Wikipedia talk:Article inclusion

The idea of this page is to supercede Wikipedia:Notability and use this page as an overview for governing inclusion standards. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Self-contradictory?

I see an apparent self-contradiction in this proposal-on the one hand, it's stating depth and number of sources, but on the other it's stating that the subject-specific guidelines are what to look at. I think we should clear that up before any potential strawpoll-if something has very little source material (perhaps other than basic verification that it exists), but passes a subject-specific guideline, what are we advocating doing with it? Personally, in that case, I'd generally go for merge-there's almost always a suitable parent to merge to in that case, and better to have one good article and some useful redirects then a forest of permastubs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 02:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd strongly agree that a specific guideline on merging would be advisable. This is particularly true for things like geographic locations, schools and bus routes, which are viewed as "inherently notable" but tend to produce permastubs. Rather than having an article saying "East Nowhere is a village of 37 inhabitants in Somewhere Province, 25 km from West Nowhere", better to merge it to a "List of towns and villages in Somewhere Province". This should be enshrined in the guideline. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 15:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting point, Seraphim. I made a slight change to the final criteria which mentions subject-specific guidelines by making it explicitly say that WP:INCLUSION should be considered the norm unless there is an "agreed upon subject-specific guideline that contradicts it". That would mean that, essentially WP:INCLUSION would "trump essays" on a subject, but if a subject specific guideline exists with its implied fairly good consensus then in cases where the two disagree you should use the subject specific guideline instead. That leaves WP:INCLUSION as the general rule of thumb to follow, but also leaves the door open for exceptions in specific subject areas that most of us would agree on. Dugwiki 22:20, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That solves the contradiction, but I'm not entirely sure it solves the permastub issue-in a lot of cases, marginally-sourced articles probably should be merged, whether or not they pass a subject-specific guideline. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree Seraphim that most articles which fail WP:INCLUSION should be merged or deleted. Borderline cases, though, still need to be handled case by case in afd (just like borderline WP:N cases are currently handled in afd). Dugwiki 17:31, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bus routes

Pursuant to the discussion earlier on inherent notability, has anyone seen Category:London bus routes? There's hundreds of these articles, none of which have any claim to notability under WP:N or, indeed, WP:AI, yet they keep surviving AfDs. I'd put them all up for deletion today, except I'm sure someone would start citing precedents, and claiming "bus routes are inherently notable" without providing any policy evidence for this. To be honest, I think we need to add information to this guideline strictly defining and limiting the idea of "inherent notability", and making it absolutely clear that Bus Route 304 from Somewhere Street to Elsewhere Drive does not automatically merit inclusion in Wikipedia. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 16:32, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Inherent notability" (or appropriateness for inclusion, or suitability for an article, or whatever it ends up getting called) is a garbage concept anyway. As I stated in the same discussion at WT:N, there are some things, such as US Presidents, basic chemical elements, or countries, in which every member of the category happens to be appropriate for an article. But that's not because of some "inherent" characteristic, it's because there really is enough sourcing on each and every item in that category to merit an article. In almost all cases, some members of a given category containing anything at all will be appropriate for articles, others will merit a short mention in a parent article, and yet others will not merit any mention at all. Article subjects should be evaluated on a case by case basis, not category by category. In the very few cases where everything in a category really does merit inclusion (like the ones mentioned above), it will be so patently obvious that no one need say it anyway. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

People interested in a project will be working to a different calibration to other editors. Thus, some random pokemon / bus route / episode of the muppets becomes includable because . . . (PS: I noticed the bus routes thing because of an ANI post about bus photos and image permissions.) DanBeale 19:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

People interested in a project will be working to a different calibration to other editors...yes, I think you've put your finger on the precise problem there. That's why we need clear and (to an extent) inflexible inclusion guidelines. Everything is important to someone, somewhere, and that "someone" is quite likely to think that their favourite Muppets episode/local bus route merits an article on Wikipedia, and will not be persuaded otherwise unless there are clear, precise rules to cite. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 18:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strawpoll

Per my comments above, here is a strawpoll. Obviously it's not binding (as per Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion). Please advertise this poll in all appropriate places. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 19:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support

Support - overall consider the emphasis on sourced content, instead of counting references, to be an improvement. Addhoc 21:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - This is a much needed transition toward relying solely on policy (Verifiability/Attribution) rather than setting a higher, counter-productive bar for article creation. This will not be an impediment to getting rid of crap. It will make deletions happen more on a case-by-case basis, which is how it ought to be. The biggest advantage is that we stop alienating people by calling them or their pet topics "non-notable". It's much easier to take the criticism of "no reliable sources are available" than "you are non-notable."--ragesoss 15:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Policy, policy, policy. "Notability" is a foreign concept that has no basis in, well, anything, except the opinions of its editors. Trying to explain it is a nightmare. It's much simpler to say "Source your articles, or they may be deleted; here is our policy on sourcing". Nifboy 15:27, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I know I don't count for much here...but personally, I feel that while this may very well be a bit...undefined, as yet... Nifboy is absolutely right. At present, the usefulness and openness of wikipedia is in jeopardy. 'Notability' is indeed not a useful criterion for determining article inclusion or disinclusion, as it's quite simply far too open to personal biases in deciding if it is 'notable'. Personal biases will always come into play, as people will always say that topics they don't like or don't agree with are 'not notable'. As a result of current policy, there are groups of people going around wikipedia with the sole purpose of getting articles on certain topics removed. Seems like more and more I try to look something up, and either get something Completely Unrelated or simply not included. Generally for reasons of 'lack of notability'. This policy, while it admittedly needs work, has the right idea. Using 'notability' as a standard of inclusion will lead to, at best, wikipedia becoming another Britannica, and equally useless. This policy has the right basic idea. Though it could use fleshed out a bit. But taking the personal bias of the users out of the 'inclusion standards' and making it absolutely objective is 100% necessary to the continued usefulness of this project. One other thing to keep in mind is that many of the current more active users have a vested interest in being able to remove articles simply because they do not like them, and for that reason many of them will fight to keep it that way.

This personal bias is normal, and to be expected, but it has no more place in deciding what is kept or what is deleted than it does in the way an article is written. Yes, there needs to be a standard, but keeping in mind WP:PAPER, we need to err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion, lest wikipedia become an insular clique, with no use to most people. This concept of inclusion rather than exclusion is written into many wikipedia policies, including such basic common sense things as WP:BITE. It was part of the very basic idea and foundation of the project. Right now, it is more and more being replaced with hostility and personal biases. One way or another, this HAS to change, or this project is, ultimately, doomed. -Graptor 66.161.202.5 18:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support- Simpler than Notability --Dial 14:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Strong oppose - notability is very important, it's crucial. I have seen long & pretty well-written articles (with sources!) on completely non-notable topics. Like all the TV or game cruft articles/lists. Or somebody's family tree. According to this it would be kept when they should be deleted. Another hand: small articles that are clearly on notable subject, but just there is not enough info on the topic. Like Daumantas of Lithuania: clearly notable, but he is mentioned in the sources only once, therefore it will be a permanent stub. What, it should be deleted? Renata 14:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just to reply to the above comment, I'm not clear on what examples of articles you're referring to of articles that would be kept under WP:INCLUSION that aren't kept under WP:N. Both articles have the same basic criteria of multiple independent sources over time. The TV and game articles and family tree articles would still require multiple independently (key word) published sources about them. Can you give some actual examples of article that would be deleted under WP:N but kept under WP:INCLUSION? The blanket statement given above sounds like it might be based on an unfounded assumption. Dugwiki 17:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, almost forgot. On the face of it the example of Daumantas of Lithuania appears to pass both WP:N and WP:INCLUSION because there are multiple references in the article about the person. And I think most editors would probably say it's longer than just a minimal stub. So I'm not clear on why you think it passes WP:N but fails WP:INCLUSION. Dugwiki 17:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing. Keep in mind that just because a subject is "famous" or "notable" doesn't necessarily mean you need a seperate article about them if you don't have a lot of information. Using royal families as an example, you could possibly argue that being a member of royalty is "notable", even if the information you have on the person is limited. But instead of having individual articles about every single member of every royal family, you can condense the information by creating a composite article and list articles that include multiple minor members of royal families. So if "Duke Joe Schmo" is notable "by family only", just include his brief information within a broader article or list about the Royal Schmo family. That would both satisfy WP:N and WP:INCLUSION by keeping the information you want available on Wikipedia but just not having it as its own article. Dugwiki 17:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A bit refractoring: strong oppose for WP:AI superceeding WP:Notability, strong support for WP:AI complementing WP:Notability. I am perfectly fine with AI being just another test for inclusion. But I am certainly not fine if that's the only test. Renata 23:03, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose - intended to replace WP:N, yet even its proponents admit it has no teeth. I'm in favor of an extremely explicit notability guideline, with as little ambiguity as possible, which WP:N is and this new "summary" guideline is not. As an essay summarizing WP:N, there's nothing wrong with it. But as a replacement, it would definately be a loss of quality, for what gain I don't see. — Swpb ^{talk contribs} 14:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is the specific enforcement language you feel is missing from the proposal? Off-hand I'm not sure what "teeth" WP:N has that this is missing. Both are guidelines advocating the same basic criteria and thus, if this was adopted as a replacement, would presumably have just as much "enforcability" as WP:N. Dugwiki 17:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regretful oppose, while I like the idea (and very much like the name change), and a lot of thought has gone into this, I can't support any proposal that states that permanently stub-length articles may be acceptable for "pragmatic reasons", nor that encourages systemic bias by encouraging that different guidelines be used in different areas. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Based on those comments, would you then support the guideline if it a) left out exceptions for perma-stubs and simply said perma-stubs should be merged, and b) removed the reference to subject specific guidelines? Dugwiki 17:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. I like "article inclusion" much better than the title "notability", since notability can confuse people ("What do you mean the internet fad a million blogs posted about isn't notable???"), and the rest of it's pretty good. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, Sera, I'll keep that in mind. If other editors agree with those changes I'll tweak them in. Dugwiki 17:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: the one thing that is, without a shadow of a doubt, better here than at WP:N is the page name. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 17:38, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per the angelic being with a (presumably flaming) sword up there, though I would be more sympathetic if the changes Dugwiki just suggested were made. The subject-specific guidelines are, by and large, a joke: completely subjective and completely under the thumb of teh cabal of the now. The problem then, however, is that then all you'd really be left with is a rather waffly rephrase of WP:N, which isn't really worth the bother. That's not to say I especially endorse WP:N, which needs cleanup and clarification. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 17:35, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, as I just replied to Seraphim I'll probably tweak those changes in place assuming other editors agree. I'll wait, though, to give more time for feedback. Dugwiki 17:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose on the basis that the current policy is just fine, perhaps it needs a title change is all. shoy 22:33, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Article inclusion is too broad, reads too much like WP:A, and doesn't focus as much on notability. Yes, N boils down to RS (with V), and all these policies are intertwined, but point 4 appears like a footnote that RS and V alone aren't enough. Notability may not be the best word, but WP:N goes through to explain several important aspects of the notion not found here. I might have supported this as a separate summary of WP:N and WP:A, except there are already too many pages on these same topics. –Pomte 01:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose since it is not any better than WP:N and is even more inclusive ("minimally substantive" is about the most inclusive you can get, I suppose, and i prefer the "one substantial or multiple non-trivial sources" from WP:N). WP:N needs improvement, but this isn't it. Fram 10:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose While I don't really object to what's there, it seems like more of a rehash of other policies that goes into virtually no detail about the criteria for inclusion. It also seems like a major change from including topics that are notable to any topic that can be sourced, which would include pretty much everything that has ever been written about in even the smallest local papers. Switching from N to this seems like it would weaken grounds for deletion tremendously and many articles about insignificant topics could be kept. --Minderbinder 19:02, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Current policy is fine, and notability is very important - • The Giant Puffin • 19:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose I don't think there's anything wrong with using notability as a threshold standard. I firmly believe that the presence of articles on non-notable subjects dilutes the significance of the whole project. It becomes less an encyclopedia and more a catalog or directory. The notability policy may need tweaking, and it may be appropriate to have special rules for certain subject areas, but I oppose wholesale replacement. --Butseriouslyfolks 06:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - Even if an article fails to reference sufficient written sources, if those sources are available I don't think it appropriate to delete an article because it needs improving. Support the term "Article Inclusion" replacing the offensive term "notablilty." -- Jreferee 06:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify something, WP:INCLUSION is not advocating articles which have a good possibility of being improved. It is, though, appropriate to delete articles which appear to have little chance of improvement to have sufficient references. In other words, the first step on an insufficiently article is normally to tag the article as "unreferenced" or "onesource", for example, and then give the article some time to improve. If no improvement occurs, though, then the presumption becomes that the article is probably not going to improve and should be merged or deleted. That would not preclude the article reappearing at a later date in an improved form on the off-chance someone managed to find sources. But at some point you need to draw a line and say "this article has been flagged for necessary improvements for inclusion for a long time and doesn't appear to be changing. Either change it or remove it." Dugwiki 15:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strongly oppose. I don't have any problem with articles' remaining stubs in perpetuity if the subjects don't merit any more. It's a terrible idea to encourage article bloat and I deprecate this strongly. Grace Note 01:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I dislike WP:N because I feel it is fundamentally broken in many ways and it needs a major overhaul, and I would fundamentally support a good attempt at superceding it with a better written set of guidelines/policies. Unfortunately I don't feel this is quite it. The concept of notability, while being a little ill-defined and subjective, is still an important one to an encyclopedia. Granted, this is my deletionist philosophy speaking here but changes to the guidelines which broaden the inclusion criteria are not warranted. Again, something needs to be done about WP:N and I applaud the effort here - there are a lot of good points that I do hope to see in a future replacement (particularly the rename) but it's not yet ready to take the place of N. Arkyan  ^(talk) 18:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose — this really looks like a solution in search of a problem to me. However, the ideas in this proposal should be considered in future reworkings, revisions and/or renamings of WP:N. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - a good idea, but disagree with implementatio. Mukadderat 21:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Neutral per my comments in earlier sections. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 19:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Other comments

Per my comments above, proposals are not decided upon by voting on them. Not even if they have a "not binding" disclaimer. >Radiant< 14:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's as big a deal here (especially since the poll isn't being numbered, I'd encourage keeping it that way). There's nothing wrong with using an "opinion poll" to get a quick measure of how opinion currently stands, so long as it's not treated as a binding vote. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 14:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I knew someone was going to say that :) this, however, is my opinion, and opinions were asked for. I've seen slightly too many instances of people retroactively making a poll binding ("yes, it wasn't binding, but for unrelated reasons we're going to do what the majority wants"). That probably isn't the intent here but there's no harm in cuation. >Radiant< 14:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Radiant above is of course correct that this isn't actually a vote, per se. However, I have already found it useful because it has given me an opportunity to solicit some more specific feedback from the "oppose" votes above. A couple of the comments sound like they are things that could possibly be changed, maybe. So hopefully with some extra feedback some or all of those issues can be ironed out one way or another. Dugwiki 17:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just noticed this page, and personally if there were no poll I would not have expressed my first impression for what it's worth, but instead left you guys to improve it for later discussion. –Pomte 01:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This straw poll is proving pretty constructive so far, I think. The oppose comments seem pretty reasonable and are highlighting some areas for potential change in the proposal. My gut feeling at this point is that, based on those oppose comments so far, we have a decent chance of being able to either a) modify WP:INCLUSION to meet those concerns and then eventually use it as a replacement or supplement for WP:N; or b) modify WP:N to incorporate a couple of the ideas here, including changing its title as some people suggested. For my part I'll take a closer look at this probably Monday next week and will try and consolidate the specific requests and complaints into a more concise list. Then I'll see about fiddling with WP:INCLUSION's wording to meet those complaints. Either way I'm optimistic we're slowly approaching some changes to either WP:N or WP:INCLUSION or both that will satisfy most editors. Dugwiki 15:22, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- If you want my advice, go for (b), because (a) will likely lead to either two redundant/overlapping pages, or a lengthy debate about which of the two we need. For instance, witness the lengthy debate about whether we need WP:V or its intended replacement WP:ATT. >Radiant< 15:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is a long history of utilzing straw polls relative to the adoption of Wikipedia policies and guidelines as reflected in the see also section of Wikipedia:Straw polls. Counter to those who are of the opinion that "polling is evil", there is a long history of poll utilization on the project (and one can be sure that polls will continue to be used). Polls just have to be used correctly. (→Netscott) 15:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I really wish we didn't hold a straw poll on a discussion that was far from complete, and with issues still unresolved. My two cents. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:43, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Support for name change without policy change

Judging by the comments in the poll above, a lot of users seem to feel that the name change from "Notability" to "Article inclusion" is a good thing, but that the actual changes to the guideline are unnecessary. Would anyone advocate a simple name change (changing WP:N to WP:AI) while keeping the existing content of WP:N? Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 15:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to have a chance to more closely compare the two articles and the comments above over the next week or so. The name change appears to be popular, but it's also possible that there are some aspects of WP:INCLUSION that can be incorporated into WP:N as well. For instance it might make sense to incorporate a line or two advising against single source articles and tagging such articles using the onesource template for improvement. Also, if you change the name of WP:N to "Article inclusion" then you also should make appropriate changes to the article text, such having the guideline say it's talking about a "standard for article inclusion" instead of a "notability standard". The actual sourcing recommendations would remain the same, but the wording would be consistent with the guideline title.

Either way we're generating a fair amount of practical feedback above, so I think it would be a good idea to compile and assess that feedback more closely before making any changes one way or another. Dugwiki 17:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, no one's advocating going and moving WP:N as of right now, people would raise hell. But I think it's certainly something worth it to discuss, as the name does seem to be a broad point of agreement here. I would certainly support that 100% (though the page itself refers to notability all over the place, it would still have to be decided which, if any, of those references to notability we'd want to keep.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming we do go the route of adjusting WP:N, what might work well in that case would be essentially rewrite this proposal by copying and pasting WP:N over it then making necessary modifications. Then we can use this page as a sandbox-style draft version of the WP:N changes so that people have something to refer to without having to make changes to the actual WP:N text. Once the revised version appears to have approval, then replace the WP:N text with the new draft. Dugwiki 17:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

IMO it would be quite easy to dump the word notability by replacing "a topic is notable if..." with "a topic is worthy of being included in Wikipedia if..." - and do that for every time the phrase "notability" comes up. Moreschi ^{Request a recording?} 18:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it may end up being that easy, or it may involve some other tweaking. The onesource comment, for instance, would be a new sentence. Either way I'm sure we'll be able to work something out one way or another next week once we have everybody's feedback. Dugwiki 19:14, 4 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well the thing is that people were calling it "notability" since before WP:N was written, i.e. for years now. Also, "article inclusion" is dependent on a number of things unrelated to notability (e.g. NPOV, !copyvio, BLP, etc). >Radiant< 08:09, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think one point of the name change is that while the term "notability" has been around a long time it also has been misapplied by editors who attempt interpret the word "notability" to suit their personal definition of importance, such as attack articles they consider "fancruft". Thus the idea would be to replace the use of the word "notability" with a more objective term but still keep the basic principle of multiple independently published references that most of us agree on. So even if nothing else changed in how you determine when an article should be included, replacing the word "notability" would still be useful to hopefully reduce misapplication of the guideline. Dugwiki 16:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, the other things Radiant mentioned above are mentioned here in WP:INCLUSION as some of the policy rationale behind the multiple criteria presented. For example, the recommendation against single sourcing an article is in part to help avoid problems with NPOV (if you only have one source you only have one point of view). And the idea that "not everything that's true should be included" also follows from WP:NOT. Obviously you don't want to reiterate all those policies in detail, but it is useful to explain somewhat how the guideline ties into those policies. Dugwiki 17:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, my problem with misuse of "notability" is that people use it to write articles that are fancruft. :) But I guess that does go to show there's opposition to it on both sides. If we could get rid of the subject-specific guidelines and make it clear that "We need to split an article that's too long!" is not in itself a reason for something to have a separate article, I think we'd be fine. (If an article is too long, but no subtopics of it would normally be notable enough for an article, get the scissors, don't split.) Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's a good point too, Seraphim. The problem with a word like "notability" is it's linked to the concept of "importance", which is a subjective concept. What's important to me isn't necessarily important to you. There's a notion that the encyclopedia should reflect issues of "general importance", but the problem is that there are a large number of topics which are of interest to a relatively small minority of readers but that, for those particular readers, are useful or important or topical within that subject area. That's why I personally prefer to focus more on the quality of the articles over the vaguer notion of broad notability. In fact, this is such an interesting topic, I think I'll make it a seperate thread below.... Dugwiki 19:14, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some thoughts on "Importance" and "Notability"

Seraphim's comments above bring up an interesting topic. Why, exactly, should we worry about whether a topic is "notable"? What's the difference between "notability" and "importance"? What are the practical reasons behind deleting articles about topics that aren't notable? After all, Wikipedia has no defined physical limit on how much information it can store, so we're not deleting articles to save server space, for example.

In my opinion there are three common reasons to delete articles:

An article likely will never be verifiable using reliable sources. By asking for published sources we are helping avoid the situation where an article is only verified by sources we can't necessarily call reliable. Some "fancruft" articles, for example, fall afoul of this requirement by relying solely on blogs, forum posts and fan information that isn't published by a reliable source.
An article is hopelessly biased. Here the requirement for multiple sources over a single source helps. Articles which rely on only a single source are inherently running an increased risk of bias because all their information is coming from the same editorial point of view. An obvious example is biographies which rely solely on the subject's autobiographical material. Similarly, having multiple sources significantly reduces the chance of accuracy errors over using a single source.
The article's existence makes it harder for readers and editors to reasonably use other Wiki articles. This is where a concept of "importance" or "notability" can come into play. The more articles you have in a given subject area the more a reader has to potentially sift through to find the information they're looking for. For example, if you had an article about every amateur musican or struggling actor in the world, it would make finding articles about the musicians that people actually are going to look up in practice harder to locate within their respective categories and lists. And it makes it that much more difficult for editors to maintain a satisfactory level of style and verification by cluttering up the editorial work with numerous articles noone will use. Of course, some of this problem is mitigated by proper cross-indexing, but at some point the more articles you have in a particular subject the harder it becomes to use them, especially if you don't know the exact name of an article and are relying on either the Search function for partial searchs or the category system or lists. Thus we're looking for a way to set at least a minimal bar for entry that will eliminate articles that will likely never be used beyond the original person who submitted them. To that end, the multiple published references requirement acts as a simple test to demonstrate that, in fact, an article does have enough reader interest that people are writing about it. The more sources that write about a topic, the more likely it is that readers will actually want to use the article.

So the point of my dissertation is that where "notability" comes in would be that the more something is written about the more likely you are to avoid problems involving verifiability, inherent bias and articles with a lack of readership cluttering up things for articles people are looking for. Notability, therefore, is a concept linked to these practical issues, but isn't in and of itself necessarily what we're objectively trying to quantify when evaluating an article. We want articles that are verifiable, unbiased and minimally used, so when talking about articles I think it serves us better to focus on those three concepts directly rather than trying to talk about whether or not the subject at hand is "important", "famous" or "academically significant". In other words, include articles that look like they avoid the three problems I mentioned, rather than articles that look to me like their subject is "notable". Do that and you avoid some of the questions of whether, for example, Pokemon characters are "not notable" or "cruft" and instead ask "are these articles verifiable, unbiased and likely to be used by readers?" I think if you ask those questions about something like a Pokemon character versus an article about someone's family tree, you'll see why it's more likely that Pokemon character articles are generally kept in afd discussions while family tree articles are deleted. It also probably demonstrates why I tend to give articles some benefit of the doubt on the "importance" side when the article is substantive and well referenced.

Anyway, thanks for sitting through my freeform stream of thought. As I reexamine this proposal next week, probably with an eye of replacing it with a draft revision and rename of WP:N, the comments above hopefully demonstrate the basic principles I'm looking for, and are likewise hopefully things most of us agree on. Dugwiki 20:00, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find the difference between notability and fame and importance explained at User:Uncle G/On notability#Notability is not fame nor importance. That an editor puts forward the argument that notability is the same as fame, and therefore notability is bad, does not mean that the premise of that argument is actually correct. It means that that editor does not understand notability correctly. This is one of the reasons that we have pages such as Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Verifiability, explaining what such concepts are. Uncle G 21:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Actually I should point out that while I agree that notability, fame and importance are not identical concepts, the main question is "what is the practical rationale behind the notability guidelines?" To that end the answer is that notability is primarily an indicator of the quality of the references available for verification and an indicator of whether or not a topic might be useful to readers. I mention this fact because in your essay you say that "a subject is not notable if it is widely read about, (but) by dint of people writing about it." In fact, though, the practical purpose of a notability criteria is to determine whether or not a subject should be included as a seperate article in Wikipedia, and to that end you are asking yourself whether the article is going to be read. It so happens that articles which are written about almost always will be articles which are read, and thus the concepts are linked. Dugwiki 22:22, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- To be a little more specific on what I mean, I'll refer a moment to WP:N#Rationale for requiring a level of notability. There it says that establishing minimal notability is important to ensure enough reliable sources, to ensure a neutral article, and to avoid conflicts with WP:NOT. Those correspond precisely with the three issues I talked about above (reliability, non-bias and usefulness to readership). WP:NOT, in fact, is the policy from which it follows that "not everything that is reliably true and unbiased should be an article", and the reasons behind that principle include the issues I discussed above, including questions of readership and article clutter. And thus it is from that that you can derive that the end goal is meeting demands of readers. Dugwiki 22:35, 5 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Those three points (A, NPOV, and NOT#INDISCRIMINATE) are the rationale for creating this concept of notability. But if N really reduces to those same three points, then it's superfluous, right? Theoretically there's absolutely no reason to go around talking about notability when we can talk about those three points individually. Is the notability concept based on an arbitrary grouping of different policies that some editors thought it should mean? And it's clear that people have varying views on notability, so this is a reason to get rid of it. But in fact, there's a huge similar debate about whether A should reduce to V, RS, and NOR. Do we want the policies to be easy to understand while being redundant with each other, or do we want the policies to be easy to understand after being reduced to the core concepts most independent of each other? No consensus on this last question, it seems. The more concepts and policies there are, the more well-rounded understanding there is. But the more cocnepts and policies there are, the more ambiguous and the more easier it is to twist those words. Linguistic issues get in our way all the time.

By itself, "this article is not worthy of inclusion" is as meaningless as "this article is about a non-notable subject," which is why we have policy pages to explain definitions and criteria. For those who do not read policy, "notable" should explain the gist of it better than, and even implies "unworthy of inclusion." If you replace the tern 'notability' with the term 'article inclusion' everywhere, new editors are going to have a hard time understanding what it means without reading the guideline. Forcing them to read the guideline is a good thing, but it better be a good one.

Still, 'article inclusion' can be abused or misinterpreted just as much as 'notability'. Tone and correct usage have a lot to do with it. Say there are no sources in some article and the AfD nominator is not entirely familiar with the subject, then the claim should not be "the subject is non-notable," but instead "the subject appears to be non-notable in the article's current state, because there are no reliable sources..." The more neutral tone helps the authors not feel discouraged or insulted, and most importantly tells them what they need to do to assert notability. Likewise, "this article is not worthy of inclusion" should be expanded with reasons... which boil down to what? Non-notability based on lack of attribution, which results in POV or Dugwiki's point 3 above? Whatever reason, it forces people at AfD to explain their reasoning. You should no longer see this sort of thing at AfD:

Delete - non-notable. User:Example 01:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Keep - notable. User:Counterexample 01:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

They would become less likely to be able to get away with that if they had to say "worthy of inclusion" and "not worthy of inclusion." These latter terms beg the question: why? However, User:Example can be justified in saying non-notable if you look at it this way: WP:N states what it means for a subject to be notable, so User:Example can interpret the article to determine that its subject is non-notable. User:Counterexample does the same thing, albeit with the opposite result. Assuming good faith and that the users understand policy, the discrepancy is probably over the reliability of some source, or the non-triviality of the treatment of the subject inside some reliable source. Since it all boils down to sources, should we have WP:RS as the sole policy? Semantics, blah blah blah.

Also, WP:INCLUSION's Point 1 on stubs makes it look like it accepts crystal ballism. –Pomte 01:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some points about the above discussion

User:Example and User:Counterexample above are committing a well-documented fallacy, viz. WP:ILIKEIT versus WP:IDONTLIKEIT, albeit using Wiki terminology to disguise their personal preference. The same problem is likely to occur with Wiki terminology: "worthy of inclusion" is also a subjective, WP:ILIKEIT argument. In the end, that was the point in the "multiple non-trivial coverage in independent sources" criterion. It may still be subjective (we've already discussed at WT:N whether "non-trivial" is a suitably objective criterion) but it's still better than saying "Keep, this person is notable" or "Keep, worthy of inclusion". So I'm still in two minds after reading the above discussion. On the one hand, "article inclusion" is definitely better terminology than "notability". "Notability" has a meaning in RL which is different from its wiki-meaning, while "article inclusion" doesn't carry such connotations. But on the other hand, I really, really like the simple rule that if an article doesn't display multiple non-trivial coverage in reliable sources, and if such sources are not added by the end of the AfD, then it gets deleted. If sources turn up, then it can always be re-created, with the sources. This method weeds out the fancruft, and allows us to make decisions on topics of marginal notability, without bringing in any subjective feelings about the topic. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 12:02, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I entirely concur with Walton's assessment. "Do enough secondary sources exist on this subject to have a reasonably detailed, NPOV article on this subject exist?" should be the overriding factor in whether to keep or remove an article. (The other question there, of course, is "Does the article violate any part of WP:NOT, and is it reasonably likely that it could be improved not to?") If the answer is "no", only then should the second question-"Is this notable enough to be mentioned at all?" be asked when deciding whether to merge or delete. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:07, 6 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your last question is even harder. Deciding whether to merge is like mini-notability.

User:Example and User:Counterexample could both be contributors well-read in policy, and AGF they both gave technically valid reasons. Just to clarify, I meant that it's equivalent to saying these, except sometimes specific details aren't given because it's felt to be obvious:

Delete - Sources not reliable (because...) Therefore non-notable. User:Example 01:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Keep - V using sources (because sources are reliable, because...) Therefore notable. User:Counterexample 01:06, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Throw in some OR's and POV's in there as the issues arise. Looking at it this way, 'notable' does look superfluous. For now I claim that OR reduces to RS. Again, the only worthwhile debate is regarding sources and the tone of an article. To avoid superfluous meta-debates, suppose we get rid of all unnecessary terms that only promote misunderstanding. We don't need N, we don't need NOR, and we don't need essays like FANCRUFT and even INCLUSION, because article inclusion means nothing: what we want is what you just said in a nutshell, and what everyone says over and over again, except they hide it in big words. So delete all of these. Problem solved? –Pomte 15:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to see us be able to do that. We're not at a point as a community to do that, however. Until we get to that point, we're somewhat forced into the constructs provided. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:38, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conclusions from the straw poll

Early reads may indicate that we have a ways to go before we can make this into anything. While I really wish we didn't rush into a straw poll when we did, it did highlight a number of issues that we need to address if this is to become anything:

People think this will replace all notability. At least half seem to think that this is somehow a change in how we do things, and it's not. The concept that this page does anything other than replace the fundamentally flawed and possibly consensus-lacking WP:N is not really true, and i don't know how that mistake was made, but that needs to be clearer.
People think that this would act as a main governing document. Another educational issue similar to above. Would we like it to? Sure. Is there any consensus for that now? No, there isn't, and we obviously need to move more toward making sure that's clear. Not sure how to do that as of yet.

That covers nearly all of the major substantive issues regarding the opposes. Some feel WP:N is more useful - then again, this strawpoll wasn't exactly advertised to all comers, but was advertised there, so there was some advertising bias involved. I still don't know how to address Seraphimblade's idea about permastubs, although what we consider a "stub" is relatively common in the World Book Encyclopedia, and I'll provide a name or two when I get access to them again on Monday. But I'm actually rather heartened by what we're seeing so far - we have some good support, a number of people who have had strong, positive input not take part, and still have a way to go. So let's not give up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, don't get me wrong either, I'm all for the name change. As to World Book, I do imagine they have very short articles on various subjects. What they don't have is anchored redirects. :) We do, so merging would make a good solution-we still have a redirect taking the user straight to the information, while also pointing them to it in an article that's reasonably detailed and well-sourced. It would also tend to solve the undue weight, OR essay/editorial, and cruft problems, people are a lot more careful not to overdo it (and to trim back if someone else does) if "Oh just split it out" isn't an option. Right now, we have a lot of writing, and that's great. But anyone writing needs to realize that one important function of an editor is to cut, along with making suggestions for expansion, improvement, and clarity. Since here we're all editors, we need to treat those who make cuts with the same courtesy as we would those who suggest improvements or possible avenues for expansion. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 04:12, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A cow pie put on a nice plate is still a cow pie. I'm still not convinced redirects on many stubs are a good idea, especially if the subject is worthy of inclusion - people are looking for the information they can get there, not some larger treatment on things that aren't relevant. I get very frustrated when I see that when acting as a reader and not an editor. But yeah. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How do we go about re-education?

I think the first thing we need to figure out is how we can fix this to make sure people don't believe that the idea of notability is being superceded. Much of the opposition comes from the idea that "notability is important," a fact that this proposal shares! So what's in the wording of this that gives that impression? Is it that it's attempting to supercede a guideline that's a pointer to the more specific ones? I'm not sure - I'll make some light edits to start, but I think we need to figure this out. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Create a section to dispel the illusion that notability has a meaning above what article inclusion states. Split the indented part of point 4 to a new point 5 to emphasize that the notability guidelines are a subset of this. –Pomte 15:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nutshell adjustment

In rereading the page I noticed the nutshell didn't quite reflect the five current criteria of the article. It mentioned articles should be "verifiable" and "substantive", but left out the other criteria of being unbiased and that reader consensus within a general subject area might differ as to whether a specific topic is worth including. I altered the wording a bit to try and include those ideas in the nutshell. Feel free to adjust it.

P.S. As I mentioned previously, I'm going to try and take a crack at making an alternate draft of WP:N that changes the title and downplays the word "notability" over concepts of article quality and substance while keeping in place the primary criteria (multiple independent published references). I was getting the impression that most of the people who oppose this article like the writing style of WP:N better. Dugwiki 20:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it could be worded better, but it makes sense. A new draft of WP:N isn't going to help much, however, if the same problems persist. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I took a crack at a very rough draft of rewriting WP:N to become WP:INCLUSION instead. I'll post a link in a sec.... Dugwiki 21:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very rough draft of conversion from "Notability" to "Article Inclusion"

Ok, I took a very rough draft stab at converting WP:N to remove the word "notability" and replace it with the idea of "worthy of inclusion as a seperate article". Basically the text is very close to the current version of WP:N, with some changes I'll summarize below. The draft itself can be viewed at User:Dugwiki/Draft revision from Notability to Article Inclusion. Please feel free to give feedback and comments and make necessary syntantical and grammatical changes, etc.

For the most part, the document is pretty much WP:N with the words "notability" replaced by "article inclusion" or something similar. However, there are some other minor changes in order to remain consistent.

- Instead of referring to the potential substance of the sources on a topic, I referred to the potential substance of an article on that topic and noted that trivial sources are unlikely to produce an accetably substantive article. This change doesn't affect the actual primary criteria, but is consistent with the idea of looking at the potential resulting article directly.

- Added some language clarifying that single source articles might be possible if the source in question is particularly informative and directly discusses the topic, but that in general single source articles should be avoided and are less likely to be worthy of inclusion.

- Modified the language of the Merging section to say that topics which produce trivial articles are suitable for merger, as opposed to saying that topics with trivial sources are suitable for merger. Again, as above, the main question is whether or not the potential resulting article is worth inclusion, and in theory if a large number of small sources can produce an article worthy of inclusion then it probably wouldn't be merged.

I also made fairly minor changes here and there to clarify something or try and make the language work a little better. Bottom line, though, the flow of the document and the primary inclusion criteria haven't changed from WP:N.

So please feel free to have a look and let me know what you think. Hopefully something like this will satisfy the people who like WP:N's format while also satisfying the desire to replace "notability" with "worth inclusion". Thanks! Dugwiki 21:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I haven't posted the link to WP:N yet because I'd like to get feedback from you guys first. If the response here is generally positive, then I'll post a link for the WP:N guys as well. If the response is to scrap the idea, then no harm done. Dugwiki 21:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S One known issue with the draft is that I noticed there are a number of categories and link which use the word "notability" or "notable". I deferred dealing with those for now, focussing instead on the actual text of the guideline. Dugwiki 21:55, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay. It actually doesn't look as bad as I anticipated, which is good. However, the same minor flaws apply - a "primary" criterion, the assumption that we're not working off of a subjective terminology, and the same misguided criterion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, like I said, it's basically the old guideline so if you don't like something minor in WP:N you probably will have the same problem with this. Which specific parts do you want to change and how? Dugwiki 22:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had this idea...

...about a sort of peer review which would try to gain consensus on whether an already existing article is should be included, without actually trying to delete it.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 12:32, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I'm somewhat idealistic or naive, but what you describe is precisely what AfD's really should be about, an attempt to reach consensus on whether an article should be included or not. Is the idea that the name "AfD" is inappropriate, and there should be a less offensive name so that people don't think they are just voting yes/no? If so, then that's an excellent idea and I would strongly support something like "Article Inclusion Review" instead of the current "Article for Deletion". This assumes you guys will manage to first make this proposal go through. --Merzul 19:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And if the review decides it shouldn't be included? It goes to AfD, right? It it shouldn't be deleted, it stays? Sounds just like AfD with extra discussion. - Peregrine Fisher 20:41, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agree w/ Fisher. This idea has been proposed and foundered, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Notability/Articles for Notability Review and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Notability/Articles for Notability Review. Pan Dan 15:38, 12 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that there was a recent proposal here, to rename Articles for Deletion as Articles for Discussion. The proposal was rejected, but it sounds similar to what Merzul was saying above. Walton ^{Vivat Regina!} 16:42, 14 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

television episodes

Can we include the results of the consensus from centralized discussion on TV episodes? This seems like the perfect place for it. See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Television episodes for more information. ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 04:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find a way to make it fit, I suppose. Not sure where it would fit, as this is intentionally more general. --badlydrawnjeff talk 04:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Um, it would fit in the inclusion guidelines template to the side, no? I'm surprised it's not there already. BTW, it's got a shortcut, WP:EPISODE. Basically to include it, the actual article inclusion guideline would not be changed. Only the list of inclusion guidelines for specific areas would be amended to add this guideline. So technically I guess I'm asking in the wrong place, but I feel that it is relevant here since it will be referencing the section of this proposed guideline that says "For more detailed information, please see the individual inclusion guidelines for specific subjects to the right in the infobox" (or whatever to that effect).

Did I make sense, or am I incoherent at this point since I'm jet lagged and tired to all hell after a busy day? ⇒ SWATJester ^{On Belay!} 04:53, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OHHH. You want to go to {{IncGuide}} to add it there. I'm sorry, I misunderstood. --badlydrawnjeff talk 05:01, 15 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why delete?

Why should articles be removed from wikipedia? Even if for a small audience they provide some information, why should you take that away just because it's not globally relevant? It doesn't 'get in the way' of finding the topic you want.

Perhaps if there was a way to simply tag articles considered encyclopaedia quality and ones that aren't. Or maybe as part of a minor-interest inclusion project. Please make wikipedia the source of all information, it is what we all want and you know it! There is nothing in the definition of encyclopaedia that says it should be restricted to notable topics, so why do so many wikipedians follow this policy?

Nobody is going to create a wikimedia project for my local topic of interest, but they just might create a wikipedia entry. Braksator 11:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are valid reasons to delete articles. First, articles which are likely unverifiable should be deleted since they might or might not be true and we want the articles on Wikipedia to be as accurate as possible (see WP:V). Second, articles that are inherently biased original opinion and which can't be corrected should be deleted, since Wikipedia articles are supposed to represent objective facts about subjects and not editorial opinion (see WP:NPOV).

Also there is the issue of editorial maintainence. The simple fact is that the more articles there are on Wikipedia the longer it takes to properly maintain them and correct problems. While there's no actual physical limit to the space of Wikipedia, there are diminishing returns where the more articles you have in a given subject area the harder it becomes to acceptably manage them and the more difficult it becomes for readers to sift through articles with useful information versus articles with information they're not likely to be interested in. Thus it is useful to merge articles that are not likely to have much substantial information by themselves into broader topics, and to delete independent articles that appear to have extremely limited usefulness even within their own subject areas.

Now all that being said, in my opinion we should usually err on the side of including extra information rather than deleting it. But even I don't want to include everything in its own seperate article. Doing so diminishes the quality and usefulness of the encyclopedia as a whole. It's better to be slightly more focussed and concise in the article topics we have. Dugwiki 15:24, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If an article has information that is discovered to be incorrect, it can then be updated. Articles of low notability don't need to be maintained as carefully, I think it's pretty clear that the more notable articles will be better maintained and scrutinized. An article about the street that I live on will probably be scrutinized by people who live in the area, but not by anyone else. It won't really get in the way of someone else doing a search for "streets" if they know what they are looking for. If the article needs improving, eventually it will, be patient, wikipedia has only been here a few years and it's membership is only increasing. 203.45.131.40 21:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your original comment seems to reflect an attitude that Wikipedia is like Everything2. Not so. Wikipedia is not "the source of all information" and has never strived to be. It's a place where editors gather published sources and write encyclopedia articles. Being an encyclopedia means there are certain things Wikipedia is not, like a directory. Also, because Wikipedia editors are anonymous amateurs instead of the authoritative experts that other encyclopedias hire, all the content here must be verifiable from authoritative published sources.

Now, if you can find published material about the history of the street where you live, by all means use that material to write about your street on Wikipedia. Whether you should write about your street in a separate article or in a subsection of a larger article (maybe one about your neighborhood, or about all streets in your town) only depends on how much source material there is. Pan Dan 22:31, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an informative article about what can happen when an article isn't carefully maintained or fact-checked. Also, I'd note again for emphasis that verifiability is an important issue. It would be very difficult to have a reliable wikipedia article about me, for instance, since I haven't been covered in many independent sources. JavaTenor 03:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have already seen those articles, and disagree with them :/ You can assert what Wikipedia is and isn't based on previous consensus, and people do - ritually, but I believe strongly that should change. I just really hate to see articles lost to the world when they could very well have been useful content. If there was an article about you I don't think anyone would be too concerned if it wasn't reliable - but if you became someone of importance, where information about you starts to matter, then suddenly your article becomes reviewed more often and becomes reliable. Braksator 02:49, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, defamation on biographies of living persons is a big problem and is exactly the wrong example to pick if you are arguing that articles should be kept. Even if we tomorrow decided that articles on individual blades of grass were allowable on Wikipedia, biographies would need to be under high scrutiny. In general, the lack of verifiable information on topics, articles dominated by biased editors and no neutral editors, and the fundamental purpose of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia the editorial resources of which should not be wasted on something other than that purpose, are all good reasons to limit articles included. —Centrx→talk • 04:12, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love an idealistic Wikipedia, where nobody ever made up information, and even if they did, it wouldn't matter much because it would have no real-world effect. But in reality, it does matter. People do make up information, and because Wikipedia is so popular, its articles are obviously prominent. If a Wikipedia article contains untrue negative information on someone, that is bad, and has a considerable real world effect. Especially if they aren't very notable, because it's very hard to prove that you didn't do something unless people are consantly scrutinizing what you actually do. -Amarkov moo! 05:06, 28 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who argues for universal inclusion of everything should take a look at CAT:CSD sometime. There's no possible way that articles along the lines of "Fred has a small penis, ha ha ha" could be justifiably included in Wikipedia. Not to mention some of the utter junk that goes through AfD, some of which can't technically be speedied (see this AfD for a good example). So to answer Braksator's question, we do need deletion guidelines to filter out the junk. The bigger question, obviously, is whether things like obscure webcomics, local politicians, disused railway stations and self-published authors belong in Wikipedia; and that's why we need to keep WP:N. Walton ^{Need some help?} 10:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is totally redundant to "notability"

It's like attribution as a summary of WP:V and WP:NOR. Still, it takes an alternative look at notability quite well.-h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 12:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, yes, that is the point. This page was intended as a rewrite of WP:N, but most people didn't like it. >Radiant< 13:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The funny thing is, I just re-read this after presumably not looking at it for a while, and well, it's not bad. I personally consider this a guideline that editors should follow, certainly. Friday (talk) 18:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's instruction creep as it's redundant. Having an excessive number of policies and guidelines is confusing and unhelpful.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 20:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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