Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

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Business people

Am I missing something or are there others who'd find a notability guideline for White-collar workers particularly useful.

I occasionally come across articles about motivational speakers, authors of business books, and various consultants of this or that "business solution". In some cases, a judgement of notability can be made under WP:AUTHOR. However, I'm often forced to fall back on WP:ANYBIO or WP:GNG, but they're so general that I'm left not really knowing how to proceed.

I'm not requesting a full Wikipedia:Notability (business people) guideline. Just a short bullet list of agreed criteria would be useful. Having said that, I would like to see some sort of clarification of what constitutes a reliable source in this field. There's so many business publications, both general and industry specific, that, unless a source is blacklisted, all I can do is assume it's reliable and hope for the best.

ClaretAsh 13:26, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

• For business persons, we simply will have to go by GNG or BIO. I've thought about it much in the past. It's safer, cleaner to go the GNG/BIO way. Wifione ^Message 13:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Could you elaborate. I ask because, when I first came across Wikipedia:Notability (people), I was surprised by the absence of such a guideline. The various consultants, keynote speakers etc for whom such a guideline would cater, are businesses. They advertise, sell their services and pay taxes just like sole-traders, partnerships and corporations. They can and will spam WP just as readily as any other business. However, they are not clearly covered by WP:ORG. In other words, there is a difference between "John Smith" and "John Smith™" that isn't fully accounted for in current guidelines. What we want to write about is John Smith but, often, all that appears in the article is John Smith™. Therefore, to me, the absence of such a guideline is inexplicable. However, if you foresee difficulties or disadvantages of some sort, I'd be very much interested to know. ClaretAsh 14:29, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

In sole proprietorship concerns, the brand Jim Collins will be considered equivalent to the man Jim Collins. We shouldn't be differentiating the two as technically, if there is no difference between the two for the reliable sources, there is no difference to us. A motivational guru who sells his business through his name will have the double advantage of being rated as per the coverage of his brand. One reason why names like Blue Ivy Carter are trademarked, copyrighted and the stuff is because of this - the name of the person defines the [future] brand and vice versa. However, the moment a Michael Porter sells his consulting through the Monitor Group, you'll have enough reliable sources to consider whether we should have separate articles (or merged articles or no article) depending upon the expanse of coverage in reliable sources. Jack Welch versus Jack Welch Management Institute. Stanley Kaplan versus Kaplan Inc. Reliable sources coverage defines whether we have one single article or separate articles... and so on so forth. In summary, I feel we're pretty comfortable following GNG, BIO, ORG to handle these issues and do not need discrete sections on this topic. Do give your views too in case you think I'm going wrong in my understanding. Kind regards. Wifione ^Message 16:43, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I am wary of the instruction creep involved in creating yet another notability guideline, and I am inclined to agree with Wifione's analysis. ClaretAsh, can you explain more about why you think that WP:GNG is inadequate for businesspeople. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:40, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I see Wifione's points and agree. However, I think s/he might have misunderstood some of what I wrote but that was my fault for inadequately adding to the middle of a paragraph I'd already written and saved. What I was trying to suggest was that, when some self-promoter opts to create a page about themselves on WP, they're not writing about themselves, they're writing about their brand (their image). It's the difference between an encyclopedia entry and a press statement. That being the case, and it also being the case that some of these self-promoters operate as businesses (e.g. business consultants, professional speakers etc.), I guess what I'm really proposing is that WP:ORG be extended to apply to them. That might be simpler than the instruction creep inherent in a new guideline.

As for why I think GNG et al is inadequate for the type of article I mentioned above, the short answer is that it doesn't elaborate with examples. Looking at WP:ORG#Primary criteria, for example, I see sections on "Depth of coverage", "Audience" and "Independence of sources", each of which elaborates, sometimes with examples. It's fine to point to the general notability guideline but I've only been here a year. I don't know about the various discussions that decided that this type of source is reliable or that type of of coverage is significant. We have additional guidelines because it is sometimes difficult to determine how significant is significant. Of course, the obvious argument here is that, if I'm not able to make such a judgement about an article, then I shouldn't be editing/prodding/AfDing it. However, if I'm the first (or only) user whose path a bad article crosses, then its clearly up to me to do something. Extending WP:ORG (assuming that's better than starting a new guideline), will make it a bit easier to judge an article's quality and act accordingly.

BTW, I'm sorry for taking so long to get to the point but I tend to develop my thoughts while I write rather than before. ClaretAsh 11:36, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that explanation, ClaretAsh. I think that I now have a better grasp of your concerns, but pls correct me if I have misunderstood something :)

It seems to me that you have two overlapping concerns:

1. That there are a lot of self-promotional business biographies
2. That the use by some businesspeople of eponymous companies may mean that their biographical articles are better assessed against WP:ORG

The first one does not of itself seem to me to be a particular problem for businesspeople. Many self-promotional biographies have been created for other types of biography, and we seem to have little problem applying GNG principles to weed out those which are just link-farms to self-published material or regurgitated press releases.

Your second point prompted me to look more closely at WP:ORG#Primary_criteria, and I agree that there is a lot of guidance in there which would be relevant in these cases. However, nearly all of that section is in fact general guidance abut how to apply WP:GNG, and very very little of it is specific to organisations.

So it seems to me that the best solution would be a more radical one: to take the WP:ORG#Primary_criteria, and apply them to all topics. I don't know whether that will be best done by placing them in the same section as WP:GNG, or by creating a new standalone page of guidance ... but it seems to me to be much better than having some universally-valid points hidden away as if they were a special case. It also seems to me to be much better than creating yet another type of specialised guideline, because the more specialised cases we create the less that any editor is likely to know about how to assess the notability of any given topic. GNG is a remarkably effective tool, well founded in the core policy of WP:NOR, and I think that proposals for specialist notability guideline usually arise either of a desire to create end-runs around GNG, or (as in this case) because GNG is not well-enough explained. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

That sounds like a sensible idea. Anything that makes the job easier would be an improvement. I was going to add to it by suggesting some sort of "Examples" subpage but I think that would attract far more editing than each of the articles whose notability is in question. ClaretAsh 05:48, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Gabriel Medina

Gabriel Medina is a Director of Photography and Camera Operator from Vancouver, BC. He has been immersed in the film industry his entire life, beginning his career in Mexico at the tender age of 8 as an actor, where he performed in numerous commercials, films and Mexican television. At the age of 22 he moved to Canada and turned his focus to the technical side of film. After studying Independent Filmmaking at Langara College, he proceeded to camera operate and DOP for a variety of award winning short and feature length films, such as "Locked in a Garage Band" (Feature, DOP), "Throw Away People" (Feature, DOP), “Neutral Territory” (Feature, B-CAM, 2nd UNIT), "Everything and Everyone" (Feature, A-CAM), "Afternoon at Gudrun" (Short Film, DOP), “Wait For Rain” (Short Film, CAM OP), “The Hostage” (Short Film, CAM OP), and many others. He has also worked in the camera department on a large number of music videos, commercials, and feature films.

He is an Associate Member of the Canadian Society of Cinematographers, and also runs his own production company, Red Eye Motion Pictures. He is enthusiastic, resourceful and passionate about filmmaking, and has the eye and craft needed to bring ideas to life using light and motion.

Gabriel Medina is a member of I.A.T.S.E. Local 669 as Camera Operator. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.71.168.136 (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

There is too little coverage of this person in the press to create a good article. Also it is rarely in the interests of a subject to have an article about them because Wikipedia is "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". It might make sense to work on their IMDB posting instead. TFD (talk) 06:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Clarifying "local" for WP:Politician

This guideline divides officeholders into two categories: "Local" or "Statewide/Provincial". In the US especially, "local" is poorly defined. Some "localities" are larger than many "states". New York City, for example, has something like 15 times the population of Wyoming.

It seems like we distinguish between large metropolises (whose leaders are always public figures) and small towns with 'truly local' representatives that are unlikely to be public figures. --HectorMoffet (talk) 19:37, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Generally local from what I understand it to mean is, do they appear in newspapers for cities other than the one they serve. If they only appear in their local newspaper then no matter the size of the city they aren't likely notable. -DJSasso (talk) 19:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

For small cities, that's how I see it too. A tiny town, few professional journalists, not enough sources to work with.

The 'bug' comes when we use "local" to mean 8 million people. If your city is larger than most nations, 'local' isn't really 'local'.

For example, Israel has a population smaller than New York City. We would never insist that someone be covered 'in media outside of Israel' in order to be notable. (And this holds true for any other ~8million nation, not just Israel). --HectorMoffet (talk) 13:37, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition for clarification regarding a person "inheriting notability" from notability of their work, and regarding the meaning of “co-creating”

We have this wording –

"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.”

This appears to some to contradict WP:NOTINHERITED. I repeatedly see arguments to delete in AFD’s where a person who co-creates a notable artistic work that “that has been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews”, but who has not themselves as a person “been the subject of… multiple independent periodical articles or reviews”, citing WP:NOTINHERITED to delete an article on that person. There is also often a deletion argument based on a work of art being so bad as to not be considered a creation at all by some editors. For example, a camera operator in a recognized work of cinematic art such as Vadim Yusov is clearly a co-creator, but a camera operator for a reality tv show such as Jesse Fleiss (a hack camera operator compared to Yusov) who has to make spontaneous decision at the critical times of real improvisation, in order to increase ratings, is not, because their product is essentially garbage, yet recieves more significnt coverage as a work product that that of the great artist cinematographer.

Both issues have arisen once again in the AFD for Jesse Fleiss. There is an argument that reality television is so bad that a camera operator is not a co-creator, as he would be in a work of cinematic art, even though the reality tv show would be compeletely different with a different camera operator reacting to sponteneous real world events in a different way. Such camera operators direct themselves to the sponteneity of the reality part of the show, and need not even be a good camera operator to have a hit creation. It was argued at the AFD that such camera operators are no more co-creators of cinema than a printer is a co-creator of a novel. It is difficult to argue that a reality tv camera operator, who is essentially a hack, is a "co-creator", since their skills may be so poor and the creation so artistically worthless, but WP is an encycopedia and not an art review journal, so a camera operator for notable bad art inherits the notability of the work just as much as if the work was good art.

I therefore propose that following be added both to WP:CREATIVE and WP:NOTINHERITED, so that the incessant arguments for deletion stop once and for all by having clear language.

• “Notability for a person who co-creates a work or body of work can be inherited from the notability of their work product.”
• ”A person is a co-creator of a work if the work would be significantly different in visual, aural, or conceptual content without that person’s particular contributions at the time of creation. These are sufficient but not necessary criteria for being a co-creator.”

Since one is a guideline and one is an essay, I am proposing clarification both at WP:NOTINHERITED and at WP:CREATIVE, which are different contexts for the above two proposed additoins to occur in. PPdd (talk) 16:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

We need to be clear what we are doing with these criteria which come into play in the absence of notability in terms of the Wikipedia:Notability policy that "if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article". This is "to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics", but it is also the inevitable counterpart of Wikipedia:Verifiability, that "It must be possible to attribute all information in Wikipedia to reliable, published sources that are appropriate for the content in question". If a person fails the WP:GNG because of absence of sources then it may not be possible to write an article on them that satisfies the required of verifiability. So in summary, I am against expanding the scope of these exemptions, or at least, counterbalancing with a condition that It must be possible to write an article on the person in question satisfying the requirements of Wikipedia:Verifiability Cusop Dingle (talk) 18:17, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

• While it is perfectly understandable applying WP:CREATIVE to directors and authors, I have rarely seen applied this guideline to cinematographers, never on camera operators. The parision between Vadim Yusov and Jesse Fleiss starts from wrong assumptions: Yusov is a multi-awarded cinematographer, Fleiss is just a camera operator. And anyway we have common sense to distinguish what is worth to mention in an encyclopedia and what is not. And this is the case. Cavarrone (talk) 18:30, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Cavarrone, then the language of this policy needs to be clarified to have consistent application, and to not waste editor time arguing about application of WP:Creative, i.e., to explictily state that camera operators and cinematographers are exluded (camera operators in relaity television act as camera directors since they are self directed in following interactions with unscripted events to increase ratings). PPdd (talk) 03:11, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed addition to clarify definition of "co-creator" in WP:CREATIVE

Proposed addition to

"The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews."

Add the following:

"Cinematographers and independent Camera operators in reality television series are not considered co-creators of the work or body of work."

This proposal is based on the overwhelming delete vote here. There is no reason to repeat an AFD with the same arguments for another cinematographer or independent camera operator, or to have an inconsistent application of the meaning of "co-create" in WP:CREATIVE. PPdd (talk) 03:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: False problem, WP:CREATIVE is enough clear. Looking at the AfD, at the above discussion and at past discussions, it seems you are the first and only editor to argue that a reality show-camera operator could pass the WP:CREATIVE criterium. Camera operators almost never have "a mayor role" in creating an artistic work, and Jesse Fleiss is not an exception; easy test: you will never find a reliable secondary source that refers to him as creator/author of the shows he worked in... Cavarrone (talk) 08:23, 5 March 2012 (UTC)