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Are ONE and the ONLY ONE software doing thing from science / engineering STEM article notable?

I mean there is article that exists. And there is undisputed notability of article existence.

I myself: I do suppose it is notable based on the ONLY ONE feature.

But some deleters keep deleting such software.

So I need that wikipedia would have SEPARATED GUIDELINES outlined that there would be no doubt for me or the deleter.

I mean for example article like: MPEG-5 part 1 or VVC/H.266 as Video coding format.

Should reference and links be notable on itself?

and The ONE and The ONLY ONE software should be included?

Based it is ONE and The ONLY ONE of category:

The ONE and the ONLY ONE:

1: existing at some physical address or vault, (for encryption software for high encryption key it is illegal in a lot of countries to distribute it across state borders in electronic format or via internet).

2: published or available in internet

3: free software

4: open source software

5: free open source software Category superior to just free software and / or just open source software.

6: doing full job in its entirety (not just partly satisfying / fulfilling some part of specification which itself can be in process of expanding)

(or fulfilling the most of specification, but there can be different degrees of fulfilling specification for different categories: 1,2,3,4,5,7 )

7: created by tax payer funds, And by that I mean it can be notable subject of interest for all Tax payers from country that is for example EU, USA, British Commonwealth of Nations / Commonwealth realm

I suppose that last category (Tax funded) could be considered notable independently if it is NOT the ONLY ONE available.

As I suppose for all tax payers it can be notable, where their money goes independently how much non-notable project would be if created by private funds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.202.138 (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't completely understand what you are trying to say, but I think it boils down to: is software notable simply because it has characteristics X, Y and Z (e.g. being the only software that does job A)? The answer is no, such characteristics don't matter to us. Software is more likely to be noted by sources if it is the only one doing something, or doing it in a superior way, if that software has wider interest. But if e.g. the government has created some very specific software which is used as part of their website to declare your taxes (so "of interest to all tax payers"), then that software isn't notable because of this, if no independent sources have discussed this software. Companies and governments make specific bits of software for their own work all the time. Even if they post it as free open source software, it doesn't magically become notable if no reliable sources are interested in it and discuss it in some detail. Fram (talk) 14:06, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

I might repeat that what I was mentioning was for:

STEM article that exists and there is undisputed notability of STEM article itself existence.

(I suppose if free open source software doing the same job as non free closed source software, it is more notable based on that it is free and open source.)

I understand what you said, but I do not like it.

I do not like notability, it go against nihilistic approach itself.

There are no notable enough source for nihilistic approach.

But it is hard for me to grasp that STEM articles should have the same measure of notability as non STEM articles.

Or is it that we can make include something like software within article about STEM basing thing not by notability but by:

importance or usefulness irrespectful if it was noted or notable by anyone else????????

I can understand that notability is not importance or usefulness,

but I suppose guidelines for STEM article should have other criteria than non STEM non science article.

(by non science I mean something like history).

Are STEM criteria for inclusion other that just wiki subjective social notability, but objective: importance, usefulness, doing job ?????

Or is it just Solely and Only notability as the Superior Final and Only One criterium for inclusion????

I can understand that wiki guidelines are so.

But who makes such decisions?

Who creates such guidelines?

Are we gonna delete extensive and thorough wiki List of software for different category noting that most of them lacks reference to external notablitiy?

What can I do to change it?

I do not suppose wiki guideline have been once and for all times written in stone so they could not change. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.202.138 (talk)

Notability is "people who are not you, your family or your bosses have noticed you and commented on you".Slatersteven (talk) 12:16, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

This, plus what the IP is proposing sets the door wide open for all kinds of spam, promotion, and edit wars over "this is better - no, this is better than yours". Many people and companies genuinely believe that their software is better than others in some way (after all, it wouldn't make sense to make something which was worse in every aspect), but they will need to find some other place to showcase their products. "Importance" isn't objective, what you mean is "potential". Fram (talk) 12:36, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

That is the reason I included 7 categories.

However I think the best superior category for inclusion is Free and Open Source Software under Free-software license

And I would think that the ONE and ONLY ONE software in Existence in this category should be noted (mentioned).

But I suppose someone could argue that that would degrade to just first software in its category.

I think that since wiki has extensive and thorough list of software, there would be no harm in including all list of Free and Open Source Software doing job.

But that it would be true, if the list is small: less than 10 positions, less than 100position in separate article: listing.

Of course there is no point to listing all software for trivial things: like calculating perimeter of a triangle.

(However I thing that such inline within STEM article pasting source code examples of software that solves perimeter of a triangle would be good of itself, even if it were 3 examples of programming language levels: assembler, high level, low level, and mathematics specific code language.)

But I think the ONE and ONLY ONE Free and Open Source Software with Public Domain License or other kind or very Free-software license in EXISTENCE (1st and ONE and ONLY ONE in Existence) or doing its job and solving problem described in the STEM article of undisputed notability should be worth mentioning

What are the rules for Complete Listings, like for example:

Complete List of Secondary Schools (Mauritius & Rodrigues)

List of tertiary institutions in Mauritius

List of free and open-source software packages

Can I start the list, and include it in see also?

What are criteria for creating such list?

It just baffles me. I can not believe such list are created basing on notability.

But we will not delete them?

(I really do not like deletion)

So are there any other criteria for inclusion in wiki than notability?

Because I suppose if software has more downloads and users that some city or country or whole language has users I suppose it has some notablity among users.

I suppose a lot of cities, countries, languages are less notable than a lot of software or other things.

So once again are there any other criteria for inclusion in wiki than notability?

Or asking in another manner are there different criteria of notability for different things?

Does Free and Open Source Software, and ONE and ONLY ONE →Existing← has any meaning (in terms of inclusion withing article) for STEM article of established notability?

And really there are cases that some software does not claim superiority (although there are different criteria for superiority: doing most of job, doing something but minimal computing or memory power demands) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.202.138 (talk) 15:05, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

No, the only thing that matters is notability (for inclusion).Slatersteven (talk) 15:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Note that just because we don't have a standalone article on a topic doesn't mean we can't cover it in a larger, more comprehensive article, providing redirects that serve as search terms for users. To use the examples, maybe those individual video encoding formats alone aren't notable, but certainly the topic of video encoding overall is, and I'm sure a page that briefly documents the various video encoders (those that meet WP:V) would be suitable. --Masem (t) 15:28, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Using sources that do not violate wp:rs and specificaly wp:sps, and takling into account wp:undue.Slatersteven (talk) 15:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

As for the examples of: MPEG-5 part 1 and VVC/H.266 as Video coding format this format are notable enough to have standalone articles within wiki:

MPEG-5 part 1 and VVC/H.266 (I suppose it - the article Existence is undisputed notability of STEM article).

However the only published and working and even Open Source software - implementation was removed:

REVC written in RUST from MPEG-5 part 1

VVdeC and VVenC from VVC/H.266

VVdeC and VVenC are official release released by German Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications the author of VVC/H.266 - the author of abstract specification of it, and first and only one workable software written so far that direct link to was removed from article.

(However I found it in German wiki, which I translated it from).

And Notable statement with Big Name, was removed as spam or advertisement of Big Name. (I suppose that was notable proof showing that VVC/H.266 is designed with hope to be expected as next generation satellite broadcast video codec that was also removed and it also was translation from German wiki, the statement was about first time usage of VVC/H.266 in satellite test broadcast, and there are not many satellite owners and operators)

(Both REVC and VVdeC and VVenC info was translated from German wiki) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.187.202.138 (talk) 21:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

The section of GNG about SIGCOV gives two examples.

• The book-length history of IBM by Robert Sobel is plainly non-trivial coverage of IBM.
• Martin Walker's statement, in a newspaper article about Bill Clinton,[1] that "In high school, he was part of a jazz band called Three Blind Mice" is plainly a trivial mention of that band.

In my opinion, these examples are at the two extremes, and leave a lot of gray area in the middle.

• Should we consider adding a bullet in between these two? Maybe something like "Two paragraphs about X in a newspaper article is non-trivial coverage."
• Should we attempt to define the lower limit of SIGCOV? Is it 2 sentences? 100 words? 1 paragraph? 2 paragraphs? etc.

I think that being more precise/more specific would be helpful for communicating our norms to Wikipedians who aren't familiar with notability and deletion. –Novem Linguae (talk) 09:11, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Ehhh the level of significance of a certain amount of coverage varies by type of topic. The first example is just wrong, with as short as newspaper paragraphs tend to be, two paragraphs often is still trivial (or certainly not significant). There's absolutely no way a hard line can be defined, and all of your suggestions are going to be too low for most topics. Even five paragraphs in each of two articles about Bill's youth jazz career of where he played and how they formed is going to be trivial because it's not really the band being discussed, it's Bill himself and it should be covered elsewhere. Reywas92^Talk 19:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Reywas92, 5 paragraphs about the band would be SIGCOV of the band and not Bill Clinton, right? Even clarifying cases like this would be helpful. Perhaps we can make some small changes to the GNG, or perhaps a supplemental guideline/essay would be appropriate. I'm open to suggestions. Anything to make it clearer to people what our norms are. –Novem Linguae (talk) 00:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

No. It depends on the context. If the article is about Clinton and spends 5 paragraphs focusing on the part of his biography in which he played in a band, and what Clinton did for it, that's not sigcov of the band, that's just more about Clinton. The the article is specifically about the band and goes beyond Bill's role in it, then it would be, but that's still not necessarily enough if the only reason anyone's heard about it in the first place was because a member later became president. There is no plausible way to quantify this that won't be riddled with exceptions, though it should indeed be more than two sentences. Reywas92^Talk 01:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Novem Linguae, you will find previous conversations about this in the archives. Personally, I think it would be a good idea, because writing something like "a minimum of 300 consecutive words about the subject" would prevent a lot of confusion (see, e.g., the discussion years ago in the archive in which someone claimed that SIGCOV was meant to prevent people from combining two tweets from a celebrity, saying "I'm in City!" and "I got married today" into a sentence that said "Chris Celebrity got married in City today"). SIGCOV is ultimately about the volume.

Some editors refuse to be pinned down to anything concrete, for fear that as soon as we say "more than ten thousand consecutive words in a regional newspaper", then someone will "game the system" by getting an article of exactly 10,001 words in a regional newspaper.

Another concern is that the sources vary in their verbosity, so a 300-word-long source might contain an enormous amount of information, or almost nothing. One way around that would be to specify a number of what I'll call "severable encyclopedic facts" contained in the source. If the source allows you to name a certain number of facts that belong in an article, then it 'counts', and if it doesn't, then it isn't SIGCOV. For example:

• An article about a hospital expansion might give you: location, current size, planned size, date (implicitly), current CEO, some services offered, expected costs, maybe a few historical facts (e.g., "founded in 1922").
• An book review might give you: author, author's credentials/qualifications, publisher, date, genre, plot summary, title of any previous books, maybe a comparison to a similar book.
• An article about an upcoming election might give you: location, date, each candidates' names, each candidate's political party, list of major issues, poll results.

All of those would likely be considered significant coverage. If you could find two or three sources, which between them add up to 10 different severable encyclopedic facts, then you'd be able to write a decent article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:46, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

There are many lawsuits against famous people (or organizations) but few make progress or win cases. Do we consider failed lawsuits notable and due weight just because they were at the time mentioned by the press?

I find that highly questionable. In the US filing a lawsuit is commonly used to imply that somebody did something wrong, putting a stain on that somebody that doesn't go away after the lawsuit has been dismissed. Don't we have an obligation to take this into account?

What I'm fishing for is arguments against a fellow editor saying "this lawsuit is mentioned by reputable press, we should include it". I say, no we don't. The lawsuit failed and nothing came out of it. So let us treat it with silence.

Thoughts? CapnZapp (talk) 09:11, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Generally speaking, I consider lawsuits met with media coverage only of its being announced/filed, to be insignificant. If no media org could be bothered to do any kind of detailed analysis/investigation/interview-series around the lawsuit, or even provide an update after it's been dismissed, it clearly is not considered important by reliable sources. For a lawsuit to be worth mentioning it should be demonstrable that either the suit continues to be brought up by reliable sources for an extended period of time, or at least when it was first filed the lawsuit or its allegations were subject to significant coverage. Dozens of outlets repeating the headline allegations and the defendant's PR rep saying "no he di'int" doesn't cut it. This is not unique to lawsuits - it's just generally following WP:PROPORTION. The same is true of many other rather trivial things that tend to make a splash in the news and then never get mentioned again, but in the case of lawsuits we should actually be even more strict owing to concerns about impugning the subject's reputation, especially for BLPs. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:40, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

CapnZapp, it's a reasonable point. Performative litigation has become a thing recently. Look at the difference between the threatened defamation suit against Rudy Giuliani by The Lincoln Project versus the one by Dominion. Dominion have a solid case and will at least survive a motion to dismiss, but TLP's threat is plainly specious. Guy (help! - typo?) 09:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Regarding inclusion/exclusion I'd agree with the previous two posts. But I also note that wp:notability is not applicable to this question. Wp:notability is a wikipedia criteria for existence of a separate article on the topic and is not about inclusion/exclusion of material from an article.North8000 (talk) 13:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Two minds, if it gets enough coverage (after the event, not during or before) yes. But we also have to take into account BLP, so any coverage must be in-depth, by top-line RS and (as I said) after the trial only. No tabloid title tattle, no sensationalism. Anything else, no.Slatersteven (talk) 13:59, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

This is likely more a BLP than a notability aspect, as first we'd assume the person must already be notable. Lawsuits from non-notable people against other non-notable people generally aren't going to be appropriate unless they involve a broader issue and make their way to the Supreme Court, for example. Given that, we should take lawsuits that are yet resolved (ruling by judge towards any verdict) as equivalent to an accusation of a crime without a conviction. And in general, we should avoid including those even if they may be well-covered, unless the fact the suit was filed has affected the person's career immediately. Keep in mind that PUBLICFIGURE comes into play, and when talking of those suits against Giuliani, even if they have had no immediate affect on his career, we can certainly recognize that the Dominion one is major from understanding the situation and the sources, given that he was previously accusing Dominion of certain actions, whereas the Lincoln Project one is "out of the blue" to speak. --Masem (t) 16:30, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

 Comment: I am not asking my question only with biographies of living people in mind. I would like input in general, covering also organizations and works (of art). For example, a lawsuit against the production of a movie. Example: [1]. Br, CapnZapp (talk) 18:38, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Context does matter. For films and other works, particularly like in the case of Gravity where the initiation and the conclusion (settlement) was covered by RSes, it seems proper to include as briefly as it was mentioned. If we were talking a company, lawsuits are filed against companies all the time, but some become more visible than others and that requires recognizing when those should be documented. There's no easy rule of thumb here, and most of the time is a "I know it when I see it", but having RS covering the lawsuit at multiple phases is a good measure to start. If there's only a mention from a few RS when the suit is filed and nothing else covers it (even though one can determine the case was closed with no action), its probably a reason not to include. --Masem (t) 18:53, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

As I interpret other voices here, when we have a case of RS coverage amounting to nothing more than "lawsuit filed, lawsuit dismissed" there's no reason to cover it on Wikipedia. Only if there's more to the coverage is inclusion appropriate (such as, for example, the plaintiff winning the case). To include it in this particular case gives undue weight to the "context" that there's a connection between the author's book and the plot of the movie. But since the lawsuit was dismissed there is nothing to this. Including it only propagates links where the author megaphones claims like "Latest Court Ruling Could Be Devastating to All Writers". Well, those claims are baseless, since the lawsuit was dismissed, and propagating them does Wikipedia a disservice. She sued, she lost, she doesn't get to appear in our article. CapnZapp (talk) 23:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

When lawsuits move away from BLP and into companies and products, it becomes less of an issue but we still want to make sure we're not talking frivolous suits. As an editor working in many contemporary works. the lawsuit over at Gravity being one of possible copyright infringements, particularly from an author we have as a notable writer, seems to be appropriate. On the other hand, if random John Q Smith claims that Gravity took from his fanfiction and the case ended in the same result, I would agree that's likely not notable - but at the same time, I'd likely not expect to see significant coverage of it. This is where learning what are good sources for lawsuits in a particular area help. If Variety or Hollywood Reporter covers a lawsuit, they probably have a good idea its important, compared to if a site like io9 or SyFy Wire covers it only. Hence, it goes back to "context matters" and there's no one answer. Only that we definitely should be cautious around BLP, and we should be looking for the sources in the field to be leading the coverage and not off-kilter sources. --Masem (t) 04:28, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The notion "since it's a heavy-duty source we should include it" is exactly what I am questioning. I think that it doesn't matter if it is Variety instead of Syfy Wire, or even Washington Post instead of The Daily Boondock. If the only mentions are "this lawsuit now exists" and "this lawsuit now doesn't exist anymore" I believe we should trend towards finding it non-notable for inclusion on a page. For us to consider inclusion I agree with Someguy1221: If no media org could be bothered to do any kind of detailed analysis/investigation/interview-series around the lawsuit, or even provide an update after it's been dismissed, it clearly is not considered important. So this is the argument I would like ventilated. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:17, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• We also need to factor WP:RECENTISM into the calculation. A lawsuit against a prominent person may garner a lot of coverage when it is first filed, simply due to the accusatory nature of the suit. The fact that the suit was filed is itself NEWS. However, WP is NOTNEWS. We need to take a more “long term” attitude, and so we may need to WAIT a bit of time before we mention it. If nothing else, we need sustained coverage over several weeks. Blueboar (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)
• Since the question is "Should we include it?", I think you're in the wrong place. The question for notability is "Should we write a complete, separate, stand-alone article about this lawsuit?" Also, who decides whether a lawsuit failed? Did the lawsuit which resulted in our article Streisand effect "fail" or "succeed"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
  •  Comment: Several editors have argued this might not be the proper talk page to discuss this issue. Can I ask any editor sharing that opinion on the page to constructively suggest a more appropriate venue? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 10:19, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
    • Since this is ultimately a question of how much WEIGHT to give a lawsuit, a more appropriate venue would probably be WP:NPOVN. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
      • Or WT:NPOV, if you want to talk about the general case rather than a specific instance. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
        • I did link here from there: Wikipedia talk:Neutral point of view#Undue and lawsuits. If anyone prefer to comment there instead of here, I'm all ears. CapnZapp (talk) 12:16, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
• I think "failed lawsuit" is always subjective. Most lawsuits settle out of court. Many settle after a ruling, and those rulings can have major implications. Is that a failure? I think the standard is to avoid WP:NOTNEWS and to offer more than just the shocked reactions to two parties fighting it out. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:08, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
  • I'm not concerned about how the parties themselves view the outcome. That is indeed subjective - what is a failure legally might well be a success in other ways. I'm instead arguing that when a lawsuit is ended without confirming the argument/allegations/etc (i.e. it is settled or dismissed etc) and we have no details (that is, no RS write about the fallout in more than a perfunctory just-stating-the-outcome way) we should trend towards avoiding bringing attention to that lawsuit. CapnZapp (talk) 12:25, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

(As a preface, again noting that this is not technically a wp:notability question.) I'd like to add that editorial decision of a range of factors with the goal of making a good informative article should also come into play. (Since we don't have a "make good informative articles" policy, this is not a policy argument) A lawsuit that the suing party did not intend to succeed at and did not succeed at where they just wanted to take some public jabs at an opponent is not really informative about the topic of the article unless it has a significant impact on the target. And so I'd add the "is it informative regarding the subject of the article?" consideration to the others. North8000 (talk) 17:44, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

• That's a valid concern. Isn't this more of a WP:BLP question? Shooterwalker (talk) 19:07, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that sometimes WP:BLP would definitely weigh in. A lawsuit can be a baseless accusation of something, and the baseless accusation would generally not get "airplay" in Wikipedia. But I think there are also other considerations besides BLP. North8000 (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

is there some way to synthesize "Brief bursts of news coverage may not sufficiently demonstrate notability" in WP:SUSTAINED and "it does not need to have ongoing coverage" in WP:NOTTEMPORARY in WP:GNG? Perhaps something like:

An event or person achieving notoriety for a single news cycle may not be sufficiently significant. See WP:NOTTEMPORARY and WP:SUSTAINED below.

Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:40, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it is appropriate to leave as a later section in the WP:N guideline as it is now. As Dream Focus pointed out in their revert, there are some topics where the "window" of their coverage may be short but is considered to be appropriately enduring for our purposes, often the case of movies and other contemporary media. This may be "temporary" compared to other topics but it is appropriate. --Masem (t) 21:24, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Right. In some cases a short window is not a problem, in others it is. But newbies who read the current version of WP:GNG aren't told that "short burst" fame may not be enough to support an article. Then they end up confused when their article is deleted. What is the downside of giving a heads up about the issue in WP:GNG? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Butwhatdoiknow (talk • contribs)

I think the relevant policy is WP:NOTNEWS. "Sustained" is too high a bar, as it starts to imply something that continues to be written about even in the present day. (And might even be the wrong bar, considering recency bias.) I'm not sure the WP:NOTNEWS policy needs to be mentioned here at all, but if we do, we should take our cues from that. For now I think it's sufficient that the guideline tells us to broadly remember WP:NOT. Shooterwalker (talk) 23:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, there are probably some topics that have "long term" multi-day coverage in the news but would fail NOT#NEWS (such as the woman that accidentally used Gorilla Glue in her hair, for example), while there are some things that may have only a period of a few hours of "events" but that would be considered sufficiently notable for its field. WP:NOT is included and sufficiently guides this. --Masem (t) 23:54, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Masem, can you give an example of a subject for which all of the coverage happens in a few hours, but it still qualifies for a Wikipedia article? Pretend the event happened 20 years ago today. There was national news coverage, all of which was published within the space of 12 hours. Not only did nobody mention it the following day, but we can't find any evidence of anyone mentioning it in the 20 years since then. What kind of subject would get handled that way in the press, and you'd still want to see a Wikipedia article about it now? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

This isn't exactly what you're asking, but there are many cases where the reviews for a book or an art opening are concentrated in the week of release, and I would say that NOTTEMPORARY is intended to apply in those cases, rather than SUSTAINED. And this is true even though meme-type coverage for the gorilla glue incident may actually last longer, and I would see SUSTAINED as being required there. Newimpartial (talk) 21:58, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

An commercial aircraft accident (similar to the United one this week), where there was no deaths or injuries but clearly something that grounded the plane prematurely as lives were at stake, for example. The coverage of the accident will be concentrated, but there will be a quiet, long tail coverage of the inevitable investigation into the cause of the accident. --Masem (t) 22:05, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Anything with a long tail of coverage = SUSTAINED. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Whatever the standard, I'm saying we should mention it in the WP:GNG section of this page. Your thoughts? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:12, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

One quick note, those are sort of "general principle" wording without specific "teeth" and so when arguing for inclusion they get ignored. I did have a unusually clear-cut example once. At NPP I reviewed an article on what was and is a small storefront-store. Their products were unusual and interesting (I think that it was something for certain types of handicaps.) Between being an interesting store and they had somebody doing some good PR work at one moment like 10 years ago two national media did full stories on them. No substantial coverage (even locally) in the following 10 years. So they solidly met both GNG and SNG (and thus would almost certainly be kept at AFD) I asked for more input at NPP and they in essence said (my words/interpretation) that it looks like by-the-rules it should pass even if it really isn't notable, which I did. North8000 (talk) 23:14, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

My main concern is using sustained in the policy will make some editors think that they articles that were notable 20 years ago are not talked about now, so therefore should be deleted. Bios are a perfect example where a person was notable for over a five or ten year period then stepped put of public eye and so therefore twenty years later there is no further coverage. It is don't make them un notable, it is the refs that show the Notability. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 12:45, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

I believe that the point behind SUSTAINED is that we want subjects that "have legs", and aren't just something that's going to appear in Silly season when all the real journalists are off work on holiday. Evidence of "attention from the world at large" for longer than one year is probably sufficient. Less than that, and we should probably look for a merge target.

I don't ever recall anyone claiming that five or ten years of coverage, followed by 20 years of silence, wasn't enough. It hasn't really come up much because of our biases. However, we do have a tendency to decide that a borderline subject isn't notable after all, especially when it's been fairly recent and there isn't much coverage. As an example, look at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christina Desforges from 2009. She died in 2005; her death was initially blamed on her boyfriend eating peanut butter and kissing her (she never told him about her allergies and didn't carry her allergy medication). Then it was back in the news a few months later, when a big public service advertising campaign had to be scrapped, because it turns out that this was no "kiss of death" situation; instead, the moral of the story was that smoking kills people with asthma. Look at the comments in the AFD: an event that never got a lot of attention after the initial shock and Basically a news event. In five years the only people who will care are people who knew her.

Our predictions were wrong: Her death is still getting sustained coverage, e.g., this 2016 article, multiple articles comparing her to another, framing articles like this and this and this, etc. But I'm not convinced that our overall decision was wrong. IMO it would be better to handle that information briefly in another article. Even though we had SUSTAINED coverage, we also have BLP1E and other principles to consider. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Comment on new Proposed Wording

The old wording was poor, however, at least it was clear that outside of NPROF/NGEO, GNG applied. Its weakness was guidance on whether an SNG could over-ride GNG for non-NPROF/NGEO situations, or, whether an SNG was required IN ADDITION to GNG. The above-Proposed Wording is more confusing and introduces more ambiguity as:

• It implies that meeting SNG is sufficient for an article ("topics which pass an SNG are presumed to merit an article"), but
• Then degrades both SNG and GNG as a criterion for an article ("articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article").

I don't think we can degrade GNG in such a way (unless it is specifically stated in the SNG per NPROF/NGEO), and I don't think even this RfC agreed that?

We probably need more specific RfCs on individual SNGs and their ability to over-ride (or be required IN ADDITION to), GNG. Some SNGs are well written (e.g. NPROF), but some are not (which probably makes the community wary of universally amending the relationship of SNGs to GNG). I think the new Proposed Wording will cause more problems in AfD with things like NCORP, with people arguing that NCORP is needed IN ADDITION to GNG, and others arguing it is not? Britishfinance (talk) 12:56, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion that produced the new wording proposed in the RfC? The language very strictly reflects the actual status quo of SNG and GNG policy. SNGs that preceded and were never superceded by the GNG already granted presumptive Notability for an article, and Notability from the GNG itself was never more than presumptive. If you want to propose changes to how the SNG/GNG relationship works, the place for that would be a new section on this Talk page, not here. Newimpartial (talk) 13:15, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't reflect the status quo of SNG and GNG, it is a new variation (which may not be a bad thing), but this is going to cause a lot of confusion (and heat) at AfD. For example, here is SMcCandish explaining in the middle of an AfD the status quo relationship between SNG and GNG [6], and pointing out that NPROF is one of the few exceptions where there is an alternative to GNG, otherwise SNGs are subordinate to GNG. The Proposed New Wording does not have that (in fact, it degrades that relationship)? Britishfinance (talk) 18:46, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

But please read the extensive discussion here]. The TL;DR of the relevant threads of that discussion is that the folk wisdom that "the SNGs are rubordinate to GNG except for NPROF in one way and NORG in the opposite way" is just not an accurate statement of the current status quo of the guidelines. That people make this oversimplification at AfD discussions (or an RfA) does not make it true. Also, SMcCandlish casually invoking the vast majority of SNGs - rather than doing the painstaking analysis linked in the above thread - does not mean that he is any less correct in the point he is insisting on with his interlocutor. The opposite generalization doesn't hold, either. Newimpartial (talk) 18:57, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• I was on a wikibreak and missed this completely. Happy (and surprised!) to see that this passed. SportingFlyer T·C 02:53, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

In Indonesian Wikipedia, I (RaFaDa20631, formerly Alqhaderi Aliffianiko) have pointed about special and unusual notability standards for Indonesian railway stations, dealing with small stations:

All accidents and incidents at the station must be referenced with four good sources criteria: reliable, significant, independent, and secondary. All railway stations must have a timetable linked to official site of the operator. Articles must have at least one picture depicting the station building, either active, ghost, or not, and must be uploaded on Commons.

• All railway lines in Indonesia are considered "notable" even the article itself rely on primary written (not orally) sources.
• All active stations are considered "notable", but not always for ghosts or defuncts.
• All active services are considered "notable", but defunct or planned services may be not notable enough.

Translating all Indonesian railway systems, stations, and lines from id.wiki to en.wiki or possibly nl.wiki may trigger AfD notability issues, like Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cilame railway station which was deleted due lack of notability here. We don't have articles about Indonesian railway infrastructures, such as railway lines. Even if it is translated, it was "not notable" enough to have its own article. We are mostly rely on primary sources, such as Staatsspoorwegen's reports. And again, Indonesian FoP existence is being disputed, you can discuss the FoP Indonesia here. In this wiki, WP:NOTTIMETABLE can hinder our expansion for Indonesian rail transport stubs here, by adding just timetables. See Argo Bromo Anggrek for example of timetable. RaFaDa20631 (talk) 05:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Hint: Use ((Train Stations in Indonesia)) to check if all blue-linked articles are notable enough. RaFaDa20631 (talk) 05:21, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

• RaFaDa20631 I have already raised the idea of a Public Transport SNG in the ideas lab on Village Pump, and the Wikiproject Transport but no one seems interested in setting out or agreeing that we need a Notability standard for what is essentially notable.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 07:43, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
• All railway stations must have a timetable - no, they must not. I have said this before, several times: it is not our purpose to provide information about train times. The relevant railway company will have its own website that provides the information; this will be maintained by people who are paid to ensure accuracy. The presence of a timetable on one of our articles would imply that the information is accurate and up to date - but there are far too many articles and the timetables may change more than once a year, and we don't have a dedicated (let alone paid) team who are prepared to update all of the pages whenever a timetable changes.
  Anyway, why is this being discussed here and not at Wikipedia talk:Notability (Railway lines and stations)? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 15:44, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Can we have an open-ended discussion where we question WP:NEXIST as a whole, not getting bogged down in individual edits made over the years? I say we can :-) I do understand what the editors writing it were aiming for, or at least I think I do, but it seems to me there's been too many tweaks and changes for the original meaning to still shine through. I'm getting the impression bits and pieces have been tacked on over the years as editors wanted to make particular points... Here's my thought process, statement by statement:

1. Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article Sure, a lofty ideal, fair enuff, but how will the section actually enforce this? (Remember, this is the section heading, not assumed to be part of the actual "rules text")

2. The absence of sources or citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that a subject is not notable. So...? Why say this? Isn't the point here "A subject isn't non-notable just because YOU cannot find any sources"? Why not then say that?

3. Notability requires only the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate presence or citation in an article. We're repeating ourselves by now.

4. Editors evaluating notability should consider not only any sources currently named in an article, but also the possibility or existence of notability-indicating sources that are not currently named in the article. Sounds good... but extremely abstract. How can this ever be useful in practice?

5. Thus, before proposing or nominating an article for deletion, or offering an opinion based on notability in a deletion discussion, editors are strongly encouraged to attempt to find sources for the subject in question and consider the possibility of existent sources if none can be found by a search. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING. This is hands-on actual practical advice. Why can't we lead with this instead of the abstract non-enforceable idealist hopes and wishes? Hint: we don't have to justify our guidelines and policies. (Explaining them is a nice touch, but also a different thing)

6. Wikipedia articles are not a final draft, and an article's subject can be notable if such sources exist, even if they have not been named yet. Yes, you've said that already.

7. If it is likely that significant coverage in independent sources can be found for a topic, deletion due to lack of notability is inappropriate. Sure.

8. However, once an article's notability has been challenged, merely asserting that unspecified sources exist is seldom persuasive, especially if time passes and actual proof does not surface. HERE IT COMES! Finally a nod to the real world! This is the only sentence that seems attached to practicality. After all, articles are deleted daily because they lack reliable sources. The theoretical presence or absence of such just isn't a concern.

--- I suggest a rewrite that focuses on practicality. Actually useful stuff. For example:

Notability is based on the existence of suitable sources, not on the state of sourcing in an article

Shortcuts

WP:NEXIST WP:NPOSSIBLE

Notability requires the existence of suitable independent, reliable sources, not their immediate presence or citation in an article. In short: just because you cannot find such sources does not mean they do not exist. Thus, when proposing or nominating an article for deletion, or offering an opinion based on notability in a deletion discussion, editors should be prepared for the possibility that sources for the subject in question will be supplied, thereby confirming its notability.

If you don't like this, please explain what element(s) the original wording has that this doesn't, and justify why each is needed. Thank you. CapnZapp (talk) 17:31, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

To sell this even more: This simply skips the sentences that say nothing actually applicable. Yes, the basic ideal is kept, but not repeated three times. Note that the entire idea that an editor might go "no, sources are likely to exist so the article should not be deleted, but no, for some reason I can't be bothered to supply even one" feels out of touch with reality.

I can understand the desire to not want articles about old and/or obscure topics to not get deleted just because it is hard to find a source, but there comes a point where our policy can't expect editors to NOT want proof. If anything, what this section seems to say is that there should be a reasonable window of time before an article is deleted (enough time to dig up that source). But if editors of WP:NEXIST really want the deletion window to be enlargened, this is not the place to express that. Why not instead go to WT:AFD and argue for a special extension: "If an editor claims sources exist, he can ask for a postponement of the outcome, where the deletion discussion is extended for X days". But to this I say:

1) if an editor in a deletion discussion says "I know there's a source on this, give me a month to dig it up from [insert obscure library or church archive here]" that deletion discussion isn't likely to just disregard this and bulldoze the article anyway.

2) articles can be undeleted. So... why not simply let the absence of sources result in a article deletion. If someone later finds a source, restore the article. Or just start from scratch.

I don't see the case where it is useful to just take it on blind faith "yes, this is notable and sources exist, but for some reason they are impossible to supply". Do mind I said "supply". You don't need to actually find them. If you insert a source, no editor is going to challenge you unless he goes to the trouble of actually verifying it (i.e. ((nicg)))! At the end of the road, Wikipedia needs us to equate impossible sources with no sources. Thoughts? Examples of articles kept despite no sourcing? Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 17:37, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Also moved to draft or userspace. Just mentioning for completeness. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 06:58, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Since there are people who go overboard on both the deletionist and inclusionist side, we must be careful of unintended consequences of any changes. That said, a big part of writing an article is finding sources, and the sources are a big part of what an article is. IMO if it doesn't have sources it's not an article, it's a idea for and article and should be a "idea for an article" list, not an article. The same (but more cautiously) applies for the higher standard of having GNG type sources. I think a bit of a shift that way is needed. North8000 (talk) 18:03, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Can I ask you what you mean by Since there are people who go overboard on both the deletionist and inclusionist side, we must be careful of unintended consequences of any changes.? (talk) 15:19, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: My statement that you asked me to explain was pretty broad so it would a book-length post to fully answer.:-) The rules are open to abuse/ wiki-lawyering. On the deletionist side, there are myriad ways to exclude a good source. The most common wiki-lawyering on the inclusionist side is forcing anyone pursuing deletion to "prove a negative" that sourcing doesn't exist, particularly where doing so would require expertise in a different language. Since my following argument was weighing in a bit on the deletionist side, I prefaced it with that statement to say that any changes that way would should be cautious and small. North8000 (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you User:North8000. But I'd like you to get specific. Do you oppose any of the eight statements? If so, which one(s)? Why? What essential notions are not sufficiently covered by the remaining statements? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 17:28, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Generally support the proposal, noting that right now it is not specific Specific would be "Replace "xxx" with "yyy" ". So "support" could mean to figure out the details while editing to implement it along the lines of what you wrote. Final proposal of implemented wording should assuage the concerns expressed by Masem; they have an immense understanding and good judgement regarding this. North8000 (talk) 19:51, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll note no objections to my proposal so far. I'll also note I advertised this discussion over at the Village Pump ([7]). Please do advertise anywhere else you might find appropriate. CapnZapp (talk) 09:43, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I am pretty sure North8000's comment is an objection, and I'll object too: the version we have presently is written to both those seeking to delete articles and those that are creating articles or may be trying to keep articles at AFDs, whereas the trim focuses too much for information on those trying to delete articles only. We want to stress the importance of the continued effort to look for sources to article creators or those wishing to retain articles, they have a role to play as well in NEXIST. Also, some of this language is coming from facets of common knowledge such as sources that are identified on talk pages or during AFD but not yet included in the article are assumed to count towards NEXIST for purposes of evaluating sources; we don't say that outright because we want to encourage editors to add them rather than to let those listings just linger in talk pages. --Masem (t) 15:55, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Okay User:Masem, but can you specify which of the statements you oppose removing, and for what reason(s)? What essential notions are not sufficiently covered by the remaining statements? Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 17:31, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Key is point #8; this is core advice targeted to those seeking to keep articles without evidence of more conclusive notability or when notability has been challenged beyond the sourcing that has been identified. Hypothetical sourcing is not a rationale to be used to keep articles (as opposed to sourcing that has been found but simply not yet been incorporated into the article). This is the other side of the coin from the rest of the section which is cautioning about simply deleting because an article may be laking sourcing within it. --Masem (t) 18:11, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll add my voice to this one too. There's probably a shorter clearer version but we could easily mess this up. The first sentence and last sentence are both important. If sources exist, the topic is notable enough for a stand-alone article. But there's lots of sources that are pretty empty below the surface -- trivial mentions, WP:NOT content, and the like. I'd even go so far as to suggest that some editors who argue for WP:NEXIST want to leave those sources out because they don't really help their notability argument in reality, and they believe they have a better shot if they gesture vaguely to WP:NEXIST. In the end, every claim on Wikipedia needs to be verified in the actual article, not just on a talk page, and that includes notability. Shooterwalker (talk) 17:00, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

I'll point out that the phrase, In the end, is doing a lot of work for you there. Newimpartial (talk) 17:32, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose The proposed changes are not evidence-based and so fail WP:NOTLAW. I patrol the deletion nominations and routinely see failures of WP:BEFORE when editors nominate notable topics for deletion because they lack sources. For a recent example, see Militaria which was recently prodded. The topic is clearly notable as entire books are written about it: Essential Militaria; The International Militaria Collector's Guide; Collector's Guide to Militaria; &c. The page is obviously a stub in need of expansion and there's no reason that it couldn't be a featured article, if someone put their mind to it – our most common type of FA is about numismatics – a rather similar hobby.

Furthermore, our core policy WP:V states clearly that citations are only required for quotations and controversial material that is likely to be challenged. The idea that every fragment of an article should have a citation attached to it is perfectionism which tends to give absurd results when taken to extreme. For example, at ITN, famous actors such as Robert Vaughn are denied an entry in the list of recent deaths because their long list of acting credits doesn't have a citation for every single entry. To add such citations is busywork of no interest to our readers and so it doesn't get done. We then commit the greater error of omission by failing to announce the plain and incontrovertible fact that the famous person has died. Tsk.

Andrew🐉(talk) 10:34, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

You start with an oppose that makes no sense (you demand that the changes are somehow evidence-based, whatever that means, and not providing such evidence is failing our "not a burocracy" rule? I hope you meant it ironic, as otherwise it makes no sense at all. You then continue with an example without explaining how the proposed wording would be any better or any worse for that case (hint: it makes no difference at all), and finally go on a long tangent about things utterly unrelated to the proposal. Tsk indeed. Fram (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, you routinely claim violations of WP:BEFORE, but that's not quite the same. In any event, like Fram, I'm left wondering what is the basis of your opposition. Ravenswing 16:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your post, user:Andrew Davidson I'm not here to change any actual policy, just cut down on what I percieve to be inexplicable verbiage. Therefore I would like you to list each statement you oppose removing and why this particular statement needs to stay (feel free to refer them using numbers 1-8). What essential notions are not sufficiently covered by the remaining statements? Perhaps we can agree to a consensus where statements are consolidated and shortened. CapnZapp (talk) 17:25, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support simplifying this. Notability is based on the verifiable existence of significant RS. The lack of such sources in the article doesn't indicate a lack of notability, and unverifiable claims that sources must exist somewhere doesn't indicate actual notability. Fram (talk) 11:02, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support- yes, most of this is repetitious and much of it seems intended to humour the "articles don't need sources" crowd. But it isn't 2008 anymore, Wikipedia has standards for sourcing now, and it's no longer necessary to indulge the "no sources required" set. The whole thing could be summed up as, "The suitability of a topic for Wikipedia isn't determined by the current state of the article, but the facts in the article and the notability of the subject must be supported with proper sourcing" or something like that. Reyk _YO! 11:24, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Support: I'm all in favor of applying a basic tenet taught in 8th grade English (a tip of the cap to Miss Goldmann here): don't take fifty words to say what can be clearly stated in fifteen. The proposed change leaves nothing out but the repetition. Ravenswing 16:17, 23 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. This proposal guts WP:BEFORE by removing the text stating that deletion-nominators should make good-faith efforts to look for sources themselves, before nominating things. Sure, lots of people ignore this good principle, but that doesn't mean we should enshrine their misbehavior. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose What a terrible suggestion. It strips the entire purpose of the section, which sets out one of our principles which is meant to both guide editors and deletion discussions, and instead targets the section directly at users who might challenge an article at AfD. It turns a policy and a description of the policy into a mere blurb because it's more actionable for deletion discussions. It's not good, and I'm sad to see that there's support for it. SportingFlyer T·C 20:32, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per David Eppstein. No need to say more. Cbl62 (talk) 21:22, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• I oppose this significant change in meaning. I'm not sure that the OP actually understands the current version.
  1. What makes you believe that the section heading isn't part of the rules? (It is.)
  2. We have to say this because otherwise editors, especially people who tend towards the m:immediatism philosophy, will throw up barriers to creating and keeping incomplete articles. Also, your suggested alternative is wrong; the point here is "A subject isn't non-notable just because there aren't any little blue clicky numbers in the current version of the article". We're not assuming that the person questioning notability is doing a WP:BEFORE-type search. We're assuming that the person started at Category:Articles lacking sources and said "I can send 150,000+ unsourced articles to AFD today!"
  3. We repeat ourselves because repetition is one of the ways that people learn.
  4. WP:BEFORE has one set of instructions.
  5. Because not everyone is a rule-follower by nature. A lot of our editors need to be convinced that we actually have a point before we tell them what to do. Also, if you are trying to defend against a claim of non-notability, then it's useful for you to have the preceding principles stated. ("Yes, I know that the very first revision of Cancer didn't have any sources cited in it, but that doesn't automatically mean that it's non-notable, because WP:N says "The absence of sources or citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that a subject is not notable.")
  6. Repetition is an important way that people learn. We can stop repeating this when people at AFC, NPP, and AFD stop evaluating the notability of subjects on the basis of the current version.
  7. Yup.
  8. This is not a "nod to the real world". This is an acknowledgement that although people deleting articles on the basis of what's in the current version are screwing up, if there's a serious question about a subject's notability (which, you know, there shouldn't actually be a serious question about a wide variety of subjects, including all heads of state, licensed pharmaceutical products, publicly traded companies ever listed on the NYSE, international treaties, etc.), then mere handwaving is not usually satisfactory. This doesn't mean that the source "will be supplied" to you on a silver platter. It means that editors who believe that a subject is notable will usually need to demonstrate its notability, rather than merely asserting it.
• In short, most of the reasoning seems to be off. Perhaps this would help: WP:N's purpose is not to keep people from putting "embarrassing" articles in the mainspace. WP:N would be happy to have a zillion unsourced two-sentence sub-stubs. WP:N's goal is to include stuff that could become a decent article. It is only trying to keep out the actually hopeless stuff – stuff that we believe has no chance at all of someday being turned into a 12-sentence-long article that is WP:Based upon independent sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:27, 24 February 2021 (UTC)
• I think this could be simplified--things are a bit redundant. But I don't think the proposed wording gets at it as well as I'd like. A bit less repetition, and a bit more WP:BEFORE type advice would be helpful IMO. Hobit (talk) 13:52, 25 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose pretty much per David Eppstein, Hobit, as well as WhatamIdoing point 2. I have no objection to some shortening. But a rephrasing should not miss a requirement to do a WP:BEFORE search before suggesting deletion, like phrase 5 in the current version. Nominating for deletion is easy, finding sources can be hard work. This work should at least in theory also be required from the nominator. Otherwise, how easy can it happen that during the one week period of a WP:PROD or the about two weeks an WP:AfD should stay open noone shows up who is willing to invest the time to do a proper search for sources about the topic in question, and thus imperfect articles about perfectly valid topics with regard to notability may be deleted and lost. Daranios (talk) 17:02, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Oppose Although I concur the existing wording is not great, I do agree with fellow opposing editors that the proposed wording does not really include WP:Before which at times is very frustrating, especially for clearly notable subjects.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:23, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

• Support I should note that I frequently witness several editors going against statement 8 by claiming the existence of sources they could not find themselves. SK2242 (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I see several Oppose not-votes, but very little in the way of constructive criticism of my proposal. At this rate we'll never see any progress. Good only perhaps for those who want not a single letter changed without really having to motivate why or defend why all eight of the current sentences are absolutely necessary.

I beseech you to not just Oppose but explain which statements you want retained, and why. @North8000, Masem, Shooterwalker, Andrew Davidson, David Eppstein, SportingFlyer, Cbl62, WhatamIdoing, Daranios, and Davidstewartharvey: To that end here is a ping to every editor whose statement could be construed as opposition in full or in part. Again: I'm not motivated by sneaking in changes to policy. I just see what to me appears as a very bloated verbose policy full of repetition and redundancy. So much so it really isn't helping the readers. The bloat mostly makes the policy so vague different editors can argue different interpretations. I am asking for your help in rewriting the section to be clean and succinct, clear out segments that are in opposition to another, all without losing any significant aspect(s) we have consensus for. Remember, this is not a RfC for a fully formed countersuggestion. This is the workshop stage where you get the opportunity to explain why this or that segment really is needed despite any appearance of repetition or verbosity. CapnZapp (talk) 08:56, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• CapnZapp complains about bloat, repetition and verbosity and then invites us to repeat ourselves. Be careful what you wish for...!

My views on this matter remain informed by the practical, everyday experience of patrolling AfD and ProD. I provided an example above and, today, here's a fitting one: Arbitration Committee. The nomination for this starts with a bold claim that "No reliable secondary sources actually talk about arbcom." This claim is not supported by any evidence even though the article cites 27 sources and it's easy to to find more such as Wired and Wall Street Journal. What we need is not some copy-editing of WP:NEXIST but a crackdown on this sort of false, lazy, hand-waving, intemperate, vexatious nomination. As CapnZapp now sits on this self-same committee, please could they advise us whether they would accept a case request.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:58, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• @CapnZapp: You have asked "please explain what element(s) the original wording has that this doesn't, and justify why each is needed", and I thought I already did that. But I'll repeat in brief: The new proposal is missing phrase 5. of the current version, or something to the same purpose. I and others have already explained at some length why that element should not be missing. Daranios (talk) 11:04, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
• I don't want it changed at all. I don't think anything is wrong with it as it stands, and I don't think it needs to be written to be "clear and succinct". I think we need each sentence in order to properly set out the reasons behind the policy, and to inform any user who might come across it. SportingFlyer T·C 11:56, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

CapnZapp Clearly you have not understood the opposition to the proposal - #5 of the current wording is what is being challenged as missing. The issue is how many times do editors not actually look for refs? Plenty! WP:Before needs to be enshrined, as it currently is with the current wording.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 11:48, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp, I have already written 500 words about why this proposal is wrong, but you say that you want more? Do you really want more? Or do you want me to change my mind and agree with you? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: You write that you need me to "not just Oppose but explain which statements you want retained, and why". Since my statement of opposition clearly did exactly that, I can only conclude that you did not read it carefully. Go back and read it. It isn't very long. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

• It seems to me that the main area of disagreement is between those who want sources to be freely available online at the click of a mouse and those who prefer sources to be reliable. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:47, 27 February 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose -- per David Eppstein: the proposed changes of wording guts WP:BEFORE and seems to me likely to be used to exacerbate existing gender, race, and other gaps in WP coverage since many new articles on underrepresented subjects are written by people who do not know WP citation formats etc., but for which a quick Google search rapidly finds sources. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 00:34, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
• I already commented above that we could do more damage than help. I'm always sympathetic to people who are striving for concision, but a lot of guidelines are necessarily detailed because they need to summarize the practices of several (if not several hundred) editors. If you asked me, I'd say that the section could be summed up with the first and last sentence (#1 and #8). But if you asked someone else, I'm sure they'd tell you that another sentence is very important. If you can wrangle the cats to build a consensus around a shorter phrasing, all the power to you. But a few more sentences is a small inconvenience. Shooterwalker (talk) 15:55, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Just to wrap up: I can't do this alone. Just your support and sympathies isn't enough. This clearly needs to be done over the objections of editors that see nothing wrong here, despite the current wording clearly being "designed by committee" and worded in such a way that everyone can pick their favorite bits and ignore the rest. In other words, not the clear, concise policy our users deserve. This discussion has been exhausting, not constructive - more resembling a withdrawal action where every single bit of turf is contested by somebody. What would be constructive is not to focus on phrasings but core concepts - first agree on what elements or "talking points" really are essential, and only once consensus about that has set, rewrite a new text from scratch. I'd like to thank those taking the time to explain their specific concerns, but I'm afraid that without other users taking the driver's seat and making active progress here, your time and mine has been wasted, since this is the end of the road. CapnZapp (talk) 09:54, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

• Again, I see no actual problem with the current text, and strongly disagree anything "clearly needs to be done." SportingFlyer T·C 14:20, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
• There is something to be said about being concise in policy, but you were given constructive criticism of what you took out as being too much, and then turned that around and said that wasn't helpful. It's a two-way street; you need to heed what feedback you were given to see if you could rework that instead of waving it off as not actionable. --Masem (t) 14:32, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

No I don't need to do that at all. What I need to do is hand over the baton to other editors. Unless there is multiple editors actively invested in the change, nothing will come out of it. I will certainly not waste my time trying to single-handedly overcome opposition such as SportingFlyers just above. For instance, if you had taken the extra step of actually suggesting a counter-proposal where your key points were retained, maybe we could together get this moving to where a proper RfC could ignore the "nothing needs to change" voices. So let us agree this is not on me, shall we? Have a nice day, CapnZapp (talk) 17:16, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree with User:Masem, as I said in my Oppose vote I agree the wording is poor, but your proposal misses key points from the current wording. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 15:09, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

In discussion on Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/50_Black_Women_Over_50 it was explained to me that news articles which are primarily interviews should not count for WP:SIGCOV, because they aren't sufficiently independent of the person being interviewed. This understanding doesn't seem to be documented on the page; should "interviews" (or "interviews of the subject") be added to the list of examples of things that are not independent of the subject? It currently includes "advertising, press releases, autobiographies, and the subject's website". GenomeFan92 (talk) 02:28, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Agree it needs to be made clearer.Davidstewartharvey (talk) 09:41, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

A key thing here is that for that AFD in question, we're talking about an organization, and per NCORP there is a higher degree of concern related to interviews that focus on the organization itself, rather than the person. Far too often, we have organizations paying for these interviews to get media coverage. Not all, but too many that we have to be suspect of any of these, hence why such interviews are not considered independent and thus fail SIGCOV. However, if the interview was about the person and focused solely on the person, to be used in an article about the person from a non-business POV, people usually do not usually "pay" for this type of press, and we can usually assume there's some degree of independence here: the interviewing work set up and decided the questions they would ask. --Masem (t) 03:56, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Interviews are defined as being primary sources in policy. The policy is technically wrong; if the local university's professor of history writes about the basic facts of a historical event in the local newspaper, and also gives an interview on the local radio station, then those are both secondary and independent sources (unless, you know, the prof was an eyewitness to the historical event). Also, some radio and television news sources use the interview format as a way of presenting researched information. The kind of interview that we want to restrict is the one in which I send you a list of basic questions, you give me your answers, and I publish your answers as The Truth. Johnny Carson's interviews were always primary and non-independent; Barbara Walters' were generally secondary and independent, at least in part.

Also, if you think about the general purpose of this – to figure out whether "the world at large" paid any attention to the subject – pretty much anyone who was interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show has a claim to having received attention from the world at large. AFD may prefer to work by rule of thumb, but editors should use their brains, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, would this actor be notable enough to have an article written about him: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1708452/
http://www.englishtheatre.at/english/about-us/archive/season-200102/proof/cast/glynne-steele.html Sirhissofloxley (talk) 19:55, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

This isn't that venue for that but to give a little help, I'd suggest giving this guideline a read as well as Wikipedia:Notability (people) What those will lead you to is that an inquiry such as yours would need to include pointing out published sources that have in-depth coverage of him. Are you thinking of creating an article? If so I'd look for such sources and then one idea would be to go to WP:articles for creation to get feedback.North8000 (talk) 20:50, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

There is an unfortunate construction in this guideline: "its own" is used in reference to subjects and articles. There are two basic problems with this, particularly when the subject is a person. The minor issue is that it indirectly associates the pronoun it with a person, which is not appropriate. But the bigger problem is that it implies the person owns the article. This leads to editors trying to judge the worth of the person when they should be deciding whether the coverage of the person is suitable for a separate article. I see four instances of "its own" which I am going to change to "a separate" and point to this discussion in the edit summary. Dhaluza (talk) 21:47, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

I would agree that the "separate" wording is superior. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 22:11, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

• I disagree. "Separate" implies you're distinguishing against something else: i.e. should this be a separate article from the main article? I think "its own" is perfectly clear, and I don't think there's any implication of ownership at all grammatically. SportingFlyer T·C 22:28, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • The other alternative to separate also used in the guideline is stand-alone. I believe these are used interchangeably to mean the same thing. Would using stand-alone instead of separate address your concern? Dhaluza (talk) 23:44, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
    • I strongly prefer standalone/stand-alone to separate. Again, separate implies division of some sort - there's a definition in the dictionary which sort of works but the dictionary has marked it as archaic ("dedicated" might also work.) SportingFlyer T·C 23:56, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
      • Separate as an adjective means "set or kept apart", "not shared with another", and "existing by itself; autonomous". Stand-alone means "intended, designed, or able to be used or to function alone or separately". I don't have an issue with using "separate article" and "stand-alone article" interchangeably in this context. isaacl (talk) 00:38, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
        • True, but separate as a verb means to divide, so I think using separate to refer to divided, i.e. split, articles consistently will reduce ambiguity. Dhaluza (talk) 00:47, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
      • I concur. My reason for making this edit was to reduce ambiguity, and I think your suggestion further reduces ambiguity. "Stand-alone" (or some form of it) should be use to refer to whether or not a topic should be the main subject of a page (i.e. whether it should be covered in one page or less), and separate should be used to refer to whether a topic should be split into different pages (i.e. whether it should be covered in one page or more). I have gone through the page and attempted to make the usage consistent with this clarification. I have used "stand-alone" consistently because I think this is the more accessible form for readers with limited English skills. Dhaluza (talk) 00:40, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• I disagree there is a connotation of article ownership. I do think that the construction "its own article" personifies the article. While I don't have a personal issue with this idiom, I believe using "a separate" is clearer, particularly for an audience of varying levels of English skills. isaacl (talk) 23:34, 14 March 2021 (UTC)
  • I agree. I did not mean to suggest that "its own" transfers ownership of the article to the subject, but just that it is ambiguous and could be confusing (and contribute to misuse). This is especially true with readers for whom English is a second language, as you correctly point out. Dhaluza (talk) 23:50, 14 March 2021 (UTC)

We use "stand-alone" as there can be separate articles that bring notability from a parent article or the like due to summary style or other reasons. Replacing "stand-alone" with "separate" is not as clearcut as given and will create problems. --Masem (t) 00:51, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Wait, is this a thing? Can you split a topic into a notable and a non-notable page? Shouldn't each page be able to stand on "its own" after a split? Dhaluza (talk) 00:59, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, because WP:N is only a guideline and there are other reasons why we keep pages. Mind you, the non-notable page better have been split off per appropriate reasons per WP:SS and it should be a natural split that shows some elements of notability - this is the whole LISTN aspect for example. You cannot just split off a non-notable segment of a topic willy-nilly and consider it acceptable. --Masem (t) 01:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

The editor did the reverse, replacing separate with stand-alone in cases where they thought it was appropriate. (On a side note, even with summary style, there is notability for the spun-out subject; there's just also an editorial choice to not consolidate the content into a higher-level article.) isaacl (talk) 01:01, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, still, I think the bulk changes without getting consensus shouldn't be made. "Separate" and "stand-alone" aren't the same thing here on WP in relationship to notability. --Masem (t) 01:28, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

I was the editor, so I'm trying to understand your objection. When splitting content, the split articles should each be independently notable. If there is dispute whether the degree of notability is sufficient for a child article, the existence of a parent article should resolve the dispute. But the parent article does not convey notability to a non-notable child article per se. For example, you can't split out non-notable fringe theories just to get them out of the main article--they still need to be notable enough to support a separate/stand-alone article (just not without the parent for balance). If there is a legitimate case for exceptions to this, then they should be covered in the guideline, but I find no such coverage. As for the replacements, I was trying to avoid using two words interchangably to refer to two different things. If you have another suggestion or additional nuance, please clarify further.... Dhaluza (talk) 01:36, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

It's a guideline for the reasons its not meant to have the full strength of policy like BLP or NFC. Experienced editors will know there are some exceptions that we know exist but purposely don't spell out lest we have newer editors try to game them, or try to think that WP:N is not the only way. For example, WP:OUTCOMES are cases where articles are commonly kept despite their clear failure of the GNG. We want editors to keep WP:N first and foremost, and likely 99% of the articles on WP meet WP:N but there's a sufficiently few that we know are accepted to be acceptable despite failing the WP:N, we simply don't want to flag those. --Masem (t) 03:23, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

@Dhaluza, an example might help. A drug like Paracetamol (aka acetaminophen or "Tylenol") is obviously notable, right? But what about the list of Paracetamol brand names, which was split out of that article? There are many sources that make a passing mention of different brands, and the Tylenol (brand) is separately notable because of the Chicago Tylenol murders and their (literally) textbook approach to brand management, but there aren't that many sources that set out to discuss the variety of brand names used in various countries, as the main subject of the source.

But editors have decided, using their best judgment, that it's better for this information to be on a separate page. It might or might not be "independently notable" by the strict letter of the law, but it is the right thing to do anyway. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:34, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

That article has multiple RS establishing the basis for the list, so there should be no problem with WP:N I realize there may be a problem with editors who have a bug up their ass with lists, but that's "its own" standalone issue.Dhaluza (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

No, it doesn't. That article has multiple RS establishing the verifiability of individual, isolated facts, but there is not a single secondary source that contains significant coverage on the list's subject. There's no article on "Why so many brand names for this one drug?" or "Comparison of naming schemes for this one drug" or "Effect of the brand name on drug sales", followed by paragraphs of information about the variety of brand names in use around the world. Instead, the sources are one laundry list (no analysis, no comparison, no context, no interpretation == not a secondary source) of some brand names, and a whole bunch of primary sources that usually say no more than "This drug (brand name "Brandy" in Ruritania) is used for fevers". WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:09, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• I'm confused by the tabulations now, so even given the above discussion, the status quo is my preference. SportingFlyer T·C 01:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• There's nothing wrong with "its own". It's the ordinary, plain English way to say this (on its own, in its own right, etc). It doesn't imply ownership and the use of "it" is a strong clue that it doesn't refer to a person. – Joe (talk) 09:39, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• I prefer standalone While the current language is fine, the word standalone is clearer. --Enos733 (talk) 15:17, 15 March 2021 (UTC)
• IMO "it's its own" is clearer and better, is standard English, and that the problem does not exist. It clearly says what we're talking about, an article dedicated to the subject whereas IMO "stand alone" is less clear. "Stand alone article" sort makes it sound like there is a different type of article, a "non-stand alone" article. Of course we know that is not the case, but this should be written to help newbies. Next, IMO the noted problem does not exist. It's doubly clear that "it" refers to the topic, not the person. Both by the structure of the sentence and also by the fact that in our grammar system, "it" does not refer to a person. Finally, it's common grammar to use the possessive term to refer to dedication of an item to an inanimate object or of an inanimate object "having" such. For example, "each apartment has it's its own separate entrance" Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:44, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  ... note, though, the standard term for the possessive in question is "its"... isaacl (talk) 17:54, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

  Thanks for the catch of my error. I'll strike and fix. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

• "Its own" is standard English usage, but the specific usage here is problematic because "it" can refer to person when the topic is biographic, which it obviously should not as you say. So in the nutshell, substituting "Bob" for "the topic", would give: "...should Bob be covered in its own article?" which is just as dehumanizing as Hannibal Lecter saying, "it puts the lotion on its [own] skin...." It doesn't work when the topic is plural either. The more correct usage would be: "his, her, its or their" to cover all possible cases, but that's awkward. Just using the plural possessive pronoun "their" with a plural object would be less awkward, but avoiding pronouns would be better. Also on three occasions in the guideline as currently written "its" refers to "topic", but the fourth occurrence refers to "subject" (topic and subject seem to be used interchangeably, which is another issue). To your example, it would be appropriate to say each article has its own subject, but not that each subject has its own article if that subject could be a person and/or plural. As for "standalone", that is used throughout the guideline, so if that's a problem.... Dhaluza (talk) 22:45, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

• I really don't see the issue here - as you note, "its" modifies the singular words "topic" and "subject" which is grammatically correct, and those words are synonyms per the thesaurus. Whether the topic is a biography or not is irrelevant for the purposes of this prose. SportingFlyer T·C 22:59, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
• Even if the topic was about a living person "Bob", the topic of a WP article is still a thing (a concept, like the parts of speech like a noun or verb), so referring to the topic via the pronoun "it" is perfectly appropriate. --Masem (t) 23:07, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

  What you say is technically true. We don't have articles about people per se, they are actually about their life story as covered in RS. But in practice, editors don't always appreciate that distinction, and then go on to make judgements about the person as a person, rather than as a subject or topic. So I disagree that it is perfectly appropriate to dehumanize people (or groups of people) into an inanimate subject, and then apply the pronoun it. We should avoid this construction to the greatest extent possible, rather than accept it as harmless. Dhaluza (talk) 06:12, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Trying to get to a bigger issue, I have come across a smaller issue with this guideline as currently written: "topic" and "subject" seem to be used interchangeably. But in formal usage a subject can cover more than one topic, but not the other way around, i.e. a subject is bigger than a topic. So my question is what is the consensus on proper usage of these terms in relation to articles? Does an article cover one subject with multiple topics, or does an article cover one topic with several sub-topics. I realize this may at first look like wiki-lawyering a distinction without a difference, but if we are talking about splitting content into multiple articles, I think we need to be consistent with the use of topic and subject to avoid confusion. Specifically, if a block of content is not notable enough for a whole page, is this a topic that should be covered under the subject of another article, or is it a sub-topic that should be part of a larger topic on another page? Or put another way, do we split a subject into multiple pages focusing on different topics, or do we merge topics into pages covering a broader subject? Dhaluza (talk) 23:45, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not going to vouch for the words being used consistently across policies and guidelines, but it is supposed to be used as such: If there is only one topic of discussion, that is the subject; if there are multiple topics of discussion, the most important one is the subject. What counts as a distinct topic is debatable. This goes in reverse as well. An article has a subject, and that subject must be the most important topic of the article. If it's not, something needs to be fixed, whether the problem is a different topic entirely having taken prominence, or one subtopic has taken prominence beyond its significance relative to other subtopics. So an article will always have one subject, but if that article needs to be split for whatever reason, you split off those topics that can stand alone as the subjects of their own articles. Someguy1221 (talk) 23:58, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

No. Articles can cover whatever scope is reasonable, which may be multiple subjects. Consider, e.g., Bonnie and Clyde (two people) and Tomato (both the plant and the food). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Who says "Bonnie and Clyde" is not one subject that concerns two people? Who says "tomato" is not one subject that has multiple aspects? You're making a choice here that isn't necessary. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I disagree with your framing. Bonnie and Clyde is about them together as a couple, because that is how they are most notable. Presumably there is not enough material on either one alone to support a whole article, so that material is best merged into one article about either a single "subject" or "topic" (the couple) and each person is a "topic" or "sub-topic" respectively. Same goes for tomato. Dhaluza (talk) 09:07, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@Dhaluza, there is plenty of information about those two bank robbers. Books have been written on them, and several of the other Wikipedias write separate articles for the two individuals (no:Bonnie Parker, cs:Bonnie Parker, etc.) and at least the Dutch Wikipedia has separate articles for the individuals plus a third article for their partnership. We prefer to combine these two people and their activities into a single article. It's okay to do that. There is no need for a special rule limiting a page to a single "subject" or a single "topic", no matter which of the conflicting definitions you prefer to use for those terms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:31, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting a special rule. A coherent discourse has to have a central theme, i.e. there has to be one overall subject or topic. Otherwise we have two separate texts, or a mishmash. For your example, the overall framework is Bonnie and Clyde as a couple. They are treated separately in sub-sections as sub-topics. But overall the unifying theme is what they did together. There could also be separate articles, but that's an editorial judgement. Dhaluza (talk) 01:48, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea to try to distinguish between the two, as the people reading the guidance aren't going to be reading it like lawyers. I think they should be treated as synonyms. Regarding the question in the heading, the scope of an article is flexible in any case; it will be adjusted based on editorial judgement, and whatever scope is decided upon is the subject/topic of the article. isaacl (talk) 00:06, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• These are synonyms which both refer to the same concept, the overall scope of an article: this will typically be a thing, but could sometimes be multiple things, or even a list of things. There's no reason to distinguish the two, and I'm not sure it's ever confused anyone before. SportingFlyer T·C 00:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, let me try to be more specific with an example. If someone creates and article with a block of text that is WP:V, but that block of text is not WP:N enough for an article (and cannot be fixed), should we say that the topic of the block of text should be combined into an article about a broader subject, or should we say that the block of text is only a sub-topic that needs to be combined into an article about a broader topic? Dhaluza (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It doesn't matter; it's all relative. Parents are children of their parents. isaacl (talk) 01:06, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, everything is relative. But using terms consistently does matter. Think of a new user coming to read this guideline beginning to end the first time. If we use different words differently in different places, it's unnecessarily confusing. Dhaluza (talk) 01:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Parents can be referred to both as parents and children, depending on context. One fixed rule won't eliminate confusion; the proper choice must be made within the overall context of the surrounding text. isaacl (talk) 02:40, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree it doesn't really matter. The important policy here is WP:PROPORTION which stands well by itself, and doesn't use the word "topic". Someguy1221 (talk) 03:24, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Actually PROPORTION does use the word "topic," specifically "article topic" as a subset of "the body of reliable, published material on the subject." So applying that usage to my example, we should merge a non-notable sub-topic into an article covering a broader topic (that is part of a subject covered in multiple articles). Dhaluza (talk) 08:49, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the choice must be made within the overall context of the surrounding text; that is my point exactly! In this case the surrounding text is the overall policy page (not just each sub section independently). We should make a choice and stick to it consistently throughout to avoid confusing readers trying to read the whole thing. Dhaluza (talk) 08:55, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

It's common for synonyms to be used to improve engagement with the reader. isaacl (talk) 14:48, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

In the traditional style preferred by writing teachers in English-language countries. In other cultures, the standard is to pick the single best word, and then to repeat that word as much as possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure. My understanding is that the context of discussion is English Wikipedia guidance pages. For better or worse, traditional English-language writing style is common on these pages. (Personally, I wouldn't go around introducing or eliminating synonyms just for the sake of it.) isaacl (talk) 20:31, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

• What is the "formal usage" in which the difference between a subject and a topic supposedly matters? In everyday language, they're interchangeable, and on Wikipedia it makes sense to use both in different situations (e.g. "that topic is the subject of this article"). Dhaluza, I think it would be very helpful if you could provide some concrete examples of the current wording causing problems with these suggestions, otherwise it just comes across as pointless pedantry. Our PAGs are descriptions of best practices, not laws; all that matters is that the spirit of the rule is clearly and concisely expressed. – Joe (talk) 09:26, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

  In formal writing topic and subject are not synonymous--a discourse topic (as opposed to the topic of a sentence) is a sub-set of a subject. So we should respect that hierarchal usage and not conflate the two. For example, a research paper covers a single topic in a subject area. For a good explanation of this see: Writing Well: Subjects vs. Topics (infoplease.com) I think this is the correct framing to use for Wikipedia articles, i.e. an article is about a specific topic, in a subject area that is covered over multiple articles. This also fits specifically with the concept of subject-specific notability guidelines, which cover all possible article topics in a subject area.

  For an example of a confusing and awkward misapplication of topic and subject as interchangeable: "In some topic areas, consensus-derived subject-specific notability guidelines (SNGs) have been written to help clarify when a standalone article can or should be written." So does a "topic area" (whatever that is) cover multiple subjects? Dhaluza (talk) 10:09, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

  Not all sources agree with the distinction you're advocating for:

  • "The topic is the broad, general theme or message. It is what some call the subject."
  • A topic is a particular subject that you discuss or write about.
  • topic: "the subject of a discourse"
  • subject: "the person or thing discussed : topic"

  These words might sometimes get used precisely, but they also get used as exact synonyms. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:56, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

• Context is important... we say one studies a “Subject area” in school (history, for example)... within these broad “subject areas” are slightly narrower “topic areas” (eg: military history)... within those topic areas are specific topics (the Battle of Gettysburg) AND specific subjects (Robert E Lee).

Broadly speaking, we use “subject” for biographical articles, and “topic” for non-biographical articles. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

There is no consistent precise definition (at that level of detail) for the terms and thus IMO no basis for saying that such isn't being followed, or for saying that using them interchangeably is wrong.North8000 (talk) 14:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

• Agree with Joe and others that "But in formal usage a subject can cover more than one topic, but not the other way around, i.e. a subject is bigger than a topic" is highly dubious. In art history, my home beat, the opposite is true - paintings have "subjects" (The Nativity, the sitter for a portrait etc), but "topics" are much larger and more general - Italo-Byzantine for example. Calling the Nativity the "topic" (or "theme") of a painting is just bad usage (though very often seen here). Generally I would expect a topic to be less precise and specific than a subject, though there might be a big overlap. I partly agree with Blueboar - biographies certainly have "subjects" not topics, but then articles on say a specific battle, ship or species also have a "subject" to my mind. "Topics" are more abstract and conceptual. Obviously school timetables, like sentences, have "subjects" but these cover only parts of the many meanings of the word. Johnbod (talk) 16:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
• The words are used interchangeably on this project page, which it what matters here, to mean "what an article is about". They may have better defined (but differing) meanings in formal writing in particular fields, but we are dealing with the practical matter of deciding whether something should have a separate Wikipedia article, not a philosophical discussion about the meanings of words in other contexts. Phil Bridger (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

  The original question was what do these words mean in relation to a Wikipedia article, so this is intended to be a very specific, practical (not philosophical) discussion. So if it seems like that is what has happened, let me try to summarize the discussion to get it back on track. Dhaluza (talk) 07:54, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

  You answered the question of what this means in relationship to a Wikipedia article by saying in your first sentence that the words "seem to be used interchangeably". If you are not asking for anything beyond that then what exactly is your question? The whole point of this guideline is that it defines what subjects or topics Wikipedia articles should be about. It doesn't go beyond that and attempt to choose between the multiple possible definitions of the words in specific fields, with, it seems, you wanting a precise and consistent definition where there is none on the outside world. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

So it appears that there is no consensus on what to call the overall scope of an article. It also appears that a local consensus has developed here (and elsewhere) to use the words "subject" and "topic" interchangeably to describe different things. But I don't think that there is consensus to hold PAG to a lower standard than articles in being well written and easily understood. And using words inconsistently is unnecessarily confusing. It's better to use the wrong word consistently than to use the right word inconsistently. It's also important to use words here in a way that is consistent with their general use in the same context. This is covered in WP:SURPRISE: "When the principle of least astonishment is successfully employed, information is understood by the reader without struggle. The average reader should not be shocked, surprised, or confused by what they read.... Use consistent vocabulary..."

We should pick a word and use it consistently to avoid unnecessary confusion. Based on common usage in discourse, a "subject" is bigger than a "topic". For example, a college course has a subject with lectures on different topics; a textbook has a subject with chapters on different topics, etc. If we called the overall scope of an article the topic and called the sub-topics subjects, that would be surprising and therefore confusing to readers. If we use these terms interchangeably to describe both things, that is even more confusing. Dhaluza (talk) 09:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

"Subject" may have a more refined meaning in an academic sense but in the wider world, subject and topic are (largely) interchangeable. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 10:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

• Use “subject” for biographical articles, and “topic” for non-biographical articles. Blueboar (talk) 13:26, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

The larger problem I have been trying to get to is lack of focus on Notability as a judgement of the *coverage* of a subject in RS, not on the subject itself. This is a particular problem when the subject is a person or persons (especially if recently deceased), or a culturally significant thing. I believe this contributes to insensitive or even dehumanizing commentary. For example, does a waiter deserve an article? So talking about whether a subject merits or warrants its own article in this guideline leads to unnecessary judgment of the subject itself, rather than the coverage of the subject. Unless someone can articulate why this framing is superior, it should be changed to avoid these unintended consequences. Dhaluza (talk) 07:03, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I like to say that a given subject meets Wikipedia's standards for having an article. But I understand why most editors prefer to use a shorter formulation. It's a case where jargon provides a way to express meaning more concisely. For better or worse, I don't envision the community consensus changing on this. isaacl (talk) 14:46, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

This is probably why it is important that from the prior section , when we are talking the "subject" or "topic" of article, and to be specific, say it is about a person, that "subject/topic" is not the person, but is the coverage of that person which may include direct information about the person themselves, or events the person was involved in (as would be the reason we have the article on Goldman here). That's why, for example, we have policies like WP:BLPCRIME that if we can't really talk about the person directly as they were a non-public figure, and the only thing they were notable for was a crime, we usually don't make articles for that person initially, but as time goes by and more details coverage that may explore the person's psyche as to why they did the crime, then it may become appropriate. --Masem (t) 15:15, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

To add, this is why we stress that "importance" is not a factor in notability. A person may be importance, but if there's no coverage, we can't have an article on them. We're judging the coverage of the person to determine whether an article is merited/warranted/appropriate. --Masem (t) 15:17, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The term "notability" is now so deeply entrenched in Wikipedia culture that it would be hard to change. But most experienced editors now know it's not meant to be a judgment on anyone's worth or value. Notability is meant to be an extension of WP:verifiability and WP:original research, as a minimum standard that lets us write an article. To me, notability is short-hand for "do we have enough quality research"? I don't take it personally that there isn't enough reliable information to write anything about me, and I'm actually thankful that there's some minimum standard to keep people from trying to data-mine my life to write an opinion piece about me. Shooterwalker (talk) 20:33, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Why do two of the five bullet points at WP:GNG begin with terms that are not in boldface? (Alternatively, why are the other three?) The inconsistency looks weird. —96.8.24.95 (talk) 01:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

This edit request to Wikipedia:Notability has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Boldface "Sources" and "Presumed" in WP:GNG to match formatting with the other three bullet points and the introductory sentence. 96.8.24.95 (talk) 03:39, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 10:54, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

For about 9 months (starting at the time of our efforts to clarify the Wp:notability guideline with respect to SNG's) I've been working on an essay regarding how Wikipedia notability works; it is Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works. It recognizes that a part of the reason that wp:notability is often unclear is that rather than being contained largely within one guideline or policy, it is an ecosystem consisting of multiple guidelines, established practices and values, venues and other pages. It also recognizes that in addition to sourcing, the wp:notability ecosystem acknowledges a second notability consideration which is more related to the real-world meaning of the term, but in an encyclopedic context. It also that notes that the WP:notability page has two functionally separate sections resulting in two different meanings for "GNG". It then details how such a summary resolves some common wp:notability quandaries.

I would like to (and might boldly) link it from this guideline. I would also invite careful evolution of it or any feedback there or here. I'm hoping that it might gain some prominence and with that the "make only careful consensused changes" status that comes with that. An essay with some prominence & stability might be a good place to include explanatory efforts. This would allow us the freedom to work on explaining such things without the complexities and constraints of putting them in this core guideline where they are "making rules". Finally, writing down all of the above the plus the de facto mission and definition of the notability ecosystem might help in efforts to clarify this core guideline.North8000 (talk) 00:33, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

It looks like a useful explainer, but I don't think linking to it directly from this page would be appropriate at this point. There are well over a 100 essays on notability (not including those with guideline status), and as far as I know none are linked from here. Doing so would imply a degree of authority to your essay above others and, while your points there are well-argued, they are just one set amongst a range of interpretations of notability. – Joe (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

I am promoting the idea that, to an unusual degree, it provides insights and resolves apparent quandaries that have existed and exist. I drew from a lot of experience here and in the other wp:notability related venues. And I spend time on and IMHO I'm pretty good at analyzing such things. Lastly, as a separate issue from this essay in particular I'm promoting the idea of focusing on having a core essay as a sidebar for wp:notability where we can develop explanations without the shackles of having to worry that the explanations themselves become rules.North8000 (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I would like to propose linking it in the page. I tried boldly adding it and was reverted (which I respect from a process side and is fine) I described my rationale above. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:19, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

• Support As proposer. Per rationale described above and in the described essay. Also there are specialized somewhat obscure essays in the current list so the context is that this is not a huge decision. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:24, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose The essay appears unpolished and is unnecessary. also why are you voting on your own noms Mcguy15 (talk) 01:37, 9 April 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose It's a good essay, but not so much more important than others to give it special placement. -- Michael Scott Cuthbert (talk) 23:49, 26 April 2021 (UTC)

Should they be evaluated on WP:NMUSIC or WP:NCORP? I'm under the impression that they should be evaluated under the latter, but I maybe unaware of broader consensus saying otherwise. Graywalls (talk) 18:57, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

I would say ncorp, because there is no specific guideline in nmusic for the label. Davidstewartharvey (talk) 19:21, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

NCORP, because they're a business. Sergecross73 msg me 22:44, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

NCORP, per above, and as they are not part of the creative production on the album which is what NMUSIC is geared towards. --Masem (t) 23:01, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

@Masem: Can you please explain that statement. As someone who has studies record labels for decades, I find that statement to be utterly false. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 19:54, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Most big labels - something like Sony Music - are not directly going to have a hand in the creative process. They will provide perhaps a named recording studio and music producers who do have a direct creative role in the music. Now, yes, at the upper level , there will be things like censors, QA, marketing, and other corporate-level checks prior to the publication, and there will probably be for some artists corporate advisors that direct the way a band sounds and records to maximize popularity, but this is far from "creative" in the same sense as the musicians, sound recorders and producers that as an encyclopedia we really care about. It is the same difference between the writers and copyeditors (the creatives) vs the publishers and top-level content-checkers (non-creatives). Now, certainly there will be at the smaller level publishers that also engage as music producers or studios themselves , but if we're talking notability, we'll focus on their creative ventures and not their publishing. --Masem (t) 20:06, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. Historically I think that underestimates the role record companies have played in the creative process, but I see where you're coming from. Part of the problem is I'm old, and my interest significantly wanes after the 1980s (although I'm not *that* old), and record companies don't operate nearly the same way they did during the period which piques my interest (1890s to 1970-ish) 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks you all for confirming what I felt was pretty sure NCORP is appropriate. Graywalls (talk) 10:03, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

It's complicated, in that they're a business, but they have influence on art and culture in ways that your average hedge fund does not. Record labels in general are notable for the art they produce, not the profits they generate. I take it on a case-by-case basis. If a record label has verifiably had significant impact on a genre or regional artistic culture, then I consider it worthy of encyclopedic attention. Otherwise I believe NCORP applies. That's overly simplistic, but approximately where I start when evaluating. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 13:55, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@78.26:, Any organization/company with "verifiable significant and impact" in the region/genre/category/industry wide practices and if is is indeed significant, it would meet NCORP anyways by meeting ORGIND and CORPDEPTH. Recognition only in trade magazines, though would be debatable, as explained in ORGIND. Being notable for profits they generate is one of the criteria for NCORP. Graywalls (talk) 16:48, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

By the way, it is highly unfortunate this conversation died without resolution. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 20:13, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Editors may be interested in a proposal affecting the criteria for (presumed) notability by WP:NSPORT here. JoelleJay (talk) 18:59, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

An article on a subject was made many years ago, at which time the subject was notable and that was not in dispute. As time goes on the notable subject is forgotten and all the sources become dead links, and thus can no longer be verified.

Does this cause notability to be rescinded?

My understanding of notability is that once achieved, it is not lost for encyclopedic purposes. However, as time goes on, new editors aren't familiar with the subject, and begin their Afd attacks, using the sources being dead as ammunition. I don't think that's valid deletion reason. Anyone? Keith D. Tyler ¶ 09:37, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

If a source is truly dead, i.e. no longer accessible anywhere by anyone, then it's no longer a source, and so theoretically yes a subject may cease to be notable if all or most of its sources disappear. However in practice there should be an archived version of any dead links in articles which means the content is still verifiable so I can't see how this would come up. – Joe (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

In general the answer is "no". Sources do not have to be online. For any source to ever have been reliable in the first place it would usually have some kind of offline existence. However we should never say never. Without knowing the specific case that the poser of this question has in mind it is impossible to be absolutely sure. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:10, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

There is the potential idea of "enduring coverage" or lack thereof, and if the only cover came from websites that lasted, say, a couple months, that begs the question of enduring coverage (as well as if there was reliable coverage in the first place). But this seems such an extreme case. --Masem (t) 18:20, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

OK, it seems that this has to do with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Srini Kumar. I doubt whether any of the sources given were ever reliable anyway, apart from one news source which is, well, just a piece of news. Not everyone mentioned in the news is notable. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:22, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

My first reaction to dead links is to try to find a cached version or an Internet Archive record. Links of consequence are usually archived somewhere. On a news site, archives may be reconfigured but the original article might still be found by searching the site for its title or key words. If the site is gone completely without even an archive or a record of having existed, it is more reasonable to think that it may not have been a reliable source in the first place. BD2412 T 18:51, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

BD2412, Not the first time I've suggested this, but I think WMF should be running their own archive service. Archive.com is awesome, but it's another third-party entity that needs to be interfaced with and depend on. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:55, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

That’s a parked domain; surely you mean Archive.org. =) —151.132.206.250 (talk) 19:07, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Either way, archiving is legally a bit dubious. I am fine letting others bear the risk, but I could see having an internal service to archive persisting links from mainspace articles in a way that admins could view the content, as we can with copyvio-deleted material. BD2412 T 19:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

User:BD2412, I have a hobby amateur interest in that question, as might a good number of Wikipedians. Might there not be a way out as fair use? If only highly specific web articles are archived, for the sole purpose of supporting a specific paragraph, and there is no mechanism that we offer to index to them except by way of reference linked from the paragraph? Or would the archive need to contain only ~10% max, and only what is directly relevant to the referenced content of the Wikipedia article? I think this could be workable. Joe Roe above makes a worrying point, that a rotted link that cannot be verified is no longer a source. At worst, is copyright always safe as long as the archive is not openly published, but hidden behind an admin wall? Is that copyright compliance, or it is just the pragmatics that the copyright owner will never complain because they will never know? —SmokeyJoe (talk) 10:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

One prong of the fair use inquiry is how the use will impact the commercial value of the original, so having content behind the admin wall would guarantee that the impact of the copying is minimal. Copying is copying, though. It's still basically breaking the law and then hoping to plead a technicality to avoid punishment. BD2412 T 16:05, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

My understanding of Wayback Machine/archive.org and other web cache systems are working based on case law that support that web pages are necessarily copied when transported from a server to the user, and saving a copy of those for academic, non-commercial or personal use (read: fair use) is perfectly acceptable, but you can't use it commercially at all. That case law is why that the web standards developed the robots.txt/no-caching protocols that browsers and sites like archive.org are expected to follow, but that still doesn't prevent individuals backing up. However, this is not yet a definitive area, and archive.org does tread on eggshells from a legal standpoint. --Masem (t) 17:54, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello, I want to seek clarification on the SNG WP:ENTERTAINER #2. I've looked through the archives but can't seem to find the answers I'm looking for. When multiple 'reliable' sources describe a subject as having a large fanbase/cult following, the notability criteria is met. But do the words "Large" and "Cult" have to be used in the sources? Then does having a large social media following also contribute to this SNG? The Sokks💕 ^_(talk) 15:19, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Those exact words don't have to be used but it should be readily obvious or appearance. However I will note that we reject simple counts of social media followers towards being a large fanbase as an appropriate measure for that SNG. (Eg you can't point to the YouTube subscriber count for this.) On the other hand, if a secondary source like, say, Entertainment Weekly mentions that the person has millions of YouTube followers, that would be appropriate. --Masem (t) 15:28, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

This is well understood. Thank you for your response. The Sokks💕 ^_(talk) 18:22, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Before I write anything about caravan or motorhomes (something I have an interest in), do manufacturers automatically qualify for WP:NOTABILITY due to the amount of third-party sources on their products? I created Elddis which already does have a few sources on its products.

Looking for some help. --Chelston-temp-1 (talk) 11:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

They would fall into WP:NCORP which has rather strict requirements about non-promotional coverage to be present. --Masem (t) 12:57, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Your alma mater is not your ticket to Wikipedia is a notability essay that is sometimes cited by editors - often as WP:ALMA - in discussions or edits related to the "Notable alumni" sections of school, college, and university articles. I'm dropping a polite note here to let everyone know that the article is woefully outdated and the advice it provides is incorrect; I've left some details in its Talk page. It needs to be updated or deleted. ElKevbo (talk) 19:43, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

• On the contrary, while you might not yourself like the essay, upon reading it (I hadn't encountered it before) it is not outdated at all, its advice is simple and sound, and your talk page objections are either irrelevant or wrong. It takes a very problematic essay indeed to be subject to deletion, and you don't come close to making a case for this one to be so objectionable as to warrant it. Ravenswing 21:19, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I want to write a new biographic Article on Dr.Raysul Hoque. How to start it? Raysul20 (talk) 18:01, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

First you should check whether Dr. Hoque meets the relevant notability guideline at WP:PROF. It is very unusual for an assistant professor to do that. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:19, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

With single-digit citation counts for a single-digit number of publications, Hoque clearly does not meet that notability guideline. If created, the article is very likely to be quickly deleted, making it even more difficult to create again if and when Hoque becomes more notable. Additionally, your user page indicates that you may be the same person as Hoque, in which case WP:AUTOBIO forbids you from writing a biography of yourself. I suggest you look for far more senior researchers to write biographies on, or better improve Wikipedia's coverage of technical topics, which tends to lag behind its coverage of people. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:46, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

What does "stand-alone...list" mean in the context of WP:GNG? I don't see much of an explanation... I can see at least two possible meanings - an entry notable enough to have its own mainspace page, OR an article that isn't spun off from another, like a list article that wasn't spun off from a larger page. ɱ (talk) 02:36, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

It means an article that is primary a list (standing off on its own). Eg something like List of sovereign states (though being named "List of..." is not a requirement). --Masem (t) 03:02, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

With the resurrection of space tourism this year (currently we have about 12 such orbital space tourists scheduled to fly, and more to come), there are regular AfDs and discussions about the notability of space tourists. I am not discussing suborbital space tourists (i.e. customers of Blue Origin New Shepard or Virgin Galactic) who do a 80 km / 10 minutes hop. I am talking of people making a flight on Dragon, Starliner or Soyuz ; they go for an orbital flight of a few days and possibly a visit to the ISS. Are they intrinsically notable ? If not, what is the criterion ? More generally should we have an article for each astronaut, like a payload specialist who flew once on the Shuttle in the 90s ? Hektor (talk) 12:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

How about sticking with GNG. Coverage has to be substantial, and about the subject and there has to be evidence it is not just newsy or a one-off?Slatersteven (talk) 12:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

I am always struggling with GNG. Let us take two examples: Mark Pathy, a recent one, and William A. Pailes, an older one. To which extent do they satisfy GNG ? Hektor (talk) 12:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

After a quick search for potential sources using Google News, my initial take is that both men would pass GNG. There are potential sources out there, even if they are not yet cited in the articles. Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Easy answer: no, they are not inherently notable - we might have been able to say that for astronauts prior to the Shuttle missions when they only numbered in the few dozen but not now. They would fall into WP:NBIO as an SNG, and their accomplishment as an astronaut may help meet one of the criteria there but otherwise they have to meet the GNG. --Masem (t) 15:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Stick to GNG and other policies. Inherently notable? No. The first space tourist (ie, not a professional astronaut) might also have substantial news coverage but may be a case of WP:1E so consensus may decide it's better to cover them in the relevant article, rather than give them a biography. It's hard to predict, really. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

+1. There's no need to "struggle" with the GNG. It's well defined, heavily footnoted, and with years of consensus around what constitutes the various parameters. Ravenswing 16:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with Ravenswing, Blueboar & Masem. They gave the key answers and are in essence in agreement. North8000 (talk) 17:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

In support of everyone who has replied so far, I would say that pretty well every astronaut so far would pass the general notability guideline, but, as space tourism becomes a thing, that may well not be true in the future. In a slightly related field I would compare this to exoplanets. It used to be that every one immediately became notable because known ones were very scarce and each attracted extensive coverage, but now we are getting to the stage where it is an exception for a star not to have planets. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:01, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Agree with everyone else about GNG. Also I wouldn't call space tourists "astronauts" any more than I'd call cruise line passengers "sailors." Abuser:Levivich 18:33, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Cruise line passengers rarely get to command (Jared Isaacman) or be the pilot (Sian Proctor, Larry Connor) of the ship. Hektor (talk) 10:27, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

A better analogy might be with aeronautics... the earliest airplane pilots (those daring young men in their flying machines) were all fairly notable - simply for getting in a contraption that actually flew!

As time passed, however, and flying became more commonplace, simply being a pilot became less and less notable - to be a notable pilot, one needed to do something more than just fly (think of combat aces, flying solo over the Atlantic, breaking the sound barrier, performing an emergency landing in the Hudson River, etc). Blueboar (talk) 11:31, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

Is that the exception or is that common though? Levivich 13:11, 29 May 2021 (UTC)

I just wrote Wikipedia:What is significant coverage? to try to help provide more information on what we generally mean in practice when we say "significant coverage". It's pretty bare so far, so I'd appreciate help improving it, particularly with examples, while keeping it concise enough to be friendly for newcomers. Cheers, ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 08:01, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this is entirely variable and depends very highly on context. Significant coverage for say a woman physician in the 19th century, a small island in the Caribbean/Pacific, an academic in Africa is going to be far less than information available for any war, sport figure, or popular culture star, ever. Availability of published sources vary by time frame, material available now is far greater than material available when print sources were the only medium; location, as smaller countries do not have the access to resources to publish or distribute their works; and language, the wider the language is used, the more likely sources are to be published and vice verse. Comparing the amount of information available in varying centuries, in varying languages and countries, or on mainstream topics vs under- or unrepresented topics is about as useful as comparing an apple to a fish.

100 words seems like an arbitrary measure drawn out of air. It is a huge generalization that does not take into account who was involved, what was it about, when did it happen, where did it happen, why was it important/notable, and how was it accomplished. Quantity is not equal to quality. 100 words of drivel is still drivel, whereas a single statement that says "X was president of Y" gives an indication that the person had significance in a certain sphere. (Doesn't meet significant coverage without other sources, but the weight of it, is "heavier" than triviality.) Wikipedia allows combining sources to meet significant coverage, thus putting a minimum word count on each source is not only against the spirit of guideline, but it changes the focus from evaluating the quality of the material. In general, significant coverage for anything should provide enough information for a detailed, non-promotional article to be written about the topic without original research being done. SusunW (talk) 14:14, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree it can vary by context. That's why I'm hoping the page will ultimately include examples from a variety of contexts to help illustrate our norms. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 16:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Sdkb I'd appreciate a ping next time ;). The truth is not that it "can" vary by context, but that it "does" and that there are no "norms". Editors must weigh when and where something happened to have an inkling of how much information is even available. You asked for an example, so I'll give you one. Women's history did not emerge as an academic field before 1970-1971. Prior to that time very few women appeared in the historical record. Even today women's history is not included in basic history studies, one must take courses in gender or women's studies (typically at the university level) to learn about women's experiences, contributions, and lives. The same holds true for other non-mainstream subjects, (indigenous people, cultural variances, LGBTQ+ community members, organizations developed to serve minority populations, etc.) which have typically been under/un-represented in the historic record.

Historic people and events must be judged in the context of their history. Comparing the amount of information available for say women to men in a given time period is fruitless. When and where did it happen, what was the gender/ethnicity of the people involved, how does information stack up to others in their same group, all need to be asked when weighing historical figures/events and the amount of information likely to exist. All must be evaluated to determine if there is significantly more information available on one vs the other. One absolutely cannot compare the information found on a 17th-20th century topic on what might be available for a 21st century topic. We aren't looking for a number of words or even a number of articles, we are judging whether there is enough sourcing to write a detailed and informative article. That needs to be stated outright. SusunW (talk) 14:31, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Not trying to discourage explanatory essays but my experience we want to wait to make sure the essay is sound and generally accepted by the community before adding it to a P&G page, as that action gives it the weight of being "official" even if it says "essay" at the top. I would recognize holding off linking it on WP:N for now but continue to get input on it here until it can be linked. Again, being an essay, it doesn't need to be consensus-perfect (like what we had to do with the SNG language) but it should be reasonably accepted. --Masem (t) 14:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Masem: That's fine by me. I want this to discussion to be about how to expand the supplement, not a debate about whether it's ready to be linked here. I note that despite the several comments this post has drawn so far, no one has yet edited the supplement page, which was the whole purpose of me posting here. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 16:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The link to my own essay which tried to merely explain the status quo got reverted indicating that it was not particularly special compared to other essays for a link to be in such a prominent place. IMO this one which promulgates a new standard created by an individual falls a few notches short of that to be in the same prominent place. I mention the previous situation not because it itself is relevant, but because it discusses the higher "bar" for putting a link in that place. I applaud the work and efforts but plan to revert. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:29, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, but "promulgates a new standard" is a severe misreading of what the explanatory supplement page is for. What was the page you previously tried to link? The only other pages I could find were WP:100 words (which doesn't seem to enjoy much support) and WP:Extracting the meaning of significant coverage (which isn't very friendly for newcomers looking to figure out how to interpret sigcov). ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 16:26, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. As I noted, the mention of the previous exclusion is irrelevant except to say that there is a high bar for listing on / linking from the wp:notability page. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• I'll echo what other's have said above. First, I wouldn't call something an "explanatory supplement" without some level of buy-in from the community. Second, any definition of SIGCOV that doesn't take into account the historical era is worthless. These days, anybody with a publicity agent and an SEO campaign is generating tons of verbiage which is absolutely worthless from a SIGCOV point of view. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:23, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  @RoySmith: The reply I just made to Masem (which edit conflicted with you) speaks somewhat to your comment. Regarding how to tag, I looked for something usable as a "explanatory supplement under construction" tag but didn't find anything; if you want to create such a template and add it I'd be fine with that. I would not be okay with changing it to an essay, as that's not what the page is intended to be; as I said just above to North8000 (ec again, sorry), the idea here is not to create any new standard, but rather to better communicate to any newcomers digging into the weeds (probably since their page is at AfD) what the norms are that we all as experienced editors have built up an intuitive sense of. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 16:36, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Note you don't have limit yourself to templates; you can put your own customized message at the top of the page. isaacl (talk) 17:04, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Sdkb, My quibbling about the "explanatory supplement" was just a minor nit. My main point was that raw volume is meaningless. A good way to look at this is similar to how statisticians look at conditional probability. If I told you, "In a recent vaccine trial, 10 people developed a rash", is that significant? You can't even begin to answer that unless you know how many people were in the trial. Was it 10 out of 20, or 10 out of 20,000? It also depends on the prevalence of rash in the general population.

  The same idea should apply to SIGCOV. "I found 10 places that wrote about subject X, and on average each one wrote Y words". That's meaningless unless you also know much much was written about all subjects. Today, we're generating gigabytes (terabytes?) of electronic text every day, so the significance of any bit of text is small. You only have to go back 100 or 200 years to get to the point where few people knew how to read or write, and the tools for creating information in a durable form were expensive and rare. So any individual item you can find increases in significance. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

  Yeah, I agree. Hopefully the page as it develops will communicate that SIGCOV is about more than just raw volume. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 17:40, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

• I wrote Wikipedia:Minimum coverage with a similar intent, also trying to broadly incorporate standards from policies such as WP:V and WP:NOT. A lot of editors will tell you that it's a quantitative AND qualitative test. Needless to say, I think hitting a word count would (a) miss the point of writing a good article, and (b) be even more susceptible to gamesmanship than what we have now. I think some disagreemnet is natural, and for that reason, we keep a big pile of essays where no one but a few editors will read them. Even though AFD can be acrimonious from time to time, the status quo appears to be generally in the right ballpark. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:50, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

A few other structural notes. The standards that do exist are in the guidelines. What the crowd at AFD decides is what to do with the article, not answer the specific question of whether significant coverage is satisfied. The crowd may very well be considering other factors. So if the standards are in the guidelines, and the crowd does not decide on meeting this criteria specifically, what would be the basis for saying "here is the answer" other than saying that it is creating the standard? The good and bad news is that the essay does not say much. It gives two examples which are so extreme regarding this question and then gives us the obvious answer on those and then refers to a "100 word" essay. Thanks for your efforts, but I think that these things need noting. North8000 (talk) 17:44, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I see an assertion here that should not go unchallenged. SusunW stated that significant coverage is "entirely variable and depends very highly on context." That is incorrect. There are some topics about which significant coverage is substantially less likely to exist; that much is true. What that means in practice is that we will have fewer articles on those topics, and not, absolutely not, that we will change the standards for them. We have, for example, more articles about actors than garbage collectors. That does not mean we change what "significant coverage" means for garbage collectors; it just means we have more articles about one thing than the other. "Significant coverage" means the same thing in all cases. If some things are less likely to achieve that, we will be less likely to have articles about it. But the standard is uniform. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 19:45, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Maybe in your mind the standard is uniform across professions but in practice in AfDs it is not. To take an obvious example: something that would normally count as significant coverage for a politician, an in-depth profile of their life history and current beliefs, is routinely discounted as "not significant" when it is in the context of a losing or in-progress electoral campaign. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, that is in that passing the notability criteria is a necessary but not sufficient condition to have an article on a subject. Editors could still decide that an article should be deleted on other grounds, even if it is about a subject that would pass the GNG. But we should have no articles about any subject which would not pass it. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Do you really, honestly believe that "significant coverage" is an objective standard? Of course it is not. And are you are saying, as you seem to be, that significant coverage on some web page about obscure bands that has been decided to be reliable because nobody without an interest can be arsed to argue about it is equivalent to coverage in academic books or articles? You are so wrong that I couldn't believe that we could have an administrator who actually thought in such a way. But then I saw that you are a software developer, so I have my explanation for why. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:28, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, certainly not. The provenance of course matters, and the source has to be reliable. High-quality academic sources are of course more likely to be reliable than some random website. (Though I'm not sure how me developing software has a single thing to do with source quality.) But either a subject has a substantial amount of coverage in high-quality, reliable, independent sources, or it...well, doesn't. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 20:53, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

And who's to say what is substantial? Or high-quality? It comes down to human judgement, something that software developers (of whom I used to be one) tend to be lacking in. It simply isn't the bright-line distinction that you are claiming it to be. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:02, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Can we please not disparage professions? isaacl (talk) 21:11, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Uh...wow. I tend to have a pretty thick skin and don't really care, but you are insulting an awful lot of people here. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

Seraphimblade of course we have different standards, because sources differ. I am certainly not advocating to include non-encyclopedic topics, whatever they may be, in an encyclopedia. We can also assume one is using reliable sourcing. The fact remains that to write a comprehensive and detailed article about a global current event, one might be able to do it with 2-3 sources. Makes sense, its current news and articles are likely to cover the event in depth. But to write a similarly detailed article about say a significant and historic bridge in Italy it might require more than 10 sources. It isn't current news and scholars are more likely to write articles about aspects of it than to do a full book on a bridge. What meets significant coverage for one article may not be the same as for another because the depth of source material differs. Significant coverage isn't about the length of a source, but about the depth of the material it provides. SusunW (talk) 04:55, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, we certainly don't know enough to posit a fixed standard. For starters, seldom is the "significant coverage" issue decided separately. My own analysis (WP:How Wikipedia notability works) purports that not only does the wp:notability ecosystem use "expected-coverage-for-that-type-of-topic" to vary the coverage standard, but that the strength of coverage needed to pass in general (e.g. at AFD) is also varied by incorporating secondary considerations into the decision. For example, if a topic is highly encyclopedic then the crowd would be less tough on GNG and the opposite if not. North8000 (talk) 14:52, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Good day Wikipedians! I have a few questions regarding the "article notability" policy. Should articles on schools, residences, villages or locations that do not have secondary or tertiary reference sources be available on Wikipedia? Many such articles are tagged with stubs templates even though they do not have the resources to prove the subject can “stand alone” in Wikipedia. Have you ever had a consensus on this Wikipedia or another language that you know? Is there some sort of criterion that allows it to stay there? Some may think "maybe one day there will be a reference published in this regard given that this is a tourism location or public visit", but isn't this already "out of notability criteria"? Looking forward for all your opinions. Thanks! CyberTroopers (talk) 12:10, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

For govt-recognized villages and other habitable places, we generally allow stubs under WP:GEOLAND, as we have determined that Wikipedia also functions as a gazetteer. Note that this means some things like public areas do not immediately qualify under that and instead must show sourcing that meets the WP:GNG.
However, for schools, we not longer accept that every secondary-level (high school in the US, and their equivalent elsewhere) or higher-level school is necessarily notable for a standalone as a result of a 2017 RFC. Schools must instead meet WP:NORG to have a standalone article. --Masem (t) 14:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@CyberTroopers, the special rules for the notability of places is based on editors' experiences. In our experience, if you do a thorough search for sources, there is no current town on Earth that couldn't be cited amply. The same is true for government-run schools in developed countries. This doesn't necessarily hold for historical places, tiny private schools, etc., but we could probably source articles on far more places and schools than we're willing to write about. The fallacy you will need to avoid is treating "not already cited" as being the same as "no reliable sources exist in the real world". (And now you know more about this subject than 90% of registered editors. ;-)) WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:47, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Discussion has been moved to Wikipedia talk:Notability (media)/2021 rewrite and any changes, as we work on the rewrite of NMEDIA can be done at Wikipedia:Notability (media)/2021 rewrite. - Neutralhomer • Talk • 19:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

User:WhatamIdoing added it in October 2011

I guess it was unnoticed by many as a small thing in a softly worded explanation of the rule. It is, however, inconsistent with the GNG. The GNG requires two, not less, secondary sources. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:50, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

The GNG requires some secondary sources but we have never enunciated a minimum number beyond one, because that would be gamed. A really strong full length biographic work may be the only secondary source about a person, otherwise documented in other ways but not secondary, but that would be sufficient to pass the GNG. --Masem (t) 02:08, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Disagree. Multiple has always meant two at a minimum, if push comes to shove. The only wiggle room is that maybe one of the two doesn’t need to be, strictly, a secondary source, but it does need some justification to count like a secondary source and not be a straight primary source. The historical arguments here were whether two is sufficient, whether two satisfies “multiple”, and in practice it is proven that it does. WHYN is a softly written explanation to the newcomer unfamiliar with WP:N, and it never is a good thing to imply the usually unacceptable as the norm. The GNG requires two sources, and among other things these sources should be secondary sources. Also note the language at NOR is in the plural, and it is quite bad that the dot point references NOR but alters the language to say something different. This explanation of the rules should not reword the rules to a different meaning. How can a single secondary source satisfy the NOR requirement that all articles be based on secondary sources (note the plural “sources”)?

Perhaps the fourth WHYN dot point should be reworded with the word “should”. I.e. The required two sources should both be secondary sources, so that the article can comply with Wikipedia:No original research's requirement that all articles be based on secondary sources. SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:20, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Again, we've spoken multiple times on this pages to why we do not spell out a minimum number of sources, because as soon as you say "2 or more", then you will absolutely see people claim 2 sources exist at AFD regardless of the significant coverage in them and say "keep". We need at least one secondary source, and for all of the secondary sources to show significant coverage. If that can be done by one, extremely detailed in-depth source which happens to be the only source for such a topic, then so be it. Of course, if there is only one source available and its significant coverage leaves much to be desired, then that's going to fail. In other words, one should not read this in absence of considering the amount of significant coverage that the GNG is looking for. --Masem (t) 05:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Since we don't see people making the "at least one secondary source means I get to keep this" claim at AFD, then I doubt that changing this to require two sources would result in people saying "at least two secondary sources means I get to keep this". WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:35, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

In the past, I have seen plenty of AFDs that people say "there's 2 GNG meeting sources, it passes" but do not argue about the significant coverage provided by those sources. The issue here is that we want editors to think not about the quantity of sources, but instead about the overall quantity of significant coverage that those sources overall provide. This must at least have one secondary source to be considered but the bulk of the time, needs multiple. --Masem (t) 15:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe, see also Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 49#Why, at last, which in turn refers to the prior conversation at Wikipedia talk:Notability/Archive 49#Why in 2011. Between them, we expended 1600 words on that section, not counting subsequent attempts to revise or remove it (like these 1300 words and these 5500 words). I don't think that we can claim this section was unnoticed.

I think you will actually be more interested in the next section in Archive 49. Search for the comments around the phrase "The real question IMO is whether policy compliance requires that these be additive".

IMO the community has not resolved the question of whether all of the GNG's qualities must be contained in a single source, or whether one might combine sources that separately have most of these qualities but collectively have all of the desirable qualities. On a tangential note, I'd rather see a firm rule that says that two independent sources, even if they are primary sources, and even if they don't contain SIGCOV, are absolutely required, no matter what "exception" editors would prefer to see for a favorite subject area. I'm not sure that I see the point of requiring 2+ sources that are INDY+SECONDARY+SIGCOV+RELIABLE when editors keep writing articles for which zero INDY sources are available. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:33, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Lots of words sure, but not so many of the words address the question of "at least one secondary source" being sufficient. Mostly, it is just your assertion, eg So in practice, WP:NOR basically requires that at least one secondary source exist if we're going to have an article on the subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:38, 31 October 2011 (UTC). I object to this statement, WP:NOR does not say this. WP:NOR makes clear statements in the plural. Also, it is not logically consistent with the wording of the GNG. The GNG calls for two source, both of which should be secondary. User:SamBC 14:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC) makes the most relevant response: "Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying. Are we really sure that multiple-secondary is required? Sure, multiple-independent-reliable is, but why does notability require multiple secondary sources? ..." He goes on, tentatively I would call it, and then no more on the multiplicity of secondary sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:00, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

There's a semantic problem above. Y'all are saying "if we are to have an article" but what you are really talking about is merely the GNG route in. For example, if it's a sports figure and they did it for a living for one day, they satisfy the SNG route in and GNG is irrelevant / meeting GNG is not required. Meeting GNG is only required when there is no SNG, and I hesitate to toughen up the rule in that area. Non-SNG topics on average include some very encyclopedic ones where IMO the test is already plenty-tough. North8000 (talk) 11:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah, but we need at least one secondary source to establish that the sports figure played on that one day… so both SNG and GNG are met. Blueboar (talk) 11:15, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

A GNG source needs to be a lot more than just that.North8000 (talk) 11:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

@Blueboar, I don't think that ATH requires a secondary source to establish that the sports figure played on that one day. Many articles seem to have been written from tertiary sources (databases that are little more than telephone books for which athlete played for which team at which time). None of the sport-specific criteria require any particular type of source at all. If you're talking about a professional football player, then a photo of an old business record posted on social media by the team's current owner that shows a previously unknown athlete played on this team for one game, then that self-published, non-independent primary source is enough to clear the guidelines at NFOOTY (and all similar rules). WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

While it is true that rules of thumb laid out by sports-specific notability guidelines don't need a secondary source, they defer to the general notability guideline upon being challenged, at which point appropriate secondary sources are required. The "Wikipedia has no deadline" principle, though, has a strong influence on how much leeway is given to locate appropriate secondary sources. (That's the consensus that has been upheld repeatedly on the sports notability guidelines discussion page; I appreciate what happens at deletion discussions can vary depending on who participates.) isaacl (talk) 17:12, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• The reason GNG doesn't specify a specific minimum number of sources is that the number of sources required to establish a topic as notable can vary depending on context. For a politician who has a straight pass of WP:NPOL #1, for example, they have to be kept as soon as just one reliable source can be added to verify that the claim to passing NPOL #1 is actually true — they still need more than that before the article can be considered a good one, obviously, but they don't need any more than that to be a keepable article. But conversely, a smalltown city councillor or an unelected candidate for office can show more than two footnotes and still not be deemed to pass GNG, if their sources aren't adequately demonstrating a reason to treat them as significantly more special than other smalltown city councillors or unelected candidates. And similarly, it takes considerably more sources to make an actor notable if you're shooting for NACTOR #1 ("Has had significant roles in multiple notable films, television shows, stage performances, or other productions.") than it does if you're shooting for NACTOR #3 because he actually won an Oscar or an Emmy, and more sources to make a musician notable if you're shooting for WP:NMUSIC #1 ("Has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, published works appearing in sources that are reliable, not self-published, and are independent of the musician or ensemble itself.") than it does if they win a Juno Award and thus clear NMUSIC #8.
  GNG isn't passed just by showing an arbitrary number of footnotes: it tests sources for their depth, range, quality and context. A person can have a dozen articles in a smalltown community hyperlocal about him and his local pizza restaurant and his failed campaign for town council, and still have a lower GNG score than a person who was the subject of just one book-length biography. The book still might not be enough all by itself if no other sources for that latter person can be found at all, but it would still contribute more toward potential passage of GNG than multiple sources of lesser depth and quality. So GNG isn't just a number: the number of sources is a factor, but the depth of the sources, the quality of the sources, the geographic and temporal range of the sources and the context of what the sources are covering the topic for are also taken into account. Bearcat (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

  @Bearcat, I think that one way to understand SmokeyJoe's question is: Does a source that is independent+SIGCOV+reliable – but not secondary – ever count towards (GNG-type) notability at all? The GNG requires multiple sources. The GNG requires that subjects be established with sources that have four qualities (INDY, SIGCOV, SECONDARY, and RS). When we make our notability calculation, must we exclude sources that have only three of these qualities? Or is it does a source that is INDY+SIGCOV+TERTIARY+RS (or perhaps one that is INDY+SECONDARY+RS but not SIGCOV by itself) "count" somehow towards notability? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Well, see, I'd say it still depends. For instance, Interviews, in which the subject is speaking about themselves in the first person, aren't a priori support for notability in and of themselves, such that you could base a Wikipedia article solely on one or two of those and claim that the person had passed WP:GNG — but if a person already has a good mix of other types of sources, then there's nothing wrong with using a Q&A interview to source some additional facts supported by that interview. You can even sparingly use a person's own self-published Twitter tweets to source basic facts that aren't notability claims, such as their birthdate or their hometown — you just can't argue that a person's own self-published tweets constitute notability-making sources in and of themselves. So it would depend on whether the less than ideal sources are all the person has, in which case they wouldn't pass GNG, or whether there's a good mix of GNG-worthy sources already in the article (or available to improve the article with), in which case the less than ideal sources aren't really helping to build GNG per se but also aren't detracting from it. Bearcat (talk) 15:50, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

These examples are regarding the sourcing of information within the article, for which non-secondary sources can be appropriate. However for the purpose of determining if a subject meets English Wikipedia's standards for having an article, I think primary-source tweets aren't appropriate. I know some have argued that an interview with a highly respected interviewer should be used as an indication of meeting English Wikipedia's standards for having an article. My personal view is the reasons why that interview subject was chosen are what's important for determining if Wikipedia's standards are met, and so we should use appropriate secondary sources for those underlying reasons, not the interview. isaacl (talk) 17:23, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

There's a whole mess around interviews that I think we need to separately consider. There is a fair argument that in certain business scenarios, it is very easy to pay for an interview as a promotional thing, and thus these are far from independent and are unlikely secondary sources. But on the other side, there are absolutely earnest interviewers that are not looking to promote anything and seek out interviewees to help inform an audience, and these should be considered secondary because it is the interviewer driving the content of the interview and trying to transform the interviewee's knowledge into something more secondary (retrospective, analysis, comparison, etc.) It is all about context, though, and being aware what fields that paid-for interviews often happen against fields where these are common secondary materials, rather than grouping them all interviews into a single "primary source only" pot. But that's a broader question beyond notability. --Masem (t) 17:44, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I've always thought that if an article passing GNG is outcome-determinative on an interview of the subject, then GNG isn't met. SportingFlyer T·C 23:13, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, but another aspect of the mess around interviews is that many long-form actually provide independent, reliable coverage concerning the interview subject (or something they're involved with) in the framing material published with the interview. I have seen attempts at AfD to nullify these, stating that they don't contribute to NBIO/GNG "because it's an interview", which strikes me as pretty much bass-ackwards, not to mention wikilawyery. Newimpartial (talk) 23:32, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

That's why I say interviews being primary or secondary is very much context and topic dependent. A business leader's interview in one of those local city business papers should be suspect towards independence and likely primary, whereas if Barrons, Forbes (proper) or WSJ did the same interview, that's pretty much likely to be independent, and then you have to see if the material is transformative of the person's experience (secondary) or just reiterating that (primary). Anyone that says "interviews are flat out primary" is mistaken, but they do need careful evaluation if we are looking at notability. --Masem (t) 00:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Whether an interview is primary (the subject tells his factual details) or secondary (the subject comments on himself), is rarely important, given that an interview of the subject can never be independent of the subject. A subject talking about himself is never evidence of notability. SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:06, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

The substance of an interview is never independent of the subject, but the remainder of an article, book or documentary that is based on interviews may well contain content that does, in fact, meet WP:IND and WP:RS requirements, and would normally contribute to WP:N outside of a WP:NCORP context, Newimpartial (talk) 02:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't necessarily agree with this. In those instances it can be very difficult to determine what's secondary and what's primary, and possibly what's independent. Can there be instances where that's fine? Perhaps, but if we're at "well this person doesn't meet GNG yet, but there's this interview," I can only see very rare instances in which we say "well let's keep the article, then." SportingFlyer T·C 09:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

When Time, or a respected documentarist, provides the reader/viewer with information as context for an interview, I see no policy-relevant reason why that information would be less reliable, or contribute less to Notability, than the same information provided by the same source without an interview attached. Newimpartial (talk) 19:12, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing's question was about what sources are appropriate to establish that the general notability guideline has been met for a given subject. In that context, I don't feel that an interview with the subject is suitable, and believe appropriate sources for the underlying reasons why that subject was chosen to be interviewed should be examined. Regarding what the interview subject says, I agree that it might be sufficiently independent and non-promotional to be used as a source, depending on context. isaacl (talk) 00:41, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

North8000, per NSPORT GNG actually must be met; the SNG is not a replacement for GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 23:07, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

Just to clarify: WP:NSPORT requires a GNG pass, but that isn't true of all SNGs. Please see WP:SNG. Newimpartial (talk) 23:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

I wish that you were right but I disagree. In practice, meeting just the SNG specific criteria means that it stays initially and forever. North8000 (talk) 11:07, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Your observation doesn't actually reflect what happens at AFD. Articles that meet various sports sub-SNGs regularly get deleted, although probably not enough, and it generally takes more than one "outsider" to express a sound policy/guideline based rationale to drown out the volume of "meets SNG" ATAs – nevertheless, they certainly do not stay forever. _wjemather^{please leave a message...} 11:41, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

• The WP:GNG does not actually require two secondary sources: a close reading of the guideline only refers to "sources," and the explanatory supplement states There is no fixed number of sources required since sources vary in quality and depth of coverage, but multiple sources are generally expected. I don't think WP:WHYN is inconsistent, though I do agree the number of times a single source would be qualifying for an article would be exceptionally rare nowadays, probably along the lines of an IAR keep. SportingFlyer T·C 23:17, 8 June 2021 (UTC)

• Requiring at least two sources is also consistent with WP:INDEPENDENT, which states:

  An article must be based upon reliable third-party sources, and meets this requirement if:
  ...
  Sources: At least two third-party sources should cover the subject, to avoid idiosyncratic articles based upon a single perspective.

  JoelleJay (talk) 21:44, 11 June 2021 (UTC)
  • Independence is different from secondary, however. Notability already builds in the need for independent sourcing - more specifically , significant coverage from independent sources - which aligns with INDY, but that, for our purposes, could be one independent primary source and one independent and really in-depth secondary source. --Masem (t) 21:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

The United Kingdom (approx 66 million people) has around 45 police forces, each of which is headed by a single chief constable (or equivalent rank in a couple). The chief constable is appointed by an elected official and generally serves for a few years. Some, but not all are awarded the Queen's Police Medal before, during or after their service.

My question is this - does being the chief of a police department serving on average 1+ million people automatically make them notable (as would, for example a Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)) or should general notability criteria for individuals apply? 10mmsocket (talk) 12:45, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

First, being a Member of Parliament does NOT make a person “automatically Notable” - what “makes” someone notable under WP’s rules is coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject.

That said, it is extremely likely that Members of Parliament will have received coverage - lots of it (from media bios when they are campaigning… to extensive coverage of their stance on issues… etc). Such coverage is so routine that it surprises us when it isn’t there. So, we presume that MPs are notable, and we have to demonstrate that the required coverage doesn’t exist to deem them non-notable (Difficult, but conceivable).

Now, let’s relate this concept to Chief Constables… and ask: how likely is it that the majority of Chief Constable will receive such routine and extensive coverage? Some will, certainly… but the majority? Probably not. Blueboar (talk) 13:52, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

My MP observation was because I have noticed in the past that as soon as a previously-unknown political candidate is elected to the office of MP an article is immediately created by someone or other. This also happened in May when the UK's Police and crime commissioners were elected. I might go back and challenge some of those because t.b.h. other than being elected to this particular office they have previously been relatively unknown and therefore would (as you right say) fail the notability test. Thanks for clarifying. 10mmsocket (talk) 21:14, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• No, there's no guideline giving presumptive notability to unelected bureaucrats, however large their departments or however many people they putatively serve. But that being said, it's a simple issue really: if a Chief Constable satisfies the GNG, then he's worthy of an article. If he doesn't, then not. For anyone in that post you're moved to write an article, source it properly and there's no problem. Ravenswing 20:35, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

  Noted and agreed, thank you for taking the time to reply. 10mmsocket (talk) 21:15, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

• No one and nothing is "automatically...notable". There are a few categories where that is in practice true (no US president or chemical element, for example, would fail the notability criteria), but it is always about the quantity and quality of source material available. Members of Parliament aren't "automatically...notable", either, though I suspect that in practice sitting members of Parliament would tend to all pass the criteria. But it is passing the GNG criteria, not "being an X", that makes something notable, and only that. So, for each individual article, does it pass, or not? That's the question. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 21:06, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

  Again, noted and agreed. GNG is a test for the person in the article, not the role they perform (which may be the only thing that actually makes them notable - eventually....) Thanks for the reply. 10mmsocket (talk) 21:17, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I just noticed this article Early Germanic Literature and Culture. There is nothing explained about the book except that it exists. As an academic book, it is not particularly surprising that academics have made reviews of it, but there is no indication that the books is controversial or path-breaking. The reason I noticed the article is that it has had an effect on another article, it seems, because the creator and main editor of the article removed a google books link and replaced it with a link to this WP article [8]. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:02, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Under GNG, if something has been mentioned in-depth in multiple reliable sources, then yes, it is notable enough for an article. I'd argue that any book which has received several (5+) good, lengthy reviews in major newspapers or academic journals probably meets that threshold. Whether articles on them should be created, and when, are other questions. Many noteworthy authors and topics currently lack articles or have very undeveloped ones and it might be better to direct attention at them before moving on to books themselves. Also, for authors who have written, say, two books, it can sometimes be more useful to combine discussion of their books with their biographical article, as I have done at Robert Roberts (author). This really only works when we're dealing with maybe two or three notable books though. Otherwise, forking is probably better.

I recently created articles on Jon Lawrence (historian) or Jose Harris. Their books will have attracted enough scholarly attention for most if not all of them to be notable (some of their articles perhaps), and certainly WP articles on those books would be useful and encyclopaedic. But right now it might be better to focus on adding "research" or "contributions to scholarship" sections to the authors' articles which summarise their overall contributions. Having said this, if you're working on a writer's biography, then sometimes focusing on each book can allow you to familiarise yourself with their work in depth and then move up a level of abstraction to write about their overall research impact/literary style in a more thematic and broad-brushed way. All of this is my own, somewhat rambling opinion, of course. —Noswall59 (talk) 09:42, 18 June 2021 (UTC).

Yes, although the quality of the reviews matter. Reviews on Amazon or Goodreads would not be enough, but reviews in scholarly journals or mainstream media would. See WP:NBOOK as well. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:03, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it'll need multiple reviews in secondary RS that aren't paid for by the publisher or affiliated with the author. My threshold is generally 3 reviews in solid sources. Hog Farm _Talk 19:44, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

That's more or less my threshold too, although I prefer four to five. Two is too few to get an accurate feeling for the content and reception of the book. Only reliably published reviews count; Amazon reviews, Goodreads, and blog posts do not. "Books received" listings do not count at all, and telegraphic reviews (a couple of lines rather than multiple paragraphs) don't count as much. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:01, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

WP:BOOKCRIT is fairly clear that a Notability pass can be achieved by two or more non-trivial RS reviews, or an award, or a recognized contribution to a particular field. Of course, it may still be preferable to combine the treatment of multiple books by a single author (or by the same co-authors) in some cases. Newimpartial (talk) 20:14, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Where do we discuss this concept? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:02, 28 June 2021 (UTC)

@Piotrus: Well, a glossary being a list of words, would Wikipedia talk:Stand-alone lists be it? Mathglot (talk) 00:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot That article talks about MoS, but not about whether they are notable. Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone_lists is the right section, but it doesn't mention glossaries, which are, pretty much, just lists of words. This leads IMHO to a clash with WP:DICTDEF. One DICFEF is bad, but lists of DICTDEF are fine? The logic escapes me. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:06, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

The glossaries I have seen are, pretty much, lists of links to articles, organized by name. In that respect they are not much different than other lists. Unless you think a list of people organized by their names somehow violates DICDEF because of the existence of biographical dictionaries? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:10, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Piotr, are you asking about our own internal glossaries (navigational lists of articles on WP), or are you asking about external glossaries (ie published reference works)?

If the former, I don’t think Notability applies. These are more akin to disambiguation pages and categories … not designed to impart information, but to aid readers in locating articles.

If the latter, then notability does apply. And we would follow GNG if we do not have an SNG.

Or are you talking about something else? (In which case an example might be helpful.) Blueboar (talk) 14:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

At WT:SAL they gave the following examples: Glossary of professional wrestling terms, Glossary of mathematical symbols, Glossary of French expressions in English Colin M (talk) 18:59, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Glossaries are briefly mentioned at WP:NAD#Wikipedia is not a usage guide: Some articles are encyclopedic glossaries on the jargon of an industry or field; such articles must be informative, not guiding in nature, because Wikipedia is not a manual, guidebook, or textbook. There are a fair number of extant glossary articles: Category:Wikipedia glossaries has around 350 pages. Here are some examples of AfDs for glossaries:

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of rowing terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of robotics
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of wine terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of sumo terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of alternative medicine
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of Christian terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of Jewish terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of graffiti
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of Australian Scouting terms
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glossary of His Dark Materials terminology

Some participants in these discussions did advance the view that glossaries as a whole were not appropriate content for Wikipedia, but this was a minority view. In general, articles that were nominated purely on WP:NAD grounds tended to be kept. Discussions that ended in a different result generally involved other considerations, such as the scope being overly broad, or lacking RS support. Colin M (talk) 19:22, 23 July 2021 (UTC)