existence is actually notable.DGG (talk) 14:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geographical articles - and notability - again 

message: Are Fawlty Towers episodes notable? TTN seems to think they are not, and insists on redirecting the articles - see , . I think episodes that are still reguarly aired over 30 years after their original broadcast and have secondary sources (Fawlty Towers: A Worshipper's Companion, Leo Publishing, , The Complete Fawlty Towers by John Cleese & Connie Booth (1988, Methuen, London) ) are suitable for individual articles. Catchpole (talk) 19:06, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Having references is not the same as saying if the work is notable.  Information in the references and elsewhere about development and reception need to be worked into the episode articles to make them notable.  This is the general gist of what we're trying to rewrite at WP:FICT. --MASEM 19:32, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability is a characteristic of topics, not articles. The present state of an article about an episode is unrelated to the notability of the episode. One might say that an article doesn't prove notability, but the lack of real-world content in an article is not enough to conclude that the subject is not notable. Black Falcon (Talk) 17:29, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not saying that I don't think the episode is not notable; it is just that information from those sources that talk about real world notability needs to be included into the article, rather than just listing the sources.  Merging the articles away is not the proper solution, since notability can be demonstrated - it just needs to be in the article. --MASEM 17:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I do agree with that, but just wanted to emphasise that we should distinguish the need for a well-written article that provides real-world content from issues of notability. Black Falcon (Talk) 17:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, article need to demonstrate notability.  That means they need to include that real-world content - just citing a source isn't sufficient (but by no means a method to say that the article needs deletion).  Per WP:PLOT, even if references exist for notability, we need more than just a plot summary for the articles.  Since the books exist, all that needs to be done is to do a bit of summarization to provide that info (and the articles should not be merged since it is pretty obvious this can be established).  It's a cleanup issue, basically. --MASEM 17:37, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

text: This page is more for the discussion of the state of the WP:N article.  For general questions on policy, you may want to look at WP:PUMP.  The question of episode notability is addressed in WP:EPISODE.  -Verdatum (talk) 19:36, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I'd say they are.  The information should be covered under WP:NNC, since these are just part of the Fawlty Towers that are on different Wiki pages due to WP:SIZE.  I'd also say that user has clearly violated [{WP:3RR]]. Torc2 (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Actually, providing notability reliability of the latter, yes they are. I see no link between production of the series and production of the book. Will (talk) 22:20, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fawlty Towers 

message: I would like to get more eyes to review the proposed version of Notability (fiction) beyond what those participating on the current talk page have provided.  This is not to get consensus for it yet, but to make sure there are no major issues with it before going to that step.  Please address any concerns on WT:FICT.  Thank you. --MASEM 18:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I still strongly disagree with the idea that sub-article has to be able to stand in absolute isolation from the main article.  That hurts Wikipedia far more than it helps.  We have to allow for cases where sub-articles are treated merely as content of a main article that exists on another wikipage due to size or organizational constraints.  Torc2 (talk) 19:27, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe that's what the section on "Summary Style" addresses - sub-articles necessitated by size and that may lack notability. --MASEM 19:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, duh, I'm an idiot and clicked on the wrong link.  No wonder it didn't seem like much had changed.  That said, some detail I'd like to see added: For articles on fictional works, even with concise discussion of in-universe elements, the main article may become too long (such as The Lord of the Rings). In this case, it is appropriate to also use summary style to create sub-articles to remove some details from the main article page. For fictional works, these sub-articles are typically lists of characters, episodes, locations or other elements from the fictional universe that often rely on primary sources and typically do not demonstrate notability on their own; and they may rely on the notability of the main fictional work. (insert paragraph break) Sub-articles that focus on a singular topic should only be used when appropriate; in general, singular topics either have demonstrated their own notability, or can be merged into the main article or existing sub-articles unless the merger would create size problems. These articles exist to help provide minimal but sufficient background for a complete understanding of the main work of fiction or any other notable sub-topics that may extend from it while aiding in following Wikipedia's manual of style. Torc2 (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Everything except one part looks good:  the part about "the merger would create size problems" could be twisted that individual articles of non-notable characters in largely in-universe style could be considered appropriate, because "obviously" merging them would create a sub-article too long.  I agree this applies to the main article, and I know the gist of what you mean, it just needs to be worded slightly differently. --MASEM 20:19, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, I was worried about that too.  We've got WP:NNC that says notability doesn't govern content, but then what policies aside from WP:V do govern content?  We still want to avoid 'cruft', (which means totally different things to different people - part of the problem).  We really just need clearer definition of what's allowed for primary source information, and then apply those standards equally whether the information is part of the main article or has been pushed into a subarticle. In general I like the revised guideline though. Torc2 (talk) 20:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please review proposed WP:FICT guideline 

message: I recently posted an article on Daniel Martin, a Jack Kent Cooke scolar, Peace activist and writer. It was deleted for lack of notability, "importance" and "significance."
Let me preface this by saying I have no intention of writing an article about myself, I'll let someone else do that someday (if ever). I only want to suggest that we take a good look at what we mean when we say "IMPORTANT and "SIGNIFICANT".
I must adamantly make a case for the Daniel Martin (Scholar) article - not on my personal behalf, but on the behalf of anyone who has made acceptional academic achievements and has, as a result been recognized with a highly prestigous national award. The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Scholarship, received by Daniel (myself) as a result of years of hard work and community leadership, is the most selective, lucrative transfer scholarship in the Western Hemisphere.
I believe it's a very poor reflection on our society when a junk filmmaker can crap out a movie about two guys getting stuck in the desert with a beautiful lesbian (see Never on Tuesday and get acknowledged on Wikipedia just because it was released by a studio - or another can be born into a wealthy family like my friend Brad Wyman (with all due respect), yet never achieve anything productive save 1 hit film about a mass murderer - see Monster. This reflects the same skewed value system that awards a top teacher with $30,000 a year while Julia Roberts can pump out a flop for $20 Million.
While I do understand that not just ANYONE can have a wikipedia article about them and their achievements, I do believe those who've been recognized with extraordinary awards by extraordinary people - see Jack Kent Cooke - should be recognized truthfully with the appropriate citations and proof. Jack Kent Cooke once said his legacy would be his scholars - and as the legacy of Mr. Cooke, I believe myself and other scholars should stand as societal role models and be recognized in the academic community for our achievements. I still believe, despite the cynical attitude of some, that Wikipedia is a real part of the academic and knowledge community.
Who are you to say that my achievement in not "IMPORTANT" or "SIGNIFICANT", yet Adam Rifkin's Never on Tuesday get's it's own entry - and for what???
I think this scholarship - and what it stands for - is pretty damn significant - and so did a multi-multi millionaire entrepreneur like Mr. Cooke, who owned the Redskins and the Lakers and the Chrysler Building, and so did the selection committee of dozens of top professors, politicians and nobel laureates who picked me and 24 other students out of over 25,000 potential candidates.
So I urge you, in your role as an admin, to permit and guide an article about a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar - not for me or the sake of individual ego, I'll leave off the writing of my own article and do one on a fellow scholar - but for the sake of honoring extraordinary *recognized* achievements that I hope can one day inspire people to be strong in character, discipline and hope - things that define a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar. We deserve to stand next to the Adam Rifkins and Brad Wymans of the world, and I believe we can.
There's a real world out there, with real heroes. Let's lift them up too.
If you would like more information about the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, feel free to visit the Foundation website.
Daniel has also been recognized in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Such secondary sources will be cited in full in any forthcoming articles about JKCF scholars.   —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eleutherosmartin (talk • contribs) 04:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: According to what's on your talk page, the page was deleted because it was too short, lacked context, and you violated the conflict of interest guidelines.  Notability has nothing to do with it.  —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 08:10, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Daniel Martin (Scholar) 

message: Over the past months, TV episodes have been redirected by (to name a couple) TTN, Eusebeus and others. No centralized discussion has taken place, so I'm asking everyone who has been involved in this issue to voice their opinions here in this centralized spot, be they pro or anti. Discussion is here . --Maniwar (talk) 01:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Centralized TV Episode Discussion 

message: Hi, 
I think that Notability policy should make a distinction between new articles and established articles. If new editors create a stub, I don't think they should be required to put references as they cannot be familiar with all Wikipedia policies. I think it should be upon experienced editors to at least 'Google' for relevant content and references, and try to fill it up. 
I do not like that Wikipedia rules changed so much since its inception. At the beginning it was begging users to contribute, to write unfinished articles, with spelling mistakes and uncompleted sentences that would encourage new editors to edit, correct, and build upon articles and stubs. Now that it has millions of articles and contributors, it 'closed' itself in a way, and is very judgmental about new contributions. 
To summarize: new article stubs should have much more flexible notability guideline, and deletions should not be proposed until some experienced editor has actually tried to find out more about the topic. Just being unfamiliar with the topic and assuming it is not notable should not be a reason for proposing deletion of new article stubs. 
Lakinekaki (talk) 23:45, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability for new article stubs 

message: Tags have been removed three times now- and I am headed on a wikibreak..... Steve Maraboli Sethie (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Would someone take a look at this page 

message: :Category:Citizen journalism is full of articles that fail to meet notability standards. Please take a look at these vanity articles. Thanks. --64.247.120.100 (talk) 00:59, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citizen journalism category 

message: This may be a strange question, but are there any extant notability guidelines for locations? I'm thinking in particular of places like villages in non-English speaking countries, which might not be mentioned particularly regularly in English-language sources. Are there any extant guidelines for such content, and if not does anyone have any basic ideas which might be useful in determining whether and which articles on such subjects should be created? John Carter (talk) 18:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability of places? 

message: Reading some AFDs got me thinking, so I wrote Wikipedia:Notability does not degrade over time. Might be insane, but tossing it out for consideration. Is this a lunatic essay, or did I just describe practice that is policy? Lawrence § t/e 08:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I think you correctly describe the process.  The concept is similar to Wikipedia:N#TEMP.--Kubigula (talk) 23:03, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:DEGRADE]] 

message: So, Sailor Bob Adamson a teacher and writer has two books he has written at Amazon, one book about him, and two books written by a student of his (John Wheeler). [], 4,300 google hits for his full name, in quotes. []
His article was deleted about a year ago, has his notability increased yet enough to warrant an article? Sethie (talk) 04:11, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't sound like it.  His student's books are irrelevant, and books about himself are probably not enough to establish notability.  Google tests are typically not enough to prove or disprove anything.  What's changed in the year? Torc2 (talk) 05:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does he qualify? 

message: I have recently tried to make a Wikipedia Page on a recent "Company / Group" that me and my friends have come up with for Video Game Designing. We have created a few games using "RPG MAKER 2003" to show that we have the ability and we have shown our friends and some people over the WWW our games. 
The Lords Of Zeroah is a low end group of people, a guild on gaia, soon to have a website, and its ran by two of the memebers 
The leader "The Wind Lord Zolaga" - Tim.
The helper "ReapeR Is The New Death" - Brandon.
Please let me know if i would beable to make a wikipedia on this, and for what i would have to do to get it started. 
--ReapeRs PreY (talk) 16:04, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi ReapeRs PreY. It's really quite simple. Once your company has become well known enough that it is discussed in some detail in independent, published, reliable sources that are wholly independent of the company and attempts to promote it, then it can have an entry at Wikipedia. The reason for this is that, as an encyclopedia, we are by definition a tertiary source, so our information must synthesize already published sources. There are other sites that use Wiki software which are not encyclopedias, where an entry on your company might be appropriate right now.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: In addition to what Fuhghettaboutit said, any article about your company should be written by someone not connected with the company who has noticed it. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lords Of Zeroah. 

message: === WP:FICT has been revised ===
WP:FICT, the notability guideline for elements within a work of fiction (characters, places, elements, etc) has a new proposal/revision that is now live  Everyone is encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page. Ned Scott 22:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Guidelines 

message: WP:FICT, the notability guideline for elements within a work of fiction (characters, places, elements, etc) has a new proposal/revision that is now live  Everyone is encouraged to leave feedback on the talk page. Ned Scott 22:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  WP:FICT has been revised 

message: There is a proposal to split WP:EPISODE into a more general notability guideline, Wikipedia:Notability (serial works), and make the rest of WP:EPISODE just a MOS guideline. Please join in at WT:EPISODE#Proposed split of EPISODE and/or Wikipedia talk:Notability (serial works). -- Ned Scott 22:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia:Notability (serial works) 

message: Why does Wikipedia need this? And no, I'm not a disgruntled editor whose fancruft or the like got deleted, I'm just genuinally curious. If an article has reliable sources, why should its "encyclopedic" nature matter? For example I could write an article about myself, citing publically available records of my date of birth, school certificates and so forth. In my opinion it is already clear that Wikipedia has become something very different from an old print encyclopedia. We don't need to worry about how many pages we're going to fill up. Why not make Wikipedia's ultimate goal (and when I say ultimate, I mean over many thousands of years) to be a source of information on every single object, being or concept in the universe, both past and present, regardless of how important or "notable" it is?  --81.158.148.64 (talk) 00:26, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It's possible the effort is being used to channel the energies of editors into areas that are currently weak and could use more review.  There are still thousands of articles on notable topics that have weak to no sourcing, and weak content.Wjhonson (talk) 06:19, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why? 

message: The statement "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." is original research. The statement is like saying "A topic is presumed to be "cool" if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." The argument is pure original research. It assumes what a source does not say. The mere existence of "significant coverage" is used to assume a subject is worthy of notice. Unless a reliable source explicitly says something is notable, the "notability" of a subject is not verifiable. Verifiability is the criteria for inclusion on Wikipedia, not notability. 
This paragraph is also false: "The common theme in the notability guidelines is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence to support a claim of notability. Substantial coverage in reliable sources constitutes such objective evidence, as do published peer recognition and the other factors listed in the subject specific guidelines." Substantial coverage in reliable sources is not objective evidence that a subject is "worthy of notice." Substantial coverage in reliable sources is...substantial coverage in reliable sources. Any argument or assumption based upon that violates the policy on no original research. There can be no objective evidence that a subject is "worthy of notice" — only subjective opinions. --Pixelface (talk) 04:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement is like saying "A topic is presumed to be "cool" if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." ... but the notability guideline is neither Cool nor an article.  It's a guideline and inherently will contain original research due to the inherent lack of secondary sources that determine our policies for us— that is, unless there's some sort of Wikigod out there that I'm unaware of.  --slakr\ talk / 04:27, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  Unlike the articles, Wikipedia policies and guidelines are not themselves subject to the policies and guidelines.  Otherwise, we could well say that WP:NOR is original research and WP:V is unverified.--Kubigula (talk) 04:47, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I would disagree. I think guidelines must not violate policies. Using the existence of sources to claim that a subject is "worthy of notice", when the sources do not say the subject is "worthy of notice" violates at least 2 of Wikipedia's core policies. --Pixelface (talk) 22:40, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Policies like WP:OR and WP:V regulate article content, they do not govern internal Wikipedia processes.--Kubigula (talk) 05:37, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  This guideline violates the [[WP:NOR|no original research]] policy