Wikipedia:Supporting Articles

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Supporting articles are a necessary part of keeping content on Wikipedia organized within our electronic size restrictions but must be used carefully to avoid getting out of hand.

Supporting Articles refer to articles that, in general, are created to provide supporting information for other articles. It is possible for supporting articles to be a wholly notable topic themselves, but more often than not, supporting articles will not have their own explicit notability and may consist of some novel collection of information from other sources to summarize the supporting material properly. As such, creation of such articles may be challenged by editors. Editors are strongly cautioned when creating supporting articles without considering the implications of the resulting article, as such articles will be scrutinized by others for original research and biased points of view. Supporting articles should be seen as fulfilling the need for meeting Wikipedia's article size restrictions and summary style approaches, and not created until that need arises.

Recognizing the need

While Wikipedia is not paper, this introduces three unique problems when presenting coverage of a single topic.

Notability does not limit the coverage for a notable topic, though we still strive to limit the level of detail that we go into on topics. Even when considering the most appropriate encyclopedic materials for a notable topic, we may find ourselves with a lot of information to present that would take several pages of printed text to reproduce in a physical form.
To distribute material effectively in the electronic medium, we have imposed a size limit on individual articles, around 100k. Many topics fit within this bound, but several topics, in order to be covered in an encyclopedic and comprehensive manner, also far far exceed that size, which in a normal printed work would just be a long article. We have created summary style approaches to deal with such large topics, where we break out comprehensive subsections into their own articles. While we caution against splitting articles to so fine in detail as to lose comprehension and notability of the individual topics, at times we need to create an article on a topic that would normally be part of the larger article but otherwise not directly justified by sources.
Wikipedia's scope is not limited by physical means, so we can include many more topics on a vast array of verifiable information. However, we recognize that not every topic is notable, our general requirement for creating a stand-alone article on that topic. Instead, we often resort to such supporting articles for a larger topic that help to provide details on the main topic that are not required by the general reader but of sufficient utility for readers with a higher interest level. However, we need to be aware that such articles should be carefully considered for the capability as stand-alone articles; supporting articles that are too broad or too fine in their scope are generally discouraged, as we strive to avoid indiscriminate information or undue weight on specific aspects.

Typical supporting articles

While the types of supporting articles that can be created is very high, we can classify most into three primary categories:

Supporting articles that are built as a spin-out from the larger topic, in the manner following summary style for topics that exceed our size limitations. For example: History of biology
Supporting articles that provide reference and other utility data to the main topic they support. For example: List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 2008 (U.S.)
Supporting articles that deal with conjunctive data of information that would apply to two or more parent topics directly, and for purposes of limiting duplication, are placed in a separate article. For example: Russia - United States relations

Supporting articles are often lists - datum that is not critical to the general reader of the main topic - but need not be.

Concerns

Supporting articles that lack their own separate notable topic from the article they are supporting will often be contested. Editors that create them need to understand community consensus and acceptance of such articles.

Wikipedia aims to avoid original research introduced by editors in the content of articles, but recognizes that some amount of original research is necessary to direct the structure of article content and to combine sources into a comprehensive article. The line where the need of original research for summary purposes, and the avoidance of original research for novel thoughts is very fuzzy, and can lead to issues where one can unintentionally create articles that edge on bias, or intentionally sneak a biased article under the line. Similarly, while material can be moved out of an article, it is also possible to use a supporting article to create a biased POV fork of the material from the main article on the topic. When such cases happen, disputes and edit wars will often follow.

Supporting articles may also be considered to fail the notability guidelines for inclusion, having no independent sources that directly assert the immediate topic. This can further lead to debates at deletion discussions, and such articles will likely be removed if not handled appropriately. Editors should recognize that notability of a list-style supporting article may be the result of notability of individual elements of that article.

Editors should avoid the outright creation of supporting articles until a need arises for them. In most cases, the type of information that would be present in the supporting articles can be merged and located elsewhere, typically in the parent article. Issues such as undue weight on a particular aspect of a topic can arise if a separate article is created, and through trimming and other editing, it may be possible to remove that excess weight and insert the content elsewhere without the creation of a new article. It is also premature to create a supporting article just because a similar one exists elsewhere for a similar topic; creating a support article on topic Y that mirrors a similar support article for topic X just because X and Y are within the same field is inappropriate, and only through necessity should it be created.

Note that not all supporting articles lack notability. Supporting articles that meet our notability guidelines usually will not be contested for these issues.

Recommendations

These recommendations apply to supporting articles that fail to immediately meet the notability guidelines, and are based on present patterns of outcomes from deletion discussions.

Supporting articles should fall out naturally from a collection of sources: Often, one will find that for a topic X, there is specific coverage of certain aspects of that topic in a given light (such as the history, derivation, or critical response), but no specific coverage on that facet of the topic as a whole. In such cases, it seems logical to consider a section of the main article on X that groups the coverage of those facets. The use of a supporting article can then be used when this section becomes too large and can be spun out into a comprehensive supporting article.

Supporting articles should only be presented if there are size concerns with the article on the main topic: The creation of new supporting articles lacking their own notability should be avoided if possible. Trimming and merging of possible supporting material is one route, alternatively, reorganization of a larger topic may further help to remove this need. However, it is recognized that at some point, an article on a topic will become too big and can no longer be trimmed without harming the comprehension and cohesiveness of the topic's coverage, and require something to be split off. It is preferred if a new notable topic can be split off into a supporting article, but this is not always possible. When all other reasonable attempts have been made, the creation of a new supporting article is reasonable, though it is expected that the new article meets the other advice on this page as well as all other content policies.; A corollary to this facet is that Supporting articles that are spun out from a main topic would have otherwise naturally been a high-level section within that article. In almost all cases, the best way to break out content of a large article into a new supporting article is to take a self-contained section and move it to the new article, leaving behind a {{seealso}} link and short summary of the section. We can consider this the usual formula for how supporting articles come about. If a supporting article would not easily fit back into the larger topic as a single high-level section (ignoring size concerns), then it is likely the supporting article has been poorly chosen and should be reconsidered.

Supporting articles should be completely comprehensive of that topic: The choice of what information to be brought into a supporting article should consider if a comprehensive stand-alone article can be made from the information. If the information requires a reader to flip back and forth between the supporting article and the main article to understand either, it is likely a poor split, and a different division of information should be sought. The new supporting article should fully re-familiarize the user with the main topic(s) and establish the details that will be explained in the article.

Supporting articles should not rely solely on primary sources: While the overall content of supporting articles may not be discussed directly within sources, this does not remove the requirement for the content to meet Wikipedia's policies for verification, original research or neutrality. A supporting article that can only be sourced to primary material when a notable parent topic exists is likely giving too much weight to that specific aspect, and trimming, merging, and deletion is recommended to balance the coverage of the overall topic.

Supporting articles should be titled avoiding any peacock or weasel words to avoid bias: The use of words such as "Criticism", "scandal", "controversy" and the like within an article title immediately imply a negative tone to an article. These terms may then draw undesirable edits to the article from editors that misinterpret the goals of the article. These words should only be used if the general majority of sources refer to the topic with such language (e.g. the Watergate scandal). Supporting article will rarely have sources that address the material it contains as a whole, and it is almost always necessary to find alternative language for such titles; "Criticism" can be replaced with "Critical opinion", "Response", "Reception", for example. Similarly, it is possible to spin a topic too favorably with peacock terms, and these should also be replaced with neutral terms. Other aspects of Wikipedia's policy on article titles should be followed for supporting articles.

Supporting articles should clearly define their scope and connect back to the parent topic(s): The lead of a supporting article should always spell out the purpose of the supporting article and its relationship to the main topic(s) it supports. For support articles that are based on grouping information from multiple sources for its topic, the lack of a clear definition or inclusion criteria will likely cause the article to be contested, as without this guidance, such articles attract the inclusion of unwanted indiscriminate information.