On Wikipedia, we require that articles are on notable subjects. This includes all articles, from those about famous people, to those about lesser known cities, and everything in between.

Please not that "notable" does not mean the same thing as "famous" or "well-known". If you are looking for a synonym, notable could be most closely related with note-worthy or taken-note-of.

The most basic requirement for notability is this:

The coverage in the references you provide should be significant coverage. This means that the subject isn't just mentioned once or twice, but a major portion of the article (if not the whole thing) should be about the subject. Thus, a "passing mention" in an article about another subject is not acceptable.

All sources on Wikipedia should be reliable sources. To judge reliability, a good test to follow is this:

• Does the source have editorial oversight (as in a team of hired persons to fact check content before publishing), and a reputation for fact checking?

If it meets that test, it is most likely reliable. However, we must steer clear of some common misconceptions about sources:

• Interviews are published in newspapers, that must mean they are reliable!
  • See below (#Independent), but also, just because a newspaper reprints something does not mean they have fact-checked it.
• A blog is reliable if it is written by a journalist/on a news website!
  • Just because it is hosted by a news website does not make it reliable. Many times, blogs on a news website are not subject to the strict editorial controls as is the rest of the site.

Sources used to establish notability should be independent of the subject. Please note that primary, or non-independent, sources are acceptable in some cases to support statements in an article, but they don't help notability.

Just because a source is not hosted by the subject does not mean it is independent. For example, many times, newspapers reprint interviews and press releases from a source. This means the newspaper hosts them on their website. However, the content in the source is still written close to the subject, thus it is not independent.

Please note that interviews are especially difficult. Interviews in news sources usually follow a "Question" "answer" format, where the interviewer will ask a question to the person being interviewed, and then copy verbatim the person being interviewed's response. In this case, the interviewer isn't creating the content, but is merely providing a starting point for the person to talk, usually about themselves. Thus, interviews are usually not independent sources.

Notability is especially important to prove for persons. However, there are a number of criteria that are in addition to the basic notability criteria that can be used to prove notability for a living person. A full list of these criteria can be found at this page. Please remember that you still need reliable sources to prove the person meets a criterion on that page.

Notability is assumed for any inhabited place that can be proven by a reliable source to exist. Thus, all cities, towns, and populated places are notable, and can have an article.

Notability is permanent. Thus, if it can be proven that something was notable at the time it happened (or afterword), it can be presumed notable at this time. For example, many historical topics are the subject of very few sources nowadays, but when they happened or existed there were many sources about them.

When determining notability for a current event, one must sift through what is considered routine news coverage. This includes articles that are created by news organizations for the sole purpose of being the first to "break" the news. However, it can be apparent very soon after an event that it is a notable event, and an article can be created if there is sufficient non-routine news coverage of the event.