Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Although notability is a long-standing guideline, some users believe that it is time to reassess its appropriateness and meaning. This request for comment has been lead to by (often controversial) discussions at WT:FICT, WP:Notability/RFC:compromise, and WT:N, not to mention the countless AFD's in which notability has played a role and has been disputed.

Note that this request for comment is just designed to determine community position on 1) whether or not there should be notability guidelines at all, rather than simply using other policies and guidelines such as WP:V, WP:NOT, WP:OR, and WP:RS, 2) whether or not the current notability guidelines should be changed or left as it is, and 3) whether or not it should be renamed.

Please remember to be civil in all discussions on this page. It is perfectly acceptable to respond to other users' comments, so please watch this page if you add any comments.

In an effort to keep each particular argument for or against notability in a central location, each of the two main sections on this page is split into four subsections. The first two subsections are locations to put your opinions on whether or not something should be done with the notability guideline, and if so what should be done. Feel free to add further subsections to these areas to separate different arguments. The second two subsections are for !votes, and should contain little if any actual discussion. Anything that doesn't fall into one of these categories, such as observations on general trends in the RFC, should be placed on the talk page.

Clarifications

Each of the three sections below should be considered separately: e.g., you may believe that notability should exist, but needs to be changed. In this case please put comments in both applicable sections so that the results of this RFC may be more easily interpreted. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Terminology

• "Appropriate sources": shorthand for "significant coverage in reliable third-party sources". These are sources that help an article meet the GNG.
• "GNG": the General Notability Guideline. This says that "if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable." It also defines words such as "significant", "reliable source", "independent", and "presumed".
• "SNG": the subject-specific notability guidelines such as WP:MUSIC and WP:ATHLETE.
• "RFC": Request for Comment, a discussion that Wikipedians use to resolve disputes among smaller groups of editors.

Should WP:N continue to exist as a guideline, or be demoted/deleted?

NOTE: Originally closed: WP:SNOW indicates an overwheleming "Keep." Possible changes and alterations to notability can and should be discussed below. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:28, 12 February 2009 (UTC)}} Nevertheless, at least two editors have added comments since closing anyway, so reopening to allow for additional perspectives to be offered. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 20:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia:Notability stay marked as a guideline? Should it be demoted to essay, rejected, or historical status? Or should it be deleted altogether? Discuss these options below.

Arguments for existence as guideline

• Sorry A Nobody, I really think this needs to exist

• It shouldn't exist because we want to exclude article below a certain threshold, but because it's an easy test for what articles can be verified and what articles can't.
• It's also extremely helpful to point newcomers towards this rather than moving into the murky realms of WP:V, which would likely result in a huge argument and would not get the same result: if I tell a newcomer "your article must have recieved coverage in newspaper articles and the like", he'll fix it up much easier than if I start explaining about verifiability and what a reliable source is anyway (that's rather subjective).
• It's much harder to argue with "Delete doesn't meet the notabiltiy criteria" than "Delete article is unverifiable". While the definition of a reliable source is fairly plain, there is a huge amount of content out there that is borderline. For example the other day I exchanged emails with someone from a company who's article I had tagged for deletion. The company was clearly using Wikipedia to promote their business, but when he said he would let the article remain neutral if recreated, and provided some sources I know weren't lying, but might not be regarded as reliable sources by our standards, I pointed him to notability and that was the end of the discussion.

Patton^t/c 22:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• We want Wikipedia to be relevant. The excessive coverage of every Pokemon character is already a standing joke among critics of Wikipedia. Abolishing WP:N would lead to more articles about even less notable subjects.
• People use Wikipedia to establish notability. We are fighting a deluge of articles promoting some unknown company and other articles created for selfish reasons. Since we can't really accuse someone of being selfish, WP:N is the easiest argument against such articles. — Sebastian 23:25, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you know why the notability guidelines exist; they exist solely to allow deletion of articles which cannot be verified. If pokemon characters have had enough coverage to be verified and have enough content to warrant a seperate article, then i see no problem with that. The problem of course is taht they almost never are verifiable, and notability empowers us to delete them.--Patton^t/c 16:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Standing on the shoulders of giants In theory it is might seem easy to change or replace our existing inclusion criteria based on objective evidence, but in practise I have yet to see an alternative proposal that would be Better, Less complex or Unbiased Equivalent of WP:Notability. What is amazing about WP:GNG is that it provides guidance in less than 260 words, can be summaried in one sentence, yet it offers editorial flexibility and a high degree of quality control over article content for every subject matter under the sun. I think that is pretty amazing, so it not suprising that an alternative has not been found since it was created.
  Sadly, this RFC does not offer such any alternative. For some editors who think standing on the shoulders of giants is beneath them, this RFC is an opportunity to complain, demand that this guideline is watered downdown, or plead for an exemption for a class of articles or lists to be exempted in order to accomodate such topics as fringe science theories, fancruft, spam, hoaxes or topics that are not encyclopedic.
  However, I recomend that you support the existence of Wikipedia:Notability on the grounds that it is based on the type of sourcing needed to write encyclopedic articles. Generations before us realised that the best way to advance our understanding about the world around is by rely on the knowledge accumulated direct from reliable secondary sources, rather than getting information third-hand though hearsay, rumour or personal opinion. Wikipedians of the present recognise that you need objective evidence to resolve editorial disputes between editors with differing but valid viewpoints. And tomorrow? There is already a great a vast range of high quality content coming on line every day just waiting to be harvested. Suuport WP:N and secure a bright future for Wikipedia. Why demand less? --Gavin Collins (talk) 23:38, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Amen. (Excepting that I carve a small disagreement out for fiction for specific reasons, the basic argument here is powerful) Protonk (talk) 00:28, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • If anyone wishes to specifically present alternative proposals during this RFC, that would be great. The reason that there isn't currently an alternative proposal is that we should determine if anything should be changed before we start work on another proposal. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • Also, I fully support WP:NOT and WP:V. I am concerned about WP:N's interpretation of them. -Drilnoth (talk) 03:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Since we need a word, it might as well be "Notability"

Consider notability to be a term of art that applies in the Wikipedia to the editorial judgment that an article's subject is big enough, small enough, famous enough, etc. for inclusion in the Wikipedia. Under the hood, we are looking at verifiability and reliable sources but in order to have a something other than an arbitrary editor's choice of all the universe's content which meets the verifiability and sourcing tests, there needs to be the application of objective criteria to the category in which an article's subject is in. Some categories would include all, like Presidents of the United States, on the other hand not every restaurant in the United States has something to contribute to an online encyclopedia. Some criteria can be agreed upon by editors such that there's a reasonable predictability to editors and readers what members of a category would have its own article. So we need a word to describe the creation of objective criteria and its application to cases within categories. Notability is as good a word as any for it. patsw (talk) 19:20, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Arguments against existence as guideline

• Personally, I think that as long as things are verifiable and are encyclopedic, complying with the (oft forgotten) Five Pillars, which doesn't even mention "notability" (although it is linked to via "vanity press"), it should be in Wikipedia. The first pillar states that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and should be verifiable, with no original research, and with references. It also states that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information or battleground. And that's about it. Except for that one link, which I don't personally think makes sense, the current notability guideline has nothing to do with Wikipedia's five core principles. The first pillar should be the guide for what Wikipedia contains. It does not say that Wikipedia contains only "notable" topics. And the first pillar also says that Wikipedia contains information from general and specialized encyclopedias, alamanacs, and gazetteers. A specialized encyclopedia could well contain topics which fail the current notability guidelines, and so they should be included per the five pillars. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:02, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment The determination of what is encyclopedic or what is part of a discriminate collection and what is not, is just another way of saying notable patsw (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

• "Notability" is an inherently subjective term, it is nothing more than an arbitrary "I like it/I don't like it" non-standard. Regardless of the outcome of this RfC, in practice editors will continue to create, work on, and come here for articles that a vocal minority subjectively declare non-notable. If we seriously believe that Wikipedia is something more than just a fun experiment and actually is something that has relevance to humanity in general and human knowledge in general, then anything that unreasonably seeks to restrict that end is a subversive ideology. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:33, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Comment In the section above, I try to show that notability is not merely a verbal duel of two editors exchanging edits tagged "notable" and "not notable". patsw (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

• WP:N is yet one more obfuscation that limits the utility and user-friendliness of Wikipedia as already carefully and succinctly defined and established in The Five Pillars. To "promote a level of quality content" is already covered in the beauty and simplicity of the Pillars. Anything else becomes more bureaucracy for the sake of more bureaucracy. I will continue to argue for simplification of the encyclopedia intended as one anybody can edit, as increasingly complicated rules and regulations are more suitable for Government Tax Codes than for ease of use of Wikipedia. I accept with the greatest good will that each new change has been offered with the best of intentions and hopes for the future, but an encyclopedia "anyone can edit" must also be one that does not require a masters degree in linguistics. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:00, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

The Notability 17,511 word novel aptly entitled:
"How to create a Kafkaesque bureaucracy[1], alienate new editors, cause universal media disdain, and slow the growth of wikipedia"

• Calling editors who have a different view from you nasty names, and/or assuming they support: "fringe science theories, fancruft, spam, hoaxes", is the exact reason why the media has been universally negative about wikipedia's deletion policies and notability. Those who question notability are not supporting such garbage: "fringe science theories, fancruft, spam, hoaxes" This is a poor slippery slope argument "If Notability falls so does wikipedia!" Please don't believe such histrionics. Wikipedia existed for years before Notability, in fact, many journalists and editors would argue it existed better before notability, and it will exist better after notability. For example, Wikipedia will probably retain more editors, and "fringe science theories, fancruft, spam, hoaxes" will still be removed from wikipedia. We are not questioning the vital WP:SPAM, or WP:V, or WP:NPOV, or WP:COI rules, all which handle such problems.
  Notability is not a simple or straightforward guideline. The notability page is 2017 words, plus 8 other content forks with 15,494 words, in addition to 30 other rejected notability pages, making notability a huge Rule Creep and Kafkaesque bureaucracy.
  This cannot really come to pass: "And tomorrow? There is already a great a vast range of high quality content coming on line every day just waiting to be harvested," unless editors seriously question how our notability and deletion guidelines work, because the majority or articles for deletion are new editors contributions, usually with notability being the number one reason an article is deleted. As the PC PRO journalist found when his entry The Political Quarterly was deleted,[2] the words should be changed to: "There is already a great a vast range of high quality content coming on line every day just waiting to be deleted."Ikip (talk) 01:22, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• This "guideline" can be used as a stalkinghorse for censorship, and it flies in the face of the concept of something being "encyclopedic," i.e. to be the comprehensive source of all information. The argument about it being the policy of internet elitists is an argument not to be taken lightly.--Drboisclair (talk) 20:48, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Refactored comments by User:A Nobody

Complete context is available on the talk page. User:A Nobody should feel free to edit his comments below as necessary for their new placement here and/or remove this notice as well as the heading. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:13, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

More of an opinion piece by a segment of the community than reflective of some kind of real majority in practice. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability is such an over the top if not baffling and anti-wikipedic concept that it is really nothing more than an April Fools prank and should be acknowledged as such so as not to confuse anyone. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Support marking as a humorous essay. Sincerely, A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability clearly lacks sufficient support to be considered a guideline given the opposes above, calls for renames, 189 editors with userboxes opposing it, etc. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Support marking as historical. Given the widespread opposition that brought about this RfC in the first placed, it should be acknowledged that this is a failed guideline. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)--A Nobody^{My talk} 17:47, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Support existence as guideline

This section is to voice your general support for the existence of a notability guideline. Support voiced here does not necessarily constitute support of the current guideline's content, or its current name. You can support the guideline's existence here while also supporting a content or name change in the sections below.

1. Are you kidding? I know this is a serious request, but the general notability guideline stands as one of the essential gatekeepers to promote a level of quality content. While I am prepared to enter into a discussion about the merits of refining its use as an inclusion guideline, WP:N has proven to be a effective means to balance encyclopedic quality with broad coverage while still permiting growth of articles over time. We tried building an encyclopedia using WP:NOT as our guide, and quite rightly found it wanting. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 21:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   Comment: In practice it is used subjectively and as such has been stunningly ineffective due to its subjective interpretation and misuse. What does it do that WP:VERIFIABILITY does not do? If we agree with an inclusion guideline, why not rename it as "inclusion guideline", which is objective sounding? Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   I agree it is applied subjectively at times. However, the guideline when properly understood is objective - when reliable sources independent of the subject of a proposed article have written about it in a meaningful way, it's appropriate to have a stand alone article. WP:V is absolutely not the same thing - my social security number is verifiable, but it doesn't merit encycolpedic coverage. Defining the distinction in the negative (e.g. WP:NOTDIRECTORY has proved difficult for editors to apply evenly; notability has worked far better. We'll see how other feel soon enough. Xymmax ^{So let it be written} _{So let it be done} 21:54, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   The problem is that in the hundreds of AfDs I have participated in, it is almost never used objectively, rather in hundreds of AfDs, people say BOTH "non-notable" and "notable," which means it is interpreted varyingly with at sometimes it being apparent that when people use "notable/non-notable" they are just using their own personal definition of the concept. If someone cited something like Wikipedia:Inclusion guideline, it will be clear that they are citing an actual guideline. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:58, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

2. It seems to me WP:N is there to filter out material of the "indiscriminate collection of information" sort. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:30, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   Comment: Shouldn't quality content and the filtering the out indiscriminate information be handled pretty well by other policies, like WP:V, which aren't as controversial? -Drilnoth (talk) 21:32, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   No, a telephone listing is verifiable by looking it up in the phone book. That doesn't mean wikipedia should include an article on every telephone listing. -- Kendrick7^talk 21:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   That should be considered indiscriminate per WP:NOT, without the need for the current WP:N to also support it. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:51, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   OK, but generally, not all information which is verifiable is encyclopedic. The point of WP:N is to answer that question, although I suppose WP:NOT is useful also. -- Kendrick7^talk 22:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   That's basically what I mean... if WP:NOT, a policy, was used more than WP:N, a guideline, it should have similar results (probably a little looser, allowing for more articles which meet WP:5, but not a complete guide to phone numbers or My neighbor's dog). -Drilnoth (talk) 22:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

3. Notability isn't just there to filter out bad content. It's there to keep focus on the worthiness of whole topics rather than individual facts. If we got rid of it, I think that would complicate and ambiguate (if that's a word) the distinction between articles that belong and articles that don't. Deletion discussions would then disintegrate into arguments over the number of verifiable facts present in an article and what number constitutes a worthy article. It would force us to micro-manage content to an impractical point. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:47, 10 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Note: Extended discussion removed. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 02:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

4. Didn't we already go through with this during the last RfC on NOTE? I don't see what people are trying to get accomplished here. I thought the resounding support for NOTE quieted this discussion. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   I feel like the last RFC was mainly designed to discuss the interpretation of the current N, rather than N itself. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   Semantics. It still carried an implication as to whether notability was appropriate or not, which was resoundingly supported in the "are all spinouts notable?" section. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   It has pretty resounding opposition, which is why it lacks consensus and should be marked as disputed, failed, or an essay. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:24, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   This is getting old. Your category of random blokes who don't like notability don't matter at all. Until they're up in arms and asking for NOTE to get demoted, it means nothing that they decided to put a userbox on their page. As I've said in the past, I don't care for your arguments as I practically never find them convincing or logical for that matter, so take your irritable replying to every position that doesn't agree with you elsewhere. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   It shows that far more people oppose this guideline then will realistically comment to support it, which is why their position counts far more than here and why the guideline lacks any consensus per common sense. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   Are you talking about this poll: Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise? Only 83 editors responded to whether the Notability guidelines were needed. This question was #8, in a poll which I have argued was badly written, and was not widely advertised. (WP:CENT) is not read by a majority of wikipedians. Ikip (talk) 00:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   For what it's worth, the proposals in the RFC were written and copy-edited by the community, and the RFC was put on watchlist notice. It's harder to get more advertising than that without WP:CANVASSING Randomran (talk) 17:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

5. WP:N is pretty much a logical conclusion of the interaction of WP:NOT, WP:OR, WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV, and it is bigger than the sum of its parts. It is a rough estimation for how good an article can become (in the GA/FA/FL sense), and the articles that fail WP:N are those that can never be good. If no replacement or alternative is offered for a removed WP:N, then it's more bureaucratic to remove those unimprovable bad articles (at least 5 policies need to be cited and argued instead of 1 common-sense guideline). Under these conditions, I'd regard the removal of WP:N as a deliberate attempt to make wikipedia suck, and I can't support that. (Feel free to pick holes into my arguments, but I won't respond as there are better wiki-things to do than endlessly defending my position.) – sgeureka ^t•c 22:22, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   Note: Extended discussion removed. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 02:51, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

6. Generally speaking, yes. Protonk (talk) 22:49, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Support existance. Notability is a subset of "encyclopedic." If it's not notable, it's not encylcopedic. There are other things that may not be encyclopedic, such as certain things of very local notability, such as a local city councilperson who is a political gadfly. An article about such a person would likely die in AFD unless he had a significant impact on policies or was known outside the locality, but that's outside the scope of this discussion. The only way I would support getting rid of notability is if it were merged into a broader guideline called "encyclopedic." I don't see this happening any time soon, and I'm not going to push for it anytime soon either. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 23:13, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

   What would you make of a guideline called "Wikipedic", because per our First pillar, we're not only an encylopedia, but also an almanac and gazatteer? Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:16, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

8. Support retention. My reasoning is essentially the same as Davidwr's above. Deor (talk) 23:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Support. WP:N deals with two important policy concerns: WP:NOT#DIRECTORY, otherwise any person verifiable from census records and phone book listing could have an article, and WP:NPOV in cases where the only sources are non-independent it is essentially impossible to meet the standard of WP:NPOV without violating WP:OR. WP:N provides an easy heuristic for identifying such articles which would probably have to be deleted anyway. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:36, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Support if you believe that Wikipedia should remain an Encyclopedia, not a Wookieepedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 23:42, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

    Digression moved to the talk page. Protonk (talk) 01:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

11. Obvious support I've never seen a serious proposal for radical intervention that wouldn't make Wikipedia be something completely different than an encyclopedia. GRBerry 23:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Support. It's one thing to say "All we need is WP:V", but that particular policy is aspirational at best and ignored at worst. To mangle a Madison quote, if all articles were angels, no Notability would be necessary. Nifboy (talk) 06:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Support per Eluchil404. The fact that we can have much broader standards for notability than a paper encyclopedia does not mean we should abandon having any standards. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 07:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Support notability is necessary to ensure two things: that all articles have enough verifiable information available to write a decent article, and to filter out unencyclopedic content. If we were allowed to have articles on anything where verifiable information exists all sorts of blatantly inappropriate articles could not be deleted - children who got a sentence in the local paper for example. I am sure that if traditional encyclopedias had anywhere near Wikipedia's breadth of coverage they would also have some sort of notability rule. Hut 8.5 07:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Support existence While we shouldn't rely on them solely, they are an easy test to see if something should be included. The GNG is often abused. Yes, multiple topic-specific references in reliable sources make something notable, but even trivial mentions can make something notable depending on what is being claimed. Notability criteria are merely a list of things that are generally considered encyclopedic in their field. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Support This is one of Wikipedia's key guidelines for a good reason; without it this couldn't attempt to be an encyclopedia as it would be swiftly over-run with spam, things people have made up, editor's obscure relations, etc. I don't think that this even needs to be discussed. Nick-D (talk) 10:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
17. It would be utterly insane to remove this. Stifle (talk) 10:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Support Complete madness - Wikipedia would disappear under a cloud of shite. NO NO NO. --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Support existence, agree with davidwr that "If it's not notable, it's not encyclopedic", but don't think it is easy to decide.... - Pointillist (talk) 12:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

    Support existence: I think that notability is important, although how it is used and the exact content of the guideline should be changed, as I discuss below. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:27, 11 February 2009 (UTC) Revision: I support the overall existance of notability, although I'm unsure as to whether it should be a guideline or an essay. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC) Revision: I'd prefer folding it into WP:V or marking as an essay. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

20. Support - The main reason I'm inclined to support WP:N instead of relying on WP:V alone is because I think that secondary sources are critical to any article, and the overuse of primary sources is a cause of systemic bias in Wikipedia. --Explodicle (T/C) 17:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Support as a logical extension of other policies. WP:N is a helpful restatement of WP:OR and WP:V, which both say that we shouldn't have articles without reliable third-party sources. Articles that fail WP:N almost always fail these policies, and others like WP:NOT by turning Wikipedia into an indiscriminate collection of information or a directory. Randomran (talk) 17:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
22. Support as necessary until some other means to apply "indiscriminate information" can be put into its place. I'm not thrilled with its current method of use and have ways to move past that, but we need something in place during transition. --MASEM 18:05, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
23. Support Not the very best stuff but still light years better than Chaos, Anarchy, Scams, Hoaxes and Bullshits. KrebMarkt 18:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
24. An indispensable filter against unverifiable content, original research and indiscriminate information.  Sandstein  18:57, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
25. per Sandstein, Risker, and many others above Bastique ^demandez
26. Support per Sandstein, Explodicle, and others. WP:V and WP:RS aren't enforced nearly well enough. It could certainly be improved, but removing it with no suitable replacement is a recipe for disaster with regards to spam, hoaxes, and BLP problems. Mr.Z-man 19:13, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
27. Support If you want to argue you don't like the name, that's one thing. If you want to argue that notability is too strict, I'll listen. If you want to give every character that's ever been in a published book, magazine, or game an article, I'll disagree but I'll have that debate. But I can't accept the idea that we should have absolutely no standard of notability. Pagrashtak 19:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
28. Support per davidwr. "If it's not notable, it's not encylcopedic." Ben MacDui 08:56, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
29. Support. Otherwise the encyclopedia will collapse into a mire of spam, junk, hoaxes, scams, the C.V.'s of every real or fictitious person in the world etc. Any genuinely useful article would be totally lost amongst all of this stuff. e.g. Want to find out about Charles Dickens? There would be a thousand different ones to choose from. Further, it would be impossible to enforce WP:V and WP:RS in the face of this mega-tsunami especially as it is not done particularly well at the moment. Jll (talk) 09:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
30. Support - didn't we just go over this, not long before Christmas? Sceptre ^(talk) 14:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
31. Support, obviously...there MUST be some guidelines if this is actually to be an encyclopedia, and not a big giant web host for anything and everything people might feel inclined to mess with. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
32. Support (with possible inclination toward recognition as a policy) - User:sgeureka hit it: WP:GNG works hand-in-hand and is a bulwark that reinforces WP:NOT, WP:RS, etc. --EEMIV (talk) 15:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
33. Support Not broken, don't fix. No matter what, if there is any standard of inclusion, there will always be close calls. Townlake (talk) 16:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
34. Support. If not a guideline, I'd support this being policy. Absolutely would not support demoting it. Karanacs (talk) 18:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
35. Support - This guideline is necessary and useful. It helps Wikipedia maintain a minimum level of quality, which is necessary to preserve this project's credibility- it would have no credibility if it were allowed to become a playground for fanboys, self-promoters and spammers. It is a useful tool that helps us quickly and decisively decide what sort of content would violate various things in WP:NOT. Reyk _YO! 10:00, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
36. Support - not going to write out a big long description of why because I'm sure it already has been said by others above, or will be. Those who oppose N do so on the basis that apparently "everyone" is "universally" against N, but that's a sweeping statement which has no credence. It's necessary to restrict what we cover so that our overall defined coverage increases. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
37. Support per Reyk and David Fuchs. Also the hyperbole on the support side "Without WP:N wikipedia would be drowned in a tsunami of fancruft" is a lot easier to believe than the hyperbole on the oppose side "nobody supports WP:N". Besides, if we are loosing new editors because they are too lazy to click on a link and read what lies behind "not notable" when their first article is up for deletion, are they really the type of editors that are worth keeping around anyway? -- The Red Pen of Doom 02:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
38. Support I agree it's not perfect but it's better than any other idea I've seen. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
39. Strongest support for anything I have ever given on Wikipedia This is a joke, right? Themfromspace (talk) 04:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
40. Bloody strong support per Equazcion and Xymax, and I echo Themfromspace: is this an April Fools joke that got moved to the namespace a few months early? Ironholds (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

    As I suggested elsewhere, we should indeed mark "WP:N" as humorous, because it is so out of touch with the concept of the paperless encyclopedia anyone can edit that using notability as a basis of inclusion almost had to be an April Fools prank that we've fallen for for too long. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

41. Not having this is anarchy and the destruction of encyclopedic standards. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:05, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
42. Support - it works reasonably well as a general standard for what should be included in an encyclopedia.--Kubigula (talk) 04:41, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
43. Support the idea - I do support the idea of notability. I do think for some items it is overly strict, especially fiction and internet culture, but those are very select items and the general idea is good.じんない 08:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
44. Support. Certainly we can argue specific notability criteria, but without an overall notability being a requirement, it seems to me that pretty much the only reason we couldn't have an article for every tree in every forest -- or every person in every city -- is verifiability. Sure, we don't run out of pages, but I don't think it does us any favors, or did back in the day before notability was cemented as a guideline. I don't think it's enough to be merely proven to exist for something to be worth an article. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:29, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
45. Support: There's already excessive junk on Wikipedia even with it's existence.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 21:55, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
46. Speedy support/close/archive this whole page per WP:SNOWBALL There's no reason for anyone to be wasting their time arguing over this. If anything we should be promoting it to policy instead of letting the wikilawyers spin in circles about how it's "only" a guideleine and "nobody" supports it. And if the people who don't want any notability guideline are serious instead of yanking our collective chain they can go off and start their own Triviapedia wiki project somewhere. DreamGuy (talk) 18:28, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
47. Support For wikipedia is not and should not become myspace/geocities. If we are to be taken seriously, we cannot have articles on everyone's band, minor characters in minor books, every self-published author, etc. Yilloslime ^T_C 22:01, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose existence as guideline

1. Common sense strong oppose existence as it serves no useful or relevant purpose whatsoever, but by contrast goes against the whole concept of a paperless encyclopedia that anybody can edit. Other inclusion criteria are more than sufficient, but I am persuaded by the arguments presented at User:Ziggurat/Notability, Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments#Arguments_against_deleting_articles_for_non-notability, User:Thanos6, and Wikipedia:Notability/Historical/Non-notability/Essay among many others. The fact that 189 editors feel strong enough against notability to have userboxes indicating as much indicates further that it lacks community support and those at best should be marked as disputed. Indeed, even if 100 editors say "support" above, nearly twice that number have declared their opposition to notability on their userpages. Propose maybe even marking it as "humorous" as it cannot possibly be intended as a serious guideline. Wikipedia is per its first pillar not just a general encyclopedia, but also a sepcialized encyclopedia, almanac, and gazetteer. "Notability" thus goes against our first pillar, which is why the community in practice edits counter to it. No one should ever respect or feel bound by a guideline based on a subjective criteria such as "notability." Anything based on "notability" can and should be effectively ignored.--A Nobody^{My talk} 21:07, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Strong oppose The notability policy should be demoted to an essay "Rules for exclusion", as it not only excludes contributions, but it excludes editors also. Lack of "notability", even after meeting the criteria of The Five Pillars, is the number one reason articles get deleted.[3] The majority of articles put up for deletion are created by new editors.[4] Unofficial data since October 2007 suggests that users' activity on Wikipedia has been dropping, and the Economist magazine blames, "self-appointed deletionist guardians" and a proliferation of rules.[5] In fact, media's focus on Wikipedia's deletion policy, and notability, has been universally negative:

   See: Journalist's views on notability and deletion have been universally negative

   In the past, editors have mocked these journalist who universally condemn Wikipedia. The same way they mock websites which are harshly critical of Wikipedia. In response, I quote The Guardian:

   The combination of feuds and relentless focus on negatives associated with Wikipedia creates an obsession by some devoted Wikipedians about the evils visited upon them...[a] toxic mix of paranoia, fear of infiltrators and a social system where status can be acquired by fighting off threats (real or imagined)...looking beyond the rosy marketing picture reveals little but bureaucracy implemented poorly…[6]

   Instead of seeing these outsiders views as warnings, many veteran editors scoff and see these views as baseless criticisms, ignoring the long term health of Wikipedia. Notablity is causing the loss of not only thousands of contributions, it is causing the loss of thousands of potential editors too. Wikipedia already has WP:V and WP:NOR, part of the Five pillars of this great site, notability is simply not needed. Ikip (talk) 00:45, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

3. Oppose on the grounds that for Wikipedia, less is indeed more. WP:N is yet one more obfuscation that limits the utility and user-friendliness of Wikipedia as already carefully and succintly defined and established in The Five Pillars. I will continue to argue for simplification of the encyclopedia intended as one anybody can edit, as increasingly complicated rules and regulations are more suitable for Govenment Tax Codes than for ease of use of Wikipedia. An encylclopedia "anyone can edit" must also be one where the ruiles are ones "anybody can understand", and not require a masters degree in lingusitics. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Oppose We need to eliminate the nonsense rules that state that a best selling novel shouldn't have its own article, simply because it hasn't been reviewed. And what is the harm in having an article for every published manga series out there? If you don't like it, you probably wouldn't see it anyway, it only there if you go looking for it. Dream Focus (talk) 04:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Oppose Notability is generally used as an excuse for editors to delete articles on subjects they don't like. jenuk1985 (talk) 06:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Oppose If an article passes WP:RS and WP:OR, then it should be included. --Falcorian ^(talk) 23:54, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Ultra Oppose Honestly, this guideline is awful and always has been. From any real-world point of view all it is is a hindrance to the website's potential maintained and supported by a small gaggle of internet elitists who no one wants to put the time or effort into disagreeing with. A Nobody's a bit radical for my tastes, but his comparisons between this policy and prohibition/slavery were dead on; just like those abolished pieces of history, this little deal Wikipedia has going here is both disruptive towards the free-flowing nature of the site on top of being blatantly wrong, yet kept around because of a minority of stubborn fools. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 02:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

   I must say, that's the highest level of opposition I've ever seen. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:10, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Why thank you, I do try. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 02:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

8. Oppose It is redundant to WP:V which states, "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.". We don't need a separate article to say much the same thing at greater length. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:28, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Oppose. Wikipedia's core policies and basic vision are captured in the Five pillars. Notability is simply not necessary and reflects WP:CREEP. Notability emulates principles of antiquated encyclopaedia like Encyclopaedia Britannica. Notability as a criteria for deletion sets into motion powerful destructive forces: some users keep tabs on, not what they have contributed for others to read, but what they have managed to deny others from ever seeing. In practice, notability is at odds with basic policies such as WP:PRESERVE. Notability is subjective, and it is patronizing. Power.corrupts (talk) 16:05, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   You do realize WP:N is linked to in the first pillar? Mr.Z-man 18:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

10. Oppose (switched from support). I think that notability should either be an essay or folded in with other guidelines. See also the point made at Wikipedia talk:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation#How many truly bad articles existed before Notability got all huge?. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Oppose As it is not necessary. We have V and we have RS which covers it. The term "notability", being defined on Wikipedia differently to the real world definition doesn't help and if the guideline does remain it should be moved to "Inclusion criteria". While using poor arguments in discussions isn't the fault of a guideline, renaming may help reduce the people saying "Remove it, it's not notable" confusing the real definition with the Wikipedia definition. Conversely, people coming to say "Of course it's notable!" would have to show that the topic meets the inclusion criteria instead. --Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:55, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Strongly oppose-I do not see this as a guideline at all but a stalkinghorse for censorship pure and simple.--Drboisclair (talk) 20:43, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposed changes to WP:N

• Notability as currently presented through the GNG and SNGs is trying to do two things: an inclusion guideline (what we include) and a content guideline (when do make an article). This is a major burden for a guideline under so much contention, and while it helps to correct from WP's unbridled growth from its early years, it is too much of a correction as it seems to be hard to use common sense against the major proponents of it. --MASEM 22:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

"(when to make an article)." - you make an article when it meets "inclusion guideline" WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:29, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

if anyone doesn't understand that - use your brain or ask me.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• • Agreed. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
  • I thought notability is specifically not a content guideline. Could you clarify that? Equazcion •✗/C • 23:50, 10 Feb 2009 (UTC)
    • It is not, but it used implicitly as such. See the previous RFC on WP:N where there is strong resistance against spinout articles and moderate support for lists of non-notables. While WP:N currently states 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., it doesn't attempt (appropriately) to describe how to handle subpages of a topic created by summary style approaches. The problem is that many editors want WP:N to applied to "articles" unilaterally, when really it is the topic that should be of interest.
    • It is a work in progress, but User:Masem/i describes more on my thoughts. Basically, if WP were a printed volume with an infinite number of pages, the coverage of a "topic" may last for several pages, even if all aspects of a topic aren't notable but verifyable and are not indiscriminate; when that's translated to an electronic form and limited by size, we technically can recreate that (redirects are our friends) but philosophically we hit a brick wall in the policy area to support it, namely because of the weight WP:N carries. --MASEM 01:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Thanks for the clarification. I agree N should cover topics rather than articles. I've actually proposed the use of subpages before (actual subpages, as in topic main page/topic subpage). As long as we continue to recommend the splitting of large articles, we need some way of preventing the deletion of those splitoffs. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:59, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)
        • Yep; IMO, if a topic as a whole is notable most all parts/elements of it should be included also. For example, Dungeons & Dragons is notable, so shouldn't the things that make it up also be included (without becoming a WP:GAMEGUIDE, of course)? On the other hand, if a book or game was non-notable, then obviously there shouldn't be any spinoffs. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:33, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I'm concerned that the current N is causing some users to leave Wikipedia because the things that they want to contribute... be it music, fiction, or people, are constantly being removed becuase of non-notability. I think that this might be slightly alleviated if N was instead just an interpretation of WP:V, WP:5, and WP:NOT, rather than acting as a completely separate guideline as it currently is. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:27, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

• You're right to be concerned if people are putting in effort to create new articles which are promptly deleted, but we need to understand why that is happening. Wikipedia:Your first article is pretty clear: it says "Articles that do not meet notability by citing reliable published sources are likely to be deleted." Perhaps that warning should be emphasised, either on the Search Results page (see my mock-up warning here), or after the user clicks "Create the page". It is a little unfair, really: in the old days new users could just bang in text based on their personal interests with little or no supporting material. Now that Wikipedia is becoming more mature, most of the effort needed is to improve the content of existing articles and in particular find citations for them, and of course that might not appeal to some people. It's a shame, but it's no reason to abandon notability. - Pointillist (talk) 14:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• Proposed Change: Change the GNG to be a direct interpretation of WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:OR, rather than having it act as its own policy (and it does act like a policy, even though it isn't), in a similar way to how WP:SNOW is a direct interpretation of WP:IAR. This would probably relax the requirements a little, but would still mean that things had to be verfifiable and not indiscirminate or directory-like. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:42, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• But Wikipedia:NOT#Wikipedia_is_not_an_indiscriminate_collection_of_information embeds Wikipedia:Notability anyway, doesn't it? Sorry, I'm probably not up to speed with the issue here. Could you give an example of a borderline case that would be decided differently if your proposed change were adopted? Thanks! - Pointillist (talk) 14:56, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• WP:IINFO doesn't actually embed the GNG in it... it contains a list of specific things which are indiscriminate, but that does not include little heard-of books, songs, and fictional characters the way the GNG does. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think I understand. WP:IINFO (which is part of a policy page) begins "Further information: Wikipedia:Notability", but as this is a guideline it can't be embedded into the scope of WP:IINFO. Is that right? It's not exactly Kafkaesque (sorry Ikip) but neither is it very easy to absorb in a single reading.
• Going back to your proposed change "Change the GNG to be a direct interpretation of WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:OR". WP:V says "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." WP:N seems to be adding a "Significant coverage" test and clarifying sources as being "independent/objective", "not temporary" and ideally "multiple". Which parts of that does your proposed change aim to avoid? - Pointillist (talk) 00:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• It doesn't aim to avoid that at all. N adds information which is not included in V or NOT by, in my opinion, further limiting what articles can be included. Additionally, I think that notability is used incorrectly a lot in AFDs; if it was modified and better clarified that it was just an interpretation of core policies, it would be used more in the way it is supposed to: As inclusion criteria, not exclusion or deletion criteria. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:11, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think Wikipedia:Notability could be rewritten in 5 basic sentences that I think would accurately describe current practice:

Many editors believe that a subject should be notable before an article can be written about it on Wikipedia. Articles about subjects that editors think are not notable are often deleted.

Several guidelines exist that give guidance about the notability of subjects in specific areas. These guidelines do not limit article content (except for Wikipedia:Notability (people) which says people should be notable before including them on a list).

Significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject is widely considered evidence of notability for any subject, although that is not the only evidence of notability.

• --Pixelface (talk) 01:57, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

break 1

I'm not sure I understand Masem's argument above. Notability is (already) an inclusion guideline. It says, broadly, what subjects are included. Content guidelines like NOT, NOR, V, BLP, SPAM, all say what content we can't have. We have an article on George Bush because he is notable (per the GNG, or BIO, or whatever). But we can't have an article on how George Bush is a spaceman from mars (NOR), a jerk (BLP/NPOV). We have an article on IBM because they are notable (per GNG or CORP) but we can't have an article on how IBM's new ultra-mega-super whatever is awesome and you should buy it (SPAM/NPOV). I don't see how this would or should change if we rename notability. Protonk (talk) 22:57, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Masem is just plain wrong. It is, and always has been, only a content guideline for when we have an article. We have an article when the topic of that article meets all of our policies, the most important combination of which is encapsulated in the GNG. He is wrong in asserting that notability is about the content within an article, that has never been what notability, the GNG, or the SNGs, are about. GRBerry 23:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability does not explicitly act as a content guideline, but once you start working with topics that cannot be sourced but are necessary in comprehensive coverage of a much larger topic (that is forced to split over several articles), the influence of notability in restricting content becomes apparent, as WP:N (as used by many editors) would not allows for supporting articles created per summary style of that larger topic. If WP were a printed book with an infinite number of pages, then likely coverage of clearly notable topics would have numerous subsections; an article on New York may have sections covering the major cities and towns, its transportation system, landmarks, economy, etc, that would last for several pages; an article on a sports team may have scores and team rosters throughout the teams history, an article on a television show would including all the recurring characters and episodes. When they are all grouped under one super-large article, these all seem to be ok, and the infinitely-large index would cross-reference all the sub-topics of these. Technically, we can recreate this electronically via multiple article pages, with navigation templates for maneuvering between related sections and redirects for searching, but notability blocks logical approaches here in that some articles that would be naturally created from the larger article would be blocked by certain uses of the notability guideline (most specifically lists of topics lacking notability). Thus, one is forced to figure out a different content approach if they wish to include that material. This "content" aspect of notability is not explicit, but it a result of how the guideline is used. --MASEM 15:24, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"once you start working with topics that cannot be sourced" then you are in the land of WP:OR and are also failing WP:V. I am not at all sure that I follow your logic in the relation of your argument to WP:N. -- The Red Pen of Doom 17:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

That should be read as "sourced only from primary sources". Clearly anything without sources cannot be included in the first place. --MASEM 18:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

break 2

This section was formerly a poll-style list of "supporters of change". However since there are no specific changes outlined to support or oppose yet, I've changed the heading. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:30, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)
Note: The "oppose changing" section was moved to the talk page. Until editors know what exactly they would be supporting or opposing, poll-style lists of supports/opposers are impractical. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:30, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

For the viewers: When you don't know "what exactly" to support or oppose, "poll-style lists of supports/opposers [is stupid]," yet we have suppports and opposes... WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:25, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Based on trying to improve upon what has been seen as too much deletion in the last few years, it would seem to me that we would want to move to broad inclusion guidelines (but still adhering to WP:V and WP:IINFO), and then restructuring how we present articles to make sure that articles are comprehensively usable to make sure that articles are neither permastubs nor invite excess violation of NOR, NPOV, and other NOT. This means that while a topic should be included via inclusion guidelines, it may not have enough non-primary sources or information outside of one or two sources to present a completely comprehensive article, but still can be described in a parent topic or a list/table article, using redirects as needed. The present GNG still presents itself as an (but not the) inclusion guideline, since anything significantly sourced by secondary sources is something we'd want to include. --MASEM 22:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Support per my statement above. -Drilnoth (talk) 22:29, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
3. User: A Nobody supports changing the content of the policy. I'm posting this to encourage him to post his ideas. He should feel free to replace this comment. Thanks. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:28, 10 Feb 2009 (UTC)
4. Second choice. Equazcion, you do realize that wikipedia existed before notability? That in fact many journalists and editors nostalgically look back on that time? So your stunt invitation makes no sense. It is perfectly rational and logical to simply want to demote or get rid of Notability. Wikipedia already has enough Bureaucracy and Rule Creep. There are dozens of failed notability guidelines, and there are several content forks already off of notability.Ikip (talk) 01:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   Sorry I'm a little confused -- to what stunt are you referring? Equazcion •✗/C • 01:57, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   "I'm posting this to encourage him to post his ideas. He should feel free to replace this comment." Lets change my word to "invitation". It is a very unusually request, correct? Hold a place for an editor, in a section you oppose? Ikip (talk) 02:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   I had an argument with that user in the "support" section (the bulk of which I removed since it was irrelevant to the main discussion), where he was responding to each of the support comments by saying that the supporters were wrong since the policy clearly needed to be changed. I asked that he not respond that way to each comment but rather post his ideas for change here instead, since that would be more constructive, and his continued responses seemed rather unhelpful and were irritating the users there. He refused, and I posted this comment here to encourage him further. If that's been taken as some sort of sarcastic remark, I didn't mean it that way, but if anyone feels that it's inappropriate they can feel free to remove it. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:13, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks for the clarification, I will leave that up to other editors to remove, if they wish. Ikip (talk) 02:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

5. Weak support, in principle: I think this is obvious: virtually everyone supports making changes and improvements to our guidelines. I think even many oppose !votes would support change, except that they don't want to agree any and all changes. This isn't a very useful option, because the wide range of interpretations of "change" will prevent us from finding even a smidge of common ground to build upon. Randomran (talk) 17:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Support in principle: something must be done to get a fresh consensus, ideally as part of a package that makes it easier for inexperienced editors to understand whether a new article will succeed. This means simplifying the relevant policy/guideline pages (to reduce TL;DR), making them easily accessible while editing, and taking extra care with deletion processes (so we don't look like "bullies", "vigilantes" and "wannabe tin-pot dictators"). I'd like feedback on a related suggestion:

• The practice of creating an article in main space and looking for sources afterwards maximises conflict/frustration. To avoid this, the "create this article" link (on the search results page) should create the new article in user space by default, where it can be polished without time pressure. Can we all agree on that, at least? - Pointillist (talk) 09:05, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• I really like your idea Pointillist, anything to retain new users. Ikip (talk) 21:03, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

• Fully concur with Pointillist's brilliant idea that is both elegant and simple. I can already think of many editors that would be willing to be part of a "review squad" to help new editors better understand the strengths and weaknesses of proposed new articles. We already have new page patrollers that send fledgling articles to AfD or CSD, an event that often unfortunately acts to confuse and discourage many newcomers who might develop into terrific editors. Then we have the article rescue squad that attempts to save articles already "under fire" that might ultimately improve the project. If articles from new editors (certain minimal number of edits) are placed in a "sandbox" of sorts before going to main space, and then are open to review and help from interested editors, BEFORE being put on the firing range, it could result in a delightful fresh influx of articles that strengthen the project like never before. A truly brilliant idea (That why I awarded the barnstar). I think a related "ask for input" link might also be made available to a newcomer's edit page before it goes to mainspace. Much like ediors review a DYK before promoting it, editors can review an article before "promoting" it. The caveat would be that such editors only make gentle suggestions and not be obligated to do the work themselves... like a temporary "adoption" whereby a newcomer can be more gently brought into the family. And naturally, an impatient new editor can always exceraize an option to send something to mainspace without a review... and let it sink or swin just as it does now. So you're creating one additional optional step in article creation that acts to improve Wikipedia in many, many ways. Nice. Very nice. Put me on the list as a first volunteer. THIS works to improve Wiki... and does not call for any "rules" to be ignored or broken. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:32, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• There's a couple different approach that will do the same, but each involves having a group of editors willing to patrol this. The one issue with this approach is concern that new users will wonder where their page is if it doesn't show up in wikispace when they create it, regardless of how many warnings are listed (this also requires a bit of backend work to support that). A better solution may be to have a bot patrol all new pages and mark them somehow (talkpage?) if they are by new users (1000 edits or less if that's easy to tell, or else one month or less of account creation), ideally before newpage patrol gets to them (if Sinebot can act quickly, so can this bot), such that they shouldn't be CSD'd or PROD'd quickly but instead let to this group of editors so they can help new editors figure out what to do. Some pages still may be deleted, but this at least makes a new editor's contribution visible from the start and makes sure its flagged that it could fail, and experienced editors volunteering can help address possible CSD/AFD concerns. --MASEM 00:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Well from what I have seen from Welcoming Committee, New Page Patrol and Article Rescue Squadron, and all the many members who have joined than many different Projects, wiki is not lacking in editors willing step up and do what is needed to improve the project.. we are a "volunteer" group, after all (chuckle). As for new users wondering about "what happened to their article", that's why I suggested a "pre-release" userpage be an available option for newcomers. And yes, we all have that with "sandboxes", but new guys just don't know all about this stuff yet... and by the time they do, they will have graduated out of "newcomer's pre-school" and will have learned by the more gentle and instructional welcome how to properly use a sandbox. A bot that is gentle and re-assuring could work well in concert with volunteers. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 01:27, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

1. Comment Though I appreciate Pontillist's idea (automatically putting new articles in user space), the drawbacks need to be examined. The change in procedure, I believe, would be more discouraging than encouraging to new users. Something more frustrating than posting an article and having it quickly nominated for deletion, is to invest a good deal of work in an article, posting it, and having it quickly nominated for deletion. Most nominations are based on the whether the subject of the article is notable --- not upon the quality of the writing. If I spend hours on writing the ultimate biography of a relatively unknown cancer researcher, and then my article is deleted, that experience is far more bitter than having a stub of an article deleted. Although a lack of citations is also a basis for a nomination, my experience is that other editors will assist if they feel that the topic is worthy of an article. The AfD Forum is a brutal experience for a new contributor, and I think it adds injury to insult if the author has labored to create the best possible job on an article that has no chance of survival. Mandsford (talk) 20:56, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Should WP:N be renamed?

List of new names for consideration

Feel free to add suggestions below, but please sign your suggestions, to avoid overpopulating the list with trivial suggestions. Initial list posted by Equazcion •✗/C • 20:08, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

• Wikpedia: Inclusion / [WP:INC]
  • Inclusion is broken into two parts:
    • Inclusion Criteria: the universal criteria that applies to all articles
      • based on all policies
    • Inclusion Guidelines: the content structure and sections each specific type of article is guided to include

This is a draft! Now when there is a inclusion-type problem, you can check [WP:INC]. WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:59, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Article inclusion
• Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion / Wikipedia:Inclusion criteria / Wikipedia:Inclusion guideline
• Wikipedia:Third-party sources
• Wikipedia:Wikipedic
• Wikipedia:Encyclopedic Notability
• Wikipedia:Types of articles Wikipedia includes
• Wikipedia:Standing on the shoulders of giants--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 23:24, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Arguments for renaming

• I have observed more instances of the notability guideline being misused than any other rule, in fact, I can't remember the last time any other rule has been misused in such a manner. ```` —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.173.72.180 (talk) 11:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
• I think that what the guideline really means is often misinterpreted because of its name. Notability is really a set of inclusion guidelines, and I think that it should be called as such. As it is, notability seems to be used as exclusion guidelines, which it really isn't supposed to be. Therefore, I suggest renaming to WP:Inclusion guidelines. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
• I'd like to suggest "WP:Criteria for inclusion" or "WP:Inclusion criteria", instead of "WP:Inclusion guidelines". It just fits better into statements (public and internal) and discussions. Ie. "I feel this article meets/doesn't meet Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion." As for whether or not it should be done, it would be nice, if only to avoid confusion. I often see newbies in deletion discussions when their articles, or articles they really care about, are nominated, saying things like "how can you say this topic isn't notable??", and then we have to explain that we're not talking about the word notable but the policy, describe the distinction between opinions on topic notability and meeting the notability guideline per se, etc etc. A rename would probably avoid most of that, if not all. PS I of course realize my suggested names are already redirects here, but I'm of course suggesting that one of those should be the policy's official name. Just to be clear. Equazcion •✗/C • 22:12, 10 Feb 2009 (UTC)
• There are a few reasons for renaming:
  • "Notability" causes editors to ignore the third-party source requirements, and get into subjective measures of importance.
  • Deletionists sometimes use "notability" in order to just delete things that they believe are unimportant, regardless of sources. WP:IHATEIT.
  • Inclusionists sometimes use "notability" in order to keep things that they believe are important, despite a lack of sources. WP:ILIKEIT.
  • People (new editors) don't actually read the guideline and just rely upon the title, because "notability" usually just means "importance" to them. (Consult a thesaurus.)
  • To some extent, deleting an article because it's "not notable" (unimportant) hurts more feelings than deleting an article for "lack of sources". We shouldn't coddle editors, but we *can* find ways to take the sting of perceived subjectivity out of sourcing problems.
  • The point of notability isn't that we judge what is notable, but that reliable third-party sources do -- by noting up major phenomena.
• There are counter arguments, but I think they're rebuttable:
  • Notability is the best name. To which I counter that it leads to many misunderstandings, which I mentioned above.
  • People are still too accustomed to using notability. To that, I counter that habits can change if we permit the slow transition. See Wikipedia:Vanity. We felt that "conflict of interest" sums up the issue much better.
  • People are acting in bad faith to change the scope and eventually dilute the content of the notability guideline. To that, I counter that we should pick a rename that improves the scope, and cements the requirement for third-party sources.
  • Some of the proposed renames are lousy. But a little cooperation would be nice, as it's hard to reach a consensus without brainstorming from both sides.
• There it is. Randomran (talk) 17:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
  • • I think you mean "shouldn't coddle editors" above. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:20, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)
      • Err, I said "not that we should coddle..." but I've tried for a less awkward wording. Randomran (talk) 17:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
        • Sorry, must be my dyslexia gnitca pu. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:57, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Arguments against renaming

• Renaming is simply a feel-good solution. Notability's effects are very deep and need re-evaluation. I do agree introducing "inclusion" is good, but this guideline should not simply become "inclusion" to make the right change. --MASEM 22:05, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
• Per Masem, this is a feel-good solution. The term "notability" is so ingrained here that changing the name of this guideline is pointless. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 22:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
• Calling a shotgun a "home pretection device" might be accurate, but still allows that gun to blow away whoever happens to stand in front of it when the trigger is pulled. Renaming this guideline serves no purpose. It is what it is and must be dealt with for what it is, and not for what it might be called. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:50, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose Renamed to what? No credible alternative is being proposed. This RFC sucks. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
  • Umm... a few alternatives, such as WP:Inclusion criteria have been proposed. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
    • What about WP:Article inclusion? --Gavin Collins (talk) 19:55, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
      • Sure. -Drilnoth (talk) 20:19, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I dont really see much validity in most of the "arguments for renaming" above

• "Notability" causes editors to ignore the third-party source requirements, and get into subjective measures of importance - got any proof for this claim? and without having a specific "rename to: Guideline X", it is just as easy for me to claim that there will be as much and more confusion with any new name.
• Deletionists sometimes use "notability" in order to just delete things that they believe are unimportant, regardless of sources. - and a different name for the guideline will change this how?
• Inclusionists sometimes use "notability" in order to keep things that they believe are important, despite a lack of sources. - see above.
• People (new editors) don't actually read the guideline and just rely upon the title, because "notability" usually just means "importance" to them. if new editors are too lazy to bother to actully read the link, are we really loosing any value to wikipedia?

That leaves "using WP:N hurts editors feelings more than telling them the article needs sources" - well, if that is the actual issue, the solution is deeper than re-naming. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Support renaming

1. To WP:Inclusion guidelines. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:18, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Strong support. Agree with the above, i.e. that an objective "inclusion guideline" absent of subjectively interpreted words like "significant" and "notable" is the correct way to go. No compelling reason has ever been presented for this name. No valid reason as to why this massive failure should continue to exist under an obviously an undeniably flawed name. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:19, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Support per my reasoning above. WP:Criteria for inclusion or WP:Inclusion criteria.

   Per the discussion below, a straight rename to something like "inclusion criteria" would be inaccurate. I still feel a rename might be a good idea, if an appropriate and accurate name can be found. However as Protonk suggests below I think a new compilation guideline named "inclusion criteria" could (should?) be created to summarize all the different policies that could affect inclusion, which following my reasoning above would help curtail confusion, especially for new editors. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:39, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

4. Either "Inclusion guidelines" or "Inclusion criteria" are fine. I never understood the "But then people will think that notability is the only content inclusion guideline" objection. If we rename N→Inclusion, no one is going to lose their mind and think that BLP, NOT or SPAM don't exist. I see no problem moving from "we only deal with important things" (both implied by the word notability and determined directly by some subject specific guidelines such as BIO, NB, FILMS), which obviously doesn't describe current practice to something more neutral. I disagree strongly that the more neutral place will somehow eliminate the need for significant coverage, as some proponents of the rename hope to do. But w/e. Protonk (talk) 22:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Renaming is a good idea. "inclusion" is much clearer. I think there could definitely be changes too, but renaming at the very least. Ddawkins73 (talk) 23:26, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Third choice. Ikip (talk) 01:34, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
7. To WP:third party sources or something of the like. I would oppose "inclusion criteria" because "inclusion" is just as vague as words like "importance", and slightly worse than "notability". The common refrain is "who are you to say what's notable/important?" That would merely change to "who are you to say what we should include?" But if we were to focus on third-party sources, we would realize that editors don't decide what is noteworthy, but reliable independent secondary sources do -- by making note of phenomena, which Wikipedians then summarize. Randomran (talk) 17:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   ^I like that one. Directly says the point of the guideline, rather than focusing on the value judgment. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:08, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   I agree with the principle, but you'll never manage to summarise the whole point of the guideline. WP:significant coverage over a period in reliable independent and not purely local secondary sources is too unwieldly. Anyway third party evidence of existence isn't the sole measure of notability—my house isn't notable, even if there are significant descriptions of it in public Land registration and Zoning archives. I think we'd be better off sticking trying to agree what "Notability" means before trying to change the label. And BTW I'm instinctively an inclusionist and article rescuer rather than a deletionist. - Pointillist (talk) 19:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   Third-party sources might not be the only measure of notability, but neither is the notability guideline. The point of the rename is to state what the guideline adds to the general plethora of guidelines and policies. Reliability of sources is covered in a separate guideline. This one focuses on the need for sources from third parties. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:54, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   I think your house would be excluded by WP:NOT. The guideline doesn't mean "everything that has third-party sources should be included", but "everything that is included should have third-party sources". Randomran (talk) 20:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

8. Support "Inclusion criteria". As long as this thing is going to stick around, it could at least get its name changed. The current name "notability" is simply unfitting because, well, it's bullshit. It goes almost entirely against the accepted notions of notability and instead uses its own little definition. It's insulting to the word "notability. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 02:14, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Support "Inclusion criteria". I frequently delete CSD candidates, and there is a lot of confusion among new editors on what notability means. That said, I also wouldn't oppose the name remaining the same as it is now. Karanacs (talk) 18:34, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Support "Inclusion criteria". "Notable" has a meaning in the real world and it's not WP:N. "Fails to meet our inclusion criteria" is far more comprehensible to newbies than "not notable" (to which the logical response is always, "But it's notable to (me/my friends/the guy who wrote a Geocities page about it)!" --- all of which are undoubtedly true statements). cab (talk) 01:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
11. I regularly patrol AFD and see increasing confusion about the meaning of notability. For example, I now see editors muddling it with the WP:CSD concept of asserting notability which has nothing to do with sources. And then there's the common confusion with the idea of importance. For example, from an AFD yesterday: "just running a company doesn't seem like that notable a thing to me". The best solution seems to be to merge into WP:V which already has the essential point; "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.". Get people taking about verifiability rather than notability and the confusion should abate. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    I would strongly support a merger like that even... fold notability into WP:V. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:05, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    I'm very sympathetic to that—anything that reduces the learning curve for a new editor is welcome. Would you retain WP:N's "significant coverage" test and the "multiple sources" preference? - Pointillist (talk) 16:32, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

12. While some of the proposed names are dubious, the "notability" we currently have is definitely jargon. I remember making an Urban Dictionary entry a while ago in the hopes of explaining the jargon somewhat. If a decent name can be found for the page, I'd support it. "Decent" means that a name is not misleading, not ambiguous, and not unnecessarily verbose. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:14, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    • comment The way Wikipedia defines "original research" and [["verifiable" are just as jargon-y as our definition of "notability". -- The Red Pen of Doom 00:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

13. Support, but keep the name simple, Wikipedia:Inclusion. It more accurately describes what the criteria are and hopefully short circuit the "notability shell games" that some editors play to defend articles that normally fail the criteria, but yet they want to keep. In part because notability is subjective, however we want an objective criteria or benchmark by which to determine if an article may have an article. --Farix (Talk) 03:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Support to anything with a less subjective sound. Inclusion Criteria, Article Inclusion Criteria, Inclusion, List of Things For Which Make Article Good Idea for Having On Wikipedia. All's good. Well, perhaps not the last one. --Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 20:47, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
15. Support: Article inclusion, Inclusion criteria, or simply Inclusion.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:01, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose renaming

1. Oppose I think the potential for confusion with other "inclusion criteria" outways any benefit of a rename. People already "vote" "Keep-notable" at AfD's where other concerns, such as WP:OR or WP:BLP#1E have been raised and changing the name to "Inclusion" would only make this problem worse. It is true the "notability" is a term of art on Wikipedia whose contours do not exactly match that of its "real world" usage but that is true to a greater or lesser extent of all terms defined by policies/guidlines. Eluchil404 (talk) 23:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Oppose as I pray that WP:NOTABILITY will never become WP:Article inclusion, WP:Article Exclusion, or worst of all WP:Article Selektion.--Gavin Collins (talk) 23:53, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
3. As its only 1 inclusion criterion. Mr.Z-man 00:02, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   As a general response to the "there are other inclusion criteria" concerns: There are other content inclusion policies, but isn't N the only article inclusion policy? And doesn't inclusion usually denote whole topics, not individual facts? I could be off on that, I haven't gone researching. It just seems to me that it's generally understood that inclusion refers to whole topics, and that no other policy deals with the issue of which topics to include. Just tossing that out there. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:00, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   It may be the most cited, but renaming it to "article inclusion guideline" suggests its the only possible one. Mr.Z-man 03:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   Right, and again, in terms of the inclusion of entire articles, isn't it the only one? Equazcion •✗/C • 03:35, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Well, Mr. Z-man has a point. I didn't get to flesh it out at the last renaming RfC, but my view would be this. We have these content policies, some core, some not. We have (assuming that WP:N makes it through this RfC unscathed) inclusion guidelines based on those policies. I have no problem With us changing N itself to be a broader "Inc" with pointers to NOT/SPAM/NOR, or even transclusions of those sections (noting where policy begins and ends). Wikipedia:Civility works in a similar fashion. Portions of it are policy all by themselves, but the basic idea of "don't be a dick" stems from other behavioral policies and guidelines which are summarized at CIV. I think it would be inartful to just change the name alone. We would want to make sure that we were appropriately describing our inclusion policies/guidelines in general. Protonk (talk) 04:09, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   (ec) No, it isn't the only one. WP:NOT, for instance, specifies a number of types of articles that shouldn't be included, such as Tourist's guide to Paris or Gallery of Poussin paintings or Directory of automobile-repair shops in Chicago. Deor (talk) 04:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   (ec) Protonk, I'm not sure what you're saying. You mean that since N stems from, or follows logically from, other policies, that it can't be called the exclusive inclusion policy? Why not? If it's the only policy dictating which topics the encyclopedia can cover, then what's wrong with calling it (for instance) the "article inclusion policy"? We call a television a television despite the fact that it's made up of parts that aren't televisions. The sum becomes something different from the parts. What's wrong with naming it accordingly? Equazcion •✗/C • 04:21, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Well, I agree that the things excluded by NOT as subjects which are not otherwise excluded by N are very narrow. I think the point Z-man is making (and the point made at the last renaming attempt) was that calling N the "inclusion criteria" might cause people to ignore some of the other inclusion criteria. I don't think it is very persuasive or hard to overcome, but it is a point which has to be addressed. Protonk (talk) 05:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   If we give people an opportunity to wikilawer something, they will use it to wikilawyer. I can see it now: "But WP:Inclusion guidelines doesn't say this isn't a valid article, so it must be." and interestingly enough, WP:Inclusion criteria has redirected to WP:NOT since 2006 Mr.Z-man 05:37, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

   Well that's what I was asking, if there were other policies that determined inclusion. I see now that there are, but was frustrated by the lack of a straight answer. Deor provided that nicely, and I've amended my stance above. Equazcion •✗/C • 05:41, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Deor: NOT is a content policy, though yeah, there are certain article titles that would impede them from ever containing anything other than content prohibited by NOT, which in turn gets them deleted. Thinking out loud. Articles can be deleted for content, which is something I hadn't thought of. So I guess I abdicate. Equazcion •✗/C • 04:34, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

4. Oppose renaming. It is what it is. Calling it something else does not address current concerns over its application. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 04:53, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Oppose whilst notability is an inclusion guideline it is not the inclusion guideline. Articles can and are frequently excluded for other reasons such as WP:NOT, WP:BLP and so on. If we wanted to make a page on "inclusion guidelines" we would have to merge parts of all these pages into it, which would be impractical. Hut 8.5 07:46, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Oppose. It might make people feel good, but it won't actually achieve anything. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:03, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Oppose - just an attempt to dilute notability from another angle. --Cameron Scott (talk) 12:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Weak Oppose - even if you rename it, english-as-a-first-language speakers will still talk about "notability". - Pointillist (talk) 14:17, 11 February 2009 (UTC) If we need to make it clear that wikipedia has a specific definition for the concept, I wouldn't object to calling it "Encyclopedic Notability". - Pointillist (talk) 09:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Oppose — I, for one, am not for calling it in "intrenching tool" or an "manual geomorphological modification implement"—it's a freakin' shovel! Same applies here. MuZemike 17:30, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Oppose. "Notability" is a fine name—one that trips pleasingly off the tongue. Deor (talk) 20:29, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Oppose I don't see anything wrong withe the current name, especially as it sums up what the guideline is about in one word Nick-D (talk) 07:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Oppose renaming. It is concise and a good description of the guideline. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Jll (talk) 10:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Oppose, no valid reason to rename given at all. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Oppose - Clear, specific name describes the content. No compelling reason to rename it. --EEMIV (talk) 15:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Not broken. Stifle (talk) 15:26, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Not broken. -- Goodraise (talk) 00:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Oppose - "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability" and "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought." deal with inclusion. Notability is a community guideline which aims to prevent trivial information being hosted on Wikipedia. Notability is related to discussions on trivia sections in the sense that it aims to prevent inappropriate and trivial content - though consensus on what content is appropriate and trivial, and how we present such content is ongoing and does alter. The inclusion criteria is fixed, and is what Wikipedia was founded upon - WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. If an article meets WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV then it can remain on Wikipedia. No other policy is needed. However, editors working in some subject areas have determined that following these inclusion guidelines leads to Wikipedia being swamped by too many minor and orphaned standalone articles that overload the project and result in poor navigation and poor quality, and so have created content guidelines to help shape the subject area. These notability guides are not policy, and nor should they be. And over time as we shape and organise the project better, so we find we are able to better handle more and more content, so the restrictions on what we accept become looser and looser. We should at this stage be reducing the influence of the main notability guidelines and indicating that they are, in fact, nothing more than advice on how to deal with content, rather than rules for inclusion. SilkTork *^YES! 13:07, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Strong Oppose rename there is no valid reason why something is wrong with the current name. Reywas92^Talk 21:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
19. weak Oppose rename the basis for the arguments for a re-name dont really seem to have their solution in a re-name. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
20. Strong oppose rename No valid arguments on why we should change what obviously works so well for the encyclopedia. Themfromspace (talk) 07:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Oppose Unnecessary. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 20:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
22. Oppose- the word "notability" is the most fitting one for what the guideline sets out. Reyk _YO! 10:04, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
23. Oppose Playing a shell game with the name doesn't change anything. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
24. Oppose inclusion criteria are more than just notability - attack pages and copyvios and BLP violations are not includable even if the target is "notable". Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

    Maybe those could all be made a part of a single page which includes notability? -Drilnoth (talk) 19:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

25. Oppose Beeblebrox above says it best--we should be dealing with the underlying issues with the foundation, not throwing up some new drapes. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 13:20, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
26. Oppose The use of the term "notable" grew organically out of the community discussing various articles on AFD and VFD to argue that something was, or was not, worthy of note, and of interest to an encyclopedia reader. Use of the term "notability" as an argument on VFD/AFD in the past is the reason the guideline is named "notability". "Inclusion standards" is a very artificial term. The true inclusion standards are governed by WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. The notability guideline has several problems (it overestimates the notability of news stories, and underestimates the notability of villages in Africa), but the name "notability" is not one of them. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:04, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
27. Oppose - Farcical. DreamGuy (talk) 18:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
28. Oppose A term is needed distinct from verifiability and reliable sources which are also established inclusion criteria. Notability is a term of art here.patsw (talk) 19:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC).

Should WP:N be made Policy?

Wikipedia has developed a body of policies and guidelines to further our goal of creating a free encyclopedia. Policies are considered a standard that all editors should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature.

Amazingly, Wikipeida policies do not define what topics are suitable for inclusion as a standalone article. Instead, WP:What Wikipedia is not makes it clear that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, and just because a topic may exist or is useful does not automatically make it suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia.

To differentiate between what is indiscriminate, and what is not, Wikipedia employs the concept of '"Notability", an inclusion criterion based on encyclopedic suitability of a topic for a Wikipedia article. The principal underlying notability is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence to support a claim of notability.

Substantial coverage in reliable sources constitutes such objective evidence. By chance or by design, it is the same reliable sources that generations past have used to expand our knowledge of the world around us by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past, described by the metaphor "Standing on the Shoulders of Giants".

Since WP:What Wikipedia is not and WP:Notability are closely linked, such that they can be described different sides of same coin, I propose that the guideline Wikipedia:Notability should be promoted to a Policy in order to strengthen the First of the Five Pillars that define the character of Wikipedia.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:17, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Supporters of the Proposal

1. Support Only because judging from current practice, it seems to be policy already. Hell it seems to be gospel. Might as well fess up to that. In answer to Drilnoth's point below, that N is a guideline because exceptions need to be made where appropriate, that applies to any rule, and is not the difference between a guideline and a policy. "Policies are considered a standard that all editors should follow, whereas guidelines are more advisory in nature." I think we can all agree that, in practice, Notability has fallen under the first category. Look over any particular day's worth of deletion discussion. Editors in those discussions who suggest Notability to merely be "advisory" are asking for a horse-whippin'. Every article is expected to satisfy Notability. Equazcion •✗/C • 13:27, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

   Actually, I've seen it used as a gospel by deletionist, and by people disliking the article in question. I haven't seen it that often used by "followers" on articles they like. Not just WP:N, but also WP:V and WP:RS. People use all the tools they can get to achieve their goals, and when tools are not there, they use the special tool WP:IAR. Why I dislike WP:N is because in practice it is mainly supported by google search based sources, and although huge, google index is far from comprehensive. Also consider that most major news sites don't keep their archives! Many old news stories disappear, so go figure how to cite those, unless if you have microfilmed newspapers in your local library, and can remember the date of the news!! 212.200.240.232 (talk) 22:48, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

2. Support. This is often treated as a policy anyway. Karanacs (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Support under the condition that the community clarifies when WP:N applies (spinouts, lists, ...) and what would happen to the SNGs. Guidelines overriding policy seems problematic. -- Goodraise (talk) 00:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Fruitless support. Stifle (talk) 15:27, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Support. Deor (talk) 03:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Support in principle, as it is effectively treated as policy anyway. Jll (talk) 09:50, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Strong support for a policy that determines inclusion. Content of the articles whose subjects (ie: titles) meet the GNG shouldn't be governed by the GNG at all, unless there is consensus to do so for an individual article such as a hard to maintain list. Themfromspace (talk) 07:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Suport As was said above, promoting it to policy will only mirror what already takes place. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 20:41, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
9. Adamant support The it's only a guideline crowd tends to use that argument to attempt to preserve some of our worst content, and making it a policy is the only way to put an end to that. Exceptions are granted to both guidelines and policies, so the but we need to make exceptions argument isn't very strong, especially since it is very rare that there is a legitimate need to make an exception to WP:N.—Kww(talk) 15:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Full support This should have been made into policy quite a long time ago. The "inclusionist/deletionist wars" from 2004-2006 was the likly reason it stayed as a guideline. The countless articles deleted at AFD is proof that most editors believe that not everything belongs on Wikipedia. Formalization of this as policy will give the remaining radical inclusionists less room to wiggle.--Ipatrol (talk) 23:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

    No, it is "proof" that a minority of editors who hover around AfDs are illogically deciding the fate of articles that perhaps thousands of contributors volunteer their time to work on and millions come here tor ead. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

11. Support This is one of our core values. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:06, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
12. Support' - long overdue. DreamGuy (talk) 18:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Objectors to the Proposal

1. WP:NOT supports the first pillar of Wikipedia, as does WP:V, but not WP:N.
   (Copied from talk page:) WP:N is a guideline because exceptions need to be made to it when appropriate. Policies like WP:NOT, WP:V, and WP:OR serve a similar purpose... the GNG is made to be an interpretation of them (although it does add in a few more inclusion criteria). The GNG's use is much more subjective, more so than any of those policies, so I think that it should be kept as a guideline. -Drilnoth (talk) 13:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
2. Note that I would think that if the community does want it like this with WP:N as policy and that logically leads to some "end" of the inc. vs. del. war, great. Personally, this is very wrong, because WP:N in its current form has several conflicts with other policies and guidelines, and also that by enforcing it in this way, we create a type of encyclopedia that may absolutely meet all of the mission goals buy may become less useful, and may see WP losing editors, readers, and the like to other projects. There is also the issue of how the SNGs play out if only WP:N is brought to policy, since the RFC on WP:N last showed that a topic meets the GNG or an SNG, not the GNG and the SNG. --MASEM 14:25, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Per Drilnoth. Sceptre ^(talk) 14:31, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
4. WP:N is better than nothing But it does mean that WP:N was great before hand. In some aspect WP:N is a kind of Tyrant and only fool give more power to one. KrebMarkt 17:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

   Comment A change from to guideline to policy can also be viewed as an indirect & back-handed way to alter the outcome of WP:FICT. Yes i'm an unbeliever of good faith. --KrebMarkt 19:20, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

5. I am so glad that Masem, Sceptre, and I can agree on something. Ikip (talk) 17:46, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Strong oppose as in absolutely not. It would be one of the dumbest things ever done in Wikipedia history. Suggest withdrawing this section as either pointed or not serious. I do not respect or feel bound by it as guideline or nor would I or should anyone else if it were a policy per "ignore all rules". Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Not yet. Based on what I've seen at AfD, there just isn't a strong enough community consensus for it to be policy. --Explodicle (T/C) 21:55, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Not commented elsewhere on here (yet) but I strongly disagree with making notability a policy. There are too many areas where the community does not insist on meeting the GNG for an article to be allowed such as towns and villages, possibly WP:FICT and some areas where a SNG is met such as a professional sportsperson (despite what the SNG actually says). We do make exceptions to WP:N and we should not have to ignore all rules every time we do. Davewild (talk) 22:27, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
9. WP:N already has so many forks, and making it a policy would kind of bring new mess into WP, as GNG seems to be insufficient by itself when it needs all its 'children'. Policies should be self sufficient. ps. go to WP:N Academics which aims to be independent of GNG, and you'll see the beginning of the mess. 212.200.240.232 (talk) 22:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Not yet, maybe never. It's just not sound enough or temperate enough as it stands. Eventualism is a keystone to the success the project has shown. An article mentions a term. Someone tries linking it and it comes up red. Someone follows the redlink to search for related concepts and, seeing lots of hits, starts a stub. Seconds later, somebody else speedies it and we lose an opportunity to improve the encyclopedia. This happens over and over again. LeadSongDog (talk) 22:32, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

    Further up the page I suggested that the "create a page" function should default to creating the page in user space rather than main article space, to give more time for editing before newpage patrollers take a look. That would have avoided your frustration with Know Your Mushrooms. What do you think? - Pointillist (talk) 12:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    That is a brilliant idea! Maybe have a set of volunteer reviewers that could advise newcomers about the strengths and weakneses of their proposed articles? Sure would avoid a lot of unhappiness when a new article is tossed to AfD after 6 minutes on mainspace. Always good to encourage newcomers instead of chasing them away. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:35, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    Thanks so much for your support on this—I like your volunteer reviewer idea too. I was thinking about proposing an improved interface for sandbox work, with an way to move/copy the article into main space. Having an "I'm ready for review" button would fit perfectly (it would probably just toggle a category on the page). BTW if you really think I should be pushing this please can you say so in Break 2, point 6 above. So far only ikip has commented and I need some extra momentum before I propose it at the Village Pump. - Pointillist (talk) 22:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

    I commented above at length, with a few additional thoughts. Cannot understand the lack of comments from others (as of yet), but this may simply be because editors are focused on other concerns in this discussion. Your proposal has tremendous potential to improve wiki! You aren't re-inventing the wheel, but designing a wheel bearing with less friction so the wheels of Wiki can keep spinning. This is just the shot-in-the-arm wiki needs! Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 00:42, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

11. No. The five pillars don't mention "notability" at all. Whether something is "worthy of notice" is a completely subjective opinion that varies from person to person, place to place, and time to time. The word "notable" has too many different meanings to be policy. People didn't say "non-notable" in VFDs because they were differentiating between what is "indiscriminate" and what is not — they were saying "non-notable" because they personally didn't think the subject was "worthy of notice." Most of the time it meant "I haven't heard of it." In my opinion, I don't think cricket is worthy of notice. I'm sure Gavin disagrees. It doesn't matter if *I* think it's not worthy of notice — apparently at least 2 billion people think it is. --Pixelface (talk) 01:48, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
12. WP:N suggests methods for implementing policy. As such it should be a guideline. Taemyr (talk) 08:59, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
13. --S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 11:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Interesting. Since many editors consider WP:N to be a failed exclusionist experiement that should be demoted to an historical essay, let's get input about making it WP:Policy so that those wishing a demotion might then settle on the middle-ground of it remaining a guideline. No matter. It is not a policy and should never be one, as it contradicts the Five Pillars and the basic tenents of Wikipedia. As a guideline it supports a subjective view of what is or is not worthy of Wikipedia. Wiki is not Britanica and should not strive to emmulate a paper encyclopdia, as it has the potential to be so very much more. So Policy? Gosh no. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:30, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
15. Per KrebMarkt (talk · contribs) and MichaelQSchmidt (talk · contribs). --Falcorian ^(talk) 21:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Oppose - "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability" and "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought." deal with inclusion. Notability is a community guideline which aims to prevent trivial information being hosted on Wikipedia. Notability is related to discussions on trivia sections in the sense that it aims to prevent inappropriate and trivial content - though consensus on what content is appropriate and trivial, and how we present such content is ongoing and does alter. The inclusion criteria is fixed, and is what Wikipedia was founded upon - WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. If an article meets WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV then it can remain on Wikipedia. No other policy is needed. However, editors working in some subject areas have determined that following these inclusion guidelines leads to Wikipedia being swamped by too many minor and orphaned standalone articles that overload the project and result in poor navigation and poor quality, and so have created content guidelines to help shape the subject area. These notability guides are not policy, and nor should they be. And over time as we shape and organise the project better, so we find we are able to better handle more and more content, so the restrictions on what we accept become looser and looser. We should at this stage be reducing the influence of the main notability guidelines and indicating that they are, in fact, nothing more than advice on how to deal with content, rather than rules for inclusion. SilkTork *^YES! 13:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Oppose - seems like a solution in place of a problem. By convention, notability is as sacrosanct as guidelines get, and it is followed pretty thoroughly. Nevertheless, it is a place where IAR can often apply, and the many fine contours and subtleties do not lend themselves well to the sort of black and white thinking that policies sometimes encourage.Wikidemon (talk) 14:21, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Oppose - With the exception of policies about inherent notability, I do not see additional guidelines as helpful to Wikipedia. What we have in place is enough for our editors to debate. If anything, some of the notability guidelines should be thrown out, such as WP:ONEEVENT, one of the more misunderstood guides out there. Mandsford (talk) 21:05, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Oppose. Although I see the need for some sort of notability standard, there are too many things which are wrong with the current WP:N page to bring it up to a hard and fast policy status. It is true much of the time (so guideline status is OK, though my support for even that status is lukewarm at best), but there are so many cases where a strict reading fails miserably. WP:N has a tendency to overrate the relevance of news stories in Europe and North America, and underrate the relevance of subjects in general relating to developing countries, causing a systemic bias. A strict policy-like interpretation of WP:N undermines the NPOV mission. (Case in point: You can easily find plenty of reliable sources about a village in the UK, it is much tougher to do the same about its counterpart in Tanzania, but calling settlements in Tanzania less notable seems like a perverse result.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:07, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
20. Oppose - WP:N already gets abused too often. Rlendog (talk) 02:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
21. Oppose While N is indeed often handled as if it was a policy, there is a huge gray area in how far N applies to e.g. spinout articles (with primary yet NPOV and non-COI sources, lists,...). I think N works great as a rough guideline, but I fear N as a policy would do more harm than good at this point. – sgeureka ^t•c 16:48, 24 February 2009 (UTC)
22. No. I view WP:N as a quintessential example of something that should be a guideline - i.e. a generally accepted standard that is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Despite our best efforts, notability is not a science and application must be somewhat flexible across different subject areas. We should also value precedent and consistency in order to provide a reasonably cohesive feeling throughout WP.--Kubigula (talk) 04:51, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
23. Oppose: the statement in WP:V "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found featuring significant coverage of a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it" is the policy, WP:GNG is merely the guideline expanding upon that policy. Hrafn^Talk_Stalk^(P) 17:00, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
24. No, it's not policy and it shouldn't be, because teh manner in which it applies is vague at the edges. WP:V is the policy, WP:N is the guidance on how to meet that policy and other content policies. This is a branch, not a trunk. Hiding T 12:18, 3 March 2009 (UTC)
25. Strongly OPPOSE I oppose this "notability" guideline becoming policy on this website. To be encyclopedic means to be the comprehensive source for all information. I have seen how this guideline has been used as a stalkinghorse for those who simply dislike certain topics, and proceed under this pretext to "speedy delete" things that they do not consider "notable" in their POV. I think that this is also a pretext for censorship as well. It is also ambiguous as opposed to Verifiability for example.--Drboisclair (talk) 20:31, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
26. No I'm deletionist but I strongly oppose making N a policy. Its a useful bar for inclusion but there had to be room around the edges either way for reaching logical conclusions not supported by N that making this a policy would frustrate. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
27. Oppose Too many editors confuse notability with importance already and do not understand that notable means that "it has been noticed by enough 3rd party source to allow a NPOV and V article". This would amplify the already sometimes severe type of systemic bias which is born out of "I don't know about it, so it can't be notable". MLauba (talk) 12:46, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

    +1 Great concise way to explain what i think of Notability. --KrebMarkt 08:01, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

28. Object: Lacks specificity; when it does, then I'd support.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 21:53, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Replace Notability with two guidelines: Inclusion and Article Quality

WP:N is attempting to function as an inclusion guideline and as a content guideline (in terms of how we deal with articles). The problem is that this creates issues between dealing with topics and with articles. We still need to adhere to WP:V and WP:IINFO, but the high-level requirement of secondary sources means that coverage of areas outside of academics and mainstream information will be less than what it could be if the requirement was lowered to just verifiability and avoiding indiscriminate information. While discussing topics that are non-notable in a larger parent article is generally preferred, there is still resistance in having supporting articles of a notable topic which themselves may not be notable - a matter of significant difference between our summary style approach and the fact that notability is not inherited; it is because it is strongly asserted that secondary sources must be present for any article, even though notability is meant to be applied to a topic.

Thus, I propose that WP:N (in addition to whatever other policies and guidelines need to reflect this) to be split into two separate guidelines:

• Inclusion: WP can be broad in coverage of topics. Inclusion guidelines would include subject specific ones with well-defined whitelists and blacklists for what WP should and should not cover, respectively. Inclusion guidelines can also include topics that meet general standards for inclusion, such as what the current GNG states. The key part that must be asserted here is that inclusion is not equivalent of having its own article. What constitutes a good article is the other guideline, but when a topic has minimal sources or can't be expand beyond what is already present, it should be described in an article that places that topic with other topics to provide a more comprehensive picture. In this fashion, redirects are our friends, because any topic that is included should be a valid search result, just maybe not its own page.
• Article Quality: There is a certain quality that we expect across all articles, but we realize that no article is ever perfect; things like language, layout, and the like are impossible to judge at earlier states of an article's development. However, there are other aspects, such as comprehensiveness, sourcing, and adherence to content guidelines, that can be judged after the article is initially created. We discourage the generation of short articles that likely will remain permastubs, articles that excessively duplicate the content of other articles, or ones that can encourage speculation and original research if left unwatched. Thus in such cases, when it is clear that a topic on an article cannot move beyond these minimal quality guidelines, redirection is strongly encouraged to cover the topic in a larger context that will likely remedy these basics.

From the standpoint of how things are done now, replacing the GNG with these will change little for articles that currently meet the GNG or likely any of the SNGs; when in terms of inclusion, an article meeting the "significant coverage in secondary sources" requirement of the GNG would be worthy of inclusion regardless of field-specific blacklists, and would easily meet the Article Quality aspect due to sourcing (though there's still the possibility of editorially merging content if comprehension can be improved). The SNGs themselves form the initial basis for field-specific inclusion guidelines. It would be necessary to make sure our inclusion whitelists cover everything we believe WP should cover in a broad sense, while the blacklists specifically exclude what we consider to be indiscriminate information. A net result from this is likely very little to the lay reader, but will help to smooth things out for all the editors behind the scenes: it basically becomes a matter of how we sort all the little topic nuts and bolts into bins to make it easier to find and understand a topic. It is also a more positive approach and friendlier to newer editors, as the "inclusion" approach is a much more positive term than how the current GNG is written.

There would be a lot more work to fundamentally put this approach in place as to align the language with other policy and guidelines as well as the generation of inclusion white and blacklists, and a good definitive guideline for the low-level article quality. But it is a workable replacement for WP:N that would help us progress beyond the existing inclusionists-deletionists battles. --MASEM 16:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Support

1. (sort of). There is no content inclusion guideline per se, other than the style guideline on how to write a good article. There is nothing to split because notability doesn't address this, but you're welcome to propose a new guideline. Good luck because it's been tried before, without success. It's a hard concept to nail down in a helpful way that doesn't just become an essay on what makes a good article, or a compendium of other policies and guidelines that describe what kind of otherwise verifiable, reliably sourced material does not belong in a particular article.Wikidemon (talk) 14:25, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. You still have to have inclusion criteria for topics on the "Whitelists" and the "Blacklists". Sounds like like we will need another guideline for that, i.e a guideline within a guideline. I think it would be better to address the issue of topic inclusion directly though WP:N, rather than indirectly through lists. Perhaps I have misunderstood the mechanics of the proposal? --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:49, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
   • WP:N is already a guideline with subguidelines (the SNGs). By necessity this inclusion would have be arranged that way as well, but it would still mirror how WP:N is done already. --MASEM 16:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
2. I believe that WP:N currently refers to articles, not topics. Lists may have to be handled separately, but I reject the basic premise behind this proposal that spinouts etc need to have a topic that meets the inclusion criteria but that each article might not have to. Karanacs (talk) 20:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
   • While WP:N (and the SNGs) are about topics meriting articles, there is no advice in WP:N or the SNGs on topics that do not merit articles, save for the "notability does not limit article content". It is implied that such topics should be grouped and put into lists, but this advice is neither directly stated nor lacks strong support (it has some, but not a lot) based on the last WP:N RFC. The current situation with WP:N and with WP:SS leads to much conflicting advice. --MASEM 16:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Oppose a split that would create even more beauracracy and obfuscation. It is past time to simplify and get back to the basics of what made wiki great. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:42, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
   • Article quality is very important, but I don't see that WP:N can refer to anything other than the topic of an article. Except where there is no debate permitted about notability, it's subjective by definition. When challenged, one might write more information or add more sources in order to try to persuade others of a topic's notability, but that gets back to demonstrating notability, not to quality of writing. Mandsford (talk) 21:12, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
4. Speaking of instruction creep, this here would be a textbook case. -Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
   • Unless someone can get God himself to come down here and list every possible topic for an article, this would only make things worse. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Notability is already covered by Wikipedia:Verifiability. We do not need more rules. — Reinyday, 17:39, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
6. oppose I oppose as per Reinyday's statement that this is covered under Verifiability.--Drboisclair (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
7. Object: One is better than two.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 21:58, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
8. 'Oppose Isn't broken, no fix needed. DreamGuy (talk) 18:33, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Fold the GNG into WP:V

Basically, WP:V already covers notability in saying "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." If a few other key points from the GNG, such as what can be done with "unverifiable" topics, were added into V, that could resolve some of the dispute. Inclusionists may get a little extra leway because a topic can be included as long as it is verifiable in reliable sources, even if it wouldn't be "notable" by current standards, but articles which aren't verifiable and can't be verified can be merged, redirected, or (at worst) deleted, just as they are now. This would also benefit the deletionist side because, although the exact standards of what can be included may be lowered a little, the relevant parts of the GNG could probably be more strictly enforced on the articles that they do apply to.

The version originally proposed by Drilnoth (talk · contribs) can be found here.

Support folding

1. I created the proposal so, yah. :) -Drilnoth (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   Please make it clear exactly what text from WP:N you propose to merge into WP:V. Ideally, clone WP:N onto a sub-page somewhere and show what would merge into WP:V. Then we can have a discussion about what is left behind—will it be discarded or does it become a miniature guideline or essay, etc. You might find that you can get a consensus that way. - Pointillist (talk) 16:56, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   Good point; I'll make something up soon and link to it here. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   Great. You might want to check whether anything in the subject-specific guidelines should be merged, too.... - Pointillist (talk) 19:20, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   This is my current draft. It's nowhere near what it would be if this is accepted, and doesn't include material from SNGs, but I think that it gets the basic idea across. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   OK, I will copy it offline and manually diff it against the existing WP:N and WP:V tomorrow morning (actually I was hoping your proposal would make changes explicit). Thanks anyway - Pointillist (talk) 00:29, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

2. Better than keeping it separate. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 17:06, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
3. Conditional support: I'm a little concerned that this is being proposed in order to simply redirect, hide, or bury the requirement for significant coverage in third-party sources. WP:V already says that we need reliable third-party sources, but the value of the GNG is that it clarifies it. We'd probably need to give the third-party sourcing requirement its own section, or reformat an existing section more clearly. Third-party sources means "reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject", and we'd need to keep good definitions for all those terms. We would have to maintain the idea that you need non-trivial third-party coverage to qualify for a stand-alone article: more than a couple sentences. (I'd argue that you'd need enough for a non-stub article to assert "full" notability, although if you had enough for a stub article you'd probably have a merge candidate.) But I think this is a pretty reasonable idea. I'd fully support getting away from judgments of importance, and focusing on the guideline's value as a sourcing requirement. Randomran (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
4. support. Ikip (talk) 21:01, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Support a merge. WP:V is a core policy that has served Wikipedia quite well. Its child WP:N may have begun with the best of intentions, but has become a bully. Fully support merging it back to is disaffected parent, so the unruly child may be taught manners. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 21:57, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Support merger as this will simplify the matter and so make it clearer. Colonel Warden (talk) 23:31, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Support - "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability" and "Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought." deal with inclusion. Notability is a community guideline which aims to prevent trivial information being hosted on Wikipedia. Notability is related to discussions on trivia sections in the sense that it aims to prevent inappropriate and trivial content - though consensus on what content is appropriate and trivial, and how we present such content is ongoing and does alter. The inclusion criteria is fixed, and is what Wikipedia was founded upon - WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV. If an article meets WP:V, WP:OR and WP:NPOV then it can remain on Wikipedia. No other policy is needed. However, editors working in some subject areas have determined that following these inclusion guidelines leads to Wikipedia being swamped by too many minor and orphaned standalone articles that overload the project and result in poor navigation and poor quality, and so have created content guidelines to help shape the subject area. These notability guides are not policy, and nor should they be. And over time as we shape and organise the project better, so we find we are able to better handle more and more content, so the restrictions on what we accept become looser and looser. We should at this stage be reducing the influence of the main notability guidelines and indicating that they are, in fact, nothing more than advice on how to deal with content, rather than rules for inclusion. SilkTork *^YES! 13:10, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   Cough...WP:NOT is the absent of your list ;) The quantity of content will only always increase faster than our capability to handle it regardless how well we organized ourself as the number of recurrent editors isn't increasing at the same pace. --KrebMarkt 15:36, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

8. Support WP's concept of "notability" was intended to supplement WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, etc., yet I believe its implementation is actually usually in violation of those good policies. V, NPOV and NOR are all objective, easily provable criteria for article content, while "Notability" is inherently subjective, and too often influenced by personal biases of all sorts. Unless Wiki's many definitions of "notability" are backed up by the opinions of published authorities on their subjects, they constitute unverified "original research". In my experience, these definitions are created out of thin air not by published experts, but through the personal opinions and biases of anonymous Wikipedia editors. As for "trivia": I have seen very few lists of trivia which cannot be thrown out simply because they are not sourced-- they violate WP:V or WP:NOR. If they are covered in secondary sources, then they can be organized appropriately. "Notability" complaints against subjects covered by secondary sourcing are "I don't like it" arguments, and in violation of WP:NOR. If it is covered by third-party reliable sources, for us editors to set ourselves up as experts and say it should not be covered is in violation of OR and NPOV. It's interesting that manga is brought up as an example in support of "notability". I have no interest in the subject. The entire area is "trivial" and "non-notable" to me personally. But in my readings on Wikipedia, have never come across those articles-- no matter how "notable" or "NN" the individual manga-- unless I intentionally clicked a link to one. In other words, a whole world of Wikipedia exists beyond my reading interests, and yet it has never interfered with my use of the Encyclopedia in any way, because the encyclopedia is organized in such a way that I have to intentionally seek it out to see it. Also, I find it interesting that the anime-manga-animation field is apparently well-watched by several Deletion-inclined editors, and yet recently a whole group of hoax articles in that area were uncovered which had existed for 1-2 years... It seems like while we were busy arguing over which real-world "notable" (ie., verifiable through sourcing) content we would allow and which we would not allow, we were overlooking a cluster of hoaxes. Isn't it the subjective nature of Wiki's many definitions of "notability" which diverts so much time from real article work-- time which could potentially be spent improving the articles in question, and deleting content which is actually in violation of WP:V, WP:NPOV or WP:NOR? Dekkappai (talk) 19:14, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   While i have personally been working in WP:Anime for just 3-4 months, i can tell that it combines the worst issues of WP:BK & WP:FICT. Some people believe that if a manga is scanlated then it's notable; The stupidest went as far as adding external link to illegal content in the related article. Some people believe that every single characters of a manga or anime deserve an article with often with a lot of COPYVIO pictures and sometime COPYVIO text from the publisher or editor.

   Is WP:Anime too ingrained by die-hard delationists ? Many editors won't agree with me but my answer is WP:Anime is a pendulum swinging back and forth between inclusion-expansion & refusal-consolidation phase. Current phase is consolidation, previous one was inclusion with quite some excess and we are still coping with them. There are dozens of Gundam related article needing to either copy edited and/or merged and/or sourced. Additional comment : I asked for someone good enough in Japanese to help during those Afd and no one answered so we get what we deserve.

   WP:Anime/Manga is one of the least hoax & vandalism proof project as easy as copy - paste the plot and characters from one manga article over the one of another manga article not sure it will be noticed at all, another one is switching the name between characters in a characters list. The bottom of this story is passing the minimal requirement of WP:V can prove it exists but is not sufficient to prove that the article content isn't utter craps and bullshits.

   By the way, good shot for Please Like Me, Schoolmate --KrebMarkt 21:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   Thanks-- I found it odd to see my user name at the head of an AfD, but a learning experience anyway. I don't mean to single out Anime/Manga as an extreme example of anything-- it's just a field in which I've had two very different brushes with AfD recently-- an area I try to avoid-- so it came to mind. Dekkappai (talk) 21:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

9. Strong Support as that would be a good way of promoting WP:GNG and would effectively achieve the same result of the proposal to make WP:N policy.--Gavin Collins (talk) 09:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

   I don't think that it would pretty much make the GNG policy, as only the essential parts of N would probably be included. However, the parts that are included would be made into policy, provided there is community consensus. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:55, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   Sounds good to me! I am so glad to have your support for making WP:GNG policy. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   That's not what I said. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   Thank you for making this great proposal in any case. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   You're welcome. I hope to further refine my draft idea over the next day or two, so that things might be a bit clearer for everyone. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   Which draft idea is that? --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:31, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   The one linked to at the top of this section: User:Drilnoth/Sandbox 3. -Drilnoth (talk) 19:55, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   • Let us know when the draft is finshed. Don't forget to add a section called "Article inclusion criteria" when you complete folding WP:N into the final version. --Gavin Collins (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

   • Eh, I'm probably not going to really write something more up... there's enough opposition to this proposal that it would probably be kind of pointless. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:51, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

10. Absolutely, although it will never happen. Ikip (talk) 04:05, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Strong support Although I am worried this is a back door towards making WP:N a policy. Ikip (talk) 11:03, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose folding

1. From a practical standpoint, there's almost no difference between WP:V and WP:N - it's all about reliable sourcing and for 90% of the topics, if you have a third-party source you likely have your secondary source, and vice versa. However, philosophically, they are very far apart and combining them would collude too much of the issues. WP:V is there to meet the pillar of being verifiable while WP:N and the notability subguidelines are there to help meet the pillar about not being indiscriminate information. Something can be verifiable and indiscriminate, something can be discriminate but not verifiable (via our standards), and somethings can be both or neither. Merging these really doesn't solve the problem. --MASEM

   But a lot of notable stuff is indiscriminate anyway. That's why we have WP:IINFO. If anything, there are already too many people who are under the misconception that notability is the only inclusion criteria, and that we include anything that is covered in reliable independent secondary sources. We don't: phone books, travel guides, original cross-categorizations, business directories are all off limits, and there isn't a damn thing that WP:N has ever done about them. That's why we have WP:NOT. Randomran (talk) 18:37, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   And conversely, there are large numbers of subjects that WP:NOTE excludes that WP:NOT does not. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:40, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

2. For WP:Manga it would be simply insane. That will be a free pass for nearly every single manga ever released including failed serialization. As they would just need to be referenced in Anime News Network to pass WP:V. They won't need licensor outside Japan nor any reviews to be on Wikipedia. --KrebMarkt 18:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   I know that if I keep commenting on every single oppose !vote it's going to look like I'm trolling... but what does WP:N currently do to stop that from happening? It doesn't say we need licensors outside Japan or reviews. It just says we need reliable third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 18:54, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   WP:N states we need secondary sources - that is, more than just that the work exists, but why is the work important (due to some analysis, commentary, or the like about it). --MASEM 19:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   @Randomran Anime News Network is a RS Third-party source with one of the biggest catalog of referenced manga & anime and thus it's way to easy to pass WP:V with one refs to ANN manga catalog entry. To be eviler, i could create an article for every single book published in the US just by referencing its entry in the the library of the Congress catalog and it would pass hand down WP:V. To prove it exists is the job of WP:V, to prove it's relevant for Wikipedia is the job of WP:N. Now we are going crazy around the what is relevant question. --KrebMarkt 19:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   I don't doubt that it passes WP:V. I'm just trying to understand why it fails WP:N, if the GNG says that "if a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article." Randomran (talk) 20:00, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   It can only prove it exists but fail miserably to prove the it's relevant for Wikipedia and It matter for the field/scope. In the case of manga, we will be right in WP:NOT as it will turn into a catalog mirroring the ANN's one which would be a total failure. KrebMarkt 20:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   But that's what I mean. WP:N isn't about subjective judgments of relevance. These articles already pass WP:N, because the articles have reliable third-party sources. We'd have to use WP:NOT to reign this in. (If at all. There are worse things than a lot of anime articles that have been verified in reliable sources with peer review and editorial fact checking.) Randomran (talk) 20:17, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   Anime with national broadcast in Japan are de-facto notable albeit it's not an hoax (happened). Issue comes from manga, we simply can't have one article per manga ever released because there is a third-party RS database referencing it. As i said will it's enough to prove it exists but it's light year away to prove it matters. We stick manga notability with WP:BK. --KrebMarkt 20:58, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   Oh, I think I understand now. Although they would have reliable third-party sources (and pass the GNG), they'd fail a specific notability guideline such as WP:BK. How would you feel if we folded the GNG into WP:V, but still preserved specific notability guidelines? Randomran (talk) 21:02, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

   That won't work as people will complain that SNG are stricter than the would be WP:Super-V which would be viewed as the parent guideline. Logic would say child guidelines should be more inclusive than parent guideline and not the contrary. Unless you want WP:Super-V handling both verifiability & notability in default situation and WP:Super-V handling only verifiability while SNG handling notability in some scope specific article. Repartition of the roles & functions should expressively mentioned to avoid endless discussion KrebMarkt 21:25, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

3. Oppose - WP:V's job is to show something exists by reliable means. WP:N is to show that it is notable. This can sometimes be contextual, FE: the Corrupted Blood incident can be verified with a citing a version of WoW and showing reliable news sources, but it's notability is shown through scholarly reviews, and in part the number of reliable news sources. While some types of sources can overlap to both verify and show notability, some cannot. Notability, FE, cannot be shown by primary sources, but certain aspects can be verified by, and in some cases is preferable to use, such sources.じんない 20:41, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
4. V applies to all content. N only deals with what should have a stand-alone article. They are related, yes. But how often do they make the same point? Stuffing N into the same page as V is like creating a fork with a knife on the other end. -- Goodraise (talk) 00:23, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
5. Most everyone else already said it all. Categorically oppose...don't even want to think about the hideousness of such an idea if implemented. Every last local store, bar, park, hang out location, EVERYTHING will have an article...hell, even I'd have an article.-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 01:46, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
6. Opposed For those who claim that there isn't a different between WP:V and WP:N, you can't be more mistake. WP:V states that information in articles must be verifiable. It doesn't make any distinctions between first-party and third-party sources, except that one third-party source is required, nor does it specify the depth of coverage by third party sources. Thus, any subject that even receives a trivial mention by a third-party source could have an article. WP:N, and the other notability guidelines, states our requirements a subject must have in order to be included into Wikipedia. In most cases, that means receiving non-trivial coverage by multiple reliable third-party sources or in depth coverage by a single source. The main purpose is to have enough content to work with to build an article from beyond a single statement or two. I also don't think it is a good idea to set our inclusion criteria into a policy. There are enough people complaining about the inclusion criteria in the notability guidelines at it is. It's because of this opposition that the notability/inclusion criteria are guidelines instead of policies. Trying to smerge it into WP:V will only destabilize WP:V in the process. --Farix (Talk) 03:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
7. Oppose. Deor (talk) 03:59, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
8. Oppose per Collectonian. As one of Norse am Legend's "small gaggle of internet elitists" I am bound to oppose the emasculation of the principle of WP:N and this seems to be basically deleting it. Why do we want articles on my Mum's dogs? Jll (talk) 09:58, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   Are there "reliable, third-party sources" for your mother's dogs? If so, then we may have an article upon them, per both WP:N and WP:V. The guideline is redundant to the policy. Colonel Warden (talk) 10:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   WP:N's threshold is secondary sources, not third-party. Two very different things. --MASEM 10:48, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   And significant coverage in those secondary sources instead of simply having a third party mention. Another big distinction. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   These distinctions are unimportant. What I'd like to establish is whether User:Jll has any kind of sources for his mother's dogs. My impression is that he doesn't understand our working definition of notability - which depends upon sources - and is using the naive understanding: that it means fame or importance. If he is not clear about this, then he doesn't understand the issue and the reason that merger makes such good sense. Colonel Warden (talk) 19:38, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

   I picked this as my example because my Mum and her two dogs appeared in a picture in her local paper several years ago. It was a little unfair because no-one here would know this, but I didn't want to just repeat an example someone else had used. So the dogs' names, appearances, ownership and the dogs home that they came from (which is what the newspaper article was really about) are all verifiable in a reliable, independent, third party source. i.e. They pass WP:V but fail WP:N. I think a photo counts as more than a "passing mention". You could say that we need sources, in which case my Mum's dogs would be excluded, but not another equally trite local interest story with a follow up letter the following week thanking the paper for publishing the photo. Jll (talk) 09:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

9. Oppose – per TheFarix and KrebMarkt. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 10:57, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Masem and Goodraise. They are similar, but their purposes are different. Mr.Z-man 19:45, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
11. Oppose per Masem and Farix. This confuses distinct issues and destabalizes a core policy. Not a good idea. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
12. STRONG Oppose as fundamentally destroying the guidelines for inclusion would amount to introducing anarchy into the encyclopedia. An encyclopedia with no criteria for inclusion isn't a legitimite encyclopedia as there is no inherant noteworthiness of a random article, such as there is on Wikipedia today, and Brittanica, and all other encyclopedias.. Themfromspace (talk) 07:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
13. Oppose For all the reasons well-stated above, these two need to remain separate, so as not to water down either of them. Raven1977^{Talk to me}_{My edits} 20:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
14. Oppose True, there is a bit of overlap between the two. But there are differences- Jll above pointed out an important one. Reyk _YO! 10:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
15. As pointed out, the overlap is large, but the differences are integral and cannot be traded away. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
16. Oppose per many of the above reasons; reliable 3rd party sources can be found for the laundromat a few streets away or my local McDonald's; certainly verifiable (I could even take pictures to add to the articles for further verification), but alas neither is notable and do not deserve articles here. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
17. Oppose. Verifiability is about ensuring that the content of our articles is true. I know the policy says "verifiability, not truth", but even so the V policy aims to prevent misinformation. Notability is about ensuring that the subjects we cover are significant, and hence of some benefit to the reader. As many wise voices have pointed out, there is and overlap between the two but the purposes differ. I have also some very serious reservations about using Wikipedia's notability test (aka "2RS=N") as a blanket way of evaluating the notability/significance/encyclopedic value of a topic, and think that it should be kept well out of policy. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
18. Strong oppose. Verifiable existence is necessary but not sufficient for inclusion. Stifle (talk) 15:49, 22 February 2009 (UTC)
19. Object: It's basically "Oppose existence as guideline" so if i had voted support here, it would contradict my earlier demand.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:08, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
20. Strong object' -- There are already too many people at AFDs who can't tell the difference between merely verifying something exists and it being important enough to have an article. There's no need to codify their ignorance. The two are completely different. I can verify that someone famous has a brother-in-law with a middle name of David, but that doesn't mean People with David as a middle name who are related to someone famous is a legit article. DreamGuy (talk) 18:36, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Proto-essay - notability for its type

There are some types of things that are inherently encyclopedic for a general-purpose, English-speaking encyclopedia. Omitting any item of the type would be a glaring omission. Examples include countries, leaders of world powers, planets, natural elements, etc.

There are some types of things that are "notable for their type." That doesn't mean every item of its type will be notable. It means that such a high percentage are that the burden shifts to those who assert non-notability. The "upper echelon" of this group is practically indistinguishable from the group above and arguing where the line should be drawn isn't useful. Examples include world- and, in major national sports, national-class athletes, winners of major awards like the Nobel Prize, Newbery Medal, or major Oscars, accredited universities, national elected and cabinet-level leaders, ambassadors, and many other groups. There is constant debate over which categories rightly belong to this group, and for some, consensus is constantly shifting. Some of the items in the list above may not belong there a year from now. At the low end of this group, it is impossible to say definitively if a type of article is in this group, but the presence or absence of notability tags, discussions on talk pages, and discussions at WP:Articles for Deletion are clues to whether a type of article is currently in this group or not. When in doubt, discuss. Claiming "it's notable for its type" at AFD is probably fruitless unless the AFD is a hoax or will be closed by WP:SNOW. If it is at AFD, it begs the question if the type is notable and this is an non-notable exception or if the entire type isn't notable. Since AFD is about the article not the type, focus on the article when discussing notability.

Below this, there is the group of things which meet WP:Verifiability and the presumption of notability in WP:Notability because of their type but which are typically not notable or which there are enough non-notable examples that membership in the group doesn't give a presumption of notability. They meet verifiability and the presumption of notability because the nature of the type brings press or other coverage. In these cases, notability should be established by looking beyond the sources that every item of this type is expected to have and by consensus if editors as to notability. These are frequently done on a case-by-case or previous-consensus-by-type basis at AFD or article-talk-page discussions. Examples include disasters, crimes, criminals, sub-professional and youth sports teams and players, elementary schools, churches, civic clubs, bands and other creative groups, books, performances, and basically anything else which because of its type is likely to garner local or even worldwide press coverage, but which consensus is that most items of the type are not notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. In general, such items should only be included if they will pass WP:Articles for Deletion, and the articles should use sources beyond the coverage typical for their type that show why they are "more notable" than other topics of their type.

Sometimes, Wiki-politics comes into play, even if unintentionally and without any desire for "ownership/political power" on the part of the individual editors. If an group of editors long ago decided that all tropical cyclones are notable, and those editors are still active, any editor or group of editors who wants to claim "tropical storms that form and die quickly and affect only shipping lanes are not notable" will have a very hard time overturning that consensus. If on the other hand there was not much previous activity on a topic, the consensus that forms in the first few on-topic AFDs is likely going to be the one that "sticks" for years to come. Such consensus-finding or finding-there-is-no-consensus discussions have affected a wide range of topics, including schools, small towns, and other topics. On issues where Wikipedia editors are not united, this "king of the hill" way of doing things seems to be the way it works. When done with an open mind, civility, and a constant willingness of editors to re-assess their own position, this may be healthy. When done with an attitude of "overthrowing the existing consensus" or "stubbornly holding on to the existing consensus," it can be time-wasting, disruptive, and otherwise unhealthy.

Your thoughts? davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

There is a certain issue that arises when certain categories of things have a dedicated supporting journalism (video games, film) while others don't (TV, radio, comics). I don't believe this inequity requires us to try and "correct" for it in an effort to try and be "fair". Nifboy (talk) 18:41, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• 1. Inherent Notability is a good thing but it also needs to be strictly limited to certain groups of items. The basis for giving a pass in particular cases is to make sure that the less popular subjects aren't left out because people in the 2009 USA and UK don't think they are "famous enough". We need to defend what exists now, and be careful about extending that type of pass further. Mandsford (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

• Some of the repeated concerns I heard about current WP:N (that seemed to really have something at their basis) were concerns that the current WP:N was too subjective. This essay, while clearly framing the fact, gives more power to subjective opinions. I am not sure there will be much support for it. -- The Red Pen of Doom 10:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose as notability cannnot be inherited/presumed/acknowledged in the absence of reliable secondary sources. "Looking beyond the sources that every item of this type is expected to have" is a matter of personal opinion dressed up as crystal ball gazing. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

1. • Unless someone can get God himself to come down here and list every possible topic for an article, this would only make things worse. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:32, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• Inherent notability is not inherited notability. Some things are or seem to be by WP:OUTCOMES in practice inherently notable (see also WP:IHN). This is a recognition that there are almost certainly reliable 3rd party sources for the article whether or not they turn up on Google (which is a good sanity check, but is not the sole source of knowledge on the planet). Some of these are inhabited places, living or extinct species, atomic elements, governors of a country's first order administrative divions, and high schools. It'll be a rare day when an article meets one of those categories and is deleted for lack of notability - some are deleted for copyvio, irreparable POV, and such, but not on notability. This is not notability inherited from another's; Foo, Fooland doesn't get it's notability from Fooland any more than Joe the IBMer gets any notability from IBM. It's that the community through explicit or implicit acts has determined by long-running (and for schools, hard-fought) consensus that things of this type are just out-and-out notable. Which is appropriate, because it eliminates the excessive effort and drama of re-fighting these consensuses over and over on individual bases based on who shows up at an AFD in a 5 day period, and tries to eliminate the systemic bias of having things of a category in the US or Europe being "notable" because the diffusion of written materials on the internet about it while having things of the same category in the third world being not-notable for their lack of diffusion. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 19:49, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• Object: Laughes at the concept of Inherent Notability.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:13, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Comments

Drop the "repository of all information" idea

People don't seem to get something about this page, this is not simpily about the page or the policy, this is an attempt to change the heart and soul of Wikipedia. The inclusionists once again want to make this place a repository of everything known to humankind. Time and time again their efforts have been foiled, and it seems they are making one more effort to enforce their iron will. The consensus that not everything belongs in Wikipedia. Not everything has sources to verify it. The inclusionist interpretation of WP:NOTPAPER is that it is an endorsement of themselves. What it truly says is that Wikipedia can be more than a paper encyclopedia. It does not however, give us licence to keep every little piece of junk that some random person knows. Wikipedia is good just as it is: a collection of much, but not all, of the world's knowladge--Ipatrol (talk) 03:04, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

No one says we should be the repository of "all" information. I am as inclusionist as they come, yet have nominated several articles for deletion and argued to delete over fifty articles (all of which were deleted); however, a great deal of material is deleted based on absurd subjective rationales that boil down to nothing more than "I don't like it" therefore it's "non-notable." And that has to and will stop because it is inconsistent with the whole point of being the paperless encyclopedia anybody can edit... The more articles deleted based on personal opinion or narrowminded vision, the more editors, readers, and donors we turn away and we'll be left with something only relevant and used by a fraction of our community. And then, Wikipedia will fail, because if all it becomes a paperless Britannica, then what's the point? Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 00:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

And it has never been proved that deletion causes any sort of drop in editorship, donors, and readers (especially the latter two), it's not a strong argument to make... -Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:26, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it has been and as such it is a strong argument. I used to keep track of the userpages of editors who left due to out of control deletionism, but got rid of it when I tried to leave myself back in September. But yeah, LOTS of editors have expressed similar disdain as the one linked here. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

One person with massive WP:OWN issues who's sour because someone's had the cheek to try and tidy up their mess is hardly evidence of a general trend. And I'd like to see statistics on academics and researchers- who are able to write coherently, source thoroughly and explain clearly- who turn away from Wikipedia, not taking it seriously because of all the unreliable trash lying around here. One such person is worth hundreds of fanboys. Reyk _YO! 01:37, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

That's one, and there are many, many more like him. And no one person is worth hundreds of other people who play a crucial role in actually writing our articles. Sure, we need people who proofread and edit things to not be out of hand, but we need people to also add the content first. You need writers to have editors... As far as "one such person is worth hundreds of fanboys," well I value our volunteers and humans in general far more equally and respectably than that as that kind of downright vicious logic has no place anywhere and certainly not somewhere that espouse values of freedom and knowledge. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:44, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not being vicious, I'm being realistic. Wikipedia has changed since it was created. In the early days it was necessary to get as much content as quickly as possible, in order to reach a critical mass of articles and enough exposure to as many people as possible. Now most of the articles on the really important stuff have been written, Wikipedia is well-known all over the world, and what we struggle for more than anything is credibility. That's where I'm coming from when I say editors who can write excellent articles, source them well and generally do a good job are more important now than people who fire off unsourced fancruft and get in a huff when necessary maintenance is performed. I follow the principle that editors matter up to a point- but not so far as to put up with any and all kinds of trash just to avoid hurting peoples' feelings. Editors matter, but the project matters much more. Reyk _YO! 01:56, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

"Cruft" is never a valid reason for deletion. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

No, but unsourced is. Thanks for only addressing that part of my post that can be arrogantly dismissed with a dodgy slogan. Reyk _YO! 02:09, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think calling editors contributions, "junk", "trash" or "cruft" is good for the project, reading the intolerance here, it is no wonder that news reports call exclusionists "bullies".[7][8] Harmful attitudes like this are the reason why WP:PRESERVE is almost always ignored when an article is put up for deletion and new editors articles are overwhelmingly the articles which are put up for deletion is AfDs, and new editors talk pages have more warning templates than welcome templates. Exclusionists are not only excluding edits, they are excluding editors too. The fact is that since October 2007 contributions to wikipedia have dropped, everything from red links to "self appointed deletionists" have been blamed. I think these attitudes are the reason why the media states that "notability...fosters discrimination and elitism"[9], Wikipedia is "an example of the dark side [of web 2.0] running out of control...It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire...",[10] and "your words are polite, yeah, but your actions are obscene. Every word in every valid article you've destroyed should be converted to profanity and screamed in your face."[11] I would give the above editors a snarky award for this detrimental, caustic, harmful attitude, if it were allowed. Ikip (talk) 04:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I fail to see how this can be used for ILIKEIT deletions. A simple assertion of non-notability rarly gets anywhere. What this does actually is back up a series of subject-specific notability guidelines, it is rarly used by itself to any sucess, much as IAR is rarly used to any sucess without being channeled through some other guidance page, like SNOW, COMMON, SK, or NOTNOW. That is why I support the promotion to policy option.--Ipatrol (talk) 21:43, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

(to Ikip) Let's face it, most of the users who add "junk", "trash" or "cruft" are completely aware that that's what they're doing; they're just hoping that no one will notice or that the inclusionist brigade will successfully drive away anyone who challenges it. I genuinely feel sorry for the ones who are making good-faith contributions (some of which I've reluctantly nominated for deletion myself) that just don't meet the requirements for an article, or for inclusion within an existing article; but learning the criteria is part of the process of becoming a WP contributor. Those who give up after an initial COI or NOT or spammy or nonnotable contribution, or series of such contributions, can be assumed to have no interest in the project other than to introduce that particular inadmissible information. Why, exactly, should we worry about their feelings more than we worry about those of the folk who devote a great deal of time to improving the content of this encyclopedia? Deor (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Curses, I've been found out! Congratulations detective, for you have unveiled my secret inclusionist plot to destroy Wikipedia and turn it into a pile of garbage that includes an article for every single hair on my dog's ass. I can't believe I've been foiled!

Yeah, no. I think the entire point of the whole "inclusionist" argument has flown straight over your head and into a ditch three or so miles behind you. Please do try again. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 17:09, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Chew on this: If you were to write an article about every hair on your dog's behind, and it was made with beautiful prose, a descriptive picture of it, and your vet's report on your dog's coat, what is the liklyhood that a radical inclusionist would remove the CSD/PROD tag, and then vote "keep" at the AFD?

Pretty low, I should think. Since the vet's report hasn't been published anywhere it would fail WP:V and the hair articles would be out the door anyway. 159.182.1.4 (talk) 17:45, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Journalists

Journalists are universally negative about Wikipedia's notability and deletion policies

• New York Review of books: "a narrow, almost grade-schoolish notion", "bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking peoples' work", "Notability purges' are being executed throughout Wikipedia by empire-building, wannabe tin-pot dictators masquerading as humble editors.", "book burners"; [12]
• Guardian: "self-promoted leaf-pile guards appeared, doubters and deprecators",[13]
• Guardian: "There are some people on Wikipedia now who are just bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking people's work..." "Inside, Wikipedia is more like a sweatshop than Santa's workshop"[14];
• Telegraph: "The notability debate has spread across the discussions like a rash", "Newer folks feel like they're wielding a machete, not planting new trees.", "…in the past few years Wikipedia has changed; it now takes short stubs and throws them in the trash can, and excoriates those who have the temerity to create them."[15];
• Washington Post: "Why does Wikipedia have a "notability" standard at all?...Wikipedia already maintains rules concerning verifiability and privacy. Why does it need separate rules governing "notability"?"[16];
• PC PRO: "For an example of the dark side [of Web 2.0] running out of control, though, check out Wikipedia…In the NYRB article Baker explains how Wikipedia continually struggles to repel vandalisation...but as a result is now ruled by bands of vigilantes who delete all new material without mercy or insight. This is such a strong claim that it needed checking, so I decided to attempt an edit myself…I wrote a roughly 100-word potted history of [The Political Quarterly]… within five minutes I received a message to the effect that this entry has no content…and has been put up for "express deletion…It seems Wikipedia has completed the journey by arriving at an online equivalent of the midnight door-knock and the book bonfire".[17]
• Los Angeles Times, Wikipedia wars erupt: At the heart of the include-exclude issue is the idea of notability, which a Wikipedia policy page defines as "worthy of notice." The problem is that deciding what counts as notable -- and who gets to decide it -- is a hopelessly slippery pursuit...if even a small number of useful articles are being deleted in the name of keeping Wikipedia clean, isn't that like allowing a few innocent men to hang in favor of a lower crime rate? "Wikipedia's community has become so rushed, so immediatist, that it is not willing to allow embryonic articles even a tiny modicum of time to incubate"[18]
• Info World Wikipedia topics are selected for inclusion on the basis of their notability, which is subjective and fosters discrimination and elitism, "the very things the Wikipedia is against." "Unlike academic journals and other legitimate reference sources, the Wikipedia has created new and anonymous elite 'editors' and administrators"[19]
• The Age Mzoli's Meats was deleted in 22 minutes...The two weeks of furious debate that followed was summarised [as the following]: "The Wikipedia that Jimbo (Wales) originally created takes short stubs like the one he created and turns them into articles; stubs should only be deleted when there is no reasonable hope that they will ever cease to be stubs. Unfortunately, in the past few years Wikipedia has changed; it now takes short stubs and throws them in the trash can, and excoriates those who have the temerity to create them. This stub is being saved only because it was created by Jimbo."..."The old timers remember the early days when we used to say 'ignore all rules' and 'assume good faith', but people tend not to emphasise that now,"[20]
• Slate.com "More on Wikability The arguments for a notability guideline don't hold up: Disptues these arguments:

1. "Wikipedia does not command infinite Web space. Servers cost money."
2. "Banning the notability guideline is an invitation to sock puppetry."
3. "Facts about nonfamous people are difficult to verify."
4. "Wikipedia articles about non-notables get policed less."
5. "How many George Bushes?"
6. "Wikipedia would turn into MySpace."

Ikip (talk) 12:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Did any of them write an alternative? --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:26, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Why would they bother? They consider Wikipedia a sad joke whose time has come and gone. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:40, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Gavin, Wikipedia existed for over 5 1/2 years without Wikipedia:Notability as a guideline. What did people do for those 5 1/2 years? Same thing they do now: if they don't think Wikipedia should have an article about a topic, they nominate it for deletion. Nobody was required to read Wikipedia:Notability before creating an article then, and nobody is required to read it before creating an article now. --Pixelface (talk) 09:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• That PC PRO example ( discussed here) was an awful blunder, wasn't it? It is completely unacceptable if inexperienced editors have to face either "bullies, who take pleasure in wrecking and mocking people's work" or "vigilantes who delete all new material without mercy or insight". But WP:N doesn't sanction this sort of behavior: it says [this guideline] "is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense and the occasional exception. Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page." How prevalent is this "wannabe tin-pot dictator" mind-set? What should be done about it? - Pointillist (talk) 15:38, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

• WP:N, as currently written, encourages that "wannabe tin-pot dictator" behavior. Nowadays people don't treat it with common sense. They see WP:N as some commandment that articles either pass or fail. It isn't. --Pixelface (talk) 09:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• So it must be changed - I support that. What if it began: "Notability must be treated with common sense, it's only a guideline, not a commandment that articles either pass or fail." Would that be sufficient? - Pointillist (talk) 09:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

• I have some ideas on how to change it. We'd certainly have to remove the recently added WP:FAILN redirect before implementing your change. --Pixelface (talk) 01:13, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Quoting 6 articles as the media's "universal opinion" is somewhat of a mischaracterization. The opinions of 5 people (2 of those articles are written by the same person) certainly does not represent the "universal opinion" of hundreds of organizations and thousands of people. I would bet that most of the media could care less about WP:N, which is probably why they haven't written about it. Mr.Z-man 19:21, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

? I'd love to see any maninstream articles praising Wikipedia to refute those above that point out the flaws. Here we take pains to use them as references, and yet they laugh at what Wikipedia has become over the last few years. When editors admired and upheld the Five Pillars, wiki was growing and thriving. Now we see Wiki's growth crawling to a sad halt as fewer and fewer articles make it past the bastians of exclusionism. How many articles are at AfD as we discuss this? How many will be deleted because either old-timers don't have the time to improve them... or even care if they stay or go? Wiki ain't about to run out of paper anytime soon, so why not give these things a chance? And before I am reminded that article have the 5 days of AfD to be improved... I'm talking about articles that get tossed to AfD withing mere minutes of their being created. Wikipedia has no WP:DEADLINE that articles get improved in some arbitrary period of time. Why the rush to exclude?? Can someone find any mainstream reliable sources that says something positive about the current state of Wiki? Anyone? If they cannot be found, I'd have to conclude that the above opinion are indeed as universal as they seem. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

So cite some other sources Mr.Z-man. What third-party coverage have Wikipedia's notability guidelines received? --Pixelface (talk) 09:01, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Mr.Z-man, I have asked repeatedly if there are any article which praises notability and Wikipedia's deletion policies. I have made the claim on WP:Articles for Deletion, and have had several editors question this claim, but not one has come up with a article praising notability and/or deletion. I am sure one exists, somewhere, but I haven't been able to find it, and neither has anyone else. I wouldn't make such an extraordinary claim in a group of such intelligent and hostile editors, unless I was pretty certain.

I have found more articles which also condemn notability and deletion. But I don't think it matters how many articles I present, many editors, myself included, have their minds already made up when they came here. I am simply attempting to influence the small minority who haven't made their mind. These are well written articles, by some of the most influential media outlets in the United States. I think they raise some valid and troubling trends, and it would benefit most wikipedians to read and think about them, even if they disagree with their conclusions.

Pointillist, notability may not sanction this behavior, but notability is the number one reason articles are deleted, and most of the articles which are deleted are by new editors. I am sure it was not the intent of those who created notability to cause articles like The Political Quarterly to be deleted, and user contributions to drop, but that is what is happening, regardless. Ikip (talk) 09:12, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Just because the other 99.99% of journalists don't write articles to praise Wikipedia doesn't mean that they necessarily agree with the handful of journalists who wrote articles against it. More likely is that they have no opinion, and therefore have decided its not a topic worth reporting on or they aren't aware that it exists (contraty to the beliefs of some, the inner workings of Wikipedia aren't that important in the real world). I'm not saying the rest of the media is in favor of Wikipedia's notability guidelines, I'm merely pointing out the gaping flaws in your logic and how saying that a handful of articles creates the media's "universal opinion" is incredibly misleading. I may be the only person in Northeast Ohio here speaking in support of the notability guideline, that doesn't mean the universal opinion of Northeast Ohio is that the notability guideline is good. Mr.Z-man 19:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I asked the question and so thouht to myself seek an answer. I did a few searches. I did find the references to a Nature article comparing online Wiki favorable to Britanica, but BBC News reported "A study on the accuracy of the free online resource Wikipedia by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as fatally flawed". Ouch. Schmidt, ^{MICHAEL Q.} 05:31, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Read the whole article. Its Encyclopedia Britannica saying that a study saying that presents Encyclopedia Britannica in an unfavorable light is flawed... Perhaps not the most impartial source for a rebuttal of the study. Mr.Z-man 19:39, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Universally negative? No one praising it? Even this month, the Harvard Independent states that "If it really was an “encyclopedia of everything,” it’d soon be an encyclopedia of nothing." in an article generally positive towards our deletion policies and notability criteria.[21] Apart from this, it is only naturla that people more often write about what they think is wrong than about what they think is working allright. The limited number of articles about Wikipedia's deletion policies and notability guidelines indicate that this is universally seen as no big deal... Fram (talk) 15:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Not a newspaper article, but this cartoon mocking Wikipedia's excessive coverage of trivia and pop culture backs up the pro-notability position. Reyk _YO! 10:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Using a bunch of newsman is a horrible standard for saying it's universally abhorred. As pointed out above, people who hate it are more likely to write about it, and good god, I'm willing to bet many of these people are just sour because their article got deleted--that's blatantly what's up with the Wash Post one[22], and who knows how many others. They're stung and reactionary. Using news coverage proves nothing and only obscures the discussion. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, but we shouldn't automatically block out unfavourable feedback. That PC-Pro example was originally written by Dick Pountain (who has been a respected technology writer and editor for nearly 30 years) and the deletion was obviously someone's mistake in a trigger-happy moment. I have no problem about making it clear to new editors that creating a new article requires a significant commitment to accuracy and verifiability—indeed I expect it would be better if we pushed for higher editing standards from day one. But I can't agree that new editors should have bone fide work torn up without warning or counselling. - Pointillist (talk) 00:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I fully agree on that score. I'm just saying that what the press says means (or should mean) jack to us as editors, save for using it as a source. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs, thank you, another reaction which summed up, says, there is no problem, so lets ignore it. This optimizes a WP:DONTLIKE argument. I have been getting this reaction from editors who delete in a variety of different ways. I'm just saying that what the press says means (or should mean) jack to us as editors WP:DONTLIKE again. Yes, better to depend on a group of anonymous editors to decide what is and what is not notable and what should or should not be policy. Ikip (talk) 04:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

That "group of anonymous editors" is the Wikipedia community. When it comes to forming Wikipedia policy and determining Wikipedia content, the community is far more important than a handful of journalists. Most of the journalists who have written about Wikipedia have likely never made a single edit to Wikipedia or spent more than a couple hours looking at Wikipedia's internal workings, yet you seem to be suggesting that their opinion is worth more than the thousands of volunteers who have collectively spent thousands of hours contributing to the project. This is quite possibly the worst argument I've ever heard against the notability guideline. If it weren't for the fact that you include yourself in the "group of anonymous editors," I might actually be offended. Mr.Z-man 23:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

And yet, according to WP:NOTABILITY guidelines, the opinions of that handful of inexperienced journalists are notable, whereas opinions from an affiliated community of anonymous editors are not. – 74  21:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the opinion of the media determines whether we have an article on something (though not always, the opinion of academics and other groups can determine this as well). The community decides whether their article are considered significant enough and reliable enough to be used as sources to establish notability. But that has nothing to do with forming Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I don't understand what you're trying to argue. Are you saying that policies should need reliable sources to justify them? Mr.Z-man 23:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I merely thought it interesting the way the value of the journalists' opinions varied based on location: here they're discounted as worthless; at AfD they rule supreme. – 74  01:19, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh anon, I should print that out and post that on my wall. The shear hypocricy of it all. LOL. Ikip (talk) 11:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

We are not a workers' collective united in blind opposition to change. We're partners in this endeavor, and we have to think about the bigger picture. If we want new editors to join, we must consider whether current Wikipedia practice is discouraging them. This could be directly through how we handle new articles or indirectly via journalists' perceptions. The journalists I've known are pretty bright, well-rounded people. They really do know about reliable sources and neutral points-of-view, even if they don't use them because of their publisher's biases, and their work lives or dies by some sort of notability. If we can't convince them that we're going in the right direction, there's probably something wrong with our policies, processes and/or presentation of them. Any professional PR will tell you that, even when press comments are wrong, they are still a factor to consider. - Pointillist (talk) 21:55, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Please stop inserting words in my mouth. I, and I don't think anyone else here, have argued that we should be in "blind opposition to change" and suggesting that people who don't agree with you are is rather offensive as well as a poor argument. I'm opposed to change for the sake of change and change that I believe to be for the worse. If you're suggesting that I have put no thought into my decision to support the notability guideline, you could not be more wrong. From my experience dealing with new page patrol/CSD, AFD, and OTRS, if anything, we need a more restrictive notability guideline, not less. You also seem to be falling into the faulty logic used above, that the opinion of a handful of journalists represents universal opinion. As I said, its far more likely that the majority of the media could care less about WP:N. Mr.Z-man 23:44, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh dear, I wasn't addressing anyone in particular and I didn't intend to put words into anyone's mouth or to suggest thoughtlessness. I wanted to make a vivid case for attempting to change external perceptions. To do this, I think we'll have to change some of our attitudes and processes around new article creation. Blunders like The Political Quarterly deletion shouldn't happen to any editor, whether s/he is a journalist or not.

As for the guideline itself, I supported its existence (Feb 11), arguing that even if the effort needed to improve content and find citations might not appeal to some editors, that's no reason to abandon notability (Feb 11). If novice editors can't create new articles properly, we may need to change our processes, including perhaps creating new articles in user space by default, where they can be polished without time pressure (Feb 12). I said it is important to make policies/guidelines really clear and easy to absorb, which means I'm sympathetic to proposals to consolidate (e.g. merging WP:N into WP:V, Feb 13). I haven't said this here before, but I agree with you that WP:V and WP:RS aren't enforced nearly well enough. It could certainly be improved, but removing it with no suitable replacement is a recipe for disaster with regards to spam, hoaxes, and BLP problems. Since we have so much in common, can we be friends? - Pointillist (talk) 08:51, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

I dont understand how Mr.Z-man thought that comment was directed at him.

I find it interesting that Mr.Z-man, roundly dismisses the journalists opinion above:

"You also seem to be falling into the faulty logic used above, that the opinion of a handful of journalists represents universal opinion."

then immediately follows with the with a baseless stament, which there is no support for:

"As I said, its far more likely that the majority of the media could care less about WP:N." Ikip (talk) 11:12, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

My God, can anyone here argue with a rational opinion instead of just attacking the other side? Since that seems to be the preferred argument style here, I'll just say it: Your opinion is crap. I assumed the comment was directed at me because it was left after one of my comments, and made no sense as a reply to the only other comment left after mine. Read my comments before replying to them. I'm not "dismissing" the journalists opinions. I'm saying that your logic that a handful of opinions represents the universal opinion of thousands of people and organizations is terribly faulty and that we shouldn't base our policies based on what a handful of people with almost no experience working on Wikipedia say, rather than the consensus of the thousands of volunteers who have dedicated thousands of hours to the project. I fail to see how my comment is baseless. Let's see here. We have thousands of people/groups who have not registered their opinion in public. Which makes more sense, assuming that they agree with a handful of other people, or assuming that the people who have not registered an opinion have no opinion or don't actually care? But as I'm just a hypocrite who's opinion doesn't matter, I'm not going to continue to waste my time here arguing at a wall of irrationality. Mr.Z-man 18:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of notability?

What does it do, what purpose does it serve that WP:V, WP:NOT, and WP:FIVE does not already do? As far as I can tell, all it does is add a subjective layer to things. Looking over the supports, what editors seem to support is an inclusion guideline based on having verifiable sources and content consistent with general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. We already have that with other guidelines and policies. I do not see how adding something that is indeed interpreted subjectively helps. How do editors use "notability" in practice? Well, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men) where somehow an article concerning an award winning character for which scores of secondary sources that can be used to construct development and reception sections is somehow alleged to not have out of universe notability. Or such absurd comments as "all in popular culture articles as inherently non-notable", which regardless of the quality of that particular article (i.e. the list format), does not reflect what editors are capable of doing with "in popular culture" articles as seen with Dinosaurs in popular culture. Can that be done with all "in popular culture" articles? Perhaps not, but many can be rewritten in such a fashion so to blanket all of them as "non-notable" is inaccurate and demonstrates the problems of using a subjective inclusion criteria. That is how "notability" is misused, i.e. it is tossed around at certain types of articles (fictional characters, in popular culture, etc.) as if just by being that type of article equals "non-notable" when it is not that simple. Now, if we had, which we do have, inclusion criteria based entirely on scope of coverage (consistent with a general encyclopedia, specialized encyclopedia, almanac, or gazetteer) and sources (verfiable by at least two reliable sources) then we have an objective framework to build from. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 20:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone's comment can hardly be attributed to a faulty guideline. People are free to interpret guidelines as they wish, and it stands to reason that no matter how well a guideline is written, people will base comments on them that you disagree with. As for what this guideline does that other guidelines don't do, it states the requirement that a topic needs to have garnered mention in reliable third-party sources in order to warrant an article (perhaps among other things). I guess I'm not clear on the problem. Equazcion •✗/C • 20:55, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

It is far easier to misinterpret a subjective word like "notability" than it is an objective term like "inclusion guideline". WP:RS essentially covers the necessity of coverage in reliable sources, which makes notability either redundant or unnecessary. If we want, we can have a page that links to inclusion guidelines, but it should be "list of inclusion guidelines". I just don't see any benefit in having this extra and confusingly interpreted layer of bureacracy that in practice boils down to "I like it/I don't like it" usage in AfDs. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 20:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

But it's not just a restatement of RS. Yes, the sources need to be reliable, but in addition, articles need to have third-party reliable sources, as opposed to merely primary sources. Equazcion •✗/C • 21:19, 11 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Then why not call it "third-party" sources, which would be an objective terminology? Sincerley, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no objection to that, in fact I voiced support for it on the main page. However you're not merely asking that the name be changed. You're suggesting that this guideline serves no purpose. So I'm trying to get to the root of those claims. So far you haven't been able to provide any actual argument for its demotion. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:34, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

The whole sticking point is because of the use of subjective and elitist terminology, i.e. "notability." IF it remains titled "notability", then I say demote it to an essay. IF it is renamed and adjusted so as not to be subjective, then okay. BUT in both cases, I think a combination of "common sense" and the other inclusion criteria is sufficient. In any event, so long as we do not have this condescending concept of "notability" hanging over us, I am probably amenable. I just cannot support something that smacks of "I like it/I don't like it". Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:39, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

So I'm still confused. You think the name change is imperative. So why not just say that, rather than continuing to ask what the point of N is altogether? You clearly do understand the point. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:44, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Because I still think the contents are redudant and unnecessary to our other guidelines, i.e. that they along with common sense are sufficient; however, I can live with something that is similar, but objective. I cannot morally acccept something that smacks of subjectivity and in practice is constantly used in such a manner. Put simply: preferred solution, scrap this guideline altogether; compromise solution, rename it and remove subjectivity from it. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:51, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

break 1

← So just to be clear: You don't feel that a topic should require any objective sources in order to warrant an article? How do you think article inclusion should be determined? It's easy to say "common sense" as a theoretical response, but everyone has a different idea of what comprises common sense. I'd like to determine more specifically what you're advocating. In an actual deletion discussion, what criteria are you suggesting we use? Equazcion •✗/C • 01:57, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Any subject verified in two reliable sources from which we can write an article, i.e. more than one sentence should be included in some capacity even if as a redirect, part of a list, etc. Anything that is a hoax, libelous, a copywright violation, or original research should be excluded. See User:A Nobody/Deletion discussions for what I think should be included and why and what I think should be excluded and why. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 02:00, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Any subject verified in two reliable sources -- even if those sources are primary? That doesn't seem to satisfy the definition of verification. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:03, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

WP:V's nutshell states, "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source." There are such things a reliable published sources, such as a video game strategy guide that some may see as a primary source, but that nevertheless is a reliable source for say an article on a character in a game and when used with a review of the game (a reliable secondary source) should be substantial for reliable published verification and because at least one secondary source is used, it would not be original research. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 03:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I was referring more to the word verification, rather than our policy. It really depends on what we're looking to verify. One point of requiring objective sources is that it offers some assurance than the topic has garnered enough attention to warrant an article. How do you think that should be handled? Equazcion •✗/C • 04:14, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, sometimes primary sources are reliable. An official press release of Oscar winners is pretty reliable for that information. Lost is a reliable source for the content of its episodes, which any of us can watch and therefore verify concerning characters (fortunately in that instant, Entertainment Weekly and other secondary sources discuss the characters at length in multiple issues). Now as for as to warrant an article goes, so long as we can write an article and realistically develop it beyond a stub, we should include it. If it is backed by at least a couple reliable sources and people find it relevant to them, then it is nothing to me if I personally don't have use for it. What I mean by that is if the only sources we have say mentions something in one sentence and even though we have ten sources that only mention the subject in one sentence in each source and as such we can't go beyond a sentence in an article, then it probably isn't worthy of inclusion. But if we have say a couple sources that discuss the subject at enough length that we can put together paragraphs on the subject, then why not? But, hey, my back is hurting again, so take care for now! Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 04:22, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

So potential article length should be the only criteria for the inclusion of a topic? About how long would you say an article needs to be in order to deserve inclusion? And how would you deal with people trying to pad reliable facts in order to artificially reach the length requirement? Also: Relying purely on primary sources, we could end up with articles on things like "Homer Simpson's car". There's probably enough material in the show's 20 years of episodes to write a pretty substantial article on that. How about Homer Simpson's encounters with monkeys? There are such articles on relationships between subjects. How about "Use of the color yellow in The Simpsons"? Sorry for all the Simpsons examples but it happens to be on now. Okay, other examples: Press releases, for things other than the Oscars -- Every piece of software, every company, every band, every website, every company -- they all produce press releases. There's a certain expectation for a reputable information source that the topics it covers are, for lack of a less-taboo word, notable. How reputable would Wikipedia become if it featured articles on dating site #618 and porn site number five-trillion-and-eight? Since in other posts you've expressed a concern for how Wikipedia is viewed by the media: As much flak as we currently get in the media for being editable by just anyone, how much more so would our reputation suffer if it didn't have any significant bar for article entry? Equazcion •✗/C • 04:53, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

We also get a good deal of flak from using nonsensical guidelines like notability as seen here. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes I mentioned that. However as the majority of criticism comes from our non-existent bar for editing, the probability is that additional flak would be created by lowering the bar for article entry. How do you suggest that be remedied were the notability guideline to be demoted? Equazcion •✗/C • 18:15, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter much too me if bloggers and comedians who do not contribute to our site do not appreciate knowledge enough. If demoted, the other guidelines really are sufficient as obviously whatever is consistent with specialized encyclopedias, general encyclopedias, alamanacs, and gazetteers that is verified in reliable sources would be kept and whatever does not meet that criteria wouldn't be. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:18, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

So you don't care about the flak we receive in the media when that flak is generated by an idea you support, but you do care about it when generated by something you oppose. I mention this based on your using media flak as rationale to support your ideas, but when that same flak seems to oppose your ideas you dismiss it as a non-concern. It's possible I'm misunderstanding. Is media criticism a concern, or is it not, and why or why not? Thanks for your continued patience with me. It's clear I'm merely not intelligent enough to comprehend your thought process. Equazcion •✗/C • 18:32, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Media criticism would be a concern if it was overwhelming one side-ed, but it isn't decisively one way or the other. For every time someone presents a so and so who disses us for covering fiction, another person attacks us for trying not to cover it. And if anything, I am far more apt to side with the concept that all knowledge is somehow worthwhile and that if the philosophes had a wiki, they would have covered everything possible, maybe even beyond what I would include, because they included topics based entirely on primary sources that were in some instances way off base, but because it was knowledge and because they had a source, covered it nonetheless. I think taking a four legs good two legs better approach to knowledge is dangerous approach and that is how I see using loaded terms like "notability", i.e. some arbitrarily deciding that only certain knowledge is "notable", when what is notable to one group of people is not notable to another group and vice versa. There is no agreement among people on what is and is not notable. And as such, I would much rather err on the side of including material that is notable to some of our communities then getting rid just because someone else doesn't like it. If it isn't a hoax, isn't a copy vio, isn't libelous, but is backed by reliable sources, then what's it to anyone if we include it? Now if there's some kind of we're running out of disc space issue going on that I'm unaware of then, that would be another story. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 18:41, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

← So you think media criticism is not a concern, contrary to your previous arguments. As for the inclusion of (nearly) everything: Again, a trustworthy information source is judged (among other things) based on it having some standard for the topics it covers. If Wikipedia became viewed as something other than an encyclopedia, a designation that we cling to by a mere thread in public opinion as it is, would you view that as detrimental? The stated goal of course is to build an encyclopedia, as is stated frequently. We currently skirt the bounds of the definition due to our authoring body and our topic coverage. If we were to be pushed even further from that stated goal, and become something that is viewed as even less reputable than we are already, how do you propose we handle that? Is Wikipedia just as good if people trust it less? Is the concern of keeping readers less of a priority than the concern of keeping editors, that we should work towards making article authors happy at the expense of abandoning the people who would be reading those articles? Equazcion •✗/C • 19:02, 12 Feb 2009 (UTC)

break 2

I agree with you that people often misinterpret notability. But that's both inclusionists and deletionists. I think people actually *like* calling it notability, because it lets them negotiate and POV-push around the guideline itself. They can say "well I don't care what the guideline says, because the article is still notable / not notable". I'd support a rename, but I think there are a lot of people who either don't see it as necessary, or see it as threatening to their efforts at inclusion/deletion. Randomran (talk) 21:07, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, don't get me wrong, I thing some call things "notable" subjectively as well, but that just furthe demonstrates its subjective use. Who knows in AFDs when people call something "notable" or "non-notable" if they are actually referencing the guideline or what it looks like given the divide just some personal definition or understanding of the concept. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 21:12, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Usually I look for someone actually linking to the guideline, or making an association between "non-notability" and a lack of sources. Randomran (talk) 21:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

I would say most don't link to the guideline or do link to it, but their comment (for or against) doesn't reflect the actual reality of the sourcing situation as in the examples above. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:26, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that's the kind of thing we need to clear up, rather than making an all-out assault on the requirement for third-party sources. Randomran (talk) 05:29, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not a requirement. --Pixelface (talk) 03:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

From WP:V - If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. --MASEM 14:44, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

What was there before notability?

The GNG has existed since I started editing Wikipedia, so I don't really know, but maybe this will create some discussion: Before WP:N was created, was Wikipedia a worse place for some users? Did some people (beyond the creators of N) think that Wikipedia needed a notability guideline to become a better resource for readers? If N was demoted to an essay or marked as historical today, would Wikipedia be any different than it was before N was created? Notability has only existed for ~2 1/2 years (I think). In all that time before then, were there major problems caused by less-notable articles? Couldn't they be just ignored by users who don't like having them, rather than trying to delete them? Do you think that some users, especially newcomers, would enjoy Wikipedia more without the presence of notability? Would Wikipedia have a better media reputation?

Note: I'm saying this under the assumption that CSD #A7 existed and will continue to exist regardless of what, if anything, happens to the GNG. A7 seems like a fair guide for deleting non-notable articles; this conversation should discuss things such as songs, fictional elements, books, and movies, which aren't covered by A7. -Drilnoth (talk) 15:36, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

A lot of people focus on notability, but really Wikipedia has become a lot more strict because people started enforcing WP:V more strictly. Doom (video game) used to be a featured article, because it was well-written and comprehensive. But now it's not, because it lacks references. (Non-original) research became more important. What triggered this? I used to anonymously edit a lot more controversial articles, which were magnets for OR and POV-pushing. It wasn't enough to simply have an OR or NPOV policy: people learned to create content forks, spin things off, and turn small controversies into massive ones. The only way to reign it in was to make references a lot more important. I think the essay Wikipedia:Independent sources represents exactly where Wikipedia was in 2006, and foreshadows things becoming more strict. But I did very little editing back then, and much more reading, so my timing might be off. Randomran (talk) 16:30, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about 2006, but my impression is that the volume of citations is increasing much faster than the volume of content. For example:

• The 01.01.08 version of Marie Curie has 1767 words with 2 citations to 2 footnotes.
• The 01.01.09 version of Marie Curie has 3825 words with 43 citations to 35 footnotes.

In one year the content doubled but the number of citations increased twenty times. By "words" I mean words in the article text and headings, excluding the TOC, infobox, image captions, citations, references, and the "See also", "Further reading", "Fiction", "References" and "External links" sections. I chose this article "at random" as one where no new material (discovery, biography, announcement) would have triggered rewriting. - Pointillist (talk) 16:44, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with that assessment. If anything has slowed Wikipedia's growth (and it's not clear that it has for any bad reason -- maybe we just created most of the important articles in the first few years), it's the need for sources. Randomran (talk) 16:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It would definitely be interesting to see how much more content has been added - not just articles created - in recent years. I spend a great deal of my article-writing time improving existing articles that have been stubs (or start-class) for years. Many of the new articles I want to write can't/shouldn't be created without first expanding the existing article(s) on that topic - will anyone care to read the article about person X who commanded battle Y if the battle article is so bad it doesn't even mention the commander's name? Karanacs (talk) 18:47, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

It's not much of a rallying cry, is it? Come and do the slow detailed work finding sources to fill in the gaps. But people with those skills are just who we need to attract and keep. Nowadays the low-hanging fruit has been picked and the learning curve for new editors is much steeper—did you know how to use inline citations the first day you edited? That's why I think it is important to make policies/guidelines really clear and easy to absorb. - Pointillist (talk) 19:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I definitely agree that the learning curve is much steeper, and we don't have a good method currently to help people easily find the knowledge they need. I don't think the solution is to throw away or ignore all our guidelines/policies just because they upset some editors (new or established). We need to be able to teach new editors how to fulfill their WP passions in a way that actually meets the requirements. "Yes, you can write about Topic X, but WP has these parameters that you need to follow, and here are some tips to help make it easier." I try that with newbies who edit in the topic I'm most interested in, and it works pretty well. There are lots of topic areas and lots of editors, and I'd love to hear a scalable proposal to help. Karanacs (talk) 19:21, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Yea WP is getting more and more convoluted, soon you will have to read hundreds KB of policies, guidelines and others manuals of styles if don't want to get thumped right on your first edit with revert maniac ready to +1 in their edit count. A pity that learning the tropes of WP on the fly is less and less possible due to the foul ambiance. I had the chance to be an expert in references warfare that saved in my first fews edits. A lot of will-be editors won't be that ready. For me, RS reference is becoming the currency in WP, i'm not sure that is making WP a better place and making WP:N a policy will only increase that trend. I use referencs to placate nay sayers fanboy or fangirl and i am better to have enough of them to shove them down their throat till death. I know that not what RS references supposed to mean but that the only to get your point in some Afd discussion. KrebMarkt 21:13, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

In answer to Drilnoth, WP:IMPORTANT was the guideline that was superceded by WP:N. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:53, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Look at this timeline I made Drilnoth. Before the term was "non-notable" it was "unencyclopedic." Just another opinion. --Pixelface (talk) 01:10, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

That is an excellent point Pixel, it won't convince anyone here about notability, but it shows that their is really no quantifiable way to measure notability, except by relying on universally accepted policies which we have already, like WP:V. Ikip (talk) 19:16, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

When I started coming to Wikipedia back in 2005, before the site got super-serious about Notability and stuff, it was a great place where I could look up any amount of well-written educational/geographic/biographic information and then immediately go read a gigabyte of information about Dragonball Z characters or trivia or something which were also just as well-written because the legions of fans kept all of it clean. Best compendium of knowledge ever, I learned a ton of stuff whenever I came here. Then some jerks got all super-serious about trying to make this place into "Encarta+", so they systematically removed nearly everything of pop-culture and basic interest on the site. The whole project was much better off back in the old days. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 22:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

No reason why we can't return to that. Remember what Edmund Burke said about good men doing nothing, well, so long as we are willing to stand up to absurd and arrogant concepts like notability, the efforts to minimalize Wikipedia and turn away much of our readership and discourage our volunteers will not triumph.  :) Happy Valentine's Day! Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 23:09, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we can go back that far; basically, we're watching a pendulum swing here between inclusion and quality; initially at the creation of WP it had sufficient laxness to allow for all those articles, but forces pushed the pendulum towards more strict standards for inclusion. That's causing us to swing it back towards more lax - not all the way, but to a point of equilibrium where our inclusion standards meet quality standards as best as they could. Strict adhernece to WP:N and the SNGs as they are now doesn't let that swing happen which is why something needs changing, but it can't be the complete removal of what WP:N is trying to. --MASEM 23:19, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, characterizing it as a battle between "inclusion" and "quality" exhibits just a wee bit of POV. I find the bizarre need of so many articles to quickly jump some Wiki-devised "notability" hurdle within the first sentence to fend off deletion to be a lessening of real quality. Even more bizarre when those "notability" hurdles are changed, and the passing of that hurdle remains to deface the article... Let's call it a pendulum swing between "encyclopedism" and "narrow-mindedness." (joking, of course :-) Dekkappai (talk) 23:52, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

You must admit, though, that the availability of reliable secondary sources is directly related to an article's potential quality. If we were to restrict person notability to an absurd degree, say United State presidents only, we'd have 43 articles with an abundance of material to use in their construction. If we were to remove the concept of notability completely, we'd have billions of articles (eventually) about all sorts of persons, many of whom have very little coverage in any sort of reliable secondary source, and as a result the overwhelming majority of those articles would be very poor indeed. So inclusion vs. quality isn't that bad of a description. Most of us agree we have to draw the line somewhere—we just disagree about where that line should be. How much quality should we sacrifice for the sake of wider coverage? How much coverage should we sacrifice for greater quality? Not easy questions, and I'd be wary of anyone who says they know the definitive answer. Pagrashtak 00:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Definite answer: Somewhere in between. :) -Drilnoth (talk) 00:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Presidents of the United States are not notable because they're written about. They're notable because they're Presidents of the United States. They're leaders of a country.

Wikipedia existed for 5 1/2 years without Wikipedia:Notability as a guideline. And it did not accumulate billions of articles about all sorts of persons in that time. Radiant! rewrote Wikipedia:Notability in September 2006 and tagged it a guideline after 16 days, and then edit-warred over the tag.[23] I began editing Wikipedia before Wikipedia:Notability was a guideline. Wikipedia did not fall apart without Wikipedia:Notability.

Wikipedia existed for over 2 1/2 years before Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies was created on August 1, 2003.[24] In those 2 1/2 years, Wikipedia did not accumulate billions of articles about all sorts of persons. And the only reason that Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies was renamed Wikipedia:Notability (people) in December 2005 was because of this talk thread (in Archive 1 of WT:N) where an editor named Jiy wanted to create a common naming scheme for several different guidelines. It's about time we revisited that discussion.

On July 4, 2005, Radiant! proposed a speedy deletion criteria about "unremarkable" people. Voting ending 15 days later, and the proposal passed with 74% support (120 to 42), and became what's now known as WP:CSD#A7. WP:CSD#A7 and editors who add {{db-a7}} tags and Wikpedia's 1,625 admins are what currently keep out articles about most people.

I don't think this is about inclusion vs quality at all. Those two things are not in opposition. If you delete one article, that does not improve another article. If someone creates a new article, that does not lessen another article's quality. It's inclusion vs exclusion, and high quality vs low quality. We shouldn't have to "sacrifice" any articles for attempts at "higher quality"; Wikipedia is not paper. You don't have to "sacrifice" other articles to make one article GA or FA — and if someone does, you should really question why. You might say "But there's too many articles to keep track of. How do we prevent them from getting worse?" There are a lot of ideas about that. Some version of Flagged Revisions is one idea. Protection is another. Turning off newer volunteers with a strict adherence to Wikipedia:Notability is not one of them.

Nupedia had a peer-review process and produced a total of 24 articles. Were those articles high quality? I don't know. But when Larry Sanger proposed a wiki on the Nupedia mailing list as a feeder project for Nupedia, and Wikipedia was launched 5 days later, they clearly chose wider coverage. And that is one of Wikipedia's greatest strengths. So much so, that Encyclopedia Britannica has opened itself up to user-generated content[25]. I guess we'll find out how well they do with that.

Personally, I think the decline in participation on Wikipedia can be traced in part to Wikipedia:Notability. The article creation rate peaked around August 2006, with about 2,400 net new articles per day. That was a great time to be a Wikipedia editor. Wikipedia:Notability was made a guideline the next month. If people do not feel that Wikipedia is fun to edit anymore because of guidelines like Wikipedia:Notability, they will not stick around. Volunteers leave. That's less people to combat vandalism. When people don't have to read Wikipedia:Notability before creating an article and then you spring it on them after they click Save page, they feel duped. When you say episode and character articles are welcome, and then you say "No no, these belong on Wikia", they feel betrayed. Some may even come back as vandals. --Pixelface (talk) 08:17, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There may be no actual causation between the decline in number of new articles and the creation of WP:N; by 2006, I would expect that a good chunk of topics with many subtopics of high interest were long since created; that is we "caught up" to recent events in so much as we can ever be, so new articles would mostly be about new things created since. That's not to say we're close to done or the like, but simply that we should expect WP's new article creation to peak at some point. This is like Ikip's recent statement about the %age of articles deleted belonging to "new" editors - its correlation without causation. It may be true, but without additional information it cannot be shown.

As writing and article and feeling juped, right under this edit window is the text "You irrevocably agree to release your contributions under the terms of the GFDL*." If people don't understand that this is a wiki, and that they are voluntarily writing something that could be deleted at the drop of a hat, they are in the wrong place to start. Of course we don't want to delete contributions and on whims, and particularly for issues with notability, we specifically prevent this being a CSD case, allowing the editor to justify it at AFD (which I do believe needs to be improved for newer editors), so a new editor's article failing notability is going to last at least 5 days before it may be removed or merged. It is a trial by fire, unfortunately, but so is the fact that we provide no barriers to entry beyond registering an account and waiting a few days (to prevent bot spam). --MASEM 14:53, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

First, of course, is no article is ever perfect, so the type of quality which to assert if an article should be around is much different than the quality that we expect from FA, but there's still a bare minimum we want. Which is why I proposed my separate guidelines of includion and quality over notability. Regardless of quality of coverage, there are likely a large number of general classes of topics we should cover somewhere, period. If they can met this low quality bar - being reasonably sourced, we likely can have an article about it, otheriwse it's part of a larger article. We, importantly, don't lose coverage of these key topics, but also keep in mind that individual articles on each is not effective presentation. --MASEM 00:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think the pendulum swing is between wide- and narrow-coverage, and that to claim that either side is the only one concerned with quality is inaccurate. I believe that a broad coverage of topics is "encyclopedic" in the true sense of the word, and closer to Wikipedia's claimed aim of the "sum of human knowledge" (or do we still claim that?) I don't think this in any way compromises my belief that every one of our articles should be of the best possible quality, or my belief that every fact in every article should be appropriately-sourced. Dekkappai (talk) 00:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Didn't mean to imply it that way. Actually, it might be more accurate that there are two pendulums swinging here, one on breadth of coverage, one on quality, and right now, it's a fair assessment that they are both swung to a point of narrower coverage with higher quality. Now I'm not saying that we sacrifice quality to broaden WP, but WP:IMPERFECT must be a constant reminder - articles don't have to be perfect when first written though we can easily speculate how far sources will take a new topic. The key thing that all this is is that compromise is absolutely necessary: Notability will never go away, but nor will it be policy (as this RFC is showing), for example. It's just that there are editors on both sides that refuse to get to this point, and thus we get these calls. --MASEM 02:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Being one of the few precisionist around. Here my opinion Notability means someone reliable and relatively independent is writing, speaking, talking about the subject/article. The important part isn't the act itself but rather the information attached with it. Those information are often what is needed to prove that the content of an article isn't utter craps. Folding WP:N into WP:V would have been a two-edged blade as inclusionists would need just to prove it exists to create a new article or avoid Afd while delationists can in return simply burn to ash to content of those articles as they will lack the references needed to prove that what is written inside them isn't bullshits. Woot a lot of empty husk, what a wonderful perspective :(

I'm for articles that can't be contested existence wise and content wise, and WP:N albeit its many flows is an useful tool to achieve that objective. --KrebMarkt 22:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Case-in-point

User talk:Cooltimw -- Tried to post himself to a dab page for his name and doesn't understand why I removed it. See his user page for his article-on-himself in-progress. I'm not sure what this shows or doesn't show, but I thought it was interesting that I should encounter this now. Equazcion •✗/C • 03:30, 13 Feb 2009 (UTC)

If any of the "Wikipedia-should-not-have-any-notability-standard" editors care to comment, I'm curious about their thoughts on such an article. Pagrashtak 23:54, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think that that it would violate the policies WP:NOTSOAPBOX and WP:NPOV, as well as the guideline WP:COI, and therefore would be removed without the need for WP:N. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:03, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I saw nothing to comment about. Violates WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT. Oh, but wait a minute, he won an award. Doesn't that pass "notability?" Dekkappai (talk) 00:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Not if he was written up only on a reliable site that listed award winners. If that were the case and it wasn't a COI issue I'm not sure which policy would prevent its inclusion. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:20, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Allow me to play devil's advocate:

• WP:NOTSOAPBOX—is this a self-promotion concern? If so, this can be fixed through editing, no reason to delete.
• WP:NPOV—Again, fixed through editing, no reason to delete.
• WP:COI—True, writing about oneself is discouraged, but not a de facto reason to delete. Any vanity portions can be fixed through editing, no reason to delete.
• WP:V—Did you actually look for sources, or are you making an assumption? Assuming the content of the article is correct, we can surely verify portions of it.
• WP:NOR—Again, fixed through editing, no reason to delete.
• WP:NOT (not personal webpage, I assume?)—Parts do smack of a personal site, yes, but those can be removed. Other parts (e.g., "was born in New Jersey in 1972") would be perfectly acceptable in an encyclopedia entry.

Pagrashtak 00:24, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) To my knowledge, no policy. But, it would still be appropriate to retain some of the content in a list with all the other winners of said award, rather than him having his own article. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:25, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate based on what policy though? Without the notability guideline, it would seem the topic could merit its own article, if the COI issue were taken care of. The only problem in that case would be the lack of significant coverage, which I don't currently see in any policy other than N. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:28, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Appropriate to keep the content per WP:PRESERVE. Appropriate not to have a whole article because of common sense: It will likely never be more than a stub, will probably only ever have the one source, and probably won't be improved much. So, a merger is logical to keep the information but to help avoid "article creep." -Drilnoth (talk) 00:34, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Why rely on common sense though? Everyone has their own version of common sense. I thought the point in demoting N is to curb the subjectivity of inclusion, not increase it. Equazcion •✗/C • 00:38, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. Perhaps, then, a sentence or two is needed in something like WP:V saying that an article that only has two or fewer sources to verify it should be merged if feasible and as long as there is a fairly suitable merge target. Articles with more than three verifiable (a.k.a., reliable and third-party) sources should be discussed before merging.
My main problem with WP:N is that it seems to be used much more as a deletion tool rather than a guideline for what topics should have their own articles, which this may be able to fix. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure. Your suggestion is 6 vs. half a dozen. You're basically saying merge N into V. So how long before V becomes what people use as delete rationale, or whatever shortcut is created to point directly this section of V? Equazcion •✗/C • 01:06, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

My hope is that by "relaunching" a notability-like guideline/policy, people might look at it differently. What notability means has greatly evolved over the years from inclusion criteria to deletion criteria... maybe a "fresh start" can fix that and keep it that way. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Too many "ifs" and "supposings" in there for me... "If a bullfrog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass a-hoppin'" as the wise man says... In my wild-inclusionist-eyes, the case is easily thrown out with existing policies. And cooking up a home-grown, subjective "notability" definition does nothing to help that, and could only harm it. Dekkappai (talk) 00:51, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

True we're applying ifs, but they're ifs that would come up often without N. Think of all the perfectly reliable websites that contain mere lists of people and things. Without a guideline or policy stating the need for significant coverage, every item on those lists would seem to merit an article. I understand common sense might prevail in those cases to prevent such articles, but doesn't that just increase the subjectivity of the issue? Equazcion •✗/C • 01:01, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

If the two words "significant coverage" is the only reason for N, those two words can be moved to V. Again, N adds absolutely nothing to this case, and in many cases actually harms Wikipedia through inappropriate deletion. In actual practise, N is used constantly at AfDs to delete subjects which have significant coverage, even in English. This situation becomes even more harmful to Wikipedia by promoting bias, when applied to subjects outside of the knowledge of the common denizens of AfD. If a Google search doesn't give instant gratification, subjects with wide coverage in print, in foreign languages or from pre-Internet times too often get N-based Delete !votes based on Wikipedia's subjective, ever-changing and OR-based "notability" guidelines. Dekkappai (talk) 01:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Well it's not merely those two words alone. It's answering the distinct issue of when a separate article is merited. You've said that significant coverage for a separate article is a valuable distinction, so there is clearly a need to outline requirements for separate articles, even if that's the only one. V doesn't touch upon the issue of separate articles yet (as far as I know). What about third-party sources? Where should that go? In my view, before you knew it you'd have merely merged N into V, and I'm not sure that that would actually end up changing anything in practice. Equazcion •✗/C • 01:52, 15 Feb 2009 (UTC)

I'm striking the above hasty and ill-considered response. My response to this case has already been given: It easily fails many good, objective policies. All that a sloppy, subjective, POV, OR concept like "notability" adds to the mix is endless debate, definition, redefinition and argument which seems almost designed to prevent the very reason all of us are here: To contribute good, researched and sourced content. And with that, I'll leave this forum hoping to to do just that. Regards. Dekkappai (talk) 11:07, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Idea

Let's try testing if other policies and/or guidelines can relatively easily be used in a similar way to notability in AFD's, where the conflict most often comes up. I think that other, more essential policies and guidelines can call for the deletion of most, but not all, articles which are deleted due to N, and that is part of my argument for deleting/merging the GNG. So, why don't we list a few current AFDs here for which non-notability is a reason for deletion, and we can see if other policies and guidelines could achieve the same purpose without as much controversy. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:N provides inclusion criteria for standalone articles, not deletion criteria. The two are seperate. --Gavin Collins (talk) 22:04, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Only if we let people know in the AfDs that it is being discussed here so that participants aren't thrown off by a sudden in-rush of people from this page and think we're vote-stacking or anything. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 22:08, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

(at Gavin): I understand that and agree with you. However, in practice N is being used as deletion criteria more than inclusion criteria, which I why I'd like to see if other things can fill that role to possibly reduce the amount of controversy.

(at A Nobody): I didn't mean that we should discuss it on the AFD pages themselves, as any discussion would use guidelines and policies which aren't fully supported yet, as a "test." I thought that there could be a kind of "sub-discussion" here, like there was above about the person adding his own name to a disambig page. -Drilnoth (talk) 02:57, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a fundamental mistake being made about WP:N: it is incorrect to assume that this guideline is a set of deletion criteria. Firstly, deletion criteria apply equally to all Wikipedia's guidelines and policies, not just notability. Secondly, the process of deletion itself is one of peer review with decisions being made by consensus - there is no proscriptive rule that says every article that fails Wikipedia policies and guidelines has to be deleted, merged or redirected. If that was the case, we would not have WP:AFD debates at all. Instead there would be a series of Wikibots deleting articles which have been tagged as failures. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"I tag this article as a failure". "I disagree, it is not". "Yes it is". "You know, why not have an open discussion about it and see what the consensus is?" Your "bot" would nvere work, and discussions about articles and their fate will always be needed. As for the semantic difference between inclusion and deletion criteria: if the subject of an article is absolutely not suited for inclusion, the only alternative is deletion (well, the better alternative would have been "not created", but since we only judge articles and subjects after creation, the inclusion guideline becomes a de facto deletion guideline). If the subject of an article has some arguments for inclusion, but these are insufficient for inclusion as a stand alone article, a redirect or a merge are appropriate. One can argue what the inclusion standards should be, and how the policies or guidelines governing this should be named, but the simple fact that an inclusion standard is also used as an argument for deletion is the logical result of the unlimited initial creation we have here. Fram (talk) 15:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

• I disagree as you cannot de-create an article, you go only nominate it for deletion. Even if the article fails all of Wikipedia policy and guidelines, it may still be kept, so you see we can't engineer WP:N to cover every eventuality. Inclusion criteria may be used to agrue that an article should be deleted, but it incorrect to assume that this is the purpose of this guideline. The tail does not wag the dog. --Gavin Collins (talk) 15:59, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

"Even if the article fails all of Wikipedia policy and guidelines, it may still be kept"? Could you give an example of an article that is an unverifiable non-neutral piece of copyrighted original research that was kept anyway? Fram (talk) 10:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Planetouched --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

So it was neutral, sourced, and not copyrighted previously... It lacked third party sources and is not the kind of article I like, and Idon't think Wikipedia would be any worse without it, but you can not seriously claim that it fails all four policies I mentioned (even ignoring all other policies and guidelines). 10:48, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Deleting copyright infringements is one thing that Wikipedia does very well, so let's restrict this to the other three. Here is an unverifiable, non-neutral bit of original research that has proven to be very hard to remove: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Characters_and_groups_in_Bionicle Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Characters_and_groups_in_Bionicle (2nd nomination) Reyk _YO! 10:57, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you (both) understand the principle of "original research" and "neutrality" exactly. Articles where the information comes from first-party sources are not "original research": original research is when the author of the article makes his own conclusions, his own experiments, his own ideas, ... And how is this article not written from a neutral point of view? It lists the different characters and groups, it dose not praise or condemn anyone or anything. Again, I'm no fan of these articles, and they may or may not meet our notability guideline, but they don't fail these policies at all... Fram (talk) 11:05, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

If you read the article as it was when it was kept on the 4th of November last year you will see that it was, in fact, riddled with fan conjecture and gushing. This article makes claims to the effect that some characters are good and some are evil- is this stated in the primary source, or has some fan just made a judgment to that effect? Some dude and his team were "presumably" the only ones to meet tentacle-face in person- again, is this explicitly stated in the primary source, or is it something a fan has deduced from it? There's a line between OR and uncontroversial facts taken from the primary source and if, like me, you're not familiar with the work of fiction, it's hard to know where one ends and the other begins. But it's clear to me that this article has never been on the correct side of the line. Reyk _YO! 11:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• I think you will find that Planetouched is a WP:SYNTHESIS of primary sources. As regards neutrality, it is difficult to say that an article about a fictional topic that is over reliant on an in universe perspective is neutral per se. If it mimics the style of the primary source, then that is a distinct form of bias in my view. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:41, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The division into good and bad in Bionicle is rather clearly spelled out by Lego in all their publications (from the simplest merchandising leaflet on). And combining sources into one article is not in se WP:SYNTHESIS, only the drawing of new conclusions from such facts is synthesis. No new conclusions are drawn, only existing ones combined in a list. Combining e.g. the Ally McBeal Episode Guide for Season 1 and the one for Season 2 into one list of seasons is not synthesis but regular article building. Comparing Ally McBeal with Buffy the Vampire Slayer through their episode guides, and then concluding that X is a copy of Y because X andY both use plot element A, B and C, that would be an example of synsthesis. 12:20, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I think you may be too kind to those who combine primary sources to create a synthesis. An article based purely on a list of episodes fails WP:NOT#DIR in my view, but an article based purely on an incomplete list of episodes fails WP:SYNTHESIS because it is half-baked original research, which is the case with Planescape. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:40, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Ummm... Planescape is not a list of episodes. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

• Correct. It is a list of random characters, which is incomplete because it is original research, and not based on reliable source. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:30, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Being incomplete <> original research. Furthermore, are you looking at the same article? Or do you still mean "planetouched" and not "planescape"? If these characters are described as "planetouched" in any D&D manual, review, game guide, then listing them here is not original research, even though it is baed on primary sources. Even if the info is taken from a fan site, it is not original research. Using unreliable sources is not the same as doing original research. This link[26] (found through Google Scholar!) gives lists of planetouched races, so the list given here is not original research at all. Fram (talk) 14:46, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Appologies, I seem to be loosing the plot. I was refering to Planetouched. I have not seen a reliable source in which all the planetouched characters are listed, which leads me to suspect that most of the article content has been made up. There is a lot of fan sources, agreed, but their accuracy and completeness are questionable. I agree that the fact that the list is incomplete is not proof of original research, merely an indicator. The fact that no one source has drawn up a comprehensive list suggest to me that the topic is not notable enough for inclusion as a standalone article, but maybe there are sources out there that can provide some sort real-world definition to this category. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

(deindent) But you don't need one official source listing all characters or races, you may compile a list from different official sources as well. I am quite convinced that the list can be compiled from offically published sources, I can find some of them easily online on e.g. [27], which is a perfectly reliable (but primary) source. Of the 21 races mentioned in the article, at least 7 are in my first link (Azerbloods, Celadrin, D'Hin, Genasi, Tannaruks, Tiefling, Worghest), with 1 more (Aasimar) in this one[28]. Considering that there is at least one (small) book about the planetouched[29], more info is certainly available. Fram (talk) 09:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

As I say, if you have to compile the list yourself from various sources, that is WP:SYNTHESIS. The problem is with this article is that there aren't any relaible secondary sources to support the topic's notability, and what content there is is copyright of Wizards of the Coast. What muddies the water still further is that it is not clear whether this article is about a ficitonal character per se, but an ill-defined category of fictional character. However we digress here, perhaps this is not a clear example of what Fram was asking for. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Then your understanding of WP:SYNTHESIS is profoundly wrong. Creating e.g. a bibliography for an author by combining the bibliographies from the websites of his three different publishers is not "original research" or synthesis: just look at the actual title of the section that "synthesis" is a shortcut to: "Synthesis of published material which advances a position". Let me stress which advances a position: no position is advanced by compiling incomplete lists into a more complete list. I am not discussing notability or other problems with this article (which there are), but the claim that an article can be unverifiable, original research, and not neutral all at the same time, and still survive a deletion debate (an article can contain some claims that are all three, but the fundamentals of the article that survives an AfD should never have all three problems at once, or even two of the three: one of the three is quite possible, although it should of course be avoided). Fram (talk) 11:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• It is not in fairness. If you create a list and call it, say, "Bibliography of William Golding" it is original research, because you are carrying out the same work that university professor or a research student would be . I can understand why you might want to create a list of his books, and why it might be useful, but if you don't state the source of the list, it can be challenged as original research at any time. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Not mentioning your source is not the same as doing original research, but it does make it harder for other people to judge whether an article is unsourced but verifiable, made up, or some form of original research. I cannot really imagine how a biblkiography would become original research, unless you start attributing anonymous or pseudonymous works to a person. And in the example I gave, I explicitly mentioned the websites of publishers as my sources. The Planetouched article, at the time of nomination for deletion, had six sources mentioned, so the argument that no sources were stated would be invalid in this case anyway. Fram (talk) 12:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with you that you can't prove unsourced material is original research, but it is open to challenge as such. The sources mention provided no footnotes, so again it is open to challenge that the material is actually unsourced. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

But even then, it generally isn't "original research" in the Wikipedia definition. Original research proposes new ideas, new conclusions: articles like Planetouched are either correct (no matter if they are complete or incomplete) or made up (partially or completely), but they are not original research as long as the basic concept of planetouched races exists (which is the case). "Original research" should really only be used in a fairly limited number of cases, not for articles like this one. Fram (talk) 14:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This is getting really off topic here... perhaps WP:ORN would be a better location for the discussion? -Drilnoth (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Planetouched don't actually exist, as they are not fictional race per se. They are a category of character created by Wizards of the Coast to describe certain characters in their portfollio of role playing games. This is why the article is original research - it uses in universe elements to suggest that is something more than a product category.--Gavin Collins (talk) 17:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that Wizards does call all of those creatures planetouched. Saying that "planetouched" don't exist because of all of the subraces is kind of like saying that "dogs" don't exist because of the different breeds, and that listing a creature as a type of "dogs" is original research. Describing an in-universe element does not automatically make a similar subject original research or synthesis. -Drilnoth (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability vs Practicality

The problem with notability as it is used now, and as with most of WP's guidelines, is that they define was WP is "not", which is a good thing because without it, we invite too many useless articles on garage bands and individuals without any reputation. However, inherently, they are negative, and written, if not intentionally, to exclude, not include. We put the demand on the person that wants to retain information to find sources if notability is questioned, for example.

However, the problem is that as we add more layers of what WP is not, we lose aspects of what WP "is". That's not to say we are completely indiscriminate but given a field, there are probably specific topics that should be covered regardless of what type of sourcing is available. This, to some degree, is emphasized by the subnotability guidelines; for example, musicians that win Grammy awards. What can happen is that for topics particular of minimal academic interest and before the onsite of modern press and journalism, there may be no articles beyond brief blurbs that support the assertion. The topic is still verifiable but would likely fail the GNG. Now, I know that the SNGs (based on the last RFC on WP:N) are to be treated as special cases, that is a topic is notable if it meets the GNG or an SNG, but really, when you think about how our guidelines should describe what WP is, the SNGs should be the primary leads, with the GNG a catchall for things not explicitly listed in the SNGs.

Basically, because of the practical fact we are hybrid of general and specialized encyclopedias, there are certain topics we should obviously be covering, but strict application of the GNG can prevent this from happening.

Now, I'm not suggesting that the tree outside my place falls within the list of topics we ought to be covering. But certainly my city, state, and country each should be included, regardless of how well they are sourced. In the same manner for every field it is possible to define cases of things that, considering the specialized encyclopedic nature of the work, we should obviously be covering. Of course, if the tree outside my home happens to be the only known instance that, say, spouts blue leaves and has been reported in scientific journals for study, then we have sources to understand why this particular non-interesting entity is suddenly interesting.

This may sound a lot like my proposed split of notability into inclusion and article quality, but every time I think about this topic and approach it from a different direction, the obvious solutions comes back to the fact that we should pro-actively list out topics we want to include, and then worry about how well their sourcing can lead to good articles or otherwise should be covered in a larger article once they've been added to WP; the GNG then becomes a catchall for any topic not included in such lists since if it's sourced well, a good article can be written. This also acknowledges the fact that what should be included in WP is field-specific and not a constant for all aspects of WP; the GNG is still a good baseline, but when we compare, say, people in the music industry and their threshold for inclusion to that of people in government, there are very different standards that we'd use. The aspect of article quality only comes in because there is general agreement that a standalone article should be pretty much self-contained and comprehensive, of non-stub length if not longer, and reasonably sourced to third-party sources. If one of those topics that should be included can't be written as such, it still needs to be discussed, just talked about in a parent or listing with out similar topics.

Field specific inclusion guidelines should be written by those projects that edit those types of articles. Thee only danger here is that field-specific inclusion guidelines may become too inclusive, but that situation can be corrected by still requesting global consensus of proposed inclusion guidelines before they become practical use. --MASEM 16:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

You write in excess; maybe you should write less and clearer so we can get somewhere... WhatisFeelings? (talk) 22:31, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not following you. So what are inclusion criteria are you proposing that will replace WP:N, exactly? --Gavin Collins (talk) 17:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

For a start, the SNGs would be primary inclusion guidelines. But other likely in other fields there would need to be new guidelines written up. Some may simply be as simple as restarting the GNG (I would think this the case for many scientific and academic fields). --MASEM 19:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Would the inclusion criteria be based on objective evidence, or some other more subjective criteria? --Gavin Collins (talk) 19:52, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

These should be pretty much objective. However, that also means that some fields may need to cast a wider net to make sure that they define purely objective lines (a case in point is that it may be decided that for television shows, every episode should be included (but not necessarily having an article) in WP). There still can be subjective guidelines for topics that fail to meet the objective ones such as what the GNG would become. --MASEM 20:17, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

How many topic specific guidelines are you going to need? And once you start primarily relying on many individual topic specific guidelines, they are going to drift farther and farther apart without one parent to hold them together. I dont think it is workable, just an invitation for chaos. -- The Red Pen of Doom 20:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Realistically, I don't know how many. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It could be a good thing as it reflects on the nature of being a mixed general and specialized encyclopedia, but at the same time we should be trying to cut back on guidelines and policies. However, I strongly believe that figuring out whatever the new "notability" is and using whatever is needed to describe it is worth adding a few more guidelines to do it. Maybe there's ways of combining them or the like once they are all written. One point on these is that they should be broad but objective statements of inclusion. Even though I would say the SNGs right now reflect that to some point, I would argue they are too detailed to be effective as inclusion statements. --MASEM 21:08, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

WP:V would be what holds them together.じんない 09:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

How many truly bad articles existed before Notability got all huge?

Think about this for a sec. I've seen a lot of the arguments against destroying/modifying/transforming this guideline and so many of them basically come down to "We can't alter WP:N! WP will fall into utter chaos and articles about everybody's lawn gnome will clutter up the site!". This right here is bollocks. Even back in 2005 when there were ~400 articles on every individual Pokemon character, articles about random dudes, pets and lawn gnomes didn't exist. Why? Because the community saw them, had a prompt response of "No. Gtfo." and deleted them. There are 100,000 active users on this site along with principle policies like V and OR and they've always been the ones to clean the site of crap through actual, meaningful consensus. Even a radical, outright removal of WP:N wouldn't change this. WP:N has never really been a tool for deciding what comes into Wikipedia, just what gets thrown out. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 17:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely. -Drilnoth (talk) 17:28, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

This is the way it's supposed to happen. Guidelines and policies evolve out actual practice. If WP:N were suddenly removed, someone, somewhere, would write an essay explaining the practice of deleting articles about pets, random dudes, and lawn gnomes. It would likely be approved as a guideline. Whether it was called Wikipedia:Notability or Wikipedia:HaveYouHeardOfItBefore or something else won't matter, the point is, a practice this pervasive will be documented and if it is well-written and matches existing practice, it will be promoted to guideline status eventually. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 19:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that Wikipedia has grown greatly since then, and the number of articles created far exceeds the ease of the community to vet them. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. Secondly, our standards in terms of content have drifted upwards in the past few months and years in all types of content--FA, FT and the like. Notability might simply have been a logical outgrowth from this sort of push. Treating it like some sort of wolf in the fold that suddenly appeared is disingenuous. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability has always existed as a shared, common sense concept since the inception of Wikipedia. The problem is people tried to take that vague, shared, objective concept and print it out in black-and-white, an action akin to writing out a solid definition of what "art" is. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 21:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I find myself agreeing once more with Norse Am Legend. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Also, what's up with the blue text? It's not there in preview mode and I don't see anything in the code. -Drilnoth (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I removed some color tags from David's signature and now our text is normal, but his is still all blue for some reason. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 22:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I suspect someone else's custom signature is malformed and is causing cascading issues, but I'm not sure. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Huh. Interesting. -Drilnoth (talk) 23:10, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Another question is, how many good articles were needlessly and subjectively deleted becasue of notability? I would say hundreds, possibly thousands. Sincerely, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:38, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

To go on a geeky tangent and quote the Klingon judge, "We are interested in facts, not theories!" Peddling blogs and anecdotal evidence does not prove anything. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:42, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs argument can be summed up as follows: WP:DONTLIKE and there is "no problem". Actually, since October 2007 the number of edits has dropped. The economist magazine attributes "self-promoted deletionists" as the cause. The majority of AfDs are against articles created by new users. But I know how this circular argument works, soon the argument will not be, "We are interested in facts, not theories!" but "We are only interested in facts which prove inclusively 100% that your viewpoint is true, and unless you can prove something 100%, like a typical AfD, we will continue to undermine what you say, and scoff at any evidence you provide, while offering absolutely no evidence to support my viewpoint." That is why this entire practice is a circular argument. Most of us came here with our minds made up, and nothing will change our minds. Ikip (talk) 04:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

And Ikip's arguments can be summed up as "I like big words, so I'm gonna quote 'Kafkaesque bureaucracy' incessantly." Third party articles are pointless and crappy barometers of anything, for the simple fact that when it comes to Wikipedia (along with many things), they don't know jack. Their entire argument is based on a figure and the opinion of one editor, an inclusionist! Their evidence that growth is slowing comes from their lack of understanding that Wikipedia for a long period of time couldn't fully crunch numbers (here they chalk it up to us "hiding" something.) I'm simply asking people to leave junk news-supported arguments at the door. We aren't at the beck and call of what passes for journalism these days. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:31, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

So well respected news sources are supported in WP:V WP:NOR WP:Notability, unless they don't support your own POV, then they magically become "junk news". How convinent. At least I support my contentions with third party sources.

"slowing comes from their lack of understanding that Wikipedia for a long period of time couldn't fully crunch numbers"

"I'm willing to bet many of these people are just sour because their article got deleted"

is merely anecdotal evidence, with no facts to back it up.

Ikip (talk) 16:28, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

For a while WIkipedia had grown too large to be crunched properly; I believe either Wikimedia or third parties have gotten around that issue now. The fact that we have to use sources defined as reliable is necessary for Wikipedia, but we don't (and shouldn't) hang on pundit's every word. I call reporting that has a clear bias junk news, yes. Would you consider it fair and balanced? My entire point is that "facts" from outside sources do nothing but obscure real discussion. Unless you have scientific studies, et al saying that "editor participation has declined due to WP:N", it's pretty much pointless to argue it. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:12, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability altered RS perception for the worst

What should be RS for ?

1. prove existence of the item
   
2. Prove that article content != Bullshit, Craps, Hoax...
   
3. Give materials to write an article of higher quality
   
4. Assert notability

Now thanks to WP:N, the RS role in asserting Notability has been exacerbated and not for good. As it is now Premium Weapon to be used during Afd. We all encounter Petty Afd Tyrants that doesn't know a clue on what they put on Afd and didn't made the slightest effort to find Third Party coverage of the subject. I have no better desire to shove Third party RS down their throat to have them shut up. That say a lot on how WP:N improved the relationship between editors as many Afd are turning into References warfare.
Upgrading WP:N to policy will make this matter worse giving a Carte Blanche those Bad Faith, Zero Effort, lazies bums. In fact they will probably try to overrun and tire down others editors by spamming Afd like hell. How much time can you spare to find RS for one Afd ? now for 10 ? now for 25 ? It very cheap and fast to Afd an article and very time consuming to find third party coverage for Afd-ed article. I will probably add a number fraged Petty Afd Tyrants in my personal user page soon.
I know that isn't a generality and that all Afd nominators aren't like but i still encounter more & more of those these days. --KrebMarkt 09:41, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Wait, so your solution to "petty tyrants" is to prove them right and let the articles be deleted because you wouldn't find reliable sources? (I'll admit there are deletion-heavy peeps out there, but an AfD is an AfD, and if they are correct that there are no sources in the article, then you've got to prove that there are some out there.) --Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:21, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

But, per WP:N and WP:BEFORE, you need to search for sources before nominating an article for deletion due to an apparent lack of notability. WP:Potential, not just current state. -Drilnoth (talk) 14:43, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but per WP:HUMANFALLIBILITY, people are going to nominate articles without checking. What annoys me more than that is AfDs where sources are found, but no one bothers to add them to the article. It just leaves the article open to being thrown back at AfD, prohibits meaningful expansion, and wastes time. If you're going to be invested in keeping articles, you might spare two minutes of your time to improving coverage. --Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you on that point those article eventually return to Afd then we dig the deletion archive and have collective what the hell, why no one bothered to put the RS in the article or in the article discussion page.

About the Afd issue, i have no qualm on Afd where the nominator did thoughtfully some research job but that is far to be a generality. For some doing Afd is cheap and dirty way to level up in Wikipedia even if the quality of an editor can't be weighted that way :( I will never refuse the challenge to find RS during Afd but it's obvious that an editor nominating Afd in rows is way faster than someone looking for RS in raws and no need to draw a picture to guess who tire down first.

My point is also that WP:N changed my use of RS when i use them in article writing, i simply don't use them primarily to prove content or increase article quality but to have any nay sayer to close his/her trap. Just for fun, i piled some references in talk page of those article : Talk:Psychometrer Eiji & Talk:Keiji (manga) & i'm sure that some idiot will nominate them to Afd. --KrebMarkt 15:47, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Could that be because using Notability as a cudgel for article improvement breeds resentment? Or because spending time fixing one article after the "battle" has passed could risk losing the "war" on all the other AfDs? How often do the AfD nominators go back and add additional resources discovered during the process? Why should that task be limited to the "defenders" (who already spent their time researching)? If the nominators were required to add uncovered sources to "kept" articles I think we would have significantly fewer frivolous AfDs. – 74  23:03, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we have that many frivolous AfDs now. One of the most annoying things is when someone spends ages looking for sources and confirming there are none before nominating for AfD, only to have a bunch of people breeze in and go "Keep and improve" and breeze out again. These people have usually no intention of doing any work on the article. If the "keep and improve" set were required to do the work they claim is possible we'd have a lot less terrible articles on unworthy topics escaping through no consensus. Reyk _YO! 23:52, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that happens occasionally (as does the reverse), and I'm sure we could debate extreme cases back and forth, but in my opinion the deck is stacked against inclusion for the majority of cases. However much time you spend confirming no sources (assuming good search methodology), on average the other side then has to spend more time to have a chance of finding any. And, from what I've seen, some nominations don't even get past the first page of Google results—net result? wasted time all around. Then there's the matter of timing: don't feel like making a nomination this week? No worries; the article will be there to delete next week. Don't feel like researching this week? Don't worry; there'll be another crop of articles up for deletion next week. This process works really well at weeding out worthless articles. Unfortunately, it works nearly as well at targeting worthwhile contributions. I suspect that if Wikipedia had started in a similar environment we wouldn't have half the articles we do today. Even if every worthwhile article survives an AfD nomination, the process itself saps effort that could be better spent elsewhere There's no direct conversion, but take all the text from AfD and consider how many valuable articles that effort could have created, or how many articles improved to FA. I don't have a solution, but that doesn't prevent me from seeing a problem. – 74  04:41, 24 February 2009 (UTC) (My apologies for jumping in line.)

But, at the same time, if someone did spend time searching for sources during the nomination (e.g., someone who wanted the article to be kept), and found some, the article is still sometimes deleted because of the number of unchanged delete !votes from before the sources were found. If the nominator searched for the sources, it would balance out. Sure, sometimes it would be a pain... but wouldn't it also mean that more valid articles are kept? -Drilnoth (talk) 00:00, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Got any examples to back this claim? (If so, the closing and deleting admin should be smacked with a tuna or worse.) -- The Red Pen of Doom 00:24, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)This is why closing administrators need to use their discretion and not let AfDs devolve into a simple head count. They need to be able to tell which way the consensus is swinging. And if you've found sources that you think satisfy the policies and guidelines you can always give the previous voters a heads-up on their talk page. Most people, I'm sure, would not object to reviewing their opinion if there's a good reason to. (Badgering and combativeness are a different matter.) Here is a discussion that shows the process working spectacularly well. Reyk _YO! 00:29, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

(responding to The Red Pen of Doom): Eck, I guess you're right... I didn't see any in two random archives which I looked. There are quite a few instances where people don't re!vote based on new sources, although this still usually results in "no consensus", rather than "delete". -Drilnoth (talk) 00:44, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

For most topics the sources you dig up to satisfy WP:RS take care of WP:N as well. If I want to write, say, an article on an asteroid and I use information from three or four scientific papers to base it on, then the article will satisfy WP:N because it's important enough for those scientists to take an interest in it. Similarly, if I wrote an article on a sportsperson and used a bunch of newspaper articles for facts then the athlete will pass WP:N- if the newspapers think the person is worth writing about then so should Wikipedia. There is a lot of overlap between WP:V and WP:N: they ask for the same things, but for different reasons. But if I wanted to write an article on some comic book character and just used material from the comics themselves, I would run into problems. Sure I could get my facts right- the comic says The Amazing Blorgo has X-ray vision, and what could be more reliable a source for verifying that fact?- but it would not confer notability because there is no evidence that anyone other then the comic's creator cares. It's an important principle, and one that is too often ignored, that if nobody else has seen fit to write about something then we should not be the first. Reyk _YO! 23:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

For manga Afd, i go as far looking for manga licensor and reviews in French, German, Spanish & Italian. Somewhat it can be called Extension of the conflict. I'm not much fan of fiction character individual article as you have a hell time proving that what you write isn't craps or original research or too in-universe or COPYVIO as derivative work and i don't even cover the third party coverage issue. Unfortunately those article are often started by Rookies editors while prime targets for some vetted editors. One thing hurting good faith is that you had the bad feeling that some Afd nominator makes much less effort to assert notability then those who try to find those required RS. When a such Afd ends with a keep because you brought the refs, you want really to say some very insulting words to that nominator. --KrebMarkt 15:53, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability has inherantly "Deletionist" bias

I know this may sound like a very controversial claim, but it is easily bore out in AfDs and talks about merging - Anyone proposing a merge or AfD is under no obligation to do anything other than make the proposal. On the other hand anyone who has to keep it is forced to show evidence. Therefore the burden is inherantly decided for deletionists as the amount of work anyone proposing a merge/delete needs to do is say "delete/merge because it's not notable" and not need to provide any evidence - because providing evidence shows notability.じんない 01:01, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

As I ask for the reasoning and make a point if no reason is given, that is something which can be brought up in the XfD, and there is no need to do more than is now proper practice. And I do not know how to show non-notability, asking the proposer to prove the negative is not a realistic burden. Collect (talk) 01:08, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec) That is how it appears to stand in most (but not all) cases at this time. However, this is technically against guidelines (WP:BEFORE and even WP:N), and for, in my opinion, a good reason. Right now, articles get deleted because of non-notability because people who want to keep an article need to search for sources, taking the same amount of time as someone could nominate countless articles for AFD. This probably causes many articles to be deleted even though they should be kept and improved. Personally, in an AFD debate, admins should look at !votes from people who have shown some good attempt to find sources as being much more weighty than those who just !vote "Delete; non-notable." -Drilnoth (talk) 01:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:BEFORE should be upgraded to a policy and actually have shown that it's been followed through except on the most extreme cases (such as obvious hoaxes, blank pages, etc).じんない 01:15, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(ec)(responding to Collect): It is, indeed, impossible to actually show that something is not notable. However, looking for sources may A) find sources not currently in the article, which can be added to establish notability, or B) Show that sources cannot easily be found. If, in the first six or seven pages of Google results (and a quick search of Google News and Books), no reliable sources can be found, then I believe it is valid to nominate the article and indicate what you searched for and your results.

As for bringing the point up in AFD, I'd invite you to look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Magic item (Dungeons & Dragons), where I argued that users !voting delete because of "non-notability" without further comments should search for sources. I think that, once an AFD has started, that will often be the case even if the point is brought up. -Drilnoth (talk) 01:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

To Collect - and yet i am oftened required to support negative comments in articles. Why should I have to support them there, but you all you have to do to delete something is paste a template up give a short reason and sit back, because that does quite often happen.じんない 01:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

By this do you mean that the burden of proof is on the inclusionists? If so, then I agree only to the point that inclusionists have to show the evidence in order for an AfD to be kept. If there's no evidence shown than the article is deleted. On the other hand, before the evidence can be shown to keep the article, deletionists have to introduce an argument on why the article should be deleted. This argument can only be disproven (this is where you were probably coming from) If this argument isn't well-made, the article will be kept. On the whole I'd say the "tilt" of the AfD process is towards the "keep" side. This is because both sides have to argue their points, and if it comes out as no consensus, the article is kept. The reason most articles at AfD are deleted is simply not that they didn't have a chance, but that they didn't rise to the challenge. These articles really do not belong here. On the other hand, if you (hypothetically) nominated a hundred articles at random for AfD with the argument that they weren't notable, the vast majority of them would be kept. Themfromspace (talk) 01:28, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually all it takes is a bunch of people coming in for one side or the other and saying "Keep" or "Delete" as most admins just do head counts and don't read the often long discussions. Also there is no way to prove your claim if I were to mass nom many articles for deletion because I, or anyone else, would be accused of making a point and be restricted, therefore that claim is without basis.じんない 01:31, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

In MfD in the few cases where no reason has been given, the argument that a reason has to be given is taken seriously. I have not worked on enough AfDs to know what happens there as well. I do know that "head counts" are not a strong means of weighing the issues. Collect (talk) 01:49, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Notability does indeed have an exclusionist stance. That's the point. It says, in effect, "prove that this subject is important enough to write about, before you write about it". But what you seem to be arguing is that the AfD process is slanted towards the deletionist side, and that is just not true. Reyk _YO! 02:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Go ahead and nominate any article with no or few references on the basis of notability. Chances are unless it has a very vocal and determined group of fans it will be deleted without you having to do anything but nominate it.じんない 02:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Really? I don't think so. Reyk _YO! 02:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Obviously you did not read my paragraph. I specifically said "...unless it has a very vocal and determined group of fans...". Try again because that article obviously has them.じんない 02:59, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

What basis do you have for declaring those people to be "fans" of the works of fiction in question other than the fact they voted "keep"? I see two people saying all major characters in notable works of fiction are inherently notable, two "per above"s and one poor soul who apparently meant to vote delete but typed "keep" by accident. Hardly fannish behaviour, I would have thought. If you only consider examples that back up your position and arbitrarily discard ones that refute it, you can trick yourself into believing anything. But it doesn't fool me. Reyk _YO! 03:12, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I should point out that life isn't fair here—American justice is intended to have an inherently "innocent until proven guilty" bias, for example. Some things will always be easier to do than others—harder to create than destroy, all that. --Der Wohltempierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:06, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

(to Collect)The first one I agree even if he was a fan does not show the usual fanboy attitude. Those that say "Keep" with little text are likely fans or drive-bys with no concern for the article. While it is possible I am wrong, I don't think so. Anime World Order is for example one that was deleted without anyone seeming to check facts. 2 came in with a "delete per nom" and the last one claimed the site used for verification wasn't reliable which it is. None of those claiming delete look to have bothered searching for sources. Only 1 member voting delete, Sbacle, looked to have done any actual search for sources and mostly that a couple second search.じんない 03:47, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Of course notability has a deletionist bias. We allow anyone and everyone to create articles after creating an account. Since there's very little we can do to prevent "bad articles" from being created, all we can do is delete them after creation. This is like saying a water filter is biased against impurities. Of course it is; its designed to be. The only real way we could "balance" it would be to restrict article creation and require approval for new articles. Mr.Z-man 06:30, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the first part but the second second part fail badly into High, Mighty and Pedantic category IMO. --KrebMarkt 07:35, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

How so? Our policy on when pages can be created (not counting policies that delete them afterward) is pretty much as inclusionist as it gets. Any policy or guideline we have after that to filter out the articles we don't actually want can only have a deletionist bias. Even if the policy wasn't used to delete anything, it would only be neutral overall. Any policy favoring inclusion would have to allow creation of something that we wouldn't normally allow creation of. Since our basically-non-existent article creation policy allows anyone to create an article on pretty much anything, an "inclusion policy" would have no effect. Mr.Z-man 01:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

"The only real way we could "balance" it would be to restrict article creation and require approval for new articles"

Question is what give us/you the power, the right and the legitimacy to approve or not new articles ? Too much self-righteousness, Too much ego inflation, Too many self-appointed judges. That said i have no qualms about Notability being a Delationist tool. What is insulting is that too many editors nominating Afd are nothing but lazy scums doing Zero effort and tossing WP:BEFORE in the toilet, and their favorite tool is WP:N. --KrebMarkt 07:04, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Um, what? Did you read my second comment at all? I'm saying we have no policy or mechanism in place to approve all new articles before they are created. Therefore, the only thing we can do to prevent Wikipedia from being a repository of everything is to delete articles after they're created. It has nothing to do with ego; I don't know where you got that from at all. But as it seems you aren't willing to argue rationally or civilly, I'm not going to continue wasting my time here. Mr.Z-man 18:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

You misread me. I am opposed to the simple idea to have potential new article needing approval from a happy few comity. I strongly believe that WP:N and Afd are necessities but what i found insulting is that the Afd x WP:N combo is often misused with nominators writing laconic motivation blurb like Not notable or Fail WP:N. I find them too careless and casual to deserve WP:GOODFAITH. I'm sure that most editors discussion here are not like that but outside here is another matter altogether. --KrebMarkt 19:18, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

@Jinnai Agree that Notability has a Delationist bias and whatever people do or say won't change that die hard reality. I accepted to live with it. Too many editors don't give a damn to WP:BEFORE or stop the RS research at the first page of Google results. That practice is not better the editors who will vote Keep with WP:ILIKEIT and others number of Google it as argument. All mixed i concluded WP:GOODFAITH can't exist in Afd or Merge discussion. For various issue like you can't prove that something doesn't exist WP:BEFORE can't be a policy. I want editors who made undue Afds repeatedly and had obviously disregarded WP:BEFORE, be Afd nomination blocked.

What is funny is that most editors participating here do their homeworks before nominating to Afd. Unfortunately those nominating articles for Afd at their whims are not present here and continue to sour relationship between editors --KrebMarkt 07:09, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

That is actually the core of the problem. It takes far more effort to create and cite an article than it does to post a delete page for all but the most basic stub of stubs. Anyone can come by and nominate an article for deletion and do absolutely no effort beyond that and get it deleted. Whereas it requires in most cases serious effort to get an poorly sourced, but still probably meeting GNG or one of the SNGs. Therefore not only has effort gone into creating the article more effort must be given into citing it. That I am not against. I want to make that clear. What I am against is that it is so easy for any one with malicious intent to go around nominating articles for deletion with no intent to ever look up if they are notable. It makes things highly unbalanced towards deletion considering the ease one can nominate articles.

Yes, not every nomination will be deleted. I get that. However, not every article has active members or an active WikiProject to help protect the articles that have potential but are just not quite there yet. And even those that do might not be able to defend them adequetly at the time of deletion due to RL issues, especially the smaller WikiProjects/task forces. So because of the far lower threshold of commitment for a deletion vs. creation and defending a deletion is clearly makes notability very delition favored as most items that are brought afds that are half-way serious attempts can pass WP:V easily.じんない 07:51, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, it is a lot easier to breeze in and go "keep and improve" or "keep and find sources" and then breeze out again, with no intent whatsoever to do any work, than it is to a) find a bad article b) verify that it can't be verified c) go through the Byzantine rigmarole of the AfD nomination process and d) defend yourself against baseless accusations that you haven't done (b). Considering that it's the deletionists who stick their necks out and are the targets of most of the undeserved vitriol that gets flung around here, I find it hard to believe there'd be too many who are acting out of "malicious" intent- rather a good faith attitude to improving the encyclopedia. Reyk _YO! 08:41, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Yea, that is the By the Book idealized Wikipedia universe and my other name is Pikachu. Explain to me then why every time we salvage an article during Afd or Merge discussion by providing the RS reference of notability, we have the bitter feeling that the nominator was a lazy idiot. There is no good faith during those discussions, only references tossing gunslinging contest and defending editors will do their very best to shove Reliable Source References down the throat of the nominator for a kill. Those nominations are not malicious but done by lazy, uninformed and biased persons and i'm certain those editors believe in the righteousness of their actions. --KrebMarkt 09:10, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Why, instead of assuming good faith, you assume people are "lazy idiots" I really can't say. I'm not a mind reader. I'm not saying AfD nominators are always perfect- I'm just saying that if one side should take note of WP:BEFORE then the other side needs to respect WP:BURDEN. Reyk _YO! 09:26, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe in WP:BURDEN, you are discussing with a Precisionist the closest thing in Wikipedia to RS references freaks. Right now passing WP:BURDEN is mandatory to keep article in Afd or avoid merge as there is no place for absurd argument like i like it and others Google search hits. What is not mandatory is Afd nominators checking WP:BEFORE before nomination that create a kind of unbalance and we resent of that. Usually i evaluate the involvement of an Afd nominator by the length of it Afd motivation blurb. Lengthier, with more arguments and less acronym, and more inclined i'm to believe that the nominator respected WP:BEFORE. Afd and merge discussion are no trifle so we must avoid to write stuff like per above or others showe of WP acronym. --KrebMarkt 10:15, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

The reason BEFORE is not mandatory while BURDEN is is because you, the primary author of the page to be deleted, by virtue of being the primary author, are an expert on that topic and thus the best person to identify and location sources; on the other hand, I, the general reader unaware of anything in that topic, may see that topic's article lacking any evidence of sources to explain why its notable, and thus would be the last person you'd want to ask about locating sources. Sure, this is an extreme situation (often times the editor putting up for AFD works in other areas of that field) but the above case is still the expectations for it. Now, that's not to say that the unaware AFDer can't do other steps, like note their concerns on lack of sources on the talk page or via a tag, particularly when the article is less of a problem than a CSD requirement. --MASEM (t) 16:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

I never said that i'm the primary author of the page to be deleted ;) I'm a Precisionist someone who will assess every avenue of RS possible within its capability to assert the notability of an article. When i see merge not enough review and then found three more RS reviews with Google because the nominator didn't bother to check page 2 and 3 of the search results that bother me a lot. --KrebMarkt 17:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

My point is that someone may not be sufficiently familiar with a topic to be able to judge Google results appropriately to make BEFORE a requirement. --MASEM (t) 17:57, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(EC) "someone who will assess every avenue of RS possible within its capability to assert the notability of an article" - That is following BEFORE. What has that to do with being a precisionist? (Asking because I call myself one...) -- Goodraise (talk) 17:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

(A bit off topic answer) I'm a Precisonist because what is essential to me is the content of the article and to improve its quality and verifiability, i use the rules, guidelines, MoS and RS. My speciality is proving Content!=Bullshit and to do so i need enough Reliable Third party coverage. When you can prove Content!=Bullshit, you solves WP:V issue and the WP:N issue at the same time. (English isn't my native language so you will excuse any wording blunder to what is close to an essay)--KrebMarkt 18:33, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

So your saying it's perfectly okay to put up an afd without intending to even try and do anything except make others jump through hoops and ignore good faith given some time it might get sources. I'm not talking about articles that are completely unsourced for years but may just primary ones, which is all that is needed per WP:V, especially for non-contriversial subjects like minor fictional works or were just created last week by some newbie. By nominating for deletion without any attempt to do work yourself you are essentially reinforcing OWNership of the article.じんない 00:52, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

An article with only primary sources does not satisfy WP:V, which states Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (emphasis mine).—Kww(talk) 01:17, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Regarding abuse of AfD, please see Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion#Abuse_of_AfD. – 74  01:57, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Agree and as such we shouldn't have policies or guidelines with inherent bias. Best, --A Nobody^{My talk} 01:01, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Reevaluation#List_of_new_names_for_consideration

It's the perfect solution; any problems? Please make sure you write in one clear, concise sentence (I don't need your life story) WhatisFeelings? (talk) 23:07, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

• This has already been discussed. See #Oppose_renaming Randomran (talk) 23:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
  • That swamp of a mess doesn't apply to this perfect solution.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 23:42, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, it does. Perhaps people may want to discuss it all over again. But don't be surprised if they don't. Randomran (talk) 23:48, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
      • This is different from the renaming issue, and much of the comments are completely irrelevant to this case.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 23:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
• Well, when you people want to improve something, let me know.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 23:57, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Delisting

I intend to delist this from WP:CENT with a conclusion of "consensus supports current state of affairs" unless there's a good reason not to in the next few days. Stifle (talk) 11:37, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I might temper that by being more specific. This RFC was not an exhaustive survey of all possible reforms. Rather, it looked at major changes like promoting/demoting the guideline, or writing a new one. There's a consensus against doing those things, but I wouldn't say there's a consensus to be totally faithful to the current guideline. Randomran (talk) 15:00, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

What Randomran said. :) I plan to close this in a few days if there isn't another flurry of interest, and then more minor changes can just be discussed at WT:N if needed. The main point of this whole RFC was to ensure that there was consensus for having notability as a guideline, under that name, with no significant changes from what it is now, because there has been quite a bit of controversy over it. I think that this RFC accomplished its goal, so I think that it can be removed from CENT any time at this point. –Drilnoth (T • C) 16:12, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I just came from.. somewhere else. I support improvements, so what you talking about: "consensus supports current state of affairs.." silly intentions.WhatisFeelings? (talk) 21:47, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

I think that he/she meant that there is no consensus to make major, drastic changes to the GNG as a result of this RFC. However, as I mentioned above, I think that individual changes can be brought up at WT:N rather than on a large page like this one. –Drilnoth (T • C) 21:46, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not think consensus supports the current state of affairs. What I think is the problem is that consensus does not at this point support how to change it. The proof it does not support the current state is the increasing frequency at which the GNG is totally ignored at AfD, and the increasing use of the various provisions of NOT and BLP and fine distinctions about reliable sources. instead of it. How far we should change the guideline is another matter. My own view is radical, but not the most radical. The most radical tis the notability is irrelevant, and the only factor should be WP:Verifiability with a very broad acceptance of almost anything as a RS. I disagree because its more important to have an encyclopedia than a web directory (this may not have been the case at the beginning of the web, but it is now, given the practical usefulness of Google as a sort of directory). My fairly radical view is that we should have only specific guidelines, and that the current GNG is a last resort backup, discouraged for routine use as much as using IAR for everything. (And this would only work if the distinction were not article/no article, because then we'd never agree on where to draw the line. The distinction would have to change to a scale, all the way from multi-article coverage of a topic, to mention in a list, with most of the currently disputed material being handled as longer or shorter sections in articles--something about which it is always possible to compromise. But I don;t think consensus is ready to formalize that yet. What we need to do is keep the discussion open. The guideline remains disputed. If one likes, we can think of a slightly weaker word than disputed, questioned perhaps, or subject to challenge or even a matter of argument. DGG (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

• I think this proposal went a bit over the top, tried to do too much too fast, and got a lot of opposition as a result. Then the conversation seemed to get mired in repetitive argument, making consensus building virtually impossible. For whatever reason, there does not seem to be a clear consensus for any specific course of action at this time, which I suppose defaults to leaving it the way it is. It does also seem that there are many who believe WP:N is not cutting it in some cases, as DGG and others will recall from my never-got-anywhere attempt to craft a clear policy for notability of small airlines in Alaska. In the end even a relatively small matter like that was difficult to get straightened out. I think any changes that are to be made to WP:N will need to be incremental, making changes, seeing what effect they have, and determining whether to make more changes, leave it as is, or turn back changes already made as we go along. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:07, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with DGG. What is clear that there is no viable alternative to WP:N. Sure, lots of people object to it in the same way they object to death and taxes, but we don't have any alternatives to them right now. What is clear is that the complaints against WP:N can all be countered: if anything, this RFC is proof that WP:N stands up to peer review because it is based on objective evidence, and is likely to remain as a guideline for a long time to come. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:30, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

And won't become a policy clearly. --KrebMarkt 14:03, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Gavin that there is presently no viable alternative: if I thought I had one that would get consensus I would have made a formal proposal. That means, as I see it, that although this policy is recognized as unsatisfactory, we have no agreement on a replacement. It's like people saying the present tax system in unchallenged when they mean that although nobody likes it, we havent agreed on how to replace it. The burden of proof is on those who claim there is no dispute--and it is going to be very hard to say that given the amount of prior discussion. DGG (talk) 01:33, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is recognized as unsatisfactory by any sort of consensus. Sure, some people complain, but there will always be some people complaining about anything, and I recognize a few of the names of people who wanted the notability guidelines as people who frequently post in AFDs making claims about the notability standards that directly contradict what it really says. So when it comes to working within the rules, they pretend to be following the rules, but when it comes to possibly throwing out the rules, they wholeheartedly support doing so. Those people -- and of course it's not all of those who support that side -- never will be happy. And, frankly, that's a good thing, as the kind of site they seem to want this to be is fundamentally not what it was created to be. DreamGuy (talk) 02:36, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think Gavin Collins offers the best analogy. There are people who want to do away with notability completely, but haven't been able to because a consensus of editors believe it serves an important purpose. Just like taxes. I've made peace with taxes. Others haven't. But merely disliking them isn't enough to abandon them. We can only abandon notability if we have an alternative that people support more... which, if notability is so hated, should be easy to produce. Either way, the support for the "overall state of affairs" is not to limit incremental change, but to show that major changes like renames, merges, or demotion are out of the question, as is promotion to policy. Randomran (talk) 15:46, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I suppose there is an analogy. With taxes, it is obvious that the other guy should pay them. With notability, the topics that the other guys are interested in are the ones where the rules should be adjusted to yield non-inclusion (I say non-inclusion, because it's usually adjusted by jiggering with WP:NOT or WP:RS). At heart, I think so too, in both fields, but I accept the need to pay mine if others are going to, and to let what I think are unimportant topics have articles, if I want article on topics others think little of. DGG (talk) 05:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notability issue

No mention of Mr Sudhanshu Mani innovator of Vande Bharat Train or Train 18 is definitely a notability issue. As non inclusion of it defies set criterion of Wikipedia. 2405:201:600B:E172:8C4D:9ECB:6A36:D2B7 (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2023 (UTC)