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SNG change

Barkeep49, which discussion is this edit alluding to? I think that the edit to the first sentence is an improvement, but the second change is rather significant, as it would imply that topics with SNGs must meet said SNGs in order to be considered notable. signed, Rosguill talk 22:11, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

  • Agree, the second change should be reversed. There are always instances where GNG trumps an SNG, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:26, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I've undone it, as the edit is not accurate. No SNG is also required to meet the GNG - that is, the SNG is an alternative to the GNG - and except for NCORP, the GNG is an alternative to the SNG. NCORP is the exception due where the GNG defers to it because of possible COI issues with promotion. --Masem (t) 22:57, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
  • See the discussion here, I believe Barkeep49 was attempting to clarify the SNG. I disagree with Masem. I have always understood that every article must meet GNG, but there is a presumption an article meeting an SNG will pass GNG. SportingFlyer T·C 23:03, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
    @SportingFlyer, there are editors who will tell you that multiple criteria in WP:NPROF don't require any independent sources at all and are meant to bypass the GNG's requirement for independent sources. According to them, it's just up to the individual editor's judgment whether someone had "a substantial impact" on higher education, and sourcing an entire article to someone's résumé or their employer's website is okay. Efforts to change this have been rejected in the past.[1] WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing: Oh, I know. NPROF is the exception to the rule here and I'm not really referencing it. As a result, I don't touch NPROF articles, because I have absolutely no idea when notability has been met, or even when there's a notability grey area. My idea in the past is to expand the WP:GNG to include the types of sources that would normally make a professor notable, but even that's controversial since it might shake the apple cart. SportingFlyer T·C 18:30, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Clearly I didn't word it well. I know Masem says that no SNG is required to meet the GNG. That's now how I read the May discussion. Some SNGs are quite clearly alternatives to the GNG - e.g. WP:NPROF. Others are shortcuts - that is a way that we can presume notability without having to have the same discussions challenged over and over again. I do agree with Atlantic306 that something which meets GNG but not the SNG is going to be notable. However, even that is a bit controversial. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:05, 6 November 2020 (UTC)


I originally posted this as a new discussion section, but realized that this discussion is effectively about the same thing. So, I hope you don't mind if I just roll my comments into this discussion instead of starting a redundant one.

Hi there. I've been an admin since 2012, and have been very active in participating in and closing AfDs during that time. I took a wikibreak for several years, and returned recently to being more active. As I returned, I noticed an interesting change to the subject-specific notability guidelines on WP:N. The wording has been tweaked, and in my opinion, it creates ambiguities that muddy the exact meaning of the policy. Perhaps consensus around the nature of notability has shifted while I've been away, which is fine if that's true. But, my understanding of notability was that GNG is the ultimate test. My understanding has always been that if it can be shown that an article meets GNG, then it's notable, full stop, and is presumed to deserve a standalone article as long as it doesn't violate any other WP policies. My understanding was that SNGs are simply a shortcut that can be used to quickly estimate whether a topic is likely to meet GNG after an exhaustive search for sources has been completed.

In my opinion, the current wording of WP:SNG includes several statements that contribute to its ambiguity, and make it ripe for misinterpretation and wikilawyering:

"In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written as an alternative to the general notability guideline to allow for a standalone article."

If SNGs are truly an "alternative" for GNG, then that means they can be used as a substitute for GNG, implying that GNG can be ignored if the notability criteria within an SNG has been satisfied. The word "alternative" implies a mutual exclusivity between GNG and SNGs, suggesting that if you don't want to use GNG to determine notability, SNGs can be used as an alternative.

"A topic is not required to meet both the general notability guideline and a subject-specific notability guideline to qualify for a standalone article."

If a topic is not required to meet both GNG and SNG, then that means that a topic only needs to meet one or the other. Again, this implies that if a topic meets the requirements of an SNG, then GNG can effectively be ignored.

"Note, however, that in cases where GNG has not been met and a subject's claim to meeting an SNG is weak or subjective, the article may still be deleted or merged..."

To me, this sentence implies that an article might only be deleted if it can be shown that it doesn't meet GNG and that it doesn't have a strong claim to meeting an SNG. Again, this suggests that if a topic has a strong claim to meeting an SNG, then we need not bother worrying about whether or not it meets GNG.

Indeed, some SNGs themselves contribute to this ambiguity. At the top of WP:NSPORT, we see:

"The article should provide reliable sources showing that the subject meets the general notability guideline or the sport specific criteria set forth below."

That italicized "or" clearly suggests that a topic is considered notable if it passes the SNG, regardless of whether or not it also passes GNG.

Given all of this, I'd like to start a discussion about two different specific questions regarding the current consensus on the nature of notability:

  1. If it can be shown that a topic objectively does not pass GNG (i.e. after an infinitely exhaustive search through every document known to man, no one can find sources that satisfy GNG's criteria for notability), but that same topic clearly satisfies an SNG, what is the policy in this case? Should the article be deleted? Or is satisfying an SNG enough to keep the article around, even if it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt and everyone agrees that the topic has not received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject?
  2. If the answer to question #1 is that GNG is still the ultimate test, and SNGs are only subservient shortcuts to GNG (and that an article should be deleted if it can be shown that it does not and will not ever pass GNG), then what can we do to modify the wording of WP:SNG to make this more clear? ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 23:33, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
To reiterate themes that have been discussed over and over again on these talk pages: both the GNG and the SNGs are meant as presumptions of notability to allow for a topic to have a standalone article, in absence of absolutely assuredness that a topic is notability. That is, a topic like World War II is clearly notable - it's not just presumed notable, it absolutely is notable, it will never be questioned as a topic. This is a goal we'd want to see for all articles. But we recognize that this is not always possible for an article to show, nor necessarily desirable as we want articles to be works in progress in an open wiki to have multiple editors to help contribute, but at the same time, we need to be sure that a topic is likely to have good sourcing to actually get to this point. So we have presumptions of notability. One way is by the GNG - if you can show a handful of sources giving indepth coverage a topic, that's a reasonable step towards larger notability. Alternatively, SNGs are generally merit-based criteria that says in certain fields, if the topic meets a specific criteria generally based on some merit, then from past experience we can expect sources to be there and thus presume notability. This is why it's the GNG OR the SNGs as both get to the presumption of notability.
That presumption is rebuttable however, but this requires the person wishing to challenge to show something effectively meeting the requirements of WP:BEFORE. For example, if a topic has been given an article by the GNG because of two sources that seem to meet it, but a person has done a thorough search and found no other sourcing, then maybe that presumption is wrong, and thus that can go to AFD. Same with a topic that met an SNG. But that BEFORE search has to be appropriate - this typically means that a Google search is not sufficient for any topic that was active pre-2000, and may require more local search for topics not in Western countries due to lack of digital resources. So for example, for an article on an Indian cricket player that played a couple matches in 1960 which may pass NSPORT but has no other immediate sourcing, one would like need to review Indian newspapers of the 1960s to see if there was more content, If one does not do an appropriate BEFORE search before such an AFD nomination, then that is usually called out at the AFD, and the article kept because of the lack of a proper BEFORE search to show that no sourcing does exist (since its impossible to prove a negative). But if that BEFORE search does come up empty, then I'd expect the onus to find any additional sources to be on those wishing to keep it, otherwise deletion is appropriate. Thats teu for either the GNG or SNG, whichever has been claimed as the source to be used.
What tends to be the case in editors' minds is that the GNG is the more desirable case over the SNG, but really, they are generally equal tests since they are both presumptions of notability. --Masem (t) 23:52, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
The reason this is coming up is because of the AfD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willie Thornton (Canadian football) and my asking Scottywong for clarification on the close, partially to figure out what I could have done better with my argument, partially to try to figure out what the rule is when it applies to AfD closes. I agree with almost everything you're saying above, but I don't view the SNG and GNG as "equivalent." I see SNGs as being very important for the assumption that sources exist, but as soon as you question whether sources exist, the sources you need to find must be GNG-qualifying, or, in other words, show the article meets the GNG. The exception as you note is when a SNG is met but we can't definitively show GNG because of a lack of access to quality sources, which is usually only the case when the sources are in a different language or historical or both. It's the reason we fine-tune SNGs to make sure GNG is met in almost all cases. SportingFlyer T·C 00:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Thanks Masem. That description is slightly different than my understanding of notability. The difference is small and it probably seems pedantic, but keep in mind that this is a policy that affect millions of articles, and is used in dozens of deletion discussions every day, so the details matter. My understanding is that if it can be shown that a topic meets GNG, then it is a notable topic, and it is presumed to be suitable for a standalone article or list, as long as it doesn't violate other WP policies. So, GNG is not a presumption of notability, GNG is the definition of notability. The only presumption it includes is whether or not each notable topic is suitable for a standalone article. On the other hand, SNGs are a presumption of notability. They are a shortcut that presumes that a topic will pass GNG as long as it satisfies the SNG. They are not a guarantee of notability, but they're right most of the time. Am I understanding this incorrectly? ‑Scottywong| [express] || 00:12, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
@SportingFlyer: See also this discussion on my talk page that happened recently. ‑Scottywong| [speak] || 00:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
The problem with how we currently present WP:N - it is there but its not clear - is that the GNG itself is still a presumption of notability and can be challenged too, just as an SNG. I've talked to before about adding the idea of this target level of "unquestionable notability" that a topic like WWII has that is the ultimate goal, one that there's no deadline to reach, but one that if you can prove impossible to reach if you've doing the sourcing legwork, then we're going to refute the presumption of notability. This then puts the GNG and the SNGs on par with each other. The only reason we tend to want the GNG to weigh more is that because it is closer to meeting WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV implicitly by source requirements compared to the SNG. It's not really good to think "Oh, I reached the GNG, the topic's safe." because that's still just a minimum sourcing level. --Masem (t) 00:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I've re-read WP:N from top to bottom, and I don't see anywhere that it says that passing GNG is a "presumption of notability". I do see it very clearly saying that passing GNG is a presumption that a topic deserves a standalone article. But, it does not say that passing GNG is a presumption of notability. Being a notable topic and deserving a standalone article are two different things. It's possible to have a topic that is notable, but does not deserve a standalone article because it violates other WP policies. By the same token, it's possible to have a topic that passes an SNG, but is not notable because it doesn't pass GNG. That is why SNGs are a presumption of notability, and GNG is the definition of notability, and they are not equivalent or substitutes for one another. Therefore, I think that whoever wrote the SNG portion of this page does not fully understand that GNG is the definition of notability, not a presumption of notability, and in my opinion it should be rewritten to make it more clear that GNG must ultimately be satisfied for all topics. Not immediately, obviously. But, if someone challenges the notability of a topic, and they do all of the BEFORE searches that you outlined above, and no one else can find sources to satisfy GNG, then the topic should not have a standalone article, even if it passes an SNG. ‑Scottywong| [soliloquize] || 00:34, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I would propose that the first two paragraphs of WP:SNG are rewritten to be something more like this (bolded parts have been changed from the current wording):
In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written as a shortcut to help estimate whether an article is likely to satisfy the general notability guideline (GNG). The currently-accepted subject-specific notability guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and listed at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. These subject-specific notability guidelines are generally derived based on verifiable criteria due to accomplishment or recognition in that field that either in-depth, independent sourcing likely exists for that topic but may take time and effort to locate (such as print works in libraries local to the topic), or that sourcing will likely be written for the topic in the future due to the strength of accomplishment (such as winning a Nobel prize). Thus, we allow for the standalone article on the presumption that meeting the SNG criteria will guarantee the existence or creation of enough coverage to meet GNG.
These are considered shortcuts to meeting the general notability guideline. A topic is not required to meet a subject-specific notability guideline to qualify for a standalone article. Note, however, that satisfying the criteria of an SNG is only a presumption of notability, not a guarantee. In cases where it can be shown that GNG has not been met, the article may still be deleted or merged: a presumption is neither a guarantee that sources can be found nor a mandate for a separate page. ‑Scottywong| [prattle] || 00:43, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I strongly agree with this change. Good work. SportingFlyer T·C 00:50, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Seconded. signed, Rosguill talk 02:45, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Thirded. Reyk YO! 11:07, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Agree. That has always been my understanding – that, effectively, SNGs are "subservient" to GNG, and "passing" an SNG does not necessarily mean that a subject passes GNG. Indeed, I have specifically seen at least one case where a subject probably technically "passed" WP:NACTOR, but clearly did not pass WP:GNG/WP:BASIC and that artice was subsequently deleted at WP:AfD. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:02, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Notice that the "presumed" is linked to rebuttable presumption, which explains exactly what I just described. This has always been the intent of the GNG and reflected by the AFD/BEFORE process - GNG is not an assurance that your article will never be challenged on notability terms ever again. (This has been discussed multiple times on these talk pages). That's why I do think it would be nice to add and stress there's a level where we want articles to get to where no one will challenge it, eliminating the rebuttable presumption, but this is present already. And that's the thing is that the GNG is not the ultimate definition of notability on WP. That ultimate definition is that the topic has been shown "worthy of notice" by sources, but of course that's vague as heck and full of qualification holes, so the GNG and the SNGs are guides to get editors towards that. --Masem (t) 01:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Let me iterate why the GNG is taken as a presumption of notability itself. We are careful not to spell out how many sources or how deep the coverage has to be as this will be games, but I can say that 3-ish sources that have 2-3 para on the topic specifically will generally pass the bar for those looking to keep at AFD, assuming it is the topic's first visit to AFD and no other issues exist with it. That to me is reasonably fair to consider the same aspects that the SNGs are supposed to do: enough sourcing basis that a standalone makes sense to be put into mainspace so that other editors can work on it. This also correlates with the guidelines I've seen at those reviewing Draft articles and ACC for when articles are good to go to main space - just enough sourcing to pass this basic GNG test. But that should be clear that one might be able to pull out a paragraph or two of Wiki text from that and that's it. If the article can't ever expand because no additional sourcing ever comes out, we'd likely delete that at a second AFD as long as the one nominating showed their work. This is one reason why we have 2nd (and 3rd and so on) nominations for topics, because the nominators are often rechallenging the GNG aspect of the topic.
Mind you, I agree that the current way WP:N is presented does not make this clear enough, and in this I've spoken of trying to be clear about making sure that editors understand that there's the "holy grail" of notability that one should always strive for their article that no one will ever challenge, but until then, we presume notability (and thus allowance for a standalone) via the GNG or a relevant SNG. Establishing the GNG or the SNG is fine for creation of that standalone, but these are not conditions that you only need to pass once and never touch again; we expect articles to exceed these minimum standards and get as close to that holy grail of unquestioned notability. This wouldn't change anything with how WP is run or the like but simply make it clearer on the interrelationship between WP:N, WP:GNG and the SNGs and their application at AFD (eg it would not cause a mass AFD rush). I'd love to encorporate that idea but that would be a bit of reworking and I'd need to that off the primetime page. --Masem (t) 01:32, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I see Masem added a bit in May [2] which includes "Thus, we allow for the standalone article on the presumption that meeting the SNG criteria will guarantee the existence or creation of enough coverage to meet GNG." That contradicts what is said elsewhere. It was discussed and decided long ago there are multiple ways to determine something notable enough for its own Wikipedia article, either the GNG or a subject specific guideline, never did you have to do both. This is because you can be notable based on your accomplishments not on coverage you got. Not sure why we have to argue about this for years now. A scientist is notable for their scientific achievements, even if there was nothing ever written about them. Writers and musicians are notable for their work, even if they don't do interviews and give out information about themselves to be written about. Dream Focus 01:02, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    • We want quality articles that go into depth on a topic, not one line stubs about a topic if that is all that is possible to write about them. A scientist that may have made an achievement that can be documented by a source but cannot be further documented at all is a problem for us as a standalone article. Mind you, we presume that certain achievements will lead to more sourcing via the SNGs and thus allow the standalones to exist until one can prove otherwise no additional sourcing ever will come, so the onus is on those seeking deletion to prove that out. But if they can, then that's a very valid reason to eliminate a stub that only contains one sourced fact. Mind you, we should find if there's a place to locate it otherwise via redirects and merging as well so the topic is still searchable. And just because these people may not give out information, others can talk about them and give secondary information to tell us why they are important in their field and notable, so we may lack a lot of personal details but we understand the importance of their work, which is valid encyclopedic content.--Masem (t) 01:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
      we presume that certain achievements will lead to more sourcing via the SNGs and thus allow the standalones to exist until one can prove otherwise no additional sourcing ever will come, so the onus is on those seeking deletion to prove that out. How exactly is one meant to do that, in practice? How does one prove no library has a book containing coverage on the person, or know the scientist will not end up curing cancer in the future? Yes, these are perhaps slightly exaggerated posits, but the point remains. Many times it's easily said "but you can rebut the SNG presumption!" but without valid ways on how to do it, with practical examples of it actually being done. And shows that it is actually done (successfully, proportionately) more than a relative handful of times. "Keep: Meets WP:SomeSNGHere" works pretty much every time. Permastubs are constantly kept of dead people with a few moments of fame, like 10 mins on a cricket field, most unlikely to have anything else about them. But how do you know they don't happen to be some prince, like the example we discussed the last time this convo happened, Special:Permalink/937542355 (it had a different title back then, as Bellingham Graham), which turned out to be a nobleman: Sir Bellingham Reginald Graham, 7th Baronet. This "rebuttal" of a SNG seems to be near impossible in practice, and completely impossible in practice for some SNGs (like WP:NPROF). I mean, you've all/read/closed seen more AfDs than me, so it's not like I know more than you folks, but I've never once seen a rebuttal of an SNG play out, and I feel convinced the philosophy reiterated here doesn't lining up with the practice. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:58, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Wp: Notability is a big complex kluge that operates in the fuzzy Wikipedia ecosystem which works most of the time wp:How_Wikipedia_notability_works_right_now but which is such a kluge that few can understand it. In this thread, you folks are trying find an underlying logical structure in a herd of cats, i.e. in a system which fundamentally does not have it. Of course, we can fix that, but that would take some complex work. Until then, please don't accidentally / inadvertently upset the apple-cart which currently mostly works. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:27, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

It does not work, you have people arguing constantly in AFDs for years now. Someone will insist only GNG matters and the subject specific guidelines don't, and argue nonstop about it. What was added in May will just make people argue more. Dream Focus 03:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Except there hasn't been any change in AFD behavior or the like. There has always been confusion on the intersection of the GNG and SNG, which I believe reapproaching it as I suggested (but would require a rewrite) would clarify, but it doesn't change practice or the like. Keep in mind underlying this all is the standard issue of editors wanting to keep the articles they feel are important, notability or not, which always is an issue at AFD. --Masem (t) 03:49, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm hearing general agreement that the language currently used in WP:SNG is confusing, and is actively causing problems at AfD. However, I'm not hearing unanimous agreement about the relative importance of GNG vs. SNG as it relates to establishing the notability of a topic. Some people (including myself) believe that GNG is the ultimate test, and SNGs are shortcuts to assist with estimating the likelihood of a topic passing GNG. Other editors believe that GNG and SNGs are essentially equivalent: as long as your topic meets criteria of GNG or SNG, then your topic is notable.

I disagree quite strongly with the notion that GNG and SNG are equivalent, unless there is a discussion somewhere along the line where that became the consensus. I don't believe that this was true in the past. Even reading the top of WP:N makes it very clear how this all works. Summarizing the first couple paragraphs of WP:N:

  1. Notability is the test that we use to determine if a topic deserves a standalone article.
  2. Information must be verifiable; a topic shouldn't have an article if there aren't sufficient reliable, independent sources that cover it (hence, why a scientist is not automatically notable for their scientific achievements even if nothing was ever written about them, and a musician is not automatically notable for their work even if there is no coverage of it). If there are no sources about a topic, then there is no verifiable information to put into an article. This is why an SNG cannot be an independent notability test.
  3. If a topic meets the GNG, it is considered notable by WP's standards. When a topic is deemed notable, it is automatically presumed to deserve a standalone article. However, that is a presumption, not a guarantee. A notable topic might not warrant a standalone article if it violates other WP policies (like WP:NOT), or if an editorial decision is made to merge the topic with other topics into a single article.
  4. SNGs are shortcuts. They provide us with an accurate (but not perfect) estimate of whether or not a topic is likely to meet GNG. If a topic meets an SNG, it is presumed to meet the GNG as well. However, this is a presumption, not a guarantee. Topics must satisfy the GNG, but they need not satisfy an SNG. If a topic satisfies an SNG but its notability is challenged, and an exhaustive search yields insufficient sources to meet GNG, then the article on that topic might be deleted. While SNGs are usually a highly accurate indicator of whether or not a topic is notable, SNGs are not perfect, and there will always be a small set of topics that satisfy an SNG but not the GNG. In such cases, these topics might be deemed non-notable, despite satisfying an SNG.

Does anyone have major disagreements with any of the above statements? If so, can you explain the basis for your disagreement? ‑Scottywong| [prattle] || 05:07, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Topics must satisfy the GNG, but they need not satisfy an SNG is not true for WP:NCORP I think.
Also, my understanding of WP:NPROF was that it stems from the observation that many academics have coverage of their work, not of themselves. Such likely do not meet the GNG, and many may never. But we will keep them anyway. So the whole "SNG is a rebuttable presumption of GNG" doesn't really hold up with how it is applied. And although I've read it many times, I'm yet to see any good examples of how it is 'rebutted'. In practice, at least in my experiences, if someone clearly meets an SNG, many times they're kept forever. There may be exceptions, but they are indeed exceptions. But really, at AfD, many of the SNGs are applied in different ways, so some SNGs may have more exceptions than others. It's a philosophical mess. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 05:40, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I still point out that the the idea that passing the GNG means that notability is satisfied forever is simply not true or how it is treated in practice, since numerous articles have been challenged repeated on failing to meet the GNG multiple times (and not having a SNG to fall under). The GNG is not a get-out-jail-free card for further notability evaluation if the sourcing is weak to just barely pass the GNG, or as WP's concepts on what reliable or in-depth coverage change. Mind you, once you have gotten to the GNG level, it becomes far more difficult to challenge the idea no other sources are present, but this option still does exist and is usually easier to show for more contemporary (post-2000) topics. WP:N may read a different way, but I'm describing practice, and that might point to a bit of chance in WP:N (namely being clear that the GNG itself is a presumption of notability to allow for a standalone). --Masem (t) 06:06, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
So just thinking this through more, and double checking on some history, what we have is a weird dicotomy of what's on paper and what's practice. Basically there's an unwritten rule at AFD that the GNG is the same as having 2-3 sources that cover the topic. (There's a reason we haven't set numbers to the GNG to avoid this type of gaming). Arguably a read of the GNG right now implies you need much more sourcing that than just 2 or 3 sources to be "worthy of note", but from an open-wiki standpoint, that's good enough to show V/NOR/NPOV being met to drop to mainspace and encourage other editors to help. The 2-3 sources is one of those things that just propagates a poor misunderstanding of polcy/guidelines. What I'd think we need to impress on editors that this implicit 2-3 sources is not sufficient in the long run per GNG/SIGCOV and just meeting that basic minimum threshold is a rebuttable presumption of notability, nothing compared to meeting all of the major points of the GNG with flying colors which all doubts of notability are gone. The easiest way to reflect this without stirring up through the other guideslines may be to add advice at the end of the GNG, like (wording flexible) "Topics where only minimal significant coverage through independent secondary sources has been identified may still be presumed notable and can have a standalone article, but editors should continue to seek out additional coverage through appropriate sources to fully demonstrate broader notability. If no additional sourcing can be found, such articles may be deleted or merged with a larger topic." The SNGs would be refering back to the GNG that has this, so this still makes them alternatives to the GNG with the other suggestions, but emphasis that a weak-GNG meeting article is still not clear of future notability considers. --Masem (t) 06:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • There is no requirement for many or multiple sources. For example, I just commented on Health in Switzerland. I identified a good source for the topic which, by its nature, is reasonably complete and satisfactory for our purpose. No further source is required to demonstrate notability in this case. Other cases include biographies where a single good source, such as an entry in the DNB, is adequate to demonstrate notability.
Trying to make exact and precise rules for everything is not appropriate because there are always corner cases. These are guidelines and so explicitly allow for exceptions. They say that common sense should be used so that's what's wanted rather than more bureaucracy and intricate rules.
Andrew🐉(talk) 08:02, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
There is a need for demonstrating significant coverage coming from sourcing. What exactly are the standards for significant coverage is something we purposely leave undefined but you are right that that could easily come from one extremely high quality reliable third-party source like a biography of a person. But most of the issues when it comes to AFD is that we are looking at topics that are at the very lowest levels of "significant coverage" and editors are trying to justify how articles should be kept due to the number of sources, with the common fallacy that "oh, I have 2-3 sources, this article should be kept" when in fact there's zero point where we've set any number for that, nor implied that its just source count -- but its taken too often that way. But to stress: one can star an article that passes the GNG at very low levels of significant coverage at the initial stages of article development - we are far more tolerant at that point - but as an article persists and grows, if editors fail to improve the demonstration of significant coverage that would be expected for that topic, then its GNG presumption of notability will be challenges due to lack of significant coverage. (Eg commonly editors will do this in areas of fictional characters: they'll add one or two secondary sources then spend all their time expanding the in-unverse facets from the work itself which is not significant coverage, and then those end up being deleted because there's just simply no real significant coverage at the end of the day). --Masem (t) 14:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

ScottyWong, number 2, "Information must be verifiable", means you can verify what they have accomplished is notable. A website dedicated to a notable award list them as having won it for their scientific accomplishment. You can verify their work is featured in textbooks. Things like that. You can list information known about them, even if no reliable source has given significant coverage of them, just basic information. Dream Focus 08:37, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that a lot of people look at the words "rebuttable presumption of notability" and, through some trick of eyesight or psychology, read "permanent unchallengeable exemption from WP:V and WP:N, and an automatic entitlement to a shrine". These are often also the people who wrote the SNG in question- SNGs that are usually ridiculous everything-is-notable bilge. This encourages people to go crawling through databases to find a statistic or two to bloat into a tiny substub. When the subject is a person, we usually haven't got any biographical information and sometimes not even a full name. That can be a worry from a BLP standpoint. And microstubs are generally useless because they contain so little information, have virtually no context for what little information there is, and send the reader flipping madly between multiple articles of the same type to get anything useful out of any of it. It's what's often termed write-only memory: written for the pleasure of the writer with no intention or hope that a reader will ever find it useful. Reyk YO! 11:29, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I see that all the time as AFD's, Ahh it just passes SNG so it passes GNG (or does not have to meet GNG).Slatersteven (talk) 11:33, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Heck, it's why we're having this conversation now. SportingFlyer T·C 11:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • As Masem notes above, the guideline links to "rebuttable presumption", a presumption that something is true "unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise." (emphasis added) This is an old and well-established legal concept that shifts the burden of proof. See Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312 (1932) ("A rebuttable presumption clearly is a rule of evidence which has the effect of shifting the burden of proof.").
In this context, the party challenging notability of a topic that passes an SNG has the burden of proof. In order to challenge the notability of such a topic, it cannot be sufficient to simply say the topic doesn't meet GNG ... otherwise the presumption is meaningless. The real challenge (and one that has never been fully explored) is what type and level of proof must be presented by the challenging party in order to overcome the presumption. That is a discussion worth having.
WP:BEFORE simply requires a Google search, and such searches are woefully inadequate when it comes to many topics, especially articles about individuals and events occurring in the pre-Internet era. Accordingly, mere Google searches cannot be sufficient to satisfy the challenging party's burden of proof in rebutting the presumption with respect to such pre-Internet persons and events. This is not to say the presumption can't be rebutted, but the burden is necessarily and appropriately high in such cases. Cbl62 (talk) 14:12, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, BEFORE really should be expanded to stress that a Google search cannot capture pre-2000 topics well, and physical library searches, sometimes even more local to the topic's area, may be required. --Masem (t) 14:30, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia policies and guidelines have toothless "vague general guidance" items and also statements which have specific operational mechanics/ teeth. In a situation where everybody is just trying to do the best thing, both are followed. In a situation where somebody is trying to work the system towards their desired outcome the toothless "vague general guidance" items are easily ignore-able and only the items with specific operational mechanics/ teeth are followed.

So there are two completely different answers to the question above. Where all are being followed, everything comes down to meeting the sourcing requirements of GNG and the SNG is just a shortcut to that. The beginning of GNG says that you just need to meet either GNG sourcing or the SNG, but SNG's pretty much all say (in toothless vague general guidance) that they are merely predictors of existence of sourcing that meets GNG and give deference to that. This completely changes when you have advocacy / somebody working the system. Then the toothless vague general guidance is always ignore-able leaving the only specific SNG criteria to rule. So the defacto rule in in these situations is that they need only meet the specific SNG criteria. North8000 (talk) 15:24, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I feel like we're getting a little bit off-topic, talking about the permanence of notability, the exact quantity of sources required to satisfy GNG, where the burden of proof lies in an AFD, etc. While those are all interesting topics that probably deserve discussion, I think that the crux of the issue is whether or not GNG and SNGs are equivalent, or if GNG is the controlling principle and SNGs are secondary. In other words, if it can be shown that a topic satisfies an SNG, and simultaneously it can be shown that that same topic does not and will not ever satisfy the GNG, is that topic considered notable? I'd like to see if this is something we can get general agreement on here, or if it needs to be taken to an RFC. To be clear, my view is that GNG is the controlling principle, and SNGs are secondary. ‑Scottywong| [yak] || 15:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

@Cbl62: I'm intentionally trying to ignore the nuance for now, but we can get to that at some point. I believe it's better to get agreement on a fundamental concept first, and then branch out from there to deal with the nuances, exceptions, and edge cases. If we can't even agree on whether GNG and SNG are equivalent or not, we have no common basis on which to discuss nuance. ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 16:04, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
The real crux of the issue is in the nuance. Making a sweeping proclamation, as you propose, without a concurrent discussion of, and consensus as to the the nuance, is misguided and simply serves to undermine the SNGs. Accordingly, and given that your proposal remains a gross over-simplification, I must Oppose. Cbl62 (talk) 16:10, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The problem is that people are looking for a definition of “notability”, and we don’t actually give one. We can’t... because the closest we can come to one is: “there is a consensus that this topic deserves an article”. It all hinges on consensus, and consensus is often messy.
Neither GNG nor the various SNGs are meant to be “definitions”... rather they are meant to be indications that help us REACH consensus. Blueboar (talk) 16:37, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
And this is sorta what I feel is missing from how WP:N is written (as explained above). There's a point that no one will think about deleting an article because the evidence of significant coverage is clearly there (WWII) but for articles that are clearly not at that state - particularly those that are starting out , we try to determine if there's potential (and thus reasonable to have a standalone article) by looking at a minimum amount of significant coverage given by the GNG, or where possible, when an SNG criteria is met. We're missing something in how WP:N describes this with the confusion of the GNG shortcut being treated as both the large scale test and the "minimum significant coverage" test depending on context. --Masem (t) 17:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Right, I agree that we're not talking about the definition of notability, we're talking about indications that help us reach consensus on the notability of individual topics. My point is, what role do GNG and SNGs play in giving us indications of notability? In my opinion, meeting GNG provides a direct indication of notability, and SNGs provide an indication of meeting GNG. SNGs do not provide a direct indication of notability, and WP:SNG should make this more clear. ‑Scottywong| [verbalize] || 18:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree on the SNG statement as being an indicator for notability, and that we don't have an exact definition of notability since that's consensus-based but we use indicators to judge a topic's likelihood to reach that (and thus get a standalone). But on the GNG, this is where I believe there's confusion between it being a definition or an indicator of notability, depending on the context of use. That is, at AFD, particularly when dealing with a topic that meets an SNG, "GNG" tends to be treated as a definition of notability, while in broader subjects, the "GNG" is treated as an indicator of notability. When may be why we have this confusion. If we make clear of something being the definition of notability, and something else being the source-based indicator of notability (one of these being assigned "GNG" for clarity). Does this make sense of what the issue/confusion might be? --Masem (t) 18:52, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree with the principle as stated above. I don't think this is as nuanced as we're making it with presumptions and indicators and definitions and all of that. If you have an SNG, you're presumed to merit an article not because the SNG is met, but because the presumption of GNG is likely met, because the SNGs are almost always tailored to what should meet GNG. There are exceptions, but that is the general principle as I've always understood it, making SNGs not "equal" to the GNG, but rather an indicator that GNG is likely met, especially for topics where source searching will be difficult. SportingFlyer T·C 21:05, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree This has been discussed for years in various long RFCs and elsewhere. The fact some want to ignore the subject specific guidelines, doesn't mean you have the right to do so. It has always been A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline. Getting coverage in the media is not the only way to prove you are notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. We handle legitimate scientific topics in this encyclopedia, not just popular culture. Wikipedia:Notability (numbers) for example. We also a lot of articles for species which do not have any significant coverage anywhere, just brief facts mentioned in scientific databases. Hebeloma aestivale Hebeloma arenosum and others I see after briefly examining things in Category:Lists of fungal species and clicking on anything in those list which are 99% red links in many cases. Dream Focus 21:43, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
This RfC from mid-2017 produced several conclusions including: "There is clear consensus that no subject-specific notability guideline, including Notability (sports) is a replacement for or supercedes the General Notability Guideline." wjematherplease leave a message... 11:51, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
That RfC from mid-2017 was devoted to WP:NSPORTS and had only incidental comments about wiki-notability guidelines for anything other than athletics. Hardly sounds like gospel to me. For that matter, it appears that a low threshold for inclusion of sports figures is the complaint people have, perennially, about subject-specific wiki-notability guidelines. The trouble isn't with the abstract relation between these two categories of guidelines that we've thought up; it's with whether that threshold is too permissive. XOR'easter (talk) 19:12, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
NSPORT may be the most glaring deficient in many areas, but several other SNGs (including NGEO, NMUSIC, NBOOK) are also problematic in places. It's clear both the SNGs themselves and the defined relationship between them and GNG need work. wjematherplease leave a message... 23:01, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree. I see no point in having subject notability guidelines if the general notability guideline automatically trumps them. Meeting one or the other should be enough to establish notability. -- Calidum 21:56, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    @Calidum: the point in having them is to give editors some guidance as to what is going to be ok as a standalone article and what might not be. It says "if you're challenging this topic which meets an SNG you better have your research and facts in a row to show that it doesn't meet the GNG". This is, rightly, the dynamic I see at AfD as both a participant and as a closer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:01, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • My take has been that some SNGs are equivalent to the GNG (e.g. Numbers or NPROF), some call for the strictest interpretation of the GNG (e.g. NCORP), and some are secondary to GNG (e.g NMUSIC). This makes them harder to understand, because you have to figure out which category a particular SNG falls into, and in some cases some parts of an SNG will be equivalent while other parts will be secondary just to add an extra layer of fun. However, this mixture does serve the encyclopedia on the whole by ensuring a diversity of topics receive appropriate coverage. The reason we can have these varying standards successfully is that any topic must be verifiable so regardless of the type of coverage given we can ensure that information conforms with our 5 pillars and core policies, which despite its prominence Notability is not (it's a guideline and for good reason). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:58, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I think this is the best description I've read yet. I've agreed, because I'm coming at this from the general rule that all articles must meet the GNG guideline. There are exceptions to the rule where either simply being verifiable is enough because the information is important enough to keep, there are exceptions which use different sources to meet the notability criteria, there are exceptions which are stricter than just getting coverage, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of the articles on the website are required to meet the GNG presumption in order to avoid being deleted at AfD - this is why I've agreed with Scottywong above, as I think the general principle holds. SportingFlyer T·C 23:54, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree- that the SNGs defer to the GNG, and not vice versa. Johnbod (talk) 22:14, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree. Clearly false for WP:PROF as explicitly written there, but also false for many/most other SNGs as used in practice. And I agree with the point of Calidum above that this attitude would make it pointless to have any SNGs. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • The edited statement These are considered shortcuts to meeting the general notability guideline is not reasonable. What really matters is AfD. An SNG statement does not make the GNG test null. SNGs and the GNG do not “trump” each other, they are different perspectives on the question. The SNGs are predictors of whether the topic will meet the GNG and be kepted at AfD. The GNG is a more direct predictor of whether the topic will be kepted at AfD. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:24, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    • The bit about "considered shortcuts to" was added by Masem back in May. I don't see any real consensus for having that snuck in there, since it contradicts years of consensus otherwise. I'm removing it unless there is proper discussion to add that. Dream Focus 22:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
      • My language was "alternatives" per [3]. It was changed to "shortcuts" here, but not my edit, and I disagree that in the stance, that "shortcuts" is correct, but this comes to recognize that the "GNG" is meaning two things here. --Masem (t) 23:10, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
        @Masem: you just undid an edit by Dream Focus referencing the May discussion. Your edit was challenged at the time and I don't think you had consensus from that discussion to keep the edits then either. So maybe Dream's revision (and my revision) aren't the right ones (perhaps Joe Roe could come up with something based on his comment below) but either way I don't think you can claim that discussion as proof that your edits had consensus. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:15, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
        • There was a long discussion about the changes in May about those changes with multiple editors. It is not like that hasn't had multiple eyes and other people that also edited it, so while initial parts of it were in debate, the final version was worked out by multiple editors. --Masem (t) 23:46, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
        • Maybe we should remove the section on SNGs entirely for the time being, since there's not really a consensus on how it should read. SportingFlyer T·C 23:33, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
          • I agree. We got along without a section on SNGs for 14 years and adding it has clearly opened a can of worms. – Joe (talk) 23:48, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
            That might be the right option but it always seemed weird to me that we have this whole category of things that we never actually describe anywhere. I just did an edit where I basically took out all the detail and just went with a basic "what is it?". Does this approach, which still lets us decide, in practice and in the individual SNGs, how they relate to the GNG have consensus? Courtesy ping Masem. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:07, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree. I'm not saying what should be, I'm saying what currently is. This is not how notability is determined on wikipedia. E.g. NPROF, NCORP, and the fact that we have 500000 articles on small geographic features and train stations that there is no in-depth coverage of in reliable sources. Natureium (talk) 22:29, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I'll echo what North8000 said above. Looking for logic in the notability guidelines is like looking for fortunes in tea leaves. There is no logic, because nobody ever sat down to work out notability as a coherent concept; it's a piecemeal compromise that evolved to contain the deletionism vs. inclusionism wars. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Guidelines are supposed to document consensus, and we will never have a universal consensus on what to include and exclude. So if a few editors decide here that the GNGs trump SNGs, but that's not actually going to change anything. It won't magically make all the SNGs fall into line with the logic of the GNG. It won't stop editors in individual AfDs using whatever rules of thumb they find useful to make a decision about inclusion. It won't stop editors occasionally ignoring the guidelines altogether if that seems the best thing to do. It won't change the fact that there have always been topics that are to some extent exempt from notability, because we're also an almanac and gazetteer and having one-line stubs on some things is a perfectly reasonable thing in a general-purpose reference work.
Maybe in an ideal world we could scrap this mess and come up with a logical and coherent system of inclusion criteria, but that isn't going to happen. Recognising that, I think we could do worse than continuing to make decisions on a case-by-case basis at AfD, referring to guidelines written by subject-specialists where available, and falling back on the GNG otherwise. We don't need to worry about abstractions like this for that system to keep working. – Joe (talk) 22:35, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
I hadn't thought about it that way, but I think Joe is correct. Notability standards are kinda like the U.S. tax code. Little bits get added here and there as compromises on specific issues, and the result is what it is. One might aspire to a simplified system, but herding all the cats to get there is unlikely. Cbl62 (talk) 23:09, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree per David Eppstein. I'm most familiar with WP:PROF, but there's no reason in principle why the same difficulties addressed by that specialized guideline can't also occur elsewhere. The scope of the Wikipedia project is human knowledge, and there's not going to be a single page of bullet points that sums up how to organize writing across the whole of that territory. XOR'easter (talk) 23:39, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
    • Addendum The intro of WP:N currently says, A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets either the GNG or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. Language equivalent to this has existed since May 2007. XOR'easter (talk) 18:33, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree SNGs suggest the GNG is likely to be met, but they do not exempt topics from coverage whatsoever. They can shape what sort of coverage is expected but they should not be allowing for article which have zero significant coverage of the topic. Reywas92Talk 00:10, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Definitely agree that, with only a few exceptions (and, FTR, I probably don't agree that they should be exceptions), SNPs are "subservient" to GNG. This has generally been the practice of most, and is the correct practice. The alternative is to allow SNGs to be manipulated to short-circuit the notability process adding even more articles on non-notable subjects to this project. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 01:14, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree Prof is the exception rather than the rule. Meeting GNG is crucial for giving us the info to writing a semi decent article. SNGs are just a presumption that the sources exist for us to do this, nothing more. AIRcorn (talk) 06:27, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree This RfC from mid-2017 produced several conclusions including: "There is clear consensus that no subject-specific notability guideline, including Notability (sports) is a replacement for or supercedes the General Notability Guideline"; and I can't say that anything has significantly changed with the SNGs since then. Too many SNGs (especially sections of NSPORT, e.g. NCRIC) are ludicrously permissive and only reflect what enthusiasts in that area believe is (or should be) notable, while completely disregarding Wikipedia's definition of notability. The result is 1000s of junk one-line perma-stubs. In most areas, SNGs main purpose should be to provide a good indication that subjects will meet GNG, but ultimately GNG is the test. wjematherplease leave a message... 11:51, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree that this has been discussed several times. The WP:GNG is the only workable standard because how can you write an article without reliable and independent sources? The SNGs are only useful so far as they suggest things where sources probably exist. But in practice, if you don't have the sources, you have to at least re-organize the content into another notable topic, if not remove the article in question. Jontesta (talk) 21:03, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree SNGs are secondary to GNG and must defer to GNG. SNGs come into play only if the subject doesn't meet GNG. — Ad Meliora Talk∕Contribs 10:01, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose any effort to subvert the SNG's. Plus, like has already been noted above, for cases like professors, small towns, high schools, etc. it doesn't really work that way, anyways. Ejgreen77 (talk) 11:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Are SNGs intended to be secondary to/in the service of the GNG? Objectively no. Some of the SNGs came first, before there was even a main notability guideline, and the GNG was initially a "here's what the SNGs have in common" which then took on a life of its own.
Should SNGs be secondary to/in the service of the GNG? Tricky question. We've certainly been heading that way for all but a few of the SNGs. And there's an excellent argument as to why: WP:NOT + WP:V + WP:NOR + WP:NPOV means we need reliable independent sources that provide us with both a sense of what has received note by others as well as enough material to write a neutral article. I think that most people agree on this but get hung up on the implications, which of course are that a whole lot of our professors, villages, sportspeople, and some others wouldn't make the cut.
Do we want a rule that says reality tv contestants and internet memes are more notable than a professor or town, and which produces several forms of systemic bias? Or do we want a rule that requires us to have a bunch of material based on official websites, unpublished sources, databases, original research, etc. (or else permastubs that do nothing more than log someone's/something's existence)? If people have another option, I'd love to hear it.
If forced to choose, I'd have to go with the requirements of the GNG, I guess. I don't think it's a good thing that whether something/someone will be kept or deleted is sometimes so unpredictable, often with equal chances at AfD depending on which small subset of Wikipedians participate and which of the rules they decide to apply. It's good to avoid being entirely prescriptive, so yes, there will be deliberation where people have different opinions, but those people need to at least be arguing according to the same basic assumptions. Yes, our fundamental policies have some counterintuitive outcomes and produce systemic biases, but I've long felt conflicted by the idea of saying "here are the rules for most things, but we really like [professors, footballers, villages, et al.] so have different rules for them, even if it means we just ignore the rules for large numbers of articles". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree GNG is the biggest criteria and also the ultimate arbiter. The header of GNG is Wikipedia's meta statement regarding existence of an article. It says that SNG's are an alternate way in. As it should be, SNG's say that they are mere predictors of GNG sourcing, i.e. that they only temporarily bypass the requirement for NG sourcing. Until we can fundamentally tidy up this kluge, that is what the current wording says and we can't upset the apple cart. North8000 (talk) 14:00, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree that SNG's should be secondary to the GNG. At present the concept of SNG is seriously abused by groups highly interested in a specific subject area to allow articles for their favorite often barely notable subjects through creating exceptions to circumvent the GNG. Making the matters worse is that the bar at these SNG is often set ridiculously low and there is far too little community consensus for the creation and amending of these SNG's. This needs to be finally dealt with.Tvx1 16:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree in general. An SNG should not remove any requirements that are listed in the GNG. The example above mentions articles on Train Stations where there is no notable coverage - these articles would not meet GNG but are allowed under the appropriate SNG. In my opinion, if an article fails GNG, it should not be able to then pass an SNG. But I Disagree if the argument is in the reverse. The purpose of an SNG is to add additional explanations on interpreting GNG in the context of specific topic areas. An SNG should not add unnecessary restrictions but it should provide for how to interpret particular sources in order to establish notability. In general, my position is that an SNG can not and should not be "overturned" because of a lack of clarity or a looser explanation or interpretation of the criteria for establishing notability is available in the GNG. A good example is NCORP which adds further explanations on what is meant by an "Independent" source in the WP:ORGIND section. Many editors believe that the definition of "Independent Content" is a new restriction and not intended by the GNG and is therefore "overruled" by the GNG. This has resulted in many AfDs involving NCORP devolving into a messy and overly long debates on whether the perceived strictness of interpretation contained in the NCORP SNG is correct. HighKing++ 18:07, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose GNG fundamentalism. My own view, articulated in a subsequent section, is that each SNG should be understood as an interpretive guideline for the GNG in a specific context, and therefore not to be overruled by an appeal to some other reading of the GNG that ignores the guidance of the SNG cited. I also disagree with any interpretation that an article needs to meet both SNG and GNG, as if they could be evaluated separately and juxtaposed. They should always be read together, in my view. Newimpartial (talk) 18:55, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree in principle with Calidum (talk · contribs) in that I see no point in having subject notability guidelines if the general notability guideline automatically trumps them. Only that I see little point in having SNGs. They are merely advisory. GNG is the test of whether you have sufficient sources to write a policy compliant article. If "so-and-so won a gold medal in the 1904 Olympics" is the only thing you can ever write about them given the sources, then you don't have an encyclopedia article; you have a Wikidata entry. GMGtalk 15:45, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree. I think this is really important to prevent Wikipedia becoming purely a repository of Nazi military officers, TV series episodes, road, and tropical storms. The sad fact is that there are many enthusiast groups on Wikipedia and that, although they produce a huge amount of valuable content, they must also be prevented from pulling the entire encyclopedia towards their own interests whose relationship to Wikipedia's aims (especially WP:5P1) are often pretty tenuous. I agree entirely with Tvx1 above. —Brigade Piron (talk) 09:24, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree, mainly per various comments on WP:PROF above. Tinkering with the delicate balance between subject-specific and general notability guidelines has the potential to very greatly change the balance of the encyclopedia, with no apparent gain. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:41, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree GNG supremacy is the only way to ensure a pure encyclopedia, free from the pollution of inferior, undesirable articles. Wait, that's not a good way to frame it. Let's try a different approach: fundamentally, all articles should meet GNG, and so all SNGs should be "subordinate" to GNG, which is another way of saying that every stand-alone page in mainspace should be supported by reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the topic and of each other, with in-depth coverage of the topic. We call these, for short, "GNG sources". At least one GNG source is absolutely required to meet any of our content policies. If a mainspace page has no sources, it doesn't meet WP:V. If it has no reliable sources, it doesn't meet WP:V. If it has only primary sources, then any prose we wrote would be an editor's interpretation of primary sources, which would violate WP:NOR. If it has no sources independent of the subject, then it has no reliable sources; it wouldn't meet V because we'd have no way of verifying the subject's claims (other than through our own research, which would violate NOR). If a mainspace page only has one source, it wouldn't meet WP:NPOV; we'd only be able to present that single source's viewpoint; any presentation would be, by definition, one-sided. Two sources at least allow us to identify facts that both sources agree upon. Three sources are even better as it would allow for identifying majority and minority viewpoints. But if the sources are not independent of each other, they represent the same viewpoint instead of different viewpoints, and thus "count" as a single source. Finally, "in-depth" is not only a practical requirement, but also required to really fulfill V and the core purpose of the encyclopedia. If we only know very little about a topic because there are no in-depth sources, we cannot know if we are presenting the topic in anything resembling a true or neutral way. For example, if all the sources we had on Benedict Arnold were brief mentions that he died in England and was known for being a traitor, we might write a stub that said, "Benedict Arnold was an English traitor", which implies he betrayed England, which would seriously misinform our readers. "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing", which is why in-depth sources are required to truly meet WP:V, at least to be comfortable that we have met it. So this is the logic behind requiring every article to meet GNG. If a topic meets an SNG but not GNG, the entry for that topic should not be an article. Lev¡vich 06:21, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree. If we were to use GNG as the supreme leader in deciding notability then this runs the risk of limiting us to only the most mainstream topics, which would hinder us from being the "encyclopedia about everything". In my opinion SNG are meant to be supplements to help us determine notability in situations and topics where "normal" notability guidelines wouldn't apply. NPROF is a great example of this, because it allows us to have articles on notable persons who would otherwise fail GNG. And believe me, there will be people who will take the "GNG reigns supreme" to mean that if something fails GNG then it shouldn't have an article.
I must also stress that this would have an incredibly detrimental impact on Wikipedia's attempts to close the gap in coverage on women and minorities, who may fail GNG but pass under the specialized criteria at some place like NPROF. To use a well known example, we need to ask ourselves: would Donna Strickland have passed GNG without NPROF before she won the Nobel Prize? Her accomplishments prior to the NP are obvious, but they wouldn't have been as such with GNG. The news coverage for the decline at AfC may have then turned to why Wikipedia applies the same guidelines for notability for say, Taylor Swift to scientists who would typically not gain even a third of the coverage, maybe not even after winning the Nobel Prize. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 11:45, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Your entire reasoning is fundamentally flawed and is a perfect demonstration on how SNG's are currently being abused. SNG's do not allow or disallow the existence of articles, nor should they. They are just a set of tools to determine whether a subject potentially is notable. They only provide a presumption though and by theirselves cannot ever justify the existence of article. Notability should actually be proven through the supplying of adequate reliable sources.Tvx1 17:33, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
The whole point of the Donna Strickland episode was that Afd decided she failed NPROF. After she won the Nobel a post-mortem decided this had been a mistake, though a somewhat understandable one (assistant prof, not in the national academy, mainly known for her doctoral work). Her high citation count & heading the Optical Institute should have swung it for her. Not a good example here. Johnbod (talk) 17:48, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
First, it was AfC, not AfD. Second, she was an associate, not assistant. And third, no, the evaluation at AfC appeared to be primarily based on GNG. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:55, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, and it's The Optical Society. There seem to have been two drafts at one point, and some refs to NPROF (October '18). Would it have been any different if NPROF had been explicitly referenced? I may have been drawing on the rejector's later explanations, including not being very expert on citation counts, and not realizing the significance of the Optical Society - the only thing the first edit to the draft mentions. "Her accomplishments prior to the NP" were arguably only "obvious" to those in the broad field, using either GNG or NPROF. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree SNGs are specifically constructed as alternatives to the GNG. I would also support a change that subjects the GNG to the SNGs, namely if something doesn't meet an SNG, it doesn't matter if it passes the GNG since it isn't considered important in its own field. This is how I vote in AfDs anyway, and will continue to vote. Moving away from the extreme subjectivity of the GNG, which can mean literally anything you want because of how vaguely and poorly worded it is, is a good thing. We should be encouraging the use of SNGs instead of the GNG as much as possible. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:39, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Disagree Exactly. SNG's are superior to GNG as they are subject specific and involve a tighter fit to the requirements of validation. GNG introduce too much variance to the discussion, and almost any kind of argument can fitted. We should be striving to introduce more subject specific notability guidelines. It would likely break the whole Afd system, if CNG was explicity put forward as superior to SNG's. Which is particularly funny since it is naturally the reverse. scope_creepTalk 15:46, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree per Reyk. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 14:01, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

What does the "GNG" mean

I've tried to note this above but I want to stress this again: I think we have a term , the "GNG", that has two different meanings depending on context, which is causing the problem. In one context, it is being used as the definition of notability , and in another context as an indicator of notability. This is easily causes the confusion of what the relationship should be between the SNGs and the "GNG"; the SNGs should be serving to meet the "definition" of notability (that is, they are presumed indicators of notability), but they should be on equal part with any other "indicator" of notability, which would be a bare minimum amount of coverage/sourcing. Unfortunately, even just reading the comments above, both versions are being implied when the "GNG" is mentioned, showing that we've created confusion on this term.

A means to resolve this is, roughly:

  1. Established what is currently under the WP:GNG as a the "Definition of notability" that would be at a shortcut like WP:NOTEDEF (NDEF is taken). SIGCOV would stay where it is as well. This represents where we would like articles to get to where no one would question deletion of a topic.
  2. The "General notability guideline" would become a new section that would basically saying that a topic is presumed notable to meet NOTEDEF if there is a demonstrated minimum amount of significant coverage in independent secondary sources, but where the article may be otherwise lacking the expected depth of content. We can't assign any numbers to this, but this is where most people would likely read this as being "3 sources" at AFD. This is now firmly establishing the GNG as an indicator of notability.

This would then have it be the case that most SNGs, where the line usually reads "A topic is presumed notable if it meets the GNG or one of the criteria on this SNG", that now this new GNG as an indicator of notability is on par with an SNG in terms of a AFD test. (NCORP excepted, of course, which would say that this version of the GNG is not good enough and one must use that SNG).

In this framework, the GNG and the SNGs still are presumptions of notability, and thus can be challenged if they cannot be expanded beyond that minimum level of sourcing/significant coverage as to get where NOTEDEF would expect us to be at (as well as other non-notability related factors). Here I think most agree that just having the indicator of notability is not a "never can be challenged for notability again" pass, and that making it clear that this new GNG approach with only minimal sourcing can also lead to notability challenges.

The major difficulty here is that the term "GNG" is engrained across WP as to have a good proportion of editors (based on my read of AFD results) to generally take it as the definition of notability, which if this change was made, would need to be retaught to get editors to ween off that. But in exchange, we can clearly state that you can likely indicate you will meet definition of notability (NOTEDEF) equally with either the GNG or an SNG (barring NCORP). --Masem (t) 23:41, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this has any more consensus in the discussion above, or in May, or at actual practice at AfD, than your previous version. And FWIW I also don't support it. I think if we're going to be rewriting it, we should be rewriting it along the lines suggested by Joe and Smokey above which is the actual guideline because it's how it ends up getting implemented. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:45, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Except in practice, the meaning of the GNG is already screwed up between the definition and the indicator of notability, even in this discussion thread; both versions are used, and you have to squint and read carefully to figure out context. Making two separate terns to break apart the dual meaning of the GNG is a needed first step; whether the rest of my steps are right or not I don't know but we're not going to get anywhere if we keep having "GNG" mean both the definition and the indicator of notability. --Masem (t) 00:01, 8 November 2020 (UTC)


I've been going to AFDs for years and two means "multiple sources", you don't need three to pass the general notability guidelines. And the guideline page should be perfectly clear A topic is presumed to merit an article if: It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. To avoid constant arguments from people who don't seem to understand what the word "or" means for whatever reason, we should add in a sentence "you do not need to pass both the GNG if a SSG is passed, both are equal guidelines to determine notability." Dream Focus 23:49, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
Whether its two or three, that's a minor facet, but that's at least passing that indicator to allow a standalone article on a first pass. But if that leaves a stub article, and someone later does a proper search for additional sources (local library searches) and comes up dry as per BEFORE, that can still be deleted because there is clearly no way to expand it to meet the actual full expectation for notability, the initial presumption was wrong. (Of course, the effort to show that no other sources exists will be extraordinary to get there so its unlikely to be challenged, but that's a possibility). That's why the source-based thing, what I'm suggesting should call the GNG, is a indicator of notability, that is equivalent to an SNG and thus a rebuttable presumption . Which is why if we made the definition of notability clear and not on the same term as "GNG", we can say "you can indicate notability with either the GNG or an SNG, you don't need to show both." (or something like that). --Masem (t) 00:01, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
What is the "actual full expectation for notability"? – Joe (talk) 00:18, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
It's as impossible to say as where the line is drawn where we consider a topic to fail the source-based GNG indicator. But there are topic that are so well developed that we would never question their appropriateness of a standalone article, like World War II because of the combination of the sheer number and quality of sources and the in-depthness of the topic such that we have a fully comprehensive stand-alone article. A stub is not that. Its going to be something 100% determined by consensus, case by case, but the more independent, secondary sources you have that go indepth on the topic, the more likely you will get there. --Masem (t) 00:40, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Let me reframe the question, then: if you have an AfD where half of the !voters say the article fails WP:GNG and the other half say it passes the relevant SNG, what is the appropriate outcome? I'm specifically thinking of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kellen Gordon, where a rugby league was added to the SNG without verification or discussion (and it's since been removed,) and voters largely voted along SNG lines. SportingFlyer T·C 00:56, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
That's a wholly different situation where the SNG was modified without community overview. In which case, the SNG "criteria" should have been ignored as haven't no current consensus and the "GNG" indicator should have been applied (which given the state of article, likely would fail). --Masem (t) 01:20, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
@Dream Focus: Treating the SNG as equivalent to the GNG makes no sense. The result of such a policy would be millions of articles on topics that have receive little to no coverage in reliable sources, and therefore can have little or nothing (verifiable) written about them, except that they exist. As long as Billy Bob sat on the bench for one game with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he automatically deserves a Wikipedia article, despite the only coverage of the game being a brief documentation of the score. These types of articles could only ever be single-sentence sub-stubs that essentially only define the subject and assert its existence. Anything else would be unverifiable. Don't get me wrong: the SNGs are accurate predictors of notability, and they're right at least 95% of the time, if not more. But they're not perfect. There are going to be Billy Bobs that technically fall into a category in an SNG, but just aren't notable by Wikipedia's standards, and have no sources from which to write any content about them. GNG has to be the controlling principle for any of this to make any sense. ‑Scottywong| [verbalize] || 07:28, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
What SNG mentions anything about something so trivia? They have information information available about them to pass the requirement to verify them, just not enough significant coverage of them to meet the GNG. Dream Focus 08:24, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
@Dream Focus: Many NSPORT guidelines specify a solitary match (the level of which is often also a very low bar) as sufficient; in some sports, e.g. cricket, this may involve as little as sitting in the dressing room for the entire duration. As such they are not equivalent to, or a substitute for, GNG. wjematherplease leave a message... 15:30, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Then fix that guideline, don't try to eliminate/ignore all subject specific guidelines. Dream Focus 15:32, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
We are clearly not talking about one broken SNG here; if we were, this discussion would be taking place there. The problem is that the majority of SNGs are not functioning as an adequate alternative guideline that is equivalent to GNG, and in places there is strong resistance any change of the individual SNGs that may result in deletions. As such, the obvious solution is to clarify/modify the relationship so that all guidelines become fit for purpose. wjematherplease leave a message... 15:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
But this comes to my point that I think we have two different meanings of the GNG running around on WP that creates confusion: are we saying equivalent to the "GNG" being the definition of notability, where there's a clear plethora of sourcing, so there's no question of the topic's worthiness of note, or are we talking the "GNG" being the indicator of notability where just having 2-3 sources of coverage is sufficient? As I've tried to outline, the SNGs would be secondary to the "definition" meaning, or would be equal to the "indicator" meaning. (I do not think anyone reasonably is saying that the SNGs should be treated as equivalent to the "definition".) It causes people to talk past each other because they're referencing different definitions when refering to the "GNG". --Masem (t) 16:00, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
We are clearly not talking about one broken SNG here; if we were, this discussion would be taking place there. But it really does look like we are talking about one broken SNG: WP:NSPORT. That the conversation is happening on this particular Talk page doesn't change that. XOR'easter (talk) 22:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

The reason why y'all are having such a hard time is because these fundamentals are missing:

  1. Define this "wp:notability" attribute. The definition is not anywhere in Wikipedia.
  2. What is the purpose / goal of wikipedia screening for / based on wp:notability?

I think that collectively the wp:notability ecosystem knows the answer. But until we can distill it and write it down I don't think much progress on the above can be made.

My best attempt at an answer to #1&#2 is: After a topic passes the wp:not test, a measure of to what degree is it a good idea for it to be an article in an enclyclopedia that is "only" going to have tens of millions (not billions) of articles, and a gatekeeper to screen for that. The primary chosen metric is GNG type sourcing (partly because it also serves the purpose of enabling building a decent article) Secondary metrics are:how strongly it passed wp:not, and possibly the qualities defined in SNG's.

Whether SNG's are or should be a part of the fundamental definition, or shortcuts or predictors or should even exist is the question that can then be worked on. Also whether the GNG sourcing is provided vs. merely predicted. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:45, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

The answer to your very last point is a difficult one, and is probably different for pre-2000 and post-2000 topics. In the case of the later, I think WP:NEXIST-type arguments should be viewed with suspicion at best, and outright skepticism at worst, as nearly all "notable" post-2000 topics should have at least some "internet" coverage. This of course would certainly not be the case for a subject from 100 years ago. But definitely even in the case of pre-2000 topics, I believe the acid test is GNG, and that the SNPs should be viewed as subsidiary to that. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 03:04, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree, but my post was more to outline a viable process to sort that and other things out. North8000 (talk) 03:51, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
My impression of the main purpose of our notability guidelines is that we are trying to create a distillation of world knowledge, whose filtration process creates greater quality and reliability and less spam and cruft. It is also a useful thing to create an unfiltered accumulation of everything that can be accumulated (see archive.org) but that's a different project than ours. In AfDs, I think there are two common mistakes regarding notability. Newcomers to Wikipedia are often confused between "notability", meaning eligibility for a Wikipedia article, and notability with its colloquial English meaning, roughly synonymous with significance or importance. Enthusiasts for some topic believe that their pet topic is important, and therefore that it is notable, without regard to whether it meets the Wikipedia definition of notability. But among longer-term editors, there is also a belief that notability can only mean in-depth coverage in published sources, that when other people say that a topic is significant but poorly sourced that they are speaking in oxymorons, that topics with multiple in-depth published sources should always be considered notable, and that when spam and cruft gets through it can only be addressed in one-size-fits-all quantitative ways, by increasing the requirements for the number of sources or the global reach of the sources we allow for all topics. I think those are mistakes. I think that we need to filter both for significance of the topic and for our own ability to create a sufficiently-high-quality article on the topic, and that those two types of filtration need to be considered separately rather than lumped together. I think that many spammers can achieve any GNG-like bar we might set on availability of sources, that setting that bar higher keeps out good content while failing to keep out spam, and that the way to keep out spam is to have separate criteria for significance. I think that combining a broad interpretation of GNG that allows interviews and local newspapers to count as sources, together with a more critical eye than we usually take to the credibility of those sources for that specific content, is adequate for the ability to create high-quality content. I don't think that getting your press release picked up by a major newspaper gives it higher quality than a carefully-reported independent story in a local newspaper. It might be correlated with greater significance, but it might also be correlated with a bigger press budget. I think that, in many areas, significance can and should be better measured by subject-specific measures. For instance, the much-lamented "if you're an Olympic athlete then you're notable" is a perfectly good measure of significance. Where it falls down is as a measure of our ability to create a high-quality article. So I think we would benefit from a greater separation of significance from GNG into SNGs, together with a different and more general criterion, closer to verifiability than notability, that allows local and non-independent sources such as interviews, press releases from employers, etc., to be used as long as they would be considered reliable sources by our standards, but that only attempts to judge whether the content is there and not how significant it is. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:03, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I think there's some wisdom with this. But I don't think we can retroactively apply it to some SNGs that were not developed with this concept in mind. I think your example of NYOLYMPIC still would have community consensus and support in this model. However, other parts of NSPORT, I suspect, would not. And I can't imagine doing this criteria by criteria at all the SNGs that we'd need to. So I think we're instead left with our current less documented, more susceptible to who shows up at a given AfD model as the one that is practical. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
At least part of #2, to me, is that notability serves as a means to balance the fact anyone can create an article without input (potentially allowing vanity articles to be created) while also managing the fact we have a diverse array of topics that have different levels of importance to different editors, and assuring that articles are given a chance to develop in an open wiki environment. Notability assures that at least some independent sourcing exists to avoid pet topics or worst, promotional situations (what NCORP separately has to deal with). That we have the "general notability guideline" as well as SNGs means that we don't judge topics to a common standard of expected quality of sources (like academic journals) but only to the same relative terms of independent secondary sourcing for that topic's area. And that because we are using presumptions of notability, this gives articles an indefinite amount of time to be worked on by all editors to add more sources as long as you've providing indicators that the topic is notable, until the article gets to a state that its clearly an encyclopedic-quality article. --Masem (t) 15:09, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
It means people can send things to deletion discussions constantly, and argue nonstop over the same things, with random results based on who randomly notices and shows up to participate, and the personal bias of whatever administrator closes it. Geological locations, species articles, articles for those who made it to the Olympics but didn't have a publicist or do interviews so they passed the GNG, etc. Either accept the subject specific guidelines, or just get rid of them, no sense arguing for years in thousands of AFDs over this. Those articles will likely NEVER pass the GNG and you know that. Dream Focus 15:25, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
The SNGs are being accepted, but they remains presumptions of notability, which is very difficult to challenge to prove no additional sourcing exists if it a pre-Internet topic. I think WP:BEFORE needs to be better written to explain what nominators are expected to do before sending an article to AFD in the cases where the article meets an SNG. But beyond that, we can't control how certain AFD discussions happen; the deletion sorting project has done has much as possible to make sure those are sorted to the appropriate topic area categories to draw interested editors. --Masem (t) 15:43, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
@North8000, I think you're wrong. We have already written these things down. The opening sentence provides the definition for your #1 ("a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article") and the answer to your #2 (and an elaboration on your #1) is at WP:WHYN.
What we haven't done is taken the WHYN concept back to the SNGs to evaluate whether they're working. NPROF on "anyone who writes a textbook used at multiple universities gets a BLP, even if your only sources are the textbook's copyright page and the university bookstores' ordering page" is broken. NSPORT on "anyone who sits on a bench" is probably not broken for recent decades, but it is broken for sports from a hundred years ago.
@Scottywong, thanks for trying to fix this. These discussions have always beset by worries about whose ox will be gored, and I think now there is a good deal of pessimism that anything will ever improve because of these parochial efforts to give Alice Expert her very own page, and to never merge her into a broader subject that could be more encyclopedic and more appropriately sourced. After all, who would want an article on 1904 Olympic athletes from Ruritania, when you can have a single-sentence stub and a mostly empty infobox for each of them? Or a larger article on Scientists at Big U, when you could have a bunch of separate articles sourced to their own publications? Or a pile of articles about small high schools that nobody can find any information on, especially if you excluded routine coverage of their sports teams?
Digression: I once asked the promoters of Wikipedia:Notability (schools) about a school that existed for one or two years in the 19th century. They were convinced that if it ever issued a high school diploma, we needed a separate article about it. Problem: What would you title the article when you don't know the name of the school (or even if it technically even had a name)? "Unknown school somewhere in This County in the 1870s"? And what would you say about it that couldn't be put into a single sentence of another article?
One of the things I've been thinking is that we need to get some WP:NOT-level agreement that independent sources are an absolute requirement for every single article. A broad, firm agreement that we must be able to find independent sources (at least one or two) for every separate, normal/non-navigational encyclopedia article, with absolutely no exceptions, would go a long way towards solving some of these problems. AFAICT we don't really have that agreement. At most, we seem to have an agreement that independent sources is required for your articles, but not for mine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:37, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing: I wholeheartedly agree with just about everything you say. There seems to be a population of editors that prioritize the quantity of articles, arguing for individual articles on as many things as possible, rather than considering taking the small amount of info you can say about borderline notable things and combining them into one article that is far more useful than 10 perma-stubs. The information will still exist on WP, it's not going anywhere, it's just being organized better. Your reasoning shines a light on why GNG exists, and why it should be the controlling principle when it comes to gauging notability. The one thing I'll disagree on is that every article must have independent sources referenced, or they get nuked. While I can't argue that WP would be a better place if that was true, I think I'm still comfortable with the idea that every article only needs to demonstrate that sources exist and are available, in order to escape deletion on notability concerns. This allows WP to remain a fluid place where the creation of new content is easy and encouraged, and if we're being practical about this attempt to clarify GNG, we'll need to acknowledge the other side's perspective and meet them in the middle. ‑Scottywong| [squeal] || 19:53, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
There is definitely a problem with some editors feeling everything should be a standalone article and not comfortable with some topics being covered in larger topics: the whole mess recently over Theresa Greenfield was an example: a person with no notability until she ran for a congressional seat, and only because she appeared to be taking a lead was there a concern about her not having a standalone rather than covering her in the appropriate election article... but she has since lost her race and all notability guidelines indicate she's not notable for a standalone now. Whether that article should stay now or not is a separate question, but the issue before was the fact that editors were upset that her coverage - otherwise failing all notability guidelines - was relegated to the election article but that's exactly our notability guidelines. Or alternatively, I've seen editors complain that we are "deleting" content when we merge and redirect non-notable topics to larger spaces, even after explaining there's ways to get the old content without any admin help. The idea that every topic must be standalone is problematic and related to notability problems, and something we need to cull down. No printed encyclopedia would do that, and while we're not print, we are not going to segment things down so far too that level. --Masem (t) 15:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I've argued many times at AfD for marginal topics to be merged, e.g., for stubs on journals to be merged to the article on their publisher. But identifying uniquely satisfactory merge targets is not always possible. Do we talk about an expert at the page for the university where they work? (And at which one — people move over their careers.) At the article for their research topic? (Many experts have more than one major contribution.) The natural unit of prose is an article on the person, in almost all cases. XOR'easter (talk) 18:51, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

David and Masem, (or everyone) just to help sort out your answer, lets say that there is a person who has absolutely nothing real-world notable about them in any venue and no accomplishments except everyday life type ones. Just a regular person of the billions out there. But, for some random unknown reason, true solid GNG sources exist on them, sufficient to write a thorough non-promotional article. Should wp:notability be designed to let that article happen or prevent it from happening? This is only to try to develop an answer to #2. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

For example, the answer could be "yes we're trying to be selective, but as a practical matter, we need to stick with GNG because it usually accomplishes that" North8000 (talk) 18:57, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I would say no. If an article does not have any claim of significance at all (would not pass our A7 speedy deletion criteria) we should not have it. That's a much lower bar than GNG or the SNGs, though. As for "anyone who writes a textbook gets a BLP": no, that clause of WP:PROF (#4) requires both multiple books and wide use of those books. But it's also almost never used, and could be removed from WP:PROF with essentially no change to almost all outcomes. Most academic AfDs hinge on citations to or reviews of the academic's research publications (that is, independent and reliably-published sources about what the academic has supposedly done to become notable), the really notable academics have thousands of citations or dozens of book reviews, and even the non-notable ones generally have many more than the "multiple" required by GNG. So the claim that PROF is broken, based on an inaccurate description of a clause that is never actually used, seems dubious at best. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, WP:PROF#C4 is a significantly higher standard than just having written one book, and it's seldom invoked. Offhand, I can't recall an instance where an AfD was closed as keep based on C4 and C4 alone; it and C7 ("substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity") are the unloved children of the guideline, it seems. XOR'easter (talk) 23:10, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Given that notability is an extension of WP:IINFO, no we should not. We are not a Who's Who, and just because there are, for some reason, indepth independent sources about a a everyday joe with no other sign of importance, we shouldn't have an article just because the sources exist. But I cannot imagine such a situation that could occur without failing all the other aspects of WP:N: multiple sources for indepth coverage, enduring coverage over time, and not just a burst of sources, particularly not just for one event (BLP1E), etc. It's just an implausable situation based on how we know reliable sources cover topics that I can't see this happening. (unreliable sources, or promotional ones as NCORP worries about, on the other hand...) --Masem (t) 19:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
People are talking as though this were an abstract question, but I'm not sure that it is. We have plenty of articles about figures whose claim to Notability is "has X subscribers on YouTube" or "has Y followers on Instagram". Many of these people have enough RS written about them to meet NBIO and the GNG, but I'm not at all confident that they necessarily meet the "something real-world notable about them" criterion proposed by North8000. So I for one would be interested in hearing what people think about these actual cases. Newimpartial (talk) 19:45, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
This is sorta why we need secondary sources from RSes in the area. I know in following RSes about social media influences that "having X followers" is how an influencer's important is measured, and where having X is generally in the millions or higher is where these draw more attention in the mainstream sources. It's a way that the "social media industry" (as such what that is) has come to identify who are key players. So we know this is a factor that is considered important in that circle. This is why we have to consider what's in that field and what's determined to be signs of importance and notability. BUT at the same time, we don't want these to be overly inclusive - eg years ago we had a problem where fans of mixed-martial arts had created far far too many articles on all sorts of topics in that area because they had deemed it important to themselves, but created this walled garden of information, so we had to stop and drastically trim that back. So part of this is, to some degree, an WP:AUD issue, to make sure when we are looking at the sourcing that covers the field in general that it includes works outside of it so that we know there's understanding how the field connects to the real world. So like looking at social media, there's plenty of articles on CNN, NYTimes, etc on these people that talk about these people and their millions of followers, so we know we're using the right metrics and why some of these people are appropriately notable. --Masem (t) 20:09, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
If an article came to AfD and the only arguments for keeping it are "they have X subscribers on YouTube", I'd !vote to delete, and my guess is that I'd be aligned with the consensus on that. On the other hand, if an article came to AfD and a search turned up multiple WP:RS profiles of the subject's work as a video essayist, showing a sustained interest over a prolonged period of time, I'd !vote to keep, and I don't think that opinion would be too controversial either. I've seen cases of both types come through AfD, and that's how they seem to play out in practice. XOR'easter (talk) 20:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
If editors are coming to AFD with just the claim "But they have X followers!" and not providing RSes that are making that stance, that's a problem and doesn't help towards notability. Just pointing to the subscriber count on YouTube means nothing for our purposes. But if they come with reliable sources that have made a point that the person has X followers (which is usually going to accompany more details about that person if coming from quality RSes), that's different. --Masem (t) 20:30, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
From a standpoint of encyclopaedicity, I for one am not convinced that RS that confirm that "the person has X followers" necessarily contribute to Notability if they do not support a claim to Notability that goes beyond "has X followers". Even if these sources give some mundane details about the person's life, I don't think this implies anything real-world notable about them in any venue or any accomplishments except everyday life type ones. Basically I am inclined to see these as BLP1E instances where the 1E is "having subscribers/followers". I don't hold this view for an influencer who has created any kind of cultural work, or who has participated in any political controversy, or who meets something like NORG requirements for their personal brand. But for run of the mill YouTubers or Instagram influencers, my suspicion is that there may not be any there there, even if a few RS exist. Newimpartial (talk) 23:12, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
I basically agree with this. Essentially an article that says "this person has X followers" and "that person has Y followers" is akin to being listed in an "index" (tertiary source?). I was in an AfD once where someone tried to claim a listing about a TV series in a book that was basically an index of "All American TV Series 1946–1996" should count as "independent coverage", and I'm pretty sure that view got no takers. A "this person has X followers" article is basically in the same vein. This is why for WP:BLPs, I usually end up looking for in-depth profiles, or at least an in-depth interview on more than just the subject's latest project. But it should perhaps be clearer that "index"-type sources do not contribute to notability under GNG. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 02:36, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
That probably depends on the index: if it's meant to be exhaustive, then inclusion probably doesn't contribute to wiki-notability, while if it's more selective in scope, it might. We run into this not infrequently in AfD's about academic journals, an area where some indices aim to be comprehensive and others are narrowly curated. XOR'easter (talk) 02:53, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Certain a source that is only documenting that a person X has so many viewers and no other details about X is not significant coverage in the first place, and again, unless you squint and consider this to fall under WP:ENT #2, this meets no SNG. But certainly a source that explains that X has so many viewers and goes into why (such as what activities they have done, a brief history of how they got there, etc.) is then going to provide the significant coverage and a partial indicator of notability. --Masem (t) 04:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps, but if "what activities they have done" consists of things like "posted their breakfast to the 'gram", I would not regard that as providing support for a claim to Notability, regardless of how much detail the source offers about said breakfast or similar moments of ordinary life. Newimpartial (talk) 04:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
But that's why we look for multiple sources too, and in such a case, if multiple reliable sources all discussed this person in depth because they gained millions of follower because they posted their breakfast to social media each day, it's hard to dismiss that as a sign of "worthy of note" (There's obviously other facts, making sure this isn't a burst of coverage, for example). --Masem (t) 05:40, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Upon reflection, I think the best way to litigate "real-world notability"/"accomplishments" issues would be in terms of their "credible claim to significance", and leave the GNG (and SIGCOV) out of it. Newimpartial (talk) 20:28, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Well I think that a partial answer to #2 is clear. The mission of wp notability is to do some type of vetting beyond just seeing if there are sufficient sources to write the article. And it's clear the GNG sourcing, beyond being just being an indicator (and possibly the universally accepted and used indicator) of this quality, is (only)one of the attributes that define this quality ("only one" as we decided above) What are the other ones that go into defining this quality? The qualities that the SNG's define? Degree of encyclopaedicness? Real world famousness? Importance / impact, some other things? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

Language clarified

Given the apparent 2-to-1 consensus above at #Arbitrary break and the explicit consensus at this RfC, I have boldly made some small changes to a few sentences of the SNG guideline, in an attempt to clarify the role that GNG and SNG play in determining notability, and bring them in line with consensus. I believe that these changes are supported by consensus. I'd appreciate if we could discuss the changes here before considering reverting them. The changes can be seen here. ‑Scottywong| [squeal] || 15:24, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Wow, ok. I didn't even have time to create this discussion section before User:Newimpartial reverted the edit. I suppose I should have seen that coming. Newimpartial, can you explain how you concluded that the 2017 RfC that I referenced is "clearly an overreach"? It doesn't seem clear to me that it was an overreach. The closure of that RfC notes "clear consensus that no subject-specific notability guideline, including Notability (sports) is a replacement for or supercedes the General Notability Guideline." Yes, that RfC is 3 years old, and consensus can change over time, but can you provide evidence that consensus has changed? And it seems clear to me that twice as many editors above support these changes than oppose them. ‑Scottywong| [soliloquize] || 15:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Newimpartial that the NSPORT RfC can't be used a justification to make such a significant change to WP:N (affecting every other SNG). There might have been a local consensus about the relationship between SNGs and the GNG there, but many editors will have assumed it was only about sport and not participated.
As for judging the consensus in this discussion, my reading is that there's a distinct lack of one on this issue. But also: the discussion is only three days old and still going; you have participated extensively in it; and headcounts are a poor gauge of consensus. I don't think it was appropriate for you to judge the "apparent consensus" at this point. A technicality it may be, but making a definitive statement on this issue will have wide-reaching effects on dozens of other policies, so there should be at least be a clear consensus and proper uninvolved close, and preferably a widely-advertised RfC. – Joe (talk) 15:48, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Again, the 2017 RfC found "clear consensus" that SNGs (not just WP:NSPORTS, but all SNGs) are not a replacement for the GNG. Why exactly do we need to have another RfC for this? Can you point to any discussions since that RfC that indicate that consensus may have changed? ‑Scottywong| [confabulate] || 16:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Even if we have that second RfC, and it arrives at the same conclusion, I 100% guarantee it still won't count for whatever weak-sauce reason. Reyk YO! 16:20, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I don't believe this to be true at all. An RfC held here at WP:N - the overall project page - would be binding in a quite different sense from one held at a specific SNG page. Newimpartial (talk) 16:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
The 2017 RfC was held at the Village Pump, not at a specific SNG page. ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 16:49, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Worser and worser. In fact, I would go further to say that it wasn't a properly formulated RfC in the first place, that it didn't generate appropriate community notification, and that the NAC that was made was thoroughly out over its skis. Calling it a "local consensus" is actually pretty generous: at best, it should be understood as trimming back ridiculous claims made under NSPORT criteria, which is generally how it has been understood IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 16:52, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
But it was also explicitly framed as a question about NSPORT, and many editors will not have paid much attention to it for that reason. The whole point of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is that while focused discussions frequently can reach a consensus on wider issues, those conclusions can't override broader community consensus if the participation was limited. I don't necessarily disagree with this change, but an honest reading of this discussion, and many, many others over the years, is that the relationship between the GNG and SNGs is something the community is split on. – Joe (talk) 18:41, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Needless to say I support the proposed change as reflecting both the 2017 RfC and the emerging consensus here. And I strongly disagree with the mischaracterisations of the 2017 RfC as somehow being "overreach" or "local consensus only". Reyk YO! 15:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • We're jumping too fast. Again, I stress the problem at the core: what is the meaning of "GNG" when editors point to this page (the larger definition, or the indicator of that definition), which affects how we define what relationship the SNG have (as an indicator/shortcut, or as an alternative, respectively). And yes, figuring out what we are going to call the GNG is going to have repercussions on other SNG pages to make sure we're all consistent. --Masem (t) 15:52, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I've read the comments you made about this above, but I don't understand the confusion you're referring to about GNG. GNG is very clearly stated. It is WP's definition of notability. If a topic satisfies the requirements set out in GNG, then it is notable. Once we've established that a topic is notable, then that topic is presumed to warrant a standalone article. SNGs are different: if a topic passes an SNG, then it is presumed that it will also satisfy the requirements of GNG, and therefore it is presumed that a standalone article is warranted on that topic. I don't have any confusion regarding GNG's definition and indication of notability: they are the same thing. If a topic has sufficient indications of notability (i.e. significant coverage in independent reliable sources), then by WP's definition, it is notable. ‑Scottywong| [speak] || 16:17, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
But from countless AFDs, we have the case where have the barest amount of sourcing (eg "3 sources") some consider enough to "pass the GNG", but not sufficient that if more sourcing can't be found via BEFORE or at a later time, the article should be deleted. That it, there does exist in practice a "source-based indicator" of notability, wholly distinct from the definition, that is often referred to as the "GNG". Whether this is correct or not , I don't know, but we absolutely need to be clear on this page and make sure all editors know going forward that the definition should be referred to as one thing, and the indicator as something different. Whether we put "GNG" to the definition or not, that's a question of which would cause the least disruption. But I'm all for saying that the SNGs are indicators of meeting the definition of notability.
The alternative is to accept that the GNG is a continuum, from the barest minimum of sourcing to something as extensively sourced as WWII. But this still remains in practice rebuttable for notability particularly if you are floating on the minimal sourcing end - if you can only pull three sources after a comprehensive BEFORE search and the article remains a stub, we'd likely delete at AFD under current practice. Which is why framing the GNG as the definition of notability as an absolute "you've passed notability, never have to worry about it again" is sorta bad because we also will challenge that and people will game the ability to get away with minimally-sourced articles.
That's why I think its better to establish a wholly separate source-based indicator of notability, and make it clear that , just like the SNGs, articles that may pass that source-based indicator are not in the clear and should continue to work to improve to meet the definition. That's a better match of practice, but it comes to making the terminology for practice a bit more explicit. --Masem (t) 17:32, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
OK, let me see if I follow. WP:GNG says, If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list. The logical structure is: if (meets these criteria), then (presumed to be suitable). The interpretation in the table below is that this defines "notability" by making "notable" equivalent to "presumed to be suitable". But in practice, "notable" is often equated with "suitable", not "presumed to be suitable". When people in AfD's say "fails the GNG", they mean that the article shouldn't exist. XOR'easter (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
The issue that we are having right now is how the SNGs relate to the "GNG", and the problem is that the "GNG" as defined on WP:N is not clear if its meant as a presumed indicator test or what we want articles to strive to be in their best shape. And thus how the SNGs relate to the "GNG" changes depending on which way you read it. In the first scenario: If we say that the "GNG" is still a presumption, then it should be considered no stronger an indicator of notability as the SNGs, and thus the "GNG" and the SNGs should be considered equivalent, or as said "the SNGs are alternatives to the GNG towards notability". In the second scenario, If we are saying that the "GNG" is the definition of notability, such that if an article has reached this "GNG" based on consensus, then the topic is no longer presumed notable, we consider it is notable, never in danger of being at AFD due to notability (other factors like WP:NOT, notwithstanding) And thus, in that situation, the SNGs serve to be indicators or shortcuts that a topic can presumably reach that "GNG" definition. That's why I'm saying we should determine what we want the "GNG" to be, which fixes what the relationship that the SNGs has to it and resolves the wording problem. I know that this is trying to wrap around current practice, now acutely aware that this mixup of what the "GNG" refers to between the SNGs and at AFDs happens all too often. --Masem (t) 19:31, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
@Masem: I'm not sure where you're getting the interpretation where GNG is attempting to define what we want articles to strive to be in their best shape. The concept of notability has nothing to do with the ideal state of an article, and everything to do with deciding whether a topic deserves a standalone article. The very first sentence of WP:N says, "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." Additionally, I think you're misunderstanding the "presumption" aspect of GNG. If you read the text of GNG carefully, satisfying the criteria of GNG does not result in a presumption of notability, it results in a presumption that an article deserves a standalone article. Passing GNG means the topic is notable, full stop, but there are some notable topics that don't deserve a standalone article for whatever reason. This is why "being notable" and "deserving a standalone article" need to be separate concepts. So, in summary, the singular purpose of GNG is to decide of an article warrants a standalone article. If a topic passes GNG, it is considered notable, and is granted the presumption of deserving a standalone article. ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 20:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Is anyone else bothered by the phrasing notability is a test used by editors? "Notability" is an attribute of a topic, which is not the same as a test for that attribute. (And I can say from years of hanging out at AfD that in practice, "being notable" and "deserving a standalone article" are not treated as separate concepts.) XOR'easter (talk) 20:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm going to respond more in depth in a new subsection below because I think this is important to clarify. I mean, yes, what is reads is one thing, but how it is practiced is another and that's creating the issue. --Masem (t) 21:16, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Is it notable? Does it warrant a standalone article?
Passes GNG Yes. Presumably yes, as long as other WP policies aren't violated. Editorial decisions can also be made to merge notable topics together.
Passes SNG Presumably yes. But not guaranteed unless it can be demonstrated that the topic can satisfy the requirements of GNG. Presumably yes, as long as other WP policies aren't violated. But not guaranteed unless it can be demonstrated that the topic can satisfy the requirements of GNG. Editorial decisions can be made to merge notable topics together.
  • It has seemed clear to me for years that the closer of the 2017 NSPORT RfC overreached in using that discussion to propose a ruling that affected the interpretation of all of the other SNGs, without editors interested in any of the other SNGs even being notified of the discussion. The whole idea of a "local consensus" is that it is determined among a subset of the community that is interested in a particular issue, and so the consensus reached should at most be binding within the scope of the issue specified in the discussion, and only when it does not conflict with site-wide community consensus. (I feel exactly the same way about attempts to expand SIRS and AUD outside of NORG, for pretty much the same reason, though in that case I am unaware of overreach in any closure on the NORG pages themselves - in that instance the overreach comes from editors trying to apply NORG principles elsewhere on WP.) Newimpartial (talk) 16:04, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Please, let's not edit war over this change. Leave it reverted if you truly believe that there isn't consensus for it, and let's continue discussing it here. ‑Scottywong| [spout] || 16:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I support Scottywong's changes and feel that they merely align that section with what GNG and the SNG's already say. But since there is a dispute over that we sure don't want an edit war, the previous version should be retained until we come to a decision. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:35, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  • I support Scotty's changes. I still support my suggested version. I also would support removing the SNG section altogether - I do not think it ever had consensus for inclusion and so the stable version would be none at all. My order of preference is Scott's change, the pared down version, and no SNG section. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
    • I kind of like the pared-down version, though I'd prefer to keep the point about some SNGs also add additional restrictions on what types of coverage can be considered for notability purposes. For example, the SNG for companies and organizations specifies a very strict set of criteria for sources being considered. Perhaps some of the heat in this discussion stems from the impression that SNGs are always weaker than the general guideline, when in reality they can also be about toughening it up. XOR'easter (talk) 18:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
      • If wishes were horses, I would like to see language that states that all SNGs should be treated as "interpretive instructions" for the GNG in a specific context. For example, NCORP offers a high bar for sourcing that is specific to organizations, NBOOK specifies that the GNG is met by two "non-trivial" published secondary works, including newspaper reviews and bestseller lists, NAUTHOR clarifies that NOTINHERITED is a one-way street when it comes to creators and their works, and so on. None of them should be read as contradicting the GNG, but all should be understood as giving domain-specific interpretive guidance, i.e., they can't be overruled through an appeal to a woolier and more abstract interpretation of GNG principles. So, to give a concrete example, NBOOK should not be overruled because someone wants to read SIGCOV as saying that bestseller lists don't count, that a 250-word NYT review isn't long enough, or that an AUD-type restriction should be used to exclude otherwise RS reviews. Newimpartial (talk) 18:41, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
        • The language of GNG is intentionally vague, leaving it up to us what constitutes "significant" coverage. I don't think anyone disagrees that SNGs can help to clarify the bounds of significance as it relates to specific categories of topics. The crux of the issue is whether SNGs can or cannot be used as a substitute for GNG. Some editors believe this should be the case: if a topic satisfies an SNG, then it's notable, even if it cannot be shown to satisfy the GNG. The change in language to WP:SNG that you reverted earlier was intended to clarify just that. ‑Scottywong| [confess] || 18:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
      I am fine adding the NCORP language and fine with the changes Dream Focus made before Newimpartial reverted them. Newimpartial given your statement about your preferred version why did you revert? A pared down version means people would have to go to the individual SNGs to know what they mean which seems to be your goal. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:58, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
      • As I said in my edit summary, it was a procedural revert with No prejudice against a future change when there is an actual consensus. I haven't seen any such consensus emerge, so really I was just doing BRD.
      • Substantively, I also think the guidance removed here was more helpful than harmful, and that the changes here say some unfortunate things as well, though I am not entirely opposed to that general direction. I disagree with the "either/or" in the current version of WP:N, as I have noted a couple of times now, but there should be consensus on something else before there is a change (and the 2017 NSPORT close doesn't help at all IMO). Newimpartial (talk) 19:11, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I agree with the Newimpartial's revert. Such a material change in Wikipedia's core guideline concerning the interaction of SNGs and the GNG should not have been implemented based on votes cast over a span of two days by a small number of editors (13 agree, 8 disagree/oppose, and 1 agree/disagree). Such a change should be subject to a formal RfC with proper notice to the WikiProjects impacted by the SNGs and after ample time for input by interested parties. Cbl62 (talk) 19:12, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
    BOLD changes are a way that things are changed. And there was no RfC to insert that section in the first place and the accompanying discussion, like this one, had a mix of consensus. This is why removing the section altogether is one of the options I support. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:16, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

The way that it actually works right now is that overall GNG's primacy is acknowledged, but that meeting just the SNG is sufficient. The currently discussed change would just tidy that up, not change it. IMO to go beyond that to really tune up the notability kluge overall, we'd need to start with the fundamental discussion that I was trying to facilitate. North8000 (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

The part of this that I do agree with is that presumptive notability, in the sense it is generally explained for SNGs in general, is a kludge. NCORP for example isn't based on "presumptive Notability" in any sense I can reasonably imagine, and I don't see any way in which reading NBOOK 1-3 as "presumptive" would be of any value whatsoever (I can see the point in regarding NBOOK 4 and 5 as presumptive, but that is a discussion for TALK:NBOOK - and NBOOK itself doesn't describe any of them as presumptive). On the other hand, the NSPORT SNGs really are all about presumptive Notability.
So yes, it is a kludge, but I think there is pretty profound disagreement about what would remain if the kludge were removed. Prima facie, we have some SNGs that impose apparently higher than the GNG standard, some that are essentially interpretive, and some that are presumptive and NODEADLINE-oriented (which reminds me to point out that the idea of demonstrating that a topic does not meet the GNG is essentially impossible, which was an issue with one of the recently rewording proposals). And from a pure standpoint of Encyclopaedic treatment, I think there is a good argument that NGEO should actually stand independently from the GNG, since otherwise some skeptics will constantly be wikilawywring what counts as SIGCOV for a place that was demonstrably populated in the past.
I do think the "read together" approach is a better kludge than "presumptive Notability", and I am also skeptical that we will ever see an conceptually distinct standard of what is notable that the community will agree on, besides documentability, but I'd rather see that litigated in terms of an article's claim to significance and WP:NOT rather than making the WP:N do a job for which it was never really designed. Newimpartial (talk) 20:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Would it help to introduce new terms and divide up the SNGs? I'm wary of making up more jargon that newcomers will have to understand, but if the current jargon is unclear, then separating the "SNG" box might be worth the trouble. After all, the existence of the "SNG" label is a fact of our own invention, and so any problems with it are of our own making. XOR'easter (talk) 20:26, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I suppose an attempt to split up the SNGs into presumptive and non-presumptive baskets, at least, might reward the effort. As I've said, NCORP and NBOOK seem clearly non-presumptive, at least to me. Newimpartial (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Any notion of allowing SNGs to override GNG will result in some number of articles on topics that do not have significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Some people may want that and be ok with that, but I don't think that's in the best interests of the project, and I think most editors would agree with that. SNGs are highly accurate in predicting the likelihood of notability, but they are not perfect. They are a predictor or an estimator, not an actual test. You could develop 1000 rules for exactly what an author has to do to be considered notable, and there will still be some set of authors in the world that satisfy all of those rules, but still have zero significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. WP has never allowed articles on topics that lack significant coverage in independent, reliable sources, and I don't think we should change that now. ‑Scottywong| [confer] || 20:44, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
This is a slippery-slope argument, as far as I can tell. The one SNG that most clearly overrides the GNG is NORG, which does so to make the criteria stronger. There are plenty of organizations that meet the GNG but not NORG. So the first actual example of allowing SNGs to override GNG does not actually result in some number of articles on topics that do not have significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Neither does NBOOK do so, when it preempts pointless discussions on whether "routine" book reviews should count for book Notability - they simply do, and SIGCOV wikilawyering is not allowed on this point. There is no inevitable march towards poorly sourced articles based on SNG.
Also, the problem I have with your proposed bright line to exclude topics with zero significant coverage in reliable, independent sources is that, except for "zero" and "sources", all of these terms are susceptible to being gamed. I have seen SIRS arguments about independence - applied outside of the NCORP world - that violate the clear intent of the GNG and that try to exclude perfectly valid ENC content. I have seen AUD arguments similarly used to attempt to exclude sources that are perfectly reliable (for non-NCORP purposes) because the topics in question fit some editor's conception of NOT but it is easier to cloak the argument in Notability. And I have seen, perhaps most often, arguments that defy the clear intent of SIGCOV to impose a much higher standard of significant coverage (often even higher than a plausible reading of CORPDEPTH would require) for similar reasons. What I have not seen in my time at AfD is any article ever retained without reliable sources or without independent sourcing. While I have seen the presumptions invoked, and have seen various SNGs used to good effect, I have never seen any unsourced or COI articles preserved at AfD, though I have seen a number of articles deleted for IDONTLIKEIT arguments disguised as Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 21:14, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, well I closed an AfD not too long ago (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willie Thornton (Canadian football)) where the overwhelming majority was to Keep because the subject "meets WP:GRIDIRON", with editors openly admitting that the subject most likely has no significant coverage, but it doesn't matter because he meets GRIDIRON and because GNG is a guideline not a policy, and there are other paths to notability than GNG. So, my "slippery slope" argument is not just a theory, it's happening in practice. Additionally, people in this very discussion are directly arguing for the existence of articles on topics that don't have any significant coverage anywhere: [4]. This isn't a theoretical edge case, this stuff is happening today. ‑Scottywong| [comment] || 21:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Biological species are a great example of I think encyclopaedicity and "claim to significance" ought to preempt gaming of SIGCOV. RS documentation that a species exists (or existed) and that its classification has been recognized by relevant authorities ought to take precedence over an editor's desire for SIGCOV to mean the same thing in all circumstances. That you interpret such articles as having zero significant coverage in reliable, independent sources is exactly why I don't accept that as a bright line. The argument that such articles are undesirable, because their sources are too specialized or the mentions are too short, or because the sources aren't as independent as you would like, does not mean that anything is sneaking in without RS or with COI, which is what I see as the more relevant criterion. So from my perspective, your argument is a slippery slope. Newimpartial (talk) 22:03, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
There are definitely a small class of topics that we have decided that we are going to be inclusionary on, and ignore notability, because of WP:5P1 ("Wikipedia combines many features of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers.") That includes cataloging verified biological species, and government-document geographical places. Mind you, with all of our sister projects now, we could talk about moving some of these off (eg Wikispecies should alleviate the need to have all verified species, but leave us with those that are notable, redirecting en.wiki searches for non-notable ones to there). But the number of these areas is very small, I can't even think if there are others beyond those two. And we'd obviously need global consensus to add any additional outright inclusionary topic areas as this is well beyond the scope of notability. --Masem (t) 22:29, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
But what kind of standalone article can we write about a biological species, when the only source we have is one that confirms its existence? Probably something like the examples offered in the diff I posted above: Hebeloma aestivale. It's a mushroom from Denmark. Cool. Sure, it's just a stub, and stubs are fine, but this is a stub that will never be anything other than a stub, because there are no sources that discuss this particular mushroom with any significance. If there are no other sources that discuss it, then all we'll ever be able to say about it is that it's a mushroom from Denmark. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should wipe all traces of Hebeloma aestivale from Wikipedia and pretend it doesn't exist. I'm just saying that it shouldn't have a standalone article. Standalone articles on topics like this serve no purpose, and help no one. It would be far more useful to the reader to include the 2-sentence description of this mushroom in the article on Hymenogastraceae or List of Hebeloma species, rather than asking readers to bounce around from perma-stub to perma-stub to learn what they want to learn. This is why GNG is such a wonderful, elegant idea. When a topic rises to the level of significant coverage in reliable sources, we'll make an article on it. If there is verifiable information about a topic, but that topic itself isn't covered significantly in reliable sources, then let's find a good place to put that verifiable information, but let's not create a standalone article on it. There are some editors that seem to believe that increasing the quantity of articles on Wikipedia is the ultimate goal, and that every verifiable fact deserves its own article. I agree with them that WP should strive to document every verifiable thing in the universe; I only disagree that that we should also strive to spread that information out among a near-infinite number of articles. We can still be an encyclopedia, almanac, and gazetteer without putting each individual sentence in its own article. ‑Scottywong| [gab] || 22:38, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

This is precisely why I will never subscribe to GNG fundamentalism. The people who say "the GNG should apply in the same way to all articles" are exactly the same ones who are willing to ratchet up from SIGCOV to the equivalent of SIRS and CORPDEPTH criteria for all articles - even in subject matter areas where this has never been discussed - rather than allowing the interpretation of the GNG to vary based on the consensus embodied, for example, in geographic, academic or artistic SNGs.

As I have said before, the assertion that this is a stub that will never be anything other than a stub is fundamentally unprovable, and asserting it involves the hubris of pretending to know what is contained in all print libraries, ever, along with the CRYSTAL of presuming to know what future publications will bring. Neither assumption is compatible with basic WP policies. And in most cases of provably real topics where SIGCOV is an issue, the issue is generally not that no verifiable information exists beyond the subject's existence. The problem is usually either that such information is difficult to find - in print, or in other languages, or behind paywalls - or that it is available in sources that may be verifiable but that are PRIMARY or questionably independent, such as published research findings or the self-published work of experts in the field. And it is for these much more typical cases, especially, that I push for verifiably real things (but not for-profit companies) to be included in the encyclopaedia even when no one source may meet the requirements of SIRS. And while I am generally sympathetic to "but it doesn't need a standalone article"-style arguments, I believe that (1) the place for that is in Merge discussions, not AfD and (2) in cases like GEO and species (more than most), categories matter, and WP's category system, in so far as it works at all, only works when it can classify articles in a domain that have been created at a consistent unit of analysis. And to me, that is a good example of an encyclopaedic criterion. Newimpartial (talk) 23:54, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

As to your close which you used as an example earlier, that article has two definitely RS (one with multiple stories), so from my perspecive the "rebuttable presumption" of GRIDIRON was not in fact rebutted in the actual instance. An argument to the contrary would have to be based in the kind of ratcheting interpretation of SIGCOV I referred to just above - this does speak well to your close, of course :). Newimpartial (talk) 00:08, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

GNG is intentionally vague, it does not define exactly what "significant" means for every topic. Therefore, I agree with you that the definition of what is "significant" coverage should be fluid, and should generally be left up to local consensus amongst editors in who are familiar with that topic. I honestly find no difference between SIRS/CORPDEPTH and SIGCOV; they are an expansion of SIGCOV, an attempt to define SIGCOV more exactly for the topic of organizations and companies. Of course, it would not be appropriate to apply CORPDEPTH to an article on a bacteria or a galaxy, and it should be easy to shoot down that argument at an AfD.
While it might be true that the assertion that "this is a stub that will never be anything other than a stub" is typically unprovable, the converse is also true. In the absence of sources, the statement "this is a stub that will become more than a stub someday" is equally unprovable. Both of these assertions are CRYSTAL. Attempting to "prove" these things beyond the shadow of a doubt is not helpful and not the point; we can only go on the information we have today. If, after an exhaustive search, we can't find sources for a topic, then we should assume that no other sources exist and act accordingly by either deleting the article or merging it elsewhere. If, at a later date, sources come to light that were missed in the previous search, then we act accordingly by either re-creating the article or splitting the topic off from the main article.
I agree that all verifiably real things should be documented in the encyclopedia, we just need to be rational about the quantity of articles we use to document those things, to optimize things for the reader. You might have a valid point about categories in some cases. And I agree that Merge discussions should ideally take place on the article's talk page instead of AfD. But, in practice, merge discussions often spontaneously arise at AfD, and there's no benefit to artificially interrupting those productive conversations to move them to a different venue, especially when the AfD might have attracted the attention of a larger group of editors who can have a better discussion and generate a stronger consensus on how to proceed. ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 00:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Whether it's more useful to have several small articles or one larger one will depend on the situation. I've found myself arguing for merges and against them; I've encountered examples where a merge target was uniquely obvious and others where the opposite was true. For example, suppose we have a biographical stub about a scientist, and it doesn't look too likely that we'll find material to expand it with. Should we merge it to (a) the article on the university where they did the work they're recognized for, (b) the article on the university where they work now, (c) the article on the technical topic they're most known for studying, (d) the article on the learned society that elected them a Fellow in recognition of lifetime achievements, (e) the article on the textbook they wrote that passes WP:NBOOK, (f) the article on the representation of their ethnic group in science, (g) ... Any of these choices will likely clutter up the target article and run the risk of the biographical bit getting removed later ("WP:UNDUE"). And, as Newimpartial pointed out, cavalier merges will break the category system. What is optimal for the reader must be evaluated as the circumstances arise (not that there is only one kind of reader, either). XOR'easter (talk) 01:10, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
To Scottywong: so much in there that I can agree with, but then If, after an exhaustive search, we can't find sources for a topic, then we should assume that no other sources exist and act accordingly by either deleting the article or merging it elsewhere. That position is classic WP:NOWDEADLINE, but there is equally a WP:NODEADLINE position in the community, and no clear adjudication between the two. And once again, as I have stated before, I am by no means in favor of articles "without sources", but I also have no objection to permastubs either depending on the context - so long as they have reliable sources (even if they don't meet a reading of the GNG that can't tell SIGCOV from CORPDEPTH) and contribute to encyclopaedic treatment, whether with respect to the category system or to line up neatly with other articles as in NBOOK point 5.
I have signed off on more than my share of merges over time, including List merges, but I am also quite familiar with the one-two shuffle where an article is Merged at AfD because of "borderline notability" but then the merged content is then dropped from the list article because the subject "is not notable". Which is why I am inclined to draw my own bright line against GNG fundamentalism: I think WP:V, NOT, and even WP:SIGNIF are more helpful in resolving these content questions than the GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 01:53, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Clarify the burden-shifting element to a rebuttable presumption

I agree that SNGs should not "override" GNG. The key is to give due weight to the SNG so that they are meaningful, but not absolute. As noted above, our current guideline states that the presumption holds "unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise." (emphasis added) The last part is often overlooked in AfD discussions. As with all rebuttable presumptions, the effect is to shift the burden of proof. See Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U.S. 312 (1932) ("A rebuttable presumption clearly is a rule of evidence which has the effect of shifting the burden of proof."). What we ought to do is codify and clarify this existing consensus along these lines:

"Passing an SNG establishes a rebuttable presumption that a topic is notable. It does not, however, create an irrebuttable or conclusive presumption. The effect of a rebuttable presumption is to shift the burden of proof. Accordingly, a party challenging the notability of a topic that passes an SNG has the burden of proof to demonstrate by appropriate and diligent searches that the topic has not received significant coverage of the type required by the general notability standard. The scope of such searches which will vary depending on the circumstances, including geography (e.g., a Belgian topic should include searches of Belgian sources), language (e.g., a Chinese topic should include searches of Chinese language sources), and time period (e.g, Google searches will not suffice for pre-Internet topics)." Cbl62 (talk) 21:41, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I think, in both guideline (e.g. WP:NPROF) and practice (at AfD), some SNGs don't really fall under of the rebuttable presumption concept. Most. But not all. Which is part of the problem in trying to describe SNGs in the first place. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

  • That doesn't obviate the need for clarification for those SNGs that do create a rebuttable presumption. SNGs are not created equal, and the continued effort to try to formulate a one-size-fits-all solution is not going anywhere. As NSPORTS is among the most controversial, I continue to think a clarification along these lines is the most sensible. Here is revised language to address Barkeep's point:
"Many SNGs (including WP:NSPORTS, ___, ___, ___) establish a rebuttable presumption that a topic is notable. In those cases, the SNG does not create an irrebuttable or conclusive presumption. The effect of a rebuttable presumption is to shift the burden of proof. Accordingly, a party challenging the notability of a topic that passes such an SNG has the burden of proof to demonstrate by appropriate and diligent searches that the topic has not received significant coverage of the type required by the general notability standard. The scope of such searches which will vary depending on the circumstances, including geography (e.g., a Belgian topic should include searches of Belgian sources), language (e.g., a Chinese topic should include searches of Chinese language sources), and time period (e.g, Google searches will not suffice for pre-Internet topics)." Cbl62 (talk) 00:03, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Is the GNG a test or a standard?

This is extended from discussion above but splitting out to avoid conflation. But again, I think focusing too much right now on the SNG's relationship to the GNG is the wrong approach as defining what we say the "GNG" is.

A hypothetical question: I have created an article on a topic that otherwise doesn't have any SNG apply to it. I have found three references about the topic from decent sources (let's say like Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and CNN), each which discusses the topic over 3-4 paragraphs out of a 20 paragraph article in each case. Presume the coverage is secondary. Between the three sources I can craft a two paragraph stub article.

Now someone comes along and blindly nominates that for deletion for failing the GNG, failing to do any other BEFORE-like searches. Ignoring that issue, I can tell you that the likely outcome of that AFD will be "Keep per GNG" as we have it right now because at AFD, the "GNG" is taken as a minimum amount of sourcing - it is treated like a test.

A year goes by, no major changes to the article are made, and someone else comes along and after doing a fully comprehensive BEFORE search and finds nothing (and lets assume there really is nothing else beyond these three sources), and again nominates it for failing the GNG. And that becomes the hypothetical question: What is the "proper" result here under the notability guidelines?

I'll leave this an open question but it does relate to how we define what the GNG is and subsequent its relation to the SNG. --Masem (t) 21:46, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

And I will give you my realistic hypothetical answer, which is that this instance shouldn't be at AfD at all. The correct venue would be a Merge discussion on the article Talk page, to determine whether the most Encyclopaedic treatment of this sourced information would be as a standalone article or as part of a broader, related topic. WP:N would not offer any help in framing this question, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 21:54, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
For all purposes, let's assume its impossible to find a place to merge this topic, and that AFD is the right place for it. I agree that if is clear there was a merge target, that a merge discussion should happen instead, but that's not the test I am trying to figure out here. --Masem (t) 22:23, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
It would probably be kept from year to year, but if the coverage isn't WP:LASTING, the article subject isn't that important, and no one works on it, I think in five or ten years it stands a good chance of deletion. The three sources don't need to be temporal in this case, either. SportingFlyer T·C 22:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
WP:LASTING wouldn't apply in this case because it's part of an SNG. The example said that there is no SNG that applies. ‑Scottywong| [spout] || 22:48, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Fair enough, but WP:RECENT isn't part of the SNG and is a relatively similar principle. Once notable, always notable, but there are some topics which may be considered notable once and not notable later due to limited sourcing ageing poorly. SportingFlyer T·C 22:57, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Different topics require different lengths in an encyclopedia. New York State Route 373 is an FA with just over 1000 words while Barack Obama, also an FA, has 703 words in the LEAD alone and clocks in at over 13,000 words in total. So this hypothetical article should be kept and the nominator of the second better be ready for a whole bunch of people getting upset that there's a second nomination after it was kept in an identical state a year previous. I don't think this is actually useful, however, in deciding what we should say about SNGs on WP:N which is why I'm here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:33, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Let's say the hypothetical article I'm speaking of at 2 paragraphs is at most 150 words/1500 characters, with those 3 sources (1500 char is where DYK considers an article "long enough"). In other words, its clearly stub territory when compared to NY 373. And let's further state that the 2 paragraphs is the extent the article could be expanded from the sources without going into excessive quoting or paraphrasing or other NOT issues. --Masem (t) 22:42, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
So this hypothetical article should be kept and the nominator of the second better be ready for a whole bunch of people getting upset that there's a second nomination after it was kept in an identical state a year previous. I don't think this is actually useful, however, in deciding what we should say about SNGs on WP:N which is why I'm here. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:50, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree. So long as there are sources which are acceptable and are deemed to establish notability, the article should not be deleted. HighKing++ 15:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
The hypothetical article that you're talking about should not be deleted in this case. If it was determined that it satisfied GNG last year, then per WP:NTEMP, that won't change. If the most you can get out of the available sources is a few paragraphs, then look for an appropriate merge target. If there is truly no appropriate merge target, then leave the article alone. Sure, it's not ideal to have permanently short articles. But, if there is borderline signficant coverage of a verifiable topic, and there is truly nowhere else to merge information about this topic, then we just deal with having a short-ish article. By the way, this is a very contrived example. In practice, there is almost always an appropriate merge target. Very few topics are so unrelated to everything else in the universe that there is no other article that is closely related. ‑Scottywong| [gab] || 22:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
On this, my two cents: the way you've described how you would handle it, that still makes this a test, that the fact that we can't expand beyond a few sources and should find a non-standalone place for the information is exactly what we'd do if a topic failed an SNG as well. (And yes, I would agree there's almost always a merge target). This is what I'm trying to get across is that the fact that some here agree that such an unexpandable stub should be merged means that we have a source-based indicator of notability separate from the definition. --Masem (t) 01:45, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Are we conflating notability with quality here? Why should a short article on a topic that is notable even be considered for a merge in the first place? HighKing++ 15:28, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Because we do not want stub/short articles. If it is fundamentally impossible to expand the article any further than a stub due to lack of sourcing (and no reasonable expectation of sourcing to come in the future), then we're going to want to merge if at all possible or delete if there's no other solution. The thing is, there is no other policy or guideline that speaks to the number of sources or amount of significant coverage that is needed to build out an article beyond a stub except for WP:N, which is why this is an issue here. --Masem (t) 15:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

IMO it is both a standard and a test/metric. This isn't the usual cop-out "both" answer, I think that it is fundamental to how the kluge operates. I think that the standard of how the kluge operates is the standard is mostly GNG, with smaller allowances for other factors such as how easily it passes the wp:not criteria, SNG criteria, degree of enclyclopedicness, importance. famousness. And it's also a pretty good measuring stick and credible information source for all of those things.North8000 (talk) 02:18, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

There's clearly some implicit "indicator of notability" being called out here that we'll initially keep an article with minimal sourcing that is in the ballpack of the current GNG (but otherwise doesn't meet any SNG), but over time if it simply can't be improved with more sources, we're liking to say that presumptions is wrong and we'll look for a merge target/delete at worst - that's the concept I'm getting from these responses. Only judging by that, what we have as the GNG should stay the definition, that SNGs are indicators/shortcuts to that definition, but we really should add a section on WP:N on soft end of the GNG: that while having a minimal number of sources to just barely pass the GNG can be acceptable in the early days of an article's history, it is expected that editors will expand to better demonstrate more GNG-meeting sources/coverage, and that that presumption for the standalone can still be challenged. We say that about the presumption of the standalone article at the top of the GNG already, but we don't say this presumption can be challenged if the number of sources/quantity of significant coverage is judged to be insufficient by consensus at AFD. --Masem (t) 15:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Also, this seems to confirm that the SNGs are not "alternatives" to the GNG, particularly if they also only produce a short stub article. The SNG is sufficient to keep the article to be worked out and look for more sources, but if proven out no further sources/significant coverage of the topic can be made after a thorough BEFORE source search, we'd be looking to merge/delete the topic. It may be possible to get to where the SNG article has enough sources to just meet the GNG but at which point that still come under this consideration of minimal sourcing/significant coverage idea. --Masem (t) 16:03, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
That reasoning would make sense only if the sources that are allowed to count for GNG-notability are the same as the ones that are allowed to be used to source and expand articles. In practice, our standards for what kinds of sources can be used to expand articles are much broader than our standards for what kinds of sources count towards GNG-notability. It's not just that we allow expansion based on interviews, local newspapers, and the like; it's also that sentences in an article such as stating that the subject won a notable award (MBE, say) can be supported by sources that mention the subject only in passing (among a list of other people getting MBE that year). —David Eppstein (talk) 17:34, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Good point and this is a common source of confusion. A source, such as an interview, may be well used as a WP:RS for verification purposes and also be inadequate for purposes of establishing notability under GNG. I definitely see new editors struggle with this when creating articles. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:39, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I would like to emphasise the difference between SNGs that are looser on GNG requirements for establishing notability (in circumstances where the SNG lowers the bar and an article is deemed notable by the SNG requirements but would fail GNG) and SNGs that are (perceived as) tighter on GNG requirements. I'm thinking of NCORP here for example which provides an in-depth explanation on the meaning of an "Independent" source to include "Independent Content". Editors often interpret an "Independent" source to merely reflect the independence of the publisher from the topic and point to GNG as evidence in these situations which doesn't provide the additional clarification/explanation. In this circumstance, it is perceived that the NCORP SNG is going beyond providing additional explanation to the GNG requirement and is, in fact, adding new requirements. No amount of explanation at an AfD has proved effective and it is a serious waste of time repeating the requirements ad nauseum. In my view, it would be a mistake to say that the SNG is "subservient" to GNG whereby if an article meets GNG, then the SNG doesn't matter. Barkeep49's mention above of a source, such as an interview, being used to establish notability, for example, crops up time and time again. I know this is a different point that the one Masem is outlining above, but any proposed solution or changes to wording at WP:N or GNG should also keep the above in mind as it is an opportunity to provide much needed clarity. HighKing++ 17:59, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, SNGs should be able to be met with a minimum of one source that meets WP:V (which at minimum required a third-party source - no press releases for example, but also implies reliability and the like), unless otherwise stated by the SNG. But that's to pass the SNG for presumed notability; over time we would expect better sourcing to be added. --Masem (t) 18:12, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Depending on how far we're going here with redefining GNGs and SNGs, it may be worth considering the minority of SNGs that impose additional restrictions (mostly just NCORP, although NPOL is sometimes interpreted this way to dismiss election coverage as routine, and the NFF section of NFILM also imposes restrictions) as a separate category of guideline. It may be far more trouble than it's worth, but if we're really concerned with inconsistency about what how SNGs interact with GNG, this would be a way to fix it. signed, Rosguill talk 18:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree this is true in practice, but I'd be hardpressed to find any policy or guideline outside of STUB that gets into what we want to see for expansion.
Maybe what we are looking at beyond just meeting a bare minimum of GNG-type sources or the SNG criteria are additional sources that each demonstrate the ability to expand the article in ways that meet WP:NOT, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. A counterexample is common, the case of fictional characters that get barely a few mentions of critical reception after which editors tend to flood the rest of the article with primary sourcing to document the character. Arguably that just meets the GNG, but we have over the last several years deleted/merged numerous articles in this state because of WP:NOT#PLOT issue. But to go on this point and take David's point on interviews (a point of contention being if they are primary or secondary sources), its also often that an article on a fictional character that have some GNG type sourcing can be expanded from interviews with their creators, talking about their concepts for creating the character, design changes, etc., which is routine part of articles that are kept - regardless if one considers that interview primary or secondary, they would fulfill V/NOR/NPOV and doesn't fail NOT.
Or to take another example, the common SNG issue are those NSPORTS of "played one pro game". The common logic that this is used and that has been demonstrated is that , at least for most American sports, is that to be in a pro game you have had to play in some minor league or a collegiate league and not be a slouch - you don't "accidentally" a pro career. There should be readily-available documentation from that minor league/collegiate period that may be more local but should still fulfill V/NOR/NPOV elements of sourcing and also meet the independent and secondary facets for the GNG definition.
But again, I'm not aware of any distinct policy or guideline to this end. STUB is one part, but even large articles that *just* pass the GNG can be deleted because they further can't meet additional GNG sourcing (at least in AFD statements). Ideally, we want more sourcing that is GNG-criteria-worthy quality, but having even additional sourcing that individually satisfies the other guiding policies seems to be more than sufficient. I think it should also caution that articles that continue to only demonstrate minimal coverage or sourcing even if having passed a prior AFD baed on a GNG or SNG test can still likely be challenged later, and the only way to avoid that completely is to expand with this type of additional sourcing: simply passing the GNG or SNG with minimal sourcing should not be taken as a clear pass of notability forever. --Masem (t) 18:12, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I am going to say again that I don't think that AfD and WP:N in general are the right location to deal with issues related to permastubs and challenging prior AfDs. In the scenarios we are talking about there is clearly verifiable information, and Merge discussions on article talk pages (often with posted RfC) are the best way to resolve that question, rather than throwing the issue into the cauldron of AfD each time. WP:PRESERVE is the relevant principle here, and the question is how that can best be achieved. The articles that I think should be taken to AfD (under related but not identical circumstances) are those without a clear claim to significance, but those aren't best understood as WP:N issues either. Newimpartial (talk) 18:22, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I shouldn't mean that all stubs or non-notable articles are AFD targets, only that they are no longer appropriate for standalone pages and something should be done with them, with merge/PRESERVE options being of highest priority, I agree. What I am trying to say that in terms of notability, while barely meeting the GNG, or meeting the SNG, may pass one AFD, this is not a free pass to no further challenges to notability and/or article improvement. (Though clearly there is no DEADLINE here and a whole bunch of other facts that we give leniency on the article creation process) What we expect that improvement to be, and how the lack of improvement can be challenged is something I am not seeing well spelled out, which in part may be the confusion created in all this thread. There's a certain amount of language precision the guideline lacks that we can fix, but also a bit about process that we're missing too (which may be more appropriate in an essay-like page rather than a guideline ) --Masem (t) 19:09, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
The concept that every article should eventually be more than a reasonable stub (say two or three paragraphs) is not relevant to notability. For example the Encyclopedia Brittanica has thousands of stub articles and extending articles needlessly is just padding and boredom for the reader who should be considered in this argument. Short but informative articles - say with five or more facts are perfectly acceptable as a permanent stub if the subject is notable as in covered significantly by multiple reliable sources or accepted per consensus such as professors or villages. However, one or two line sub-stubs are ready for merging in my view. The general consensus of wikipedia content creators who mostly don't take part in these sort of discussions is that stubs are perfectly acceptable otherwise they wouldn't be creating them by the thousands every week, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 01:49, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Paths towards consensus

We're having a pretty interesting and in depth discussion about notability above that hopefully has been as interesting for others as it has been for me. However, ultimately I would like to see us move towards finding consensus about how our SNG section should read. And I'm not sure we're moving towards that; it appears we've reached a stage where a handful of editors say a lot to each other without new voices entering the discussion and/or we are sprawling beyond the core question (perhaps appropriately, perhaps not) of what the SNG section should say. Here are three ideas I have about how we could move towards reaching consensus:

  1. We continue on (perhaps others feel we're moving more towards consensus than I do)
  2. We do a more structured straw poll (a few set options with a section for people to state their thinking and a separate discussion section)
  3. Or we go whole hog and craft an RfC

My preference is for 2 with a weak second choice for 3 (as 3 always remains an option if 2 doesn't work). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:44, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

For something as important as this, I think we need to enshrine this in an RfC. I've already started drafting one at User:Scottywong/SNG RfC draft. It'd probably be a good idea to have a discussion about how it's structured and worded before making it live (but not a discussion about whether you support or oppose it). ‑Scottywong| [comment] || 19:09, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I am adamantly opposed to any dogmatic credo like "GNG is ultimately considered the only true test for notability", which I find early on in your draft, and will strongly oppose any RfC framed on that basis. The discussion above makes clear that this is far from an accurate description of the status quo as written, even farther from the current practice, and would significantly change the basis for inclusion of many classes of Wikipedia articles. I believe that any draft framed from that starting point is fundamentally broken to the point where it is such a bad framing of the issue that it should not even be raised as an RFC. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:27, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
GNG is the ultimate indicator of notability, but notability is not the ultimate indicator of whether we keep an article. There are other reasons we have articles that are not based on notability (like geographic locations and species, lists, other content that is in mainspace). Just that for most topics that don't fall into the WP:5P1 concepts, notability is a good judgement to consider keeping a standalone article as a starting point, and to judge notability, the GNG is the right test with the SNGs as indicators of that. --Masem (t) 19:56, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Word games where in one sentence we use "notability" to mean "can we have a Wikipedia article on this topic", in a second sentence we use "notability" to mean "significance", and in a third sentence we use "notability" to mean "does this article pass GNG regardless of whether other criteria allow us to have a Wikipedia article on it" are not a helpful way of viewing this issue, because they end up leading to the same confusion by editors in deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:44, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Trying to be helpful here: the draft refers to the situation where it can be shown that the same topic cannot satisfy the GNG, which I believe to be essentially a null set. Some language similar to Masem's concept that a topic does not show a strong GNG pass over a period of time, might be more relevant to an actual set of cases. Just an FYI. Newimpartial (talk) 19:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
It's definitely not a null set, that's why we're discussing this. The goal is to make it a null set, but this is only theoretical, and impossible to put into practice. SportingFlyer T·C 23:42, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Can we at least agree that it is essentially a null set when it comes to topics from the pre-internet era, topics where a substantial proportion of the sources are in other languages, and topics where many, relevant sources are paywalled? Unless, of course, serious efforts have been made to find those inaccessible sources (which is almost never done at AfD, in my experience). Newimpartial (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I'd personally replace the word "shortcut" with "indicator" in the revised version. "Shortcut" cheapens the intent of the SNG even though on practical terms it is the same thing. --Masem (t) 19:43, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I do not think this RfC can be a binary "yes/no" and so I do not think this draft is a workable RfC. If the answer to the draft RfC were to be "no" we might not be any closer to knowing what we should have than we are today. This RfC is trying to do two distinct things: establish the relationship between GNG and SNG and to say what wording we should have on WP:N.
I think we should give serious thought to just doing 1 of these. If we were to focus on what is written at WP:N, I think we could present 3 versions which would roughly be Masem's May change, Scotty's proposed change in Language Clarified, my "pared down" version, and a fourth "there should be no SNG section" option. There might be 1, maybe 2, other versions with presenting. Masem's and Scotty's versions would, by default, end up presenting consensus on the question of SNG/GNG.
Or we could just try to establish the relationship between SNGs and GNG. Even there I thik we'd need three options: 1. GNG is superior to SNG (SNG as shortcut) 2. SNG and GNG are equivalent (qualifying under either establishes notability) or 3. The relationship between SNGs and GNG differs depending on the SNG. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:58, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
The problem with trying to reach a consensus is that none is apparent, which is not surprising given that consensus doesn't scale up as a group grows larger and no longer has a strong alignment in goals. And ultimately, closers following Wikipedia:Closing discussions § Consensus will see a pointer to Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators § Rough consensus, which allows closers to discount arguments that contradict policy, but not arguments that are counter to guidelines. Thus closers often will only take into account arguments made during the deletion discussion, or else they will be accused of imposing their own personal viewpoint.
For instance, regarding the deletion discussion about a gridiron football player that triggered this conversation, the sports-specific notability guidelines have always deferred to the general notability guideline since they were created. Yet Scottywong said "there's really no way that this AfD would result in a delete consensus", in essence giving precedence to the arguments made in the AfD over the text of the sports notability guideline being referenced. Many editors hew closely to the idea that guidelines should be descriptive of what occurs during consensus discussions, which also favours ignoring arguments in guidelines if they aren't constantly being followed up during deletion discussions. Unless something in this dynamic changes, deletion discussions are fated to always follow whatever opinions are expressed the most frequently, because the system is designed that way. isaacl (talk) 20:31, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
@Isaacl: FYI - the reason I had to close that AfD as Keep is because of the ambiguity in the current wording of WP:SNG. The wording can reasonably be interpreted as meaning that a topic is notable if it passes either GNG or SNG. ‑Scottywong| [chatter] || 21:05, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
That and the fact that, by the time of the close, the article did pass the GNG. :p Newimpartial (talk) 21:08, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
There are a few sources, but if you look closely at the sources, it still doesn't. I don't want to get into an argument about it, but I also don't want to leave this unchallenged. SportingFlyer T·C 23:46, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I wasn't part of that AfD and have no intention of litigating it here, particularly since the close was correct. But the article had multiple, independent RS, so the only way to contest the GNG pass would be to get into SIGCOV argumentation, and that is one of the most contested (or, from my point of view, misinterpreted) guidelines associated with WP:N. Newimpartial (talk) 00:52, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but the editors who agreed upon the sports notability guidelines agreed that it would not supersede the general notability guideline. They explicitly decided by consensus not to make use of the flexibility offered on the notability page, and to state that the sports notability guidelines do not alleviate the need for an article to eventually provide sources to meet the general notability guideline. Thus when editors choose the "or the sports notability guidelines" option, they are not exempted from demonstrating that the general notability guideline is met, if the presumption of meeting the standards for having an article is challenged. isaacl (talk) 22:06, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree that any RfC on this kind of question can't be a binary yes/no. In fact, I suspect there are underlying issues of which the GNG/SNG arguments are only a symptom. The page Wikipedia:Notability only defines "notability" implicitly, and coming at it with fresh eyes, it is not at all clear what distinguishes a topic being worthy of mention within an article and being worthy of an article unto itself. To illustrate, I took the text of WP:GNG and put it on its own page with a few small edits (like changing "notability" to "significance"). It reads exactly like advice for whether to include a topic within an article. XOR'easter (talk) 20:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
WP:V determines what is worthy of mention within an article. WP:GNG determines what is worthy of a standalone article. ‑Scottywong| [spout] || 21:21, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
You've captured what the first paragraph of WP:N says, but not what the second (full) paragraph says. Newimpartial (talk) 21:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Also it is false that WP:V determines what is worthy of mention within an article. For instance it is a verifiable fact that the nearest Starbucks to the Liberty Bell is at the corner of Walnut and 8th; that doesn't make it worthy of mention in the Liberty Bell article. See also WP:NPOV and WP:INDISCRIMINATE. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:15, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
It should be noted this Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise from 2008 is the essence of where "SNGs are indicators of notability but do not supercede the GNG" basically comes from, and where most SNGs are written towards with the clear obvious exception of NCORP for obvious reasons. --Masem (t) 20:37, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I have drafted what the two options I outlined above could look like in RfC form. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:42, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Just in terms of your three options about the relationship between GNG and SNGs, I can't see how the answer would not be 3., because the status of NCORP and NSPORTS - to cite the extremes - are so obviously not the same. The proposal made earlier to sort out which SNG currently claims which status - NCORP and NPOL are potentially restrictive, NAUTHOR and NBOOK define standards without being notably inclusionary, NPROF explicitly claims to be an independent standard while NSPORT offers at best a reputable presumption, etc. - looks to me to be a more productive discussion. I am not presuming that everyone agrees on which SNG currently falls - or should fall - in which basket, but I think the fact that the nature of their claims differs should be immediately obvious to a discerning reader (which is one of the reasons the close of the 2017 NSPORTS RfC was so obviously an overreach). It would at least be worth trying to map out that terrain, IMO. Masem seems to think the distinction is NCORP/everything else, and there may be others who think the kludge is supposed to work that way, but I'd rather see that defined clearly than have people vote with their heart or gut on option 1. or 2. while assuming away the differences between, say, how people want NPROF and NSPORT to work - which I suspect are usually not the same at all. Newimpartial (talk) 20:46, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure why we'd want to split these concepts up into two RfCs, or only do one or the other. They're essentially all part of the same thing: we want to clarify the relationship between GNG and SNG, and then correct the wording of WP:N to accurately reflect that relationship. ‑Scottywong| [confer] || 21:08, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
By the way, Scottywong, my view is still that if you want to have one single relationship between GNG and SNGs, the closest thing to that which might actually be possible would be an instruction that they be "read together" or that the SNG be read as specifying the GNG in a specific context. For that to work as intended, though, the ones that actually are a separate, rebuttable standard (like NSPORT) would have to be framed differently than the majority, which offer interpretive guidance for the most part rather than separate standards. Newimpartial (talk) 21:15, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
@Newimpartial: I also think Option 3 is what has consensus. But other editors have voiced support for options 1 & 2 during the discussion. If you have an alternative format feel free to edit to provide an option 2a or 3. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:14, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
  • In order to carry out a clear RfC that delivers a clear consensus on the matter, I believe it's better to offer a simple choice to RfC participants: support or oppose. If we give participants 7 different choices of options to choose from, it simply muddies the water and the overall result will be unclear. I'm not trying to push my own preferred point of view into the RfC, I'm happy to modify the proposal to ensure more support for it (and in fact, I just did make some tweaks to it based on comments here) or use a different draft as a basis for the RfC. But, I think that we'd all be better served by putting forth a simple, clear proposal for editors to read and voice their opinions on. And if there ultimately isn't a lot of support for it, then we can come back to the drawing board and find a better way to address the problem. ‑Scottywong| [soliloquize] || 21:30, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
    There is only so much editor time and repeat RfCs draw decreasing participation and commitment. So putting forth a proposal that fails is destructive to the cause of consensus. I am all for simple RfCs but I do not think a binary RfC is possible here. I do think a simple constrained choice RfC is possible which is why I suggested two formats for that. But an RfC where we can have people oppose for many different reasons is an RfC that will likely lead to consensus against anything as opposed to an actual solution to this issue. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:16, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
    My biggest issue is that I don't actually think we have a consensus to keep the current version added in May. I think we need three options: the current one, a proposed one, and "neither." If neither wins, we remove the section and have more work to do, but we've at least identified a consensus, but there may be other options I'm not considering at the moment. SportingFlyer T·C 23:49, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm just really not sure that your current formulation of the proposal captures the actual state of the discussion at present. Newimpartial (talk) 21:38, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
Care to take a stab at it yourself? Feel free to edit the one in my userspace if you want. ‑Scottywong| [confess] || 01:27, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I think the reason forming consensus on the GNG/SNG question is so difficult, with many editors having vastly different ideas about basic definitions and roles, is because we have reached the intellectual limits of the concept of "notability", and the most productive thing we can do is replace it with a more robust framework that works better for our purpose (writing an encyclopedia).

The problem with "notability" is that it is a construct, a subjective evaluation of whether a topic deserves to be an entry in the encyclopedia, that we treat as an objective property that we can discern, discover, measure, or prove, and one that is fixed (once notable always notable). In reality, topics are notable for some people, places, and times, but not others; fundamentally, whether something is important or of interest to readers is not objective or fixed.

Instead of thinking of the encyclopedia as a collection of topics and trying to filter out topics that are "notable" from those that are not, we should think of the encyclopedia as one work: a book summarizing everything we know about everything. We can't practically write it all on one page, so we have to break it up into subpages. Almost every article is a sub-page of some other article; the question is what information we put on what page. Instead of asking "Is it notable?", we should ask, "Do we include this information and if so, where?".

Whether we include the information in the encyclopedia at all is answered by PAGs like WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:BLP, etc. Where we put information is answered by PAGs like WP:MERGE, WP:CFORK, and WP:AS. We don't really need "notability"; we don't need most of WP:N. We should delete all of WP:N except WP:PAGEDECIDE, and then the SNGs would become guidelines for how to apply PAGEDECIDE in specific topic areas. How about an RFC question about that? :-) Lev!vich 08:40, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I applaud noting that the real answer needs a fundamental fix. I was attempting to facilitate a conversation to make steps towards that. But my end goal was based on the presumption that, regarding the end result, the notability kluge 95% works right now but that to clean it up (or even make any substantial tweaks) we need to define the current end result of the Kluge, make that the guidepost/mission statement for the kluge, then more cleanly align the kluge with use that definition. You are proposing a bigger departure....I dunno about that. North8000 (talk) 13:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
My reframing would be, that I think much of the work some editors wish Notability would do - but that it does not actually do, since the GNG is basically a sourcing requirement - is actually the claim to significance. If we had some kind of consensus - or even just a more open discussion of that, in relation to WP:NOT - then maybe we could just let the GNG be a sourcing requirement and not try to overlay Notability with burdens it can't carry. Newimpartial (talk) 14:29, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
The claim of significant is almost describing the basic test used by WP:CSD to keep articles - is the topic even something worth documenting, and thus a even a lower bar to meet than notability, so that an article can be created from the start. Notability (at least, the SNGs, in combination with the low end threshold of a GNG ) says in practice that we keep these articles around to be worked on and improved to make the article more encyclopedic but drawing editors to focus on relying on sourcing that is independent, secondary, and providing significant coverage of the topic. One can almost envision these (CSDs, the minimum-meeting GNG + the SNGs, etc.) as gateway checkpoints on deciding to keep an article. There is a fair point from Levivich that we don't have a good guide to describe the process of how articles are reviewed for potential merger/deletion at various stages (from draft to mature stages), of which notability only addresses part of that process, nor is the only reason for doing so. Maybe understanding that (by documenting it as best we can come to agreement on that) will better place what notability should be doing. I dont think its far off but again, I believe its about its wording precision at this point, it meaning different things at different context, which messes up newer editors all the time. --Masem (t) 15:12, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I know what the claim of significance is and how it is used, but I disagree that it is a lower bar to meet than Notability. From reasonably long experience at AfD, I have the sense that many editors there wish for Notability to do the work of distinguishing important from unimportant topics, as well as documentable from non-documentable ones (and I get that vibe from some of North8000's comments on what is truly Notable, as well). It seems to me that we do have a policy-compliant term for this kind of importance, and it is the "claim to significance" - but people generally aren't keen to make WP:NOT arguments at AfD (except for what are clearly edge cases) so we don't have a policy literature on that to the same extent that we do about the WP:N - which, as I have argued elsewhere, is essentially a sourcing requirement.
It occurs to me now, upon reflection, that what some of the SNGs try to do (often awkwardly) is to define what makes a topic within one of these domains significant, but dressing it up in presumptive Notability to go along with the "kludge" we have been discussing. And maybe it is this that rubs me the wrong way about criteria like WP:ENT 2. when it comes to "celebrities" - not that it isn't a reliable predictor of RS coverage, which it probably is, but that "has a large number of Instagram followers" should not in itself be considered a claim to Encyclopaedic significance, which this criterion seems to endorse (and which ENT 1. and 3. do a good job of capturing, as does ENT 2. when it comes to entertainers whose following actually results from their body of work). Newimpartial (talk) 17:23, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
The "notability kludge" has worked 95% of the time but what I meant about reaching the intellectual limits is that the notability kludge's effectiveness % is dropping. At this point in WP's development, we have articles already about most of the "easy" topics, the ones we all agree should have articles. New articles are coming from more specialized, esoteric, or otherwise "difficult" topic areas. For example, we have all the BLPs about American athletes, and GNG works well for American athletes. No so well for African athletes. Especially not 19th century African athletes.
"Significance", in my view, is just another word for "notability" or "importance" or "interest in" or "fame" or many other words. At bottom, it's about "Does anybody care about this topic?" If people care, there's probably GNG sources, and if there are GNG sources, it should probably have a stand-alone page, the thinking goes. If a TV show has a lot of viewers, if an album sells a lot of copies, if an instagram personality has a lot of followers, that's an indicator that people care, there are probably RS, and it's probably notable. We, editors of Wikipedia, are well positioned to determine the notability/significance/importance/interest in/fame/whatever of, for example, a 21st century American athlete. We are not well-positioned to determine the same about a 19th century African athlete. Most of us don't speak the languages, the sources aren't online, and most of us aren't generally familiar with the landscape or topic area. We're reaching the limits of what we can measure when it comes to the importance of topics.
The kludge is not only becoming ineffective, but it's also counterproductive, because it is based on a positive characteristic of the topic (whether you call that "notability", "significance", "importance", etc.). Every time we evaluate "notability" or "significance", we judge the value of the topic. Thus, if we say something is not notable or not significant, we are insulting it, somebody gets offended, somebody vows to "rescue" the topic (and its dignity), and AFDs become flamewars.
We don't need to, and shouldn't, ask "Can we write a policy-compliant article about this topic?" We should only ask, "Is this a policy-compliant article?" It doesn't matter whether it could be, and it's not a question anyone can answer with specificity, especially for those topics for which we have not yet answered the question (19th c. African athletes, etc.). It only matters whether it is. If someone can write a policy-compliant article about any topic, let them do so. If they can't, redirect.
Instead of AfD and RfD we should just have EfD: Entries for Discussion, where we discuss whether a particular title should be an article, a redirect (and if so, to what target), or not an entry at all (hidden, which we incorrectly call "deleted"). Lev!vich 18:06, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
The above discussion, about a social media influencer having X followers, is a very good demonstration of significance versus notability. If I created an article about influencer on the statement they had 1 million followers based on their YouTube subscriber count, that's definitely a claim of significance, but alone not a claim of notability. If no sourcing outside of that YouTube page talks about this influencer at all, then all we have is a claim of significance but had yet to be shown "worthy of note", and thus we'd look to merge or whatever. On the other hand, as soon as you have an article from an RS that establishes that at a certain point in time, that person had a million followers, now we have a claim of notability. One article alone with only that one fact isn't very much significant coverage, but that's at least the first shift from significance to notability. Lacking further sources still might mean a merge or the like but on the basis of barely meeting the GNG rather than outright failing notability. More articles, including ones going in-depth into the person's streaming history and how they got to a million followers, only help strengthen the meeting of the GNG. That's why we have stressed that notability is not about importance or popularity or significance, which is something easily claimed for CSD, but needs to be proven out with sources for the GNG. --Masem (t) 19:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
English Wikipedia has a tradition of allowing stub articles in anticipation of further collaborative efforts expanding them. Thus part of the purpose of standards of having an article is to avoid needless churn, deleting stubs or turning them into redirects only to have them turn back into articles again as the content is expanded.
The underlying problem is that Wikipedia editors try to give comparable amounts of encyclopedic content to topics of similar scope, as befitting a general encyclopedia. This requires, however, some kind of value framework to compare disparate topics, and consensus decision-making in a large group isn't well suited for this. Thus English Wikipedia has chosen to examine coverage by third party sources to try to determine what topics should have similar levels of Wikipedia coverage, breaking down large topic areas into articles. While that introduces more information into discussions than just the opinions of editors, it still eventually succumbs to the weaknesses of consensus decision-making. isaacl (talk) 23:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

@Barkeep49: The 2008 RfC received only 19% support on the proposal that "SNGs override GNG". The 2017 RfC found clear consensus that no SNG overrides or is a replacement for GNG. Even the discussion immediately above here in #Arbitrary break showed roughly 2-to-1 support for the idea that GNG is the controlling principle, and SNGs are secondary to it. Can you expand a bit on the reasons behind why you think a binary RfC on the narrow topic of the role of SNGs would fail to gain support?

Scottywong, the 2017 RfC close was obviously an overreach, and those commenting on the NSPORT question were clearly not also intending to decide the relationship between, say, NORG and the GNG. Meanwhile, the 2008 compromise preceded the current version of NORG by several iterations, while other SNGs that were recognized in 2008 have since been deprecated. None of these results suggests that a current RfC would gain consensus that the GNG is the "controlling principle" against NORG or NPROF. Also, I don't think a 13-9 result counts as "roughly 2-to-1" and in any case, it is the policy-relevant arguments (only) that are to be given WEIGHT. Newimpartial (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I think the RfC is unlikely to achieve consensus because editors in this discussion have disagreed with it and 2008 was a long time ago. I think it because if you have something about wording, someone could agree in principle but write Oppose because the wording about XYZ is GHI though I think the rest of it is fine. I think it because I don't think it's as binary as you do. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, fair enough. I disagree, but I can see that not too many people are agreeing with me, so I'll back off and allow the process to continue. I'll leave my draft in place in case someone wants to modify it or use it as a starting point for a new draft. ‑Scottywong| [yak] || 15:51, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

RfC Drafting

My goal remains, as it was when I BODLY edited the SNG a few days ago to improve what WP:N says about the topic. To that end it seems like an RfC might be necessary. Scotty proposed one draft. I have created two options which I would welcome people to edit and/or comment on which one might be better to launch. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand the purpose of a poll that is asking a purely factual question that readers of the SNGs can clearly answer. Are you trying to learn how well the population of poll participants understand the SNGs? It's as if you had a poll where the options for what color the sky was were: (1) blue (2) gray (3) black (4) it varies depending on the weather and time of day. What useful information would you get out of it? If the RFC came back with a counterfactual consensus what would that accomplish for our policies? It is clearly the case that the only accurate description of our current SNGs is (3) it varies depending on the SNG (see: NCORP being more restrictive, NSPORT being subsidiary, NPROF being independent, SPECIESOUTCOMES being a predetermined answer regardless of sourcing, etc). If you think that should be changed, then an RFC on what GNG says is the wrong way to accomplish that, because changing GNG to promote a dogmatic one-size-fits-all point of view without changing the SNGs cannot accomplish that; it can only put contradictions into our policies. They all would need to be changed at once, and I very much doubt there would be consensus e.g. for relaxing NCORP to allow anything that passes GNG but not NCORP to become notable. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:21, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the question David Eppstein. My bottom line is that I don't think the current Wikipedia:Notability#Subject-specific_notability_guidelines section reflects community consensus. I would like to have a section that does have consensus. That's why four different choices for that section are part of RfC Option 1. However, since most of the discussion has been about GNG/SNG relationship I thought perhaps people might feel that an RfC around that is more successful. Hopefully that makes my purpose clearer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 02:28, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
My !vote is for launching Barkeep RFC draft #1 (which I made some edits to), and that's because I'm a strong supporter of Option 4 of that RFC proposal, which is what should have happened here after the bold addition was reverted back in May. Draft #1 is the one that most follows normal procedure: when there is a dispute over what a section of a page should say, put the various proposed drafts up for vote in an RFC. I think BK's RFC draft #2 is likely to come back for Option 3 ("it depends"), which won't be helpful (and won't address the SNG section of WP:N that was added in May). If Scotty's RFC were launched, I would !vote support, but I think it will likely fail for the reasons BK spelled out, and that failure could be misconstrued will definitely be construed by some as consensus for the existing SNG section of N. Beyond that my thoughts are above. Lev!vich 04:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm skeptical that any single RfC is going to resolve the big picture SNG vs. GNG. This is, of course, one of the longest-running, extensive, heated debates on Wikipedia, and just invoking the idea of the GNG puts some people off. It seems like there are a lot of people who don't disagree with the fundamental requirement of the GNG, but have some other objection to supporting it (sometimes it's just a historical/interpersonal/principled objection). If anyone really wanted to resolve it, it would (IMO) take starting on a more basic level, getting rid of the terms SNG and GNG. So, e.g. first asking whether or not there's consensus that ~"for a subject to be notable, it should have received significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject". When framed that way, it's hard to reconcile dissent with core policies. If there's agreement on that, it would then probably require parsing the different parts of that statement (significant, coverage, reliable, independent) and considering how they apply differently to different subjects (if at all). I'm not necessarily saying this process would be successful, either (or even necessarily worth it) -- just that I think this sort of thing would be necessary to get at the fundamentals. It is, of course, unrelated to what's here presented as RfC #1. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:33, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

So it seems like RfC Structure 1 is what others think will be more successful (which is great - it was my preference as well) so I have removed the SNG/GNG RfC structure from the draft page. I continue to welcome other feedback on its word/format. Newimpartial, you had indicated you had some tweaks you thought might be helpful. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 15:52, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that I have some difficulty comparing the first three options, given the way they are presented. Is there any way that they could be shown as diffs contrasting with Option 4, or using bold for modified text, or something? Newimpartial (talk) 17:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, the edits I made yesterday to the RFC were intended to improve the exact issue you've raised, I guess I was not successful. What if the diffs were presented like this ("yet another option"), would it be clearer? Or perhaps my changes should be reverted?
  • What it used to be:
  • What Levivich changed it to (different diffs):
    • Option 1 - current since May 2020
    • Option 2 - proposed revision
    • Option 3 - alternative proposed revision
    • Option 4 - there should be no SNG section (pre-May 2020 status quo)
  • Yet another option (Options 2 and 3 don't jump to the section anchor):
Well, that is a little bit better, but I have the concerns: (1) that there isn't an obvious path to producing alternative proposals in this format (or editing the current ones, at least not that I can see) and (2) that for this purpose I think comparisons to the pre-May 2020 status quo ante ante might be more helpful than comparisons to the "current version" offered by the "Yet another option" diffs.
What I learned substantively from this review (viz. some tweaks [I] thought might be helpful) was that Option 2 in particular makes the unhelpful assertion that the SNGs are presumptive but the GNG is definitive, when it states Note, however, that satisfying the criteria of an SNG is only a presumption of notability, not a guarantee. In cases where it can be shown that GNG cannot been met, the article may still be deleted or merged: a presumption is neither a guarantee that sources can be found nor a mandate for a separate page. As is clear from the first paragraph of WP:N, however, the GNG itself only offers a presumption, not a guarantee, of a topic having its own article. Even if the GNG is met, the article may still be deleted or merged. So in other words, what is presumptive about most SNGs is the "presumption ... that sources can be found", which is rebuttable. However, even sourced articles can be deleted or merged for reasons of encyclopaedic treatment, WP:NOT, etc., and for these purposes GNG-compliant articles are quite as vulnerable as SNG-compliant ones; the "presumption that a topic receive its own article" is no stronger from a GNG pass than an SNG pass.
I fact, I am surprised that I haven't seen this argument elsewhere (and I'm afraid I'll have to go make it somewhere, now), but a major contribution of the SNGs (all of them) is in helping to define NOT with respect to a certain topic area, which doesn't have anything in particular to do with sourcing-based notability. For example, articles on authors that meet the GNG for some reason - but where none of the NAUTHOR criteria are met - should be more liable to be Merged (for example, into articles about events or trends) than sourced articles that represent a solid NAUTHOR pass. This doesn't mean that all authors who fail NAUTHOR are non-notable, as they may indeed be notable for other reasons, but their articles should not be treated at Merge (or deletion) discussions the same way those are treated who pass NAUTHOR. This concept is quite apart from presumptive sourcing-based Notability, which is one reason why text suggesting that the SNGs offer "an indicator of likely GNG" (sourcing-based) "notability" is so radically incomplete. Newimpartial (talk) 18:13, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
The pre-May 2020 status quo ante is no SNG section at all. The section was boldly added May 25, in substantially the same form its in now (current, Option 1). All removals and edits to this section since May 25 have been reverted (except this). The reason I'd support Option 4 is because I agree with Newimpartial that both Options 2 and 3 need further workshopping; what I think should happen (in my view, this is required by our policies) is for the SNG section to be removed and then those who wish to add such a section should workshop language on the talk page and then make an RFC proposing one or more draft sections to add to WP:N. It's somewhat amazing to see multiple administrators edit warring over a bold addition to WP:N, but if it takes an RFC to end the edit war, so be it, and I guess there is no harm in adding Options 2 and 3 (and 5, 6 and 7, if someone wants to write them) to said RFC. Lev!vich 19:04, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Well that would be a different path towards consensus. Could we agree to remove the section for now and then take the time necessary to come up with a couple different options to present in an RfC for actual approval? Pinging current people discussing this elsewhere in this topic: @Masem, North8000, Scottywong, David Eppstein, and XOR'easter: Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:14, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
If you look at the archives on this talk page in May, you'll find that was added because nowhere we actually said "SNG" (as an abbreviation and what that implied) at WP:N and that was confusing people. We need to keep the section for now because we'll leave this page lacking what an SNG is, but it can be marked as disputed for the time being and then when an RFC launched, tagged to indicate that. --Masem (t) 19:27, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
From 2006 until 25 May 2020, Wikipedia got along without an SNG section in WP:N. Surely we don't need to keep the section for now. Lev!vich 19:31, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I did read that archive before I did the edit that started this discussion. I agree with you that we need a section. Template:Disputed is only for content and Template:Under discussion does not accurately reflect that the section does not have consensus. Are you aware of a different template that could reflect that the guideline section doesn't have community consensus and is under active discussion? If not I'm back to either we go with the the options we have now - the consensus of which might end up being to remove it which I agree is not ideal (but which I prefer over keeping the section that's there now) - or we remove it to try and come up with draft language (or multiple draft language) that people feel good enough about doing to then launch an RfC. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:32, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
As stated at {{Under discussion}}, adding "|section" will tag just the section being under discussion. The {{Disputed tag}} also works the same way. --Masem (t) 19:50, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Aha. Disputed tag is actually the answer here, I was only aware of Disputed which is just for content. I have added that tag. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:02, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
@Newimpartial I'm going to set aside your thoughts on the specifics of the proposals or the more general argument because, as you note, that really belongs elsewhere in this discussion. In terms of the formatting I considered some sort of summary/description/collapsable box to try and make the differences clearer. However, I was reluctant to characterize Options 1 & 2 (option 3 I'd characterize as a "pared down section"). If you think it helpful are there summaries you can think of after reading it over that might be helpful for others? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:10, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Guys, I know what the pre-May status quo ante was (and looked at it before making my last comment). What I was trying to say was, I think the best way to present these three proposals is as text added to or modifying the pre-May status quo. This could be done in diffs, in bolded text, or whatever, but should not be presented simply as complete versions where the reader has to compare manually.
I don't know how anyone else participates in RfCs where specific wording is proposed, but my own participation is always predicated on the how the proposals would impact on a specified reference text, and I've seen pretty general agreement in this discussion that the relevant reference is from May.
P.S.: If I had it to do again, I might last week have reverted the guideline to the pre-May version rather than the October version. However, at the time I thought the discussion accompanying the May revision had achieved more consensus than, reading it now, it seems to have had. Anyway, the point was to have something in place during this discussion rather than a continuing edit war, so at least that was achieved. And my appreciation of the limitations of the May changes is much deeper with another week's hindsight. Newimpartial (talk) 19:42, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm confused Newimpartial, that is what the options do because the pre-may status quo is nothing. So the words that are linked all reflect changes because the section started from scratch in May. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:47, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Right; I see my conceptual problem (the pre-May version is the logical basis, but that doesn't help cast a spotlight on the differences among the alternatives). Thinking about this some more, from a procedural standpoint, perhaps the alternatives are (1) no section - pre-May status quo ante; (2) status quo section since May 2020; and (3) one proposed revised section. I don't see how we can propose two new alternatives in an RfC, and two status quo versions, without confusing the participating editors. If we do get it down to three versions, then the third can be presented (by diff or bold) as a modification of the second. Newimpartial (talk) 19:58, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Well I tried to create a variant to do what you're suggesting. However, I still don't know how to characterize the differences succinctly as they're quite nuanced. So that led me to a second variant that compares between the May 2020 version and the pared down version, the differences of which I could summarize nicely. Thoughts? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:25, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, Barkeep. While you were doing that, I was putting together my own draft on Scotty's RfC page to answer - at least to myself - what problems I have with both Masem's language from May and Scotty's more recent suggestion. Maybe you could let me know what you think of that :). My intent in that draft is to clarify what the current relationship between SNGs and GNG actually is, not to change it to what it "should be"; as I have suggested elsewhere, I think both May and November versions have only incompletely done so. Newimpartial (talk) 20:54, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Your new draft continues to ignore the reality that different SNGs have and should have different relations to GNG (again: NCORP is more restrictive; NSPORT is subsidiary, NPROF is independent, and SPECIESOUTCOMES is not even a guideline so much as a fiat that all its topics are automatically notable). —David Eppstein (talk) 21:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

That is not quite true, since I added , as well as subject-specific guidelines about the sources and criteria relevant to deciding whether a topic should have a dedicated article, which does cover a good bit of NCORP, NPROF, NFILM and NBOOK, at the very least. I didn't get the sense that there was emerging consensus to give a typology of SNGs, much as I personally would prefer that, so I emphasized the relevance of WP:NOT and gave at least a hand wave to the criteria that make, say NCORP restrictive and NGEOLAND inclusive.

If you have more direct language to propose, on this, I would be delighted to see it. No kidding. Newimpartial (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I view the May addition as a useful distillation of current policy/guidelines. It's not a change. Which also means that it is not essential to stay in there if it is disputed, even though I support keeping it. North8000 (talk) 20:12, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I responded to the talk page because I would love, if possible, to keep this thread focused on the drafting of an RfC. So to that end Newpartial, what are you suggesting we do with that language in terms of an RfC? Barkeep49 (talk) 22:36, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Well, if the goal really is to reflect the differential status of different kinds of SNGs explicitly in a section of WP:N - a goal that I support - in the upcoming RfC, then I think we need to do what I said last week, and talk through what SNGs make what kind of claims. So far I see NORG, NPOL and NPROF as setting standards higher than or partly apart from the GNG (GEOLAND and SPECIESOUTCOMES would also fit here if we choose to address them). NBOOK and NFILM mostly offer interpretive rules about what counts as reliable, independent sources for Notability in those domains, and NBIO and NSPORT are largely confined to presumptive criteria. But this list isn't comprehensive, and I'm sure someone will object even to these brief suggestions. Newimpartial (talk) 23:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
Well first of all SPECIESOUTCOMES is not an SNG so it would be outside the scope of what we're talking about. I really considered whether having some kind of determinative RfC about the SNGs would be productive. But in reality what that turns into, I think, is 13 mini-RfCs (1 for each SNG) and so I ended up rejecting that in favor of the various approaches I've suggested here. Especially because at the end of the 13 mini-RfCs we have data about what needs to go into an SNG section at Wikipedia:Notability but not actually something approaching language itself and that feels like then a second RfC would be needed to agree on what is actually said. Could I trouble you to look at my Variant 2? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 23:56, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I knew someone would object to my mentioning SPECIESOUTCOMES here, which is one of the reasons I did it. :p. I believe in bringing relevant comparators out into the open even to be shot down.
As far as Variant 2 is concerned I think the main line of its format is successful, but I don't think that hardwiring the choices into diffs of the actual Guideline is the way to go. My sense is that editing an "RfC draft" page to produce diffs that precisely represent the options to be presented, and linking to that, would be the way to go.
I would also still suggest that my prior proposal is the only one I can really get behind at the moment as reflecting enough of existing reality and pointing WP:N readers in the right direction. If absolutely necessary, I would choose a gutted or nonexistent section as a "least bad" option, rather than an actively misleading one, but I actually follow Masem's intuition that guidance is better - I just disagree about what the guidance needs to say. Newimpartial (talk) 00:22, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, I cannot agree with either of those proposals including the following sentence: A topic is not required to meet both the general notability guideline and a subject-specific notability guideline to qualify for a standalone article. This effectively rules out WP:NCORP. The problem we have is that some SNGs are seen to remove criteria for establishing notability from the GNG - lowering the bar - and others are seen to be more restrictive on interpretation (such as NCORP). I cannot see any wording in any of the proposals that recognises and accommodates this reality. For example, a proposal that states "Where a subject-specific notability guideline exists, a topic is required to meet both that guideline and the general notability guideline" would satisfy the NCORP SNG's role but would remove the role of NBOOK/NFILM, etc. So, in my opinion, the GNG should defer entirely to SNGs in terms of notability requirements (where they are defined) and only providing the "default" option when either no specific requirement is defined or removed in the SNG or where no SNG is found to be applicable to a particular topic/article. I believe this view is closest to the reality of community consensus today. HighKing++ 14:30, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be some hang up on not wanting to treat all SNGs equally in order to protect some of them in a misguided belief that they are somehow better than GNG. This woolly approach is how we end up in the mess we do. If some SNGs that are being held on a pedestal end up necessarily being rewritten, then so be it. Scottywong had this nailed days ago, yet here we are still dancing round the same tree. wjematherplease leave a message... 09:45, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
HighKing, I do not necessarily disagree about the GNG being a "default" rather than a minimum, but note that my intention was to leave in Masem's paragraph from May, stating, Note that in addition to providing criteria for establishing notability, some SNGs also add additional restrictions on what types of coverage can be considered for notability purposes. For example, the SNG for companies and organizations specifies a very strict set of criteria for sources being considered. SNGs may also include suggested alternatives to deletion in the event that a subject is not found to be notable. Perhaps that paragraph (or an earlier one) could be reformulated to address your concern. Just keep in mind that NSPORT and NBIO (at least) do use the concept of presumptive Notability and require an eventual GNG pass. Newimpartial (talk) 14:51, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Newimpartial, I agree with Masem's paragraph. I've also (before I read your response) made a clumsy attempt at rewording your and Scottywong's proposed wording. HighKing++ 14:57, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I actually quite like your "clumsy attempt", but I think people will have problems with A topic that meets the GNG but does not meet the SNG generally does not qualify for a standalone article. In certain cases, like NORG, I think this is quite obviously true, but not a lot of editors I think would be comfortable extending it e.g. to NBIO without certain qualifiers. Newimpartial (talk) 16:26, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

With respect to the end result, I think that the kludge mostly works right now. I think that the disputed section usefully explains the CURRENT kludge...does anybody dispute this? Without a fundamental restructuring of the entire kluge, IMO it will be impossible to make it logically tidy. It seems to me that most of the concerns are a quest for that impossible logically tidy goal, or saying that something doesn't meet that standard. What is the actual difference of opinion? North8000 (talk) 14:48, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

This; as I've said below, the only two outliers of the SNGs by design are NORG and NCORP; all the others can fit the same basic structure and function w.r.t. GNG and other notability facets. KISS needs to be held, and everything here seems to be trying to make this extremely complicated. --Masem (t) 14:56, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Masem, did you mean to say NORG and NCORP? Those end up on the same page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:14, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I meant NORG and NPROF. --Masem (t) 17:52, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
That makes sense and is what I was guessing you meant but didn't want to presume. Do you feel like the May version reflects this? Do you have an opinion on how we should structure the RfC? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:59, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
North8000, one point in the current (post-May) version that does not reflect reality is this: Thus, we allow for the standalone article on the presumption that meeting the SNG criteria will guarantee the existence or creation of enough coverage to meet GNG. These are considered shortcuts to meeting the general notability guideline. This passage implies that meeting GNG is some kind of guarantee for a standalone article, which is contradicted by the opening section of WP:N and many other passages of policy. It also implies that the purpose of the SNGs is in each case to predict GNG notability, which is not true in many cases, since SNGs also serve to define reliable sourcing in certain subject matter areas and in others to create an ONUS about the encyclopaedic quality (or NOT) of a particular topic. My current concern is that this final function - which is transparently clear in many of the SNGs - is not at all reflected in the current text, which reduces the SNGs to "predictors" which is not the only function of any of them (not even the presumptive ones like NSPORT and NBIO). Newimpartial (talk) 15:58, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
But but in probably hundreds of places in the SNG's they themselves say that they are mere predictors of GNG sourcing and defer to GNG. This is a part of the current kluge that I referred to which I believe that the May addition summarizes. My question (= does anybody dispute that?) was more to clarify the situation and difference of opinion than to lobby for anything. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:53, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
But not all of them. NORG, NPROF, NBOOK and NFILM explicitly do not follow the kludge. WP:NFILM, which we haven't talked about much in this discussion, is quite explicitly explanatory rather than predictive in nature, going through GNG criteria and explaining how they apply. WP:NBOOK offers what might be the most thoughtful articulation of the relationship between GNG and (that particular) SNG, and is also clearly not "predictive". So no, the many places where other SNGs defer to GNG cannot reasonably be read as "they all work this way", when many of the important ones don't. Newimpartial (talk) 17:20, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
As I pointed out below, arguably we can summarize all SNG but NORG and NPROF by saying they provide up to three functions related to notability:
  1. They define indicators of when notability will likely be met once additional sourcing/significant coverage is added over time, so serve as presumptions of notability.
  2. They may further define cases when standalone articles in their topic area should not be created even if GNG notability may be met (due to a combination of notability and other policies as in the case of NFILM which includes a bit of CRYSTAL)
  3. They may define the types of specific reliable sources that are good for that topic area, atop those that are broadly considered good sources for any topic on WP.
When they are collectively viewed that way without trying to carve out so many exceptions, it seems very easy to write out what the language should be. --Masem (t) 17:58, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I have never understood once additional sourcing/significant coverage is added over time. That feels against the idea of WP:CRYSTAL. If you remove that phrase I agree with everything else you've written there. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:01, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree broadly that the SNGs serve functions along these three lines. Where I disagree with the May draft is in the emphasis it places on the first bullet - which, like the others, only applies to some of the SNGs - and I also disagree in detail about the language Masem is using here for the other two. For one thing, I would reverse the order of the second and third bullets, since the definitions of reliable sourcing relate more directly to the GNG-meeting aspect of many SNGs than do the provisions related to NOT. Also, I would also mention explicitly that it isn't just reliability but also the significance of coverage that may be treated, depending on the SNG. Also, it isn't just a matter of considering sources "atop" the regular GNG-compliant sources; some of the SNGs also discount sources that could be used for other topics. Newimpartial (talk) 18:22, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
All the SNGs (excluding NORG and NPROF , this should be implicit when I speak of this) all are there for point #1 at the fundamental level. I know there's arguments that cases like NBOOK's "two reviews" are different, but I've explained elsewhere is still is a indicator, but one that is basically nearly automatic assurance that you then pass the GNG but there still can be some edge cases. Argubly, assuming this RFC ends up with language that "SNGs are indicators of the GNG" we should make sure the SNGs themselves reflect that which some presently don't, which is also part of the confusion.
To Barkeep's question: There's two factors here. One is "editor time", that is, one creates and article with some sources and hopes that other editors will come to help with other existing sources; that's definitely not a CRYSTAL issue, and more the standard open wiki practice. The other factor is that there are some criteria that are considered to be that more sourcing that doesn't exist at the moment might come with the criteria being met. This is where (we hope) the crafters of the SNG criteria know that this type of condition is nearly always true so that we're not hitting the CRYSTAL issue. For example, we know that when someone is awarded the Nobel, they will get coverage in several major papers, if they haven't gotten coverage already - though that coverage comes right then and there and we don't have to wait long for it. So no, we're not really hitting on CRYSTAL factors here, though this is where my point #2 does some into play where it still may not make sense to create a standalone (as in NFILM's "wait until confirmed production") --Masem (t) 18:51, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree that SNGs can be helpful in giving permission for an editor to create an article that others then add existing sources to. But that's not the way I read "once additional sourcing/significant coverage is added over time" and don't think we need to get into WP:NEXIST territory in describing SNGs. As for the idea that some qualifies under NBIO a little ahead of the coverage coming out, that feels like a nuance that is true but also doesn't need to be covered at this level. I think including that language in that way obscures the overall point you're making. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:17, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Masem, I want to deal with NBOOK at some length because I think a good part of this discussion hinges on this case, or rather on whether this case ought to be "kludged" into presumptive GNG notability. What you noted on this issue in another section, Masem, was But the practicality that if you recasted NBOOK overall as clearly making it presumed notability, the practice of what happens with books that are created based on NBOOK #1 (two in-depth reviews) means that in practice those articles will likely never be challenges or if challenged will survive the notability challenge since two reviews happen to typically be sufficient for the GNG. I know it appears that NBOOK has both indicators of notability and one that states a type of significant coverage, but to try to describe that at a higher level across all SNGs becomes super complicated. It seems to me that what you recognized there is that the way NBOOK is actually written is that it defines SIGCOV for books, but that incorporating that into the SNG section would be "super complicated" so you would rather embrace the counterfactual that if you recasted NBOOK overall as clearly making it presumed notability, that would not change its actual effect. You are saying here that it it is still an indicator but what you said elsewhere is more plausible: if it were recast as an indicator the effect wouldn't change. But there hinges the whole difference between an SNG section that would reflect what each SNG actually does at present, and an SNG section that would change the status of some SNGs (or claim to do so) while leaving their practical effect more or less unchanged. Which is what your May revision attempted to do: it recast all of the SNGs as indicators or "shortcuts", even ones like NORG and NPROF that manifestly aren't, but also ones like NFILM and NBOOK that don't actually work that way but that you claim it would be "super complicated" to incorporate, so you embrace a counterfactual way they could be recast. I understand that you want them all to agree about your bullet 1 "at a fundamental level", but they actually don't, and I think we can see in this discussion a number of otherwise diverse perspectives from editors who agree that this "fundamental agreement" among the SNG guidelines does not currently exist. Newimpartial (talk) 19:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I'm arguing that the "2 reviews" of NBOOK is not stating what significant coverage there is, but indicators of significant coverage, with two reviews being a very very good start to that. That way, instead of trying to argue this SNGs are say "what is significant coverage", they all still remain indicators of that, even if they go all the way to lay out sourcing that identifies a good chuck of what would be significant coverage. NBOOK does not state that 2 reviews is the extent of what a book article should contain, which is how I see some of this trying to be written around. --Masem (t) 19:41, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

What NBOOK actually says is, A book that meets either the general notability guideline or the criteria outlined in this or any other subject-specific notability guideline, and which is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy, is presumed to merit an article. In other words, NBOOK says that SNG-based Notability and GNG-based Notability are both "presumptive" in the same sense - "presuming" the topic "to merit an article". That doesn't mean that a book with two reviews necessarily merits an article any more than a book that passes the GNG without two reviews necessarily merits an article - or even that a clear pass of both SNG and GNG automatically merits an article (especially if the topic runs afoul of NOT). But what NBOOK very clearly does not do is to say that a book with two reviews is presumed to have more reviews and therefore will probably pass GNG as well, in which case it would deserve an article, which is what your "recasting" of the logic would amount to. And frankly, I think the way NBOOK actually works is significantly less complicated than the way it would have to work to fit your retcon of the "fundamental logic of SNGs" (tm). Newimpartial (talk) 19:54, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

If you read the rest of the preamble of NBOOK and keep in mind what the intent is, its still the same as the other SNG. Eg, strictly staying with what NBOOK says and having an article that only meets NBOOK #2 (major award) with no other sources would likely lead to merging/deletion if no further sourcing can be found. Its the same type of practice, just worded differently. Ideally, these SNGs should all have the same preamble stating that a topic in that field can be presumed notable if it meets the GNG or the criteria the SNG sets forth (excluding the conditions it may recommend against), to align with similar language that would be in WP:N to reflect that. This would not change anything of how NBOOK is treated in practice, for example. --Masem (t) 20:03, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree that a topic in that field can be presumed notable if it meets the GNG or the criteria the SNG sets forth (excluding the conditions it may recommend against) applies to most of the SNGs and might be best practice language to incorporate in editing them. Language reflecting that insight might also be at home in the SNG section of WP:N, if the outliers (NCORP at one end, NSPORT at the other) are duly noted. Such language is very different in my view from Thus, we allow for the standalone article on the presumption that meeting the SNG criteria will guarantee the existence or creation of enough coverage to meet GNG. These are considered shortcuts to meeting the general notability guideline, which you added to WP:N in May. Newimpartial (talk) 20:13, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
My primary content writing comes in NBOOK and so I feel like I know it well and I agree that it, like NFILM, is more explanatory than predictive. However I do think that it fits in the general outline Masem gives in reply. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm a little uneasy about the "except for NORG and NPROF" approach. It sounds rather like "the United States, except for New York and California". They're not really edge cases to be brushed aside or handled later. One is a shield against the degradation of our encyclopedia into a hellhole of advertisements. The other enables our encyclopedia to cover the people adding to the body of human knowledge. Explaining what our rather squishy concept of "notability" means in practice needs to include these guidelines. XOR'easter (talk) 19:04, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

They still fit the concept of notability, but just not the "simple" structure that I'm saying the rest of the SNGs can be shown to adhere to. The idea is still the same behind both - significant coverage in independent reliable sources - but they set a framework that makes how to use them to judge notability different from the other SNGs. Their intent and goal is still the same, and it would be important to explain why these are exceptions so that editors don't try to seek out similar exceptions in other SNGs unless they have very good reasons. --Masem (t) 19:15, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I think that "there is no community consensus that several of the other SNGs do a actually work this way" is already a good reason. Significant coverage in independent reliable sources is certainly a principle that always applies, but the way it applies in NPROF and NBIO, or in NORG and NFILM or NBOOK, is quite obviously different and each differs in turn from the "vanilla" GNG. Yes, this seems "super complicated" but the reality of subject matter and sources is super complicated. Newimpartial (talk) 19:35, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Continued notability discussion

We're talking about a tweak in a random herd of cats where there is not even any objective defined and agreed on. And with some of the most knowledgeable and best minds in Wikipedia having a very confusing discussion where not even a few folks agree on anything specific. And somehow going to larger scale RFC at this time is going to help that?!. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I honestly think you guys are making it way more complicated than it needs to be, looking at every detail and trying to examine every rare edge case. WP:N is a broad, general, high-level, and intentionally vague guideline. It doesn't get into the weeds on things, it paints in broad strokes, and in my opinion we should be thinking that way as well. No one is trying to rewrite WP:N from the ground up here. The main issue, in my view, is clarifying the relative roles of GNG and SNG with regard to determining the notability of a topic. And I think we'd find strong agreement that GNG is the standard for notability, and SNGs are (without exception) a tool to quickly gauge the likelihood of a topic meeting GNG. Topics that meet GNG are presumed to warrant an article, unless other WP policies are violated. Topics that meet an SNG are presumed to meet GNG, unless notability is challenged at AfD and satisfactory sources cannot be produced. That's it. Everything else is a tangent and a distraction. ‑Scottywong| [express] || 18:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
In my view, the most impactful of the SNGs is NORG, which clearly is not a tool to quickly gauge the likelihood of a topic meeting GNG. NORG doesn't do anything "quickly", and the framework it provides quite deliberately IMO ratchets up the SNG requirements to deal with the (perceived) pressures of a specific topic area.
I can't see how NORG represents a rare edge case, so any proposed language for WP:N that studiously ignores that case (as did, e.g., the 2017 NSPORT close) will simply never reflect whatever the community actually believes in this area. Newimpartial (talk) 18:55, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
NORG is specifically establish now because we have to fight off people trying to use WP for SEO purpose. Notability, even with the GNG, can be gamed due to how business publications work. The new framework of NORG was established after a large spat of discovering paid editing and COI and the like by businesses, all getting notable articles but really mostly regurgitating press and paid endorsements masked as "articles" in trade magazines. The editors behind NORG spent a lot of time to recognize they had to go above and beyond the GNG to set out rule that would minimize the amount of COI/SEO type article while still leaving articles on truly notable businesses. This is the only case where the SNG supercedes the GNG (in that the GNG is not sufficient and you need to meet this SNG if you fall into NORG).
The only other SNG to stress here in the same vein is NPROF which was developed on the recognizing that academics are an important class of people to document but which are rarely documented in the mainstream (unless the win the Nobel or the like) and that there is very little self-reflecting within academia about themselves - people let their CVs speak for themselves and that's it. But academics recognize implicitly the work of other academics by the research they publish, just that there's very little secondary sourcing that comes along for these people. As such, NPROF exists to document academics that have recognized bodies of work that are otherwise not notable under the usual GNG. This is the only case where the SNG is serving as an alternative to the presumption of a standalone page to the GNG, rather than as an indicator of meeting the GNG, by design. --Masem (t) 19:33, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I think it's also important to remember that academics typically have huge numbers of mostly-low-quality sources about their work, in citations by other academics to it. In some areas (mathematics for instance) there are also review journals/databases providing in-depth published analysis of every publication they make. One could easily argue on that basis that all mathematicians with multiple reviewed publications meet GNG, a much lower bar than we want to set. Having a separate notability guideline for academics can be interpreted as being restrictive in the same way as NORG, stating that a mere handful of citations or routine-only reviews isn't good enough and that one needs significantly more than that. Whether or not you buy that argument, it is helpful to have the guideline as a way to shortcut that debate and focus on individual academic notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
Right, and my point being are those two presently are the only irregularities in the GNG/SNG structure of the system given what I explained, and those were by consensus when they were established (NPROF I think even predated the WP:N definition IIRC, hence it was a grandfathering of sorts). This is not saying other SNGs - or even project level article guidelines - can have language that may slightly override the GNG, though I think most of the time, this is in the area of carving out special lists of acceptable and unacceptable sources in the topic area for both GNG and SNG evaluation. EG the relatively recent scrubbing of the notability of pornographic actors from NBIO due to the poor quality of sourcing in that specific field. But for the most part outside of NCORP and NPROF, the other SNGs all seem to follow "indicators of notability" approach based on the 2008 RFC. --Masem (t) 19:47, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
And my point about these two cases is that neither would be helpfully elucidated by adding GNG-fundamentalost text to WP:N. I am also not entirely convinced that these are the only such cases, though they are certainly the main ones. Newimpartial (talk) 19:50, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I disagree that SNGs like WP:NORG supercede or conflict with the GNG. They expand upon the GNG, and define some terms (mostly "significant coverage" and "reliable sources") more precisely for the narrower category of topics to which they apply. This is good, and helpful. Clarifying that GNG is the primary test for notability doesn't water down the SNGs at all. GNG says you need "significant coverage in reliable, independent sources". One might ask, "what exactly does "significant' mean?" The appropriate answer is often, "it depends on the topic, so take a look at the SNGs for more details."
Would it help if we codified this aspect of SNGs into the language of WP:SNG? Making it clear that another role that SNGs play is to expand the specificity of GNG for their topic areas? ‑Scottywong| [prattle] || 19:58, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
NORG (and NPROF to a degree) are the only SNG that goes into depth into explaining what is significant coverage for the topic. All the other SNG are setting criteria for what is an indicator of notability/the existence of significant coverage, but which is not necessarily significant coverage itself. Winning the Nobel itself is not significant coverage, but we know that this produces a plethora of articles at the time it happens to build a good article, if there aren't article before that point, hence it is a great SNG criteria. Participation in the Olympics is not alone significant coverage but it is argued that nearly all Olympians get some type of coverage at a regional or local level once selected to represent their country, hence the significant coverage that comes from that. That is how most of the other SNGs (and NPROF to some extent) are set up. NORG is the only one that goes "this is exactly what we expect as significant coverage and what does not qualify". --Masem (t) 20:24, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I do not agree with this "are the only" characterization. For example, NBOOK specifies that two RS reviews (inter alia) establish Notability; they are not an "indicator" of it. Newimpartial (talk) 20:31, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

While there are likely other cases like that in the SNGs that say "if these types of sources exist, it is presumed notable", this is not the extent of what NORG is doing. To take the NBOOK 2 reviews, I again set forth the hypothetical case if that's the only two reviews of the work that exist, and for all purposes no other significant coverage of the work exists. Then depending on how much that provides, it might be kept, it may be merged, etc. Or to phrase it another way: that condition in NBOOK sets a minimum requirement to establish the presumption of notability but not the only way a book can have a standalone article. NORG sets a requirement on the type of sourcing in general that must be present on a business or organization article in the first place to even have an article there, with no other route avaiable. --Masem (t) 20:47, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I am not at all suggesting that NBOOK has a similar logic to NORG. I do feel that it is somewhat similar to NPROF though, in that I do not think there is any substantial editors that would treat the two-review threshold in NBOOK as a "rebuttable presumption" any more than they would the NPROF criteria. The more I dig into this, the more I find what seem to be rebuttable and non-rebuttable criteria mixed within the same SNG: e.g., the two review threshold seems to me to define an aspect of GNG notability for books, but the best-seller list provision seems more of an indicator to me. Newimpartial (talk) 21:09, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
The two review book criteria is still a rebuttable presumption but it is one that is very unlikely to trip an actual rebuttal because you have to prove that those reviews (which by being reviews should be providing significant coverage) aren't sufficient AND that there are no other sources to add. Again, to try to say why NORG is different, the challenge there is not the rebuttable presumption but to look through the sources and ask, is this meeting the hard requirements expected of the sourcing (which does include evaluation of significant coverage); we don't presume an org is notable until it has met those. --Masem (t) 22:18, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, maybe this is the source of the disagreement: I think we can all agree that (some) SNGs perform two different functions: one function is to provide criteria for what topics are likely to satisfy GNG (e.g., if an individual wins a Nobel prize, if an athlete competes in the Olympics, etc.). The other function is to expand upon GNG within the context of their topic area, to further define what "significant coverage" means within their narrow topic area, and to provide specific examples of what are or aren't considered reliable sources within their narrow topic area, etc. The former function is the one that can't supercede or replace GNG. Just because someone competed in the Olympics isn't a guarantee that there is significant coverage about them, even though it is extremely likely that there is. The latter function works in conjunction with GNG, expanding and clarifying it for each major topic area. It doesn't make sense to talk about whether the latter function "supercedes" or "replaces" or "conflicts with" GNG. It is essentially an extension of GNG. The latter function doesn't define notability, and isn't a complete notability test, but it clarifies WP community norms surrounding what is considered "significant" and "reliable". ‑Scottywong| [communicate] || 22:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that any SNG (outside of NORG and NPROF) are defining "significant coverage". The NBOOK "two book" is still an indicator of notability that is suggesting that if two reviews exist, more reviews and other details about the work likely exist to be able to clearly satisfy the GNG. For example, take WP:ANYBIO #3 - thats just a single source mention, clearly not sufficient for GNG, but a good indicator. Most of these were all developed on the 2008 RFC so they are not going to be defining what is "significant coverage" for that field to override the GNG like NPROF clearly does. --Masem (t) 22:37, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
The thing is, Masem, that what you are describing isn't what NBOOK actually says. The summary text is A book is notable, and generally merits an article, if it verifiably meets through reliable sources one of a number of criteria, the first of which is met by having two RS reviews. NBOOK does incorporate the idea of presumptive notability, but definitely not of the form "if it meets NBOOK it probably meets the GNG". Rather, it says - in line with the current WP:N - that A book that meets either the general notability guideline or the criteria outlined in this or any other subject-specific notability guideline, and which is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy, is presumed to merit an article - in other words, the presumptive aspect is the same whether the Notability claim is based on NBOOK or the GNG, and that in either case articles can be merged "at discretion", presumably where there is consensus to do so. So while you are continuing to argue for the indicator interpretation, and I can see how NBOOK 3 or NBOOK 5 could be "rebutted" in cases where the sourcing is poor, NBOOK 1 seems to be clearly definitive of Notability in the sense Scottywong just described. Newimpartial (talk) 23:09, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
But the practicality that if you recasted NBOOK overall as clearly making it presumed notability, the practice of what happens with books that are created based on NBOOK #1 (two in-depth reviews) means that in practice those articles will likely never be challenges or if challenged will survive the notability challenge since two reviews happen to typically be sufficient for the GNG. I know it appears that NBOOK has both indicators of notability and one that states a type of significant coverage, but to try to describe that at a higher level across all SNGs becomes super complicated. It is easier to recognize that that we can just say that's still an indicator of notability like nearly all other SNGs, and recognize that in practice is 99.9999% sufficient to meet the GNG on its own.
Part of what I want to be careful here is that we have had problems - notably with NSPORT - of these SNGs adding criteria without getting global consensus. We don't want SNG editors to be adding cases that supercede the GNG without clearly getting global consensus, and when they do , it should be for a very good reason like the NORG situation (to fight off COI issues). So we should not be presenting SNGs as being alternatives to the GNG definition, but as indicators or presumptions of notability. --Masem (t) 23:29, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
But the fact remains that the reality of the SNGs actually is super complicated, and abstract formulations that don't reflect that reality are misleading or just don't work (viz. the 2017 NSPORT RfC close). We wouldn't gain anything, in my view, by pretending n policy that the SNGs all work the same way when they clearly don't - even in policy much less in practice. NSPORT and NORG are simply different kinds of guidelines, and the rest of the SNGs (or even specific criteria) are strung out between them AFAICT, rather than all being clustered close to NSPORT. So if and when we actually change something, I would like to see policy that describes correctly how it is (supposed to be) working, and if we could take the energy people displace from underlying NOT concerns into Notability at AfD - and give it somewhere more productive to go - that would be the most significant benefit to the project I can imagine coming out of a WP:N policy discussion. Newimpartial (talk) 23:43, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
In actuality, the SNGs are a super simple situation with the exception of NORG and NPROF for reasons given that only need to have wording alignment between WP:N and the SNG to make that clear. They have worked this way since 2008. The problem we have over the years is that when an SNG adds or modifies things without checking community consensus , or when we get cases where editors get upset that their articles are being targeted for deletion and don't understand why. I'm all for figuring out language to make sure that it smoother, but this discussion is artificially making the situation far more complex than it needs to be and how it has been in practice. --Masem (t) 03:32, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

You are the one who said earlier that it was "super complicated", Masem, and you have drawn attention to some of the cases that make it so. I think I'll stick with your earlier assessment. Newimpartial (talk) 14:02, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

No, I said that there was a very simple way to explain it, and then there was a very complicated way to explain it, and there seems to be far too much focus on the complicated way. We should be aiming for KISS here, because the more complicated we try to make notability as a concept, the less helpful this discussion towards fixing the problems it becomes. --Masem (t) 14:45, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
@Masem: what would you say IS that simple was to say it? And, regarding where to clarify it, I would like to point out something. W:notability actually structurally has two parts. The beginning is what is accepted as Wikipedia's meta statement regarding the existence of articles and the relationship between GNG and SNG's. (e.g. it even creates/defines wp:not's unique place in the meta-rule. Amongst the many reasons it is accepted as authoritative is that anything in wp:notability reflects much broader scrutiny and consensus than material at individual SNGs, some of which are dominated by fans in that topic area. The remaining 3/4 of wp:notability is GNG. So the beginning of wp:notability is a good place for any authoritative clarification. North8000 (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
At least in terms of the relationship of the SNGs to the GNG, that with specific exceptions of NORG and NPROF, they all serve as indicators and set a rebuttable presumption of notability that can be challenged for a merge or AFD if a thorough and proper BEFORE search reveals no additional sourcing or significant coverage. NORG and NPROF have to be identified as unique in their relationship to notability due to the situation with those topics, and we have to recognize that there are other topics per WP:5P1 and OUTCOMES that notability is sometimes not considered. What's being complicated in this discussion is trying to fit NORG and NPROF and these outlyers into that scheme, or trying to figure out specific criteria separately like NBOOK's 2 reviews as different; that makes it far more complicated than it needs to be.
The only thing that I would add, given all this, is that meeting notability itself is not a black-or-white test, and having only minimal sourcing or significant coverage can still lead to a challenge related to notability; the more you demonstrate sourcing and significant coverage, the less likely it will be challenged. --Masem (t) 15:17, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
But that still isn't true. WP:NFILM and WP:NPOL each contain restrictions on what should be considered notable, similar to (though more limited than) those in NORG, and NFILM and WP:NBOOK each contain guidance about what count as RS in those domains in terms of independence and significance. To reduce the status of NFILM, NPOL or NBOOK to a "rebuttable presumption of Notability" (like NSPORT or NBIO) would be a disservice to readers of the guideline, because it would not be describing what these SNGs actually contribute to defining Notability. Newimpartial (talk) 15:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
It's still relatively easy to make an additional broad statement about what the SNG's are doing, rather than trying to make what I think is an overly convoluted stance. Again, excluding NORG/NPROF, they all provide indicators of rebuttable presumptions for notability, and they all can provide cases where standalone articles should not be created even though it may be possible under the GNG or the SNG's criteria, and they all can outline sets of reliable sources that are good for that field in addition to what are universally accepted reliable sources. All these functions are important to notability, but they relate to different parts of it. None of these are overriding the GNG itself (outside NORG/NPROF) with these functions. --Masem (t) 15:57, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
I share North8000's assessment of the situation [5]. Honestly, this entire process has made me less convinced that "notability" is a well-articulated concept. The advice in the GNG doesn't actually make very clear at all when a topic ought to have a stand-alone article. The only thing it contributes beyond baseline policies is the notion of "significant" coverage — but "don't include totally trivial stuff" is equally good guidance for what goes within an article, too. XOR'easter (talk) 18:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
"Adding GNG-fundamentalist text to WP:N", as Newimpartial puts it, would also require rewriting the introduction to WP:N, which is GNG-ecumenical. XOR'easter (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Restarting the RfC discussion

The discussion on drafting an RfC has decidedly fizzled out, with no comments in the last several days. In my opinion, this happened because we're getting too bogged down in the details, and trying to document every exception, edge case, and argue over all of the minutiae (at the very least, that's the reason I lost interest and disengaged from the discussion). Don't get me wrong, the minutiae are important, but this is a big-picture RfC, and filling it up with exceptions and sub-exceptions and 14 different wording options for voters to choose from will only muddy the waters. What we need is a community consensus on the relationship between the GNG and SNGs, period. If we can define that relationship succinctly and elegantly, then the details and the minutiae will flow naturally from there.

I'd like to suggest an exercise for anyone interested to try, in an effort to kick-start the discussion: define the relationship between GNG and SNGs in a single sentence, without mentioning any specific SNG. ‑Scottywong| [babble] || 06:27, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, the fizzle happened because there is clear evidence of non-consensus both on how SNGs are related to GNG and on what problem would be fixed by forcing the SNGs to have a single relation to GNG. When you say "the relationship" as if you there can be only one, when you deprecate the existence of exceptions, and when you say that "what we need" is to bring the community to a consensus on "the relationship", it seems that you are skipping some steps: why should there be only one, and without scope for exceptions how do you think it can be possible to reconcile any consensus that might develop with the current existence of SNGs that relate to GNG in different ways from each other? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:09, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
I tend to agree with David. Early on in this discussion, you said: "I'm intentionally trying to ignore the nuance for now." The problem with this approach remains that the nuance is the crux of the matter. Cbl62 (talk) 07:20, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
It's my belief that allowing each SNG to have a different relationship with GNG is messy, confusing, and unnecessary. Guidelines on notability should be relatively easy for editors to understand and follow. It shouldn't be necessary for an editor to go to 12 different pages and read thousands of lines of text in order to have a complete understanding of notability. The concept of notability should be hierarchical: there should first be an overarching, simple, clear definition of notability that applies equally to every article, and then from there it can branch out into the minutiae of notability as it relates to specific subjects. Perhaps the problem isn't with the wording of WP:SNG, but perhaps instead the problem is that there isn't consistency with the way that each SNG relates to GNG. Perhaps we should be working to figure out how to create a single relationship between GNG and SNGs, and then determine what would need to change with each SNG to achieve that. Again, I realize I'm probably in the minority here, but I fear that without this simplicity of structure, we're dooming the notability guideline to start resembling complex tax laws. The fact that the above reams of discussion amongst dozens of editors can't even come to an agreement on what the current relationships between the SNGs and GNG are only illustrates my point. If we can't even understand it and agree upon it, how can we expect other editors to understand it? ‑Scottywong| [comment] || 09:08, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
Agree. The lack of progress is almost entirely down to the insistence of some in maintaining a status quo option that cannot be defined because it cannot be agreed what that is. It's time for simplification by abandoning the notion that a small number of SNGs are (or should be considered) special – they aren't and they are certainly not nearly as robust as some would appear to believe. wjematherplease leave a message... 10:26, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
It's my belief that allowing each SNG to have a different relationship with GNG is messy, confusing, and unnecessary. I agree with the first adjective. In practice, well, I've participated in a lot of AfD's, and I don't think the confusion is so bad. Regarding the idea there should first be an overarching, simple, clear definition of notability that applies equally to every article: this is what the opening paragraphs of Wikipedia:Notability are supposed to do, before the GNG. I say "supposed to", because I don't think the lede of WP:N actually is very clear. The phrasing mixes up an attribute with a test for that attribute, and it doesn't do a great job distinguishing the quality of being worth a stand-alone article and the quality of being worth writing about. But it is where we try to define what "notability" means in our jargon. It is also where we say that SNGs are co-equal with the GNG. XOR'easter (talk) 18:14, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
By itself, the page Wikipedia:Notability has 11 text sections (of which the GNG is one), a dozen "See also" items, and eight footnotes. And whatever the relations between this page and the various SNGs are, the fact is that those dozen SNGs exist. If the goal is to avoid making our guidelines look like a tax code, I think the battle is already lost. XOR'easter (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
I generally agree with what David Eppstein and Cbl62 say above. XOR'easter (talk) 18:23, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Furthermore, the problem we're presented with here is "fix the text at WP:SNG," not "solve the notability problem for once and for all." This should make progress a lot easier. SportingFlyer T·C 11:36, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    I agree with SportingFlyer that an RfC to fix the text at SNG is easier than an RfC to fix the relationship between SNG/GNG to each other and to notability more generally. I have tried to find consensus above in a variety of ways for an RfC format that will be successful but felt stymied because it seemed like there wasn't enough agreement on this being the goal of the RfC to even move forward. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:32, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    What I think was finally hashed out in the Drafting RfC discussion between myself and Masem is that, as the guidelines currently stand, most of the SNGs and the GNG "presume notability" in the same sense: that if a topic satisfies either the SNG or the GNG, it is presumed to merit its own article. There are unusual cases at either end of the spectrum - for NCORP or NPROF, the test in the SNG is expected to replace the usual GNG requirements, while at the other end, for NSPORT or generally NBIO, the SNG is only weakly presumptive and a GNG pass is also expected (though the SNG presumption leads to some expectation for time to produce such sources).
    A version of the SNG subsection at WP:N that is phrased cautiously in terms of what each SNG "may" contain (interpretive guidelines, standards for RS, and domain-specific indicators of notability) and how they "usually" work might, just might, offer a clear improvement over not having an SNG subsection at all. :) Newimpartial (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure the people pushing for a single relation between SNGs and GNG have thought through the implications of what that might mean. To put it another way, let's suppose there is consensus (although I don't think there is) that uniformity in our notability guidelines is more important than avoiding significant disruption of the current status quo. I can think of three plausible paths to achieving that sort of uniformity (although of course variations from these would also be possible):

  1. Scrap our current SNGs and make all notability subject to the current GNG. This would have the effect of suddenly making a lot of athletes, train whistle-stops, or professors who previously passed their AfDs by reference to their SNGs become non-notable, and of making a lot of corporate promoters who previously had been kept out by the stronger sourcing requirements of their SNG become notable, not the rebalancing I would prefer, but maybe others think that price is worth paying for uniformity.
  2. Completely rewrite GNG to be the bare minimum of what is required to be able to write a Wikipedia article — say that there is at least one claim of significance (enough to pass A7 speedy) that must be supported by at least two reliably published sources that are independent of each other (but not in-depth, not independent of the subject, and not non-local). Make all SNGs explicitly more restrictive than that for the topics within their purview, as NCORP is now. This would have the effect of widening notability for subjects not covered by any SNG, but could be done in a way that leaves SNG-based notability more or less unchanged, so it might be less disruptive. On the other hand, I doubt participants here have much stomach for gutting GNG, as would be required to make this work.
  3. Completely rewrite GNG to make it only cover articles that would unquestionably be notable by any subject-specific standard, and rewrite all SNGs to say that one can be notable either by passing the SNG or by passing this new standard of super-notability. Say, someone passes if they have in-depth coverage in the major mainstream general-audience media of two different countries, something of that level. Get rid of all the "presumption of notability but must be confirmed by GNG" language in GNG and just declare that if they pass the SNG or the super-notability standard of GNG they are notable. That would be problematic for subjects that don't have their own SNG already (such as to pick one of interest to me, mathematical theorems), because most of them would suddenly become immediately non-notable, but again would leave most SNGs largely unchanged.

Is the effect on the coverage and balance of our article content from any of these outcomes really what we want to achieve? Because it's the content, not the process, that's really what's important here. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:53, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

  • Outside of the necessary carveouts for NCORP and NPROF, and knowing the history from the 2008 RFC to now, the SNGs have all the same purpose, it is just that some have lost the wording to make them consistent with the other SNGs and then the relationship to the GNG. Importantly, I think it is necessary to be clear the SNGs do not serve one specific function relative to notability but at least three (the ones I've IDd before: identify criteria for presumed notability in that field, identify specific cases in that field that even when the GNG is meet a standalone article should be avoided, and identity the type of sourcing or source quality expected or not accepted for topics in that field). In computer terms the SNG are like plug-ins libraries for a main program - they don't change it but augment the GNG in various ways in a specific field - but this is a poor metaphor since not every editor is computer savvy and I'd love to find a better one. (And even with this metaphor, I can then squeeze in the functions of NPROF and NORG but its easier to just call them as exceptional due to their purpose and means).
    So besides restating the SNG section to make this multifunctionality purpose clearer, is still the idea that the GNG itself is not a simple pass-fail test, as editors will evaluate the amount of significant coverage (ideally, relative to similar topics in that same field) and the quality of the sourcing if they are deemed weak and a source search reveals no reasonable way to expand. Goes back to why we don't place any "minimum number of sources" or the like because that then makes this test look like a pass/fail option. I wouldn't say there's a goal (like I have talked of before) but that simple that the more significant coverage and sources you can provide, the less likely any editor will take a critical eye to the presumption of notability for that topic, and thus it is always recommended that articles based on SNG presumptions of notability or weak GNG continue to build out with more GNG-quality/SNG-specific sourcing, simply to avoid the potential AFD axe. I would argue this captures the practice and intent of how these SNGs and the GNG are used at AFD without disrupting how most think about it, but better spells out relationships for editors confused about notability ("But I have 3 sources, why isn't this notable?" is currently not answered by WP:N). --Masem (t) 20:30, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    If they have 3 good sources it usually is notable. And there is absolutely no requirement for sourcing to keep increasing. It is preferred and expected, but we don't AfD articles for it. Indeed, many articles 'protected' by SNGs will never meet GNG, and we don't realistically expect them to. And that's okay. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:42, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    It may not be an AFD, it may be a merge or something else or any other similar possible, exactly what is not as important that the article does undergo review even after a previous GNG assessment. I have seen articles with very weak GNG sourcing as determined in discussion merged or deleted later. You may pass the GNG once if at an MergeFD/AFD, but if that is a no consensus closure or that the admin warns improvements should be made, a second trip to xFD a few years later is usually not as forgiving if no sourcing improvements have bene made. And the whole point is that the SNGs generally give criteria that only meet WP:V, and not the rest of the main policies (NPOV/NOR/NOT), whereas getting to the GNG usually does. So passing an SNG is a presumption of notability but we still expect expansion to avoid merge or deletion in the future. Ideally the criteria selected at the SNGs are "tips of the iceberg" and the rest of the body of sourcing for that topic above and beyond the bare SNG minimum should be available but would take some time effort to gather and parse. The presumption is there because there are always a few false positives. We actually do expect - at the hypothetical DEADLINE - that short stubby articles that only pass the SNG with no chance to expand should be merged or otherwise dealt with; we just aren't forcing any timeline on them and put the onus on those that would rather seem them deleted to be doing the legwork to prove that out per BEFORE. --Masem (t) 21:02, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    Well, GNG doesn't really address WP:NOT either, nor WP:NPOV which is more a way of writing (eg WP:POVFORKs can pass GNG easily). But, a question for you: in two sentences, how would you summarise notability and its purpose on Wikipedia? Then, briefly, how would you describe GNG's purpose in relation to that? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:18, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    The GNG is specifically a product of WP:NOT#IINFO, using "worthy of note" in reliable sources as a means to weed out indiscriminate topics. --Masem (t) 22:58, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    As for the question, notability's purpose is to be part of the backend filter that because we have no practical barriers to article creation (short of having an account long enough) - nor do we want to limit article creation - we use notability for most topics to judge if the topic is a suitable one for WP. The GNG itself is as close as we can get to an objective metric in that we are identifying a source-evaluation approach that can normally universally apply across topics in diverse fields, though obviously the GNG is still subjective at the end of the day (And thus not a hard pass/fail test). But just as we're using notability to decide on an article's fate, we have to recognize that WP is always a work in progress and this is an open wiki, so we do not want to hasten to remove articles just because at the time they seem poor. Hence the GNGs and the SNGs presumption of notability is the freedom and allowance to set a claim that a topic is notable with objective evidence and give it the time to built out by editors with no rush, though at some point, someone who has taken the onus to show that in the entire body of possible sources, the topic would fail notability and should be merged/deleted should be able to rebut the presumption. --Masem (t) 23:11, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
    I realize that nobody asked me, but I would say that Notability as a concept sets a minimum threshold of sourcing for a topic to be addressed in an independent article on WP, and that the GNG specifies a test for that threshold, to be applied where it is not superceded by other considerations (e.g., many SNGs). Neither Motability nor a GNG pass guarantees an article, however, per WP:NOT and the "credible claim to significance" test, inter alia. Newimpartial (talk) 23:29, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
From my reading above, it seems like there's a gap between what people wish was the status quo, and what actually is. And in all these discussions of notability philosophy, whenever I (& others) have challenged for specific, practical effects of particular points (here and in Archive 69) I have not gotten a straight answer. I'm led to believe only one thing: in this fest to obtain a preferred philosophy, considerations of the practical effects of what is implied are not being considered. What practical issue is being solved here? What is systemically going wrong at AfD that prompts this discussion, and how exactly does altering the interaction between GNG and SNG resolve said problem? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:29, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
From my point of view, the immediate problem was edit-warring over the new SNG section of WP:N that was added in May (and which still exists in a version that does not have any particular consensus for its contents.
One solution to this would be simply to remove the section; another would be to amend the section so that it reflects the status quo of the guidelines; another option would be to change the status quo. I am supportive of the second option. Newimpartial (talk) 20:33, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
@ProcrastinatingReader: ScottyWong closed an AfD that barely passed the sports SNG, but where I thought I had shown GNG had not been met. I asked them about it and based on their interpretation of SNG/GNG, it snowballed into this discussion. SportingFlyer T·C 18:42, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Do you have that AfD handy? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:49, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
I am pretty confident it is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willie Thornton (Canadian football) and this discussion on Scottywong's talk page User talk:Scottywong#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Willie Thornton (Canadian football) as I was pinged on that at one point. --Masem (t) 19:00, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
And to add, I think it demonstrates what I have been saying is practice: yes, it passed an NSPORT, but at the time it was nominated [6] it would not pass the GNG, and the nominator in a good faith BEFORE search found no sources (career in the 2000s, so an Internet search should be good). Editors jumped in to expand on the type of sources that have always been claimed by NSPORT to exist for anyone that has played a pro game - typically their college/minor league career and path into the pro, so it got to a state that it now at least minimally meets the GNG. Whether that is sufficient for the future, I don't know but I doubt it likely will be challenged again unless our sourcing standards change. --Masem (t) 19:11, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
It could be said that's WP:NSPORT working as its drafters, and the community consensus that approved it, intended. Though, I must say it's slightly interesting both these discussions had a NSPORT article at their heart. But this seems like an XY problem. In addition, trying to change core notability policy to address what is perceived to be an issue here, simply because a change to NSPORT won't pass, seems strange to me. Other SNGs are explicitly intended to make it just fine if GNG is never met, NPROF comes to mind as the most obvious example of this. The ideas expressed here, if they came to fruition, would cause chaos in these cases, as David mentions. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:12, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
This is why I've been stressing that NPROF is purposely exceptional as its concepts and ideas accepted as practice predated WP:N. We should not be trying to incorporate NPROF's approach into how we're treating the GNG and other SNGs due to this fact as it is purposely approached as an odd-man odd. The other SNGs all were written with respect to the 2008 RFC understanding - they do no supercede the need to meet the GNG at some point. The wording to that may have been lost but the intent is all there. --Masem (t) 03:37, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
WP:NBOOK also seems to follow the same practice (indeed, it expressly says so in its opening), maybe also WP:NUMBER. To the extent that such articles are merged by editor discretion, it has little to do with notability (per the above, perfectly notable articles can be merged for various editorial reasons, the same is true with GNG). I think the physics principle applies here: when there's one exception to the theory, some rethinking is necessary. When there's multiple, it's time to go back to the drawing board. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 03:54, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Until about October 2014 NBOOK did have language that alluded that the criteria in NBOOK were not sufficient and implied the presumption (and this is confirmed by its talk page up to then) [7] But then on editor unilaterally did a lot of wordsmithing in early Nov 2014 due to a couple talk page points which did change the intent if you were not aware of that stuff being in there before [8] I understand the intent of these were to expidite word use and the like but looking when the changes were made and the edit summaries, it wasn't intended to remove this connection to the GNG because it was implied, as best I as can read intent. So for all purposes NBOOK Still should be treated like the other SNGs, but we need to bring its wrapping language to meet with the other SNGs. From its talk page, I see the editors there treating it as we're talking here - it leads to presumption of notability, it is not a superceding of the GNG. --Masem (t) 04:14, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
Another thing that the SNGs do is provide guidance about the second prong in the intro of WP:N, that a topic is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. (WP:GNG ⊂ WP:N.) WP:NCORP explicitly points to WP:NOT when saying that advertising is prohibited. Indeed, the ethos of NCORP is that Wikipedia is not an advertising platform, a product directory, a place to host indiscriminate trivia about business dealings, etc. Standards of sourcing are only part of the picture. XOR'easter (talk) 20:34, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
I would say every element. It seems, based on this conversation, that there is some misunderstanding of how each SNG operates and their relationship with GNG (and how they treat sources). --Enos733 (talk) 22:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
@Enos773: What are the relevant elements? ‑Scottywong| [confer] || 17:16, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Pinging @Enos733 as Scotty's ping had a typo. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
Haha thanks Barkeep49. I just stared at it for a full 30 seconds and couldn't figure out what I had done wrong. I think my brain has suddenly become incapable of differentiating 3's from 7's. ‑Scottywong| [confess] || 19:35, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
If I had to say anything I liked the list provided upthread:
1) They define indicators of when notability will likely be met once additional sourcing/significant coverage is added over time, so serve as presumptions of notability.
2) They may further define cases when standalone articles in their topic area should not be created even if GNG notability may be met (due to a combination of notability and other policies as in the case of NFILM which includes a bit of CRYSTAL)
3) They may define the types of specific reliable sources that are good for that topic area, atop those that are broadly considered good sources for any topic on WP. --Enos733 (talk) 20:39, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Table of SNGs to GNG

I've compiled a basic table of the SNG>GNG relationship here per Enos733's question above. Everything is my own interpretation, but it does seem like most SNGs actually tend to be more limiting than expansive, and generally match the GNG. This is not at all exhaustive, either: I just used the articles in the category on the WP:SNG front page. SportingFlyer T·C 20:27, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

SNG Criteria Criteria paraphrase Relationship with GNG
WP:NPROF WP:NACADEMIC Academics meeting any one of the following conditions, as substantiated through reliable sources, are notable. Academics meeting none of these conditions may still be notable if they meet the conditions of WP:BIO or other notability criteria. The merits of an article on the academic will depend largely on the extent to which it is verifiable. Before applying these criteria, see the General notes and Specific criteria notes sections, which follow. Provides alternative notability to GNG
WP:NASTRO WP:NASTCRIT If an astronomical object meets any of the following criteria, supported through independent reliable sources, it probably qualifies for a stand-alone article. If an astronomical object meets none of these criteria, it may still be notable, provided it meets the conditions of WP:NOTABILITY, though the merits of an article about an astronomical object will rest primarily on material that is verifiable through independent sources. Generally predicts GNG
WP:NBOOK WP:BOOKCRIT A book is notable if it verifiably meets, through reliable sources, at least one of the following criteria: Generally predicts GNG, but also has exclusionary notes
WP:EVENT WP:EVENTCRIT Not easily copyable Seems to require GNG and limits GNG
WP:NMUSIC WP:BAND “Please note that the failure to meet any of these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, meeting any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept. Rather, these are rules of thumb used by some editors when deciding whether or not to keep an article that is listed at articles for deletion.” Generally predicts GNG, per the limiter; full criteria available at WP:BAND
WP:NUMBER n/a “Have professional mathematicians published papers on this topic, or chapters in a book?” Seems to require GNG and limits GNG
WP:NORG WP:ORGCRIT The primary criteria have five components that must be evaluated separately and independently to determine if it is met: 1) significant coverage in; 2) multiple; 3) independent; 4) reliable; 5) secondary sources. Note that an individual source must meet all of these criteria to be counted towards notability. i.e. each source needs to be significant, independent, reliable, and secondary. In addition, there must be multiple such sources that qualify. If the suitability of a source is in doubt, it is better to exercise caution and to exclude the source for the purposes of establishing notability. Limits GNG
WP:NBIO WP:BASIC People are presumed notable if they have received significant coverage in multiple published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject. Matches GNG, though ignoring the heaps of sub-cats
WP:NSPORTS WP:SPORTCRIT A person is presumed to be notable if they have been the subject of multiple published non-trivial secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject. Generally predicts GNG
WP:WEB WP:WEBCRIT Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with the policy on verifiability to reliable sources, and that non-independent and self-published sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability; web-specific content may be notable based on meeting one of the following criteria: Seems to match GNG while being slightly more exclusionary in tone due to the generally bad nature of web articles
I appreciate the work that was done here, but I object to the language that is widely used in the table "predicts GNG". The language for many of the SNGs (and NBOOK is exemplary here) is that they predict Notability, not that they predict GNG. NBOOK quite explicitly specifies that the quality of meriting a standalone article can be presumed either by an NBOOK or a GNG pass, and places them know an equal footing.
On the other hand, I appreciate the documentation of the many SNGs that offer either sourcing restrictions or other criteria that instruct editors to be more demanding than the GNG requires; it is not only NORG that does this. Newimpartial (talk) 21:41, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
"Predicts GNG" probably comes from how we fine tune sports-based notability guidelines to make sure all players under the sports umbrella should pass WP:GNG. The only one that doesn't appear to require some sort of GNG-calibre sourcing for WP:NBOOK is criteria #4. SportingFlyer T·C 21:56, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
I would invert that interpretive thread: NSPORTS is pretty much the only SNG that makes itself subject to the GNG in that way and tries to "predict" it. Even NBIO specifies its criteria as a ruleset based on the GNG but specific to the domain (and then says "but even if it doesn't pass these, an article may pass the GNG" - but I don't think that structure is what anyone means by "predicting the GNG"; it is still a kind of alternative Notability framework based on commmon principles).
For example, it is true that most articles that pass NBOOK 1 through 3 would also pass the GNG, but that SNG places itself explicitly as an alternative to the GNG (as a predictor of meriting a standalone article) and not a GNG predictor. It also offers criteria in 1-3 that specify what counts as a Notability pass for books, that would not apply to non-book articles under the GNG framework and that therefore cannot be understood as attempts to "predict" a GNG test. So, for example, I think it would a misreading of NBOOK 1. to argue at AfD "yes, there are two RS reviews, but we can require more than that for a GNG pass so really this book isn't notable". In fact, I think that kind of wikilawyering based on "prediction" and presumptive Notability is exactly what NBOOK - and most of the SNGs - set out to avoid. Newimpartial (talk) 22:11, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
An issue that is plaguing the situation and one that can be resolved now is the lack of consistency in language between the SNGs. This should be an opportunity to try to normalize the language across all accepted SNGs (NPROF + NORG excluded) to avoid confusion. Keep in mind that since 2008 the SNGs have all operated under the RFC that no SNG can override the GNG (and again, see above for my note about the unchecked edits done to NBOOK in 2014 that stripped out the language that make the criteria as secondary to the GNG). Having a wording consistency between WP:N and what's said on the SNGs as preambles to the criteria would help a lot, with the understanding that the SNGs have multiple functions and can cover more than just the criteria to presume the GNG. We don't want to make this too much of a bureaucratic issue, but the GNG/SNG aspects still seem to remain a point of confusion to newer and experienced editors that insisting on the consistency in language is not a hard suggestion. (As well as in NORG and NPROF explaining their uniqueness) --Masem (t) 22:26, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
Masem, you seem to be part of what looks from the outside to be a somewhat circular belief structure, that all SNGs apart from NORG and NPROF are intended to work the same way (in spite of their language), so their language should be standardized so they work in the same way. In my view, the more plausible hypothesis is that the SNGs apart from NORG and NPROF are intended to work in at least two different ways (predictive vs. alternative, maybe, or predictive vs. interpretive, depending on what floats your boat) so we should define the ways they actually work before assuming they ought to work in some newly-minted "consistent" way. I'm not against standardization as such, but I am against standardizing things that weren't designed/intended to be standardized. Newimpartial (talk) 22:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
There was a reason we had that 2008 RFC. That was to standardize how the SNGs (excluding NPROF at that time) were to be treated relative to the GNG. No wide-scale consensus has been made to change that since, save for the change in NORG's approach to override the GNG (Which was approved through a wide-scale RFC). Now I'm all for recognizing consensus can change but there's been nothing formal to propose that at a large scale, so we're still working on the 2008 RFC. That some SNGs have drifted in language from that without checking consensus is part of the problem. --Masem (t) 00:21, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Though personally I would prefer that established consensus be changed through discussion, there are many English Wikipedia editors who believe that if practice in, say, deletion discussions commonly diverges from previously established guidelines, then since guidelines are descriptive, they should be changed to match what actually occurs by consensus in the individual discussions. This basically assumes that the opinions held by samplings of the population match the consensus view of the whole population (that is, most editors have a strong alignment in goals, which is needed for consensus to work as a decision-making process). The diversity of the Wikipedia community, however, makes this highly unlikely, and so the only way to maintain a consensus is to get most of the interested parties to show up to discussion after discussion. Since that's also not very likely, on-the-ground decisions are destined to follow the wishes of whatever group of highly vested editors show up for a given discussion, which may not reflect the overall community view. isaacl (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Masem, do you have a link to the 2008 RfC? It's been a long time since I looked at it, and I'd like to remind myself of what was said as well as what was decided. Newimpartial (talk) 00:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
from above Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise --Masem (t) 00:57, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Just to expand slightly, taking the three "roles" that I've identified in the above discussion:

SNG Predicts the GNG Limits on standalone articles Specifics of appropriate or inappropriate sources Notes
NPROF No No Yes The only one that readily bypasses the GNG
NASTRO Yes Yes No
NBOOK Yes Yes No
NEVENT Yes Yes Yes
NFILM Yes Yes No
NGEO Yes* No Yes *Specific geographic features are automatically included per WP:5P1, but others require notability accessment
NMUSIC Yes No No
NNUMBER Yes No Yes
NORG No Yes Yes Purposely stronger than the GNG for organizations and businesses
NBIO Yes No* No** *Specific criteria like NCRIME have caveats. **BLPs obviously have a higher level of sourcing requirements overall
NSPORTS Yes No No
NWEB Yes No No

And to be clear, when I am looking on "limited on standalone articles" I'm looking for specific cautions in that SNG that are not the general "If the topic fails notability, merge it"-type advice, but more specific things that even if the GNG or an SNG criteria is met, the article shouldn't be created. Specifics of sourcing is identifying specific sources to be used for notability, not where sources may be found. --Masem (t) 21:44, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I would like to register again in this context the application of the first column header, Predicts the GNG. As far as I can tell (from reading all the SNGs discussed here to this point), only NASTRO, NSPORT and NFILM actually set themselves up as "predictors" of GNG notability. In addition to NPROF, NORG and NGEO (in part): NBOOK, NEVENT, NMUSIC, NNUMBER, NBIO and NWEB all set up an interpretive framework for presumptive notability that runs parallel to, rather than "predicting", GNG notability. I would also point out that, contra the table above, NBOOK, NMUSIC, NNUMBER and NWEB all offer a kind of sourcing criteria, namely by defining treatments of the topic by RS that count as SIGCOV (for example, NNUMBER 1. is limited to works by professional mathemeticians about this kind of number, NMUSIC 1. places various restrictions on the kinds of RS mentions that count as SIGCIV, and NBOOK 1. sets the two-review threshold, all of which are sourcing criteria apart from (and generally more restrictive than) the GNG provisions. (This may be something different from what you had in mind as "specifics of sourcing", Masem, but is nevertheless a key component of how these SNGs are intended to inform Notability decisions.) Newimpartial (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
I don't think that's correct. Most of these SNGs have been written in ways that implies multiple reliable sources, ie GNG-qualifying coverage, will cover the article subject, and many of them help identify what sort of specialty coverage qualifies for GNG. SportingFlyer T·C 11:19, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
This. Just because the SNG is identifying types of sourcing as part of their criteria like book reviews does not mean they are parallel to the GNG, because they aren't speaking of these sources equating to the significant coverage from independent secondary sources as the GNG seeks. The existence of certain sources can infer that significant coverage can be found, but that's still a presumption that has to be made. --Masem (t) 15:44, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps there is some confusion when various of us use the term "GNG". When I use the term, SportingFlyer, I am not referencing the general concept of multiple reliable sources, but the specific way this is given specific language at WP:GNG, e.g., WP:SIGCOV. As an extreme case, NORG retains the concept of "multiple reliable sources" but replaces SIGCOV with WP:ORGDEPTH and the usual understanding of multiple, reliable sources with WP:SIRS. But most of the other SNGs also offer specific criteria that replace the detail of the WP:GNG, whether it is NBOOK 1's "two reviews" threshold or NNUMBER 1's books, chapters or articles "by professional mathematicians". As written, SNGs like NBOOK 1 and NNUMBER 1 plainly define reliably sourced Notability in these domains but do not "predict GNG" in the narrow sense in which I use the term.
In this context, I find Masem's claim that the inclusion of such criteria does not mean they are parallel to the GMG because they aren't speaking of these sources equating to the significant coverage from independent secondary sources as the GNG seeks is pretty much bass-ackwards: criteria like NBOOK 1 and NNUMBER 1 precisely do offer requirements for significant coverage from independent sources but not as the GNG seeks in the sense of being subordinate to GNG requirements; rather, they document forms of independent, secondary RS coverage that define sourcing standards specific to each domain.
Rather than looking at whether each SNG offers "specifics on appropriate and inappropriate sources", it might be more helpful to record whether the SNG in question offers guidance for source-based Notability more specific than the GNG, in which case the answer would be "Yes" for NBOOK, NEVENT, NMUSIC, NNUMBER, NORG, NBIO and NWEB. Newimpartial (talk) 23:59, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
I would like that a number of the listed SNG's have a considerable number of sub-SNG's which provide exceptions for individual aspects of that subject. For instance NSPORTS actually contains 26 SNG's dedicated to individual sports or events giving fans of these sports countless of exceptions to create and keep articles on their favorite subjects.Tvx1 16:26, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
All of the sports-specific notability criteria received consensus support on the basis of their not setting a lower or higher bar for approval than the general notability guideline. They do not provide an exception to meeting the general notability guideline; they only provide buffer time in demonstrating that appropriate sources exist, in order to avoid unnecessary article churn. Of course, as I have said previously, during article for deletion discussions closers often choose to only give weight to arguments made within the specific discussion, to avoid bringing their own interpretation of existing guidance to the discussion. This isn't a problem with the sports-specific notability criteria per se, but a structural limitation in how rough consensus is determined by closers, and the idea that guidance is only valid as long as day-to-day decisions illustrate an ongoing consensus for it (that is, that guidance is descriptive). While I appreciate the reasoning behind this, it does mean that the results of individual deletion discussions can diverge from overall community consensus, depending on who shows up to the discussions. Feeding back these results into the guidelines thus dilutes them into a wide range of viewpoints. isaacl (talk) 17:06, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Agreed - most sports AfDs get participants from people who work to improve the project on that sport, and are probably more likely to vote keep than if the AfD had received a broad range of participants. SportingFlyer T·C 17:14, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
NSPORT is one of those guidelines that I think can be drastically simplified to a non-sport specific criteria (eg "played at a professional level") with the specific sports being used to call out to specify exactly what counts as a "professional level" for that specific sport. In other words, most of it can be brought down to 5-6 non-sport (but specific to the entire field of sports) criteria that only use specific sport call out to define specific definitions where appropriate. This would prevent any sport from playing its favorites relative to the entire field of sports. --Masem (t) 17:57, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
As you know, the RfC that created the sports-specific notability guidelines deliberately sought to replace the concept of general criteria applying to all sports. Consensus can, of course, change, but at present I don't envision a consensus being formed to return to general criteria. isaacl (talk) 19:47, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
Also, as long as the bottom-up approach to establishing consensus has primacy (and I appreciate there are certain advantages with this approach), trying to enforce top-down created guidelines will continue to be hard. To wit, it doesn't matter what kind of top-level framework is put in place if the decisions made from the bottom are, by design, not bound by it. isaacl (talk) 19:54, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
  • As I mentioned above, I think all SNGs should be like NORG. Virtually all of them are stronger than the GNG is already (with the possible exception of NSPORTS) and if we want to tighten the notability standards it would be giving them a stronger role rather than focusing on an extremely vague guideline that means whatever you want to see in it. The GNG is ineffective, and as written I am confident that most people on commenting on this page are notable. We don't follow it as written at all: we do an analysis of sourcing and determine if based on the sourcing we feel there's enough for there to be an article. That's not an objective standard. Moving towards objective notability standards is what is needed at this stage of Wikipedia's development, and beefing up the SNGs to be limits on the GNG is needed.
    Based on the GNG, we would have articles on every Pokémon. We moved away from that ages ago. Let's use common sense and move to an objective importance-based notability system when possible. It makes for more fair outcomes, is easier for new users to understand, and because of objectivity will help with issues around lack of representation of marginalized groups. The GNG as it is implemented is a religion we profess belief in, not a guideline we actually follow. Let's just scrap it. TonyBallioni (talk) 23:50, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
No. "Played at professional level" is exactly the far too vague and too low bar that creates the problems we have. These are then clarified somewhat in the sport-specific sub-SNG's and these are constantly abused at AFD. You get tons of AFD with nothing of ad-nauseam repetition of "Keep, passes sport sub-SNG" and closers who forget that these SNG only a presumption of notability. The bar being that ridiculously low results in use having hundreds of articles who made only one ever WP:ROUTINE utterly unremarkable often wildcard appearance in one professional event during their careers, which then simply are undeletable because "they pass the sub-SNG". The community finally needs to step up and stop that practice.Tvx1 18:45, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, that's why I said NSPORTS might be an exception. I would support tightening it. I don't think the one that needs to be tightened should impact the rest of the ones that are usually better standards than the GNG, though. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:31, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
    • The problem with that approach is that there are so many fields and subfields that we would have a never-ending cascade of SNGs - eg NSPORTS at this point represents the tip of that iceberg if that approach is taken. Further, that pushes the idea of these being inclusion guidelines, which notability is specifically not. Notability is not objective by design, but to make sure that overly subjective interpretation of it does not merge/delete too many articles where it doesn't make sense, we have a rather heavy onus on those seeking merge/delete to prove that is really the best answer given the state of sourcing available for the topic. But that said, given the table above, we absolutely should encourage notability guidelines to also place restrictions/limits where standalone articles should be created in that field even if the GNG is met, if there's enough history and awareness from WP editors to define this well. NORG is basically this, NFILM's "don't create until production is confirmed" is another example. But again, there are also fields that are too new or too broad to be able to define these well, so that's why we can't built notability as "restrictive" compared to being more inclusive but without being outright inclusion guidelines. --Masem (t) 01:07, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
      • I've never found that response really compelling when I raise this point. Honestly, most of the topics that are popular already have an SNG that could be tweaked. I think if you look at your table above you probably would cover a supermajority of articles that are created. Yes, it won't cover everything, but at that point we could default to our current approach of having loosely defined interpretations of the GNG for various topic areas that aren't written down anywhere (ex. a BLP needs to have significantly more sourcing than an article on a long-dead 14th century abbot; regardless of what this page says.) I used a few rhetorical flourishes above, but we already have in practice an infinite number of different standards for notability since what the GNG means changes from topic area to topic area, and arguably from article to article. I've never understood the people who are arguing against the SNGs seeing them as too easy to meet: in most cases, it is easier to meet the GNG than it is to meet an SNG. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:16, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
        • Identifying that SNGs serve multiple purposes and being clear on this helps towards this concern. One purpose is the "presumed notability for a standalone article" factor to allow articles to be created, but there's now clearly advice/restrictions on articles that are a combination of how WP:N and other policies interact in that topic area. NORG is the key example of this (N and COI), but so is NFILM (N and NOT#CRYSTAL). Heck, the failed NFICT proposal I would in terms of restricting fictional elements on the basis of N, NOT#PLOT, and other similar aspects, in this same vein. This is something to encourage other SNGs to do when they feel its necessary, as well as Wikiprojects to bring their own advice forward on when articles shouldn't be created or should be merged up. But, this is functionality beyond just the presumed notability that is the core issue right now, and something that we still need to have as that is WP practice. --Masem (t) 02:42, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I've found the WP:GNG and WP:NOT are more convincing than any SNG, but this is just another !vote for "policies should be descriptive, not prescriptive". I think this table is an excellent first step to describing what is actually happening within our community. I hope that people believe it's accurate (I haven't had time to really dig on that myself), and if not, we can pick it apart. If it is accurate, we might find any number of similarities. Maybe most SNGs are the same, with one or two outliers. Maybe most SNGs are different, but with a few basic commonalities. In the worst case, if the SNGs are all radically different, we should be honest that's where things are right now. It doesn't preclude further discussion about how to make the SNGs more aligned with each other, but that starts with an honest admission that they aren't aligned at present. Shooterwalker (talk) 01:21, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Maybe it's worth pointing out that GNG is really vague about what it means for a source to address the topic. This can be a contentious issue in AfDs, especially in biographies, where some editors will argue to count only biographical sources about the person in question, while others (myself included) take a broader view that in-depth coverage of the work that the subject is notable for, crediting that work to the subject, counts as in-depth coverage for notability. A lot of the SNGs really have the purpose of answering this question and clarifying what kinds of coverage should count. For instance, WP:CREATIVE #3 and #4 are really about saying that coverage of a body of creative works (whether by critical writings about those works or collection of artworks in notable museums) is counted as coverage of the creator of the work. On the other hand, WP:CRIMINAL tends to take the opposite view, that coverage of a crime does not generally count by itself towards notability of the criminal. And WP:NPOL splits the difference by telling us that people elected to major office will generally be notable through coverage of their work in that office, but that candidates for office will generally not be notable if the only coverage is of their candidacy. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
    • On that facet, that to me is a mix of the functions of "presumed notability" and "when is an article appropriate or inappropriate" that I'm talking about (with CRIMINAL and NPOL more the latter on how WP:N intersects with BLP and NOT). I think being very clear that SNG have multiple purposes, making those purposes clear at each SNG, will help a lot, I think, to make the distinctions clear. --Masem (t) 02:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
      • You can take the position that these criteria are really trying to strengthen or weaken GNG, I suppose, but that's a different position than the one I'm taking, which is that they are trying to interpret GNG in situations for which it is otherwise unclear. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:05, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
        • I'm saying that the "appropriate/inappropriate article" - as well as the "specifying appropriate sources" - would be working to inteprete facets GNG for that specific field. It's not taking away from the idea, just that it is captured in these scheme. --Masem (t) 06:44, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
          • Maybe, but thee entire existence of a "predicts the GNG" column negates this premise, because it presupposes that "the GNG" can be understood and its outcome determined separately from and without benefit of the interpretation provided by the SNGs. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
            • The "predicts the GNG" as to allow a standalone article concept is a separate function from the "interpretes the GNG" via the other two functions. That is, for all practical purposes, you do not need to know anything about the GNG to understand an SNG's "predicts the GNG" criteria to judge if a standalone can be created based on that, but you obviously should be aware going forward if there are other factors that are related to the GNG, and how within that field that the SNG in other sections may limit that (eg as NFILM does). --Masem (t) 19:43, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
      • I concur that SNG have multiple purposes. The intro of Wikipedia:Notability, which comes before the GNG itself, lays out three ideas: first, the subject of an article must have reliable, independent sources talking about it; second, an article shouldn't exist if it would be what Wikipedia is not; and third, related topics might be grouped or merged. SNGs do in practice provide guidance on all three of these points. An SNG can specify what counts as an adequately reliable, independent and significant source, it can explain how some articles would run afoul of WP:NOT (like by being advertisements), and it can give advice on when articles would be better off merged. The way that Wikipedia:Notability is currently structured, the GNG only addresses the first point. XOR'easter (talk) 19:51, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Thank you for putting together the tables so we can better understand the relationships between the SNGs and GNG. By and large, I do agree with TonyBallioni that with limited exception the SNGs reflect common sense (about the topic) and community consensus. --Enos733 (talk) 17:10, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Wording of the SNG section

So to return to the core of what I'm hoping to get resolved (what the wording, if any, should be for the SNG section on this guideline page), would there be consensus for incorporating the nice color coded table Masem made above into something approaching the current wording? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:04, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

At the risk of sounding like a downer, the table above is written so much for insiders that I don't see how it would help to clarify the situation. XOR'easter (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Since I'm suggesting it, here's how I'd rework the SNG section (and this is not really word-smithed):
In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify aspects of notability for that field. The currently-accepted subject-specific notability guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and listed at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. These SNGs can serve up to three purposes:
  1. The SNG can provide criteria that serves as a presumption of notability, separate from the GNG, to allow for the creation of a standalone article. These criteria are generally derived based on verifiable criteria due to accomplishment or recognition in that field that either in-depth, independent sourcing likely exists for that topic but may take time and effort to locate (such as print works in libraries local to the topic), or that sourcing will likely be written for the topic in the future due to the strength of accomplishment (such as winning a Nobel prize). Thus, we allow for the standalone article on the presumption that meeting the SNG criteria will guarantee the existence or creation of enough significant coverage to eventually meet GNG.
    These criteria are considered alternatives to meeting the GNG. A topic is not required to meet both the GNG and a SNG to qualify for a standalone article. Note, however, that in cases where GNG has not been met and a subject's claim to meeting an SNG is weak or subjective, the article may still be merged or deleted: a presumption is neither a guarantee that sources can be found nor a mandate for a separate page.
  2. The SNG can provide guidance towards when a standalone articles should not be created for topics within the field, even if those topics should meet the GNG. This guidance is typically due to the application of other core policies within that field. For example, Wikipedia:Notability (films) cautions against the creation of a film article prior to confirmation of its production, primarily on the basis of WP:NOT#CRYSTAL, while Wikipedia:Notability (people) warns against creating an article on a person if they were only notable for one event (WP:BIO1E), due to the potential of undue weight. SNGs may also include suggested alternatives to deletion in the event that a subject is not found to be notable or when a standalone article should not be created.
  3. The SNG can provide lists of types or names of sources that are considered acceptable for that field in evaluating significant coverage for the GNG or the criteria of the SNG for that topic. Alternatively, the SNG may assert which types or names of sources cannot be used for notability purposes. For example, the SNG for companies and organizations specifies a very strict set of criteria for sources being considered to avoid conflicts of interest and promotion that have occurred in Wikipedia's past.
The only exception to this is WP:NPROF, which by consensus supercedes the GNG for academics due to the nature of coverage of their field.
Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field, such as WikiProject Military History notability guidance. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at WP:AFD).
Very rough and trying to work in the existing language but being clear of the three functions --Masem (t) 01:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Why are you still ignoring my earlier proposed contribution #4: The SNG can describe what kind of information is considered sufficiently relevant to the subject to count towards the depth of coverage in GNG? This is very different from the type of source you list in #3, because it's about the information, not about who published it. For instance, information about an author's books is considered relevant to WP:AUTHOR notability. Information about a politician's unsuccessful or ongoing campaigns is considered irrelevant to WP:NPOL notability. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I would incorporate that into #3 "lists of types or names of sources for notability, or what type of information is considered appropriate to count towards significant coverage" and of course the negative case as well. They work hand in hand. Thing is, if you are talking to AUTHORS #4, that falls under the first function, the way it is presented on NAUTHORS currently, as it is saying that if the author's body of works have received critical attention, then we presume the author is notable. It could be written differently towards this third function, that says that this is to be considered as part of significant coverage for an author and thus would eliminate the need for that criteria. So its a half-dozen of one, half-dozen of the other. --Masem (t) 02:48, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
So I like what you've outlined here in rough form Masem a good deal. This is, for me, a very promising version. I would agree with David that the wording he suggests be explicitly incorporated into 3 if not its own point. I also think Shooterwalker's phrases below could be helpful as this is wordsmithed. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Trying to build a consensus, I think we might want to start by describing the actual status quo. Try phrases like: "Specific notability guidelines are usually ..." "Sometimes, specific notability guidelines instead..." "An important exception is this specific notability guideline, which ..." Not to say we'll be happy with the status quo, but it should be easier to actually describe what all of us see currently than to describe where we want things to go. (It's possible that people will be so unhappy with the status quo that they won't accept the status quo, which will lead to no consensus and ironically mean that we go back to the status quo. But I think it would be a useful exercise nonetheless to see if we can agree on basic observations.) Shooterwalker (talk) 04:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Describing the status quo in this manner sounds like a good idea. XOR'easter (talk) 15:53, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The proposal above is a bit too complicated in my opinion - this should be the opening guidance for someone who wants to understand how Wikipedia works, not a technical document. I'm thinking of something closer to:

In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written in order to help clarify when a standalone article can be written. The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. These subject-specific notability guidelines are generally derived based on verifiable criteria about a topic which shows in-depth, independent sourcing likely exists for that topic. Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG may still be deleted, especially if adequate sourcing cannot be demonstrated.

SNGs also serve different purposes depending on the topic. Some SNGs, such as WP:NFILM, provide guidance when topics should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of which sources are considered significant coverage for the purposes of determining notability, such as WP:NORG, which has the strictest rules for source interpretation amongst SNGs. SNGs can also completely supercede WP:GNG for notability purposes in very specific topic areas, such as WP:NPROF.

Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field, such as WikiProject Military History notability guidance. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at WP:AFD). SportingFlyer T·C 16:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Another short version I am going to take a shot at a short version that avoids some of the traps I see in SportingFlyer's short and Masem's long version. I am entirely willing to edit my draft using strikethrouhh and bold, if there is any interest in this direction.

In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written. The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. Wikipedia articles are to be written based on in-depth, independent sourcing; these subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted, especially if adequate sourcing cannot be found or the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia.

SNGs also serve different purposes depending on the topic. Some SNGs, such as WP:NFILM and WP:NBIO, provide guidance when topics should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage that are to be considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as WP:NBOOK's treatment of book reviews and the strict WP:SIRS requirements spelled out in WP:NORG. SNGs can also completely supercede WP:GNG for notability purposes in very specific topic areas, such as WP:NPROF.

Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field, such as WikiProject Military History notability guidance. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at WP:AFD). Newimpartial (talk) 17:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

  • I think we're getting closer, especially if we pipe the acronyms to be readable in English. I don't like how the "verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic" reads, though, and "that are to be considered" isn't the best tense - it was better in a previous diff. SportingFlyer T·C 17:23, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The only thing here I would change is related to the fact that we're not only describing current practice (which this is capturing) but also setting guidance for future SNGs. To that end, I'd be careful on how the third point is worded since we don't want every future SNG superceding the GNG in the manner NPROF does - there's very specific reasons why NPROF has that and its from consensus-derived discussions. I would only find a way to word that that to indicate it is not a typical option open to SNGs, but still there.
And a more minor suggestion would be to say at the end of the first paragraph "especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." (going to David's point above that notability is both about sourcing and significant coverage, and may get us out of those AFDs that claim "but here's 10 sources, all with name-in-passing mention, keep!" !votes. --Masem (t) 17:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
We function as a gazetteer so NPROF doesn't "stand alone" as NGEO also provides an alternative to the GNG, though I reflect your concern about the wording. I am okay with those changes. SportingFlyer T·C 17:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I like Newimpartial's phrasing for that because then we don't have to decide now just how unique NPROF is (this has been a source of some disagreement throughout this conversation). I am in favor of your suggestion to the end of the first paragraph. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:33, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I entirely agree that the text shouldn't encourage additional NPROF-style SNGs, but we should be vague enough to recognize that we do still have some others as well - like GEOLAND - preferably without naming them all which would probably undermine the attempt to not encourage others. (SportingFlyer and Barkeep already said some of this while I was typing). I am entirely open to proposals to achieve this.
Consensus is obviously the goal here, not preserving my text. However, I'm reluctant to include "significant coverage" at the end of the first paragraph because most of the cases concerned would fail the GNG, and the sentence is focuses on cases where there is either an SNG or a GNG pass. If there's a GNG fail and an SNG pass, then I think "adequate sourcing" is all we need to say, rather than doubling (tripling?) down on significance. So maybe think about that? Newimpartial (talk) 17:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I see what you're saying, but there's a process factor here. When something is determined to pass the SNG (where the SNG is not superceding the GNG), we're not expecting immediate GNG sourcing or significant coverage compliance (see: the hundreds of stubs on athletes). Maybe we need a link or statement about WP:BEFORE or a reminder of how presumptions of notability should be challenges (onus on those challenging, etc.) but I don't know how to phrase that tightly. --Masem (t) 17:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I see what you mean about BEFORE and will think about it; I'm also happy for others to chime in. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:03, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I worry that attempting to define presumed notability is a new can of worms (because it gets into the interplay between GNG and N). That said here's my very rough version of what such a wording might look like The presumed notability of a SNG topic may be challenged, however it will be expected that evidence is provided demonstrating that notability has not been achieved, including having completed the steps to do before nominating an article for deletion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:14, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
That reads to me like a footnote; if included in the main text I'm not sure it would achieve its goals. I would prefer to keep the main text here running parallel between the presumption of Notability in the GNG and in the SNGs, since there are only a few SNGs (notably NSPORTS) that are, as it were, only weakly presumptive. In fact, perhaps it would be best to use NSPORTS as an example of this in the new draft text? Newimpartial (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Keep in mind that we already defined presumed notability in the GNG itself, and the point is that just meeting the SNG is also just presumed notability so the same principle will apply. --Masem (t) 18:27, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
That's a good point. I think Newimpartial's idea of doing it as a footnote could be a good one and perhaps addresses Xor'easter's concern as well. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 18:39, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I can see the merit of pointing to WP:BEFORE, but the guideline already does so in another section. Including it here as well seems a bit redundant. XOR'easter (talk) 18:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
How would you feel about spelling out the weak presumption in NSPORT? It has the merit of being widely discussed in the 2017 RfC, which might lend it extra WEIGHT in this context. Newimpartial (talk) 18:32, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
That feels like another footnote rather than in the text itself. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I generally like the proposed text by Newimpartial, though I'd expand out the acronyms (other than "SNG" perhaps) on the hunch that that would be a little more user-friendly. XOR'easter (talk) 18:19, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
By the way, I totally agree about the acronyms; perhaps that could be done last, though, if this is going anywhere. :) Newimpartial (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Just wanted to support this process. The content looks generally accurate and some tweaks for readability are always appreciated. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:17, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
  • How's this for an edit?

In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written. The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. Wikipedia articles are to be written based on in-depth, independent sourcing. These subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted, especially if adequate sourcing or signifcant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia.

SNGs also serve additional and varying purposes depending on the topic. Some SNGs, for example the ones in the topic areas of films and biographies, provide guidance when topics should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such the treatment of book reviews for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organisations and companies. Some SNGs have specialised functions: the SNG for academics and professors also supercedes the GNG due to a consensus on which sources demonstrate academic notability, while the SNG for geographic features generally just requires verifiability, since Wikipedia functions as a gazetteer.

Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field, such as WikiProject Military History notability guidance. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at WP:AFD). SportingFlyer T·C 21:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

OK, I withdraw my objection to the "or significant coverage" language, since I was forgetting about the NORG case where you can easily have a GNG pass but no significant coverage per SIRS. Great job slaying the ALLCAPS, btw! Newimpartial (talk) 21:51, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
The part that confuses me the most is still around WP:NPROF. It's not the wording, it's the fundamental concept. What are these articles about professors and academics that are being written without reliable third-party sources? I'm trying to imagine how you'd write a biography without third-party sources, especially with WP:BLP being a concern. I'm not trying to be rhetorical. I'm curious what the content would look like, because I can find academics who are GNG notable (e.g.: Jane Goodall, Lawrence Lessig), but not sure what they'd look like if they were only SNG notable. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:24, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Examples that might be illuminating can be found by browsing the Academics and educators AfD archive for the entries that were kept. In practice, the difficulty is not in finding decently reliable sources for basic biographical details, but that the extent of such sourcing is often not in proportion to the individual's actual accomplishments and influence. XOR'easter (talk) 23:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
The short answer to Shooterwalker's question is: you use reliable sources that are not third-party, or that are third-party but not in-depth. These can still be ok for factual information in articles, but despite that GNG does not allow using them for notability. I think a fairly typical example is a recent article I created for a subject who undoubtedly passes multiple WP:PROF criteria (#C1, #C3, #C6, and #C8) but for whom GNG-notability is dubious: Chris Simon (biologist), sourced mostly to her CV and to the membership list of the national academy she belongs to, which together were adequate to put together a start-class article. (In her case there are also some 12000 publications that cite her work, as well as many mainstream news articles quoting her about cicadas, including one on Wikinews [9], but I did not find sources of this type that were useful for sourcing the article except maybe for its claim that she is an expert on cicadas). —David Eppstein (talk) 23:31, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm glad this is being clarified, but it's not really about the proposed text - does anyone have any issues with what's written above? SportingFlyer T·C 23:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Didn't meant to derail things. Thanks for the explanation everyone. I understand how this works in practice now. Shooterwalker (talk) 02:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
The only thing I think is missing is being crystal clear that , broadly, a topic may need to pass either the a SNG or the GNG (not both) to presume notability and merit an article (pending further review as at the end of the first para) If others thing this is clear enough, I'm good, but I think this is a key point that we want stressed. --Masem (t) 23:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
That line has, for me, been the problem all along and so the fact that it's been omitted has been the value of this more recent strand of proposals. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
I concur with Barkeep49 - I really think that's what this whole conflict stems from. The table you made shows that the relationship between GNGs and SNGs is complex. I think the "either/or" simplifies it too much. Plus, the lede of the article we'd be adding it to makes clear it's an either/or. SportingFlyer T·C 00:42, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, the focus here is this sentence: "These subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic." and not the entire body of the new rewrite. If we added "for that topic as alternatives to meeting the GNG." that is addressing the point that those SNG criteria are the SNG or GNG that I'm talking about. The complexities of the other parts mentioned in the second paragraph we can leave alone and not worry about classifying the relationship, but I think we still need to say that when SNG function as providing notability criteria, that is generally considered an alternative to the GNG. --Masem (t) 00:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I am actually ok with Masem's musing on this - there obviously are exceptions to the "or", but enough of them are alluded to elsewhere in the draft that the overall picture has versimilitide, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

But presumably you would also be OK with-out it? In that case we have some people whose first choice is to have it and others who oppose it but we also have people for whom omitting it is a first choice and others for whom it is a (weak) second choice. So, at least by my reading this would mean we'd be OK omitting it. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:44, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Right; I am also ok without it, since it is covered at the top of the page and not obscured or pre-empted by SportingFlyer's latest draft. Newimpartial (talk) 04:02, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
If this is otherwise fine, we can leave it out, but we should observe AFDs if that is an issue and determine if it needs to be added here to be clear. We have enough editors that read WP:N in a red tape manner (despite that not being how we're supposed to use the guideline) so its just a in-case situation if that should develop in the future. --Masem (t) 04:16, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
That's actually why I'm for leaving it out - this section should reflect the fact SNGs are varied and not one-size-fits-all, but adding that sentence in implies to some that "if this meets the criteria, it's notable" without doing any of the critical hard yards. SportingFlyer T·C 10:55, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

There's a deeper reason behind the fact that some topics have SNGs that offer an alternative to GNG, and it's not going to please everybody. We have a duty to our readership to try to include articles that a "reasonable person" would expect to find in an encyclopedia as comprehensive as ours. It should be obvious (but manifestly isn't) that relying on a system that gives so much weight to media coverage is going to produce a systematic bias against significant topics that do not enjoy that sort of coverage. As unpalatable as it is to the purists, NPROF exists to counter the bias against academics who are eminent in their own field, but lack interviews in Hello magazine. Similarly, we have relatively poor coverage of significant people from under-represented groups (consider historical descriptions of women), and it's very difficult to find coverage of any topic that relies on oral evidence for its importance. Over the last decade, society has developed a greater understanding of the impact of systematic bias and that should be reflected on Wikipedia in the way we view our SNGs. Whatever changes we make to our policies and guidelines related to notability, we are going to need to appreciate that the framework we construct will have to accommodate an increasing number of topics that deserve coverage, but don't fit comfortably into the definition provided by GNG. --RexxS (talk) 18:01, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

RexxS, so on the topic at hand are you comfortable leaving that sentence out of the revised SNG section? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: I'm sorry to seem obtuse, but there is so much verbiage that I've had to plough through in the above sections that I'm completely unsure what you mean by "that sentence" and the "the revised SNG section".
From my point of view, I believe that any description of SNGs must start from outlining the multiple reasons why we have created them. NPROF is intended to counter systematic bias by creating alternative criteria to GNG. NMUSIC is intended to catalogue a number of criteria that help editors decide whether a topic is likely to meet GNG. NORG is intended to provide a detailed exposition on how each element of the GNG applies to organisations. NSPORT plays lip-service to the concept of criteria that indicate a topic will meet GNG, but actually documents examples of criteria that provide alternatives to GNG for a range of sports. NBOOK is similar. I don't know if that helps you work out whether I'd be comfortable with a particular wording or not. --RexxS (talk) 16:38, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@RexxS: you're not being obtuse at all. Can you look above to the talk quote wording suggested above by Newimpartial and Sportingflyer and see how either/both of those fit your needs? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 16:57, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
@Barkeep49: I'm fairly comfortable with the three paragraphs suggested by SportingFlyer on 16:49, 2 December 2020 (UTC), although we need to make up our minds whether we say "a SNG" or "an SNG", and the spelling is "supersede", not "supercede" - it's not an ENGVAR difference, just a RIGHTWRONG difference. The idea of "topics which pass a SNG" implies that the SNG is a pass/fail test, whereas some are not. I disagree that "SNGs can also completely supercede WP:GNG" is a good way of expressing the idea that some SNGs may provide an alternative measure to those of the GNG (maybe "supplant" might be less objectionable than "completely supersede").
I have reservations about Newimpartial's suggestions from 17:05, 2 December 2020 (UTC). SNGs help clarify when a standalone article can be written (cf. GNG), WP:N (not a SNG) explains when a standalone article should be written. I'm not keen on treating the SNG as a pass/fail test, and I don't like "SNGs can also completely supercede WP:GNG" as before.
The second version by SportingFlyer on 21:45, 2 December 2020 (UTC) has all the same issues as the other two, and also states "the SNG for academics and professors also supercedes the GNG due to a consensus on which sources demonstrate academic notability" which misses the point: NPROF can replace GNG because the GNG would disqualify many academics whom consensus deem to be worthy of an article, not because we have a consensus about different sources demonstrating notability (and I'm naturally averse to the concepts of "academic notability", "sports notability", etc. – we shouldn't be creating different classes of notability: where does that end?).
I wouldn't consider my reservations as a "blocker": I just think that the language could be improved. Cheers --RexxS (talk) 19:24, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Concerning RexxS's objections to SNGs offering guidance on when standalone articles can be written: I have no problem with wordsmithing, but that pretty much describes what many of them do. They describe criteria (following the general principles of WP:N) for when articles can and should be written, just as the GNG does. Newimpartial (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
There are three strands to the decision on whether standalone articles should be written:
  1. Editors research whether a topic meets certain standards (mainly sourcing, but sometimes issues of fact);
  2. Editors agree that the topic is not one on the list of What Wikipedia is not;
  3. Editors agree that the topic is best represented by a standalone article, rather than becoming part of a larger, broader article.
SNGs are valuable as a supplement to WP:GNG for the process in the first strand; SNGs sometimes are helpful in the determination of the second strand; SNGs have no role in the third strand, because the section of WP:N that deals with it does not defer to SNGs. There is a policy, WP:BLP1E that addresses the issue for biographical articles, but that is a consequence of the policy around biographies of living people, not a consequence of a notability guideline. If you can adduce cases of where SNGs have something to say about that third strand, I might withdraw my objections to the "and should" phrasing, but I think those decisions are made regardless of the subject involved. For example, I don't want us to encourage editors to misuse SNGs as the reason for writing dozens of unexpandable stubs on subtopics that would be much better covered as part of a parent topic. --RexxS (talk) 21:54, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Your third point is clearly incorrect, in that some of the SNGs do include such guidance. For example, WP:BIO1E is part of NBIO. Newimpartial (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
You're wrong and your counter-example is not valid. I already explained that "There is a policy, WP:BLP1E that addresses the issue for biographical articles, but that is a consequence of the policy around biographies of living people, not a consequence of a notability guideline". The guideline WP:BIO1E is a consequence of the policy WP:BLP1E, not the other way round. --RexxS (talk) 18:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
Actually, I still don't agree. WP:NOPAGE says, Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas. And since you didn't like my previous example of this case, another would be WP:CRIME within NBIO, namely its first paragraph: A person who is known only in connection with a criminal event or trial should not normally be the subject of a separate Wikipedia article if there is an existing article that could incorporate the available encyclopedic material relating to that person. Newimpartial (talk) 19:26, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
RexxS still has it right: CRIME exists in NBIO because of the BLP policy; it is not the case BLP policy was changed because CRIME was added to NBIO as BLP existed well before that. Think of the WP:NFF in NFILM - it is a principle that extends from WP:NOT#CRYSTAL as applied to the creation of possible articles on new films; the policy existed before, NFF enshrines that from a film notability standpoint. Its also important to keep in mind that notability is always a guideline relative to policies. It will always take a backseat to policy conflicts and is more prone to IAR arguments. --Masem (t) 19:48, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

But this isn't where the goalposts were. I completely agree that the provisions we have discussed in NBIO and now NFILM come into the Notability guidelines from other policy areas. That was never the question. Rexxx's statement was that SNGs have no role in the third strand (namely, whether the topic is best represented by a standalone article, rather than becoming part of a larger, broader article). If Rexx had stated that SNG guidance in these areas is derivative of policy developed elsewhere in the project, I could agree with that, but that is a very different statement from saying that they have "no role". Newimpartial (talk) 11:37, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

This seems like it can be easily solved by changing the phrasing from "deleted" to "deleted or merged into another article." SportingFlyer T·C 22:19, 4 December 2020 (UTC)


I think that that the overall wikipedia notability kludge sort of knows and adapts to that, even though no guideline has it, in fact wikipedia has no definition of wp:notability period. I think that this is the mission statement of notability which the kludge "knows" and sort of follows:

Wp:notability mission statement

The mission of wp:notability is to screen based on the following qualities:

  1. Has or is projected or believed to have suitable sourcing build an article from.
  2. Meets some degree of exclusivity beyond the "floor" of not clearly violating wp:not. Screening is for the quality of being suitable for inclusion in an ENCLYCLOPEDIA of an ultimate size of only 10 or 20 million articles.

It is realized that Wikipedia folks are not all-knowing at the time of evaluation so metrics are often based on what can see. Also that some metrics may be flawed unless they receive topic-specific calibration.

The main metric for #1 is that there are sources of in-depth objective coverage of the topic. Or that such sourcing is solidly believed to exist or will near-certainly be created in the future.

The main metrics for #2 are a combination of:

  • Existence or predicted existence of GNG type sourcing. Note that this second use of GNG is as a gauge, not as sourcing. There are distortions in this gauge that require calibration. Certain areas are coverage-heavy or coverage-light in proportion to that exclusivity quality. For example, in sports, detailed coverage itself is a form of entertainment and so must be partially discounted as an indicator, for example, by toughening the requirements for sources and projected sources. The same for corporations which have people who promote, seed or write detailed coverage. Also articles where the editor has a strong interest or COI in the topic will reflect a more thorough search and presentation of sources and other indicators than where this is not the case. The reverse is the case for older topics when less coverage existed or coverage is harder to look for.
  • Degree of encyclopaedicness. Including, by what degree did it exceed the minimum requirements of wp:not?
  • Degree and scale of real-world scale, prominence, recognition, impact and importance, weighted towards endurance of these metrics.

Now, if we could recognize that this is what we're actually doing, we could tidy up the whole crowd-sourced herd of cats instead of trying to accomplish the impossible task of trying to find order in the herd of cats. Including using that as a foundation to build an organized relationship between SNG's and GNG.  :-) North8000 (talk) 19:44, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

I think this "notability mission statement" is out of scope for the current discussion, and is not likely to be greatly facilitated, nor at all impeded, by adding the SNG section drafted immediately above. Newimpartial (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
I was intended as a broad foundation, including useful for this discussion. Actually, I think that the current discussion is trying to do the impossible (distill binary rules out of the current neural net (weighted multi-variable decision-making process) kludge) and IMO this would provide a framework to allow success at the current endeavor. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 12:43, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Where do you see an attempt to distill binary rules in the section immediately above? As one of the preponderant participants in that discussion (and as a Gadamerian), that is certainly not what I was doing. Newimpartial (talk) 13:25, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Fist I applaud the effort and am happy that people are working on it. Now answering your question, by binary rules, I mean anything that goes like "in this case, xxxxx (specific SNG or GNG item) determines or gives a pass on notability" When in reality, it is based on a multi-variable decision process, combining weighing several attributes/rules at once. North8000 (talk) 15:00, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think the above text does any of that. It just describes the way SNGs can work, using examples. Newimpartial (talk) 15:10, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
It's not meant to be the answers, it's meant to provide a good framework to build answers on. The un-acknowledged things that it says, relevant to the above discussion are:
  • notability has two goals....assure suitable sourcing and providing a measure of exclusivity
  • GNG has two purposes....assure sourcing to build the article from and one of the metrics for the exclusivity criteria.
  • On the second GNG use, GNG is powerful, but not all-powerful. Other factors are weighed in conjunction with it.
  • The "other factors" are degree of enclyclopecicness and "Degree and scale of real-world scale, prominence, recognition, impact and importance, weighted towards endurance of these metrics."
  • SNG's can define "Degree and scale of real-world scale, prominence, recognition, impact and importance, weighted towards endurance of these metrics.". They can also provide needed topic-specific calibration to the second use of GNG.
Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:35, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
By the above text, I meant the drafts above by myself and SportingFlyer - I thought that when you referred to the current discussion that is trying to do the impossible (distill binary rules...) you were referring to this previous discussion. I think we were trying to characterize current practice, not "distill binary rules". Newimpartial (talk) 19:40, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for your efforts and work. I didn't mean anything negative with "binary rules", what I meant is trying to characterize the interaction between SNG's and GNG's in a way that defines which one governs under the various circumstances. Which IMO is an impossible task. North8000 (talk) 22:29, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we were doing that either, but clearly YMPDV. Newimpartial (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Either way, thanks to you and the others for your efforts and work trying to resolve this perpetually unclear area. North8000 (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
On " trying to characterize the interaction between SNG's and GNG's in a way that defines which one governs under the various circumstances", I am pretty sure we could make flowcharts on the two main processes (preparing an article for creation, and preparing to nominate an article for merge/deletion) that should how one should use the GNG , the appropriate SNGs (give the above rework) and other policies appropriately that shows their "relation" (they are slightly different for these two actions). There's no simple verbal way to state the GNG/SNG relationship (I can spell it out easily if we were talking object-oriented programming and function overriding, but that's too much detail for most WPians), but a flowchart + above text would help easily get point across. --Masem (t) 15:25, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
@Masem: Or, since we're trying to describe what the kludge (a multi-variable weighted-variable decision making process) does some neural net / deep learning programming.  :-) North8000 (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
Perhaps. I still think we're playing at a step above that level - a very broad-level overview of what SNGs are, and I think we're pretty close there with the last proposal. SportingFlyer T·C 15:43, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree with SportingFlyer. I think this is an area where "the best" has very often been quite effectively the enemy of the good, and I don't want to see that result again this time. Newimpartial (talk) 16:36, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Returning to SportingFlyer's edit, I do support the proposal. I have a couple suggestions 1) "Some SNGs, for example the ones in the topic areas of films, biographies and politicians, provide guidance when topics should not be created. 2) "Some SNGs have specialised functions: the SNG for academics and professors also supercedes the GNG due to a consensus on which sources demonstrate academic notability, to address systemic issues" (or something similar). --Enos733 (talk) 18:34, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
    • I'd strongly caution on that second change. There have been discussions on the matter of systematic bias in the past on this page as well on other policy pages; we know this is an issue, but also one that for some topics is very heated (eg related to women and other unrepresented groups). There we've discussed and know we can't do much to accommodate those areas to the same type of degree that NPROF was built around, and to describe NPROF as a policy to work around systematic bias will lead to a raft of proposals for similar guidelines of other areas of systematic bias that we already know we can't do much with. The current description is much more accurate without explaining the specific reason for NPROF's reason-to-be. --Masem (t) 18:45, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
      • I agree. I like the first change, though. I've always understood NPROF as a simple "notable academics don't always receive coverage which conforms to GNG." (I've also found it impossible to parse for notability reasons, but YMMV.) SportingFlyer T·C 18:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
        • I understand the concerns with my second suggestion and I am fine with the original text. My thought is that, as seen in this thread, NPROF does seek to address a broader point about how traditional media (generally does not) cover academics we consider notable, and NPROF does provide alternative metrics to gauge notability. --Enos733 (talk) 20:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC) 
  • I think North8000's attempt to get at the point of notability is useful. Trying to find a perfectly consistent policy that captures all the articles that would be good to cover and excludes all the articles that would be problematic and that isn't too complex for AfD participants to grasp is, I think, hopeless; as a matter of fact, it is not rare for admins to close AfDs saying both the arguments for keeping and those for deleting are soundly based in policy and it's a shame we couldn't reach consensus. Instead, I think it is healthier to think of the guidelines as attempts to find a way out of such conflicts: for editors in AfDs, for admins in weighing up rival arguments in closes, and at DRV if closes are appealed. Having a hierarchy of principles I think is just a better framework, allowing either guideline-derived tests or judgements coming from experienced editors to be weighed up.
I have a criticism of the desiderata suggested. In practice at AfDs, these are not the only things that the notability criterion is aiming at. The reason NCORP needs to be so strict is that articles about companies tend to be hard to maintain, because they are magnets for CoI editing and good-faith editors not spotting the difference between churnalism and original reporting (which can be hard). The reason NPROF can have criteria that don't predict GNG is that we have best practices with respect to academic bios that we can put together substantial, useful, verifiable, neutral articles without finding two sources that jump through all the hoops that the GNG mandates. I think maintainability was really the issue that drove the deletionist side in the Great Includo-Deletionist War and I guess the reason why "doesn't look like it'll grow beyond a stub" is an attractive test to many is because it serves as a proxy for "probably not worth the bother of monitoring such a page". — Charles Stewart (talk) 08:50, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Just from my stand-point, "will this grow beyond a stub without a ton of WP:OR/WP:COI/WP:RAWDATA/etc." sums up how I personally approach most AFDs. That's actually a lot of different content policies and not just notability. I feel like User:Chalst is onto something but if I'm understanding him correctly, it's that there's a lot of reasons behind our inclusion criteria and it's too hard to untangle them in a single paragraph. We should aim low with this SNG-GNG summary, and improve it more later where we can. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:09, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
Thanks. IMO several policies and major guidelines need mission statements to guide their evolution, but wp:notability needs it the worst / would benefit the most because it does not even have an implied mission statement because there is no definition of what wp:notability is. But what I put above should be condensed, especially by removing the given examples. North8000 (talk) 18:36, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
AFD is not limited to testing an article's appropriateness per WP:N, but any other applicable policy, just that testing notability is 90+% of the reason deletion is nominated there. And it is still very important to stress the non-required but strongly-encouraged set of alternate routes (like merging) and the BEFORE practices before hitting AFD. --Masem (t) 19:27, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Would someone more familiar with this discussion than I kindly post the current versions of the SNG section under consideration? I think they're SF's and New's, but I'm not sure if we're still on the last-green-text or what. If the differences could be highlighted between the versions that'd be swell, too :-) Thanks, Levivich harass/hound 08:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal as of 9 December

Per Levivich, here's the most up to date proposal. Two changes were spelling of supersede per RexxS and the addition of politics per Enos733. Using pre instead of tq because it's easier, fix if you'd like! 

In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written. 
The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. Wikipedia articles are to be written based on in-depth, 
independent sourcing. These subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. 
Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if 
adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia.

SNGs also serve additional and varying purposes depending on the topic. Some SNGs, for example the ones in the topic areas of films, biographies, and politics, provide guidance when topics 
should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as the treatment of book reviews 
for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organisations and companies. Some SNGs have specialised functions: the SNG for academics 
and professors also supersedes the GNG due to a consensus on which sources demonstrate academic notability, while the SNG for geographic features generally just requires verifiability, since Wikipedia 
functions as a gazetteer.

Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field, such as WikiProject Military History notability guidance. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions 
(such as at WP:AFD).

SportingFlyer T·C 12:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

To finish clarifying/stating, I assume that the proposal is to replace the entire SNG section with this. North8000 (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes. It's originally based on what Masem wrote and then edited, and is intended for general readership, people who might not be familiar with SNGs. It shouldn't change how we do anything. SportingFlyer T·C 17:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

l I applaud the effort and there is a risk that this endeavor could die under it's own weight. It will be impossible to do this perfectly, but I think that in general this moves the guideline closer to the reality of how the kludge actually works, and the wording of some well written SNG's. There is one thing in there which I think would be a gigantic mistake which is in essence saying that all geographic features (including my uncle's hot dog stand) by-pass wp:notability (in the mis-summary of that SNG) and entrenching the "is a gazetteer" bypassing of wp:notability. IMO, the status quo (e.g stubs on small towns) supported by the notability mission statement that I proposed without needing to create/entrench a "gazetteer" exception. Recommend replacing that with "while the SNG specifies less stringent source standards for geographic features." If that change were made, I'd say let's do this but still consider that section to be a work in progress. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

  • @North8000: How about while the SNG for geographic features generally just requires verifiability → while the geography SNG allows for lower notability standards for certain geographic features.? It's not all geographic features, but we do have lower standards for populated places and some geographic features because we do have a gazetteer function. SportingFlyer T·C 18:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I would think it is easier to just spell out the specific: while the SNG for geographic features just requires verifiability of government-recognized locations to serve Wikipedia's function as a gazetteer. Whether that is really a notability thing or not is up for debate, but this is exactly the practice and why we have that criteria in NGEO. --Masem (t) 18:36, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • @SportingFlyer: That would solve my concern. North8000 (talk) 20:18, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose this wording, which is wildly inconsistent with NGEO. It is only populated places such as villages and towns that have a lesser requirement of verification, not "locations", as physical features require content about them, not just basic statistics. WP:5P says we have "many features of...gazetteers" not that we are one, or that being one calls for separate articles on entries. Reywas92Talk 01:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. The opening sentence of the December 9 proposal is dangerously flawed. The existing provision opens by saying SNG "have been written as alternative to the general notability guideline to allow for a standalone article." The December 9 proposal changes the opening to say that SNGs were written to "clarify when a standalone article can or should be written." This is a fundamental and inappropriate change. It suggests that SNGs are prescriptive and exclusionary (i.e., that they define when articles "can or should be written") rather than illustrative and inclusionary (i.e., that they describe circumstances when an article is likely to pass GNG). This is a fundamental, and to my mind entirely inappropriate, shift in the function of SNGs. Cbl62 (talk) 18:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    It's probably better to save that for the RFC. This formulation might not gain consensus, but the existing provision might not either; neither might gain consensus. At some point, we've got to get on with the RFC about the SNG section of WP:N; we can !vote on the proposals in the RFC. Levivich harass/hound 18:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    An RfC is not the only way to achieve consensus. We might end up needing to have an RfC but, in my opinion, we seem to be heading in a direction where that might not be necessary. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:43, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Which is it, guys? Are people supposed to be voting on this now? Or is voting to be made only once the RfC is opened? If it's the former, then specific language should be advertised to the impacted projects. Cbl62 (talk) 20:44, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    But no projects would be impacted, because the language wouldn't change anything about how the GNGs and SNGs actually work. Newimpartial (talk) 20:57, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    I'm not sure how a section can be added to a guideline without a widely-advertised RFC. But if we're !voting here: oppose both because neither one reflects actual consensus or practice: the existing version for the reasons stated by Newimpartial, and the proposed version for the reasons stated by Cbl62. Levivich harass/hound 20:10, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Do you have a better suggestion for that sentence that Cbl is objecting to? Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Yes: delete the entire section is my suggestion (and !vote). Because the only thing we need to say at WP:N about SNGs is this: A topic is presumed to merit an article if: 1. It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right; and 2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy., which is what it already says at the top. Beyond that, it's up to each SNG to set forth "the criteria" of that SNG. "The criteria" that an SNG outlines might be: "must pass GNG", "rebuttable presumption if...", or "notable if...", or something else. Because there are so many variations on the relationship between SNGs and GNG, there is no reason to try and find some magical phrasing that describes them all. Each SNG can (and does) describe its own relationship to GNG. WP:N just needs to say "see GNG and see the SNGs for notability criteria, don't run afoul of WP:NOT", and that's what it already says. Every draft I've read so far makes things more confusing, not less confusing. Levivich harass/hound 20:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Support Levivich's formulation. If the array of SNGs is really so broad, that's about the best we can do. Cbl62 (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    The problem with going that simple is that it ignores all the above analysis that is analyzing the current practice of SNGs to a far too simply summary that misrepresents practice, and sets a dangerous precedent for those writing new SNGs. We know from the past discussions (since the 2008 RFC) SNGs are meant to be limited in terms of what they can and can't do w.r.t to the GNG and other polices, and the goal here is to explain how we've come to identify those limitations and use in practice. We're here in the first place because before the section I added earlier this year, all this page basically said with regards to the SNG was what this short phrasing had (that is, no expansion on the SNG), and that was causing all the confusion in the first place. We can't leave it that simple, and it seems silly to ignore the work above that we've spend to at least document practice. --Masem (t) 21:28, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Oppose Masem puts it well above and that statement fails to take into consideration SNGs (like NCORP) that are there to ensure a strict interpretation of GNG guidelines. The wording above by Levivich makes it an either/or situation wrt GNG/NCORP. We've already gotten into a spin on NCORP related AfDs because nobody has a clue how to interpret NCORP or it is just wilfully ignored. HighKing++ 18:13, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
    Just to be clear: there is no consensus that all of the SNGs illustrative and inclusionary (i.e., that they describe circumstances when an article is likely to pass GNG). Many editors (including myself) agree that some/most of the SNGs operate directly as presumption of Notability, rather than being a presumption of a GNG pass (which is not the same thing). It is also clear that the current text of the SNG section does not express a consensus at any point in time; the new proposal is intended to reflect the existing practices in toto accurately, not to introduce anything new. Newimpartial (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    The problem is that the opening sentence directly asserts that all SNGs are prescriptive, i.e., that they define the circumstances under which " a standalone article can or should be written." As many (most?) SNGs are inclusionary rather then exclusionary, this proposal represents a fundamental shift not envisioned by those who wrote and voted to approve the SNGs. Cbl62 (talk) 19:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    What the proposed section says is that the SNGs were written to help clarify when a standalone article is merited, not "to determine" or "to define circumstances" on their own. As one of those involved in drafting the proposal, my intention was to include both more permissive and more "exclusionary" SNGs with this language - they are not all NSPORT and not all NORG, but I think they are all supposed to help clarify these decisions. Is there some other phrase that would make this clearer, from your perspective? Newimpartial (talk) 19:35, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    As drafted, the opening sentence will be read by many (particularly those with a deletionist orientation) to mean that that all SNG are prescriptive. In terms of other phrasing, the introductory language of NSPORTS is a decent starting point. It says:

    "This guideline is used to help evaluate whether or not a [topic] is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia. . . . If the article does meet the criteria set forth below, then it is likely that sufficient sources exist to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article. Failing to meet the criteria in this guideline means that notability will need to be established in other ways (for example, the general notability guideline, or other, topic-specific, notability guidelines). Please note that the failure to meet these criteria does not mean an article must be deleted; conversely, meeting of any of these criteria does not mean that an article must be kept. These are merely rules of thumb which some editors choose to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to keep an article that is on articles for deletion, along with relevant policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources." Cbl62 (talk) 19:49, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

    I understand that you are not a fan of the length of the discussion so far, but I think one thing that discussion has established is that NSPORT is a bit of an outlier among SNGs, and therefore its language isn't suitable for a general statement about the SNG/GNG relationship. In particular, its aim to help evaluate whether or not a [topic] is likely to meet the general notability guideline, and thus merit an article in Wikipedia is not the same logic as many other SNGs, which aim to evaluate Notability directly and not via the GNG. Please note that there is nothing particularly deletionist or inclusionist about this difference: the impact of NORG is definitely to exclude potential articles that would pass GNG, but NPROF includes many articles that would probably fail the general understanding of GNG. The point we are getting at in the draft section is to include the various ways the SNGs currently work, and they do not all follow the logic of NSPORT by any stretch of the imagination. Newimpartial (talk) 20:00, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    I had been understanding that NORG, NPROF, and NGEO were the outliers, and that the vast majority of SNGs operated like NSPORT in creating a rebuttable presumption of notability. Whether or not NSPORT is an outlier, we ought not be writing a general statement on the operation of SNGs that ignores the rebuttable presumption concept or that purports to redefine all SNGs as prescriptive. Cbl62 (talk) 20:06, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
    Please see my comment below, so the discussion is not needlessly duplicated. Many of the "rebuttable presumption" SNGs offer a direct (rebuttable) presumption of WP:N, not (as with NSPORT) a rebuttable presumption of a GNG pass. The first sentence currently reads as it does so that it includes both of these scenarios, as well as the others you mention here and in the subthread below. Newimpartial (talk) 20:09, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment. This discussion is one of the longest I have ever seen. It currently totals 360,754 characters!!!! It has veered in one direction and then another direction and then another for more than 30 days. The sheer bulk, density, an duration of the discussion make it impossible to follow for editors who are busy actually building the encyclopedia. Pardon the frustration, but this kind of endless discussion that is followed only by a handful of people is no way to amend our fundamental notability standard. Cbl62 (talk) 19:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • Would you prefer it happened overnight and without much discussion? Also, we're not amending anything. This is descriptive. The text at WP:SNG hasn't been there for very long and is currently disputed. We are simply trying to word how to describe SNGs to a general audience. I would also agree with Newimpartial that SNGs are neither inclusionary nor exclusionary. SportingFlyer T·C 19:23, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
There's a wide gulf between "overnight and without discussion" and 360,754 characters and 34 days of meandering. Somewhere in the middle sounds good. Cbl62 (talk) 19:25, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The conversation has been sprawling but that's also why we've had subsections and summaries such as this. No one has criticized you for jumping in above with a strong oppose. It's a complex and far-reaching topic so it's unsurprising the discussion has reflected that, in my opinion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:40, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
No offense was intended, but it really needn't be so complicated. There are three kinds of SNGs. The first and most common group consists of SNGs that identify topics that are likely to pass GNG; these SNGs create a rebuttable presumption of notability. A second category of SNGs (which includes NCORP) strictly limit the circumstances under which stand-alone articles are permitted. A third and rare type of SNG (i.e., NGEO) allows articles on topics even though GNG is not satisfied. We ought to be able to summarize that pretty concisely. Cbl62 (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Sadly, this is not an exhaustive list. Of the SNGs that offer a "rebuttable presumption", some operate as a "rebuttable presumption" of GNG notability but others operate as a "rebuttable presumption: of WP:N, without being restricted specifically to the GNG. That is, the more general principles of WP:N operate but not the specifications (e.g., the wording of WP:SIGCOV) that are specific to the GNG. Newimpartial (talk) 20:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
Maybe you're right, but if the array of SNGs is as diverse as you say, then my objection to the opening sentence of the December 9 proposal is all the more apt, as it suggests that all SNGs are of one uniform type in prescribing when articles "can and should" be written. That simply is not the case. Cbl62 (talk) 20:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I'm just not quite getting why the to help clarify language doesn't address that issue, since it doesn't at all suggest that they all work in the same way, and the (short) section as a whole makes it clear that different SNGs do different things. To me, to help clarify is very different from proscribing, but I'm wondering if other language would make this more clear to you? Not language from NSPORT, please, since many SNGs don't work that way. Newimpartial (talk) 20:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I like the Levivich formulation above. Keep it simple. Cbl62 (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't agree with this. This is designed to be read after clicking on WP:SNG by someone who might not know what an SNG is. I think losing the first section would lose a lot of clarity for someone reading this as a standalone feature. SportingFlyer T·C 20:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

I am coming to the realization that an RfC should present just two options: the latest section version and the Levivich's "tooltip" version. Those are both reality-based text operating at massively different levels of detail; to keep an RfC simple I think the only options presented at this time should reflect the way things actually work, excluding any possible changes to our practices for a different discussion. I also think this should be made clear in the framing of any RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 21:02, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

SportingFlyer's concern is legitimate but it can be solved with an equally simple introductory sentence, like one of those proposed above. Putting that together with Levivich's version, we'd have the following:
In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify aspects of notability for that field. These SNGs are listed in the box to the right. A topic is presumed to merit an article if: 1. It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in one of the SNGs; and 2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. Cbl62 (talk) 21:38, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@Levivich: Is this tweaking of your formulation ok with you? Cbl62 (talk) 21:39, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
@Cbl62: Sure. Also noting that "Levivich's tooltip" is the third paragraph of WP:N. If we wanted to add the above-quoted text before the existing third paragraph, that I think would be so noncontroversial as to not require an RFC (contra my comments above). If we're talking about adding a ==SNG== section with the above-quoted text, that seems a bit needlessly duplicative of the existing third paragraph, but also pretty noncontroversial. However, neither will address the desire of some to expand WP:N with a more detailed description of how SNGs work in practice; that's not a concern I share. More in my forthcoming comment below. Levivich harass/hound 21:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
And what this proposal makes clear to me is that the new proposed section, in its most recent form, is significantly less misleading than this tool tip, since the latter does not discuss the (very important) case where the SNGs provide guidance for NOT decisions, and the (also important) case where the SNGs provide positive or negative guidance for sourcing - which 1. certainly does not encompass. Newimpartial (talk) 21:41, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
As I pointed out above, that basically reverts this to the guideline state before the May additions, outside of defining the SNG term, but leaves the guideline at the same point of confusion that we were trying to solve back then. The fact we've been reviewing the practice and history of notability for more than a month is to try to give a clear description of practice of how the SNGs work to avoid confusion going forward. While simplicity is helpful, this version is far too simply because it doesn't capture the additional functions we have identified, and sets a dangerous precedence that further SNGs may be written to be more exceptive of the GNG or other policy. --Masem (t) 21:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I am in favor of reverting the guideline to the state before the May additions, although I may be alone in that. I disagree that doing so "leaves the guideline at the same point of confusion that we were trying to solve back then", because it presupposes (1) that there is confusion, or widespread confusion (as opposed to localized confusion), and (2) that the confusion can be improved by expanding the text at WP:N (as opposed to something else). Levivich harass/hound 22:01, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
The logs on this page are pretty clear that the May addition was the confusion of the relationship of the GNG and the SNG, and very little else. And that this discussion and proven it to be a widespread confusion. --Masem (t) 22:05, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • At a minimum, I suggest modifying the opening sentence of the December 9 SportingFlyer formulation which suggests that all SNGs are prescriptive in describing "when a standalone article can or should be written". The fact is that not all SNGs purport to prescribe when a standalone article "can or should be written." The earlier proposed version of the opening sentence provided a more accurate general description of what SNGs are intended to do: In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify aspects of notability for that field. .... Cbl62 (talk) 21:51, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I strongely oppose the wording of "Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged..." This shifts the WP:BURDEN of proof of notability from article creators to those who may actually seek out substantive sources. This phrasing indicates that mass-production of e.g. cricket players is welcome, while those who question the merits of using rosters and databases alone are left to clean up the mess of marginally-notable people. Reywas92Talk 01:02, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
@Reywas92: That's the nature of presumptions. They shift the burden of proof. That said, I don't think anyone here supports the mass production of one-sentence articles on marginally-notable cricket players like Anthony Hanley (created today). That is a problem that can and should be fixed by discussion at the NSPORTS talk page. Cbl62 (talk) 02:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

30,000' view of the current situation

So the actual operational mechanics status quo is: wp:notability has two parts; the header which is Wikipedia's meta-statement on existence of article and the body which is what I consider to be GNG (but now with an SNG section in it) The SNG's contain lots of "deference to GNG" wording which has no operational teeth there and so is ignored there. Then operational mechanics boils down to: if it meets GNG, OR the specific SNG criteria OR Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes it is kept and never reviewed again for notability. A few get more complex in-depth discussions where mutual influence from SNG's and GNG's comes into play. The latter is a multi-variable multi-weighted decision making process which programmers would call a neural-net.

Then in the spring some folks worked at trying to explain / organize the interplay of GNG and SNG in the process. There has been pushback against the initial effort and the best minds of Wikipedia have become mired down in an attempt at a better version of that work to propose in an RFC. Also I think that it has been unnoticed that the in-place attempt and any alternate which has SNG's toughening up GNG is logically in direct conflict with the "either or" statement in the wp:notability header. So what's left is either the current work is just for the "complex in-depth discussions where mutual influence from SNG's and GNG's comes into play." discussions" or else will require the nuclear option of also changing the "either or" statement in the header. In the discussion I think that the main objections are:

  • Wording that would tend to weaken GNG's place in the whole ecosystem, even if it merely makes the defacto status quo official
  • The inevitable flaws in any attempt to, in essence cleanly define a neural net process in flow chart / combinational logic type wording.

I hate to say it, but this may be an impossible task and maybe the whole section should be dropped. I think that the only alternative that has a chance is one that acknowledges the influences and interplay of the discussed factors on notability discussions without trying to go farther than that, and not saying anything that would tend to deprecate GNG.

These only reflect on the current effort. The "headless horseman" nature of Wikipedia notability ecosystem makes things very difficult. IMO something like my proposed mission statement (it could go off-line in an essay somewhere) would provide a foundation to sort things out. Most importantly, acknowledging that wp notability has two roles (assuring suitable sourcing, and selectivity) and the GNG has important roles to play in both and SNGs have a very useful role to play in the latter. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:24, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

And one of the problems with this attempted summary is that it leaves out the role played by many SMGs in assuring suitable sourcing, in specifying both qualitative and, in some cases, quantitative aspects of the expected sources. Newimpartial (talk) 22:34, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree on this: nearly everything to the above has been a good practical effort to define current practice as we can document (based on the current state of the SNGs) without introducing anything new, as to adjust the wording that was added in May 2020. That's exactly the purpose of guidelines, to be descriptive, not prescriptive. If we are going to do an RFC, the point should be "does this language capture the current state of the SNGs relationship to the GNG/other policy?" and not how to redefine the SNG. That would require a wholly separate effort, which may fall out of said RFC if there's so much confusion about the RFC. --Masem (t) 22:42, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that we should not be attempting changes only to reflect what is true at this moment. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
If we are truly not attempting to change anything, then the best way to do that is with Levivich's proposal. By trying to distill/describe/summarize (whatever you want to call it) the nature of all of the SNGs in three paragraphs, you are inevitably omitting and/or oversimplifying important nuances and details from each SNG. Regardless of any stated intent not to change anything, a newly-minted and distilled summary will inevitably create confusion and controversy. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the best way to avoid changing anything, and the best way to proceed, is the Levivich proposal. Cbl62 (talk) 23:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)
IMO the Levivich proposal is pretty good but has some stronger operational wording (e.g. "supersedes") which will end up killing its chances. On a different point, to modify the BOLD spring insertion does not necessarily take an RFC; IMO an consensus here amongst the active persons is enough to do that. So how about softening the Levivich proposal above into "have effects on notability discussions" type wording that can get a strong consensus amongst the active persons here, and tweak the spring BOLD addition accordingly? North8000 (talk) 00:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
The latest Levivich proposal doesn't include "supersedes" wording. As modified by me (and ok'd by Levivich), it reads: In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify aspects of notability for that field. These SNGs are listed in the box to the right. A topic is presumed to merit an article if: 1. It meets either the general notability guideline below, or the criteria outlined in one of the SNGs; and 2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy. Cbl62 (talk) 02:18, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
The proposal put up on December 9th which says "per Levivich" has "supersedes" in it. North8000 (talk) 13:12, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but that's not Levivich's proposal. The Levivich proposal is referenced in my comment immediately above. Cbl62 (talk) 13:15, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
That just basically restates the lede of the notability article. I don't know how it's any better than having nothing at all. SportingFlyer T·C 14:20, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Except that, as I have already noted above, said proposal is also misleading. It explicitly leaves out the SNG direction on sourcing expectations.Newimpartial (talk) 00:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
We could opt to use that shortened wording, which as I say is basically reverting this back to before the May addition, but that doesn't solve the long-standing problem that people do not understand how the GNG/SNGs are used in practice as the issue is constantly confused at AFDs and other places (since before May). And the point of the 3 para summary is to summarize the discussions above that point out the common functionality of the SNGs, that they don't serve a single purpose (Newimpartial's point) in practice. So it is basically ignoring the consensus developed on this page towards that wording to start. We can present an RFC with both wording, but to be fair, there's a reason we need to document current practice to some degree of detail more than that short form. --Masem (t) 00:28, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
I think that the spring addition was an attempt to derive some type of order out of the wording of the SNG's. I don't think that it is documenting actual practice. I think that actual practice is what I wrote at the start of this 30,000' section. (Overly)briefly, usually it's "pass either and you are in" and for more complex discussions, GNG and the SNG are both included as factors in the mix.North8000 (talk) 13:19, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Since I wrote that May addition, I will readily admit now that it did not do as good a job to document practice as what the revised version has come up with. But the revised version is also not trying to be the end-all, but it does importantly expand that the SNGs have more functionality than just providing alt-GNG criteria, broadly those being sourcing recommendations and when not to have standalone topics even if topics seem notable (the two additional functions we've identified from this as used in practice). The idea being that we have a better way to communicate this at AFD discussions when editors wonder why their topic is being deleted even though they seem to meet an SNG which remains an issue today. --Masem (t) 14:34, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
Not to pile on, but perhaps the most useful thing the proposed new section does is to draw attention to the NOT-specifying function of SNGs which is already part of what they do, but which tends to be poorly understood. Newimpartial (talk) 15:14, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
BTW I was not weighing in against anything. I was just pointing out the difficulty of the road that your laudable effort is on and suggesting a possible pragmatic path forward. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:50, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

  • How I've seen the problem described on this page (my paraphrasing): There is confusion about how notability/GNG/SNG works. Some editors do not understand it. Other editors do understand it. The solution is to write an explanation of how it works.
  • What I think is actually happening: There is disagreement about how notability/GNG/SNG works. Some editors have one opinion. Other editors have a different opinion. The solution is for editors to talk it through and come to a compromise that has consensus.
  • For this reason, I still support going back to the pre-May status quo and having a (widely-advertised, village pump, cent-listed) discussion about how notability/GNG/SNG should work, rather than expanding WP:N to explain how it does work (because we don't agree on how it does work). Levivich harass/hound 19:30, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    I don't think that's entirely correct. The problem we're trying to solve is to rewrite the text at WP:SNG, which was written as a result of a misunderstanding in May, and which then served to further the misunderstanding. The rewrite tries to explain SNGs to someone who knows nothing about how Wikipedia notability works. We've spilled characters identifying how it works and then writing a pretty good summary statement. This isn't ever going to be perfect because we really are trying to take a very broad descriptive view of how it works, and we're never going to get to a point where we all have the same opinion. I'm actually staunchly opposed to the RfC you propose. That would completely frustrate what we're trying to do here, which isn't to change anyone's opinion or to promote any specific opinion, but to write something which briefly describes how the SNGs work in practice. SportingFlyer T·C 19:41, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    I don't think we have the data to determine how the SNGs work in practice. Levivich harass/hound 19:53, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    I question your premise, Levivich. What I think this (drawn-out and sometimes, yes, painful) discussion has done is to reach a well-informed consensus about what the SNG/GNG situation actually is when we all read all the relevant guidelines: the SNGs each operate in different ways, the content of any SNG can be categorized in broad headings, and the draft text describes what those broad headings are. The only objections I have read to the current draft text consist of (1) discussion of the best language to use if NGEO is to be mentioned; (2) disagreement with the text based on disagreement about how the SNGs ought to work rather than how they actually work, and (3) objections in principle to defining the way things work now because it is more important to establish a basis for how things ought to work.
    Do you think you have seen any (recent) objections that do not fall into my (1)-(3)? Because I don't see how any of those sorts of objections provide valid reasons for not updating the May text to the current draft, regardless of what the subsequent steps should be. Newimpartial (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    Yes, I think there are objections that fall outside of those three categories. For example, I think every sentence in the first paragraph of the Dec 9 proposal fails to accurately describe how SNGs actually work in practice (not how I think they ought to work, but how they actually work). (I can expand on that if you want, but the specific sentences have been object to by others above.) I don't think the second paragraph clarifies anything. It's not that it's incorrect so much as that it's unnecessary and counterproductive, in my view, to add a paragraph that summarizes 13 SNGs that have almost 13 different ways of working. It's better to just say "there are 13 SNGs, they all work differently, read the SNGs to find out how each one works". The third paragraph is OK but doesn't comprehensively explain how all these SNG-related essays work. WP:FPL, for example, can't be ignored as "just an essay", and the third paragraph kind of suggests that it can. The status of FPL is a reoccurring issue with new participants at footy AFDs, I've seen it multiple times in the last year, and so I think adding this language would be counterproductive to at least that little nuance. Additional objections that are outside of those three categories: do we need an SNG section in WP:N at all, and should the SNG section in WP:N summarize how SNGs work in practice at all, or should the section contain some other content, e.g. a list of SNGs. Levivich harass/hound 20:07, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    Thanks, Levivich. Everything in your additional objections strikes me as an extended part of (3), re: objections in principle to defining the way things work now though I admit the reasoning here is based on directing the section to a different purpose, or dropping it, without necessarily trying to fix underlying policies. Still objections in principle to having a section describing how the SNGs and GNG currently interact.
    As far as the third-paragraph comment, I see that as a friendly observation that could be addressed through further wordsmithing, just as I believe the objection I numbered (1) could be so addressed. Concerning the second paragraph, I hear your objection but the counter I see is the same as the injection I had to the "tooltip" version you had proposed - it simply leaves out too basic an element of several SNGs. It is to our advantage if editors come to the SNGs alert to several things they might be going, rather than bringing with them the assumptions from your tooltip or, for that matter, from the May draft. So I don't think it actually is counterproductive to try to provide editors with a relevant frame of reference, which (in my view) that paragraph does. In other words, I am not convinced at the moment that they all work differently is the most relevant advice we can give editors about the SNGs, though it is undoubtedly true in a sense.
    Which takes us to your objections to the first paragraph: you say I can expand on that if you want and I say yes, please. So far the only recent objections I've seen have been based either on disagreement on how the SNGs ought to work - my (2) - or in a misconstrued of the text as written. Do you see anything else? Newimpartial (talk) 20:22, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    They don't all work differently - we identified a typology above (it's in one of the tables) and that's what the second paragraph describes. Also, we're at such a macro-level scale here that WP:FPL should be nowhere near this discussion - I have no idea why you bring it up. SportingFlyer T·C 20:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    FPL is one of the most commonly used notability essays. If we address notability essays in an WP:SNG section in WP:N, but our description of notability essays doesn't accurately describe how FPL works, then our description will be incomplete or inaccurate, and it will confuse or mislead editors, rather than help or clarify things for them. That's why I brought it up. Levivich harass/hound 21:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    My nitpickery of the first paragraph:
    1. "...to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written" -> "to help clarify aspects of notability for that field" per discussion above
    2. "The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines." — The box at the top of this page doesn't display for mobile readers. If someone types in "WP:SNG", probably the one thing they're most likely looking for is a list of SNGs. Instead of this sentence referring to a navbox, we should just list the SNGs in this section, if we are to have this section.
    3. "Wikipedia articles are to be written based on in-depth, independent sourcing." — "are to be" is confusing and vague. Does it mean must? Should? Aside from that, the statement is aspirational, not descriptive: we do not require in-depth, independent sourcing and most articles probably don't have that. I'm not even sure why this sentence is here at all, I would remove it altogether.
    4. "...generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic." — I guess that's what they attempt to do, generally, but this really leaves out any description of the SNGs that explicitly don't do that, and thus is an incomplete descriptoin of how SNGs actually work in practice. The second paragraph kind of does that, but this sentence doesn't have any words in it that connects it to the second paragraph (such as, "...although some SNGs have other purposes, described below.")
    5. "Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or signifcant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." — This one really loses me on multiple levels, so we have to go to a whole 'nother list level.
      1. "Therefore" should be stricken because the conclusion (the stuff after "Therefore") does not follow from the premise (the sentences before "Therefore").
      2. "Presumed to merit an article" applies to some SNGs but not others. To say that passing NPROF and passing NFOOTY are both "presumed to merit an article" is to be so vague as to obscure the very real differences in how those two SNGs work in practice (not how I think they ought to work). An NPROF pass is more than a presumption, it's almost a guarantee, while an NFOOTY pass is something less than a presumption: at most it's a prediction, but sometimes just a rule of thumb.
      3. "presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article" is self-contradictory and confusing. If they're prseumed to merit an article, why would they still be deleted? The reasons of NOTAPAGE are not discussed. Then in the next clauses...
      4. "especially if adequate sourcing or signifcant coverage cannot be found" is not true. Same problem as the third sentence of the first paragraph. "Adequate sourcing" is super vague... does that mean GNG sourcing? RS sourcing? V sourcing? And "significant coverage", i.e. passing GNG, is not a requirement of articles. That's not how SNGs work in practice today. NPROF doesn't require sigcov. GEOLAND, SPECIESOUTCOMES, and yeah, NFOOTY... you don't need sigcov to "keep" a football player at AFD. Or an olympian. There are very well known examples of this from the past year. I'm really flabbergasted that editors would assert that an article is deleted if sigcov can't be found. That's what editors think should happen, that's not what actually happens. Last year I maintained a table of examples of this exact thing among football players. That's why I say above that we don't have the data to say this is true: AFAIK, no one has collected 2020 AFD outcomes data.
      5. "...or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." That really should be rephrased, "...or if the topic violates NOT policy." Because whether a topic is suitable for an encyclopedia is sort of the whole point of WP:N. It's weird to say, effectively, "an SNG helps clarify which topics are suitable for an encyclopedia. If a topic passes an SNG, it is presumed suitable, unless the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." Levivich harass/hound 21:09, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    I really do appreciate this nit-picking, though I don't think I'm able to process it all at once. I want to start with issues where I have a clear objection to the objection, or ones ones that I don't understand very well. In the first category, re: generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic - I don't see how generally include doesn't sufficiently address the objection that it is an incomplete descriptoin of how SNGs actually work in practice - generally is a term that allows for exceptions, and includes is a verb that allows for other things that the SNGs do that are not included in this sentence. So I don't see any validity to this objection.
    As far as Presumed to merit an article is concerned, I really do believe that essentially all SNGs offer some kind of presumption of this kind. Some - NPROF and NORG come to mind - offer a strong presumption, and others like NSPORT offer a weak presumption, with many others in-between. But it seems clear to me from WP:N as a whole that neither a GNG pass nor an SNG pass ever guarantees an article, and that is what this phrase means at a high level of abstraction. Only this abstraction allows the text to avoid specifying which SNG offers precisely which kind of presumption, which seems to me to be a major advantage of the approach taken, for many reasons.
    The objection I have the most trouble understanding concerns especially if adequate sourcing or signifcant coverage cannot be found. Here, Levivich, you seem to be objecting to the proposed text not based how WP:N and the SNGs describe themselves as working but based on what you believe to be the relevant AfD outcomes. Again, the proposed text says that articles may be deleted if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found. Do you really believe that articles cannot be deleted due to lack of sources? That seems like a bizarre claim, and doesn't correspond to anything I've seen at AfD. Now my intent in this language was that adequate sourcing address verifiability and significant coverage address independence of sources, though I recognize there might be other ways to say that. What I was most definitely not intending was to invoke SIGCOV, because what significance means for NORG is quite clearly different from SIGCOV which in turn is nom-identical to what NBOOK requires. But they always require not just verifiable information but also a degree of independent coverage of one kind or another, and I don't really understand how - at this level of abstraction - any experienced editor could dispute this. So I am flummoxed. Newimpartial (talk) 21:50, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    edit conflict With all due respect, I don't agree with you on pretty much anything here except the fact the box at the top of the page doesn't display on mobile, and with the grammar tweak in number 3. To start, including the word "notability" here creates a circular definition which we're trying to avoid. But I don't know how you can say we don't require in-depth, independent sourcing; I don't know why you think the general description is incomplete, since that's the main point of SNGs in general - I don't think any SNG topic doesn't include verifiable criteria that assumes appropriate sourcing likely exists; and I don't understand why you struggle with the concept of presumption. Just because an article passes an SNG doesn't mean it will be kept - that's the entire point of using the word presumed. You could technically pass NPROF and still be deleted. Also, we don't need to break out the differences between NPROF and NFOOTY here - that's not the point of this section! There's nothing wrong with saying that an article might be deleted if it can't be adequately sourced. It seems like you're frustrated that some articles have been kept at NFOOTY even though you don't believe SIGCOV has been met here. I also don't think you need to define that term - I think it's pretty clear that it means you have to create sourced articles in order to ensure the topic you're creating won't be the subject of a deletion discussion. Finally, I reworded a draft section to remove any acronym-style text in order to improve clarity for readers who might not be familiar with how our notability at all. I don't think adding in "violates WP:NOT" is at all helpful here. SportingFlyer T·C 21:52, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
    • If you go back to Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 68 and the first thread, back in May 2020, the problem extends that the term "SNG" was thrown around a lot but we actually never defined what an SNG was prior to the addition. So the language added (initially by me but edited by others) was to try to capture the practice of how SNGs relate to the GNG so that people would not be that confused. It was not an attempt to create a new relationship. However, as the above discussion has shown, that language misses a few key aspects of established SNG practice that should also be documented. So now we've got a better description of what most agree is current practice to replace that. (we're middling on wording for the most part)
    • Now, is there a rationale to suggest modifying current practice? Maybe but there's a huge leap/process different between documenting practice and prescribing new practice, and with notability that's a mindfield. Not that we can't approach prescribing a new practice related to notability but it would be best to start with how it is understand how it works first so that then a proposed new practice can start from that. If you are starting from something vague, that makes it a lot harder. --Masem (t) 20:31, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • First, I think that, in general, the relationship between the SNG/GNG works fine. Certainly, there can be conflicts between the two, but in general, the community through the AfD process works out. (I do recognize there are some larger and lingering disagreements [ Teresa Greenfield and one game of professional club play as exemplars of the latter], but those are the exceptions not the rule). I also think it is broadly necessary to recognize that one size does not fit all as reliable sourcing varies across time and across subjects. I still think SportingFlyer's proposal is better than the current text, recognizing that there is no one perfect solution and that community consensus on these issues will continue to evolve. --Enos733 (talk) 23:33, 10 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I think the idea that we cannot write a section on the SNGs because the way they function can't be described in a paragraph is concerning, although I think the "revised Levivich proposal" actually implies that it's difficult to meaningfully write about. To that end I seem to agree. Whilst the "SportingFlyer formulation" is perhaps, for the most part, accurate, I think it causes more confusion than it resolves. So I think, so far, I have a preference for the "revised Levivich proposal". ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:10, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
    No clue who actually wrote each of these formulations, or if they're restatements, in the kludge of a discussion, but at least these descriptors clearly reference a particular summary. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:11, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Next steps

Discussion has died out, it's probably time for an RfC since there's no clear agreement. What options should be proposed here? SportingFlyer T·C 19:29, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

I'd say your latest, Levivich's latest, and possibly "no section" if people think that's needed as a distinct option. I'd like to see a draft of the whole RfC text here for discussion before it goes up, if possible. Newimpartial (talk) 19:45, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
My suggestion: Develop a "best proposal" here first (even if some just consider it to be the "least bad") and then propose it and "no section". If you have 3 or more choices it would have a fatal math problem. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:02, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
I don't think this is practical. We have a "best proposal", but then we have Levivich's tooltip which he thinks is similar to but better than "no section". So that isn't something that could be solved by improving the proposal, but if we started the RfC as you suggest it would be predictable (and reasonable) that someone would add the tooltip as an option.
Also, I don't see why the math problem would be fatal, since CONSENSUS is a balance of policy-based argument, not a show of hands. Newimpartial (talk) 16:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
No I don't think the tooltip is better than no section. What everyone is calling "Levivich's proposal" was actually Levivich's answer to a question. Levivich is not proposing anything and will probably !vote for a return to status quo (no section) if there were an RFC. Levivich harass/hound 16:07, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Is Levivich suggesting an RfC with only the two choices? Also, Masem, should we include the current version as a choice in the RfC or are you okay with the revised proposal? SportingFlyer T·C 16:13, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I would try to limit the RFC to a binary choice, and do not feel the need to keep the current text as shown in WP:N as a choice, though if we go to 3 or more options, it is probably appropriate to present that as an option, with the note that the above-revised version is derived from it after much discussion on the nuances of notability. But again, I would prefer for purposes of an RFC the fewest choices defined as possible. --Masem (t) 16:17, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree generally less is more. I'd include whatever choices have the most support I guess? I don't really have a strong opinion on the RfC format. Levivich harass/hound 16:22, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
  • As a passive semi-disinterested onlooker, I suggest we move forward drafting the paragraph that feels like the most honest description of what our best practices are right now, even if that's disappointing to some of us want our best practices to be a little clearer or stronger. It's been years since this has been updated and anything would be incrementally better. RFCs that have gone on this long always have a risk of being obstructed by actors who relish the chance to show up and declare "no consensus", as bad faith attempt to dismantle guidelines altogether. I always find the best protection against people who aren't here to find a consensus is to focus on describing current best practice. It's more honest, and more resilient against bad faith arguments, because best practice is usually backed by dozens (if not hundreds) of diffs, whereas bad faith arguments are backed by nothing (or weird edge cases that haven't been addressed yet). For the people who want our best practice to be stronger and clearer, I wouldn't be opposed to another discussion later. But I sense this is contentious enough that we should sort this out by starting with the basics, and doing the rest through the normal editing process. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:28, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
    • The neutral introduction should explain the history of why this is being brought up (starting from the May 2020 obviously of the lack of advice of SNGs, the section added and revised, and the recent dispute and debate to create a better wording, and the option to simply provide no further advice than necessary (Levivich's)) so that the !voter knows why the RFC is happening, and to make sure it is clear that this is not an attempt to revamp notability guideline but to describe current practice. The goal of the RFC is not to try to change how notability works at all, just that if what is being proposed will help make it clearer to all participants and hopefully make AFD discussions easier to handle. --Masem (t) 16:52, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
      • That's a good framework, yes. I'm personally inclined to support all the proposals I've seen (more cautious and more stringent), but I might caution against multiple proposals because I think that obscures and confuses what we're talking about (whether to update the current description or not). But I'll leave the drafting to people who have been more invested in building this. You'll ultimately decide what has the best chance of producing a consensus. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:01, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
        • Given that we are presenting an RFC that is not well suited to "add another option here", we still want to present good choices but not choices that are too close to each other that don't have the same significant difference between each other. Eg we want to compare Coke to Pepsi in a taste test, or Coke to Diet Coke to Coke Zero, but we don't want to compare Cherry Coke to Cherry Vanilla Coke, if you get my drift. Using the current reworked version, Levivich's version, and the option to omit all together seem like three sensible and vastly different options. If there is discussion "I like option X except for this part" and there's consensus support for that modified approach, we can revise post RFC. --Masem (t) 17:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I know it's not a simple vote, but you still have a math problem if you have three or more choices. Similarly-minded choices would detract from each other. Unless you let the discussions reconfigure the RFC while in progress. North8000 (talk) 17:20, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that in this case a binary choice of "Wording A" vs "Pre-May Status Quo" is our best bet. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:22, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that the latest proposal and "no section" would be the best binary choice. With respect to Shooterwalker's comment, are we confident that we have the optimally wordsmith draft that reflects the current state of the guidelines? Newimpartial (talk) 18:04, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
If we had real consensus behind a version we wouldn't need an RfC. But, from what I can tell, we do have enough consensus behind a version to go for the RfC. There will always be those at an RfC who oppose based on wordsmithing reasons and I don't know that it's possible to create a proposal otherwise, especially because if it were easy we'd have come to an agreement a while ago :). Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Clearly there is no magic bullet; I just want to be confident we haven't left any low-hanging fruit unpicked. Is there a third metaphor I could squeeze in here, or have I run out of steam? Newimpartial (talk) 19:20, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, we have our data-driven forward-leaning quest for customer-facing continuous quality improvement of this guideline, let's complete our thinking out of the box process and get a version ready to be stood up to run up the flagpole.  :-) North8000 (talk) 20:49, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

My advice to have a version (with "no section" being the alternative) that would fly would be to do what y'all have been doing (try to describe the current situation) but being careful that it doesn't deprecate GNG. An issue-free version will be impossible so just settle on something without seeking perfection. If a small group of experts can't settle on that, a crowd of 50 certainly won't. North8000 (talk) 21:25, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

So it's looking like agreement to go with #Proposal as of 9 December vs. pre-May status quo? Levivich harass/hound 22:02, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

The only pre-May aspect we need to address is making sure "SNG" is defined as an acronym, but that I doubt is controversal in the same manner as the introduced language. If the RFC ends on the status quo, we'd just need to make sure SNG is defined somewhere. --Masem (t) 22:10, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
I made a tweak to the intro (Special:Diff/994858282). If that's noncontroversial, then I guess we're talking about an RFC that proposes (1) #Proposal as of 9 December or (2) removing the SNG section? Levivich harass/hound 22:17, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Just giving it a bystander / saleability look (= judging how it would fly):

  • In the section on when projects make up standards, giving the military project as an example could sound like a smack-down of the military project. I think that this section can do well without an example
  • seeing "supercedes GNG" might be a red flag in the front of a bull for some. Could we say "calibrates GNG for that topic" Not only would this remove the "red flag in the front of a bull" but I think that it is an excellent and useful concept that both matches reality and will help in future efforts to reconcile SNG's with GNG's.

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:41, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Editable final draft

Editable final draft. To avoid having to make new copies, please free to modify /refactor this. Including taking out the changes I made which incorporated the suggestions above. North8000 (talk) 17:49, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Background: In the Spring of 2020, the current "Subject-specific notability guidelines" section was added to WP:Notability. There has been extensive discussion on whether it should be kept, deleted or modified and, if modified, in what way. The result was to propose the following RFC: Which of the following two choices shall we do:

  1. Replace the current "Subject-specific notability guidelines" section of wp:Notability with the following, with the understanding that it may be further developed in the future
  2. Delete the current SNG section of wp:notability, with the understanding that new versions might be proposed in the future to replace it
In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written. 
The currently accepted subject guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. Wikipedia articles are generally written based on in-depth, independent, reliable sourcing with some subject-specific exceptions relating to independence. The subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic. 
Therefore, topics which pass a SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia.

SNGs also serve additional and varying purposes depending on the topic. Some SNGs, for example the ones in the topic areas of films, biographies, and politics, provide guidance when topics should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as the treatment of book reviews for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organisations and companies. Some SNGs have specialised functions: for example, the SNG for academics and professors and the SNG for geographic features operate according to principles that differ from the GNG. 

Some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions 
(such as at WP:AFD).
  • I'm not sure I like how this proposal is framed. Usually if we want to delete something, we propose deletion, instead of holding it ransom as "if you don't agree to these changes it will be deleted". That said, I would consent to these changes. Shooterwalker (talk) 19:41, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
It was simply a goal to keep it down to two choices. Also in view of the conversation...I think nobody was entrenched on the status quo, and (as tagged) some considered it to be new / not settled yet. But I worded it to consider the alternatives to be open. Future replacements if it dropped, or changing the new one if it adopted. North8000 (talk) 22:05, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I'd like it better without David Epstein's changes particularly on the bottom. Closer to the Dec 9th version, and provided more explanation on the SNG's that modify the sourcing requirements. North8000 (talk) 22:09, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

You could make a better attempt at spelling people's names correctly. And if you revert it to once again incorrectly say that PROF is subsidiary to GNG, or that independence of sources is a necessary condition for writing an article, you are going to get a strong oppose from me. The point of this exercise is to describe the SNG/GNG relation as it is now, not as you might wish it to be. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 18 December 2020 (UTC)
@David Eppstein: My apologies for misspelling your name. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:22, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
The draft of the SNG section, prior to your changes, did not say that independent sources are a "necessary" condition for writing an article, it made a normative statement that "articles are to be written based on ... independent sources". This is actually weaker than the opening statement of WP:N (which applies equally to the SNGs and GNG), which states if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article. Given that there is more wiggle room in the proposed text than there is elsewhere on the existing page, I don't see why that would be a problem resulting in a "hard oppose". I do see your concerns with the NPROF language, which I will try to fix before this goes to RfC. Newimpartial (talk) 15:02, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
There's a subtle distinction: to establish notability in the English Wikipedia sense, independent sources are needed (at least for those not seeking to establish an achievement-based standard for having an article). However not all citations in an article must be for independent sources (though it would be unusual for none of them to be from independent sources). Perhaps it would help if the proposed change would clarify that it is referring to the nature of sources suitable for demonstrating that English Wikipedia's standards for having an article have been met. isaacl (talk) 21:53, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
I am not hostile to change, but the context to this statement is the SNG subsection of WP:N, not part of WP:V - in the latter instance, it would certainly be against policy to insist on independent sources, but that isn't where this text goes, and it also doesn't insist. We could say something like, "the decision to write an article should be based, inter alia, on the available of reliable and independent sources", but that seems to me to be unnecessarily complicated, which was the opposite of the direction the drafting process was moving in. Newimpartial (talk) 22:29, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree using Latin is unnecessarily complicated, but I don't think the rest of the sentence is complicated. The real problem is that the next sentence, These subject-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria about a topic which shows that appropriate sourcing likely exists for that topic., is kind of fudging what is meant by "appropriate sourcing". Some editors think this should generally mean there are sources suitable for meeting the general notability guideline. Others think if a subject-specific standard of achievement has been met, then we just need appropriate sources to write the article. Given this difference in opinion, which isn't being resolved at this time, perhaps it's best to leave "independent" out for now, or to qualify the statement with something like "Wikipedia articles are written primarily using in-depth, independent, reliable sources." (Either way I suggest rewriting to avoid "to be written".) isaacl (talk) 23:31, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
I am fine with the second suggestion, but not the first. I would point out that in this proposal you have changed the sense of the statement from normative to descriptive, but I am fine with that as long as it is not subsequently changed into a prescriptive statement - to which I would object. What do other people think about the Isaacl proposal?
And yes, the sense of the proposed text is not to insist on a specific relationship between SNGs and sourcing expectations, because in the status quo guidelines that relationship differs so dramatically among SNGs - NGEO and NNUMBER probably being the extreme cases in this regard. I will point out that the disagreement is by no means confined to "do the standards proposed in the SNG accurately predict GNG sourcing?": NNUMBER and NORG set the bar much higher, NBOOK 1. essentially defines what a GNG pass is in that domain, and NPROF and NGEO set entirely different sourcing expectations (though I would still like to wordsmith the NPROF mention if we can settle this paragraph first). Newimpartial (talk) 01:34, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
To follow on these earlier posts (before the subsequent discussion which I take to be a digression) - I have made chances to both the "articles are written based on" passage and the NPROF passage based on my take on the above discussion. Both changes are located strictly within the way all these guidelines work at present, not on how they "should" work. Newimpartial (talk) 23:39, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Is the real elephant in the room the fact that most editors view SNG as "overwriting" the GNG - in a sense the GNG is great for lots of topic categories (and expecially when no applicable SNG is available) but if an appropriate SNG exists, it takes priority. And because the SNG doesn't completely replace the GNG, there is confusion over which parts of the GNG have been "replaced" by the SNG. Is this the effect we're trying to draft? HighKing++ 12:11, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written which include guidelines that take priority over the General Notability Guidelines (GNG).

The currently accepted topic guidelines are listed in the box at the top of this page and at Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines. These topic-specific notability guidelines generally include verifiable criteria in order to establish the notability of the article subject and therefore topics which pass the appropriate SNG are presumed to merit an article, though articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article according to consensus.

Note that SNGs may also serve additional and varying purposes depending on the topic. For example, some SNGs in the topic areas of films, biographies, and politics, provide guidance when topics should not be created. SNGs can also provide examples of sources and types of coverage considered significant for the purposes of determining notability, such as the treatment of book reviews for our literature guidelines and the strict significant coverage requirements spelled out in the SNG for organisations and companies. Some SNGs have specialised functions: the SNG for academics and professors and the SNG for geographic features are separate from GNG.

Also note some WikiProjects have provided additional guidance on notability of topics within their field. Editors are cautioned that these WikiProject notability guidance pages should be treated as essays and do not establish new notability standards, lacking the weight of broad consensus of the general and subject-specific notability guidelines in various discussions (such as at WP:AFD).
That's part of the elephant that was discussed earlier and for the time being, editors have chosen to set aside in order to decide on what to do in the interim with the section that you quoted that was added earlier this year. isaacl (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
I thought I was keeping up, I don't see where it was explicitly set aside. Not saying I haven't missed it though. I see the "supercedes" idea was thought to potentially be a "red rag to a bull" and my use of the word "prioritized" is perhaps a little better. But there's little point in trying to agree a replacement paragraph if the entire elephant isn't going to be addressed in some way. HighKing++ 22:19, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
The point of policy is to describe current best practices. That sometimes means it's best to stay silent where there is no consistency or consensus. I can say for certain there is no consensus to show any kind of nod to SNGs over the GNG, and there's no consensus for the opposite either. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:11, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
Wow, this is a terrible situation. No wonder there is so much of time wasted at AfD and DRV and no wonder editors are confused about which set of guidelines to apply. Completely nuts. Why don't we simply test consensus on whether SNG should be prioritised over GNG? Some clarity is required. HighKing++ 12:00, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

Some of us would like to have text on WP:N that reflects what the current guidelines state before the community considers changing those relationships. For one thing, doing so should reduce the amount of strawmanning and disputes over the interpretation of any future RfC discussion intended to make changes in this area. Newimpartial (talk) 12:52, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

But isn't this the $64million question in that the current guidelines are not clear and in some cases contradictory? How can WP:N reflect the "current" guidelines in that situation? Sounds like an excuse to lock in the GNG as the only applicable guideline and then block any further changes. And there does appear to be a consensus in many topic areas that the SNG takes priority over the GNG. Could we not "test" consensus on this idea first without jumping straight to an RFC? Testing consensus might help or might make things worse but would ultimately provide the community with more information on why there is resistance to SNGs in the first place. HighKing++ 13:54, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
Well, if you look at my posts on this topic you'll see that I have opposed GNG fundamentalism (which is certainly not the status quo) every step of the way. So if you feel the current draft does that, I would like to know why.
As to "testing consensus", do you mean consensus on the new text, or on a policy question? Because the aim of those things is quite different. I for one would like to have a status quo text first, before testing consensus on policy questions.
TBH, I would have been happy to see the text fixed without an RfC, but there has been a steady trickle of people here who don't understand that the current status quo text doesn't reflect the current status quo of the guidelines, and is not supported by those who wrote it back in May, so it seems that we need to have an RfC even to do this basic FIXIT work. Newimpartial (talk) 14:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
I support that approach. It's usually best to settle things through ordinary editing instead of !voting, and describing the status quo is very achievable through drafting and re-editing. I feel comfortable enough that there is a wide range of viewpoints being represented here and that people who have put in the time understand the need to compromise (hence why this is meant to describe the status quo, instead of proposing some idealized change). I'm not opposed to an RFC later, for the inevitability that people want to push this towards a higher/lower standard. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:18, 21 December 2020 (UTC)


My idea (two choices: no section vs. a version developed by the experts here) was an attempt to make an RFC viable. And since a perfect version is fundamentally impossible it also forces the experts to come up with a "least-imperfect" version prior to the RFC. I think that the other viable RFC choice is current version (acknowledging that it may evolve) vs. no version (acknowledging that it may be replaced). But otherwise I think that an RFC would be doomed to failure. Three or more choices would have a math problem (could divide similar-minded support thus distorting the results), or end up in a quagmire...a crowd of 50 trying to come up with and agree on something where 6 experts couldn't do that. North8000 (talk) 14:39, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

I understand now (late and slow but I'm there) the difficulty (thanks to Newimpartial, North8000 and Shooterwalker) and it does actually make sense to try to first agree what we all believed the situation was when the GNG was the primary guideline and SNG's started first appearing. HighKing++ 20:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I think David Eppstein would tell you that your genealogy is backwards but yes, we are trying to describe the status quo, which the added SNG section did not construe accurately. Newimpartial (talk) 21:01, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
Would I? I don't have a clear picture of how these guidelines formed and differentiated in the past. Regardless, I agree that it is the present status quo that we should clarify before any attempt at changing them for the future. Otherwise we run into problems like some versions of the current draft which set up a malformed RFC where none of the choices would allow the status quo to be maintained. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:49, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I thought it was you who had pointed out that some of the SNGs antedate the GNG, which has something of the character of a retcon. But I am perhaps mistaken. Newimpartial (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

One complexity that comes into play here is that even the status quo varies ways that are unique even beyond Wikipedia's fuzzy system. For the approx 90% of the time that the issue comes up (mostly when deciding on new articles) the status quo is that the operative clauses of the SNG's are an available bypass of GNG. End of interaction story for the 90%. The other (more thoughtful) 10% gets into more complexity and depth which is basically what the current SNG section and subsequent discussion is attempting to address. Including that the GNG gets more influence and considered to be the ultimate "boss", including via the non-operative deference wording given to GNG in the SNG's, with tweaking of GNG done in a few topic areas done by those SNG's. North8000 (talk) 22:06, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Maybe it would be helpful for me to articulate my underlying assumption here (it isn't always), about the scope of the draft text. I think we are trying to draw up text that accommodates pretty much completely how the GNG and SNGs describe themselves as working. However, I don't see any need to try to accommodate AfD outcomes in the SNG section, except in so far as they are already referred to in policy or guidelines (as NORG and NGEO do, if memory serves, and as may be true elsewhere). The status quo that I at least am trying to reflect is the status quo of the guidelines, but not necessarily the status quo of the outcomes - trying to include the latter would, in my view, necessarily mean proposing changes to the status quo of the guidelines which I for one am trying to avoid. Newimpartial (talk) 22:20, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
IMO, logically, there are conflicts, circular logic etc. in the wording of the guidelines and so you can't find the answer in them alone. IMO the fuzzy Notability ecosystem makes it mostly of work, and so IMO outcomes are a major descriptor of the status quo. And logically, the process is a giant neural net, make the current effort near-impossible. IMO my "grand unification framework" which I didn't title and poorly described when I poorly posted it weeks ago here would provide a foundation to realistically describe the status quo and eventually make tweaks on it or tidy it up. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:48, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
  • I added a caveat regarding independence of sources to allow for the use of non-independent sources in certain subjects such as academics, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 23:28, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
    • The previous draft read "are generally written", rather than "must be", "should be", or "are only considered notable if". Doesn't that adequately cover the fact that some academic articles lack (and are permitted to lack) the degree of independent sourcing that would be expected in other domains? Newimpartial (talk) 23:37, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
    • My suggestion is to leave out this caveat. In my opinion, the wording is loose enough already to allow for variation. isaacl (talk) 23:51, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
  • The descriptions seems overly wordy and I'm probably missing the complexity. But something that should help is that this is simple and clear most of the time, and those of us who participate in contentious AFDs sometimes lose sight of how consistent Wikipedia is. If something meets both the GNG and SNGs we probably keep it. If something meets neither the GNG or SNGs we probably don't keep it. (In both cases this doesn't preclude a merge discussion.) What we're trying to describe is what happens when an article meets one and not the other. The simple answer is "it's inconsistent" and maybe that's good enough. My preference is that articles should meet both but I see the need work a workable compromise.
TLDR: Articles that meet both the GNG and relevant SNGs are usually kept, and articles that meet neither the GNG or relevant SNGs are usually removed. Articles that meet some notability guidelines but not others may be kept or removed depending on whether the article can be improved to meet key Wikipedia policies, including verifiability, neutrality, and overall appropriateness. In all cases, editors should consider a merge discussion if it helps preserve and organize any verifiable information.
Jontesta (talk) 23:45, 24 December 2020 (UTC)
While that could be proposed as a change to the way SNGs (and the GNG work), it doesn't really suit the purpose of the draft section above, which is to describe the way they work now. The way they work now, is differently depending on which SNG is under discussion - NSPORT works very differently from NORG on one hand, and NPROF on the other. So while there would be no problem proposing a one-size-fits-all compromise as a way the SNGs should work, it most certainly does not describe the status quo. For that matter, any text on this page that would describe (someone's perception of) "what actually happens at AfD would automatically serve a very different purpose from WP:N, the GNG and the SNGs, all of which (even NSSPORT and NGEO) are in some sense normative. Newimpartial (talk) 01:07, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
As this discussion is tailing off, I think that what is proposed now is a workable RfC (or just boldly inserted). If this does go to RfC, there should be some context about the development of this proposal and that this is an attempt to describe the way the SNGs work now - and is not a forum to propose a different relationship between the SNGs and GNG. --Enos733 (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2020 (UTC)
Not boldly inserted; that's what started this problem. Levivich harass/hound 19:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
I was tempted to run this RfC already after discussion basically died down but figured it made sense to wait until after New Years. That said I think we can link to this discussion in the background where it says extensive discussion. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 20:03, 31 December 2020 (UTC)
I think New Year is best too. I think the text at the start of this sections is as good as we can expect as a description of how things operate currently. HighKing++ 14:02, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
  • Problem: I think the people here are deciding what things should be, making a draft for that and testing the hypothesis. Why not have a consultation RfC instead? A series of short questions to help gauge how the community feels about, and understands, notability, and how it feels on some of the more 'problematic' SNGs? We also have tangential problems here, take the NPOL case last year of that unelected politician whose name I forgot. She failed NPOL, notwithstanding that NPOL says to defer to GNG, but the AfD and DRV communities rejected this and the article's notability (rightly, probably). Perhaps we need a broader RfC, as in an actual "request for comments" rather than "test a hypothesis" to sort these various concerns out? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:27, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    That having been said, I do think the current draft at the top of this section is good, and personally don't see why it wouldn't pass RfC. I'm just not sure it provides the clarity people here are seeking, and will resolve the underlying differences of opinion found in this discussion and the one mid last year. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 19:32, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    Since reaching agreement on those questions will take a while, some editors want to decide what to do in the interim with the section that was added last year. (Technically it could be reverted as lacking consensus, but a lot of people really do like finding middle ground positions that everyone can with live with.) isaacl (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    I think the question should be "What minimum requirements, if any, should there be for stand-alone mainspace pages?" or "When should a mainspace page be deleted?" When the community answers such questions, then we can see if WP:N needs to be changed to match. Levivich harass/hound 20:14, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    Let's first have an RfC to determine whether the community approves the new text as reflecting the status quo of existing policy. After that, it would be entirely appropriate to entertain such blue sky questions. Newimpartial (talk) 20:43, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
    We know when a mainspace should be deleted. We have the deletion policy to tell us that and I haven't seen in the thousands and thousands of words written here anyone saying that needs changing. What minimum requirements, if any, should there be for stand-alone mainspace pages might be useful but I'm not sure it's more useful than the RfC that's being proposed here. We are Wikipedian editors. We are going to make editorial decisions based on given facts. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I have started the RfC below. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 17:10, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

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