Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)

Interpretation of WP:ORGIND

There is a disagreement at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (2nd nomination) about whether content written by an organization but republished verbatim by a third party is independent coverage of said organization.

Assistance in resolving this question would be appreciated. BilledMammal (talk) 12:48, 30 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry that I didn't see this earlier. The situation you describe is editorially (they freely chose to republish it) and financially independent (they weren't paid to republish it), but not intellectually independent (they didn't write any part of it). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Notability of products vis a vis notability of the corporation

Say that there is an article about a consumer facing business (such as a chocolate company) currently up for deletion. In the deletion discussion, Alice cites a bunch of reviews for their chocolates. Bob doesn't dispute the reliability or independence of the reviews, but argues that, since they are not coverage of the company per se, they don't establish notability

I have issues with Bob's argument. For all but the largest companies/products (e.g. Cadbury/Cadbury eggs), it will be desirable to have information about the two in the same article (this is explicitly stated in WP:NPRODUCT). So, if the notability of one of those things is undisputed, deleting an article for not being notable in the other way is pointless. This is obvious if you consider a scenario in which someone later creates an article about the product, and information about the company is gradually added back in. If that happens, that means that the original article should have never been deleted, because any issues with it could have been resolved by normal editing (such as adjusting the relative promenince of information about the company/product, or moving the page title)

(In case it wasn't obvious, I have seen the "Alice" and "Bob" arguments made at AfD before. Also I know this scenario wouldn't apply to organizations for which there isn't such a clean division between "products" and the corporation) Mach61 22:59, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Significant coverage of the company itself says:

Sources are not transferable or attributable between related parties. Sources that describe only a specific topic related to an organization should not be regarded as providing significant coverage of that organization. Therefore, for example, an article on a product recall ... is a significant coverage for the Wikipedia article on the product[,] ... but not a significant coverage on the company (unless the article ... devotes significant attention to the company itself).

That said, if there are several products by a company, and those products have received sufficient significant coverage such that they are notable as a group or notable independently, I think an article about the company that is effectively a list of those items would meet WP:NLIST. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:28, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

That bit has always confused me... Most articles about product recalls or CEOs devote significant attention to the company itself, but the way its written makes it seem like thats an outlier rather than the norm. Its like saying the right thing, but in the least constructive way possible (seriously I'm not joking, I think whoever crafted that bit was either messing with people or has English language competence issues "a significant coverage" etc). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that significant coverage of a product recall could constitute significant coverage of a company, and not just the product. However, I think the first two sentences are trying to implement a rule for corporations analogous to WP:INVALIDBIO, so that someone can't just write "Elon Musk created a shell company in Delaware, therefore this article about that shell company should be kept since there's SIGCOV of Elon." voorts (talk/contributions) 18:06, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

IMO that just falls under standard inherited notability same as ownership of anything else, and I almost never see the case where the CEO is notable but the company isn't... What we see all the time is cases where the company is notable but the CEO isn't and someone is trying to create an article for the CEO. Likewise with products the major problem is articles for the non-notable products of notable companies... Not articles for non-notable companies which make notable products. Maybe CEO and recall just happen to be bad examples (recall being particularly bad as a recall is always something the company does and never something the product does). It also seems to say that an article about a product recall "is a significant coverage" of the product itself but that isn't true, it might not be significant coverage of anything or it might be significant coverage of the company (or a regulator, activist group, etc) but not the product. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:29, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I think that your rationale argues for bundling of product articles, not for having an article on the company. That said, if there is GNG coverage of the products, and at least near-GNG coverage on the company, IMPO it would be within the norms in this area (albeit not explicitly supported by the guidelines) to have an article on the company if it is the place that the products are covered. North8000 (talk) 23:52, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this aligns with what I was trying to get at above. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:53, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I was already adding "Or a bundled article on the products as voorts suggested" and it ec'd with your post.  :-) North8000 (talk) 23:55, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

I think you agree with Alice, then Mach61 00:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the Wikipedia end result of Alice's argument (Maybe per wp:IAR.) without endorsing the argument. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I would generally say that the purposes of the encyclopedia are better served by bundling notable products under their manufacturer, and treating the notability of the products as the notability of the company that makes them. This would only apply for products that are, in fact, notable, and discretely made by a single manufacturer. BD2412 T 02:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Optoma Corporation is an AfD where "Notability of products vis a vis notability of the corporation" is being discussed. I have quoted the comments of several of the editors in that AfD. This topic has come up in previous AfD discussions, so should guidance about this be added to WP:NCORP? Cunard (talk) 09:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Notability is not inherited. If a company is notable, the sources will reflect that notability by discussing the company. If a product is notable, the sources will reflect that by discussing the product. And if both are notable the sources will reflect that by discussing both. Follow the sources. That is the only “one-size-fits-all” rule that works. Blueboar (talk) 12:08, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

How often do you see this issue arising? If this is relatively uncommon, I wouldn't amend NCORP. If it is a common issue and clarification is needed, I think something like what I said above can be adapted into a short guideline, such as: If several of a company's products meet the list criteria, then a list on those products may be created at a page using the company name as the title. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts, I have seen this argument multiple times, both at AFD and in general discussions. The usual story goes something like this:

"SIGCOV requires that we have ______ or the subject isn't notable and must be deleted. Here, we have three completely separate subjects: the entrepreneur, his first business, and his inventions. Looking at the sources I found in my BEFORE search, the BLP is only 90% of the way to notability, the first business is only 75%, and the second business has only 50% of the coverage needed for a stand-alone article. Therefore, all three subjects are non-notable, and we must delete them all."

It is usually accompanied by comments about how this source mostly covers the BLP "as a person" (e.g., about his family's role in the business), so that doesn't count at all for anything about the business, and that source mostly covers his business (e.g., about how his decisions during a business crisis resulted in success), so that doesn't count at all for anything about the person.

The obvious counter-argument is WP:WHYN: if you've got that much coverage, you can write a decent article about all three subjects together, and besides, splitting up an entrepreneur and his businesses is silly, because it's impossible to talk about one without talking about the other. But these editors are trying to make their decisions algorithmically based on possible inputs, rather than seeing what can actually be accomplished. They are also usually operating under the belief that sources can only be "about" one isolated subject at a time, and that the recommendation to merge in WP:FAILN doesn't exist. I've even seen experienced editors say that they didn't know that it's okay to merge information about non-notable subjects into other articles. If you [incorrectly but genuinely] believe that it's "anti-policy" to merge a sentence about the non-notable "Smallville Manufacturing" into a section about the ==Local economy==, then you'll certainly believe that it'd be "anti-policy" to merge the company, its products, and its founder into a single decent article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:45, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts: This has come up frequently at AfDs. Here are a few examples I found: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/LumoPro, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rayark, Inc., and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Geekom.

For Geekom, I provided three reviews of Geekom IT8 Mini PC, one review of Geekom BookFun 11, three reviews of Geekom Mini IT 11, and two reviews of Geekom MiniAir 11 Mini PC. A literal reading of Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) would be that the company is not notable but several of its products are notable. So there should be no article about the company but it is fine to have articles about a few of its products.

@WhatamIdoing: has provided really good analysis of how editors are currently interpreting the guideline at AfD and how this doesn't make sense. I think the guideline should be modified to allow "treating the notability of the products as the notability of the company that makes them". Editors are discussing something similar for book series at Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)#Should NBOOK cover series or just individual books? (permanent link). Cunard (talk) 08:09, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I think we should workshop some language and then propose an RfC; this is going to need a higher level of consensus than a talk page discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:17, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Forgot to ping, @Cunard and @WhatamIdoing. I'll also add that, regarding WhatamIdoing's point, I don't think people are misreading NCORP, but rather there's a tension between NCORP and WHYN. I have a feeling there will be significant opposes to anything that would allow a company page to be kept in the hypothetical scenario described by WhatamIdoing.

I think that a proposal to add something to the guideline that states that a company page should be kept as a list if there several products meeting WP:LISTN (e.g., being discussed as a group, with some independent coverage of individual products not quite rising to the level of WP:CORPDEPTH for any particular product) would be less controversial, but will still likely run into opposition. I think many people would prefer to evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis rather than have a guideline that might create some inflexibility. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts: I agree that this would need to be RfC-level discussion. Here is a proposed wording inspired by this proposal from the book series discussion: "Sources discussing individual products in a company may be treated as sources on the company for WP:NCORP in creating a company article containing a list of the products." This is rough wording that needs to be workshopped. Cunard (talk) 22:20, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

@Voorts, I don't think there's even any tension between pages here. I think the main problem is that some editors imagine that Bob Business is inherently and irrevocably a separate subject from Big Business, Inc., and that both of these are inherently and irrevocably separate from the blue-green widgets that Bob makes at his business. They don't consider whether Bob plus the business plus the product might make a single valid encyclopedia article.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ketan Kadam (result: no consensus) is partly an example of this style of thinking. It might help if we talked a bit about article scope. Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#If it's not notable could be expanded to say that sometimes an organization does not qualify for a separate article, but a merged article about the organization and its products or its founder is viable.

Long-term, it might be worth adding a "why we have these rules" section. I would expect it to say that we have tight rules because we want articles based on independent sources, and not because we are worried about spammers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:12, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

A belated by perhaps clearer statement:

• An encyclopedia article about a business will normally include information about the business's products and people.
• An encyclopedia article about a businessperson will normally include information about the person's business(es) and products.
• An encyclopedia article about a product will normally include information about the business and people who made it.

Trying to divide these into completely separate subjects is making a mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a messy example (with several other considerations involved) and this is a fuzzy area in general. IMO trying to write anything explicit here would just make it messier. North8000 (talk) 17:21, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

WikiProjects to merge

Please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Business#Merge of business and companies WikiProjects.

A WP:WikiProject is a group of people (i.e., not a subject area). Groups that get too small are not effective, so the folks at the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council are trying to support a few friendly merges. Figuring out which groups have disappeared or become inactive is pretty easy, but sometimes finding the correct target is harder (e.g., is finance more like business or more like economics?). I think that the people watching this page might have some advice, and even if you don't really belong to any these groups, please consider helping us find the right answer. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:49, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Inherent notability of dioceses

Just wondering with an AfD at the moment where it seems many editors believe dioceses of any religious organisation is effectively always/inherently notable what other editors views are on this. Should this be codified as policy and an exemption from WP:ORGCRIT? AusLondonder (talk) 10:31, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't care if it's codified or not, but it's exasperating when people pull this kind of stuff out of thin air. I hope any closing admin ignores those !votes. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:14, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

What exactly is pulled out of thin air? If you review past AfDs, articles about dioceses are almost always kept (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of Santiago and All Chile, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/UK, Europe and Africa Malankara Orthodox Diocese, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kochi Orthodox Diocese, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Armenian Catholic Archeparchy of Istanbul, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Catholic Diocese of Bungoma, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Island). The only "delete" results for a diocese that I've seen were for a tiny splinter group with no sourcing available at all or for an apparent hoax. The idea that dioceses are generally kept is longstanding consensus, not made up. Dclemens1971 (talk) 11:35, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Because other, notable dioceses were kept does not meet all dioceses are automatically kept without meeting sourcing requirements. I don't understand how you can use that argument at AfD. "Because we kept notable organisation a) we must therefore keep non-notable organisation b)" See how that's illogical? AusLondonder (talk) 11:43, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Who said anything about “all”? The language we’re discussing on the other page has several provisos: major religious traditions, more than a handful of congregations, referenced in reliable sources. Dclemens1971 (talk) 12:15, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

So Northern Diocese would fail those tests. AusLondonder (talk) 12:37, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

So you think, and perhaps that will be the outcome, but that's for the AfD page. My concern there, not here, is that you appear to have a thick red line for Anglican Communion/not Anglican Communion, which would put Wikipedia on the side of POV. The best argument for deleting Northern Diocese is its small size, not whether it's in communion with Canterbury. Dclemens1971 (talk) 13:16, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The problem arises when editors refuse to engage with sourcing (or lack thereof), and instead just repeat "but we always keep these articles!" I'm not involved in the underlying AfD here, but I've seen this happen many a time in AfDs about people who've received honours from the British government. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:54, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Since you brought it up here, I think it would be a good idea for Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Religious_organizations to align with the common outcomes for religious entities, or for an SNG to be proposed that memorializes the consensus outcomes. Dclemens1971 (talk) 11:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The unacknowledged reality is that when we make "notabilty" decisions (especially for GNG-dependent cases) other factors other factors are taken into account (Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works) For these cases a "finger on the scale" is given due to them also having a bit of an NGEO aspect, that they are upmerge destinations for individual churches, and also that the community desires to apply a slightly more lenient standard to non-profit organizations than the stringent one for typical for-profit businesses. Not so sure about trying to cover it in a SNG. As a sidebar, "inherent" is not the term used in SNG's, "presumed" is. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 13:50, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Presumed is the word we use, but editors routinely misinterpret it as an irrebuttable presumption (i.e., inherent). If we want to go down that road, we should just change the wording and be honest about what we're doing. It's deeply confusing. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I think there may be some confustion here, the vast majority of religious organizations don't have dioceses. The title also doesn't seem to make sense, are you asking about the notability of dioceses or are you asking about the notability of religious organizations? Those are very different questions Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:00, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:NCHURCH - although somewhat confusing specifies that churches do not have to pass WP:NORG if they pass WP:GNG. Having taken part in the discussion and RFC that reworded WP:NORG it was agrred that there would be exceptions for churches, public schools, and sports teams so that they could just pass WP:GNG, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 20:20, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Does NCHURCH apply to dioceses though? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't mention them. Perhaps it could be added if there is agreement, Atlantic306 (talk) 20:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

NCHURCH is not specific to any faith tradition so it wouldn't make sense to carve out an exception which would only benefit certain Christian groups (that would fairly be seen as favoritism and not NPOV), what would be equivalent levels of organization in other religions? Off the top of my head a diocese/bishopric in the LDS faith is a much smaller level of organization than in say the Catholic Church because Bishop (Latter Day Saints) is a much lower rank. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:45, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

That's why the discussion on the other page is focused on Middle judicatory as a more neutral term for this type of institution, although an editor decided to AfD it yesterday. Dclemens1971 (talk) 20:51, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Middle judicatory still appears to only cover a single faith tradition, Christianity. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:14, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I have a hard time seeing how this could work. Especially if you tried to define it as a place in the religions hierarchy without "discriminating". So some of these may have many decades or centuries of history, officially defined long term borders borders that have have impact, have 10's or 100's of thousands of members, and many facilities within them which might meet ngeo but which were up merged. And other might be at the other end of the spectrum of those attributes. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:04, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

On a general note topics don't inherit the notability of topics merged into them or created from them. A page on a diocese which is not independently notable can't be kept because its Cathedral (and/or any number of churches) is notable, only a page on the Cathedral (and/or any number of churches) can be justified. Same goes for notable Bishops, the diocese does not inherit the notability of its Bishops. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:18, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it's more complicated than that. For example: Imagine that you have a fair bit of information about the subdivisions of a group, and you want to WP:SPLIT them off the main article. That would normally be okay. Similarly, if you've got several notable bishops, and you want to merge them up to a larger article, then that would normally be okay, too. If the resulting articles happen to get called "____ Diocese", then No harm, no foul. IMO an article about Northern Diocese, with a well-sourced section about the notable bishops or the notable buildings, is not obviously worse for Wikipedia than multiple separate articles about the bishops or buildings.

As a general rule, I find that when someone says there aren't any sources about a regional business/organization, they haven't checked local newspapers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:17, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

If by no harm no foul you mean IAR then sure, there are going to be exceptions to any rule you care to name. Otherwise the principles that notability is not inherited or inherent and that multiple non-notable topics can't be added together to create a notable one have been established by long standing consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

NLIST says otherwise - we don't expect the grouping of common notable topics to necessarily show separate notability. Of course, that grouping has to a natural, non interpretive selection, and while that would allow for primary sources to aid in establishing a background to the grouping, there would still be caution about including too much primary or promotional material.

Whether a grouping of the individually notable religious leaders of a specific church body make sense to group into an article about the church makes sense or not, that likely depends on the scenario. Masem (t) 22:45, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, list articles are an important exception. I should have said "with the exception of stand alone lists" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:08, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't mean to invoke WP:IAR. I mean to invoke Wikipedia:Notability ("Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article") and Wikipedia:Merging. Perhaps a concrete example would help. Imagine:

• There is a religious organization which has three separately notable people (Alice, Bob, Chris), some non-notable people (David, Eve, Frank), three separately notable buildings (First Church, Main Street Church, Church of St Cecil and All the Angels) and some non-notable buildings (a lot of them).
• You are a Wikipedia editor. You want to be Wikipedia:Editing policy#Adding information to Wikipedia about this subject. Do you:
  1. Write six separate articles, with a moderate amount of repetition, because those are the only three people and only three buildings that qualify for separate articles?
  2. Write one larger article covering all six separately notable subjects, an occasional brief mention of relevant non-notable subjects ("After many years, Alice retired and was briefly succeeded by David, who quit in a pay dispute. He was succeeded by Bob, about whom..."), and giving WP:DUE weight and WP:Balancing aspects according to their prominence in the reliable sources?

I don't think that either of those options conflict with any of our notability rules. If you believe that editors are not allowed to use their discretion to merge separate articles about, e.g., three separately notable church buildings into a single larger non-list article, such as Church buildings in Smallville or Historic buildings belonging to the Holy Church unless someone can find a source proving the notability of the larger subject, then your complaint is really with WP:N and WP:MERGE, not with me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

We have that discetion, but not when none of the topics are notable, as the guideline currently states "The fact that a religious building is listed on a major historic register such as the National Heritage List for England or the National Register of Historic Places in the U.S. does not necessarily mean that the religious organization that owns or meets in the building is notable. However, it is possible that both the building and the institution are notable independently from each other – in which case, a combined article about the institution and the building is an option." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:09, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

What that sentence means is:

• Just because you get to have an article about the notable Church of St Cecil and All the Angels building doesn't mean you get to have a second article about the non-notable Parish of St Cecil and All the Angels organization.

What some editors seem to be saying is:

• You might get to have articles about multiple notable ____ in this group, but you definitely can't MERGE those into a single article about the group (containing mostly information about the notable ____) unless you can prove that the group is notable separately from its constituent parts.

Or, to put it more simply: Y One article about the Northern Diocese is better than N multiple stubs about all the individually notable people and places within that organization. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

(Assuming, of course, that there would actually be multiple stubs that would be replaced by such a merge. Another example would be merging away the Northern Diocese, if there's not much to say about it.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:41, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

As it stands we have not established that there are individually notable people and places within that organization, until someone does that just seems needlessly speculative. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Speculative in the specific example (only John Fenwick (bishop) exists at the moment), but it's very relevant to the question of whether this guideline does an adequate job of telling editors that upmerging is okay, and (if not) how we might go about expressing this idea to them.

@North8000 has a good example below with school districts, which I think could be generalized to government agencies (e.g., local fire agency → local city or regional fire agency). On the commercial side, I think that an example of merging CEO + business(es) + products to a single article would be something we would like to encourage. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:35, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

So you are suggesting that we merge John Fenwick (bishop) into the article for the dioceses? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:06, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

I am suggesting that doing so would not violate any notability guidelines, and that this guideline should be clear that merging is a good way to deal with some subjects.

Whether a merge is the best way to handle that specific group articles is up to the editors who work on those articles. I am speaking of the general principle, rather than recommending action in the example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Thats WP:OWN. Groups of editors can't do that, they have to be open to anyones participation in those articles and they must follow wider community consensus. The policy and guideline based opionion of someone who has never edited the article counts for the exact same as someone who has done signficant work on the article. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:16, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Anyone who participates in those articles == the editors who work on those articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

They can participate in community consensuses which impact an article without ever editing it, those who edit an article don't get any special ownership of it or the ability to make decisions about for example its notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:21, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

In any event, that is bit off of the context here. Which was saying that in practice, consideration is given being an up-merge destination for wp:notable or probable-wp:notable facilities. North8000 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that in practice we've given consideration to inherited notability. In my experience with practice we've done the opposite, often requring more of a topic notability wise because its had other ones merged into it not less. A whole bunch of merges and/or moves often gives people the idea that there are games being played and no real underlying notability when in fact it is there. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There is an aspect of NCREATIVE and I think also under NPROF that if a person who is otherwise non notable wrote or created multiple notable works, a page for that person to link all those works is reasonable if there is no other possible groups that encompasses them all. It's reasonable that this same principle should apply to what NCORP covers, which would include churches, though care would still be required to avoid excessive use of primaey sourcing to establish the basic details of that top level company or organization. — Masem (t) 17:05, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

We ran through this with NBOOKS earlier this year and came to the same conclusion. Books can get merged up to a single article about a series/author/other reasonable grouping.

NSONGS works on the same principle by default. Songs get merged up to a single article about a song, instead of specific versions of a song being separated from the song, or only one version being included and the song in general being declared non-notable. The article is at White Christmas (song), not at White Christmas as sung by Bing Crosby, even though his version is by far the most popular. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:49, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

Probably a good parallel example is a school district, which IMO are often kept even when they don't slam-dunk meet any wp:notability criteria. IMO this is because of combination of these notability-related areas:

• They are legally defined-on-the-map governmental district
• They includes many schools, many of which could meet (or be edge-case) wp:notability separately, and is often an upmerge destination for those articles.
• The headquarters building is a place
• There is an immense amount of coverage related to them, albiet probably not coverage which meets GNG criteria.
• They are a large (in every respect), high impact entity

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:52, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

We have unambigously rejected the inherent notability of school districts. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:19, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody said anything about them being "inherently" notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

My apologies then, I misunderstood your comment in the context of the OP about the inherent notability of dioceses. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:26, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

This guideline and WP:NTEAM

• This guideline: "The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of ... sports teams."
• WP:NTEAM: "This guideline does not provide any general criteria for the presumed notability of sports teams and clubs. Some sports have specific criteria. Otherwise, teams and clubs are expected to demonstrate notability by the general notability guideline."

It's not clear to me why sports teams does not fall under NORG and I wonder if NORG should be re-written to say they do. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

In part this “exemption” was made because many sports (and their teams) already had their own SNGs that pre-existed the writing of this guideline. We didn’t want to get into “turf wars” with the sports SNGs.

That said, I do think it makes sense to amend the guidance to say that if there isn’t a pre-existing SNG that covers a sports organization (teams, leagues, etc) then WP:ORG covers it. Blueboar (talk) 00:05, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That's reasonable. And if a specific SNG should stray from the GNG too much, that discussion can be held elsewhere. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Noting also that the lead says "The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of non-profit educational institutions, religions or sects, and sports teams."

Educational institutions and religions get a mention at Wikipedia:Notability_(organizations_and_companies)#Alternate_criteria_for_specific_types_of_organizations, but there doesn't seem to be any further mention of sports teams anywhere, like a link to WP:NTEAM. My reading is that both guidelines boils down to "If you meet GNG, you're probably good", but there can be devil in the details. We could also link Category:Wikipedia notability (sports and games). Not sure if it matters, but it seems that several of the relevant SNG:s there are essays. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

In part this “exemption” was made because many sports (and their teams) already had their own SNGs that pre-existed the writing of this guideline: No, NSPORTS deferred to NORG before. It used to read:

"This guideline does not cover sports teams. For guidance, please see Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies).

However, NORG was later unilaterally changed to exclude sports. Was never clear to me why. See Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)/Archive 29 § Notability of sports teams. —Bagumba (talk) 06:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I think the rationale was because at the time, NSPORTS did cover sports clubs. But since that has changed and this hasn't been updated, I see no issue at all with changing NORG to delete the "except sports teams" reference. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

No, NSPORTS did not cover clubs at the time. The proposal to rewrite NCORP started on 18 February 2018. The version of NSPORTS at the time deferred to NORG for teams. Only after the close of the NORG discussion was NSPORTS changed to refer to GNG for teams instead of NORG. —Bagumba (talk) 06:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

My interptetation is that, when the much tighter NORG sourcing requirements were introduced in 2018, it was decided to leave sports teams with more permissive (GNG-like) sourcing requirements. I think any move to change that will require a new RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 08:46, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Is it much tighter in practice etc (I can't say I have much of an overview on this)? Are deletions per "meets GNG but not NORG" a common occurrence? My own approach is generally that if you have shown GNG for your subject, then you are good. If the subject is, say, a WP:POLITICIAN who's never been elected, that doesn't matter. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

To answer your question, I think the main difference is that NCORP requires at least two sources, each of which discusses the subject "directly and in depth" while meeting each of the other enumerated requirements and which are "evaluated separately and independently of each other". GNG (and WP:NBASIC) are more flexible in how significant coverage may be established. Newimpartial (talk) 14:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• When the more restrictive provisions of NCORP were adopted, it was expressly negotiated and agreed that educational institutions, churches and sports teams were excluded and would remain governed by GNG. I would oppose extending the NCORP restrictions to sports teams. Any such proposal would require a community-wide RfC with notice to all of the impacted sports projects. Cbl62 (talk) 11:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I started a discussion Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#Time for an incremental start on a "big fix" here? at nsports to try to have even GNG implemented for sports (including teams) (which it isn't). I think that it would a bad idea to make it even stricter for sports teams. Also it would create an overlap. North8000 (talk) 14:59, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Aren't all sports teams already subject to WP:GNG per WP:NTEAM (provided they're not covered under a WP:NSPORT sub-SNG? Dclemens1971 (talk) 17:12, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, they are… To me, the question is whether these should be shifted to the slightly stricter ORG, or whether GNG is enough. Blueboar (talk) 15:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm digressing (see the link in my previous post) but GNG (or even anything near-GNG) is not being implemented on GNG-dependent sports topics. But other areas (e.g seasons and individuals) are even sketchier than teams. North8000 (talk) 20:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)