User:Novem Linguae/Essays/Nuances of GNG

These are my notes on the general notability guideline (GNG). I learned a lot of this in NPP school, by picking the brains of top NPPs, and by participating in AFDs and paying attention to the outcomes. GNG is interpreted much more strictly than you'd think at first glance.

The essence of GNG

Roughly speaking, the idea behind GNG is that you should have three high quality sources available to write your encyclopedia article with.

If these sources cannot be found, then we are unable to write a high enough quality encyclopedia article (it would violate core policies such as WP:OR, WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc.), and it would be better to not have an article on the topic, rather than having a bad article.

High quality sources have the following properties:

• Significant coverage, which means multiple paragraphs of detail, on the topic of the subject (and not veering off-topic into something else), and sufficient in-depth analysis (rather than just re-stating simple facts).
• Independence of the authors, to help avoid conflicts of interest and promotion. In particular, over-quoting, and obvious regurgitation of press release material signal a lack of independence.
• Reliability, measured by whether or not there is some kind of quality control process, usually an editor or peer review. The quintessential "reliable" sources are newspapers, books, and scholarly journals.
• Not primary, that is, not simply data, database entries, transcripts, bill or law original text, or written by someone with too close a connection to the event they're covering.

GNG specifics

Significant coverage (SIGCOV)

The 3-3 rule

Keeping in mind some exceptions and nuances below, the general notability guideline (GNG) is important enough that I am going to attempt an over-simplification: the 3-3 rule.

To pass GNG, an article should have around 3 high quality sources that each go into around 3 dense paragraphs of detail specifically about the subject.

How many GNG-compliant sources are needed?

Simple answer: 3

• 2 really solid sources (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.)
• 3 normal sources (e.g. local news stations, local newspapers) (most common)
• 4+ for WP:FRINGE articles (such as an article on an astrologer)
• Sometimes just 2 for non-modern/historical topics.
• Sometimes just 2 depending on who shows up at the AFD.

How long?

• The sources need to have multiple paragraphs speaking about the article subject.
  • Entire long newspaper articles, or entire chapters of books, are ideal.
  • The minimum de facto for SIGCOV seems to be about three big paragraphs.
  • Some newspaper articles give every sentence a paragraph, to make short articles look longer. Of course, these one sentence paragraphs do not count as entire paragraphs.
• Quotations do not count. If you delete all of an article's quotations, and there is not enough text remaining to meet the requirement above, then it is not SIGCOV.

Depth

• The paragraphs need to be biographical, detailed, deep, and analytical.
  • They cannot be a "passing mention".
  • They cannot talk mainly about something else.
  • They cannot talk about something trite and shallow. For example, paragraphs talking about a pop star's makeup preferences.

Uniqueness

• The SIGCOV sources usually need to be different.
  • If a subject is covered in two different chapters in the same book, that only counts as one.
  • If a newswire article (e.g. Reuters) is reprinted on multiple websites, that only counts as one.
  • If one newspaper has three articles on the subject, all published around the same time and pertaining to the same incident, that only counts as one.
• Exception: If the same newspaper is reporting on different issues, especially if spaced months or years apart in time, that counts.

Focus

• The SIGCOV sources need to be focused on the Wikipedia article's subject.
  • Bad - Newspaper article focusing mostly on an issue the person was involved in, rather than on the person. (Not in-depth enough)
  • Bad - Newspaper article on a person's spouse or marriage, and the spouse is more notable. (WP:NOTINHERITED)
  • Bad - Newspaper article on a company's CEO or product, rather than on the company. (WP:CORPDEPTH)

Videos

• YouTube usually does not count. WP:SELFPUBLISH, copyright concerns, etc.
  • Possible exception (from RSP): "Content uploaded from a verified official account, such as that of a news organization, may be treated as originating from the uploader and therefore inheriting their level of reliability."
• Segments in published TV or film documentaries count, but only if they are long. A five minute segment is insufficient.

Google hits

• Google hits does not equal significant coverage. It is not uncommon for a subject to have thousands of Google hits, and little or no significant coverage.

Reliable sources (RS)

• Cannot be self-published.
  • No blogs.
  • No social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
  • No company websites.
  • No eBooks that the author published themselves.
• Must have a reputation for fact checking.
• Should have some kind of quality control process, such as an editor or peer review.
• Professional news organizations are usually reliable, but certain articles may not qualify:
  • The "blog" section of their website, or an article tagged as a blog post
  • Articles by "contributors" (non-staff writers who submit content without going through an editor)
• Opinion articles in newspapers count for GNG/notability, but must be careful with them for other reasons. WP:RSOPINION.

Searching

• This search engine that only searches top quality reliable sources may help.
• Google is helpful. I usually start with Google News, but Google's normal search, Google Books, and Google Scholar (academic journals) are good for more thorough searches.

List

• For a list of the reliability of common sources, see WP:RSPSOURCES and the new page patrol source guide.
• Consider installing the user script User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter, which has a database of sources and highlights citations green/yellow/red.

Secondary sources

• There are 3 kinds of sources
  • Primary sources - The first publishers of an idea. Examples: databases, interviews, laws, scientific studies.
  • Secondary sources - These summarize, synthesize, analyze, and add to primary sources. They are a step removed from the primary source and are usually independent. Examples: newspapers, books, review articles in scientific journals.
  • Tertiary sources - These summarize secondary sources. Examples: encyclopedias, textbooks.
• GNG requires secondary sources. (Tertiary sources are de facto also acceptable.) Primary sources do not count.
• A Wikipedia article should contain mostly secondary sources, not just for notability reasons, but also to get the weight right.
  • An article that is mostly or all primary sources is likely to be original research, which is not allowed.
  • Our job as encyclopedists is to summarize secondary sources, which do most of the thinking for us.
  • Summarizing primary sources is complex and, when done by non-professionals, leads to opinions stated as fact, and incorrect conclusions.

Are database websites primary sources?

I was taught that they were, but it has recently come to my attention that some editors regard them as secondary. I consider this to be an unsolved question and I will keep an eye out for consensus.

Examples

Primary	Secondary
witness to an event, that posts on Twitter or a blog	newspaper article
company website
study in an academic journal	review article in an academic journal
court documents	book by an independent legal expert that analyzes the case
judge's ruling in a case	book by an independent legal expert that analyzes the case
interview
YouTube video
webpage providing database-like info, no analysis
Internet Movie Database (IMDB)	movie review by professional critic
Blog or personal website about a computer game	game review by gaming magazine
Declaration of Independence	book about the American Revolution

Independent of the subject

Independence of the author

• No connection between source author and subject they are writing about.
• Not an autobiography.
• Not the subject's official website.
• School newspapers are generally not independent of their school.

Independence of the content

• No sources that just regurgitate ideas fed to them from somewhere else.
• Regurgitation of interviews (i.e. biographical articles that got a lot of material from an interview with the subject, articles with lots of quotes) is controversial. These tend to count if they are very long. If you can delete the quotes, and still have several paragraphs of analytical text, this probably counts.
• "Must include original and independent opinion, analysis, investigation, and fact checking that are clearly attributable to a source unaffiliated to the subject."
  • Example of a piece with lots of independent opinion: BuzzFeedNews article on the documentary Fake Famous
• Churnalism and advertorials (people paying for their content to be published in newspapers) is a thing, especially with anything related to businesses or companies.
• Careful of newspapers in India. Their use of advertorials is worse than ever. The current ruling party has bought out newspapers, jails journalists critical of the regime, and raids offices of newspapers. The 2022 World Press Freedom Index ranks India 150 out of 180. See also: Paid news in India.
  • Good sources: The Hindu, The Indian Express, Alt News, WIO News
  • Decent: The Telegraph (India), The Wire, The Print
  • OK but lots of paid spam: Hindustan Times
  • Bad: The New Indian Express, TV channels such as NDTV (tend to be bought by BJP, Ambani, or Adani) and Republic TV (Arnab Goswami), local newspapers, Times of India, DNA India

No press releases

This is one of the harder ones to spot until you see the pattern, but any article that has obviously been written based on content from a press release is not independent, and does not pass GNG.

• No regurgitation of press releases.
  • Look for newspaper articles giving way too much weight to minor company's product launches and expansions.
  • Look for an overly positive and excited tone.
  • Look for the use of WP:PUFF / WP:BUZZ words.
  • Look for heavy use of quotes from a company spokesperson or CEO.
  • Look for a simple regurgitation of company stats, with no in-depth analysis.
  • Look for an article that sounds like a sales pitch, and ends with a call to action such as a link to the company's website.

Verifiability

• Sources can be in any language. Use Google Translate to read and evaluate them.
• Paywalled sources are allowed.
• Sources that aren't online (such as a book that is not scanned by Google Books) are allowed.
• Book citations should have page numbers.
• Good resources for Wikipedians to help with checking sources include:
  • WP:RX - Resource Exchange - a noticeboard where you can request that sources be emailed to you
  • Wikipedia Library - experienced editors qualify for free access to several academic journal and newspaper databases, such as ProQuest, EBSCO, and JSTOR.

Source assessment tables

Most people don't fill these out at AFD, because they take a lot of time to fill out, but they are quite useful. This is what is going on inside an experienced editor's head when they are evaluating GNG. Example table:

Source assessment table

Source	Independent?	Reliable?	Significant coverage?	Count source toward GNG?
IMDB	Independence of author and content.	Crowd sourced. Self published.	Entire page is about him.	✘ No
BAFTA	Independence of author and content.	Looks like an organization's website. I don't see any sign of journalism. Just pages with brochures, audio, videos, interviews, photo galleries, press releases. Looks like a primary source.	Jordan David not mentioned on page.	✘ No
LinkedIn	Self published by subject.	No editor to double check content.	Entire page is about him.	✘ No
BehindTheVoiceActors.com	Independence of author and content.	There's not enough analysis. It's just data. It's a primary source.	Entire page is about him.	✘ No
This table may not be a final or consensus view; it may summarize developing consensus, or reflect assessments of a single editor. Created using {{source assess table}}.

Single-subject notability guidelines

In addition to GNG, there are also single-subject notability guidelines. There's a lot of them and they are complex. They come in two flavors.

1. SNG's that are an "auto pass" and let you bypass GNG.
2. SNG's that add restrictions on top of GNG.

I have an essay on these too. If you're a beginner, skip SNG's for now. Don't worry about them. Keep it simple.

My advice

• If you're new, realize that creating an article that meets our notability criteria is quite difficult.
  • Many of the notable topics are already written.
  • Our notability policies are too complicated for someone new to be able to just read the policy and accurately evaluate it themselves.
• Use articles for creation (also known as "drafts") for your first few articles. This way it will not get deleted right away, giving you time to improve it based on the reviewer's feedback.
  • Drafts that get approved quickly (within hours or days) are 1) easy approves (drafts that have 3 great sources, or pass an SNG) and 2) easy declines.
  • Drafts that linger in the 3 month queue are drafts that have dozens of mediocre sources. This is called ref bombing. It's a lot of work for the reviewer to click and read all of them.
• Before you write a single word of your article, search for your three GNG passing sources. Don't spend time writing if your article doesn't pass GNG.
• If you end up sticking around for awhile, sign up for and complete new page patrol school. They go over notability in detail.

See also

• Wikipedia:42
• Wikipedia:Common sourcing mistakes (notability)