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Reliable/Reliability

A newish user (has been around about a month on this account), Hans Dunkelberg recently made two revisions to the line about "reliable" in the opening definition of notability (see here and here). I attempted to correct he first edit as the editor mentioned that their English isn't great but I couldn't determine what they were attempting to say so I reverted the edit. The second time around, they change "Reliable" to "Reliability" which I again reverted because the sentence that the list of words are supplementing doesn't use the word "reliability" but instead uses the word "reliable". Just now, the editor has again changed the sentence to say, "Reliable:". I'm not sure how to handle this. I don't edit war so I'm going to ask that others check out the edits. He's using lots of exclamation points but I can't tell if he's just excited or being facetious. Ultimately it will be settled but I've never seen this sort of rapid succession of changes to the guideline by different users. We need to keep an eye on what's going on and possibly have the page protected if this indeed is vandalism and continues. OlYellerTalktome 23:33, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

OlYeller21 has undone an attempt of me to improve the linguistic / argumentative quality of the paragraph of the general notability guideline with the catchword "Reliable", stating it seemed to him that I try to fix something that is not broken. I admit that the spot is not explicitly broken, but I insist that the first sentence of that paragraph is not really a good one. One stumbles over the first four words in the line. The sentence runs, at the moment:
My suggestion is, after OlYeller21 has rejected all my proposals regarding how one could reformulate the spot, to insert a colon after "Reliable" and to delete the word "means" thereafter. OlYeller21 claims that shouldn`t be done because also the other four paragraphs don`t have colons after the catchwords. I hold against this that there is altogether not a clear principle of how the paragraphs are structured, grammatically. Some run "'...' means...", others continue differently, but also with a grammatical caesura, while the third, with the catchword "Sources", continues without such a grammatical caesura. I agree that it would be pedantry to demand the other paragraphs that continue "'...' means..." to be changed, because they altogether appear harmonic.
The other definitions begin:
  • "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. (...)
  • "Sources", for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability. (...)
  • "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator. (...)
and
  • "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject is suitable for inclusion. (...)
I would like to retort OlYeller21`s question
"None of the rest of the definitions use a colon. Why should this one?"
with the question
"Why shouldn`t it?"
--Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 00:32, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Personally, I don't care which version is used but it should be uniform and decided upon by more than one person as WP:N is, in my opinion, one of the most if not the most important guideline in the entire project. As for whether or not we should spend time on these questions, I'll answer them both. Why should we do this: I have no idea. Why shouldn't we do this: it's solving a non-problem which is needlessly taken resources away from the rest of the project. There may be plenty but I don't see any benefit from discussing this change let alone making it. I'm certainly open to suggestions, though. OlYellerTalktome 00:43, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
The sentence
may appear flawless to somebody who has read it several times. When one reads it for the first time, one can think of "reliable means" (as of an adjective and a noun) and, as "means" can also be used as a noun in singular, also of "(a) means sources" (as if the word "sources" were a verb in third person). When then follows the word "need", the confusion is perfect, because this word can, again, as well be considered a verb as a noun. It does not help much, either, that there follow two complicated foreign words in "editorial integrity" and, soon after, a Wikilink. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 12:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
The fact that "reliable" is called out as a different emphasis in parallel with the other sentences around it makes it very hard to see how an average reader can taken "reliable means" as anything other than "noun-verb" rather than, how you think it may be being read "adjective-noun". --MASEM (t) 13:08, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, this detail is rather something that may only emerge when one is already confused by the whole following of the first four, five words of the sentence, subconsciously-subsequently. I do not see a very big problem, here. After all, such an important page should really be formulated well, and that not only for the average, but for as many readers as possible / reasonable. I think the whole melody of the sentence somehow lacks strength, cohesiveness. Also when one understands that "means" is meant as a verb — which, as You say, most readers will instantly do because also the preceding paragraph begins like that —, the ensuing phrase with the subject "sources" still comes in so inconspicuously that, as I fear, also the average reader will, in many cases, stumble over this spot. Therefore I tried to improve the thing. I would like to apologize if I should have caused confusion, by that. I still think one could improve the paragraph by the insertion of a colon and the deletion of the word "means" without corrupting the overall structure of the general notability guideline. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:34, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
I think the next step would be to propose an exact wording/formatting of the change that you would like to make. If you think the colon would help people to better understand the wording, I ask that you propose the change for all 5 words because I feel that defining each in a different way would be more confusing than the current situation. OlYellerTalktome 14:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

I would suggest this:

--Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 14:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

That sounds simple enough to me. We're not leaving anything out are we? Also, are you including the rest of the sentence ("Sources may encompass published works....")?OlYellerTalktome 14:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
O.k., all right. No, I do not want to delete anything, here. --Hans Dunkelberg (talk) 15:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
Cool. I support the change. Not sure how others feel but I don't anticipate any objections. OlYellerTalktome 15:19, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Subject Specific Guidelines

Please create a Wiki "Subject specific guidelines" article for video game articles. Add it to the "Notabilityguide" template. Thanks. ProResearcher (talk) 07:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

There is already one here, it's just that it hasn't been officially promoted away from the the Wikiproject space. SilverserenC 07:50, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
That really isn't a "notability guideline". There is one at WP:Notability (video games), but it has yet to achieve consensus. There are some reasons of which I feel people don't understand fully, but that's how it stands right now.陣内Jinnai 18:01, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
There might be enough reasons to carve out some exceptions and clarifications for video games. But for now, the general Notability guideline reigns supreme, until there is consensus otherwise. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Stubs about minor planets named after people

Now, shouldn't we delete all articles at Category:Asteroids named for people since they will never ever grow past stubs and are completely unlikely search terms? Anything relevant is on List of minor planets named after people. --damiens.rf 17:50, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Exemple article: "25966 Akhilmathew (provisional designation: 2001 FP28) is a main-belt minor planet. It was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research project in Socorro, New Mexico, on March 19, 2001. It is named after Akhil Mathew, an American high school student and finalist in the 2010 Intel Science Talent Search."". END OF ARTICLE. --damiens.rf 17:52, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

Redirect to the appropriate section of each list, yes, but delete, no. --MASEM (t) 18:03, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
I would agree... a merger with redirect seems more in order than an outright delete. The information belongs on Wikipedia, even if it does not merit its own stand alone article. Blueboar (talk) 18:38, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

A case of WP:ONEEVENT?

We have a substantial article on Anders Behring Breivik, the whacko who perpetrated the recent 2011 Norway attacks. From my reading of the relevant guidelines, I think we should merge these two articles (at the article on the attacks) per WP:ONEEVENT. But, given the guy's current notoriety (as opposed to his WP:Notability) I thought I would check here first to see if I was even in the right ball park. Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 11:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I think past history of ONEEVENT BLP articles shows that yes, unless there was more about this person before the event in notability, he should be talked about in the event article, not a separate one (but leaving a redirect is fine). --MASEM (t) 12:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
I suspect that's likely, but other events related to him personally for example his trial, may well justify a second article. After all James Brady has an article. i kan reed (talk) 15:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Brady became notable post-event for his stance on gun control. Ergo, ONEEVENT doesn't apply. On the other hand, the accused shooter, his trial and the like are all part off the larger attacks, and still ONEEVENT. --MASEM (t) 15:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Regardless of what might be technically permitted, I believe that one larger, unified article is what will serve our readers bests: full context and one-stop shopping. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:10, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Looking at WP:BLP1E, "If the event is highly significant, and the individual's role within it is a large one, a separate article is generally appropriate" seems to apply. The examples supplied also match. Also note that the ABB article is quite long and has ~130 sources. The length alone would make it implausible to merge into the event article. So I'd leave the articles separate for now. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:57, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
A number of the sources are used in both articles. We would not end up with 270 sources as a result of a merge. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:33, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
We don't keep or delete articles strictly on guidelines such as WP:ONEEVENT but rather the Wikipedia community consensus. In the past articles for one-eventish people such as Jared Lee Loughner, Sara Jane Moore, and Timothy McVeigh have been created and so far have survived their ONEEVENT cause for attention. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:27, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
It is not that simple because WP:BLP1E is a policy and not a guideline, unlike WP:ONEVENT. We should be respecting that policy every time and not just when we decide to.Griswaldo (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
Policies are descriptive, not proscriptive. If significant number of articles are being kept about people mostly notable for one event then we should consider altering the policy on them.   Will Beback  talk  22:59, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
I agree completely, BLP1E in my opinion is the most over cited and contentious of all the policies that we have. As written it would be the basis for the deletion of many actors, actresses, athletes, criminals, heroes, etc who are notable because of single roles or incidents. While I have no problem with it as a guideline, as practiced it has become problematic.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 04:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
OK... your comments have convinced me that I am not completely off base... and that the question of a merger should go to a larger (wikipedia wide) forum (like AfD) for broader input and consensus ... not sure if AfD is the correct forum (I know that deletion noms sometimes end up with merge determination, but in this case I would be starting off with a merger nom. Does AfD do that?) Blueboar (talk) 00:27, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
FYI, the article was merged and protected by User:ErrantX, which caused quite a scene. I was supportive of the merge then and would be again, but you will meet serious opposition to this is all I'm saying. There appear to be people here who are more interested in competing with the 24 hour news cycle than building a reference source. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 00:43, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Also note that there are three open threads on Breveik at the WP:BLPN right now. You might give them a look over too.Griswaldo (talk) 01:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami

Some additional eyes would be appreciated on this article as well. Appears to be completely non-notable but for a false claim they made to have been responsible for the attacks early on when the press had not yet reported on who the perp was. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

learning wikipedia

here is the group for ISS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Juanjuan2708 (talk • contribs) 06:12, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Primary source templates discussions

I'm disappointed, but not surprised, by the hair-splitting that resulted in a strange change to {{primary sources}}, which no longer asks for independent/third-party sources. I have asked that this recent change be reverted. Also, the original recommendation of that template has now been duplicated to the {{third-party}} template, another bewildering achievement of WP:BURO. I've asked that this one be deleted. Whatever tweaks in wording are needed on the original template can surely be done without this fork. FuFoFuEd (talk) 23:23, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Not really. There are 2 issues with the original text. It was being used to get people to not use primary sources and instead use third-party sources. Problem is, it also was used for secondary sources close to the subject and for people to use sources that are independent of the subject and reliable. Thus its trying to do a lot because sources close to the subject are not primary and sources removed from the subject are not always reliable for that subject. That requires complex wording or 2 templates.陣内Jinnai 23:27, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
The main discussion is at the template. Suggest we not scatter it. North8000 (talk) 23:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree: let's have those conversations elsewhere. Ideally, most of the participants will even know a bit about the subject matter, like the fact that WP:Secondary does not mean independent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Where is the the line drawn with one event?

If a dog is notable for only one event, does that really show zero notability automatically if he won the animal equivalent of the George Cross, received a bravery medal from the New Zealand Society for the Protection of Animals, a statue, a ceremony and speech by Governor-General Anand Satyanand, and the only dog outside of the United Kingdom to receive the PDSA Gold Medal? Where is the line drawn for people or animals that are only notable for one event? Joe Chill (talk) 14:53, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

You might want to ask for more opinions at WP:Notability/Noticeboard, but if someone or something is notable only for one event, it's usually best to talk about that as part of the bigger subject. So, for example, the recipients should be described in the article about the medal, rather than being split off into separate articles (unless they're notable for some other reason as well). The descriptions need not be limited to a single sentence; you could have a whole section on each, if the sources support it. The names of the dogs should redirect to the bigger article to make it easier for readers to find it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:11, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:NRVE contridicts all subject-specific guidelines. Suggest changing it.

We had this discussion on notability(people) but I'm thinking it belongs here too. Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(people)#Relationship_between_GNG_and_SNG The secondary guidelines would have no meaning whatsoever if WP:NRVE is left in its current state. They exist to show there doesn't need to be coverage to prove something is notable, that notability can be established by other means. This includes winning a Nobel prize, or various other reasons listed there. Not all notable people do interviews or get any significant coverage in the media. How does everyone feel about changing NRVE to mention the secondary guidelines? Dream Focus 12:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Verifiability has nothing to do with the 'significant coverage' discussed in GNG. If we can't verify information via reliable sources, how can we have an article? Any criterion mentioned in subject-specific guidelines is required to be verifiable via reliable sources. To contine the Nobel Prize example, we wouldn't have an article one someone simply because it stated they won a Nobel Prize, unless we could verify that it was actually true.--Michig (talk) 12:53, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
That said, the section as it stands is too geared to GNG rather than notability as a whole. I think it should be rewritten to state that it must be verifiable via reliable sources that the subjects meets the notability criteria, rather than covering the same ground as the GNG section.--Michig (talk) 12:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You can verify the information on their official website showing who won an award. You wouldn't need other sources telling you. Primary sources are fine if there is no possible doubt to their accuracy. Wikipedia:Notability (academics) list reasons why someone would be notable in academics. If someone is listed in every textbook about a subject because of their many discoveries, then they are a notable scientist, even if they never did detailed interviews, or were interesting enough to write a biography about. Scientific accomplishments make someone notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about them, not being talked about in the media everywhere like celebrities are. Many places to verify information, other than newspapers and magazines. Dream Focus 13:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
When the criteria smells like, though not necessarily is a opinion statement, such as "the academic has made a significant contribution to their field" (as opposed to winning the Nobel prize, which is a statement of fact), evidence is required per WP:OR. For example, if the person is cited in numerous textbooks, the academics page says that In this case it is necessary to explicitly demonstrate, by a substantial number of references to academic publications of researchers other than the person in question, that this contribution is indeed widely considered to be significant and is widely attributed to the person in question. In other words, for some SNG criteria which are anything but a statement of fact, sources must be provided as a requirement of WP:NOR. --MASEM (t) 13:15, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
That isn't original research. The guideline currently list "The person's academic work has made a significant impact in the area of higher education, affecting a substantial number of academic institutions." It also explains clearly "Criterion 4 may be satisfied, for example, if the person has authored several books that are widely used as textbooks (or as a basis for a course) at multiple institutions of higher education." Dream Focus 13:29, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I'm talking about Critieria 1, The person's research has made significant impact in their scholarly discipline, broadly construed, as demonstrated by independent reliable sources. You cannot create a stub article that says "Prof. Smith's work is significant and cited in many textbooks." as your statement for SNG notability, and not include any list of example of sources somewhere on the article or talk page, because that first statement is otherwise a potentially challengable statement. On the other other hand "Prof. Smith has written twenty college textbooks in his field." is a statement of fact and not original research, and thus can remain uncited as long as those books actually do exist.
Basically, the issue is that there are SNG criteria that are statements of fact - either it is or isn't met with no subjective middle point - or they are statements of general opinion. The former can be satisfied without mentioning a single source as long as its true; the latter type need to have some type of sourcing to assure that there is a basis for this opinion, as I would would take it by default that the concept of a person being notable is de facto a statement that will always be challenged. You could argue that if everyone in a specific field knows this person and is notable because of being highly cited (Criteria 1), there's no need to cite it, but always be aware: there are editors looking for any reason to take articles to AFD because of a unbacked OR-looking statement. That's why it is best practice that on the subjective SNG criteria that having identified references inserted somewhere will prevent an unnecessary trip to AFD. --MASEM (t) 13:48, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I am not sure I see a conflict here... I agree that winning the Nobel prize would make someone notable, but we do need to verify that they did in fact win the prize. Surely, if someone won the Nobel prize there will be reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject that can be used to establish this fact. So where is the contradiction? Blueboar (talk) 12:58, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
It's fine as it is; the question of the verification likely is based on the specific criteria from the SNG. Someone winning the Nobel prize is going to be a data point that is really really easy to satisfy by a simple google search, so even if you forget the sources, it likely won't be challenged. Someone who is claimed to have made a significant contribution to their field, on the other hand, will benefit with mention of the sources somewhere (Article, talk page) so that this can be confirmed and added in later, as otherwise it does appear to be an OR claim. --MASEM (t) 13:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that the section currently repeats several times the 'significant independent coverage' part of GNG. Would we really require 'significant' coverage of a Nobel Prize Winner simply to have an article stating who they were and the prize that they were awarded, or would we be satisfied with simple Verifiability? --Michig (talk) 13:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, Nobel Prize winners are a bad example (The winners of Nobel prizes are announced in most major newspapers around the world... those newspaper announcements constitute significant coverage). Can we come up with an example of someone who is (arguably) notable without significant coverage? Blueboar (talk) 13:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I think the example of a highly-cited academic being discussed above is a prime example. It's not a bad criteria in terms of notability, but its demonstration almost necessitates that the sources where they are cited be shown. --MASEM (t) 14:16, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I think you're missing the point - we need verifiability, which means sources, but verifiability does not require 'significant' coverage in those sources.--Michig (talk) 14:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I disagree with removing "significant coverage"... After all, it is verifiable that some minor Simpson's character appeared in episode 10 of season 6, but that simple fact does not (and should not) make the character notable enough for a stand alone article. We can (and should ) be somewhat flexible in how we define "significant" (a lot depends on the topic area), but I think we do need some level of "significant" coverage... And we need to remember that the quality of sources that discuss our subject can be just as "significant" as the quantity of sources that do so. One source that discusses a subject in depth is "significant coverage", a bunch of sources that do nothing but make passing reference to the subject is not. Blueboar (talk) 15:16, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
  • It currently reads: "received significant attention from independent sources to support a claim of notability." The word "significant" is often up for debate in many AFDs. Do we need that at all? It already says its notable if it meets the general notability guidelines OR "meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right." Seems to contradict itself. If you read Notability(People) you can see examples of various people considered to be notable in various fields, different requirements for them, that don't require significant attention or coverage at all. Dream Focus 14:57, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
I have reverted [2]... I just don't see the conflict between the GNG as the SNGs that you all do.
You focus on the "Additional criteria" section, but you seem to be forgetting that WP:Notability (People) starts off with some "Basic criteria" that have to be met. It reads: "A person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject"... which is clarified by: "If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability". Does this not say essentially the same thing as NRVE? I think it does. I think it is essentially a restatement of the GNG. If so, it isn't a case of having to meet the GNG or the SNGs... its a case of having to meet the SNGs and the GNG. Blueboar (talk) 20:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Nowhere does it say you have to meet the BASIC criteria. It mentions those basic criteria which anything can meet and pass the test, then it mentions the alternatives for things of that type. If you click on any of the side articles connected to people, such as Academics, you'll see it doesn't mention any such requirement at all either. Additional criteria says "People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards." "A person who fails to meet these additional criteria may still be notable under Wikipedia:Notability". See? It clearly states you can be notable by one standard or the other, not that you have to meet both. Dream Focus 20:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, yes, in the end, you do have to meet the BASIC criteria. A demonstrated failure to meet BASIC is the single most common reason why "conversely, meeting one or more does not guarantee that a subject should be included" is invoked. The guideline plainly indicates that a person who meets "Additional" but fails BASIC isn't notable in the section Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Failing_basic_criteria_but_meeting_additional_criteria, which is all about how to include people without giving them a stand-alone article (=the meaning of "notability").
Articles are supposed to be based primarily on third-party/independent sources, so that we don't run into problems with giving UNDUE weight to the subject's self-reported view. If so few sources exist, or if added all together they would only allow you to say, "Alice Expert was a researcher whose paper was cited ten thousand times"—and everything else is based on whatever Alice wants to tell you about herself—then you don't really have much of an encyclopedia article, do you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
It is ultimately desired that all articles develop into good encyclopedic articles that require a wealth of third-party and secondary sources to explain the concept beyond the basic facts. It takes time for many topics to achieve these. The purpose of SNGs are an allowance that in lieu of having GNG coverage, they are notable by meeting criteria that should assure that the article will grow to be a good encyclopedic article. It is a temporarily allowance, with "temporary" being a rather lengthy time (3-5 years) to allow such articles to develop and sources to be identified and incorporated into the article. Thus if you create an article on an SNG criteria, it will likely be kept for several years, but if you have no luck in expanding it further because sources simply do not exist for that, then merging or deletion will likely be brought up.
So importantly, a topic is notable by either meeting the GNG or one of the SNGs, upon its creation. Only after a long long period of no expansion do we start to question if the presumption of notability of the SNG is truly merited. --MASEM (t) 21:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
The problem with the text of NRVE as given (not as applied) is that it does not account for the SNG criteria that only require certain facts to be met, not the depth of coverage that the GNG requires. A person notable for winning the Nobel prize only needs to have verified evidence that they won that prize to be presumed notable, not the depth of coverage from the GNG. The way NRVE is written is that it covers both GNG and SNG notable topics, but as DF noted, presented as if the GNG is the only one that matters. --MASEM (t) 21:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
  • I propose "Special cases" be deleted. There is no way to determine what a "satisfying explanation" is, since different people will not agree on it no matter what. And it does contradict the other section, and also make the "Additional criteria" section, and all secondary guidelines, pointless. If you meet the GNG you are notable, and if not you must be destroyed? Ridiculous to have the rest of that there at all then. These pages get edited back and forth constantly, and no one notices every single change. My first years in Wikipedia people would laugh at anyone who mentioned the suggested guidelines, no one taking them seriously, consensus determined based on what everyone felt, not on those things. And at almost all AFD I've been in over the years, up until the last month or so, the additional criteria guidelines were fine, no one ever having a problem with just them being met. Consensus in the AFDs has long been that if they pass any of those guidelines, then its notable. Dream Focus 21:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
The SNG are not substitutes for GNG... they are additions to it. All articles must pass GNG... some article topics have additional (not alternative) criteria. Blueboar (talk) 23:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Wrong, we've been here before. Read the lead: A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not. A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. It is GNG or SNG, not GNG and SNG; we want to guide all SNG-meeting articles towards GNG compliance, but that is not a requirement from the start. --MASEM (t) 23:56, 12 August 2011 (UTC)
Blueboar gets it for me. There is no contradiction. A nobel prize would make someone notable. But then there would certainly be a way to verify that they received the nobel prize. Where's the problem? Shooterwalker (talk) 00:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
The GNG requires significant secondary coverage which is a highly subjective metric at AFD. While someone may win the Nobel prize, this will likely be sourced by a primary source (the Nobel web site, or a news report about the event). This is not secondary coverage, yet we consider that notable. That is because the SNGs have been selected (at least, in most cases) that meeting the SNG means there are likely sources to be found, or sources that will come about, to meet the GNG. (In the case of the Nobel winner, this is likely a result of the person's work already being documented by sources prior to the award, and further coverage after winning it) This is different from having known sources that provide verifiable evidence of notability. --MASEM (t) 00:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Just weighing in here to point out that I object to this alteration to the language. It has now been reverted and I would be strongly opposed to reinstating it. Changing the phrasing in those terms opens up a huge can of worms and should not be done lightly or without significant discussion. Basically it could create a situation where we keep thousands of articles on subjects that have no coverage whatsoever in reliable secondary sources, but there is one link to a web site that says person X was in a movie one time, for example, and therefore all other questions about notability are moot. I don't not think that is remotely the general consensus among Wikipedians as to how we handle notability issues, i.e. that a weak secondary guideline that says nothing about a need for sources can trump all of our other guidelines, and that it can be standard practice to argue that articles should be kept which have no third party reliable sources whatsoever. It might well not have been the intention when making the change, but certain editors would push exactly that reading of the wording and I don't think that's acceptable. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

That is the accepted standard. Again, here's the lead, which hasn't been touched in a long time: A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not. A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. It is GNG or SNG, has been this way for years. Otherwise, please feel free to start deleting the 10,000s of towns, villages, and athletes that only have one or two lines about them. --MASEM (t) 01:10, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
The wording is "presumed" which is important. Presumed does not mean "automatically is." For a town or a village, the existence of an article which can't be sourced well is probably not, as a rule, all that controversial. For a biographical article on a living person, for example, this will likely not be the case, nor will it likely be the case for an article on a fictional character that appeared in one episode of a cartoon. There is, and should remain, a tension between the GNG and the SNGs. It is not necessarily an either/or proposition precisely because of the "presumed" aspect of the wording here, which I assume is intentional and reflects the fact that we are talking about a guideline, not some set in stone rule like WP:NPOV or WP:BLP. It also happens to be a guideline about which there is significant disagreement among editors, as played out in AfDs every day.
In an AfD discussion, it is perfectly acceptable for one side to be arguing "keep per this secondary notability guideline" and another side to be arguing "delete because it fails the GNG" and for those competing claims to be balanced based on the arguments. It is true that the GNG does not invalidate the SNGs, but the inverse is also true, and the proposed change that was reverted seemed to me to go too far in the latter direction, as does your argument here. By adding in that language, it is essentially saying that, when talking about a subject that relates to one of our secondary guidelines that doesn't emphasize finding multiple reliable sources, notability arguments which talk about a lack of sources--for example arguments made based on the GNG--are not valid and should be ignored. That is far too firm of a wording for my taste, and I think it's actually valuable to have ambiguity here.
The current wording could perhaps be tweaked in some way, but removing discussions about a given subject that might fall under one of the SNGs from any consideration of sourcing is not something that has consensus in my view, and I think that's what the change would have done. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 01:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Ok, that I understand better.
I think what the problem is across several recent discussions is the purpose that SNGs are to serve, which, as I always took them, was to be conditions where if a topic met a specific criteria, there would be strong assurance that secondary sources do already exist or will soon be available. In other words, you may make an article based on satisfying an SNG, but you cannot rely on the SNG to maintain that presumption if no sources can be found. This points to the fact that the SNGs should already be written with strong criteria to make this a near assurance for an topic it matches. I will point out that this is probably contrary to some that think the SNGs are a one-time only checkbox that will assure that the topic will always be considered notable, but that's why the word "presumed" is there - its only as good as consensus agrees to.
As to this issue, if we added the purpose the SNGs are meant to serve to WP:N - that they are a temporarily allowance towards meeting the GNG without meeting it at the onset - then I think the language added still works. We just need to be clear what the ultimate goal of the SNGs are to be. --MASEM (t) 01:54, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The word presumed has always been wiki-linked to the article showing the legal definition of it at Rebuttable presumption. Assumed unless someone can come forward and prove otherwise, such as criminal cases where someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If they meet any of those guidelines they are presumed notable enough to have an article, unless someone can prove otherwise. That's why no consensus defaults to keep. Dream Focus 02:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    The "presumed" is there because you can't prove a negative, that no sources exist. But it still means that an article based on a weak claim of notability can be challenged in the future. It has always been the case that meeting the GNG or SNG is not a guarantee of having an article; only by well surpassing the minimum requirements of the GNG will assure that you will never be challenged at AFD. --MASEM (t) 03:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    "Article and list topics must be notable, or "worthy of notice"."  Full stop.  Topics can pass GNG and an SNG and not be "worthy of notice".  They may fail GNG and all the SNGs and still be "worthy of notice".  As far a proving a negative, right, but you still have to gather evidence and induce from the available evidence that no sources exist.  Surpassing the minimum requirements of GNG is not an assurance that a topic is "worthy of notice", see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/33550336.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Failure to meet GNG is not itself a reason to delete an article. It means that other criteria need to used to demonstrate the that topic merits a stand-alone article. patsw (talk) 01:36, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability regarding article creation or regarding article content

Notability is misused frequently to delete content from articles. My understanding is that Notability is used to decide if a topic gets an WP-article or not. If a topic gets an article because it is notable, then the use of Notability policy ends with that. Notability policy cannot be applied to article content and thus article content should not be deleted with the reason that it violates Notability. --POVbrigand (talk) 13:33, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

You are right. Of course the wp:notability criteria do not apply to content. I think that there are two common cases where it is brought up for content, the first of them legit:
  1. To say that something is too trivial to even be in even as content. Referring to RW notability rather than wp:notability. For example, in the article on the USA, for me to put in that my Uncle George is a citizen of the USA.
  2. The usual use of wiki-lawyering (including mis-paraphrasing policies) that is used to knock out the other person's content when there is a battle. I've seen people bluff people all of the time, pretending that wp:notability applies to content. North8000 (talk) 13:47, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that there be a change made to WP:N or are you just making a statement? The WP:NNC section of WP:N mentions this so if there's something you want to change, this would be the place to discuss it. Otherwise, it's unclear what you're trying to accomplish. If you're having an issue regarding this issue at an article, inviting others to the conversation might be useful. OlYellerTalktome 13:50, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
I completely missed that, sorry. My edits have been targeted by wiki-lawyering quite a lot recently and I just started reading up on the policies. Thanks for highlighting. --POVbrigand (talk) 14:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
No worries. Glad I could help. OlYellerTalktome 14:22, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

This mentioned in the nutshell: Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. patsw (talk) 01:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

"Notability" in the context of content has the terminology "prominence".  See [Wikipedia:Notability vs. prominence].  Unscintillating (talk) 02:41, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

I find that articles written by African contributors using African references are often speedily deleted under this "notability" clause. I recently created an Article on Nigeria's leading online social website (Nairaland.com) and a trigger happy administrator deleted it without, in my opinion, bothering to check the references I quoted. Wikipedia will struggle to grow its Africa generated user content if Administrators insist on solely relying on Western media as proof of notability. Nairaland.com is the 10th most visited website in Nigeria (a nation of 150m people). This can be verified on Alexa.com. Additionally Nairaland is the third most visited social website in Nigeria after Facebook and Twitter. I put up around four articles only to find that less than an hour after it had been deleted. If this is the way wikipedia intends to be run then good luck to it. Jimmy Wales will struggle to see Wikipedia grow its African generated content if this is the attitude of those who have been given Admin status.Akinsope (talk) 00:04, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

First, to be clear, WP:N has no requirement on Western sources, or English-based sources; we need to be sure they are verifyible. So it's not this policy that you should be looking at. Also, failing notability is NOT an acceptable reason to speedily-delete and I believe Bwilkens should not have deleted that as speedy. If he does not restore it, I recommend a deletion review to restore the article. --MASEM (t) 00:34, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
There's a cultural or American-centric attitude that comes up often in Afd's. There are several issues:
  • WP:Please don't bite the newcomers I think when non-American English-speaking contributors are making their first, second, or third, contribution, that we need to work with them to improve the article rather than robotically citing and enforcing the rule. It's a matter of welcome. Our obligation is to reduce the digital divide not add to it.
  • Our sources do not have to be online sources. The guideline here is WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Experienced editors know this and when one of them misstates it in order to push for deletion, it is dishonorable.
  • Expectations of the amount of secondary-source coverage in the American media culture can't be imposed on the rest of the world. For example, to verify and cite a South African retailer as being "the largest", the original contributor used a self-published source. Of course this was challenged. I found a cite from a report issued by the government describing this as "one of the largest", this in turn was challenged on being direct enough. I answered "What sort of secondary source coverage do you expect large retailers in South Africa to have"? WP:WORLDVIEW covers this point in some depth. patsw (talk) 15:10, 27 August 2011 (UTC)

You don't need the sources to be third party to be reliable. Suggest we remove that bit.

Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article.

That isn't always the case. The primary sources are sometimes all you need. The official website for the Nobel Prize or other notable awards for example. Another is for scientists or universities that publish information about new species they discovered. Not every new species is interesting enough for the media to cover, of course. But obviously an encyclopedia should cover them all to be complete.

Suggest it be changed to:

Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article.

Note that on Wikipedia:Verifiability it doesn't mention third party at all.

It says:

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.

It doesn't have to be third party to be reliable. Dream Focus 03:32, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Third party sources are mentioned plenty of times in WP:V, and it has been a long standing aspect that you cannot have an article only based on first-party sources. I have no idea why the specific line was removed, but the intent on third-party sources is still there. --MASEM (t) 03:47, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
(ec)Also reflected in WP:RS.
And to connect to the above topic: the SNGs are meant to give facts that may be sourced to a primary/first-party work, but that have reasonably good assurance that third-party and secondary sources can be found. WP:V never meant that an article that lacked immediately third-party sources should be deleted, but that we always should strive to add them; again, why meeting an SNG should not be the end of any attempt to further justify the notability of an article. --MASEM (t) 03:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with Dream Focus's idea here... You absolutely need a third party to establish notability. After all, I could create the "Blueboar Prize" and hype it on an "official website"... does not make the Prize or the people I award it to notable. However, if I create the Blueboar Prize, and someone else (someone completely independent of me or the people I award the prize to... ie a third party) comments on the award... then the "Blueboar Prize" might well be considered notable. You need that third party to establish that someone beyond the award granter and the award receiver actually cares about the award. Blueboar (talk) 03:51, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
After an award is deemed notable, then you can use its website to list who has it. Obviously making up your own award wouldn't matter. Dream Focus 03:58, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
And how do we know an award is notable? By the fact that it is discussed by independent third parties. Blueboar (talk) 12:35, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
When it comes to the criteria of SNGs, it is consensus opinion that says "winning this award is likely a strong sign that numerous secondary sources exist to build out an encyclopedic article", not the fact that the award itself is notable. And not all notable awards necessary generate the type of buzz that would assure that future winners would have sufficient sourcing for a good article. --MASEM (t) 13:13, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Notability has nothing to do with whether there are verifiable, truthful, good reasons why something should be notable and everything to do with whether other people who have no connection to the subject actually take note and that they do it in reliable sources. Accepting self-published sources as sufficient to establish notability turns that very notion on its head and will turn Wikipedia into yet another free hosting service for spam. We should not do this. Msnicki (talk) 04:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • First of all this is an extremist proposal completely out of whack with the principles of the project. The proposal is also based on a misreading of what's going on at WP:V where there were some changes that removed the words "third party" but kept the basic idea. If you go to Wikipedia:Verifiability#Notability you read "Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline says that the subject's notability is established by the publication of independent, reliable sources, regardless of whether the names of any such sources have yet been typed into the article. If such sources can not be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." Obviously independent is the key word there for our purposes and is essentially the same thing as saying "third party." This section seems to be a bit unstable as the change was made recently, with the previous version saying "If no reliable secondary source can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it," and with that version itself being a recent change (the version prior to that is the "third party" language we use here). Either way the principle is the same, namely that we need some sort of "independent" or "third party" or "secondary"--something other than a self-published web item or the like--sources. --Bigtimepeace | talk | contribs 06:17, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    • (small nit: it is rare but possible for a third-party source to not be independent if they have some financial or other interest in a topic. Key example is that most television networks are third-party but dependent sources relative to the television shows they pay for and broadcast but otherwise uninvolved in their creation. Doesn't change your argument but can be slightly important for notability) --MASEM (t) 11:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I would call the TV network a "second party" for the TV shows it airs but did not produce. But I think you hit the nail on the head here when you talk about dependence... for something to be notable there must exist reliable independent sources that discuss it. Independence from the subject is in many ways just as (and, arguably, more) important than the primary/secondary or the first/second/third party nature of the source. Blueboar (talk) 13:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
That's silly. Self-published material may allow us to make reliable statements about what was published, but it will never allow us to write a neutral article on a topic. Imagine every article about a politician just summarized press releases from their website. You would think every politician saved their country, and everyone stands for values like "freedom" and "putting things back on track". Or imagine you could take any website and create a corresponding article for it, soured to the website. "Jenny's MySpace page is a website hosted on MySpace. Her best friend is listed as Julie. On October 8th, 2011, Jenny was sad that she didn't get to meet Justin Bieber, but she still thinks he's 'supercute'." All reliable information... but only if you ignore that primary sources are solely meant to be used to fill in the gaps, not to form the foundations of an article. For the foundations of an article, you still need third-party sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:01, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Obviously it doesn't apply to everything, just what is agreed upon in the additional criteria notability guidelines. They are confirmed notable by meeting the requirements consensus has formed, be it making a significant scientific discovery, winning a notable award, participating in a major sporting event, having the lead role in a notable series, or whatever. The information to confirm they have done this can come from primary sources if not in doubt. Currently articles for albums exist because they were gold records, even with nowhere at all reviewing them. Meeting the listed requirements makes something notable enough for an article, even if there is no third party source. Otherwise the notability guidelines other than the general one, become meaningless. Dream Focus 15:45, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Anyone who has participated in a major sporting event, made a "significant" (whatever that means) scientific discovery, or won a notable award would probably be covered by independent sources. Masem is right: the specific notability guidelines explain situations where we're likely to find independent sources. And a poorly defined specific notability guideline will lead to low quality articles with horrible sourcing, which is why we don't see too many poorly defined specific notability guidelines anymore. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
(well, there's NSPORT, but...) --MASEM (t) 16:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I personally would like to see the phrase Third Party expunged from our guidelines. As said above, notability is about having reliable sources (most desirable--secondary sources) that are Independent of the subject of the article. The terms Primary, Secondary, and Teritary when used with sources is abundantly clear and useful when dealing with notability and content issues. However, Third Party is only used as a Euphemism for Independent of the Subject. We don't talk about 1st party or second party sources and we shouldn't be using the phrase Third Party as well. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:52, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I definitely use it only as a short-hand myself. Third party = reliable, independent, secondary sources. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:57, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
No, third party has a well-defined meaning in terms of sourcing, and specifically relates to whom wrote the work relative to the topic itself; it is a separate "axis" from primary/secondary/tertiary and dependent/independent sources. The only constraint is that it impossible for a source to be an "independent first-party" source, as that's a contradictory term. There are dependent third party sources (again, the television network that broadcasts a show it has paid for, is the prime example).
Each axis relates to a specific facet of the sourcing:
First/second/third party describes the likelihood that the source will not misrepresent the facts due to the way they observe the facts. Third-party is always most desirable as it requires some research to understand the facts and present them, as opposed to what those involved and immediate eyewitnesses may recollect (considering unintentional bias)
Primary/secondary/tertiary describes to what degree the material is covered. We prefer secondary over other types because this provides more than just facts but anaylsis and conclusions that help place the topic in a larger context appropriate for an encyclopedia. Remember that primary sources can come from third-parties (eg recaps of television episodes) so these are still very separate axes.
Dependent/independent describe any possible connection or conflict of interest the source may have with the topic, and thus reflect on intentional bias towards the topic. Independent sources are going to have the most unbiased viewpoints and why they are preferred, but we can use dependent sources as long as its clear to establish their opinion of a topic than an unbiased view.
Understanding how all three axes interact and their influence on sources is very important. WP:V really only worries about the reliability and the third-party-ness of the source, WP:OR about the independence of the source, and WP:N on the secondary nature of the source. --MASEM (t) 16:08, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Any one can create artciels about themsleves and publish them. We need some wording to ensure that some bloke down the pub does not vanity press works saying what a sex god he is and then creating an articel (based on verfiable sources) titles Bob down the pub, sex god.Slatersteven (talk) 17:05, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • My experience is that secondary sources are routinely used to support articles for people whose notability arises by virtue of their status. A typical example is an Olympic athlete: someone who competes at the Olympic level but does not distinguish themselves and so attracts little coverage. We have thousands of articles like this and the sources are typically secondary in nature such as some official reporting of the games. Such articles are so routinely accepted that it would be improperly misleading to suggest otherwise in this guideline, which is supposed to be based upon what actually happens here, not what a handful of editors would like to happen. Warden (talk) 19:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Reporting of the results of an athletic competition is not secondary coverage. It is a third-party, primary source, acceptable for sourcing facts but not for notability. Unless the results are transformed beyond the facts, it remains a primary source, insufficient to meet the GNG, but could be used as evidence for an SNG. --MASEM (t) 20:24, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • No, official reportage of sporting event results is either primary or secondary. It would be primary, if it's the event reporting as it happens and secondary if it's an official summary of the overall event. Anyway, the fact remains that we have thousands of articles like Vladimir Shemetov which make this discussion a farce - quite devoid of any connection to what is happening on the ground. Trying deleting all those articles about Olympic athletes and professional sportsmen and then get back to us. Warden (talk) 20:30, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Secondary sourcing requires transformation of information, not summarizing. That would, at beast, make it a tertiary source - still fine for WP:V but not contributing to the GNG. Now, as for the thousands of articles on athlets we have, this is not saying that we need to delete them. Presently they fail the GNG, but clearly meet the NSPORT SNG criteria, and the forementioned primary/tertiary sources that describe their Olympic win would be sufficient to assume notability. The SNG is based on the fact that Olympic winners are likely going to be profiled by, at minimum, their home country, if not other international coverage, gaining secondary sources to guide the article towards a good encyclopedic article meeting the GNG. --MASEM (t) 20:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • As a rule, anything called a "report" is not a secondary source. A summary of facts is not transformative of the facts. It is true that Vladimir Shemetov and its source is devoid of secondary source material. It conflicts with WP:N. But WP:N does not say "delete", it just refers to whether tere should be a stand-alone article. The facts of the article Vladimir Shemetov would do well to be merged. I have little doubt that in time, the article will either be merged or expanded. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Blueboar and others. I also would like to note that Colonel Warden is currently edit warring to keep the proposed change without any consensus as of now in the article. There is an active discussion here. Please allow it to conclude and please abide by whatever consensus it ends up having.Griswaldo (talk) 19:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose Removal would allow the usage of self-published material, of customized articles (where the subject pays someone to write and publish an article about them), of books from vanity presses, etc. It would defeat the purpose of having an entry barrier against people and companies who want to self-promote. It would also open wide the gates for every crackpot and for every crackpot theory. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:49, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose- removing this very important criterion would harm the encyclopedia. As Enric Naval points out, it would open the door to all sorts of vanity and self-promotion. Wikipedia has always defended itself against that kind of stuff, and should continue to do so. The requirement that things be covered by reliable, independent sources has always served us well by locking out spam, cruft, and other nonsense. I oppose any attempts to water it down. Reyk YO! 22:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose As explained by others, editors should not notice some source and decide that the topic is suitable for an article (that would change "the encyclopedia anyone can edit" to "the repository anyone can dump stuff into"). A third party satisfying WP:RS must have already noticed the subject and written in such a way as to indicate that the subject is notable. Johnuniq (talk) 23:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose per common sense. Even though removing this phrase wouldn't change the verifiability policy, we still shouldn't even entertain changes which lower the bar for notability. If third party sources were not required for notability, then I could go create a website on anything, and then create a wiki article on the same topic, cite my own website, and call it notable. Bad idea™. —SW— verbalize 20:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Time to centralize discussion

Hold on... it seems that there is a debate here that is pointing to what the WP:Verifiability policy says about notability.... and a debate there that is pointing to what this guideline says. Both pages are being improperly edited in order to skew the debate at the other page. Please do not edit one policy or guideline in order to win a debate at some other policy or guideline page. Instead, create a centralized discussion so editors on both pages can reach a consensus as to what should be said on both pages. Given this confusion... I am going to revert both pages back to their last stable versions while we centralize the discussion and reach such a consensus... And I think that this is the appropriate venue for that. Once we figure out what this guideline should say, then we can go back and make any edits to that page that are needed. Blueboar (talk) 20:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Assume good faith! First off, different people are editing these articles. The debates for each page should be on that article's talk page, not mixed together. Dream Focus 20:29, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
OK... it may not be deliberate, but there is still a common problem... The problem is that both discussions are centered on similar issues and both discussions are pointing to the exact language that is being used on the other page... we need some stability while we figure this out. I have asked that both pages be protected while we centralize and discuss. Blueboar (talk) 20:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Begin Centralized Discussion HERE:

We seem to have a debate at both WT:V and here over terminology. the issue is whether Notability requires the existence of "Secondary" sources, "Third-Party" sources, "Independent" sources... or some combination of the three (or a combination of two of the three). Since the underlining issue relates directly to Notability, and only marginally to Verifiability, I think we should hold a centralized discussion here. This may require some repetition of what has already been stated above, and if so I apologize for the repetition.

Personally, I think we need some combination of all three, but the most important to my mind is independence. We need sources that are in no way connected to the topic to show that someone other than those connected with the topic have taken note of it. Blueboar (talk) 21:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Its very simple: the GNG requires independent secondary sources; the SNGs, to show notability via the respective criteria, need reliable sources, ideally third-party, the bare minimum that WP:V requires. Note that "requires" here means such source exists, but may not be stated in the article, but editors should be prepared to add them if the facts are challenged. --MASEM (t) 21:27, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Why do topics that fall under SNGs not require independent sources, and why do they instead require third-party sources? Or do you see these terms as being the same? Blueboar (talk) 21:42, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
They're different terms, and the reason is that the SNGs are stating a specific criteria to be shown to be true - eg, it can be verified. Such as a person winning a Nobel prize, a band having a certified gold record, etc. Again, I stress that the SNGs job is to be criteria that have reasonably strong assurance that secondary sources can be found with time and effort; they only need to be shown to have met that criteria at the onset. --MASEM (t) 21:48, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
I understand (and essentially agree with) the idea behind the assumption that sources exist for topics that pass the SNGs... I am asking about the type of sources we assume exist. You say that the topics that fall under the SNGs don't need independent sources (while other topics do). OK... Why? You say that SNG topics need third-party sources (while other topics don't). OK... Why?
SNG-meeting articles simply need verification that the criteria is met (at their onset). Per WP:V, this is allowable by dependent and/or first-party sources. That's it.
GNG-meeting articles need articles that are independent of the topic (and by necessary, this immediately discludes first-party sources, they can never be independent), and those that provide a transformation of the facts into higher meaning for the purposes of an encyclopedia, ergo why we need secondary ones as well. --MASEM (t) 22:02, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • What we assume are sources good enough to show notability, which is not something that can be easily defined, as the 30,000 AfD debates a year demonstrate. "independent" and "third party" are I think often treated as synonyms here--they both mean not deriving from the subject themselves, which would seem obvious for a criterion that other people must have noticed it. It has been suggested that independent also means independent from each other, and this could sometimes apply--if 2 newspapers have copied an AP story, that doesn't make it two separate stories, but on the other hand it does mean that 3 people, the reporter and the 2 editors, thought it worthy of putting in a newspaper. In a sense, sometimes a primary source isn't independent either, if it means the work being discussed, but if the primary source is a court record that established the elements of notability, then I think it would count. There's so much confusion about primary and secondary sources (as the archives of the RS noticeboard demonstrate) that this term should probably be not used here. The usual reason we have SNGs is to avoid discussing the specific requirements of the GNG is because doing so would be inordinately difficult and generally unnecessary for that subject. The meaning of "presumed" is that it stands unless one can actually show that the presumption is false, by extensive searching of all reasonably possible online and offline sources thoroughly enough that one can say with confidence, that if there were any, I would surely have found it. This is generally quite difficult, and requires knowledge of the appropriate specialized sources for that area, and the ability to get to all of them. There would only be certain limited fields where I would even attempt to do this {not including the field for this subject). Except when we suspect a hoax, normally nobody here attempts it. We are trying only to have a reasonably accurate encyclopedia , not an authoritative one, and that kind of research would only be appropriate if we were trying for true authoritativeness. Recall the rule , Verifiability, not Truth. inclusion in Wikipedia does not aim to prove true notability in any sense outside Wikipedia, and notability in Wikipedia only has the meaning of being recognized enough to justify an article here. DGG ( talk ) 22:09, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Notability serves the purpose of supporting the pillar of not being an indiscriminate collection of information. I would argue that of the 7 billion people living in the world, we certainly could including more than 25% of them within the bounds here simply based on verifiability - we can prove a person exists, where they live, all that basic detail. But that would not make WP effective. Instead, notability helps to maintain a discriminate collection of information that has been noted to more depth than just the basic facts, which drastically cuts down the numbers for inclusion. This is shown by either demonstration that these sources really exist (the GNG) or that the topic has met a certain milestone that we are reasonably certain these sources exist (the SNGs). --MASEM (t) 22:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)


(edit conflict) We're sort of getting a little scrambled here, but that is inevitable. First, Blueboar, you made a pretty broad generalization ("topics that fall under SNGs not require independent sources, and why do they instead require third-party sources") which has sort of become the basis for the conversation.....could you clarify? Second, lets not mix/scramble the sourcing criteria for the article topic with the criteria (sourcing or otherwise) that supports meeting other non-sourcing-related sng criteria. Finally, we must realize that we are building on a slight vaguery when we talk about the sum total of the interaction between wp:notability and the SNG's. Structurally wp:notability says that meeting either is sufficient, but there is also a prevalent school of thought (often enforced) that the article must meet wp:notability provisions (ignoring the the "meet the SNG and you're in" clause), irrespective of SNG's, I.E. that the SNG's are merely interpreting wp:notability. North8000 (talk) 22:16, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The way to clarify the last point is that meeting the SNG is a reasonable assurance the GNG can be met in the future by existing or new sources that just aren't immediately at hand to include. If time passes and no additional sources emerge, then the assumption made by the SNG is likely wrong, but proper selection of SNG criteria should minimumize false positives. --MASEM (t) 22:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The idea that we can or should have sources which are "are in no way connected to the topic" is a logical absurdity. The more authoritative and reliable the source, the more likely it is that the author has a strong interest in it; both professionally, intellectually and economically. What we require of sources is not that they are independent but that there is sufficient oversight by means of peer review, fact-checking, publisher editorial staff and the like. Warden (talk) 22:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
    • "No way connected to the topic" is not the right definition of "independent". It's better to consider that independent is an otherwise a non-dependent source, with a dependent source being one that has a direct benefit (whether professional, personal, financial, or the like) to the topic. A movie critic has a strong interest in a film but has no personal gain from discussing it, making them an appropriate independent source. On the other hand, the studio, the actors and production team involved, the investors, and the like all have interest, so they would all be dependent sources. Note that these don't make these bad sources, just ones that we cannot use for notability, as otherwise a topic backed only by dependent sources begs the question of NPOV and COI. --MASEM (t) 22:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes... this is what I meant. Blueboar (talk) 01:07, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • The concept is still logically flawed. A professional movie critic will, by definition, get paid for writing review and so has a financial interest in the matter. Their ability to write previews and get exclusive interviews depends upon access which is controlled by the producers. The publications of professional reviewers often carry advertising for the product in question. If we want financial independence then we should prefer amateur, self-published sources because they will be free of such pressures, right? Warden (talk) 07:00, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • If you were right, we wouldn't be able to find a single negative movie review. By the way, the point of WP:N is not that every source has to be independent of the subject, but that we can find enough independent sources that have deemed the topic worth reporting. If all the coverage is official advertisment, then the topic is likely not notable enough.Folken de Fanel (talk) 09:49, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • As Folken stated, we consider the connection at a very high and direct level; the direct benefit to a movie reviewer for reviewing a specific movie is negligible - there may be some deeper connections, but a good reliable reviewer is not going to let those benefits taint his opinion of the work. Basically, the dependent/independent axis is simply to assure that we are not getting any obvious biasing from the source; otherwise, we would only be able to use sources from completely disinterested reporting, which would make for a terrible encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 13:29, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

This whole discussion is based on some basic misunderstandings, including:

  • WP:Verifiability#Notability specified "third-party sources" for years—until last week. The changes are being discussed on the talk page.
  • A notable topic is defined (read the nutshell) as "notable topics—those that have gained sufficiently significant attention by the world at large and over a period of time". Notice by, say, a company's own sales department is not evidence of "significant attention by the world at large". It may be verifiable—you could show that someone said something—but it is not notable, because if the only people who have ever published anything about the topic are the people selling it, then the world at large ignored the topic.
  • DreamFocus, I would really appreciate it if you'd read WP:Party and person. A third-party source is not the same thing as a third-person source. Third person is purely a matter of grammar. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Once again, I am not suggesting that any primary source is fine for any reason. I am stating that if conditions are met in the Additional Criteria Guidelines, then it is acceptable in those specific conditions. Dream Focus 07:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Once again, I'm hoping that you will someday learn enough about this subject that you will discover that a closely affiliated source can write a secondary source. These things are (1) all different categories and (2) not sufficient for demonstrating notability:
      • first-party primary sources,
      • third-party primary sources, and
      • first-party secondary sources.
        It is not enough to ask for a secondary source: the source must be both secondary and third-party (≈independent). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:54, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
        • That's not true; those restriction on sources only apply if you are trying to determine if the topic meets the GNG. If a topic meets an SNG criteria, we just need to make sure WP:V is met regarding the validity of the claim , at the time of the article's creation. In time, we expect that meeting the SNG will result in secondary sources to be found. In other words, akin to how neither WP:V or WP:N explicitly require sources to be identified in the sources, this allowance on the SNG is akin to that, but based on the assumption secondary sources can be identified. If that's challenged over time, and sources don't materialize, then we'll have to reconsider that, but not at the one set. --MASEM (t) 03:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
          • I thought it obvious that WhatamIdoing implied “if you are trying to determine if the topic meets the GNG”. If you want to talk details of meeting an SNG, go to the SNG talk page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
            • Given WhatamIdoing's previous comments, I read that as , in his opinion, applying to all notability criteria. And the reason to bring up SNGs is to make sure there's consistent handling between WP:N, WP:GNG, and the SNGs. --MASEM (t) 04:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
              • That would be "her" opinion, but, yes, I believe that ultimately, all SNG topics will have to meet the GNG. Some of the SNGs have a temporary "shortcut" ("We know from experience that if you win the Nobel Prize, there will eventually be lots of third-party, secondary sources, so keep that article"), but the fact is that if GNG-complying sources aren't actually forthcoming in the next (usually) three to five years, then the article will eventually be deleted or merged away anyway. The vast majority of the SNGs actually say this, in either introductory remarks or in a section like the one seen at Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)#Caveats. Others, like CORP, set a slightly higher bar than the GNG from the outset. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
                • My mistake on "her", I apologize.
                • But I do believe it is important that we distinguish between the GNG and the eventual goal of SNGs; and the initial onset of an SNG criteria application. The former requiring secondary coverage, the latter requiring only verified information. --MASEM (t) 15:06, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
                  • No, some of the latter require only verified information in the short-term. I'm not aware of any that actually say that third-party secondary sources will never need to be provided. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
                    • (ec)I'm agreeing with you, just not clear in the language. An article who's notability is based on meeting an SNG is given the temporary allowance of only having verified sources that show that, but needs to progress to include the secondary sources that, because of meeting the SNG, are assumed to exist. As long as we understand this is a temporary allowance (with common sense applied when the notability via GNG is plainly obvious and just hasn't been worked on yet), we're good. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
SNG's can also explain to editors the expectations of the quantity and quality of secondary coverage in that domain. patsw (talk) 15:19, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
        • Here is a nice example of piece of first-person secondary-source material. --03:22, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
          • Another example is a meta-analysis that includes data from the author's original experimental works. "Change of growth rate in foo cells when exposed to bar" is a first-person primary source; "Meta-analysis of growth rates from thee studies, including one performed by me" is a first-person secondary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
            • Same with post-production interviews and commentaries for works of entertainment. But key is the dependency aspect, and why this would prevent me from going out to do my work, blog about the work, and then try to claim notability because there's a secondary source (my blog) on the work. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
There are a number of voices in debate here that are mostly correct but subtly different in perspective. I makes it difficult to work out exactly what the problem is. Today I find little from most to disagree with. I don't uderstand the excitment over the wording about WP:N at WP:V. If WP:N is rooted in policy, it is WP:NOR and WP:DEL. Notability is not about verifiabilty, nor vice versa. For content, see Wikipedia:Core content policies.
The seems to be some confusing conflation of notability-demonstrating sources and reliability. The two are barely connected. Notability-demonstrating sources (e.g. independant secondary sources per the GNG) are sources that show that others have already covered the subject in question. They are required to justify a standalone article, regardless of whatever content. They are not asked to be particularly reliable (that a subject was discussed at large does not mean that the discussions included accurate facts). It would be better if we stated that notability-demonstrating sources should be "reputable". Of course, they have to be somewhat reliable, but when it comes to fine qustions about the content, it is likely that some other source answers more directly.
Reliable sources are required as the foundation of the actual content. Notability is not concerned with the content of articles.
I strongly recommend reading Wikipedia:Party and person to help clear up common misunderstandings about some common terms. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 11:20, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
What seems to be the issue is at WP:V, the statement "If no third-party sources can be found for a topic, WP should not have an article on it." Now I never remember that being tied to notability, but the last 6 months of WP:V seemed to have it there, so maybe I was just mistaken. But the point of that statement is not a notability factor. It is about verification. A third-party source, by definition, is going to have had to do some research and fact-checking to make a statement about a topic, the degree to which that is done based on how well of a reliable source they are. Articles need to be built on that to meet WP:V, to assure that its not a person directly involved (first party) or an biased eyewitness (second party) misstating the facts without research (but again, not saying that first or second-party sources can't be used alongside third-party ones. Core principle. Why that statement was removed, I can't follow on the talk page, but I do agree that tying it with the guideline notability is not right, because it has nothing to do with notability. Notability is about the depth of coverage that exists or likely to exist for a topic to make it a good article, on the presumption that this coverage already meets WP:V. --MASEM (t) 13:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
Um, that essay that Smokey_joe just cited, Wikipedia:Party and person, says that third-party sources can also be primary sources.  http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/third_party has some definitions.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
And? I completely agree that there are third-party primary sources (recaps of television episodes to start); they meet WP:V because some other source had reviewed the material for verification as opposed to a first-party primary one. They fail to work for WP:N because they do not transform the information in a manner appropriate for an encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 04:27, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
My concern here is that I am seeing multiple meanings being assigned...  I would say that the recap of a television episode is the very definition of a secondary source—the television episode is the primary source, and the recap is the secondary source.  The statement above says that "A third-party source, by definition, is going to have had to do some research and fact-checking to make a statement about a topic", but the transcription by a policeman of a bystander at an accident scene will be a primary third-party source with no fact checking and no research.  Along this same line of concern, that being that there is a cloud of uncertainty about the term third-party sources, the essay Wikipedia:Third-party sources refers to tagging articles with {{primary}}, which makes no sense to me if we stipulate that third-party sources can be primary sources.  Template:Primary sources follows the same line of illogic suggesting that a primary source won't be a third-party source.  Unscintillating (talk) 05:26, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Not quite sure what a “recap” is, but it is unlikely to be transformative, meaning that the material remains “primary source material”. Mere repetition does not change the nature of the information. However, the fact that is was recapped might be considered as other evidence of notability. But was the reason for the recap to just fill program time?
A third party primary source would include the video footage from the security camera across the street. Reliable, yes. Independent, yes. Demonstrates notability, no. There is absolutely no requirement per se that a third party source has been reviewed in any way. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:09, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
A recap here is a summary of the plot of an episode, and yes, rarely is a recap on its own transformative. However, many sources that provide recaps also provide commentary and review at the same time (see, for example, most good AV Club reviews), thus the overall source is a secondary source even though it also contains primary information.
And as for the example of the camera, it is a third-party with "review" because it is actually recording the scene without bias. It would be like the police officer or court secretary writing down exactly what was said. They don't have to make any analysis on those items, simple be taking a point of view that is not someone directly involved or an eyewitness, both whom may have altered opinions of the events at hand due to their involvement with it. The less direct involvement, the less likely that there will be any immediately bias in the reporting. --MASEM (t) 06:40, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Masem, a camera is a third-party with "review" because it is recording the scene without bias? I cannot guess your intended meaning, and wat is the purpose of usage of "review". Do you not agree that a camera's recording, or a secretary's transcript constitute thrid party primary sources? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:02, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Simple answer: yes. More convoluted: someone has to read and double check what the camera recorder, or what the court reporter put on paper; the camera and court reported "themselves" are second party sources (eyewitnesses but not involved), the reviewer of those the third party. All primary since there is no interpretation of the facts. --MASEM (t) 23:22, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes... the statement at WP:V is about verifiability, not notability. The original intent of that sentence at WP:V was to say: If no verifiable information can be found for a topic, WP should not have an article on it. This is similar to, but not the same as the concept of notability. Obviously, whatever we say to substantiate notability must be verifiable ... but Notability requires more than just verifiable information. Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
It seems to bear repeating that the "WP_notability" of a topic exists independently of both the existence of an article on Wikipedia and the content of such an article.  Specifically, content includes statements of notability and citations.  WP_verifiability, on the other hand, can use primary sources, and has a strong standard, WP:BURDEN, for having citations.  Something missing at both V and N is WP_identifiability, or the verifiability of the title or topic of the article.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:19, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

How much of this is the semantics of "third-party" vs. "independent", or calibrating what constitutes "independent" for our purposes? Is that all that is at issue here -- or is the scope of the proposed changes bigger than that? patsw (talk) 13:16, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

  • It's the usual dogs' dinner with no clear agenda, rules of debate or process but so it goes. Per WP:NOTLAW, what these policy discussions should start with is evidence of actual practise. Consider, for example, a mathematics article like Vogel plane. The idea that you're going get independent, third-party sources in such cases seems absurd as the only people that will write about such topics are those that have a particular interest in them. A word which better describes what we actually look for in our sources is "respectable"; that we look for sources which are plausible, having some show of authority and intellectual integrity. This is why we prefer professional writers to amateur - because they are more credible, even though they have a pecuniary interest. Warden (talk) 13:40, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
  • "Independent" does not disclude third-party sources from people that have an intellectual interest in a topic; if there's a complex mathematical theory that only is really covered in higher academic circles - but has been used in proofs and theories by other people directly unrelated to the academic that developed it, they are third-party, independent sources, and thus appropriate. As been stated above, the issue of dependence becomes the case when generally there is a more financial benefit involved. It requires some common sense to make that judgement at times, but I think most people can handle that the difference when we provide the right type of examples. --MASEM (t) 13:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
  • Masem is right. The challenge in a mathematics article like Vogel plane would be finding a source that isn't a third-party/independent source. People don't talk about a Vogel plane solely to increase their own fame and fortune, whereas sales people do talk about their products to increase their fortunes, and celebrities (and wannabes) talk about themselves to increase their fame. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I think a lot of it is understanding the differences between each set of terms, but more importantly why we apply those terms respective of specific policy and guideline. But then there's also relation to the above discussion section which basically boils down to the arguement, what is the relationship between the GNG and the SNG, as the demonstration for meeting either requires significant differences in the types of sourcing that is needed. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
Maybe what's needed is a list of pairs (topic, source) and discussion of their application to WP:N. Two contentious cases I can immediately recall are (author, publisher) to establish this was not a self-published author, and (retail chain, computer manufacturer) to establish that the retail chain was national and not local. The claim was that while these were reliable, verifiable, etc. these facts were tainted somehow by there being some alignment of financial interests. My rebuttal was that this is not a partnership where gains and losses are shared but ordinary business agreements. Exclusion of information based on the mere presence of a contract is an overly narrow interpretation of "independent". patsw (talk) 14:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
I think it may be worthwhile to look at Wikipedia:Party and person and work on improving it to make sure it is clear how the various axes function together (including the independent/dependent one), adding casebook examples, so that it clear beyond what WP:OR offers on how to evaluate a source and what its appropriateness is. Heck, even a table of when that source is appropriate would be great to have to make it clear (eg: first-party dependent primary sources are still fine to use, but they can't be the sole existing source for a topic). --MASEM (t) 15:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

It's a part of WP:V, not just WP:N

WP:V has always called for articles to be based on third-party sources. Not just make references to them, be vaguely influenced by them, or any lesser standard, but to be based on them. The text in WP:V is "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." It used to read "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" but someone went through WP:V and made it command based, avoiding "should". As to how long this notion has been there, it's been there for a long time:

That language has been in sections completely unrelated to notability. Preventing articles based on dependent and primary sources has been part of the intent of WP:V for six years, and Blueboar's statement about "intent" above is, quite simply, wrong. WP:N was written only to explain it and elaborate upon WP:V, not to add additional restrictions. Articles based on primary sources and sources related to the material (even if secondary sources) violate fundamental Wikipedia policies, not guidelines.—Kww(talk) 20:14, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
To date, that statement still exists as long-standing policy, but it's been moved and linked to notability for the first time as of only a few months ago. [3] No one has been able to articulate why we should overturn years of good policy and practice, aside from noting that we have many badly sourced articles on planetoids and athletes that are probably verifiable in third party sources anyway. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:12, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
That link was just a move of the material.  Here is the link that added "Notability" and WP:Notability to WP:V.  The edit comment was "(rearranged a little (no content change))".  The date is 22Oct2010.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
A previous change was on 18Jan2010 with the edit comment "(some tightening of the writing; moving one paragraph to talk)" here.  This change, at least in my opinion, was a fairly large change in meaning.  There were two changes, one was to change "article topic" to "topic"; and the second change was to move the sentence so as to associate the sentence with the burden for article citations.  Thus (?) was born the idea that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for the content of an article, Wikipedia should not have such an article.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:40, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Well, technically, the requirement that one third-party source have been published is not quite the same as a requirement that the article be based on third-party sources. NOR requires that articles be based on secondary sources (a separate consideration), and you might infer such a requirement from DUE, but I don't believe that any written policy has ever said that articles must be "based on" third-party sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
WP:V used precisely that language for years, and WP:V is policy. We may disagree as to the impact of the statement, but there's no doubt that it actually made the statement.—Kww(talk) 00:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
No, WP:V has not used "precisely that language for years". For years, it did not say to "Base articles on" anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
You really should check facts before you type. In the July 31, 2009 version, it clearly states "Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". That's at least two years, and the current version is even stronger. Do you really want to argue about whether "should" in a policy page constitutes a requirement? Or maybe the difference between "based on" and "based upon"?—Kww(talk) 02:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability is the term of art for the process of determining if a topic gets a standalone article. Once you think is it more (or less) than that, you are proceeding down the wrong path. patsw (talk) 00:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

That’s right! Sources that demonstrate wikipedia-notability are sources that attest to general, non-specialised interest in the subject. General, non-specialised commentary is however not a good place to look for authoritative information.
The notability guidelines do not apply to article content. WP:N seems to say that over and over again. It’s only logical that notability-preferred sources are not content-preferred sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:05, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
While notability should not influence article content, the sources we want for notability (At least, for the GNG) are exactly the type that are necessary to build our best quality encyclopedic articles - they help to provide context and commentary beyond what primary sources can provide and what we as WP editors can't include. They aren't the only sources that we should use to build out an article, but without those sources, we're not always doing a good job as an encyclopedia. That's why WP:N should be considered as a rough indicator of the likelihood of building a topic on an article to a high quality encyclopedic article, and why its a guideline that generally favors inclusion when it is on the cusp, and why we have the SNGs to help identify specific topics that will likely have these sources. Thus, while WP:N is not a content guideline, it is a reasonably good assurance that we will have good content for those articles that meet it. --MASEM (t) 04:33, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, yes, yes, but no. WP:N is about whether there should be a stand alone article. While there is overlap between project pages, for content issues WP:N is not the intended guide. For content, there is nothing at WP:N that is not better explained than at Wikipedia:Attribution. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:53, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
I agree, just that to be clear, WP:N cannot apply to existing article content, only to when expected article content is not present nor a source for it has been identified (in very very loose terms). --MASEM (t) 23:00, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
Two competing "third party" essays

Here is where a "third party" essay was added to WP:V: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&diff=389380541&oldid=389379852

Here is a "minor edit" that replaced the more technical essay with an older one: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Verifiability&diff=396730541&oldid=396127746 Unscintillating (talk) 10:24, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Notification of discussion: Are articles about WMF Projects exempt from WP:N?

The discussion is at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Are articles about WMF Projects exempt from WP:N? PrimeHunter (talk) 02:28, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested change to avoid contradiction

WP:BLPCAT says:

Categories regarding religious beliefs or sexual orientation should not be used unless the subject has publicly self-identified with the belief or orientation in question, and the subject's beliefs or sexual orientation are relevant to their notable activities or public life, according to reliable published sources.

However, this says:

The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people).

That seems to be contradictory. Moreover, there's someone complaining about the contradiction at Talk:Luke_Evans_(actor). Therefore I suggest the following new text:

The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people, and some categories must be relevant to the subject's notable activities).

Ken Arromdee (talk) 21:31, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Notability never applies to categories at all. I don't see any contradiction here. --MASEM (t) 21:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I don't see a contradiction, either, and I think the existing statement about an "exception" is unnecessary (because it's actually an issue of DUE, not WP:N being applied there). Have you encountered someone (at a real article) claiming that there is one? If we don't have actual, good-faith confusion, then we don't really need to make any changes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:15, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, I did. There's a person at Talk:Luke_Evans_(actor) who posted several times claiming that Wikipedians are violating their own notability rules by invoking BLPCAT in contradiction with WP:N:
To use "NOTABILITY" to censor an article directly contradicts Wikipedia's own stated policy: "The notability guidelines do not apply to article or list content (with the exception that some lists restrict inclusion to notable items or people). Content coverage within a given article or list is governed by the principle of due weight and other content policies." Yet, the censorship stands. And it's far from the first time that Wikipedia has ignored facts, and its own policies, when dealing with controversial material. Is it any wonder why Wikipedia is so universally scorned among serious people?
He may be a nut, but the contradiction he's noticed is real: WP:N says that it doesn't apply to article content, but WP:BLPCAT specifically says that using certain categories depends on the subject's notability. (And to Masem: you may say notability doesn't apply to categories, but BLPCAT disagrees with you.) Ken Arromdee (talk) 16:25, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
First off, notability can only apply to mainspace content: categories aren't mainspace; thus at this level there is no contradiction. At a different level, we're talking different aspects of notability. Notability, here on WP:N, is about when we consider a topic notable to get a page, but does not influence content otherwise. In the BLPCAT aspect, as I'm reading it, it says that only if that person's religious or sexual orientation is a notable facet of that person's bio, do we include them in that topic. In this case, we're not questioning the person's notability. The determination whether to include that person in one of these categories is not based on notability, but whether that person's classification is a notable facet of that person. So there's still no contradiction. --MASEM (t) 16:57, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
The category is being used on a mainspace article.
And yes, it's a different aspect of notability, but it's still an aspect of notability, and therefore contradicts the statement that the notability guidelines don't apply to content. If notability guidelines are used even to decide whether a person's classification is a notable aspect, they are still being used. A statement that they are not to be used is still a contradiction.
"Being used in one small thing which is used as a part of something else" is still being used. This needs to be fixed; contradictory rules are a bad thing. Even rules that might not quite be contradictory if you squint at them long and hard need to be fixed; "it just says 'a notable facet'; that's not notability" is one of those things which makes Wikipedia incomprehensible to everyone who doesn't treat it as a game of Nomic. Ken Arromdee (talk) 20:21, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
You're reading too much into what WP:N does. All it does is establish whether a topic has an article or not (therefore why it does not influence content of articles). The metric of meeting WP:N has zero influence on BLPCAT beyond that if WP:N hasn't been met, there's going to be no article and ergo no way to include it on a category. We make no judgments about what specific areas, activities , or whatnot a topic is notable for. The language in BLPCAT, I think, is what is confusing, because it links "notable" to here but its really referring to the more generic definition of the word, and not this specific metric. --MASEM (t) 20:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
But it links here with that word, and I think they do actually mean it: "must be relevant to why Wikipedia agreed to have an article about that person at all" is probably a fair reading of their intent.
I still don't think it's a contradiction: This page tells whether we should have an article at all about Luke Evans (or whomever). This page does not tell you how to categorize the page (or, for that matter, whether you are permitted to mention something in a list). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
Yea, particularly if one reads the section that spells this out, WP:NNC, which following somewhat indirectly from BLPCAT - if one is notable for being a particular religion, its not undue to include them in a category on that; but the inverse is also true, that it would be undue if that's not a notable aspect. --MASEM (t) 23:50, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

I went bold and edited WP:BLPCAT to remove "notable activities or" and left "public life" as the only criterion. If it's not part of "public life", what would it be doing in Wikipedia anyway? patsw (talk) 16:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I tweaked your bold change to restore the concept of "notability" to the item. "Public life" likely has different meanings to different people, so it's not obvious that all notability is related to "public life". For example, it could be said that a cloistered monk who is notable for his writings has no "public life," but is notable for his "private life." --Orlady (talk) 16:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I think its right that BLPCAT needs to keep the word "notability" as Orlady had readded, but the thing to fix this is point that work to the dictionary work, not the word "notability" we use on this page, which has a very different meaning. --MASEM (t) 17:00, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
I think your example of a cloistered monk is bizarre and not apropos to what we are discussing. By publishing a book, that authorship is part of his public life. What's the point being made? Since WP:BLP is the page being edited, I started discussion there. patsw (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Trade press vs. general press

The question has come up in an AfD discussion about a particular product: if the product has received no coverage at all in the general press, but has received the usual coverage in the relevant trade press, is it notable? Or does there have to be some kind of general-interest coverage to make it notable? I'm deliberately not linking to that discussion, because I'd like to get a general feeling about whether coverage outside of the trade press is required for notability. Thanks for any opinions. --MelanieN (talk) 16:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

IMO---Could go either way. Depending on the issue. If you are talking about a product, I'd tend to say that products are going to be covered by trade presses regardless of notability and coverage by the industry doesn't really contribute to notability. If you are talking about a person, then I'd be more likely to give credence to the trade press knowing who's notable within the industry. Take one of my areas of interest---Balloons. Ralph Dewey, Don Caldwell, Larry Moss are a few of the most notable balloon twisters out there. IMHO, they each deserve a Wikipedia article, but outside of balloon magazines/websites, you're probably going to be hard pressed to find articles on these people. At the same time, we might find articles about the "filbert" air pump or "twiste'em up balloon apron"---those are two popular items in the field, but neither would be worthy of an article on Wikipedia.---Balloonman Poppa Balloon 16:37, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't think trade vs. general press matters quite so much. What does matter is whether the coverage is reliable, independent and significant. There's all the difference in the world between routine, uncritical coverage of the subject's press releases and product announcements and an in-depth, 2000-word product review, especially one published as a formal review by the magazine (meaning there was editorial staff review), not just in an individual columnist's blog (where he's probably free to say nearly anything that pops into his head.) I'd want to know where on the spectrum are we. Msnicki (talk) 16:46, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
I think the biggest thing to be aware is that when one gets into trade magazines, to understand how the submission process is done, as several trade magazines are geared to allowing companies to submit "articles" on their own products (effectively, press releases without the actual bylines of a press release) without overview outside of general editing (wordsmithing, trimming for print, etc.). This is probably more in the actual industrial and commercial areas than hobbies or the like. Balloonman's example, on the other hand, sounds like the known expert press for that topic of balloon twisting, and while a very narrow coverage would still be the "expert" sources, with what we expect in editorial review processes. --MASEM (t) 17:12, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
WP:CORP (the relevant guideline for products) addresses this in the primary criteria. It's not exactly "general" vs "trade" press that matters, so much as the fact that "media of limited interest and circulation" is a poor indication of notability. If the "trade" magazine has a very large circulation and a fairly broad subject, then it's a good indication of notability. The weekly Engineering News-Record, for example, has a circulation that most newspapers only dream of, and the subject (construction of basically any sort of structure except single-family homes) is fairly broad, so attention from ENR is a pretty good indication of notability. The quarterly ElectronicsCooling, to give an example at the other end of the spectrum, has such a narrow subject matter that attention there (despite its good reputation and moderate circulation), is probably not such a good indication of notability for a product. Such a specialized magazine is more likely to indiscriminately review every single relevant product, because their specialized audience will want to know everything, not just the "important" things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments. Balloonman and WhatamIdoing came the closest to answering my question, which was about whether coverage in a trade magazine establishes notability. The answer seems to be: yes if it is a very wide circulation and very broad interest trade magazine, and no if it is a very narrowly targeted magazine that is always going to comment on every new product in that field. (Msnicki and Masem seemed to be talking more about whether such coverage is reliable, which is another question for another day.) WhatamI, your quote about "media of limited interest and circulation" seems to address my question pretty well.
The reason this comes up is that there are some companies, such as Avaya and HP, for which enthusiasts have set up separate articles for every individual product, although most seem to have little or no coverage to show that they are individually notable. Such articles turn up at AfD with regularity, or sometimes get boldly merged into an article that deal with the whole line of products instead of each individual catalog number. Some examples from last month are here and here. It has been suggested more than once that there ought to be a notability guideline for products, as there is for companies and people, but currently there isn't one. The current discussion that brought me here was this where someone brought up the issue of trade magazine sourcing. --MelanieN (talk) 23:25, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
Actually, there is. I hope in the future that you will find it useful to refer people to the WP:PRODUCT section of CORP. My favorite line says, "Avoid creating multiple stubs about each individual product (PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, R-36 Explosive Space Modulator, etc.) especially if there is no realistic hope of expansion." WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Thank you! That will be very helpful. I don't know why I haven't seen that before. --MelanieN (talk) 01:44, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
WP:PRODUCT is a bit weak. I want to see a prescriptive notability guideline for products like we have for bios, bands etc. It would save a lot of editor time and energy at deletion discussions. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Please feel free to propose improvements to it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
See the new section below. Wikipedia_talk:Notability#Notability_guideline_required_for_articles_about_products. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 00:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I have also asked about the use of trade publications over at Wikipedia_talk:Identifying_reliable_sources#Trade_press. The good commentary above should be encapsulated into a mention at Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 20:23, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
The problem is that WP:RS is primarily about verifiability, not about notability. Trade press is normally useful for verifying things: if Extremely Specialized Magazine says that the new widget has three foos, then we have adequately verified the fact in question. The same publication might be useless for notability (=deciding whether to have an article on this subject), but it is perfectly fine for verifiability (=deciding what to say in an existing article). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:20, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
I disagree. I think WP:RS is at the core of notability. It's the evidence that something not only seems worthy of note, but that people actually do take note and that they do it in reliable sources. Notability should not be a test of fame, that a source only counts if the readership numbers are big enough. Consider any sufficiently technical subject where the only sources might be obscure scholarly journals with negligible readership: If among them were a couple good independent secondary articles about the subject by experts in the field, I think most of us would instantly accept that as sufficient. Notability is established not by the fact that lots of people read the publication but by the reliability and independence of the publication. It's about the evidence that they took note and that what they say matters and it's the same thing with trade pubs. A recent example that might illustrate my point was Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Marisol Deluna (2nd nomination). The subject designs scarves in NYC but the only coverage was local interest stuff back home in San Antonio. My view (and I guess others agreed) was that I'd believe she was a notable fashion designer when an actual fashion editor, someone at one of the trade pubs said she was. Msnicki (talk) 01:44, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
For notability, it matters who is taking note. Your two best friends are "people", but their choice to take note of you does not make you notable. Notability wants "significant attention by the world at large", not just from anyone who happens to control any publication at all. It is necessary but not sufficient for all of the material to be verifiable to some sort of reliable source. To justify a whole article on a subject, it is additionally necessary for the reliable source to be more than just any old source: the sources in question must indicate "attention by the world at large".
Please keep in mind that coca-cola.com is a reliable source for information about Coca-Cola, Inc. The company's own website is very valuable for verifying information, but it is 100% worthless for showing that the company is notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
I tend to think that specialized news sources count just fine toward WP:N as long as they are reliable. If they are just cut-and-pasting press releases, that's a problem. But I don't think WP:N does or should distinguish between general and specialized sources. Hobit (talk) 03:51, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

List of non-notable topics

Would it be possible to create an page listing topics which have been established as non-notable? This would prevent repeated debate and avoid editors wasting time by writing doomed articles. Hyphz (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Such as list is not possible since (a) the coverage a particular topic will have over time external to the Wikipedia is unknown, and (b) consensus can change regarding a topic without any change in its coverage. I am curious, have articles been created and deleted repeatedly for WP:N when editors are acting in good faith? patsw (talk) 23:42, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
It's also impossible to prove that a topic is non-notable. (cannot prove the non-existance of something). --MASEM (t) 23:47, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
@Patsw: Bulbasaur has been renamed, deleted, and moved in and out of project space primarily because of editors that don't understand that licensed sources do not satisfy notability concerns. There's certainly a handful that have been acting in bad faith, but most of the article's supporters are acting in good faith ... hopelessly wrong, but acting in good faith, none the less.—Kww(talk) 00:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Bulby has been through a lot. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 01:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Articles that have been through more than one "create/delete/recreate" cycle really should be salted (in this case, redirected to the pokemon lists) and indef protected until such a time that consensus shows that the topic has become notable. That said, I could see us, for pages that are salted and protected this way due to multiple deletes, to be categorized as such ("perennial non-notable topics") But I wouldn't do that for an article that has only be deleted its first time after creation, since one AFD is not enough to establish that it will never be notable. --MASEM (t) 01:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Bulbasaur has gained notability over time, and the article has been improved to meet the WP:GNG. I think the point is this is an example of WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. Some fictional characters aren't notable, but that doesn't mean every fictional character is never notable. So you can't always use generalizations to say what's always notable and what's never notable. However, WP:NOT is really good at showing some types of information that are rarely/never included in Wikipedia, or are only covered to a smaller degree in the context of a larger article about a larger topic. Shooterwalker (talk) 03:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Nope. As I explained in the last AFD for Bulbasaur, where I carefully analyzed each and every source, he has never crossed the GNG. Many people simply refused to analyze the sources and what they said. That AFD closed as "no consensus" largely due to people !voting without analyzing sources (I was accused for being "harsh" for pointing out that primary and licensed sources do not contribute to notability, for example). I think he serves as the poster-child for articles that are kept despite demonstrable lack of notability, and the article will certainly never pass WP:V, which demands that we base articles on independent third-party sources. Bulbasaur is based on primary and licensed sources, with a few random factoids from independent sources to try to defeat deletion processes.—Kww(talk) 04:52, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 04:19, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
It is truly good to see you guys, Kww and Masem, what with all the people I don't see anymore. TTN, Pixelface, etc. I remember arguing with Gavin.collins fondly, if you can believe it. I miss those days, when there was tons of drama, and tons of editors.
As far as Bulbasaur, it probably doesn't matter anymore. A case can be, and was, made that it meats NOTE. It is not a rock solid case, by any means. It was a line in the sand (inclusionist, deletionist). Now, it just makes me nostalgic. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:17, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
I'm sure we'd get people coming if we decided to further clarify the notabilty of more complex lists.∞陣内Jinnai 17:53, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

Notability guideline required for articles about products

Based on article for deletion discussions there appears to be a need for a specific notability guideline for articles about products and services. WP:PRODUCT suggests that stub articles should be merged or deleted but an actual prescriptive guideline must be developed in order to facilitate AfD discussions and to guide editors who which to create new articles.

I would like to propose the following criteria for a product notability guideline:

A product or service may be notable if it fits at least one of the following criteria:

  1. It is internationally recognised and has been made for sale in most countries.
  2. It has received widespread coverage in major newspapers or academic publications.
  3. It is a generic product or service offered by a number of suppliers.
  4. It is a historic product that has received wide coverage in books and demonstrated that the notability is not temporary.

  1. ?
  2. ?
  3. ?
  4. ?

See Wikipedia:Notability (products) for a page under construction to support this proposal. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

For comparison, here is what WP:CORP currently says about products and services. --MelanieN (talk) 23:12, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Products and services
  • If a company is notable, information on its products and services should generally be included in the article on the company itself, unless the company article is so large that this would make the article unwieldy.
  • When discussion of products and services would make the article unwieldy, some editorial judgment is called for. If the products and services are considered notable enough on their own, one option is to break out the discussion of them into a separate article following WP:Summary style. If the products and services are not notable enough for their own article, the discussion of them should be trimmed and summarized into a shorter format, or even cut entirely.
  • Avoid creating multiple stubs about each individual product (PU-36 Explosive Space Modulator, Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, R-36 Explosive Space Modulator, etc.) especially if there is no realistic hope of expansion.
  • If a non-notable product or service has its own article, be bold and merge the article into an article with a broader scope such as the company's article or propose it for deletion.
  • Note that a specific product or service may be notable on its own, without the company providing it being notable in its own right. In this case, an article on the product may be appropriate, and notability of the company itself is not inherited as a result.

Discussion

  • Support in its entirety as initiating editor, although I am sure there will be endless suggestion as to what the the final wording will be. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:37, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose It seems to me that your proposed guidelines allow for endless splintering of product articles into a million mini-articles, as well as opening the door to a million non-notable (say) toys or shoes that are "generic and offered by a number of suppliers." IMO this comes down on the wrong side of the issue that gave rise to this discussion: namely, what about individual products that are part of a possibly notable product line? In other words, if ABC company makes two dozen models of widget, should there be separate articles for each model number? One for the Widget 2000, one for the Widget 2010, one for the Widget 2020, one for the Widget 2020AB, etc.? That's the situation we have been facing with HP and Avaya, where enthusiasts have created separate articles for every individual model of printer or router or phone. I feel that is a bad idea - it turns Wikipedia into a kind of product catalog - and I have been trying to get this type of article merged into either the company article (ABC Company) or possibly into an article about the product line (ABC widgets). The article-for-every-model situation is allowed by your proposed new guideline, but discouraged by the existing wording at WP:CORP. The latter is much closer to the basic Notability guideline, namely widespread coverage in major newspapers (including general-interest magazines and large-circulation, highly regarded trade magazines), academic sources, or books. --MelanieN (talk) 23:36, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
Do you think your new guidelines achieve that? --MelanieN (talk) 23:47, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
That is what I am hoping for. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 23:54, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
I don't want to see "a million mini-articles" at all. -- Alan Liefting (talk) -
Thanks for putting together the summary of deletion discussion outcomes. The results seem to be all over the map - delete, keep, merge. There apparently is NOT a consensus in the community how to deal with these things - except that "keep" decisions do seem to have been based on the citing of sources. I think it would be a good thing if we had more specific guidance. But in the meantime I guess I agree with causa sui that it is premature to try to impose a guideline. --MelanieN (talk) 15:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose. The first proposed condition, "internationally recognised and has been made for sale in most countries", opens the door to endless spam by anyone with a commercial product and enough money to somehow get it on sale widely enough. And the third proposed condition, "a generic product or service offered by a number of suppliers", invites WP:OR. These are both terrible ideas. What does this supposedly fix? Cases where someone is convinced we should have an article but there are no reliable independent secondary sources? No! From the opening paragraph, "Information on Wikipedia must be verifiable; if no reliable third-party sources can be found on a topic, then it should not have a separate article." Msnicki (talk) 23:59, 11 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think WP:CORP provides more than enough advice. Products need to be discussed in an non-biased, non-COI approach with secondary sources, thus already being required to meet WP:N and other primary policies. I don't like the idea that this would allow people to try to game the inclusion of a specific product trying to squeak around the edges that this seems to provide. --MASEM (t) 01:51, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Suggestion In order to facilitate some kind of consensus or some rational approach to these scattered AfD discussions, what would you think about creating a Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting category for "products"? Then those of us with an interest in the subject could see all the product articles that come before AfD and could possibly bring some kind of consistency to the discussions. --MelanieN (talk) 16:09, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment. To avoid a circular definition of notable make it clear when you are using notable in the sense of coverage of a topic outside the Wikipedia, and when you are using notable in the sense of a criterion for inclusion of a topic in the Wikipedia. patsw (talk) 20:24, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
  • I think this RFC should be closed and the discussion continued at the proposed page (which, for the record, I think is seriously flawed). Also, I will go further than Patsw and say this: Please do not use the word notable unless you mean WP:Notable. If you mean the dictionary definition, please pick a synonym that won't confuse people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
  • Comment I think it is critical to start by incorporating WP:GNG into the product guideline. To lift the text of WP:BIO and modify it to fit here
  • A product is presumed to be notable if it has been the subject of multiple published secondary sources which are reliable, intellectually independent of each other, and independent of the subject.
  • If the depth of coverage in any given source is not substantial, then multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability; trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability.
  • Primary sources may be used to support content in an article, but they do not contribute toward proving the notability of a subject.
Footnotes omitted. Once the GNG are incorporated, then move on to describe characteristics that usually result in keeps. Monty845 04:54, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Question

Say a RS interviews an actor about their character. How do we interpret this with respect to the GNG: reliability, idenpendance, and so on. I kind of ask because of this afd, but I'm really interested in a general way. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 06:52, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

It splits the difference between primary and secondary; if there were a few other secondaries, that usually helps to push it past the notability line, but if its the only source acting as secondary, probably not. It would be otherwise still independent (assuming the interviewer has no connection otherwise to the topic of the character and show and network). --MASEM (t) 13:36, 21 September 2011 (UTC)
This is another case of improve, don't delete: For a television character who last appeared on the air 23 years ago, expectations have to be set appropriately. This isn't John Hillerman writing his own articles promoting the DVD sales of Magnum PI, it is a reporter selecting the Hillerman and his character Jonathan Higgins for an interview. It easily satisfies our tests for reliability and independence.
The only actual primary source for Higgins would be the actual dialog spoken by the characters in the series. patsw (talk) 18:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I was thinking it was a gray area, and I guess it is. Good to know. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)
I think it depends on what the actor says about the character. If the actor says something that could be deduced by any follower of the show, then it doesn't much count for anything. If the actor is expressing a personal opinion about the character, something that reflects the current thinking of the actor, and it goes beyond the character profile created by the writers, then it suggests a continuing interets in the charaacter as a stand-alone subject. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 14:03, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Those are valid discretionary considerations for editing the article content. I'm not sure why your test designates any follower. The goal of the article should be to provide information to someone who was not necessarily in front a television watching Magnum PI from 1980-1988, namely a non-follower. The context for this section of WT:N (as well as the AfD) is whether the article should be deleted according to the guideline here. patsw (talk) 17:16, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
SmokeyJoe says this because if any source merely quotes or repeats what a primary source said, then the current source is also a primary source. It's not just a matter of counting up links in the chain: the text of the US Constitution does not stop being a primary source just because it got reprinted a thousand times. So if this interview only says what anyone would know from watching the show, then the interview would definitely be a primary source (even if Wikipedia's policies hadn't defined all interviews as primary, which they do). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:16, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
The simple answer is this: WP:NOR defines interviews as being primary sources. See Wikipedia:No original research#cite_note-2 for the actual sentence. I wouldn't want to be defending against deletion on the grounds of an interview if anyone else has bothered to read this part of the policy; trying to convince people that something is a secondary source when the policy directly says it's a primary source is a losing battle.
The complicated answer is this: Classifying sources is complicated, and the answer depends on both the inherent characteristics of the source and how you use it. Any given interview might contain some secondary material, or it might be prefaced by non-interview material that is secondary. It's also worth remembering that "primary source" is not a synonym for "bad source". You might find Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary and secondary sources helpful in understanding some of the nuances. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
That is overly complicated. To comment on what's said above, saying an interview is a primary source is incorrect. You do mention that "Any given interview might contain some secondary material". All, some, or none is the answer on that one.
Apparently we don't have much guidance on the subject. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:23, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
After looking at the cite-note at WP:NOR, I'd agree that it is misleading to say that anything involving an interview is primary.  I'd say that the interviewer (assuming independence) is a secondary source and as per notability definitions, the subject of the interview has "attracted attention".  As others have said, the interviewee may also be analyzing and interpreting primary sources during the interview, but whether or not such material is reliable (where is the fact checking?) is yet another issue.  Unscintillating (talk) 12:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Agree. Regardless of what Wikipedia:No_original_research#cite_note-2 appears to say on a quick reading, some interviews definitely constitute secondary source material. For example, a current affairs TV program interviewing a past national leader and getting into commentary about past or even recent politics would be providing secondary source material on the political subjects discussed. I think the WP:NOR note assumes, as is the case with most interviews, that they are conducted for the purpose of finding out what the interviewee knows. Other interviews, such as where the interviewee is a highly reputed guest, have the purpose of discussing what the interviewee thinks, and is thus a secondary source.
Most interviews I have seen of actors talking about characters they have played have been children giving summarized factual information reflecting their view of the character at the time of performance. These interviews would be primary source material, and less reliable than the actual recording. An interview with an older, professional actor could well be a deeper analysis of the character, but you have have to consider the material, and how you intend to use it, very carefully. If you are you looking for summarised facts about the character as written and performed, then it is a primary source. If you are looking for psychoanalysis of the character in the light of two decades of development of the genre, it is a secondary source. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
I still think a lot of this comes down to my earlier statement: such interviews are generally good to expand the demonstration of secondary coverage, but alone are typically not going to be enough to demonstrate notability on their own. I can see an article on a character being considered notable if there's a couple of true secondary critical comments on the character in addition to a single large interview with its actor or creator, outlining details that are not obvious from the primary work, as to generate a good Development/Creation section within the article. But if that interview's the only thing supporting the article outside of primary sources, no "significant coverage" has been shown, and hence, not likely notable. (More than likely, info from that interview can be fit in elsewhere such as on the show's page or actor's page with appropriate redirects to search on the character). --MASEM (t) 13:27, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree. Interviews as secondary sources will be the exception, and even then they are unlikely to be significant on their own, and rarely will they be independant. Especially when the subject is a fictional character. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:01, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd say they'd be secondary, though not independant, for a fictional character. The primary source would be the work or character.∞陣内Jinnai 22:28, 28 September 2011 (UTC)
That comment makes it sound like it's only possible to have one primary source. The original work is certainly a primary source, but the interview could also be (and most commonly is) a primary source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:25, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Let's put the logic on the table: I have a fictional live-actor character article. The only source that anyone's been able to identify outside of the work itself about the character is an interview with its actor from a RS (let's say, Entertainment Weekly, so there's no questions); the interview in depth, all that jazz about the character, how the actor prepared for the role, instructions he got from the director, and so forth.
Based on that single source, would we consider that character notable? My instinct, if consensus was discussed on this point, would be no; articles based on a single non-first party, non-primary source are generally not going to fly. From this (and yes, this is totally backwards logic, but its necessary to set here), the interview would likely be considered primary for the purposes of how WP uses the terms to establish notability. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
I think you are approaching my objection to primary bad, secondary good (PB/SG). Primary was and is not objectionable per se, it is only because primary sources are used occasionally by editors as a vector for their OR, that there came to be a taint to primary. I don't know why PB/SG has come to take on a life of its own apart from avoiding OR. Good articles are all over Wikipedia now that have primary sources alone. patsw (talk) 15:46, 30 September 2011 (UTC)
Articles based only on primary sources (with no likelihood of any secondary sources becoming available) fail WP:N, and technically WP:NOR, though there it does depend on how its written. Primary sources are fine when used in conjunction with secondary, but not alone. --MASEM (t) 15:56, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Since some of the discussion drifted away from WP:N, I started Wikipedia talk:No original research#Interviews are not primary sources. patsw (talk) 17:25, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Notability of lists

There is considerable confusion at six related AfD discussions:-

about the criteria of notability for lists, as there was also at the AfD discussion on List of important publications in biology, which was closed as delete, but in way that did not clarify the confusion. A few editors are arguing that the wording at WP:LISTN:-

"Notability guidelines apply to the inclusion of stand-alone lists and tables. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") is based on the group. A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list."

means that there has to be several reliable sources that the list itself is notable. Several editors are arguing that it is sufficient that each item in the list has sources to say that it is notable and that if the item has a WP article it is notable. It also seems to many people that very many lists do not assert that kind of notability. Several lists that are linked from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Stand-alone lists, such as List of business theorists and List of bicycle brands and manufacturing companies do not have such a reference. The first has no references and the second has just one that supports a statement in the lede. Both however only contain items that are blue links. Could some of the regulars here clarify what the inclusion criteria is and whether the arguments used in the AfD discussions are supported by the notability guidelines for lists. It would also be helpful to know whether the wording I give above has been in WP:LISTN for a long time, or whether it is relatively recent. The wording probably needs clarifying. However I am too confused and almost totally absorbed in a another problem for the rest of the period that these AfDs will be open, to resolve this myself. Can anyone give us guidance about what this guideline really means and whether it applies to all lists? --Bduke (Discussion) 23:48, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

The Notability and stand-alone lists section is relatively new. It was added at the beginning of January 2011 and has been stable since the end of January. I believe /Archive_47#The_next_step_on_lists is the discussion thread.
I believe that "consensus" is that technically WP:OR lists are allowed. We have many, if not most, lists on Wikipedia either manufactured or constructed by Wikipedians without challenge by others asking that the list source a WP:RS that's constructed a similar list.
I believe a reason many of these lists remain unchallenged is that they use one of two absolute criteria. 1) They are a list of the top/fastest/most something or are in a specific region, time period, won a specific award, etc. You have an absolute metric for if something should be or should not be included in the list. 2) They are a list of "notable" subjects using the Wikipedia definition of "notable."
For those styles of lists the WP:LISTN wording you found seems to be largely ignored. However, the "List of important publications ..." lists are asking cited are using a subjective criteria and I'd say the WP:LISTN wording applies. Even there, I suspect people would have a battle on their hands as two very reliable sources may well have differing opinions on what is or is not "important." --Marc Kupper|talk 03:37, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
The list topic is notable if we can create a reasonably detailed article from RSs that discuss items on the list in the context of the list. However, by picking important (or landmark) publications, some of these articles are effectively summarising the history of their subject, so they don't need to be structured as a list. Uniplex (talk) 05:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
To be clear: the result of that RFC and inclusion of the language only added the case where we had reasonable assurance of notability and list eligibility - where List of X itself was a notable grouping. This does not exclude any other list style, but we could not come to a reasonable standardized way of putting it forward (either to include or exclude lists), and therefore notability of other lists will be up to consensus. Generally as long as you have sourcable list with clear inclusion criteria to avoid indiscriminate listings, on a topic that is encyclopedically appropriate, it likely will be kept. But that's really the best advice we can give here. --MASEM (t) 06:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
A list-article is an article so must comply with WP:OR: “you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article” and for a list-article, the topic is the list or group. If we have list-articles that are compiled without adherence to this policy, then we should, per WP:CLN, classify them as something other articles. Uniplex (talk) 07:59, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
And in this specific case, you are going to have problems with the "important" criteria, since that's plagued by OR. A possible alternative would be "List of landmark publications..." where you can set criteria that secondary sources have identified the included works as landmark, significant, critical, etc. to that field. If you're leaving "important" up to the editors to decide, you will likely have these lists deleted as indiscriminate. --MASEM (t) 06:19, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Inclusion of the word "important" here is unfortunate. It was added to all of them after a AfD on one of them (the biology list now deleted by a later Afd) insisted it be added, so it was added to all lists. When the biology list was deleted, all items listed had a WP article. Surely "scientific publications" (there is a article on scientific literature) is notable, and "geology publications" is just a sub set. It is very unclear what is being asked for when people say a list of scientific publications must be notable. Also, as remarked above, this new guideline was added only this year. The change went past me, I'm afraid. If I had noticed it, I would have disagreed. These lists of course go back a lot further than this year. --Bduke (Discussion) 09:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, to be clear: NLIST is not fully inclusive of what types of lists WP allows for. The RFC could only make the positive statement that "list of X" where X or the grouping of X is notable are generally allowed as lists. This doesn't mean that if X isn't notable that we can't have a list about it, but we can't give good, solid advice on whether its notable. This would not have affected the above articles in question because you're starting with a faulty inclusion metric, against WP:SALAT. I don't think you'd have a problem with "List of biology publications" but if you're trying to discriminate the list to avoid growing too large, you need a more objective metric than "importance". --MASEM (t) 12:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
There are criteria added from a template at the top of all these lists. The idea is that each entry would need a source that says it meets one or more of these inclusion criterion, but practice does not always match the idea. However some people do not accept that. It seems to me that the notability guidelines for lists do not match what exists with the support of a lot of editors, leaving it open for a few people who treat the guidelines as perfect to delete many useful lists. I suggest we need to get the guideline to match practice a little better. Of course it should not match it perfectly otherwise they would be useless and no lists would be deleted, but the present situation does seem good. --Bduke (Discussion) 02:17, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
The fact that there's no mention of sourcing requirements and only statements of importance begs the issue. But to your point, this is what I've been saying. I'm 100% confident that with a bit of work I can find a list article that does not fall into what LISTN says and yet is readily accepted. But at the same time, I can likely find a similar list that was eventually deleted. Except for the limited case of what LISTN states which we all agreed at the RFC is a consistent situation, list acceptance is inconsistent, and thus it is impossible for us to write any guidance towards that. --MASEM (t) 02:39, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
@Bduke: This is a simple solution: Someone else has talked about the topic of the list, then a list would be kept. For example, before the AfD for the list of important publications in mathematics, the page did not mention 2 reliable source which too complied a list of important mathematics works. You need at least 2. As 2 were found, the article was kept.Curb Chain (talk) 23:53, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
There's still a lot of question marks around lists. But the general sense of it... What's in WP:LISTN is either the tip of the iceberg, or the whole iceberg depending on who you talk to. There are some conversations that there are alternative means of inclusion, such as when you're making a minimalist index of notable articles. There may also be other controls on content, including the notion that Wikipedia articles are not indiscriminate. In the interest of avoiding any conflict, I won't say whether there's any consensus for or against additional guidelines on lists, or any consensus at all. The short version is that we do make a lot of exceptions to the GNG, and we can debate whether that's consistent or haphazard. Shooterwalker (talk) 13:17, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I find it hard to believe that, this far down the line, we can't see more than just the tip of the iceberg. If it's an index, just call it an index, not an article. Uniplex (talk) 13:25, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Because there's editors on WP that refuse to accept the concept of navigation lists and outlines, as these lists could be. (WP:OUTLINE, I think, has talk page discussions you can follow on that point). And then we have people that think that every page in mainspace should meet the GNG, and it is very very very very difficult to get a consensus that otherwise doesn't fit a very narrow function as NLISTS does. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
There's also people who disagree that we should cover longest/oldest/etc on lists too even though that would normally be a part of what an encylopedia would cover if it had no limits.∞陣内Jinnai 18:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Is there any difference in the notability requirements if the list is a bibliography? RockMagnetist (talk) 23:25, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

There is no problem with the guideline or the new language. Those 5 afds have problems with the inclusion criteria; on the relevant talk pages and the math wikiproject opinions have been expressed that the inclusion criteria is unworkable. The noms were submitted with basis.Curb Chain (talk) 23:29, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

However, the nominator did not try any alternatives to deletion first. RockMagnetist (talk) 23:51, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
Most nominators do not try alternatives to deletion.Curb Chain (talk) 14:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
Indeed, there's no problem with the guideline's wording, but there was a problem with your interpretation of it, Curb Chain. Have mörser, will travel (talk) 13:17, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Pokemon and discrimination by sources

Okay so this topic rears its head again. This time User:Kung Fu Man was worried about whether commentary on Zubat, Golbat, and Crobat was enough to make it notable after some commentary about another pokemon. After checking some sources, a number of them seem to have very little commentary (less than a paragraph on one of them, let alone all 3) or are parts of walkthoughs or rolling featurettes that companies did in as pre-hype (or post-hype) for the game. The latter covers many of the pokemon in each one, but according to him not 100%, although it appears its well over 50%.

Now as these are characters, would that be enough discrimination to show that each of those pokemon (as a set) would be notable or not? We're not talking about the games here - its clear those pass the GNG. Notability doesn't really address how sources discrimination when they cover so many elements of a work.∞陣内Jinnai 04:15, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Asking for comment whether a topic from the Pokemon universe gets its own article from people who are unfamiliar and/or indifferent to it is a likely to get the response "Oh! This again?". My suggestion is work on improving the WP:Pokémon test essay and obtaining consensus for it among the editors who are concerned. Making judgments in this genre is best left to its domain experts since outsiders are not likely to make the investment of time in evaluating the quality and quantity of the source material/ephemera. To new readers, this is an ancient problem of Wikipedia: patsw (talk) 13:18, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
  • "The battle for Wikipedia's soul The internet: The popular online encyclopedia, written by volunteer contributors, has unlimited space. So does it matter if it includes trivia?". The Economist. 2008-03-06. Retrieved 2011-10-06.
Well, consider them the same as any other fictional character. I don't see these kind of sources for Digimon, Transformers, etc. Those articles are empty in the sourcing department(Celestial Digimon is one example). The question is, is commentary "as a member of the series" enough for notability, or does it have to be "as a fictional character in general" as some are trying to say. They are arguing that being in a "Top 10 Annoying Video Game Characters" list would convey notability, but a "Top 10 Annoying Pokemon" would not, even when written by the same author. Blake (Talk·Edits) 14:00, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
I wasn't singling out Pokemon. This just happens to be the case at hand. This applies to all kinds of franchised or licensed characters, places, or objects in genres that attract a combination of editor and reader interests (trading card games, comic books, professional wrestling, etc.) Non-genre-specialists cannot parachute in and make judgments as to what topics chosen by editors should be stand-alone Wikipedia articles in my judgment. These communities of shared interest ought to be able to establish formally or informally their own article inclusion tests. patsw (talk) 15:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
It's a matter that the commentary used in a reception section is either trivial (ie not significant) mention or comes from sources that go over a number of characters (usually over the course of days or in atleast one case a walkthrough). Now excusing that they are pokemon and pretending they are just fictional characters or fictional elements in general, does the lack of discretion on which pokemon gets the coverage (because virtually all of them get significant coverage in an indiscriminate manner), does that come into play at all here?∞陣内Jinnai 15:40, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Just one thought that has not been raised... Remember that there are ways to cover a topic that don't involve giving it a stand alone article. In every topic area, there are sub-topics that are worth noting within the context of a broader article, but are not considered WP:Notable enough for their own stand alone articles. I think this may apply in this case. Blueboar (talk) 15:56, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
Well, in the cases where "all Pokemon" are included in the coverage, the coverage for most of them is trivial. Such as "IGN's Top 100 Pokemon" poll. Only a handful of the pages gave commentary that was worth mentioning on Wikipedia. Blake (Talk·Edits) 16:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

can vs. should

The first sentence currently reads:

On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article.

Imho, this should be rephrased to

On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic should have its own article.

"can" implies that editors automatically strive to create a separate article for everything. And while that is true for morons, it shouldn't be undulged by implying that creating a separate article for everything is a normal trajectory, that all editors (especially the smart ones) think like that. --213.196.213.195 (talk) 17:55, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

  • Can or Could signify potential which is the sense intended here.
  • Shall or should signify obligation or conformity which is not the sense intended.
  • The third modal is will or would which signifies certainty -- also not the sense intended here. patsw (talk) 17:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Pat, doesn't that argue in favor of the change?... We use notability to test which topics conform to our standards. Thus, we use notability to test whether the topic should have an article. Blueboar (talk) 17:56, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
The obligation as you describe it, is inverted. This is correctly expressed as an "editor should choose a topic that passes this test", and the proposal incorrectly expresses it as "...a topic should have its own stand-alone article". The current guideline text signifying potential is correct. patsw (talk) 19:03, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
Not sure I followed that... but I think I disagree. Take the topic of President Nixon's pet dog Checkers... We can have an article on the topic of checkers (I am certainly able to write one, so there is a potential for that topic to have its own article)... However, when we use Notability to determine whether the topic of "Nixon's dog Checkers" should have its own article, we discover that the answer is "no". Checkers is not a topic that is notable enough for its own article (it is note worthy enough to be discussed in other articles, but not its own article). Blueboar (talk) 18:38, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Blueboar. In thinking about the question, I find it useful to recast the wording in the negative. Thus, we say that a subject that does not satisfy notability should not have its own article. That makes sense. On the other hand, saying that a subject that does not satisfy notability cannot have its own article is, strictly speaking, misleading. Such a subject can have an article – unless editors do what they should! --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

"Articles should..." ambiguity

"Should" in context here expresses obligation. My point is that any rewording make it clear that the creating editor (or at least the advocates of the article's inclusion) have the obligation to pass the notability test and not leave it anonymous to whom the "should" refers to. patsw (talk) 21:47, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

In this case, the actual phrase (at present) is "whether a topic can/should have its own article". To my ears, discussing whether "a topic should have" something does not imply obligation on the part of the topic, but rather on part of the persons making the decision about the topic. In fact, the sentence in question is not assigning responsibility to just the creating editor. The sentence says this is "a test used by editors", not exclusively the creating editor. First, the creating editor does indeed have a responsibility not to create a page that fails notability. But once a page exists – and, de facto, can exist, even if it fails notability – other editors are just as responsible as the creating editor to bring the page, if necessary, to AfD. The sentence should be understood as applicable to all editors, and I think it is obvious that this is the case. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Why specify an obligation without indicating who is obligated? I think we disagree on the point of obviousness as you put it. patsw (talk) 01:08, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
It does seem like we just disagree, that it seems obvious to me one way, and just as obvious to you the other way. I'm not sure that either of us will be able to convince the other. I was happy to support the IP's proposal, but I also realize that this is a small issue, and I'm not going to press for this change unless other editors start arguing for it. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:38, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't think there's any question of obligation intended here. The issue is more like "Notability is our word for indicating whether a subject is permitted to have a separate article [can]" or "...whether an article about the subject is deemed desirable [should]."
IMO "can" is wrong, and what we mean there is "may". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree that "can" is wrong. I think that, as used here, "should" and "may" are very close in meaning, but "may" has the problem of being conditional, as though "a subject may sometimes have an article", which is just confusing. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:01, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
English has more words in it than any other language on the planet... and we still have too many meanings assigned to some words.
The use of the word "may" in an advice page should (1) probably be discouraged as confusing and (2) probably follow the RFC 2119 definition ("optionally allowed" rather than "is permitted") when necessary, but I think it unwise to expect consistency from the community on that point.
In the instant case, "may sometimes" is sort of correct, if you (IMO incorrectly) define notability == sources exist, rather than notability == sources exist + clears NOT + approval of the community's editorial judgment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:24, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
"May" in Wikipedia guidelines means a choice to be made by editors at their discretion, or an indirect antecedent, or a coincidence, or an indirect consequence, in any combination of descriptives and prescriptives. It's not simple. patsw (talk) 17:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Why

Based on the discussion at WP:Notability (music) (Today's question: Beethoven is obviously a notable artist. Is every single one of the hundreds or thousands of albums of his Fifth Symphony automagically notable, since he's a notable artist?), I think we might benefit from providing some "why" information with the GNG.

Specifically, all the 'regulars' here know these things:

  • We require "significant coverage" so that we can actually write a whole article, rather than a half a paragraph.
  • We require "reliable sources" so that we can be confident that we're not passing along random gossip or perpetuating hoaxes.
  • We require "independent sources" so that we are capable of writing a fair and balanced article (i.e., not merely what the marketing department wants to say).

And so forth (and for other reasons, too, but these are kind of the obvious ones). I think we should add a few short footnotes to explain the purpose here, both to make the requirements seem less random and also to help editors figure out what the intent is, so that they can intelligently interpret and apply the requirements. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:54, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree, a "why notability?" section would be helpful. I see it as a three-fold purpose. One is in line with WhatamIdoing's comments - meeting the GNG with the sources requested help to assure that the core content policies (V, NOR, NPOV) are met. Second, it helps us to assure that WP:NOT#IINFO or the pillars are met - despite being a boundless work, we have to be discriminate. Thirdly, it helps to assure that we can write more about a topic than basic factoids that would otherwise fit into a table; the types of sourcing we want from GNG provide context and understanding to the reader of how this topic fits into the larger scope of the whole of mankind's knowledge, and thus, make it a good change that we can write a strong encyclopedic article about the topic. This also helps note that there are other ways besides the GNG to meet these goals, but they are generally more exceptional and determined by consensus, which is why we prefer to use GNG-based notability as the baseline. --MASEM (t) 19:07, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Better worded as "Why have a process to determine what topics chosen by editors should have stand-alone articles in Wikipedia?" That unfortunate word "notability" is regarded by many with a meaning that is intuitive, obvious, and inherently subjective. patsw (talk) 21:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I dunno. I still there's a great number of editors that do ask "Why notability?" They're clear they understand that notability means a stand-alone article, but they question, on a work that's as open and unbounded as WP is, why we have a guideline that limits that? Why base it on the idea of notability rather than interesting-ness, importance, popularity, etc. etc. If we make the last section of the article, or even essay-fy it, I think it would go a long way towards helping to help realize why we are using notability as our guide. --MASEM (t) 21:31, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
I can't recall the year, but perhaps others can: The Wikipedia as we know it now, or at least WP:N as we know it now, is shaped by a consensus that things needed objective standards applied uniformly as opposed to a collection of subjective judgments by whoever showed up at the talk page or the AfD case by case. patsw (talk) 01:50, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
I'd been thinking in terms of a couple of foonotes, but a section would be pretty straightforward. I'll take a crack at it sometime (unless someone else wants to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

When it comes to sets where each member of the set has an article. I think we have two cases:

  1. Each article passed WP:N in itself.
  2. Each article was created by an approved bot. patsw (talk) 21:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Should Criteria 11 include music television stations?

I wanted to inquire if there has been discussion about music television stations such as MTV and VH1 being included in Criteria 11 under "criteria for musicians and ensembles". I think that being in rotation on MTV, VH1 or another music television station is just as noteworthy as being in rotation on a radio station. Thanks!--Jax 0677 (talk) 12:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Does MTV or VH1 have any actual music programming any more? patsw (talk) 13:20, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
MTV and VH1 were once dominated by music videos, and once notability is established for an article on Wikipedia, the topic will always be notable.--Jax 0677 (talk) 23:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
I have to disagree that even playtime on a radio is not any assurance that there will be eventually sources to meet the GNG as to qualify this as a criteria for SNG. In part: radio and music television stations have playlists that are influenced by the music publishers, as well as popularity by its listeners, neither which are independent criteria needed for notability. This doesn't mean that notable songs will never be on the radio or music television, only that there's no assurance that sources will ultimately exist. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
I find it unlikely that any band or song that received significant air time on MTV or VH1 (back in the day) would not meet at least some of the other criteria listed at WP:Notability (music). So I don't think it really matters. Blueboar (talk) 23:49, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
In the 80s/90s, yes; today, no. Hence why not universal. But Patsw brings up a good point: what's a reliable source to show that a song is in a regular rotation on a radio station or music television ? If you can't even verify it, it's not a valid criteria for notability. --MASEM (t) 00:02, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

What are the reliable sources for a song being in rotation on MTV or VH1 or others in the 1980's? patsw (talk) 00:01, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

MTV itself? The company probably has archives of all its VJ announcements as well. And I do seem to remember reading all sorts of industry articles back in the day that mentioned which videos were getting lots of air time (and usually complaining that the air-time to crap ratio was high). Blueboar (talk) 00:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
I would err on the side of "no". MTV has more comprehensive programming than a radio station. The way they use music is broader. There may be a lot more random songs with no real notability... wouldn't want to keep an article that you can't write anything reliable about. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:53, 10 October 2011 (UTC)
I would tend to say that having a video in rotation on MTV, VH1 or other music television station is an important, but not sufficient condition to determine notability. Many radio stations also have comprehensive programming. If it can be verified, being in rotation on a national network should mean something.--Jax 0677 (talk) 13:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
The thing to consider for being part of such station programming is that is a form of being "popular" (ignoring any payola/COI issues by the music production company to the stations), and notability is not just about being popular. As you say, popularity is a sign something may be notable, but doesn't fly by itself. --MASEM (t) 13:40, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Considering "notability does not limit article content"

Thinking about several edits and discussions I've been in, I've been thinking if the above statement is really a truism for WP. We already call out that notability can be used to limit the content of lists by consensus (eg: often the case for list of people) but another situation I've come across typically involves either trivia/pop culture references or the like. Particularly for some Doctor Who episodes of late, people want to put in every callback to older episodes, and the like, which do not violate WP:SYNTH (the connections are clearly there from examining the primary sources) in that regard, but does have the problem that any little detail will be called out this way. In trying to put a reign on these, I've seen editors by consensus focus on the ones that either have the most impact on the overall show mythos, or that have been noted by a third party sourced that is already a secondary work (read: a review) for the episode itself.

Similarly, in the area of video games, there are a lot of fan created works, most which are simply mentions in a download database somewhere. Once in a while, these will receive notice via third party, secondary sources (eg : though a list, List of Source engine mods has specific criteria about being noticed for inclusion, but this type of idea applies to any mod-able game) and become worthy of inclusion. Or, alternatively, user opinions about a game are drastically different from professional reviewers (perhaps due to specific trolling), but we don't include this facet unless the highly negative user scores are commented by secondary sources.

What I'm saying is likely rehashing a number of existing policies and guidelines (off the top of my head, RS, UNDUE, NPOV, NOT#IINFO etc.) Things like trivia and the like, content reuse, etc. are all elements that we generally exclude from a larger article on a topic unless those materials are covered by at least one good, reliable secondary source. So the statement that "notability does not limit article content" is not 100% true. The exceptions are tied to the exception for lists - if there is potential that the discussion of such material is potentially boundless, we do try to assert that there are limits, set by the concept of notability (not specifically by the GNG) with consensus-defined further restrictions.

I think we want to be clear to understand that the phrase "notability does not limit article content" is mostly true, but is bounded by several other polices, where it is often the case that the net result of all policies working together is that notability can limit indiscriminate inclusion of information. But how to word it without creating a mass hysteria that people are going to be applying notability throughout an article is really critical, and I don't know if we can actually do that. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

This is why I make a distinction between the WP:Notability of topics and the note worthiness of information. This guideline relates to the former and not to the latter. Whether Wikipedia should include an article about a specific topic is a function of that topics WP:Notability. Whether to include some bit of information within a specific article is a function of the information's note worthiness. This is similar to the distinction between WP:Notability and notoriety. That distinction can help clarify things in WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ONEEVENT situations. Blueboar (talk) 19:30, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Just because the notability guidelines do not, themselves, limit article content does NOT mean that editors do not make editorial decisions about what information to include, and what information to exclude, from articles. They are entirely unrelated concepts. --Jayron32 19:41, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
wp:notability exists independently of the existence of an article on Wikipedia or the content of any such article.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
The most directly applicable policy in general is WP:NOR. WP:N's requirement for secondary sources to form the basis of an article stems directly from WP:NOR, specifically WP:PSTS. Both WP:N and WP:NOR say that content should be based on, and guided by, secondary sources (and do not say that primary sources are bad). The reason for "notability does not limit article content" is that WP:N is written in stronger terms that are routinely enforced by deletion via WP:AfD. We don't want every occurance of a section of content built excessively on primary sources to lead to an AfD discussion. If it is not a deletion matter, and you're thinking "wikipedia-notability", point out WP:PSTS. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

We're stuck with it - the word notability - as the term of art to refer to whether or not a topic chosen by an editor should have its own stand-alone article. The opportunity to change it to Article creation criteria was proposed and rejected years ago. There's nothing but love for notability now.

We don't have a term of art to describe whether or not new or changed content should be added by editor to an existing article. There's a bundle of Wiki-wide content-related tests for that. The big four are no original research, biography of living persons, neutral point of view, and verifiability. Content failing any of these tests gets edited or deleted according to our policies. Or to use this section's heading, they limit article content.

However, when it comes to articles on artifacts of popular culture with a great deal of editor interest and a great deal of reading interest, you can't legislate Wikipedia-wide rules for including and excluding content. Each genre (Dr. Who, Nintendo, Pokemon, etc) should have formal or informal guidelines or interpretations of things like WP:NOR and WP:V within their own editing communities. Wikipedia has WP:Wikiprojects if you want to get organized around that consensus building. patsw (talk) 13:17, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Notability of research projects

Some clarification and potentially specific guidelines for notability of research projects are needed. During the last several month, a number of research projects articles (including all fifth, sixth, and seventh framework programmes' articles) had been PRODed or nominated for deletion. Almost always, the rationale of nomination had been 'does not meet WP:GNG'. Although it is a case by a number of articles, some of then, however, have been well-sourced and satisfying WP:GNG as a general criteria. InnoMed PredTox is an example of the article currently in the AfD process, or Eurogene, which survived the AfD process, but was also nominated based on WP:GNG. It seems that a clear understanding is needed how to apply the WP:GNG for research projects, or if a specific notability guidelines (e.g. WP:PROF) are needed for the research projects. I think that establishing a clear policy will be more fruitful than repeating the same endless discussion at the every AfD process. Beagel (talk) 20:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/InnoMed PredTox and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eurogene show that there is not clear consensus. I think this is a genuine borderline WP:N issue. I think it is similar to government departments and their initiatives. In comparison, we are quick to delete private corporation departments and intiatives. There may be a huge amount of reliable sources, but virtually no independent coverage. I think that more AfDs are required to establish a pattern. Otherwise, stick with the GNG, and examine the sources for whether they meet it, which in general I think they do not. These big money projects and initiatives and collaborations have carfeully managed PR, and this means that for non-incidental mentions, outlets are flooded with non-independent coverage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
There are a lot of AfDs, most of them resulted with deletions. In my original post I said that all framework programmes' articles have been nominated for deletion. Some of them like above-mentioned Eurogene has survived, others not. Links to the AfD discussions of these articles could be find through the article history, and links to the framework programmes' categories are provided above. I think that it is also possible to find AfD discussions of deleted articles. Of course, significant number of deleted articles were quite clear deletion cases being pure PR spam without reliable sources to establish notability. However, there have been some not so clear cases similar to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eurogene, such like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Webinos. Beagel (talk) 04:56, 14 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I agree with SJ here. I don't think there's any way we can carve out a special criteria for research programs. Either they are covered by secondary sources (which can include third-party academic papers that discuss the results or news highlights) or not. I know in my academic field there are weekly "news" journals where almost one such project is written up on a monthly basis, so it's a matter of finding these sources. Remember, if it doesn't meet notability for an article, there may be a way to include the topic in a larger broader article that does cover that. --MASEM (t) 00:33, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Notable by definition?

I added the following paragraph to Stand-alone lists:

Some lists are essentially disambiguation pages, such as the page List of people with surname Brown. Like other disambiguation pages, such pages serve a navigational purpose and the disambiguation topic does not need to be notable by itself.

This addition was reverted with the rationale that for List of people with surname Brown the topic is really "NOTABLE people with the surname Brown", which is a notable topic by definition. Really? By definition? I don't think that "NOTABLE people who drive a Honda Civic" is a notable topic, by definition or otherwise, and I likewise fail to see how or why the topic "NOTABLE people with the surname Brown" should be notable. If there was a page presenting a List of Honda Civic drivers I would recommend its deletion, regardless of how notable the people on that list are. But List of people with surname Brown should not be deleted, because it is a useful navigation tool, just like Bronowski (surname), and it is in fact more an accident of history the page is not called Brown (surname).

So what do people feel; is this little paragraph a useful addition?  --Lambiam 14:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

No, Notable does not need to be added. In fact, it should not be added. For the name to appear in this list, an article with the person's name as title may exist, but an entry may exist for a person connected to one event or other topic for which the topic has an article and that person is referenced in the article. This may also be a redirect as in the case of Winston Moseley on Moseley (disambiguation).
"Notable by defintion" is an awkward way of showing the circularity of defining "notable" as "having an article in Wikipedia" patsw (talk) 14:42, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I think also, as added, it is very game-able by editors trying to maintain weak lists under the claim "navigational aid". True disambig pages are not required to meet WP:N, but this is not true for all navigational pages. This is not saying that the Brown list isn't necessarily notable or a problem, but that example taken to other cases could be a slippery slope argument. --MASEM (t) 15:44, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
OK, perhaps I misspoke in saying "Notable by definition"... but my underlying point is still the same. The topic of the article "List of people with surname Brown" is actually, "notable people who happen to have the surname Brown". Now, the question is... is this a dab page? I would say no, it isn't. It's purpose is not to disambiguate. Its purpose is primarily to compile (famous people with a common attribute). To see the distinction, look at John Brown. That is a dab page (its primary purpose is to disambiguate between various people named John Brown... people who could be confused with each other if we did not disambiguate).
That said, I agree with Masem that the "List of people with surname Brown" article should probably be merged into the Brown (surname) article. I see no reason to separate the two. Blueboar (talk) 19:31, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Arguably if it is to be treated as a disamb, specifically calling out anyone with "brown" as a surname, it should not be limited to people with articles, but any reasonable redirect target, on the assumption that someone searching for "Brown" may be looking for that person. Say a case of a BLP1E person named Joe Brown, maybe a victim in a notable crime; I would expect that a disamb page would list "Joe Brown, a victim in this crime's name". It's a subtle but significant difference between the two lists. --MASEM (t) 19:35, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Again, I go to primary purpose here... the primary purpose of a dab is to distinguish between two topics that could have the same titles. We need to disambiguate between multiple people named Joe Brown ... but we do not need disambiguation between Joe Brown and Fred Brown. Note... I am not saying that there is no navigational element to the List of people with surname Brown article. But I think that navigation is a secondary purpose. Its primary purpose is compilation... to compile the names of famous people that all fall into a specific class (in this case the class being "surname=Brown"). Blueboar (talk) 20:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the two articles, a reason to keep them as two articles is a pragmatic one is length. For another example:
On the other hand there is no List of people with surname Kennedy, only a Kennedy (surname) page which is both about the surname and a list of names. It makes sense to me from a usability point of view. patsw (talk) 20:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I would agree that we need to be flexible here. Length is a valid concern. In this case, given the lengths of Brown (surname) and List of people with surname Brown... I don't think we would end up with an overly long article if we were to merge them (and I have started a discussion at the "list of" article on the idea of merging - discussion at this point, not a formal merge request). However, I could see that this would not work in every case. Blueboar (talk) 20:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

GNG relation to Notability (sports)

I have created a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports)#Relation_to_GNG_.28again.29 which I think would be important for WP:N readers to participate in as it deals directly with the applicability of WP:GNG. --Odie5533 (talk) 16:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Interpretation of Notability requires verifiable evidence

I was recently asked in a deletion discussion whether articles should be kept if it is only likely that reliable sources covering the subject exist. The argument is that in WP:NRVE, the last line states, "If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate." My interpretation is that this line is meant to dissuade editors from nominating articles for deletion that are likely notable but which perhaps have no sources in the article. I come to this conclusion because of the preceding line in the paragraph and because the word "inappropriate" is used. If this interpretation is accurate with established consensus (or newly established consensus), I would like to change the line to read, "If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic during a deletion discussion, nominating an article for deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate." --Odie5533 (talk) 06:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Summarising what I said on IRC: I agree that the existence of sources need to be shown (as opposed to just said to be likely) for an article to satisfy GNG. However, I feel that this modification is unnecessary due to the context provided by the previous sentence. I do think it would be useful to establish consensus on whether this interpretation of WP:NRVE is agreed upon. wctaiwan (talk) 07:21, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
The only requirement in WP:N is that topics be "worthy of notice".  The requirement for sourcing is a part of WP:V.  Unscintillating (talk) 07:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
The requirement for sourcing is also used to determine if a topic is "worthy of notice". --Odie5533 (talk) 08:18, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
(Un)Common sense should be used. For subjects where coverage is likely to be offline, it may take longer to find it than the length of a deletion discussion would allow.--Michig (talk) 08:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:DRV. --Odie5533 (talk) 08:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
If the subject is notable, going through AfD and DRV is an awful waste of resources that would be better spent improving the article. --Michig (talk) 08:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
If an editor intends to find independent sources and says so in their "vote", I think the closing admin should take that into consideration. What I disagree with is editors assuming that something is notable because they believe sources should exist, without being able to find them. I suppose the bigger question is whether an article should be deleted if the subject fails GNG, even if the article itself is good in other aspects, and people feel that the subject is likely notable. The proliferation of SNGs would imply that many feel that GNG is inadequate, though such articles would be deleted under current rules. wctaiwan (talk) 08:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Why do people always assume that the only options available to us are "Delete" and "Keep"?.... there are lots of other alternatives. A common alternative is "Merge with/into...". When it comes to nominations where someone requests time to locate the sources they assume must exist, two alternatives that I would like to see utilized more often are: "No determination - more time requested - review in X weeks" which can be followed up with "Move to user space until sources are located" if X weeks pass without the assumed sources being found. Blueboar (talk) 12:54, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
The question here is about the specific existence of individual, stand-alone articles, not the content of other articles. Admittedly, I have never seen someone request more time at AfD. They simply state that sources should exist and leave it at that. I suppose if ever I did see an editor request more time in earnest then I could definitely see obliging their request. --Odie5533 (talk) 14:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
But, you just can't say "Oh, sources exists, trust me" and leave it like that. On the otherhand, providing pointers to specific books or journals that you can't get your hands on in the immediate timeframe of the AFD is definitely a way to help save an article from deletion, as you don't need to get those sources in the immediate time.
That said, I think there's a tolerance issue here. Say, in an AFD, I claim there's 6 good sources, but I can't get to them now, but they would certainly support a topic's notability; the AFD closes as "keep" on this presumption only. Three years later, I haven't touched the article or went to locate those sources, and the article is in as bad a shape as before; if it was sent to AFD again, my same argument might start to lose weight. You can't sit on the claim these sources exist indefinitely without actually attempting to confirm that. Of course, as WP is a collaborative process, I would expect others that are interested in that topic will try to assist by finding those sources themselves, and clearly if they discover they don't cover the topic, that's a different beast altogether. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
I believe there was a discussion - not here, unfortunately but somewhere else - that affirmed that WP:V's model followed: sources need to have been IDd but not necessarily in the article to meet WP:V, and since WP:N requires verifiable evidence to show notability (whether that is secondary sources via the GNG or meeting a criteria of an SNG), we follow the same model: specific sources need to be known to exist, but they don't have to be present at the immediate time. I don't believe this requires a change in language for WP:N. --MASEM (t) 14:24, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
Hmmm... WP:Verifiability includes the concept of WP:BURDEN - if some bit of information is "challenged or likely to be challenged", it is up to those who wish to add (or keep) that bit of information in the article to actually supply a source for it (ie to actually put a citation in the article). The same concept applies to claims of notability. As long as everyone says "Oh, yes, that's notable" it does not really matter whether we supply sources. However, if someone challenges the notability of an article topic, it should be up to those who wish to keep the article to actually supply sources to support the claim of notability. We should be reasonable in giving them time to do this, but it should be done. Blueboar (talk) 14:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
It's a balance between BURDEN and that. If it is a highly-contentious fact (say, something that could be libelous to a person if it wasn't true), I would argue that BURDEN/NOR overrides here, and a source has to be provided, just as we would with sourced quotes, etc. (not just identified, this has to be an inline reference) On the other hand, something like a sales figure, or a piece that is questionably but not going to get anyone in trouble is something we can hold off on removing per BURDEN in favor of a lack of deadline. Notability, to me, falls into the latter. Showing notability is a fact that can be challenged, but its not a highly-contentious issue whether we have an article or not on a topic. Of course, this can vary from topic to topic (eg: BLPs probably weigh more towards the BURDEN side), but by default, as long as there's explicit sources identified but not included, WP:N is met. --MASEM (t) 14:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Some time ago I wanted to remove some double and triple negatives from Notability requires verifiable evidence. Alas, no support for it. As I see it there are multiple cases to be considered for an article lacking a source for an good-faith editor to claim to merit a stand-alone Wikipedia article:

1. Someone adds the citation to the article
2. Someone adds a citation in the talk page (or AfD). This can be verified by anyone and added to the article.
3. Someone identifies a source but doesn't have the citation. Anyone can follow-up on this, either to create the citation, or declare it cannot be found.
4. Someone claims that sources exists but can't identify them by name only by class. Anyone can follow-up on this, either to identify the source, create the citation, or declare it cannot be found.
5. Someone claims that sources should exist but can't identify them by class. This may seem strange but it occurs in the case of new editors or non-US/CA/UK-editors unfamiliar with WP:N.
In all of these cases, routine claims in these five case are enough to pass WP:N. We have no time limit to produce citations for WP:N. In fact, we already have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of articles that lack a single WP:N-level citation. As mentioned above at the level of challenged/could be challenged, there's more burden applied on cases 4 and 5.
6. The article itself makes no claims of encyclopedic significance to its topic.
7. A consensus of editors that sources for the claims made in the article do not exist.
These two are the cases where I would expect a AfD to result in consensus to delete. patsw (talk) 17:30, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
I think there's a case between 3 and 4, in which someone believes they have a source, identified by name, but cannot obtain that source (eg: often a result of Google Scholar searching if you don't have access to a good academic library). Still falls into the "anyone can follow-up" classification. --MASEM (t) 17:45, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
If there is an article which asserts that John Doe is president of Foo University then that is an assertion of notability sufficient to have an article. But if there's no source for that assertion it may be deleted by any editor, effectively removing the claim of notability. When there is no way of verifying the assertion of notability then the article is a reasonable candidate for deletion.   Will Beback  talk  17:57, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Removal of information is based on how contentious that is. Claiming a person as president of a university is the type of fact that should be easily verified even if the editor adding it has not even identified a source. Removing that kind of statement would likely be reverted; instead, that's the place where you can use {{cn}} if you feel the lack of a source is a problem. If this is the statement that the article on Doe is resting on for its notability, we shouldn't be deleting the article if the fact is relatively easy to check out.
This is not true for all cases of notability, particularly from SNGs. If I claim that an album has broken the platinum record barrier, but don't provide a source, this may be the case where the factoid may be deleted if no source is provided (it is not an easily verified fact) and thus negating the album's notability. But we should always strive towards a retention solution - even if that means we're retaining unsourced information related to the article's notability if that favors keeping a article, as long as that information is not harm (like a BLP violation). --MASEM (t) 18:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
Number 5 is exactly what I was talking about. It's perfectly fine for inexperienced editors to create articles without providing sources, but if an article is nominated for AfD and crowd-sourcing fails to turn up sources, or where sources would likely be found, the article should be deleted per GNG (since no significant coverage was identified). As for subjects notable due to SNGs, AfD discussions should normally be able to come up with where that claim may be verified, so it's less of an issue.
While it's true we have no deadline, articles lacking independent, reliable sources are often slanted (due to the use of primary sources) and may contain unverifiable information. If someone is bothered enough to nominate an article for AfD (with merits), we should try to find sources, and, failing that, delete the article. wctaiwan (talk) 05:38, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Cases 5 and 7 differ in that in case 5 there is no consensus that sources do not exist. In case 7, there is a consensus that sources do not exist. There's no time limit on finding sources for case 5 articles, and I would be generous in that for non-controversial articles written by new editors, and non-US/CA/UK editors. patsw (talk) 11:50, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

As an update to this, the deletion was closed as keep with the closing admin stating, "There is consensus to keep based on presumed notability and that sources must exist." From the interpretation in this thread, the AfD consensus was not in line with my understanding of WP:N. However, AFD discussions can form their own consensus – and have done just that. --Odie5533 talk 16:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I'd be hesistant to draw any conclusions on a handful of AfDs. You'd need a massive case-study to determine if there's any kind of different pattern.∞陣内Jinnai 17:54, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Abuse of the General Notability Guideline in Deletion Discussions nominated for deletion

It's an essay that denies the concept of this guideline, so I thought I should let you know. ASCIIn2Bme (talk) 07:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That essay is stating something that's always been true: GNG is not N and N is not GNG. Thousands of articles are in Wikipedia without anything in them resembling GNG. Ever since GNG was formulated, it's been the quickest way for new articles to demonstrate N. patsw (talk) 22:21, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

WP:Viability of lists

Long ago when we first added WP:LISTN I said I'd do an eassay on it to try and work out the details left vague. While I started it some time ago, it was left languishing for a while as the initial version was too focused. I've posted up what I consider to be a general idea of what the community would consider a "viable" list based on discussions here and elsewhere, but it probably could use some looking at.

This is not meant to be a notability list per se, but an attempt to bridge the gap between LISTN and WP:SALAT with some clarifications. Therefore its currently not listed under notability lists and I'm not sure where to put in the See also section.∞陣内Jinnai 18:23, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Anyone mind if I add this to see also section (since its not listed as a notability essay)?∞陣内Jinnai 03:07, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Why, at last

I've finally posted the draft "purpose" section that we discussed almost a month ago. The goals here include:

  • explaining our "mean-spirited" decisions to total newbies, e.g., why an article sourced strictly to their garage band's own website isn't sufficient,
  • helping existing editors understand the point behind the requirements, so that they see them as practical guidelines that should be interpreted in terms of their practical effects on content creation and policy compliance, rather than as magic totems or bureaucratic hoops to jump through, and
  • helping people understand what's required for all articles by major content policies, even if said requirement doesn't happen to be mentioned in the exact same sentence of the SNG that they're citing (that is, reducing misapplication of certain lines in some SNGs, especially of the "but I don't want that large ==Caveats== section in the SNG to apply to my subject—I want an automatic, permanent, no-questions-asked exemption from producing sufficient sources, because ____ is just such an incredibly important subject!" sort).

Please feel free to expand as necessary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:02, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

WAID - good words. I would elevate the last phrase in bullet #3 to WP:NOT as advertising is just one form of NOT. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments

  • replace "English Wikipedia" with "English language Wikipedia"
  • replace "decent article" with "good article" for simplicity and clarity.
  • after "rather than a half a paragraph or a definition." add "on that topic" for precision.
  • remove "true" before "secondary source" as it is redundant. Its absence would not imply that a "false" secondary source could be used.
  • The meaning of "...they apply to all articles, not solely articles justified under the WP:GNG. ..." is unclear and sounds even circular. What's the connection of this to the purpose of WP:N? patsw (talk) 16:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I agree with everything except the change from "decent article" -> "good article" because we have WP:Good article. Another word is fine, but lets try not to use phrasing that may be accidently misconstrued at best and wikilawyer at worst to be something its not.∞陣内Jinnai 03:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't address why we don't have TV episode articles (when we don't). A TV episode article can have in universe and out of universe sections built without relying on secondary sources. They also all pass WP:V.
I think they're (sometimes) prohibited becuase that's just how we like it. We might want to explain that kind of prohibition as well, just to cover all commons article types where we "bite" the newbies. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:17, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
An article without secondary sources generally can't pass WP:V, because WP:V requires that articles be based on third-party independent sources. In theory there could be an independent, third-party source that wasn't a secondary source, but I can't think of one that would come up in the field of TV shows.—Kww(talk) 19:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
A publication talking about the viewer's (including professional reviewers) own emotional reaction to the TV show is definitely an independent primary source.
You might like to read WP:Secondary does not mean independent. As it happens (last I checked), an article with zero secondary sources passes WP:V, but not WP:NOR. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I know the difference, which is why I said that independent third-party sources that wasn't a secondary source could exist. Your example is certainly a primary source relative to the reviewer, but any statement the reviewer makes about the episode is secondary. Not many reviews are just going to say "The episode made me feel sick!" without saying anything actually about the episode itself. It can certainly happen, but it's more a theoretical problem than a practical one, unless you are seeing worse articles than I used to see when I still looked over our fiction coverage. It's possible that the situation has degenerated, but I certainly hope not.—Kww(talk) 01:36, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Couple of quick thoughts:

  • You all know where that edit button is, right? Please feel free to use it. If someone else doesn't like your change, then that person can undo it.
  • I'm with Jinnai about the need to avoid confusion with WP:GA. I'm open to any non-wiki-jargon alternative to the word "decent".
  • The problem I'm trying to address with the last paragraph (Patsw's last bullet) is the problem of people saying (wrongly) that they don't have to meet any inconvenient standards, because their article is supported by ATH #1 (for example), and ATH #1 doesn't say anything about the necessity of all articles complying with WP:V and WP:NOR, so they believe that ATH #1 articles don't have to be based on third-party sources, or on secondary sources, or on any of those other pesky requirements in the major content and sourcing policies. We do still have people who believe this error, after all, and we need to address it. (Also, I think it's important to indicate that dab pages and navboxes and the like don't have to meet those standards, because that has been a source of confusion in the past.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Interviews count as primary, but it says for GNG you need secondary sources.

Someone has noticed the exact wording states that ""Sources",[2] for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability." WP:PRIMARY apparently states that primary is defined to include interviews. So, having detailed interviews with someone, doesn't make that person notable. So, we need to change the wording here, or over there, to eliminate any confusion. Major news sources interviewing someone obviously should count to their notability. Dream Focus 20:30, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Major news sources often interview random people in the streets. That does not make these people notable. If, however, the statement of an interview are relevant enough to be picked up and reported/analysed by another another news source (referring to the name of the interviewee of course), you have a claim to notability.... and a secondary surce. Arnoutf (talk) 20:36, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Ah. That's why it says interview, it talking about the questioning of eye witnesses and random people, not detailed interviews with obviously notable people based on what they are notable for. Need a way to clarify the language to avoid problems like the one in a current AFD [4], where some insist that even a detailed interview in the Washington Post [5] doesn't count because its a "primary source". Dream Focus 20:42, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
Despite what the byline claims, that's not an interview, that's a first person statement made by the subject. That it appears in the Post does support assertions of GNG, I think, but it's a primary source, not a secondary one. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:00, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't think that's all the interview, just part of it. Be rather odd for a major newspaper to mess up like that, and put someone's name there, then have it just one guy talking about himself briefly. Not a good example. Its significant coverage in a reliable source, so that's all that matters. Dream Focus 22:49, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
I do not agree that it is significant coverage, although I do think it's a tick mark towards notability. I also think it's complete, see this, it appears this is one of many such short first person personal narratives. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)
This was further discussed at Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 49#Question.  Assuming that the interviewer is an independent reporter, the interviewee has "attracted attention", which is one of our definitions of notability, and for this purpose the involvement of the interviewer is as a secondary source.  An interview is a primary source for what the interviewee says about himself/herself.  Interviews may include material in which the interviewee is speaking as a secondary source.  What seems clear is that a blanket statement that an interview is a primary source is more of a caution flag than a guideline, because interviews are a mixture of primary and secondary material.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:17, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I don't disagree in general, but if you haven't, I suggest taking a look at the particular case--there's nothing from the "interviewer", it's just 3-4 paragraphs in 1st person from the subject. There's not even an introduction. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:37, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
(ec)You are correct that I had not looked at the Washington Post article.  In looking at the article, it says "by Amanda Long" and "Interview by Amanda Long", and identifies a photographer connected to the Washington Post.  Further, it is identified in the title by the words, "First person singular".  This is not like a conventional question and answer interview.  I believe that the author, Amanda Long, has spliced together sentences of the subject into a biography.  IMO, the impact is the point, which is that the subject of the interview was found to be "worthy of notice" by the reputable Washington Post.  Regarding notability, IMO, the AfD should consider this article to be a biography, or as if it were a biography, written by the author.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

It seems that I keep coming upon my failed proposals. In this case, a clarification of the distinction between a participant in an event writing a first person account (unambiguously a primary source), and an interview such as the Frost/Nixon Interviews where the former president had no control over the questions or the editing of his own words. Interviews can be primary sources. Interviews can be secondary sources. It depends on context. That's my opinion, not policy. See Wikipedia talk:No original research/Archive 56 for the details.

1. Secondary is not another way to spell "good". Primary is not another way to spell "bad". Explained here.
2. Two important words before "secondary sources" are "should be" (in WP:N). That means, among other things, that if the only sources a diligent effort finds are primary, then to make the case that the topic ought to have a stand-alone article, that is sufficient until more and better sources can be found. Cases where this needs to be done are rare, and typically involve facts before everything got recorded on the Internet somewhere.
3. The whole primary/secondary distinction is overblown in general: While I assume good faith among editors, I think in some cases there's deletionist gotcha in labeling a source as primary -- when this guideline is a contingent one. By that I mean WP:PSTS is a helpful aid to detect when original research, conflict of interest, self-publishing guidelines are breached, and not a guideline unto itself for WP:N. patsw (talk) 01:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The thing to remember is what we're trying to get out of these sources. A true interview (which, for sake of simplification, is generally where a RS has gone out of the way to dedicate a block of its publication or broadcasting to allow a person of note to answer various questions or otherwise speak openly, and where this is usually the only aspect of the block; as compared with interviewing an eyewitness or a bystandard as part of a larger piece of coverage on a topic) is going to be one where, assuming the source reliable, we can write a good block of paraphrased text that will be of interest to a reader about the person being interviewed, or the subject that person is interviewing about. Eg, that information is transformational, not simply repeating factual information in their own words. But also remember, notability is about significant coverage. If all you have is one interview, that person is not likely notable. --MASEM (t) 03:02, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
We have some serious problems with what our policies and guidelines say about interviews. They're basically incorrect, but luckily we ignore what they say in most of those cases. Also, never saw good/bad/secondary/primary thing before, but I imagine it was written because primary are considered the red headed step child of sources, apparently necessitating some double speak. The headers say they arent good or bad, and then the text bodies explain how they are...good and bad. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
It is generally my experience that the editors, rather than the policies, are incorrect about these things, with an unfortunate number of "but it has to be secondary, because otherwise I'll lose the AFD" sorts of arguments.
Interviews—normal interviews, not "dear expert, please tell me what I could look up in a book, except that this is television, so I have to have a talking head on screen" pseudo-interviews—are primary sources. The interviewee's lack of control has absolutely nothing to do with this. Interviews are primary because all they tell you is one person's answers to another person's questions. It doesn't matter who wrote the questions, who asked the questions, who has editorial control, who knew the questions in advance, or anything else: all you've got is one person's answers to someone else's questions. That's a primary source. (All those other issues have to do with source independence, and WP:Secondary does not mean independent.)
However, a really top-quality interview—e.g., with Barbara Walters on 20/20—is also a solid indication of notability. The GNG doesn't actually say that editors may never consider primary sources as indications of notability; it only says that at least one secondary source needs to exist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The misconception you have, and a lot of people have, is that we can determine primary vs. secondary without specifying the subject under discussion. High or low quality, newspaper or TV, none of these things have any effect on primary vs. secondary (I think you mean I like it vs. I don't like it, or good vs. bad like that one essay). Primary vs. secondary is about whether the source is close to the subject. People are so wrong on this subject, that I would care, but again we generally ignore the wrong part of our guidelines (while reverting changes to them), so who cares. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 05:05, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I challenge the flat out assumption that an interview is always primary. it depends on what article we're talking about and to what degree the interviewee answers the questions. I completely agree that an interview with person A is a primary source for the article on A. But if A is an actor, and their interview (as directed by the interviewer) is insight into a character they have actored that goes beyond what is obvious from the primary work, that interview is likely a secondary source for the character article. But it all depends on several several factors. I will say that the most significant the RS, the fact that a person is given a full interview likely means there is a facet of being notable already established elsewhere and its a matter of rfinding that. --MASEM (t) 05:11, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Okay, let's say Professor A is a notable expert on early imperial Rome. In an interview, he explains various things about the period, possibly drawing parallels to other times and making comparisons and suchlike. If you are writing about "Professor A's views on early imperial Rome", it's a primary source. If you're writing about early imperial Rome, it's a secondary source. To claim it's primary in the latter case is frankly absurd (unless you think Professor A is a secret immortal who really was there at the time, or has a time machine). SamBC(talk) 12:34, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
That's exactly what I mean by a "pseudo-interview": Professor A's answer to such a question should be something you could easily look up in a book or a scholarly paper, except that the format is an oral exchange between two people, rather than a regular book or academic journal. When we say that "interviews" are primary, I think we mean a particular kind of interview: a clip from a press conference, a chat on The Tonight Show, or a actor promoting his latest film, where the person is mostly talking about himself or herself. We don't usually mean Professor A verbally telling a reporter the same basic facts about early imperial Roman that any interested person could look up in any library.
(If Professor A is propounding a brand-new theory about Rome, then it would still be a primary source for what his brand-new theory is, but that doesn't happen often.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:45, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I have added language so that the absurd case where someone is interviewed by dozens of sources over an extended period of time and yet it does not establish significant coverage by the strictest interpretation that all interviews are primary, and primary sources never pass WP:N. This edit, I believe, reflects current practice rather than being a new thing. patsw (talk) 13:38, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

That, for one, is not always true, and secondly, something that should be added to WP:BIO, not here. For example, in the area of video games, games themselves are notable, but often the RS's will talk and interview the game's developers - none who are any more notable beyond for having worked on the game - a clearcut case of BLP1E. They may become more notable over time, but not because RSs are talking to them in an interview fashion about the notable game they have made. Note that I'm not saying this indication of notability is never true: a person that is interviewed about their life's work in very highly regarded reliable sources (eg, Time, New York Times, etc.) on a repeated basis likely is notable, the interviews a result of that notability, but that probably means that other sources can be found (or perhaps even within the interview headers) that explain why the person's notable first before delving into the interview. But just being interviewed multiple times is not an assurance. --MASEM (t) 13:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I think it is safe to leave interviews out of the WP:N article. Such a case where a person has only been interviewed in dozens of major newspapers but somehow no one managed to just discuss the person or his work would be a very rare case for notability and I think should be handled on a case-by-case basis. That or we could come up with specific criteria at WP:BIO for such extreme cases. --Odie5533 (talk) 13:51, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Retrospectively you may want to have seen non-interview sources, but many articles were written with interviews showing significant coverage and not scrutinized for "interviews=>PS=>no N". Why start now? Why change our practices to conform to a new literal and contested interpretation of guidelines? patsw (talk) 14:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Again, the issue is not here: we're asking for secondary sources, but we never attempt to assert anything about what is a secondary source. The problem is at WP:OR, where there is a statement that is being read/interpreted that all interviews are primary, which from my read in this discussion is not a truism. Fix that, and everything is fine again. --MASEM (t) 15:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps a side issue: Many interviews are prefaced by a short bio of the interviewee, or at least a mention of their claim to notability. OTOH, from my experience the short bios are sometimes written by the subject themselves and so need to be taken with a grain of salt. That portion of the interview would be a secondary source, especially if they are clearly written by the interviewer.   Will Beback  talk  18:58, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Another thought... really, it shouldn't require multiple, independent, secondary, reliable... what does 'secondary' actually contribute to that list? Why is it relevant? Coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject is surely the benchmark of notability, conceptually. If three journalists in different papers write about a place, based on their own visits, does that not constitute evidence that note has been taken of that place (while not necessarily providing good verification of the facts about the place)? Similarly, if people keep being interviewed in reliable sources independent of the person, where they themselves are the subject of the interview (or they're frequently interviewed about something independent of themselves), does that not indicate that note has been taken of the person (either as a person in their own right, or as an authority on the topic)? Exactly how interviews would be used is down to a specific guideline on people, but the general principle isn't, to me, whether or not interviews are primary, but rather that the requirement for secondary sources for notability (as opposed to whether there are enough reliable sources to provide verifiability) is not really appropriate. Looking at it from another angle, WP:N isn't just a safeguard on WP:V, and it shouldn't really be set up to fulfil that role. SamBC(talk) 14:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The idea of secondary is two fold: first, that meets with the idea of OR that we cannot make original claims but must use secondary sources to do so. But more importantly, as long as its understood that secondary sources transform primary, tertiary and other secondary sources into a new idea, that shows the relevancy of the topic towards the whole of mankind's knowledge to avoid indiscriminate inclusion. Or, short answer: we likely can source a huge number of topics to independent, verified sources - for example, I would anticipate that with effort, we could easily have articles on nearly every working citizen within the first world countries. The problem is, most people aren't significant to the larger body of knowledge, and thus we require some idea of the relevancy of their contribution, and that can only be stated through secondary sources. (This is, of course, ignoring BLP1E, but consider it a thought experiment). --MASEM (t) 15:07, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Also, WP:NOR requires their existence: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources."
If zero secondary and/or tertiary sources exist, then it is not possible to write a policy-compliant article on the subject. Part of WP:N's job is to keep people from creating articles that are unquestionably doomed to violate major content policies. So in practice, WP:NOR basically requires that at least one secondary source exist if we're going to have an article on the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
WP:NOR gives a requirement for there to be at least one secondary source, perhaps (speaking about the concept, not the text, when I say perhaps) - for the sake of argument let's agree it does. That doesn't give a requirement for multiple. Only WP:N gives a requirement for multiple reliable independent secondary sources. The combination of all four elements of that is, I believe, unique to WP:N, so the question then becomes why notability requires all of those things. I can see why it needs multiple sources; other policies and guidelines mean that at least one source must be secondary, and reliable; I suppose it makes sense that we require notability to be established by reliable sources as well, and independent sources is a fairly obvious requirement. The bit that doesn't seem clearly justified is requiring multiple sources to be secondary. From previous conversations, I think there are a few reasons this seems to be 'obvious' to some people. For instance, some think that a source meeting the other criteria would automatically be secondary (tip: it wouldn't). Some seem to be basing it on the secondary=good fallacy. The question is whether secondary-ness (as it were) is actually essential for notability or not.
I'm not sure how we could establish notability of all of those people, even if the requirement for secondary sources to establish notability were removed (its relevance to OR, V, etc would still hold, after all). The degree of difference it would make depends on how 'independent' and 'reliable' are interpreted, of course. SamBC(talk) 15:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
The requirement is there to show at least 2 people/organizations (and in most cases that is how "multiple" will be interpreted as) not directly affiliated with what the article is about care about it. It's generally easy to find one, especially if that threshold were to include interviews. Finding a second one though is a way of showing a somewhat wider support that the topic is worthy of inclusion.∞陣内Jinnai 16:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Sam, if you (correctly) understand "notability" as meaning "qualifies to have an article on the English Wikipedia", and you understand WP:NOR as requiring that all articles be based on secondary sources, then "prevening you from creating an article that is doomed to violate NOR" is what the requirement for secondary sources achieves.
Multiple sources make NPOV compliance possible: you can't write an unbiased article from a single, possibly biased source.
The real question IMO is whether policy compliance requires that these be additive: must you have multiple sources, at least one of which is secondary (plus at least one of which is independent, plus at least one of which provides significant coverage, plus...) or must you have multiple secondary sources?
The GNG (which is not the same as WP:N) is permitted to exceed the minimum requirements of the content policies, but if we are going to exceed those requirements, we should be doing it because we purposefully choose to do so, not accidentally. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Are we really sure that multiple-secondary is required? Sure, multiple-independent-reliable is, but why does notability require multiple secondary sources? It might be hard to write a fully developed article from a single, well-rounded and thoroughly reliable secondary source, but it is possible (and I've seen articles both pass and fail AfD in that situation, I'm fairly sure), but I very much agree that one source alone won't establish notability. However, if there are many thoroughly reliable independent sources, that surely indicates notability. Further, where there are no expected POV issues, an article can have some of its content sourced to non-independent sources as well. If we ignored the existing tradition of the GNG, would there be anything wrong with an article that wasn't in-depth or controversial, sourced from one well-credentialed reputable 'ideal' source and some additional, factual details pulled in from primary and/or non-independent sources? My feeling is "yes, sometimes" - in which case, we must ask why the GNG would suggest that it is not acceptable. If there's only one source non independent of the subject, I would agree that notability is questionable, but if there are many reputable but primary sources, what would be the argument to exclude it, from first principles rather than "look at N and GNG!!!". What would lead to the better outcome for the encyclopedia, rather than from the view of wikilawyering. SamBC(talk) 14:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
The point I'm trying to make is that they can be independent of the subject without being secondary. That's why we have both the word 'secondary' and the word 'independent' - because they don't mean the same thing, and can in fact be orthogonal (non-independent but secondary is a little hard to get your head around, but actually clearly possible when the two ideas are well-understood). SamBC(talk) 14:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I think key factor is not necessary that we're asking for multiple secondary sources, but that we want depth of coverage which by necessity has to be more than what the primary sources provide. Take, for instance, the example of individual TV episodes. For many shows, there is no lack of third-party, independent recaps of an episode. But a recap - as long as it attempts no analysis or criticism of the show, is completely primary. That gives us no depth of coverage that would be needed to build out a usable encyclopedic article. But having, at minimum, some reviews and criticisms to establish the specific episode's quality relative to other episodes of the same show or to any television show in general does give that, and that type of information can only come from secondary sources. Or, having details on how this show was written and filmed to fit into the larger plot of the show from an interview with the creators, again, can only be coming from secondary sources that provide that depth of coverage. There are probably other ways to meet the idea of depth of coverage beyond multiple secondary sources, but multiple secondary sources works 99.999% of the time for this, with the few cases where we would consider coverage appropriate without secondary (and thus appropriately notable) being appropriate use of WP:IAR. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Consider restaurants, instead of TV shows... in-depth reviews of the restaurant by a critic who's been there, and is basing it on their own experiences, is still primary, however much in-depth consideration they give it. Should such a review (assuming it's in a reliable publication, etc etc) not contribute to notability? SamBC(talk) 19:26, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
You have it wrong: A review by a food critic of a restaurant is a secondary source for that restaurant. If all the critic did is go and relist the menu and factual data, that's primary, but making commentary about the food itself is secondary. (The review itself would be a primary source about the critic himself, however). --MASEM (t) 19:30, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
But an interview by a critic of a chef or owner taints the contribution of the interviewer's observations in the sense of not showing coverage for our WP:N test. This problem is precisely what my proposal in the next section is designed to correct, to restore common sense back to the role interviews and interviewers have in showing coverage of a topic. patsw (talk) 22:59, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
No, not really, at least in the case of the critic, who we assume is an unbiased, independent food critic. If an independent third-party source conducted an interview with the chef of a restaurant, asking "probing" questions like the origins, the theme, how well it's down, yes, the chef's answers will be biased, but we presume the selection of the chef to be the subject of the interview was not. Thus it is an independent source, as well as secondary. Key is: this strongly depends on situation, which is why we're not saying every interview is either primary or secondary, but depends on who interview, who is being interviewed, what topic and relationship to the topic they are talking about, and the topic we're using that interview as a source on. --MASEM (t) 23:21, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Reviews are complicated. They are secondary for some purposes (e.g., a description of the restaurant, a summary of the menu), but many reviews contain primary material as well (e.g., the list of people the critic ate dinner with, the list of the specific items ordered that night). The "star rating" itself is a primary source: this source directly gave this rating to this restaurant.
Classifying sources is harder than it looks. When you're dealing with reviews, you are going to have to use your best judgment, rather than an all-or-nothing classification of all reviews. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Reviews about subject X, by nature of secondary sources, are always secondary for topic X, regardless if they include primary information or the like. Of course, you have to ask about the reliability of the reviewer, the independence of the reviewer, and the like, but the review will always remain secondary. The star rating too is a secondary source (it is a transformative measure of the restaurant's quality based on their opinion); however, for purposes of notability, if the only thing that a critic can say beyond listing the restaurant name and food prices is a star rating, that is far from the broad coverage that we require for notability determination. That's why its more than "multiple secondary sources" but instead "depth of coverage". We would never allow an article on a restaurant that rested its notability solely on a three-line newspaper blurb that gave it X out of 5 stars as its only non-primary source of information. --MASEM (t) 23:40, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
No, it's more complicated than that. A source does not have to be 100% secondary. A source could be 50-50 primary and secondary. Most peer-reviewed scientific papers are 90-10 splits between primary and secondary sources. Even a source that is 100% secondary under most circumstances can turn into a primary source: if you use EB1911 to support a claim that it was published in 1911, you have transformed that tertiary source into an indisputably primary source.
If your question is "How many stars did Michelin give this restaurant in 1974?" then the Guide is a primary source for the answer. If your question is "What do the critics generally think of this restaurant?" then the number of stars could be (part of) a secondary source.
It's complicated. There really isn't any way to avoid the fact that you are going to have to use your brains instead of saying "review == secondary". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
I'm not disagreeing that a review can have primary and secondary information, nor that in a different article about a different topic, what was primary may be secondary and vice versa (same with an interview). We're clear on several pages that you can't just apply a single label of primary or secondary to a source that applies 100% across WP.
But going back to what we use on WP for notability, the key is that we want depth of coverage as demonstrated through multiple secondary sources. We don't require that the sources be 100% secondary, only that they have some secondary information and therefore count towards the total. That is: simply: if the source has any secondary info for topic X, even an iota, it is considered secondary for purposes of checking off the notability requirements for topic X. Of course, the more that it is secondary and the more of them you have, the better off you have convincing people it is a notable topic.
The stars example still points out my lead statement: if the Michelin guide gave Joe's Diner 4 out of 4 stars (say, a very noted rare occurance), then the guide is a secondary source for Joe's Diner, but a primary source for itself if one was documenting the rarity of the 4 star restaurants. Again, I'm being very specific when I say "A review for topic X will always be secondary for topic X". Not, to be clear "A review will always be a secondary source" for exactly the reasons you state. --MASEM (t) 00:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Your example is an impossible occurrence, actually, because the Guide only goes as high as three stars. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:22, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The insistence that a review is secondary seems to me a confusion of PST with independence. A person detailing their own experience of something is primary. My hypothetical was a review that consisted entirely of the critics own experiences, not based on pulling together other people's experiences and so forth. A review of a book or film is more likely to be secondary because the work itself is a primary source, but "eating at a restaurant" isn't a source, so writing based on it isn't secondary. Similarly, someone working for an organisation writing a history of it based on documentary evidence and other people's testimony would produce a source that is secondary, but not independent. SamBC(talk) 14:02, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

No, again not right. Yes, a simple retelling of one's experience at a restaurant is likely to be primary if it only presents factual information (eg "I went to Joe's. I ordered steak and salad. It arrived in 10 minutes. I paid $30 for the meal and tip.") As soon as subjective opinion enters the retelling, such as "I found the steak to be overdone.", it becomes a review and therefore secondary. Of course, one off-handed commented like that doesn't do much for notability, but the source now contains secondary information. By the nature of what a "review" is (as opposed to a "recap"), it needs to contain subjective measures that are interpretations and criticism of the primary source and therefore will be secondary. --MASEM (t) 14:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In fact, consider the parallel case of eyewitness accounts. A restaurant review of the type described is an eyewitness account - so would the account of someone who witnessed an event without participating in it also be secondary if they have no connection to the parties involved? SamBC(talk) 14:04, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, reporting factually what one saw is a primary source. Of course, eyewitnesses will instinctively/purposely add embellishment ("It was the worst accident I ever saw") technically making these secondary to some degree, but because eyewitnesses are usually not proven reliable sources, we don't consider such sources appropriate for notability. --MASEM (t) 14:26, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
So an eyewitness account becomes secondary if it has anything subjective in it at all? An eyewitness describing an event as "terrifying" becomes secondary? That flies in the face of all I've read or been taught about the nature of sources. But maybe we should see what we can find in reliable sources... otherwise we're just two people with different opinions, and there's no direct way to choose between those. SamBC(talk) 15:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Not really. First, go back to what WhatAmIDoing said: sources can be both primary and secondary towards the same topic at the same time. An eyewitness account of an accident that goes into great factual detail and then ends on "it was the most terrifying accident I've seen in my life" is probably 95% primary, 5% secondary (if that much). Now, how we use that source is a very different matter: If that was the only bit of secondary information about an accident that we had, it's going to fail notability (there's no depth of coverage from reliable independent secondary sorces). If we use it to try to qualify the accident that may be notable, but this is just some random person off the street, there's no indication of reliability, so we'd dismiss that. So while a causal offcomment like that may be injected into an eyewitness account and be secondary information about the accident, we would never likely ever use that as a secondary source on WP, and thus for all practical purposes, the eyewitness account is treated as primary.
When we turn back to restaurant reviews, there are two major differences: first, the reviewer is likely going to do more than just recount the factual aspects of his dining, and instead include details on the decor, ambiance, waitstaff, timeliness, presentation, taste, cost, and the like, making such reviews more like 25% primary, 75% secondary. Secondly, a food or restaurant critic is more likely to be a reliable source than a man on the street, and thus there's no question of using that review information to qualify a restaurant. We still need to talk about depth of coverage for notability, of course; if that's the only review of the restaurant, even if it goes into great critical detail, that's just one person's opinion and not enough to build a topic on. --MASEM (t) 15:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't see why a recap by an independant party is a primary source. We're talking primary and secondary sources, not primary and secondary information. Choosing how to recap something requires tons of subjective decisions. "The killer waited outside the house" vs "pixel 23,345 at timestamp 23.445 was colored X11223" could be two equally accurate ways to recap a television show. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 16:31, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
If the recap is simply reiterating without any interpretation or specialized analysis, it's a primary source; no transformation outside of paraphrasing has been made on the original factual data. Once interpretation, criticism, or analysis above and beyond what the average reader can verify themselves - aka transformation of the primary source - that makes it secondary. (The pixel analysis you state is such a case). --MASEM (t) 16:37, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Masem, I think you're wrong. Specifically, I think that your definition of secondary is far too expansive. If I write "I found the steak to be overdone", that's my opinion—and my first publication of my opinion is a primary source, not a secondary source.
Also, I don't believe that the presence of a tiny amount of secondary material magically transforms the entire publication into a secondary source. I don't think that's true in the real world (when experts classify ancient documents, for example) and it is certainly not true on Wikipedia. Editors normally take a "preponderance of evidence" approach, so that a mostly-primary source is still called a primary source, and a mostly-secondary source is called a secondary source (for notability purposes). WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
Your opinion on the quality of the food at the restaurant is secondary information for purposes of discussing the restaurant; you have transformed factual information into a novel conclusion. It's not earth-shattering novel, of course, but it is a conclusion you cannot immediately read from primary sources (unless, of course, the restaurant prides itself on overdone steaks). It's a primary source for you as a reviewer, of course. And again, I completely agree that a source can be both primary and secondary to a topic, but for purposes of "accounting" at WP:N, a partially secondary source is still a secondary source. WP:N still, as you say, looks at the overall bodies of work, to the degree that the sources discuss the work, and the like. Passing mention, even if it is one line of secondary information, won't fly for depth of coverage. --MASEM (t) 18:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
That just doesn't match scholarly use of the terms. Letters, journals, eyewitness accounts are all considered primary sources (although in the latter case only if made 'soon' after the events), regardless of any opinion they contain. Indeed, given the problems with eyewitness accounts, a lot of it has to be considered opinion even if seemingly factual. Analysis and opinion are characteristics of secondary sources, but only in a descriptive definition - it's not a characteristic that makes a source secondary. Virtually no human-mediated sources would be primary by your definition, and that's simply not how it's used generally. Put another way, the food itself is not a source - it's a transient object. The recounted experience of a person who ate it is the closest a source can get - it's primary. SamBC(talk) 18:15, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Notability on other languages' Wikipedias

Hi! In a discussion with another user, they state that if an article is found notable by another language's notability guideline, it's inherently notable here. It's always been my understanding that notability guidelines across the Wikipedias were written seperately for a reason; they don't infer anything at a seperate language. I can't find an argument either way in any policy or guideline. Does anyone know if such a determination has ever been officially made (and put into a policy/guideline)? I'd really appreciate the help. OlYeller21Talktome 21:27, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

I can say for sure that as long as the sources for the foreign language article (presumably in a foreign language) are known to be reliable on that wiki, they will likely be considered reliable here. And of course, their meaning doesn't magically change due to being on en.wiki or elsewhere. If there are the equivalent of SNGs on other wikis, they may be out of skew with each other, but I would assert that if one wiki clearly has determined a topic notable, we on en.wiki should consider it notable. --MASEM (t) 21:36, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
I can agree with that. The problem I'm having is that I can't find the subject on other Wikis. Can anyone else find Eugene Balabin on other Wikis? He's Russian so one would assume ru.wikipedia.org but as they use a different alphabet, finding him is proving difficult. OlYeller21Talktome 21:50, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
OlYeller21, most articles have a "Languages" section at the bottom of left sidebar that links to the article on other wiki's. Eugene Balabin's name in Cyrillic is Балабин, Евгений Петрович. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:50, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
You can ignore the above. I saw that the ru link was added the day after OlYeller21 posted his/her question. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:56, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
Notability is not automatic, no. Now, it is probably that the sources used in the other language article would be good enough to establish notability over here, but that's not always true. Different Wikipedias have different notability requirements and some are stricter than others. In general, English Wikipedia is fairly open about notability, but it really all comes down to the sources and whether the subject appears to be the type where sources would exist offline (presumption of notability). SilverserenC 23:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Let's first clear up what's meant by notability: It's whether a topic chosen by an editor should have an stand-alone article in Wikipedia. No more. No less.

Regarding all Wikipedias:

  • They can share or have distinct guidelines from each other.
  • They have distinct communities of editors who write and interpret policies, and run their own deletion process.

So there is nothing automatic or inherent about it. With respect to this Wikipedia:

  • The evolving test for inclusion of a new article has become stricter and more objective over time - especially in applying WP:GNG
  • The evolving test for (a) multiple, (b) independent, (c) secondary, reliable sources I don't believe exists in other Wikis - for example see de:Wikipedia:Relevanzkriterien

So an article for this Wikipedia would need to pass the English language Wikipedia WP:N test - and I think everyone agrees regardless of whether one believes the other Wikis are strict, relaxed, or about the same with respect to English language Wikipedia. patsw (talk) 00:51, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record, I made a mistake. The users were arguing that because the subject was in the Russian version of the Catholic Encyclopedia, they were inherently notable. I essentially feel the same way as I did before. I'm not sure that the Catholic Encyclopedia, in any language, infers notability or should even be held to a higher regard than any other reliable source. I can even see how one would argue that it's not a reliable source and that it's not independent (it was being used to imply the notability of a priest). Ultimately, the case this argument was being used for isn't the issue (I ended up not !voting for deletion), but being able to address the issue of inferred notability was valuable. OlYeller21Talktome 14:42, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
An entry in a subject-matter encyclopedia is evidence of all the tests of the English language WP:N: significance, permanence, and independence. The question of independence in a subject-matter encyclopedia is a relevant one when there is a conflict of interest in a contributor in an article he or she is editing. The labels "inherent" and "inferred" seem to obscure what is being discussed here. patsw (talk) 15:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
How is an entry in another encyclopedia evidence of all the tests of the English language? You assume things about other encyclopedias that can't be assumed. The Encyclopedia Dramatica's coverage certainly doesn't infer notability here, for example. Arguing that there's an exception is only agreeing with me; that coverage by other encyclopedias doesn't always mean that the subject is notable. Perhaps we're arguing the definition of the term "Encyclopdia" but again, that still means that there's room for arguments regarding notability (meaning it's not "inferred" or "inherent").
I use the words "inherent and "inferred" to describe the arguements of other editors where they imply that a counter argument can't be made. They argued that because the subject of an article found on Wikipedia is found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, the subject is inherently notable ("Speedy Keep An article in another encyclopedia is not just a strong argument for notability, but proof of it"). To me, this means that ever single subject found in that encyclopedia is inherently notable (notable is "inherent" and "inferred by the Catholic Encyclopedia"). I'm not sure what else that could possibly mean.
I understand that another encyclopedia will almost always prove notability on their own as their inclusion guideline will overlap with WP:GNG almost 100% of the time but I still don't think that it can be inferred. One cannot say, "Oh look, it's in another encyclopedia. The subject is notable." There are questions that need to be answered about each meaning that the statement, "An article in another encyclopedia is not just a strong argument for notability, but proof of it" is incorrect. OlYeller21Talktome 15:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I think at one point (per 2006) there was the idea that any topic appearing as an article in Encyclopedia Britannica or an equivalent general purpose, high quality work, would be automatically notable for en.wiki. I would agree that idea is still true though the number of topics that EB would have covered and en.wiki has not is bound to be very very small if not zero. I would say the same is true of any foreign language equivalent of EB (I don't know if there is one). But as soon as you turn to a specialized encyclopedia, that allowance of notability is out the window. If a topic is covered in a highly regarded specialized encyclopedia, there is a good chance that it is GNG-notable, then its best to show it via the GNG than through the appearance in that encyclopedia. --MASEM (t) 15:30, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
The statement is perhaps too absolutist, and one must use some good judgment in figuring out what's really an encyclopedia, rather than merely a publication that uses the word encyclopedia in the title, but in practice, the claim is almost always correct. Something covered in a specialist encyclopedia (an economist in The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, for example) is pretty much guaranteed space in the English Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
I wrote "evidence of..." and I think OlYeller21 has read it as "conclusive proof of..." patsw (talk) 15:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
@Masem, I think you're right. I believe that we can assume that if EB covers a subject it is notable. I think assuming that this is the case because it's "an encyclopedia" would be a mistake but that was what the argument I was facing at the time. I think each encyclopedia would need to be assessed on its own and that's in the rare case that it's the only coverage of a subject.
@WhatamIdoing, that's basically where I was going. I'm probably looking at the incredibly small percent of the time where there's only one source of coverage (<Some> Encyclopedia) and notability is questioned. Like you said, I think there certainly are encyclopedias that infer notability but simply having "Encyclopedia" in the title doesn't give it the power to infer notability.
@Patsw, you're right, I did. My mistake. OlYeller21Talktome 17:09, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposal: Selection by reliable sources for interviews is a method of showing significant coverage

This is proposed as an addition to the end of the General Notability Guideline section, Sources bullet:

The selection of a person for an interview by a reliable source, which would be considered a primary source, may be another method of establishing significant coverage as described above. This would depend on the criteria used by the source to select the person, and whether the interview covers a single event or a body of work.

Rationale

A strict reading of WP:PSTS is that all interviews are primary sources. A strict reading of WP:GNG is that primary sources can never be used for establising significiant coverage. This addition clarifies the situations where interviews by reliable sources are a method of showing significant coverage.

The combination of the two guidelines can yield an absurd result where an article which references a dozen distinct reliable sources has zero contribution towards establishing significant coverage because they are tainted by being interviews of the subject. patsw (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Comments

I would like to have a open comment period on this to tweak it before we start a formal poll on it. Past and current practice has been to regard interviews in reliable sources as showing significant coverage. This codifies that common sense practice. patsw (talk) 14:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

Since it basically says that being interviewed may or may not be an indication of notability, depending on the circumstances, I don't think we should include it, since it doesn't really help. Furthermore, it is something that more properly belongs at WP:BIO than here. Fram (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
My proposal has "may" meaning it is to be discussed, not automatically accepted or rejected. The problem with adding to it WP:BIO is the taint of primary sources is spelled out here in WP:GNG, so this clarification belongs here. patsw (talk) 14:49, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by it doesn't help. Are you saying that a dozen RS interviews of a subject makes no contribution to showing significant coverage? patsw (talk) 14:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The problem with primary sources is what's being said at WP:OR where interviews, flat out, are being called "primary", which I agree is wrong. But, even with that statement, what you are arguing for is a BIO criteria: "the person has been interviewed numerous times in reliable sources" as a criteria for notability. I agree that that may be one - even if the interviews are considered primary - but it is one to be discussed on BIO since this only affects persons, no other topic, and not at a general WP:N point. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
I beg to differ that its solely the purview of BIO. Take the case of a TV series. Let's say the producer, screenwriter, character designer, storyboard artists, and actors were all interviewed by different RSes about the TV series. That would not really show that the indivisuals were notable if they were all interviewed only once or twice, but could show the TV series was notable.∞陣内Jinnai 18:08, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
An interview with a person that was involved with the TV series is likely going to be secondary about the series (but depends on the death of coverage and several other factors). That's not an issue - except for that WP:OR is apparently dismissing any interview as primary. The issue that this statement is trying to address is that multiple interviews with a person is a sign of notability about that person. That's questionable since interviews with a person may or may not be primary with respect to the person. --MASEM (t) 20:55, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
Per Fram. Hipocrite (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2011 (UTC)
The verb may is going to cause problems. I think Patsw wants something like "Editors are permitted, but not required, at their discretion, to consider whether under certain circumstances..." However, it will be interpreted by some as "have been authorized in all cases". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I think it needs to be mentioned that interviews where the subject is being interviewed about a topic contribute notability to that topic, but contribute much less notability to the interviewee unless they are being interviewed about themselves. The key to notability is that an independent reliable sources is devoting space to covering the topic, regardless of what form they use to cover it. (Not to say that if someone is interviewed as an expert enough times that it doesn't indicate notability, but it would take a lot of interviews to establish notability that way) Monty845 15:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
  • I'm opposed to the proposal, here's why. I think it's a misreading of the primary source policy, at least in the situation most people will immediately think of. For example, when 60 Minutes interviews someone, the show isn't just interview. Instead it's also commentary (sometimes not flattering) and interview from other people about the person or topic. That's true of most "reputable" interviews. Even on a more 1 on 1 interviewing role, such as Charlie Rose or Larry King Live, there's ancillary content there that is not primary source.
    What the proposal would change, however is the situation where someone hawks their notability by referring to how many times they've been interviewed. They could suggest that because they were pulled up as an expert on the given topic, they are notable. That's a big expansion of the notability policy.
    Finally, as with many proposals like this, it's a complicated and rather verbose wording, and it functions almost like an exception to an exception, confusing people and contributing to the policy creep that we're famously known for on wikipedia.
    While I appreciate the effort, I think it's a solution in search of a problem, and at worst will create a new technicality for self-promoters to exploit in AfD discussions. That may sound alarmist, but just wait til for-hire firms start getting more technocratic about our rule structure here, and begin to use technicalities like this proposal. Shadowjams (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
This has got to be the strangest rationale for an oppose vote I have ever read: The proposal is actually targeted at correcting that misreading of WP:PSTS which Shadowjams cites. It is the case that for 60 Minutes to select a person to interview is a nullity to Wikipedia when it comes to showing significant and independent coverage of the topic for Wikipedia. That coverage is tainted by being in the form of an interview. Interview <is always> a primary source <is always> NOR <is always> No N. patsw (talk) 03:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
And that's got to be the similarly strangest reply I've ever seen to my responses. I have no idea what your response is actually addressing given my trouble to actually point out why this "misreading" is so spurious. Shadowjams (talk) 10:57, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I support this. I'm a bit surprised it's needed, I've always thought WP:N was largely about establishing that someone found the subject "worthly of note" and an interview by a RS in general does this. But given the above discussion, it apparently does need to be clarified. Hobit (talk) 16:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
    • The key factor, though, is what they are being interviewed about. Interviewing an eyewitness about an accident doesn't make the eyewitness notable. I would say, however, that someone that is frequently interviews about a range of topics as stated to be an expert in the field is likely a strong sign they are notable to begin with regardless of the interviews or not. --MASEM (t) 16:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I understand the intent here (and don't completely disagree), but am very hesitant ... I have suggested before that there is the distinction between long term notability and short term notoriety, and I make that suggestion again now. In our 24 hour news cycle world, the media focuses on short term notoriety, not long term notability. If someone is involved in a breaking news story, the news networks will want to interview him/her. Yet the reason for that interview (and for the subject's short term notoriety) could be essentially a WP:One event situation when assessed in the long term. I don't think we should say that interviews never indicate notability (some interviews can)... but I don't think we can say that they always indicate notability either. Masem has it right... We have to look deeper, and see what lies behind the interview. Chances are... if an interview could be used to indicate long term notability, there will be other (non-interview) sources that would do the job just as well. Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Perhaps Leuren Moret might help as a real world case. She's been interviewed a number of times, over a long period of time, yet biographical details seem to come from her, rather than other sources. My personal take is that she's good for a lively and provocative take on nuclear related topics, but that she herself is not really notable, and that she and the press use each other for publicity. The blurb about her credentials and background do not strike me as significant coverage, but are the interviews themselves sufficient to meet our notions of GNG? --Nuujinn (talk) 14:42, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I have a concern with the proposal in that WP:N asks for significant coverage by the source (interviewer in this case). Many interviews start with a short introduction bio that's usually very similar to the subject's standard public bio and is followed by questions/answers. Both the initial bio, and the bulk of the information come from the subject. Thus, I don't see interviews as being a strong anchor for establishing notability. On the other hand, the fact that a person was selected to be interviewed at all is evidence the person was noticed. However again, self promoters tend to get themselves interviewed a lot. I'd also want to echo what Blueboar wrote above. Today's media tends to provide intense coverage of a topic/subject for a day or so and then moves on leaving an electronic legacy. I suspect that if interviews became an accepted anchor for notability that we'll have many articles that are essentially about WP:ONEEVENT material such as the Beating of Hillary Adams. It's going to increase the AFD workload with people pointing to the interviews of the Adams as evidence the incident is notable. We won't, as Masem and Blueboar suggest, be able to look deeper to see if, objectively, the subject is notable. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)
I do not see any need for this proposal. If a persona is only notable because they have been called on to give interviews, but no discussion has occurred of the person themselves, this does not establish the person's notability. This proposal seems specifically designed to make so-called talking heads notable, when, in fact, they should not be considered notable unless other people have talked about them specifically. In other words, just because a particular person has been interviewed on Subject X by MSNBC, Fox News, or whoever several times does not make them "notable"; rather, it makes them the particular person that the station likes to call, which very often has very little to do with how "important" the person is in the field. Here's a way of thinking about it: imagine a person who was notable solely or even primarily for "being interviewed". What would their article say? What relevant information could we provide about that person, other than to say "This person got interviewed a half dozen times"? In many cases, we can't even certainly ascribe the person's words as their own opinion, especially in those cases where it is unclear whether the person is speaking of their own accord is speaking according to a show-provided script. In short, those people who would "benefit" from this rule seem like exactly the kind of people not notable enough for inclusion in an encyclopedia. If someone truly is notable, there will be significant coverage elsewhere, or they will meet a different notability guide like WP:ATHLETE or WP:PROF. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
  • I think that if a person has been selected for interview in / by a number (maybe three? Just as a ball-park figure) of differing reliable sources, about more than one isolated incident, and over a reasonable period of time, then that may well indicate notability. (This doesn't necessarily mean that anything said in that interview, particularly autobiographically, would in itself be anything other than primary. It's only in the aspect of supporting a claim to notability that this is relevant.) Pesky (talk …stalk!) 09:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
    • Which returns to the broader point - is the encyclopedia served by restricting demonstrations of notability to secondary sources? Certainly, an article will need secondary sources to be more than a stub, per WP:V and WP:NOR, but the only thing current requiring multiple, independent, secondary sources with significant coverage is WP:N. SamBC(talk) 12:32, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Do ten articles on ten Czech hockey players belong on en.Wikipedia?

We could really use the input and expertise from the WP:Notability experts on an RfC here on Talk:Dominik Halmosi in order to improve the quality of the discussion and broaden the participation there to more fully achieve consensus. Greg L (talk) 19:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

The section is titled "Motion that all ten articles be deleted (AfD) for lack of notability" and the sole point under discussion is whether these articles should be deleted. The whole thing belongs at WP:AFD, not on a single article's talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Discussing ten articles in one place is unusual, but the issue for all ten is identical and needs to be discussed in one place. As for how that is best accomplished, I am at a loss. I put a notice at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Log/2011_November_12, but I can see that manner in which I accomplished that is bizarre (it effectively rides the coattails of another entry), but the way the transclusions and tags are done, I could see no other way. I am open to suggestions. Anything that allows discussion on all ten articles in a single venue is crucial since the issues are identical. Greg L (talk) 20:05, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
See WP:AFD#How to nominate multiple related pages for deletion for instruction on how to nominate these articles as a group. Blueboar (talk) 21:31, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
Thank you. I created a transcluded page where there can be a central discussion on all ten. Now that the discussion has started, I’ll see if we can shoehorn things into the best possible procedure. Greg L (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
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