Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 52

Criteria for standalone lists and galleries

The outcome of nominations for deletion of standalone articles is quite uneven. Should we perhaps adjust the criteria?

The current notability criterion for standalone lists is that the list topic has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources.

That means that no List of lists of ... articles (culminating in List of lists of lists) passes muster: there are no independent reliable sources discussing the set of Wikipedia articles that are lists of islands of the European Union, the topic of List of lists of islands of the European Union.

There are many other standalone lists that do not meet the criterion. Example: List of speakers in Plato's dialogues. No sources discuss these speakers as a group or set. So should we delete this, or require that it be merged into our article on Plato? No, we should do neither.

We have certain kinds of pages that present a list but are exempt from the notability criteria for standalone lists: disambiguation pages and anthroponymy list articles. What they have in common is that even if not "encyclopedic" by themselves, they offer another useful navigation aid to the users of our encyclopedia, one that is not supplied by categories, Special:Prefindex, or the search box.

Some lists and galleries likewise offer the user an aid to navigation not supported in other ways, and nobody gains when they are deleted. If we want to give every single person on the planet free access to the sum of all human knowledge, we must make sure that that knowledge is not only free but also accessible.

Do others share my feeling that we should broaden the exemption to at least some types of standalone lists and galleries? Getting the right wording will be tricky; directories are also WP:USEFUL navigation aids, but we don't want to appear to bypass WP:NOTDIRECTORY. Ideas on that issue, anyone?  --Lambiam 11:00, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

We had a long process in trying to define NLISTS about 2 years ago. The conclusion was that notability of lists is inconsistently handled and there's very little we can actually say that sets how it is consistently treated. What NLISTS says now is the only cases we could all agree where notability of lists can easily be defined and that are generally accepted. Cases that fall outside of what NLISTS provides, we just can't say, and I don't think consensus has changed from 2 years ago to try to refine that further to include or exclude certain types of articles from it. A big issue there is when does a page stop being a navigation aid and start becoming original research, a biased-POV, or undue weight on a topic? There's no clear line in considering AFDs, so it's better to not try to enforce a practice that is inconsistent on WP. --MASEM (t) 12:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

But now this notability guideline is being invoked for standalone articles not about people; many people interpret it in a way that means List of lists of islands of the European Union should be deleted. Do you agree with that interpretation? When people are invoking WP:N in deletion discussions it makes no sense to argue that this is one of the cases that fall outside of what WP:NLIST provides. How is it not one of "the only cases we could all agree where notability of lists can easily be defined and that are generally accepted"? Should I claim that WP:N is not generally accepted when it comes to list?  --Lambiam 17:11, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Because lists of that nature did come up in the discussion with no clear consensus if they were appropriate or not. It is very difficult to nail down what makes a list navigational, and then what makes a list non-navigational and subject to notability or when it shouldn't be a list at all. The only absolute agreement we could make for when lists could be exempt from notability was if they were disambiguation lists. Other lists would have to be judged if notability should be applied to them or not. That, I think, is the message towards that list - WP:NLISTS purposely doesn't say anything about those types of lists either way, so you can't argue that WP:NLISTS says it should be deleted because that is never said (you can't say it should be kept because of NLISTS either for the same reason). Now if general notability should apply, that's got to reach consensus for that specific list. --MASEM (t) 17:20, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

I was wondering how long it would take for this to crop up again... this is the old "is a list really an article in list format, or is it a navigational tool (similar to a category)?" debate. We never really came up with a firm resolution to that debate, except to agree that some were navigational tools and others were information oriented "articles" that happened to be in list format... and that different rules should apply to each type of list. We did not really get further than that.

One suggestion that was made in our last discussion that I really liked, so I will suggest it again now... what if we create a new class of article - Index articles - which would have its own set of guidelines. We would rename all the "list of lists of..." NLIST pages to "Index of Lists of.... So: List of lists of islands of the European Union would become Index of lists of islands in the European Union and would be considered like dab pages... purely Navigational in nature and subject to different guidelines and policies. Blueboar (talk) 19:08, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

• Notability is a guideline concept not a hard policy and so has plenty of wiggle room. Lists which are purely navigational and structural seem quite outside this fuzzy concept, being more akin to other structural elements such as portals, outlines, categories, templates, &c. Per WP:BURO we should not overthink or overregulate this. Warden (talk) 14:53, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
  • That effectively is the problem with trying to be more precise on what lists are covered under NLISTS or the like - it becomes highly bureaucratic to define the limits, to the point where people will try to game the system to have lists purposely meet or fail it. It is better to be vague and let case-by-case consensus and common sense guide discussions this, since in practice it is handled inconsistently. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

• We need to truly distinguish between an index and a list. An index is just a way to look up various articles on a topic. It's a navigational aid. I wouldn't say that an index needs to be notable any more than a category needs to be notable. To me, a suitable index would have a few features:
  • Enough articles to fill it. (e.g.: More than you could fit in a good template, or a good "See Also" section.)
  • No / minimal non-article information. (e.g.: No facts to verify. Just articles. Only non-article information would be to help in navigation.)
  • The index itself is not itself making any statements or claims. (e.g.: "List of X related articles" or "List of Russians" is an index that doesn't need to follow many content policies. "List of best-selling authors", that's a true list, and all our content guidelines kick in.)
  • The index is "obvious" and non-unique. We'd expect to see tons of indices just like it. It doesn't try to organize something in any insightful new way.
• Again, pretty uncontroversial stuff that you could sum up in a sentence or two. But that wouldn't be an issue of notability. That would be in our policy about Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates. If anyone wanted to start a discussion about what would make a good purely navigational list, I'd like to see if we could find a consensus around some basic principles. But again, this isn't really the forum for that. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:55, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Actually, I think Blueboar has some good ideas here. Again, the notability talk page isn't really the place to discuss it. But I think it's a discussion worth having. Even just improving our naming conventions -- to distinguish between an index and a list -- would be a good place to start. It would involve minimal bureaucracy. Just a decision to make the distinction more clear, and a few volunteers to help out with it (I'd be happy to help). Shooterwalker (talk) 00:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the support... Happy to help if I can... where should the discussion take place? Blueboar (talk) 00:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Not sure. Maybe at the page about Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and navigation templates? An outcome I'd like to see is for that page to become "Categories, indices, and navigation templates", and leave lists out as a completely different story. Regardless of where we have it, it ought to go to an RFC (although maybe not right away), and it ought to involve some of the usual suspects from Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Inclusion criteria for Lists a couple years back. (Amazing that it's been two years, and the idea that notability applies to lists is generally pretty stable.) Shooterwalker (talk) 01:00, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Axis occupation of Vojvodina#RfC:Is this article subject notable, and if so, is it an acceptable fork of existing articles?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Axis occupation of Vojvodina#RfC:Is this article subject notable, and if so, is it an acceptable fork of existing articles?. Peacemaker67 (talk) 10:14, 12 August 2012 (UTC)Template:Z48

Suntribe and The Mullans at AfD

According to some users, if you participate in Eurovision, you are automatically notable. Statυs (talk) 11:34, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Plays

Are there guidelines for plays? Specifically I'm wondering if an Off Broadway play which goes on regional tour would be considered notable? Sources include a NY Times review. Alt Content (talk) 12:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think we have specific guidence for plays, so yes, looking at regional or better sourcing is going to be needed (per the GNG). --MASEM (t) 12:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

gauge, determine, directly affect

"Notability does not directly affect the content of articles..."

This got changed on 2012-07-16 from directly affect to gauge, and today an editor changed gauge to determine.  I think that gauge is correct and clear, as we have defined notability as a test.  But given the choice between directly affect and determine, I think that directly affect is clearly better as it uses another concept of notability, that being a property of a topic.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:19, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The basic definition of the word gauge as a verb is "to measure", otherwise known as "what you do with a gauge (instrument) (the noun)".

So the sentence would read ""Notability does not measure the content of articles..."—which is, I suppose, technically true, but kind of pointless. Notability doesn't do a whole lot of things to the content of articles: It doesn't drink the content of articles, or eat it, or spell it, or paint it. But what we actually mean here is not that WP:N doesn't "measure" the article contents, but that it doesn't tell you what you do or don't get to put into the articles.

I don't object to "directly affect", but it's technically wrong: notability does directly affect the contents of certain list-articles (by consensus of the editors at large lists like List of people from New York). So that language, although I don't really mind it myself, has been objected to by other people. That's why I didn't go back to that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:57, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

What I think we are trying to say is that "our Notability Policy does not apply to specific article content." Blueboar (talk) 04:35, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The change made is not appropriate. We are trying to say that once a topic is notable, any content that fits within that topic doesn't need to reshow notability (namely being sourced to secondary sources), though obviously aspects of UNDUE come into play. Using "gauge" or "determine" is not what this is saying that there's a test and there is no test, period. This confluences with the use of notability in some lists to keep them discriminate. --MASEM (t) 04:38, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) m-w.com gauge 2a : to check for conformity to specifications or limits.  We don't assess the article in determining notability; the article can be a copyvio, unsourced, or one line of gibberish; and the topic can still be notable.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:50, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 2) Please state the definition of notability that is being used in the current sentence.  Thanks, Unscintillating (talk) 04:50, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the right term are "directly limit". We're not talking about measuring (aka "gauge"). We're talking about limiting content, albeit in the negative (notability doesn't limit content). Also, the word "directly" is important, since notability does have some indirect influence over content. The indirect impact is because we don't split out non-notable articles, and the articles that are notable need to stay within a summary style / moderate size. Shooterwalker (talk) 06:10, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I find "gauge" problematic for two reasons. First, I agree with WhatamIdoing that it sounds as though we are talking about some sort of quantitative measurement (regardless of whether other definitions also exist). Second, it is also the verb in the sentence just before, so using it twice in a row is repetitive and poor writing style. For me, "determine", "directly affect", or even "directly determine" would all be acceptable. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:33, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

We are not writing prose, nor is this an encyclopedia article.  Technical writing uses the same terminology for the same concept wherever it is used, so as to avoid ambiguity.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

In which case,we can't use the term gauge in the second sentence, because they're different meanings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps, but that is a non-sequitur.  Unscintillating (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I've asked for a definition of "notability" when used in the current sentence without getting a response, and the definition seems to be "notability is the set of things not used to determine the content of articles", i.e., what we have now is the empty statement, "The set of things not used to determine the content of articles does not determine the content of articles".  A sentence using the word determine would be, "The content of Wikipedia articles is not used to determine the notability of a topic."  Unscintillating (talk) 01:21, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, you might have waited more than 21 hours before complaining.

The purpose of the sentence is to say "WP:N is not WP:DUE". That is, if someone wants to add a sentence about a non-notable aspect of a subject (==a verifiable fact about the subject that does not qualify for a completely separate article about that particular aspect, e.g., the couple of local businesses in a small town's "commercial district"), then you can't demand removal on the grounds that the facts don't deserve their own separate article/that the facts aren't independently notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:04, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I wasn't complaining, I wanted to continue with the thought even though there had been no response.  Unscintillating (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

So you are saying that there are two directions, the concept of notability is not determined by the content of articles–and the concept of notability is not applied to determine the content of articles, except in a couple of indirect ways: non-notable topics might get space restrictions based on the other content of the host article, and in some cases lists are restricted to notable topics.  Unscintillating (talk) 08:32, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

1. Notability is not determined by the current content of the article. Notability is determined by the subject of the article, which may or may not be well-represented by the current state of the page. Example: Cancer (the group of diseases) is a notable subject. Cancer would be a notable subject if there is zero content on the page, if there is badly written content on the page, if there is wildly WP:BIASed content on the page, if there is only information about the diagnosis and nothing else on the page, etc.
2. Notability does not tell you what you are allowed to put into a page. Any "space restrictions" are imposed by WP:NEUTRALity, especially by the WP:Undue weight section, not by notability. The sole acknowledged exception is that we try to keep the WP:SIZE of some large lists under control by evicting entries that we are certain are non-notable. However, this exception may simply be a shortcut to determining DUE weight, rather than being a true instance of notability limiting list-article content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Just as a comment, I really love the idea of thinking of notability as some abstract measure that applies to the topic of the article, and not the article itself; and that it is how well you need to demonstrate that notability by supplying article context and sourcing to provide a measurement of that aspect if it needs it. No one would ever delete an article on "Cancer" even if there were no sources on it because I would hope everyone immediately recognizes it as a notable topic (thinking akin to the idea of not having to source obvious, non-contentious facts), while with more obscure topics, you better be expected to show it. That supports the idea of the presumption of notability that the GNG and the SNGs are built on. I have no idea if we can use this for anything at this point, (and particular to this wording change) but I do hope we keep that in mind. --MASEM (t) 22:57, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

• "Wikipedia:[PageName] does not apply to content." It would help if we renamed this guideline, as half-discussed a couple of months ago. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:38, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
• Well, anyway... I think any of: "determine", "directly affect", or even "directly determine" would be just fine. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Seems like we can generally agree to go back to the text that was there before, i.e., "Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.".  The problem is that there is no consensus on what that sentence means, or even the definition of "notability" in that sentence.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

There is a consensus about the import of that sentence, and the word notability means the same in that sentence as it does elsewhere on the page, which is "qualifies for a separate, stand-alone page entirely about that subject". WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Sort of maybe it does.  Substituting that definition in the sentence yields, "Qualifies for a separate, stand-alone page entirely about that subject does not directly affect the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article.".  Unscintillating (talk) 02:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

• How about, "Notability exists independently of Wikipedia articles and article content. It is not directly used to determine the content of articles. It only directly affects whether a topic should have its own article"  Unscintillating (talk) 02:08, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Forgive me for chiming in late, but I'm wondering what is the impetus for including a statement about content anyway? Have there been previous issues that necessitate the statement? Location (talk) 03:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes.

Imagine that I own a gas station. Someone wants to mention WhatamIdoing's Main Street Gas in the article about Smallville, in a section dealing with the town's economy. The sentence will say something like "The oldest continuously operating business in the town is WhatamIdoing's Main Street Gas", with some sort of suitable source.

Sometimes it's just sloppy comments, and the person is saying "You can't mention that because it's not notable" when they really mean "Nobody cares, and this is giving too much WP:WEIGHT to a small business."

But other times, especially with inexperienced folks who've gotten burned on large lists of people, they'll say "You can't mention that because it's not notable" and actually mean "You can't mention that because that gas station does not deserve its own, separate, stand-alone article."

It is that last sense that is wrong, and that the sentence is trying to address. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense. Thanks! Location (talk) 04:48, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

You know... that is a very good example that clearly explains what the policy is trying to say... could we work a similar example into the policy? Blueboar (talk) 23:41, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Be bold. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

That is fine, but I think the entire issue of editors making WP:UNDUE arguments based on notability is a relatively minor point.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

It is the only point of the entire WP:NNC section, so I personally wouldn't call it "minor". Minor points do not normally have an entire section of a major guideline dedicated to them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The elephant in the room is the AfD argument "delete sources in the article do not show notability".  The "directly affect" sentence is useful in such a case.  The sentence now has a change of meaning that would not be useful in such a case.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:21, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I do not understand this. WP:NNC is about facts in the article. It is not about whether or not the sources currently listed in the article (as opposed to all the sources published on the subject available in the world) demonstrate notability. If you are using NNC to tell people to consider the possibility that the current version of the article does not contain a complete list of all possible sources on the subject, then you have completely misunderstood the section. For that point, you want WP:NRVE, especially the second sentence and the third paragraph. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:47, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

This is not going anywhere.  Meanwhile, here is what is happening in the real world, "A seriously deficient article with no attempt to pass WP:GNG..."  Unscintillating (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Two open-ended questions: cross-categorized lists, and lists included under other criteria

It's been a while since the list RFC, and it seems that there haven't been very many controversies since. So I guess we can give ourselves a pat on the back for finding some level of workable consensus, and commit to some kind of best practice.

My question is if this part is still true:

• "There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") or whether there are other means of forming stand-alone lists"

So on those two issues...

1. Does anyone have any thoughts on cross categorizations, and how notability applies to that?
2. Does anyone have any thoughts on other lists that might not be notable under the current definition, but are conventionally kept at AFD?

Let's talk. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

With cross-categorization, it should be a cross-categorization that, if not discussed directly by sources, should be a natural fit to the topic, though this is far from the only criteria to allow for the list. For example, all of our "Lists of X characters" or "List of X episodes" are natural groupings for fictional works. "List of people from (country)" are similar, since nationality is a natural aspect. Sometimes this relies on an established definition for the topic, such as List of Major League Baseball pitchers with 18 strikeouts in one game (the "18 strikeouts in one game" being a performance metric). When the ordering is not natural for the topic, such as red-headed baseball players, then either there needs to be sources that call out the list concept notability, or it is likely a bad list and should be deleted. Again, this is far from the only criteria - size issues of parent articles, appropriateness/discriminate nature of the list, etc, all have to be taken into effect.

With regards to the second point, our advice presently in WP:N is not to say that lists not covered by that advice are not notable, simply that the reasons and past history of AFDs for these lists is so complex as we effectively cannot provide sound advice. The best we can do is say "here's the cases we know you should be okay, but good luck if you fall outside that"). In other words WP:LISTN does not specifically exclude any list from being notable, simple that when and where it may be judged notable is up to consensus. --MASEM (t) 17:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

As I like to say (repeatedly) "Lists are nothing more than articles presented in list format" So... to determine if a list is notable or not, we simply need to ask 1) whether we could rework the list into paragraph format and 2) if so, would we sustain it per our notability guidelines. (The exception, of course, are purely navigational lists - but, as I have previously suggested, I think the solution to that exception is for navigational lists to be renamed as "Index of X", and given their own set of guidelines). Blueboar (talk) 18:47, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Except there are many lists that would fail notability if we judge notability in that fashion, such as many character lists (which are routinely kept). This is why we are purposely vague because the rules are inconsistent. --MASEM (t) 19:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Character lists aren't routinely kept. Many are kept, but many are deleted. I could dig a bunch of deleted character lists up pretty easily. And the pattern of deletion would largely confirm what we've documented at this guideline: that you want to be able to write something about that group of characters from third party sources. (Plus a few other reservations, like WP:NOT#PLOT and so on.) Shooterwalker (talk) 19:22, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but following the logic of Blueboar, the topic "characters from X" on lists that are kept is rarely a notable topic of its own ("X" is, of course). This goes back to a major issue with most lists that are of the form "Y of X", is that information within is material that would be expected to be covered by encyclopedic treatment of topic X, but due to our size limits, is often too large to have within the article X. Yes, there's lots of steps to reduce down to try to fit in, and we should build out articles top-down, expanding only when space is an issue instead of creating the separate article from the start, but even for lists that did not follow this approach, they often are kept with no rhyme or reason. The only metric that I come across is that you have better success if there are a good number of secondary sources talking about individual facets of the list (specific characters perhaps), but that's not a slam dunk to keep. --MASEM (t) 20:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

But that was my point. It's really easy to find a few sources that go into depth about the characters from a major movie or book or video game. (Talking about the acting, the production, the design, the impact on the storyline...) It doesn't happen every time, which is why we still delete a lot of character lists. But I think you may be onto an interesting second point: some lists make sense as an aggregate of barely-notable stub articles. At least, we soften keep the type of list where it's an obvious compilation of stubs with a few secondary sources (and not much more to say than that). Shooterwalker (talk) 20:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Shooter, thanks for asking the question. One thing I think we should be more careful about in these discussions (and in the guideline) is making the broad characterizations like cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") as absolutes. I actually don't think that a List of X of Y is necessarily always a cross-categorization. Many times X of Y is really just "X" or "Y". For example, in List of birds of Montana, I contend that Birds of Montana is "Y" as it is a natural grouping. If the title was List of Montana Birds for example there's no X of Y. Whereas List of yellowgreen birds of Montana or List of birds of Montana which breed in Arizona might logically be considered cross-categorization because they are not natural but contrived groupings. I would suspect that natural groupings are generally notable and that contrived groupings much less so. Thus our current WP:NOTESAL guideline is actually pretty good at preserving those natural groupings, whether it is List of X of Y or just List of X. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent points; I think your bird list examples are well chosen and described. In many cases, we are making lists based on a subdivision that is natural to the topic (birds by U.S. state, architects by nationality). Regardless of whether there are reliable sources about those particular groupings as LISTN wrongly focuses on to the exclusion of all else, there are reliable sources that make that kind of grouping. If we have enough articles that fit such an obvious navigational list, like say 50 notable Estonian architects, it would be absurd to disallow such a list just because there might not yet have been a study of "Estonian architects". Likewise, if LISTN were to be mechanically applied across the board it could punch holes in otherwise comprehensive list structures. The problematic crosscategorization lists (to the extent that characterization is useful) are ones that, as you say, are contrived, or index in ways that reliable sources do not: "List of Estonian architects who are twins". And sometimes such oddball lists do turn out to be notable, as with this one, and that's one instance in which LISTN is a helpful approach. postdlf (talk) 01:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

This section has long been one of my biggest pet peeves because it is unclear in its scope and often confuses editors into thinking it applies more exclusively than it does: there is not, and never has been, a consensus to apply LISTN to all lists, and LISTN does not acknowledge (or may openly conflict with) just about all other guidelines regarding lists. Navigational lists and split-off subtopic lists are frequently kept at AFD regardless of LISTN, as well they should be. LISTN certainly has nothing to do with lists that primarily index articles, per WP:LISTPURP and WP:CLN, and this needs to be more clear in LISTN because notwithstanding the caveats at the end of that section, too many editors end up thinking it's the only way to analyze the notability of lists. The same is true but to a lesser extent with lists WP:SPLIT due to WP:SIZE concerns: TV episode lists are almost always kept (and indeed, it makes no sense to ask about the "notability of the episodes as a group" as somehow separate from the notability of the series, as the episodes collectively are the series), and character lists from serial fiction often are. There are simply other concerns regarding whether or not to keep such lists as standalone lists that have nothing to do with what LISTN talks about. LISTN, it seems to me, deals more with situations in which there really isn't anything else to anchor the list's notability to: not the individual entries, not a parent topic, or sometimes not the organizing concept even if all of the entries are notable (i.e., a list of notable authors who have won a non-notable award). But in those cases, I wonder if LISTN is instead a last-ditch saving grace rather than a requirement: if it is not a useful navigational tool for notable article topics, if it is not a valid split-off subtopic of a notable parent topic, etc., then it still might be a valid list if it is notable as a group. In other words, look to LISTN only if the list seems to fail all other list standards and purposes. postdlf (talk) 16:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

At the RFC (both for lists, and way back on a previous WP:N RFC), there was a strong enough faction arguing that all lists, even though listed under LISTPURP and CLN, have to meet notability guidelines, but recognize that exactly how to determine what has to be shown notability is difficult and inconsistent. (They would not accept the idea of spinouts as being notable via the parent article as that implies inherited notability). Because of this, we have to be vague on how LISTN is applied. --MASEM (t) 16:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

But LISTN doesn't merely say that "all lists are expected to satisfy notability guidelines, but can do so in many ways;" it starts out by pretending that the only way is notability of the listed group as a group, and then retracts that in part by admitting that there is no consensus to apply that test to certain kinds of lists or otherwise across the board. That goes far beyond anything established at that tortuous RFC, but more importantly it does not reflect consensus as demonstrated at AFD, by widespread practice, and by every other guideline on lists. And so because both of what LISTN omits and what it over emphasizes, we have frequent confusion (editors who read only that and take it for law) and AFDs that are complete wastes of time. It is unacceptable in its current form. postdlf (talk) 01:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't say "all lists are expected to meet WP:N" for precisely the reason that AFD results are so unpredictable. Since guidelines reflect practice and not set it, what's at LISTN is all we can say that there are affirmed cases of list notability, and users should guide towards those, but its far from anything enforceable. Perhaps in the future we can expound more, but for now that's what the RFC came out with. Now, if editors are wikilawyering the language, it would be helpful to see what comments they are making to separate those out and refine the language to counter that. --MASEM (t) 02:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's wikilawyering on their part necessarily; it's because LISTN is poorly written and inconsistent with practice and all other list guidelines. The comments editors are making is that notability of the group is a requirement of lists per LISTN, such that failing that requirement is alone grounds for deleting a list. See here, here, here, and here for some current ones; I'm sure if you watched list-related AFDs or browsed the archives you'd find quite a few more popping up... So if your point is that one way a list may pass notability guidelines is by satisfying the LISTN "discussed as a group" test, obviously there's consensus for that, but that's clearly not how some editors are interpreting it as they are insisting that it's the only way. Which is why it needs to be reworked to remove its false implication that it alone is necessary and sufficient, contrary to all other list inclusion guidelines and standards. postdlf (talk) 07:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe there's language in there to note that there's other ways lists can be notable; however, as your examples show, people aren't reading it like that, so yes, we need to fix the language.

Here's one possible rewrite to stress that we'll only spelling out the most easily determinable test (bold are changes);

While notability guidelines apply to the inclusion of stand-alone lists and tables, the assessment of notability for these types of articles is not simple and more often based on consensus than meeting certain requirements. Notability of lists (whether titled as "List of Xs" or "Xs") should be based on the group. One means to determine if a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list. The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable, although editors may, at their discretion, choose to limit large lists by only including entries for independently notable items or those with Wikipedia articles.
There are several other ways for lists to be considered notable. There is no present consensus for how to assess the notability of more complex and cross-categorization lists (such as "Lists of X of Y") or whether there are other means of forming stand-alone lists, although non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations are touched upon in Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Editors are still urged to demonstrate list notability via the grouping itself before creating stand-alone lists.

This stresses that the listed requirement is only one test, not the only test. --MASEM (t) 13:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem is (and several people note this above) is that there is no single type of "list article". Wikipedia has lots of different kinds of articles which we could call "lists", but they don't all have the same format, purpose, or use at Wikipedia, and so by nature we can't have a single set of guidelines which completely encompasses all of them in an equitable manner. There are also considerable overlap between these, so it's not like there are just 4-5 purposes, but some lists could meet several purposes within these 4-5. Just thinking off of the top of my head, I can come up with the following types of lists:

• Lists which exist as stand-alone articles because they would make the parent article too large, but are also necessary for complete coverage of the subject and logical to be "spun out" as a single unit. Examples: List of Chicago Bears seasons from Chicago Bears or List of French monarchs from Kingdom of France.
• Lists which represent a common way to list or present notable information, i.e. lists which basically reproduce common ways that reliable sources also list things. For example, List of National Basketball Association retired jersey numbers or World's largest cities are both list articles that cover a topic which is commonly presented outside of Wikipedia in much the same manner and format.
• Lists which exist to help readers navigate through a topic; basically acting as giant "dab" pages, but for related articles rather than coincidentally named articles. Outline of France and Index of physics articles meet this standard.
• Lists which contain all of the notable subjects of at Wikipedia in one place, of which there may be non-notable examples we want to keep out: List of record labels: A–H, List of suicides
• Lists which are essentially complete, where every example which could fit the list would always be notable, and notable for being on the list itself: List of Presidents of France, or List of Super Bowl champions
• Conversely, there are some lists which exist because none of the individual items could support a stand-alone article, but the grouping as a whole merits inclusion because the bulk of the information represents "enough" even if none of the individual entries has "enough" (for any given standard of "enough"): List of minor characters in Peanuts
• And there are some lists which combine notable and non-notable entries, for the sake of completeness: List of rivers of England for example has several rivers about which there may never be enough information to support a stand alone article, but there are also some entries which clearly do.

I'm sure people could come up with many other uses we have for lists. I'd argue that there isn't any one single set of guidelines which would deal with all of these in an equitable manner; such that we could have a single set of simple rules which would keep all the lists the community wants to keep as a whole, but deletes all those lists that aren't deemed necessary or desirable by the community. Each type of list needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis, and considered against existing practices to decide if it meets the standards, but there isn't an easy way to group these into a single grouping so that we can have a single set of notability standards for all of them. --Jayron32 14:00, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

• • Yes, I agree with all of this description. Do you have any suggestions about how to fix LISTN? I don't think Masem's proposed language accomplishes enough, and it still overprivileges the "notable as a group" standard by saying notability "should" be established that way, when that isn't the case at all for many types of lists. postdlf (talk) 16:11, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I think he overemphasizes that point. I think that, when considering the suitability of a list as a stand-alone article, its raison d'etre needs to be considered before deciding on which set of criteria it should be judged on. Some lists should only exist if it is clear that the list itself is used in the same or similar format outside of Wikipedia. "List of redheaded physicists" would probably not pass muster under that criteria. However, if we overemphasize that criteria, we stand a real chance of encouraging the deletion of other lists which should not be deleted. --Jayron32 16:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Misleading nutshell?

The body of the guideline says "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list." The "nutshell" box near the top of the page, however, says "Notability does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." This goes much further than the previous quote: there is a good deal of difference between saying "notability applies only to whole articles" and saying "these notability guidelines apply only to whole articles". I have more than once seen disputes caused by this wording, with some editors taking, in effect, the view that once we have established that a topic is notable enough to have an article, any unimportant detail related to that topic can be included, because notability applies only to whole articles. It seems to me that this was never intended to be the meaning of the guideline: as I quoted above, the relevant wording is "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article ..." The relevant content of the "nutshell", although slightly reworded since, was introduced without discussion by an editor who, in the edit summary, wrote "nutshell doesn't really reflect the guideline properly. Expand slightly." It seems to me that the change was a useful attempt to move the nutshell closer to reflecting the guideline, but that it still does not quite reflect the content of the guideline, because of an unfortunate choice of wording. As I have said, the guideline says "These notability guidelines only outline...", and I propose to make the nutshell reflect that more accurately, by changing "Notability does not determine..." to "These guidelines do not determine..." JamesBWatson (talk) 12:17, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I have more than once seen disputes caused by this wording, with some editors taking, in effect, the view that once we have established that a topic is notable enough to have an article, any unimportant detail related to that topic can be included, because notability applies only to whole articles. That action is actually completely fine and the intent of WP:N. Once the topic passes notability, WP:N has no further say in the development of an article. That doesn't meant every trivial detail is appropriate, per other policy like WP:NOT, WP:NOR (particularly WP:UNDUE), and WP:TRIVIA, but none of these are based on WP:N. --MASEM (t) 13:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

No, it isn't "actually completely fine", nor is it "the intent of WP:N". You are quite right in saying that "WP:N has no further say in the development of an article", because "WP:N" is this guideline, which explicitly says that it is only about requirements for existence of articles. However, that does not mean that the concept of notability is irrelevant beyond there: only that this guideline does not deal with issue beyond there. As you also rightly point out, such other policies and guidelines as, for example, WP:TRIVIA restrict the inclusion of non-notable details. It is common in Wikipedia usage to restrict the words "notable" and "notability" to refer only to what this guideline covers, and to consider that inclusion of particular content in an article is covered by some other concept, such as "significance", "non-triviality", or something of the sort. However, the wording of the nutshell frequently misleads people who are unacquainted with Wikipedia usage into thinking that notability/significance/non-triviality (or whatever you like to call it) does not affect inclusion of particular content, so that wording is misleading. Not everyone who is new to Wikipedia realises that "Notability does not determine the content of articles" means "The particular limited usage of the concept of notability defined here does not determine the content of articles", but, even to those of us who do know that is what it means, would anything at all be lost by replacing the wording as I have suggested? To those of us who know that "notability" is here used in a restricted sense it would make no difference, while to newbies who don't know that, it would clarify a point which at present is not made clear. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see what you're saying, and to that end (the diff between wikt:notability, and WP:notability) the change is fine. --MASEM (t) 15:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, difference between wikt:notability and WP:notability is a pretty concise way of putting it. JamesBWatson (talk) 20:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that JamesBWatson is right that we should revise the nutshell this way. Let me suggest a tweak: change "Notability does not determine..." to "The notability guideline does not determine... ". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that this is basically wrong. Wiki-notability is "whether or not that subject qualifies for a separate stand-alone page dedicated to it." Wiki-notability does not restrict the addition of trivia to articles. That includes far more than the aspects of wiki-notability that happen to be described in this particular guideline. We have a dozen guidelines about wiki-notability, and it's also a significant part of WP:NOT and some other pages. So it's not just "the notability guideline" that doesn't determine article contents; it's the whole concept of notability and all the guidelines and policies that deal with the concept.

So, yes, James is right that some inexperienced people are going to read the nutshell and wrongly think normal-dictionary-notability, when we exclusively use that word in these guidelines to mean wiki-jargon-notability, but the correct response to trivial junk in articles is a discussion about DUE. So when someone says "Notability does not determine the content of articles, so I get to add my non-notable junk", you should be saying, "You're right that notability doesn't determine the content of articles, but NPOV does, and that unimportant junk is a violation of its WP:DUE section." WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:15, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you about how the policies work, but, for the purposes of the necessarily short nutshell, I think it's enough to make clear what this policy page does not do, as opposed to explaining (at least in the nutshell) what all the other pages do. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Yea, the larger issue is as WhatamIdoing says, but for the nutshell, a quick means to diff from wikt:notabilitly and WP:notability is all that was needed to fix the problem that was originally id'd. --MASEM (t) 14:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Secondary and independent

This guideline deserves to be a bit more clear about whether notability requires independent sources, secondary sources, or both. Actual experience in AfD debates would indicate that both are required. And there is evidence of that here in the guideline. But it is not obvious, which is a problem for a concept of this importance. Take a look at the GNG. We have a definition of general notability that requires "coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". But we don't learn that the sources should be secondary until we read the fine print in the qualifications, three paragraphs below. Not everyone reads the fine print, so the notion of "secondary" is often completely lost in the shuffle. That's why I'm suggesting we add the word "secondary" to the definition ("coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject"), or else clarify our stance on this issue. Also see some of the specific notability guidelines that already define general notability this way, like WP:ORG. NTox · talk 05:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

There is often confusion about these terms, and I agree it needs to be made clearer, because people screw this up ALL THE TIME. I think someone in a thread above still made this error in confusing primary/secondary with independence. Once more, for everyone watching:

A primary source is a source that reports data or facts uncritically, but does not provide analysis or context for that information. (e.g. an article from a scientific journal which reports the result of an experiment, a government document like a birth certificate, the results from a national census)

A secondary source provides analysis, synthesis, and context for information from primary sources. (a biography about a person, a book which analyzes a major historical event, etc.)

A tertiary source aggregates the preponderance of what secondary sources say, and puts the general consensus of those sources in one single text. (school textbooks and encyclopedias)

Wikipedia is itself a tertiary source, and we base the information here mostly on what secondary sources say on a subject, with limited use (where appropriate) of the raw unanalyzed primary sources to illustrate or support the articles. This is completely unrelated to the independence of a source. A source is independent if the author(s) of the source are unaffiliated with the subject of the source. Affiliated sources are also allowed at Wikipedia, for example if a company states on its own website where its corporate headquarters are located, or if a person is listed as on faculty at some university by that university website, unless we have reason to suspect otherwise, we can trust that basic information. Independent sources are more useful in general for all sorts of information, and menadatory to establish notability per WP:N, but that doesn't mean that affiliated sources are verboten. In summation, Wikipedia favors the use of independent and secondary sources when building articles, but those are concepts which are unrelated to each other, and should not be conflated when reviewing an article and its sources. --Jayron32 05:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, NTox is suggesting that we revise GNG to require "coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject". I understand everything that both NTox and Jayron32 are saying, but, in this case, I'm not convinced that coverage in reliable primary sources that are independent of the subject shouldn't satisfy GNG. The problem arises when primary sources are also not independent of the subject, I think. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Common examples of independent primary sources are most newspaper articles that cover recent events, or things like recap articles of TV shows from entertainment magazines. Neither of those provide additional information that would otherwise fail NOT. (newspaper stories would be basically WP:NOTNEWS, and just adding recaps would be failing NOTPLOT). The secondary nature is necessary to put the topic in context of the larger scope of things, which requires original research that we as WP editors simply can't do. --MASEM (t) 22:58, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

My understanding of NOTNEWS is that we don't keep pages that are just the news of the day, but we do have pages that are based upon newspaper reports that have accumulated over a period of time. We also have science pages that rely heavily on peer-reviewed primary articles from scientific journals. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I want to be clear I'm not saying that all newspaper articles or peer-reviewed journals are automatically primary. But most will be primary. If a news story has a long tail, you will start to likely find secondary stories (as through news magazines like Newsweek, or background development stories in major articles. Similarly with academic journals; areas of new research will generally have papers that are only primary to begin, but as these article gets re-cited and reviewed, secondary sources come about. That sorta gets to the idea about notability not being a news blip but something with some type of sustained coverage (though obviously it doesn't need to be sustained indefinitely) - sustained coverage will nearly always move from primary to secondary, and hence satisfy notability. --MASEM (t) 00:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I think it might be helpful to break this down further ... leaving aside Tertiary sources, we have four situations to look at:

1. Sources that are Primary and Dependent
2. Sources that are Primary and Independent
3. Sources that are Secondary and Dependent
4. Sources that are Secondary and Independent

I can not think of a situation where a source that fell into the first class would properly demonstrate notability. And I can not think of a situation where a source that fell into the last one wouldn't... but things get murky with the middle two. I think #2 comes into play with pop culture topics... One single Primary and Independent source will not really establish notability, but I think lots of them (taken as a group) can. When there are thousands of fan sites and blog postings out there, all talking about the same pop culture topic... it really is hard to read arguments that the topic isn't notable and keep a straight face. Blueboar (talk) 00:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Way back I had the idea of what I called 1.5 sources - basically the 3rd category of secondary dependent sources. Using the "transformative" definition of secondary, this would be things like director's commentary on DVDs - obviously dependent, but often well enough separated from the original production to be considered a step removed and ergo secondary. This are generally okay, but only if to augment some type of secondary/independent sourcing.

Primary/Independent is actually good for sourcing when secondary sources exist and notability's already show, but alone or with Primary/Dependent sources, aren't good enough. (Eg a straight-forward, non-critical recap of a TV episode). --MASEM (t) 00:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Masem... you are correct as far as sourcing statements goes (ie verifiability and reliability)... but not as far as notability goes. A movie director's comments (whether on a DVD or in some other venue) can not establish that his movie is notable. We need to show that the broader world has noted the movie. The more I think about this, the more I realize that we always need independent sources (ie #2 and #4 on my list) to demonstrate notability. Secondary Independent sources (#4 on my list) are best, and always acceptable... and multiple Primary Independent sources (#2 on my list) can sometimes be acceptable. Blueboar (talk) 03:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, that's what I said. These "1.5 sources" alone cannot show notability if there are no independent sources, but they can contribute to existing independent secondary sources if those are otherwise lacking. Common case in point is that if we only have a couple reviews from reliable sources and numerous production details from said commentary, notability is not likely to be challenged at the immediate time. But if its only the commentary, yea, that's basically a WP:V problem. --MASEM (t) 04:16, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Probably not... we have independent secondary sources (the reviews). But let's say the reviews are both from tiny local papers... the director's commentary would not help improve on the iffy notability problem. Taking info from the commentary might make for a better written and more interesting article, but not for a more notable topic. Blueboar (talk) 04:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

It will still be a judgement call and I can't pull up examples, but only based on how I observe AFD, given some but a weak set of independent secondary sourcing, the presence of dependent secondary sources can push an article over the edge into "keep" territory. --MASEM (t) 14:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm seeing a kind of rough agreement here that is consistent with my own opinion. That independent sources are probably the most important aspect of notability, but that secondary sources also help a lot. I like Blueboar's breakdown, and would say #1 rarely if ever has notability, #4 has the best notability, #2 is perhaps second best for notability, and #3 can help but is not incredibly strong. What this seems to amount to is, 'look for independence first, but also keep a close eye for secondary sources'. Do you guys think the proposed change is sufficient to capture this (assuming what I have described is true), or is there a better way? Because right now I think the role of secondary sources is too downplayed. NTox · talk 19:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps something like: "To demonstrate that an article topic is notable, coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject is required (with a strong preference for coverage in independent secondary sources)." Blueboar (talk) 20:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm still somewhat in "thinking out loud" mode, but I like the concept that independence is of particular importance here. In a way, it's like a few secondary and independent sources, or, alternatively, a larger number of primary and independent sources, are what give notability. In that sense, it may be less of "a strong preference" than an effect upon how many sources are needed. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps independence is "required without exception", and secondary sources are "normally required" or "extremely helpful" or some other strong but not absolute language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:04, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

So this conversation is not unduly archived and forgotten, I have formulated a specific proposal along the lines of the above. You will note that I am targeting the GNG specifically, because I believe that is the area that requires the most attention. The changes are as follows: (1) the addition of the word "secondary" to the definition of general notability, (2) a paragraph describing what secondary sources are (largely based on a recent discussion at WT:OR), & (3) a change that says sources must be "published and accessible", where some information about secondary sources used to be. Compare this with what we currently have at WP:GNG. As usual, I would appreciate any thoughts; particularly, if this is "too much", which is a valid idea to consider. My hope is that we may clarify this issue for both readers and editors.

General notability guideline

If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable, secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list.

• "Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail, so no original research is needed to extract the content. Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material.
• "Reliable" means sources need editorial integrity to allow verifiable evaluation of notability, per the reliable source guideline. Sources may encompass published works in all forms and media, and in any language. Availability of secondary sources covering the subject is a good test for notability.
• "Secondary" means sources that are an author's own thinking based on other sources. They contain interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from other sources. While independent sources provide the best evidence of notability, secondary sources can help establish that a topic has received sufficient attention to be notable.
• "Sources", must be published and accessible. The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources. Multiple sources are generally expected. Sources are not required to be available online, and they are not required to be in English. Multiple publications from the same author or organization are usually regarded as a single source for the purposes of establishing notability.
• "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject or its creator. For example, self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, the subject's website, autobiographies, and press releases are not considered independent.
• "Presumed" means that significant coverage in reliable sources establishes a presumption, not a guarantee, that a subject is suitable for inclusion. Editors may reach a consensus that although a topic meets this criterion, it is not appropriate for a stand-alone article. For example, such an article may violate what Wikipedia is not, perhaps the most likely violation being Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information.

A topic for which this criterion is deemed to have been met by consensus, is usually worthy of notice, and satisfies one of the criteria for a stand-alone article in the encyclopedia. Verifiable facts and content not supported by multiple independent sources may be appropriate for inclusion within another article.

NTox · talk 02:38, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I have two reactions:

1. In the "Sources" section, I think that "accessible" will lead to problems. People will say that this wording contradicts what follows, about not needing to be in English or online. Instead, I'd change it to "verifiable", linked to WP:V.
2. I'm a little uncomfortable with the way that "secondary" ends up being placed above "independent", even though we go on to describe independent sources as "the best evidence of notability". It creates uncertainty as to the degree to which secondary sources are required or just recommended. Currently GNG discusses the issue within the explanation of "Sources". It might be better to leave "secondary" out of the opening sentence, and instead, explain it in more detail under "Sources".

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:50, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You have some valid points, especially the concern about secondary being defined before independent. (To be frank, I had that thought too as I was hitting the save button). The reason I actually put it there is because the words are currently being defined in the order they were presented in the definition. I may be less concerned about the 'accessible' term than some (because enwiki AFAIK defines 'accessible' pretty loosely, cf. Wikipedia:Published#Accessible), but I have no strong feelings about keeping it there. My only qualm about saying 'sources should be verifiable' is that it's not actually the sources that need to be verifiable, it's the material in the Wikipedia page that must be able to be verified, with sources. Of course this is a bit Vulcan of me to suggest, but 'reliable' might be better. Since this discussion began, I have had conflicted thoughts about suggesting the addition of 'secondary' to the definition with its own explanation, vs. simply adding more detail in the 'sources' section. My main concern about the latter is that most people tend to cite the definition alone in AfD debates, without seemingly reading the fine print . . after all, we already described secondary sources there, but it seems to largely go unnoticed. That's what led me to propose the former, but I would like to hear some more thoughts. I admit that another benefit of adding 'secondary' to the definition is that I think it would go a long way in (re)teaching our community the difference between secondary and independent. NTox · talk 23:35, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I can only think of awkward ways of addressing this concern: "Sources that are independent of the subject and also secondary" is probably the least objectionable idea I've had. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Can someone be notable for the fact that they were interviewed by a major media outlet... regardless of what they were interviewed about

{hat|Guys... we have a noticeboard for this kind of discussion. Please take this there. This page is for discussion of the verbiage of the policy page. KillerChihuahua^?!? 14:40, 30 October 2012 (UTC) }}

Actually, noticeboards are distinctly lousy places for discussing a concept "in the abstract", as this discussion does. Conceptual discussions about what this guideline is supposed to communicate really do belong here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

This came up as a side issue in a discussion at WT:Fringe... but I think it is worth discussing in the abstract. If someone is interviewed (substantially) by a major media outlet... does the fact that he/she was considered worth interviewing indicate or confer some degree of notability on the person? I am not talking about a brief quote, or a passing reference... but a situation where someone is the primary focus of an extensive media interview.

For example... suppose a nationally televised TV program like "60 Minutes" contains an extensive interview segment with someone. It does not really matter what he was interviewed about... Thousands of people watched the program. All these people are now aware of the interviewee. I could see an argument for saying he/she should be considered at least marginally notable purely for being the subject of an extensive interview on 60 Minutes. Blueboar (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Just being the interviewed person in an interview does not impart notability. On the other hand, if they were interviewed about themselves, that is a weak secondary (though likely more primary) about the person - it may help support notability but certainly not imply notability on its own. --MASEM (t) 17:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Template:ECIn the hypothetical you crafted, It would be important to know what the subject of the interview was. If the interview was about the person being interviewed, and was a full segment, then one 60 Minutes interview would be extremely strong evidence of notability. If the actual subject of the piece is something else, and the interviewee is merely providing information about that subject, then their selection for 60 minutes still supports a claim of notability, but I think is unlikely to establish notability standing alone. Monty₈₄₅ 17:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Good point, there would be a difference if 60 minutes interviewed a John Smith in a segment about the person and if they interviewed a neighbour of Smith's for insight of what he is like. In the first case Smith is most likely notable but in the second case the neighbour is likely not notable.--174.93.171.10 (talk) 23:23, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

NO If a person is interviewed because there is some specific interest in that person, the nature of that interest could be expected to be documented, and that would potentially serve as proof of notability. If the person is being interviewed in the context of some event or situation, it would be the notability of that latter that would govern, and if the interview is important enough in context to merit mention, his notability would generally fall under WP:ONEEVENT, and his article would be redirected there. Nor does the subject inherit notability from the interviewer: if Mike Wallace interviews a man on the street, there is indeed a sense in which this subject is picked specifically to be non-notable. It might be possible that the interview itself becomes the notable event, but likely that would become the article subject and not the interviewee, although this might change if the interview took the form of an extended biography. Mangoe (talk) 01:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I was definitely not talking about a "man on the street" interview... but a situation where the interviewee is himself/herself the topic of an extensive interview. For example: lets say Rolling Stone magazine runs an article entitle "Joe Blow - Roadie to the Stars"... an interview with a guy who has spent a lifetime as a roadie for various rock bands and music artists - driving tucks full of equipment from gig to gig, setting up the sound equipment and instruments, etc.... The point of the interview is to get his unique perspective on the music industry and the artists he as worked for. Before the interview, I doubt we would call this guy notable; he was just one of many, working in the background without any notice. But after the interview... I think things have changed. Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I think the tendency at AFD would be to treat that roadie as non-notable, if all we had to go by was that interview. Participants would likely be unsatisfied with just that one interview, and would factor in the subject's actual accomplishments. The interview might be characterized as "really" about the music history and the industry the roadie participated in. And if no other source has written about this roadie, I think that might be the best characterization of such a hypothetical article. The roadie is only incidentally the article's subject, interviewed for his knowledge and experiences with notable bands in a notable industry rather than to find out about him in and of himself. postdlf (talk) 13:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's assume that the interview isn't the only source in the world. Let's assume instead that there are newspaper or magazine articles that provide some brief coverage while mostly talking about the band in general, e.g., "Joe Blow is in town for the Big Concert this weekend. Blow has worked for rock bands ever since he graduated from Local High School class of '76" or "A minor disaster at last weekend's concert was avoided when Joe Blow, longtime band roadie, pulled the batteries out of his own camera to power the singer's walkabout mic".

Assume that the other sources are just enough to create a borderline case. Would the big interview push it over the top, or would it have no effect at all? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring what might be BLP1E problems with the example , I would say that no, the interview + all other sources doesn't make the person notable. Inclusion by name in a broader topic, certainly. --MASEM (t) 20:46, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

No, not certainly; often journalistic sources include names...of their sources. Or names and a slice of life of everyday people just to add some color. So just because a quote or action is attributed to a named person in a newspaper or magazine article does not mean that they are the subject of the article, or even integral to the subject of the article, and even if multiple articles identify the same person it may just mean they all just found the same source connected with the actual subject of the articles. All of which would mean that this hypothetical person probably should not be mentioned in any article, unless it's as part of a citation to identify who a source attributed something to. Notice all the qualifying language I've used: it's really going to come down to reading the sources, understanding the subject, and applying sound editorial judgment rather than trying to slam down pre-ordained absolute rules. postdlf (talk) 20:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you'll read the guideline again, especially the sentence that says, "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material" (emphasis added). Whether he is "the subject of the article, or even integral to the subject of the article" is irrelevant.

The question here is whether it makes any difference at all. You have a borderline case for notability. Good editors are evenly divided. The major interview is broadcast. Do you expect that new source to change people's minds, or not? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Interviewing someone as an example of a class (e.g. our putative roadie) doesn't make them notable; that is simply a shorter street, as it were, for them to be the man in. For them to be notable, they would need to be chosen to be interviewed for being specifically themselves, not for being someone like themselves. That would even include cases where the class of people from which they were selected included only them (e.g. interviewing the Crown Prince of Ruritania's valet). Mangoe (talk) 21:15, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

If the BBC calls someone a "legend" does that make him or her notable? Einar aka Carptrash (talk) 14:31, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Not by itself, but it does hint that if you can't find any other sources about this person, then you've probably not looked hard enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

To put it another way someone does not meet notability standards simply because the BBC calls them a legend, however, someone who the BBC decides to call a legend would most likely be someone who was notable before hand and we should be able to find additional reliable sources about the person. In short, if we don't have an article about someone the BBC calls a legend it would be a good idea to look for sources for the person since there is a good chance that we are dealing with a notable person who slipped though the cracks. There are no guarantees though.--174.93.171.10 (talk) 02:55, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

What is "multiple" sources?

What is meant by "multiple" sources? My understanding of multiple is "more than one", which is confirmed by the Wiktionary definition. "Multiple sources" then could mean two, assuming the sources are strong enough, since two is more than one. I am being told in this AfD we need "many" sources, more than two (the exact number unstated, just a lot, or something). I am being told that "multiple sources" means "many sources" (many is defined by Wiktionary as "An indefinite large number").

Question: Do we need "more than one source" (multiple) or "an indefinite large number of sources" (many)? --Green Cardamom (talk) 01:54, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

You need enough to show significant coverage to demonstrate notability. There is no set number purposely because sometimes this can be done by one well-compiled reliable source, sometimes it requires a lot more. --MASEM (t) 01:58, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It takes some judgement. A single really good, well respected book-length biography may be enough to establish notability, while a hundred copies of the name printed in various websites, with no in depth biographical information would not be. From my understanding, it isn't the number of sources, per se, it is the amount of information about a subject which determines if it is notable. --Jayron32 02:01, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Hundreds of websites making brief mentions about a subject, even without going into much depth may well clear the notability hurdle depending on the circumstances. But I think the broader message in the above two replies is right on. The stature of the sources, and the depth the coverage they provide will determine how many sources you need. Better sources, more depth, less needed. I generally consider 3 independent reliable sources a good starting point. Monty₈₄₅ 04:29, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

It depends. I can probably find my name a hundred different times on the internet in random contexts. It doesn't prove shit. If the mentions don't contain any significant information to expand an article with, what do we put in the article? Remember, notability is primarily about deciding how to decide to create an article, and the primary issue is content: if there's not enough content in the entire world to use as sources to build an article, then we can't make an article. Regardless of how many times a name can be found. --Jayron32 04:43, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't think one source would be enough - a "A single really good, well respected book-length biography" with no mention elsewhere simply isn't enough. And if it is reviewed, etc that's more than one. For me, 'multiple' is like 'a few' in that it is more than 2. And the fewer the sources, the more in depth they need to be. Dougweller (talk) 15:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

We're only looking for the presumption of notability. A single source will not make for a quality article, but if that is the most authorative source on a topic that's respected by peers in that topic, and it's clear there's more sources that could be pulled from to improve, that source will satisfy the presumption of notability. --MASEM (t) 15:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

The underlying issue here is whether two sources are sufficient to keep an article. OP has opined AfD is very simple: two sources, and bases his/her statement by interpreting "multiple" in Multiple sources are generally expected (WP:GNG) as implying that the existence of two sources is sufficient to keep an article. (The discussion is here.) --regentspark (comment) 16:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

And the simple answer is, "It depends on the quality and coverage of those sources." --MASEM (t) 16:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'd be interested in knowing the consensus to this as well. Stuff like this is especially tough when it comes to book sources, as many times all you might get are trade reviews or brief blurbs about authors. They will be posted in reliable sources, but are so brief that you can argue that a review by Publishers Weekly that's mostly a plot summary isn't really in-depth. However it is by a reliable source. I've always been under the presumption that multiple always means at least about 4 with 3 being the absolute minimum. Most of the articles that only have 1-2 sources that come up for AfD are deleted and the ones that are kept are always kept with the stipulation that someone will be supplying more sources. Many of these come back up for deletion within about 5 years of the initial AfD and are usually deleted for a lack of sources. I personally think that we need more than 2 sources for an article and that even if we have an incredibly reliable source for an article, that doesn't automatically show notability. How can it really be that notable if only one person has written a book/film/article/source about it? I know it's not that cut and dry, but that's sort of what it boils down to. On top of that, what really constitutes the idea of "quality" and "coverage"? It's kind of subjective at times because a book by a notable researcher might be seen as enough but then what makes that any different from a nice article written by Michiko Kakutani in the NYT? If two reasonably in-depth sources are really all that are needed, then there's at least about a couple of thousand articles that need to be recreated and at least a few dozen articles that are up for AfD that need to be ended as "keep" right now. I'm more worried about the longer reaching implications about this, as the argument that two sources aren't enough unless they fit this one specific idea of quality and coverage sort of sells short a lot of news articles and other sources that are by notable persons in reliable sources.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 19:27, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
  • It's probably extremely rare - but its not out of the realm of possiblity - that two sources would be considered sufficient. The other thing to remember that this is just a test to assume a topic should have a stand-alone article - we're not looking for all the sources possible on a topic or a complete article, but enough to say "this looks like a topic that can be covered in an encyclopedic manner." If there's only a few sources given for an article but they are good, have additional references, and they are clearly only covering the tip of the iceberg for a topic, we'd likely presume notability. --MASEM (t) 21:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

• Notability is a guideline not a hard policy and so is a rough guide, not an exact rule. What happens in a particular case depends upon the facts of the matter and who turns up to the discussion. In cases where the person's status is sufficient for inclusion — such as an Olympic athlete — then only one source would be required to establish that status. Warden (talk) 19:46, 6 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Notability presumed from an SNG only needs one source to show that it meets the criteria that it states it passes (eg an Olympic winner). If you don't meet any SNG, you need to show that across some number of articles/media that the topic appears notable. That's achieved by showing that there is significant coverage, which could be done by one really well-done book or in-depth article, or may take 10 or more to show it. This is why we specific don't say a number to prevent gaming of this ("Oh look, I have two, its immediately notable!") --MASEM (t) 21:00, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to echo Jayron: The point behind sources is to put material in the article. If you have a hundred sources that say "Zahpod is just zis guy, you know?", then you can't write much of an article, can you? But if you have a hundred sources that each provide a different fact about your subject, then a hundred brief sources could demonstrate notability.

It's not fundamentally about the number of sources. It's about how much information you get from the sources, when you add together all the independent sources about the subject. (NB: that means that you can't count the subject's own website, his employer's website, etc.) The reason that we take this approach is explained at WP:WHYN. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

People are making a very important point here... WP:Notability and the related SNGs are not firm and fast "rules" that equate perfectly to "Wikipedia should have an article on the topic". They are more of an indication that "Wikipedia should probably have an article on the topic"... Passing WP:NOTE, or one of the various SNGs does not guarantee an article. We need to remember that a topic may well be notable, and still not be worth having an article (if thousands of people have noted that "Zaphod" exists, there is a good argument for saying he is notable... but if the only thing that those thousands say about him is: "Zaphod is just zis guy, you know?" he is probably not worth an article, despite that notability). While Notability is an important factor in Keep/Delete discussions, it isn't the sole determinant.

Similarly, there are a few topics that are worth having an article on, despite the fact that they don't really pass WP:NOTE or any SNG. Our article on Masonic conspiracy theories comes to mind... the only sources that even mention these theories are written by proponents (reliable sources ignore the proponents... considering the theories so nutty that they don't even bother to discuss them). However, there are a lot of proponents, and they are prolific writers. Enough unreliable sources accuse the Freemasons of some sort of conspiracy that the topic has entered the public consciousness ... the topic is considered worth an article, despite the technicality of not passing WP:NOTE or any SNG. Blueboar (talk) 16:45, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• A couple of editors (presumably old-timers) are arguing incorrectly that WP:GNG requires sources sufficient to write an article.  This notion was removed from WP:N in late 2006.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:45, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

True... which is why I distinguish "passing WP:NOTE" from "being worth an article". While most of the time, if a topic passes WP:NOTE it will be worth an article... there are rare exceptions. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

"Content enough to write an article" is not required at WP:GNG, but it's still listed at WP:WHYN and is good advice. Notability should ideally be separate from importance of the topic; thus the amount of sources required doesn't depend directly on how many of them we have, but whether 1)they're reliable enough to trust what they say (thus the 'multiple' and 'independent' requirements) and 2)there's enough content to write an article in accordance with WP:NPOV. Assessing notability by volume instead of quality is a popular choice, but it's not always required and has never been encoded in the guideline (for good reasons). Diego (talk) 14:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I will answer this point by going through a side route: when do people nominate articles for deletion? IRWolfie- (talk) 09:14, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Temporary

I know that this has been brought up roughly twenty times, but much to my surprise, not once has anyone addressed the real problem behind "Notability is not temporary".

The fact of the matter is that sources do degrade over time. Web pages disappear all the time, books and newspapers are lost over the years.

Consider, for a second, Blood on the Dance Floor. Consider now that every single source there is a webpage. They are guaranteed to fade. They are notable per WP:MUSIC #2, but one day, records of their chart progress will be lost. They will no longer be notable, with no evidence that they ever charted.

Maybe the problem here is with notability guidelines, but as it currently stands, notability, as defined by Wikipedia policy, is temporary. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 00:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

This is why when we cite we give as many details - even if the work is lost forever due to something, we have record it existed at one point. For web pages, there are systems like WebCite that archive web pages for content. Basically, this is not an issue. --MASEM (t) 02:07, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Our other approach is simply to say that our original decision in favor of the subject's notability was wrong, because based on currently available sources, it's clearly not.

Nobody pretends this is a perfect system. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:07, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly... While the notability of a topic may not be temporary... the Wikipedia determination that the topic is or is not notable enough for an article can be. We can point to numerous examples of topics that were deemed notable in one AfD discussion, and then re-examined in a subsequent AfD discussion and deemed non-notable after all. Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Notability of buildings and structures

Do we have a guideline for the notability of buildings and structures? For example, I'd argue that if they are listed buildings (in the UK), then they are notable, unless they are listed as part of a group such as a house and its outbuildings (in which case the group is notable) or as examples of a repeated design, such as listed telephone boxes (in which case the design is notable). I searched, but found only a failed proposal, at Wikipedia:Notability (buildings, structures, and landmarks). It would be handy to have some guidance, to interested parties could be referred. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

No there isn't, which means that it falls to showing the notability of the building/landmark through the GNG. As a note, I don't believe that even those that edit it that the US List of Historical Places (akin to the UK listed buildings) would consider every building on that notable. --MASEM (t) 15:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I've seen arguments that a NRHP listing is a proxy for GNG satisfaction, because of the studies that must be submitted before it is listed. Regardless, I certainly don't understand why anyone would go out of their way to delete an article on a registered historic building. postdlf (talk) 15:15, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd be very curious to hear of an example of a listed (or NRHP) building, where - subject to the exceptions I note above - a notability test failed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:36, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, this raises a question... does being listed make a building notable? Or is it simply an indication that the building is likely to be notable? I personally lean to the later... and that to demonstrate notability, we have to look at why a building was listed.

As for deletion... I could see a situation where the property owner might request deletion of an article on their house (expressing concern that a Wikipedia article makes it more likely that his house would be vandalized or broken into... and raises his insurance rates). That isn't a notability issue, but it is a request that we should take seriously. Blueboar (talk) 15:53, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I think being listed (at least in a national or perhaps state registry) means we should want content on that building. Notability guidelines are purely a means to an end, a generally good proxy for encyclopedic significance and the availability of reliable sources on a topic, but we shouldn't seek to slavishly comply with WP:N for its own sake when we have other clear indicators for identifying topics that should be in the encyclopedia. postdlf (talk) 17:09, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

In the case of historic buildings, it's not so much that WP:N is being used to prevent indiscriminate info (as the historical buildings are not that), but to promote WP:N's other facet, that we have enough sourcing to assure that we can write a reasonable article on a topic that meets the policy requires of WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. Something that is notable but so weakly sourced that it would remain a permastub is not good to have as a standalone article. So the question is, when a building is listed on a historic building list, is it because there is actual useful history with that building that can be documented (which is the case , for some lists) or simply because of age (which is the case for other lists). It would be reasonable to argue that historic places that have to merit that title due to the history associated with them would likely meet the GNG once that sourcing is provided, and thus would be presumed notable. If it is just because a building is a century old, that's far different. --MASEM (t) 17:25, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

That's essentially the question I was asking... to sustain a stand alone article, do we require the "presumption of notability" or the "demonstration of notability" (or some mix of the two)? When a building is listed in a register, I think we have the "presumption of notability"... but if we require the "demonstration of notability" then we have to look deeper, we have to state why the building was listed (and cite documents to support that statement). Blueboar (talk) 18:14, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Masem's comment to me goes more to the criteria used by the particular historic registry. If a local registry simply listed every building of a certain vintage in its community, then no, I wouldn't take that listing as a given for a building meriting inclusion (unless, perhaps, that vintage was something more significant like 500 years old rather than 50). None of the NRHP criteria, however, are as simple or trivial as "is X years old." postdlf (talk) 18:42, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

To sustain an article, we need the presumption of notability; you strengthen that presumption with sourcing of course, but when you are using an SNG-like criteria, we have to consider how strong that criteria is. Eg, "a person winning a Nobel prize" is a strong presumption of notability for the person despite not having any other sources in place about that person. So when the question is turned to buildings and historical registers, we have to ask if the listing on that register is a strong presumption. As Postdlf notes for the US NRHP, you can only get a building on that list with some explaination of why it is important; for us at en.wiki, that means we can assume there's sourcable history associated with that building and thus "building X is on the NRHP" is a strong presumption of notabiility. If it is just based on age, that's a weak one and likely we wouldn't allow for it. --MASEM (t) 18:48, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I have to quibble here... saying: US NRHP, you can only get a building on that list with some explaination of why it is important; for us at en.wiki, that means we can assume there's sourcable history associated with that building and thus "building X is on the NRHP" is a strong presumption of notabiility. is not quite accurate. Yes, the NRHP lists "important" buildings... but The NRHP also lists buildings that are associated with something (or someone) "important"... such as being associated with a noted architect, or being associated with a certain group (such as fraternal order).

Essentially the NRHP lists buildings based on a concept of notability that is different from Wikipedia's concept of notability... it includes buildings that are notable through association (what we on Wikipedia call "inheritance") ... That can cause a problem on Wikipedia... because on Wikipedia, notability is not inherited... If a building is notable due to an association with a notable person or group, the proper context for Wikipedia to mention the building would be in an article on the person or group, and not in a stand alone article about the building.

So... while I agree that being listed on the NRHP gives us an initial presumption of notability, that presumption does not necessarily mean the building should be considered notable enough for a stand alone article. We have to look deeper. Blueboar (talk) 16:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I've been in AFDs where buildings were determined notable by being in an official national registry that listed them as important. We could just make a guideline listing that. Dream Focus 00:26, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

SNGs

I think you're doing it backwards. To sustain an article, we need enough content to write an article. If we already have a well-balanced article from reliable sources, that means that the presumption of notability is met; there's no need to demonstrate notability (whatever that means). On the other hand, if the only information available is an entry in a listing, no matter how important the building you simply don't have material to write an article even if you presume that it's notable. Diego (talk) 00:02, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

The point of the SNGs is to allow people to create an article that they know will very likely be notable through sources given enough time and effort to locate these source, but only at the present time they only can provide a source or two. Thus, the SNGs should be giving criteria that if a specific condition is met, then sources cannot be that far behind or already exist. We assert that a person winning the Nobel prize is notable because there universally is deep coverage of that person after winning, if not from sources before the award. Similarly, a building on the NRHP is there because it has some type of documented history, so one should reasonably be able to create an article on it and not expect it deleted in the indefinite time for sources to fill out the article (based on its NRHP listing), again working that we reasonably sure about the sources. Thus we will eventually fill out that article. Of course, if the article on the building already exists and passes the notability guidelines, we don't need to worry about this presumption, since it's already there. (I think we're talking the same thing, not disagreeing with you). --MASEM (t) 00:17, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

And once again you state your insane misreading of what is clearly listed and has been in effect for years now. Notability is determined by the general notability guidelines OR the various secondary guidelines because there is more than one way to determine something is notable than media coverage. No matter how many people tell you this, you just refuse to get it. Dream Focus 00:26, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

You refuse to acknowledge the RFC that shows SNGs are designed to be stepping stones to eventually meeting the GNG, not as outright replacements. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

As others have told you, we go by what's on the Notability guideline page. If there was support for such a change, it'd be made here. I don't care what random group of people showed up and commented in an RFC that 99.999% of all Wikipedia editors never even knew about, or what some of them may have said. Dream Focus 01:07, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but by consensus building, that's what the rest of the editors do. Otherwise, we might as well never even try anything like AFD or other discussion areas since 99.999% of WP don't visit or know about. --MASEM (t) 01:14, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

You do that by discussing it on the talk page of the guideline in question, not some other location less likely to be noticed. How many people participated, and how many specifically said one thing or another? As it is now, we follow what's on the current notability guideline page. If you want to change that, then get a consensus to change that page. Dream Focus 01:57, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

No, you can discuss on centralized pages, particularly when you advertise it (as this was, even with a watchlist notice). Given that more than 100 editors were involved, its hard to deny that doesn't reflect consensus. But irregardless, the keyword that presently exists in the guideline is "presumed". Meeting the GNG or a SNG is not an iron clad guarentee that the article can indefinitely remain since consensus can change. The more sourcing you can provide over time (given we have no deadline), the strongly you make that presumption and reduce the chances of the article being considered for deletion. --MASEM (t) 02:40, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

If the clear consensus in an AFD was to keep the article because a SNG was satisfied even though the GNG was not, would a closer be justified in nevertheless closing as "delete" and citing to the RFC you mention as authority? postdlf (talk) 16:47, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Let me give a hypothetical where that could happen: Say there is a baseball player in the pros that played a handful of games in 2010 (read: sourcing this article should be trivial due to plethera of Internet sources) before a career ending injury; when he played he had no great performances, possibly was a backup player. Per NSPORT, we would of course allow this player to have an article because one criteria of that SNG says that notability is presumed if the player played at least one pro game. But because of a lackluster career, the article is effectively a stub without any real chance for expansion, resting on or two primary sources that affirm he actually played a game. In the case that article is sent for deletion in, say 2013, I fully expect it to be kept by the !voters and admin, because it's only been a few years, there's still the presumption that the player is notable, and maybe there are sources that have yet to be identified to expand out the article. Now come 2020, and we still have that stub, and while you can't proven a negative, no one has been able to bring forward any other sources about the player. At this point, those people hanging onto the presumption of notability offered by NSPORT are likely to find it difficult to keep that presumption, and this would be a case where I would expect the admin closing the discussion to opt to say that presumption is no longer valid.

But you notice that I'm talking long-term here. There's no DEADLINE but at some point, the lack of any located sources will weaken the presumption and tend towards an SNG-passing article to be deleted. I dare not say how much time we should allow for that, since that will be gamed either way, but it should be known that a SNG-passing that lacks sources towards GNG (much less WP:V and others) will ultimately be deleted, but certainly not in the short term. Basically, the SNGs are good faith assumptions that more sourcing is forthcoming for an article and thus it is stupid and unnecessary to delete for some years after their creation - but that as time marches on, those assumptions will weaken.

This is why SNG criteria, when they are developed, should be looking towards if sourcing can be found if the criteria is met, as opposed to just outright inclusion of every member of a class of articles. The criteria should reduce the number of false positives (the criteria is met, but sourcing simply doesn't happen) thought they don't have to be flawless. Bringing it back around to buildings, as I've stated above, being on the NRHP in the US requires that the building have some documented history to it, and ergo, for WP's purposes, we would consider that history as part of the sourcing for the article, and thus that would be a reasonable criteria on an SNG about buildings (It may take time to get the quoted sources, but that's not an issue of concern here). On the other hand, there's also centurian building lists of buildings that have existed for 100+ years. That doesn't assert any importance to the building alone, and thus that would be a bad SNG criteria since there's no assurances of sources in the future. --MASEM (t) 17:30, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

• yawn* We have had sports articles sent to AFD about people who died decades ago, and it ended in keep for meeting the suspect specific guidelines. Your time limit theory is just plain nonsense, no matter how many times you say, which of course is constantly every chance you get. Dream Focus 17:52, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

You did notice that I did mention about the availability of sources? Sport figures that died decades ago implies that most of the sources will be in print and thus will be much harder to find and locate, and thus we would realistically give even more time for such articles to come around. But when we're talking about very contemporary topics where a google search will locate 99% of the information about them, and that continues to prove fruitless after several years of trying, that suggests that sources aren't forthcoming. --MASEM (t) 18:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I won't repeat all that I said above re: Preservation bodies listing buildings due to association with notable people... but we do need to factor that into our discussions. This actually relates to the issue of "notable does not guarantee we have an article"... some listed buildings should not have their own article, because they are better discussed in some other article. Similarly, a sports player who only played one or two game might not rate a stand-alone bio article, but would be better mentioned in a list article giving that season's team roster. Blueboar (talk) 19:28, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, yes, even if the topic is later determined to fail the presumption of notability, if the information can be preserved it should be. This means that if a merge/redirect is in order, we don't AFD it; and yes, this goes back to the above discussion about standalones. But take the case of say an article on a 100+ yr old building that's achieved a registered "historic" status simply due to age and not because of any other history. If we get to the point where the presumption of notability no longer holds, there is likely no place to put the information about this building (I don't think we have lists of centurian buildings for any geographic area), and we'd likely delete the article. --MASEM (t) 19:51, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:FRINGE

WT:FRINGE#RfC on the scope of WP:FRINGE... Please take a look, and share your opinion (on that guideline's talk page.) Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

"necessary but not sufficient" criteria

In regards to discussion about WP:BLP1E a good point has been made that WP:NOTE should cede to policy like BLP1E. I know that that is an intent of this, but at one point I thought we had language about this, but that seems to have gone. We do talk about how content can be limited by BLP, NOT, etc. in the lede, but I thought we had a statement that Notability should be considered "necessary but not sufficient" criteria for a stand-alone article, and that specifically certain policies strongly warn against articles even when the topic is notable. --MASEM (t) 22:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I for one don't see that need at all, and think that this sentence would be harmful. The current lead explain that idea already in a crystal clear way: A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not. and This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page.

Having a standalone article is primarily a matter of style, and the "necessary but not sufficient" wording would give too much weight to notability as a mindless test, instead of as a guideline for the best structure for content. Diego (talk) 22:26, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, that line you cited was the line I thought was there, and I don't want to add any extra sentences, but we need to recognize that there are other policies (BLP1E for example) that also can limit, since BLP1E is not references from WP:NOT (that I'm aware of). I knew we had something explicit and I don't want to make anything stronger. --MASEM (t) 22:41, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

From a pure logic standpoint, a simple statement says it all with respect to wp:notability. "Meeting wp:notability is A requirement for existence as a separate article" However, 90% of people are not logicians and will not "hear" it. Being a "necessary but not sufficient" is also often not understood, but does restate it in a second way which is a plus. North8000 (talk) 22:47, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the word "prerequisite" might help. Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Excellent idea. North8000 (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

It seems like the right word but I want to make sure we don't step on toes, recognizing this is a guideline and not policy ("prerequisite" is a tad strong). That said, we can argue IAR for cases where there are standalone articles without notability and not worry about that. --MASEM (t) 18:09, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that it is both logical and accepted in practice that guidelines are commonly worded with things that are written as if they are rules but which really aren't because guidelines aren't policy. For example Wp:mos has dozens if not hundreds of those non-binding rules. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:08, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:MOS is a bad example... it is probably the single most ignored policy/guideline page we have (there are so many exceptions to what it says, that most editors don't pay it any attention). That said, I do have to agree with the concerns here. Most of our guideline pages have been affected by Instruction Creep... slowly drifting away from offering guidance, until they become lists of "rules". It would be nice to get back to guidance. Blueboar (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you need to read WP:PGE. "Rules" are not the sole province of policy. WP:EL, for example, is "just" a guideline, and it contains an absolute rule against linking to copyright violations. WP:V, on other hand, is a "major" policy, and it contains a substantial amount of optional advice, like the non-binding suggestion that translations be provided as a courtesy to less lingually capable editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:52, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Writing specific articles

I would like to request someone who is intersted to write about specific articles. Firstly, in sports, Ai Alai is a sport not listed in the wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.1.85.82 (talk) 02:14, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you are thinking of Jai alai? Blueboar (talk) 02:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Proposed new notability section for authors

I find the notability criteria for most creative professionals here incredibly ambiguous. I hope I'm not alone in that sentiment. Although I'd like to tackle others, for the time being here is my proposal for a rewrite of WP:AUTHOR. This is based in part on the existing WP:MUSBIO criteria:

Criteria for authors (Draft 1)

An author of a book in any genre may be notable if one of the following criteria are met:

1. The author has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent from the author's works themselves. This criterion includes published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, magazine articles, online versions of print media, and television documentaries except for the following:
   • Any reprints of press releases, other publications where the author talks about himself or herself, and all advertising that mentions the author, including manufacturers' and publishers' advertising.
   • Works consisting merely of trivial coverage, such as articles that simply report book signings or similar events.
   • Articles in a school or university newspaper (or similar), in most cases.
2. The author received a major genre-based or other literary award of national or international importance. (e.g. Pulitzer Prize, Newbery Medal, Caldecott Medal, Agatha Award, Hugo Award, et al.)
3. The author appeared in any independent best-selling list of national or international importance. (e.g. The New York Times Best Seller list, Publishers Weekly bestselling lists, et al.)
4. The author has two or more works concurrently in print with a major publisher or one of its imprints. Self-published or vanity published works do not count according to this guideline. The presence of an ISBN or inclusion in a national library such as the Library of Congress or the National Library of Australia do not constitute prima facie evidence of independent publication.
5. The author had at least one work independently translated and published in at least one foreign language.
6. The author had at least one work featured with a major book sales club such as Book of the Month Club.
7. The author has become one of the most prominent representatives of a notable style or genre; note that the subject must still meet all ordinary Wikipedia standards, including verifiability.
8. The author had at least one work adapted for film or television production, provided said adaptation meets also meets notability standards (WP:MOVIE and WP:TVSERIES respectively).
9. The author has been a featured subject of a substantial broadcast segment across a national radio or TV network.

I'd also like to work in a criterion dealing with Nielsen BookScan data, but I'm having trouble finding an elegant way to do so. Thoughts? Faustus37 (talk) 21:19, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

You need to propose this at WP:BIO, not here. --MASEM (t) 21:24, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Much appreciated. Withdrawn here. Faustus37 (talk) 21:36, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Rules contradiction

Currently involved in an AfD in which someone has argued that if something meets a subject-specific guideline (in this case WP:notability (people), it's automatically notable. The argument is based on the wording of WP:NOTE at the top of the page it says:

A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right.

However, this is seemingly contradicted by the SS guideline page which says:

meeting one or more [criteria]] does not guarantee that a subject should be included

It does seem like a contradiction, any thoughts? -- Green Cardamom (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

The key word is "presumed". Meeting an SNG is generally a good faith assumption that the topic is notable, but that can be challenged or countered depending on a variety of cases (hence the presumption). There's no conflict in wording. --MASEM (t) 18:45, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

How wp:notability and sng's interact is a fuzzy area. However, when one logically dissects your post and the things that you note, there are logical flaws in your assertion that there is a conflict. The SNG that you linked to says that persons meeting one of the criteria may be notable, it does not state that they are wp:notable. North8000 (talk) 03:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree... the key word is "presumed". Meeting an SNG indicates a strong likelihood that the subject/topic will be notable, but there are always exceptions.

In addition, even when a person is notable, that does not necessarily mean we must have a stand-alone article devoted to him. It might be better to discuss him in a paragraph or section of another related article. This allows us to present his life in context. To illustrate: suppose a scientist is notable for discovering something that that revolutionized his filed of study, however there is not a lot of bio information about the rest of his life... We could write a stubby bio article about the scientist... but it might be more appropriate to NOT do so, and instead include a short "bio section" on the scientist within the article on his discovery. As a topic, the scientist is "included" in Wikipedia... just not in the form of a stand-alone bio article. Blueboar (talk) 16:32, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Off and on, I've been trying to make sure that the SNGs directly say that meeting the criteria isn't an absolute guarantee and provide some information about what to do (like WP:FAILN) when a usually-notable-but-not-this-time subject is encountered (and ideally a clear example of why a given subject might not meet the criteria). Some of them do better with this than others. It sounds like BIO could use some work on that point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:40, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• The core principle is that Wikipedia should not have stand-alone articles for subjects where there is not sufficient and reliable source material about the subject. Period. The SNGs are mainly about rough "rules of thumb" which explain what sorts of subjects are usually expected to have such source material, but the source material still needs to exist. If it can be shown that the source material doesn't exist, neither should a Wikipedia article about the subject in question. --Jayron32 05:48, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

• No contradiction. A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not. A topic is also presumed notable if it meets the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed in the box on the right. It links to the legal definition of presumed at Rebuttable presumption, which is that is an "assumption" "that is taken to be true unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise." So if it meets either the general notability guidelines or one of the subject specific guidelines, you simply assume its notable, unless someone comes forward to prove otherwise. Dream Focus 08:45, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Inherent notability for schools (again)

Please see: WT:Notability (organizations and companies)#Suggested guideline addition - the issue is inherent notability. Blueboar (talk) 15:40, 12 December 2012 (UTC)

The term "inherent" in Wikipedia is used for something else, you not notable simply because you are connected to someone or something that is. To clarify, the discussion is about where do to the common outcome of Keep that happens whenever a accredited college or a high school goes to AFD, the guideline page should simply say that all accredited colleges are automatically notable enough to have a Wikipedia article, and also asks in a separate poll for the same thing for High Schools. The more participates, the better. Dream Focus 08:55, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Blueboar has the correct version of "inherent notability". You, Dream, are talking about "inherited notability". Someguy1221 (talk) 08:58, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Wrong link

This wikilink is inappropriate:

"Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics."

However, my correction has been reverted. Fundamentally, we should never link arguments from WP:N to WP:NOT, and this is no exception. N is an inclusion criterion: if it's N, it's includable. NOT is an exclusion criterion: if it meets inclusion criteria AND shows up in NOT, it's excluded. Thus, N is the primary inclusion criterion, such that NOT applies to things that meet N, but things that don't meet N are never tested against NOT, since they fail the primary inclusion criterion.

My interpretation of IINFO isn't at issue here. Jclemens (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think it is highly desirable for WP:N to tell people that there are things which they can WP:NOT create articles for. It's one-stop shopping: WP:N tells people that to get an article, you need good sources and to clear the hurdles set by NOT and support from editorial judgement. Inclusion as a standalone article (rather than as part of some other article) requires all three of these things, not just the two "inclusion-y" things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:51, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't disagree at all. But I challenge you to get that out of the uncorrected statement as quoted above... Jclemens (talk) 05:59, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that, I do disagree inasmuch as not all three things are the responsibility of the original creator of an article: The first hurdle belongs to the author, the last is clearly the responsibility of those who disagree that the article should be standalone, and the middle one is a shared community responsibility. Still, having said that, no one has actually addressed my contention that linking to IINFO for that statement is, at the very least, the wrong target. Does anyone actually object to my edit? Jclemens (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I can see merits on both sides of the argument, but I guess I come down on the side of feeling that the link is OK. If I really try to parse the issues, I think the possible problem lies in what the sentence here says, rather than the link per se. The purpose of WP:N isn't exactly "to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics". It's to avoid inclusion of topics that aren't important enough to our readers to include. In that sense, removing the internal link doesn't really fix the problem, so much as make it a little less conspicuous. As long as we have the sentence this way, it's a very small benefit to anyone reading the page to have the link, as it gives one more reason not to include everything. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:45, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

So do you think the whole sentence should be rewritten? I can see that improving things, but then the problem would be finding any real reason to link to IINFO in the lead of Notability at all... Jclemens (talk) 01:54, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes (although it's not a big issue for me). I think the approach that Diego suggests below might work. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

• WP:IINFO is oftentimes interpreted broadly to mean exactly what the paragraph in this guideline states, which is why the hyperlink is valid and helpful. Many editors have made the WP:N-WP:NOT connection (usually as IINFO) on previous discussions at this page, WT:NOT and at AfD. Your personal disagreement with this consensus isn't a reason to go about removing the link in these guidelines. First change the consensus on the interpretation, then change the guideline.ThemFromSpace 05:39, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Jclemens in the sense that the sentence offers a misleading interpretation of current policy, and with Tryptofish that the problem lies more in the choice of words than in the link. The wording could be tweaked to better reflect how WP:N and WP:NOT are commonly interpreted at AfD discussions.

The sentence "A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below, and is not excluded under What Wikipedia is not" already explains exactly the role of IINFO as a way to exclude information that otherwise is notable; but the sentence "Wikipedia's concept of notability applies this basic standard to avoid indiscriminate inclusion of topics" makes it look like topics may be not-notable because they're indiscriminate information, which is not how the policies are consistently applied. As WhatamIdoing explains, they're treated as separate test (one positive, the other negative) and the topic requires independently passing both.

I think clarifying what "indiscriminate" means (to put information in context, and to have a clear criterion for inclusion) would be a better way to link to WP:IINFO from the first paragraph. Diego (talk) 10:47, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

... makes it look like topics may be not-notable because they're indiscriminate information Hmmm, you may be right. That's an interesting way of looking of reading it, which I hadn't considered. It's kind of the reverse interpretation of what it means and we should certainly not encourage this misreading. The point I was trying to make is that many Wikipedians see WP:N as an extension of WP:IINFO. WP:IINFO being the broader outlook, notability guidelines being a more precise application of the policy. Jclemens above is denouncing any relationship whatsoever between WP:NOT and the notability guidelines, which I do not agree with at all. It is this wholesale elimination of WP:NOT from this page to which I object. ThemFromSpace 21:38, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

So how do we express that you can exclude topics because they lack notability, or because of the other reasons at WP:IINFO, but that those are not the same thing? Diego (talk) 09:32, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Friendly reminder

About #RfC on revised proposal, above, editors who commented on or followed discussion about earlier iterations may, perhaps, want to comment about the current RfC. Just a suggestion, entirely up to you. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:16, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

We have a new notability guideline!

Wikipedia :Notability (geographic features) has just been tagged as a notability guidline after an RfC with five participants. I thought we needed much more discussion and hashing out before implementing new notability guidelines. I'm posting here to seek further discussion since apparently nobody is watching that page. My opinion is that this needs to be undone to allow for more voices in the discussion. ThemFromSpace 19:30, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks like pretty good work but I consider the mere existence of SNG's to create a messy and ambiguous situation and and special-case "copout" for not improving wp:notability so such complexities are not necessary and we can get rid of SNG's rather than add to them. Most of them are just attempting to address the fact that the ratio of detailed-coverage to actual notability-related-article suitability is inconsistent, and the fact that wp:notability fails to recognize and adapt to that. North8000 (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, the GNG is the copout. The GNG is a criterion based not upon the properties of the subject, not upon the essential policy of WP:V, but of deciding on whether to have an article on the basis of what specific types of sources we happen to be able to currently find about it. This is an accident of the type of topic, the year, the locality, the current participation. It has nothing to do with whether a verifiable article can be written providing NPOV information about a encycopedia-worthy subject. It's a course of desperation,for use when we cant think of anything better. It's sometimes even a last ditch alternative way of justifying an article for which there is no subject-based justification. There is no possible general case rational subject related guideline because the universe of subjects are too different. There's nothing commensurable about the notability of schools and the notability of porn stars. All we have in the world are special cases. We need to make them comprehensive and cover the likely types of articles. The new one is an excellent simple compromise that should remove about 5% of the AfDs from the need for discussion. 5% isn't much, but its getting somewhere. DGG ( talk ) 08:53, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:N, or the GNG, has little to do with WP:V and nothing to do with WP:NPOV. The GNG is an extreme case of WP:NOR. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

No, not really; technically WP:N extends from WP:IINFO (from WP:NOT). However, meeting the GNG likely helps an article to assure meeting WP:V (via reliable sources), NOR (by demonstrating the notability of a topic through secondary coverage) and NPOV (requiring independent sources to avoid bias). --MASEM (t) 04:42, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, really. The language of the GNG was drawn from the language of WP:A (then policy), drawn itself from WP:NOR. Helping meet WP:V is incidental; secondary sources are not as reliable as primary sources (typically, reliable is not applicable to a secondary source, we should change "reliable" to "reputable"). WP:NOT (WP:IINFO) is all knee jerk, non intellectual reaction, all negative, and fundamentally unhelpful except in turning around someone who is headed in the wrong direction. Sure, the ill chosen word "notable" pre-existed at WP:NOT, but not the information on how to demonstrate notability. Requiring two independent sources (typically in lede) is not the method to meet WP:NPOV. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:58, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't matter what WP:N was borne out of, it is still a matter that WP:N today is used to make sure articles meet WP:IINFO, one of the pillars of Wikipedia. What happens is that the method of showing how a topic meets WP:N, via significant coverage in independent secondary sources, also means that we partially satisfy (but rarely, fully satisfy) WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV. Most articles still need more sourcing and the like to fully satisfy those, but to get a partial meeting through the GNG can only be a good thing. --MASEM (t) 05:12, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:N today is used to make sure articles meet WP:IINFO? Nonsense. Or barely any. If something meets WP:N, it easily beats WP:IINFO. These are two different bars (thresholds). Your meaning behind referencing "pillars" is unclear to me. The pillars (WP:5P) are introductory for newcomers. WP:N is nuanced, for a specific purpose (AfD), and opaque for non-Wikipedians. The main use of WP:N is in deciding whether borderline articles should have their own article (or deleted or smerged). WP:NOT doesn't work with borderline articles. WP:V isn't useful for borderline articles. If something is unverifiable, then it is deleted without reference to the much more complex WP:N. WP:N doesn't encourage more sourcing, it encourages a bare minimum of sourcing and no more.

WP:N, the GNG, is used to exclude topics that are not known to be of interest to others. Specifically reputable (eg. not blog) others independent/unconnected with the topic. The SNG Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features) is a particularly appropriate as an expansive SNG because we can agree that geographic features are usually of interest without having to examine the "independence" and "depth of coverage" of sources. In contrast, Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) is an appropriate more restrictive SNG because organizations and companies are prone to encouraging sources hiding their non-independence, and in seeking to misuse Wikipedia for promotion.

I disagree with DGG's typical characterisations of the GNG, but agree that the SNGs have better practical utility, where they apply. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"to exclude topics that are not known to be of interest to others" falls under "WP is not a collection of indiscriminate information" (eg, every fine detail about a topic can "indiscriminate info" of high interest to some but not to the broad audience of a tertiary work like an encyclopedia); that's why WP:N is a guideline to support WP:NOT. And the point I'm making is that you have to get past the bare requirement of the GNG to understand how the SNGs need to be developed. There's a reason we don't just say "you need 2 sources and you've meet the GNG". The concept at its base is to assure that we have a number of sources that go into a higher-level details about a topic to make sure we can base an encyclopedic (not just what it is but why it is important) standalone article about a topic - The GNG describes the types of sourcing that an encyclopedic-quality article should have. SNGs if not crafted carefully create articles that do not do this; but that's why we presume notability in all cases so that if its ultimately decided that enough sources exist to do that with an article after a reasonable amount of time, we can consider merging/deletion as appropriate. --MASEM (t) 01:41, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, WP:IINFO points to Wikipedia:Notability as "see also, but it is the 8th dot point of Wikipedia:Deletion_policy#Reasons_for_deletion that establishes WP:N as pseudo-policy regardless of its tag.

"You have to get past the bare requirement of the GNG to understand how the SNGs need to be developed." Yes, not wording I'd use, but OK.

WP:N / WP:GNG does say that you just need two sources. Not just any sources though. Independent, secondary sources (preferably), with significant depth of coverage of the subject. Not to be confused with WP:RS. But two sources suffice. Got them, and you are AfD-protected.

I care little for "presumed", thinking that few readers know what to make of it, and I note that most deletions occur after very little time.

The start of your last sentence is interesting. This new SNG is weak on encouraging sourcing, even to the minimum GNG sourcing. I read this SNG as an acceptable exception to the GNG. Do you consider it "not carefully crafted"? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

"WP:N / WP:GNG does say that you just need two sources". No it does not. It says "significant coverage", and however many sources it takes to get there, that's your number. Remember, we're looking to make the case that there's enough sourcing out there to write an encyclopedic article, we don't need to account for all sourcing but enough demonstration that sourcing is or likely will exist to do that. One really in-depth book that goes into a topic that is considered reliable may be all one needs to meet the GNG. On the other hand, some topics may need 5-6 sources to do that. We know that if you put "you need X number of sources", that will be gamed at AFD.

"Presumed" is necessary because you can't prove a negative - that is, it is impossible say a topic is, absolutely, not notable, for purposes of writing a stand-alone article. That presumption is necessary because consensus can change or an initial presumption of notable (typically from an SNG) may fall through when sources don't appear. That's why every SNG statement should lead to a condition that sourcing can be found in time. Winning a notable award, for example, is strong assurance. Just existing is usually not. As long as we should that this condition is met, we on good faith presume notability to give time for editors to improve the article within the non-timeline of WP:DEADLINE.

As for SNGs and sourcing, to show the criteria is met, they need a minimum WP:V source (eg, in the case of an award, a cite that asserts that), but they don't need GNG-type sources from the onset. --MASEM (t) 02:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Do you consider the new SNG is "carefully crafted"?

Do you agree that this SNG excepts geographical features articles from having to meet the GNG, leaving them mainly just needing to meet verifiability, which they may do using primary sources? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:40, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Prior to the SNG, the OUTCOMES to keep recognized settlements was always based on the presumption that sources will appear in time, even if local from that settlement itself. In other words, that reasoning mimicked the how an SNG should work. This is in essence captured in the first part of this SNG. (Mind you, I'm of the opinion that this approach is a bad idea, but it is consensus so respect it). But I don't think this is carefully crafted , in considering how the other SNGs are written (which generally go "A topic is presumed notable if it meets (list of criterion)." This needs a major rewrite to bring it in line. --MASEM (t) 05:37, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I agree. I just realised how much it is about human effects (settlements, political regions, buildings and infrastructure). These are not what I consider "geographic features". It might be improved by tossing all human stuff out, leaving "Named natural features are often notable", which is not a useful guideline. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:04, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

So that calls for elimination of wp:notabiity and writing 500 SNG's.  :-) North8000 (talk) 23:15, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The way that the GNG adopts to different topics is through what is considered as "independent secondary sources" for that topic area. What would be okay for film articles would likely fail for medical topics, for example. --MASEM (t) 03:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

No, no, no, and no. A topic is verifiably notable if it has been extensively noted by reliable sources. That is the only way to verify it. If reliable sources have declined to note it extensively, they have, by extension, stated that it is not notable. This "gazetteer" (read bot-generated permastubs on Buttfuck, Nowhere) shit needs to stop. Topics are notable by being extensively noted, and for no other reason, full, stop. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 15:32, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

• (I was the sole "oppose") A proposal promoted to a guideline with only two supporters?  The discussion was left open for more than 90 days.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:13, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

• So do you predict that AfDs are going to close in contradiction to it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:27, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

• What I think is that any attempt to cite the guideline at AfD is rebuttable by noting that only two editors supported the guideline at the RfC.  The irony is that this reflects directly back onto my limited involvement in the development.  In July, my first and only contribution was to add to the "See also" the essay linked by WP:STREET, which is an essay favored by both myself and Bearian.  An editor immediately removed the essay stating, "the essay appears to have a low degree of acceptance in the community".  Unscintillating (talk) 04:57, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm unfortunately a bit late to the discussion, but I have to say from my perspective the guideline is highly problematic and possibly in contradiction to current practice/consensus. The problem is the (new) rather different treatment of populated places (basically always notable) and geographical features (may only be notable if more than statistical data exists). While this much stricter treatment of geographical features may make sense for some of them it does however even contradict conventional (print) encyclopedias with regard to some of the most important geographical features such as rivers and mountain ranges. For many of the world's rivers or mountain ranges (aside from the best known ones) traditional encyclopedias often just offer statistical information (location, length or max elevation, etc.). Such entries would not to be notable anymore under the suggested guideline, which in my experience contradicts the current practice and is imho and unjustified restriction. It makes little sense to me, why we should consider a small town of a few hundred people notable for its own sake, but not a river with a length of a few hundred kilometers or a mountain range for which we just have some statistical data available (at the moment).--Kmhkmh (talk) 04:30, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Specialty notability guidelines for Masonic groups and similar organizations.

We are currently working on some notability guidelines within the Freemasonry WikiProject that would address notability of Lodges (which fall under the "local chapter" portion of ORG), but also of Grand Lodges and other "larger than local" groups that don't fall into the "local chapter" area to explicitly address a separation of the organization from the building it meets in, and to avoid a lot of stub articles based solely on a group being "the first" in a given area or under a certain qualification (incorporated vs. unincorporated, for example).

I think that the guidelines we are working on could actually be generalized to other similarly-organized organizations in the future, but as a starting point, can we use them within the project as article guidelines, or do they need to be approved to go into the notability policies somewhere first? MSJapan (talk) 06:44, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm incredibly worried about this development. The Freemasonry Project almost solely consists of Freemasons of the conersvative stream (Anglo-American) and they do tend to hunt in groups and have a much more restrictive view of what "notability" means when applied to Masonic subjects - there are currently three attempts to delete articles relating to eighteenth century lodges (two continuing) and also a mass attempt to change the title of articles where a historic building has "Masonic Lodge" in its title. There is a general desire to not have articles on Masonic topics as well as being able to categorise by Masonic topics (for example Category:Freemasons, which may just be hyper-deletionism but it does seem to be shared by almost every participants. As I've said there is also a tendency to orchestrate views, I'm not sure whether it's by email or by seeing a recognised name and coming to their side however weak the arguments, and this could easily lead to a false consensus at odds with WP:ORG. And lastly there have been attempts to get non-Masonic editors out of Masonic articles either by bullying or by formal request to AN/I (I've had four so far). This can only lead to trouble. JASpencer (talk) 10:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Irregardless of the intent that JASpencer is worried about, if you are introducing new criteria for presumed notability, you will need global consensus to be able to adapt them, otherwise you are creating a walled project, intentionally or not. --MASEM (t) 15:02, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Why is this necessary? Has there been a spate of AFDs regarding Masonic lodges, in which WP:ORG or WP:GNG proved inadequate or incomplete? postdlf (talk) 15:11, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

This is also a good point. Notability guidelines should only be created if practice shows problems with sticking to the GNG. --MASEM (t) 15:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Echoing what other editors have already said, I would be quite concerned that such an SNG would be much too specialized, and that it would be best to rely instead on GNG or ORG. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:26, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Until now the Freemasonry Project has looked to WP:ORG. It should be enough. However, in some recent AfD's, some of the Keep opinions seem to disregard what is stated at ORG. That is a problem. Blueboar (talk) 15:47, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The question to ask is why the lodges deleted should actually be kept. If it's just based on the reasoning that all such types of lodges should be keep irregardless, that will likely fail as a reason. --MASEM (t) 15:50, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The presumption from many editors who are Freemasons (and they push the vast majority of AfDs for Lodges and grand lodges) on these AfDs that lodges should be deleted unless they showed a higher bar than in WP:ORG. For example in this current AfD the opening reasoning is merely "No apparent notability, most local masonic lodges are not notable" and that's despite it having a claim to being the first Masonic presence in Brazil and instigating a failed coup. They have been losing a few of the AfDs because the votes are following WP:ORG not because they are deviating from it. I'd like to see a closing vote where the only argument put forward was "all Masonic lodges are notable". JASpencer (talk) 16:24, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

(outdent) The largest issue has been a lot of stub articles on lodges and groups. They are usually created by members of those lodges in good faith, and I say this because most Lodge histories are not publicly printed - they are limited run for members on special occasions, which means unless there is a Masonic library nearby, there's no way to verify any of what is said i the articles, nor expand or maintain them. The best we can usually do is prove existence (and existence only) through a publicly-available list. There are also several articles whose source materials consist of one item in a foreign language, and we can't really speak to its reliability as a source for several reasons. That's not enough for GNG, but editors are willing to let this go, apparently, because no one ever cites GNG in AfDs, they use ORG.

ORG is often inadequate because only "historical notability" is being cited ("X is the first Lodge in Y"). ORG will let that pass as notability. However, somebody has to be first, and many times that historical precedence is predicated on "qualified circumstances." For example, Savannah Lodge (at AfD) is supposedly notable because it is the "mother lodge of Georgia." Problem is, three lodges need to form a Grand Lodge, so no jurisdiction has a "mother lodge." Phoenix Lodge in Sunderland (alos at AfD) is also notable "because they have the oldest purpose-built building in the area", except the Lodge and its building are separate entities. Early Lodges met in taverns, and the Lodge is not its building and never has been. The Phoenix building is notable (it's Grade I listed), but the Lodge may not be.

In the US alone, we would need to have 49 stub articles on "the first lodges" in the states, plus associated Grand Lodge articles for all the states, many of which we don't have information on other than formation dates. The truly notable historical lodges are well-documented in readily-available sources, but ORG would allow any Lodge with a date claim to pass as notable.

We also have issues with Grand Lodges. There is no single Grand Lodge that covers everyone in the world. Every Grand Lodge is sovereign in its own jurisdiction, meaning that no one else can tell it what to do in its own country, province, city or state. There are even District Grand Lodges if a Grand Lodge has a Lodge in another country it can't administer effectively. So there are 49 in the US, at least six in Germany, 12 (I think) in Brazil, and that's only on one side of the Masonic equation.

Adding to that, anyone can form a Grand Lodge, and there are multiple GLs in many places of varying actual jurisdiction and recognized legality. Therefore, the title alone does not confer notability. Yet, we have a whole bunch of stubs that we can't do anything with, like Grand Lodge of West Virginia (the majority of which was about a non-notable court case involving one member, and not about the organization), Grande Loge Suisse Alpina, Grand Orient of Poland, and Masonic Order of Liberia. AFAICT, because they exist, and because they have some jurisdiction which they claim in a given area, they're "notable." Problem is, we can't write anything on them, and for that reason they're actually unencyclopedic. "The GL of X, formed in year Y, is the governing body of Freemasonry in X" is really all we have for many of these, and all we will be able to get. That's a classic dicdef if ever I saw one.

Now, some are notable for different things - Grand Lodge of Massachusetts was the first in not only the US, but the New World, had Paul Revere as a Grand Master, and was the first Grand Lodge to recognize Prince Hall Freemasonry, which was a huge deal. The Grand Lodge of Texas sent a warrant with Neil Armstrong to the Moon to claim jurisdiction there, and I'm sure there are other things I could point out if I knew more about it. Nevertheless, these are well-documented and historically important items, and are often only one of a number of historically important items involving these groups.

As it comes down to it, it's context, really. The context of fraternal groups in general is very different than the sorts of organizations ORG is intended to cover. They can pop up simultaneously in different places, and many times, there is no single progenitor to look to - as far as ORG goes, any one of them can be proved just as notable as the others for the same reason, and that is where the problem lies. MSJapan (talk) 17:55, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

To my mind, most of this is covered by WP:ORG... which clearly and repeatedly calls for reliable sources that are independent of the organization to support claims of notability. Self-published lodge histories, and lodge websites don't qualify. In many of the cases currently at AfD, there is an assumption that sources exist to support the claims of notability... but that assumption is not always born out by the facts. Either the sources don't actually exist, or (when sources do exist) they amount to nothing more than "passing" references and not the sort of substantial discussion WP:ORG (and GNG) calls for.

I do have to agree that the "notable building/non-notable org" issue is a vexing issue. Because so many Masonic buildings are listed by the NRHP, and because the NRHP project is prolific and wants to have stub articles on every building listed by the NRHP, we have a LOT of stubs on Masonic buildings. Unfortunately, with many of these Masonic buildings, the only source is the NRHP database itself... which means the article should never grow beyond a simple stub saying "X is a building listed on the NRHP". And because there is a natural desire to say more than that... we get well intentioned editors "padding" the article with information on the non-notable organization that meets in the building (sourced to self-published lodge histories and websites). Eventually, you get an article that talks more about the lodge (organization) than about the building. The article gives more WEIGHT to the non-notable lodge than the notable building. In other words... an article that starts off as a "non-expandable stub" about a notable building... turns into a more extensive article about a non-notable organization. Yet when sent to AfD, people (correctly) say "Keep" because the building is notable. Essentially its a DUE WEIGHT issue... which grows until it becomes a Notability issue. The solution is to pare the article back to a stub about the building... but that upsets people because they view it as not WP:PRESERVEing information (even though the information should never have been added to the article in the first place, because it isn't information about the building). Not an easy issue to deal with. Blueboar (talk) 22:35, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, the policy is not working, because there are two distinct pieces to it. Under the first part, there are specific prohibitions against inherent or inherited notability, specific rules as to depth and type of coverage, as well as a rule prohibiting "allegations of lawlessness" from asserting notability. Were that to be applied, the problems at hand would be solved almost immediately.

However, the problem is not in that part of the policy, but with the "alternative" criteria for organizational activity, which deal with "scope of activities", "widespread attention", and then deals with "local chapters" separately. Does Freemasonry attract widespread attention? As an overall group, yes. As a local Lodge, not usually. Can one consider the scope of Freemasonry's activities to be national? For some countries at the Grand Lodge level, yes. Local Lodges, not so much. Can most people differentiate these? No.

Additionally, the alternative criteria for "non-commercial" and "local chapters" appear to be mutually exclusive of one another. All fraternal groups are somewhere in the middle, because they are both non-commercial and mainly locally based. So there is at least a gap that could stand to be addressed, if only to explicitly assert that both sets of those alternative criteria should apply to fraternal groups as a whole, not just Freemasonry. MSJapan (talk) 23:24, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been following this discussion, about a subject that I know very little about, and Blueboar's analysis gave me an idea about something I'd like to suggest. If one of the problems is stubs about notable buildings being improperly expanded into pages about who meets in those buildings, maybe we could provide some guidance there, without actually creating a new SNG. I haven't looked at what (if anything) WP:ORG says about it, but perhaps a sentence or two could be added, saying that pages about buildings should not give undue weight to information about non-notable organizations that utilize those buildings. I believe there is also a Masonry WikiProject, and perhaps their project pages could also give advice of that nature. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:52, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

This is for the project, and there are more issues than just buildings. We can repurpose a building article. As I said, the main problem is the alternative notability criteria allows "Y is the oldest Lodge in X" articles to pass. Fraternal organizations pretty much need both sets of alternative criteria to apply. MSJapan (talk) 21:02, 1 January 2013 (UTC)

It looks to me like ORG actually covers this reasonably well, stating that generally, local chapters/units of a larger organization are not notable. This really isn't any different than a large company being notable, but its various offices generally not being. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 06:23, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Exactly... while there are a few local lodges that are notable, most are not. Once again, the key to determining which is which is independent sourcing... the age of a Masonic lodge (or any other organization) is nothing more than trivia - unless an independent source makes note of that age (beyond just a passing reference). The same is true for being the first lodge in a given area... it is nothing more than trivia, unless an independent source makes note of the fact that it was the first Masonic Lodge in the area. Blueboar (talk) 14:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I suggest that the WikiProject write a {{Wikiproject notability essay}} in their own namespace explaining exactly how ORG applies and how it should not be misinterpreted (copying liberally from MSJapan and Blueboar's comments above, if desired) and how to deal with the building-versus-builder issues. I do not recommend trying to make a WP:PROPOSAL for a formal guideline. Also, creating entries on lists with redirects sometimes helps mollify the people who believe that being first in a small place is a big deal. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

New section: "Notable topics do not require a separate article"

While it is clear that once a topic is presumed notable per GNG or an SNG that we allow it its own stand-alone article, we should have advice that it is not required that a notable topic have its own stand-alone article.

The reasons for not making a stand alone article include if a topic just passes notability and is better discussed in the context of a larger topic; if multiple notable topics together form a collection that is notable of itself, or as a means of putting together very notable (clearly have own topic), weakly notable, and non-notable topics of the same type/categoriation into a single list (ala the Pokemon lists).

I think the advice is common sense, but it is also not documented anywhere that I'm aware of. It should be said as what can sometimes happen is where SNGs insist that a separate article is necessary when the overall topic area is better served by collective articles of the semi-notable topics, until such a time that more notability can be demonstrated. Redirects and disambiguation pages are cheap so we should not be scared of these. --MASEM (t) 15:18, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Isn't this covered in the lead? "This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article."

I don't object to an expansion; if you search the archives for european chicken you'll find some related discussions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:31, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it's fair to offer more advice with examples to give reasons for not creating a new article. Yes, it's in the lead, but I see it get ignored all the time because "Oh, this topic MUST have a new article." mentalities. Probably moreso at something like NEVENT or BLP than other areas. --MASEM (t) 15:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm open to a new section on this. Are you thinking of something like this?

Not all valid topics result in a separate article

Notability (qualifying for a separate, stand-alone article) requires more than sufficient independent sources. Topics must also comply with WP:NOT and editors' judgement about what best serves our readers. Common reasons for merging topics together include: if editors believe that the topic is better discussed in the context of a larger topic; if multiple notable topics together form a collection that is notable of itself, or as a means of putting together very notable (clearly have own topic), weakly notable, and non-notable topics of the same type into a single list.

It might also be worth looking at WP:WHYN to see whether we can better address this issue there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not thrilled on that approach. I want to make it's clear that we are talking about an option to creating a stand-alone article, already based on the presumption that the topic is notable. It is important to touch/remind about other content policies preventing standalones but for purposes here I also assume that those other content policies aren't an issue. Something more like While presumed notability is a requirement for a stand-alone article, not all topics that are presumed notable need to have a stand-alone article. --MASEM (t) 17:33, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

"Not required" if taken at face value is a pretty silly restatement of the obvious. I'm assuming that what we really mean is "not necessarily a good idea" , or "might be a bad idea due to other considerations". If so, we should probably say what we mean. North8000 (talk) 18:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Masem, is "presumed notability" really a requirement? It seems to me that once you've demonstrated notability (that a topic qualifies for a separate article), then you no longer have "presumed" notability. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:36, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

We presume notability because it can be challenged later, reflecting how consensus can change. Articles that have sourcing that just puts them into the GNG today may not be considered appropriate years later. Passing an SNG criteria presumes notability for that facet, but if no other details can be located, having a stand-alone article can be challenged. We never bless a topic as being "notable", though there are certainly topics that far far far demonstrate their notability and likely will never be challenged. --MASEM (t) 18:44, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm probably just not understanding something, but it would be helpful to me to see some sort of examples or explanation of potential kinds of pages that would be covered here: those that pass notability and do not run afoul of other policies or guidelines, but for which it just wouldn't be a good idea to have a standalone page. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:55, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

One example is Music of the Final Fantasy VII series (and the others in the series). Every album on that list is likely notable for its own article but the set is better discussed as a whole. --MASEM (t) 22:04, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that describes something that can be characterized in a specific way: subjects that are specific examples of a larger subject, where it may be sufficient to cover them in a page about the larger subject. I'm thinking out loud here, but maybe an addition to the page that is framed that way could be something to work with. Are there other examples that would not fall within that characterization? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:25, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

My favorite example is Use of antibiotics in European chicken farming. There are dozens or hundreds of sources, but it's really more suitable in Poultry farming#Antibiotics or a similar article, or (if you wanted to have a whole article on a narrow subject) in an article that discusses worldwide practices rather than specifically European ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Wow! I'm relieved to see that it's a red link! The pattern that I'm beginning to see is that a page can satisfy notability, satisfy the other policies and guidelines, but still be treated better as a section of an existing, broader-topic, page, rather than be given its own standalone treatment. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we are talking about topics that shouldn't even be covered as parts of other pages, right? Near the top of this talk thread, WhatamIdoing quoted (in green) two sentences from the existing lead. How about inserting, after the first of those sentences and before the second, a new sentence: "Some topics that satisfy this guideline are better suited to being covered as sections of existing pages that cover broader topics."? --Tryptofish (talk) 18:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

We're talking about good, appropriate, encyclopedic information. It's stuff that belongs here at Wikipedia, just not necessarily in its own article (or in some cases, in its own doomed WP:PERMASTUB). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

• "judgement about what best serves our readers"? That means people would just argue to eliminate things they don't like, despite them meeting all requirements for an article. Against any such addition. Dream Focus 10:38, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Except this is to document already existing standard practice, which is certainly not doing what you are suggesting. --MASEM (t) 12:06, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose Just seems to be bloat contrary to WP:CREEP. Warden (talk) 12:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• Hmmm... the lead does state: This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. Since this is mentioned in the lede, I think it might be helpful to expand on that statement somewhere in the main body of the guideline... to include some advice as to when using discretion to merge or group would be appropriate (and when it would be inappropriate). Blueboar (talk) 14:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
  • Exactly, it's already there as a simple statement so it's not CREEP. But adding in examples to help editors to decide when to make a new article would be good. --MASEM (t) 15:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I've been mulling this issue, and I increasingly think it's actually a very important one. But of course we have to get it right, and if we do get it right, it won't be CREEP. Above, WhatamIdoing replied to me that we are talking about "good, appropriate, encyclopedic information... that belongs here at Wikipedia", and we are, indeed. So the question is how to differentiate between:

(A) "good, appropriate, encyclopedic information that belongs here at Wikipedia, and merits a standalone page" and:

(B) "good, appropriate, encyclopedic information that belongs here at Wikipedia, but that should be a section within a broader page, rather than a standalone page by itself"

Above, examples cited have been Music of the Final Fantasy VII series that contains sections about individual albums, and Poultry farming#Antibiotics in lieu of individual pages about antibiotic use on each continent. I think it's pretty reasonable to argue that we wouldn't gain much by having separate pages on each continent. But on the other hand, we have President of the United States, but we also have individual pages about each President, and we have Nobel Prize, but we also have individual pages about individual Nobel laureates. And no reasonable person would argue that we shouldn't have those individual pages!

I realized that, at the same time as this discussion, I've been in a discussion about a neuroscience-related page, where there is a question about having individual standalone pages on each of about a half-dozen theorems about how that topic works. None of the theorems is accepted by the source material as proven, but each gets plenty of source material. I think the consensus view has been that each theorem should be a section of the broader topic page (and that's what I think), but there's a significant minority view that each theorem should have its own separate page. And as I think about it, this issue is really what went on in the early (before my time) epic discussions about how many Pokemon pages we need. So it's an issue that really does keep coming up.

So, is there a straightforward way to distinguish (A) from (B), that we could put here without it being CREEP? In a way, it goes to WP:Content forking, in that it's a question of whether or not giving each sub-topic its own page improperly gives rise to giving each sub-topic its own... what? POV? Turf? UNDUE weight? Maybe it's just "editorial judgment", but if there is something more objective and definable, it might be very useful to define it. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:44, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

A key thing is that this is not meant to be a hard line test. It is a suggestion and should not be taken as any rule or whatnot, in addressing points raised by DreamFocus and Warden. What it should be taken is that if I see a situation where I think smaller article B can easily fit in larger A, a merge suggestion should not be treated as a slight against the article's creator (as I have seen happen at times). Redirects to specific sectors or anchors are cheap and can be used plentifully to locate the merged article. This situation should never cause an AFD to be started to remove the weakly-notable article (though if a merge does occur and the smaller page is not an effective search term, a XFD for the redirect page should occur, but that's just maintenance). Partial guiding focus can be had from Summary Style, which does balance all the issues raised. --MASEM (t) 22:20, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

OK then, that takes the discussion in a somewhat different direction. Are we, then, talking about a sort of behavioral guideline, one that points to specific kinds of situations where editors should not ABF or be offended by suggestions that notable topics not be given standalone pages? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't necessary say behavior, because I cannot see how this advice would incur disruptive behavior. I would consider it a counterarguement in merge discussions when someone tries to argue "but it's notable!", as well as passing advice to new editors that create a lot of short articles that could be better as part of a larger one. But the advice does need to be given in light of notability in general as a metric for stand-alone articles. --MASEM (t) 22:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

How then would we articulate that advice? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

I think that this would be a perfect place to introduce the concept that a specific notability guideline for a topic area can include guidance on when not to create an article. Such things as not including high-school athletes despite the fact that you can find regional coverage, excluding businesses that only have coverage in local papers, song articles when the song has never charted or won an award, etc. The use of subject-specific notability guidelines to preclude article generation has always existed, but never explicitly spelled out in this guideline.—Kww(talk) 22:42, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Just making a timestamp here for the archive bot, because I don't want this discussion thread to disappear. I'm not sure where we're at now, in terms of practical/concrete improvements to the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

To restart this based on the discussion:

• "A notable topic does not require a separate article" seems acceptable advice, and a natural extension of what we already state at the top of WP:N.
• The rationale suggests that there may be two main reasons: to have one smaller notable article be described in the context of a larger notable article as to provide better context and comprehension of both topics, or where several smaller notable articles (and perhaps non-notable topics) are discussed as a natural group where the notability of the group improves the article.
• Advice given should point to any existing applicable guidance like summary style.
• Advice should be given to look towards specific SNGs (and possibly specific Wikiprojects) when not to create articles on notable topics.

I think all that's left is a matter of wording for this. --MASEM (t) 20:56, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I agree with that. I'd add that it might be worth saying that an editorial decision not to have a separate article is not the same thing as casting aspersions on the importance of the subject. I'm thinking that we could cover all of this in a single section, as opposed to spreading it over multiple places on the page. Does that seem right? Any thoughts on where, on the page, we should add it? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:53, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

Yea, that's another point to add, that the mere suggestion of a merge of a notable topic to a larger notable article should be in no way taken to disparage the smaller topic. And yes, this should be a single section beyond the current existing summary at the top of teh guideline. --MASEM (t) 00:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Good! I'm thinking that we could insert it after "Why we have these requirements". --Tryptofish (talk) 00:34, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Drafts

Here is my attempt at a first draft. We can work on it here in talk. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

When a standalone page is not required (Draft 1)

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Content forking

Although notable topics qualify for pages on Wikipedia, a standalone page is not required for every topic that passes the notability requirement. Editorial judgment goes into the decision about whether or not to create a separate page, and a decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page. Other times, several related notable topics can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page. Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject guidelines may provide information on how to make these decisions in particular subject areas.

• I would see if we can find strong examples of the two cases ( I pointed to the Final Fantasy VII albums as one case of the latter). Also, "passes the notability requirement" should be instead "presumed notable" - I have a feeling saying "requirement" will make people treat this (Better or worse) like a policy with that langauge. --MASEM (t) 21:24, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

Those are good ideas. Here is my stab at addressing them. I used a slightly different wording for "requirement", so please see if that works or not. (My reasoning is to make it more reader-friendly for users who get stuck on the concept of "presumed".) I came up with a quick example for the first case, but I have a feeling there are loads of better examples, so suggestions would be welcome. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

When a standalone page is not required (Draft 2)

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Content forking

Although notable topics qualify for pages on Wikipedia, a standalone page is not required for every topic that passes satisfies the notability requirement guideline. Editorial judgment goes into the decision about whether or not to create a separate page, and a decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals#PETA Asia-Pacific, for example). Other times, several related notable topics can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series). Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject guidelines may provide information on how to make these decisions in particular subject areas.

Instead of the PETA example, would Plant perception (physiology)#Plant intelligence be a better example? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:43, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

What I think may be a better idea just occurred to me. I think I'd much prefer to use, as a pair, Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip. Taken together, they more clearly illustrate notable topics within a larger page, and how the larger page provides better context. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Just to throw a wrench into this, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Star Wars Episode VII (2nd nomination) is an interesting thing to consider. The film (announced yesterday as part of the Disney buyout of Lucasfilm) clearly is presumed notable, but there's so little information on it as to make a new article a poor choice. This is where something like WP:CRYSTAL and WP:HAMMER (an essay! be aware!) comes into play. I think this adds a third case, where "A future event or an occurrence may clearly be notable before it happens such as the 2020 Summer Olympics, but otherwise if information is scarce at the time, discussion may be suited to a larger encompassing article."

Also, I would add something like "Redirection pages and Disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them." --MASEM (t) 16:43, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree with all of that. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:30, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Overall this looks okay to me. I've been happy talking about "the notability standards" recently, which avoids the whole policy/guideline/requirement/rule language. I think I'd put this above WHYN, rather than immediately after it. What do you think about adding potential length (avoiding doomed WP:PERMASTUBs) as a reason for choosing a larger subject? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Once again, I agree with all of that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

When a standalone page is not required (Draft 3)

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Content forking

Although notable topics qualify for pages on Wikipedia, a standalone page is not required for every topic that satisfies the notability standards. Editorial judgment goes into the decision about whether or not to create a separate page, and a decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page (Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip, for example). Other times, several related notable topics can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series). A future event may clearly be notable before it happens (such as the 2020 Summer Olympics), but if information is scarce at the time, coverage may instead be better suited to a larger encompassing article (see also WP:CRYSTAL). Also, a subject that is notable, but for which it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to say, may best not be made a permanent stub. In each of these situations, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them. Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas.

Here's a revision, in which I've tried to incorporate everything so far. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:28, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

In re the first sentence: is editorial judgment not part of the notability standards? I thought that notability = sources X NOT X judgment, and so when editorial judgment opposed a separate page, it didn't qualify for a separate page.

Otherwise, it looks good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:54, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Good , except doesn't "not required" misstate the main point? Would not something like "not a good idea" be the actual point? North8000 (talk) 10:56, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, I think it's close enough, especially for a title. North8000 (talk) 11:33, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I have rarely seen "editorial judgement" used as a reason to declare an article non-notable. In fact, the way the logic should go is:

1) Determine presumption of notability from sources - at which point we believe that the topic can merit its own page

2) Determine if that standalone page would fail any NOT clause (this is not about notability anymore)

3) Determine if there is a better way to present the information in an existing or a larger article (again, not able notability anymore).

In other words "ability to have a standalone page" = sources + NOT + editorial judgement. But notability is only taken from reviewing the sources. --MASEM (t) 16:32, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I dunno about that: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a topic can have its own article." It seems to me that "ability to have a standalone page" == notability, and that therefore notability == sources × NOT × editorial judgement, not just sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, by logic, meeting wp:notability is A condition for having a stand alone article. Since it is the most often-invoked/reviewed condition, I think that some folks loosely think of meeting wp:notability being synonymous with overall "able to have a separate article" but that is not precisely correct. North8000 (talk) 19:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

What I think we want to avoid is having "editorial judgement" become a guideline that can be evoked at AFD, as that is going to upset a lot of people (see previous comments by DreamFocus). The only two facets that should be used to start an AFD that involve notability are the lack of significant coverage/failure to meet an SNG, and falling under what we are NOT - both suggesting page deletion. Editorial judgement is most likely meaning a merge and not an aspect to be approached at AFD (though a well-intended AFD for deletion can end up as as a consensus to merge, it just shouldn't start off as such). Thus, why this section is meant as advice and not direct guidance. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Although I understand the points about where editorial judgment comes into play relative to where notability is assessed, I don't really see (maybe it's just me, maybe I'm missing something) how the wording of the second sentence of Draft 3 is a problem, or what anyone is suggesting as a different way to say it. (After all, that sentence is taking it as a given that the "topic" has already been presumed to be notable, but editors are considering not making a standalone page about the "topic".) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:18, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I figure I'll wait another day or two for any further comments, and if there are no objections I'll go ahead and add Draft 3 to the guideline page. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:20, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Done. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. If it needs tweaked later, then we can do that later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:08, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Good, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

• I approve of Draft 3. I think it should be added. Reyk _YO! 00:04, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Reverted

• You had two people clearly state they were opposed to this already. You need more people to participate before adding that in since it changes things so greatly. Mention it on the village voice or somewhere to get more participates. What you are basically saying now is "Meeting the notability requirements doesn't matter, you can still have whatever random group of strangers shows up to participate, decide to eliminate something anyway because they don't like it." Every notability guideline page should have its talk page mention this discussion for more participation, since it basically lets people ignore all of them at will. Dream Focus 19:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
  • But that's not what it says, you're misreading it, and it already reflects standard practice. --MASEM (t) 19:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
    • The top already says "This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article." You don't need any more than that. Dream Focus 19:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
      • We're not changing anything from that, we are only adding advice as to when to consider it, which as best as I know doesn't exist in any form in WP policy. That's completely reasonable and within standard practice. Since we're only expanding without changing whatever is already on the page, your opposition to it is pointless. --MASEM (t) 20:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
        • No need adding that much text to something unrelated to an article page that exist to explain what notability is and how it is determined. They can link to the page on mergers if they want to learn about doing that. Dream Focus 20:20, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
          • Except its not just as simple as merging. We're talking about issues to be considered when one is about to create an article in the first place. And that needs more text. It's not unrelated at all. --MASEM (t) 20:31, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Dream Focus, I know from previous discussions that you feel very strongly about inclusion criteria, but please give me a little more credit for good faith than what you have been saying here. You and one other editor made very brief negative comments about Masem's early suggestions on the topic a couple of weeks ago, and the discussion since then was entirely supportive until just now, when you reverted the addition and said these things here. This page is a guideline, not a policy. I very deliberately let time go by before implementing anything, and neither you nor anyone else objected then. At this point, you, a single user, have reverted a change that was supported by multiple editors. I've read your comments here, and it seems to me that you overstate what the addition would do, and you basically are opposed to any kind of language that acknowledges that there are, sometimes, situations where a standalone article is not needed. You would like to have broader discussion? That's fine with me. I'm going to start an RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

So you expect people to repeat themselves constantly for weeks? I'm opposed to anything that will be quoted in AFDs as an excuse for people to delete articles they don't like. There is no reason to have all of that here on the notability guideline page, instead of the merge page where it belongs. "and the discussion since then was entirely supportive", by four people, with only two people against it. That's not really a proper consensus. Dream Focus 21:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Repeat themselves constantly for weeks? No, of course not. But a little AGF would always be nice. Template:-) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I see edit warring over the paragraph, so I've requested that the page be full-protected. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

How is that edit warring? Stop being all melodramatic. Dream Focus 23:11, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

If you gotta ask... --Tryptofish (talk) 23:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

RfC on standalone pages

Should the following section be added to Wikipedia:Notability, after "Notability is not temporary" and before "Why we have these requirements"? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm temporarily stopping the RfC. Please see #discussion of draft 4, below. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

When a standalone page is not required

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Content forking

Although notable topics qualify for pages on Wikipedia, a standalone page is not required for every topic that satisfies the notability standards. Editorial judgment goes into the decision about whether or not to create a separate page, and a decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page (Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip, for example). Other times, several related notable topics can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series). A future event may clearly be notable before it happens (such as the 2020 Summer Olympics), but if information is scarce at the time, coverage may instead be better suited to a larger encompassing article (see also WP:CRYSTAL). Also, a subject that is notable, but for which it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to say, may best not be made a permanent stub. In each of these situations, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them. Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas.

There is discussion about the question directly above. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:08, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support addition. Reyk _YO! 00:06, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• A well written explanation of a complex issue... well done. Support addition. Blueboar (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support, as I've said above. This should promotes mergers rather than deletions in borderline cases and more complete, contextually appropriate, non-WP:Content forked articles in all cases. It should also reduce confusion among less experienced editors, who frequently believe that if we don't want an entirely separate, very narrow article, then the subject can't be mentioned anywhere at all. We might not want an article about Antibiotic use in European chicken farms, but we can certainly discuss all of that information in our articles on Poultry farming, antibiotic use, and other relevant articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you made a very good point: that this addition will tend to encourage merge over deletion. I hadn't thought of that, but it's definitely true. (I think it's already obvious, but I support the addition.) --Tryptofish (talk) 01:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if we can include something that strongly warns against deletion to handle such pages (per Dream Focus' concern). --MASEM (t) 01:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm biased at this point, but I think the concerns are unfounded, and the existing text does, as I just said, actually help in this regard. I'm also disinclined to "warn" editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:34, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree... I prefer a positive statement encouraging people to consider merger than a negative statement "warning" against deletion. I think the proposed language sets that positive tone nicely. Blueboar (talk) 02:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support, looks good, makes sense, will be helpful. J04n(talk page) 01:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• Strongly Oppose the current text, although it got me thinking for a while. Even if I sympathize with the goal (I've written an essay myself about the subject), the approach is misguided and it will encourage removing information from WP: either by people insisting to delete the article instead of merging, or because the content in the merged target article is prone to be removed as WP:UNDUE weight (I've seen this too often).

If something along this lines is added to the guideline, it must be much less idealistic and well-meaning and much more practical, describing exactly how and when a single article is to be merged; "editorial judgment" is utterly useless in guidelines to guide discussion, so this paragraph does nothing to help those mergers and a lot to undermine the GNG. As a collection of advice on when to merge, I agree with DGG that it would be better added to the Merge guideline, not in notability.

I'm also concerned that the text describes when a notable article should not have an article, but does nothing to explain when it should have a short article as the better outcome, instead of being merged. As such, the guideline is imbalanced and at the very least it requires further tweaking before being admissible. I think it's time to create a new guideline for "stand-alone articles" that is separate from WP:N describing the best practices for short articles, and the best way to merge them when the best outcome is to have them grouped. Diego (talk) 07:17, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Except, when is a small stubby article better than merging the content into a larger more comprehensive article? There never really is a time for this - stubs are okay in some cases, but as articles mature, there are always better options. --MASEM (t) 10:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

When is it better? 1) When the short article is not stubby and 2) when there isn't a larger, more comprehensive article covering the topic. Never and always are such strong words...

I've recently defended an article for a classic game that achieved short but reliable coverage, enough to create a well-balanced article. It was suggested at AfD to merge this game with other similar games for the same computer to have a more solid article with respect to notability; but since that encompassing article doesn't exist, and creating it was out of scope for an AfD, that wouldn't be a viable outcome for the deletion discussion, and the article is likely to be deleted even if it satisfies GNG to the letter.

I never understood the widespread hate towards short NPOV articles, really. Merging them is an option sometimes, but not always. If there are too many of them in the same class, the best solution is having many short articles and a category and/or navigation template to find them and provide context. The guideline should highlight a short article as the preferred option in some cases. Diego (talk) 10:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Given that the text does not say "short articles must be merged", I'm not seeing the problem outside a lack of explicitness. Also, in the case of that AFD, note that this is going on regardless if this proposed text is present or not; regardless of what WP:N says, it will always come down to consensus, so that's a non-starter as an argument against this. --MASEM (t) 11:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You and I know that "a standalone page is not required for every topic that satisfies the notability" will be used at AfDs to defend "a standalone page is not required at all" - thus Delete the poorly written article. At least if it stated "short articles should be merged if they're otherwise going to be deleted", that would be an improvement over the current version. Diego (talk) 13:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense, it's talking about mergers. If a parent article already contains all the information of the stub, that leads to the question of why you would want to keep the stub which provides less context. Is it about keeping the information or some meta concept about article existence? IRWolfie- (talk) 23:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense, but it's what will happen at AfDs :-) Things there don't always make sense. (The point is that some short articles are not stubs and provide more context than a merged section). Diego (talk) 06:45, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose The top of the guideline already says This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. You don't need any more than that. This addition at the very start that even if it meets the GNG, it doesn't matter, its up to "Editorial judgment" to determine if it should be an article or not. So whatever random group of people notice and show up to comment, will determine whether an article stays are not, and people who just don't like something, such as articles of a certain type, will just rampage around wiping out articles they don't like in hordes. "I don't like it" will become the only reason necessary for deletion. This happens too often already in AFDs, we certainly don't need to be encouraging it to happen even more so. It'll come down to some saying "It meets the general notability guidelines clearly" and others saying "that doesn't matter, since my friends and I don't like it, so we'll delete it anyway". Dream Focus 08:36, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
  • Given that you're opposing the expansion of something that WP:N already says, and that we've already said that actions relating to this article do not involve deletion, the opposition here makes no sense. Further, to complain about a group of editors showing up to AFD to delete articles they don't like is no different than something like the Article Rescue Squadron propping up articles to be kept. You can't have it both ways. --MASEM (t) 10:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
    • See my comments above. Notability is not the place to expand whether a topic merits a stand-alone article or a merger; the arguments introduced in the new paragraph are orthogonal to having enough sources, and should not be conflated. And the current wording leaves lots of cases that haven't been tested (such as not having a proper place to merge the content). In articles with marginal notability, it's easy to see how the proposed section could be used to support deletion even if that's not the intended goal; because "notability is not clear", "there isn't a good place to merge the content" AND "a standalone page is not required for every topic". That last bit is dangerous material to fuel AfDs, and accepting it as a guideline before its effects are tested in the wild is a no-no. Let's have a separate essay for stand-alone articles where all these concerns can be properly explored. Diego (talk) 11:00, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
      • Your last point, that "a standalone page is not required for every topic" being a problem at AFD, is nonsense because WP:N has already said this forever as Dream Focus points out in their opposition; if it was going to be a problem, it would have reared its head by now. In fact, to me, I find that the opposite is true, that people insist that one you show an article is notable, it must have a standalone article, making it difficult to rationally discuss merge options even though the merge would not lose any content and would be better for all content/articles involved. Again, I stress that we're not creating any new practice here; this is documenting what already is done, but stressing that this options should not be considered "evil" as some would take them. --MASEM (t) 11:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
        • True, WP:N has always said that. Then consider that the problem is not that it adds something new, but that it's stressing that idea (not having the article) without considering the alternatives, in a way that wasn't highlighted before. The whole proposed section (at least as you defend it) appears to me as implying the notion that short articles are bad, and I strongly oppose that idea. Thus, the section must fairly balance when to keep and when to merge, or not exist at all. Diego (talk) 13:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
    • Masem, there is no reason to expand that on this page. The way it is worded is far different, and will be used differently. And this is quite different than what the ARS does, we finding reliable sources whenever possible that cover subjects, and prove they are notable. You shouldn't try to delete something because you don't like it, that has never been an acceptable reason. And even articles that are long and well referenced, people still try to delete because they don't like the subject. Proving that they meet the notability guidelines, is what convinces a closing administrator to keep the article. Saying meeting the GNG doesn't matter at all, and you can have people nominating the same article time and again until they get enough random people to notice and participate who think the way they do, in order to get articles they don't like deleted, is going to cause all sorts of problems. Dream Focus 15:29, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
      • You are the only one saying deletion here. If someone tries to use the suggested advice to nominate an article they think should be merged at AFD, that AFD should be immediately closed as a speedy keep and the nominator trouted for not using the merge process to discuss that. On the other hand, with or without this advice, we are not going to be able to stop an AFD nomination where the editor insists that deletion needs to happen when notability is weak - this already happens now. --MASEM (t) 19:32, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support. Seems to me like useful guidance. Theoldsparkle (talk) 17:30, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Support Merging topics in stubs into larger articles ensures what otherwise might have been a stub is presented in a larger context. To make a good encyclopedia editorial judgement is required, creating stubs willy nilly doesn't help anyone when the same information can be put into an existing article in a way that makes sense.

rant: We have over 4 million articles on wikipedia, of which 2 million are stubs (from Wikipedia:WikiProject_Stub_sorting/Stub_type_sizes/data and Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team#Statistics). We have a relatively fixed number of editors. On wikipedia, articles about villages, hamlets are usually kept WP:OUTCOMES. There are an estimated 2.7 million villages in the world (src Bank, World (2006). 2006 world information and communications for development report : trends and policies for the information society. Washington, D.C.: World Bank. p. 127. ISBN 0821363468.). There are around 30 million species Species#Numbers_of_species, around 2 million ([1][2]) of those are described and named and thus are kept at AfD WP:OUTCOMES. So we have a possible amount of intrinsically notable articles as 4.7 million just considering towns and species, most likely doomed to eternal stubdom. Species which have no coverage beyond confirmation etc belong at species:Main_Page. There are people who get lists of villages, and then create each and every single one, what is wrong with simply just tabulating the info in a list of villages? We don't need all these stubs that will never be expanded and only face possible vandalism; we can have the exact same information but just organized in a different way. We are still growing by 30,000 articles a month (commons:File:Enwikipediagrowth6.PNG), while the number of editors stays about the same.

IRWolfie- (talk) 23:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose: For two reasons, 1) this language a standalone page is not required for every topic that satisfies the notability standards. is very misleading as there is no Requirement to have an article on a notable subject anyway. So, how can we say an article is not required. If this effort succeeds, I would strongly suggest the wording be changed to a standalone page is may not be required justified for every topic that satisfies the notability standards. 2) I find the words editorial judgement in this language to be problematic. Whose editorial judgement? The editors who think they own articles and suppress any addition they don't agree with, or the judgement of new editors who might be bringing new insights into stubs, etc. I think this opens up a potential minefield, especially in topic areas where there are social, political, geo-political and cultural battlegrounds already. --Mike Cline (talk) 14:25, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • On the first, the wording change is fine. On the second, it doesn't matter who, it just that the end result should be supported by consensus discussion. There's no can of worms here because MERGE already allows editors to engage in this if in article areas that are battlefield-like in nature. Again, to stress: what is being added documents existing practices already, and does not create any new suggested practice. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
  • For the record, the current guideline refers twice to editors' judgment, and twice to editors' discretion; I think it's a pretty common theme in guidelines, and I don't see how it could reasonably be interpreted to mean anything other than "editors should do what seems best to them, in light of Wikipedia guidance, and if there's disagreement, they should talk about it until a consensus develops." Unless you categorically disapprove of any guideline or policy that doesn't offer 100% ironclad rules about what to do in any given situation (which would seem to include any guideline, because guidelines aren't policies, and also any policy, because WP:IAR exists, and also WP:IAR), your second objection doesn't make much sense to me. (The first sounds like a good change, and I'd be surprised if anyone strongly disagreed with it.) Theoldsparkle (talk) 20:27, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support All too often I see editors at AFD that seem to believe that once notability is demonstrated, a standalone article is inevitably justifiable, to the point where you get editors screaming that no deletion is possible under any justification once they have come up with two reliable sources for the information. A standalone section of WP:N that emphasises and explains why that isn't true would be useful.—Kww(talk) 15:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support trivially true. We merge somewhat notable articles all the time. A good barometer, IMO, is if an article has sat around in stub form for a long time, or if people have tried to find reliable information and couldn't get too far beyond the stub stage. That, of course, is just a rule of thumb that I've seen several editors use. And it's always an editorial decision. But those are details that can be added and worked on through the WP:BRD process. I think the overall wording is a good starting point, and worth inserting into the guideline for clarity and common sense. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)
• Support in principle. There's extensive current practice in this area, but it isn't really codified at all, so having something for editors to refer to seems like a positive step forward. I am, like some others, nervous about the potential for this to become ammunition for imposing "cleanup" in marginal topic areas, but I'm at least satisfied that it shouldn't be AfD fodder. (Whether "propose merge" becomes the new "nominate for deletion" is another matter, and I'll be profoundly displeased if that happens.) —chaos5023 (talk) 02:56, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

RfC extended discussion

I think it might be helpful to create this space for more extended discussion of the issues that come up in the RfC. It seems clear to me that, so far, quite a few editors like the proposal. For the moment, I want to continue here the discussions that already have begun above, with the two editors who have, so far in the RfC, opposed the proposal.

I know Dream Focus feels very strongly here, but I'm not finding your arguments very persuasive. Yes, people show up all the time at AfD, making WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments. The right way to counter their arguments is to point out that they are arguing WP:IDONTLIKEIT, which is widely regarded as an argument to avoid. Yes, those people will then try to bulk up their weak arguments by misquoting or cherry picking quotes from various guidelines, and yes, it is possible to misrepresent what the paragraph proposed here says. But the right way to respond is to point out that they have misrepresented what it says here. Quote this proposal accurately, and you make the point that merging is better than deletion, and the AfD should be closed as keep.

Diego, you have raised some very thoughtful and astute concerns, and I want to explore whether this proposal can be improved accordingly. I'm receptive to making these ideas part of WP:MERGE, with a link from here, but let's first explore whether we can make something work here. You point out that leaving everything to "editorial judgment" is dangerously vague, and that we should try to make things more specific and instructive. I think that's a good idea, and I'd like to explore whether we can do that. You also point out that we should (in effect, my words not yours) present both POVs, by giving due weight to cases where short pages should be kept as short pages. Again, I think you are right about that, and I'd like to explore revising the proposal accordingly. I can assure you that I, for one, am not what you call a hater of short NPOV articles, and I hope that we can explore, here, these ways of improving the proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I was thinking of proposing a new draft along those lines and see if the added terms get traction. I'm glad you're open to that possibility. I'm not really opposed to the advice in the RfC draft as such, only to the way it was presented and included in the guideline. I'll try to add tomorrow some new points for consideration (mainly that the content shouldn't be merged to an article with undue weight, that collecting several related notable topics only work when the number of items is not too high, and that a short article sometimes can provide better context for the topic than a merged section in a longer article - and thus be preferred). Diego (talk) 22:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You can't reason with these people. You tell them they are misreading what it says, and they'll just say the same about you. You have to have things specific. Such as "Saying you don't think it belongs in the encyclopedia because you don't like that sort of thing or don't find it encyclopedic, is not a valid reason to eliminate something that passes the notability guidelines. If you believe the article's content is perhaps better suited in another article, then go to WP:merge and follow the instructions there. You should not call something a "merge" as an excuse to delete it, and just put a token amount if anything at all in the other article." Had an editor posting all over the place and arguing nonstop trying to get rid of the article for Pizza cheese for instance, just wouldn't let it go, dragging things out, despite all the protest against him. You add this long new section as it is currently written on this guideline page, then it'll just be more difficult to shut people like him up, and more will be hollering the same ridiculous argument of "just because it meets the notability guidelines, doesn't mean we should have an article for it", whenever they really mean is "I personally don't like it, and want it gone." Dream Focus 22:58, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

That's simply not a compelling argument because that advice has been part of WP:N for a long time. Does it enable something like the pizza cheese AFD? No - because again, if someone wants something deleted, they will ignore the new advice, just as much as they ignored the original WP:N statement. No one questions that merge discussions are very different from deletion discussions, and that a proper merge shouldn't cause the information in the article being merged to disappear. But all of this exists now without the new paragraph, and that the new paragraph won't change anything in this area. The argument that this paragraph will cause massive change in AFDs is pretty much bogus. --MASEM (t) 23:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

If its already here, then why stretch things out? There is no possible justification for having that on this page. Put it on the merger page instead, where it belongs. Dream Focus 23:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Because we have the problem in the other direction, editors extremely resistant to merging content, typically on articles they've created or that they have a strong interest in, despite when others point out that there's net benefit to covering a smaller topic within the context of a larger one. Even the suggestion of a merge has been taken as a slight against their work and themselves. But it's also not just about merging, it's about creating articles too so sticking the advice on the merge page isn't appropriate. People need to use more common sense before rushing to creating new articles, when there is definitely an appropriate larger topic to include that information in. Ergo, we can't just toss this advice on the merge page; it is appropriate here to the concept that the presumption of notability allows but does not require a standalone article. --MASEM (t) 23:25, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Masem, that's a good point, about WP:MERGE. Part of what we are trying to address here has to do with creating new pages, and putting it on MERGE would lose that information. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Diego, thanks, that's great. I look forward to seeing what you present, and I'm pretty confident that it will work. Dream Focus, I find that I can reason with most users who are willing to engage in good faith with me. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Are you imagining "bad faith", that I'm somehow against you, or is that just an excuse to dodge responding to what I said? Dream Focus 23:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not imagining anything, really. You said that you find that there are people you just cannot reason with. I said that I find it generally possible to reason with the people I come across on Wikipedia, and I'm involved in lots of disputed issues. I don't think that you are against me personally, although I think that you disagree with me on the proposal here. And I'm not against you personally, either. If you are not finding my reply to you satisfactory, I'm sorry, but I'm not trying to dodge anything, nor to make any excuses. It does appear that you and I have different discussion styles. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

I think whether other people can be reasoned with is largely a matter of perspective. Note DF's contributions at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/N.I.N.A. (2nd nomination), with the associated accusations of bad faith and the insistence that "Notable albums get their own pages". The article (which I could temporarily resurrect as a user page, if necessary), is a poster-boy for the issue we have here, with the reasoning explained in detail at Talk:N.I.N.A.#Redirect discussion.—Kww(talk) 15:56, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The only thing you could dig up was from over two and half years ago? An article ended in "No consensus", and then you try to replace it with a redirect and when you fail you send it to AFD a second time, only a day after the first. You also apparently removed much of the original content before the second AFD, and since the article isn't there anymore, I can't really judge that though. Don't really care since it happened so long ago. I argued to keep it since the article clearly passed the guidelines, and at the time it seemed like a really lame "if I don't get my way, I'll just keep on nominating it until I do" bit seen too often in AFDs. Nothing gained by deleting it. Out of the 4 million Wikipedia articles on the English language Wikipedia, about 3 million of them are of stub size according to a guy posting recently on Jimbo's talk page who had checked all the sizes with a bot. Of course, as I have said, it was two and a half years ago, so I don't remember how much content was left in the actual article, so merge might've made since in that case. If so, it should've just been a merge discussion, and there was never a reason to delete the history of the article when a redirect was placed there. Dream Focus 00:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It was just the first example of you dealing with this kind of problem that came to mind, and it was a completely on-point demonstration of the "there's a source, so there has to be a stand-alone article too!" line of reasoning. All the facts necessary for you to revisit your decision are there if you read the large and detailed analysis of why the remaining material was unsuitable instead of dismissing it as "lame".—Kww(talk) 00:20, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I've been working on a new, expanded draft including the concerns expressed at the opposition to the version in the RfC. I'm trying to emphasize actionable measures and decision criteria over subjective measures (whether a topic "merits" an article or not) that will always be a matter of personal opinion and are prone to produce division. I believe the opening sentence ("having a standalone article on Wikipedia is a matter of style") is safer than the previous proposal ("a standalone page is not required for every topic"), which was geared towards not having the article.

In addition to the previous ideas for when a notable topic should still be merged, I've added a new section with reasons for keeping the standalone article. I hope that all these criteria, listed as bullet points, should encourage direct discussion and thus facilitate agreements and consensus-building.

I'm not sure how to proceed to introduce a new draft, given that the previous one is the basis for the RfC and it's already showing some support (as well as opposition). I think it's common to first refine the new proposal to a sensible middle ground and then start a straw poll for each proposal so that clear preferences can be stated. Diego (talk) 21:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Draft 4

Standalone pages for notable topics

When a topic satisfies the sourcing standards for notability, having a standalone article on Wikipedia is a matter of style and how the available information is best presented. A notable subject can be covered better as part of an article for a broader topic, including context that would be lost on a separate page. Conversely, when there is enough information to create a well balanced article, a separate page provides more room to cover the topic in depth. Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas.

Notable topics as part of larger articles

Further information: Wikipedia:Merging

A topic can be described in a small part of a wider article when there is not enough content for a start class article. In that situation, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them. The topic should be relevant to the content of the target article.

• A decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic, as it provides the reader with the wider picture and better explains how the subject relates to the main topic. This is a good solution for topics that are notable but fall under What Wikipedia is not, such as news reports or catalog tables of reasonable size.

• Examples: Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip, for example).

• Several related notable topics can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series).
• A future event may clearly be notable before it happens (such as the 2020 Summer Olympics), but if information is scarce at the time, coverage may instead be better suited to a larger encompassing article (see also WP:CRYSTAL).
• A subject that is notable, but for which it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to say, may best not be made a permanent stub.

Notable topics as standalone pages

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Content forking

Deciding whether a separate article is needed is often difficult for a notable topic with few reliable sources, or for which sources provide a small amount of distinct information. There are some cases where covering such topic with a short article is still a good idea:

• Enough references describing the topic may exist, and the article is short only because the sources have not been included yet. A well placed stub for a topic with potential to be expanded can entice editors to add content and complete the article with the right format and structure, making it easier than creating the article anew.
• There are cases where many similar notable topics exist and they cannot be collected into a single page, since the resulting article would be too long. A viable option is creating a new list or category for the broad-concept topic and linking the individual articles from it. See Category:Restaurants in New York City for an example.
• Placing the content of a notable topic under a wider article can provide undue weight to it. That can happen with fringe theories or lesser episodes in a biography, in special for biographies of living persons. In those cases, a standalone article for the notable topic is preferred, as the content is likely to be removed from the main article.
• Short articles should provide enough context beyond a summary or simple definition in order to explain how the topic has impacted the world, or how it was received by people that wrote about it. The reason for a topic's noteworthiness should be established, or at least introduced, so that a reader with no previous knowledge of the topic can get a rough understanding of it. This can be done including attributed value judgments from experts in the field such as reviews, critiques and academic studies. Focusing on the quality of coverage, rather than its quantity, can help to ensure that the significant content required to write a standalone article is available.
• Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia, and the amount of content and details should not be limited by concerns of article size. This means that all the reliable sources can be potentially included as long as they are relevant to a topic. If many independent sources provide a neutral description of the same details, the details are deemed notable and a new spinoff article can be created to hold them. A brief description in summary style can link to it from the main article, providing the same context that would be available if the standalone article didn't exist.

discussion of draft 4

I think this is excellent... but I am not sure whether really fits within the scope of the WP:Notability guideline. Perhaps it would do better as a separate (new) guideline? Blueboar (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, that was one of the suggestions already... having a standalone article is different from being notable. Although they've been traditionally conflated in the same guideline, there's no reason why they couldn't be separated. Diego (talk) 22:33, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Yeah... I would put it this way: being notable is a precondition for having a stand alone article on a topic (just as being verifiable is a precondition for inclusion of content within an article)... but it does not guarantee a stand alone article on a topic (just as verifiability does not guarantee inclusion of content within an article). Blueboar (talk) 23:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Diego, huge thanks for your work on this. I agree with Blueboar that this is excellent. As for whether or not to try to make it a separate guideline, I think that we should also consider whether there are ways to provide the same information in a shorter form, and be able to keep it here.

I think it's important to give this new approach careful consideration, and WP:There is no deadline. Therefore, I'm going to temporarily stop the RfC that I started, while we examine this new idea. I think that there has, so far, been enough difference of opinion to conclude that Draft 3 has no consensus in its present form. My hope is that a draft growing out of Draft 4 will be resubmitted to the community in a resumed RfC. On the spectrum of editor opinion, from "inclusionist" to "deletionist", I think it's very important to find a draft that is in the middle of the spectrum (which means that neither pole will be entirely satisfied, but also neither pole will be entirely dissatisfied), so I hope that editors from both ends of the spectrum will help discuss it. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:46, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm certainly not opposed to a separate page for this, and linking to this. But again, in relation to notability, we need to say, in some language and in more depth than just the phrase in the header: "a standalone page is not a requirement for a notability topic", and to add from others "A standalone page may be the best option for a topic with sufficient but minimum notable coverage instead of merging". A paragraph here , linking to this possible new page, is fine. --MASEM (t) 23:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

What about: Notability is a precondition for having a stand alone article on a topic, but it does not guarantee a stand alone article on a topic. Some notable topics may be better presented within the context of an article on a broader topic (see <new guideline>) Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not yet sold on a separate guideline. I'd like to work on the shorter approach I mentioned above. My apologies that I've been (and will continue to be, for another day or two) a little short on wiki-time, but I'll work on fleshing out what I mean as soon as I can get to it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence is confusing. Perhaps you mean something like, "Even if a topic satisfies the sourcing standards for notability, editors may choose not to create a standalone article on Wikipedia after considering matters of style and how the available information is best presented."

If a topic is notable, it qualifies for a separate, standalone article.

Notability = Sourcing × WP:NOT requirements × Editor's best judgment

Notability is not just the first term in the equation. This section is about defining that third term, the one that takes a "qualifies based on sourcing" presumably notable topic and turns it into a topic that is not notable, i.e., does not actually "qualify for a separate, standalone article", because it's stylistically/contextually/whatever better for that material to be merged elsewhere.

Wording that translates to "A topic that [qualifies for a separate, standalone article] does not qualify for a separate, standalone article" is never going to work for me.

On the bigger question, while I honor the attempt to reduce ambiguity, the fact is that the third term in the equation is editorial judgment. It is not possible to reduce that to a checklist or to fully define it. The third term is, and has always been, a "subjective" item. We don't have to all like it, and a few of us will really hate it, but that's how the community actually makes these decisions, and we have to respect that fact, that very real existence of the importance of subjectiveness, on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What I'm thinking is that we ought to find a way to acknowledge that "editorial judgment" is necessarily involved, but at the same time, make it explicitly clear that simply invoking the phrase is not a sufficient argument for deletion or merging. I'm working on ways to explain how, per Draft 4's bulleted points, there has to be justification in terms of how the decision helps readers understand the material. Sometimes, a standalone page helps one understand. Sometimes, the context of a section within a larger page helps one understand. (The other thing I'm thinking about is condensing the two sub-sections of Draft 4 into a single section. That way, we won't have dueling "content forks", one devoted to the "deletionist" approach, and the other devoted to the "inclusionist" one.) --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

That approach sounds lovely. :-) If you can manage that feat, you'll have my respect. Diego (talk) 21:59, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The one thing to keep in mind is that there will always be people on extremes - those that insist a notable topic must have a standalone article, and those that will think that anything that just barely shows notability should be deleted - and we're not going to change their behavior with this descriptive process of what we do. My goal in this overall is to simply give those majority of editors that fall in the middle a nice pointer to go "Hey, there's a better option to handling this topic..." something we presently cannot do with any guideline (MERGE only partially addresses this). So it is important that "editorial judgement" is a consensus-based decision and that often one enters IAR territory on these discussions. We would hope everyone involved in the consensus discussion is trying to think how best to present the topic to the reader, whether that's in context of other topics or standalone. --MASEM (t) 22:23, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You're right that in the end, it's always a consensual decision. That's why I think it's important to show a list of points that can tip the scales one way or the other; not as hard rules to follow, but as suggestions for ideas to have in mind during discussion. Diego (talk) 07:04, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: actually, that new wording you propose wouldn't work, as it differs from mine in an important way. My point was to express that sometimes editors will want a new article, sometimes they won't. I'm sure my text could benefit from some grammar checking (specially for prepositions) as English is not my mother language and it shows; but that first sentence should still be neutral with respect to the existence of a standalone article. Diego (talk) 06:58, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

If it's not clear from my comment above, I support this. I think the wording needs work. But I don't expect perfection. I think the spirit of the idea comes across, and that spirit is following what I've always known to be best practice: that editors make decisions to merge articles all the time, and that bare notability isn't always the best reason to separate a topic out from a better article with more context. I support these drafts in various forms, and hope we can continue to work on the wording through further editing. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:00, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

• [3] What "sourcing standards" are you referring to? Seems rather vague. And I'm still against this in any form. Hopefully you don't expect everyone who already commented on having any chance at all, to repeat themselves every time a new draft is tossed out there. Anything about merging should be in the merging article, not filling up the page here. Dream Focus 00:33, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  • As has been explained before this is not limited to merge actions and ergo cannot just be pointed to there. The issue includes article creation before one even starts to write about a new notable topic (whether in with another article or as a standalone). "Sourcing standards" are outlines at WP:V and WP:RS. And yes, we do expect those that commented and are interested to review drafts that are attempting to accommodate their concerns on previous language. That's consensus. --MASEM (t) 01:02, 23 November 2012 (UTC)
  1. The sourcing standards for notability are the WP:GNG, and the WP:SNGs for particular topics.
  2. Hopefully you don't expect everyone who already commented ... to repeat themselves How else do you propose to build consensus? There's no need to comment on every draft; but you stated your concerns, I stated mine; and the draft above was composed with the goal to satisfy them, so after it's iterated through several versions for polishing, it's sensible to ask for approval or further refinement. Note that I'm at your side at the goal to avoid fueling AfDs with the "page is not required for every topic that satisfies notability" original proposal; and that you an I have often agreed at AfDs. So what's wrong with saying in the guideline that, sometimes, short notable articles should not be merged into larger articles? Diego (talk) 14:55, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Dream Focus makes it clear that they are "against this in any form", presumably including any new form that may be proposed in the future. That is their prerogative. Then again, consensus does not equal unanimity, and consensus will be determined by those editors who participate constructively. At this point, I don't plan on supporting anything without a community RfC. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:10, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I am against any addition, since as I have stated it is unnecessary, and no reason to have anything that long shoved into the article. Others have made their objection clear also in this manner. No need for us to have to keep repeating it. Having the exact same thing being discussed again with slightly different wording, doesn't chance the fact that it isn't necessary, and serves no purpose other than to hammer in the deletionist motto "It doesn't matter how many reliable sources give it coverage, or how long the article is, or any other factors, if the random editors that notice something is at AFD, and decide to comment there, don't like it, you can delete it anyway." Dream Focus 23:41, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

If you want to remain steadfastly against any addition, and refuse to work (as the others that initially objected to this) to get the language right, you won't be able to stonewall against consensus. You're assuming incredibly bad faith that this is a deletionist ploy. --MASEM (t) 05:50, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Unless there is no consensus for any change at all. And its not assuming bad faith to state the obvious, since some who have supported it have already made it quite clear their beliefs that no matter what guidelines something passes, they can still delete it if they feel like it. Just say it flat out and obvious, don't go trying to pretend otherwise. While some supporting this may have good intentions, there are obviously others supporting it who do not, and the end result will be the same regardless. Dream Focus 16:07, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

No one had said they want articles deleted. You are definitely assuming that the additions are being propose in bad faith, and thus you are obstructing useful discussion towards consensus (Which is currently being achieved below). AGain, what has been proposed is stating what practice already is, not creating new practice, and current practice is that we merge such topics, never delete them. That won't change so calling this a deletionist thing is bad faith. --MASEM (t) 16:27, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, of course, they're not deleted, they are merged. I don't want people rampaging around getting rid of articles for clearly notable people replacing them with redirects to one of their books or whatever they are notable for, and calling it a "merge". Information about the author would then be removed if any put in another article, because it doesn't fit there, that article about their book not them. I've seen that happen before. Also, things that clearly pass notability requirements and have long articles filled with valid information, are sometimes targeted by people who don't like that sort of thing, and want to redirect them all to one article. When things end in Keep at AFD, people often try to argue to "merge" them elsewhere, which means just replace an article they don't like with a redirect. This happens far too often and drags out needlessly. Dream Focus 17:06, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

If you believe that "things that clearly pass notability requirements and have long articles" should not be deleted or merged, this is your golden chance to explain the reasons why that is the case, and have them encoded in the guideline, so that the default behavior will be to keep them no matter how many editors that don't like it show up at AfDs. Diego (talk) 17:31, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

To be honest, I think you're trying to target the actions a very small number of certain individuals that have personal chips on their shoulders to deal with a specific field of interest to try to strip down information/remove it/whatever. No amount of guideline or policy will change their behavior, and that's what it is is a behavior problem meaning that if they keep doing that, you go to RFC/U and other dispute resolution.

Mind you, that's a select few people. But when you start applying that at large, that's assuming bad faith. If an article is kept at AFD, a merge discussion afterwards is not a bad thing; it can be used to better address the problems that the nom and others saw at AFD to propose it for deletion. It only gets bad if the same editor keeps pushing the merge over and over despite repeated merge discussions that have failed. That's why its important to stress that "merge" is not an evil word as some make it out to be, particularly if that includes the redirect to keep the history of editing around. --MASEM (t) 17:40, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

As I'm thinking about a Draft 5 (yes, I'm actively thinking about it), something occurs to me that I don't think was mentioned yet and may be worth discussing. Part of the third bullet point in the second half of Draft 4 is based on WP:BLP. I'd be disinclined to include that part, because those issues really end up being about WP:DUE. BLP is very clear that potentially defamatory content is impermissible no matter where it's located, so it doesn't really help determine where best to put permissible biographical material. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Well seen; I just intended to provide some examples of topics that are undue under a main topic (not because they're defamatory, just minor to their life as a whole, like "Invitations to the inauguration of Barack Obama") and nevertheless can be notable and adequate at a different context. But it's better not to mix this with the WP:BLP policy; that sentence could be shortened to "That can happen with fringe theories or lesser episodes in a biography." And maybe you can think of different examples that don't involve biographies. Diego (talk) 16:15, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Good, agreed, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:19, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Draft 5

Standalone pages for notable topics

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Content forking, and Wikipedia:Merging

When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how to present the available information so that readers can best understand it. Sometimes, this objective is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we always do so. There are other times when it is better to cover the material as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context. A decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Editorial judgment goes into each decision about whether or not to create a separate page, but the decision should always be based upon specific considerations about how to make the topic understandable, and not merely upon personal likes or dislikes. Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia, and so the amount of content and details should not be limited by concerns about space availability.

• Does other information provide needed context? Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page (Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip, for example). Other times, standalone pages are well justified (as with President of the United States as well as standalone biographies of every individual President). One should particularly consider due and undue weight. Fringe theories, for example, may merit standalone pages but have undue weight on a page about the mainstream concept.

• Do related topics provide needed context? Sometimes, several related topics, each of them similarly notable, can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series). Other times, when many similar notable topics exist, they cannot be collected into a single page, because the resulting article would be too unwieldy. In that case, a viable option is creating a new list or category for the broader topic and linking to the individual articles from it (as with Category:Restaurants in New York City).

• What sourcing is available now? A subject that is notable, but for which it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to say, may best not be made a permanent stub. On the other hand, an article may be a stub even though many sources exist, but simply have not been included yet. A stub about a topic with potential to be expanded can entice editors to add content and complete the article. If information about a future event is scarce at the time, coverage may instead be better suited to a larger encompassing article (see also WP:CRYSTAL). Other times, a future event may clearly be suitable for a standalone page before it happens (such as the 2020 Summer Olympics).

Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas. When notable topics are not given standalone pages, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them. Conversely, when a standalone page is created, it can be spun off from a broader page.

Thoughts? Have at it! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Quite impressed, so far. I'll sleep on it and give my thoughts tomorrow. Diego (talk) 22:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

• I read through your draft without knowing too much about the previous discussion. When I finished reading, I became confused as to what the purpose of this was and how it related to notability—I had to even check what page I was on. Then I scrolled up and read the first line of this section written by Masem and it all made sense: "While it is clear that once a topic is presumed notable per GNG or an SNG that we allow it its own stand-alone article, we should have advice that it is not required that a notable topic have its own stand-alone article." For as long as the draft is, it's not very clear as to what is being recommended and why. To start, perhaps you should change the section title to Standalone pages are not required for notable topics. --Odie5533 (talk) 03:40, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I personally find the use of the word require in this context highly misleading and wish we'd stop using it. Notability of a topic does not require an article or even inclusion of the topic in another article. I could list at least 100 topics that would meet our notability standard that do not have articles, but nothing requires me to write them. Our standalone article inclusion criteria is notability. Editors who chose to write articles on notable topics must ensure the topic meets our notability standard. Any content added to another article must meet our verifability criteria and has nothing to do with notability. Inclusion of content in another article on a topic that might otherwise meet our notability criteria is indeed an editorial judgement, but that decision is something that is justified by the context, not required by it. --Mike Cline (talk) 04:01, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

We don't want that to be "required", hence the need to direct the language away from that. That's the primary purpose here - there are some editors that insist that once they have a notable topic it must have an article. That's not the case, and why its necessary to assert that a separate standalone article is not required for a notable topic. --MASEM (t) 05:44, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

There's not a requirement to include aynthing at Wikipedia; the only hard requirements are to not include things that could damage the Wikimedia Foundation. So why should we single out the non-requirement for standalone articles, above all the things that are not required? I agree that this word is too strong, and likely redundant. At least now it's balanced with a reminder that Wikipedia is not paper and that, if new articles are not required, they're also not forbidden. (If you intend to use the "not required" argument at discussions, prepare to have it replied to each time with WP:NOTPAPER. It would be better to spend our efforts on the rest of arguments). Diego (talk) 06:10, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, some more thoughts. I like the new structure, it's better to have the "do"s and "do not"s for each criterion together instead of a whole separate section for each.

I'm worried that the fourth point in the SHORTPAGE section of Draft 4 (about short articles with enough context) is missing from the new draft while the link to WP:PERMASTUB essay remains. The difference between "a stub with no reasonable prospect for expansion" and a "valid short article that cannot be expanded" is subtle, but it exists - and ironically PERMASTUB gives some hints: when most aspects of the topic are not covered in other articles, all the important things to say about the subject are included, and the subject was not about a single event, then it merits an article even if there are no more sources to expand it.

I call these articles snowflakes (as opposed to run-of-the-mill). See the deletion discussion for Abraham Brian farm house for an example. There, an overwhelming early Delete consensus was reverted to a Keep; it just needed pointing out that, even if the person didn't meet the notability guideline for biographies, there was still a valid article because the house was being noted. With such a small tweak, a valid article was retained that would otherwise have been lost. (That was a case of notable vs non-notable, not of "notable-yes-but-with-or-without-article"; but the argument is still the same).

Quite often, all it takes to keep a stand alone page (with enough context for the topic to be properly explained) is a small effort to clarify in the article the reasons why the topic is notable and polish its structure and style. The third point in the current draft makes it look like it's a matter of volume, though, not the quality of information provided by the sources and reflected in the article. My new motto is focus on quality, not quantity; I think this idea must be included somehow in this guideline before it can be made public.

As for the section title, maybe a simple "Standalone pages" would suffice, since this would be the only guideline describing their relation to notable topics. Diego (talk) 12:43, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I've read with great interest the feedback so far, and here is my analysis of it. I'm trying to find ways to incorporate every concern that comes up, and sometimes this means figuring out how to reconcile opposing suggestions.

• The word "required", what the section title should be, and making it clear what the purpose of the section is. Odie5533's observation that it wasn't obvious why the section was being proposed strikes me as an important problem to address. One obvious way to go about that is to make a better title for the section. How about: "Whether to have standalone pages for notable topics"? That posits the question, without taking a side, and without getting into "required". Is it too long? We could also go with: "Whether to have standalone pages".
• "Required" and clarity in the first paragraph. Also, I'm not clear from the discussion: is it considered a problem where the second sentence of the first paragraph says: "... but it is not required that we always do so"? I can see how saying that something is "required" would present problems, but it is unclear to me whether saying something is "not required" presents the same problem. If we alter that phrase, I have trouble seeing how we could still make it clear to a new reader what the purpose of the section is.
• The fourth bullet point of the second part of Draft 4. When I started Draft 5, I was unsure about how much of that material to retain. In part, I'm concerned that it becomes a too-lengthy how-to about article writing, instead of guidance about notability. I have trouble seeing how to avoid making it sound like "how to write a good article". On the other hand, I'd be happy to add, maybe at the end of the third sentence of the third bullet point of Draft 5 (the sentence about enticing editors): "(see also the essays Wikipedia:Every snowflake is unique and Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill)." Would that be enough, or not?

I think you can see that these are things where I'm not sure which way to go, so specific feedback on these questions would be very helpful. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:36, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I would still welcome comments on these issues, but, seeing none so far, I'm going to use my best guesses, and move forward to Draft 7, because I don't want Draft 6 to sidetrack what has been a productive discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Draft 6

Standalone pages for notable topics

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Content forking, and Wikipedia:Merging

Important things to remember:

• If something qualifies for a merge, then it should be discussed on the talk page, to determine if that is the best way to do things. Tag both articles involved with a notice showing people there is a discussion.
• You may not merge something just to get rid of an article you don't like. Dismissing the notability guidelines simply because you don't think something should be allowed on the Wikipedia, is not acceptable.
• While we try to assume good faith of all editors, we must also watch out for those who try to game the system. There are some editors who after failing to get an article deleted in a proper deletion discussion, will immediately start a discussion on the talk page to try to eliminate it through means of a "merger" instead. These bad editors sometimes repeatedly nominate something for deletion or bring up merger discussions after awhile to try to restart the same discussion hoping for the results they want, ignoring all previous discussions which has shown people were against these actions. While consensus can change on things, this is clearly an act of someone gaming the system. Editors must judge for themselves if there is a valid reason to merge something, or someone is just trying to use that as an excuse to eliminate an article they don't like.
• If a page is too long, its best to divide some of the content into a side article. You can not merge things together if the result would be an article too long.
• You may not eliminate valid information from an article, just to make it short enough so that a merger would seem practical.
• Even if an article is merged, it can still be restored later on if enough valid information about it has been found to fill its own article.
• Wikipedia has no shortage of space, so space concerns are never a valid reason to delete or merge something.
• An article being short should not be the sole reason for merging it. The notable subject may do well on its own, or have potential to expand.
• To see examples of when something should be merged, and when its best not to, see the WP:MERGE article, since obviously that's the right place for that.

• How about that? We need everything laid out clearly so we can show the difference between legitimate merges and illegitimate ones. Dream Focus 17:33, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

I hope that you don't mind if I endlessly reply to what you proposed, but it seems to me that this version (probably better with WP:NOMERGE as the shortcut) would fit better at WP:MERGING than here. It's basically about merging, and particularly when not to merge something. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:57, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

And importantly, we're trying to discuss advice that applies at both article creation and at merging, so while this advice for merging may be suited there, it doesn't address the issue of creation. --MASEM (t) 21:00, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

• Somehow we have transformed what we are drafting from a broad philosophical statement (Essentially saying: not every notable topic needs to have its own stand alone article; sometimes it is better to present it in the context of another article) into a set of "Rules for merging and not merging". I am not sure that I like this transformation. The broad statement at least had a tie to the concept of notability... now it just seems like disconnected instruction creep. Blueboar (talk) 01:33, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

  Since these new articles would be created regardless of what is said, it ends up as being a merge discussion anyway. People will only link back here and quote what is suggested in other drafts, to try to eliminate an article someone has already created by merge or deletion. The existing bit in the article already says everything that needs to be said at the top. This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article. Dream Focus 07:23, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

  I agree with Dream Focus at this point (not necessarily the draft, but the relevancy). If you substitute in Draft 6 the word "merge" with "not having a standalone article" the ideas do apply to new articles as well. And Blueboar, this is a guide for style not a philosophical discussion; it's not here to provide moral support for those editors willing to merge the notable topic or keep the notable topic (do not! do too!), we already have IAR for that. It should explain why we think a topic should or should not have a page; it's useless without that. And it's not instruction creep if the rules are contradictory - you can still decide which one applies to each particular case and ignore the rest. Diego (talk) 08:30, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

At this point, I hope that it's obvious that Draft 6 is not so much an outgrowth of Draft 5, as a rebuttal to it. My preference would be to go back to discussing Draft 5. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:55, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Yea, the problem with Draft 6 is that it is being prescriptive and introducing new "rules" that 1) don't belong at WP:N but at MERGE, and 2) do not address the original philosophical point. DF's assumption that adding new language will give ammo for those that are insistent on deleting material is completely in bad faith and does not recognize this happens already, with or without the previously proposed langauge, and more importantly with an addition page to clarify things of when and when not to consider including a smaller topic in a larger one, we can potentially offer advice to be more useful to prevent such AFDs. While one can state IAR, IAR is meant to be for exceptions, and this really is not, because again we're starting from the point that this guideline never said that a notable topic must get a standalone page though there are editors that fight strongly on this assumption. Because the consideration of smaller topics discussed in larger context is rather common, it's not something to just IAR away. --MASEM (t) 15:12, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd prefer not to get sidetracked by a discussion about DF, so I hope we can get back to a productive discussion about #Draft 5, where I left some questions that I hope others can answer. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:16, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

This proposal doesn't seem to reflect any of the advice in the previous edits, which has a consensus as far as I can tell, if not something very close to it. We'd be better off working with the other version. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:56, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

• Many of these concerns have been included at Draft 5 and Draft 7 already (space, content forking, article growing, a link to WP:SNOWFLAKE to defend short articles). I think the call to WP:PRESERVE content that would otherwise removed may be a good addition to Draft 7, if we find a concise way to include it. The comments about editor behavior seem out of place though; this is not a behavioral guideline but a content guideline. Diego (talk) 22:26, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Draft 7

Whether to create standalone pages

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Content forking, and Wikipedia:Merging

When creating new content about a notable topic, editors should consider how to present the available information so that readers can best understand it. Sometimes, this objective is best achieved by presenting the material on a dedicated standalone page, but it is not required that we always do so. There are other times when it is better to cover notable material as part of a larger page about a broader topic, with more context. A decision to cover a notable topic only as part of a broader page does not in any way disparage the importance of the topic. Editorial judgment goes into each decision about whether or not to create a separate page, but the decision should always be based upon specific considerations about how to make the topic understandable, and not merely upon personal likes or dislikes. Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia, and so the amount of content and details should not be limited by concerns about space availability.

• Does other information provide needed context? Sometimes, a notable topic can be covered better as part of a larger article, where there can be more complete context that would be lost on a separate page (Barack Obama presidential campaign, 2012#Other initiatives and Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012#International trip, for example). Other times, standalone pages are well justified (as with President of the United States as well as standalone biographies of every individual President). One should particularly consider due and undue weight. Fringe theories, for example, may merit standalone pages but have undue weight on a page about the mainstream concept.

• Do related topics provide needed context? Sometimes, several related topics, each of them similarly notable, can be collected into a single page, where the relationships between them can be better appreciated than if they were each a separate page (as at Music of the Final Fantasy VII series). Other times, when many similar notable topics exist, they cannot be collected into a single page, because the resulting article would be too unwieldy. In that case, a viable option is creating a new list or category for the broader topic and linking to the individual articles from it (as with Category:Restaurants in New York City).

• What sourcing is available now? A subject that is notable, but for which it is unlikely that there ever will be a lot to say, may best not be made a permanent stub. On the other hand, an article may be a stub even though many sources exist, but simply have not been included yet. A stub about a topic with potential to be expanded can entice editors to add content and complete the article (see also the essays Wikipedia:Every snowflake is unique and Wikipedia:Run-of-the-mill). If information about a future event is scarce at the time, coverage may instead be better suited to a larger encompassing article (see also Wikipedia:CRYSTAL). Other times, a future event may clearly be suitable for a standalone page before it happens (such as the 2020 Summer Olympics).

Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages may provide information on how to make these editorial decisions in particular subject areas. When notable topics are not given standalone pages, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them (see also Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap). Conversely, when a standalone page is created, it can be spun off from a broader page.

Continued from #Draft 5, above. Thoughts, advice? --Tryptofish (talk) 15:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Very good. I am still not sure whether this would be best presented as a section within WP:NOTE, or as a linked stand-alone guideline page on its own... but as far as guidance and text goes, I have no issues with it. Blueboar (talk) 15:44, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Hate to add more to make this longer, but I would suggest, in the lead, about not disparging the importance of a topic when included in a larger subject, adding that we can use redirects and disambiguation pages to keep such terms as searchable terms, possibly linking to Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap in addition to WP:REDIRECT and WP:DISAMBIGUATION. --MASEM (t) 16:18, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

Ahh, I just this now at the bottom. Nevermind then... --MASEM (t) 16:19, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I just added the essay link. Thanks for pointing it out. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:30, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

• I like it. It's starting to get wordy, and I think we can get to the point a lot quicker. But I'm happy to add it as is and refine it through the ordinary policy editing process. This definitely represents existing practice: sometimes notable stubs are merged, or notable articles with a ton of unreferenced material are cleaned up and merged. Especially when there's an article that can put that topic in context, instead of obfuscating the sub-topic with a data dump and editorial opinion. The fact that this proposed section is descriptive of this practice -- and not prescriptive -- is exactly why it's a good guideline. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:01, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
• I have mixed emotions. I mostly like the result. I have this feeling that posting this text as a guideline will be misused in horrendous unpredictable ways, but I can't think of a single comma to change. So I say, go ahead an publish it; but keep an eye on it and be open to change it (or even trash it) when it gets tested in the field and we get feedback from the community. Also: can we get another, more positive shortcut besides NOPAGE? Diego (talk) 22:17, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Like Shooterwalker, I have a feeling that's it's gotten a bit wordier than it needs to be, but I'd need advice as to what to trim. (Maybe I'll think of something.) Diego, please feel free to suggest a second shortcut (WP:STANDALONE is already taken, alas), and also please feel free to point to anything that might lend itself to misuse (especially if fixing it doesn't require making it longer). --Tryptofish (talk) 00:40, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

• Here's my attempt at a brutally simple version:

Whether to create standalone pages

Further information: Wikipedia:Summary style, Wikipedia:Content forking, and Wikipedia:Merging

When adding reliable research to the encyclopedia, editors should strive for optimal reader understanding. Sometimes this is best achieved through a stand-alone page. But other times, editors may decide that notable content would be more comprehensible as part of another notable article, with more context. Making the editorial decision to cover a notable topic as part of a broader page is never a statement of dislike, disparagement, or a concern about limited space (since Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia). Editors may arrive at a consensus that a stand-alone article would be better as part of another article where it would lead to a higher quality, more understandable article, and should consider these factors:

• What reliable research is available? A stand-alone page is appropriate for topics where there are abundant reliable sources to discuss it, even if that stand-alone page is currently a stub. But when no reliable sources exist on a topic, a full article cannot be writting without resorting to original research and undue weight, and the article risks becoming a permanent stub. Permanent stubs are good candidates to be merged into broader article. (For example, articles about a future event where there is scarce reliable information.)

• Are there other articles that provide needed context? Sometimes a notable topic is more informative when covered as a section in a broader article with more context. Another way to improve context and understanding would be to compile several short notable topics into a single page or list. Avoid collecting several notable topics together if the resulting article would be too unwieldy, and consider creating a navigational list or category instead.

• Are there other guidelines about how to best cover the topic? Consult Subject-specific notability guidelines and WikiProject advice pages for advice on whether to create standalone articles in particular subject areas. Also consider whether the stand-alone page would give WP:undue weight to WP:fringe theories or other things that WP:Wikipedia is not.

When notable topics are not given standalone pages, redirection pages and disambiguation can be used to direct readers searching for such topics to the appropriate articles and sections within them (see also Wikipedia:Redirects are cheap). Conversely, when a standalone page is created, it can be spun off from a broader page.

Not trying to make this more complicated. I mostly removed the examples, and tried to avoid unnecessary words and repetition. If I'm barking up the wrong tree, let's just go with draft 7 and work at it through ordinary editing. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for this! I could quibble with some of the wording choices, but it would be easy for me to just edit those things for a Draft 8 if there is interest in using this approach. What I'd like to ask is: what do other editors here think about the approach of removing the examples, as well as some of the links (to essays, for example)? I'm too close to it at this point to be able to see clearly about it, so I'd really like to find out what other folks think about that question. By the way, as I've said previously, I feel that we need to have an RfC before we put anything on the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I still don't like it and for me it has a touch WP:CREEP. There is nothing wrong with offering additional advice but that can be done as an essay rather than extending bloating guideline. If it is on guideline level it is likely to ultimately function as a "law" for disputes over articles and merging discussion. Meaning its character is becoming more mandatory rather than simply advising lost authors.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Understood. And that's why we would need an RfC. My perspective is that it really isn't creating new "law", because of what the guideline already says on the subject, but there obviously are differing opinions on that matter. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:14, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Does making it shorter make it less clear that the wording is intended not to take "sides" about deletion/inclusion? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:44, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

It looks to me like we have discussed the drafting of the proposal to the point where everyone's eyes are glazing over. I'm going to answer my own question immediately above by saying that I think it's very important not to give the impression that the proposal is pushing for deletionism, because it really isn't, and giving examples illustrating each way one might go is very useful to make this concept clear. What we might gain by succinctness pales in comparison with what we need to gain by including examples.

In another day or so, I'm going to pull together a draft for the RfC, and start the RfC, and we'll let the community response determine the consensus. I'll submit something pretty similar to the draft at the top of this talk section, but I'll try to see if I can make anything more succinct. I'll also create WP:PAGEDECIDE as a first shortcut, per Diego's comment. Of course, I'd still welcome any further feedback. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur with your analysis, and also prefer the version with links to examples. The new title and the shortcut are very good. Diego (talk) 19:00, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! (Now I have to find the time to follow through on it...) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)