User talk:Trialsanderrors/On notability

A topic is notable if ...

... it has been a central subject of a sufficient number of reputable and independent encyclopedic sources

Moved here from WT:N

Draft version here: User:Trialsanderrors/On notability. There are a few changes to the central definition, but mostly it's about what the difference between the definition and a claim to notability is and how it relates to verifiability and the specialized notability guidelines. Copped mostly from the discussion above, so thanks to all participants. Edit at your heart's desire. ~ trialsanderrors 00:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

This is much, much more useful than the majority of notability drivel we have currently. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:42, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks very good. Thanks for the effort. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I like this a lot... but your current definition of "published" excludes sites like Gamespot and IGN. The problem here is that IGN is a source for games, but once you say "website" everyone will want to include their little piece of the web as a reliable source. ColourBurst 01:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, "reputability" takes care of that... sorta. (I actually like it, it explicitly says what a reliable source means.) ColourBurst 01:45, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I forgot something else. Your definition of "noted" can be different based on categorization. An average Nobel Prize winner is still extraordinary and would be considered notable no matter what, but it still has peers and not every single Nobel winner stands out amongst all Nobel winners (against other non-Nobel winners, perhaps, but not against Nobel winners). ColourBurst 01:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually the def of "published" is copied-and-pasted from WP:N. I should ditch the univ presidents in favor of Nobel Laurates though. There are some hella non-notable colleges out there. ~ trialsanderrors 02:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Re Nobel laureates, I would think that the peer group is scientists as a whole. Maybe it should be made clear that the peer group should be defined broadly. ~ trialsanderrors 17:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I've got some criticisms, although I like the way this is written.

• On Sufficiency, "Neutrally" does not mean favorably or unfavorably is doubly suspect. I was expecting it to say Neutrally means neither favorably or unfavorably, but if something is the best, to be neutral you have say so. What is this really trying to say? Stephen B Streater 11:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• Also on sufficiency, there is a problem if there is no peer group. This applies to a lot of my work, but anything truly significant and original should be notable. Stephen B Streater 11:59, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• On sufficiency, I always use the "Metacritic test" as an example of neutral coverage. Assuming Metacritic is a fairly comprehensive aggregator of reviews, their aggregate score should roughly be a guideline on the overall tone of our article, the number of reviews should govern the length of the article, individual quotes should be taken from a balanced range of reviews, from good to bad, maybe omitting the most extreme ones. Metacritic doesn't calculate an average if the number of reviews is insufficient, meaning they don't feel comfortable the score is a fair evaluation of the perceived quality. So neutrally certainly doesn't mean everything should be reduced to a 50 score, it means if the response was overwhelmingly favorable the article should say so. In any case, I think the point is covered better somewhere else, so we can move it out.
• On peer group, I'd like to hear an example. ~ trialsanderrors 17:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your metacritic summary above, but I don't think this is reflected in the proposed wording. Perhaps: neutrality means reflecting the balance of published reliable sources. Stephen B Streater 19:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

On peer group, perhaps something like Java applets running in a web browser would be an example. A Java applet was the only way to have mass-market real time client-side web applications without requiring installation or security rights. There were no other ways to do this. So how would you compare it with its peers? I'd also be interested in the peers for the first moon landing. Stephen B Streater 19:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

To simplify my peer point, the first of anything would have no peers at the time - the first plane, the first electric light bulb, the first wheel. But they are notable in part because they are the first. Stephen B Streater 19:35, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I have to think more about a more careful wording of the "neutral" issue.

On every first having no peers, I'm not sure if I agree. There are two things: One, firsts are either firsts-and-lasts, or firsts-of-many. The Lindbergh flight was the first of many transatlantic flights, so that creates a peer group and makes the "first" a claim to notability. Two, a lot of the firsts end up as lasts, and very few of them are notable. Say if no one had succeeded in climbing Mt. Everest after Hillary & Tenzing, that would still make their feat notable. In this case the peer group would probably be all attempts to climb Mt. Everest, etc. I can think of peer groups for all of your examples – first wheel, first plane: transportation devices, light bulb: illumination devices, first moon landing: endeavors in aeronautics, etc. ~ trialsanderrors 21:06, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

OK - A little more work on Sufficiency, but I take your point that even something new and important will probably have peers eventually. I think the first moon landing was notable before any others took place, and so the peers would have to be other space flights or something else which is actually quite different from the point of the moon landing, but if we can clarify that peers is to be extended until it includes a few things, the concept works. Stephen B Streater 00:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That looks like a good effort. It's awfully detailed, but maybe detail is what is required. My first thought is that there is no reason to exclude published autobiographies as one possible source. IMHO, (1) if your autobiography is published by a major, non-vanity publisher, that makes you more notable, not less; (2) published autobiographies have been subject to external editing, fact-checking and libel checking; (3) published autobiographies can be reliable sources; and (4) fundamentally, there isn't much difference between using an interview as a source and using an autobiography published by a reliable source. IMHO, the major source of confusion is that the Wiki guidelines have been using "Autobiography" to refer to people editing pages about themselves on Wikipedia, not to the use of reputable, published autobiographies as article sources. For more, see my discussion on the WP:BIO talk page. TheronJ 22:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Autobiographies are acceptable under WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper), that's not the point of the essay. The point is to drive home the difference between the original inclusion criterion and the criterion to create a stand-alone article. In essence an autobiography of the type you describe would in all likelihood trigger a number of critical responses (positive and negative), so a balanced article can be created. If it's the only source there can't be a balanced article, so the source should be used in a different context if at all. ~ trialsanderrors 22:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That's my point - autobiographies aren't self-published sources if they are published by a reputable publisher. An autobiography isn't any more self-published than an interview is -- in both cases, the subject is speaking, but the work is not "self-published." TheronJ 22:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

But they don't become neutral by being published. An article written based solely on a person's recollections about humself cannot be balanced. Reliability and neutrality are different concepts. ~ trialsanderrors 23:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the point that in requesting a source be neutral to render a topic notable. It would seem to lead to Wikilawyering about whether Fox News and stories in The Nation are sufficient to render a subject notable. As long as a source is "non-trivial", the subject is probably notable. The idea that a source can be "non-trivial" and reliable, but still not be relevent to notability strikes me as counter-intuitive. Thanks, TheronJ 00:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

See below and read my Metacritic example above. ~ trialsanderrors 00:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

On stubs

My only concern with this is on situations like stubs that hold a lot of information. I'll give a few examples:

• Real Live Roadrunning: An album stub by Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. The duo as constituted would make any merge discussion moot, as the two articles for the artists are fairly large as is. Furthermore, the working consensus, as it stands, is that albums of notable acts get their own articles, to reduce main-page clutter and keep discography links intact. Truly, there isn't that much to say, but there is enough verifiable information to sustain the stub as it stands, compiling independent reviews and chart statistics. How do you envision this handling these types of articles? --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Miller-Consolidated Pictures is a stub I created knowing full well that sources exist to expand it further, but lacking access to do so (see Kroger Babb for details as to where I got much of the sourcing). The sources to sustain a larger, more complete article exist, and eventualism tells me that someone else may very well come along with the information I currently lack. As the data wouldn't fit in any other specific article due to the diversity of information it holds, how do you envision this handling these types of articles? --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• Mephisto (automaton) is a stub article that is highly unlikely to ever expand past the status of stub. Information on the machine is extremely limited, and it can be argued that everything that can be said about it has been said. Again, no valid merge target, and not a whole ton of independent information about it - much of the publishing about it is simply a regurgitation of primary material, which could end up being problematic if anyone felt the need to challenge it. How do you envision this handling these types of articles? --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I really love this. Two hours ago, I was extremely down about the whole Wikipedia thing, and this thing (please dear god make it a proposal) has effectively reinvigorated me. I'm hoping this can become workable. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:55, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the album an acceptable content fork? That seems to be the same case as the Constance Holland case I mentioned. No strong individual claim to notability, but the position in the web of articles makes it encyclopedically prudent™ to leave it as stand-alone article. We should mention that merger decision should be made with a view on the encyclopedia as a whole. I'd say that 70% of my own contributions are at best "extended stubs" and serve only as a summary of facts and as springboard to the sources. That just comes from writing about obscure topics. I don't see an inherent problem with it unless it's an eternal two-liner. I think more problems come from exaggerated claims with insufficient sources. ~ trialsanderrors 01:26, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I never thought of it as an acceptable content fork, good call. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:10, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

A Show of Hands

Absolutely beautiful! This entire format gets my overwhelming support. Your "Notability and Verifiability" section contains exactly the point that I have been trying to argue to people for the last couple months. Too many people have used the same arguments and criteria interchangeably between N and V, and indeed have used the terminology for N and V interchangeably. Your proposed format I think is true to the original intent of the guideline and explains the concept in much more clear terms without providing a specific criteria that people feel compelled to satisfy to the letter and wikilawyer over. Granted, as opposed to debating over criteria qualification people will now instead debate over the sources and claims of notability and whether they are appropriate or not, but that's really where the discussions need to be anyway. --Daedalus 17:08, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I would prefer not to run a poll. The effort made is excellent and I would support a bold move to make the edit. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 18:20, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. I am in full support of proposing that this become the central guideline at WP:N. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't intend this to be a poll per se, but rather a way to finalize consensus. As much as I support the new changes, I think that a bold move to make the edit will be met with reverts. Without first forming some documented consensus to reference I doubt the edit will stick. This is a big change to WP as a whole and I want to make sure it's done right. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or if I've misinterpretted WP's process. --Daedalus 19:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

No, that's fine. First step is to make a post over at WP:N that you intend on replacing what's there with this as the general criteria. If the consensus over there is positive (give it a few days at minimum), then we can replace the text and work out any changes we need to make to the individual specific criteria. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:24, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

• In favour in principle of bold edit, but would like to tidy up a couple of points first which look ambiguous to me. (I've only just come across this proposal.) Stephen B Streater 19:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm happy with this version now. Stephen B Streater 07:31, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • But it's worth mentioning I am happy with the official version too, which includes quite a lot of my ideas - as well as (perhaps crucially) input from people who don't think lack of notability should be a criterion for deletion. This discussion has avoided the arguments that the last bold change made - which is partly why it is in the more concise form I prefer I expect. Stephen B Streater 07:38, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
• It's less than a day old, nowhere near finished... ~ trialsanderrors 20:32, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
• I think the requirement that sources be "neutral" misses the point and opens the door for all kinds of wikilawyering. NPOV for Wikipedia purposes is defined as "fairly represent[ing] all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and . . . do[ing] so in proportion to the prominence of each". There may be subjects for which no "neutral" source can be reliably identified. (Take Controversies about Opus Dei, for example, or Space opera in Scientology scripture - there are lots of sources, but good luck getting editors to agree which are neutral. In those cases, NPOV requires balanced reporting, but it doesn't required the existence of "neutral" sources. If there are only four sources on a subject, and three of them are liberal, then the fact that the sources are liberal doesn't render them unfit for the encyclopedia, as long as they comply with WP:V. In addition, the vast majority of information in the vast majority of articles is uncontroversial. If I use Sarah McClendon's autobiography to source information about the dates of her military service, her early journalistic experiences, and her report of her reasons for her support of veteran's causes, I can put together a pretty good article.
  • that sources be "neutral" — Did I miss something? There is no such requirement and it shouldn't be in the text. I discussed the issue of neutrality above under the "Metacritic test". The sources don't have to be neutral, but the amount and diversity of sources should be sufficient to allow for a neutral balanced discussion of the topic. ~ trialsanderrors 00:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
• Hey Trials, very nicely done, two thumbs up. Pete.Hurd 22:46, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Some comments

Not sure if we're ready for a poll yet, but some general comments: My goal is to create a three-level hierarchy for the definition:

1. The definition itself, which should be very terse (right now 21 words).
2. A concise explanation of each word, ca. 50 words each
3. A set of footnotes with more clarifications, examples, etc.

So I will be pruning the explanations repeatedly, I know there is a need to get a lot of information across, but we should try to avoid instruction creep and keep the core message as concise as possible. ~ trialsanderrors 20:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Stubs

Please cast your eyes over Apollo (Adobe) and my comments on the discussion. This article fails to meet the criteria proposed here, but one of the good things about Wikipedia is the ability to create articles a bit at a time. So should stubs have a lower threshold for notability? And if so what should it be? Stephen B Streater 09:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Products are usually content branches of their producers. So if Adobe is notable, their products tend to be too. I'm just surprised that this has been a one-line for three-ish months. There's nothing to delete, if anything, merge into Adobe, develop a feasible stub article there and branch it out if it has some weight of its own. ~ trialsanderrors 09:56, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't see how that was reflected in your current draft. Stephen B Streater 10:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

And suppose it had been the same product from a small company - should its stubbiness alter the threshold for deletion? Stephen B Streater 10:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

You could say that "Adobe product" is a claim to notability since all Adobe products can be expected to draw attention (see my footnote on active vs. passive notability). For a smaller company, I'd say it's not because not all products by all firms draw attention. ~ trialsanderrors 10:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes - this makes sense. Stephen B Streater 20:42, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That's something I wanted to mention somewhere too. We don't "delete", we remove from public view in a number of ways. "Deleting" (which means to make the edit history unavailable to normal users) only makes sense if no feasible redirect target exists or if the editors of that particular article are too itchy to recreate the article from the edit history. In cases like this a simple redirect is an editorial decision that goes much quicker than running it through a deletion process. You can note on the Adobe talk page that you did the redirect and ask for sources. We don't have an embarassing one-liner floating around, and the article can be prepared collaboratively. ~ trialsanderrors 10:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Not yet ready for prime time

There are good reasons that Wikipedia:Notability discusses the things that it does, that have been discussed at great length on Wikipedia talk:Notability and that have come up in various different fora such as AFD. If this is a proposed replacement for that page, it is nowhere near ready, since it is missing many of the things that it has been discovered from experience have been needed to clear up editors' misconceptions. It is important to explain that notability is not subjective. It is important to explain that notability is not newsworthiness. It is important to explain which actual dictionary meaning of "notable" is the one being used. It is important to explain the subject-specific criteria and explain that the Primary Notability Criterion is common to all of them. And as you can see from the very discussion immediately above, the explicit explanation of the two ways that non-notable subjects are dealt with, and when each is appropriate, is also important.

It's also a bad idea to base decisions on claims to notability, as this proposal does. Claims to notability are only of concern when it comes to speedy deletion. They are not the bases for deletion anywhere else. It is a bad idea, and certainly not a reflection of the discussion of many editors that got us that speedy deletion criterion in the first place, to expand the idea of claims to notability to any other forms of deletion. The idea of the speedy deletion criterion was simply that any indication from the article that the subject was notable would require that the article go through the ordinary full deletion process, where the subject is assayed and researched by multiple editors to determine whether it is notable. We should not delete articles through AFD because they don't claim notability, and this proposal is highly objectionable for that alone. AFD is where the actual, not claimed, notability should be determined.

The whole section on claims to notability is apparently based upon a false premise. It appears to be trying to explain the reason that we have secondary notability criteria in terms of "inherent claims to notability". That is not the reason that we have secondary notability criteria. The reason that we have secondary notability criteria is that in certain specific areas we want our coverage to be flat and directory-like, even if in the world at large it is not, and certain members of a set of subjects have very little documentation at all. For example: We want every company on the FTSE 250 Index to have its own article, even if it is not the case that a company actually satisfies the PNC. This is not based upon claims to notability in the article's title or introduction. It is based upon the desire to have simple lists in the main stock market index articles, with each entry on the list bluelinked. In other words: It's based upon a deliberate decision to have a particular overall arrangement of information between the stock market index articles and the company articles, a simple flat directory-of-companies-like arrangement, even if that leads to articles that have few or no independent sources (which is, of course, unlikely). It's not about claims to notability. It's about decisions to abrogate our Wikipedia is not a directory policy in certain, limited, areas. Uncle G 11:43, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Wait a moment here... what about webcomics? I don't want to drag the debate out again, but there were people arguing that because certain webcomics collectives and their members don't generate a lot of neutral verifiable sources, membership in that collective wasn't an indicator of notability. Some others argued that because of WP:WEB's third criteria (syndication in an independent source) they should be allowed to stay. Unfortunately, every time it was argued, there was no consensus at all. So does that mean it doesn't matter whether they have sources? Also, what's the limit of "limited"? ColourBurst 15:03, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"Notability is not subjective"

Comments split in two parts, since both issues should be discussed separately. "Not subjective" is addressed here, in the section called "Common standards and individual judgment". I deliberately avoided the sloganesque and misleading "Not subjective" and expressed the tension between objective facts and subjective interpretations dispassionately. This is a definition, not a rulebook. Evidence pertaining notability is objective but their interpretation lies within the judgment of individual editors, and the only standard we have created over time is that those who do not consider the evidence and policies receive less attention in deletion debates. If the interpretation of evidence were objective we wouldn't need deletion debates, we could leave the deletion process to bots. ~ trialsanderrors 18:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"Claims vs. establishment of notability"

"AFD is where the actual, not claimed, notability should be determined." This is exactly what this proposal does, and I don't know where the misreading comes from. A claim to notability is the premise for the discussion at AfD, not the criterion for passing. We have a number of claims that are per se considered notable by the community, such as "XYZ is a city", "ABC is an organism", "DEF is a Nobel Laureate", "PQR is a FTSE 250 Index-listed company". Those are active claims to notability, as defined in the footnote. The sheer membership in the class gives us a strong indicator that sufficient coverage is available, even though it might not be readily accessible (not all documentation about villages in Vietnam is on the web). Passive claims are made when the subject belongs to an ordinary class (bands, books, lawyers), but special circumstances have elevated them from their peers. "Written up in the New Yorker" would be such a passive claim to notability. I agree on the general sentiment that this is not ready from prime time yet, but I addresses a lot of issues on the current version of that were expressed on WT:N ~ trialsanderrors 18:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Just to amend this I changed the header of "Notability and verifiability" to "Establishing notability" to address your point. ~ trialsanderrors 22:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

"a review in Publisher's Weekly"

This would be good, except that it currently violates what's in WP:BK. The excerpt: "Reviews in periodicals that review thousands of books a year with little regard for notability, such as Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews do not meet this criterion."

So, which is right? I mean, to be honest, my opinion is that a review is a review. Thousands of books a year is a lot, but the book industry is much larger than that. ColourBurst 14:52, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

That's been under some discussion, and I honestly forgot all about the dispute over that at WP:BK and now I feel like an asshole. So apologies for that. Still, a review is a review is a review, and PW doesn't review even a significant fraction of the books released in a given year. My intent was simply to describe the difference between a non-independent puff piece and an independent trade magazine that might have the appearance to an uneducated outsider as something that wasn't independent of the creators. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:55, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed it to consider better language. Usually if we give examples we use the kind that are clearly in one camp or the other, e.g. blog vs. NYT. ~ trialsanderrors 18:57, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

True, but the controversial ones tend to be the ones that are perceived to be in a grey area. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:00, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

As they should be. AFD should focus on the grey area cases and not be bogged down by lengthy discussions over black or white cases. That's what the guidelines should help do. ~ trialsanderrors 19:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

But it's a perception, not a reality. There's no grey area about, say, Publisher's Weekly ot The Horn Book Review. They serve a specific market, but are independent entities, yet are occasionally controversial because they're trade mags. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:45, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

But it's a perception, not a reality. I'm not sure what that means. A review in PW is a fact, and a fact that speaks in favor of notability. Does it (or, say, three reviews in trade magazines) establish sufficiency? That's a value judgment, and for value judgment we need humans. To pick up my metacritic example again: We can be fairly sure about the new Shins album can be reviewed neutrally based on the breadth of coverage. Now chuck 95% of them down the memory hole and pretend only three of them survived. So if it's the Austin Chronicle, OMH and Stylus, it's the album of the decade. If it's Dusted, Village Voice and the Guardian, it's a ho-hum effort. In music and book reviews there is a bit of a bias to only publish reviews of obscure artists if they're extreme, knowing that a middling review is wasted space. That's an acute bias problem we can only tackle by making sure the subject has been looked at from different perspectives. ~ trialsanderrors 21:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

No, PW does not speak about notability, it speaks that the book has been publishing. For a book, being published is not mere in-notable, its the necessary criterion in most cases for thee to be a book at all. PW is a directory. I does not record every book, but it does for the general interest commercial publishers. LJ reviews every fiction book published in the United States except for vanity publishers. Sources need more careful examination than that. (Similar things will bet rue in other fields: is each individual professional baseball game notable enough for an article? They are all of them included in multiple newspapers, l using more than one source of reporting.)DGG 01:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Facts as the criterion destroys all distinctions-- Facts is simply multiple sources proving the existence of something. DGG 01:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed the section on trivial sources, renaming them to records (trivial implies short and shoddy). Records is the term that WP:RS uses in the context of primary sources. Opinions? ~ trialsanderrors 02:26, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

PW is most certainly not a directory. As someone who uses PW daily in his line of work, that couldn't be further from the truth, to be blunt. Truly, every non-vanity book should be deemed notable, as should every professional player - they should all reach this standard, thankfully. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's another angle. Do we agree that high school football games are not inherently notable? How about individual NFL games? I think the common agreement here is that they have to stand out against their peers to get a stand-alone entry (let me find that Texas high school game on YouTube again...), even though pretty much all games are covered by some media outlets. It seems like the criterion for notability there is that beyond the primary coverage there must be secondary coverage – discussions and analysis about certain aspects of the game. WP:RS says that "Any interpretive claims require secondary sources", which in my opinion includes the claim to notability.

On PW, I have a hard time believing that they really review every book that is published. Sure it's not every book published by a major publisher? ~ trialsanderrors 03:22, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

They don't. By my count, they do roughly 7000 reviews a year, not of every major book published, and a fraction of the total books published in a given year. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:28, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Also a follow-up question, to which extent is a PW review a review (ie includes a value judgment on the content) rather than just an executive summary? ~ trialsanderrors 03:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It depends on the reviewer, but it usually gives an overview of the plot, perhaps a quick note on themes, and gives a value judgment regarding its merit. They don't give letter grades or things like that, but the best of the crop do get highlighted reviews. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:33, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Is that best of the crop, or potential bestsellers? So if Oprah writes a book and PW slags it, would that still be a highlighted review? ~ trialsanderrors 03:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the highlights go to the best of the bunch, not to bestsellers alone. I have yet to see them highlight a poor review, although I can't pretend to have read every single highlighted review. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

← (reset indent) It seems to me that PW is in most ways a record, akin to a primary source news report of a football game. The focus is on relaying the factual information, the analysis takes a backseat. Highlighted reviews might fulfill the secondary criterion, because they contain a value judgment. ~ trialsanderrors 03:47, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There's no operational difference between the highlighted reviews and the not-highlighted versions in terms of raw content. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:53, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

On that note, what about announcements of movies/games etc being made, etc? Those don't usually have secondary commentary either, yet we use them to satisfy notability in practice. (AfD is a bit hit/miss in this area) ColourBurst 04:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well the highlighting is the value judgment, it says "more notable than usual". Announcements of important future events, I think it's more that there is an agreement that the event when it happens will be notable anyway, so we can start with the article right now. ~ trialsanderrors 04:05, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it typically says "better than the rest," assuming they don't highlight the loser entries. I have a year's worth of back issues in a file elsewhere, I can do some quick verification on that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

PEOPLE vs THINGS

There is a general problem about scientists, other academics, artists, and so on. The secondary material on them is usually very meagre, and directed instead to their works. The bio of an author on a book jacket is simply advertising copy, and most reviews will say nothing significant about the person's notability. We have been judging the N of such people by the N of their work as a whole, and this will have to be addressed. What article are we about to begin on?--the N policy article itself? I don't think we're ready for that. What we might be ready for is a second draft of this. DGG 04:12, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I thought the secondary material on scientist is very strong, except it's mostly about their work. CV's, bioblurbs etc., are acceptable as primary source on the person humself as declarative info (I think that's the word), but not as interpretative info. So if notability is an interpretation that must come from a secondary source. ~ trialsanderrors 04:21, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, I wonder if it isn't better to use primary and secondary sources instead of records and encyclopedis sources, since those terms are established. I'm trying to think how the terms overlap. ~ trialsanderrors 04:24, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I just figured out what you were saying. If a book is considered notable due to three PW-style reviews, the author is notable as well, but the only information we have on the author is the (usually biased) bioblurb. Hmmm... ~ trialsanderrors 04:31, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

We always tended to merge authors and works if their work is notable but the only sources for their bios are scattered bits from those reviews. Amy Kim Ganter would be an example like this (her work in Sorcerers and Secretaries is definitely notable, but there isn't much that talks about her outside her work). That constrasts with someone like Gene Yang (it's a bad example since his work and his bio are currently in the same article) who does have enough secondary material to write a bio on (Jeff Yang's extensive review which includes a substantial amount of information about him and Ed Guthmann's very extensive biography would be enough to warrant a seperate article for the creator. Right now there's not enough material actually in the article to seperate them but I believe there is enough material to do so.) ColourBurst 14:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

How about this

This is currently at DRV. The person is obviously "notable," but fails WP:BIO apparently, and would likely fail this. Where are the protections? --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the argument that he's "notable" (esp. under which definition), and why does he fail BIO? ~ trialsanderrors 03:18, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The argument that he is notable appears to be that he is a published author whose writing has appeared in notable media (New York Times, Slate, etc...), in addition to the lesser known media for which he appears to primarily work. This is disputed by some who say that that getting a few articles there isn't that hard to achieve. There is additionally an argumentum ad Jimbonem that doesn't seem to be persuading many people. Nobody has found any works meeting the central criteria, any reviews, or any awards. Nor has anyone produced evidence that he is among the "Widely recognized ... opinion makers" - although this point hasn't even been discussed so far as I can see. It is on DRV for the usual reason - a close disputed - but via an unusual route. GRBerry 18:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ignoring the Jimbo route for the time being, the problem is that there shouldn't be even a lick of doubt that this person is "notable." Our current guidelines, and this proposed guideline, do nothing to reflect that, and it's a problem I moronically didn't forsee. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:32, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Without regard to the foresight issue, because nobody has 20/20 foresight, also one that you (and Phil) haven't done a good job explaining. A lot more assertion than explanation in both cases. (Of course, an explanation there is more likely to result in a change to that outcome than an explanation here.) GRBerry 18:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

If you can pitch in some help on how to phrase "A person who's writing has appeared in the NYT and Slate is obviously 'notable' regardless of what our guidelines fail to say on the matters," that would probably be best. It's possibly too obvious for me to be able to understand the other side. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are a few meanings of notable around here. (Really there are, even though I agree with the main thrust of the central criteria). 1) Has been noticed by people whose judgment is worth following. 2) Is important enough that we should cover even if nobody cares. 3) Is necessary to comprehensive coverage of a topic area. 4. Visible to our readers, thus worth covering. (#4 is often rejected at AFD, but also often asserted.) Probably more. You could argue a case from any, though not necessarily one that will convince me.

What is it about having their writing appear in those media that makes them obviously notable. Don't start by guessing the other side's thinking, explain yours! Do you mean that therefore they have been noticed by our readers who will want to find out who this person is? Do you mean that they are therefore important and we need to cover them to have comprehensive coverage of topic XXXX? (Frankly, I can't even guess the X.) Are you asserting that those sources are highly selective and only choose the best writers, and thus anyone that publishes there would be among the top writers? Only after you have explained your own thinking should you consider possible objections. We already have some visible - one example is "it isn't that hard to be published in those sources" (including one "I've done it") - and the visible ones need a reasoned response. GRBerry 19:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Your example in question is somewhat of a reverse Pokemon argument. The point is rather simple, and you've mapped it out already - the subject has been noticed, is important enough, and is necessary for comprehensive coverage within his field. I'm not necessarily convinced by #4, but even if the first three were correct, this doesn't protect those articles, and that's the grander problem. We can put aside this guy for the moment, I bet we have a thousand similar articles that are in danger. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:11, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

"Notable" wouldn't be my concern here, NPOV would be (which T&E talks about below), especially when the subject of the article doesn't help matters by editing COI (I know that's not forbidden, but it doesn't make the article look any better.) ColourBurst 16:19, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the actual article this looks like a fringe journalist to me. I expected someone who frequently contributes to NYT or Slate. So really while I support ex officio notability for some professions, "journalist" isn't one of them. The cost of COI patrolling outweighs the benefit of comprehensive coverage in my book. A better case is Daniela Hamaui, who survived an AfD even though at the point the article was a one-liner and the only evidence for her notability came from a primary source. ~ trialsanderrors 19:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

The COI argument (COI should not be a roadblock to producing articles on people/places/things that should have them) is one for a different discussion at a different area. But "ex officio" is an interesting aside that kind of meets up with this - you may disagree on journalism, but this doesn't protect against that sort of "notability," either. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:40, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Ex officio is already listed, although I doubt we have a codified list what ex officio professions are. No, COI shouldn't be a roadblock to creating articles on notable people, see the edit history of Bill Owens (photographer). The main problem is simply that without secondary coverage the articles will be proseified resumes, which creates an inherent NPOV problem. ~ trialsanderrors 19:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would be more worried that the "Proseified resumes" would be a WP:NOT problem by functioning as a directory. Obviously we should draw a line where we cannot include people who can have there accomplishments listed but not discussed in depth. --Daedalus 22:04, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I tried to bring that up at WT:NOT, with little success. ~ trialsanderrors 08:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd imagine that list would be very small - even professions such as television/movie actors aren't ex officio (an actor with a bit role in one movie wouldn't be considered notable, for example). ColourBurst 16:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)