Wikipedia talk:Notability
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Notability page. |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
|||
| Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 | ||||
|
|
||||
 |
To discuss the notability imparted by specific sources, please go to Wikipedia:Notability/Noticeboard. See also: Wikipedia talk:Relevance (and archives) |
 |
This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot II. Any sections older than 7 days are automatically archived. |
Contents |
[edit] Why does it matter?
Perhaps it would be wise to include the reasons notability matters?Surlywombat (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
- I do not believe that notability matters. Every existing piece of human knowledge, even small ones can be a topic of encyclopedic article. This notability topic gives biased power to admins for article deletions. --Nevit (talk) 18:06, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
It matters because not every teeny tiny little fact that exists can possibly be documented within one central repository. It's just not possible. Not only that, but every opinion about every fact expands the data exponentially. An encyclopedia is meant to contain information about subject deemed to be of interest to the society to which it is directed. In this case, Wikipedia strives to recognize the significance of any particular subject by its appearance in society and reflect that. Notability addresses this significance and requires evidence to support it. Therefore, one cannot sufficiently support the claim that this encyclopedia is held at the mere whim of the administrators, because if the significance in society can be proven, there is no acceptable means to summarily delete such subjects. - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 18:17, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- Besides, every existing piece of human knowledge is already available. It's called the internet. Let's just say Wikipedia is an organizational system for knowledge. freshacconci talktalk 18:21, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Your arguments has not changed my opinion. --Nevit (talk) 19:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- Your individual opinion will not change Wikipedia. There are alternative outlets for other approaches, you know... - CobaltBlueTony™ talk 19:59, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
Just commented here to be known that not all wikipedians agree with the content of this so called official policy. --Nevit (talk) 20:42, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- It's not a policy. Notability is only a guideline.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 21:13, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
- It's a de facto policy; a very significant fraction of edits and deletions are due to this guideline, a practice that has been the cause of quite a bit of dissension among Wikipedia contributors. Erik Carson (talk) 15:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- But it isn't policy; we will never have a WP:CSD criterion based on notability (A7 deals with "importance" in general to avoid spamming of personally-invested content), nor will we have a bot patrol for articles that lack sources, claiming them not notable due to that. The guideline is used a lot (at least 90% of the time) for bringing cases to AFD and is usually the deciding factor there, but there's plenty of examples of where something that, even during AFD, remains without demonstration of notability by sources due to other factors. It is a guideline because it is meant to be applied with liberal use of common sense, unlike a policy which is meant to be more rigorous. --MASEM (t) 16:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- Notability is not policy. It's actually a crappy fudge, and the only good thing about it is that it does give an objective, measurable criterion.
Nevertheless, notability leads to endless coverage of science fiction TV show episodes, anime, manga, flash-in-the-pan pop and rock bands, and the people who've waterskiied on more Canadian lakes than anyone else, while scholarly articles on professors and leaders in academic fields are deleted.
It will not become policy.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 19:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- Did you mean that LACK of notability leads to that? Because notability is the only thing that prevents every last little thing from being included in Wikipedia. Since when are "leaders in academic fields" deleted? Notability is absolutely necessary to prevent Wikipedia from being a repository of every trivial piece of verifiable information in the world. I agree that notability has become a de facto policy, even before it was officially made a guideline. I think people generally recognize that we shouldn't just flood Wikipedia tons of verifiable, but utterly unnotable and trivial information, like someone who decided to just have a bot create articles for every random person based on government records, phone books, and/or data available through LexisNexis. Sure, you can create or separate rules for those that would amount to be a watered down form of notability. -Nathan J. Yoder (talk) 05:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
- What I mean is that you can often find more coverage in reliable sources for an article about an episode of Buffy than you can for an article about a professor at a major European university.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
- That has to do with personal interest of the editors. Someone who is bored out their mind about Heian period will not contribute to it. However that same person if they are interested in Star Trek can't create a detailed article on Captain Picard's tea rankings. This is also somewhat reflective of what people want.陣内Jinnai 05:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- What I mean is that you can often find more coverage in reliable sources for an article about an episode of Buffy than you can for an article about a professor at a major European university.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 11:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
- Did you mean that LACK of notability leads to that? Because notability is the only thing that prevents every last little thing from being included in Wikipedia. Since when are "leaders in academic fields" deleted? Notability is absolutely necessary to prevent Wikipedia from being a repository of every trivial piece of verifiable information in the world. I agree that notability has become a de facto policy, even before it was officially made a guideline. I think people generally recognize that we shouldn't just flood Wikipedia tons of verifiable, but utterly unnotable and trivial information, like someone who decided to just have a bot create articles for every random person based on government records, phone books, and/or data available through LexisNexis. Sure, you can create or separate rules for those that would amount to be a watered down form of notability. -Nathan J. Yoder (talk) 05:45, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
- Notability is not policy. It's actually a crappy fudge, and the only good thing about it is that it does give an objective, measurable criterion.
- But it isn't policy; we will never have a WP:CSD criterion based on notability (A7 deals with "importance" in general to avoid spamming of personally-invested content), nor will we have a bot patrol for articles that lack sources, claiming them not notable due to that. The guideline is used a lot (at least 90% of the time) for bringing cases to AFD and is usually the deciding factor there, but there's plenty of examples of where something that, even during AFD, remains without demonstration of notability by sources due to other factors. It is a guideline because it is meant to be applied with liberal use of common sense, unlike a policy which is meant to be more rigorous. --MASEM (t) 16:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
- It's a de facto policy; a very significant fraction of edits and deletions are due to this guideline, a practice that has been the cause of quite a bit of dissension among Wikipedia contributors. Erik Carson (talk) 15:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
Notability matters because it is being used here as a term of art for "merits inclusion in the Wikipedia". Once we have agreed that anything and everything does not make it into the Wikipedia, we have to come up with criteria. That's why there are general notability guidelines and category-specific guidelines. If 'notability' was self-evident to all, this discussion page would not have 34 volumes of archives. patsw (talk) 02:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
Notability is de-facto policy by virtue of being directly referenced at WP:DEL#Reason. As a deletion reason, it is actually more readily enforceable than most actual policies. The page itself remains {{guideline}} because it requires significant flexibility in interpretation, flexibility that is normally used with guidelines, and not with policy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:32, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
- It not policy at all and we should not pretend it is either. It is simply a helpful guideline to interpret the policies of WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR. DoubleBlue (talk) 18:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Exhaustive vs. exclusive
In the first bullet point under the first section ("General notability guideline"), the project page says: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." Exclusive is the opposite of inclusive; not trivial. For coverage to be exclusive means that the information in the article appears in only one source and nowhere else. To be less than exclusive means that the information appears nowhere; that it was made up out of thin air. In this context, exclusive is almost synonymous with trivial.
I think that whoever added this point meant to say exhaustive: "Significant coverage is more than trivial but may be less than exhaustive." This means that the coverage does not have to appear in all pertinent sources to be considered for inclusion in Wikipedia.
I have not made this single-word change yet, since this is a "generally accepted standard". But, if no one objects, I will edit the project page next week (anytime after June 22nd). If anyone who is more experienced (or more confident) than I am would like to make the modification before then, be my guest. RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- I take it to mean that the source does not have to be exclusively about the subject. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Thats how I read it to. For example - can use a newspaper article about fast food as a source for the beefburger as long as it has at least say a 5 line paragraph - that what it means by coverage thats not exclusive (not just about burgers) but also not trivial with respect to the subject (as would be the case if the burger was just mentioned in one sentence.) An exhaustive source is one that covers all the significant ground for a topic. Id have to oppose this change as it would make the guideline less inclusion friendly - thanks for discussing the change first! FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- Well on the lower threshold, the wording is a problem. We've had problem with people arguing 1 paragraph, even a 5 sentance one, is not trivial at WP:FICT as it doesn't go "in depth" about the subject. It's pretty poor wording leading it open to abuse from those who want to elawyer.陣内Jinnai 18:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
- OK. We are talking here about exclusive sources rather than exclusive coverage or content. How about "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material"? Or would you prefer splitting up the sentence? That is, leaving "Significant coverage should be more than a trivial mention." here under "Significant Coverage" and adding something to the "Sources" point (bullet #3), such as modifying the last sentence to read "Multiple sources, which need not be totally exclusive to the intended article's subject, are generally preferred." RoyGoldsmith (talk) 11:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- It might work better flipped around: "Significant coverage in a source does not require the source to be exclusively about the topic, but should be more than trivial coverage." --MASEM (t) 13:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Either would be an improvement. Roy's "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material" is maybe the least ambiguous, but your alternative improves on current wording to Masem. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Neither one really defines what the difference between trivial and minor or moderate coverage is. There is a grey area between trivial and significant.陣内Jinnai 21:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- You're right Jinnai , but what Roy's suggesting is hopefully an uncontroversial clarification. It would be very challenging to specify in the general case the proportion and volume of text needed to confer notability. It would have a huge bearing on deletion / inclusion debates and so likely attract massive debate. Then theres the fact that in practice the nature of both the subject and the source are important factors. For example, with a non controversial subject like perhaps a motorway service station, a 2 line mention in an article published in a national newspaper might be fine. To justify a BLP especially if the subject was known to be against it, even half of a two page article being specifically about the subject may not be enough. If someone wanted us to have an entry on an obscure fringe science theory by a scientist writing outside of her main subject, Id guess even a whole chapter in a biography about the scientist might not be enough. If you want to specify just what might count as a reliable source for comics or similar genres, have a look at Horror film genre-specifc reliable sources and maybe you could write a similar page and later try and get it promoted to an essay or guideline? FeydHuxtable (talk) 11:16, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
- Neither one really defines what the difference between trivial and minor or moderate coverage is. There is a grey area between trivial and significant.陣内Jinnai 21:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Either would be an improvement. Roy's "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material" is maybe the least ambiguous, but your alternative improves on current wording to Masem. FeydHuxtable (talk) 16:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- It might work better flipped around: "Significant coverage in a source does not require the source to be exclusively about the topic, but should be more than trivial coverage." --MASEM (t) 13:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
- Thats how I read it to. For example - can use a newspaper article about fast food as a source for the beefburger as long as it has at least say a 5 line paragraph - that what it means by coverage thats not exclusive (not just about burgers) but also not trivial with respect to the subject (as would be the case if the burger was just mentioned in one sentence.) An exhaustive source is one that covers all the significant ground for a topic. Id have to oppose this change as it would make the guideline less inclusion friendly - thanks for discussing the change first! FeydHuxtable (talk) 13:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
Since we seem to have consensus, I replaced the original sentence with "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention but it need not be the main topic of the source material". RoyGoldsmith (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Scrubs
Feedback is requested at Talk:List of characters on Scrubs#Main character merges to decide how to handle the main characters of Scrubs. Thanks. BIGNOLE (Contact me) 11:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Bengali romanization
A discussion potentially involving notability issues has been instigated at Talk:Bengali script. Please weigh in if you care. — AjaxSmack 01:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
[edit] nutshell
Why does the nutshell use the word "secondary" when the actual GNG text does not? — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:32, 2 July 2009 (UTC)
- It does use the term in the explaination, but I think that "reliable sources" and "reliable secondary sources" mean the same thing: independent third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which is more or less what WP:SOURCES is refering to. As WP:PSTS says, appropriate sourcing can be a complicated issue, but since the nutshell is composed with extreme brievity, the term reliable secondary sources is a useful short-hand which is expanded upon in WP:GNG itself. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 00:56, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
It happened 23 May 2007 [1], involving most immediately myself and User:Dhaluza. It was a time of intense and strongly opinionated editing of the page, with the memory of a long period hosting the {{disputed}} tag fresh. I contended that, as per WP:PSTS, WP:N should explicitly call for secondary sources, that primary sources could never, on their own, demostrate the notability that we expect. Dhaluza contended that not all subjects require secondary sources, that there are other ways to deonstrate notability. I felt that that compromise, where secondary sources are normal that base standard, is suitable for the nutshell, but that in the detail, it can be acknowledged that objective evidence of notability can be otherwise provided. It doesn't look aesthetically appealing, but no one has dared change it, substantially, since, although it has been questioned.
What would you do? Remove the reference to secondary sources from the nutshell, severely diminishing the normal requirement for secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, creating an overly strict rule that there must *always* be secondary sources? Re-instate it in the GNG, with caveates, making the GNG even more cumbersome. The way I read it now, the GNG can only be properly read with reference to the several dot points. It's a compomise, and it's ugly. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
[edit] Notice of relevant discussion at village pump
|
A first draft of a change to the guideline WP:Notability (people) is being discussed at village pump. |
