Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)

This guideline and WP:NTEAM

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notability of academic societies

I've just been down a rabbit-hole connected to WP:NPROF criterion 2 ("The person has received a highly prestigious academic award or honor at a national or international level. ... Examples may include certain awards, honors and prizes of notable academic societies ...") and WP:NONPROFIT, poking around in their Talk page archives and doing some internet hunting. There don't seem to be any agreed on criteria for determining whether a given award falls into the "certain awards" category, but I'm posting here because many academic societies don't meet NONPROFIT Criterion 2 ("The organization has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the organization"), even when they're highly regarded in their fields. That means that many awards that are prestigious in their fields would be excluded in determining whether an academic is an NPROF. Despite the unsatisfied WP:N requirement, many of these academic societies and awards nonetheless have WP pages, perhaps sourced only via WP:ABOUTSELF. The two most relevant discussions that I found for notability of academic societies (here and here) had no consensus. The academic societies with which I'm most familiar all publish or sponsor peer-reviewed research journals and books, and I'm wondering if that might be a consideration in determining whether an academic society is notable. It seems strange that WP's notability guidelines don't have a place for societies that play a significant role in the advancement of knowledge in diverse fields. FactOrOpinion (talk) 03:51, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

It's hard to answer this in the abstract without any examples. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:19, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, here are a couple of examples. I tried to improve the article for statistician Kanti Mardia. Among the reasons that he qualifies as an NPROF is that he was awarded a Wilks Memorial Award from the American Statistical Association. That award is prestigious in statistics, and the ASA is highly regarded in statistics, but neither the Wilks article nor the ASA article currently has evidence of notability (maybe they can be improved, I haven't tried). I'd bet that the same is true for many of the other awards/societies in this List of mathematics awards. I'm now thinking of improving the article for Lee Shulman. Among the reasons that he's an NPROF is that he's past president of the American Educational Research Association and was also awarded their Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award. That award is prestigious in educational research, and the AERA is highly regarded in its field, but the award has no WP article (and I'm not sure that I can find significant coverage of it to create an article for it) and the AERA article currently has no evidence of notability (though I've found one independent publication discussing its early history and will add that).

In all of these cases, there are plenty of brief mentions of the awards and societies on university websites (e.g., noting that a professor has won the award or has been elected president of the society) and sometimes on the websites of other societies in the field (an example for Mardia), and there may be brief news mentions (e.g., about research presented at AERA's annual conference, but where the focus is on the research not the AERA). But none of these are the significant coverage needed to establish their notability. As best I can tell from the NPROF and NORG talk page arcihves, WP editors are relying on their knowledge of the field to determine prestige/notability, contrary to WP:NOR. It can be hard to search for significant coverage of the societies, as a search on their name pulls up a lot of info from the society itself, from its journals, etc. Both societies publish or sponsor peer-reviewed research journals (e.g., here and here). Does this help? FactOrOpinion (talk) 16:12, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

The biggest problem with notability of academic societies is that when people publish in-depth articles about the societies, of a type that would normally contribute to GNG-notabilty, they often publish them in non-independent journals, or might somehow be considered non-independent themselves. For example, for your example of the American Statistical Association, Google Scholar finds huge numbers of papers with "American Statistical Association" in their title, most of which appear in-depth and reliably published but in JASA, The American Statistician, and Chance, all of which are ASA journals. One exception, "The International Year Of Statistics, The American Statistical Association, And A New Collaboration" [1], was written by the then-current ASA president. I had to dig deep to finally find "The American Statistical Association and the US Census: A Shared History" (2019, doi:10.1111/j.1740-9713.2019.01318.x) in a journal of the Royal Statistical Society (also by a president of the ASA but over 20 years earlier than this article was published) and "The American Statistical Association: Opportunities for the Future" [2] in a Swedish statistics journal (by yet another president of the ASA, some six years after she was president). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Some related questions recently arose at Talk:Barrett Watten, where there was a prize from the American Comparative Literature Association. It was helpful in that case to look at the List of Highly Prestigious Awards from the National Research Council [3]. I am not saying that being on this list is necessary for a pass of NPROF C2, but I think having a prize from this list is probably sufficient. They do not list the ASA, so it does not solve the immediate problem, although I do tend to think that this is a major academic society. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:02, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

It is the main society for statisticians in the US. If if it difficult for our notability criteria to recognize its notability, then to me that indicates that there is a problem with our notability criteria, not with its notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 20:06, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. Espresso Addict (talk) 20:42, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

That's why I raised the issue. It's the same thing with the AERA, which is the primary educational research society in the US (and I'll do some more hunting to see if I can find additional independent RSs to establish its notability). For some academic society articles, sources for notability exist but haven't been cited (e.g., the article on the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards some of the Nobel prizes). @David Eppstein, thank you for finding some sources that can establish the ASA's notability. I don't know to what extent this will turn out to be the case for other academic societies and whether it's mostly a matter of digging to find them; WP lists of learned societies indicate that there are hundreds of articles about them, and I don't know how complete those lists are. I guess I jumped the gun in saying "many academic societies don't meet NONPROFIT Criterion 2," and should have instead said that for the academic society articles that I've looked at, the articles don't currently substantiate that they're notable.

@Russ Woodroofe, thanks for pointing out that NRC list of prestigious awards, though it definitely isn't comprehensive. I wonder how the NRC created that list. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:47, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

ASA has gotten a fair amount of coverage for some of its statements. Like this whole article in Undark Magazine. I don't think it's unlikely that the ASA already meets GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 02:22, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Since we are more forgiving in terms of the notability of academic journals, it's possible that the fastest approach, in the case of a society that both sponsors a journal and gives an award, is to write an article about the journal, and add a couple of sentences saying something like "J. Imp. Things is sponsored by the Important Academic Society. IAS is dedicated to the scholarly understanding of importance and is known for their biennial presentation of the Award of Academic Importance, which has been awarded over the years to luminaries such as Bob Bright and Iggy Illustrious, as well as to Mel Middling."

FOO, I don't know if you remember the Donna Strickland thing, but when she won the Nobel Prize for physics in 2018, she was one of a handful of scientists who won that prize before a Wikipedia article was created. There was drama in the media about how we must be sexist. (Since 2009, she is the only female Nobel scientist for whom we had no article; in Wikipedia's earliest days, of course, the percentages would have been higher for everyone.)

As the story reached me, there had been three attempts to create an article; the first two were deleted because of WP:COPYVIO rules, and a suspicious person would see symptoms attributable to WP:UPE in all three attempts. User:Bradv/Strickland incident (worth reading) indicates that some editors thought that sine she had been president of Optica (society), then everyone ought to have known that she was notable.

One of the end results here is that I think editors need these little hints – a redirect to a journal, a sentence that just happens to use the same words as the guideline, etc. – so that we can make these decisions faster, more consistently, and with more confidence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, as I noted, some of the qualifications in the NPROF guideline rely on the notability of academic societies. This occurs explicitly in two places (the one I quoted, and an academic might also qualify by having been "president of a notable national or international scholarly society"), and it's implied in a third ("The person has been an elected member of a highly selective and prestigious scholarly society or association ... or a Fellow of a major scholarly society for which that is a highly selective honor"). I'm guessing that a sizeable number of articles on academics rely on those qualifications, and if Important Academic Society is only referenced on the WP articles of journals it publishes/sponsors, then we might also need to delete a slew of articles on academics. Maybe it's possible to find independent RSs with significant coverage for most of these societies, and it's only a matter of finding them and improving their articles. I have no way of knowing that; I only know that for the articles I've read on highly respected societies, their notability generally hasn't been demonstrated.

I wasn't familiar with the Donna Strickland WP issue. I read the User:Bradv/Strickland incident essay, and it underscored for me another challenge with NPROF articles: many of the sources are primary and non-independent, and if secondary sources are available, they may be SPS (depending on how the definition of SPS is finally resolved) and thus not allowed. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:13, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

We might start by asking the NPROF folks whether their intention with "president of a notable national or international scholarly society" means "president of a national or international scholarly society that qualifies for a separate Wikipedia article under the modern and very restrictive NCORP rules" or if it means "president of a national or international scholarly society that NPROF editors deem to be important to the academic world" or something else.

This wording was installed by @David Eppstein on 20 August 2008. At the time, it linked to WP:N (NB: not the GNG, but the whole page); that link has since been removed (it was the second such link in the same sentence). It did not refer to this guideline, but if you're curious, here's the version that was in place at that time. NCORP was much shorter, used a weak definition of secondary, and pretty much restated the GNG in a somewhat muddled form. It did not mention academic societies but probably would have been interpreted as covering them unless some other SNG claimed to cover them. (My own first edit to this guideline would happen the following week.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Even if a society appears to us to be notable, it needs to have received independent coverage. Departing from this principle (creating an encyclopedia article on the society) will amount to secondary coverage of the subject. Such an outcome would be inappropriate for us as a tertiary work of knowledge. I think this has to apply no matter the level of significance that we think the organisation has attained. The sources identified by David Eppstein, above, for the ASA perhaps show that any truly influential academic society will likely have received some sort of coverage. Identifying coverage will always be difficult for editors because these organisations publish many works and are mentioned in many more. Editors therefore have a lot of sources to sift through.

I'm not convinced about relaxing our notability requirements for academic organisations. Many disciplines have a paid-entry, self-managed regional or national organisation. We could end up having an article on every organisation, regardless of its actual impact, provided that its membership was sufficiently large. Just as not every member of the organisation will be notable, so might the organisation itself not be. arcticocean ■ 10:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Listen to yourself. "regardless of its actual impact, provided that its membership was sufficiently large". You are being self-contradictory. Consideration of the size of an organization is exactly the opposite of "regardless of its actual impact". —David Eppstein (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Read the whole of what I said, not what suits you. Membership size is not a measure of impact, that is to say of the achievements of an organisation. Only organisations that have achieved something notable should have an article. I still have no idea why you believe that organisation size is something notable. arcticocean ■ 17:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I am reading what you said. When you said Only organisations that have achieved something notable should have an article, you contradicted your earlier statement about no matter the level of significance that we think the organisation has attained. "Achieving something notable" would be a case of the organization attaining a level of significance" in our opinion.

I think what you meant to write is something like "Only organizations that have achieved attention from the media or similarly independent sources should have an article", with the subtext that this is more likely to happen if they do something that the rest of the world [i.e., not Wikipedia editors] believe is [ordinary dictionary definition] notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, by "achieved something notable" I meant notable enough to have been independently reported, documented, studied, etc. Sorry if I could have made my meaning clearer. arcticocean ■ 19:54, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

How can something appear to be notable without receiving independent coverage? That seems contradictory, notability can not exist separately from independent reliable coverage (notability is after all more or less just answering the question "Has the topic been the subject of enough significant independent reliable coverage to make a stand alone article about"). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:57, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. arcticocean ■ 17:59, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Ah, ok... I think I see what you're saying now. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:00, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Now you are reasoning circularly. "Notability", for the purposes of Wikipedia, is whatever we deem sufficient for having an article. Saying "notability can not exist separately from independent reliable coverage" is not a justification for using independent reliable coverage, nor an argument for anything at all; it is merely a restatement of one of the multiple criteria that we use for assessing notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I read that sentence as meaning "We [the current Wikipedia editors] have decided not to have a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article about any subject for which we cannot find any Wikipedia:Independent sources [except for when we have decided the opposite, e.g., most of NPROF]". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:33, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

@Arcticocean, your first couple of sentences are factually wrong. See Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. Writing a tiny stub that contains only simple, routine facts – something like The Important Academic Society is an academic society. It was founded in 1924. The president is Alice Expert." – does not amount to secondary coverage no matter what the sources are. A secondary source requires intellectual transformation of prior information. This sort of simple repetition is not intellectual transformation. Simple, non-transformative repetition of basic facts is characteristic of tertiary sources, which is what Wikipedia aims to be. See also WP:LINKSINACHAIN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Happy to concede that. I don't know that it changes the broader point (please tell me should you think otherwise) that an academic organisation’s existence does not make it notable, nor does its size. The general policy position is that independent coverage of the organisation has to be demonstrated, and NORG should not alter this by saying, e.g., any sufficiently large national academic org will be notable. Why? We'd simply end up with articles about organisations that had not done anything worthy of inclusion. This isn't like NPROF where we recognise that it is difficult to tell when a single academic has become notable. No such difficulties exist with organisations. arcticocean ■ 19:43, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

In fact, such difficulties have been amply demonstrated above. The difficulty is primarily not so much with the existence or reliability of in-depth secondary sources, but that the way those sources are published falls afoul of our requirement of independence, separately from their reliability and depth. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, Atlantic306 says in a different discussion above that government-run schools, some religious organizations (e.g., churches, not a club), and sports teams are exempt from NCORP but not GNG, which would require an independent source, though not WP:SIRS-level ones. Orgs that happen to be musical organizations are covered by WP:NBAND. Products that happen to be books are covered by WP:NBOOKS. In principle, there's no reason why organizations that happen to be academic could not be covered by another guideline, and if it is covered by another guideline, there's no reason why the criteria would be set by this one instead of that one – which means it could, (though it probably wouldn't) choose to ignore the value of independent sources.

WP:BESTSOURCES (a policy, but not one that currently says what you'd expect from that shortcut) says "In principle, all articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." This is, however, somewhat aspirational (and I say that as the person who wrote that sentence and led the discussion that adopted it).

I'm more concerned about your assertion that we're trying to exclude organizations that have not done anything worthy of inclusion. That's not what our notability rules are intended to value. Our rules are set up to include subjects that are Famous for being famous. They are set up to exclude subjects that quietly do important work.

Every sewage agency saves lives every year; some of them, at least in the developed world, might qualify for an article. But the article will largely say: "This is a sewage agency. It's this many years old. It has a budget." It won't say anything about its most valuable contribution to the world: By processing sewage in accordance with the usual standards, it has prevented multiple outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases. People are healthier, happier, wealthier, and alive-r as the result of this agency's work.

I mention this because it's important to remember that literally saving people's lives – something we'd all say is a worthy endeavor – does not make a subject "worthy of inclusion". But getting paid to sing a song, or to chase a ball around a field, often does, as does being the victim of certain crimes. We do not have articles about "subjects that are worthy". We have articles about "subjects that get in the newspaper, even if they're completely unworthy". WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Saying a subject is non-notable ("not worthy of inclusion" in Wikipedia) is not a substantive judgement, but an editorial decision. Notability guidelines will exclude some subjects. All that means is that no reliable secondary sources have decided to cover them, as required by the general notability guideline. arcticocean ■ 20:41, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I often wonder if editors believe that orgs would prefer to have a Wikipedia article, and that our job is to stop the "unworthy" ones from getting our "endorsement". I think this is a bit misguided.

First, Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. I think this applies to orgs as well. An article that says "Org exists. Here's the official website" is okay from our point of view (the official website link in the infobox is the thing readers are most likely to click on), but it's also an invitation to every competitor and disgruntled employee to add unfavorable information.

Second, it would be biased of us to accept articles about "good" orgs and reject articles about "bad" orgs. We aren't endorsing the subjects; we are, at most, recognizing that they got attention from outside of Wikipedia, and reflecting both the basic facts required by our encyclopedic nature ("is a...founded in...president is...") and something about what they and others think ("accused of...denies all..."). That latter bit is what we need sources that are secondary and/or independent for.

The first bit (basic facts) can usually be achieved – accurately, fairly, and without any significant risk of bias – even if we are using only non-independent primary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The problem is: we do need some way to sort the wheat from the chaff. For academic orgs, I would say that prestige is a more determining factor than notability… but how do we establish which orgs are prestigious? Blueboar (talk) 22:16, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Off the top of my head: long established, national or supra-national, publish more than one journal with an impact factor/sim &/or widely used textbooks, organise meetings with national/international speakers, often have presidents/officers who are independently notable...? Espresso Addict (talk) 22:53, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

That is the problem, indeed. Anyone can start an organization and many do. To pick one that I have some association with: the Society for Computational Geometry is a legitimate organization, and has a strong name, but I don't think it has yet achieved a level of notability that is independent of the (previously existing) conference it was created in 2019 to oversee, the Symposium on Computational Geometry. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:55, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, societies known for a single entity (eg a conference, a journal) are best treated with that entity. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:11, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you on this. Relaxing our requirements for secondary and independent coverage for certain orgs (like academic societies, or journals) effectively means our only coverage of them will be what they say about themselves, which is a big NPOV problem. I do suspect that the most major societies will actually meet GNG through standard media coverage, but the ones that don't...honestly, I'm not convinced they should count as automatic free passes for academics. Relying on fellowship in a society for which we don't actually have objective metrics demonstrating prestige is at least one degree too far from showing that an academic has made a major impact in their field. JoelleJay (talk) 20:16, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you that independent sources are the key need for an article. We can usually write a two-sentence permastub without them by following MOS:FIRST, but much beyond that really seems difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

If sources exist that would establish their notability, it may still be quite challenging to find them, for reasons that have already been discussed. And some that show notability may only cover a tiny slice of the society's work (as with the Undark article JoelleJay mentioned above for the ASA), in which case we're faced with either trimming the article so that it's not that informative or sourcing a lot of content to non-independent sources once notability is established. FactOrOpinion (talk) 04:24, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I keep hoping that academics will start publishing articles about their field. A round up of "hidden gem" journals, a bit of stuff that "everyone knows" about the societies... WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:17, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Let's not forget that the academics in question, who somehow know the background of their societies but are not so well-connected as to be officers of the societies, should also eschew the publication venues of those societies and publish their work elsewhere so that it can be deemed independent. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

If they write about five societies, and publish it in one journal, then that will be considered independent for at least four of the journals. And I really only need one of these every decade or so for each field. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:16, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, this professor apparently did that in the 1980s and 90s [4] if that helps you. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:49, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

A recent example in which an academic society was deemed non-notable and deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and the Arts. The academy in question is relatively recent (founded 1970) and the deleted article was unsourced and only one sentence long. [David Eppstein, I think?] [Yes, sorry for forgetting to sign. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)]

That's a soft deletion so anyone can reverse it, if they desire; in particular there's a German article if anyone German speaking is interested: [5]. A sub-national body would tend to require more evidence of significance than a national one. More generally, I note that, as a society, the AfD was not advertised on the deletion sort for academics & educators, nor for academic journals, so might not have received the right sort of attention, or indeed any attention. Espresso Addict (talk) 18:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Why would an academic society be added to the academics or journals delsorts? JoelleJay (talk) 19:02, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

It would have been off-topic for the academics & educators listing, but probably a similar set of editors to those who watch that would have been interested. I for one only found out about the AfD after its closure caused the society to be unlinked from several biographies that I watchlist. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:17, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The journals wikiproject also covers academic societies; the academics & educators deletion listing tends to attract current & former academics who are more likely to be able to assess an academic society, and possibly more willing to attempt to improve such an article. Espresso Addict (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah I understand why we'd want to advertise to those groups, I guess my question was more rhetorical in that I know how strict we are about the AfDs listed in the NPROF delsort (David is very quick at removing non-humans) and figured it was similar with the journals, so it wouldn't have even been possible to keep the society in those delsorts. JoelleJay (talk) 22:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

This probably isn't the right forum for discussing it, but customs like that can be changed, and should be changed if doing so is likely to improve the encyclopedia. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

It wouldn't have made a difference in this case as nobody tried to add it to those deletion sorting lists. I guess I do have the science list on my watchlist, but I wasn't paying much attention to that one. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:25, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Schools that only provide a support to mainstream education

Do we actually intend to include "schools that only provide a support to mainstream education" in the same list as ordinary schools? For clarity, past conversations I've seen usually are thinking about a part-time after-school program, like a ballet school or a language school, though at the older teen/adult level it might be something like a driving school. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

I think those are all covered by NCORP. If people are arguing that those should get some kind of inherent notability because they have the word school in the name, then the "everything with a special name/title is notable" brigade has really gone off the rails and I guess I should legally change my name to "Sir Route 66 Karate School III OBE" so that I can finally be notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:12, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Dear Sir Route 66, You are notable in our hearts, but I have to ask: are you a tram stop? Blueboar (talk) 16:44, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia:An article about yourself isn't necessarily a good thing. I hope that none of us become notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Too late. (Also, I am not a tram stop.)

But now I'm curious: who are those people arguing for notability because of special names, and what sort of names do they consider special? —David Eppstein (talk) 23:47, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Some editors think that having earned a particular award or honour establishes inherent notability. See, for example Necrothesp's honours criteria. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think that earning a Nobel Prize establishes inherent notability. Nevertheless, I am still curious: which editors think that everything with a special name is notable and what names do they think are special? Receiving an award or honor is a very different thing than having a special name (even though some honors come with a name update). —David Eppstein (talk) 01:31, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the "special names" that get this claim are:

• ones that were updated because of certain honors ("Sir" and "OBE")
• ones that are not used for humans ("Route 66" and "Karate School").

I don't think anything has "inherent" notability. However, I do think that there are certain categories for which we find that 100% of the subjects meet the relevant notability guidelines (e.g., atomic elements, US Presidents....). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:44, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there's no such thing as inherent notability, but there are some subject matters where every topic is notable. Every U.S. President is notable by virtue of having a lot of material written about them. By contrast, not every person who's received a British honour and has a fancy suffix to their name has had significant coverage. A person who earns a Nobel Prize and is an academic meets WP:NPROF#C2 by definition, or for the Peace and Literature prizes, they will almost certainly meet NAUTHOR, NPOL, or NBASIC. In the unlikely event that a Nobel Prize winner meets none of those SNGs, we can apply IAR. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:53, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep, nothing is inherently notable. This is not an exception. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

The question, though, is whether the appropriate measuring stick for "schools that only provide a support to mainstream education" is:

• the one used for Oxford University, which is NCORP or GNG, versus
• the one used for Corinthian Colleges, which is NCORP alone.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Is there much argument against the idea that the ones that are for-profit must satisfy NCORP? What kind of examples of not-for-profit entities are you considering to fall under this description? Most of the ones I can think of offhand primarily provide higher education. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm aware of some non-profit "schools" that are focused on fine arts or provide services primarily to children with disabilities. There are many non-profit religious or cultural organizations that provide academic services (e.g., learning Arabic, Hebrew, or Chinese). Whether you want to call them Hebrew "schools" or Hebrew "classes", they sound to me like "schools that only provide a support to mainstream education". Even when they're non-profits, I'm inclined to handle the individual programs/organizations under NCORP alone. What about you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:53, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

NCORP is also called NORG and covers not-for-profits and all types of organisations. Schools that are administered by some kind of government may be an exception, but personally I think any independent school, whether it is for profit or not, should generally be considered under NORG. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Things like the National Youth Orchestra? I'd be tempted to let the big charitable ones go with just GNG. Espresso Addict (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Yep, pragmatically sensible. But for those, is there any reason to believe they would fail NORG? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

An aside to Voorts: According to the introduction, Necrothesp was trying to clarify the text "a well-known and significant award or honor" in WP:ANYBIO. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:06, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

See User:Necrothesp#Notability: There are some topics which I genuinely believe have inherent notability and should be kept irrespective of whether they meet WP:GNG. People receiving certain honours are on that list and I have seen Necrothesp !vote as such at AfD accordingly. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:10, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

That's clearly a personal viewpoint, and every editor in good standing is entitled to participate in AfD as they see fit.

More broadly, I think this is a generational thing. Those of us who've been around since the mid-2000s (or at least some of us) tend to go with gut instinct more than SIGCOV counting. For example the well-respected DGG often said that he felt that secondary schools, hospitals and universities were inherently notable for their importance to the community. I think everyone has, in their heart, some topics that they feel are inherently encyclopedia worthy, if only because they were in the encyclopedias of their youth (for those of us who are old enough). It's just not fashionable here, at the moment, to frame this sense with the words "inherently notable", so one goes with "are likely to have received significant coverage in reliable independent sources" and crosses one's fingers. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:02, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I have been looking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Schools this week, and I can see some of what you describe there. I'd say that the three deletion rationales I'm seeing most there are:

• "I didn't find NSCHOOL-worthy sources, so it must be completely deleted and not redirected to a sentence or list in Town#Education".
• "I looked in Google News for the English transliteration, and I didn't find any sources, which proves that there are no sources in the local language, no government reports about this school, and no newspapers that don't show up in Google News."
• "This is just an ordinary WP:BORING school of its type, and Wikipedia should only have unique schools."

Two editors (one now CU-blocked) nominated quite a few schools back-to-back-to-back. It takes a few seconds to say "Fails NSCHOOL", and anywhere from five minutes to an hour to properly disprove it. I'm seriously thinking about posting some "Procedural keep" !votes, at least for the sock's noms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Secondary schools are prodded a lot. To be honest, I've just given up deprodding them, unless it's a school I've personally heard of (ie a longstanding British one) or there is at least one indept source already in the article, it just isn't worth the hassle. I still deprod further education institutions when I see them; I think they are usually kept at AfD, though that might be selective memory at work. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:25, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

My strong impression is that deletion is pushed much more for secondary schools in the developing world than in the English-speaking developed world. Maybe they are less worthy, but maybe also it's a form of Wikipedia:Systemic bias. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Based on prods, I'd agree. There are a few US examples prodded but they are often elementary schools. It's a lot harder to search for sources when not in English, and the WL subscription to Newspapers.com doesn't seem to cover very much outside the US, but I think a lot of it is just fatigue -- I used to periodically deprod secondary schools where the article looked at all promising, but I become too disheartened. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:50, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

This is my experience too. Undoubtedly there are more schools outside the core anglosphere, but you don't get the systematic nominations of American or British schools that you see as recently where all the Port Harcourt schools were nominated or as for the current 22 Malaysian schools under discussion at AfD. These are hard to research because of language barriers and because there are not so good online sources. Just using the "find sources" links will systematically prefer English language schools in certain countries. I don't know what we do about it, but I am unimpressed by nominations that just say "fails NSCHOOL", per WhatamIdoing. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:44, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

And to add, the SCHOOLOUTCOMES RFC close warned against mass nomination of schools simply because the guideline had changed. Perhaps there could be some advice on that? Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:46, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

David, your impression aligns with my recent experience. In fact, I was speculating about a bot that delivers a message to AFD noms (of schools), saying something like:

• If the school is located in a non-English speaking country, you have to find the non-English name and do your WP:BEFORE search in there. If you didn't do this, you need to withdraw it.
• The normal thing to do with schools is to redirect them to a local Town#Education section. Your nom statement needs to include an explanation of why the normal practice does not apply, or you should withdraw it.
• Google News and similar searches are not enough. For schools, you need to find the names of the local newspapers (might be listed in Town#Media or Town#Newspapers) and directly search the websites of any nearby newspapers.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I was responding to your "aside" that the page I linked to was just a clarification of an SNG by pointing out that your aside was incorrect and that user essay is in fact a list of honours that Necrothesp believes confer notability. Re your note on my user talk, I didn't ping Necrothesp because I was linking to a userspace essay as an example, not asking Necrothesp to participate in this discussion about schools. Not every mention needs a ping. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:53, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• @WhatamIdoing: I don't understand your question, GNG applies in both cases. Its always GNG or SNG regardless of what the actual SNG are. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:51, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  That is not true. There was a months long discussion at WT:N that concluded the relation between the GNG and SNG is more complex than just saying that either the GNG or SNG applies. An SNG can purposely be more restrictive than the GNG, with NCORP as the primary example of this due to the focus on non promotional sourcing. Masem (t) 15:01, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• Can't have. It still says "It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG)" You must be confused about the consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  In this case (which is unusual, as SNGs go), if it meets NCORP (e.g., AUD, SIRS, etc.) then it will always exceed the minimum requirements for GNG. So when we say in NSCHOOL that certain kinds of schools "must satisfy either the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page) or the general notability guideline", what we really mean is "we hereby exempt these schools from the higher standards of NCORP (no harm done if they do meet those higher standards, though)".

  When WP:N says "either GNG or SNG", that is usually understood as meaning that individual editors (e.g., at AFD) are allowed to pick whichever standard they believe is most applicable. They don't even have to all pick the same one. You can have someone saying "delete per NCORP" and another say "keep per GNG" and it's all okay. Ultimately editors have to form a consensus no matter which WP:UPPERCASE (if any) they're citing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  That seems to be too proscriptive and simplistic, remember the key context is that a page can be deleted or merged even when it meets either or. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  See WP:SNG which was a result of that discussion. It's more complex than just "GNG or SNG" Masem (t) 16:23, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

  There is no contradiction there, if you think that there is its up to you to seek clarification. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I apologize: My question seems to have been far more confusing than I expected. I will try again in a simpler style.

The question isn't whether they would fail this guideline. We are talking about what this guideline should say. The question is, within this guideline, and specifically in the section Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Schools of this guideline, which of these should it say?

−

All universities, colleges and schools, including high schools, middle schools, primary (elementary) schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy either the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page) or [[WP:GNG|the general notability guideline]]. For-profit educational organizations and institutions are considered [[WP:COMMERCIAL|commercial organizations]] and must satisfy those criteria.

+

All universities, colleges and schools, including high schools, middle schools, and primary (elementary) schools must satisfy either the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page) or [[WP:GNG|the general notability guideline]]. For-profit educational organizations, schools that only provide a support to mainstream education, and institutions are considered [[WP:COMMERCIAL|commercial organizations]] and must satisfy those criteria.

The question is: Shall we take these nine words out of the first sentence and stick them in the second sentence, or shall we leave those same nine words in the first sentence? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we need to include these nine words at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:55, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe that, back when issuing a high school diploma (or local equivalent) was treated as evidence of inherent notability, they were intended to provide some clarity about which schools are True™ schools and which ones were not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd suggest just taking the note out. It seems to cover such a broad range of things, from minor for-profit bodies such as a local provider of piano lessons, to national charitable entities such as the various youth orchestras, so that no one-size-fits-all wording is going to be appropriate. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:40, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Any objections to just removing these nine words? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:26, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I prefer the revised version above but would also be OK wit outright removal. North8000 (talk) 18:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Routine announcements

The word routine appears four times in this guideline:

• WP:CORPDEPTH: "Deep or significant coverage provides...a level of attention that extends well beyond brief mentions and routine announcements, and makes it possible to write more than a very brief, incomplete stub about the organization."
• WP:CORPTRIV: "Examples of trivial coverage that do not count toward meeting the significant coverage requirement:...standard notices, brief announcements, and routine coverage" (e.g., that the stock price went up 0.15% today, that the quarterly earnings forecast has been lowered to 5.1¢ per share).
• WP:ORGIND: "A primary test of notability is whether unrelated people with no vested interest in the subject have actually considered the company, corporation, product or service notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial, non-routine works that focus upon it."
• WP:PRODUCTREV: "Brief and routine reviews (including Zagat) do not qualify."

I think that editors have a very wide variety of views about what this guideline means when it uses this word. Looking this over, we might actually be meaning something different in CORPDEPTH and ORGIND. So I ask:

1. Is 'routine' primarily decided by the size/depth of details in a source? Is Wikipedia:One hundred words of useful, independent, secondary coverage in a reputable newspaper about some aspect of an organization "routine"? Is 600 words? (Six hundred words is a traditional limit to article size in newspapers. Ordinary stories would run 200 to 300 words, and large stories would run up to 500 or 600 words.) Is thousands of words? A whole book?
2. Is 'routine' primarily decided by whether editors can predict the news/source coverage? For example, if a regulatory agency or a watchdog organization puts out a book-length annual report on certain organizations (e.g., banks, hospitals, schools, drug manufacturers, political parties, SuperFund polluters...), and it contains thousands of words of useful, independent, secondary coverage about the organization you're looking at, is that still 'routine' because you know it's going to happen every year? Are only irregularly released reports 'non-routine'?
3. Does 'routine' mean something like "only a few organizations get covered"? For example, there are about 90 banks in the entire state of New York; a report on 100% of New York banks would omit 99.999% of New York organizations. Would that be 'routine' or 'non-routine'?
4. Or is 'routine' mostly about the Wikipedia:Ten year test? The examples in CORPTRIV lean this way ("of changes in share or bond prices, of quarterly or annual financial results and earning forecasts, of the opening or closing of local branches, franchises, or shops"). "They closed everything/the original location/the flagship store" might well be worth mentioning in an article, but "In 1983, they closed Store #123 in Smallville due to low sales and increased rent, Store #234 in Townville due to staffing problems, and Store #345 in Lakeville for undisclosed reasons" is not something you would expect to find in an encyclopedia article.

Which of these most resonate with you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Most likely 2 in context. Sourcing that happens regardless of how major or insignificant an event, because all such similar events nearly always are covered with a high degree of regularity. While not in this guidine the prime example would be regular season games in a sport. Every baseball game is documented in numerous sources, but outside breaking records or other odd events, those are not considered the type of coverage to make any individual game notable. — Masem (t) 21:35, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

We can predict non-regular games in sports just as easily – actually, more easily – than regular season games. We already know that Super Bowl LXII will happen on February 13, 2028 in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. If the high degree of regularity of coverage makes something "routine", then why would the announcement of the date for one expected football game (e.g., the 2028 Super Bowl game) be "non-routine", but the announcement of the date for a different expected football game (e.g., the 2025 Detroit Lions v. Green Bay Packers game) be "routine"?

Is the real answer that editors believe that the one game is more important than the other? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Well another factor that comes into play would be the degree to which the coverage of routine event is primary. Regular season games get box scores and recaps and some small bit of commentary from the writer, but nowhere to a degree that the game is sufficiently unique from other regular season games. While the super bowl is a "routine event", it clearly gets non unique secondary coverage both as a sporting event and an entertainment spectacle. Masem (t) 23:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The Super Bowl unquestionably qualifies for an article. It's like saying that a US president or a UK monarch will qualify for an article: it's not because they are "inherently" notable just for existing, but because we realistically know there will always be an enormous amount of coverage. I can't tell you who the US president or the UK monarch will be 50 years from now, but I can tell you that whoever they are, they will qualify for an article here (assuming Wikipedia still exists then).

The primary/secondary thing would be some variation on 'routine is determined by source content', I think. The problem is that editors are fairly bad at this. A comparison is secondary content, so "Bob's Business is the biggest widget manufacturer in town" is secondary. "Bob's Business sold 20,942,049 widgets last year" is likely primary. But many editors prefer the latter, because it sounds "non-promotional". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

One other element that I think comes to mind with "routine" is when the topic/title of the coverage piece is one item. E.G announcing an appointment, announcing quarterly or annual numerical results, announcing a new product etc. Even if a few sidebar sentences are added. North8000 (talk) 21:46, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The examples all sound like facts that fail the ten-year test, or are sources that would at most (in the case of an appointment or product launch) result in a sentence or so ("Bob Business was appointed CEO in 1994, taking over from Frank Founder"). Product launches can be important, but the sort of source that I imagine as routine coverage would only give you a sentence or so. We want sections like History of the iPhone#Beta to production and announcement, rather than sentences like "In 1996, they released a new blue-green widget". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I wonder how much "routine" overlaps with "primary (±boilerplate)". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)