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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Notability page.

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To discuss the notability imparted by specific sources, please go to Misplaced Pages:Notability/Noticeboard. See also: Misplaced Pages talk:Relevance (and archives)

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Notability page.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic. New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed

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Notability of open source software

There is a huge and somewhat entertaining fight going on at the moment regarding Dwm, and the deletion discussion has just been restarted. I'm not involved, but there was one point made which seems relevant to this page. This software is currently included in 10 major Linux distributions, and hence in my opinion is notable by the fact that many organizations companies have made the decision that it should be installed on millions of computers. Should some guidelines be added for what makes OSS notable? cojoco (talk) 04:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I've just noticed that there are a bunch of notability guidelines for various subjects, but software is not in the list. Would it be worth having some guidelines as to what makes software notable? cojoco (talk) 10:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I think this would make sense. Currently we have the strange situation that the German Misplaced Pages is much more inclusive for open source projects than the English one. In general I am opposed to relaxing notability criteria because it generally means that we get unverifiable articles. With open source software it's different because there is usually plenty of verifiable information to use for the article, just not of the kind that establishes notability per WP:GNG. Computer-related information is more likely to be found in not formally reliable online sources such as blogs, and less likely to be found in formally reliable offline sources. I believe similar problems even exist in parts of computer science.

Dwm is not the first case where we have come to a problematic deletion decision, and it is not the first time that we had the following problem (Foswiki was another recent case):

• A piece of software is widely known as an important representative of its respective category. It is widely distributed as part of Linux distributions or such and is regularly and extensively discussed in "unreliable" sources.
• An article exists uncontroversially in the German Misplaced Pages.
• The English article is nominated for deletion.
• A fan of the software who is not an experienced Misplaced Pages editor suspects evil machinations (e.g. Microsoft sockpuppets trying to keep the competition down) and mobilises other users or developers of the software. Many of these are also not familiar with our processes and arrive in large numbers at the AfD, disrupting our processes.
• A number of Misplaced Pages editors close ranks to "defend the wiki" against the intrusion.
• Due to the ensuing disruption, all arguments as to actual relevance, such as press articles about the software, are basically ignored. The article is deleted based on sociological problems, not notability problems.

To fix this problem, we should do two things:

• Make sure that the special situation of free software (it's not just open source software that is affected, but also software that is free as in free beer) is taken into account when its notability is measured.
• Prevent as much as possible that some of those people most likely to become productive Misplaced Pages editors disrupt our processes in good faith and are alienated as a result.

For the second point, a special deletion template warning about the effects of off-site canvassing might help. Moreover, we probably need a variant of Template:Not a ballot that addresses the specific situation of open source software.

Regarding notability itself, here is how the German Misplaced Pages does it:

Judgement of software articles according to notability of its subject is often proposed, but is hardly every possible since the market is dominated by non-commercial programs (and pirated copies, which has the same effect on number of sold units). Therefore, whether an article is appropriate for Misplaced Pages is decided according to the article's quality.

However, there is software that really should not have an article, not even a good one, due to its lack of circulation. Indispensable for an article is media attention, e.g. in the form of literature, detailed test reports/reviews, serious comparisons or rankings, attention at professional symposia or non-trivial press coverage. All of these provide neutral content and indicate that the software is noticed.

Download or sales numbers or Google hits, however, are of limited value for judging recognition; very high numbers (> 1 million) can be an indication.

— Approximate translation from de:WP:Richtlinien Software

It's important to note that the German Misplaced Pages has explicit advice about what makes a good article on software, which this notability criterion is relying on. Hans Adler 11:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

This doesn't seem that different to the GNG. "Indispensable for an article is media attention, e.g. in the form of literature, detailed test reports/reviews, serious comparisons or rankings, attention at professional symposia or non-trivial press coverage." Are you saying that some people are treating the listed examples of media attention as not reliable? Yaris678 (talk) 12:55, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree it's very similar. Formally it's almost equivalent to what we have. But it also says specifically that the GNG should not be strictly applied to software in the usual way, and that the more important question is whether a good article can be written. One key difference is that it says "media attention, e.g.". In the case of Foswiki we have numerous short reports on releases of new versions in online media sources. IMO they would qualify as media attention, but not for establishing notability per the GNG. Of course they are no help in writing a neutral article, but for open source project we usually have plenty reliable, uncensored/unbiased primary sources such as the source code itself, documentation, a bug database or a public developers' mailing list, and in contrast to obscure historical topics we have lots of editors who are skilled to interpret them accurately.

This reminds me of WP:Articles for deletion/Sam Blacketer controversy where we had similar problems with fundamentalist interpretations of a rule that ignored the motivation behind the rule. The problem wasn't so much notability but some people's claim that in a situation where the press got the situation at Misplaced Pages totally wrong, we had to report what the press said even though we knew perfectly well that it was false. IMO the opposite is true: So long as the article existed, we would have been under an obligation to correct the errors of the press based on our original research of our primary sources. Because it was one of the few situations where we have a highly effective process in place for evaluating primary sources (Misplaced Pages server logs). Hans Adler 13:19, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I feel obligated to point out WP:Notability (software) was apparently unable to get favorable consensus. --Cybercobra (talk) 16:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

There should be some exception for open source software because by definition the commercial world is not interested (with some exceptions), yet OSS is important and its bazaar quality means that many forks are required to support a notable hierarchy like Linux, Apache, PHP, MediaWiki. People can quote puff-piece "reviews" to justify keeping an article on yet-another variety of a commercial program, yet these reviews are often written only to fill space and attract adverts – the only review an OSS program is going to get is in a blog or other site that fails WP:IRS. Currently, any rule-bound editor could go through examples like List of text editors and have over half of the items deleted: it looks like only common sense would save even Emacs since I can't see a reliable source that would satisfy someone raised in a Microsoft world that Emacs is notable. Johnuniq (talk) 01:11, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

What utter rot. People will write about things whether they're "commercial" or not (I would note that "commercial" is not the opposite of "open source"); I'd yet to see a single good argument for FOSS exceptionalism here. The problem with the dwm article is simply that the number of people genuinely interested in improving WP's coverage of FOSS (as opposed to using Misplaced Pages as an advocacy platform, or an advertising tool) is too low to properly maintain all WP's high-profile FOSS articles. If the energy which had gone into the utterly puerile canvassing campaign here had been redirected at improving articles then dwm could be FA-class by now. The argument that no reliable source covers FOSS is completely baseless; the problem is that for historic reasons Misplaced Pages has been far more permissive of FOSS (and indeed of the Free Software Foundation's opinions in general) than it is of other software, and as such random people on the Internet have the impression that their bits of software are exempt from the notability guidelines used everywhere else on the project. I can assure you that there are plenty of articles on "commercial" software which are deleted every week; the difference there is that you don't get prominent Internet personalities making comments in ignorance about the result. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

No one on this page is associated with canvassing, and the fact that the dwm deletion discussion has got out of hand is not relevant to whether OSS articles deserve some special definition of "notable". I am not here to discus dwm but since you mentioned it, I do not see how it could be saved given the current notability guidelines. Presumably your FA-class remark was just to illustrate the degree of (wasted) effort expended at the AfD, but I would like to hear how you think the article could be brought into line with WP:N: what's needed is a couple of reliable sources focusing on dwm, and that is not going to happen because the trade publications and magazines cannot pay their bills by writing about OSS (with odd exceptions for general-interest things like describing Google's platform). Also, what would save the articles listed at List of text editors? Johnuniq (talk) 10:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Emacs is pretty old, so there are plenty of publications. But Nano could be in trouble. Hmmm, I'm guessing there are probably several books that mention it. Though the canonical source of information is online, of course. --Kim Bruning (talk) 20:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Request For Comments: http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Notability_of_free_open_source_software Unomi (talk) 22:04, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

  Hmmm, I think a lot of OSS devs *do* have WP accounts, actually ;-) --Kim Bruning (talk) 22:44, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oh, they do. I happen to be one of them. — Rankiri (talk) 00:03, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Has anyone else noticed the same pattern of argument that bugs me? It runs like this:

• Open source software doesn't have a marketing budget .
• Therefore OSS can't buy attention from independent media sources .
• Therefore, OSS should get a free pass on proving that someone noticed it.

Paid advertising (whether that payment is direct or indirect) and press releases don't count towards notability claims. If a source is so beholden to its advertisers that it refuses to review or discuss non-proprietary/free/open software, then that source will (and should be) rejected as non-independent by this guideline.

The fact is that if nobody has noticed something, Misplaced Pages should not have an article about it -- because Misplaced Pages cannot, without independent sources, write a fair article, and no article is preferable to an unfair one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Where do you get that the arguments want to give a free pass on proving notability to Free/Open Source Software? It seems like we just want different guidelines for what constitute notability for FOSS projects. I think we can all agree that a project like mine, Humm and Strumm with two contributors and no working program yet, doesn't deserve a page (actually, as a new member under a different user name, related to the project, I tried creating one...luckily, the editors I ran into were quite nice and pointed me to the appropriate policies without any bad feelings or nastiness. ^_^). Also, I think we can all agree that a project like Firefox or Emacs can be granted an entry. It's the ones like dwm that the controversy is over. These projects may have many users or have had a unique feature that is notable one way or another... The point is, these projects can be notable, just not as defined under our current notability guidelines using secondary sources in print. Free/Open Source Software is largely circulated through the blogosphere. While these are not always verifiable, there are usually enough of them that research can be done. Also, by nature of the FOSS projects, you can double check most of this information yourself. It is unlikely that a major print source would have much more than a mention of the d-bus message system, but it is one of the cornerstones of the modern GNU/Linux desktop. We only have a single Linux Journal reference for it, and a *blog*.

In my opinion, the rules need to be changed to be more forgiving to Free/Open Source Software (and as mentioned somewhere above, freeware, too), because they by nature have a different set of notability guidelines than most other topics, yet calling a lot of them not notable is definitely false, as common sense would say. By no means should we ignore the need for notability, but we need to change it such that notable FOSS projects and freeware can be on Misplaced Pages. I say, the spirit of the rule is the most important part. Remember, they are just guidelines. And it would seem that even Misplaced Pages pillars (WP:NOTLAW) agree with me. Cheers, PatrickNiedzielski (talk) 04:25, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

And just how do you figure out that 'this' is notable and 'that' is not?

My method, which is Misplaced Pages's current standard, is to look at what reliable sources wrote about it, but you seem to object to this. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:40, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

BTW, you'll need to find a new example. I just left eight books.google links at Talk:D-bus, and there seem to be many more sources available to anyone that is actually willing to search for ten minutes. IMO the dead-tree sources alone are sufficient to demonstrate notability for D-bus -- and, I repeat, there is no rule against using online-only sources for notability (whether in combination with paper sources or not). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:05, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) From what I've seen, they either want to use sources that we don't currently normally consider reliable (e.g. wikis, blogs, download statistics) or think notability is a flawed concept that should be ignored/abolished. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:08, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I still have a problem understanding why it's so important for every minor open source utility to have its own encyclopedia article. Is it for attracting more attention and manpower to FOSS projects? If it is, WP:NOTADVERTISING is pretty clear on this point. Many existing FOSS articles already reek of self-promotion and really don't see how loosening the notability requirements to include additional thousands of unremarkable projects would benefit this encyclopedia or any of its readers and editors. Then there's also the issue of double standards. If I recall correctly, all secondary notability guidelines (WP:WEB, WP:MUSIC, etc.) include all the basic criteria of WP:N and then some. This RFC, however, is essentially a proposal to disregard all major Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines in all deletion discussions related to FOSS. My question, again, is: why? What makes open source software so special and fragile that it must receive preferential treatment over other subjects? I'd give you my version of the answer to this question but you probably already know it. — Rankiri (talk) 01:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

"If I recall correctly, all secondary notability guidelines (WP:WEB, WP:MUSIC, etc.) include all the basic criteria of WP:N and then some." That's incorrect. Misplaced Pages has several notability guidelines, and they each list different sets of criteria that qualify as evidence that the topic is notable. Other notability guidelines could not contain the criteria of this guideline along with additional requirements, since meeting this guideline is enough to be considered notable. If meeting the criteria in this guideline is not enough to be considered notable, this guideline serves no purpose. Other notability guidelines could only contain alternate criteria or they wouldn't exist.

This guideline says "A topic is presumed to be notable enough to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below. A topic can also be considered notable if it meets the criteria outlined in one of the more subject specific guidelines listed on the right." If software "has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject" then according to this guideline, no further requirement must be met. The software is notable. If the software has not, it might meet some criteria in the Web content guideline or another guideline.

I don't know who makes Misplaced Pages notability guidelines, but if people want another one for software, why not? Perhaps notability guidelines could even be thought of as software that people on Misplaced Pages execute. (Why have people and not computers executing it? is another question altogether.) I don't think Misplaced Pages has other notability guidelines (like for Academics, Books, Criminal acts, Events, etc) because people think those topics are "special and fragile" and "must receive preferential treatment." They just list other criteria, for particular topics. This notability guideline lists general criteria, not specialized or limited to one class of things. Your next hitchhiker (talk) 03:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

• I should have been more accurate with my wording. What I was trying to say is that even though the additional guidelines offer some secondary criteria for inclusion, most of these criteria are rather redundant to WP:GNG since they still require some sort of verification or affirmation from independent reliable sources. For example, if a subject has won a major national award, it's just a clear indication that significant coverage by WP:RS sources is likely to exist. This guideline doesn't try to circumvent WP:N in the way the above RFC does. — Rankiri (talk) 13:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:WEB or the GNG is sufficient to cover any project (software or otherwise) created by users that otherwise does not necessary get universal coverage. Now, to those that challenge this, my suggestion is to find reliable sources that cover OSS better (the various Linux magazines, O'Reilly publications, and so forth) to provide that software to be important. --MASEM (t) 01:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, we could use stats from popcon, http://popcon.debian.org/ , http://popcon.ubuntu.com/ to measure how notable it is 'in the field'. Unomi (talk) 02:20, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Just some random, unrelated thoughts:

• I think it is not necessary for every little piece of open source software to have its own article. E.g. sometimes it's better to discuss several genetically related projects together in a single article. An example for this is the recent TWiki/Foswiki split. But when we do that we get organisational problems. TWiki, a project with doubtless notability (large sections of books have been dedicated to it) has split in two projects of roughly equal importance. Only one of them has an article. The article does discuss the other project, but it has only one infobox. That's a serious POV problem since there is an actual conflict between the two communities.
• Of course some open source software has no problems establishing its significance. Since Emacs was mentioned: O'Reilly has published "Learning GNU Emacs, Third Edition", "GNU Emacs Pocket Reference" and "Writing GNU Emacs Extensions"; there is also an Addison-Wesley book. So there is no doubt about notability in this case.
• (copied from a post of mine elsewhere) The General notability guideline is an approximation for identifying articles that (1) are worth having in an encyclopedia because enough people are interested in them, and (2) can be written neutrally. It's good for most purposes, but in the case of open source software there are special circumstances that make it harder to prove that enough people are interested and easier to write a neutral article without significant third-party coverage. (The article Dwm gets 100 hits/day, Foswiki gets 50 hits/day. That's not so much less than e.g. MediaWiki and significantly more than Erwig and Naman Keïta or any other random article which has no notability problems at all.) The German Misplaced Pages takes them into account, we don't.
• Some numbers illustrating the problem:
  • New York State Route 28N: 344 page views in December
  • Carucage (featured article): 371 page views in December
  • QVWM (historically significant software now at AfD, no chance to survive): 392 page views in December
  • Point Park Civic Center (featured article): 617 page views in December
  • Ross Sea party (featured article): 930 page views in December
  • Evilwm (software now at AfD, no chance to survive): 1004 page views in December
  • A Vindication of the Rights of Men (featured article): 1440 page views in December
  • Problem of Apollonius (featured article): 1607 page views in December
  • Sylvanus Morley (featured article): 1862 page views in December
  • Maximus the Confessor (featured article): 2174 page views in December
  • Dwm (software, 2nd nomination for deletion, not much chance to survive): 3009 page views in December
  • Execution by elephant (featured article): 3899 page views in December

I would have listed more software articles, but whereas it is trivial to find featured articles with few page views, I had trouble locating threatened or deleted software articles that are really worth keeping.

• I am not proposing to use page view statistics as a criterion for keeping an individual article. For that purpose they are even more problematic than Google hit counts. I am proposing to let them guide us when we try to find out whether/how to address the discrepancy between the GNG and its ultimate purpose. This is only relevant to the tiny number of articles that are not notable per GNG but that we can nevertheless write about uncontroversially, neutrally and reliably by using primary sources and trivial mentions in reliable secondary sources. Hans Adler 11:46, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
  • This arguments been done before: if we went by page views, which tell us what the reader wants, as opposed to what we're really trying to achieve, then WP would be about porn and DragonBall Z and boy bands, with little academic coverage. The inclusion for WP is the ability to show that a topic is notable, not just that it is factually true or interesting to a certain number of people. --MASEM (t) 14:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
    • That's a good point. It seems to me that there are at least three categories of topics that are less notable in terms of GNG than their popularity suggests:

1. Taboo parts of culture such as porn
2. Adolescent culture such as DragonBall Z and boy bands
3. Software.

I think software is different from the other two, but I can't give a good reason for that right now. Hans Adler 15:11, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

• • • • You're missing the point if you're thinking they're taboo. None of these are, we have porn and pop culture articles all over the place. But they are more difficult to show appropriateness in WP due to the lack of traditional coverage in academic journals or published sources, despite the fact they may be popular. But again, I stress the way to get "around that" is to look to non-traditional but reliable sources to assert that the topic is infact notable and work from there (as I describe below). --MASEM (t) 15:15, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Interestingly, even articles on Wikimedia's own projects can fall foul of the WP:GNG. Have a look at Wikisource. Yaris678 (talk) 13:08, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

My thought on such problems is that wikieditors need to adopt a "merge first, delete second" way of thinking. In as many cases as possible an article should not be deleted, but have the meat of its content merged into a more appropriate article and a redirect set up. This (1) Preserves the history of the original article and (2) preserves the information from that article. From what I understand the main problem was that wikieditors wanted to wipe dwm from existence as far as wikipedia would be concerned, and that just doesn't seem like a justifiable position. My hope is that by getting dialogue going on more information-retentive policies such negative events might be avoided in the future without compromising the quality of wikipedia. --WCarter (talk) 10:08, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Difference between policy and practice

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a big gap between policy and practices concerning notability? Maurreen (talk) 14:46, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you be more specific? Angryapathy (talk) 15:39, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

A couple that make no claim to importance: Jamie Owens and Merryland.

A couple for which any claim of notability is in a gray area, at most: Mary Ann Akers and Al Yarmouk. Maurreen (talk) 17:44, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

As no one has appeared to call these articles up for lack of notability (beyond tagging), there's nothing wrong here. If these articles were kept after an AFD, started based on the claim for lack of notability, and remained as in this state, I would say there's a problem. But with 3million articles, we can't patrol every one every day to verify notability; thats just impossible. You're free, if you desire, to suggest these articles for AFD for lack of notability, but you should check out WP:BEFORE to see if you can help the articles first before deleting them. --MASEM (t) 17:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not saying that there is a problem with the articles. I'm saying there is a curious gap between our policy and our practice. Maurreen (talk) 18:03, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Many newer editors are not aware of what notability guidelines are, which is why these exist. there's no gap here that we can deal with without biting these editors too hard (eg we have a CSD criteria that states that if an article doesn't state why a person or the like is important (NOT notable!) we can delete this article, typically on the recommendation of New Page Patrol - but this can be bitey if we applied it to these articles which do not fail that CSD criteria). So it goes back again that it is impossible to patrol every article all the time, thus many will slip through the cracks of things like notability and the like. (Much of the recent troubles over unreferenced BLPs is exactly this - they slip through cracks that are expected of volunteer editing group). In other words, there is nothing we can do about this, beyond accept it that it occurs. --MASEM (t) 18:08, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Jamie Ownens -- The article is two and a half years old and has had eight editors.
• Merryland -- Going on four years old, has had more than 10 editors.
• Mary Ann Akers -- More than two years old, has had eight editors.
• Al Yarmouk -- Going on two years old, has had nine editors.

These are all in disparate subjects. We have some wide cracks. Maurreen (talk) 18:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Again: volunteer project that errs on avoiding scaring off newbies. We are going to have wide cracks. WP will never be perfect. --MASEM (t) 18:22, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Sofixit. We know that a lot of our articles are substandard and that many may be on non-notable topics, but editors do work their way through the backlog. Do you have a proposal here, or are you just pointing out what we knew already? Fences&Windows 22:38, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

F&W, I was doing neither of those. I was seeking information.

My original question was, "Is it just me, or does anyone else see a big gap between policy and practices concerning notability?"

Your reply included, "We know that a lot of our articles are substandard and that many may be on non-notable topics." That was the first response that actually answered my question. That did the most to answer my question.

As far as "fixing it," that would give rise to a question of whether to seek to change the policy or to seek to change the practice. I am not pursuing that question.

Although your response was informative, you seem to have an underlying tone that I don't understand. Maurreen (talk) 22:52, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a volunteer community. That something doesn't happen, usually means no volunteer has noticed or acted upon it yet. For example, you or I right now, could nominate any of those articles for deletion, citing non-notability. My excuse is I'm working on other areas of the wiki right now (one DYK, and a half dozen policies guidelines and articles, plus a number of dispute resolution cases), and I also have a busy non-wiki life right now. If everyone bypasses it then it could remain for some time. That's how volunteer communities work. The same happens at other projects, such as the Firefox browser and Miranda IM - well known issues can and do persist for years simply because nobody yet had space or got round to taking them in hand. if we had a guideline on notability, and when AFD came round it was routinelycontradicted or ignored, then one might say theory and practice diverged. But here the "theory" is that Misplaced Pages is a volunteer community and sometimes not everything happens. The practice is the same. FT2  19:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

I do not see a great gap between policy and practices concerning notabilit.y If you see one you are probably not unique so you are probably not the only one to see a great gap between policy and practices concerning notability. I believe that answers your question as stated. I'm pretty sure also it is an uninformative answer, that is why others have tried to make something useful out of it, they're trying to be helpful. If you have something to say you should try saying it clearly and directly rather than trying to get people to think or whatever it is you might be trying to do. I haven't the foggiest what if anything is the motive for your question. Dmcq (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Delete the non-notable, but save the knowledge

As a thought on something that has long bothered me about wikipedia: If something is not notable enough to have its own article, would it not be trivial to at least move the most important information to a more notable parent article? Clutter is reduced but the growth of the wiki is not stunted; the wholesale loss of knowledge is rather unsettling to me. --WCarter (talk) 05:33, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Merging information if the sub-topic is not notable into the larger, more notable is always preferred if it can be done. Not necessarily wholesale verbatim text of the sub-topic, but at least some aspects can be covered. Merging also allows a redirect to be left, keeping the history of the non-notable sub-topic article per the GFDL. --MASEM (t) 05:42, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That is addressed by WP:PRESERVE. Many AfDs close as 'merge'.

I add that there are occasionally good reasons not to retain information, but they largely amount to "bad" information (e.g., unsourceable libel, outright errors, trivial details, hopelessly unencyclopedic content). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I would propose then that perhaps a new category of deletion be created: Merge and Redirect. Instead of proposing that an article be outright deleted, propose that important information be merged into another article and a redirect set up. The whole system is currently set up around the concept of removing and never again creating information that while perhaps not important or notable enough to warrant its own article, is certainly worth retaining as a part of the encyclopedia. --WCarter (talk) 23:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

You mean as detailed in WP:MERGE? -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 23:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

WCarter, there's no need for a 'new category of deletion', because there's no deletion involved. Any editor can merge and redirect articles. You don't need an AfD for this process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:04, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Then why is the AfD page so busy all the time? Any given day can have over a hundred delete nominations. More effort and focus should be put into trying to find this information a more appropriate home instead of outright removing it. Looking at Merge vs Delete pages it's clear that all the effort is being put into removing information, not relocating it. The AfD page has a DAILY accounting of information to be removed, while the AfM page only has a monthly accounting of knowledge to be relocated. The default mentality is "this doesnt belong, it must be removed from the wikipedia" and not "this information would fit better in another article" --WCarter (talk) 09:55, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages's policies do not require WP:AFD to be as busy as it is; editors could (individually, with collectively substantial results) choose to use AFD far less (and to use WP:MERGE, WP:PROD, and other alternatives far more). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:12, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, WP:AFM is a new proposal. Nobody's actually using it, and very few editors know it exists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

what would it take to get this used by more people who patrol for articles to delete? Is there a project page where those who propose a high number of AfDs can be found? --WCarter (talk) 02:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The first question is: Do we actually have a problem?

I don't know the answer to this. Spam about somebody's new multi-level marketing project, essays about some kid's feelings, cheat codes for video games, articles about someone's favorite song, autobiographies, or that kind of thing, should WP:NOT normally be preserved.

A good deal of what gets deleted simply does not belong in an encyclopedia. Only verifiable, encyclopedic information should be preserved. An AfD doesn't have to close explicitly as 'merge' to preserve information. Editors looking at the AfD will often (and often silently) do partial merges of good information. Between one thing and another, I'm not convinced that we're really losing that much appropriate information.

As for advertising it: It's already in the instructions at AFD. "4. Consider turning the page into a useful redirect or proposing it be merged. Uncontested mergers do not require an AfD." WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:05, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding silent mergers, users copying content should make sure that it is properly attributed as described in WP:Copying within Misplaced Pages. According to WP:Guide to deletion#You may edit the article during the discussion (last bullet), copying or merging during an open AfD should be avoided. Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

One reason articles sometimes need to be nominated at AfD is when someone isn't happy with a merge, e.g. because it would involve a loss of information. This happens quite often, and we need a forum where a consensus of the wider community (not just those who are watching the article) can be formed, which can later be enforced. Unless something was changed recently, that's not one of AfD's official purposes. As a result, when you go to AfD asking for a merge it may happen that some pedant sends you away, insisting that as far as AfD is concerned "merge" is the same as "keep". So people don't do it. They ask for deletion. From the proposer's point of view that also has the advantage that the editors who object to the merge, once they realise that it's the only thing that prevents wholesale deletion, may accept this as a compromise. Hans Adler 09:28, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Consensus was formed for a scope change and rename (WT:Articles for discussion/Proposal 1), but implementing them has stalled. Flatscan (talk) 04:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Who decided that lists needed independent notability?

Okay, so once upon a time when a work of fiction was being covered on Misplaced Pages and it had an overly abundant amount of characters, multiple lists were created for the sake of organization, article size, etc. But recently this logic has been thrown to the wayside in favor of "notability". Multiple character lists are simply being thrown together, completely defeating the purpose of why they were made in the first place. I'm not really sure why "independent notability" is needed for list articles that are are all divisions of the same subject. It's like merging/deleting List of Shakespearean characters (A–K) because "there's no independent notability for the subject Shakespearean characters with names beginning with A through K. Asinine, yeah? That didn't really stop series like Dragonball and One Piece, with hundreds of characters spanning their stories, from being compacted haphazardly into single, incredibly lengthy lists that offer the bare minimum of information. Hell, I'm pretty sure this is actually counterproductive to what the guys over at WT:FICT argue for years about. The only thing to come from that hilarious circlejerk was the decision that lists shouldn't be dealt with via notability, but here we are. Fix it. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 22:39, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Such lists are obviously useful to the readership in facilitating navigation to existing material. The density of blue links in the list justifies its existence. This should be covered by WP:CLS, not WP:N. The blue links in the list should go to pages that meet notability criteria.

The article size should not be excessively large. The page mentioned prints to the 35 pages, which I think is too long for a "page". It fails the principle of least astonishment when single click printing a web page consumes all of your paper and ink. If substantial documents are desired, I think content transcended into superpages should be used. So, in the end, merging and splitting such pages should take into account such concerns and be an editorial decision independent of WP:N. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:01, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

It's not a question that has been reasonably answers and there is still split division on it. If a list is not notable, it needs to be supporting another main topic, and even then, there needs to be good reason (that after appropriate trimming and the like, that the list would not fit well into the main topic article) to split off the list from the main topic. It is probably fair that there are some cases where characters lists are appropriate, but it is likely not going to be a immediate allowance for other lists. Much of the advise here falls to Summary style writing, not so much notability. But a non-notable list that is there for just being there without a major topic connected to it will likely be deleted. --MASEM (t) 23:56, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Though it really shouldn't be. This notion that breakout articles should have independent notability is wacky to my thinking. I think if we used sub-articles to do this same thing, we'd get a general agreement doing so was okay. Arg. So basically I agree with Norse Am Legend. Hobit (talk) 00:02, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying that spinouts per SS should have independent notability, but an increasing issue is that people are making spinouts whenever they can for these. (If it's not a spinout, then yes, it needs independent notability).

Case in point: NAL points to "hundreds" of characters across series like One Piece. Ok, I know enough about the series that the claim of hundreds of specific named characters is true. But the question that comes when list articles are created with that many entries is if appropriate discretion has been used. For One Piece, obvious Luffy and Zoro and the like need to be in there, but a character that is only present in one short story arc is questionable. That's where the trimming and editing and smart consideration of discrimination of who are actually characters that are pertinent to the work should be include - this would be your main characters and other reoccurring characters, but not one-shots. We're covering the work of fiction in an encyclopedic manner and I would acknowledge that coverage of major and minor characters are needed (I know others disagree here) but we have to consider that we should not be a fan guide and list every possible character. Again - not a notability issue, but often going to be criticized if the list is compiled without thought and balance. --MASEM (t) 00:09, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Not being a fan guide does not mean that we should not list (read "link to") every character with existing coverage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

A character with a blue link certainly should be included in a list of characters. However, I don't think one-shot/cameo characters are ever going to have their own articles (exceptionally rarely, though), and thus that's not an issue towards this. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Note: Let's not turn this into a thing about the notability of single characters, small groups and whatnot. Naturally lists and stuff probably shouldn't go back to how One Piece was, where every pirate crew and tiny faction in the series had their own article. This is more about full lists like "List of Dragonball humans/aliens/villains", where there's enough recurring or notable characters to fill a list for each of those. - 68.112.246.2 (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• I think that when anyone talks about lists, they need to clearly distinguish between a stand-alone list that is independently notable as a list, and a list that is justified as a navigational aid. Lists of fictional characters are unlikely to be judged notable, but where the entries all receive a mention on a proper article, the navigation benefits trump cruft concerns. (Wasn't there once a notability guideline covering them?) --SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:36, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, there's also a third category of lists that you don't include, and that's where the list itself isn't notable (the parent subject would be), nor are the majority of the entries notable, ending up as just a list of characters or the like, and this is the type of list I suspect that NAL is concerned with. I believe these to be appropriate when they are written appropriately (that is, with discrimination as described above) and the parent article is too large to contain that. However, I know there are others that are strongly against this type of list. I would point to Misplaced Pages:Notability/RFC:compromise that was done in late 2008 in which spin-out lists do not enjoy strong consensus to be created freely, though there was support for certain types of such lists. It remains a non-clear cut issue. --MASEM (t) 04:59, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I considered your third category to be lists that fail to make the first category and don't belong. If they can't meet the my second category, which means that the character name is not a section header on any page, then I think the dominant view is that the list doesn't belong. I know this is contentious. An alternate view of a character list is that it is an early, badly written form of good content. Convert the list to prose, and say something about the characters. I assume that some source, it need not be independent, says something about the character. The solution to spin-outs is to not spin-out the weakest parts of big pages, but to spin out independently interesting parts. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:58, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly avoiding spinouts is important from the start, and doing things like trimming and prose-ify these into the main article makes sense. I suspect there are a lot of dead-weight character lists for lesser-known works that could be reduced into one or more paragraphs into the main work. However, I can't say this is universally true for all such lists that are not notable of themselves or are not navigational aids. There are two issues to be cautioned on. The first is that spinout advice does suggest, when dealing with spinouts per size issues, starting these with the material that is of less interest to the general reader and that is more specific to highly-interested readers. Full listings of characters fit this bill rather well - because they are typically only of interest to those that need to find out more about the work than the reader that is looking to learn to recognize what the work is. The other issue is that there is a large number of editors that don't seem to have said anything in this discussion that are already slighted at the impact of notability on fiction of late (last few years, at least as since the first Ep & Char arbcom case). Some still standby Misplaced Pages:Deletion policy/Minor characters, which was the basis of the original FICT under a few years ago, and there is still footnote #7 of WP:N which suggests this is appropriate. I also throw out the WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS phenom that is hard to work around with some editors when we allow for lists that meet either the notable or nav. aids but block these for other cases complete. So right now this is an area with conflicting advice and very little consensus in any direction, which is why I throw caution here: this is not a simple issue to resolve. --MASEM (t) 13:37, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I can think of the following justifications for a stand-alone list:

• Independent notability.
• Navigational aid to articles. In this case most entries are independently discussed in Misplaced Pages (in an article or at least a section).
• Spin-out per WP:Summary style. In this case the list must make sense as an integral part of an encyclopedic (note that this implies brevity) article about the notable main topic. In a printed encyclopedia all the subarticles would form a single article together. The depth of this combined article would be in a reasonable relation to the notability of its subject.

If this listing is complete, it follows that a stand-alone list of Shakespeare characters is already borderline, and a stand-alone list of characters in some TV series is almost always excessive and needs to be cut down so that it fits into the parent article. Note that we don't even have List of Muppets, even though at least two dozen of them have notability beyond any doubt and many more have articles.

Without some requirements of this kind we would soon get things like List of French words that contain the letter E or List of Italian cities without a Chinese restaurant. Hans Adler 07:07, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I think there is little problem with making a List version of Category:The_Muppets_characters, assuming that it offers more than the category already does, and that it is of reasonable completeness and quality, unlike the

I think you are right: It wasn't a good argument because there could be such a list. My point was that that's about the degree of degree of notability – both of the programme and of many individual characters – where I think a list of characters begins to make sense. Hans Adler 01:29, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I though the phrasing sounded familiar of 'here's no independent notability for the subject Shakespearean characters with names beginning with A through K' and sure enough when I looked atr th history of WT:FICT I spotted someone who goes in for this sort of business of looking for the exact wording. If that is the real source they will just go on and on not contributing anything but arguing in a similar vein and not considering your answer even if there is one with the same name but A through M and M through Z. Sorry, this is just the sort of thing you have to contend with sometimes on Misplaced Pages and it has little to do with anything useful. Dmcq (talk) 15:07, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Hans Adler on this issue - a list has to demonstrate notability. The key to lists is definiton: even a broad defintion ("This is a list of French words...") is the dividing line between raw data and information. Some editors think that the list title is the defintion; don't be fooled, because this is just a way of avoiding having to provide any form of external validation for a list's content or its existence. I did put a proposal a while back regarding the Notability of lists, but has been rejected by Masem (on spurious grounds in my view):

In any encyclopedia, information cannot be included solely for being true or useful. Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content, and they are equally subject to Misplaced Pages's content policies. To provide a verifiable rationale for inclusion, we must provide a defintion for their subject matter from a reliable souce. Inclusion of material in a list should be based on what reliable sources say, not on original research.

The reasons for this are as follows:

1. A list without any defintion is original research;
2. A list with a definition, but based only on primary sources fails WP:NOT#DIR;
3. A list without reliable, third party sources fails WP:BURDEN;
4. Only lists that are defined by of reliable secondary sources are suitable for inclusion.

I think there is a mistaken view that since lists are "harmless", "useful" or are needed to make articles "complete", then they are acceptable, but I don't subscribe to arguments encapsulated in WP:IKNOWIT. Lists are like any other article topic: they need to be defined, and they need external validation for inclusion purposes (notability) and quality control (against original research). I think there should be stronger guidance than is presently the case, because our existing guidelines on list provide no useful guidance at all on this issue. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Notability only applies to article topics, not every article. Thus, lists if they are supporting a main topic does not need the support of secondary sources (though that's always a better). (True stand-alone lists that are not otherwise directly associated with a single topic need to be shown notable). Our list definitions need to be guided by avoidance of indiscriminate information. As I explained at the other page, this is both attributed to the actual list definition (the example there "List of 40-pt games by Kobe Bryant", questions why the choice of 40-pts or just Kobe Bryant as these are indiscriminate), and the potential list content ("List of people in America" would be overly inclusion and beyond discriminate. However, as long as the choice of the list definition and inclusion requires are discriminate, we are free to use original research to create those list topics, just as we do original research for deciding how to create articles and what content goes into articles - it is part of the WP backend that can sit outside of normal mainspace content rules. The content of lists still need verification. When you apply this to the character lists, most of these start to fail at the indiscriminate inclusion aspect: while "list of characters in work X" is a fair definition, including every possible character is indiscriminate, so that's an issue. --MASEM (t) 15:34, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

The topic of a list is provided by its definiton, so that argument is dead in the water. The defintion should be explicit ("This is a list of French words...") but the default defintion is its title. Lists do not sit outside normal mainspace content rules, as they are mainspace pages, just like articles. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:52, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

No, this is wrong. The content of a list must confirm to content policies and thus why we need to avoid definitions that are indiscriminate or lead to indiscriminate inclusion, but the exactly means of titling a list or defining it is reached by consensus and thus may include original research. --MASEM (t) 16:01, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I dispute Masem's assertion that "defining it is reached by consensus and thus may include original research", because consensus boils down to the personal opnions of one or more editors, and original research is strictly forbidden in any shape or form. Masem is essentially suggesting that WP:IKNOWIT applies to lists, and by doing so, he implies the subject matter of lists do not have to be externally validated in accordance with WP:BURDEN.
As I said earlier, even if a defintion is not explicitly stated in the lead paragraph of a list, then it is still implicit in the title. Therefore, there is at the very least a requirement for editors to provide attribution for the title of a list in the absence of a defintion in order to demonstrate that is not original research.
Take the example, AfD - List of allies and other characters in Codename: Kids Next Door, whose subject matter is only defined by its title. Since no external source can be found, it has already been labeled as orginal research. Masem's views are just not supported by what is going on in the real world. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 10:35, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

The argument mirrors much of what was said about Scientific opinion on climate change - how we organize matter across WP is not limited by was sources say or bounded by the "no original research" claims as long as consensus agrees it is appropriate - there is probably elements of avoiding POV-specific topics of some type.

Now, as your example of that list, I agree it is a bad list, under the concept of being both an indiscriminate definition, indiscriminate inclusion (I see several one-shot characters in the list), and to a point of detail that seems appropriate for the topic (the show's notable, but does not have the significant impact or general overall coverage that other fictional works have). This does not rule out that a possible single list of characters would be appropriate instead that combines that list and drops non-recurring characters and some of the excess weight of prose. It's also important to note that such a list is verified. From the primary work itself, which is a completely valid source to use though if there are third-party sources they need to be used too. And because it would be in support of a larger notable topic, it would not have to shown notability (though if it could, that would be better). But I will again say this is "seems appropriate" for such a list article, but is only after other attempts at cleanup have been done to determine if its necessary. Looking at the present Codename: Kids Next Door page, I'd say there's a lot of cleanup work that has to be done before a list of characters page is justified, because there's presently no need to split off that many characters with as little information about the show in that article (heck, I can only count 2 secondary sources among a ton of primary information - I'm not saying the show isn't notable but there's definitely UNDUE plot coverage here.) But all this is for this specific example. Other works may be able to better support multiple character lists depending on information available, how its written or what steps have been done before to clean up, and so forth. --MASEM (t) 12:08, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

So what you are saying is that although List of allies and other characters in Codename: Kids Next Door is not a good list because it fails WP:UNDUE, its OK that it is entirely original research?
In answer to Masem, this makes no sense. When you say a consensus of opinion "decides" what an article title is, would you not agree that they would tend to make a rational decision, and select a title that is widely used and so could be externally validated? The problem is that this list title is not used anywhere else, nor has its content been compiled anywhere else - in fact, there are no sources available to valdiate it at all, either in terms of inclusion in Misplaced Pages, nor in terms of content as not being original research. I just don't subscribe to the view that lists are exempt from WP:OR, and I think citations are need to demonstrate that this list is not original research, whether that comes in a citation to support the title or a defintion in its lead, which are entirely lacking in this case. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 12:22, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't think the list ok in either case, as it does fail UNDUE (do we need that split yet?) and that the collection is indiscriminate. But I am not saying that list is bad because the title is original research. The contents of a list needs verification and as I explained on the stand-alone list talk plage, argued this comes from two places: either a single source that exhaustively lists all elements within a list, or from multiple sources that assert one or more elements belong in that list's inclusion. But the list inclusion - and as a result its title - can be defined by consensus as long as the collection of elements is not so large to be indiscriminate or that the list definition is defined by discriminate criteria - all elements that can only be judged by consensus with some possibility - but not required - of being backed by sources (eg, in the "List of 40pt games by Kobe Bryant" if there was a reason 40pt was selected, say as being a mark of a good game by the sporting press, would help clear up the indiscriminate nature of that 40pt selection). --MASEM (t) 12:40, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I am still not understanding why Masem thinks lists that are original rearch are acceptable in any shape or form. Surely it would be better to include only those lists that are verifiable? If List of allies and other characters in Codename: Kids Next Door was in any way verifable, surely it would not be challenged as being original research?--Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 15:06, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

I can verify the list, go watch KND. If you're going to say that's independent research then every article listed on List_of_Lost_episodes needs to go because their sources all originate with the aired tv episodes as a primary source.--204.100.184.166 (talk) 16:21, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Content cannot be original research but how we organize and present content can be - that's basically how the MOS and other style and other guidelines are used. For example, we have to use "original research" to distill numerous sources into a usable article. How that's done is based on a hierarchy of MOS-like guidelines in terms of what sections we should have, how to avoid POV-ness in presentation, and so forth. Once you start making actual claims, then you have true "original research" issues (as spelled out at WP:OR), but, for example, as the IP pointed out above, the existence of a character in a fictional work can be asserted by the primary source, that is not an extraordinary claim. --MASEM (t) 23:24, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

Original research is not WP:Original research. Only one of them is prohibited on Misplaced Pages. The actual policy encourages distilling numerous sources into a usable article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:21, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

That's what I meant (if it wasn't clear). --MASEM (t) 12:38, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Creating entirely new or novel lists based on editorial opinion is original research in my view, since the creation of lists without any externally verifiable rationale is an entirely novel and original list topic that has not been already published by a reliable source. Since the compilation of an original list does not involve the distillation of numerous sources into a usable article, it just a regurgitation of the primary source data, and what purpose it serves will only be known to the editor who has created it (WP:IKNOWIT). In other words, if no one outside Misplaced Pages has thought of publishing a list of characters from Codename: Kids Next Door, then there is no rationale for inclusion.
Another way of looking at the creation of novel or original lists without external validation is that is the process of creating listcruft, i.e. the accumulation of random stuff into lists. This is the issue picked up by WP:NOT#DIR: regardless of whether the existence of something can be verified, Misplaced Pages is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 18:40, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

That's your view, but it is not the consensus view. OR can be used to organize content, just not in the generation of that content. --MASEM (t) 19:18, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

That said, it is not just any OR is acceptable for organizing content - we can't create a list that presents a strong POV point, eg. "List of political blunders by George W. Bush", and we do want to avoid listcruft and excessive spinoffs (again, why I've suggested the list you mention should be merged into a single character list, and that itself possibly merged to the parent article). But there is no ban on the use of OR, within reason, to create articles and lists. --MASEM (t) 19:26, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

IMO, "creating entirely new or novel lists based on editorial opinion is original research" -- but it is not necessarily WP:Original research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I think there is some very shallow or selective thinking going on here. Correct me if I am wrong, but if the idea for an entirely new or original list topic is dreamt up by an editor, then surely that goes against Misplaced Pages's policy on original research, pure and simple? I think WP:OR#Related policies makes it more or less clear that creating entirely new or novel lists based on editorial opinion contravenes WP:V and WP:NPOV, as Masem's example of "List of political blunders by George W. Bush" illustrates.
Going back to my earlier example, it is clear to me that the "List of allies and other characters in Codename: Kids Next Door" is original research. One anon IP has suggest that it is not original research because the characters are verifiable. I don't buy into that because the list is little clearly indicates that it is original research; a more accurate title would be "List of fictional allies and other characters in Codename: Kids Next Door". But it does not end there: we don't know if the list is complete, nor even it was intended to be complete, nor what was the basis of selection; this goes back to my point about lists without a definition are an excuse for not providing external validation . A more correct title that describes its content would be "List of an arbitrarily selected fictional allies and other characters in odename: Kids Next Door". In this case, the lack of correct title and/or definition is being used to disguise original research.
Just because a list comprises of elements that are not controversial, that does not mean that it is not original research. It is true that some sort of editorial judgement has to be used to organise content, but to create an entirely new and original topic goes beyond that. --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 09:37, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

As I said above, using OR to define the inclusion aspects of the list is allowed, but there are still other considerations to make sure the OR is not leading to an indiscriminate list that is arbitrarily defined or overly broad - we still need to avoid indiscriminate lists (btw: this can still happen with list definitions spelled out by sources; it is not just a facet of the use of OR to create the list definition). We also can't use OR in the way that goes against the disallowed types of synthesis. For example, List of guest stars on The Simpsons is readily apparent from the primary source by simply evaluating the creations, but (and why the KND example is a bad list) the labeling of characters as "villain" is a tenuous ground that should be avoided without better sources (even if a primary work to guide the definitions better). A general list of KND characters (with no distinction made) is more appropriate. The other aspect you worry about is completeness, but this is something we can't spell out in a title easily; whether the list is exclusive or inclusive is the type of language spelled out in the lede of the list that explains what the inclusion metrics are. a "List of KND Characters" can lead to either "a complete list of all KND characters" or "a list of major KND characters", and the list lede just needs to make that clear. Remember, lists are not always new topics; but if they are spinouts of a larger topic, the spinout needs to be merited first (the content needs to have been edited and trimming to the most appropriate content, and there needs to be significant size issues to require it). --MASEM (t) 12:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Forgive me for sounding harsh, but I would question the assumptions that underpin the view that lists are not always new topics. Where does it say this in content policy? Perhaps you are thinking that a list without a definition is not a topic? I think this goes back to my earlier point that if a list does not have definition, then its title is the definition by default. Is this what you mean? If not, in what circumstance would a list not be a new topic? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 16:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

WP:SS and common sense, which is what is needed here, not blind following of the rules. --MASEM (t) 17:36, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I am entirely devoid of common sense, but I would have thought lists are indeed separate, discrete topics in their own right, although we might refer to them as list topics instead or article topics, they are topics. Certainly one list is different from another, if only in title, if not in definition. Now if that is the case, if I create a new list topic that has not been published before, surely that is original research? --Gavin Collins (talk|contribs) 19:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Only in some instances where you would be using subjective terms like, "Worse/Best ever" and do not cite reliable sources claiming such. Creating a list of episodes from a TV series is not original research.陣内_Jinnai 00:11, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Because of WP:SIZE, a large topic can span several article pages, including articles and lists; these additional pages are not new topics of themselves. "articles" and "topics" are two very different concepts on WP. --MASEM (t) 00:21, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Infinite Wisdom

Whelp, Gavin Collins is here spreading his infinite wisdom. Later folks, when I come back and complain about something again in a few months. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 18:57, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

I for one would question how much this person has actually contributed to the growth of wikipedia, for the last three years most of his contributions seem to have been motions to delete articles, going back to within a month of creating an account. I find this campaign against knowledge disturbing, to the say the least.--204.100.184.166 (talk) 16:38, 26 March 2010 (UTC)

At least GC has made constructive edits to Misplaced Pages. You've made exactly one edit to the mainspace, and that was vandalism. Reyk _YO! 01:29, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

I dunno, man. Petty vandalism isn't quite as bad as years of obsessive, fringe-opinionated deconstructionism. - Norse Am Legend (talk) 04:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This is only a guideline

This guideline claims that it overrides WP:ISNOT, and isn't bound by the five pillars. This is not correct.- Wolfkeeper 00:09, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I saw your changes but I'm not seeing how the present language suggests that this overrides NOT (or that it is a policy). The language you attempt to add (necessary but not sufficient) if anything makes the claim that notability is required (aka a policy) even stronger. If, based on your revert, that its being used at AFD incorrectly, please link to some so we can see if it is a language issue. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

It says Within Misplaced Pages, notability determines whether a topic merits its own article. and A topic is presumed to be notable enough to merit an article if it meets the general notability guidelines below. I read that as a topic definitely gets its own article if it meets this guideline. There doesn't seem to be any other way to read it.- Wolfkeeper 00:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with that interpretation:

1. It uses guarded language: presumed and merit. In other words: Even a topic that passes the rules established in the guideline need not necessarily be notable, it is merely presumed to be. Under certain unspecified conditions it may still be proved non-notable. Moreover , even a notable topic only merits an article. That does not necessarily mean that it gets one. E.g. if nobody bothers to write it, it won't get one. And obviously if a policy makes it impossible, it also won't get one.

   NO, because it says if it is presumed notable it MERITs an article. According to that I would have to prove that it was not notable to avoid it getting one!

   But the reality is it can be 100% notable and still not be allowed an article under the policies if it's not in any way encyclopedic or violate any ISNOT. Right? But that's not what it said!- Wolfkeeper 00:55, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

2. All of Misplaced Pages's rules must be read in context, and when they contradict each other, as is often the case, we must decide which one is more important. If something is notable but a policy prevents creation of an article about it, then we have such a conflict, and the policy, being a policy, has somewhat better cards anyway.

Hans Adler 00:33, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

That's a total cop-out. Writing the language of the guideline so that the guideline makes it sound like it entirely controls something that it doesn't simply isn't on. If nothing else it assumes that the people reading it know all of the other policies and guidelines and which ones override it. That's totally unreasonable.- Wolfkeeper 01:00, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

And I am still waiting for these examples. Hans Adler 00:36, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Hans here - policies and guidelines are not legal documents but descriptive practices and common sense should be used to resolve conflicts. I'm willing to think that a footnote, along the lines that "While a topic may presumed to be notable and merit a page, other policies and guidelines may suggest otherwise" to be clear this is not the last place to look on that issue. --MASEM (t) 00:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Policies don't suggest, they say should not or even, in practice, ISNOT. Guidelines suggest. And here it's even worse because you're already mentioning the relevant policies like WP:ISNOT- Wolfkeeper 01:13, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Both policies and guidelines are descriptions of best practices only with policies being more expected of being adhered too but within common sense. The concept that you're trying to get across - that other policies can nullify the merit granted by presumption of notability for a topic to have an article - is true, but you're reading too much literally into the text and not the larger picture. Now, if its the case that people at AFD are quoting word for word from here, point that out, and that's reason to adjust the text to make it clearer. I will note that a similar discussion occurred here about.. 3-4 months ago? and I think ultimately we rejected adding something to this effect because it wasn't needed because it is an implicit understanding, but if it needs to be explicit, that can change. --MASEM (t) 01:48, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

1. You said "rv: no-quite a few people have read this and think that this means exactly what it says, nothing more or less- they're voting in AFDs and altering the Misplaced Pages article to make it say this." Please link to the diffs at Misplaced Pages that you are talking about. (This one? what else?)

2. Regarding afds, you are presumably talking about the dispute over how to interpret WP:NOTDICT. (ie. Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Prithee and Misplaced Pages talk:Misplaced Pages is not a dictionary#So... um 'wikipedia is not a usage guide' and all of the rest) Why don't you create an RfC for all this? You've surely got the most comprehensive selection of "examples" in your watchlist, from afds past. If not, someone else will eventually do so, and you'll end up with vastly less input... -- Quiddity (talk) 03:43, 28 March 2010 (UTC)