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Overhaul WP:NNC (also known as "Notability guidelines do not directly limit article content")

As most of us know, editors frequently come here because of NPOV or due weight issues with particular article content. This indicates that the limits of the notability guidelines are unclear to the community. Because WP:NNC is responsible for clarifying these limits, there is some agreement that WP:NNC should be completely revised (see the Tag for sections discussion on this talk page). Consider this as a replacement of the existing WP:NNC section:

Notability guidelines do not regulate article content

Further information: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Notability determines whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. Notability guidelines do not regulate the content of articles, except for lists of people[1]. Instead, various content policies govern article content.

However, because of the nature of an encyclopedia, notability nonetheless affects article content. Observe this by ensuring that an article's content conforms to a neutral point of view. Give all content its due weight by articulating it in proportion to its verifiable significance to the article's topic. Attend to anything that may construe a point of view, including depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

The revised section title allows the article name shortcuts to remain the same (WP:NNC and WP:N#NCONTENT). But, I think the revision is more to the point about the reality of notability and article content. —Kanodin—VENT— 07:57, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Question. Could you please explain what problem you perceive that this change would address? I've compared your wording with the current one, and while I think it reads a bit more nicely, I don't see how it makes any substantial modification to the guideline. --erachima talk 08:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
We understand the purpose of WP:NNC, so I want the revision to be articulating the same substantive policy. However, there are multiple small differences:
  • Revised version refers to the category of content policies, not simply WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:TRIV. There are some notability-related issues that exist beyond those four tags, such as WP:NAME and WP:NOT.
  • The useful description of undue weight in the original version features a double-negative ("An article should not give undue weight.").
  • The section uses undue weight to describe something that is wrong, instead of inverting it to describe how to do something right. The original complaint was that the section spends too much time telling the reader what not to do, instead of giving positive language about the limits of the general notability guideline and how notability affects the rest of policy.
I placed this suggestion on the talk page, instead of simply being bold and making the changes, because I want to check for consensus before tempting a revert. This time, I'm being a zero-revert kind of guy. —Kanodin—VENT— 11:36, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Didn't you contradict yourself? "Notability guidelines do not regulate article content", but "notability nonetheless affects article content". Also, WP:UNDUE is not just about point of view but about giving "each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." This is just straight up wrong. Randomran (talk) 13:11, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I understand what you mean by contradiction, but I don't think I'm inconsistent. WP:NNC has an inherently difficult logic. On one hand, NNC is trying to show what the notability policy does not do. On the other hand, NNC is trying to explain the far-reaching power of the concept of notability (which is why the original section name featured the not directly language). NPOV mandates that the article's content lines up with the article's main topic. The measure of whether it "lines up" is the character of the topic's notability. If the article does not reproduce in the mind of the reader what makes the topic notable (from a NPOV), there is something wrong with the article. Maybe we can articulate this neatly; maybe it's just too difficult and needs to fade from policy.
Nevertheless, I'm correct in my due/undue weight description. Because WP:DUE and WP:UNDUE are inside WP:NPOV, the issue of due/undue weight has everything to do with point of view. When multiple views compete, undue weight causes many articles to fail WP:NPOV. However, this is really weird to be discussing here, because now we're in NPOV territory. Should be just prune the section back and not mention NPOV and weight? —Kanodin—VENT— 22:39, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Quote: "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. ... An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." The exact point of putting it here it to show how this is *not* just a point of view issue. Randomran (talk) 23:06, 18 September 2008 (UTC)
Let me be clear here: "We should treat each aspect with weight appropriate to its significance to the subject" undeniably falls under the WP:NPOV policy. To say that due weight is not just about points of view is like saying that notability is not just about determining whether topics are notable. Of course, all the policies have teeth. The enforcement ingredient that you're pointing out is that articles should give each piece of content its due weight so that the overall article conforms to a neutral point of view. There are things in WP:NPOV that don't sound like "point of view", but they all end up contributing to the NPOV pillar. Consider this:

Notability guidelines do not regulate article content

Further information: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

Notability determines whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. Notability guidelines do not regulate the content of articles, except for lists of people[2]. Instead, various content policies govern article content.

However, because of the nature of an encyclopedia, notability nonetheless affects article content. Treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Attend to anything that may construe undue weight, including depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

Are you saying that the revision should say this? If so, then I concede the point (it is simpler). I don't want to get bogged down on this dispute, because clash over weight is not about WP:N. I am far more interested in whether WP:NNC can articulate the difference between WP:N policy and the notability concept.
If I'm missing the point of your contention, please let me know. I'm trying to make WP:NNC encapsulate the WP:NPOV policies that bear some resemblance to the concept of notability. My goal is to do this without revising WP:NPOV and WP:DUE. —Kanodin—VENT— 07:16, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
The second paragraph makes sense, and represents what we mean by undue weight (e.g.: it's not just limited to viewpoints). But now the problem is you have a contradiction. You say that notability doesn't regulate article content in the first paragraph, but it does effect article content in the second paragraph. That's confusing. We currently say "WP:N doesn't directly limit article content ... but we do care about due weight", which is still confusing, but at least it can be reconciled. (e.g.: WP:N only has an indirect impact on content...) Randomran (talk) 07:29, 19 September 2008 (UTC)
The idea I'm trying to generate is that the content of an article should reflect the notability of the article's main topic. Here's an example:
But what makes some bit of information germane to an article? The answer lies in the idea of notability. The notability named by the article title serves as a model for what the article should contain. We can see this in content disputes all over Wikipedia. A piece of information may be true, verified, corroborated by primary, secondary, and tertiary sources, and even accepted as common knowledge--yet that information does not belong in an article if it has nothing to do with what makes that article name a notable topic.
WP:N's jurisdiction extends to whether article's exist, not their content. Yet, the idea of notability is more than just an article inclusion criterion. Abraham Lincoln's notability is more than simply a measure of how worthy he is of having an article written about him. The notability of Lincoln includes historic notes about a lawyer, politician, and a crucial POTUS. Once a person or topic becomes notable enough to warrant a Wikipedia article, then notability becomes a story told by verifiable sources.
So, saying that notability does not directly limit content is like saying that the sun does not directly heat the earth. There are some technical reasons separating one thing from the other causally, but for practical matters, one relates to the other. When we are using Wikipedia guidelines to police our actions as editors, we need to know which ones to use for each situation. We use the content policies to regulate matters about article content, but the spirit of notability has far-reaching implications for this entire project. WP:NNC rides a fine line of contradiction because it undeniably rides two different senses of the word notability. One sense of the term has to do with the contents of Wikipedia: Notability, and the other sense has to do with the real world meaning of notability. —Kanodin—VENT— 10:47, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
What about this?

Notability guidelines do not regulate article content

Further information: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view

The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Wikipedia. They do not regulate the content of articles, except for lists of people[3]. Instead, various content policies govern article content.

However, because of the nature of an encyclopedia, the concept of notability nonetheless affects article content. Treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Attend to anything that may construe undue weight, including depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements.

—Kanodin—VENT— 10:57, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I implemented the changes. —Kanodin (talk to me / slap me) 17:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this is fine, and it's more clear than what we had before in many ways. But I still don't think we've addressed the confusing part: "WP:N doesn't regulate article content" yet "NP:N nonetheless affects article content". That's a contradiction that's confusing and completely unhelpful. Saying "WP:N affect article content" but "doesn't directly limit content" may be confusing, but at least it's not an outright contradiction. So I did a partial revert. What would truly summarize what this section is trying to say? The title is important. Randomran (talk) 17:55, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
I get what you are saying about the title, and I cannot think of how to sum it up with fewer words. I'm just going to accept it as is and leave it alone until I get another idea or something. —Kanodin (talk to me / slap me) 23:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
What about phrasing it in the affirmative? "Notability indirectly affects article content". I'm just brainstorming... Randomran (talk) 04:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Significant change

Now that things like http://stats.grok.se and http://wikistics.falsikon.de/ have been around and relatively stable for quite a while and the foundation has hired someone to be an official 'stats person' for Wikimedia I'd like to suggest a major adjustment in the way we think about 'notability' (or 'Inclusion criteria', 'Project scope', or whatever else you want to call it). I'm going to be radical and suggest that... pages which alot of people read, are 'notable'.

Currently we rely on coverage in external sources because it has been, to date, the only 'unbiased' way of establishing notability. Google hits can be manipulated or misleading. Extensive article coverage on a subject could theoretically be the work of a single rabid fan of an otherwise obscure topic. However, if a few different newspapers write articles on the subject then it is probably notable. Thus, that has been the best criteria we have had available... until now. A page read by thousands of people every day IS notable, no 'probably' about it. The thousands of people interested in the topic are independent sources. Their interest establishes notability. If that interest quickly wanes... well then there won't likely be objections when the article is merged or removed.

This is not to say that we should toss all of our existing notability requirements. If there are valid external sources we should keep pages on obscure elements of Etruscan history even if only a few people read them each month. Why not? We've got evidence that somebody thought it was worth writing books about them. Nor should we treat every page which gets high viewership as 'notable' in perpetuity. If Stephen Colbert says 'Snerfledegranimusberfenhousen' one day and a Wikipedia page of that name is created and gets 100,000 page views that does not mean that it should be considered notable for all time. However, it probably wouldn't hurt to leave it up while the frenzy is ongoing and then see whether it has legs in the longrun. If not, it could later be merged or even deleted when the pageview numbers dropped.

Yes, this flies in the face of 'notability is not temporary', but frankly I've always considered that an obvious falsity... Various roman emperors were clearly FAR more 'notable' when they ruled the 'civilized world' and were accounted living gods than they are now... as evidenced by the fact that some of them now get only a couple of paragraphs in Britannica. Judy Garland gets more ink than several. If people are screaming for information about something then why create a headache for ourselves by insisting that it be taken down despite the fact that people are obviously looking to Wikipedia for info on it?

We now have the means to get clear indications of what people want information about. We should use that to help determine whether pages should be retained or not. --CBD 21:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Too much possible abuse; the Colbert example is the exactly the problem that approach will take, and while Colbert himself may not lead a charge, we've got enough large, dedicated groups of users (like 4chan) that given the right allowances, will figure how to make a topic "notable" simply due to stats if we allow for this. It should be noted that there have been things Colbert has stated or done that has made to reliable sources and thus included in the appropriate articles, but if we let page counts generated by untracked accounts, anyone can make an effort to make a page significant. Plus, recent coverage is not appropriate per WP:NOT#NEWS - if, after the dust settles, there remains an effect, then we can include it, but we're not a news source or the like. In addition, an article that is kept specifically due to page counts and not on sourcing is going to fail WP's mission for WP:V.
That said, I do see stats helping in the determination if a topic should be outright deleted or merged elsewhere, or otherwise kept; not a sole measure, but clearly if the page is getting a million views a month on a regular basis and doesn't appear to be an outside group inflating the count, then, at worst, the topic should end up merged and redirected. --MASEM 22:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I think readership should be taken into account. Could definitely help with fiction topics. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:18, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
Any effort at influencing the page viewership statistics would certainly be at least as easily detected as 'vote stacking' at AfD or the like. As to verifiability... a primary source cannot be used to establish notability, but CAN be used to verify information in an article. Thus, I disagree that any article establishing notability through heavy readership would automatically fail verifiability... the vast majority of them could likely be verified against their primary source(s). --CBD 22:23, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure there are obvious attempts that can be detected tracking pageviews, but there will be both false positives and negatives as well that stats fall to that can be played by others (I create a page without links or linked in from anyone else, and then have one of these offsite groups hit the page just enough to avoid causing issues but keeping the page alive, for example). Articles that can only be written from primary sources should be merged into larger topics per WP:V. --MASEM 22:39, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
WP:V doesn't matter. "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." vs. NOTE is big difference. The fact that there may be ways to game a system doesn't mean it should be rejected. Most of our systems have some way to game them. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:50, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
WP:V & WP:NOT are the reason this guidline exists. WP:POPULARITY_CONTEST is not. We simply CAN NOT write an article about a topic unless there are reliable, independent secondary sources about it... and if they are, it's notable. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 05:56, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
This should get added to Perennial proposals... all this would do is allow groups of fans to write walled gardens. More to the point, it's not wikipedia's job to contain all the information on a topic people are looking for. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 23:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

In the other direction, I couldn't disagree more about limiting notability by readership, real or expected. An encyclopedia should aim to inform people about what they do not already know. This means that it will inherently cover less generally popular topics--and the full coverage of these, to the extent we have interested editors and verifiable information-- such is the distinction between a comprehensive encyclopedia and an abridged encyclopedia. The basic principle of coverage is is the attempt at being comprehensive. DGG (talk) 02:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this proposal is that it's the lazy way out. Yes, half the articles in the top 100 last year were about Naruto, but the fact that there were 2.5 million people a month looking at the pages is exactly why we don't need to make an exception for them: their subjects (in- and out-of-universe) got lots of coverage in the press, and therefore there are plenty of sources to write about them from.
Where those page views are useful, however, is in determining what pages most need to be improved in quality. --erachima talk 06:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Notability is being worthy of notice, not being noticed. Readership requires notability, but notability does not require readership. If major newspapers wrote well-exposed articles about an incident in BFE, the event is notable--even if for some freakish reason nobody read the articles. And, how does one prove readership? Oh yeah... with independent, secondary, and verifiable sources! Wikipedia can often manufacture readership, so measuring the readership of tertiary articles is not acceptable.
  • It does not matter how many people loved the emperors from antiquity. The measure of the inclusion threshold are the sources that survive to meet the scrutiny of Wikipedia editors.
  • Example: Emperor Dude was the most popular ruler on earth. Unfortunately, no records of Emperor Dude survive today, so we have no historical knowledge of Emperor Dude. Emperor Dude fails to be notable under the current notability policy. Does anyone have a problem with that?
  • And, it is unlikely that this proposal, if accepted, will change the behavior of editors. Whatever happens, we must reconcile WP:N with the rest of policy, including WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:NOT.
—Kanodin—VENT— 07:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
The "Emperor Dude" example is probably more of a WP:V problem than a WP:N problem. I'm quite sure if Emperor Dude was a verifiable emperor, we would keep an article on him. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

There are a load of factors which go into my thinking when I decide whether or not something is notable, and the interest from readers is definitely one of them. At some level, I agree with the notion that we should strive to provide readers with what they want. That is perhaps why I tend to be lean towards inclusion on fiction topics. Using readership as the sole measure of notability is of course a bad idea (and I don't think anyone has suggested that). My most recent article (Simoa) seems to average 5-6 hits a day (and that may be people directed there by "random article"), but I really think this river is more notable than that... While the idea of providing readers with what they want has merit, so does the notion of providing readers with what they don't want but ought to have. (With apologies to Sir Humphrey Appleby from the Yes Minister episode The Middle-Class Rip-Off) Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:58, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely with providing readers with 'what they ought to have'. People are going to want information about Simoa. Not alot of people, but it will likely remain a topic of some interest for decades if not centuries (if it doesn't get renamed, dry up, or otherwise 'disappear'). Therefor we should make that info available. However, I find it incredibly perplexing that people actually argue (as above) that we should not provide information about things which too many people want to read. If that many people are interested then it is already 'too well known' to include? Topics have to be "worthy" of inclusion? These don't sound like standards of 'notability' but rather a subjective scale of 'importance'.
To take the opposite of the, 'if major newspapers write about it then it is notable even if nobody reads it' position... 'if hundreds of thousands of people want to read it then it is notable even if major newspapers do not print it'. Reality check: Newspapers and other 'reliable sources' have 'systemic biases' too. In the best case they provide neutral coverage of information they think that their audience will be interested in. We have the capability to provide information on the topics we know that our audience is interested in. In what way is it beneficial to >Wikipedia< to exclude information we know our audience wants because the news media doesn't think that >their< audience is interested?
If we provide the information people are looking for then they are more likely to come here for information. The more people who come here for information the more who will also contribute, on all topics they are interested in, and the better the encyclopedia will be. These seem like inarguable truths to me. What benefit is there in driving away users by excluding information we know to be of interest? How does that not fly in the face of what 'Notability' is supposed to be? The whole point of 'notability' is to provide a dividing line between including information which is of use to a significant number of people and excluding things which very few people will ever want to know about. Isn't it? --CBD 11:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not trying to replace Google, neither in functionality or its perceived usefulness. Wikipedia is not the only resource in the world for information. Furthermore, Wikipedia is trying to fulfill the Foundation's mission, with the key point being that this work needs to be verifiable, and if we cannot verify information outside of one source, we need to carefully consider how it is added to the work as a whole. If WP was a commercial site, worried about user retention and the like, I can definitely understand why keeping topics on areas users are interested in would be needed, but we're not - this is a free project (in multiple senese of the word) and while we need to be aware of what the userbase is using it for, we also have a duty to the Foundation to keep this a high quality work. Thus, what users want and the goals of WP are in contrast to each other. (This is not to say we have a deaf ear to users; all users are also editors and may freely participate in any discussions to improve WP). Since the Foundation is the one providing all the resources to make this work continue, it is pretty obvious where we need to stick to. --MASEM 13:34, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
No, this isn't in contradiction of the Foundation's goals. We aren't looking to build, 'the sum total of human knowledge... except things which people are really interested in'. I also disagree with conflating the 'Notability' and 'Verifiability' guidelines. They are two different things. Naruto has been receiving over 20,000 page views per day for at least a year now. It would therefor be absurd to argue that it is 'not notable'. There are seventy-eight references verifying information in the article. It is therefor also clearly verifiable. Also, the fact that primary sources cannot establish notability in no way means that they also cannot be used to provide verifiability. If the Naruto article covered only the information which was verified by primary sources it would be 'incomplete' (lacking info on reception, influence, adaptations, et cetera) but still obviously notable, containing 100% verified information, and valid for retention in Wikipedia. An article with only primary sources is a poor article, but if the topic is demonstrably notable anyway that is NOT a reason to delete it. --CBD 16:32, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Every time someone busts out that "sum of human knowledge" quote I feel the need to remind everyone involved that A) The Wikimedia Foundation is more than just en.wikipedia, and B) Jimbo also founded Wikia. Nifboy (talk) 19:11, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Naruto is a bad example because it alone can stay due to its sourcing. The right example to use here is the idea of a word invented by Colbert during a show which becomes an internet meme. The word may never be picked up by mainstream press, but the subject of a million blog and forum posts, references in webcomics and 4chan and YTMND, and when the article for that word is created here, it may recent a thousand hits a day. However, if all that can be said on that page from reliable sources is that it was used on the Colbert show, the article is not needed; the word, if necessary, can be merged to the The Colbert Show and described there. Another example is the Homestar Runner cartoon "Trogdor", which launched a thousand internet memes and even has significant popular culture refs and a rather popular search term when it first came out. You'll notice that there's no article for it, the Trogdor a redirect back to the HSR page, where the topic is discussed but not in great detail. Yes, the topic is popular but it cannot be given the full encyclopedic coverage of a topic that may get one hit a day but is backed by numerous sources. We can still cover that topic as part of a larger work, but just having X hits a day is not valid reason to have an encyclopedic article about it. --MASEM 14:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Naruto is a good example of a clearly notable topic verified from primary sources. Yes, it also has a few secondary sources, but if those (and the info dependent on them) were removed the article would not suddenly become either 'not notable' or 'not verified'. As to a topic with extremely limited information available (e.g. the 'Colbert word')... that should be merged into another article because on its own it would never be larger than a stub. NOT because it somehow magically becomes 'not notable' or 'not verified' if it is in a separate article. If the available info eventually increases to the point that it is over-represented in the primary article then it should be split out. This is all 'manual of style' stuff on article and section lengths... nothing to do with notability or verifiability. As to Trogdor. There was a fairly extensive article on the subject which got 'merge deleted' (supposedly merged, but actually with almost all of the information removed). So yes, that IS a good example. Of the kind of article which Wikipedia's users want to read, but which has been removed through misapplication of notability guidelines. Heck, that one should even pass the 'independent coverage' test... with 47 hits on Google news... including the Times and National Review. So, once upon a time a person playing Guitar Hero who saw Trogdor in there could have come to Wikipedia to get full information on what that's all about. They can't now... but somehow that's supposed to be a good thing. Even though the Trogdor redirect still gets hit about 130 times per day. --CBD 15:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I still disagree about Naruto: a few secondary sources is all that is asked per WP:N for an article (though when the balance of information provided from primary and secondary sources is out of whack, per WP:UNDUE, there's probably some cleanup needed). But one of the points that's been argued before is that even topics that meet notability guidelines may be better served as discussion in a larger topic, particularly if the notability is just barely met and the article would be a stub or engage in OR, POV, or excessive trivia, as much as the Trogdor article was. It's not that Trogdor isn't covered, nor no pointers where more information can be found (in this case, the HSR wiki), but that we give it the coverage appropriate for its sources. --MASEM 15:53, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability of articles about recent mathematical ideas

An issue came up a short while ago at Director string. The subject of that article is not really notable according to the general guidelines. The creator of the page has argued that it does little harm to have articles that are factually true. I appreciate this perspective (though I am not totally convinced about it). If the perspective is widely accepted, perhaps there should be a special notability policy for these articles: "Articles about mathematics do not have to be notable, they only have to be correct."

(Of course, it would be wrong if researchers used wikipedia to push their recent works. That is not happening in the case of director strings, but if the policy was changed it would be harder to prevent.)

I think it should always be clear to a reader whether an article is about a new idea, that is only the subject of a few recent, little-cited papers, and when an article is about a concept that is old, well understood and well-accepted. I'm not sure how to ensure that, even in the case of Director string.

Should someone visiting wikipedia always be confident that any concepts that they find are notable? Is it necessary to explain the notability of mathematical articles on those pages?

Any comments or thoughts? Sam (talk) 21:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Articles on highly specialized technical concepts may be "non-notable" in the normal sense of cultural impact and prominence, but they're highly encyclopedic. As long as they're not pushing their own research and everything's sourced to peer reviewed journals, let them do what they like. --erachima talk 23:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
As author of the article, I disagree with Sam as to his claim of non-notability; there have been a number of articles published on this and related topics, and the research is relevant to current efforts in program normalization and machine learning. (I'm with a group that is looking for a volunteer to implement director strings within a package that normalizes combinator trees; this would sharply improve performance. Unfortunately, this is PhD level work, so finding such a volunteer is tricky.)
More generally, I view notability guidelines as a way to quash vanity pages and unpublished and homegrown pseudo-science. For this purpose, they are effective. Trying to quash legitimate science, though, seems wrong-headed.
I am also concerned about the forum for this discussion. These issues are more properly debated by the science projects, e.g. Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics, Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics, etc. It is from long (and painful) experience that I have learned that there is a large and powerful contingent of Wikipedia editors that are essentially ignorant of what science is, and how its performed -- for example, the wooly-headed ruckus raised over citations, drive-by-deletions of science pages without have a single member of any of the science wikiprojects participate in the voting, admins making threats against non-admin editors, etc. For these reasons, I really believe that this notability debate, and debate about science notability guidelines in general, should be performed by the scientific community, and not the Wikipedia editorial community at large.
Since this is essentially an article on applied math/comp sci/ai, I invite all to continue the debate on the talk page of Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics. linas (talk) 03:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
For the purposes of Wokipedia, "notable" has a different meaning - it means "there are sources to support the article". Wikipedia "notability" does not mean the subject is actually of widespread interest or that many people are likely to be interested in it. Virtually all research published in peer-reviewed journals is "notable" by Wikipedia's definition; the limiting factor is more often whether anyone bothers to take the time to write an article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Moving thread to Wikipedia:Trivia sections; striking my comments.

* Regarding "In popular culture" sections of articles.

  • There are clear cut cases where "In Popular Culture" is OK, because the pop culture phenomenon itself is notable:
  • But crap. I mean it. Crap. Look at Bodhisattvas#Bodhisattva in popular culture. Two or three things listed there are barely notable in themselves. More importantly, the fact that a notable work mentions Bodhisattva, or even has a character nicknamed Bodhisattva, is patently trivial (see WP:NOT). It has no intrinsic relationship whatsoever to Bodhisattva; the relationship is tangential. No one who is interested in Bodhisattva will be interested in Ian Astbury etc.
  • As per WP:SPADE, these sections are wikilink spam. They are either intended to drive up the wikilink count of borderline-notable articles, or are hagiographic fancruft (see the link to "point Break").
  • Can we please start applying (or creating?) robust guidelines regarding notability regarding these cases of parasitical cruft? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 03:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I've tried to suggest this guideline before: "Popular culture mentions are only notable when they come from someone more famous than the person/thing being mentioned". So the more famous/notable the subject, the higher the standard is set. That of course would (quite rightly) blow away the entire section at Bodhisattvas#Bodhisattva in popular culture. Peter Ballard (talk) 04:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The WP:VG project has a good guideline for when and where pop culture refs should be made. Basically, if the ref to the topic is impossible to avoid in describing the other work it is used in, then that's a notable ref; if it simply namedropping or used without additional commentary, it's trivial. There are cases that fall into the middle but that simple distinction helps to do a great deal of separation. --MASEM 04:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC) ::Thanks Peter and Masem. I'd like to move forward into the fever swamp of adopting formal language for this idea (unless it is explicitly covered somewhere else; I don't think it is). Masem, where is the actual text of this WP:VG principle regarding pop culture... is it somewhere on Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Article guidelines? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 05:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:VG/POP --MASEM 05:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

::::No, WP:VG/POP is unusable. It would definitely keep all but one of the cruft items in Bodhisattvas#Bodhisattva in popular culture; in all likelihood it would keep all of them. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 05:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC) (undent) Essentially, we're dealing with trivia; the words "in pop culture" are a smokescreen. See my first post (above); some pop culture is notable; some is not. End of story. The general guidelines on notability versus trivia need to be applied... the intersection of the two guidelines with pop culture needs to be specified. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 06:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Why not simply require trivia pop culture items to have specific sources to discuss that aspect. i.e. there are books are artickles about Che Guvera in popular culture. Otherwise most of these sections are vanispamfanboycruft Spartaz Humbug! 06:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
I sympathize with your complaint. I've gotten two or three "X in popular culture" articles deleted myself, and routinely cut down on the length of those sections within articles that have them as giant bulleted trivia lists. However, this has nothing to do with the notability guideline, as it's an article content issue and covered under the policy against giving subjects undue weight within articles. So sorry, wrong venue. --erachima talk 06:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
You're right that this guideline (WP:Notability) is about articles, not sections of articles. But WP:UNDUE is not about the notability or otherwise of sections of articles either. WP:UNDUE (being a section inside WP:NPOV) only discusses the need to not give undue weight to minority POVs. Nothing in WP:UNDUE says you can or can't have trivia in an article. Perhaps there is such a guideline, but WP:UNDUE isn't it. Peter Ballard (talk) 07:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
On the contrary, the addition of excessive trivia/pop culture references to an article gives that trivia undue prominence versus the actual claim to fame of the subject, and therefore makes the article non-neutral. For a concrete example, look at the article Muramasa: there's a brief historical description of who Muramasa was, followed by a giant list of every game (well, more like a tenth of the games) that have used his sword as the name for an item. If that's not a POV article (skewed towards "gamer POV", in this case) nothing is. --erachima talk 07:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::: Sorry, erachima, this subthread is a distraction. UNDUE is clearly about "viewpoints"; claiming UNDUE on "In popular culture" sections is a novel interpretation of the word "viewpoint". Thread stays here. Thanks. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 07:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps my interpretation of "viewpoints" is novel, but your interpretation of "notability" is in direct contradiction to the actual guideline. The misinterpretation is common I'll admit, but that's why we spelled it out in the notability does not limit article content section. So no offense, but you are definitely on the wrong guideline talk page here. --erachima talk 07:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

:::::::: According to your logic, this topic has no venue. If it does not belong here, then it has no venue, and if it has no venue, then this one is closest to the kernel of the topic. Repeating: It stays here. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 08:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense, there's certainly a proper venue. It's just adamantly not this one, because the guideline specifically rules it out. That's why I made a suggestion of a policy page that fit closer to the concept you're trying to get across. If UNDUE does not strike you as a proper venue, then try Wikipedia:Trivia sections, the guideline which applies to all "lists of miscellaneous facts". If all else fails, use Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). --erachima talk 08:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

  • First cut:
  • Examine information in "In popular culture" sections of articles to distinguish between notable pop culture phenomena and connective trivia.
  • In particular, extremely notable topics such as Bodhisattva or Jesus can generate a correspondingly large number of references (a kind of "name dropping") that are scattered across a broad range of expressions of pop culture. In short:
  • Notability entails references in popular culture; references in popular culture do not entail the notability of the topic of "X in popular culture".
  • The fact that such pop references exist (and may exist in great number) does not imply that the impact of topic X upon pop culture itself is notable.
  • The key to inclusion of a particular item in a list of "X in popular culture" should be "Is this item important in understanding the phenomenon of "X in popular culture", or is it merely a single instance of "X in popular culture"?
  • A related question might be, what impact has this individual pop culture reference had upon the pop culture perceptions of topic X? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 07:08, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

* Second cut (basically same info, reorganized slightly):

Information presented in "In popular culture" sections should distinguish between notable pop culture phenomena and connective trivia. Two questions arise: First, should an article about topic X include an "In popular culture" section? Second, if such a section is included, what individual facts should the section contain?
  1. Notability entails references in popular culture. In particular, extremely notable topics such as Bodhisattva or Jesus can generate a correspondingly large number of references that are scattered across a broad range of expressions of pop culture (a kind of "name dropping"). The fact that such pop references exist (and may exist in great number) does not imply that the impact of topic X upon pop culture itself is notable.
  2. The key to inclusion of a particular item in a list of "X in popular culture" should be "Is this item important in understanding the phenomenon of "X in popular culture", or is it merely a single instance of "X in popular culture"? A related question might be, what impact has this individual pop culture reference had upon the pop culture perceptions of topic X? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 07:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I've moved this thread to another venue, as per erachima. I'll bear your clarification in mind! :-) Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 08:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Definition of trivial?

What is "trivial", exactly, as used in WP:N ? Is the Constitution a trivial source for the article on freedom of speech ? Is a biography of Albert Einstein a trivial source simply because there was not much non-trivial in his life - he did not rob banks, did not cross-dress and was not caught DUI even once? NVO (talk) 08:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Strawman arguments are not helpful. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Hey! Someone correctly identified a "strawman argument". A red letter day in WP Padillah (talk) 14:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
To most people trivial means a small amount of text. The exact number of letters is unclear, one sentence is too little, for maybe half a paragraph is too little, and for some it needs to be about a page. There are also people who will read something longer than a page and deem it trivial based on its content, but this is a minority position since it is so subjective. So, the declaration and a biography are both non-trivial for articles on the declaration and Einstein, although the declaration is not and independant source. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 17:19, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm afraid that in your last scenario there are no independent sources at all: citizens of a state (mind you, I did not say which state) are not independent of their constitution, and all the others are ... hey, if they dare to speak, that's freedom of speach and they're out. NVO (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The word can refer to amount of information, or its quality (secondary vs tertiarty vs crap) or the content itself and its presentation - encyclopedic style is trivial, tabloid "sensation" is not. Problem is, when the deletioners are brandishing the trivial argument, they do not care to elaborate which facet of the razor they use. It would be fine to reduce the argument to amount of source text, period, but it's not set in stone. NVO (talk) 18:02, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
To most people trivial means a small amount of text. There are also people who will read something longer than a page and deem it trivial based on its content, but this is a minority position since it is so subjective. Interesting opinions about the meaning of a set of terms: Trival and Trival that are clearly defined in the English Language.
Triva: insignificant trifles of little importance, especially items of unimportant information.
Trival: Of little significance or value.;Common, ordinary.;Concerned with or involving trivia. (From Wiktionary)
Triva: matters or things that are very unimportant, inconsequential, or nonessential; trifles; trivialities. (Dictionary.com)
The real problem is that WP tries to use a term in an encyclopedia that claims to eventually hold all the notable knowledge out there in a way that is simply impossible to interpret. The key meaning of trivia is a piece of information's relative importance to the context in which it is used. Absence the context--an article's subject--trivia is just someone's POV. There are thousands (probably more) articles in WP that are absolutely and unequivocally unimportant to me. I would never label them trival because I am absolutely and unequivocally sure that they are important (not trival) to someone else. IMHO, the terms trival and triva ought not be in the language of WP guidelines because they are way too subjective given their English language definition.--Mike Cline (talk) 20:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it's like Notability and probably lots of other words that we redefine. Trivial basically means unimportant according to the dictionary. The guidance here is "The one sentence mention by Walker of the band Three Blind Mice in a biography of Bill Clinton...is plainly trivial." So it seems to be based on size, althoug that isn't spelled out explicitly. We can't come up with better wording, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

"'Trivial' means what we point to when we say it." OK, maybe not. But it is nearly that bad to pin down. The basic point is that non-informative sources be excluded. If a third-party source goes into a bit of detail about the subject, and would realistically be useful to writing the page, then it's not trivial with regard to notability. --erachima talk 03:15, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

It's similar to Obscenity, where Former Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States said "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced . . . [b]ut I know it when I see it . . ." The problem is that people don't always agree on what they see. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 03:25, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Definition of independent

A more interesting question, to me - what is an independent source? We don't define it in the policy very well. Especially significant here is the issue of independence and a fictional work. What is "independent" of, say, Star Trek? Are interviews with the creators independent of the series? Officially licensed books? Unlicensed books? Is William Shatner's autobiography independent of Star Trek?

Looking at the page, it looks to me like "independent" was constructed primarily with people and organizations in mind, and less with more abstract entities in mind. Figuring out how to appropriately delineate independence seems useful. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:09, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

This comes back to my concept of 1.5 sources: works that are by people that actually did or closely related with the topic to be normally called first-party, but providing analysis and reflection on the work as they are a secondary resource. These have to be used very carefully; I could go create something, post on YouTube, come back a month to write up my "director's commentary" and, if we allow such without any other stipulations, that YouTube video is notable. My guy is that an article that only uses the normal primary sources (work itself) along with these 1.5 sources and no other references is not notable; one the other hand, if you can dig out one review from a reliable source and combine it with 1.5 sources to bulk up the article, I believe it will pass (eg we have a reasonably encyclopedic, referenced article). But a lot depends on the quality of the 1.5 sources, such that they must be strongly scrutinized as reliable sources for all other aspects (considering WP:SELFPUB). --MASEM 15:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I think it's easier to quantify what is not independent. For articles on people or companies, dependent works are works authored, published, or sponsored by the topic of the article. For products, dependent works are those authored, published, or sponsored by a company with a significant financial interest in the product. I thought the policy once said that the sources need to be independent of each other, as well, but that seems to have disappeared at some time. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Every newspaper in the world has a significant financial interest in the subjects they cover. It's why sensationalism has become the approach de jour. (I'm not trying to be churlish here - my point is that independence is very, very muddy, and that it is not as useful a line to hold as it might seem.) Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree that the NYTimes has any direct financial interest in products such as a new Toyota truck or a new type of vacuum cleaner. For articles on people and companies, I had a different standard. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:58, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
They have an interest in the products behaving interestingly enough to be worthy of coverage - this is not necessarily a positive financial interest - they do well if a Toyota truck bombs spectacularly. But my point is, perhaps, being missed - when dealing with commercial publication, there is always a financial calculation going on - the New York Times's standard for inclusion is not, in the end, "is this important," but "will this sell papers." I'm unconvinced that such financial calculations are equivalent to encyclopedic worth, and unconvinced that the calculation there is any different from the calculation involved in an officially licensed book about a TV show. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
If they are covering the product already, any interest is already established (they don't preemptively cover a topic on the basis that the topic might someday be newsworthy). That is, nothing that happens in the future changes the sales for today's paper.
But, more importantly, "will this sell papers" is not in any way about a direct interest in the sales of Toyota trucks. On the other hand, a press release by Toyota is clearly not independent of the topic of the Toyota truck it describes, because Toyota has a direct interest in the sales of their trucks. Similarly, a press release by Wal-Mart extolling the virtues of a new television that they sell is not an independent source. Would you like to propose a different way of quantifying which sources are dependent/independent relative to a commercial product? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
But that calculation can be applied just as well to, for instance, the BBC putting out a guide to Doctor Who - they do so because they believe that in the current market that the book will sell. But that would not, by most, standards, be independent. (But you may not consider such a situation a product as such.)
For me, I'd rather divide financial stake away from our decisions of notability. To me, a vehicle manufactured by Toyota is going to be notable. Yes, it will also surely be able to be the subject of two independent sources, but that's almost beside the point - it's not worth covering because it has the sources, it's worth covering because nobody would seriously argue that Wikipedia shouldn't cover it. This ties with my observation about what an encyclopedia is above - encompassing knowledge. There is, I think, a sense of majorness and importance that is more important than independence - a threshold of sources that we want to report on anything they discuss at substantial and significant length. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The same approach can be applied to nearly all authors of sources, from medical journals to museum catalogs. Paid work and a going interest to continue it. Would you reject a medical article because the author's college received money (sometimes very big money) from pharma companies? Is there a difference between a college raising funds for cancer research, a writer hoping to write a bestselling biography, or someone like Bart Sibrel capitalizing on the work done by thousands of men 30 years ago? Oh yes, there is a universal yardstick of other peoples' opinion, but "other people" are also paid to speak their wisdom. So I presume there will still be an informal, ethical, line, and conflicts of different ethics. NVO (talk) 01:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)


Back to Phil's original question... I think independent" was indeed constructed primarily with people and organizations in mind. These are two major categories that are subject to notability tests, mostly because they subjects pushed with promotional motivations. For people and organisations, I think it is OK to consider each case on its merits, as it is usually obvious. If the subject did it, or funded it, it isn’t independent.

Fiction is the real issue here. I would say that authorised/licensed things are not independent, and interviews are not unless that were conducted by an organisation unconnected with the franchise, which means not often. Unlicenced books and William Shatner's autobiography would be sufficiently independent of Star Trek, however, Star Trek is easily shown to be notabile, and unlicenced books and William Shatner's autobiography are probably not reliable sources.

Much of the fiction covered at wikipedia lacks independent sources. However, in these cases I would be happy to accept other measures of notability, such as sales data of the officially licenced book, as acceptable in place of “independent sources”. I would be more concerned that sources contained commentary or analysis, and could properly support a proper article according to WP:WAF. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:04, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the general approach that I sense is acceptable: if the article on a fictional aspect has a large number of references from developers/creators of the work in addition to one or two unequivocally independent sources like sales data or critical reception, that's fine. But the absence of the latter aspect is where the questions get raised. --MASEM 02:31, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Readding to try to get more feedback

I've put this above, but only have gotten one positive feedback. Based on the current RFC for notability, salted with the suggestion that this really is about inclusion, I would like everyone to review this Inclusion Guideline "essay". I think this approach, which is basically a matter of rethinking how we create and use the subguidelines for notability, captures what I believe is the middle point that editors on both sides of the issues have pointed out. --MASEM 22:16, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I think this essay is the clearest description of the interrelationship between main and sub guidelines I have seen so far. Referring to it, it needs to discuss two additional points: first, that things that happen to have two references but are essentially trivial, do not warrant a separate article or -- in some cases -- even inclusion at all. and second, that things , which are to general agreement notable, and about which verifiable information can be obtained, may be suitable for an article. I worded it general agreement, rather than IAR, but IAR will do for traditionalists.
but there is one point where I think people will still disagree, and that's the one illustrated in the essay by Olympic medalists. There would be considerable feeling that such people should nonetheless have a full article, if the key point of notability can be verified, in order to maintain consistency. My own view is undecided on both the general issue, and that illustration.
I know it's the point of your last paragraph, but perhaps you should say specifically, that subject specific guidelines need to be accepted tacitly or explicitly by the general community. We are now experiencing a series of interesting discussions by which, in effect, the athletics guidelines are not in some respects being accepted at afd. DGG (talk) 02:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
WP:DEL#REASON is an almost exhaustive list of reasons why an article would not meet Wikipedia's inclusion criteria. There is a lot of bureaucratic stuff that Wikipedia has to deal with, but it does not fit neatly into WP:N or the other four policies that you name. Any authoritative inclusion guideline needs to cover these bases, so WP:DP is relevant to your project.
The fog surrounding the presumption clause in WP:N probably stems from these extra requirements that are foreign to a notability discussion. I really hope that an "article criteria" page, independent from WP:N, gains acceptance in the future —Kanodin—VENT— 07:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think the proposal relects many people's views, but since it is based on the assumption that SNG's are not "editorial walled gardens" if they are created through consensus, it seems to ignores the fact that so local consensus based on the opinions of special interest groups who assert their pet topic is notable without having to provide evidence may conflict with Wikipedia policies and guidelines that apply to all subject areas (see also User talk:Masem/Inclusion Guideline#Criticism). --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:27, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
Whereas your view appears to be based on the assumption that SNG's are walled gardens, and more pointedly, that WikiProjects constitute special interest groups attempting to undermine policy. As I hope you can see, this view is in direct contradiction to WP:AGF. --erachima talk 13:07, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
(@DGG) Yea, I'm not exactly sure where advice as "what constitutes appropriate sourcing" would go, maybe possibly on here (WP:N, still remaining here if this was made into a guideline), or elsewhere, but discussion of that is needed. Also, if it is not implied, I do fully mean that inclusion subguideline must have global consensus to remain, that is absolutely critical to prevent this approach being subverted by groups that want to try to get broad coverage for their favorite area. (This is also in address to Gavin's point). --MASEM 13:19, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Masem, I think your last point highlights my doubts about your proposal. I don't see how you can obtain global consensus regarding the notability of subject specific guidelines which have been created to represent local consensus of special interest groups. I can't see how you proposal can fly, if WP:N is based on global consensus, as SNGs cannot claim exemption from or run counter to it.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:50, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • You gain global consensus by doing what we did with FICT: have the local group build it up, but then get input by RFC, posting to all relevent VP pages, and so forth, as to attract attention and comments to it. Same way you seek global consensus for any other guideline or policy. Now, remember, the point is that I am seeking topic inclusion guidelines, qualifying that the inclusion of a topic is not a gaurentee of a page. What merits a whole article to itself is determined by what sources back that up per policy; if there's several third-party reliable sources, then the topic can get a page, otherwise it needs to be covered elsewhere. This approach does not run contrary to WP:N as it stands now (a topic to be included but lacking the third-party sources is going to grouped in a larger topic or summarized in a list - we don't allow for articles for a topic without sources) but insteads breaks up "inclusion" and "information organization" that WP:N is presently riddled with (see the whole previous discussion on the nutshell talk). --MASEM 13:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think that worked, nor is it workable as the current status as a guideline of WP:FICT shows. Your proposal to relax the requirements of WP:N by amending WP:FICT to state that content relating to non-notable characters and televison episoides could be placed in lists on the grounds that "editors should seek to retain the information where it can improve the encyclopedia" (see FEAPOALT for details) is still disputed. Global consensus was not achieved, primarily because you were proposing special treatment for fictional characters and television episodes that effectively gave these "aggregated topics" an exemption from GNG, and brought WP:FICT into conflict with WP:N. I disagreed then and I disagree with you now that SNGs could be used as a platform for circumventing or providing exemptions from GNG, because every interest group will say that their pet topic should be given special treatment and that their viewpoint is supported by so called "expert" opinion dressed up as "consensus". Your proposal to relax the requirements of WP:N is just a way of saying "one rule for you, one rule for me". --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • You are missing the point of this proposal. It is becoming very clear that we need to separately consider "topic inclusion" and "worthiness for an article" as two separate points in order to both be an encyclopedia with a broad range of coverage, and an encyclopedia written in an encyclopedic viewpoint. These two goals, 95% of the time, can be met without any problem. That extra 5% is what the WP community has been arguing for 2+ years now, and its very clear that its because when topic inclusion and article worthiness are mixed in the same guideline, its very difficult to separate and pretty much lead to the arguments over the last years.
  • Article worthiness is easy: an topic must have a good number of third-party resources to be covered in its own article. An article that meets the GNG is, save some exceptional cases, going to have that, but we should not be considering that the GNG is blessing the topic as being worthy for an article, but that it is the rest of our policy guideline that does so by virtue of having sources to go into depth. No sources, no article, but this does not mean no coverage (presuming the article is part of the include criteria), we can write sections of articles to group topics with no or limited sources, or break them to lists or tables as needed; they still need
  • The topic inclusion is the trickier part. The RFC and previous discussion at FICT (not to ratify it as a guideline but just to see what the issue of spinouts sat) basically all point to the fact that we should be positively identifying limited criteria for topic inclusion in WP. And highly important is that while what you are calling "expert" option may be used to build up the first draft of such inclusion guidelines, they have to be reviewed by the global community before they can be positively used for inclusion. This may mean that while FICT could be written by fiction-interested writers to include "major characters of notable works" as inclusion guidelines, that will be rejected by the global community. But this will need to occur for BIO, MUSIC, BK, and any of the existing notability guidelines to make sure that topics that are being included regardless of scoping meet the goals of WP as determined by its body of editors.
  • This is not an attempt to create the idea of lists of episodes or characters are being acceptable; that may be a end result of normalizing how such lists are appropriate for Wikipedia, but that's not a goal , even though I think getting to that point will help to get the inclusionist/deletionist endless debate overwith. (I will point out that this aspect of FICT was only rejected by about 25% of the editors that responded - FICT failed because 25% of the responders were against expanded coveraged, and 25% were diametric to that, wanting even more coverage, so it is not appropriate to say this doesn't have support, particularly given the reasoning at the current RFC and past FICT RFCs.) A FICT guideline may not even have these criteria, or maybe there won't be a FICT guideline, but that point is a different hurdle to jump. We first need to more objective measures of what gets included in WP, and once included, to what degree it is covered, and that's the whole point of this essay. --MASEM 05:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • In answer to Masem, I am not missing the point in fairness. WP:N provides the inclusion criteria by which it is presumed that a topic justifies its own article if satisfies GNG, which requires evidence (reliable seconary sources) that the topic will satisfy the content principles of Wikipedia. Your proposal that a topic should be included on the basis that it is "worthy" provides some difficulties, because it is hard to gauge whether the topic will satisfy those content principles if its not the subject of reliable secondary sources, as you can't write an encyclopedic article that does not contain analysis, context or critisism unless you resort to original research or reliance on Questionable sources. It seems to me that articles based on rumour and opinion are not "worthy" of inclusion in Wikipedia at all. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Again, I stress that the point of the inclusion approach is that we separate the issue of topic inclusion and the issue of giving a topic its own article. Topics should be included to meet WP's broad coverage (as defined through inclusion subguidelines and global consensus of these), not whether or not they merit an article. Of course, once included, we determine if the topic should get an article by the quality of its sourcing. Topics that the global community feel should be included but lack sources simply don't get a full article, instead covered as part of a larger topic or summarized with other topics in a list or table. Two separate decision points that help to demuddy the waters that WP:N and its subguidelines presently have about it, to make it simpler to determine what the fate of a given topic should be should it be included or its inclusion questioned.--MASEM 13:54, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I am now confused, Masem, on why we need a separate topic inclusion, if Topics that the global community feel should be included but lack sources simply don't get a full article. That's pretty much what the GNG says - if you don't have independent reliable sources, you shouldn't have an article on that topic. In my view, we should actually be working on a new guideline for lists. The RFC seems to be showing that lists need to be treated differently from articles. If we can figure out what constitutes notability and inclusion for a list, then we've probably solved a large portion of the issue at [[W{:FICT]]. Karanacs (talk) 14:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • (@Karanacs) The difference is that to meet WP's broadness goals, there are topics that fall into areas and criteria that we should be including, sourcing or not. These are topics that if not sources would then be suitable for list articles; in otherwords, the inclusion subguidelines would describe what content is appropriate for lists/tables if the topic itself cannot be backed by good sources but still needs some mention in the work. This approach can be considered as validating the use of lists to cover topics that should be covered but cannot be adequetely sourced for their own article. The key is that separating includsion and article worthiness is necessary to make it clear when certain topics should be merged to larger subjects or to a list as needed.
  • (@Gavin) Yes, if you want to be direct, there are articles (strictly lists/tables, not singular topic articles) per this scheme that would not need to meet the GNG but are needed because those topics are part of what the global WP editing community feel are appropriate to include in WP. The RFC and previous discussion at FICT show that limited application of such lists are appropriate and necessary to satisfy both sides of this issue, and thus the inclusion guidelines are there to help spell out those limited applications (thus making sure the global consensus evaluates them as to make sure such criteria do not allow for indiscriminately collected lists/tables). As what those limited applications are, I don't know what they will turn out to be. This is not similar to Phil's where he suggests that a singular notable topic (a single fictional character or episode) would be a subarticle in his heirarchical scheme: this approach does not allow at all for a single topic article to remain if it lacks third-party sources (per WP:V). --15:08, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The problem with this approach is that articles, lists, tables, spinouts, sub-articles and aggregated topics (or what ever else you want to call them) all occupy Wikipedia mainspace, and for all intents and purposes are the same in that they all occupy seperate pages. I don't see how you can have different inclusion criteria for different topics even if you say one type of page is different from another, and still have policies and guidelines that can be applied to everything. Consensus alone is not the answer if it results in guidelines that conflict, and make Wikipedia unworkable. --Gavin Collins (talk) 16:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • At this point, I don't it's possible to convince you any further on this point; everything I proposed stays within established policies and guidelines, only realigning the approach to make inclusion a more understanding approach and establishing what current practices demonstrate and what current consensus from the RFC and other locations point to. --MASEM 17:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
The essential relevant policy that applies to everything is V. Without that, we have a collection of personal essays, not an encyclopedia. But that just say we must have sources that are suitable for the purpose to write an article, not the type of sources or the number, which are the details of RS and which can and will vary with the type of article. The second point is what fields we want to write articles about, and here the answer is simple: everything. The next question is what things about of all this are appropriate or worth writing about, and this will also depend upon the topic--the basic concept is that there is a difference between trivial and non-trivial, but we can't expect the world to be divided into two clear categories, or that any general rule will apply that is not begging the question, such as "suitable for an encyclopedia" -- which might be meaningful if we meant, suitable for Brittanica or Encarta, but there has never before been an encyclopedia like this one. so we ourselves must decide without any previous expectation what we want to consider suitable. I can see no reason to expect that this will be the same in all subjects. DGG (talk) 23:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I think that that agrees with what I'm trying to put forth; we want to include more topics, limiting ourselves to prevent indiscriminate information and topics that can't be sourced or otherwise violate other policies. Application of V and RS simply help to prevent topics that don't have a lot of secondary or third-party sources to be discussed in extensive detail that break NOR and NPOV. --MASEM 01:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • In response to DGG and Masem, I don't think agree with you that the type of sources the articles require for inclusion is unimportant, because an encyclopedic article must provide analysis, critism and context, and this can only come from reliable secondary sources to avoid failing WP:NPOV. If articles were not to cite reliable secondary sources, what would be left with? Plot summary, news summary, dictionary summaries? None of this is "suitable" content on its own, since it fails the Wikipedia content policies, such as WP:NOT. This is what distinguishes Wikipedia from other wikis that are mass-edited with little oversight, such as Wookipedia. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Right, if the topic does not have sources to support a encyclopedic article on its own, it shouldn't have its own article. But that doesn't mean we don't cover the topic, particularly if it is one that global consensus says we should be covering. That topic is simply given a much smaller amount of coverage in either an appropriate parent article or a list or table of related topics with similar limited coverage. --MASEM 13:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
There remain two questions: what do we need to write a decent article, and whether we need to write an article. First, What we need to write an article is sources of sufficiently sound nature to accommodate WP:V, but that does not mean necessarily secondary sources, or sources discussing it in a substantial way, just sources reliable enough for the purpose of the content of the article. And , accordingly, the RS guideline is interpreted in a flexible way, recognizing that sources are more or less reliable, not R vs ~R. Specific sources are challenged from time to time, and we have a rather good record at finding solutions--one of them was clarifying that an particularly high grade of reliability is necessary for negative or controversial BLP. The other question is whether to write the article at all: this depends, just as Gavin says, both on the importance of the topic , and on other factors also, included in the NOTs. Further, as MASEM says, it also depends on the amount of material available, and our preferences for when to separate topics into distinct articles. I don't think this question has any direct connection with sourcing. In the not uncommon case that something is agreed to be important but no decent sources are available, we obviously cannot write an article--unless, as does happen, there is consensus to redefine the available sources as good enough. An example of this is the redefinition that the acceptable sources for obvious plot can be the work itself, rather than reviews at second-hand of the work -- and this is distinctfrom the question of how much plot to include, a matter which is not yet decided. The question for how important a thing has to be for an article given that there are sources to write it , is what we mean by the question of notability, That's why V comes first as a policy, and N a guideline. We can and do say that no matter how many fairly reliable sources there is for a trivial piece of gossip, we don't write an article about it. We need to decide whether of not , if there are good primary sources for describing the role of a character, we do or do not want to have an article about it. Thisdepends on much more than sourcing. I have my own views on this, but I agree the question remains undecided. DGG (talk) 18:09, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
You're right that V doesn't demand secondary sources (that's the GNG), but it does require that an article have third-party source. If, in the most common case of fiction characters, we can only describe the character's history from the primary source (even if the character is mentioned in passing, but not in depth, in third-party sources), we shouldn't have an article about that character (this doesn't preclude any coverage of that character in my scheme, presuming that certain types of fictional characters are considered at a global consensus as part of Wikipedia's coverage). The point about "redefining sources as good enough" is a point we need to be careful with; this is more to say that while some fields necessitate the use of peer-reviewed journals for sufficient sources, other areas lack the ability to use this, and have to resort to other types of sources. Redefining sources does not allow us to make a first-party into a third-party, or a primary into a secondary, thus changing how the source is used with respect to V/N; it only allows us to move the source along the axis of being a reliable source. --MASEM 21:26, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I still think we should allow say 10 trivial reliable third party sources to establish notability for fictional characters if they can be pieced together to create a nice article with OOU info. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 21:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

WP:N regarding Lists?

I am looking for some sort of notability guidelines on a list, regarding List of Bloc Party awards. I don't think that this is a notable list, as i think there are too many nominations from non-notable awards ceremonies as well as too few wins. Where would i find such criteria? --SteelersFanUK06 ReplyOnMine! 03:42, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Judging from many of the comments here, there is a lot of support for the idea that articles and lists are not and/or should not be covered by the same notability guidelines. However, to answer your question more directly, perhaps the closest thing to a notability guideline on lists is found at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists#Appropriate topics for lists. –Black Falcon (Talk) 04:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Inclusion debates on lists are usually based on whether the list is reasonably maintainable (List of living people is not maintainable), connects subjects that actually have something to do with each other (members of List of redheads have nothing substantial to do with each other), is encyclopedic, not original research, etc. With regard to deletion of a list for lack of notability, the only case I can think of is the deletion of lists of characters attached to a work of fiction which was itself deleted as non-notable. --erachima talk 04:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
The only way to defend a list against merger or deletion is to demonstrate that the list is itself notable and worthy of its own article by citing a reliable secondary source that contains the list. Lists which are not cited in reliable secondary sources, but are compiled by one of more editors from primary sources, is a type of original research known as synthesis. Unless you can demonstrate that the list is notable, it is likely to be viewed as a content fork from the overarching topic. --Gavin Collins (talk) 14:35, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
You appear to be speaking of articles about lists, e.g. Forbes 500, which are not the subject of discussion here. --erachima talk 00:22, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Black Falcon on this. General notability guidelines just don't work well with list articles which are for the most part just a simple or annotated compilation of related articles which are notable in their own right. Rarely will you find list sources that relate to the title of the list, but relate to the different entities in the list. The statement by erachima It's rare that a list is actually shot down for being non-notable may be true, but notability or non-notability should never be invoked as a reason to delete a list, yet it has to constantly be challenged in deletion debates. The real measures of merit for lists are the inclusion of logical and verifiable inclusion criteria in the list lead-in.--Mike Cline (talk) 21:51, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Your view reflects current thinking, on this I would agree. However, my view is that lists are really articles in which multiple topics are aggregated, an example of which would be List of New Order Jedi characters. I would have thought that the primary reason why lists are deleted at AFD is that they are not notable, even though other reasons (such as failing WP:NOT) are often the stated reason for deletion. If a list is notable, then that would usually be grounds to keep it. I admit that there is a grey area in between, but at the end of the day, GNG is the Alpha and Omega when it comes to inclusion criteria for articles, lists and aggregated topics that are halfway between the two. --Gavin Collins (talk) 11:18, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
  • If "current thinking" (aka "consensus") says that list articles are subject to different inclusion principles than the GNG, then the relevant guidelines should support that view. Remember, policy is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's clear that you personally think everyone should regard the GNG as both necessary and sufficient for inclusion, and perhaps the community will someday take that stance, but at this point it is not the case. Policy should reflect what is consensus, not what some users predict will become consensus. --erachima talk 21:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • It is true that I think lists are subject to GNG, the same as every other page in Wikipedia mainspace, but with good reason. The problem with saying that this is not necessarily supported by consensus is that there are no stated inclusion criteria for lists, or topics agrregated as lists. In the absence of any guidance at all on the subject of inclusion criteria for lists and aggregated topics, some sort of inclusion criteria must exist, and since WP:N is the only Wikipedia wide guideline on inclusion, then it must apply to lists by default. However, if you say it does not, then what are the inclusion criteria that you think do apply to lists? --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
  • The lack of evidence of something does not mean that that something doesn't exist; the fact that some lists fall out of AFDs and merge discussions successfully and without being deleted and in fact an encouraged solution, while other lists are deleted, means there is an unstated, implicit threshhold for appropriate lists that hasn't been written down or at least to a point to bring to policy or guideline. --MASEM 13:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there are no stated general inclusion criteria for lists. This is a problem that we need to resolve. I'm currently slogging my way the relevant AfDs at Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List as research, however, and I see a clear consensus among the community that should be codifiable. To summarize what I'm seeing, lists brought up on AfD are kept if:

  • They have reasonable and well-defined inclusion criteria. (i.e. they do not inherently violate WP:NPOV, the cutoffs aren't arbitrary, the grouping isn't original research, and the subjects grouped have a non-trivial relationship.)

AND they EITHER

  • group a number of verifiably related articles where presentation as a stand-alone list is deemed preferable to an integrated list or category.

OR

  • provide purely factual content related to a notable subject where presentation as a stand-alone list is deemed preferable to an integrated list or prose presentation.

For those concerned about how this would apply to fiction, note that fiction-related lists that aren't lists of media or characters are essentially always deleted as trivial. Lists of characters are often merged as well if there aren't too many major ones to reasonably fit on the main article. Both of these could be specifically noted in the guideline to prevent it being lawyered for those cases.

Anyway, I'm currently only up to AfDs for lists of subjects beginning with the letter "E", but it's been several hundred AfDs so far and they're all closing predictably on those lines, so I'm confident in my statement that those criteria do reflect current consensus on list inclusion. The question now is what page this belongs on, since it's neither wholly concerned with notability nor with style, so Wikipedia:Lists and Wikipedia:Notability are both probably unsuitable. --erachima talk 04:45, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Another obvious method of judging consensus on whether lists are under WP:N or not would be the Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise#Proposal A.4: Lists may be exempted from the GNG discussion. The discussion is not over, of course, but the vast majority opinion (including many of the oppose votes) appears to be that lists should ideally not be under WP:N. Noting that a number of both the opposes and supports worry about the lack of a replacement guideline and state concerns about how to prohibit the creation of lists of minutia, this appears to me to be a strong indicator that a guideline which defined article inclusion in non N-derived terms but prohibited trivial lists would be acceptable to nearly everyone. So, when can we start? --erachima talk 06:47, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
The inclusion guideline approach I outlined, in which we use SNGs to outline topics that should be included in WP regardless of their ability to meet the GNG, with the qualification that those that don't meet the GNG are only given brief coverage in a list, would be aligned with what you are observing, in that exactly what lists are kept or not are those where the topics in the list, factually correct but not covered in secondary sources, are not minute trivia or the like. Or, more specifically, SNGs would basically give descriptions of what lists are and are not appropriate for a field. Adding the qualifier of the first part, that the list is usually a well-bounded and well-defined, as part of the general scheme for how SNGs should be constructed, would help to prevent needless trivial list creation. --MASEM 09:54, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

DELETED Sorry - I guess I misread the topic here as Notabilty as it related to lists. Soundvisions1 (talk) 06:37, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe the page you are looking for is Forum shopping. --erachima talk 04:02, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
And that was constructive how?Soundvisions1 (talk) 04:50, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe I should be the one asking that question, considering you just dumped a giant wall of text canvassing for your ANI posting into the middle of a thread. If you have an honest question about how to judge what entries are suitable in lists of articles, please see Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists, the correct location to ask such questions. --erachima talk 05:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Too deletionist

Some aspects of WP:N are too deletionist. "Significant coverage" just begs for disputes. The requirement that some RSs should treat an article's subject as their main subject is too restrictive. See for example the discussion at Talk:4X/Archive 1, where I successfully opposed the sticking of a "notablility" tag on 4X - which is now an FA! In popular culture, sources don't examine things they regard as fundamental concepts in the way that academics do. Apart from such unnecessarily long debates on individual articles, WP:N's deletionist bias has lead to some dangerous proposals at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. I think it would be disastrous if WP:N was watered down as proposed there, but the mere existence of Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise shows widespread and deep dissatisfaction with WP:N. -- Philcha (talk) 11:01, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

There is no requirement that a topic be the main subject of a reliable source; it just needs more than trivial mention as well. There's a lot of flexibility in that. And realize that not every proposal at the RFC is being aimed for inclusion; they are purposely conflicting to gain a consensus on where notability should be for WP. --MASEM 13:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
To be more precise, WP:N says, ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail." That was significant obstacle in defending the notability of 4X, as most game-related articles are reviews of specific games and take genres for granted.
A suitable amendment for this type of case would be e.g. "... or make it clear that the subject is an important aspect of their discussion." However that's only one case. We need a fairly comprehensive list of cases where an article's notability has been questioned but non-Wikipedians without a POV or fanboy agenda would say, "Of course it's notable!" -- Philcha (talk) 13:37, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Can you give me an example of a source that makes it clear that something is important without addressing it directly?Kww (talk) 13:39, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
RM Hayes's filmography on 3-D films devotes less than a page to Bwana Devil, the vast majority of it technical information of the sort that he includes for other clearly non-notable films. However, he includes a few sentences of commentary that note "It was a classic because it started the stereoscopic boom of the fifties." This is clearly not significant coverage in the book, but it is also clearly sufficient to demonstrate notability. Yes, other sources exist for the film - but for the simple decision of whether or not to delete, the brief mention in the Hayes book that clearly indicates historical importance is sufficient. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I think that would satisfy most people's requests for direct and detailed. One can never qualify as multiple, but that is rarely the problem: it's usually zero or many, and not often one.Kww (talk) 14:08, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
It may satisfy "direct and detailed," but it seems to me to fall short of "more than trivial." Especially, coming as it does, in an attempt to list and describe exhaustively all 3-D films. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
"Significant coverage" is one of the more vague parts of WP:N. But it's defined as "more than trivial but may be less than exclusive." So no, an RS doesn't need to treat it as a main topic. It really just needs to verify some kind of substantive fact about the subject, rather than just a trivial mention. It's meant to exclude stuff like "Then Barack Obama shook hands with Cathy Sanderson from Utah." You'd need to be able to write an article that says more than "Cathy Sanderson is a woman from Utah". Having put together the RFC compromise, I'm actually reassured by the number of people who basically support WP:N. There are just disagreements on small but significant details. Randomran (talk) 13:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
"Significant coverage" seems a poor way to describe what you detail there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
You might be right. But whoever is trying to push the idea that a source must take something as its main subject, they're using WP:N too stringently and you should call them on it. Randomran (talk) 14:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Hi, Randomran, you're familiar with the case I was talking about :-)
The problem there was that it was easy to find sources that said e.g. "... is a 4X game ..." or "... as in any 4X game ...", but very difficult to find more than asides about the 4X genre itself, e.g. "... tries to solve the common micromanagment problems of 4X by ...". Common sense says, "OK, it looks like 4X is an important game genre", but the wording of WP:N makes it almost impossible to use that as a defence. The only solution I can see at present is that if several RSs make it plain that X is an important aspect of their subject, then X should be considered notable. But I'm sure this would deal with only one type of obstacle to establishing notability for things Joe Public would consider notable without a second thought. We need more data.
Re "you should call them on it", I suggest most editors do not want to be wiki-lawyers. I'd like to see a reduction of the scope for the wrong sorts of wiki-lawyers to bother editors. -- Philcha (talk) 14:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I think that a certian number of useful passing references should be allowed to establish notability, say 10. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 14:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I see where you guys are coming from, but I think WP:N already accommodates that. When you add up ten different one-off facts from several reliable third-party sources, you *do* get "significant coverage". I think that's already implied in WP:N as is, and I'd support adjusting WP:N to be more clear on that point. I think the problem here is a lack of clarity. I know people hate wikilawyering. But keep in mind the basic WP:N rule is generally clear, and it's only in these borderline cases that people start wrangling over details. And in these borderline cases, we should provide people with a measuring stick so it doesn't degenerate into WP:IHATEIT, or cherry-picking statements from other policies. When people start disputing the meaning "significant coverage", people need to remember that it's a means to an end. It's not that we're looking for a scholarly journal article on a subject to prove it's "worthiness" in some elitist sense. We're really just looking for enough verifiable facts in reliable third-party sources to write a solid non-stub article, with a statement or two about why the subject is important in its field. Randomran (talk) 15:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it does. Take me, for example: you could find references to me as presenting at dozens of engineering conferences on five or six topics; listings of hotel owners in the Netherlands Antilles; property-owners that have filed zoning amendment requests in Phoenix, Arizona; graduation lists of my high-school and college; attendance at and display of vehicles at British car shows; telephone directory listings at multiple cities; lists of executives that received funding from NEA and USVP; probably a hundred reliable, but passing, references to me just by sitting down at Google for a few hours. My full name, in quotes, gets 9130 hits. With just a middle initial, you get another 1800, and without the middle, you get 416,000 to wade through and sort. Am I notable? I think not. Multiple passing references don't equal one good one. Once you have a few good ones, you can use the passing references to flesh out an article, but without the good ones, you can't have the article.Kww (talk) 16:03, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Are any of these you? I'd be curious to see a couple of these references you mention. It would be helpful to know if allowing 10 useful passing mentions would actually make you notable. I think they would be disallowed by the "directories and databases" footnote (#6)in NOTE, which is based on NOT. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Here's a 15 minute search. If I included paper sources, it would get much, much larger.
I probably fail WP:BIO, but we have numerous people arguing that that doesn't matter ... if I meet the GNG requirement, then it doesn't matter what an SNG says. I disagree with that, but I think my Wikipedia article would be a natural consequence of attempting to loosen notability by the combination of allowing multiple passing references to establish notability and not allowing SNGs to create exclusion rules.Kww (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I didn't even look at your Google News link. PR Newswire, Silicon Valley People, and San Jose Business Journal are me, too.Kww (talk) 16:51, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I am generally inclined to agree that you shouldn't have an article. But I think the reasons for this are subtler than notability. Or, put another way, I am unconvinced that the question of whether you should have an article, whether the last episode of House should have an article, and whether a garage band should have an article are best judged on the same grounds. I am, for instance, more OK with you having an article than a garage band because of a basic bias of encyclopedias - you seem to work in more academic fields, and I think encyclopedias should generally demonstrate a bias in coverage towards academic topics where possible. (I have in the past argued that we should have articles on every scholar ever to publish a peer-reviewed article so as to provide summaries of their work. I stand by this - I think it is absolutely the case, as an encyclopedia, that academic areas are the areas we should go deepest into.) But, from the sources we have, it seems hard to formulate an overall approach. No one aspect of your article could go more than a sentence in from the sources available. And so even though, for me, the standards of notability for an engineer who has done meaningful and documented research are lower than the standards for a garage band, we can't put a good article together.
The issue there is one that's not really talked about in policy - the problem is that the available sources are hard to synthesize into a coherent whole. Whereas with Bwana Devil (to go back to the example of something that has a trivial reference in a book, but where that trivial reference should be sufficient), even if all we have is the Hayes book and the film we can at least get some historical notes, some production commentary, and a basic description of the film. That is, with two sources, we can put together something that looks like an article. (As it happens we have more, but that's beside the point - the Hayes book and the film would be sufficient for a usable article.)
But this is a subtle approach to sources and organization, and I'm not sure it distills well to policy declaration. Which may be why, in practice, article inclusion is decided not by rigid and dogmatic application of policy, but via discussions at AfD. Rigidity may not be to our advantage. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
But your answer does touch on the reason I oppose x passing references = notability argument. If there isn't a reliable, third party analysis (i.e. a direct and detailed examination) to base the article on, the whole structure of the article teeters dangerously close to original research.Kww (talk) 18:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes and no - I think it's a mistake to believe that article structure can come in any sort of direct way from sources. I think NOR is a very poorly phrased policy these days, and that its focus on pulling everything directly and transparently from sources is an utterly unrealistic vision of how writing happens. So I think we have to be careful about what we label as original research in this context. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:00, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(redent) You're just about notable. I may write an article about you. Some of those links you provided were just directory information, but this is pretty good. If there were ten references of that size, where each added something that the others did not, I think that should be allowed.

Lets see:
Kevin Wayne Williams ... BS in Computer Engineering from Iowa State University,designed telecom products for the Lucent /GTE joint venture(AGCS),[1] chief technical officer of Mayan (founded in 1998),[2], appointed vice president of marketing of Paxonet Communications( 09-OCT-01),[3]

You get enough of these, a nice article can be put together. This type of reference doesn't add anything, and wouldn't be counted towards the ten. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 19:24, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem is that references like those ones do not really provide a general context for the information. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
The irony of taking my own bio to AFD may prove too much for me, though.Kww (talk) 20:27, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, I only really advocate this approach for fictional characters, where a lot of first party sources will also exist. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 22:33, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
I think the issue is whether sufficient sources exist to be able to synthesize them usefully. A bunch of one-line mentions when that is the whole of the information available is very, very different from a single one-line mention (a la the Bwana Devil example I've given before) and substantial primary source material. We can write a good article out of the latter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 23:53, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Sorry to interject, but someone needs to back up KWW here and make the obvious point that for many of us WP:N is not nearly rigorous enough; we look forward to the day when standards for inclusion tighten in order to allow the project to live up to the name encyclopedia. Eusebeus (talk) 00:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • "A literary work containing extensive information on all branches of knowledge," quoth the OED. Also notable: Encyclopedic, meaning " Of, pertaining to, or resembling an encyclopædia; that aims at embracing all branches of learning; universal in knowledge, very full of information, comprehensive." The root is shared with "encyclic," that is, encircling or complete. Which is to say, exclusion of knowledge is the opposite of encyclopedicness. Phil Sandifer (talk) 01:31, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
    • Did you mean standards for deletion? I mean, once the deletioners push through the new set of deletion rules for the new texts, it would be fair to delete all the existing texts that fail them. Welcome to a sterile brave new world. But it won't happen simply because noone will have the guts to assign this to a robot, and there are not enough un-robots to nuke 1 or 2 million under-texts (look at WP:FARC productivity for an example). So the current double standards will prevail, and the war for/against deletion will go on. BTW, isn't encyclopedia a comprehensive written compendium? NVO (talk) 08:04, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
      • If presume that encyclopedia's are to be all encompassing, then why doesn't Encyclopedia Britannica have information on all these topics that we tend to disallow? It's pretty much that both WP and EB have selected a certain editorial level to make the respective projects manageable and usable. The nature of WP, being able to be edited by anyone, brings about significant problems of maintaining the work as to meet the rest of WP's mission; even right now, we have realistically too few editors to manage the millions of pages. Notability, or whatever it may end up being, along with other policies is a metric that at least helps to determine when user-created topics should be removed or relocated so that we can help keep the amount of maintenance to a minimum. --MASEM 13:48, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
        • Because the EB is limited by numerous financial constraints - originally by the restrictions of paper, and subsequently by the fact that their business model depends on paying contributors, and so they can't afford to produce an unlimited number of articles. Our volunteer approach and our existence as a web resource first makes it feasible for us to cover everything. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
          • But we have similar limitations, maybe not financial, maybe not size (directly), but we do lack the editorial nature that a commercial published work has. That is, while there may be registered "editors" in the 100,000s, I would probably venture to say that only on the order of 1,000 to 5,000 are performing editor-type duties, making sure articles are written in a quality manner, they are factual, etc. There is no deadline, but the in-box pile of articles to be checked is far exceeding the out-box of those that have, and at somepoint that weight is going to collapse this system, if there are not quick-fail checks (CSD) and other criteria that can quickly evaluate an article's merit. The other thing to remember is that Wikipedia is not the only web site on the planet ; we don't have to cover everything. It's great if people come to WP as a resource for looking up things first, but we shouldn't be the only stop. Nor should we replicate the work that others have already done otherwheres on WP, if it is as comprehensive (if not more so) as we would want for WP. --MASEM 14:05, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Masem: As Phip Sandifer said below, it's Pokemon vs. Mozart. Going a bit further, the difference between WP and Britannica is not as much in the quality of articles and their sources as such, as it is the absence of a top-down, universal editorial management: Pokemon and Mozart are written in different worlds. WP is fragmented into communities that set their own different attitudes to quality, notability etc. (plus scores of "unincorporated" editors like yours truly). The organized communities enforce their version of policies through so-called consensus; the mob of strangers keeps on throwing more firewood that the fire can consume. So the bulk of substandard texts increases in number. Who can control its growth and how? I cannot imagine any "supreme will" to clean up the mess in the foreseeable future; do you? Filtering the stream of new texts is a must, but what about 1 or 2 million of existing candidates for deletion? NVO (talk) 18:29, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, but as has been pointed out, it's probably a mistake to think that we can transform an editor who wants to write articles on individual Pokemon into an editor who is going to check and improve articles on American history, or whatever. Yes, we need quality control on existing articles, but I see no evidence that slowing article creation leads to that quality. I would also add the caveat that the drive to not replicate ought include the condition that the comprehensive work is free content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Phil Sandifer: I would draw attention to a somewhat different perspective. It's not just about futility of converting Pokemon or Younameit fans. It's about different treatment of different subcultures of the same kind. For some reason, it happens. Which raises doubts of commercial interest involved: these cultures are, after all, business franchises. Why, in the world, did WP remove all texts on Sony digital cameras, and why it preserves the texts on Nikon products? Beats me, but this double standard treatment is against WP credibility. What do you think can stop it in the future? NVO (talk) 18:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The decision making process of Wikipedia is never going to attain consistency. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
              • I don't expect to be able to convert all editors to QC-type editors, but it is the case that the increase in QC-type editors is outpaced by a "normal" editor that's more interested in making sure their favorite topic is covered. We should definitely not slow article creation due to this, but instead have better checkpoints once an article is created to quickly allow it to continue or to get rid of it (though CSD and clear notability requirements); we'll still always have articles that need further discussion to determine their merits, but brighter lines on what notability is will help reduce the number of discussions, and thus save more time for everyone involved. On external comprehensive sites, there's no requirement they have to be free; if the external site is the de facto most complete resource for a topic but is a commercially owned site, we still can point to it for followup information. It would be nice if all external content was free (as in speech) but that's not likely; so we only mandate that the content on en.wiki remain free. --MASEM 15:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
                • Well, and I'm not going to argue for universal inclusionism. The "pedia" part of "encyclopedia" also needs to be considered - coming from the same root as pedagogy, it means knowledge or teaching. So an encyclopedia is a work that encompasses all knowledge or teaching. The question of what knowledge is or is not is a genuine one, and plenty of stuff fails to meet that cut. And that's where WP:N comes in - but to say that exclusion is at the heart of us becoming more encyclopedic is silly - that's manifestly not what encyclopedic means. As for freedom, if no free resource exists in an area of knowledge, our goal is to create one - that's part of the point. Making sure that there's a free content resource for all knowledge. Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
                  • I don't think exclusion is the right approach either - it is too negative; I'm strongly for emphasizing inclusion over that. However, and this is a key point, inclusion is not the same as "having an article about it". We can include a lot of information and be comprehensive, but it helps in maintenance and the like by organizing that information in a way to provide the "just right" amount of articles to adequetely cover the topic per WP's mission and policies. In many of the cases of disputed articles, I would argue that the inclusion of that topic is not the issue, but the fact that it's been given its own article is what really is the core of the discussion. I've been trying to push that we can include a lot more topics in WP, as long as we are well aware that not all topics make for good encyclopedic articles if placed in an article by itself due to lack of sources, tendencies to go into OR and POV, and the like; in such cases, we push those topics to a smaller number of list/table articles so that we still achieve the ability to maintain them while still covering that topic. There, however, are always still going to be topics we don't cover (The average human being, for example), typically per WP:NOT, and we need to be aware that these topics areas do exist. That is, given the mission and policies, there is no way that we can always create a free resource for an area of knowledge that doesn't otherwise exist; we'd like to , but we need to be practical too. --MASEM 16:43, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
                    • You'll get no argument from me on the difference between inclusion and having its own article - I've been arguing that the two issues need to be separated for months. I'd prefer to address inclusion as the primary issue, and then sort out article division (which is primarily a technical concern due to WP:SIZE from there. I do think it's important to distinguish between knowledge and data as well - the "pedia" in encyclopedia is related to teaching and learning. That is, it does not demand that we be a compendium of all facts, but of a higher order of stuff - knowledge. The point of WP:N should be to distinguish knowledge from facts. But there are many areas where it seems to me to do a very inadequate job of that task. Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

One other point, continuing to use me as an example. I know that the arsonist from Texas and the winner of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force leadership award are not me. How would anyone else come to that conclusion? I suspect that me and those two other men named "Kevin Wayne Williams" are the only ones that can make that judgement reliably.Kww (talk) 13:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Though even if two of the sources dealt with you non-trivially, it seems like this problem would likely exist. Phil Sandifer (talk) 13:55, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
It's reduced significantly by a good third-party source, though. The Bonaire Reporter article is close, but it isn't really independent (a small island newspaper interviewing a major advertiser doesn't try hard to dig up dirt). If it was independent, it probably would mention major things like arson convictions. Since it isn't, even if the guy in Texas was me, you can be pretty damn sure I wouldn't have mentioned it when I was attempting to promote my hotel.Kww (talk) 14:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, and I apologize for returning to my hobby horse on this one, but part of the problem here is the distinction between independent and dependent sources. Because we're trying to judge notability entirely on independent sources, we have what should be a fairly clear cut case (you) coming in unnervingly close to the line, despite the fact that we could not actually write a decent article about you. The problem is that the overall sources for you don't give us any way in to a comprehensive view. But in cases where the secondary sources are slender but significant primary source material exists, we can often write a better article than we can on something with more secondary sources all of which treat the subject more briefly. (For example, my hypothetical of Bwana Devil based only on the brief Hayes mention and the film. Which, again, yes, more sources for Bwana Devil can be found - but it's wholly plausible that such an article would be created and taken to AfD without someone finding more sources.)
This is something I wish that our inclusion standards handled better. The existence of multiple independent sources is, I think, inadequately correlated to our ability to write a good article on the topic. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:00, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I'll rock my little horse one more time: I'm not a borderline case at all. I'm not examined directly and in detail by multiple third-party sources. I'm a passing mention in a myriad of third-party sources, and clearly fail WP:N.Kww (talk) 15:22, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree that we shouldn't have an article about you. But I think that claim is debatable under WP:N, whereas in practice it is not at all debatable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:45, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Significance shall be demonstrated through thine coverage, and the level of thine coverage shall be significant. — CharlotteWebb 15:10, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
Any reason that you posted a link to your rather uncivil post? Fram (talk) 15:13, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The original purpose of this thread is to determine what the hell "significant coverage" actually means. What I have provided here is but one of many possible explanations. I believe this phrase confuses everyone except for its original author, but I can only speak with complete certainty for myself (and frankly I'm stumped). If you have no sense of humor I accept your apology in advance. — CharlotteWebb 15:24, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
The compromise between two conflicting logical positions is all too often an illogical position. WP:N is the digested end result of a great number of these compromises. Phil Sandifer (talk) 15:12, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
We don't seem to be getting any closer to a clarification. Would anyone object if I edited into WP:N something like:
A subject may also be notable if a reasonable number of reliable sources do not discuss it in detail but refer to it in ways that make it clear that the subject is an important aspect of what the sources are discussing in detail
and refer to the 4X debate as a precedent and give the examples I gave above ("... is a 4X game ...", "... as in any 4X game ...", "... tries to solve the common micromanagment problems of 4X by ...")? -- Philcha (talk) 09:50, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I would not recommend this change, at least using the 4X debate as a rationale for it. First, it is creep in the guideline, and also introduces the word "important", which notability is not. The debate itself is pretty much you vs McKay, so really doesn't reflect a common problem that needs to be solved. I know at the time of that debate the article was in much different shape than it is now, but still, it's definitely the situation that comes under the "common sense" part of N; you have a term that really had no formal definition in reliable sources but gains acceptable use in them over time, and when compared to similar articles, there's more than just the definition that can be written about. --MASEM 11:33, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Trivial sources are not acceptable for article inclusion, so don't make this proposed change. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented, not mention it in passing. --Gavin Collins (talk) 10:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Gavin Collins, I note that you're interested in Role-playing games, which are fairly simple to define and hence the OED includes a definition. Even so the OED definition as quoted in John Kim's cited web page is leaky, as Kim points out. After that we only have Kim's word for it. If I were a wiki-lawyer I think I could make a strong case that most of the current citations for Role-playing game fall short of WP:RS as currently interpreted and those that meet WP:RS are not relevant to notability. Fortunately I'm not a wiki-lawyer and have no doubt that in real life RPGs are more notable than e.g. the latest obscure fossil described in a peer-reviewed journal (BTW I'm an active paleontology editor, so that last statement is not prejudice and I can back it up with a list of published but uninformative fossils).
Other subjects, such as 4X or Life, as more complex because of the range of real or apparent exceptions. As a result most discussions avoid definition and assume that readers will easily recognise an instance. That does not mean that they are not notable by any common-sense interpretation of "notable".
And that's the problem - WP:Notability is out of touch with common sense and needs to be adjusted. It works fine for academic subjects like paleontology or accountancy, which I note is another of your interests, but not for non-academic subjects. As I commented at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources#Too_academic_and_corporatist, part of the problem is the statement of WP:RS. However WP:Notability has its own problems with subjects that are either so well-understood that no-one writes about them in their own right or so complex or uncertainly-defined that sources avoid the general issues and only deal with instances. -- Philcha (talk) 11:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Your view that WP:N is out of touch with common sense is very contraversial view, since the common theme in the notability guidelines is the requirement for verifiable objective evidence, which most editors would agree is not only common sense but is intuitive, since substantial coverage in reliable sources can be evaluated, wheras trivial coverage is too thin to stand up well to questions relating to its subject matter and intepretation of its content. This is what distinguishes WP:N from other proposed inclusion criteria, since an article that contains non-trivial reliable secondary sources is less likely to be a content fork, since content forks tend to be based on a mix of primary and trivial secondary sources. You should also take into account that trivial sources do not dovetail with Wikipedia content polices, in particular WP:NOR, which warns that "Material published by reliable sources can be put together in a way that constitutes original research". I would agree with you that articles such as Role-playing game are poorly sourced, but changing WP:N so that articles can be based purely on trivial sources will not improve matters. --Gavin Collins (talk) 12:09, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
My view that WP:N is out of touch with common sense may be very controversial with editors of WP:N, but the mere existence Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise shows that that there's a problem. I find some most of the proposals at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise very worrying, and that's why I think the problems should be fixed at source, not by dangerous bolt-ons.
I'd be grateful if you could define "trivial coverage" - that seems to be a non-trivial question, as there's quite a debate going on about it in the next thread down this page.
Are you actually saying that at present Role-playing game fails to prove notability? -- Philcha (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
  • There is indeed a debate going on at Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, but that does not necessarily validate or invalidate your or my viewpoint regarding WP:N, and I think debates of this sort actually are a good indication of how important the guideline it is, regardless of whether you love it or hate it. You should contribute to the debate (if you have not done so already) to make your views known, and so that other editors understand what your position on the various proposals are.
    I would tend to define "trivial coverage" in reliable secondary sources as meaning content that does not provide context, analysis, critisism or insight that is not reasoned or argued at length. In the absense of non-trivial content from reliable secondary sources, articles tend to be comprised of synthesis, or have insufficient content such they fail one or more parts of WP:NOT.
    As regards the article role-playing game, I would say that its sources fail WP:RS, but in my view, I presume this topic is notabile, and evidence of this could be provided if the better sources were to be added to the article. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I have contributed to Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise, opposing the bolt-ons and stating that the underlying problems in WP:N and WP:RS should be fixed.
I understand your points about "trivial coverage", WP:OR and WP:SYNTH, and agree with them to some extent.
IMO one cannot apply WP:OR and WP:SYNTH absolutely literally, as any encyclopedia article selects and summarises. Re WP:SYNTH in particular, I'm happy if the result in an article is not a statement that would not shock the authors of the sources. E.g. if source A says fossil F is found in rocks R and source B says rocks R are dated to X MYA, then I'd be happy with "fossil F dates to X MYA" and would use that, as the names of rock formations will be meaningless to the vast majority of readers.
Back to the nitty-gritty. Suppose that: source S1 says game G1 has typical feature F1 of game genre X, source S2 says game G2 has typical feature F2 of game genre X, ... source S9 says game G9 has typical feature F9 of game genre X. Is game genre X notable?
BTW if role-playing game fails WP:RS, then AFAIK it fails WP:N automatically. What do you think? If you are of the same opinion and wish to save role-playing game, give me a call and I'll see if I can help find some WP:RS to show notability. -- Philcha (talk) 08:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I am glad you have contributed to Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. I agree with you that you cannot apply WP:SYNTH absolutely literally, but I disagree the example you have given, which I would view as a classic example of WP:SYNTH. It would be much better to have a source that says what it means, i.e. "fossil F dates to X MYA", rather than infering this. As regards the article role-playing game, I would agree with you that it currently fails WP:N because none of the sources satisfy WP:RS. However, I don't expect the article to be deleted anytime soon, as I believe the quality of its sources could be improved. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
Re role-playing game, just wait until you get a drive-by tagger or someone with an axe to grind - I've been involved in such a situation recently, where someone was advocating speedy deletion. My offer of help stands if you want to take it, as I have no doubt that a sane non-Wikipeidan would consider RPGs notable.
Re the fossil instance, a new type of dating tech came into use in 2000. A late 1990s source which is still a valid analysis of fossil F could only give the date in stratigraphic terms, which are meaningless to the vast majority of readers. So I'd add the MYA date when available, for the benefit of readers. -- Philcha (talk) 09:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Individual comic books

I've used than analogy before that writing an article about an individual TV episode is akin to writing an article about an individual issue of a comic book. I was surprised to find this category today, which is, indeed, a series of articles about stories from individual comic books. For people not familiar with the format, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck and Walt Disney Comics and Stories normally have a lead story which is one-third to one-half the issue, with other stories fleshing out the book. These are the lead stories.

I'd like to get a general sense of people's thoughts on the notability of this class of article before I nominate the whole lot at AFD.

Before people start the h8er remarks, I own the complete Carl Barks Library and have identified Uncle Scrooge as my personal hero in published interviews.—Kww (talk) 15:53, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Where in that pdg are you? The search function isn't working for me. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
Full page interview with 1/8 page photograph on page 17. Caution, though: I was a major advertiser at the time of the interview, so that source is a tad dubious in terms of being completely independent. You can get a different view of the truck in Morris Minor if you want.Kww (talk) 01:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
Nice truck. That article could be the glue that holds together all the trivial references. I probably won't write an article on you, since I mostly do articles on fiction. But, I could make an article that is AfD proof with the various sources you've mentioned. Sorry about the tech crash. I had a cousin who was worth more than a million on paper before the crash, and he was about 15 years old. He registered a bunch of common words under .com like flesh.com and scuba.com. His partner refused to sell. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I would...suggest merging, but that's on the weakness of the sources that do help provide some background on Carl Bank's writing. The sources in each article (the ones I spot checked, at least) are not your usual RS, but eventually point to more RS-type sources. A list might be better served here for the more notable ones (that can be sourced to the background info) but definitely each should not have its own article. The analysis section in each seems awfully ORish. --MASEM 16:00, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
They should probably be merged. You could probably establish notability for a lot of these, but that would be a really massive undertaking. There are a number of entire books on Carl Barks, but you won't be able to easily find everything using the internet, even google books. If you did want to establish notability for one, I would start with Back to the Klondike. Here are a couple of refs.[4] [5]. You'd probably have to go to the library and get this book as well. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 16:27, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
If I had a week's time and access to some specific sources that are difficult, but not impossible to get, I could write articles on the vast majority of these that were based primarily on sources by a tenured full professor at a major research institution.
Which is to say, no, don't merge. I have no idea when these articles will be improved, but it's possible to improve all of them, and the existing articles are genuinely useful starts for doing so. And, actually, if you own the right edition of the Carl Barks Library, you can do it - if it's the one with essays by Don Ault, those should give you sources for most of these. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:33, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

These are borderline in my opinion (with a few truly notable exceptions). The problem is where to merge them, since it would become a quite long page if it listed all of them. We also have Category:Donald Duck comics by Don Rosa. I think things like Star Wars Legacy 4 are worse, but perhaps I underestimate the notability (number of good sources) for individual Star Wars comics. Fram (talk) 14:15, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

The Don Rosa comics are, on the whole, less notable. However the Carl Barks stuff is almost all sourceable. Those comics were the best-selling comics of their day, and their day was a day when comics sold far more than they do today. That, combined with the surprising depth of academic attention, makes individual articles uniquely justified there. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me restart what I think should be done. Between these articles and the sources, there is good material for an article, by itself, on "Donald Duck comics written by Carl Barks" (maybe not the best title, but go with it for now). There's a lot describing how Barks' life and background influenced the comics, and in the case of many of the Scrooge ones, went on to become the basis for DuckTales episodes. Are the individual comics notable? Not really, and when you strip out the influence and subsequent followup, all you are left with in most of those are a story and this OR-ish "analysis" section. All those can be collapsed to a list within this article I'm talking about to not lose perspective on the overall approach, but still at least describe the individual comics in a small amount of detail. I'm sure it can be argued that one or two of these comics could be their own article, but I believe a more comprehensive article (that can go to FA) can be obtained by grouping them together. --MASEM 14:29, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)Or, even better, the Carl Barks article is good so far, not too large, and more discussion of his influences can be put there. There is also List of Disney comics by Carl Barks that exists that includes the articles in this catagory. This list, I believe, can be safely expanded to include brief plot descriptions for each entry as well as in the case of a few notable points, included in that. (a paragraph for each). That's another approach here. I just feel each individual article is not going to be as strong as a well-developed grouping. --MASEM 14:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
The individual comics are notable. Not one or two - the majority of Carl Barks's full-length Uncle Scrooge stories are notable. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure that the comics are not non-notable, but the degree of notability isn't strong. But this is a case where I think while they may be notable, a better result can occur by grouping the topics, not to the point of just stating the comic title, but not at the same level of detail each article currently has without additional and significant sources. --MASEM 14:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
To clarify, Carl Barks really is a special case in comics. There are two academic books on them - [6] and [7], plus a book of interviews with Carl Barks conducted primarily by an academic [8]. On top of that, Don Ault (who edited the Conversations book) published numerous essays in the Carl Barks Library that are scholarly, academic, and rigorous, as well as some other publications on Barks. (The list can be found on his CV: [9].) There's easily another book-length of material there. Among the four sources, most of these can establish notability and have good, detailed articles, with some of the most commented upon having a fair shot at FA. You're really under-estimating the amount of coverage here. Were it any other comics creator you'd be right, but Barks really is unusual. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:43, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
I guess with the current state of the comic articles it is difficult to assess that. I think a good idea if someone were up to it would be to fully expand one of those comic articles to show what the academic sources provide. Here's my point of caution: from what I read of what you're saying and what is there for what the above sources say, much of these sources seem pointing at the general tone and approach of Barks' writing style, instead of directly dissecting an individual comic. Maybe they are, maybe they're not; I don't know so I can't judge accurately. But if the sources are more in the tone of the former topic on Barks' style which cite examples from comics at times, one may end up with a better article with my suggested organizations rather than splitting up the articles along the lines of Barks' bio and the comics individually. For example, and this is completely made up, say that your books state that the Scrooge comics are all allusions to a singular real-life individual. If you kept the current set of articles (Carl Barks, individual comics), this theme would be spread out across all 20-some articles and may not be coherent in nature or would be duplicating content across the articles. With an organization of two articles, one on Carl, one on these comics as a whole, that point is more coherent and can be demonstrated more easily. Now, if any individual comic in this scheme is more notable than just Carl's influence on the writing, it can still be broken out as a separate article, referring to the themes section in either of the existing ones and adding the additional notable information.
I am not trying to discourage the development of these comic articles, I understand this is a unique case compared to the average book you can get today. I'm not doubting their notability, but I'm thinking from more of a what will be a more comprehensive approach to giving all these articles the proper due given the overall notability. --MASEM 15:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think it is a question of whether a subject is notable in the opinion of one or more editors; what is required is evidence of notability, not belief of notability. I agree with Kww that an article about an individual comic book is akin to writing an article about an individual issue of a TV episode; it is probably the over-arching series that is notable, rather than the individual issue or episode. I view the articles that make up Category:Donald Duck comics by Carl Barks as content forks. However, I could not say what article they are forks from: it could be the series, the genre, the author, the publisher or just a fork from Donald Duck direct, which already has a section on Carl Barks. Unless evidence can be found that the individual articles are notable, I would support deletion, as failing WP:N is a good indicator that they fail other content polices, such as WP:NOT#PLOT. --Gavin Collins (talk) 13:43, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

As I've gone over the list, I've satisfied myself that if I was going to write articles on individual Carl Barks stories, these would be on it. They do seem to be a list of stories that were written up in the histories of Carl Barks, so they could be sourced. That's akin to how I've argued TV should be handled: I don't think that every TV episode is notable, but I don't think all TV episodes are non-notable, either. Taking care of them somehow is on my to-do list. I'll probably start with unsourced tags, and see where it goes from there. The whole Disney area is a mess, not just the Disney Channel. Most of the articles there could be sourced much, much better than they are.—Kww(talk) 16:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course. Many episodes contain only plot summary and should be rolled into list of episodes. Wikiproject Stargate did a good job of this, leaving blue links only for articles where sources would allow for at least a GA article. I think the case against comic issues is even stronger, just because comic issues don't receive as much attention from reliable sources, but the exceptions prove the rules. I just don't want to give the comics wikiproject any ideas.... Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:08, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Believe me, we're not going to get any ideas. The comics WikiProject is on the side of quality over cruft, and has routinely avoided and pushed back against succumbing to fanboyism. Know your friends from your enemies. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, but deletion is not for articles that can be improved. WP:NOT#PLOT is not an unfixable problem for articles where notability can be established and where sources are readily available. Deletion and merging are inappropriate for such articles. They need improvement. But we're talking about major works that are the subject of more academic criticism than almost any other comics writer in existence. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not endorsing list cruft. But while individual episodes might not be notable, reliable sources about production and reception for seasons and such of tv episodes can, thus how a list format is useful (some series break it into seasons, with the main list for navigational purposes, so it's a moot question either way.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 17:46, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the best course of action before merging/deleting these is to see how one or two of theme can be improved with additional sources. I take good faith (and my own awareness of these books) that they are likely more sources out there and probably more academic than your usual comic book-referring source. However, it really would help to see these used to flesh out one or two of these. If they are clearly notable, then great, I'll AGF that the rest can be grown to meet the same (again, given this is not all of Barks' stores, just a selected cross section). However, if they can't be brought beyond what they are now, then lets talk the best course of action then. --MASEM 18:02, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There is no time limit. If the articles are likely to be improvable, we can have sub-par but still usable articles indefinitely while we wait for someone with access to the Carl Barks Library and time to work on them to improve them. Phil Sandifer (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
  • What is need is evidence the articles can be improved, not a unquestioning belief that they can be improved. In the absence of notability, it occurs to me that reorganisation would be wholly appropriate now, bearing in mind that articles can be restored or reinstated at any time. I think the burden of evidence that these topics are notable falls on the editor who created the article in the first place. Assuming that somebody (or nobody) will add sources later is not the point; if Kww wants to regorganise these articles, he should go right ahead. --Gavin Collins (talk) 18:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I have given multiple sources that could be used to improve the articles. This is not some sort of blind faith that the articles can be improved - I've given a list of sources. This is evidence. The existence of two books plus at least another book's worth of material on Carl Barks's Donald Duck comics is evidence that sources exist for these. Merging stuff when you know there are sources to consult is irresponsible at best, and a flat-out violation of policy at worst. Phil Sandifer (talk) 18:32, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
I'll disagree on that last part: deleting it would be irresponsible, but redirecting until sources can be found is a judgement call. In this case, I probably wouldn't do it, but I can envision a lot of situations where the right thing to do is to have a good merged article that you can source, with the material you can't source being ready for resurrection when the sources are found. I'm going to have to get into storage to get my whole CBL back in the house. One problem there is that they aren't truly independent: the CBL is in a nasty gray zone about demonstrating notability for works by Carl Barks.—Kww(talk) 18:42, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
In general, I agree with you about the CBL - that's why I pointed specifically to the Ault articles in there. He's a respected scholar in the field of comics studies who has published extensively on Barks, both in and out of the CBL - he, I think, can serve as an establishment of notability even when he's published in the CBL. Phil Sandifer (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
  2. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
  3. ^ See Wikipedia:Notability (people)#Lists of people
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