Wikipedia talk:Notability

See also: Wikipedia talk:Relevance

RfC: Notability and British Rail stations

Should all British National rail stations be presumed notable as an exception to WP:NTRAINSTATION? —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 16:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a follow-up to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Riddlesdown railway station, to which the main argument was that we have an article for every National Rail train station, so they should not be deleted for consistency. A previous discussion that may be useful is the original discussion that led to NTRAINSTATION

Main outcomes include:

1. All British National rail stations are inherently notable, and establish this as a subject-specific notability guideline and an exception to WP:NTRAINSTATION
2. British National rail stations do not have inherent notability, and must be evaluated individually under GNG or any other subject-specific notability guidelines.

—Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 16:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

A related topic: This problem also seems pervasive in the train stations of other countries, like List of railway stations in Pakistan. Regarding the discussion regarding the British train stations, should 1, the many of the train stations in List of railway stations that don't meet WP:NTRAINSTATION face deletion? A much simpler option would be to 2, change notability requirements for train stations. Pygos (talk) 09:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If you can't find sources for an article about a railway station after looking for sources (including in books in the local language, which is where the majority of sources are going to be) then it should be merged to the next higher level article (usually the article about the line or system it's on). Thryduulf (talk) 10:12, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

There may be sources that exist in these articles, like for Khost railway station, there's a reference to https://herald.dawn.com/news/1398873 , but such a source didn't show anything useful beyond the fact that the railway station exists (by the way, it doesn't seem to meet WP:SECONDARY). And such sources certainly don't adhere to WP:NTRAINSTATION. However, plenty of the railway stations only have sources of such levels, so should I merge them all? If I were to merge them, should I first put up AfDs or simply carry it out (which I'm certain will be offensive to many editors)? Pygos (talk) 12:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Firstly this discussion is about railway stations in Great Britain, so a railway station in Pakistan is off-topic. Secondly, did you read what I wrote about sources that are offline and/or not in English. Thirdly, you cannot do research for one station and then apply the results to a whole set of stations. Thryduulf (talk) 13:06, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, then I will resort discussions of the topic to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Stations. I just wanted to mark that the problem resides beyond British and Pakistani train stations though (like [[Category:Railway stations in Malaysia]), so I seek a standardized solution to all the alike problems. Pygos (talk) 13:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

May be it does not exist. I am pretty well familiar with Russian and Dutch networks. I am sure I can find multiple reliable sources for every Dutch railway station. I am also sure many Russian stations are not notable on their own and are best organised in lists (which I am already planning to do). Ymblanter (talk) 13:39, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Thryduulf, but I add: Ask for help. If you can't find sources for an article about a railway station after looking for sources (including in books in the local language, which is where the majority of sources are going to be) then – the problem might be with "you can't find them" rather than "no reliable sources have ever been published". This is an area that Wikipedia does best when people work together, rather than one person thinking their result is definitive. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:16, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

This RfC is in the wrong place. It should be at Wikipedia talk:Notability (geographic features). SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Survey re Notability and British Rail stations

• Oppose, no "inherent" notability for anything. Either there is a substantial quantity of reliable and independent source material available about something, or there isn't. There are certain things (as some examples, national leaders or chemical elements) where there in practice will always be such material about each one, but that's not "inherent" notability either, it just so happens that each member of such a set is actually notable. We do not need any more "inherently notable" permastubs. If each station is actually notable, that's fine, and if some are not, then that's also fine; they can be covered in a list or the like instead of in a separate "article" that's really just a few factoids. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:46, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Seraphimblade: Which permastubs are you thinking of? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:10, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  GEOLAND is probably the worst offender there (though sports gave it a run for the money before it got reined in). But really any time there's been any kind of "inherent notability" arrangement, someone scrapes a database, and the result is a ton of permastubs. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I wasn't asking about geoland or sports, and nor is this RfC. This RfC is specifically about British Rail stations, and that is what I am asking about. Which articles about British Rail stations are permastubs? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Your attitude is rather unnecessary, given that my comment was about inherent notability in general, and you did not specify "British Rail" in your question, so I answered about places where concepts of "inherent notability" have led to that problem. I do not have, nor need, specific examples to be in opposition to what the RfC is asking. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me}

  If your comment is not relevant to British railway stations then it's not relevant to this discussion and should be ignored. Thryduulf (talk) 23:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  It is. The RfC question is "Should British railway stations be considered inherently notable?". The comment I made was entirely relevant to that—specifically that no, they should not. I do not see how that would be anything but a directly relevant answer to the exact question being asked. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 08:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  GEOLAND is probably the worst offender there (though sports gave it a run for the money before it got reined in). is not relevant to British railway stations. And you still haven't answered Redrose's question. Thryduulf (talk) 17:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• No. Things aren't special just because they're British, notwithstanding the large group of editors that seems to think everything that exists in Britain is notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - to my knowledge we have here a complete set of 2,597 stations and this provides consistency to the reader and makes information easier to add (I've improved many station articles that previously had poor sourcing). Opening the floodgates to AfDs for each of these individually is not a good use of editor time, will provide a less consistent experience for readers, and will discourage the addition of new sources information (eg accessibility improvements, changes to service levels, platform extensions). Garuda3 (talk) 16:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Opening the floodgates to AfDs for each of these individually is not a good use of editor time Let's delete all of them and recreate articles on only the notable ones (which probably amounts to a very low percentage of those 2,597 stations; I'd be surprised if 50 of them met GNG.)

  discourage the addition of new sources information (eg accessibility improvements, changes to service levels, platform extensions). Wikipedia is not a travel guide, railroad amenities database, or service map. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  There's easily more than fifty stations that meet WP:GNG. In fact probably the vast majority would do based on books, newspapers etc.

  on your second point, we do list service improvements (or reductions) and changes to platforms, bridges etc. this info is regularly available with good sources. This doesn't make us a travel guide. Garuda3 (talk) 16:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Are so many of these articles poorly sourced that it would open the floodgates? AusLondonder (talk) 17:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's not often that I agree (partially) with Garuda3, but I have to concur that There's easily more than fifty stations that meet WP:GNG. You could easily find more than 50 just in Greater London considering its extensive rail network and the Tube, and I say this as an American. Many if not most stations are notable. The issue I have personally is when editors say they're automatically notable just by virtue of existing and that Wikipedia policies don't apply. If anything, I'd be thrilled to have more train station articles on Wikipedia so long as they are referenced properly and meet GNG.

  There's no conspiracy afoot to bring thousands of articles to AfD. What is true is that there are edge cases. Stations that were open for a few years. Proposed but never built stations. Stations mostly lost to history. Former stations on the site of or near a current station where the best choice from an editorial perspective is to include the former and current station within the same article. And quite frankly the occasional station that just plain does not meet GNG. Prescribing that all train stations are automatically entitled to an article is foolish and should not be done. I don't care if that's how it was in 2004, it's 2024 now. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  At least 250 British stations are listed buildings, and if you read WP:NGEO a few paragraphs before the one on train stations, you will find the statement Artificial geographical features that are officially assigned the status of cultural heritage or national heritage, or of any other protected status on a national level and for which verifiable information beyond simple statistics is available, are presumed to be notable. So that is 250 stations that meet the criteria without any further argument, and that is 10% of the total. Incidentally, there are 400,000 listed buildings in England alone, and according to policy every one of them is automatically notable (although most don't actually have articles). That rather puts a discussion about 2,500 stations into perspective. -- chris_j_wood (talk) 15:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  So that is 250 stations that meet the criteria without any further argument, and that is 10% of the total. Incidentally, there are 400,000 listed buildings in England alone, and according to policy every one of them is automatically notable. Per the introductory paragraphs of NGEO, the section titled "Sources" on that page, and the section you're citing, adequate sourcing beyond the mere listing of a building is required to establish notability. Being listed alone, without more, does not warrant an article. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:18, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose / 2 There's nothing inherently different about British train station from train stations in other countries, so there's no reason they shouldn't be subject to the consensus of the prior RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  To clarify this RFC appears to be asking for British train stations alone to be exemptes from WP:NTRAINSTATION, but train stations are train stations. Nothing about British train stations makes them different from the train stations found in other countries. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I'm not asking for it (quite the opposite - I created this as a reaction to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Riddlesdown railway station). I saw that was the main argument against deletion and wanted to see if it is valid and I figured an RfC was the best way to do that. Just wanted to clear that up. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  The only seemingly valid argument in that AfD is the one saying the article passes GNG (I haven't checked the article to see if that's correct), the others appear to be based on the ideas already rejected by the prior RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Matrix if you firced me to AfD a British station I'd probably pick a boring south London suburban station like those so I don't blame you. But even then I'd be surprised if nobody found enough decent sources. Stations specifically aren't really my thing but I'm aware of the volume of material on the UK rail network. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:13, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Reading others comments I'll add I also don't expect any articles to go to AfD over this, there are endless reliable sources for British railways. Editors just need to show those sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:39, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 no topic has inherent notability. It can likely be said there is good reason that all British rail stations have GNG notability due to the history of British rail and rail fans in the UK, but that simply means that when such articles are created they should show sourcing that trends towards the GNG. But this should NOT (ETA this key work) be taken as allowance to create a lot of stubs on stations with the expectation they can be shown note later. Masem (t) 17:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I could argue that Shippea Hill shouldn't have an article because of its low usage. However, it has been one of the quietest stations in Britain, and by looking at that article, its been reported by BBC, Guardian and Telegraph so it likely meets GNG (at least 3 reliable sources can be a safe bet). JuniperChill (talk) 17:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 This AfD is effectively just a listing of arguments to avoid at deletion discussions. An absolute joke. No attempt to establish notability of the subject, just a complete rejection of our community-endorsed notability guideline for train stations. An RfC explicitly determined that train stations, in whatever country, are not notable simply because they exist or existed. Unfortunately AfD suffers from minimal participation and local consensus issues where a handful of participants prevent the overall consensus prevailing. A similar phenomenon has been observed with the false assertion that WP:ANYBIO #1 exempts recipients of many British honours from secondary source requirements, rather than providing a refutable likelihood. This seems a very British problem. Participants at the AfD repeatedly asserted that because it's a British railway station it must be notable. What about German, Brazilian, Chinese, or Indian railway stations? Any railway station without significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject should be taken to AfD, if those sources cannot be located. AusLondonder (talk) 17:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  As the one who started the previous RfC, I really wish this one wasn't necessary. But a certain group of editors have decided that community consensus doesn't apply to them. Without context, an RfC so narrowly focused as the current one seems silly. But editor behavior has required it. I'd rather this than ANI, at least. I don't want to single out British editors, but I haven't seen any other group of editors otherwise in good standing so willing to flout policy, guidelines, and community consensus around notability. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 As proposer of the RfC I don't see how British train stations should be presumed notable per AusLondonder. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 despite it's problematic wording There no such thing as "inherent notability" in Wikipedia so let's assume that they meant "presumed notability", and rail stations don't and shouldn't have it.North8000 (talk) 17:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Here's an example of a thoroughly discussed one: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xingke Avenue station. A common argument is "we created a bunch of these in a walled garden, and so now we need to be consistent with what's in the walled garden. They end up with nothing but an "it exists" statement with the address and a train schedule. North8000 (talk) 17:32, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  @North8000: This RfC is specifically about British Rail stations. Xingke Avenue station isn't British. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I gave it as an example of a thorough example discussion about train stations.North8000 (talk) 15:13, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  That AfD is a perfect example as to why the original RfC was necessary, and by extension this one. Only one person supporting a keep actually tried to identify sources. If someone else had found another GNG qualifying source, that AfD might have closed differently, and I would be just fine with that. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:31, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  I got the term "inherent notability" from this RfC, and inherent in this case should mean the same as "presumed" —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2, (edit conflict)while railway stations can be helpful to readers, I think its safe to say that it should fall under GNG. Just like why we don't have an article on YouTubers with over 1 million subs. Mumbo Jumbo with 9.4m subs is a good reason why something is popular, doesn't always deserve an article. It has been deleted not once, but twice. However, we do have an article on Geoff Marshall with 335k subs, a railfan youtuber as he's been reported by the BBC multiple times. JuniperChill (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2, with the caveat that I suspect every UK station meets the GNG anyway, given the volume of writing in English on UK railway topics. In that sense this RfC strikes me as a no-op; Option 2 reaffirms that status quo. I disagree emphatically with Voorts' suggestion that only fifty stations in the UK are notable and am curious what they're basing that on. Mackensen (talk) 17:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I doubt all nearly 3000 of the stations are notable. Also "writing on UK railway topics" broadly does not establish notability for each and every individual station. The main thing this RfC should establish is that arguments at AfD asserting all British railway stations are automatically notable without providing sources must be ignored and in fact be considered disruptive. AusLondonder (talk) 17:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I said I'd be surprised if 50 of them met GNG, not that only 50 of them actually meet GNG. I'm basing that on the fact that most railway stations in the world are small and not architecturally or culturally significant, and that most of what's written about individual railway stations are basic information like their schedules. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. I'd guess 1% fully meet GNG and maybe 10% are "close enough" when given some leniency because they have a bit of a geographic component. The latter are when they have substantial sourcing with more depth of coverage. North8000 (talk) 20:12, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  @North8000 A topic meets the GNG or it doesn't. You're saying that articles on 2,700 railway stations in the UK do not meet the GNG. I'm assured by my colleague below that no one's contemplating a purge. Please explain what you envision the future of these articles to be. Mackensen (talk) 23:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  IMO nobody would would work on a mass purge. Maybe a few AFD's on current articles. The main thing is that it would reinforce/clarify that new articles are subject to that standard. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:19, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  If editors wish to take particularly poorly sourced individual articles to AfD, I'd support that but it's something that should happen over time, not heaps at once to overwhelm AfD or editors. AusLondonder (talk) 08:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Well... they really shouldn't. See WP:NEXIST. Notability doesn't depend on the number of sources WP:Glossary#cited in the article. It depends on the number of sources Wikipedia:Published in the real world. If you see poorly sourced individual articles on a subject that is likely to be notable (e.g., listed historical buildings or railway stations), then you could find and add sources yourself, or you could add a request like {{more sources}} to encourage other editors to do that work, but you shouldn't take it to AFD, because Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:01, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 per the arguments of Garuda3. Anyone salivating at the prospect of deleting lots of stations are likely to be disappointed, as the sheer volume of printed material on the British railway system is such that even minor stations will have mentions in multiple books/almanacs etc. So I doubt this will get very far, but it is certainly a big and pointless waste of editor time and energy. G-13114 (talk) 20:16, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  such that even minor station will have mentions in multiple books/almanacs etc. "Mentions" are generally not significant coverage, per WP:SIGCOV: "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention". Being listed in a book or almanac, or even multiple books or almanacs, doesn't make a train station notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:19, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  (ec)Generally these end up with dealing with handling new articles rather that mass deletions, much less "salivating". But the question and criteria is in-depth coverage by a published independent source, not mentions. North8000 (talk) 20:22, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  I have books which give at least a page or more of information regarding station's histories, architecture, layout etc. Given that most stations are 100+ years old, that's generally quite a lot of history. G-13114 (talk) 20:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  If a station has 1-2 pages of material in a source, that is something to invoke to establish GNG (or "close enough") compliance. That's not what I've seen at the bulk of these articles.North8000 (talk) 00:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Sources are required to exist, not be present in every article right now. Thryduulf (talk) 00:23, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Moot. Whether the stations are inherently notable or not is not a relevant question, because they are all actually notable. Only some stations have easily googleable in-depth coverage online, probably circa most have in-depth coverage online when you spend time looking in detail but I have yet to see any evidence that any currently open National Rail station in Great Britain has no significant coverage when people take the time to actually look for offline sources rather than just assume that because the first two pages on Google are filled with results aimed at rail passengers that represents the sum-total of information out there. Thryduulf (talk) 20:47, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

  Of all the comments here, this one from @Thryduulf resonates the most with me. If you think that a British rail station has ever been created, even in some tiny town, without the nearest newspaper taking note of it – probably repeatedly, and probably the neighboring towns' papers, too, either to rejoice in the existence of a nearby service or to bemoan the fate that sent all that commercial bounty to another town – you've not been paying attention. Yes, it sometimes requires time and effort to find older sources. Yes, the article might need an editor whose source-finding skills (or perseverance) are a bit above average. But notability isn't restricted to "subjects for which Prof Google provides obvious sources". It's for sources that require knowing about railway magazines and newspapers archives and local history books, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  That's fine, in that case the station will pass GNG. That's all people are asking for. But articles without sources frankly shouldn't be created. The burden lies with the creator to add sources when creating articles. AusLondonder (talk) 08:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  @AusLondonder: Are there any articles about British Rail stations that are without sources? If so, who has been creating them? If it's a newbie who has never created an article at all, and this is their first attempt, let's help them out. If it's somebody with years of evidence who is WP:MEATBOTting out new unsourced articles, why are we not talking to them directly? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Isn't the issue here that most od these articles were created two decades ago when sourcing/notability requirements were much looser, and now that some editors are bringing good faith AfD noms, the responses are "keep it must be notable" instead of actually providing those sources that are claimed to exist? voorts (talk/contributions) 17:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Probably not. Category:Railway stations in Great Britain contains 9,745 articles (subcat depth of 3), and it has only 18 articles in Category:Articles lacking sources. [1] I haven't checked the numbers for a while, but I believe that one unref'd article out of every ~550 is a lower rate of unref'd articles than average. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 Full disclosure, I was the one who started the last train station notability RfC in 2022. I am dismayed to see people basically ignoring the consensus from that RfC. To those who claim "so much has been written about these stations that they're all notable!", I say it should be very easy to show significant coverage in a few sources and show GNG is met for a given station if this is true. People cried that all the train stations would be purged last time, and that has not happened. Hardly anyone was calling for that, and I certainly wasn't then and I am not calling for that now. It would not happen after this RfC either. Many, if not most active train stations are notable because they clear GNG on their own merits, not just because they are train stations. That is not a get out of jail free card to write stubs with 1 non-independent reference and then claim nobody can ever challenge said stubs on notability grounds. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. This is far too specific and local of a category to have its own special notability cutout. They may well all be individually notable but that should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis through our regular notability guidelines rather than by fiat. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:32, 10 September 2024 (UTC)
• Moot, per Thryduulf. I can see why someone would think a tiny rural halt or boring suburban station wouldn't be notable (as in the subject of in-depth coverage in reliable sources, not to be confused with "I personally don't think this is important") but there is a huge volume of literature on the UK railway network, including full-length books on rural branch lines. Openings and closures are extensively documented in the local press and the railway magazines. Of course, many of them are over 150 years old so that coverage may not be easily found online, but most public buildings or infrastructure of that age will be notable. I dislike the concept of inherent or presumed notability but if we had 2,500 AfDs I can't imagine many of them resulting in deletion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:18, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Nobody's asking to have 2,500 AfDs. They're just asking that people not make spurious arguments during those AfD discussions. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  There's no need to make spurious arguments. The stations will almost all, if not all, be notable if anyone does the necessary research. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  This RfC was sparked by an AfD where many of the !votes were effectively "keep, every British train station is notable", notwithstanding the broader 2022 RfC that found no train station is inherently notable. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:30, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Every British railway station is notable. Not because they are inherently notable, but because so much has been written about them that in-depth sourcing is available for every single one if you take the time to look beyond page 2 of google. Thryduulf (talk) 17:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  See my latest comment in the discussion section below. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 There is nothing specially encyclopaedic about British (or any other) railway stations, though in the UK they are so well covered by both historical and current news, and such an extensive literature has grown up around them, that it is hard to find one without decent coverage. We just need to go and find it, not create stubs and hope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Verbarson (talk • contribs) 11:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's a bit of a moot point, as all the articles already exist. Garuda3 (talk) 12:29, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 being British (and I should know) does not confer automatic notability, they should be subject to our policies like every other station. Slatersteven (talk) 11:31, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 there is no such thing as inherent notability. As for this being moot, maybe. But, the trick will be finding this more than passing coverage rather than vapidly stating that it much exist somewhere. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 12:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. I do not believe in the notion that they are inherently notable. Hypothetically if 200 stations exist, and 199 of them are notable and have coverage, and 1 does not have coverage at all and is not notable, it is not made notable by virtue of every other station being notable. Honestly, the idea that British stations in particular would be the exception to a rule feels a bit Anglocentric. Is every train station in Japan notable? Is every train station in China notable? India? Around the world? The argument presented is that a newspaper somewhere at some point surely mentioned it, and that much is also the case for most trainstations around the world and, yet, there is no exception being carved out for them. Inclusion in the encyclopedia required verifiability, and notability is established by verifiable sources. If such sources exist, they should be found and cited in the article, otherwise, it should not exist simply because "all the others do". --Brocade River Poems (She/They) 19:10, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  How in any way does deleting one station article in a set of 200 benefit readers? It's going to cause confusion as to why one article isn't there and make it harder for people to find the information they're looking for. Garuda3 (talk) 22:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  How in any way does deleting one station article in a set of 200 benefit readers? It's going to cause confusion as to why one article isn't there

  Because if there are no verifiable sources, it does not go in the encyclopedia. Per WP:Verifiability All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists, and captions, must be verifiable. Per WP:BURDEN The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material and per WP:N Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article.

  Likewise WP:NRV No subject is automatically or inherently notable merely because it exists. As WP:NOTDONE says, the Encyclopedia will never be finished, ergo, missing one station out of 200 is of no real harm. Carving out an exception for one specific country is wholly unnecessary. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 02:27, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's possible for a subject to have "verifiable sources" and still "not meet the WP:GNG". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:16, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, and in that case, it still doesn't belong in the encyclopedia even if all 199 other stations do. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 05:25, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  I believe you will find that WP:FAILN and WP:EP have different ideas about whether verifiable information belongs "in the encyclopedia". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Frankly, I do not understand what you are even arguing. If a subject fails WP:GNG, it usually doesn't have verifiable sources. None of what you are posting, or linking, contradicts what I have said. Material with no verifiable sources automatically fails WP:GNG and does not go in the encyclopedia. GNG quite literally says A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

  Per WP:RS Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered (see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view). If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

  &&

  The policy on sourcing is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which requires inline citations for any material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. The verifiability policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, and sections of articles—without exception, and in particular to biographies of living persons, which states:

  Emphasis my own.

  Reliable sources are how we establish verifiability. If there are no verifiable sources the article ipso facto fails notability and does not belong in the encyclopedia. Saying if there are no verifiable sources the article does not go in the encyclopedia is not the same anything that is verifiable does.

  If a source does not have any verifiable sources, it is not notable. At no point did I say anything with a verifiable source goes in the encyclopedia. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 00:10, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Hello, @BrocadeRiverPoems,

  Sorry for my confusing reply. I would have explained in more detail if I'd noticed earlier that your account is only six weeks old. We get used to talking in confusing WP:UPPERCASE jargon and forget that there are helpful new people trying to make sense of it.

  You are correct that everything must be WP:Glossary#verifiable. Verifiable means that at least one source has been WP:Published in the real world (←absolute requirement, all content, with zero exceptions), and that this source is considered "reliable" for the specific statement. It is the best practice (but not technically a requirement, except for four common and important types of content) to cite at least one reliable source that WP:Directly supports the specific statement.

  It's possible to have a source that is reliable for a given statement, but which does not confer notability. For example, {{Cite tweet}} is used for verifiability purposes in 41,000 articles, but it is not the kind of source that the WP:GNG accepts. Similarly, we use {{cite press release}} in 73,000 articles (and more press releases are cited without using the template), but a press release never counts towards notability.

  For example: if the sentence is "Mayor Ma announced that she is retiring", then you could cite that to a social media post or press release from Mayor Ma herself. Those sources would be reliable. But the mayor talking about herself does not make her notable (←no Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article about her).

  When you have sources that verify the content but do not confer notability, then it is sometimes best to put the content in a related article about a notable subject. For example, if we decide that Mayor Ma is not notable, then perhaps we would put the verifiable information in an article about the Mayors of Smallville or in Smallville#Mayors. That approach keeps in the information "in the encyclopedia" without creating an article on a non-notable subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:32, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Understood! Thank you! Brocade River Poems (She/They) 04:37, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Your answer doesn't address how it benefits readers. We're talking about a completed set here so you're not preventing any new articles being created. What is the benefit to readers of deleting one article in a completed set? I can name some drawbacks:

  • Inconsistency - there may be confusion as the casual reader expects to find a page (through Wikipedia or through Google) but there isn't one there
  • Wasted editor time arguing about deletion and then having to restore the article should we decide we actually do want an article on the subject
  • The article won't appear in Special:Nearby making it harder to discover for people who use that feature

  Garuda3 (talk) 08:10, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  This isn't about deleting any article, though, and is grossly offtopic. This is about whether or not the British National Rail should get special privileges. Nothing is innately notable. WP:NOTEVERYTHING. There is no requirement to have a complete set of anything if it is not notable. Notability is the basic requirement for inclusion. If it is inherently notable on the basis that a source exists somewhere, then find the source. An article doesn't get to exist just because other articles of a similar nature exist. There is nothing inherently special about British railway stations that necessitates carving out an exception specifically for them. It borders on WP:NATIONALIST to infer that the British National Rail system is somehow exceptional compared to every other rail system, so much so that it is above the rules which everything else is held to. You are arguing about how does it help the user, and I am telling you that according to policy having unverified information hurts the encyclopedia. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 00:01, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  There is no unverified information here - National Rail has information on all stations. Train Operating Companies will have information on the stations they serve. We have photos of every station. It's not exceptional because it's British, its exceptional because all articles already exist. The reason why this RfC was setup in the first place was because an article was nominated for deletion and the result was keep - it's clear this is about wanting to delete articles. Garuda3 (talk) 09:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  @BrocadeRiverPoems I think you're confusing notability (which tries to be an objective standard) with importance (which is subjective). This group of objects is notable in the sense that (almost?) all are the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent sources. I would imagine most stations in most other countries are probably notable as well because transport infrastructure tends to be well written about. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. I will never accept the notion of inherent notability in any topic area and will oppose that concept whenever it comes up. And the notion that only British train stations are inherently notable as opposed to train stations in France or Germany or Spain or any other country is utterly bizarre. The English Wikipedia is the English language encyclopedia of the entire world, not the encyclopedia of the English speaking world. Cullen328 (talk) 23:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  British railway stations being inherently notable would not imply anything about railway stations in any other part of the world. Thryduulf (talk) 08:54, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  It would imply that Wikipedia is Anglo-centric and makes special exceptions for British culture. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Why on earth do you get that impression? X being inherently notable implies nothing about whether things that are not X are or are not inherently notable. It's a simple statement of provable fact that all British railway stations are notable based on the coverage in independent reliable sources. I would be surprised if the same were not true of some other country's stations too (I don't know enough about the literature regarding railways in other countries to be sure, but remember one would need to look at e.g. French language sources to determine this for France.). Thryduulf (talk) 11:50, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  There is a big difference in principle between "we have checked all examples of X and they all happen to meet our general notability standards" and "we are going to declare that all X are automatically notable and are not subject to our general notability standards", even when the outcome (that all X are notable) does not differ. —David Eppstein (talk) 13:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  There should though be some way of communicating we have checked all examples of X and they all happen to meet our general notability standards to editors such that they don't waste their and others time nominating them for deletion. Whether you call that "inherent notability" or something else, the effect is the same. Thryduulf (talk) 20:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  One way to communicate that would be to make sure that all those articles actually cite as references all of those in-depth sources that surely exist. Nominators are supposed to follow WP:BEFORE and find those references themselves but we all know they often don't. —David Eppstein (talk) 11:45, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Obviously all the articles citing the sources is ideal, but Wikipedia is a work in progress and there are far more stations than editors with access to those sources so even if everybody dropped everything else and worked full time on improving only articles about current National Rail stations it would take some time get it to that state (and articles about other notable subjects will be deleted in the meanwhile as these editors would not be defending them at AfD). Thryduulf (talk) 12:26, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Create an SNG that says that. Also, has someone checked every single British rail station for notability? At least one good faith AfD nominator couldn't find sources during their BEFORE search, given the AfD that lead to this RfC, and others claiming that most British railroad stations are notable here have admitted during this discussion that there are at least a some British rail stations that lack notability. Finally, we have checked all examples of X is in the eye of the beholder: there would have to be some sort of consensus, rather than a LOCALCON amongst editors who focus on Britain/railroads, that the sources that have been found do in fact establish notability. That does not exist right now. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:42, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  An AfD nominator not finding sources during a BEFORE search is not evidence of a lack of sources, especially given the comments about how insubstantial the check is required to be (as much as something robustly asserted to be option can be said to be required). Thryduulf (talk) 20:50, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  An AfD nominator not finding sources during a BEFORE search is not evidence of a lack of sources I am not saying that and I agree with that point. If you want people to have to do a SUPER-BEFORE search before bringing an AfD for a British railroad station, establish a consensus for that. Otherwise, once the BEFORE search is done, the burden shifts to the keep !voters to establish notability. As I have noted in other parts of this discussion, that means they need to say more than "every British railroad station is notable"; they need to actually provide some citations to SIGCOV in reliable sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:56, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  The problem with WP:BEFORE is this: you can't prove a negative. If somebody says "there are no sources for this claim", you don't know whether it actually means "I have spent several days checking various websites, books, magazines etc. and cannot find a single published source that supports the claim" or "I can't be bothered looking properly so instead I'll say that there are no sources, even if perhaps there really are". Also, when they say "there are no sources for this claim", this will be defeated by the first person to find a reliable source which does support the claim. Negatives can't be proved, only disproved. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:40, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  That's how the AfD system works. We presume that the nominator has done a good faith BEFORE search, and if nobody comes forward with a valid argument to keep or sources demonstrating notability, we delete the article or enact some other ATD. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:54, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Also how the AfD system works: If you get a reputation for nominating articles about notable subjects for which sources are easily found, then we can WP:TBAN you. It takes a lot to reach this point, but it is possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:21, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2, which in effect means that option 1 covers 99%+ of all railway stations in the British Isles, even the smallest and those that never opened. Mjroots (talk) 07:36, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
• Obviously Option 2, but this is moot - the level of literature that exists on British railway infrastructure and stations means that there will always be sources easily passing GNG for any station. As an example, my local station has only five trains a day, is used by <10 people a day on average, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere and yet its article has eight good sources, including five books. Black Kite (talk) 19:46, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Who's publishing these books? Rail enthusiast organizations? The railroad itself? Academic presses? Did the books go through rigorous editorial processes or are they yarns spun by local historians? voorts (talk/contributions) 20:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Taking a random small station, Brading railway station, as an example there are no sources by enthusiasts, local historians, or any of the companies that have operated trains there. The two books sources were written by a respected author and subject matter expert published by a respected publishing house. Of the other sources, several are from Historic England, several from news sources including BBC News and a local news website (whose standing I don't know), one source by the current tennant of the station buildings is used to verify the current use of the station buildings and one from National Rail (semi-independent of the operator) is being used only to verify the current service level and pattern. Thryduulf (talk) 21:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you. I hope you can see why it's kind of frustrating when these discussions rely on claims about how all these sources about British rail stations exist, but only provide those sources when they're asked to. The burden is not on everyone else to become familiar with British railroad stations and the books about them. If the keep !votes in the AfD that sparked this RfC had provided sources in the first place instead of relying on "keep, this thing is notable because all of them are notable", then we wouldn't be here having this discussion. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:12, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  The problem is that, while some (and perhaps even most) small stations have plenty of sources to establish notability (I don’t think anyone was arguing that this doesn’t happen), we can not say that they all have similar sources.

  The question is “what to do about those that DON’T have proper sourcing?” Blueboar (talk) 21:51, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  If there are any stations that don't have proper sourcing (and given that despite being repeatedly asked to, nobody has yet provided an example of a current National Rail station that fits this criteria) then we should do for every other non-notable member of a notable set of which at least a significant proportion of members are notable (something that unquestionably applies here): merge and redirect to the the most appropriate higher-level article (for railway stations that is usually the line or system they're a part of). The only exception to this would be if we couldn't verify the existence of the station, but even the first page of google hits will verify the existence of a current National Rail station, and The Directory of Railway Stations means that the existence of very nearly every station that existed prior to 1995 can be trivially verified. Thryduulf (talk) 23:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  If by "proper sourcing" Blueboar means something closer to "little blue clicky numbers already in the article", rather than e.g., "reliable sources in the library", and if I couldn't find sources myself, then I think for higher-income countries, I'd probably ask at Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains before starting an AFD.

  That said, I once picked a long-defunct railroad station off a map somewhere in the middle of the US and had sources in hand within minutes. In my experience, it is not that hard to find sources, especially if your search strategy is more sophisticated than "Go to www.google.com and see what's on the first page". WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Voorts: but only provide those sources when they're asked to - I have hundreds (not kidding) of books concerning the railways of Great Britain, but I really don't have time to go through every single one of our articles about British Rail stations, and add sources. I don't want to do a half-arsed job, so one by one is the best you can hope for. Name a station, and I'll work on it. But don't pretend that because I've not added sources at a different station's article that automatically means that I don't have the sources. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:53, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  I'm talking about the context of an AfD discussion. I'm not asking you or anyone else to go fix every article right now. If an article is nominated at AfD, you should pull out your books and provide RSes to substantiate your keep !vote so that other editors can take a look at the sources and see if they agree that those sources meet GNG. We operate on consensus, not promises of "I have sources, they provide SIGCOV, but I don't have time to share them or even name them right now". voorts (talk/contributions) 17:12, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  If you're going to !vote keep, your burden is to provide evidence of SIGCOV in RSes. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:14, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Voorts: Also, re If the keep !votes in the AfD that sparked this RfC had provided sources in the first place instead of relying on "keep, this thing is notable because all of them are notable" - does this mean that my making these edits after my !vote renders my !vote invalid? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yes. You could have made the edits first and given a policy based rationale for keeping instead of making several arguments listed at arguments to avoid. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  I disagree.

  I sometimes list sources in the AFD discussion; there is a poorer chance of those sources getting added to the article than I could wish. Other times, I add them to the article but don't name them in the AFD. There is no reason to think that one approach demonstrates notability better than the other, and it's just silly to say that the order of the edits, especially when the edits are made within an hour of each other, makes any difference at all.

  The fact is that there are subjects for which notability is widely understood to be demonstrable. You do not need to show up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earth with a new list of sources. Anyone familiar with the subject area knows what the outcome will be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2—absolutely, undeniably obviously. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:25, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Why is it "undeniably obviously"? Given that there are good faith arguments given above for option 1, it clearly isn't either undeniable or obvious to everyone. Thryduulf (talk) 10:28, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Option 1 per Garuda and G-13114. Cremastra (talk) 02:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Option 2. We have no evidence that 95%+ of these stations are likely to meet GNG. Bare assertions that they do, based on the assumption that they would have garnered local press, are not evidence, they are personal opinions. The status quo -- achieved recently, via very wide consensus -- is to require GNG be met, so the onus is entirely on anyone wishing to change it to demonstrate the change is warranted. JoelleJay (talk) 23:02, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Option 2. They do not have inherent notability but can be included in a list of stations as suggested by several other editors. CurryCity (talk) 20:15, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Option 2. Per the general rule of no inherent notability and taking WP:BURDEN seriously is the foundation on which content policies can even begin to function. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:48, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

• I don't much agree with the current notability guidelines, but if there was consensus about it, then... ok (I don't know how much time needs to pass before you can try to change the existing consensus). But British National rail stations are not inherently notable simply because they are British. Regarding consistency for a reader, all content about non-notable stations should be merged into one general article about the line/route.--Oloddin (talk) 23:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm not sure we need a specific note to the effect, but in fact they're all notable. Vast amounts have been written about the British railway network, covering every single passenger station. They all clearly meet WP:GNG. This is in no way "it's British so it's notable", but "it meets GNG so it's notable". There's no reason whatsoever for any British passenger station to be brought to AfD. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:45, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose (as a railfan who used to sing The SLow Train from memory). Notability is established by the number of reliable sources directly about the subject. There is no such thing as "inherent notability", because Wikipedia is not a directory. Guy (help! - typo?) 21:32, 2 October 2024 (UTC)
• All open mainline British railway stations are going to be notable and we shouldn’t be pretending they are not. A subject specific notability guide is useful in this case because a lot of the sources exist only in dead tree form so hammering a search engine of your choice will miss a lot. For anyone wanting to question this go check out the local history section of any British library. Its actually rather frustrating since you can be having a hard time finding wider local history but the railway stuff is extremely well covered. The articles all already exist (ok a handful of new stations open every year but that's minor) so its not a question of new page patrol but avoiding a bunch of pointless AFDs.©Geni (talk) 06:40, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

  New station openings these days make national news, cf. Ashley Down railway station. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:43, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

• De jure the answer may be Option 2, but de facto (as others have noted) it is going to be Option 1.
  It's also interesting to me to look at the article that was sent to AfD that precipitated this discussion. Here's the state of it when it was nominated: [2]. It seems to me that, even in that state, there is a lot of information on that article that is useful to our readers: where the station is on the map, a view of the location, which Travelcard zone it is in, which line it is on, when it opened, which train operating company runs it at the moment, how much it has been used over the last 5 years, etc, etc. It seems to me that the best way to present this information is as a self-standing article, rather than having to lose some of it, and/or jam it into an omnibus article as one topic amongst many. And the same is going to be true for any station on the UK network. I think I can understand the frustration of some who might wish the article had had more references, and who might wish to motivate others to try to find them, or to dig out more information about the station, both its history and any other information about its current nature / activity / status. But the reality is that if articles like this get sent to AfD they are not going to be deleted. And they should not be. Jheald (talk) 19:30, 27 October 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Topics aren't inherently notable. They need sources to avoid misinformation and bias. I might grant that many of these do have sources, somewhere. But certainly not all. And there is a WP:BURDEN to provide sources if something is contested. I don't want this to be a call for mass deletion, but nor is it a pass for endless stubs and unsourced material. It is still important to document best practices, and hopefully editors can work collaboratively in this topic area. (e.g.: consider alternatives like merging, redirecting, re-organizing, giving ample time for improvement with reasonable timelines...) Shooterwalker (talk) 14:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

  I might grant that many of these do have sources, somewhere. But certainly not all. so why has nobody been able to find a single instance of such a station not having sources, despite many attempts by many people over several years? Thryduulf (talk) 14:13, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Did a quick count (it did say it was a poll) after 10 weeks. (Rounding) 14% said Option 1, 79% said option #2 (not inherently/presumed notable) and 7% said "moot" without choosing one of the others. North8000 (talk) 15:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Discussion re Notability and British Rail stations

Is it worthwhile pinging participants of the prior RFC? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Probably not. I would advertise this at TCENT and VPP. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:55, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I've advertised this at VPP, I think TCENT is unnecessary since it's not that big of a policy change. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 20:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I only have a moment before I have to log off, but before I prepare a more considered response in the next few days could I ask please what sort of sources would be considered reliable sources that are independent of the subject (my emphasis) in this context? Or, to turn it round, what sort of sources would not be considered sufficiently independent? I am thinking particularly of book sources, not online sources. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 17:51, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Same as any other case, really—was the source (in this case the book) written and published independently of the rail operator? If someone who studies mass transit or the like, but is unaffiliated with the railway operator and was not directed in what they were doing by them, writes a book, that's an independent source. Similarly if, for instance, someone unaffiliated with the railway writes a book about the history of an area, and mentions the importance of the train station in context of that, then that would be independent. If the railway writes or publishes a book, or commissions someone to do so, that is not independent. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There's quite extensive scholarship around trains pretty much everywhere, but the British in particular love writing about them. You can find reliable secondary sources on almost anything regarding trains in the U.K. These are books often written by enthusiasts, but if there are the things we normally look for like editorial control and independence they are absolutely usable sources. There are also many periodicals which can be used as sources. I'm American so I can't really name any in particular, but there are sources out there for most train stations. What we can't use are things like timetables or self-published fan sites. Directory or database listings seldom mean anything for GNG. There are directories of every station to ever exist in the U.K., but if all they have is an opening and closing date and where the station was located, that doesn't help notability at all. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:11, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Hassocks5489: Can you point to any articles about British Rail stations that are based purely on non-independent sources? If you can't, can you suggest any where the majority of the content is from non-independent sources? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:26, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't looked in detail at any station articles since this discussion started, as I have been away from home; I just wanted to seek clarification over what "independent" means in relation to this particular topic, and Seraphimblade's comment confirmed that what I thought was correct. I didn't want to start listing books that have substantial coverage (or using them to edit station articles) only to find that they were not considered independent. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 08:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm one of those old school Wikipedia editors who cannot believe that these discussions are being held. Having created some of those articles right at the start of my Wikipedia 'career' I watched as the format editors created alongside me was adopted for all 2,000+ stations here and overseas. To now consider that all that work is to be expunged is deeply depressing. This is not what Wikipedia was supposed to be about. doktorb _words^deeds 18:59, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Notability guidelines were way looser back then, and for better or for worse, the community has tightened them up. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:17, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

In most (but not all) cases, significantly for the worse. Thryduulf (talk) 20:56, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Complete agreement. We worked to make an encyclopedia. Now apparently it's just a greatest hits. Disappointed. doktorb _words^deeds 22:18, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

An encyclopaedia is not for original writing. For our own credibility as a source what we publish simply must be verified by reliable sources. AusLondonder (talk) 08:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Doktorbuk: "all that work is to be expunged is deeply depressing" - are you suggesting that all or most of the railway station articles that exist in Britain currently do not demonstrate meeting GNG and even with a search for sources won't meet GNG? AusLondonder (talk) 08:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm saying that I can see where the wind is blowing. Wikipedia is no longer about being encyclopedic, it's clearly about mass deletion of work which doesn't fit very narrow, very exclusive "notability" guidelines. Having articles showing each and every UK railway station is what this place used to promote, including building projects and cooperation. Now it's about pressing delete. I'm too tired and depressed to fight against the new era of this website. Of course we should keep every single UK railway station article, they're a long standing central core of an encyclopedia. But if that makes me an outdated dinosaur, I'm too old to battle against consensus. doktorb _words^deeds 11:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

We used to have articles on each individual Pokemon species too, but we've since tighten our belt to avoid looking like a pop culture catalog. Instead, we want to make sure we serve a broad readership, making sure that we have standalone articles based on significant coverage where possible, and using lists where that cant be done (as would be the case for rail stations). At the same time, UK rail history has been discussed in numerous sources, so that there is a strong likelihood every station could have a standalone page, there just needs to be enough evidence to show that trend towards meeting the GNG for these. If they can't be shown, they can be moved into a list, and we'd still cover them too. Masem (t) 12:02, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Drawing parallels between UK railway stations and Pokémon is ridiculous. doktorb _words^deeds 12:19, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Not really, both are areas where there are dedicated people extremely well versed in the area and likely have caraloged lots of information gleamed from primary sources that they could write guides on every single one, but where in many cases there is a lack of significant coverage in secondary sources to show us why one specific instance has drawn attention from reliable sources. We allow those article with such coverage to remain and collaose the rest to lists with future potential to expand if more sour ING can be found, using soft redirects to preserve the original articles. — Masem (t) 15:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you feel defeated here, but the requirement that there be at least two or three secondary, independent and reliable sources that significantly cover a topic is not narrow or very exclusive. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:54, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Doktorbuk: Should we have articles for every train station in Japan, Germany, India and China? That's around 30,000 articles. I'd argue no country is exempt from GNG, we should have articles only for stations in any country demonstrated to meet GNG. AusLondonder (talk) 12:58, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't know enough about the literature about stations in those countries, but every topic that meets the GNG should have an article. If that means we have an article about every railway station in those countries then that's a good thing. Thryduulf (talk) 17:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

While we have to keep in mind things like WP:NOPAGE, I'm generally in agreement with Thryduulf here. I can't speak as to if the sourcing is there for those stations, but personally I have no opposition to train station articles so long as they meet GNG. For example, we are better off as an encyclopedia by having Beijing railway station as an article than if we did not. It would be pretty weird for someone with my username to want to delete all the train stations. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:39, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@AusLondonder as I say, I feel deflated and beaten by discussions like this, so really you can do what you will at this point. I created these articles, worked with editors to promote the articles, and now you've come along to delete them all. I'm one man. Just one editor. I've no power. I've no strength. I've no fight. You've won. Delete, delete, delete, you're the victor, I used to matter and I used to count. Wikipedia isn't for creators anymore, you're in charge now. doktorb _words^deeds 18:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't for creators anymore I find it rather insulting (as do others in this discussion, I am sure) to be painted as someone who only cares about deleting things just because I don't think British train stations (or any others for that matter) should be exempt from our notability policies. I have spent easily hundreds of hours of my time creating and expanding articles. AusLondonder has created several hundred articles. It is simply unfair to label anyone who disagrees with you as an evil deletionist who doesn't care about building an encyclopedia. Being a doomer about Wikipedia doesn't achieve anything. If you choose to stop creating articles or editing altogether, that's your choice, but nobody is kicking you out. I certainly don't think you giving up will help the encyclopedia. And for the record, only one editor here is calling for mass deletions of train station articles, and I commented in opposition to them. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: If any stations were not able to be shown to meet GNG, then merging to (eg) line or locality article should be used over deletion (though sending to AFD rather than locally agreed merge would almost certainly be necessary). That said, if there is actually universal SIGCOV, it would likely be helpful for there to be more than one work listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject_UK_Railways/Sources#Books (and possibly a brief comment of how detailed coverage for [minor] stations is). ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 00:55, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
  • I am happy to make a start on this as soon as I get home tonight. Based on the discussion above about what counts as independent, which confirms what I thought, I can say that for every station in southeast England at least, I can name at least 5 books which qualify as independent sources and which feature substantial coverage of the station (without just regurgitating the same information.) Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 08:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  I also agree that the Wikipedia:Editing policy exists, and that it applies to encyclopedic content that doesn't qualify for a separate article. Content like this should generally be WP:PRESERVED.

  I add that even if a given station is shown to meet GNG, editors can always follow the notability WP:PAGEDECIDE model and agree to merge it up to a larger topic just because they think that will be best in some way. I believe this is the typical approach to a Request stop (=a place that isn't a proper station, but trains stop there upon request). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  In practise there aren't any request stops in the UK that don't have proper platforms at least. Garuda3 (talk) 08:38, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Garuda3: There aren't any more, but way back 100 years or so, the Great Western Railway (and possibly other railways) were fitting retractable steps (see this pic) to some of their auto-trailers so that they could pick up/set down at level crossings. Such services didn't stop simply anywhere, but only at those points explicity named in the timetable, and only on request. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Good clarification, and it's odd bits of info like that that bring me back to Wikipedia. It's the deletion discussions that push me away. Garuda3 (talk) 22:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Question Can anyone show me an example of the British station that's claimed to be non-notable ? Before we theorise on how best to hunt them down, do these woozles really exist? Andy Dingley (talk) 12:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  This should be in the discussion section below. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:32, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  It's right at the top of the RfC. Riddlesdown station is a station I believe is not notable. I checked the British Newspaper Archive and Newspapers.com and only found passing mentions, notices of greater renovations on the rest of the network, adverts, anecdots etc. Not really SIGCOV. I'm planning to nominate it for deletion later, and same with Purley Oaks railway station for similar reasons. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:41, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  • The one that went to AfD and closed as Keep? That's the one that's the exemplar for non-notability of stations? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    @Andy Dingley: I closed it myself as keep as I saw people weren't listening. Per AusLondonder, the AfD just recited arguments not to use in deletion discussions. Then I started this RfC. I plan to start another one later. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:53, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    I don't think that's a good idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Why - what benefit is there to having a handful of stations missing in what is otherwise a complete set? It creates an inconsistent state for readers and wastes editor time should someone want/need to recreate those station articles in the future. Garuda3 (talk) 22:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  'Missing' stations belong in articles about the line (if the line itself is notable), optionally with a redirect from the station name. There is no requirement for every subject covered by WP to have its own article. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 08:15, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  That's all well and good but often there's several historical rail companies plus an article about the modern line plus a town or village article it could be merged to. And you haven't considered how deleting one station article actually benefits the reader. Garuda3 (talk) 09:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

You should have checked for sources on Riddlesdown Station before you nominated it and after closing the AfD as Keep because you didn't like the thrust of the discussion re-nominating it shortly after could be seen as disruptive in my view, Atlantic306 (talk) 18:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Atlantic306: Per above, I did try to check sources. If everyone is saying "keep" there's no point letting the discussion drag on. But of course new information will occur in this RfC that might invalidate previous arguments, and therefore we may re-nominate it. Unrelated sidenote, but if you could avoid run on sentences this would improve your clarity in the future. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 18:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the grammar link. Where is the guideline that suggests the nominator can close an AfD in order to renominate it later when it has been given more publicity ? Atlantic306 (talk) 19:00, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

As long as no other editor has advanced a delete or redirect rationale, an editor may withdraw their AfD nomination and close it as speedy keep. voorts (talk/contributions) 19:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree, it's the re-nominating shortly after that is problematic in my view Atlantic306 (talk) 19:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Such re-nominations tend to result in people digging in their heels, and more people piling on with accusations that the nom has WP:IDHT problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:16, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: to be honest I withdraw my idea to renominate the article given the sourcing by Redrose64. I do think it is helpful to have this RfC though to avoid future arguments like those present in the initial AfD. —Matrix(!) {user - talk? - _uselesscontributions} 17:32, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

• If all this sourcing exists, then we do not need a special exception as they will pass anyway. Slatersteven (talk) 17:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Agree. Some editors have made claims like "I have a dozen books on British railroada that give each station at least 2 pages of coverage" (these books must be at least 10k pages, since presumably they cover other things), but nobody has provided a cite to a single book in this discussion as far as I can see. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:42, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  Very few books will cover every railway station. Consider: there are presently a little over 2,500 railway stations in Great Britain. If one book were to devote one page to each individual station, that book (if printed on 80 gsm paper) would be about five inches thick. It would be much thicker if it also included the thousands of stations that were once open but are now closed. Rather, there are books about railway companies, or railway lines, that often describe the individual stations. There's a prolific series from Middleton Press that has now passed 600 books, and Riddlesdown, the original trigger for this, is given coverahe in their book Country Railway Routes: Croydon to East Grinstead - including Woodside to Selsdon along with 17 other stations or locations. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:59, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Quick count on my shelves is that I have 80 books tagged as 'railway line histories', i.e. those that will be specifically listing stations. Maybe two bookshelves of them. There are also books like Butt that are specifically directories of stations.

One point to remember is that there are very few really small British stations. Those that were are termed 'halts' rather than stations, and practice here (AFAIR) has always been that stations were assumed notable but that halts would have to demonstrate it individually (plenty of halts have been notable for some specific reason). Andy Dingley (talk) 19:34, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

While I have voted against the idea that British Railways are inherently notable, it is worth noting that there are verifiable sources that mention the station subject of the AfD. [3] [4][5] [6] Brocade River Poems (She/They) 20:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

About the RFC: "The question" as shown on the RFC pages is IMO okay, but the expanded version underneath turns it into a Double-barreled question by introducing the concept of Wikipedia:Inherent notability. It also provides a False dilemma.

Editors are asked originally whether a specific small subset of articles should be exempt from the relevant SNG. Then this gets expanded and twisted, so that the options are not "Yes, exempt from the relevant SNG" versus "No, not exempt from the relevant SNG", but instead are "Inherently notable and exempt from the GNG" versus "Not inherently notable and must conform to the GNG". There is no space for "Nothing is inherently notable, but it's the SNG (which names three separate methods of qualifying, only one of which is the GNG) that applies", which I suspect is the actual majority POV in the community, much less for "Nothing is inherently notable, but there's no practical difference between inherent notability and the way I understand the GNG (which, for example, actually says that 'multiple sources are generally expected', rather than 'multiple sources are always required', even if editors like voorts sometimes claim the GNG has a 'requirement that there be at least two or three')".

I don't think this is a serious enough problem to re-write it, but anyone who tries to write a closing summary is going to have a more complicated task than was necessary. Editors can help the future closer by being as clear as possible about what they think, and avoiding overreliance on voting-type statements. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:46, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Huh? NTRAINSTATION itself uses the phrase inherently notable, says train stations are not that, and says they need to meet a relevant SNG or the GNG. Option 2 says the same thing. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:38, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

You're right, Option 2 says that – but the editors discussing this don't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

People aren't bound to the exact text of an RfC option. A good closer will read what people are actually saying rather than closing the discuss as "25 bolded option 2s means those people support exactly waht option 2 says". People often agree to a proposition with caveats or proposed amendments, even in the best designed RfCs. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:31, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I also think my understanding of the GNG is pretty generally accepted, but I respect that others have different readings of it and occasionally I'm willing to IAR on that point; categorically exempting British railway stations is not one of those occasions. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:49, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

We want to avoid saying "all X are inherently notable" as that will drive editors to create mass stubs as well as lead other editors to look for ways to identifies adjacent topics to type X as inherently notable too. It's fine if the practical effect of saying "inherent notability" and and SNG that presumes notability is the same, that all topics in X get articles, but at lease with the basis in an SNG, then we have less problems should the presumption fail and AFD is used. It's very hard to AFD a poor article if it falls under a claim of "inhereted notability" Masem (t) 13:43, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's very hard to AFD a poor article if it falls under a claim of "inhereted notability" "poor articles" shouldn't be taken to AfD, they should be improved, but "inherited notability" and "inherent notability" are two very different things. Thryduulf (talk) 13:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant for AFD that if one did a proper BEFORE search and failed to find further sourcing for a stub created on basis of "inherent notability", it would still be difficult to have editors agree to delete or merge that at AFD. (and yes I did mean to stick to inherent notability in my statement above. We don't do inherited notability either but that's for different reasons) Masem (t) 14:05, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I think that nothing – not chemical elements, not US presidents, not even Encyclopedia – is inherently notable, but I also think that editors sometimes use that language to say "Look, we've been through this before: anyone who does a thorough search will be able to find the sources, so if you haven't found them, that is more likely to indicate that your search skills are poor than to prove that the sources don't exist in the real world. Stop wasting our time with these AFDs, because they're not going to result in deletion". That can be a valuable thing for an AFD nom to hear, even if it's unpleasant and even if (IMO the more important failing) it could result in a story could around that some things qualify for articles merely because they exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is how it operates, but sometimes those people are wrong and it's straight up not true that the thing people are claiming is inherently notable is in fact notable at all. Indeed, in this discussion, even the most railroad stations are notable crowd has admitted some of them are just not notable. A BEFORE search is not required to be extemeley in depth; we don't require editors to go to the local library or village archives and pour through microfiche. Telling good faith AfD noms that they're wrong and that X thing must be notable without providing evidence to substantiate that claim is basically gaslighting them. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:28, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody in this discussion is arguing that all railway stations are individually notable, just that every currently-open National Rail station in Great Britain has sufficient coverage in reliable sources that they are all notable (a very significantly lesser claim than your strawman). However, I've never seen an AfD for any subject that verifiably is or was a railway station located on a line or system that has an article result in deletion - every single one I am aware of has ended as "keep", "merge" or "redirect" and the same is true for most articles about future railway stations (certainly nothing where construction has started has been deleted). Thryduulf (talk) 20:43, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I"m not strawmanning; I thought it was implied that we were talking about British railroad stations, not global ones, given the topic of this RfC. However, I've never seen an AfD for any subject that verifiably is or was a railway station located on a line or system that has an article result in deletion - every single one I am aware of has ended as "keep", "merge" or "redirect" and the same is true for most articles about future railway stations (certainly nothing where construction has started has been deleted). That's fine, but I think it's beside the point, which is that editors think it sufficient to say "Keep, all railroad stations in Britain meet GNG" when there is no consensus that that is an adequate rationale in an AfD discussion for railroads in general; it appears that this RfC will now establish that such a carveout does not exist for British railroad stations. There's no harm in requiring editors to actually provide sources when a good faith AfD nomination is brought, instead of !votes that are effectively "trust me bro, I know of the existence of 15 books on railroad stations in Britain". voorts (talk/contributions) 20:51, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

With 15 NPP'ers doing 90% of the reviews, and 10,000 article backlog, why would it be "valuable" to hear a complaint that somebody thinks that they didn't do an extensive enough wp:before? Doubly so when the person making the complaint hasn't looked for or found any GNG sources, which is usually the case. North8000 (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I often think that we need a WP:AFTER guideline to compliment WP:BEFORE - when an under-sourced article has survived an AFD (based on the fact that sources actually DO exist) it should be incumbent upon those who vote “Keep” to improve the article and actually add the relevant sources. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Why only those who vote “Keep”? Surely the others are at least as concerned that the article is undersourced. Phil Bridger (talk) 12:41, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I've thought it through and am of two minds on wp:before. I think that it should still exist, but that w need to make it the norm that the main part of building a new article is finding and including suitable sources, and a norm for those advocating "keep" is to find and include them. Two reasons why wp:before is needed is that there are extreme deletionists out there, and the norm is that GNG-dependent articles don't meet the strictest interpretation of GNG, thus being vulnerable to extreme deletionists. But for NPP it causes problems in many ways, including people beating up overloaded NPP'ers instead of finding the sources that they claim exist. And for most of those, GNG sources don't exist, their "coverage exists" (note the omission of "GNG" before "coverage" ) claim is referring to non-GNG coverage. North8000 (talk) 13:13, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I am looking at this from the other side: You do a lousy BEFORE search (or skip it, because it's not actually required). You've spent 30 seconds on this.

I present you with a list of sources on the proverbial silver platter. It probably took me 15 to 60 minutes. Having already spent my time on a task I'm not interested in, and which I did only because your sloppy work set a seven-day timer was ticking, why shouldn't you have to go back to the article and add the sources?

Think of it as a form of penance for having done a lousy BEFORE search. It might even discourage people from trying to use AFD as a form of clean up. We've all seen the occasional editor who thinks that "Speedy keep, according to the four sources I've just added to this article" is a win. He spent 30 seconds on an AFD nom statement and has a shiny new set of refs in the article, bringing it up to his personal standard without having to do any of the actual work himself. What could be better or easier? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

+1. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:15, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

(On a related note: Thank you, David, for the multiple hours you've spent helping me assess notability for NPROF and other subjects.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:50, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand your post at all. Could you explain, including who/what roles the hypothetical people are? North8000 (talk) 18:04, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Would a story help?

Spamhunter Sally has found another uncited (or under-cited) article about an organization. As you know, Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) sets a higher than average bar. As you also know, some editors dedicate themselves to protecting the wiki from

The org that Sal has in their sights this time is a large organization in a non-English speaking country, so it's difficult to find relevant search results, especially if your search strategy is to put the English transliteration of the name into your favorite web search engine, without quotes, with English-only filters enabled, so you get a lot of irrelevant hits. The AFD rationale says says "Nobody has cited this article for five years! I did a BEFORE search and didn't find any sources. We should delete it."

Alice says "Here are three sources in Arabic about this org". Bob says "Here is a good source in French about this org, and I've nicely formatted the citation for you". Chris says "I'm finding lots of sources when I search on the non-English local name". David says "It's mentioned in a report by the UK government". The article is kept.

What's next? The options are:

• The article remains uncited (or under-cited).
• The closer adds the citations to the article.
• The nom adds the citations to the article
• One of the AFD participants adds the citations to the article.

What's your choice? Note that I'm deliberately leaving out "Someone who didn't edit the AFD page noticed that there were sources listed there that are not in the article", as that's unrealistic. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Thanks for the response. There are so many unspecified or non-typical things in that that I'm hesitant to respond. But maybe I'll add a few assumptions and respond. Let's assume that by "undercited" you mean does not have the included sources to satisfy ncorp-GNG on a GNG-dependent article. (which would be the only basis for AFD'ing that article.) And let's assume that since you used the word "organization" instead of company, that it is a not a for-profit organization. And the respondents at AFD operated based on Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works, they say that it was a highly enclyclopedic topic, that it was real-world-notable, recognized that the unusually stringent standards of Ncorp are intended for for-profit corporations and not for the case at hand, and allowed a more lenient interpretation of ncorp GNG and decided "keep". In that case my answer is that all is settled; the article can exists as-is. (Like any article, it can be improved ) North8000 (talk) 21:35, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

(The particular AFD I had in mind was one of the largest research hospitals in the world, and I think it was technically a government agency.)

You would leave the article un-/under-cited. I would also be content with that outcome (though, obviously, it's best if someone does that extra step). However, I saw complaints about an AFD not too many weeks ago whose rationale basically consisted of an editor complaining that the sources identified in the previous AFD had not been added to the article, so it was time to delete it, so some people apparently don't agree with us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:BURDEN, wouldn’t it be the responsibility of those editors who want to keep the article to add the relevant sources. Blueboar (talk) 13:05, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

No. WP:BURDEN says The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material. This says nothing about sharing the responsibility with people who are discussing the article content, let alone those who are discussing whether the article should be deleted or kept. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:09, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Verifiability is required for all content: the reliable source must already exist, and the burden of identifying the reliable source is on the keeper or adder. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:15, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. Assuming the nominator has done a reasonable BEFORE search for sources, an AFD can be considered a challenge to the article’s Verifiability (specifically, the Verifiability of any statements as to why the topic is notable). Thus BURDEN applies. It is the responsibility of the editors who wish to retain the article to supply sources. Blueboar (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Right, but unfortunately the BEFORE is often turned into a catch-22: You must do before, so we can smugly tell you, you don't know what you are doing. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:33, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

^ This. The fact is that not everyone has the knowledge or skills necessary to do a decent BEFORE search. A search that seems reasonable to the nom won't necessarily seem reasonable to someone who knows about the subject area. Sometimes it's hard. The nom of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/White cake made a 100% genuine effort to find sources. I don't fault him one bit. He just didn't happen to have the specialist knowledge necessary to find reliable sources amid all the recipes. White cake now names 22 sources and has a couple hundred words about its history. An ordinary BEFORE search doesn't help you find that. Noms do sometimes need help (that's why we're a collaborative project, right?), and we are not always kind to noms who need help.

That said, some noms have unusual ideas about what constitutes a reliable source. A couple of years ago, I saw a TBAN proposal for a frequent nom who appeared to have a personal belief that if a source contains a single sentence about anything in the long list at Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)#Examples of trivial coverage, then the entire rest of the source is invalidated. You could have a thousand-word source about the some detail of a market-roiling corporate merger, and he'd reject that source as merely "routine coverage". So you could have someone do a good BEFORE search but do an idiosyncratic review of the sources they've found and come to a different conclusion. I find this far more irritating than the person who looked through 10 screenfuls of basic web search results before concluding that he couldn't find any sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Remember that we are judging sources that have been identified and written down, which can include sources on a talk page as well as sources at an AFD; ultimately they should be included as in line citations (and even accepting as bare url ones), but a proper BEFORE review will consider these other locations in addition to what can be found off site and in print.

Of course if an edit claims they have a copy of a difficult-to-obtain source, there should be some onus on them to include that since they positively identified themselves as having access to it. We can't require that but can urge that. Masem (t) 20:14, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If a difficult-to-access source is identified but not turned into an inline citation by someone who knows what it says (and therefore which sentences in the article it can actually support), someone else might be able to list the source in ==Further reading==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Sources in foreign languages that are difficult to interpret may become the soil for hoaxes, see Zhemao hoaxes. Pygos (talk) 02:24, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:V#Accessibility covers both difficult-to-access sources and sources in foreign languages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 06:30, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Book list

Belatedly, as promised above, I have started compiling a list of sources at Wikipedia:WikiProject UK Railways/Sources#Railway stations, focused specifically on the extent of coverage of railway stations. More to come throughout the day. Editors who have books in their own collections are welcome to add details. It may also be worth writing up some "test cases": picking some stations, going through each book and identifying exactly how much is written about them. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!) 08:48, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

There should be a central repository of editors with libraries they are willing to share. Sort it by categories and it would be an invaluable benefit to the improvement of articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:27, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I have a vague recollection that there is/used to be something like this. I can't remember what it is/was called though and a quick search hasn't found what I'm thinking of unfortunately. Thryduulf (talk) 16:33, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:RX voorts (talk/contributions) 16:49, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I knew about Resource Exchange but not WP:SHARED, which is exactly what I was suggesting. Something that could use more advertising. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:07, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

That's helpful too. I didn't know about that one. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:52, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Might I suggest that someone whip up a simple Wikiproject-level talk page template which can be added to all British rail pages with those book sources, and then use some automated tool to add that template to the talk pages of all existing British rail station pages (eg all those in Category:Railway stations in Great Britain), such that 1) those sources become available to all such pages so they can be used for improvement, and 2) helps to address any BEFORE concerns, since those are likely sources that can be used and become appropriately identified within the article's talk page. --Masem (t) 16:14, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Option 2, the fact they’re British is completely irrelevant to policy, this looks like exceptionalism. Kowal2701 (talk) 19:35, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

@Kowal2701 may I respectfully suggest that you read what other people have written in this RfC instead of arguing against a strawman? I don't see anybody arguing for British exceptionalism. I do see people making well-reasoned arguments (backed up by an ever-growing list of sources) that all British stations already satisfy the GNG, and I've yet to see anybody point to a station they believe isn't notable so that interested editors can add sources. All of which leads me to believe that this discussion is a waste of bandwith. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:54, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

This RfC is about whether they are "inherently notable" or whether they should remain subject to the same standards as other articles. If no one can find a station that doesn’t meet the criteria then there’s something to be said for option 1, but I find that hard to believe. If this is to stop lazy AfDs then I could support it, but it still looks exceptionalist lol Kowal2701 (talk) 21:00, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

You are not the first person to say that it's hard to believe every station is actually notable, but nobody has actually managed to find a station that isn't - despite many requests, almost nobody actually even tries, they just presume that the subject matter experts must be wrong (perhaps because they're biased). I doubt that the British railway network is unique in being so highly covered in reliable sources, it's just that there are enough people editing the English Wikipedia who know about and have access to the sources about the British network. Thryduulf (talk) 21:16, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Quite. I would imagine most French and German stations are notable (though much of the source material won't be in English of course), they were early adopters of railways and built extensive networks. Maybe Spain and Portugal. A lot of stations on railways built for the British Empire and possibly other European empires will be notable. Railways in North America tended to be built more cheaply at first (partly because of the vast distances of course, compared to one small island) and were more ephemeral but I would still imagine any passenger station with a regular service would satisfy the GNG. There's a plethora of material on railways in general and stations in particular, and I doubt that's a uniquely British phenomenon. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:34, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I hope the closer focuses on the quality of arguments made. Kowal2701 (talk) 21:43, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Tram stops, too?

It looks like we also have an endless collection of British tram stops, for example Baguley tram stop. Yes, that's right. A place a tram stops. Not even a building. AusLondonder (talk) 00:36, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

All of the people arguing above that of course all British transportation infrastructure has enormous amounts of book-length secondary-source coverage are welcome to supply proper sourcing for this article. Currently it has only primary sources. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:45, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. No doubt a book about tram stops would have been an incredible bestseller. AusLondonder (talk) 00:48, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

@David Eppstein nobody is arguing that - some infrastructure is not notable, but railway stations do have lots of secondary sourcing. Tram stops are more complicated than railway stations - some are notable, some aren't and they need to be assessed individually (2 minutes on google is not sufficient). Most (but not all) tram stops in Manchester were converted from railway stations and thus (unsurprisingly to anyone who has actually read and understood the discussion above, rather than just assumed it must about British exceptionalism) have sufficient coverage to demonstrate notability (remember notability is not temporary). Whether this new-build tram stop is notable I don't know (I haven't looked), but comments such as No doubt a book about tram stops would have been an incredible bestseller. are neither collegiate nor helpful. Tram stops can be little more than signs on a post (e.g. many of the first generation ones in Blackpool) or they can be more significant infrastructure projects than some stations (e.g. the former Station Street stop in Nottingham). Thryduulf (talk) 00:55, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, what Thryduulf said. Until the expansion of the Manchester Metrolink, the vast majority of stops were former heavy rail stations that were converted and will therefore have a significant amount of literature in the same way as current stations (Timperley tram stop, for example, was opened in 1849). The new-build stuff is of course different and will of course need citing from newer sources. I've looked at a few of them and the sourcing seems pretty routine, but I'm sure it can probably be improved as well as few people appear to have actually edited a lot of them since their original creation. I'd be more concerned about entire new-build systems, for example Croydon Tramlink, for which Therapia Lane tram stop seems to be a typical article - the sourcing there is ... not great. Black Kite (talk) 20:51, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Would it not still be better to have a single article covering the tram stops in a particular city, with individual stops to be split out into separate articles iff the content on them becomes large enough and well-cited enough to merit separate treatment? BD2412 T 21:19, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

In many cases, probably yes. However I wouldn't use Manchester as the example for that approach, nor would I recommend merging without discussion (redirecting without any attempt at merging is likely to lead to drama, nominating for deletion is about the worst thing you could do for the cause given there is a strong consensus that verified existence is sufficient for at least a redirect). Thryduulf (talk) 21:25, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Yeah tram stops are hit and miss. There are books on the Manchester Metrolink so I wouldn't be shocked if most of those stations but some of the new-built Croydon ones might well not be. My general preference would be for one bigger article over dozens of cookie-cutter small articles but certainly some will have enough coverage to write a more substantial article HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Thryduulf: If attempted prods and WP:BLAR redirects on badly-sourced content such as Baguley tram stop have led only to reversion to their badly-sourced state, with no improvement, what alternative is there but a full AfD? Any attempt on the article page to discuss redirect/merge is unlikely to receive a less-obstructionist response. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Any attempt on the article page to discuss redirect/merge is unlikely to receive a less-obstructionist response ‹The template Fake citation needed is being considered for merging.›  but discussions on talk pages and especially WikiProject pages are exactly the right venue when approached with a constructive attitude, willingness to listen and no time limit. Thryduulf (talk) 22:15, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Your linking Wikibullying in the first word of your first response to me in this section does not convince me that "a constructive attitude, willingness to listen" is to be found in your responses in this venue, which you describe as "exactly the right venue". And the repeated attacks against every single process for cleaning up this mess, including your characterization of discussion here as bullying, the immediate and unhelpful reversions of the PROD and BLAR at Baguley, and the bizarre claim at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Street tram stop that individual tram stops are somehow exempt from AfD, are convincing me that there is no approach to this mess that will not be attacked as the wrong approach. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:29, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. When alleging people are not listening it is better not to, in the very same comment no less, provide evidence that you are not listening to what people are saying. Nobody in that discussion is claiming that individual tram stops are exempt from AfD, they are explaining (as has been done in multiple other discussions, including here) why discussing them as a set makes more sense. Thryduulf (talk) 23:44, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

A "keep" claiming that "notability of these stops should be discussed as a set, not by individual AfDs" is somehow different from claiming that individual tram stops are somehow exempt from AfD?? Ok, if you say so. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:04, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess for most cases this is the desired format, with a few tram stops from the list having their own articles. There is of course some semantics involved (what we call a tram), but I currently can not imagine a tram system in which all stops are notable on their own and have information beyond the opening date, infrastructure, and the lines. Ymblanter (talk) 13:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Is it really a problem if an article about a piece of transit infrastructure "only" has information on what it is, when it was used, and how it relates to other pieces of transit infrastructure? I'm not sure what else would be wanted in an article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:16, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say history (beyond a simple opening date) and architecture of the infrastructure (name of the architect, style, similarities etc, not just having one island platform period). Ideally of course also mentions in popular culture but we do not have that for most stations or tram stops. Ymblanter (talk) 04:31, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

It sounds like you would rather not have articles about transit infrastructure unless there's something unusual or interesting about them. What if there really isn't any interesting history, the architecture is boring, the architect is an unknown government employee, and the style is just like all the others?

It might be convenient if all notable locations could host some suitably dramatic moment (a photogenic protest over its construction, say), and it would be desirable if they featured some bit of public art, but I'm not sure that "being an interesting subject" is something that the GNG cares about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

It's weird how we keep being told there's such a tremendous amount of literature available about individual stations and now some tram stops but it's not present at the articles (Timperley tram stop is an example) and the literature is never really presented for review? AusLondonder (talk) 21:20, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not at all weird when you realise that Wikipedia is a work in progress and most of these articles were written many years before the current fad for insisting that everything meet much higher standards right now or else it must be deleted. Timperley tram stop is an odd example to use, given that the article has existed since 2006 and includes a book source. Do consider that the time spent on endless discussions like this one where the same answers are given to the same people (who are rarely satisfied) time and again, is time not spent improving the articles you are complaining about. Thryduulf (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't start the discussion. Notability is not a fad, it's an integral part of how we operate and I'm surprised you dismiss notability requirements so flippantly. AusLondonder (talk) 21:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The fad is not notability, but insisting that articles must demonstrate notability by presence of sources in the article now contrasts with the WP:NEXIST philosophy that served Wikipedia well for the first 15 or so years. Thryduulf (talk) 22:25, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I have to question whether NEXIST has actually served Wikipedia well for those 15 years. Blueboar (talk) 22:44, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Given that it enabled Wikipedia to grow from nothing to the world's largest encyclopaedia I think it's indisputable. Thryduulf (talk) 22:48, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

If we were starting again, I'd insist that all articles contain at least one third-party source that verifies the subject's existence but we can't apply today's standards retroactively to 15- or 20-year-ood articles. So I support efforts like WP:UKT/S to compile sources and improve crap articles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:55, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

How can we claim one way or the other that the same thing wouldn't have occurred if we'd required sources from the start? Either the editor adding content is basing it off a source they have in-hand, and thus could add the barest of citations (or even a description of a citation) somewhere, or they're basing it off memory and their contribution is as verifiable as a forum post. JoelleJay (talk) 23:32, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

You're conflating multiple different things here. Just because someone writes something without direct reference to a source does not mean it is unverifiable, let alone that it is incorrect. Thryduulf (talk) 00:20, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say it was unverifiable. I said it was as verifiable as a forum post. It could be accurate content for which others would have to do the work to find sourcing, or it could be a hazy misremembered synthesis whose origin is the editor's brain rather than any published work. Providing a source lets us compare it to the editor's summary; if the added content is not supported then we can conclude that it is at least not verifiable to the purported source, and sometimes that's all we need to determine it's not verifiable at all (e.g. it's an obvious misinterpretation). Without a source, we don't know whether the content is verifiable or even falsifiable. JoelleJay (talk) 16:48, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Well mostly because Wikipedia didn't really worry about sourcing until 2004 or so by which point it had made its initial climb in the alexa ranks and Nupedia was dead and buried.©Geni (talk) 15:50, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Nope. The only stop on the blackpool tram network with an article is the railway station. See List of Blackpool Tramway tram stops.©Geni (talk) 16:35, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

So somebody is saying that there's no need to establish notability (via specific sources) for GNG-dependent articles at inception of an article? That would certainly change Wikipedia. Get ready for an upload of a few billion resumes/CV and business advertisements. North8000 (talk) 12:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The only articles that are required to have a source are BLPs. Subjects need to be notable, but they are not required to demonstrate that by means of including sources unless and until notability is challenged. If that were not the case then there would be a speedy deletion criterion for articles that don't include sources (A7 and A9 require articles about certain subjects to claim notability, not demonstrate it). Thryduulf (talk) 13:13, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Again, I'm finding your arguments quite troubling. This is particularly concerning: Just because someone writes something without direct reference to a source does not mean it is unverifiable, let alone that it is incorrect. Without sources, we have absolutely no way to verify that we're not publishing misinformation or hoaxes. I remember being at school in the early 2000s and teachers would always say "don't visit Wikipedia, it's all made up and written by anyone." We've come a long way in addressing the credibility issue but attitudes like yours are completely at odds with what the community expects regarding notability. "The only articles that are required to have a source are BLPs" - this is completely contrary to the spirit of WP:N and importantly also WP:V: "In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source. Its content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it." Again, this is the absolute, complete opposite of what you have written above: Just because someone writes something without direct reference to a source does not mean it is unverifiable, let alone that it is incorrect. I have challenged the notability of Church Street tram stop and you have responded "doing this randomly to one stop in isolation would look ridiculous". So we can't challenge notability of tram stops as a whole because some "might be" notable but we also can't challenge notability of tram stops individually because that's "ridiculous"? AusLondonder (talk) 15:18, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Yet again you are confusing "verifiable" with "verified" and conflating "unverified" with "incorrect". Until you learn the difference it's pointless continuing to discuss any of those things with you. As for Church Street tram stop, you are ignoring that there are multiple levels between an individual tram stop and all tram stops, in the context of that edit summary I was referring to systematically discussing stops on Croydon Tramlink (I could have been clearer about that), but even if you think picking stops at random is a good idea (and if you do, please explain why) then deletion is not the appropriate response to a tram-stop (or indeed railway station) that is not individually notable. The correct response is to merge the content to a broader article and redirect the title to there. There have been probably hundreds of AfDs about stations and tram stops over the years, and the only times I'm aware that they have ended in delete are (a) when it could not be verified they exist(ed) (including articles about speculative proposals), or (b) when there was no article to merge the content to. Thryduulf (talk) 15:56, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I had a very quick look and the best I could find on Church Street is a few mentions in Croydon Tramlink: A Definitive History. One of those mentions talks about a turnback loop for use when there are problems in Croydon town centre so there might be enough for a couple of paragraphs. I'm happy to be proven wrong but my gut feeling is that most of the Croydon tram stops probably don't meet the GNG. The best way to proceed is probably to start a discussion on a wikiproject talk page to see if anyone knows of sources that have been overlooked and if not I'd support merging and redirecting them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:29, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

@AusLondonder, this seems to be a fairly common point of confusion these days, so maybe it bears explaining. We have a policy at Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people that says this about BLPs:

• If the biography remains unsourced after seven days, the biography may be deleted.

There is no similar statement for any other subject. If you want to write an unsourced article on Christmas candy, then by policy you are free to do so. We have tried a couple of times recently to introduce such a requirement, and they've failed. (Links to the most recent RFCs are in the middle of Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/FAQ, if you'd like to read them and try again.)

WP:V requires that it be possible to cite everything. WP:V does not require that everything be cited. WP:V requires inline citations for four specified kinds of material (e.g., direct quotations), but anything that doesn't fall into those four categories is not required to have a citation ever – even though everything must be verifiable. The gap here is that WP:V requires that people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source, but it does not require that this be possible without going to a library, using a search engine, or otherwise finding a reliable source all by themselves.

Similarly, WP:NRVE says "there must be verifiable, objective evidence that the subject has received significant attention from independent sources", but it does not say that this objective evidence must be cited in the article. The evidence just has to exist, (quoting from NOR) By "exist", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Editors at AFD are not required to believe hand-wavy assertions that sources exist, but they're also not prohibited from either making or accepting such assertions. Nobody who grew up in the Western world actually needs a source to tell them that Christmas candy is a thing, and no policy requires them to pretend that they have no prior knowledge (quite the opposite, in fact).

WP:Glossary#verifiable and WP:Glossary#uncited may be useful. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:34, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I think you're taking a very 2008 view of Wikipedia. The community has become much less tolerant of unsourced content. We've also moved on from the days of inherent notability of topics as diverse as radio stations, schools, and train stations. All those topics were effectively presumed inherently notable prior to RfCs which attracted major, community-wide participation. "WP:V requires inline citations for four specified kinds of material (e.g., direct quotations), but anything that doesn't fall into those four categories is not required to have a citation ever" one of those four situations is "material whose verifiability has been challenged" - that's exactly what multiple editors are doing. Let's go back to the most basic of Wikipedia policies here - GNG. "A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." WP:WHYN, part of GNG states: "We require "significant coverage" in reliable sources so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than half a paragraph or a definition of that topic. If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger topic or relevant list." - highly relevant to individual tram stops and many train stations. AusLondonder (talk) 06:41, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm taking a very "2024 view" when I say that we have repeatedly tried and failed – including twice just this year, in January 2024 and March 2024 – to get any sentence into any policy that says unsourced articles are not okay.

Hopefully the ideas that our written policies and guidelines should accurately reflect the real rules and that we should not operate with unnecessary reliance on unwritten rules has not been relegated to the territory Wikipedia:Old-fashioned Wikipedian values. But if "write down the real rules" is a "2008 view" and the shiny new modern approach is to refuse to disclose important rules and then complain that people didn't magically know that they needed to comply with the secret rules, then I will admit that I prefer the old approach. It's more honest, for one thing.

Declaring that you think an article is not WP:Notable is not the same as "challenging the verifiability of the material". A subject can be non-notable even when the material in the article is 100% verifiable. Or even if it is 100% cited. A verifiability WP:CHALLENGE usually looks like {{fact}}, and does not usually look like an AFD page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

You're really mischaracterising those discussions. For example the March discussion was only about new articles and had editors opposing because the NPP and draftify process already work well for new articles and many others opposing because they did not support a grandfather clause for existing articles/only applying the policy to articles created after April. Relatively few argued that unsourced articles are acceptable going forward. AusLondonder (talk) 06:43, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment So we've been told repeatedly above with regards to tram stops that "some are notable, some aren't and they need to be assessed individually" which was endorsed by several editors. As a result, I began Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Street tram stop about a raised piece of concrete tram stop. Now I'm told "There was clear consensus....notability of these stops should be discussed as a set." So at a combined AfD if a couple of tram stop out of a set of 30 tram stops is notable, they'll all be kept. But individual non-notable stops also cannot be taken to AfD. This is a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS absolutely refusing to accept Wikipedia policy and broader community consensus. AusLondonder (talk) 16:51, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  That local consensus makes as much sense as holding an AFD for a chemist with no recorded accomplishments and finding that people are arguing that if some chemists rate articles, all chemists rate articles. Largoplazo (talk) 17:50, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yet again I find myself misquoted, my words distorted and responded to in a way that makes me wonder whether any attempt was even made to consider what other people are saying. The comparison to chemists is a fallacious absurdity. What has actually been said is that where there is a tightly defined, finite set (such as tram stops on Croydon Tramlink) where the members are interlinked (e.g. by sequential navboxes) it makes sense to discus the set as a set. It is also the case that where some members of such a set are notable, that all members are plausible search terms. Before responding further, please educate yourself on the difference between an article and a redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 18:25, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  I was neither quoting nor responding to you. And I'm not willing to accept that the desire to make navboxes comprehensive in their categories, which is not policy, trumps the notability rule, which is. Largoplazo (talk) 19:26, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yet again you have completely failed to understand the difference between an article and a redirect. Thryduulf (talk) 20:17, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Can we please read wp:point. Slatersteven (talk) 13:30, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I think this is a reasonable discussion here, even though it might have started with wp:point. Ymblanter (talk) 13:33, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Coming to this late, but I really think everyone can agree that an article having more reliable sources is a better thing. Wikipedia's quality has gone up over the years through the hard work of many volunteer editors. I'm well aware of and do not dispute the fact that British railways have been the subject of extensive coverage in literature. This is a good thing and allows us to write better articles, and British editors have contributed, and continue to contribute, plenty of recognized quality articles covering trains. However, that doesn't mean every single tram stop in the U.K. has been the subject of significant coverage. There are certainly plenty of examples of tram stops that are notable, be it solely for being tram stops or for those with a previous history of heavy rail use. At the same time, many are little more than the equivalent of a bus shelter and have not been covered extensively.

What I think many editors object to is the argument that tram stops are automatically notable instead of being analyzed on a case by case basis. I'm of the belief that essentially any full sized railroad (not a scale model) that has ever operated in the United States is notable, but I would oppose making this a formal rule. Instead, I find sources to prove notability beyond a reasonable doubt, and it's not an issue. It is not unreasonable to ask for at least one source showing some level of coverage beyond basic details such as opening date and service frequency. New Haven Union Station, to name an example local to me, is clearly notable because its history, including its design and operations, has been extensively discussed in reliable sources. I am sure the same can be said for many British stations, and if such an article were to go to AfD it should be fairly simple to provide a handful of sources showing a GNG pass. But I cannot support an extremely broad carve-out saying stations are automatically notable just for existing. We should be guided by the presence of lack thereof of significant coverage. Sometimes that means a tram station or a request stop is better covered within a broader article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:07, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Notability feels weird

I recently got a "this article may not meet notability guidelines" on my article for The New Order: Last Days of Europe (mod), which confuses me. The mod has tons of downloads and is the 8th most subscribed mod for HOI4. That somehow isn't notable. Yet there are articles on random villages in the middle east with less than 10 people in them? They also are barely two or three sentences long, and have some random census document as their source. How is that more notable than a major video game mod?

I just don't quite understand. Help would be appriciated. -Emily (PhoenixCaelestis) (talk) 13:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Notability is based on what significant coverage that reliable secondary sources say about a topic. It is not about popularity or fame or recognizition, though those are elements that may lead to secondary sourcing. — Masem (t) 14:07, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Additionally, populated settlements with legal recognition are presumed to be notable per WP:GEOLAND, as it is virtually inevitable that such places will generate coverage in secondary sources. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 14:13, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

also notability has to be independent of a game, unless it gets (in its own right) significant third-party coverage. Slatersteven (talk) 14:17, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

User:Slatersteven, your “unless” part is confusing. Are you implying a difference between “independent” and “third-party”? Can you explain? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:03, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Independent of the game means that the coverage must be of the mod in its own right (excluding just brief mentions of the game it is a mod for). Third-party means the sources can't be from anyone connected to the mod or the game. Slatersteven (talk) 10:39, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

To me it feels weird that an encyclopedia should not cover real-life villages but cover a video game mod (something concerning a fucking game, not even the game itself). It is because of such differences of opinion that guidelines are used. Phil Bridger (talk) 14:44, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Have others written about this mod? SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:00, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

In terms of media outlets, not that I am aware of. However, the mod has a very dedicated fanbase (I should state that I am not part of it), and has been quite popular since its release. There are also hundreds of YouTube videos on it. I doubt the average media outlet has staff that just sit down and download random mods for strategy games from 2016, but I think there's a couple of gaming-specific outlets that have reported on it. I'll see what more I can find. -Emily (PhoenixCaelestis) (talk) 23:08, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@PhoenixCaelestis, check out Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library for access to some sources. It leans scholarly, but you might find something. Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources is specific to video games. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:53, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Have others written about this mod? “not that I am aware of”. That’s the crux. Wikipedia must not be the first other to write about it. Wikipedia covers what others have already covered. It’s not weird, unless you mean Wikipedia’s choice of the word “notability”, in which case I think everyone agrees with you. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

See also WP:POPULARITY. "The mod has a very dedicated fanbase ... and has been quite popular since its release" are things one could say about it based on reliable published sources that say the same thing. They are not a basis for notability themselves. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:28, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I would guess you received that notification because the article you created does not cite many independent secondary sources that come across as probably being rigorous and reliable. You cite Wargamer, which is a publication that covers wargames, but all the other sources will raise the eyebrow of many a Wikipedian concerned about notability. The Vandegrift Voice is a student newspaper (this is not automatically disqualifying for a source, but can you understand how it doesn't lend us much sense of prominence as coverage in, say, a regional newspaper like the Chicago Tribune?), IGDB is a database that provides limited information that some editors won't consider significant coverage establishing notability, and the other sources are primary sources, like citing the mod's steam page or a forum post.

Notability on Wikipedia as currently outlined in our guidelines isn't synonymous with 'how popular a thing is'. Rather, the guidelines consider a topic notable if it has been significantly covered by multiple secondary sources that are independent and reliable. What coverage counts as 'significant' and how many 'multiple' has to be are matters that editors sometimes disagree about, but that's the gist. In some sense, when we say 'notability' we kind of mean 'coveredness'—has this topic been covered (written about) by enough sources that we could write an article about it citing those sources? (There are some exceptions, such as WP:NPROF, but for the general notability guideline, this is somewhat the idea.) So although Martha Ballard was very obscure during her lifetime, historians' interest in her diary and life means she has been covered by independent, reliable secondary sources, making her notable. And although The New Order: Last Days of Europe gets a lot of downloads, it doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of attention from scholars or journalists—which is, on Wikipedia, not notable. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 02:21, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

And, perhaps the most important point: Just because (if) it doesn't qualify for a Wikipedia:Separate, stand-alone article ("Notability"), it can still be in Wikipedia. 'Non-notable' subjects can be a paragraph or even a whole ==Section== inside a larger topic. If a thorough search convinces you that it doesn't qualify for a separate article, then see Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of using "notability" as a term because it's confusing outside of Wikipedia. This guideline is really about "significant coverage" (WP:SIGCOV) from WP:RELIABLESOURCES. Wikipedia is supposed to summarize what other reliable sources have said about a topic. Without a significant amount of verified facts from reliable sources, we can't write a reliable, neutral article. In fact, creating an article based on blog posts, store pages, and unverified wikis can be biased, misleading, or even harmful. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:12, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

It is weird because, we have used a word "notability" that is not fit for purpose and used weirdly. It is not your fault, it is Wikipedia's fault. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Straw poll on our jargon

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Thank you for sharing your insights. Please suggest alternatives at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)#Describing Notability in plain English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

---

We've had several comments recently about using the name 'Notability' for this concept. I'd really like to take a moment to find out what you all think. So this is a quick, absolutely non-binding, unofficial straw poll: Do you wish that we would change the name of this guideline/this concept?

I don't need explanations either way – just a quick Keep the old name or Change to a different/better name.

• Change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• Change. As someone who does NPP/deletion work, even with patient explanation to new editors, it is difficult to persuade someone that an ordinary word has a very unordinary meaning. Just change it to the "article creation criteria" or something. We don't need a single word. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:16, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• I've been saying for quite some time we should change it. People get confused when we use a word in a very different way than they commonly understand it. If we called it something like "article suitability criteria", they would understand that's something specific to Wikipedia, and not come into it with preconceived notions. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 18:33, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep without having any suggestion for what to change it too. This has been a PEREN on this talk pages, and among various suggestions, there's pros and cons. I wouldn't be against a change, and if thus poll is meant to determine it worthwhile to explore options, then yes, but there's far too much inertia behind "notability" as a term to be able to commit to a change without knowing what it is. Masem (t) 18:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  This is not any type of commitment. No decision is being made. Obviously, editors could very easily wish to see it changed in principle and still dislike particular names (including disliking all suggested alternatives). If a lot of editors are thinking "Keep, because it's traditional/cool/what we're used to/whatever", then there would be no point in discussing it further. If a lot of editors are thinking "Change" (no matter where the fall on the spectrum from "Change, but only to this exact thing" to "Change because literally anything would be better than this"), then we should have that discussion (but later). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:14, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  I can't commit to "do I wish we could change the name" without knowing what options we are talking about. I think "notability" works and has a history which is a resistance to change, but I would only say we should change it if there's a clear obvious improvement. It would have been far better as a straw poll to ask "should we try to seek out alternate names for notability?" which I would agree too. Masem (t) 19:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  I provided one above: article creation criteria. Do you have suggestions? voorts (talk/contributions) 22:16, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• Sorry, but I can't (even in a quick, absolutely non-binding, unofficial straw poll) give a one-word answer. I wish that we could change it, but don't think, given how much this word is entrenched, that we can. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:13, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  That more or less summarizes my view as well. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think thats's really an argument not to change it. Editors will get used to any change. I imagine the main argument in opposition to any change will be "this is a solution in search of a problem", which obviously isn't true. voorts (talk/contributions) 22:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

• If I could go back in time, to when WP was new, I would suggest “Notedness” as an alternative… but I agree with Phil -the current terminology is too entrenched to change now. Blueboar (talk) 20:07, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

  If you got into a time machine and discovered that two years from now, this page was called Wikipedia:Notedness/your favorite alternative name instead, would you be sorry about that change? I could imagine someone feeling a sense of loss over tradition, for example, even if they don't really think the current name is good. But I wouldn't want the perceived impossibility of the task to prevent editors from saying that we wish it would happen. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Change I'm not sure what one word you could use instead - perhaps instead of trying to summarise into one word we should be asking simply "Is the subject written about in reliable sources?" That's what "notability" boils down to. I get tired of seeing so many abbreviations and all-caps links thrown around. Garuda3 (talk) 22:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)
• Brainstorm alternatives first, before undermining the status quo.

• “Stand-alone topic criterion 1”? (Passing the GNG does not mean the topic must have its own page)
• “New topic test”?
• “Own page threshold test”?

—- SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

The big problem with all of these is that they fail to specify that GNG is only one of multiple tests for wiki-notability. It is the main one, but not the only one, and should not have a name that blurs that issue. Wikipedia:Notability and WP:GNG are the same page, but not the same thing, and we should keep that clear. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

"Article creation guideline" for WP:N. "Guideline for when a topic should have its own article" for GNG. "When to create an article about X" for each SNG. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:08, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, that certainly shouldn't be the case. The question about writing a standalone article is "Do we have enough source material to write more than a permastub about this?". So, it would be GNG, it just wouldn't be called that. But changing the name would also get rid of the idea that "Oh, but this thing is notable even if there's not enough sources...". Well, no, there's a substantial amount of reliable and independent source material, or there's not. If not, we can't write an article about it, because there's not enough to write it from. In that case, it still could be a list entry or mentioned elsewhere, it just shouldn't be a standalone "article" that will never actually be one. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Notability is not an article creation guideline of any sort. We purposely have placed no limits on when articles can be created, and notability served to judge on review like at PROD or AFD. Masem (t) 01:03, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

That's one of the issues, 'notability is not', 'notability is not', 'notability is not' is a broken record and has been for a long time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

David, I had the opposite thought, especially for "Stand-alone topic criterion 1". That implies that there is at least a "Criterion 2" somewhere else. Perhaps "Stand-alone topic criteria" would be the more general, non-GNG parts of the concept. But I don't think we need to worry about potential titles; if we decide this is worth exploring in greater detail, then we can talk about things we value (e.g., is a single word better than a longer phrase?) and how to make it all work. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

That was in my mind. More specifically, I was remembering the "primary notability criterion", User:Uncle G/On notability. Uncle G was weaving and merging the PNC into WP:NOT, with implications that notability should be considered first, before even WP:NOT, but not in any way detracting from WP:NOT. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Source availability maybe? or source depth? Alpha3031 (t • c) 03:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Change Collectively, we have already discussed multiple alternatives. There is no better time than now (and that will be true tomorrow, too). Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep don't see the problem with it. Andre🚐 01:24, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for being the first to defend the old/current name for its own sake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:25, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Change. It's a jargon that is confusing to newcomers (and sometimes even to folks who aren't that new). I'm open to at least discussing some possible alternatives. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 01:26, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep I have been helping at the Teahouse and the Help Desk for many years, and our concept of notability is not that difficult to explain to those willing to listen. I suspect that there will be equivalent problems and complaints about any alternative terminology. I believe that our firm insistence on the concept of notability is what keeps us a Top Ten website worldwide. Cullen328 (talk) 01:33, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that our firm insistence on the concept of notability is a very good thing.

  I agree that we do a pretty good job of working with all people who are willing to listen (please speak up with counter examples). The perceived problem comes from arguing with others who want to include unsuitable material.

  Would we change all instances of “notability” to the “Wikipedia concept of notability”? I think no, but maybe once, the lead sentence. Change

  “On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article” to

  “The Wikipedia concept of notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article.”

  - SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:48, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not sure about these, but it might not be amiss to have a sentence somewhere near the front about how, on Wikipedia, notability is used as a term of art that is not the same as its colloquial usage. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:18, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  We lead with "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article." which begs an immediate statement that would be "Unlike the common definition of notability, 'the fact or quality of being notable', 'notability' on WP refers to how we judge what has been written about a topic through reliable sources to determine if the topic merits a standalone article." Masem (t) 11:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Article Test Guideline "Article Test" is used by editors to decide whether a given article . . . There is a general test and specific tests

  Article Concept Guideline This "Article Concept" guide is used by editors decide whether a given article . . . There is a general concept guide and, specific concept guides.

  Etc. Etc. There are multiple fine ones, and notability is not fine, it is basically silly (as is any attachment to the word).

  Nor should one really credit, that people in the Wikipedia club are weirdly wedded to only one word. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Change We should at least be open a discussion on whether there is a better title. --Enos733 (talk) 04:36, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 04:53, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep: For one thing, the concept of "notability" on Wikipedia has such a broad and fundamental reach that making such a change requires a far broader RfC than just this talk page. For another, c'mon folks. If there's as few as fifty concepts/jargon that confuse newbies, I'd be surprised. Any change will be highly controversial, involve significant disruption, unnecessarily consume a great deal of editors' attention over a long period, and result in just as many complaints and just as much confusion all the same ... all so that instead of us explaining that no, "notability" doesn't mean here what the newbies want it to mean, we're explaining that no, this is what "Own page threshold test" means. Six of one, half dozen of another. Ravenswing 08:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Come on -- no one has any preconceived conceptualization of "article threshold" or any of the others. And really "controversy", is that another word for people disagreeing, because it sounds way over-the-top for changing the word for a made-up concept or test to something else. And fundamental -- also dramatic overstatement for a word. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:45, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with Ravenswing in these ways:

  • The process for making any such change would not be an informal, non-RFC straw poll on this talk page; it would need a proper WP:PROPOSAL, and given the volume we could expect from such a discussion, it should happen on a dedicated page like WP:Proposal to rename notability guidelines (or something like that).
  • Any change would be require a lot of work (e.g., moving pages, copyediting pages, updating welcoming templates). Much of this work could be done slowly over time, and we would likely use both old and new terms for a while, so there wouldn't have to be a sudden rush to make everything perfect by a set WP:DEADLINE, but it would still be a lot of work in the end.
  • One of the things editors will have to decide is whether the amount of effort to make the change is greater or less than the amount of effort to not make the change. If the name alone costs us only 10 minutes a week, then how much does that add up to over the years? At what point does the endless drip-drip-drip of explaining the name exceed the one-time cost of changing it? The only thing I'm sure of here is that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, and the second best time is now. I don't want to first dribble away our time for the next 20 years and then have the one-time cost of changing it.

  I disagree on this one point:

  • I believe that changing the name would reduce confusion. Right now, newbies can and do point to reliable sources that say "Alice is a notable musician", to which we often reply that Alice might be "notable", but she's not "Wikipedia:Notable". If we change the name to something like "Guidelines for separate, stand-alone articles", newbies will not be showing up with sources that say "Alice is a guided-to-have-a-separate-stand-alone-article musician", and so we will eliminate one source of confusion. (Of course, if we switched it to something like "Wikipedia:Valuable topics" or "Wikipedia:Significance of subjects", then we'd have the same problem, so if we change the name, let's not pick a name like that.)

  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:52, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Fine, (except thousands, millions? of changes a day happen so change is not hard) and none of that supports over-the-top drama. It's also more than that too, we get rid of the useless sterile discussions about so-called notability in article text. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  I suspect that a lot of editors have forgotten about this, but in 2010, we renamed the Wikipedia:Article titles policy. The amount of effort was minimal, and the amount of confusion since then has been negligible. It wasn't controversial, it didn't involve any disruption (so far as I remember, anyway), and it didn't consume editors' attention. All the old names were kept as redirects. It just wasn't a big deal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Part of the inertia that "notability" has is the SNGs, and into other policies and guidelines. It's hard to count search results in just the WP namespace (ignoring talk pages) because of how noticeboards filter in, but even just comparing "WP:Notability" to "WP:Article Titles", there's far more repercussions of changing the name of this page than there would be for article titles. Masem (t) 19:34, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Part of the inertia that "Naming conventions" had is the specific naming conventions, and the way it's used in other policies and guidelines. It's hard to count, but Category:Wikipedia naming conventions looks like it has a couple hundred pages, compared to the mere twelve (12) SNGs. I'd say that the repercussions are about the same: Renaming a page results in nothing breaking (because we would keep the redirects), and over time everyone would get used to using different language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:30, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Except that the only page that was moved with the change to "article titles" was the main NC page. All those other pages are still at "Naming conventions (field)" (eg Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)). It makes sense that only the article title page was moved as that's advice broadly about article titles and less about specific naming conventions, while all the other naming convention pages are very specific naming conventions that work within the advice of "article titles". In essence, that move separated MOS-type aspects of article titles from the naming conventions of specific fields

  If we change notability to something else, we're going to have to determine how that language will affect all pages that use "notability guidelines (field)". Which I think is far more difficult to split because of how engrained the GNG and SNG tests are for reviewing notability. Masem (t) 20:54, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

  Those guidelines could be moved if editors wanted to move them; we just haven't seen any need to do so. This particular guideline (WP:N itself) contains both advice broadly about how we decide which topics get separate articles and which don't, and less about very specific rules that work within the general advice about which do and which don't.

  I agree that if we change notability to something else, we're going to have to determine how that language would affect all pages. However, I don't think that changing SNGs would be difficult at all. If we took Blueboar's suggestion of "Notedness", for example, much of it could be done with a simple search-and-replace. If we picked something else, we could still re-write them. For example, "If it's not notable" could become "If it does not qualify for a separate article". This is all do-able; copyediting is something most Wikipedians are good at. Also, just like we change WP:NC to WP:AT and didn't change any of the others, we could also change this one and none of the SNGs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:39, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

• What to? Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• If we could start from scratch, yeah, I'd change it to something like 'inclusion criteria'. Notability isn't a bad name for the concept this page describes, but in retrospect it was a mistake to base our main inclusion guideline on a single concept. It gives the illusion that what is and isn't allowed is determined by some objective external reality, instead of something we decide ourselves. I think that's a big reason why people started acting like the GNG was handed down on stone tablets and that otherwise unobjectionable articles on obscure subjects were a stain to be expunged. – Joe (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• It's fine the way it is. GMG^talk 18:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)
• Change I don't know how many times an editor will post, "It belongs in the article because it is WP:NOTABLE." Or they say, "It's notable because it's important," even if it has received minimal covered in rs.

These editors of course don't explain why it meets notability, but just cite the policy as if its a magic word.

Far too many editors look at the name of a policy, guideline or other direction without reading it, wasting time for other editors. Why not have a clear, descriptive name, such as "Criteria for article creation?"

TFD (talk) 00:44, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

• keep for now at least. This term has been used for roughly 24 years now and is within the Wikipedia community an established term (even if it might irritate the occasional new editor). I might get convinced of a change, if i see a clearly better concrete alternative covering the same content. However some of the suggestions above do not convince me in that regard.--Kmhkmh (talk) 05:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)
• Change With the frequency that some new editor (or even an obtuse veteran editor) proclaims "how is this not notable?", it would be so much easier to call this guideline something to do with the minimum quality/quantity coverage needed for a stand-alone article.

The hard part, in my opinion, is finding a consensus on what would be better. But if you skip passed the jargon, the most prominent parts of the guideline have some recurring words for what the plain meaning of this guideline is.

• From the (IMO) buried lead: A topic is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.
• From the current lead: "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable, independent sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article."
• From the nutshell: "We consider evidence from reliable and independent sources to gauge this attention.

Assuming we can find a consensus to give this guideline a more plain and clear title, we can overcome two decades of intertia with a redirect, a hatnote, and a shorter introduction. The substance of the guideline would not need to change. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps, after this, we brainstorm put forward 5 or so new titles (like "Article Sourcing Test", "Page Sourcing guide" "Stand Alone concept", etc.), ask people to discuss their pros and especially their cons, pick the strongest, and then do a rank choice of 3 or 4 alternatives against the current title. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:43, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Shall we do that in a new section, or on a new page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:05, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I suppose after this, I would suggest moving to VPProposals. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Or maybe Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) for the brainstorming phase. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

• Keep Yes, it somewhat conflicts with the real-world meaning of the term (which causes problems), but there's no better word for the wiki-meaning of the term which is defined by the complex wp:notability ecosystem. Trying to tidy up wp:notability will take some fundamental work (starting with understanding/acknowledging how it actually works) not attempting an impossible word change. North8000 (talk) 19:10, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

  impossible what? Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

  Impossible to find a better word to describe what wp:notability is. North8000 (talk) 17:03, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  That sounds like an argument for using "a phrase" instead of "a word". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:25, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think that even a phrase would be enough. Despite ostensibly being only about the core guidelines / GNG, the operative meaning is that it is a term for a crowd decision which is often based primarily on degree of GNG compliance, sometimes based primarily on degree of enclyclopedicness (per a few SNG's), also influenced by degree of compliance with wp:not (which is a measure of enclyclopecicness), and slightly influenced by real-world notability. If you can get all of that into a phrase, you are a magician.  :-) North8000 (talk) 18:21, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  Well, I'll conflict with myself and give a phrase for what it really is....the WP: Separate Article Criteria. WP:SAC  :- North8000 (talk) 18:27, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  I would go with "Stand Alone Article Criteria" - Enos733 (talk) 18:31, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, that's better. North8000 (talk) 20:12, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  Except, both imply that if the criteria is met then the topic should have a separate page, when some related topics should stay merged. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:20, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

• Keep since I don't think I have put my opinion here in bold. All the calls to change it without any idea what it is going to change to are fatuous, and all of the suggested long-winded phrasal titles like "guide to which topics should be included as articles on Wikipedia" are non-starters; we need something short and snappy. Which we have already. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)
• Keep until / unless we have a better option. Perhaps a better name could be found, but you've gotta actually find it; I don't want to end up in a situation where people are like "we have a consensus to change it!" for the next year or so with no actual agreement on what to change it to. And there's inherent disruption to changing long-standing terminology, so we'd need a specific, clearly-better name before we could talk seriously about changing it. I'm also not really convinced that this problem is real - what it boils down to is inexperienced users not understanding that we determine notability via WP:RS coverage, the same way we determine everything else. That's something they're going to have to learn eventually and isn't something that can be fixed with a name change. --Aquillion (talk) 18:30, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think that one of the problems boils down to inexperienced users not understanding that notability (the Wikipedia jargon) does not mean notability (the dictionary definition). Most of our in-universe jargon has some relationship to the dictionary definition, and a plain-English understanding will take you in the right direction. That's not the case with notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

  Which as others have stated above, most new users get once the concept is explained to them including the difference between real world and our definition of the term. And I don't think our definition is that far off, it just requires reliance on other Wikipedia-centric terms like secondary and reliable sources.

  It is similar in the same vein that our non-free content policy varies from fair use. Some may see the terms similar but on wiki they are very different, and after a brief explanation, most get it.

  Which is why if it is easy to clear up the confusion of the real world and Wikipedia version of the notability term, in addition to how engrained the term is, there better be a significantly major improvement for the replacement term to justify all the necessary edits and checks to make that change. Masem (t) 19:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

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

At some point this just needs to be fixed

One a a few (maybe 4 or 5) simple yet huge problems with the core Wikipedia rules, is that for something to be notable it has to be already noted somewhere else and that somewhere else has to be reliable. Most reliable sources (ie. the news) only mainly talk about important things. There are thousand of places online where you can talk about things that have millions of fans. Yet they don't get a Wikipedia page because the news originations QBF and YXH haven't talked about it.

"Oh but we need reliable sources so we can get information from somewhere.", you might be saying. Do you think the so called reliable sources we source just get their information handed to them from god. Like it is objectively good to sight sources when possible (especially when that source is where the information comes from) but like if they can get their information from somewhere, why can't we do the same? "oh but its original research!1!"- no. Its not original research to say "this web show is made by these people and its about this" or to say "this is a popular mod for this video game that allows you to do this". And then we can't even source some things like youtube video essays from reliable people (some of which are some of the most knowledgeable people on a subject).

Something major needs to be fixed here. 2007GabrielT (talk) 21:44, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi 2007GabrielT. It is permissible to use primary sources to verify straightforward statements of fact (WP:PRIMARY). The reason why we use secondary sources is because the community has decided that it is not appropriate for an encyclopedic work to be purely an indiscriminate and context-free collection of facts (WP:NOTDATABASE/WP:NOTSTATS) and thus secondary analytic or evaluative claims are required to provide context. Since such secondary claims by definition require the interpretation, rather than mere restatement of primary source material, it is not possible to do so without original research, for which we require to come from an reliable published source. (Youtube video essays may qualify as reliable if the author is a recognised expert with publications in the field, which would be the kind of thing you'd need to prove being the most knowledgeable person on the subject, see WP:EXPERTSPS)

It is unlikely that the project will reverse course on such a fundamental aspect of policy, especially since the trend seems to be going in rather the opposite direction, however, you may find other projects with more compatible goals built with wiki software. For example, Everything2 is another wiki that actually predates Wikipedia and MediaWiki software, without any of our policies on subject matter (as I understand it). There are also similar projects using MediaWiki software (or extensions like Wikibase, or potentially Wikifunctions) which also have different scopes to this one (for example, wiki hosting hubs like Miraheze). Ultimately, there is a fairly broad consensus that this encyclopedia is not intended to be everything (WP:NOTEVERYTHING) and while it might be unfortunate, it is not considered something that can or likely will be fixed. Alpha3031 (t • c) 23:25, 23 October 2024 (UTC)

One of the strange things to come out of the internet in the last decade is obscurity. I follow several content creators who get millions of views, but they are basically unknown outside of that in-group. If you polled the general populus on these things they would have no idea what you meant. Although the internet has given visibility to such figures or group it is to only a tiny part of a vastly expanded viewership, the end result is paradoxically having much greater range and engagement while still remaining obscure and unknown.

Unless Wikipedia is to become an indiscriminate collection of stuff it will have to rely on how other sources responded to that phenomenon, until then there are always other wikis. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:15, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Other “valid sources” don't talk about a lot of those things. But like thats due to what we consider a valid source. The news or academic papers aren’t going to talk about a somewhat popular video game mod or youtube series or other user generated content. But, as you said, that doesn’t stop them from being well known things in their community. 2007GabrielT (talk) 16:46, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

You really believe academic sources haven't studied video game mods and popular YouTube content? Because, they most certainly do and have. [7] [8] Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 16:54, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

They don’t document the mods or the youtube content themselves in any way. At most they would mention a few by name. 2007GabrielT (talk) 17:04, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

True. And so, those are not appropriate subjects for full articles on Wikipedia. As has been explained to you many times, Wikipedia is not the only website on the Internet. If you want to write about them, you would just need to use some other venue to do that, be it a site of your own, a blog, social media, a wiki farm, whatever have you. We have a certain scope, and that's not likely to change, but that doesn't mean you can't write about it anywhere, just not here. Similarly, some people want to write their own opinions about a subject. They can't do that here, but that doesn't mean they can't do it anywhere; many sites would welcome such material, and of course if you set up your own website than you make the rules there. It's just out of scope here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:17, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I could make my own encyclopedia. But do you really want that? What good would that accomplish. In the therortical best case scenario we end up with a wiki with all the information on Wikipedia rewritten (which takes a very long time) with some more information included and maybe slightly different formatting. Or we could just use the wiki we have and make it better 2007GabrielT (talk) 13:53, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

You are aware that there are numerous other wikis out there for specialized topics, where this type of content can be included? Wikipedia is not meant to catalog everything (per WP:NOT#IINFO), but these specialized wikis are far better for this type of content. Masem (t) 14:10, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Yea and most of them have information that shouldn't ever be on Wikipedia (eg. the Minecraft Wiki, Wookieepedia). In fact I can only think of one wiki with information that could theoretically be on Wikipedia, the Polytope Wiki (not to say that there aren't). Also what even is "this topic"? 2007GabrielT (talk) 23:29, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Error OK then, valid sources. It still doesn't change my point. The internet exposes media to potentially billions of views, having millions of views in that context isn't very noteworthy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:06, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

As has been said elsewhere, something having a lot of fans does not mean it has been discussed in a way that WP could use to write an article. Random anonymous forum posts or youtube comments on popular items like BFDI (which this post seems to be about) are never the basis for academic tertiary resources, so why should they be acceptable for Wikipedia? JoelleJay (talk) 02:36, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I’m not saying any old anonymous forum posts or youtube comments should be vaild sources but when its a video essay by a reliable YouTuber I think that should count 2007GabrielT (talk) 16:37, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

What is a "reliable YouTuber"? We do consider some select non journalistic content creators to be reliable but typically because other reliable sources frequently refer to the persons content and deem it factual in the past. But just claiming a YouTube is reliable is not going to cut it. Masem (t) 16:42, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

A "reliable YouTuber" can be determined the same way you determine if anything else is reliable, no? And the amount of independently made high quality sources of information that exist in the word is only going to keep increasing at a faster and faster rate. Its not going to be logical to not include them. 2007GabrielT (talk) 16:50, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

The standard for "reliable" is when they have separate editorial oversight, who has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. So there are some YouTube channels that meet this standard, but most don't. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:38, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I concur with User:Shooterwalker on this specific point. The point of WP:V and WP:RS as elaborated upon by Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works is that we treat certain sources as more reliable because their stories had to pass through editorial oversight before they went live. We do not treat certain contributor networks (e.g., Forbes) as reliable sources (except as self-published sources to the extent they are speaking only about themselves) because those networks allow contributors to publish posts that go live immediately with no editorial review before publication. In general, an editor is able to enforce a consistent tone and reject stories or passages inconsistent with that tone, and the knowledge that one will need to run that gauntlet to get a story published serves as an additional check on writers. If a topic is truly notable and is newsworthy or worthy of academic study, there is no shortage of writers and editors who can and will publish a source that qualifies as a reliable source under WP:RS. Yes, these rules can be very frustrating at times, but they are what keeps WP from degenerating into just another wildly inaccurate blog. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:29, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Editors would never agree on applying weight or original research required to complete an article. And creating an article would promote the fame of the youtuber and his views. TFD (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

No more than having a page about a train station would promote the fame of the train station 2007GabrielT (talk) 17:57, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Not a good example… the notability of train stations is a HUGE debate around here. Blueboar (talk) 18:09, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh of course it is 😒 2007GabrielT (talk) 21:34, 24 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think we officially care about whether "creating an article would promote the fame of" any subject (or the infamy, as the case may be). If the subject qualifies for a separate article, and some volunteer wants to write it, then we shouldn't be worrying about whether the subject could benefit.

Years ago, Molly Ivins wrote about a Texas politician she despised: "I think the meanest thing I ever said about one of them was that he ran on all fours, sucked eggs and had no sense of humor," she said. "And I swear I saw him in the Capitol the next day and all he said was, 'Baby, you put my name in your paper!'" We shouldn't be in the business of caring whether a subject might be pleased or displeased about the existence of an article. If a verifiable, neutral article about a notable subject makes all the dreams come true – or if it dashes all their hopes – then We. Should. Not. Care.

Also, purely as a practical matter, the median Wikipedia article gets one page view per week. Half of our articles get 50 readers per year or less. That's hardly "promoting the fame" of the subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:42, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Depends on what you mean by promoting, if it is the Wikipedian doing the promoting, it is promoting; if what Molly Ivens did also had the effect of promoting, even were that not her purpose, we are more interested in her purpose, as evidenced by her mode of publishing, platform and organization (and, of course, opinion content altogether has more specialized things, we care about, like even more emphasis on weight). Besides, we should under BLP care and often do care about privacy interests of subjects, even by deciding what's private and what's not (and who is private and who is not), which in part may often go back to who published, and why, how and where the info is published. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:25, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Ivins blatantly insulted a politician (probably in The Dallas Morning News), and the target of her insults was happy about it, because he believed that "any publicity is good publicity".

Wikipedia editors should not take the same view. Wikipedia editors should not take the view that a verifiable, neutral article (take careful note of those words) is promotional. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

'Verifiable, neutral' is in part another way to say 'not promotional' so your argument is a tautology. To test 'verifiable, neutral' as with 'not promotional', as I indicated above, examination of the quality and strength of sourcing, together with sourcing-to-text congruence, is needed. That way you address bias, if the bias or the original research of the Wikipedia writer is to promote, or other biases. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:26, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

No neutral article is promotional. A verifiable one can be, but a neutral article can't be. 2007GabrielT (talk) 22:01, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

What a silly line of argument. Are we all done here, having said what we needed to get said? — HTGS (talk) 03:26, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

If it's true – and we have just agreed that it is – that a verifiable, neutral article is not promotional, then it is not true that "creating an article would promote the fame of" the subject, as claimed above. Only creating a promotional article would "promote the fame of" the subject, at least in any way that Wikipedia editors should be caring about. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:10, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

But that was said in the context of original research and weak sourcing, so the concern regarding promotion is a natural concern of Wikipedia editors -- something to care about. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:26, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Literally all of this was the result of the OP likely complaining about the lack of BFDI on Wikipedia and probably not reading the reasons as to why it doesn't have an article. There was barely anything to be said in the first place... λ NegativeMP1 16:16, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

BFDI is just collateral damage to the bigger problem at play here. I don't even like BFDI lol 2007GabrielT (talk) 20:26, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

here's an idea, open and establish a reliable publication which focuses on the YouTubers. In a few years time, let's revisit creating BLPs for these people. – robertsky (talk) 04:02, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Apparently this is a hot take, but I believe that if something is important enough to have a page it would be important irregardless of if it has sources. Step one is to find out if it should have a page. 2007GabrielT (talk) 21:08, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Little do you know that we came up with a pretty functional solution to determine whether or not something is "important enough" to have a page. It's unfortunate that you refuse to acknowledge it, and why sources are required on Wikipedia. λ NegativeMP1 21:44, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

I acknowledge that its flawed 2007GabrielT (talk) 13:01, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

2007, editors here have spent years developing and refining policy on your step one: significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the article subject is the minimum standard. You may disagree with the settled policy and think it "just needs to be fixed", but the vast majority of editors don't. That unfortunately means you're tilting at windmills here. Valereee (talk) 13:18, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Discussion on suggestion to revise the SNG WP:NBAND

I believe it's way too lenient and inclusive. Just started a discussion on updating the rule. Discussion Graywalls (talk) 06:20, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Can you point to cases where WP:NBAND was met but the AfD decision was a consensus to delete? SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:55, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Challenged notability template

The template guideline reads "The template must not be re-added. " What policy is this based on? If notability is in doubt and discussion is being held about it, but an editor removes the template without really satisfying WP:WTRMT, it would side with unwarranted template removal and leaves no option but to take it to AfD. The article that lead to this issue is Pacific Repertory Theatre whose notability is in question and the discussion in progress is hardly a consensus. Could we remove the "must not" and change it to something like must adhere to WP:3RR unless that "must not remove" is supported with a policy? Graywalls (talk) 05:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear: Template:Notability. – Joe (talk) 07:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I did leave an explanation in my edit summary when removing the tag. I also pointed out a lack of notability issue on the talk page. I added multiple sources with significant coverage; enough to satisfy both WP:SIGCOV and WP:NONPROFIT. The tag is no longer appropriate. I think taking it to WP:AFD is obviously inappropriate, and would be WP:POINTY in light of the referencing but welcome it if only to end the conflict decisively. Graywalls has not been acting in good faith on the talk page, and I don’t see this being sorted through further discussion there. AFD would probably be the best next step.4meter4 (talk) 07:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about anyone else, but things like Graywalls has not been acting in good faith on the talk page should be brought up at a venue like AN, because if you bring them up at AfD I know I'm not going to want to touch them with a ten foot stick. If you're not going to bring it up at AN then either keep it to user talk pages (and not article or guideline talk pages) or strike them. Alpha3031 (t • c) 08:16, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Alpha3031 I think under the circumstances it’s justified. Sources from reputable academic publications are being challenged as insignificant under WP:ONUS when they contain relevant significant coverage while simultaneously claims are being made that no significant coverage exists. It’s impossible to work with someone who’s claiming for example an academic case study on the Pacific Repertory Theatre published by Routledge (clearly a high quality source under WP:SIGCOV) should be excluded as irrelevant while they are simultaneously demanding evidence of significant coverage. Look at the talk page. I cannot work with someone who isn’t willing to recognize a quality source with independent significant coverage when it’s brought forward, and actively works to remove and exclude it from the article.4meter4 (talk) 08:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That's a content dispute there. While I was enlightened to the matter right now from that discussion, it's a different issue. Graywalls (talk) 11:06, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

If this is a content dispute I suggest WP:Dispute resolution and if it's behaviour WP:ANI. Neither are going to be resolved here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:26, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Ignoring the other aspects it is a bit odd to have one template that is like this, while all other similar templates don't have this restriction. If an editor removed the template five years ago, but the issues remain why couldn't a new editor unrelated to the first discussion added it?-- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:28, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The language was changed on this edit in 2021 by Hawkeye7 (talk · contribs). I see nothing in talk page discussions for that change. I would revert it, but being clear that edit-warring over the tag shouldn't be done. --Masem (t) 12:35, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

"Must" is rarely used in policies and guidelines, so it seems odd to have such a definitive command in a template documentation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:45, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

True: You're much more likely to find the word must in style guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:27, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@Masem:, shouldn't it be under the same WP:3RR like everything else? It's odd how that template is designated into its own 1RR Graywalls (talk) 14:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

done. I noted that it was delayed discovery. Graywalls (talk) 15:00, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

What happened was that an article was tagged, and then taken to AfD, where it was kept. The tag was then removed, but the original editor who had tagged the article re-added it, saying that his opinion was what was most important, not consensus. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:36, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That's a local issue. I disagree with adjusting the policy on a template that is in used in tens of thousands of articles based on one experience. I think such a sweeping change calls for consensus from a broad community by formal RfC. Graywalls (talk) 18:55, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. But the advice in the template that it can never be removed, even after an AfD, was not subject to an RfC either. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's odd. We have a formalized process to resolve notability disputes called WP:AFD, which isn't something that's true of other tags. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:15, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that nominating for deletion is a good alternative to re-adding the template. I do, however, think that the language in the template documentation should be tweaked to clarify that re-adding the template shortly after a "no consensus" AfD close is appropriate. (Since "no consensus" does not determine to be notable, but an immediate renomination is not appropriate.) Russ Woodroofe (talk) 13:38, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Mixed feelings, but tend to disagree. This puts all of the power -- to remove the tag and to escalate -- with the person who places the tag (and presumably failed to find consensus that the subject isn't notable). It becomes a game of satisfying that person. Renomination is always a possibility, after all, but the person who wants to remove the tag has no power -- they have to appease the person who added it. They can't even really renominate it themselves, as we don't accept nominations based on "I think it should be kept". — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

We should be treating the notability temple the same as {{more citations needed}}... It is a call to get editors to boost the sourcing for improving the presumption of notability. Even if the article survives an AFD say due to scraping by on an SNG, the tag is still appropriate to use to indicate that further improvement to notability can be made. This the large about "not re-added" doesn't make any sense. Masem (t) 13:55, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

If you think it means {{more citations needed}}, use {{more citations needed}}. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:59, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean in the sense both those templates are asking for additional sourcing of sone type to be added. If the topic appears motae but lacks sources the use the more citations needed template to get editors to add more. If the topic appears to be lacking notability, add the notability template to get editors to add more sources demonstrating notability. Masem (t) 15:13, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

But again, if you're using it to "ask for additional sourcing", use "more citations needed". Notability isn't about what sources are cited, but what sources exist. No amount of editing will change notability. A notability tag doesn't say "not enough sources in the article" but "not enough sources exist". Someone can dispute that without adding citations, at which point it should go to AfD (where there will be additional burden put on those who argue to keep it). — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:40, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

For notability, sources have to be identified, even if not included in the article but listed on the talk page. Ideally they should also be included to give an idea of the type of significant coverage they give, but at bare minimum is showing they exist. So an article only resting on one or two sources for notability and editors argue more sources must exist, the tag says they should do they work to at least ID them. And if they can actually do that, that's a good reason to remove the tag. That's also why BEFORE is an essential part of a good AFD mom, to prove that claim was misguided. Masem (t) 15:54, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Notability requires only that suitable independent, reliable sources exist in the real world; it does not require their immediate presence or citation in an article. So again, tagging for notability just asserts that those sources don't exist. Someone else can remove asserting they do exist. Then it's resolved via AfD. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:57, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

If someone claims they exist but do not provide any evidence to that end (which at minimum would be sufficient citation or links to those sources, somewhere on the talk page), that's not a valid challenge to the tag. Masem (t) 17:08, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The only place where providing evidence of those alleged sources is required is at AFD. There is no rule that says articles have to "demonstrate" notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:30, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

@Rhododendrites: I'm speaking only in the period immediately following a "no consensus" close, when it's not appropriate to renominate for deletion. After a month or two has passed, then I think it falls back to "do not re-add, instead nominate for AfD". I hear your concerns, but also tend to think that if someone was unable to convince the community of a keep, then the tag is not unwarranted. It is a narrow situation, but arose e.g. with Kevin Knuth. Russ Woodroofe (talk) 18:40, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I like the idea by Russ Woodroofe, it is inappropriate to readd the template in certain situations and the language is much more fitting for a template. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:55, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Trying to use template documentation to control disruptive behaviour issues is just a bad idea. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:59, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Not necessarily. The /doc pages for {{POV}} tags have done a pretty good job of controlling disruptive behavior. The rules there say that if there's no active discussion going on, then the POV tag can be removed by any editor. This rule has caused many editors to start a discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

That would be a much better solution here than the current one. That discussion is required is already part of policy. A template saying that it can be removed unless there is discussion, is a better idea than a template that says it mustn't be added. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:19, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

In the general case, I agree (for any set of rules on removing; it needn't necessarily be "discussion is required" for every maintenance tag).

In the particular case, I believe there has occasionally been a problem in the past with the article being tagged as a public protest against AFD's refusal to delete it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:27, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

In that case WP:POINT exists, there's no need to try and reinforce it in template documentation, and any template can be removed if an editor believes it's no longer valid. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:06, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

While that's true, there are a lot of (newer) editors who seem to believe that tag removal requires some Official Process™. I think the recent change is good enough to resolve this one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that, if an editor insists that the notability of a topic is dubious but this template is removed, then the recourse should be AfD, not edit-warring to reinstate a banner-of-shame on the article. The banner should remain off the article to avoid prejudicing the AfD, and once the AfD is concluded with a consensus, notability will have been determined. —David Eppstein (talk) 14:48, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Calling it a "banner if shame" is a remnant of the inclusionist/deletionists war as well as from the ARS fallout, and we shouldnt try to trivialize it like that. Masem (t) 15:10, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That was probably an overstatement but it's presence does leave / influence impressions about the article. North8000 (talk) 16:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with inclusionism or deletionism. I think editor-facing content like that should be on talk pages. In articles (especially those about living people) airing our dirty laundry in front of the readers like that puts negative and unsourced content about the subject front-and-center, before the actual intended content of the article. If we are to do that, it should only be for limited time periods while the article is actively changing, or in cases where a public warning about the reliability of the content is warranted. Semi-permanent notability tags are neither of those things. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That argument could apply to all maintence tags. The point of those tags is both to help editors to know there are issues to resolve, and to see if readers can positively help to correct. None of that is dirty laundry, but essential for building the work. Masem (t) 17:11, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The problem is that some editors believe that the tags are a means of personal expression, and that regardless of the outcome of an AfD, they are entitled to keep the banner on the page. Whether you want to call it "banner of shame" or not, the banner bars the article from DYK, GA, FAC etc, and therefore blocks the article from ever being improved. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:41, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That's nonsense. You're seriously claiming that no one will bother to improve an article unless it can be nominated for DYK/GA/FAC? Really? Ravenswing 20:09, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

That is the usual route for improvement. Someone could always decide to improve it on their own bat, but it would definitely be discouraged. Why improve an article with a permanent maintenance banner in preference to one that is not? As Masem says, the point of those tags should be to help editors to know there are issues to resolve, and to see if readers can positively help to correct. But correction of notability is not possible, because notability has nothing to do with the actual content of the article. Notability is about whether sources exist. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:25, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The vast majority of editors have no interest in nominating anything for DYK/GA, yet they still improve pages... JoelleJay (talk) 21:11, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Exactly. I'm not concerned with DYK/GA/FAC and am not required to care. Graywalls (talk) 23:56, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it's far from it. I've taken an article to DYK/FA/GA about three dozen times. I've been working on articles for twenty years now, without any such goal in mind. Doing so without going for glory might "definitely be discouraged" in your own head, but tens of thousands of editors do just that, every single day. Ravenswing 12:59, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Theoretically wp:notability is an attribute of the topic rather than the article. Operationally it means that it is doubted and has not been confirmed / established. There are many many scenarios, reasons and directions it can go. But let's narrow it to the situation implicit in the OP. Which is that someone thinks that the tag should not be there. Then all of the normal "debate" rules about tags in general apply and the zillions of possibilities. This is despite the difference that arises from it being about attribute of the subject so the two routes are adding GNG sources or to debate the tag & notability of the subject. So the normal tag debate process applies rather than there being any simple categorical rule about keeping/removing. But the normal process does lean a bit towards keep (the tag) on an edge case. The other fundamental difference does not really change this which is that it is ultimately about the existence of the article rather than improvement of the article. And availability of AFD as the ultimate arbiter of that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@North8000: Graywalls has asserted that AFD is not "the ultimate arbiter" of notability and "such a drastic change" to make it so will require an RFC ie cannot be decided by local consensus here. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7:, where's the diff where I said such a thing? I was talking about the need for an RfC before you gone ahead and unilaterally modified the instructions here. Graywalls (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

You said it above: "I think such a sweeping change calls for consensus from a broad community by formal RfC". The change that asserted that AFD was the ultimate arbiter of notability. It came after an editor insisted on re-applying the banner after the article was kept on AFD. Now we are back to the template documentation saying that if the banner is re-added after the article is marked as kept at AFD, the banner may not be removed. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7:, I asserted nothing about AFD. I was specifically addressing your unilateral change to template documentation. I ask that you strike out that statement in Wikipedia_talk:Notability#c-Hawkeye7-20241031214900-North8000-20241031204200 Graywalls (talk) 23:52, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I have stricken for you, but do not understand your position. The template documentation change asserted that AFD was the ultimate arbiter of notability. Are you opposed to that or not? Do we need an RFC? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• It sounds like we need a slightly different tag… one that says notability has been asserted, but additional sources are needed to verify the assertions. THAT is a WP:Verifiability (and thus a content) issue. Blueboar (talk) 00:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  A different tag will not change the issue, that when there is an intractable difference of opinion regarding notability, there is no maintenance that can be done that will change the issue, so a maintenance tag on the article has no purpose other than to discourage readers and make the anti-notability side of the dispute feel happy for being allowed to express their feelings. Those are not encyclopedic purposes. Notability tags should be very temporary, on articles in progress where notability might reasonably be made more clear by further editing. For long-established articles, if there is still a dispute it needs to be resolved by AfD or some such consensus-establishing process rather than allowing the notability tag to stand essentially permanently. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  {{sources exist}}? Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Everyone seems to be focused on sourcing issues, but in this case there are no valid sourcing problems. A large number of sources have been located and added to the Pacific Repertory Theatre article (also a list of additional refs on the talk page), and we still have people questioning notability even after providing lots of evidence of independent significant coverage that extends way beyond the minimum sourcing requirement to prove notability. We need to recognize that there will always be cases of editors making non-notability claims that just aren’t reasonable or based in reality or policy language. There are cases like these where there is clear evidence of notability to high quality sources with inline citations in the article where editors continue to erroneously make claims of non notability and pursue an inappropriate path even when faced with a mountain of evidence that that path is not justified under Wikipedia’s own policies and guidelines regarding notability.4meter4 (talk) 07:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This appears to be part of the walled garden of Carmel content discussed in [9]. Not all Carmel topics are non-notable but I suspect the background to the linked discussion may be driving some of the animus towards this article. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@David Eppstein Yikes. I wasn't aware of that drama. To add to this, another editor was apparently paid to edit the article. I understood the animosity to the article to begin with due to the paid editing, but you would think once this was brought to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Musical Theatre (which is how I got involved) and longtime wikipedians from that project worked to source, re-write, and improve the article that others would see the value of the page to the encylopedia and be able to let go of that animus in light of the quality of the sourcing. Best.4meter4 (talk) 22:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• A user who knowingly adds a notability tag to an article that has survived AfD where notability was discussed and assessed is editing disruptively against consensus. If the repeated template was a mistake, remove it. If the user believes it should be there because AfD got it wrong, then DRV or AfD again per RENOM, after removing the template in the mean time. All maintenance templates should be added and removed in good faith, and demonstrated non-good-faith (not just disagreement) should be dealt with as a user conduct issue in a user conduct forum (e.g., ANI). Jclemens (talk) 22:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I had experienced difficulty with using the tag, because one invoked "must not be added" pointing to the template doc. That was not shortly after "keep" finding. Basically, it was being treated like PROD where once put on, it can't be put on. Graywalls (talk) 04:48, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

  In such cases, I suggest just ...not caring about whether there is a tag on the article. The tags have relatively limited utility, and there is nothing you can do with the tag that you can't equally well do without it. If you really believe that it's not notable, then take it to AFD and get the question settled. If you don't believe that, then you shouldn't be trying to tag it as being non-notable in the first place.

  Before you go back to the article to think about your chances at AFD, please note this line in the GNG: "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material". All those sources whose main topic is a person or a production associated with the theater, but which also provide some information about the theater itself (some people use the standard of Wikipedia:One hundred words for this), count as demonstrating notability under the GNG rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Notability and oldest people

Should all notable centenarians, supercentenarians can be presumed notable per WP:NPEOPLE and WP:NLIST, unless if uses WP:WTAF guideline. Absolutiva (talk) 13:22, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Probably should be at WP:NBIO but I don't believe we should ever have automatic notability. Just because someone reaches 100 is not necessarily a reason for them to be notable. Masem (t) 13:31, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

No. Just add them to a list of oldest people and redirect the name. We don't need a dozen articles where the only sources are world record books and listicles about how these people don't eat red meat and drink a single shot of whiskey before they go to bed. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:06, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

If there is no article, better should write a new article before they create links before adding to the list. Even if there is unverified longevity claims. Absolutiva (talk) 14:08, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

No, better to not mention them on Wikipedia at all if the longevity claims are unverified. JoelleJay (talk) 18:46, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

Note the levels of probable error and fraud in this area.[10][11] ^~Hydronium^~Hydroxide^~(Talk)~ 14:14, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

What about in case of WP:BLPNAME? Absolutiva (talk) 14:19, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

We're blending many different questions here, even within the OP. Just to clarify, wp:notability is a requirement for having a separate article on the topic. Dissecting the OP, while meeting WP:NPEOPLE would be sufficient, saying "per WP:NPEOPLE" is not correct because WP:NPEOPLE does not say that. WP:NLIST is not relevant because it is about wp:notability of the entire list, not of the elements in it. WP:WTAF is an essay, not a guideline, but either way I don't think that it reflects directly on this. I'm guessing that maybe Absolutiva was really thinking about is having one of those folks get a spot on a list. Wikipedia lacks guidance on this. Rules for being on the list are mostly determined by consensus at the list article. I can't imagine any list article that would categorically allow all centurians (even just the living ones would be over 300,000 people) but I could easily imagine a list that allowed all supercentenarians. Even after being allowed by the list rules, an entry would still need to meet wp:verifiability, keeping in mind that being on the the list is implicitly a statement/ claim that they meet the criteria of the list. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:53, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

The criteria in our WP:PEOPLELIST guideline are pretty clear... JoelleJay (talk) 22:32, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

That's good guidance but is widely ignored/ bent. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 03:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

North, I'm not sure that's really the case. The guidance lists a pair of criteria that are "typically" chosen, and then goes on to say "There are some common exceptions...". The full guidance expects and endorses significant variation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Again, it's good guidance. The core of it is that the individuals on it have wp:notability but says there are exceptions. From what I've seen exceptions are the norm For example every person who participated in a sporting evetn, every individaul that has coached a particulr team,, every individual who has received a certain award or recognition etc. North8000 (talk) 20:55, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the first set was written with the List of people from New York City in mind, rather than the Team rosters for the 2001 South American Youth Championship. (Consider the first words: "Because the subject of many lists is broad..." A team roster is not a "broad" list.) We probably have more "narrow" lists than "broad" ones, particularly for sports and awards. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Notability and youngest people

I have a concern for notability for List of youngest killers. Should all children and young people (who are criminals) can be presumed notable per WP:NPEOPLE and WP:NLIST, unless if uses WP:WTAF guideline. Even that violates WP:BLPLIST and WP:MINORS policy. Absolutiva (talk) 00:48, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I think there is an argument to be made that the list does not have adequate selection criteria and that the extensive lack of BLP citations requires deletion, but I think that it would likely be kept at AfD. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:18, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Absolutiva, welcome to Wikipedia. When we say "notable", we mean "qualifies for a separate, stand-alone article". Nobody in the List of youngest killers is "presumed notable"; if we did presume them notable, we'd be saying "Not only should all of these people's names be listed in the List of youngest killers, but there should additionally be a separate article about each and every one of them." Merely putting someone in a list doesn't mean that they're notable (presumed or otherwise).

Also, many of the perpetrators are unnamed and/or dead, so including them cannot violate any BLP policies.

I'd suggest that the first thing to do with that list is to remove all the teenagers. More than 500 American minors – mostly teens – killed someone last year.[12] That's 10 a week; it's "newsworthy" but it's not unusual. Teenagers have served in armies throughout history, and therefore killed people throughout history; again, it may be deplorable but it's not unusual. Compare List of youngest fathers, which has a cutoff of age 14, and see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of youngest birth mothers for information about a list which we eventually deleted. An admin could check, but I think that list had a cutoff around age 10 or so.

I think that some clarity around selection criteria would help, but my main suggestion would be to make sure that it's focused on "youngest" (which is going to mean blanking most of it), and that editors decide whether the standard is homicide (which includes "accidents" like dropping a loaded gun) or if it's an actual murder conviction (which requires wanting the person to end up dead, which in turn requires the killer to be old enough to understand what death is). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:10, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

In the list of youngest fathers, to describe males for notable cases of spermarche. For cases of precocious puberty, only one is notable, and for teenage pregnancy, but several are notable. But for previous deletion, these articles cannot be made compliant with WP:NLIST, WP:NOTNEWS/WP:NOTNP, WP:BLPNAME, and WP:INDISCRIMINATE.

Also in the list of youngest killers, it does meet criteria with WP:EXEMPT1E. Absolutiva (talk) 08:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that the List of youngest fathers is describing notable cases of 'starting to produce sperm'. It's describing mostly royalty who got married at a very young age. Teenage pregnancy used to have a similar list (example) but is now focused on modern celebrities instead.

I think that a List of youngest killers can fully comply with every policy. I understand that WP:YOUDONTLIKEIT, but it's a valid subject for a list (because, e.g., reliable sources write about what to do with very young children who have killed someone); it is not turning Wikipedia articles into news stories (maybe go read the links you're posting?); the killer's name is not the name of some "loosely involved, otherwise low-profile person" and they are very much "directly involved in an article's topic"; and a list of killers by age is a narrowly curated collection of information instead of "an indiscriminate collection of information". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Standalone list being to introduce contents unsuitable for an article

The idea of NLIST is still a bit murky to me. A pattern that I've found is the creation of exhaustive catalog/discography of non-notable/marginally notable imprint or a record labels like "Five legged Red Pandas Recordings" alongside "Discography of Five legged Red Pandas Recordings" often from editors whose editing pattern suggest promotional/marketing editing. WP:NOTADIRECTORY #6 guides that such a list of products by publisher is not appropriate. However, when such list gets spawned out into article space as a standalone list, how do we evaluate the appropriateness. Graywalls (talk) 17:05, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Example of what I consider to be a stand alone "product catalog" Facedown Records discography. Graywalls (talk) 01:43, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Since you've read NLIST, what about it do you find unclear? I think knowing that would help with addressing your question. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

NLISTS discusses the notability of list itself, while WP:CSC 2 suggests something like list of paracetamol brands as valid. CSC 3 opens up concerns about causing product catalogs to be created, such as discography of a hole in wall record label citing reliable sources that merely verify the existence of the albums to justify such a list. Graywalls (talk) 18:52, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

NLIST only says that notability doesn't apply, but all other content policies do. So a list that is against WP:NOT or even wp:v (if only sourced to primary works) would not be appropriate as standalone. — Masem (t) 19:55, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

It is acceptable to source the list (or indeed any article) only to primary works. It still passes WP:GNG so long it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. But they don't actually need to be used in the article. That's a common mistake that people often make at AfD, and the reason we have WP:BEFORE. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

A label may be notable but that doesn't make the list of all album produced by it notable. And NLIST suggests that some significant coverage discussing the range or albums published should be identified. The cases I've seen show very limit support to discuss the specific albums as a list. Now, artists signed to a label, that's far more common to be covered, and that's a reasonable way to demonstrate the labels scope that meets NLIST. — Masem (t) 23:05, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you might be reading both too much and too little into WP:NOTPRICE (#6). The relevant bits say:

"Lists of creative works are permitted. Thus, for example, Wikipedia should not include a list of all books published by HarperCollins, but may include a bibliography of books written by HarperCollins author Veronica Roth."

Discographies are "lists of creative works", which are explicitly permitted. Ergo, there is no conflict between the policy and writing a discography.

The choice of example is more informative than you may have realized. HarperCollins, which has been in business for two centuries, has published something like a quarter million works (including books published by businesses it acquired). We do not need a list with a quarter million items in it, no matter what the items are. But if it's a small press, or if we're talking about a small subset (e.g., just the one author), then there's nothing wrong with having a list of all 12 or all 25 books.

NB also that the example given is not a stand-alone list, and therefore NLIST is irrelevant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

[the distinction is about the creative aspects involved. Harper Collins doesn't direct the creative direction of what is published outside of copy edit services, so there's no reason to list every book they published. Lising every book written by an author makes far more sense since they are creatively involved for each one. Labels tend to be more outside creative aspects though there are likely smaller labels that provide more creative input in terms of mixing and production, but we should have awareness if such labels are directly part of the creative process or just pass throughs. — Masem (t) 23:08, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure that's true. My impression is that HarperCollins provides far more in the way of author services than just copyediting. For example, book design, illustration, and cover design are all part of the usual package of author services from a major publisher, and those are creative inputs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Which is extremely minor in terms of the bulk creative effort in writing. We would not consider Harper to have creative imput into that. Masem (t) 23:32, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

You might not, but others would. I'd say that it depends on the type of book. Illustration is an important creative input for a picture book, after all. I'd also consider the "copyediting" done by Maxwell Perkins to be a very significant creative input. Perhaps you'd like to read about developmental editors before making sweeping assertions about how little they contribute? WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Requiring a neutral source

At the moment, we have a footnote with an unusual requirement:

In the absence of multiple sources, it must be possible to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view, is credible and provides sufficient detail for a comprehensive article.

This is unusual because WP:ALLOWEDBIAS and WP:BIASED say that non-neutral sources are not required at all. But I have been thinking about this a little further: If there's (really) only reliable source, then how do you "verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view"? I don't think that's possible, or perhaps it's better to say that it's not a pointful type of evaluation. "Neutral" is defined in WP:NPOV as whatever point of view is put forward by the balance of reliable sources, so if only one reliable source exists, then that source's POV is the neutral one – automatically and by definition.

I therefore think that we should take these words out. If this is meant to refer to a situation in which only one RS has been identified, then it's pointless; if this is meant to refer to a situation in which multiple RS are known to exist in the real world, but only one is being cited, then it's inconsistent with our content policies. Either way, it's not appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:42, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's accurate either. We expect all sources to be factual. But we don't expect sources to be neutral. The encyclopedia is neutral, but we often include biased opinions, with attribution. I am not sure why it needs to be addressed here, at our Notability guideline. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:05, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Let's say SPLC or ADL put out an article detailing a hate group, and is the only significant source that goes in significant coverage in the group. Now, both these groups generally write reliably but with a clear bias and tone against hate groups, and both groups in the past are known to aggressive categorize groups this way that don't align with other RSes in some isolated cases. I would be vary wary of being able to write a NPOV compliant article with that as the single source due to that view. Hence why that footnote is necessary. — Masem (t) 16:20, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The sentence says "it must be possible to verify". How does one verify whether a source reflects a neutral point of view? Don't tell me that you think it's important. Tell me the practical, step-by-step actions I can take to determine whether an article in a newspaper, or a book on a library shelf, reflects a neutral point of view when there are no other sources to compare its contents against. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:47, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it an wp:sps, for a starter, if not, Does it have a clear wp:cir, those are two ways. Slatersteven (talk) 16:49, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I was under the impression that the GNG doesn't accept self-published sources at all, so I assumed that was a given. I'm not sure why you linked to Wikipedia:Competence is required, which is about "people who contribute to the English-language Wikipedia". Perhaps you meant a different page? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

It does not stop people trying it on. Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

This is where being a responsible WP editor comes into play, we have to look at bigger pictures and historical aspects of the sources. We know SPLC and ADL are generally good but we also know they have specific advocacy roles behind what they do. We also know that in a few cases their rush to classify groups as Haye groups have been met with concern not just from said group but by other media and advocacy groups. So that tells me that while both groups may be reliable, in absence if any other sources that show agreement, they should be immediately taken as the "neutral" view.

In contrast, if a BBC or NYTimes piece was the only source for a topic, these are not considered publishers with any clear bias and thus there would be less concern about using that for notability.

This is part of what a research's job needs to include, being aware of the larger picture around topics and how those topics are covered. Masem (t) 17:30, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that editors determine whether the content is neutral, not on what the NPOV policy says (which is that content is neutral if it fairly reflects the views of all reliable sources), but instead on the reputation of the publisher? That would mean that any book published by HarperCollins is going to be okay, because they publish a wide variety of POVs in the course of a year; any book published by a small press that specializes in a POV is not.

I would expect editors to do some Opposition research on the author as well, if they personally dislike the content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:38, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes it has to be neutral as we all think we are important. Slatersteven (talk) 16:22, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like it needs <sarcasm> tags. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:48, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

NO, it is saying that at least two policies tell us a source has to be neutral, I.E. not have a possible bias. Slatersteven (talk) 16:50, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Which two policies do you refer to? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:53, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like it needs <sarcasm> tags., and with that I am out of here with a firm no. Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

AFAICT, we have one policy at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources ("WP:ALLOWEDBIAS") that says sources do not have to be neutral ("However, biased sources are not inherently disallowed based on bias alone..."), one guideline at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Biased or opinionated sources ("WP:RSBIAS") that says sources do not have not be neutral ("reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources..."), and no policies or guidelines – except this disputed footnote – that say sources have to be neutral.

AFAICT we also have no policies or guidelines that say the definition of neutral is "not have a possible bias".

If I've overlooked something, I would be grateful for a link proving me wrong. With the information I have, however, I am forced to conclude that your statements are incorrect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:30, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

It cones down a lot to how we state what NPOV us, it is not "all sides must be presented equally", but that we should present the most prevailing views in proportion to the number of sources behind those views, with exceptions made for fringe and pseudoscience topics. If you only have one source, it is near impossible to know where the neutral POV point of balance is unless you are certain the source itself is mostly free of bias. Masem (t) 17:35, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

If neutrality is measured "in proportion to the number of sources", and there is only one source, then the view in that source is neutral.

What you seem to be saying is something like this:

If we have a dozen reliable sources, and 100% of them present one view, then I'll keep my own personal POV out of it. Whatever 100% of sources say is 'neutral'.

But if there's only one reliable source, and 100% of the one source present one view, then now is the time for all good editors to come to the aid of neutrality by injecting their personal POVs into deciding whether whatever 100% of reliable sources say is 'neutral'.

That doesn't align with the NPOV policy, and "compare the source against my own POV" – which, I remind you, this sentence says you must do – is an extremely bad way of "verifying" that the source is actually neutral. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Leaving aside the anti-values idea that we must decide whether a source is neutral based on our personal perception – because we're always going to have editors who believe that SPLC engages in reverse discrimination against white men – rather than by what the NPOV policy says (which is about whether the source matches others, which means that a source that has a very bad or very biased reputation could still be fully neutral for our purposes), I think this kind of misses the point.

Imagine that the source is hopelessly biased. Imagine that the source is "Why I Think This Company Owes Me a Billion Dollars" or "This Politician is a Pointy-Haired Poopy-Head".

But imagine, too, that you can write a purely factual article from it, by skipping over the bits about "I suffered irreparable damage when their maliciously defective product exploded on my kitchen table" and focusing instead on the bits like "Third-party testing from Underwriters' Laboratories determined that at a temperature of -40°C, the blue-green widget emits light with a wavelength around 550 nm" or "Here is a complete transcript of Paul Politician's speech that night, with notes in the margin highlighting the classical rhetorical devices he uses, including alliteration and rhyming schemes".

Why would you reject a source from which it's easy to write a purely factual article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:14, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Part of how NPOV is approached is the basis that the views taken by reliable sources generally align in distribution by the views of all, the latter which is impossible to quantify. We are using what RS say a sample points of the larger take on a topic. With multiple RSes, we can be pretty confident that there aggregate views likely represent the same proportion of views on the topic held by all, even with biases in sources. The more sources, the better this assumption. But with only one source, that is not an assurance that view is capturing the broader unpublished view on the topic, unless we know that source generally remains unbiased.

No we can never know what the broad views on a topic can possibly be, but having multiple RSes is what gets us there. With only one, it's really difficult to make that claim. Masem (t) 18:25, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

So you argue that with a sufficiently small number of sources, it's better to rely on editors' personal POVs to determine neutrality than to reply on sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:41, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I expect editors to use the skills as researchers, setting aside any POV they may have, as to evaluate sources, as we expect in all situations. Masem (t) 19:10, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Surely notability should be supported by more than one single source - regardless of the neutrality issue. Blueboar (talk) 20:19, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That depends in part on whether we're talking about demonstrating notability or just being notable. We theoretically don't require demonstrating notability at all, so one might cite a source that is wholly inadequate from the GNG perspective (which is where this footnote resides) even if others are available.

The usual story for having one source is that for some historical subjects, the Dictionary of National Biography might be the only source that is presently known to editors. Due to what we know about that book's inclusion criteria, it has generally been accepted as evidence that we should be able to find primary sources (e.g., 19th-century newspaper articles). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Surely notability, Wikipedia-notability, requires more than a single source. Absolutely. Where an article is acceptable with only a single source, it will be an inherently encyclopedic topic not subject to the WP:N guideline. WP:N should not pretend to cover all articles. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:52, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I would approve of telling editors to "evaluate sources", but the footnote doesn't say that. The footnote says that they must WP:Verify that the source has the right POV. Do you actually think it should say that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that if taken in the context of it being in the GNG section of the Notability guideline, and with the realistic understanding that the recognition shown by a suitable source when they decide to provide in-depth coverage of the topic matters, then it makes more sense.....the recognition is meaningless if the source is not independent. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:45, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with that, but it doesn't say "independent". It says that it has to be verifiably neutral. We apparently don't intend for the neutrality to be verified (since we suggest no mechanism for doing that), and IMO we shouldn't be demanding neutrality (because it conflicts with WP:NPOV).

Note that this is an actual must statement, being strongly defended by Masem, who told us a couple of months ago that "we generally only use such absolutes like "you do not" or "must not" in those policies with some legal ramifications". I don't think it's possible to comply with it. The sentence, as written, says you must be able to verify that the contents are neutral. So far, the best Masem's come up with is that editors should express their best editorial judgment about about whether the publisher is neutral. That's not the same thing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

You are right. I added "independent" because I think that it was the type of neutrality intended in this context. Sort of like the decision to create the in-depth coverage of the topic was neutral rather than saying that the content must be neutral. (so it's not a publicity release or something written by their record label) I wasn't arguing to keep the exact same wording, just trying to see the intent of it. North8000 (talk) 21:20, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I imagine that, if it wasn't added to game a specific dispute, the intent was probably something like "If you're going to put all your eggs in one basket, then you need to be using a really trustworthy basket". The problem is that what they wrote is remarkably different from that. The actual rule says:

• Editors must evaluate the source based on its POV (="the source reflects a neutral point of view"). Only a source with the Right™ POV is acceptable. I can't think of a single other instance in which a policy or guideline tell editors to determine the suitability of a source by seeing whether it has the Right™ POV, but maybe there's something in WP:FRINGE along those lines.
• Editors must verify that the source's POV is the right one. Usually when we talk about verifying something, we're talking about finding other sources (e.g., a book review that says the book is a good one). So instead of saying "Well, I personally think that advocacy group isn't neutral", to which the next editor may reply "Well, I personally think that they're extremely neutral, so there!", the wording of this footnote says we're supposed to be finding sources that say they're neutral or not.
• But this sets us up for the fundamental logic problem:
  1. NPOV defines 'neutral' as whatever the sources say.
  2. The context of this sentence stipulates that there are no other sources.
• So either you can have only one source, or you can have a source that verifies that the contents of the first source are neutral, but you cannot actually have a situation in which there is only one source and you are able to verify that the contents of that lone source are neutral. If you can actually 'verify' the neutrality of the contents (as opposed to, e.g., 'opine about it' or 'express my indisputably excellent editorial judgment about it'), then you no longer have a single source.

So IMO it's wrong as written (because IMO it should follow the WP:ALLOWEDBIAS policy), and it's also self-disproving as written. The latter point could be solved by re-writing, but the first step is admitting that we have a problem.

I'd suggest this as a way of solving problem problems:

−

In the absence of multiple sources, it must be possible to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view, is credible and provides sufficient detail for a comprehensive article.

+

In the absence of multiple sources, the source should be credible and provide sufficient detail for a comprehensive article.

That would remove all the problems (e.g., saying that we must WP:Verify that the POV is the right one) and still let editors argue that various advocacy groups aren't sufficiently "credible". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The issue with "must" is fine to fix but I think that's it's still that we want editors to be aware that using a nominally reliable but biased source as the only evidence that can be found to support notability is questionable, but to add on from what you said above, if such a source is used to stick to facts and avoid subjective content in that work's voice. Masem (t) 22:42, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I think this sentence should be eliminated. GNG does not require that a source be secondary, so this could result in articles that are based entirely on a detailed primary source story in a magazine that receives no follow-up coverage. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Or, for example, it would allow for the creation of an article about an obscure historical concept covered in only a single secondary source. In order to be compliant with WP:NPOV, editors would have to phrase the entire article as "According to Jane Smith, XYZ is a concept. In her book, XYZ: A Concept, Jane Smith wrote .... Smith said .... She also said ...." voorts (talk/contributions) 01:35, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you hope to achieve. The sentence is about a neutral+credible+detailed. It doesn't say anything about primary or secondary sources. Removing it should have no effect at all on primary/secondary sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:33, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Who says the only way neutrality can be assessed is via IRS sources with SIGCOV? If multiple HQRS have passing mentions of the topic that characterize it as "bad", but we have one biased SIGCOV source that characterizes it as "good", I don't think it would be NPOV to base the article on the SIGCOV source. In such a case, no matter how detailed the SIGCOV, we just shouldn't have an article on the topic due to it not being possible to write both comprehensively and reflect a neutral POV. The topic can be covered in another article where more context is available and there is no need to be comprehensive. JoelleJay (talk) 02:53, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

(Though if you change your mind on not having articles that are difficult to write neutrally, I've Got a Little List of endlessly disputed articles that never would be missed. A handful in ARBPIA, rather more in GENSEX, at least two about autism...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Your proposed change looks fine. There is no need for the source to represent a neutral point view. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:13, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

BadlyDrawnJeff. It is generally preferable to have multiple sources, however, one substantial source can demonstrate notability. In this case extreme care should be given to verify that the source reflects a neutral point of view and is credible. [13]

He was prone to arguing too many lines in parallel, and ina big tentative edit he slipped these dubious words into a footnote where no one but a wikilawyer looks.

I reckon “reflects a neutral point of view” was a reasonable stringent phrase intending to be stronger than “independent”, maybe “substantially independent” but trying to avoid repeating words. Strongly independent? It doesn’t quite flow right.

I dislike that the change further opens the crack for the GNG to be met by a single source. I think these words allow for an exception that would be allowed already, and that it is better to delete the note, which nobody but wikilawyers read anyway. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

“provide[s] sufficient detail for a comprehensive article” is an invitation to accept non-notable topics. “Sufficient detail” is tautological. It is not useful guideance. SmokeyJoe (talk) 07:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

RFC: School Notability Criteria

I believe it's important to revisit the notability standards for schools on Wikipedia. There are numerous school articles, many of which are mere stubs that resemble directory listings rather than encyclopedia entries. This raises questions about whether the current notability guidelines effectively ensure that only genuinely notable schools are included. I suggest we discuss potential improvements or clarifications to these guidelines to maintain the quality and relevance of Wikipedia's content. 1keyhole (talk) 16:21, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

The guideline is that they need to meet GNG or NCORP. See WP:NSCHOOLS. Some editors are of the view that all secondary schools and above are notable, and will express that view at AfD, resulting in articles being kept. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:24, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES used to imply all secondary schools were kept, but that has since been changed, and editors that !vote without acknowledging the change to meet GNG or NCORP need to be reminded of that. Masem (t) 17:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

I could never understand why "or NCORP" needed to be specified. Surely any topic that meets it meets the general notability guideline anyway? It doesn't do any harm by being there, but it's just redundant. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

NCORP is slightly stronger in that it limits potentially promotional sources, which might exist for for-profit schools. — Masem (t) 14:13, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

That's precisely my point. If NCORP is stronger then there is no need to specify it. "Meets WP:GNG" is exactly the same as "meets WP:GNG or WP:NCORP or both". Of course for-profit schools are different, but they only account for a small proportion of child education world-wide. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

NCORP would not apply to public schools, only to for profit ones. Public schools have been GNG otherwise. — Masem (t) 20:51, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree. (I went a bit further than that below) North8000 (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

There's absolutely nothing we can do to compel editors to vote in accordance with relevant policies and guidelines. The only thing we can do is direct closers to close in accordance with them. Ravenswing 22:35, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

What we need is for those who close AfD discussions to take absolutely zero notice of any arguments ignoring the clear notability requirements. I agree with the initial post that there are far too many very poor quality directory listings and perma stubs about schools. AusLondonder (talk) 14:08, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, though unfortunately when the same editors who try to obstruct all efforts to tighten guidelines are also among the ones most active at DRV it gets a lot harder to enforce these standards. JoelleJay (talk) 00:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I try to go by the middle of the road community interpretation. First, NCORP can structurally taken in two ways. One is as conditions for using the SNG "way in". The other would be toughening the requirements for applying GNG / the GNG "way in". IMO the community applies a slightly more lenient interpretation for schools and not-for profit organizations than it does for for-profit businesses. And if it is about a single significant facility, additional consideration is given for NGEO possibilities. IMO the middle of the road interpretation for a school (that is not mostly a for-profit business) is to have some near-GNG sources (something more than just factoids and sports team results) and some real content resultant from them. I know that until we acknowledge how wp:notability actually works this does not fit neatly into any flowchart / binary decisions of the guidelines, and also would have a hard time tidying this up. But IMO until then this has been the middle-of-the-road of how the community treats it. Also, in deciding that there is no SNG "easy way in" the community decided that it does not want huge amounts of stubs created based on an SNG / merely for being a school. North8000 (talk) 15:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I find myself questioning the premise that we truly need to effectively ensure that only genuinely notable schools are included.

@1keyhole, I wonder if you've ever read the Wikipedia:Editing policy. It says, fairly early on, that As a rule, the more accepted knowledge [Wikipedia] contains, the better. Your comment makes me think that your POV is "the less knowledge, the better", which is the opposite of our long-standing policy.

With that in mind, I'd like you to explore the idea that our actual, policy-based goal is to "include" as much factual information about as many schools as we can. That needn't always look like a completely separate article for every school, but it also doesn't look like setting up a high bar, in which only "genuinely notable" schools are included and all the others – ordinary-notable schools? borderline-notable schools? merge-worthy non-notable ones? – are excluded.

Thinking about this in WP:WHYN terms, if "genuine notability" looks like a long article with lots of sources, you've already made a mistake. The median article has four refs in it. NB: "four refs", not "four WP:INDY WP:SECONDARY WP:SIRS refs with WP:SIGCOV". Just four of any kind, including non-independent primary sources and sources that don't mention the subject. The median article also has 13 sentences. If you're looking at a school article that's anywhere near that median, I suggest to you that it's not making Wikipedia "worse", and you should probably leave it alone. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:19, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

A long standing problem of how some editors envision WP and notability is a notable topic must have a standalone article, whereas WP:N says that's only a necessary condition for a standalone. School articles, particularly public, govt-backed ones, nearly always can be associated with a geographic place like a city, town, township, or county (or equivalent), and that makes an ideal place to discuss the school system at that level, including individual schools, if the standalone article can only be backed by a few sources and have maybe two or three Para of prose, using redirects as necessary. WP has no aversion to talking about schools, just that need for the sepearate article is often not needed ( and this applies to a lot more topic areas than just schools) — Masem (t) 00:14, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Were you trying to leave the most condescending possible reply? @1keyhole raises the valid and obvious point that we have a lot of contentless school stubs that likely don't meet our guidelines, and your response is to recommend they "follow editing policy" because they "seem" to believe "the less knowledge, the better", imply their goal isn't policy-based, bring up utterly irrelevant statistics about the abysmal median sourcing on pages in general, and then suggest they just leave crappy stubs alone if they have any kind of sourcing at all. JoelleJay (talk) 00:26, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I think this misunderstands 1keyhole point, at no point do they discuss removing information. This is about when a stand alone article should exist, information about the school could still be included in other articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:27, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I think if you looked at AFDstats (voted to delete 92% of the time; articles actually deleted only 34% of the time, which is well below average) and their contribs, e.g., their comments in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/McAdam High School or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Simon Kenton High School or Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jewel and Esk College, you might have a different perception. It sounds like they're looking for a subjective sense of importance ("Why is this particular school notable?", newsworthy events don't "augment the significance of these institutions", wanting editors to explain why schools "merit" articles). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:49, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. Honestly it has gotten so much better at AFD since the RFC overturned WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES in 2017. It was ridiculous before then. Pre-2017 if a school was brought to AFD it was closed almost immediately as keep no matter how bad the sourcing was. There are still a lot of bad school articles as a leftover of the old days, but when they are brought to AFD they are either improved with more referencing or they are deleted. It's been a long time since I have personally seen a school pass an AFD without solid referencing being produced. My impression is schools aren't getting free passes anymore. Obviously I haven't looked at every deletion discussion involving schools. Best.4meter4 (talk) 02:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)