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:::Yes, they seem to be the same issue - why redirect schools but not include these athletes. There is a fuzzy separation line, but part of that is the idea of permanence and importance. Schools have much longer "lifetimes" than the students within them and the school itself is typically a critical part of the education system within the community it serves. A school athlete is just that, and falls, broadly read, into the idea of BLP1E as well as the concept of [[WP:ROUTINE]]. We also have the fact that the set of all elementary schools is pretty much a fixed size - growing and shrinking a small fraction each year - while the idea of school athletes is unbounded. I can't suggest any further rules that say when we split them, as I would think anything else is based on what consensus deems appropriate; consensus has always been in favor of schools, but why not other businesses or places like churches? It is likely that schools are government-recognized, and would be the type of things noted in a gazetteer, compared to other businesses or the like. --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 14:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC) |
:::Yes, they seem to be the same issue - why redirect schools but not include these athletes. There is a fuzzy separation line, but part of that is the idea of permanence and importance. Schools have much longer "lifetimes" than the students within them and the school itself is typically a critical part of the education system within the community it serves. A school athlete is just that, and falls, broadly read, into the idea of BLP1E as well as the concept of [[WP:ROUTINE]]. We also have the fact that the set of all elementary schools is pretty much a fixed size - growing and shrinking a small fraction each year - while the idea of school athletes is unbounded. I can't suggest any further rules that say when we split them, as I would think anything else is based on what consensus deems appropriate; consensus has always been in favor of schools, but why not other businesses or places like churches? It is likely that schools are government-recognized, and would be the type of things noted in a gazetteer, compared to other businesses or the like. --[[User:Masem|M<font size="-3">ASEM</font>]] ([[User Talk:Masem|t]]) 14:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC) |
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:::You don't need verifiability to create a redirect, but you need it to ask that an AfD is closed with a merge instead of a total deletion. There, that's why you can't have your [[Student7]] redirect through the process you described. As for the players, if they are described in the Wikipedia article for the local school of course they could have redirects to that definition - as long as you have enough material to include them per [[WP:DUE]]; redirects are created to help people find information available at Wikipedia. [[User:Diego Moya|Diego]] ([[User talk:Diego Moya|talk]]) 14:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC) |
:::You don't need verifiability to create a redirect, but you need it to ask that an AfD is closed with a merge instead of a total deletion. There, that's why you can't have your [[Student7]] redirect through the process you described. As for the players, if they are described in the Wikipedia article for the local school of course they could have redirects to that definition - as long as you have enough material to include them per [[WP:DUE]]; redirects are created to help people find information available at Wikipedia. [[User:Diego Moya|Diego]] ([[User talk:Diego Moya|talk]]) 14:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC) |
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== Are there avenues to "notability" not mentioned in this guideline? == |
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It seems that there are articles on WP that do not readily fall under the provisions of this policy. For example, the various stand-alone articles [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29#State_and_territorial_parties governing state organizations of the Democratic Party] do not appear to satisfy the requirements of [[WP:Notability]]. Can someone explain whether there is a way to include these articles under the Notability policy? [[User:Brews ohare|Brews ohare]] ([[User talk:Brews ohare|talk]]) 16:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC) |
Revision as of 16:32, 12 February 2012
Place names (again)
Regarding place name articles like these:
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lohr's Hill
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biesecker Woods
- Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Blocher's Run
It is time for this guideline to clarify what the threshold for inclusion as an article is for place names for which there is a reliable source? (i.e. WP:V and WP:RS are not at issue.)
Tens of thousands of articles like the ones above are subject to AfD because of the differences in the conception of what the Wikipedia is and editing practices at the time they were created and the present.
Nominators are demanding that the article show some notability (i.e. importance in this context) for the named place relying on their interpretation of this guideline. patsw (talk) 17:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
- Perhaps we should look at applying some sort of notability standards to places. I've seen "municipalities" kept at AfD due to google maps results, even though no definitive evidence was found. Not every local field, hill, and dale needs its own article. ThemFromSpace 18:31, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
- There have been attempts to do this, but none have stuck. The reason that any settlement , recognized by some government, is kept despite the lack of information is because there's a presumption that eventually a history/details of that settlement can be gathered from local sources. (yeeeea, that's iffy).
- These are not local settlements, they're highly localized features of a important location (where the battle of Gettysburg was fought). They would not appear in a broad gazetteer, and while they are named by sources, there's no notability to them. In such cases, delete or merging to a list of such features would be correct. --MASEM (t) 18:34, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Is the consensus here that we retrospectively are going to require significant coverage for each place name - that is, that for each place name article some importance (in the context here of notability) has to be presented in the article about that place name. If that's the case, then tens of thousands of articles in Wikipedia currently fail that criteria. So, in principle, should tens of thousands of articles be deleted? patsw (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
- If all they consist of (and all that the sources support) is a stub-of-a-stub that says a place exists, I would say: Yes, we should delete these tens of thousands of articles... and about half of the editors on Wikipedia would probably agree. However, the other half would very much disagree. There is no way in hell we would ever get a consensus. It's the old deletionist vs inclusionist debate... and that is a debate that goes back to the earliest days of Wikipedia. And it is not a debate that will be resolved any time soon. Blueboar (talk) 20:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
- WP:CCC. At one point, prior to 2006, WP had articles on nearly every episode and character of every television show. Those days are long since gone, and unless the show/character meets the GNG, it's merged up. We don't want to lose the information, hence merge and redirect over outright removal, but yes, the goalposts can change with consensus. --MASEM (t) 20:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
- The solution for such places is to boldly WP:MERGE them into their context, not to delete them. It's perfectly find for Wikipedia to include this kind of geographic information—just not (normally) on a separate page. And the reason I specify "boldly" merging these is because the drama-prone AFD is not WP:Proposed merges, and you don't need to obtain written permission in advance of improving the encyclopedia by merging narrow subjects into their proper contexts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
- No, it's a delete for lack of notability and not a merge that we are dealing with. The problem is that we have a process called "AfD" where it takes a mere two words to have content deleted from this encyclopedia. It's quick, it's easy, and often unnoticed. In this case, we have a subjective judgment that Blocher's Run is less important to the Battle of Gettysburg than Barlow Knoll which was not nominated for deletion. The nominator is not disputing the significant coverage in the sources given for the two articles, just the point that some places are more important that others. This may be an example of Hard cases make bad law because of the behavior of the article's creator (these articles might be instances of WP:POINT). At stake here is the principle that coverage in published sources is the standard for inclusion. It is an objective method or as close as we can get to objectivity. This is contrast to arguing over importance, significance, consequences, prominence, influence, greatness, etc. -- which are subjective judgment calls by Wikipedia editors over article inclusion which shows up in AfD for notability.
- If AfD nominators thought the resolution of a problem was a merge, we wouldn't be having this discussion. The nominators are in some cases use "not notable" to mean "I don't think that's important" and if we wait long enough that practice will become de-facto policy and articles will be deleted which pass WP:GNG or other tests in this guideline. patsw (talk) 13:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
- Patsw, I don't think I'm understanding you. What is it about Blocher's Run that prohibits the two sentences at that stub from being WP:MERGEd into Gettysburg Battlefield#Geography, and the link Blocher's Run being redirected to that section? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:51, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- Notability is subjective: always has been. And there are editors that unintentionally forget there are options to merge instead of delete. Plus, for all aspects, AGF in the nomination, maybe the nominator isn't from America and doesn't understand the significance of battlefield geography of these places (but that is also a likely mistake given the state of these articles that don't provide sources to explain this).
- Also remember: WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument in AFD. Why the nominator didn't put up Barlow Knoll with the others, that's unimportant to the other articles. Unless its some type of COI (he really liked Barlow Knoll but hated the other places??) we don't care why that's the case.
- But the point you state: that coverage in published sources is the standard for inclusion is not right, because you're missing a key word: "significant". Passing mention of a topic in sources is not a standard for inclusion. Mention of a place name in sources is not a standard for inclusion. We are looking for the current existence or strong likelihood of secondary sources that, maybe not specifically about the topic, go into depth beyond plain, factual data for the topic. That is a subjective assessment, which is what is determined at AFD (and thus why it is discussion, not a single-admin action)
- In the cases of these articles, I doubt we are ever going to see detailed coverage of such places (due to being battlefield landmarks) beyond the significance to the battle. They are, effectively, naming push-pins on a map. Are they necessary to understand some of the manuevers in the Civil war? Yes, most likely. But they can be understood without using standalone articles for each. --MASEM (t) 14:27, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
- Masem's comment is on point. Our Notability guidelines are not about whether some bit of information is worthy of being included in Wikipedia or not... the guidelines are about whether the information should be presented as a standalone article. Yes, AfD nominations and closures are subjective decisions ... However, they are subjective decisions that should be based on objective criteria (one of which is whether there is significant coverage in reliable sources). And there are a lot more options available than just "Keep" or "Delete". Blueboar (talk) 15:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
- Place names are an interesting subject from a sourcing and notability standpoint. High profile place names are not difficult to deal with because they are covered by lots of different kinds of sources. On the other hand, run of the mill place names suffer from inconsistent coverage in sources from region to region. This makes comparing the run of the mill place name from a region with good source coverage to a run of the mill place name from a region with limited coverage difficult. But we can assume this:
- If a place name exists, is either historical or in current use, and is contained in some formal geographic names database, then there must be some (probably primary) sources to support the historical or in-use name in the database. (The same assumption can be made for place names that appear on historic or current reliable maps)
- If a place name exists, it came into use through some series of events, i.e. is has a history. The extent to which that history is documented in primary and secondary sources can vary widely.
- A place name that only has a mundane history as to how it came into use, is probably not sufficiently covered in other sources to warrant notability. On the other hand, if a place name (actually the place itself) is part and parcel of other notable events, there is a high probability that it’s covered to some extent in reliable sources beyond the mere history of how it came into use and thus might clearly warrant notability.
- In my area and region of interest, there are multiple secondary works devoted to the Place Names of X that go into the origin and history of use of many obscure place names. And in many cases, once you understand the history of a place name you can find other sources to support its notability. On the other hand, there are regions where no one has really documented in secondary English language sources the history of obscure place names. Unfortunately, those kinds of differences in regional coverage of place names, makes it difficult to draw comparisons between the notability of similar features from different regions.--Mike Cline (talk) 16:30, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Every place is notable to the people who live there. But I can think of no notable places in most other countries around the world, and I'm sure people consider my home town with equal notability. I bet most places can be found in most decent atlases, and/or Google maps, it depend on what you say about them can be reliably sourced, which is a different matter. --Iantresman (talk) 00:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- We have generally upheld the common outcome that any government-recognized settlement with current residents is likely to be notable for as you describe - its population can supply info for that. This does not extend to geographic features; while features of certain sizes will be obviously notable, when we're talking about brooks, hills, and the like that started this thread, we expect more sources to be present to have an article. --MASEM (t) 01:30, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I have previously cited Barber Island as a geographical place that lacks sources with lengthy prose descriptions. Yet people instinctively realize that it is a topic worthy of notice. The existence of names in multiple languages is one example of people giving it notice. Why did they name it? Unscintillating (talk) 03:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Inhabitation is not a criterion. Wikipedia precedent is not to apply GNG to place names.
I disagree with that on principle and on precedent: Place names extend to uninhabited places such as geographic features, political sub-divisions, places on historical registers, and others. "Inhabitation" has never been an implied or explicit criterion for inclusion of a place name as an article in the Wikipedia. The appearance of a place name in authoritative sources (i.e. government, international body, etc.) deals with conflicts of interest and the possibility of hoaxes. These places exist with the description provided in the article. It's real. It's factual. However, there's never been a requirement of the sources to make a determination of significant coverage applied to place names -- That is, what, according to sources given in the article, makes this place significant, important, prominent, noticed, noted, etc. according to some unstated criteria.
I reiterate that tens of thousands of place name articles already in the Wikipedia do not contain content and sources that would pass a "significant coverage independent of the subject" multiple secondary sources test.
Of course, consensus can change when it comes to a interpreting in a given biographical or event article -- Are the sources reliable? Or is the coverage significant? But when it comes to retrospectively applying newly changed or newly re-interpreted 2012 guidelines to articles from 2002 to the present, and qualify them now for deletion, this is not a change in consensus, it is a redefinition of the Wikipedia and the consequential loss of many articles created in good faith according to policies and practices in effect at the time of their creation. patsw (talk) 20:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- Wrong.
- First, you are trying to argue WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS which we ignore as a rule. Just because there are 10,000s of other geogrpahic features that either exist of the same type, that's not an issue. WP is too large to "police" to perfection, and thus even though concensus can change, we're not going to review every article to match that consensus (unless it is a legal issue like BLPs or NFC). And yes, we don't care if the articles were once created when notability was more lax: again, that's why WP:LONGTIME or WP:EFFORT arguments are ignored at AFD.
- Secondly, we are applying the GNG to place names, but taking the view about the likely existence of sources in the long term. That's why populated places are considered because local residences can generate sources in the future; a named landmark can't. We don't have an SNG for place names, but instead we allow them to exist or be deleted per WP:OUTCOMES specifically WP:NPLACE. --MASEM (t) 21:11, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
- WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS states that, "...comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes". It continues with further relevant points, such as discriminating between weak arguments based on "other stuff exists", and substantive arguments based on "other stuff exists". Unscintillating (talk) 03:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- I've previously drawn attention to uninhabited Barber Island—I don't expect that an editor from a major newspaper will find this island and give it a full newspaper article. Nonetheless, its merit as a standalone article doesn't seem to be in question, so it is worth asking why. I think "identifiability" is at work, anyone looking at it detects a pattern. This in turn leads to people giving it a name. The lives of people in the shipping industry were at stake during the 1800s, and cartographers put all the area islands and islets "on the map". In WP:GNG terms cartographers are secondary independent sources recording the topic in substantial in-depth detail. Unscintillating (talk) 03:53, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Long-shot proposal to modify how notability works
Per discussions at WP:VPP#Proposal regarding Article Rescue Squad, I would like to propose a very substantial change to this document, and possibly other ancillary documents as well. Odds are high that my suggestion is not going to meet with approval, but there's no way to find out without asking--maybe Wikipedia is in the mature stage that I believe it is/should be. I do not have specific wording worked out, but my essential proposal is that the concept of notability be embedded in what the article currently says at any given moment. In other words, I believe that when we judge the notability of something, we should not be judging the notability of the underlying subject, but, rather, whether or not the article itself contains information sufficient to establish the subject's notability.
For those not following the discussion in other venues, you may ask, what's the difference? Well, this difference primarily effects the WP:AfD process. Currently, based on the way WP:N is written, the following can and does happen:
- I find an article completely or mostly lacking in sources sufficient to establish notability (let's just assume it is sufficiently well-written to pass WP:BLP and WP:CSD).
- I search for sources, using the tools I have available to me. Alas, I cannot find any/enough.
- I nominate the article at AfD.
- During the AfD, someone searches in a different way, or has access to more sources than I do, or even can read languages that I can't, and finds sources. That person provides information about those sources at the AfD.
- At this point, WP:N, as written now, has been satisfied, and thus the article should be kept (and if I were not the nominator but an admin, I would keep the article assuming no objections to those sources were raised).
- I am unable to add the new information to the article, because, as I said, for some reason I don't have access to those sources.
- For some reason, the person who found the information chooses to not add the new information.
- End result: the article can remain in a poor state indefinitely. No one can ever nominate it for deletion, and no one who can't access those sources can improve it.
My proposal is that WP:N be re-written such that an article subject is not considered notable unless the article itself demonstrates that notability. Perhaps this is better changed somewhere else, but this seems to be the most fundamental place to start, so there you go. Please, everyone, tell me why I'm wrong, why this harms the encyclopedia, and why we're better off with the scenario outlined above. Of course, feel free to agree, to, and, if so, help me figure out exactly how and where changes would be needed. Qwyrxian (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- I think it should be clear that if you don't include sources as to why something's notable, the more likelihood you will encounter an AFD on that article. That said, what you're proposing conflicts with WP:V's concept of "verifiability" which by nature we have to extend here. Specifically, WP:V does not require a source to be explicitly in the article to support a fact (save for direct quotes, and for highly contentious statements around BLPs), though you can always challenge those statements. But it is considered bad form that, say, the sources for the article have been identified on the talk page, and no one's brought them into the actual articles, to then called out the verifyability of the information in the article.
- In a similar manner, if an AFD closes as your situation describes, with sources spelled out at the AFD but no one adds them to the article, the nomination will be seen as bad form.
- I believe this works as part of the larger picture of notability, in that this is why we have SNGs (as somewhat-long term temporarily allowances while sources are located and found) and why things like towns and villages are presumed to have notability despite having no secondary sources.
- There is probably existing guidance to deal with the case you describe, particularly if the existence of these sources can't be validated by anyone else. There's a matter of good faith that the sources are providing notability, but if no one can confirm they are out there, much less get their hands on them, then we probably need to dismiss them as an invalid claim and readjust the view of the notability of the topic. --MASEM (t) 01:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
First of all, wp:notability is nothing more than a guideline to deciding if we should have a stand-alone article in Wikipedia. The nutshell clearly states, and WP:NNC follows, that notability has nothing to do with the content of an article. wp:notability exists independently of the existence of an article on Wikipedia or the content of any such article. As per WP:NRVE, we can have evidence that sources exist without the sources. The basic concept of notability requires specifically and only that a topic be "worthy of notice", and WP:GNG makes it clear that passing WP:GNG, even with numerous sources, is not sufficient for a topic to be "worthy of notice".
But a closely related concept is the much stronger sourcing requirement of WP:V. My personal belief is that we should require, for new articles, redirects, etc., (1) a statement of notability/prominence on the talk page, and (2) a source on the talk page that documents the title. (3) For articles, I'd also require at least one source citation on the article itself. (4) Another good proposal was to require that there be a red link for the topic somewhere in the encyclopedia before the topic could be created.
In spite of the absurdity of allowing high school kids to write articles about local "sweater Tuesday" fads, completely unverifiable, the community has not been able to raise the low barrier to creating new articles. After a great debate with hundreds of editors and long analysis, the community decided to run a six-month trial of preventing new editors from creating articles until they had made at least ten edits and been an editor for four days. The WMF stepped in and said "no", that the flood of unverifiable articles and the associated flood of deletions by the volunteer admins must continue. So the place to start with fixing the root cause of the problem with AfDs, that place is with the WMF. User:Snottywong can tell you more. Unscintillating (talk) 04:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- This is currently a complex scenario and hopefully rare scenario, but if more sources disappear behind pay walls it could become more common. If a fact was sufficiently sourced to convince an AFD but not incorporated into the article then I wonder if we should accept a link to the AFD in the edit summary when the fact was added to the article? Obviously that wouldn't work for contentious BLP information as you might potentially be repeating a libel. But for less contentious information this might be a solution. Another problem with this proposal is that it is a lot of complication to the deletion policy for a small number of instances. ϢereSpielChequers 16:41, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- Sources behind paywalls are not disallowed on WP. But they need to be identified, ideally in a manner that can be confirmed, such as a citation service reference number, or the like. There's still the issue of "is this article really saying what the editor claims to be a facet of notability", but that's a lesser problem than if no sources are identified or can be confirmed to exist. --MASEM (t) 17:01, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I would tend to agree with WereSpielChequers that our notability hurdle and associated guidance/consequences needs improvement. But I am confident that my agreement doesn't extend to the methods proposed. The ideal result from any changes to our notability guidelines and associated processes should result ideally in more notable articles and less deletions, more editors that create notable articles from the get go and fewer editors facing the uncomfortable and daunting task with dealing with our onerous AfD process. A while back I wrote several essays along those lines -- A new way to look at Notability and Archimedes was deleted. We must always remember as we embark on changes to significant policies and guidelines that our goals are--grow quality content, grow editors and expand the scope of subject matter coverage. That means growing WP from 3.9M articles to ~5-10M articles in the next 5 years. Deletion is necessary, but not a goal we should make easier through policy manipulation. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:57, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
It's good to be thinking about things like this but I disagree. You are essentially proposing making notability a function of the article rather than of the subject. Also, notability is really just a criteria for existence of an article, not a mechanism for building of articles. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:03, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- The only aspect here that I would emphasis is that: a topic may be considered notable even if its article lacks sources (though defined elsewhere), but the fewer sources you have in an stand-alone article about a topic, the more likely someone will challenge it. Even if you have to use an EL to drop in a reference instead of trying to fight citation templates is better than nothing to reduce the likelihood of a challenge. --MASEM (t) 23:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
- North8000 - You've misunderstood what I said, so that's my fault for explaining it poorly. I know exactly what our notability hurdle for articles (subjects is the same thing) is. What I was trying convey is summed up like this. If 100 articles are created and 25% of them are on non-notable subjects and thus must go through a deletion processes that alienates editors and saps volunteer energy, we are doing something wrong. Wouldn't it be better if for every 100 articles created only a few or none failed our notability hurdle because we've done a good job of creating guidance and mechnanisms that promote the creation of articles on notable subjects and prevents the creation of articles on non-notable subjects. Deletion is not a laudable outcome, it is an outcome that although necessary, indicates we have failed in more important areas. Our current notability hurdle is fine, easily understood and applied. It shouldn't be made more or less onerous. There will always be debates over marginally reliable sources, but that's OK. Does anyone deny that our goal is to grow WP from 3.1M notable articles to ~5-10M notable articles (subjects) in the next 5 years? --Mike Cline (talk) 00:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- On the goal number, I would say yes actually; it will grow, but I cannot expect it to be that close. We're at 3.1M articles after 10 years, eg: 300k/yr. To get to 5M in 5 years would require 400k/yr; 10M in 5 years 1,800k/yr. I can't see that happening at all, in fact, I expect growth to slow down simply because we've exhausted the generation of pages for "past" content, and are only generating pages for contemporary topics. But that's not really a point central to this discussion.
- It would be great if a freshly made article immediately met notability guidelines - either by the process of making that new articles are created with notability in mind to start, or that we immediately filter articles that fail notability. Let's talk about the latter process first, because this basically falls into the realm of CSD and NewPagePatrol. I am pretty confident the community has rejected immediately deleting articles not showing signs of notability shortly after their created; there are only a few specific reasons that CSD can be applied to delete articles with demonstration of little importance, and that's for things like people, garage bands, personal companies, etc. that may be seen as COI/advertizing. Even ideas of like having article incubation for a short period (a week) before CSD can touch them has been rejected because it prevent action on blatant nonsense, copyright infringement, and the like. We are never going to be filtering after article creation to assure that nearly all articles created are notable.
- That leaves trying to do something on the actual creation side, but to that end, we can't force editors to do anything. We can warn and caution them with big red flags "if you don't have a source for notability, you article will likely be deleted!", but that's as good as a static warning can provide. People will ignore those.
- At the end of the day, we have to realize that the means we have now - some filtering of clearly non-notable stuff at article creature, and then consensus-based AFD for anything - is likely the fairest system to maintain an open wiki. --MASEM (t) 00:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- I actually hope you are wrong in thinking ~5-10M new articles in the next 5 years is a stretch. If we don't get there, many of today's WMF initiatives will have been failures. One only has to (actually every editor should) read the WMF Strategic Plan in detail. Our goals are all about growth, and they are lofty. The Global Education Program is bringing WP into higher education classrooms around the world and enlisting academia to embrace WP as teaching tool. As an active Campus Ambassador, I've been recruiting professors and students alike for over a year into the WP community. There are millions of unwritten articles contained in the journals and books on the shelves of major university libraries. We have only scratched the surface.--Mike Cline (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- The only sured number I can find there on the plan is "Increase the number of Wikipedia articles we offer to 50 million". As that is across all languages, and based on the current front page that has the listed wikis at 10M total, it is more likely the growth is to broaden the other languages, as opposed to en.wiki; if only 10 other wikis did this we'd get to 50 million easily by 2015. ("easily", ha ha). Again, we're an encyclopedia, meant to cover topics in broad scope; there's millions of journal articles, but they cover topics at a fine detail - useful as resources but not as new topics themselves. --MASEM (t) 03:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- I think you underestimate the real potential for more and more English language articles. The real problem is that the majority of our workforce is young and focused on contemporary subjects. I've taken students from my MSU Campus Ambassador supported courses into the MSU library and randomly selected books and journals to see if they could find a notable subject that doesn't have a WP article. It doesn't take long. Once one source is found it rarely takes more than minutes to find others that will allow the article, if it was created, to clear the notability hurdle. We need to leave this notability hurdle alone. Its managable and relatively easy to teach and enforce. Any change that would impede the creation of new articles would be a disservice to the strategic goals of WMF.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- I guess what I'm saying is that it is not that there aren't more articles to write, but without a push to get volunteer editors to work on non-contemporary topics, I don't think we're even going to get close to 5M in 3 years time.
- But I do want to be clear that I absolutely agree with you that we have no need to make notability any more restrictive or difficult to work with. It's actually a rather decent guideline as it is a reasonably low barrier to pass particularly if we're talking the creation of articles leading towards an good encyclopedic article. --MASEM (t) 22:50, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- Amen! - but without a push to get volunteer editors to work on non-contemporary topics, I think the push is at least happening here: Wikipedia:United States Education Program and here: WMF Global Education Program. Once these nacent programs really take off, the effort will expand into the secondary education level. We (WP Campus Ambassadors and the WMF) are pushing hard and getting results. Should you want to join us, let me know. --Mike Cline (talk) 23:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- I think you underestimate the real potential for more and more English language articles. The real problem is that the majority of our workforce is young and focused on contemporary subjects. I've taken students from my MSU Campus Ambassador supported courses into the MSU library and randomly selected books and journals to see if they could find a notable subject that doesn't have a WP article. It doesn't take long. Once one source is found it rarely takes more than minutes to find others that will allow the article, if it was created, to clear the notability hurdle. We need to leave this notability hurdle alone. Its managable and relatively easy to teach and enforce. Any change that would impede the creation of new articles would be a disservice to the strategic goals of WMF.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:40, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- The only sured number I can find there on the plan is "Increase the number of Wikipedia articles we offer to 50 million". As that is across all languages, and based on the current front page that has the listed wikis at 10M total, it is more likely the growth is to broaden the other languages, as opposed to en.wiki; if only 10 other wikis did this we'd get to 50 million easily by 2015. ("easily", ha ha). Again, we're an encyclopedia, meant to cover topics in broad scope; there's millions of journal articles, but they cover topics at a fine detail - useful as resources but not as new topics themselves. --MASEM (t) 03:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- I actually hope you are wrong in thinking ~5-10M new articles in the next 5 years is a stretch. If we don't get there, many of today's WMF initiatives will have been failures. One only has to (actually every editor should) read the WMF Strategic Plan in detail. Our goals are all about growth, and they are lofty. The Global Education Program is bringing WP into higher education classrooms around the world and enlisting academia to embrace WP as teaching tool. As an active Campus Ambassador, I've been recruiting professors and students alike for over a year into the WP community. There are millions of unwritten articles contained in the journals and books on the shelves of major university libraries. We have only scratched the surface.--Mike Cline (talk) 02:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
At least once a year, let me remind people that it is the Notability guideline and not the Noticeability guideline. The latter is observation. The former is actually recording (or "noting"). Blame Ancient Rome: nota and nosco are different roots. Streakers are noticed. Despite its claim to the contrary, the Gettysburg Address was noted. patsw (talk) 03:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
People are starting to put their feet up on the desk and demanding that articles, both old and new show, a verifiable claim of importance, significance, prominence, consequence, influence, greatness, etc. made by a source within the article itself. Now, I am assuming good faith on the part of the AfD nominators, but raising the bar on what gets into Wikipedia lowers the bar to deleting the contents of the Wikipedia. It's far easier to nominate for deletion with "delete non-notable" than to undertake a search for sources, or understand why sources for importance, significance, prominence, etc. for the topic are not discoverable in Google. Echoing Mike Cline above, I think it will be poisonous to the spirit of the Wikipedia if retroactive guideline changes cause editors to revisit articles they created or edited weeks or months ago only to find that stricter WP:N was applied ex post facto and their efforts were deleted and not improved. If it takes a decade between the creation of an article and improving it with entries of cites showing significant coverage in multiple reliable sources independent of the subject, that's better than deleting it six weeks after it was created. It's not finished. patsw (talk) 03:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
- Support: It seems ridiculous that NRVE can apparently be satisfied without references actually going into articles, and it makes perfectly good sense to me that any article (article, not list) that is completely unsourced should be assumed to be non-notable until proven otherwise Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 16:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- And how many unreferenced articles have you personally added references to recently? Or is this a case of demanding that other WP:VOLUNTEERs do what you personally refuse to do, perhaps because it would be easier for you to send articles to AFD if the community endorsed a lazy "no listed sources in the current version, therefore no notability" notion? (You do realize, by the way, that under that rule, articles like Cancer would have been declared non-notable for the first several years of their existence?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- What's that got to do with the price of eggs? And I can tell you how many articles I've created without sourcing them PDQ...zero. And we're past the time when we can get away with large amounts of unsourced text. This is 2012, not 2007. Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 19:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- And how many unreferenced articles have you personally added references to recently? Or is this a case of demanding that other WP:VOLUNTEERs do what you personally refuse to do, perhaps because it would be easier for you to send articles to AFD if the community endorsed a lazy "no listed sources in the current version, therefore no notability" notion? (You do realize, by the way, that under that rule, articles like Cancer would have been declared non-notable for the first several years of their existence?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
I utterly oppose this. It effectively enshrines the (already disgustingly common) practice of using the deletion process as a weapon with which to coerce labor from other editors. WP:VOLUNTEER should be the only counter-argument ever needed. —chaos5023 (talk) 19:18, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
- The counter-argument is that it's trying to use the deletion process as an overly bureaucratic weapon to coerce labor from nominators Purplebackpack89≈≈≈≈ 19:37, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Again, as long as WP:V does not require the sources to be included , WP:N cannot set a stricter standard. The challenge to notability should be treated like the challenge to a contentious statement: the less you are able to show inline sources to prove it, the more likely it will be sent to deletion. We have to use the same principle here: we cannot demand sources to show notability, but the more you leave an article lacking that demonstration, the more likely it will be pushed to AFD. --MASEM (t) 21:03, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
Notability of players of Gaelic football, hurling, and handball
Editors focused on our notability guidelines may be interested in the discussion regarding notability of players of Gaelic football, hurling, and handball.--Epeefleche (talk) 02:55, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
Inherited notability
At Wikipedia talk:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, there was a discussion a while back about how to apply WP:NOTINHERITED, and a commenter recently suggested that the discussion be brought here for better input. My suggestion was that we explain that while simply being related to a notable person was not a source of notability, sometimes reliable sources cover a person because of their relationship to someone notable and we shouldn't use NOTINHERITED to second-guess reliable sources. I felt that we were setting a higher bar for relatives of notable people than we were for other individuals. Another user reasonably pointed out that fluff sources like People like to get interested in the children, partners, etc. of celebrities, but that we shouldn't treat that coverage as establishing notability, and said that it was more about what sort of sources are available. Would anyone like to comment? (For context, the individual that prompted the discussion was Marcus Bachmann, who is the husband of American representative/candidate Michele Bachmann and whose business activities had received coverage in various mainstream news sources, but who might not have received that coverage if he were not married to her.) –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:05, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Eh, if the topic meets the notability guidelines, they meet the notability guidelines. If not, they don't. I think the idea is that you aren't notable just because you are related to someone. But if you are covered because you are related to someone, that's fine. We just care about the coverage. Hobit (talk) 02:28, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with Hobit. Clearly we want at least a redirect on Marcus Bachmann, and I heard enough buzz (radio and TV commentary) that I assume that he passes WP:GNG, but I'd guess without having any more knowledge than that that the topic is better covered as part of the Michelle Bachmann article. The discussion about the children sounds like a WP:DUE prominence issue rather than a notability issue, the sources are following the children because they want to know more about the famous person, so with the material about the children it is the famous person that is attracting the attention of the media. Similar case was the policeman in New York City that sprayed some protesters, some editors created an article about the person, but at the end of the day (at least IMO), the material was still about (a member of) the New York police department and not the person. Unscintillating (talk) 05:20, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Articles "redirected" which are determined to be nn
Elementary school articles (and probably others) which have been determined to be nn, are, instead being "redirected." This seems to thwart the concept of article notability. I can now search and "find" the "redirect" which in turn, directs me to the School District (or whatever) article. I think a regular search might find it anyway, but why play with notability? I don't see why we don't continue to delete articles that have been judged to fail notability requirements. Redirection seems to encourage the construction of these articles. I can now insert [[non-notable school]] in a "See also" subsection or link it in the article itself, or insert it in a dab. As if it were notable. Student7 (talk) 20:42, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- Notability is only to determine if a topic gets a separate article, that's it. It does not limit coverage within a larger target. We explicitly state that non-notable topics can be discussed in the context of a broader, more notable topic. Redirects are cheap and help with searching and locating non-notable information. --MASEM (t) 22:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is WP:V verifiability. WP:N notability is a guideline—it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the world whether verifiable material is in a stand-alone article or integrated into another article. Unscintillating (talk) 22:32, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is exciting news. I will now start an article "Student7". When it is (soon) Afd-ed for lack of notability, I will ask that it be redirected to Wikipedia.org. I am certainly verifiable! Then I will be able to list my pseudonym in articles, dabs, etc. Great! Student7 (talk) 13:51, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
- Let me try something more realistic. A local high school wins the (large) state 3A championship. State newspapers cover this and maybe even list the players, who are "recognized" at several events. I start a one line stub article on each player, which are then each Afd-ed and "redirected" to the high school. This gets a bit complicated since I have two "Jim Smiths." I guess it would be "Jim Smith (high school tailback)" and "Jim Smith (high school right guard)." Would this be independent and reliable enough? BTW, none of them go on to play professionally.
- Since Wiki-entertainment articles in the encyclopedia are quite nearly out of control, I suggest that this be taken seriously. You could literally get a million redirects out of this.
- And, BTW, since when does a redirect have to have a "independent reliable source?" I don't notice this on any redirect! Student7 (talk) 14:36, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, we'd not list them.
- Yes, they seem to be the same issue - why redirect schools but not include these athletes. There is a fuzzy separation line, but part of that is the idea of permanence and importance. Schools have much longer "lifetimes" than the students within them and the school itself is typically a critical part of the education system within the community it serves. A school athlete is just that, and falls, broadly read, into the idea of BLP1E as well as the concept of WP:ROUTINE. We also have the fact that the set of all elementary schools is pretty much a fixed size - growing and shrinking a small fraction each year - while the idea of school athletes is unbounded. I can't suggest any further rules that say when we split them, as I would think anything else is based on what consensus deems appropriate; consensus has always been in favor of schools, but why not other businesses or places like churches? It is likely that schools are government-recognized, and would be the type of things noted in a gazetteer, compared to other businesses or the like. --MASEM (t) 14:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- You don't need verifiability to create a redirect, but you need it to ask that an AfD is closed with a merge instead of a total deletion. There, that's why you can't have your Student7 redirect through the process you described. As for the players, if they are described in the Wikipedia article for the local school of course they could have redirects to that definition - as long as you have enough material to include them per WP:DUE; redirects are created to help people find information available at Wikipedia. Diego (talk) 14:48, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
Are there avenues to "notability" not mentioned in this guideline?
It seems that there are articles on WP that do not readily fall under the provisions of this policy. For example, the various stand-alone articles governing state organizations of the Democratic Party do not appear to satisfy the requirements of WP:Notability. Can someone explain whether there is a way to include these articles under the Notability policy? Brews ohare (talk) 16:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)