Wikipedia talk:Historical archive/Policy/Notability/Non-notability

Wikipedia talk:Non-notability/Archive 1

Nutshell statement

"However, it is valid to use notability as a guide to the placement of information"

What exactly does this mean? It is not clear enough to be in a nutshell statement on its own and the essay does not expand on it. Ansell 04:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Originally it read: "Notability should not be used to argue for or against the inclusion of information on Wikipedia – instead, official guidelines and policy relating to NPOV, NOR, and Verifiability should be used. However, it is valid to use it as a guide to the placement of that information." Note the "that" not present in the version you removed. (See discussion above and revision as of 27th July of main page.) Someone edited it. Personally I think their edited version is less clear, but as I wrote the original version I was working under the assumption that my view on the matter was somewhat biased, so I wasn't going to change it back. If you agree with me, feel free to change it back. --cfp 11:08, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps that wasn't what you thought was unclear though. Basically what I/we meant was that if you have an article on stand up comedy, for example, it's valid to use notability to determine which stand up comics you mention on that page. But if your (hypothetical) neighbour Alice thinks she's a comedian and does stand up in her garage then there's nothing stopping her having her own page. --cfp 11:14, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I would not see the issue with the neighbour as a "Notability" issue at all for Wikipedia purposes. If there are enough people who comment on her in places that could be accessed by a Wikipedian for verification purposes, then I would see her article as being viable. By confusing the issue with the non-consensus notability definition that seems to be worked with by people attempting to write these guidelines I think that they forget the official policies and that anything which fits the five "pillars" can and will be included. Ansell 23:43, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The point is not whether her article is viable, it's whether she should be mentioned/linked on the main stand up comedy page. I.e. we use notability to determine where the information is, not whether it's there at all. Maybe I didn't understand you though. Could you explain what needs clarifying a bit? --cfp 23:48, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I edited the sentence from the original form "However, it is valid to use it as a guide to the placement of that information." because I thought the two "it"s in "it is valid to use it" were confusing. My understanding of the sentence Ansell removed from the nutshell statement is that it was intended to mean:

However, it is valid to use notability as a criterion for determining which among several articles should include the information under consideration.

Would that formulation be acceptable to everyone? Note that this is discussed in the essay, at WP:NNOT#Merging. -- JimR 07:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's definitely clearer than my original or what we have now IMHO. --cfp 21:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

If non-notability is not an issue, why couldn't I be in wikipedia?

I'm Finnish M.D. born in 1967. My name is in Finnish book, which lists all Finnish doctors. Book also tells my hobbies, my wifes name and my childrens names.[1]. Book can be found in finnish libraries. My CV can also be found in Finnisn internet consultation site [2] Could I write an article about my self? I have done absolutely nothing important in ensyclopedic sense.--Teveten 16:40, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Our whole point is that we think you should be able to (or at least someone else should be able to write an article about you as WP generally disproves of people writing their own page). It sounds like there is plenty of verifiable information about you and that is generally the chief challenge when writing pages about non-encyclopediac topics. The fundamental point is that it's rather hard to draw the line between encyclopediac topics and unencyclopediac ones, and that topics that currently seem to fall into the latter category may soon fall into the former. Given there's no cost to having unencyclopediac topics on WP, and there's a considerable cost to not having them (just look at WP votes for deletion and the train of new users who get utterly disheartened with WP after their page is listed there), there's no real reason to disallow unencyclopediac topics as long as they meet WP:V, WP:NPOV etc. --cfp 23:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not convinced by the sources provided here; I doubt pressi.com would pass muster as a reliable source, as it "publishes and relays by email press releases, images, voice files and video by companies and other organisations in original form" (that is, there's no editorial oversight). The same goes for the consultation website. Ziggurat 00:02, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

That link to to pressi.com was just to show to you that this book exist. As i wrote, that book about finnish doctors can be found in every finnish library, so it can be verified by any finnish en.wiki user. Problem is, that i don't think any one is interested about me in wikipedia. That means, that no one will ever check those sources to see, wheter information is correct (e.g do I really have 3 children; Linnea, Severi and Aada). That means e.g. that it's very easy to write hoaxes or that i could easily egaggerate my achievements.--Teveten 05:04, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

The key concept here is verifiability. If you cited those sources any information you wrote allegedly based on them would be in theory verifiable, which is all that is really needed. Think how you personally use WP. If you having a minor, passing interest in a topic, you will look at its WP page and broadly trust what is written there, despite the fact that the page could have just been subtely vandalized (facts changed slightly). However if you actually care about a topic (you are researching it say) they I presume you will broadly distrust everything written here. Maybe you will check the page history to see how long it's been in its current state. I presume you would also follow any references given in the article to get more reliable information. I truly pray you would never make a medical diagnosis based on anything you read here. WP works best as a spring board. For non-critical information where you don't need a great deal of depth you may trust it, but for more important information you would be crazy not to follow up the given references to see if they genuinely do support WP's claims. WP is not intended to be a primary souce. No one above high school age would cite Encylopedia Brittanica let alone WP. This doesn't mean WP isn't useful, just that a sensible attitude to its reliability needs to be taken. Providing a page is verifiable (i.e. its cites sources) the interested reader can find out if it's rubbish or not. This is as true for pages about Finnish M.D.'s as it is for pages about the human heart. --cfp 13:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Five pillars states: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. It is not a collection of source documents or trivia....". I believe information about me in wikipedia would be trivia. I don't understand why we should turn wikipedia into trivipedia.--Teveten 14:56, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You, very modestly, believe information about you is trivia. However trivia in your five pillars quote is used with a different sense entirely. I have assorted books of "trivia" on my bookshelves. They do not contain "trivial" facts, rather they contain many quite important facts that WP also contains (heights of mountains, lengths of rivers etc.) The issue here is one of presentation. WP is not just a list of facts, it gives them context, explains the necessary background knowledge etc. So on this vein your page would, I hope, include links to your surgery's WP page, discussions of your specialties and your educational background. As it wouldn't have been you that created your page in the first page (due to the no self-promotion rules), the only factual information that would be added about you is information that at least one other person (whoever added it) found interesting. So it probably wouldn't include your height and shoe size. --cfp 17:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

In short, you do not put up a case for fulfilling the neutrality policy. Your sources are not outside commentaries. Also, the indiscriminate collection of information is an interpretable statement that does not fit with the notability concept. The examples on the Wikipedia is not page refer to specific subcategories of knowledge that fit in other places, it does not prescribe what level of interest must be put into an article before it is acceptable human knowledge.

Also, putting this argument up here as a straw man to endorse your point does not really convince me that the point is valid. Double negatives... or triple negatives are a well known way of pulling off inconsistent philsophical arguments. Ansell 23:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

We should vote now

Few months ago we had failed Proposal for defining "notability" in Wikipedia context. It was rejected because it did not get 75 percent support. Same voting procedure should be used now.--Teveten 15:15, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree there is still a lot of work that has to be done to this proposal if we want it to have even the tiniest chance of passing. Do not underestimate the amount of opposition this proposal will have. --cfp 23:55, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

My point is, that i dont think this proposal will (or should) ever pass. Therefore, this conversation is futile. We should vote to get this thing closed.--Teveten 05:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

OK well may I suggest you go and work on a proposal you think could and should pass. Meanwhile us who believe this proposal could and should pass will continue to work on it. You are not being personally inconvenienced by this discussion taking a long time so I fail to see any non-malicious reason as to why you would want it closed already. --cfp 12:53, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Why are you proposing something in order to get it falsified by consensus? That has never been the wiki-way. You cannot nullify this concept by getting a vote to close, this is an ongoing process. Ansell 23:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Is it that time of year again?

This discussion happens quite frequently (once or twice a year), but with different participants each time as people come and go from Wikipedia. It's worth noting that nowadays, with Wikipedia the size that it is, you're highly unlikely to gain consensus on something so controversial.

FWIW, I prefer Jimbo's definition - essentially, if it's verifiable it can go in, if not it's out. That kinda short-circuits the whole "notability" thing quite neatly. Dan100 (Talk) 08:33, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well that is broadly what we are arguing for.--cfp 10:40, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Exactly, this would-be policy is meant to make that short-circuit standard - instead of optional. Fresheneesz 06:16, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as stated in the section above, there are people who want to short-circuit the short-circuit and kill this proposal even though it is based heavily on what Jimbo has said. (Come to think of it, I'm sure that ignoring Jimbo is subverting m:Foundation issues and m:Power structure at some point.) As far as I am concerned, this is already policy. --DavidHOzAu 23:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Archive

Should I archive any content on this page - its gotten kinda long, and lots of it isn't active discussion. Fresheneesz 18:51, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Sure, go ahead. --DavidHOzAu 07:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Taking care of that now... -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

A fundamental problem

The foundation of this proposal claims that notability issues can be better dealt with through existing policy and guidelines. The problem with that statement is that existing policy and guidelines already deal with notability, and have done so for a long time. Off the top of my head I can name at least three policies, and at least seven guideline pages, all consensually accepted, that deal with notability and, in various degrees of explicity, call for or allow for deletion of articles on non-notable subjects. Guidelines should be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and as such I'm afraid this proposal is not really workable >Radiant< 21:02, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Please do name those policies and guidelines. Fresheneesz 21:10, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

• Here you go: WP:NOT WP:CSD WP:DVAIN, and pretty much everything in Category:Wikipedia notability criteria. >Radiant< 15:40, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing I found relating to notability on WP:CSD, in fact it specificaly says that notability is *not* criteria for speedy deletion. However it does require assertion of importance. While importance and notability may be synonyms under certain circumstances, they mean different things and have different connotations. This is one reason for this proposed guideline - the word "notability" is vauge and ambiguous, and impedes discussions on wikipedia.

WP:NOT mentions notability a couple times, but only requires "notability" for current events. WP:DVAIN refers to "importance" and "significance", but also mentions that the wording was not found to be satisfactory to wikipedians. Category:Wikipedia notability criteria contains 1 policy, and 3 guidelines. All of those refer to vanity articles about people.

Are there any other significant contradictions to this proposal? I agree that there are a few stumbling blocks, however those problems are nowhere near "a fundamental problem". Fresheneesz 18:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

• If you think "notability" means something different from "importance" or "significance", please explain so in a clear and non-ambiguous way. The word 'notability' is not at all vague and ambiguous. It is, however, subjective, which is why we try to form consensual guidelines on the matter (and have done so in the past). There are certainly more than three of those; it appears you forgot to count WP:CORP and WP:FICT, neither of which is about vanity articles about people. Your proposal seeks to strike out all that consensual work of the past couple of years, and that is why it will fail. >Radiant< 18:37, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Rejected

Okay, I should have read the entire talk page archive before commenting. There are many objections to this proposal on its very talk page, and there is still the fact that it contradicts several well-established policies and guidelines. To amend (or revoke) policy, try discussing it on the policy's talk page, not here. Simply put, until you somehow manage to repeal WP:NOT, this proposal will not fly. Since this proposal obviously does not have consensual support, I have marked it as {{rejected}} (see WP:POL for details). This does not mean discussion must stop, but simply that this proposal as written, or any close variation thereof, won't work. >Radiant< 10:29, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I am sorry Radiant, but marking this as rejected is utterly uncalled for. We have not even finished the proposal yet! When it is in a presentable state we will gather community input, and then (and only then) may the proposal be rejected. To reject our proposal on the basis that it contradicts WP:NOT is utterly perverse. The whole point of our proposal is that no separate notability policy is needed other than what is contained in official policies. Furthermore, WP:NOT contains plenty that supports our cause and nothing that contradicts it:

• "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia" is the first thing on the page and is a strong argument for our proposal!
• I cannot see how any of the follow contradict our proposal:
  • "Wikipedia is not a dictionary"
  • "Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought"
  • "Wikipedia is not a soapbox"
  • "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files"
  • "Wikipedia is not a free host, blog, webspace provider or social networking site"
  • "Wikipedia is not a crystal ball"
  • "Wikipedia is not censored"
• This leaves "Wikipedia is not a directory" and "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", which I will discuss more fully:
  • "Wikipedia is not a directory":
    • "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics" - This is a style guide rather than a notability one. It is also frequently ignored in my experience.
    • "Genealogical entries or phonebook entries." - Partly this is a style guideline, i.e. don't create pages without any real information on the topic, and don't give out needless personal information. The text of this subsection does go rather further than its title: "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety. One measure of publicity is whether someone has been featured in several external sources (on or off-line).", which I presume is one of the chief things you think our proposal is in direct contradiction with. This view would be incorrect though. Firstly note the wording, "some sort of fame, achievement, or perhaps notoriety". This is very uncommital. It does not preclude fame in a local neighbourhood for example. Broadly this is consistent with the idea I mentioned above (somewhere) that if someone else cares enough to write a verifiable page about another person, then they must have some degree of fame. The measure of publicity requires an equally low-level of fame. If a topic wasn't mentioned in "several external sources (on or off-line)" it wouldn't even be verifiable!
    • "Directories, directory entries, TV/Radio Guides, or a resource for conducting business." - Again this is a style guide.
  • "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information":
    • "Lists of Frequently Asked Questions." - This is a sensible style guideline. It has no bearing on notability.
    • "Travel guides." - Again this is a style, not a notability issue. (And there is a place for such material on WMF sister projects.)
    • "Memorials." - Principally a style guidline again, though the text of this subsection does go a bit further: "Subjects of encyclopedia articles must have a claim to fame besides being fondly remembered.". However clearly "fame" here is meant in the same very low-level sense defined in more detail in "Genealogical entries or phonebook entries."
    • "Instruction manuals." - Again a style guideline and a suggestion that such content should be moved to WMF sister projects.
    • "Internet guides." - Style guideline again. (Basically a specific statement of the neutrality requirement.)
    • "Textbooks and annotated texts." - Move to a sister project.
    • "Plot summaries." - It states "A plot summary may be appropriate as an aspect of a larger article." which means plot summaries are really just book stubs. Certainly not a notability issue.

Please continue to find aspects of existing policy that you believe our proposal contradicts, as I'm sure it will help us to tighten and refine our proposal. In future though I would appreciate it if you could be more specific about which aspects of existing policies you believe to be problematic for us, and describe precisely why you believe that aspect contradicts our proposal. Thanks, --cfp 14:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• That's a good start, but I should mention that this proposal also contravenes WP:CSD, WP:DEL (which explicitly allows for deletion on grounds of non-notability), WP:DVAIN, and general precedent. Also, you omit the fact that {{IncGuide}} pressently lists no less than ten consensual guidelines related to notability. This proposal as written would invalidate all of those.>Radiant< 15:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• WP:CSD: I quote: "Non-notable subjects with their importance asserted: Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion unless the article "does not assert the importance or significance of its subject". If the article gives a claim that might be construed by anyone as making the subject notable, even if this claim seems ridiculous, it should be taken to a wider forum. However, articles with only a statement like "This guy was like so friggin' notable!" can be deleted per CSD A1 because it gives no context about the subject." So any article that make even the slightest claim to notability can not be speedy deleted. Going to the trouble of actually making an article (unless it is obviously a joke, in which case it can be deleted for other reasons) is itself clearly a claim of notability, so it seems to be things can never rightly be speedy deleted on notability grounds. --cfp 17:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• WP:DEL: I can find no mention of notability on this page. Please give a specific quote. --cfp 18:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• WP:DVAIN: I could not agree more that people should be strongly discouraged from writing their own pages, and I suppose I would even grudgingly support speedy deletions of articles about their creator, where this can be irrefutably established. This is because, as mentioned previously, there being someone unrelated to you who is prepared to write about you is an effective guarantee of a minimum (but acceptable) level of notability. --cfp 18:08, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding "WP:NOT a directory", please read User:Uncle_G/On_notability.>Radiant< 15:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Uh huh. It's not official policy, so it's not really relevant to the issue at hand. Notability really isn't mentioned very often in official policy. --cfp 17:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• The line "Biography articles should only be for people with some sort of fame" does indeed mean that a threshold of notability exists, and any person who falls below that bar does not get an article in Wikipedia. We have frequent discussions on the height of this threshold, but this proposal alleges that there is no threshold.>Radiant< 15:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

The reason it is OK to act as if there is no threshhold, is the following. If I go to the trouble of writing an article and it's not a vanity article, and it's verifiable etc. then the subject has "some sort of fame" - people care about it (if it's not a vanity article it's almost impossible that I'm the only person), and if it's verifiable it will have "been featured in several external sources (on or off-line)". --cfp 17:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• You think of most of WP:NOT as style guides; however, they are not. If an article is a phonebook entry, the point is not that it should be rewritten in a different style. The point is that we routinely delete such articles unless they explicitly state what's so special about their subject.>Radiant< 15:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

See reply to Centrx below. --cfp 17:58, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• HTH! >Radiant< 15:15, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Naming all these items as styleguides makes no sense whatsoever. —Centrx→talk • 16:42, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

I should be more clear. What I mean by a style guide in these contexts is the categories of information it is acceptable to put in WP. This is independent from notability. It is as wrong to put in George Bush's phone number as it is to put in my next-door neighbour's. Nonetheless I would argue against blanket deletion of phone book entries. OK if someone adds 100s of phone book entries at the same time then they are problably a bot programmed by someone messing around, and they should all be deleted. But if a single phone book entry is added, the phone number should be deleted, the article should be marked as a stub, and the pages creator should be encouraged to write something else about the individual. If it turns out to be a vanity page, obviously it goes, but if it doesn't, and the user manages to write something verifiable, then that by itself probably means the topic is sufficiently famous to meet the very low standards specified in "Wikipedia is not a directory". --cfp 17:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

They are free to write about the person, but that writing would replace the phone number; the fact remains that the phone number listing does not belong in Wikipedia and is removed. That is not a point of style. —Centrx→talk • 17:56, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

OK so call it "categories of information it is acceptable to put in WP" instead of style if you want. My points still stand. (I was using style as shorthand for "encyclopediac style" I guess, in retrospect it probably wasn't the best word. I hope we can agree that the points I had described as "style" have nothing to do with notability at least.--cfp 18:01, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Information that is not acceptable to put in Wikipedia is deleted. That is policy and that is what is done. —Centrx→talk • 18:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• (deindent) That is exactly the point. We have "categories of information it is acceptable to put in WP". That implies we also have categories of information that are not acceptable for WP. We call the latter non-encyclopedic, or non-notable, or a variety of other terms. But we do not want articles on them. >Radiant< 18:10, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Nope. There is a difference between deleting specific categories of information that are pre-agreed in official guidelines (e.g. phone numbers) and deleting whole topics. If a page has a phone number, remove it (no matter how notable the page the phone number is on). WP:NOT describes a few other such broad categories of information that WP should not contain. This is nothing to do with the notability of the underlying topic. If a page only contains information in these broad categories, then its editors should be encouraged to improve it, and if they don't then at that point even I would grudgingly allow the page to be deleted (or better, emptied). But this route to deletion is a long way away from the current one which goes roughly "the topic isn't notable", "OK lets delete it!". Nowhere in WP:NOT is notability mentioned. I have nothing against information (not whole pages!) being deleted if it goes against anything in WP:NOT, but this still does not allow notability to ever enter the deletion argument, as I argued extensively above. --cfp 19:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Deletion is not about what you grudgingly allow, it's about what consensus thinks. And consensus does not agree with you here. Also, you misunderstand WP:NOT if you believe that notability is different from the "some claim to fame" mentioned there. >Radiant< 01:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Before i'm finished reading this bit here, could you please refrain from interrupting peoples posts. I find it very difficult to read if one segment is left unsigned because someone interjected with a comment. Thanks! Fresheneesz 20:26, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok i'm done reading, but very confused. This section grew very fast and is difficult to follow. Could you three enumerate and summarize your points (short summary)?

I find it interesting that radiant brings up the same points i refuted above. He is only left with WP:NOT. Also, I was told that "style guides" are actually guidelines - so arguing as to whether to call something a style guide or a guideline is moot - if what i've been told is true, of course. Fresheneesz 20:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• You didn't refute anything, you just failed to understand it. Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for random information, and biography articles are only for people with some claim to fame. Very easy. Basically, you are interpreting policies the way you would like people to act, whereas on Wikipedia policies are based on how people do act. Arguing semantics won't get you anywhere. >Radiant< 01:51, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I have added sigs to each comment to make it clearer who said what. Sorry for breaking up peoples posts originally. --cfp 21:34, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Cfp. Radient, you're getting impatient. I understood very well. However, I disagree with you. That is a difference that shouldn't be confused. Guidelines and policy are *not* simply how people act, they are how all people should act in the future. They are not simply for historical reference.

Also, you communicate very well to me that you don't understand this proposal in your quote "Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for random information". Fresheneesz 05:17, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

• Guidelines are not simply how people act, but a succesful guideline is based upon how people act. This proposal is based on the opposite of how people act. Do you seriously expect our thousands of editors to invert the way they act because you say so? In a bureaucratic structure, you might be able to make them do just that - but it is well-established that Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, and hence you cannot enforce rules 'from the top'.
• You two have every right to your opinion. However, the fact is obvious that consensus has a very different opinion. That means that this proposal runs counter to consensus, which is why it is {{rejected}} (and your removal of the template doesn't change that fact). Per WP:POL: a rejected proposal is any proposal that has no consensual support, regardless of whether there's active discussion. I appreciate the good intentions of you two, but I can only say that your efforts here are misguided. >Radiant< 10:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

This has support. What do you think all these editors are doing here? This proposal *is* in fact based on how many people act. I started this proposal because a fellow editor came to me suggesting it. You are direly wrong if you think that people do not already follow this proposal.

Radiant, you are pushing a barrow doing everything in your power to deter this proposal and perpetuate your pet project WP:NOT - whose space you stole from the notabilty essay. I find your actions to be bad-faith, and I hope you would reconsider them. Fresheneesz 21:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

• WP:NOT is not my pet project, it's official policy. If you would just read through the recent logs you would see that this page definitely does not describe how people act. It describes how you and a few others would like them to act. >Radiant< 21:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Very bad mess up on my part. I appologize. I meant WP:NN (i think "NOT" when i think notability). However, I disagree wholeheartedly that people don't act the way this policy describes. Many people simply don't use notability, and use actual policy instead. Its easier to see those people that cry "not notable" than it is to see all the people that don't - those are the people that are arguing with official policy. Fresheneesz 21:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Misconceptions

I just read the above discussion I have identified the following problems:

• Misconception that this proposal attempts to remove all notability guidelines from Wikipedia.
• Misconception that this proposal will allow unverifiable information. (See #Is it that time of year again?)
• Misconception that there has ever been consensus on "Notability" as a guideline; WP:N is just a proposal at the moment, is it not?
• Misconception that there is already consensus on this proposal. (There have been attempts to push this proposal to an early vote only for the purpose of falsification... yet why would a vote be needed if there is already clear-cut consensus on notability as Radiant has been claiming? Because no consensus exists.)
• Misconception that {{rejected}} applies to a proposal where no specific attempt to determine consensus about the proposal has been undertaken.

This is what I can see from an objective viewpoint of a neutral observer. Interpret them as you will. --DavidHOzAu 12:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

• 1. This proposal starts with the words that there would be no need for notability criteria. Yet such criteria presently exists. That is a contradiction.
  2. I'm not sure where that came from but that's not what I read in that paragraph.
  3. Incorrect.
  4. Incorrect, since we do not vote on proposals.
  5. I assume that by "specific" attempt you mean a vote? Again, we do not vote on proposals. I have explained this perfectly well in the previous section.
• So yes, there are a lot of misconceptions, but most of them lie in the opposite direction. >Radiant< 19:07, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I charge you to show me where a consensus for general notability critera. I belive it simply does not exist. Notability has a niche environment with vanity articles about people and current events. Thats *it*. Fresheneesz 21:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

• I have already done so - the existence of CSD#A7 and any guidelines on {{IncGuide}}. >Radiant< 21:09, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, if you browse several days worth of AFDs you'll find a couple hundred discussions where consensus was reached to delete an article based on its subject's non-notability. To me this argues not only against the adotion of this proposal as policy, but also against the idea that the proposal will ever be accepted by community consensus. Andrew Levine 05:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I know you think "notability" and "importance" is the same thing, but I don't think so. This essay does not argue against assertion of importance - or even "assertion of notability" per se. However, notability criteria is more than just assertion - and CSD specifically disagrees with you "Articles that have obviously non-notable subjects are still not eligible for speedy deletion".

I can't go through every peice of stuff in {{IncGuide}}. I'd appreciate specific references and quotes. However, I do see now that many of those notability pages are in fact guidelines (I didn't see them that way before) give notability criteria that allows the inclusion of an article. I still would appreciate specifics. Fresheneesz 21:47, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In regards to point 4 above: I suppose Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance was all a waste of time? --DavidHOzAu 09:50, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• That's a nice straw man. See WP:VIE for details. >Radiant< 16:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

What are you saying is a strawman? And what does voting have to do with anything? I don't understand why you think CSD requires notability - it just doesn't. Fresheneesz 05:02, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I think i see why you said "straw man", but its not. A straw man is based on a misinterpretation of the opponents views. You're using the term incorrectly - or you're misunderstanding DavidHOzAu. Also, quoting VIE will get you nowhere if you're trying to discount the lengthy discussion at Wikipedia talk:Fame and importance. Votes gauge consensus, and discussion does better. That page has both and lots of it. Basic consensus is that fame and importance were not the correct terms to use. Fresheneesz 05:09, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• David made a straw man in his attempt to rebutt my point four. Besides, you misinterpret that talk page (aside from the fact that it's about two and a half years out of date). >Radiant< 14:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

We do vote on proposals. On wikipedia, voting is simply used to gauge consensus - and is not binding. WP:VIE says the same. Voting is polling, and polling should not be the sole gauge of consensus, but it is very useful to help. Fresheneesz 19:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• That is simply false. Polls on proposals are routinely and swiftly closed as a Bad Thing. >Radiant< 19:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Thats ridiculous. AfDs and CSDs are in most cases poll based. Discussion evolve around people "agree" or "disagree", "delete" or "keep". You're seeing only what you want to see. Fresheneesz 20:00, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• No, but interesting you should say that. If you think AFD is a vote you are seriously mistaken (and as a side point, AFD is entirely unrelated to guideline proposals). Individual speedy deletions are (obviously) the work of a single admin. As I stated before, it would help if you were more familiar with how Wikipedia works before you attempt to change it. >Radiant< 20:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Let's not get sarky. Fresheneesz didn't say that AfD is a vote, s/he said that it was poll-based, which it obviously is (WP:VIE is talking about it when it says "many administrative decision processes are poll-based"). It's not a FPP vote, it's an informal poll to establish whether a consensus exists, and there's a huge difference between the two. Ziggurat 23:20, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

One thing to clean up

I have made a copy edit to the article. The only thing I can see that needs to be fixed is the section titled Ways of improving non-notable articles. Perhaps we can fork it off to Wikipedia:List of ways to improve notability in articles or Help:How to improve notability in articles? Anyway, once we are finished polishing, we can get consensus for this as a guideline— I don't think it could be a policy because "use the policies, newbs!" is circular logic. However, a guideline saying "please use the policies" makes sense. --DavidHOzAu 02:37, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

So, did you just switch the "misconceptions" section to the top? I disagree with forking, becuase its integral to the proposal, and this page isn't too large to incorporate it (forks diffuse information - a tactic only neccessary to keep pages from becomming too huge). Also, I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with the "use the policies, newbs!" argument. Fresheneesz 03:47, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I moved it to the top. Okay, we shouldn't fork it. I meant that a policy page that encouraged editors to use existing policy seems kind of a redundant. However, a guideline stating "follow policy- don't substitute notability for verifiability" does make sense: it is no longer a self reference. If it were policy, it would have to be something new instead of "this is a policy page - follow policy". I just meant that getting consensus for {{guideline}} is probably more marketable. --DavidHOzAu 07:24, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, this could be policy, it's just that sometimes I have strange ideas about hierarchies. --DavidHOzAu 07:50, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• So you want to create a policy that forbids common practice? Good luck with that. >Radiant< 15:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Lets keep this a guideline proposal. One reason to not have this as policy anywhere in the near future is because, as radiant says, "notability" is a term that is commonly used. However, as a guideline, we can *encourage* people to avoid using notability, not forbid it. Fresheneesz 19:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The likelihood of this being accepted by the community

Just because I was curious, I went to the most recent day of closed discussions in the AFD deletions log -- August 31 -- and counted up every single discussion on articles in which consensus to delete was reached based entirely on non-notability (and where NPOV, Original Research, Verfiability, and WP:NOT did not enter into the discussion). There were by my count 57 such deletions. That's in a single day, and it doesn't count all the A7 speedy-deletions, nor the successful proposed deletions which cited lack of notability alone. For this reason, I think that the community as a whole accepts notability as an article inclusion requirement. Because of the vast number of deletions motivated solely by non-notability, I don't think it is likely that this proposal will succeed. Andrew Levine 17:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the whole point of the proposal was to steer people away from using "notability-only" as a requirement for inclusion because it is used so often and that is potentially hurting the project for reasons listed in the proposal. The obstacle to being accepted will be to get a consenus in the community to see the greater benefit in getting away from "notability-only" and to the more broad inclusion standards that the proposal is advocating. Agne 17:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I understand that, but I'm pointing out the level of opposition this may face. It will be hard if not impossible to convince that many people that "delete, NN" is hurting Wikipedia.Andrew Levine 18:52, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree, it will be difficult to convince people on a large scale. However, note that many people are already convinced, and not only those actively working on this proposal. Personally, I find it TONS easier to debate for deleting an article based on verifiability, than to say "well i don't think that subject's notable". See my (less than respectful) comments at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sommi. People said NN, but how can you back that claim up without resorting to WP:V or OR or something? I'm sure my comment didn't help or hinder that debate, but its an example. The page had about 8 or 10 links to sources, but none of them went anywhere that actually verified anything. Therefore it was not verifiable. Just my 2 cents and a rant.. m. Fresheneesz 19:29, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Also, I just want to note that every reference to "non-notable A7" is misinterpreting CSD. CSD specifically says (as i have mentioned way too many times) that "non-notability" is not criteria for speedy deletion. A7 is about the assertion of importance - meaning that the article explains the significance of the subject. This doesn't have to include the widespread notability of a subject. Fresheneesz 19:32, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I have indeed seen you mention it many times, but I have yet to see a clear explanation of the difference. Wouldn't people who currently contribute to AfD discussions with "Delete, non-notable" just write "Delete, unimportant" instead? Would anything really change? Andrew Levine 04:01, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Mm, well, I've seen other people have better explanations of the difference than me, but "assertion of importance" (from CSD) is more about the explanation of the significance of a subject. This is as oppposed to notability which not only has many different meanings, but is usually used to describe the fame of a subject, or how well known it is world-wide (or nation-wide). An example used in the proposal is the Qubit Field Theory, which is not very notable. However the article on it does assert its importance, and is verifiable.

Of course, since there are many different meanings attached to "notable", I wouldn't be surprised if someone said "well you're wrong, Qubit Field Theory is notable, because its verifiable/important/true/interesting/etc." And this is one of the fundamental problems with the term "notable". Fresheneesz 06:18, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The word "important" definitely has more subjective connotations than its synonym "notable." I don't think Mon Mothma is "important". A lot of others would disagree. Also, I don't see anything in the Qubit Field Theory article that says why it's important. Andrew Levine 12:27, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

So it seems this all boils down to semantics. The obvious solution, then, is to redirect Wikipedia:Importance to Wikipedia:Notability, and make it clear on that page that for practical purposes on the Wiki, if not in real life, the two should be considered synonymous. >Radiant< 16:41, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Subjectivity is only a small part of the issue. I'm most concerned with our ability to communicate between ourselves, newbs and long-time users alike. I find that arguments using notability are difficult to understand, because of the many different connations that may or may not be intended in the argument. Also, "assertion of importance or significance" is different from whether that information is important *to you*.

Qubit Field Theory asserts its importance by saying "Qubit Field Theory seeks to resolve this issue by removing the commutation restriction in order to make the capacity to store information a finite value".

This isn't boiling down to anything, the use of both the term "notability" and the idea of "notability" has a wide range of associated problems. Subjectivity, ambiguity, implicit POV, undue deletions, biting newbies, wasted time in discussions. All of those are reasons notability is bad for us. Those don't boil down to any single thing, except notability. Fresheneesz 09:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Streamlining

I think this proposal needs a little more streamlining. First and foremost, it needs organization. A concise set of the actual guidlines should appear at the top, and at the top or in the first header or two only. Second should be a *summary* of the reasons for this proposal - all refering back to the essay for more information. I think by putting the essay on a separate page, we undercut its usefulness - a summary section should restore that. Third should be the misconceptions - those are for the minority of people who come here and misconstrue the page - they shouldn't be priority on the page. We should however refer to the misconceptions in the beggining, to give them better visibility.

In the misconceptions, we should add that this guideline doesn't violate NOT, and why thats so. Of course, if it does infact violate NOT, we need to deal with that. Also, the actual guidelines need to be consolidated, and if possible, made more clear. Its much easier to do this in a group, so even if your comment is just "I don't agree", I'd appreciate comment. Fresheneesz 09:23, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Why notability is important

Notability is important and should become a policy for Wikipedia because there are cases where verifiable opinions do not belong in certain parts of Wikipedia. For example, it is verifiable that there are people that believe the Hubble Ultra Deep Field is peering into the "deepest, darkest secrets of God", but even though this is a verifiable quote it is not notable with respect to the actual article on the subject of the HUDF. On the other hand, it might be reasonable to mention this verifiable opinion in another article where the opinion may be more notable. Notability enables editors to make editorial decisions about what ideas deserve mention in an article and what ideas deserve exclusion. To put it another way, we don't want the article on time to include mention of time cube just because Gene Ray's opinions are verifiable. The reason why time cube is excluded from the article on time is because of notability. --ScienceApologist 22:50, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I would have thought that the reason it's excluded from the article on time is WP:NPOV#Undue weight, which is policy and has nothing to do with notability. Ziggurat 00:10, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Also we explicitly allow notability to be used as a guideline as to where in WP information should be placed. --cfp 11:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

For an example of that, see writing about fiction and the fiction inclusion guideline. --DavidHOzAu 06:38, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Flood of local newspaper obituaries

Most local newspapers run a regular obituary section -- several paragraphs on every person in the area who has died. Clearly every person is important to someone, at least their immediate family and closest friends. Given the published obituary, they are equally verifiable. Most of the same people would also be noted by local newspapers at the time they were born, and married - so that would be three unrelated mentions for most people who lived in an area with a local newspaper. No doubt one or more of their immediate family and closest friends would feel strongly enough about them to write very similar paragraphs for the Wikipedia as for the local newspaper.

Notability is the only factor stopping Wikipedia being flooded by an unmaintainable stream of these obituary articles. The disambiguation page for relatively common names is already long - see Tom Jones, Michael Jackson (disambiguation) - already tens of names each. Without Notability, these pages would be tens of thousands of names each, and every name would become a disambiguation page, while the common ones would need to be nested, so Tom Jones (telephone repairman, Cincinatti, Ohio) would need to be a disambiguation page. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 14:52, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

That hasn't happened yet, so it seems a little doom-saying to prognosticate such a possibility. Nevertheless, I don't agree with your assessment that it's Wikipedia:Notability guidelines keeping such an event from happening. WP:NOT does treat this as a special case (NOT genealogical entries), but one could easily say that the totality of verifiable sources provided for such a person is insufficient to provide a neutral point of view (how do we know that Tom Jones wasn't an awful telephone repairman who insulted all his customers?). Also, as is often pointed out, birth and death notices are not reliable sources, because there's no process of editorial oversight and fact-checking; effectively they're classified ads with a particular purpose. Ziggurat 22:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Yea, people not only need to be verifiable, but also need to assert significance. The fact that they died, or were born, or were married, or were a repairman, does not assert any significance. Even if they could, obituaries are written in a POV fasion, usually constrewing the dead as good people, as a way of honoring them. Fresheneesz 06:21, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I would like to add that WP:VAIN already cover this and happens to be an accepted guideline; it's good stuff. Let's keep this article on topic, hmmm? (Besides, even if that problem does happen, we can always make a separate project called wikituary.) --DavidHOzAu 06:33, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Since a lot of obituaries are primary sources, WP:NOR would also apply here. No need to invoke notability to exclude such things. JYolkowski // talk 15:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

• We should distinguish between paid death announcements ("classified ads with a particular purpose" asUser:Ziggurat says) and obituaries written or edited by the newspaper's staff, which are generally acceptable as reliable sources. --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 15:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Paid ads are primary sources, while obituaries written by newspaper staff are secondary sources and are thus fair game to use as references. JYolkowski // talk 16:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Just remember that verifiability isn't the only thing that articles must follow. However, non-ad obituaries still are most likely written in a POV style, are limitedly verifiable (ie, only in one or two local newspapers that wikipedians would never have access to without a huge effort), and most of those people can't assert their significance (being dead isn't a new thing). Fresheneesz 19:42, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think this might be good.

Hi.

I think this might be good (I've been arguing here for "rigor" etc. in regards to this whole "notability" thing), since it gives a little more "substance" or whatever you want to call it -- ie. fundamental Wikipedia policy (WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT) therefore becomes the arbiter of what can and cannot be included in Wikipedia -- and not fuzzy, VAGUE "notability" ideas. It _is_ possible to write an article about something that some people consider "non-notable" agreeing with these policies if reliable, verifiable sources exist. 70.101.147.60 08:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, it's quite possible to write such an article. It's also quite possible to delete such. Both creation and deletion of such happens a couple hundred times per week. FYI. >Radiant< 16:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Radiant, he meant that its possible to write, defend, and keep those types of articles. Did you really think he was speculating at the possibility that someone can write something? Fresheneesz 18:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I think his comments did not reflect our actual practice, hence my response. We frequently get articles that fail "notability ideas" and we delete them as a measure to keep up the quality of the encyclopedia. >Radiant< 18:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

There really are articles that get deleted despite having reliable, verifiable sources? That seems to be a remarkable claim, given that every notability guideline has a 'clause' that a source with multiple reliable third-party (etc. etc.) sources should not be deleted. Can you give some examples? Ziggurat 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Check the AFD logs, you'll see plenty of things being deleted for non-notability. >Radiant< 21:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

That's not what the anon is saying at all. Check the comment, specifically "It _is_ possible to write an article about something that some people consider "non-notable" agreeing with these policies if reliable, verifiable sources exist." You suggest that such articles, i.e. those considered non-notable but that happen to have reliable, verifiable sources, do get deleted. I'm surprised, given that the notability guidelines all state that such articles shouldn't be deleted, (presumably because such sources demonstrate notability). See, for example, WP:BIO ("The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person."), WP:CORP ("The company or corporation has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the company itself."), WP:MUSIC ("Has been featured in multiple non-trivial published works in reliable and reputable media"), and so forth. Again, I'll ask for specific examples of this kind, because I don't think they exist (and if they do, I don't think they're following the notability guidelines). Ziggurat 21:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

This should explain the argument. >Radiant< 21:26, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

In which case then, "notability" would equal having such sources, etc. making the idea of having it as something separate from verfiability, neutral point of view, etc. very odd. What I'm pointing out is that all that should be needed to determine what can and cannot be included are WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NOT, but not some separate "notability policy" that provides additional stipulations. WP:V and WP:RS seem adequate enough. 70.101.147.60 23:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I like the first part of that page a lot, thanks for pointing it out. What this is effectively saying is that notability=verifiability (I don't buy the counter-argument at the end, however, which is why I say that notability is redundant). The second part seems to imply that secondary conditions can allow an article to override verifiability requirements, which is to me an extraordinary and fundamentally flawed proposition (and one that seems to get shot down whenever it is proposed in a more general forum). But I've yet to see an example of a deletion such as you describe, and I'm serious in that request: something that is verifiable, but that has been deleted. If there are hundreds every day it must be simple just to pick one out. Ziggurat 21:43, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, is what should be "allowed"? We have the policies of neutral point of view, no original research, verifiability, and "what Wikipedia is not". But the way this seems is that there is a fifth, that is distinct but is not formalized as much as those: notability. But what exactly makes something notable -- it has to be formalized like the other four if it should become one of those core content-governing policies. If it means that it should appear in a "significant" source, then it would seem best handled through WP:RS and then WP:N is just redundant. 70.101.147.60 23:36, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• I go to the log for a week ago (Sep 17) and the very first article listed is David Enoch, who was deleted despite being verifiable in the olympiad's chess database, and a commentary on schizophrenia. QED. >Radiant< 21:57, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, taking a look at the AfD, the nom was specifically for lack of verifiability, and I don't see any mention of those sources in said AfD. (not being an admin, I can't check, but I would be surprised if the sources you mention above satisfied WP:RS). Ziggurat 22:33, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Three people in the debate said NN. However, you're basically asking me to do the research to disprove your assumptions - whereas you could easily do your own research in an attempt to prove them. You don't need admin rights for that. >Radiant< 22:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, what I'm essentially saying is that I have yet to see a real article which did satisfy verifiability, NPOV, and OR requirements, but which failed notability and were thus deleted (which is how I interpret your claim at the top of this discussion!). I did have a look for any online sources for an article on David Enoch, and found none sufficient for an article (the Olympiad database certainly wasn't, and I haven't been able to locate the schizophrenia commentary). From my perspective, I'm asking for evidence or proof of your original assumption. Please excuse me if I'm coming across as rude, but I just haven't seen any articles that really need notability criteria in order to be deleted, so those criteria just seem redundant (and editing-instruction bloat). It's difficult to prove a negative point unless someone can show me a good counterexample showing where they are needed. Ziggurat 23:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this happens too often. As an administrator, I have never closed an AfD as delete when the article undisputably met our three core content policies. JYolkowski // talk 01:55, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

As another example, Category:Victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks used to be a lot bigger, and all those people are verifiable from newspaper articles. The excess was deleted on grounds that Wikipedia is not a memorial. >Radiant< 14:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Please pick out one example - its not easy to find something thats *no longer* in the link you provided. I would guess that "those people" were not verified in multiple reliable sources, and probably couldn't assert significance (CSD:A7). Give us one i'm wrong about. Fresheneesz 18:45, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

straw poll?

Does anyone know how to organize and conduct a good straw poll? I'm interested to know the thoughts of people outside this talk page, and also to perhaps gain some contributors and fix some problems. Anyone know where to start? Fresheneesz 18:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

• We do not vote on proposals. >Radiant< 18:34, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Oh did I say vote? I meant straw poll. Oh wait, I didn't say vote.. Fresheneesz 07:44, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

We don't straw poll on proposals either. Simply put, the reality is this: you have been working on this proposal for about three months. It has been advertised at the village pump several times, talk pages of related guidelines, Jimbo's personal page, and about a hundred talk pages of individual editors. Yet after all that and after all your dedicated enthousiasm, there's only a handful of people interested in this proposal. You can draw your own conclusion from that. >Radiant< 08:33, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

No. Therse only a handful that are actively editing this page - like most pages on wikipedia. I would go so far as to say this page has much more support and active editors than your pet proposals. Fresheneesz 18:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

And you base that assumption on what, exactly? >Radiant< 21:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've never seen this proposal before today (my fault for not paying closer attention). I like what I've read so far. It may need a bit of tweaking, but the general concept is useful and necessary, in my opinion. Thought I'd throw out my 2 cents, I would be happy to help if you want. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

• It has a number of good ideas, it just needs some editing so that it doesn't contradict existing guidelines and current practice. Your feedback is of course welcome. >Radiant< 21:54, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

i oppose this proposal, which will quickly fill the encyclopedia with crap. —ptk✰fgs 01:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• While I also oppose this proposal, there is nothing wrong with formally gauging interest. Radiant, your name seems to appear often whenever users suggest polling for anything. Call it voting, call it polling, call it whatever the hell you want, but it's essentially all the same thing. People don't have to write long paragraphs to express their opinion. If someone simply says "I support it" then that should be valid. </rant> DB (talk) 01:52, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Well, no. Based on Wikipedia's experience with creating things, it has been strongly shown that voting serves to polarize an issue rather than resolve it. It makes people judge only one version of a proposal without regard for alternatives. And it encourages people to not think but simply rubberstamp. That is not a good way of forming consensus, or creating guidelines. Wikipedia is not formal, and that is why there's something wrong with formally gauging interest. >Radiant< 08:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Well, people could respond that they:
      1. Support the proposal in its current form
      2. Oppose the concept of non-notability altogether
      3. Support aspects of the proposal and would like to see other parts changed
    • Considering the length of this talk page, it is difficult to see who really stands where. There already has been quite a bit of discussion on this issue, and it's natural that the creators of the proposal would like to see who still supports it and specifically what parts they support before continuing. If an overwhelming number oppose it, then it probably won't last much longer. Likewise, if an overwhelming majority support it either wholly or with reservations, then the proposal can be tweaked and continued. Furthermore, straw polls aren't by policy always bad. In fact, it says that "polls can be useful for a quick gauge of opinion". You have the right to your opinion, and that appears to be that polls should never be used, but don't confuse your opinion with official policy. Finally, if parts of the proposal contradict existing guidelines, that doesn't mean they absolutely have to be removed. I don't remember reading anywhere that existing guidelines can never be changed by consensus. DB (talk) 18:57, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• You misunderstand me. The point is whether straw polls should be used; the point isn't even whether I agree with this proposal. The point is that this proposal is backwards, and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. Remember that guidelines are descriptive. What should happen is that people look at existing practice and precedent, and write it down in a sensible way. This proposal, on the other hand, runs almost entirely counter to current practice, and for some reason the creators expect that editors will simply change their behavior because of this page. Wikipedia doesn't work that way, because our basis is not the rules - our basis is the encyclopedia.
• So you're going about it entirely the wrong way. You can't hold a poll here and on the basis of that strike out WP:BIO, and the other guidelines contradicted by this proposal. Instead, you must find a way to change the way people think and act. Talk to them; discuss WP:BIO; if you want, try and nominate if for deletion so it no longer contradicts this. When you have changed how people act, you can document that and that will be a guideline. But it doesn't workt he other way around. >Radiant< 19:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read lots of the above, but I get the jist. Radiant - I don't care whether you like polls or not, I want one, and I want anyone who wants to give their opinion to give it - CONSCICELY. So i'm going to make a section below this one, for a straw poll. If you comment on how "we don't do that", i'm going to move your comment up here, outta the way. Fresheneesz 07:15, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, now that I've read it... I agree with DB, obviously. And using polls isn't a misunderstanding of how wikipedia works. Wikipedia isn't a beuracracy, i'm sure you've noticed (maybe.. i shouldn't be so sure) - but it doesn't have a specific way of working. WE choose how it works, and many of us have chosen to use polls at certain times. This is one of them. Please discuss the use of polls *elsewhere*. Fresheneesz 07:23, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

• Of course I noticed, since I wrote that clause. You are wrong, by the way - YOU don't choose how Wikipedia works; consensus chooses how Wikipedia works. And consensus is almost diametrically opposed to polling. Your argument now boils down to "I want this" as you say above; I'm sure you realize that's not a very strong argument. >Radiant< 09:11, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Whilst I'm not unsympathetic to this proposal, experience tells me it has zero chance of gathering anything near a consensus. Mark it as rejected and move on. --Doc 11:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I really do not see the problem with just letting a straw poll go through so he can guage what needs to be worked on. I never seen anything on Wikipedia that says a user can only conduct a straw poll under XYZ circumstances and its usually the method used for people to better guage others opinions. The straw poll should not be used to determine if this becomes a guideline however, just used to guage what needs to be tweaked on the proposal. --NuclearUmpf 12:45, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

1) Nothing needs to be tweeked, as the underlying principle will never get consensus. 2)Anyway, if you want to gauge what needs tweeked, polls are a terrible method. where do I vote, if I'd like to ommit part, change 6 words of part 2, and rename the preamble. That type of tweeking neds a discusion not a poll. It also seems that despite attempts at publicing this, few people want to discuss it. Don't use polls just to attract numbers here. All you'll get is some discussion and a string of 'oppose' or 'support' votes - that will clarify nothing. But as I say, whatever the merits of this, we've discussed notability in Wikipedia coutless times, and you'll get no consensus. --Doc 12:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

You can make a straw poll that asks who agree's with section 1, then section 2, then section 3 etc. People would state agree and then a reason, or oppose and a reason. In your case the oppose would be followed with "do not agree with word 6", the poll can help the user determine what needs the most work and focus. As I said I really do not see the point of everyone objecting to a straw poll, if the poll does not help the user then what was the harm done? People will just go back to discussion and its lesson learned, or formulate a new poll that better helps guage understanding. --NuclearUmpf 12:59, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

You have to understand that polls are not "voting" methods and people really should not be stating only oppose or only keep as that gives no understanding. Much like on AfD, simply oppose or keep comments are treated with less value as there is no explanation to go with them, no understanding of the topic or expression of opinion. --NuclearUmpf 13:01, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

But polls are where you count things. What you're arguing for is a discussion, where people indicate what they like and don't like, and suggest changes. Isn't that what has been happeing here? Only it is pretty obvious that there is no enthusiasm for this however you tweek it. --Doc 15:17, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Any issue you have with straw polls would probably be best left on the straw poll page. Wikipedia allows and even encourages straw polls as a way of garnering concensus. Straw polls do not merely state which side but why, they help others understand without being confrontational. People discussing has a bkac and forth affect, where as a straw poll is more of a collection of thoughts. I can argue all day for why straw polls may be good, and you can argue why they may be bad and how they are really voting, however the issue here is why not have a straw poll. I have never actually seen one refused by so many people on really no grounds. I mean what negative impact does it serve for one to be made and people to throw their thoughts into the pot? --NuclearUmpf 16:08, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to be accused of not assuming good faith. I think both opponents and proponents of this proposal are motivated by a desire to improve our encyclopedia. However, I wanted to throw out a thought that could explain what's going on (perhaps it does not). Is it possible that people are opposing a straw poll on this page out of a desire, conscious or unconscious, to avoid determining exactly what the consensus is on notability and non-notability? As it stands, there are numerous "notability" articles that have been, rightly or wrongly, listed as "guidelines" very recently. The proponents of the notability guidelines point to an amorphous "consensus" that exists on notability without a lot of hard evidence. I suspect that if this non-notability article as well as the notability articles are put to a staw poll, the purported "consensus" on all of them will be found to be non-existent. · j e r s y k o talk · 16:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there is no consensus. We don't need a straw poll to determine that. Every AfD discussion, every school deletion debate tells the same story. There will be no meta-policy on notability, the only thing that can be done are to try to work out guidelines for individual subject area inclusions. My only motivation for objecting to a poll, is that there is no point in asking a question to which the answer, or rather lack of it, is patently obvious. --Doc 16:48, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

To think if they were just allowed to ask that question this could have ended some time ago and not involved AN/I and would have ended the question/debate. This seems to be one of those situations where it would have been faster to allow the snow to fall then to argue over why it shouldnt start. --NuclearUmpf 23:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I find this utterly ridiculous. Radiant removed my poll section below saying "You just don't get it". Apparently what I don't "get" is that radiant is the god of wikipedia, and I must do what He says. That connotation frankly pisses me off. His removal of my section is 100% bad faith, and if people don't want to participate in my straw poll - perhaps if they think its a waste of time like doc does - then NOONE WILL RESPOND TO IT.

Doc - why are you wasting your time even *discussing* this, if time is such a concern to you? This makes no sense to me. I just don't understand why I have to fight to have a straw poll. Radiant and his posse are trying to bully their ideals on the rest of us - alleging a consensus that only exists in their minds. I want to know what *actual* people think, which is why I want a poll. Fresheneesz 01:12, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Go watch AfD, many 'actual' people use notability as a criteria, others don't. --Doc 01:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

The issue at hand is really that this can't be a guideline, it doesn't have widespread support by virtue of a widespread use of the term, where this is an active attempt at prohibiting it. Since the guidelines are, for the most part, based upon consensus, there can't be a magical new guideline-by-fiat that overrides the active and ongoing use of notability criteria. Kevin_b_er 07:16, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Guidelines are descriptive not proscriptive. They should reflect what is, and not attempt to establish a new reality. The fact is that a lot of people use notability as a criteria, others don't. That is evidenced in hundreds of deletion debates and polls each month. A straw poll here would likely reflect that lack of consensus. However, even if by some fluke one staw poll here endorsed this guideline, it would still be meaningless, as this isn't what happens, and thus isn't a guideline. For the time being the notion that notability shouldn't feature in deletion debates clearly does not command any consensus. Thus, this is clearly rejected as a guideline and should be marked as such. If you want to change that state of affairs - go argue the case on each deletion debate and convince people - I wish you good luck.--Doc 11:29, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

A guideline can be descriptive, OR proscriptive, OR both. As long as it has consensus. I really think you guys are making up some consensus - because what i see right now is *no consensus* - which means that we keep this as a proposal, and keep working toward a consensus. Fresheneesz 20:00, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

We mark things as rejected not when there is a consensus against them, but when it is obvious that no matter the discussion no consensus for them can be acheived at this juncture. Actually, I do like the idea of not using notability. But notability is constantly used as a criterion by a good number of the community. The idea that it shouldn't be used has often been argued and just as often rejected. The idea has no consensus, indeed perhaps even a majority against it. Ergo that idea has been rejected by the community.--Doc 20:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

"No consensus" is different from the consensus to reject a proposal. "No consensus" means that the community has not come to agreement. Fresheneesz 21:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

No, please re-read what I wrote, that's not how it works. You don't need 'consensus to reject a proposal', it just needs to be clear that it is a non-starter. This is a non-started.--Doc 21:45, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I read what you wrote, but I don't believe you. Seriously, I think you're just making up your own rules. Wikipedia works on consensus, and if people are disputing something - *anything* - then that dispute needs to be resolved with consensus, no matter what it is. You may think this is a "non-starter" or whatever, but the group of people that have worked to build this proposal would most certainly disagree. Fresheneesz 21:51, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

You should start with reading WP:NPA and WP:CIV. Then, please realize that Doc isn't making up his own rules, but citing WP:POL. A proposal needs consensus to be accepted, so any proposal with lack of consensus is rejected. And that obviously includes this one. >Radiant< 22:33, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• moved from header Straw poll here below:

Closed for the time being--Doc 21:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I've striken this. You don't just start a straw poll, when there is clear opposition to it, no clarity concerning its significance and no agreement on its wording. I'm opposed to this, true. But wait and see what others are saying, and what point they think there would be in the poll.--Doc 21:52, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I started this straw poll because I *don't* think that there is clear opposition to it. I think a straw poll will show just how much opposition there really is. What are you scared of Doc? Are you scared that people will actually support my proposal.

Your act of mutilating my post is *vandalism*. Please note that I will take the neccessary action if you continue to vandalize my work. Fresheneesz 23:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Stop it! Please, for once, listen to others. Am I 'afraid'? No. I've actually said I like the idea of not using notability. But, most/many wikipedians do use it in assesing inclusion/deletion. If you want evidence, the deletion debates will tell you it far more accurately than any poll. Many people see notability is a key criterion. You can't change their minds by an act of legislation. And you can't unilaterally decide to hold a poll, when the point is not there. --Doc 23:54, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

• Fresh, stop making personal attacks on people. >Radiant< 23:56, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

A straw poll is not about changing people's minds. I really don't see what the probelm is with a straw poll. But it doesn't matter, I'm in the process of building a case for arbitration. Fresheneesz 03:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

It's. Over.

There's a very tiny minority of ultra-inclusionists pushing this. No one else cares. It's not gonna happen. No need to waste any more time here. Notability is here to stay. Get used to it and get on with life, alright? It's no big deal. —ptk✰fgs 02:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Ahem, you're the one wasting your time. If you really don't think this can pass, let *us* waste *our* time. Harrasment isn't going to convince the contributors and supporters of this page that this is rejected. Let me count the "tiny minory" for you:

• Ziggurat, JYolkowski, j e r s y k o, Ephilei, Agne27, DavidHOzAu, JimR, cfp, Simetrical, among others

All of them seem to support this proposal and have worked on it. Of course, I can't be certain, because my straw poll is constantly deleted by the opponents to this proposal. Wikipedia is an ongoing process, and since we are still editing this proposal - no its not over. Fresheneesz 03:36, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

So you have ten supporters. en.wiki has tens of thousands wikipedians. Give it a rest.--Teveten 14:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The people that want this proposal rejected number in the 10s as well, numbering just about 10. So don't try to pass it off like you have some huge hoard thats on your side. Fresheneesz 18:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I fail to see the actual harm in running a non-binding straw poll to demonstrate that there's not a consensus for ditching non-notability as a criterion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Yep, it does more harm to remove the poll than to let it run, even tho it's a bit pointless. We've seen this type of proposal many times, but it doesn't change the fact that notability is a criterion that people routinely use. Incidently, the (IMO) best essay explaining notability is User:Uncle_G/On_notability. This (again, IMO) pretty much explains what the notion of notability really means, in practice. Friday (talk) 19:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

That is a good essay; thanks. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:32, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

And if policy states that consensus is needed to approve a guideline, with no consensus being equivalent to rejection, then just run the poll. If there's no consensus, then OK; the creators can feel like they at least had a chance. I don't understand the people who are so adamantly opposed to using a straw poll. Are you afraid it will create a bad precedent? It wouldn't be the first time polls have been used, though. DB (talk) 19:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• Give it a rest, a poll will tell us nothing that we don't already know. Please read WP:DDV for details. >Radiant< 20:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

  Radiant, I'm as opposed to voting as anybody here, but I think this is a case where a straw poll would be harmless at worst, and would help close the issue at best. You know there's no consensus for ditching notability as a criterion, and I know there's no consensus for ditching notability as a criterion, but obviously Fresheneesz doesn't know that, and if we just let him run his poll, he'll find out in a much more concrete way than we can achieve by explaining it to him at great length. I still fail to see the harm in allowing this particular straw poll to run, and I do see the harm in continuing to oppose its running, because the conflict seems to be generating drama. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

  • While that's true, I'm afraid that opening a straw poll leads to all new kinds of drama, such as what we're polling on, what %support is required to "pass", what quorum is supposed to be necessary, etc. A badly formed poll (which unfortunately is the easiest kind to create) will only give people more reason to dispute things. >Radiant< 20:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

The outcome of a Wikipedia straw poll is non-binding; there cannot be a percentage at which anything "passes."

I oppose this proposal as strongly as anyone, but there is no policy against straw polling, and I don't see the logic behind the suppression of this activity. Simply reinstating the poll likely would help to demonstrate a clear lack of consensus, and then we could put this sordid affair behind us. —David Levy 21:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree that a poorly formed straw poll can do more harm than good. Why not have a well-formed one instead, in which it's made clear from the start that the poll is an information-gathering device rather than a decision-making device, and then gather some information and discuss it? A lot of what goes wrong with polls can be obviated by good design choices. I'd be happy to help put a good one together; I think I have some idea how it's done. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

• I have no problem with information gathering (as opposed to a vote to turn this into policy). Also, the people gathered here are more diverse than they were a week ago, where it would likely have resulted in "two in favor, one opposed" or somesuch. >Radiant< 21:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

  How does the poll below look? Not too evil, I hope? -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I've put a note at the village pump requesting community input. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Radiant. Why in gods name did you think my poll was put up to turn this into a policy? It simply wansn't meant to do that - as you *should* (but obviously don't) know, polls, votes, and anything that sounds like that on wikipedia is NOT BINDING. Polling = information gathering. Fresheneesz 22:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Information-gathering straw-poll

The following is a non-binding, non-decision-making, purely information-gathering poll. Its intent is to gauge community opinion regarding the use of notability as an inclusion criterion or exclusion criterion at Wikipedia. The form of the poll is that of a list of statements, with places for people to comment in support of or opposition to each statement.

Any editor is welcome to add additional statements about which to gather comments.

Please do not modify any statement about which people have already commented, as this can produce misleading results.

Statements for comment

Non-notability (according to some definition) is a valid reason for deleting otherwise verifiable material from Wikipedia.

Comments in support

1. Using the notability criterion explained at User:Uncle G/On notability, yes. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. As Jimbo recently said, we should be focusing on quality rather than quantity of articles. >Radiant< 22:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Yes, it is, which is why non-notability is a oft-used term. Kevin_b_er 22:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Yes. Moreover, it is the consensus being applied overwhelmingly in AfD. Pascal.Tesson 22:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
5. Yes. I fear the ammount of content that would be included if the non notable is added. --NuclearUmpf 23:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Not all verifiable material is encyclopedic. —David Levy 23:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Certainly. Friday (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
8. Too many short articles about random people and events would be created and probably never updated. DB (talk) 23:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
9. Absolutely, we are an encyclopedia, not a comprehensive index of anything that can be proven to exist ever. Andrew Levine 23:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
10. Notability is a key concept specificly referenced in the Presumption in favor of privacy subsection of the policy WP:BLP used specifically for deciding "a valid reason for deleting" (or as phrased by the policy what content about a living person is "allowable"). WAS 4.250 00:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
11. Non notable topics should be deleted. Deletion of non notable topics improves the encyclopedia. In fact, our presumption should be in favor of deletion, when all other factors are equal. This policy advocates stuffing the encyclopedia with garbage. —ptk✰fgs 01:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
12. Of course. Daniel.Bryant 06:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
13. Absolutely. --Draicone ^(talk) 07:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
14. --Teveten 07:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
15. Yes. Garion96 (talk) 13:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
16. Of course. Wikipedia is not a free webhost/advertising space/... An encyclopedia should provide reliable info on important subjects. While "ou" threshold for notability is already much lower than e.g. EB (since we have much more space and editors), it should definitely not be abandoned completely, and in many cases we should be stricter than we are now, not letting in even more forgettable, unremarkable, (very) local interest articles. Fram 14:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
17. This is a necessary corollary of WP:NOT, because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. There are orders of magnitude more subjects with verfifiable data in the world than there is encyclopedic content. Notability is an excellent test of whether the content belongs in an encyclopedia. GRBerry 16:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
18. Naconkantari 17:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
19. The point of adding an article is that there is a reasonable expectation that someone would want to read it: notability. --llywrch 17:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
20. Notability should be a proxy for a good article can be written and maintained. In this case, non-notable articles can not be expected to maintain encyclopaedic quality, and should be deleted. Stephen B Streater 18:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
21. Support. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 13:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
22. yes. There are verifiable facts about me out there, therefore I have to agree. Hiding Talk 22:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. As explained in this proposal, Non-notability is not mutually exclusive with verifiability. An article with multiple reliable sources to back it up should not be deleted as "non-notable" - since it obviously isn't. And an article without any sources, should not be kept as "notable". Such actions simply don't make sense. Notability is a redundant and disruptive practice. Fresheneesz 22:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Material should be kept or deleted based on relevance to the article. Articles should not be deleted based on notability, because other, better, less subjective policies exist that do exactly the same thing. Ziggurat 00:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Notability is orthogonal to verifiabiality and relevance, but is often correlated to it. It should in any case not be used in AfD debates, because it is inflammatory. Editors who are not intimately familiar with the specific definition of notability on Wikipedia, may assume that people who propose articles for deletion are passing judgment on the merit of what the article is about. The same applies to the words "fancruft" and "garbage", which also serve to polarize the issue. arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Even though it's "commonly used", I am concerned about the cases where it is misused, for example, to squelch information in order to promote a certain POV, especially when the content is indisputable with respect to WP:V and WP:RS. Notibility is extremely subjective - one editor's notable topic is another's "what the heck is that and why do we need it?" - and for that reason it should not stand on its own as a criterion. When someone says "notable" it should be a shortcut notation for "verifiable in reliable sources"; otherwise it's a completely subjective measure. ATren 13:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   Anything can be misused. Verifiability is misused sometimes, but that doesn't mean the idea isn't sound. As for subjectivity, this is why we determine notability based on sources, not based on what's interesting to us personally. Friday (talk) 19:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

5. The formulation of the question is stacking the deck. Of course, if you define "non-notable" as: of no possible interest to anyone, it is true. But "unencyclopedic" is NOT the same as "non-notable", whatever that may mean, and an article on a subject some may deem non-notable can nevertheless be of high quality. We do need criteria to implement WP:NOT, but "non-notability" is the wrong concept for that.  --Lambiam^Talk 13:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   Lambiam, if the formulation of the question is stacking the deck, then formulate a better one. What part of "please add other statements for comment" don't you understand? -GTBacchus^(talk) 14:05, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   What about: Non-notability (according to some definition) is a not a valid reason for deleting otherwise verifiable material from Wikipedia? :) Can't I criticize an (already-responded-to) formulation? It is (in my not-so-humble opinion) a bit futile to poll opinions about notability statements in which respondents are free to supply their own private definitions of notability.  --Lambiam^Talk 20:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   Lambiam, of course you may criticize what's written. It's just that, this isn't any kind of decision-making poll. We're just trying to figure out what people think. If this particular question isn't a good gauge of what people think, then we can add another one below, as some people already have, and try to make it a better gauge of what people think. If you think this question is "futile", then please give us a less futile question. This poll is open to being expanded and improved; so I'm not very impressed with non-constructive criticism. If you don't like the poll {{sofixit}}. I kind of hoped that people, in their responses, would explain what definitions they're thinking of - I don't know who told people they couldn't provide as much information as necessary in their comments to let us know what they think. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   You may think it is futile to express opinions on a vague question. But policies and guidelines are approved and then edited. So it's par for the course. Stephen B Streater 20:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   It's futile to bitch about "vague questions" when it's perfectly possible to just write better ones. Why not be bold and make this a better information-gathering device? -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

6. Ziggurat's concerns mirror my own. Quality articles can be (and have been) created and maintained about subjects that have been labelled "non-notable." If one is concerned about "garbage" being added to Wikipedia, the solution is to work on article clean up. The breadth of Wikipedia's coverage is one of the things that I cherish about it, and what helps set it apart from other resources. Plus, there's the old reliable Wikipedia is not paper. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. If a subject can be sourced to multiple verifiable sources, per policy, I see no reason why it should be excluded from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not paper, and the way to fix a poorly sourced article is by sourcing it and thus improving it, or deleting it. "Notability" is a rather pov-ish term. --Zantastik talk 21:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. I am opposed. There are hundreds of reasons why notability shouldn't be the center of AFD. As long as articles are verfiable in a third party reputable source, we're fine. This Verifiability compromise keeps out indy bands with no cds (not refreneced in print), websites some teen made up (diito), etc. without the subjective criterion. If we have an article on something that only matters to a few people, it's not doing any harm to WIkipedia, is it? -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   It is if any regular editor spends time to clean it up. If no one spends any time on them, then we have a set of fourth-class articles that might as well put it on another website. How are we to positively determine that the indy band or website does not have reliable sources except by using a heuristic like Notability? —Centrx→talk • 07:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

9. If there are sufficient third-party sources to satisfy WP:V, then obviously those organisations consider the subject notable, so why should Wikipedia differ? Besides which, there is no WP:NPOV-compliant way of defining notability - any definition tends to rely on arbitrary numbers based on no evidence at all. Cynical

---

Wikipedia should only include material that can be verified in multiple independent reliable sources.

Comments in support

1. This is, to me, the essence of WP:V and WP:NOR -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:47, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Of course, first of all thats policy, and second of all, it is part of what ensures that wikipedia isn't a pack of lies. Fresheneesz 22:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Same here. This is non-negotiable if we want to keep a shred of credibility. Pascal.Tesson 22:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Yep- this is an encyclopedia. Friday (talk) 23:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
5. That's the core of WP:V, and effectively used means that notability is redundant. Ziggurat 00:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Yes, but that is not the only criterion for inclusion. >Radiant< 09:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. I think there might be valid reasons in some cases to include information that comes from only one reliable, independent source, if and only if the article says that this is the case. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is the guideline that should be followed. arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. Sure, as long as "multiple" is narrowly construed. If in doubt, include. The reliable sources guideline is easily supported by consensus. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
9. Individual facts don't need multiple independent reliable sources, just one. Articles almost definitely do need multiple independent reliable sources, if they are to have a hope of adhering to WP:NPOV. This is, however, a necessary condition for inclusion, not a sufficient condition for inclusion as the independent reliable sources may not have enough scope of coverage or may not represent all points of view adequately. GRBerry 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
10. Pretty much agree... as long as they are referenced (EVER) somewhere, they can be included. -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. I agree with the general concept, but I object to the above wording. Most articles should be based upon primary and secondary sources, but some of the information contained therein can be reliably obtained from primary sources alone. —David Levy 23:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Some specific information about various organizations may only be available from those organizations, but the info should still be valid. While verifiability is essential, "multiple independent sources" may not always be feasible. DB (talk) 23:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. While the ideal situation, this will never be true for even the majority of articles. If an article states: "A literature review by M. J. Lambert (1992) ^[7] estimated that 40% of client changes are due to extratherapeutic influences", the statement that this review contains this estimate is easily verifiable, but not from "multiple independent" reliable sources. Is the statement notable? I don't even know what the question means. Is it multiply verifiable? Probably not. Is it verifiable? Yes. Does it deserve to be mentioned in our article on Psychotherapy? Yes.  --Lambiam^Talk 13:55, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
4. While I agree with the intent of this statement -- the need of confirmation to satisfy Wikipedia's demand for Verifiability -- following it as it currently reads would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. In the area of history alone, there are countless examples of notable people or events that are known only from one independent source: for example, much of ancient Greek history is recorded only in the writings of Herotodus or Thucydides. (A diligent editor might find an inscription or two that confirm a passage or two in those authors, but who is willing to commit to a time-consuming effort to follow a badly-written process?) Further, tendentious editors will have a field day with this guideline. ("The only independent mention of Jesus Christ is in the Bible; all other mentions depend on this document. Therefore, all articles on Jesus must be deleted.") -- llywrch 17:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. This is too strict. Many true pieces of information are verifiable from a single authoratitive source. An example is statements on Government website. Others are trivial deductions from known facts (I'm thinking particularly of mathematical articles here). Stephen B Streater 18:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. This is too strict, as everyone wrote. An article needs multiple reliable sources. Individual bits of information that are not controversial can get by with a single one. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 13:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
7. But this is a bit strict. "Multiple" is problematic, as I note above, but so is "material," as noted by others. What about political polls? I can't provide a second source, other than the original poll, for a sentence that says "politician X is ahead in the election by 10% according to pollster Y". I think the problem is the somewhat careless wording of the statement, not its intent, which I support. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
8. I agree with David Levy. Hiding Talk 22:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

---

The core content policies of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR are sufficient to establish whether or not content is "encyclopedic".

Comments in support

1. The fourth core content policy is WP:NOT. >Radiant< 22:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Notability is redundant with those. Fresheneesz 22:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Absolutely. In response to Pascal below, that is justification for merging or deleting; insufficient quantity of verifiable content is the issue, not notability. Ziggurat 00:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Those are sufficient to determine whether content is encyclopedic. To determine whether an article is encyclopedic, on its own, you also need WP:NOT. arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. Quality articles that adhere to these policies and the reliable sources guideline can be (and have been) created and maintained about subjects that have been labelled "non-notable." If one is concerned about numerous substubs being added to Wikipedia, the solution is to work on article clean up. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:12, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Exactly. -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, therefore content which is encyclopedic should be included if it meets our standards for being encyclopedic. WP:NOT paper, therefore anything which meets our content policies should be included. 'Notability' is just arbitrary nonsense. Cynical 23:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. The result of using only core policies means we have a whole bunch of substubs floating around this or that unnotable person/company/band/film whose existence can clearly be verified but for which the verifiable content is really thin. Pascal.Tesson 22:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)**
2. Those policies are important, but so is common sense. —David Levy 23:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Agreed with Levy regarding common sense. Andrew Levine 23:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Unfortunately they are not. Telephone directory information from published verifiable sources, but is not encyclopedic information. So we need additional WP:NOT guidelines detailing what it means for verifiable+npov+nor information to be encyclopedic. Notability is not the answer.  --Lambiam^Talk 14:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. These are not adequate. The town I grew up in has been around for about 375 years at this time. By going to the historical society I could add reams (measured as printed pages) of verified, non-original research about the history of that town sourced to the research in the archives of the society, and do so in a form adhering to to WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, and WP:V. But it still wouldn't be encyclopedic content. GRBerry 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Disagree, see below. -- llywrch 17:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Wikipedia is unusual in that articles can decay with time. This means that they need to have sufficient ongoing attention to maintain their quality. Notability is a measure of whether the core policies can be maintained over time - they do not in themselves guarantee their own enforcement. Stephen B Streater 19:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. Agree with all above, and point out that actually, community consensus establishes whether content is encyclopedic using policies and guidance as a base. That consensus generally evolves through a page's history, although on occasion at WP:AFD. Hiding Talk 22:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

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A notability requirement is implied by the core content policies of WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR.

Comments in support

1. Yep, it is implied - but notability is established 'objectively' by farming it out to external sources. That is, notability is not to be judged by Wikipedians, it is to be judged by what the outside world is willing to (verifiably) write about.Ziggurat 00:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
2. The fourth core content policy is WP:NOT. >Radiant< 09:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
3. The core policies do not enforce themselves. For them to be applied in practice, we need something else, such as a notability guideline. Stephen B Streater 19:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. I disagree. Notability is almost entirely subjective, while those core policies have a large degree of objectiveness associated with them. They do not imply that less objective practices be used. Fresheneesz 22:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Info from a small town newspaper is verifiable, probably NPOV, and not original research, but it's also probably not notable. DB (talk) 23:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. There is no such implication. Notability could be used an understudy for assessing content for each of those policies, but too often there are false positives (ie. non-notable subjects that are still encyclopedic). arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
4. No, it is not.  --Lambiam^Talk 14:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. No, not in the way that the term "notability" is commonly used. I've seen arguments along the lines of "yes, it's encyclopedic and verifiable, but not notable", implying that notability goes beyond verifiability and becomes more of a subjective judgement. Notability as a guideline should be nothing more than an alias for verifiable in reliable sources, but in practical use it goes beyond that, into the subjective realm, which is not covered by any policy that I've read.ATren 14:13, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. Going from WP:NOR to WP:MUSIC/SONG is a big step, isn't it? I know, I'm ducking the question a little bit. But our content policies (agreed that WP:NOT is included here and that WP:RS is helpful) are clear, instructive, and easily applied. If they aren't, if our policies are so defective as to truly allow a lot of "garbage" into Wikipedia if we don't have detailed notability guidelines, then our content policies are extremely defective. That is not the case. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Notability is a critereon independent of these other criteria. One can write an article on a topic that all will agree is notable (i.e., worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia), yet it will violate all 3 of the above points; if notability depended on these criteria, then doing so would logically be impossible. -- llywrch 17:53, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. No it isn't. WP:NOT indiscriminate collection of information is taken WAY too widely! -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
9. The core content policies are sufficient in and of themselves. If something is not verifiable or NPOV then we do not need 'notability' to delete it, therefore obviously notability is not needed to enforce the core content policies. Cynical 23:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

---

A notability requirement is implied by WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information (or other parts of WP:NOT).

Comments in support

1. Obviously. —David Levy 23:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. I think so. DB (talk) 23:34, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Absolutely. Andrew Levine 23:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
4. It implies some notability requirement - what that is, however, and how it is enforced is at issue. Ziggurat 00:09, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. It does. Daniel.Bryant 07:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. --Teveten 07:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. Obviously. >Radiant< 09:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. A notability requirement is a necessary corrollary of WP:NOT. The specific details of that requirement are not necessary corrollarys, thus we need guidelines describing accepted community practice. GRBerry 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
9. Naconkantari 17:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. No. WP:NOT attempts to describe what it is to be an encyclopedia, and also embellishes on the three core policies V, NPOV, and NOR. Fresheneesz 22:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. No. The above mentioned section of WP:NOT is a prescription of how information should be presented and organised, not what kinds of information can be added. arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
3. No. The opening line of WP:NOT reads: "Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. This means that there is no practical limit to the number of topics we can cover other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page." Further, the "indiscriminate collection" section contains nothing that remotely resembles a notability constraint. That section deals with other classes of entities, like lists, FAQs, travel guides, memorials, but nothing that specifically (or even vaguely) relates to rejecting on the notion of notability. ATren 13:59, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information stands alone as policy (articles about telephone directory entries and such should be deleted per this). So does Wikipedia is not paper, for that matter. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:15, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. No. This may be the crux of the issue. We do not wish an indiscriminate dump of information, like a phone directory of Manhattan. But likewise, Wikipedia is not a directory. The scope of WP:NOT is pretty wide but is not about "notability", whatever that term may mean. However, I see a lot of what is called "non-notability" as an attempt to give further detail to aspects of WP:NOT. I do feel we need better guidelines for how to apply WP:NOT, but I'm unhappy with considering "notability" as the criterion for that.  --Lambiam^Talk 14:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. I see the main purpose of notability to be about maintenance, and covers some interesting things which we cannot maintain good articles about. WP:NOT is much more specific about what one might want to find here, and contains boring things. Stephen B Streater 19:08, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. No. That part was meant for stupid things, like super long descriptions of fictional characters or otherwise blowing a subject out of proportion. -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
8. Wikipedia policies can be edited - therefore there is no need for them to 'imply' things. If it meant notability then it would state notability, but it doesn't. Besides which, notability is itself a contradiction of WP:NPOV - the decisions on notability are not made objectively, but based on an arbitrary guideline for whatever type of subject the page has. For example:

“ The content is distributed via a site which is both well known and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster. ”

That is number 3 from WP:WEB. Who exactly determines what is 'well known'? Why should a band which has charted in a small country be excluded as non-notable (WP:MUSIC)? Cynical 23:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• In the clause you quote from WP:WEB the idea was that distribution sources which qualified for an article would constitute as well known in that instance. Notability is actually implicit in our editorial guidance, all of which asks that an article describe the significance of its topic to the reader. Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Non-notable articles are good for Wikipedia.

Comments in support

1. Non-notable articles are good, as long as they do not violate the 3 core policies V, NPOV, and NOR. Many articles considered non-notable would violate those policies and thus not all (or even most) non-notable articles are good, but some are. Fresheneesz 22:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
2. The English Wikipedia has had a reputation for having information on any imaginable subject for several years now. This is largely because of "Wikipedia is not paper". Do we really want to destroy that reputation? I don't think that anything we can do will improve Wikipedia's reputation as regards reliability anytime soon, except perhaps allowing only certified experts to edit. Hence, trying is futile. Also, I am sure that if those editors who feel that they are personally responsible for the reputation of Wikipedia spent less time nominating articles for deletion, and more time doing various Cleanup tasks, they would feel less overwhelmed. arj 13:29, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

   Currently, non-notable subjects are being deleted all the time, so if Wikipedia has that reputation it has it despite not implementing this ill-conceived essay. —Centrx→talk • 15:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

3. Of course they are. That way, Wikipedia acts as the full sum of Human knowledge... even if they weren't good for WIkipedia, they're not doing any harm. -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   Unfortunately this project is not to collect "the full sum of Human knowledge". Project is to write an encyclopedia.--Teveten 09:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

4. I don't particularly think that non-notable articles are good for Wikipedia. However, I do think that verifiable, neutral articles which do not contain original research should be included in Wikipedia regardless of whether someone thinks they are 'notable' or not. Cynical 23:09, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

• This does beg the question of whether a neutral article can be written solely from a primary source? Hiding Talk 16:18, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. I'm not going to go over that again but that's hardly a serious question. Good? Ok, I can see how one might argue that they're not too detrimental. But when you're doing things like maintenance backlogs you learn that "Wikipedia is not paper" is a curse. Sure, hard-disk space is cheap but whoever said that editors' time was? Pascal.Tesson 22:56, 1 October 2006 (UTC)**
2. Non-notable subjects dilute the encyclopedia's quality, harm the site's reputation, and make it more difficult for people to find what they're looking for. —David Levy 23:19, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
3. Per David Levy again. I will also add that the articles on insignificant subjects draw attention away from what we should be doing now, which is improving articles on more prominent subjects. Andrew Levine 23:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
4. Depends who considers it non-notable. It should be for the world to judge, not any minority (people interested in the subject for personal reasons, or Wikipedians. Ziggurat 00:11, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
5. Quality over quantity, relevance over mass. Daniel.Bryant 07:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
6. --Teveten 07:21, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
7. We want a reputation for a reliable encyclopedia, not an arbitrary pile of information. >Radiant< 09:07, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
8. No. Articles on non notable subjects are a burden and a nuisance. They don't add anything towards the value of WIkipedia as the online encyclopedia, and they are a source of vandalism, rubbish, spam, and vanity (not to mention hoaxes). We don't have enough people to keep an eye on each and every article, and letting in many more articles will only make this worse. Wikipedia has to work on quality, we need to provide good articles on subjects of considerable importance, not stubs on subjects of very local importance. Fram 14:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
9. (I suspect most of the disagreement here is due to different people's ideas of what "notability" means- too me, it means sufficient nontrivial coverage in reputable sources. However..) Unencyclopedic content attracts editors who's goal is not to produce a high quality encyclopedia. We do not want editors who's goals do not match those of the project. Friday (talk) 14:44, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
10. Non-notable content demonstrates a lack of adherence to our standards and creates a mainteance burden in excess of any value to readers. GRBerry 16:16, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
11. Naconkantari 17:39, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
12. I'd like to know the likely quality of anything I find here. Some articles of marginal notability can still be good quality if there is a group of committed independent editors to work on them. However, in general, editors move on (I assume) and non-notable subjects are prone to decay through mistaken edits or POV pushing. I've been looking at ways of having an objective graded article quality beyond keep or delete, but nothing has come anywhere near a consensus yet. I'd rather have something than nothing as long as I have some indiciation of how reliable it is. Nokia N93 and more recently Baby led weaning, for example, have acquired lives of their own. I would like a measure to show they have improved with time as more people have got involved. Stephen B Streater 19:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

---

Notability is not a black or white issue

Comments in support

1. The real world is more subtle. The mass of Wikipedia articles need a grading system to reflect this beyond keep, delete (or was once FA/GA) Stephen B Streater 19:24, 2 October 2006 (UTC)
2. Very much so... the notability of a topic is too hard for Wikipedians to gauge, especially over time. -- Chris chat edits essays 04:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   Still wikipedians are the very people writing this encyclopedia. If we assume, that we can write an encyclopedia, then we also have to believe, that we are capable of deciding whether some subject is notable or not to be in that encyclopedia.--Teveten 06:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

3. Yes, of course. There are very few truly black-and-white issues in life. However, see my comment under "opposition" - we have a way of defining notability that does give us something much more black and white to work with. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Comments in opposition

1. Notability, in ordinary usage, means different things, and it's pretty fuzzy and grey, like most concepts attempting to describe the world. On Wikipedia though, as in many specialized settings, we develop our own terms of art, and "notability" is one, which actually has a precise definition that can be found at User:Uncle G/On notability, among other places. Whether or not "an article's subject has been the subject of non-trivial published works by multiple separate sources that are independent of that subject itself," is close enough to black and white to make it a useful and essentially objective criterion. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   Still, there is a difference between two published works and a hundred. There is a difference between one editor being interested in editing an article and a hundred. Stephen B Streater 09:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

   Yeah, that's right. Some things are more notable than others. Along the whole continuum of notability, there's a pretty specific spot we've chosen to draw a line, so while notability itself isn't black and white, the question of whether something's notable enough for Wikipedia is actually well-defined and not subjective. -GTBacchus^(talk) 09:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

2. Notability is certainly not black and white. Unfortunately deletion debates are black and white (delete or not), which is why notability is so utterly useless in deciding deletion

---

• Feel free to add more statements for comment...

Lots of miscommunication

I think a lot of the disagreement in the poll is really about different peoples' ideas of what notability means. For many editors, notability is determined by the extent of a subject's coverage in independant sources. Many of those saying "notability is not relevant" would, I suspect, change their minds if they were using that definition. Friday (talk) 04:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I still don't understand what you mean, but in my view, we shouldn't use sources to see if they think its notable, we should use sources to verify that 1. the information we have is true, and 2. the information we have is information that more than just a few people care about. If the information we have is verified in multiple reliable sourced, to whatever extent, it should be considered notable, but of course by notable, i mean verifiable, NPOV, and non-OR. Fresheneesz 19:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. But take a look at the detailed notability guidelines and proposed guidelines that cover a large number of subjects. Clearly, these go far beyond this definition of notability. · j e r s y k o talk · 13:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

"Non-trivial coverage in reliable sources"

I think a critical factor being missed is that the coverage needs to be non-trivial. Take the case of Simon Pulsifer: while he was interviewed in a number of sources (all of which are well past the WP:RS bar), but the coverage of him was nothing but a human-interest framing device for the main topic of the article, which was Wikipedia.

There are lots of things that appear to be noteworthy if you're doing nothing but counting the number of times they're covered in the news, but a distinction must be drawn between trivial and non-trivial coverage, meaning that there's still a role for editor discretion in defining "non-notable" for each individual case. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 01:36, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Absolutely. Some of the guidelines adequately reflect this idea, some probably don't. A football hero at my high school was mentioned in Sports Illustrated (certainly near the top of reputable sources, is its subject area), but this doesn't mean he could have had a biography article about him. If SI had done a major article on him specifically, that'd be a different story. Editor discretion is essential in evaluating the sources presented. Friday (talk) 04:21, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

But see, you're talking about a *subject*. A subject cannot be verifiable in full, only information *about* the subject can be verifiable. If the subject is mentioned in a million newspapers just by name, but nothing more - then we could probably put up a verifiable article about him, having his name, and being in a million newspapers. Going on to say what he did, where he was from, etc - would be unverfiable, and thus material that should not be on wikipedia. Fresheneesz 19:31, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

What's the point? —Centrx→talk • 19:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

The point that I think Fresheneesz was trying to make was that the verifiability policy cannot determine whether the subject of articles is verifiable, only whether specific facts about the subject are verifiable. Ansell 07:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If notability means "There is sufficient verifiable information about this subject to allow an article to be written," just remember that the information needs to be sufficiently verifiable and that there needs to be a sufficient amount of information that is verifiable. The former is an obvious consequence of WP:V. The latter is not, but is no less critical. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thats where merging comes into play - not deletion. 24.254.87.52 08:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Very often there's no logical or desirable merge target. Not every single fact needs to be retained; remember, births, marriages, deaths, nearly every single building, nearly every crime, every book with an ISBN number, every telephone number and home address, the hobby of every person who is mentioned in passing in a human interest story, and many other things are trivially verifiable but of little interest since they can't be assembled into anything useful. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 10:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

If theres no desirable place to merge - that is exactly when you leave it as a stub. Keep in mind that almost everything has a broader category, I doubt theres anything that wouldn't have a suitable merging spot if it needed to be merged somewhere. Fresheneesz 23:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Or delete it, what with Wikipedia not being an indiscriminate collection of information and everything. There is a difference between knowledge and random facts (and especially factoids). Guy 00:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

We're talking about info thats verifiable by multiple reliable sources. Stuff like that simply shouldn't be deleted. And i'm not talking about phone book entries here. Fresheneesz 19:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Example, please? In the abstract, I have to admit I don't know what you're talking about. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

If there isn't enough info in reliable sources, it doesn't matter how many reliable sources there are. Both quantity of info and quantity of sources matter. Unexpandable stubs have long been merged when possible, and deleted when not. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 19:22, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Where is it impossible to merge something? I don't think its possible to have unmergable unexpandable stub info. Fresheneesz 07:44, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

For example, if you were hit by a car and killed and someone wrote a stub about you based on the obituary. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:42, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Give me something that wouldn't be deleted based on unverifiability - as an obituary is not considered a reliable source of information. Something real please. Fresheneesz 07:57, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, so the car accident is mentioned in the local paper. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 08:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Once again, a local paper isn't multiple reliable sources. However, for the sake of argument, if this particular car accident *was* cited in multiple reliable sources, then it is in my opinion that more than just someone cares about this person. It might fall under other scrutiny, including what wikipedia is not, assertion of significance (CSD A7), and guidelines on news. If it stands up to all that, it can be kept as a stub, merged into an article about people who have inexplicably been cited in multiple reliable sources, articles about car accidents, an article about this persons family, company, etc. Wikipedia is huge, and chances are theres a place to put almost anything. Fresheneesz 08:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

If three papers have a tiny article (not an obituary) basically saying that "John Doe, 38 years old father of three, was killed last night when he hit a tree while driving under influence", then this is verifiable (by multiple reliable sources), NPOV, and no original research. Still, this would be a useless stub, an article not worth keeping or merging. This is exactly the kind of non notable information that, while meeting those three core policies, still should not be cluttering this encyclopedia (even though it isn't paper). Apart from the family and friends of this person, no one will ever care about this anymore. The newspapers, magazines, TV shows, ... are filled with verifiable information that still isn't important enough to be included here. WP:NOT can be used for deleting this kind of info, but since WP:NOT is not exhaustive at all, we will continue to have discussion. Adding a guideline that would state that having non notable articles is good would only make this worse. Fram 09:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I've made a suggestion of merging this with Wikipedia:Notability. I think this still needs a lot of cleanup before doing so, and maybe reword this one and Wikipedia:Notability to both have a bit less than a POV. Anyway, discussion on this is welcome here. JYolkowski // talk 22:04, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Better to simply work on notability. This is diametrically opposed and lacks any consensus. Guy 22:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Wikipedia:Notability is actually a description of existing practice, regarding notability. This essay is more of a manifesto about how a few people would prefer Wikipedia to be. -GTBacchus^(talk) 22:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think this is just "a few" people; there are a significant number of people with these beliefs. JYolkowski // talk 23:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know how many there are. I know this essay has some problems, and reads much more like a manifesto for change than a description of existing practice. I don't know how a direct attack on an existing practice can be merged into a description of that process. Perhaps you see it differently? -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:19, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

As for the first part, it does need a lot of cleanup, I certainly wouldn't want to merge it as-is. I see the advantages of a merge to be to better define what people mean by "notability" and to reflect the fact that editors have different beliefs as to how important a factor "notability" is in inclusion. JYolkowski // talk 23:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Why not just add what's missing to Wikipedia:Notability without going through any kind of formal merge proposal? Just make good edits to Wikipedia:Notability, and that should be fine, right? Your mentioning the definition of "notability" leads to the first problem I have with this essay: in the beginning, you put forward two different definitions of the word, state that the first is the only applicable one, and then proceed to use the second for the rest of the essay, without letting readers know that you're doing that. It's rather confusing. If you're interested in definitions of notability, I suggest the one you'll find at User:Uncle G/On notability is quite useful, and enjoys broad support. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

That section's the only one I've rewritten, the rest of the essay may not go along with that. (-: Anyway, I might do that instead and then just redirect this page there. JYolkowski // talk 23:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Better to simply work on notability. It is not useful first rewrite this essay and then merge it.--Teveten 06:20, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm against a merge. WP:NOTABILITY has a clear agenda - to document existing practice and how it relates to policy. This essay is aimed at changing policy. Any mixture would be confused. Stephen B Streater 06:42, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you, I just tried to say politely, that it is futile to rewrite this essay.--Teveten 07:24, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what should really happen, however, arguing to delete or merge this page because some people think it is "non-consensus" has never been the way change happens on wiki's. If there is a kerfuffle happening over this page then there is obviously a few people who disagree with the way the anti-thesis is going about its business. I havn't read recently anyone going against actual established policy though. Further more there is no reason why policy should simply document current practice, if that happened then anything which was currently happening would become accepted... Arguing that it is futile to rewrite an essay is possibly not the most unifying statement that one could make. Kind of shows a loss of hope. Ansell 09:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It's OK to have an essay exploring possible improvements. But that is not WP:NOTABILITY, which serves a distinct purpose. Stephen B Streater 10:10, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Futility is not an issue, it is up to the people that work (or don't work) on this proposal to decide what is futile for them. Calling this futile and trying to prematurely squelch is suggests another adgenda - suggests that you fear this proposal might actually go somewhere. Fresheneesz 23:33, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Fresh, I think the point is that this proposal cannot be merged with Wikipedia:Notability; at best, it could only replace it. Consider WP:IAR and WP:π; they both discuss the same issue, but merging them would be madness, as they describe diametrically opposed versions of those issues. That said, I don't forsee this garnering the amount of support WP:π, a fairly marginal essay, has. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not opposed, in principle, to combining opposites. In fact, it's much less schizophrenic than having contradictory pages, each pretending the other doesn't exist. That said, this page isn't ready to merge with anything, at this point. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is much risk that this proposal will succeed, but it is a waste of time. —Centrx→talk • 23:46, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I am a little surprised that people actually see this page as a "risk". What is the risk in developing something new? Ansell 00:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ansell. Why tell people to stop trying to develop something, that it's a waste of time? What's the harm? -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I was just trying to offer a reality check: this proposal won't ever get accepted. Of cource people can rewrite this ad infinitum, it won't be harmful.--Teveten 06:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

GTBacchus, it's not "something new", it's something very old and completely at odds with long-standing consensus. We have numerous subject-specific guidelines which exist to clarify what indicators are likely to predict that an article within that area is likely to have garnered sufficient independent coverage to allow a verifiably neutral article, and we have the very long standing WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. This entire proposal says the precise opposite, and any attempt to stop it saying the opposite have been strenuously resisted. It is a magnet for editors whose articles have been deleted by consensus to pretend that said consensus was invalid and the article should exist anyway, and it's a pretty blatant attempt to do an end-run around the long-standing consensal view that there is some information which is simply too trivial to include. That's why it would be better to work on the existing pages which clarify how notability is interpreted rather than work on a new one which looks to subvert that. I have no problem with clarifying notability in more objective terms, so that we get back to the policy basis for it, but trying to bootstrap the idea that notability (which is a shorthand anyway) is not a valid concept in evaluating inclusion is a waste of effort, doomed to failure and a cause of division rather than unity. Let's all head on over to Wikipedia talk:Notability and work on the page which after all describes existing practice, and see if we can't reduce it to something more meaningful, as well as clarifying the fact that it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. Guy 10:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

(unindent) JzG, As you say, the guidelines are only "indicators", and as such they are not perfect. What is inherently wrong with deriving a specific general scenario about what is deserving, and is possible to write an article about using policies other than the infamous "indiscriminate collection" piece which WP:N seems to focus so much of its time on. This page is not about screwing with the WP:V or WP:OR policies, much the opposite. It aims, IMO, to put them in their proper light, and to expose the cases which fall below the WP:NOT preset criteria, but which are actually able to satisfy the generic base policies. Triviality is more of a subjective concept than one which is linked to the availability of WP:NPOV sources. Please do not think that the authors of this page are trying to subvert discussion at the other talk page. We are not trying to say, lets work as a team... and do it my way either. This is IMO a good faith opportunity to generalise what is a weakly, in terms of logical rigour, based current practice with respect to the most marginal articles contained in Wikipedia. Ansell 22:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Against merger. Both articles are good, and should be distinct. Mathiastck 17:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

May I remove the merger notice now? Fresheneesz 03:11, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Got it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:11, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Not again

I have washed my hands on this issue and I refuse to edit or get heavily involved with WP:N or WP:NN again, but I feel that I must comment on the latest series of edits to the article. It looks like people out there are getting picky about the tagging again.

Look guys, I know that the non-binding straw poll didn't come out one way or the other, but it really shouldn't have been used to as a reason for fiddling with the tag so much. The prose is rather instructive instead of informative, so unless I missed something, this is not an essay and is still a proposal of some sort.

The next time someone feels like changing the tag, may I suggest:

	This page reiterates that only verifiable, neutral and researched content can be included on Wikipedia. These concepts are set in stone and apply to all cases, notable and non-notable topics alike; exceptions are outlined below.
	This page is still under development and may contain undiscussed additions not yet authorized by consensus; please join the discussion regarding the status of this page. Thank you.

I'll leave it up to someone else to implement this. (NB: Remove the four words about exceptions if they look ugly, I only put them there for balance.) --DavidHOzAu 05:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If that's all this page is, then it would be utterly redundant. A better description would be "ideas for improving non-notable articles, etc.", but then, it is an essay. Also, it is completely false to say the straw poll didn't come out one way or the other. The questions that pertain to whether this proposal should be accepted were "Non-notability (according to some definition) a valid reason for deleting otherwise verifiable material from Wikipedia." (71% support) and "Non-notable articles are good for Wikipedia." (25% support). That is, for every one person who agreed with the principle of this proposal, there were 3 who disagreed. Supposing that a straw poll were valid, the numbers would need to have been reversed for this proposal to gain any traction. —Centrx→talk • 06:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

From its very first edit, this was intended as a (proposal for a) policy or guideline. This is underlined by statements of its proponents ([3] [4] [5] [6] [7]). As a proposal, it has obviously failed. There was no edit war over the tag before the straw poll, there is no reason to have one now, or to suddenly claim it was not intended as a proposal. >Radiant< 08:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Yup, I quote from the initial creating post This essay is a proposition for being a guideline or eventually policy. It attempts to demonstrate both the proposed guideline, and justify the need for such guidelines. (emphasis added). Enough said.--Doc 09:06, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Also note these edit summaries by Fresheneesz (as above, emphasis added):

23:43, 26 June 2006 Fresheneesz (→Merging - keeping this section in line with the sprit of this proposal while also adhering to offical policy)

01:34, 7 September 2006 (rv - This proposal may have stabalized, but it is not inactive. Please discuss before doing something like this.)

04:32, 12 September 2006 (changing template to proposal in a nutshell)

01:10, 17 September 2006 (adding section on reasons for this proposal, rearranging)

—David Levy 09:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I imagine it could be recast as an essay, and then tagged appropriately. That would involve some rewriting. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:05, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

That is possible, however, the page currently has been referred to in different ways but different people, not least of which is proposal, as above, by the original creator.

I reverted a large swath removal of content by a user just before as they have not been here to explain their intentions.

If a new page is made, or this page is entirely revamped, I would like it to follow the same basic path, ie, it should use entirely content policies to describe the issue, instead of introducing new concepts. Ansell 04:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, it appears I did miss something. Never mind, and thanks for filling me in. :) --DavidHOzAu 04:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal essay

I started a *very* rough draft of a personal essay on notability here that might be of interest to some that watch this talk page. · j e r s y k o talk · 16:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Poll - tag this page as a proposal or not

This is a non-binding straw poll, attempting to gauge consensus. Please bold your answer to the question (either proposal, rejected, neutral, or comment). Please add a reason to go along with your vote, place your vote after the last vote, and do not rearrange votes in any way. People can vote twice, in which case they should strike their original vote, and make a new one. Vote away: —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fresheneesz (talk • contribs) 23:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

• proposal or above tag. -- Chris chat edits essays 17:03, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete redundant, fork... oh, sorry, this isn't AfD is it? Rejected guideline it is, then, since that's the basis on which most of the contributions have been made. Guy 18:18, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• proposal since it is exactly what a proposal is - according to WP:POL - "A proposal is any suggested guideline or policy that is not yet authorized by consensus, or any process not yet in use, as long as discussion is ongoing." Dispite the fact that certain people have bullied the supporters of this page - people are still discussing this proposal. Fresheneesz 19:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Please don't wiki-lawyer. In theory, a handful of people could continue discussing this ad infinitum. That won't change the fact that it's been rejected by the community. Quoth the same page, "a rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected." Incidentally, I've reworded the proposal description to eliminate the unintentional loophole that you cited. —David Levy 19:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Which "community" rejected this? Theres a very few people who wanted to shut down this page, and they don't comprise a "community". Fresheneesz 22:43, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Rejected, since it doesn't have consensus and seems unlikely to get it in the current (or even a slightly modified) form. Fram 19:40, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

m:Polls are evil - but then this just looks like a discussion not a poll. In any case, the fact is that this policy is constantly being shown to lack any consensus. There are polls on AfD every day where a significant number of Wikipedians show that they support notability as a deletion criteria. Now I've got problems with notability - but there is demonstatably no community consensus to deter it. The discussion here will not change that - this notion is, and always will be rejected, even if by some fluke a different conclusion was reached here. As a proposal it has a snowball's chance.--Doc 21:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Technically, it could go either way at the moment, but I have to agree that the proposal in general does not even stand a whelk's chance in a supernova in its present state, if only because of the pathetic edit war over the status of the unfinished proposal. The ironic thing is that if Fresheneesz's original straw poll hadn't been removed we could've avoided the entire edit war in the first place. --DavidHOzAu 13:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You miss my point. Even if there was unanimous agreement on this page, then we'd still not have a policy. Every AfD vote demonstrates that at least a substantial part of the community (if not an outright majority) believes notability is a valid criterion for deletion. The fact is then that there is no consensus to denigrate notability, whatever any poll of a few dozens people might conclude. This whole discussion is irrelevant.--Doc 13:58, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

You are right though, there is no consensus based on current practice. Suggest that just call it an {{essay}} and leave it at that per please do not bite the oldies? ;-) --DavidHOzAu 14:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine by me (this oldie has no teeth with which to bite)--Doc 14:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: forks in guidelines are generally bad as they create confusion rather than clarity. We could merge the non-trivial parts consistent with WP:N in "Ways of improving non-notable articles" there, and leave this as an interesting idea which has not reached consensus to stand on its own. Stephen B Streater 20:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

  Comment I actually thought that a fork/proposal based directly on the four policies central to Wikipedia would be more prone to success rather than failure. I'm not really sure how forks of policy are bad though--isn't WP:N a fork of WP:V, and isn't WP:ATT a fork of WP:NOR and WP:V? How is this different? —DavidHOzAu, feeling somewhat confused at 13:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

• Agree with User:Stephen B Streater, there's a bit of information here that should be merged with WP:N. Since that is a guideline now it makes sense that it represent the opinions of all large groups of editors. JYolkowski // talk 20:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
• Merge and Essay.

  Merge: not all information is worth rejecting, and the attempt to give notability a precise definition based the existing four central policies is a rather brave piece of set logic in my book.

  Essay: With an Essay tag the proposal can continue to be developed into a form compatible with current guidelines, if Fresheneesz doesn't mind doing it that way somewhat unofficially. In the meantime, I'd suggest anyone who doesn't like this proposal to just leave Fresheneesz and this article alone for a bit and move on until he asks for some input; there are better things we can do than worry about the constantly changing state of policies and guidelines. I don't know about anyone else, but the stress over the TagWars™ at WP:N, WP:VIE, WP:STRAW and here has had a significant negative impact on my edit rate.

  --DavidHOzAu 13:43, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I can live with that. Fresheneesz 22:42, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

• Rejected This failed proposal does not have a snowball's chance. Whatever happens, this should not be merged with WP:N which is now a guideline that has nothing to do with the longstanding essay that had been there and has now been moved to Wikipedia:Notability/Arguments. Note that the new guideline does link to this failed proposal, so what's to merge? Pascal.Tesson 23:16, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Dangerous precedent set here. This is *not* a guideline and should be removed.

Non-notability basicaly undoes thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of perfectly valid deletions that axe-grinding, single purpose editors will demand to be reintroduced. It will allow those who feel "everything that can be an article should be" to hurl literally whatever they can find a source for, no matter how obscure. Notability is important because it is not fame, it is attention from those independant of the subject. Saying that doesn't matter would not only create a huge mess in terms of article creation and weeding out spam but would make us the laughingstock of encyclopedias. We might as well change the Wikiball to a potato and stick an UN in front of our name. --Elaragirl^Talk|Count 04:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's why there's the {{rejected}} at the top of the page. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:01, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Not only does it not undo anything, but it wouldn't make those deletions not happen if it were in place at the very beggining. People need to realize that most "non-notable" articles are not verifiable, POV, unencyclopedic junk - and the removal of notability critera would not change that. Fresheneesz 11:58, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

However, it would allow perfectly good things that have been deleted because are just really obscure, like many, many, many, many, many, webcomics for instance, to be reincluded.

I can't find it right now, but one of the policies states that it is okay to use the primary source when no secondary source is available, as long as you don't go into what could be concidered original research. (Justyn 03:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC))

Wikipedia Notability Guideline under pressure

I and some others have surprisingly managed to open (widely) the topic of whether the Wikipedia Notability Guideline, the Deletionists' Best Friend, is a valid Wikipedia Guideline at all, on grounds of lack of consensus, lack of objectivity, conflict with Policy, and ramapant abuse in the article deletion processes. This is probably the last chance to have any major impact on this supposed Guideline (it was just a random essay this summer, but turned into a Guideline on shaky grounds while I was on an extended wikibreak...) I'm not asking people with concerns about WP:NN to go "vote" or make trouble, or even support my version of what's wrong with Wikipedia:Notability; just express concerns rationally. The hot spot is W:Wikipedia talk:Notability. — SMcCandlish [talk] [contrib] ツ 09:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)