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Moved

I found some editorial statements commented out in the page; these belong on the talk page.

  • Policy and guidelines may change This WAS total "wikigeeking". This has to be spelled out in generalized, everyday language, or it doesn't work in a Guideline. Personal opinion: This addition is useless, because we already know everything it says - it is META-content, not content; we might as well append this same disclaimer to the end of WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc., etc., etc. -SMCandlish
  • Consensus can change Ditto, in EVERY respect, including that it is just reiteration of Wikipedia-wide givens we already know. OF COURSE it can change; that's true of EVERYthing on the entire system. And just the fact that it says "WP:AfD" (i.e. using abbreviated wikigeek form) indicates that this passage hasn't figured out where it's going yet; someone who has been on the system for only 12 minutes ought to be able to grok this document. "Not ready for prime time." Strongly suggest moving all of this to Talk page, in as many topics as are needed. And revert these two additions for now; "Disputed" template being present or not, this Guideline is still being treated as actionable, meanwhile these new additions are confusing and incompletely formed -- none of them were discussed at all -- ergo likely to lead to conflicts.) -SMCcandlish
  • Oh yeah, and in response, we don't need to state "this page and related pages can change" on every guideline, as that is inherent in the wiki and explained on other policy/guideline pages. (Radiant) 10:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
(Right; that was what I was getting at.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that no-one knows what this 'guideline' means. Trollderella 19:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
(Right; that's why it's Disputed. I think a lot of progress is being made though.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:48, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

GT

sure. Trollderella 20:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Huh? Please refactor this so that it's an indented reply to whatever it is replying to instead of a new section — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:46, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
I understood it (I think). Trollderella, I think your edits improved to that section, and I appreciate your help in making this guideline less subjective and more firmly grounded in policy. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:24, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry SM, I was replying to an edit comment that GTBacchus made to me - it was oblique - sorry! I meant that I was ok with the edit GT made! Trollderella 02:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:N vs. WP:DEL et al.

OK, so what's the solution for WP:N trying to be objective and WP:DEL's "imported" subject-specific notability criteria often being quite subjective? I can see two (there may be others) solutions: 1) Solidify WP:N, change WP:DEL to refer here and not treat any of the s-s NN criteria as actionable any longer, just as advisory of what is or is not likely to survive WP:N, and that's that. 2) Allow WP:N to conflict with the s-s NN guidelines, and try to find some way to differentiate the terminology (e.g. always say, and wikilink, "WP:N" when you mean "fails to provide multiple, independent reliable sources as per WP:N"; and say, and wikilink, "NN" (or something more specific, like WP:BAND) when referring to the more detailed and subjective s-s NN guidelines.  ??? This seems to me the last major stumbling block. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 20:53, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the sound of #1 especially. By the principle of avoiding instruction creep, a single guideline is MUCH prefered over dozens of guidelines. I sometimes feel like I have been pushing this point too much, but it is key to keeping Notasbility as a usable guideline. --Jayron32 05:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Or, remember that specific guidelines can provide criteria in addition to WP:N. WP:N does not strictly "conflict" with those guidelines, as if something is notable under one of those criteria but not under WP:N, it should still be considered notable for Wikipedia's purposes. How are the other N.C. more subjective anyway? Let's look at a few. WP:MUSIC gives these for music, in addition to our P.N.C.:
1. Has had a charted hit on any national music chart.3
- This is not subjective. It refers to a solid piece of data that is actually out there.
2. Has had a record certified gold or higher in at least one country.
- Also, totally objective. There's no quibbling -- either it's got one or it don't.
3. Has gone on an international concert tour, or a national concert tour in at least one large or medium-sized country, reported in reliable sources.
- Whether or not something like that occured is not dependent on someone's perspective (or perhaps it is, but I would doubt it), so that would be Awb-Jecteeve.
4. Has won a major music award, such as a Grammy, Juno or Mercury Music Award.
- Also yet again, OBJECTIVE!!!!
It's looking like the S-S guidelines are quite objective, not subjective. 70.101.147.224 04:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Any response? 70.101.147.224 22:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

E-media

One passage now says "What constitutes "published works" is intentionally broad and includes published works in all forms, including but not limited to: newspapers, books and e-books, magazines, television documentaries, reports by organizations or government agencies, scientific journals, etc.", and is lacking most of the e-media mentioned in the prior draft (online magazines and online databases in particular). What's the rationale there? I think that having these in there is very important. There's no WP-cognizable difference between a paper copy of a magazine and its online-archived version, or for that matter between a paper magazine/newspaper (e.g. The New York Times or Newsweek) and an online-only one (e.g. Wired News or CNet News); note that it never mentioned online journals or e-forums, for a reason I think we all agree on. Note also that most medical articles on WP heavily cite OMIM and other online medical databases and that these sources are generally regarded as authoritative (in WP's context, anyway). I think it is important that WP guidelines/policy be clear that WP does not make a distinction between dead trees sources and electronic ones, esp. given its own nature. Is there some objection to being clear about that that I'm unaware of? — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 21:33, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Online versions of offline publications remain magazines, etc., and the articles are usually identical. With online databases also, it is just a different means of viewing the same publication. So, they are already included in the wording while adding new "online magazines" opens up a host of unreliable blogs, etc. —Centrx→talk • 10:39, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that any online media can be just as reliable as print. Killing trees doesn't make the information more reliable. Perhaps the wording could be "online media with editorial control." A source is much more reliable if there are editors or moderators who fact check and fix or challenge faulty information. We can mention this here, but a fuller explanation belongs in WP:RS Jehochman (Talk/Contrib) 14:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Change notability to be about information

Notability as it stands is about whether or not to include a *topic* in wikipedia. I think we should change the page to criteria for *information* that should be included on wikipedia. *Information* needs to have multiple sources. Rewriting this essay on the inclusion of information gets rid of the subjective "non-triviality" criteria all together. The inclusion of an article depends solely on the inclusion of the information in the article. Having either inclusion or exclusion critera for topics invites newcomers to misinterpret policy and write a whole bunch of unverifiable information on a topic on the grounds that the topic is "notable". Fresheneesz 00:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

  • The problem you refering to is not the fault of this policy but people not following WP:V. The solution would be to devise better methods of educating people like new users to follow the verifiability criteria. As I understood you basically want to get rid of the notability criteria and to state that any article can be created as long as it follows WP:V. I disagree since this is a core and very logical policy. I do agree that it should be clearly stated that new articles should be verified by the creator. Also, it is practically impossible to prevent addition of trivial information to all articles, so the current method of wikipedians involved in Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification seems the best at the moment. - Tutmosis 22:12, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Whether a source is trivial (as defined here) is not subjective. It is a matter for discussion, on talk pages, but it is not subjective. I suspect that your misunderstanding is due to the lack of a bright line rule as to what is trivial and what is non-trivial. That lack is deliberate. There will always be a case that breaks a bright-line rule. Presenting the two extremes of the spectrum in footnote #3, and leaving the discussion of specific cases up to editors on talk pages is the correct way to approach this.

    Your idea of simply using verifiability of information to determine what should warrant an article is based upon a misunderstanding of the clearly presented rationale. Verifiability alone leads to the inclusion of directory entries (because many directories are reliable sources) and to articles that comprise and that will only ever comprise solely single facts. Verifiability does not address topics. It only addresses information. Notability addresses topics, and is what prevents the inclusion of directory entries, and the inclusion of single-fact articles. As the section on dealing with non-notable subjects implies (and as is stated more directly in User:Uncle G/On notability#Dealing_with_non-notable_things), if an article is a single-fact article, then that fact has been included in Wikipedia in the wrong manner, and the article should be renamed, refactored, or merged into an article with a broader scope. Uncle G 10:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Misnomer and Exempt Stubs

It strikes me that "Notability" is a misnomer, leading to abuse as people erroneously equate it with "this is not important to me" and use its name to justify all sorts of evils (and RfDs). Should "Notability" be renamed to "Breadth of Sources" or "Objectivity of Sources"? Could one of these be a more objective title, more accurately reflecting the intent of the proposed guideline?

Even then the proposed guideline should be careful not to capture articles which are under development and not yet fully referenced. Perhaps all stub articles should be automatically outside Notability and a condition of transition from stub to full article be that the article satisfies guidelines (including this proposal)? John Dalton 02:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

To some extent, this is what the word "notability" does mean. Notability is not exactly breadth or objectivity of sources, however, it is just how it is practically defined for the purposes of this guideline. —Centrx→talk • 03:23, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
It should definately be renamed. The problem is, once you rename it, it becomes obvious that it is simply a restatement of existing policy. Trollderella 03:43, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Could you please elaborate the meaning of "practically defined for the purposes of this guideline" and what other type of definition there is? John Dalton 04:26, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between the practical "primary notability criterion" and the meaning of notability as it is in the subguidelines or on Wikipedia generally which renaming this page is not going to replace. There is also a difference between saying we have multiple non-trivial independent highly reliable sources now and saying that a topic is notable, though ultimately a person who is on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (WP:BIO) or has won a Grammy Award (WP:MUSIC) probably does have good sources about them. The primary notability criterion does not cover all of what notability means on Wikipedia, which should be well-defined. Also, "Breadth of sources" or "Objectivity of sources" do not cover the meaning of notability; you might have a large breadth of weak sources, or you have might have very objective birth records, neither of which would be acceptable. —Centrx→talk • 05:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Side point, inserting randomly here in blatant disregard for community norms: I wonder if much of this page might better be titled Wikipedia:Showing notability (a la Wikipedia:Citing sources), with WP:N reserved for a descriptive treatment of how the term is used and misused across Wikipedia. Just a random thought. -- Visviva 14:49, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm afraid your answer hasn't really clarified "practically defined" and its alternatives. Which of a) practical "primary notability criterion", b) notability as it is in the subguidelines or c) on Wikipedia generally is Wikipedia:Notability? Could you please clarify the remaining two definitions of Notability and how they relate to Wikipedia:Notability? John Dalton 06:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, etc. are subguidelines under the umbrella of Wikipedia:Notability. Parts of these subguidelines and the concept of notability generally are not directly based on sources, though sources are naturally discoverable when topic is notable. There might be a better name, but "Breadth of sources" and "Objectivity of sources" are not sufficient, and "Multiplicity, independence, and non-triviality of reliable published sources" is not a good name. —Centrx→talk • 06:39, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Verifiability is good enough. Trollderella 16:19, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Except that we also want NPOV, lack of copyvio, no libel to BLPs and general encyclopedicity. (Radiant) 16:25, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Erm, yes, thankfully, we already have plenty of policy to deal with that. I was talking about the elements of this that relate to documentation of sources. Trollderella 16:32, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
Verifiability is about facts or specific information. Notability is about topics. For example, it would not make sense to have the section about Merging topics in Wikipedia:Verifiability. —Centrx→talk • 00:12, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Real Problems with Notability.

Jeff Pulver's entry was recently deleted.

How the co-founder of Vonage could be considered non-notable is beyond me.

This campaign is counterproductive at best, mean-spirited at worst. Wikipedia is not diminished by an abundance of information. Indeed, I've found that Wikipedia's value is not necessarily in providing information on the "notable" topics - I have Brittanica for that! Indeed, it is the "long tail" of non-notable people, places, things, and ideas that make Wikipedia what it is, and in my case, it has been a useful (though by no means authoritative) tool in journalistic research. I recreated the page and left my contact information there in the hope that someone will contact me to explain why the post is "speedily deleted" before doing so.

Brian Boyko, Editor, Network Performance Daily

Former Associate Editor, Daily Texan

Former Associate Editor, HardOCP Consumer

The article Jeff Pulver is still there. -- Visviva 17:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It was speedy deleted (log) as an A7, and then recreated, and at the time of this posting, it's been blanked. I'm not sure what's going on with it. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
If that's his only claim to fame then it may warrant merging to Vonage. There were no sources in that article. —Centrx→talk • 21:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
WTF has 'fame' got to do with it. We can write a verifiable, well sourced article - we should not deny access to this information because we don't think it is 'famous'. Trollderella 23:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't think anyone is arguing otherwise, here. For this and any other article, the question is: are there sufficient independent sources to allow a verifiable well-sourced article of plausible length to be written. If so -- and the current text of Jeff Pulver is less than encouraging -- it should stay; if not, a merger (per Centrx) is probably the most appropriate. -- Visviva 08:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
What's more, merging the content to Vonage, as Centrx suggested, wouldn't deny anybody access to anything. It would lead to a redirect. We're just talking about where the information goes, not whether we keep it. -GTBacchus(talk) 01:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

School newspapers

There has been some discussion here about whether college newspapers are reliable sources in terms of establishing notability. One editor indicates that this used to be part of the MUSIC page but it was removed from that page without discussion (the user implies that nobody noticed.) The thrust of both sides of this discussion can be found at the AfD I linked to, so I won't rehash it, but it seems like this is a good venue to discuss it - is a mention of a college organization in that college's newspaper grounds for asserting that said organization is notable?--Dmz5 19:50, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

A mere mention of something in any newspaper is probably not a sufficient ground for having an article about it, but substantial coverage of something in a campus paper should count towards notability. It seems unreasonable to automatically dismiss college newspapers as mere public relations organs which provide uncritical promotion of campus organizations and activities. The college papers at schools I have been associated with have independent editorial boards, and articles are subject to review the same as in the town paper. I would distinguish between college papers and high school or grade school papers, which are more likely to be under the firm control of the Principal. The town paper writes about what is going on in the town, and the college paper writes about what is going on at the college, with some crossover. The "Columbia Missourian" covers town news as well as campus news, for instance. A newsletter published by a campus musical organization wold not be an independent, reliable and verifiable source for the notability of the musical group, but a campus paper should be considered independent unless there is proof to the contrary. Some are probably more reliable than others, as is true for non-campus papers. Some college papers have a circulation of tens of thousands, and have articles largely written by journalism students who aspire to write for the New York Times. A clip file of fawning praise for campus organizations would not get them the coveted job. Edison 20:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I've said my piece over there, but will note a general observation here: I don't accept that being reported in a publication which exists to report the affairs of one university and does not have to compete in the free market can be judged as "reliable" as it pertains to establishing notability. The downpour of cruft such a definition keeps out is frankly huge. I appreciate not everyone shares this view. Deizio talk 20:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
But we're trying to establish notability, right? If the standard is multiple media mentions, a college newspaper plus something else does that - establishes notability. I don't know if I'd use a college newspaper for anything substantive, but in terms of the type of attention a group gets, it's absolutely useful, IMO. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:28, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't think it's quite that clear cut. If the subject is a college organization, it is almost guaranteed to have some non-trivial coverage somewhere in the college newspaper. So in effect, we are exempting college orgs from the "multiple" clause, because they are all guaranteed to have at least that one mention in the college daily. I know this is a spurious comparison, but if hospital records were valid indicators of notability then no one would need multiple references; everyone would just need one plus that birth certificate! I wholly agree that a college paper can be used for findings of fact, verification of existence and the like, but it is precisely the notability part that I don't entirely buy.--Dmz5 06:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
College newspapers have to be evaluated individually on their merits. Many college newspapers are crap, with no research, and no fact-checking beyond the Wikipedia article that if allowed would later use it as its source. However, The Harvard Crimson is probably a good source on topics related to Harvard, but like everything it would still need to be verified in other sources. As for this article specifically, these all look like trivial mentions, e.g. in the article that's actually about the Yale Glee Club but which mentions all the several other glee clubs at Yale. —Centrx→talk • 22:01, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Deizio, college newspapers do compete in the free market. I'm not sure how you're conceiving of "free market" here, or exactly how it has bearing on the discussion. Many universities/colleges have more than one newspaper, so certainly there's a competitive market within the school-affiliated community. College newspapers also certainly have to compete against the myriad of other information sources that are available to members of their targeted community. Also note that, as Edison points out above, a lot of (if not most) college newspapers report not only on campus happenings, but local news.
I see no reason to make a special rule to exclude college newspapers, anymore than we should do so for any other type of source for establishing notability. To make it absolutely clear, no one is suggesting doing away with the multiple media mention criterion - one mere trivial mention in a school paper would certainly not merit an "automatic" Wikipedia article. schi talk 23:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
I will go so far as to admit that a campus group is more likely to be the primary subject of an article in a campus paper than in the local town paper, although I have checked a couple of college towns and found that the town paper has a "campus news" section. The town papers do pick up juicy stories from the campus paper, but they are also sometimes reprint university press releases. And while I have found several college papers with independent editorial boards, undoubtly there are some little colleges wher the administration vets the news. I just do not want a categoric exclusion of all campus papers as one source for notability anymore than I would expect to see all non-campus papers accorded full credibility as reliable sources. The campus papers may do a better job of getting the inside story via better access on the part of student reporters. Edison 00:37, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It's all about context - a campus newspaper might well be a sufficiently reliable source in some circumstances, in others it will not be. Trollderella 00:39, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It didn't even occur to me that papers might best be discussed on a case-by-case basis, but that is actually a good idea (in theory.) As I mention on the AfD page in question, my college newspaper (one of the few that might qualify as "famous") was notorious for an on-again off-again policy not to give critical coverage of any kind to performing groups. Where I went to grad school, a huge and well-respected school, the college paper clearly did not have a full-time copy editor. I think we can all agree that not every college paper - indeed, perhaps few of them - are remotely up to the journalistic level of major dailies in big cities. This is not the same thing as saying they are just machines to crank out university press releases, but I don't support a blanket statement that a college paper = the Boston Globe in terms of establishing anything.--Dmz5 05:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I have to suggest that those who think that university newspapers only write coverage about their unversities, or are written by people who are not required to do any fact checking, do not know much about university newspapers at all and are simply making unsupportable assumptions. While I would agree that generally the quality is not as high as that of, say, the New York Times, many university newspapers' student staffs are far more careful and professional than any number of commercial tabloids and small-town "regular" newspapers. I grew up in a small town; trust me — I know first hand. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:13, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I want to emphasize that I am speaking from personal experience regarding two particular school newspapers. I also don't think it's at all unsupported to assume that non-professional, part-time, student writers and editors should be scrutinized more than professional, full-time, experienced writers.--Dmz5 21:57, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
I think you're making my points for me. Your views on student newspapers are just that: your personal views. They are decidedly non-neutral and not backed by any comprehensive evidence that university newspapers are categorically unreliable. My bias/experience tells me that small-town newspapers are often worse, yet I am not demanding that they be singled out for special scrutiny. The point being that the type of source considered acceptable for WP:N (or WP:V) purposes has nothing to do with that source's reliability, which is why we have an entire guideline on source reliability, that is separate from WP:N and WP:V. I.e., we shouldn't "go there" in WP:N. This also has to do with why I keep reverting someone-or-other's insistent re-addition of anti-website and anti-blog blather in this guideline. It is simply off-topic here. If someone wants Wikipedia to discount all sources that could be characterized as "blogs" by someone, they are welcome to go create a proposed Anti-Blog Policy or Guideline, and we'll see just how far that goes. This is not the place for "rider legislation" of this sort. NB: I think it's utterly ridiculous to classify all blogs as unreliable sources. To do so is to deeply misunderstand what a blog is. A blog is simply a piece of technology, a medium (or submedium if you like); nothing more, nothing less. It is a printing press, a camera, a radio tower. It is content-neutral, like all such technologies. I could create a blog about, for example a scientific topic, and have it be far more careful in its sourcing requirments than Wikipedia, making it very citation-worthy here. I can also create a blog that is utter nonsense and not worthy of citation anywhere as anything but laughable. This is very important: The same is also true of books, and newspapers, and TV shows, and every other medium. Again, this is not the place to go on Guideline rampages about blogs, or school papers, or any other medium. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 23:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Published=reliable?

moved from User talk:Centrx

At[1] you changed "reliable sources" to "published sources," but a published source may be pretty unreliable. Supermarket tabloids, vanity press and journals of fringe groups are all published. This change may stir up some fights on talk pages when editors use it to support their reliance on dubious but "published" sources. Regards. Edison 21:58, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

  • (Yes, it does need to be worked on. This is what it said before. Really, what is meant is "reliable published sources" or somesuch. The "published" is in there to make it clearer to people one of the most important things that is necessary for a reliable source. The problem is the definition is already too long, but "multiple independent non-trivial reliable published sources" may be what we end up with. It needs a finer definition anyway that should be opened up into sentences, as is currently done with the "independent" part. —Centrx→talk • 22:04, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Do you see some web-based sources as being "published" or only ink on paper? There are a great many articles on videogames, pop, rock, and rap bands and musicians which only cite online sources. Print media seem to be losing the younger audience, and newspapers have declining circulation, while even scholarly journals are doing more onnline publishing. The key thing seems to be having attribution to an author, and having a responsible editorial process and hopefully objectivity (although people of either political extreme ascribe POV pushing to publications on the other side of the spectrum) so that anonymous blogs are never accepted as sources about much of anything except perhaps themselves. Edison 22:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Published means a publication process (though in its broadest sense it means making public), with qualified writers and a fact-checking and editorial process. Personally, I think "published" is broader than Wikipedia:Reliable sources. However, the problem with just "reliable" is that some blogs, for example, are considered quite reliable and accurate, but there may be no second person doing the fact-checking and editing or much delay between writing and publishing. In the layman's understanding of "reliable", reliable can be much broader than what it means on Wikipedia (or may even be something different, like the source is reliably biased), and this page is visited by a lot of non-Wikipedians whose articles are deleted and who are not familiar with the exact meaning on Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 22:23, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Reliable sources is far superior - publication does not equal reliable. Plus, reliable sources is already entrneched Wikipedia consensus. Trollderella 23:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Yes, but "published" is much more meaningful for the unknowing reader and should be included. Anyway, the sentence needs to be opened overall; in the same way the "independent" is broken out to describe what exactly that means in this context, "non-trivial" should be broken out a bit to explain that it refers to the level of coverage given to the subject in the source--after all, the source itself cannot be trivial, by virtue of it already necessarily being a reliable source. —Centrx→talk • 07:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Reliable sources is wrong. Sources are not works. In journalism sourcing, a source may be a person, for example. As far as notability is concerned, the primary focus is not reliability but independence. Reliable sources extend to include autobiographies in certain circumstances, as Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Using_online_and_self-published_sources explains. For the purpose of determining notability, all autobiography is excluded. Uncle G 11:12, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Where do you get that idea from? Why would autobiography be excluded per se - of course there are issues with it, but it should not be automatically excluded. Reliable sources is a much better tool than 'published works' - for one thing, it is an established WP concept, and well accepted and defined. Trollderella 17:27, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Wrong. I've just explained that the concept of reliable sources, as the very page on it explains, is faulty for this purpose. Please read the explanation again. Then read what I linked to. Then read this project page which explains quite carefully why autobiographies are excluded.

          As for reliable sources being established and published works not: That is a bizarre and blinkered view that has no basis in fact.

          For starters, the idea of a published work, unlike the idea of a reliable source, is not internal Wikipedia jargon. Novices facing "reliable sources" for the first time may (and, going by submissions to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, do) think that direct word of mouth from a trusted person constitutes a "reliable source". After all, it does in journalism. It takes a whole Wikipedia page to explain that that's not what that means on Wikipedia, and that Wikipedia instead has its own idiosyncratic definition of the concept. "published work" needs no such Wikipedia-specific redefinition from the meaning that it has outside of Wikipedia.

          Additionally, the concept of what constitutes a reliable source is not well accepted and defined, as Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources and ideas like Wikipedia:Attribution will attest. (One of the several problems with reliable sources, as explained at User:Uncle G/On notability, is that editors want it to give the same result as notability, but in order to do so have they have to twist it out of shape to exclude sources that not only are reliable but are even authoritative.) Notability's focus is, as I said, upon independence, rather than upon reliability. Uncle G 19:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

          • Your argument that we should make flawed policy because someone utterly unfamiliar with Wikipedia could misinterpret it if they didn't read it is an odd one. The sources should be reliable, not simply published. A published autobiography is not the kind of reliable source we want! Obviously we want sources that are reliable (and WP:RS already rules out something your friend told you). Published works is misleading, unhelpful, and worse than the existing guidelines. I have read what you directed me to, unfortunately, it is wrong. Trollderella 19:48, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
            • You are, yet again, not reading what is actually written. I made no such argument as that. I said that published works is a familiar concept that exists outside of Wikipedia, whereas reliable sources is a concept that is idiosyncratic and unique to Wikipedia, one that is quite different to what are commonly thought of as reliable sources outside of Wikipedia. And my argument was that novices will understand what a published work is straightaway, whereas they don't understand what Wikipedia's idea of a reliable source is, as evidenced from many submissions to Wikipedia:Articles for creation, and as evidenced from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources and ideas like Wikipedia:Attribution. Uncle G 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • PS I think it is insane that you want to "exclude sources that not only are reliable but are even authoritative". Trollderella 19:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
          • You are, yet again, not reading what is actually written. I wrote nothing of the sort. Indeed, I pointed this out, at length, as a flaw in the idea of using of reliable sources as substitute for notability. Uncle G 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think some of the above is making some bad assumptions. First off, the medium (dead tress, electrons or otherwise) has jack to do with the reliability of the source. Secondly, "published" is meaningless as an indicator of notability or source reliability, per se, but is required by WP:V, because Wikipedia does not use primary sources. Unpublished writings (i.e. manuscripts) are in fact "primary sources". "Published" does not mean "just on paper". — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 22:17, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Published does have meaning for notability in that multiple persons spent finite resources, typically in a money-making venture, to cover that subject because they think it warrants mention. Published does have meaning for verifiability and source reliability in that the text is more widely available for others to check and there has been a delay between writing and publication, with considerationg and checking. —Centrx→talk • 03:15, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Agreed. My main point was that the medium isn't relevant, and that we have a requirement that sources be published and not manuscripts for other reasons from other policies, making the concern kind of moot here (though I have no particular objection to mentioning it with more reasons here; just seemed a little superfluous.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 14:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • The issue that I'm addressing is not the medium of publication, but is Trollderella's repeated search-and-replace substitution of "reliable sources" for "published works" — a substitution that turns several sentences of the page into nonsense, notice. Trollderella is attempting to justify this, but has little foundation for such a justification, even ignoring the fact that xyr edits actually make the text nonsensical. (I do wonder whether xe actually re-read the page text after xyr search-and-replace changes to it.) "Published works" is what is meant, "published works" is clear and comprehensible, and "published works" is a well-known idea that even people unfamiliar with Wikipedia (which is one audience for any definition of notability) will grasp immediately. Whereas, as I and Edison have pointed out, "reliable sources" is not what is meant, is confusing (especially so for those who haven't understood the idiosyncratic definition that Wikipedia has of this concept), and is wrong (in part because in order to have it yield the same as what "multiple non-trivial published works from sources independent of the subject" gives, one has to twist it out of shape — discarding authoritative sources, as I pointed out at length before). Uncle G 18:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • In print media, "Reliable sources report X" means "The President,aa Congressman, their Press Secretary, said off the record, that X." Edison 05:40, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Restored disputed flag

I restored the disputed flag on the basis that 7-8 edits per day to the main article and active discussion on the talk page with 20+ edits per day do not indicate that a consensus has been reached. I applaud the bold move, but serious attempts at removing such a flag should first involve getting a consensus on the talk page. John Dalton 03:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

  • What are the outstanding problems with the page? —Centrx→talk • 07:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Also, while there are technically 7-8 edits at some times, these are typically only a couple of editors editing in several edits over a few rather minor issues, and there have been days on end where no one edited the page at all. Also, quibbling over "reliable sources" versus "published works" does not a dispute make. The numbers you are refering to are meaningless. —Centrx→talk • 07:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I have to agree with Centrx - as interesting as I find all the discussion about this policy, how many editors have participated in that discussion in the past few months? A couple dozen, with at most 10 regulars? The fact that a very small but dedicated group of editors use the talk page to examine this guideline in great detail does not mean the guideline is disputed by the community. --Dmz5 08:26, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I also do not see any major disputes -- nothing beyond the routine reworking and rewording that takes place on any active policy page. Removing the flag seems quite reasonable. -- Visviva 08:45, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that the lack of input is because most editors don't even know about it. Most certainly do not agree with the definition on this page based on it's usage on AFD. Trollderella 17:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Some editors employ "I think that it's famous/important/not famous/unimportant." at AFD and call that notability. But that is a problem with those editors' rationales, not a dispute with this page. Those editors that do employ notability, rather than their own subjective judgements of fame and importance, largely agree with "multiple non-trivial published works from sources independent of the subject", even though they may disagree with other subject-specific criteria. Uncle G 19:12, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
      • That's a problem with this proposed guideline, and a significant source of dispute. It is not well defined and consequently open to abuse. Asking the question "how is this different to verifiability" (earlier on this page) did not get a clear response. All I could get is "It is different" but no one jumped in with a clear "this is how it is different". Either no one was interested in answering, or it means different things to different people as there is no clear answer.

        It is a cop out to say "it is somebody else's problem". If Notability is open to misinterpretation it needs to be fixed so it cannot be misinterpreted. It is a dispute with this page. It is a usability issue.

        One problem might be the name. Are you suprised when people equate Notability with fame? One of its definitions in a dictionary says "Notability->Notable (see synonyms under celebrity)" Sure it also means important, but it also means celebrity. It needs a better name so people don't read the title, assume it relates to being famous and stop reading.

        Apart from a rename one solution might be to flip the definition around, so Notability becomes a blacklist rather than a whitelist. That is we say what shouldn't be in Wikipedia rather than what should be. Blacklists are more permissive than whitelists in that they don't automatically exclude grey areas. Marginal cases make it though by default. Currently the onus is on article writers to prove that their article is notable (by satisfying a notability criterion). Rather the onus should be on the excluder to prove that an article is trivial (by satisfying a triviality criterion).

        What about including in the very first paragraph a blurb on what Notability isn't? It is not clear from the first paragraph that Wikipedia:Notability doesn't mean celebrity. John Dalton 21:55, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

        • That people ignore the definition of notability is no more a problem with this page than the fact that editors ignore the Wikipedia:No original research policy a problem with that policy that requires it to sport a "disputed" notice. It is a problem with those editors, and is addressed by persuading those editors stop using subjective criteria such as their own personal estimations of a subject's fame, importance, or worth. The answer to the question "How is this different from verifiability?" has been given again and again, by many editors. I've given it at User:Uncle G/On notability, for example.

          As for the name, I suggest that you read the other definitions in dictionaries. In several dictionaries, notability is the quality or capability of being noted. If one can point to multiple non-trivial published works about a subject one can demonstrate that it has been noted and thus is clearly notable. The issue of the name is something to consider (and has already been considered on this talk page — see the archives), but it is worth noting that disagreement with dictionaries it isn't seen as a reason to (say) rename Wikipedia:Verifiability. According to dictionaries, being verifiable is the quality or state of being proven to be true, by reason, test, or experiment. This is a cause of a long-standing misunderstanding of Wikipedia's idea of verifiability. "verifiability, not truth" has long been acknowledged to be confusing to those who, dictionaries in hand, fail to see what distinction is being drawn. According to dictionaries, to verify something is to prove that it is true. According to Wikipedia, to verify something is to check that it agrees with a source. This causes all sorts of confusion, not least when people then start talking about "verifiable sources".

          If we are addressing confusing names for Wikipedia concepts, notability, which closely approximates one of its dictionary meanings, is well down the list of things to look at, given that there are Wikipedia concepts that starkly differ from their dictionary meanings. See also the "reliable sources" discussion above, and contrast it with this explanation of what a "reliable source" is. Uncle G 20:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

        • John Dalton, when you asked how notability it different from verifiability, I actually gave you a rather thorough response, and you seemed (by not following up) to accept it. Was something unsatisfactory about that, which now causes you to say that you "did not get a clear response"? Can I clarify how notability is different from verifiability? Namely, that notability is a concrete criterion for holding articles to WP:NOT, while WP:NOT is vague and says nothing about application? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:26, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • People not giving answers does not mean the policy/guideline is vague. 74.38.35.171 09:07, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Of course it's a dispute with this page. They clearly do not agree with the definition you are espousing. If it was more widely publicised, few would agree with it. Trollderella 19:57, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
  • TD's allegations are false. This page has been widely linked and advertised, and the statements here match actual practice on e.g. AFD. In response to John, celebrity is a form of notability. User:Uncle G/On notability explains quite clearly the difference between notability and verifiability. (Radiant) 22:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Uncle G's explanation is far clearer in meaning than Wikipedia:Notability. If Wikipedia:Notability was that clear it would be significantly less problematic. (Why isn't it that clear?) That's one of my disputes with Notability. It just isn't clear. Hence my suggestions in that regard.

      I still stand by the comment that Notability is a whitelist (with an implicit assumption of guilt).John Dalton 22:51, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

      • Ok, how would you make it clearer? Can we work on that? -GTBacchus(talk) 06:23, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Maybe append something like: "Notability is not a judgment of how well known a topic is." to the first paragraph. (As it is purely a judgment of sources. "Well knowness" might be a side effect but it is not the intent.) Also the second paragraph "The guidelines in the table on the right have been created, or are under discussion, to set out more precisely some additional criteria in certain areas." gives the impression that the subguidelines aim to exclude even more material from Wikipedia. It this really the case, or are the subguidelines clarifications rather than further restrictions? If so it needs to be rewritten to remove the second meaning. Sorry if I fail to reply in a timely manner sometimes. I'm battling against lack of time at my end, but I think it is important to contribute to this discussion. The Notability guideline is important because for the first time I have seen significant amounts of material being removed from Wikipedia and for the most part Notability has been used as the justification. Perhaps it is due to abuse of the guideline, against its intent, but in that case we must make sure that it cannot be misinterpreted.John Dalton 23:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
          • If there is no objection here I will insert the suggested words into the first paragraph of the guideline and see what fate they come to.John Dalton 04:38, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
            • I strongly agree that we need to make this guideline less prone to misinterpretation, and a better tool to stop people from using WP:ILIKEIT-style arguments. I have no objection to mentioning early in the text that notability emphatically does not mean fame, popularity, or subjective "importance". As for the relation of the specific notability guidelines to the general one, they are, at least in some cases, more inclusive, not less. For example, WP:CORP says that businesses in the Fortune 500 list are to be considered notable, even if we can't find multiple non-trivial sources. Such articles may end up being stubs, but they won't be deleted for non-notability, because they're protected by WP:CORP. I'm not sure to what extent that's generally true of all the subject specific criteria. -GTBacchus(talk) 04:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
            • I've added a Wikipedia:Summary style summary to the introduction, for you to improve upon. Uncle G 14:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
      • It isn't a whitelist, inasmuch as there are two distinct ways of dealing with non-notable subjects, depending from whether the only published works that discuss them are not from independent sources. There isn't a simple binary white/black dichotomy. Uncle G 20:09, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The dispute flag has been removed four times, and restored three times by three independent editors. How can consensus be claimed when the restoration be being done by different people? It isn't an edit war by a minority. (If I can be tongue in cheek, it could be said that under the notability guidelines the disputed flag has three independent sources and counts as notable. No doubt someone will claim an 'original research' defence! ;-) ) John Dalton 21:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is a failure to understand what the objection to the guideline page is, and the fact that those who object to have not edited the page to address their objections. How are the criteria here any less clear than WP:NPOV? Can you not edit the page to make it clearer where you think it is unclear? If it is unclear to some readers, why would that mean it is not a guideline that simply requires practical improvement? —Centrx→talk • 22:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
It might have something to do wih WP:OWNership of the article, at least that was SMcCandlish's objection to making significant edits to it. I'm not sure what others' objections are. As for the tag thing, well somebody suggested a poll or vote in their edit summary to see if the tag should stay to figure out how many detractors there are. But someone else countered with "guidelines are not determinted by voting". True, but the poll is not to approve a guideline, it is to check the consensus to see if a "disputed" tag should be there. 74.38.35.171 05:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Anyone is free to edit the article, and many have been doing so, but supposedly outstanding objections to the page have apparently not been corrected or clearly explained by the people who object.
  • Wikipedia policy is not determined by polling. A poll could serve to convince some people that they are in the miniscule minority, but it may not be miniscule and anyway if a miniscule minority has clear, reasonable objections those would need to be addressed, not silenced. A majority or supermajority does not make a policy, and a minority of one could mean that a policy is disputed, but that dispute must be explained with reasons, there should be efforts to correct it, and others would be convinced by those objections with reasons. Every guideline is disputed in some way or another by some number of people, that does not mean there is "disputed" in a way that is meaningful regarding Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 06:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
    The puropse of the poll is NOT to "determine Wikipedia policy". The poll is to give us a look at the state of the community, since the tag reflects how stable/agreeing the community is. If there is sufficient warring of various opinions in significant numbers it would be reasonable to call it "disputed". A poll/vote would reveal these things. A poll would show quantitatively just how disputed it is. 74.38.35.171 09:05, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
Probably not. Every newcomer whose page is deleted based on notability, or who has a notability tag on the page, could come and vote in the poll. People would vote with justifications that have already been addressed in the discussion, or that are irrelevant to Wikipedia. People who have not even read the Wikipedia:Notability page or any of the above discussion would be given the same weight as those who intimately understand all the issues that have been discussed above. The better way to gauge whether it is disputed is to ask: What are the outstanding issues and what are the reasons for them? How significant are these issues in the context of the guideline as a whole, or in the context of Wikipedia? These questions were asked above, and some issues were clarified by changes to the guideline page. Note, however, that every time someone "disputes" some aspect of a policy or raises an issue on the talk page does not suddenly throw the whole guideline into dispute with warning tags. —Centrx→talk • 12:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to notability guideline

That the first two sentences of the notability guideline be changed to:

"A topic is notable if it has been the subject of at least one non-trivial published work whose sources are independent of the subject itself. All topics must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia."

This proposeal contains two changes:

1) The word "multiple" in the first sentence is replaced by "At least one", since "multiple" does not mean the same thing to all people, and is therefore not measurable.

2) The word "Some" in the second sentence is changed to "All", since there are no topics on which Wikipedia allow non-notable subjects.

Discuss. Librarylefty 07:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

"Multiple" means more than one (not at least one) - I don't think there's much ambiguity about the word, so is it worth changing it? I agree that "some" should be changed to "all"; since this is only a guideline, it's already apparent that it might not always need to be followed. Trebor 12:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Huh??? "some" should be "all" since it might not always need to be followed??? 70.101.147.224 22:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Depending on the reliability of the sources in question, two sources is probably not enough for accuracy. Depending on how comprehensive the sources are, two sources may not be enough to make a sufficiently complete article anyway. —Centrx→talk • 23:18, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I always understood multiple to merely mean more than one, and be used as a safecheck in case one newspaper (for instance) published something unusually trivial - the second source confirms it has some interest. Obviously, it depends on the depth of coverage, and whether there is enough information to write an article from, but as a minimum I thought it mean two. If it doesn't, then the wording really needs to be changed. Trebor 23:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
The second source needs to have done some research on it. If a single news story is published by the Associated Press and then propagated to several newspapers, that is not multiple independent sources. The problem with "at least one" is that it tries to pinpoint some exact number that may not necessarily be appropriate considering the other criteria. You cannot have a computationally "measurable" guideline that could handle all the cases found in the millions of possible topics and the millions of possible sources. —Centrx→talk • 01:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
In that case, the use of "multiple" in the PNC needs to be explained better, as it's pretty unclear. Or perhaps independent could mean sources independent from each other, as well as from the subject matter. Trebor 11:44, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I went and changed the word "Some" in the second sentence to "All", since there doesn't seem to be any opposition to this change. I havn't changed "multiple" to "at least one", since people are rejecting this proposed change.Librarylefty 04:06, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

How about, "more than one", or "at least two"? But that's what "multiple" means, anyway... 70.101.147.224 22:25, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Multiple has this meaning, and the problem with "more than one" or "at least two" is it puts inappropriate stress on the exact number, when the reliability of the sources is more important and relevant to the number necessary. This is somewhat like the distinction between "there is an element in the set" and "there exists an element in the set". —Centrx→talk • 01:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
There's an extended explanation on the page now, which has made it a bit clearer. Trebor 08:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

What are the notability requirements for films?

There don't seem to be any. If the general guidelines are used, then even the most obscure low-budget film has probably been the subject of some trade paper story: is this "non-trivial"? Should Wikipedia be working towards an imdb-like database of all film? Or should there be a requirement of mention in non-trade publications? Dybryd 22:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Are there multiple such sources that are getting and checking their information independently? "Non-trivial" generally means whether there was only a passing mention in a story about something else, or a minor story, but it is also related to the reliability of the source. In a reliable source, the primary story of the article will be fact-checked and examined more thoroughly than a passing mention. The question to ask is: Can we make a substantial encyclopedia article (from the creation of the film to the critical response to it), and can we make an accurate article (Did the trade paper really check any of its information or is it just repeating the story given by the producers? Is the trade paper a reliable source anyway? Are there other papers that independently verified it and reported the same thing?) —Centrx→talk • 23:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • (after obligory edit conflict) You'd be surprised... I've seen plenty of AfDs on films random people made, and they never can produce the sources needed to meet WP:N. It's important to make sure the "trade paper story" is actually independent, i.e. it's not just regurgitating a press-release or something like that, and that it's actually non-trivial, i.e. it lists more than the name of the movie, the director, the actors... i.e. directory information. That excludes a lot of "non notable movies", and we're left with ones where we'll actually have reliable information to put in the article. So no problem there... the point of WP:N isn't to exclude a bunch of articles just for the sake of excluding them, it's to exclude ones where any article would be problematic or pointless due to lack of useful information. --W.marsh 23:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Here's a question that will also lead you in the direction of the answer: When you pick up an encyclopaedia of films such as ISBN 0851704557, what do you expect to find in it? Wikipedia is as much an encyclopaedia of cinema as it is an encyclopaedia of birds.

    Similarly, think about this: If the only things written about a film are magazines simply repeating the publicity blurb from the film's creators/producers, then the film doesn't satisfy the PNC. Consider how an article based wholly on publicity blurbs would read. To satisfy the PNC, the works must have been written by sources independent of the film's creators/producers.

    Fortunately, for many films there will be independently sourced published works about the films. There are plenty of film review columnists in the world, for a start. There are also many film historians writing many books. If the film reviewers and film historians talk at length about a film, then there's material for an encyclopaedia article. Whether the film is low-budget is not a consideration. Wikipedia editors don't make the decision of whether a low-budget film is notable or not. The film reviewers and film historians do. The PNC is how Wikipedia editors determine what that judgement is.

    It is a common error to want to exclude "local coverage" or "specialist journal/magazine coverage". But that's the error of trying to make notability into a judgement of fame or importance. We don't do that for towns, mathematics subjects, or species of beetles, and we shouldn't do it for anything else. It's not the size of the readership that matters. It's the depth and provenance of the work that matters. A 3-page, in-depth, film review by an independent critic counts as a non-trivial published work even if it is in a specialist film magazine. Conversely, a one-sentence mention doesn't count as a non-trivial published work and a simple repeat of publicity blurb doesn't count as an independently sourced published work even if they are in an international mass-market newspaper. Uncle G 15:09, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I encountered similar issue while editing a page on Fidelio Magazine. ...published works with sources independent of the subject itself and each other is a very good and clear criteria, and if satisfied, article should definitely be kept in Wiki. However, by looking at a sample from almost 1000 Category:American magazines, almost none has references to 3rd party sources. In addition, by trying to find 3rd party reviews on Fidelio with the help of Google, I realized that there was none, (although I didn't read all links in search results, nor did I do all possible searches). I started thinking about it, and realized that although Fidelio may or may not have reviews on internet (which are relatively easy to find - just type the search and read links), it is far more difficult to find reviews from the published sources that are not published on the internet - which are many. Now, why I am writing about this. Because it is hard for me to believe that all (or most of) these magazines have not reviews somewhere as they have been published for years, and that they should be deleted. This in a way presents a limitation of this criteria, as while there are editors who want to contribute to wikipedia with the new entry on for example a magazine page, they may not be able to find 3rd party sources (and the burden of proof lies on editor). Since wiki is not a directory, logical thing would be to just delete all these. On the other hand, having a categorized list of magazines by topic is in my opinion useful thing. It at least provides reader with the name of magazines on topic he/she is interested in and can look further on google, but I think it is better to use the main advantage of wiki, and actually wikify those names to their pages, so that user can easily read more, and navigate back to other pages within wiki, without a need to search thru google. After all, this feature of Wikipedia IS THE FEATURE that makes it a primary source of reference information that I use, and without it, I don't think I would be spending nearly as much time reading and editing it. Lakinekaki 18:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem you run into here is that "it's useful" is not a good way to build an encyclopedia. How-to guides and manuals are also useful, but they're not allowed on Wikipedia because there's another, better place for them (even though some people are lazy and don't want to navigate there) - Wikibooks. Dictionary definitions are also useful on their own, but having them in an encyclopedia will clutter it. ColourBurst 00:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
And how that relates to two points I made?Lakinekaki 00:43, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
People consider Wikipedia a credible source. If it were just sourced from promotional text, each such article would need to be preceded by a warning "This is based entirely on the promotional advertising of the producer. It is likely to be inaccurate or misleading." to which people will respond, "Why even read this in the first place?". For the many articles without sources, they will need sources. Some of them can never have them and need to be deleted, others just need references and citations added to the article. It may be appropriate to have a different deletion system, where there is a longer probationary period to allow sources to be found and added, and then a stricter, objective deletion decision based entirely on there being such sources and their reliability, etc. —Centrx→talk • 01:22, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
What about leaving a page there, but either cleaning up any non-objective text? When it comes to media - film, tv, print, and even web content, the notability criteria seems to be a little too strict, and things are delete as non-notable when they really ARE useful and informative articles. Shouldn't notability be just ONE criteria for keeping an article, and not the sole reason for deleting one? TomXP411 06:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that attitude is that it does not distinguish between promotional hype and actual information. "The greatest film of all time!" is a statement of opinion whether it comes from the film's producers or an acclaimed film critic. "The film is a coming of age tale set in feudal Japan." does not become any LESS verifiable (using any meaningful definition) if it comes straight from the film's makers. The studio which produced the movie has no more reason to dissemble about its subject matter than anybody else. Wikipedia doesn't lose credibility for taking the studio's word that a movie is a battlefield epic or a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon. This institution seriously shoots itself in the foot with its "No Original Research Because This Is An Encyclopedia And Encyclopedias Don't Do Original Research" stance here... why does something as innovative and new as Wikipedia once was have to be forever mired in me-too syndrome? Last I checked, encyclopedias also don't exist online and don't allow anybody to edit them... encyclopedias have highly limited page counts, limited number of staff working on them, etc. Wikipedia has none of those limitations and shouldn't be bound by the limitations of what an encyclopedia is that only arose out of them, if it's going to maintain any sort of relevance. That's the perspective all these conversations on notability guidelines seems to be missing... because any conversation about the notability requirements comes back to the severe misuse of the term "verifiability" and the seriously flawed discussion of what Wikipedia is and isn't. Here's one for the list: Wikipedia is NOT like anything that came before and ends up looking foolish when it tries to act like it is. In the long run, that's going to be what loses this thing its credibility. 68.13.21.225 05:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Permanence

I apologize for the tardiness, but well done to all for including the explanation that notability does not fade with time. That's another frequent error that needed addressing. Uncle G 13:53, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

So, "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball." just gets dropped out the window if it allows something to be quashed as "non-notable." Was the Epic of Gilgamesh actually any more notable than any other stories from its time period that didn't happen to have their tablets survive and be found by successive ages? Could anybody at the time have predicted that Shakespeare's rather vulgar and silly little entertainments would be taught to schoolchildren on every inhabited continent? How exactly does one judge notability to be "permanent", in the absence of a time machine? It's probably not a good idea to add every little fad as soon as it's a blip on the radar, but look at it this way: the print edition of a traditional encyclopedia will cover some topics that future generations will no longer consider worthy of space. When that time comes, the next edition to be issued will no longer cover that topic. Wikipedia's web-based model doesn't have "editions" but "edits." If somthing is notable for the time being, why shouldn't it be covered for the time being, and removed from future editions? That's how the "real encyclopedias" that Wikipedia seems so hell-bent on emulating handle it. 68.13.21.225 05:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Is a very long article about a minor controversy a violation of of the notability guideline?

I'm curious what people think about Quran Oath Controversy of the 110th United States Congress. As I describe in an entry I just made on the article's talk page, I'm concerned that the article as it currently stands has a POV or notability problem, not so much because of individual statements in the article, but because of the length and detail of the article's coverage. I think the underlying event should probably be treated as a minor attempt by a single conservative radio personality to stir up a controversy when there actually isn't much of a controversy there. Actually, I think the current coverage of the controversy in Keith Ellison (politician) is probably about as much coverage as the story deserves. I'm curious what other people think. Thanks. -- John Callender 23:08, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

According to the notability rule the primary criterion for notability is whether or not enough reliable, verifiable information exists to proudce a sufficient, neutral article. The length of the article is not a problem unless much of the "lengthiness" comes from unsourced or low-quality (ie. non-reliable) sources, in which case it could become original research and/or biased material, which should not be here on Wikipedia. So in judging the notability, you should figure out how much non-trivial reliable published coverage there is, ie. how well it satisfies that Primary Notability Criterion(TM). 70.101.147.224 05:33, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, if there is sufficient information from which to write an article, then there's no reason for an article not to be written. If it was only a section in a different article then undue weight might be an issue, but since it's an article in its own right, that's not relevant. It comes back to subjectivity, I feel: while you (and others) might think it doesn't merit such a lengthy entry, that is based on a personal opinion of its importance. If enough people have noted information about it to construct an article, then it becomes notable, and (providing the sources are reliable) in this case it seems to be true. Trebor 08:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Well, I didn't say it did merit a long entry, nor did I say it merited only a short one. I said it depends on the amount of verifiable information that is available, and how much we can proportion the views to avoid giving them that undue weight in accordance with our NPOV policy. But that is an issue of NPOV, not of WP:N. 70.101.147.224 19:35, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. For what it's worth, one of the reasons I have these concerns about the article is that it's overwhelmingly the product of a single user. So the "if enough people have noted information about it" formulation given by Trebor above may not apply, or may not apply completely. Anyway, no one else who has commented seems concerned about it, so I'm happy to let it go. If it bugs me enough I'll see about trying to improve it with some editing. -- John Callender 03:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree that the length of the article seems way out of proportion to the topic it is covering, and that the tone and style of the writing doesn't seem very encyclopedic. But I don't see any blatent violation of policies such as WP:V, WP:OR, or WP:NPOV. --

RoySmith (talk) 04:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

But if it doesn't violate policy, what's the problem with it being long? 74.38.35.171 03:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The relevant part is probably the "undue weight" clause of NPOV, and several parts of the WP:MOS argue against overly long sections, as does WP:TRIV. >Radiant< 13:53, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    Yeah, that seems more like it. Good response. I can't see a connection with WP:N, which deals with baseline criteria for inclusion. Ideal length would be proportional to amount of reliable verifiable material (which is also part of the notability criterion, so you might be able to say there is a connection, but not a direct one), and to the weight of different viewpoints. 74.38.35.171 03:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Speaking as one who likes to read, the more facts the better. As long as the person is reporting verifialbe facts, why not let it be as long as necessary? The longer the better. "WIki is not paper", and a longer article may help people's understanding of an issue. To me, that's the most important factor when it comes to coverage of controversial issues. -TomXP411 07:00, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

A question about notability of articles VS notability of statements.

Hi, I have a question regarding notability of articles that talk about little known theories.

A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works with sources independent of the subject itself and each other. Does this mean that it is enough that the topic was discussed in independent sources, or does it mean that each statement within the article has to be covered by independent sources? Lakinekaki 22:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

This sentence is only referring to the topic of an article, not each individual statement. There is a concept frequently found on Wikipedia (e.g. in WP:RS#Self-published sources in articles about themselves and WP:BLP#Using the subject as a source about something being "relevant to the topic's notability". For example, is not necessarily important in an article about a politician to include his stamp-collecting hobby, but if there is something important about his political history that an editor has (currently) only found on his Senate website, then it can be appropriate to include that in the Wikipedia article, at least until a better source is found. For "little known theories", it is safe to say that a theory that has not been evaluated by independent sources should not be included in Wikipedia, but depending on the situation it might be best to refer to Wikipedia:No original research, which was originally conceived to address crank physics theories, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 07:07, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposed change to notability guideline - Google Hits

I am not finding a specific guideline that establishes google hits or any other search engine criteria as valid demonstration of non-notability, although it is being quoted constantly at Articles for Deletion (AfD) as though it was a hard-and-fast rule. I see high google hits as a way to suggest notability, but absence is not proof of non-notability. If I am right, then I think this should be explained at Notability so that it can be referenced from AfD discussions. --Kevin Murray 18:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

We're probably no where close to a consensus on Google hits. Many, like me, think it is vastly over-rated, and one should use it to find sources, not use it as a source. Note, many use it very different to how you do, in they use lack of hits to justify deletion, but consider lots of hits insignficant. Most users of Google hits are unaware of how easily its manipulated. They're also unaware of certain basic limits in the numbers it returns (some restrictions exists, partly for technical reasons, and partly for proprietary reasons, to stop automated "stealing" of results). Any way, we have a means of measuring notability with "multiple non-trivial sources", and don't need Google hits. --Rob 19:31, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
Google hits in themselves doesn't show notability or not - obviously it depends on what the links are. That said, a low number of Google hits show that the chances of finding a reliable online source are low, and vice versa. So an argument saying, "I couldn't find any sources for subject x and the low number of Google hits for x suggests there won't be any", is alright, but an argument based purely on numbers could easily be flawed. They're an indication of sources (and therefore notability), but shouldn't be used on their own. Trebor 19:39, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
What I'm looking to add is a statement saying something similar to: "Low Google-hits are not a justification to assume lack of notability." --Kevin Murray 23:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
For modern popular culture and some specific subjects, lack of hits does mean lack of notability. If computer software has a low number of Google hits, or if a pop band established in 2005 in the U.S. has a low number of Google hits, you can be pretty sure that the topic is not notable and that reliable sources are not going to be found for it. If there are a high number of hits on these, however, that does not necessarily mean that the topic is notable, or if the topic is a Medieval author the low number of Google hits is probably meaningless. —Centrx→talk • 00:09, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
I disagree, I think lack of hits can only ever suggest lack of notability. While it's unlikely, there could be a very small number of hits but within them are ones that satisfy the PNC. In relation to the page, perhaps a link to WP:GOOGLE should be included (that page is purportedly a guideline, although I'm slightly dubious as to whether there was consensus, or it was an accident). Trebor 00:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
The problem there is how people define a "low number". There are so many web spammers, racking up huge numbers of Google hits; that people look at these numbers, and see them as the "norm". Then people falsely think anything in the hundreds is "low". Also, some people, to avoid "spam", focus on unique hits, which is sort-of ok, except they don't realize that it's always <=1000 in Google (even Microsoft). Once, when trying to find what threshold somebody was using, I found they were using a standard that even Microsoft doesn't meet (they thought at-least 2000 *unique hits was needed). --Rob 13:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

We have a whole page on the Wikipedia:Search engine test. That's really the place to explain its flaws. And, indeed, some of the aforementioned points are already mentioned there. Trebor Rowntree and Thivierr make a very important point above. Counting Google hits is not research. Research involves actually reading the things that Google turns up. Google is a search tool for finding sources. It isn't some sort of metric in its own right. Uncle G 13:07, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I support this only if we remind people of the converse-"A high number of Google hits are not proof of notability." I've seen several subjects which return tons of Google hits (even discounting similarly-named things), but all of those are to blogs, forums, and the like. Something is notable when multiple reliable sources cover it, not when a bunch of forum users decide it makes a cool flavor of the week. Seraphimblade 05:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Please discuss, not vote with bold text. That aside, I don't think this is the appropiate place for any drill-down on Google hits... Let it go on the relevent page, leaving this one free from both "too few means..." and "lots may not mean." - brenneman 05:50, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Reliable sources?

I'm glad this is a guideline now (again ?), but should the main criterion not really explicitly require reliable independent sources, as required by WP:V? Otherwise, my current reading is that extensive independent coverage solely by internet ephemera like nonnotable blogs, forum posts etc. constitutes notability, and I'm quite sure we don't want that. Also, why does a guideline link to (and practically incorporate) an essay, WP:INDY? Sandstein 22:43, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

  • "published works" may not be sufficiently well-defined here, but the examples used of books, magazines, academic journals, etc. are pretty clear that it must be published in a certain traditional sense: that there was a fact-checking and editorial process, with separate researchers, book editors, or journalists reviewing it. Forum posts and most "blogs" do not have this and are not like the examples given here.
  • Regarding WP:INDY, this is merely an explanation of what is meant by "independent" here. That essay should probably be merged into Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources, but it is right now mostly a definition rather than any sort of prescriptive policy. You can see this on some parts of Wikipedia:Edit war, which used to be an essay and then was not tagged with anything for a while. While some parts say "edit warring is bad", etc., others simply describe what an edit war is, which is not necessarily clear to some newcomers. Similarly, all the pages in the Help namespace, such as Help:Reverting, mainly describe fundamental aspects of editing but still have prescriptive statements like "Do not simply revert changes that are made as part of a dispute." —Centrx→talk • 00:21, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay, thanks for the explanation re: INDY. Is anyone opposed, then, to clarify the first sentence of the guideline as follows, and to adjust the main criterion accordingly? Sandstein 09:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
      A topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works with reliable sources independent of the subject itself and each other. [Underlining denotes change]
    • That sounds good. I'm giving it a try in the guideline now. Sandstein 08:50, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't the sources also be independent of each other? It seems like it hasn't been added yet. Objections? ~ trialsanderrors 09:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

It says "...independent of the subject itself and each other" here, but it is not linked to the essay and the essay does not currently describe that independence. —Centrx→talk • 09:19, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Yes, WP:INDY does not mention mutual independence because it is concerned with independence for NPOV and V purposes, whereas we look at independence from a notability standpoint. It makes some sense to state (as I think the "independent from each other" criterion now does) that, say, five consecutive newspaper columns from eminent editorialist N.N. don't amount to much in the way of notability if no-one else has mentioned the subject in print, even though the newspaper columns may be reliable sources. But we should possibly clarify the scope of the mutual independence: If, say, two NYT articles by different writers cover the subject, are they too "dependent" on one another because they are published by the same newspaper? Sandstein 09:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe I should move this essay into WP space? ~ trialsanderrors 10:36, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
If you want to, but that essay's notability criterion (10 "articles" from 5 "different sources") strikes me as rather too strict to gain consensus as a guideline. It also doesn't address in any detail what's meant by "different sources", i.e., what exactly mutual independence means. Sandstein 11:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
It strikes me as rather arbitrary and focused on exactly the sort of thing that an encyclopedia is not: a digest of news. If there are four (or nine) books written by established professional historians on a topic, the topic is certainly notable despite the rule of thumb, while a passing news story can have 10 different articles but may only warrant a single sentence in the article on the main subject. —Centrx→talk • 11:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree: it's too strict and rather arbitrarily set. Aside from the multiple criterion, notability should be judged by depth of coverage. Trebor 11:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I was being half-facetious. I'm fairly sure it won't get approval, that's why I called it a non-essay. It's also older than Uncle G's On Notability essay, so some of the thinking that happened here isn't reflected in it. Maybe I should mark it s "kept for historical interest"... ~ trialsanderrors 19:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

This is actually quite an important change in the PNC - should it be copied across to the relevant individual guidelines (WP:WEB, WP:BAND, etc.)? The absence of reliability as a criterion in WP:WEB is being used here as part of a defence against deletion. Trebor 16:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Language page: Svenska

I see about 2 billion links for the "Swedish version" of this page in the "other languages" bar on the left side. However, click on any one of those links, it takes you to this nonsense page. It also appears on several notability pages. I've been trying to get rid of those incorrect links, but I can't find the link to the page within the source. Furthermore, it seems these links first appeared in this version that was edited by an admin Uncle G. This is wierd, how can I elemnate those links to that incorrect foreign page? RiseRobotRise 08:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem solved, I found out that | Template:fn seem to be the culprit behind that bad language links, so I removed them all. Its deprecated, so removing it shouldn't have any negative effects on the article. This problem should also be fixed on any other pages that may include this template. RiseRobotRise 08:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Scope of notability

I've seen (and been involved in) a number of AfD's lately where the following argument has played out:

  • This subject is non-notable
    • Here's a list of references to the subject from independent sources to prove it meets WP:N
      • No, they don't count, those sources are all topic-specific

The question in my mind is, What makes an independent source?. Clearly, it has to be a source not under the control of the subject, but does it also have to be a general-interest source, or does a topic-specific source count? For example, look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Sailboat Hall of Fame (currently in progress). There have been several sailing magazines cited which have made reference to the subject. That proves that the subject is notable within the sailing community. Is that enough? A higher standard would be that it had received attention outside of the sailing community; that there were sources from the general press which had written about the subject. Is that higher standard reasonable, or that going too far? -- RoySmith (talk) 20:44, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think that's notable enough. The notability guideline is deliberately broad in the sources it allows - they just need to reliable and published. There shouldn't be any need to appeal to a wider audience (as an imperfect analog, consider a scientific theory - it is not well-known outside of the scientific community, but surely must be considered encyclopaedic). I don't think there is a need to make sure each article is notable to a general audience, so long as the sources provided meet the other criteria. Trebor 21:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree. If we were to declare that substantial coverage by reliable special interest publications isn't enough for notability, then we're no longer editing an encyclopedia, but a lexicon of popular culture. A great many subjects in the sciences and the humanities are be best (and maybe only) covered by articles in specialised scientific publications, whose "community" of readers and editors is maybe a few thousand people. Sandstein 21:40, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
In the case of this particular example, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/American Sailboat Hall of Fame, a quick cursory search at my library turned up half a dozen articles in the outdoors sections of newspapers. I've added the best two to the article. For a popular pastime like sailboating, it's not unreasonable to expect there to be sources from the general press on something like a Hall of Fame. We're not talking about obscure, complex scientific concepts only understood by the readers of specialised journals. -- Dragonfiend 02:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Across Languages

If an article is questioned for lack of notability, should such notice also appear on pages in other languages (for the same article)? Is there any valid reason to delete a page for lack of notability, but have a page in another language remain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Subanark (talk • contribs) 22:03, 8 January 2007 (UTC).

We do not have control over the wikis in other languages. Certainly it can be useful to see if another language wiki has a well-sourced article on the subject, but decisions on the English Wikipedia do not dictate other projects. Other wikis may have more stringent requirements for notability, others less, though in general they all must be "encyclopedias". It might be profitable to consider whether a topic for which there are no English-language sources whatsoever could possibly be notable enough for the English Wikipedia, but even there we are probably looking at more of a Wikipedia:Reliable sources issue. —Centrx→talk • 22:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ditto what Centrx said - communities will have implemented notability guidelines in different ways. Trebor 23:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Questions regarding the "primary notability criterion"

I am right now participating in two rather controversial AfDs. The first one is the most controversial, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cortana. It was initiated by me. The second is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RuneScape gods (fifth), not initiated by me.

The discussions rely primarily on the interpretation of WP:N (and WP:FICT) guidelines. In the Cortana AfD, it is argued by one side that as a major character in a notable franchise she is notable in herself per WP:FICT and so the article should be kept. On the other side, my side, it is argued that the "primary notability criterion" (a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself) outranks subject-specific notability guidelines, especially considering it's position in the first line of WP:N, and so the article should be deleted/merged somewhere else as Cortana is not the subject of published works, but rather Halo is and Cortana is mentioned.

In the [[RuneScape gods AfD, it is argued that while the "primary notability criterion" may outrank subject-specific notability guidelines, that is irrelevant as it does not explicitly mention "articles", but rather "topics". As RuneScape gods is a part of the indeed notable topic of RuneScape, although an independent article, the article should then be kept. The other side, again my side, argues that as RuneScape gods is the topic of the article on them, an establishment of the notability of the RuneScape gods is required in order for the article to be kept.

So:

  1. Does the "primary notability criterion" outrank the subject-specific notability guidelines, or, is the article being the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable published works, whose sources are independent of the subject itself, required by all articles or merely those who do not fall within the subject-specific notability guidelines?
  2. Does the "primary notability criterion" in using the word "topic" refer to a set of articles under a common umbrella, or does it refer to the subject of the article itself - in other words, the topic being the article's subject?

Discussion regarding this would be appreciated, as it apparently quite unclear. An emerging consensus should then be proposed be included in the notability guidelines.

All the best, -- Jobjörn (Talk ° contribs) 01:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Even the subject-specific WP:FICT states that major characters (I don't know how major) should be covered within the article on that work of fiction" except if "an encyclopedic treatment of such a character causes the article on the work itself to become long, then that character can be given a separate article." An article that consists entirely of sources affiliated with the subject or alternatively unreliable sources is not given "an encyclopedic treatement" and if you were to remove everything from that article that has "an encyclopedic treatment" you would be left with very little. (See also Wikipedia:Verifiability: material without a reliable source"may be challenged or removed by any editor"). So, the subject-specific criteria here is not in conflict with the primary notability criterion, though reasonably we can say that the primary notability criterion, being a strongly solidified Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, does inform what an "encyclopedic treatment" is. So, assuming that Cortana is an important character in the games, then this topic should be merged with Halo (video game series) and similar master articles where appropriate. If having a description of this character is important to having a complete article there, then having material sourced to the games themselves and related non-independent sources is okay, but that supports only what is necessary for having a complete encyclopedia article on the master topic, and does not support a separate article. Runescape gods could be considered under WP:FICT a "List of minor characters" that is folded out from the main topic, but it is currently in a pitifully poorly sourced state. —Centrx→talk • 13:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Can..

this policy be applied to Croats of Slovakia? --PaxEquilibrium 23:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It's a guideline, not a policy, and it can be applied to any article. If you believe that topic is non-notable (although it looks likely to be notable to me), you can tag it with {{notability}} and/or ask for sources on the talk page, for a start. Sandstein 05:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Please see Template:Serbs, Template:Croats and Template:Montenegrins and you'll understand what I mean. This practical madness was unleashed by the creation of the Serbs of Croatia article which ticked off this chain... How can an ethnic group numbering several hundred people (none of which are notable), and forming less than 1% of the country in which it lives (and having no greater historical presence in the state's territory) notable enough to have an article. If it goes like this, it makes me wonder why there isn't a Mongols in South Africa article. --PaxEquilibrium 23:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I've no opinion on this, but the principal place to discuss it would be the article talk page. It's probably worthwhile to evaluate every such article on its own merits, based on e.g. WP:V and WP:N. If no sources are forthcoming, you are of course free to nominate the article for deletion. Sandstein 05:44, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, that people does have its own website. (www.hr.sk). --PaxEquilibrium 16:41, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
That's a first-party source. Notability is determined by how much attention has been garnered by third parties. 74.38.35.171 22:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Fame isn't a measure of notability?

How is it possible for something to be famous and non-notable? Realistically, anything/one famous would have been published about from many independent sources.

I made this same argument before this was passed and think that rather than saying that, it should just be set to one simple critera: "is it or was it _well known_ to people within the relevant population (e.g. general knowledge, physics, psychology, etc.)?" It's simple, straightforward and as objective as you can get (it limits the subjectiveness to gauging how well known it is). Can anyone think of counter-examples? Note I said 'well known' and not 'popular.'

Also, why is this limited to published works when published works aren't the only widespread medium? I should add that anyone can title a random internet page an "e-book," but I wouldn't consider that published...especially with ultra cheap e-vanity presses available now. Nathan J. Yoder 07:26, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It's simple, straightforward and as objective as you can get (it limits the subjectiveness to gauging how well known it is) - I'm sorry, but that's inherently utterly subjective. How do you judge "well-known"? There are different levels of being "well known" - what if it's known to half the people in the relevant population, does that count? On top of that, how do you decide what the "relevant population" is? What's the relevant population for Big Brother contestants, or Pokemon? (in fact, looking at one of your examples, what's the relevant population for general knowledge?) It's people making these "I have/haven't heard of it" judgements that undermines AfD and makes a stricter, objective definition of notability necessary.
You said, "how is it possible for something to be famous and non-notable?" Fairly easily, in fact. A lot of on-line content (web comics, podcasts, blogs) can be known about and viewed by thousands of people, so they're famous. They normally won't, however, have been published about in many independent sources. Using your method, they would be kept - they are well-known within their relevant population - yet there are no independent sources from which to write an article.
What other types of works (besides published) would you want it extended to? Trebor 07:56, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

It's no more "inherently utterly subjective" than the current criteria. There is no such thing as a completely objective policy nor guidelines on Wikipedia. Even NPOV has some subjectivity. If you are unwilling to acknowledge that virtually all conceivable criteria involve some degree of subjectivity, then you probably unwilling to acknowledge that there is any subjectivity any of the criteria you think are "right."

Here's a list of current criteria (note that when I say "it's subject," I mean that it involves significant subjectivity -- also note that I'm going based on the limited descriptions provided):

1. Publishing - if this is overly broad so as to include non-print works, then it's subjective. If it encompasses all printed works, then it's objective, but then any random thing my printer churns out becomes 'published.' If it encompasses some printed works, then it's subjective.

2. Independence -- do you realize how many companies today have their hands in multiple markets? Rupert Murdoc (of FOX fame) has major newspapers, TV stations and whatever else. Is FOX news "independent" from the FOX tv station? "Vested interest or bias" is also subjective and includes this issue.

3. Non-triviality - how much "depth" is enough depth? How do you measure depth? You just criticized the "well known" idea for not specifying specific amounts, so why aren't you specifying amounts for depth?

4. Multiple - not a specific number, same problem as with #3.

5. Reliable - Involves various types of subjectivity, especially considering that the definitions on the reliability article are rather circular and sometimes vague.

I challenge you to show me one criterion that is more objective and you must define it in a non-circular manner (as the subjective reliability definition has been). If half of the people know about it, it's definitely well known. The relevant audience for TV shows is TV viewers. General knowledge for the general population. Of course, if something is well known in the general population (which encompasses EVERYONE by definition), then it is automatically notable regardless of field. Try to come up with harder examples.

I'm not advocating "I haven't heard of it" responses, please read what I have said more carefully.

Thousand of people aren't that many for a website. That's on the very low end, actually. Using my method, these vague, hypothetical websites would NOT be notable.

Television and radio come to mind as obvious non-publishing mediums, although they made an exception just for TV documentaries despite them not being published. Publishing refers to printed works, so either they are using an uncommon and overly broad definition, or it's wrong--if it's overly broad, then they should use a more standard term.

And as I specified, "e-books," which anyone can put on a random website, hardly count as publishing. Nathan J. Yoder 09:57, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, what if a quarter of people know about it? A tenth? A twentieth? At what level does it stop becoming "well-known"? How do you check that the people expressing an opinion are part of the "correct" population? And yes, you are advocating "I haven't heard of it" responses. An article is up for deletion, people from the relevant population arrive and say "I have/haven't heard of it, therefore it is/isn't well-known", then, if x% have heard of it, it becomes well-known and is kept.
This isn't a hypothetical situation, see here. The podcast seems fairly well-known within the WoW population, so by your standards it should be kept? I would say an almost complete lack of sources means it shouldn't be.
In relation to published works, it's also said that they must be reliable, so an e-book put on a random website would not qualify. But I'll defer on this one; I'm not entirely sure why the published criterion exists, I think reliable would be a sufficient qualifier.
You are correct that the criteria aren't entirely objective, but in the vast majority of cases it doesn't matter. It is usually easy to tell if a source is independent from the subject or not and if there are multiple sources (which means more than two, provided they aren't using the same source themselves). Non-triviality is slightly more difficult/subjective, but it's present to stop directory information or passing mentions making something notable; if the subject has been addressed fairly directly, it won't be trivial (which could also be measured by if there is sufficient information to write more than a stub). Reliability is an issue throughout Wikipedia, not just in deletion, so there are guidelines set and editors are expected to use their best judgement. No, notability isn't perfect but the current definition is fairly good (and setting ridiculously precise measures for what is a guideline would be counter-productive). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Trebor Rowntree (talk • contribs) 13:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC).
It isn't just "publishing" that defines a reliable source. It also has to have a peer review mechanism (in the case of news media, this would be editors, in the case of scholarly journals, these would be other scientists) - so most blogs and other self-published material would be right out with that criterion. ColourBurst 05:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to give specific numbers until you do. Why should the criteria you support not need specific numbers when mine does? All you've stated is that multiple means 2 or more, but sometimes you need more than just 2 depending on the information, which is why the notability page currently stated, correctly, that multiple isn't a specific amount. The point is that if you ask around in random people (and I mean in the statistical sense and people from the right historical period/generation) from that population, especially "experts," it's not hard to find people who know about it.

It's usually easy to tell if someone's part of the correct population (using your own words here). WoW belongs to the game playing population. When you have a specific product, you go for the general type of product that it is.

You're also moving the goal posts too. First it was just "I haven't heard of it," now it's people from the relevant population saying "I haven't heard of it." That still doesn't work, because a few people showing up for an AfD hardly constitute a representative portion of any population--thus that is a horrible measure of determining how well known it is, unless you're seriously suggesting that some statisticians did a representative, large random selection of the population to come and show up for the AfD.

We have tools like search engines for this purpose. Want to verify knowledge in a scientific community? Search their journals. Want to verify knowledge in the gaming community? Search gaming websites and gaming magazines/publications. You can also search newspapers for things known to the general population as a whole. Easy.

You're right about published works, there really is no point for it to exist when a reliability criterion exists. Adding it only creates confusion. In my model, I'm combining all existing criteria under one--because all the methods used to verify notability under current criteria would still be used to gauge how well known it is.

Problems with the current model

Consider this: what is the purpose of having multiple independent sources? Isn't it to verify that a large enough crowd has become knowledgeable of it? Also consider what happens if something gets published by multiple sources, but gets published in the "back pages" of newspapers and thus few people ever know about it. Sometimes when this happens they also cover it in depth, largely because it's a slow news day. You could essentially justify making everything published in multiple newspaper articles notable, even if very few people knew about it.

One other problem I'm trying to eliminate here is "self-reinforced popularity in niche subjects" which is related to the "vocal minority phenomenon." This happens a lot in smaller ideological movements and niche/cult following entertainment groups. Due to their simple aggressiveness and persistence in promotion, they can get several independent sources (possibly ones some of them have special connections to--note some of the highly specialized academic journals) to say something or another about their movement/thingy. The issue is that non-independence isn't that obvious--because you probably haven't been tracking their movements/how they managed to get the stuff published.

Nathan J. Yoder 07:55, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. To try to get where you're coming from, would you agree that there must be at least one source for an article? Does that source need to be independent? Or do you think you can write an article from primary sources (directly connected to the subject)? Or to put it a different way, can the fact that something is popular be a reason for including a topic, even in the absence of detailed sources? I'd be interested to hear your replies, and see where they differ from my own.
I think some of the differences in opinion stem from what people think notability is, or should be (my impression from endless previous discussions). Is it a guideline in its own right or is it just a consequence of the main policies (WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:NOT)? I think, at the moment, it's much closer to the latter; in order to be able to write a verifiable, neutral-point of view encyclopaedic article with no original research, there must be multiple independent reliable sources. Do you think it should just be a reflection of policies or should it say something new? It seems like you're tending towards the latter, but I'd like to know for certain. Trebor 15:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

It does reflect existing policies to a great extent. My goal is to avoid "instruction creep" (or whatever you prefer to call it in this case). By creating a simpler policy (or guideline) like this, it covers a much broader range and in addition covers up potential holes in existing policies/guidelines that would need to be continually plugged by adding/revising criteria. Additionally, this clarifies the philosophy in a much simpler, easier to understand way (take a look at how the list of "what wikipedia is not" is growing). So at the very least, it's a conceptual improvement--because it outright states that popularity isn't the issue, nor is how great someone deems it to be no matter how smart they are.

The philosophy is simple: is it known well enough in the given the relevant population (or a larger population than that)? Then we simply reflect on what the population is--this is something generally determined without need for external research (a general official-ish hiearchy of sciences, for example, could be consulted) and how well known it is, which relies heavily on external research. The external research would mean consulting publications like newspapers, television, academic journals and other mediums which imply how well known it is. It also means considering how likely it is many people would have consulted it, for example, is this just some tiny mention in the back of a few newspapers (possibly due to a very aggressive, but small niche/cultish group promoting it)?

I have started writing about various areas of Wikipedia's policies and organization and will start by writing a more formal description of the procedures followed for this which will, in some great ways, reflect existing policies, but have changes to greatly simplify it.

Nathan J. Yoder 05:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to clarify something. The purpose of the "within the relevant population" rule is to allow subjects not well known to the general population, but well known to, for example, quantum physicists, to become notable. This is because a quantum physicists opinion on quantum physicists carries more weight than a lay person's. However, if a larger population than the "directly relevant" one (perhaps even a completely different one), is aware of it, that also gives it notability. The reason for this distinction is because some subjects, especially scholarly ones, aren't well known to the people outside the field in question, but definitely are notable because scholars in that field all over the world know of it. Nathan J. Yoder 05:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

My problem is that judging whether something is "well-known" or not is not connected with being able to write an encyclopaedic article about it. At the moment, the guidelines are set to be as lax as possible; without the multiple, independent non-trivial mentions in sources, there is nothing verifiable from which to construct an article, so an article shouldn't exist. Consequently, if a topic has had those mentions, it is possible to write a NPOV, verifiable article. Whereas while you may be able to determine that something is "well-known", that does not mean that there is any information to include (a hypothetical would be an Internet fad that hasn't been covered in reliable sources).
Are we saying that subjects have an inherent "notability", some sort of value of importance (or well-known-ness) attached to them, to determine whether they should have an article. Or are we saying that notability is a minimum, a requirement, beyond which it is simply impossible to write an article? Trebor 16:39, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm referring to cases where you can find sources to verify how well known it is, which is a prerequisite for all other guidelines/policies (verifiability) as well. If it's a well known fad, obviously it has some inherent significance large enough to make many people want to learn about it and chances are there are going to be a wide variety of websites (especially some of the more popular ones of that kind) that show the thing in question. I am saying that notability is a minimum requirement, like NPOV and Verifiability. After all, if it's some really obscure subject that practically no one knows of, it's onyl up to wikipedian's personal, subjective, judgement as to its importance, which we want to avoid.

Nathan J. Yoder 22:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Why the direct subject of published sources?

Isn't a definition of "notable" as "what is cited in published papers about a completely different topic" better than "what is the subject of published papers"?

E.g. Napoleon Bonaparte is notable because you can find this in a writing about someone: "he has a great ego: he thinks he is Napoleon". My brother could not be notable, even if a researcher would write a paper about the ego using my brother as example, because noone will cite my brother (even if the paper could be cited).

Just a note. I'm not proposing a new guideline, because it would be revolutionary: probably the greatest part of Wikipedia articles should be deleted. I'm only asking why a definition of notability based on direct subjects is better than a definition about indirect citations.

[If this problem is treated elsewhere, please tell me. I'll delete these lines and go in the right place.]

Milivella 14:40, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Dreaming about this hypothesis: could it make unnecessary many Wikipedia rules? It could be possibile just to use the rule: "Writing about this topic, explain what is implicitly assumed about the topic in the paper(s) (that are about completely different topics, remember) that cite it."

Milivella 19:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that notability should be measured by whether the subject has been mentioned in a source which is unrelated to the subject in any other way. As you say, this would mean the (vast) majority of Wikipedia articles would be deleted, which I can't see as being a good thing. I don't think being mentioned in an unrelated source is a very good way of measuring notability - some obviously notable things wouldn't have been mentioned in this way, and so wouldn't be included. Trebor 19:27, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply. Mine is only an hypothesis, so we can freely talk about it. About the deletion of many articles: probably this should be done even if the general notability rule is strictly applied. Can you cite an example of "obviously notable things" that are not mentioned in any unrelated source? Milivella 20:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not entirely sure about what you mean by your proposal, so how about I name a few things, and you say whether they would qualify as notable by your standards or not. So, to name a few completely arbitrary things: Frank Lampard, David Helvarg, Hurricane Irene (2005) and Regular polytope. Would they be considered notable under your standards and why? Trebor 21:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
We should agree - just as for the actual notability definition! - about (1) which papers are reliable, and (2) which is the subject of a paper. But, for the sake of the example, using (1) papers searched from Google Scholar and (2) common sense, we have Frank Lampard and Regular polytope notable, because they're cited in papers about translation and system theory and, apparently, David Helvarg and Hurricane Irene not-notable. Milivella 02:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
That seems like that the method has a flaw then - while the latter two you mentioned may not have been mentioned peripherally, they are still encyclopaedic topics (indeed, they are featured articles at the moment). While your idea is a way to gauge the pervasiveness of a topic, it is too disparate from the actual writing to be especially useful. As, ColourBurst says below, there needs to be information from which to construct an article, and that information predominantly come from sources about the subject. That's part of the reason for having a notability guideline at all - it ensures there must exist a minimum level of information on the topic, so there's enough to write a decent article. Trebor 07:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I could say: David Helvarg and Hurricane Irene should be cited in encyclopedias, but only in specifical encyclopedias, not in a generic one, because, if I'm not interested in ecologism or weather, I'll never need to know who is Helvarg or which is the Hurricane Irene. Milivella 15:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
But Wikipedia aims to be all-encompassing - the sum of all knowledge (that is suitable for an encyclopaedia). If you're not interested in football, you won't need to know who Frank Lampard is, but he is included because there is information to write about him, from reliable sources. Trebor 15:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
1. Even if I'm not interested in football, I need to know who Frank Lampard is, e.g. to understand that article about automatic translations. 2. The problem is: what differentiate an encyclopedia from a library, in your view? They both collect all the informations avaliable from reliable sources... Milivella 15:51, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm not seeing your point. What if you are interested in some of these topics, then you'd want information on them. An encyclopaedia organises and summarises all the information available from reliable sources (or at least it aims to). For instance, thousands of books will tell you the date of the Battle of Hastings but an encyclopaedia need only mention it once. Trebor 16:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm seeing your point, but this definition of encyclopedia makes every encyclopedia incomplete for the most part (because it doesn't mention every single assertion made about the Battle of Hastings), or based on an arbitrary (i.e. not based on a clear criterium) selection (because it mentions only some facts about the Battle). Milivella 16:24, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Yep, and I expect every encyclopaedia ever will be imperfect. That doesn't mean you can't strive to make it as good as possible though. Trebor 16:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Too easy. How do you "strive to make it as good as possibile"? Adding all the information you find, in any order you find it? I don't think so: you add the most notable information first (don't you?). But which is the most notable information? We have two options: 1. That which is repeated more times in the sources. 2. That which is (more often) implicitly assumed in the sources. And maybe the second option is better than the first. Milivella 08:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
It's nothing to do with being repeated more times, it's to do with being mentioned in multiple independent sources in sufficient depth so that an article can be written. Being mentioned in unrelated papers may qualify as measure of significance or importance, but it's detached from the process of writing an encyclopaedia. If I read an article on Frank Lampard, I don't care that he's been cited in a paper about translation, I want to know what he does, whom he plays for, what he's won. And for people to include that information, they need sources on the topic, not just mentioning the topic. Trebor 16:13, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear: I like the criterium "topic of multiple sources", but I see it as a criterium about how to write: in fact, even you have written "for people to include that information". Isn't notability about what to write/include/delete? Let's face it: the "orthodox" sense of notability doesn't work as a criterium for inclusion (while it works like a criterium for source-choosing): it's not surprise for me that, like Sjakkalle noted (read the section after this), many Wikipedia articles are not notable in the "orthodox" general sense of notability, and that the real notability criteria are topical - one for music, one for soccer, etc. -. (About Lampard: if the team for whom he plays is not implicitly assumed in no not-related source, for me it's not a notable information.) Milivella 16:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
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I think that as long as there's enough information so it's clear how to write something, then there's no harm in it being included. Yes, there are exceptions as mentioned below, so there is still some measure of significance being attached to people's judgement, but it's predominantly accurate. If all the information has to be implicitly assumed in the unrelated source as well (that is to say, information only mentioned in primary sources can't be included) then we'll end up with very brief articles. Perhaps some minimum level of "significance" is needed to exclude the very minor cases, but I don't think your idea is the best one - it will end up excluding far too many pages on otherwise famous people. Trebor 08:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
So far, the result of this discussion is not (and I said it from the beginning) a new concept of notability, but two interesting (IMHO) considerations:
1. Wikipedia is not a generic encyclopedia, but the sum of many (all the possible?) specific encyclopedias (this alone puts my definition of notability out, because I'm thinking about a generic encyclopedia). Naturally, "the sum of many specific encyclopedias" has, as a sub-set, a generic encyclopedia, so the existence of Wikipedia makes a user-written generic encyclopedia (and my criterium for it) unneeded.
2. As you said, "some minimum level of significance is needed", so the actual definition of notability just doesn't work (as a criterium of inclusion) in theory. The fact that it isn't used in practice is, I think, evident (e.g. from the presence of specifical criteria of notability for music etc.).
Milivella 09:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I still think the concept of notability needs some more work, but it's a lot better than it was half a year ago. As it stands, topics either have to meet the multiple independent sources criterion, or one of the criteria in the more specific guidelines. Possibly some exceptions need to be made to allow for the fact that we're living in a source-heavy Internet age, and perhaps not everything covered by news services needs an article. But I still think that the current definition works for the majority of the cases. Trebor 12:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
To me, it seems like a roundabout way of doing it. Notability doesn't exist in a vacuum - to populate the article, we still need reliable information on the subject, and to get that information we need to use WP:V and WP:RS. I mean, if a person is "notable" in the dictionary sense, wouldn't people write about that person as a subject (or whatever the subject is) anyway? Or phrased another way, I don't see how a subject can only have peripheral mentions and still be notable, because evidently nobody wants to write an article about that subject. ColourBurst 05:39, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Good answer: notability by direct subjects is one with verifiability and reliable sources. But, as I have written, notability by indirect citations gives you a criterium to choose what to say, i.e. what is implicitly assumed. So both the criteria of notability are "economically" good. And, talking about the two criteria, they are not incompatible, i.e. you can have a definition of notable as "subject of a reliable source and cited in a reliable source about a totally different topic". Milivella 15:03, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Which could be the application of such an idea? Maybe an encyclopedia based not on what users want to write, but in what they want to know. E.g. I find a citation to the time of the Battle of Hastings, I don't remember when it was fought, I ask in the "Question page"; someone who cares write the year of the Battle in the "Battle fo Hastings page". Probably not so practical, and similar to (more practical) Wikipedia in its results... Milivella 08:01, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
The process could be this: 1. A (person) finds in a text a citation about B (topic) that he doesn't understand, and asks about it in the page about B; 2. C and D answer; 3. A choose the answer that let him understand best the original citation. (Like Yahoo Answers, but only about encyclopedic topics.) Milivella 16:15, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The authors writing about some other subject that implicitly assume things about the notable topic may very well be wrong. "Common knowledge" does not mean it is right. In order for the information in an article to be accurate, the topic must be the focus of a work, where the author has some expertise in it and where it is going to be reviewed by others for accuracy on that subject. An author is not necessarily an expert on the tangential topic, and the author and reviewers are not reviewing the text for accuracy in that tangential topic, which need not even be accurate for the author to make a "point". —Centrx→talk • 00:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Again, you too use notability as a criterium for the sources a Wikipedian should use. But it's not such, if I've understood it right. Notability is a criterium for topic inclusion: "All topics must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to be included in Wikipedia." So, I dont' say: "You could use the information implicilty assumed by an indirect source." (How could you take an information that is not cited, but only assumed?) I do say: "You could look (in a direct and explicit and reliable source) for an information (and include in Wikipedia) if it's implictly assumed in an indirect source." It's not important wheter the indirect source assume a false information: e.g. I write in an essay about basketball "basketball was invented in the late nineteenth century, just before the Battle of Hastings". I'm assuming that the Battle of Hastings was fought in 1900 or so, that is false. But it's not a problem: who write the encyclopedia just need to know that I consider the date of the Battle of Hastings as common knowledge. To write about this topic, he naturally has to check other, direct, sources. Milivella 07:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
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