Wikipedia talk:Notability (local interests)

This proposal, which contains guidelines that have already been followed in practice, but have never been officially written, addresses several previous proposals on more narrow topics that have failed or otherwise never been settled. Includes this one or this one. This new proposal here pretty much sums up what those are mostly about. Sebwite (talk) 04:24, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Too strict

I think these proposed guidelines are too strict. I have several comments:

• The page begins "city, town, village, or region", without specifying size. "Region" can often refer to something as large as the midwest, and I think anything with that large a scope is clearly not local. And "city" can also be a large scope for large cities. I think the guidelines are clearly acceptable for a small town (say <1000 people), but too strict if applied to a major geographic region or large city (say >500,000 people).
• The proposed guidelines as they stand could lead to the deletion of many uncontroversial topics of local interest. In my opinion, little would be lost, and potentially much gained, by keeping or including these topics in wikipedia.
• The text "Once notability has been established by this guideline, local sources (such as local newspapers) may be used without limit to include and verify information contained within the article", in combination with strict standards for notability, could be problematic for topics that attract extensive, detailed local coverage, yet attract no non-local coverage. This could force information on specific events to be included in the main pages of various topics, which could make those articles too long. I think wikipedia is made more accessible by having many smaller articles properly classified and linked together through wikification, than having a smaller number of very long, detailed articles, and I worry that the proposed policy would lead to fewer and longer articles. (This is already addressed somewhat under the "Excessive size of parent article" heading, but I think it needs to be worked naturally into the main text of the guidelines)
• Overall, these "guidelines" are written very strictly and in an absolutistic fashion (i.e. "In most cases, it must have at least two reliable sources independent of the subject and the local region."). The strong wording seems to contradict the more flexible "In most cases" and leads to a confusing guideline. Uses of words like must" and "minimum" seem to reflect a rigid rule, not a flexible guideline. I think this has the effect of coming across as strongly "anti-local" and too authoritarian in general, and against the general spirit of wikipedia. Read WP:N and you will find more flexible language...phrases like "presumed to be notable", "can also be considered notable", or "Significant coverage...may be less than exclusive", "Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability". These are all more flexible statements, guidelines, not rigid rules.

I propose the following modifications:

• Replace "region" and "city" with "local region" and "small city", to unambiguously exclude major cities or broad geographic regions from these guidelines.
• Relax the guidelines so that uncontroversial local topics receiving extensive, detailed coverage in local sources are considered clearly notable. In particular, integrate the guidelines under "Exceptions: Excessive size of parent article" into the main text, rather than presenting them as an "exception". This would make the guidelines seem more unified, self-consistent, and unambiguous.
• I would like to see these guidelines generally rewritten in the flexible spirit and writing style of WP:N so that they are truly guidelines and have a more holistic take on notability rather than establishing a rigid set of rules to justify exclusion of certain topics.

Cazort (talk) 19:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for not explaining the meaning of "region" well. Perhaps, this word should be left out altogether. When I used to word "region" here, I was referring to a city and its suburbs, like the Greater Washington DC area, which includes Central Maryland and Northern Virginia, or a group of adjacent cities, like the San Francisco Bay area. But of course, there are larger regions that go beyond local, like the Mid-Atlantic Region, which comprises several US states. Wikipedia does not use numbers to define what is notable and what is not, with the exception of the number of sources. But you get the point. This is a matter of city versus a larger area.

I do believe some guideline is needed. Otherwise, if you allow there to be articles on every person, building, road, news event, etc. that is well covered in the local or community paper but unheard of anywhere else, this will lead to overkill. Obviously, it makes sense to have articles about the iconic centerpiece structure, the streets of the central business district, and past and present mayors of major cities. But is it really worth writing about a high school athlete who has been at the top of the local high school, the strip mall that has been mentioned in community papers for the renovations it is undergoing, or a minor side street just because it has been mentioned for some reason in the local newspaper, the suburban community papers, and mentioned on all the local news networks? Or would this be outright silly for a worldwide encyclopedia?

Just pointing out, there is an existing policy that came into effect called Wikipedia: Notability (criminal acts). This was in its proposal phase at the same time as another one that I had proposed called Wikipedia: Notability (news events). I have also tried proposing policies like these on geographic locations, transportation, buildings, and structures. What I discovered about all of these is that what was being discussed was whether these were local interests or beyond. Sebwite (talk) 05:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with what you are saying here. I think (a) I am convinced of a need for some sort of policy or guideline on local interests, and (b) I am in agreement that we don't want to move wikipedia too far in including local interests that are truly irrelevant or uninteresting, such as all the examples you gave. On the other hand, I've recently seen people go, in my opinion, too far in deleting local interests and I am very cautious about creating a guideline or policy that could be used to justify deletions of topics that are of moderate interest to a small minority, and connect/relate well to other topics. In fact, perhaps we should think about including something about connections to other topics? For example, I think the policies as currently written would be fine if applied to an orphaned article. But, for an article that has numerous in-links, I think they are too strict (i.e. if the article is only sourced in local sources, but is linked to by notable non-local topics, or even by notable local topics, I think that should count for something--I do not think that this type of article should be treated the same as an orphaned one with a similar level of sources). Cazort (talk) 13:50, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The reason for the "exceptions" section is to favor keeping more than deleting if something is probably notable, but the article's creator did not do a good job of providing sources or de-orphaning the page. That is why I gave the example of the mayors. In a case like this, if a city has had, say, 50 mayors in its history, and 47 of them clearly meet these requirements, it is likely the other 3 do, even if those sources are not provided. But if this were the other way around, and sources can only be found for 3 of those mayors, then there is a good chance that most of the other 47 are not. Sebwite (talk) 20:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Sebwite: Maybe in this case the proposal should be renamed Local interests in the United States? Your explanation does not really help; is Benelux a region? Or Belgium alone? Do we need to justify the existence of Luxembourg and save it from merging into European Union? etc. Defining region within a jurisdiction is easy; worldwide definition isn't.NVO (talk) 12:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Local clause

It seems that "independent reliable sources away from the region" is a thinly veiled attempt to introduce a 'Local clause' into WP:N. That will never attain consensus as, we all know, a WP:RS is a RS no matter where it is located. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 03:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

True. As I mentioned when I wrote this, there is no limit to how many local sources can be used, once notability has been established from outside sources. If two outside sources verify just some of the important information in the article, 20 local sources can be used to verify all the rest. Sebwite (talk) 05:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Taken to an extream, Does that mean that any Reliable source within a country cannot be used to Cite anything within that country. "Local" is to open to interpretation, abuse, and misrepresentation. What you call Local, could be a world away to the "locals". Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 02:19, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree with Exit2DOS2000's comments here too...what worries me about the current proposed guidelines is that I can see them being used as "ammunition" to delete lots and lots of articles. And I tend to think it is good to keep regional, and sometimes local material in wikipedia. Also, this is my important point: the current guidelines seem to be written to exclude material, not to include it. In the cases that Sebwite gave above (high school athlete, a road that is mentioned several times, a local strip mall), I would agree that these are not notable. But what I'm concerned about are things of a different nature: a sci-fi convention that attracts only mention in local or regional news outlets, but that has been going on for years and has had a number of articles written about it in detail. Or, a regional business network, say for the metro area of a medium to large city, that has attracted sustained coverage in reliable local sources over a period of many years, but has not had a single article written about it in a "non-local" source. I think in particular, these guidelines become problematic when applied to all but the smallest localities. The proposed guidelines as they stand could be used to justify deletion of both of these articles. But are they truly less notable than some esoteric organic chemical that has been the subject of a handful of detailed studies in peer-reviewed journals, or some esoteric structure in abstract algebra, like a Bol-loop? Hell no!!! They are much more notable. And yet I would strongly argue to keep the article on a chemical, and I was the one who created the friggin' article on Bol-loops, and I think all of these things belong in wikipedia. But I think both of them are much less interesting and relevant to the average user than any number of "local interests", even those with scant or non-existant coverage in "non-local" sources, even if the locality involved is pretty small. So yeah, that's my beef. Maybe we should just start directly editing the proposed guidelines back and forth and see if we can come to a consensus? Cazort (talk) 14:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The way reporting goes, if something is really important enough to merit an encylopedia article, it'll be picked up somewhere by national or international media, or even just that of some other cities within a few hundred miles/kilometers. Otherwise, it would not make sense to put it in the ranks of 7 billion people.

I don't agree with this. I think there are topics that are important enough to merit an encyclopedia article that are not picked up by national or international media. And I do think these topics have value for the people who live outside these regions. I, for one, find immense value in these topics. Nor, as Exit2Dos2000 has pointed out, do I think that national coverage automatically qualifies as "better" for notability purposes. WP:N doesn't say anything about local vs. non-local--it does talk about the reliability of sources, however. But I do not think that all nationally-read or internationally-read papers necessarily have a higher degree of editorial integrity than local papers, especially when it comes to local issues that the national papers' staff simply do not have the time or knowledge of local matters to cover thoroughly. Cazort (talk) 15:01, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

But by that same token, how many times have you seen a story on National Media about the naming contest/birth/death of a Panda bear in Wherevers-ville, in Mystic Province, Other Continent. Each Article has to stand on its own merit or fall by its lack thereof. It truely does not matter whom tells the story, or where they are located. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 02:08, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree with one caveat--it matters who tells the story in the sense that the source is reliable. But I think you are right-on that besides this, who they are and where they are don't matter. And I also tend to like the idea "Each Article has to stand on its own merit"--instead of creating lots of pages of guidelines (see [[WP:CREEP]). Cazort (talk) 15:04, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

There are some local retailers and restaurants that have been around for decades. They have been written about a lot - locally. But they are unheard of anywhere else. An example is this one in Pikesville, Maryland. It has been around since 1892, which is mentioned on its web site. It started out as a pharmacy, which it was for over a century before it closed its pharmacy and became just a cafe and gift shop. It is famous in the Baltimore area, particularly the suburb of Pikesville, and has been written about frequently in community papers. But far too few sources beyond exist to qualify it for a Wikipedia article.

Still, if there is something that has some local sourcing, it can be written in a parent article. For example, a high school's best athlete may be described in the article on that school. Then, following those guidelines under "exceptions," if it grows, it can be split. Sebwite (talk) 20:08, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Needs major work to lessen strictures

• Oppose as a guideline. A problem I see in that as written, it would act to eliminate many currently notable articles because they have not had the wider press coverage this proposal would demand. Local or not, notability is notability. See WP:CSB. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.}

I don't get it either...

Consider, for example, some locality in London, say, Piccadilly Circus. The article, indeed, lists one book printed by an out-of-town publisher, Oxford University Press, and thus evades deletion. Good for them. But it doesn't work for all places. Frequently, the gap in quality between local and out-of-town sources (at least easily available ones) is so wide that the author won't normally think of inserting a non-local ref. Does this proposal mean that now I will have to hunt for an out-of-town ref, no matter how weak, now matter how conflicting with actual content evidenced by really reliable sources - just to tick an empty box? Creep creep creep, forget it.

Another concern is that the authors are only considering United States environment; these standards not necessarily fit rest of the world. What about less sophisticated countries where all the printing presses/colleges/academia are concentrated in the capital? Ad absurdum: A bus service in Nairobi (pop. 3 mil) is non-notable because all sources are printed in this city; a bus service in Nakuru (pop 10 times less) is notable because its timetable is printed in Nairobi. NVO (talk) 12:17, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Completely bad idea

First, this comes across as instruction creep with the detailed rules. Secondly, and more importantly, it comes across as saying "fuck you local people", even if you want to know about something local. Important to Minnesota's history, too bad, we only want globally notable topics. Which kinda of goes against the goal of being the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever. The main reason we even have the notability guidelines is not to try to limit entries pre se, its to ensure there are enough reliable sources to cover the topic at an appropriate depth, and ensure it is not some sort of hoax. Plus there would be some serious biases. Such as the president of the Country of Foo with a population of 200,000 would have national notability, but the commissioner of a U.S. county with a constituency of 300,000 might not make the cut because they are only known locally, though that locality has more people than a nation. Then there is the problem of what is local media. I routinely am told in AfD debates that the top 30 in circulation newspaper The Oregonian is a local paper. Which if that's what it is, then so is the Boston Globe, and I don't know what the The Hillsboro Argus is then. All in all, I think its best to keep to the current criteria so we don't simply become a newer version of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Or in general, see WP:NOTPAPER and to some extent Wikipedia:Five pillars. Aboutmovies (talk) 06:33, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm with you 100%. This is completely outside the bounds of the five pillars. --Explodicle (T/C) 14:46, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree. Many subjects are quite notable even though they are not globally famous, and vice versa just because someone/something is written about globally does not infer notability. That is why we have local reporters on the scene who are trusted to report to their networks who then pick and choose what is indeed newsworthy. I think our current policies cover these gray areas sufficiently. -- Banjeboi 08:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Amending this proposal

I do not feel we should mark it "failed." But it appears that due to some issues that have been brought up, this proposal will need some amending. The concensus seems to be leaning more toward inclusion more than exclusion. Still, there are various types of articles that should be addressed.

Here are examples of some topics that need to be discussed to determine that notability, even if local sources do exist. It is in theory possible to take the main local paper of a city and the community papers of one or more of its suburbs and call many of these things run-of-the-mill objects "notable." AfDs on these have had varying outcomes in the past, all with no concrete policy to support the outcomes. Where do we draw the line?

• Members of a city/county council or government
• Local government agencies (e.g. police and fire departments of a jurisdiction) and their top officials (who are often mentioned daily in the local news)
• Local events that are covered in the local news for a significant period of time, but unheard of elsewhere (such as political controversies)
• Reporters on a local news station
• Ordinary citizens who are well-known in their hometown through media coverage, but unheard of elsewhere (such as a local artist)
• Small neighborhood parks
• Country clubs
• Retail and restaurant with a single location well-known to locals and written about in the community papers, but unheard of even in neighboring cities or towns
• Retail and restaurants with several locations within a city or metropolitan area, but unheard of anywhere else
• Malls (small ones in particular), town centers, strip malls, shopping centers
• Business centers, industrial parks
• Hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, medical office centers
• Places of worship
• Cemeteries
• Individual municipal bus routes (I have actually written some articles on these myself, and written them in encyclopedic fashion, though I have provided sources in them from beyond the city)
• Stations on a city's rapid transit system
• Buildings and structures (e.g. office buildings, apartments, condos)

Sebwite (talk) 02:01, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

• The answer is, don't draw the line. You are attempting to intervene into areas of WP:BIO, WP:ORG and interests of many established wikiprojects that have, over years, forged their consensus on notability. Have you attempted amending each of these guidelines and project agreements one by one? Wikipedia isn't homogenous, so bus routes in London are generally accepted worth of separate articles, bus routes elsewhere are not. And if you are still determined on continuing your quest, think of a better definition of "local" and "run-of-the-mill". A survivor of 17th century architecture may very well be "run-of-the-mill" for its period in its country; on the contrary, what looks "run-of-the-mill" today could have be a revolutionary breakthrough it its better days, etc. NVO (talk) 07:49, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Inclusiveness

As I can see, the overall concensus is to be inclusive. Actually, when I came up with this, I wanted to be more inclusive, not less. But the overall view of this is that it would be less inclusive. I am trying to think of some ways to amend this propsal.

How does anyone think we should deal with, for example:

• The high school athlete who has been featured on several news networks and in the local paper for being exceptionally talented?
• The strip mall with 3-4 small businesses that has been described in the city's main newspaper as well as the suburban community paper in several articles, ranging from the plans for its construction, to the boost its given to the surrounding community, to renovation plans?
• The 95-year-old mom-and-pop pharmacy that has been run by the same family for several generations and every so many years has an article about it in the local paper?
• The nursing home that has been in the local news on multiple occasions, spread out over the years, for its controversial treatment of its residents?

As much as I have actually wanted to write them, I have not found articles on these, which leads me to believe that if I did write such an article, it would go straight to AFD. The point of this proposal and the discussion that has come with it is to determine what to include and what not, and perhaps to include more. Sebwite (talk) 04:55, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I would favor inclusion of all of these articles. I'd be least inclined to keep the high school athlete but I'd probably still argue to keep. I do see articles like these frequently sent to AfD, and often people refer to these guidelines in such a way that, in my opinion, conflicts with WP:N (which says nothing about sources having to be non-local). This is one reason I would like to see this guideline changed. An example would be Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RadCon. Cazort (talk) 14:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Early on in my Wikipedia days, I did indeed create a few articles on some local interests. Many of them went to AfD. Some were kept, some were deleted, and some were merged. The reason why I created this proposal not because I wanted to rule out any future local interests from being created, but to include more.

If there is concensus to allow all local interests, even those sourced only from local and community papers and news networks, even my above examples, I would gladly accept it, and in fact, you may see me creating some articles like these.

The question is, where do we draw the line in order to not have an article on every high school athlete, city council member, strip mall, mom-and-pop shop, or roadway construction project that just happens to be reported frequently over a long period of time? Sebwite (talk) 20:19, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

This is a good point/question. In my opinion, if anything needs to be added/clarified about WP:N, it would be what constitutes trivial coverage. For example, WP:MILL makes a very valid point that local police stations typically receive daily coverage in local media, but this doesn't make them notable. Why? I would argue that it is because the coverage is trivial--i.e. the article is not written about the police department itself, but rather, is written about a specific crime or event, which happens to fall under the jurisdiction of the police department. So one could say the coverage of the police department is trivial even if the coverage of the event/crime is not. On the other hand, if you have an article that is written in detail about the local police department (say about some sort of scandal, or funding difficulties, or discussion of something peculiar to that particular department), then that is hardly trivial. I also think the examples given on WP:MILL of streets on a map, do not establish notability because they are trivial coverage. I am wondering if we can cast this debate in terms of expanding/clarifying exactly what constitutes significant coverage, vs. trivial coverage. I see this sort of debate/question come up a lot in AfD--and not just with respect to local interests, but with respect to virtually any debate that comes down to a sourcing question where the sources are agreed to be reliable but the significance of the coverage is in question. Cazort (talk) 03:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Scope is not mutually exclusive

I think my main problem with this page revolves around this:

"But Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of the entire world, not just a single city or town."

Why can't it be both? WP:5 says that Wikipedia should incorporate elements of general and specialized encyclopedias. For example, the Encyclopedia of New Jersey has plenty of information only of interest within New Jersey. --Explodicle (T/C) 19:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

We have inclusion guidelines because we can't possibly cover everything. We wouldn't even need notability standards if we were all knowing and had infinite human resource and knowledge. Gigs (talk) 01:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Revised proposal

Based on the discussion above, I have revised the proposal in order to be more inclusive. The general idea is that subjects that are somehow unique and one-of-a-kind, even if only local sources are used, can be included. But run-of-the-mill subjects for which thousands of them exist in each city, or in which one city's version is generically like all the others in the world or its country, would be excluded.

I am hoping to see some comments so we can come to a concensus. Sebwite (talk) 01:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I would support making something like WP:MILL policy. Isn't that really what you are getting at here? Gigs (talk) 01:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I actually wrote the WP:MILL essay, and I have revised it many times. I was inspired to do so by a pair of AfDs that ran around the same time that were both for articles about office buildings, one in Denver, and one in Washington DC. Both of these articles were titled by nothing more than the address number and street they were located on. All the information contained in the articles was referenced. But the only information the articles contained based on these references were details about when these structures were built and their dimensions. I supported deleting both because they were "run-of-the-mill" buildings. In other words, they were just like so many others in the world, and even in their own cities. But ultimately, both were kept.

The one in Denver said that the building was something like the 27th tallest building in Denver (I don't remember if that was the exact ranking). But given that argument, you can say something is notable because it is the 384th tallest building of the 46,963th tallest building in a city. (From my point-of-view, even being #1 at something does not mean automatically notable). Additionally, the articles classified these buildings as "skyscrapers" as if that made them automatially notable, but even the article skyscraper states in its lead paragraph that "there is no official definition or height above which a building may clearly be classified as a skyscraper."

I never thought of WP:MILL as a future policy, but some of the purposes of essays are to support and interpret policies and proposals.

I do indeed support articles on local interests, provided that, as mentioned here, they are one-of-a-kind and not like the next 10,000 others. Yes, there can be some articles on some (but not all) mom-and-pop shops (that are often the charm of the town), high school athletes (with recognition outside their hometown), local artists and bands, strip malls, nursing homes, motels, bed and breakfasts, country clubs, car dealerships, business and industrial parks, bus lines, places of worship, cemeteries, etc. provided that they meet certain guidelines beyond simply having a few local news articles. Sebwite (talk) 05:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I would not support making WP:MILL policy because would I see the same thing happening with it that is happening here. There could be something that is proposed for deletion, perhaps a step-father of a president who has led a very "run-of-the-mill" life. Or the sci-fi convention in rural washington that editors generally agreed to be notable? People would have used WP:MILL to delete this. I do agree with your sentiment that "that it does not resemble hundreds of other articles by containing mostly the same words with a few fill-in-the-blanks"--I think that is a very valuable sentence. What is that getting at though? I think local police and fire departments can and often are notable, if there are sources to write an encyclopedic article. A typical article on one can mention history, funding issues and constraints (and link to the appropriate local political figures), and can list the most extraordinary crimes/fires/rescues/investigations that the department has been involved in, as well as any scandals/corruption that has attracted significant coverage. I think the world is a pretty complex place, and, except for extreme examples (like cookie-cutter-houses) I think most things out there involving humans are sufficiently unique that if they have enough coverage in reliable sources to allow construction of a tightly-sourced, full article, that article is probably going to be pretty interesting (to someone, probably to me because I'm interested in almost all those little local details). Cazort (talk) 14:39, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

You are still on that Roger Clinton Sr. issue? That's exactly the sort of article that should clearly be deleted. He didn't do anything notable in his life, and he doesn't magically become notable just because one of his half-relatives became notable after his death. But in any case, I don't think WP:MILL would apply there anyway. There aren't thousands of presidential stepfathers. Gigs (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me give other concrete examples of articles that have been proposed for deletion: Williamson Creek Greenbelt, RadCon, Nixon Public School. I worry that these are the sorts of articles that would be deleted. And for the record, I still strongly disagree with you on Roger Clinton Sr.; the discussion there did not have a clear consensus, but evidently, other editors do feel similarly to how I do. The people arguing to delete point out that his life has been noted/recorded only because of his association with Bill Clinton. I believe that the question of why he has been noted is, to a large degree, irrelevant to the discussion, as long as the sources are reliable and independent. Cazort (talk) 21:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting to see WP:MILL applied as you mentioned - sure, there are many instances where it can be used. Wikipedia actually has a policy on family members of notable people - see Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Family. But what I thought of was, for example, the strip mall that is found dozens of times over on every suburban boulevard and is frequently mentioned in local newspapers regarding its initial construction, renovations, opening and closing of stores, and incidents. Or, the high school athlete who is mentioned constantly in the local sports section and even honored for their performance, whereas there are dozens of players on each team, and dozens of games played in every sport in every season. There are also certain things for which only a single one generally exists in each place, but is rarely different from that anywhere else, like "_____ Police Department" or "_______ Post Office." Yes, there may be some unusual ones that could be notable for their own articles, like NYPD or Chicago post office. In all, this is an attempt to draw a line somewhere. Sebwite (talk) 20:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability as currently written, primarily exists as a way to ensure we get Verifiability. But it serves a secondary purpose of limiting the scope of the encyclopedia to something that can reasonably be high quality. It doesn't always do a good job at that secondary purpose. That is why I would love to see something like WP:MILL become policy. Gigs (talk) 23:02, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I am in agreement with both purposes, verifiability, and quality. But I see no connection between "quality" and the concept of what is "run of the mill". I think WP:MILL is getting into the danger zone of saying it's ok to introduce subjective judgments about what is "interesting", "important", even what is "unique". I see WP:N as a more objective guideline, intended to avoid the need for these arguments. Notice that WP:N does not even contain the word "unique", and clearly states that notability is not about the importance of a topic. The only possible way I can see adding criteria to WP:N is that I tend to advocate more strongly to keep or add topics which are related to other topics (i.e. avoiding orphaned articles and dead-ends), so I think it is important for a topic to relate to others. Cazort (talk) 17:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:N is absolutely not objective, and I'm kind of scared that you even got that impression somehow (you aren't the first I've met, though). As it says in the guideline, having significant coverage in multiple reliable sources only produces a presumption of notability. It is subjective as to whether a topic that meets that test should be included or not. As well, it is highly subjective as to what is trivial and what is significant coverage. To put it another way, the notability guideline ensures a certain level of verifiability, but verifiability does not necessarily make a particular topic suitable for inclusion. WP:NOT has shades of WP:MILL already, and I think that if we ever did push something like WP:MILL into policy, that might be the place to do it. Gigs (talk) 02:24, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I said "more objective". No matter how subjective WP:N is, it's nowhere near as subjective as arguments about whether something is "important" or not. I do agree that something else beyond just verifiability is important to establish notability. The way I see it, the degree to which a topic relates to others is a much more objective thing (because you can look at whether the article is orphaned and could be easily un-orphaned) than arguments over importance, uniqueness, how "interesting" something is, which are about as subjective as arguments can get into on wikipedia. Cazort (talk) 02:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not remember where I read it, but I did read one time on some project page that "everyone agrees that Wikipedia cannot have an article on every person, every street . . ." The point of writing WP:MILL was just that, but also when just about each and every one of the millions of whatever that thing is can be verified from reliable sources. How, then, do you decided which ones of the millions of high school athletes reported in local papers can have articles, or in what cities can the police departments can have articles (since a lot of news is about crime, hence regular mention in newspapers about the local police force)? There have already been multiple proposals, most of that have failed, in attempting to define the notability of things like streets, buildings, etc. Really, most of these things are of local importance, but little known away from their location. That is why I thought of "local" as being the key word here.

Still, there are many articles on local interests that are sourced with the local papers only. Theoretically, if these all do meet inclusion guidelines, there could be millions of other articles on the same things throughout the world. Me, personally, I feel there should be a high degree of inclusion, But try to imagine an article on every apartment, every restaurant, every gas station. How about an article on each of the 36,000 post offices in the United States, then multiply that by the rest of the world. Should that be an eventual goal for the encyclopedia? Or is that overkill? Sebwite (talk) 06:46, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Common sense is going to lead to all the truly insignificant articles being deleted by overwhelming consensus. I participate very actively in deletion discussions and I don't think there's even a remote danger of having an article on "every apartment, every restaurant, every gas station" as you suggest. I think it would be totally safe to completely scrap this page--and that's what I would favor doing--and rely just on WP:N. My concern with having this or something similar as a guideline that this page is referred to as a means to override WP:N, excluding local sources (overriding WP:RS), introducing subjective arguments over what is "important" (which is not what notability is about). Those major pages are the core guidelines to wikipedia, attempts to introduce local clauses into them have not succeeded--so attempting to override them here is sneaky and muisguided. And most importantly it's unnecessary, which is bad due to WP:CREEP. Deal with things on a case-by-case basis by referring to the main guidelines--and we'll be just fine. Cazort (talk) 20:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I have seen some, in fact plenty of deletion proposals in which the reason given for deletion is that the subject is "local" (such as a business, organization, or place of worship), even though it is sourced. In these, I have seen people arguing to keep on the basis that some of the sources are "non-local" (away from the region). Outcomes have varied, but with any outcome, "local" or "non-local" have been used to decide that too. This is something that should be addressed and written somewhere, one way or another. Should articles on any subject that are only locally sourced be included with no further question? Or should they be deleted on the basis that the sources are local only? Sebwite (talk) 00:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I would strongly favor a policy that states that whether a source is local or not is irrelevant--that whether it is a reliable source should be the only thing in question. I suspect not everyone would agree with this, but it's how I feel. One of the big concerns with me is relative objectivity. Debates about whether a source is reliable or not tend to be more objective than debates about "how local" a source is. New York Times local section? Cleveland Plain Dealer? Is a college paper a local source if it's read by graduates all around the world? It's just too dicey, and I just see it leading to nasty and unnecessary arguments. The point of WP:N is to limit wikipedia to stuff that can be reliably sourced, not to limit it to stuff that is interesting to a large number of people or global in scope. To me, something being "local" is not necessarily more specialized than something being relevant only to a highly specialized and esoteric field of study...and we include esoteric topics--when they can be reliably sourced--so I think we should include local ones. Cazort (talk) 02:15, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I, too, after all the discussion here, have come to the conclusion that local articles should be included. I also feel that if so, this should be stated somewhere in the policies and guidelines in order to prevent people from making deletion proposals on the basis that something is "local" and that only people living in the city/town where it is found would care about whatever it is. Even though the initial version of this proposal sounded so strict, I was actually trying to come up with a guideline to be more inclusive.

Given this, there is a question: should there be articles on high school athletes who are found in articles in local papers, or restaurants that are written about in editorial reviews? Maybe Wikipedia should include these, provided that they technically meet WP:N guidelines. Sebwite (talk) 04:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how to handle athlete articles since I don't really know enough about that area. With restaurants? I think this is an interesting issue and I think it could be handled on a case-by-case basis. Some editorial reviews contain useful factual (and noncontroversial) material that could be used to write an encyclopedic article--whereas others focus exclusively on subjective matters of the personal opinion of the reviewer. If there are a lot of high-profile editorials but they only talk about how good the food tastes or how fresh it was or how good the service was, I don't think that establishes notability--but reviews or articles which discuss the history of the restaurant, the owner's background, the influences on the food. I.e. here is a very detailed review which, in my opinion, does little to establish notability: [1]. This review is similar: [2], but it mentions the Chef and Owner by name. This review: [3] mentions the owner AND the fact that the owner has operated another restaurant by the same name. It's subtle, but I think the latter type of reviews are more important in establishing notability--if you have 10 reviews like that, you could piece together a lot of encyclopedic content. Still, I think in most cases something beyond editorial reviews is normally necessary to establish notability, because most of them usually just talk about the food. Having an article on how delicious one particular reviewer or another think the food is is hardly encyclopedic! Cazort (talk) 14:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually I just had one more insight...I think the degree to which a topic relates to others is important in establishing notability...so if you have editorial reviews for example, which establish that a restaurant serves certain notable dishes (i.e. Pho or Bibimbap), then this could be included in the article. So maybe some editorials could contribute to notability? Also when there is some sort of award given in an article, I think that often counts for something and warrants a mention on an article, and thus, contributes to some degree to notability. Cazort (talk) 14:35, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

You do indeed get my point. The restaurant is just one example that I gave. This same issue could be applied to any type of small business, like the 107-year-old mom-and-pop pharmacy, the 52-year-old shop that sells collectible teddy bears, or even the 3-year-old store that sells homemade screen prints. If you spend a little time walking around a "main street" somewhere, you may get to know some of these places. They can be the charm of the town. And sure enough, it is not uncommon to find articles, sometimes multiple articles, about them in local papers, describing their owners, how and when they got their businesses started, who their clientele tend to be, hard times they have been through, etc. A Wikipedia article on such a place may seem a little odd, given what has been written in the past. On the other hand, besides these places being a business with a single location, these also function to some degree as tourist attractions, which traditionally do have articles.

Obviously, I am not in favor of having an article on a single-location bank that has only been in the news each of the 5 times it has been robbed in its 30 year history. Such coverage does not tell about the history of the bank, besides other important facts.

I am not familiar with any high school athletes myself, as I have little interest in sports. Still, I have often cited it as an example of being a "local interest." It does happen a lot that a high school athlete will appear frequently in the news in more than just the box scores. They will be described in articles as the "hero" of the game for their performance that led to their team's win. They will be featured in the sports section of the local paper, as well as the handful of local news networks, thereby constituting multiple sources. The only guideline I can think of that would frown upon this is that notability is not temporary. These athletes may receive this significant coverage for a maximum of 4 years, and most will go on with their lives in oblivion. For now, we have not built a tradition around such articles. Sebwite (talk) 18:32, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (buildings, structures, and landmarks)

BTW, things have started moving again on Wikipedia:Notability (buildings, structures, and landmarks) again (albeit slowly). It is very similar in idea and scope. As it stands now, I think I am more in agreement with that proposal than this. It is short (ATM) and I believe that is its current advantage. Less is better. What is your opinions of it? I would like to see one or the other moving forward, it matters not which. Exit2DOS2000^•T•C• 07:55, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Oh dear, another mess revived. I accept the fact that many folks don't agree with simply following the general guideline, but this one is beyond critique.

What in the world does "general notability is insufficient" mean? <lead section>

How can one claim "The structure is regularly frequented or visited by at least two distinctly notable persons" (present tense: BLP) without proper sourcing?

Do I get it right that Egyptian pyramids fail notability requirement per se (general notability is insufficient?) so it needs an unsourced statement of "The structure is an enduring part of history and is likely to remain so" ?

What is "enduring" ? Sorry to say, landmarks burn or get brusselized; Nelson's Pillar did not endure, will anyone wish to AFD it? NVO (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Thoughts

This clashes with WP:GEOSCOPE in WP:EVENT, where it is indicated that for article on events, local sources alone may not be enough to show notability. This was based on convention at AfD. I see the logic behind this proposal (it says that all reliable sources are equal), but I do not think it matches with how editors judge notability at AfD. If an author has a few interviews or review in their local paper(s) but nothing outside their home town, I don't think editors will agree they are notable. If a shop only has a few mentions (advertorials?) in local papers, it will probably get deleted or merged. The reasoning is that local papers are indiscriminate in what they cover and that if nobody outside the immediate area has shown any recognition of a topic it is unlikely to be worth reporting in an encyclopedia. Trying to react against this general consensus by creating a guideline to counter it is probably going to fail, as guidelines are best when they are descriptive of what is done already, not descriptive of what some editors wish was done. Fences&Windows 12:12, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It also clashes with WP:ORG: "attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability." Fences&Windows 12:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Not all reliable sources are equal. There's a continuum. For example, in an article on Buxbaumia, the sources might be: (1) a 21st century account by an Oxford professor published by Oxford University Press; (2) an article in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society published in 1858; (3) an account in a local newspaper attributed to "our ecology correspondent"; and (4) an amateur webpage called "Mandy's Mosses". You don't give them equal weight, particularly where one contradicts another.—S Marshall T/C 13:29, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I said I saw the logic, not that I agreed with it! Indeed, not all 'reliable sources' are as reliable as each other, and neither do they all indicate the same degree of notability (i.e. level of outside recognition). Reliability and notability are both on a sliding scale, with no bright-line distinction between reliable/unreliable and notable/not-notable, which is why we have so many arguments in the grey areas. I don't agree with making this essay a guideline. I do think there needs to be some consolidation of all the various essays and failed proposals on the topic of "local" and "notability". Fences&Windows 15:27, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

There's an active discussion regarding the line you just quoted at WT:ORG#Coverage in local and specialized media if anyone would like to add to the discussion. VernoWhitney (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Time to close the proposal?

This proposal has been inactive for months. I don't see any indication of a clear consensus to adopt it. My impression of the discussion above is that editors seem to raise concerns about it directly contradicting existing practice and other written guidelines.

I think it's time to tag this as {{failed}}, meaning 'failed to gain consensus in a reasonable period of time'. Does anyone object? (Does anyone actually believe the above discussion indicates a strong consensus to adopt this as a guideline?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:51, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I think the problem is that this proposal has not been advertised well enough to seek comments. If more people knew about it, it may be able to move forward. Sebwite (talk) 21:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Would you like to do that? WP:PROPOSAL has some suggestions (strictly optional, but IMO good ones) for how to advertise something like this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

It is now over two months since there was any edit at all either to the project page or to this talk page, over a year since there was any significant edit to the article (excluding moving a "proposed" tag to a different position, removing an "under construction" tag, and adding an interwikilink), and about nine months since any discussion on this page of anything other than the suggestion of closing the proposal. It is certainly time to close this. JamesBWatson (talk) 15:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

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