User:Herostratus/"Notable people" sections

Articles on towns and cities (and some other polities) often have a "Notable people" section (sometimes "Notable residents" or some similar name). This essay does not have an opinion on whether that's good or bad or really tells us much about the town or city, but it does know that "Notable people" sections are popular and they're a good way for new editors to jump in (they might not jump in correctly, but most of us didn't and that's fine). So they're here to stay, so what should they look like?

So who's in, who's out?

For large cities

Well, there're three levels of urban locale for our purposes: large city, smaller city/large town, small town. There's no strict cutoff stated in this essay, use your judgement. Really large cities are not going to have a "Notable people" section (it'd be too large), except and unless it only contains a pointer to a separate article, "List of people from Bigtown". For such an article, use the same criteria as for smaller cities/large towns below.

For smaller cities/large towns

If it's a medium-size town or city or there's more than, say, ten or so bluelinked entries ("bluelinked" means "that person has a biographical article on the Wikipedia") the it's time to consider setting "bluelinked" as the assumed standard for list entries. That needn't be a hard and fast rule, but the assumption is that a person ought to be notable enough to have an article, so she'll either have one or a reasonable argument could be made that she should even if she doesn't have one now.

That's not to say there couldn't be some other cogent argument to include an inherently redlinked (or black text) person -- for instance, she might be especially important to that town or something -- but we wouldn't recommend it except in really extraordinary cases, for two reasons. First, you'll have to make your case for it and convince your fellow editors. Second, every now and then someone is going to come along and remove the entry and the basis of not being bluelinked and you're liable to have to go through all that again. All for a single entry in a list that doesn't really mean much, it's not usually going to be worth it.

On the other side, there are maybe some bluelinked people who don't necessarily belong on the list. Everyone who has at played in at least one major league game has an article, but some of those folks are mighty obscure and you don't have to include every possible bluelink. Still, it's a very easy way to avoid disputes: bluelink in, redlink (or black text) out. If someone wants to argue for a redlink (or black text) in or a bluelink out, let them make their case. But some editors are more comfortable with hard-and-fast rules and if they want to put in someone who played one game for the Giants in 1912 on that account, it's not worth fighting over. We don't recommend removing bluelinked entries without checking first on the talk page, and then only if the list seems to be getting unwieldy.

Blulinked entries don't necessarily need a ref. You don't need a ref showing notability because their blue link proves that. You might need a ref showing some substantial connection to the town, but if that's shown in their article you don't.

For small towns

If it's a small town and there are only a few entries on the list, they don't all have to be bluelinked or eligible for a bluelink, and you should expect an occasional redlink (or black text) and that's fine. They'll need a ref of course if they're not bluelinked. The ref ought to show two things: that the person is reasonably notable (even if they're not necessary Wiki-notable in the sense of strictly meeting WP:GNG and WP:BIO), and that the person is associated with the town in some reasonably substantial way.

For small suburbs, we recommend not having a "Notable people" list and instead subsuming that into the list for the central town. Larger suburbs might be different and it's a judgment, but if there are only two or three entries on the list, subsume.

"Resident"

Speaking of "substantial connection", it usually means living in the town for some reasonable length of time. There are other ways to be substantially connected we guess but those are exceptional and its up to the editor wanting to add such a person to the list to convincingly demonstrate that they ought to be in.

If the person was born in the town but moved away at a very young age, we wouldn't include them. Why? The town had no effect on their who they are, right? It's just a meaningless statistic. If they grew up there for a few years, that's different -- childhood is formative. However, even if someone was born on a Greyhound bus as it passed through East Podunk, some editors are going to want to add that person to the list for East Podunk because that's how some editors roll. We recommend letting it go, it's not worth fighting over.

List order

OK, ordering the list. Not including "random", there're four way we can think of:

1. Chronological by date of birth.
2. In sections by area of notability (e.g. "Athletes", "Entertainers" and so forth), then within each section either chronologically or alphabetically.
3. Alphabetically.
4. Some more esoteric methods which we'll describe below.

We recommend either #1 or #2. Alphabetically is better than random order, but not that useful. Alphabetic ordering is attractive to editors because its easy to do and not subject to disputes, but it's really only good for readers if they're wanting to find something on a list that they already know is there or might be. That applies to some readers but probably not most in our opinion. If it's a short list -- under ten entries, let's say -- almost any ordering, including alphabetical, is fine.

Whether #1 or #2 is better depends on the size of the list and your personal opinion. If a list is in chronological order we wouldn't recommend changing to career order (or vice versa). Either is reasonable so let it lie. Or if you want to change it, back off if contested -- it's not worth fighting over.

As to #4, you could order the list in order of notability, which -- assuming notability correlates to reader interest -- would in theory minimize average search time or whatever. And there are various other ways. We wouldn't recommend any of those, too open to dispute and too hard to explain even it were superior on the merits.

You don't have to be a robot about this. If the list is a bunch of marginal schmoes and Napoleon, you can put Napoleon at the top of the list if you want to regardless of what ordering scheme you're using. However, expect that someone might come along and dispute that. It's not worth fighting over.

Anything else, use common sense and good judgement and don't overthink it. Reader comes first. Different readers have different needs so go with what you think will serve the most readers most well.

Don't overthink this and don't worry about it too much

Keep in mind that these lists, while popular, interesting, and certainly not destructive, just aren't very important. With rare exceptions, they don't usually tell us very much about the town. Bob Dylan was from Hibbing, Minnesota. So was Roger Maris. So what? Everybody's from somewhere, and what does that tell us about Hibbing? It doesn't tell us much of anything.

Dylan and Maris had some particular genes and some particular family upbringing and some particular determination and ability to develop their potential and might have had some particular connections (for some people; does not apply to Dylan and Maris) and probably some luck, and so forth, such that they became Bob Dylan and Roger Maris and probably would have, more or less the same, if they'd been from Fresno or Birmingham -- not counting butterfly effect differences, which you can't account for.

Sure there's some differences at the margins -- what radio stations you listen to, what your level of competition is, what the general vibe is in your environment, are determined by your home city. Whether the school and neighborhood are pleasant or are a hellhole makes a big difference, but that's more of a class of difference -- the slums of Cincinnati and of Kansas City are more similar to each other than they are to the tony sections of their respective cities, really.

If Dylan or Maris being from Hibbing tells us something useful about Hibbing, where are all the other musical pioneers or baseball greats from Hibbing? There aren't any (Gary Puckett grew up in Washington). So it doesn't tell us much of anything.

Not to say these sections aren't fun and interesting and harmless. It's important to get these right because anything you we have should be excellent. Just to point out that it's not worth overthinking any of this or fighting about it.