Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise/A.1

Proposal A.1: Every spin-out is notable

Proposal: A spin-out article is treated as a section of its parent article. If a parent article is supported by reliable third-party sources, then its sub-articles do not need reliable third-party sources to qualify for inclusion. A sub-article is notable when it extends one section of a notable parent article.


Rationale: It is not desirable to delete sub articles with a lack of appropriate sources. It makes more sense to treat those articles as extended components of their parent articles. Splitting content from an article into sub-articles is a practice recommended by the recommended length of articles and summary style approach. By treating sub-articles as though they were sections in the larger article, this would allow editors to write detailed articles on specialized topics.

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Support A.1

1. Support because I oppose notability requirements in general. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Tentatively support. I don't think its wise to enshrine "sub-articles do not need reliable third-party sources" without the explicit clarification (which I assume is implicitly there): "sub-articles do still require a source/sources." Logic would suggust that any split section will include a reliable source (third party or otherwise), to support the information included in it; for a list of episodes, the programme itself would be a good enough source for the separate article. On its own, it wouldn't meet notability levels, but episode lists' notability are rightly that of the programme, and thus the domain of the programme's article - which should then rightly be transferred. In other cases also, this proposal should indeed - with the above caveat that sources are still obviously required in some form - be form the baseline from which (as User:Nsk92 notes, below) articles can then still be considered on a case-by-case basis. Doesn't the proposal merely say that sub-articles (essentially split from the parent) be considered part of the parent. Which is what they were before they were split (likely for reasons of length alone). It doesn't say that any-old source-less article can be created, merely that spun-off sections don't require new notability inquisitions. So (if I understand it rightly) the proposal simply allows for the preservation of useful information despite concerns of length.
   It is reasonable to assume (since common sense and 'good faith' must be the fundamental tenets of Wikipedia work) that : a) An article contains sources and that b) Sourced sections within that article are of worth. Logicially it follows then, that the only consideration is that of length, and that the information is important and sourced. So, if it is notable-as-part-of-the-parent-article, then it is notable on its own, with notability absolutely transferrable to a split/sub-article, as proposed.
   The rationale currently says "It is not desirable to delete sub articles with a lack of appropriate sources." That implies (and should explicitly say) that there are still sources, merely not enough to independantly meet some interpretations of notability criteria. In that case - sources nonetheless being present in some form - it's reasonable not to consider a sub-article independant, and thus to transfer the use of the extra-sources-that-prove-notability from the parent article.
   Plus, while User:Simetrical's blanket statement is perhaps going too far, the often-petty-minded deletions and information-losing-mergers are absolutely against the spirit of a LIMITLESS Encyclopedia of all knowledge, which Wikipedia should be. Frankly, I would rather support the removal of length requirements, but this is probably the next best thing. ntnon (talk) 20:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
3. Support' with the same caveat as Ntnon gives--there must be some adequate reliable source appropriate to the subject. Otherwise its a free-for-all. I don't think anyway is really proposing to eliminate WP:RS. The point of this is that the division into "articles" is inherently arbitrary. There is no intrinsic difference between a part of an article and a subarticle except the header and screen display. I look forward to a new Wikpedia 2.0 where the material is a a truly modular atomic database, and material can be present without regard to "articles" But we're still trying to look like a paper encyclopedia. DGG (talk) 00:07, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
4. Qualified support (if rewritten, plus further caveat) Rewrite to address concerns of DGG, et al. It cannot reasonably go forward in a way that can be misinterpreted as "WP:RS does not apply", only "WP:N does not apply to this sub-article separately, only to the summary-style article and its legitimate progeny as a whole". The further caveat: It also must not undermine the concept that many subarticles are perfectly valid targets of AFDs that merge them back into their parent articles. This is very important, as many topics are subject to incredibly excessive fanwankery (cf. the now-ancient Pokemon issue, with articles for every minor character). Nothing about this draft clarification should interfere with the ability of AFD (or editors in general acting boldly and with common sense) to merge wanky articles back into main articles (including with a loss of "information" if necessary - many such selectees for merge operations are full of blathery trivia that serves no encyclopedic purpose). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:56, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   I'd go one further. For the vast majority of sub-articles, merging upward in case of cruft should be able to be done without need for AfD, and the subsequently orphaned sub-articles can readily be speedied if they remain blanked and orphaned for a reasonable amount of time without rancor. If anything, a proposal along these lines should make the removal of cruft and fanwank faster and more efficient. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

5. Support in principle, although like other respondents more thought needs to be given to how this would work in practise. Certainly if we agreed on a word limit for plot summary we may have a better step on the road. Hiding T 15:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
6. Strong support per common sense. We are a papeless encyclopedia after all and the "sum of human knowledge." --Happy editing! Sincerely, Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles^Tally-ho! 16:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
7. Strongly support the idea of weakening notability and reliable sources guidelines for spin-off pages. Content of spin-off pages is generally more effortful and takes much longer to furnish with sources, a problem much more ominous for the spin-off than the original article, leaving the spin-off vulnerable to being picked off by an AfD despite the fact that nobody minded it when it was still a part of the original article. --Muna (talk) 02:58, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
8. Strongly support everything must be taken in context, and treating sub-articles as non-notable is taking them out of context. Whether to split or merge content is an editing decision that should be based on how to best present the material in a readable and organized fashion--notability should not be the primary consideration. Note that this is (and must remain) a distinct concept from notability is not inherited, which is a different concept. Dhaluza (talk) 12:13, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
9. Support, per Muna. 208.245.87.2 (talk) 18:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
10. Support with the very important qualification that the material could be justified as a separate section. There are downsides to making articles as long as you would find in the Britannica Macropedia, and notability guidelines should not be getting in the way of good organization. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:11, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
11. Support because non-support will disincentivize splitting articles into reasonably sized components, incentivizing too-long articles. --R27182818 (talk) 02:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
12. Support. Naturally, as others have said, it needs to be a good idea to have a separate article. However, if the subject of the spinoff article is best covered by a separate article, then it should "inherit" notability from the parent article. Croctotheface (talk) 03:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
13. Support. I can see potential for lots of subarticles, but rather this than no subarticles whatsoever. Article length should be the guiding factor. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
14. Support. It makes sense to me that an article that compliments and expands upon a notable topic should be left. Deleting such articles is deleting content that can improve this encyclopedia. Why delete articles that compliment others simply because a guideline says we should? Scottydude _review 04:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
15. Partial Support spinoffs need to be treated differently than the parent article as to notability requirements, but the article still needs to be fully supported and referenced or it becomes nothing more that orignal research which is not allowed. Referencing and notability are different but closely related issues. Dbiel ^(Talk) 04:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
16. Qualified support As others have said, the spinouts should still conform to WP:RS. I just don't think it's necessary for them to satisfy WP:N. In other words, the content in a spinout just needs to be verifiable; the spinout topic doesn't have to be the "primary subject of multiple, non-trivial, third-party sources". (Of course, some common sense should be applied. If the content of a spinout can be merged into another article without losing any information, we might as well just merge it, unless it is evident that a spinout can be expanded.) Zagalejo^^^ 04:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
17. Strong support. If it's a spin-off article of a parent article, then the parent article, by definition, should serve to contain all the "proof" needed to establish notability. Spin-off articles are considered necessary because of the general bias (not necessarily an unfounded one) that Wikipedia articles should only be a certain length; but in many cases additional information can and should be presented in a break-away/spin-off article. But there doesn't need to be a repetition of sources given to establish general notability. To verify information, yes. 23skidoo (talk) 05:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
18. Qualified support. Since spin-offs are mainly used to organize larger articles and avoid having huge walls of text in the main article, forcing strict notability guidelines on spin-offs might result in people just keeping all that information in the main article instead, and we'd end up with some pretty ugly articles. So spin-offs ultimately help keep Wikipedia clean and readable. Of course, if someone writing a spin-off can add good sources for notability, that is desirable...it just shouldn't be required. How about this addendum to the proposal: spin-offs can inherit notability from their parent articles, but are automatically barred from WP:GA and WP:FA unless they have their own sources for notability as well? That way we can still have spin-offs available to keep parent articles from becoming unwieldy, but editors would be encouraged to write quality spin-offs anyway.--Politizer (talk) 05:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
19. Support In my mind, the only test for inclusion to Wikipedia should be "Can a Reliable Source be found to back up the article." I am therefore in favor of lowering notability requirements in any way possible. --Falcorian ^(talk) 05:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
20. Support because I strongly oppose notability requirements at all. Crowley666 (talk) 00:59, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
21. Support for various reasons already listed that I'm not going to waste your time by repeating.Abyssal (talk) 11:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
22. Support For reasons outlined above particularly the improvement of organization of existing articles. Other Wikipedia guidelines impose more sensible constraints than this one. Why have a proliferation of non-Wikipedia Wikis available on-line when their material can be located in an organized fashion right here?--Calabraxthis ^(talk) 11:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
23. Support Spin out articles should only exist when the main topic has so much content that it spills into a second article because of length. So the main article should be notable enough to have plenty of reliable sources, which means that there should be enough sources to adequately source the spinout. I can't imagine a scenario where there theoretically isn't enough reliable sources for the spinout. Royalbroil 12:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

    It can happen when overzealous fans write extremely detailed and OR-filled pages on every minor character, etc., in a work of fiction (similar to the Pokemon debacle that SMcCandlish mentioned above, in this thread). I mentioned an example of that in my comment here lower on this page. --Politizer (talk) 12:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

    Of course the OR and overly-detailed text would need to be removed and the article re-evaluated. The definition of OR would need to be decided by the community on a case-by-case basis. Royalbroil 13:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

24. Support Detailed articles on specialized topics are desirable.--EchetusXe (talk) 12:43, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
25. Support Reliable sources should be considered sufficient to demonstrate a need for an article's existence.--Marhawkman (talk) 13:28, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
26. Support with caveat The spin-off article can only be traceable to its reliable sources if the article points back to the main article that cites those sources, so the policy needs to be rewritten to include that condition. WikiDan61^ChatMe!_ReadMe!! 14:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
27. Support with caveat (similar to WikiDan61 above): In-text citations are still very useful and important, and most articles of non-stub length need these anyway to provide notability. However, if citations in the parent article are enough to provide that notability, I would like to see footnote/cite additions to the child article that at least point back to the parent, e.g. <ref>See [[Parent article name]]</ref> for statements of fact that were backed up by the parent article's citations. Todd Vierling (talk) 15:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
28. Support as there is no functional difference between a subsection of an article and a subarticle. The constraints and practices that define paper encyclopedias are being followed here only out of habit. It is tiresome for both sides of this argument to trot out WP:PAPER one more time, but it really is the guiding light here. No one, that I can tell, among those who oppose such a proposition is arguing that the information in the kind of sub articles we're talking about should be removed from Wikipedia, just that there is an arbitrary limit on how it should be displayed. So the opposing argument, that Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, does not apply, since most everyone agrees the information being talked about here is largely valid. Most of the the opposers seem to me to be saying that there is some information we should have, that is valuable to the encyclopedia, but that is undeserving of, for some reason, its own URL. Our primary responsibilities to our readers, after factual accuracy, are usefulness and ease of use. We should strive to keep our articles lean and tight, while allowing space to expand upon topics as needed. And I don't understand why using sub articles to do that is being frowned upon. Ford MF (talk) 15:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
29. Conditional support This is a good guideline for article extensions that deal with generally uncontroversial subjects, e.g. albums of notable artists, fictional characters from novels and television shows, etc. There is a need to provide information about these subjects; it is of obvious encyclopedic worth to, for instance, provide a detailed track listing of the albums released by any notable musician. If the length of the parent article necessitates it, or if aesthetics favor it, moving these to a sub-article should be allowed without needing to provide a raft of independent critical commentary to support them. Chubbles (talk) 15:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
30. Support within reason. Per WP:NNC anything suitable for a subpage should be includable in the main article. As long as we're appropriately applying WP:SIMPLE, problematic issues shouldbe minimized.
31. Support. Notability considerations in these cases are a waste of Wikipedia contributors' time. Martin Rundkvist (talk) 16:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
32. Strong support. If the notability of the main article has been proven, a non-stub spin out focusing on details is notable per se. De728631 (talk) 16:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
33. Support The whole concept of notability guidelines is hurting Wikipedia, not helping it. Hans Persson (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
34. Support. While I don't like the concept of inherited notability, I think the problem posed and the solution are very reasonable. We may need to provide some additional guidance one how this can be used to reduce the chances of abuse as some of the oppose comments have suggested could happen. We need to find some way to strike a balance between overly long articles and a freedom to break out sections. Likewise, it may be reasonable to break out sections of articles within a project so that like material can be categorized together and still be available to readers of the main article. This may also address the issues that some readers have with long tables in many articles that are not interesting to them and make reading the article 'harder'. Maybe the compromise here is to not allow this breakouts at the encyclopedia level, with maybe some exceptions. But instead allow the projects to develop specific project related guidelines on what material can or should be broken out. Rather then starting new standalone articles, we should consider that these breakouts be subpages of the main article. So I guess I support the concept and see that an open discussion lke this could result in improvements in readability. While notability would be inherited, that would not eliminate the need to meet WP:V and maybe as a part of any final proposal a condition of any breakout might be some requirement for meeting WP:V. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
35. Support To me, the inherent test is, do the sources listed on this subarticle and on the main article support what's being said? Essentially, we're avoiding the situation of copying over all of the sources into these sub-articles, especially since there will inevitably be cases where people copy over ones they're not sure of "just in case" and we wind up with a bloating of sources that have little to no relevance. I will note the additional caveat that for many sub-articles, particularly when you get into the games and their lists of characters, the source is often essentially the topic of the main article, which may not qualify as a third party. For example, playing through Kingdom Hearts, you get a biography of every character in-game. Is that a notable source? I think this question is going to have to be answered and will eventually lead to contention. -Fuzzy (talk) 20:23, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
36. Support. The idea makes perfect sense to me because there are certain subjects of certain articles that do merit a significant mention, but don't meet Wikipedia's standards of notability (like celebrities' relatives who are in show business or band members). If the subjects of the sub-articles rise to notability equal to the parent article, then they should get a full, independent article. Also, there is the issue of some articles being too long and yet too important to condense, as some people have stated above. A perfect example of that would be the MTV article, which has a sub-article on Criticism of MTV or Beyonce's parents, who have their own articles as well. Crackthewhip775 (talk) 21:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

    The first of these clearly passes current notability requirements, so no problem there. The second is more of the type of borderline case which this proposal might affect. It seems to me that we don't want to have articles on people parent just because the child is notable. In this case its likely that the would pass current notability requirements, with a bit of digging plenty of refs could be found to the person who designed Beyonce's cloths. Other parents might not pass the current tests. --Salix (talk): 21:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

37. Support, a good formulation of the concept that notability shouldn't force us into undesirable article structures to prevent information from being deleted; prefer the next though. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
38. Support, but we will need more detail on defining subpage to prevent content forks and content that should have been included on the main page. However from working on WP:AFC most new pages proposed or accepted are not sub pages, but stand alone. OR also is to be avoided, which could cut out the pure fancruft. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:15, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
39. Support because I oppose notability requirements in general. It is nearly always a subjective argument. Captainclegg (talk) 00:56, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
40. Support because I strongly oppose notability requirements at all. Crowley666 (talk) 01:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
41. Strong support. I've seen more than enough articles getting extracted from large pages and then getting deleted because they aren't inherently notable. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 15:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
42. Strong support from the standpoint that anything that helps retain subjects that are only referenced via New/Alternative Media sources can only help improve the depth of the Wiki.BcRIPster (talk) 21:23, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
43. Support, I think that the notability of the parent article should be enough to qualify its spin-offs. I think that if the notability requirement becomes more stringent on dependent pages, they will be folded back into the parent article, leading to some very large articles. I like that the articles can be parceled out into manageable units. (D.c.camero (talk) 06:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC))
44. Support As per Chubbles and Admiral Norton above, (and most other comments).--Technopat (talk) 11:06, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
45. Support, reliable sources are all that is required for something to be worthy of inclusion. — Werdna • talk 13:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
46. Support as long as the article has some connection to the parent article Woodnot talk
47. Support Sub-articles which form appendices to main articles are fine. This is a good common-sense guideline. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:50, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
48. Strong support, it will effectively make parent articles more brief (w/o loss of information reader might be interested in) and thus more reader-friendly.--Qsaw ^(talk) 21:49, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
49. Support This makes comprehensive coverage possible. Spin-off articles still need sources, but not every part needs to adhere to the strict notability guidelines (especially requirement of third-party sources). Daranios (talk) 08:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
50. Support - Policy rightly states that notability need not be established for every detail of a particular topic to be included in Wikipedia. Good article design dictates that long articles should be broken up into sub-articles as appropriate. Information should not suddenly go from being proper encyclopedic material to verbotten knowledge simply because of geography. If a topic is established to be notable then it is notable... regardless of how the information about it is organized. The 'notability' guidelines have been mis-used to limit 'depth of coverage' on clearly notable topics. This removal of information we know (and can now demonstrate through page traffic statistics) people want access to is the very opposite of what the 'notability' guidelines are supposed to be about. --CBD 10:52, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
51. Support. We are every specialist encyclopedia put together. --Gwern (contribs) 12:44 29 September 2008 (GMT)
52. Support. In a deletion debate on a seemingly obscure page, this highlights the need for an article on the more general subject. For instance, G. Zlagrib (moldovian fiddle maker) may not become notable without heavy researching, but the existence of the notable page History of Moldovian music instruments where G.Z has a paragraph, could justify his own page. If handled properly, this becomes an incentive for our contributors to create articles on more general themes, clearing a path in towards their seemingly obscure topic and improving wikipedia overall. EverGreg (talk) 13:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
53. Strong Support Sub pages expand on the notability of the original article - continuing to send these pages into notability discussions is wasteful of time that would be better spent on improving wikipedia content in general.Timmccloud (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
54. Strongest Support I know that this new concept is facing overwhelming "oppose" consensus. But not only, if created, will it do what it is said to do, wikipedians will have more time to fix wikipedia. [[User:Tutthoth-Ankhre|Tutthoth-Ankhre~ The Pharaoh of the Universe]] (talk) 00:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
55. Support just because people need to stop getting worked up over short articles existing. Short articles are better than redirects to sections, which are messy and potentially confusing. - filelakeshoe 08:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
56. Support This just seems like common sense. We need to be less keen to delete just for the sake of it. Bienfuxia (talk) 11:07, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
57. Support because strong notability requirements restrict the scope of expansion of knowledge.burdak (talk) 14:16, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
58. Support Wikipedia is not paper.  Grue  17:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
59. Strong support The more articles, the more useful Wikipedia is for users looking for information.--Lova Falk (talk) 18:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
60. Support Splitting an article is ultimately an editing decision, done to enhance readability. This proposal is not about letting in anything that can be tangentially linked to something else - WP:V will prevent that anyways. This is a fix for an unintended consequence of WP:N (namely that WP:N it encourages unreadibly long articles). AfD hero (talk) 21:19, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
61. Strong Support This seems like an obvious and common sense change. As AfD hero pointed out, spin-offs are often done as an editing decision, and it makes sense to relax the no-self-referral rules in cases like that. After all, sections within an article can reference previous ones and don't need to continually re-establish themselves in their own right. Mojo-chan (talk) 22:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Oppose A.1

1. Oppose Spin-out articles should be treated rather cautiously since they often constitute WP:content forks and, on occasion, WP:POV forks. These issues need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis and, as necessary and appropriate, covered by specialized notability guidelines. The point is, notability is not the only consideration in deciding whether or not a particular topic merits a separate article. Nsk92 (talk) 05:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   of course it isnt, but notability is what we'reconsidering. In practice, spin out articles of the sort being discussed here ar rarely content forks--they are usually more in the nature of subarticles. DGG (talk) 00:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   Probably correct, but even for subarticles I believe it is important to be able to prove their notability in a way independent of the parent article. This does not mean that the subject of a subarticle necessarily needs to receive coverage that is quite independent from the subject of the parent article. But it does mean that one needs to be able to demonstrate notability of the subject of a subarticle as if the parent article did not exist. Otherwise one can easily have a wild prolifiration of subarticles corresponding to minor and fairly insignificant components of wider subjects. For example, say we are talking about some reasonably famous film that clearly is notable in its own right. Does that mean that the topic of special effects in this film is sufficiently notable for its own article? Or costume design? Or sound work? Or the work of a particular stunt-man in this film? Or perhaps some particular event that happened during the shooting of the film? (e.g. the two lead actors getting into a fight). If one accepts that all spin-outs are notable, then the answers to all these questions are always "yes", assuming there is enough data to pass WP:V (which there often is, e.g. from the special features section on the DVD of the film question). In reality the answers should depend on particular circumstances. For films like Star Wars and LoTR the topic of special effects there is notable enough for a separate article. For most other films it probably is not. Things of this nature should be hashed out in SNGs which can and should define in greater detail how notability for subtopics is to be established, but accepting the principle that all spin-outs are notable would be very counter-productive. Nsk92 (talk) 01:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   Also, can be used to violate the "notability is not inherited" principle, which is one of the cornerstones of WP:N and all the other notability guidelines. Nsk92 (talk) 11:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   In what way is that phrase a cornerstone? Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   • It is a cornerstone in the sense that if no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Articles cannot tailgate or cling too each others coattails; they have to prove their worth by complying with WP:N.--Gavin Collins (talk) 08:55, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

2. Oppose I agree with Nsk92, as the opportunity to create spinout articles which utilise the same content is almost limitless. An example of a POV/Content fork where this has already happened is The Terminator: current forks are Terminator (character), Terminator (character concept) and Terminator (franchise). Basically all these articles cover the same ground, but from different angles. It may be obvious to an "expert" which article is the true Terminator article, but Wikipedia is not the place for expert opinion, rather it is the citation of reliable secondary sources that provides evidence that the subject is notable rather than a POV/content fork. --Gavin Collins (talk) 09:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   That is a problem with NPOV on those articles. This proposal makes no effort to supplant NPOV. Those articles would be valid merge/delete targets under this proposal. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   How do you know these articles are based on NPOV? They all cite primary and secondary sources. You say that the various Terminator articles would be valid merge/delete targets, but what criteria would you use? If every spinout is notable, then you do not have any rationale to merge or delete any of them. If you have come up with inclusion criteria that could be used to merge or delete spin-out articles that are different to WP:N, then you should state them. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

   I think that's a major misinterpretation of the proposal. That it can be misinterpreted and needs revision is a major part of my theme at my qualified support !vote above (#4). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   • It is not a misrepresentation at all. The issue of identifying what topics deserve their own article is addressed by the inclusion criteria set out in GNG. Since any topic can be sliced and diced into any number of articles and sub-articles, the problem (illustrated by the Terminator example given above) of which ones to include, and which one to merge or discard won't go away, in fact sub-articles would make it worse if they are all deemed to be notable. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

3. Oppose A bucket with a logic hole. Almost any modern-day TV show XYZ can serve as an example; they obviously deserve a wiki article. Most editors will also agree that List of XYZ episodes is a suitable article ("list") for wikipedia, and that it (or its lead) can be expanded with dozens of third-party sources. So, if this proposal gets accepted, this means all its dozens and sometimes hundreds of episodes (sub-articles of the List of episodes) get a wildcard for their own article and can be as plotty, crufty and ORish as fans wish even though no producer commentary or third-party sources exists *at all*. No, thanks. – sgeureka ^t•c 11:43, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   Untrue. This proposal merely says that the standards for the length of plot description and the like should be based on our consideration of the overall topic, and use our content policies. If a section is OR or violates WP:PLOT it can still be shortened and removed, and if it is shortened and removed such that it is no longer substantial enough for its own article, it can and should be merged with a parent article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   I agree. The reason to have sub-articles is to prevent writing an article that is so long it takes 10 minutes to scroll to the bottom. It's why the more popular TV shows and such things have more than one article. IMO embedded lists and subsections that are more than two pages long should be split into a subarticle. The idea of independant notability is amazingly awkward to demonstrate. As an example, we have the predator technology article. It's a list of tech items used by the Predators. Why is it seperate? It's several pages and the Predator article is long enough without it. Requiring people to demonstrate "independant notability" seems to require the subject to be notable based on sources that 'exclude the main article's material. why? I don't get it. It makes little sense to me. If a subject is significant enough to have sufficient well documented material for a full size article, why not actually give it an article?--Marhawkman (talk) 13:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

   Right, untrue, you are assuming the answer to the problem. The question is whether many characters--perhaps 5,000 or 50,000 of the possible 5 million or so counting all forms of classic and contemporary fiction, do in fact warrant separate articles to provide adequate coverage, and whether we should consequently define our article standards in such a way as to include them. There's a difference in episodes too, between whether its Star Trek or [insert your own example of the worst garbage here]. DGG (talk) 00:24, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   See the caveats in my qualified support !vote above (#4) for how to resolve this issue. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:00, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

   Where does this proposal say that we will be ditching policies on OR, or unsourced material? This is only about notability. OR and unsourced material will still be grounds for deletion. If however there are several articles that don't have these problems, why is their existence a problem? Mdwh (talk) 03:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

4. Too broad. Protonk (talk) 13:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
5. Oppose Far too broad. I think we need to institutionalize "List of episodes" and "List of characters" as a compromise, and stop there.Kww (talk) 14:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   That still savages our coverage of areas, delivering a big "fuck you" to those who actually use the encyclopedia in these areas. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   Only in the sense that Encyclopedia Brittanica has delivered a big "fuck you" to TV Guide subscribers.Kww (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   I was unaware of a past period where the Encyclopedia Brittanica provided coverage of this area, and where articles on fictional subjects were a major part of its coverage and formed several of its most popular articles. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

6. Oppose Goes too far. Davewild (talk) 18:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
7. Oppose Per Dave. It only invites abuse. — Trust not the Penguin (T | C) 18:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   So we write a policy that prevents such abuse. I don't think this proposal says that the text above is all that will ever be said on the matter. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

8. Oppose Notability is not inherited. Virtually every detail from an article can be split out into its own article. The only reasonable-objective criterion that prevents this is the requirement for non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 19:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

   The inherited notability aspect is really misleading. The proposal is better understood as "Our limits on article length, which come from screen readability and browser limits, should not be hard limits on the depth of coverage of a subject. Topics should be covered in the depth that they would be covered if there were no article length limits, and then intelligent decisions should be made about how to split up the coverage." So the operative policies become the ones that govern what does and doesn't get covered in a single article. Which is something that, looking at the articles we have, we do an OK job with. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

9. Oppose per Gavin. Deamon138 (talk) 00:36, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
10. Oppose This would just be too imprecise. Virtually any article can attach itself to another article. We need something much more specific, or else we open the floodgates to millions of non-notable, unverifiable articles. Randomran (talk) 02:49, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

    I am appalled by this. You of all people know the difference between the proposal I offered and the one described here. You know full well that this is a more specific proposal that you cut down to RFC size. To oppose it because of lack of specificity when you are the one who stripped the specificity out is appalling, and speaks to the degree to which this RFC is a meaningless charade. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

    The meaning between this proposal and yours are essentially the same. And judging by the lack of support, I doubt people are opposing this on some kind of technical wording issue. The spirit of this proposal is just fundamentally flawed: allowing notability to be inherited between articles is going to open the floodgates. Randomran (talk) 04:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

    No, the meanings are not the same. Phil asked that the article length not be taken into account when writing it, that certain logical breaks be observed when deciding how to distribute the article over several pages. That has been turned into an unsupportable "inherited notability" prop that doesn't mention base articles or length or sufficient sources. padillaH ^{(review me)}_{(help me)} 14:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

    And making article length a non-factor in producing new sub-articles... that would change the opinions of those who are opposed to creating an indefinite number of poorly sourced sub-articles? I sincerely doubt it. Randomran (talk) 14:13, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

    Those sub-articles would be even easier to deal with under this proposal - remove poorly sourced crufty material outright. Since the pages would be treated as sections of a larger article, to my mind blanking them if they are crap is wholly acceptable. No AfD necessary - any more than an AfD is needed to remove a fanwanky in-universe section in an existing article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:25, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

    A technical difference that doesn't fix the problem of huge pages with zero reliable third-party sources. Listen... There's literally nothing stopping you from proposing your own compromise at WT:N once this RFC is done (or even before the RFC if you're self-righteous enough to disrupt other efforts to compromise). And if this proposal of notable subarticles were gaining a decent amount of support, I might even recommend it. You'd be perfectly within your right, and why would anyone stop you? But from one Wikipedian to another, I advise you to not waste your effort. If the opposition continues to be as strong as it is, I doubt you're going to sway a sudden consensus with one or two technical changes. Randomran (talk) 14:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

    Ignoring all philosophical differences between the subarticle described in this proposal and Phil's suggested approach, the primary difference is that Phil's suggested method has some type of clear visual indicator that the subarticle belongs to a larger topic (either though the "/" sub-article method, leading templates, or some other means. That actually is a significant difference in the sense that a new user, unaware of how WP:N came to be but that it exists, might avoid tagging a sub-article under Phil's scheme since it has been visually shown to be something else. It is technically not the same, though potentially the same facets of problems come into play. --MASEM 14:32, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

11. Oppose This is a minor fig leaf papering over a proposed policy allowing everything under the sun. GRBerry 03:59, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
12. Oppose; notability is not transitive, and this just invites parasitic "notability justifications" for fancruft. — Coren ^(talk) 12:40, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
13. Oppose. For information to be split out into a separate article, it should be verifiable, meaning it comes from multiple reliable sources. If reliable independent sources don't discuss the topic, it does not need to be a separate article. If the section is too big in the parent article, then per WP:WEIGHT it should be trimmed to fit, based on what the reliable independent sources say. Karanacs (talk) 15:54, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
14. Oppose. This simply goes too far. Giving "spin-off" articles carte blanche will result in a plethora of articles with problems such as (lack of) verifiability, original research, and non-neutral point of view. I'm not saying that every spin-off will have all these problems, but if there is no set limit, many such articles will invariably appear. I think most of us agree that there needs to be some sort of line drawn, and we merely disagree on where that line should stand. This appears to be a "no-line" proposal. Something more moderate is needed. Pagrashtak 04:41, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
15. Oppose - every article is in a sense a spinout; giving spinouts an exemption from notability requirements would remove notability as a criterion from every article. Percy Snoodle (talk) 10:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
16. Oppose - effective notability guidelines are necessary to prevent cruft. PhilKnight (talk) 12:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
17. Oppose In this form it is equivalent to abandoning WP:N (a different question altogether), for anything imaginable can be reached by stream of consciousness from something notable. ~ Ningauble (talk) 22:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
18. Oppose - Current criteria are fine and work well. Anyone who is having problems reaching WP:NN concensus can always nominate the article for AfD and see what the community thinks. Usually the best way to deal with notability. fr33kman (talk) 22:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
19. Oppose - per the above. Effectively demolishes NOTE in favor of a giant set of articles that have problems satisfying WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:WEIGHT. sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 04:21, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

    I am curious. What viewpoint, and particularly what minority viewpoint does a plot summary advance? Phil Sandifer (talk) 04:23, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

20. Oppose Far too broad. This has an impact beyond elements of fiction, which is what motivated this RfC. This gives free license to any spammer, POV pusher, and promoters of fringe theories to write all they want, without being constrained by the GNG. All they have to do is connect whatever article they have to something that is notable. There needs to be a crap filter, and the GNG is a good one, and one that can be implemented fairly. --Phirazo (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
21. Oppose. WP:N has two purposes: First, restricting Wikipedia to topics for which encyclopedic coverage is possible; second, restricting our scope to a level that is maintainable. This proposal counteracts both: It would allow topics to grow beyond the level that can be attributed to secondary sources, effectively giving up the principles of an encyclopedia. And it would allow virtually any level of detail coverage on any topic (that can always be a spin-out of some other), giving up all bounds of our scope. --B. Wolterding (talk) 19:23, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
22. Oppose - the distinction between a spin-out and a new article will be unclear at times, and adopting this rule would be a blanket invitation to wikilawyering. --Alvestrand (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
23. Oppose Where would the spin-offs stop? Captain panda 02:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
24. Oppose While we're on the topic of spin-offs, can someone please review my new article on the guitar solo of song released by my favorite band member of my favorite band which has a one-sentence article? After all, if the band is notable, the notability is inherited to the solo, is it not? Erik the Red 2 ~~~~ 02:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
25. Oppose I believe that a spin out article, when not followed by reliable sources, gives improper weight to a subject that goes against the standards of this encyclopedia. I strongly believe that all entries need reliable third-party sources. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
26. Opppose too broad and would never be ending. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
27. Oppose. Unless the sub-article provides no more information that the main article, then it makes additional claims. Those claims need to be referenced to demonstrate validity and notability. The Goodyear Blimp is notable. The (made-up) fact that the tail letters are painted in 18-inch letters in black IR-reflecting paint in the font Helvetica is not notable. Notability of additional information is not inherited. If the main article has references that support a claim made in the sub-article but not in the main article, the reference can be copied. One of the premises of this discussion is that "there is no practical limit to" the amount of information that can be placed in Wikipedia. Hence why not take the additional trouble to make the applicable references? Bongomatic (talk) 02:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
28. Strong oppose The GNG reads "If a topic has received significant coverage...it is presumed to be a suitable article topic". This makes perfect sense in itself and it must be implied further that every article deals with its own "topic"; that is, articles don't share topics. Without this, a reduction to the absurd would be perfectly acceptable, as articles could be created about subtopics of subtopics of subtopics of something that barely passes the notability requirements. For example, a third cousin twice removed of the grandfather of the Queen of England would deserve his/her own article, no matter how notable he/she really is. Themfromspace (talk) 02:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
29. Oppose. Every article needs to meet WP:V, WP:NPOV, and WP:NOR, the content requirements that the Notability guidelines are intended to help interpret. If we are breaking out a section of an article due to length, then surely there is a section with reliable sources that can be broken out. If we are breaking out a section because it may be notable on its own then that should be demonstrated or remain part of the parent article. DoubleBlue (Talk) 03:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
30. Oppose.Agree wirth 'where will it end' type arguments. For instance, Automotive suspensions are a notable subject, that article is easily referneced. Particular types of suispension, likewise. Particular implementations of particular suspensions, likewise. "My car has got a macpherson's strut" is not a suitable article. OK, maybe that was a bad example.Greg Locock (talk) 04:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
31. Oppose. In general, if someone is breaking a long article into two pieces, having some remnant of notability in both pieces is exactly what I would be looking for in deciding where to make the break. Small exceptions don't mean that that shouldn't be the guideline; they mean that it should be a guideline, rather than policy. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 04:34, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
32. Oppose too broad and imprecise, leading to potential misinterpretation. In any case, every article should be able to stand by itself and on its own, fork or not. —kurykh 05:01, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
33. Stong Oppose This would lead to an incoherent mess. The approach described works, to a certain extent, for Microsoft's encyclopedia and Answers, but it wouldn't work at all here due to WP:OWN - Every article, regardless of its origins, should be required to be reliably sourced to prevent WP:OR and fancruft and to keep them maintainable by new editors. The situations described are situations where the text should be aggressively trimmed and/or axed, not split out into an article of splitcruft, or whatever we'll end up calling it if this happens. MrZaius^talk 05:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
34. Oppose "Spin-out" articles should not get special treatment. They are subject to exactly the same proof-of-notability requirements as any other article. In fact, there should be no concept of "spin-out" articles at all; articles are articles. —Angr 06:14, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
35. Strongly Oppose If the material contained in a "spin-out" article was verified when it was part of the "main article", then the source has already been found and can be cited. If a new "spin-out" article is created with new material, then either it is using the same source as the "main article", which should thus be cited, or there is no source and it is unverified material. I do not see the argument for a special case at article level. Consider that individual sections and even sentences in articles can be challenged and deleted for having no citation, so an article (even if it is for some reason considered a "spin-out") must be treated the same way. Obviously this needs applying with common sense as per wp:ignore, an article or stub should not be deleted because no-one has bothered to put in an obvious citation. Babakathy (talk) 06:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
36. Oppose Far too broad, invites abuse, such as articles on minute subjects which are slightly related to the parent articles.— Dædαlus ^Contribs /_Improve 07:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
37. Strong oppose each article should be reliable and notable in and of itself, that means ensuring adequate third-party sources for each. DrKiernan (talk) 07:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
38. Strong oppose. Notability should be established for any section regardless if it is within a larger article or spun out on its own. Binksternet (talk) 08:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
39. Oppose every article should satisfy the criteria for inclusion/retention in Wikipedia in its own right. Allowing articles to inherit criteria from other articles is only an open invitation to abuse. Nick Thorne ^talk 08:38, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
40. Oppose - agree with comments above, likely to lead to original research and fancruft. Some exceptions may be possible; for example, breaking up an article by periodisation might make sense, and there may not have been a consistent approach to this to adhere to, but there should still be sufficient sources for what is in the article to demonstrate its importance. Warofdreams talk 09:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
41. Oppose Regardless of the formatting choice, any topic that's large enough to deserve more than a couple of sentences ought to have sources. It's inconceivable that we could write a whole section, let alone a whole article, containing nothing which requires referencing. SP-KP (talk) 09:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
42. Oppose We simply don't need individual articles on every character that appeared for 1 second in a single Star Wars movie. Whilst that may not be the definition of a spinoff that will be used to justify that sort of behaviour --Blowdart | ^talk 10:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
43. Strongly Oppose. If a spun-out article is to be treated as a sub-section of the parent, how does that mean it doesnn't need sourcing and should not be deleted. Completely unreferenced subsections within an article can be deleted, and often are. If a subtopic is not in itself notable enough to be sourced, the subsection should never have been allowed to grow enough to need splitting, and the split should be opposed beforehand or deleted afterwards. The logic of this proposal makes no sense at all!Yobmod (talk) 10:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
44. Oppose - By this proposal we would be encouraging spin-off articles with no reliable sources at all to be written, and that would lower the authenticity of Wikipedia.--:Raphaelmak: [talk] [contribs] 11:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
45. Oppose -- far too broad in scope. older ≠ wiser 11:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
46. Oppose This would in part legitimize POV forks without specific wording added. And notability definatly cannot be inherited. If a section is long enough to merit being split off, and it does not contain reliable third party sources to establish notability on it's own, then it probably should not have been included in the main article to begin with... Charles Edward 12:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
47. Oppose -- If this was the case, it would be far too easy to (say) spin out articles for each contestant in a series of soemthing like Big Brother or American Idol; whilst some contestants go on to build a notable career (and then fulfill notability criteria in their own right), some just disappear back to obscurity, and not notable in their own right. -- ratarsed (talk) 12:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
48. Oppose Every article should be notable in itself. I also don't see how we can not force references, as that would violate WP:V. –Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone}
49. Per sguereka and Nsk92. Stifle (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
50. Oppose I agree with Black Falcon, just because a particular article is notable does not inherently mean that it's sub articles are. For example, one of the articles on my watchlist is AT&T CallVantage. This is a discontinued service provided by AT&T. Granted AT&T is considerably notable, but judging by the article content, the fact that it's being discontinued by AT&T (well, not accepting new customers) and that there are no references to 3rd party sources makes this article not notable in my opinion. If this was any other service, besides an AT&T one, it would have been Speedied 1 day after it's creation. -- ErnestVoice ^{(User) (Talk)} 13:12, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
51. Oppose Each article should be notable and verifiable on its own. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 13:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
52. Oppose This will open a bucket full of worms. For example, as someone above points out, this would automatically give the all-clear to create articles for all episodes, all characters (major/minor), all locations etc. in all TV series, films and cartoons already on Wikipedia. No thank you. Each article must stand on it's own in terms of notability. _TalkIslander 13:35, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
53. Strong Oppose In essence this would mean a multiplication of the acceptable space for a topic by the number of its sections or in case of lists the number of its items. And for which parent articles? Articles with a hundred references, or just ten? Especially in fiction, there are articles on works that are tiny in comparasion to the length or the work itself and the number of its characters/episodes/chapters. Should a small 30k article with 30 references provide notability for hundreds of kilo byte of supporting articles and lists, filled mostly with plot details and trivia? -- Goodraise (talk) 13:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
54. Oppose Far too broad, each and every article must stand on its own and meet the notability requirements. --Captain-tucker (talk) 14:11, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
55. Strong Oppose Everything in article space needs reliable sources. Every article, eveny section, every sentence, every bullet point, every list item. This is extremely simple: If it can't be reliably sourced, it can't be part of Wikipedia. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 14:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
56. What Andrew Lenahan said. Angus McLellan (Talk) 14:48, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
57. Oppose Content should always be supported by reliable sources, spin out or not. -epicAdam^(talk) 15:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
58. Strongest Possible Oppose - Notability is not inherited, and needs to pass each and every article or list criteria on its own with no help from another article. This is a foundational principle, and keeps this from being a junk encyclopedia. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 15:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
59. Oppose A stand alone article appears in a Google search; this public exposure indicates the need for the rigorous scrutiny of the notability guidelines. Part of the decision process to break out a section of a parent article into a stand alone article should be the notability of the topic. If the topic does not meet notability requirements but is too large for the parent article, that might be an indication that the section itself needs trimming. SilkTork *^YES! 15:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
60. I must oppose this. While content forks are acceptable in certain situations, it causes more problems then a regular article. Many times when a content fork is spinned out of the regular article, it's either one-day and tabloid news stories which clearly doesn't belong in a encyclopedia and at times violate WP:BLP, lets say an article on Paris Hilton personal life or an article on yesterday's Philadelphia Phillies - Florida Marlins game. Other cases is an editor bias view on a certain point of the article, like accusations of some random Eastern European nation of Racism. Many times when a spin-off article exists is for simply unencylopedic information in which few reliable sources exists like Houses on Desperate Housewifes, or endless lists like Cars in Popular Culture, or a nanostub which should just be merged back. Spin-off articles are only good if it's encyclopedic and can be written a full article with proper sources. Secret ^account 15:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
61. Oppose, notable sources will determine reliability, not the parent topic. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 15:53, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
62. Oppose All articles must establish their own independent notability. If there are not enough reliable sources to use to expand an article and make it stand on its own, then there shouldn't be an article on that. If the sources exist to expand the article, they exist. That's that... --Jayron32.talk.contribs 16:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
63. Oppose All topics should have reliable sources to establish notability. Spin outs could still be non-notable even with a notable parent article. --Banime (talk) 16:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
64. Oppose If the topic requires a spin-out article, the details in the spin out article should be found in reliable sources as well; otherwise the spin out article's details should not have been in the original article in the first place. --Trödel 17:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
65. Oppose though I don't have the smarts to leave a decent original reason, because everything that I would say has already been said. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 17:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
66. Oppose So I can make an article with no citations and no real notability as long as it is a sub-article? No way. This would be a disaster. Wrad (talk) 17:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
67. Oppose. You've got to be kidding. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 18:13, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
68. Oppose. Far, far too wide open. (It's sad that we have to be discussing this as if it was a general issue for Wikipedia, when in reality all the need for these kinds of regulations seems to stem from the irresponsible cruft collections in the pop culture sector.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
69. Oppose. If the parent article is too big but the components don't even have enough references to establish notability on their own, that's cause to trim the OR from the parent article, not spill out unverified material. --Explodicle (T/C) 18:40, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
70. Oppose articles should stand on their own merits. In mathematics quite a few article have spun out a "proof of" article, ideally these should be notable in some way with citations to support it. This serves as a good way to discriminate the genuinely famous proofs from the many million proofs appearing in papers and textbooks (hence meeting WP:V) which don't need to be in an encylopedia.--Salix (talk): 19:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
71. Oppose A flat rule like this would be problematic at best, as it would be quoted as a reason to create an article on anything remotely related to the "parent" article. Ignore all rules can cover some articles that are factual when 3rd party verification is difficult (ie: in print only) or for the exceptions that this rule would cover. While I have no problem with a somewhat lower standard for genuine pop-out articles that ARE well sourced, they still must be sourced, or it is just a page of text that hasn't been verified. In short, every article should be sourced and verifiable, even if the sourcing standards are different for articles and pop-outs. PHARMBOY (TALK) 20:56, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
72. Oppose. Seems wrong-headed to me. In fact, while I do not equate notability with having enough verifiable stuff, I would say the concept of notability is at its most useful when it shuts off a too zoomed-in approach. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
73. Oppose. Too broad, too generic. Can't assume that every spin-off is notable, without the new article having independent assertion of notability itself. -- Alexf⁴² 21:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
74. Oppose. If there is enough material for inclusion in a spin-off article, then I don't see why notability should be compromised. If there isn't enough material, there shouldn't be a spin-off. --Regents Park (sniff out my socks) 21:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
75. Oppose in deference to A.1.2, this would by default confer notability from the Wikipedia itself, making notability rationale in effect a circular argument. István (talk) 21:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
76. Oppose There are only articles nothing to be gained by trying to clasify some as "spin-out".23:09, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
77. Strong Oppose Re. notability, every article should stand on itself. Proposal A1 would make it to easy for an article to claim a notable article as parent. And if there would be such a claim, what kind of evidence (and how much of the evidence) would be appropriate to support the claim?? No, cross out A1. -- 69.183.102.174 (talk) 00:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
78. oppose if theres sufficient Verifiable, Reliable source material to warrant a daughter article then there should be enough to establish notability. Gnangarra 00:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

    the problem there is the requirement of "third party" information. Especially in cases of fictional works, third party sources that are considered reliable rarely deal with anything but the main topic, regardless of the relative importance of sub topics.--Marhawkman (talk) 03:12, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

    if its that important to the topic then the source will be there, if third party sources dont consider it worthy of coverage then why would we... Gnangarra 08:17, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

79. Oppose An encyclopedia is read article by article, not sequentially, and not necessarily following a hierarchical path from parent article to subsidiary article. Each article must support its notability, by itself and completely, for as far as the scope of the article's subject is concerned. Iterator12n ^Talk 01:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
80. Oppose If the subarticle cannot be verified by reliable third-party sources, then it probably should not have been included in the original article anyway.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 01:32, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
81. Oppose Could be useful in some cases, but there is huge potential for a lot of useless, vaguely related material to be put onto Wikipedia. -- Highwind888, the Fuko Master (talk) 01:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
82. Oppose If an article about a notable subject is too large and needs to be split, but the prospective sub-article is not notable, then the main article contains too much irrelevant detail. The main article should be trimmed instead of moving the irrelevant stuff to another article. Wronkiew (talk) 02:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
83. Oppose These are dangerous waters to wade into. I am generally an inclusionist, but it is very, very important for articles to be verifiable if we are to be taken seriously. Saying a subject can inherit notability would allow many small, miniscule aspects of an article to become their own entities. As it stands, this would mean that every minor character that has ever appeared for five minutes in a television show would deserve their own article, inheriting its notability because the parent article (the TV show) was notable. Also, there should NEVER be a policy stating an article does not need third party publications, as this diminishes Wikipedia to a nothing. We are not merely a collection of human knowledge, but a collection of verifiable human knowledge. The point of the notability requirements is to ensure the quality of Wikipedia. Scapler (talk) 02:57, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
84. Oppose: If a section of an article is so large as to require becoming a sub-article, that section better be supported by enough reliable sources to stand up on its own. If it isn't, something is majorly wrong with the parent article. Most sub-articles are likely to be at least several paragraphs long and should therefore have a dozen or more sources, certainly more than the handful required to meet the GNG. Oren0 (talk) 06:17, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
85. Oppose Effectively throws the concept of notability out the window. With enough wikilawyering, one could argue that any article is the sub-article of another. Jay32183 (talk) 06:25, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
86. Oppose This takes us too far from the requirement that all content must be sourced to a reliable source. --John Nagle (talk) 06:52, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
87. Oppose. Notability is not inherited. In many cases topics may warrant a section in an article given the presence of a source or two, but there may simply not be enough in terms of independent reliable sources to be able to flesh out an entire article for it. Hence, while the sub-topic may warrant discussion in the main article, it's not always notable enough for its own. ITAQALLAH 14:10, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
88. Oppose. Notability is associated with a topic. Exempting certain types of articles, especially poorly defined types of articles such as "spin-outs", from notability requirements is simply wrong-headed. It makes no difference to a topic's notability whether it is a subsection of a larger article, or a "spin-out". If it is not referred to in a reliable secondary source, then it isn't even verifiable, let alone notable, and should not be in the encyclopedia. The way to address this issue is to clarify what particular types of articles need to do to demonstrate the notability of the topic they cover. These requirements can be very minimal in some cases, but should at least include the provision of a reliable secondary source which refers to the topic in question. Geometry guy 15:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
89. Oppose Notable series will have lots of spin-outs, many of them will simply be not notable at all. A catch-all will catch a lot of crap. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
90. Strongly Oppose Each spin-out needs to be evaluated on its own. Just because an article is notable does not mean that everything in it (that might be split into a sub-article) is notable. Here are two concrete examples:

    • Elementary and Middle Schools. It has been a long-standing policy of Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools that School District articles are generally notable and should contain a list of schools in the district. However, elementary and middle schools are generally non-notable, so to have an individual article about them is generally not acceptable. When this happens, the school article is usually merged back into its district parent article, where it belongs.
    • People within a company, organization or school that do something. As a Wiki patroller, I frequently see instances of an article that describes a group within a company, organization or school doing something interesting, perhaps sponsoring a charity run. Within the otherwise-notable company article, that's reasonable. But to have its own article is almost always non-notable and usually quickly speedy deleted. Truthanado (talk) 16:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

91. Oppose I support A.1.2 because I think it is important to encourage spin-outs, but I oppose policy A.1 because it would justify creation of articles about utterly ephemeral trivia. --Orlady (talk) 16:42, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
92. Oppose - Spin-outs should be required to meet either the GNG or a relevant SNG. Without a spin-out notability requirement, spin-outs can be used to place information that isn't notable about a subject that is notable into its own article. It would be a better practice to simply trim the fat. —  X  S  G  18:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
93. Oppose – if third party sources establish the notability of the subject of the spin-off, they should be cited in the spin-off. . . dave souza, talk 18:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
94. Oppose - The concept of a split-out subarticle is itself flawed. If we have separate notability guidelines for this gray area, we are asking to be abused. Is "List of horse breeds" a subarticle of "Horse"? Probably. Is Brumby, a type of horse, a subarticle of something? An argument could be made either way. So, are all horse breeds notable? Sure. But not because of this flawed logic. In contrast, Da Vinci's Notebook is a notable musical group. But would List of Da Vinci's Notebook albums be notable? Possibly, but they're niche enough that an argument could be made. How about Bendy's Law, their first album? Or Genres in Da Vinci's Notebook songs? No. But as long as this rule stands, people will argue that subitems will inherit even limited notability. And we can't have that mess. JRP (talk) 20:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
95. Oppose - I think even sections within an article need to establish notability through third-party sources -- otherwise, it tends to be minutiae and trivia. So, whether a section is in the parent article or spun out for size reasons, it still needs to cite significant coverage by third-party sources to establish notability. --EEMIV (talk) 21:16, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
96. Oppose - Too broad and would provides carte blanche for a raft of unencyclopedic, unnotable material. Eusebeus (talk) 21:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
97. Oppose - Its basically saying that part of the subject of an article is notable because it is already mentioned in Wikipedia. It follows then that everything should be included in Wikipedia, which makes Wikipedia the sum of human knowledge (and every other bit of human made crap) not the summery of human knowledge an encyclopedia should be.
98. Oppose A spinoff becomes its own article and has to be treated as its own article. As such needs to establish its own notability. In practice, a spinoff should only really occur when there is so much notable information in an article that a new article makes sense. In other words, a spinoff should not be a remedy for removing non-notable content clogging a notable article. Notability won't often be an issue if the article is broken up for the right reasons. maxsch (talk) 02:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
99. Oppose This is much too broad, and basically permits articles on anything. Nick Dowling (talk) 08:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
100. Oppose I'm reasonably active on AfD and I have seen too many Keep votes for long-winded, rambling and overly detailed fancruft about minor aspects of fictional topics to ever feel comfortable with the idea that the parent article's notability filters through to its spin-offs. Reyk _YO! 08:43, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
101. Oppose for 2 main reasons: (a) it opens the door to a flood of articles about minor characters in notable works (e.g. 2nd murderer in "Macbeth"), articles about TV series episodes which are not themselves notable, characters / factions in video games, etc.; (b) as the previous comment says, there's too much fancruft. -- Philcha (talk) 10:15, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
102. Oppose, despite good intentions, I believe this could be misused to justify the retention of pretty much any article on any topic where notability was not clear. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 10:45, 28 September 2008 (UTC).
103. Oppose. I can see where this is going but this is not the right way to go about it. For example, Fidel Castro is notable, but the potential spinout article on Baseball career of Fidel Castro would not be because he was only an amateur player and claims of something more are supported only by unconfirmed rumours. A spinoff article should demonstrate its own notability rather than relying on that which it inherits; although the base will start higher because of the connection to something undoubtedly notable. Sam Blacketer (talk) 10:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
104. Oppose. I dread to think of the number of fancruft lists that would arise. In my opinion, computer game character lists are not appropriate. Axl ¤ [Talk] 11:09, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
105. Oppose Fronsdorf (talk) 13:58, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
106. Oppose - A sub article needs sources. If the material had no sources in the main article, he material is not notable. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
107. Oppose - This would actually gut the notability requirement. Friedrich Nietzsche warrants an article; the sex life of Friedrich Nietzsche does not, even though something might be mentioned about it in the main article. Certain corporations might be notable; not everyone mentioned in the article about them is, but would now be — as would their mothers, siblings, and dogs, as they could be mentioned in the article that branched off from the initial one. RJC ^Talk_Contribs 17:11, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
108. Strong Oppose - This basically invalidates any idea of notability, since one can always claim that something trivial is somehow related to something more notable. I've seen the spin-off defense used as an excuse for keeping countless trivial articles that could never evolve beyond stubs: individual weapons from video games, props or pieces of background scenery from films, minor characters from a single TV show or film, etc. While it is true that Wikipedia is paperless and as such has no limitations, it is our goal to provide encyclopedic information in a manner that is helpful to the reader. Notability is helpful in this regard as it encourages small topics with little to no independent coverage to be presented as part of a larger topic, which academically speaking is a much more valid way to present such information. To my mind there are no such things as "sub-articles" or "spin-off articles", there are only articles, and each should be able to stand on their own and be judged on their own merits. The Summary Style guideline actually agrees with this in WP:AVOIDSPLIT, which recommends only splitting topics that have enough sources of real-world coverage (aka third-party sources) to demonstrate independent notability. If article length is a concern, then identify topics that might demonstrate independent notability, develop them, then split them. WP:SIZE seems to agree with this (the technical issues with article length seeming to be outdated). --IllaZilla (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
109. Oppose There have to be limits where spinoffs are no longer inherently notable. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 21:35, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
110. Oppose - POV forking is a serious problem with spun-out articles, because it's a clear path to taking the original material to a new page, not adding to the main substance of it, and tacking on a criticism section or suchlike. That can cause oversight problems within WikiProjects, because the number of problem articles can outstrip available resources to police for accuracy and relevancy. Another issue is that there may simply not be enough material available on a spun-out article to make it any more than the section (or part thereof) it was originally - there are plenty of things that are part of more notable things, but that cannot stand on their own. This in turn leads to a heavier load on AfD and Merge proposals, because process then needs to be followed to get the "article" put back in its original location. MSJapan (talk) 02:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
111. Oppose ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 05:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
112. Strong Oppose This invalidates the entire notability guidelines. You are giving a blanket notability pass for all articles related to a certain area. If the page in question has recieved no coverage/attention, it should not have a page. Undead Warrior (talk) 06:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
113. Oppose This proposal is simply invalidating any idea of notability we have. Where would the spin off stop? For example take the many articles of barely notable companies that include a list of their products. Par the notability guideline products should be included into the company article unless they are clearly individually notable. What would stop advertising agencies from simply creating a main corporate article, and then hooking dozens of products and services to it (claiming its a spin-off)? Also, how is this supposed to work with new page patrol? If non notable articles are suddenly allowed, how can patrols recognize allowed not (really) notable articles, as opposed not allowed non (really) notable articles? Excirial ^{(Talk,Contribs)} 11:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
114. Oppose. Insane. You can "spin out" any article whatsoever from a parent article. Very few editors accept the "it exists" school of inclusionism, which follows cleanly from this proposal. HiDrNick! 12:16, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
115. Oppose. This standard is no standard whatsoever - everything could be made notable.Smallbones (talk)
116. Strongly Oppose - In order for Wikipedia to have a seperate article on some aspect of a larger subject, that aspect needs to be notable in and of itself. If it isn't, discussion of the aspect belongs as part of the parent article. Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
117. 'Oppose. A reader or an editor might land immediately on a sub-article, which must stand by itself in the reader or editor's mind. There is no reason to require a reader to "back up" to a main article to find the sources for the page in which he or she is really interested. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:51, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
118. Oppose. There should be references for the sub article in any case, or else the whole sub article may be madeup WP:NFT or original research WP:OR etc. or it could be 100% fact but trivia - i.e. should not be in the full or sub article.Obina (talk) 20:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
119. Oppose. If the parent article has refs supporting the notability of the spin-out, then it is not too much to ask that those refs are cited in the sub-article as well. If the refs do not support its notability, then it aint notable. Too much opportunity for lawyering, all I have to do to defend my favorite non-notable article is to claim that it is a spin-out of some other (notable) article. And whose to say it isn't? What criteria are going to be used to measure its amount of spin-outedness? SpinningSpark 21:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
120. Strong oppose - A spin of must adhere to at least the same notability and sourcing requirements as the parent article. Otherwise it becomes a free-for-all, where dubious information and senseless trivia are just spun-off to evade the otherwise inevitable deletion. --Latebird (talk) 22:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
121. Oppose Any and every article on wikipedia should stand on its own merits. That means every article must be able to independently establish its own notability as a necessary (but not sufficient) condition of it not being deleted. This means refs which verify the claimed notability need to be duplicated and so on.  DDStretch  (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
122. Strong oppose. Too imprecise (every article is in some sense a "spin-out" or related to another article) and invites abuse (i.e. fifty individual character articles for every book/TV show/movie ever released). There's enough trouble with non-notable articles as it is. Mr. Absurd (talk) 00:37, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
123. Oppose Every fact and section of an article needs verification, thus any spin-off must meet the same verification standard as the base article or any section of the base article. WVhybrid (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
124. Oppose If it's not verifiable by reliable sources, how can you have anything to say about it? It wouldn't belong in the main article to begin with. This would also leave room open to coatracks and content forks claiming they don't need reliable sources. NJGW (talk) 05:28, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
125. Oppose All content should be subject to the same source rules no matter where it is presented. Whether it is a section or a sub article it must be equally verifiable. Also, can we have sub sub articles ? All main space pages should be able to stand on their own merits. Peet Ern (talk) 07:02, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
126. Oppose. If I understand correctly, this would warrant the creation of articles such as Hairstyles of Robert De Niro. GregorB (talk) 09:32, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
127. Oppose Would this not then lead to Spin offs of spin offs far to broad. BigDunc^Talk 09:43, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
128. Strong Oppose. The GNG threshold really isn't that high. I'm having trouble imagining an article that could pass WP:V without satisfying it. AndyJones (talk) 12:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
129. Strong Oppose - There is no inhereted notability from the parent article. All topics must be able to survive on their own, regardless of where they were spun out of. Otherwise, that just gives free reign to spin articles out at will.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
130. Oppose. An unsourced article would not qualify for inclusion due to lack of verifiability anyway, and having to contradictory policies in place seems like a bad thing. For example, people have commented about episode summaries above, but these would in most cases all fail under the present verifiability policy. If we really want material like that, we should perhaps change that policy to state that factual claims about the plot of a series or book can be cited in the subject itself, but putting a contradictory policy in place is not a solution. This is just one example I chose because it was mentioned above. I think it holds true much more generally. If something can't be sourced, it isn't verifiable, and shouldn't be included. Shinobu (talk) 12:42, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Neutral on A.1

1. Comment - I started a topic^{(now here)} a few days ago in VP (tech) about creating sub-articles (separated by a slash) that may make "spin-off" articles more feasable. You might want to take a look at it. SharkD (talk) 04:34, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
2. Comment As I feared when the RFC was being proposed, the poor and overly general phrasing of this proposal is attracting opposition that, in practice, is dealt with and thought through by those actually advocating thinking about spin-out articles. I repeat my request that this proposal be removed from the RFC so that an actual thoughtful proposal on the issue of spin-out articles does not get itself bludgeoned by the fact that it has supposedly "already been rejected." Phil Sandifer (talk) 14:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

   I think you are confusing poor phasing of the RFC with the fact that your proposal for spin-out articles was silent on the need for some type of inclusion criteria that would be used to regulate sub-articles. What this RFC is attempting to do is to fill in this ommission. --Gavin Collins (talk) 08:42, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

3. Comment As mentioned above I think the proposal is poorly phrased, it is widely accepted by the community that all information contained in articles has to be reliably sourced. The main issues I have generally come across with "spin-off" articles is whether that sourcing deals directly with the spin-off itself or mentions it in the context of the parent topic. When - and only when - there is enough reliably sourced information available on a subsection of a topic, I think how much space to dedicate to it and whether it should be spun of for reasons of size or presentation are editorial decisions that don't have much to do with notability guidelines. Guest9999 (talk) 12:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
4. Comment I think the issue here is, notability is our primary mechanism for answering the question, "How much is too much?" WP:WAF is good but people ignore it as "just an MoS/content guideline" in AfD and merge discussions, even when the amount of appreciable content (i.e. not mere plot summary) approaches zero. Nifboy (talk) 14:10, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

   Perhaps we should encourage administrators to ignore arguments that rely on the disregarding of important and well thought out pages as "just a content guideline" instead of making substantive arguments about the content. Phil Sandifer (talk) 20:34, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

5. Comment - Something workable may be possible, but we haven't figured out what yet. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 18:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
6. Comment - There is a difference between a "spin-off" as a measure of organizing the main text, where the separated material is still a legitimate integral part of the parent article, and a "spin-off" that becomes an independent subject. Both yes and no options may be appropriate. NVO (talk) 12:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
7. Comment: I would like to see more in-depth discussion on situations where spin-off articles are in the form "Characters/Items/Vehicles/Locations/etc. in/of Game/TV Show/Movie/Story/Series" (for example, List of items in the Metroid series). These kinds of articles tend to attract a lot of cruft, trivia and non-notable information, spark vigorous debates, and often lead to someone getting warned or even blocked for escalating the argument too far. However, under this proposal, this type of article would easily qualify as a spin-off of the highly notable Metroid (series) article. So, if this proposal addresses this issue satisfactorily, I'd be willing to support it, but I'm worried that it would cause more problems than it would solve, and it would lead us around in a big circle that we've already been through. — KieferSkunk (talk) — 02:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
8. Neutral: On the one hand, I don't think Toothbrushes of Sarah Palin is notable, even if this is an extension of a mention in the main article. At the same time, a reasonable spin-off article should be able to rely on the collected sources of the parent article as evidence of notability. Walkerma (talk) 04:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
9. Neutral: I agree with some of the points above about the need to have a strong line to stop "Political standpoints of some Third Party Deputy Leader" from being regarded as instantly notable. However if a spin-off or "forked" page at least shows SOME of the citations which enabled it to be forked off in the first place, then I would support a shift in emphasis. However, saying that, I don't want to get into the same long, long, long AfD debates about whether "The Cheshire Cat in popular culture" deserves to stay, as happened a few months ago. doktorb _words^deeds 05:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
10. Neutral: A spin-off article should not need to establish its notability with repetition of the parent article's notable features/facets, but it still needs to use reliable sources for any statements of fact. I should not be able to create a spin-off and source its claims to my own blog, for instance. --GoodDamon 23:51, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
11. Neutral. Spin-outs that cause too much debate can be merged into the main article. I'm also currently considering some of the articles related to The Weather Network meteorologists for deletion, but with the general notability guideline in upheval I'll wait until the temporary fail period subsides. ~AH1^(TCU) 01:00, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
12. Neutral: I agree to a certain extent, but only insofar as the topic allows. For example if you had a Wiki page on a well known film and then you had a spin off article on that films budget I think it needs valid information to go along with the numbers and amounts given. But if the spin off article was only a list, for example, of crew and talent th only real validation you should need is whatever is in the main article.(or a list of the films credits) The problem is unless you break it down per topic we will run into the issue we already have, and a main reason for these discussions.Soundvisions1 (talk) 01:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
13. Neutral: Within reason. Id est, reasonable spinoff articles should be able to rely on content from the main article to a reasonable extent.--S Marshall ^Talk/_Cont 01:36, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
14. Neutral: The current proposal is too broad. Spin-offs can easily be non-notable. The test still needs to be made, but the criteria may be relaxed somewhat. Ingolfson (talk) 07:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
15. Neutral: I agree that spin out sections should be treated no different to a section in the main article, however, the later claim of "then its sub-articles do not need reliable third-party sources to qualify for inclusion" does not follow. Even if an article as a whole may be notable, we still remove content from articles on the grounds that it may be non-notable. Thus the way it is worded, it seems to give extra protection to a spin out article, compared with the same content in the main article. Mdwh (talk) 15:29, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
16. Neutral: Where would it stop?? One article would provide the reference and you would have 100 articles with there verifiability based on that single article. I liked SharkD idea of ALL sub articles, that are NOT REFERENCEDbeing seperated by a slash. Jez ☎ ✉ ✍ 09:50, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
17. Neutral because this is too broad either way. Spin-offs are capable of being well written and well sourced with non-independent sources. In these cases I would say that it is acceptable to have a spin-off that doesn't show independent notability to normal standards. However it is common for spin-offs to be expanded with original research, and once this OR has been shrunk down to a decent size it is possible to merge back into the parent article. Bill ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
18. Neutral, way too broad. For reasonable spinouts this may be fine, but I can think of many unreasonable situations. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 00:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Proposal A.1.2 Spin-out articles are treated as sections of a larger work

Proposal: Sub-articles of a notable parent topic are permissible when the same content could realistically be expected to appear in the parent topic's article, if length and structure were not an issue (i.e. the content is relevant to the notable topic, verifiable, and encyclopedic - not original research, speculative, instructional, or indiscriminate).


Rationale: Long standing guidelines like WP:SS, and principles like Wiki is not paper, encourage comprehensive encyclopedic treatment of articles. When acceptable content becomes unmanageable in one article, deleting that encyclopedic information should not be Wikipedia's reaction. Rather, the content should be split apart across multiple articles. Sometimes this can create sub-articles that are on topics not inherently notable (receiving significant coverage in a third party source). This proposal allows the good information to remain on Wikipedia while discouraging an "inherited" mentality. A neighbor's dog is not suddenly notable, nor deserves an article, because both Dog, Poodle, and Earth are notable. Content on the neighbor's dog would never pass the litmus test of being in those articles in the first place.