Wikipedia:Relevance

This is an essay.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

On Wikipedia, relevance is a measurement of to what degree a fact or detail in an article is relates to the topic of the article. Degree of relevance should be taken into considerat6ion for most decisions on whether or not to include material. Mentioning things that are irrelevant to an article's topic can unnecessarily bloat an article, making it difficult for a reader to remain focused, and can also give the things mentioned undue weight.

Directness of relevance is an important measure and consideration. A careful review of the actual statement(s) in the content is required to determine this. Keep in mind that in many cases (depending on the degree of expertise and objectivity of the source with respect to the statement) the "fact" is information about what the source's "take" or opinion is on the subject rather than information about the subject. Following is an approach to determine and name degrees of relevance:

Relevance level "High" – The highest relevance is information directly about the topic of the article. "John Smith is a member of the XYZ organization" in the "John Smith" article is an example of this.
Relevance level "Medium" – Information that is "once removed" is less directly relevant, should receive a higher level of scrutiny and achieve higher levels in other areas (such as wp:npov, weight and strength and objectivity of sourcing) before inclusion, but may still may be sufficiently relevant for inclusion. For example, in the "John Smith" article, criticism of John Smith is not information directly about John Smith, it is information about what others feel or said about John Smith. This includes situations where the statement is by a WP:Reliable Source unless the source also has sufficient objectivity and expertise with respect to the topic of the statement to make the statement a practically undisputed fact. Including information about the XYZ organization in the John Smith article is also an example of this.
Relevance level "Lower" – Information that is "twice removed" should usually not be included. For example, in the above "John Smith" article, "Murderer Larry Jones was also a member of the XYZ organization."
Relevance level "Always too low" – Information that is "three times removed" should not be included. For example, in the above "John Smith" article, "Murderer Larry Jones, also a member of the XYZ organization which John Smith belonged to, murdered 8 people."

v t e Relevance and scope
Policies and guidelines	What Wikipedia is not Notability Image relevance WP:CONTEXT (linking) WP:ONUS (verifiability does not guarantee inclusion) WP:DETAIL (levels of detail) WP:CONSPLIT (content split) WP:LISTCRITERIA (list selection criteria)
Essays	Scope Relevance WP:IRRELEVANT (content removal) WP:TOPIC (stay on topic) Relevance of content Out of scope Relevance emerges What claims of relevance are false Germane Indirect relevance is sometimes OK Notability is not relevance or reliability Exclusion Coatrack articles How to apply WP:NOR's "Directly related" principle Meaningful examples in pop culture Inclusion Content removal
See also	Template:Handling miscellanea Category:Wikipedia essays about notability

See also