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Misplaced Pages:Relevance

• See also Misplaced Pages talk:Relevance (and archives)

Once again, there is a difference between non-notable and non-referenced.

There seems to be a growing body of users who are getting confused on this point, as I've had it three times in the last two months. So let me be clear:

As I understand it, A lack of references is evidence of nothing other than a lack of references. A lack of references does not imply that the topic is non-notable.

In spite of this being obvious to me, as I said, I've had three people claim the opposite in the last two months. Let's FIX THE DEFINITION to make this clear.

Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:55, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A lack of references can mean a lack of effort on the part of editors, or truly something truly un-reference-able. And I think the AFD process does a decent job of tackling that: no consensus defaults to keep, and you need a consensus that there's no references to delete. Among the editors who chime in, it's really not hard to find one or two reliable third-party sources -- it's a pretty low standard. And even if an article is wrongfully deleted, there's WP:DRV, and there's the ability to WP:USERFY the article until the sources can be found. I agree this is worth clarifying though. This guideline already says that "notability is distinct from fame or importance", so maybe we can expand on that. Randomran (talk) 20:03, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Keep definition as is. No RS - no topic to discuss. NVO (talk) 20:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right that a lack of references is not an indication that something is non-notable, but it's also difficult to assess notability without references either. (And its also important to note that having references does not immediately confer notability). Users, across policy and guidelines, are strongly encouraged to reference articles from the point of creation; they don't have to be immaculate or in the correct format, but at least some indication that there's verifiable information. --MASEM 20:51, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I haven't found it becoming when an author loudly insists on the notability of his article's topic, while treating it as everyone else's responsibility to search for the evidence that will corroborate his position. The motivation for creating an article should be helpfulness, so an author's refusal to help others make a valid determination of the topic's notability when doubt has been expressed indicates that something other than helpfulness was in play—self-interest, use of Misplaced Pages as a personal blog or website, promotion of the topic, just thinking it's cool to have written a Misplaced Pages article. In any event, it leads me to doubt even further the notability of the topic.—Largo Plazo (talk) 12:56, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The guideline already addresses this, "If an article currently does not cite reliable secondary sources, that does not necessarily mean that its topic is not notable." I suppose "reliable secondary sources" could be changed to "references" though. --Pixelface (talk) 10:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Not true; references are already supposed to be in articles per WP:V, but to show something is notable, it needs to be more than just references, but "reliable secondary sources". Again, a lack of secondary sources is not an indication that something is non-notable, but it is impossible to judge if something is notable without them. --MASEM 12:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Not impossible, really. Notability is about the theoretical existence of reliable secondary sources on a topic, not about those sources actually being listed in the article. If I know from personal experience there are many reliable secondary sources on a topic (e.g., the country of Spain), then I can judge that the topic is notable without actually seeing any of those sources. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

You're wrong. WP:V says information should be verifiable. "Material that is challenged or likely to be challenged" should be sourced. If an article has no sources, it is not impossible to judge if the topic is "significant, interesting, or unusual enough to deserve attention or to be recorded." The article Human skeleton (which was created January 14, 2003} had zero references as of December 7, 2007. The article Skeleton (which was created July 5, 2001) had zero references as of May 8, 2008. People don't need to see secondary sources in order to realize that the human skeleton, skeletons, and thousands of other topics are obviously notable and that Misplaced Pages should have articles about them. --Pixelface (talk) 06:22, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

There are going to be topics, like "Skeleton", that pure common sense says that sources have to exist, even if the article doesn't have them. An AFD challenge of one of these will likely be speedily closed as keep, and the AFD'r being accused of not assuming good faith. Virtually everyone knows these topics, and it doesn't take much to recognize there are bound to be endless secondary sources to validate that - not having them in the article at a present time is not a good thing and needs to be improved. However, once you get into any specialized field, the amount of people that "know" the topic starts shrinking at a drastic rate, and now you do not have the assurance of something being well-known and understood to likely have sources. Maybe someone in the field is sure it is going to be sourced ok, but that can't be assured of others reading the page. In this case, sources need to be provided to show that there it notability.

Or to put it another way. An article without secondary sources can be interpreted in two ways: Either the article is completely lacking references and fails WP:V, or it has no notability that can be shown or qualifies under presumptions of notability per SNGs, failing WP:N. In either case, the article needs to be fixed, because neither state is acceptable. That doesn't need it needs to be fixed immediately, but if the article is not fixed, it can be challenged at AFD at any time, requiring whoever wants the article to seek sources. There are cases of common sense and WP:IAR, such as "skeleton" above, where it is pretty patently obvious the topic can be verified and notable, but this is the exception, not the rule. --MASEM 14:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Interesting comment about "pure common sense", Masem. "Common sense" is notoriously undefinable and contentious, as well as fallible - e.g. the Earth is not flat, and time depends on relative velocity. I'd have said it was "common sense" that 4X was notable in computer games, but I remember all too well that someone else thought otherwise. Perhaps WP:N needs to use a less stringent and "academic" version of WP:RS, e.g. if something gets metioned in N blogs that are not obviously axe-grinding, hate-peddling or libellous, then it's probably notable. -- Philcha (talk) 14:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Re Masem: AFD is not intended as a mechanism for forcing other people to add sources. If someone really wants to see a source in an article, the best thing is just to add one, rather than nominating it at AFD in an effort to get someone else to add one. Only if there really are no sources to add is an AFD warranted.

Re Philcha: something that has only been mentioned in blogs is typically not notable, since blogs are not typically not reliable secondary sources. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:49, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

@CBM: Prodding and AFD are valid methods for challenging articles that lack sources - they are not the most friendly way, as it is better to tag articles or drop talk page notes about the like, or as you say, do it yourself, but there is nothing stopping an editor from being bold and requesting the removal of an article without such, and the burden on keeping information is those that want to keep it. (See TTN's latest actions, and the fact that a request for ArbCom sees nothing that they can enforce over, when TTN puts articles up for AFD without discussion). The ideal situation is to make sure articles are sourced from the start, but that's a that's a tough nut to crack.

@Philcha: 4X is certainly notable in the field of video games, but that's what I mean, its a specialized topic, and difficult to justify that "virtually everyone" knows about it, thus it is not an exemption - if the 4X article was challenged (it has been , I think) for lack of sources, it would not be a speedy close and sources would have to be added to keep it(*). There is, based on the RFC, the possibility of adding qualifications on what types of sources qualify as those showing notability for specific fields when "reliable, secondary sources" are not easy to determine for that field, but we still have to keep in mind we can't fall back to self-published sources or the like per WP:RS.

(*)I still think we do need a case for WP:POSTPONE, the idea of when an AFD is called on an article to give the article time (2-4 wks) to develop if a contributor feels they can improve it to meet the AFD concerns. Cases like 4X, which require more than hitting google for sources, would be perfect qualifiers for that. --MASEM 15:07, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Carl. Re "Only if there really are no sources to add is an AFD warranted," on whom does the burden of proof lie? WP:N says it's on the article.

Re level of WP:RS required, see Talk:4X/Archive_1, where the deletionist claimed that most of the sources did not qualify - and see the heated response from some of the participants. WP:RS as currently formulated is OK for academic subjects where peer-reviewed journals are the norms, but very quickly runs into difficulties in non-academic subjects, for reasons I've summarised at least once at Wikipedia_talk:Reliable_sources. For that reason I take a liberal view of sources in the context of WP:N, although I might be more critical at GA review. -- Philcha (talk) 15:14, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

So your claim that "it is impossible to judge if something is notable" without secondary sources is false. An article without secondary sources can be interpreted in many ways, not merely two ways. The information is Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky is verifiable by checking the novel War and Peace (you can read it all on WikiSource if you'd like). And Andrey Nikolayevich Bolkonsky is a notable fictional character. I think topics that are obviously notable are more numerous than you think. The term "non-notable" in VFDs usually meant "I've never heard of this", not "This article doesn't cite significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject!" That criterion is merely Uncle G's primary notability criterion, which he added to WP:N on November 20, 2006. Nothing more. And it's certainly not the only way to evaluate whether a topic is notable or not. --Pixelface (talk) 11:49, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving forward on "notability" of non-notable lists

From the RFC it is clear (Prop A.4) there are limited cases where lists of non-notable elements, together non-table, but all verifiable to first/third-party primary sources, are appropriate for inclusion to WP. The key is that what are limited cases needs to be strongly defined.

User:Erachima/Inclusion (stand-alone lists) is a good starting point in outline the general case of such lists, but I would like to move a bit more specific than this. Specifically, the "related to a notable topic" is a good metric but it is still open for abuse. While I think that ultimately outlining specific topics that can be included as lists/tables is an approach via an inclusion guideline, details left to specific field guidelines, at the present time I think it's better to provide the more specific details as a section under Erachima's guide to be the quickest way to get this up to a point that we can present for consensus and get in place to end that issue once and for all.

The way I see it, the addition to Erachima's inclusion guides would be a table that is broken down by major field (fiction, people, athletics, etc.), and then for each, a whitelist and blacklist of topics; whitelists are those that clearly are allowable from AFD or merge discussions, and blacklists that are not allowable from AFD discussions. For purposes of building this list at this time, I think any suggested white or black list needs to include 3 AFD/XfDs that clearly (eg no "no consensus" ones) support why that general list approach is allowed or disallowed. (eg, for me to show a list of episodes is allowable, I need to find 3 AFDs that either are "keep" for an existing list of episodes, or "redirect" of an episode article to a list. This is only meant to help make sure that we have good discussion on these topics and that we can point to existing consensus why these exist. Once we have decided that we have something presentable, we can file the validation as a subpage, and then seek global consensus on the provided lists.

Mind you, I expect this list of white/blacklisted lists (gah!) to be a living document: any type of list can be suggested to be added or even removed from this when one can show 3 XfD results in favor of that, with appropriate discussion to continue on the talk page.

Ultimately, I would like to see inclusion criteria for topics to fall out of this, but that's a much longer term goal: this is something we can do without touching any other policy or guideline and should strongly help to resolve some of the conflict between inclusionists and deletionists. --MASEM 16:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you looking for WP:OUTCOMES#Lists? --Pixelface (talk) 04:05, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

How do we list something in wikipedia

just wondering I have a website that is lucrative and that I am the owner of that I would like to list on wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DiggCrunch (talk • contribs) 07:39, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Short answer, no. Long answer, not without a really good reason, due to conflict of interest. Nifboy (talk) 14:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

RfC results

This was copied here from Misplaced Pages talk:Notability/RFC:compromise#Results. I'm unclear on whether discussion should continue here or there. I would guess there.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's the results table:

My general interpretation of the results:

1. Consensus seems to be pretty clear on a few points:

1. SNGs are necessary
2. SNGs can never override Misplaced Pages:Notability
3. SNGs can describe what kinds of sources are useful for proving notability

1. Consensus can probably be achieved on:

1. What kind of notability criteria are needed for articles which are spun out from a larger article. There was little support for allowing any spin-out to be notable, but the opposite proposal, requiring that all spin-outs require independent notability, didn't achieve consensus either. It is likely that proposal A.2 could achieve consensus with some tweaks to the wording to address some of the objections given.
2. What kind of lists can be exempted from the GNG. This is also something that could probably achieve consensus with some careful rewording.
3. Whether SNGs can create a reasonable presumption of notability. There were 9 neutral !votes on this proposal (B.6), so if those could be convinced to move to support, this would probably reach consensus.

Y'all play nice, now.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 06:03, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Once again, this is really just a quick summary without actually reading the discussion. "By the numbers" treats it as a ballot. I think the picture will be slightly different once you factor in qualified support, qualified opposition, and so on. Something that was raised earlier was getting a detached third-party to review the comments and try to summarize the discussion. We'll be moving forward on that soon. Randomran (talk) 13:30, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm still progressing on my version of this - A4 alone ended up with over 300 "speech acts" to be categorised, but that's coming along nicely. - Bilby (talk) 13:41, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Just as a disclaimer, I hadn't intended my effort to be much more than a rough analysis. I'm glad there are people out there doing a more in-depth study. The issues do really warrant one. I can't wait to see your results!--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 14:14, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, your analysis looks similar to what I've been getting as initial results - so as a rough sketch it is pretty good. :) Mostly I hope to pull out more detail that can be used. As you say, some may be able to achieve consensus with rewording, the trick being to work out what the words should be. - Bilby (talk) 14:24, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Working on the presumption that the above analysis is correct , this already provides us with a necessary reworking of the first section of WP:N (the line "GNG or SNG" seems to no longer be the case); the majority w/o consensus issues are the ones that will take a bit more work to craft around the language of a new guideline to be presented later for further consensus so it helps to know where the wiggle room is. --MASEM 14:30, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Bullshit Masem. That RFC didn't even ask about the WP:N sentence "A topic is presumed to be sufficiently notable to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below, or if it meets an accepted subject-specific standard listed in the table at the right." or whether it should be removed or not. Template:Notabilityguide has been present in this guideline since it was rewritten by Radiant! in September 2006. And since then, this guideline has always referred to that table. Why was there no question regarding whether the GNG overrides SNGs? I don't see support for some "The GNG overrides SNGs" proposal. Of course SNGs don't "override" the GNG. There is no overriding taking place. The main idea of this guideline is that topics should be notable. And that was written down because people were saying "Delete, non-notable" in VFDs. If a topic meet a SNG or the GNG, it is presumed to be notable. Why is the word "or" so difficult for some people to understand? --Pixelface (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

And for proposal B1, "Articles must meet the GNG and SNGs", there was 27% support (in other words, 73% opposition). If there was a proposal like "All SNGs need to be marked historical" and it had clear support, I might believe you when you say "the line "GNG or SNG" seems to no longer be the case", but there wasn't, and it didn't. --Pixelface (talk) 12:11, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes it did (it was one of the basic points that the discussion leading to the RFC wanted to hit): it asked the question "can an SNG override the GNG", because that would have to be true for "GNG or SNG" to be case. It clearly didn't pass by the above unbiased review of the RFC. Thus, a topic cannot be notable because it meets an SNG and fails the GNG. That's not to say that the SNG can be looser with what are appropriate sources or what may be the likelihood of sources for notability, but in the end (from the RFC) an SNG still must clearly provide criteria that a topic will end up meeting the GNG. The entire basis of the RFC was to remove preconceived ideas on what WP:N meant with the possible likelihood that WP:N may have to be rewritten when it was all said and done. Based on the above analysis, there does need to be a change. --MASEM 12:32, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Bringing WP:NNC into alignment with WP:BLP

WP:NNC does not seem to be fully aligned with WP:BLP#Presumption in favor of privacy: "Misplaced Pages articles that present material about living people can affect their subjects' lives. Misplaced Pages editors who deal with these articles have a responsibility to consider the legal and ethical implications of their actions when doing so. It is not Misplaced Pages's purpose to be sensationalist, or to be the primary vehicle for the spread of titillating claims about people's lives. Biographies of living persons must be written conservatively, with regard for the subject's privacy.

When writing:: about a person notable only for one or two events, including every detail can lead to problems, even when the material is well-sourced. In the best case, it can lead to an unencyclopedic article. In the worst case, it can be a serious violation of our policies on neutrality. When in doubt, biographies should be pared back to a version that is completely sourced, neutral, and on-topic."

I would like to suggest that NNC be modified to read:

"The notability guidelines determine whether a topic is notable enough to be a separate article in Misplaced Pages. They do not regulate the content of articles, except articles about people notable for only one or two events and for articles which are lists of people."

Is there any objection or modification that people would like to discuss? -- The Red Pen of Doom 12:50, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

There's no real contradiction because we generally we do not have article like that. The keywords are "one or two events". Persons notable for only one event seldom have a biography article of their own, per WP:BIO1E. The provisions in the BLP that you quoted prevent making WP:COATRACK statements about living persons that are not notable enough for biographies. For WP:WELLKNOWN individuals, a slightly more inclusionist approach is taken. Example from the BLP policy:

That's it. VG ☎ 13:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

As VG points out, it AINT broke, so don't bother fixing it. The notability guideline is correct as it is: it doesn't regulate the content of articles. That's why we have WP:BLP.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 15:10, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

It may be broke. At Joe the Plumber NNC has been at times placed as a counterargument to BLP1 event.-- The Red Pen of Doom 13:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see an issue here looking at the talk page. Notability is only a factor about a topic gaining its own article on WP; once its shown that (which Joe certainly has), content is limited by other policies such as NOR, NPOV, NOT, and in this case BLP. As long as the content passes all of these, there's no conflict with NNC. --MASEM 13:24, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Notability and BLP are separate things . BLP is policy, and primarily content, though some of it also is relevant to how we title articles, and in some cases whether we write them at all. They are both complicated rules, which, although accepted in general, have lots of tricky bits where there is not full agreement. Trying to harmonize them at this point would greatly complicated discussions. And its not really necessary, for the restrictions of WP:BLP are basic policy here, and in a conflict with WP:N, or any other guideline, they would trump it. This is a non-issue. DGG (talk) 15:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Yep, privacy has nothing to do with notability. I think we can clarify that content is still regulated by what wikipedia is not, though. Randomran (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the NCC section already includes a sentence to that effect: "Instead, various content policies govern article content." The category linked includes WP:NOT and WP:BLP. VG ☎ 16:09, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I know there's a balance between clarity and instruction creep... but maybe it could help to say "Instead, various content policies govern article content, such as what Misplaced Pages is not." At least, I see no harm in adding it. Randomran (talk) 23:25, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

various policies govern lot of things. Many policies relate to article content, many to the existence of an article; the more we cross reference them the more confusing it will get. This page is about the notability guideline and is complicated enough. Calling out one in particular here can give it undue importance by implication. DGG (talk)

notability guidlines for clothing?

Is there a notability guideline for clothing? If not do we just default to the general guidelines? Thanks Soundvisions1 (talk) 16:03, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

General articles of clothes (aka "business suit", "parka", etc.) probably default to general notability guidelines. Brand name clothing companies and specific clothing items fall under WP:ORG. --MASEM 16:07, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Is this podcast notable enough to be written up?

I've gone through one guideline after another and I'm hardly any closer to determining if SpaceVidcast is notable enough to have a Misplaced Pages article written about it. It has had guests like John D. Carmack, Ken Davidian (Program Manager, NASA Centennial Challenges), William Pomerantz (Director, X-Prize Space Projects), Blair Allen (NASA Edge co-host), teams competing for both the Google Lunar X-Prize or the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge X-Prize take part in the web-cast as guests. A local TV program called Twin Cities Live did a segment about SpaceVidcast where it interviewed the hosts. The Star Tribune did an article about SpaceVidcast as well. The hosts were also guests on Flak Radio. I will be grateful for any help you can offer. Thank you.U5K0 (talk) 20:10, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

we've never been able to agree on criteria for these unless they happen to be covered by conventional Reliable sources, (which in my opinion is more a matter of chance than of notability). In this case chance favors you because of the newspaper story you cite. DGG (talk) 00:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Draft proposal

Based on comments at the RfC, and looking at trends on AfD, I've worked out a draft of a new notability guideline for fiction. The goal of the guideline is pragmatic - instead of establishing hard and fast distinctions, or a general principle, it attempts to identify factors that garner de facto consensus, and to describe what will and will not be included. Thus it includes statements that, taken as general principles, are likely to be controversial, but that, in practice, seem to accurately predict outcomes.

The earliest draft is up at User:Phil Sandifer/Fiction proposal. I welcome thoughts on it - does this seem to be a useful way forward? Are there sections that need work? Phil Sandifer (talk) 16:37, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

• Whilst disagree with parts of the proposal, I applaude Phil for addressing the issue of non-notable topics in an honest way. I think what is particularly clever about this proposal is that it goes some way to addressing the problem that articles about topics which fail WP:N also tend to fail Misplaced Pages content policies such as WP:NOT.--Gavin Collins (talk) 16:53, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

1. See Misplaced Pages:Notability (people)#Lists of people