Wikipedia talk:Two prongs of notability

Relation to GNG

(moved from WT:NSPORTS Gigs (talk) 21:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC))

Notability ultimately has two prongs. Gigs (talk) 19:16, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I note that two prongs is simply an essay written recently by ... yes, by Gigs. It is simply Gigs' view and, if adopted, would be a fundamental shift from WP:GNG to support his subjective view that some topics (like sports) are less "worthy of note" than other areas of human endeavor. Cbl62 (talk) 20:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

To be fair to Gigs and TWOPRONGS, that is correct, but it doesn't change anything here. The GNG assures both prongs are met at once - "significant coverage" to show why something's worthy of note, and "independent secondary sources" to back up those statements. What the SNG's do is make the presumption that the sourcing will be more difficult to locate and collect, or will come in time due to the nature of why the worthy of note is there. NSPORT here is saying that anyone that makes a top league is worthy of note, and that the sources to back that up, at minimum, is their prior documented career prior to entering the top tier; further, as the player's league performance proceeds, we'd expect more stories to come about. What we can't do in an SNG is make a claim that a certain activity would be worthy of note, but show no route how we'd expect sources to come about for it. This, for example, points to a few of NSPORTS clauses that claim that playing X hundred games in a non-top league is worthy of note, but longevity doesn't ensure coverage, just stats. Ergo those fail the TWOPRONG test. --MASEM (t) 20:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

There's nothing in the essay that says sports is less worthy of note. And it doesn't say anything new or controversial. The WP:N already contains statements like We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. Much of the biography section was written more with WP:PROF in mind, which is why it talks so much about self-published sources for biographies, which isn't much of an issue with sports bios. Gigs (talk) 20:41, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Your essay does, in fact, make suggestions that are new and highly controversial. WP:GNG is our bedrock standard for notability. That is the standard by which we determine whether something is notable (i.e., "worthy of note"). You have proposed that a subject must pass two tests: first, it must meet WP:GNG and separate and apart from that, it must be on "a subject that is worthy of our notice." Your proposed second test is wholly subjective and would promote chaos as various groups of editors advance their personal preferences and biases to argue that certain areas (e.g., athletics, video games, pop culture) are less "worthy of notice." Cbl62 (talk) 21:28, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

You're misreading it. "Worthy of note" is demonstrated by the GNG's "significant coverage" - more than mention in passing, but actual text that going into detail on the topic, as to satisfy the claim of why we should include it. Of course, meeting the GNG is a consensus-based decision as opposed to a hard definition, so the topics that you refer to aren't going to go away because of that. --MASEM (t) 21:38, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Masem is right, basically. Worthy of note can actually be satisfied two ways, through a SNG presumption, or through demonstration of significant secondary source coverage. Anything that passes the GNG passes both prongs. Gigs (talk) 21:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I've missated Gigs' essay. It says an article must both meet both criteria (GNG and topic "worthy of note"). It says: "Subjects that fail either prong of the test generally should not have stand-alone articles." That is not how it works or should work. By of example, many might think that reality show contestants/judges like Amanda Freitag aren't "worthy of note." Gigs disagrees and created an article on her. So long as there are enough reliable, independent sources in mainsteam sources, I have no problem with Gigs' creation of an article about someone like Freitag. However, Gigs seem to hold athletes to a different standard. Why are chefs any more "worthy of note" than athletes? Cbl62 (talk) 21:50, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

From the page: Our subject-specific notability guidelines are primarily concerned with determining which things are worthy of our notice. For topics outside of the domain of subject-specific notability guidelines, the existence of coverage itself is taken as a presumption of being noteworthy. The second sentence is important: "worthy of note" for a topic not in the SNG is met by meeting the "significant coverage" of the GNG. (Sourcing is also subsequently met by the independent secondary sourcing requirement of the GNG). If you do meet the SNG, your "worthy of note" is by meeting that SNG, and now, within DEADLINE, sources to demonstrate that will have to be added.

Or another way:

* If you meet an SNG: "Worthy of Note" is met by meeting an SNG criteria, "Sourcing" is met by the presumption through the SNG's critiera that sourcing of the independent, secondary type will come about in time. (Otherwise it's a bad SNG to start).

* If you don't meet an SNG: "Worthy of Note" is significant coverage by sources, and "Sourcing" are those independent secondary sources that show that significant coverage.

So no, this essay is not creating any more restrictive criteria. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the essay that "Our subject-specific notability guidelines are primarily concerned with determining which things are worthy of our notice." In NSPORTS case, and I believe other SNGs, it is specifically stated that meeting the criteria of the SNG is a presumption that GNG is also met. I know for the sports I am involved with in NSPORTS, the SNG criteria take into account the likelihood of meeting GNG; they are not merely just feats sports fans are crazy about. See the nutshell of NSPORTS.—Bagumba (talk) 22:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

No. Meeting an SNG is a presumption that WP:N is met with eventually (with that WP:DEADLINE) of meeting GNG as more sources come about. SNG does not override the GNG, but is an alternative route to showing notability as to have a stand-alone article. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I dont think there is any disagreement here. I did state "SNG is a presumption that GNG is also met". GNG is itself a presumption, and can subjectively be overridden with consensus. In my eyes, SNG are more on prong 2; I also see prong 2 as an objective way of generally demonstrating prong 1.—Bagumba (talk) 22:47, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

(e/c)Yes, I think this is a valid criticism. The way that some SNGs are viewed has been evolving. Originally they were more like the essay says, indications that the topic is worthy of notice, with a mostly secondary and sometimes unspoken implication that such a topic will indeed also usually meet the GNG. In the realm of certain SNGs like NSPORTS and PROF, the latter part has been emphasized which has turned the SNG into a standalone bright-line test for notability. I obviously take some issue with this development, since then there is no burden to prove an article meets the second prong when it's challenged at AfD. This sort of thing is not present so much in other SNGs like CORP, EVENT, or WEB, which don't give much in the way of "level of achievement" tests. Anyway, it's a fairly subtle issue and you are right that the current text doesn't fully express it. I'll think about what can be changed to make it better. Gigs (talk) 23:00, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure it was a conscious effort to avoid "level of achievement" tests, or just that no viable ones have been agreed to for some cases. Note that in the case of sports teams, NSPORTS says "It is not intended that this guideline should apply to sports clubs and teams; for these the specific notability guideline is WP:ORG." This is probably because there is no easy "level of achievement" to determine if a sports team is notable. I agree that there is no consensus on how to deal with the case where a subject is presumed notable from NSPORTS, but a good faith argument is made that the subject does not meet GNG. WP:NODEADLINE will often be cited to effectively give the article an indefinite exemption to identify sources.—Bagumba (talk) 23:20, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that DEADLINE can't be cited indefinitely as no reason to improve. I can understand in the case of a turn-of-the-19th-century player that we'd likely give more leeway to idenification of sources, but it's very hard to accept that sources are difficult to find for a player from, say, the 1980s to 1990s in an American or European sport. We don't necessarily require the sources to be obtained but that they have at least been identified to satisfy that point. So, yea, maybe it gets challenged once and kept on basis of an SNG, but if a couple years later, the article is put to AFD, the SNG claim is going to become weaker, each subsequent time. We have no deadline, but at the same time, claiming a topic is notable is nearly akin to a contentious fact and needs to be demonstrated by proper sourcing. --MASEM (t) 23:37, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

The burden at AfD has to be on the Keep voters, because no one can prove there isn't coverage out there. If the SNG gives them an unlimited pass, we can very well keep articles that can never pass what this essay calls the second prong. Gigs (talk) 23:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately in the real world, I have seen no consensus to have acceptable followup times after GNG is questioned. An AfD is kept, usually with no guidance from the closing admin, and the article is usually forgotten except by the faithfully devoted. This was discussed a few months ago. In my ideal world, the keepers would propose a timeline for improvement during/after the AfD, and agree that no new sources that demonstrate GNG by that time means the article should be merged/deleted with no prejudice to recreate if sources are eventually found.—Bagumba (talk) 23:52, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, everything should be done in good faith, but this is give and take. An editor that repeatedly hounds the same article to AFD over and over frequently (say, every 3-6 months) is pushing good faith. At the same time, if an article's been to AFD 3 times over, say 5 years, and the !keep votes are "it passes the SNG, there's no deadline" each time, it becomes a boy who cried wolf situation. Generally, this is why SNGs that are based on an exceptional achievement are strongly preferred - do you think anyone would want to delete the article on a Nobel Prize winner? On the other hand, SNGs that claim that anyone falling into a broad class start looking like attempts to get around the limitation on inherited notability, which is not accepted on WP. --MASEM (t) 00:03, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

@MASEM: On the other hand, levels of achievement that are too high like Nobel Prize in SNGs render them less effective as most good faith attempts at WP:BEFORE should have already filtered out AfDs for those subjects. On the other hand, it's quite effective to have an SNG on a player who played one pro game in a well-covered league/sport, as the time-savings from the multiple articles it covers is more valuable than an SNG that only covers, say, Hall of Fame members.—Bagumba (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Merge discussion

Bagumba, I think there should be far less resistance to "merging without prejudice" than there apparently is. It is kind of baffling to me why many of the sports editors want to have tens of thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands?) of tiny stubs. Many other Wikiprojects have done mass merges like this, I consider it a natural part of the wiki-evolution in a topic area. Gigs (talk) 00:09, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

We do operate on consensus, for better or for worse. As for stubs, is there any policy/guideline that limits them for notable subjects, or has a timeline for their expansion?—Bagumba (talk) 00:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

WP:N includes language about merging topics where insufficient sources can be located to expand the article past a small stub. Usually the timeline is "when someone takes it to AfD and sources aren't found". That's the problem I have with this sort of SNG, it breaks our normal ecosystem that deals with this sort of thing, by removing the search for secondary sources at AfD.

For some historical precedents:

• WP:POKEMON documents a similar situation in the past, the Wikiproject in question agreed to a voluntary merger that rendered the notability debate moot.
• WP:AST has agreed to merge a lot of numbered asteroids as well (though last I checked, that was delayed due to the lack of a bot operator to carry out the act of merging). Probably more than these two, this is just what I remember off the top of my head. Gigs (talk) 00:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

My suggestion would be to be careful when characterizing sports stubs. It might not be your intention, but at times it seems that you are talking about all sports bio stubs, including those where sources exist but the article has yet to be expanded, but easily could be if someone chose. Instead, I believe you are talking about those article where sufficient sources will never be found and will not grow to be more than a few sentences or be pure synthesis from stats sites. As for the latter group, as we have discussed, we get into the "meets NSPORTS" and NODEADLINE issues. It would be suitable to merge if there was ever consensus that they were not notable. As for the former group of stubs, I would oppose merging them merely because nobody has expanded them yet, as clearly they could be.

Thus, the problem is not NSPORTS per se, the issue is there is no current consensus on how to question the presumed notability from an SNG and ultimately delete such articles if they really have insufficient sources.—Bagumba (talk) 01:08, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree you can frame it that way and get to the same place. Regarding your first class, the ones that can be expanded, it hurts nothing to merge them until someone actually becomes motivated to do so, and it makes them significantly easier to maintain. There is really no downside to merging them without prejudice, even if we are pretty sure they can be expanded. Gigs (talk) 01:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I can think of a few negatives offhand: 1) non-autoconfirmed users can't create articles. 2) if they get merged back, lots of users dont attribute where they got it from per WP:COPYWITHIN. 3) Do we put them into A list of merged notable players or some other convoluted named article in the meantime. 4) Being a purist aside, what is being gained with the extra level of redirection.—Bagumba (talk) 02:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

1) moot, we should leave redirects, which the system considers articles. 2) We wouldn't merge anything with serious content, so attribution isn't much of an issue. Bare factual information is not subject to copyright in the US anyway. 3) No, definitely not. For sports, Team/Year Roster articles probably make the most sense.

4) It's about maintainability as well as usefulness for the reader. It's easier to watch 400 larger articles than 40,000 small ones. It's also more useful for the reader to be able to see the entire roster at once, instead of one little chunk of information per article.

It takes the pressure off of concerns about notability while not reducing the coverage (in fact possibly expanding it), and reduces the number of AfDs that have to be dealt with. A merge could be done without changing the notability standards, as long as we get consensus that micro-stubs are less desirable than roster articles, and that if anyone cares to expand coverage of a merged micro-stub, we'll let them do that freely by spinning it back out into a full article (but not back out into a microstub, at least not en-masse). Gigs (talk) 15:53, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Attribution is more to do with licensing and giving credit to editors than it is a copyright issue. Non-serious content, even if a few sentences, should be credited if copied. You have a point with maintenance, but you may be in the minority having all these articles on your watchlist. As most consider the topics to be notable per NSPORTS, convincing them that numerous AfD is an issue may be difficult. I'm not seeing these concerns warranting more rules being put in place.—Bagumba (talk) 00:26, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It wouldn't need to be a rule, just an agreement. I'm sure the attribution issue could be sorted out easily enough with talk page templates or something. That kind of attribution issue comes up with any kind of merge, it's not unique to this. Gigs (talk) 02:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually I think edit summaries when the merge is done is sufficient now that I think about it. Gigs (talk) 02:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)