Wikipedia talk:Notability (web)

This guideline covers several related areas. Please see discussions on website sub-types at:

Wikipedia:WikiProject Webcomics

Wikipedia:WikiProject Blogging

Wikipedia:WikiProject Early Web History

Did I boil WP:WEB down too far with this?

[1] or is that a reasonable test? Thanks! - Richfife 15:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• As a test, that sounds way too subjective to me and I don't think it's backed up by the current WP:WEB. After all, a niche site may well get attention from niche publications, which would satisfy WP:N as well as WP:WEB. Whether or not it is well known or being on Wikipedia would raise its profile is irrelevant.Chunky Rice 16:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
• Looking at the whole discussion, though, what you're talking about is better covered by Wikipedia's external link policy (WP:EL), than WP:WEB.Chunky Rice 16:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

• • Thanks! - Richfife 16:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivial references

Aren't criteria 1 and 3 largely redundant? That could be worded better. DreamGuy 20:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

What about software? What about programs?

Several WP editors lately have been speedy deleting articles on software and programs based on CSD:A7 criteria, non-notability. I believe this is a misreading or corruption of the guidelines for notability, resulting in the loss of valuable articles and valuable data. Once speedy deleted, the original articles are not even available for reconstruction or review. Some of these articles required extensive work to enter into WP in the first place.

And most of the time the editors doing this speedy deletion are completely ignorant of the subject area and use bogus criteria for citing the need for speedy deletion. In a recent case (Tranche (software)), this very guideline here was cited -- the program in question is used by biology researchers internationally for trading data, and the program is freely distributed over the web. The editor who decided on his own that the topic was non-notable and therefore subject to speedy deletion later stated:

In this case, it didn't seem that notability had been asserted when I CSD'd it and also it seemed to me to be web content. (The guideline says that any content which is distributed solely on the internet is considered ... as web content.)

The comment above linked to WP:WEB, which is this guideline article.

What about software? What about programs? Your guideline says nothing about these, especially with regard to software or programs that are distributed via the web or operate on the web. What you do say is:

Web content includes, but is not limited to, webcomics, podcasts, blogs, Internet forums, online magazines and other media, web portals and web hosts. Any content which is distributed solely on the internet is considered, for the purposes of this guideline, as web content.

This says nothing about programs or software that are distributed and/or run on the web.

Do software packages and programs fall under these web notability guidelines? And if so, what should be the guideline with regard to speedy delete vis-a-vis CSD:A7? I favor never ever tagging any software package or program with speedy delete, always tagging with AfD. One of the major reasons for this is that the editors here are often too ignorant of the field... being a user of the web or of software products does not make you an expert of the entire field... and the field is changing and evolving at an increasing pace.

The irony of all of this of course is that Wikipedia itself is software/program that is distributed by and run on the web. - 69.235.255.45 11:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The editors have completely ruined wikipedia. Their goal is not to be helpful but instead simply tag everything with speedy delete, especially when it comes to items they are completely ignorant of. The main objective is to get articles deleted instead of getting notable items properly sourced and formated. I am completely and underly disgusted with these over zealous egomaniacs. They have shunned any dissenting opinions only accepting ideas that come from people who have homogenized them self to the group. The entire editorial group on wikipedia has a serious case of group think and its driving would be contributors away. But who cares about adding new things to wiki and making it better when we can all go out and give each other barn stars. I have actually seen the editors cheering each other on about how many articles they managed to get deleted per day. Disgusting. Zynkin 22:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Because their rule is that, anything unknown and ambiguous, must be deleted. One Editor deleted my article on Matlan Marjan, the scorer of 2 goals against England, because he does not know what football is, and that England is a international team.

I finally managed to get it listed, but it is like teaching a child about basic knowledge.

If their command of language is good, it is a different story altogether. While arguing that my blog cannot be used as reference, he allowed the deletion of many other legitimate references and text based on these references.

By right, editors should be limited to the fields that they are good at. They must be verified on their expertise on particular areas. For example, non Malaysian editors should not be allowed to delete any Malaysian topics, especially speedy deletion. Non biologist editors should not be allowed to delete any biology article. Othmanskn (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Podcast Awards

Are the Podcast Awards so notable that being nominated for one meets the requirements for an article about a podcast to be kept as notable? Corvus cornix 20:47, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

• While it's rather subjective, I'd say yes based on substantial spillover notability. --xDanielx^Talk 08:00, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
• No, the Podcast Awards article itself has no reputable third-party references. -- Dragonfiend 15:44, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Wha???

It says my page 75bg is under speedy deletion. I don't think it should be deleted. It's an important topic. I don't care that it's a web page, it doesn't JUST talk about what the site has to offer. It talks about its achievements and history, all of which is totally important. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Joeblowss1 (talk • contribs) 03:24, August 20, 2007 (UTC).

A question about Foldoc

Mrzaius has tagged this article as lacking notability. Since I think it's notable, I read this guideline to be sure I get my evidence straight. And now I have a question.

When I run a Google Scholar search on "foldoc", I get 937 hits. That's a large number of hits on this fairly restrictive search engine, in my experience. But when I look for an article about foldoc, I come up mostly empty. Ok, I haven't checked all 937 references yet. I don't suppose I will because it would take too long. But I have looked at quite a few of them.

Many of the g-hits use foldoc as reference material. That is, they refer the reader to this free internet dictionary for an authoritative definition of a possibly unfamiliar term. This is not the same thing as making foldoc the subject of a scholarly article. But to me, this sort of usage is even more significant than an academic study of foldoc itself. If authors of scientific articles published in refereed journals use a web site as a reference, isn't that sufficient evidence that the web resource is notable?

So that's my question. I think this guideline is too restrictive. Foldoc is clearly notable, in my opinion, but I'm not sure how it can qualify under this guideline as it stands. Comments? Suggestions? Thanks! DavidCBryant 18:26, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• No, being used as a source is not more significant than being the topic of an article. FOLDOC is the topic of about a third of March 6, 1995 "THE ON-RAMP" column by Larry R. Moffitt in The Washington Times on Pg. C15. It covers the basics ""The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing (FOLDOC)" by Denis Howe ... is 'a searchable dictionary of acronyms, jargon, programming language, tools, architecture, operating systems . . . in fact anything to do with computing.' Started 10 years ago, it now contains 8,237 definitions, cross-referenced, and is frequently updated as users supply new words." Prasanna Raman of Computimes in Malaysia also wrote on January 13, 2003 on Pg. 26: "The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing ... is a searchable dictionary of acronyms, jargons, programming languages, tools, operating systems, networking, theories, conventions, standards, mathematics, electronics, institutions, companies - in fact, anything to do with computing. The dictionary, under the copyright of its editor, Dennis Howe, has been growing since 1985 and now has over 13,000 definitions totalling nearly five megabytes of text." Adding those references about the topic ought to help. --Dragonfiend 22:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Non-web forums?

Do/should these criteria apply to online sites in general, in particular, Usenet newsgroups? I ask because of the many Usenet newsgroups which have articles (see List of newsgroups and Category:Newsgroups), without having obvious notability. alt.atheism is currently up for deletion, but there appears to be no consensus yet for newsgroups in general? Mdwh 22:46, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

• This guideline is pretty much common sense: Notability equals information on the importance of the subject from referenced sources. Yes, you can apply it to Usenet newsgroups or other Internet forums. --Dragonfiend 23:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
  • What Dragonfriend said. Alternatively, you can look at the guideline for organisations, which says pretty much the same thing. >Radiant< 09:59, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

I have proposed that the notability subguidelines be deprecated with the salient points being merged into the main notability guideline and the remaining subguidelines merged & deprecated to essay status. Please join the centralized discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability#Merge proposal. Vassyana 01:04, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Download availability

Does the amount/volume/notability of the sites that people can download a software application from play any role in their notability? I've been looking at various lists of software and have been trying to determine what is a correct threshold on which to nominate individual applications. • Lawrence Cohen 16:55, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

No, being available on a number of download sites isn't a "notable" achievement. Instead look for "multiple non-trivial published works" about the software. --Dragonfiend 17:57, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks. • Lawrence Cohen 18:53, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

respected & independent medium?

Criterion 3 would seem to suggest a consensus that podcasts distributed through an independent vendor like iTunes are notable. Am I reading this correctly? I've encountered on CSD an article that defends its notability only with the following, "It is distributed via direct download from the website, or from Apple's iTunes Store. There is no download charge from either source." Would such be sufficient assertion of notability to survive speedy? --Moonriddengirl 12:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

iTunes looks like trivial distribution; that is, it looks like anyone can have their podcast distribitued on iTunes. See the iTunes guide to making a podcast. Their rejection criteria (Strong prevalence of sexual content, Apparent misuse of copyrighted material, child pornography, etc.) sounds about as stringent as YouTube or geocities. So, no, having a podcast on iTunes does not look like a notable achievement. --Dragonfiend 17:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sounds to me like triviality of independant web hosting needs to be explicitly defined as any "free" or "open" offer to host something for anyone. That said, it's all well and good having clear exclusion guidelines, but what exactly defines a publisher/distributor as nontrivial? I've seen a lot of people dismiss sources that clearly aren't analogous with either of the trivial examples, and the article get deleted. Any thoughts on clarifying this? --54x 20:04, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Criterion 3 doesn't seem to make sense. The website must be distributed independently through a respected medium? Lots of notable websites are privately-owned individual sites. Most websites which are distributed through an independent medium are not notable. Most notable websites are self-published. That's the beauty of websites. This needs to be seriously rethought. Impin | {talk - contribs} 09:29, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not aimed at websites so much as other items distributed through the web. Consider two blogs, X and Y, otherwise similar in content. Blog X is self-published. Blog Y has an address at wired.com and is featured on the Wired website. Blog Y meets criterion 3: being featured by Wired suggests that the blog has a sufficient level of notability. —C.Fred (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, that's ridiculous. The only blog I read regularly, The Big Picture, is published by its author through Typepad. Another major one that I read, The Economists' View, is published on Blogger. Many of the major blogs publish independently; if you're truly famous you don't need to be with a group. This criteria should be taken off, and we should judge notability based on reliable sources and traffic ranking alone. Should I open a RFC? I honestly want to get rid of this confusing requirement. Impin | {talk - contribs} 17:52, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Criteria 3 is not a "requirement." Quote: "web-specific content is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria." Empahsis is in original. --Dragonfiend (talk) 16:50, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Must article pass each criteria?

Must all three criteria pass, or any two, or just any one? It reads as if all three must pass but that seems counter to (my) common sense. Is there a missing "or" after each one? Also could someone review my proposed answers in bold on the Talk page for Bobbins (webcomic) to see whether I have understood the general sense of the guideline? -Wikianon 11:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The other notability criteria pages (general, books, academics) all specify that one of the primary conditions must be met. I don't see why this would be any different, or for any of the criteria, in fact. • Lawrence Cohen 14:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Notability isn't supposed to be hard to meet. It's meeting WP:V and WP:NOR while maintaining a good article that's the real test, I believe. That said, those two criteria don't condemn an article to deletion like Notability does- you can easily merge & redirect while you wait for more verifiable sources to justify an indepentant article, then restore via the edit history when appropriate. --54x 08:44, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Inheritance and notability by association

If multiple notable writers/artists have contributed non-trivial content to a website that is first published at the website or unpublished elsewhere, should the website be considered notable? Skomorokh ^incite 20:25, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

If another source has noted that the site has published a number of notable works, then yes. Being a place where notable authors go to first publish their work is definitely a good foundation for establishing historical notability. You just need a secondary source that states it (i.e. some newspaper or trade magazine reports how a number of hot authors are using site x). Buspar 22:39, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

That's unfortunate, I was hoping the notability of contributors alone would suffice. Surely The Huffington Post would be notable even without third party coverage? скоморохъ 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Not a Web Directory

Wikipedia used to be extremely useful for a lot of things. Perhaps it should be acknowledged in the article here that while "Wikipedia is not a Web Directory" it can include comprehensive lists of useful links if volunteers choose to adequately label and organize the information despite the propensity of some people to show up and claim anything not already listed in an article at Wikipedia is not yet "notable" enough for a list at Wikipedia. Pretending things are not notable because Wikipedia has not previously logged their existence is a quick path to stagnation as people who would write about new things leave for greener pastures. Lazyquasar (talk) 20:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I was actually shocked to read this criteria. It means that almost all articles had broken this rule in providing the "external links".

When I first discovered Wikipedia, I was not impressed with the articles. It was the links which are provided, especially the external links, that are not even referred to in the article.

In fact the first thing that I do is to observe the external links. Thea articles are mostly useless to me because they are repetitions of what I already know, said in different and confusing ways.

The external references are different because they are the experts in the subject. The important external references are research organisations, universities and organisations such as NASA, manufacturers, clubs and forums.

There is no need for them to win awards. I don't recall any of my favourite site of having any award at all. One was a startup company specialising in experimental diesel engines. It is not even manufactured yet but useful because I need to be ahead of things.

Alas these are actually breaking this "not web directory" rule. The only way to include in the external link is for the site to win awards. Almost all the external links that I come across in wikipedia have not won awards, and even those that had won them, it was for last year. They may not even win any award this year. Every year, the award keep on changing.

No blog at all. When industry heavy weights all have blogs and newspapers keep on quoting from blogs, wikipedia risks becoming a dinosaur. Although there is mention of blogs which are allowed that are quoted by newspapers, there is no blog mentioned in the articles that I scan through. The most important is Iraq. Recently Myanmar. No blog at all in these external links despite so many quotes from newspapers. In fact reliable news about these places can only be found from blogs.

If wikipedia wants to be relevant as a centre of information, this policy must be clearly defined and explained. Otherwise it will just become a rigid highly censored source of information that cannot be relied on.

Othmanskn (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 12:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

This relates to the dispute at Sabah, where Othmanskn (talk · contribs) has used her personal blog which was reverted on the basis of WP:RS and WP:SPS. I made comments in regard to that, as an uninvolved editor from third opinion, here. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 02:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Google News and Criteria 3

Does being syndicated through Google News (or similar aggregators) satisfy criteria #3? -- pb30<talk> 17:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it should as Google News, unlike Google itself is quite selective; it chooses only ~4,500 out of the millions of blogs and websites online as sources, and its choice is by human editorial input rather than algorithm. This makes the selection of a given source by Google News far from trivial, thus fulfilling criterion 3. скоморохъ 12:13, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Do the 'Podcast Awards' Satisfy C2?

There's a section on this up above, but no firm consensus seems to have been reached. I've been wondering if winning a People's Choice Podcast Award would allow a podcast to pass wp:web under C2. Any other thoughts on this? If no, what other awards do satisfy C2 for podcasts? -- Vary | Talk 01:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

• Any award notable enough to have its own Wikipedia article and which is independent of the recipients satisfies C2, in my opinion. Buspar (talk) 00:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

"In a nutshell" section

For consistency with other articles describing Wikipedia guidelines, there could be an "in a nutshell" section at the top of the page. Here is a sampler:

Other suggestions for the wording would be welcome. --♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 09:43, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• "long lasting" will likely be misinterpreted as "website has existed for years, therefore it's notable." We should use the "historical significance" language from WP:NOT#INTERNET for clarity. Also, this guideline is about articles about websites, not websites being used as sources. So:

--Dragonfiend (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, here is an almost identical version:

--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 15:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedias

Does this guideline include smaller Wikipedias (but larger than 1000 articles)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.34.37.64 (talk) 11:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Please Help!

I'm very new to the editing world of wikipedia. I'm trying to figure out how to reference a website. I believe it is reliable because it was written by a university professor. Can someone please tell me how to reference a website properly. Do I use APA or MLA format? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alice9 (talk • contribs) 03:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Replied on Alice9's talk page. Somno (talk) 03:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Award nominations and notability?

So winning a notable award is considered a way to classify notability. So is being nominated over multiple years. Does being nominated in multiple categories on the same year count? For instance, the webcomic PX! was nominated for two Will Eisner Awards this year. Is that enough? Blade (talk) 20:24, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

• Consensus has been "won a well-known and independent award." So, nominated doesn't really work, nor is every award that is "notable" for wikipedia "well-known and independent." In this case, I'd suspect PX would have some sources that we could use to write an article, so I'd suggest we look for those. --Dragonfiend (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

how are the nominations conducted? is it essentially a list of finalists, or can any site at all be nominated? DGG (talk) 03:44, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Exception to criterion #3

I believe that the exception to criterion #3 needs to be revised, because the examples may be seen as outdated. Currently the exception reads: Trivial distribution such as hosting content on entertainment-like sites (GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.)

I would revise the exception to say: Distribution on non-selective services which allow the public at large to distribute content through them (such as MySpace, YouTube, Geocities, Newgrounds, Blogspot, other personal blogs, etc.). MySpace, YouTube, and the like are notable services, but merely posting content on these services is not enough to establish notability.

This change was inspired by the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Pink Flamingo. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

That's not a direction that's acceptable to me. As proposed, being on Google news would statisfy that, but experiance shows (despite the description above) that lack of reliability selection for inclusion in the news aggregation means it is "trivial." (If pressed I can defend this with facts, of course, I'm just too lazy to do so now.) I agree that the existing is sub-optimal, but instead how about Trivial distribution including hosting content on sites without editorial oversight (GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.)
brenneman 01:29, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate your suggestion of the phrase "without editorial oversight", but I think it is essential to specify MySpace and YouTube as examples of sites that don't have editorial oversight and thus, having content there doesn't prove notability. As stated above, I saw on an AfD someone trying to use publication on MySpace as proof of notability, since MySpace is notable and not controlled by the creator of the content -- which is true but should be irrelevant, since anyone can create a MySpace page. Furthermore, MySpace and YouTube are currently more popular than Newgrounds and Geocities, and so people are more likely to cite the former nowadays. So how about Trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (YouTube, MySpace, GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.). (I changed "hosting content" to "content being hosted" since YouTube, MySpace, etc. are the hosts in these examples.) --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Contribute, don't ego-police

Articles which make Wikipedia a better place for information seekers is the true criterion. This is common sense, which by the way is the only real consensus. If you really want to police more than contribute, go ahead and put WP:WEB up for speedy deletion; as it stands it's not reflecting the views of the majority of users. Lars Bengtsson 14:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Newsgroups

In the last few days, there have been a couple of WP:AFD discussions relating to newsgroups: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rec.music.phish and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alt.sysadmin.recovery. In both discussions, the issue of whether we have notability standards for newsgroups has come up. I would like to suggest that newsgroups be specifically included under WP:WEB. This could be done just by changing the following sentence:

Web content includes, but is not limited to, webcomics, podcasts, blogs, Internet forums, online magazines and other media, web portals and web hosts.

to read:

Web content includes, but is not limited to, blogs, Internet forums, newsgroups, online magazines and other media, podcasts, webcomics, web hosts, and web portals.

(The alphabetization of the list is incidental; I'm just doing that for clarity, but it's not essential to this proposal.)

Are there any objections to this? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:47, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

There's been a recent spat of AFD nominations of newsgroups, and that's fine... but I'm concerned at how few would meet any legitimate application of "reliable source" standards. 3-5, it seems like, alt.religion.scientology, alt.sex.stories, alt.tv.simpsons and maybe a few others. The moderated Babylon 5 group's article is probably going to be deleted. It just occurs to me that we're deleting notable groups and keeping very random ones that got into legal/constitutional arguments at some point or otherwise captured the interest of scholars and the media outside Usenet, but may or may not have been tremendously important to Usenet history. I dunno, maybe we should find some way to use FAQs and even usenet posts to write articles... then we could have sourced and accurate articles on notable groups. But I'm not really sure if that's a good idea. It just seems weird to delete so many groups that, to anyone who's used Usenet, are obviously important. But that might just be a consequence of reliable source-based writing. --Rividian (talk) 14:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

There's no such thing asa RS in the absolute. Sources are more or less reliable depending on the purpose and the nature of the material. T show something is worth a Wikipedia article, it should be enough to show by any usable evidence that it is or was important, and that we have adequate reasonably accurate facts to say enough for an article. In most cases, web sources, like fiction plots, are self-documenting. The degree of acceptability of a mailing list obviously depends upon the moderator and the posters, just as on the editor and authors of anything else. some are trustworthy, some aren't. We are not given rules for N and RS from some divine authority--we can have whatever guidelines we think are useful for making an encyclopedia. I would accept any web group with influential members as worth an article, or any that can be shown to be of wide readership or authorship. DGG (talk) 22:00, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Traffic, citation

Media outlets are notoriously non-covered in other media, so alternative criteria for notability are (rightly) frequently used. The guideline here makes no mention of traffic, frequency of citation, or other indicia of popularity. Does that make sense? Bongomatic 03:50, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. I've been watching Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Futaba Channel with increasing dismay, as it appears that a very, very popular and influential site is about to get nuked, even though it's got Alexa rank of ~4100 and well north of a million Google hits (as 双葉, not including ふたば, 2chan, etc), just because it's under the radar of mainstream Western media. Jpatokal (talk) 12:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Google hits is specifically ruled out as an indicator of notability, and that seems right to me. But popularity for actual visits strikes me differently. Bongomatic 13:22, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Please help me understand WP:Web

To be totally honest, I find this this policy rather vague and its application rather arbitrary. On the one hand, it's used to remove pages on sites like TV Tropes Wiki, which have been referred to all over the internet, on the basis that "passing references establish only existence, not notability." On the other, I can see sites listed on here like AIOWiki, INDUCKS, Gossipreport.com, and others, for which I have not even seen these passing references, and these do not even get nominated for deletion. I do not say this as an attempt to troll, but out of genuine curiosity: What do these sites have that makes them particularly notable? --HBK|Talk 02:08, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Popularity

I believe that popularity should be a contributing factor in determining the notability of web content. Dramatic Chipmunk, for instance, has had tens of millions of views (the most viewed YouTube version had 12.5 million views; the original version on College Humor does not display a view count), more than many TV shows. (For comparison, the American Idol finale had around 30 million viewers [2].) I am not suggesting that popularity alone should make web content notable but it should be a factor.--Marcus Brute (talk) 20:54, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

How would one neutrally measure popularity? The number of views is hard to measure as an indicator of popularity, since it would be trivial to write a simple script to keep reloading the page, to trigger an increased page-view count. Yngvarr (t) (c) 20:56, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

There are plenty of online videos with tens of millions of views, but Wikipedia traditionally looks for coverage in secondary sources. The Dramatic Chipmunk video is a good example, because despite its popularity in terms of the view count, it has not received much mainstream media coverage. Maybe this is a flaw in WP:WEB, but without some coverage in the mainstream media it is hard to establish notability. (By the way, the pedants always point out that the creature in this video is actually a prairie dog.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 21:09, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Traditionally is not much of a justification for limiting it to this. Notability in any normal sense does include the concept of popularity, at least when it can be demonstrated. That page-views can be manipulated in no reason not to use it when it is genuine. DGG (talk) 20:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

The view enshrined in the notability guideline seems to derive from logic like this: if something is sufficiently popular as to be notable for its popularity, it will (eventually) be covered in reliable secondary sources, and at such point the topic is suitable for inclusion. This is distinct from issues of verifiability (though it has similar effect in this sort of case to the original research policy / general prescription against primary sourcing). It seems like a sound approach. Bongomatic 21:13, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware of the rationale. It only sounds like a good idea. Words do not have their every-day meaning here. Notability is currently explicitly stated to not be the same as popularity. Coverage is defined to mean substantial coverage, and the likelihood of substantial coverage by the specific types of sources, their precise nature, and their findability by Wikipedians varies from subject to subject, from country to country from period to period--and depends on the growth of the web. It sounded like a good idea, until it became clear that there were too many situations where we did not want to justify the writing of articles on that basis, and therefore needed all the complexities of NOT and BLP to rule out topics, and all the complexities of wrangling about what counts as substantial coverage and what counts as a RS for the purpose to make the adjustments. Remember that a RS for WP:V is not a yes/no thing--sources are reliable to different degrees and there is no source utterly reliable for all purposes, and no source that is so unreliable it have no purpose at all in writing an article, but a RS for Notability must be artificially fitting into a yes/no. .

When I was new here I accepted that naïve rule, and learned to defend or oppose articles by making fine distinctions about the nature of sources and quibbling about the precise meaning of the provisions in NOT. I could often get the result i thought reasonable, but by now I've realized that it makes more sense to decide directly what we actually want to include. I still sometimes argue the old way, since many people still accept it, but usually I try to talk about whether the subject is suitable for an encyclopedia like ours'. DGG (talk) 13:50, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the problem is that the web moves fast, people don't have time to take note of content after the fact. For example, Dramatic Chipmunk was popular, but writing about it after the first week after the initial boom of popularity would be out of touch because everyone would already be onto the next big thing. Old content is boring, but, you cannot deny its previous impact. Therefore I agree that popularity should be a contributing factor in determining the notability of web content.Ljcrabs (talk) 00:57, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Notability is not the same as popularity because Lindstrom's theorem is not popular, but notable. But, something popular is almost inherently notable, at least temporarily. It's bit trickier to decide if something popular for a while is notable in the long run. That's where secondary sources, hopefully with some historical perspective, help. Pcap ping 19:48, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RecentChangesCamp

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RecentChangesCamp

This AfD discussion could use some fresh eyes. Comments are appreciated. Thank you, Cirt (talk) 23:56, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Awards

Criterion two points to a note that says that Category:Awards is a partial list of notable awards. Is the actually the case? Any user could add articles to a category, shouldn't we be referring to a list article instead of a category so we can at least have some fact checking? --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 09:25, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

We could link to List of prizes, medals, and awards instead, but I suspect the category is currently in a better state (notice the quite well motivated "poorly defined, unverified or indiscriminate" flag at the top. Certainly it is the intention of the category to be a listing of notable awards, in the same way it is the intention of wikipedia to be a encyclopaedia of notable information. Whether there are non-notable awards in this category or not is something for the deletion process, having it on what might well be an unwatched list doesn't help much. Usrnme h8er (talk · contribs) 10:28, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think just because no one has bothered to keep and maintain award lists that the category is by default legitimate. It seems like each project could maintain a list of awards related to their subject, then it would be easier to keep track of. All a category indicates is that it is an award in that category. Just because it has an article on it doesn't necessarily mean its notable (WP:INN). --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 06:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Yea, as most of those Awards are all shiny news, we don't know how many will disappear within the next few years. Having a list of awards is useful only if the noteworthiness of those awards have been properly discussed and a consensus achieved to add them. --KrebMarkt 08:09, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The question comes from a case where the sole claim of notability for a podcast was that it won an award of limited notoriety and questionable independence and was also nominated the following year for the same award. One of the podcasters claimed that because the award had an article in Category:Awards, and by extension Category:Web awards, it was a legitimate award for #2. While an award may be notable, even if it is rather obscure, his claim conflicts with the text of #2 which states that the award must be well-known and independent. --Farix (Talk) 23:59, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with TheFarix that the category should not be used this way. There can be other reasons for an award having an article than that it shows notability of the people getting it. (An example of this would be many student awards.) DGG (talk) 03:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I am uneasy about awards being used to assess the notability of blogs. LitBlog awards are often just popularity contests, and are open to vote rigging. Blogs (like mine) that specialise in a niche may be significant enough for a US university to link to as a source, but are unlikely to win a popularity contest. ANZLitLovers (talk) 13:52, 13 September 2011 (UTC)ANZLitLovers

Other syndicted mediums

Shouldn't mediums such as television and print publications be added in section 3 of the criteria - mediums which are conceivably "both respected and independent of the creators." BigBrightStars (talk) 03:38, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Centre for Research on Globalisation

Zep Kalb (talk · contribs) just created Centre for Research on Globalisation and put up some links to it in some articles. I tried to find if this was notable a notable website, but didn't find any wp:RS sources specifically about the organization. It's mentioned a lot because of people who are associated with it, but no third parties that I see discuss it other than to say that it's a "think tank" or something similar. Does this pass wp:NOTE? Here are some searches: Find sources: GBooks · MSBooks · GScholar · MSAcademic · GNews recent · GNews old · NYT recent · NYT old · Wikipedia Reference Search

- NJGW (talk) 16:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Trailer Gator - trailer coupler lock

trailer gator is a trailer coupler lock —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.179.118.41 (talk) 01:36, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

H O L M E S in Scotland.

I refer to the above subject which is the subect of much interesting debate on present web sites. I would however point out that this system was originated in Scoland and being one of the first instructors of the system it upsets me that credit is being given to Scotlanfd Yard and various other establishments. Please be assured that Scotland is not behind the rest of the country. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.31.15.8 (talk) 16:15, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Exclude web hosts from this guideline?

I'd like to propose that web hosts be removed from the list of things explicitly covered by this guideline. After all, the next sentence says "Any content which is distributed solely on the Internet is considered, for the purposes of this guideline, as web content" -- and a web host is a company, not content. None of the three specific criteria apply to companies, except for "multiple independent sources", which is covered nicely by WP:CORP and the GNG. Any objection to this change? Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

You have to understand, a web host does its business Only! on the internet, it's not like you can go get your web hosting either on a cd from dreamhost out of your next 7/11 Or get it from dreamhost.com online. This therefor applies as intended and changing it is by no means appropriate.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 19:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you actually read my rationale above? Which of the specific criteria mentioned in this guide apply to a web hosting company, besides the requirement of multiple independent sources, which is in the general notability guide anyway?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:59, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Yes I read your rationale above and after reading your reply now I reread everything and came to the exact same conclusion #1 and #2 apply perfectly in my opinion, you are free to disagree with that and I might be wrong. I'd be interested to see what others have to say about this. I don't really know how appropriate this is though changing the guideline to squeeze a single article through.--194x144x90x118 (talk) 20:14, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Informative note: "Web host" was added to this page in this edit by Hiding, in what appears to be a long, drawn-out battle about web-based comics. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

It's been there for more than THREE YEARS and we're supposed to change it now just because you want to keep some worthless article alive?--194x144x90x118 (talk) 20:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

That is an extremely unfair insinuation. A proper characterization would be that SarekOfVulcan discovered a potential flaw in this guideline while participating in a related AfD discussion. -- Scjessey (talk) 20:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

(ecX2)Sorry I snapped above -- too much caffeine, probably. In any case, I'm not arguing about #1, since it's in every single notability guideline out there, and I provided three independent non-trivial articles covering Dreamhost, so "squeezing a single article" doesn't apply. #2 could also apply to a web host -- but really, that's just a special case of #1, since a well-known award is going to be covered in multiple independent sources. #2 also specifies "the website or content": if Dreamhost were to win an award, it almost certainly wouldn't be for its website or other content it provides, but rather for the services it provides (or doesn't, as some would have it). And remember, it's any of those criteria, not all of them -- so this actually provides more ways for Dreamhost to prove notability than WP:CORP, which is what I'm suggesting should cover it. Can we skip the personal attacks, please, and focus on the question at hand?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:38, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

As there were no serious objections raised above, I've removed webhosts from the guideline, as they are companies covered under WP:CORP.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

proposal: hide non-notable website pages rather than delete them?

I understand the concerns of the community regarding self-promotion & advertisement in the wikipedia. You would like to restrict such non-notable pages from internet search engine results, and to limit their display in wiki search results unless a very specific search is performed.

But, at the same time, it is impossible to predict which sites will achieve notability and when. Of the millions of web sites currently up, some select few may achieve this level and by that time the editors will have to go back to dig up information that might have been deleted previously. For those sites that do achieve notability, the history of their growth might be documented better in an article if that article existed somewhere on wikipedia throughout the non-notable period of the site's growth.

Would it not make sense to have a page to encompass all non-notable websites with a subpage for each non-notable website? The sub-pages could be shrouded from search results / etc unless that phrase is searched for very specifically. When/if a site achieves notability, its page can then be moved into a full-blown article status to be included in standard search results.

Such a strategy might also reduce the time spent fighting with self-promoting editors over getting their articles on wikipedia.

Just my thoughts, would be curious to know what the rest of the folks here think.

--Jacki Buros (talk) 15:41, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Deleting here is technically already just a form of hiding, as the page still exists and admins can see them. If a page then becomes notable later they would have the power to undelete the article, if it's appropriate. DreamGuy (talk) 13:13, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Criterion 3 on Independence

I think a more clearly defined explanation of independence for criteria 3 is needed. I feel that an article that should have met this notability criteria was deleted. The example was a large media website (CNET)which hosts various talk-show style podcasts. The argument was that this made them not independent even though the site itself did not dictate the content of the programs, the creators themselves do. Would collecting a paycheck or using a studio compromise independence under this criteria? Those arguing to delete the article suggested that the burden was on me to PROVE the independence but I'm not sure there is a whole lot of published investiagative journalism about the making of podcasts. If that stance prevails, I see very little in the way where something could not be both independent and NOT trival.Ngaskill (talk) 01:59, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

It would be helpful to have a bit more background, perhaps a link to the Afd? --Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 02:26, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Redirects from websites to subjects

This redirects for discussion process here: Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2009_August_11#Upn.com resulted in the deletions of several web URLs that redirected to subject articles. Wikipedia:Notability (web) says "Websites or content which fail these guidelines but are linked to a topic or subject which does merit inclusion may be redirected to that topic or subject rather than be listed for deletion." The participants of the redirects for discussion referred to were not aware of the clause in Notability (web). The closing administrator suggested that I start a discussion about this.

• So when is it acceptable to redirect a URL to an article about its subject? When is it not acceptable? WhisperToMe (talk) 04:16, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

• I would say it is acceptable if the subject is notable for having a website, as in the case of ebay.com, so as to not confuse or mislead readers. Not acceptable if the subject's website is distinctly different or known for something which the article on the subject does not cover, such as kids looking for the online Hanna Montana game, or the sneak peek of an upcoming movie. But usually anyone looking for a specific subject wouldn't think to type the ".com" when searching unless they were looking for a specific web site. -- œ^™ 15:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
• I agree with the above comment - "are linked to a topic or subject" may apply to an association such as Orbitz.com, which is the only/most-common way to do business with the company Orbitz (it does, indeed, redirect there -- similar for Yahoo.com, Google.com. eBay.com) See WP:RCAT for appropriate uses for redirects. I'll also note that the quoted section in WhisperToMe's original note is buried deep in a footnote, and says may be, not shall be or should be. I wouldn't interpret it as a strict requirement. -Sme3 (talk) 20:26, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

In regards to Orbitz.com, Ebay.com, etc.: they would pass the Notability (web) guidelines as they are notable as websites. What Wikipedia:Notability (web) is referring to is a non-notable website of a notable subject. An analogy would be Delta.com for Delta Air Lines, or starbucks.com for Starbucks WhisperToMe (talk) 00:56, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

What's the objective of this discussion? Are we looking to clarify/modify WP:Notability (web) and/or WP:RCAT, or are we trying to argue over whether or not these these URL-titled redirects should have been deleted in the first place? Clearly, there is ambiguity in these policies (use of may in Notability (web), its implicit omission in RCAT). -Sme3 (talk) 02:07, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to clarify both Notability (web) and RCAT, and I would like to argue whether the redirects should have been deleted in the first place (possibly after the clarification). WhisperToMe (talk) 02:18, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Regarding your examples Delta.com (which surprisingly is actually linked to) and starbucks.com, I would say these are not necessary because there's nothing really notable about the websites themselves that would lead a reader when searching to type out the full company name plus ".com", but I also wouldn't say that they're 'inappropriate' because what's the hurt? redirects are cheap, and these types of redirects may be used by external sites as well. So unless it's an obviously promotional redirect I would probably !vote 'keep' in any afd's that come up. -- œ^™ 02:53, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I understand that they are harmless, but does that mean, then, that a whole bunch of URL redirects should be created (Kelloggs.com, Subaru.com, HomeDepot.com, etc). Also, look at the original RfD nomination linked above. One of them was Starz.com/channels/encore. Once we open the door to all kinds of URLs and sub-URLs, it never ends. I think the rules need to be clear on this, not just take a "no harm, no foul" attitude. -Sme3 (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

No, definately not. Everything must be in moderation. common sense must be applied and each should be dealt with case by case. The Notability (web) guideline shouldn't ban them outright though, just discourage it. -- œ^™ 19:58, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I personally think that going beyond the domain name (like Starz.com/channels/encore) is not plausible, but it is plausible to redirect a domain name to its subject. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It's possibly appropriate in some cases. But it's not really necessary as a routine matter, for it will be given in the External sources section, and nobody will reasonably have much trouble finding them. DGG ( talk ) 04:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

"No harm no foul" is the rule for redirects because it costs more to delete them than to keep them (and other reasons). Even more still to discuss them. Hence the overriding rule is: Therefore consider the deletion only of either really harmful redirects or of very recent ones. That clearly doesn't mean that the analogous cases for those that exist need creating, unless there is a need for them - to do so would be WP:POINT. Rich Farmbrough, 21:26, 28 September 2009 (UTC).

Quotations

Quotations from the personnel of the web content as story sources do not count as substantial coverage unless the web content itself is also a major subject of the story.

Can we get this added? It's from the company guidelines.--Otterathome (talk) 10:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Can you give an example of a diff that you think this change would protect against? Thanks. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Web pages vs Web content

This guideline seems to be confused as to its focus... is it a notability guideline outlining what makes a specific web page notable enough to have an article about it? Or is it a notability guideline outlining what sort of web based information is notable enough to mention on Wikipedia?

Both are valid topics for a guideline... but they are seperate issues. May I suggest that the guideline be re-structured with discussion of each of these issues separated into a seperate sub-section? Blueboar (talk) 15:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be that this guideline is intended to be about the notability of web pages. The notability of the information is the subject of other guidelines. I do agree though that the distinction being made between a web site and it's content is confusing and should be reworded. It probably seemed clear enough to the people who participated in the discussion at the time, can someone who was involved then explain it? Otherwise I'll try to dig up from the archives to see what the intent was.--RDBury (talk) 13:35, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The discussion of the change is at Wikipedia talk:Notability (web)/Archive 5#Move this sideways and onwards. (This was back when the guideline was still just a proposal.) I still don't understand what the distinction is supposed to be though. The wording has remained more or less the same for over 3 years now so maybe it's clear enough to most people, but the terms are nevertheless undefined and that leaves room for different interpretations by different people.--RDBury (talk) 14:16, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Absolute vs presumed

Why is this notability guideline absolute ("is deemed notable") when even the general notability guide notable is only presumed? I propose a change away from absolute. duffbeerforme (talk) 11:02, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. Here is the phrasing from other subject-specific guidelines. WP:BAND: "A musician or ensemble (note that this includes a band, singer, rapper, orchestra, DJ, musical theatre group, etc.) may be notable if it meets at least one of the following criteria". WP:NBOOK: "A book is generally notable if it verifiably meets through reliable sources, one or more of the following criteria". WP:NOTFILM: "The following are attributes that generally indicate, when supported with reliable sources, that the required sources are likely to exist". I'd suggest for this guideline we change "is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria" to "may be notable if it meets at least one of the following criteria." And comparing this to the other guidelines, I think it would be a good idea to add the "sources are likely to exist" concept to what are criteria 2 and 3 here. Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 15:30, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Shorty Awards and Foodimentary

Since this is far from my area of expertise I'm wondering if anyone can help with the notability of these two entries Shorty Awards and Foodimentary. The latter of these strikes me as non-notable. There is no reliable independent coverage of the subject. However, Foodimentary has apparently won a Shorty Award, which would satisfy #2 here if the Shorty Awards are "a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization." Any thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 16:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to highlight that, as well as winning Shorty Awards, Foodimentary has had 3 articles written where it is the sole subject. One by Epicurious, one by SlashFood, and one by FineCooking. There's been some debate as to the reliability of these as sources though (see the talk page).Eikou (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Eikou please provide the links here. They are not "articles" in my mind. Epicurious is a website known mostly for its user generated content, and I see no indication that conducting and publishing an interview on that website meets WP:RS criteria. I see no indication that SlashFood is more than a food blog. Is it an RS? FInally, the Fine Cooking reference is to an online blurb written by an intern and not an article published in the magazine itself.Griswaldo (talk) 17:38, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Epicurious Article, SlashFood article, Fine Cooking Article. By the RS guidelines, I would say Epicurious is reliable. The SlashFood article, upon review, I could agree about. The Fine Cooking article, as mentioned on the discussion page for Foodimentary, is indeed written by an intern. Also as mentioned, I've found nothing in the RS guidelines that should make the fact that it was written by an intern invalidate the article. When an intern submits an article to the company they work for, the company still has to review and approve it. It would seem to me that regardless of the author, the article carries the reliability of the magazine that published it.Eikou (talk) 17:48, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

If winning an award does not result in significant coverage in reliable sources, you can be pretty sure that the award is not "a well-known and independent award". I don't see anything in the Foodimentary article that suggests it has received significant coverage in reliable sources, though maybe that information is buried in all the ridiculous trivia about "Had a tweet quoted in the LA Times blog" and "Mentioned in a blog on Cincinnati.com". Thanks, Starblueheather (talk) 15:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• It seems to me that the statement, "If winning an award does not result in significant coverage in reliable sources, you can be pretty sure that the award is not "a well-known and independent award"." comes from opinion and not policy. In fact, it's almost contradictory to policy, or at the least suggests policy is redundant. Besides that, if you Google "foodimentary wins a shorty award", you get 3070 results to peruse through of coverage. Not all of them are very reliable, but it does constitute some argument for how "well-known" the shorty awards are, and it's certainly "independent". Maybe what's in the Wikipedia article isn't the best reflection of reliable coverage, but that's something we can change. Choosing a random source from the Google search that seems reliable to me, I found this. I wouldn't say the article itself is the ultimate reference as to what reliable sources are available for the article. Much love, Eikou (talk) 15:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry for the double post. I just found this article that seems to be from a major newspaper called "Biotech Week". I thought it may be better than the Knight Foundation article. They're both from the Google search. Much love, Eikou (talk) 15:31, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Copyediting

As part of my recent request for adminship, I was asked to review the page at a copyediting perspective, which I did so in this edit. Below is a list of changes made within the one edit.

• I made the use of serial commas consistent throughout the text.
• I removed various instances of repeated spaces within the code. This has no effect on the article's appearance, but explains the apparent lack of changes in some highlighted regions in the diff.
• I replaced all instances of "our" with "the" or "Wikipedia's" to remove feeling of exclusivity.
• I clarified the first sentence of the article. "Any form of web-specific content" was replaced with "a form of web-specific content" for precision of meaning and to illustrate (yet again) that the guideline does not apply in every situation.
• I rephrased the line defining "web concept" in the first paragraph ("any content [...] of this guideline, as web content") to remove awkwardness.
• In the second lead paragraph, the phrase "Wikipedia articles are not advertisements is an official policy" was awkward-sounding, especially in printed versions of this page where there are no wikilinks. Because the policy is not named by its "true name" ("Wikipedia is not a soapbox"), I preceded the phrase with "the idea that"; thus, it reads, "the idea that Wikipedia articles are not advertisements is an official policy...".
• In the final lead paragraph (in the part describing {{notability}}), I changed "to make other editors aware of the problem" to "to alert other editors to the problem" for concision (the third "C" of copyediting: "clear, correct, concise, complete, and consistent").
• I made the sentence in final lead paragraph about AfD slightly more concise and straightforward.
• I made the final line of the final lead paragraph (about WP:PROD and WP:SPEEDY) more accurate (explained PROD further to include the need for lack of controversy), clear (removed possible ambiguity), and detailed (added link to WP:A7 so editors can find further reference).
• Last line, first paragraph "No inherent notability": I made the first letter of "see" lowercase for grammatical/stylistic reasons.
• I removed "just as individuals can be notable" from the second paragraph in "No inherent notability", since it seems to be used as a sort of a proof for the idea that "smaller websites can be notable". It's not wholly related or analogous.
• I reworded the last paragraph (or line) in "No inherited notability" more concise.
• I improved the flow of the list of "reliable published works" by using a more parallel structure.
• I corrected word meaning in the second bullet in the "except the following" numbered list in criterion #1 by changing the word "or" to "and"—all exceptions apply simultaneously, not just one at a time.
• I fixed footnote #2 by correcting the meaning of the sentence. The article about the content should be redirected, not the web content!
• I "fixed" the spelling of "encyclopedia" in footnote #5 (i.e., "encyclopaedia"). Yes, I know, "encyclopaedia" is a legitimate spelling alternative for the word, but honestly? Like using "lede paragraph" instead of "lead paragraph", it really has no beneficial effect anyway.
• I clarified, slightly, the meaning of various sentences in footnote #5.
• Footnote #6 may in fact be redundant.

If anyone has any objections or comments, feel free to discuss them below. Guoguo12 (Talk)  11:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

With blog notability, aim for inclusivity

I think Wikipedia needs to look at the issue of blog notability differently. We are in uncharted territory, and the rules need to ensure inclusiveness and diversity if WP is to be truly comprehensive in scope.

This isn't about me and my blog, but I'm using myself as an example to illustrate the difficulty of establishing notability under existing rules.

With no professional background in books or publishing, I started my blog about Australian literature three years ago. However, In the last twelve months, my blog has been linked to an American university as a resource, my reviews are featured on senior secondary school reading lists, I've been featured as a blogger of note in two other lit blogs (one US, one UK), and on the strength of my knowledge about OzLit, I've been an invited guest at two major literary award ceremonies, suggested as a judge for a major award, invited to speak at a writers' festival, and asked to set up a 'shadow' panel for the Miles Franklin Award (like the shadow Giller Prize panel). (Almost) every Australian publisher of books knows who I am. I have a Google page ranking of 5.

But how would anybody assessing the notability of my blog know any of this (except for the page ranking)? The people who have approached me have done it privately. I don't brag about it on my blog, and I have never been mentioned in the national media. (After all, traditional media journalists see bloggers as rivals, and many are scornful about amateurs).

Literary fiction competes with general fiction for media attention and although it has great cultural significance it gets very little airspace. Australian Literature is an even smaller niche. A small team of Aussie litlovers have worked tirelessly to have our notable authors included in Wikipedia because they weren't there. Anyone using WP to find out more about AusLit would want to find links to external resources such as reference books - and litblogs.

I'm just a middle sized fish in the small Australian Literature pond that is swamped by oceans of US and UK lit. I'm sure that Wikipedia wants to ensure that it is inclusive of blogs that matter in countries outside the Big 2. There are excellent, high quality blogs that offer significant information about the literary scene (and other fields too, I expect) in Africa, Canada, and India. For many young people, online reviews are the sole source of information that they use. Indeed in many cases book reviews on litblogs are taking up the space vacated by traditional media as it becomes uneconomic for print to carry them. Like the blogs that are documenting the Arab spring, they are a phenomena that have great cultural significance. But unlike a blog about middle eastern politics, their notability is not easy for an outsider to establish.

From a personal point of view I don't really care if my blog makes it as notable or not, but I am particularly concerned about the principle of inclusiveness, especially regarding litblogs from Africa which are documenting the highly significant growth of African literature written by Africans. I am worried that these may not meet the notability criteria as they seem to be at the moment.

I don't know what the answer is except to suggest that the rules should be flexible and open-ended rather than creating fences to keep out minorities.

Ok, off my soapbox!

--ANZLitLovers (talk) 15:05, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Imagine that you have to write an article about your blog (not about you). Imagine that the article must be fully sourced, and that every single source must meet all of these requirements:

1. It must be a third-party or WP:Independent source. (So you can't use any source by you, including the blog.)
2. It must be a Wikipedia:Published source that is still accessible to the public. (So a speech is useless [unless it was recorded and published elsewhere], but a webpage describing the speech is fine.)
3. The source must have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
4. It must be published by a reputable publishing house (rather than by the author).
5. It must have a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, such as editorial oversight or peer review processes.

How many sources talking about your blog and meeting all of these requirements could you find? How long would the resulting article be? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:59, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs more fences. It doesn't have anything to do with minorities, it has to do with demonstrated importance. While the description of the small niche success you have had with your blog must be personally satisfying, it's a far cry from something an encyclopedia should recognize. We're an encyclopedia, first and foremost. If you think you can get listed in any other encyclopedia in the world, start there first and let us know when it happens. Don't just assume that because we're online that our standards should be lower. DreamGuy (talk) 23:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

If a website has a lot of famous/notable people reviewed there, shouldn't it be considered notable?

Would having a significant number of notable people being interviewed on a website not confirm notability of that website? Any objection towards that being added to this guideline's page under web content? Just because the mainstream news media doesn't cover certain things, doesn't mean it isn't notable. Dream Focus 04:52, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

No. Why would it? That in itself doesn't mean anything. I don't know what you have in mind here, but, say, a website for a science fiction convention can post a lot of interviews of famous people, or just some random personal blog can track down a bunch of famous people by email and put up some slapdash interviews. We let stuff up that isn't particularly notable just because the guidelines here for inclusion are already overly generous, let's not open the door even more. DreamGuy (talk) 23:31, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Is WP:WEB criterion three really necessary?

A recent AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/No Room for Magic (2nd nomination) has got me thinking about criterion three, "The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators". The webcomic in question doesn't seem notable by any common-sense measure - no hits on Google News or Books, no claim in the article of wider influence - and yet criterion three gives it a claim to notability under our guideline, as argued in the previous AfD discussion from 2006. Is there any actual need for this criterion? It seems to me that anything worthy of an article would already pass criterion one by being covered in multiple, reliable sources independent of the subject. Let me know your thoughts. — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 00:49, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

The line in the policy is to allow articles to be created on works (or authors of works) whose narrow audience is so limited as to not attract published analysis, praise, or criticism (what we Wikipedians call "coverage"). The criterion we use is whether there is not editorial control exercised by the host of the Web content. For an example not related to the case presented, sites that aggregate political or popular culture opinion that add or remove contributors based on web site's subjective criteria meet (3).(National Review Online,Huffington Post, etc.)

When it comes to web comics, I am not a subject matter expert, however, I expect that there's enough experience among Wikipedia editors now to know what web sites are not mere pass-throughs (i.e. WP:SELFPUBLISH) but attempt to host the most popular or highest quality comics and apply the (3) criteria accordingly. patsw (talk) 13:07, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I looked into this a little deeper. It seems that a workable solution would be to incorporate a short description of No Room for Magic into the article describing its host, Keenspot. Alas, the article is deleted but I will make my suggestion on that article's talk page. patsw (talk) 13:32, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Patsw, and thanks for the comments. You said that that criterion #3 "is to allow articles to be created on works (or authors of works) whose narrow audience is so limited as to not attract published analysis, praise, or criticism". I agree that this is what the policy intends - my point was that I don't see why topics that have such a narrow audience should have an article in the first place. To put it another way, we often point users to WP:INHERITED, which says that "notability is not inherited". I know that the link is an essay, not a guideline, but why should we make an exception to this principle for web content? Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 14:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

The essay you mention is confusing and contradictory. To apply what I believe to the case here, if there's a consensus of Wikipedia editors that editorial judgment (or quality control) of Keenspot is good enough for them, then it would be sufficient to use the appearance of a web comic in Keenspot as the threshold for inclusion of that web comic as an article without having to make judgments on each new web comic as it appears. I don't think that consensus is there. patsw (talk) 18:25, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

About patsw's comment: If the web content has never attracted "published analysis, praise, or criticism (what we Wikipedians call "coverage")", then how the heck are we supposed to write an article about it? Just chuck NPOV out the window and write the whole thing from what the content's creators say about it? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

In theory, Wikipedia editors in a narrow subject, use the editorial filter of organizations, aggregators, syndicates, etc. to determine if a topic merits an article. To pick one example in an area I am familiar with, Carrie Lukas has an article. I conjecture that her connection to the Goldwater Institute and National Review Online have more weight than coverage of Carrie Lukas in published sources. patsw (talk) 13:47, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No, my question isn't about how to determine if a topic merits an article. I'm talking about the practical aspect of putting text into the article. If there are actually zero independent sources with any significant coverage, how exactly do you write the article? How do you decide what to say after the first half sentence? I know how to get through This is a web comic", but what comes after those words, given that you have zero sources except the comic's own website or other sources very closely related to the comic?

Pretend it's not a web comic. Pretend it's a comic strip printed in the newspaper, and it happens that the only sources you've been able to find are (1) the comic strip, (2) the comic strip's website, and (3) stuff published by the syndicate. That's zero independent sources. How do you write that article? How do you write a neutral article, rather than an unbalanced regurgitation of what the syndicate's marketing department (and your own original research from reading the comic strips) wants you to say? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No, this criterion is not necessary. The two examples given, No Room for Magic being published by Keenspot and Carrie Lukas being published by National Review Online, don't support the need for this criterion. Consensus above and at AFD is publishing on Keenspot is not an indicator of notability. For Carrie Lukas, not every National Review contributor is notable, let alone every National Review Online contributor; if the notability of Carrie Lukas were discussed, I'd expect it to revolve around being published by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Further, I cannot find other notability guidelines as broad or vague as this. Neither WP:AUTHOR, WP:NBOOK nor WP:NOTFILM have a "respected and independent publisher" criterion. The closest I can find is WP:BAND's "Has released two or more albums on a major label or on one of the more important indie labels (i.e. an independent label with a history of more than a few years, and with a roster of performers, many of whom are notable)." That is much more narrow than this WP:WEB criterion (there are only 4 major labels). So, if being published by a major book publisher or a major film studio is not an indicator of notability, I don't see how the lesser standard of publishing their ebooks or online videos on any "respected and independent website" can be an indicator of notability. Similarly, if a band who has just released one album on a major label is not notable, I don't see how they would be notable for releasing mp3s on any "respected and independent website." Rangoondispenser (talk) 18:37, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Delete it. It's pretty clear from the discussion above that this criterion 3 is incompatible with WP:NPOV or at least it can be easily interpreted that way ("medium which is both respected and independent of the creators" = IP protocol?). There are tons of problematic and obscure websites out there (racist etc.) that describe themselves as something else than what they actually are. Without some independent coverage as to their nature, just copying their self-description to Wikipedia means transforming Wikipedia into a free advertisement venue for fringe stuff. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 16:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
• SNGs like this are meant to outline criteria that if a topic meets one of these, there will likely be sufficient coverage (existing or in the future) to allow the article to eventually comply with the GNG. This particular clause gives me no impression that sources would immediately follow by meeting this mark. Thus, it is appropriate to delete. --MASEM (t) 03:36, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
• All websites are distributed via the media of HTTP, which is respected and independent of 99.99% of websites. Are 99.99% of websites notable? Stuartyeates (talk) 04:30, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

  I can see where you're coming from here, but any confusion about the guideline referring to things as broad as IP protocol and HTTP is mostly because I only quoted the first part of the criterion above. The full version is more specific, and I will include it here:

The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster; except for trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (such as YouTube, Facebook, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.).

From this version it's quite clear that the "medium" referred to in the guideline must be some kind of online publisher, so we should bear this in mind when debating it. Apologies if I misled anyone with selective quoting. Best — Mr. Stradivarius ^♫ 06:12, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Comment withdrawn. I shouldn't have been sarcastic in the first place. Stuartyeates (talk) 06:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

That could be made clearer by changing "trivial" to "nonselective". However, it's still unclear why this criterion is needed from the example given. The podcast of Ricky Gervais can be covered in his biography. The only case where a separate article is needed is when substantial independent commentary appears about the podcast itself. Even clarified, the criterion seems to encourage micro-stubs on works of otherwise notable authors. I admit I'm somewhat biased against such disjointed treatment of someone's works, and I've redirected some stubs like that the past. Alternatively, if the "medium" is notable but the author & work isn't passing GNG, the work could be mentioned in the article on the medium. Assuming Gervais didn't have an article, his podcast could conceivably be mentioned in the article on the newspaper (site). ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

• Delete it as totally useless. It's solely there to come up with lame excuses to include things that do not belong here by any reasonable criteria, either by Wikipedia standards or the real world. DreamGuy (talk) 18:21, 11 February 2012 (UTC)