Wikipedia talk:Notability (awards and medals)

Request for comment on Notability essay on awards and medals

There were three recent AfDs ([1], [2], [3]) which were closed as no consensus and contained some controversial claims about "state awards are always notable". In addition one of these AfDs was cited by BD2412 as an example of a difficult close at a general AfD discussion.

I would like comments on this essay and improving it in order to help discussions at AfDs. Thank you.   // Timothy :: talk  01:24, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I generally support merging topics of borderline nobility into the article representing the next higher level of abstraction until such time as sources supporting the utility of a stand-alone article are provided. BD2412 T 01:38, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I see what you're aiming for with this, but I'd prefer to see some elaboration w/r/t your definition of exclusionary and invalid criteria. Of course, I don't think there's any hard-fast rule for how an essay should be structured, but I think it'd be more useful if there was some explanation of how you settled on what criteria to include in each category (for example, how did you decide on the exclusionary criteria?), rather than just a conclusory statement of "rule." Just something to think about. -- ExParte ^{talk | contribs} 17:29, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

• This is not a valid RfC because it does not pose a clear question; it's just an open-ended appeal for comment. See WP:RFCBRIEF for examples of good and bad questions. Andrew🐉(talk) 12:45, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• Hi Andrew Davidson, WP:RFCBRIEF says, "Statements are often phrased as questions" - while RfCs are often phrased as questions, sometimes they are not. In this case, this is not a question, just a simple request for comments; the examples of good and bad questions doesn't apply. This is my first RfC, so if I'm wrong about this, someone please let me know.   // Timothy :: talk  18:01, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• The point is that, if you don't have a clear, crisp question, then you're just inviting people to ramble all over the place and then it's not easy to close the RfC with a clear consensus.
• Moving on, the next point is that this is an essay and so has no special force or value at AfD. I could write another essay saying that official government medals are notable and it seems that there's plenty of editors who would agree.
• The next point is that creating pages like this is contrary to several policies and guidelines including WP:NOTLAW; WP:CREEP; WP:OR; WP:IAR; &c. Nobody has put the OP in charge of Wikipedia and so they have no authority to create rules for the rest of us. We already have more than enough rules and, if you won't obey the existing ones that I cited, then we have anarchy and chaos.

Andrew🐉(talk) 18:27, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• Reply: 1) I'm not looking for a consensus on a question, I'm this is a simple request for comments. It can be closed in 30 days. 2) yes like all essays they are opinions. You can write another opinion.

Regarding the pages you mention: WP:CREEP - "If you just think that you have good advice for Wikipedians, consider adding it to an essay." - this is exactly what I've done? why do you think it is contrary to policies and guidelines?; WP:OR, WP:NOTLAW, WP:IAR - have nothing to do with writing essays;

"We already have more than enough rules" an essay is not a rule, a policy or a guideline. It is an essay.

"if you won't obey the existing ones that I cited" - I'm following policies and guidelines. you are citing policies and guidelines incorrectly; one above specifically states: WP:CREEP - "If you just think that you have good advice for Wikipedians, consider adding it to an essay.", but you claim this as a reason not to write a page like this - an essay.

Others can consider your comments above and judge their merits. If you have comments on how to improve the essay, please add them; if you feel it should just be deleted, you have the option of listing this at WP:MFD.   // Timothy :: talk  19:14, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• The point is that if you are going to write an essay, you should structure it as an opinion piece. That is not what you have done – you have written a proto-guideline. So it is not unreasonable for people to criticise it on the basis that it's going to be put forward as an official guideline, or used as a de facto guideline.

I've unhidden this thread in this edit. Since you have not asked a specific question, it cannot be said that this has gone off topic. SpinningSpark 09:30, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• The criteria are nonsense; the first one is GNG and the rest just repeat our guidelines on how GNG and other policies are applied. There are no other substantive criteria in the sense that WP:PROF provides for instance. Also, you cannot demand that a page meets all criteria when the first one is GNG. That is directly against our notability guideline; if GNG is met then it is notable, period. So basically it says GNG. That only needs to be a single sentence with a link. Much of the rest of the page constitutes useful and sensible guidance though.

If the hope of this RFC is that this essay may become an official guideline, I have to agree with Andrew that we don't need more rules for the sake of it. We develop subject-specific guidelines for areas where large numbers of non-notable articles are created. I don't think that applies to medals at all. That's a very limited number of articles in total. For awards, yes, I've seen the occassional NN come up, often as part of promotion of the org that awards it. But is that really happening at a level where GNG is not dealing with it? Or that truly notable awards are getting deleted because sources are hard to find online? I don't think so. The publicity surrounding notable awards is inevitably enough to make sources easy to find. SpinningSpark 09:09, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• The things that make SSGs like WP:PROF and WP:POLITICIAN and WP:NFOOTBALL "useful" (if that is the right word) is that they contain specific "rules" that editors can use to quickly assess whether or not certain articles are more or less de facto notable-- if you happen to know that SSG. Does a given academic hold a named chair? Doesn't matter if you can't find any other references that discuss them, they are considered notable; has a person running for political office held that office at the state level or higher? No? Then they don't get an article, no matter how much coverage they may get (since all such coverage is considered routine coverage). What this RfC doesn't seem to do (for me) is give me such a rule-- and the editors above would complain if such a rule were created, since they feel there are already "too many rules". But without such a rule, this essay just ends up saying, "If it meets GNG, then it's notable", which is tautological. So there's no way to win here. A new rule is exactly what we need to help us quickly assess whether or not a given award is notable, and that rule, like the rules around academics and politicians, needs to be meaningful and useful and a little outside the GNG or it doesn't serve any real purpose. I would also take issue with the idea that we can look at the background of any given award and determine that it is not notable because of how it has historically been assigned-- to me, that doesn't matter. Neither does it matter if the award is one that people pay to receive. If that award has been discussed in multiple reliable independent sources in depth, then we should have an article on it. And that article should say, "This award is routinely given to persons paying a set fee and has no substantive meaning as an award of merit," or something similar. We shouldn't "punish" such awards by deleting them, we should include them and explain why they are pointless awards if they have been the subject of suitable coverage, including negative coverage. I realize that this then gets tricky if people start referencing such awards and including links to them as though they are evidence of notability, because the award "seems" to show evidence of notability of a person, because we host an article on the award. THAT is a larger problem with how we assess notability of persons based on their awards. But to me, an award is notable if it gets coverage, even if it is a meaningless award. Would be handy to have a rule, though. A loose necktie (talk) 14:53, 11 August 2022 (UTC)