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Adding ways to assess Systemic Bias to WP:N

This is clearly a tricky and contentious issue. Although WP:SYSTEMIC is only an essay, comments from both supporters and opposers demonstrate that there is consensus both for the idea that there is systemic bias on Wikipedia (either at AfD or elsewhere) and that such bias is a problem for Wikipedia as a whole. However, the consensus is that changing the notability guidelines—whether as a "refinement" or otherwise—is not the right way to address the problem. Some editors proposed other ways these issues might be addressed, and they can be considered in future discussions. agtx 18:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I am not happy with the RfC as proposed above, because it is the typical "let's dumb down the standard" phrasing that does not solve the problem of systemic bias. I'm rephrasing the problem: Two recent AfDs jump out at me as illustrative of Systemic Bias based on gender, race and national origin; far, far more articles are proposed for deletion, and most of the arguments advanced are based upon a list of outcomes. Where we have AfDs on minor pornstars being routinely kept because they "won an industry award", while women with doctorates and academic careers are routinely deleted as "not notable," we have a serious problem with the interpretation of WP:N.

So this is my proposal:

  • Shall WP:N include a section on how to assess issues of possible systemic bias in notability discussions?
  • Clearly, the devil is in the details, and this is not about "relaxing the standards," but rather it is about refining them so they do not exacerbate the problem of the legitimate systemic bias concern, which is sometimes expressed in articles about women being deemed "non-notable", particularly when the standards set for men often reflect their increased ability to gain promotion and recognition more than actual accomplishment or ability. Montanabw(talk) 22:40, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Support

  1. Support as nom. Montanabw(talk) 22:45, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
  2. Strong Support for reasons stated by op. It is long past due. Atsme📞📧 17:38, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  3. Support I'll use Sarah Ballard and her AfD as a good example of the situation that plagues AfD. Here is a woman who was the leader of her team, written up in multiple reliable sources, and yet the AfD dragged on and on. Another good example is Mary Lincoln Beckwith who may have been deleted if it hadn't caught the attention of E.M.Gregory who made a good case in the AfD. The huge issue about AfD is that if people who are (for lack of a better word) inclusionists aren't watching AfDs like a hawk, little effort is made to ensure that articles which deserve to be kept is made. Nominators don't make sure that relevant WikiProjects are notified. Further, I have run into countless articles which have been labeled by the nominator in AfD as not having any sources on Google and HighBeam, when in fact, after I searched, turned out to have plenty of sources. If inclusionists aren't watching and double-checking the nominator's claims, it's likely the articles would be deleted. For the latter, I'll use Joanne Fluke and her AfD as an example. From my experience, there seems to be a bias, whether it's intentional or not, to demand "stricter" rules for articles about women. Megalibrarygirl (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    • I think all three cases are examples of bad AFD habits rather than a sign of a bias that needs to be fixed. Ballard was a case of people not considering the GNG as a bar (see discussion below) and Beckwith and Fluke seemed to be a failure of BEFORE by the nominator. Articles on males have the same issues, its just that the systematic bias from the media makes it often more difficult to find the relevant source material on notable women. That's something we can't fix by weakening notability standards. --MASEM (t) 19:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
      • I am here posting this because I do not think these are isolated examples. I see a pattern at the article alerts for Wikipedia:WikiProject Women. If there are other projects that get this level of PROD-tagging and AfD noms, please do share. I also see a lot of well-thought-out comments even in the oppose section, so I do see acknowledgement that a problem exists; the question is how we stop the bleeding. Montanabw(talk) 18:05, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  4. Support I agree with all the reasoning above by Montanabw. Zpeopleheart (talk) 19:35, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  5. Support This clearly will make discussions easier by having a reference to point to.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  6. Support Obviously. Notability is inappropriately being used as a weapon against perfectly interesting and reasonable topics, and in a most Procrustean manner. The funny thing is, I come at this conclusion not about real-world important topics, but by my constant effort to curate fictional elements, things that are clearly less important than most of the topics overlooked due to systemic bias. If we can't fix these... what hope do we have of fixing anything?! Jclemens (talk) 23:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  7. Support Changing the guidelines will not stop the most bad articles from being removed, which is a good thing. It may cause more borderline articles to stick around, but Wikipedia already has articles in dire need of clean-up that linger for years. This wouldn't be anything new or a dire consequence and the upside of curbing some of the bias. I don't subscribe to the argument that strict notability guidelines are necessary to keep things from falling apart around here. Systematic bias is a problem in the media and the broader world but also here on Wikipedia. I am in favor of at least trying to correct that problem. If this policy works then great, if not we can always try again. Knope7 (talk) 03:49, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  8. Support — FWIW. This RfC is too vague to have any actual impact. If it passes, someone will still need to propose some wording and get it adopted. If it doesn't pass, someone could still propose some wording. But for what it's worth, the problem is real, bias does exist, editors are applying a blatant double standard, they are saying "no sources exist" when that is obviously blatantly false, and they get away with saying it with no repercussions. Something should be written in the policy to address this deeply ingrained bias in AfD voting. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 20:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  9. Support The systemic bias I'm concerned with isn't so much that of the source material used to establish notability, but that of the editors who go looking for that source material. Our general notability guideline is the fairly non-specific "significant coverage in reliable sources that aren't affiliated with the subject"; other notability policies can be used to broaden that for certain topics, but if it meets the GNG it's notable regardless. The trouble is that due to the vagueness of the GNG, editors at AfD can treat "significant" as a moving target depending on the subject, or only use Google (or English-language sources in general) to look for sources on non-Western topics, or rely on narrow definitions of what counts as a secondary (and therefore acceptable) source, or insist on requirements (e.g. that sources not be local publications) that the GNG doesn't mention at all, or any number of other things that allow editorial bias to creep into AfD arguments. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 00:40, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  10. Support as long overdue. Given how most of the wikipedia community (including AfD, I'd assume) tends to disproportionately attract white male westerners, this is affecting the outcomes of discussions and we shouldn't pretend the bias doesn't exist. Now, this isn't about modifying notability guidelines, it's about about the ease of locating sources. The average wikipedian will find it easier to find sources for a battle of the US Civil War than for a German suffragette movement, which is in turn easier to find sources about than an Indonesian rural community. Editors simply have to be aware that on some topics sources take more effort to come by. Uanfala (talk) 10:57, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  11. Support. We're supposed to reflect the sum of all human knowledge. Of course that means the sum of things volunteers are willing to write about. But because the volunteer base is so skewed, our interests are necessarily limited. And the limitation of our interests skews the volunteer base still further, because the community looks appealing to certain groups and unappealing to others. We can help to change this by tweaking our policies to solve problems, and it's clearly a problem that female porn-star articles survive while female academics struggle. SarahSV (talk) 01:20, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    That's incorrect. We are not supposed to reflect the sum of all human knowledge. If that were true, we wouldn't have [[WP:N] in the first place. See also WP:NOTEVERYTHING. Largoplazo (talk) 03:35, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    I seem to have missed this plan for WP:N.  I suspect that you are confusing WP:N and WP:NOT, but if you can provide me information for your assertion for WP:N, I'd like to see that.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    No, it is not clear that we should prefer intellectualism to a candid interest in sex.  As per WP:N, this is not our choice, but the measure that a topic has attracted the attention of the world at large.  In general, I agree with what you are saying.  Unscintillating (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    There's actually a fair issue of concern is that in specialized fields, the more specialists works that generally aren't of normal mainstream sourcing are used heavily for references making some topics that wouldn't be reflected by a mainstream cut of sources easily notable by the specialist version. This itself is not a bad thing necessarily , but it does create a problem in academics compared to, say, athletics or the porn industry, in that considering the specialist works that focus on academics, there is rarely detailed writeups about people in academia, compared to the same type of biographical information in athletics or the like in their respective specialist works. Unfortunately we can't change that but we have to be aware that that continues to be a systematic bias in coverage but difficult to overcome when there aren't readily available sources to fix that. --MASEM (t) 14:44, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    Sub-notable topics where reliable sources exist can still be covered in the encyclopedia.  And the problem with academics also applies to on-air journalists and print journalists where the attention to the topic by the world at large is more to their employer and their works than biographical.  Similar logic applies to baseball players deleted because they are no longer active in their careers.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:52, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    SlimVirgin is correct as it relates to what the founder envisioned. "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing." -Jimmy Wales, quoted in Slashdot (2004-07-28). To take it a step further, (my bold): WP:What is an article? A Wikipedia article, or entry, is a page that has encyclopedic information on it. A well-written encyclopedia article identifies a notable encyclopedic topic, summarizes that topic comprehensively, contains references to reliable sources, and links to other related topics. Most articles consist of paragraphs and images, but they may also be formatted as stand-alone lists or tables. These lists or tables are also considered articles for Wikipedia's purposes. So what exactly is an "encyclopedic topic"? For that definition, we should turn to the etymology of "encyclopedia" and for that I will quote a high quality tertiary source, - “general education,” and it at first meant a circle or a complete system of learning—that is, an all-around education. When François Rabelais used the term in French for the first time, in Pantagruel (chapter 20), he was still talking of education. WP editors have left it up to a hit and miss process in determining the extent of "education". Is pornography educational? No, but it is notable. Not everything notable belongs in an encyclopedia. Atsme📞📧 16:13, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    My point is not that we can't have specialized information or use specialist information. It is recognizing the systematic bias that does exist in how specialized fields have different levels of coverage of the same information that affects us. Those in academics including scientists and professors rarely have their lives given anywhere close to a biographical treatment as a college/amateur athlete, and that's just the nature of how these specialized fields work. How to remedy that while staying in the bounds of WP:V, I don't know, though one aspect is to understand if we allow some specialized areas to have too low a bar for inclusion, it makes the systematic bias even worse. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    While I would agree that too low a bar makes bias worse, I also see that creating separate bars creates issues. As stated previously below, GNG is always the presumptive measure. Too many times AfDs try to pin someone to a specialty rather than looking at the sum of their accomplishments. One may have an academic who also writes, for example, who meets neither PROF nor CREATIVE but clearly meets GNG when their multi-faceted life experiences are combined. People are not typically one-dimensional but that argument is repeatedly made. SusunW (talk) 18:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  12. Support. It honestly seems to me current articulation of notability guidelines are leading to underestimating how notable a given source may be when we're talking about a subject of systemic bias. I think a clarification on interpreting secondary sources for notability only (not for verifiability or neutrality) with regard to system bias would better serve WP:NPOV and frankly just serve knowledge better through a more sophisticated understanding of the significance of secondary sources: in view of systemic bias, I think it's very reasonable to suggest notice in major outlets of a group affected by systemic bias means something different for notability than notice of overrepresented groups, for reasons not so dissimilar to why we discount someone's hometown press or alma mater's newspaper assessing their notability. Obviously not suggesting we throw out all outlets that primarily represent majority groups, but I do think some kind of way to account for this imbalance of perspective would improve our reading of sources. And one of the things that impresses me most about this community is the commmitment to evaluating sources accurately. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:30, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • Will add, I support this idea even though I voted delete on one of the AfDs in question, and don't believe she'd pass even if there were an explicit instruction on how to consider systemic bias in evaluating sources: I think the sources are too limited no matter how you slice it. However, I do believe there are other entries in groups affected by systemic bias where numerous reliable, independent sources are not being given the weight they deserve, and a clarification about bias and notability would help with that. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  13. Support. The Devil is in the details (for example, I will strongly oppose any attempt which includes the words "porn stars"; come on folks, that's a think of the children argument, and completely uncalled for). However, it is indubitably true that sources about a person from a third world country are harder to come by, and mentioning as much in WP:N should be useful. --GRuban (talk) 15:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  14. Support. We all have a responsibility to address SB. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:35, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
  15. Support: propose making WP:V the only standard in marginally-WP:N cases from source-poor situations.
    Cookie-cutter application of WP:RS and SNG principles from specific Western contexts, when applied to countries or fields which do not produce as much of the same kind of sourcing (e.g. developing countries, academic biographies), is leading to the deletion of useful and significant topics. SNGs should contain language, where appropriate, instructing !voters that marginal notability for people in source-poor situations corresponds to the same level of "actual" encyclopedic importance (whatever that is) as fairly clear notability in more source-rich situations, and only actual WP:V concerns should disallow articles in these cases.
    I believe this language should not single out gender as a source of potential bias, because data indicates that notable women (as judged by other, admittedly biased, databases) are not actually less likely to have WP articles than notable men. FourViolas (talk) 04:59, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
  16. Support. The fact is that Wikipedia has a different definition of “notability” than the common-sense definition. In other words, common sense says that something is notable if enough people know and care about it. The wikipedian definition is that something is notable if enough people have published   reliable   secondary sources   and at this point it should appear obvious that this policy is likely to cause biases and hurt coverage, especially when that policy is taken to the letter by patrollers. That is, at any given time, subjects that are actually notable will end up rejected because they did not attract enough interest from the specific kind of people that are authors of wikipedia-policy-compliant sources. Such sources may not yet exist, and if they exist they are likely to be way harder to find, and way less accessible (different language, offline, paywall etc).
    But then there is WP:NRV: “Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility or existence of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article.” Unfortunately too many editors overlook that one and won't pay due diligence before challenging the notability of topics, even in cases where a simple english Google query would have brought clear evidence that the subject is indeed notable. VonBlinkendenzwoelf (talk) 00:55, 18 July 2016 (UTC) -- who just discovered that there is such a thing as a “notable curler”.
    "... subjects that are actually notable ... did not attracted enough interest ...": Then how do you know they are notable? How do you know, in 2016, that a given woman or non-white person was as notable in 1921 or 1846 or 1693 as the least notable white man from the same year that Wikipedia has an article about? If you would argue that the woman or non-white person was as notable, and deserved as much coverage, consider that two white men in 2016 could have very similar backgrounds and acccomplishments—and perhaps one happens to have had an encounter that led to someone in the media picking up on his story that led to him being the subject of articles throughout the media over a prolonged period of time, while the other labors in obscurity. Wikipedia can have an article on the former but can't have an article on the latter. So even for white men in 2016, it doesn't follow that a comparison of backgrounds and accomplishments leads to equal Wikipedia "notability". So how do we decree that for women and non-whites prior to some arbitrary year, notability takes into account Wikipedia editors' direct evaluation of their backgrounds and achievements, when we don't allow that for anybody from our era? Largoplazo (talk) 01:32, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
    The question was about “assessing issues of possible systemic bias”, not “positive discrimination” or whatever. -- VonBlinkendenzwoelf (talk) 01:51, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
    Really, the problem is not that we're using the wrong definition for "notable", it's that "notable" is the wrong word for what Wikipedia wants. "Noted" would be better, but that word carries with it the problem that there isn't a good associated noun—"notedness"? Largoplazo (talk) 01:32, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
    Is “fame” the word you are looking for? -- VonBlinkendenzwoelf (talk) 01:38, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
  17. Support. Need to get the text right though. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:31, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. There is something to fix, but I think as proposed and focusing on "women with academic careers" (in particular pointing out the glass ceiling aspects) is approaching this the wrong way, or using the two AFDs as examples. (Also keeping in mind that theres 40,000-some doctorates granted in the US each year, so there's no way that just having an academic career is a suitable line for notability) The Internet gives a lot of people a place to put their own voice, and the way that both of those AFDs seem to be falling is in the self-stated importance of two people, rather than evaluation by independent third-parties to make that assessment. We should be looking for third-party sources that better identify these people with significant coverage rather than mention in passing, which might mean looking at non-traditional RSes (such as professional society magazines for example) where such people would be better covered. Take the comparison to the porn industry where there are lots of narrow-field works that confer notability there; same with sports when you get away from the major leagues. It's a problem in general for academics regardless of gender that its a field with very few introspective works that cover the people rather than the thoughts, and moreso a problem when you get away from Western schools too. So no, we don't need to adjust WP:N to meet this problem, but recognize that it is still a WP:V/RS issue to find better RSes for these. If no third-party RSes cover any of these people save for passing mention, we shouldn't be weakening our coverage. --MASEM (t) 23:09, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
    Those were conversation starters (and one isn't a PhD, she's a TED fellow -- it's worth your time to take a look at the articles in question), and please read what I said above. NOTHING about "weakening" the standard, but a discussion of how to assess when systemic bias might be affecting a notability question. Montanabw(talk) 00:09, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    Both articles read as resumes, and do not explain the person's notability to the world to a larger extent, and both AFDs show that the sources that do seem to describe this fail WP:V and other polices on sourcing. We are not a who's who guide. --MASEM (t) 00:45, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. We cannot start using Wikipedia as a vehicle for social engineering and curing society's many injustices. From the encyclopedic point of view, if somebody's academic career was impeded by gender or religious or ethnic or sexual orientation or caste or some other form of discrimination, and that prevented this person from making sufficient impact in their discipline to pass our regular WP:ACADEMIC standards, that entitles that person to our sympathies, our support (even possibly financial support), and to the right to sue those who engaged in such discrimination; but it does not imply that we should have a Wikipedia article about that person, however sympathetic we feel to their situation. Nsk92 (talk) 23:28, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
  3. Oppose Wikipedia follows the sources - full stop. We are not here to, by policy, deal with bias in the world or right great wrongs. There are either sufficient independent reliable sources for an article or there are not. We do not need, and should not have, a special snowflake policy. It would also greatly add to drama as editors argue not only how their crappy sources indeed meet GNG but how their topic is a special snowflake which does not need to meet GNG. JbhTalk 23:53, 4 July 2016 (UTC)
    Just a note. I looked at the two AfDs above and they are just the subjects that the "presumed notability" of SNGs are for. Both meet One meets, in my opinion, SNG based inclusion criteria although they will need to be trimmed to meet what is available in RS as well as needing general cleanup. JbhTalk 00:44, 5 July 2016 (UTC) Last edited: 20:31, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  4. Oppose for now until clear guidelines, that editors can readily apply, exist of exactly how systemic biases are to be allowed for. Xxanthippe (talk) 01:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC).
    Xxanthippe, that is exactly what I was suggesting, a discussion of if we should do this and if so, what guidelines we can write and apply. At least, that is my intent. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  5. Oppose Basically the same reasons why I opposed the first RFC. Darwinian Ape talk 02:59, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  6. Oppose. I don't think "actual accomplishment or ability" can be meaningfully or usefully assessed here. Recognition is all we have to go on. Also, Wikipedia is not a platform for pushing social change; it can be used to recognize that change when it happens but by design it is a trailing rather than a leading indicator. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  7. Oppose: Umm ... Montanabw, I would have hoped that anyone seeing the above RfC would take away from the tidal wave of opposes that people aren't objecting to the wording, but to the concept, and that there's no rewording that will get us to think "systemic bias" is a legitimate substitute for the GNG. Your "porn star vs. doctor" analogy, far from being an example of what's wrong with the current system, is an example of what's wrong with your reasoning: the substitution of subjective morality judgments for objective standards. Wikipedia isn't Facebook, and we don't hand out articles to everyone who wants one, everyone with a handful of fans, or as an award for living a virtuous life. Ravenswing 05:16, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    Ravenswing, this is not a morality judgement any more than WP:RS saying that Facebook isn't a RS is a morality judgement. We routinely have many seemingly "subjective" exceptions to WP:NOTCENSORED where there is adult judgement and common sense. Is the Library Journal more reliable than the National Enquirer? Yes. By what standard? A reputation for fact-checking. Similarly, the "accomplishments" of a porn star are not at all equivalent to the accomplishments of a PhD or a Medical Doctor, and when the latter receive an "industry award", they have accomplished a great deal more to earn that award than did the pornstar. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
    I'm comfortable with my characterization of your example as a morality issue; why would you keep on insisting on just that example otherwise? I note that you don't choose to compare sports figures to PhDs, who reasonably could be claimed likewise not to have worked as hard or be as deserving as said PhDs. It would, however, be a morality issue nonetheless: obviously you have strong objections to society placing more importance on and giving more attention to porn stars (and, I would expect, sports figures as well) than to your average PhD.

    Well, too bad. I assure you that I am just as disgusted that society pays a hundred times more attention to the Kim Kardashians of the world than to Noble and Worthy figures as I expect you are. Unfortunately for my amour propre, society did not ask for my opinion or permission. Ravenswing 20:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

  8. Oppose This is imho guided by a false notion of (encyclopedic) notability by making a distinction between "bad" (porn stars) and "good" (academic titles) types and maybe even seeing notability as a "reward" for the concerned person. Instead notability is based on external sources and expressed by that general reader's interest. If the media and the general readership is more interested in porn stars and athlete than "obscure" academics not being of particular importance in their acadeic domain, then so will be Wikipedia.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:45, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  9. Oppose. Wikipedia does not right great wrongs, not even when they really are great wrongs. We neutrally and entirely follow the sources. That includes that, if sources don't consider something worth writing about at all, we follow their lead and don't either. If you think they should, the way to remedy that is to encourage them to. Once you succeed and they do that, we will too. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and is meant to follow, never lead. The "porn star issue" is a real one, but what we need to do there is get through to AfD participants and closers that SNGs give a presumption of notability, but this is a rebuttable presumption. (Or, in other words, we need to delete more porn star articles, not add in other NN articles to "balance" them.) If it can be demonstrated that in a particular case, the sources just aren't there, then "awards" or whatever else aside, the article needs to be deleted, merged, or redirected. We should never have a full article without sufficient reference material to sustain it for any reason. Seraphimblade Talk to me 14:34, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    Seraphimblade, you and I agree abouthe the "porn star issue" and that AfD should begin with a presumption of notability. But the problem is exactly that; most AfD regulars reverse the burden, but selectively: what brought me here was a pornstar article surviving its 3rd AfD as "no consensus", mostly because of an interest group coming to its defense, citing the WP:PORNBIO SNG that argues that an "industry award" constitutes notability; while two other examples of women who did a LOT more than that are in real danger of deletion. Something is backwards and needs to be addressed. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
    I'm not entirely sure we do agree. If you're arguing for differential treatment of different articles on any basis rather than a standard that applies to all evenly, we do not. For me, it's all down to what there's enough sources for and what there isn't. If more porn stars than academics have sufficient sources for an article, then we'll have more articles about porn stars than academics. Similarly, if more sports figures than trash collectors meet those referencing standards, we'll have more sports figure than trash collector articles. We just reflect sources, we never try to "correct" them, whether that's in content or volume. I will agree that "fans" are always an issue (and have been ever since the fiction cleanup many years ago at least, don't know if you were around for that), but the solution to that is for closers of AfD discussions to actually follow "AfD is not a vote", and evaluate based on strength of arguments and actual evidence presented rather than "Butbutbut they won an award!". If you know how to get there from here, I'd love to hear your idea. Otherwise, nothing to do but wait for the fans to move on from a given subject. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:10, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  10. Oppose. Even if there are a few important things in life, like access to education and work, that make it worthwhile to find ways to amplify the opportunities for less advantaged people, having an article about oneself in Wikipedia isn't one of those. We have a neutral set of guidelines for notability. The existence of systemic biases that lead to people, who might otherwise have received greater recognition, not to have achieved it doesn't justify our ascribing notability to people who, however unfairly, haven't achieve that recognition. It is important that we apply the notability guidelines evenhandedly, giving proper weight to sources and recognitions whether they are from reliable sources based in Chicago or Rawalpindi or Guayaquil, whether they are in English or some other language, and so forth. Concerns surrounding these should be brought out in deletion discussions. Largoplazo (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    {[u|Largoplazo}}, they are, and they are ignored. That's part of the problem. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  11. Oppose- The problem isn't that inclusion standards are too stringent for academics, or women, or people from the non-English-speaking world. It's that they're way way way too lax in other areas. The porn enthusiasts have apparently decided that winning industry awards is a golden ticket to get an article here. Well, so what? These people crank out pornographic movies at a ferocious rate and I'm given to understand that awards are sprinkled around like confetti at a parade. Pretty much every dull-eyed thirty-something who takes her kit off for the camera can win one. We've got articles on obscure lower league sportspeople where the sourcing is so meager that -and I'm not exaggerating- it's actually hard to distinguish them from other people with similar names, let alone obtain any actual biographical information. There's people who think every star in the Galaxy needs an article. Well, Milky Way stars outnumber humans on Earth at least 15 to 1 so good luck with that. We've got people who think every permutation of two of Earth's sovereign states needs articles for the corresponding ambassadors. That works out to 200x200=40,000 mostly contentless microstubs. No. You want to reduce systemic bias? The only workable solution is to cut down on the fanwank, instead of reducing standards to flood the encyclopedia with more of it. Reyk YO! 20:22, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    What Reyk said. Too many editors seem to think that SNGs trump GNG rather than being an indicator sources are likely to exist. They do not require an article be kept and there are a huge number of or even entire classes of articles where the presumption of SNGs are easily rebutted and the articles should be deleted for failing GNG - See most of NSPORTS, much of NPOL, much of NGEO etc etc. That presumption may be useful when dealing with subjects which likely have hard to find sources or primarily off line sources but they are not the carte blanche for inclusion they have been used for. JbhTalk 20:31, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    I do agree in general with the above two sentiments, Jbhunley and Reyk ... the porn bios and sports bios are a big problem. (I'm less concerned about the stars in the Milky Way galaxy... lol) Of course, how many AfDs shall we work together to file, and are you ready for the shitstorm that will ensue? I am not promoting the addition of "fanwank" (good word), and have even voted "delete" on some articles (particularly on minor beauty pageant winners), but the problem is where we do have people who have made significant contributions to the world. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  12. Oppose despite the compelling examples brought by Megalibrary girl (above). I do see AFD as a process with serious, systemic problems. But the problems I see (setting aside the fact that are small numbers of editors with strong political views can introduce serious bias to the project by what they iVote delete or include while nobody pays attention) are 1.) our endemic shortage of editors; and 2.) the laxness of the process. I think that the best approach wold be to introduce higher standards not to WP:NOTABILITY per se (except for specific areas where revisiting standards would be useful: porn actors, singers, bands), but higher standards in terms of what is required to bring an article to AFD. I think that requiring evidence of in the AFD nomination that the sort of searches suggested in WP:BEFORE, part D, (combined with raising the standards in specific areas like porn actors) would at least reduce nominations with as little justification in terms of WP:BEFORE as: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mary Lincoln Beckwith; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elaine Macmann Willoughby; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ruth Hutton Ancker; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Steven Fechter; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Osama Krayem; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/South Sea Islands Museum; Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mini Menon.E.M.Gregory (talk) 21:27, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    There are huge problems with trying to make BEFORE mandatory. The usual sequence of events is that a nominator will look for sources, not find anything satisfying, and nominate the article. Then someone will find a namedrop here and there that the nominator actually saw and wasn't impressed by, but this will be taken as justification for "Speedy Keep- rahrahrah did you even BEFORE??!?!?!?!?". BEFORE is not a productive way of getting higher quality AfDs. It's just a vehicle for making dismissive and exasperating attacks on nominators. Reyk YO! 09:39, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
    Would either of you want to consider some refinement of BEFORE? Clearly, the Beckwith AfD was the most egregious example of AfD run amok out there and I wish I'd have remembered to add that one to the list when I created this AfD. Montanabw(talk) 18:55, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  13. Oppose: Going easy or hard on people or topics on AfD is not the answer to systemic bias. If we cover such topics devoid of sources, then we would be accused of systemic bias for upholding poor quality articles on them. — Esquivalience (talk) 22:01, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  14. Oppose Everyone has their own idea of what is covered too inclusively. At least PORN and NSPORTS have objective criteria-- specific porn awards, and fully professional status. They may be too broad or too narrow, but they are more likely to yield consistent results than just plain GNG. The fact that I am personally interested in neither is not reason why they should be covered less--everyone will make the same argument in different fields. In my opinion, as I've often said, the problem is reliance on the GNG. That essentially means "getting publicity" and that is not what justifies coverage in an encyclopedia, and is what leads to systematic bias. I'm surprised that academics are mentioned, because that's the clearest field where the standard WP:PROF is specifically an alternative, and independent of meeting the GNG. That's the best way to eliminate bias. What is biased is lowering the standard for someone who would not be considered important except for being of a specific gender or race or nationality. DGG ( talk ) 03:11, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  15. Oppose I do not think "special dispensations" would work at AfD. Granted there are big represenatation problems in Wikipedia, and the discussion about how to fix that is important to have. Special rules for Notability are not the way to go. In some ways poeple are already working against systmeeatic bias just by the choice of article they work on (e.g. Women in Red). I would much prefer some kind of education program or initiative that supoprted Women in Red to increase efficiency and output in that area, rather than a special set of rules to encourage better representation-- as noble as that might be.HappyValleyEditor (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
  16. Oppose. Despite the disclaimer in the intro, this strikes me as in fact proposing lower standards for preferred topics and thus an experiment in social engineering. WP strives to be an encyclopedia, yet the outside world still largely does not recognize it as authoritative (e.g. to the level of being citable as a source in a college term paper). I have argued for years, especially w.r.t. bios, that the growing non-selectivity of articles creates an image problem for WP. If it is simply viewed as a big list, it will never become more than a time-wasting dalliance at work or a first stop pointing to some outside authoritative source. Much of the problem is rooted in the catch-all GNG, which is sometimes used as a blunt instrument to force article inclusion on the basis of what really is just advocacy...basically what started this conversation. In a way I'd like to see GNG banished, but it has its place for cases that don't neatly fit into any of the many topic-specific notability guidelines. One thing we may want to rethink is the convention of what is essentially "passing any guideline equals notability". Perhaps if a person is demonstrably an academic, they must pass PROF, etc. I'm glad SusunW mentioned the gray area of sources in GNG (see comment below). Bios are now more frequently kept for people who are "locally famous". (I just commented on one AfD about 5 mins ago...article will likely be kept.) Newspapers and such satisfy V, but lots of quick thought experiments will prove that they do not necessarily satisfy N (e.g. my local paper always runs extensive bios on school board candidates) because they are not highly selective. The discussion really should be on tightening GNG, especially on deciding what types of sources satisfy N. Agricola44 (talk) 21:48, 7 July 2016 (UTC).
  17. Oppose. Wikipedia is not the place to fix the biases that have made it hard to become notable in the Wikipedia sense. That needs to happen elsewhere, and is happening. Fifty years ago when I was trying to figure out how to be a scientist, wife, and mother there was very little written about women who had done just that. But the problem had been recognized by that time, and in the intervening years many books and articles have been written about women scientists and more sources continue to be written. The Foundation could sponsor grants to historians to research and publish in areas where people's contributions have been ignored. But it is not our job to do such research. StarryGrandma (talk) 02:07, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
    • StarryGrandma, please excuse my ignorance, but I'm not quite sure how your oppose addresses the proposed question which is simply to include a section in WP:N on how to assess issues of possible systemic bias in notability discussions. It's not about fixing the bias. What harm do you see in our including a section in WP:N that would help editors with such assessments? Atsme📞📧 21:09, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  18. Oppose. Before weighing in, I decided I should first go look at the problem we were trying to fix. And I didn't find one. In both cases, the problem is not bias but the complete lack of credible evidence either subject is notable under our guidelines. I !voted delete in both cases. Msnicki (talk) 17:03, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  19. Oppose. While nothing is going to be perfect, nor will please everyone, objective standards for WP:GNG are in place, and that along with WP:RS sources for verification which need to be applied in a NPOV way across the board. New "special rules" is not the way to go; a more even handed application of what Wikipedia has in place in needed that should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis in the discussion of a AFD. Kierzek (talk) 19:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
  20. Oppose since no proposal wording has been put forth to opine on, and since the matter of award-winning porn stars having Wikipedia articles is an WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument. Moreover, changing or relaxing GNG would lead us into a slippery slope of spammy non-notable articles. The fact of the matter is that articles on areas/persons which may lie outside of Wikipedia's systemic bias simply need more and deeper digging for citations and coverage. There should probably be a centralized place where assistance can be requested for these sorts of articles, so that editors who are better researchers and/or who have access to subscription-only or academic sources, and/or who speak non-English languages can assist in finding/contributing sources and content. I think there's already an "Article Rescue Team" somewhere, isn't there? But there's no need to open the floodgates to non-notable topics. Softlavender (talk) 20:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
    There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange which can be quite useful here.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:11, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
  21. Oppose Great way for editors to derail discussion revolving around policies/guidelines by postulating other editors have hidden unknown biases. --NeilN talk to me 05:11, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
  22. Oppose I think the whole discussion here starts from an incorrect premiss, namely that the systemic bias (that we undoubtedly have on WP) is due to the fact that the "victims" cannot meet our guidelines, so we need to give them a hand. I find that attitude paternalistic (if you know me well, that is a Bad Word) and offensive. Instead, our bias derives from the fact that we do not create articles on women/minorities/whatever, even if they are notable and even if there are good sources. And while we may have the occasional (closet-)racist or misogynist here, I do not for a second believe that this bias derives from a conscious or unconscious bias of our editors. The issue arises from the fact that our editors are volunteers, who write about the things that interest them. So we have lots of articles on mediocre football players. Plenty of porn actors and video games. Not so many academics and even fewer academics from countries like India and Pakistan (not to mention countries that are even less visible on the academic world map such as Thailand or Vietnam). That's because, as far as I know, our demographic is in the vast majority young white males, and this reflects their general pattern of interests (yes, I'm generalizing, I know there are lots of editors in this demographic who are not interested in soccer, porn, or video games, but I think you get the gist). So the solution to this whole problem is not to talk down to women/minorities ("poor you, you'll never meet GNG, we'll lower the bar for you", which I think is plainly insulting), but to try and attract editors who are interested in creating the articles where we lack. Creating (or not deleting) poorly-sourced sub-standard BLP articles is not going to help anybody. --Randykitty (talk) 16:56, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
  23. Oppose. I'm not even convinced the difference in AFD survival between doctorates and porn stars is actually indicative of a problem with Wikipedia. There is an incredible amount of third-party information available about professional porn stars. Doctorates, not so much. Heck, I have a doctorate and I'm irrelevant. I suspect this is to due with the nature of the fields. Porn stars promote themselves, academics promote their work. Media is far more likely to cover the science, the discoveries, and the inventions, than the academics behind them. That's not a problem to be remedied - it's just the way things are. Most professors will never have a bio appear outside their Uni's website. Heck, even most professors who meet WP:NPROF will have barely any coverage that actually discusses them as a person, rather than just a name attached to some bit of science. I'm not convinced Wikipedia is suffering for not having their biographies on the site. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:35, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
  24. Oppose - after looking at the examples provided, I am unconvinced that this is needed, and would in fact cause more trouble then it is trying to fix. -- 1Wiki8........................... (talk) 08:57, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
  25. Oppose. Full disclaimer: I was the nominator of Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Alanna_Shaikh, and although I ducked for cover when the proverbial fan was hit, Montanabw and I had time to disagree. I hold no personal animosity, but I will readily admit to having quite a different view on the guidelines.
    First a few words against other "oppose" comments. Besides the external WP:SYSTEMICBIAS about which we cannot do much (reputable newspapers cover mostly white, old, educated, English-speaking men, and hence WP:V condemns us to do the same), there is an internal bias (the Wikipedian is a twenty-something white educated English-speaking male nerd). Everyone, I think, agrees on that. The most visible aspect of that "internal" bias is the tendency of editors to create articles on some particular topics (computer security and porn rather than the history of slavery), however it is certainly plausible there is also some bias at AfD, RfCs etc., and it makes sense to try to address that.
    However, as the nomination aptly states, the devil is in the details. What would be the addition to WP:N (even without a precise wording)? I have trouble imagining anything that does not amount, willingly or unwillingly, to weakening the guideline. I could be convinced by an addition to WP:NPOSSIBLE along the lines of "it's not because you haven't heard of it that it is not a reliable source" (e.g. a book in Swahili vs. the New York Times) but that is not really about systemic bias.
    I dislike politicians saying "we ought to do something about X" (without giving any detail about what), and therefore cannot support an RfC amounting to "we ought to do something about this (but let us see what later because it will never get consensus)". TigraanClick here to contact me 17:28, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Discussion

  1. Comment Just to be sure, we also frequently delete articles about Western men "with doctorates and academic careers". Largoplazo (talk) 15:08, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    Not the point; the point is that there is systemic bias at AfD and there exists more difficulty in locating source material about people who are not of the dominant culture or favored class. The question is how to acknowledge this reality and address it appropriately. Montanabw(talk)
    In those cases, the problem is with the history of documentation, not with Wikipedia, right? It's a problem, but in the same manner that losing your wallet is a problem, yet looking for it under a streetlight because it's easier to see there isn't the solution when the place you lost it is somewhere in the dark alley where you dropped it a couple of blocks earlier. If there isn't source material, then whence are you deriving your sense that these women are notable? If it's because you read it in reliable documents, then why aren't you presenting those reliable documents? Largoplazo (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  2. Comment My issue is that both of these proposals miss the mark, IMO. It is not about how we make the people fit the guidelines, but rather about how we clarify the guidelines which already exist so that there is less confusion about them. Confusion leads to subjective interpretation, which in turn can trigger biased decisions. Eliminating the subjectiveness would go a long way to solving the problem. 1) The biggest step that could be made is the statement that GNG is the standard for proving notability. Arguments are made ad infinitum that a person doesn't meet CREATIVE or AUTHOR or ACADEMIC, when in fact they meet the basic requirements of GNG. 2) Clarification is needed on whether local and regional sources meet RS. Sweeping generalities ("they really only prove existence (they're not selective)" argue for deletion without evaluation of reputation of the source. Guidelines don't prohibit them, and there is no reason to suspect that a local news outlet which has a favorable reputation would be less reliable than say a national newspaper. Historically, local papers were one of the few places that carried information on women and minorities. 3&4) A repeated theme at AfD is "trivial mention" without further analysis. Like "significant coverage", trivial depends upon depth, not length. "Among the participants in the showing at the Smithsonian" or "she was president of a country" are weighty statements, even if they are not lengthy. There is a refrain in AfD to remove all sources with trivial mention, and yet "multiple independent sources may be combined to demonstrate notability", as stated in the guidelines would allow those sources to remain. Clearly clarification of how to build a body of evidence would eliminate confusion.
I could give examples all day on the repetitive themes at AfD, which have nothing to do with a particular article's notability, but rather with interpreting the guidelines. There would be much less discord and confusion if an evaluation of these types of issues were collected and the basic guidelines were clarified. SusunW (talk) 16:46, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
"how we clarify the guidelines which already exist so that there is less confusion about them." I do agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment! Montanabw(talk) 18:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
I also agree, and it's not isolated to gender bias although I imagine a little research would validate that it tends to occur more often because of the gender gap. DGG authored an insightful essay on the subject of notability and inclusion. Atsme📞📧 23:50, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
On your first issue, it should be noted that I think all the community-approved subject-specific notability guidelines (SNG) include language similar to what WP:BIO starts with - that meeting the GNG is always a presumption of notability even if none of the specific criteria of SNG are met. The fact people miss this is something to point out in AFD because it is clearly said in BIO, including the text People who meet the basic criteria may be considered notable without meeting the additional criteria below.. --MASEM (t) 17:14, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
Agreed with Masem, meeting the GNG is always sufficient to demonstrate notability. The SNGs are helpful to determine cases when notability is very likely to be met, but ultimately, to have an article, we've got to have sufficient source material to write it. That means passing mentions (we'll call it that, rather than trivial) are not sufficient for that purpose. I've never liked the term "notability" much to start with, because it gives a wrong idea, but I can't really think of a better one. It's really just asking "Is there enough good, independent third-party reference material out there that we can write a high-quality, neutral, thorough article about this subject from those sources?" Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:43, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
You all may agree that GNG is the standard, but those arguing at AfD do not. I don't really know how to do a search of how many times this comes up but it is extremely frequent. I hesitate to list any articles, though I can think of a few, because I strongly suspect that it would lead to a flurry of renominations. As Masem says, stating it in the criteria of alternative guidelines would clear up the controversy. SusunW (talk) 18:35, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
@SusunW:, I would be glad if you could show me some particular examples where editors have argued that GNG is not enough. My experience has been different. I have usually seen editors claim that GNG is satisfied when an examination of the sources proves otherwise.--Lemongirl942 (talk) 18:54, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
I want to point out that the GNG statement is already in the SNGs. Editors claiming otherwise and refuting the allowance of the GNG are not using the SNGs properly, and this should be pointed out at AFD where it occurs. Though as Seraphimblade say, whether the GNG is met or not is a separate question. --MASEM (t) 19:30, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
What I see a lot of are appeals to NACTOR, NARTIST, NMODEL, etc., and, particularly where a person may not meet any individual standard, but when you combine 2 or 3 areas, they clearly meet GNG. Let's take a theoretical of a model who goes into acting, and then runs for political office... (oh wait, we have one: Arnold Schwarzenegger ;-) ) What is happening at AfD is that I think there is a group of editors who nominate pretty much based on their own interpretation... Masem, I'd encourage you to subscribe to the article alerts I posted above and just watch the dynamic there. Montanabw(talk) 18:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't really understand the difference between "refining" and "relaxing"; they both sound like they're trying to turn Wikipedia into an indiscriminate who's who catalog where you're rewarded with an article once you get a doctorate. But if we're talking about asking editors to put forth more effort in searching for sources on topics subject to systemic bias, I don't have a problem with that. Janice Wong, a celebrated Singaporean pastry chef, had her article nominated for deletion when it looked like this. It was closed as keep after I rewrote the article and added many sources. This deletion discussion could have easily gone the other way – a string of "delete, not notable" votes based on the assumption that a Singaporean pasty chef couldn't be notable. I think this is the sort of circumstance we should be focusing on. Wong is clearly notable, but there's still a risk that her article could have been deleted. Unfortunately, I doubt putting in some kind of warning about systemic bias would really change this. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 17:56, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
    NinjaRobotPirate, I do not advocate "relaxing," I advocate a discussion of how to CLARIFY these guidelines to reduce the truly large number of AfD nominations that exhibit systemic bias, recentism, and a contempt for anything that can't be googled. WP:N is clear that notability and article quality are two different things. While your example is the best solution, the reality is that there are simply too many AfDs for the number of editors who try to salvage them. Also, relevant parties who could do this work are often not notified. Montanabw(talk) 18:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment - please let's not forget the fact that there still exists in the world today, countries where girls/women are oppressed, threatened, and/or not allowed to attend school. Those who were fortunate enough to be born in or relocated to countries where it is allowed, and managed to succeed with some measure of notability have overcome incredible odds. It wasn't until recently - less than a century ago - that some women were even allowed to vote and are no longer considered chattel, and I'm talking about right here in the US. Society (which includes the media) only recently, relatively speaking, accepted the fact that males can be homemakers and child rearers while females pursue an education and career. I don't agree that there shouldn't be any consideration given to these very important facts when determining notability of earlier generations. Some of the pioneer women who have remained obscure all these years because of the bias, are only recently coming to light for their notable deeds, the latter of which we must keep in perspective with a thorough understanding of why there was no prior widespread coverage which we currently use to determine a BLP's notability. Atsme📞📧 18:07, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Because that puts Wikipedia editors in the position of deciding that a given woman would have been notable, if only, which puts us in exactly the position WP:N plainly does not allow. Wikipedia is not ascribing notability to people on our own editors' evaluation of their merits. That includes enshrining people who, in someone's estimation, would have received such-and-such award, would have had her papers published, would have become chair of her department at the university, etc., etc., if she were a man or if women weren't the target of adverse discrimination. We just don't have any way to do this without Wikipedia becoming a popularity contest for non-privileged groups that at the same time that it follows the traditional rules for privileged groups. Meanwhile, as you noted, many of these women's situations are coming to light. Well, if they're "coming to light", then that implies they are receiving coverage now. Then that qualifies them for WP:N. So remediation is worthwhile, but remediation, like notability, is recorded by Wikipedia, not created by it. Largoplazo (talk) 18:48, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • No, not at all as you described. It's a case of "they did achieve notability" but it still isn't being recognized. It has nothing to do with privilege or favoritism which in itself reflects a bias. The bias is what creates the mental obstacles that prevent recognition of their notability. The existence of that bias is long proven and unfortunately it continues. Atsme📞📧 19:09, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Given that we are source-driven and cannot make statements of original research, this seems like a non-starter argument - if no one has written about a person (female or otherwise), we can't assess their notability, period. That's a systematic bias we cannot correct, in contrast to one between Western and non-WEstern countries where a language barrier is primarily the only divider. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • See, this is why I said above that I don't like the term "notability" much. All we're meaning by it is someone that's been extensively noted, and that there is enough good quality reference material from which to write a good article. If, as Atsme says, more research is being done in that area, that's great! Once they publish their studies, that's reference material we can and should write articles based on. But the references have to come first, or, since we disallow original research, there just wouldn't be anything to put in the article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 19:41, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • "IAR" doesn't mean "do whatever you want", nor does it mean "ignore other editors" or "ignore consensus". If the consensus here is that this shouldn't be done, it would be quite inappropriate to use "IAR" as a justification to go ahead and do it anyway. "IAR" is generally for edge cases where literal application of the rules would result in absurdity. The example I often use is, if we applied literally the rule that subjects must be covered by independent sources, we would have to delete our articles on humans, primates, animals, etc., since there are no references written by nonhuman, nonprimate, nonanimals about those subjects (or at least if there are, they aren't exactly available to us). Since that would clearly be absurd, we quietly ignore the rule in that case. But it's for edge cases like that, not day to day stuff, and certainly never in defiance of consensus. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:48, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
I actually do understand the application of IAR Seraphimblade and I am also aware of how it has been abused from time to time. I hope you don't think of me as an editor who intentionally abuses our PAGs by wrongfully applying IAR. Regardless, what you walked away with was neither what I implied nor intended so I will try to do a better job of getting my point across. When I said editors need to keep things in perspective with (my bold italics for emphasis) "a thorough understanding of why there was no prior widespread coverage which we currently use to determine a BLP's notability", and that notable women are not being recognized despite their being notable, well.... that's exactly what I meant and never intended to imply that I was dismissing sources or that I thought women should be given an unfair advantage because of their gender which is actually the advantage men have enjoyed for centuries. It is a known fact (but not a widely accepted one because of the bias) that women were not judged or treated according to the same standards as men, particularly minorities who endured a double-whammy. In retrospect, the way women were treated was absolutely absurd; therefore, as you stated in cases of absurdity, "we quietly ignore the rule in that case." To say now that women of earlier generations must still pass notability based on the same source standards used for men despite the widespread bias is ludicrous at best. We're here to overcome gender bias but based on some of the comments I've seen it looks more like it's being perpetuated by requiring today's standards for notability, particularly with regard to RS. Archived sources dating back to the 19th and early 20th Century can't possibly be of the same quality as the sources we use today, (and in some cases may actually be better) keeping in mind that we didn't have the internet, CNN, BBC, computers, cell phones, etc. Atsme📞📧 23:08, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • But at least in the case of Human, Primate, etc., we don't have the usual concern about bias, since our readership doesn't include beings from other species who might be concerned that we are trying to tailor the impression of us that the article presents to them. If, at the time those articles were created, we had a Martian readership, we might have had to rely on scholarly Martian sources for them. Largoplazo (talk) 21:13, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • "It's a case of "they did achieve notability" but it still isn't being recognized." That's a contradiction. You are clearly using "notability" in the manner in which most normal English-speaking humans use it (which is completely understandable), but on Wikipedia they made the unfortunate choice many years ago to use it to mean, not "worthy of note", but "having achieved note", which is the criterion intended to be conveyed. Multitudinous are the articles about men and women of all ethnicities and religions from all parts of the world that have been deleted despite protests of "He/she is notable" by people who didn't understand that, on Wikipedia, we aren't looking at a person's deeds and works and making our own assessment as to whether he/she is worthy of note on that account, as to the value of the person's legacy, but looking to see whether he/she has achieved note as demonstrated through coverage in appropriate resources, or receipt of certain high honors, whether they be awards, medals, academic chairs, massive citations of scholarly works, or high political office. If a person's notability (in the ordinary sense) hasn't been recognized, then the person isn't notable (in the Wikipedia sense).
"Noted" may have been a better word than "notable", but that would leave the awkward "notedness" to replace "notability". Maybe just "note" would have worked, but it seems too short. Largoplazo (talk) 21:01, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I understand exactly what Atsme is saying. The "recentism" bias of WP often ignores historical documents that discuss notable women and minorities. Many notable people come to light in historic newspaper articles, trade journals, and the like. They were often recognized in their time, though not covered as extensively as prominent men, and are often obscured by naming customs. (Even if they had a "professional name" press tended to call women Mrs. Soandso or Anglicanize names of other minorities). Some have been written about extensively in current literature, but many have not, or are simply mentioned in one-liners in a compiled list published in a R.S. of historic women, indigenous persons, ethnic minorities, etc. Simply because we were not taught these people existed, does not mean that they weren't there, nor that their contributions were insignificant. It doesn't require original research to write an article from sources available about them, but it does often require combining sources to amass significant coverage. SusunW (talk) 15:02, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • So bring those sources to everyone's attention when there's a deletion discussion. I don't see the problem here. We do rely on people finding sources to demonstrate notability. Is it harder to find sources that aren't online and indexed by search engines? Then, yes, it will be harder to corroborate the notability of people whose note is recorded in such sources. The only way around that is to give people who insist that such-and-such person must be notable, but who don't have the personal motivation or the wherewithal to find such sources if they exist, a pass to assert "Well, I'm sure sources exist!" and to expect that that will qualify the subject as notable. We can't have that. And, as other people have pointed out, if the person writing the article doesn't have access to those sources, then from where is he getting the information that he's putting in the article? How are the rest of us even supposed to verify it, let alone determine that the person is notable? Largoplazo (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • As I said in my comments above, there is a push to delete sourcing which others deem to be insignificant, rather than following the guidelines to combine sourcing. I am not one who thinks that we should relax our standards. I believe that the very few standards that exist should be clarified to make crystal clear what is involved in weighing evidence. But I also think it is a losing battle. The loudest voices in any discussion are not typically content creators, but policers. SusunW (talk) 16:40, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't know what "delete sourcing" means, but if you mean that others aren't following the guidelines in evaluating the reliability and value of sources, will it help to create more guidelines that they will also ignore? I say this because it seems to me that the existing guidelines are already pretty explicit about what qualifies, particularly about how reliable sources are by no means restricted to online content. Largoplazo (talk) 18:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Largoplazo It means what it says. There are common requests to delete all sourcing that others deem as not RS or contentious, those that have what other deem "trivial mention" or insignificant, or those that are not peer reviewed, etc. etc. Peer review might be required if one were discussing a discovery, a process, etc. but are rarely needed for biographies. I've even seen those advocating that length, "like a 200 page book" demonstrates substance. The existing guidelines are not remotely clear, from any academic standpoint, IMO, or these issues would not be so prevalent. SusunW (talk) 19:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • If you're saying that editors are placing these obstacles specifically in front of articles about women—that genuinely comparable sources are routinely accepted by the same reviewers for male subjects but rejected for female subjects—then that isn't systemic bias (bias that is inherent in the domain by its nature), that is the actual, current, present bias of the people you're dealing with, which should be dealt with appropriately, but which isn't the topic of this particular discussion (unless the person who began it doesn't know what "systemic bias" means and was using it inappropriately). Largoplazo (talk) 19:57, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
  • However, there is a certain give-and-take on established articles about people pre-2000 where more information was in print that we have to take. If there is some indication that a person is notable, with maybe one or two weak but reliable sources that back it up on an existing article (one that's been around for several years), and another editor is insisting more sources be found to meet the GNG, there has to be a reasonable expectation of time and effort to locate the print sources; there is an element of grandfathering involved here. On the other hand, if today I started an article on such a person with just the same sources, I would expect that the article would be deleted or userified, since now we are insistent on showing notability from the start. Similarly, if I can show that an SNG is clearly met but otherwise leaves a stubby around, it is reasonable to give time and effort to locate sources rather than rush to delete. --MASEM (t) 15:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
This discussion demonstrates the "horns of the dilemma" we are on. Atsme and SusunW are spot-on: Particularly in historical cases, the contributions of women were fully notable, but dismissed, ignored, or in the case of someone such as Catharine Littlefield Greene, the precise extent of her contributions to the design of the cotton gin that was credited to [{Eli Whitney]] are near-impossible to document, as women were not even allowed to register patents in her time. Today, the problem we have at AfD at the moment is that a PORNSTAR who "won" an "industry award" (The recent one that I noticed was for "best Cougar" or something equally ridiculous) is deemed notable, while a TED Fellow or a teacher of the year is not. Masem makes good comments about the problem being that a lot of folks at AfD are doing it wrong, but aside from a lot of the folks here taking hours from their life they will never get back to haunt AfD constantly (and get accused of being a knee-jerk inclusionist by the knee-jerk deletionists), what IS the solution? Montanabw(talk) 18:33, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
If the precise extent of the contribution that Greene made to the design of the cotton gin is nearly impossible to document, then what is the source of your confidence that her contributions were notable? If the reason you think her contributions were notable is because documentation to that effect has come to light, then what is making it difficult to bring this documentation to light on Wikipedia? This is the point where I'm not understanding, in a way that would enable me to offer more specific commentary than I have already, exactly where the problem is that Wikipedia can possibly solve. It isn't that I don't appreciate the substance of the problem, but that I think that attempts to solve it here are in part futile, in part a misdirection of energy to deal with a symptom rather than the cause. Maybe what I'm expressing is just a sense of resignation. Largoplazo (talk) 18:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
I'm actually of the mind that we should consider sources that some may determine to be of lesser quality based on the requirements of our current PAG and GNG. For example, notable women of the early 20th Century and before did not have the luxury of widespread media coverage, particularly during the pre-suffrage pre-television (1920s - early 1930s) era. With the latter in mind, we should exercise a bit more leniency when considering archived news clips, memorials, obituaries, organizational bulletins, and primary sources like patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. It's food for thought. Atsme📞📧 00:16, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps we should, but it will prove extremely difficult to decide between just which ones we should include as acceptable sources for notability and those we should not. In practice, we make the adjustment by how strictly we consider the various factors in WP:RS. And as a further corrective, an individual AfD can come to any conclusion as long as there is consensus for it. Just as we make the rules, we make the exceptions. DGG ( talk ) 03:14, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Not really impossible, just fragmentary at times. You have to look at the totality of the circumstances. If you go back another 1000 years, that is exactly what people look at. WP:PRIMARY is clear that sources can be used for their raw info so long as we don't cross a boundary to WP:SYNTH. This is a battle that the Women's history profession won about 40 years ago, actually. Montanabw(talk) 03:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Though that makes sense on occasion and probably will be accepted on occasion or as augmenting sources (see policy for primary sources), there is a problem with making that general rule rather than the axeception. Simply because this crosses over into WP:OR and that is something we shouldn't nor do. If I have a person, who's importance/notability has been overlooked so far due gender, race, class or even just by chance, then WP is not the place to originally right that wrong. Instead such a correction has to occur in reputable and reliable source outside of WP and then WP can picked it up, but not before.--Kmhkmh (talk) 03:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
WP:RS pretty much handles that so long as we don't apply it with a level or ridiculousness to the point that only white males active since the dawn of Google can qualify. Sources can be reliable, just a bit more sparse, a bit more fragmented, a bit more difficult to Google. That's not OR or SYNTH. That's just good research. I recall an Afd a few years ago about a (white, Anglo-Saxon, Male) jockey who won the Grand National back in the 1800s. The deletion advocates were screaming bloody murder that he wasn't notable because he was an "amateur" which NSPORTs generally doesn't cover -- today! But in his time and place, a "gentleman" did not "lower" himself by taking prize money... plus most of the source material was from snippets in old newspapers and assorted lists. The race win was still notable and so was he, but the lack of any understanding about how history is studied just stunned me. Montanabw(talk) 03:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Assembling an article primarily or even solely from primary sources is usually WP:OR, that exactly what historians, journalists and biographers do. However WPns are supposed to report and summarize what those folks publish outside of WP and not supposed to assume their roles directly. Although that can be but anal and annoying at times, it is fundamental design principle of WP and there are good reasons for it. If you want to write an article about yet completely undiscovered/unnoticed person you need to do that elswhere.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:44, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
We use secondary sources as much as possible, but there is no prohibition on use of primary sources for certain very specific purposes. A newspaper from the time is an appropriate secondary source in many contexts, particularly for obituaries and such. What happens here on wiki is that if that newspaper is not easily googled or is in a foreign language, or if the woman's accomplishments were listed in the society section instead of a "hard news" section, a double standard is applied. You fail to understand the actual methodology applied here. This is not a question of "dumbing down" the standards, it is a question of looking at the nature of the sourcing and applying some common sense in light of well-established guidelines that social historians have been using for decades. Montanabw(talk) 23:46, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Obituaries are generally not secondary sources (regardless of when they were written), unless you are talking about the long-form format that the NYtimes often uses that take several pages for very important people but not run-of-the-mill death notices. We are looking for transformation of information in our secondary sources, and just reiterating anything a person did without additional comment is a primary source. This aspect itself is probably both a problem with trying to write about people in the past as sources then tended not to be very verbose beyond fundamentals (eg primary), and why some of the current notability guidelines for contemporary people are problematic because they do allow information sourced only to primary information to be sufficient for notability presumption (eg many of the athletics articles are simply brief bios and stat summaries without transformation of that information). That perhaps is part of the problem. --MASEM (t) 00:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Masem, your point there does raise the issue of "recentism," which is another type of systemic bias problem. Absent a scanned and google-able newspaper, it does become a concern that historically-significant people may not be recognized in wikipedia. (I'm recalling quite the battle to save Hilda Plowright, the original "shushing librarian") There is a good discussion going at some private user talk pages about what is a primary, secondary or tertiary source, referencing Purdue OWL quite a bit: (see here) and that is a very nice resource. Like I have said repeatedly, many of the SNGs are very inconsistent; I use Lawnchair Larry as a frequent case in point; that article will never be nuked, even though it's a BIO1E, the guy fails GNG, it was a passing news tidbit, and so on. Montanabw(talk) 04:26, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
To answer your reply to me above. There is no restriction on l or with regard to online availability. There argument you're making there and the described bias are not a problem policy but as I described already further up but a problem of authorship. Our authors decide what they want to write about within the rules/constraints by policy and we simply have more authors being interested in more recent topics and working with sources they can easily access. However GNG is keeping nobody from writing articles using offline sources or sources in foreign languages, but it is up to him to put up the work and clearly establish notability that way. We cannot have policy waiving that work just because it is harder than for recent topics.
As far as using common sense in the application of policy is concerned, that obviously is something that should always be done. Yes some colleagues may fail to apply common sense or context on occasion, but that again isn't really an issue of the policy itself. From my perspective you simply haven't put forward a reason that requires a policy change.
Finally a general comment regarding WP systemic biases since this has being brought up here several times. While I agree that those (in theory) may be undesirable and a "weakness" of WP compared to conventional encyclopedias, they are nevertheless a largely unavoidable consequence of WP's different open structure, that is its basic design. If you will they are simply the cost you pay for Wikipedia's advantages. Wikipedia is written from bottom up (contrary to the top down of conventional encyclopedias) and that means biases of interest within the overall authorship are bound to be reflected in Wikipedia. There is no way around that, unless you remove the open structure and the bottom up approach, which imho is almost the same as "killing" the project altogether. The notion that the percentage of the total scope devoted to a particular topic reflects its importants to society from an academic perspective, simply doesn't work in Wikipedia and cannot be achieved for principal reasons. So rather than worrying too much about such systemic biases (in relative terms), we cannot get rid of anyhow, people should focus on the total coverage of a specific topic and how that compares to other publications. For example instead of worrying that our ratio between academics and porn stars is much "worse" than conventional encyclopedias, we should focus on having at least as many biographies of academics as the conventional encyclopedias or reference works. And again there is nothing in the notability guidelines that keeps us from doing so.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

A handful of thoughts I see coming out of these discussions:

  1. There is a problem with editors failing to recognize that the GNG is nearly always accepted as a presumption of notability, the SNGs are not required to be met if a person otherwise falls in that field. This is a issue that should be addressed at AFD and perhaps at WP:ATA.
  2. There is likely a problem at AFD and similar venues where if a topic is not searchable, people are dismissing it. We have to be aware Google search is not the end-all, be-all, and that the farther back in time a person's importance came about, the more likely that sources are going to be in print and we're going to have to give more time for editors to make a reasonable effort to find sources. This is an issue to address at AFD.
  3. At the same time, if you start an article on a 19th century person with no sources and simply resting on a claim "this person clearly must be notable, we just need to find sources", that's a problem in the other direction. We have to start with something, this is what the SNGs are meant to help with in the form of verified evidence of importance. Once you can show some evidence of importance, then we should give reasonable time for that importants to be better sourced.
  4. Notability has always been a presumption, meaning it can be challenged. Hence why we generally prefer to keep when in doubt rather than delete. This goes back to giving more time for older topics to develop for sources to be found, once the first WP:V hurdle is passed.
  5. More important to this discussion, we have to be fully aware that certain groups, like females, minorities, foreigners, etc. did not share equal positions where they could demonstrate importance, and furthering that, the media at those times would focus more on the men. While this is a bias, I really think its difficult to call it systematic bias, because there is nothing we can do to change what has happened in the past. (Counter to topics today where we know there are a lot more sources about to overcome systematic bias). It is a shame of mankind's past that we didn't treat all humans equally, but we can't change that or route around that because we can't create or find new sources that didn't exist then. We have to be aware that there may be great contributions to mankind that went undocumented or remain as word-of-mouth stories that we can't use, since our goal is to summarize with verifability.
  6. What makes the situation more difficult is that because of the volume of sources available today, there are people recognized (to meet our GNG/SNG) that have done subjectively far less merit of importance today relative to some of the undocumented heroes of the past. That is a systematic bias that we can work to address, but think is where I think we have to realize that our current system of SNGs are part of the problem, and maybe where we need a larger discussion with projects involved in BLPs. We are ending up with a lot of articles that basically look like prose-ified resumes, providing a lot of data that would be considered primary information, but very little secondary information, explaining why that person is important. Maybe we have to recognize that not all pro athelets or porn stars are deserving of an article on WP even though they can be documented readily by reliable sources. It is a balance on how we approach contemporary topics where a wealth of information exists, contrasted with how we approach topics of the past where we should be more lenient to allow articles on seemingly important people time to develop. Notability still stands as is, we do not need to weaken our WP:V/RS approach, but we do need to identify the qualities we need to expect in biographical articles to separate them from simply being information you'd otherwise find in a primary source, and in turn this may affect how the SNGs are to be used. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Masem makes some good points above and I pretty much agree with most of them. The only real point I'd dispute is "there is nothing we can do to change what has happened in the past." While it is true we can't make up stuff absent some source, we also can -- and this is part of what I think a discussion of WP:N or WP:V could include -- acknowledge what kinds of previously-overlooked historical sources can be used to meet WP:V and WP:N; the classic examples being people like Matthew Henson, long ignored by those studying Peary, or many of the cases of women who let their husbands file for a patent on their invention... or the women scientists who were dismissed as the mere "assistant," when records exist showing that they actually made the core discovery.
  • To some extent, the question may be more about how to reform AfD, which at the moment is a deletionist's paradise where the presumption of notability has been not simply flipped, but reversed to become a very large hurdle. But WP:N is always used as "policy" in most AfD discussions, and inclusionist arguments are often dismissed as "failing to understand policy." So we have a problem with either the policy itself or how it is interpreted and applied, and I am thinking that some statements on the policy page that explain application might be in order.
  • For further examples of the problem: Take a look at the frequency of article alerts. Since July 1, the list at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women/Article_alerts is pretty illustrative of the problem: Noting that these articles are all far enough along that someone tagged them for WikiProject Women, hence they show up on the list — who knows how many drafts and untagged articles have also been deleted because no one but the AfD crowd saw the article was even in the queue? Here’s the ugly, ugly truth: There have been 16 AfD’s filed so far in July (one kept, one deleted, the rest still open), 23 were filed in in June, of which all but 5 are still open (and of the five closed, 3 were deleted, two were kept) Similarly, we have had 9 PROD tagged articles since July 1. This strikes me as a problem. Yes, some are for things like the third vice-president of a minor company no one has heard of, or perhaps a former Miss South Carolina who was fourth-runner up to Miss USA or something (of which there have been several, someone should do up a SNG for beauty pageants, BTW), but others are much more notable -- the two I linked at the beginning of this RfC. I chose them as examples here because both are women who are nonwhite, work in (or for) Third World area, and are white-collar professionals. Montanabw(talk) 00:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
    • There is also one more aspect that I recognized that also is not always explored: WP:N only limits when we have a standalone article on a person or topic, but does not limit coverage of that topic or person in larger context. Merges and redirects are fully valid options for a lot of these cases too, but this is where 1) editors that generally want to keep are reluctant to accept a merge to larger context even if this is a better option and 2) AFD is not set up to initiate merge/redirect discussions (and its a PEREN proposal to try to change that scope), leaving merge and redirect discussions usually on the page of interest and not drawing greater # of eyes. I do feel there is a need to change attitudes at AFD that is contributing to the frustration of those !supporting these points, but I also feel we need a larger discussion when it comes to biographical articles to recognize that the attitudes we (as a whole) take to contemporary topics compared to how we take older topics need to be fixed too, and perhaps recognizing that the current biography SNGs are perhaps too low a bar for the presumption of notability. --MASEM (t) 03:53, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
        • The problem of centralized redirect/merger discussions is an issue related to WP:SOFIXIT.  I don't even know that there is controversy to doing it.  AfD is for discussions that need admin tools, and already has a problem with lack of participation.  Unscintillating (talk) 17:54, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
      • I think that terabytes of server space filled with tl;dr AfD discussions could be saved if the first thing to ask at AfD is "could this be merged?" Yes! I also agree that recentism is a HUGE problem... if it's not on google, apparently it isn't real. sigh) Montanabw(talk) 06:48, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment — Given how much support there is for maintaining the standards as they are, and not in any way weakening them to correct for systemic bias, I think a solution might be found by increasing our commitment to adhering to the notability standards as they are. In most of the AfD discussions where I saw bias against keeping articles about non-Western, or non-white, or non-male subjects, much of the problem was due to !votes that were patently absurd. For example, easily disprovable assertions that no sources exist. Or claims that a subject had to meet WP:PROF, regardless of the obvious fact that they easily met WP:ANYBIO or WP:GNG. Often, after an unsound claim is refuted, another editor comes along and repeats the exact argument that should have been avoided. Without dedicated editors around to tediously shoot down each one of these and many other arguments that never should have been made, it's possible to buffalo the system, with too many unsound delete !votes to swat away, the closing admin could mistake a swarm of poor deletionist !votes for a valid consensus.

    Since there is widespread agreement about what constitutes an argument to avoid in deletion discussions, it should be possible to add some little teeny tiny teeth to this well-accepted essay. The proposal would be something along the lines of: Seasoned editors whose AfD arguments are unmistakable howlers should have a few days to strike these egregiously false assertions from AfD discussion. The closing adimin has the discretion to issue temporary (probably a month or so) topic bans on AfD discussions for editors who refuse to strike arguments or assertions that are obvious nonsense.

    In a perfect world, the closing admin would ignore terrible arguments anyway; this just makes their job easier. Even if you don't believe editor AfD voting bias is a problem, you can at least agree that poor arguments are a waste of time, and curtailing that is helpful. It wouldn't have much effect on AfD outcomes if it is true that the current practice is generally unbiased. For those who do think bias is a problem, raising the quality of the arguments behind each !vote ought to result in better AfD outcomes, i.e., more worthy topics being included. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:17, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

      • Dennis, you have some good ideas. The devil in that detail is, of course, staying around there to do so over and over and over again; AfD is kind of an exhausting place. One problem I see at the article alerts (cited above) is the number of cases where an AfD is "relisted" when it seems clear that the individual doing so is basically just counting votes instead of considering the argument, or, if it's close, applying the presumption of notability and closing as keep. I have also seen that a "no consensus" close just means that AfD2 is around the corner. Montanabw(talk) 06:48, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
        • Excellent points. Montanabw, I believe vote count issues in AfDs do far more harm than good to WP because it discourages content creation and editor retention. Example - a stub is created on a notable topic but within 24 hrs. deletionists attack the article with an AfD before anyone has had an opportunity to expand it. Perhaps there should be a guideline that discourages filing AfDs (except for obvious SD) prior to one week of creation. Further, article submissions by newbies are quickly denied without reaching out to the submitter in an attempt to help them create what may well be a welcome addition if written properly. Without some form of outreach, we are discouraging newbies from joining our community and improving their skills. Those editors who simply don't have the time or desire to help newbies should consider not participating in the submission process or at the very least refer the newbie to someone who is interested in encouraging new editors to come aboard. I would be more than happy to help in that department. Atsme📞📧 15:53, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • The environment in which AfD currently functions in itself "discourages content creation and editor retention". Since it is a bar which is weighed heavily for Admin application evaluation, there are lots of people who participate in the process who create very few articles. A simple check of creation logs for oppose !voters in any given discussion is revealing and demonstrates familiarity with guidelines but not applicable practice. SusunW (talk) 18:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
  • It may also demonstrate unfamiliarity or misinterpretation of PAGs or topic in question, which is another reason AfDs and this RfC by Montanabw require careful review. Finding time to conduct a careful review is yet another issue. 🙄 Atsme📞📧 18:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Verifiability vs discouraging of content creation

  • I noticed above that there seems to be a debate about AfDs discouraging content creation. I beg to differ here. An article which is created after doing due diligence about notability will never be deleted. And AfDs tend to be a good atmosphere because at least certain people scrutinise the facts and sources (unlike many who say "Keep passes GNG" or "Delete non notable"). Take this Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Saarah Hameed Ahmed (2nd nomination) as an example. For a long time the article had a hoax claim that Saarah Hameed Ahmed was the first Muslim woman pilot in India. Editors expanded the article, but never scrutinised the claims. When other editors tried to correct it [1],[2],[3] it was reverted back to the version with the hoax [4],[5],[6]. So essentially,WP:V was compromised. How does that help the encyclopaedia? It was only in the second AfD (thanks to Dharmadhyaksha who is from India) that the hoax claims were debunked. The reason being that a bunch of unreliable sources were used. This is the crux of the problem. I see a lot of people arguing to keep an article but they don't realise that most of the sources are not what we consider reliable secondary sources for the purpose of GNG. I have seen editors arguing for using local sources for GNG - (here's an example of a local singer who just graduated from high school). If we start doing it, Wikipedia will become more like a directory of people. If we consider local sources for women's article, we will also have to consider it for men's article. This will not help to close the gender gap. I also disagree that only women's articles are targeted for deletion. I routinely add delete votes for random male CEOs of a company (BLP1E). I would suggest people to try voting at other AfDs beyond articles for women. You will realise that the same standards are expected everywhere. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 05:45, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Well said. I have argued for some time now that WP BLPs, especially where there is some level of category-specific advocacy, are increasingly victims of source-rot. A growing spate of poorly sourced BLPs of all walks of individuals is not helping WP's reputation. Agricola44 (talk) 16:34, 12 July 2016 (UTC).
  • Lemongirl942 "Files with notability verified will never be deleted" is only valid if someone happens to catch poor nominations before those who routinely !vote "delete" have pounced. Clearly some regional and local sources are not selective about what they print, there are many, which are reliable. Especially for historic figures, such papers as the Atlanta Daily World, the Cherokee Phoenix, the Philadelphia Tribune, or the Tulean Dispatch to name just a few, are local/regional papers focused on specific groups, which have enormous historic worth, for documenting men or women's articles. In a country where there are few national newspapers regional papers are extremely important for documenting events leading up to people and/or situations which became nationally or internationally important. While there are those who don't understand sourcing or notability, there are also many experienced editors who write content, have participated in GA, FA and peer review who clearly understand sourcing and have a much broader understanding of the issues on WP than maybe your experiences have been in the time you have been editing. Both the beauty and curse of the system we have is that anyone can edit and anyone can police others. SusunW (talk) 16:54, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I totally agree with your reasoning as it applies to historical sources because "print", being expensive, was somewhat selective by necessity in those days. My observations are directed toward more recent BLPs covered by local sources (increasingly including web-based news outlets and such), whose selectivity mirrors cost in being driven toward zero. In short, I would submit as a general rule that local sources of yesteryear should usually be OK, but local sources of today (say in the era of the WWW) should usually be unacceptable. Agricola44 (talk) 16:39, 12 July 2016 (UTC).
  • Thank you for constructive dialogue Agricola44. I appreciate your thoughtful reply and concur that regional sources in the modern era should be scrutinized before inclusion. IMO, this is the type of clarification the guidelines need because as is apparent from the above comment by a fairly new editor, many do not understand the nuance of sourcing and how it differs for historical vs. living subjects. I personally try to steer away from BLPs, to avoid the drama which often emerges from their articles. SusunW (talk) 19:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
  • My suggestion above is tailored to suit both editors who think current outcomes are biased, and those who don't. Both can agree that !votes based on bogus facts are harming the process. A little mild pressure to lightly sanction the worst instances will raise the average quality of participation. While we might make opposite predictions on how that improvement in quality will affect AfD outcomes, we can agree that decreasing careless and flippant !votes will help. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:29, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Totally agree on the flippant !votes. I have also been the recipient of hair trigger AfD filings (within 24 hrs of creation), and frivolous filings. It should be mandatory that the filer must FIRST initiate a discussion on the TP of the content creator (unless it is clearly a SD situation). I can't think of anything more annoying or time consuming than fighting a wrongful AfD and yes, it does discourage article creation. If there are questionable sources, an AfD is not the appropriate action. Take it to RS/N first but leave the article in tact. Some AfD filers may bring with them a "high-horse attitude" and be totally off-base about their reason for filing which is another problem that needs to be addressed. Perhaps filers should be required to first initiate a TP discussion with the content creator or at least attempt to expand the stub by finding adequate sources. There are instances when content creators don't have access to books or journals or other sources needed because of paywalls and/or other availability issues, and there are also situations like what spurred this RfC - it is a very real issue. I would support a requirement that before an editor can file an AfD, they must initiate a TP discussion with the content creator, at least attempt to expand or cite better sources if they feel it's a source issue, especially if the creator is a veteran editor with auto patrolled rights, GAs and FAs to their credit. Doing otherwise unequivocally has discouraged some editors from article creation, especially for those who have had to endure a wrongful filing - and the manner in which some rejections of new submissions have been handled has also discouraged new editors from joining our community. Atsme📞📧 16:13, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't; what we don't need are more layers of bureaucracy. (If that was a good thing, wouldn't it be just as apt, for instance, to require article creators to initiate discussions about sources with AfC? I don't imagine many people would sign off on that.) That some AfD filers do so on poor or threadbare grounds is no more reason to change or torpedo the AfD process than that many new article creations are done on specious or threadbare sourcing is a reason to torpedo that process ... however much that policing new article creations occupies about twenty times as much attention as AfD does. Ravenswing 16:46, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I would say the simple, and correct, answer is if you do not have the sources do not write the article. If one does not have the source material there is no way to know the subject is notable per Wikipedia guidelines and without sources there is nothing you can write... just pulling stuff out thin air is a horrible way to write an article no matter how well one may know the subject and if one does so one should expect to be dealing with an AfD. JbhTalk 16:57, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Ravenswing, if only GNGs were as relaxed for all articles as they are for junior hockey players, I might be persuaded to share your sentiments. As for turning articles down because an editor doesn't have access to the "required" sources, that is too much like establishing qualifications to be an editor rather than WP being open for anyone to edit. Before deleting the submission, the proposed deletionist should at least determine if the subject is notable or worth a few minutes of time to determine so. It will spare us hundreds of minutes in the time sink that so often occurs at AfD. Again - if an editor doesn't have the time to do the job, simply don't do it but I find it difficult to agree that discouraging new editors and submissions based on (1) not having the time to check for notability or (2) not having access to the available resources to prove notability as worthy reasons. I liken it to shooting oneself in the foot rather than simply clipping a painful ingrown toenail. 😀 Atsme📞📧 20:56, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Commentary (essay!) on the two RfCs

I returned to Wikipedia in January this year, after (perhaps unfortunatley) having had to give it up in September 2009 after a relatively active period commencing in February 2008.

From what I can tell nothing fundamental has changed. This is both good and bad. It is much bigger, a bit more sophisticated, but I am not seeing that it is better.

I think an AfD process is vital and critical to the encyclopedic integrity of Wikipedia. AfD from what I can tell still has the same underlying types of issues it had a long time ago.

I think the two RfCs above are strong indicators of a much more complicated and interconnected set of issues:

So here I go, WP:BOLD . . . :

Systemic bias

As long as Wikipedia relies on sources other than its own peer reviewed research (which is not allowed, no OR), by definition, axiomatically, it cannot naively avoid any systemic bias in those sources. Any avoidance of systemic bias will have to be deliberate, unless we want to faithfully reflect the systemic bias of the population producing its editors and contributors.

Systemic bias could be due to the nature of the sources, media ownership (state or private) bias, technological era (WWW), cultural or anthromorphological context, etc.

Interestingly there is no pillar that describes who are wikipedia editors and contributors. By direct implication it is any body. But it is also not everyone. This is another bias Wikipedia has to contend with. Editors and contributors are initially self selecting, that is, it is people who want to contribute (in the vast majority) (or sometimes disrupt (thankfully in the significant minority)). These people will pick items they are interested in, want to tell the world about for whatever reason, and usually(?) can find some sources (quality aside) for. Processes within wikipedia then filter some of the them, for example, deletions, too many rules, vandals, trolls, . . . By and large editors will contribute in areas they are fans of, for example, sport, entertainment, science, . . . and usually very specific subjects within those areas. The vast majority of people will pick subjects which are popular as they see it, hence there is a lot of fan cruft.


Deletionism

I note above a complaint above about deletionists jumping on an article within 24 hours before it has had any hope of developing. Have a look at Oscar Werner Tiegs. This happened within one minute. It survived due the the intervention of a much more experienced editor than the relative newbie who created it. I do believe deletionism does discourage some contributors. Note that I say contributors (of new content). Editors, as a population, of existing content I suggest care much less about something being deleted. (WP:EVENTUAL the article would have survived in the long run anyway, but the deletionist who pounced did not seem to WP:BEFORE it.)

We need to distinguish between article deletion and content deletion. There are probably tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of articles I would like to see deleted, but not the core of their content. There are so many articles that will never ever ever be anything more than a stub, even a micro stub, but whose content should be tabulated into encyclopedic (not just a list of contents, but with some basic facts for each list item) lists. The stubs for these should be relegated to be a redirect to the encyclopedic list.

AfD should be about article deletion and not (also) content deletion. There seem to be many articles deleted and all their content disappears too. Any AfD delete outcome should (almost) always include mandatory WP:Content salvaging, typically into master / main articles, or into encylopedic lists.

I suggest there should be three explicit types of outcome for AfDs, keep, salvage, delete. I suspect salvage might become the most popular, because it allows the deletionist to rightly get rid of a low value article, and it allows the inclusionist to rightly keep any good encyclopedic content. There are a lot of redirects and merges !voted for now, but I sense that this a compromise between delete and keep rather than and explicilty targetted outcome. For example, the AfD nominator should be able to propose salvage at the start rather than only delete.

Not every interesting thing deserves its own article, but it often deserves to be included somewhere in an encyclopedia.

(The planet Earth did not deserve its own article, but it did deserve its list entry to be updated from harmless to mostly harmless.)

I am often dismayed at the amount of research effort that goes into the for and against arguments in an AfD discussion. This effort if it went into the article itself would often result a very solid article.


Inclusionism

See deletionism above.


Notability

A subject might often not be notable enough to warrant its own article, but often many WP:Under notable (as distint from not notable) subjects combined can be very encyclopedic and notable. I suggest we should recognise and distiguish subjects as being notable in their own right as per the current case, under notable in their own right but notable as an instance in a notable class of that subject, to be formally a new concept, and not (sufficiently) notable at all, ie neither of the first two.

I also have some serious concerns about subject specific notability guidelines. In short they are a bit of mess. One of my favourite example is WP:NCRICKET. And there are others too. There is now a subject area systemic bias within Wikipedia arising from the vast differences in benchmarks for subject specific notability. I would like to see some lowered, and many raised for, notable in their own right.


Reliable and-or secondary source and verifability

For me the pillar of verfiability is the absolute key stone. Any assertion must be referenced and its reference potentially available. It is okay to document incorrect data, provided it is referenced and counter pointed by the correct data, the fact, provided it too is referenced. The example above regarding the Indian woman pilot is a good example. Both the misreporting, which is in itself now a historical fact, and the correct facts, should be in the article and documented accordingly.

Note that reliable sources are not always reliable. One might believe that the Royal Society would be correct and as reliable as any good source, but again have a look at Oscar Werner Tiegs. It would seem very likely that they got at least one fact wrong. Again, document the incorrect and correct data. See [7] and in its current form [8] also about reliable sources just regurgitating crap (Carefully Researched and Analysed Publication (not) - sorry could not resist !).

I suggest that if (sufficient) "reliable" secondary sources cannot be found then other secondary sources should be allowed but they need to be caveated (in a NPOV manner) within the article. We already allow the blacklisting of known (negatively) unreliable sources, so why do we not have reliable, to be used as references as per now, uncertain reliability, to be explicitly discussed in line in the article and-or separately caveated in notes at the end of the article, and unreliable, not to be used at all. This is not a reduction in standards, but it is recognising and documenting the world in its systemic reality.

The reality of the world Wikipedia exists in is not one where everything is based on (most of the time) reliable secondary sources. We need to recognise that, and not filter knowledge based on that systemic bias. We can include what we currently regard as unreliable data, within our current rules. All we have to do is document the unreliability at the same time by also putting the reliable facts in place. Both the malfact and the fact can then be verified.


NPOV

Probably the second most critical pillar ? I believe this is where we have a real dilemma. If we naively allow systemic bias, of whatever type or cause, then the direct corrollary is that we are not providing a NPOV encyclopedia. Individual articles might be NPOV, but the overall trend and tone of Wikipedia, and its spectrum of articles, will be a biased POV reflecting the systemic bias.

I suggest that if we are to build a NPOV encyclopedia, and not just NPOV articles, then we need to adjust our content filtering, to supplement against any systemic bias. This does not mean lowering standards for verifiability at all, but it does mean having an open mind about what verifiabilty and notability really means in terms of encyclopedic content, and how classes of verifiability and notability are managed, and documented, and expressed in articles.

If we are happy with a POV encyclopedia reflecting the systemic biases of the world Wikpedia draws from, then we do not have to do anything, except AfD should not be required at all, because deleting articles reflecting the real world is putting a POV on what we record about the world. We either have as our goal an NPOV encyclopedia as best we can or we reflect the world as it is.


Next steps

If we are to better Wikipedia, and work to a resolution to the underlying causes of these two RfCs, then we need to take a broader view things.

It is also a huge task I suggest. Not easy to change the course of planet . . .

Zeroth step is, is there any consensus for the above ? And does anyone want to work on it ?

First step is improvements to AfD - ie salvage.

Second steps are a review of notability concept - ie three categories; and encouragement of malfact and fact documentation.

Third step is a review of subject specific notability guidelines - ie comparative equivalence across subject areas.

Fourth step is a review of stub guidelines and list guidelines.

Aoziwe (talk) 14:42, 12 July 2016 (UTC)


The thing that jumps out at me is the tactic of changing the subject. It's a very common reaction every time this comes up. You could call it the "what about black on black violence?" of Wikipedia's systemic bias problem. Instead of addressing whether or not we are ourselves are showing bias in the AfD process, we instead instantly change the subject to talk about bias in sources, and that's the end of that. There's a built-in assumption that our process is fair, without even offering any evidence that it is, or any refutation of the evidence that our actions are biased.

It's a far cry from writing an inordinate number of fancruft articles to going out of your way to delete biographies of women, non-whites, and no-Westerners. Something besides fandom is going on there. These topics are nominated for deletion more often than white male topics, and if the outcome is delete more often, that is something we can change.

Merging any well-cited content of these articles elsewhere is nice and all, and I'm all for it. But if that is happening as a result of a biased AfD nomination and voting process, then it's a second class door prize. It's better than deleting the content all together, but it's still pushing these topics to the back of the bus.

Whenever we change the subject to things we have little or no control over, like bias in sources or editor self-selection, it clouds the issue and fills threads up with off-topic hand-wringing, and gives the impression that it's a hopeless situation. We should stay focused on what we can do about the things that are under our control. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

Even with the systemic bias, there are different things that need to be distinguished:
  • a) Is there a systemic bias in the current culture at AfDs?
  • b) Is there a systemic bias within the policies and guidelines?
  • c) Can (or even should we) avoid any sort of systemic bias to begin with? Which systemic biases are an issue, which are even wanted? After you could argue that we've got a systemic bias against fancruft, which however probably only a small minority of the community might be bothered by that. Also various ideologies and religious folks will probably see a systemic (at least) from their perpespective. The latter one however is a systemic bias of which i'm personally rather glad that we have it.
  • d) Should we actively try overcome certain systemic biases in society or just academia or should we just wait for society or academia to overcome those biases and report just on that process and its outcomes.
To me much of the discussion seems under the assumption that there is bias that simply needs to be overcome by us actively. Depending on which of the points we're talking I don't think we can consider that assumption as given.--Kmhkmh (talk) 19:07, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Even if you think no bias exists, or you think we should not actively try to correct it, what harm is there in discouraging AfD participation that is far below our minimum standards of reasonable debate? Even if poorly thought out !votes are not rooted in bias, they still waste time and sow chaos. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
This was no comment on your suggestions to improve the AfD process, in fact I largely agree with you on that. That was just a comment/clarification on the systemic bias issue, that was brought up by you and others above and which imho requires a closer look and and needs to distinguish at least the cases I've pointed out above. Not every systemic biases is necessarily a bad thing.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:22, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
From what I've seen (and this is only perception, nothing documented), there is editor bias at AFD but it is not related to gender or race. One form is the bias that an editor will show towards a topic they are very interested in, and willing to go the extra step to show that persons in such areas are notable, while handwaving any similar types of efforts on persons in other topic areas. This itself is related to the issue of some SNGs having very low bars for notability so that these types of articles get retained. The other type of bias is one growing out of the current political/social atmosphere (left- vs right-wing), where some seem to want to use AFD to get rid of articles on people that do not agree with their political POV. Note that this does extent to topic areas like Israel/Palastine as well.
I honestly do not thing that there is an intrinsic gender or racial bias by editors at AFD that isn't a direct effect of these two. There is a point where if you can strip all possible biases aware, you are left with the issue of sourcing that is outside of our control. --MASEM (t) 18:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
So if we agree that bias exists in AfD, but we don't agree on whether the bias is related to gender and race, or if it is caused by editors favoring a particular topic, or if it is politically motivated, or if it has some other cause, what can we do? We can't read editors minds and preemptively stop them from participating if their heart is in the wrong place. A rule targeting a specific flavor of bias would be divisive and unpopular, and inelegant to implement. We can't recognize if a !vote is biased or in good faith. We can recognize if it is totally ill-conceived, based on obvious falsehoods or utterly unsound reasoning. An AfD topic ban, or the threat of one, for editors whose !votes are blatantly ill-considered would be blind to what kind of bias, if any, motivated the editor. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
I'd be really careful on issuing punitive aspects on AFD-participating editors unless it is clearly demonstrated as long term abuse or misuse of the process. (RFC/U would have been great to have for such editors but it is long gone). The one case that I recall of AFD abuse was that TTN for Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Episodes and characters 2, but that required arbcom to get involved and in the end, the "abuse" was that of fait accompli and not so much "bad" AFD nominations. I think the better way to handle this is to have more admins to be proactive and carefully review !votes and even explain which votes they had to discount based on bogus arguments or facilities against some of the points discussed here. Editors will start to learn that if their !votes are being outright discounted over and over, they would likely stop being so disruptive, and at which point if they continue that pattern perhaps action can be taken because at least then you can follow the documented pattern. --MASEM (t) 23:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Yes, that would be a step in the right direction, but it requires even more work by the closing admin, and the current system already puts all the burden on admins. It requires they thoroughly vet each !vote on each close. An editor whose votes are discounted on one discussion can turn around and take their chances on another, and another and another. Each case requires a different admin to investigate and catch the flaw in their assertions. Why not keep the same basic process, but leverage some of the gains?

The first step is, as you say, to clearly draw attention tot those !votes that are obviously invalid. By asking them to strike their !votes before the close, it spreads the labor out over time; the admin doesn't have to do it all at the end, and others can help issue talk page warnings for bad !votes well before close. Note that I would want to ban any discussion of this on the AfD page itself. The point of it all is a cleaner AfD discussion, so editor behavior should be addressed on their talk page or elsewhere.

The point of a (brief) AfD topic ban is to create a chilling effect on editors who aren't putting in enough effort before they vote. It's asking all editors, focusing on the laziest ones, to try just a little bit harder so that admins don't have to be quite so perfect.

For most editors, a short AfD topic ban would have very little effect on their Wikipedia activity; they edit mostly elsewhere. It's an extremely mild penalty. For those whose main focus is AfD, they are likely to either fully understand the process and not be affected at all, or else they are the very ones we are trying to discourage: editors who cast large numbers of !votes which only add noise.

I think all that noise is one of the causes of mistrust by those who see bias. When an article is deleted amidst a large number of poorly reasoned 'delete' !votes, it gives the appearance that the poor arguments won. By striking out the poor arguments well before the close, the soundness of the closer's decision is easy for anyone to see. It shouldn't be so much work for participants and third parties to cut through the chaff and understand the reasoning of a delete or keep decision. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:48, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

  • I assume you feel likewise for articles that are kept amidst a large number of poorly reasoned 'keep' !votes...those also give a very distinct impression that the poor arguments won. The devil is in the details when it comes to defining what constitutes a poor argument: "* per nom" might be obvious, but there's an enormous grey area where reasonable observers will differ. In the end, minor tweaks will probably not offer any improvement and may in fact create new unintended problems. Agricola44 (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2016 (UTC).
  • Yes, I think anyone saying, "Keep -- Here's 10 sources" followed by 10 links to articles, every single one clearly marked as a press release, should be subject to the same request to strike their claim, followed eventually by a topic ban if they persist. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
  • A punitive AfD topic ban would hollow out AfD in weeks. Adding more bureaucracy to AfD such that it is relatively easy to become topic banned would be discouraging. Any editor who was topic banned from AfD would probably never participate again or possibly leave the whole project, even if they were here in good faith and willing to learn to accept the window of what is considered "good arguments". That brings up another point: what is considered "ill-conceived"? Consensus relies on the ability of editors to voice their sincerely-held concerns, no matter how contrary to the current opinion on an issue, and we can certainly address these concerns or refuse to take into account these concerns because they are held by a minority, but if we silence the editors who voice these concerns, then we have a problem with what we intend to be a collaborative decision-making system. — Esquivalience (talk) 20:31, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't know what bureaucracy you're referring to. Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions provides a very easy list of obvious flawed arguments. Any statement which is obviously false on its face is a good candidate. I have to wonder: if you think admins can't identify fallacious arguments, what qualifies them to close deletion discussions at all? How exactly do arguments that the admin is going to throw out as worthless contribute to the consensus process? Inane arguments are silenced: the closing admin discounts them completely. Their only effect is noise. Except in cases where the admin lets one slip through and fails to discount it, leading to worse decisions. The whole point of the process of not just counting votes is to ignore the nonsense. I very much disagree that nonsense and noise helps the collaborative process. In fact, it's all the crapflooding that drives away newcomers and burns out our most experienced contributors.

    I'm proposing the exact same process we already use: discounting flawed arguments. What we should add is the ability to modify the behavior of editors who habitually post time-wasting !votes. Right now we ignore poor arguments, but we don't educate the editor who made them.

    When you have an editor who has posted a blatantly off-base claim, who ignores a request to strike the claim, who returns and repeats that on another AfD, again ignores a request to strike the claim, and is finally given a month topic ban from AfD, what makes you think you know whether they will finally flounce off, never to return? Seems like that guy is going to keep coming back. Or who knows? Do you really want that person hanging around forever, posting !votes that (we hope) every admin will turn a blind eye to? What's the point?

    The vast majority of editors will simply change their behavior after the first warning. The overall quality of the game will rise, and if poor arguments were causing bad AfD outcomes, we will see improvement. If it's true that our process was never biased or flawed, then raising the quality of the !votes won't change the outcomes. Either way, we'd learn something important. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 06:22, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

  • There are grossly negligent arguments and there are dilatory utterances, but allowing admins to threaten to silence an editor and leave a stain on their editing history because they uttered on a few occasions (what your RfC is proposing) what was considered a "bad argument" (which you seem to treat more harshly as "nonsense") and refused to strike (many valid reasons to do so, including disputing the warning) is contrary to editor retention. It seems like this will affect less-experienced editors (with around a few thousand edits) the most, as they are prone to making a "bad argument" at AfD if they choose to participate and aren't discouraged already by the two-strikes system, and will probably face a blunt request to strike their vote under penalty of a topic ban. And how about editors who participate frequently at AfD, who make hundreds of !votes a month? A certain percentage of their !votes may be deemed "invalid" (not infallible), and they may concede and strike those !votes, but it would be stressful to respond (especially if an editor is on Wikibreak and are forced to strike their votes or face the disproportionate penalty that your RfC proposes). Most importantly, although this system may hold participants accountable", but what holds closers or admins accountable in imposing a topic ban? They could arbitrarily silence editors and ruin their history easily (unlike blocking, which would be more controversial), and only at most a few editors will know of the fact unless the editor decides to post at WP:ANI, in which they have to face a stressful trial by the admin and (if they exist) their allies. If it happens to a newer or occasional editor, they would probably be gone in no time! The ability to impose topic bans are given only to the community, ArbCom, and admins patrolling the most controversial areas under discretionary sanction or "probation" (AfD is barely more controversial than, for instance, Gamergate controversy or Arab–Israeli conflict), and I believe that it would be better accorded to the first two of the three (or the latter one on AfDs on topics covered under discretionary sanction). — Esquivalience (talk) 15:30, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't have any problem with a short topic ban for anyone who stubbornly digs in and refuses to meet minimum standards of behavior. You make it sound like editors would get punished merely for being wrong, when in fact the possibility of a short topic ban only arises after repeated refusal to cooperate. It's a much different thing. I've never bought the "think of editor retention" argument. Anybody can say, "do it my way or new editors won't stay!". I don't know why we want to try so hard to keep new editors who insist on posting fallacious claims to AfD. If you ask me, the biggest thing driving away new editors is overly long, overly noisy AfD discussions filled with dozens of "me too!" posts and misleading claims. For every editor who goes off in a huff because we didn't welcome their claim that a tweet is evidence of notability, two will stay because AfD pages will become readable to a normal person, one who doesn't have a Reddit- or 4chan-induced thousand yard stare.

    If they seriously are not capable of anything but adding noise to the discussion, let them leave. I think such individuals are rare and most everyone knows the difference between a rational point and nonsense. And I don't think any admin would suddenly start using this tool to bite newbies. Admins have common sense, and they know a newbie when they see one. Any admin whose mission is to slam newbies is probably busy slamming them right now; they don't need any new tools if they wish to abuse their power. They aren't required to strike comments or issue topic bans: the rule change emphasizes that only the most extreme cases, the low hanging fruit, are even candidates for this.

    As far as what stops admins from going rouge? Who holds them accountable? Well, what stops them now? Who holds them accountable now? This entire proposal rests on the same decisions admins are already making when they close AfDs; they make these choices to ignore arguments routinely. I'm proposing adding feedback from those decisions.

    What that means is more transparency. We gain insight into what kinds of arguments admins are discounting, and it becomes possible to discuss them. Besides coaching editors to make better arguments, a public give-an-take with admins in their decisions making process will make them better as well. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:24, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

  • One point of confusing might be this: we think of topic bans happening because an editor's excessive enthusiasm for a subject leads to ownership of articles, edit warring, or incivility, and they are banned from touching a large swath of related pages in the article namespace. Taking away someone's ability to edit articles gets that the core of their ability to build an encyclopedia, and we usually see it on the very subjects the editor cares most about. Topic bans are usually at least 6 months to a year; more often they're permanent. It's considered a harsh penalty, just short of an outright block.

    Topic bans of only 2 - 4 weeks are unheard of -- after all, someone badly disrupting highly controversial articles is hardly going to turn over a new leaf in only a couple weeks. The usual thinking is that the editor more or less will never be able to constructively edit on any article or talk page related to that subject. This proposal for AfD discussions amounts to a small nudge to move a few stubborn contributors in the right direction. There's really no comparison to the kinds of serious topic bans handed down by ArbCom or AN/I after protracted litigation.

    Obviously, there's no reason why this proposal wouldn't work with a three strikes instead of two strikes rule, although the longer it is the more accounting it requires. The length of the ban is similarly not engraved in stone; it could be one week or three weeks or four. The point is that it is quite short. As far as a "stain" on anyone's record, I'm not sure what that actually means. There's no entry int he block log. What stain? --Dennis Bratland (talk) 18:07, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Totally random section break

There is some truly excellent discussion going on here, and I for one have been heartened to see that, after a rough few early days, we are now focusing on what the problems are. Here’s what I see as a possible consensus that is developing:

  1. There is broad consensus that WP requires reliable, independent, secondary sources to establish notability. (FWIW, the first RfA mentioned “relaxing” standards, but ’’my’’ RfA did not — so any discussion in that direction is off-topic for this RfA)
  2. There is consensus that primary sources can verify information within articles but are not enough, standing alone, to meet WP:N.
  3. There is a clear majority view that a systemic bias problem on wikipedia, broadly construed, does exist. Consensus what to actually do about it has not been reached. There is a significant minority view that disputes this.
  4. The systemic bias question has brought out that there are bigger problems with AfD in general, wherein content or topics that have some potential for being kept in some fashion are often deleted based upon poor reasoning or inappropriate application of WP:N.
  5. There needs to be some mechanism to “catch poor nominations before those who routinely !vote "delete" have pounced.” Various ideas for sanctions or countering “!votes that were patently absurd” have been proposed.
  6. Further discussion of how certain sources are used to establish notability is needed. In particular, sourcing in specialty areas has to be looked at differently from sourcing in popular culture. For example, in academe, people with dozens of publication credits may nonetheless have very little biographic material written about them, and so even if quite notable, they will never get a write-up in the ‘’New York Times’’.
  7. SNGs may be part of the problem because, depending on the topic, the bar is set too high or too low, and where it is set too high, some articles may pass WP:N in general, but are deleted because of SNG criteria, which are guidelines, not policy. Similarly, a bar set too low creates OTHERSTUFF arguments, such as the examples noted here between NSPORTS and NACADEMIC.
  8. There is insufficient consideration at AfD of ways to salvage marginally notable content. AfD presents an all-or-nothing approach that often occurs due to a failure to consider merging with a redirect or incorporating content into a list, and so on.

So that's my take. Montanabw(talk) 22:34, 12 July 2016 (UTC)

One immediate solution to the SNG point is to make sure WP:ATA includes recognition that "Passes GNG but fails SNG" is not a valid argument since the GNG is a global metric that all SNGs built atop on. Yes, all the SNGs note the GNG is a metric but this is clearly getting lost on some editors at AFD. That's one of the more minor problems on this list, but it is easily addressed. --MASEM (t) 23:46, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Comment. (1) is true, but incomplete – there is still the issue of "selectivity", e.g. local vs national news sources, older (more selective) vs newer (less selective) sources, etc, which was discussed above – this would be relevant to GNG, which seems to be the root of a large fraction of AfD troubles. To (4), I would add the reverse too, i.e. there are articles that should have been deleted that are often kept based upon poor reasoning or inappropriate application of WP:N. These articles tend to fall into specific categories, for example BLPs from some group of people that someone feels is not sufficiently represented in WP. I think (5) is largely false based on my experience. Eds routinely admonish a nom for a bad AfD. I myself have done this many times with the standard request that the nom withdraw the AfD. (6) is already the fodder of PROF c1, which has well-established conventions going back years. In my experience, disagreements here tend to be very minor, like whether a specific database sufficiently covers the topic at hand. This is not a problem area. I agree that (7) and (8) are problems, to some degree. Agricola44 (talk) 16:57, 13 July 2016 (UTC).
Comment (2) secondary sources yes, but why are interviews generally categorised as primary, they are not self published, they are instrumented and published by a second party, and in the process typically subjected to some editorial overview; if 20 (some arbitrary number greater than say 2 or 3) different media writer/s or over time interview/s someone and publish in whatever form, then I suggest the subject is clearly notable even if nothing else is published about the person ? Aoziwe (talk) 13:21, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
I don't think we can categorically call interviews primary and/or secondary. It depends on what is being asked by whom and when. An interview with a person about some contribution they made 20 years ago and getting their updated thoughts on that is secondary-type information, while asking that same person shortly after they make that contribution is likely primary. (Key here: secondary information is that which is transformed from the original source in some manner, whether analysis, criticism, synthesis of idea, etc., rather than direct facts). --MASEM (t) 14:03, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
If the subjects are talking about themselves, they are a primary source; if they are discussing events they weren't involved in, they are a secondary source. If they were involved in the events they are discussing, then it's a question of degree, depending on how involved they were. However, more to the point regarding notability: true enough if many media sources are interviewing someone in a non-promotional manner and not in a capacity of a spokesperson, it's probable that the subject could meet Wikipedia's standards of inclusion. But I can't see this occurring without there actually being numerous secondary sources available—if there are so many journalists covering a subject, then they will do more than just parrot the subject's words. Thus I believe no special criteria regarding primary source interviews are necessary. isaacl (talk) 17:30, 14 July 2016 (UTC)
So I think I agree with the above responses. Interviews with the subject about the subject are typically primary for fact checking and verifiability, but secondary for notability ? Aoziwe (talk) 11:31, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
No, I don't believe that accurately summarizes what has been said. If the subjects are speaking about themselves, then the interviews are primary sources. They can be used to verify facts, but do not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, which require secondary sources. isaacl (talk) 12:25, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Well an interview is usually not just the interviewed (as primary source= but also the interviewer and some additional information around the interviewed. The latter two can be seen as secondary. In addition the act of being interviewed by a major press organ tends to suggest your notability and hence it makes to see interviews as secondary sources in terms of notability. Or pick a more concrete an indepth biographical interview on Charlie Rose or Larry King normally clearly suggest your notability.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:26, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
As I mentioned, I don't see a need to rely upon the interview itself as an indication of notability; anyone participating in a notable interview will inevitably have associated significant, independent, non-routine, non-promotional secondary coverage from reliable sources. isaacl (talk) 14:56, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
I don't think anybody argues that you need to rely on interviews - you don't, but usually the you do not need to rely on any individual notability argument/evidence as there are ususally several. However due to limited resources and time you may not have them all on your fingertips and you are not required to show the complete list in an AfD, but you will be required to show at least one convincing argument for the notability and an interview as described above might be just that.--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:06, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Aoziwe asked why interviews were categorized as a primary source, and gave an example where an interview is the only published information about a person. My response was targeted at this specific question. isaacl (talk) 15:16, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
True, but to me that seems theoretical not to say fictional scenario. In actual AfD it will be more likely of the case, that the only ("non primary") source a quick google or database research revealed was an interview. In that case you may often argue the interview may serve as secondary source in terms of notability. Or better since you normally need show several independent sources for notability, that the interview may count as one of them (which relieves you from finding one additional secondary sources).--Kmhkmh (talk) 15:39, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
For contemporary subjects, I believe it is unlikely for someone interviewed by an independent reliable source on a non-routine, non-promotional matter who would otherwise meet Wikipedia's standard for inclusion not to have appropriate secondary sources readily turn up. Accordingly I believe treating the primary source portions of an interview as secondary for purposes of determining if an article should exist is not suitable. I can envision a case to be made as a indirect indicator for historical subjects where it is difficult to locate source material. However even then it would not change the nature of the interview as a primary source. isaacl (talk) 16:06, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
No, not really. Speaking as a video game editor, frequently we will get interviews with a leading team member to describe progress or updates on a video game. The notability of that person is not their own position, but would be seen as inherited from the notability of the video game result from that interview since it's providing secondary coverage about the game. The team member may or may not be important beyond that, though certainly if that person had an article the interview can be used to state that person was working on that game at that point in time. So just the process of being interviewed is not always a sign of notability. --MASEM (t) 16:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
In that case you do however talk about an interview about the game and not biographical interview about a person. Always this is really hard to judge without looking at a concrete case.--Kmhkmh (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Right, my point being that interviews must be handled on a case-by-case basis, and as such, a broad statement that "being interviewed can be an indicator of notability" really shouldn't be made in trying to address this bias issue. --MASEM (t) 17:22, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm not following to what you are saying "no". I previously stated that being interviewed does not meet Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and accordingly do not see any need to modify the notability criteria in this regards. In the interest of conciseness, I haven't restated all the qualifiers and context for my statements; I apologize for any confusion. In your example, the interview is promotional, routine, and not about the interviewee. isaacl (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Throwing out a random idea

From discussions above, what if it is the case that at least in the areas of biographies, we are perhaps too inclusive? Keep in mind, Wikipedia is not to be a who's who, and I'm seeing arguments that weigh on larger inclusion starting to head in that direction.

Flipping the argument around that people in the past didn't have sources that wrote about them, perhaps we have to recognize that with more print and online media, by default more people that wouldn't have been covered in the past are now being covered to some degree today, and maybe we have to find out where the notability bar should be set for people to make sure that we're not including anyone name-dropped more than a few times. I've argued in the past I think that the most generic NSPORTS criteria: "having played one professional game", is far too lax, even though it has been argued that info about the player's previous non-pro performances will be documented. But documenting a player is far different from actually writing about a player, which requires extensive secondary sources.

By seeking a higher bar - one that would generally be easy to meet if you were mentioned in a print source in the past but more difficult today - we do address this systematic bias in a more objective way.

This is not a simple, straight-forward answer, and I'm only tossing it out to see if there's any chance this might have the right direction to seek larger consensus. --MASEM (t) 00:18, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

At first glance, it appears that you've pretty much nailed it, Masem. We really need to give more consideration to the circumstances surrounding the notability of a person and not try to make all BLPs wear the same jumpsuit. We do our best to closely follow our PAGs but there are times when we have to step out of the box and invest a bit of research into the process before we pull the trigger on an AfD. A nation is a nation, not the world, and it may not necessarily be a Western nation which should be our first consideration when judging notability. We shouldn't place the same international requirements we apply to GNG when a topic is notable for its impact on a single nation for which it was designed. It doesn't make it any less encyclopedic if it isn't world renowned. The same would apply to the notability gauge for national figures that should be included in our extraordinary "book" of knowledge because they are exceptional individuals who stand out in their field, cited to applicable RS which support their notability and conform to WP:V and WP:NOR. Atsme📞📧 01:13, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I'd say we are too inconsistent; too fussy and persnickity (which is not the same as "strict") in some areas, too lax in others. The discussion of NACADEMIC suggests that we may be making a mistake if we hold that a worldwide standard has to be the equivalent of that for people in wealthy, populous first world nations. That isn't "weakening" a standard to adjust the criteria to meet the real world -- it is acknowledging the real world is not just the US and the UK with a few exceptional Aussies and Canadians thrown in for variety. On the other hand, NSPORTS can be both -- sometimes quite sketchy for team sports with a "one pro game" standard, but at the same time NSPORTS suffers from too-deletionistic recentism when trying to assess the notability of sports figures from the past (I recall an AfD on a jockey who rode the horse who won the Grand National in the late 1800s, an accomplishment that pretty much confers inherent notability today... the gripe was that he was an amateur (which a sporting "gentleman" was supposed to be in those days, so they ALL were...) and that all we had were WP:PRIMARY sources that verified that yes, he rode the winning horse -- and so where was the "significant coverage"? ( **headdesk**) Now, it ultimately closed as a keep, but a great example of the problems. a standard for determining if a country is "notable" -- if the criteria is, for example, that it is a member of the United Nations, that's a potentially fair standard, even if some "nations" might be left out. On the other hand, if the criteria for a "notable" nation is, say, size or population, and thus excluding Lichtenstein (size) or Mongolia (population) or Iceland (both) -- then the criteria is wrong and needs to be changed. Montanabw(talk) 01:20, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
But to take that jockey example: this is an example of where WP:NOT#WHOSWHO should be applied. Great, he won a Grand National. Can we write about him rather than just document that fact? (However, in this case, this is where the presumption of notability should be presumed to a degree since there's a high chance of finding material to write about him. But as with all presumptions of notability, if someone makes a good faith effort this being a trip to a library to review print sources and comes up empty, that presumption has failed.) This is not to say all SNG criteria are bad, but if this concept of mine has legs, one of the things that will have to change is to recognize more strignent SNG criteria that assure significant coverage and not just additional sources. For example, winning a Nobel Prize has always brought significant coverage to that person. On the other hand, playing one professional game has not - statistics and education, yes, but not about the person. --MASEM (t) 01:47, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I admit that I've hated the "one big league game" standard from Day One. For too many of the sports WikiProjects, it's turned into an amour propre issue less about gauging whether people who can meet the criteria will thereby meet the GNG, than about unthinking worship of the Big Time. The baseball project (by way of example), notorious for their disdain of the minor leagues, will sign off on an article for a player playing a single game for the Baltimore Orioles in the mid-50s, but turn thumbs down to someone playing a thousand games for the Baltimore Orioles in the 1940s. Ravenswing 02:52, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I believe that we should not only be raising our standards, as too many of our articles are permastubs on borderline notable subjects under our current system, but we should generally refrain from giving laissez-passers to articles we deem to be in some group that we deem disadvantaged. There needs to be a good reason to lower the standards for some group, for instance, women scientists. Are we doing it for sympathy? If so, then we are doing it for the wrong reason, as feelings should never strongly influence the encyclopedia. Are we doing it because it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that they are significantly disadvantaged when it comes to the struggle for coverage? Then we may have a valid reason to do so, but there are some problems with this approach: it may as well reduce to an attempt to right great wrongs and to give the sympathy mentioned earlier. And how exactly do we do it without letting some truly non-notable subjects in? Do we multiply the number of reliable sources that cover a subject by a constant coefficient c? Or do editors need to use individual judgment, which can be varied, to enforce such a provision? — Esquivalience (talk) 03:04, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Once again, this discussion is not about "lowering" standards (The other RfC notwithstanding); it is about consistent application of standards; it is about understanding the difference between WP:N, which is policy, and the SNGs, which are guidelines and do not "trump" GNG. It is also about asking if the standards themselves are set up with problems wherein they look fair and neutral on their face, but are not—perhaps they are only fair to, for example, English speakers, or people from the first world, or men, or tech-savvy anarcho libertarians, or whatever. Elsewhere I mentioned a cartoon I once saw of a monkey, an elephant, a bird, a fish and some other animals lined up in front of a desk, where a teacher stated, "the test is fair to everyone, all you have to do is climb that tree." (In fact, I just found it here). That is what systemic bias is. Montanabw(talk) 06:26, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
Clearly, there is part of the issue about inconsistent notability application at AFD, no question. That's something we can fix or need to strive to get rid of. But there are still valid points made in the previous sections that there were people due to gender, race, nationality, or geography that might have been as "notable" we define it for people of today but that would never have been documented to the degree to meet the the current requirements for notability (the GNG for example); the cotton gin invention is a good example. That's a systematic bias that we cannot fix because we can't go back in time and change how the sources at the time picked and chose what they covered. Hence why I'm only postulating flipping the problem around and asking if we're too lax on notability today that does recognize that the volume of media allows for nearly anyone that does something slightly out of the ordinary to be given an article. --MASEM (t) 12:53, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
  • If we need to keep subject-specific guidelines that so-called "trump" the general guideline, then notability has become too complex. Currently, the notability guidelines are a mess, most of them providing some arbitrary criteria which deems a topic "likely" to be notable if it meets one of the criteria and saying that it "could" still be notable if it meets the GNG, but others saying that it is definitely notable if it meets the criteria (e.g., WP:BKCRIT), even providing general notability guidelines of their own (e.g., WP:NBOOK's requirement of two sources from "multiple")? It seems like the guidelines were written to varying degrees of inclusionism and sympathy for the topics involved. The problem may lie on the guideline status of the SNGs themselves: if we had a single GNG policy with a provision which allows for more time for topics in which sources may exist or be hard to find, with the SNGs merely providing guidance rather than providing more doors for select topics in, then maybe systemic bias would be less of a problem. — Esquivalience (talk) 15:48, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I think the fundamental notability problems stem from the fact we've placed too much emphasis on "modern" secondary sources to provide us with encyclopedic content, all the while discrediting a variety of sources that actually are reliable and at times, the best of what's available on the topic, especially topics that date back before the evolution of the information age. We also tend to think the world has maintained the same pace as the West and that's another problem. We're facing a time when there is so much happening in the world, sources we once depended on to provide verifiability and notability of encyclopedic topics simply can't keep up on an international scale which leaves us dependent on national and even local sources. I've experienced the dismissal of reliable local sources simply on the basis they were local, regardless of how many covered the topic. Notability in the encyclopedic sense should be judged on its merits not "popularity". Topics that are more historical in nature present similar problems and there may never be an issue until the article ends up at AfD and the "games" begin. Sometimes I wonder if AfD has turned into a sport for some editors instead of maintaining the purpose for which it was intended because it's quite obvious there are articles that survive after an incredible amount of time wasted. Is there a way to get stats on the number of deletes vs those saved? Atsme📞📧 21:01, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
I know stats exist because they use individual !voting on AfD in every RfA out there (see any for the link to AfD stats), so I presume that somewhere is the "big AfD outcomes in the sky" version too. But, the problem is, there is no criteria for what was a good or bad nom. I suspect from a few of my trips to NPP that there will be a majority of "delete" votes, but, as you like to say, a lot of them will be articles about Junior Hockey Players, (or my favorite, garage bands) and we would agree on those decisions. Montanabw(talk) 23:02, 19 July 2016 (UTC)
  • Looking at AfDs, I don't think the main problem is editors discounting historical sources. It is the inaccessibility of those sources to editors: most editors are not librarians or professional researchers, their only resources being the Internet and the quaint library nearest to them. But the lack of the Internet at the time for some topics is definitely a problem in assessing notability: back then, you would need a team of professional printers and a couple linotype machines to even start the traditional equivalent of a "blog", but nowadays, anyone with a bit of spare change and five minutes to setup Wordpress can create a blog that may even be taken as reliable and serious by some, so there is definitely a systemic bias against historical topics, more so than against other topics. — Esquivalience (talk) 04:18, 20 July 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The definition of significant coverage

I'd like to get a clearer sense of what people are thinking these days about what constitutes "significant coverage". When you are trying to communicate this idea to a newbie, what explanation works best for you?

I'm primarily thinking about this in the context of a business organization or a living person that might perhaps be tempted to using Wikipedia for self-promotion – the case of "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" I'm therefore especially interested in concrete, objective terms (e.g., a number of words? a number of facts? a number of sources?), but I'd like to hear all of your thoughts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 09:57, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

The definition of "significant coverage" has always deliberately avoided providing such concrete terms, mostly because they vary by area; it's not the same sourcing a medical topic than documenting an obscure early video game.
I've always seen Notability as an extension of WP:NPOV (as in "is there enough material to write a neutral article?"), so my rule of thumb is "there should be enough independent and reliable sources" to write the basis of the article (I think that criterion is stated somewhere in the guidelines, I didn't invent that).
You may want to point self-aggrandizing newbies to my WP:SNOWFLAKE essay. In terms of promotion of products and services, it sets a clear criterion and some dos and don'ts intended to provide a useable article. Diego (talk) 12:29, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Significant coverage is a matter of depth, not length. A single statement, she was president, he was a Nobel prize winner, etc. carries weight, while a tome of thousands of worlds about fluff are insignificant. If the sourcing is independent of the subject and from a reliable source, promotionalism should (in a perfect world) be minimal. SusunW (talk) 15:34, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Statements such as "she was president of the organization" are what I'm thinking about with the "number of facts" concept. As Diego says with his NPOV statement, we presumably don't want "she was president of the organization" to be the only statement in an article that is taken from an independent source (versus, e.g., the org's or person's own website).
Diego, if the video game is truly "obscure", then we probably shouldn't have an article about it (yet – but perhaps we should make a list of thesis ideas for desperate grad students. It could include everything from obscure early video games to obscure early (20th century) Olympic athletes – of which there appear to be quite a few). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
Oh, we have lots of articles about obscure video games, trust me ;-) And for the most part they satisfy the GNG (although there may be the odd exception). It's just that their coverage is not as "in-depth" as, say, the latest AAA title or social phenomenon, so the articles are necessarily shorter and less detailed; but that is perfectly acceptable. Remember that obscure topics can still be notable if they have been noted by independent yet niche audiences. Diego (talk) 21:58, 10 August 2016 (UTC)
I agree! Another example which partially is a niche case might be historical person, where an entry an an established reference work (like national biographies and other biography collections) is considered to be enoughto establish notability. A similar thing for many math & science topics.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
  • For my part, I very much disagree with SusunW's assertion that "significant coverage" hinges on a subjective opinion as to the importance of the statement, rather than the length of the coverage. The GNG is quite specific: ""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly and in detail, so that no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. The book-length history of IBM by Robert Sobel is plainly non-trivial coverage of IBM. Martin Walker's statement, in a newspaper article about Bill Clinton, that "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice" is plainly a trivial mention of that band." (emphasis mine) Whether a statement such as "she was president of the organization" purportedly "carries weight" or not is as may be, but lacking a great deal more information about the subject than that, it isn't significant coverage.

    What I look for (for instance) in a newspaper article is several substantive paragraphs; something the word count of the discussion to date before I posted this is about my minimum standard. I look for info that didn't come off of a press release or from an uncritical fluff interview. Ravenswing 22:35, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

    Agree with above. They key phrase is in depth. Multiple trivial mentions in the media don't add up to notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2016 (UTC).
    Guideline clearly states Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention, but it does not need to be the main topic of the source material. Trivial is again not length, it is whether or not the information carries weight. To build a preponderance of evidence that a subject is notable, one needs enough facts sufficient to write an article giving reasonable coverage of the subject. Depending upon what time frame one is dealing with, more or less information may be available. If multiple statements showing the subject is/was sufficiently covered, over time, in an objective manner, then it may be written about. Sometimes that is 3 sources, sometimes that is 20. The number of sources is irrelevant to whether or not a subject has been significantly covered. SusunW (talk) 16:27, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
    I tend to agree with your idea of "summing up" multiple (independent?) sources until you get a whole article's worth, but I think that your interpretation of "triviality" is in the minority. If you look at the older versions of this page, e.g., this one, the definition is "Triviality is a measure of the depth of content contained in the published work, exclusive of mere directory entry information". "She was president" would presumably count as "mere directory entry information", since that is information that would be present in a business directory entry. We pretty much automatically discount such sources as indications of notability if the trivial directory information comes in the form of "Alice Expert, president of Whatever Organization, said, "Some useful quotation about someone else's work". If that's all you've got, then you don't have notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:45, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
  • The first thing to look at is that "significant coverage" is not a part of wp:notability as such, but is a part of WP:GNG.  Within WP:GNG, the phrase is used several times with shifting meanings, so I'll refer to the first usage with the superscript "A", and the third reference with the superscript "C".  The base meaning is that "SignificantC coverage is more than a trivial mention", where trivial mention is related to the concept of trivial coverage defined at WP:CORPDEPTH, although in recent years the list there has added "routine restaurant reviews" over my objections.  A key point to be said here that being only more than a trivial mention, significantC coverage is a low bar.  How much significantC coverage is the requirement?  We require significantA significantC coverage.  The general rule from this talk page to define significantA significantC coverage is "two good sources".  Unscintillating (talk) 01:22, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree with those who peg Notability on "depth" of coverage. However, the amount of trivial coverage should be given some degree of significance as well. If hundreds of sources all mention the same trivial fact... that repetition does boost the significance of the trivial fact. Blueboar (talk) 17:21, 12 August 2016 (UTC)
    For BLPs, that would fall into WP:BLP1E. which is disparaged. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:30, 12 August 2016 (UTC).
    Blueboar, I'm not sure about that. That approach suggests that Rob Enderle, or at least the fact that he is "the principal analyst for the Enderle Group", is truly "notable" rather than merely someone who has built a consulting business around the free publicity that he gets by immediately returning calls from reporters desperately seeking a quotation from an 'independent' person. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:53, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
WAID, if hundreds of independent sources all note that someone is "the principle analyst for X group", the volume of coverage stating this fact indicates that the real world considers being "the principle analyst for X group" of significance. Volume has a significance of its own. If volume of coverage does not establish notability... It should at least count towards notability. And, of course, if hundreds of sources are noting this one fact about the person, then there is a strong likelihood that at least one of those sources will say more than just that. Blueboar (talk) 11:06, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
They're including this information because journalists are supposed to identify the person providing the quotation and why the reader should care about his/her statement, not because they think that the position is important. "According to widget researcher Alice Expert" is no different from "According to Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group" – or even "According to Wikipedia editor Blueboar". WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:12, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Coming off the idea of "volume" vs "significance", a key point to me is that a work that gives "significant" coverage is going to be a work that applies the principles of what a secondary source should be doing with relationship to the topic in question, and that specific being the application of transformation of information in a manner WP itself cannot do without engaging in OR. How much of a larger article that this type of secondary discussion takes depends a lot on context, but it can be as little as a paragraph or two from much larger article, all the way though an entire book. You can have a volume of primary information (basic facts, data, statistics, etc.), but that's not always significant unless someone is putting those into larger context of human knowledge, so that we know that that is a notable topic. And that aspect itself usually is going to require more than a one or two sentences in an article to able to do that - if you were properly writing such an secondary source article, you need to introduce the topic, summarize it to a new reader, and then explain the significance, which doesn't readily reduce down to a sentence. For myself, an absolute minimum I would require for significance a whole paragraph dedicated only to that topic in the scope of a larger one, one that asserts some type of transformation of primary information. --MASEM (t) 11:59, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
Overall, I agree with this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 13:12, 8 September 2016 (UTC)
Significance, here, is primarily about depth because we need to cover subjects with depth (and not create depth ourselves but summarize it from others). The substance that a good self-promoter can get into a hundred places they are a president and even give other vital stats does not make an encyclopedic biography. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:27, 13 August 2016 (UTC)
  • I go by a simple definition: if the source provides something useful to the article (not including context), and not just boasts about the subject (e.g., subjects italicized: "A Software Company has refined A Programming Language for ten years") or contain some context-filling fact (e.g., subjects italicized: "A President chaired four meetings in the past year for A Software Company"), then it is significant. Subject to discretion. I dislike having legalese standards for notability or any "objective" standards that just hinder one's ability to exercise IAR and discretion. — Esquivalience (talk) 01:53, 16 August 2016 (UTC)
  • Another factor is significance within a field. Some things will not be covered by, say, the New York Times, but may be significant nonetheless. For example, said obscure video game may have had significant coverage when it came out in the 1990s, for example, but mostly in the specialty press. But that is significant enough if it was a big deal at the time. Other examples would include regional coverage that is significant (e.g. Rocky Mountain oysters) or coverage in its time that is now hard to find today (for example, someone like Hilda Plowright). Montanabw(talk) 22:56, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

GNG v NSPORT

Please see post at NSPORT regarding the relationship of GNG and NSPORT, and post any comments there. Thanks. Eldumpo (talk) 14:18, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Television articles

Where's the relevant WP:N section on television articles? Are all TV shows that have aired on national netwworks inherently notable? I'd like to think otherwise. Kingoflettuce (talk) 14:24, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

WP:MILHIST

In wp:People, milhist's notability guide is linked. Should it be adopted as an official notability guideline? It is currently an essay. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 04:38, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Relevant Discussion

There is a village pump idea lab post at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 22#Notability tag that may interest you. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 19:21, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Italian Bicycle manufacturers

This page is for discussing improvements to this policy, not for requesting specific articles or edits. (And, just so you know, only entities which are notable by Wikipedia's definition can have articles. If there are notable entities which do not have articles, you are free to write one.) — TransporterMan (TALK) 00:37, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

There are many Italian bicycle manufacturers (present and past) that are not listed on this site. Example: Tommasini. Thanks, Neal Stoll — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.132.7.193 (talk) 19:15, 25 November 2016 (UTC)


The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the dispute resolution noticeboard's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Test: If the subject ceased to exist tomorrow, would it still be notable?

I was just thinking, would this question be a good test of notability? Along the lines of the 10 year test. Like, if the U.S. President-elect stepped down tomorrow, his presidential campaign would still be notable for a variety of reasons. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 03:42, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Notability is not temporary. In other words, if the article met WP:GNG at the time of creation, it will most likely not be deleted, even if it ceases to exist. JudgeRM (talk to me) 03:44, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Right, that’s why I suggested the question in the section heading. So is that a yes? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 04:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't. WP:GNG is dependent on the amount of coverage in reliable sources. Coverage can come after the subject has ceased to exist. Obituaries, for instance, are published only after a person has died. Vincent van Gogh probably wasn't notable at his death; his fame was posthumous and scholarly sources began to be published only then. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 12:03, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
This is my take. Many people are not noticed till after death (sometimes a long time after, Mary Seacole springs to mind).Slatersteven (talk) 12:24, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
And some are notable after a murder-suicide event, making the actual fact that they ceased to exist, and how, the source of notability (but it still is a interesting question) - Nabla (talk) 15:37, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

In furtherance of the above comments that existence is irrelevant, we also have plenty of articles on notable subjects that have never existed (fictional, mythological, etc.) and on notable subjects that were expected to exist but never will (abandoned building projects, vaporware, etc.). postdlf (talk) 14:24, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I think a better question than "if the subject ceased to exist..." would be "if the subject ceased to be written/talked about...". In other words, "if the sources that currently exist are all of the sources that will ever exist...". Though then that's just a recitation of WP:CRYSTAL and WP:NOTNEWS. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:11, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
If all coverage ceased, yes, that’s more along the lines of what I meant. Whether the coverage we’ve had up to this very moment and no further is sufficient for notability. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 19:47, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
If after a point in time that a subject was never ever covered again, that doesn't change its notability (whether it had it or not) before coverage stopped. The only time factor that does come into play is the "enduring" coverage, meaning not that it needs to be discussed indefinitely, but that the period of time where it was discussed established it more than a flash-in-the-pan aspect; a topic that is only covered for a period of a day in RSes and then never discussed again likely is flash-in-a-pan and fails enduring, but a topic that is talked about for a week or longer is likely not. (Many of our Internet memes articles like The dress require this type of evaluation).
The other thing to keep in mind is that GNG and other notability guidelines are always "presumptions" of notability, and thus can be a point to challenge in the future. Many of our subject-specific notability guidelines have presumptions of notability based on an event that usually leads to more sourcing, like NSPORTS, but that sourcing may never come about. Thus, we might temporarily have an article, but in time re-evaluating the sources shows that the article was premature and deletion may be appropriate. That is only because we're presumed notability to start. --MASEM (t) 20:26, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Does the GNG apply to academics?

Not a trick question. I was quite happy that the GNG did apply to academics, meaning that if an academic's books had received a few reviews in reputable journals, the person would be notable by default. However, I'm encountering significant resistance to this view at AfD (namely, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimitris Vardoulakis and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Benjamin Franks). I'm finding people rather evasive at these discussions, so I'd like to ask a more general audience: is there a particular reason that meeting the GNG should not be considered sufficient for notability for academics? Josh Milburn (talk) 15:32, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

Notability is not inherited. An author of a notable book is not inherently notable, so reviews of an academic's work does not meet the GNG for the academic themselves. --MASEM (t) 16:19, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Two questions. 1) Do you honestly believe that we should have articles about an author's multiple books but not have an article about the author themselves on the grounds that the books are notable but that the author is not, because the author cannot "inherit" notability from her books? 2) Do you honestly believe that articles about the work of academics do not constitute articles about the academics, and, if so, what constitutes an article about the academic herself? Josh Milburn (talk) 17:24, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
On the first question: yes, just because a person may write lots of books doesn't make them notable. Now in the case for academics, it will depend on how the reviews treat the work. If we're talking about a work that an academic wrote about research they've done intensively, reviews on that will likely focus on the strength and insights of the person's work and not so much the book, so the review may contain secondary info about the academic too, thus supporting the notability of an academic. But often you will also have books that are review summaries, textbook type books, or similar that does not readily reflect on the academic's own writing. In that case, the reviews are likely going to be focused on the book's comprehensiveness, etc. and far far less on the academic themselves. You can argue a similar approach on other books - sometimes the reviewers will get into the author's style and motives and praise them, but other times the reviews will be clinically separated from the writer and content. That's why its definitely far from automatic and why inherited notability applies. --MASEM (t) 17:29, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
To be clear, I do not believe that writing lots of books makes a person notable, and certainly did not mean to say that. I do believe that there's something very odd about deleting an article about an academic because they just aren't significant enough, even though their books are. I understand, in theory, the distinction you're making between writing about a book and writing about its author's research, so, yes, I can concede that in the cases of authors of (say) textbooks, or editors of (say) sourcebooks or dictionaries, we could make sense of their book being notable without them being notable. But in the case of research monographs, I'm not sure the distinction between "review about the author" and "review about the book" holds. Josh Milburn (talk) 18:12, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Let me put this another way. I am seriously struggling to understand the distinction which is apparently clear to every Wikipedian but me between an article about an academic's work and an article about an academic herself. What on earth is supposed to ground notability for an academic if not articles about their work? We wouldn't refuse to accept articles about a musician's music as insufficiently notability-grounding. Why would we refuse to accept articles about academics' research? Josh Milburn (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Independent secondary source material on the academic is what grounds Wikipedia-notability claims. If people don't say things about the academic, the academic is not notable as tested by the GNG. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
So, say, an article detailing the academic's work? Josh Milburn (talk) 14:51, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
That would be good enough, for an academic, commenting on the academics work generally is the same as commenting on the academic. So, a book review that digresses from the book to comment on the academics broader work, outside the scope of the book, would be GNG-type material. The opposite would be a book review on the academic's book that read as if the reviewer has read the book thoroughly, but knows nothing about the author, or says nothing about the author except what comes through that book, this would a review of a book and not of the author. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:45, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
  • GNG is always the standard of notability. All others are alternative standards—selective criteria based on a sole aspect of someone's life cannot possibly weigh whether sufficient independent RS exist over time to create a biography. Per PROF "This guideline is independent from the other subject-specific notability guidelines, such as WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:AUTH etc. and is explicitly listed as an alternative to the General Notability Guideline." (And by the way, WP does not endorse use of indices either. PROF states: "Measures of citability such as the h-index, g-index, etc., are of limited usefulness in evaluating whether Criterion 1 is satisfied. They should be approached with caution because their validity is not, at present, completely accepted, and they may depend substantially on the citation database used. They are also discipline-dependent; some disciplines have higher average citation rates than others.") SusunW (talk) 17:40, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I'd say that Masem's comments reflect my views entirely, except it's not as limited as that; the premise that notability is not inherited has been standard consensus for about as long as Wikipedia's had notability standards at all. Ravenswing 18:30, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
    • As above: Could you please shine some light on how we can differentiate the notability of an academic's work from the notability of the academic herself? This is a distinction which you appear to assume is utterly obvious but it is one I am just not seeing. How do you propose we ground the notability of an academic herself if not in the significance of her work, just as we ground the notability of an artist in the significance of her work? Josh Milburn (talk) 18:35, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
      • Your question already has been answered -- that an artist is inseparable from his work, and has no notability apart from it, while it is not an academic's direct profession to publish. You might not like that answer, and plainly you disagree with the distinction, but continuing to ask everyone who disagrees with you to explain the distinction is disingenuous. I agree that the standards for certain fields of endeavor -- sports, for one -- are too loose, but that's another discussion altogether. Ravenswing 21:38, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
        • "it is not an academic's direct profession to publish". No one has said that to me, so I must confess to being hurt by your accusation of disingenuity. If anyone had said this to me, I would ask them what I am going to ask you: Could you please explain to me what an academic's job is, as I have clearly misunderstood the nature of the career. Josh Milburn (talk) 21:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • Another recent AfD that might be of interest is Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rabia Salihu Sa'id which, after a very lengthy discussion, also came down to the fact that meeting the GNG makes PROF irrelevant. The guideline itself quite clearly says as much and I'm not sure the "resistance" you're meeting in the AfDs you mentioned is for that reason. It's perhaps worth bearing in mind that, at least in my experience, the majority of editors who regularly contribute to academic AfDs have an interest in keeping them and write a lot of academic bios themselves. But we have a guideline, and it's important that that is applied consistently.
For my part, I just don't think the case for either academic meeting the GNG is very strong. As I understand it the very reason we have a SNG for academics is to compensate for the fact that their *work* is frequently subject to more coverage than they themselves, but it can be hard to judge what is "routine" coverage (i.e. a few citations, the odd book review) vs. significant coverage (i.e. high impact, widely discussed work). The idea that being that we probably don't want an article on an entry with everybody with a PhD and an adjunct contract. Neither Vardoulakis' or Franks' work has been more impactful than the "average professor's", in my opinion:
However, as I said at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dimitris Vardoulakis I do agree that our bar for academics is set quite high compared to many other SNGs. We ask them to be "above average" but the standard for musicians, actors, sportspeople, pornstars, etc. seems to be that they aren't amateurs. Personally I don't see any reason why we shouldn't have an article on everybody who has say, held a tenure-track-or-equivalent post at a reputable university, or has produced multiple cited works. – Joe (talk) 19:47, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
I'm increasingly puzzled, here, as I feel like there are all kinds of things which are just obvious to lots of people which are completely opaque to me. For instance: I'm not sure why you're taking it for granted that the "average professor" (whatever that means) is not notable, and thus why we need "significant" (in the WP:ACADEMIC sense, which seems to be a very different thing from "significant" in the WP:GNG sense) rather than "routine" coverage. If the "average professor" has produced a few books which have been reviewed, then maybe the "average professor" is notable. I don't think that would be a bad result; I suspect the "average bishop" or "average politician" is notable, too. Again, I must ask (no one's answering...): how on earth are we meant to distinguish between coverage about someone's work and coverage about them? And even if we can: why is coverage of their work so irrelevant? What kind of coverage "about them" do you want, if not coverage about their work? Josh Milburn (talk) 20:01, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
The "average professor test" is the basis of WP:PROF as it's currently formulated:
The criteria above are sometimes summed up in an "Average Professor Test": When judged against the average impact of a researcher in his or her field, does this researcher stand out as clearly more notable or more accomplished than others in the field?
As for the distinction between coverage of a person and coverage of a person's work, I have to confess I'm confused at your confusion. Coverage of a person gives us biographical detail and an overall assessment. For academics, these come in the form of other biographical encyclopaedias, profiles for awards and fellowships, media coverage, festschrifts, etc. Coverage of an academic's work, i.e. reviews and works that cite it, tell us about the reception of that particular work but rarely anything about the broader life, career or reputation of the author. The latter are useful and important—the bulk of WP:PROF basically boils down to assessing this kind of coverage—but it's difficult to base an entire biography on them. – Joe (talk) 20:35, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
Another way that I'd look at it, particularly when we're talking reviews of published works, is whether the review(s) are discussing the significant of the net results and additional knowledge (generally the default case when talking reviews in an academic sense), or the significance of the what person brought to the work (which generally will also include the significance of their net results). If the review is more focused on just the scientific significance, that leads nothing to the person behind it for notability purposes. --MASEM (t) 20:54, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
(edit conflict) The average professor test is neither here nor there. Ok- WP:ACADEMIC establishes that if someone is more "significant" than the "average" professor, then they are notable. Fine- not relevant, not what I'm asking about, I don't care. Even if I did care, that does not justify the assumption that the average professor is notable. I'm not trying to patronise, here, but I feel I'm speaking a different language, so here goes: If I say "Everyone over 7 foot is tall", I am not claiming that "Everyone 7 foot and under is not tall". So I'm still bewildered as to why we're running with the assumption that "average" professors are not notable. As for "biographical details"; who cares? I can't write an article about an academic unless I have an article talking about their favourite sandwich? Academics aren't made notable by their favourite sandwiches, they're made notable by their work. You may as well demand that athletes are proven notable by the presence of articles reviewing their musical releases. (And, in any case, my confusion seems pretty understandable given that you and Masem seem to be going in very different directions, here.) At pain of being a broken record: nothing like this level of coverage is demanded for other professionals. "Oh, you have your music reviewed in Rolling Stone? Too bad, we're gonna need an article discussing your childhood for some reason." Josh Milburn (talk) 21:17, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
There is a misapprehension here. Academics are not made notable by their work. They are made notable by the influence their work is shown to have on others. Just publishing lots of stuff does not give notability. Xxanthippe (talk) 22:13, 22 December 2016 (UTC).
I have never said that "publishing lots of stuff" gives notability. If you believe that I have, you are the one guilty of "misapprehension". What I have said that producing work which (to quote the GNG) "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" confers notability. This is apparently deeply controversial, though I am still struggling to get my head around why. Josh Milburn (talk) 22:19, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • WP:PROF is the sole SNG that is widely respected as providing an alternative non-subservient test to the GNG. An article on an academic is ok if it passes either the GNG or WP:PROF. However, a WP:PROF dependent article is not a real biography, but is constrained to covering the academic's work product. It will cover subjects published on, may detail the persons career, but will not mention parents, partner, children, student life, second jobs, etc. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:00, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
This may be a small quibble, but per David Eppstein below, once a person becomes notable via PROF, there is no requirement that the page "will not mention" biographical details. In fact, it's quite typical to include how the scholar was educated. But of course that does not mean mentioning every family member. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:42, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
That right. A minimal WP:PROF pass, by which I mean one that just passes and doesn't pass the GNG, is not a full biography, and only things connected to the points of notability are covered. Even when BLP doesn't apply, 100 years dead academics, we don't fill in family details from primary sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:32, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
  • If the academic's books have received coverage, that contributes toward notability of the books, not the author. If the author has also received substantial coverage (whether because they wrote the books or otherwise), that, and only that, contributes toward the notability of the author. It would be entirely possible for books to be possible but the author not; notability is not inherited, whether up, down, or backwards and sideways. If the books are notable but the author not, the author should be briefly mentioned in the book articles. Seraphimblade Talk to me 22:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
    • I disagree. Notability is not inherited means that notability does not flow from parent to child subjects. If a book is notable, the author is suitable for Wikipedia inclusion because in that direction there is no inheritance. It's stupid to redirect from an author's name to their book just because the article there might be short and perfunctory. There's a reason notability is only a guideline, and this is one good reason why: overly zealously applying notability as an exclusion criteria leads to stupid outcomes sometimes. It was meant to keep out garage bands and fan fiction, not to say the author of a notable book could not exist as a separate article unless they independently met the GNG. Jclemens (talk) 23:52, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
  • I've been following this discussion with interest. I agree with other editors that a person who happens to be an academic can be notable per GNG without satisfying PROF, if the person is notable for things other than just their academic work. But this issue of books strikes me as a complex one. An academic who becomes widely noted for writing a popular book (ie, a book for a general audience, rather than a scholarly book) may very well pass GNG. On the other hand, many academics write books that are strictly scholarly works, intended for a specialist audience, and largely unintelligible to general readers. In that case, it may not be relevant to consider a commentary about the book in a specialty academic journal as helping to establish notability, so the criteria at PROF should apply. For notability purposes, not all books are equal. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:03, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
    • Tryptofish: That would seem to suggest that, as far as notability is concerned, academic journals are worse sources than popular magazines/newspapers. That sounds like a very odd conclusion. Josh Milburn (talk) 01:16, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
      • As a standard of notability? Yes, you're quite correct, they *are* worse sources for that than popular magazines. One of the most common misconceptions about notability, as Wikipedia defines it, is that it embodies some measure of merit and worth. Incorrect: it is nothing more than that the world has heard of a subject. Of course this means that actors, singers, sportspeople and pop culture figures have an easier road to notability than academics, in this day and age. Kim Kardashian likely all by herself has generated enough significant coverage in reliable sources than every Nobel prize winner this year combined. Ravenswing 02:50, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Then I'd like to explain it this way. If we were discussing reliable sources, I'd agree with you. But here, we are discussing notability of course, and popular books are, well, popular. That means that they are likely to have been taken notice of by lots of people. In contrast, an academic text may (although not always, so we always need to consider individual cases) be read by only a small number of specialists. In that case, if a few of those specialists write in narrowly-read scholarly journals something like "I read the work by Dr. X, and found it interesting, and I agree with abc, but disagree with def", that may be something where we have to evaluate the actual impact in the field, instead of simply counting Google hits. That's what I was talking about. Of course, there are plenty of intermediate cases: specialized academic works that have a major impact in a field, or attract news coverage, or that are sufficiently non-specialized that they become widely read and commented on beyond specialists in the field. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:27, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
PS: I hope that you recognize that I'm at least partly agreeing with you, in that I do agree that there are plenty of cases where publications do confer notability on their author. I'm just saying that it depends on the specifics. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:31, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I do realise that we're on a similar, if perhaps not the same, page! To be clear: I am not claiming that publications inherently confer notability on their authors. Some people seem to believe I am, so it's worth stressing again. What I do claim is that reputable articles (including decent book reviews) about x's academic publications/academic work should count towards the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" required by the GNG for x herself. Thus, if we can identify a number of book reviews of a sole-authored monograph by x in reputable journals, or especially a few peer-reviewed articles about x's work (some book reviews are peer reviewed, some aren't), that's enough for x to scrape past the GNG. (All but the very shortest book reviews offer "significant coverage", all but the shoddiest of journals are "reliable sources" and book reviews can almost invariably be considered "independent", or else they would not be commissioned.) Do you agree with me on this? It was my reading of your comment that you believed that articles in more specialist journals would not count towards establishing notability, and it was this that puzzled me. Josh Milburn (talk) 01:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Yes, we are pretty close. I'd parse a bit more closely, however, the different types of reviews. At a minimum, a review that says something like "this is an important advance" counts for a lot more than a negative review. And when you mention peer-reviewed articles (by other scholars) that cite the person's work, that's exactly what PROF is about. But PROF explains the extent to which the number of such citations matters, so it's not a question of simply being cited 2 or 3 times. (See, for example, h-index.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:49, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
At pain of repeating myself, I'm not talking about meeting WP:PROF, so I don't really care what it's about. I'm talking about meeting the GNG. As such, I'm not talking about citations; I'm talking about articles solely (or primarily) about that persons work. One of these is cited over at Benjamin Franks, along with two academic and two popular reviews of his sole-authored book. These seem like enough to meet the GNG, to me, but, at this time, I'm literally the only person who has supported keeping the article. Josh Milburn (talk) 01:57, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I just took a quick look at that page and at its AfD. It illustrates what I've been trying to say (and I'd likely go "delete" at AfD). What I'm seeing is someone who got one book published, and it did not have all that much impact, so there's a pretty weak case for GNG. I don't think that specific case really passes GNG, and that leaves us back at PROF, which is a clear fail. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:05, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Disagree that reviews of a book contribute evidence of notability of the author. The evidence counts toward the book. Do the reviews comment on the author beyond the book? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Tryptofish: There is nothing in the GNG about impact. Where have you magicked that up from? The GNG requires that there a subject "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I have cited five sources in peer-reviewed journals which are about the work of the author. And that's not enough? What part of the GNG is ambiguous, here? (SmokeyJoe, that view, as I have repeatedly pointed out, is buzarre. If I was to produce articles about a musician's music, you would accept them as grounding the musician's notability. I produce articles about an academic's research output, and suddenly they're totally not about the academic? You'll have to excuse me if I'm not convinced.) Josh Milburn (talk) 04:09, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
No magic at all. First of all, GNG says that a page can be kept. It does not say that there must be a page. Second, just as you quote, GNG requires "significant" coverage, not just any kind of coverage. That's important. We do not, for example, have pages about every book that has been published by good publishers. But pretty much every book published by a commercial publisher is going to get reviewed somewhere. Thus, book reviews do not necessarily make for "significant coverage" for either the book or the author. What might make this pass GNG would be reviews that said things like this is a very important book or this book is attracting a great deal of attention. If something has been taken note of in a GNG-passing way, it will indeed have had an impact. And finally, although as I already said, an academic who fails PROF can still pass GNG based on notice of things other than the academic work. But GNG does not substitute for PROF in evaluating notability based upon the factors that PROF discusses. You've been saying that you want to focus on GNG and not PROF, but that's not how this works. Because of the very real problem of non-notable academics trying to use Wikipedia for self-promotion (discussed just below), PROF has gotten consensus as an unusual SNG that actually sets a higher bar than GNG does. Here, the book is an adaptation of the author's PhD thesis. There's no way to construe that as anything other than as an academic work. Thus, it's entirely appropriate to consider the book and the book reviews in the context of PROF as well as GNG. And there's really no rationale for notability outside of authorship of that book. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:40, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I think you may be working on a loose reading of the WP:GNG. It included important notes. ""Significant coverage" addresses the topic directly" in particular. Is the topic addressed the academic, or the book? It takes very little comment on the author to count for the author, but there must be something. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:40, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
How many book reviews have you read in which there is no comment on the author? Josh Milburn (talk) 14:38, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
A great many, but they are mostly on books of fiction, not what we are talking about here. Reviews of academic's book? I have read some, but a lot less of these, but definitely have seen both. I guess I am am talking about popularized science, which is still not the same as you are talking about. I'm sure the full range exists. More than simple comment on the author is needed, to speak to notability of the author beyond the book, the book reviewer would have to refer to things about the author beyond the scope of the book. I'm not really sure how we got here, but one notable book doesn't make the author notable, but I think two could, and more than two would. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:53, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
I agree. Although that does not literally follow from WP:BIO1E, it follows from the spirit of it: Wikipedia places importance on ongoing notice over time, unless a single event is remarkably important. Likewise, authorship of a single book may not confer notability on the author, unless the book is a very prominent one. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:23, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
Quite a few, actually. Such reviews often do little more than drop the author's name: "Ravenswing came to the conclusion ..." "Ravenswing put forth the theory ..." "Several academics dissent from Ravenswing's views ..." "Ravenswing found in his research that ..." That might put an author's name out there, but it no more establishes notability than a quote from a subject can be used to establish notability of a subject, something longstanding consensus and black-letter guidelines reject. Ravenswing 20:21, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

There is nothing here different between academics and other types of professionals. Fine artists are known for their art, poets are known for their poetry, boxers are known for their bouts, judges are known for their decisions, etc. The people who become known for the details of their personal lives rather than what they have actually done are known as celebrities. Do we want to be the encyclopedia of celebrities? As for the bleating about NOTINHERITED and pseudobiographies — if the sources we have are on someone's body of work and not on who they are having an affair with this year, then the article should be primarily about that body of work. But an article about a significant body of academic work is still an article about a significant topic, and if we can decorate it with what limited biographical detail that we can properly source then why not do so? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

  • I think there is a difference between academics and other types of professionals, though there’s a lot of quibble room over boundaries and overlap.
    The most important distinction is between promotion and not promotion. Wikipedia is very restrictive on subjects that have aspect or issues with promotion. This includes academics, academics can also promote for personal vanity, commercial/financial benefits, or devotion to a fringe science.
    An academic known for their work is similar to an artist known for their art, poet known for their poetry and judge known for their rulings, where this is all past tense. I would argue that these are all scholars; art, poetry and judiciary are scholastic study. Disagree that a boxer fits the set.
    It is appropriate that the encyclopedia has a pro-scholarly bias, and I see it consistently at play, and never objected to. The boundary is where scholarship becomes promotion, which correlates well with popular books sold for profit.
    Distinction between celebrities and other biographies is probably a good idea. This would be relevant at the stub stage, where you are counting items against a notability test. It doesn’t apply once the GNG is met. If the GNG is not met, primary sources should not be used to complete biographical details.
    An article about a significant body of academic work can and should include limited biographical detail. Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid for example. It would include a lot more biographical details if it weren’t that much is instead in other article. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:44, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
You've just given a splendid example of what I was trying to say about not all publications being equal. That paper by Watson and Crick is the very essence of a scholarly publication that has had an immense impact, and it's very much the reason that we properly have pages about Watson and Crick themselves. So that's a fine example of where, in a sense, scholars do indeed inherit notability from a publication. But there are bazillions (that's the exact number) of papers published in peer-reviewed journals each year, and there are professors who publish large numbers of low-impact papers. That's not the same thing, and it falls short of notability. And I strongly agree with you that Wikipedia has to be careful about not abetting academic self-promotion. I see such pages about early-career academics frequently, and I generally want them to be deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:59, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
Nobody, least of all me, is saying that lots of publications = notability. Could you drop that stick? To repeat what I said to you mere hours ago: "What I do claim is that reputable articles (including decent book reviews) about x's academic publications/academic work should count towards the "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" required by the GNG for x herself." That's what this is about; I believe that if someone's work has received a level of discussion in scholarly journals such that it meets the GNG, they are notable. A lot of other people, apparently, do not. Josh Milburn (talk) 04:15, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
It looks from the indenting that you are telling me to drop a stick. I don't have such a stick to drop. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:40, 24 December 2016 (UTC)
We have a steady flow of new articles about the founder of some notable company or other that get deleted because all the sources available on the founder amount to "X, founder of ABC Corp., announced ..." and "X is here with us on this YouTube video today to talk about ABC Corp's latest venture". Wikipedia articles aren't the credits for a body of work. If an academic's individual works have received coverage, then they may be notable. If there are sources that focus on Y (Y's research has been of immense importance beginning with "A study of ..." in which he ..., continuing with "The ectomorphication of zilzane in a thristeous environment", which provided the community with great insight into ...", and then ...), then Y may be notable. Largoplazo (talk) 12:31, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
A point this comment gets to is that my experience is that on very broad terms, the academic community is usually less about the people doing the research over the net result of the research, whereas in sports, entertainment, etc. its people first, results second. Its what makes self-promoting academic articles stand out compared to actual notable academics whom are difficult to track down anything outside of their research. And because academics do not generally talk about other academics in secondary approaches, at least not after going through the results of the research first, it makes it very difficult to find notability for academics without violating WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. That's just the way the academic world works and it is unfortunately not well suited to an encyclopedia where verifyability is king, and where every major other profession generally is very easy to find such sources. --MASEM (t) 17:00, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
I don't even know where to begin with that post. This whole thing has cost me far more than I had to give. I'm out. Josh Milburn (talk) 17:17, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Anti-intellectualism

As it was buried, I just wanted to draw attention to this comment. But Wikipedia doesn't have a problem with anti-intellectualism. And this discussion certainly doesn't reveal that problem. No sir. Not one bit. Josh Milburn (talk) 04:15, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

  • Seeing that it's my comment you highlighted, I'll bite. Quite aside from the obvious fallacy of determining that the opinion of a single editor is a useful tool by which how the entire world views this encyclopedia can be measured, what's your point? That the world values those fields of endeavor over academics? So it does. And always has. I can't imagine a single active editor deluded enough to imagine the contrary. And even stipulating that Wikipedia was a vehicle for social engineering -- which it most certainly is not -- what's the remedy? Only allowing articles on "worthy" subjects? And who would decide that? A panel of "worthy" editors? Chosen by whom? (One might be forgiven for opining that, after all is said and done, more editors would support articles on obscure Star Wars characters and third-tier soccer players than for physicists or college professors.) In any event, if you want to argue that the world's anti-intellectual, I agree with you. I'm just at a bit of a loss as to how that's at all pertinent to the task of assessing and adjusting Wikipedia's notability standards. Ravenswing 12:20, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
    • None of that has anything to do with the point I'm making, as I suspect you know. If you genuinely don't understand what's got my goat, I can explain it to you, but I don't really want to get into some drawn out debate with you: your view of academic journals and the nature of academia are, to put it mildly, far removed from mine, so I don't think a lot would be gained by such a debate. Josh Milburn (talk) 14:43, 23 December 2016 (UTC)
      • No, probably not, the more so that you didn't actually make a point. There's a .sig I tend to use on VBulletin-style forums which runs "It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I don't agree with what you're saying. The distinction shouldn't be hard to grasp." The aphorism applies as much on Wikipedia as anywhere else. Ravenswing 20:49, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Are future films/games/recordings notable?

Even if one hundred newspapers claim the film X will be notable, we don't know if it will be notable. Where is the border between encyclopedia and promotion? Xx236 (talk) 11:21, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Notability is not the only concern. Projects like files, games, and recordings very commonly are delayed or cancelled. Per WP:NOTCRYSTAL, we don't report on planned future events unless they are approximately as certain as the rising of tomorrow's sun. We might, though, report work on such projects if such work is current or recent activity of people who are already notable for other reasons - but we'd do it in the context of talking about the person, or about the project, not the future event. In that regard, remember that the notability rules only apply to article topics, not individual items within an article. Jeh (talk) 11:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Notability has nothing to do with whether the subject has existed but doesn't any more, will exist but doesn't yet, has been planned to exist but doesn't and may never, or never has and never will exist. postdlf (talk) 12:38, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Precisely. An enduring problem is in the many people who equate "notability" as per the guideline with "importance" out there in the real world (one reason I've supported efforts to rename the concept here, but that's neither here nor there), and their oft-palpable rage at the implication that we're belittling their favorite hobby horses. Newcomers can be forgiven for not knowing the distinction; I'm saddened at the number of editors, some with many edits under their belts, who likewise don't. Ravenswing 12:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Your parenthetical, I believe, strikes at the core of the problem. Notability means something in the wider world; something that notability doesn't. That name itself leads editors to err. - Ryk72 'c.s.n.s.' 13:25, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I agree. With newcomers I commonly use language like "notability as Wikipedia defines that term". The real-world word "notable" means "worthy of note" and can be said of something that has not yet received that note. What Wikipedia requires of a topic more closely corresponds to the real-world word "noted". However, I don't have a word to fill in the analogy "Notable" is to "notability" as "noted" is to "...". Well, there are words: "note", "notice". Wikipedia articles are on topics of note, they have to have attracted notice in the form of substantial coverage ..., receipt of major awards, citation of their research in many papers, etc. But "note" and "notice" are ordinary, rather wishy-washy words, and wouldn't function too well here as terms of art without getting confused for other meanings they might have, I fear. Largoplazo (talk) 13:50, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Unfortunately, the most recent proposal to rename "notability" to something less confusing to newcomers was soundly defeated. Ravenswing 16:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
To be sure everyone in this discussion is on the same page, are you asking this having read WP:NFF and with that as your starting point, or have you not been aware of it before? Largoplazo (talk) 13:53, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
Postdlf: Correct. But notability here is primarily concerned with "does it deserve an article?" (From the "nutshell" at WP:N: "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.") Per WP:NOTCRYSTAL, the right answer for a future film/game/recording may be "no, it shouldn't", even if it does pass GNG. i.e. passing GNG doesn't mean you can ignore NOTCRYSTAL. otoh, projects that occurred in the past but never yielded an actual product are obviously not subject to NOTCRYSTAL. Jeh (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)
I am not sure about that WP:CRYSTAL calls to avoid unverified speculation not that future events can't be covered at all. I don't think it was ever intended to mean that unreleased media can't have articles. Would you seriously consider deletion of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, or Spider-Man: Homecoming. How about something like Duke Nukem Forever a game that was famous for its long development cycle (and at the time assumed cancellation) even magazines such as Wired had a multiple page article due to it troubled history. In other words it would have been famous even if was never released.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
We can cover future events, but the question with respect to notability is whether a standalone article can be written beyond a stub. The FILM project has appropriate guidance that if a film hasn't started actual production (where most of the money sink is at) one shouldn't rush to create an article, though there are certainly films that are known to be in the pipeline like those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have already gotten attention before anything has been shot. I can speak for the VG project that we discourage creating a new article just because a game was announced, though in most cases, when games are announced, work has already been done on that project; we still want more than just a stub. Now, announced films/games/whatever can still be discussed in context of a larger article (for example, a future Marvel film can not have an article but be mentioned in the Cinematic Universe article) and use redirects to help editors searching for them. We just want to avoid stubs that will take some time before they can be added to with useful information, and that's where notability steps in. --MASEM (t) 01:03, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia:Notability_(films)#Future_films.2C_incomplete_films.2C_and_undistributed_films aka WP:NFF has for a very long time provided an excellent, agreeable and widely respect line. If the question could be re-posed along the lines of the wording of WP:NFF, it would be easier to respond. We don't just want to avoid stubs that will take a long time fill, we want to avoid articles based on promotional announcements of things that have a track record of delay, major alteration, and cancellation before fruition. The NFF guideline provides a nice test that the upcoming film will likely eventuate, by coupling the indicator to the commitment of having started major spending (equipment, sets, actor contracts, all rolling).
    Coverage of anticipated, planned, speculated future sometimes happens (eg Prior speculation on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), but it requires unusual popular coverage, and often doesn't provide long term useful material. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2017 (UTC)
Hm! I like WP:NFF. Jeh (talk) 02:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Notability: must "significant coverage" be mainstream?

Must significant coverage be in "mainstream" publications, or is something notable if it has significant coverage in "specialised" or even "fringe" publications? For example, a train magazine may be mentioned in other train magazines, but nowhere in general newspapers? How about an astrology magazines that is mentioned in other astrology and "fringe" publications of the day, but not in any general newspapers or magazines? There is no suggestion that such notability implies credibility, veracity or reliability, which are considered elsewhere. --Iantresman (talk) 14:32, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

The standard is that there must be significant coverage in reliable sources. That does not mean in the mainstream press or media. It can be history books, Burke's Peerage etc. Fringe sources are excluded for the purposes of establishing notability as they are by their very nature, unreliable. See also WP:FRINGE. In my experience members if the titled nobility or royalty are usually treated as presumptively notable as long as there is enough reliable material to prove they existed and to write a passable article. Common sense exception do exist such as where the subject died in childhood. Not much you can say about them usually. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:05, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

Notability: Assessing source independence

Magazines may be related by "subject", editors, contributors, referees, etc. What affects independence? Are astronomy magazines/journals sufficiently independent to ascertain notability, if they mention something related to astronomy (eg. a person, an asteroid)? Can the same be said of other subjects, eg. astrology, (eg. an astrologist, non-standard star sign)? I understand there are other issues, such as reliable of sources, but that would be considered separately. --Iantresman (talk) 14:53, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

See WP:IS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 15:09, 8 January 2017 (UTC)
  • "Independence" refers to how independent the source is from the subject, and this can vary according to the situation. The determination of notability also (as is sometimes confused) completely different from a source's accuracy; NASA's website, for instance, can certainly be considered reliable when it comes to biographical details of its astronauts, but can't be used to support their notability. Ravenswing 18:27, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

True or false: Primary sources are not sufficient to establish notability

Would that sentence be true or false? I was surprised that GNG does not discuss primary sources one way or another. WP:PRIMARY does mention 'Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability' so shouldn't we mention it back?--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 17:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

As I understand it false. I can say I am the words greatest reinvented Ocarina player (does that mean I now should have an article because I have said I am the worlds greatest something)? To be notable something (or someone) has to have been noticed by someone other then themselves.Slatersteven (talk) 17:40, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
We define notability as being covered in secondary sources, so primary sources only are not sufficient to show notability via the GNG, implicitly. (A primary source to show meeting one of the subject-specific notability guidelines metrics, such as using the Nobel Prize committee's statement for a Nobel winner, would be fine there, but not for the GNG). --MASEM (t) 17:53, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • The GNG does address the issue: ""Sources" should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability." It doesn't explicitly say "Primary sources are no good," but it shouldn't need to do so. Ravenswing 18:06, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • They are not sufficient to establish notability. But their existence, and a reasonable likelihood of secondary sources existing, should be enough to satisfy an AfD. If an AfD was to delete an article per GNG because "it only has primary sources", this should only take place after it has been demonstrated that reasonable effort to locate some secondary sources was fruitless (we delete on the basis of scope, not current article state). Although AfD does often delete them anyway. Andy Dingley (talk) 18:13, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • True. A complication is that primary/secondary is not an inherent characteristic. A source may be a primary source for one purpose, and a secondary source for a different purpose. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 21:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
    • Pliny's mention of the ancient Roman, let's call him "Fred"? Is the source primary or secondary? In journalism, it is the primary source, the first source, the only source. In historiography, as the source contains information, opinion, about Fred, as opposed to by or from Fred, is it secondary. Unless it is merely data, data is always primary, at some level of reliability. Historiography is the best standard to used, because an encyclopedia is an historiographical document. The article "secondary source" provides an excellent coverage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
    • But also note, somewhat unwritten but no less true, "wikipedia-notability" exists most strongly to exclude promotion and recent fancruft. Ancient topics are not to be harshly tested by WP:N. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:08, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Take, for example, an ancient Roman who is mentioned by multiple primary sources (Pliny, Tacitus etc)... but ignored by modern historians. Notable? Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
    • The definition of "primary" and "secondary" is also probably relevant. For example, let's take any of the numerous histories of counties in the United States that exist, some of which may have been written very early, by some of the first people to reside in a given county. Would they be counted as "primary" sources, if they don't indicate any other sources, or "secondary," if they broadly indicate other published sources as references, even if those other sources don't discuss the particular content in question? In such cases, I think the way we would best go would be to work more on the basis of amount of substantial encyclopedic content of some sort rather than the number and types of known sources used. In a lot of broadly historical works, they don't cite sources the way we do, and I can't think that should be necessarily a basis for not using them if those sources are generally counted as reliable and not containing too much cruft like material. John Carter (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2017 (UTC)
      • The difference between primary source material and secondary source material is whether the cold facts have been transformed creatively. Data is primary source material. Comments, opinion, analysis, ridicule, meaning, etc is secondary source material. Secondary sources don't need to cite sources correctly to be secondary sources. Not citing sources hurts their reliability. A more important measure of a secondary source for evidence of notability is reputability. A reputable secondary source would include an opinion piece by an important person printed in a major newspaper, or delivered at a major event. A less reputable secondary source would be a child's essay in their workbook. I think is is equally true now as in the ancient world. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:35, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

place of power

Can these be used to establish notability of the subject?

[[9]]

[[10]]

[[11]]

[[12]] Calls them power points, but the concept is the same.

[[13]]

Slatersteven (talk) 10:08, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, they're secondary sources on Alfred Watkins, author of the canon text The Old Straight Track (1925). Whatever one's opinion of ley lines, the topic is clearly notable.
Naming is a separate matter, outside this noticeboard, and not one I have a strong opinion on. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:10, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
Those books don't use the phrase "places of power". Ley lines already has an article. —PermStrump(talk) 22:58, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
As the OP didn't give an indication of which article this is in reference to, it's hard to know what they're claiming notability for. Watkins described "places of power", as subjective impressions on reaching particular places (i.e. one location, not a linear feature), although I don't recall his term for them. When plotting them on a map, he saw them joining into lines, thus ley lines. He didn't ((AFAIK) see "lines of power" on the landscape, so much as lines on the map (that's a claim which grew up in the 1960s). He developed this theory between writing his two books and his earlier Early British Trackways describes trackways as conventionally recognised archaeological features and doesn't yet make the ley lines claim. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)
This is the article Place of power, and the subject is not only about Ley lines, these are just the few sources I am asking about. and to PermStrump, would you like me to quote these books using the term?Slatersteven (talk) 13:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

YouTube channels

I have recently found that it's common place to allow YouTube channels to get free publicity by placing articles in Wikipedia about themselves. Some of these channels are collecting large amounts of money just from people clicking on them from their Wikipedia links and they seem to be fiercely protecting these articles from deletion. I can see an article on something like the number one YouTube channel and why it went to the top... The rest have no place in Wikipedia and are abusing the system. It seems to be a rising problem with one billion YouTube users out there and there should be a special set of rules against it IMO.Wikiinfomation (talk) 13:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Having initiated a good number of deletions of articles about unremarkable YouTube channels, I'm aware this trend. But can you elaborate on the mechanism by which new viewers would make their way to the YouTube channels via the articles? I'm asking because it seems unlikely to me that someone would be reading an article about a YouTube channel without already being aware of the channel. Largoplazo (talk) 13:29, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Take a notable one like Pewdiepie for instance I hear that name all the time. I search google and a link comes up for the Wikipedia article then I use a Wikipedia link to get to the YouTube channel and Pewdiepie has profited from Wikipedia. Now take a YouTube channel that's not notable but uses a popular name people would search and if it's in Wikipedia...see what I mean?Wikiinfomation (talk) 14:04, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, no, I don't, actually. Take Pewdiepie, search for his name in Google, I get a first link that goes to his Youtube channel and then some other stuff (including the Wikipedia article). Take a channel that doesn't have an article here (I picked one with 750k subscribers, so saying it's not notable might be a stretch), search for that channel's name in Google, and I get...a first link that goes to the Youtube channel and then some other stuff. It is not very different, and seems unlikely to generate much traffic. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:42, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
I know when I search Bing for something like "AlexaMusicTV's channel" I get the YouTube channel first and Wikipedia channel second so it does give more publicity options for the channel.Wikiinfomation (talk) 21:05, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Arguably we should make sure WP:CSD#A7 includes YouTube channels and personalities of YouTube channels with no evidence of notability, and of course WP:COI covers self-promotion. I think the metrics and needed guidelines are in place, it is just a matter of proper enforcement. --MASEM (t) 14:10, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
If you look, CSD:A7 already covers web-based content. There's no reason to name individual websites and give them their own special criteria. Exemplo347 (talk) 20:56, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Proper enforcement is what is needed but that is not always easy when the creators of the channel are well educated editors.Wikiinfomation (talk) 14:26, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment - To give everyone a bigger picture here, Wikiinfomation insists that Hickok45 was created by the channel's owners, is pure advertisement and is not notable. His attempts to get the article deleted (tagging for speedy and AfD) have failed and he's mad about that. That's what this thread is about. Carry on. The Master ---)Vote Saxon(--- 14:51, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
Correction: I removed my delete vote from that AfD long before I started this section so the only one sore about Hickok45 appears to be The Master who seems to be the one with assumptions of bad faith against other Wikipedians. I easily could have pointed out these editors and their connections like a little school girl and had them tested for sock puppetry as he has done to me and failed. I'm not the only editor that has noticed this YouTube (topic here) problem this isn't the place to argue about your channel.WP:KIND Wikiinfomation (talk) 20:30, 28 January 2017 (UTC)
That's a good point and it's something that everyone needs to watch out for with a large and growing number of YouTubers pushing to expose their channels.Wikiinfomation (talk) 21:11, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Notabilities of distinctive topics using similar names

I wonder how "Notability" and "WP:disambiguation" align or conflict each other. So far, articles were created with distinctive titles in any method, usually either natural, parenthetical, or descriptive. I'm uncertain how notable Neden (Candan Erçetin album) and Neden (İbrahim Tatlıses album) are. The "Notability" guideline does not mention notability of any topic using the same name. "Disambiguation" guideline does not mention notability very much either. What to do with such situations? George Ho (talk) 03:24, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm really confused about what you're asking. What does the name of something have to do with whether the subject is notable? What do you think should be done with these two articles, and what to the disambig or notability guidelines have to do with it? Someguy1221 (talk) 03:37, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry. It's not easy to describe the general complex issue in an abstract way. I'll rephrase about one example for more clarity: the second article about the second unrelated album of the same name ("Neden (İbrahim Tatlıses album)") was created as a result of a recent RM with research via Google Books and News. Was the second article created to prove its notability, or was the article created to prove the existence of the topic? Why else? --George Ho (talk) 04:04, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Or maybe the article was created to prove that the base name is distinctive and ambiguous? George Ho (talk) 04:08, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Have you asked the person/s who created the respective articles? I expect they'd be a lot better at explaining their motivations than any of us would, being no more psychic than the next editors ... (grins) Ravenswing 09:44, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
I contacted the person via email about the Candan Ercetin album. I'll ping In ictu oculi about this. George Ho (talk) 17:52, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

@Ravenswing: there's evidently something unusual about the above user question and it being here. However, to the question, "Neden", those of us who know some Turkish will know, is just the Turkish word for "Why?" So an image search for "Neden" produces various Turkish books and slogans with question marks, Neden? but here on en.wp apart from being the surname of a 1950s civil servant Sir Wilfred Neden it has no meaning. So we have a proposal to put an album entitled in Turkish "Why?" over the en.wp equivalent of the tr:Neden slot as if "Why?" in Turkish or English means nothing except that album. Unfortunately of the two albums at tr:Neden the one which an English-speaking fan has created on en.wp is actually the lesser known of the two. This is supported by an image search which produces multiple copies of the "Why?" album by the unattractive looking but popular middle aged male singer Tatlises, but only one image of the "Why?" album by the attractive young but less popular female singer Candan Erçetin. It's possible due to cookies that my own Google results are influenced by occasionally searching for things in Turkish, but seeing as both albums are Turkish that shouldn't make any difference, should it? Be interesting to know (Ravenswing) if you get the same result of many images of the Tatlises album and one image of the Candan Erçetin... among them there's actually a third "Why? album by tr:Barış Aryay but he doesn't exist on en.wp. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:18, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Also, look at the contributions of the editor who created the album article, including World of Music (1968 TV series) and World of Music (Mary O'Hara album). George Ho (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Oh I see, this isn't about the Turkish word for Why? In ictu oculi (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Pinging Ss112, Tbhotch, and Jennica about this. George Ho (talk) 18:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

You've tried this before George. The last time an admin warned you, do you remember who that was? In ictu oculi (talk) 18:44, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
The ArbCom attempt on you was a mistake. I know that. I'm not trying to undermine you and your efforts. This discussion might resolve this. Maybe this would help me respect your efforts. However, maybe this would help you be cautious as well about creating articles. I hope this helps. Afterwards, I'll not challenge your creations at all (but someone else might?). Deal? George Ho (talk) 18:49, 26 February 2017 (UTC); edited. 18:53, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
Also pinging Unreal7. George Ho (talk) 18:53, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Don't get sidetracked by motivation... The only question we need to ask is: Are either or both of these two albums (with the same name) notable enough for WP to have a stand alone article about them? I don't know the answer to that question... Neither article has much in the way of independent sourcing to establish notability... but it may well exist. If so, that is something that needs to be fixed at both articles (if possible). Assuming both are indeed notable, then we do need disambiguation, since the share the same name. Blueboar (talk) 22:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Notability questions for topic don't speak to the best article title for the topic. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:38, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment, I was summoned through a ping message, I assume not because of Neden itself, but because of the IIO "problem" itself--the one of creating barebones and apparently not notable stubs. First if all, George, you should make clear on the forum what you want, do a proper research for evidence, and then ask you which would be the proper venue to resolve this. This is one of the main reasons you have Arbcom sanctions on you, for not reasoning what are you doing, why and where.
Now going back to the post itself, I wouldn't ask here in this talk page: "WP:N and WP:D are friends or foes? I ask because we have two articles sharing name at Neden, and in both situations both are not-notables, so, why do we have them, and if both articles are not-notables, both are notables to be kept?" (Or whatever your main point was). I would directly ask: is it valid to create barely notable articles in order to create ambiguity between similar titled pages, solely for the sake of creating ambiguity and not to properly satisfy readers with a thorough, informative and notable article? Because that seems to be the reason why you opened this, which in my opinion doesn't belong here (but at least settles a precedent of you trying to do something, and not escalating to Arbcom, for example.)
I have dealt with IIO way before you did, the difference is that I simply step back and let this guy be and do whatever he wanted to do, because at doing that I have evidence and information of his editing pattern, which is problematic in itself. You can check some evidence at my talk page, I'm doing this to have his autopatroller tool revoked--which clearly he cannot use properly, and needs someone checking if the article created does satisfy the excessively low threshold for notability--but also to find a way to force him to make more informative articles than simply they are a rock band, check copyrighted text at the references for more, for example. © Tbhotch™ (en-2.5). 04:05, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
You said it, Tbhotch, better than I could. One of the reasons why I'm discussing it here, but I couldn't explain it well because... I fear of being too honest to get caught and in trouble. After countless RMs and stuff, this is my last venue to handle the IIO situation. Like you, I'm slowly starting to step back and let others handle IIO better than I can alone. However, some of his contributions may have merits, like Chowky and an RM at Talk:Hawaii Five-0 (2010 TV series). I'm not trying to punish him harshly. I just want IIO to understand that creating such articles is risky and sometimes troublesome. I created drafts in attempts to verify notabilities of people, like Draft:Edward Leung Yiu-ming, Robert E. Streeter (moved from Draft: space), and Draft:Trent Kelly (coast guard), and to prove that their names are distinct from others of similar names. Chances of my drafts passing the AFC test have become 50/50. I could not create articles in mainspace because of risks of AFD nominations and/or deletions. The WP:AFC process is recommended... but I'm not requiring him to do so. About me... I'll discuss this with you in my talk page --George Ho (talk) 05:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
There are too many evidences of IIO's editing patters, so I'll show them just one former article, which was merged per AFD discussion. George Ho (talk) 05:33, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Also, Talk:Ready for Your Love and the history. George Ho (talk) 05:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Others have stated the opinions I share (we should not create non-notable stubs to satisfy disamb), but I will say that there is no reason that disamb pages can include the non-notable terms if there is still some notability associated with the work. That is, in these two cases, the albums may not be notable but the artists are, so I would reasonably expect for maximum helpfulness that the Neden disamb page include mention of the two albums, without linking the album name but linking the artist. If there was only one use of "Neden" , being one of these albums, and it was non-notable, we'd redirect that to the artist, so this is just an extension that "redirects are cheap, and so are disamb pages". But creating non-expandable stubs for this is not appropriate. --MASEM (t) 19:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Alternative facts and the notability of terminology

The following is copy-and-pasted from my question posed to Sandstein based on an arbitration action on the alternative facts article, to which they politely commented that they had no opinion on this. While related to current events, it raises questions about notability of phrases, vocabulary and terminology in general, something that is not addressed by current guidelines as far as I know. Can we get any consensus or confirmation on the issue of what makes a particular term notable? Benjitheijneb (talk) 02:49, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

"Firstly, while I do not believe this constitutes requesting arbitration enforcement action (as it's a RFC rather than a request for action), if this is the wrong forum, I do apologise preemptively and ask you to direct me to where it may be appropriate. But this is rather also a clarification of WP:Notability, since there is nothing I can find there referring specifically to notability in phrases or terminology. In closing the AfD, you described being doubtful of "the lasting importance of this recently coined phrase", but there are some (admittedly sparse) citations referring to the term long preceding Trump's campaign for presidency which contradicts it being "recently coined" per se. I have the impression that this signifies a distinctive usage and implication of the phrase preceding Trump, which may or may not lend to notability, and thus may lead to a deletion of the article being a case of WP:Demolish Wikipedia:Don't demolish the house while it's still being built (Edited in due to failed hyperlinking) and therefore prompting a need for an expansion needed tag for usage preceding the mid 2010s. Is my understanding correct, and if not, would you be able to point out where my thinking is wrong (eg. does the historicity of the phrase provide an argument for notability)? Many thanks! Benjitheijneb (talk) 04:16, 2 February 2017 (UTC)"

Bumping this again as its significance is still pertinent and useful even in the aftermath of the AfD situation - phrases and terminology past, present and future are likely to face notability queries, and I have yet to find a policy for these cases. If none exists, establishing one may be important to the correct application of notability in future articles. Benjitheijneb (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
Speaking only generically about articles on phrases, it seems that the most relevant policies are wp:GNG with a close look at the types of coverage required, wp:not, and the expansion of a section of it at Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. North8000 (talk) 19:16, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Notability of Timeline articles

What is the notability standard for "Timeline of X" articles? I am raising this in the context of a current bundled AfD, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timeline of Amazon.com and in the context of the Vipul paid editing enterprise, which created a lot of Timeline of X articles. See COIN thread here and links in the close).

I have searched the archives of this page and found no direct discussion. WP:LISTN seems kind of relevant, but timelines are different than plain lists - selection of what is important in the timeline is essential but perhaps LISTN can be read onto timelines (e.g. there needs to be multiple independent sources discussing the history of X from which the timeline can be built...) Jytdog (talk) 14:07, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

  • My thought is that when a timeline is basically a list, it therefore requires clear selection criteria. It's far more sensible for someone to create a "history of..." article and use prose if they want to describe the history of a certain subject. Regards Exemplo347 (talk) 15:05, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
That does not speak to the question. The question is what qualifies a specific timeline as notable? Jytdog (talk) 15:42, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
In my opinion, to justify a "timeline of.." article, the original subject needs to be notable, the timeline material needs to be something that can't be folded into the main article (or a prose-based "history of..." article) and each piece of information needs to come from a reliable, independent source. They can't just be indiscriminate lists of facts that are added to boost a profile or a position in a search engine. Exemplo347 (talk) 15:58, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
The 2nd part of what you write there about inclusion, belongs at Wikipedia_talk:Stand-alone_lists#Selection_criteria_for_timelines which is a separate discussion. I don't agree with what you wrote about that, but we should discuss it there. Jytdog (talk) 16:24, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Right so LISTN says " if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources" Translating -- so there needs to be multiple independent refs discussing "the history of X" per se, in order for a Timeline of X to meet N? Jytdog (talk) 16:24, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Essentially, yes... to present the "history of X" in a graphic form (which is what a timeline is), the "history of X" must be deemed notable enough to justify a stand alone article. If it isn't, then the history can still be presented... but it should be presented as a section whithin the article on "X" Blueboar (talk) 16:36, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
Thanks, that is helpful. Would appreciate your input at the inclusion section I started as well, linked above. Jytdog (talk) 16:42, 19 March 2017 (UTC)
There's no "must" with LISTN, as that section makes clear it's one way for a list to satisfy notability, i.e. sufficient but not necessary. postdlf (talk) 23:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

"What makes a timeline notable" isn't a coherent question. A timeline is a format for presenting information, not a subject. Exemplo347's comment above comes closest to recognizing this. Put another way, notability is not going to be particularly useful or relevant in determining which article subjects merit timelines, beyond determining that we wouldn't have a "timeline of X" if "X" is not notable. postdlf (talk) 23:02, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

That is an unhelpful answer. "Notability" is shorthand for "criteria used to determine if an article should exist" If you have a helpful answer for how to determine if a "Timeline of X" article should exist or not, great. If you don't, then please don't add clutter. Jytdog (talk) 08:17, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
"Notability" means something rather more specific than that, if you are using it to mean what you have said above it is no wonder you are having difficulty here. postdlf (talk) 02:19, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
Postdif, it is possible for "X" to be notable and yet for "History of X" to be not notable (or at least not notable enough for a stand alone article). A timeline is simply one way to present the history... the question is whether that history merits an article. Blueboar (talk) 10:31, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
No, not every notable subject merits its own standalone history or timeline of that subject. But notability often doesn't help us assess when that's appropriate, so look to other guidelines and policies. This page itself says as much, at WP:NNC. How do editors decide what details are appropriate within a single article? And then how do editors decide when there is so much detail worth keeping on a subject that it should be WP:SPLIT because of WP:SIZE concerns? Depending on how the topic gets sliced in a given split, notability may be helpful, but with what we're talking about here it's more a question of WP:UNDUE and WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which come down to editorial judgment rather than something as facile as counting the number of books published titled "History of X". postdlf (talk) 02:19, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Reviews

I was comparing two old AfDs of articles that I created and the discussion over reviews of products, companies, etc. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Potato Valley Cafe did have many long reviews and other articles in reliable sources, but the consensus was that it didn't show notability because the coverage was considered to be routine. However, the AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Westbang only survived because of reviews from tech publications. I have participated in many AfDs since before 2009 because I have an abandoned account that admins were fine with me abandoning. I have seen many articles throughout the years survive because of only reviews in reliable sources. Is there now any consensus on what reviews do or don't show notability? I'm starting this discussion because I want to know for my future articles and because I now think that it's a shame for Potato Valley Cafe to have been deleted when it seems that such an article would generally survive AfD. SL93 (talk) 03:16, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

  • Well ... herewith my opinion as someone involved in AfDs for over a decade now, which may or may not be shared by other editors. First off, how AfDs get voted is often situational. An AfD near the top of a day's list gets attention; one two-thirds of the way down often doesn't.

    More importantly, there are constituencies. Propose a sports article for deletion, and people from the pertinent WikiProject pile in. High schools, synagogues, Pokemon characters, porn stars, Brazilian subjects (and, yes, tech subjects), all of these and so many more became temporary or permanently invulnerable far less from their innate notability than from powerful constituencies backing them up. As I'm sure you've seen from AfD work, it doesn't take very many staunch Keep supporters to carry the day: three will often suffice, five will always suffice. In effect, the backers of tech articles support the notion of reviews in a blizzard of sources to be reliable and notable (the Video Games WikiProject alone recognizes as notable over a hundred dedicated gaming magazines alone), and will turn out to support such articles, and the backers of restaurant articles don't, nearly so much. Ravenswing 10:18, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

  • The scope of the review also matters. Restaurant reviews appearing in local newspapers usually are not seen as An indication of notability, while those appearing in national papers might. Tech magazines may be "niche" in subject matter, but are national in scope. Blueboar (talk) 10:53, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Non-notable subject sharing name and article with notable subject

So I've run into an issue where I'm not quite sure what to do and I figured this would be a good place to ask for some advice. I am working on fixing the table in the article NWA Mid-America Heavyweight Championship. First a bit of history, the original championship is notable and was prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, covered in books and various sources. The two sections "NWA Main Event" and "National Wrestling Alliance" share a name but that is all, there is no connection between the 70s-80s version at all outside of the name Now I believe that the newer versions are not notable - If it was not for the first championship articles on the second and third version would have been deleted easily as there is very little coverage at all on these championships.

In non-wrestling terms this is the equivalent of mentioning some small time award called "Oscar" on the article for the Academy awards and dedicating whole sections to it. I'm not sure if the appropriate approach would be to just remove the non-notable portions or split them out in a seperate list and then take those through AFD to determine it? Any advice??  MPJ-DK  22:37, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I can't vouch for anything you are asserting, but it sounds to me like you world remove the text citing WP:UNDUE and WP:COATRACK. Notability, however, is not a grounds for article edits, only for AFDing the entire article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:32, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
I believe that a better location for this discussion is WP:POVN is the better location since this seems to be a case of undue weight which is discussed at the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view guideline.--64.229.167.158 (talk) 14:32, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Notability Guidelines for Theatre Productions

Hi all, i'm recently back editing and wanting to improve the quality and coverage of (musical) theatre articles. This includes creation of several artists who have had notable theatre careers, and for some plays/musicals. Also wanting to improve existing articles. Many of these existing articles are susceptible to a lot of trivia due to large fanbases. An example: Prior to my edits today, the article Rock of Ages (musical) contained 15 different cast lists in the table. There are still now 6 different cast lists present in the main table.

Many of these shows go on to span many, many international productions after their initial West End/Broadway outings. Productions should only really span a small part of the articles but most seem to be dominated by casts etc rather than about the work itself. This doesn't seem to be a major issue for Film articles because once a film is made, its there.

As per the WP:MT Guidelines on productions sections: "This section should contain information about the different productions of a show. The following could be included for each production:

  • Name of theatre
  • Location of theatre (Broadway, West End)
  • Opening/Closing Dates
  • Famous or notable featured cast members

Only professional productions should be included in this section, following the conditions set in WP:NOTABILITY. Amateur productions will be deleted without discussion. The names of non-notable (i.e., non-bluelinked) ensemble and chorus members, understudies and non-notable production team members (other than directors and choreographers) should be deleted. Only the actors playing principal (significant speaking and singing) roles should be mentioned. For the original Broadway or West End production, there may be a cast list, with notable actors bluelinked, or the casting may be described in prose. Please do not delete such lists. However, there should not be full lists of replacement casts. Notable replacement actors can be named either next to the original cast list or in prose in the description of the production. Other productions should merely name the notable actors and production team members who have Wikipedia articles and can be blue-linked, unless their names are important to an understanding of the musical and its history. A citation to the full cast lists can be given so that the information is easily accessible to anyone who needs this information."

Not wanting to violate WP:REMOVAL, but in the article Next to Normal, do we really need to know that Ayelet Robinson played Diana in a production in Israel, or indeed that Auditório Casino played the role in Portugal in 2016, or entire casts of multiple international productions etc. There are currently 13 different international productions listed. Do parts of this article fall into WP:JUNK? Or am I being overzealous with wanting to... in other words "tidy" these articles. Would a line such as "has had international productions in Israel, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria" etc be fitting?

Mark E (talk) 17:18, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I find that Ssilvers and Flami72 are very experienced in the area and good at sorting these things out, so I would ask them to review Next to Normal regarding the productions listed, etc. Softlavender (talk) 08:39, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, much appreciated! I am in the process of moving and have been both mentally and physically quite busy. Things will actually quiet down soon and I'll take a look at Next to Normal. And, just maybe, will give some thought to the guidelines. (Welcome back, Mark E, and hello to Softlavender.)Flami72 (talk) 10:29, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Next to Normal – Quick comments: (1) There should only be one list of musical numbers -- the Broadway list, so long as subsequent productions have generally used the Broadway version, rather than one of the brief pre-Broadway versions. (2) There is lots of unreferenced material, such as the section on treatment of Bi-polar disorder. This material is not needed, unless it is specifically discussed in, and referenced to, sources related to the musical. (3) Productions section: Non-notable cast members of the international casts need not be named. Each international production needs only one or two sentences, unless it was particularly long-running (more than a year, say), but you should name blue-linked directors/principal cast members and anything about each production that is of unusual importance or that received significant international press. Each foreign production does not need its own heading. They can just be listed chronologically, and much more compactly. In fact, one could discuss only the ones that were of unusual importance and then say that the show has also been seen in countries x, y and z, noting the references. (4) I eliminated the Off-B'way and closing casts from the table. If there is a major West End production, it should be added to the table. The replacements section needs to be referenced. (5) The Literary references section is completely unreferenced. (6) The Broadway.com audience award is not a significant award and should be eliminated from the table. Even the Drama League awards are not, IMO, worth mentioning. -- Ssilvers (talk) 17:45, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for all your input. Ssilvers I agree with what you say, and this wasn't about Next to Normal as an article but rather theatre (and particularly musical theatre) articles overall which are cluttered with cast list after case list for the national tour/second national tour/closing casts etc.. But then there is nothing set in stone. As an english language wiki, what about the original Australian production? Take a look at Ghost the Musical, there are 12 different casts in the cast list. Should just the Original London Cast and Original Broadway cast be listed? The same could be said for pretty much any show that has a popular following.Mark E (talk) 23:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
For English-language shows, Broadway and London are the two most important markets, by far. Next would come the original National tours of the B'way and West End productions, so long as they are long-running Equity tours. I really don't think anything else rises to nearly that level. However, if the show *never* had a B'way or West End production, then the table would include the most important venues where the show had an original or particularly long run. For instance, Off-Broadway for The Fantasticks. Australia is not really a major market: Melbourne or Sydney are not more important than, say, Chicago or Toronto. However, if a show *originated* with a significant run in Australia, then that would be a different story. Here's a caveat: If a show had a very long-running production in one place and subsequently had a B'way or West End run, then the cast for the original show might be noted. For example, Little Shop of Horrors had a very important Off-Broadway production long before it played on Broadway: it wasn't just a "tryout" for a B'way-bound show, it was a significant, historic production in its own right. Also, if a show has had a lot of productions that starred notable actors, you could do a casting table the way we did it for South Pacific. If a show has had numerous international productions, you could describe them the way we describe them here for Hair. If a show is very popular, you may get resistance from fans. If you have a discussion regarding any particular show on its Talk page, I would be happy to give my opinion if you let me know about the discussion. -- Ssilvers (talk) 05:08, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
With respect to a 'cast box', I agree with Ssilvers that if there is a major run that preceded a West End or Broadway production, that should be there. So, for example, the box for Priscilla should include at least Australia, London and Broadway (not NZ, which was really just one stop on the Australian tour). I'm not fully clear on SSilvers' contention about subsequent productions, but I'd argue a box with say up to 5 notable productions in total is not unclear or overkill. I think there's space to include the first Australian production and possibly the first non-UK European production. I'd argue they are more important for a box than US or (particularly) UK tours, because they will generally feature highly notable performers (whereas US and UK tours are generally like Broadway or West End replacements). Not sure about Canada. I think Mark E was thinking broader than just the 'cast box', however.Boneymau (talk) 07:24, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Have made edits to Spamalot, Ghost the Musical, Next to Normal, Into the Woods and Legally Blonde (musical). I have done my best to keep any notable information in there whilst removing those productions of limited notability with no significant coverage. Mark E (talk) 22:12, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
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