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Subtleties of notability

I'm not sure whether this is a question or a proposal ...

What I don't seem to find in the policies is what constitutes a valid topic. That is, we have some general guidelines on whether there is notability in a "topic" but if there is notability associated with something somebody has written does that mean that it has a valid topic? I find a lot of articles that are essentially collections of ideas but they seem to me unencyclopedic (yes, I know the term is disliked) because I cannot identify a concrete topic that the information is supporting. In particular I find a lot of articles that essentially take some current issue and present both sides of the debate on that issue, perhaps mentioning who is on each side and who is not. The issue may have a lot of currency but it seems to me an issue by itself is does not really constitute a valid "topic" for an encyclopedia article. A particular debate on an issue that is occurring as a historical event, by contrast, is a valid topic and certainly such an article can and should discuss that issue. Similarly if there is some thing at the center of that issue, an article on that thing is appropriate and can include a discussion of the issue (e.g. an article on the proposed U.S. health care reform legislation is appropriate could include a discussion of the general issues with health care reform but an article abstractly discussing the issues by itself does not seem appropriate).

All of this seems related to "Notability" but I don't find a specific notability guideline that addresses this. Is there a some policy which addresses this and, if not, should there be?

--Mcorazao (talk) 17:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but when I run into those things I don't usually bring up notability. The problem most commonly is that a topic has not been approached from a helpful angle, perhaps due to an unfortunate choice of names or ill-informed initial contribution. Merge/redirect/move/improve the article(s). RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:51, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks.

Yes, but the problem always is how to make a suggestion without it coming off as "my personal opinion". It is always easier to make a proposal for a major change by citing some policy or guideline that the article is violating. As a specific example, I was looking at the article Health care reform in the United States. While the article itself has lots of good content it seems to me more a summary of a discussion forum than an encyclopedia article. I could create an article on the proposed U.S. legislation and then suggest that the existing article be merged into it but, of course, that is a sleazy end-around. The simple fact is that the article as-is does not belong, at least IMHO. I made some suggestions in the discussion page but I don't know of an appropriate way to make a more formal proposal (i.e. place a template in the article) since I cannot put my finger on a specific policy that it violates. And, of course, there are many similar articles.

That is why I say that it seems that there should be a guideline that generally characterizes what a valid encyclopedia topic should be like. Whether that is considered an aspect of notability or a completely separate policy topic is a matter of debate.

--Mcorazao (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what's subtle about the criteria for including an article in the Wikipedia. Just by using the word "topic" you imply a unity or a coherence to the article. If the article name is accurate, conforms to WP:NAME and doesn't overlap an existing article, or fall under WP:COATRACK, that is a start. The next step is determining if there's anyone in our universe of sources that has cared enough to write about it (that brings in the familiar WP:N criteria of significant coverage and independence). The rest is a familiar exercise. At least on WP:N grounds, I don't see any problem or subtlety around your example, Health care reform in the United States. patsw (talk) 19:06, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Mcorazao's issue with the Health Care article is not a notability one; it's clearly references and can be attributed to secondary sources. The problem more specifically for this article is that it is hard to get any deeper into the issue and go beyond the quotes without violating WP:NPOV - the Health Care issue in the US is extremely touchy, and there is probably no one that can be called an expert on every single possible way that health care could be driven ; only experts that are local to a specific approach can be used. Thus, we cannot provide a nice clean secondary-level view of the topic simply because it doesn't exist or we engage in NPOV. Does that mean the article's bad? No, as it is still summarizing the current knowledge about Health Care reform in the US. But again, there's no notability problems here; the issue is one well covered in secondary sources. --MASEM (t) 19:13, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback.

I think we're falling into some circular reasoning here. I agree that the article I mentioned as an example does not seem to violate any current notability guidelines. Whether or not the guidelines I am suggesting could be properly considered an aspect of notability vs. something different is simply a matter of opinion (I never suggested it had to be considered "notability"). But to suggest that every thought somebody has had that has garnered substantial media attention is an appropriate encyclopedia article I would argue is fallacious. You could argue that these thoughts are "notable" but if there has to be some rhyme-or-reason to how articles are organized. Or to put it another way one has to ask, "Is there a difference between what constitutes a magazine article and what constitutes a magazine article?"

If you were to look at any commercial encyclopedia you would not find articles on "issues". Rather you would find articles on "things" in which the "issues" surrounding those "things" might be discussed. For example, you might find an article on alcohol as a substance, or alcohol legislation, or prohibition as a historical era and each of these might discuss debates and issues regarding the use of alcohol but you would never find an article like "Alcohol usage in the United States" solely discussing the general issues and opinions surrounding alcohol. Doing that opens a whole can of worms (one that Wikipedia has already cracked wide open). Whether or not issues of alcohol abuse in the U.S. have been widely discussed in the media or literature is beside the point.

--Mcorazao (talk) 19:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think part of what you're seeing is the difference between being paper and being electronic. In a paper encyclopedia, a topic like "health care reform in the US" would probably be reduced to a few paragraphs under an article about "health care" as 1) there's no worry about how long an article is and 2) the paper version is static until it is reprinted. We have a limitation with an electronic version that we can't have articles too long, so we allow splits, but we also have the benefit of instant updates as necessary, so we can let these articles grow more. We still need to avoid events that are only news items and not contributing to the larger topic, but that deosn't seem to be the case with the health care reform article. Same would likely be true for other articles of similar form. That doesn't mean all are free passes from a notability standpoint: there's probably very little to write about "Health care reform in Luxemburg", for example... --MASEM (t) 20:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, true paper encyclopedia's have limits on space. Nevertheless I think there are inherent problems in saying "if anybody cares, then it's an article." Among other things this leads to articles that are bordering on soapboxes (which I would say is the case with the health care example). In general by making a compendium of knowledge organized by concrete things as opposed to issues of debate you kind of keep things more anchored to facts and make it easier to find information, IMHO.

Anyway, I guess the message I should be taking from this is that the policy-makers are not going to agree with me. Oh well ... :-)

--Mcorazao (talk) 21:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I think he does have a somewhat valid point. PAPER isn't meant to be an excuse to spinout articles indefinatly. However, what Mcorazao should probably bring this up in WP:NOT rather than here.陣内_Jinnai 21:47, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Rethinking notability as a means of, but not itself, meeting content policies

If the ultimate goal of WP is to have every single article meet the core content policies - WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOT, then it is reasonable to start on the assumption that if something passes WP:N, it is likely on the way to meeting the content policies: - WP:V is met by having significant coverage in secondary sources - WP:NOR is met by having secondary sources - WP:NPOV -- not quite so much, though by using secondary sources, you are avoiding a first-person-only account of the topic - WP:NOT is met by having significant coverage (period) to avoid indiscriminacy.

That's not to say that meeting the WP:N requirement is a guarantee of meeting the WP goals; there's aspects of NOT and other content policies like BLP that can block that. But for the most part, if WP:N is met, the article is going to meet the content goals.

But, and this is important, it is not the case that the content goals can only be met by WP:N. (if it were the case, WP:N would be a content policy). For example, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV don't necessarily need secondary sources to be met in order to be satisfied (it helps, and one of the easiest ways to meet these policies, but not required).

I'm not suggesting any disruptive change to what we currently use WP:N for, but a philosophical one with the reminder that there are many ways to make a quality article that meet core content policy but that WP:N cannot cover. WP:N is an important measuring stick, but is too often attempted to be used as the only one. As long as the content policies above are meet, it is of little importance if WP:N was also met.

(Such a change would require a bit of change in the current preamble, and a general awareness of this being what it means). --MASEM (t) 16:15, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, WP:V cannot be met without secondary sources as primary sources are not reliable. And if there aren't reliable secondary source discussions of a topic it certainly isn't notable. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

That's not true. The work's nature as a primary, secondary, or tertiary work has no impact on if the work is considered reliable. Now, secondary sources do help identify discriminate topics per WP:NOT, among other things, but they are not the only reliable sources we can use. --MASEM (t) 18:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

From No original research: "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." I take this as meaning that you cannot rely upon primary sources as though they were reliable sources for any claim advanced. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:42, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Note that it says "should" not "must". Yes, this implies that probably 90-95% of the time, WP:N is going to be the best indicator, but that leaves a 5-10% gap that we have flexibility to play with to still stay true to encyclopedic goals without excluding appropriate material. That's why notability is one route to assure a topic should have its own article, but is not the only way to determine what a good article may be, and thus the importance to not consider notability as a content guideline/policy. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Could someone bring this abstract discussion down to earth with examples? patsw (talk) 01:17, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Upwards inherancy?

We say that notability is not inherited... which means (correct me if I have this wrong) that the notability of the topic in a parent article does not pass down to the topic of a child article. But does it work the other way around? If the child topics are notable, is the parent topic?

Here is the situation. I recently noticed that the article Fringe theory was a redirect to Fringe science. My thought was that since there are Fringe theories in just about every academic discipline and in pop culture (many conspiracy theories and urban legends), we should undo the redirect and write an article on the broader topic of Fringe theories. So far so good.

I immediately hit a snag... I found lots and lots of sources that use the term... but none that discussed the concept in general or even gave a definition (the closest I could come was to define each word seperately... fringe is defined as X, theory is defined as y... but unfortunately adding these together to say "Fringe theory is defined as X+Y" would have been my own OR). In short, I could not establish that the topic "Fringe theory" is notable.

Many of the sub-topics (Fringe science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, conspiracy theory, etc) however, can and do establish that they are notable. Thus the question. If the parts are notable, is the whole? Is there reverse inherancy? Blueboar (talk) 23:19, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

• I would think the answer is "usually but not always yes".

  So for example, Barack Obama is notable and "upwards" articles, such as President of the United States, are notable. Daniel Dennett is notable, and "upwards" articles, such as Tufts University and Philosopher are notable.

  However, the "upwards" articles must always be recognised generic treatments of the subject that are notable in their own right. So you can extrapolate upwards from Bigfoot to Cryptozoology, but not upwards from Loch Ness monster to Plesiosaurs of Scotland because there's no scholarly treatment of the latter to draw upon.

  I think this means that the "upwards" article would also need to comply with the GNG.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:46, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think its simply a matter of digging deeper into sources - it's used in a lot of reliable sources, so the term HAD to originate from somewhere, it just might take legwork to get it there. One case that is similar was the video game genre 4X, a term co-opted in the journalism for certain types of games, but no one really sat down to explore the term, making the 4X, before a bunch of dedicated editors worked on seeking out the origins, a rather flimsy article that could have easily been challenged at AFD. As you can now see, it's a FA. So I would just establish that the term exists, but work towards sourcing the origins of the term and what it really was meant to mean.

(I wouldn't want to call out "upwards inheritence" as a special case, as I can see too much abuse of that otherwise.) --MASEM (t) 23:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I have looked fairly hard at the sources I have access to... nada. (it doesn't help that someone has challenged the article's notability only two days after it was created.) Blueboar (talk) 01:41, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Tufts University and Philosopher are notable on their own, not because of Daniel Dennett, likewise for President of the United States and Barack Obama, so I'd say 'no'. Dlabtot (talk) 02:39, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Blueboar, it may be that the term Fringe science is notable but the term Fringe therory, pseudoscience, pseudohistory, conspiracy theory, etc may or may not be notable enough for its own article in Wikipedia, but might make into Wiktionary. The reason is that the term may not have been discussed by sufficient soruces for more than a stub to be written. This problem occurs in business related articles all the time: terms that are in common use may not be the subject of sufficient coverage to write an article about them. In this case notability cannot be inherited upwards nor downwards, because there is a lack of significant coverage to meet the requirements of General notability guideline. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 22:18, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

The question is compounded by the fact that child/parent relationships in terms of article topics are rarely as straightfowrard as we would like to think they are. Tufts University -> Daniel Dennett has been given as an example of parent -> child relationship, but in what way is this evident? To turn the question around, when given the subject Barack Obama, what is the "parent" article? President of the United States? United States Senate? Illinois? Hawaii? The relationship is nebulous and arbitrary at best. It is safer to say that notability is non-transferrable, period, regardless of what way two topics are related. Shereth 17:46, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• We're all coming to the same conclusion via different routes. I think the consensus is that "upwards" articles also need to comply with the GNG.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 20:32, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like it. Looks like I have my work cut out for me trying to establish that the topic of Fringe theories is notable enough for an article. Thanks folks. Blueboar (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I think a good way to do it is how we have decided to handle it at WP:VG when dealing with remakes as remakes from older games may be easier to find notability due to online sources. Thus the remake article would be considered a child of the original game. It was decided that if splitting the remake off would endanger the notability of the parent article, then the reamke should not be split off.陣内_Jinnai 00:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

I think what's being discussed here has nothing to do with a generality called "upwards inherency" (and inherency isn't a word in any case.) The discussion is how to write an article about something that seems be a neologism, "fringe theory", which (apparently) lacks significant WP:RS coverage, yet also appears to merit its own article since a special case of "fringe theory", namely fringe science, has an article. Its topic passes WP:N and WP:GNG, and its text passes the content guidelines.

"Fringe" is opposed to mainstream (which, of course, has an article). "Fringe" is something that existed before the term was applied to it. Like incidents of "gridlock" which existed before the term was first applied. "Fringe" is something that has interest and credulity in popular culture and often opposed or contradicted by "mainstream" which, perhaps, has authority and evidence behind it. I've seen several books which discuss the tension between popular culture (i.e. popularizers, sensationalists) and academic culture (historians, philosophers, and scientists). patsw (talk) 01:52, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (law)

A proposed notability guideline for legal things, particularly law cases which have always been a bit "up in the air" at AfD, is under discussion. Contributions are welcome. Thanks, Ironholds (talk) 05:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Some musings on the plethora of guidance and questions

I've been closing AfDs for a while now, and there's no doubting the importance of notability within a debate. Notability should represent a semi-objective standard, with subjectivity built-in in terms of whether or not the standard is met. But instead, a significant number of AfDs dissolve into acronym wars, with a particular underlying contention between this page (the GNG) and other sub-guidelines. For my sins, I've spent some time looking over the large number of notability guidelines that we have and conclude that there are two main problems

1. There are too many guideline pages
2. There is no standard structure for them

The number of pages is a problem for reasons of bureaucracy and implementation - more pages give more opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding, particularly as standards may evolve at different paces on different pages. The problem of internal structural consistency is purely aesthetic, and has a (relatively) simple solution.

I shall illustrate my proposal to solve the first problem with an example. Our criteria for Books, Films, Music and Web content (occupying four separate guideline pages) all say similar things explicitly:

• they must meet the GNG, following the non-triviality and third-party provisions precisely
• Notable if they have won major awards

Others are not so consistent. For example, a book or film may be notable if it is the subject to widespread dissemination in schools, colleges or universities. You could actually apply that to music or web content as well without opening the floodgates to my new blog/teen-band-that's-really-going-to-make-it, although it isn't explicit - similar crossovers appear throughout, or there are guidances that are redundant to more general ones.

So my suggestion is consolidation of guidelines. Won't be as easy as I've implied, but it won't be incredibly difficult - merging Books, Films, Music and Web content together, say at WP:Notability (culture) produces a net reduction of 3 out of 9 sub-guidelines. I'm sure with some thought, the biographical portions of Music and Academics could be merged back into People, which could do with rationalisation as well.

Starting with the a new, merged Culture guideline, however, what do people think? Worthwhile, or not? Fritzpoll (talk) 13:22, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Isn't our current WP:BIO a result of similar merges? It certainly can't hurt, and then have a few additional sections for book-specific or movie-specific pieces. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I generally favor the notion of consolidating as many of our notabilty guidelines as possible, but I imagine doing so would be something of a massive undertaking. I think you are on to a good start with the idea of merging books, films, music and (possibly) web content together - I'm not sure "culture" is the right word for it but at the moment I can't think of a better substitute. Shereth 14:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

If you take out web (or leave it and assume a level higher than your average blog or fan site), then "(published works)" works well. --MASEM (t) 14:47, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Ahh, that is much better! Shereth 15:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

This would likely resolve the train wreck that is WP:FICT. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 18:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Not really - or at least there would need to be a lot more consensus on what advice FICT should be giving as to include it as a brief section in this proposed "(published works)". I think if we're going this direction, the first pass is to leave FICT out as separate until the combined guideline is molded appropriately. --MASEM (t) 18:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, perhaps a userspace draft of some sort is in order until we can get the name right? I don't think this would solve many of the problems with FICT, which, IIRC, revolve around coverage of fictional topics as opposed to their "containers". Please correct me if I'm wrong on this latter point? Fritzpoll (talk) 22:06, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe you're correct - we can address all the containers in one guideline, but not the contents, per that metaphor. (not to be confused with our normal content policies :-) --MASEM (t)

I agree with Masem and Fritzpoll. This won't help at all with FICT, but it will help with reducing the level of bureaucracy and pages people need to search for. FICT deals with an entirely separate that neither the GNG nor any of the SNGs really have ventured into.陣内_Jinnai 23:03, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I must admit that Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) has a lot of commonality with Wikipedia:Notability (books) and Wikipedia:Notability (films) in that their subject matter does overlap to some extent. The key to merging them is not their subject matter (fiction/non-fiction/culture/fiction as a cultural artifact or what ever "container" you want to put these into), but which sources really do confer notability. In general terms, not all reliable secondary sources confer notability, and this is the area where there is widespread misunderstanding, but a consensus is not far off.
WP:GNG makes it clear that primary and tertiary sources do not constitute evidence of notability, because they don't contain significant coverage from reliable secondary sources. The SNG's go one step further, by stating that a barebones summary of, say, a book is not evidence of notability, even if that summary comes from a reliable secondary source. What is needed is significant coverage in the form of commentary, criticism or analysis that provides context. This is a subtle but common sense point: Coverage from a reliable secondary source does not confer notability on its subject matter if that coverage is merely a reguritation of the primary source. This is the common thread in all the "cultural" SNGs, not their subject matter. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:23, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

That's a really good way of putting it. I'll try to start a merging draft in due course at Wikipedia:Notability (published works) - when this goes blue, it means I've started something, but I'd appreciate anyone coming along and chipping in Fritzpoll (talk) 11:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure if a new guideline needs to be constructed. In theory you just need to propose a modification to WP:GNG and then we are on the path to rolling all the SNGs into WP:N. I am suspicious of a new guideline being created, because some editors are keen to construct exemptions from the General notability guideline for their pet topics already exist: Wikipedia:Notability and fiction is a fork from Wikipedia:Notability (fiction), for example. I think it would be better if you outline your proposal here first. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 11:52, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't, simply because it would be too large to accomodate on a talkpage - in terms of condensing the guidelines, I've already summarised some ideas to deprecate four existing guidelines in favour of a single new one. I am not trying to introduce exemptions, and have always held that SNGs are subordinate to general notability. But the more SNGs that we have, the more possibility for inconsistency and confusion. I think the ultimate goal of rolling all the SNGs into the GNG is laudable and ultimately possible, but it will have to be done in stages. I cannot imagine the community being willing to take the step from 8 SNGs to none - I think it best that we condense the existing ones down into new, more robust versions:

• Books, Films, Music (portion of) and Web Content go into some form of Published Works
• Music (relating to musicians), Academics, Bio and possibly Organisations and companies go into some new guideline of People and Groups

That would take nine SNGs, and reduce them to three, with the only oddball being Numbers, which is excessively specialised. In the next phase of work, one this has been complete, we can examine and expose the commonalities in the new SNGs and see if it is possible to rework WP:N to accomodate them and eliminate the sub-guidelines entirely. As I say, whilst it is possible that we could make a leap and bypass the intermediate step, I am not convinced the community would follow. Fritzpoll (talk) 13:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can consider completely ridding ourselves of the SNGs, as long as WP:N is used without common sense when it comes time to consider deletion. The SNGs represent cases of community-agreed-to limited cases of inherit notability: if topic Y is related to notable topic X (and usually with some cavaets), then it is assumed that there will be sources to fill out that article in the future , and thus Y can be considered notable based only on its relationship with X. These are community-based clauses based on the years of past experience with such works. Technically, they aren't necessary: if the community is right that meeting Y means X has sources, then X should meet the GNG. The thing is, the SNGs represent the necessary element of common sense and the fact that there is no deadline to improvement - it's another balancing act between the extreme positions of WP. People are going to want to delete things they don't believe meet the GNG without sources, but when it's clearly recognizable that sources do or are likely to exist in time, there's no need to expand the article as long as it meets the necessarily-limited criteria for SNGs.

That doesn't mean we should attempt to merge and reduce the number of SNGs; that itself is still fine. We don't need, (without checking) repetition of the criteria that if a work wins a major notable award that it is presumed notable in each of the SNGs about published works; one would do fine. --MASEM (t) 13:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it may not be possible to eliminate SNGs entirely - I only think it would be the ultimate in anti-bureacracy. I've got the bare structural bones down of the published works and a short intro sentence and definition of "published work" - just remains to fill in the sections and add more if necessary Fritzpoll (talk) 13:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest keeping an open mind on rolling all the SNGs into WP:GNG. The reason why it actually might be possible to elimate the SNGs altogether if you recognise that they all share the common requirement for verifable evidence, but differ between themselves regarding the subject specfic issuies regarding:

1. Which reliable secondary sources are or are not allowable as evidence of notability;
2. Whether or not certain forms of coverage are significant or not.

It is actually hard to identify these subtle differences, but hidden in the footnotes you will find qualifications for certains sources, usually disallowing sources without analytical or critical commentary. If we were to insert a clause along the lines that "Coverage from a reliable secondary source does not confer notability on its subject matter if that coverage is merely a reguritation of the primary source", then I don't see any impediment to rolling up the SNG's into WP:N. It really is that simple. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible? Yes. But not in the current inclusionists/deletionists mindset that has been the status quo for the last couple years. Most SNG's are based on inherit notability determined by consensus, but if WP:N along with common sense was used, we'd all be saying "Of course something that wins a notable award is likely going to be notable, even if the only source at the present is the announcement of that award." The problem is that people are ready to delete such articles because they outright ignore the possibility that common sense might be right. We could get rid of the SNGs, and let the battle be fought at AFD, but I would think after the umpteenth international soccer player or small halmet in a European country comes up and are soundly kept from the AFD discussion that we'd want guidelines to establish that to avoid wasting the time at AFD. SNGs are unfortunately necessary in this implied battleground between these various factions. --MASEM (t) 16:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

So baby steps would be advisable right now. If most of the SNGs are talking about the same thing, then they can safely be rolled into one or two generic SNGs, and be applied more consistently. I like the two Fritzpoll suggests, they seem to categorize things appropriately. This would shift the dynamic of notability among editors, and then in a year or so when things restabilize, a more adequate proposal can be made to condense everything under one unified umbrella. Hopefully by then the self identified inclusionists and deletionists will have reconciled their differences, and understand their specific issues are dwarfed by the more general goal we're all striving for. If anyone has forgotten what that's supposed to be all about, I think there's some good advice here somewhere. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 19:31, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

While I think condensing the number of current guidelines down should be fine, I don't hold your optimism for removing SNGs as WP:N has a lot of bad-blood and people do not agree with the way it handles the validity of various secondary sources for showing notability.陣内_Jinnai 02:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe I am in dream land a little bit, but condensing the guidelines would be a good direction to go in, and I think it would do much to show editors that there is something of a unified and coherant approach to the wiki. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 05:59, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Not arguing against it; I'm just trying to be a realist here. There is some general consensus on some stuff, but probably not enough to be covered under one guideline without bloating it. The guideline itself has problems (mine have been spoken about quite a lot in FICT with creator commentary being a viable way of showing notability of an element in the same way an award would, ie if a creator gives significant commentary on an element then its likely to have sources elsewhere talking about, especially when its not on a seperate purchasable media like a guidebook. That would was cited to say the author could be making money, but if its say part of a DVD, that isstandard edition that's not the case. That's part of the reason FICT can't be merged in like that easily because people on the other end, like Gavin (since I'm sure he'll comment), would oppose that kind of way.陣内_Jinnai 06:35, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you will find that all the SNGs are against such approach, Jinnai: for example, WP:MOVIE says in its footnotes that "Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopedia article". I think you will find that all the SNGs take the same line that self-published sources from developers and publishers is just not reliable because they are not independent. What is and what is not a reliable source is the same everywhere and is not an impediment to merging the SNGs. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:34, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

First off Gavin, that's not product placement. Product placement is when you place an item into the media with the intent to sell that item, FE, a bottle of Pepsi. Product placement has nothing to do with how a character was drawn, unless they have a Pepsi logo or the equivalent on them somewhere. As for promotion, if it is sold or advertised separately or in a special edition box, I could buy that. However that line fails completely when it's added in with a standard release of the media item. There is no promotional value. The amount of people who would buy it because of that extra content that wouldn't is so miniscule that it's not even worth mentioning. It's more likely they'll get more people to buy it by sending it to a company we deem a RS who they are certain will give it a positive review.陣内_Jinnai 03:33, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I've had a go at merging the general criteria at Wikipedia:Notability (published works) to give an idea of how I think the separate SNGs of books, films, music and web content can be merged. I've not done a lot on the "other considerations" beyond thinking about it - this contains commentary on how to handle anticipated works, self-published works, and more historical works. These essentially represent the commonalities between books, films and music. Web content's SNG is actually quite small, so I think it is completely covered by the general criteria. Since the objective is not to me any more or less permissive than existing guidelines, I'd appreciate some eyes on this now and any appropriate feedback on the talkpage over there. Fritzpoll (talk) 14:11, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Notability as an independent standard

To what extent is Notability independent of the policies of RS and V? Is it possible for an article to have verifiable and reliable sourcing for all of the material in that article, but for that article to still not be Notable? If RS + V = N, then Notability isn't really a standard; instead it would merely be shorthand for RS and V. SMP0328. (talk) 18:50, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't really think so IMHO. If an article is verified by means of only one or two reliable sources and no more, it still meets V & RS, but not N. Yeah? — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 19:04, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Anytime an article is put up for deletion for not being Notable, defenders of that article point to reliable sourcing in that article as being definitive of that article's Notability. Sometimes that works; other times, not. SMP0328. (talk) 19:14, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:N requires that notability be established through reference to third-party reliable sources that are independent of the subject... An article that was based purely on non-independent (and yet reliable sources) would not meet this requirement. So, Notability is not just RS and V. Blueboar (talk) 19:19, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on what you said, Notability sounds like a technicality. How likely is an article to have reliable and verifiable sources, but none of which is from a third party? That sounds very unlikely to me. SMP0328. (talk) 19:28, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) As an example, and without getting into an in-depth discussion about it, a lot of articles covering individual television episodes are sourced only to the episodes themselves and/or their official websites. That's verifiable and reliable, but strictly primary sourcing. Sometimes those articles have links to the IMDb or TV.com, neither of which constitute a reliable source, leaving the episodic article essentially sourced only to primary or unreliable secondary sources: not meeting the Notability guideline. — pd_THOR ^{| =/\=} | 19:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

As a less contentious example, without a requirement for significant coverage by independent sources, Wikipedia would be swamped with personal vanity pages. Notability means someone else has taken note to a significant degree. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:21, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Notability is one means that one can show a topic is going to meet V and RS, but not the only means. But that's also not the only two policies/guidelines that notability is helping to meet. --MASEM (t) 19:38, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

A topic doesn't merit an article without editors here observing some people unrelated to the topic actually are writing about the topic independently. Think about the problems we are trying to solve: preventing articles that have no significance whatsoever in the context of an encyclopedia, and or are self-generated. patsw (talk) 21:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

A realistic example of an article that meets V and RS but not N would e.g. be the spokesperson for a company. In one or two (or twenty) articles, John Doe is cited as "John Doe, spokesperson of Cheap Posions, Inc., stated that '...'". So it is verifiable that John Doe exists and has that function. However, the rest of his biography can only be learned from a biography on the company website. It contains enough info to make this more than a stub, but John Doe still is not notable at all, despite meeting V and RS. Fram (talk) 12:59, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Self-inherent notability?

Can something be included on Wikipedia (even just as a mere subsection) if the subject is worthy of mention because it is in of itself interesting, even if there is no significant coverage or sources? Let's say, hypothetically, there is a film that features a well-known actor as a child in a two-second cameo role, but the movie is otherwise unremarkable and almost completely unknown. Should it be briefly be mentioned in the actor's article or omitted entirely?
I ask because I'm currently considering creating List of The Lion King media for the main purpose of merging some of the film's spin-offs (video games, park attractions, etc.) into one article. The only thing holding me back is that another editor believes that none of the books I want included are notable enough to warrant anything more than a blip of a mention in the film's main article. While none of them are mentioned in any reliable sources (it makes me wish there was an "Allbook" or something to that effect), all three provide significant backstory for the main characters, and one even includes a now-retconned character. I know I can't give them separate articles- they aren't notable enough for that- but leaving them out completely just seems like a glaring omission. It's not like I'm not asking to include something as pointless as Simba's Happy Face or anything... Tymime (talk) 05:25, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Notability only limits when we give something its own article. As long as the books are verifiable, but otherwise non-notable, they can be covered as much as necessary in the sense of the larger context. --MASEM (t) 06:00, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Just remember: One person's "interesting" fact is often another person's useless bit of Trivia. Blueboar (talk) 13:29, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Sporked over from Wikipedia talk:Notability (streets, roads, and highways)

What makes this proposal stand out among Wikipedia:Notability (highways), Wikipedia:Places of local interest, Wikipedia:Notability_(Transportation)_(failed_proposal), Wikipedia:Notability (buildings, structures, and landmarks), Wikipedia:Notability (streets and roads)... and other dead wood in Category:Wikipedia rejected proposals? Drawing the line between real boulevards and "boulevards lined with commercial outfits"? NVO (talk) 13:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Many of the previous proposals were dead because people could not agree upon various things. These ones are simplified versus all the other previous ones, which I have looked over to see what didn't work about them.

For example, people couldn't agree on whether an atlas was a reliable source. What I came up with as an idea is that it could be used to verify information, but not to establish notability. Sebwite (talk) 14:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

IMO, it will go into the same graveyard. For a few folks like yours truly "X generally is notable if it meets Wikipedia's WP:N guidelines" is a deal breaker. Does it mean that X that meets WP:N may be non-notable? Does it mean that X not meeting WP:N may be deemed notable? It's supposed to be a guideline, not a charade. NVO (talk) 15:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

....thus, there was no consensus, was there? — Rickyrab | Talk 15:29, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't quite see where that is meant to fit into the discussion. Ironholds (talk) 15:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It is also not a good idea to spork over only part of an on-going conversation at one page in order to prove things at another page. Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Non notable names in articles

What about use of non-notable names in articles? Doaks has written a WP:RELY book on a topic, but he doesn't have an article and is (for this purpose) otherwise nn. Can we say "Doaks says this"(footnote), "Doaks says that"(footnote) in the article?Student7 (talk) 12:07, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

A person may not be notable but can be reliable, which sounds like the case here. If so, make sure to explain to the casual reader who that person is on the first mention of the source so they're aware what his/her authority may be. --MASEM (t) 12:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

How about these lists of 'Famous/notable/etc people in (name of town/city)'? I just found one with some email addresses and websites as well. Dougweller (talk) 12:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

For someone to be included in a list of 'Famous/notable/etc people in (name of town/city)' I feel strongly that there should either be a linked bio article that establishes the persons notability, or the list should contain a citation to a reliable source that does so. No article or citation... no inclusion (because there is no indication of notability). As for including email addresses... remove them. As for webpages... this smacks of WP:NOT... Wikipedia should not be a directory. Blueboar (talk) 18:45, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks like most of the names here Pakistani hip hop should go then. Dougweller (talk) 09:27, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest to look for sources. I just entered the first redlink into Google, and found several thousand hits, many of which seem apropos. On Military science fiction we had good results with a mixture of talk page discussion, active sourcing, and removing entries which had attracted no sources or attention. Simply removing unsourced entries may be justifiable under strict policy, but is likely to trigger resentment, especially if groups with obvious (for the interested audience) notability are affected. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Move them to the talk page if there is such a concern and leave an edit note (hidden) on the list regarding the notability requirements. Unless you just want to know about Pakistani hip-hoppers. That way we encourage their fans to do the work ... and learn more about Wikipedia requirements. Vsmith (talk) 12:11, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, list of "notables" I think we all understand well enough and most likely agree.

Tbis question was aimed, not at place articles, but at a thing (?) article where various people had examined it and come up with their own theories. What I heard from one person is that it is okay to say "Doaks said "this"(footnote) instead of (for example). "This is so" (footnote). Assuming that there is no contention over this statement.

My choice would have been to say "This is a non-controversial statement"(footnote) rather than to say "Doaks made this non-controversial statement"(footnote). I would have avoided use of the nn author which (in this case at least) seemed optional. (There are other cases).Student7 (talk) 15:06, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

This is really not a notability issue. WP:NOTE deals with entire article topics (and to some degree sub-topics) ... not specific sentences and sources. It sounds more like an Undue weight and Reliable sources issue. Blueboar (talk) 15:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

You won't get out of it that easily. Those on the article had already agreed that this guy's single book on the topic was WP:RELY. There was no question of WP:UNDUE.

Let's face it, the "notables" section in place articles was an after-the-fact thing that annoys many of us, but "notability" was an issue that has been around much longer than "notables" in place articles.

I know you would rather discuss whether the person should have an article. I ran across yet another sub-topic (#2 problem). A woman was a well-known novelist, with an article. She had also written on religion but was not well-known for that. The editor attempted to assert her religious credentials within the article, seeing as how anyone linking to her bio would have been overwhelmed by her novelist credentials. The topic was vague enough that we allowed it, but it seemed funny-peculiar.

Still the main (#1) problem: a non-notable writes a notable WP:RELY book. Is this possible or a contradiction in terms? Must he become notable as soon as editors accept his book as WP:RELY?

If the answer is no, then the number #1a problem: must editors accept the use of author's name (gratuitously) in article or, on the other hand, must editors confine the use of the WP:RELY work and author's name, to the footnote only, when use of author's name is not otherwise needed to distinguish between statements? Student7 (talk) 12:22, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Notability is not inherited; the author of a notable book is not necessarily notable (although in many cases he or she will be). To answer, then, question #1a, neither must the author's name be used in an article which references his book, nor must his name be confined to the footnotes. This question is, I should point out, independent of whether the author is notable or not, and the answer is the same regardless: it depends on the specific circumstances and how the reference is used. Powers ^T 13:16, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason why I say this sounds more like a WP:UNDUE issue than a WP:NOTE issue is because the appropriateness of mentioning a name often depends on the context of why the name is being mentioned. In this case, the mention seems to be in the context of a direct attribution for a statement about an author's view point on the topic of the aritcle (According to author Joe Doaks, X is true). Attribution of view points is usually a good thing. However, if non-notable Doaks is the only person to hold a particular viewpoint, then mentioning him and his viewpoint will give both more weight than they deserve. The key isn't whether Doaks should be mentioned... it's whether his viewpoint should be mentioned (if not, then there is no reason to mention him... However, if the viewpoint should be mentioned, then it is appropriate to attribute it). Blueboar (talk) 13:41, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I appreciate this does slop over into UNDUE. Sorry. Blueboar, you said "mentioning him and his viewpoint will give both more weight..." But we do have to mention his viewpoint. The editors had agreed that it was useful.

Let me go one step further (probably into UNDUE again, but that is allied with my point). If we were to say that "Smith of the Times-Union says a park exists in point A. Jones of the Courier says the park is used for marathon runs..." etc. This is clearly undue. But it is a matter of opinion to newbies. You and I can agree, but hard to enforce. So much easier if I can say "nn", forget it! "Park exists for marathons {ref:Smith)(ref:Jones)". Non-notability is so much easier to enforce! Student7 (talk) 20:24, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The more you give examples, the more I think that what you are talking about is not really something that should be subject to "enforcement" ... it sounds more like an editorial descision. Again... What it really comes down to is this... why is the author being mentioned? Without knowing the specific article and the specific statement and author, all we can say is this:

• what you are talking about is not really a WP:Notability issue...
• it might be a WP:UNDUE issue...
• it probably is just an editorial preference issue, in which case there is no rule to enforce except WP:CONSENSUS and the best question to ask would be: "does mentioning the author improve the article and benefit the reader?" Blueboar (talk) 21:43, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Insertion of "atlases and maps"

As atlases and maps are reliable secondary sources, I have inserted them into GNG. I would like to know how others feel about this idea. — Rickyrab | Talk 13:28, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

No. We don't explicitly mention every possible thing that could maybe pass WP:GNG, and we never say "all sources of type X pass WP:GNG, anything that can be found in those sources is notable". People looking for an explanation, see this. Ironholds (talk) 13:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

But atlases can indicate which roads they consider more notable than others, by showing more notable roads in bold. So why not use that as a notable/nonnotable dichotomy? (I am NOT necessarily trying to keep Highway 64; however, I am trying to flesh out what makes a road "notable" or not.) — Rickyrab | Talk 13:33, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Then head on over to Notability, where a proposal is being set up. Ironholds (talk) 13:35, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I note, interestingly, that that proposal (which is as close as you're ever going to come to an exception for roads) specifically suggests that atlases can't be used to establish notability, only to verify facts in an already-notable article. Ironholds (talk) 13:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I put a comment in favor of usability of atlases to determine notability on that project's discussion site, too. — Rickyrab | Talk 13:40, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

People might or might not have given the atlas idea much thought. I don't know for sure. — Rickyrab | Talk 13:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well it's discussed in the section immediately above your post there, so it's pretty obvious they've given it some thought. Ironholds (talk) 13:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment tweaked accordingly. — Rickyrab | Talk 14:24, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment removed accordingly. We do not set hard-and-fast rules, we do not list every exception. Furthermore listing this one would be particularly useless. "some say X, some say Y, there's no agreement". Why, that implies that it's up to the users at each AfD to decided! Which is, uhm, currently the case for everything. Ironholds (talk) 15:08, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It should be in there anyway, because people might inquire about atlases and maps, and there is sentiment among some editors that maps and atlases be considered as sources that establish notability. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:11, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

No, there's sentiment among you, singular. Even the other people at the road notability proposals don't think it should be considered a notability-establishing source. Again, we don't include every possible example of things which, at one time or another, might turn up in an AfD and be considered evidence of notability or non-notability. Wikipedia does not have firm rules. Ironholds (talk) 15:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's not what the discussion pages implied. There were failures to establish consensus on maps and atlases. This implies that there are other supporters of maps and atlases out there. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Either way, stop trying to push this into the guideline. Read WP:BRD; we're in the "discuss" bit right now. Where is this discussion about a failure to establish consensus? Ironholds (talk) 15:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

See next section of Wikipedia talk:Notability — Rickyrab | Talk 15:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a map can give you a good indication that a road might be notable, but I don't think a map can be used to establish that it is notable. Too many variables (scale of the map, scope and purpose of the map, which cartographical conventions are used, etc.). Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Blueboar makes a point, but if something gives a good indication that something might be notable, it can be used to help determine notability. We'd need other sources, true, and we'd need some judgment. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

And what about journals, magazines, etc.? There are plenty of variables there, including placement of material, importance to the article, treatment as a side subject, scope and purpose of the article, and so on and so forth. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:30, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

"we'd need other sources"; yes, so we're right back to WP:GNG and not accepting atlases as sources for the purpose of determining notability, aren't we? This is a massive circular discussion. Accept that consensus is against atlas entries = notability. Ironholds (talk) 15:42, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, we need more editors than just three or four folks to establish consensus. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. And since the burden of consensus rests on the person asking for change, not the status quo, your changes stay inside your head for the duration and don't affect WP:N or WP:AFD. Ironholds (talk) 15:47, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

No, they go onto talk pages. They may stay there, but the discussions on talk pages do have influences on the project pages. And since AFD is often subjective, they might influence AFD as well. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:54, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Since you've so far completely failed to justify your arguments, and not a single user here or at the AfD agrees with you, I doubt it. From now on, make whatever arguments you like on the streets notability proposal and the AfD, but lets let the central guideline be. Ironholds (talk) 15:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't know if nobody really agrees or not, but I'll make arguments anyway. As for this central guideline, maybe so. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Nope, not a complete failure. I have justified my arguments. If you disagree, fine. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Using an atlas or map as a source for the notability of roads (as suggested by the next section) is inappropriate: they are a primary source, and while can be used for facts, are only reporting on what exists. Just because a road is marked more predominately on a map than another means little: I would suspect that while the stretch of I-90 across Montana is one of the most significant roads, it is much less notable than, say, the little sections of US Routes that were part of US Route 66. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

What exactly is notability, anyway? And how does it differ from significance? Some would argue that notability is significance. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

You. Haven't. Defined. Significance. How can you say "notability = significance" or not when there's no definition for one of them? Notability is quite easily defined for WP purposes at WP:GNG. Ironholds (talk) 15:59, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone defined significance in the sense that Masem was using it, for Masem's purposes? I think not. That's why I asked what I asked - to clarify what Masem meant by what he said. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:10, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Nobody would argue that. You've been around since 2003, how can you be unaware of what notability is? For starters, try Wikipedia:Notability. Really well hidden; I can understand now why you couldn't find it. Ironholds (talk) 15:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

""Within Wikipedia, notability determines whether a topic merits its own article. Article topics are required to be notable, or "worthy of notice." It is important to note that a notability determination does not necessarily depend on things like fame, importance, or the popularity of a topic—although those may enhance the acceptability of a subject that meets the guidelines explained below." It says nothing about whether or not significance is notability. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:49, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

So I put the word "significance" in, rendering this subargument moot. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:50, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

So you haven't defined significance, so what the hell is the point of that addition? Stop modifying the guideline without prior discussion. WP:BOLD only gets you so far; this is just getting ridiculous.

Ironholds (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

LOL This only brings me back to my earlier question. What exactly is notability, anyway? And how does it differ from significance? Some would argue that notability is significance. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:56, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that this subargument is a silly one anyhow. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:12, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, maps and atlases can be primary, secondary, or tertiary sources. — Rickyrab | Talk 15:44, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

They can, but that doesn't solve the problem inherent in using atlases as examples of notability, which I've already explained to you, repeatedly, in multiple venues. Ironholds (talk) 15:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Atlases/maps can be used in combination with other sources, including other atlases, in helping to determine notability, through triangulation and looking at the characteristics of each atlas/maps and each other source. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

To give an example of the difference between significance and notability ... let us assume that on a specific map, certain roads are colored blue. Now, the fact that a particular road (or portion of a road) is colored blue on that map obviously has a significance. However that significance may or may not be notable. The blue line may signify something very notable (the road was part of the original Lincoln Highway)... or it may signify something completely non-notable (the road forms the boundry of a postal delivery zone). Significance does not automatically equal notability. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This is why maps and atlases have indexes and labels - yet another form of communication. Obviously, however, there are road atlases and maps that communicate significance itself (by including or excluding, by bolding or leaving blank, etc., thus influencing people to drive on the roads). As for postal boundaries - yeah, that's not necessarily notable, and yes, that signifies something, but significance can affect notability in many cases, such as influencing people to drive or showing where the main routes are. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This is also why I recommend using multiple sources. — Rickyrab | Talk 16:53, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

• A while back, when there was talk of setting up WP:GEOBOT, I seem to recall a discussion about this very thing. The analogy I remember is that that atlases and maps are the geographical equivalent of a phone book. As such, they are just lists without specific information, and thus are not suffient on their own to justify the creation of an article. The specific discussion can be found here, but I think it was more of less closed as no concensus. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 19:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

For further discussion of why atlases and maps shouldn't alone confer notability see WT:Notability (Geographic locations)#Using an Atlas as a source for notability and related discussions. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 15:43, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ashida Kim (7th nomination)

Anyone feel like distributing some Clue about notability, here? This ad hominem nonsense has been going on for four AFD discussions, now. Uncle G (talk) 12:10, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

If you believe there has been an ad hominem attack, you can feel free to address it directly: I certainly didn't mean to attack your person, only your argument. Specifically, your PLC: several times, you have positioned it in a debate as if it had the weight of consensus behind it, and was an objective requirement.

I would have no objection to your use of any personal criteria you would like to use, but since you refuse to point out or even acknowledge that the PNC is simply your personal opinion and not Wikipedia policy, I feel compelled to point it out for you.

If you wish to avoid this, you should instead focus on making arguments based on our existing policies and guidelines. --Ashenai (talk) 12:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I think UncleG was referring to the article's subject, not himself. I suspect he couldn't care less what you think about his PLC. Eusebeus (talk) 15:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there actually a consensus for the current definition of notability?

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.

This is how notability is defined. In the course of a lot of discussions of issues around notability (especially at Wikipedia talk:Notability (people), my sense is that there are a lot of people who not only don't think that this is what notability should be, but basically act as though this is not the definition of notability at all.

It's hard to really get a good sense of this, but it seems like there's a lot of people who take a much more restricted view of notability, arguing that only subjects which are of "lasting interest" or are "truly encyclopedic" or other vaguely defined ideas of that sort, are notable. I've seen it argued that if a reliable source decides to list all British peers, or every movie produced by a Hollywood studio, or whatever, that doesn't qualify as evidence of notability because the source is not being "selective". That's to say nothing of the rather confusing debates over specific notability guidelines, which get arcane and frequently bear no connection to the basic notability definition above, on either side. The point is - a very significant portion of the people who are interested in the idea of "notability" seem to act as though the definition actually supplied here is not the applicable definition of "notability." I've seen no clear sense that any of these people have any very clear idea of how notability should in fact be defined, but it seems like there's a lot of people who, at the very least, don't support this definition. So I thought I'd test the waters - is this definition of notability actually supported by consensus? If not, what should the definition of notability be? john k (talk) 21:14, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The curent definition of noteability is fine for BLPs. Otherwise its not helpful and isnt needed. All topics that are verifieable and are not prohibited by CAT:SD should be allowed articles. FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:24, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The point of notability - which is to decide when it is appropriate to have a separate article about a topic, not whether that topic should be included or not - is to define a minimum requirement for such topics that assure us that there is more than just repeating a primary source or reiterating a database entry and to cover the topic encyclopedically, through which we can establish to the general reader the context of the topic that is, why is it "notable" to have its own page on WP. Having significant coverage in secondary sources is one measure (and a fairly good one) of this factor. The SNGs are there to provide cases where secondary sources may not exist but will likely based on specific criteria (eg someone winning a major award). If notability is not met by a topic, that doesn't mean we don't cover it, just we don't cover it in its own article. So we can include all British peers and all movies by a studio - that's verifiable - but we just only expand out on those peers or movies or whatever when there's enough sourcing to talk more about them than just that line. This is still a reasonable consensus that I see repeated in AFDs (if you look past purely mechanical responses and the like) - it is the question of whether the topic does make a good encyclopedia article or not. --MASEM (t) 21:30, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant sources that, for instance, give short biographical entries on all British peers, or short articles on all movies by a studio. john k (talk) 21:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe that would could as insignificant or incidental coverage. It is not enough that a topic was once mentioned—I myself have been quoted in newspapers—but that a story was about that topic specifically. The fact that a university was briefly mentioned in a story about sham institutions does not make it notable; a story about that university itself is however significant secondary coverage by an independent reliable source. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 21:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

How is having an entry about a subject in a reference work comparable to a subject being quoted once or mentioned in passing in a newspaper? john k (talk) 04:52, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Same again, this does not qualify as significant coverage - see WP:NTEMP. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

This seems completely inapposite. An article about a subject in a reliable reference work does not qualify as significant coverage? Because of NTEMP? That doesn't even make any sense. You people seem to be making up interpretations and rules as you go along. john k (talk) 07:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Why does it not make sense? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:28, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Because NTEMP refers specifically to news sources, and I was talking about reference works. Also, NTEMP is, so far as I can tell, not defining what significant coverage is, but providing an exception for things which have significant coverage in reliable sources but are still not notable. For example, see my discussion of last night's Nationals-Phillies game below. I don't see how a baseball game which receives five independent, relatively detailed write-ups from five different media outlets can be considered not to be receiving "significant coverage." The issue is apparently that significant coverage is apparently not enough, because this particular coverage is ephemeral. None of this, at any rate, applies to reference works. john k (talk) 14:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Significant coverage is a bare minimum for notability, and works for the general case. However, when you start talking about things that happen very regularly, such as baseball games, stock market performances, etc. we ask for a higher standard, because while these things are covered routinely by numerous sources on a daily basis, it is rarely that any individual game or market result is significant alone but instead contributes to a larger topic (in this case, season performance or market trends). There are cases of games with notability above and beyond just being another game in the season, and these get treated appropriately. This isn't NTEMP (that would be, oh, a person that is notable in a feel-good news story that gets national coverage for saving a cat, but otherwise does nothing), but instead what the sub-notability guidelines and what wikiproject more narrowly define for specific topics what notability is. Notability defines a presumed starting point but it is not the end-all for it. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

But this is really not very clear. GNG isn't a "bare minimum" - it provides a "presumption" of notability. But we don't seem to have any kind of proper definition of notability, or, at least, not one that's useful at all. I'd add that a baseball game is a discrete event in a way that daily stock market performance is not. And the specific guidelines don't work this way at all - in my experience they are almost always used to allow us to include topics that don't meet GNG, not to exclude topics that do. And I never was aware that wikiprojects had any jurisdiction to define notability at all - they are merely voluntary work-groups of wikipedians. john k (talk) 15:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The specific notability guidelines like BIO serve the purpose of asserting that if a topic meets a specific criteria, then it is reasonably likely there will be sources - maybe not immediately available but will be in the future - that will allow the topic to meet the GNG. They aren't including topics that would not otherwise being allowable by the GNG, but instead asserting that for all cases of topics that meet narrow criteria X, they are presumed to be notable. Down the road, that that notability can be challenged - say if a person wins an award that falls under one of the BIO criteria, but never gets any more coverage in a year or so. Then yes, we can likely merge that content elsewhere.

Counter to that, project-specific guidelines may provide a second filter on notability beyond the GNG - but they cannot bypass the GNG. For example, at the Video Games project, while thinks like lists of weapons for a given game can be sourced to numerous places, and often times with significant coverage, we discourage the inclusion of these because they only serve to help the gamer, not the general reader. There are cases of video game weapons that do get more notability than just being in a game (gravity gun), but these are rare.

But back to the baseball example. WP is not meant to be an indiscriminate collection of information. 50 seasons with 26 teams and 100 games (rough #s) gives me a total of 65,000 individual games that we could be covering, and that's a conservative number and considering only the US area. Having 65,000 different articles about single baseball games, even if each can be sourced to newspapers and sporting mags, is indiscriminate. Yes, each game is probably notable if we strictly went by "significant coverage in secondary sources" but we also need to consider that an individual game has little impact on the overall season. Ok, this is a bit of NTEMP - because a game, on average, is notable temporarily around the time the game was played but rarely a few days afterwards beyond being a stat - but it's also because otherwise, we are being indiscriminate. --MASEM (t) 16:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is how the specific guidelines are supposed to work, but not how they are often used in practice. I also agree that we should not have articles on individual baseball games. But I don't think this comes down to notability - they clearly pass GNG. I think it comes down to NOT, and probably to "wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." There are, at present, 2430 baseball games a year (81 home games*30 teams). That means that since 1996, inclusive, there will have been 34,020 regular season games at the end of the current season (don't want to go back further because of issues with the strike). For the pre-expansion modern era, when there were 16 teams, from 1901 to 1960, there were a total of 73,920 regular season games played (77 home games per season*16 teams*60 years), all of which we can likely find reliable sources describing, with access to newspaper archives and such. Presumably, in total, there's well over 200,000 individual regular season baseball games in the modern era, virtually all of which would pass GNG. That'd be about 7% of the total number of articles currently on wikipedia. Clearly we can't have articles on them. But I'm not sure that, at present, policy very clearly explains why we can't. At any rate, I think it's worth being clear-headed about the fact that there's millions of topics which easily and clearly fulfill GNG but which we can't have articles about, and think about ways to be clearer about explaining why not. john k (talk) 17:16, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

See my point below: GNG is a presumption that we can have an article on a topic, but the buck doesn't stop there. --MASEM (t) 17:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, there is no consensus. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 14:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I believe there is a rough consensus - whenever there is a big fight on this issue, we end up coming back here as a compromise. So, there certainly is no consensus for any thing else. I believe the challenge is that there are a lot of hardliners on both sides of the notability debate, and it is unlikely they will ever see eye to eye.--Kubigula (talk) 15:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that, the more I look into this, the issue is that everything is incredibly vague, and anyone can read whatever they want into it. The current guideline is more or less a mask for the lack of consensus. john k (talk) 15:53, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree and a better idea might be something like User:A Nobody/Inclusion guidelines or to revive Wikipedia:Notability/Historical/Non-notability. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 16:03, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I agree with the basic premise that WP:NOT and WP:V should be the main criteria for whether we should have an article, and that "notability" is not well-defined. Notability is mostly useful, I think, as a modification of verifiability, in terms of requiring that sources be not only reliable, but also independent of the subject, and that coverage be non-trivial. john k (talk) 17:17, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

If you agree with the premise of WP:V that article topics should be the subject of reliable, third-party sources, then you have basically accepted that notability as a basis for inclusion as a standalone article. However, just because an article topic is verifiable, that does not mean it is suitable for inclusion: the need for significant coverage from secondary sources that are both reliable and independent is almost a common sense requirement when you think about it, because they provide context in the form of commentary, criticism and analysis on which encyclopedic coverage is based. The key to understanding why notability is more than just "useful" but is really necessary is that without context, the reader will not have sufficient information to understand a topic fully. This is the objective of Wikipedia, to build an encyclopedia that enables the reader to understand the topics it contains. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 07:49, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree with Gavin Collins's reasoning (07:49, 18 September 2009) if only it was not presented in such absolute terms:

• Acceptance of WP:V does imply some concept of notability as a basis for inclusion as a standalone article.
• IMO (possibly controversial), inclusion in a government inventory should not be considered evidence of notability. At present we have too many articles on uninteresting roads, bridges, schools, etc. Hell, people are on government inventories for tax purposes, but that does not confer notability on people.
• Coverage from secondary sources that are independent is essential, to avoid making WP an advertising & PR medium.

But things get more complicated after this.

• The concept of a "reliable source" is poorly defined. WP:RS requires a "reputation for fact-checking and reliability", but says little about whether the reputation is well-earned. It also often leads into an infinite regress - if source A says B has a "reputation for fact-checking and reliability", how do we decide whether source A is reliable? You will often find that after a few steps in this dance B is the source for some intermediate source. WP:RS has other problems with which I won't bore you for now.
• "the need for significant coverage" is another potential minefield. Academic subjects have no issues with this, as academics are always looking for topics to publish about, and academic publications are usually reliable, although occasionally some rubbish slips by (yes, I can cite an example). In non-academic subjects, publishers tend to concentrate on the topics which are most likely to boost sales or advertising revenue. For example video game mags concentrate on reviewing individual games, and take for granted that readers will understand game genres. So an article about a game genre may largely have be based on gleanings from various sources, e.g. "game A has typical features X and Y of genre G" and "game B has typical features X and Z of genre G" - even if the genre is well-established and includes some games regarded as classics.
• We have to avoid a lot of systemic biases that can partly be summarised as "dead white males". For example in literature we have an article about Briseis, who is a total nonentity, but I once found on Google Books an academic book about her - a simple consequence of the fact that they're making new Ancient Greek literature any more, so classical scholars have to write about increasingly obscure topics. On the other hand it's a real struggle to find good sources about popular fiction - even for the Harry Potter books! --Philcha (talk) 08:27, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

There are very straight forward answers to your questions. I think Wikipedia:Reliable sources is more comprehensive than you give it credit for. As regards significant coverage, we both know it can't be substitued for synthesis, mentions in passing or trivial coverage, so that issue is pretty clear. And I don't agree with you views on bias: if Briseis has been studied for more than a thousand years, you might expect to find coverage about her, compared with more recent fictional characters. I think notability as a concept has a lot going for it, besides the fact that it is needed to write a decent article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:40, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't have a super strong consensus, but it has enough to not be gotten rid of. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree. I think the current notability guideline works pretty well. With any such guideline there will be marginal cases where people will have good faith disagreements about how it applies, but in the majority of cases I think it is pretty easy to see how the guideline should be applied. That is half the test for a good guideline. The other half is that applying the guideline has a positive affect. I think that it does, because it eliminates articles that could never meet the verifiability requirement because the necessary sources don't exist, and it prevents Wikipedia from turning into a news service rather than an encyclopedia by establishing that transient news coverage does not establish notability. Rusty Cashman (talk) 07:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Do news reports confer notablity?

For example, routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for a topic to have its own standalone article.

Whuh? What does this mean? Routine news coverage of such things as tabloid journalism? Announcements? What is this even trying to say? john k (talk) 07:58, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Basically stuff like late-night sports highlights on the all the professional games that were played that day, annoucements for stuff like space shuttle launching, and tabloids specifically go out to sensationalize trivial events.陣内_Jinnai 08:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to clarify the sentence (which is indeed not the most clearly formulated one): "For example, routine news coverage of such things as in announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism is not a sufficient basis [...]" Better? Perhaps drop the "as" as well? Fram (talk) 08:47, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, I think "such as" would better - these are examples, not an exclusive list of "routine" sources. --Philcha (talk) 11:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

No, that still doesn't make sense, but the current form is more comprehensible. But I still don't know what "announcements" are. Tabloids shouldn't be used because they aren't reliable sources. The sports issue seems odd to me. I assume the purpose is to disallow articles on individual games, and obviously we shouldn't have articles on individual regular season sporting matches, but individual sporting events in major leagues seem clearly to fulfill GNG. For example, last night's game between the Phillies and the Nationals is the primary subject of articles in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the Associated Press. This passage, I suppose, is supposed to explain why, in spite of the fact that GNG gives us a presumption of notability for this game based on its significant coverage in multiple reliable sources, it is still not appropriate to create an article about it. The passage fails in that task, in my opinion. I notice now that this passage is basically a word for word copy of material in WP:INFO, but I'm not sure what came first, the chicken or the egg here. Looking further at this, the whole concept of notability is incredibly vague. The GNG is clear enough, except that pesky bit about a presumption which can be overcome. What notability is is left entirely vague and unclear. In particular, the GNG suggests more or less objective criteria for determining notability. But the objective criteria provided would clearly allow an article on last night's Nationals-Phillies game. Which, just as clearly, nobody thinks there should be an article about. NTEMP doesn't seem to me to give a particularly clear reason why not, or a particularly clear guideline for how to determine whether it warrants it. john k (talk) 14:46, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

For sports it is because coverage of these events is done for every game for professional leagues. It is the same reason we don't accept a source reviewing every TV series DVD to come to market as showing notability; they have no criteria for distinguishing good notable from non-notable. That isn't to say such sources cannot be used for verifiability, just not notability.陣内_Jinnai 16:24, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see that this makes any sense. Every game for professional leagues is covered because news organizations feel that every game for professional leagues is worthy of note. That is the very definition of notability, isn't it? john k (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Which means it cannot be used a valid source to show notability, only verifiability because they cannot be seen as a reliable source to show what games are notable and which aren't since not everything is notable.陣内_Jinnai 17:01, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, high school baseball games also exist, but most are not notable because we can't find non-trivial discussions of them in reliable secondary sources. (Local newspapers will often give results, but not devote whole articles to high school athletics). So obviously these newspapers do not cover everything. They choose to cover professional sporting events in more detail than high school sporting events because they believe professional events are worth noting (i.e. notable), but that high school sports are not (i.e. non-notable). Once again, GNG says that we should assume something is notable if it is discussed significantly in reliable sources independent of the subject. It says nothing about why those reliable sources cover the subject. I don't know that individual baseball games are notable under current policy, but they clearly pass GNG. john k (talk) 17:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

We don't "assume" something is notable because of coverage, we "presume" - other factors such as WProject-specific guides, other policies and guidelines (such as NOT) and the like all work atop notability to determine if the topic should have an article. --MASEM (t) 17:34, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

I still don't think Wikiproject specific guidelines should really be involved, except insofar as they are applications of existing guidelines and policies supported by consensus. Fully agreed that other policies and guidelines, especially NOT, work along with notability to determine if there should be an article. john k (talk) 20:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Jinnai's view makes no sense at all to me, I'm afraid. A reliable source is a reliable source, and if there are several of them, the article passes the GNG.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 17:36, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• In response to Masem, I would add that specialist guidelines for individual Wikiprojects don't get to overrule the GNG.

  For example, a sportsman might not pass WP:ATHLETE but he could still be notable if he had received significant coverage for other reasons. A professor at a university might not pass WP:PROF but she could still pass the GNG if she had been covered for other reasons.

  Besides, the GNG represents a wide consensus of significant age and strength, but the specialist guidelines have received much less community scrutiny. They carry consequently less weight.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 17:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• Well, there's two different things here: the sub-notability guidelines like BIO, and WProject guidelines. the sub-notability guidelines pretty much read "it's presumed notability if it meets the GNG or passes one of the criteria below" - so there's no overriding there. At the WProject level, those guidelines should NOT be asserting new criteria as the sub-notability ones (the reason being is that SNGs are more global and thus have WP-wide consensus, while Project ones rarely do), though they are free to clarify and further restrict those criteria within reason (such as, for WP:BASEBALL, what is considered the professional level for sports). WProjects may also define notability in conjunction with how NOT and other policies apply specifically for that project - in other words, a topic may pass the GNG, but a project may have determined that by application of NOT that certain aspects need more than just common everyday coverage. So, yes, I believe that we can further restrict the GNG at the WProject level as long as the restrictions are in line with NOT and other polices. It would be improper for WP:BASEBALL to only say that the only notable players are those that have played for the Yankees, for example, but can clarify that to be notable, they may have had to play more than X games to be notable. This doesn't of course prevent notability by other means (maybe notable for their non-atheletic career). --MASEM (t) 18:00, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• I don't agree. I think passing the GNG needs to be a bright-line inclusion criterion.

  The GNG is extremely simplistic, but it does have the benefit that anyone can check for themselves if the material they are writing will pass it and if so, write with the confidence that their material will not be deleted. In other words, it's what enables content creators to write without going through a committee process first.

  Weakening the GNG by saying "Oh, yes, well, something might pass the GNG but still not be notable" is a serious mistake that I urge you to retreat from.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 18:09, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

• But unfortunately, that is true. Again, I emphasize the word "presume" because that enforces the concept that passing the GNG is not the final test for a topic to have an article. --MASEM (t) 18:44, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Are we saying things can pass GNG but are not notable, or that things can pass GNG but still not be worthy of an article? I think the latter is very defensible, although I don't think current policy and guidelines very clearly support such an interpretation. I think the former virtually robs "notability" of all meaning. That being said, S Marshall, do you think every major league baseball game warrants a wikipedia article devoted to it? I'm personally kind of uncomfortable with both of the possible positions here - I don't like the Jinnai position, which seems intellectually incoherent to me, and basically gives the potential to be an argument for deleting any article on a borderline subject one doesn't like. But I'm not terribly comfortable with the idea that virtually every Major League Baseball game warrants an article, either, which I think a strict reading of GNG would require. My solution, I think would be that we have notability, which is strictly regulated by the GNG, but which is not sufficient, in and of itself, to warrant the existence of a stand-alone article on a subject. The problem, as I see it, is that currently exceptions to the GNG - situations where something passes GNG, but doesn't warrant an article - are quite poorly defined. john k (talk) 20:41, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

My point was that merely having the highlights on the evening news/the next days paper for a regular game doesn't make it worthy in and of itself of an article or sometimes even a section because those things are routine. When there is excessive coverage, 1998 in baseball, which is arguable one of the more recent examples of a year with a major impact as the McGwire-Sosa homerun battle was regarded as saving MLB and yet not one of those momentus games has an article. News stories are considered reliable sources for special events being notable because those events are special. Once something becomes routine, the coverage may need to be shown more to discern what is truly notable and what is not.陣内_Jinnai 21:23, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

The way the GNG is written, it is possible to pass the GNG but not warrant an article - that's the interpretation I take. The reason we don't have articles on every baseball game is likely a combination of two issues: first, most sources that cover baseball games are not secondary: they are reporting what happened as first-hand accounts - albeit with color commentary and personal rhetoric - and thus are primary sources about the game (this is a bit of NTEMP too). So from some aspects, they aren't meeting the GNG due to what sources they have. Secondary, they do run afoul of indiscriminate information - as identified above, in baseball alone we could have 70,000+ articles, which common sense tells me there's no way all 70,000 can be written about in an encyclopedic manner to allow readers to understand the impact and effects caused by those games.

Another way to look at it: this is a general encyclopedia with some specialist information. A rundown of the games per season, with their results, is a common part of most sports almanacs. But I have not seen a sports reference book on baseball that breakdown and describes each and every game the team may have played - beyond box scores - save to discuss general trends. We want to include detail - but not too much detail that is not typical of reference works to avoid being indiscriminate. Thus it is necessary to balance where notability allows for an article and where an article would be simply too much detail for a general reference work. --MASEM (t) 12:09, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• To that question, a question. (You'll have to forgive me, because I only have a very vague idea of what a baseball game is—I live on the wrong continent for understanding baseball—but I'll run with that example.)

  Let's imagine an editor spends weeks writing articles on every individual baseball game for every season since 1983. Each article is reliably sourced and contains nothing which is not verifiable. Then all of a sudden the Article Police find this material and, predictably, have a conniption.

  What's the benefit to the encyclopaedia in deleting this material?

  If you can show a clear cost-benefit analysis that demonstrates a need to delete those reliably-sourced articles from Wikipedia, then I will agree that the GNG should not be a bright-line inclusion criterion.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 20:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

See WP:NOTNEWS Blueboar (talk) 00:06, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, although S Marshall seems to more be questioning the propriety of WP:NOTNEWS as much as anything. john k (talk) 01:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:NOTNEWS is, like most Wikipedian policies, a series of declarative sentences that don't necessarily follow. It's certainly not an explanation. In fact, pretty much everything in "What Wikipedia is not" is a list of things the Article Police think you shouldn't be able to write on Wikipedia. I didn't ask for that; I asked for a cost-benefit analysis. I'd settle for any other kind of reasoning.  :)—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 06:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think WP:NOTNEWS does make sense. Of course a news story can be classed as a reliable secondary source in certain circumastances, but we have to take a common sense view that not every scrap of data or information recorded in newspapers confers notability. Some of the SNG's already disallow coverage without commentary (e.g. pure plot summary) whilst policies such as WP:NOTCRYSTAL effectively disallow news coverage of future events as evidence of notability because it is based on speculation about future events that may not occur.
The common sense interpretation of WP:NOTNEWS is that coverage which can be classed as a primary sources does not confer notability, whereas coverage that includes significant coverage in the form of commentary, criticism or analysis does. I don't think these points can be dismissed out of hand - as editors, we have to question whether a news story provides sufficient information about a topic to make inclusion as a standalone article worthwhile on the grounds that there is sufficient context for the reader to fully understand the topic fully. In any case, if were to allow every news story as evidence of notability, then Wikipedia would simply become a mirror site for the London or New York Times. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:19, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• I think Wikipedia will always be more than a mirror site for the Times or the New York Times. It "should" be (though it will never, ever, be) a collection of information culled from reliable sources and rewritten into article form. The articles can be long or short, or stubs; they can be comprehensive or works-in-progress or single lines of data. But I don't think it's controversial to say that one reliably-sourced fact is better than none.

  I think the idea that editors should be empowered to go round looking at content someone else has written and say, "okay, that's reliably-sourced, but I don't think the news stories give enough information to make your article worthwhile", is pernicious and corrosive and it needs to be challenged robustly. Removing unverified and unverifiable material is fine by me, but I do think it is rarely appropriate to remove reliably-sourced material from Wikipedia. (Certain BLP provisions, copyright considerations, etc. are the only grounds I can think of to do it.)—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 13:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

We are not talking about facts or data on their own, so your answer is slightly off the mark. Notability is about which topics should be included in Wikipedia as standalone topics, and sometimes news articles on their own don't provide sufficient coverage to provide information to provide context to the reader. We just have to recognise that barebones news stories do not give enough information to make a stand article worthwhile because there is the risk that undue weight could be given to events which may be part of a bigger picture, which is often the case with news stories. Otherwise the point is reached where the reader can't see the forest for the trees. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:12, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• I recognise that concern where it comes to controversial material, and that does need to be handled a bit more sensitively. The specific example we're considering is about baseball games, though. I don't understand the relevance of WP:UNDUE.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 14:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE might be relevant where the notability of a particular game is marginal relative to the final or the series as a whole. There really needs to be sufficient commentary about a particualar game for the reader to understand its wider context, which sometimes news reports on their own don't provide. The next level down is minute by minute commentary; sometimes this can be useful, but without commentary about the game as a whole from reliable secondary sources, it gives undue weight to relatively minor or trivial details. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

• I should have said that I can see how WP:UNDUE might affect the detailed contents of the article, but I don't see why it should be relevant to the notability-related question of whether Wikipedia has an article on the game at all.

  I realise that editors often assert that WP:UNDUE is relevant to notability, and in controversial cases I can sometimes see their point, but assertion is not reasoning and we're considering a trivial, non-controversial example here.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 15:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Surely WP:UNDUE would actually be an argument for creating separate articles on individual games. For instance, let's say that in 2009 Philadelphia Phillies season, somebody decided to insert a detailed description of tonight's game, fully sourced to various news reports. That would obviously be undue weight. But the information is verifiable, and sourced, so the normal rule would be to split it off into its own article, so as to avoid undue weight. john k (talk) 04:32, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

If it is fully sourced, then its notable. But if the news reports only carry details of the venue, the teams, the players and the score, then that is hardly notable as match report is virtually a primary source. There would need to be significant coverage about the game's wider signficance (if any). --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:35, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? The Associated Press and the major local newspapers for any city will always give a detailed rundown of what happened in the game. Let's look at last night's Atlanta-Philadelphia game. There's a 943 word article in the Philadelphia Daily News; there's a 620 world article in the Philadelphia Inquirer; there's an 810 word article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and a 780 word article from the Associated Press. These articles include desciptions of the game, post-game quotes from the opposing managers and players, and analysis of the game's position in the larger scheme of the two teams. And you'll find this level of coverage for every MLB game. Last night's Mets-Nationals game was completely meaningless, but there's still similar length articles about it in the AP, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the New York Daily News (the New York Post and Newsday seem to have printed the AP story; the New York Times doesn't have a story either). I don't know whether any of this qualifies as "significant coverage about the game's wider significance," but there's certainly some - Happ and Ruiz's injuries and what they mean for the team in the postseason are a big issue in the Philly newspapers' coverage of the Phillies-Braves game, and the AJC talks about the hurt the game puts on the Braves chances to make the postseason. Certainly the coverage is a lot fuller than merely "details of the venue, the teams, the players and the score." john k (talk) 15:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Which is why the GNG is a presumption that a topic can have a standalone article if it has significant coverage in secondary sources, but still can fail other policy, in this case, that WP is not an indiscriminate collection of information. In the larger scope of being a general and specialist encyclopedia, detailed coverage of every baseball game played at the detail given by the AP and other sources is too indiscriminate because while they are analyzing the game, there is no context of the larger picture - they may speculate that an injury may be critical but that's still speculation. A summary of the season, including highlighting - at the end of the season - what were known to be critical games due to plays or injuries, is completely reasonable. This is why NTEMP applies: a game may have coverage, but until the season resolves, it's impossible to tell what impact that it might have. --MASEM (t) 15:54, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

They can only speculatively put it into context looking forward, but they can certainly put it into context going backwards. And Wikipedia covers plenty of hard news subjects based on sources with exactly the same problems. john k (talk) 16:08, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I am sure loads of coverage can be found for one match, but I still think rountine news reports (no matter how long) are more or less a primary source. I still believe that featuring the game as a single article might be a good example of providing undue weight to just one game in the two teams' season. I would be reluctant to propose the creation of an article about the game, becasue as non-expert I need more context to understand more about the teams and why it is important to them. I think this is where Wikipedia parts company from news reports: generally speaking, the readers of news reports are already followers of the Atlanta and Philadelphia teams, and already have the backround and understanding that say a broader focused encyclopedic article would have to provide. In theory you write an article about the game, but it would be difficult to understand why you would want to do so if an article about the Atlanta Braves or the Philadelphia Phillies gives you a better understanding of the teams, their management, the players, their achievements and standing than say a 100 articles about the games ever could. Being unable to see the forest for the trees is still an issue, and I think WP:NOT#NEWS demarcates this clearly. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 18:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why newspaper coverage of a sporting event should be treated any differently from newspaper coverage of any other event. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, but we do have articles on events for which the only sources are newspaper reports. And I'd say that reading the 140 or so newspaper articles about all the Phillies games over the last year would give you a much better sense of the team, its management, its players, and their achievements and standing than 2009 Philadelphia Phillies season does, and certainly a lot more than Philadelphia Phillies does. john k (talk) 19:47, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why newspaper coverage of a sporting event should be treated any differently from newspaper coverage of any other event. And we don't treat events as immediately notable despite a burst of coverage after the fact. (both WP:NTEMP and WP:ONEEVENT). A single baseball game among all 1000-some played during a season - or even 100-some played by one team, is rarely significant by itself, but how any trends around that game is what makes for usable coverage - which is why there's no problem with per-team, per-season articles on game. Another example: We didn't treat every bank closing and other significant event in the sub-prime mortgage markey as a separate article, but the overall series of events as a whole was significant (Subprime mortgage crisis). This is not to prevent coverage of truly notable games (eg Ten Cent Beer Night) but notice again, there more than just being one game in a baseball series that is related to its importance. --MASEM (t) 19:57, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I recognise the assertion that "we don't", and I see the alphabet soup. I'm looking for reasoning rather than declarative sentences, though.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 20:02, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Most of NTEMP and ONEEVENT stem from WP is not a crystal ball. When an event occurs, even if it has much coverage that day, it is difficult to ascertain if that event is truly notable to gain an article, and it would be inappropriate to assume from short-term coverage if it is case. When, after some time has past, that event has been determined to have more significance than just that event, then we can consider writing an article about it. So in the case of baseballs games, its impossible to tell just from the results and subsequent press coverage if that was a significant game or not. We know that most games are not significant by themselves, only the net culmination of all such games towards a season. Thus, we avoid articles on individual games until they later are shown to be notable. --MASEM (t) 21:03, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

ONEEVENT clearly doesn't apply to the situations we've been discussing heretofore, as that applies specifically to whether we should have articles on living individuals, doesn't it? john k (talk) 05:17, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The unstated assumption behind that is that Wikipedia should only cover "significant" things, and I challenge that. I'm all for reliable sources, but I'm not at all in favour of cutting reliably-sourced material merely because an editor doesn't think it's significant.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

First pillar of WP includes that we are not an indiscriminate collection of information. WP:NOT outlines by policy what we don't include, while WP:NOTE attempts to provide guidance based on sourcing. It's clear that we do attribution the significance of the topic towards its inclusion here. --MASEM (t) 23:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Sure. My position, though, is that what makes something significant (i.e. notable) is the fact that it's been noted in reliable sources. Why should any other judgment of "significance", apart from the reliability of the sources, matter?—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:11, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Which taken to an extreme, means that anything that a reliable source published should be included in WP, which is not appropriate. Take the NYTimes - it's certainly reliable, and many of its stories do cover topics that would be included. But if we included everything it publishes, that means that daily car accidents, crime reports, feel-good stories about local people to NYC, people that have died, high school sports, and so forth are suddently worthy for inclusion - certainly the information is verifiable, but you must agree that on average these are insignificant and indiscriminate. The goal of WP is to summarize knowledge for any reader, not to go into detail about it. We have to realize that for all areas of knowledge on WP, there is a level where we normally do not include information - not because it can't be sourced, but it too details and indiscriminate for a causal reader. --MASEM (t) 00:30, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that there's a level of detail below which we couldn't usefully go, but I can't shake the feeling that we're a long way apart on what that level of detail actually is. I mean, here's an example of a level of detail that's not useful to the casual reader. Should it be deleted?—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 00:38, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Delete no, but rewritten from scratch, yes, because there are a lot of deep science articles that start from the assumption that you're trained in that art to understand it. It is not that it doesn't appear to be notable, just that it's poorly written for an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 00:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

But if we're to keep Wikipedia's higher mathematics articles that perhaps one person in a thousand can even understand, what's the matter with an article on a baseball game that anyone could understand? Particularly considering that the baseball game article would be much better-sourced?—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 09:32, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, again, I stress that the example needs to be massively rewritten to bring the language down to the level that average readers can understand it, but the thing is that the concept has shown to have relevance over time and thus we should keep it. A single baseball game, after about a week, is likely to have little significance past that point beyond being a tick in the win/loss column. That's why we have a policy like WP:NOT because while there's a lot of things that can be sourced, there's areas of coverage or means of coverage that we want to avoid to remain an encyclopedia, even if the topic is well-sourced and meets all other polices. --MASEM (t) 13:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Gavin.collins, I'm curious to know whether you see Hallucigenia as notable? That takes a fair bit of context to understand as well.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 19:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I think S Marshall's position here could certainly sustain still excluding plenty of stuff that appears in the daily newspaper. For example, while the New York Times Crossword Puzzle is certainly, in general, notable, individual crossword puzzles wouldn't be, because there's not going to be any secondary sources that talk about them - the crossword puzzle itself is a primary source in the newspaper, and thus doesn't go to notability. Paid death notices would not be notable because the information is provided by the deceased families, and is thus not independently verified. The police blotter could be excluded as trivial coverage. But reports on sporting events are detailed and clearly non-trivial. So also non-paid obituaries written by the newspaper's own reporters - I'd say that a non-paid obituary in the New York Times would almost certainly qualify someone as notable - although it wouldn't necessarily mean that their death is notable, because the death itself is normally trivially covered - obituaries are biographical articles about a person's life, which are merely occasioned by the person's death - the obituary itself is not about the death. (Some people, of course, get actual news articles about their death, which is different, and would seem to qualify the death itself for an article under S Marshall's schema). I'm not sure I agree with this approach, but it is fairly consistent and intellectually coherent, and I'm not sure what especial negative consequences would flow from adopting it. I also don't think it would violate the "not an indiscriminant collection of information" rule, any more than a whole ton of stuff on wikipedia might already be argued to do so. john k (talk) 05:27, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I would take the same view as John Kenny by analogy. In the same way a person is notable by what they did during their life rather than their death which is a single one off event, I don't think a single one off event such as a baseball game is notable by itself and one or more newspaper reports change that because they are essentially primary sources. I am not saying that there are be exceptions, like the finals, which may be the subject of a broader range of sources other than newspapers which are truly secondary, in the sense that the comment apon the primary sources, i.e. they comment on the newspaper reports. Otherwise there is the problem of self-referencing: "why are the newspapers reporting on this game in the first place?" And the answer is that the competition in which the teams are participating is notable by being the subject of secondary as well as primary sources, and really that is why there is a news report about a particular game. Strip away the broader notabililty the competition of the teams, then the newspapers probably would not report on it at all. There is an element of "which came first, the Chicken or the egg?", but in general article topics are not notable because of primary newspaper reports, they are notable because they have been noted by a broader range of sources.
In answer to S. Marshall's question about the notability of Hallucigenia, I am not sure notability of this topic is proven, because the sources don't appear to be reliable - web pages that report on primary and secondary sources are not really relaible because the information they contain is "second-hand" and is not coming to us directly from the original source. The article suggests that Hallucigenia might be notable, but personally I would prefer to see verifiable evidence that it is, rather than rely on tertiary sources alone. Let me know if I have answered your question. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:41, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

On Hallucigenia, this is another peculiar thing about notability. Either you've read Stephen Jay Gould's "Wonderful Life" or you haven't. If you've read it, then you know that (1) Stephen Jay Gould was a leading expert in palaeobiology and evolutionary theory, and (2) his book Wonderful Life, which is actually cited in the article, contains an extremely detailed description of the species, of which that article is only a summary. But Wikipedian processes such as AfD involve notability being decided by people who haven't read the sources, and an AfD might well lead to the Hallucigenia article being deleted or redirected—an extremely inappropriate outcome.

This is another reason why passing the GNG needs to be a bright-line inclusion criterion: matters are decided by people who haven't read the sources.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 09:54, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

On my first reading, I did not notice that source. On that basis, it is clear that the species has been the subject of significant coverage from reliable secondary sources, so it appears notable to me, but I am not sure what the revelance to the discussion is. Have I missed something? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

It follows from your remark about context. ("I would be reluctant to propose the creation of an article about the game, becasue as non-expert I need more context") — my response was that examples such as Hallucigenia or the mathematical page cited above show that it's custom and practice that articles requiring quite a bit of context to understand are, nevertheless, notable.

My position remains that significant coverage in news outfits such as The Times or the BBC is sufficient to confer notability, and I do not see the need to complexify matters further by being more restrictive.

If someone wants to spend weeks writing articles about individual baseball games, then few people will read them, but a cost-benefit analysis tells me it is better to leave reliably-sourced material than to delete it.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that some newspaper coverage in which the coverage is significant in the amount of context it provides could be the basis of a standalone article, and I believe this is the current practise. However, routine news stories which are effectively primary sources do not, which is why WP:NTEMP makes good sense: routine news coverage such as announcements, sports coverage, and tabloid journalism is not a sufficient basis for a topic to have its own standalone article. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

My concern is that "signficant coverage in reliable sources" is relatively objective, but deciding what's "announcements, sports coverage, and tabloid journalism" is more subjective. (One person's "routine announcement" might be another person's "good basis for a standalone article".) I'm concerned that because of the nature of Wikipedia's editorship, we need to have relatively objective guidelines that can be reliably implemented by American teenagers who have not read the sources in detail.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 12:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Potentially, there are always going to have that debate - see the discussion Significant or Non-Trivial for example. There will always be sources which appear to be significant, reliable, independent or secondary, but with closer examination are not. However, the guideline is objective in my view, because routine news reports are effectively primary sources. I think the principles behind WP:NTEMP are objective, but the wording could always be improved. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 13:38, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

AFD and news reports

We decide by AfD, since there ins't an objective way to determine it. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Consider: many events have lots of routine coverage that doesn't qualify as "significant coverage". For example, every television programme is mentioned by every listings magazine that covers that channel. That does not mean that every single thing that is broadcast is notable and should have its own article. OrangeDog (talk • edits) 01:28, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

We have a pretty good idea on whether simple listings confer notability, but for instance, every single NFL game has entire articles about it before it happens, and after words. To me they're notable, but someone will want to test it at AfD, where the result is unclear. If there's a weak season page, it will probably be merged, but if the season page is done, who knows? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:01, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

The fact that they all would have that shows the lack of notability - they do not discriminate.陣内_Jinnai 02:08, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I guess that's what someone might say at this theoretical AfD. I don't think you can make a general rule about it, though. "Every large studio film receives coverage before and after release. So delete." - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

AfDs are a horrible way to establish consensus, because assuming that the AfD is undertaken legitimately there's not going to be a representative sampling of people. As consensus can change, and there are different levels of consensus, so then we are not beholden to follow the outcome of X number of AfDs (especially given the spineless closings that occur for many.) Anyhow, while I agree to your point in practice, if we ever want to truly solve the issue it's got to be top-down. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And not every large studio film has its own article. Sometimes, if its a sequal or based on other media, like a video game, novel, manga, anime, etc. it will be in the same article.陣内_Jinnai 02:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Transient news coverage alone does not establish Wikipedia notability. This is a pretty well established principle, and I think there is consensus for it. I think most editors don't want to see individual articles on every professional sporting event ever held, or every single election. However, some such events (super bowls, world series, world cup finals, US Presidential elections or other elections for heads of states, the first free election held in some place that has never had one before etc.) are going to be notable because they are going to be covered in the media over an extended period (for example in year in review articles etc.). I don't believe there should be a bright line rule here. What is needed is some rules of thumb/guidelines that get applied on a case by case basis. Like it or not the place these rules get applied is in the AfD process. That process unquestionably has it flaws (cabals, group voting, editors with personal grudges, unrepresentive participation etc.) but for all that I think it works pretty well in most cases. Rusty Cashman (talk) 06:49, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree w Rusty Cashman - to prevent Notability and AfD from being a battleground, means of pursuing grudges, etc. we need some guidelines, but they can't be black and white because that would create a long and increasing list of types of case.

Nevertheless this discussion probably needs a list of examples so we can look for general principles. A few that occur to me off the top:

• Reports in local media do not in themselves confer notability - basically if the subject is not reported in national media, it's unlikely to be notable. So most reports of events, persons,organisations, places, etc. do not create notability.
• Reports of subjects that are not exceptional in some way do not confer notability. For example a report of a typical sports contest in a regular league season does not make that contest notable. I'd even exclude "this match sealed the championship for X", because that depends only on the order of contests in the league schedule. IMO a report of a typical sports contest in a regular league season is no more notable than the typical "Births, Marriages and Deaths" item. --Philcha (talk) 07:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• First you have to define "local media". For example, Scotland is a country and London is a city, so to most non-Brits, Scottish news media would be "national" and London news media would be "local". But London has a higher population than Scotland.—Also, that confers greater weight on, say, the Luxembourg news media than on, say, the Californian.

  Then you need to work round the pre-existing consensus that geographical locations are inherently notable (most articles on geographical locations could only be sourced to local media, if at all), and the pre-existing almost-consensus that high schools are notable (that isn't technically a rule but it might as well be). Again, in the vast majority of cases can only be sourced to local media. Unilaterally ruling out local media for notability purposes is highly unwise.

  Much wiser to produce specific guidelines for sports notability, if and when it ever becomes an issue. (Right now, this is a theoretical discussion and whatever we decide, it hasn't actually become an issue so we don't yet need a rule.)

  But actually, I think that given Wikipedia's emphasis on reliable sources (which is quite correct), the idea that individual baseball games don't merit separate articles, whatever the given excuse, smacks of special pleading by the Article Police. I've asked for a chain of deductive reasoning explaining why such games should not be covered, and while I have received some attempted answers, most of those provided seem to start from the position that individual games shouldn't be notable and then try to tweak the criteria to justify that decision.

  I put it to you that this is not the way to achieve a simple and objective notability criterion.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 09:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• Again, you're starting from the assumption that Notability is meant to be the end-all decision point of what gets its own article on WP. "Presume" is the key word in the guideline because other policies and factors can override it. In this case, we still need to consider when events get significant coverage but are otherwise considered indiscriminate. WP:NOT#NEWS is the prime candidate here, Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events. News coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, but not all events warrant an encyclopedia article of their own. Certain events do not have lasting historical impact on their own though may contribute to a larger scope. So there's no special interpretation happening here - this is how the GNG and other policies interact. The thing to remember at the end of the day is that while objectivity is great and all, WP is based on consensus and subjective application of the various policies and the like (save for BLP and NFC). The fact that not every single game is presented suggests to me that members of the baseball WProject (which is not small) have agreed that such individual games do not merit coverage on their own. Do we need a new notability guideline for that? No, which goes way back to my earlier statement: WProjects are free to further restrict what they consider notable of articles that fall within their field as long as they are applying consensus to it. In this case, GNG + WP:NOT#NEWS + Baseball WProject gives us no individual game articles save for rare cases. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Masem's approach is his own, as his view that the notability guideline can be overulled using subjective importance is misleading. Notability is meant to be the end-all decision point of what gets its own article on WP, because meeting the requirements of the General notability guideline demonstrates that an article topic can meet all of Wikipedia's content policies, including WP:NOT. Generally speaking, articles get nominated for deletion at WP:AFD becasuse they are not compliant; it is a mistake to assume that becasue an AfD discussion ends in a keep that notability can be ignored or arbitarily overruled - that would be an example of the tail wagging the dog.
Baseball WProject could write articles about individual games, but there would really have to cite some really good commentary in addition to news reports (which are essentially first-and primary sources) which would provide evidence of their notability and provide context for the reader. One way they could do this is to create articles about the individual games in the 2008 World Series, but finding coverage of the individual games that would provide sufficiently broad context about a game's significance could be tricky, and would require a lot of research. In this sense, the notability has a dual purpose: it provide evidence of compliance with Wikipedia's policies and it provides guidance on which sources are likely to provide the reader with the best understanding the article topic. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

You misread: I said that Wprojects can narrow what passes the GNG in terms of their projects - they can't widen it though. Also, the GNG is not the end-all of a topic getting an article - if it were, notability would be policy and we are a far cry from that. That's why I point out that it seems to be a foregone conclusion at the Baseball WP that no individual game is immediately notable despite the presence of numerous sources, because as you do state, those sources are primary relative to the event itself and thus not sufficient coverage for an event. --MASEM (t) 02:04, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Gavin Collins that the notability criterion should not be subject to overruling on the basis of special pleading about subjective importance. But I think the issue here goes quite deep, not least thanks to pre-existing consensuses.

  We're working on an encyclopaedia that has articles on individual species of beetle. At a small and little-known discussion, it was decided that individual asteroids are "geographical locations" for notability purposes, so we have articles on individual asteroids (largely created by bot, I hasten to add). For no particular reason of which I'm aware, it's okay for individual stars to have their own articles.

  And none of these are bad things. Articles on beetle species, asteroids, stars, tooth taxa, European villages with a population of 90, individual Chinese telephone numbers, and high schools are a consequence of another thing Wikipedia is not: WP:NOTPAPER. There is no limit to what we can cover, provided sources exist.

  I can see no logically coherent or consistent reason to exclude local news media from notability, unless perhaps it's a desire to "fix" the criteria to rule out individual baseball games.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 15:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

• You might have missed it, but I have said that routine news reports are effectively primary sources, but you have avoided addressing this key point so far. I have nothing against baseball games per se, but if a game is the subject of one primary source, its not notable in my book. Even I have featured in a national newspaper, and I can personally vouch that I am not notable either, so you can't accuse me of bias in this regard. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:09, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
• I'm sorry I failed to address that specifically, and I shall do so now. To quote from WP:PRIMARY: "Primary sources that have been reliably published (for example, by a university press or mainstream newspaper) may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. Without a secondary source, a primary source may be used only to make descriptive claims, the accuracy of which is verifiable by a reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge." This strikes me as a clear answer, and would in itself enable an article about baseball.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

There is a fundamental difference between baseball games and beetle species or asteroids. A baseball game is a transient historical event. If you cover all transient historical events that happen to be news worthy right after they occur you are a news service not an encyclopedia. There was a value judgement made by consensus that WP would be an encyclopedia rather than a news service (unlike wiki-news)that is why WP:NOT says in plain English:

News reports. Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events. News coverage can be useful source material for encyclopedic topics, but not all events warrant an encyclopedia article of their own. Routine news coverage of such things as announcements, sports, and tabloid journalism are not sufficient basis for an article.

That is a clear bright line drawn by consensus in order to prevent WP from becoming something other than an encyclopedia. You are of course free to challange that consensus but I doubt you will have much luck. Support for it may not be universal,but in my experience it is pretty wide spread. Rusty Cashman (talk) 23:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's been quoted before in this discussion. My response was in two parts:

1) That's a string of declarative sentences rather than a reasoned argument. My question was why this should be so. Assertion is not reasoning.

2) Said paragraph is imperfectly and intermittently implemented on Wikipedia, because it's fundamentally a subjective criterion. Notability is relatively objective; it still leaves grounds for interpretation (what, exactly, constitutes "significant coverage"? Which sources, precisely, count as "reliable"? — questions that AfD regulars grapple with every day) but its benefit is that we can expect American high school kids to implement it effectively, even when discussing esoteric subjects with sources they haven't read.

I still think the first purpose of notability is to be the mincing machine for marketing spam and self-promotional articles, and the second purpose is to destroy articles that aren't reliably-sourced. Using notability to destroy material that actually has reliable sources is where we move onto shaky intellectual ground.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 23:46, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

And 3rd, not to try and repeat everything wiki-news does, which is what you're asking for. This is an encyclopedi, not a newspaper.

You might actually have an easier case at having certain things we now cover not to have their own articles, but again, it'll still be an uphill battle.陣内_Jinnai 01:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• That would certainly be easier; over the past couple of years there's been a move afoot in Wikipedia to be more restrictive about content, which I oppose.

  It's interesting, by the way, how views on notability contrast with actual article edits. Personally, most of my edits are to BLPs and most of the material I've written is "serious" content (battles, histories, biographies of European politicians, etc.) And yet I'm arguing for an inclusive approach to notability, while Jinnai (most of whose recent content edits seem, at a glance, to be about Dragonball Z or manga) appears to be arguing for an exclusive one. Fascinating stuff.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, AfD is the way we determine it. Without some sort of governance reform, I'm doubtful of any changes. Someone will have to come up with something pretty ingenious, besides their own interpretation of how the current rules should be applied. Things like local, and every item gets coverage, are justing begging for counterexamples. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:03, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• Guidelines such as notability are, theoretically, descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, in theory, notability should describe how we normally do things at AfD—rather than governing it.

  I think there's a question over whether that theory is correct (I think guidelines should be prescriptive, and I have a sense that Gavin Collins thinks that as well), but I agree that certainly one could come up with many counterexamples to the various arguments presented in this discussion.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• No guideline or policy, save for two, should be prescriptive, but instead descriptive of what actually happens on WP (Consensus decides how policies and guidelines can change). The only two policies that need to be prescriptive are BLP and NFC, as set forth by the Foundation. That's why we have AFD for discussion, and concepts like WP:IAR to challenge the present interpretation of a policy or guideline to spark discussion into changes. Yes, objective guidelines and policies would be nice for some, but that would make Wikipedia less open to all because it will create an elitism due to objective reasons. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I've made a small edit to your remark, Masem, which I hope was appropriate and reflected your intention.

I said that I think guidelines should be prescriptive. I deliberately didn't say "inviolable", nor "authoritative". By "prescriptive" I meant that guidelines should say how editors are normally expected to behave, not just describe how they do behave; and that a change in a guideline would lead to a change in expected behaviour.

I agree with you that BLP and NFC are significantly more authoritative, and I would add that WP:5P and WP:IAR itself are also significantly more authoritative, than the general run of Wikipedian rules. They're super-policies, if you like; policies in themselves but also meta-policies that govern other rules. (Legal analogies aren't really appropriate for Wikipedia, but I'm strongly tempted to say these things "have constitutional force".)—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 14:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

• It's interesting what S Marshall said about his edits a couple of posts up. Older people, with advanced degrees seem to be more inclusionist. Don't know why. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:14, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont says: "That's a string of declarative sentences rather than a reasoned argument. My question was why this should be so. Assertion is not reasoning." The problem is that at the root of every moral or legal system (or any system of social conventions) is a set of core community values (ideas like "all men are created equal with certain unalianable rights", "everyone is equal before the law", "men and women should be treated equally", "people have the right to own private property" etc.) Such core values are generally not derived by reason. They are assumed based on the shared values of the community. Then reason is used to derive moral rules or legal codes, codes of conduct, or other forms of rule systems from those values. Now not every community will have the same core values. Certqainly many civilizations throughout history would not agree on the list I gave above. But every community must be able to agree on some core set of values (implicitly if not explicitly) otherwise there is no basis for any system of rules. In my mind the key core value of Wikipedia is that the goal of the project is to produce the best possible online encyclopedia, and that implies value judgements about what an encyclopdia is or is not. Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:48, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That's true, but the problem is that we disagree like cats and dogs (or whatever) about what's in an encyclopedia such as ours, which ain't your granddad's encyc. Fiction especially, but News stuff too. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Well my basic thing is we are an ecyclopedia, not a new feed. Wikinews is that. As such we can have articles on the major games and lists such as List of 2009 National Legue baseball games which can detail dates, teams, score and perhaps players because that's all that is historically relevant for most games. In that you could probably adapt it similar to episode and chapter lists to allow for a brief synopsis so if there was anything noteworthy, like it was a major player's last game, it could be listed as well.陣内_Jinnai 21:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

In response to S Marshall's earlier post (22 September 2009), I think you might be misjudged the thrust of WP:PRIMARY by assuming that primary sources, such as routine news reports, can be used to establish notability, but they can't. Although they are an acceptable source (of course) to cite in articles, primary sources are sources very close to an event and for this reason (they offer an insider's view to an event) they do not provide evidence of notability per se. WP:SECONDARY is quite revealing in this regard, because it cites some accademic institutions take on the subject matter. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 21:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

You may want to re-read WP:SECONDARY, as a newspaper report is kind of the very definition of a secondary source, in that it relies on the primary source for the facts in order to make explanatory and interpretive and evaluative claims. Going further, if you look at the list of things the policy describes as primary sources, you'll fail to find any mention of newspaper reports. this is because a newspaper report of a sports event is an outsider's viewpoint, and our definition of a primary source is that it "offers an insider's view". Hiding T 22:29, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is as clear cut as you make it out to be. A news reporter that publishes an acoount of a disaster or battle based on interviews conducted with survivors after the fact is clearly producing a secondary source. However, I think a reporter who is recounting his/her own eyewitness account of events (for example a TV reporter narrating a live report at a disaster scene) is very arguably a primary source. In a similar vein I would consider the short recaps of baseball games that appear on ESPN.com or in the next day's newspaper to arguably be primary sources since they are usually accounts written by a reporter based on the reporter's own observations from watching the game. Another good example would be official box scores of baseball games, which are compiled by official scorers based on their own observations. I think this is something that has to be decided case by case. I think one of the key issues is does the report merely provide a straight forward narrative of events (as is usually the case with the game recaps) or does it attempt to provide context through analysis of events. Rusty Cashman (talk) 04:38, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I've seen reasoning similar to this a few times here. I think people really mean that some secondary sources shouldn't contribute to notability. The game is the primary source, which is a term created by others and not us. Plus, when would a secondary source not be a secondary source? Reports on sports? No. Reports on politics? Yes. What's the rule that does that? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:57, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and a box score is probably a primary source, since it's created people involved in the game. Reprinting it is like reprinting any text, probably. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 04:59, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well they are all secondary sources, however they are removed at different levels. FE, highlights of the game as that is analysis, ie its taking the game and analyzing what is the most signifigant aspect of that game. Comments made during the game or right after a section, such as en inning in baseball, would be much closer. A commentary on the season at the end of the year is further removed still than right after the game. All 3 are secondary unless they have comments from someone on the team.
Likewise a reporter at the scene of an event reporting live is still a secondary source since they aren't really taking any role in the function (although I'm not sure about embedded journalists and the like).陣内_Jinnai 06:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

You're not quite right. Merely having comments from the team doesn't make it not secondary, and a live reporter at the scene is almost certainly a primary source. I suppose a really good com mentor could transform the facts on the spot with background information and opinion on the run, but that's not what live reporters usually do. They usually regurgitate the facts as they are, filtering for what's interesting perhaps, but little more, and those facts, individually, are certainly primary source material. "Not taking a role" does not make the report secondary. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Because news reports filter interesting points, they are a useful source to cite in an article about a notable game, but it is clearly first hand and should be seen as a primary source, and for this reason is not evidence of notability, otherwise the issue of self-referencing becomes an issue. I agree with Jinnai, that newpaper reports are technically secondary sources which are both reliable and independent, but because sports games are reported as a matter of routine, newsreports don't support the presumption of notabilty. But the argument that the game is the primary source is nonsense, because a game is a real event, whereas a newspaper report is the source of rountine coverage. Writing articles about based only on news reports can give undue weight to routine events, and may cause problems for our neutral point of view policy if that coverage (written in heat of the moment) turns out to be incomplete, biased or distorted. I think there is so much routine news coverage, it is difficult to agrue that WP:UNDUE is not an a big issue; this is the reasoning behind WP:NTEMP. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 08:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, my point was not to say that those reports are okay, simply state that according to standard definitions, they are secondary sources; they are still very close to the subject. A primary source, using games, would be an interview with player or a press conference from the coach.陣内_Jinnai 09:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

You guys sure are doing a lot of talking, but it all seems to be based on your opinions and not based in policies or guidance or anything else. Here's a quick run through: The primary source is the event itself or participants in the event, namely the baseball game and the baseball players, managers, coaches and umpires. Our reporter is actually a secondary source, employed by a reliable source to interpret that primary source and contextualise it for the reader. Sub-editors and the like will also be involved. So quite clearly, per our guidance, a newspaper report is, for our purposes, a secondary source. You're all getting confused because you're thinking that when we quote the reporter, the reporter becomes a primary source. That's why it is always best to start at the beginning. Is the reporter involved in the game? No. So he isn't a part of the primary source. I don;t read baseball reports because I'm not in that part of the world, but if they are the same as football reports in my back-yard, then they will indeed contain contextualising, explanatory, informing and interpretive claims. Over here reporters will also quote participants, thus proving the point that they are not primary sources, given that they quote the primary source. Best regards, Hiding T 11:24, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Clearly that is nonsense, Hiding. An event is a not a source, it is the record of the event that is the source. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:03, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Not quite. Remember The Treachery of Images. But beyond that, if we're talking about a baseball game, the live transmission of the game will be a record of the event, as will any video documentation. But a report of the game is something different. Take a trial, for example; which is the record of the trial, the transcript or the newspaper report? Let's not forget, back when we were working towards a criteria for notability, the reason we chose coverage in reliable sources was because we deferred the opinion to those assembling the reliable source. The thrust was that coverage in a reliable source meant that the source had deemed the event notable, and therefore we could summarise that coverage. Argue all you want about the nature of sourcing, but it won't change the fact that a source's nature relies on context, and in the context of Wikipedia a reporter is a secondary source. Hiding T 12:26, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

To be fair - a recap of the game that attempts no analysis, evaluation, or the like is not a secondary source, it is a third-party primary source. That's not that there aren't game reports that are secondary, but to be clear, just reporting on a game is not sufficient to make it secondary. There are a lot of news articles that due fall into this area, so it's not an uncommon situation, and why events and WP:NOT#NEWS are tricky to determine notability for. --MASEM (t) 13:48, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

NOT#NEWS is the argument people should indeed be making here, not an attempt to confuse people as to the nature of what a source actually is. I'm not au fait with baseball reports, so I can;t comment on them, but a typical football report will make evaluative claims. Hiding T 14:10, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Usually a topic that fails WP:NOT fails WP:N and vice-versa, so sourcing is the key. I like the analogy presented by Masem that news reports are third-party primary sources. This and the fact that news agecies are pumping out routine match reports all the time is the rationale behind WP:NTEMP. Since televised match reports give minute by minute commentary, and so in theory it would be possible to create an article about each segment on the basis that it would be possible to find secondary sourcing for each segment of the game. However, this approach would not only run contrary to WP:NTEMP, but also WP:UNDUE, which is why each game should be treated with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject matter. For example, the article 2008 World Series gives appropriate weight to each game relative to the series as a whole, rather than just providing fine detail about each individual game. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 14:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say all news reports are primary. It depends on if there is analysis and evaluation of the events within the report. Some reports (whether a breaking news story or a baseball game recap) may simply reiterate details of the event as it happens (possibly to avoid bias) and those are primary. Some will talk more about the impact, and those are secondary.

The larger issue is that when there is secondary reports on an event that just occurred, trying to create an article about it suffers from recentism. We're an encyclopedia documenting information for future generations - we should wait to establish how significant an event may be before creating an article about it as to understand if it is an important event to have coverage of. That's why, even if the secondary coverage exists, it's looking holistically at the event and everything around it, and thus why we avoid creating articles on events until some time has passed to be clear it's important or on the rare exception when it obviously will be important (eg the 9/11 attacks). It's not able notability, it's about indiscriminate coverage before importance and significance is established. --MASEM (t) 14:31, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

That's roughly accurate. We shouldn't be trying to redefine what is a secondary source. Use NOTNEWS and by extension...wait for it...AfD. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:59, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, Peregrine Fisher, the issue of what's a secondary source and what isn't is highly germane to notability. Discussions about that are relevant here, I should think.

In scientific research, a primary source would be the original abstract or paper, while a secondary source would be commentary upon it, a peer review, etc. In a game of baseball, the primary sources would surely be the, err, referee or umpire or whatever baseball has, the linesmen, the scorekeeper and so on. A newspaper article that includes an element of commentary on the game would certainly be a secondary source.

Now, I don't know about baseball, but for example, there are usually several pages of commentary on football in UK-based newspapers every day.—S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 14:16, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I think we are agreed that newspapers are technically a secondary source, but because contemporaneous reports are produced as a matter of record only, while most general news reports written close to the event are produced as a matter of routine, they don't support the presumption of notability because they don't provide lasting evidence of notability. The argument that the contain commentary is slightly misleading; whether a news report contains commentary upon a baseball player's form or batting average in a particular game is either of passing interest or a matter of rountine. I think that more in depth reporting does confer notability, but I think the difference between routine news and in depth coverage is virtually the same as the difference between trivial coverage and significant coverage. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:58, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

@S Marshall: We agree on what secondary sources are, I just don't think there's actually more than one side to the story. They are what they've always been off of wikipedia.

@G collins: I agree that "newspapers are technically a secondary source". I don't agree on the routine coverage thing, though. That would be a major guideline change that would require RfCs and arguing for months, I imagine. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:19, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I am not following "I don't agree on the routine coverage thing, though. That would be a major guideline change", Unless I missed something the language in question about routine news coverage not necessarily establishing notability is already in both WP:notability and in WP:NOT. The sense I get from reading through this discussion is that most of the editors agree more or less that the current wording of this guideline agrees reasonably well with what is currently written in WP:NOT and in WP:Verify and that this forms a reasonable guidline for the AfD process. I think S Marshall has a strong and principled objection to the underlying policy (which is that certain events that are newsworthy enough momentarily to recieve coverage from a news source don't necessarily have enough long term noteworthiness to be included in an encyclopedia), but I don't think he/she is anywhere close to getting a consensus to make any changes to the current wording of this policy. Rusty Cashman (talk) 21:52, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Never noticed the routine sports coverage thing in NOTE. Wonder when that was added? Anways, I guess this thing is clear enough, and we then let AfD run it's course. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:20, 25 September 2009 (UTC)