Wikipedia talk:Notability

Nutshell

The nutshell tells readers that

Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and enduring notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to determine if the world has shown "significant enough notice" for an encyclopedia article. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence.

The talk of enduring notice would seem to me to require that every topic should be at least twenty years old (or at best should be analogous to twenty-year old topics whose notice has endured); and once this is combined with a requirement that notice should be by the world at large, most topics are out, because only a tiny percentage of WP editors can start to look for significant notice in Swahili, Hausa, Mongolian, Azeri, etc. All in all I think that the nutshell requires rephrasing, at least.

Without (yet) bothering to link, italicize, etc, here's a very tentative first redraft:

Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant attention, lasting beyond the news cycle, and that are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence.

No doubt this is riddled with flaws and could be greatly improved. -- Hoary (talk) 01:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that "enduring notice" requires all topics to be twenty years old, since we can use some judgment to decide whether something is likely to endure (and, of course, add or remove it later, if our best estimate proves to be wrong).

I think it's important to retain the "noticed world at large" concept, since "noticed by me and my three best friends" (in the case of garage bands) and "noticed by the tiny newspaper in my hometown, circulation 116 including the free copy sent to the library" (in the case of small businesses) isn't what we're after. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Certainly "enduring" wasn't and isn't intended to mean "demonstrably lasting 20 years". But I wonder what it does mean. Let's consider for a moment that big name of 2008, Sarah Palin. Her tweets still make the news, and I suppose that even if she decides to devote her life to shooting caribou or whatever rather than politics she'll live on as mentions within bios of Prez Obama. But what about all the kerfuffle around her -- the books by her, parodies of her, faked interview of her, etc? My guess is that this will be of no interest unless she "stands for office". And yet I don't suppose that many people would want it all deleted, or even say that it should be deleted a decade from now if it's as uninteresting then as it might be. Or if Palin is too uncomfortably political, how about "2010 Northumbria Police manhunt"? Huge news (or non-news) in Britain at the time, but will it last? If it doesn't last, should the article be deleted? (My gut feeling is that it shouldn't, as it will be useful for later investigators into the British mass media who may wonder what all the fuss was about.) ¶ As for "the world at large", you and I are looking at two opposite extremes of what that might mean. Maybe my interpretation is more ridiculous than yours, but anyway, can't this be reworded? -- Hoary (talk) 06:04, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like you're thinking more about WP:DP than about WP:N. That said, though, I agree with you about the nutshell. I'd suggest changing "significant and enduring" to "significant enough". Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

I think it's worth clarifying this at WP:EVENTS and WP:NOTNEWS. But as for WP:N, some amount of endurance is required. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Supporting Hoary's remarks, television has slow news days when someone abusing his dog gets prime time, "end of the world as we know it" coverage, which is the only way they know to cover news. It's all supposed to seem terrifically important at the time to keep you tuned in to their advertisers. But "newsworthy" it is not. And not even close to encyclopedic. Student7 (talk) 16:04, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Palin's article will probably be kept permanently, simply because she was the governor of a US state. This would be the case even if she hadn't run for vice president, written books, etc.

The Northumbria manhunt, however, might not be kept ten years from now; instead, it might be shortened dramatically and merged into the article about the area where it happened. But we don't know: it might turn out that this was a hugely important event that triggered major legal reforms. There's no way to predict whether coverage will continue. It is not at all unusual for Wikipedians to write an article about a current event that seems to be major at the time, and then delete it three to five years later, when it's clear that it was just a flash in the pan. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, "enduring notice" doesn't not mean "ongoing notice". See the section about "notability is not temporary". Once it is notable, it is notable forever, even if everyone forgets about it 3 days from now. Gigs (talk) 00:04, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

It is not the job of the nutshell to extend the guideline beyond what is on the page below.  The text at WP:NTEMP does not use the word "enduring".  And there seems to be clear agreement that "enduring" is problematic.  This proposal is to replace the word "enduring" with "non-temporary":

from: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and enduring notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons. to:      Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and non-temporary notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons.

Unscintillating (talk) 20:57, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

The only question mark I see here is the word "non-temporary" which is not the most common of words; however, a Google search shows that it is common use.  Unscintillating (talk) 10:13, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

What about:

Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant notice over a period of time by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons.

This avoids the problematic word "enduring" and the unusual word "non-temporary.陣内_Jinnai 18:06, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

Combining the above ideas; including text from Hoary, Wtmitchell and Jinnai:

from: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and enduring notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to determine if the world has shown "significant enough notice" for an encyclopedia article. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence. to:      Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence.

Unscintillating (talk) 15:33, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I like "enduring" but "over a period of time" is probably good enough. I just sort of expect someone to come around and say "But three days is 'a period of time', so we have to keep my article on the lulz cat that was mentioned in the media on three days last month."

Also, in practice, events and people who are in the media a bit for a year or so, and then never heard of again, do actually get deleted a few years later. If you've got six news stories from 2005, and not a peep since, then it's not unusual for an AfD to close with deletion. The minimum period of time seems to be multiple years, if the coverage is not ongoing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

If you feel that would happen quite often, we can add phrase it as "over an extended period of time". As such, 3 days would unlikely to be see as extended. A month could be for some things.陣内_Jinnai 19:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

The proposal uses the words "significant enough", which defers the issue to the guideline itself as I think it should.  I do not agree that we would want to change it to "an extended period of time", the guideline at WP:NTEMP says that the time is "not temporary".  There is more at WP:Notability (events); also, I read somewhere that Balloon boy hoax is considered to be a benchmark.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:34, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Does anyone agree to add this?  Unscintillating (talk) 03:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

It seems that we are close here to bringing the word "enduring" in line with the guideline.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:52, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

My suggestions:

• Change "consider evidence ... to gauge this attention" to "determine its significance" (which more accurately and concisely describes the process).
• Change "their existence" to "whether the topic should have its own article" (for precision) Other than that, I endorse. patsw (talk) 00:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

from: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and enduring notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to determine if the world has shown "significant enough notice" for an encyclopedia article. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence. prev:  Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence. to:      Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We determine its significance from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

  Unscintillating (talk) 02:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

But notability is so much more than analysis of journals, books, and newspapers; I think the prev proposal, which perhaps we agree uses fuzzier logic, was better for this nutshell.  Also the word "its" has an unclear antecedent.  To the second change, I agree, which leads to this proposal:

from: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant and enduring notice by the world at large, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to determine if the world has shown "significant enough notice" for an encyclopedia article. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence. to:      Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

  Unscintillating (talk) 02:18, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I concur. patsw (talk) 02:25, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Again, enduring

We're sort of stuck with "enduring". It is an import from the "What the Wikipedia is Not" policy upon which this guideline is based and attempts to expand. I can't explain why "enduring" has defenders. I agree with Hoary that the word doesn't express what we actually do. Here is my substitute for the WP:NOT text, which if there were a consensus that it is an improvement would devolve to WP:N as well:

(WP:NOT) from: Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events. to: Wikipedia articles on persons and events are on those which have a significance beyond the time frame of their initial appearance in primary and secondary sources. A consensus of Wikipedia editors can determine that significance immediately, or can defer the evaluation of significance based upon the actual course of events and the appearance of other relevant sources.

There's a strange idea that Wikipedia articles have undefined expiration dates requiring new sources and lacking such coverage ought to be deleted. Editors holding this view point to enduring as support for it. patsw (talk) 23:17, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

I take the term "enduring notability" as an upfront requirement, not a back end expiration date. We need to establish that a topic has enduring notability before we write an article... But once "enduring notability" has been established, that notability does not expire. It's the difference between fleeting notoriety and lasting notability... and between news and history. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Grammar issue

I'm concerned about saying "those that have gained significant enough attention". That sounds ungrammatical to me. Perhaps "significantly enough"? (I had suggested "enough significant attention", but was reverted.) Would "sufficiently significant" be better? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Would "significant-enough attention" be an improvement?  Unscintillating (talk) 19:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

OK, so that's the intended meaning. I'd say "yes", but only relatively speaking. My first choice would be "sufficiently significant", and my second choice would be "significant-enough". --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you, except I don't see "significant-enough" as a viable replacement. "Sufficiently significant" is far preferable. LHM 20:48, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

My initial reaction to a change from "significant enough attention" to "sufficiently significant attention" is that it adds three syllables.  The phrase "significant enough notice" has been in the nutshell for a long time.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:17, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Then it's been wrong for a long time. I guess it just wasn't noticed until now. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry if my revert seems picky. "significant enough" means the same as "sufficiently significant" in my my view. "enough significant attention" is referring to a quantity of significant attention rather than the level to which attention is significant. This change was therefore more than just a grammar fix as it changed the meaning. A change to "sufficiently significant attention" would be ok I think. Unless there's consensus to change the meaning of course.--Michig (talk) 21:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
  • No problem about your revert. I understand. Sorry that I was imprecise about what I meant, but hopefully I've clarified that here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
    • FWIW, I support your edit. The criteria per the GNG are that 1) the attention is significant 2) there is enough of it. "Significant enough" invites in exactly the kind of stealth-WP:IDONTLIKEIT source snobbery that I'm utterly sick of dealing with. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
    • In fact, I have now reverted its reversion, on the basis that the consensus represented by the GNG itself supports the revision. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
      • Wouldn't it be great if these changes were discussed properly by a large enough group of editors *before* they were made? This is kind of an important guideline.--Michig (talk) 22:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
        • Well, sure, but revising a nutshell to be closer in meaning to the text that it's ostensibly summarizing presents a much lower bar than changes that actually alter the guideline itself. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)
          • I agree with Michig that there has been too much reverting without discussion in the last 24 hours. And I don't think that there is consensus for the hyphenated "significant-enough". I still think that "sufficiently significant" is just plain better English. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
            • Regarding the hyphen, I made the change as a bold change because I was of the clear opinion that "significant-enough attention" was preferable to "significant enough attention", and that it was worth comparing to other options.  FYI, Unscintillating (talk) 18:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

from: Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. curr:  Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained significant-enough attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. to:      Wikipedia articles cover notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time, and are not excluded for other reasons. We consider evidence from reliable independent sources such as published journals, books, and newspapers to gauge this attention. Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.

The curr version has the hyphen, and the to version uses "sufficiently".  Unscintillating (talk) 18:47, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• I support the change, in the first sentence, to "sufficiently signficant". About the second sentence, I'm not sure where "We determine its significance from" comes from. The page (at least currently and recently) says "We consider evidence from". And it doesn't make sense to say, in a single sentence "We determine its significance from... to gauge this attention." So I would support changing what the page says now to read "sufficiently significant". --Tryptofish (talk) 18:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Sorry about that, thanks for the quick feedback, I've replaced all three segments; the "from", "curr", and "to"; with text from the WP:N page.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)
• Support. This word choice removes the possibility of misunderstanding that it has something to do with quantity rather than quality. ~ Ningauble (talk) 19:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Restoring an important point

Prior to October 2010, this guideline used to contain the language: "Although articles should demonstrate the notability of their topics, and articles on topics that do not meet this criterion are generally deleted ..." In October 2010 an editor altered the text with the subject heading "copyedit." However, the alteration completely removed the notion that "articles should demonstrate the notability of their topics." As another editor recently pointed out here, articles do need to demonstrate notability per the proper application of WP:V, which is a policy. Our current notability tag is also based on the same premise: "Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic.". Are there any objections to restoring that piece of language to this guideline?Griswaldo (talk) 11:38, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I made the change, although my main purpose in re-drafting that section was to get omit needless words, like "it is important to consider...".

The "should demonstrate" has unfortunately been misunderstood by certain editors as meaning that notability is determined by whether or not an editor has already named sources in the article, rather than by whether the sources exist (that is, have been WP:Published, not have been WP:Cited; it might be clearer if we change that language from "exist" to "published"). According to these people, if we'd had the current notability guideline back then, then Cancer would have violated for the first several years of its existence, because the first proper citation wasn't added until the article was several years old.

Others have misunderstood that line as meaning that articles needed to contain a sentence like "___ is notable because...."

Overall, I think that the guideline clearer without the confusing and misleading statement that all articles should "demonstrate notability".

I agree that it is convenient for other editors if you demonstrate notability in advance of a challenge—if you fill an article about some alleged celebrity with a dozen sources, that saves me the bother of figuring out if any sources exist—but failing to pre-demonstrate notability doesn't actually violate any standards or make the topic be non-notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we all agree that our articles should demonstrate why their topic is notable in some way... where we get into problems is determining how this is/must be achieved. Obviously, the existence of lots and lots of independent reliable secondary sources that discuss the topic will demonstrate notability (and I think including at least some of them in the article should be strongly encouraged). Blueboar (talk) 00:45, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Blueboar. The language in question, which WhatamIdoing removed when s/he significantly altered the meaning of that paragraph in Oct. 2010 was longstanding. I see the exact wording it as early as 2008, and the idea that articles should establish their notability existed prior to that as well. Again, the idea that reliable sources establishing notability should be in an article if they exist is compliant with policy. Namely WP:V. The current wording makes it sound like we should not strive to add such sources to articles, merely note that they exist. Was there consensus reached anywhere to drastically alter the guideline in this manner? The subject heading of the edit merely claimed a "copyedit." I'd like to ask again if we can restore the idea that articles should establish the notability of their topics. Is there any objection to this? Please do point me to a relevant discussion if there was indeed one that established consensus for the current language. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 18:24, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

I know that you're unhappy about the change. However, I really do think that you need to go read WP:V very carefully. It requires citations for exactly three types of materials (BLP adds another; see WP:MINREF for the complete list). If an article doesn't contain any of those types of material (and many stubs don't), then the article can simultaneously contain zero citations and fully comply with the WP:V.

And yes, I object to adding any language to this guideline that can be (mis)understood as saying that unref'd articles have violated the notability guideline. The guideline directly says, "Notability requires only the existence of suitable reliable sources, not their immediate citation." It would be unfortunate to have it say in one place "notability requires only the existence of suitable reliable sources" and in another place on the same page to say something like "notability requires you to cite suitable reliable sources". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:35, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

So change the former to match the latter. Is there ever a reason to have sources and not cite them? Reyk _YO! 21:38, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Sure: For example, you might know enough about the subject to know that many sources exist, but you might not have any at hand. I could write a substub on any number of notable, encyclopedic topics without having to consult anything more than my own memory. I fairly often expand articles based on nothing more concrete than my extensive knowledge of the subject. The information is verifiABLE (=sources have been published about it; usually, those sources are even on my bookshelf). The policies do not require that it be verifiED (=sources named in the article) except in four specific situations. And even if the stub violates the content policies on that point, it doesn't mean that their absence makes the subject somehow non-notable.

The context of this guideline is important here: The purpose of this page is to tell people what subjects qualify for a stand-alone article on Wikipedia. Citing the sources doesn't make a subject qualify. The subject qualifies if suitable sources have been WP:Published, not if they have been WP:Cited.

To use the example above: the article on Cancer literally did not get its first proper bibliographic citation until 34 (yes, thirty-four) months after its creation. The subject—the only thing this guideline cares about—was notable the entire time. The article needed help, but the subject was actually notable before the page was even created.

Put more directly: When we say that "Notability does not directly affect the content of articles", we actually mean it. Notability does not affect the content of the article, not even to the extent of telling editors that they should cite their sources. Telling people what to type on a page is the job of the content policies, not the notability guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Another reason: if you're one of the 99.9% of Wikipedia's users to whom citing a source in MediaWiki is an arcane and impenetrable matter -- it's a huge stretch for most people to even hit the edit button. I lurked on Wikipedia for years before I felt certain that I could write a citation without screwing it up, and I went to college and wrote research papers. I think it's easy for an experienced editor to lose sight of what an astronomical barrier to entry it would be if the standards were verified, not verifiable, and notability proven by citations, not notable. —chaos5023 (talk) 00:40, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I do sometimes forget what a barrier that is, since it's so automatic now. When I was a newbie, I pretty much could only add bare URLs. User:Arcadian patiently and silently cleaned up a lot of my citation messes back in the day. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

No one is going to delete an article if the newbie editor stuck in their citations as direct links to the third-party articles in question. (If they are, that editor needs a massive trout-slapping). That's an easily fixed problem. I'd rather see a new editor slap down bare URLs to support useful information than to try to understand citation templates and get frustrated and walk away. As long as those links are supporting verification and notability, hey great. But we need those in the article so that notability can be demonstrated. --MASEM (t) 13:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Putting that in would open the door to some pedantic social misfit deleting about 1,000,000 stub and short articles on cities, towns, provinces, obscure species species of plants and animals where the ability to meet wp:notability is presumed and probable, but it has not been established in the article. North8000 (talk) 00:50, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I think we all agree that notability exists as long as citations could be added to the article (ie they exist, even if they are not actually cited)... I hope we all agree that "best practice" is to establish that notability by actually citing some of them.

What I think we want to clarify for readers of this guideline is this: "While the lack of citations (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not necessarily indicate that a topic fails notability, providing citations to reliable sources is the best way to demonstrate that a topic passes notability. So, we strongly encourage editors to provide citations when they create an article, and to add citations to existing articles." (If people accept this approach, then we just need to figure out the best way to word it). Blueboar (talk) 12:27, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. North8000 (talk) 14:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm down with that. I'm strongly against AfDs on topics where an absolutely trivial external reference check shows notability, but on the face of it I don't see this language encouraging those. —chaos5023 (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I hope not... I dislike those as well, and it was not my intent to encourage them ... although (purely as an aside) there is the other side of the coin, and it is one of my pet peeves: All to often, when there is an AfD on an article that has no citations and a quick reference check shows that sources exist and are easy to find ... NO ONE BOTHERS TO ADD THEM TO THE ARTICLE. I really hate that. I don't think this policy can mandate that someone must "fix the problem" ... but we should include some wording to encourage them to do so. Blueboar (talk) 16:35, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I fully admit that I've only lightly followed this conversation but the issue I see popping up has to do with motivation or requiring action. People may start sending articles to AfD as a means to clean them up if there's a legitimate push to add references found in an AfD. I'm guessing one side will say that they're easily found in the archived AfD found on the talk page and the other side requiring that they be added by the end of the AfD. The compromise is possibly undefinable and if a line is drawn, it may be used to force improvement in lieu of deletion which, in my opinion, doesn't typically help the project as a whole.

Also, the participants here may be interested in the conversation going on here: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Is_WP:BEFORE_obligatory.3F. OlYeller^Talktome 17:04, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Agree. On the former, based on cruising through random articles, that was a genuine reasonable guess of "1,000,000 stub and short articles on cities, towns, provinces, obscure species species of plants and animals where the ability to meet wp:notability is presumed and probable, but it has not been established in the article" which would be vulnerable. North8000 (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

But we should not be encouraging people to create stubs or articles without using reliable sources. That goes against WP:V. My problem is that the current language and even more so the argument that seems to be supporting it does encourage that. I agree wholeheartedly that notable subjects should not be deleted because they presently lack sources, with the exception of BLPs of course. On the other hand if sources are not included in articles then we have a WP:V problem. We also run into the problem that while finding the right sources for certain topics is very easy for some people it can be very difficult for others. Those others may in good faith look at an unreferenced article, fail to understand why it is notable, look for sources and not find any then go to AfD. If the obscure subject is easily referenced by someone who knows where to look, that person often turns around during the AfD and calls the nominator's good faith in question. If notability is established during the AfD, but the sources are not incorporated into the article just wait another year and watch the process repeat itself. Why is this better than simply doing the necessary work when we create and improve articles to source them adequatly? I really don't get it. It's a lose, lose proposition. Maybe some people like the AfD drama, and the constant arguing between inclusionists and deletionists, better than being productive.Griswaldo (talk) 17:22, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Probably the most common case amongst those is a geographic place stub article created by a bot. I'm not commenting pro or con on that, just pointing out that a LOT of those exist. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:28, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I don't object to the general approach suggested by Blueboar. However, I don't believe that WP:FAILN is the right place for it, since that section is all about what to do if suitable sources don't exist. WP:NRVE might be a reasonable home. Alternatively, we could created a new section like ==Notability is not determined by the number of citations currently named in the article==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Yeah... I would agree that WP:FAILN isn't the right place for it... in some ways my suggestion is a counter weight to FAILN... its more along the lines of a "PASSN" statement or perhaps a NOTFAILN statement... although those are not quite right either. I think it is an important point for the policy to make up front... but I am not sure where. Blueboar (talk) 22:26, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Fully support restoring some form of this long standing language and I think the suggested langugae fits perfectly right after the first sentence of WP:NRVE. Modifying it just slightly to fit there, it would read:

The common theme in the notability guidelines is that there must be verifiable objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention to support a claim of notability. Thus, while lack of citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not necessarily indicate that a topic fails notability, providing citations to reliable sources is the best way to demonstrate that a topic passes notability. So, we strongly encourage editors to provide citations when they create an article, and to add citations to existing articles.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 23:31, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

I've taken one baby step towards doing this. I'm a little reluctant to declare any single approach to be "the best way". Citing independent (NB: not merely "reliable") sources is maybe convenient (for other editors), effective at stopping deletions, and common, but I'm not sure that it's necessarily "best" in every situation. Also, I wanted to phrase it in terms of benefits to the person who's doing the work, rather than "because we said so". So I started copyediting the suggested text, and I got lost in the weeds. I've added the first sentence and am thinking about the rest. My re-write, at the point that I gave up, looked like this:

However, naming citations to independent, reliable sources is an efficient way to communicate to other editors why you believe the article meets Wikipedia's notability guidelines. If editors provide citations when they create or expand an article, the article is less likely to be nominated for deletion.

I'm not convinced that this would have been an improvement, so I didn't add it in the end. Perhaps someone else would like to have a go. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:08, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

What we're really talking about isn't a change in the rules that ultimately come into to play when there is a genuine question about actual wp:notability, we're trying to nudge towards two kinds of behavior before it gets to that:

• Make an effort to put sources in
• Do a common sense / reasonableness check before tagging for deletion. If it's a city, a province, a species of plant, etc. it probably meets wp:notability.

But it may be hard to write that in. North8000 (talk) 20:59, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm that social misfit, but is the point of 100,000s of stub articles on obscure organisms? No one is watching them and they can be easily altered to move an organism from one family to another, or to have an incorrect images added, with no one noticing. John lilburne (talk) 19:39, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Don't forget towns, geographical units etc. They seem to have been mostly built with bots, often noting one tertiary type source, but not using it as a citation. Somewhere some decision must have been made to allow doing this with bots. Most look like OK data, probably "cited" well enough for the one sentence that the article consists of. But nothing establishing wp:notability. Not commenting either way, just saying that there are lots of them out there. North8000 (talk) 20:50, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Mostly they are just hooks waiting for someone to hang something on. Who knows what else is out there. Seriously we have articles of groups whose notability is built from directory listings, obituaries of their members, and other such sources. Articles on the babies and pre-school children of celebrities, which is based purely on birth announcements, and tabloid gossip. John lilburne (talk) 21:36, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

You say, "...we have articles of groups whose notability is built from directory listings, obituaries of their members, and other such sources." Can you give any examples? I'm not sure what you are referring to. Bus stop (talk) 21:51, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

I can build notability for a duck pond out of this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. John lilburne (talk) 22:39, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Answering your much earlier question which may have been merely rhetorical. Organisms. Haven't seen much vandalism generally. I happen to watch one that has what school children consider an "amusing" name, and changes are 90% IP vandalism, driving the rest of us nuts. But other than that, haven't seem normal articles messed with that much. Nothing to drive the middle schooler to the article in the first place. Student7 (talk) 19:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Aye there was a degree of rhetoric in there, but many of the obscure critter articles are simply a vehicle for a picture, which are not the correct species according to some, of course Stubbs and Falke might have got that one wrong, I'll ask Steve next time I send him observation records. As for IP edits I see that someone has recently been having fun with Rhagonycha fulva's alternative jokey common name. Point is that community is unable to monitor this stuff, the L. laternaria page get 30-40 views of month all of them seeing a picture of the wrong organism. Add in 1,000,000s of villages and hamlets and it becomes impossible to monitor. [[Évreux Cathedral] has 224 stained glass windows dating from 1460-1520 each of them important artistically and culturally all documented in academic books etc, each one of which could warrant a stub article. 2 miles down the road at Saint Taurin there is another cache of about 100 scenes similarly documents and discussed. Local Roundtable Committees, one should be able to establish notability for almost all of them. All it needs is someone with a passion of them and we have 1000s of separate articles to maintain. John lilburne (talk) 20:57, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, now you know one of the reasons I'm a mergist.

AFAICT, the community doesn't actually care whether every single page is perfectly accurate and every single change monitored to keep it that way. These stubs exist because someone cared enough to start them. Eventually—and WP:There is no deadline—someone else will care enough to expand them and monitor them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

So have we established that the guidelines, as applied, can create notability for a duck pond? I'd like to know because there are several 100 such groups that we can write articles on, plus many of the individuals involved are also prominent in other local groups within there particular area. There will many articles where the press contact for the group will be interviewed across a number of local topics. Back in the 70s and 80s we set up Gingerbread drop in centres in squats, providing protective muscle at Haven houses, this was originally planned and organized in my mates kitchen, adjunct to that were the claimant union groups that were set up on the housing estates, and groups that harangued the local council social services and organized sit ins, and other activities that the lawyer types couldn't get involved with. Frequently the same people were involved in all of that activity. Most of it activism had its original start from discussions over a coffee and carrot cake in the high street (plus a number of industrial strikes were planned there too). If we dig back through the archives many of the players can have notability established, in pretty much the same way as the duck pond. John lilburne (talk) 12:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

No, that can't happen, because coverage strictly limited to local sources is not equivalent to "independent" and "significant coverage", nor likely would be of non-routine, enduring nature to be usable. --MASEM (t) 14:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Really are you sure? 'cos all those recent AFDs on synagogues were 'establishing' notability on local coverage and directories of synagogues, not sure there was any significant national coverage on many of them. Yet the AFD opposition were adamant that even slight local coverage was enough. Meanwhile I can summon up BBC news reports for my duck pond, that L&IRG was the forerunner of a number of such organizations across the UK. Plus a number of radical and left wing newspapers and magazines on the rest of it. But it won't be limited to those outlets. I mentioned the pressure groups on social services and welfare benefits, well it wasn't enough to just get people rehoused or make sure that they had money to feed the kids, one also had to provide them with working appliances and furniture. Community groups need transport to take them to see and talk with other groups in other cities, so a transport service was needed, the duck pond developed after a community transport minibus took a group down to see the Bristol development. National organizations came later as various groups federated or merged with their counterparts in other towns and cities. There were a number of research papers that came out of Warwick University on the phenomena, other places too, the developments promoted by Inter-action Trust won't have gone unrecorded. Moving on as the different groups required access to graphic artists that could create leaflets, posters, and other campaign material, a community arts group was formed, we stocked that with silk screen presses which we made ourselves, and a darkroom from equipment we'd managed to obtain from various companies. That group went on to develop courses with the arts department of the Lanchester Polytechnic, and there are still murals in the city that celebrate various campaigns. Some of the members in the initial groups reached out to create wildlife groups, others started architectural preservation groups, and last I knew there were still links back to the wildlife group. After the core group splintered, the independent groups that had formed were all interconnected in various ways, and all drew on each other for combined resources. Each of the organisations will have local and national coverage, we all came from the same stable, we all knew how to manipulate press coverage. John lilburne (talk) 17:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

I supported WhatamIdoing's edit to WP:N just on the principle that it eliminated some circularity in defining notability: (paraphrasing) "non-notable articles are the ones that get deleted because they are not notable". A lot of the arguments raised for deletion are properly arguments for improving the article. I look at every poor article and ask myself "Can this be improved?" and not if its deletion can be rationalized for AfD. My own view is that the bar is not WP:GNG but lower - a consensus that with improvement, GNG can be passed. patsw (talk) 00:25, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Absence of proof not proof of (something

A change reads "The absence of citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that the subject is not notable." I suppose this is what is discussed above. But, to me, this seems to remove WP:BURDEN from the editor. "You should have known there was stuff out there, why did you Afd?"

It seems to me, that is exactly what we are trying to discourage in new articles: I am now forced to research notability prior to Afd-ing on a topic on which I am barely interested (a new link in an article in which I am interested). Student7 (talk) 19:37, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

This has always been true (well, assuming that you don't want to be embarrassed by regularly AfDing articles that are actually notable; some people don't care). Notability has always depended on whether or not suitable sources exist in the real world. It has never been safe to assume that the absence of sources named in the article means an absence of sources in the real world. For most subjects, this process requires only a few seconds. A single web search will prove, for example, that the subject of Heat intolerance is likely to be the sort of thing Wikipedia ought to have an article on.

Until you actually WP:CHALLENGE the specific material, there has never been any BURDEN on the original editor to prove that the material is supported by sources. More importantly for notability purposes, sources that fully meet the BURDEN of verifiability may be completely inadequate for demonstrating notability.

I agree that unref'd articles are undesirable, but no policy actually bans them, or even seriously discourages them. WP:V, for example, fully agrees with WP:N when it says "If no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." If we meant "If no reliable third-party sources are currently cited in the article...", then we would have actually said that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

If it's a matter of consensus of editors that sources exist -- now how do we get them into the article? In some articles, in which I am not a subject matter expert, I just use the standard reference works on the subject, summarize them, and you've got an article that passes WP:GNG. If there's a dispute and it is asserted that no sources for this topic exist, and then that becomes the consensus of editors and the article is deleted in due course, or an industrious editor finds the sources and adds them to the article. There are many, many good articles without sources which have never been challenged. Again, its about improving articles, not deleting them. patsw (talk) 00:40, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Why is this not official policy?

The way I see it, either notability matters, or it doesn't. This page's status as a "guideline" instead of a "policy" leads to a lot of confusion. I've recently begun to run into some editors who simply say, "Well, that's just a guideline, so this is an exception", and move along. I'm not well-versed in policy-making around here, so I'm genuinely confused as to why such an important requirement for building an encyclopedia wouldn't be part of official policy. LHM 16:24, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

"Notability" like is policy level in its treatment, in that notable topics are presumed to merit articles. The General Notability Guideline (ignoring the name) however is of guideline nature because exactly how to meet the GNG is a debate far and wide on WP. Most agree its appropriate, but the exact enforcement of it is difficult, and thus best left to guideline status. --MASEM (t) 16:31, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

So, notability is a guideline treated like policy? Why not simply elevate it to policy, then, and have a discussion around GNG concerns as it relates to policy? LHM 16:51, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

We would need to do something like WP:V and WP:RS, where the former is policy, the latter is guideline. As there's not much to say on notability beyond "to have an article, it must be notable", it doesn't make sense to dedicate a lot to that. --MASEM (t) 16:55, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

To me, it makes sense in that it would give the imprimatur of official policy to concerns about notability. As it currently stands, any interested editor can simply dismiss such concerns as "well it's only a guideline." LHM 17:11, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Since notability is really only a guideline applied at AFD discussions, an editor trying to claim "it's only a guideline and can be ignored" will likely be drowned out by other editors involved in the discussion. The guideline nature comes into play if someone were to argue "this is clearly a notable topic but I can't demonstrate that with published sources, but most everyone in this field recognizes it", and there may be agreement to that. --MASEM (t) 17:17, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

And those votes will be discarded by the closing admin. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Not if there's clear consensus that the topic is notable despite the lack of sources (it's a far long exception, but it is there). More often, it's more the challenge to the specific SNGs that there needs to be "guideline"-style looseness. But that's why these are discussions and not votes nor decided by a single person. --MASEM (t) 19:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

L - Think about Notability and Reliable Sources as hurdles whose height varies with context. Think about Verifiability as a fixed height hurdle. It is the same all time, content is verifiable or it is not. Policies on WP tend to the absolute. Guidelines are more flexible and contextual. I don't think notability will ever be a fixed height hurdle. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:25, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Well, I don't disagree with the analogy, but I do think that "a notable topic gets an article" is a fixed hurdle, what's the variance is how that notability is demonstrated. --MASEM (t) 19:26, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

As I see it, WP:Notability flows directly from WP:V and WP:NOT. That is, the guideline provides some of the details of how those policies are implemented. (Think about it.) --Orlady (talk) 20:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:V is content policy, WP:N is concerned with the existence of articles as a whole, see WP:NNC.  I've commented further about WP:NOT below.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

LHM, when you encounter folks with that reductive notion of policies, you might like to point them at WP:The difference between policies, guidelines, and essays. Some of our most important pages—like WP:Five pillars and WP:Bold, revert, discuss—are "just" essays. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

No, the five pillars is not an essay.  The five pillars is "fundamental principles" and is listed co-equal with policies.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:N is a guideline that explains the WP:What Wikipedia is not policy which for years, editors have resisted attempts to turn it into a WP:What Wikipedia is policy. The laser-like focus of this guideline is to figure out what topics get stand-alone articles. That's it. The other policies like WP:RS and WP:V weave into WP:N. The origin of this policy is to have some objective criteria listed, and for the subjective criteria, some definitions, consistency and transparency for how we discuss it. It is unlikely to ever be renamed, but I would rename it to WP:Criteria for topics to become Wikipedia articles. patsw (talk) 00:55, 7 July 2011 (UTC)

Whatever link once existed between WP:NOT and WP:N, this connection does not now exist.  WP:NOT is often used in AfD arguments attempting to delete a topic that has notability under WP:GNG.  For example WP:PLOT is routinely cited in topics about fiction.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

If the article meets the GNG, there's no way it can fail PLOT to be deleted - it may be too much plot relative to other parts, but PLOT states that we just don't source articles to the primary works. --MASEM (t) 05:33, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

While you're right that we don't source articles solely to primary works, WP:PLOT does not appear to say anything about that. It says that the sole contents of the page cannot be merely a plot summary, but nothing about sourcing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:42, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

It's an extrapolation - both WP:V and WP:N assert that primary-only sourced articles aren't long for this encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 02:50, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

If by "primary-only sourced" means "all the sources that have ever been published in the world about this subject are primary sources", rather than "all the sources whose names have already been typed into the article are primary sources", then we agree. None of our policies or guidelines pretend that notability is determined by the sources currently named in an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:49, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I mean. However, I will say that if you don't include indication that other sources exist, one must be prepared to understand that someone may send that article to AFD on a non-notable claim. --MASEM (t) 16:04, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

WP:N is a guideline for WP:Deletion policy, "The Wikipedia deletion policy describes how pages that do not meet the relevant criteria for content of the encyclopedia are identified".  Unscintillating (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree with the premise of this section that WP:N should be a policy.  WP:GNG is a guideline of the WP:N policy, and needs to be a separate guideline like the SNGs.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:28, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

The deletion policy is a process policy: some other policies or guidelines determine if an article gets deleted based upon content, and WP:DEL describes what happens to get the article deleted. If WP:N is a guideline for WP:DEL, then likewise WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:BLP are all guidelines or policies for WP:DEL in like manner.

Beware of policy creep. One sure was bringing chaos to Wikipedia is to elevate WP:GNG which is now a threshold test, into a guideline and then observe that thousands (and maybe a majority) of Wikipedia articles fail a WP:GNG challenge. There may be even people to argue that level of deletion debate on thousands of articles would be a good thing. I, for one, believe we are, over time, becoming constrained, and should be, in how much policy can change. Creating or modifying policies that would retroactively make thousands of articles which were created and edited for years under then-current policies, then able to be challenged for deletion is a form of intellectual betrayal. patsw (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

• I've been in an on-going--and quite cordial--discussion with a sitting arbitrator that relates to this. I was told, regarding WP:Notability, that "guidelines are there just to guide", and that he wasn't a "slave" to such things (or something to that basic effect), if enough people thought the information was useful and interesting. This has already been used as a basic "WELIKEIT" recommendation at AFD, and to gloat a bit when an admin closed the GYFC discussion (without explanation) as "no consensus" when the only keep arguments relied almost exclusively on WELIKEIT-type arguments. This is why the Notability "guideline" needs to be the Notability "policy." LHM 20:58, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Forced notabliity.

When articles about talentless actors, singers and "stars" become notable anyway due to the spam of the hype machine media.

Examples of forced notability

• Justin Bieber
• Kim Kardashian
• Planking
• Twitter

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.103.64.194 (talk • contribs)

The media has covered these topics in depth, regardless if you like them or not, and thus they pass notability for Wikipedia. --MASEM (t) 00:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Hatnotes

I've boldly culled the formerly massive (and poorly punctuated) clump of hatnotes at the top of this page. Here's what was included, followed by my (perhaps erroneous) reasoning in pruning it down:

This page is about Notability guidelines. For the Notability noticeboard see WP:N/N. For Neutral point of view, see WP:NPOV. For Not now information page, see WP:NOTNOW. For what Wikipedia is not, see WP:NOT. For Citations, see WP:CITE. For Footnotes, see WP:FOOT

"WP:Importance" redirects here. For For article importance within a WikiProject see Importance of topic, see WP:Importance (disambiguation).

"WP:NOTE" redirects here. For an explanation of Wikipedia reference notes, see WP:REFNOTE.

As far as I could see, WP:NPOV, WP:NOTNOW, and WP:NOT were included because they started with the letter N (and WP:N goes here). This rationale seems pretty flimsy to me, and there are other WP redirects/topics starting with N, such as WP:NONFREE.

WP:CITE, WP:FOOT, and WP:REFNOTE (which goes to a subtopic of WP:FOOT) were apparently included because WP:NOTE goes here, which makes sense, but why do we have to include three such links? I replaced them with one link to WP:NOTES, which I guessed was where WP:NOTE would target if it didn't go here.

The "Importance of topic" thing made a little sense to me, since "notability" and "importance" are certainly related topics, but I doubted that there was really much likelihood of confusing the rating of article importance within a WikiProject with the concept of "notability." Perhaps the bigger problem with this link is that it's piped, and the actual target is not Importance of topic but Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Release_Version_Criteria#Importance_of_topic, and piping in a hatnote doesn't make much sense because it doesn't inform the user of where they were actually trying to go, and including the entire unpiped URL seemed excessive in light of the previously estimated low likelihood of someone coming here looking for that page. So I eliminated that one.

On the other hand, someone coming to WP:NN looking for WP:N/N makes perfect sense. Hence, what I ended up with was:

This page is an article notability guideline. For the Notability noticeboard, see WP:N/N. For article footnotes, see WP:NOTES.

I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. Comments/corrections welcome. Theoldsparkle (talk) 20:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

Reliable/Reliability

A newish user (has been around about a month on this account), Hans Dunkelberg recently made two revisions to the line about "reliable" in the opening definition of notability (see here and here). I attempted to correct he first edit as the editor mentioned that their English isn't great but I couldn't determine what they were attempting to say so I reverted the edit. The second time around, they change "Reliable" to "Reliability" which I again reverted because the sentence that the list of words are supplementing doesn't use the word "reliability" but instead uses the word "reliable". Just now, the editor has again changed the sentence to say, "Reliable:". I'm not sure how to handle this. I don't edit war so I'm going to ask that others check out the edits. He's using lots of exclamation points but I can't tell if he's just excited or being facetious. Ultimately it will be settled but I've never seen this sort of rapid succession of changes to the guideline by different users. We need to keep an eye on what's going on and possibly have the page protected if this indeed is vandalism and continues. OlYeller^Talktome 23:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

OlYeller21 has undone an attempt of me to improve the linguistic / argumentative quality of the paragraph of the general notability guideline with the catchword "Reliable", stating it seemed to him that I try to fix something that is not broken. I admit that the spot is not explicitly broken, but I insist that the first sentence of that paragraph is not really a good one. One stumbles over the first four words in the line. The sentence runs, at the moment:

• "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. (...)

My suggestion is, after OlYeller21 has rejected all my proposals regarding how one could reformulate the spot, to insert a colon after "Reliable" and to delete the word "means" thereafter. OlYeller21 claims that shouldn`t be done because also the other four paragraphs don`t have colons after the catchwords. I hold against this that there is altogether not a clear principle of how the paragraphs are structured, grammatically. Some run "'...' means...", others continue differently, but also with a grammatical caesura, while the third, with the catchword "Sources", continues without such a grammatical caesura. I agree that it would be pedantry to demand the other paragraphs that continue "'...' means..." to be changed, because they altogether appear harmonic.

The other definitions begin:

• "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. (...)

• "Sources", for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. (...)

• "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator. (...)

and

• "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject is suitable for inclusion. (...)

I would like to retort OlYeller21`s question

"None of the rest of the definitions use a colon. Why should this one?"

with the question

"Why shouldn`t it?"

--Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 00:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I don't care which version is used but it should be uniform and decided upon by more than one person as WP:N is, in my opinion, one of the most if not the most important guideline in the entire project. As for whether or not we should spend time on these questions, I'll answer them both. Why should we do this: I have no idea. Why shouldn't we do this: it's solving a non-problem which is needlessly taken resources away from the rest of the project. There may be plenty but I don't see any benefit from discussing this change let alone making it. I'm certainly open to suggestions, though. OlYeller^Talktome 00:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The sentence

• "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. (...)

may appear flawless to somebody who has read it several times. When one reads it for the first time, one can think of "reliable means" (as of an adjective and a noun) and, as "means" can also be used as a noun in singular, also of "(a) means sources" (as if the word "sources" were a verb in third person). When then follows the word "need", the confusion is perfect, because this word can, again, as well be considered a verb as a noun. It does not help much, either, that there follow two complicated foreign words in "editorial integrity" and, soon after, a Wikilink. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 12:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

The fact that "reliable" is called out as a different emphasis in parallel with the other sentences around it makes it very hard to see how an average reader can taken "reliable means" as anything other than "noun-verb" rather than, how you think it may be being read "adjective-noun". --MASEM (t) 13:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, this detail is rather something that may only emerge when one is already confused by the whole following of the first four, five words of the sentence, subconsciously-subsequently. I do not see a very big problem, here. After all, such an important page should really be formulated well, and that not only for the average, but for as many readers as possible / reasonable. I think the whole melody of the sentence somehow lacks strength, cohesiveness. Also when one understands that "means" is meant as a verb — which, as You say, most readers will instantly do because also the preceding paragraph begins like that —, the ensuing phrase with the subject "sources" still comes in so inconspicuously that, as I fear, also the average reader will, in many cases, stumble over this spot. Therefore I tried to improve the thing. I would like to apologize if I should have caused confusion, by that. I still think one could improve the paragraph by the insertion of a colon and the deletion of the word "means" without corrupting the overall structure of the general notability guideline. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I think the next step would be to propose an exact wording/formatting of the change that you would like to make. If you think the colon would help people to better understand the wording, I ask that you propose the change for all 5 words because I feel that defining each in a different way would be more confusing than the current situation. OlYeller^Talktome 14:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest this:

• "Reliable": sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. (...)

--Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds simple enough to me. We're not leaving anything out are we? Also, are you including the rest of the sentence ("Sources may encompass published works....")?OlYeller^Talktome 14:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)