Wikipedia talk:Notability

See also: Wikipedia talk:Relevance

Technically meeting notability

Hi, 331dot, and thanks for helping at WP:Tea house. I wanted to explore a point in a Tea house response you made about Notability in this edit, where you said:

A person can technically meet the notability criteria and still not merit an article because the sources are not there.

In my understanding of Notability, that is a self-contradiction, or else I don't understand what you are saying. If someone meets notability criteria then it means the sources are there, full stop. No sources, no Notability. Afaik, the main reason not to merit an article if the N threshold passes is WP:NOPAGE, but that still requires sources. What am I missing here? Can you elaborate on your comment? (P.S. raising this here, and not at the Tea house in order not to confuse the questioner with technical discussions about fine points of policy.) Mathglot (talk) 17:11, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

If a person clearly meets a SNG, but there are no sources to develop an article, then they aren't really eligible for a stand-alone page. We've really changed on this in the past few years to deprecate a lot of the SNGs especially in say sports so this is less relevant than it used to be. SportingFlyer T·C 17:16, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; I get WP:NOPAGE (when something *does* have sources meeting N but still does not merit a page), that's not the problem. I'm disputing the highlighted text, not NOPAGE. They might meet a SNG but SIGCOV still applies, so N fails. Mathglot (talk) 17:27, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I never mentioned NOPAGE. I'm discussing a situation where the one single thing we know about a topic or person is that they pass a SNG, such as someone who participated in the Olympics and made a database of Olympians. SportingFlyer T·C 17:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure how I feel about the quoted text, but there are certainly living people who meet WP:NPROF without sources that satisfy GNG or WP:NBASIC, and we often have articles about such people on enwiki.

So I guess the issue I have with the quoted text is the ambiguity of the phrase, the sources are not there. All articles must have a claim to significance that meets WP:V, at least, but any stronger statement than that really depends on which notability criterion is being invoked in a specific case. Newimpartial (talk) 17:32, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm hearing a case from more than one respondent that in some cases WP:SIGCOV does not apply. That is absolutely not my understanding. Otherwise the policy becomes pointless or greatly debilitated as editors argue why their article doesn't require any sources. Don't think we want to go there. Yes, always sources; no exceptions. Am I wrong about this? Please provide an example of a topic that rates an article that has no sources. My claim is, there is no such topic. Mathglot (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I don't hear anyone saying articles can exist without reliable sources - that certainly isn't my understanding. But many editors do in fact hold that verifiable, officially recognized populated places should receive a presumption of having an article whether or not a full paragraph has been written about that place in an independent, secondary source (the latter being some editor's idea of a threshold that should always apply to SIGCOV). They must verifiably meet the grounds for the presumption of notability, which requires RS verifiability, but above that threshold the existence or otherwise of a standalone article becomes a WP:PAGEDECIDE question.

Likewise, many, many articles on academics lack "SIGCOV" references - the biographical information in many of these articles comes from ABOUTSELF sources or non-independent sources (like their employers or scholarly bodies to which they belong), and while all existing articles should be verifiable, WP:SIGCOV is, well, a significantly higher standard (especially as interpreted by those editors who read SIGCOV as requiring at least three sources, all of which must meet all the SIGCOV elements including a depth requirement).

I understand that a number of editors believe that GNG applies to all articles, but that isn't the way WP:N has ever actually read, to my knowledge - it certainly isn't how it reads now. And while some SNGs are simply more restrictive than GNG, or are "predictive" of GNG, others demonstrably are not - PROF being only the best-known example of several.

Also, to Blueboar, not all SNGs are intended to predict GNG sourcing - again, see NPROF, but this also applies in certain other cases (viz. Nobel Prize winners in Economics, some of whom don't meet GNG/NBASIC). And GNG doesn't guarantee an article, either - it is also only a presumption, itself. Newimpartial (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

The SNGs outline situations where sources are extremely likely to exist… hence we “presume” notability. However, nothing is guaranteed… and on rare occasions, it turns out that the expected sources don’t exist after all. Blueboar (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) So, what is "presumed" notability, other than: "I thought this was gonna be Notable per XYZ at this SNG, and so I started looking but turned out I was wrong. It is not notable after all." I.e., it's still, "no sources, no notability". SNG's are fine as a how-to for helping to evaluate whether it's worth the time to bother trying to look for sources about this ping-pong player, but in the end, who cares what mistaken presumptions or dead-ends editors went through trying to find sources that aren't there? Maybe all the SNG's should have a disclaimer at the end, "...but if that presumption turns out to be wrong and there are no or insufficient sources, then it is not notable." Prior to this, I would've thought that would be completely unnecessary, but now I'm not so sure. Mathglot (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Presumed just means we can assume they're notable unless and until we can demonstrate that they're not. SportingFlyer T·C 18:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(ec)I think that you are trying to read too much into the quoted comment. I think that the general intent was an observation that "you can't make an article without sourcing" and you are analyzing it as if it is a structural statement of a guideline or policy. Not that there aren't ways to read it as a structural statement of wp:notability, but I don't see the usefulness of looking for that. For example, (here I go anyway :-) the top of the wp:notability page says that meeting an SNG is sufficient so satisfy the wp:notability requirement. But most SNG's are generally worded to say that they are mere predictors of the existence of suitable sourcing or GNG sourcing. North8000 (talk) 17:51, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

(post-ec from above) That may very well be true (reading too much into it). I agree about "mere predictors"; maybe that needs to be clearer. Also, the more I look at it, the more the use of presumed seems to be handled inconsistently. At WP:GNG it defines the word, and says that it "means that significant coverage in reliable sources creates an assumption..." (emphasis added) and the SNGs give a bunch of predictor-criteria like awards and book reviews and such leading to a presumption (without mention sources) and the two don't sync very well. I guess if there's no harm resulting from this disconnect then we can leave it alone, but I find statements like the Tea house response could be misleading to new users, and it would be better to tell them that

"an article that has no sources or insufficient sources (i.e., fails to meet WP:GNG) is not notable and may not have a standalone article".

They can learn the fine points about SNGs later. Mathglot (talk) 18:13, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

NO NO NO. It is false and incorrect and wrong that an article that fails to meet GNG is not notable. We have SNGs that are independent from GNG (WP:NSPECIES is another). An article may meet those SNGs without meeting GNG. An article may meet a SNG, not meet GNG, and still be fit for an article (because its sourcing is reliable for all claims, but without multiple sources that are in-depth and independent, criteria that are not the same as reliability). Such an article is notable. It meets a notability criterion, therefore by definition it is notable. An article may meet a SNG, not meet GNG, and be unfit for an article (because it fails V because inadequate reliable sourcing). Such an article is technically notable but we should not have it. That is the whole point of this passage. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:19, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

One minor semantic quibble to insert here… we are not determining whether an article is notable… we are determining whether the subject/topic of the article is notable. Blueboar (talk) 18:34, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Also true. But adding more language falsely equating GNG-notability with notability is not the way. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:37, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

• I can't really say anything other than what has been said here. North8000 sums up my thoughts on this. 331dot (talk) 18:57, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks. Mathglot (talk) 18:59, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

  Ultimately, what determines whether we keep or delete an article is that messy and inconsistent thing we call “consensus”. If there are no sources talking about a topic, BUT the consensus is that we should have an article about it, we will keep it. Likewise the reverse. The SNGs and GNG guide us in making the decision, but (rare) exceptions can be made. Blueboar (talk) 22:47, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

  No sources, but keep the article anyway (even rarely) because of consensus? And how do you propose to achieve neutral point of view in light of no sources? Rather, with no sources at all to measure NPOV, it would or could devolve into a free-for-all, so the content would be based, I suppose, on a majority, vote-by-original-opinion kind of consensus of what the artjcle should say? I would say with no sources you can *never* develop an article, because WP:NPOV is policy and cannot be overruled by consensus, so any consensus you achieved in the absence of sources would be worthless. Ergo, no sources, no article. Mathglot (talk) 23:23, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

  I haven't seen any suggestion in this discussion that a topic for which no RS exist can have an article; this would violate WP:V. I don't think the quoted text at the top of this section, the sources are not there, can be reasonably parsed as "no sources exist". I think a more plausible and relevant interpretation might be, "no sources exist that uncontroversially meet WP:SIGCOV" - but lots of policy-compliant articles do not meet the strictest reading of SIGCOV (probably including most biographies of academics, for example). Newimpartial (talk) 23:59, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

  The comment just above mine @22:47, starting: "If there are no sources...". Mathglot (talk) 00:06, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  Well I can't speak to the intentions of any other editor, but I would parse "no sources talking about a topic" as "no sources are known to exist that uncontroversially meet SIGCOV". I suppose this reflects an inclination on my part to steelman what I read on-wiki. Newimpartial (talk) 00:16, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  That's generous, but if there are no sources known to exist that meet SIGCOV, what do you propose for the disposition of that topic? I think WP:NOPAGE would apply; at best, merge the content to an existing article. Do you see it differently? Mathglot (talk) 02:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  The answer to your first question really depends on the topic, in my view. For some topics that relate to WP:GEOLAND, or WP:NPROF, or WP:SPECIES, articles are routinely retained for which no sources exist that are simultaneously independent, secondary and offering depth of coverage. It appears that the community does not agree that NOPAGE applies in these cases.

  To answer your second question: I believe NOPAGE does not apply in these cases, but my own view is that SIGCOV can be understood differently, in a way that makes sense of these outcomes. I take the specific language of SIGCOV seriously and see significance in terms of relevance to encyclopaedia writing rather than being a fixed depth requirement. This is my own view, and it "explains" the survival of articles that are in fact retained although they fail other interpretations of SIGCOV, but I do not pretend that there is consensus beind my view. I do believe, however, that there is clear consensus behind the retention of many articles that do not meet GNG or a "strict" reading of SIGCOV (as though it were parallel to WP:SIRS, for example, which it seems clear to me it is not). Newimpartial (talk) 02:58, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  Ok, dogmatist. But we have lots of content in article space that is not sourced, may never be sourced, and is totally non-problematic. All those surname pages that list people with a surname and a bluelinked article but don't go into any detail about the history and origins of the surname, for instance. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  Not sourced (ie., no citations at present) is one thing, not sourceable (i.e., unverifiable) is another. All those surname pages that don't have citations are fine if no one challenges them, but as soon as they do, the requirement for a citation kicks in. And there is no exception for lists: see WP:LISTVERIFY. Likely if the surnames are blue-linked to an article which is sourced, no one will care; that appears to be the normal case for most lists with blue-linked list entries. But if they are unlinked and uncited then if the article or the item is tagged for sourcing, then citations are required. WP:V is absolutely clear about this, and there is no escape-clause for lists of surnames or lists of anything. Mathglot (talk) 02:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think that some folks are trying to derive categorical statements from the fuzzy ecosystem of wp:notability where they do not exist and apply them to un-realisticly simple hypothetical cases which don't exist. Unless we overtake a complete rework of the wp:notability guidelines and ecosystem, nobody is going to find the categorical tidy-ness which seems to underlie many of the points made here. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:12, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  I don't disagree about the tidiness, and to an extent all the policies and guidelines are ideals to strive for, and not infrequently they are in conflict with each other when we move from an ideal world to the scruffy reality. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, and there are some bright lines, such as unverifiable content may be removed, and if no sources about a topic can be found, then all of the content of the article can be removed (of course in that case, it never should've been created in the first place). Mathglot (talk) 02:24, 5 May 2024 (UTC)

  Those are true but simpler tidier cases. And wp:notability overall is at the far messier end of the spectrum. Including the unacknowledged considerations that are taken into account. But for me, once you have an overview of that herd of cats there are far fewer dilemmas. Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:11, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Cannot create new articles without having to use this

I would like to be able to make my own articles easily without having to edit another one. Plz fix this, wikipedia.org. 66.255.214.97 (talk) 20:27, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

You should be able to create drafts, and once created you should be able to nominate them for review as a potential new article. See Wikipedia:Drafts. However, new users are required to demonstrate some level of experience and competence before they are allowed to create articles directly. This is a deliberate decision to protect the encyclopedia from spam and low-quality content, not a problem in need of fixing. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:19, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Biology

There are many, many species pages that do not meet the general notability guidelines, but they are still kept. See this as example. They are systematically created with very little effort and sometimes only have a few citations, but they do go through review. Is this allowed? 2003 LN6 18:05, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Editors hold varying opinions on whether it is allowed, but when these articles meet WP:V, the consensus reflected in WP:SPECIES is that they are often kept. There is also no community consensus that the WP:GNG should apply to all articles, and a major current of opinion, supported by the current text of WP:N, holds that the GNG does not apply to all arricles. Besides species, there are other types of articles, such as biographies of academics and legally recognized, inhibited places, where verifiably falling within the scope of a subject-specific notability guideline is typically enough to merit an article. And the fundamental rationale for including verifiable species (and populated places) is that these are topics of high relevance to an encyclopaedia. Also, bluelinks and the category system work best when articles treat their topics at a consistent level of detail, and work less well when verifiable content is "rolled up" to larger (and inconsistent), more aggregate entries. Newimpartial (talk) 19:01, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above has made me think about some possible improvements to WP:Glossary, particularly along the lines of:

Notable

Editors agree to have an article about this subject. Their decision is usually based on things like the availability of reliable sources about the subject, but what fundamentally differentiates a notable subject from a non-notable one is whether editors accept it.

Non-notable

Editors agree not to have an article about this subject. Their decision is usually based on things like not finding enough reliable sources to write a decent encyclopedia article, but it can also be based on things like a desire to present a small subject as part of a larger one.

Reliable source

Editors agree that the specific source is appropriate for supporting the specific statement in question. All sources are reliable for some statements (e.g., "His reply on Twitter contained four words") and no source is reliable for any or all types of statements (e.g., a 1997 biology textbook is not a reliable source for last year's Eurovision winner).

Note: This term is also used more vaguely, to indicate the kind of source that is likely to be acceptable for a variety of statements (e.g., "University textbooks are reliable sources" or "This history textbook is reliable for writing about history").

@2003 LN6, when I look at your question above, I mostly notice how irrelevant it is.

You wrote "They are systematically created with very little effort and sometimes only have a few citations", suggesting that these three qualities feel important to you when you are evaluating notability of the subject:

• systematic vs haphazard creation
• amount of effort put into the first version
• number of citations in the article

AFAICT systematic creation has been encouraged since the project's earliest days, as having random gaps in coverage is never going to make sense. Imagine if someone decided to create articles about only some annual events, or about only some of a famous band's albums. People would not appreciate having an article about the 1980 Olympics but skipping the 1984 games.

Your second point is shared by the editors who recommend that we Wikipedia:Beef up that first revision, but since "Notability is a property of a subject and not of a Wikipedia article", whether the article looks like someone put no effort into it, or put an enormous amount of effort into it, makes no difference to the subject's notability at all. It is true that beefing up that first revision is a good defensive maneuver, but you're defending the subject against sloppy reviewers, of the sort who might think that if User:WhatamIdoing/Christmas candy has only two sentences and cites no sources, then there isn't anything else to say and there aren't any sources in the whole world talking about Christmas candy. Beefing up the article doesn't actually change the subject's notability (or lack thereof).

As for the number of citations in the article, the actual rule, at WP:NEXIST, is that notability is exclusively determined by how many sources exist in the real world (e.g., in libraries, in bookstores, in academic journals, in newspapers, on websites) and not at all by how many sources are cited in the current version of the article.

And that takes us to WP:NSPECIES: One of the things that is not widely known is that it's impossible to have a named moth species (such as Battalia pityrochroa) unless there has been an academic publication about it. This may be a peer-reviewed journal article or a book, but it must have been published. The original publication must give not only a name, but enough detailed information about the species that other biologists know (a) where to find it and (b) how to differentiate it from similar species. As a result, when you see someone citing a species database, that's more like a Wikipedia:Convenience link than an indication that the only possible source is a database. If you click through to the cited database entry, you will find two scientific papers listed (a 1981 paper in Priamus (journal) and a 1952 paper in Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences). The notability of the moth species depends on those scientific papers, not on the database alone.

If you are curious about what can be done with "just" a species database, then I suggest that you look at User:WhatamIdoing/Database article. Every single fact on that page came from a single database entry about a fish species. I wrote it as a demonstration piece for an editor who saw how little most editors do with species articles and incorrectly assumed that all database entries were trivial sources with no significant content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:12, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Does this mean that the GNG does not apply to all articles? And which articles does it apply to? 2003 LN6 22:20, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

The right way to think about it is not which articles GNG does not apply to, but rather that all articles must meet at least one standalone notability guideline.

1. GNG is always a valid standalone guideline unless explicitly excluded by an SNG. (For example, WP:NCORP disallows an article on a company based solely on local sources, but there is no such requirement in GNG. For WP:AUD to have any teeth, it must follow that GNG cannot be used for companies/organizations.)
2. Some SNGs, like WP:NPROF, WP:NGEO, and WP:NSPECIES, are valid standalone guidelines which operate independently from GNG. Subjects in those fields may qualify for an article by meeting either the SNG or GNG.
3. Some SNGs, like WP:NSPORTS, are subservient to the GNG and are not considered standalone guidelines.

King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 22:33, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! 2003 LN6 23:11, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Also: When a subject could be evaluated along multiple SNGs, or it's a question of GNG vs SNG, each editor at AFD gets to make their own choice about which guideline(s) to follow, not the creator of the article. So if I were to write about WhatamIdoing's Gas Station, and it were taken to AFD, I could write my own view that it ought to be evaluated under NGEO, because I think it's best understood as part of the geographical landscape than as a business, and all the others could say "Obviously NCORP applies, and therefore delete, delete, delete" or even "No such place, so speedy delete per WP:HOAX". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:43, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

Just a suggestion on the Glossary idea: I would prefer to refer explicitly to WP:NOT in any entry explaining "non-notable"; there are a number of good, encyclopaedic reasons not to have an article, besides sourcing concerns and a preference for converage at a higher level. The WP:NFILM prohibition of articles on films at early stages of developmemt, for example, can be understood as an application of NOT to certain topics that "meet GNG". Newimpartial (talk) 00:02, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

That's covered in the lead of this guideline, which says:

----

A topic is presumed to merit an article if:

1. It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG); and
2. It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article.

----

I'm not sure how to make people even read it, much less believe that it applies to all subjects. Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions in the first place, and mostly people just believe whatever mix of facts and misinformation they're told by other editors. So if they're told, by confident and apparently trustworthy other editors, that the GNG applies to every page (certainly there are editors who would like this to be the official rule), or that articles must actually cite sources to be notable (even though NEXIST says the opposite), they're unlikely to learn anything different unless they settle down to the large and rather boring task of reading every single word in the guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:33, 25 May 2024 (UTC)