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A fresh start?

I have drafted a proposed rewrite of the lead and first section of this guideline at User:Kubigula/Notability. My own views on this whole subject have changed a bit as a result of the above conversation, and I ask people to keep an open mind when reading this. I believe the primary virtue of my proposed language is that it can provide some harmony and consistency between this guideline and the subject specific guidelines.--Kubigula (talk) 05:30, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that does a good job of summarising the points raised thus far and reflecting the opinions of various editors. I'd recommend only four relatively minor changes:
  1. Change "if it has been a primary subject of coverage" to "if it has been a subject of coverage". Consider, for instance, a 10-chapter book that devotes one chapter each to the examination of a particular civil conflict. None of the 10 civil conflicts covered are the book's "primary" subject, but that shouldn't disqualify the book as proving the topic's notability.
  2. Delete the sentence "Significant means more than trivial but less than important." That sentence does not help without defining what we mean by trivial and important. If we're going to do that, we might as well pick one or the other.
  3. Your version makes no mention of the option of merging, which I think should always be considered before deletion.
  4. The word "challenged" in the last sentence should link to Wikipedia:Deletion policy rather than AFD ... a lot of articles are better handled via WP:CSD and WP:PROD.
Of course, those are all relatively minor changes and I fully support the introduction of the new wording. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 06:10, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I completely agree with points 2-4, and I have redrafted to meet those concerns. I somewhat anticipated your first issue by saying "a primary subject" rather than "the primary subject". I think a chapter in a book would qualify as a primary subject, if not the primary subject.--Kubigula (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I can understand why you left in "a primary", but ... technically, by definition, only one thing can be "primary". I don't object to the spirit of what you're trying to say, but would just like an alternate word ... I'll see if I can think of anything. In any case, I note again that that's a minor issue that can be resolved later on. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:37, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I like Kubigula's new draft. It takes out a lot of the waffle associated with WP:N, and maintains the spirit of the PNC without attracting controversy relating to the subject-specific guidelines. So I fully support its introduction. Walton Need some help? 10:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Can't say I like "multiple" or "significant" - neither of those are true. Our aim should be to accurately encompass notability. --badlydrawnjeff talk
I'm not personally married to that exact language, but I stuck with it because I think we all agree that something that has significant coverage in multiple sources is presumed to be notable. A topic may well be notable if it has less than that, but it would need to be considered on its own individual merits. I have attempted to clarify that a bit more.--Kubigula (talk) 13:49, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I guess it depends on what we're trying to do - if we want to protect what's already notable, that makes sense, but if we're trying to establish where that line is, I'm not sure it's smart to draw the line so far away. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:57, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Then what's a better line? Fame?! I thought that "notability" != "fame". mike4ty4 19:42, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

A great example of the failure of "significant"/"multiple, non-trivial" and its various permutations

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matrixism (3rd nomination). Here, we have an article, Matrixism, which has been mentioned in multiple sources, but in a way some believe to be trivial. Never mind that the "religion" is noteworthy enough to be mentioned along with others like it on NPR and Australian broadcasting, because Matrixism isn't the subject or receives "significant" coverage in those, we shouldn't bother with it, even though the article itself has numerous citations and isn't stub-sized? This is a great example as to why the idea of "multiple," "non-trivial" and "significant" need to be tossed by the wayside - it encourages situations like this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:40, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Alright? Looks to me like the sources are trivial and the article should be deleted. We don't need mentions, we need sources. Good, in-depth, detailed sources. These are name drops or blurbs. It's working exactly as it should. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:05, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
This is exactly why it's not working as it should. Notability is established by the sources - that's what we're looking for, right? Notability? - and we're allowing lawyering about the sources get in the way of the honesty about the subject. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:07, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
It is not "lawyering" to actually examine the sources in question, and say "Hey, they barely said anything about this." That's exactly why non-triviality is and should be required. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
It's exactly why non-triviality is a non-starter. To examine the sources bring us to the concept that it's noted in mainstream media on three continents. That's notabiltiy, right there. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't particularly matter. Something can get name-dropped everywhere, but if we don't have sufficient sources for a good, comprehensive article, we shouldn't have the article. Of course, it's not inconceivable that this will receive more detailed attention, and that in the future an article will be workable. If so, we write it then. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
As you can see from the article, we already have what you're looking for. Anything less is misunderstanding actual notability. I know you disagree with this, and your denial in the face of the evidence is somewhat frustrating to me, but this is exactly what we should be looking for for notability - we have enough information to establish the subject's importance, and we have enough overall sources to make an article. Why require anything more? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking for enough sources to make an article. Right now, that's not there. There are enough sources for a blurb. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:38, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Then I'm not convinced you're looking at the sources critically. Sorry. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I believe a critical look is exactly what's being done here, and not just by me. (Certainly, it's not just me who's argued the sourcing is insufficient!) But, we shall see how it turns out. Seraphimblade Talk to me 15:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
What is entirely missing is evidence that anyone actually believes in this purported religion. Anyone can put up a Geocities page and claim numbers. We don't even have a name of a single purported adherent of this thing. FCYTravis 16:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Is that a necessary figure to have? I don't see what that would have to do with notability, frankly. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:29, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. It's necessary to establish that this "religion" exists anywhere outside the Geocities site for us to write about it as if it actually exists. Can you provide me with evidence that there is anyone who actually adheres to the purported tenets of Matrixism? FCYTravis 16:32, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. No, I can't answer that question, but I can tell you that there's plenty of information about the notability of this "religion." International coverage, etc. That's all I'm concerned with, and all we should be concerned with. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:34, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps I should throw up an anonymous Geocities site tonight and purport to be the Real Fundamentalist Matrixism (tm) with 10,000 adherents, so that Wikipedia has to report on the "massive fundamentalist split in the Matrix." You see how silly this is now? FCYTravis 16:36, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why we're focused on the Geocities site, quite frankly. Remove that and you still have pretty clear mentions in international media demonstrating its importance to us. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:39, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
Because the Geocities site is the only thing which establishes any of the purported tenets of the religion, or anything else beyond "Wow look, people said there's a religion based on the Matrix." It's the only non-trivial information about what the "religion" is allegedly about. Remove it, and anything sourced to it, from the article, and treat the subject as what it is - a marginally noted spoof religion, not a real "new religious movement," and perhaps the article is salvageable. FCYTravis 16:44, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

(indent reset) Basically, take out the stuff from the Geocities page, and what you're left with is "Matrixism is a religion from a Geocities site that claims to have 500 supporters, and got filler/slow-news name drops in a few media sources. It claims to have 500 members." For some reason, that just doesn't seem suitable for an encyclopedia to me. It's not an article, it's a blurb. Any more expansion requires going off a (totally unverifiable, totally unreliable) source. Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:34, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

But you'd never do that with any other article, and your final statement is false. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
The final statement is false? Does this mean you have a more verifiable and reliable source? If so, what is it? mike4ty4 19:59, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

One thing that tends to be forgotten is that it's not enough for reliable sources to exist or even to establish notability: they also have to support the facts in the article. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:54, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Agreed 100%. For the most part, this doesn't seem to be a problem here, either. The problem, in fact, appears to be people's misconception regarding what a reliable source really is. That's why this article is a perfect example of what's wrong with this guideline currently - if the sources establish notability, and we can flesh out the rest of the article using verifiable reliable sources, then there shouldn't be an issue. That concept flies out the window here. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:53, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
    Why not then just try and rewrite the guideline so this concept is expressed in it? I'd also like to see a copy of the deleted article in question to get a better idea of what's being talked about here. mike4ty4 19:47, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
    Just got a copy. It turns out that all the online sources I saw did not do much more than a few small mentions of it. I couldn't check the offline ones though because that costs money, and I'm on a tight budget. There has to be some sufficient depth of coverage to establish notability, you know. Something like a full article devoted to the thing, maybe. The Jedi census phenomenon is a much more notable "religious" fad, by the way. A lot of those cites there are of articles devoted to it. Even the Empire of Atlantium, a "made up in school one day" thing, managed to get enough notability. There are more than a couple of sources cited there that devoted full articles to it. In the case of Matrixism, I just don't think the sources really give the right depth of coverage. The question that is important with this case is whether or not the sources can establish notability in the first place. Could a very large number of trivial or more trivial sources potentially establish notability due to sheer number? mike4ty4 20:07, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
The media has a tendency to repeat things without confirmation if they have been published before. They call it common knowledge but what it does (especially when things are name dropped) is allow inaccurate and largely anecdotal evidence to be published. Just a thought. IvoShandor 17:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

What is required of a news event in order for it to be considered notable enough for inclusion in Wikipeda rather than Wikinews?

Airplane hijackings, Essjay controversies, Virginia Tech massacres, earthquakes... what criteria is used to decide that Wikipedia should include articles on these topics rather than deferring the coverage to Wikinews? Sancho 15:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, news events which have been the coverage of multiple non-trivial coverage in mainstream reliable sources do merit inclusion. However, unless there's a lot of detail available about them as events (e.g. the Virginia Tech massacre), then the event itself shouldn't have an article, but rather should be covered in the biographical articles on the main participants. What I object to is the common deletion argument that, because someone is only notable for being a participant in one news event, that they therefore don't merit a biographical article. It doesn't matter whether their notability is transient; if there are enough independent sources, they should get an article. Walton Need some help? 16:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The term "news event" is a meaningless buzz-word. An event or entity it is notable or not on its own merits. Having news coverage may memorialize the subject and lead toward demonstrating notability as may other evidence. --Kevin Murray 01:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I think, actually, that the guideline addresses this-"Notability is generally permanent." If a news event is a "human-interest" or flash-in-the-pan type thing, if a person gets "15 minutes of fame" and is quickly again forgotten, etc., it's not encyclopedic. People will very likely still be studying the Virginia Tech Massacre many years from today. On the other hand, anything in my local paper here this morning will have been long forgotten by then. Wikinews is a sister project, and we would well-serve both them and ourselves by not stepping too hard on their toes, and by directing those who want to write about news-style events to them. Some events in the news may also be encyclopedic, but we're not the newspaper. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
By news event I meant events covered in mainstream media newscasts and newspapers. I didn't know it was just a buzzword... sorry. Sancho 16:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
That's an equivalent of the XX-year rule, in more general terms. The problem there has been setting the value of XX. There's no way of doing it that doesn't get articles on the wrong side of where they ought to be. DGG 03:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. News events, in my opinion, demonstrate one of the main weaknesses in the way the guideline is currently written. Many news events will be the subject of significant coverage in multiple reliable sources and thus presumptively notable per the general guideline. Seraphimblade properly points to the "Notability is generally permanent" section, but this doesn't jibe very well with the general guideline or the "Notability is not subjective" section. Ultimately, I don't see a way to completely avoid the inherently subjective nature of notability. No bright line test for "Wikipedia notability" based on sources will work perfectly, because of things like news stories and cruft. I think we need to accept that there will always be some element of subjectivity in this guideline and find the most encyclopedic way to build that element into the guideline. I took a crack at it and I am eagerly awaiting DGG's effort.--Kubigula (talk) 03:21, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The "Notability is generally permanent" section appears to say exactly the opposite of what Seraphimblade and Kubigula think it says. By SB & K's standard (and I'm not saying they're wrong), I gather that a subject of fleeting interest would not be notable even if it satisfied WP:N's sourcing requirements. But the "generally permananent" section says: If a topic has multiple independent reliable published sources, this is not changed by the frequency of coverage decreasing. Thus, if a topic once satisfied the general notability guidelines, it continues to satisfy it over time. Pan Dan 13:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
The way I like to think of this is that once an article is ok'd for Wikipedia it shouldn't be deleted simply because people stop talking about it. Otherwise you end up potentially losing historical information that might end up being relevant at a later date that is not easy to recover. Basically if you say that topics should be removed from the encyclopedia if they haven't been recently discussed then you defeat the purpose of having a historical archive. I would rather err on the side of keeping an article on a borderline possibly "flash in the pan" topic than delete articles that appear to be borderline notable at the current time. Dugwiki 16:15, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucratese alert

"Significant means more than trivial but less than important" is entering the territory of hair-splitting and attempting to legalistically define every single word. That's not helpful. >Radiant< 15:50, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Given the way discussions have gone, it's very helpful. If we're going to have notability guidelines, hairsplitting is an unfortunate byproduct. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:53, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Radiant. That sentence tells us nothing until we specifically define what we mean by "trivial" and "important". In any case, I'm hoping that we can avoid the issue with Kubigula's new proposed wording. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 17:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Oops - my assumption was that's what Radiant was reading - I agree with you, the proposed wording fixes that issue. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I support much of what Kubi has written, while I think that the lead is a bit too wordy. --Kevin Murray 18:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • However, if that text is not adopted, I think that placing "significant" between "important" and "trivial" is useful and gives a good perspective. Almost anyone can tell the difference between trivial and important, although it remains a gray area of subjectivity. Calling this legalistic seems odd as both terms are in common use, and the hairsplitting seems to be in the objection to a simple approach to defining "significant." --Kevin Murray 18:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Help:Creating policy‎

There is a guideline at Help:Creating policy‎ which has been tagged as a guideline since May 2005. There are a few editors trying to eliminate this attempt to regulate how policies and guidelines are created. The point of contention is substantially that (1) this is top down management inconsistent with WP traditions, and (2) that this does not truly reflect how policies and guidelines have been created (anarchy?). The guideline itself doesn't appear to be unreasonable but could use some fine tuning. Those who know me recognize that I advocate consistency; some people accuse me of being legalistic and bureaucratic. Oh well. I think that without some structure this guideline infrastructure is going to balloon to the ridiculous WP:CREEP. Please come join the fun. --Kevin Murray 20:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability is generally permanent

You have got to be joking. No way is this followed through in practice. Try writing an article on something that was notable 20, 100, 400 years ago that is now largely forgotten and see how long it takes to be deleted as non-notable. --88.109.23.38 22:38, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Any examples? —Centrx→talk • 22:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Usually things that were really notable all those years ago are written down in history books, you know. mike4ty4 20:01, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I'd say that notability is actually generally permanent. It's just the problem of recentism that means we have more information about current events. It's much, much harder to find sources on relatively minor historical happenings than it is for similarly minor events that take place today: there are Internet news websites everywhere reporting small things which no one would have written about centuries ago, or if they did the writing would be extremely unlikely to have survived and been documented. It's just an inevitable systematic bias with the Wikipedia project.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Proposed language and outstanding issues

A few things:

  1. Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed seems to have pretty broad support from both camps still going back and forth. If there's no complaints about it in the next few days, I think we can move it in and move on.
  2. We need to continue discussion on the subjectivity of notability.
  3. Are we still discussing a possible rename?

Whee. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I like alternative Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed. The freshness of the rewrite is a good thing. If it is the idea that the extensive notes are to be eliminated, then that is a very good thing. I would simplify the alternative even further by eliminating the entire introduction. It doesn't say anything necessary, and it means there are ~227 word to read through before getting to the point. If a rationale (which the introduction largely is) is needed, then write it as an essay and link to it. Having a separte discussion on the proposal's talk page is counter productive. All discussion should be here. I think the proposal should now be accepted, rejected, or somehow merged ASAP. Perhaps this same thought also apples to Wikipedia:Article inclusion? --SmokeyJoe 02:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we should act on this proposal now (accepting it, I hope) and should keep discussion here. However, I have reverted your removal of the introduction (or "waffle", as you termed it). I think the introduction effectively summarises the debate of the past 3+ months and exposes the nature of "notability". Hopefully, those 200 words will prevent the debate from being repeated. Also, the introduction informs readers about why notability is important rather than merely stating what it is. Feel free to revert my reintroduction of the waffle if you disagree ..... hmm, now I'm hungry. :) Black Falcon (Talk) 03:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
it depends what kind of an encyclopedia we want to make, and I do not think there is any consensus on that. I see no possible way to prevent the debate from being endlessly reopened, and perhaps it should be, for our standards will change: I think the only solution is to say "Length of article is proportional to relative importance, as long as there's any usable evidence. At the low end, a link or reference or list entry. At the high end, a group of articles" and bury the concept of N being a sharp dividing line. DGG 04:58, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I quite understand that Black Falcon likes waffle, but as a habit, it isn’t good for you. Suggestion #2 is that it be served for dessert, not breakfast. The guideline should be written for the first time reader. It should not waste time getting to the important point. To satisfy your affection for the history of how we got here, and to reduce the likelihood of reflux, wouldn’t the waffle serve equally as well at the end of the article? --SmokeyJoe 05:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
No waffles for breakfast? What tyranny is this!? :-) Regarding your question, yes and no. We may not need that specific introduction, but we need some kind of introduction to tell readers why they should care about notability. Before presenting a definition of "notability", we need to state the purpose of having a notability guideline in the first place. An introduction also has the added benefit of providing a summary of the guideline for anyone who won't read the guideline in its entirety. By the way, I'm not interested in preserving the history of how we got here per se, but rather think that an explicit statement of the issues would make the ride less bumpy when we travel down this path again (and it's likely that we will). -- Black Falcon (Talk) 06:39, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
My main problem with that proposal is that, quite simply, it's virtually impossible to write an FA on someone who has only been covered in RS in passing. Building articles out of trivial mentions never works - especially with BLPs - and these people are not genuinely notable. Moreschi Talk 20:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It's virtually impossible to write an FA on many things, regardless of their coverage. Trivial mentions can work for a comprehensive article on a noteworthy subject, but it depends on what the topic is, what the subject is, and what the sources have to say. Best to leave that possibility open than to shut it down completely. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Entirely disagree to the proposal. Notability is not and should not be considered subjective, and we certainly shouldn't start allowing trivial sourcing to count for it. We certainly should not start to make articles on subjects with only primary, non-independent, and/or trivial sources. In-depth independent reliable coverage must be required, and in almost all cases, by multiple sources. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think you've ever answered this, maybe because I didn't notice or because you weren't asked, but why do you believe notability isn't subjective? We're never going to agree on the final part, and all I can say is that the evidence suggests people disagree, but as for the former, I don't understand that point of view. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
On the waffles (heh) issue, I may be biased, but I think it's important to have a lead that incorporates some of the conversation here and conveys the reality that notability is a very nuanced concept.--Kubigula (talk) 06:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Fuel for the fire

Here is an outside view that expresses eloquently many of the same frustrations that most editors who don't like this guideline have: How Big is Too Big?, from historian Mills Kelly. It references an interview of Jimbo by Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, who also apparently shares the concern of so many others that our article inclusion standards are fairly ridiculous when they go beyond the core policies of "Verifiability", "No original research" and "What Wikipedia is not".--ragesoss 23:31, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

He's absolutely right. So the question is how to balance the medium between this guy and what's best for the project, and I think making sure our notability guidelines reflect reality is a big step in that direction. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:33, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
We could start by demoting them from "guidelines" to "essays". — CharlotteWebb 02:06, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Frankly I tuned out after Bruce Cole's starting paragraph where he said that "the implication of this guideline for entries is that there is only so much space on the servers housing Wikipedia and so those precious megabytes (terrabytes?) shouldn’t be taken up with irrelevant entries." Saving space on the servers is not the reason we have a notability guideline. Rather, it has to do with reducing article clutter for the readers and reducing required article maintainence for editors. His basic premise on which he bases his entire blog article that the notability guideline has to do with physical server space is flat out wrong. Dugwiki 15:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Sure, it's an improper perception, but it's really the only logical perception an outsider can come up with. Article clutter simply isn't an issue in a project such as this, or we'd have to tighten up further. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I would say that article clutter is the lesser of the two problems. The bigger one is the editorial maintainence side. The more non-notable individual articles there are the longer it takes for those articles to be properly handled. Weeding out articles that aren't notable keeps the overall process more efficient. I should also mention that asking for notability also decreases the incidence of articles that are unverifiable or biased (since notability implies that the article has multiple verifiable published references). So the notability guideline also works as a way to flag articles which probably have other problems too. Dugwiki 17:05, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Stunting growth for maintenence purposes, though, is really counterproductive to the mission, especially on a volunteer project - we can never fully be certain we'll have enough volunteers to cover what we have regardless of a) the size of the project, and b) the number of volunteers. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
But we can be certain that lowering the number of articles will reduce the scope of whatever problems we experience in that regard. If we can't handle the editorial tasks while excluding non-notable articles, then we will have even more trouble handling those same tasks if those limits are removed. Dugwiki 17:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
If, of course, we buy into that point of view, but that's a different discussion. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Wouldn't be the first time that a reporter fundamentally misunderstood some part of Wikipedia. Which is why we don't base policy on what the media happens to say this week. >Radiant< 16:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems that it is time to stand back from the evolution and look at developing a structure which makes sense as a whole. In each case the individual guidelines seem to make sense and are justifiable, but like the tragedy of the commons, as a whole creep can strangle the WP project. --Kevin Murray 16:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
The better way to flag articles based on other problems is to have an inclusion policy based solely on the other policies, rather than demanding more than verifiability, neutrality, and reliable sourcing. Wikipedia is already so far past the point of dedicated Wikipedians being able to keep up with editorial maintainence that I don't see how this could be an issue. The above link is not Bruce Cole, it's a discussion that begins with recounting the Bruce Cole interview. If you read to the end, you'll see that Mills Kelly has a pretty good understanding of the issues, like many outsiders who come away puzzled about Notability (and like so many Wikipedians besides the ones who have fought so tenaciously to prevent any significant change in this guideline).--ragesoss 17:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
If we are in fact "past the point of being able to keep up", then certainly it follows that allowing even more articles on likely less useful topics only further exacerbates that problem. And I did read to the end and it's clear to me that the author does not actually understand the basic issue, as clearly evidenced by their repeated assertions that "server size" is at the heart of the rationale for the guideline. Dugwiki 17:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As I see it, the primary purpose of the notability guidelines is to support the principle that "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia". Not every verifiable fact (e.g., what I ate for lunch yesterday) is worthy of ntoe in an encyclopedia. The fact that it helps reduce the maintenance workload is just a bonus. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 18:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that the primary purpose of this guideline relates to WP:ENC and the related What Wikipedia is not. The guideline assumes that the topic is not otherwise ruled out by "what Wikipedia is not"; it applies only to categories of topics that can, in principle, be included but are excluded because of insufficient verifiability through reliable published sources. The straw man examples in the post below don't require this guideline to keep them out; they are covered easily by others, primarily "What Wikipedia is not" and "No Original Research". This guideline goes considerably, and arbitrarily, beyond the core policies, and leads to the deletion of many minor but verifiable topics the inclusion of which makes Wikipedia better.--ragesoss 19:01, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Biographies are exempt from original research if it is done by the subject of the article. Also, NOT and N are very much intertwined in principle because they both exclude information from wikipedia that otherwise meets all the requierments but are not appropriate for hosting here, in the encyclopedia. NeoFreak 19:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Autobiography is not exempt from the original research policy: "This policy does not prohibit editors with specialist knowledge from adding their knowledge to Wikipedia, but it does prohibit them from drawing on their personal knowledge without citing their sources." You are correct that NOT and N are intertwined in principle, but NOT is policy, while N is a disputed guideline. The point behind all this argument is that a lot of what gets excluded solely on the basis of Notability is appropriate encyclopedic content, at least in the view of myself and a significant portion of the community.--ragesoss 19:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
That was my point. Without a Notability guidline a person can generate their own refs on themselves and, unlike other articles, can then create their own biography articles. All they have to do is prove their claims by creating their own relaible sources. See the problem? See: WP:SELFPUB. NeoFreak 12:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to agree with the entire premise of the article being wrong (space). The notability guidline dons't exist to save space. It exists to make sure that wikipedia stays an encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not Google, it's not a news wire, its not a web hosting or advertising service and it's not the internet in article format. Expanding the scope of wikipedia to cover any and all verifiable topics totally destroys the concept of being an encyclopedia. With no notability requirement anyone that can verify their existence can write a biography. What about John Franklin Smith (police officer, divorced, father of two, lives in Maine, likes clam chowder)? If John can upload birth certificates, divorce papers and notarized documentaion he gets an article. Well what about the other John Franklin Smith's in the world? Who gets the John Franklin Smith article title? How about a list of John Franklin Smiths? Maybe John Franklin Smith (Maine) or John Franklin Smith (police officer)? How about the 14 year old that wants to make an article about the fantasy novel he's been writing? If his "best friend forever" can verify he is writing it then should Dragons of Firery Fireness get an article? No.
The huge amount of editorial oversight, destroyed navigational ability and the drop off of public image for the project (which is alot more inportant than people think) is going to kill wikipedia. It is hard enough now to keep entries cleaned up with some going years before they are brought up to presentable standars (if at all). I have to agree with Dugwiki, wikipedia is open source and without some lever of control of what gets put into wikipedia then it will lose any semblance of organization or standardization. This is why Notability is a sperate guidline with its foundation in attribution and verifiability. Even WP:NOT makes notability judgements. Because something can be put on wikipedia doesn't mean it should. Of course what degree of notability wikipeida demands should be up to active debate but the idea of debating the existance of a notability guidline is self-destruvtive. End rant. NeoFreak 18:19, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
As I read it, the point is, if server size isn't an issue, then the notability guideline makes no sense.--ragesoss 18:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
The premise of the edwired.org post is that server size is isn't an issue but is the justification for the guildline. This is not the case as while server size isn't (a big) issue it isn't the reason we have a notability guidline either. NeoFreak 18:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
He says "The implication of this guideline for entries is that there is only so much space on the servers housing Wikipedia and so those precious megabytes (terrabytes?) shouldn’t be taken up with irrelevant entries." He thinks that reading the notability guideline implies that space is the issue (since there aren't any other convincing reasons for it), not that it is the actual reason or justification for it.--ragesoss 18:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Then either he or I didn't get the memo because I don't see space being used as the justification anywhere. Am I missing something? NeoFreak 18:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
He's reading more into it than what's literally there, but it's an easy jump to make for someone not immersed in Wikipedia culture.--ragesoss 19:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree. I was assuming that you were taking the same position, my mistake. I suppose that the reason for N to exist should be made more clear. NeoFreak 19:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I will say this much - in reading WP:N and the above it does look like we might want to add a sentence or two to WP:N to clarify that its rationale has nothing to do with physical server size but is instead to deal with other issues, including things such as reducing maintainence, making it easier for readers to navigate articles on broad subjects by removing likely irrelevant articles, and to make sure Wikipedia stays focused on the main goal of being an "encyclopedia". Different editors place differing emphasis and importance on each individual goal of WP:N, but most editors agree that some or all of those goals are important enough to warrant limiting articles to minimally notable subjects, and none of those goals have to do with server limitations. Dugwiki 19:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

DW - of the issues you list, the only one I think is relevant to WP:N is the focus on the main goal of being an encyclopedia. The others are just as much red herrings as the size concern. UnitedStatesian 20:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, like I said, different people will assign different importance to the factors I mentioned. Personally I don't consider keeping editorial tasks feasibly managable to be a "red herring", but that's just me. In fact, I'd say the vague notion of "staying true to being an encyclopedia" is the weak link since it's not clear either how to define the term "encyclopedia" nor clear what the actual, practical benefit of trying to define that term is for readers and editors. My philosophy is that it is better to focus on the practical, actual effects of the guideline in terms of how people use and edit Wikipedia rather than to focus on an aesthetic notion of "this is what I think an encylopedia should be". Dugwiki 16:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Physical server size has nothing to do with this. Deleted articles stay on the server anyway, they just have a bit flipped to say "Don't show this to anyone who's not an admin." That makes not one tiny bit of difference to server capacity. On the other hand, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Not a place for vanity autobiographies or an ad for Mom's House O'Waffles on Fifth Street in Sometown, not an indiscriminate collection of information, and not a directory. Notability is verifiability that an article is not one of those things. In order to say "Something is notable", I ask "Well, has it actually been noted, by someone who doesn't have a vested interest in doing so?" In that way, we keep out the crap. But notability (and deletion in general) makes no difference to server capacity. Deleted articles aren't "deleted" at all, as far as the server's concerned. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Aren't deleted articles that remain deleted for some period of time eventually purged? -- Black Falcon (Talk) 02:21, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
No, except in extraordinary circumstances (e.g., legal liability).--ragesoss 02:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
I think at one point there was a database crash, and some old deleted articles were lost. That wasn't intentional, though, just a glitch. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
SeraphimB - to your "we keep out the crap" point: I can't agree completely: we mostly do, but the job is much, much harder, and thus much less successful, in the areas covered by WP:BOOKS, WP:MUSIC, and WP:PORNBIO. UnitedStatesian 20:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
Everyone will have his own choices. Of the areas you mention, I personally think we keep out too many good books, both popular and serious, and too many good articles on classical musicians. The guidelines for popular music and pornbios seem very loose to me intuitively, but I see that still a great many articles in these areas do get rejected, often at speedy. So I think the mechanism does work, but the basic problem is where to draw the line in each case. I am more concerned about some other fields, such as web memes, or human sexuality, where we seem to have a problem aligning our internal sense of importance with our sense of what counts as sources.DGG 04:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I would add living scientists and other scholars as areas where too much gets thrown out on notability grounds.--ragesoss 04:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Alright-in counterpoint, I would point to music albums, biographies in general, and "places" (especially those millions of "Nowhereville has a population of 12. Its GPS coordinates are..."), and sports-team players as areas in which too little gets thrown out on notability. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh-and roads and mega-detail on works of fiction could use a good pruning, as well. Schools actually have seemed to come around, there seems to be a good balance on that anymore. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't see any problem with minor music album articles, though more merging to band pages would no doubt be a good thing. Same with roads: appropriate merging is all that's needed. With biographies, I don't think that not enough thrown out because of notability is an issue (too many, I would say), but not enough thrown out or drastically cut because of verifiability is. As for pruning fiction, yes, emphatically, but that's not a notability issue; it's mostly failure to follow the writing about fiction guideline.--ragesoss 05:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I would generally agree! "Failure to meet notability" doesn't necessarily mean "must be deleted and salted". Merging and redirection would, in many cases, very likely be the best option. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Notability of geographical articles

Are all small villages (or hamlets), rivers (or bodies of water), forests, islands (or islets) and hills notable? Wikipedia:Places of local interest was a failed proposal, but is making stubs on tiny villages acceptable? (I've made several referenced stubs on tiny villages). Is it good, even, fleshing out Wikipedia with missing encyclopedic articles and extending its breadth? Do geography articles just have to adhere to the same notability criteria as other articles? (article must be the primary subject of multiple non-trivial reliable published sources for notability)--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lost, Scotland highlights the surrounding debate.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
As for examples of geography articles I've created that I'd like the notability of to be assessed, we have Dinnet and Potarch (two real tiny hamlets in Scotland, both of which I've visited), the River Quoich and Oigh-Sgeir (the latter of which I haven't visited as it is an extremely inaccessible tiny rocky islet).-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 04:24, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I think there is a good practical reason for this: where would we possibly draw the line? Most such places will have some sort of source, from a local newspaper or guide book. This is one type of article where it makes sense to simply include them all, and skip the debates. The one you mention is an example: there was one undoubted RS, BBC, and another acceptable one, a fairly well known guidebook series. I do not think the same is true of named places that are not inhabited--I think that could be another matter, and I see that AfDs on some conclude as not notable. However, for your islet and your river there are sources, so I think they would be notable in any case. DGG 04:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
In answer to your question-in theory, no, they're not all notable, I don't imagine you could find sources for quite a few of these "census-designated places" and the like. In reality, you'll never nail one at AfD, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that we're not a directory, of "places" or anything else. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:04, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, I just created Tarfside, with bare-bones multiple reliable non-trivial sources. The article is about a tiny, tiny village, but it seems to pass the notability test. What do you think?-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 05:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that one looks alright, I can see a good potential for expansion from the source material there. Seraphimblade Talk to me 05:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Just created Pabay. The thing is that just by looking at maps, as I was just doing, and Googling the names of small places on them for sources, there are countless potentially valid encyclopedic and sourceable articles that do not exist yet. You, however, said that Wikipedia was not a directory. I honestly think that geographic notability is one of the least clear parts of the notability guideline as it stands.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 05:33, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Right, well I think I've found an example of a place that would be non-notable in Wikipedia. "Temple of Fiddes" is a census-designated place which I have passed many times, yet it does not actually appear to exist per se - the first Google hit takes you to a messageboard about the fact that there is a huge road sign for it and it doesn't appear to be anything more than one house.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 05:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Update. Longay, Garlogie and Blackburn, Aberdeenshire have all been created. About to create Monymusk.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Seraphimblade, what did you mean by "you'll never nail one at AfD"? Did you mean to use POV language to describe deletion? I think the larger point is that the community has wisely decided that deletion discussions for populated places are pointless. Any decision on what constitutes a "notable" place is arbitrary and subjective. For example, see two of my favorite cases: Willets Point, Queens and Nothing, Arizona. The first has only one resident, the second I think may be abandoned now, but I could not find RS for that. Dhaluza 15:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
It also varies between countries of the world, as well. For example, there are clear differences between what constitutes a 'place' in the United States and what constitutes one in the United Kingdom. Many other countries, especially in the third world, will have many less reliable sources on their smaller settlements.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 15:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Subjectivity

Continuing a conversation from Wikipedia talk:Notability/Proposed...

I don't think anyone can really argue that "notability" (the word in the dictionary sense) is not subjective. I suppose we could try (and have tried) to define "WP:Notability" as non-subjective, but I think the very lengthy debate here goes to show that this won't work. If WP:Notability were truly objective, then we wouldn't really need AfD - or AfD would simply be reduced to, "Please provide evidence of coverage in reliable sources" - and we wouldn't need the subject specific guidelines. We can discuss and hopefully agree on the best and most objective ways to try to measure notability/importance/interest, but I think it's counterproductive to insist that there is some simple objective test for notability. With all the smart people floating around here, I think we would have found the single magic formula if it existed.--Kubigula (talk) 06:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The word in the dictionary sense, yes, is subjective (which is why I dislike it, and advocate renaming it.) But in terms of actual subjectivity, I don't see it. I can say "First-degree murder is the deliberate killing of another person, with premeditation before the act." That's an objective definition. Now, sometimes there may be difficulty in determining whether a specific killing meets those criteria, i.e., whether the killing was deliberate and with premeditation, or whether the accused was in fact the killer. But that doesn't make the definition subjective, it simply indicates that even with objective criteria there will always be an edge case. I see the primary guideline the same way. Yes, it will have its edge cases, but especially if we can do a better job of defining triviality, there won't be many. I think we have found the magic formula here, I think, more than anything, it just needs to be more widely applied, renamed to something where the dictionary meaning doesn't clash so much with our definition, and made clear that it's really just a logical extension of verifiability, what we're not, and, of course, the fact that this is an encyclopedia. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:57, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with both of you here. "Notability" is subjective, whereas "has been the subject of multiple-non trivial published reliable sources" is objective, even if it creates the occasional borderline/unclear case, making for a potentially heated AfD debate.-h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 16:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Murder is fairly objective - one human intentionally kills another. First degree murder, as in the "worst" kind of murder, is a much more subjective concept. Different states and different countries have reached different conclusions about what constitutes the worst kind of murder - e.g. what degree of premeditation is required, whether some kind of brutality or heinousness should be an element, what age or mental capacity is required to form the requisite intent etc. So, you can draft a definition of "first degree murder" with obective elements, but you should recognize that where you draw the line is a subjective choice - say a 13 year old is capable of premeditated murder but a 12 year old is not. No matter what we call this guideline, there will always be tension in having objective tests for a subjective concept. I think the best solution is probably to avoid using labels and focus on having the best set of objective tests that we can. I will try to take another crack at the proposal to reflect some of the issues raised here.--Kubigula (talk) 19:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The Notability Guideline seems to trump Common Sense.

Over on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Norilana Books it's currently being argued by editors that the article does not pass notability requirements. This is despite two accepted experts in the field of science fiction publishing clearly stating that the publisher is notable.

Clearly such common sense indications of notability should not be overridden by arbitrary 'notability requirements'. --Barberio 16:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

See WP:IAR. This is a contentious area, though.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 18:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, Wikipedia:Consensus is a policy, whereas the notability documents are only guidelines. Consensus contrary to the notability guidelines may develop in individual cases. This is good. Sancho 18:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I argued to keep it, but only due to the fact that it appears sources are available. If "experts" genuinely do find something noteworthy, they'll write reliable sources, which we can then use for an article. Otherwise, that's just a roundabout form of WP:ILIKEIT. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

what's disputed?

After reading this page and /proposed, I'm at a loss for what the disputed tag is for. It should be easy for someone to come from the article to the talk page and know what's going on, and I'm at a major loss.

Could someone explain what parts are being disputed and what the dispute is about? Miss Mondegreen talk  16:25, May 12 2007

Mainly, it's over the requirement for multiple sources, over what constitutes a trivial source, and over what happens if something passes a subject-specific guideline but fails this one. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd nuance that further by saying that whether this guideline ever had wide consensus is a primary issue. Vocal protagonists for making multiple secondary sources an absolute requirement is a secondary issue that has been the subject of extended discussion in the archives, and repeated revisions in the edit history, even leading to blocks over edit warring. The relationship between the primacy of this overall notability guideline and the subject specific ones is a tertiary concern. But more generally, there is an overriding issue over how this guideline (and the subject specific ones) is used (or abused) at AfD, and the resulting embarrassment this guideline brings to the WP community, especially in press accounts of how the WP definition of Notability conflicts with the views of the outside community (e.g. when journalists write about how their WP bio articles were flagged as non notable). I wish I could attend Wikimania, because it would be interesting to hear what the larger community thinks first hand. Perhaps we will get some second hand accounts? Dhaluza 10:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Simplification

How about we simplify this all down to a one sentence guideline... "Items and content may be excluded from Wikipedia where an informed consensus can conclude that the content is not notable."

That's simple, does not introduce artificial loops to jump through, and is unarguably based on Wikipedia's principles. The sad fact is that the notability guidelines are now used as callipers and measuring tools to determine an artificial state of suposed 'Notability' rather than individual debate and discussion on if an article is notable. Introducing extra guidelines and measures has not reduced this activity, but increased it, and added to the bureaucratic mess Wikipedia is turning into.

By actively requiring people to form consensus debate on individual cases, rather than the TLA acronym rubber-stamping that occurs now, this would be a huge improvement over the mishmash of "notability requirements". --Barberio 19:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If you accept WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOT, then WP:N is neither artificial nor arbitrary. This guideline simply asks that sources be provided to show that an encyclopedia article is possible satisfying those 3 basic policies. Ironically, your proposal to establish consensus in each case in a vacuum, without a guiding principle, would result in arbitrariness. Pan Dan 19:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Absolutely agreed. "It's not notable if we decide it's not" is about the most arbitrary standard I could possibly think of. The guideline as it stands now bases it on something objective and verifiable (the amount of independent source material available). Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:47, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Except that there isn't really an objective standard for Notability, and trying to pretend there is just leads to subjectivity being presented as if there were objectivity.
It's much more within the spirit of Wikipedia if decision that are subjective should be made with consensus discussion, not by trying to put square pegs in round holes. --Barberio 19:58, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
(In response to Pan Dan, mainly) No, Notability goes considerably beyond the core policies. If it did not, then the guideline wouldn't exist, as all notability deletions could be justified based on the other policies. It's not particularly useful to call this "arbitrary" or "artificial", since all policies and guidelines that we create are in a literal sense artificial and are at least in some respects arbitrary. The question is, what is best for Wikipedia? I think Wikipedia would be better off if there was no Notability policy, and instead deletion discussions were based directly on the underlying polcies. Most users (based on the March straw poll) at least want substantive change to this guideline that hasn't happened yet. There are compelling reasons to want to keep the bar for inclusion high (even if I disagree with them), but let's not pretend that Notability is simply based on WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT (and, I would add, WP:NOR); it goes considerably beyond those policies.--ragesoss 20:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the assessment above. I started the the March straw poll in the hopes of reaching a workable compromise, but the hard liners have refused to yield, and although I have kept this on my watchlist, I still see no hope of a workable consensus on Notability. There never was consensus on this guideline, and I don't see any way there will be. Furthermore, the application of Notability continues to be a source of embarrassment for the WP community from the community at large, and the sooner we move on, the better. Dhaluza 00:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I think the application of the arbitrary subject-specific guidelines, not this one, is a source of embarrasment. Witness "Has gone on an international concert tour, or a national concert tour in at least one large or medium-sized country" (from WP:MUSIC) which has been specifically singled out for ridicule in the media (I think it was in the New Yorker article, the one that quoted Essjay). WP:N's definition of notability, by contrast, is anchored to the basic requirement of sourcing, and should not be ridiculed. In reponse to Ragesoss's reasoning that "Notability goes considerably beyond the core policies [, otherwise] the guideline wouldn't exist, as all notability deletions could be justified based on the other policies": As I see it, WP:N gives a shorthand way of asking "Is there enough source material to write an encyclopedia article that satisfies WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT?" I.e., all WP:N adds to the core policies is the demand to have enough sources to write an encyclopedia article, as opposed to a stub. Pan Dan 10:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
The recurring requirement for two sources for all is just as arbitrary. Why not one or three or some other number? The real problem is that people use this guideline (along with the subject specific ones) to cloak WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments in an air of legitimacy at AfD, pretending that Notability is completely objective and not subjective at all. And this inevitably leads to embarrassing episodes making the WP community look ridiculous to the community at large. Dhaluza 17:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
On your first point, at least two sources are required to ensure reliability and a neutral POV. Why two and not three? To use a cheesy analogy, two non-parallel lines (in the same plane) determine a point. (Line=reliable source, non-parallel=independent of each other, point=NPOV article; I know it's stupid but I just had to share that with you.) To address your second point, if you observe editors who are abusing this guideline, then call them out on it. That's no reason to get rid of the guideline. Personally, I haven't observed much of that at all. The great thing about WP:N is that it forces AFD participants to talk about the available sources instead of their own personal conceptions of what's notable. Pan Dan 10:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Discussions on notability, rather than concentrating on the merits of the article, instead squabble over how many 'independent reliable sources' for notability can be found, and what counts as 'independent reliable source'. An expert in the field can make public comments about a subject, but that doesn't count since they didn't make them in a newspaper. Trade press isn't an 'independent' source because they're too close to the subject. Fanzines and semi-pro publications aren't 'reliable' since they aren't professional publications. That 'award' had it's article deleted from Wikipedia, so it's not a source of notability. Google hits using the article title doesn't bring anything relevant up in the first page, so it can't be notable... And while we hope that AfD closeure won't take into account these kind of arguments, past history on AfD says otherwise. Look at the drama over the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards et al. All these things are the product of the guideline as it stands. It needs to be corrected to stop this kind of thing. --Barberio 11:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Revised proposal

Please take a look at the revised proposal, which attempts to address some of the points raised above. I have shortened the lead (per the "waffling" concerns) and redrafted to avoid overt references to subjectivity or objectivity.--Kubigula (talk) 21:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I like it. Although you removed the "Notability is inherently subjective" line, you did leave the part about it being possible for consensus to determine that a topic is notable although it does not pass the listed tests, which is the important aspect in practice (this would be the case whether it was written in this guideline or not, but it is nice to make it clear that the tests that are outlined in the proposal do not create a magic sift that we can use to exclude/include topics as notable/non-notable). One question that this brings up... do we also want to make it clear that even though a subject passes the tests of notability listed in the eventual guideline/policy, consensus at an AfD can still require that the article be deleted? Sancho 21:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh wait... that is clear... I just read the last line in the proposal again. So, disregard... I still like it. Sancho 21:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to see a clear statement that notability guidelines are not meant to be used as a rubber stamp on AfDs, maybe along the lines of - "While the notability of an article may be discussed during an AfD discussion, notability guidelines should not be used as a mandatory requirement. Notability requirements should be considered the loose starting point for discussion." - and hopefully that will stop notability being used as a brickbat. --Barberio 22:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I like the bit about purely local/transient stuff (though that's mainly covered in NOT anyway), but it doesn't seem we should be including anything that doesn't have a significant amount of secondary source material. Notability aside, such articles would inherently violate core policies. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd like to note that primary sources are still, and always have been, accepted as citable sources. An article may well be citable from primary sources with little or no secondary sources. There is no requirement to only use secondary sources. --Barberio 22:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
From WP:V: "If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." That requirement absolutely exists. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
That's a mistaken interpretation of what 'Third Party' means. In a document 'First Party' means the origin of the document, 'Second party' means the reader of the document, 'Third Party' means anyone else. So this is just saying that there should be sources from someone other than Wikipedia itself or the person editing the article. --Barberio 00:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
You're welcome to ask about that at VPP, but I don't believe you'll find it's my interpretation that's incorrect. Every time I've seen someone referring to a "third-party source" around here, it's shorthand for "written by someone independent of the article's subject." I don't think I could find one time it's been used the way you state. Seraphimblade Talk to me 00:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
It may well be a common misconception on what WP:V means, but reading it as plain English doesn't support that. 'Third Party' has always meant 'Not you or me, but someone else', and if the intent of WP:V was to say Secondary Sources Only, it'd say so in clear language. --Barberio 01:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
If an article violates a core policy, then it can be challenged on that ground rather than because of notability. The general presumption references "sources", and the note clearly says that multiple sources are prefered - though, to address Jeff's point below, it does address a situation where multiple sources may not exist. As I think about it more, I think we should say that, "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received sufficient coverage..." (emphasis added for this discussion only). I think this adjective would convey some of the nuance we have been discussing regarding the depth of coverage that may be appropriate for a given topic and draw more attention to the explanatory footnote.--Kubigula (talk) 03:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
This would be more useful. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
As long as the "sources" footnote is made clear that there may be exceptional circumstances where a single source can establish notability, I'll okay with this. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be suitable to add in an additional obvious identification of notability... If it would be reasonable for a moderate number of other wikipedia articles to link to this article, then the article gains 'second hand' notability as an associated subject matter. ie, if a number of notable authors with articles have published books with a publisher, then an article is obviously warranted on that publisher. --Barberio 22:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

This kind of derivative notability is present in some of the subject specific guidelines, and I personally think it is better individually addressed in those guidelines.--Kubigula (talk) 03:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't think I've ever seen it allowed for in AfD discussion tho, where the 'requirement' for secondary sources is the primacy. It needs explicit mention in the main guideline, or it's likely to continue being ignored. --Barberio 10:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Related to this, I've just seen someone argue in an AfD that book reviews and news about a publisher's upcoming book releases doesn't 'count' towards it's notability as those references are to the books not the publisher. So it seems like some people make these decisions based on a 'the subject exists in a strictly isolated vacuum' and can receive no second-hand notability. --Barberio 10:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Correct. Now, of course, sometimes a source will cover more than one thing-for example, let's say a source went into great detail on a book and its publisher. In that case, it could certainly properly be used as a source on both. But if it only goes into detail on the book, and simply name-drops the publisher, it's a good source on the book and a trivial source on the publisher. Notability requires sourcing on the subject, not on things related to the subject. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:11, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Your argument is mistaken in it's assumption that the book only has a trivial connection to the publisher. A publisher is in the business of publishing books, the act of publishing a book is a fundamental business action of the publisher, so it inherits the notability of the books it publishes.
For example, say a newspaper article mentions that an oil company has built several new oil platforms, is this a demonstration of the notability of the oil platforms alone? Of course not, building oil platforms is a fundamental function of an oil company, and the article is about the function of the oil company not the oil platforms existing in a vacuum. It's exactly the same for publishers, games developers, production companies et al. --Barberio 19:56, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Correction - the requirement for sources has nothing to do with notability, but verifiability. This was allowed to be confused here without consensus, but don't continue to confuse it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 21:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Correction - Sourcing was not confused with notability, it has been conflated with it to try to make a subjective judgment seem purely objective. Dhaluza 10:25, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
True, even more accurate. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Renaming

Since the Wikipedia:Article inclusion rewrite seems to have died, can we rename this guideline "Article inclusion"? That seemed to be the one thing that we had close to consensus about, that the term "notability" was part of the problem.--ragesoss 20:33, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

As much as I hate how it died out, it may not be a bad move, but not until we fix the problems with the wording here first. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:36, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not convinced we'll ever fix all the problems with the wording. This is the English Wikipedia, not lojban. As such I'd rather move sooner, recommence unending rut later. Nifboy 23:30, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, the rut has been going for nearly 3 months now, an eternity in Wikitime. I'm not sure what it's going to take at this point. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:34, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
A page move? (Hope springs eternal) Nifboy 23:42, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
ell, I was hoping my bold edit from a couple weeks ago would do it, but that didn't nail it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:49, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Bias toward Internet sources

I've only participated in a few AFD discussions concerning notability, but I have noticed a definite bias toward Internet sources. There are a number of topics that are notable but don't have a large number of easily accessed web sites devoted to them: newspaper articles aren't always available online, academic journals require special searches, etc. I have seen at least one Wikipedian using Google hits as an indicator of notability. While I understand that topics that are easier to research on the Internet are going to be better sourced and receive more attention, it still seems problematic. Web presence is a sufficient but not necessary condition of notability; there are undoubtedly a number of subjects that fulfill all the prerequisites for notability but don't happen to be readily available on cursory web searches. Indeed, it seems like it would be important to include these article topics because information isn't immediately available about them on Google or Yahoo. Has this bias been discussed? Is there anything that can be done about it? Jordansc 01:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It is certainly still required for editors to provide reliable sources for the article's content even if the sources are not internet sources. If it seems that no sources are forthcoming/available, then AfD discussions should use this as a basis for an argument for deletion. However, there is no requirement to have a certain number of sources that are available online, so no AfD discussion should have an argument like, "None of the provided sources are available online". The Google test is a good positive test for potential notability, but not a negative test. If an topic turns up few Google hits, then it's probably just harder to find the sources that are required to keep the article, but they are still needed. I think the only bias that is caused by the difficulty of finding sources for topics that don't have numerous online sources is due to our lazyness :-) If a topic is difficult to source, people will be less likely to create an article on it (at least I would be). If there are many articles that are being left out because of this, perhaps there should be a Wikiproject dedicated to the creation/maintenance of good articles that lack online sources.Sancho 01:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Interesting perception, because my experience has been toward the opposite direction - if it's not printed on a dead tree in some form, it's less likely to be taken seriously. Yes, the New York Times is online now, but when it comes to Old Media and New Media, the New Media tends to get screwed. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
My interpretation is that serious scholarship prefers physically published sources. Accordingly, if the only sources are internet sources, then the scholarship is more likely to be weak, and the reliablility and independance of the sources is (appropriately) more likely to be challenged. This is why articles with printed sources are less likely to be seen at AfD. --SmokeyJoe 02:55, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Granted, if someone cites print sources the article is less likely to be in AfD, but that does not always happen. Most people (myself included) don't take the time to go out and find sources outside of Internet venues. I've noticed several AFD discussions in which an absence of online sources is considered an indicator of an absence of offline sources. Obviously we shouldn't just give articles the benefit of the doubt - someone needs to actually produce citations print or web-based - but I could see this skewing Wikipedia. Internet phenomena, for example, are easier to source online while some notable academic subjects might not be. All your base are belong to us has a lengthy entry but, say, Chela Sandoval does not. The ease with which Internet-centered topics are sourced and the relative difficulty of doing more traditional research means that Wikipedia tends to leans toward popular, recent, national or international and Internet-based phenomena while leaning away from specialist, older, local or regional and print-based subjects. I could also see this contributing to systemic bias because of Internet access issues. Jordansc 03:09, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Absence of internet sources is not an indicator of absence of notability. Absence of internet sources for recent pop culture items (movies, books, films, comics, tvseries, and everyone involved with them) is on the other hand a good indicator of absence of notability (always keeping in mind the language barriers: a Thai movie may have no sources on its English title, but lots on its original title). However, the contrary is not true: a large number of internet sources (or at least Google hits) is not as such an indicator of notability. These hits may contain reliable independent sources, but may also consist of fluff posts, forum and blog entries, ads, or completely unrelated hits. A suggested deletion because of "absence of sources" often means that the article gives no sources, and a Google search gives no sources either. For most articles at AfD, this is sufficient (as most are about recent pop culture anyway), but for foreign, older or more esoteric subjects, this may well be insufficient. That's why we have the five day window, so people may produce other sources: and that's why we have undeletion or recreation if people produce these sources only later. A deletion is not the end of the world, it is just an indicator that as far as the Wikipedia editors can currently judge, there are no (or not sufficient) reliable sources for a subject to warrant its inclusion at the moment. No more, no less. Fram 09:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
The five day window only applies to AfD. Lots of articles are proded and deleted without going through the full process. The five-day window is way too short for producing offline sources anyway. First there is the lead time in even noticing that something is up for AfD, then you need time to assess and research the topic. I think the proper way to address lack of sourcing is to tag the article, and wait at least 30 days. This gives sufficient notice to unsuspecting readers that the content may not be reliable, and gives editors time to see the problem and address it. Dhaluza 10:22, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
ProD is a different problem, and easier for the contesting editor: if you contest a prod, just by sayng that there are sources available, the ProD is undone and the article is either kept or should go to AfD, where a new five-day period starts. As for the time needed to find sources and the time that should be given to articles / editors to expand: that is a perennial problem, with no easy solution. Some people think the current process is too long as it is, others think it should be a lot slower, consensus seems to be that it is quite right as it is. My experience (which may be biased and is certainly incomplete) is that most articles which get a "sources" tag either get improved very quickly (two days or so), or not at all. Similarly with AfD; the articles which don't get sources during the AfD, very rarely get sources soon thereafter (in a DRV or a recreation). And we have the problem already that way too many of our articles currently are unsourced: keeping more unsourced articles (or at least keeping them longer before considering deletion) will not help in making this a better encyclopedia in most cases. Fram 11:19, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
To see one side of this in action—an editor believing that lack of internet sources and thus access of users to the sources was a fatal problem—take a look at this afd debate and the talk page of the article debated.--Fuhghettaboutit 12:39, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I hope I was quite clear in my above responses that to AfD (or even to tag) such an article (with almost more references than text) is of course absolutely wrong (at least to AfD it beacsue it is unsourced: an article may have lots of references and still be deletable, but that's not what we are discussing here). I notice that it obviously resulted in a straight keep as well, so no problem here: individual editors may incorrectly intrepret our policies and guidelines and bring articles to AfD without a good reason, but the process as such worked quite well. To stop such AfD's from happening is quite impossible, I think. Fram 13:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh I agree with you. As you can see from that debate, I corrected the user on this very basis, that his argument was not reflected in policy and didn't make sense. I was simply showing an example of what Jordansc may be seeing that formed the basis for the start of this thread.--Fuhghettaboutit 13:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
No, prod is a serious problem when it is misused (or abused). The article is gone in a flash if nobody notices. And there is no AfD archive to see why. While creating content (yes, there are editors who actually contribute to the encyclopedia, not just policy and guideline talk pages), I make lots of red wikilinks in the blind. I can't tell you how many times, when following these links, I found an article that I could have used was deleted, sometimes recently, while a search turned up no AfD discussion. I assume these were proded into oblivion. Some may say this is no big deal, just create a new article with references. But when you are creating properly wiki-linked content, you often generate links faster than you can fill them out, and it's nice to have a stub to hang your hat on. And when you do create a stub, some sharp shooter is waiting to "nail it" even before you can catch your breath. And frankly, I am put off from creating a new article when the old one has been deleted--that's just asking for agita I don't need. So this is all very disconcerting to editors who actually contribute material. Frankly, we have too many editors who are self-appointed gate keepers who may in good faith think they are doing good work, but are really hurting the project in the long run. Dhaluza 00:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
As I described it in an AfD for a newly-created article, it's Wikipedia:New pages patrol, not Wikipedia:Pages created a few days ago patrol or even Wikipedia:All we are saying is give pages a chance patrol. Nifboy 02:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Dhaluza, I agree that PRODs are the biggest problem area regarding deletion. I'm not sure that excessive deletion is hurting the project in the long run, however. I see it more as a short run problem (making Wikipedia less useful), but with the long term effect of creating a community culture where sourcing everything is seen as non-negotiable (which is where we should be headed, gradually, even though we don't want to arbitrarily delete all unsourced info at this point). In any case, I don't see notability as helpful, and though most prods deleted because of notability concerns could probably be deleted for lack of verifiability as well.--ragesoss 00:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Excessive deletion is a WP:BITE problem, and that does hurt the project. I've seen too many cases of this. Someone makes a contribution, maybe good, maybe not so good, but rather than improve it, someone decides it should be deleted. Guess who gets discouraged and gives up? Dhaluza 02:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that deletion via this guideline often pushes away new users. I think Soft deletion would be a good move for many PRODs and other notability deletions.--ragesoss 02:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Dhaluza and others, could you give some examples of these articles that were deleted and that you could have used? It is a bit hard to agree or disagree with assertions that ProD is a big problem when you don't have concrete examples to judge. Anyway, any editor can do ProD patrol to remove ProD's you feel are incorrect (but please do give at least a short argument on the talk page or the edit sumarry if you do so), and usually the admins closin ProD's judge them again and do not delete those they feel are disputable or simply to good to delete. Errors will be made, but I haven't noticed this being such a big problem, only an occasional one. Fram 08:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't exactly keep a log of these things, this is just a perception I have developed over time as a result of experience. The only recent example I can recall is after creating Accident investigation I found Ultralight accident investigation in a search, but the article has recently vanished without a trace. Possibly it was total crap, but possibly it had content that could have been merged into a parent article. I have no way of knowing. Dhaluza 09:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Prescriptive deletion?

Radiant, is the disputedtag in there because of the issue that may be resolved, or something else at this point? If it's not something else, can we remove it? --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I put it there because my removal of the prescriptive language was reverted, but that seems to be resolved now. So yeah, feel free to remove it. I don't really like the wording of the third paragraph (AFD is not to "challenge a topic's notability", which implies "hey it's notable but let's delete it anyway). >Radiant< 14:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Regarding whether or not to use the "notability" tag on an article versus placing it on afd, I would say that the main question is whether or not it appears that the article is likely to be able to potentially meet the notability requirements. Basically, if I find an article that doesn't provide adequate sources to demonstrate notability but that I think might be able to do so given time, I'll tag the article with the notability tag as a flag to the people writing the article that they need some sources. On the other hand, if I find an article that doesn't demonstrate notability and that I doubt will ever be able to do so based on what it says and some checking around, I'll skip the wait and send it straight to afd. If I'm relatively confident something should be deleted, why wait? Send it up and prune it out. Dugwiki 15:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
It's advised to wait anyway, because people actively editing the page may know of suitable sources that your check did not find. There is no inherent reason to rush towards deleting an article, this is not speedy deletions. --Barberio 15:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Sure there is. By nominating articles that I'm confident won't produce adequate sources even if I give them extra time I reduce the amount of editorial time back and forth spent monitoring and responding to changes in an article that will likely be ultimately deleted. So while I'm willing to wait if I think there's a reasonable chance for an article to pass notability muster, I'm not going to waste that time on articles that don't. Dugwiki 15:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Except you're not really eliminating that editorial time, you're just moving it to AfD. --Barberio 15:41, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I'm eliminating the time spent back and forth before it actually eventually gets to AFD. I'm skipping the back and forth portion and going straight to the AFD portion. Since most such articles end up getting deleted it is more efficient to skip the wait prior to an AFD nomination in these cases. Dugwiki 15:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a reminder that the above discussion is about the proposed new guideline at Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed not the current guideline, which is still in a disputed state until it's replaced with the new version. --Barberio 15:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The language at /Proposed was moved in last night. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
But above discussions have pointed out that there are still problems with it, and editing has continued on Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed. Specificaly the replacement language on handling articles that do not demonstrate notability was incomplete last night, and did not fully replace the disputed text. --Barberio 15:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Hm. Maybe those discussions can continue here, so we're not dealing with dueling versions if it's one small section? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:01, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Looking over this, at some point where people were reverting if the policy was still disputed or not, we moved the disputed section tag to the section we've settled instead of the section we're still working on. --Barberio 16:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The new version is a big improvement. (both on the original, and the proposal version) I think we can call this one closed. --Barberio 16:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. Wanted to put a historical tag on Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed since it's now defunct, but for some reason it's had a protection request. --Barberio 16:31, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I just requested that the subpage be unprotected so it could have its historical tag. --MalcolmGin Talk / Conts 18:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Disputed tag

I restored the disputed tag to the article. I know people feel strongly that it should not be there (and it's ugly), but others feel it should, and that's prima facia evidence of the dispute. Clearly the content has been in dispute for the last few months since the block was applied, and the straw polls revealed widespread disagreement, far from the consensus needed for a guideline. My extensive review of the edit history showed no period of time when this supposed guideline ever achieved a stable consensus. If someone can point to a past version where consensus was stable, and we can revise this version to reflect that consensus, I will remove the tag. Dhaluza 23:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

The existing version seems to have the broadest support in some time. However, many participants in prior discussions have not contributed recently or expressed agreement. The disputed tag seems fair until broader support is gained for the more recent compromises. --Kevin Murray 00:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I think once we get down to exactly what the wording will be, we'll be able to remove the tag. In the current state, though, I support it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 00:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Nonetheless, having three conflicting tags is confusing at best. The second and third tag are both casting doubt on the first tag and leaves a sense of overkill on the page. Yes, there is a very active discussion here, but might I suggest dropping the "underdiscussion" tag in favour of the "disputedpolicy", so that the page reads firstly as a guideline and secondly as disputed? --The Missing Hour 10:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Done. Dhaluza 10:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • That's the same false premise as always. We delete many articles daily because they lack notability. Some people don't like that and think it would stop if they changed the tag on this page, but that's wrong. The guideline is not the cause of those deletions, but the result of those deletions. >Radiant< 11:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Radiant, can you please read the above discussions, and notably the archived poll on the state of the guideline. The sections on assessing notability have been comprehensively disputed, and no longer had consensus support. The guideline has had these sections marked as disputed for some time now, and it's just that the dispute warning has been moved to the top of the article. --Barberio 11:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • A dispute over the wording of a section does not imply a dispute over the page as a whole. Also, guidelines are not, and have never been, prescriptions based on majority vote, but rather are descriptions of actual practice. >Radiant< 11:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
You keep saying that all Wikipedia policy are 'descriptive not prescriptive'. But that's simply not true in any meaningful way. Wikipedia guidelines are consensus generated, but that does not equate to being solely descriptive. The consensus can decide that the way thing are currently being done is inappropriate, and change guidelines and policy to correct that. For example 3RR, the establishment of Mediation, Prod, external link guidelines and so on have all been consensus generate prescriptive solutions to problems that arose.
The notability guidelines are one such example of a prescriptive guideline, and you can look at AfD for examples of it being used that way. The large body of opinion expressed on this talk page has been that people have been applying the notability guidelines inappropriately, and the guidelines themselves needed to be altered. This is being done on the proposal page, but until then the current guideline needs to be marked as disputed as it is not supported by consensus. --Barberio 11:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • While I tend to agree with Radiant in theory, we are getting very close to a consensus and would hate to see us get back into a battle over tags. While I agree with the current evolution, we have not heard from several strong participants who advocated the older version (e.g., "multiple non-trivial") and expect that there are at least latent objections to the current format. --Kevin Murray 11:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • There is a long-standing dispute over the wording which is being resolved and indeed getting very close to a consensus. This consensus-building is being disrupted by people who object to the entire guideline on bureaucratic grounds. The disputedtag on top is a recent addition by those people, and is irrelevant to the actual dispute, and counterproductive to its resolution. >Radiant< 11:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • My opinion is that there are two distinct issues. One is technical, concerning wording, definitions, expression, etc, and as you say, it is being resolved. The other is whether wikipedia should have a notability guideline, or not (perhaps existing policies (WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT) suffice). My attempt to poll on this second issue met with a remarkable lack of committed responses. I interpret this as meaning that people would like to see the first issue resolved first. I think most people support the existence of the guideline, but they didn’t want to imply support for a particular version. --SmokeyJoe 23:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Taking the plunge

I have read the March straw poll and the long-running discussions on this page. I believe there is a general consensus to have a notability guideline. However, there is obviously a wide range of opinion on what that guideline should be, with fairly entrenched positions on both extremes. The draft at Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed seems to contain the essential elements that most of us agree on, though some would prefer to see it weakened or strengthened. It may not be the final solution, but I think it's a step in the right direction. So, I am going to be bold and edit in the proposal; may Jimbo have mercy on my soul.--Kubigula (talk) 02:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is a worthwhile step forward.--ragesoss 02:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
You have my full support. And good job on it, by the way. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I support this for the most part, but the lead paragraphs are overly complex and verbose and the standard seems a bit week without some viable replacement for the non-trivial concept -- I suggest that we maintain the word "significant" from the prior version. --Kevin Murray 03:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Kubigula has my support. The wording “A topic is presumed to be notable if” satisfies my earlier objections related to “sufficiently”. RE: subjectivity. I fail to understand why this question was ever important. It seems irrelevant. The guideline says what it says, subjectively or not. In trying understand, I came to suspect that those holding opposing views were working with different definitions. I strongly support the removal of the subjectivity section. --SmokeyJoe 04:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks good to me. Fram 08:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks like a major step forward. Let's hope this is a breakthrough.Dhaluza 09:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagreed with the line - "Independent" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject" - as that can be read as any kind of remote affiliation. For example, a magazine that once ran a competition to win prizes from the company, or a newspaper that contains advertising for the company. I've altered it to - "Independent" excludes works produced by those closely affiliated with the subject". --Barberio 09:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I've also edited the end section, as it was currently recommending taking any suspicions about notability directly to AfD. Rather than increase the amount of spurious AfD submissions which are resolved by someone finding sources, I've edited it to recommend using the {{notability}} template and discussion on the talk page first. --Barberio 09:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it kinda works. I did alter the definition of "significant" so that it actually means something, and edited one part of this line-"- The above presumption of notability indicates that a particular topic is likely to be worthy of notice and inclusion in the encyclopedia as a separate article. Content that does not have multiple independent sources is often appropriate for inclusion in or merger with another article, or may stand as a separate article if Wikipedia editors reach a consensus that the subject is notable based on the particular circumstances of the subject." The final part of that sentence contradicts WP:V ("If an article topic has no reliable, third-party sources, Wikipedia should not have an article on it."), and consensus can't override core policies. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Second time mentioning this, but "Third-party sources" does not mean the same thing as "Independent secondary sources". "Third-party" means, not me or you but someone else, and primary sources may be used as third-party sources. If WP:V intends to require "Independent secondary sources" it would say so, and it directly contradicts your reading by saying "Material from self-published sources and sources of questionable reliability may be used in articles about themselves...". So there is no contradiction with WP:V in allowing articles sourced from primary sources alone if consensus agrees. --Barberio 11:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Just a note that it is important that we recommend using the {{notability}} tag and talk page discusion 'before any AfD nomination. So I've restored the wording that put the deletion process at the end of the line not an alternative to talk page discussion. --Barberio 11:34, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

And we have our first wide-scale dissent

Centrx seems to object wholesale. I haven't seen him chime in at all during the proceedings, except in February, so I'm not sure where the objection lies, but I'll start the talk page discussion since he hasn't. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

The rewrite is a bad idea

I strongly object to the rewrite. It is being used to push the agenda that the notability of an article needs to be discussed on its talk page before it can be nominated for deletion. This is a precription contrary to common practice, and therefore m:instruction creep. >Radiant< 11:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you actively support that all notability disputes should be taken directly to AfD? Regardless of if it's common practice, it's not good practice, and clogs up AfD with spurious nominations that could have been settled on the talk page. --Barberio 11:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
All of them? Obviously not. But forbidding any of them from being taken there is needless bureaucracy, and will clog up AFD with spurious arguments about process not being followed, rather than productive arguments over article content. >Radiant< 11:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Where is the rush that people can't post on the talk page of an article, wait a week, and then promote it to AfD if not resolved? You don't seem to be providing any cohesive argument for recommending people to take notability disputes directly to AfD. --Barberio 11:42, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
You have it backwards. You seek to instate a new rule (i.e. that articles cannot be nominated for deletion until their notability has been discussed on the talk page). Wikipedia defaults to having as few rules as possible (WP:IAR, WP:BURO, WP:BOLD). You therefore need to demonstrate (1) that there is an actual problem here, as opposed to a hypothetical one; (2) that this new rule solves or alleviates said problem; and (3) that the rule has no undesirable side effects. You have done none of the three. Furthermore, it is inappropriate to "sneak in" new rules as part of a rewrite of an existing page. >Radiant< 11:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Here's your shrubbery...
  1. AfD regularly has nominations based on notability where sources are found to support notability, or such sources already existed in the article. These could have been settled on the article's talk page, rather than adding to AfD's backlog.
  2. Advising disputants to use the warning template, and discuss on the talk page first would reduce the number of AfD nominations, and increase the number settled on the talk page.
  3. The only potential side effect is protests where an AfD nomination was made without talk page discussion. Since AfD is not a vote they would not have any effect on the outcome, as the nomination would be decided on the merits.
Now, I hope you don't expect me to chop any trees down with a haddock? --Barberio 11:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
(1) evidence please? Note that AFD also regularly has nominations based on notability where no sources are found. I posit that this is more common. (2) untrue, as evidenced by our many backlogged processes, sticking a tag on a page does not attract editors or cause any debate to happen. (3) the obvious side effect is added bureaucracy, greater scope for wikilawyering, and an increase of arguments-to-process on AFD, rather than arguments about content. >Radiant< 12:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with the theory that guidelines should reflect that which has evolved through practice, all that is practiced is not on track with positive evolution. If evolution was smooth and consistent progress there would be no need for writing guidelines. However, it would be impractical to tag every piece of spam and vanity-bio with a notability tag. I would say that in all cases other than speedy deletion it is appropriate to : (1) inform the primary authors, (2) tag the article, and (3) consider whether "experts" should be attracted to the discussion. --Kevin Murray 11:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Point 3 is the part where discussion on the talk page is going to need to take place. And we shouldn't be trying to re-write the speedy deletion CSDs in this guideline, so we don't need to concern ourselves with spam and vanity-bios that would be speedy deleted. --Barberio 12:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • (to Kevin) Yep, and even your "step one" is a perennial proposal that is perennially rejected. Can we agree to keep the rewrite to an actual rewrite and refrain from adding prescriptive rules to it? >Radiant< 12:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • R, step one is included in other guidelines such as BIO. If it is not appropriate then we should be consistent. I though that it was included here before, but I may be wrong. I woudl support it but not insist. --Kevin Murray 12:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, I suspect you are misreading this as the guideline requiring mandatory talk page discussion, instead of advising to do so. None of the language used actualy does that, and this is a guideline not policy. It advises that discussing on the talk page may settle the issue before having to take it to AfD. It is not a prescriptive requirement. --Barberio 12:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It being 'Common practice' is no reason to advise it to continue. Edit warring is common practice too, should we remove prescriptions against edit warring? Additionally, this is not a new proposal, but an adjustment of the current guideline to slow down escalation, and I still do not understand your opposition to it. --Barberio 12:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I tend to agree w/Barberio, here. I don't see anything reading this that makes any sort of requirement, even if some people would like to see basic practice change. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

This discussion seems to reflect the discussion at Help:Modifying and Creating policy where some people are defending that guidelines and policies should be developed in a prescribed manner and others are suggesting that abandoning the structure and degrading that established guideline (dangerous in my mind). --Kevin Murray 12:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Whoa, this is a tempest in a teapot! I've slightly changed the wording on the {{notability}} to make it a suggestion only. I hope this is a reasonable compromise that diffuses this. We don't need to reject the whole thing over a simple change in emphasis. Dhaluza 12:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Indeed, but the edit summaries made it clear that the prescription was in fact the goal of the rewrite. >Radiant< 13:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • No, not really. The goal of the rewrite was to finally fix this four month old plus dispute. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
      • To most people it is, and that is good. That is precisely why I object to this resolution being abused by a lone editor trying to add a new rule through the back door. >Radiant< 13:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Who is the lone editor here? I think that there was tremendous support for this change discussed here before implementation, with lots of input on the draft. --Kevin Murray 13:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
          • The new draft has "tremendous support", the suggestion to mandate talk page discussion before using AFD does not. >Radiant< 13:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
            • This already existed, and arguably in a stricter form, in the current guideline. It is not a 'new' proposal, but restoring a good part of the current guideline in the new version. Maybe you should read the guideline? --Barberio 13:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that the change to requiring notification to the authors should only be made with consensus, but I think hat it should be made. This is just good manners to let someone know that their work is being judged as incomplete or unworthy. --Kevin Murray 12:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

  • That should be discussed on a new page since it is broader in scope than the notability guidelines. It is also, however, a perennial suggestion that is perennially rejected. >Radiant< 13:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
    • We don't need to "notify" someone that we're editing their work around here. You just do it. We need to get away from the idea that deletion and other forms of cutting are anything but natural, healthy parts of the editing process. After all, we're called editors! And part of the job of an editor is to cut. So, let's either be consistent-you need to notify the "author" of an article before editing it at all, or you don't. Guess which one of those I'm in favor of? Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
      • WP:BOLD covers this: "Be BOLD! … but don't be reckless." And frankly submitting someone's good faith contributions for deletion without at least soliciting their input is at least bordering on reckless. They may know something you don't. The AfD process has a lot of overhead, and is not easily reversible like simple editing, so your statement that we either notify for all or none is a straw man. It should be common sense to notify the author (or authors) first to give them an opportunity to improve the article (I hope we all agree that articles that can be improved should be improved, and not deleted). However I do agree with Radiant to a point (although I think he has pushed it further than it should be) that notification should not be prescriptive, but merely suggestive in this guideline. Dhaluza 23:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Renaming, again

In the new incarnation, renaming is even more pressing of an issue. There is very little context, especially near the beginning, for why "notability" matters (i.e., no mention of the fact that notability means include-ability). For the sake of jargon reduction, I think this guideline should be titled "Article inclusion", and further rewritten accordingly (without substantive change to the gist). Above, Kevin Murray expressed concerns about a two word title; I think clarity and plain language are more important considerations. However, if a one-word title is necessary, "Encyclopedicity" would be an improvement over "Notability".--ragesoss 16:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that a two word title is a problem, really. It doesn't hurt "Reliable sources," and "Criteria for speedy deletion" is never a problem. The article inclusion proposal is, unfortunately, dead in the water at the moment, so I think that's the best name for it at this point. I support a rename. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't have a big objection to two words and less objection than to a made-up word like Encyclopedicity. "Article inclusion" or "Encyclopedic suitability" could be good alternatives, though unwieldy. --Kevin Murray 17:03, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Article Inclusion gets my vote. Altho it'll mean editing/renaming various templates as well. --Barberio 17:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Which templates would be affected? Generally curious. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure that "article inclusion" in an appropriate title, since other policies and guidelines deal with that subject as well, both directly and indirectly. However, I also feel the "need" to rename this policy is grossly overstated, particular on the basis of "jargon". The current name is quite sufficient and in-line with the standard primary definition of the word. This is even noted at the beginning of the page ("worthy of notice"). I'm also unsure of how 'include-ability" isn't mentioned, given that the first and last sentence of the lede underscore that it is the measuring stick for the inclusion of a given topic. Just my two cents. Vassyana 18:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that V makes some good points. Regardless, I think that it is time to shit or get off the pot with the renaming issue. Let's do it or move on. It seems that while the hive is swarming we might as well take all the stings at the same time. --Kevin Murray 00:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless you think that renaming is important to achieve consensus, I would suggest that this motion be tabled. There are enough issues in play already, and there is no sense injecting another. Let's focus on resolving the issues on the table, and then we can see if another name is more appropriate. If we can't agree on the content, how can we (or should we even try to) agree on the name? And if this does not get resolved, the guideline may as well be rejected under its original name. Dhaluza 00:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
D we were responding at the same time and conflicted both electronically and in tactics. I don't expect that any resolution is going to be easy, so that's why I see the lesser evil taking on all the issues at once while the tribe is together. This just seems to drag on and on without resolution. I don't advocate making the change, but will support a reasonable and well supported proposal to get it behind us now. --Kevin Murray 00:08, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
While it might seem best to scramble all the eggs at once, I don't think we should. As a compromise, I have incorporated both of these concepts in the lede. So all points should now be covered. If we get a consensus on this, we can have a later discussion on which one to lead with. For now, let's stick with the historical precedent, and failing this, we can see if another approach works better. Dhaluza 00:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
At this point I'm more interested in achieving what is possible rather than what is perfect and to move toward continuity across the notability infrastructure. I'm willing to follow a team that can produce results. --Kevin Murray 01:24, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Once again, I object to the rename. "Notability" is the common term used on Wikipedia, and covers the topic well. "Article inclusion" is not a good sugestion since there are many issues not related to this page that can cause an article to be included or not. >Radiant< 07:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Me too, at this point. I don't see a compelling reason for the change, particularly as one of the points of the new/proposed guideline was to move the concept of WP:Notability a bit closer to the dictionary notion of notability.--Kubigula (talk) 13:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

"Significant"-->"substantive"

I think significant should be changed to substantive. Significant is a synonym for "important" (which I think most here agree we want to stay away from) while substantive says, I think, what was intended by significant, i.e., "more than trivial but less than exclusive," but does not imply importance. We are much better off using the most apt word for what we intend, than trying to redefine a word that has other meanings.--Fuhghettaboutit 14:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Significant does not mean the same thing as important. If you are looking up synonyms in the thesaurus, the "synonyms" there are not actually words with the same meaning, they are words with vaguely similar meanings that may be preferred for some purpose but they all have well-defined, distinct meanings. "Substantive" may be appropriate for other reasons, but "significant" absolutely does not have the same meaning as "important" or in most senses even a similar meaning. —Centrx→talk • 14:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I did not say it was a direct synonym with no other shade of meaning but it does have that connotation, which substantive does not. It certainly is used in the sense of importance in many contexts. I am a wordsmith. I did not look up either word prior to writing the above post, but now that I have, I note that "important; of consequence" is the first definition for significant in the dictionary. If we're done discussing how thesauri work, do you have an opinion on the merits of the change?--Fuhghettaboutit 15:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that "substantive" is a more precise word for what we are going for. I also think you could merge the existing subpoints for significant and coverage into a single subpoint definition for substantive.--Kubigula (talk) 15:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree as well. Substantive is much cleaner in this context.--ragesoss 18:13, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Agree as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree with substantive. Sancho 18:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Let's see how it reads:--Kevin Murray 18:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received substantive coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject and each other.

  • "Substantive" means that the coverage goes into detail on the subject. Substantive coverage is more than trivial but less than exclusive.1
I assume in the above posting the second iteration of significant was also meant to be replaced, so I have done so.--Fuhghettaboutit 18:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I prefer "significant" as a more understood and common word. I think that the definition of each worf is equally subjective. But I wouldn't oppose the change if it helps to build a consensus. --Kevin Murray 19:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right that significant is a more common word and thus understood by more people, but substantive is not exactly obscure. However, I can't agree that the definition of each word is equally subjective, for the same reason that you are presumably assigning fairly stable objective meanings to the preceding string of weird symbols and spaces that makes up this very sentence.--Fuhghettaboutit 21:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
To be frank, if someone doesn't understand the meaning of substantive, they probably shouldn't be editing an encyclopedia. Dhaluza 00:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
You are so right, but until we restrict access we should be pragmatic. Gewd skellin is sew impotant, but knot oll's us yankees gots it. --Kevin Murray 01:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Kudos!

I hadn't checked this page since the dispute was raging. It seemed, at that time, that most of the points of concern to me were being adequately argued by others, so I decided to just wait and see what the results were. I have to say, I'm quite impressed. It may not be perfect (few things are), but it is definitely a major improvement. I'm quite pleased. My thanks to all concerned. Xtifr tälk 05:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

BLOAT

We seem to have a lot of bloat slipping into this guideline, where authors are adding little bits of advice and "clarification" in all the various sections of the page, which are building to redundancy and conflicts. There is no need for the lead section to be stand-alone. We have the nutshell already which is a brief page summary. There is no reason to try to restate the guideline (poorly) when we describe steps to cure the problems. We don't have to justify our guideline in every section. I think that a streamlined easy to read set of instructions is all that we need. Unfortunately writers like to write -- frequently too much. --Kevin Murray 12:24, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

However, bloat is not corrected by going back to language that was promoting 'strict criteria' instead of 'common sense guidelines'. I've reverted. If you can come up with a more streamlined version that does not claim the guidelines are 'criteria', we can see if that's okay. --Barberio 12:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
That is just one minor change not worthy of reverting a lot of work. Please deal with that topic separately. --Kevin Murray 13:01, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
It's not 'one change', it's removing some significant text that had fundamental impact on how the guideline is implemented, and moving back in the direction of 'strict criteria'. --Barberio 13:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I support your most recent edits. I agree that my changes had an unintended consequence which you have corrected. Thanks! --Kevin Murray 13:44, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your efforts to make this a streamlined and easy to read set of instructions, and I knew you would make a comment like this about my suggestion :). However, I see a danger in strictly taking your approach. If we only address the how and say nothing about the why, it really leaves the guideline open to revision and attack again in three months, six months etc - see also similar comments made by Centrx and Black Falcon. We may not be active editors in six months, and you know the young guns won't read through the hundreds of talk page comments to figure out all the reasoning behind having the guideline. As I considered the various uses of the concept of notability throughout WP, the central unifying theme is that we want all articles to have a verifiable and objectively measurable indicator of notability. This is the theme that runs through CSD, AfD, here and the subject specific guidelines. If there is a consensus not to include "why" reasoning in the lead, then I believe we at least need to add it as a supporting paragraph.--Kubigula (talk) 14:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed! However, can we do something more effective than more text? Could we use a "Purpose" tag? I don't want to go tag crazy at the top of the page, but would trade the nutshell for a purpose tag. Another solution you mentioned is a supporting paragraph; what if we did that and linked it from a brief mention in the lead? --Kevin Murray 15:10, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • PS: I wasn't singling-out your suggestion; there is a lot of bloat past and present, and some editors are trying to reintroduce old-bloat from prior versions. --Kevin Murray 15:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
No offense taken. You're a streamliner and I'm an explainer; they are both important dynamics and hopefully we balance each other out to craft a better guideline. I think a purpose tag is too much clutter, I advocate a two tag maximum. Let's compromise on a supporting paragraph and I'll try to keep it brief.--Kubigula (talk) 15:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
Seems like a good team. Cheers! --Kevin Murray 07:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
One option might be to add a FAQ for the-reasoning-behind-the-guideline. Then we could have streamlining and explaining. Of course, that raises the danger of the guideline and the FAQ getting out of sync, but I can't claim to have all the answers. :) --Xtifr tälk 05:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with rewrite

First, it does not look like the implemented re-write comes from Wikipedia:Notability/Proposed at all, so I will go based on the edits that were made to this page here and not comment on issues there. If someone can point out the page where the actual changes here were created, that would be good.

For starters, "presumption" of notability changes notability to a purely sufficient condition and ignores the fact that non-notable articles are typically deleted for not having enough appropriate sourcing. Notability is not treated as a "presumption" on AfD, it is treated as a positive requirement without which an article is typically deleted.

Second, it entirely deletes the explanation for when and why a merge is more appropriate and a deletion is more appropriate, replacing it merely with a laundry list how-to without any guidance as to whether and which should be used. In light of the actual circumstances with the use of notability for deletion on Wikipedia, doing that is going to lead to people following "Improve it yourself", the first item on the list, when the article will ultimately and invariably be deleted; that is a waste of time and does not reflect the actual state of affairs. On the other hand, people who do not recognize well when a topic is "an appropriate subject for Wikipedia" will propose articles for deletion that should not be deleted.

As always, it would be best to make gradual and discrete changes. This makes diffs much easier to follow; it allows for greater distinction between different kinds of changes and whether they are contested; it produces greater clarity in discussions that are focused on one well-defined issue; and it is a more stable, careful practice over-all. —Centrx→talk • 18:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Your "for starters" has been addressed in detail above. The simple answer is that sources do not constitute notability. For the second part, I get your statement, but I don't think the lineup really says anything different. Most of the language comes from /Proposed, but much of it also comes from the long discussion on this very talk page, combined with the general consensus that the stuff you reverted back to lacks support. So I'm not sure where this is coming from now, considering that we've been going on about this for quite some time. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Then you should be able to explain fairly easily how a proper encyclopedia article on a notable topic could exist without the sourcing indicated here, i.e. an explanation or example of it not being necessary. You never seem to answer these straightforward questions in your goings-on for quite some time. —Centrx→talk • 19:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, I don't avoid the question, it's simply a question that cannot be answered as asked. Not every verifiable topic is notable, not every notable topic is verifiable. You want to talk verifiability, and that's great, but the relationship to notability is a seperate entity that isn't defined by some arbitrary number of sources. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The question is this: What is wrong with having guidelines such that: 1) If a topic is Wikipedia-notable, then it is verifiable; 2) If a topic is highly verifiable as a topic, then it is Wikipedia-notable. —Centrx→talk • 20:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Part of the point of this change, and why there is so much sustained objection to previous version, is the way Notability is used at AfD. The simple fact that things are done differently at AfD is not a relevant argument against changing this guideline.--ragesoss 18:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
It is exactly relevant if this page is about "Notability on Wikipedia" rather than "Our proposal for how notability should be on Wikipedia". Notability has been used this way at AfD far longer than this page has existed in its current form, or at all. Changing this page here is not going to change that. Articles will continue to be deleted for lack of notability whatever this page says, and if this page says something patently at odds with what actually happens on Wikipedia, then it is misleading and will also cause people to follow less well-defined and perhaps fickle notions of notability that are not found on any page but that nevertheless reflect the fact that there are topic-based standards for inclusion higher than mere verifiability. —Centrx→talk • 19:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Deletion processes are constrained by guidelines and policies, not vice versa.--ragesoss 19:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Superficially, that has a sort of rhyme to it, but here is one problem: Guidelines and policies come from consensus, and consensus comes in part from practice. Policies and guidelines are best practice recorded, but they are generally practice. The practice on AfD represents how thousands of people actually deal with these articles. That is more consensus than anything coming from a talk page discussion here. In addition, the fact remains that no matter how much you cite policies and guidelines, they have by themselves no binding force; these articles will continue to be deleted and all that needs to happen for your inclusive proposal to be wrecked is for the larger community to discover that Wikipedia:Notability has been replaced with it. —Centrx→talk • 20:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The March poll revealed that most editors wanted either a substantive rewrite ("rebuild from the ground up") or scrapping the guideline altogether. Practice at AfD does not necessarily represent consensus across Wikipedia, and many participants are no doubt flexible enough to change the way they contribute to deletion discussions based on changes in this guideline. To significant degree, practice derives from (not just happens to be consistent with) the old version of this guideline. That said, it's probably in order to advertise the changes at the community portal some time soon to seek help refining it.--ragesoss 20:35, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
The March poll seemed to be rather flawed. The poll as poll was in general flawed and several of the people commenting did not appear to even read the Wikipedia:Notability page. Also, there were a substantial number of keeps, and the changes here do not follow from most of the "Rebuild"'s. It is, for example, prescriptive not descriptive. —Centrx→talk • 20:54, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I have noticed much less direct reference to WP:N at AfD over the last few months, probably as a result of the long running dispute here. My view is that an AfD analysis should generally goes as follows: (1) does the subject meet the presumption of notability at WP:N (i.e. significant coverage in reliable sources)? (2) If not, does it verifiably meet one of the subject specific guidelines? (3) If not, is there a good individual argument to be made that this one topic is notable and verifiable? If not, it should be deleted.--Kubigula (talk) 19:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Centrx, the reason that it seems like such an abrupt change is that it has been discussed at the talk page, but changes were made at a separate page. The reason why the separate page looks different from what is there now is due to collaborative efforts since the draft was posted here. It seems like your MO is to disappear for weeks and then return to revert masses of changes, like a cyber-pedia Rip Van Winkle. --Kevin Murray 18:59, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
These massive changes happened today. Otherwise, there have not been any extreme changes to the page in six months. There have been a couple of major changes and a couple of major additions, but no fundamental revisions or huge rewrites. My experience on the talk page here is generally that there is a huge amount of sentences spent, massive several-pages-long proposals and dissections, a few people totally intransigent and immune to evidence or reason, and ultimately there is no effect on the actual page. You cannot then say that you have a consensus solution from a shadow policy divined by parsing these long discussions; what is more productive in actually understanding opposing positions and more conducive to consensus in all its form is to make small changes as they come up, not to drudge them out of your memory of discussions long past and then post them en masse. That I have not, or anyone on Wikipedia has not, followed this endless discussion does not mean that we forfeit our ability to discover some revision and call it wrong. Since you say the change is derived from this long discussion and you know the reasons for it, then you should be capable of justifying it, in direct summary here. And note: If the text is not justified or clear in the policy page, and it does not reflect actual practice, then someone else would come along and change it back or revise it to something else entirely again. Until a change is made to the actual page, most people do not know about it; there are 100 times more people who read Wikipedia:Notability than who follow Wikipedia talk:Notability-this is true of any policy page-and until the main page has the change implemented. Wiki collaboration happens in the text. —Centrx→talk • 20:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I never thought I'd see the day that someone would say that, since discussion occurred instead of edit-warring, no consensus was reached. These "massive changes" are simply the result of a lot of discussion and collaboration as opposed to hashing it out on the guideline page - the tags have been there to indicate the dispute, etc. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:02, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with that per se, but it should not be difficult for someone making a change to succinctly justify the change, and ideally to put that justifaction in the guideline. Without that, no matter how much discussion there was, even if I were to accept the argument that "there was discussion, it is consensus, okay", someone six months from now will change it back because they thought it was wrong and because it does not reflect the actual use of notability. —Centrx→talk • 20:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
You want a succinct justification? There was a broad cosnensus that the old wording was unacceptable, and so we spent months hashing out a new wording and implemented it once we could relatively agree on something. The "actual use" of notability will certainly adjust with the reality, and will do so even better now that WP:N reflects reality better. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
That's a procedural justification or an explanation of what happened, not a justification of why this is more appropriate for an encyclopedia or a guideline or why the previous version did not follow from other policies. Justifying this change is justifying that what you are calling "reality" is in fact reality. —Centrx→talk • 20:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
This is more appropriate because it better describes notability, as opposed to the arbitrary source counting the previous version described. This version follows from policy more closely as well, as verification from reliable sources does not require "multiple, non-trivial sources" where the topic is "the subject" to meet that standard, as old versions often did. Thirdly, this version does not overstep the bounds of the more historically-used subject specific guidelines, and thus provides better guideance regarding true notability. We're still a ways away from accurately dealing with notable subjects, but given the discussions and reality of the situations at hand, we're a step closer now. --badlydrawnjeff talk 20:51, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
There was no source counting in the previous version. "Multiple" varies according to the reliability of the sources and is important for ensuring independent verification. There remains no example of a notable or otherwise even marginally important topic that does not have multiple sources. Notability does not directly come from the Verifiability policy, it is a topic-based verifiability that has higher standards in order to ensure a proper encyclopedia article. What is wrong with that, and what example can you give of an article that would be deleted under these standards that should not be deleted? —Centrx→talk • 14:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
It was all about source counting in the previous version, and you're doing it with your example now anyway. As for examples, numerous ones were presented in the archives, you may want to look those up again. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
No, I specifically asked for examples of this kind before and no one provided any. Some examples of articles that did not happen to have the sources were presented, but no examples of topics for which these sources did not exist but for which we could still create an encyclopedia article. —Centrx→talk • 16:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Centrx, you have to be kidding me. There have been nothing but massive changes ongoing and proposed all over the notability universe for months. Nobody says that you lose rights by hibernating, but the whole process is not going to unravel or be rehashed at your whim. Your recent edits try to go back a month or more. You are the one advocating mass changes, and not for the first time. --Kevin Murray 20:06, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
If there were, none of them have stuck or had consensus. If you look at the page from December, it is fundamentally much the same. My change goes back 1 day with a few other minor things incorporated in. The process involves editing the page, not suddenly deciding a couple of you have the idea of the whole discussion in your head and that's good enough. I note that none of you have actually justified the changes, you have only been justifying the process you have used, testifying that the changes are a product of a long discussion. That is meaningless without some wherefore. —Centrx→talk • 20:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree that gradual discrete changes are usually best. However, this guideline has been in a big disputed mess for many months and thus of limited value; there was no real stability here. The discussion has been going on for months and the proposal was put up and commented upon at least three times. There are significant and strong opinions on both sides and I continue to believe that the new version is in the small area of overlap between the two views.--Kubigula (talk) 19:20, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Agree whole-heartedly with this comment. It's hardly perfect, but it's certainly the best we can get in a collaborative way, and I'm happy to compromise on it myself, and it appears others are as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the guideline has been pretty stable for six months. There has been a big mess on the talk page, and some edit warring, but ultimately the actual page has remained stable. Please state where this proposal was actually proposed. You mentioned in on May 9 above and linked to a page that was created on May 4 which does not actually represent what was changed anyway. So, where is it? —Centrx→talk • 20:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I won't delve into all the preceding discussion, but the first concrete proposal was here; second notice was here; third notice was here and fourth notice was here. The original May 4 version was modified in light of the comments made after each notice and further modified after implementation, though I think virtually all of the subsequent changes have been in the spirit of the emerging consensus. We needed to move beyond the stalemate, and I am personally very pleased with the (still evolving) result.--Kubigula (talk) 20:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Centrx, you have to be kidding me. There have been nothing but massive changes ongoing and proposed all over the notability universe for months. Nobody says that you lose rights by hibernating, but the whole process is not going to unravel or be rehashed at your whim. Your recent edits try to go back a month or more. You are the one advocating mass changes, and not for the first time. --Kevin Murray 22:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no; I asked a simple question and am being completely honest. Where is the proposal that is supposed to be so old? If it is not well-formulated anywhere that is an understandable response though it does not especially support your argument, but you finding demons everywhere is not productive. —Centrx→talk • 20:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
C, there has been ongoing discussion etc. since you began reverting changes about a month ago and reopened the edit wars. You and Guy acted really surprised that changes had happened then. I'm not taking the time to do research etc. to document the recent evolution or how things fell apart back then. I tried to get your opinion several weeks ago when we were trying to develop a compromise, but you were silent. I should and will assume good faith that you are now genuinely surprised, but please do the same with your peers. --Kevin Murray 22:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
I am not necessarily surprised, but simply taking action about what is and is not accurate and appropriate. I am not asking for a documentation of the evolution of the discussion and all proposals, I am asking for a strong justification as to why the previous version was wrong and why this version is right. As it stands, I do not see how it follows from other policies or how the previous version did not generally follow from other policies, and it is not accurate to current and long-standing practice--the previous version was more accurate. Contingent upon that, I am also recommending in general that justifications be put directly into policy pages, otherwise in the future, sundry people are simply going to repeatedly ask for reasons on the talk page endlessly, or they are going to make changes to the main page to reflect what they think is accurate. —Centrx→talk • 21:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Centrx, your statement that the guideline has been stable for six months is not supported by the facts. In the last 6 months, the page was protected for an unusually long period of time due to edit warring. The straw poll, flawed or not, showed the guideline did not even have rough consensus, much less the consensus expected of a guideline. If you think that reverting = stability, then I can see your confusion. But reverting != consensus, and that is what a guideline needs to be a guideline. Dhaluza 23:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
Taking guidance from a poll is flawed. The poll is fairly meaningless and there is evident confusion in it even as to what the Wikipedia:Notability page straightforwardly said; many opposed the general ILIKEIT concept of notability which was irrelevant to this page; no one said "rebuild it so as to be meaningless"; and there were a substantial number of keeps anyway. A poll is not a valid basis on which to make a decision, and there are a huge number of people who agree that non-notable topics should be kept but who did not participate in it. People edit war over Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, but at the end of the day the page remains very similar to what it was 6 months ago, and did so during long periods when there was not edit warring. A few people edit warring over minutiae does not mean the whole guideline is unstable. —Centrx→talk • 14:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
It's not just the poll, it's the poll + the months of discussion here + the discussions at the subject specific guidelines + the discussion that resulted in the deletion of the pnc template. It was clear to me that the previous version did not have the type of consensus that a guideline should have. You seem to think that the revision has gutted the guideline. I disagree. I believe the real impact of the change is to make WP:N a partner with the other notability guidelines. The subject specific guidelines aren't going anywhere, so I see this as the most pragmatic solution.--Kubigula (talk) 14:57, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
First, discussion must be based on reasons and I am asking for the reasons why the previous version was wrong and why this version is better. Without these reasons, there is no reason to believe that this new version has any more consensus; I think more likely and in light of AfD discussions, the previous version had much more consensus. Regarding subject-specific guidelines: All of the major subject-specific guidelines have the elevated topic-based sourcing requirements, and all of them have requirements that indicate or ensure that a topic meets these requirements. To put it another way, what article could satisfy the subject-specific guidelines but not the previous version of this page? Where was the conflict between the old version and the subject-specific guidelines? —Centrx→talk • 21:27, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Since when must discussion be based on reasons? ;-) This talk page is probably one of the most active on all of WP, which is more evidence of a lack of consensus, and stability. So by saying that this version may not have more consensus, are you at least accepting that the old version didn't have consensus either? If so, that answers your question. If not, then I see your confusion. Dhaluza 00:34, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
If a decision is made arbitrarily or in a way that is irrelevant to Wikipedia, then it has no effective force and is no basis for consensus. Without reason, a discussion has no dispositive force and is not going to convince me or most anyone else. Without reason, pointing to a discussion or a poll to represent some amorphous object called consensus is meaningless. This talk page has a high volume of text, but is frequented by less than a dozen very self-selected people and there are many policies and guideline pages that are this active at different times. The volume of text discussing the issue has no effect if the justification for a change cannot be explained; it is not going to bind anyone reading this page and finding it unreasonable, and it is not going to bind any future discussion that involves the same number of people and the same volume of text who through some reason come to the opposite conclusion that contradicts this reasonless one. —Centrx→talk • 00:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you missed the winky ;-). Since you won't answer the previous question, here it is in another form: What made the previous version right? Dhaluza 01:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
What verifiable topic does not have multiple non-trivial independent published sources? That is the key. What legitimate article is saved by changing the guideline? What legitimate article would have been deleted by the previous guideline? If there are no such articles, then the previous guideline is more precise. —Centrx→talk • 16:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

(unindent and edit conflict) The reasons are laid out below and above and all over. It's your perogative to disagree with them, but it's disingenuous to say the change was arbitrary or reasonless. The bottom line is that I still can't think of any real reason to have subject specific guidelines if the previous notability guideline was truly primary and absolute. You wind up with something like this, which honestly really does not make sense - the special cases are "likely" to have sources and "may" be notable; the list is a guideline but not an "absolute test". Seriously, that could hardly be more confusing. If only sources matter, then why bother having a list of people who are "likely" to have sources and "may" therefore be notable. In other words, here is a list, but please don't actually use it because only substantial coverage in multiple sources matters.

We need to either have one absolute notability criterion and get rid of the subject specific guidelines or allow them to coexist in a meaningful manner. The one guideline solution will never gain support and I don't think it should. I believe it makes us a better, more comprehensive and consistent encyclopedia to agree on certain subject specific attributes that we agree make you notable and should be article worthy. For example, all professional hockey (or whatever) players should have an article, regardless of whether they have big bio spreads in their hometown newspapers or just a blurb on the team's website and some minor coverage and stats in other periodicals.--Kubigula (talk) 01:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean that the change was arbitrary and reasonless, I mean that I am not going to read 50 pages of text to try and extract the reasons when the people who made the change presumably know the reasons but simply won't say them when I ask and instead primarily haggle over procedure.
I do not know what you are referring to as wrong in that link. The subject-specific guidelines are useful for identifying which topics are likely to have the appropriate sourcing, without needing to find the actual sufficient sourcing for every AfD; they identify likely notability rather than actual notability in the context of these sourcing requirements as notability. The purpose is so we can make decisions about notability without requiring a library search for every topic. —Centrx→talk • 16:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
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