Wikipedia talk:Article inclusion/Archive1

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Initial comments

I like changing the name, I have issue with the "subjects must have encyclopedic value." though. I can easily see this being twisted to delete plenty of pop-culture, even the best sourced ones. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 04:33, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Except that this isn't central by any means. The governing principles would still be at the subject-specific notability guidelines for that topic. This is merely a centralized page to point people to the various policies and guidelines, it isn't meant to act as any sort of governing document. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I like this proposal much better than the current notability guideline where I have a serious bone to pick with the primary notability criterion. In its current shape I can still envision some hand-waving over what "encyclopedic value" is supposed to mean, but I have trouble in seeing a good way around that. Focusing on more specific subject-related notability criteria is something I strongly agree with, since guidelines like WP:FICT and WP:MUSIC have done far more to help us in determining notability of specific subjects than the WP:N guideline has. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to reword it, given your and Night Gyr's concerns. Thanks for the input! --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Kudos for going about this the Right Way. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-07 13:23Z

Would you expect anything else from me? d;-) Thanks for your input so far. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comprehensive?

I think "comprehensive" should be clarified, or else people would get into useless arguments over whether there's enough info for a subject to be comprehensively covered. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-07 13:29Z

Any suggestions? At the end of the day, I'd rather be having that discussion rather than "is this notable enough," but you have a valid point. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:03, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
This is the old issue with the definition of "non-trivial" sources, from a new angle. I'd say a good place to start would be to point out that "comprehensive" involves more than directory-style information (address, etc.) or purely statistical information. In theory, WP:NOT already covers that. Problem is, there're numerous vocal individuals who feel that any X (where X can be school, shopping mall, fictional mecha from a given series, band, or whatever that individual's interest happens to be) whose existence can be verified should be included. I don't have a good solution to suggest to that one. Shimeru 07:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the word comprehensive is too strong, since it implies that we have to have sources for every aspect of a subject in order to write about any aspect of it. I'm not sure what the right word is, though -- perhaps "substantial". —Celithemis 08:35, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Same problem. What's "substantial" mean? Shimeru 20:17, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, I'm wondering if it's accurate. For instance, a good amount of primary/self-pubilshed information helps make a "comprehensive" article - third-party information alone is often not enough. "Substantial" is probably better, but you're right - same problem. Do we even need a qualifier? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Probably. After all, a single mention in passing is "enough information to write an article." Sure, the article is "X is a Y located in Z," but it's an article and verifiable, so it'd meet the letter. What we need is enough information to make it something more than a stub, which means... well, information beyond directory info and statistical info. It means having secondary sources which have conducted an analysis of X on a level deep enough to let us say something about what impact X has had. In order to avoid conflict of interest, those sources should be independent. In order to minimize bias or POV, those sources should be plural. The point about coming from different dates is also significant; it shows some extended study has occurred. Shimeru 20:44, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that some qualifier is needed, whether it be "comprehensive", "substantial", or other wording. Good points about the sources, too. ChazBeckett 20:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I can certianly agree to a qualifier of some sort, as long as it doesn't attempt to override what's required for notability at the specific guidelines. Maybe "acceptable" article, to keep within the theme of the page - the article must be acceptable per the policies and guidelines listed, while not acting against comprehensive stubs? --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
"... an article suitable for an encyclopedia"? —Celithemis 01:25, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
An article suitable for Wikipedia, since we have articles that your standard encyclopedia would not. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that's necessary in context. "A subject is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia if sufficient attributable information is available to write an encylopedia article about it." Since we're talking about sufficient information, that doesn't lend itself to the misinterpretation that we only cover the kinds of topics Brittanica covers. —Celithemis 02:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
If this isn't to override "any specific guidelines", what's the point of having it at all? Regardless of any other considerations, shouldn't we have sufficient sources for a comprehensive article? Certainly, no guideline can override WP:NOT a directory or indiscriminate collection of information. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Huh? I'm not following your context here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Was a reply to your post above, you stated that you didn't want any guideline to override subject-specific guidelines. What would be the point of having any primary guideline, if it had no real effect? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:44, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I don't see the point of a primary guideline for notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess what I'm wondering then, is what is the purpose of this, if not to be a central inclusion criterion? Why would we have a guideline called "Article inclusion" if it doesn't determine what articles get included? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

What is the point?

What is the point of this page - i.e. what does this add that isn't really already included in WP:NOTE? Is this just another example of instruction & policy creep? Dr Aaron 13:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

  • In my view, the most important thing is detaching the concept of "notability" from the concept of "verifiability". Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The most important thing is removing the stupid name, to stop people from misunderstanding what it is supposed to be. -Amarkov moo! 14:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The point of this page is to have a contrast/cooperation with WP:ATT - a document that explains how we judge the worthiness of an article for inclusion. WP:N/WP:NOTE is incredibly controversial in its application, as judged by discussion at the talk page, and fails to address what the page intends to do. Thus, this page's intent is to act as a centralized starting point for users - this is what's necessary to make an article, and you can go here, here, and here for more information on these specific points. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Why the contradiction?

First, this says "an article's subject is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia if sufficient information is available to write a comprehensive article on it." Then, it turns around and says "All articles on Wikipedia should generally meet a standard for notability for the subject matter it falls into." Why the contradiction? Many of the subject-specific guidelines contain rules of the form "a blurble is notable if it's more than 10 feet wide". This is why many people don't like the subject-specific guidelines. This is just inviting people to assert that their favorite blurble is notable, despite not having adequate coverage in good sources, is it not? Friday (talk) 15:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

What contradiction? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Am I missing something? Does it actually say somewhere "Notability is the only criteria for inclusion"? I don't understand why so many people think it is otherwise. -Amarkov moo! 15:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, the people in the "topics need sufficient coverage in good sources to allow a non-permastub" camp do frequently think this should be a minimum requirement, I think. That's not to say there might not be other criteria also, but it's saying that this basic criterion is a requirement. To me (and, I think, a good deal of others) adequate coverage in sources is necessary, but not always sufficient. For example, things that are extremely specific might be deemed a poor topic for an article, despite having adequate coverage. Friday (talk) 15:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

How can this be a proposal?

When it's a fork of WP:N which is a guideline? We shouldn't try to have two guidelines that cover essentially the same topic. Friday (talk) 15:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not a fork. It's intended to act as a replacement. Have you bothered with the talk page at WP:N yet? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
There's too much repeating of the same crap over and over, and little communication going on. But, the solution is not to fork. Friday (talk) 15:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
And no one is proposing a fork, so you have nothing to worry about. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:N attempts to describe what makes a topic suitable for the encyclopedia. So does this page. Unless there's something I've missed, this is a fork. Friday (talk) 15:16, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to request that you read what was written here before commenting further. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:18, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Not a bad idea but...

I can see the value in having a shorter and more concise guideline than WP:N; however, I think this one is too vague. It's fair enough for the guideline to direct the reader to the various category-specific notability guidelines (such as WP:BIO and WP:MUSIC), but the fact is that WP:N summarises the one major criterion that is common to most questions of notability: has it been the focus of multiple non-trivial coverage in third-party sources? This is the most important criterion for article inclusion, and the one most commonly cited at WP:AFD. So isn't it convenient to have a guideline that summarises that particular point? Walton Vivat Regina! 16:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, this isn't meant to be a governing document like WP:N is - it's simply meant to act as a document to summarize what makes an article worthy of inclusion, and how we handle articles that don't meet that standard. WP:N does not address "notability" well, as the talk page over there has shown, for inclusion or exclusion. At the end of the day, there isn't a "most important criterion" for inclusion, as people have said they all work together, so I believe it's more convienient to have a centralized page that addresses what governs inclusion, rather than trying to shoehorn a one-size-fits-all guideline into things that don't actually fit. Am I making any sense, I feel like I just rambled there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
So is this a guideline proposal, or an essay? Friday (talk) 16:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
If it needs a tag at all, I'd call it a guideline as it's nothing more than a directive toward other guidelines and policies, but my personal vision for it is that it's simply a page that explains what already exists in policy and our guidelines. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
When I said "most important criterion", I didn't mean to imply that it takes some sort of formal precedence over other criteria; however, it is undoubtedly the most commonly-cited notability criterion at AfD, and the most useful in deciding whether or not a borderline article merits inclusion. I realise that there are special exceptions to the "multiple non-trivial coverage" rule, but it's the test that we apply to most articles. WP:ATT isn't enough on its own, because an article which is not reliably sourced isn't automatically deletable; however, if the notability is in question and it is not reliably sourced, then it is deletable. I understand what you're saying about not being a "governing document", and I absolutely agree that the specific notability guidelines (WP:BIO and so on) are very important, as it would be absurd to apply exactly the same test to every article. But WP:N is a good general summary of what notability is all about. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," is the aphorism to apply in this case, particularly as unnecessary renaming of policies or guidelines tends to confuse everyone. Walton Vivat Regina! 16:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Judging by the discussions at WP:N, however, it appears that it is broke. It doesn't appear that there's any actual agreement as to what "notability is all about," thus the attempts to reimagine the entire concept of article inclusion and how to direct users to the relevant policies and guidelines. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I do not see all that much disagreement with the basic thrust of WP:N that a subject should have multiple nontrivial coverage in reliable sources. I just see one or two people over there whose argument would have the effect making it difficult to eliminate nonencyclopedic articles. This essay is an unnecessary addition to the discussion of what an article has to have to be encyclopedic. We are already getting articles about individual run of the mill buses and locomotives. Edison 04:05, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

seems toothless

I can't disagree with anything on the page. I can't because there's no actual content to disagree with. The page is a restatement of a fragment of WP:NOT and a few other policy pages. It provides no new or useful guidance to editors that I can see. I'm sure this is well-intentioned but I do not see this as a viable alternative to supercede the concept of Wikipedia:notability. Rossami (talk) 16:23, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

  • It's somewhat designed that way - WP:N is failing, as discussed on that talk page, and this does a better job of summarizing what the intent of WP:N allegedly is. It's not supposed to have teeth because it's not supposed to govern anything - everything it could possibly cover is already dealt with at existing pages. I mean, what are you looking for that this doesn't provide, and yet is workable in practice (which WP:N is not)? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • This page seems to be moving things in the right direction. The most important difference from WP:N is simply the title. Hopefully it will help eliminate the problematic word notability from inclusion discussions. - SimonP 17:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Quite. Philwelch makes a good point about the Orwellian translation game we play with Wikipedia terminology on the Community Noticeboard; in the real world, and in pre-2006 deletion discussions, "notability" is pretty much equivalent to "importance or significance". Currently, in Wikipedia doublespeak, it means something more like "there's enough sources to write a complete article which meets WP:ATT and WP:NPOV". This is tolerable in AFD discussions, but as Jeff's pointed out before, it breaks apart very badly when it comes to speedy deletion. Many editors - and, more and more, newer administrators - see the "importance or significance" wording in WP:CSD#A7, equate it to "notability", and start speedying articles that clearly establish importance because the article doesn't specifically say anything that meets one of the criteria listed at WP:MUSIC. —Cryptic 18:25, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Not only redundant to, but stricter than, WP:N

Maybe I'm just missing something (quite possible, no coffee yet), but on a first reading this appears to be significantly stricter than WP:N - it requires that articles meet the rough equivalent of the primary notability criterion and one of the subject-specific guidelines. Compare what's here with the PNC:

  • Such information should be published and independent of the subject... All articles on Wikipedia must abide by our policy on attribution - articles should be well-sourced and verifiable, preferably with independent third party reliable secondary sources.
  • A topic is notable if it has been the subject of at least one substantial or multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject and of each other.

The only real difference is that the "multiple" and "non-trivial" requirements are handled by proxy through WP:ATT and WP:NPOV instead of being explicitly repeated. I'm undecided whether that's good or bad. On the one hand, it will likely cut down on wikilawyers arguing that things like four pages on a subject in the middle of a three-hundred-page book about something else, or a legal case that receives extensive media coverage throughout a country despite not being later cited as a precedent, are trivial. On the other, it increases the number of different pages we have to refer people to in deletion discussions, and may well result in us keeping articles that we shouldn't: for instance, if all of the available sources are either primary or trivial, it won't be possible to write a comprehensive article without running into insoluble original research problems. —Cryptic 18:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, your final worry isn't true - Ern Westmore and "She Shoulda Said 'No'!" are two examples of articles that have primary or trivial non-independent mentions, but are fairly comprehensive in scope. Besides, a guiding principle has been "when in doubt, don't delete" - certainly, keeping a number of pages we maybe shouldn't is a better result than deleting a number of pages we maybe should have kept, no? Regardless, this page is set to replace WP:N, which lacks consensus and, judging by the discussion, may never achieve it. Thus, this page, instead of setting up an arbitrary one-size-fits-all situation for notability, simply says "these our what we expect for article inclusion, and you can get more information by looking at these policies and guidelines." A centralized page. In some cases, it makes notability stricter, in others it relaxes things - that's ultimately the point, as notability differs from subject to subject. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:39, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me, though, that the present system is working fine. I completely agree with Jeff that "when in doubt, don't delete" is a good rule; however, speaking as a frequent participant in AfDs, there is little to no "doubt" in most cases where notability is questioned. Generally, when an article is put up for AfD, it looks like it might be notable (hence not speediable under CSD A7), but there are no reliable sources to back it up. The AfD process gives the article a couple of days' grace; sometimes appropriate sources will be added while the article is at AfD (as at this recent AfD) and the article will be kept. If there are no reliable sources out there, or no one adds them, then the article gets deleted - but it can still be recreated in the future, with sources. So what's wrong with that process? You say the process is not working; show me a single article which has been wrongfully deleted due to abuse of WP:N, and I'll take this problem more seriously. Walton Vivat Regina! 20:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Starslip Crisis? Brian Peppers? Emmalina? Gregory Kohs? I'm glad you're so positive about this, I'm not, but even if it's working a lot at AfD does not mean that the community agrees with it as a primary criterion or as written - the amount of discussion at WT:N is staggering. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually this looks pretty good in general, but I'm concerned about lack of any mention that the bulk of sourcing should be secondary. Some subjects may receive significant mention in primary sources, but for editors to state anything beyond the obvious from those sources is original research. In that case, we're essentially acting as a webhost for the exact same information in the primary source, which of course fails WP:NOT, or interpreting primary source data on our own, which violates WP:ATT. It's only when a conclusion is stated in a secondary source that we can mention that conclusion, attributing it, of course, to said source. This would also work as a good anti-bias guard. If reliable secondary sources consider a subject notable enough to write a significant amount of information on, we write on it. If they don't, we don't. It's every bit in the spirit of WP:NOR that what we write, above all, should be at the discretion of sources, not at the discretion of editors. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 21:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
We should only be making the case that's made at WP:ATT for that, nothing more. The bulk of sourcing should be of what's necessary, and I think this covers that. Please, by all means, edit away and tweak it if you think it's still far off. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Weaker than WP:N

I would have thought this was obvious, but isn't this weaker than the PNC? The PNC says that the subject must be the primary focus of a third-party published work, and this doesn't. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-08 08:29Z

Forget about the PNC, it's got nothing to do with anything here. Check the discussion over at WP:N for more. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
That talk page is a mess. I realize WP:AI does not use the PNC. I just wanted to state what I thought was obvious since others (see above) seem to think the opposite. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-08 13:01Z
Okay, I misunderstood, sorry. Whether or not it's weaker would end up being based within the subject-specific guidelines, but this certainly pushes notability closer to WP:ATT rather than over it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ammended the "default" sentence to include "period of time" for publication

Just reading through it the only problem I had was with the default notability condition sentence. As written it left open the possibility of, for example, a well written article about a random sporting event or local crime story based on some articles on that day as being notable. To close that loophole, I appended that the third party information should be published "over a period of time (ie not in the same one or two day period)". As an example, a typical baseball game might have articles about it on the day after or day before the game. But a championship series game will have more extended coverage and independent articles that appear over a period of a week or two or more. The former would generally not be considered worthy of inclusion as a seperate article, but the latter would be.

Personally it doesn't matter much to me whether WP:N is used or this page is used as the "bare minimum notability for inclusion" guideline. I do, though, think there should ultimately only be one guideline page to avoid unnecessary duplication of discussion and effort. Dugwiki 21:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately, that may be the case, but that's not something we can force. I may tweak your wording a bit more, but not yet - if anything, that's something that would be handled on a specific guideline rather than here. Thanks for looking and your input. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:19, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I doubt my wording is optimal. The main thing is that, as a bottom line general rule, an article should have more than one source and the sources shouldn't all be from the same date. There are probably some exceptions to that rule, but by and large articles that don't meet that standard are very likely to not be something most editors would find worthy of inclusion. Most of us, for example, are suspicious of articles that only have a single source, and in particular for news events multiple sources all on the same day and no follow-up probably indicates it's a very limited event. Of course all guidelines will have a few exceptions, but if the guideline fits the bulk of the cases and most editors agree with the reasoning then it's probably a good guideline. Dugwiki 21:44, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Added line on fiction

I added a line on fictional subjects:

  • Articles on fictional subjects or works of fiction should be shown to be encyclopedic in a context outside of the fictional universe. See WP:FICT for guidelines on writing about fictional subjects and works.

Any comments would be much appreciated. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I've reworded it slightly and placed it in context w/WP:NOT, but it's otherwise sensible. I wish I had thought of it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Rewrite looks a lot better, thanks. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 01:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Subarticle exception on fiction

I'm really not entirely sure about that, if we were to put that, we may as well not have WP:FICT. Usually, a fictional character can be covered "out of universe" just fine in the parent article. If there's enough out-of-universe information on the character (e.g. Superman), it should certainly have its own article, but usually a fictional character's entry growing large with in-universe information calls for some cutting, not putting it in a subarticle to accumulate more. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:04, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Hrmmmm. Actually, I think I just came up with a good "rule of thumb" for fictional character notability-just imagine using the character in casual conversation with a non-fan. "Who's that idiot walking on the train tracks think he is, Superman?" "I hate my new boss, I'd rather have Darth Vader." "That guy has more gadgets then Batman." All of these make sense. On the other hand, "Wow, that guy has better aim then Vash the Stampede!" is likely to get a blank stare. I'm not sure how this would be worded exactly, though? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:09, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if the language is necessary, only because I think it confuses the multiple uses of subarticles, but I do know that it reflects current practice, and if WP:FICT is different from that, it needs to be adjusted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
WP:FICT actually suggests placing detailed material, annotations, etc., on Wikibooks. That would seem to me to be a far better option-having an encyclopedia article on the work and on truly iconic fictional characters here, and then do a more detailed annotation and "in-universe" analysis of the characters over there. We can do a softlink box to a Wikibook in an article. A lot of current fictional character articles are probably great transwiki candidates over there. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, yeah, analysis being different than description and information here. I wouldn't go around transwikiing a bunch of stuff, but we're sliding a bit off topic, anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Subarticles as in gameplay subarticles for, say, a video game series as a whole. The article will naturally not have as much out of universe infromation as its parent article, which has already established notability and need for comprehensiveness. — Deckiller 02:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
"Notability", yes. "Need for comprehensiveness", no. We have biographies on some people, that doesn't mean we need to "comprehensively" have biographies on all people. We have articles on some companies, that doesn't mean we need to "comprehensively" have articles on all people. Encyclopedia articles should be an overview of the subject as it relates to the real world. Wikibooks is for "comprehensive" texts which can cover all possible facets of a subject. (They also, to my knowledge, allow a greater degree of original research and interpretation of a primary source, so long as the claim is not ridiculous or ludicrous). An article about a video game should be an article about the game's "real-world" importance, with a plot synopsis covering the main characters. Have a look over at Wikibooks at b:Half-Life Fact File. That's far more comprehensive on Half-Life then we could ever get here, which is why transing to Wikibooks is the perfect way to do it. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 02:36, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
So I see you're against subarticles and comprehensiveness in general then. Very well, I won't push the argument further, because I know you'll just strongly disagree. — Deckiller 02:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not against subarticles "in general", so to speak, but I'm certainly against use of them to include everything conceivable that wouldn't support its own article in any other case. For a subject like World War II, subarticles are absolutely necessary, there are tons of notable subfacets to the subject, trying to write about it all in one page would be a 5 MB blob. On the other hand, the vast majority of fictional works can be covered in a single article, with a quick plot synopsis providing an encyclopedic overview of who the characters are and what the major events were. If a bunch of "in-universe" stuff is starting to pile up on a fictional work, it's very likely time to cut, not to start spinning subarticles. However, "comprehensiveness" should never be a sole criteria for inclusion. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 03:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
(Also, we are rather offtopic for purposes of this specific proposal, for which I apologize. I've started work on a separate proposal to address the issue.) I still don't particularly like the subarticle bit for this proposal though, it effectively makes the whole thing meaningless (just call it a subarticle!) Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 03:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed; subarticles for individual games are usually uncalled for, unless they are significant enough to the outside world and/or numerous in-universe sources to warrent a general page (Jay and Silent Bob, Samus Aran, etc). However, subarticles for a 40+ game series, on the other hand, are fine, because it requires more space to describe the main points on a level consistent with the coverage norm on Wikipedia. Naturally, these general subarticles probably have more reliable sources and out of universe information than, say, an article based on a fictional organization appearing in a video game. — Deckiller 03:29, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Not sure that's such a good rule of thumb -- it relies on the editor's own cultural context. I'm not so sure the "Vash the Stampede" remark would sound odd, for instance... if the speaker were in Japan. (Outdated, perhaps.) And by the same token, I think you might get a blank stare from a lot of people if you said "I'm so tired I could sleep like Endymion," or "She's about as faithful as Cressida." Generally, I would think the major protagonists and antagonists of most works that merit inclusion probably merit articles themselves. Shimeru 07:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
All very true, which is why I presented it as a way of making a rough guess rather than anything which should be solely relied upon. The best method of judging how appropriate a subject is would still always be to look at how much secondary source material is out there on it. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 14:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedicity

Hi.

I saw this: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and subjects must have encyclopedic value for the project. " But this does not explain what "encyclopedic" means. I think that should be defined. All it does is point to WP:NOT, which only tells us what is not encyclopedic, not what is. 74.38.32.195 04:00, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Everything that's not in WP:NOT :). And also use common sense. It's not feasable to enumerate everything that's encyclopedic... —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-08 08:24Z
I actually think a valid point has been raised here; "encyclopedic" isn't clearly defined, nor is there a consensus as to what, exactly, it means. That's essentially what the inclusionism-deletionism debate is all about, and it's the reason why we need WP:N. Otherwise it's reliant on users' own subjective judgements. A vote at WP:AFD saying Delete, not encyclopedic would be no use to anyone, and is virtually another way of saying WP:IDONTLIKEIT. The reason why we need WP:N is because it provides an objective standard for inclusion of articles, one that isn't dependent on whether or not some users view a topic as "encyclopedic" or not. Otherwise, AfDs will effectively become a popularity contest. Walton Vivat Regina! 08:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree that some kind of inclusion guide line is necessary, whatever its name, but I would add that notability is orthogonal from encyclopedicity. All professor biographies can be encyclopedic, but not all professors are notable. I think what Badlydrawnjeff is trying to do is say that all professor biographies should be included as long as there is enough attributable information to write one. —Quarl (talk) 2007-03-08 10:24Z
That's exactly it, though-where do we draw the line at "enough information?" WP:NOT a directory, of professors or anything else, so if we say "Include all professors if verifiable", we'll just get another subjective argument. Some may say "John Smith is a professor of basket-weaving at Podunk Community College" is enough, and that's probably verifiable through the college directory, but little else would be. Looking at secondary sources is a good way to figure out if something is encyclopedic-since an encyclopedia is a tertiary source, we should be working largely from secondary sources, not primary ones. "How much secondary source material is available?" tends to be a pretty good metric of how suitable something is. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 14:28, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I kind of agree, but I have to add that there should be multiple secondary sources. To borrow your example above, it might be possible to write a biography of John Smith from the Podunk Community College newsletter, or from Basket-Weavers' Weekly. This would make the biography verifiable and accurate, but would do nothing to demonstrate notability - whereas if multiple sources from several works are provided, then his notability is demonstrated. Walton Vivat Regina! 14:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Something can be notable with zero "secondary sources." You're still working from a point of view that isn't entirely sensible - articles must have sources, but for attribution purposes, not necessarily to establish notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:53, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Any sourcing establishes verifiability. An advertisement in a local paper verifies a business' existence, for example (they didn't run that ad for free!), a government directory verifies a school's existence, government records verify my existence. What establishes notability is that someone who is not required or paid by someone to write about them chooses to do so anyway (the paper decides to do an in-depth story on a company, a book is written about the school, a biography is written about the person). When we have several of those sources, we can sum them up into a tertiary source-an encyclopedia article. And yes, that's notability, as well as verifiability. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 14:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, no, it doesn't. I'm reluctant to go down this road yet again, but notability can be established by a number of things, sources being just one of them. The idea that there's some one-size-fits-all concept is not one that's accepted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well...I think the trouble there is that we're going back and forth over notability as defined in a more general sense (a notable figure in town, a notable crime), and notability as defined here (suitability for an article). Unfortunately, it is a rather poor term, and people tend to conflate it (probably understandably so) with its more standard meanings of "importance" or "fame" or "difference from the crowd". Secondary sourcing is, however, the overriding factor in determining encyclopedic suitability (which I wish we'd change "notability" to, I think that would cause far less confusion). Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 15:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
You're somewhat making my point before that last line. I won't keep running around in circles on the rest, though - I'm hoping we can completely rethink the idea for Wikipedia's purposes, but a one-size-fits-all situation is not the way to do it currently. Baby steps, or something. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, there may be "zero" secondary sources, but in that case it is still not acceptable for WP -- see WP:ATT. However, the "multiple-sources" criterion is not the only criterion, or even a necessary one -- when subject-specific N guidelines exist, they can provide other criteria (notice how the guidelines say "if it meets at least one of the following criteria", and that means it may not meet the "primary criterion" on WP:N, but if it meets any of the other criteria it's still considered notable.). The purpose of the "PNC" is to provide some sort of reference point when no subject-specific guideline set exists, and thus to prevent "I like it"/"I hate it"-like AFD "arguments" from being given some room. Such arguments are totally useless, and I am completely opposed to their use in the AFD discussions. For one, they are subjective, as the likes and dislikes of a person are not easily determinable, and therefore it grants more leeway to a simple vote-count method on the part of the administrator who closes the debate and/or deletes the article under consideration for deletion, and Wikipedia is NOT a democracy. In addition, it also may require the administrator to judge their likes and dislikes, which easily allows them to be able to delete or keep the article based on their own likes/dislikes and other personal biases. That too, is unacceptable. The bottom line is that there must be no room for subjective "like/hate" arguments in AFD! 74.38.32.195 20:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
But how do you define what "encyclopedic" really means? What is it about "encyclopedicity" that would make "all professors" encyclopedic? 74.38.32.195 20:16, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

(de-indent - bdj)

It's an interesting thought, but how would you prevent bias from occurring (especially recentism, where editors may tend to have an interest in something and desire looser guidelines)? This already seems to some degree to occur-we allow, for example, articles on albums, roads, and railway stations, where an article on anything else with a similar lack of sourcing would be deleted. I would think a "one-size-fits-all" standard would be the only way to prevent such systemic bias. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 16:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, you use three entirely separate things for your example - albums are easily sourceable, and simply exist as better content as the subarticles they are. Roads have a long-standing working consensus, and I'm not sure if I agree with what's going on with railway stations, but I don't really bother with that area either. On none of those issues, however, is sourcing actually a problem - it just doesn't exist prominently in the article. An album's notability, for instance, generally has little to do with the available sourcing, but rather on who's produced it. Recentism will always be an issue, and is moreso a reason not to have a "one-size-fits-all" standard - such a standard encourages recentism by simply saying "if you have the sources, you can include it." A better standard would be to actually form a guideline at Wikipedia:Recent events or something similar or incorporate recentism stuff into an already existing guideline. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:40, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I can most certainly find you a ton of album articles that, as far as I can tell, little or no sourcing exists for. Basically, the band is barely notable to start with (and usually even that by one of these silly "secondary" guidelines that make arbitrary cutoff points), and the album's received little or no review or press whatsoever. Also, in these cases, the band's article is usually not exactly overflowing with content itself (it's usually little more then a stub itself). Covering the album under the band would certainly be a much better solution in this case. With roads, that's exactly my point. Often, few or no sources exist, yet there's this "working consensus" (and a Wikiproject that canvasses like hell every time an AFD goes up, so I don't think we've accurately determined consensus on that anyway). That's exactly the examples of bias I'm talking about. Finally, if reliable sources suffer from recentism, that's fine. Our goal should be to eliminate our biases, not their biases. But we don't eliminate biases by allowing fans to make up the rules as they go. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 16:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
Chances are, I could find a source for every album you trotted out regarding that - the lack of sources in the article now does not preclude the existence of sources that are available, even for the basic stub facts. And no, covering the album under the band article makes little sense in any regard, but we're getting away of ourselves. I agree - we need to eliminate our biases, and it has nothing to do with allowing fans to make up the rules as much as making sure that we're able to accurately and reasonably cover notable figures within a specific subject set. A singular guideline simply is incapable of doing that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
But that brings us back to the same issue (the circularity, I suppose). How do we get accurate coverage in a reasonable amount without having a good deal of source coverage? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 17:51, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Should this content be merged into WP:ATT

Looking at this proposal, it doesn't really have it's own stand-alone identity. It just seems to repeat a lot of other policies and guidelines, mostly WP:ATT. Based on our normal editing criteria for articles, as it stands now, this would be an excellent merge candidate. Dhaluza 12:22, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it wouldn't. A merge to WP:ATT would be inappropriate - this deals with the inclusion of articles. Please see the discussions above and at WP:N to see where this comes from. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
The main difference between WP:ATT and this proposal is that WP:ATT talks about "how do we know the information is accurate?," while Article Inclusion asks "when should we remove information that is otherwise accurate?" Not everything that's true and verifiable should be included in Wikipedia.
The reason I don't think the two should be merged is that they don't have the same degree of consensus or necessity. All reasonable editors agree that articles should almost without exception use verifiable information, and so WP:ATT is a policy that we try and adhere to on making sure information is verifiable. By contrast, most editors agree that there is verifiable information which should not be included on Wikipedia, but these are handled by general rules of thumb and have more exceptions and more debate on in grey areas. Thus Article Inclusion as an overall principle should be treated as a guideline, not policy, and thus shouldn't be merged into WP:ATT. Dugwiki 19:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
P.S. By the above reasoning, you might argue that WP:NOT could be "downgraded" to a guideline. Personally I could see that possible stance, but note that WP:NOT is supposedly written to cover very specific sorts of situations that have fairly strong consensus. So in a way WP:NOT is the "higher consensus" parent of Article Inclusion. Dugwiki 19:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Dugwiki that the two should not be merged. WP:ATT is about how article content should be written, i.e. that it should be attributed to a reliable source. This proposal, on the other hand, is about what topics should be covered in the first place. Wikipedia simply can't include every single piece of verifiable information in the world; if it did so, it would not be an encyclopedia, but a random collection of facts. If this guideline were to be subsumed into WP:ATT, it would create inevitable confusion between two totally different aspects of WP policy. Walton Vivat Regina! 21:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is this?

Hi.

I saw this:

"Biographical articles on living people are held to a much stricter standard, due to legal and ethical concerns. While there are many nuances to articles concerning living people, the guiding principle, especially for controversial figures, is that Wikipedia should "do no harm". "

How exactly is a more stringent notability criterion needed in this case? How does reporting on someone with less "notability" than this "stricter" standard potentially harm them? Is it because then there may be a paucity of published material on which to base the article, and/or much of the available material may be less than par and hence citing it may lead to potentially harmful statements? Mike4ty4 06:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that some information isn't really public. For instance, I exist, and multiple things show that. However, since I am not notable, nobody will know about me, meaning that information about me is not public. But if someone posts an article on me, my private information is now known to anyone who searches for my name. -Amarkov moo! 06:34, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, so then it's because that to write an article in that case would induce disclosure of private material without the person's permission, then? Material that would be known to the larger world for a "notable" person. mike4ty4 05:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Subject-specific guidelines can't cover everything

It's a little unrealistic to expect subject-specific guidelines for notability to cover everything - quite often they don't, and it is necessary to avoid m:instruction creep. Given this unavoidable state of affairs, a central notability criterion is needed - in my opinion, anyway. Moreschi Request a recording? 15:03, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Another problem with subject-specific guidelines is that they encourage editors to create their own personal notion of what they consider "important" and put it into the guidelines. Using our personal notions rather than evaluating sources amounts to original research. Friday (talk) 15:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
That is exactly the point I've been trying to make. If an article is biased, that should be because the sources are biased, not because the editors are biased. In the same vein, if our coverage is biased, that should be because what the sources choose to cover is biased, not because what we choose to cover is biased. It is not our job or place to "correct" any perceived bias in secondary source coverage. Even if we feel every secondary source we find is dead wrong about something, we must use what they say, not insert our own interpretation. On the same level, even if we very much desire to "comprehensively" cover a band's albums, if the writers of secondary sources choose not to provide such comprehensive coverage and only provide a decent level of coverage on one album out of three, we should mirror that. That one album should be in its own article, the other two should have a "blurb" mention with the band. Same with railway stations, roads, biographies, webcomics. Anything. If we start making exceptions, we aren't just asking for systemic bias. We're specifically and wholeheartedly embracing it. WP:ATT, WP:NPOV, etc., etc., apply to every article on the project. No "sub-guideline" can say "Well, we'll allow POV in articles about political parties, and some original research in the quantum physics area." At the same time, we should state "No articles without sufficient secondary sourcing about that subject (that subject, not a parent subject) to write a comprehensive article." We are specifically embracing bias if we add *Unless the article is about an album, or a webcomic, or a Star Wars vehicle, or a Pokemon... Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 15:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Surely. The very best we can possibly do is reflect the biases of our source material, without introducing our own. Friday (talk) 15:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Not at all. The very best we can possibly do is match notability/inclusion to reality. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Reality is subjective. Verifiability is not. Moreschi Request a recording? 15:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Exactly my point. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Which is exactly why "amount and depth of sourcing" should be our one and only standard in determining whether to write, keep, merge, or delete an article, not "Well we think it's important to write about this, even if no one thought it important enough to write a good deal of source material on." Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 15:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, no. Because that misses the point - reality, being subjective, means that it goes beyond what available sourcing is for notability. We both ultimately want the same thing, it's just how we're getting there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
What, then, do you suggest? Fame? "I heard of it a few times, so it must be notable"? (which is even more subjective...) Just the subject-specific guidelines? What happens when no subject-specific guideline exists for a given topic? Just accept "I like it" or "I hate it"?! Then Wikipedia turns into a free-for-all -- it's no longer an encyclopedia. Like it or not, a general criterion is necessary, at least and until every single last subject matter could be covered by specific sets of N/AI guidelines. mike4ty4 05:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that we apply the "primary notability criterion" to the articles in Category:Census-designated places in the United States, most of which are only sourced to a primary source? Sure, we can use third-party sources to verify that they exist, but that's a "trivial" reference. On the other hand, a subject-specific guideline would say that any CDP is notable, which is the de facto way it has been since these were created. --NE2 16:09, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely. No exceptions means no exceptions. Anything else is to embrace our own bias. In reply to Jeff: Verifiability, not truth. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 16:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you do it then. --NE2 16:52, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Right. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:57, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
No one expects them to cover anything. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I quote: "All articles on Wikipedia should generally meet a standard for notability for the subject matter it falls into" - thing is, that's never going to happen because we'd need an awful lot of instruction-creepy standards for notability. Moreschi Request a recording? 15:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Did you keep reading? --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, Jeff, I did keep reading :) And from that I seem to be gathering that this promotes subject-specific criteria over a primary notability criterion as currently written. Right or wrong? Moreschi Request a recording? 17:58, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yes, absolutely, but it also recognizes that not every subject has a guideline. That was the part I hope you noticed, given your concerns. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
BTW, the implications that this has any sort of instruction creep is, IMO, unfounded. This is fairly close to what has existed for years without trying to force a one-size-fits-all guideline in a place it doesn't belong. It adds nothing to the "bureaucracy," as it were. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:07, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed that this is not instruction creep, but IMO for this to be workable in its current form it would require instruction creep. I don't think that what happens when no subject-specific notability guidelines exist is adequately covered. Even then, I still think that the promotion of subject-specific notability guidelines is bad idea: those guidelines are, as a rule, almost entirely worthless - WP:MUSIC is useless when it comes to classical music - or just instruction creep. Worse still, they are almost entirely subject to the whims of the cabal of the time.

The point about the central notability criterion is that it is doubly objective: objective in the sense that whether something is adequately covered by RS is pretty concrete, at least in theory: and objective in the sense that one cannot abandon the idea that topics for inclusion must be verifiable by independent RS with non-trivial mentions in the RS without abandoning the idea of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, because that's what encyclopedias do. The concept of encyclopedicnes and the concept of notability, at least for our purposes, go together. Any notability policy/guideline that does not recognise this removes the 'pedia bit of Wikipedia. Moreschi Request a recording? 18:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

If you really believe that, find a suitable article in Category:Census-designated places in the United States and AFD it. Otherwise, I don't see how your argument can hold any water. --NE2 18:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think there's any objectivity at all. For one, it sets up an arbitrary belief (X coverage in N Ys), and for two, is subjective in the continued improper belief that notability and verifiability are the same thing, which they are not. They do not go together here - I cannot write about every verifiable thing and have it included. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
I have a problem with the assumptions expressed in this section: that we must limit ourselves to the flaws & biasses of our secondary sources without exception. This is something I raised in the essay Wikipedia: These are not Original Research. Sometimes a secondary source makes a mistake that stands out like a sore thumb. Allow me to provide an example: when I was researching Cristovão da Gama, I found that one secondary source I used claimed that Queen Sabla Wengel had taken refuge on the mountain Debre Damo; however, this is the location of a monastery, & it well-known that Ethiopian church law prohibits women even standing on monastery grounds, with no exceptions. There is a problem here, & to ignore it because we simply mirror what our sources say, I believe is working to rule, wrong, & unconscionable. We need to be honest that there is clearly a mistake.
And I believe the solution is simple: admit that there is a problem (preferably in a footnote), then move on. Attempting to solve the problem would obviously be original research, & I agree should not be done; explaining the problem is not. If you cannot explain the problem in a few words (in this case, I used less than 50, presented in a footnote at the bottom of the page), then perhaps the problem is not obvious, & does not need to be included. -- llywrch 22:50, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Nipping this in the bud

Right now, this idea of inclusion is essentially dissolving into the same circular arguments that have been going on at WP:N, which is what we're trying to avoid with this proposal. A lot of it revolves around the following arguments:

  • A "primary notability criterion" is necessary because all articles need sources anyway.
  • A "primary notability criterion" is the only way to measure notability.
  • "Subject specific guidelines" do a better job of handling notability than a "primary" criterion because of the subjectivity of notability.
  • Sources are not the only things that confer notability.
  • "Subject specific guidelines" are not based in reality, but on the whims of cabals/people/fanboys/kittens.
  • Notable things often lack the types of sources required by a "primary notability criterion."

Now, we're never going to come to an agreement on these sorts of things. So what we should do - if we want this to work, and I hope we do - is that we need to come up with some sort of compromise.

This could work a number of ways:

  • Status quo as written. Right now, this page reads that a) there are subject-specific guidelines, and b) in the absence of a guideline for a subject, "sufficient independent information" or something similar (I don't really care for that wording, but we can work on it) generally establishes notability. Allows for the actual rare exceptions, notes that the subject-specific guidelines generally handle things, and operates on a similar level to how we've always done things.
  • Find a "primary" wording that is a compromise for all the points of view, and gaining consensus to merge the subject-specific guidelines here. This may be more trouble than it's worth, but it would allow us to weed out the unnecessary exceptions to notability as well as list the more useful ones. This assumes we can get consensus to merge them all, which is hardly a given.
  • Something else I'm not thinking of.

We're going to have to bite the bullet in a few areas if we want this to work, and I honestly think this has the potential of being light years better than WP:N, but it's going to involve us hunkering down and not running around in circles. I pledge not to do so to try and get this rolling better, I'm hoping we can get somewhere. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

There is a strong argument for using a primary wording that we can generate consensus around. (Under the assumption that we can generate consensus around some such wording.) That argument is that it avoids instruction creep, is easier for established editors to remember, and provides a single point of reference to use in educating new users. Additionally, it leaves only one main criteria to kepe an eye on to make sure it isn't changing unacceptably (as when someone added the "film named after them" bit onto WP:PORNBIO without discussion or anyone noticing, which was removed from the valid criteria once it was noticed).
Some thoughts towards crafting such a wording. One, we have the article Encyclopedia. Hopefully that could help explain encyclopedic, either by looking at it, by linking, or both. Two, I happen to like the version at User:Trialsanderrors/On notability, with a little tweaking: "A topic is worth including in the encyclopedia if it has been a central subject of a sufficient number of reputable and independent encyclopedic sources to write a reasonably comprehensive article on the areas in which the topic is significant." (See the footnotes there.) I'd go further to state that an article is a legitimate stub if an editor believes that test could be met even if no future sources appear on the topic. (The "on the areas ..." phrase I added is intended to handle Daniel Brandt type cases, where we can cover the areas of public significance but don't have solid sourcing for classic biographical data that has basically remained private thus far.
I think it will take a lot of work to merge the subject specific guidelines upwards. But I do believe that is the general direction that we should be going in. So I'd rather write a good primary criteria and get it to stick, then later gradually work upwards. First steps in working upwards might be things like merging WP:PROF and WP:PORNBIO into WP:BIO. After that is done, then we can work on merging WP:BIO to the central standard.
The main value of the secondary criteria, in my eyes, is to set out boundaries where we are confident enough that decent sources exist that it normally isn't worth wasting AFD discussion on an article inside the boundaries that currently doesn't demonstrate meeting the primary criteria. They serve not to define where we should have an article but instead to define the space where we normally shouldn't waste AFD effort on discussing individual articles, unless the nominator has done significant research and has a compelling case for an exception. GRBerry 21:04, 9 March 2007 (UTC

)

Well, to counter, there's nothing instruction creep-y about subject-specific guidelines, not that the possibility of instruction creep should ever be the impetus to avoid doing what's best for the project. A primary criterion does not work - it doesn't reflect notability, it doesn't reflect what makes something encyclopedic, it's simply an arbitrary bar that leaves encyclopedic topics out, regardless of the eventual language.
Yes, eventually, it would be nice to find a way to move everything to one place - we're not even close to being there yet. At the moment, the secondary criteria - which has worked for years without any significant problems, and has wide acceptance as a whole, even if there's quibbling about how they're written - makes sense. I liked T&E's version until I thought about it a bit more - as I've noted elsewhere, when one of the most notable films of all time (as evidenced by its inclusion in the National Film Registry) arguably fails to meet a central criterion, there's a problem. And when something like that is borderline, it opens the floodgates. I don't want to run around in circles like we did above and at WT:N - a central guideline lacks consensus, so we have to work toward something everyone can live with. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
You have it exactly backwards. A primary criterion does work, and as GRBerry says, is what we should be working towards. Working towards having a morass of subject-specific criteria, as you are proposing, is entirely wrong. That's what we should be working away from. Working in the direction that you want to work ends up with further and further subdivisions such as the wholly unnecessary Wikipedia:Notability (journalists), and criteria that contradict one another and overlap. Uncle G 17:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
No, this is designed to specifically avoid a primary criterion, which has been demonstrated does not work. I'm sorry you can't come on board with this, I wish there was a way to convince you otherwise. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I think a good starting point is to note that WP:ATT is a policy that helps determine "is something verifiable", and this guideline would present some generally accepted rules of thumb for deciding "what verifiable information still should probably not appear in Wikipedia". Note that there will always be debate on the exact details of what is or isn't an acceptable article for Wikipedia, so the best we can really hope for is a general guideline that present editors with some bare minimum litmus tests that, if failed, signal serious problems.
To that end I would submit some statements that I think most of us agree with.
  1. Articles should in the long run be judged by their included referenced content. That's not to say a stub isn't acceptable, and an article that can clearly be expanded can be given the opportunity to do so. But at the end of the day it's the responsibility of an article's authors to provide enough information in the article itself to justify its accuracy and inclusion.
  2. All information in Wikipedia should be properly referenced as described in WP:ATT. Properly referencing information should be a relatively high priority, and articles which remain unreferenced for long periods of time should either be improved or deleted until the citations can be provided.
  3. Single source articles often have a significantly higher probability of having serious issues than articles with multiple sources. First, with only one source there is a greater chance of POV bias and factual inaccuracies then if multiple sources independently analyze the subject. Second, articles which might be considered "permastubs" or "trivial information" or "unencyclopedic" are much more likely to have at most a single reference because, by having multiple independently written references, an article is demonstrating that it has a wider scope of publishing interest than a single source subject.
  4. A subject which is only written about a couple of times in a one or two day period is much less likely to be useful to readers than a subject which is written about over a period of time. A regular season ballgame or a local crime story, for instance, is likely to be able to reference a few stories written within a day or two of each other, but isn't likely to be of more than transitory usefulness. In comparison, an article which cites sources written over a period of time is demonstrating that it will be more likely to have some lasting value. By carefully scrutinizing such "one day sourced" articles, we are able to hopefully prune out a number of articles that are about subjects most editors would consider unencyclopedic or trivial.
  5. Therefore, as a general rule of thumb, articles which fail to present multiple independently written sources published over a course of time should be scrutinized fairly closely as possibly being inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. Some articles will likely be kept despite not meeting that criteria, but there should be a practical, compelling reason for the exception. This guideline itself isn't expected to outline such exceptions, but it is likely that related essays or guidelines or discussions will delve into more detail on specific exceptions for specific types of subject matter.

Anyway, there's my suggestion for a jumping off point of discussion. It's a set of statements and general criteria that as a rule of thumb I think most editors would agree with. Editors will probably disagree on the details of various exceptions to the above rules of thumb, and such details could be worked out in related essays and guidelines and afds. But I think in most cases they would agree on the general statements I presented.

Comments? Feel free to pick my wording or reasoning apart. Dugwiki 22:06, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you've nailed it. I wish I was that good with words. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Jeff and I agree, Armageddon must be near! :) But I agree thoroughly with Dugwiki's assessment as well. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 21:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm coming in late to this discussion, but I'd like to record the observation that what Dugwiki has written is clearly different from formulations that attempt to define "Notability". I don't know if I agree with it, but there's nothing there that I can't live with -- until I learn what my objections might be. -- llywrch 00:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree with most of Dugwiki's formulations, and it may be a topic-independent set of observations that we can get consensus agreement on. That said, I do have some quibbles.
In number four, I'd avoid the words "one or two day period" if possible. I want to cut off, before it is ever offered, the statement "but they were written three days apart" (or any other number of days). The spirit is right, the wording could be improved. We should also point out here that a story from a newswire printed in many publications counts as only one story.
In number two, we should probably comment that "a long period of time" means months, not minutes, when it comes to deletion. And also that an effort to actually find the sources needs to be demonstrated. There is a big difference between someone who says "I just found the article, it has been here 6 months and is unsourced, it is X-cruft, delete it" and someone who says "I've found the article, I've checked google web, google scholar, google books, google news, google news archive, and my local library, and all I can find is one news article in Podunk Press, and it is X-cruft, so it should be deleted as unattributable." The former should be told to go do research, the latter should get a discussion. GRBerry 13:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the feedback, guys, and good points on the "quibbles", GR. Based on what you guys said above, I think I'll write a quick draft as a seperate topic here, and if the feedback is still positive see if I can incorporate it into the proposal. Or depending on how it looks and any other follow-up I might just be WP:BOLD and see if I can incorporate it directly and then let you guys revise it or revert it as needed. Dugwiki 16:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to incorporate at will - this is very much in the design stages, and if anything gets really messy, we can adjust it. Your language looks better than what's there right noe anyway. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Questions

Is this proposal intended to be policy or guideline? Will articles be deletable based upon non-compliance with WP:AI? Or will WP:AI exist to point to policies? SmokeyJoe 02:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Does this proposal seek to concern itself solely with article status, or with content, or both? SmokeyJoe 02:54, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

My intent, when creating it, was that it may qualify as a guideline. That doesn't mean anything here, generally speaking, would be actionable - every line item points to the specific policy or guideline that deals with any issue a user may have regarding the inclusion of articles. This doesn't mean it may not evolve into something more solidly actionable in the future, but consider it an aggregation of sorts. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I just want to express my full support for this.

This should supersede WP:N, absolutely. Abeg92contribs 16:39, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Incorporated the changes in "Nipping in the bud" thread

Phew! Since the draft changes I suggested in the "Nipping in the bud" thread above appeared to get generally positive feedback, and since Jeff recommended being bold about adding them, I did exactly that and pretty much rewrote the proposal from the top down to incorporate that language.

Hopefully, the new draft version of the guideline is useful for a couple of reasons. It focuses squarely on quality and quantity of sourcing as opposed to trying to define terms like "unencyclopedic" or "trivial", etc. Instead the aim is to provide a fairly objective, measurable standard that, if an article fails to live up to that guideline, acts as a red flag for editors that we probably should look very closely at whether or not to keep the article around. There will be some exceptions to these rules of thumb, but my guess is most editors would agree that many of the articles which fail to meet the new draft of the guideline should be improved, merged or deleted.

I also took out some of the references to subject-specific things like WP:FICT and WP:BIO. The reason is that the new version is intended to be a fairly simple to understand general rule of thumb guideline to inclusion, and I felt that leaving subject-specific links in the main body of the guideline would clutter that message. I instead simply made a general comment that exceptions for specific articles and subjects would likely be discussed in other guidelines and essays and left it at that. I also made notable mention of WP:NOT, which is a fairly good complimentary policy to this guideline since both WP:NOT and this guideline deal with when to remove information from Wikipedia that is otherwise true.

Finally, note that this guideline is a fairly low bar to pass. I intentionally tried to write it so that controversial articles would probably pass the guideline. My feeling is that the guideline should reflect something upon which most of us can agree, leaving things on which we don't agree as topics for detailed debate elsewhere. Thus the guideline is a low bar for inclusion, and we can usually (I think) get editorial agreement on deleting most of the articles that don't meet this standard.

As always, please feel free to discuss, ammend or revert anything I changed if necessary. Dugwiki 17:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I added in a point on neutrality as well, as above, please revert or amend if desired. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 18:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm extremely impressed. *thumbs-up*. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Not bad at all. Shimeru 18:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Glad you guys like it. :) Seraphim, I revised your neutrality statement to say that articles still should abide by other policies like WP:NPOV and WP:NOT and then used your example as something that would violate WP:NPOV. Basically it's to make clear that just because something is well written and well cited doesn't mean the article subject as whole can't have a serious issue which violates policy. Dugwiki 19:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this has improved immensely since I last saw this. Not everyone may like my last change, though, so feel free to revert bold discuss. Moreschi Request a recording? 19:47, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I like this. It still needs some work, and some copyediting, but it's heading in the right direction in my eyes. Trebor 20:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Nitpicking thread

For more specific issues - I only bring this up due to Moreschi, because the way the summary is phrased even before his changes are contrary to what I'm hoping we can try to do here. This is a response to the general lack of consensus for WP:N, which exists in part due to exactly the language Moreschi put in here - and that's not a knock on you, by the way.

I think the discussions of notability have lost sight - and I'm guilty of it, too, perhaps more than others. At the end of the day, we're still writing an encyclopedia. Counting sources isn't going to help that, and quibbling over the triviality/comprehensiveness of sources isn't going to, either. I pushed "sufficient" at WP:N, but I think we can do better. I'd like to think we can focus our attention mostly on "will the sources provided be adequate to establish an article on an encyclopedic topic." If we're able to do that coherently and without insulting either side of the inclusionist/exclusionist divide, perhaps we can have a singular criterion as opposed to pointing to the subject-specific guidelines, but we have to, at the very least, iron out those details here first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, not offended at all. I'm not a fan of the whopping great war between deletionists and exclusionists: it's as silly as it sounds. Quote from my userpage, "As far as these things go, I'm a deletionist transwikiist, but all those terms are hopelessly reductive and pretty idiotic. Really, we're all just trying to improve the encyclopedia." I mean, what the hell does "trivial source" mean, anyway? A stupid source? The topic only gets trivial mentions within those sources? Certainly: "will the sources provided be adequate to establish an article on an encyclopedic topic" is what is important: the reason why I haven't written stubs such as Elena Croce is because I don't have the sources for this person to be able to do that. Moreschi Request a recording? 21:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Non-trivial

"Non-trivial" is a phrase which has been around the notability guidelines for a long time. It also seems to cause disagreement in AFD discussions. Should we use it? Elaborate upon it?

I think it adds something, but also that we should look for better wording. Here are a few alternatives to "non-trivial sources":

  1. Sources which verify non-directory information about the topic
  2. Sources which have significant coverage of the topic
  3. Sources which allow writing an encyclopedia article about the topic

Can anyone think of a better wording than the above? GRBerry 19:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

"Non-trivial" is the worst wording possible, IMO. It implies that a number of small mentions in larger sources about larger topics are not enough to establish importance, when the opposite is likely true. I prefer #2 or #3, leaning toward 3, which is closest to the spirit of what we're ultimately aiming for. I'd much rather the discussions revolve around whether an article can have a fair treatment rather than are there enough arbitrary sources to judge its worth. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:16, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm unsure as to the overall aim in making sources non-trivial (or whatever other phrase you use). Is it saying that if no non-trivial sources exist, then there is insufficient information to write an article? Or is it saying that because no non-trivial sources exist, the topic is not notable? Trebor 20:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
You know, in thinking about "non-trivial sources" it occurs to me that the phrase might not even be necessary. The reason is that as policy all the information in an article needs to be verifiable through the provided references. If an article's only references don't directly talk about the subject, then to meet WP:ATT it either has have a lot of indirect "trivial" references or has to be just a stub with little actual information. Since this proposal says that articles should not be perma-stubs, and should have all their information verifiable, that would seem to probably eliminate having to worry about whether individual references are "non-trivial" or not. Rather, you just need to make sure that the information is properly cited and the article is more than just a stub in the long run. Dugwiki 20:27, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Is this currently reading that way regarding perma-stubs? Because I'm kind of hoping it doesn't - permastubs aren't necessarily bad things, and I'd hate to have a blanket condemnation of them slip through without at least some discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I guess I should qualify that. It's not entirely banning perma-stubs, but it does say that a perma-stub usually serves more of a navigational purpose within a broader set of topics. However, things which are perma-stubs on stand-alone topics should generally be avoided. Dugwiki 20:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and added a sentence to the stub-related criteria that hopefully clarifies some permanent stubs are ok, such as for navigational articles, but should generally be discouraged otherwise. Dugwiki 20:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it's certainly not a pressing situation either. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
To the above end I went ahead and, for now, removed the phrase "non-trivial" from the summary paragraph. The reason is that most articles with only trivial references will either a) fail to have sufficient references to meet WP:AT (since its references only verify a few facts each) or b) fail to provide more than stub-quality information on the subject (unless there are a ton of trivial references all together or it's a navigational hub article of some sort) or c) be original research (as the original synthesis of lots of trivial references to form a newly written opinion or analysis). So in other words if we require that articles should be verifiable and not be stub length and not be original research, we're pretty much ruling out articles that solely rely on trivial references. Dugwiki 20:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
A few things: re perma-stubs, IMO they should be deprecated: for my own part I have several times not created stubs because I didn't think they'd ever grow beyond a stub: you can see that not all the singers at the first performance of Agrippina (opera) have their own articles - though most do - and that's for a reason.
I absolutely agree that "non-trivial" is abominably bad wording and highly confusing: I only really put it in to kick off a profitable bold, revert, discuss cycle. I think some sort of blend - possibly both of "Sources which have significant coverage of the topic" and "Sources which allow writing an encyclopedia article about the topic" is a good idea. It's necessary to avoid a situation where someone writes an article with facts from MySpace and then references the very basic facts from sources that only cover the article topic/person with extreme fleetingness: and then claims notability, when in reality the subject of the article is about as notable as my left sock. Thoughts? Best, Moreschi Request a recording? 20:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
At the end of the day, whether to merge/delete a stub will be discussed if controversial, so perhaps it's not really all that important exactly how the wording is, as long as we don't become to anti-stub about it. Regarding sources, though, as long as we're clear that "sources" = "reliable sources", I think it becomes entirely uncontroversial. We're already saying independent sources sustain notability, which will oust the self-promotional types, and it leaves the opening for when RS/ATTFAQ catches up to the rest of the world. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:11, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Rather than "significant coverage," I would suggest something along the lines of "significant analysis" or "significant study." "Coverage" is overly broad. The other words would make it clearer that we're looking for a deeper examination of the article's topic. This is necessary in order to write an article that goes deeper than statistics, a directory, or a dictionary definition. It also helps to differentiate between simple news stories and valid encyclopedia topics. Shimeru 21:09, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Let's say, hypothetically, that someone creates an article based on a myspace page as described by Moreschi above. It is fairly likely to run afoul of a few policies or this proposal. First, myspace pages and blogs are not generally considered reliable sources per WP:ATT. Second, it's difficult to construct non-stub length articles that are properly referenced using only statistical information and indirect references. Sure, you can get things like birth and death date or list-of-works (eg filmography) but it's hard to say much more that would be reliable unless it comes from a secondary source. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's difficult to do more than a stub using just directories. Another obstacle would be that many vanity pages run afoul of having either unreferenced info (which only the person writing it can verify) or POV bias. So basically the recommendations of non-stub length articles with multiple independent sources make it fairly tricky to do a vanity article based just on myspace trivial references. Getting away from myspace, articles that are just directories of loosely related statistics or that are just dictionary defintions would run against the corresponding sections of WP:NOT.
And notice that in my analysis above I didn't say the word "notable". That's because this page isn't trying to evaluate "notability" per se, but rather a bar for encylopedic inclusion. Therefore rather than try and guage a somewhat subjective notion of how important or notable or significant something is, instead the proposal is trying to help guage whether the article's information is substantive (ie avoid a stub), more than fleeting (multiple over time) and has independent citations from the subject (eg not a vanity page). I think if we focus on those qualities, we hopefully avoid some of the more contentious issues that come up in WP:N of what constitutes notability or fame or historical importance, etc. Dugwiki 21:45, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
The difficulty I see here is that, once we have an article, the non-independent sources can be used. Take a band that is just starting to make it, and has toured a few pubs in a few cities. They can muster up directory type entries saying that they are playing venue X in city Y at date and time Z. And they have this lovely myspace page (or even their very own website, with domain name from "cheapnames.com") with content relevant for an article. Do they pass muster? The band's own website is reliable, but not independent. (Similar examples could come from other topical areas. For example, the church I attend has a website and links from related pages, that could be the basis of an encyclopedia article, but to the best of my knowledge has never had a non-directory mention in an independent source.) GRBerry 21:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
To answer GR's question above, myspace pages aren't generally considered reliable since anybody can write anything they want on a myspace page. There's no system of verification or checks and balances as you have with a professional publisher. So no, if the only primary reference for information about the band is its myspace page then it probably doesn't pass WP:ATT. Dugwiki 21:56, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps a misunderstanding here? What I was getting at was really this scenario: editor X writes about band Y using MySpace, but doesn't overtly reference it. He then does cite a few passing mentions in independent sources for basic facts and then claims notability. It's that scenario we need to avoid. Passing mentions simply can't constitute notability. Slightly different to what everyone was talking about above. Moreschi Request a recording? 22:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I think what you're missing is that we're not talking about "notability" any more. The two questions are 1) is the article properly, fully referenced; and 2) is the article more than just bare stub facts? If the only reliable publishers that the article cites can only verify stub-length facts about the band, then the article will fail to meet this guideline. It's unlikely that only passing mentions in articles by reliable publishers will provide more than stub-length information. And if you are able to cull so many indirect references together about a band that you get a good length, reliably referenced article, then it's if it doesn't run into original research problems it might be worth keeping. Dugwiki 22:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I hope that's not the case. If all we can initially get is a stub on a new band, if we can verify their importance through independent sources (i.e., touring) and other biographical details per primary sources, it's more than okay. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that User:GRBerry's original suggestion of "sources which verify non-directory information about the topic" is extremely important. I understand (as opposed to agree with, or disagree with) the idea that this proposal is somewhat more inclusionist than the current formulation of WP:N. However, I think it is very important to ensure that the "notability≈significance" equation is clear on this page. We (often) reject directory information through deletion debates because the (verifiable) information fails to describe the significance of the data, and I worry that in its current form this proposal could be used to break through the WP:NOT barrier. This is the part of WP:NOT that I personally find the most important (see, for example, the bottom of this AfD). Dekimasuよ! 02:53, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
The idea of a "directory of information" is consistently abused, however. A series of stubs that can be expanded are not directory entries, they're stubs. Permastubs on small townships are not directory entries, they're complete, comprehensive articles that simply lack a lot of things to say. Stubs≈directory entries. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Townships are one of the exceptions to the general rule about permastubs because they act as placeholders for a larger atlas scheme within Wikipedia. The general consensus on townships is presumably that readers want a fairly comprehensive listing, even if there's not much to say about the individual towns. Dugwiki 15:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, in reply to the above concern about "breaking the WP:NOT barrier", note that this proposal specifically says that articles which pass this guideline may still fail to pass WP:NOT and other policies. So if an article fails to meet WP:NOT then it will still be up for likely deletion. Dugwiki 15:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Create template similar to Template:Notability ?

Assuming this proposal is eventually accepted as a guideline, should we also have a template for it similar to Template:Notability? Something to tag an article so that the authors know that some editors might be concerned that the article isn't meeting the minimal standards of WP:AI. Dugwiki 17:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I should think so, it'd probably be much the same thing. "An editor has expressed a concern that this topic is not suitable for a Wikipedia article. Please see our inclusion guidelines. If you can add material to the article which shows that it is suitable, please do. Unsuitable articles may be nominated for deletion." Etc., etc. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Strawpoll (early March)

I'm still not totally convinced by this proposal, but it's got better since last I looked. I may be jumping the gun, but can we take a strawpoll on it now, to gauge WP:CONSENSUS? Walton Vivat Regina! 20:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I still think we have a ways to go before we're even at this point. There are still a number of things to work out, this may be premature. What are you still hesitant about, since you mentioned it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Better to wait a while, and probably better to never do one. It has had a major rewrite quite recently. There is no deadline. GRBerry 20:39, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
My advice would be to give people a week or two to digest the new version and give feedback, good or bad. Once we get the proposal stable (ie it hasn't been significantly changed for a few weeks) and the general feeling is agreement, then we can go about making it an actual guideline probably.
Also, even though this is a proposal, you can still refer to it as you would refer to an essay in afds. Say something like "this article doesn't match up to the recommendations of WP:AI, which is a proposal I agree with." That way you're not calling it a guideline or saying it has binding effects, but are explaining your position and getting more people to give feedback. Just a suggestion. Dugwiki 21:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Liking it

I'm liking it, but I still have an issue with the title. It's so vague that it's hard to get its meaning at a glance. The phrase that's been kicking around in my head is "Articles need sources." Kinda want to give that title to this one. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Not to be argumentative, but I don't understand what's vague about it. It seems overwhelmingly clear to me - Article inclusion: what's necessary to have an article included. "Articles need sources" seems a little ham-fisted and leads discussion to a different place that I don't think we want to head, but that might just be me. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's just so vague that it could be applied to most of the content policies. I get the idea that it's basic standards for what we can include, although I might change it to topic inclusion, because the whole idea of these guidelines is that while the current article may not have multiple sources and all that, we should have articles about topics for which those sources will be available. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 21:13, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
I think I like "article" better than "topic", since what we're talking about in the proposal is articles. Topic could also refer to subsections or articles or category descriptions or maybe other things. Article sounds more specific. "Articles need sources" is a true statement, but it also would apply to WP:ATT which is a different subject. Also the proposal does talk a little bit about other things besides sources, such as stub articles. Still, I'm open to other suggestions on the proposal title. Dugwiki 21:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. I don't seem to see any problems with the current title, however. Article inclusion seems simple enough. Alex43223 T | C | E 01:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Alreday covered in ATT and ATT/FAQ

I do not see much value in this proposal. All what we need is already outlines in WP:ATT and WP:ATT/FAQ. Maybe adding a few bullets to WP:ATT/FAQ would be a better approach. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

This appears to be untrue - WP:ATT doesn't cover what's necessary beyond attribution. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
ATT is very weak on when a topic is simply unsuitable for wikipedia. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 02:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
If that is the case, propose wording for fixing it, rather than create yet-another-guideline-without-too-much-of-a-chance-to-make-it ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:36, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I think Jossi has a point - improving what exists is more productive. Guettarda 05:02, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Replacing what exists may be the better route, considering the complete lack of consensus for it and the bad vibes it's been giving off. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:40, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
There are a couple of reasons why this proposed guideline is being kept seperate from WP:ATT.
First, WP:ATT and WP:INCLUSION discuss different topics. WP:ATT discusses how to decide what is "verifiable", while WP:INCLUSION discusses how to decide what verifiable information is not "appropriate for inclusion". Thus this guideline is probably more closely related to WP:NOT than it is WP:ATT.
Second, WP:ATT is a policy with very strong consensus and more "teeth". This proposal, though, is not presumed to have as strong consensus as WP:ATT nor is it intended to be as black-and-white as WP:ATT. It is, instead, intended as a guide to help editors spot red flags in articles that probably should be considered for deletion, and as a guide to article creators of how to properly craft their article to avoid these issues. Thus WP:INCLUSION is not intended to be included in policy, but is only intended as a guideline.
Therefore the topics being discussed are not appropriate for inclusion in the policy of WP:ATT, nor are they even fully within the scope of WP:ATT. Thus merging the two is not a good idea. Dugwiki 15:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd also prefer to see this in ATT/FAQ. The point of merging the other three policies/guidelines into ATT was precisely to prevent this kind of spread, so that people can come to one place for their information about attribution. There's also Wikipedia:Notability. What does this page say that ATT or Notability don't say? SlimVirgin (talk) 17:52, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that a comment near to the top of this talk page answers that: The primary reason for having this is solely an objection to the name "notability". Looking at this proposal's development from its earliest version to how it reads now, and the discussion on this talk page, it seems that it is gradually heading towards reinventing the PNC all over again. A few more "but what if ...?" objections on this talk page, covering the same ground that discussion of notability has already trod over the past three years, and it will get there. If one discusses notability, "article inclusion", "encyclopaedic significance", or whatever one chooses to name it, one eventually reaches the same place that Wikipedia:Notability has already reached. All roads lead to the PNC. ☺ Uncle G 17:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I have no clue how you come to that conclusion. Nothing is heading toward the PNC, as it's broken beyond repair. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

A general notability/inclusion criterion is necessary...

...because there can't be subject-specific guidelines for every single last concievable topic. It starts to become rulecruft after a point and, much, much more importantly, how do we deal with topics where no S-S guideline exists? Without a general criterion it could easily devolve into an "I like it"/"I hate it" argument that magically does no good. This point seems to keep getting swept under the rug. mike4ty4 03:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Individual rules just aren't going to work. We need something compact that we can point to, especially newcomers. Othewise every wikiproject is going to create their own rules. I'm going to go out on a limb, but I think it has something to do with reliable sources. - Peregrine Fisher
It seems like this page is trying to codify "I like it"/"I hate it" into a guideline or policy. It looks like WP:N is going down, because it's just unworkable opinion, and I don't see how this is any different. - Peregrine Fisher 06:03, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
And even if N goes down, people will still continue to use super-subjective self-cooked notability criteria, and admins will keep accepting them, in AFD. Something needs to be done to get AFD reformed above all else. Also, I don't see how "liking" or "hating" goes into these proposed AI guidelines. I've also been toying around with my own little pet proposal too, which would try to use a concept of "encyclopedicity", and might put it up here at some point. mike4ty4 08:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how you come to that conclusion reading this. WP:N is going down because it's unworkable and tries to do something that isn't proper. This is trying to make it explictly clear what needs to happen for inclusion by atually referring to current policies and guidelines, something WP:N ignores. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
So then how does this page do any better, anyway? Why not just stick to pure policy? mike4ty4 00:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Because pure policy would let me write about my cat. Even I'm not that inclusionist. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:44, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say "individual rules aren't going to work" -- I said that there must be something to make it airtight where the individual rules fail to provide coverage -- so that ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT don't have room to be valid deletion arguments. In fact, according to the deletion policy, they shouldn't be. Articles cannot be deleted according to that policy just because someone does not like it. We shouldn't be able to delete, say, the article "George W. Bush" just because we don't like it or it's subject matter. mike4ty4 08:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, it got removed when Dugwiki put his rewrite in, and needs to be revisited, but it explictly looked at the subject-specific guidelines to judge notability, and, in the abscence of one, referred to a general standard. So everything was covered. It has nothing to do with like it/hate it arguments, but what constitutes notability for a subject. A general criterion has been rejected by the community, I really don't care to head down that road again. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Someone above mentioned a problem with WP:INCLUSION "trying to codify "I like it"/"I hate it" into a guideline or policy". I'm a little puzzled by that since I tried to be very careful in the draft to make the criteria as objective and reasonable to most editors as I could. I certainly never mentioned "liking" or "not liking" articles, and I tried to avoid talking about controversial things like "trivia", "fame" and "notability". Of course, nothing's perfect, so it's possible I'm overlooking something, and if there's part of the proposal that could be construed as allowing for the removal of "unpopular" articles, for example, please feel free to post about it so we can look at a fix. Dugwiki 15:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I was talking about the timeframe part of the guideline, although it has been mostly removed. It seemed like some people didn't like articles on topical subjects, so they included that. There's still a sentence worth of it left in the summary of the four main points. - Peregrine Fisher 17:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, this is supposed to go at the top of a bunch of subject specific guidelines, isn't it? Those are a bunch of likes/dislikes. Maybe I'm wrong about that, though. - Peregrine Fisher 17:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, I can't comment on the subject specific guidelines since those are written independently. This proposal is supposed to be fairly general in scope and not so unyielding as to disallow specific exceptions. Personally I think WP:INCLUSION should probably not necessarily endorse any particular subject specific guideline in its text, but could mention that editors writing articles on subjects for which a subject-specific guideline exists should consider that guidelines recommendations in addition to WP:INCLUSION's recommendation. Dugwiki 18:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
This isn't intended to go to the top of subject-specifics, which are not "likes/dislikes," but rather consensus-driven guidelines based on what makes a topic notable in its field. This was not designed to act as something to overpower or replace the subject-specific guidelines unless consensus at those guidelines dictated as such - the point is that the idea at WP:N was a failure, and an overbearing page pointing to what makes an article suitable for inclusion at Wikipedia may be better. --badlydrawnjeff talk
That brings up an old problem, then...what's the point of having an overall guideline, if it can be ignored at will? Most of those who write subject-specific guidelines tend to be fans, and make pretty loose criteria, probably far looser then anything here. I think what we should be shooting for is to say "These are minimum standards for inclusion, irrespective of any other conception of what's acceptable." Of course, a given project might want to set higher standards in its area, and as long as the community is willing to accept those that's fine, but "sufficient independent sourcing for a comprehensive article" is really the bare minimum that fulfills WP:NPOV and WP:ATT anyway. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
As I said before, this doesn't have to be a guideline. All it has to do is explain how we come to conclusions regarding whether an article is suitable for inclusion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well...in reality, something has to be, or someone will make one. We make guidelines regarding overarching issues in the community, and certainly, one of the most important is "What articles will we include?" Obviously, WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, and WP:ATT do not cover every instance of article which is unacceptable. And the subject-specific guidelines are absolutely nothing but ILIKEIT ("Well, we'd really like to write an article about every album that a band's made, even if all we can verify is the track list", "Well, we'd really like to write about every webcomic that won an award, even if all we can use as a source is the comic itself", "Well, we'd really like to write about anyone with a 'large fan base or cult following', even though that's totally subjective as to what constitutes it.") What's needed now is less fragmentation, something we can point to and say "If the article you are planning to write cannot meet these standards at a minimum, do not write it." We shouldn't have different standards in different areas, that begs bias. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not really interested in running in circles again. The PNC wasn't working, people didn't want it, and you're still misrepresenting the subject-specific guidelines. Less fragmentation is great in theory, but impossible in practice. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Jeff, the reason we run in circles is because you continually assert that I've "misrepresented" the subject specific guidelines by stating they're subjective and lead to bias, but never really asserted how they are not. Let me put a direct question. How is "two gold records" not a subjective, arbitrary cutoff? Why not one, or three? Why not platinum, or triple-platinum, or silver? How about "a large fan base or cult following"? How is that not inherently subjective? "The content is distributed through a medium well-known and independent of its creators"? Well, who cares? A lot of things are distributed by notable or well-known organizations but are not in themselves notable. Judge it on its own merits-how good of an article could we write, how many independent sources are out there? Can you actually answer those, instead of continuing to dismiss them? Stating something often enough does not make it true. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I accept that they're subjective - that's what notability is, subjective. Do they lead to bias? Well, no, not really. They're biased in the concept that people with an interest are generally the ones who set the bar, but it's no more biased than picking a number of sources out of thin air, either. Notabilty comes into play as the bar beyond verifiability - most anything can be verified, so we have to place aribtrary limits as to how to separate the two. You don't have to like the guidelines - I certainly don't - but they have wide acceptance, and they generally work. They certainly work better than what we tried at WP:N, so let's focus on making those better and making sure we make sense here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I would agree that picking a number of sources out of the air is arbitrary, and would also lead to bias. Picking a required amount and depth of source material-now we're getting somewhere, that's pretty objective, applies across the whole project (everything requires sources!), and ensures we don't get caught up writing in-depth articles about fads with little or no sourcing. On contentious topics, of course, we should require multiple sources in order to achieve neutrality. For non-contentious ones (say, a 16th-century painter), a single in-depth source would often be enough. What we should never have is an article without a significant amount of independent source material, or which can never be more than a stub, directory listing, track list, or plot summary. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:34, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Thus the circle. Thus the subjectivity, the bias, etc. I don't disagree, per se - sources are ultimately important. But that still doesn't answer the question of inclusion and notable subjects. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

weakness of a policy based on verifiability

I presented this yesterday as an imaginary extreme example, but today I saw several newly added articles about farmers in colonial Canada. The total information was the names of their immediate family, and the location of the farm. One was sourced on a local history giving no more information than the names, and the other on GoogleMaps.

Since notability has a bad name, I agree to kill it. It implies unimportant and can be seen as a statement of worth. But a standard for article inclusion which is based upon the suitability of a subject to an encyclopedia article is necessary, and being able to find facts is not enough. Every individual murder in the US since the 19th century probably has been the subject of a newspaper account and a court record. Both a RS. For that matter, so do many individual robberies, and quite a number of divorces. 2 RSs. This cannot be what is intended.
How to make an encyclopedia. Find a file of the town newspaper, and add everything which has appeared in more than one story, or in one story and the public record. WP will indeed become many of the things it is not supposed to be: a genealogy, a collection of indiscriminate information, and so on. We will be back to the days of radio towers and bus stops.
I am probably in general agreement with Mike4ty4, DGG 08:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
To reply to the above examples, the first criteria is intended to say that articles should generally not be "perma stubs". So an article about names of a family and farm locations would likely fail that criteria. In addition, the sources you mentioned both sound like primary sources, which runs afoul of WP:ATT's recommendation that articles should generally not solely rely on primary sources.
As to the example of writing an article about things that appear in more than one story, keep in mind WP:INCLUSION does say that the time frame within which sources are written should be considered. So an event which is written about in a couple of stories all within the same brief time span and which has no other sources is more likely to be deleted than one which has sources from a wider time span. Dugwiki 15:56, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, I'll mention that this guideline is intended to reflect minimal criteria. Borderline cases of things that have multiple references from a period of a few weeks or months that some people might accept and others might not are not intended to fall in the scope of the proposal. Those controversial articles should be handled individually in afd case by case. Dugwiki 15:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Those really seem to fall under the old standard of trivial information. We need sources that perform some sort of analysis, not just basic descriptive facts. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 17:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, at some point or another, it really does matter if the information is trivial. If there's not enough to write an article with, well, there's just not! I'm not sure we should be aiming to necessarily handle anything on a "case by case" basis, though. At least not until people get a lot better at recognizing and discarding ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT or ITSPOPULAR/ITSOBSCURE or ITGETSAMILLIONGHITS/ITGETSTHREEGHITS when closing AfD's. (I realize sometimes things do have to be handled case by case, but I don't think we should aim to do that very often.) If we're going to set a standard, it should be applicable in the majority of cases, with only the occasional edge case.Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding "unverifiable" information

FYI, I reverted a revision by Jossi to the "unreferenced information" bullet point that emphasized that articles which remain unreferenced for lengthy periods of time stand a risk of deletion as being presumed to be unverifiable. Jossi had removed that sentence, claiming WP:ATT contradicts this statement, but in this case his assessment appears to be incorrect. Information and articles which consensus deems to be likely unverifiable are routinely deleted, and on afd that often includes articles which have been unreferenced for a long time and which editors haven't found satisfactory verification after reasonable attempts.

So while an article should be given time to collect references (ie you shouldn't delete a relatively new article just because it's incomplete), an article which shows no signs of current or likely future verification has a very good chance of eventually being deleted as being unverifiable. Dugwiki 15:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

User subspace

I removed this, because it's problematic:

Editors interested in an article that appears headed for deletion can copy the article to their personal user space for informal archival purposes. This allows topics of limited interest or limited verifiability to be discussed less formally outside the scope of the Wikipedia article space.

I'm not sure we want to encourage this. People will then move all manner of nonsense to user subspace, which may be cached by Google just like everything else, claiming this page supports them. My suggestion is that we pass over this possibility without comment so that admins may delete material from user subspace more easily if, for example, it violates BLP or is clearly absurd. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how problematic it is, given that it's fairly common practice. Perhaps a line about the allowance upon request? I don't know how to word it, but it wasn't wrong per se. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Personally I make that suggestion to others when the topic comes up in afd, which is why I included it here. But I'm neutral on whether or not to include it in the final version of the proposal. If there are possible problems with suggesting people use their user space for ill-referenced or subjective topics, then I don't have a problem leaving it out of WP:INCLUSION. Dugwiki 17:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

sufficient sources

This doesn't seem to say much about what actually constitutes enough material for an article. Should we work some relative of "non-trival" in? My idea is that instead of just using that vague term, we should require sources that perform some sort of analysis and draw conclusions, instead of statement of basic descriptive facts. That would exclude the countless articles that people bring up as examples of citing birth certificates and wedding records to produce worthless articles on insignificant people. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 18:35, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Because there's no way to objectively state what constitutes "enough" material for an article for inclusion. "Non-trivial" is horrid, terrible language that fails to reflect general reality, "sufficient" is clear, and is designed to have a better discussion than counting sources or questioning whether a source is "trivial" or not. This has been touched upon a few times above and at WT:N. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:54, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Right, it's just that it appears in the nutshell but isn't very explicitly elaborated in the text. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
It's tough to elaborate on because the concept itself is fluid - what's sufficient for one subject may not be sufficient for another. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:16, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
To reply to Night's question about "non-trivial", I intentionally didn't try and define what would constitute the difference between a substantive article and a stub. The reason is because the details of that distinction are bound to be controversial and will also probably depend on the context of the article. It is, I think, going to be a matter of case-by-case consensus on whether an article is capable of being "substantive in length", for example. However, as a broad concept, editors will generally be able to tell the difference between an article with only a few sentences and one with a few paragraphs, for example, so as a general principle the idea that most articles should contain more than fleeting substance is I think something most of us would agree upon. Dugwiki 19:28, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
P.S. I think Night has a point, though, that I should probably add something brief explaining this concept a little bit. I'll see what I can do.... Dugwiki 19:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
yeah, my point was less about substantiveness of articles and more about substantive sources, i.e., what exists, even if it isn't in the article yet. I feel like some basic bar for that ought to at least be hinted at. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:30, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and added the following to the first criteria -

Articles with very minimal information beyond very basic statistics and little hope for expansion should normally be reviewed for either merger into a broader topic article or list article of related topics, or for possible deletion as a topic with so little verifiable, useful information that most editors would not consider it encylopedic in nature. How much information is required to make an article "sufficiently substantive" is a matter for case-by-case editorial discussion and consensus and will likely differ slightly between various subject areas.

Feel free to pick apart my wording, of course, but hopefully that gets the idea across that one of the things we're looking for in articles is that they should include more than simply the barest of data. Articles with bare minimum data and no chance of expansion probably should not be their own articles but should instead have their information incorporated elsewhere. This is similar to the concepts in WP:NOT that Wikipedia isn't a simple directory, link repository or set of dictionary definitions.
As far as distinguishing between sources, I think WP:ATT does a pretty good job of explaining the differences between primary and secondary sources and how to determine whether sources are reliable or biased. Also note that if a source doesn't have much to say about a topic, then an article which depends solely on such "small" sources would have to include a large number of them to contain enough information to be of any substance. So I don't think we have to worry as much about trying to evaluate the sources themselves in WP:INCLUSION - all we need to ask for is that all the information in a substantive article be reliably referenced per WP:ATT. Dugwiki 19:47, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
FYI, as I was typing the above I notice that Jossi moved that section into a new Footnotes section. I like Jossi's revision - thanks. :) Dugwiki 19:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all the help guys

I just wanted to make a general comment of thanks to everybody who took the time to clean up the wording and style of the draft I posted. It's really sounding and looking a lot better than when I first posted it. I know I'm pretty verbose, and the pruning and moving around of bits and pieces has made this a better read overall. Thanks guys. :) Dugwiki 19:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

"assert basic notability"

(suggested wording change) There are practical problems with "assert"--articles are being nom for speedy that are clearly notable as shown in the article text, with the reason being that the article didn't specifically say so in the first sentence. When this was discussed earlier, neither I nor anyone else was able to find a substitute word for "assert" that wouldn't cause similar problems. In the current deletion policy, the word "indicate" is used, and I suggest that as an alternative., either as "indicate basic notability" or "provide some indication of basic notability"; this will still get the appropriate articles speedied. ("He is a notable drummer in my high school band" and the inappropriate ones "She is mayor of .." reserved for the other deletion processes if deletion is thought appropriate. DGG 19:59, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What you're talking about is actually more of a topic for WP:CSD. The language in the section of this proposal that you're talking appears similar to what's in WP:CSD#A7. For reference, though, I went ahead and added links for each example to the corresponding bullet point of WP:CSD. Dugwiki 20:51, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Reinserted a modified version of the "over time" sentences Jossi deleted

I noticed that Jossi deleted the section cautioning against using only sources written in the same brief time span. His concern was apparently that it conflicted with policy. I'm not sure that it did, but in reading what he deleted I do agree that the language should have been toned down a bit to be more reflective of a guideline recommendation.

I reinserted a modified version of that language in the "single source" section. It's reworded to be a caution against creating articles that only use sources that are all written in the same brief time span, since such articles are more likely to be considered too localized in nature. I then provided in the footnotes some specific examples of hypothetical articles that might only have references all written in the same day or two (a local traffic snarl, and a regular season ball game). I think it's important to leave this sort of time-span consideration in place since it acts as a flag to weed out local news stories.

Anyway, as always, feel free to clean up or comment. :) Dugwiki 20:24, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess it conflicts with "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source." Also, I don't agree with the sports example. Games can be important without being a championship or finals game. We should leave that up to the "it's the responsibility of an article's authors to provide enough attributable material in the article itself to justify its inclusion" clause. If a number of articles analyse some non stats related part of a game, an encyclopedic article could be written about it. - Peregrine Fisher 20:57, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't mean in that example to imply that all games are going to be unimportant. Just that it's doubtful we want to have individual articles about, for example, every baseball game in the last 20 years. I'm certain there are some interesting regular season games that would have enough significance to write about. So point taken on the baseball example - I'll remove it for now.
As far as "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source", that's obviously not the only threshold for inclusion. WP:NOT, in fact, is founded on the principle that not everything that is attributable to a reliable source should appear in Wikipedia. Dugwiki 21:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
That's why we need notability guidelines - something that is covered in multiple mainstream reliable published sources is encyclopedic enough to appear in Wikipedia, while something that appears in only one published source isn't. As for the "brief timespan" provision, I don't agree with that. If X, an otherwise non-notable individual, does something that makes the headlines and is covered in ten mainstream newspapers within one week, then he is notable - and he is all the more notable for receiving that coverage within a brief timespan. Wikipedia may not be a news service, but it should include biographical articles on anyone who's received multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable independent sources, even if such coverage is transient and temporary. Walton Vivat Regina! 09:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
NOT#DIRECTORY suggests to me that Wikipedia should not have the prosopedic function that you are suggesting. Further, CSD A7 suggests that claims of importance and/or significance are required, which is not the case with a prosopedia. There seems no point in discarding N if all that is going to happen is that it will reappear here in substantially the same form with a new name. Angus McLellan (Talk) 11:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Multiple mainstream is even more dangerous than multiple non-trivial, in my mind. This is why we don't need one all-encompassing, and why WP:N lacks consensus - no one can agree on what's enough for an arbitrary standard that fits everything. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I don't quite follow what you're saying. I don't support discarding N in any case, as I don't see what's wrong with it at present. Nor was I proposing a "prosopedia"; rather, I was arguing that the definition of "importance and/or significance" includes people who have appeared repeatedly in the news. I agree totally that someone who appears in one news story in a local paper is non-notable, and that their inclusion would be un-encyclopedic. But someone who appeared in lots of different newspaper headlines is, in most cases, notable enough to merit an encyclopedia article. Walton Vivat Regina! 14:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
The discussion at WP:N that's in the archives does a pretty good job explaining the multiple problems. Combine that with its lack of consensus, and it's further along. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
"Repeatedly" is as vague as "multiple" ever was. The idea that news coverage over X days, or on X instances, means that the subject(s) should be included can be used to cover extremely minor subjects of no significance or importance. It would be very strange indeed if the inclusion guideline argued for the inclusion of subjects which the criteria for speedy deletion would exclude. The existing N guideline may not be any better in that respect, but producing a new guideline with the same flaws as the old one would not be progress. Angus McLellan (Talk) 15:00, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I agree 100% with this comment. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Just to reply to Walton above, I actually agree with you that a week's worth or more of news coverage can possibly meet the standard of "coverage over a period of time". What probably wouldn't meet it would be an event or person who is mentioned in only, say, one or two or three days of news coverage and then not covered after that. So the intent is to weed out "one-day" and "two-day" events, not "one week or multi-week" coverage. Dugwiki 15:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
By the way, the draft originally said "one or two days" but it was (rightly) argued that a specific number of days shouldn't be included. Rather it should be left open for editors to decide on individual articles whether sufficient time has passed over the course of coverage. And, as with all guidelines, it's also possible there will be exceptions where something only is referenced in one day, for example, but is still considered worth inclusion for some specific reason. Dugwiki 15:32, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge

This has some good ideas but on the whole mainly restates what is already found on other pages. It should be merged back into WP:N, because forked discussion and divergent guidelines aren't particularly useful. >Radiant< 14:35, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, this is designed to replace WP:N, so a merge is inappropriate at this time. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:39, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Am I correct that by "replace" you mean "incorporate the useful parts of WP:N and replace that by this"? Because that's pretty much what I meant with "merge". >Radiant< 14:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, no. Mainly because there's little of use in WP:N that can come here that may not be here already. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree that we shouldn't have two guidelines trying to cover the same thing. There's some good stuff in here, but as Radiant said, it's elsewhere too. Merging this back in would be good- we should not fork guidelines. Friday (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
As explained to you before, this isn't a fork. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
If there's an explanation, I don't get it. All I see is an assertion. Friday (talk) 14:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Then I'm sorry. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
A case of WP:HORSE, apparently. >Radiant< 15:04, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Very helpful. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
Not a helpful comment, I can't tell what it means. Either way, this sub-thread is not currently fruitful, so why is everyone continuing it? GRBerry 15:06, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah, to get back on the thread, as suggested by me and concurred by Friday, this page is redundant with WP:N and should be merged. Also, holding discussion about inclusion/notability in two separate places is not particularly practical. $.2 >Radiant< 15:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Again, this page is not redundant to WP:N, and is a proposal to eventually replace it. Right now, WP:N barely has support for it to be a guideline, so you have nothing to worry about - if this lacks consensus, the discussion will continue there and WP:N won't be replaced. If it gains consensus, the discussion will continue here and WP:N won't be part of the equation. We're not at any stage to make that distinction yet, and the repeated calls for a merge are, to me, distractions from trying to improve this into something more workable than the WP:N disaster. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
      • If you see improvements that need to be made in WP:N why not try making them there? Isn't the fragmentation a distraction from trying to improve our guidelines on what does or doesn't belong? If it's the name you object to, why not propose a rename? Friday (talk) 15:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
        • Because the entire concept of WP:N is worthless, IMO. I've already pointed you to the numerous discussions on the matter, and there are a number of relevant discussions here, as well. Have you read them? They answer a lot of your questions. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:22, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
          • From what I'm able to understand, it's the word "notability" you object so strongly to, not the concept of having a guideline which addresses what is or isn't appropriate content for the encyclopedia. If the concept is worthless, so is this page, since that's what it's trying to do. Again, if a rename is what you're after, we don't need a whole new page to accomplish this. Friday (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
            • Then I'm not sure what else to tell you. I agree with GRBerry, this discussion is really counterproductive and the continual calls for a merge are distracting, so I'm not contributing to this thread further. I'd love to have some substantive input from you regarding how to word this page, though. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe, someday, we'll come to a point where the two pages or discussions should be merged. Right now, even discussing that question strikes me as counter productive. WP:NOTE barely has consensus, this has been changing a lot, and trying to throw them together would break both of them. Someone can agree with the general concept of having a central criteria for article inclusion without agreeing that it should take any particular form or use any particular words. WP:NOTE carries a lot of baggage from the word "notability" and the various sub-guidelines. In the end we spent almost six months writing WP:ATT as a complete replacement for WP:V and WP:OR before deciding that we were ready to flip the switch. To put it bluntly, I want the topic of merging (and which way) to go away until this proposal is fully worked out, which it isn't right now. The page was almost totally rewritten this week. Talking about merging is a distraction from trying to get a decent proposal together, and is not helping either page get better. GRBerry 15:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

  • The solution is to lose the baggage of the various sub-guidelines, and to cease the production of ever more narrow sets of criteria for ever more specific classes of articles that overlap and contradict other criteria, and that do things like set subjective and arbitrary numerical bars (such as numbers of appearances in films). Those are the problems that editors have with notability, and the issues that have beset it right from the very start. If editors are looking for guidelines to merge, have a look at Wikipedia:Notability (journalists), Wikipedia:Notability (academics), Wikipedia:Notability (pornographic actors), and so forth. Merging those and eliminating the arbitrary numerical criteria is where effort would be well spent. Uncle G 18:10, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • The PNC is a subjective, numerical bar, and one that doesn't work, that's why we're avoiding it and why it's being rejected. Notability is not decided by sources, period. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:12, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Heh. Numerical is about as objective as you can get. You may disagree with its judgement in some situations, but I've yet to see an example to convince me that it'd keep out anything that deserves an article. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
        • There's a list of roughly a half dozen that I've provided a few times prior in a variety of areas. Ern Westmore (meets "multiple" mentions, no evidence of being the "subject" of "non-trivial"), She Shoulda Said No (ditto), Mom and Dad (borderline, but unquestionably one of the most notable films in history per National Film Registry), etc. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
          • What? Every single one of those has several substantial sources cited. The PNC is not about requiring something to even be the main subject of the work, only that it was covered nontrivially within it. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 06:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
            • Not really, actually. There are many sources, but not enough that qould qualify for "multiple, non-trivial." Yes, no one in their right mind would think that they aren't notable or covered well - thus the PNC being a pile. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
              • Every time you've brought those out, it seems that's the initial read on them...I don't see how any of those fail the "multiple, non-trivial" guideline (though I would personally be alright with some articles using a single but very substantial source, especially if its topic is not controversial.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 10:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

WP:N and WP:AI

I think the responses above are getting a little heated over the concept of "merging" the two guidelines. I actually agree with Radiant that, ultimately, we should redirect one of the pages to the other and keep whatever concepts are useful from both. The merger could go in either direction, though. It's certainly possible that WP:N, for example, could ultimately be redirected to WP:INCLUSION rather than the other way around.

In the end both pages are attempting to perform similar functions. They are trying to provide a general guideline of what sorts of otherwise verifiable articles should be closely scrutinized for inclusion. So eventually the concepts which appear to have agreement should be joined, and the article which has the preferred overall wording and tone should probably be the one that serves as the final template.

I think a good place to start that process would be to answer the following questions:

  1. What criteria or concepts in WP:N do most editors have agreement on? Likewise, what in WP:INCLUSION do most editors agree on?
  2. After collecting the concepts we have consensus on, and removing non-consensus portions, which article appears to serve as a better template for hosting the merged guideline?

So how would you guys answer those questions? Dugwiki 15:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

  • I can't answer anything authoratatively, but I'm not sure if anything at WP:N has agreement at this stage. The discussions there have shown some sharp divides in at least three different directions. With that said, I do think this is a better template on all counts - it points to exactly what governs what, and doesn't make any grand pronouncements at this point that are terribly controversial. Much of the problem with WP:N came about with the way it was implemented and expanded, and how unrealistic it was in practice, so avoiding that is a top priority for me, personally. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • To me the major points are: 1) the notion that we use sources for determining what's "encyclopedic" (substitute whatever term you prefer for this word, if you wish) rather than our own original arguments. 2) that the subject-specific guidelines, if we must have them, are generally for excluding subjects which are covered in sources that people might otherwise argue are sufficient. Friday (talk) 15:58, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • But here's the issue that's the crux of the argument regarding #1 - we don't use sources to determine whether a subject is encyclopedic, but whether it's appropriate for our inclusion purposes. This goes hand in hand with your second point, where the subject-specific guidelines give a template in the other direction too - where things can be included for the subject, even though they may not be kept due to other more important things. It's where WP:N failed the worst on both those counts, a some points worse than others. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not too tied to one specific word over another. To me, "encyclopedic" and "appropriate for us to include" may as well be the same thing. I suppose one could argue that some very important but as yet undiscovered topic is "encyclopedic" because it should be covered by sources, but this is outside the scope of Wikipedia. We use sources. Friday (talk) 16:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Okay, I'll be a little more specific - sources are not what makes a subject encyclopedic/appropriate for inclusion. An article may have to be removed because of a lack of sources, but that doesn't mean the subject of the article is inappropriate. Is that better? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Flipside is that the presence of sources does not necessarily mean that the subject of the article is appropriate. For an article, we'd need both sources and a good subject. >Radiant< 16:26, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Exactly, something that WP:N fails to cover. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:27, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • For my part, I'm going to point out a few things that WP:N and WP:INCLUSION seem to agree on. First, that not everything that's "verifiable" should be included in Wikipedia (similar to WP:NOT). Second, both documents advocate that articles should usually have multiple verifiable independent references, and that articles which are either single source or whose references aren't independent are somewhat suspect. Third, both documents refer editors to the subject specific guidelines for further guidance in those areas. And fourth, both documents recommend references that cover the article over at least a short span of time as opposed to a flurry of one-day coverage, for example. I'm optimistic because those mutually agreed upon concepts seem to be a pretty good foundation of agreement between the two. Dugwiki 16:05, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • That's good. So what, in your opinion, are the major differences? >Radiant< 16:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok, looking at differences, I'm seeing the following areas -
  1. First is whether or not to incorporate the concept of definition of "notable". In WP:N, in the intro, it says "Notable is defined as "worthy of being noted"[1][2] or "attracting notice".[3] All topics should meet a minimum threshold of notability for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia." WP:INCLUSION, though, doesn't attempt to define notability, per se, since it's a subjective term, and instead starts with the principle that an article should provide sufficient information and verification to justify its inclusion. So WP:N is constructed around the ideas of "notability" or "significance", while WP:INCLUSION is constructed around the ideas of "substantive content" and "sufficient suitable references". Both documents end up reaching similar practical conclusions, but are approaching the issues from different perspectives.
  2. WP:N includes a provision that "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources." WP:INCLUSION doesn't mention secondary sources, though, and instead refers to WP:ATT (which talks about when to use or not use primary sources) and to the idea that an article should have enough verifiable information to be substantive and discussed over a period of time. Those requirements presumably weed out most of the questionable articles that might be based solely on primary sources.
  3. WP:N talks about "notability being permanent". WP:INCLUSION doesn't refer much to notability, and remains neutral on the idea of whether or not something's notability changes over time.
  4. WP:N talks about whether or not a "source is trivial". WP:INCLUSION doesn't attempt to evaluate whether a source is trivial, but does require that articles have enough verifiable information that the article itself isn't trivial. The reason for the difference is that, theoretically, you might be able to construct a non-trivial useful article using a large number of "trivial" sources. Such a construction is difficult, as it could run into problems with original research, but theoretically possible.
  5. WP:N appears to be a bit longer than WP:INCLUSION. That could mean that there are some specific items that should be included in WP:INCLUSION, but it also could mean that WP:N is a bit bloated and some parts could be removed. For example, if you take out the parts that talk about defining "notability", it probably would shrink the guideline down to about the size of WP:INCLUSION. Dugwiki 16:46, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Of your list, the only thing I'm concerned about is the permanancy clause, which should get some mention somewhere here. The others, I really think it's handled here better on all points, although it may not hurt to beef up the idea that multiple trivial sources may lend itself to OR concerns. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
  • The idea of notability has developed over almost four years. Wikipedia:Notability says several things because it is important to say them, because not saying them has led to confusion or repetitions of the same errors over and again. Failing to learn from this when reinventing the wheel will lead to a wheel where not all of the corners have been knocked off. The reason that the definition of notable is included is because before it was added it had to be explained again and again that there is more than one meaning to the word, as given in dictionaries. (Wikipedia:Notability is deliberately not constructed around the idea of importance or significance, and indeed explicitly explains that they are not the same as notability. You are misrepresenting it.) Similarly, the reason that the explanation that notability is permanent is there is that, until it was, editors would make arguments based upon how things were "not notable any more".

    At this point, the wheel that you have reinvented here is currently square. Uncle G 18:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

  1. I think there is general agreement that sources the basis for determining what we can write a policy complaint article on, and we can do it when there are "enough" sources. I don't think we have general agreement on how to explain "enough". I do think there is generally agreement that
    1. Reliable sources count, non-reliable sources can't be used anyway, so they don't count.
    2. Independent sources are preferred to publications from the topic of an article or those with a vested interest in it.
    3. If a bunch of newspapers run copies of a wire story, there is really only one source, namely the wire story.
    4. Sources offering only directory information (or only proving existence) really aren't worth counting.
    5. Primary sources are not enough in and of themselves, as we could write an article on almost every person, every car, every piece of property, and many pets in the developed world using them, but none of these would say anything encyclopedic.
    I think that we lack agreement on the following sub-questions:
    1. Does a single news event (with coverage over a few news cycles) merit a full article? (I personally think it does at Wikinews but not at Wikipedia.)
    2. Is an article that will be a permanent stub unless new sources are published acceptable? (I think this disagreement comes mostly from varying definitions of "stub". The definition I prefer is "an article so incomplete that an editor who knows little or nothing about the topic could improve its content after a superficial Web search or a few minutes in a reference library"; on that definition a permanent stub is impossible.)
    3. What does "non-trivial" mean?
    4. When is a single source enough? (I personally think this is irrelevant; any single source long enough to be enough will be about a topic for which there are also other sources.)
    5. Do goverment documents mandatory for all X in a large class matter? (Examples are birth/marriage/death certificates for people, restaurant health inspection reports, OFSTED reports for UK schools, etc...)
    6. What does a "comprehensive article" mean?
  2. I thought we had agreement on what purpose the subject specific guidelines accomplish. I thought they served as markers for areas of inclusion, where we could be comfortable that an sourced, comprehensive, encyclopedia article could be written, even if the current version was neither sourced nor comprehensive. But thinking more, I'm not certain that is how or why they were written, nor that they are being maintained in that fashion, nor that they are being used in that fashion. So I have to say that we lack community agreement on what their purpose is.
  3. I think this is a better title for a central inclusion criteria. "Notability" inherently carries baggage amounting to "I've heard of it, it is notable", and every new editor has to be educated that that is not the meaning we intend. I think that is sufficient reason to use "Article inclusion" as a preferred title. GRBerry 16:48, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
    • To cover a couple questions...the stub situation is covered, IMO, via whatever we use for "substantial/comprehensive". Some articles will be comprehensive while only being 700 characters, for instance...I don't think there's any significant disagreement about the subject specific guidelines except for those attempting to push a PNC, there's certainly no real argument at the individual guidelines. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Then you haven't read enough. There's been an awful lot of disagreement over the subject-specific guidelines over the years, both on their own talk pages and in countless AFD discussions where people have tried to apply them, ranging from how many films makes a pornographic actor notable to how many employees makes a company notable. Most of the subject-specific criteria either end up permanently disputed, permanently no more than proposals, completely unused in practice, or evolving into variations on the PNC (which is no more than simply a generalized version of what several of the criteria in those subject-specific guidelines said in the first place). Uncle G 18:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
        • There's certainly been disagreement about aspects of them, sure. Of their existence? Nothing substanttive enough to be rid of them, for sure. The PNC has never been a factor. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

In terms of what there's agreement and disagreement on, here are the main things I see agreement on:

  • Some subjects are outside our scope, and not appropriate for us to cover.
  • A process is needed for getting rid of the inappropriate articles, that process will probably always be the deletion process.
  • No matter what we come up with here, at notability, or anywhere, articles should satisfy all core policies.

Now, for the points of disagreement:

  • What subjects are outside scope. This is especially true for "news" type events, and fictional subjects which are mainly or solely covered in an "in-universe" style.
  • There should be different standards for inclusion on different subjects, vs. there should be one uniform standard which can be applied to any article.
  • The criteria should be decided on by editors in that area, vs. the criteria should be decided on by Wikipedia as a whole, vs. we should find something that means we don't determine them at all.
  • The subject-specific guidelines should act as exceptions to the main guideline, vs. the subject specific guidelines should only be a rough guess as to when a subject is likely to fulfill the main guideline.

I'm sure I missed something, if anyone would like, please add to the above. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:34, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Seraphim brings up a couple interesting points. Just to comment on them -
  • WP:N and WP:INCLUSION don't seem to disagree on how to handle news events and fictional subjects. Neither of those articles currently directly discusses those topics, but instead just recommends generally having multiple references over at least a short period of time. However, there is disagreement over the subject specific guidelines for news and fiction. My opinion is that WP:N/WP:INCLUSION should not directly get into the details of handling the specific subjects, but should take a broader view that can act as a general consensus cornerstone approach. So basically this guideline would say that most news and fiction articles should have multiple independently written references over a short period of time. Exceptions beyond that would have to be hashed out in the subject specific guidelines and case-by-case article discussions.
  • Right now both WP:N and WP:INCLUSION recommend that editors refer to the subject specific guidelines. That recommendation is assuming that those guidelines have consensus, though, so obviously if a particular subject-guideline is having trouble getting consensus it should be reviewed or reworked.
So while there is editorial disagreement on particular subjects, I think both WP:N and WP:INCLUSION agree and probably most editors agree that WP:N/WP:INCLUSION should be the general recommendations and editors working in specific subjects should also refer to whatever subject specific guidelines appear to have consensus. Dugwiki 21:37, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

The existence of the guideline encourages arguments for deletion based on the guideline as opposed to policy, or even on the specific merits of the article in question. In this respect, the guideline denigrates the standing of policy, particular WP:ATT.

I am yet to see examples of articles that should be deleted, where guidance of WP:N or WP:AI is relevant, but policies WP:ATT and WP:NOT are not.

The closest I have seen is arguments about a cat, a firehydrant and other hypothetical examples along the lines of CRAPMIGHTTHENEXIST, ie. an argument style already resoundingly rejected. SmokeyJoe 23:43, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

That is because the purpose of this page (and to a lesser extent WP:N and to an even lesser extent its friends) is to link policy and AfD. Nifboy 00:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I gather the intended purpose, as you say. However, the effect has been the opposite of that intended purpose. WP:N has become an intermediary separating AfD from wikipedia content policies. The intended purpose may have been good, but the result has been bad. SmokeyJoe 03:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Last I checked, our policies were content policies, not article policies. The only major policy on articles is WP:CSD (the remainder of deletion policy is simply a mechanism for building consensus), and CSDA7 ("Unremarkable people, groups, companies and web content") has no basis in pretty much anything except a sort of WP:N. Nifboy 13:22, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
So WP:AI is to be new policy? SmokeyJoe 13:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm not gonna lie, I think this policy/guideline business is missing the point: The page on both is called Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, not two separate pages called Wikipedia:Policies and Wikipedia:Guidelines. Nifboy 14:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Just to clear up the policy vs guideline question, the hope is to merge WP:N and WP:INCLUSION into a single guideline, but not to label them as policy. As described in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines, "A guideline is any page that is: (1) actionable (i.e. it recommends, or recommends against, an action to be taken by editors) and (2) authorized by consensus. Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. ... A policy is similar to a guideline, only more official and less likely to have exceptions." Because WP:INCLUSION recommends taking certain actions regarding certain general types of articles, but is likely to have more exceptions than a typical policy, it would be most appropriate as a guideline. Dugwiki 16:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Preliminary support

  • I've been following the notability discussions/arguments for more than two years, and I've tried to give this proposal and discussion a thorough read. The proposal has been substantially improved by recent edits, and the underlying discussion has been more rational and more grounded in connecting the core policies to practical applications than is often the case on WP:N's talk page or on various essays like WP:BASH, let alone the rants in individual AfD's when people get frustrated. (It's good to see that badlydrawnjeff and I are far closer in viewpoint at this basic level than it often seems in individual cases.) While we should continue debating and fine-tuning, I'll give this proposal my tentative support for eventually replacing WP:N. In practice it should make little difference except to reduce the unnecessary offense given by AfD/DRV use of terms such as "not notable", and perhaps to reduce confusion by explaining relationships between seemingly conflicting policies and guidelines. This title better specifies the core purpose; "Wikipedia:Notability" can more readily be disregarded as "just another essay on some wikilawyering term somebody wants to use to get rid of my favorite article", even though it's intended as a policy-based guideline. The continued strong lack of consensus for the old stuff, including frequent calls to get rid of it by editors who aren't single-purpose ILIKEIT folks, makes me more in favor of changing to this than I otherwise would be. The rework of WP:V and WP:NOR into WP:ATT also increases my support, as it shows that the system won't be thrown to hell by a change in how Wikipedia expresses how-we-do-things, the way it would by a big change of policy agreed to by a dozen editors but not by the next few thousand of us. Barno 19:25, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
I strongly support this as well -- Only, approving this change in principle should not be taken to mean detailed approval of all the points in the present draft. I think there will be consensus around the basic change, but many of the details have still been discussed only by too narrow a group. DGG 04:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
That's my feeling here as well. It's currently a suitable replacement for WP:N, but it still has some bugs to work out.--ragesoss 18:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Now that the policy-page merge to WP:ATT has essentially been reverted by Jimbo, we need to learn from that, and not declare that this proposal "supercedes" older policy page(s) without a much broader discussion and some consensus among more than a few editors. No other change to my comments. Barno 15:46, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

what do the editors who create 'cruft'primary sourced in universe articles think?

I regret using the term cruft and have struck it out. DanBeale 06:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The debate about non-trivial and notable and encyclopedic is interesting. It seems to be missing out many editors who are busy creating articles that are purely sourced from primary in-universe stuff. There are wiki projects that aim to be "comprehensive", which I'd think means "inclusive", which I think means "inclusive of trivial, non-notable, unencyclopedic stuff".

How can these editors be engaged in the debate? Especially when editors who seem to agree that the principle of non-triviality and notability (but who disagree with fine points of the discussion) can't agree. DanBeale 12:50, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

That's already covered at WP:NOT (a collection of indiscriminate information), WP:FICT (fictional works should be covered from a mainly out-of-universe perspective), and WP:ATT (an editor's interpretation of a work is not acceptable, which is inevitable if the fictional work is the sole or main source, primary sources should not be the main or sole basis of an article), so I'd think the discussion on that would be there or at WP:VP. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
What Seraphim said. As noted elsewhere, this isn't meant to be a content guideline as much as direct people to the relevant ones, and we have more than enough of those to deal with "crufty" elements, as insulting as that term is. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:02, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Eh, depends who you are I guess. I've found a lot of hostility toward the term here, but for its origination in programming, it's just something you have to periodically clean out of the code as it becomes outdated. It may have been great coding for its time, and just have become obsolete by something added later. Seraphimblade Talk to me 13:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
And WP:WAF, which I prefer over WP:FICT and tend to direct people towards in such instances. Nifboy 18:57, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

An interesting point. The people who create individual TV episode pages and whatnot just don't seem interested in the guideline pages. I think it's because these guidelines don't have anything that helps them with creating their articles. They just go about their merry way, creating articles. The people who want to remove such articles don't have much choice but to learn about, and participate in, these discussions. The people who want to include such stuff probably outnumber the people who don't by maybe 10-1000 times, but they participate so little in guideline pages you get this weird dichotomy. If we ever create a guideline or policy that says the rules should be descriptive instead of prescriptive, that's a way their voices could be heard. Yeah, yeah, I know because people don't add refs doesn't mean refs aren't good, etc. - Peregrine Fisher 19:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)


I think, as projects mature, they inevitably run into these concerns. One story common to many projects (and sometimes even played out on a smaller scale with individual editors)...

A few editors fanatical about the Kwazy Quux series start a Wikiproject. This series started as a video game series, but has branched out into many media, as Foobar Entertainment, the creators, learns the joy of licensed properties. There's a lot of disparate, mostly lousy articles about the series, and the project aims to clean them up.
And clean them up it does. Quux's article gets copyedited, and improved a bit. The not-well-liked Kwazy Quux Gaiden''s article goes from "It sucks" to an actual (if not terribly detailed) article. The project even makes articles like Quux's Wand of Displacement, and it's that article that leads the project to run into...well, the standards the rest of Wikipedia uses.
Maybe WikiProject Kwazy Quux wants to get Quux's Wand of Displacement featured. Maybe it gets sent to AFD. Sometimes there's a dispute over the article's content (which can't be resolved since it's all interpretation of primary sources), and the project's editors go looking for outside help. Whatever it is, someone from outside the project says, "Well, to resolve issues like this on Wikipedia, we look at the published sources you're citing."
After the inevitable "What citations?" answer, the project tends to either break up, take on a massive project of citation and cleanup, or degenerate into useless squabbles over hopelessly irresolvable arguments.

I'm not sure what to do about this, if there's anything wrong with this cycle, or what to do when you have a project whose content becomes so AFD-proof that they can ignore calls for references. (Individual TV episodes, for example.) - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I like your story, and I think it can be used as the story of all pop culture articles on WP. If you look at the top 100 articles, they're mostly about pop culture (Heroes (TV series), 300 (film)), sex (Penis, Pornography), and places (Japan, New York City). Pop culture is by far the largest group: Naruto related articles alone claim 8 of the top 100. Ironically, what editors who frequent this page dislike is also WP's driving force. What people read about is the same thing that we're going to get articles about. I wasn't around for the whole Pokemon thing, but didn't it happen something like this: Someone creates a page for their favorite one, which gave other people the idea to do the same. If 494 out of 495 Pokemon pages have been created, people are going to jump on creating the last one before fixing the already made ones. Then there's 495 stubs, and again, people expand these pages instead of cleaning them up. Finally, once they're all bloated, there's nothing left to do but start cleaning them up. I think the same thing will happen with all pop culture pages. We're still in the process of making stubs for every conceivable detail of pop culture. Then we'll fill all these articles until they're bloated. Finally, we'll clean them up. Maybe there's 500,000 pop culture stubs still to be created, then filled with bloat, then cleaned up. It's going to take a while. - Peregrine Fisher 00:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I wish it could tell the story of all pop culture articles. But in reality, as AMIB said, far too many pop culture articles become AFD-proof. For instance, let's say there's this article on a character that appeared in a minor role in a TV series, and an even more minor role in a video game. There are no independent sources, because nobody at all cares about the thing. Prime for deletion, right? Not if it's Whismur. -Amarkov moo! 00:39, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Whismur looks like a pretty good article to me. It's based on primary sources, of course. and it's about as good as an article on Whimsur can get. The fact that pages like it have become AfD proof tells me that guidelines like notability and this one are out of step with reality. I would like to see a guideline that helps speed up the process of improving these articles instead of promoting hopeless AfDs. - Peregrine Fisher 02:08, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, how are books published by Scholastic and another unrelated press primary for discussion of a Pokemon character? Serious question, because unless I misunderstand the books, a third party handbook seems mighty reliable to me. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Whismur was created with various (since-deleted) templates, meaning it has quite a few sources that don't really apply, because a list of sources was templatized and used everywhere. And the books that actually mention Whismur still only really give trivial mention. -Amarkov moo! 03:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
But the purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information; even a plot summary, or a list of works in which a character appears, is useful information. I personally am totally unaware of the names of any Pokemon characters, but if a friend makes a reference to one, I may want to find out what or who it is. There are many such topics; they will be different for everyone, and that is the point of a collaboration. In writing such accounts, we use whatever sources are appropriate and available and likely to be accurate. For many topics, the work itself is suitable & for many topics personal expressions in media such as blogs are suitable as well. It is time WP recognized the realities of the world which WP itself has helped to make.
AfD proof refers to the subject of an article--whether a reasonable article can be written with sources that can be verified (and checking against the work itself is verification--often much more accurate verification than otherwise possible). it does not refer to the contents of an article at a particular time, except to the extent that it can be shown that the most diligent efforts may result in not being to find any sources which would make it impossible for an article to be written. DGG 03:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
It seems like if we really want to reflect the broader consennsus that exists across wikipedia, and not the narrow consensus seen on some of these guideline pages, we should just add a few things to WP:NOT and get rid of this page, WP:N, and the subject specific notability pages. We could add something prohibiting vanity publications, student films, pirate radio shows and the like to WP:NOT, and then leave inclusion/exclusion to the actual policies. - Peregrine Fisher 04:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
People have mentioned TV shows. There have been nearly 400 episodes of "The Simpsons". Obviously this is a notable series, and some of the individual episodes are notable, but are all 393 episodes notable? But I couldn't pick an episode and suggest it gets deleted because all the single episode pages I saw were well written articles. Pokemon is more problematic. Pokemon is obviously a notable franchise. Some of the individual Pokemon are notable, (such as the ones that get painted on planes) but many of them are only referred to in-universe, or by books that are game guides for the universe. People could go through the list of pokemon and AfD all the non-notable ones, but it looks like that'd turn into some battle. :(
So, here's my main point- Do Whismur and similar articles harm WP? Compare any Pokemon (or simpsons) article with, for example, reusch or Dominique Dorsey or James Haskell etc. Some articles are just bad articles. Some articles are good articles, but about non-notable stuff. DanBeale 06:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I think we should concentrate on writing good articles, regardless of "notability." As I write this, WP has about 1.7 million articles, a number which is climbing fast. A guideline which people can cite at AfDs isn't even going to make a dent in that number. The number is going up, and every Pokemon already has its own article, so what are these pages being created about? Probably ever more detailed articles about Pokemon, and other pop culture, judging by the fact that WP's most popular pages are about pop culture. Instead of concentrating on stopping the inevitable, we should focus on how to shape these articles so they become well written as soon as possible. People use the word "encyclopedic" quite a bit around here, but what that means is being defined by our articles, not anything this proposal has to say. Our articles currently say that every Pokemon is encyclopedic, and what is counted as encyclopedic is growing every day. Do we want an ignored guideline, that's boxed in more and more by AfD proofing, or do we want to write good articles. - Peregrine Fisher 08:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
The problem is figuring out where to draw that line. At the end of the day, the pool of subjects in which it is possible to write about is A. The pool of subjects that are verifiable to our standards is B, which is fewer than A. The pool of subjects that are worth including (notable/encyclopedic) are C, which is fewer than B. The question is whether this proposal, or any of our policies/guidelines, enable us to get as close to C as possible. Pokemon articles, like them or not, bring us closer to C, and they're inherently more verifiable by independent and highly-reliable primary sources than many articles considered "high importance." A better example than Pokemon is the Hurricane/Tropical Cyclone WikiProject. They are machines over there, and every article they crank out is of GA/A/FA quality. The importance of an early-season named storm that spends six days at sea and affects nothing is debatable, but adds to our comprehensiveness and is well-written. It brings us closer to C. The Pokemon projects are more popular than the Hurricane ones, but there's absolutely no reason the same can't occur. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Pokemon articles, like them or not, bring us closer to C, and they're inherently more verifiable by independent and highly-reliable primary sources than many articles considered "high importance."
Anyone who says this hasn't ever tried to write a Pokémon article. The sources are flakey fansites, trivial mentions in primary sources, and personal interpretation. The article can't ever become good-in-the-way-an-encyclopedia-article-is-good, because we can't summarize or interpret or highlight important facts, due to the lack of summarizing or interpretive sources. You end up with scraps of trivia, endlessly rearranged, and hopelessly badly sourced (<ref>Um, play through the game and hope you see this.</ref>). The Pokémon Wikiproject is just now grappling with this problem, and I would hope that people can learn from this, instead of dooming themselves to repeat it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't necessarily consider, say, an official Pokemon handbook published via Scholastic, or a magazine that discusses Pokemon, or a Prima guide primary in this case. Maybe you do, but there's plenty to start with, and primary sourcing isn't always a bad thing, merely sometimes tricky. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:58, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Those Scholastic guides are reprinting boilerplate text from the games and from various official sources; their analysis, interpretation, or summary is trivial, when present at all. Whether or not they're "primary" is moot in the face of the fact that they aren't very useful as a source of commentary from which an article can be derived. Likewise the game guides; they don't offer any commentary that isn't the most efficient way of doing such-and-such in such-and-such game. The official magazines, typically, are focused discussion of things that actually exist in the real world; moreso than Wikipedia, at times. They can be useful, but for articles on products and games and such, not really for articles about individual Pokémon.
The problem is that there isn't any analysis, or interpretation, or summary elsewhere. All we can do is take those scraps and form them into rather poorly-composed articles of little value to anyone who isn't looking for a rudimentary game guide or setting bible. We're amusing people who enjoy Pokémon trivia, not lending an encyclopedic understanding in the form of an overview of the important facts. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
That's where the primary sourcing comes in. Again, primary sourcing isn't always a bad thing. To bring the example back around to this topic, we have secondary sources which can establish the articles we're talking about. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Primary sourcing doesn't allow for analysis, summary, or interpretation. An article without any of those is just a bunch of trivial facts, arranged more or less arbitrarily. They fail to meet the encyclopedic ideal of providing an overview of important facts while giving necessary context for further research. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:59, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

There's an argument, here, that, because so many people are writing articles sourced only to primary sources, we should endorse that. The argument about typos is glib, but important, because it illustrates the idea that a form of editing that doesn't seek this project's ideal doesn't dilute that ideal.

You can take a terrible article to a mediocre article with primary sources. This is the push from stub/start to B, and it's what most editors spend most of their time doing, because the work is obvious (and generally pretty easy). In fact, I'd bet most editors spend all of their time doing this.

You can also take an article from B to GA/FA. This is harder work, and given that this is a volunteer encyclopedia, also less popular work. It requires that actual research be done, and that hard decisions be made about content that isn't typically allowed by guidelines and policies like WP:NOT (and various subject-area guidelines, like WP:BLP, WP:WAF, and so on).

It's easy for editors to misunderstand the importance of the B→FA push, given how common start→B is; indeed, editors can be completely unaware, or even scornful of the hard decisions B→FA often forces upon us. (e.g. "This reference is a fansite; we need to find a better cite for this claim or remove it." "This seems to be personal interpretation; do you have a source for this?" "This article seems to be overspecific. Is there an article where we can merge this?")

I hear variations on Peregrine Fisher's argument daily, be it on article talk pages, the talk pages of the guidelines that are the tools for going from B→FA, or merge/deletion discussions for articles about which so little is published that we can't even get above the B-class article written from personal observation. I don't think that's a good enough argument to justify simply throwing up our hands and saying "Well, B is better than start, so it's good enough." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 20:00, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This has been a problem I've noted as well. In some cases, it seems articles which can't even get above a stub without OR are kept (see railway stations and "census locations", as well as schools, for many examples). I certainly don't mind keeping around articles which are currently poor but improvable, but something's got to be done about the forest of permastubs, primary sourced/OR fiction articles with no secondary sourcing available, and the like. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Again, why the hate on comprehensive permastubs? I will never get that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Plot-only articles will probably always be a controversial topic. As far as WP:INCLUSION goes, it would generally apply to works on fiction. For example:

  • A completely unreferenced article about a specific fictional subject isn't acceptable, as without references it isn't presenting a way for editors to verify the accuracy of the article. There are also possible copyright issues and original research problems. So articles on fiction still need acceptable referencing as per WP:ATT. If supplying such references isn't possible, the article in question should ultimately be deleted.
  • Articles which only have one source about the topic should be avoided. In the realm of fiction, an example would be the difference between a "minor" character and a "major" character. A minor character is not as likely as a major character to have any published, reliable sources about them other than the actual fictional work. So applying the "single source" rule to an article about a fictional character is a good first test to see if the character ought to have its own seperate article or should be merged into a broader article about the fictional work the character is in.
  • Asking for multiple sources published over time helps avoid a situation where only one author is writing about a fictional subject, which could lead to issues with accuracy, bias and article clutter in the topic at hand.

So hopefully by applying those general rules to fiction you are encouraging that articles about fiction rely on multiple independent sources over time to help ensure a higher quality discussion on the topic by reducing the chance of original research, bias and unverifiable or inaccurate analysis or editorial opinion. Dugwiki 22:54, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

(to Jeff) It's one thing to dislike articles which are permastubs, but still useful; that's stupid. But there are some articles which, assuming absence of OR, literally can not be expanded past "X is a Y, created in year Z. It has random characteristics that even people who like the thing don't care about: A, B, and C." Those kind of articles should be hated. -Amarkov moo! 03:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (to dugwik)These articles are almost by definition not "completely unreferenced article"s. They're sourced and verifiable, it's just using a primary source, which limits the article to description instead of interpretation. It doesn't seem like WP:ATT really has anything to say about these articles, other than don't add your own interpretations.
  • One source articles seems to be where the writers of WP and the writers of these guidelines differ.
  • A single source for real world things like global warming or GWB would lead to bias and inaccuracy, but I don't really see it as a problem in describing fictional entities. You almost can't go wrong is this regard if all you have is the primary source. As long as you don't do OR, there's only one side to the story. - Peregrine Fisher 04:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
    A lesser (but extant) possibility for POV, but without anyone doing any original research, you end up with fragments of trivial information arranged randomly. (Again, see Mareep.) Original research by Wikipedians is bad, but original research by published writers is what we need to have the resources to build quality articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 04:25, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
Replying to Peregrine a sec, WP:ATT does talk about primary sources. In particular it has two bold face sections, the headlines of which read "Edits that rely on primary sources should only make descriptive claims that can be checked by anyone without specialist knowledge" and "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible". In regards to works of fiction, those statements mean that you should, if possible, use secondary sources when dealing with fiction to supplement any information available directly from the primary fictional source. In addition, you shouldn't attempt to do analysis of a fictional subject using only the primary source when such analysis requires a detailed understanding of the fictional work. Finally, on a related note, I would say that an article which only uses the fictional primary source is running a significantly higher risk of falling into either the trap of using original research to verify some of its information or the trap of overly copying details from the fictional work and getting into areas of copyright violation. Thus it is still a good idea to avoid only using the single primary source of the fictional work itself. Dugwiki 16:25, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Current problems with this proposal

The main problem I have with this proposal, compared to WP:N, is that it doesn't provide clear and objective standards to apply across the board. I don't disagree, per se, with any of the "general standards" that it outlines, but it doesn't give specific and clear tests to use at AfD.

  • Articles should, in the long run, be at least minimally substantive and be judged by their reliably referenced content' - true, but it isn't helpful as a deletion criterion. It will just lead to many users arguing "it might be better in the long run, so let's keep it, despite it being unreferenced, obscure and random". This will clutter up Wikipedia with junk articles that lower the reputation and tone of the encyclopedia.
  • Material in Wikipedia should be properly referenced - again, obvious, but it's just not as clear as the "multiple non-trivial coverage" rule. Too vague.
  • Avoid including single-source articles - not firm enough. A single source is never enough to establish notability; that's why we have the "multiple non-trivial coverage" rule at WP:N. Generally, a single-source article at AfD should be deleted, unless more sources are added to demonstrate notability.
  • Articles should follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines - yes, but failure to meet NPOV, for instance, is not in itself a good reason for deletion. A spammy article can be cleaned up, if it's about a notable topic.

Overall, this is still not as good as WP:N. The only good reason to delete an article is that it is non-notable, because there is no evidence of multiple non-trivial coverage in independent reliable sources. If a topic has such coverage, it is worthy of inclusion; if it doesn't, it isn't. Simple. Walton Vivat Regina! 20:36, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

The intent of this proposal is to avoid what you're looking for. The "across the board" simply doesn't work, and, judging from the discussion at WP:N, lacks consensus. Thus, a new approach - taking a look at what is necessary for inclusion, noting the reality that notability is not something that's the same regardless of subkect matter, and pointing people in the direction of the policies and guidelines to help that along. It's not meant to provide any clear tests for AfD or anything like that - rather a clear, useful compendium of information as to what governs the inclusion of articles. WP:N isn't working, so we're trying to make an alternative, not repeat WP:N again. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
To reply to Walton, the guideline isn't intended to provide truly exacting black and white standards, because frankly such standards would never gain consensus. Different subject areas have slightly different consensus on what constitutes acceptable minimums or quality for article inclusion, so trying to shoehorn all articles into a specific, strict standard won't work very well. Instead, what we're trying to do is create some flexible rules of thumb that can be applied to most articles to serve as cautionary flags. Something that article writers can refer to in order to avoid potential afd problems, and that afd contributors can use as a "first test of quality" when review an article for possible action. WP:INCLUSION is intended to be a reasonable start of improvement and discussion, not necessarily to be a strict code or policy (hence the reason it is a proposed "guideline", not a proposed "policy change").
As far as the specifics above -
  • "Articles should, in the long run, be at least minimally substantive and be judged by their reliably referenced content' ... will just lead to many users arguing "it might be better in the long run, so let's keep it, despite it being unreferenced, obscure and random." This actually isn't a change in policy. Technically if an article is unreferenced, the first step is supposed to be to see if it has the potential to be properly sourced. If it looks like the article can probably be improved, then it should be tagged with the unreferenced tag and given a chance to have its referencing problems corrected. Articles shouldn't be deleted if it looks like they can probably be sufficiently improved, with the exception being that an article which is given ample time to improve but doesn't should probably be deleted as unlikely to change. Whether or not editorial consensus is that an individual article can be improved to have sufficient sources is a matter for afd discussion on that article.
  • Material in Wikipedia should be properly referenced - "Too vague" You left out the crucial phrase "as per WP:ATT". Note that WP:ATT is not vague and is a pretty strict policy.
  • Avoid including single-source articles - not firm enough. "A single source is never enough to establish notability." Not necessarily. There are possible exceptions to the rule, such as townships which need stub articles to complete a geographic scheme but which might only have one good source. So while the "no single source articles" is a good rule of thumb, it's not necessarily an exacting rule that can't have exceptions. Hence the slightly weaker language than what you're asking for.
  • Articles should follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines - "yes, but failure to meet NPOV, for instance, is not in itself a good reason for deletion." WP:INCLUSION doesn't say "articles which fail to meet this guideline should be deleted". Rather, the first step should always be to look at whether the article can be improved. If an article appears to have potential for improvement to correct the policy or guideline issues, then try and allow sufficient time to do that. Only when it looks to editors like the article probably won't be improved should deletion be used. Dugwiki 22:37, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Regarding WP:ATT

Just an FYI, the talk page at WP:ATT has a note from Jimbo as to how bad an idea the ATT merge was. It appears his undoing of the merge is likely to stick, so I've relinked everything back to WP:V and WP:RS for the time being - those are easy edits to reinstate again if the merge does end up holding up long-term.

I don't believe it will affect anything here, although I viewed WP:ATT as a pseudo-template for this page. The reason for the ATT reversal had to do with how important V and RS were to the project and the coherency of the merge, and, frankly, notability (the main thing this seeks to adjust) is not anything close to a core issue for this project, so I don't think that those of us who are looking to make this work have anything to worry about. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, the WP:ATT revert doesn't seem to have much impact on either WP:INCLUSION or WP:N. Jimbo's concern was that WP:ATT was attempting to combine very distinct policies into one policy article. WP:INCLUSION and WP:N don't suffer from that problem, though. Dugwiki 17:21, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

The reason why I don't support this proposal

There is only one reason why I do not support this proposal. It's not that anything is wrong with WP:AI, it's that WP:N is simply better, and is working fine at present. The only valid criticism of WP:N I've seen so far is that the terms "multiple non-trivial coverage" could be viewed as subjective, but I have assessed this problem here. Walton Vivat Regina! 10:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you have, because the problem simply is the language. I'm sorry you can't get behind things here, and I don't know why you believe that WP:N is better, but I respect your opinion. I still wish we could make this work for you. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:57, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Then we run into a different problem here, though-systemic bias (different guidelines for different areas) and allowed permastubs. Personally, I think this proposal does have some promise, and I like WP:N as well (though I do not like the title of it, this certainly has that over "notability"). I'm not entirely sure it's an "either-or" choice, but in any case, it's a subject that discussion was probably long overdue on, and I'm certainly glad that this proposal has sparked so much of it. What we really need to get to, more than anything, is some standard, that can be agreed-upon and actionable. Right now, there seems to be a significant temptation to "ignore the rules" in the direction of keeping and deleting, but one major problem there is a lack of clarity on what the rules even are. I realize we don't have "set in stone" policies (and to some extent that's good, there's always an edge case that a rigid rule just doesn't fit), but right now AFD seems a confused mess of ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT in most cases, and it shouldn't be. In the majority of cases, we should be able to look at an AFD when it's very first posted, and make a pretty solid guess as to what its outcome will be. Seraphimblade Talk to me 12:14, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
First, subject-specific guidelines reduce systematic bias by recognizing that not everything is notable because of one reason - it doesn't increase it. And second, you and I won't ever agree on permastubs, but, at the end of the day, permastubs aren't going to be covered by this or any notability guideline, and will instead be dealt with through the normal editing process. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Walt, could you expand a bit on "WP:N is simply better"? My feeling right now is that both articles are fairly similar in what they recommend (ie they both recommend multiple independent reliably published sources over a course of time). The main difference, to me, is that WP:N focuses on the term "notability" while this one focuses on "evalutating sources". There are some other smaller differences, like the bullet point here about single sourcing which isn't in WP:N, but the main overall thing is whether or not to use the word "notability" as a central theme.

So ideally what I'd like to eventually see is the merging of the parts of the two articles that almost everybody likes. My personal preference, of course, is to lean towards WP:INCLUSION to get away from using the somewhat controverisally charged term "notability". But even if I turned out to be in the minority there, I think WP:N might benefit from, for example, talking a bit about single source articles. I also like the idea of insisting that the article be eventually non-trivial in substance versus that the sources be non-trivial, because it's easier for editors to evaluate the substance of an article in front of them then whether or not sources are substantive in nature.

Anyway, Walt, since you seem to be the main, fairly articulate critic of WP:INCLUSION, I'm curious to hear the specifics of what it is in WP:N you like better (wording, theme, whatever it is) and what, if anything, you think we could merge either from here into WP:N or from there into here to make the combined guideline better. Dugwiki 15:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I want to clarify a couple of things. Firstly, looking at my comments earlier, they could be interpreted as slightly negative towards Jeff and the other users who have worked on this proposal. I want to state that I had no such intention. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the proposal itself, and I would be happy to support it in principle. However, it seems that several separate issues have been raised in this discussion, which I will now address.
  • The first is simply whether "inclusion" is a better term than "notability". (This could be seen as an interesting parallel with the debate going on at WT:ATT at present over whether "attributability" is better than "verifiability"; but I digress.) My answer to this is yes; I think that a major problem with Wikipedia policyspeak in general is that the meanings we ascribe to words often diverge, over time, from their meanings in normal usage, which can be confusing for new users. As Dugwiki correctly points out above, "notability" can be a controversial word, and often implies "fame" in the understanding of new users who are not familiar with WP:N's provision that "notability is not fame or importance". So if this proposal were a simple change of name, I would support it unconditionally.
  • However, there is a second issue that I have with WP:AI in comparison with WP:N. This is that WP:N outlines one single principal criterion, with a clear order of priority, while WP:AI gives several widely differing criteria. Let me explain why I consider this important. I spend more time than most editors commenting on AfDs (including those where I have no other interest or involvement) and so have very wide experience of how the deletion policy works in practice. Quite often, an article will be nominated for AfD because it seems just notable enough to escape CSD A7, but it has no real evidence of notability, and no independent sources (a link to the subject's MySpace does not count). In these cases, I will usually vote something along the lines of Weak Delete unless appropriate sources can be added to establish notability per WP:N. The AfD process then gives contributors a "grace period" to add sources to the article, if such sources exist. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Extreme Pizza for an example of where this happened. In this case, I initially voted Weak Delete; sources were added, so I changed my vote to Keep. This is why I'm harping on about the importance of the primary notability criterion - not because I dislike change, nor because I want to keep the cumbersome term "notability", but because I think that this test genuinely does work.
Sorry about this rather lengthy and rambling response, but I hope it answers your queries. Once again, I want to reiterate that I'm not being intentionally critical of the wording of WP:AI, or of its authors; I think it's well-written and covers a lot of ground. But I have more experience of the deletion process than most, both as participant and observer, and I think the removal of the primary criterion runs the risk of, potentially, saving some articles which really do not merit inclusion (not that I think anyone had that intention). Walton Vivat Regina! 18:39, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply. :) Judging by what you said above, it sounds like you'd probably support keeping WP:N as the main document, but changing its name to "article inclusion" and merging the useful bits of WP:INCLUSION either into WP:N or into some other appropriate article. That way rather than focussing on multiple criteria in a single guideline you have one criteria (the primary one of multiple independent sources over time) in one guideline. You did also mention a worry that WP:INCLUSION is a little "too" inclusive compared to WP:N, but personally I think they're actually quite close in what they approve. It's hard for me to think of an example of something that would clearly pass WP:INCLUSION but not pass WP:N, for example.
Your point about keeping the guideline focussed on a single specific criteria is a reasonable one, though. I'll have to think about that. Like I said above, I'm not completely opposed to the idea of using WP:N as the main document with a name change and a tweak or two. The main goal in the end is to reduce some of the misinterpretation or misuse of WP:N and have some good overall guidance for new editors. Dugwiki 20:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


I consider myself extremely well-versed in the deletion processes as well. I'm not demeaning your opinion here or trying to promote my experience over yours, but my experience has been the opposite - the "primary criterion" has exposed a number of issues regarding the suitability of a subject that didn't exist before the "primary criterion" became passe. Now, instead of judging a subject by its merits, we're only judging it by the possible sources, which, while important, doesn't answer the question of notability. WP:N falsely assumes that the only way a subject can be "notable" is via sources, rather than recognizing that a subject may be "notable," but it doesn't make it "verifiable."
WP:AI addresses and fixes this - it recognizes that what makes a musical act notable isn't what makes a company notable, and reflects on that. It stops people from saying "This needs to go because it's not notable" to "I should try to see if there are any sources on this, and then consider deleting based on the fact that I can't reliably prove anything this article says." It recognizes that there is more than one step to judging an article's inclusion, and points editors to the right direction. It rightfully changes the debate not toward "is this notable," but "is there enough to sustain an article," a discussion actually worth having.
I understand your purposes, and I agree with them in practice - the problem is that, in practice, WP:N just doesn't work. Are you really going to sit there and tell me that Ern Westmore and She Shoulda Said No, neither of which are the "subject[s] of multiple, non-trivial independent works" but are fully verifiable and sustained by enough material, are not suitable for inclusion? Of course not - but WP:N does just that.
Come to the dark side, Luke. d;-). WP:N has insane baggage, lacks consensus, and doesn't address what you want it to address. This is very close to fixing that problem, and doing a better job of it, IMO. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:18, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I like your example of Ern Westmore as an article that appears to be worthwhile but which has only one "non-trivial source". The other main source is IMDB, which is actually only reliable as a directory of works (the biographical information in IMDB is unfortunately less reliable). So this is a case where there are multiple sources (IMDB and the first citation) but not multiple "non-trivial" sources. Even so, the article manages to collect a fair amount of substantive information about the person, enough to show a reader might be interested in the subject. Thus you have what is a "substantive article using a non-trivial source and a directory". It would be an example of why it's worth considering looking mainly at the substance of the article versus whether or not the individual sources are trivial. Dugwiki 21:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind going toward "the article must be non-trivial", rather than that sourcing must be, but I don't think we should start as a matter of course allowing articles that are mostly or solely primarily sourced. As an example of trivial articles, I'd put forth many (not all!) of the current articles on songs, albums, schools, roads, rail stations, fictional characters, actors/actresses (especially porn ones, with that abominable PORNBIO), and so on. That's not the same as something being a stub, most articles start out as stubs. Most of the ones I'm talking about cannot be expanded at all without synthesis of primary source material (or, alternatively, have already been expanded using synthesis of primary source material), which of course we cannot do. That's the main problem with lacking secondary material. Everyone here wants to expand articles. If the article can be little more than "X is a Y (in/by) Z (maybe with a release, construction, or opening date, a song/roster/stop list, or some other directory material), merging into a parent article or deletion is probably a better alternative. Otherwise, we're effectively asking editors to leave a stub around forever, or expand it using something they consider "obvious". Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the example of Ern Westmore - there are numerous mentions in the media, several of which are non-trivial. Addhoc 23:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad you found ones that I couldn't. I've also had people tell me that articles longer than those were trivial for a number of convoluted reasons, but I'm glad you found some. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:08, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I do accept that there are serious problems with the current deletion process. In particular, I would strongly agree with what Addhoc has said above that WP:PORNBIO needs to be scrapped; WP:BIO standards should be good enough for figures in the porn industry, and it's clear that many current articles on porn stars merit deletion (and would, indeed, be deleted if they fell into any other category). I would also agree that the principle of merging trivial articles into a parent article is one of the best solutions in many cases, and should be enshrined more clearly and consistently in policy. Possibly I would advocate this for geographical locations, roads, villages and so on; currently such articles seem to be exempt from normal inclusion requirements, resulting in a lot of trivial articles that will never get beyond stub-size. All in all, I accept the point correctly made by Jeff and Addhoc that there are systemic problems with the deletion process. I am therefore coming very close to supporting WP:AI, if only to get rid of the cumbersome term "notability" in favour of clearer terminology. But I think that if we do make this an official guideline, then there needs to be a total overhaul of all the subject-specific guidelines, as well as the AfD process itself. Another strong emphasis needs to be on ensuring that inclusion guidelines get tougher, not softer; we have too many trivial articles at present, not too few. So I'm now sitting on the fence. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

  • An overhaul in the subject-specific guidelines is my personal next step if this gets adopted, either by going through each one individually and trying to make sure it reflects reality and consensus, or seeing whether consensus is that the guideline should be abandoned altogether. I will never agree with you that our inclusion guidelines need to be tougher, as I feel they're too tough now, especially concerning web content, but we have a good deal of common ground otherwise, it seems. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:23, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Maybe create WP:GEO as an inclusion guideline for geographical locations? Walton Vivat Regina! 09:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Hang on, that shortcut links to a WikiProject already...someone please come up with another one... Walton Vivat Regina! 09:38, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:GEOG seems to be open. As to the rest, given what Jeff said above regarding merging, I think he and I are perhaps closer than either of us thought. Merging, when possible, is generally the best solution. I would rather have one good, comprehensive parent article and ten useful redirects then eleven permastubs anyday. I would also agree that if we are to keep the subject-specific guidelines, they need a major overhaul, and probably in some cases merging or scrapping. In a lot of cases, we're getting articles with barely any sourcing and all of it primary because the subject passes Rule 3 Subpart J of Document Title WP:MUSIC (or WP:BIO, or WP:PORNBIO, or WP:WEB...). On the other hand, quite often articles which could be sourced are deleted for failing those same arbitrary cutoffs. We really need a lot more emphasis on "Can we write this thing and source it appropriately, or not?" I think the subject-specific guidelines should go more into covering what is an appropriate source in a specific subject area. For example, a given web source may be exceptionally reliable when it comes to webcomics, but have a politics section that's totally unreliable. This would probably be more productive then saying "Well, if it won X award, or released Y albums...", we'd be focusing on "Music critics are reliable sources if they're talking about an album, but not if they're talking about quantum physics." This would account for some of the differences in subject areas without setting arbitrary "cutoff points". Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
  • We can't force anything. That much I need to make absolutely clear - I'm not going to initiate a session like we had in December/January where we pretend there's consensus for a change and then make the change without talking to anyone about it. But there are smaller guidelines that probably could be merged in, and others that can be tweaked. Ones like WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, they're unlikely to go anywhere but could stand for some improvement. But ones like WP:CORP, WP:BK? There may be room for discussion as to whether they should be merged. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:18, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Conversely, why I support

This proposal would be far easier for a newcomer to understand than WP:N. Also, there is a growing gap between our notability guidelines and results of discussions at WP:AfD. If anything, I would go further and archive the notability sub-guidelines and rely on a summary of conclusions from WP:OUTCOMES. Addhoc 15:43, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Really would not go for that, WP:OUTCOMES would be a self-feeding loop (it came out this way, so it goes to outcomes, so that can be used as an argument in the future). I think we need some real standards, and some real discounting of ILIKEIT/IDONTLIKEIT/etc. at AFD. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:53, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
This is essentially why I like this above and beyond WP:N, even if I'm not as adamant about the sub-criteria as Jeff is (in fact, I'd rather see the majority of them wiped). It starts with the policy, and applies it to AfD, rather than stating a rule and inferring policy is involved. Nifboy 09:52, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Strawpoll?

I think this proposal is ready for a strawpoll. I know that some users dislike the idea of gauging consensus by such a crude method, but it might help to avoid another confusing mess like that which has arisen over WP:ATT. This strawpoll should be advertised in the Signpost, and as many users as possible should be notified. Personally I will vote Neutral, as I am not convinced that the change is necessary, but I don't view it as potentially harmful either. Walton Vivat Regina! 08:24, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I am neutral at this point as well, but I'd like to see the discussion advertised so that more editors will participate. Dekimasuよ! 08:48, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I think not. As explicitly stated in {{proposed}}, WP:HCP and WP:POL, proposals are not decided by voting on them. Note also the complete mess that was caused when people were trying to set up a straw poll for WP:ATT (Wikipedia:Attribution/Poll). >Radiant< 08:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I would still like to see more widespread advertisement of the discussion that's going on here. I really doubt that Walton was suggesting a vote on a proposal. Dekimasuよ! 08:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Advertising is always good. If you want to drop a note on the village pump or wherever for more discussion or feedback, go for it. However, if you want to somehow imply that a poll or vote is being held to make this Official, think again because Wikipedia doesn't work like that. Walton did use terms like "vote", implying the latter. >Radiant< 09:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I'd suggest a quick note over at WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, etc, because I'm not sure I actually advertised there. It's been mentioned a number of times at the pumps and at WP:N. A strawpoll - no, let's do this right so that there isn't any question. I'll be offline for a week starting 29 March, so if we're trying to judge whether or not there's support for this to become a guideline, know that I'm in favor, but do your best not to lock anyone out of the process. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:44, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Also, if anyone does pursue this while I'm out and about - be sure that it's clear that the intent is that this would replace WP:N, not compete with it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
  • How is this different from WP:ATT and the multiple policies we already have? It just looks like a rehash of existing policy. - Mgm|(talk) 11:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • WP:ATT doesn't deal with article inclusion, but instead deals with what's appropriate in articles. This question is answered in depth above - it's meant as a replacement for Wikipedia:Notability, using existing policy and guidelines to help users discern whether an article is appropriate for inclusion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:43, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Just to expand briefly on Jeff's response, there are two main differences between WP:ATT and WP:INCLUSION. First, WP:ATT talks about how to guage if information is accurate and reliable, but WP:INCLUSION talks about how to guage when otherwise possibly reliable information still should not be included as a seperate article (ie not everything that's true should be its own article). Second, WP:ATT is policy and hence carries greater consensus and weight than is intended for WP:INCLUSION, which we are hoping will have enough general consensus to act as a guideline but which we're not sure would have enough consensus to be part of policy. Dugwiki 14:53, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Most of the current text deals with general verifiability only, with the only thing that deals with verifiable-but-not-encyclopedic information (eg. the central thing that WP:N and WP:AI are supposed to discuss) is a reference to WP:NOT. I don't see this page as useful unless it expounds upon WP:NOT's "not a directory" and "not an indiscriminate collection of information" (even if it does so in a much more inclusive way than WP:N, that should still be its explicit central focus). --Interiot 15:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
        • On the contrary, it does deal with those things - see section 4. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
          • The proposed guideline is basically a complete rewrite of WP:N, which shifts the focus from counting references and quibbling over borderline trivial/non-trivial cases, towards focussing on the article, specifically the content supported by citations. Overall, I believe this change of approach is a significant improvement. Addhoc 17:20, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

To respond to some of the points above, I was indeed suggesting a vote, but I am completely aware that proposals are not decided by voting on them (per WP:CONSENSUS). However, I am in agreement with WP:STRAW where it says that ...on occasion it is useful to take a survey of opinions on some issue, as an indication of which options have the most support. The poll wouldn't, of course, be a binding measure of consensus; no one would advocate that. But it would show whether the proposal has enough support to stand a chance of gaining consensus. This hopefully clears up any misunderstandings over what I was trying to say. Walton Vivat Regina! 19:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

If we are going to have a poll, it would help to be reminded of just what changes this would make in terms of increased or decrease inclusiveness.DGG 05:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
In terms of inclusiveness versus WP:N I doubt there would be any major changes one way or another. Both articles basically advocate the same basic thing: multiple independently published references over time. One possible minor difference between the two in terms of inclusiveness might be that WP:N could theoretically look to delete an otherwise substantive article which relies on a large number of "trivial" sources that WP:INCLUSION. That's because WP:N asks that "sources" be non-trivial, while by contrast WP:INCLUSION instead asks that "articles" be substantive. On the flip side, WP:INCLUSION could possibly be used to delete a short, relatively non-substantive stub like article that has a couple of otherwise reasonable non-trivial sources. So WP:INCLUSION is slightly more biased against "perma-stubs" than WP:N.
Other than that the differences are stylistic in approach. WP:INCLUSION focuses mainly on a proposed article itself and asks "is this article's information substantive and does it have a potential problem with misleading or insufficient references?" WP:N by contrast approaches articles by asking the question "Is the subject that the article is talking about noteworthy?" Here I personally prefer the WP:INCLUSION approach, because I think it is easier for editors to be objective about evaluating the actual article than evaluating whether or not the subject the article discusses is "notable" (as evidenced, for instance, by editorial disputes over things like Pokemon character articles and whether or not those subjects in principle are "notable".) In the end both approaches produce similar litmus tests for inclusion, but the WP:INCLUSION approach can hopefully reduce problems of possible misinterpretation or misuse of the term "notability". Dugwiki 15:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
If no one objects to the poll, I will open it tomorrow. Please help by advertising it in appropriate places. Walton Vivat Regina! 16:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
A straw poll is ok with me to get feedback and guage preliminary consensus. Dugwiki 21:46, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it enforcable?

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

I'm trying to keep civil, but I read (in some places) a lot of comment about how to define inclusion and notability, and then I read a whole bunch more (in other places) about seemingly every single bus route in the UK.

But: they're not creating stubs, and they want good quality articles.

"I agree, creating redlinks will encourage lots of stubs. It is better to let these articles grow organically (and with high quality). Having lots of stubs has generated campaigns agains the whole category of articles in the past. MRSC • Talk 23:45, 15 January 2007 (UTC)"

There are lots of reasons why these articles need to be removed from wikipedia, and need to be hosted on their own site. So why do they keep getting "keep" on AfD after AfD? DanBeale 01:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, those AFDs are years old... - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
Eh? One is from Aug 2006, two are from 2007. DanBeale 16:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's agreement here either in general --I think both stubs and redlinks should be encouraged, and theyare the way WP grows organically. Dealing with particulars--perhaps instead of taking a pole on the number of pages, we should take a poll about the N of bus routes. Discussions here seem to go better when they're about something specific.DGG 02:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We really don't need articles on bus routes, except for bus routes with a special claim to notability (e.g. being covered repeatedly in the national news). These kinds of articles violate WP:NOT (an indiscriminate collection of information, or a directory). I wouldn't even advocate merging these to "List of bus routes in X" or anything of that description; it's still cruft. The problem is that we can't do much in this guideline to counter that; they don't pass WP:N as it is, but some users seem to have got it into their head that bus routes, schools, main roads etc., are inherently notable, despite having no basis for this in policy. So trying to address this problem in the guideline would probably have little impact. Walton Vivat Regina! 15:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

YES! If a bus route can't support reliable source that back a claim of notability per both those guidlines then there is no reason for an article to exist on them. There is no such thing as inherent notability anywhere in policy. NeoFreak 19:42, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
To reply to some of the various comments above, first I will note that per WP:NOT#IINFO Wikipedia is not a Travel Guide, and does not need to include minute details on all bus routes in the world. So yes, I would say that most of the bus route type stub articles should eventually be deleted, particularly those that don't meet either WP:N or WP:INCLUSION. Second, stubs are completely appropriate but usually only as a temporary measure to allow editors to expand the stub article into something substantive. If an article has no hope of growing beyond stub status, and it's not being used as a necessary index or placeholder for navigational purposes, it should probably be deleted. Otherwise a stub that simply will never grow should be merged back into an article on the broader topic, such as being included as a descriptive entry in a related list article.
As to whether or not WP:INCLUSION is enforceable, it's theoretically just as enforceable as WP:N or other guidelines if editors decide to enforce it. That means that if editors start actually internally using WP:INCLUSION as their own basic interpretation for what is required for minimal inclusion criteria, then they will start referring to it in afd and elsewhere as something they believe is a reasonable interpretation of Wiki standards and policy. Guidelines and essays are similar in that there is never anything preventing editors from referring to them and saying "This document reflects my own general interpretations of what is and isn't appropriate." Since deleting articles in the end boils down to editorial consensus on the individual cases, it's individual editor interpretations of policy and how they express those opinions that will matter in cases which aren't clear-cut. Dugwiki 21:28, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like this page or WP:N is really enforcable. The number of pages on WP is constantly growing, and apparently the major bus routes had articles created years ago. Medium or small bus routes are probably being done now. - Peregrine Fisher 21:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but that doesn't mean they should have articles. "Bus route 304, East Nowhere City Bus Company, which runs from Somewhere Street to Elsewhere Road" is of no interest or importance outside its local area, and is not encyclopedic, hence it violates WP:NOT. As several editors have said above, we are not a travel guide. Whether this guideline is adopted or not, what we need is better enforcement of the guidelines, and deletion of articles that do not meet them. Walton Vivat Regina! 14:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
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