Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 3

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Hmm...

Hi.

I just noticed this:

"Topics in most areas must meet a minimum threshold of notability in order for an article on that topic to remain on Wikipedia. This is a necessary result of Wikipedia being a neutral, verifiable encyclopedia. "

This would seem to suggest that "notability" as involving something greater than simple verifiability & neutrality would be unnecessary. In this case it seems that if something is verifiable, with reliable sources backing it up, it should be allowed without any extra "notability" baggage. 74.38.32.128 05:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Note the two other words in that sentence, neutral and encyclopedia. Look at the Rationale on the page for more explanation. —Centrx→talk • 06:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Also, with regard to verifiability specifically: while an article having reliable sources would satisfy notability in that respect, it does not mean that an article without such sources is not notable. In that case, notability is useful to decide whether we will suppose that sources can reasonably be found; in the absence of having several sources, verifiability doesn't help in deciding whether there will be several sources. —Centrx→talk • 06:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability is a shorthand term to describe a subject which is of sufficient importance that there are multiple reliable secondary sources independent of the subject on which we can base a verifiably neutral article without straying into original research. Internet memes often fail here because all the coverage is of the class "look at this kewl site" rather than any dispassionate documentation of the subject. Guy 10:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

So if such sources exist, then it can be included and no other "notability" stuff would have to be satisfied? 74.38.32.128 18:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It would be kept, depending on the quality of the sources. Well-sourced, high-quality articles are never or almost never deleted. Also, if there are several independent high-reliability sources on a topic, then it would just naturally satisfy other notability criteria. Neutrality and encyclopedic relevance are part of evaluating whether a source is reliable. The same thing happens when looking it from other angles. Naturally, if a topic is a traditional encyclopedia topic there will be many reliable sources about it and neutral editors. Naturally, if a topic has many neutral interested editors, there will be reliable sources about it which they will work to find and the topic must be non-trivial. They are complementary and intrinsically related to each other. —Centrx→talk • 06:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Note that there is a distinction between a common, relaxed meaning of "verifiable" and a meaning that requires several independent, secondary reputable and reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 06:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

• In many cases "fifteen minutes of fame" does not equate to verifiability. See also User:Uncle G/On notability for some opinions on the matter. >Radiant< 08:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, "human interest" fluff pieces that are not well-checked for accuracy in the first place and then copied by other news organizations are not highly reliable, and encyclopedic subjects must be verifiable over time, not just for the brief moment. —Centrx→talk • 22:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

So then why not just define notability to mean something has multiple, independent, peer-reviewed, reliable sources to back it up? 74.38.32.128 06:48, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

• Because not everybody agrees to that definition, and because "independent" and "reliable" are also terms that do not have a definition that is universally agreed upon. >Radiant< 08:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, what kind of arguments have been presented against/for it, anyway? Also, the terms "independent" & "reliable" also are deserving of rigorous definition. From what I've seen, this "notability" thing seems tied intimately to core policy -- neutral point of view (the whole "undue weight" thing? I still don't quite understand this yet -- why exactly is an article on a "tiny" minority view intrinsically biased? Please provide some answers to this!), verifiability (so there's enough sources to write a verifiable article?), and no original research ("original" research that wasn't or did not pass a rigorous peer review & get published in a journal might have had a problem with it of some sort that would make it not "notable" enough), and I think therefore that eventually it should become an official policy and therefore we need a rigorous definition. 70.101.144.160 20:32, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Again, any response??? 70.101.144.160 20:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Many questions. The relationship with NPOV is not so much undue weight, though that could be related, but that you need to have people interested in editing the article. If I see a mediocre aggrandizing article that has not been improved or had any substantial editing since it was created a year ago, it is probably not notable. It was created by a partisan or fan with some flowery wording and then no one else was interested in it since then. It looks like some of these other questions are already answered, either elsewhere on this talk page or on the main page; if not, ask something more specific (in a new section; comments in old sections are easily missed and old sections will be archived sooner). —Centrx→talk • 21:27, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Also, it means more than just having reliable sources. Rather than deleting all articles that do not currently have perfect sourcing, we keep or delete them based on notability. That is, we keep them if we have other reason to believe that several excellent sources do exist and that there will be someone interested in finding them, despite those sources being in less than perfect supply currently. —Centrx→talk • 20:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal essay

I started a *very* rough draft of a personal essay on notability here that might be of interest to some that watch this talk page. · j e r s y k o talk · 16:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

"Encyclopedic" content

Hi.

One thing I seem to have noticed here is that this "notability" thing is a criterion in itself that must be satisified beyond just verifiability, neutral point-of-view, etc. (as I believe it is entirely possible to have a verifiable, neutral article about some "non-notable" (according to some people's ideas of what that means) subjects.) The common argument is that the thing must be "encyclopedic". But what does that mean?

BTW, I just had this idea for an interesting "wikixperiment": set up a wiki site that is nothing but a place where everyone can put whatever the frigg they want in it, provided it is not illegal, and see just what accumulates. 70.101.144.160 20:43, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Follow the links. —Centrx→talk • 23:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability & NPOV

Hi.

How does this "notability" thing relate to the neutral point of view policy, as it says in the introduction that notabitiy is required in order for Wikipedia to be a "neutral, verifiable encyclopedia"? 70.101.144.160 23:06, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

See the Rationale section. Do you think it needs more explanation? —Centrx→talk • 23:22, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess not. 70.101.144.160 20:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability as definite criterion?

Hi.

I've noticed something: Is this "notability" thing a definite criterion in addition to WP:NOT, WP:V, etc., or is it used when verifiability, neutrality, etc. are difficult to determine? Ie. would a well-sourced article (if it was possible) on something somebody considers "non-notable" (which seems to be foggy) be slated for deletion? 70.101.144.160 23:23, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes - if reliable sources mention something trivial in passing, it could still be deleted for non-notability. Note, however, that if several reliable sources write non-trivial articles specifically about something, that generally makes it notable. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 02:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, because there wouldn't be enough reliable information there to produce a WP page, whereas if there are long articles, then there would be? 70.101.144.160 18:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to think of a topic that is indeed the subject of multiple independent highly reliable sources yet not notable, but for the merely a few moderately reliable sources that are acceptable for encyclopedic topics before their articles are improved, it is reasonable to ask, for one, whether the many highly reliable sources exist at all or will ever be found. —Centrx→talk • 04:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

In other words, if an article meets the main content policies superbly, it is hard to see how that could happen if the topic were not notable, so there would not be a conflict. Also, in practice, excellent articles don't get deleted for any reason. —Centrx→talk • 05:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

So then why even bother with "notability" anyway? To me, "well-verifiable and well-sourced" is a good enough criterion for inclusion. But in this seeming "impossible" situation, would "notability" override the rest? I would say no, no, no. 70.101.144.160 18:52, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Most articles are not well-sourced. If there is currently insufficient evidence that an article meets the other content policies well, we are left to look at notability. —Centrx→talk • 19:31, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, so then if the "notability" "policy" did not exist, then such articles might get deleted even if their subjects _were_ notable because there weren't enough sources. So the "notability" thing might actually allow for _more_ articles to be included, not less, as if it was just verifiability & reliable sources. 70.101.144.160 05:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, or alternatively we would have hundreds of thousands of aggrandizing articles about best friends and pseudo-advertisements. Without notability, we would either need to delete all unsourced or non-strongly sourced articles (90% of the articles, depending on how strict), decimating the idea that Wikipedia articles can be works in progress, or alternatively Wikipedia would cease to be an encyclopedia and would become a Myspace-like social networking site and business/advertising directory. —Centrx→talk • 06:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

And WP:NOT a directory. OK. 70.101.144.160 20:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

A Proposition: Notability, alone, is no reason to delete a page

I'm going to put this out in the open right now: I am adamently against the notability guideline. In my personal opinion, deleting a site based upon notability goes against everything we, as a "legitimate encyclopedia," should stand against. Is it not an encyclopedia's job to make note on everything, no matter how miniscule it may be? The inherent flaw with this guideline is that notability is completely subjective and to say that a site should be deleted because someone finds it unimportant is completely ridiculous. For example, I created a page for the band Poison Ivy League back in April, which was shortly deleted thereafter for being non-notable. Obviously, for reasons I don't feel the need to go into, I found it notable enough for it to warrant its own page; by this logic, doesn't that mean that the notability guideline fails?

This is why I propose that either notability lose its status as a guideline and revert to an essay, or that notability can only be used in conjunction with another guideline to support deletion. Because of notability's subjective nature, as well as the hypocrisy in removing articles from an encyclopedia unless they are flagrant abuses of the open source policies (i.e., entries for personal people/inside jokes/individual blogs), it seems unprofessional, to say the least, to enact on said policy. FreakmanJ 08:21, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Notability, as I understand it, isn't remotely subjective. Check out User:Uncle G/On notability, where an editor makes a case for notability as a very objective guideline. As for whether the job of an encyclopedia is to "make note on everything, no matter how miniscule it may be," I would say that, per WP:NOT, that's not at all what we mean by "encyclopedia" here. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. Lately, we've been getting more interested in improving quality than quantity, and by "quality", we mean making certain that all the information here is verifiable in independent, reliable sources. -GTBacchus^(talk) 08:49, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"Notability, as I understand it, isn't remotely subjective"? I could go my whole life unperturbed by not having noted the names or attributes of Pokemons, the Simpsons, Japanese ceramics or kung fu movies. But others find them highly significant. The criteria you boys set are in themselves subjective because you have decided subjectively what a thing's being notable is. Wikipedia should be an indiscriminate collection of information. After all, it pretends to be the sum of all human knowledge. Not just the knowledge that Uncle G personally finds worthy. Sadly though, the idea has foundered under the heavy foot of the wannabe bureaucrats, who delight more in applying rules and criteria, and more so, fear unruliness, which is a pity, because the perfectly ordered excludes the small flashes of beauty that exist at the margin. -- Grace Note. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.100.61.86 (talk • contribs) 10:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

"After all, it pretends to be the sum of all human knowledge." A common misconception, but no, it doesn't. People have thrown such phrases around, but Wikipedia has never actually aspired to be the sum of all human knowledge. Wikipedia is not, among other things, a web directory, a dictionary, or a scholarly journal. Fortunately, there are other websites and publications that are these various things that WP isn't. Your semantic juggling of the word "subjective" is cute, by the way. In this case, I recommend a dictionary, and some careful thought. In particular, you'll note that the criterion I'm suggesting makes no appeal to what any individual person "finds highly significant", only to what's been published. It's objective, in the sense that two different people can apply the criterion and arrive at the same conclusion without at any step having to consult their feelings. You can call it "arbitrary", if you like, but to call it "subjective" is simply an abuse of language. -GTBacchus^(talk) 11:11, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. -- Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia and Chair of the Wikimedia Foundation- | Press release - English Wikipedia Publishes Millionth Article --JJay 02:21, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there seem to be very conflicting messages from the main office, as to the goal of Wikipedia. On the one hand we're going for the "sum of all human knowledge." On the other, we rapidly delete anything that's original research or construed as non-notable. We need to clarify our message, because by continuing to say "sum of all human knowledge," we are actively encouraging everyone in the world to come in and add articles about themselves, their local church, their dog, and everything else under the sun. --Elonka 03:09, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

• Deletion is not particularly rapid, nor should it be so. We do actively encourage everyone in the world to add articles - that is how wikipedia was built. I'm fine with people adding articles about themselves, their local church, their dog, and everything else under the sun. Whether those articles remain on the site is a different story. But to deny that there is an inherently subjective element (not to mention an intense cultural bias) to the process of article retention is just silly. We should be defining what constitutes and contributes to human knowledge - what components participate in that sum - rather than wasting our time on flawed concepts like "notability".JJay 03:35, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• Well, if my dog or my church had mention in mainstream reputable sources, then they would be notable. Most of the notability issues come up because we don't have any reliable means of judging or fact-checking claims of notability -- it's why we rely on outside secondary sources to answer this question. We don't have to decide whether we are or aren't the "sum of all human knowledge" -- we've got secondary sources to decide that. Bottom line: notability is a reason to delete a page, because without notability, we have no yardstrick to judge the "facts" presented in an article. Morton devonshire 03:40, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
• The answer rests in what constitutes the sum of human knowledge. As someone recently commented, what I had for breakfast does not qualify. Also, before making proposals and or commenting further, read section Notability as definite criterion? above; at least some of these issues have already been discussed. Excellent, well-sourced articles are necessarily notable and in practice are not deleted. —Centrx→talk • 03:46, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

JJay, if you really think that "deletion is not particularly rapid" on Wikipedia then I have sad news for you. It's damn fast. Those of us who do some Newpage patrolling can attest to the fact that (rough estimate on my own) about 10 to 15% of all new articles are deleted within 2 to 30 minutes depending on the administrative backlog of speedy deletions. Of course, I'm perfectly ok with that and so is most of the community. As for the office sending mixed messages, well if someone is dumb enough to think that their own awareness of their dog's existence is part of the sum of all human knowledge, I have no second thoughts when reminding them that it is not. And it's not like we can expect Jimbo to advertise Wikipedia as "the sum of all human knowledge, where by human knowledge I don't of course mean the sum of every individual's own knowledge but the sum of humanity's shared knowledge of things". That's just not a good sound bite. Pascal.Tesson 03:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and even if such "excellent, well-sourced" articles, by some freak of nature were NOT notable, they would still NOT be deleted. That is a FACT. Too much sourcing to remove. Enough good high-quality detailed informative sources pretty much overrides any "notability" concern although if they exist the subject generally _is_ notable so no concern would usually arise, hence why I said "freak of nature". 70.101.144.160 20:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is further proof that this page does not deserve to be a guideline. People CONTINUE to come to the page rejecting its principles. This page does not have consensus, and is NOT a guideline. Anyone interested can take a look at the page WP:NNOT, which was burried by the supporters of this page - they marked it as rejected, and are under arbitration for that, amongst other things. Fresheneesz 22:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Did you read the above discussion? Nothing about this rejects the principles of notability. —Centrx→talk • 22:46, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

It's not like you would expect people that support this guideline to come flooding the talk page with pointless support messages. This page, as has carefully been explained time and again, reflects the actual practice on AfD. Pascal.Tesson 23:03, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism is also common practice on wikipedia. Does that make it right? Fresheneesz 19:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a non sequitur, but to answer directly: vandalism is not common practice by Wikipedia editors. There is also no conceivable reason how vandalism would be in line with the purpose of Wikipedia, or Wikipedia content policies; vandalism is, by definition and without exception or controversy, degrading to the encyclopedia. —Centrx→talk • 19:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Sports

On New Article Patrol, I'm currently noticing a lot of new articles coming in about soccer. Football clubs, individual athletes, etc. Since I'm not a soccer fan, I've mostly been passing these through as I have no idea how to judge whether a particular club is "notable" or not. Or should I start getting tougher on articles that don't seem to provide a lot of sources? Are there any guidelines for notability on sports figures and teams? --Elonka 02:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

For borderline or uncertain cases, I would leave them be, or put a Notability or Importance tag on. If no one adds sources or improves the article it will eventually be deleted. —Centrx→talk • 03:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Every case is particular but generally speaking, even fairly small football clubs have been the subject of enough third-party work to build a reasonnably sourced article. As for individual athletes, the notability guidelines should be the norm. If you feel like you don't know enough to pass judgment, then just let other editors do it. There are typically many users simultaneously doing some patrolling and someone else will handle the subjects you don't feel competent enough to tag. Pascal.Tesson 14:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Should notability be a guideline?

I want to know what the people that come to this talk page think. Please don't flood this header with long person opinion, I'd just like to know where people stand. Thanks! Fresheneesz 22:41, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

People who come to this talk page can create their own discussion sections without you trying to initiate yet another poll. —Centrx→talk • 22:48, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Er, I disagree with it, and several others do... so I think it... shouldn't be anything. People use it regardless of status, so it should be neither an essay or guideline...-- Chris chat edits essays 23:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

• Notability should not be a criterion for deletion. It's subjective and flawed. For example, Nutter Butter was speedy deleted as not-notable, but when put to a vote, 100% of respondents wanted the article kept. This is an example of how valid content is deleted, and if somone hadn't noticed, and requested undeletion, the encyclodedia would have one less article, taing it one step away from being "the sum of all human knowledge". If valid content can be deleted, then this isn't a useful criterion for deletion. — Reinyday, 03:43, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I think that, if "notability" is to be a guideline, then the definition of "notability" can't be as widely varying as it actually is. At a bare minimum, this page must reflect the fact that there's significant disagreement about what notability is and what role it plays in the deletion process. JYolkowski // talk 03:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The subguidelines are pretty specific and largely based on there being a likelihood of continuing reliable sources. There is not much disagreement over whether notability is a valid criterion for deletion; there is some variance in what some consider notable or not, but that does not mean that one person considers a subject a highly notable and another person considers it completely non-notable; the variance is rather small. —Centrx→talk • 05:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, Nutter Butter was deleted under a peculiar interpretation of the new G11. —Centrx→talk • 05:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
    • As Centrx says. G11 is not about notability, but about a recent Board request to deal more sternly with advertisement articles. Note also the significant recent expansion of the article. >Radiant< 12:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
• Considering how it's used, notability should be a policy. 170.215.83.212 02:46, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia popularity

Notability becomes more important with the increase in the popularity of Wikipedia. Aside from the obvious result with more people adding super-fan, advertising, and other aggrandizing pages with higher visibility, it is also an issue with tendentious editing. Non-notable subjects on the encyclopedia are prone to people trying to advance a particular point of view—with no one else interested enough in the article to notice or fix it or get in some involved content dispute about it, and it is harder to even identify it or fix it because of a lack of independent reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 02:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

People should do a bit of newpage patrolling to see how bad it actually is... Pascal.Tesson 03:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

It can be bad, but notability actualy makes it *more* difficult to delete all the crap people put on wikipedia. Telling someone something is "not notable" can be taken as a slap in the face ('can' not 'should', mind you), and showing someone some arbitrary guideline like notability will not show them how to be good editors. Showing someone instead how to source their information, and how to write in an encyclopedic fasion will help bring new, good, editors to the wiki - something we are in sore need of. Fresheneesz 19:14, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That would be a problem with helping new editors, not a problem with helping to delete crap. —Centrx→talk • 19:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Pissing off new editors makes it *harder* to delete stuff. Things are easier when people cooperate, don't you think? Fresheneesz 20:36, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

They may get pissed off if they aren't given an explanation as to why it is deleted, but that doesn't change whether it should be deleted or not. People get pissed off if you delete their advertisements or their copyright infringements or their personal essays or their blatant vandalism, but they should still be deleted. —Centrx→talk • 20:46, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

If an editor gets pissed off by something like copyvio, which is something very well documented and largely objective, then that editor is being unreasonable and is probably are not going to last long here anyway. OTOH, I believe that the inherent subjectivity of notability tends to piss off even a reasonable editor. Copyvio and the other issues you mentioned are much less subjective, much less open to debate, and therefore less likely to piss off the reasonable, good faith editor. ATren 21:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

One thing being assumed is that the stuff being deleted *deserves* to be deleted. However, if 50% of the stuff we delete based on notability *shouldn't* have been deleted, then thats 50% of our time we waste. I think that people throwing out their opinion as to whether something is notable or not is not an efficient way to determine whether we should spend our time deleting an article or not. Forcing people to think about verifiability, and OR will allow people to better understand what needs to be deleted - and what doesn't. Fresheneesz 07:30, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No, there is no waste of time. Any time spent investigating notability is doing things that would need to done anyway in order to make a proper encyclopedia article, such as finding sources. It would have to be done if the article is kept, or we have people spending time tagging the article, cluttering up the already crowded Cleanup categories, or the article is simply left derelict, not meeting any of the content criteria. All of that is more expensive that the 1 second it takes to delete an article. —Centrx→talk • 08:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

If new editors are told that their info must be properly sourced, they have two options: either find reliable sources, or resign themselves to the fact that the tipic doesn't belong. On the other hand, when new editors are told "this isn't notable", the only option they have is to get into a notability debate, and the vagueness of the notability definition (or lack of definition) pretty much ensures that the debate will escalate, as each side interprets notability according to their own subjective experience. In this sense, I agree with Fresheneesz, that using notability as a reason for deletion of a topic is much more likely to "piss off" a new editor.

I also believe that better enforcement of proper sourcing will, in itself, reduce the amount of crap: if the proponents of the page can find reliable sources, the "crappiness" factor is thereby reduced by the very existence of sources; if not, the page can be deleted with the justification that it's not properly sourced. Either of these scenarios is preferable to a subjective notability debate - in the former case, notability might delete a page that is not as "crappy" as it seemed; in the latter case, new editors are less likely to be pissed off if the stated reason for deletion is that they can't (or won't) provide reliable sources.

(This has the potential to open up a further debate as to what type of source is "reliable", but reliablity of sources is, IMO, much less subjective than the vague concept of notability). ATren 21:00, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Then it's not explained properly to them. If they find a set of highly reliable sources, then it is necessarily notable. In fact, that is in my experience usually what the person will do in response to being told about problems of notability. They will come up with sources, though they may not actually be reliable or there may be few of them. Only when there are no legitimate sources to be had does the person usually complain about notability not being a valid reason to get rid of their article.

Regarding this page, we could move the contents of the Rationale section to the introduction. —Centrx→talk • 23:22, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

What's with this idea that notability is a subjective criterion? Are people not understanding notability as it's defined, for example, at User:Uncle G/On notability? The criterion, as explained there, is quite objective, and has nothing to do with the individual biases of the person making the decision. Doesn't something have to depend on the person, to be subjective? -GTBacchus^(talk) 10:40, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have had my doubts about the use of "non-trivial" in the definition there, but otherwise, it is the closest thing to objectivity that is said about notability on Wikipedia. I would hate to think that voters on AfD who say "non-encyclopedic" or "non-notable" were thinking of their own perceptions as opposed to strictly weighing up the evidence, but then again, it is always possible they overlook the specifics of that definition and go with their gut feeling. (which would be why a perception of subjectivity would be so common) Ansell 11:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it would be great if that criterion were actually written down on Wikipedia:Notability. I'm not willing to edit any policy or guideline pages just now (once bitten), but it would be great to somehow make it clearer to everyone that notability can and should be an objective criterion, and always has been for those who are applying it responsibly. Saying at an AfD "Delete because I've never heard of this" is quite different from "delete unless someone can demonstrate non-trivial coverage in independent sources." -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:14, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, people use the word "notability" to mean basically anything right now, which is highly unconstructive and leads to problems at AfD. JYolkowski // talk 03:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you be more specific with examples; purely negative, unproductive, criticism is not going get anyone to stop deleting non-notable articles or refine their interpretations of what notability means. —Centrx→talk • 05:17, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

What is notability?

This page says that articles should meet a "threshold" of notability - but it never explains what notability is, and how it can be determined. This page is useless without such a definition. Fresheneesz 19:20, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

It explains the source of notability (which is a word with a common definition) as regards Wikipedia, in the Rationale section. More specific information is currently included in the subguidelines. What improvements do you suggest? —Centrx→talk • 19:27, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, first of all, I suggest that this page not imply that verifiability and NPOV are based on notability - in fact it is the other way around at best. In order for an article be verifiable, it must be sourced - regardless of how notable it is. The rationale section is misleading.

What I really suggest is a definition of notability so that people know what we're talking about. Notability is not only subjective, but its a word that means different things to different people. We need to clarify what definition we're using. Fresheneesz 20:35, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

However, you must also remember that lots of verifiable, neutral articles are deleted every day due to lack of notability. Notability is not just to ensure verifiability and NPOV, it is also to ensure that Wikipedia stays an encyclopedia, and not a directory of random information. If verifiability and neturality were the only criteria, then anything satisfying them would be game, and this is not the case -- just look at all the deletion logs! Notability "raises the bar" even further: it provides an additional criterion that must be satisfied after neutrality and verifiability.

You are very right that we need a definition, I've tried to push for this, but still no joy. A good definition will let it become official policy (which it deserves to be considering how it's used -- ie. in the deletion process). Notability as official policy? Yep. 170.215.83.212 02:45, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Need for good hard definition, and a brief proposal

Hi.

Since it seems that notability is often used as a criterion for deletion, sometimes alone (which I don't necessarily approve of. I believe it can be used for deletion, but ideally it should not be a sole reason.), I think that eventually this will have to become official policy of the Wikipedia. Do you agree with this having to happen eventually?

To that end, I decided to maybe try out some definitions to see if they would work. I would suggest that the level of notability of a subject should be determined by the amount of reliable, non-trivial high-quality sources reporting on it and the amount of material reported (for example a one-line mention is not enough, whereas a multi-page article on the subject is much, much more significant indeed.). This is what I would have as the main judge, and the one that would provide for deletion/keep, however other notability criteria could be added that if met might suggest the possible existence of such sources even if they haven't been found yet. But the point is to have a general, unified definition for everything, instead of needing a whole lot of "guidelines" to "define" notability one class of topics at a time. That way, we can have one policy page called "Notability", and we don't need to keep coming up with/revising critera for various subjects, but instead could all refer to the simple, concise, unified definition. Remember, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and not a directory of random junk.

Although the exact nature of "reliable, non-trivial, high-quality sources" has not been given rigor, it definitely should.

What do you think? 70.101.144.160 02:29, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

If you check the extended discussions on this and the Notability (Academics) you will see the difficulty of finding an exact definition even in a single area of th encyclopedia. But basically I might agree, for as I see it, it basically comes down to what people might expect to find, and what wouldn't be too much trouble to write giving useful information & some attempt at a source.

As an extension of this, I prefer not to consider members of groups too large for all the members can be included. It's perfectly possible to find info & do a sketch for everyone who has been a member of the US Congress, or even the 50 state Assemblies. It's not possible to do this for everyone who's ever received a M.D. Another personal criterion I like is whether there is something to say more than could be found in a simple web search. For example, that eliminates most smaller businesses with a web presence. I think my views on this may be considerably more restrictive than the general opinion here.DGG 02:34, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

But the baseline seems to be somewhere around the proposal I gave, if not exactly. Although an exacting definition is probably not easy, and I never said it was, I do believe it is ultimately necessary so this can become official policy like it deserves to be, considering how much it is used in deletion, for example. And the reason one couldn't write articles on every M.D. or Ph.D. or whatever is due to the amount (or lack of) verifiable, reliable, high-quality, non-trivial sources. There's already a proposal to unify WP:V and WP:NOR going around -- WP:ATT. Perhaps we should be thinking about unifying all these notability guidelines into a single concise definition of notability, and then get that to become an official, core, content-guiding policy (as notability has become darned close to one already considering the use in deletion!). What do you think? 170.215.83.212 05:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

long-standing lack of consensus

The disagreement about formal criteria, and the variations in gut feelings, are evident from the discussion above, the archived discussion, and the many other places in WP where similar discussions have taken place. But lets look at what is actually the case: the standard seems to be the willingness of someone to defend an article. Many articles rejected for lack of neutral sources could find them, it someone cared sufficiently. DGG 23:43, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

No, many people defend non-notable articles and they are still deleted. In a borderline case, someone would need to take the time to provide positive evidence about the article, but it is not difficult to establish a level of notability sufficient to keep the article and if no one thinks a subject is important enough to bother spending the trivial amount of time it would take to do that then it is probably not notable or important to be included in the encyclopedia. Keep in mind that these articles can be restored if anyone comes up with the sources. You should read the above discussion again; there are no gut feelings about it. —Centrx→talk • 02:47, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• An article may be properly referenced with "neutral sources" and still be deleted as non-notable. Please let me know if you need specific references. — Reinyday, 03:51, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Yes, examples would be good. Also note that the goal for an encyclopedia article is still to have multiple independent reliable sources. If a subject has a couple of blurbs in a local television station website, that does not qualify, and in 5 years those sources will have vanished. —Centrx→talk • 05:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
    • There is disagreement among editors about what constitutes a neutral source (or indeed, a good source period). >Radiant< 12:40, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Example: I created an article on Sanford L. Gottesman. He is an OPIC member, started the Gottesman Company (which currently does not have a Wikiepdia article), is on the Austin Chamber of Commerce, etc. and is father to Blake Gottesman. He is easy to document with reliable sources that are not disputed in value (such as this white house press release), yet the detetion "discussion" centered on people voting that he was not notable enough for an article. This deletion had nothing to do with verifiability, only the subjective issue of notability. — Reinyday, 19:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the article, it is two sentences long, one of them being "He is the father of Blake Gottesman...", and the only two sources were to his company website and to what was presumably a listing on the OPIC website, now deleted. The White House press release was not listed, but regardless where can we find information even about the date he was born. There is not enough information to make anything near a complete encyclopedia article on the person; all the information can be found in the OPIC article and the Blake Gottesman article, where it belongs. It can be considered to have been merged there. —Centrx→talk • 22:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Reinyday, notability, properly understood, is not subjective. It means "non-trivial coverage in multiple independent sources." Whether or not a source is independent of the subject is objective. Whether or not there exists more than one source is objective. Whether or not coverage is trivial is the only part that could remotely be called subjective, but it basically comes down to whether the subject was actually covered directly or was just mentioned incidentally in a source's coverage of something else. Looking at the deleted article and its sources, it appears that Sanford L. Gottesman is objectively non-notable, by the clear criterion that we call "notability". Of the two sources, one is his own company's site (not independent), and the other is a broken link. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

guideline header?

Hi all. This page was tagged as a guideline and many objected. Someone created a custom header which explains the page. Radiant again marked it as a guideline. I have restored the custom header. I know that Radiant would like this page tagged as a guideline, but is there any consensus on this issue? — Reinyday, 19:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that this is not a guideline. It needs much more consensus before we get to that point. --JJay 19:33, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  I've said it before and I'll say it again - if we polled the Wikipedia community today over Wikipedia:Verifiability we would find it hasn't got consensus. If we checked whether WP:NOT has consensus - it hasn't! This page seems rather fundamental to me, and I'm surprised to see people clamoring to have it "demoted". How are we supposed to write a reliable encyclopedia without insisting on reliable sources? -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  Regarding your question: How are we supposed to write a reliable encyclopedia without insisting on reliable sources?- What does that have to do with this page? We have WP:RS and WP:V already. In point of fact, much of this page seems like someone's personal spin on other existing guidleine/policy pages. It really feels more like an essay than a policy page. And if those other policy pages lack consensus, as you claim, then they should be rewritten or demoted. We can write a reliable encyclopedia without a plethora of conflicting "guideline" pages that often act more as obstacles to the process - mechanisms of division in my view - than true guidelines. --JJay 19:52, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

  JJay, you're right; I was confused there. There's a similar discussion going on regarding WP:RS, and I mixed it up with this one. As for the idea that any policy page not enjoying consensus support should be demoted, that is simply incorrect. According to that reasoning, all we need is for a group of people to say they no longer agree with WP:NPOV and presto! - Wikipedia no longer has to be neutral. If a group of people disagree with WP:V and WP:NOR then suddenly we're free to publish unsubstatiated rumors. If enough people disagree with WP:NOT, then Wikipedia magically becomes a free web-host? No.

  Anyway, we're talking about notability here. I agree that it comes across too subjectively, hence my suggestion in the section below that the page be rewritted to cast "notability" as an objective criterion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:09, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm with GTBacchus on this one. The other argument which was made repeatedly is that this is a guideline in the sense that it represents current practice. I do understand that some people are reluctant to see it tagged as a guideline because they feel that it unjustifiably cements the role of notability in the deletion process but nobody is saying that this page is policy and it specifically mentions that this is a contentious issue. For the sake of clarity, I think the guideline tag is more appropriate. As for the last comments of JJay, I really don't understand what in the current page feels like someone's personal take on other guidelines. The page has been edited by multiple users and is a fairly carefully written account of the current practices. Or am I missing something? Pascal.Tesson 19:58, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Ignoring my personal objections to this being a guideline, I think this page has a few problems right now in reflecting current practice:

1. The use of notability is an incredibly nebulous criterion (e.g. people mean different things by the term) and this page doesn't reflect current practice in that manner.
2. This page doesn't reflect the fact that there is no agreement as to the extent that notability plays in deletion in the absence of content policy problems. People with a more inclusionist bent will tend to put little if any emphasis on notability in these discussions, and people with a more deletionist bent the opposite.

Also, with regards to some of the consensus stuff above, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV are really pillars of the encyclopedia. In order to demote them we'd need an incredible amount of opposition, because they are universally accepted. In order to demote a page like this, which is just a guideline and has only been for a little while, and which not everyone accepts anyway, the amount of objection to it can be significantly smaller. JYolkowski // talk 21:48, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

You seem to be suggesting there is some amount of objection that would be sufficient to demote core policies. At the risk of straying further off subject, I don't think that's true. Regarding the points you raised about this page, what do you think of the idea of making the notability criterion less nebulous by specifying what notability means in a concrete, objective way, a la User:Uncle G/On notability? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I think it's a good idea. If we're going to have a guideline on notability, that guideline should be about something concrete, not something nebulous. We don't need guidelines about nebulous concepts.

Going off subject again, there was something else I thought of. The dispute over WP:RS is not occurring because people think that using reliable sources is bad; everyone thinks it's a good idea in principle. Rather, the problem is in the way the principle is currently codified allows editors to gut articles of content that really does belong there, and for other abuses. There's a rewrite from scratch in progress that may fix these problems. The reason that I mention this is that this page could be similar. I doubt anyone would disagree with the principle that "you should try to avoid writing articles about things that are really obscure and have next to no references", but codifying the concept might lead to problems. JYolkowski // talk 22:30, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The concept itself of notability is quite firm. There is a nebulous region around borderline-notable subjects, but there is no doubt that a subject above a certain threshhold is unequivocally notable and a subject below a certain threshhold is unequivocally not notable. —Centrx→talk • 22:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Because of the huge volume of articles on Wikipedia, the area in the middle is inhabited by huge numbers of articles. Because people mean different things when they use the word "notability", this causes frequent contention over articles' notability on AfD. JYolkowski // talk 22:39, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

If, as you say Centrx, the concept of notability is quite firm, then surely it can't hurt to make its wording equally firm and unequivocal? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding the specific reason given in the edit summary when the tag was changed ("most recent talk topic discusses "lack of consensus", so debate on talk has not died down"), anyone at all can create a section header that says "lack of consensus", but that has no bearing on whether a page is or is not a guideline, and the person who created that section in this case is on wikibreak for a week and is not even here to defend the weak reasoning provided in that comment. —Centrx→talk • 22:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
  • I have no objection to making the wording clearer or firmer. Indeed, that has been my intention all along. Personally, I don't think 'notability' is any more nebulous than 'reliable source', 'disruption' or 'civility', but more clarity is always good. Incidentally, Uncle G's page is well written. >Radiant< 23:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

• Centrix, my edit summary was a response to Radiant's edit summary when (s)he tagged this page as a guideline saying "debate on talk has died down and there's general agreement with Pascal's statements"[1]. Debate on this subject has never died down and I think "general agreement" is actually agreement by a small number of people. This page has gone from the format it was in for 2 years to being what I would call Radiant's version of notability. I don't think there is consensus for this to be tagged a guideline, and the wasn't several months ago, which is why the custom header was created. — Reinyday, 20:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The custom header was created because people were edit warring about what the {{guideline}} tag means. Articles on non-notable subjects have been deleted for that reason at least since 2003. This is and always has been an encyclopedia. —Centrx→talk • 04:17, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability as "subjective"

I notice that a common objection to using notability as an inclusion criterion is that it's claimed to be "subjective". In other words, a judgement of notability depends on the person making the judgement, as opposed to something objective, which can be measured the same by any measurer.

On User:Uncle G/On notability, we're provided with a definition of notability that's not very subjective at all, and I wonder how much objection to this sometime guideline we would obviate if we make it clear on this page that notability is to be a precise term with a precise definition at Wikipedia. I would suggest Uncle G's definition, but I'm certainly open to others. Let's make it objective, and then we can at least agree what we're talking about. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:29, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I quite like Uncle G's definition, but really it seems the current ones follow quite well from it. In almost all cases, subjects who fail the notability criteria also don't have enough source material to write a good article about them, are writing an autobiography, or are spam for a company. I'm really not all that sorry to see any of that cruft go. The current guidelines follow logically from WP:NOR, WP:V, and WP:NPOV, which are all established and excellent policies. Seraphimblade 07:58, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

• Uncle G's eloquent definition is fine with me. >Radiant< 12:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

About the possible merge

Don't get me wrong, I love UncleG's essay. But, unfortunately, I don't think that it represents consensus. Pascal.Tesson 14:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• Why not? (not argumentative, just curious) The reactions on its talk page are reasonably positive. What in particular do you object to, or believe other people object to? >Radiant< 14:16, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, I wholly support UncleG's essay and have commented as such on the essay's talk page. But inclusionists like Fresheneesz (talk · contribs) or Kappa (talk · contribs), I think they will be very much bothered by anything that cements the use of notability as a criterion for deletion. Pascal.Tesson 15:39, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think these objections will be obviated somewhat by firming up the definition of "notability", seeing as one of the primary objections to it now is the claim that it's a "subjective" criterion. If we can demonstrate that the criterion is something concrete that doesn't depend on the taste or experience of the person making the evaluation, then we can at least have a more focused discussion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:33, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• Dislike of common practice is not a very strong argument against writing down common practice. >Radiant< 15:50, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you're wasting your time convincing me of something I'm convinced about. All I'm saying is "merge this with UncleG's essay and you'll unleash furious edit warring" and I don't think it's worth it right now. Pascal.Tesson 16:02, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

If we're counting heads, or !voting, or whatnot, I support merging Uncle G's essay here. "We are an encyclopedia" is a foundation issue. "We are not a directory" is policy. Maybe it's possible for someone to argue that "Directories fulfill NPOV/V/NOR" isn't true, but I'm not sure how. --Interiot 21:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

It should not be merged in the same way one would merge an article. Slowly, appropriate parts should be integrated into this page. It is not written in the tone of a guideline, not all of it must be merged here, and it is quite long. Separately, there would be too much disagreement to do it any other way. Sentence by sentence, day by day. —Centrx→talk • 22:07, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I think the most important part to merge here is the objective defnition of "notable", just so people can, on the one hand, stop claiming that notability is too subjective to use as a criterion, and on the other hand, stop saying things like, "non-notable because I haven't heard of it". I suspect a lot of the controversy surrounding this page would go away if we just include a firm, Wikipedia-specific definition, as we have for so many other terms like "vandalism", "verifiable", etc. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

That's a fairly convincing argument. But as Centrx said (kind of) let's do this baby-step by baby-step because this is likely to create mayhem. Pascal.Tesson 01:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I also concur. The definition of "notable" is certainly the most important part of that essay, and definitely deserves a place on WP:N. --Nehwyn 09:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the definition is indeed important. Centrx's argument about the non-guideline/policy/etc. tone, length, etc. does not and should not detract from merging in the heart of the proposal -- the objective definition of notability that it provides. 170.215.83.212 21:16, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

By the way, has anyone asked UncleG's input on this merge? Pascal.Tesson 21:29, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

I've left him a note. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

For my money Uncle G's essay is a masterpiece, a coherent, comprehensive and unambiguous definition of both the purpose and the diagnosis of notability. I would merge in the sense of completely replacing the existing content! Guy (Help!) 22:28, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Not that I entirely disagree but obviously such a radical change would first require a thorough consultation of the community. Inclusionists don't think the current guideline is a good idea and Uncle G's essay is arguably even more favorable to the use of notability as a criterion for deletion. I suggest that if we want to do that, it's important to begin by creating a proposal subpage and get input from the community. It's also important that we take our time and let ample time for people to state their case either way. I would support that kind of move but it's important to recognize that it would be a radical change and as such should not be expected to be implemented before a few weeks if not months of careful consensus building. Pascal.Tesson 22:43, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

It is unnecessarily long, parts of it are not accurate with regard to the situation (e.g., in the Secondary criteria, it states that top 10 hits are acceptable just because "we want" to include them, even if there are no reliable sources to be had), it is not written in the proper tone, and it does not include important elements of notability that are currently on this page, such as related to merging. No one has gotten around to merging any of it yet, but some merging and improvement is definitely warranted. —Centrx→talk • 05:42, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

About the merge sign

Shouldn't the merge sign be at the top? As it is now one has to scroll down to the end of the infobox to start reading the text? What is the consensus? --Oden 16:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

• It appears at the top of the infobox on my system. What resolution are you using? >Radiant< 17:35, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 6.0 and resolution 1024*768. --Oden 08:46, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Moved up the merge sign one notch. --Oden 09:01, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability tag on Claud Jacob

Whether the entry relating to Claud Jacob is considered notable enough by editors of Wikipedia quite frankly leaves me cold. Wikipedia contains so very many less notable entries, contains so many errors, I find this attitude high handed if not arrogant. So who are these eminent historians who would say this that or the other biography should be excluded, or indeed included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kennethjacob (talk • contribs) 11:25, November 11, 2006 (UTC)

This tag does not necessarily mean that anyone has positively decided that the subject is not notable, it can very well mean that the notability of the subject is unclear based on reading the article and that more information about the person should be presented. This may warrant changing the template to be clearer on this, or perhaps Template:Importance should be reserved for this purpose? —Centrx→talk • 20:03, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I actually deleted the tag which was unwarranted. Pascal.Tesson 21:11, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

• I'd say the template is pretty clear on this, but would not object to a rewording. I think {{notability}}, as presently worded, is better than {{importance}}, since the latter does not link to the subject-specific guidelines and the former does (and has a parameter to select the most appropriate one). (Radiant) 17:36, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

revert war over

Non-notability means there are problems with adequate attribute-ability and neutrality because there are too few sources about it without a conflict of interest. WAS 4.250 22:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:ATT does not appear to be stable, and it has not yet superseded WP:V & WP:RS. Also, this is not all that notability means; putting it in the first line supersedes the previous definition. WP:COI may warrant mention somewhere, but "non-partisan" means more than conflict of interest, and articles are neutral not merely because there is no conflict of interest. There must be editors who are not merely fans of the subject. The example I used in the edit summary were fans of a band: they add happy, flattering trivia to the article about the band, and there is no one other than those band fans who bother with the article because of its lack of notability, but there is no violation of WP:COI, they have no relation or closeness to the band excepting thinking that their music is "awesome". —Centrx→talk • 23:13, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:ATT does not appear to be stable. True. Substitute WP:V & WP:RS if you like. I'm not picky.

This is not all that notability means. I think my sentence encompasses all that wikipedia needs to deal with in deleting due to "non-notability.

Putting it in the first line supersedes the previous definition. I think it ought to be the definition.

WP:COI may warrant mention somewhere. Fine. Put it somewhere. I'm not big on fighting.

"Non-partisan" means more than conflict of interest, and articles are neutral not merely because there is no conflict of interest. Yeah, but what's that gotta do with notability that isn't covered by COI?

There must be editors who are not merely fans of the subject. The example I used in the edit summary were fans of a band: they add happy, flattering trivia to the article about the band, and there is no one other than those band fans who bother with the article because of its lack of notability, but there is no violation of WP:COI, they have no relation or closeness to the band excepting thinking that their music is "awesome". That deals with NPOV, not notability. WAS 4.250 07:51, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:V and WP:RS are already explained there. This ignores WP:NOT and is focused too heavily on WP:COI. If the only people interested in editing an article are band fans, then the subject is not notable enough to warrant an article, whether or not it happens to currently be neutral, or whether it can be fixed temporarily to meet NPOV. Please read the rest of the talk page, such as section #Notability as definite criterion?, also. —Centrx→talk • 08:02, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

You wish the noteability requirement to cover things I don't wish it cover or said another way, I think "lack of notability" should only be used as a reason for deleting an article when there are problems with adequate attribute-ability and neutrality because there are too few sources about it without a conflict of interest whereas you wish to also be able to delete articles by claiming "lack of notability" for reasons covered at WP:NOT other than that covered by the statement I prefer. I think it is more clear if articles deleted due to WP:NOT criteria other than notability are said to be deleted due to those WP:NOT criteria. Or maybe the problem is I haven't looked at WP:NOT in a while and it needs changing? WAS 4.250 19:27, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, but you have to justify the reasons for that and convince others. Regarding WP:NOT, it has always said, for example, something along the lines of "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of notoriety or achievement", but it does not and should not have a separate section explaining exactly how that is to be determined. Notability, as a guideline which is more flexible than a policy, fleshes out that statement both with general points here, and currently with reference to the particular subguidelines. One can easily refer to WP:NOT as a reason for deleting, but it cannot be done as a reason for keeping, and referring to WP:NOT is not sufficient to explain how it is that a subject does not meet WP:NOT. In addition, the factors of notability work together; there are highly reliable sources on every single company and person in any modern country, specifically tax information and vital records. There is no problem with attributability and one can create a simple neutral article, with no conflict of interest. One can reasonably say that articles in that respect would constitute an indiscriminate directory, but there is no specific provision in WP:NOT against this information (we do currently, for example, have an indiscriminate directory of towns and secondary schools), and what about when there is a single minor blurb about the company or person in the local newspaper, or how about a major piece in a local newspaper or a minor blurb in a regional newspaper, etc. There is no indication in WP:NOT what would be an indiscriminate directory and what not, and WP:NOT is already laden enough without adding specfic provisions for everything as thorough as WP:CORP or even this page. —Centrx→talk • 20:43, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

(<--)Non-notability is means that after attribute-ability and neutrality and conflict of interest are taken into account (content must pass all three) the resulting article can not pass WP:NOT. If it clearly fails any one, then that policy is used to delete rather than "notability". But when versions of the article can pass each policy seperately but not all together (what could make it pass one makes it fail another) then "notability" is often the clearest way to express this. Better? My point is I wish to clearly base "notability" on policy, so notability is derivable rather than otherwise. conflict of interest is especially noteworthy in regard to deleting non-notable articles because it is typically the reason the source asserting notability lacks credible attribute-ability. By the way, my preference for the name of WP:ATT is Establish Credibility. WAS 4.250 21:35, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Notability is ultimately based on verifiability and neutrality—and it already says a little more specifically how that is right at the beginning of the current page—but that an article currently does not have highly reliable sources or that it is currently neutral or not neutral does not entail that it is notable or not. See discussion above. —Centrx→talk • 22:22, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Wording notice

I think it should be mentioned that the way some people use "non-notable" encompasses "not important" and "not significant". This is only hinted at in the first sentence. The big problem is that "non-notable" can be interpreted as "not famous or well known" - plenty of things are not well known but still appropriate for an encyclopedia. That sense is obviously not what is being meant in this article, but in the midst of discussions for newer users, either meaning can produce sensical but different context (i.e. "delete, not well known" and "delete, not a signficant topic" can both make sense to a new user). (I personally dislike having to look at the word and constantly remind myself which meaning is being used - that ambiguity makes it too susceptible to accidental equivocation - but I missed the whole thing with the failed proposal.) —AySz88\^-^ 08:05, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Yet another challenge to the guideline status

FYI: user Dan100 (talk · contribs) has again deleted the guideline tag with the edit summary "not a guideline, never will be". I have reverted the change and left a message on his talk page. Pascal.Tesson 20:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Based on his editing history it looks like he is annoyed at a certain article being up for deletion, and also made a bogus change to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion. Not bringing an issue up on the talk page, and using an edit summary like "not a guideline, never will be" is clearly not someone open to discussion or compromise. —Centrx→talk • 21:03, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of what you think about his edits, using Javascript to revert such edits is frowned upon. JYolkowski // talk 23:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

All apologies, I did not know it was. But then again, why is it frowned upon? I mean this is a pretty clear cut case of a careless edit that should have been brought up first on the talk page. And what's the use of a Javascript tool that you can't use? Pascal.Tesson 02:55, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Automated reverts should not be used for cases that warrant a proper edit summary; vandalism is the most common situation where that is the case. This does look like a case where a user was blowing off steam, not trying to be productive, and is never going to return anyway; if they do, they can see this discussion here. —Centrx→talk • 03:31, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, my thoughts exactly. I included a note in the talk page at the same time to explain it more carefully and left a message on his talk page. So I think I can get away with a little Javascipt here... Pascal.Tesson 03:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)