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I'm aware of several essays, like [[Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems]] and [[Wikipedia:Tag bombing]], but it appears that the editor believes tag bombing to be sanctioned by, or even required by, policy. Do we actually address template use in any official guideline or policy? [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 23:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC) |
I'm aware of several essays, like [[Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems]] and [[Wikipedia:Tag bombing]], but it appears that the editor believes tag bombing to be sanctioned by, or even required by, policy. Do we actually address template use in any official guideline or policy? [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 23:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC) |
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: Only thing I can think of is [[wp:disruptive editing]], which mentions cite tagging during a dispute as a form of disruptive editing. '''Yoenit''' ([[user talk:Yoenit|talk]]) 10:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC) |
: Only thing I can think of is [[wp:disruptive editing]], which mentions cite tagging during a dispute as a form of disruptive editing. '''Yoenit''' ([[user talk:Yoenit|talk]]) 10:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC) |
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==On reference BLP== |
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Q1. Was it [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people/Archive 2|this discussion]] that made [[Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people]] policy? (If so, the policy page should be clear about where consensus came from for the policy. Q2: If an editors adds one reliable source to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Florescu John M. Florescu] article that supports at least one statement made about the person in the article (e.g., son, he, lived, etc.), then the prod can be removed? -- [[User:Uzma Gamal|Uzma Gamal]] ([[User talk:Uzma Gamal|talk]]) 19:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC) |
Revision as of 19:18, 5 March 2011
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Lets discuss notability "policy" (again)
Recently redditor "iron_curtain" posted to reddit complaining that articles of programming languages were being deleted, the post became quite popular [1]
As a result of this redditors came to wikipedia and attempted to stop the articles from being deleted through mass voting. When that failed, they pressured User:Christopher_Monsanto who has now agreed to give up deleting articles.
While there were plenty of examples of vandalism and bad behavior, most of the redditors made some very valid points about wikipedia's notability policy. I'm going to summarize some key points here:
- Wikipedia's notability policy isn't popular. This is my impression at least. Moving against the grain of popular consensus due to tradition is a losing battle.
- Wikipedia's notability policy isn't constructive. It would be wonderful to have wikipedia contain the sum of human knowledge, and we don't get closer to this goal by deleting knowledge.
- Wikipedia's notability policy hurts those seeking domain specific knowledge. For instance, if I'm reading about webcomics on wikipedia, and I'd like to see some examples of recently created webcomics, then I need to go offwiki to find that information.
- Wikipedia's notability policy doesn't have any real benefits. "Space" isn't a good reason due to the electronic nature of wikipedia. "Clutter" also isn't a good reason, since we can rearrange articles at will. For instance we could have a category for "major webcomics" as well as one for "all webcomics."
- Wikipedia's notability policy creates drama. When someone or something someone cares about is declared not important (which is what non notable sounds like to many) they get rightfully upset. For instance someone who loves webcomics could end up engaging in personal attacks instead of writing knowledgeable articles about webcomics if a article about a webcomic they like gets deleted.
- Similarly, Wikipedia's notability policy fosters and "us versus them" mentality. A keep or delete vote is a good way to separate editors into "enemy" camps and stir up unnecessary drama.
- Deleting non notable pages hides potentially valuable information from users without admin powers. For instance the article for Gunnerkrigg Court was deleted at one point back when the webcomic was new and non notable. Later the webcomic became clearly notable. When this takes place, why force a editor to create a new article from scratch when another editor has already written a nice article on the subject.
Now what I'd like to see is "lack of notability" completely removed as a criterion for article deletion, except in the case of a BLPs. Now this would be a big change, but I think there is broad community consensus for going in this direction. The problem is that the consensus is being aired in places such as the talk pages of "deletionists" rather than the proper channels, so hopefully we can begin to focus the discussion here. --ScWizard (talk) 08:16, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I agree fully. These stubs cost less than a hundredth of a cent to host. BLPs are a clear concern, and I'd say BDPs would be too. We don't need people creating pages about their grandpa who pass away in 2002. I'd say corporate entities should be included as well, as we don't need to be hosting their websites for them. Other than that, "Notability" should be replaced with "Encyclopedic". Is this the kind of information you would go to an encyclopedia to find out? Would a perfect encyclopedia have anything to say about it? This too, may be too narrow, as Wikipedia simply isn't just an encyclopedia anymore. It's far exceeded what traditional encyclopedias could offer. Those works, bound by physical constraints, had to be selective about what they included. We can afford to be much less so. So long as the information we publish is serious and relevant, it shouldn't matter a damned bit whether or not anyone thinks it's notable. Throwaway85 (talk) 08:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Not agreed whatsoever. Notability is intended to ensure two things. First, it is intended to ensure that the subject is notable. That may seem a tautology, but it is to take subjectivity out of the notability equation. It asks a very simple question—"To be notable, has this subject been extensively noted?" That makes notability, like anything else, verifiable. Either reliable sources have or have not in depth noted the subject, showing that it is or is not, in their eyes, notable. Secondly, it ensures that we have sufficient sources to sustain the article, and do not have permastubs that cannot be improved (as well as ensuring that we don't have garbage that can barely be verified beyond its existence, and the rest consists of someone's personal knowledge). Notability serves an essential purpose, and while some people may not like it, a critical part of editing is cutting. A Reddit mob doesn't change that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- You made two points. The first I can't really make sense of. You say that it's important to have an objective notability equation, however what I'm proposing is getting rid of the notability equation entirely. As for the second, I don't see how not having an article is more desirable than having a stub. If you seek out an article on a topic, some information is better than no information. --ScWizard (talk) 09:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- On a more philosophical note, you say that a critical part of editing is cutting. I think this is no longer true for the online world, and reddit is the perfect example of this. Reddit's algorithm replaces the binary decision of "publish or don't publish" with a visibility gradient. Links considered "important" will float to the top, and unimportant things will sink to the bottom. The same would be true if wikipedia removed the notability criteria. Highly notable articles would be very visible and referenced by many other notable articles, and unnotable articles would be hard to find, perhaps even orphans. There is no notability brightline, the endless back and forth debates over what constitutes a "passing mention" are proof of this, and pretending that there is a brightline just leads to all the problems mentioned above. --ScWizard (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Not agreed whatsoever. Notability is intended to ensure two things. First, it is intended to ensure that the subject is notable. That may seem a tautology, but it is to take subjectivity out of the notability equation. It asks a very simple question—"To be notable, has this subject been extensively noted?" That makes notability, like anything else, verifiable. Either reliable sources have or have not in depth noted the subject, showing that it is or is not, in their eyes, notable. Secondly, it ensures that we have sufficient sources to sustain the article, and do not have permastubs that cannot be improved (as well as ensuring that we don't have garbage that can barely be verified beyond its existence, and the rest consists of someone's personal knowledge). Notability serves an essential purpose, and while some people may not like it, a critical part of editing is cutting. A Reddit mob doesn't change that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 09:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's notability policy isn't popular. I think your impression is wrong. Nearly all editors feels we need a inclusion criteria. And I think most editors feels that GNC is the best we are going to get.
- Wikipedia's notability policy isn't constructive. This is the same point as Wikipedia's notability policy doesn't have any real benefits.. I'l answer it under that heading.
- Wikipedia's notability policy hurts those seeking domain specific knowledge. Yes, but reliying on unsupported statements is not good.
- Wikipedia's notability policy doesn't have any real benefits. This is the important point. If there is no reason for the policy, why is it here? However do I feel that notability does have benefits.
- Very marginal articles are subject to vandalism in a way that is very hard to counter. Without sources to base an article on we are left with editors guessing if a statement is correct or not. Also vandalism on articles that are viewed by few people can stay in place longer. For most articles on wikipedia you can assume that a statement is non vandalism if the edit has been in place for a day or so.
- How do you write a neutral, verifiable article with no, or only one, independent source?
- Here's one example. You can write a neutral verifiable article about a thing such as a programming language by analyzing that programming language. There's enough verifiable information on AliceML out there to say who made it, how to classify it, what it's been used for, what it was designed for etc. Another example is EncyclopediaDramatica. For a very long time we had more than enough verifiable information (the New York Times etc) to say everything the article currents says, but wikipedians kept the article deleted, because undeleting it would mean acknowledging EncyclopediaDramatica as "important." --ScWizard (talk) 16:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Which is to say, you substitute your own WP:Original research for WP:Independent sources. I've got a guy over at an article that wants his personal analysis of why he was so sick to be added to the article. Are you okay with that? I figure he's at least as good at analyzing his own body as I am at analyze programming languages. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:16, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Here's one example. You can write a neutral verifiable article about a thing such as a programming language by analyzing that programming language. There's enough verifiable information on AliceML out there to say who made it, how to classify it, what it's been used for, what it was designed for etc. Another example is EncyclopediaDramatica. For a very long time we had more than enough verifiable information (the New York Times etc) to say everything the article currents says, but wikipedians kept the article deleted, because undeleting it would mean acknowledging EncyclopediaDramatica as "important." --ScWizard (talk) 16:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Certain topics just isn't important. Like my neighbours garage band. Why not, without notability?
- Wikipedia's notability policy creates drama. Yes. Attempts to rename the policy has been made, but notability is too ingrained so we are stuck with the link to not important.
- Similarly, Wikipedia's notability policy fosters and "us versus them" mentality. As is unsources contentious articles.
- Deleting non notable pages hides potentially valuable information from users without admin powers. The editor is not forced to create an article from scratch. He can ask an admin to restore the old article. Admitedly this requires some knowledge of processes on wikipedia. It might be a good idea to point this out on the "you are restoring a deleted page" page.
So all in all think that notability has consensus, and that there is a reason for that consensus. Taemyr (talk) 09:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I can't help noticing that the vast majority of your statements in support of the notability guidelines are in fact statements in support of articles containing verifiable information cited from reliable sources. The exception to this appears to be the "garage band" example, which highlights the difference between notability and policies like WP:RS: notability is, despite reams of words attempting to nail it down, highly subjective, while the existence of newspaper reports or academic journal articles (etc.) is, well, not (at least, not to anything like the same extent). So why keep a guideline that, at best, is redundant with existing pillars of policy and, at worst, boils down to whose subjective opinions win? Ubernostrum (talk) 09:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Yes, the requirement to base our articles on reliable sources is the most important argument for our notability guidelines. I don't follow your claim that WP:RS is less subjective than WP:Note, usually when there is disagreement over GNG it's about wether the sources provided are reliable or not. And we keep the policy because otherwise we would blank-delete pages instead. WP:V is about content in articles, not about the articles in itself. Taemyr (talk) 10:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed, and this is why notability is superfluous, or at the very least the wrong approach. If reliable sources are given, then the subject is notable by definition, as it's been noted. We shouldn't have a second criteria. I would like to hear from those who support the policies as written what, in your opinion, would result from getting rid of notability and keeping everything else? What articles would appear that would be a detriment to the encyclopedia? Throwaway85 (talk) 10:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- In addition to reliable we also require non-trivial and indepentent. Basing an article on articles that are not indepented runs against our requirement that we should be neutral, since we end up as a mouth piece for our source. Basing an article on trivial coverage is also bad, because there is no article. Taemyr (talk) 10:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Right, but those are simply requirements for WP:RS and WP:V, not GNG. Also, a source may be reliable for one claim, but not another. If I invent a new widget, and the patent application says it is "steel, cylindrical, and will end world hunger", then my patent application is a perfectly reliable source for claiming my widget is steel and cylindrical. I would need a separate source for claims as to its impact. Similarly, in the cases that brought up this discussion, the spec for a programming language is a perfectly adequate source for talking about its attributes and features. It is not, however, an adequate source for describing what the language is good for, how it's used, etc. OR is much less of an issue in computer science, because it's basically math. Just as many math articles don't cite sources (at least not inline), many additions to a programming article, such as snippets of code, are perfectly acceptable without citation.
- In addition to reliable we also require non-trivial and indepentent. Basing an article on articles that are not indepented runs against our requirement that we should be neutral, since we end up as a mouth piece for our source. Basing an article on trivial coverage is also bad, because there is no article. Taemyr (talk) 10:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Agreed, and this is why notability is superfluous, or at the very least the wrong approach. If reliable sources are given, then the subject is notable by definition, as it's been noted. We shouldn't have a second criteria. I would like to hear from those who support the policies as written what, in your opinion, would result from getting rid of notability and keeping everything else? What articles would appear that would be a detriment to the encyclopedia? Throwaway85 (talk) 10:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Ultimately, my point is that a perfectly adequate stub-class article (which is not a bad thing) can be written on a programming language given only a self-published source by the author, and that wikipedia is better for having it. Saying a language is "trivial" or not in wide use doesn't matter, as we are much better off having an article on an obscure and rarely-used language than not having it. It does no harm, and improves the project. This can be extended to a great many fields.
- We need to find a better way to keep out cruft than by requiring everything to adhere to some standard of notability. There are many perfectly non-notable things that are still good to have articles on. Throwaway85 (talk) 11:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
An argument that has been repeated many times is that if a topic fails to meet notability criteria then you can't write a verifiable article about it. This is false.
Notability criteria requires not only reliable sources as verifiability does, but also requires reliable sources that are independent of the subject and provide significant coverage. Because of this, you can write a verifiable article about a topic that is not notable according to current guidelines.
For example if there is a publication about Topic X published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it's author is connected with Topic X for some reason, then such a publication can not be used to determine notability, even though it constitutes a reliable source. I have seen deletions based on such reasoning.
Another example is when Topic X is covered by a few reliable independent sources that don't provide "significant coverage". A topic can have enough of such sources for a decent stub-level article, but not be notable because none of the references would provide "significant coverage". Some deletions are based on this too, even though "significant" is a subjective measure.
It is also sometimes assumed that notability criteria requires multiple reliable sources (because "sources" are mentioned in plural there). There where deletions based on article only having one reliable and independent source covering it.
In short, notability criteria is much more limiting than plain verifiability, especially for domain-specific topics. I for one do not see how these limits are beneficial to Wikipedia, and would like them removed. --MagV (talk) 11:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Notability is more restrictive than verifiability, no one is disagreing with this. But we also have want to be neutral, and we are not that if we merely repeat what a single source states. Hence the need for independent sources. Non-trivial follows from WP:NOTCATALOG. Taemyr (talk) 11:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- If past discussions are any indicator, there will be people who say so; I just wanted to address this argument advance (apologies if it's obvious).
- Using sources that are not "independent of the subject" does not preclude the article from being neutral. This is specifically recognized by WP:V and neutral point of view policy is about the article content, not about the sources used. Notability requirements here unnecessarily preclude some neutral and verifiable articles.
- A topic can have enough of reliable independent sources that may be considered "trivial mentions", but together are enough for a decent stub that doesn't fall under WP:NOTCATALOG. Such articles are not allowed too. --MagV (talk) 12:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- The need for multiple sources only applies to certain claims. As I said above, my patent application is a perfectly fine source for saying my widget is steel and cylindrical, not so much for "will end world hunger"). Throwaway85 (talk) 11:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that I could disagree with SCWizard more. Notability is a key, necessary thing that distinguishes Wikipedia from a free web host. Without notability, every single person who forms a "band" and makes a myspace page could have a Wikipedia page. Every single business can automatically have an article, and that article will be entirely promotional because the only source we'll have is the company's website. In fact, without notability, I could argue that every building; heck, no, every window in every building could have its own article, because I can certainly provide a legitimate, reliable source to prove the building exists, and since in countries like the US building plans are in public records offices, I could even verify the existence of each building (maybe even each stud). Heck, what about licensed items, like cars and guns? Those could all be verified to exist, although they're clearly not what we currently call notable. In short (too late!) getting rid of notability would turn us into a dumping ground for anything anyone ever wanted to make an article about; our clout as a source of reliable, useful information would be damaged, and, contrary to the other claims, it would have a significant cost, because if you can get Wikipedia to host a web page for you/your country/your band for free, why pay for one, especially since Wikipedia always shows up in the top 10 search results for most searches? Qwyrxian (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating: There need to be exceptions for people and businesses, to address the very points you raise in regards to them. As for the others, a simple requirement for encyclopedicity would suffice. We can (and, let's face it, would) argue about whether or not a particular subject merits inclusion in an encyclopedia, but that's just about all we do here anyway, so I don't see it as much of an issue. Replacing GNG with a requirement that the subject warrants an encyclopedic article wouldn't result in a flood of crappy pages, given our other policies. Let's say the requirement was that the article's purpose must be to inform, and that a reasonable person interested in the broader field might actually care about it. Making the exceptions for people and businesses above, this would seem to strike an appropriate balance. Throwaway85 (talk) 12:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- This is a key point. Getting rid of the notability criterion doesn't mean getting rid of the "Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia" pillar. An article about a webcomic, regardless of how nonnotable the webcomic is is encyclopedic content. You might find it in an "encyclopedia of webcomics." Putting an article about the building in my room in an encylopedia wouldn't make any sense. ---ScWizard (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Notability is a redundant criteria for the examples you give. Almost every one of them fails under consideration of content guidelines, most notably that the content be encyclopaedic in nature, that is, that it must reflect previously documented knowledge. 69.49.44.11 (talk) 14:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've said it elsewhere, but it bears repeating: There need to be exceptions for people and businesses, to address the very points you raise in regards to them. As for the others, a simple requirement for encyclopedicity would suffice. We can (and, let's face it, would) argue about whether or not a particular subject merits inclusion in an encyclopedia, but that's just about all we do here anyway, so I don't see it as much of an issue. Replacing GNG with a requirement that the subject warrants an encyclopedic article wouldn't result in a flood of crappy pages, given our other policies. Let's say the requirement was that the article's purpose must be to inform, and that a reasonable person interested in the broader field might actually care about it. Making the exceptions for people and businesses above, this would seem to strike an appropriate balance. Throwaway85 (talk) 12:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'm not sure that I could disagree with SCWizard more. Notability is a key, necessary thing that distinguishes Wikipedia from a free web host. Without notability, every single person who forms a "band" and makes a myspace page could have a Wikipedia page. Every single business can automatically have an article, and that article will be entirely promotional because the only source we'll have is the company's website. In fact, without notability, I could argue that every building; heck, no, every window in every building could have its own article, because I can certainly provide a legitimate, reliable source to prove the building exists, and since in countries like the US building plans are in public records offices, I could even verify the existence of each building (maybe even each stud). Heck, what about licensed items, like cars and guns? Those could all be verified to exist, although they're clearly not what we currently call notable. In short (too late!) getting rid of notability would turn us into a dumping ground for anything anyone ever wanted to make an article about; our clout as a source of reliable, useful information would be damaged, and, contrary to the other claims, it would have a significant cost, because if you can get Wikipedia to host a web page for you/your country/your band for free, why pay for one, especially since Wikipedia always shows up in the top 10 search results for most searches? Qwyrxian (talk) 12:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- The need for multiple sources only applies to certain claims. As I said above, my patent application is a perfectly fine source for saying my widget is steel and cylindrical, not so much for "will end world hunger"). Throwaway85 (talk) 11:53, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Verifiability is about getting the content right, and Notability is about getting the right content. I don't think many would disagree with the WP:V policy, but the WP:N guideline sometimes falls short. We should have two things to have an article here - verifiability and encyclopedic relevance. A subject that passes our notability criteria will usually have encyclopedic relevance, but many subjects that do have encyclopedic relevance do not strictly pass our notability criteria, and this is a failing in my view. Specific notability guidelines aside, discussions of 'notability' too often come down the question of 'significant coverage'; While significant coverage would generally indicate suitability for inclusion, the lack of significant coverage often does not indicate that the subject is unsuitable. It is often possible to have a worthwhile, verifiable article on an encyclopedic subject using only 'brief mention' type sources. We make exceptions for things like villages, we should be more open to making exceptions in other areas. If we could concentrate more on the question of suitability for inclusion rather than getting hung up on 'notability', we would end up with a better encyclopedia.--Michig (talk) 12:08, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Completely agree. Encyclopedic relevance is something very different from popularity. The problem is that for writing a good encyclopaedia (and for deciding what belongs and what not) you should sometimes be a specialist in given area. My beloved example is ii … it is completely obscure and mostly forgotten effort to write IRC client as a filesystem, and I don’t think there are more than ten users of it other than its author, and yet I do honestly believe that it should be included in any Encyclopedia of the Internet messaging as a clear and simple example of one trend in the software design of internet messaging software. I don’t care if you agree with me on this particular example but please accept it as an example that the encyclopedic relevance may be different from popularity. However, in order to understand why
ii
might be worthy of inclusion you have to understand something about this particular kind of software and know something about related projects (e.g., here it would be probably Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs). With all due respect there are much less specialists on plan9 among wikipedia editors than specialists on Hannah Montana & co. so the result is that we have Wikipedia full of complete analysis of every stupid TV show which there ever was, but we have to fight about deletion of Gajim (which was to be axed by the deletionist crowd) and people like me who spent some time editing couple of articles on their preferred topic are so disgusted with the deletionist craze, that they left (like me) volunteering on Wikipedia almost completely. Have a nice day. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ceplm (talk • contribs) 22:24, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wikipedia needs to have a inclusion guideline, period. Server space may be "infinite", but manpower going around fixing and improving the articles is not. The "sum of human knowledge" is a it overrated, who would care about an article about me or my family, besides me, my family or my friends? And why should anyone waste his time fixing links or categories for it, or trying to find a source saying when did my parents get m
- The real point in notability discussions is not whenever there should be a notability policy or not, but how far it should be enforced. Some cases are clear and self-evident, others may not not be so much (such as topics that get interest only within certain fields). There's also the point of structure, some topics may be "notable" in the sense that they get attention from sources, but should not have an article because they are so overly detailed and specific that there's so little to say aboutit, which can only be understood when included at the parent topic article. For example, usually there's no need to have different articles on a battle and on its battlefield, an article section would be enough. MBelgrano (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's a difference between having a guideline, and having the current guideline. I agree, we shouldn't host just anything, but I don't agree that a requirement of notability is the optimal solution. Throwaway85 (talk) 12:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I don't understand the difference between "suitability for inclusion" or "encyclopediality" and notability. For me, I can't think of a topic that is "suitable for inclusion" but doesn't meet GNG. I also can't think of as simple and clear a guideline as WP:GNG that would also have the same effect. Some specialty fields do, in fact, have their own notability criteria (which I personally disagree with, but they are generally accepted, as long as they were set up reasonably). Qwyrxian (talk) 14:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Therein lies the problem - passing a requirement for coverage and being suitable for inclusion are often different issues, and many simply don't see that. We should start with asking "is this a suitable topic for an encyclopedia". If it is and we have enough verifiable information for a short article, there should be no problem. Unfortunately this isn't the same as (general) "notability", which demands that we can find multiple significant coverage. As an example, a band that had a top 20 hit in the 1970s is suitable for inclusion (with content limited to that which is verifiable, which means that we must have some sources) even if we cannot demonstrate that it meets WP:GNG via "significant coverage". A village with thousands of years of history is suitable for inclusion even if we cannot demonstrate that it has received "significant coverage". A past president of a small European country is similarly suitable for inclusion as long as WP:V is satisfied. WP:GNG is a decent inclusion criterion but often a poor exclusion criterion.--Michig (talk) 15:39, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I don't understand the difference between "suitability for inclusion" or "encyclopediality" and notability. For me, I can't think of a topic that is "suitable for inclusion" but doesn't meet GNG. I also can't think of as simple and clear a guideline as WP:GNG that would also have the same effect. Some specialty fields do, in fact, have their own notability criteria (which I personally disagree with, but they are generally accepted, as long as they were set up reasonably). Qwyrxian (talk) 14:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well I haven't seen a proposal for anything better. The bar for new articles is pretty low I think and I try hard to find something worthwhile about articles instead of getting them deleted, but if after a week of trying it is obvious some subject is just someones vanity box or totally made up junk and not worth spending any effort protecting from spam then yes I will ask for it to be deleted. The same with rubbish externals on articles. If you let the list of bad externals grow on an article they take over and the whole article looks like a wall of bad graffiti. And I view a non-notable article as like a pile of fly-tipping, they can go and do it on their own web site if they want it on the web is what I say. Dmcq (talk) 15:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- There's a difference between having a guideline, and having the current guideline. I agree, we shouldn't host just anything, but I don't agree that a requirement of notability is the optimal solution. Throwaway85 (talk) 12:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- While I find most specific notability criteria dubious at best, the concept of notability is a useful one in an encyclopedia that is never finished. The point of notability, as I see it, is to prevent the deletion of articles that can be presumed to have additional sources that are not immediately accessible. My go to examples are old gospel Grammies and species. A group that won a Grammy for a gospel performance in the '80s will probably not have a huge presence on the Internet. However, we know that, because they won a Grammy, that there would have been considerable press at that time even in the mainstream media and even more in the gospel specific media world. Someone will have to actually dig through paper archives of perhaps defunct magazines in order to find this coverage, but we can presume that it exists. There's no reason to delete this article because the group is notable. Species are similar. Every species of every type of organism has a minimum amount of coverage in reliable sources that would permit one to write at least a GA class article. However, unless the species has been studied extensively or is particularly weird, these sources will be in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Kazakhstan or something like that and extremely difficult to find. But we know that this exists because it's a species.
- On the other hand, there are things that can be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, to not have good sources. Aformentioned garage band, the hardware store down the street from me, my dad, none of these things or people are particularly interesting to the world of people that write things. There's no point in keeping articles about them; we may never be done, but we shouldn't be trying to build things that are impossible to finish. --Danger (talk) 15:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Gimme danger here: the concept of notability is important but the specific way we enforce it is "dubious at best". The fiction about our notability guidelines is that they're just there to help us determine which articles are going to be verifiable and maintainable, and this is fiction because many people -- well-informed Wikipedians who participate in a lot of deletion discussions -- will actively disregard verifiable sources if they can't also be satisfied that something is "notable". In the programming languages debacle, those in favor of deletion kept arguing about notability after hordes of people showed up providing sources.
I've seen a lot of guideline drift on Wikipedia, where a guideline says one thing but "everybody knows" it means another. Notability is, I think, one of those things. It was demoted to a guideline long ago but people can't break the habit of treating it like it trumps actual policies. I think we should make an effort to return notability to its status as an informative guideline only. rspεεr (talk) 16:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I agree with Gimme danger here: the concept of notability is important but the specific way we enforce it is "dubious at best". The fiction about our notability guidelines is that they're just there to help us determine which articles are going to be verifiable and maintainable, and this is fiction because many people -- well-informed Wikipedians who participate in a lot of deletion discussions -- will actively disregard verifiable sources if they can't also be satisfied that something is "notable". In the programming languages debacle, those in favor of deletion kept arguing about notability after hordes of people showed up providing sources.
Now I'm going to post some of the major arguments I've read in favor of keeping the status quo.
- There's consensus for the notability criterion. We've had this discussion on depth previously, and the community consensus has been towards keeping the status quo.
- I don't think this is true. A perception I'm hearing thrown around a lot, is that its a small group of very active wikipedians who are very familiar with wikipedia's bureaucracy, against the community as a whole.
- The notability criterion is necessary for ensuring that new encyclopedia articles have the potential to be verifiable and encyclopedic.
- The very core of wikipedia is that it's a verifiable encyclopedia. However this itself is enough to determine article eligibility. The problem is, is that instead of those rules being used to decide things in AfD debates, people overly focus on the general notability guideline. A perfect example of this is the Encyclopedia Dramatica article. Editors had acquired more than enough information on the website to compile a neutral, verifiable and encyclopedic article. However deletion was upheld again and again because of Wikipedia:Wikilawyering over the GNG. The result of this is that people didn't have a place to turn to read a verifiable neutral point of view article on the subject, which hurt many (it meant they had to go to the ED site itself to satisfy their curiosity) and helped no one.
- I see no reason why the debate during an AfD can't be "is this article a verifiable encyclopedic article" instead of "is this subject matter notable?" By making the debate about the encyclopedicness of article and not about the notability subject matter we avoid hurting a lot of feelings and make it clear that the proper solution is to improve upon the article as much as possible by adding verifiable sources for instance. --ScWizard (talk) 17:23, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Arbitrary break 1
I sympathize with many of the points made by the OP, but I'd like to put down a few points to structure the discussion better (in my humble opinion):
- Notability per se is not a problem; it is its interpretation. Having an inclusion criteria, as long as it is as much as possible 1)objective (and thus NPOV- and bias-free) and 2)rationally applied is fine. WP:GNG is more or less that, even if with some pitfall (more on that later): it states that if you have 2 or more independent, reliable sources that discuss a subject, then the subject is notable. The problem is that the deletionist camp is slowly but steadily raising the bar and arm-twisting GNG, and recently they've gone so far that I've heard admins explicitly declare in AfD discussions that they don't care about GNG since it's "just a guideline", or calling me a "guideline-thumper" because I tried to reason following the rationale of the guideline instead of throwing it away and judging the article on my personal biases. This has led to unfortunate consequences; I've seen articles with more than a dozen reliable sources cited in the text being deleted. This is what one editor summarized as "Inclusionism is NPOV".
- The main problem of WP:GNG is the presumption clause. WP:GNG has an often-cited presumption clause, which says: A topic is presumed to merit an article if it meets the general notability guideline below and is not excluded by WP:NOT - This is often used by deletionists as a jail-free card to argue that one can consensually declare an article not to merit an article in spite of it meeting GNG. They may have a point, technically: for example a subject can be better merged in a larger article. But this doesn't mean that every subjective editorial whim is acceptable to rebuke such a presumption. The clause should be rewritten to make sure that the cases in which the presumption can be rebuked are clear and narrow.
- Editors fall into the encyclopedicity fallacy. When we declare that WP is an encyclopedia, we acquire a bias due to our past experiences with historical encyclopedias (say, Britannica). Therefore many editors feel that some subject are not intrinsically encyclopedic, because they're not covered in previous encyclopedias. This is a fallacy because 1) it is circular (see WP:UNENCYC). 2) Wikipedia is mostly free from size and scope limits 3)It is a criteria which provides no true benefit to the reader. What we should do is judging each piece of knowledge on its own merits, following an as rational and as objective as possible criteria.
- Deletionists tend to be unable to understand diverging points of view. To deletionists, the encyclopedia is a whole, that shines brighter the more "dirt" is removed. This may be a commendable point of view. The problems are that 1)there different people see different things as dirt or as shine, 2)nobody reads WP as a whole unit: users read individual articles as they feel useful to do. If I read articles on algebric topology, I simply do not care if there are also articles on Pokemons elsewhere: this doesn't change the user experience at all. Deletionists also tend to think that what is encyclopedic for them is encyclopedic for everyone, while in reality there is no objective "encyclopedic" definition and shaping the encyclopedia towards a narrower coverage is to the detriment of many readers.
- There is a cultural gap between long-standing editors and most readers. Often external readers are baffled by the deletionist-vs-inclusionist debate, and tend (no doubt with exceptions) to have an inclusionist view of WP: again, breadth of coverage on one subject doesn't change the user experience on another. People go on WP because they expect to find something and most of them are genuinely puzzled to see that there isn't or it is being debated for deletion. WP editors should stand down from their ivory tower and understand that WP does not exist to be a shining but vacuous object, it is meant to be useful for as many people as possible, even for the ones who find interesting and useful the very subjects which we couldn't care less or even that we despise.
- The maintainence fallacy. Many deletionists resort to the argument that we have limited editorial manpower, and as such we should narrow our scope to allow maintainance (This is a mantra especially for BLPs but not only). The problem is, again, that once a basic guideline like GNG is met, there is no per se unencyclopedic subject, therefore every narrowing is arbitrary. The point is that the community of volunteers does not have a "duty" to maintainence. Crappy articles will always exist: this is something that deletionists tend to see as a problem, not realizing that WP is and will always be a living work in progress, not the dead but shining diamond they would like it to be. We have no need to maintain what we don't want to maintain. If you don't feel like maintaining an article, deleting it is pointless: just skip it. (For BLPs, due to direct real life consequences, this is perhaps not the case, I have to say).
These are only some of my feelings on the subject. Feedback on this would be welcome -notability and its ramifications is one of the core, most divisive problems of the WP community and it is also one that has a very direct impact on WP relevance and usability. A RfC would be perhaps nice, even only to gauge current feelings of the community. I always thought also about gauging what the readers think of notability guidelines and what they would prefer to see -this could be interesting. --Cyclopiatalk 17:21, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Another point against the notability criterion I've thought of.
- The notability criterion leads to monolithic article creation. This discourages new editors and encourages article ownership. Lets say you have a webcomic for which a lot of information exists, but the article is repeatedly deleted. Then the webcomic wins some sort of big time webcomic award (perhaps for "best new webcomic"). This makes recreating the article intimidating for a new user, since they know that the articles been deleted before and that there's a lot of information they'd need to include. So what happens is an experienced user ends up creating a lengthy article from scratch, perhaps with a particular PoV. Then because they spent so long writing this article from scratch, they take ownership and resist good faith changes.
During wikipedia's inception, many articles on very important matters were only a sentence or two when they were created. These articles were slowly built in a bottom up fashion by a broad group of editors. This is the type of editing that built wikipedia, the notability criterion discourages by drawing an arbitrary brightline. --ScWizard (talk) 17:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I am not sure of having understood all of it properly, but there's a kernel of truth in what you say. However many people here around could see it as a bonus (discourages crap in mainspace). I think that 1)there should be some kind of guideline officially recommending people to draft articles in their userspace 2)the possibility of getting back article content from admins should be emphasized. --Cyclopiatalk 17:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think that the fundamental disagreement between myself and deletionists, is that deletionists see "crap in mainspace" as a detriment to the quality of wikipedia, while I see "crap in mainspace" as the foundations of a future good article. As a result of this I strongly disagree with your proposed guideline recommending people draft articles in userspace. If things began that way, nothing would ever have gotten written. The reason we have deletionists is because we have an excellent encyplopedia, one that certain editors feel needs "protecting." However the reason we have an excellent encylopedia is because wikiepdia's very nature is opposed to protecting the status quo. Proof of this is that I could go and create Nemerle right now if I wanted.
- Ok nevermind, turns out someone salted it. --ScWizard (talk) 19:02, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- Wow - here are some of the truest words ever spoken about the Nemerle article and Wikipedia. Wnt (talk) 02:19, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think that the fundamental disagreement between myself and deletionists, is that deletionists see "crap in mainspace" as a detriment to the quality of wikipedia, while I see "crap in mainspace" as the foundations of a future good article. As a result of this I strongly disagree with your proposed guideline recommending people draft articles in userspace. If things began that way, nothing would ever have gotten written. The reason we have deletionists is because we have an excellent encyplopedia, one that certain editors feel needs "protecting." However the reason we have an excellent encylopedia is because wikiepdia's very nature is opposed to protecting the status quo. Proof of this is that I could go and create Nemerle right now if I wanted.
- I am not sure of having understood all of it properly, but there's a kernel of truth in what you say. However many people here around could see it as a bonus (discourages crap in mainspace). I think that 1)there should be some kind of guideline officially recommending people to draft articles in their userspace 2)the possibility of getting back article content from admins should be emphasized. --Cyclopiatalk 17:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that both the notability guideline (yes, it's a guideline not a rule) and the deletion procedures are broken. There should be a general freeze on both until a better policy is implemented. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Elblanco (talk • contribs) 18:27, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
Let's go over the de facto rules of notability.
- . The more news sources cover an event, the more likely it is to be deleted. We have hundreds of thousands of unsourced articles, which are in no danger; but the moment you summarize some newspaper reports you see at the top of a Yahoo or Google news page for the day, you get AfD'd as a matter of course.
- . WP:NOTNEWS is always misused in AfD discussions. The policy says not to treat breaking news differently. It does not say that recent events can't be covered, but that is what people always mean when they start saying "WP:NOTNEWS".
- . Any articles whose deletion is actually controversial are typically proposed for deletion because someone doesn't like what they say. Yes, there are diligent editors who put up a bad article they stumble across, or run through articles systematically to weed out pointless entries. But proceedings like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Phillip Greaves seem motivated by emotional reactions rather than objective notability.
- . An article can go through deletion discussions 24 times, and still be valuable. We waste a lot more space and time arguing about the deletions than keeping the articles.
- . What happens when subjects of an article request deletion depends solely on their wealth and power. Compare Inge Lynn Collins Bongo vs. Jim Bell.
- . Deletions disgust new editors who came on to document an event which is within the policy of what we should cover, only to be told that their work is useless. They don't know it's supposed to be a huge fight to keep their material in. Sometimes they even get nasty robo-warning messages threatening them for trying.
- . Deletions waste a tremendous amount of time that editors could be spending working on articles. No matter whether you win or lose, the deletionists still celebrate their victory - because if they haven't stopped you from writing the first article, they've stopped you from writing the second, third, and fourth in the time you spent arguing. Wnt (talk) 18:34, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think the notability criterion with respect of BLPs should be a separate discussion. All the examples you gave in your post were biographies. --ScWizard (talk) 20:00, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
So if this is all about "Butter-Side Up" vs. "Butter-Side Down", let me know who wins, if there is anybody left to tell the tale. –MuZemike 04:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Just an observation but any notability discussion that involves liberal usage and vilifying of the terms "deletionist" or "inclusionist" (regardless of your viewpoint) usually ends up the same way most online discussion do as soon as someone plays the nazi or race card. Overgeneralizing and trying to paint the broad spectrum of diverse perspectives and reasonings into a neat little target is never productive and only serves to further polarize people into "them deletionists" or "those inclusionists" etc. AgneCheese/Wine 05:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- Are you suggesting inclusionists have poor grammar and make typos? ;) At any rate, your observation is correct. Let's focus on our desired outcomes, and see if we can't find some common ground and work towards a solution from there. Throwaway85 (talk) 05:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Would a group of informed editors have supported the deletion of these articles? If not, then does the problem not lie with the lack of knowledge and understanding of technical topics (such as these programming languages) amongst the community rather than a general guideline that requires more than just the pedantic application of rules to useful? Rilak (talk) 06:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
Notability is abused towards other ends -- One issue I've encountered repeatedly -- editors attempting to use notability as a cudgel to force others to edit articles. The arguments are generally that the discussion proves notability, but the original article did not, and therefore that it should be deleted and recreated (presumably better). The general notion is that articles that need work should be improved via the threat of or act of deletion (and sometimes, that this threat is supposedly the only way they will be improved). This goes far beyond notability policy (although it hides behind it) and is increasingly common on wikipedia. I believe there should be a clear policy statement that this is not what notability is about and not what AfD is about in general. I'd call it say, Build Before Destroy -- i.e. if an article is lacking but has potential, it is worth the effort to do work yourself or to seek to draw in others who could do such work, and it even if this is more effort, this is preferrable to seeking to destroy the work already there. In the software/CS community in particular (and in the sciences as a whole), a note to the appropriate mailinglist/forum that an article is weak/tagged and could use work will often, though not always, yield immediate and positive results. -- Imprecisekludge (talk) 18:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'd be surprised if you haven't seen WP:BEFORE, while claiming to have encountered this issue… --Izno (talk) 20:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've seen it before. It's a good note. It clearly isn't doing the job it needs to. There is existing, decent wikipedia policy being repeatedly honored in the breach. The problem is that whoever starts the AfD generally thinks the article isn't notable -- they don't necessarily act in bad faith. But once the discussion is underway, then it takes on a life of its own. Deletion is (until you're villified on reddit) low cost and high consequence. Work to improve an article is higher cost and with less immediate consequence. This imbalance is part of the problem. -- Imprecisekludge (talk) 20:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- I find both Cyclopia's and OP's claims to be based on, at best, guesses and their own point of view. I don't have any idea how they can assert with any degree of certainty that they know that most people outside Wikipedia would, if they understood the debate, be inclusionists. I, for one, have become less deletionist the longer I stay on Wikipedia. One of my initial reasons for distrusting Wikipedia was simply the fact that anyone could add anything, and that there were articles on all manner of "unecyclopedic" things. Over time, I've come to believe that there are simply topics and categories that, while they don't make sense to me, at least have justification under a set of policies for inclusion, and I accept that they will continue to be included under, as Cyclopia puts it, alternative interpretations of "encyclopediality". I recognize that my personal interaction with Wikipedia may be atypical, but I don't know for sure either way, and thus I don't attempt to draw conclusions about the rest of the world's interaction with Wikipedia. But I think our notability policy is a key guideline in getting people to accept that this really is a serious project with serious goals, especially to academics (an important audience, as I think we need to persuade college and high school teachers to stop telling their students that Wikipedia is useless, like many of them do). When we can say "No, we don't allow just anything; rather, we have standards, and those standards are fairly objective (i.e., have multiple, significant sources) to have a stand-alone article," we get to make a strong claim about how what we are doing here is not just a free for all.
- Now, one thing I can agree with Cyclopia on (shocking, for me) is that if "deletionists" are using the presumption clause to exclude articles that otherwise meet policy, then something is wrong either with editor behavior or with the way the guideline is written (if it's providing confusion or cover for bad behavior). I do not support, for example, "deletionists" saying "Just because there's reliable sources that talk about Band X is detail isn't enough, so delete it." To me, that's just as bad as "inclusionists" saying "This is clearly interesting to some people, and maybe some time in the future we can improve the article, so keep it." So if this really is a problem at AfD's then I agree with the idea that this clause needs to be rewritten. Qwyrxian (talk) 01:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- I think that's really the problem. We have an objective notability criterion (must be covered in detail in multiple, independent, reliable sources). Since we require that articles be neutral and source-based, that's a good requirement to have. I do think it's problematic that we think "multiple" always means "two"—if those two give very bare coverage or are largely redundant to one another, that may not be enough. Overall, however, that general rule is a good rule. But the more problematic bit is the subjective notability guidelines (professors are notable if they get cited this often, athletes are notable if they're pros, bands are notable if..., ad nauseum). We already have WP:NOT to go over what may be noted heavily but not be suitable for an encyclopedia, such as flash-in-the-pan news stories. Other than that, we should just use our objective standard—notability is defined as being noted to a good depth by several reliable and independent sources. That should be equally true of Pokemon or professors, and should be true of "census designated places" and asteroids just as surely as fictional characters. The standard shouldn't be "whatever crap someone wants to write", nor should it be "I don't think this meets my definition of encyclopedic, so it needs to go." The question should only be if we have sufficient sources to sustain a full, neutral, and high-quality article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 02:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- I've seen it before. It's a good note. It clearly isn't doing the job it needs to. There is existing, decent wikipedia policy being repeatedly honored in the breach. The problem is that whoever starts the AfD generally thinks the article isn't notable -- they don't necessarily act in bad faith. But once the discussion is underway, then it takes on a life of its own. Deletion is (until you're villified on reddit) low cost and high consequence. Work to improve an article is higher cost and with less immediate consequence. This imbalance is part of the problem. -- Imprecisekludge (talk) 20:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
- @Qwyrxian: I find both Cyclopia's and OP's claims to be based on, at best, guesses and their own point of view: Heh, of course. I was stating my own opinions.
- But I think our notability policy is a key guideline in getting people to accept that this really is a serious project with serious goals, especially to academics: As an academic myself (even if only a postdoc), I can guarantee you that, perhaps surprisingly, the one thing academics could care less is the notability standard. Academics care about factual accuracy, reliability and sourcing -they couldn't care less if there are also plenty of articles about non-notable things. What is important is that there is a standard for what can go in an article, not the standard for the articles themselves. Perhaps (but here I'm guessing) their bias could even be the opposite: academics after all are used to spend their lives on subjects that most of the universe wouldn't find "notable" under the layman's definiton of the word.
- if "deletionists" are using the presumption clause to exclude articles that otherwise meet policy : They do explicitly. See for example these two AfDs on the same article: [2] and [3]. Article had, IIRC, 14 reliable sources when deleted. You can find the deletion discussions peppered with gems like: You claim this is just WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but every decision we make here, as a community is WEDONTLIKEIT, or WEDOLIKEIT. [...] if you want to get into policy wonkery, WP:IAR is a policy, while WP:GNG is a only guideline. or Coverage in reliable sources is a necessary but not sufficient condition of notability. Also here you can find a quite famous admin stating: Guideliens do NOT have to be followed, never have. [...] Personally, I don't read notability guidelines. I choose to consider each case on its merits. - when pointed to WP:GUIDELINE, he answered: The statement that editors "should" attempt to follow guidelines is simply wrong. - good luck arguing with that. --Cyclopiatalk 04:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Actually, I participated in the first Daryl AfD, and recall (and now, re-read) that I, much to my current shame, invoked IAR as grounds for deletion (I hope I haven't done that since). Then again, don't all editors at some point early on in their editing career (this was within my first month of heavy editing) call upon IAR to justify something that can't be justified? However, just to clarify, the real discussion on that issue, and the rationale for eventual deletion, came down to whether or not those qualified as reliable, independent sources of more than regional issue, thus not meeting WP:CORP. If people can use domain specific guidelines to successfully argue for keeping articles which don't meet WP:GNG (I see this happen most often happens with albums that chart but never have anything notable written about them, but I've also seen it for historical sports players, and, of course, in the automatic presumption that all human settlements are notable), then when a topic very clearly falls within a domain-specific guideline, it should be legitimate to delete it on those grounds. In other words, so long as WP:CORP, WP:MUSIC, etc. exist, it's not acceptable to get to pick and choose whether to use WP:GNG or the more specific topic. But even ignoring that, the Daryl argument questioned whether or not restaurant reviews even met the definition of "coverage" in the sense that we mean in WP:GNG, and whether or not local reviews could be considered "independent". However, I'll still trust you if you say that there are actual examples where this bad behavior you speak of has been done, then something should be changed. Do you think WP:GNG needs changing, or just more careful adjudicating of AfDs? Qwyrxian (talk) 04:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Sorrry, to be fair, Cyclopia is somewhat right about the second AfD, which I had not read until just now. It's an interesting read, because while I completely agree with those who want to invoke common sense and something more than just counting sources to see if GNG is satisfied, I can understand Cyclopia's point that those arguing for deletion seemed to be arguing against what the actual guideline says. This, in a sense, points back to the idea that maybe we do need something more clear in place. Maybe what we need, rather than replacing notability with encyclopedialityi, is to keep it and then add something about also needing to establish community consensus on "encyclopediality". In other words, the idea would be that a subject would need to be both notable and be encyclopedic to be kept. I'm worried that this is getting close to bean stuffing, and I know that the way I just wrote it is too vague and open to abuse, but maybe there's something that could be improved on here. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Another example concerns Thyrosafe (though it hasn't yet been actually deleted). This was ordered to be merged, even though much of the information is so specific that it's not likely to find a place in a general article on potassium iodide. I think that this product is notable because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security listed it by name on the 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative List - even though it is made outside the U.S., this product is seen as critical for American national security. But it still fell victim to a merge, and I feel that the entire reason for this was that some people didn't think Wikipedia should talk about anything that was released in Wikileaks cables, even though these cables are going to be one of the twelve top sources of world news reports for at least the next year. Wnt (talk) 19:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Sorrry, to be fair, Cyclopia is somewhat right about the second AfD, which I had not read until just now. It's an interesting read, because while I completely agree with those who want to invoke common sense and something more than just counting sources to see if GNG is satisfied, I can understand Cyclopia's point that those arguing for deletion seemed to be arguing against what the actual guideline says. This, in a sense, points back to the idea that maybe we do need something more clear in place. Maybe what we need, rather than replacing notability with encyclopedialityi, is to keep it and then add something about also needing to establish community consensus on "encyclopediality". In other words, the idea would be that a subject would need to be both notable and be encyclopedic to be kept. I'm worried that this is getting close to bean stuffing, and I know that the way I just wrote it is too vague and open to abuse, but maybe there's something that could be improved on here. Qwyrxian (talk) 04:35, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- @Qwyrxian: I find both Cyclopia's and OP's claims to be based on, at best, guesses and their own point of view: Heh, of course. I was stating my own opinions.
Arbitrary break 2
Didn't read WP:N, but I think it's ok. I've read the content guideline instead and it explicitly prohibits lawyering and calls to common sense. If a deletionist can't meet these requirements, it's a problem with the deletionist, not the policy quality. The guideline is a hint that helps understanding. If the deletionist has a problem with understanding, he could use someone else's help or abstain from action. -- Anonymous 12:27, 16 February 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.26.164.181 (talk)
- User:Uncle G/On notability is worth a read, it gives a clear explanation of why a notability guideline is a good idea. The interpretation of notability can be flawed in individual cases, such as when the participants at AfD fail to find sources that exist, but the principle of requiring coverage of a topic in multiple, independent, reliable sources means we generally write articles only when there's actually something to say on the topic in a manner approaching neutral. It cuts off a lot of self-promotion and POV pushing. Fences&Windows 23:44, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, it's quite obvious that there's a content that doesn't suit encyclopedia. I'd prefer to read a guideline on dealing with fundamentalists. Text, dealing with fundamentalists, huh? -- Anonymous 06:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
- I have just found this Pump discussion, and it is most interesting. I am seeing first hand at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ctrl+Alt+Del (webcomic) (2nd nomination) what happens when a guideline is treated as a strict rule. If an admin closes this as delete followed by "confirmed as delete" at any subsequent deletion review it means several other articles will also fail at AFDs. Here's one of mine that would fail I believe: Torquato Accetto (trivial coverage in only one printed source). -84user (talk) 17:51, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
- Well, it's quite obvious that there's a content that doesn't suit encyclopedia. I'd prefer to read a guideline on dealing with fundamentalists. Text, dealing with fundamentalists, huh? -- Anonymous 06:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
- One problem with the "two sources" rule is that if the subject is treated authoritatively and recently, there is no incentive for other coverage. But certainly the criteria for GNG seems low. Also it is not exclusive - or wasn't last time I looked. The big problem I see is not wikilawyering as such, but blindly following (and insisting others follow) written instruction of all types. I've even had documentation I wrote cited at me as a reason not to change pages I wrote. When we moved house as a small boy I remember the gaffer saying to one of his men, as they handled a huge piece of furniture down the stairs "Bodies before furniture" in the same way I would say "People before policies" - if something is obviously true, verifiable, of interest, and does no harm, attempting to delete it harms the project not just for the loss of the information itself, but for the loss of community it engenders. Rich Farmbrough, 14:59, 20 February 2011 (UTC).
Although I admit I have not read WP:NOTABILITY -- or at least not in the last few years -- the concept of notability is one that few people should have a problem with. The intent of Wikipedia is to have articles on subjects that people can be expected to want information about; that, in one sentence is what notability is all about. While this definition can sometimes be weakened by a subjective approach (e.g., "Of course people want information on this business I just started yesterday, so Wikipedia must keep this article I wrote about it"), every argument I can think of in favor of a subject's notability presumes that definition. For example, because Dante's Divine Comedy is a work many people read, one would expect an article in Wikipedia on every person, place or concept in it: readers seeking further information on those topics will turn to Wikipedia. (No, I haven't verified this, but it would be an interesting test of Wikipedia's usefulness.) So for certain subjects with a well-defined area of relevance, notability is not an issue.
Turning to the issue which gave rise to this thread -- how do we know if a computer-related subject is notable -- we find that the limits of what is notable is not as well defined. I've made a living from the computer industry for 15 years -- & have worked with computers off & on for even longer -- & I have no clear concept of what are notable subjects in this area. Certainly not every software package, item of hardware, or high-tech company is notable; some software I found very useful in the past is, at best, a trivia question. (e.g., "What company staffed Netscape's technical support center when it released its product to market?") The rule of thumb in such situations is to rely on what reliable sources report, a rule endorsed by common sense.
I sincerely believe that a large portion of the disagreements we have about content would not happen if we had a workable definition of what an encyclopedia is, including how to best cover its topics & to what degree, & a consideration of the best practices for achieving the goals of that genre. Instead, we have been working from our assumptions & memories or perceptions of the encyclopedias we know about (which are arguably flawed), while avoiding analysis or criticism of these assumptions & memories, which have led to implement policies of dubious value to creating a truly useful encyclopedia. -- llywrch (talk) 18:38, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
Break just to force a new line which it wouldn't do
I think that the wp notability guidelines are the most confused but least abused on the major guidelines. The GNG makes a pretty good attempt at a objective standard, albeit possibly oversimplified. It's probably missing the test that you describe. It's weakest spot is that it is a bit weak when there is a pseudo-COI involved. A professor wants to put themself in, a band or an entertainer (or one of their fans) wants to put them in, somebody wants to put their business or product in. When such a bias exists, GNG is not enough. So then, when this happens a lot for a particular item, a specialized guideline springs up for that area. So some extent they all conflict with GNG. Astoundingly, there is no consistent answer as to whether which one one has to meet, whether on has to meet both, or they can take their pick. Each time the question comes up , everyone does their best, but since there is no answer, the answer is different every time. IMHO wp:GNG needs to be refined, with a few metrics added, to more fully implement the spirit of what you described, eliminating the need for SNG's.North8000 (talk) 19:24, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
People seem to think of me sometimes as among the more inclusive of regular editors, but I regard the concept of notability, though perhaps not exactly as we presently word the guidelines, as absolutely essential to the nature of an encyclopedia. (Even if we deleted WP:N and all its subpages, we would still have NOT INDISCRIMINATE and NOT DIRECTORY,and they would probably be interpreted about the same as Notability is at present.) Selectivity is what distinguishes an encyclopedia from a directory. People come here not in order to find out about everything on the web--Google does very nicely for that, & with Google Print it can help even with material not otherwise on the web. People come here because they expect it to screen out the subjects which are below a certain level of significance; they look for what they traditionally think of as an encyclopedia, and without it, we would lose a good deal of our current level of respect. We might well have a supplement without the concept of notability, but it would not really be an encyclopedia . (Wikia sort of does that now, but it would be much better to have a non-commercial site instead, and one that, unlike Wikia, insisted on WP:V ) DGG ( talk ) 02:51, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
- "People come here because they expect it to screen out the subjects which are below a certain level of significance" - Do they? Sounds like a completely unfounded assertion to me. It's certainly not *my* reason to come to Wikipedia. And this fear of not being taken seriously is *so* 2005 - why do you let an outdated inferiority complex drive you to destroy useful content and put off productive contributors? Brazzy (talk) 23:09, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
- DGG has a point in defining one of Wikipedia's functions as a filter of subjects below a certain level of significance. I'm not sure he consciously implied what I'm about to say, but it is something that has obsessed me for a while.
People use Wikipedia to find a certain category of information -- a specific person or event alluded to in something she/he read, a technical term or idea, a fact or statistic -- but not other categories of information. Who would prefer the ideal Wikipedia article on the Peloponnesian War to Thucydides' History? How can the Wikipedia article Propaganda improve on what George Orwell wrote in his essay "Politics and the English Language"? Then there is the issue of what Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind contains that American Civil War will never have -- or any literary work compared to a related serious topic. A user might turn to the article on the Peloponnesian War simply to learn the dates it started & ended, which are not obvious from Thucydides' classic work -- which are specific facts. Yet no matter how well-written these articles might become, there is something depressing at the idea a Wikipedia user expects to find everything of value in God, Love or Death, then complains that these articles should be more than a starting point for their own research. This problem is not unique to Wikipedia; would anyone who is either naive or looking for a cheap laugh bother to consult any encyclopedia to understand those topics?
That would be the top end of the filter for an encyclopedia; where Wikipedia excels over its traditional rivals is at the bottom end, providing information -- sometimes incomplete, sometimes wrong -- about subjects other encyclopedias don't cover, most of which one doesn't need to be an expert to write a usable & useful article about. (And the fact that a Wikipedia article isn't good on a given topic informs the intelligent reader that it is something obscure.) Our motivation for pruning out puff-pieces on unknown business people & their companies, fringe theories no one has heard of, & things people make up on a dull school day is not only no one cares about them but anyone who stumbles across the article might be misled in thinking that this cruft is actually worth knowing. And while we might -- & will inevitably -- err in excluding some topics, Wikipedians will always admit where they make a mistake & correct it. We have no incentive to do otherwise. -- llywrch (talk) 20:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- DGG has a point in defining one of Wikipedia's functions as a filter of subjects below a certain level of significance. I'm not sure he consciously implied what I'm about to say, but it is something that has obsessed me for a while.
tag-on to "let's discuss notability policy- again" does inherent notability exist, if so should we note it outside project pages?
I recently nominated a page for deletion, because all its sources were basically catalog entries. I saw it as a test case, in essence, for a much greater class of articles on navy ships about which not much more could be said than "commissioned this date, this class, these are the features of this class." Consensus seems to be all such ships are notable. I want to state first that this is not AFD part 2, the original debate is still going. I just encountered very strong resistance and I want to know if consensus is against me to such a degree that I should withdraw my nomination. Consensus at the AFD seems almost a snowball in favor of supporting that all commissioned navy ships are notable. Is WP:GNG out-dated? Have we made exceptions that should be noted? Various wikiprojects seem to assert that certain things: all ships over 100-foot length, all navy-commissioned ships, all municipalities, all studio albums from a notable band, all of X are inherently notable. Should we start noting these occurrences? Do wikiproject guidelines in these cases supplant GNG in light of their superior experience with the topic? I could use some guidance here because I feel I was following WP:GNG and there appear to be project guidelines that superceed GNG and, to me, make sense. I'm looking for opinions on how I should interpret guidelines in the future to avoid creating a snowball in the future while still doing what I enjoy, which is patrolling new pages and helping build new pages, without falling afoul of consensus. HominidMachinae (talk) 08:42, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- Speaking as one who does frequent (not sure how much I contribute) warship articles and did not feel that arguments for the notability of the ship in question were that convincing, I think that both Milhist and Ships projects need to address this subject. I don't know if its inherent notability or more likely probable notability - as in a ship that has seen active combat service is likely to have done something notable and its more a case of finding the references. In fact to quote from Milhists own guideline "are likely, but not certain, to have such coverage and therefore likely, but not certain, to be suitable for inclusion" (bold is my emphasis). I think in the case of the AfD there were concerns that it might be the thin edge of the wedge. Perhaps HominidMachinae would like to start the subject rolling with the Milhist project and then the members can run with it. GraemeLeggett (talk) 11:21, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
- I understand but it's not just warships. There aren't multiple significant sources on pokemon, small villages, albums... lots of things. That's kind of the reason I thought it might be best to post it here. Does the policy need a re-write to keep it in-line with how we're actually using it? HominidMachinae (talk) 17:23, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Spouses of celebrities
I just wonder; are spouses of celebrities notable, even though the only reason for their notability is their marriage to that celebrity?
Ex: "Jane Doe is the wife of actor John Doe. (a famous and notable actor) Jane Doe worked as John Doe's personal secretary until 2000, when she married Doe. She is now a housewife, and Jane and John Doe have three children: Jacob, Jason and James Doe."
Would "Jane Doe" be notable for being famous actor "John Doe"'s wife? PaoloNapolitano (talk) 09:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Jane Doe would be worthy of note in John Doe's article to some degree. Jane Doe would not be worthy of her own bio unless she is notable in her own right. It is not a slight to the Jane Does of the world, it is a protection of their privacy. It is also an acknowledgement that we can't grow to have two, three or four times more biography articles when there is not anything meaningful to say about these people that cannot be covered in the notable spouse's bio. And it is a distinction between an encyclopedia that focuses on individuals' notability and a tabloid that focuses on every truth and rumor of a notable individual's personal life. Same goes for children of notables, for obvious privacy reasons even more so. Abrazame (talk) 09:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Generally speaking spouses will get a minimal mention (to the extend of "X married Y in ZZZ") but we tend to avoid too much coverage. Certainly most do not qualify for a separate article; notability is not inherited so if the spouse does not stand on their own merit... --Errant (chat!) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Thank you for your answers. PaoloNapolitano (talk) 10:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Occasionally there are exceptions, such as Kate Middleton, who would not be notable (despite minor mentions on best-dressed lists) in her own right except that she became the girlfriend of a prince. Her article was created on that merit alone.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 17:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)- It probably should not have been; that's a pretty weak starting article for a BLP. --Golbez (talk) 18:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- It may have been a bad article, but secondary sourcing at the time identified her as notable despite not having done anything of note by herself. Another example may be Coleen Rooney nee McLoughlin who was raised to notability by Press coverage of her turning her into a celebrity for nothing more than dating a footballer. I'm sure further examples can be given of spouses/girlfriends who have been artificially been given a notability that warranted an article simply for being in a relationship with that person. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- See also celebutante and famous for being famous. Anomie⚔ 22:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- It may have been a bad article, but secondary sourcing at the time identified her as notable despite not having done anything of note by herself. Another example may be Coleen Rooney nee McLoughlin who was raised to notability by Press coverage of her turning her into a celebrity for nothing more than dating a footballer. I'm sure further examples can be given of spouses/girlfriends who have been artificially been given a notability that warranted an article simply for being in a relationship with that person. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 21:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- It probably should not have been; that's a pretty weak starting article for a BLP. --Golbez (talk) 18:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Occasionally there are exceptions, such as Kate Middleton, who would not be notable (despite minor mentions on best-dressed lists) in her own right except that she became the girlfriend of a prince. Her article was created on that merit alone.
- Pls see Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Privacy of names and Relationships do not confer notability . See also Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons#Privacy of personal information and using primary sources.Moxy (talk) 23:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'm guessing that if Coleen Rooney had not had her own TV show, it would be a race between how many cellphone ads she could book before the AfD (deletion of her bio) was successful. Honestly, if some chick parlays her love life into broader tabloid coverage, or even minor appearances or whatnot (ooh! she "designed" a handbag!) that does not amount to encyclopedic notability, regardless of how active she was in her high school drama program or her approval of her husband's relations with prostitutes. That bio is atrocious and seems to focus on tabloid details. (That TV series that seems to be the anchor of her notability gets less coverage than her high schooling or her residences.) I say this not to harsh on whomever this woman is, but to say that miserable bio is not in any way the model of how an editorially responsible Wikipedian views the notability of such category of person.
- Thank you for your answers. PaoloNapolitano (talk) 10:22, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Generally speaking spouses will get a minimal mention (to the extend of "X married Y in ZZZ") but we tend to avoid too much coverage. Certainly most do not qualify for a separate article; notability is not inherited so if the spouse does not stand on their own merit... --Errant (chat!) 10:06, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- I'm guessing that Stuart.Jamieson's point is not to introduce it as such, but to point out that even as Wikipedia does not observe inherited notability, disposable popular culture does, and when it does so to such an extent as it elevates (such as it is) that person into notable circumstances (again, eponymous TV series), it is the (however debatably earned) notable trappings of the unnotable life that makes an article defensible. (Having said that, any number of notable people get their big break only because they knew the right person.) So, not the relationship, not merely the celebrity, nor the tabloid coverage of such, nor even the autobio (all one and the same), but the TV series about the celebrity that makes Rooney biographically notable. Abrazame (talk) 02:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
- It's an interesting point about Coleen Rooney. There's a comment here on how the notability policy works with cultural differences and perceptions of WP editors. Here in the UK in recent years (it's embarrassing to admit) the wives and girlfriends of footballers (soccer stars) - aka WAGs - have become huge celebrities in their own right with massive press coverage. The closest U.S. equivalent would be (I don't mean to compare them in 'worthiness', just in terms of fame because of their spouse) are the First Ladies. Now, I notice that Michelle Obama has her own page. I don't think the TV show had a bearing on Colleen's notability in the UK. Regretably, I think from a UK perspective WAGs usually are highly notable - but it's very difficult to explain this "cultural phenomenon"(say in the context of an AfD) to non-UK editors. DeCausa (talk) 10:26, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
minority view
Sirs, I protest. If I cannot edit articles that is OK. If I cannot edit discussion pages that is OK too. But to have a policy that restricts people so they are not allowed to talk about a minority view, between each other, on their own talk pages is both repressive and outrageous. This happened to me on the last entry on my talk page. Arydberg (talk) 16:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
I thought this was about policy. Arydberg (talk) 17:34, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- There certainly is no policy that says topic bans imposed as part of arbitration enforcement cannot also cover user talk space. In fact, they are typically understood to do just that as a matter of course. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
- Really? I must admit I haven't seen all that many, but my impression is that the wording is "(topic) pages, broadly conceived". I've often wondered whether that applied to a user page (not subpage) or talk page mainly devoted to the topic, but would it apply if dicussion of the topic is just one thread on a talk page? Peter jackson (talk) 09:50, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Posting here as there it seems we have a final draft before this gets promoted. This is based on the GNG, WP:VG/GL and common practices, If anyone has any comments please feel free to discuss them there.陣内Jinnai 22:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
Non-free images in infoboxes - closing old RfC
It's been a month since the Wikipedia:Non-free content/Cover art RfC has ended. Would anybody like to write up a summary and close the discussion? I have re-read the entire discussion and believe the result was something like this;
Conclusion - In general, artwork used in infoboxes qualifies under non-free content criteria #8 in that the article and image work together to justify its use. Therefore detailed dicussion of the artwork itself is not necessarily required in the body of the article.
I would much prefer that somebody else does this, but if nobody is willing, I can do it. Thanks. - Hydroxonium (H3O+) 03:04, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
- Done - Everybody is free to revert. - Hydroxonium (H3O+) 05:46, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
Hard vs Soft redirects
I'm trying to start a discussion on hard vs soft redirects, and in particular on whether soft redirects could/should be used internally as a replacement for hard redirects in certain cases. If you would like to join in the discussion, please come do so at the soft redirect talk page. - TexasAndroid (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
Removing discussion of unblock requests from one's own talk page?
Please see Wikipedia talk:User pages#Is it ok to remove other users' discussion about an unblock request from one's own talk page? and offer input if possible. rʨanaɢ (talk) 17:34, 2 March 2011 (UTC)
User doesn't want to be contacted
A user left a tag saying Yadkin River Bridges needed improvement, but when I went to his talk page to ask for suggestions, it said, "Please don't bother leaving messages, I won't read them." I suppose a Wikipedia user has the right to do this, and I'll respect that, but doesn't this conflict with the goal of improving the encyclopedia? Suppose this person does something wrong? If he is told about some offense, apparently he has no intention of listening.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 14:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- In a case like that if I didn't see anything obviously wrong I'd just remove the tag with a comment saying I was unable to find a good reason for it and then get on with my life. Dmcq (talk) 15:16, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'm just saying what if the person doesn't intend to read messages and there's a good reason for them? I know this case isn't like that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- There's no need to worry overmuch about anybody not responding. If it looks like they might it's worth a try. Otherwise for instance I might walk out the door and be run over by a bus or be whisked off on a beautiful holiday. Dmcq (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- That user appears to have been bothered by a now-blocked person who wanted to plaster various holiday banners on his page to the point of being a nuisance. I would suggest that you do leave him a polite message addressing his article concerns...I'll bet he will have no problem conversing with you. His talk page history shows that he is cordial and responds well. I'll bet that it was a message intended for the one who was pestering him. If this were a difficult user, I would point out WP:UP#OWN.
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 19:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)- Thanks. I didn't think of the history. He has responded on the article's talk page.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:49, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- I'm just saying what if the person doesn't intend to read messages and there's a good reason for them? I know this case isn't like that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 15:23, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Finland
I hope that you dont write that Finland is in Scandinavia. I am angry, because people in Wikipedia lye about my land! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jaakko Leinonen (talk • contribs) 18:45, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- I think this issue is well enough covered in Scandinavia, and not alluded to in Finland to render your comment somewhat redundant. Did you read either article before shooting from the hip? --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
I live in Finland, but my forfathers were Vandals. Wikipedia is a rasistic encyclopedia, because the descendants of Vandals may not make nick names with the word Vandal!. Jaakko Leinonen (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
- We'll take that as a joke and move on. Thank you. --Tagishsimon (talk) 19:51, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
Year of Birth
Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Year of Birth
Currently, WP:BLP#Privacy of personal information and using primary sources (WP:DOB) says:
Where the subject complains about the inclusion of the date of birth, or where the person is borderline notable, err on the side of caution and simply list the year.
I've started a discussion about how to handle folks that don't want their YoB in an article. I suggest a new hidden Category:Year of birth removed (living people) to prevent folks using automated scripts adding Category:Year of birth missing (living people).
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 23:43, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
Bad idea. That would simply lead Googlers to folks that want to keep the year private. Instead, would adding the category inside a comment allow the scripts to detect that year was deliberately removed? That is,
<!-- [[:Category:Year of birth missing (living people)]] year removed -->
--William Allen Simpson (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
Guideline on tagging
So I've seen an editor basically claim that editors have a policy-sanctioned right to spam large numbers of tags into an article during a dispute, and that the agreement of multiple editors that a given tag (say, {{Clean up}}) is unhelpful or inappropriate is completely irrelevant. This isn't a one-time thing: It appears to be standard operating procedure for the editor.
All complaints about the editor's behavior are countered with "WP:FOC, please".
I'm aware of several essays, like Wikipedia:Tagging pages for problems and Wikipedia:Tag bombing, but it appears that the editor believes tag bombing to be sanctioned by, or even required by, policy. Do we actually address template use in any official guideline or policy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:55, 4 March 2011 (UTC)
- Only thing I can think of is wp:disruptive editing, which mentions cite tagging during a dispute as a form of disruptive editing. Yoenit (talk) 10:09, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
On reference BLP
Q1. Was it this discussion that made Wikipedia:Proposed deletion of biographies of living people policy? (If so, the policy page should be clear about where consensus came from for the policy. Q2: If an editors adds one reliable source to the John M. Florescu article that supports at least one statement made about the person in the article (e.g., son, he, lived, etc.), then the prod can be removed? -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 19:18, 5 March 2011 (UTC)