Wikipedia talk:Notability (people)

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ATHLETE

"People who have competed at the highest amateur level of a sport, usually considered to mean the Olympic Games or World Championships."

Maybe it's me, but I don't consider the Olympics or World Championships in any way an amateur level of sport. Was this line the result of two criteria being merged together? = Mgm|^(talk) 10:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

"Amateur" just means the athletes are not allowed to be paid to participate in the event. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether they are playing sport at a high or low level. The 1991 Rugby World Cup or Boxing at the Summer Olympics are examples of amateur athletes in the Olympics or World Championships. Tameamseo (talk) 13:39, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

If it is about getting paid, then the guidelines should mention it. I consider World Championships and Olympics to be about prestige and ability (since it's hard to even qualify). To the majority of people amateur has a totally different meaning, so this needs rewording either way. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:44, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

To quote our article, "By definition amateur sports require participants to participate without remuneration." What other meaning does it have? —JAO • T • C 12:34, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Amateur sports are sometimes remunerated, at least in terms of a reimbursement fee (that is at least what happens in Italy). The distinctive feature is that amateur sportspeople are not contracted professionally for their sport activity; for instance, Paolo Maldini is a professional sportsman, because he is contracted as a footballer with a football club, whereas Valentina Vezzali (fencer and five-times gold medal at the Olympics) is not a professional sportswoman, since she actually works as a policewoman and receives a monthly salary from the Italian police corps. --Angelo (talk) 13:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

CREATIVE is garbled

It reads in part:

• The person's work 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, or had works in many significant libraries.

Note the last part, and try to figure how it's related to the rest.

I think what's meant is:

• The person's work 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.
• Works by the person are in many significant libraries.

This makes sense, but it's unsatisfactory. For example, I know that a very humdrum photo that I took and posted on my website ended up (with my permission) on the front cover of one issue of an academic journal. I'm sure that this is in dozens if not hundreds of academic libraries. Evidence of notability, not. So I'd start by making the latter:

• A book by the person is in many significant libraries.

although I hesitate to claim that this is sufficient evidence of notability. -- Hoary (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

How about this: "several notable galleries or museums, or in many significant libraries" Rd232 ^talk 04:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

"many libraries" has proven unworkable concept, because of the different sorts of books, and has not been accepted at WP:BOOK. for example, an English language US-published contemporary popular novel with fewer than 200 or 300 copies would not conceivably make the author notable. A book of experimental poetry might do it with 50. We furthermore have no way of measurement except for US/Canadian academic & public libraries, where the WorldCat count is normally somewhere between 20 and 80% the true value, depending again on the type of audience for the book. There are no comparable resources for anywhere else in the world. For a novel in , say, Italian, one can sport check major libraries, but there is no practical way of looking at overall holdings. For India, it isnt even possible to sport check adequately. And many sorts of books--pornographic fiction, for example, usually get into very few libraries. It's a factor to consider, certainly, but it could I think never be validly used as a single factor. DGG (talk) 01:11, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

How about adding designers to the list of creative professionals? They represent a broad adn significantly different sphere of practice from artists and architects, and are archetypal creative professionals. UnkleFester (talk) 02:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

"been the subject of"

The basic criteria says nothing about what constitutes a person "being the subject of" a publication. My feeling is that one of the recurring WP:BLP problems is that a passing mention (eg of an author in a book review) is too often equated with "being the subject of" a publication in a way that doesn't make sense to me. Can we find a way to clarify this? For example, a footnote to say, eg, "Being the subject of a publication means either (a) all or most of a publication relates to the person; or (b) for a publication longer than a typical news article, a substantial amount of discussion of the person." IMO that clarifies but still leaves enough vagueness for WP policy (wiggle room always needed...) We might consider clarifying further with "relates to the person not their work", but that's probably more controversial/problematic. Rd232 ^talk 04:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

the suggest a/ has been made before, and been rejected, because of the variety of types of publication. A chapter in a book, for example, is normally sufficient evidence. "Substantial" is best measured in information content, not words. DGG (talk) 01:05, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Well thanks for your comment, but you might do me the courtesy of responding to my idea and not reading previous related ones into it. My first-attempt wording is clearly about "information content, not words": it's trying to cover both relative info content (% of a publication) and absolute (total info). To take your book chapter example, how is that not covered by b? And why not try to find a generic but more precise way of pointing to the information content expected. There are plenty of ways this could be refined, I'm sure, without necessarily becoming a useless mess. Rd232 ^talk 03:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:ATHLETE and deep minor leages

Technically a baseball player in AA, A, or Rookie leagues is considered a "professional", but by all considerations is he really notable enough for inclusion? Minor leaguers barely warrant notice in towns that those leagues play in, or an aside when a move is made by the parent club. You won't see any AA games on ESPN or Fox Sports Net. Fantasy players don't have rosters of all the Rookie League players. These teams won't shock their way into the World Series. The letter of the law says they're professional. Common sense should say they're not notable enough. DarkAudit (talk) 22:03, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

We generally go by common sense on minor leaguers. I mean, having a short a or rookie league article is just silly. Wizardman 22:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

PORNBIO

Wikiproject Pornography is proposing to amend PORNBIO to:

• Has won a well-known award, such as those listed in Category:Adult movie awards or Category:Film awards, or has received nominations in multiple years.
• Is a Playboy Playmate.
• Has made unique contributions to a specific pornographic genre, such as beginning a trend in pornography; starred in an iconic, groundbreaking or blockbuster feature; or is a member of an industry Hall of Fame such as the AVN Hall of Fame, XRCO Hall of Fame or equivalent.
• Has been featured multiple times in notable mainstream media.

The proposal was agreed to from a discussion on the project's talk page. The purpose of the revisions are also discussed there. We wanted to align the first criteria to the general WP:BIO criteria. As for the second criteria, we agreed that Playmates should be presumed notable since all Playmates seem to be frequently covered by reliable mainstream sources but the presumption does not seem to apply to all Penthouse Pets. Morbidthoughts (talk) 06:33, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

No discussion? I will be bold and amend the guidelines on behalf of the project within a day. Morbidthoughts (talk) 20:54, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: - Skip the "multiple nominations" part, since that means two or more. If the person is being nominated so frequently that it becomes notable, it will be notable by itself. Also, skip the Playboy Playmate criterion, and add them only when they have managed to be covered by multiple reliable mainstream sources in the same way that we would expect any other notable person to be (i.e., they are a primary subject of the article, not just mentioned in passing). At this stage, we're talking literally thousands of women, most of whom would not meet notability criteria except for their Playboy pictorial. I also have no idea what "starting a trend in pornography" means, so a little non-graphic explanation would be appreciated. Risker (talk) 21:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Well the first criteria under the proposed PORNBIO is a clarification of the additional criteria for any biography, "The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them" as to how it would apply to pornography. The project did not want to deviate from this even though I agree with you. I believe all Playmates of the Months are notable because of the basic threshold although finding available sources for the older ones are more difficult. It would be very contentious to remove the presumed notability of playmates.[1]. As for the "starting a trend" part, for someone that thinks he has seen everything there is to be seen in porn and is not surprised by anything anymore, that's really difficult to conceptualise or explain. ;) I think it just means that the performer is a pioneer of pornography. Like the first actress to be known to perform anal sex on video or the first person to start a genre like gonzo or POV (first person-point of view). It is very rarely triggered and as with the other criterias must be verifiable by a reliable source. Morbidthoughts (talk) 21:57, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually we're talking 600-700 women that would qualify by virtue of being a Playmate. I'm not sure how many have been the centerfold more than once. That's well short of "literally thousands of women". Foreign edition playmates seem to only have the article when they are borderline or meet some other category.Horrorshowj (talk) 03:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Comment:I have a concern with how much this proposal limits content. The reasoning behind it is to clamp down subpar stubs it looks like from comments in other discussions. Realistically, the internet has spawned several actresses/models that have larger fan bases than a random Playmate from 1986. They are more noteworthy and relevant due to this relatively new medium. If sources can be found to verify it there should not be a concern. Unfortunately, some editors chose to not fix articles and flag for deletion in a knee-jerk fashion. My garbage attempt at an Alison Angel page when I had little knowledge of how to create a decent article is an example. I think one with possibly more merit was the Japanese porn Twins (forgot their names) that were automatically considered not notable because the current guidelines (and they are just guidelines not strict protocol) did not allow for it. The editor actually made a decent article considering. Tightening the guidelines more spits in the face of the spirit of Wikipedia.Cptnono (talk) 05:36, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
• Re Playmates: I like Playboy and have edited several Playmate articles, but I'm not a fan of the "every Playmate is notable" standard.
  • It seems there are many past Playmates without any meaningful reliable source coverage, and there's few enough Playmates overall (<700) to differentiate the well-covered ones from the rest.
  • A list approach would be a perfectly reasonable compromise, with individual articles where notability requirements are actually met, and would reduce administrative overhead.
  • This requirement as it's written, as someone above mentioned, is possibly based on US-centric assumptions; is every Playmate in every monthly international edition (there's like a dozen) also notable? If not, why not?
  • Finally, in passing, getting this right is especially important given BLP requirements and the tendency of these articles to be vandalism targets. Removing this notability might be temporarily contentious, but BLP concerns trump that. Townlake (talk) 00:19, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:ATHLETE needs updating

Wikipedia is MISSING OUT on easy clicks from people at minor league ballparks, on their blackberries etc. With the current WP:ATHLETE guidelines as they are, minor leaguers can't have a sports stub with they're minor league statistics displayed, for both fans, athletes themselves, or pro team scouts. And Wikipedia just says, "no! Minor Leaguers don't meet criteria...that's because the current criteria is misguided. Minor League baseball players are under contract with pro teams, but of course can't be put on the 40-man roster, so are stored in they're farm system. They;re still a part of the team, just not on the team, but still professional ball players. Meeting current criteria, but unfortunately, some of your admins interpret the policy differently than how it should be interpreted. Re-write the policy or instruct your admins to allow professional minor league ball players have a sports stub. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gjr rodriguez (talk • contribs) 15:57, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

• WP:ATHLETE certainly needs updating, but not in this direction. Athletes are the new Pokemon of Wikipedia. Now that the Pokemon people have cleaned up their act, athletes are replacing them and in many AfDs one can see disparaging comments like "this person does not meet WP:BIO, but if he had been on the field for 5 min during a baseball game, things would be different. The current criteria including any and every person who ever came onto a field lead to the creation of numerous stubs, 99.9% of which will never ever develop into anything resembling an encyclopedic article (nor could they be developed as such, as there simply are no sources on almost all of these athletes, except a listing in some sport statistics book). For example this article. I don't think anybody will be able to explain why somebody who played a single baseball game in 1939 should be in Wikipedia. Alternatively, I propose to create WP:ACCOUNTANT:

• People who have worked at the fully professional level of accountancy
• People who have worked at the highest amateur level of accountancy, such as filing income taxes independently

--Crusio (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Crusio, and in fact I have been dissatisifed with WP:ATHLETE for a long time. The problem is not necessarily whether non-notable athletes should all have articles—people on both sides have put forth convincing arguments, such as LinguistAtLarge's comment that these stubs don't really hurt the encyclopedia and we have plenty of server space—but rather, the problem is that there is massive inconsistency across the different types of bio guidelines. For example, if you compare WP:PROFESSOR to WP:ATHLETE, you will see that to get onto Wikipedia, an academic needs to make a much bigger contribution to the world than an athlete does. Maybe this is just a consequence of the fact that we've got an encyclopedia run by idle young people who mostly come from societies that idolize athletes, but still, it is a problem, and there should be a discussion across all the different Notability (people) guidelines to ensure that our standards are consistent for different kinds of people. Either guidelines such as WP:ATHLETE should be tightened, or guidelines such as WP:PROFESSOR should be loosened; right now, it's not very appropriate to have articles on people who played in two or three inconsequential ball games and then lived happily ever after, and exclude people who devote their lives to some academic pursuit and publish numerous articles but don't necessarily have the sort of "impact" that WP:PROFESSOR requires. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 16:30, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Clearly, there are many, many people who make immense or meaningful contributions to society. However, swell guys that these people may be, they are not necessarily "notable" in the context of an encyclopedia, and Wikipedia does not exist to recognize people's accomplishments. An encyclopedia's purpose is to document things and people who are of a public and historical interest. No sensible person will argue that heart surgeons, policemen, anthropology professors, and astrophysicists make less important contributions than, say, Allen Iverson. However, like it or not, athletes far less notable than him are of a public and historical interest to the general populace, and would be included in a sports almanac. Most professors who publish papers in scholarly journals and write technical books simply are not. The strawmen that Crusio knocks down, accountants and pokemon characters, clearly do not have this public interest either. I think everyone (outside of that particular profession) would be hard pressed to even name a single accountant and the comparisons are ridiculous on their face. Strikehold (talk) 17:18, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Where does it say that Wikipedia is only for things that are of "interest to the general populace"? Documenting that sort of information is a noble goal, but I don't think it's WP's goal; such a criterion would exclude many articles that are here (such as obscure math and science topics), and allow many articles that aren't (such as many kinds of Pokemon and other TV show fancruft; like it or not, there is a large part of the population that cares more about that stuff than about anything "academic"). I acknowledge that more people care about non-notable athletes than about, for example, linguistics scholars. But "how many people care about it" has never (as far as I know) been a major part of Wikipedia's notability guidelines (for example page views do not establish or take away notability). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 17:29, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I said that "An encyclopedia's purpose is to document things and people who are of a public and historical interest." You quoted me out of context. It is not simply about "popularity", it is about a historical interest, which I think the notability guidelines attempt to quantify. People are going to want to know about magnetohydrodynamics. People are going to want to know about Steiner's theorem. No one is going to care about most PSYCH 101 professors 200 years from now, but someone will want to know who pitched for the Senators in 1904, and that information would be included in an almanac. WP:Athlete is not nearly as indiscriminate as either of you are saying. Arbitrary? Sure, any objective measure would be, by necessity. But it is not indiscriminate. Take football for instance: every year thousands of college football players graduate and only a fraction of them make it to the NFL, even fewer actually play in a game to satisfy WP:ATH. Strikehold (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify; when I refer to WP:PROFESSOR, I just do that because that's the name of the sh ortcut, not because I'm only talking about 101 professors. We all agree that no one wants articles like "Mr. Klein is the bestest professor ever!" I'm talking about academics' research and contributions to their field, not about their teaching; if a professor's only claim to fame is teaching PSYC 101 then of course they should not meet any notability requirements. My quibble is with the requirements about academics' contributions to the field, not about non-notable teaching. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:51, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I was being snarky, but the large majority of professors, noble and beneficial as their contributions may be, do not attain a level of "notability" that I think merits inclusion in an encyclopedia. Can you name an academic you think notable that doesn't meet WP:Professor? I believe that WP:Professor nicely covers the criteria that it should, and am frankly confused as to how you would propose loosening it. Of course, I guess the point you are making is that it shouldn't be loosened, but WP:Athlete should be tightened. Honestly though, athletics and scholarship are such different animals that a direct analogy between the two seems a little silly to me. Essentially, WP:Professor attempts to include "the best" and most well-known scholars; WP:Athlete does the same. In all sports there are multiple tiers, and only a very select few play at the top-level, i.e. "the best". Drawing a cut-off line at the highest tier is an objective way of doing things. I believe that is the best way, because it reduces guesswork and hopefully unproductive AFDs and needless bureaucracy. Strikehold (talk) 19:23, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

You are correct that it's difficult to compare the two; they're both bios, but the importance of a person (not just Wikipedia "notability", but importance in the real world) is connected to the actual person in different ways. For an academic, what's really important is their work/research/theories; only in rather unusual cases does the person themself also become notable for something. For an athlete, on the other hand, there is not really a body of work, or theory, that you can detach from the person and write about—the article is much more about the person him/herself.... For example, I could write a decent article on "the work of Peter Hagoort" (a neurolinguist), whereas it would be pretty silly to write "the plays made by Will Venable" (totally random example, I just remember coming across it at DYK in the past). So it's hard to compare the two.

I still do think it's something we need to discuss and need to work on making more consistent across guidelines. But I take back some of my earlier comparisons, since you are correct that they're two pretty different topics. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• I think the comparison with academics that Rjanag makes is, then, perhaps a better one than with the accountants. "All academics publish" is an argument often put forward at AfDs, to indicate that the sole fact that somone publishes is not enough to make that person notable. WP:PROF can roughly be summarized as "should be more notable than the average professor". The contrast with WP:ATHLETE is glaring: ANY athlete is notable. Nobody is arguing that we should not have articles on notable or even mildly notable athletes. But I think that having an article on every person who ever stood on the grass for even a split second during a professional ball game (which is what WP:ATHLETE currently says) is just as silly a including all accountants or all academics. As for the Pokemon characters, they had enough interest to generate hundreds of articles, becoming the ridicule of Wikipedia. As for the argument that those sport stubs don't hurt Wikipedia, I am not sure about that. If one clicks the "random article" link and finds stub after stub of unsourced (or poorly sourced) "articles" that basically only say "John Doe (1889-1946) played one baseball game in the 1913 season for the XYZ professional team", that may give a rather superficial impression of this here "encyclopedia". If that is notable, then why is my math teacher not in here, too? --Crusio (talk) 17:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:Athlete most certainly does not say "any athlete is notable". Strikehold (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• OK, any professional athlete. There are, believe it or not, many amateur scientists (astronomers, botanists, zoologists), so in analogy to ATHLETE, should we make PROF say that any "professional academic" is notable? --Crusio (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

A lot of people (both here and in the AfD mentioned at the beginning of this thread) have brought up the point that we need objective notability criteria for bios. This is a good point, as it helps keep some order here (although I seriously doubt any criteria will ever be 100% objective; that's why we need editors who think critically and use their brains when evaluating articles, as we all are right now). So, since this discussion has basically become a comparison of two specific sets of guidelines (WP:ATHLETE and WP:PROF), here's my thought on a way to make the two consistent (which was my main concern above) while keeping guidelines "objective": if an athlete gets notability from one professional game, should an academic get notability from one citation in a major journal in their field? Both are objective and quantifiable (assuming we can identify which journals qualify as "major"), although I guess people could dispute how "big" of a citation it was (ie, how much the person's work being cited is actually an influence for the newer article, and how much it's just part of a list of citations.)
(This is not a rhetorical question or a POINT or anything...it's an actual suggestion to consider informally.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:56, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Yikes! even my undergraduate student would then be notable! Better make it analogous to Athlete: "anybody who has done science on a professional level".... --Crusio (talk) 19:04, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Haha. Ok, then maybe we can limit it to Nature... ;) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Anyway, my point is, whatever standard we have for one guideline set (whether it be WP:ATHLETE, WP:PROF, WP:CREATIVE, etc.), all the standards should be comparable. What I suggested above may well be ridiculous; if it is, though, then other notability guideline sets should not be equally ridiculous (and there are plenty of people, myself included, who would say the current WP:ATHLETE standard is). If lowering the PROF and some other standards to this would be unthinkable, then maybe it would be more appropriate to raise the bar on WP:ATHLETE to make it comparable to the others. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I feel that we have to think along those levels. As far as I am concerned, including any professional scientist is just as silly as including every professional athlete. We should only include those that stand out and for whom such things like independent reliable sources are available, to satisfy WP:V. --Crusio (talk) 19:16, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I thought we were due for another talk thread about the evils of WP:ATHLETE. It's a fair conversation to have, and I'll take this opportunity to point out that if there's going to be a serious effort to change or eliminate the specific notability standards associated with athletes, I think that effort ultimately needs to take place on a more widely-watched page than this one. Crusio, your comment above is interesting and, in fact, highlights the specific problem. As much as a stub page that says "Joe Highsocks played shortstop for one game with the New York Yankees in 1938" might be annoying, I can almost guarantee you that with only about 10 minutes of work, I could find you half a dozen reliable sources that could verify that fact was true.

I, in fact, would be perfectly happy to see WP:ATHLETE eliminated. If nothing else, it would stop all of the arguments like "association football/football/hockey is a professional sport" that pop up in the deletion arguments over articles on truly-notable amateur athletes.

Ultimately, the argument shifts from WP:ATHLETE to WP:RS, and what's our standard for considering a source reliable. Maybe we're really asking for important sources instead? Mlaffs (talk) 21:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I donno, WP:PROF sets the bar for academics at a far higher level than "verifiably demonstrated to have once drawn a paycheque as an academic", and WP:MUSIC draws the bar far higher than "verifiably got paid to strum a guitar on stage once". IMHO, AfDs around those criteria don't hinge upon WP:RS. I think the problem with WP:ATHLETE and RS is that the bar is so low that verifying the data required to pass it is problematic. If the bar were higher, I think RS would be less of a problem. Pete.Hurd (talk) 21:27, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I recently reviewed WP BLP articles and found that our articles about athletes are some of the worst articles on Wikipedia. Many of these articles were started from a list of people on a roster and are outdated and poorly sourced now. The links are dead. They can not easily be updated because there are not easily available English language sources about them. They can not be expanded because no one has written a comprehensive book (biography) about them.

The entire point of our article inclusion criteria for people is to determine who is to have an article written about them. We need to narrow the number of people that have entries to the ones where people have significant accomplishments that cause independent reference works to be written about them. All people that compete as professional athletes do not have the type of accomplishments that spark enough interest in them that one or more people write a comprehensive work about them. Unless we have this type of reference work, the entry will not expand beyond a stub and the person does not need a separate article. The inclusion criteria, (Nobility guidelines) need to be re-written to assure that we are not keeping articles about people that will never expand beyond a stub or poorly sourced short articles.

Including the information about most professional athletes in articles about the team or the event will give us a better finished product and is the correct approach most of the time. I strongly support re-writing WP:Athlete so it only includes entries about people that can be well-referenced by several comprehensive independent references. FloNight♥♥♥ 21:57, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for that (as I have probably made abundantly clear right now). I just think that any change we make to WP:ATHLETE or another guideline should be done in conjunction with a discussion about all the guidelines, so that we are at least keeping the others in mind and trying to be consistent across them. I guess the best thing to do is try to measure more or less how high the other guidelines' bars are, and then brainstorm about how to approximate that height in WP:ATHLETE. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I'm in favor of re-writing all our inclusion criteria for people. But since we see an obvious problem, I think we should act on the Athlete guideline now. The rest of the guidelines can follow based on the a better way of evaluating which people will be able to have high quality articles. FloNight♥♥♥ 23:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I would support an altogether scrapping of all "additional criteria" to WP:BIO if it weren't for the fact that it would cause an explosion in needless bureaucracy and palaver. Case in point: An article I wrote on a college athlete, who many considered as in contention for the Heisman Trophy during the season, was prodded. I added five full featured articles on the individual, each one from a different newspaper of record in a major American city (combined daily circulation was about 1 million people). The original prodder declined to take it AFD, but still stubbornly expressed that he didn't think the guy was notable.

We are going to see an inordinate amount of this kind of petty haggling if we take an objective measurement of notability and replace it with a completely subjective one. It takes away from the encyclopedia; people who otherwise would be making meaningful contributions to it will be engaged instead in bureaucracy. On the other hand, the existence of articles on borderline notable individuals (be they academics, athletes, or whatever else) does no damage to the encyclopedia and provides information that some people will actually find useful. Individuals who are non-notable without a doubt, will be deleted anyway. Strikehold (talk) 11:32, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The existing system worked, I think. We (the community of contributors) never will have complete agreement on which individual meets any criteria because human judgment is involved. People will have different opinions. We ask that our contributors listen to other people's point of view, seek out more opinions if there is still disagreement, and then step back when the consensus is against them. Seems that there was a good resolution in your situation under the current guidelines.

Personally, I'm an avid American college sports fan, and follow news about high school recruiting, pro drafts, Heisman watch, March Madness... But, I'm not convinced that Wikipedia should have an individual article about every recruit or potential recipient of a major award. The content about these people is best presented in an article about the event, award, or organization. The information about these people quickly becomes outdated unless the person has continued achievement so individual articles grow stale, links go dead and the content can not be easily verified, and the articles are not of the quality I want for a living person.

Unfortunately, harm does come when we have articles about people that are underwatched. Many of these people are not "public" people and do not want loads of attention about the details of their life. As well, they are truly upset when their article is vandalized, or nonsensical or malicious content is added. Additionally, the reader is not well served when we host content that is outdated and never will be improved because there is not significant reliable sources to add about the person. People are not written about in a neutral way because we do not have adequate information to present their life in the proper context.

Instead if we put the content about people of minor notability in articles about the event that makes them notable, we have a manageable group of articles that can be improved to a good or FA level. Having a massive number of pre-stub, stub, or start level articles that can not be improved to be high quality does not make Wikipedia a reputable reference source. I hope that you will consider the approach of putting the material in a central article instead of an individual entry as I think that works best for many of these athletes. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:24, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't see how putting "material [on a specific athlete] in a central article" is an acceptable alternative. For one, someone searching for information on that individual will be significantly hampered in doing so if it is "centralized". Secondly, article length and quality are surmountable problems. I beg to differ with the editors who say that athletes are some of the worst articles. Many of the science and applied science articles are atrocious, and that is far more detrimental to the reputation of the encyclopedia than having a bunch of stubs on Uruguayan soccer players. As for the "not public people" remark that seems to me to be a hollow argument. Many people of note or who made significant contributions did not willfully accept fame and recognizability, and privacy concerns are not a reason to deprive the world of information on those people. Additionally, by the very nature of the encyclopedia and the tenets of WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:N, all the included information is available openly elsewhere. Strikehold (talk) 12:54, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah...while I am still of the opinion that WP:ATHLETE needs to be made stricter (although, as Strikehold points out, it would still need to be something objective and quantifiable...of course, a lot of the other bio guidelines are rather subjective, but that doesn't give us an excuse to make this one overly subjective too), I do not see how "centralizing" articles on "non-notable" athletes would be workable. (Note: when I say "non-notable athlete" I'm referring to stubs like Jim Schelle, which technically meet WP:ATHLETE but I personally don't think meet WP:N...since that's mainly what this whole discussion is about.) For a lot of these guys, I simply don't see where they would go, unless we wanted to create a List of former players of Team X article for every team. I suppose that might not be so bad. But listing all these guys in teh main articles on a given team, a given award, etc., would make those articles become pretty crappy. Is "list of former players from X" the kind of solution you're suggesting? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:59, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I want to make articles with list of former players. A redirect of the person's name to an article about the team or event as you suggest will send the reader to the correct place. Then a person on the list will include a link(s) to to articles about a particular year for the team. This approach will give the reader more information about the topic then they would find in many of these articles that are stubs with few links to them or from them. Since most of these people have little or no information available about them in the individual articles there is not a problem with writing one or two concise paragraphs about the person. If the person does have ongoing achievements that lead to substantial material created about them in independent reliable sources, then a separate entry can be created. I'm not opposed to any article on any topic that has the potential to be a good or FA. But I'm not in favor of Wikipedia editors continuing to create articles that grow stale, are subject to vandalism, hoaxes, and nonsensical or malicious content. To much work is involved in maintaining these low quality articles for it to be practical as the volume of articles has risen. FloNight♥♥♥ 14:05, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I strongly disagree with the list idea. Wizardman 17:39, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I actually like the idea in theory as a maintenance reducer, but in practice the lists would either be frightfully long or choppy and redundant. I can't imagine this being workable. Townlake (talk) 02:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree completely with the idea of listifying athlete articles or merging them into team articles. Team articles would become incredibly unwieldly with paragraph after paragraph about notable athletes (some of these clubs have been around more than 100 years and have hundreds of notable players). Maintaining lists of notable players for a club would pose a similar problem. Further, it would be rather confusing to search for a famous athlete (take Pele) if you must find all of the clubs they played for to learn about them. This would be a huge step backwards. Jogurney (talk) 03:45, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I also wanted to mention that I agree that WP:ATHLETE could be tightened a bit. Since the guideline uses a bright-line (playing professionally), there are the occasional articles about athletes that played 5 or 10 minutes of professional sport yet qualify. If there is a way to make the standard "one season" (or some logical equivalent) of professional play, I think it would eliminate some of the worst articles that narrowly pass the current guideline, yet would reduce the amount of AfD work for athlete article if there were no guideline other than WP:BIO. Jogurney (talk) 03:53, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Since I'm the one who closed the AFD used as an example in this thread, I'm going to give my thoughts on this. I consider myself a mild inclusionist so I don't share the concerns the original prodder has about "pokemonization". It doesn't bother me if we have a zillion articles on Pokemon, fictional characters, TV episodes, video game weapons, or what have you as long as such subjects are verifiable. However, many of the subjects covered under WP:ATHLETE are BLPs. Jim Schelle died in 1990 so he isn't one of them but should a contemporary little known minor league player who may have played in 1 major league game have an article, which would be one of the top (if not the first) google hits for his name? Articles on big time stars like Barry Bonds are on a 1000 or more watchlists but Joe 1game Shmoe's article would be subject to someone with a grudge against him (or some random huckleberry looking for lulz) inserting unsourced but credible sounding bullshit. So maybe we should expect a little bit more then "he played in one game" if for no other reason then to reduce the number of articles on living people we need to police. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:02, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the word professional is throwing things off. Somebody who plays AAA baseball (the level right below MLB) gets paid around $2,000 per month, compare that to the lowest of MLB players who recieve around $250,000 per year. While both are professionals, there's obviously there's a huge gap there. There are over 23,000 articles currently in WP:BASEBALL, most I would wager are player stubs. Adding minor league players would mean an article for players on all of these teams dating back to the 1910s, that's a lot of a lot of articles when the majority of those in the MLB still are very poor. blackngold29 01:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

BLP1E

I think the definition of WP:BLP1E needs expanding. For instance, for me, BLP1E should clearly cover situations like this: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Scott Waddle - but not everyone agrees, because the Event led to a book and a lecture career based on the event. More generally, I'd argue that One Event should be expanded to One Thing: if we can have an article on the thing and there is little other info on the person, why have a bio, rather than a redirect to the event or thing for which they are notable? Recent(ish) example: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Shellenberger, on an author notable for one co-authored book (OK, and the essay which the book was based on... quibbling). More generally, I just don't think we should have bios on people who meet all three of these criteria: (a) if there is little or no bio material available and (b) the material on the notable stuff we want to include is better handled elsewhere and (c) they're not unambiguously notable. That's wider than BLP1E but IMO the underlying logic is very similar. Rd232 ^talk 13:07, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the meaning of WP:BLP1E is misunderstood. People will claim that the person does not fall under BLP1E because that there is significant media coverage of the person. That misses the point that BLP1E recognizes that these people have received significant media coverage per our usual standards. That is the reason that the specific policy clarification was needed. The reason that the person should not have an article is because they do not have significant life accomplishments to have ongoing interest in them. There are not any in depth reference works written about them that we can use as sources to write a comprehensive balance article about them. The event that caused the media coverage will pass and there will not be adequate information to cover the rest of the persons life. That is the reason that the person is best covered in an article about the event. If we follow BLP1E, then we don't try to overreach. If we don't follow it, then we end up presenting an one dimensional aspect of the persons life as a complete biographical profile of the person. That does not follow our WP:NPOV policy. FloNight♥♥♥ 15:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, well argued. Perhaps we should try to work on the BLP1E policy: clarify the rationale for it; or even discuss extending its meaning. Rd232 ^talk 15:50, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I think it is a gray area that requires some judgment on a case-by-case basis. An individual notable mostly for one event may garner significant media and historical coverage that provides enough information to warrant an article. To take one of the examples, I don't necessarily see Scott Waddle as violating BLP1E. Although the Waddle article needs a lot of clean up and expansion, looking at the long list of external links, it looks like it may be possible to develop into a decent article. A paper encyclopedia, even a specialized one, has to maintain rigorous limits for inclusion; Wikipedia has the leeway to be more inclusive. That isn't a detriment, it is an advantage. Someone researching an event can get a far deeper understanding if its major actors have substantive, well-written articles. An example: Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. I think BLP1E should be reserved for individuals that clearly have a very limited depth of notability; an excellent example that has been given in the past is the passengers of the Mayflower. I think preventing articles on those kinds of individuals is the true intent of BLP1E. Strikehold (talk) 23:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Obviously your threshold for notability is lower than mine. I'm more interest in whether the article adds value compared to discussing the One Thing. Also I don't think referencing something like the Mayflower passengers is any use at all though - anything pre-internet struggles to have major BLP1E issues. NB The long list of refs in Scott Waddle all relate to the event or its aftermath. Rd232 ^talk 00:46, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

That is why I said quite clearly "may", regarding Waddle. In some instances, on a case-by-case basis, articles on people with limited notability can add value in discussing "the one thing", as you say. I gave the Mayflower merely as an example, obviously everyone realizes it does not related directly to BLP. My point is, what is "one thing" and who decides the extent of it? How is "one thing" better than "one event" (Which itself is rather hazy). If put in modern times, would Gavrilo Princip not meet BLP1E, because he is really notable only for one thing, despite that that "one thing" ultimately was responsible for significantly affecting hundreds of millions of people? How does the article on the captain of the Titanic, Edward Smith, "add value" (to use your words) to the Titanic incident (and pass BLP1E), whereas Waddle's article does not? Strikehold (talk) 10:55, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say that it did (Edward Smith bio adds value to Titanic story) and I'm not sure that it does - there's an awful lot of fairly pointless overlap and once there's gone there's little left that's actually notable or relevant. However at least any BLP of someone who lived long before the internet age almost necessarily relies much more heavily on WP:RS, and doesn't suffer from the WP:UNDUE issues of people ignoring WP:NOT#NEWS. Plus not actually being a Living Person any more lessens the BLP issues... Rd232 ^talk 23:44, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Strongly suggest quantifiable definition of "cult following" and "fan base".

Has a large fan base or a significant "cult" following. is undeniably vague. This should have a quantifiable value to it. Suggestions:

• Has a fan base or "cult" following of more than 1,000.
• The word "OR" means one "OR" the other, as opposed to "AND", correct?
• Wikipedia's article on Cult following states that these dedicated followings are usually relatively small, and often pertain to items that don't have broad mainstream appeal, so would it be 100 or more?
• "Cult followers" being dedicated enough that many people of similar interest are familiar with one another due to convention gatherings, concerts, message boards, Internet chat rooms, word of mouth, or shops featuring related items -- is vague in that "many people" also does not state a quantifiable amount, as well as conflicting with "usually relatively small". CelticWonder (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: WP has a long tradition of avoiding placing these kinds of numeric thresholds for notability. Notability should be demonstrated through a combination of reliable sources and WP:CONSENSUS. The argument for avoiding a numeric threshold is particularly strong for this topic: I can just see hordes of fans descending on WP with as many sockpuppets as necessary... Or attempting to manipulate off-site sources to show a larger following, knowing what magic number they need to hit. WP should document the world, not change it. Rd232 ^talk 11:23, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: heh that already happens way too much, I'm sure (sockpuppets), but you may have misunderstood what I meant. Usually evidence of sockpuppetry is obvious. What I was getting at regards an entity or entertainer who has been around for ten years and has a forum with over 600 individual members. Keeping in mind that fans don't all sign up and participate on a dedicated forum, wouldn't a minimum measurable figure of 600 be considered a "large fan base" and at the very least also a "cult following"? ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) 23:42, 3 April 2009 (UTC) "

• No; like I said, 600 is an arbitrary number. You can say "look how notable it is, it has 600 whole members" and someone else could say "it's so trivial, it only has 600 members," and there would be no way to gauge who was right. Arbitrary numbers don't really help with anything. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 23:44, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, that's exactly the problem I'm suggesting should to be addressed. You could say the same thing about 100, 600, 6,000, 1 million, 10 million -- where is the line drawn that doesn't have such a differing view of whether "X is a large number / X is a small number"? The line seems to shift arbitrarily, even regarding the same subject. It's not that strange to ask for a list of guidelines (set first by general consensus, of course), is it not? That way, if multiple people who vote detrimentally on the notability of a subject who don't care for the existence of the article can't come along and say "well they only have 1 million followers", yet something that should be deleted but only has a 100-person following is kept because "100" is suddenly "enough" for a bunch of fanboys. The reason why I have such an issue with this is because I see so many articles that by all means should be in WP deleted solely citing WP:N taken to an unfair extreme by ignoring obvious, pertinent facts attesting to true notability. ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) 05:14, 4 April 2009 (UTC) "

• Yep, arbitrary numbers are pretty meaningless (see WP:BIG). As for your second question...no, this is the "inclusive or". In other words, and/or. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 14:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

• Or how about potentially allowing articles and subjects that are judged on their merits as opposed to guidelines that have to resort to strict numbers. Some editors are afraid of fixing stubs it looks like. If some notability can be verified even without meeting a magic number or guideline it should be fine. Obviously, some articles are not salvageable so don't take my comment the wrong way.Cptnono (talk) 07:00, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

• Thank you! Actually, you see what my underlying point is. "If some notability can be verified even without meeting what is too often seen as a concrete guideline it should be fine", which is precisely what I was pointing to in the many circumstances where "WP:N is taken to an unfair extreme by ignoring obvious, pertinent facts attesting to true notability". See this deletion review for example, where major radio & print media interviewed a mainstay internet radio & presenter over the course of a ten year "on the air" career and somehow narrow-mindedly is still decided "not notable". I'm truly not actually suggesting an arbitrary number be set to something like this, but what I am really suggesting is a better wording that states these are just guidelines, not set-in-stone rules. ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) 16:48, 4 April 2009 (UTC) "

• Oh wow, I stand corrected. The box at the top of the page explains my view succinctly. That would've been a perfect quote to refer to, but I didn't see it before. It should be known to everyone that sometimes it's okay to WP:Ignore all rules. ₪— CelticWonder (T·C) 16:54, 4 April 2009 (UTC) "

• I suspect that any high school band that played at a school night will easily claim 600 attendance... and hopelessly fail WP:N. Simple: it either passes general guideline, or it's out. No need to count anonimous forum users anymore. NVO (talk)
  • I usually do like quantitative criteria, but I cannot see how there is any reasonable number that is likely to apply to all genres DGG (talk) 12:06, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

A Position to Consider

It is the position of this editor (me, William R. Buckley) that any person who is mentioned as a source in relation to any other article found within Wikipedia should also be listed within a biographical article. If a person is important enough to be mentioned within a Wikipedia article, then that same person is important enough to have a biographical article about them included within Wikipedia, as well. William R. Buckley (talk) 02:22, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

If I am understanding you correctly, that is certainly not feasible. A lot of newspaper journalists, etc., are certainly not notable or worthy of mention, even though an article with their name on it happens to be cited in a Wikipedia article somewhere. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:27, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I did not write what you read. For instance, I am the second director of the International Core War Society, and on that point alone, I am noteworthy. I have been interviewed by a good number of newspapers (owing to both my role with the ICWS, and owing to certain published papers of mine, which turned out to be quite controversial - see the publication Editor and Publisher ca. 1993, regarding a paper I wrote for the CalState Fullerton student newspaper, the Daily Titan, which became a national news story - and all that news about me, and my opinion, as published in the Daily Titan), as well as a few magazines, and television news services (KABC, KCBS, and FOX as I recall - Jim Giggins, Vicki Vargas are two names that come immediately to mind) and a live interview with former Los Angeles Police Chief Darryl Gates, on his KFI radio show. Then, there is the invitation extended to me by Christopher G. Langton, to be a guest speaker at the First International Workshop on Artificial Life (now known as ALife I, held September 1987 as Los Alamos National Laboratory), where I discussed some interesting experiments (collisions) between executing programs.

So, as a former director of the ICWS, where I am mentioned, it seems to me that a biographical article is appropriate.

This is what I am writing about. William R. Buckley (talk) 02:56, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

There doesn't need to be any change in guidelines (as you suggested at the beginning) for this; if the things you list above are as important as you say, then you will meet Wikipedia's regular notability guidelines anyway. But please take a look at Wikipedia's conflict of interest policy, which you should keep in mind if you have any intentions to write an article about yourself. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I have looked over your talk page and contributions history, and right now I would discourage you from starting an article about yourself. First of all, International Core War Society does not even have an article on Wikipedia (it only redirects to a video game), so being its director does not establish notability as defined by our guidelines. Secondly, autobiographies on Wikipedia are almost never well-received, and to be able to write one properly you would have to cite reliable sources (preferably secondary or tertiary sources) that document what contribution you have made to your field—simply demonstrating that you have published papers and have been interviewed is not enough to meet Wikipedia's notability guideline, rather, you have to show other articles/books that have cited you and demonstrate that your work is notable. Finally... no offense intended, but requesting to have a Wikipedia guideline changed so that you can get an article written about yourself, does not really reflect well on you as an editor; it's more standard just to sit back and wait until some uninvolved person takes interest and writes an article about you. Someone else writing about you will be able to get away with a lot more than you would (because of the COI guidelines). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:32, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Core War is not a video game. Instead, it is the source of Tierra and Avida (both used in Artificial Life research, and about which many academic publications exist - see the works of Chris Adami, for instance, or Tom Ray). Core War is a programmers game, that is true, but generally in the fashion of the Game of Life (a cellular automata), as opposed to something like Halo. Also, it is not for the purpose of gaining an article about me. Rather, there are others who have equally obtained notoriety through their work about which I write to this talk page; you are being presumptuous. I don't presume your purpose, and you should not presume mine. Indeed, it is with regard to the article about Renato Nobili that I wrote my complaint. It is simply easier for me to give reasons based upon my history, as I am less familiar with the history of Renato, even if he is an old acquaintance. Renato's article has been flagged as BLP. I think his work is notable, and want to get the details so that his biography is not deleted. William R. Buckley (talk) 03:45, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Being "flagged as BLP" doesn't mean the article is going to deleted; the {{unreferenced blp}} tag there is just there to make sure editors pay extra-close attention to the article to prevent vandalism and libel, because protecting BLPs (biographies of living persons) is one of the top priorities on Wikipedia.

As for how to make sure his biography is not deleted, the best thing you can do is find journal articles or similar reliable sources that document and discuss this individual's contributions to the field. I am not familiar with your field so I don't really know where you would look, but for example in my field the TRENDS journals are always useful for literature reviews and info about the notability of a given person's work. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:57, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarifications and suggestions. William R. Buckley (talk) 04:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Also, the biography about John von Neumann is one for which I (and many others) have given a good deal of effort. One day, that article will get the recognition it deserves. William R. Buckley (talk) 04:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I do have a good question for you. Have you ever received a check from the Central Intelligence Agency? The ICWS did, when I was director, for the subscription price to the society newsletter (The Core War Newsletter, of which I am the founding editor and publisher). Interestingly enough, the check bears no ABA or Account number, even though it cashed without difficulty. I made a photocopy, and will be happy to send a scan of the photocopy. William R. Buckley (talk) 04:16, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

That will not be necessary. Thank you, though. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)