Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

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Suggested changes to "entertainers" section

While the majority of entertainers work in the field of acting, singing, dancing, and comedy, the "Entertainers" section has a single sub-section for "Pornographic actors and models." This seems on its face to have a number of issues that could use some changes:

• "Pornographic actors" could be considered an "oxymoron." Some people actually assume that most porn stars are not notable for their "acting" ability;
• "Models" are not considered "entertainers;"
• Having a single subsection is clearly wrong since if anything it should be included in the main subject and only subdivided if there are at least two subsections;
• The fact that articles about notable people is a key attribute of WP, excluding mention of "dancers," for example, and emphasizing the above moronic connections, does nothing to enhance WP as a RS.
• The entire text description of "entertainers" in the section also seems totally wrong for each of its 3 examples:
  • Having "significant roles in multiple notable films," etc. is meaningless and redundant, and ignores the basics of RS and V criteria;
  • Requiring a "large fan base" or "cult following," is without support and likewise meaningless;
  • Requiring "unique, prolific, or innovative contributions" is more of the same unsupported verbiage.
• The fact that the "Entertainers" section is so devoid of meaningful description in its 3 numbered examples, with the fact that the oxymoronic and overweight subsection has 4 examples and even more text, would imply that WP's definition of "notable people" leaves something to be desired. It should be entirely rewritten. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 19:26, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

• Comment: I'm not yet supporting or refuting these points but this, IMO, is not sufficient enough of a discussion to change such an important guideline. WikiProject Pornography should have been notified and musicians already have their own notability guidelines. J04n(talk page) 01:47, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

• P.S. Don't revert due to "no consensus" is only an essay. J04n(talk page) 01:48, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with J04n: I don't yet have an opinion, but I think there needs to be much clearer consensus for such a change. (My initial reaction is that we need specific language about porn, not as a value judgment about acting prowess, but to avoid controversies about article deletions.) Perhaps an RfC should be considered if you really want this change. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:25, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

On the porn bios - I've been looking for a way of sensibly, fairly, limiting these articles. It would be nice to suspend Afds, and explain which articles might not survive under the new guidelines. Or which (in sandboxes) would be enabled. I would feel very uncomfortable waking up tomorrow and discovering that we had inadvertently enabled the creation of several thousand new articles on "porn actors/actresses"! And let's not look for 100% consensus on this, if we are serious. 100% is not achievable. These folks have their own claque, like everyone else. Student7 (talk) 13:10, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Hasn't Mr. Wales just created a Wiki Lite (I forget the name) where transitory entertainers, popular musicians, etc. might go? This would relieve the strain considerably off a site trying to be a serious encyclopedia, and not a almanac or grocery store tabloid. Student7 (talk) 13:14, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

a Fando-pedia would be great! Active Banana (^bananaphone 19:24, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Question on cumulative notability

I have a question:

• If person A has done X that by itself would make them only marginally notable, perhaps not really enough to deserve their own article
• If person A has also done Y that by itself would make them only marginally notable, perhaps not really enough to deserve their own article
• is person A notable because X+Y is accumulative?
• why isn't that covered in the article? Flying Fische (talk) 20:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a good situation to use the GNG directly in, and try to measure the actual coverage. It's not mechanical; there's no formula. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 21:10, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Because it's tricky and must be decided on a case-by-case basis? Personally I think notability is really a logarithmic scale. If you want to put it numerically, you could take it as the order of magnitude of the number of people who have heard of the person. If the limit is 100 million and aspects X and Y each narrowly miss this target, then that usually means something like 10 million people know the person from X and 10 million know the person from Y. Together that would be 20 million, thus still not enough. (Only read this argument as a metaphor, please. Of course notability cannot be put into numbers.) Hans Adler 21:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is that few people in here seem to understand how the adult entertainment industry works. Pornstars notability should be measured inside the adult entertainment business and not outside of it. I have seen deletions of pornbio articles lately that can be compared to deleting The Killers from the music section. If you want to include pornbios on WP you must know which the reliable secondary sources are and how they work, you must know what are the important awards, the weight of certain nominations, how the industry works today versus just five years ago. The adult entertainment world is a world by its own and does not follow certain standards of the mainstream entertainment. Media coverage in the adult entertainment business works differently than in other fields: they all start from a press release; there is little or none independent coverage of news and characters especially by the two major players AVN and XBIZ. A piece of news covered by Gram Ponante at Fleshbot makes it today much more relevant and independent and therefore reliable than if it was covered by AVN. An "as is" press release is published only on the Companies Press Release section at AVN and XBIZ and it's never endorsed by an AVN or XBIZ writer, but a piece of news covered by XBIZ and AVN and endorsed by their editors still starts from a company press release (except for interviews) and it still follow the original press release draft for a good 90%. This is just to say that you can't treat notability in porn as you would do in mainstream entertainment. --Engenius (talk) 01:12, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Creative professionals guidelines

The criteria for the inclusion of articles on "creative professionals" are far more stringent than those for entertainers, and I'm wondering why.

For instance, one of the criteria for entertainers is "has a large fan base or a significant 'cult' following." Writers often have a "a large fan base or significant 'cult' following," but for "creative professionals", notability is based on reception among peers or critics. This would be like including figures from the entertainment business only if they've been widely recognized in RS as having made significant contributions to their craft. In fact, most working fiction writers survive on the basis of their fan following; they don't have the attention of the Manhattan-based publishing elite, but their books keep getting published and keep selling. Under the current guidelines, a writer must be "important" (which elsewhere is distinguished from generally "notable") and have demonstrated significance to a degree that only the top echelon of writers ever achieve. By contrast, I've never tried to look up any minor actor and not found a WP biography. WP is full of garage bands that few people are ever going to hear of.

Based on our guidelines, a writer could've published five books, had one of them reviewed in several sources, and been nominated for an Edgar, and her article could still be targeted for deletion. A poet who's published three books, won an award, and been nominated for others isn't "notable" enough (though obviously acknowledged within the field, if you know anything about the world of contemporary poetry), because neither of them

• is regarded by peers or successors as "important". (David Foster Wallace is important to literary history; Bernard Cornwell is not.)
• has originated a significant new concept, theory or technique. (Vanishingly few writers throughout literary history have done this; if there are even 50 in Western literature who could meet this criterion inarguably I'd be surprised.)
• 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. (This one takes the cake. A measure of a writer's notability is whether his book has made into a movie? Ha. And there are many, many writers who have produced a "well-known" book within their genre or field that hasn't been the subject of a book-length treatment. Popular writers with a large fan base may not generate academic treatment in periodicals.)
• has work that either (a) has become a significant monument, (b) has been a substantial part of a significant exhibition, (c) has won significant critical attention, or (d) is represented within the permanent collections of several notable galleries or museums. (Again, this is setting a much higher bar than we set for entertainers. It excludes many, many contemporary visual artists who may exhibit regularly, perhaps contributing one painting that is arguably not a "substantial" part of whatever a "significant" exhibition is, or who may have independent exhibitions in galleries that aren't permanent.)

These stringent guidelines encourage deletion battles over articles about writers who have numerous publications and a solid readership, or writers of previous centuries who are quite minor figures but who left enough of a mark on culture to be noted, though not to the glorious degree outlined above. Notoriously, however, Wikipedia features many articles on supporting characters from TV series (or the actors who portray them) that have no cultural currency beyond the number of eyes who watch them. They don't have to be "important" to peers or successors.

I would also point out that a couple of years ago, there was a flurry of coverage about print publications cutting back their book review sections; mid-list authors in particular are now reliant mainly on online-only book review sites such as Bookslut which may not meet RS. By comparison, a short-lived, critically panned crime show will generate a number of articles in MSM that would enable it to meet notability criteria. The notability criteria should be appropriate to the field of endeavor.

What gives? If you've ever tried to get a book accepted by a major publisher, you know that the mere fact of getting five or six books published is a serious vetting process. (Stupid and trivial books get published, but dumb stuff can still be notable, as we acknowledge frequently on WP). Why are sales figures and a fan base not acceptable measures of notability for writers? I emphasize writers, but as I point out above, visual artists get the shaft too, in different ways. Cynwolfe (talk) 15:14, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Having read this twice, I am wondering exactly how you would like to see the change. I think no one is actually challenging most author pages as notable (I mean if an author gets nominated for an award or is discussed in 3 or more sources, they are likely to be kept in my experience). Bernard Cornwall, for instance, is clearly notable because historical fiction critics bring him up all the time. However, many first novelists, per my recently written article Debut novel, don't stand much of a chance in creating an impact on readership or the publishing industry, therefore are non-notable. Do you have any particular deletion discussions in mind where you think our notability policies have been misapplied? I don't remember encountering any recently, I think the bias you are seeing is just because less people are interested in talking about their favorite authors and novels unfortunately :P If you could give some more specific ways in which you would like to see the Notability guidelines changed that would be great, Sadads (talk) 16:26, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, quite right. (I mentioned Cornwell to illustrate the subjective ambiguity of "importance": he's clearly notable and a competent craftsman, as indicated by his level of success and accompanying coverage, but has no importance in terms of canonical literary history, and certainly doesn't meet the criterion of originating something new.) I'm thinking of so-called "mid-list" authors, who have published a number of books and whose sales records obviously are substantial enough for mainstream publishers to keep publishing their works, but who won't generate a lot of secondary coverage for the reasons above. Publication of multiple books by a mainstream publisher (that is, one who meets guidelines similar to those of RS) is in itself evidence of notability, in a way that self-published books aren't, because it's a vetting process. Entertainers are considered notable if a certain number of people think they are (the "fan" or "cult" criterion); I don't know how fandom is verified, but if it's a legitimate criterion, it should apply to writers as well. As for specific examples, here's the most recent one that prompted this tirade: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Carole Berry. (Here's another, historical and from a different field, and another minor writer.) All these resulted in "keep" (well, one is still open), but the strong wording of the "creative professional" guidelines encourages these time-wasting AfDs, when what's probably needed in most of these cases is a simple {{Refimprove}} tag. Cynwolfe (talk) 17:11, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Okay so now I see what you are getting at, that is a problem, people aren't looking far enough afield for sources to point to significant coverage through reviews in periodicals per #3 with the following wording which cuts the wording "significant or well-known work," which as you point out is not at all representative in other parts of the encyclopedia and adds the fact that industry review is still review:

• The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a 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. (Reviews may include industry publications such as Kirkus Review or Publisher's Weekly for books).

Is this getting at where you see the problem? Our standards for books are nowhere near as high as our standard for their authors apparently, and I think this solves it. We may also want to add a note to #1 which mentions that "High regard from peers can be ascertained based on recognition as winners or runner ups for creative community awards." Sadads (talk) 17:50, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

We may also want to say at the beginning "Creative professionals should be considered notable if they meet one or more of the following:" because as you point out, rarely does someone meet all those criteria, especially in literature and art, Sadads (talk) 17:53, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, sorry I didn't try to distill my first remarks better; I was trying to show the reasoning. I especially like the "one or more" introduction you propose. What we want is something to verify that a writer is established in the profession, it seems to me, as a form of notability; the current wording sounds as if we're placing a special burden of importance, quality, or significance on those who fall in the category of "creative professionals" that doesn't apply to entertainers in general (since writers of popular fiction can be considered "entertainers" in that their work is meant to be entertaining, not necessarily monumental). I also agree that awards, or nominations for awards that are not self-nominated (which are sometimes made public), are indications of peer esteem that could be mentioned in establishing notability. I left requests for comments at various projects pertaining to literature, so there may be other suggestions for wording forthcoming.

In the criterion you quote, I would change the order of clauses: The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a work, or collective body of work, that has been the subject of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews, or of an independent book or feature-length film. The clause I've moved to the end is a harder-to-reach goal than the other, and it would be unusual to have a work that spawned an independent book or film without having had reviews. I would also place this criterion first in the list, as it seems more basic than evaluations of a writer's importance or originality. Having those two first may cause an over-reading of what the third actually says.Cynwolfe (talk) 21:07, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Very good. I like we are with this, hopefully some others show up :P 08:55, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Cynwolfe's new wording is much better! The old wording definitely led to over-reading of the requirements and was quite out of sync with WP:MUSICBIO. Voceditenore (talk) 09:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is not to loosen criteria on others but to figure out how to apply them to pop bands, most of whom play in bars and have cut whatever passes for a CD nowdays. They aren't very "notable." How do we take "creative" guidelines and apply it to pop musicians? Student7 (talk) 17:40, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

The gulf between criteria for writers and pop bands does indeed seem vast, but maybe I should point out again that I wasn't talking about "loosening" criteria to include self-published writers. You're right that a band with enough cash can rent a studio and record a professional-sounding CD, but that doesn't make them notable. Notice, however, that while a band is notable if it "has released two or more albums on a major label or on one of the more important indie labels," the bar is much higher for writers: there is no equivalent criterion such as "has authored two or more books published by a major publisher or one of the more important small presses." Writers are required to have significant secondary coverage, which as I pointed out above is increasingly hard to come by for mid-list authors these days even if their books sell well. Cynwolfe (talk) 20:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with Cynwolfe, we aren't actually loosening this policy with the wording that we propose in respect to other groups, but instead bringing the wording of the notability guidelines of writers and others "creative professionals" in line with common practice on AFDs and General notability guidelines, so that the policy does not actually interfere with what should be a straightforward acceptance of notability. Admittedly, I think we are a little too lenient on letting bands in :P but I don't think this will actually change the way we handle authors, it will just make it more straightforward, Sadads (talk) 08:26, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Clarification about List of people policy

There has been quite a bit of confusion regarding the section WP:NLIST in recent the discussions at Talk:Line of succession to the British throne. My understanding is that the policy states that every person listed in the stand-alone list Line of succession to the British throne should be notable enough to have their own Wikipedia article. Is that the correct interpretation of this policy?

I just wanted to double check, since a handful of editors have had different interpretations; for example they quote the final sentence of that section, which is: "On the other hand, a list within an article of past school presidents can contain all past presidents, not just those who are independently notable", as justification that each person listed in Line of succession to the British throne need not be independently notable.

By the way, the list I mentioned has recently been reduced in size from over 2000 people to just 40 or so, following this archived BLP/N discussion. Mlm42 (talk) 02:19, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

First of all, I think that the case against requiring independent notability is stronger. It's a finite list, and its basic reason for existing is impaired if you start blanking slots. Second, who knew John Cleese was that high on the list? Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 03:31, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Cleese? Am I missing some recondite joke? --Orange Mike | Talk 01:22, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I think the more relevant policy for stand alone lists is WP:LISTPEOPLE, not WP:NLIST, which deals mainly with lists within articles. In essence, both policies require notability but they both allow exceptions, and it is important to distinguish between those exceptions.

WP:NLIST allows for an exception for any entry which would have otherwise been listed in the article, even if not notable by itself. So, for example, many Indian universities have a list of former vice chancellors, most of which are not notable by themselves. I don't think this is relevant for stand alone lists.

WP:LISTPEOPLE allows for an exception for a "person is especially important in the list's group". I tend to see this in an expansive way. For example, if a list is by definition meant to be complete and finite, that in itself sometimes makes a person important to the list. A list of succession, for instance, looks to me like the classic case where removing a member will leave a hole in the list, making that person "especially important" to the group. You can decide to stop the list at #100, but everyone up to 100 will need to be listed. --Muhandes (talk) 07:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

While the current list of succession to the British throne may be (mercifully) finite, I would like to point out that 80% of the British are direct descendants of Edward III. So, I suppose if "something" happened to the 40 on the current list, the other 50 million or so, most of them nn, would technically be eligible. This is the trouble with genealogy, and nn lists, generally. Would be nice to reduce them as much as possible. Student7 (talk) 14:10, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Actually there are only a few thousand who are technically in line.. but your point still stands. And anyway, my question was about the non-notable people in the top 40.. I now realise the exception in WP:LISTPEOPLE allows them into lists, even if they are non-notable; thanks to Muhandes for pointing this out. Mlm42 (talk) 18:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Honourable occupations

I am in discussion about notability of a very short article concerning a Roman Catholic Bishop. I marked the article for a speedy delete as not demonstrating notability but two other editors asserted that merely being a bishop was an honourable estate and de facto conveyed notability on the article. I disagree but would welcome views, especially from editors who are not themselves linked to the Catholic faith.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   23:33, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying, and failing, to remember discussions that have taken place about notability for clergy. But given how strictly CSD ought to be applied, I'd come down on the side of saying that the page should not be speedied, and the issue should instead be addressed by WP:PROD or WP:AFD. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

As a republican I don't give a dead mackerel about "honourable estate" or any such aristo garbage; but I believe the consensus is that R.C. bishops are pretty much inherently notable. --Orange Mike | Talk 01:14, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Apologies Orangemike my thought were only half complete. The reference to honourable estate was a quotation from the Church of England marriage ceremony and I had intended to ask whether everyone who is married has therefore been awarded an honour - very much tongue in cheek. However the more significant point is that being a Bishop is a job like any other, it probably equate in salary and responsibility to a CEO of a medium sized business or a Headmaster. Why therefore are Bishops inherently notable whilst Headmasters are not? I am reluctant to start a test case AFD because that is not the way Wikipedian policy is made. Many editors believe that Bishops are inherently notable but I cannot find any policy that says so. Is this therefore a widespread delusion held by editors or is there indeed policy and if so, what is the logical basis of such a policy ? Alternatively, where can I raise this to get a proper discussion and develop some clear guidance so that we can have consistency ?  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   16:44, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

I've looked through the archives, and found Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)/Archive 2008#Notability of clergy, which I suspect still reflects the current consensus about these things. (I have a memory of a more recent discussion on the topic, but I haven't been able to figure out where I saw it.) I suppose you could also try asking at WikiProjects that deal with religions. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:38, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Essay elevation to Guideline proposal

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Notability guide#Essay to Guideline. RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:01, 12 June 2011 (UTC) (Using {{pls}})