Template talk:Notability/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about Template:Notability. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

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Congratulations on a job well done

The new template is shorter, nicer-looking and clearer. Well done everyone involved! --Rogerb67 (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Next iteration

Now that the detailed text removed, the remaining first sentence must be fixed as well, since the word "general" does not make sense now. I suggest it must say "does not meet wikipedia's notability guidelines" or something. Please notice:

mention of wikipedia, since it is our notability guideline, not mythical "general"
no word "general
plural: "guidelines", because we have several sets of guidelines tailored to specific domains.

- 7-bubёn >t 21:10, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

That was my original idea, although there was an objection above. A specific mention of "Wikipedia" is not needed; I don't think that other cleanup templates have that, although the other two changes would be good. -Drilnoth (talk) 16:06, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

My view on these points:

No need to mention Wikipedia; it is implied as the whole template is a self-reference.
"General" appears when no parameter is given; this is because it is Wikipedia's general notability guideline that is being referred to; see WP:GNG. If you use {{notability|music}} for example, the text changes and no longer contains the word "general", because it is no longer the GNG that is being referred to.
The word should be singular; the template specifically refers to one guideline, which you choose by the parameter. By default the single guideline selected is the GNG. Perhaps the template should be enhanced to permit specifying multiple guidelines at once?

--Rogerb67 (talk) 00:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I see your points. I did not understand that "general notability guideline" is a technical term, to distinguish from subject-specific guidelines, not just an expression. In this case, would it be better for the link to point directly to Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline? - 7-bubёn >t 18:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Italicize the date

{{editprotected}}

Just like other templates, italicize the date by finding:

{{#if:{{{date|}}}|<small>({{{date}}})</small>}}

And replacing it with:

{{#if:{{{date|}}}|<small>''({{{date}}})''</small>}}

And you're done! Gary King (talk) 21:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Done --MASEM 22:02, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Keep AFDs

Question, if an AFD closes as Keep, that means the community feels the article passes all standards for inclusion. Therefore, shouldn't AFDs that close as Keep, when the article has a Notability tag, also result in the removal of the Notability tag? If it is No Consensus, it would be fair to leave this tag, but Keep pretty much says "This article passes RS, NOR, N, etc" MBisanz ^talk 02:12, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Most certainly. Passing an AfD means passing a notability test. Kingturtle (talk) 11:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Before the usual suspects began demanding that {{importance}} was the tag to use on obviously notable subjects which just lacked references, {{notability}} was used to do that. An AfD does not in itself confer notability on a subject - only actual references included in the article itself can do that. I'd be alright with the suggestion that notability-based AfDs which close as keep should have their {{notability}} tags replaced with {{importance}}, but not just removed entirely. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

bio?

Could the template be improved to allow "bio" as a parameter as an alternative to "Biographies", please? PamD (talk) 15:57, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Done. Also added a few more shortcuts for others (very easy to add so if people want more, just shout). --MASEM (t) 16:37, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that's great. Could you add the shortcuts to the documentation, so everyone can find out about them easily without having to check the template source code? And could I request "org" for organisations? PamD (talk) 17:14, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Done on both counts. --MASEM (t) 17:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again! PamD (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge from {{Importance}}

{{mergefrom|Importance|Template talk:importance#Merge_with_.7B.7Bnotability.7D.7D}} There is a discussion about the possible benefits of merging {{importance}} with this template. Any thoughts or comments, please follow the link. Thanks, — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:28, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 15:29, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

The commentary on this template needs to drop the reference to {{importance}} --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Template doc changes

Some template docs give a code example for users to copy and paste. Could someone add something to the effect of
<nowiki>{{Notability|date={{subst:CURRENTMONTH}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}}}</nowiki>? This would allow 1 less smackbot edit to be made to the article. I'd edit the documentation page myself, but I'm not sure if I have it right. And I was going to request this on the doc's talk page, but I wasn't sure how many people watch it. Thank you.--Rockfang (talk) 23:01, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Using CURRENTMONTHNAME would be better than CURRENTMONTH. --Marc Kupper|talk 21:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

That sounds doable. Anyone else have some opinions?--Rockfang (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Integrate mergeto?

The text of the template as it exists today ends with "merged or deleted". Today, I saw the template at the top of the article GNOME Games. I considered adding a {{Mergeto|GNOME}} to give a valid target in case the article is nominated for deletion, but stacking doesn't look as good as it would look if {{Notability}} itself supported a merge target. I request a new parameter mergeto such that {{Notability|mergeto=GNOME}} results in replacing "merged or deleted" with "merged to GNOME". Good idea or bad idea? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 17:53, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I think we should keep {{Notability}} and {{Mergeto}} separated. Note that you didn't propose to add an Afd parameter. Debresser (talk) 18:42, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Merging and deletion are operations with different arity. A merge operation has two articles as its operands (the source article and the target article), while deletion involves only one (the article to be deleted). In both operations, one of the arguments is {{PAGENAME}}. Adding mergeto to this template would let an editor who is fairly confident of the other argument's value recommend it when, in the editor's opinion, a specific target is preferable to deletion. To clarify: I am not recommending that {{mergeto}} be completely merged with redirection into {{notability}} but that {{notability}} be enhanced with some of the functionality of {{mergeto}}. --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 03:34, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Maintenance templates are split by genre (content / style / move / deletion) and this works well IMO. There's no problem with having two templates on an article if both apply. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:42, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Obviously. But preferably each of them separate. Debresser (talk) 21:36, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Suggested change

I suggest we change:

If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged or deleted.

To

If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted.

I think this would be a useful change because redirection is listed as one of the options on WP:BEFORE, and there are some cases where redirection is preferable. --Explodicle (T/C) 17:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. Debresser (talk) 22:14, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Done Nice. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 21:28, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Findsources again

It's been suggested above, without getting any response, that the {{findsources}} template be integrated into this one. Please consider this, as the first step in removing the template or moving to AFD is precisely searching for sources. Polarpanda (talk) 20:23, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Link redirects

Could someone change the redirecting links on this template? (Wikipedia:Merge Wikipedia:RS Wikipedia:DELETE) --Dan Leveille^TALK 20:49, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Style tweak

Requesting sync with the sandbox for a minor style tweak to bring the template in line with other cleanup templates, by making the whole verb phrase for the violation bold. This also saves a few bytes by removing 44 instances of bold markup, as it's been moved out of the switch statement. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:09, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} Requesting editprotected as there hasn't been any opposition. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:42, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

I have made the change. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:41, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Smaller notable tag?

Why doesn't it exist a smaller notable tag that can be put inline? like ^[notable?]? --Kslotte (talk) 12:59, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Notability deals with the entire topic; once notable, the contents of an article are not limited by notability but other policies (in the case of most inlines, verifiability and NOR and NPOV). Makes no sense to have inline notability tags. --MASEM (t) 13:00, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

The usage purpose I was thinking of is for WP:NLIST. A way to indicate what people not necessary meets the notability threshold for being listed. --Kslotte (talk) 20:31, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

{{citation needed}} should suffice for that purpose, as it is implied in list articles that references are used to confirm that entries meet the criteria given for the lists. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 11:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

The use case I need this for is List of participants of the Gaza flotilla‎. Some of those on the list of notable has entries that notability for listing is questionable. "Citation needed" is good to use to indicate a case where the list criteria is questionable, in this case part of the flotilla. The idea with a small notability tag would be to have the entries tagged in the list for specific time, for example about one week. When one week has passed the specific entry can removed. The deletion is aborted. if notable proof has been given with some reference or talk page. And a good way of working is also to notify the user that added the entry.--Kslotte (talk) 14:03, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

There's no stipulation that unsourced or unqualified material simply has to remain there tagged indefinitely while it waits for a source. If an unsourced entry has been tagged for a week then removing it is fine whether it's tagged with "notable" or "citation needed". That said, if you really think this is a good idea then try proposing it on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates and if there's no opposition then feel free to roll it out. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:35, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Events?

Why no 'events' optional argument to refer to Wikipedia:Notability (events) ? Qwfp (talk) 22:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Done, seems to have been done recently. --Kslotte (talk) 11:57, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

My thanks to whoever did it. Qwfp (talk) 20:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Parameter 1

Notability|1=Org|date=June 2010 ... The paramter "1" seems a bit od. Why not change it to something more descriptive like "context"? --Kslotte (talk) 11:59, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

"Fiction" parameter not working

I can get the "books" parameter to work, but not the "fiction" parameter, even when I copy it directly from the template page. Also, I don't see that the tag needs the "1=" -- it works fine without it. What's the significance? Aristophanes68 (talk) 19:17, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It actually is working: it's just that Wikipedia:Notability (fiction) is not a current guideline in full standing, so we don't link to it and link to the GNG instead. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 11:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Should I just use the book parameter instead? Or is the fiction parameter still useful, even if it doesn't show up on the page itself? Thanks, Aristophanes68 (talk) 13:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

It would have been more helpful if you'd linked to the page in question, y'know. If the subject of the article is a book which exists in the real world, use the book parameter. The fiction parameter is really meant for articles where the subject itself is fictional, such as a character in a book. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward: not at work) - talk 14:27, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

And now I don't recall which book I tagged. But it was a book and not a character, so the "book" parameter is probably what I'll need most. Thanks for the info! Aristophanes68 (talk) 19:47, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

An user removing Notability tags

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Donmike10

He does it repeatedly and refuses to stop, argumenting it this way:

"Let's not forget why we are here. Many of these articles may seem trivial to you, but removing them because of notability reasons means that the world has less access to information. We are here to expand people's horizons and inform them, not take information away. I understand that many articles are redundant and more or less serve little purpose - but if one person can benefit from them, it is worth keeping."

And then he just told me I'm "a waste of our of all time". --94.246.150.68 (talk) 14:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Lol - read it all not out of context. A personal attack will always get retaliation.Donmike10 (talk) 14:42, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

So, after you got your sweet revenge, get your glorious crusade against the evil Notability tags here, where it belongs. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 15:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Add argument for new sports guideline

Please? elektrik SHOOS 23:41, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Seconded! -- Ken_g6 (factors | composites) 02:47, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Added. "sport" or "sports" is your param. --MASEM (t) 02:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Proposed change of wording

Instead of "This article may not meet", it should read "The topic of this article may not meet", as the notability guideline is about topics, and articles on notable topics may themselves be non-notable (and therefore merit inclusion), while there may be notable articles on non-notable topics (which should be removed from the encyclopedia). ^Bongo_matic 07:48, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Changed, also reduced the rest of the wording slightly. Rich Farmbrough, 15:49, 13 February 2011 (UTC).

Type subcats

I have introduced a number of typological subcats of Category:Articles with topics of unclear notability, this is part of a long planned exercise, which should result in the consolidation of a number of subject specific clean-up tags into their respective generic cleanup tags. The categorisation is driven by a "type" parameter. Since this template has a broad categorisation in place already with default parameter 1, I have allowed that to work as a proxy for type when it is not available. To this end I have also introduced some additional values to the switch statement, for example "number", rather than have a huge switch statement driving the category mechanism I have started using one value per item across the main namespace, and propose we make them preferred values. I am also cleaning out a lot of invalid parameter 1 values. Rich Farmbrough, 13:11, 17 February 2011 (UTC).

I have reverted this change, per Wikipedia:Protection policy and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Violating of editing restrictions by Rich Farmbrough (again). Fram (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Oh my goodness. You are seriously wrong. Rich Farmbrough, 19:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC).

Care to explain how? I may be wrong, but I am not going to accept that without any explanation whatsoever. Fram (talk) 20:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

Because there is no reason to revert my edit. It does not add to the encyclopedia. It breaks a bunch of categories. According to your thesis you should revert every edit to a protected template that has not been through weeks or months of discussion (since you count something not addressed for 5 or six weeks as "current). We don't work like that, we just get on and do it, we who live and breathe maintenance templates for our sins. You really need to take a chill pill and stop stalker like behaviour, maybe in a year or so you could start interacting in a pleasant way, rather than just waving your admin tools, and deletion processes, and ANI and RFC. Just work with people not against them, it's a very simple lesson I thought you had learned. Rich Farmbrough, 21:28, 17 February 2011 (UTC).

It only "breaks" (i.e. empties) categories you created in conjunction with your changes, nothing longstanding or in much use. As for the rest of your advice, I think we have discussed that often enough. If you don't like your errors to be pointed out, don't make them over and over again... Fram (talk) 07:58, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

"Geography/Geo" category (proposed addition)

I suggest we add a Geography category to specifically mark any geographic location that may be non-notable. cherkash (talk) 05:59, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Section/Inline

Is there a section and/or inline version of this template? 65.93.13.60 (talk) 05:55, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is a direct one; this template usually indicates that the article itself might fail WP:Notability and be deleted. Some of the templates you might want to look at for sections and inline: {{cleanup-laundry|section}} (lists with non-notable things); {{famous}} (similar reason, but rare); {{undue-section}} for stronger disputes, and {{undue-inline}}. There is also {{fanpov|section}} when prose is written like a fansite with trivial information. For specific items that don't have good sources, there are also the usual standbys: {{cn}} (citation needed); {{original research|section}} or {{or}} inline; {{rs?}} inline for "verify credibility" (a.k.a. "reliable source?"). My usual reaction to long sections of breathless minutiae — which we used to call Wikipedia:Cruft, but that's not nice anymore — is to tag the thing with {{unrefsect}}, {{moreref|section}}, or {{original research|section}}, since these sorts of things, in addition to being trivial, are usually gossip (blatant WP:RS failures) and "I'm a fan and watched it" (WP:OR), both of which are guideline violations on Wikipedia; lack of references to Wikipedia:Reliable sources is more important and can usually be determined quickly, avoiding the need to even get into a discussion of whether the claims are trivial or not until the citations are good. If nobody bothers to pays attention to the maintenance tags for a while, then delete the junk and note in the summary that is was because it was unreferenced or unverifiable for so long. --Closeapple (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Notability does not apply to article content, only the main topic of an article. There is no point in a section/inline version. --MASEM (t) 12:44, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps, but what about pointless trivia in an article about an otherwise notable topic? --Ttownfeen (talk) 00:45, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Crazymonkey1123, 23 March 2011

{{edit protected}} Where it has a link to the reliable sources, I would like the link text to be changed from [[WP:RS|reliable, secondary sources]] to [[WP:RS|reliable secondary sources]] which is just removing the comma out of the link. Crazymonkey1123 (Jacob) ^(Shout!) 19:36, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't see the point of this. But, I did avoid a few redirects. —GFOLEY FOUR— 20:07, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

Purpose

What is the actual purpose of this template? Why tag an article with {{notability}} instead of prodding it or AFD'ing it?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

The purpose of this template is for an editor to simply flag an article that might have a problem. And why not go the next step, you ask, and "PROD or AFD" the article. Here are a few reasons:

The unnecessarily complex nature of the article deletion process. I've been here over a year, and still have no idea how this system works, or why there are so many methods, policies, procedures, exceptions, templates, appeals, etc. But what I can do is click on Twinkle and let let other editors know know that there is a potential problem. This collaboration amongst users is, after all, the beauty of a wiki.
The article may just need time to develop. I have come across tagged articles and thought it certainly didn't belong in an encyclopedia, but spending a wee bit of time researching, was able to pull together a few sources and additional facts to let it stay.

—Senator2029 | talk 19:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Notability

Template:Notability has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:38, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

To improve visibility of the proposal to delete this template, please include the following at the top of the template page:

{{Tfd|{{subst:PAGENAME}}|type=disabled}}

Thanks. ~ Ningauble (talk) 12:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

That doesn't improve the visibility, it decreases it! Anyway

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:16, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Wording for BLPs

This is the existing wording for biographies:

I wonder if we could change that to be a little less subject to being perceived as insulting the person for not being "notable" or "important"?

Perhaps something like,

"An editor is concerned that too few in-depth, independent sources have been published about this person for Wikipedia to write a fair, accurate, and reasonably complete article."

would work. IMO it moves the focus off "notability" (a piece of wikijargon that 99% of subjects won't instantly understand) and towards the need for in-depth, independent sources. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:46, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I see your point about not wanting to disrespect the subject of the article, but at the same time I don't see the need to change just the biographies person if disrespecting the subject is a point of worry. The same could apply to an article on a book or an article on a company.

Additionally, moving the focus off notability invalidates the point of this template. If the main issue of the article is that it lacks reliable sources then the template {{reliable sources}} should be added. {{Notability}} is for cases where the subject appears to be non-notable and that apparent lack of notability should be the focus of the maintenance template.

I agree, however, that the wording is a little bit brusque and could benefit from reworking. The wording proposed above, however, would not be appropriate, as it shifts the focus off notability entirely and would make {{notability}} redundant to {{reliable sources}}. Also, the link to WP:INDY should point to WP:RS instead, as WP:RS is Wikipedia policy, and WP:INDY, while quite insightful, is an essay. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 22:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

IMO, an insightful essay is often more useful than an official guideline, and the difference between policies, guidelines and essays is obscure.

When we say "this subject isn't notable", what we actually mean—in plain English, rather than wikijargon— is "there are too few in-depth, independent sources about this subject to write a decent article". There are no "notable" subjects for which sources don't exist, and no "non-notable sources" for which many sources do exist. I see this proposal as a change of wording away from insiders-only jargon, towards directly saying what we mean.

The advantage of plain language here is that "notability" (the dictionary definition) is subjective. The inexperienced editor's reaction involves "discussion" that looks a lot like school children saying "Yes it is!" and "No it isn't!" on the playground. But if you just say "The problem here is that no third-party source seems to have written more than a sentence or two about this person," then we've re-directed all of that energy to the actual task at hand, which is figuring out how much independent coverage exists on the subject.

{{third-party}} is a fine template—if the problem is too few reliable sources currently named on the page. It's not appropriate when the problem is too few reliable sources existing in the world. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

You have a point on the essay thing. Maybe a page called Wikipedia:Notability for newcomers should be created that lays out the definition of notability and reliable sources in simple wording. I can think of a few changes to the template that would help:

Changing The topic of this article may not meet the notability guideline for [whatever] ... to The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for [whatever] .... This way, it makes it clear that we're talking about the subject in relation to Wikipedia and that we're not saying that the subject doesn't merit attention in general.
Maybe changing the start of the template to read:

"This article needs to cite more in-depth, reliable sources in order to establish notability as defined by Wikipedia's notability guideline for [whatever]. Those unfamiliar with Wikipedia's notability guidelines should read Wikipedia:Notability for newcomers. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted."}}

This way, the emphasizes the need for reliable sources while still providing links to the notability guidelines (and the essay on notability for newcomers), so newcomers won't hear the word "notability" for the first time in a deletion discussion. — Preceding signed comment added by Cymru.lass (talk • contribs) 00:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little concerned about the length of the resulting tag. Perhaps as a "baby step" in the right direction, we should implement your proposed change from "the" to "Wikipedia's", and see whether anyone else has any comments on our other ideas. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

To change "the" to "Wikipedia's" per the discussion above. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:22, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

Done Anomie ⚔ 18:12, 17 November 2011 (UTC)