User:Brews ohare/WP:Notability (Descriptive articles)

A descriptive article is one that relies upon primary sources focused around a particular topic, and that includes no opinion, evaluation, comparison, or interpretation of the material it contains. Secondary sources also may be used, of course. Its purpose is to help a reader become familiar with the primary sources available on a particular subject.

Potential examples of descriptive articles are: guidance to specific governmental agencies including the governing legislation and present and previous officers, guidance to specific legal documents governing significant issues, and so forth. All guidance is aimed toward aiding identification of relevant sources, not toward an appraisal of them.

A descriptive article is allowed on WP provided it is not an uninteresting compilation, and that it satisfies the criteria below.

Criteria

The acceptability of a descriptive article rests upon the interest in the topic it describes.

For example, the article Federal government of the United States, which provides guidance to the various branches of the United States government, their powers, how various officers are placed in office, and so forth, as provided in primary sources. This article could be reformed to rely more heavily upon secondary sources, and then might qualify as a regular article, but at the moment it relies upon primary sources. In any event, this article contains no opinions, evaluations, comparisons, or interpretations that would require a secondary source. It is nonetheless an acceptable descriptive article on the basis that the United States Government is a institution of great interest and therefore its structure is a matter worthy of note.

A more minor example is United States District Court for the District of Idaho, which provides guidance to the founding legislation and present judges for this court. It does not include the US District Attorney for Idaho, Wendy J. Olson, so it is incomplete. The acceptability of this descriptive article depends upon interest in this court, which is established by its importance to Idaho.

Another more minor example is Nevada Republican caucuses, 2012, which provides guidance to the organization and results of this caucus based upon primary sources. Acceptability of this descriptive article relies upon interest in the caucus itself, established by its role in the election of the President of the United States, a process of obvious interest.

Yet another example is Calgary—Fish Creek, a discussion of a particular electoral district in Alberta, Canada using only primary sources.

A different approach is to find a secondary source that uses the information for some purpose. Then interest can be established by citing the secondary source. For example:

The form of the government of the United States described by the documents here has been discussed by [Ref] as a role model for democratic government everywhere.

The demonstration that the primary sources of the descriptive article have a role in a discussion found in a secondary source establishes interest. It is not necessary to describe the thesis of the secondary source, nor to assess its arguments, nor that every primary source from the descriptive article appear in the secondary source.

Expansion to a normal article

A descriptive article often can be made into a normal Wikipedia article with minor alterations, thereby avoiding any controversy over its acceptance. The basis for this conversion process is to insure that the article satisfies WP:Notability, most simply by using the rule that subsections of a longer document can be supported using primary sources alone, and such subsections do not need to establish notability independently. So, for example, if Nevada Republican caucuses, 2012 were recast as a subsection of United States presidential primary and that article were clearly notable, there would be no issue of acceptance.

Likewise if the case Baker v. Vermont were made part of Same-sex marriage in Vermont and Same-sex marriage in Vermont were clearly notable, then Baker v. Vermont would not have to establish acceptability. Unfortunately, the sourcing of neither article is very satisfactory at the moment.